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Archive | caterpillars in my vegetables

On smelling like peppers

Earlier today I took a shower because I’m a go-getter and as soon as the water hit my skin, which is nubile and supple, by the way, everything began smelling intensely of bell peppers and my fear —that I’ve been walking around smelling like a pepper—was confirmed. “This is as I feared!” I yelled into the drain, as the heady and intoxicating elixir slid off my skin like so many burritos.

As I sit here typing this, smelling not of peppers but of the vacuum left behind when one’s peppery perfume is robbed of them by a cold blast of ruthless water, I feel naked. I also feel like I have a headache. I do in fact have a headache, probably because I have my hair in rollers atop my head and the weight of the rollers is putting strain on my already overburdened brain.

But rollers aren’t very heavy, you are likely thinking.

But see, I’m not using rollers, I’m using turnips.

Bet you thought I was going to say I was using peppers? You don’t know me at all!

So how am I cooking these stinky fruits? And they are fruits technically according to wikipedia. If you’re imagining that I’m preparing some kind of fancy thing with rice and beef and tomatoes and egg and bread crumbs and sesame seeds and basil and brown sugar and marjoram and margarine and sunflower seeds and figs and dates and oysters and tomato juice and stewed prunes and avocados and abogados (Spanish lawyers) and albodingas (Spanish soup) and elbows (elbows) and elbow macaroni and Terrytown, Pennsylvania (it just seemed to fit there) and Dracula (because Terrytown made me think of Transylvania) and lightbulbs (because Transylvania made me think of Sylvania) and the New York dolls (because Sylvania made me think of Sylvain Sylvain) and Patty Hearst (I’m no longer going to say what’s making me think of what and you see if you can figure it out) and NewsCorp and uh oh, nothing else is coming to me.

Anyway, you’re wrong so just hold it right there, Charley.

In fact, I just cut up the peppers and get rid of the seeds (I like to plant them in a trash can) and then microwave them. If what you’re looking for is soft, mushy peppers that will stay on your skin for weeks, that’s what you’ll get. Then I eat them with ketchup, have sex with a blood relative and call it a night.

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Damn weed smokers

Someone reached my blog by searching “caterpillars coughing cartoon pics.”

It’s funny because I’ve written about all those things, just not together.

Also I have puffy eyes from crying. Puffy sad crying pillow eyes. It’s very sexy, as you can well imagine. Also sexy: death, grief and mourning. Right?

I’m sorry, I’m making you uncomfortable. Shall we talk about puppies and ducklings?

I think this is in order:




There, I feel a little better.

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Broccoli Spears

At the grocery store earlier, which was a certain kind of hell, I once again cracked up when I saw a box of broccoli spears in the frozen aisle. Have I already written about this? See, I see the broccoli spears and then I imagine a spoof of Britney Spears where a character says her name is Broccoli Spears and then I laugh. It gets me every time. Also, it’s why I’m single.

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An important warning about shoestring eggplant

Sour; deadly

Should you be considering enjoying shoestring eggplant in vinegar marinade which you probably wouldn’t consider eating anyway—I have a thing for weird foods in jars which few of my fellow humans share—but anyway should you be making this bold lifestyle choice I beseech you to make sure you do not have any cuts or broken skin in your mouth because the eggplant will get in there, get into your bloodstream and then turn you into an eggplant. It’s how eggplant works! One minute you’re trying to introduce Mediterranean cuisine into your diet, the next minute you’re an eggplant. Some of my best friends are now purple.

Wait, come back, that’s not what I meant to say.

See, I bit my lip a couple nights ago so I have one of those things inside my lower lip where it feels like the skin is puffed up to the size of a marble but then I look into the mirror and really it’s much smaller. So I stupidly decided to try this shoestring eggplant because hell, why not? I wasn’t even put off by the strange lack of color, as if Bunicula had gotten to it (anyone?). It looked like bits of pre-chewed albino vegetables, so I decided to dig in. Anyway, the vinegar marinade went straight into my cut and hitched a ride through my face and then shot straight into my brain. “Oh my God!” I yelled at no one, pawing at my lip. “Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God” I said, jumping around. I’m surprised I didn’t start drooling. Maybe I did but I didn’t notice because there was an eggplant-borne vinegar hole in my brain? It’s possible.

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rat gas

There is a disgusting smell in my parents’ dryer. At the time of this writing the smell has actually come out of the dryer and is funking up the hall. I would describe it as a pile of bile but my dad thinks it’s “just rotten smelling.” I’d also allow “a bile pile.” Anyway, it’s probably a mouse or rat in the piping. I wondered if it would be better if it were a bird or kitten. I can’t decide. Anyway though, this conversation just happened:

ME: So wait, does that mean rat gas is getting blown all over my clothes?
MY DAD: no, it’s going the other way
MY MOM: yeah, other way.

Phew!

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Caterpillar caviar

Not to be melodramatic, but there was very nearly a tragedy in my mouth tonight. I wasn’t even going to share this story (although I kind of mentioned it on Wendy and my blog), because in the retelling I’ll likely feel my whole body spasm in a kind of pre-upchuck reflex, however I feel you deserve to know. Warning: it’s gross.

So there I was cutting into a head of cauliflower in the way I often do which is to cut the thing in half and then flip the halves over and cut off the green leaves from the bottom. I’m sure this isn’t the fancy chef way but then I’m not a fancy chef, I’m just a gal trying not to eat caterpillars and their eggs. So I flip the thing over and I notice some weird amber-hued clusters of what looks like caviar. That’s the thing that gets me about this whole story is just how much I’m an architect in my own near misfortune. I mean, I actually thought to myself that it looks like caviar which is to say it looks like eggs AND THEN I scooped up a blob on my finger and smeared it and it smeared in a way which made me think it wasn’t eggs but was instead some kind of resin—like a plant’s ear wax—or a mold or something and so I kept cutting and looking at it and thinking that the tiny little orbs were certainly rounder than anything that isn’t living matter, so I was beginning to worry that really I was fooling myself because clearly I’m dealing with some kind of larvae so I was going to try to cut off the gross parts and I was cutting and throwing out lots of the cauliflower and then I saw this bright green thing in the heart of the cauliflower. At first I actually wondered if it wasn’t part of the stalk but then I kept looking at it and it was clearly an insect—I was thinking a worm or centipede because apparently under stress I forget the word caterpillar—and so while I was freaking out and bagging up the cauliflower trash and taking it to the basement far far away from my apartment so no caterpillars can lay eggs in my eye sockets while I sleep I began thinking about jokes like “what’s worse than finding half a worm in your apple”? Except I couldn’t really think of a good punch line because I was too busy disassociating from my caterpillar egg compromised hand which I washed so many times I’m surprised it still has skin on it. But this hand is dead to me now—may I never touch my eyes, nose or mouth with it.

Except I think I already did.

Anyway, yeah. So that was my night.

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