It’s All About the Hotdish

February 8, 2010 kristina Leave a comment

I spent nine years in Minnesota and two words have permanently been altered in my vocabulary:  hotdish and bars.  If you are not a mid-westerner, you may not fully appreciate the nuances of the Minnesotan “hotdish and bars” kind of dietary restrictions, so let me explain.

Tater Tot HotdishHotdish describes any casserole-type concoction you can bind together with a can of condensed soup, cream of mushroom being the favorite.  And bars would be cookies.  Not bar cookies per se, cookies.  These are the classic hallmarks of life in Minnesota.  Oh sure, there’s the lefsa and lukefisk, but most transplants from the lovely land of ten thousand lakes are going to forego the “fish packed in lye” for other yummy items.

So if a group of transplanted Minnesotans were to get together for a Super Bowl party that didn’t include the Minnesota Vikings, they just might be inspired to celebrate the Super Bowl and what might have been with a festive Tater Tot Hotdish and yummy Toffee Bars.  Throw in some pickled herring and jello salad, and you’ve got some happy folks regardless of the lack of purple showing at the Sun Life Stadium.

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Missing Wings and Sleepless Nights

February 4, 2010 kristina 2 comments

My oldest child is sick, which means high fevers and vomiting.  That is how his little body deals with all things viral and bacterial – fever and vomit.  So life with him is nothing short of interesting and often sleep-deprived.

A flying dragon

Take for instance, his adamance last night that his wings were on the floor.  High fevers bring apparently amazing dreams to his feverish little mind and last night he dreamt that someone had cut his dragon wings from his body.

I love thinking about this image: my sick son, searching for his powerful dragon wings which someone had taken from him.  I think I need to find ibuprofen with added dragon wings so he can get well.  Then he and I will finally get some decent sleep.

Doppelgangers and Dictionaries

February 3, 2010 kristina Leave a comment

A wonderful part of life in the technological age as we know it is the firestorm of trends that sweep social-networking sites.  In case you have been busy catching up on previous episodes of Lost, let me clue you in.  (But not on the television show, since I’ve never watched it.  I know, gasp.)  Facebook has been experiencing a wave of doppelganger-ing as well as UrbanDictionary-ing.  Me?  I typically skip such things.  Namely because there is usually a minor military skirmish either breaking out or coming to a truce in my living room whilst I’m on the computer.  But also, I don’t even look like my parents – what famous person would I pick?  (Feel free to supply me with that answer; after all, I stopped watching tv in 1995 which explains my Lost-virgin status.)

But I do have this to say about searching your name in the Urban Dictionary.  Whew, people sure can be creative at times.  That and a bit scary.  Try it – you’ll find out all kinds of odd things about yourself you just never wanted to know.

Sometimes I Just Shake My Head

February 1, 2010 kristina Leave a comment

I’m a big believer in free speech and our abilities as consenting adults to entertain ourselves however we see fit within the confines of our own homes.  Without such rights, think about all the bad sit-coms that would have been cancelled right after the pilot.  So it’s a good thing.  I am a citizen of a nation where (at least in my elementary school in the 1970s) children are told they can become anything they want and achieve anything they can dream of…if they are willing to work hard for it.

So here’s to the men and women who have used their brain-power for the betterment of humanity.  And in the case of Douglas Hines, the sex-bot he’s manufactured that can be yours for only 7 big ones.  Congrats!

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Pringle Haters, or That’s How The Story Really Goes

January 29, 2010 kristina 1 comment

I was introducing my tired mind to the day’s happenings (via MSNBC) and came across this lovely little ditty, “All The Pringle Haters” ( http://tinyurl.com/ybh5bjy ) and had to just giggle.  A lot.  Which made the cat look at me in that way again, like when I snort coffee out of my nose and such things.  She’s such a judger.  But whatever.

Because the essence of the article is how we often get song lyrics wrong.  Talk about timely, since I just blogged on the whole song lyric thingy going down in my life (Mama What’s This One About? ).  (BTW, would somebody remind me that the ping-back to my blog was just self-generated.  The last time this happened, I was on cloud 9 for about a week before I realized it was just me.  Reality bites sometimes.)

Anyhoo, I never have a freakin’ clue what song lyrics really are – probably because I usually only hear the radio in my mom-van which means there’s non-stop chatter going on in the background.  But if the truth be told, sometimes, I really think my version of reality is better.  On most subjects actually.

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