The Time Of Our Lives

Context: This post is about the third day (and second day in the city) of my third New York City trip.

Lots of people assume that I love Fraggle Rock for nostalgia purposes. In reality, I actually barely saw any episodes when I was a kid. I started getting into it through YouTube clips when I was seventeen.

You might remember that my junior year of high school was a tough time for me. I was held afloat by a combination of many things, one of which was my religion, one of which was my friends (especially Best Friend Boy), and one of which was Fraggle Rock. When you are completely and utterly depressed, why wouldn't you want to spend a lot of time in a place where cute fuzzy creatures dance and sing to banish their worries and cares? When you feel like most of your troubles come from not being able to connect with other people, how would it not be helpful to study a world where a different interpersonal conflict is studied in nearly every episode? Ya feel me?

Once I was properly introduced to the show, I glommed on to the precious Fraggles hard. They delighted me. That delight helped me feel better, and sometimes during hard things in later years, I would still turn to an episode that reflected my feelings or my situation.

Life after high school was always a bit precarious for me. I faced a lot of things I didn't feel prepared to face. But I was proud of myself for pulling through it without drifting back into clinical depression. I figured out what I needed to stay on top, and I sought it out as required.

Last year, though...I had a lot of difficult things happen really quickly. Some of them I couldn't talk about to protect other people. Some of them I didn't want to talk about because I was afraid of burdening other people. And some of them I knew no one would understand. So I just clammed up and kind of did the opposite of what I needed to do to take care of myself. I guess I figured that after being so vigilant for so long, and having gone through way worse stuff than what I was going through then, I was pretty invincible.

Ha.

Within a few months, I was...I don't know if I want to say clinically depressed again. I know clinical depression, and this wasn't really like that. I'd say it's more like situational depression, which the Internet tells me is a kind of depression people experience after a major life change. It involves a lot of the feelings of clinical depression, except it apparently doesn't usually leave you completely unable to cope for long periods of time like clinical depression does. When I was clinically depressed as a teen, I couldn't make myself do my homework most days or sometimes even brush my hair. But this time, I didn't feel that kind of listlessness or apathy; I did everything I normally did and more. I was productive yet felt terrible.

I got things back under control again, and all was mostly fine for a few months. However, around Christmas, the terrible feelings came back, and as I was hit by more big life changes (interpersonal crises, major surgery, and more) and other things completely outside of my control, they settled in to stay. I was not okay with that, so I surged forward to fix it. And whaddaya know—there's been improvement, and I now feel completely, absolutely fine for days at a time. But when I don't...

It's not a desirable situation.

But hey, you know what seemed like it might help? A delightful jaunt through an exhibit devoted entirely to Muppets, particularly Fraggles. It was the old medicine, the old relief, come back again in a newer and more potent form.

What I'm trying to say is that when Little Brother and I grabbed pastries from Starbuck's and headed for the subway to ride uptown to the Museum of the Moving Image to Astoria, Queens, I had very high hopes for the Jim Henson exhibit.

I'm happy to report that I was very much not disappointed!

Astoria turned out to be a quiet, cute neighborhood where people lived in actual houses. Tiny houses, but houses all the same. There were even yards! We walked around while we waited for the museum to open. I could tell that Little Brother was already enjoying himself much more than he was the day before. Score. Eventually we joined the other nerds at the museum (I was wearing my Wembley Fraggle shirt, obviously), and first thing we went to the Jim Henson exhibit.

Boy oh boy! That thing was pure joy. Pure. Joy. It was interactive, with video and audio and hand puppets to film a short clip with and a Sesame Street Anything Muppet to dress up. There were fascinating notes and bits of scripts and doodles and posters. And the puppets! I could tell you about them, but I'd rather just show you.

This was the first display (well, first after a cute little intro video). Kermit was sitting all lonely in this case opposite another case with a bunch of other puppets. It was like he was being shunned at a party.

Remember when we saw Carroll Spinney live? He had Oscar with him, but not Big Bird. Now we've seen them both!

My favorite!

Nigel, the original host of The Muppet Show.

Statler and Waldorf. It's funny that the museum is in Astoria since Waldorf's wife's name is Astoria.

The Swedish chef (with fake hands added since the puppeteers use their own hands).

Koozbanians! The Koozbanian pups are SO CUTE!!!

Zoot.

The sign that Gonzo pops out of at the beginning of the show!

And that's just a sampling of what this trove of wonders had to offer! This may surprise you, but we weren't even the biggest nerds at this museum. Most of the people were older folks or parents who didn't seem to know much about Jim Henson but who were trying to entertain their little kids. However, there was a group of college-aged guys who lingered for, like, ten minutes at every display case and spouted facts, figures, and trivia.

We definitely were the biggest Fraggle Rock nerds, though. Not even those guys lingered at the Fraggle Rock displays as long as we did. We examined every inch of those three puppets.

Cantus Fraggle, the wise wandering musician. Cantus is one of the two Fraggle Rock characters played by Jim Henson. The puppet of his other character, Convincing John, was totally creepy-looking, but I didn't get a photo of him.

The one, the only, Gobo Fraggle as he appears from Season 2 on! He looks so lifelike.

Uncle Travelling Matt!

We were fascinating by the hole in the back of Cantus's robes for his tail and by the instruments tucked into the folds. We were excited by the Doozer stick's in Gobo's vest pocket and by the details of his guitar. We examined Uncle Travelling Matt's baloobius and debated whether it was the same throughout the show or whether they used a different baloobius during Scared Silly. We also discovered that all of the Fraggle hair is made from ostrich feathers, even the tiny bits that we thought was fluff!

This talks about the many themes of Fraggle Rock. Notice that "hats" was added at the bottom in handwriting. There literally is an episode of Fraggle Rock entirely about a hat.

Doozers!

Cotterpin Doozer!

A piece of puppetry equipment from The Dark Crystal. STEVE WHITMIRE'S piece of puppetry equipment from The Dark Crystal.

From the opening day of MuppetVision 3D, one of Disney's funnest attractions!

After we'd toured the exhibit very thoroughly, we checked out the rest of the museum. There was an exhibit about YouTube as an artform and about special effects and costumes and merchandising and all kinds of film-related stuff. Little Brother used an interactive stop-motion display to capture a masterpiece involving a rainbow and two Shakespeares rising out of a troubled sea.

Once we'd seen everything else, though, Little Brother said, "Should we go through that exhibit again? Just to say goodbye?"

So we did! (And, yes, said a very reluctant goodbye to the Fraggle cuties.)

On our way out, we raided the gift shop. We scored some expensive chocolates, a magnet, a pin, a children's book, and a key chain.

Wembley is hard to draw right, but he looks pretty good here! Little Brother also bought the a chocolate bar with a Boober wrapper. We opted out of the Red on because it had coffee. :/

Ecstatic, we went in search of a lunch just as perfect as the Jim Henson exhibition. We ended up at Joe Asian & Sushi, where we threw down an amount of money equal to what I'd just blown at the MOMI gift shop. Worth it, though!

These crab wontons were SO GOOD!

Also this miso soup.

The sushi was yummy, too, but we overestimated how hungry we were and only ate about 2/3 of it.

After dropping our treasures back at Older Sister's place, we lazily made our way downtown to Wall Street and the 9/11 Memorial. Too lazily, as it turned out. We'd spend so much time in Astoria that we were waaaaaay behind schedule, so we spent an abbreviated amount of time at the museum and memorial. We had to go, though, since it was non-negotiable for Little Brother. (You can read more about my impressions of the museum here.) I was glad that we did; the solemnity was just right after the giddiness of the morning.

Then we met up with Older Sister. I'd basically told her, "When we're hanging out with you, we'll do whatever you want." And what did she want to do? She wanted to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and take pictures. So that's what we did. Older Sister's phone has a special photography mode that makes every picture look like it's been Photoshopped 1,000 times. Which meant that the photos turned out really, really well.

When we had enough pictures to satisfy Older Sister, we went into Dumbo (the Brooklyn neighborhood, not the elephant) and had a delightful dinner at Shake Shack! I had my very favorite chicken sandwich with herb mayonnaise (not pictured) and a delectable chocolate concrete.

After that, we were all very tired. We took the subway back to Older Sister's apartment, where I fell asleep feeling lighthearted, perfectly content after a nearly perfect day.

The First Day Is Always the Worst Day

I needed a vacation.

I hadn't gone on a real vacation since Disneyland eighteen months ago. I've gone out of town, sure, but always for reasons fraught with family obligation. I've taken days off work, but always for illness or holiday or church reasons or special events. I never get a chance to recharge or relax, and my ability to hold myself together has worn thin.

In January, I was investigating a possible trip back to Europe; I'd been tentatively planning to go in spring of 2018 for a while. So I didn't vacation at all in 2017, and I saved...and I saved...and I saved. I had plenty of money to go on a trip! My plan was book and pay for the trip in January...go in the spring...and buy a new car in the summer. I couldn't find anyone to go with, but I wasn't giving up; there was still time.

I ended up buying a new car in January instead, and I was hesitant to dip any more into my savings for an expensive trip. I felt like Heavenly Father was saying, "DON'T GO TO EUROPE THIS SPRING" because nothing was coming together. So I didn't book anything, though I was still toying with the idea of going later in the year. Then my appendix had to come out, and I had to pay the people who took it out, and it quickly became apparent that this year was just not going to be my year.

Little Sister and her husband went back to NYC around the same time I bought my new car, and she could only gush about the awesome Jim Henson exhibit that I'd wanted to see in New York City three years before. So when I was weighing the idea of going on vacation, I decided: what the heck? Why not go back to New York City so that I could finally see the dang exhibit, eat whatever I wanted, and spend time with Older Sister? The idea appealed to me, particularly because Older Sister would be working, so I could do whatever amused me. The subway system is easy to use; I could get around with no trouble and generally have a good time. And I could stay with Older Sister, which would be very inexpensive.

So (after several weeks of hemming and hawing), I finally committed to Older Sister to come and visit. However, after I'd done so, my mother cornered me and said that I should take Little Brother with me.

That kind of killed the point of the vacation, especially since Mom wanted me to take him to the Statue of Liberty and to Trinity Church and to her favorite restaurants and generally do a bunch of things that I had no intention of doing. So I laid it out straight for Little Brother: this was my trip, and while he could come, he would more or less have to do whatever I wanted.

He said okay, and the plans commenced.

Now, before you think I'm a mean older sister, let it be known that I made sure to include Little Brother in the plans. I made room for the things that were non-negotiable for him: going to the Times Square Disney store, going to the 9/11 Memorial, getting dim sum in Chinatown, a museum called the Museum of Jewish Heritage. He also wanted to go to the Jim Henson exhibit as much as I did.

The flight was booked and the musical tickets were purchased, and in what seemed like no time at all, the day of the trip had arrived and Little Brother and I were waiting at the airport late, late at night.

A few things to know about Little Brother:

• He loves Disney and knows the most about it. Of anyone. On earth. Probably.
• He loves theming.
• He loves beautiful things.
• He loves our Jewish heritage and taught himself to make delicious challah bread. Unlike me, he looks like a full-blooded Jew.
• He loves most of the things I love, except for Harry Potter, and his appreciation for Jim Henson has turned him into an accomplished amateur puppeteer.
• He secretly kind of wants to be YouTube famous.
• He has about a million original stories, musicals, and TV shows hiding inside his brain. They come out if you listen to him talk long enough.
• After our sibling date where I introduced him to sushi, sushi became his most-favorite food.

While we were waiting, he showed me a bunch of his Snaps from Snapchat, something I've never used. It would appear that Little Brother mostly uses it to send droll pictures to his friends.

As usual, we were red eyeing it out to New York. The flight was uneventful, but...odd. First of all, when we were loading onto the plane, a man with an accent I couldn't identify asked me (I think) to check one of his items in my name. He said (I think) that he and his wife and his two kids had too many items to check even though the flight had just announced complimentary checking since there was plenty of room.

They were a cute family, but they were strangers, so I refused. I felt bad, but it's basic airline safety not to accept things from people you don't know! Luckily, we saw later that the flight had checked their extra items with no fuss.

The other odd things about the flight were as follows: 1) The plane was abnormally loud. Little Brother was sitting next to me, but I could barely hear him all night. 2) The flight attendants were weirdly sneaky. I was half-asleep the whole flight, so I barely remember, but I seem to remember that they...didn't really talk? They just communicated with a series of gestures mostly, so that they didn't wake up passengers, I guess. But it was really hard for me to see said gestures since I was trying to sleep and wore no glasses or contacts! 3) The girl sitting next to us promptly fell asleep about as soon as the plane took off and barely moved all night. I even climbed over her to reach the restroom, yet she didn't stir. (Note: I went to the restroom barefoot. That was a mistake. The floor was gross.) Then, just moments before we landed, she woke up like clockwork. ???!

Neither Little Brother nor I slept well. I don't know about Little Brother, but I'd gotten up pretty early the morning of the day we'd left, and I was miserable and exhausted. I do know that at one point I accidentally squirted hand sanitizer in his eye, and he screamed at me. But it was a controlled scream. No one heard it but me. Not even the sleeping girl; she didn't move an inch.

I was adamant that we book our flight to JFK so that we could utilize the air train. Once we'd disembarked and gathered our luggage, we took the train, no problem, to Jamaica Station. Then we took the E Train to Times Square, walked a very long time through the subway to get to a connecting station, and took a 1 Train uptown.

Finally, we made it to the Upper West Side, where Older Sister lives in a beautiful 100-year-old building with 11 roommates. Yup, count 'em—11.

A few things to know about Older Sister:

• She's crazy ambitious. She took a double courseload and finished her six-semester graduate school program in three semesters, something that had never been done before.
• She's always wanted to live in New York City.
• She's always claimed to hate "Asian" food, saying it all tastes the same and is gross.
• She works for a non-profit that teaches underprivileged kids to dance.
• She, too, looks like she could be full-blooded Jewish. When she first moved to the city, she did some babysitting for a Jewish family and would sometimes be mistaken for a relative. On Saturdays, she wears her Sunday clothes to the Manhattan temple for a shift as a temple worker, and on the streets she's often mistaken for a Jew from a more conservative sect.
• She, too, secretly wants to be famous, but not YouTube famous.
• She loves the finer things in life and has never cared much for discomfort.

So even though I knew that she was living in a crowded apartment with no space to herself, it still amazed me. It's a testament to how much she loves New York City, because she's always been the kind of person who's always wanted to live somewhere that was nice and cutely decorated and very much her own.

Not that the apartment wasn't not nice, it just barely had room to exist at all. The whole thing, square-foot-wise, surely didn't exceed the amount of space I share with my two roommates. And her bedroom, which sleeps two people, is about the same size as my bedroom minus the closet. My bedroom is okay, but on the small side, for a single person; for two people, it would be pretty cramped!

The roommate had kindly stayed elsewhere so that Older Sister could have us in her room with her. I got the top bunk of the bunk bed. Little Brother got a cot-type bed on the floor. We could hang out in the apartment, but we couldn't wear shoes while we did so. We could shower in one of two bathrooms (except if it was after 11:00 p.m., in which case we had to shower in a tiny little bathroom—more on that later). Before she left for work, Older Sister presented us with a brassy-looking set of keys. One for the apartment building; one for the apartment. We were cautioned to be very careful not to break the lock, which had apparently happened before.

We crashed for an hour or so. Then...the city.

I gave Little Brother a first day similar to my first day on my first trip. First, the Disney store, which was everything Little Brother had dreamed of. Then lunch at Junior's. I'd heard that the food was better if you ordered something Jewish-style.

Sadly, it was still kind of meh. However, it pleased Little Brother to order a brisket sandwich with a latke and applesauce.

After, we took a subway downtown. At this point, we discovered that while the subway was easy to use (seriously—this was the first trip where I was the subway navigator, and there were hardly any bumps), our smartphones didn't seem to operate properly on the streets. (Over-saturation of people sucking up data?) It took us approximately six million years to find the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

The museum was not what we were expecting. The lady at the front desk asked us how we'd heard of it, and I breezily said, "We were just looking for a good Jewish museum!" But whether it was a good Jewish museum is...up for debate. There was some good stuff, but it wasn't very well-presented, and they kind of brushed over the Holocaust, mostly focusing on Jewish culture before it and how said culture recovered after. There were some cool artifacts, but I didn't learn very many new things. The most interesting tidbit was the fact that in some countries during Hitler's regime, Jews who didn't have "Jewish" names were required to take on the name or middle name of Israel or Sara.

Following the museum, we crashed. I was incredibly exhausted: dead on my feet and barely aware. I had no idea how I was going to stay up to watch Anastasia that night. But after lazing in Older Sister's apartment for a bit, I summoned the energy to arise, dress, and lead Little Brother to Tonn Ramen.

Older Sister, she who hates all Asian food, picked Tonn Ramen for dinner. She'd tried it and actually liked it! However, she ended up staying at work late and then babysitting afterward, so she didn't join us for our first taste of restaurant ramen.

Tonn Ramen is one of the more eccentric places I've been in New York City! Little Brother described the restaurant as "in a garage." It was below street level, tiny, and crowded. Everything about it seemed to be designed to make diners as uncomfortable as possible so that they would order, eat, and leave. The whole front of the restaurant was open, so we could feel the breeze from the street. The bar stools were difficult to keep a seat on, and I could never quite get myself into a position where I didn't feel I was about to fall off. The waiters whisked from place to place, quickly collecting orders which were then assembled in a matter or minutes. Not that anyone was rude or made us feel unwanted—but there was a slight feeling of, "Oh, we're very busy, so you should be glad we could squeeze you in!" Coupled with the fact that the restaurant was open during limited hours, the general air was one of exclusivity.

In any case, we quickly ate our ramen and paid. Mine is pictured below. It was tasty, although it was still ramen.

The vegetables and spices woke me up a bit. By the time we got to the Broadhurst Theatre, I was feeling much more excited about taking Little Brother to his first Broadway musical!

However. While Anastasia was delightful, it was rough. They completely rewrote the plot and dialogue, losing a lot of what made the animated movie so good. There also was a nice opportunity for them to tie up one character's philosophical qualms (his father was one of the guards who shot the royal family to death, so he is committed to making sure Anastasia is actually dead; his turn of heart would have been more realistic had it been revealed that his father actually helped Anastasia escape), but they passed that over for some unconvincing mumbo-jumbo. Overall, the movie, with its magic and demons and sold souls, actually seemed a lot more realistic than this historically accurate version. The special effects were dope, though, and the performers did do a good job with what they had.

We briefly stage-doored so that Little Brother could get a quick video of Christy Altomare for his friends. Then we took the subway home, utterly exhausted. (Confession: I'd fallen asleep for several seconds during the show.) As I showered (in the big shower) and hauled myself up the bunk bed ladder, I was wondering if this trip was a good idea or if I would regret it.

My Week with HelloFresh

After my venture into the world of Blue Apron, I succumbed to trying HelloFresh. I was having way too much fun! I'd learned several new dishes with Blue Apron, and I was hungry for what HelloFresh could teach me. And feed me.

My first two recipes were Lobster Ravioli and Shrimp with Tomatoes and Tarragon Cream Sauce and Mushroom Chicken Gravy over Couscous with Lemony Arugula.

First Impressions: My first impressions of HelloFresh were a wild ride. I was very impressed upon seeing the menu. The first two weeks of HelloFresh offered a lot more recipes I wanted to try than the first two weeks of Blue Apron did. However, I was less impressed when I realized that two of the four recipes I selected were "premium," meaning that I had to pay $10 extra to try them. (Both were seafood-based. Other premium recipes offered by HelloFresh on other weeks offer other luxury proteins like duck.) I was annoyed that the best recipes cost extra money when it's already REALLY EXPENSIVE. Whatever. With my super steep discount, I could afford $10 extra a week. Even if it was totally irritating.

Then my box came. My box had been attacked by a bear, apparently.

When I unpacked the box, I was annoyed again because there was like double the amount of packaging that had been in my Blue Apron boxes. So I had to throw away/recycle a ton of stuff. But unlike with Blue Apron, the ingredients came pre-divided by recipe, and that was nice.

Because fish tends to spoil more quickly, I started with the Lobster Ravioli and Shrimp with Tomatoes and Tarragon Cream Sauce.

You'll notice that the ravioli came pre-prepared. I guess that's to be expected since it is lobster ravioli. But that did disappoint me a little. I want to learn new skills here!

I began to prepare the veggies and heat the water for the ravioli. As I began the recipe, I noticed that it was kind of difficult to follow. The writing was a little confusing; a lot of steps had to happen simultaneously, but it wasn't clear that they were happening simultaneously until you read through it a few times. So I felt rushed, rushed, rushed as I jumped from chopping tarragon to cooking tomatoes to straining ravioli to rinsing shrimp.

The cream sauce recipe was very simple to the point of being ingenious. It was just grape tomatoes, a few ounces of sour cream, a bit of butter, the tarragon, salt and pepper, and shrimp. (The recipe called for using only a tablespoon of tarragon and adding it gradually to be sure you liked it, but I just added it all in.) Soon (within just thirty-five minutes) everything was ready!

The Verdict: The sauce was delicious! I usually take my pasta with a healthy heap of Parmesan, but this recipe didn't need it. I also thought that the amount of tarragon was perfect. (Though tarragon does taste slightly of black licorice, which I love but which most people don't. So you may not agree with my assessment if you tried it.)

The ravioli, on the other hand, was nothing special. I've had lobster ravioli in New York and at Olive Garden, and both times it was far better than the HelloFresh ravioli. This wasn't bad, just...a little tasteless. Not very lobster-y. What exactly did I pay $10 extra for? In any case, there was definitely enough for three filling meals.

What I'd Do Differently: This recipe would be simple to replicate, except for the lobster ravioli. That's okay, though—next time I'll just use my grocery store pasta of choice, mushroom agnolotti.

A few days later, I prepared the Mushroom Chicken Gravy over Couscous with Lemony Arugula.

I've never cooked with fresh thyme before, so that was exciting. I've also never made couscous before except from a box, and it was always the tiny, gritty kind with lots of spices. This recipe called for Israeli couscous, a fluffy pearl-like couscous that apparently was created by enterprising food people to combat a rice shortage in Israel some time ago.

Also...arugula. Something else I've not only never cooked but rarely eaten. I was very suspicious of the arugula. The recipe called for washing it and tossing it uncooked with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice. However, I remained unsure. I was afraid  that when my children ask me on my deathbed what my greatest regret is, I will say, "Allowing HelloFresh to convince me that tossing uncooked arugula with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice would actually make it edible."

Once again, the recipe was a little jumbled and everything was happening simultaneously, making me feel a little frantic as I prepared the produce, cooked the couscous, seared the chicken, tossed the arugula, moved the chicken to the oven, and made a pan gravy from the fond, the mushrooms, the garlic, the chicken stock concentrate, the thyme sprigs, the mustard, the sour cream, some water, and some salt and pepper.

I cannot stress how delicious this smelled while cooking! The scent of fresh thyme was so heavenly! When everything was done, I plated it right up with a bit of reserved thyme and a quarter lemon, which I squeezed over the chicken, gravy, and couscous.

The Verdict: This. Was. Incredible. The chicken was juicy and tender, the mushroom gravy was super flavorful, and the unseasoned couscous was a needed contrast to the rich flavors of the gravy and the lemon juice. The arugula, sadly, was as I feared: arugula that was still arugula, lemony or no. I ended up eating a few pieces per serving and tossing the rest.

I was glad that this recipe was so delicious and that it taught me some new things. It was pretty easy and quick, too, taking only fifty minutes from prep to plate. The only negative was that this was the first subscription box meal that actually was only sufficient for two servings. Except for the arugula. There were more than two servings of arugula. There was enough arugula to feed a small army of people who only eat arugula.

What I'd Do Differently: Nothing! Okay, I wouldn't serve lemony arugula as one of my side dishes, but everything else about this meal was magnifique.

So ends my first week of HelloFresh! After finishing this delight, I left for New York City with my second HelloFresh week scheduled for my return. I'll tell you how my second week measured up, but not before the tale of my vacation. Stay tuned!

The Genesis of Awkward Mormon Girl

The first time I asked a guy out, he made an anonymous (or so he thought) post on the Internet complaining about how awkward I was. At the time, the word did not have the connotations of vague charm that it does today. It was completely derogatory.

At first, I was in denial: "I'm not awkward!" Eventually, I admitted it: "I am kind of awkward!" But that didn't take away the pain and embarrassment I felt when I initially saw that post. For years I lived in dread of people thinking I was awkward in a non-charming way. When I started this blog, I claimed the label and made it my own so no one could ever hurt me with it again. Since I already publicly call myself awkward, it's effectively been stripped of its usefulness as an insult.

You might think that the guy who made that anonymous post is a real jerkwad. Well, his behavior was real jerkwad behavior, but he is actually not a real jerkwad. I later found out that he was afraid of being alone forever, so he would do things to hurt other people, subconsciously ensuring that he would be alone forever. Yet he was otherwise a lovely person, and we're wonderful friends now that the days of jerkwad behavior are in the past.

People act oddly when fear takes control. Sometimes they go to ridiculous lengths to prove themselves. Sometimes they go overboard trying to ensure their fear never comes to pass, and sometimes they panic and do the exact thing that will expose them to what they're afraid of. (Anakin Skywalker anyone? All of these apply to Anakin.)

Once a friend and I were talking about a time when they treated me in a less-than-desirable fashion. The person admitted that they'd tried to keep me at arm's length because they were worried that if they gave me a chance to vocalize my feelings, I would choose to end the friendship. To recap: they feared losing my friendship, so they treated me poorly to keep me distant enough that I wouldn't be able to tell them I wanted to end the friendship. Upon hearing this, I was astounded.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Uhhhh...

FRIEND (anguished) I know.

Anyway, kids, let's stop making decisions based on fear. Let's not live our lives in such a way that all is structured around avoiding pain. Or in other words: DON'T BE ANAKIN SKYWALKER!

Skipping Town

The last few days have been devoted to laundry, finances, and organization. I'm leaving town tomorrow night! After my appendectomy, it became clear that I reeeeaaaaally need a real vacation (something I haven't had in a year and a half). Since I can stay at Older Sister's apartment for a pittance and since flights to New York came up decently priced, it was determined that New York City is actually one of the least expensive proper vacations I could take.

Plot twist! I thought it would be a grand adventure to fly out on my own and then potter about the city while Older Sister is working, but my parents were not as keen on that idea. They begged me to take Little Brother with me. (Little Brother is still a child, but he passes as a man and can thus serve as a kind of "protection" against kidnappers or whatever it is my parents are worried might find me if I were to wander the streets of the Big Apple alone.) I didn't want to give in to said begging because I didn't want to redo all the basic tourist things I'd done for my first trip and then done again with Baby Sister for her first trip. In the end, though, I decided the pros of having Little Brother along outweighed the cons, and we agreed on a plan to suit us both. The big excitement of the trip is visiting the Museum of the Moving Image and the Jim Henson exhibit! Little Brother will be an excellent companion for that.

One big thing I always do before a trip is gather all my change and trade it in at the bank. This is something I got from my parents. They keep their change in a big bowl and then sort it out before a family vacation. The change usually yields about fifteen to fifty dollars of extra vacation money. Every little bit counts!

My Other Week with Blue Apron

Time to recount my second week of trying Blue Apron!

I didn't establish this last time, but you might like to know that each week, Blue Apron offers eight recipes to choose from. It's good variety, and if you absolutely hate everything being offered that week, skipping is an option.

For me, choosing the recipes was the hardest part of signing up. For my second week, I went with Salmon Burgers & Smoky Potatoes with Tartar Sauce and Maple & Barbecue-Glazed Chicken Wings with Sweet Potato Wedges & Coleslaw.

No bonus recipe this time! I was way more sad about that than I should have been. Also, I realized belatedly that three of my four Blue Apron recipes featured a roasted potato dish. Heh heh...whoops.

First off, Salmon Burgers & Smoky Potatoes with Tartar Sauce.

I was especially delighted with the one-egg carton.

I've never had salmon burgers before, and I was expecting them to be a lot more complicated than they were. This recipe took me just under an hour from start to finish.

First I chopped and cooked the potatoes. They were the exact same potatoes from the steak recipe last week, just with a different spice blend. To avoid having underdone potatoes again, I cooked them eight minutes longer than the recipe required.

The burgers required cooking the salmon, chopping it up, and mixing it with an egg and spices (and that mythical "garlic paste" first seen in the steak recipe). Then I formed it into patties to be cooked again.

I was rather proud of my patties.

However, I made the mistake of thinking I could fit them both in a small pan, and I ended up having to slightly deform one to get them both in there.

Although getting the patties off the plates and into the pan was really hard! They didn't stay together well, probably because they were simultaneously both heavy and wide. That also contributed to the deformity. While I was turning them, I said aloud, "How do I do this without them falling apart?" The answer was that I couldn't, and each patty lost a bit of mass and cracked as I turned it.

The only things left to do were mix sour cream and pickle relish to make a homemade tartar sauce and toast the buns in the pan. The bun-toasting was a nice touch that helped reduce my aversion to homemade burgers!

I was running out of clean dishes and ended up eating off the same plate I'd put the patties on after cooking, thus the grease.

The Verdict: The potatoes turned out wonderfully: slightly blackened and crisped on the outside and mealy on the inside! The spice blend was better than last time, too (though I could barely taste it). The salmon burgers were delicious, although the patties were not only difficult to cook but also much too big to comfortably eat one burgers in a single sitting. This meal could easily have been stretched into three or even four servings.

My chief comment is that, although most Blue Apron recipes contain an abundance of produce, this one didn't. The only thing resembling a vegetable was the pickle relish in the homemade tartar sauce (which was good, but not amazing). I imagine this was because of the cost of the salmon: they felt obligated to do just potatoes because cheap. Still, some veggies would have spruced the burger up mightily.

What I'd Do Differently: Make smaller patties from the same amount of salmon. I'd probably have to use a different spice mix in the burgers and the potatoes as the Blue Apron-provided one lists the ingredients but not the proportions. I'd probably replace the tartar sauce with fry sauce. I know that sounds gross, and trust me, I'd never put fry sauce on a regular piece of salmon—but this burger is processed in such a way that it wouldn't be a travesty. Finally,  I'd also add a slice of tomato and a slice of American cheese. Maybe even a bit of lettuce.

The last recipe I tried was the Maple & Barbecue-Glazed Chicken Wings with Sweet Potato Wedges & Coleslaw.

I actually don't like chicken wings that much. Or sweet potato wedges (I prefer my sweet potatoes mashed with honey butter if I must eat them at all). Or coleslaw.

You're probably wondering, "Then why did you choose this recipe?" I chose it because I was curious about learning to cook chicken wings. Like, who makes those for dinner?! It was too good a learning opportunity to pass up (come to think of it, I felt similarly about the salmon burgers). Also, my opposition to chicken wings is more that they're so messy and difficult to eat while yielding so little meat than it is the flavor. So they did sound tasty, especially compared to the other menu offerings for the week. And since I can endure sweet potato wedges and coleslaw if needed, I thought it was worth a try.

Unlike the other potatoes, the sweet potato wedges cooked to perfection at the recommended time and temperature. They actually looked rather appetizing after they came out of the oven!

The coleslaw and chicken wings were both fussy dishes. Because of that, and because both the chicken wings and potato wedges had to cook a half hour in the oven, this recipe was by far the longest I tried. It took me at least an hour and a half to do everything.

This recipe also occasioned my one and only Blue Apron error. I accidentally added the vinegar that was supposed to go in both the wing sauce and the coleslaw to just the coleslaw. It had minimal effect on the coleslaw flavor, but I felt like the chicken wing sauce needed all three flavors. I rummaged about for a viable substitute and ended up using Sprite from a can left over from my Christmas stocking.

Once the wings were seasoned, baked, tossed in half the sauce, baked again, tossed again in the other half of the sauce, and garnished with green onions, and once the vegetables were peeled/grated/chopped and steeped in vinegar, sugar, and mayonnaise for an appropriate length of time, my dinner was ready!

The Verdict: Once again, there was a ton of food: enough for three meals. The chicken glaze/sauce was good. However, as with all chicken wings, the effort it took to extract the meat wasn't worth it. The potato wedges were better than expected (although I did happen to have some honey butter to put on them). The coleslaw probably was the second-best coleslaw I've had, after that coleslaw that Saladmaster lady (who looking back I can't believe now I even let in my house) made. So the dishes were decent. However...the sauce was sweet. The coleslaw was sweet (because sugar). The sweet potato wedges were, obviously, sweet. So when eaten together, the effect was a bit unappetizing. Why are they selling these three dishes together? I especially can't understand why the coleslaw has the scallion/green onion bottoms in it. Did they just add them to the coleslaw so that they wouldn't waste them when garnishing the chicken? Is the coleslaw on the menu for that exact reason? I hope not—I've never before seen onions in coleslaw, and I hope it's not a thing.

What I'd Do Differently: Use the sauce on non-wing chicken. Skip the green onion garnish, which adds absolutely nothing except visual fanciness. Serve with a potato dish and some cooked carrots and maybe some cornbread. However, it's unlikely that I'd revisit this recipe unless I really had a hankering for barbecue chicken.

I thought I would be strapped for cash and very hungry during this Blue Apron experiment. Weirdly enough, I actually ended up saving money since I barely ate out. (Though that wouldn't have been the case without the discount, which allowed the service to fit within my grocery budget. Without the discount, the price would have exceeded my entire weekly grocery budget. It also helped that all the meals ended up being enough for three servings instead of the advertised two.) I guess that since I was no longer eating the same thing for seven days straight, eating out had less appeal. I was always full of yummy home-cooked food!

On the other hand, cooking so much got a little exhausting. One week I cooked literally every other day. All that cooking also led to a lot of loading and unloading the dishwasher, and I hate loading and unloading the dishwasher. I'm ready for a break!

I won't be continuing this unless I get more discounts. But while it lasted, I loved trying new recipes and eating new things! I had such a good time that when I got a gift card for HelloFresh (it was included with my new sneakers for...some reason...?), I decided I'd like to try that next! Stay tuned for more food subscription box shenanigans and opinionated opinions.

Gut-Spilling Syndrome (the Anti-Blogging Blog Post)

When something really hurts me, I don't like to share it. When something is really important to me, I don't like to talk about it. Such tendencies are difficult when you run a blog.

The source of my blog material is my life. If I don't share, I have no blog. I've had to get used to sharing some of my thoughts and feelings, although some things are always off the table (you'll never hear my actual political views unless you ask). The problem is, though, once you get used to sharing, it's tempting to treat the entire Internet like your diary. I call this Gut-Spilling Syndrome, and it's an issue.

Case in point: relationships. I've seen some blogger peeps spill intimate deets about their interpersonal relationships all over the web. If the other person in the relationship assents, then there's not really anything ethically wrong with that. But. The relationship really isn't just between you and this other person anymore. It's kind of between you, the person, and anyone who reads about it. And make no mistake—these relationship interlopers will give you their opinions whether you want them or not.

Several years ago, I saw one blogger couple share some pretty tender stuff about their marriage. Their blog audience took that as an opportunity to tell the couple about the flaws they perceived in the relationship. I read through the comments: very nosy, very over-reaching to the point of being horrifying. I thought people were trying too hard to armchair diagnose these people they'd never even met. Later, the couple decided to separate, and in their blog, they parroted language similar to the the comments folks had made years earlier.

Were the commenters clairvoyants who highlighted issues the couple refused to acknowledge before? Or did their words get inside the couple's heads, sowing doubt and raising questions about the solidity of their marriage? Either is possible, but no matter what actually happened, the bloggers spilled their guts to strangers and...pardon my language...prostituted their relationship repeatedly to milk content for the blog.

Don't get me wrong: I think there's a place for going authentic and personal in this medium. I just don't think it's appropriate or useful to treat a blog as a sort of diary and commenters as therapists, though. I just don't.

A Farewell to My Adventure Buddy

Anyone who knows me knows that I loooooove my Honda, Bernard. He is a beautiful white 1998 Honda EX. I named him after Bernard from The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under.

After the winter of 2015-2016, Bernard's issues trickled away. However, in 2017, they ramped up again. While my mechanic's service has been...less than satisfactory in recent times, a large part of things was that Bernard is just getting old. He turned 20 in May.

Anyway, during December and January, he was in and out of the shop. Every cold morning that he wouldn't start or didn't drive well was a sore blow to me. I had to get to work. Taking the bus was freezing, added one to two hours to my commute time each day, and required planning so that I could get up suuuper early and leave work a bit early, too. Taking one of my parents' cars was only possible on the days that their spare car would start (said spare car doesn't do well in the cold).

It was frustrating. I was not happy. And one January morning when my parents were kind enough to take Bernard to the mechanic for me, they called me to tell me that he needed $900 worth of repairs to fix his radiator and keep him from overheating.

Now, Bernard's not worth very much these days. We stopped insuring him shortly before this. So hearing that he needed repairs that far exceeded his own value made my radiator break down. In a matter of speaking. I was certainly overheating from irritation and a bit of anger. This was the fifth or sixth time I'd brought Bernard to the mechanic in the space of not very many weeks, and I was tired of pouring money into my beloved but dying car.

In a moment of impulsiveness, I burst out, "Then tell them not to go ahead with the repairs, because I will be buying a new car!"

I will tell you more about the car-buying process later, but for now, I will merely say that I miraculously managed to obtain a new car that same week. It's the quickest turn-around I've ever had on a big life decision.

Once I had a new car, the next natural step was to get rid of Bernard, right? Well...I really didn't want to! I had plans to donate him to a high school shop program (since his resell value wasn't enough to try to find a buyer, although in November I'd bought him new snow tires, which I had removed since they were worth more than the entire car). But the shop teacher was rather busy/flaky—I was pretty busy/flaky besides being reluctant—so it took four months to finally part with my sweet, sweet Bernard. He's only been gone a couple of weeks, and I miss him dearly.

Goodbye, my beautiful Bernard. We had many good times together. I'll never, ever forget you!