Odd Thomas, I was a little sad, so I went looking for a hug. Fred was in the kitchen making jam, so I walked in and demanded “Give me a hug!” He complied – he’s very obedient – and I demanded “Tighter!”, and so he tightened his grip just to the point of pain, and I thought I’d be funny, so I threw one leg around his waist and suspended all my weight from my arms, which were around his neck. He screamed in surprise and tightened his grip, staggering around the kitchen, and I screamed in response, then felt something pull in my back, and I put my leg down, and he let go of me, and we reeled around the kitchen, him grabbing his gimpy shoulder and I holding my pulled back muscle. “We are so fucking old and crippled,” he said, laughing. I had to go lay down and read some more, ’til my back stopped hurting.
Tom squeezes his portly ass into the shelf of the bedside table. (flickr)
The room – at least, part of it. (flickr)
Shooting the rays of het. (flickr)
“Look, lady. If I come help you move the mattress, who’s going to keep the shelf warm? NO ONE, that’s who. My work here is important. Find someone else to help you.” (flickr)
Whither Tom-Tom goest, the Stank will follow. (flickr)
I’ll take pictures of the entire room one of these days, promise! I know I still owe y’all a house tour, don’t worry – I haven’t forgotten.
Did I mention that September 29th marked a year since we bought this house? I can’t believe it’s been an entire year, or that it’s been six months since I moved in.
After we got the guest bedroom set up, I started doing laundry, and then I did something I’ve been putting off for ages – I went around and cleaned all the windows. I know I cleaned the inside of the windows as I cleaned each room, but I didn’t do the outside, so I did that. I also sprayed down the front porch and did some organizing, and then after lunch I cleaned the inside of all the windows, and did more laundry, cleaned the kitchen… and by the time I was done with all of that, it was almost dinnertime, and I still hadn’t taken a shower. So we ate dinner, I took a shower, and then spent the rest of the evening lounging around in my nightgown.
I’d intended to get up Sunday morning and do more Fall cleaning, but after I spend an entire day cleaning I tend to have a hard time getting up and getting it done the next morning, so I kind of lounged in bed reading, kept an eye on Mister Boogers, Douchebag, did more laundry, picked up and organized, and advised Fred in his jam-making endeavors.
Fred, if I haven’t mentioned it in the past, adores hot and spicy foods. He thinks there’s nothing better than eating something hot. Hot and sweet is, to his mind, even better.
(This sounds kind of porny, doesn’t it? “I’ve got something hot and sweet you can eat!” Boom-chicka.)
With this in mind, he decided that he wanted to make fruity habanero jam. Sunday, he made a batch of raspberry habanero jam, and then a batch of strawberry habanero jam. He tasted both, several times, and pronounced them very good.
And then he got annoying.
“Want some of this, Bessie?” he asked. And “Try some of this, Bessie!” Also, “You want some strawberry-habanero jam, you say?” And then “You know you want to try it!”
The thing you goddamn heat-eating-loving people just do not seem to understand – or maybe it’s just FRED who doesn’t understand – is that I do not like to feel PAIN when I eat. When I eat something that is the slightest bit spicy-hot, it BURNS my goddamn mouth, and I DO NOT LIKE THAT and why the motherfucking fuck would I WILLINGLY eat something that causes me pain? WHY? Answer: I WOULD NOT.
I do not like coffee, I don’t like bitter things, they taste fucking nasty to me, but EVERY goddamn time he discovers some tasty new coffee, I get the same “No really, Bessie, taste this! It’s not bitter at all, it’s SMOOTH, it’s so good, taste it!” And like an idiot, I taste it, and I HATE IT, because guess what? IT’S COFFEE. IT’S BITTER. IT’S GODDAMN NASTY. Not many things give me heartburn, but coffee DOES. Hey, I WANT to like coffee, you goddamn coffee drinkers make it sound so good, and the stuff smells awesome, but GODDAMN. I cannot stand the bitter taste of it, and just because YOU have ruined your taste buds and cannot taste the bitter doesn’t mean I cannot detect the nasty bitterness. It’s like alcohol – you can say “Oh, you need to try the so-and-such, you totally can’t taste the alcohol in it!”, but GUESS FUCKING WHAT? I can taste the alcohol in EVERYTHING that has alcohol in it, and I DON’T LIKE IT. Thus, I don’t drink it. How is that so hard to understand?
I do not like dark chocolate. It’s BITTER. We have, I think, established that I don’t LIKE the taste of bitter things. I don’t give a flying leap if dark chocolate is GOOD for you. If I think it’s fucking nasty and it makes me gag, then guess what? IT’S NOT GOOD FOR ME. Don’t give me a hunk of dark chocolate and think I’m being childish if I DON’T LIKE IT.
I like milk chocolate. Not everyone likes milk chocolate, and guess what? If I offer you a hunk of milk chocolate and you don’t like it, GUESS WHAT? I’m not going to try to force you to eat it and I’m not going to consider it a rejection of all that I hold dear. Because I don’t give a flying fuck if you EVER eat the milk chocolate, and in fact – I hope you DON’T eat the milk chocolate, because that’s more for ME. But GUESS WHAT? I have yet to meet a dark chocolate eater who refuses milk chocolate, because MILK CHOCOLATE IS NOT BITTER AND OFFENSIVE.
(But really, you should try the Ghiardelli milk chocolate chips. They’re so SMOOTH tasting!)
So I ate one teeny taste of the goddamn strawberry habanero shit, and it burned my mouth for half an hour afterward, and I got the disbelieving “Oh, it’s NOT that hot, your mouth DOES NOT BURN!” bullshit, and I will tell you what. When Fred is old and decrepit and I am responsible for his care, I am going to grow habaneros, and I will hobble in from the garden with an apron full of the goddamn things, and I will puree them in the blender, and I will brew a pot of habanero tea, and then I will pour it straight into his feeding tube, and as he screams and clutches at his gut, I will bellow at him (because he’ll be hard(er) of hearing (than he already is)) “OH, STOP IT! THAT’S NOT HOT! THAT’S NOT BLISTERING YOUR THROAT AND BURNING A HOLE IN YOUR STOMACH! JUST STOP THAT CATERWAULING, OLD FRED! IT’S SO SMOOOOOOOTH AND TASTY!”
Sugarbutt hides from those skeery chickens. (flickr)
LOVE that bed! Waiting patiently for the house tour. 🙂
I guess I like bitter things cause I love coffee, dark chocolate and wine. 🙂
You are so funny! I’m with you about the hot stuff, though! How can people enjoy eating that shit? All I can think of is how much my mouth burns, and I can’t enjoy the actual taste of the food. And my husband is like you when it comes to coffee (I love it). He loves the smell but won’t drink it to save his life!
I’m waiting for the house tour too.
I agree with you. I don’t like dark choc. or coffee black or the kind that comes flavored from the company, BUT I add Coffee Mate’s French Vanilla creamer and it’s delish!! just try it. My husband always says I like alittle coffee with my creamer. heh.
So the cats are allowed outdoors again?
I hate dark chocolate too. Blech. I love coffee, but only if it’s loaded up with cream and sugar. Then it’s not bitter, but of course contains 100s of calories! 🙂
House tour, house tour! Pretty please.
-Nancy
Hmmm. I think you’re trying to tell us you don’t like hot and spicy foods. Is that the message you’re trying to get across? ^__^
I love, love the dark chocolate, but I’m with you on the coffee and alcohol. I like coffee-flavored ice cream, though, and why? Because it’s full of sugar and other stuff that makes it sweet and not bitter. I’m the same with alcohol. I actually helped my husband finish a Mudslide the other night at a restaurant. It had alcohol in it, but it also had enough ice cream, chocolate and whipped cream to knock down the alcohol flavor. It was practically a dessert. So I could have just ordered a dessert. That’s my motto: If I have to flavor up the alcohol to where it’s nearly a dessert, I’d rather just order a dessert. Same with coffee: If I have to flavor it up with so much sugar, creamer and chocolate to make it palatable, I’d rather just order a hot chocolate and be done with it.
My husband does that “Here taste this” bullshit any time a new variety of Diet Coke comes out. “HERE TASTE THIS CHERRY DIET COKE WITH SPLENDA IT TOTALLY TASTES JUST LIKE REGULAR COKE!!!1111!!” And I say no for the one hundred millionth trillionth time. We’ve been married eight years and I have never once taken even one sip of a diet soda because it tastes like poison mixed with dead rat, he still persists! WHY GOD WHY?!? Also, cilantro. “You can’t even taste it in this salsa! I swear!” I HATE HIM.
Odd Thomas is one of my favorite books!! What did you think of it?
I thought about you all day yesterday. We took the boys to the circus and there was a mentally challenged man sitting in front of us and every time a female circus performer came out he shouted, “HUBBA HUBBA!” So of course this happened approximately 589 times. Actually, the non-mentally challenged men in the crowd didn’t behave that much better either!
Oh, and coffee gives me a headache but I love espresso.
I was in your corner until you started talking smack about dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is what mother’s milk WISHES it was made of.
Also, Jane, you and I are of like minds concerning diet soda and cilantro. In fact, I can’t prove it, because I’m afeared to die, but I’m pretty sure the two of them together could make your face melt off.
You sound a little BITTER about the coffee and chocolate and jams. 🙂
Stand firm! You grew up just so you wouldn’t have to go through the “try just one bite” of the nasty stuff, didn’t you? My parents pulled that crap with LIVER: “just one bite, you won’t have to eat any more…” sure, until the NEXT meal of liver. What they didn’t realize/care about is that one bite ruined the entire meal for me. Even brushing and flossing couldn’t get rid of that metallic flavor!
Life’s too short to eat the icky stuff.
Robyn,
Tell us how you REALLY feel next time, will you! Ha ha! I hate all things bitter, except dark chocolate. I love anything chocolate. I used to hate dark chocolate, but somehow that changed – it’s my favorite. Just don’t tell my mom. It’s her favorite and when I was a kid, I whined when she bought or made anything with dark chocolate. Our chocolate chip cookies were always made with semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate. I know – I was robbed a great childhood because I wasn’t given milk chocolate chip cookies. ;-()
Poor Fred – just wait until that strawberry habanero tea makes its exit … YOW!
I am a dark chocolate eater who refuses milk chocolate (I’ll eat things made *with* milk chocolate, like a cookie or something, but I won’t eat the stuff plain–oh. Except around a Cadbury creme egg. One per year. But even then I mostly eat the filling and throw away the chocolate).
But it’s definitely a Fred thing, not an all “hot/chocolate/coffee” people thing, because if people don’t like stuff, there’s no reason for me to try to change their mind.* (I have said, “It’s not hot!” but only for food that *really isn’t hot*, as in , “I made this and I didn’t add anything with heat to it! Stop whining because you see a red bell pepper in it! Red does not equal heat!” But enough about my ex.)
*This rule does not apply to small children and vegetables. But grownups? And junk food? Why make them eat it?
Leslie, habaneros are awesome because they don’t burn on the way out like jalapenos do. 🙂 Plus, they’re about 50 (literally) times hotter on the way in.
Hmm, sounds like you are a Supertaster maybe?
I love the color you used for the guest room.
At least you know why Fred lurves you, you hot and bitter woman. (Heh, heh.)
BTW, the taste this might be a dude thing. My husband does it all the time. There is this Gouda cheese he wants me to try, and he always pushes it on my when I have already eaten. “But, it’s Gouda” he says. I have yet to try it.
I think it’s a good thing that our taste buds develop differently. What is manna from heaven for one person can be absolutely intolerable for another, and many variations are then created.
My son loves super sour candies and milk chocolate. I can’t stand the very sour or the super sweet. Give me a Dove dark chocolate and my eyes roll to the back of my head with pleasure. Viva la difference!
My bedroom is configured oddly, too, with windows and closets and all kinds of things breaking up the wall space. I like your solution of putting the bed on an angle. Boom-chicka! Heh.
You had me until you mentioned your hate of coffee. That’s just f-ed up, Robyn.
I love the bed and I love the color of the walls in the guest room- I can’t wait for a tour. xo
Odd Thomas is one of the best books ever. I hope you have the next two in the series. I think the Odd Thomas series is the best thing he has aver written!
I just finished reading the Odd Thomas series. Forever Odd and Brother Odd aren’t nearly as depressing btw.
Oh, and I found this website (which you’ve probably already seen) and thought of you. http://www.icanhascheezburger.com.
I’m with you on the coffee. Nasty stuff except when made into a cinnamon dolce frappacino.
But what about a LATTE!! It may contain espresso, which is yuck to me on its own, but mix it with hot foamed milk and some flavored syrup (mmm vanilla) and there you go. Okay, so it’s 5 bucks or whatever. Also, Seattle’s Best light or medium roast – NOT BITTER! I SWEAR!!
I am in full agreement with you on the hot foods, coffee, and super-dark chocolate (I like semi-sweet but not the “gourmet” darks). My mother loads hot sauce onto raw peppers and complains that they’re too bland. Yeah, it’s because you melted all your taste buds, you freak you.
BTW do vegetables taste bitter and acidic to you? They all do to me, except corn, green beans, green peas, potato, and oddly enough, lima beans – which apparently everyone in the world but me loathes. I could LIVE on lima beans. Yummmm.
Also, when I move into my (ahem, small squee) new house, if I sent you pictures will you and Fred pick out paint colors for me? All your rooms look so beautiful and I’m the one who – when the job was thrust upon me against my will – decorated my boss’s ENTIRE dental office in approximately this color scheme. It looked good on the paint chips, I swear. He almost fired me, but I had the excuse that he HAD also hired a color consultant and she advised me and I had BEGGED him not to give me the responsibility anyway. (I wanted blue but he said no.) This was the carpet, approximately, and this the baseboards. Horrendous. So now it’s white or nothing for me, but I think I’d trust your and Fred’s suggestions.
I love the color of the walls in that room. What a beautiful shade of blue!
If you are serious about *wanting* to like coffee, go get one of these. The first time I made a cup of coffee with it, I was all, “Buh? Coffee?” because there is no bitter. It’s gone! Eric and I decided it would be an excellent dessert coffee, but he can’t drink it anymore because he finds it too odd. Mild doesn’t begin to describe it, and he finds that unsettling in a weird way.
Dark chocolate is good for me because it only takes one tiny piece and then I’m completely satisfied. With milk chocolate, I need to eat much, much more. 😉
Thank you sooooo much for the laugh in your opening today. I really really have had a stressful and sad past few days and the lol helped so much. You guys are hilarious!!!
I hate the smell of coffee brewing, but, have to drink a pot or two every morning for the caffine. I love dark choclates but HATE chocolate ice cream. (I brew my coffee outside the kitchen door when I can–but ALWAYS take the grounds outside immediately if I have to make it indoors.) Chiles dipped in melted dark chocolate is supposed to be a real treat. I don’t buy it. Love the guest room.
Sammi
I love the Thomas Collection also. You will have to read the others also!
Hot stuff, coffee and dark chocolate.. I feel the same way and Bill is exactly like Fred. Men! Keep your nasty coffee to yourself. I don’t want it. Blech. I always say that I have Wussy taste buds. I cannot stand the least bit spicy in my food.
I’ll chime in as the opposite of Sammi – I love the smell of coffee, but hate the taste. ugh.
Wanted to also tell you about a memoir I finished recently. Thought it might be something you may want to check out. It’s called Still Life With Chickens, and it’s about a woman who gets divorced, renovates a house and raises a half dozen chickens, while of course simultaneously learning about life and motherhood. Not a bad read and lots of interesting chicken facts.
Oh my god, I am still laughing at that last paragraph. You are one funny woman, Robyn!
There are those of us who love dark chocolate, the darker the better, but loathe milk chocolate
with a passion. And somehow, every time one of those gift assortments comes around, the milk
chocolate pieces always outnumber the darks! It’s a plot, I tell you, a deep conspiracy to
get us to eat that nasty, slippery, slimy, waxy milk chocolate. (But I don’t, I give it to
other people.)
Robyn, if you are tricked into sampling another habanero, the best thing to take it out of your
mouth and stop the burn is something starchy, like a tortilla or a piece of bread. A glass of
milk will help, too.
I love moderately spicy foods, but habaneros are way too ferocious for the likes of me. And —
how can anyone dislike the clean, green, cool taste of cilantro? It’s a mystery.
The next time you volunteer to take a taste test of Fred’s hot stuff and it burns the hell outta your mouth, eat a teaspoon of sugar. The sugar will take the burnning sensation right away.
What’s funny is how the comments are “I love that lovely color on the wall” like they just skimmed right over the scarily hilarious part at the end. Fred should be very, very afraid…..:)
You guys are laugh fucking riot. Thank you!
I am in total agreement on the dark chocolate vs. milk chocolate. I don’t even like using semi sweet chips in cookies, I use milk chocolate.
I just finished the Odd Thomas series and I loved it! 🙂
The guestbed is about the coolest bed I have ever seen! Love it!
Robin! In regard to hot spicy foods and coffee; truer words have never been spoken! I absolutely hate hot peppers and coffee. My husband loves both and my mother loves coffee. They both keep trying to get me to drink coffee, I’m 42 years old, I think my tastes are pretty much solidified! Curiously however, I do like horseradish sauce, I like the taste and it only burns briefly and washes away when you drink. I am not averse to alcoholic beverages either; I like some wine or a beer now and then. But coffee? Gah!!
Oh I was laughing my butt of with that last paragraph!! Classic!
I’m the same way about wine. The way people go on about it and it is such an industry and practically it’s own lifestyle, I want to like it but it is so nasty! Oh and beer is especially nasty. I can drink coffee but I almost have to crave it in order to voluntarily drink it. My husband is right there with fred in the ‘oh that wasn’t hot, what are you talking about?’ thing. Good idea with the feeding tube in 50 years!