Stuck Between a Sock and a Cold Place

Did you know, women get colder faster than men do because, apparently, our only purpose in life is to be a baby oven? All our body heat goes to our core, to protect an organ that won't be used more than two or three times in our lives, if that, leaving our hands and feet freezing.

A limiting factor to your warmth, is budget. If, for example, you are a poor college student and are trying to save money because you have a supernatural addiction to chocolate and coffee, it is natural to turn the thermostat down. (Chocolate is very important.) Unfortunately, being poor causes the house to hover at less than 60 degrees Fahrenheit. (Funny story though, I used to hate how cold my house was when I still lived with my parents. But when I went back for Thanksgiving this year, I went into a state of shock because it was so hot. Yay for acclimating to frigid conditions!)

Combatting the bone-chilling temperatures that accompany winter in the Pacific Northwest, one has many options, whether you have a uterus or not. Here are some plausible options:

You can kill two birds with one stone by brewing up a molten-hot mug of hot cocoa. Hold on to this mug until you're almost certain your palms have melted, then chug the cocoa. Repeat until you fall into a sugar coma and forget about being cold.

Curl up and pile blankets on yourself. Bribe your roommates to put on a movie for you, then promptly fall asleep. Wake up and realize your hungry, but know that the 10 second stroll to the kitchen isn't worth losing the body heat. Go back to sleep.

Another option is learning the art of layering. If you weren't fortunate enough to be born into a geographical region that only occasionally goes above freezing in the winter, then I will learn you the ways henceforth.

You will need the following: undergarments (optional), a long-sleeved shirt, fleece pull-over sweatshirt, cotton hoodie, fleece pants, wool socks, a scarf, slippers, and a warm beanie.
1. When you get back from classes, or work, or whatever you've been forced to squander your day on, place all the aforementioned items in your bathroom.
2. Take a steaming hot shower and dry yourself as quickly as humanly possible.
3. Undergarment yourself, quickly jump into your fleece pants, and pull on the base layer shirt. Doing these two primary layers first will result in minimal heat loss. Tuck your shirt into your pants. If you're one of those rich kids who own a hairdryer, this is the appropriate time to use it.
4. Then put on the wool socks. Now you have the option of either tucking the socks into your pants, or tucking your pants into your socks. If you're 100% sure that you will not see another human being for the rest of the day, go with the latter option.
5. Put on the beanie. If you're a poor kid without a hair dryer, omit this step until your hair is dry.
6. Put on the fleece pullover, the scarf, then the cotton hoodie. Make sure the hood is up and pull the strings to make sure not heat can escape from your head.
7. Then put on your slippers and huddle with your roommates.

Remarkably, this exact process, minus step seven, is how I get dressed for bed now too.
Just as remarkable: as soon as you complete the process, you almost always have to pee.

After I drew this, I realized that my inspiration came from A Christmas Story...
If you can't put your arms down, you're doing it right!

NyQuil Crazy Party Fun Night

As per usual for this time of the year, a multitude of bacterial cells have commandeered my body and are running rampant causing a full on illness attack. Compounding this horrendous incident is that, unfortunately, last night, the love of my life ran out on me.
His name is NyQuil.
And I miss him.

But it's cool, because today I went to Safeway to get some more.

Little did I expect, as a serious college student with no real history of doing anything illegal, to get carded for so simple a purchase as a box of NyQuil Cold & Flu Nighttime Relief Liquicaps® and a pack of minty gum.

Not only did I get carded, but so did my roommate who was with me, who had to go out to the car to get her ID.

What the hell!?!

First off, to begin the transaction, the check-out lady started yelling at me for getting out my OSU ID instead of my driver's license.
To that I say:
JESUS CHRIST WOMAN! Hold onto your brassiere! I have more than one form of identification. Sorry I'm not perfect, but obviously neither are you because you're 60 and still working at a shitty grocery store chain.
And take off that pink cowboy hat. You look ridiculous.

What, does Safeway really think I'm going to try to get high off of it? I know more than a dozen people who would be more than willing and able to supply some herb for that sort of stuff. And it would definitely be a healthier alternative in any case. Or maybe the issue is getting "drunk"? Maybe you should check my handbag because, much like my homie Ke$ha, I keep a water bottle full of whiskey in there.

Obviously I enjoy looking shitty and causing suspicion when I go out to get my drugs, wearing sweatpants and glasses. I'm not really sick, you can tell because of the coughing and constant sniffling. I'm really a junky! A junky who can afford glasses, leather boots, and to keep French-tipping her nails, but can't afford real drugs.
Gotcha!

Yeah, lady at Safeway with the pink cowboy hat, thank God you're so damn clever. You totally busted me. I was planning on having a crazy Sunday night getting high off of NyQuil starting at 7:30 pm. Since you carded me and wasted my time, I decided against it and will only use this medication for good! And that took a lot of brains on your part because anyone who knows me can tell you, I'm a hardcore rager!

But in all seriousness, you have to card my roommate too? We are college students, we aren't that dumb as to have the person we're illegally buying controlled substances for standing next to us in line. For reals. Riddle me this, if a mother is buying NyQuil for her teenage son or daughter there, do you card him or her? What if the underage person waited in the car? If you need to hassle me and my roomie this much, why not go all out? Maybe you should go check everyone in line. Or in the store for that matter. Heaven forbid! This policy really doesn't make any sense.

So...

Dear Safeway,
Stop being a fucking a-hole and let me have my meds already.
Sincerely,
Kaya

Rooting Around

So here's my attempt to bridge the gap between the horribly depressing post I wrote last and a new more upbeat one.

Since last we met, I repeated the phrase, "It's all part of the circle of life" several dozen times, put the past behind me, and moved back to school to start my second year at college. A big epiphany hit when I was planting bulbs at my new residence in Corvallis.

I was so excited about the life that each bulb held, the fact that these seemingly ugly little root things would, come spring, grow glorious daffodils, alliums, and grape hyacinths. They were just embryos of life, waiting for some good soil, rain, and sunshine to start growing. I was amazed when my brain made a connection between this instant, and the last time I knelt by a hole in the ground and placed something in it.

I've discovered a few things in this new state of mind.
I've found that, cliche but true, death is just another part of life. And I've come further in accepting that fact.
I've also realized how weird roots are.


(On that note... Mission Control: The gap has been bridged! Here we go...)


Who pulled up a root and thought, "Oooh, check out this nasty looking thing I just dug up! Let's eat it." in the first place?

I've been on a soup streak. Yesterday's variation was a winter root soup, whose modified recipe I will take you through now. This recipe forced me to deal with a bunch of ingredients I've never touched before. Including:

Parsnips
All I knew about parsnips before is from this Home Star Runner video. Clearly, from such an education, I didn't know much. And I was hesitant to use them. They smelled suspiciously like carrots. But white. So basically, they're like albino carrots. Creepy right?


(If the video doesn't work, go here. 
If you want to know what/who Home Star Runner is, go here.)

Turnips
Or rutabagas, or whateverthefuck they're really called. I wasn't really aware that there was any other kind of turnip than the classically pictured red ones. But that was incredibly naïve, because there are. Red ones, white one, purpley white ones, et cetera. Nevertheless, they're still pretty boring. 

Celeriac
This word sounds like a disease. Celiac maybe? I don't know, but it sure as hell doesn't sound delicious. Upon discovering that another name for this revolting looking vegetable was "celery root", it managed to maintain its spot on the recipe card, even though it reminded me of the Mandrake roots from Harry Potter...

Butternut Squash (not a root, but still considered "wintery")
I've probably eaten this one before, but I've never dealt with it cooking-wise. It's name is actually kind of confusing. I wasn't sure if I should be expecting something buttery, nutty, or squashy. Or a combination. What I got in the end was none of these, but actually something more pumpkiny. 


Anywhoo, the recipe was those aforementioned vegetables plus sweet potatoes, peeled, chopped, drizzled in EVOO and tossed in an oven approximately the temperature of hell. Every time I opened the oven my eyebrows singed a little. But at least the oven smelled delicious.

Meanwhile... butter, celery, and a sweet onion were having a party on the stove top (I'm glad someone was, because it was Saturday night after all). Then came a quart of chicken broth. Whilst that was sittin' and a-simmerin', the roots and squash in the oven were ready for their debut. The oven veggies were commingled into the pot, and  everybody chilled together while I added some half-and half.

Then I got to take out the tiniest bit of "I can't believe I have a midterm already next week" aggression using the potato masher on the chunky vegetables.

Potato masher, because I don't have an immersion blender. Early Christmas gift to myself...? Maybe.
Although I did just buy myself a Kitchen Aid mixer.

Except the mixer's a little messed up because the box may or may not have fallen out of my car when I first got it. It makes a high pitched squealing noise now, but still mixes things fine. I registered it, so it has a one year warranty. I think it will explode before a year goes by if it has a mind to do so.

The finished product was interesting, like nothing I've had before, but good in its own right. My roomies seemed to like it too.

I've found a cool website that you can enter all the ingredients from a recipe and it'll analyze the vitamins, calories, and other nutritional aspects of that recipe.
Turns out that if one butternut squash, two sweet potatoes, one celery root, two parsnips, three turnips, two stalks of celery, three carrots, one sweet onion, a quart of chicken broth (low sodium of course), three tablespoons of butter, and 1/2 cup of half and half make 12 servings (which it did), then you'll get about 45% of your daily vitamin C, and a shocking 300% of your daily vitamin A.

So yeah, we're pretty much set on that front.
Until the soup is gone...