Alyssa and Dia's Totally Random, Entirely Exhausting and In All Ways Awesome Saturday

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Alyssa and Dia's
Totally Random, Entirely Exhausting and In All Ways Awesome
Saturday

The day began with the by-some-dreaded and by-one-(Dia)-adored cleaning checks.
We scraped, mopped, wiped and pine-sol'd from six thirty am right until the fearful check--only to watch the manager open the door, walk to the back of the apartment, turn, open the fridge, and walk right back out the front door as she mumbled, "Looks good, you passed."
"WHAT?!" hollered Alyssa, hands chapped from hours of scrubbing within the unchecked dishwasher, freezer and cupboards.
"THAT'S SO DUMB!" agreed Ashley, who had spent at least thirty minutes sucking fumes in the ill-ventilated shower whilst cleaning.
"At least our apartment's clean!" chirped Dia happily. "I LOVE cleaning checks!"

After everyone finished beating on Dia, Alyssa and the aforementioned scapegoat got in the car and raced to Wal-mart. Unfortunately, aformentioned scapegoat forgot to bring in her cell phone (big surprise), and Alyssa was unable to reach and or find her when she was done shopping. While Alyssa contemplated asking a cashier to broadcast a message (again ...this HAS happened before), "Dia Darcey, please meet your mommy at the front of the store. Dia Darcey, please meet your mommy at the front," Dia was ogling over the prices of watches.
Although she did eventually find one that would work for timing runs (at least, would work better than Dia's previous method of timing runs: glancing at the oven clock before leaving and then trying to subtract minutes when she got back--which method often resulted in such exciting and ridiculous moments as, "Wow! I just ran a mile and a half in FOUR MINUTES! Wait... carry the two, subtract the three... I mean fourteen minutes.").


After Dia and Alyssa were finally reunited (and it feels so good), Dia dropped Alyssa off at home and drove to Hebrew choir, which is an odd enough experience when there are more than three singers. As the attendance was frighteningly low, Dia somehow was asked and subsequently (in a fit of insanity) agreed to sing a solo for the celebration of Yon Kippur the following day (in less than 30 hours) (in front of all the Hebrew students at BYU) (... in Hebrew).

V'al kulom eloha s'lihos
s'lah lonu m'hal lonu kaper lonu
O Lord of forgiveness, forgive us for all our sins.


At this point, Alyssa was back home, in shock herself--she'd received two MORE letters from missionaries, which made FOUR in TWO DAYS. She was thus newly christened,
"The Distraction."

Meanwhile (back on the farm--I mean, back in the car), Dia was having distractions of her own. In the middle of exulting over the low prices of fruit at Buy Low ("Five BUCKS?! For half my body weight in MELON?! So aweso --" CRUNCH), she backed into another car. She parked and got out of the car already apologizing--for no need!
The cars (well, the OTHER car, at least) looked fine, but even crazier, the lady wasn't angry. Not only "not angry," but she was happy!!

"Oh, HI! Hey, it's no big deal, this happens just by accident all the time!! I didn't see you, and you didn't see me, and you know cars just pull out so quick you can't see, and this car's 12 years old now so as long as it passes inspection I don't even mind a few bumps and bruises! Let me tell you about the time I got THIS scratch on it when I backed up into my son's pickup truck..."

She actually offered the stunned collegiate blond a hug at the end of the conversation and left with a joyful benediction of "Go Cougars!"


Dia returned home, still "well"-shocked, and found Alyssa up to the wrists in a deep blue liquid. She was dying shirts for her soccer team--an honest and harmless enough endeavor, when not paired with two such devious, creative and thrifty young ladies!!
There was so much leftover dye...

we probably could've dyed the kitchen floor blue if we'd thought of it in time. As it was, we dyed (or tried to dye): fifteen shirts, a white bathroom rug, Dia's tennis shoes, Alyssa's hands, an extra towel, Jasmyn's failed tie-dye shirt, a couple locks of blond hair and pretty much anything else that would hold still. If we owned a Pomeranian...

After our dyeing adventures, we headed to the BYU football game (properly attired with stained hands and hair).


The heat was unendurable (but we... endured...?) but we doggedly clapped and cheered, rose and shouted our Cougars on until halftime. At exactly 5:45, we rose righteously from our bleacher bench to make our way to the Marriott Center, as the Relief Society Broadcast was showing at 6. Though we left a bit half-heartedly, we knew we were doing the right thing as Relief Society sisters and, as we left the stadium, refused the temptation of an re-entrance-stamp. "No," we cried, "We're going to go watch the Relief Society Broadcast! Do not try to shift us from the iron rod! We will be unshaken! Stalwart! Brave! We shall not falter! We cannot be moved! True to the truth! We will spend our Saturday night in the company of the Relief Society's appointed servants! We will--(cheering from the stadium)---GO COUGARS, C'MON! RUUUUN!"
Alright, so we were a little attached to Mammon that night. But really, who schedules football during the Relief Society Broadcast? Men. That's who.

Sexism stowed and back to the story.

Imagine our dismay, our horror when we finally reached the Marriott Center to find a notice:
"The Relief Society Broadcast will not be shown at the Marriott Center. It will be showing in the -----blah----blah---some-other-buildings---- and on KBYU at 8 pm this evening."

"IT'S GOING TO BE ON TV TONIGHT? WHY AREN'T WE AT THE FOOTBALL GAME?!"

Alyssa and I dashed back to the field of victory only to find that the foregone reentrance stamps were not just for show or school spirit--you actually needed one to get back into the game.

Our righteous intentions smashed into teeny bits, we held our heads high (ish) and screamed ourselves hoarse outside for a while (we had to make sure the players could still hear us!), then realized we were on the brink of thirst-ation (not one of my favorite realizations. "Oh, it's Saturday!" or "I already finished this homework!" or even "The milk's still good ...somehow!" are all WAY better) (why isn't there a word for "death by thirst"?).

We bought waters at Citgo and concluded that Dasani was probably the best thing on Earth (and when we say, "the best thing on Earth," we mean the best) and walked to a friend's house for dinner. He'd graciously offered to cook, but when we reached his dorm, we realized there was a problem.

What do you do if your gluten-free when the cook's in the middle of making spaghetti??
You exchange alternately horrified, at-a-loss and hilarious looks with your roommate every time the cook turns around, that's what you do. Looks that mean something like,
(silently) "SPAGHETTI? What are we going to do?"
(still silently) "I don't know! Doesn't he know?"
(very silently) "I'm sure he forgot! What do I DO?"
(you get the picture) "...This is HILARIOUS!"

THEN you try to find a way to artfully slip it into the conversation, such as, "Dang, I didn't come prepared for spaghetti. Do you think I have time to dash home and grab some of mine?"
I have to say, though, the embarrassment of the cook when he realized and the awkwardness of having to bring it up were totally worth the volume of hilarity Alyssa and I exchanged without an audible word.

After the spaghetti scare was solved and we enjoyed a five-part rendition of "Brown-Eyed Girl" accompanied by ukulele and African drum by roommates of said friend, Alyssa and I realized we needed to run home-- in the dark-- across campus-- without shoes in order to make it in time for the broadcast. Well, the "without shoes" part we just decided on because it would be more fun.

The results:

After the Relief Society Broadcast, we rested our tired toes in the lovely pool--then fell into bed, finally completing our wonderful, ridiculous, all-good very fun day.


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Sew Cute

We've been sewing like madwomen for days~ more results coming up!

Big, Fat, Brown Sugar Disasters

Brown Sugar Muffins:
Sounds good, doesn't it? Tuesday morning my cousin Cami and I woke up already salivating for these delectable morsels of sugar-rushing starch.
Cami took care of most of the not-flour part. Soda, butter, egg (catch that shell), vanilla, salt, milk and grimace at an entire cup of brown sugar. Then she handed me the bowl for my magical gluten-free replacement skills.
Yeah, sure.

I substituted about a half cup of tapioca starch, three fourths of a cup of sorghum flour, some corn starch, a tiny bit of potato flour and of course xanthum gum for the two cups of flour. Then I dumbly handed the bowl back to Cami to stir.

I said NOTHING about "make sure they're thick enough before you put them in," or "the consistency of GF muffins should be the same as gluten muffins." Oh, the pain that we could have avoided!

So Cami fills the muffin tins to the brim with too liquidy-muffin liquid, I turn on the oven, and she pops them in. They look great for a few minutes...



Until...

They bubbled up and over the sides, then (somehow?!) sank in the middle of each muffin. The result was a delicious but DENSE and GOOEY inch of brown-sugar mixture in each muffin tin and a burned crust on the top of the pan. We ate what we could,


then gave up and made eggs.

Oops. Oh well, we were about due for a disaster.



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Betty Crocker Brownie Mix Possibilities

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Berry Brownie Cream Cheese Deluxe Torte!

Best-Bet-Intructions:

Betty Crocker brownie mix

8 oz cream cheese

some eggs

some oil

some vanilla

some milk

some sugar

some chocolate chips

some raspberries

some nuts

some flexibility, courage and 3 AM giddiness

Make the brownie mix.

Beat an egg and mix it with sugar, milk, vanilla and the cream cheese.

Put those together in a 9 by 13 pan.

Add whatever else your little heart desires / your cousins throw in without your knowledge.

Cook it for about half an hour.

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The BEST things in life!

Chicken Noodle Soup and PB&J --all GF!!




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Chex Love

BETTY CROCKER GLUTEN FREE?!?!

Ahhhhh! SO exciting: Betty Crocker cake/brownies/cookie mixes that are totally, completely GF!

GF girls beware: it is coming to the point when a GF cake made by an admirer is NOT a reason to marry him! It's becoming, dare I say it, EASY!
But still about 5 times more expensive than a normal cake mix, so maybe there IS still some significance within GF baked goods...

Hem, Hem: A Literary Essay about, You Guessed It... FOOD

Forgotten Fruit


The falling fruits,
Through the still night, forsake the parent-bough,
That, in the first grey glances of the dawn,
Looks wild, and wonders at the wintry waste.
–James Thompson

It was on a recent ward temple trip that I realized that no species of food has lately been so much multiplied as the extent of pizza restaurants. Once again, the committee for the planning and accomplishment of activities forwent the possible intricacies and new delights of an extended taste pallet, instead choosing the always-safe marinara reds, limp greens and crusty browns of an always appreciated, never novel restaurant choice. Again, our limited perspective was reinforced by the mores of ease.

The college experience is an Eden of forgotten fruit. Sustenance, sleep, studying and socializing are the four necessities at college, but it is widely believed that the industrious scholar can only really focus on two or three of these objectives at a time. Nourishment’s nutrition and diversity are the first martyrs to the college cause—not only is it more time consuming to plan and create healthy meals, it’s also considered more expensive. As students count pennies and minutes, cheap chow and mindless meals are first endured, then pitied, then embraced.

Oft times, a student’s only contact with the sweet flesh of an earth-grown item is through the straw of a Jamba Juice cup. Even Emerson had a passing relationship with the vegetable, however odd (it nods to me, and I nod to them??). Though unexcited eaters are perhaps not aware of their denial of the body’s relationship with the intellect, the consequences are fixed: both mental and spiritual capacity to create and invent are crippled by a dull diet.

What good are the mental powers given man if our senses are degraded to the point at which we cannot tell Splenda from the healing dew of honey? Ease, price, the quickness of preparation—each specter with a pleasant face denies poor students the joys of taste and the rapture of real food. Months of Easy Ramen, burnt eggs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on store-bought bread do more than bore the body senseless; they stunt the common college student’s taste buds from a spring of growth to lifeless winter. Ah, smooth is the descent and easy the way to a damnation of taste’s progression!

What hope have we to awake slumbering students from their sleep of snacking sameness? What chance can we cherish to save students from their troubles of tide-me-over tedium? What actions must we take to alert and divert these wanderers from their paths of repetitive rations, minute-meals and green-less groceries?
Few who chew comfortably on their Hamburger Helper think what others undergo who have perhaps been as tenderly educated and have as acute sensations as themselves—but who are incapable of enjoying the same easy pleasures because of allergies, sensitivities or other disruptions of the digestive system. Could it be that these seemingly cursed consumers are blessed with the teachings of the school of experience—an institution which teaches by first exposing the student to everything they do not know?

A knowledge of good food must be bought dear by knowing ill baked goods. Only when we have experienced the absolute dark can we begin to recognize day again—and to appreciate the intricacies of light instead of stumbling around, blinded, in a bright haze of tasteless and empty foodstuffs. Desperation is the mother of all experimentation and nutritional expansion, for really, what well-fed fellow would ever look at a cow and decide to drink whatever came from …it?

For this reason, my tongue may envy the Ho-Ho thoughtlessly sucked down by some oblivious passerby, but my intellect is untouched. Though seemingly innocent Little Debby’s baked confections bestow delicious sugar rushes and delights to the purchasing student, the ease of acquisition cheapens the joy acquired from negotiations with this she-devil—and as Faustus warns, she shows herself to certainly be a hot ho (ho).

Ah, but we may well say that all the schools of cuisine are already catalogued carefully into numberless cookbooks and food magazines; nothing remains to be learned about the subject. So quothe the followers of Ptolemy and the priests before Martin Luther or Joseph Smith—the heavens are still open!

Menus are not dead. They live and change under the hands of those who would dare to experience their pages. Those who have much leisure to cook will always be enlarging the stock of recipes. Creativity surely has its costs: predictability, comfort, ease, even reason, logic, sanity and previous epistemologies—but the price is worth the product, and, more crucially, is much less than the cost of inaction.

Milton’s blossoming ambrosial fruit surely pales in comparison with my fresh banana pancakes—a product of invention, desperation, need, creativity, time and the willingness to laugh in the face of danger.

Repeated experiences may be the stuff that creates wisdom, but new experiences give new knowledge—which, when allowed to develop and evolve, becomes wisdom. Those who forget the pasta are condemned to reheat it. As a newly politically correct Cookie Monster rapped in the nineties, “Me promise that when you eat varied menu, you get more out of every meal— You need balanced diet, come on and try it, not believe how great you'll feel! Word up.”

Restaurant in Provo!

Los Hermanos has a DELECTABLE gluten-free menu!

Their rice and beans have wheat in them, but they'll make you different beans in a jiffy and hold the rice without blinking.

It's on Center Street in Provo. YUM.

Bike Trails

Do you ever feel like life is maybe a little too cushy?

You've been slouching around in your pajamas all day... snacking on leftover cheese sticks and the remains at the bottom of potato chip bags... the basement is so dark, you think you're losing your eyesight... you can't find your left slipper... you've watched three hours of homestarrunner.com straight... your milk's gone bad...

What to do?!

BIKE TO THE GROCERY STORE! Duh.

I was feeling a little disgusted at my inactivity last Saturday. The weather was just perfect--cool, humid, windy and beautiful, and I stared out the window in self-disgusted disgust at myself (?).

"Jennnn!!" I whined, "What am I going to DO tonight? I feel so boring!"
"I don't know," Jenn replied patiently.

Ah hah! I had just brought my bike, Henry, down to Provo. PERFECT!

I decided to bike to Buy Low and purchase cheap and healthy produce--despite my lack of bike clothes, a map, previous biking-in-traffic experience, or even a helmet.
Whatever! It would be a great wake-me-up! I put on my shorts, grabbed my wallet, and ran outside... where it was now sprinkling.

No matter! I just grabbed my highlighter-yellow hoodie ("This will keep me safe from cars!" I hollered to Jenn, who tried to care) and headed back out!

"Bye, Jenn, I'm going to go have an adventure!"
"Ok, Dia..."

My bike seat was already wet, and the pedals were a little slippery. My running-on-stupidity brain didn't care--this will be fun! The rain started really, well, raining after about a block. I threw my hood on and kept on a-riding, as the internal dialogue (well... "internal" as in, I was talking to Henry) began in earnest.

"Ummm...
This way?
...
Sure! I'm pretty sure it's in this general direction; I'm sure I can get there just fine."

"Hey, Henry? Do you think the rain is getting harder?"

"And colder?"

I was passing the duck pond and the rain was now, at least by Utahn standards, "pouring."

It's an interesting feeling, really, the sting of rain droplets on your hands and face as your feet keep slipping off the pedals and your brakes start squeeling on wet tires.

"This is kind of fun!"

I'd made it about six blocks when my brain finally kicked in.

DIA. THIS IS STUPID.
"Henry, did you hear that?"

Unfortunately it took four more blocks before I started to listen.

DIA. THIS IS STUPID. GO HOME.

"....
Uhhh, Henry? I know you're excited and everything, but, I'm thinking we should maybe turn around. I don't have a helmet on. Annnddd... I don't know where we're going. Or... where we are. And it's really cold. And wet."

Henry complained, but we turned around and made it back to the house in record time. I drove the car to Buy Low like a sane person, and got back into the now-deserved sweats when I finally got home.

"Sometimes you just gotta live a little, Jenn," I reminded her, sipping hot cocoa and searching for my left slipper.

"Sure, Dia."