The (conquered) HCl Reaction

I guess going 10-14 days without a blog post is beginning to become commonplace. I blame the heat.

I'm currently waiting for a lasagna to bake in my oven. I bought this lasagna back in May during my I've-never-cooked-before-what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do phase. I was really into canned goods and frozen entrees back then. Oh what the heck: I'm still into canned goods and frozen entrees. That's not entirely true. I branched out into such culinary avenues as fresh chicken, greek salad, and pasta with meat sauce. I think my feats with both frozen salmon and greek salad have been well documented. I realized that I'm leaving in about three weeks and I've started eating all of the food I had stockpiled in my house. You'd think I was preparing for a nuclear onslaught; or I am one of those fools who lost his marbles over that whole Y2K thing. I don't think I've bought groceries for almost two weeks. I don't think I've eaten a vegetable in about that long, either. This isn't because I ate all my vegetables; it is because vegetables are the first things to go bad. I bought all the fixings for a greek salad about three weeks ago and was too lazy to ever make it. I just chucked a whole crisper of vegetables. I could have fed the crack house for a week on what I just threw out. In any event I'm eating all my food before I buy more. I don't care if I have to eat raw noodles with greek seasoning for breakfast. I've had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch the past week and a half.

I know I've whined about this before, but it's so hot here it's ridiculous. With the humdity the perceived temperature isn't supposed to drop below 40-something all week. We cancelled soccer today on account of the heat. Last wednesday following soccer I stripped naked and lied down on my floor in front of my air conditioning vent for a solid half hour. I also downed about 2 litres of gatorade in about 2 and a half minutes. It's still not as bad as Nagoya in August, though. Although there I caught only the tail end of the hot season. Here I have to suffer through the whole thing.

I just checked on my lasagna. I'm supposed to wait until the processed cheese on top is "bubbly and brown."

I think the buying/preparing/cleaning up/storing of food has to be the worst part of living on one's own. I have a newfound respect for my mother (or any other individual for that matter) who comes home from work only to make dinner every day. I also thank my parents for forcing us to clean our dishes. There are constantly dirty dishes in my sink, none of which are mine. My sink smells worse than the freezer room at the lab. This whole thing also reinforces my theory that everyone needs a good grandma. It doesn't even have to be your own grandma; hook onto someone else's. But you need a good grandma.

I went to Cleveland last weekend. Originally we were going to go to Chicago, but all the hotels even in the same area code as our price range were full. So Cleveland became the next best place. All I knew about Cleveland was that's where Sean is from and the Indians, of course. Cleveland is actually a pretty nice town. We saw the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Jacobs Field, an old submarine and most of downtown. It's like Detroit, only smaller and not as shitty. We also stopped at Soak City at Cedar Point (giant waterslide park) on friday afternoon and the Toledo zoo Sunday afternoon. Thorsten and Andreas were foiled in their attempt to get kicked out of the state (I mean, why stop at getting kicked out of a bar???), thank goodness. Andreas also managed to visit a new city without being booted from a bar, either. I guess those North American culture classes are paying off, after all.

I finished writing the discussion section of my research paper today, 4,271 words, 13 pages, 7 days and two dozen vodkas (I'm kidding), after starting. The limit is supposed to be 3000 words. I haven't added my experimental section yet, either. Oh well, I'll subject my committee to an extra couple thousand words. I mean, they can't fail me for doing more work, can they?? You remember that reaction I did with the HCl gas back in May/June-ish??? Well, I did it again today without gassing someone for the first time all summer. Sharonna had so much faith in me, in fact, that she left the lab to go workout before I was even done. Go me. She must like me. She's taking me out for dinner August 21. It's our "thanks for not gassing me again" celebration dinner. I love measuring success in terms of not screwing things up; it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Or it could be the bubbly processed cheese on the lasagna.