Hit by a Pitch

You guys, tonight has been totally awesome. I kind of hate writing about my kid even though I want to write about my kid, because every time somebody writes about her kid, it ends up sounding like the same tired bullshit every other person has said about her kid since the dawn of the internet and people always act like this shit is profound even though it isn’t.

Earlier today, we went to the park with the hilarious dog.

We were eating dinner outside (homemade black bean burgers — I was ready to post the recipe I wrote as I prepared them until they stuck like hell to the grill and ended up being kind of a mess, even though they were absolutely delicious — the main secret is cumin). Ben was off doing something and I was getting to that silly state, where I start laughing at shit that isn’t even that funny but kind of is but once you start laughing at it you just can’t stop, like that one time in junior high (which I guess now is “middle school”) when this Jason kid figured out that I can’t stop laughing once I start and was saying “House!” to me over and over and over because the word “house” isn’t actually funny but then it is and you’re a heaping mess of laughing until you cry and it’s the greatest thing ever. So Soren was making noises that sound like: (1) he’s auditioning to be the harmonica player in a death-metal band; or (2) he’s trying out for the part of Satan in A Christmas Carol, all “BRRRRAAAAAAAGUGUGUGGOIGGNIOGNIGONGOINGOIGNGOINGNIAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!” and eventually I’m all “Ha. Haha. HahahaLOL. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA *snort* *sob* AAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAH!” and then I’m grabbing my soggy old napkin that I used to wipe chipotle ranch off the patio table to dab the corners of my eyes because shit if I’m not crying from laughing so hard. So then, right in the middle of this, Soren looks me square in the eye and I swear — you guys, I’m not even lying and I’m totally not one of those “OMG my kid is so special and so advanced and so awesome and so much better than all the children who came before who were just, like, amateur children and totally unsuccessful at being awesome” people — but he looked me right in the eye and just made this little face that said, “Dude, I totally understand why you’re laughing right now and it’s because I’m absolutely hilarious and I made you laugh.” And that totally blew my fucking mind. Then he sat there for like 10 minutes and blew raspberries and screamed and shoved chunks of Day of the Dead bread into his mouth (that shit is really good) and was generally awesome.

I guess this is kind of a my-baby’s-growing-up post. He’s starting to understand that he can get reactions from people — that he can do something that causes another person to react in a certain way. If I’m really honest, I’d say that I used to think babies were really boring. But holy shit, they’re not. Watching the very beginnings of a person understanding how to interact with other people is just about the coolest thing, ever.

Ben is giving Soren a bath right now. He just said, “Dude. You’re a wheelbarrow.” I don’t even know what that means, but it made me LOL.

When I was in college, I ate a lot of shit. Who didn’t, right? One of my favorite things was bacon cheeseburger pizza. I haven’t seen this anywhere since then and obviously we snooty vegetarians have no use for regular bacon cheeseburger pizza. We do, however, make a serviceable vegetarian version.

Vegetarian “Bacon” “Cheeseburger” pizza

Ingredients

• Pizza crust of your choice (The type of crust is not important for this pizza; it serves only as a delivery system for the toppings. Ben usually makes his own and doesn’t use a recipe. Use whatever you like, even a Boboli. It’s all good. Our pizzas vary in size from 12 inches to 16 inches, and we use approximately the same amount of toppings, except the cheese.)
• Pizza sauce of your choice (I’ll post a recipe for this sometime, but, like the crust, the sauce isn’t super important for this pizza. The one thing to know is that it’s better to use crushed tomatoes than tomato sauce, which I stupidly used to do all the time before I knew better. Don’t go overboard on the sauce with this pizza.)
• Note: You can use the crust and sauce from this recipe.
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 Morningstar Farms Grillers Prime (microwaved for approximately 1:11 — just to thaw), chopped
• 4-5 Morningstar Farms bacon strips (microwaved for approximately 2:22 — this makes them nice and crispy), broken into chunks
• Grated parmesan cheese (the cheap stuff in the canister is good here)
• 1 to 2+ cups grated cheese (1 cup is okay for a 12-incher, use more for a bigger pizza) as follows: 1/2 mozzarella or “pizza cheese” mixture and 1/2 cheddar
• Dill pickles (we currently have Claussen dill halves), sliced or chopped (this is the best part)

Directions

Make your dough if you’re doing that and do a 5-minute parbake at 450. (I guess this is a thing? You just put the dough on your pizza pan and bake it for 5 minutes before putting anything on it. As you can see, I don’t make the pizza crust in this family.) If you’re using prepared dough or a Boboli, just put it on a pizza pan. Add as much sauce as you like (less is better than more here). Distribute the onion, burgers, bacon, grated parmesan, mozzarella, and cheddar evenly over the pizza. Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes or until the pizza is as done as you like (or follow the directions for packaged dough or Boboli). After removing the pizza from the oven, distribute the pickles over the top.

Sorry for the lame recipe (Make your own crust! Use whatever sauce!), but the toppings are the focus of this pizza and it’s kind of poor college student food, so it’s not worth getting all fancy.

Here’s what it looks like (and as always, sorry about the terrible photo; the lighting in our kitchen is not good and using a flash makes everything look weird — I need to find our little tripod):

On Saturday night, I had some beer and wanted to listen to the kind of shit I was digging in 2002, when we still lived in Chicago. I still listen to some of it (Involved by Raphael Saadiq, Cher Chez La Ghost by Ghostface Killa, Contagious by the Isley Brothers, and in all seriousness Lights Camera Action by Mr. Cheeks are some of my favorite songs of all time) and there are a few songs I haven’t even thought about in years (Tweet, oh my).

Here’s the playlist I made:

Old School Chicago (pdf songlist)

Listen here on Grooveshark

One song isn’t available on Grooveshark (or anywhere else on the internet, as far as I know, except for a newer version that isn’t as good). You can get it here: Give it 2 Me.

There was an awesome remix of Lick Shots they used to play on WGCI and/or Power 92 back in 2002 or so — it was housey and fast. If you know what I’m talking about and where I can find it, let me know.

Song: Givin’ in to Love by Buckner Funken Jazz (It’s local!)

Although I hate the word “impact” (It’s one of the most over-used words in the English language; I believe it should be reserved for discussion of car accidents or blows to the head.), I’m going to try to participate in Low-Impact Week.

This picture has nothing to do with Low-Impact Week.

Here’s the plan:

Day 1 (Aug. 16): Eat no meat.

Day 2 (Aug. 17): Eat one locally grown meal per day.

Day 3 (Aug. 18): Use no paper (toilet paper excepted).

Day 4 (Aug. 19): Produce no non-recyclable trash.

Day 5 (Aug. 20): Do not drive/ride in a fossil-fuel burning automobile with fewer than three people in it.

These are cumulative — meaning, “no meat” starts on day 1 and continues through day 5.

Not eating meat will be easy because I never eat meat. The other things will be difficult, but I’m going to try.

For example, I’m not sure where to even get locally grown food other than a farmers market (maybe a pricey restaurant that probably serves a lot of meat), and we didn’t go to the farmers market yesterday (we sometimes go to the City Park Esplanade Fresh Market). There’s one in Aurora tomorrow, but I’m guessing that driving all the way to Aurora to buy locally grown food would negate the benefit of eating locally grown food. There’s the  Cherry Creek Farmers Market on Wednesday, but I’ll be at work. Do places like Sunflower carry a good selection of local foods? Maybe Soren and I will check it out.

[ETA: Duh! If I don't get locally grown food in time for a meal tomorrow, we can have beer for dinner!]

The good thing is that even if I fail at, say, eating a locally grown meal tomorrow, at least this has me thinking about where we get our food.

I know Low-Impact Week doesn’t demand perfection, but I’m bummed that I’m definitely going to fail the thee-people-per-car thing. That comes up on Friday, when I’ll have to drive Soren to school and then go to work. I don’t know anybody who’d need to hitch a ride with us from our house to school or from school to work. Also, there apparently is no safe way to take an infant under one year old on a bike (we wanted to get a bike trailer this summer, but everything I read on the internet says the kid should be at least a year old to ride in a trailer and this makes sense to me — I tend to be pretty conservative in terms of child safety).

The good news is that we’re not big drivers, anyway. This is incredibly dorky, but I just calculated how far I drive on the days I drive the most — when I go to daycare, work, and the gym. On these days, I drive approximately seven miles. That’s not too bad!

I’ll let you know how it goes!