When I Rock the Mic

I ROCK THE MIC RIGHT!!!!

1. thank you to robbie williams for inspiring me to get down with my bad self.
2. thank you to utah county for inspiring this totally "ama-zing" outfit.

DIY

Big Eater

son look at all the people in this restaurant,
what do you think they weigh?
and out to the window to the parking lot
at their SUV's taking all the space...
~Ben Folds

am i the only one out there who's noticed that like 80% of cheesecake factory patrons are two bites and a gulp away from a massive heart attack? these people are HUGE and i'm not talking like they've got cushion for the pushin'. i'm talking the kind of people who need to use the motorized scooters over at walmart because they can't WALK. they say obesity in america is an epidemic. a meal at cheesecake factory should clue us all in to the reason.


THE PORTIONS ARE HUGE.

now before you all go and accuse me of being one of those chicks who eats like a bird, lemme just say that i am a champion eater. i sometimes wish i was one of those girls who looked at a big plate of steaming pasta and said, "this is way to much! i could never possibly eat all of this."

these girls seem dainty and feminine--but i'm more the type to offer people help with their leftovers. this is why on a recent trip to CF i was able to work my way through the bread basket and this:and this:and still have room for this:

the thing is that just because you can, doesn't mean you should. i can eat a lot--but it isn't really good for me. not only because sooner or later my metabolism is going to crash and burn, but because eating a lot of food in one sitting doesn't seem to agree with my digestive system, a fact i had the pleasure of considering in depth while confined to the washroom the day after my visit to CF.

the thing is, i have this (kinda trashy) mentality where i think a place is good if they serve A LOT of food. i went to a restaurant in calgary recently where three ounces of steak took you to the tune of thirty bones. i was royally ticked off because i thought they were cheating me (never mind that it was of finest quality, practically melted in my mouth, and my dad was paying). when my mother reminded me that the canadian food guide suggests that adults only consume three ounces meat (or protein) at any given meal, i shut up and ate my meat (and pigged on the family style sides).

(that is not enough! who the heck seriously get's full on a deck of cards?)

but i am still kind of mad about it, because for some reason i get annoyed when a restaurant imposes portion control on me. on the other hand i get grossed out by places like CF which are pretty much shrines to gluttony. so what's a big eater whose worried about her weight to do? if i don't want to end up on one of those motorized scooters, i'd better get on the portion control bandwagon pronto....but i still wanna get my money's worth!!!

so here is the question, do you prefer going to a restaurant like cheesecake factory where you have to be the portion control police, or do you like it when a restaurant does it for you? when you dine at a shrine of gluttony what strategies do you use to control you food intake?

give me the straight. the skinny. the skinny straight.

mucho gracias.

And BINGO was her Name-O

we are major scrabble nerds. we play enough to know all the two letter words. we keep track of our scores on a spread sheet. we read blogs about scrabble strategy. we know which words are not in the real dictionary but are in the scrabble dictionary.

like i said--MAJOR/LAME/FANATICAL SCRABBLE NERDS.

last night we had an epic scrabble war. check it out:
we each had three bingos. we each made a two letter word worth over sixty points. we were neck and neck through the whole game. i really wanted to win. towards the end my heart was thumping, i kept having to use the washroom, and i was sweating behind my knees*. physiological responses to a tight game are not abnormal for a serious scrabbler like myself. it's a stressful game.

we each only had two letters left and i blew michael out of the water with some really lame word like tai. the great thing about scrabble is that once you use all of your letters, it is game over. so between "tai" and adding michael's left over letters to my score and subtracting them from his, i was able to just break ahead. 526 to 532 (gold star for me).

and i am just writing this for two reasons. one, to brag. and two, so that on days when i am having the an major nervous breakdown about my life and feel like i have no useful skills, i can read** this and remember that i have "serious talent." i could go pro (pro-vided i only play against people with no more than an elementary school education).

in honour of my three seven letter words (and win), for the rest of the week i would like to be called MERCEDES "BINGO" WHITE.

*sweating behind the knees is my new nasty physical problem. although it is better than acne, it is still pretty gross. is this too much information?!? am i the only one afflicted with this condition?!? do you think putting antiperspirant there will quell waterworks i have going on back there? did you know the human brain weighs three pounds?!?

**and let's not talk today about the fact that i just admitted to being a total narcissist because i sometimes kinda re-read my own blog. in fact i am pretty sure that the only person that reads this is my mom (HI!) and that most of my profile views come from me looking at myself!

(i probably shouldn't blog at 2:30 in the morning. i'm kinda loopy)

michael aaron carey:

we've been married a year. ok. a year and a couple months. and i just wanted to tell you that

i still like you. auspicious beginning, wouldn't you say?
here we are at the slc arts festival on our anniversary. we bought some art, ate some fries, and played tetris while other more cultured festival go-ers listened to jazz music. (i swear people don't really like jazz---they just pretend to like it)

another day, another degenerate dessert.

today's special: marshmallow peanut butter slice

they weren't quite like the one's i remember from second cup.

i probably put in too much peanut butter. and i am pretty sure there weren't enough marshmallows. and i probably put the mallows in before the peanut butter mixture was sufficiently cool.....because after mixing everything together they sort of looked (and tasted like) marshmallow fluff (not we are complaining or that it stopped us from devouring the entire pan).

heaven help me (fit into my jeans).

degenerate dessert night?

according to mireille guiliano, author of "french women don't get fat: the secret to eating for pleasure" all one has to do to maintain a girlish figure is eat small portions of food prepared only with the highest quality ingredients.

according to mercedes white, author of "the degernerate food diet: how to get and stay fat in middle america," (forthcoming) all one has to do to look like a beached whale is eat large quantities of high fructose corn syrup.

i try to eat good foods, of high quality and to control my portions. but lately, things haven't been going so well. at the grocery store i stock up on cheetos. when we go out for dinner i eschew the grilled chicken and roasted vegetables in favour of things smothered with cream and cheese. i had ice cream for breakfast more than three times this week.

on monday when i went to put my shorts on--they felt tight and instead of admitting that i perhaps had gained some kgs, i do what any normal PMSing woman would do, I blame Michael for shrinking my shorts in the dryer. (he didn't--but i'll resort to just about anything to avoid taking the blame for being a little on the plump side of "at this weight i have to lay down to zip up my jeans.")

right there i resolved to eat better: oatmeal for breakfast, squrrily bread for lunch. but then around 4 pm i found myself elbow deep in a carton of ice cream. opps.

so today i decided to try a little reverse psychology and make trashiest, sweetest, high calorie dessert i could think of. because everyone knows overdosing on crap is the best way to get a taste for it out of your system (right???) so i decided on HELLO DOLLIES (also called magic squares).

if you've never tried them here is a little amuse bouche: coconut, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips nuts and sweet condensed milk cover a thick graham cracker crust.

and i pretty much ate the whole pan. and they were horrible in the best kind of way. and now i am obsessed with making degenerate desserts (marshmallow peanut butter slice is next on my list). if fact i think i need to have a white trash/ degenerate dessert night. who is in? (i am serious here).