Yes, I'm a terrible person and yes it's been over six months since I last blogged. And this week was so eventful, I'm not even going to backtrack, so try to keep up.
So we all remember that I'm obsessed with anything Latin correct? So last August (also a story for it's own post) I went to Spain. Yeah. I went to Spain. And it blew my mind. What mostly blew my mind? The grandma of a Spanish family my friend used to nanny in Belgium. Yeah. Abuela Eva. She's literally thee greatest. Mostly because she taught us how to make gazpacho. I haven't made it since I've been back and I didn't have a recipe so I tried to recreate the soup from what memories I had. And it turned out Legit!! Cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro, onion, garlic, green peppers, soggy bread, vinegar, and a tiny splash of olive oil. Who knew it could be so delicious!?!? We had it with fish and roasted zucchini. It was super good for remembering it from six months ago and off the top of my head if I do say so myself. Aside from accidentally dumping a bunch out of the blender onto my phone it turned out quite well and we still have a pitcher full in the fridge! Gazpacho for dayssss.
Next, there's a box. My sister just ordered two of these chairs for our craft
room/loungy area (new since my last blog) which came in Wednesday. (How badly she wanted them and how 'long' the wait for them to be shipped to us is a different story.) So Wednesday th
ey get here and now we have this box sitting around while we wait for our recycle to be picked up so we can then refill it with a single box. Life of the city dwellers I guess. So as we're wrapping up dinner the other night (See Gazpacho above) we start talking about how it's so big that we could fit in it. We then came to an agreement that we are actually going to keep it around for a few days to play with it.If only people had been here to see it. Two twenty somethings (I'm 21 now!! Holla!!) acting like children with this wonderfully huge box. Also, we named it. Rodger. Rodger the box. So first we experimented with the box going on top of us and hiding underneath it. We explored different ideas o
n how we could invite someone over and then jump out from under it to scare them. Then we started gettin' crazy and decided to try getting in the box. We pulled up a chair and I jumped in. It comes up to my chest but I made the leap of faith. Socks on fox, Tayler in a box. I felt like I was in a Dr. Seuss book. Until it was time to get out that is. Whitney started tipping me which seemed like a good idea. So I leaned into it... and came crashing down. Now Whitney claims that I made the best 'Oh Crap' face she's ever seen and I believe it. I thought I was going to die when I realized that I was free-falling over because she had ceased helping me. I thought I was going to die (okay, I didn't think I was going to die, but I did think the fall was going to hurt mega.) But that good old Rodger broke my fall. His cardboard walls were just thick enough to absorb some of the shock and alas, I didn't get hurt. Box playing success! So, if in the next few days you have the nagging desire to play in a huge box like you're six again, our door is wide open... you may want to bring some elbow and knee pads though, just in case.My dead fish named Benjerman. First I'll set the scene. A friend was throwing a surprise birthday party for another friend and in the spirit of surprise birthdays we thought it would be a fantastic idea to have fish races. We've done it before and it turned out quite well. You get two rain gutters, duct tape each end to seal it and fill them with water. Each person chooses a gold fish from the pitcher and puts it in their cup and names it. You then set up a bracket and race each other by putting your fish in the filled gutter and blowing on the water surface with a straw to try to encourage it to the finish line.
Out of all twenty fish that I could have chosen, I chose the one dead one...on purpose. Yes, he was dead when I chose him to be my own personal Seabiscuit (minus the Great Depression part... and the horse part... and the whole being alive thing.) I saw a star in the making. I figured if he was dead he wouldn't be able to swim in the opposite direction at least (a common problem in past fish racing experiences.) Let me just say Benjerman (named so because until I was a freshman in high school I thought Benjamin was spelled and pronounced with an 'r' so I name everything I can Benjerman to make fun of myself) was a fantastic novice. People made fun of me and laughed but at the count down, I put him in the water and started blowing. It took a ton of lung power (on my part) but we pulled through.
Benjerman won!! A dead fish actually beat an alive one. My first technique was to blow hard behind him to try to get a current going to carry him to the other side. That worked okay but it was no winning strategy. So about half way down the raceway a started to blow gently so he would stay on the surface and I would just urge him along with a light wind. Benjerman gracefully danced past the finish line and I had myself a winner. We kept this momentum up until he got knocked out in the round before the final bracket. That's right. We almost made it to the finals and only one of us was alive. And we did it with more poise than any other fish there.
Turns out thinking outside the box (fish bowl) pays off. Pictures to come later because someone else was taking them.
