Another Year

Okay, so 2011 marks the third year Rachel Wrong has existed as a blog. Kind of. I actually started the blog in September of 2009 at Wordpress, (here is the first post I ever did) so this whole three-years thing is kind of a technicality. Nonetheless, 2011!

So, to mark this auspicious occasion I want to know what you would like to see in the new year. Not in general, but from this blog. My goal is to entertain you, readers. All five of you. What would make this more entertaining for you? More ranting, less raving? More photos? More music reviews?* More stories that feature yourselves and your amazing accomplishments? More hard news and facts?**

There are a few things this blog shouldn't be. I know that we don't want this to be some sort of stream-of-consciousness thing that reveals the inner recesses of my mind (Oh jeez, she's analyzing the symbolism of the samovar in Dostoevsky again and now she's thinking about her muscles), and we don't want this to be a diary (Sample: Dear Diary, I love my boyfriend sooooo much. He is the best. OMG.), and we don't want this to take a political slant (It's all horrible and I'm disappointed and relatively uninformed). So, what do we want it to be? More of the same things that really don't matter? I'm fine with that but I am also open to change. Small changes.

Please comment because this is going to be the lamest post that I've ever done if you don't and I will just have to move on like I never wrote this long appeal filled with weak attempts at humor and question marks. In fact, if there aren't any comments I will probably just quit.

* I use the term "review" loosely.
**  Hopefully not.

Christmas Vacation

I'm taking a holiday blogging break. But you should know it's been non-stop Christmas tunes, ice skating at the Lloyd Center, fudge for breakfast, piles of snow, new Christmas snowboards, present duplicates, fine scotch, feasts and gambling. Pretty much the best Christmas ever. I'll be back once the new year thing happens.

Happy Holidays

Last night I prepared for a small holiday gathering at our house tomorrow, you know, just some drinks and snacks with an emphasis on guests bringing something so there isn't any kitchen slaving or that sort of thing. But I'm feeling pretty festive this year and got home with this whole baking mission in mind. Fancy butter cookies with roasted cacao nibs, stuffed mushrooms, and fudge. These are simple things but I probably wouldn't be telling this story if things went according to plan.

It started out innocently enough. Got home. Turned the christmas lights on. Ran to Whole Foods to get cacao nibs. This was the first hiccup. They are expensive. Apparently it is cheaper to make actual chocolate than to put some raw nibs in a bag and send them up here. And I asked the dapper checkout guy if they had any roasted ones because that's what the recipe called for. He has to call the grocery section. No. We don't. Cause they would like, melt. In the roasting process. I feel brief shame for not only being ignorant of the cacao nib roasting process, but also because I'm buying cacao nibs in the first place. I purchase them and run home.

I prepare the cacao nib cookie dough with minimum fuss. I am gaining confidence. And then, the mushrooms. The stuffing mixture looks delicious and I'm thinking about how everyone will be impressed with these amazing mushrooms. The recipe calls for baking the mushrooms before putting the mixture in. Like, first with the round side down for twenty minutes and then you turn them. I do this while preparing all the elements for fudge which cleans out all the white sugar in the house and involves that marshmallow goo. That is some gross stuff. All the while Christmas music is playing on the soft rock AM station and I'm thinking about what a competent adult I am, just sitting at home by myself, baking in a meditative manner, listening to Christmas music, multi-tasking with ease.

Then I start boiling the fudge elements. Making fudge is like jumping in a car with no brakes and driving down a mountain. You can't stop, it's just hardcore boiling and stirring and waving that candy thermometer around hoping it hits the right temperature. If it doesn't you're left with a strangely grainy chocolate mass that no one wants to eat. It's alchemy. There's flour and goo everywhere. I'm chopping hazelnuts for the fudge, the sugar/butter mixture is boiling and then the timer goes off for the mushrooms and I obviously can't ignore them but I have to abandon the fudge mixture and I open the oven and they are the size of buttons. I have never seen mushrooms get this small and dessicated. I pull them out and one falls in the fudge and I'm trying to get the hazelnuts into the fudge and instead they all pour down into the stove element in a rattling finale. And still the Christmas music goes on.

So, I have to pour the fudge into the pan and hope for the best.  All the remnants are sitting there in the sauce pan and I have to eat it to prevent waste. I'm twitching from all the sugar in this fudge-eating daze and then this song comes on and it's that Can You Hear What I Hear song but it's sung by tiny children. With an echo effect. You know how children sing all close to the microphone and flat? It's not cute, it's just horrible. I suddenly feel like weeping and I'm just standing there with this fudge covered spoon in my mouth wondering what happened. There's no other way to describe it. Shit got real.

I got the test results back and I definitely have breast cancer!

You probably haven't seen The Room. But you should. You should see it twice in theaters, and then you should buy the DVD so you can watch it many more times*. It is insane. It is the worst movie I have ever seen, by far, which paradoxically may make it the best. The Room topped off a Romantic Night of epic proportions.

I can't even describe the plot. Or the characters. The acting is equivocal to the "acting" that occurs in pornographic films before they start doing it. Clunky dialogue, complete disregard for place, the passage of time, and foreshadowing make this movie an exciting adventure in bad film from start to finish. We were quoting choice bits of dialogue all night. One of them being the title of this post.

Here is a tiny taste. It was one of my favorite scenes. Thanks to Charissa for finding it.



*This is a quote from the director Tommy Wiseau.

Photo Surprise!

My strategy for posting recaps on significant events is quite similar to my strategy for birthdays or other holidays involving gifts. Incorporate the element of surprise. If you delay the gift long enough, your giftee has given up hope, decided you were a horrible friend, and probably already defriended you on Facebook. This is when you strike. The gift is infinitely more awesome because it is completely unexpected. I gave my friend Molly her Christmas canteen in July. Had it been received amongst all the other thoughtful gifts she undoubtedly received on December 25, she may have been underwhelmed. As it was, she really couldn't have been more pleased.

Below is a photo from the basketball session of our Hooters/Hoops/Dirty extravaganza. That's right. When I play basketball, a mystical smoke rises to strike fear in the hearts of my adversaries. The very court trembles and the hoop bows to my basketball prowess. We played a game of PIG that came down to Charissa and I* battling it out for the glory and I emerged victorious. I made a three-pointer, Laurence (my brother) made a three-pointer, and Sam? Well, Sam tried in vain. This was the night that I coined the Wright family motto:  

The Wright Family: Our bones don't break and we make three-pointers.

 * The ladies. This was a source of pride. We were wearing our cheetah-print leggings and ruling Irving Park court. Sometimes we just lurk at the park and join pick-up games with the neighborhood thugs**.


** Not really. I can't dribble.