Breakfast Buffet Ninja Kills You Five Times

I stay in hotels once in a while (plus or minus a whole lot).  Being away from home means a lot of my money is spent in restaurants on food that starts to taste the same, no matter which restaurant you are at.  Because I am a cheap mister-fucker, I try to eat as many free meals as I can so I can avoid restaurants, save money, and (I wish) save pounds.  As a result I've become ninja at raiding the complementary breakfasts at whichever hotel I'm staying at.  The ninja part isn't necessary, considering the food is included, but I like the costume.  It's got a lot of give.

Buffet Ninja

After many years of continental breakfasts, I consider myself a bit of a connoisseur.  I have a 5 ninja star rating system.  5 ninja stars means you are dead, 0 stars means you live.

Instant/old coffee and packaged sticky buns?

NO! 5 NINJA STARS FOR YOU!

Abused fruit and Costco croissants?

NO! 5 NINJA STARS FOR YOU!

Plus one more for abusing fruit.

 Sicko.   

Hot eggs, sausage, fresh fruit, make your own waffles and a variety of healthy cereals?

YES!

I kill you only one time with 1 ninja star!

Well done!  But still you are dead.  In your next life you may demonstrate how you have learned.

Full service buffet included with omelet station?

YES!

0 Ninja stars for you!

Also, I'm moving in and will probably try to form at least a common law relationship with your hotel.  That way, when you try to kick me out, I'll take the buffet with me, bitches!  You can keep the rest; what do I need 120 queen sized beds for?  Other than being able to build the best fort ever, I see no use for that many.  Actually, wait.  I've changed my mind about the fort.  I'm taking everything, bitches!

Also, I'll be mad about the breakup, so now you get 5 ninja stars!  HA HA!


As I was getting around to saying, the hotel I've been staying in lately has a decent spread.    

The Good:
• Hot coffee all day
• Lots of healthy cereals to choose from,
• Fresh waffles that you re-heat by toasting,
• Toast for toasting,
• Fresh fruit for fruiting,
• Hard boiled eggs,
• The breakfast room is large, and can fit about 40 people without feeling crowded. 

The Bad:
• The breakfast room is large and can fit 40 people. That's 40 people who can watch me make an ass of myself in whichever manner I chose on a given day.
• Chocolate cup-cakes masquerading as muffins.  Common people!  Muffins don't come in chocolate.  They come with grains and flaxy make-you-poop things in them. 
• Packaged bananas.  It's weird.  I'm pretty sure bananas come in wrappers already, I don't know why we need to add plastic to the mix.  


Overall Rating:

I'd give them 0.5 Ninja stars for the whole deal.  Half a ninja star would irritate you, and remind you who is in charge.

 
There was, however, an incident recently that has given me just cause to downgrade them to 6 Ninja stars.  I KILL THEM 6 TIMES!!!


The Incident:
It all started with the hard boiled eggs.  The hard boiled eggs are usually sitting on ice so they require microwaving to warm them (as opposed to rubbing them together as one would with hands or sticks; this would probably end up being fairly messy).

The microwave has a warning posted it (I'm paraphrasing):

Since exploding eggs are number 7 on my list of rational fears, I always elect to use 17 seconds for my eggs, and not a second more.

On this particular day, after 17 seconds of trying to look as cool as one can while standing near a microwave, I took my eggy treat and marched to my seat.  I smiled serenely at the other people in the room, proud of myself for mastering egg microwaving, and walking back to my seat without tripping.  I stopped just short of giving a queenly wave. 

All was calm.

Delicately, I shoved half the egg into my mouth and sunk in my teeth.  The only warning of impending doom was a faint psssshhhtt sound.  It was a soft, delicate, lady goose type sound.  I was 40 percent sure that my back end wasn't responsible, so I pulled the egg away from my gob so I could look around accusingly at my fellow breakfasters.  That's when all hell broke loose. 

As soon as the egg was a suitable distance away, it exploded, venting it's yolky spleen all over my face.   There were egg bits everywhere.  In my hair.  In my eye lashes.  In my dignity.

The sound I made was comparable to a clarinet being played by squeaky toy, which was sufficient to attracted the attention of everyone in the vicinity, so there were plenty of witnesses when I pulled a large yolk nugget from my left nostril.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to let you know that there is no possible way to make a dignified exit from a situation involving that much egg yolk.

Especially when you are dressed as a ninja.  

T

Fat Charlie

One night, a few months ago, ManFriend and I were laying in bed, getting ready for sleepy-time.  A lot of mornings I have to get up at sparrow's fart for work (farts are currently scheduled for approximately 5 am), but I can't fall asleep before midnight.  I'd just put on a smelly scenty hippie stinky thing which had valerian in it.  ManFriend hates the smell, which is fair, since it does smell like poop with a B.O. problem (they used to use it as a perfume in the 16th century, which says oh-so-much about hygiene in the 16th century). 

ManFriend:  If you layed down in a field of valerian would you fall asleep?

me:  That's probably what happened to the guy who slept for 100 years.

ManFriend:  Oh yeah, that guy...

me:  The one from the fable!  You know that fable?

ManFriend:  You mean Fat Charlie and the Valerian Field?

Me:  Yeah, that's the one.  Do remember the song that goes with it?

ManFriend:  (singing) Fat Charlie, that fatty Charlie.  Fat Charlie in the Valerian field.  Fat Charlie, hungh, Fatty Charlie.  Fat Charlie in the Valerian Fieeeeeeeeeelllld.

  

He was accompaning himself with handclaps which 

evolved into a complicated patty-cake solo. 

The crowd of girl scouts who'd broke into the 

house to sell us chocolate cardiac arrest wafers 

stared in dumbfound awe of the speed 

and agility of his hands. 

Me:  I think I mean Rip van Winkle.

ManFriend:  Probably.

I had the Fat Charlie and the Valerian Field stuck in my head until I fell asleep.  For the record, it sounds a cross between Brass Monkey, by the Beasty Boys, and Lovely Day, by Bill Withers.  Please don't try to sing it: you might get hurt.

T

If this was a real lottery, I know which prize I'd end up winning.

Another Monday brings another trip out of town for a few days.  I'm not terribly excited about going.  With the Christmas season, ManFriend and I are going to be apart (or too busy to be functional members of society) for the majority of the month.  Don't tell him, but I'm probably going to miss him a lot over the next little while.  I need a pick me up, but booze is not an option.  Court order says so. 

This, for all you non-Canadians and people younger than 35, is Kids in the Hall.  They were on CBC television from '88 to '94.  Some of their stuff was absolute garbage, but some sketches were so brilliant they make me laugh in a gaspy, choking, strangled cat kind of way.  Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson are by far the funniest in the group, with Bruce McCulloch occasionally contributing some gems.  

1000 Dollars.  Mark (left) and Scott (right) are the cowboys.  

I've been trying to master the cowboy walk without success.  ManFriend pretends he doesn't know me most of the time, but more so when I practice the walk in the produce section at Save-On shouting "YeeeeEEEEEHHHHHP!".  In an effort to keep the romance alive, we frequently yell "Someone's gonna get a THOUSAND dollars" at each other.  Spicy. 

I wish this was real.  How awesome would it be to be sitting in a cafe with some douch-pickle that's really annoying the shit out of you and two cowboys bust in promising suitable rewards?  How hard would you be wishing that the ass-hat across from you would win?  Oh merciful heaven, I do so wish this would happen to me.  

I'd probably end up with the second prize. 

And this?

This is 3 sketches of bizarre awesomeness with Bruce and Mark.  Everything is perfect.  I just can't get over the look on Mark's face in the bathtub sketch.  It makes me cackle gleefully to myself, then shudder at the state of the bathtub.  Cackle, shudder, cackle, shudder, pass gas, cackle, shudder.  

May your week include many points collecting opportunities. 

Cheers,

T.

A cure for meh-laise.

I've had a case of the ughs lately.  The kind of ooogy feeling where nothing in particular is wrong, but an over-all 'meh-ness' permeates my cells.  That's why I haven't been posting much, or doing anything other than work and sulk.  During times like these, I'll take anything funny, happy, or completely bizarre, anything to help me forget to remember to be in a shit mood.

This is one of those things:

Some of you most definitely have seen this before, too bad for you.  I didn't promise you anything.  Watch it again, and quit your complaining.  Maybe you don't like it because you identify with the main character and you don't like what that says about you.  I've watched it perhaps a million times and will probably watch it a googolplex more. 

If drunk baby can be drunk, then I most certainly can put a damn smile on my stupid face.  

T.

This could be exciting, if you have a low threshold for excitment.

Note:  This post was taken down and re-posted.  It also has been edited.  Heavily.  I don't know what was (is) wrong with me, but I posted without proofing.  I also got kind of weepy at the end.  As I recall, I was kind of weepy for the rest of the night about a great deal of things, including: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, people being nice, how much I 'L-word' ManFriend, how much I 'L-word' people reading my blog, how much I 'L-word' the texture of the couch I was sitting on, and about being weepy all the time. It wasn't pretty.  I'm leaving it in because being pathetic is funny.  Maybe not laugh with funny, probably more laugh at funny. 

Why hello there.

The exciting news is really not all that exciting.  You're probably going to feel ripped off when you read it.  I feel a little bit bad about including the word 'exciting', not once, but twice in the post title. 

I tried to make this blog even more awesome by rearranging the entire layout.  It was great for about two minutes until I realized instead of making me feel like I was at a dance party, it made me feel like I was stabbing myself with a paring knife.  In a moment of confusion, instead of hitting cancel like a smart person, I twitched out and hit save.  WHAT THE HELL?!

After I finished throwing everything in arms reach and using swear words that hadn't been invented until I screamed them, I tried to return it to the way it was before.  There's something off about it now.  Like a diarrhea fart in the room, it may not be clearly visible, but there is something definitely not right.  I give up. 

Now to the mildly exciting part.  I've added new pages to the blog; an 'about' page and an 'FAQ' page.  And then, equally exciting, I've added better formatting for mobile phones, for all those who like to read Take With A Grain while driving.

PS - don't read and drive.  Or if you do, make sure you are a follower, so I least I know who's death to mourn.  

Note: This is the weepy part I warned you about.  

One of the first rules of blogging is not apologizing for long absences, the 2nd is not having long absences.  I am not in the position to not post for a long time and expect people to want to read what I have to say.  Truth time?  Jen the Bloggess and Allie from Hyperbole and a Half.  They are amazing.  So good.  Pinnacle of supreme awesomeness.  Their talent is overwhelming.  And they get sad, and they can't write.  How can I possibly expect to even be anywhere near as wonderful as they are?  It's overwhelming and intimidating.  Trust me, I know that I will not ever be on that level, but you know?  (insert something better expressed by a sober person).  Anybody? 

I have funny things to say about exploding eggs, but can't even tell you right now.  And they aren't even hoo-ha eggs, they're real eggs.  Which, now that I think about it, is probably less funny-slash-graphic then exploding hoo-ha eggs.  That would be a weird ass super power.  Think about it.

T

Cystic Prophesies: A Tale of Two Titties or the Boob Un-cancer Incident, Part MXVII

Note 1: if you didn't already know about Tit the Betrayer, you might want to read here first.  

Note 2:  By no means do I want to take anything away from the people who do have/get the ass-hat that is cancer, in any form.  Your journey has gone/will go much further than mine, and only a group of traveling minstrels could do justice to your bravery.  I'm not even lucky, I'm just cyst-e.  I didn't struggle to survive, didn't deal with chemo, and didn't have odds against placed on my life.  All I dealt with was the fear of the unknown.  Please forgive the following self-indulgence:

Cystic Prophesies: A Tale of Two Titties or the Boob Un-cancer Incident, Part MXVII

When we last left our hero, she was about to go all explode-y on a spelling challenged medical secretary.  It was also revealed that the offensive boob lump was not cancer, and was merely a cyst, who brought several cyst friends to the party, even though none of them were invited, and who insisted on playing their own music, and told everyone why their taste in movies was so terribly mainstream. 

So, why am I still writing about the whole thing when I am clearly going to survive?  Because, for two weeks, I didn't know what the hell was going on in there.  It was like a (completely bastardized and manipulated for my own purposes) version of the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment.  At any given moment, without knowing the results, it was possible that I was both cancer free and cancerous.  If only I was like a cow with a window, so I could see inside my lady lump and supervise what's going on in there.  The cysts/cancer cells would have to carry little signs though, 'cause I ain't no doctor, I can't tell those things apart.  

If there were lots of them, it might look like they were picketing.  In a moment of confusion I might actually give in to their demands and agree to paid vacations and two personal items in their workspace.  

Initially, I wasn't going to tell anyone, ManFriend included.  Both my parents have had cancer, and it was very dramatic and scary for everyone (in another post I'll talk about my family's terrible bad news delivery system).  I didn't want to frighten anybody unnecessarily, or have melodramatic all-about-me time.  Cancer seemed a very heavy load for relatively young relationship to bear.  How could I possibly ask ManFriend to go through all the worry, pain, vomit, ugly-crying, and anxiety that accompanies a cancer diagnosis?  Still, I was scared and having moments of complete panic.  More than anything, I needed someone other than Bob Marley to tell me everything is gonna be alright.

Imaginary Cities - Ride this out became my anthem.  Actually, it's always my anthem.  

**WARNING - THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS GRAPHIC SCENES 

OF ICKY MUSHINESS, GRATEFULNESS, AND GROSS LOVEY DOVEY STUFF**

 People who know Teresa personally may feel that the world doesn't make sense anymore.

RATED E for EWWWWWW

Thank the cosmos for ManFriend.  I sprung the news on him on the drive to see his Mom (15 minutes before we got to her house - because you have to keep family tradition alive), and from that moment on, he was an incredible pillar of awesome for me to cling to.  He told me it was going to be OK, and listened when I needed to talk about how it might not be.  He was careful not to fuss over me too much, made me laugh at pretty much everything, and hugged me even when I couldn't admit I was upset.  I told my sister, glossing over the potential nastiness so she wouldn't have to worry from so far away.  After we hung up the phone, I collapsed into a oddly shaped anxiety-ball and ManFriend deftly maneuvered me towards sanity.  

One evening, I told him how I'd been up all night, caught in a fear spiral (like a giggle loop, but with waaay less mirth).  One minute I'd be planning the "all-the-worry-was-for-nothing" celebration dinner, the next I was deciding if I should cut both my ta-tas off so I wouldn't have balance issues.  Balance probably wouldn't be an issue for most of the brave women who get a mastectomy, but I'm specially balanced as it is; it doesn't take much to tip me over.  I'd spent sleepless hours planning on how get rid of my stuff so people wouldn't have to deal with it if I didn't make it.  

"I've been thinking," ManFriend said.  "If the worst should happen, which I really hope it doesn't, that I would take a year off work."  I started shaking my head; I couldn't see a reason for him to give up the financial means to his dreams just because I got sick.  "No," he said.  "I will.  And you will be off work, obviously.  We'll take all our money, we'll travel the world until you've seen all you want to see, and you are happy.  And we will spend those last times together."  

"Gaaragghhhaggh!"  That's the sound of my heart cockles getting all mushy.  Damn the man for making me want cancer.  For future reference, ManFriend says that a chest cold isn't enough of a reason for him to take a year off work.  Not even if I cough convincingly or roll my eyes back in my head while delivering grand death-bed monologues. 

The day of the ultrasound came, and I was so cool my temperature was 0 degrees kelvin.  That is, I was right up until the extremely stern technician dumped a bucket of warm lube on my boob, and started scanning without even a "how do you do" in my direction.  For some reason, her lack of bed-side manners made the situation seem so much more serious.  I felt completely alone and very scared, so I, in all my 30 year old glory, started to cry.  No comfort was to be had from Helga, she scanned away, making disapproving sounds every now and then.  

To add to my sorrow, I was sure that I would never not have a slippery breast again.  They must buy lube by the sea-can, because Helga sure didn't scrimp.  If this whole breast cancer thing was a go, I could make extra cash by providing breast lube to mechanics and handymen.  "There's a positive side to everything," is what insensitive ass-holes like to say.  

As I've already told you the end result of this booby adventure, I won't dwell on it for too long.  Cysts are jerks who like to scare the feces out of you, but they are way better than cancer.  Ladies, check your boobs.  Know your boobs.  If your boobs start giving you attitude, scan the crap outta those bastards, and put an end their nasty little game early.  Even the scared part feels good when you find out there is nothing to worry about. 

image by barbara cole via sabino

T.

The Colour of a Muppet with a Terminal Illness

Last week I posted about a sneaky pen in the laundry in the Hidden Pen in the Laundry post.  Didja see that plug there?  Pretty subtle wasn't it.  Just like me writing this.  And this.  

Meg pointed out that there was some ambiguity with regards the specific colouring of a Muppet with a terminal illness.  She, very correctly, pointed out that Muppets are a multi-coloured bunch.   

Well Meg, in answer to your question, a seriously ill Muppet is this colour:

This Muppet is seriously ill.  He also has a hand up his rear end, which has nothing to do with anything,
but we should all probably be grateful that I didn't try to draw that too.

 And to prove that Muppet is not just hung over, here he is in the hospital with his terminal illness. 

Notice the copyright?  That's cause this drawing is so good y'all is going to try to steal it. 
But copyright symbol says, "NO!" and makes fun of your mother.

This is how I spend my time people.  I dare you to question my usefulness now. 

Teresa

PS.  You may have noticed the letter 'u' appearing in the word 'colour' throughout my post.  This is for two reasons.  One, I am Canadian, and that's how we spell it.  And two, that's how it's spelled, because I said so.