Tag Archives: glove compartment is where vodka is kept

Tis the Season to be Jolly

Tra la la la la la la la la.

Don we now our gay apparel

Fa la la la la la la la la.

Gay apparel as in holiday parties. Of course. Tis the season of office holiday parties where alliances are formed, enemies are made, and by the end of night, everybody is drunk enough to tell the person whom you absolutely hate when sober, “I love you. Seriously, man. You. are. the. best!”

New York Magazine is kind enough to give us a guide on “How Drunk Can You Get at Your Office Holiday Party” with a handy dandy ~~notebook~~ printable guide that you can tuck into your bra and bring with you. Better remember to check on it though while you are still sober enough to read it in the bathroom stall because any good office holiday party will not have adequate lighting for reading. Duh.

Cog in the machine, while suffers in silence the rest of the 364 days, gets to have the MOST FUN EVER at the office party. “I hate my job so much I don’t even fucking care any more.” That’s the attitude that will get you through the night!

I’ve told you that I get typecast all the time, right? Well, it happened again. A friend of mine Facebook-tagged me:

CHRISTMAS OFFICE PARTY– Use the first 10 people on your friends list. Don’t Cheat:

Running around topless singing Jingle Bells:
Spiked the punch then drank most of it :
Dancing on the desk singing “Can’t Touch this”:
… Has Rolodex making prank calls:
Spinning around in office chair screaming:
Locked in the bathroom hugging the toilet:
Passed out under their desk:
Sitting on copier making Christmas cards:
Throwing fruitcake at people outside:
Playing spin the bottle with cleaning crew:

Guess where my name fell? Yup. The first one. I just don’t think it will ever happen because I cannot sing worth a damn.

Also? I just survived our mega office holiday party last week and I’ll have you know that I kept my clothes on the whole night. And I did not spill any drink. Woohoo! WIN!

The sad truth is I could not have gotten hammered even if I wanted to. The OPEN bar? Was not really open. They only served beer and wine. INCONCEIVABLE. ikr?! So the whole night I kept on going from the 5th floor to the bar at the hotel lobby to get my own drink on. Yes, my dear Internet, I paid for my own premium vodka at an office party with an open bar. I had four with a heavy pour and I woke up with NO hangover and NO headache whatsoever. Win? WIN!

Despite the open bar not being really open, I had a lot of fun at the party talking to random people, including coworkers whom I had never actually spoken to until that night and their wives, my boss, his wife, his boss, his boss’s wife, someone else’s bosses, someone else’s bosses’ wives, etc etc etc. Problem is? I kept on thinking, “The missis must be really really bored. Probably want to poke their eyes out with a fork if they have to face another forced conversation. Quick. Let me say something genuinely funny to amuse them.”

At one point, I offered one of the missis to beat up her husband for her. I guess I am not going to get a promotion, again.

I also told a coworker whom I had not really spoken to before until that night that I love his wife. Huh. I don’t think it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between me and him…

But the BEST part of the night? I finally got a picture taken of me in which I do not have ginormous fat arms that look like they are about the size of my torso.

Finally. A picture of me with NO fat arms. Yeah! This goes to prove that lighting is everything.

This heavily cropped picture somehow focuses on the cruel fact “Where the fuck did my waist go?” Oh hell. I will be happy with the NO fat arm for now. At least I am not making my friend look like she’s naked…

It's that horrifying moment when your friend's "fat arm" makes you look naked...

p.s. Yes. YES! I confess. I wrote this post just so I could post this picture. You are welcome. And if you spill anything on your clothes, take them off, take a nekkid picture, send that and the dry cleaning bill to moi. xxoo

Stolen Day

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I feel that we have got an extra day out of this insane holiday season…

The original plan was for me to be away for 3 days this past week on a business trip. I would come back late on Friday night and start cleaning, doing laundry, packing, addressing holiday cards, and finishing up holiday shopping ALL on Saturday, and then we would fly out to my in-law’s this morning.

Thank goodness for the snow storm in the DC area. Reportedly the highest amount of snowfall that DC has seen in at least seven years: at Dulles airport snow accumulation reached 16 inches on Saturday, and 13.3 inches was reported at Reagan. Instead of agonizing over the prospect of waiting in the airport for indefinite time today, we had decided to change our flight to Monday morning. As soon as we made that decision, I felt physically the lessening of the winding inside my head and my body. A collective sigh of relief felt in every corner of the house.

I worked through my check list at a leisurely pace yesterday:

Laundry detergent and gift cards at Costco. Check.

Gift cards & holiday cards for Catechists and gym coaches. Check. (And I assume it is safe to wish the Catechists a Merry Christmas without the possibility of offending them?)

Hold the Mail request at the Post Office. Check.

Newspaper hold. Check.

Neighborhood watch request at the police station. Check.

Kids’ haircut. Check.

Lip wax. Ooops. I forgot. I guess I will just have hairy lips with face powder dangling off the end of my upper lip throughout the holiday.

Laundry and the dreaded folding part. Started and ongoing. (“Predecessor task” in MS Project lingo)

The chaos of packing. Started and ongoing. (“Successor task” in MS Project lingo)

Addressing holiday cards, figuring out whether the cryptic emails from my friend with no mentioning of her husband means she is now divorced, deciding whether to say anything or what to say on the cards to distant cousins who are now divorced, coming up with proper words for our Jewish friends now that we have missed the entire 8-day window of Chanukah to show that we did not forget about Chanukah and we are not sending them the holiday cards now out of our callous Christian (+ 1 pagan) hearts (Thank goodness we can still wish them a “Happy New Year!”), stuffing, licking, stamping. Check. (With NO paper cuts to fingers or tongues. Success!)

In the evening we behaved as if it were any other Saturday evening: my husband went to the movie with my 11 year-old (AVATAR, in 3D); I took Mr. Monk, my 7-year-old, to the mall because he wanted Auntie Anne’s pretzels.

What? Was I crazy to hit the mall on the Saturday before Christmas? Yeah, I thought so as soon as I turned into the mall drive and saw all the cars, moving, squeezing, waiting, and parked.

Here’s a tip for you out there from a Mall Veteran. One word. SEARS. Go to Sears and I guarantee there is a spot for you. Probably not too close if it is the last weekend before C-day. BUT still closer than what you could find at the other parts of the mall. Trust me.

So here is the GOLDEN parking space Mr. Monk spotted. Good job, my lad! I was so excited I wanted to call everybody I know.

I never want to leave this spot again!

Seriously, this was no small feat. I did not want to leave that spot when we were done at the mall. I wanted to stay there, to stake my claim, to “Put a flag on it.”

In addition to getting the best parking space I have ever gotten on a crazy day like this, my stolen day ended up on a high note also because a light bulb went up after I’d had two drinks at the stupid Rain Forest Cafe (aka the worst tourist trap because it is located inside a goddamn MALL! Why is there a tourist trap inside a mall?), ok, a fuzzy light bulb nonetheless, and a thought bubble formed:

Finally, Bacon Vodka is no longer just a myth…

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To those who have not heard about my temporary relapse of sanity that led me to embark on this dark and lonely road of trying to make my own bacon-flavored Vodka, I announced my Bacon Vodka experiment in August. Much to my own surprise, I actually followed through immediately and went to Walmart for the supplies on the same day… (Well, part of the reason was because that was when I just discovered PeoepleofWallmart.com and I was really excited to check out Walmart as an ethnographic study. Alas, I could not bring myself to scrumptiously photograph people when they were obviously not at their best. Besides, Karma works in the most mysteriously ways. I don’t look forward to seeing myself on that website).

I also followed through with concocting the brew that day, but it is not until September that I was finally sober enough to blog about the 12 Steps to Bacon Vodka.

Here is a picture of the Bacon Vodka, with bacon in it, on Day 1. After 4 weeks of soaking… this is what the bacon looks like.

Really. Take a look at it. Because if you don’t, you will not fully appreciate the reason why I have been leaving it alone in the freezer until tonight, nor will you fully appreciate the fact that I am a brave soul. Or crazy. Or both.

My youngest has been on my case lately. “Why aren’t you drinking your bacon vodka?” “When are you going to drink your bacon vodka?”

He has gone straight past the obvious question of “Why?” to wholeheartedly accept the fact, yup, my mom has bacon-flavored vodka that she made herself in the freezer. He has also told several innocent bystanders this matter-of-fact-ly when we were out and about.

To not disappoint him further, instead of baking him cookies that he has also asked for, I told him after I came home from work on Friday night:

Do you want to watch me drink the bacon vodka?

(Yup. They are going to grow up to be great writers… I try my best to provide them with a childhood that is as extra-ordinary as possible)

So we did. I mean, I made a Bloody Bacon Mary out of my bacon-flavored vodka, and he watched me drink it with anticipation.

“Did it taste good?”

“Yes. It tastes like tomato soup.”

“Oh. Good!”

And that’s that.

What bacons look like after you soaked them in Vodka for 4 weeks…

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This post is Part 5 of a series of posts documenting an impromptu DIY project I took on when I done and gone nuts on one Sunday afternoon… It is indeed very interesting that the whole thing started on a Sunday afternoon, don’t ya think, after I’d been alone with the kids for 2 whole days… (And, I believe, it is mandatory by law, that whenever I complain about being with the kids for a long period of time, to add this, “…despite the fact that I love them dearly, and yes, I know I will go to the HELL designated for Mothers Who Do Not Enjoy Being With Their Kids 24/7”.)

You can see the Genesis of the Bacon-flavored vodka, my trip to Walmart for the ingredients, 12 Steps to making your own, what it looked like a week before (Hint: LESS disgusting and questionable). Or you can just take my word for it.

So according to the recipe, I am supposed to soak the bacon strips in da Vodka for at least 3 weeks and then put the jar in the freezer to separate the fat. This is the 4th week, so I am doing ok. Although I have no excuse for why it took me a whole week to perform the step of “Bringing the jar from the cabinet and putting it inside the freezer”. “I have a full-time job with 2 kids and a husband” just does not seem to work in this case.

Anyhoo, here is how the vodka looks like today:

DRUM ROLL PLEASE…
…
…
…
…

Awww. Isn’t he (she?) cute? I just thought as an apology for showing you the disgusting picture below, I should reward you with a cute sleeping kitty picture. Ok, here it is. For real. Are you ready?

Here it is…

…

If I add enough tomato juice, I may be able to swallow it…

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To recap: I embarked on an experiment to concoct my own bacon vodka, an one-woman moonshine operation on August 30. The mason jar was wrapped in 3 layers of plastic bags and I had not been able to muster enough courage to peek inside it. What was I afraid that I might see floating in the jar?

Alien babies?

Van Gogh’s ear?

Mundane green goo?

Tadpoles? (I have a REAL, as opposed to fake…, phobia against frogs so that would indeed be part of my worst nightmares…)

I can’t really tell ya. The fact is: I didn’t take a look at my concoction until two weeks afterwards, and it looked like this:

As opposed to how it looked in the very beginning:

I am not sure I will be brave enough to put it anywhere near my mouth or nose, to be completely honest…

One more week to go, my friends. In the mean time, let’s read about the Bacon Beer, shall we?

“We just about lost it when we heard Brooklyn Brewery brew master Garrett Oliver was working on a beer made from Benton’s Country Smokehouse bacon, and now it’s a reality.

The catch is: You’ll have to pay $350 for a taste of Reinschweinsgebot, as Oliver is calling it.”

Ugh. People in New York City slay me. $350 for a sip of that beer? Forget it. Give me enough tomato juice and add a lot of alcohol, I should be able to swallow my DIY bacon vodka when the time comes.

Stay tuned. Oh, and you are ALL invited to the launch cum tasting party!

12 Steps to the Bacon Vodka Experiment

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Before I got distracted by Kanye West, and Joe “You Lie” Wilson, and other entertaining news happening on the Interweb (and I guess, also in the real world), on August 30 I got inspired and decided to make my own moonshine based on a recipe I got from, where else? the Interweb:

“Add cooked bacon to a clean pint sized mason jar. Trim the ends of the bacon if they are too tall to fit. Or you can just throw in a bunch of fried up bacon scraps. Crushed black peppercorns can be added for a real zing, but check your zinger scale of tolerance first.

Fill the jar up with vodka. Cap and place in a dark cupboard for at least three weeks. Then place the bacon vodka in the freezer to solidify the fats. Contact local authorities to be on hand before opening and then strain out the fats through a coffee filter. The yield should be clear, pale yellow bacon vodka. (If it is any other color, check with health officials.) Decant into decorative bottles and enjoy.”

(I naturally blogged about how I came to this madness: here, and also my shopping trip & prep for the experiment, called “Step 1” here. My apology for having lied: there’ll be no post called Step 2 as you might have expected…)

Step 1: Cook bacon. Open the bag of raw bacon and gingerly remove them one by one from the said bag while thinking,

Yew. This is so disgusting!

Step 2: Wash hands so as not to get grease on microwave oven when you “cook” the bason

Step 3: Cook bacon for, hmm, how long? Your guess is as good as mine. How about 2 minutes since you have no patience?

Step 4: Open microwave to check on bacon. Yew. Still raw. Continue to zap bacon in microwave.

Step 5: Bat off hungry kids who are hungry because you forgot to feed them, for the sake of SCIENCE, y’all! “I smell bacon? Is that bacon? Mom, can we have some bacon?”

Step 6: Admonish children for calling Perfectly Edible Food “disgusting” by saying, “There are starving children in China, you know?”

Step 7: Gingerly transport the grease-soaked paper towels to the trash, mindful not to drip any grease on the floor. Oh, and take a picture of the bacon ’cause you know you are going to blog about it. (Only you don’t know that it’ll take you more than 2 weeks to actually blog about it because you are lazy that way).

Step 8: Curse yourself when you open the fridge and see this:

Then immediately comfort yourself with the conviction that YOUR bacon vodka is going to turn out so much better ’cause you used the REAL, raw, greasy, fat-dripping bacon. Oh, yeah.

Step 9: Add cooked bacon to mason jar and fill jar with vodka. The good kind! Another sacrifice you’ll make for SCIENCE…

Cry when you see the bottle of vodka more than half gone because the mason jar is deceptively roomy…

And remember: You are doing this for SCIENCE!

Step 10: Try and think of something quickly to explain to your children:

“What the hack is that?”

“Don’t use that kind of language.”

“Mom, what is that? Is that your bacon vodka?” “Are you really going to drink that?” “That is so disgusting!”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Mom. Why?”

The final step: Wrap it in 3 layers of plastic bag because you are not sure whether it will have some chemical reaction and either ooze goo or worse, burst open the glass jar. Leave it in the cupboard. And wait…

p.s. Do NOT forget to tell your husband about it before you leave for a business trip. Imagine his surprise when he finds it…

Step 1. I went to Walmart for my Bacon-Flavored Vodka Experiment…

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To recap, I decided to follow the recipe for Bacon-flavored vodka…

Why? Because I love Bacon. And I love Vodka. So it seems like a no-brainer…

I went to Walmart to gather my supply. Why Walmart when we know they are evil? Because Walmart was the only place where I recall for having ever seen mason jars being sold. I was lucky I even knew what mason jars are considering how I am basically illiterate in the cooking & food prep jargon department. I didn’t even know what Blanch means until recently.

Hint: It is not the name of Vivien Leigh’s character in A Streetcar Named Desire… Seriously.

Besides, ever since I knew the existence of peopleofwalmart.com, I couldn’t wait to go back and see for myself.

Eh. Yeah. Way too many people wearing Zubaz pants still. I didn’t take any photos though. It is actually kind of difficult to do that surreptitiously! So my hat’s off to all the brave souls who have submitted photos to People of Walmart. I was worried that I might get punched by the woman with wiry blond hair that looked like she just touched a plasma globe to dare.

Also, knowing that this website exists makes me extremely self-conscious at Walmart.

Is it just me? I mean, I am absolutely paranoid now. I actually dressed up to go to fucking Walmart! I made sure I wear my control-top so my tummy didn’t flop out. I even put on full make-up so I didn’t look like someone who’s on meth. I also combed my hair.

But the friggin’ kids did not cooperate at all. Within 10 minutes after we got into the store, I was hissing loudly:

“Stop touching your brother with the umbrella or I will stick it in your…”

“I don’t care if he is friggin’ sitting on YOUR pizza rolls. They are frozen! They are hard like rocks!”

“What do you mean you won’t eat them? Listen here, buddy. If I buy them for you, you are going to eat them, you hear me? Otherwise I am going to rip you a new one…”

“I don’t friggin’ care if he’s putting the shrimps on top of his feet. You don’t even eat shrimps. What do you care?”

“OK. Both of you. Stop doing that! You are going to get IT when we get home!”

(No. I don’t know what IT is. I never do.)

The best part is? When we finally got out of the store, I looked at the dusty passenger window of a monster truck and saw myself all disheveled. So much for combing my hair. I also had the look of someone who was willing and ready to commit manslaughter. I won’t be surprised if we get on People of Walmart, or even YouTube.

The shopping part was not really a success either – I was able to only cross two items off of my list:

Cheap vodka
Bacon
Mason jar
Tarp
Waders
Safety goggles

This Walmart seemed to have recently revamped itself to focus on the frozen food section. It does not seem to carry items that a manly man will need on a daily basis, such as tarp, fishing waders, and safety goggles. So I was rather disappointed. Truth be told, I was rather happy to save the money: I just could NOT go with the Number 1 item on my list: Cheap Vodka…

What if the experiment turns out to be a failure because I use CHEAP vodka? Huh?

I kept on asking myself this ever since I read the recipe. So here is what I got from Walmart for the Bacon-flavored Vodka experiment:

I was pissed I had to get 12 mason jars at once. TWELVE! So you all can now expect to get pickled plum from me for Christmas…

Ok, not really. I guess if the first batch turns out to be a success, I will be glad that I have extras lying around the house.

I wonder whether the teachers will be happy to receive home-made Bacon-flavored vodka this Christmas instead of Bath and Body Works lotions?

p.s. I am not sure whether you can see the gigantic mixing batter bowl with lid on the side of the picture? Anyway, that was a total impulse buy. The idea of having a mixing bowl with a lid so you can have home-made pancakes on demand appealed to me at the moment when I saw it. But after I got home and opened the fridge I saw this:

WTF? Oh. I’d completely forgot I had gotten this the other day! I also remembered how I had made the kids pancakes “from scratch” by mixing Hungry Jack with water and they had both refused to eat them and I had vowed to never make them anything “from scratch” again…

But I felt better when I found an immediate use for the new mixing bowl that will probably never experience the sensation of batter lolling around inside it…

Yeah… Apparently you need to wash and dry the mason jars in “hot soapy water” before you can use them. WTF?

First of all, I am going to add vodka to it. It looks like water. So I am not even going to bother with drying them.

And can I just please ask this question that’s been bothering me for a long time…

Why do the instructions always demand “HOT” water?

Seriously.

How hot does the water have to get to be able to kill the germs? Won’t that water melt your hands together? If the “hot water” is for killing the germs, then why can’t we use “just water”? What is the point?!

Don’t get too excited because I washed three of the dozen mason jars. I had started out being quite ambitious. But later reason kicked in: I realized that one of these suckers is going to take almost HALF bottle of my GOOD Vodka.

I mean, really good Vodka.

Stay tuned.

Announcing my new project: Bacon-flavored Vodka…

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Apparently Pork-flavored Vodka is gaining some traction now in the Northeast, originated from Seattle, more specifically, the Seattle-based Black Rock Spirits. According to this online article, Bacon-Flavored Vodka: What’s Next? Eggs Bourbon? , BAKON, the vodka with an oink in it, is getting some dedicated followers because people just love bacon.

Thanks to the same article, a recipe for a home-made concoction to spice up your Vodka and martini with bacon is also available:

I am PUMPED! I think I owe it to myself to experiment on this. Here is my shopping list (which of course I tweeted, that’s what Twitter is for, no?):

Cheap vodka
Bacon
Mason jar
Tarp
Waders
Safety goggles

A very funny @Andjelija suggested that I check out prices for my supplies at Walmart, and take pictures while I am at it.

I will blog my experiment, so stay tuned…

*pouring Vodka*

Here’s to a successful experiment!

And to me not getting punched while taking pictures of people at Walmart!

And also to no pictures of me getting submitted to peopleofwalmart.com!

The Absence of Alternatives

My therapy sessions…