Posts filed under 'Food'
I went to Fred Meyer on my lunch break yesterday to get a few grocery-related things I need at work (coffee creamer, mostly). While I was there, I went to the deli section to get something to eat. The woman behind the counter was almost finished weighing the order of the person in front of me, so I studied the food behind the glass while I waited. While she was down at the end of the counter ringing up that customer, a man came up and pushed his cart between me and the glass case.
A bit rude, I thought, but I figured he just wants to see what’s there for him to order, like I had done minutes before (though I hadn’t squeezed my way in between the other customer and the glass, I had just looked at the food around her.)
When the clerk came back, she looked me in the eye (obviously recognizing that I was the next to be served) and said “What can I get you?” As I was about to speak, the other guy started listing the things he wanted to order. The clerk shifted her gaze to him, but didn’t move to start getting his food.
“Did you seriously not see me here? You really didn’t notice that I was standing here waiting even before you pulled up with your cart?” I said. Which kind of surprised even me, because I’m RARELY confrontational. Something about this guy just set me off, I guess.
He said “I’m sorry, my mistake, where are my manners?”
Just kidding. What he actually said was “You were standing so far back, I didn’t think you were in line. You should have been standing closer to the glass case if you were waiting to be helped.” It was true that I hadn’t been standing right next to the glass, but I was standing close enough that he had literally inches on both sides of his cart when he pushed it between me and the glass. Plus the fact that I was just standing there waiting in that one spot, not shopping, not browsing, not wandering, should have been one of his clues.
“Oh, I guess they took down the sign that said whoever is standing closest to the glass gets served next, regardless of who was here first.” Turning to the woman, I said “I’ll have a bean burrito and a snack stick, and a fountain drink cup.” She smiled, got my food and took her sweet time ringing me up, which was just fine with me.
October 21st, 2008
I know I haven’t posted anything yet about my diet routine. Sorry, still been kinda busy. I can report that I’ve lost 9 pounds so far since the first of August. Yay me!
One of the things that kept me busy recently was a family reunion organized by my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Don. Every family member in the state was there, and aunts and uncles from Texas and Nevada even made it. Everyone had a great time. Photos are in the photo gallery:
Family Reunion Photos
August 19th, 2006
Husband eats 50-year-old chicken
I read the text of this story last week somewhere else, but it wasn’t until I saw the photo that I felt I must share this with you. Click the link above to see it.
It is mildly interesting that you can buy a whole chicken in a can in England. It is slightly more interesting that this couple saved a can of chicken from their wedding day, and only vaguely more interesting still that he kept his vow, so to speak, to eat the chicken on their 50th anniversary. What really tickled me, however, is the photo accompanying the story.
It’s not so much that he looks like he’s about to fall down. It’s not even the fact that he looks like he was just woken from a deep sleep, and came straight from bed, grudgingly, for the photo shoot. It looks like he’s still wearing a robe over his pajamas, even.
No, it’s the look on the wife’s face behind him that cracks me up every time I see it. “You old coot, you’re embarrasing yourself, and me, in front of the whole world.”
February 27th, 2006
Several years ago, it was my normal routine to stop on the way home from work to refill my 44-ounce plastic cup with Diet Pepsi. As I’ve recounted before, I stop at a place where refills cost $0.69. On one particular occasion, I walked up to the cashier (a young woman in her early twenties), and she announced the price of the refill, with the intonation of a question: “Sixty nine?”
A quick side note: For those unaware, I may very well be losing some of my hearing. This is absolutely true, and is normally no laughing matter, though it does make this particular situation all the more funny.
I didn’t hear her actual words when she spoke the price of the drink, I just heard the change in the pitch of her voice, indicating that she was asking me a question. That, and the general number of syllables she used, made me think that she was asking me something like “Is that all?” I was buying nothing else, so my response to the perceived question was “Yes, please.”
I’ll pause here while you take a moment to re-read her question and my answer.
I paid my $0.69 and went out to my car, wondering why she was looking at me with a look of surprise, embarrasment, and disgust. It wasn’t until I started driving away that I finally figured out why the heck she looked so darn shocked at my answer. Once I realized how embarrased I should be for my mis-interpretation of her question, and my oh-so-wrong response, I laughed myself stupid.
I’ve never gone back inside that store. Now, whenever I happen to drive by, I can’t help but giggle uncontrollably.
December 13th, 2005
The picnic was loads of fun! OK, so not a lot of people showed up. I know that Breanna and Rebecca Marie had health issues that prevented their appearance, but why no one else? Feel free to leave explanations as comments to this post. I mean, I wasn’t even able to give away all the wide-screen plasma TVs and Sony PSPs that I had as door prizes! OK, so there were no high-end door prizes. Actually, there were no prizes at all, even for the winners of the two games I had available for everyone to play. I’m not sure who won “Guess The Blogger” (thanks RM for the most amazing artwork), but I’m pretty sure I speak for all of us in attendance when I say that Stephanie was the winner of the “How Many Words Can You Create From The Letters In Blogger Picnic” game, based solely on being the first one to write down “boner”.
Even though we couldn’t setup a live webcam (no wi-fi within range in the area), Gabe and I were still able to geek out. Each of us used our Blackberry to leave a comment on the previous picnic update post while we were munching on chips and yelling at our kids to stop leaving the cooler open.
Is there a second Blogger Picnic in the future? I’m not sure. There was a lot of preparation that went into this, just for almost no one to show up. Summer’s winding down, anyway, so if I am going to try to plan another get-together, it will probably have to be something indoors. I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted if anything comes to mind.
Still, even though there was a very low turn out, it’s always a party when the two Hayes families and Justin and Stephanie get together, so of course we had a blast. There’s a whole bunch of pictures in the Photo Gallery, just click on Blogger Picnic.
July 31st, 2005
At work, I drink a lot of Coffee Mate Hazelnut creamer, flavored by adding a few drops of coffee and a few packets of sugar. Recently, out of frustration, I had to tape a note to my bottle of creamer in the fridge:
I truly am a generous person (ask anyone who knows me), so I honestly don’t mind if folks help themselves to a swig of my creamer.
But PLEASE close the lid when you are done! TWICE now I have had to clean creamer off the side of the refrigerator (and the counter, the floor, my pants, my shirt) when I “shake well before using” only to find that lid has been left open.
-Bill
July 27th, 2005
- A campfire can be made hot enough to melt an aluminum can.
- A 6′ 2″ 270lb man can still outrun his 13 year old son.
- However, his feet can’t.
- Grass is not very soft when you fall at a full sprint.
- Shoulder injuries hurt.
- Shoulder injuries are made worse by batting balls.
- I am not nearly as good a batter as I thought I was.
- Slingball is one heck of an interesting made-up game.
- Slingball is hella fun.
- Camping with more than 30 of your close friends is about the most fun you can possibly have.
July 4th, 2005
Woo hoo! Three day week-end of camping!
Have a safe 4th of July, everyone, and I’ll be back with more posts next Tuesday.
July 1st, 2005
We did it. The kids and I finally convinced Kathy to try sushi, so we all went out for dinner tonight. She liked it OK, but mostly stayed with the mainstream stuff: California rolls, shrimp, fried bean curd rolls (like little won tons). I got even more adventurous than last time, and I tried octopus, raw salmon, and eel (Unagi). I actually left the restaurant full, and people who really know me know that it’s not easy to fill me up.
June 9th, 2005
Matt and I made a trek to Grocery Outlet recently.
As always, I had the cell phone camera ready.
As always, I found weird food to photo.
As always, I’m going to share those photos with you.
Here is the first. It is some sort of high-fiber breakfast cereal called “Good Friends”. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that this product’s target audience is old people. What makes this weird is something that the marketing people decided not only needed to be noted, but had to be featured prominently on the front of the box, with a bright yellow attention-drawing swoosh underneath it. Click the picture to see a close-up:
Yummy.
June 1st, 2005
OK, my next several posts are going to be about photos I’ve recently taken. Pictures are worth 1000 words, right? And I’m a very busy and important person; I don’t have nearly enough time to write 1000 actual words, so there you go. Here is the first:
Several strange things to note:
1. My cell phone camera sure does distort the picture when it is up close like this. I mean, that is a 44 ounce cup being filled, but compared to my finger, it looks barely larger than a thimble.
2. The real reason I took this picture is the note on the Mountain Dew dispenser. Since when is “Thankyou” one word? Also, are they really remorseful or not? The question mark makes one wonder…
May 26th, 2005
So things are starting to get back to normal. Kathy’s been in Alabama attending a huge reunion, meeting a bunch of her biological family that she didn’t even know existed until a few years ago when she and I worked some Internet magic and found them.
I took vacation days away from work so I could perform her regular duties while she was away. Even without going to the classes she normally attends full-time, I was exhausted just doing the other things: Taxiing kids to and from three different schools at three different times of the day, plus taking them to guitar lessons and gymnastics class, attending parent/teacher conferences, fixing meals for home and school, chaperoning Billy’s birthday dinner with friends at a sushi place (my fist time trying sushi, btw, and I kinda liked it), and many, many other things that I was too exhausted to make note of.
I’ll have more to post, and I hope to be back on some sort of regular schedule, very soon.
May 25th, 2005
The burger wars are escalating. In an effort to reclaim the crown of serving the world’s largest hamburger, Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub is offering a 15 pound burger. Fifteen pounds! Oh my goodness!
I think it’s safe to say that it would be noticeable if just about anyone LOST 15 pounds, but this restaurant is offering the chance to take 30 of your hard-earned dollars in exchange for the privilege of GAINING 15 pounds.
This culinary train-wreck comes with 10.5 pounds of beef, 25 slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, three tomatoes, two onions, and — get this — a cup-and-a-half each of mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, mustard, and banana peppers.
Right now, I’m picturing one and a half measuring cups overflowing with creamy mayonnaise, and I’m getting just a little gaggy.
Check out a picture of it here.
May 5th, 2005
Is the phrase “Fur is murder” insulting?
First, I’ll make it known that I’m taking no stand on the whole animal rights issue. People who know me know that I love animals. In our house, we have one fish, two cats and four dogs (yup, four dogs - I’ll explain the newest addition to our canine brood another time). We’ve even gone out of our way to rescue two pets recently. But, I’m a proud carnivore. One of my favorite bumper stickers says “If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?” I also own three jackets that were formerly the exteriors of live cows. But I don’t own any purely decorative animal-product clothing. Sure, the leather jackets look good, but they just happen to be (in my opinion) much better at keeping me warm and dry than vinyl, fleece, or whatever else warm outerwear is made of.
So I’m not going to say anything about fur mills, or the cruelty of killing minks, foxes, and other cute animals.
So aaanywaaaay… I’ve never known anyone who met his or her end at the hands of another. However, if I had a friend or family member who had been murdered, I think I’d be pretty upset if their needless loss of life was being compared to, and diminished by the comparison to, the killing of animals for clothing.
Does anyone else agree?
March 26th, 2005
I don’t think I’ve ever been called the brightest bulb in the box. And, I’ll be the first to admit that as I get older, I’m getting even more and more dim. So it took me quite a while to realize that some of the anonymous postings on some of the articles recently may have been from former co-workers (whom I still very much consider friends). I’m going to take a couple guesses, and I’ll address you simply by your first initial:
B: Have there been any complaints about an odor problem at your new office?
S: I know that Super Bowl Sunday was a bust, but have you had any “good luck” since?
Let me know if I’m right by posting more comments to this article, and you can still post anonymously if you like.
Now, the reason for all this is because the aforementioned B and S will remember the “gallery of scary foods” that I keep on the shelf at my desk. In fact, S even contributed a much appreciated bag of dehydrated iced tea (”Sqwincher, the activity drink! Just add 1 gallon water! Makes 1 gallon tea!”).
So aaanywaaaay… I went to Grocery Outlet yesterday morning to buy some expired Pop-Tarts. I love this store, if for no other reason than the weird foods you can find there. I snapped pictures of two different canned goods that caught my eye. I did not purchase either item.
I don’t know if I should be offended or not.
“What did you call me? Pasta what?”
Eww. “Imitation abalone” sounds bad enough.
“Prepared from giant squid” sounds even worse.
March 4th, 2005
So Kathy and I unexpectedly had a few days to ourselves last week-end. Lexi’s friend Ariel asked if Lexi could stay at her house Friday night for a sleepover, and about 10 minutes later, Billy and Matt’s friend Tony called to ask if they could stay over at his house. We found ourselves suddenly sans children until 9:00 the next morning. We haven’t been out together by ourselves in a long time, so we made the most of it by going out on a “dinner and a movie” date. We had already eaten dinner, though, so we settled for a movie and beer.
We went to the Bagdad Theater and ate nachos and shared a pitcher of ale while watching Ocean’s 12. The last time we were at the Bagdad, Batman Forever was playing. I love this theater, and I think the McMenamin brothers are geniuses.
We are so far removed from our pre-children party animal ways that we were back home and asleep by 11:00.
March 2nd, 2005
I want to start collecting the nuggets of wisdom printed inside fortune cookies. I’ll start things off with three that I came across recently. Please post a comment to this article to add your own:
“Power dazzles the beholder as well as the wearer.”
“A good deed done today is repaid in double tomorrow.”
“You gain strength when you stop and look fear in the face.”
February 28th, 2005
We went through the Wendys drive-thru the other night for a quick dinner to take home. For Kathy and the boys, I ordered three #4 value meals, one with a salad for the side order, and the other two with fries. Billy’s kind of a wuss when it comes to vegetables on his fast food, so I asked them to make one of the burgers without tomatoes or onions. The person behind the speaker asked me, and I quote, “Which meal has no tomatoes and no onions?”
I pondered this question for several seconds, then finally broke the tension by saying “The first one.”
As is always the case, I came up with a much more clever response later. Had all cylinders been firing at the time, I would have responded “The meal with the side salad has no tomatoes and no onions. No wait, make it the one with fries. No wait, the other one with fries!” I can just imagine the cashier’s fingers flying over the register as the order is entered and re-entered.
February 15th, 2005
I drink a lot. A whole lot. Not alcohol, but Diet Pepsi. Not that I don’t drink alcohol, I do drink occasionally, but only at the clichéd “social event.” I drink so infrequently, for example, that we just gave our neighbors a case of beer that was left over from our Super Bowl party. When I do have the occasion to drink, however, I drink a lot. Remember all the tequila I drank when down in Cabo San Lucas? I don’t either. I was told I had a lot of fun.
But I drink a lot of Diet Pepsi. Some days I will go through five 44oz cups. Using a plastic refillable 7-11 Super Big Gulp cup is the way to go. Why pay $1.09 when refills are just $.69? This leads to one of my biggest pet peeves.
You are requested to notify the clerk if you have a refill cup before refilling it, which is to prevent every yahoo who buys a drink in a brand new plastic cup from asking for the refill price. This is an understandable and reasonable request.
There is one Chevron store I visit every morning on the way to work, however, where they seem to be a bit unclear on the concept. Every morning, I bring in my sun-faded, 7-11 plastic cup and get a Diet Pepsi. Every morning the same cashier asks me, in an accusatory “You’re trying to get a drink at a refill price, aren’t you?” tone, if this is a new cup or a refill. I can’t bring myself to point out the fact that not only is the cup very obviously not new, it is not even a Chevron cup.
June 11th, 2003
