Tomato Bisque Recipe

I became a bit addicted to tomato bisque over the winter.  I bought a quart once a week from the soup market by my house.  For a quart of soup with bread, I spent $14.  ”This is outrageous!”  I thought.  ”I know I can make a soup that’s delicious and cheaper than this!!

After several attempts, this is what I wound up with.  It’s crazy cheap to make and very simple too.  I make a big batch but it is easy to cut this recipe in half.

Chop up a small/medium onion, 2 celery stalks, and 2 large carrots

Put a dash of olive oil in a frying pan and cook up the veggies (just a few minutes)

The Tale of the Tip Jar Thief

           I spent my college years working at a local sandwich shop.  It was our store policy to give free sandwiches to any on duty police officers who came in.  Being fairly fresh out of high school, I was still of the mindset that cops were out to get all the wrong people, profiling shaggy-haired stoner-looking kids.  I held my dreadlocked-head high and didn’t smile a bit as I handed them their free subs.

            I complained to my managers after store hours.  If we were giving sandwiches out to cops, why not also give them to fire-fighters, or teachers, or doctors?  I was told that the cops were out protecting us.  Secretly I suspected we gave sandwiches out so that the cops looked the other way when our delivery drivers sped past. 

When to Play Dumb

Lately I’ve been amusing myself by playing dumb with strangers.  It first occurred in the elevator in my apartment building.  There was one man in alone in the elevator when I got in, and the air was thick with the distinct scent of marijuana.

I waited a few seconds before I spoke, then I looked at him and said, “Isn’t it weird how sometimes this elevator really smells like weed and sometimes it doesn’t?”

He looked at me, startled.  Possibly he was debating if I was really that stupid, or possibly I sent him into a fit of paranoia.  I smiled sweetly as we reached the first floor, and then I walked out.

Of Underwear and Ripped Jeans

Kevin’s not a big fan of wearing underwear.  I realized this early on in our relationship, but having spent many years bra-less, I felt that passing judgment would be hypocritical.

However, when he moved to Korea to be with me, ending our long-distance-relationship era, his lack of underwear became a problem.  For one thing, being the minimalist that he is, he’d only brought two pairs of jeans that were full of holes and rips, and one pair of underwear.  Also, he was planning to find work teaching, and though some jobs were casual, none were casual enough for ripped jeans over an otherwise naked body.  And finally, Kevin, though lean, is also tall.  The Korean pants ran too tight and short for his frame, so he had nothing to purchase to make himself look decent.

50 Reasons I’m Grateful to be Car-less

Like most Americans, I began driving when I was 16.  I bought my mom’s car when she got a new one, and I found myself with a 1996 Plymouth Acclaim.  I drove to high school and back, to parties and to work.  I sped and got tickets, and I bumped against enough curbs to lose all of my hubcaps.  When I was 18, I sold my car.  And unlike most Americans, I didn’t get a new one.

In two weeks I’ll turn 28, marking my ten-year anniversary of being car-less.  I’ll admit, when I’m cyclying to work in the blistering heat or pouring rain, when I’m walking home from the grocery store with my hiking bag full of food weighing down on my shoulders, and when I want to visit my friends who don’t live in the city, I glance at the passing traffic wistfully.

So why don’t I drive?  Because I’m a travel junkie.  

Clowning Around

A sudden evening breeze rushed at Jason’s neck and he zipped his jacket all the way up.  Angry, he sighed behind his clown mask.  The neighborhood kids were out trick or treating.  Last year he’d been walking door to door too, stocking up on candy.  Now he was in high school, and if his best friend Dennis hadn’t gotten grounded, they’d be spending this night scaring the neighborhood kids.

Tampon Flinging Friday

I was biking to the grocery store on a Friday evening and I was feeling old.  It was the second weekend in a row that I’d been scheduled to bartend the morning shifts at work.  So it was also the second Friday night in a row that I was staying in.  Last Friday I had watched a movie and then spent two hours scrubbing the floors in my apartment.  This Friday I was making chili.  And though I told myself I was staying in on a Friday because of my early Saturday shift, I also knew that several years ago nothing would have held me down on a free weekend night, and that’s why I was feeling old.