A Cautionary Tale

I think I'm done with carefree dining out:
 
February 8, 2008 

 

Corner Bakery Home Office
ATTN:  Customer Service
12700 Park Central Drive
Suite 1300
Dallas, TX 75251

Dear Sir or Madam: 

I visited your store at 676 N. St. Clair Street in Chicago just 45 minutes ago, where I ordered a Swiss Oatmeal, which is my all-time favorite Corner Bakery product.

I dove into my oatmeal when I came back to my office, and a few bites in, I crunched down on the item I have attached below.  At first I thought it might be a bit of apple core or stem, and I thought I could probably just crunch through it and swallow with no harm.  After a couple more chews, I realized this thing wasn't getting any smaller.  So I pulled this spiky plastic bit out of my mouth.  You'll notice I didn't clean it off; I wanted your experience with it to be as authentic as mine.

Needless to say, I was and am pretty upset.  Imagine if I swallowed this?  Worse yet, imagine if a child had consumed something like this?  

I threw my receipt away in the restaurant (since it was huge, and I didn't feel like jamming it into my wallet), but if you want to do the research, my pick up number was 234 and I made my order at around 9:15 am on 2/8/08. 

I'm a fairly regular customer of Corner Bakery, coming in once or twice a week.  I even had dinner there last night because I stayed at work late.  I just don't think I can ever eat there again.  I'll feel much safer making Swiss Oatmeal at home.

Please do what you have to do.

Sincerely,

 
Laura R. Meyer

So there's that,

 

Laura

Just Saying...

This tooth that I'm getting cracked off? Umm...every time I see it in dental x-rays, it looks like a big pair of balls. A big pair of balls swinging in toward my back molar.

I have balls teeth.

And one more thing...for you.




So there's that,

Laura

Crack One Off

I'm going to get one of my wisdom teeth removed tomorrow at 11:30.  Hopefully doing so will ease me of some of this intellectual burden I've been carting around.  Wish me luck!

 

So there's that,

 

Laura

I'm a Subscriber

You know that song by Destiny's Child, "Survivor"? I know you do.


I'm a survivor (what), I'm not gonna give up (what), I'm not gon' stop (what), I'm gonna work harder (what), etc.....


Anyway, I got my first subscription magazine in the mail yesterday. Well, the first since college, the first to my own place in Chicago. So all night and day I've been singing, "I'm a subscriber, I got Real Simple, It's gonna give me, good tips on livin,'" which sounds really lame, but you don't know how much I love this magazine.

I love watching PBS home & cooking shows on Saturday afternoons. It just so happened that the lifestyle show, Real Simple, is the bridge between The Woodwright's Shop and Christina Cooks - a vegan cooking show, which is interesting enough but not my favorite. So I watched and enjoyed its laidback cooking, home, fashion and living segments. It's like Martha Stewart Living and Everyday Food (a Martha Stewart PBS joint) without the closeted, anal-retentive hosts.

I forgot that RS started as a magazine until I saw it on the racks at my grocery store. I bought my first issue in November, which I read cover to cover during an extensive bubble bath. Since then, I make it a point to look for the new issue every time I'm at the store. Last month I decided to subscribe, and now I will have the fresh beats delivered to my home every month! Squeeee!

The focus of this little empire is to bring class back to modern living, kind of like a practical Emily Post. They give you tips on how to better organize your home, what clothing staples will last you a lifetime, how to make more informed purchases on everything from cookware to produce. And there's always a sweet little section asking readers how they live one aspect of their life to the fullest. I think February's topic included how couples keep their marriages alive, and there was a nice piece in which a wife wrote her husband - and vice versa - with thoughts on their 15-year-old marriage.

I don't know. You just need to read this stuff. Check out http://www.realsimple.com/. I might just gift you this magazine - Manda and Michelle - it's awesome!

So there's that,

Laura

The Right Stuff

Every Sunday - well, the last two Sundays - I sit down and review the workout mix on my iPod. I'll update it with songs I already have on my computer, or I'll splurge and download from iTunes. I went back to the past for this week's downloads:

Run-DMC: It's Tricky, Walk This Way, Run's House, Beats to the Rhyme

Kris Kross: Jump

Naughty by Nature: Uptown Anthem

New Kids on the Block: You Got It (The Right Stuff), Please Don't Go Girl, This One's for the Children, Cover Girl, Step by Step, Hangin' Tough

Yeah, I DL'd NKOTB. For real. I heard mention that they were getting back together, and I thought, "Damn, some of those old songs would be great to work out to. They'd make me laugh and lift my spirits."

And I love them.

Other reasons for buying their songs are five-fold:

Step One: We can have lots of fun.

Step Two: There's so much we can do.

Step Three: It's just you and me.

Step Four: I can give you more.

Step Five: Don't you know that the time has arrived?

Hearing these songs brings me back to 1990 when we visited Tim and Ann (the young, hip uncle and aunt) in Boston at the height of NKOTB's fame. I was barely nine years old, so I think their sex appeal was beyond me. However, I do remember that Manda had a little Tiger Beat poster of them on the back of our bedroom door. If I remember correctly, she was into Jonathan, the shy, quiet one. (Who was dating Tiffany at the time - squeeeal!) I think Steph was a Jordan fan. I know someone - maybe Rita? - had a thang for little Joey, who always wore that hat with a hole in the top. Whose castrato on "Please Don't Go Girl" had everyone peeing in their pants; just the opposite effect his lyrics intended I assume. I had a thing for the bad-boy scuzzball Donnie - because I always fell for the bad boy. Sigh...still do.

And nobody liked Danny. Danny Wood looked like a monkey. I said this earlier today, and my friend Shana and I said this at the same time. Apparently his features were universally categorized as apelike.

I think Danny was the bass. Why is it the bass is the least attractive of all vocalists? Boyz II Men's Michael McCary is the guy people least remember, because he's not the hot one, he's not the goofy one, and he's not the other one in glasses. N'Sync's Lance Bass would be nothing if it wasn't for coming out of the closet - thus making him unattractive to women. And though I have a thing for bass players, the late John Entwistle of The Who wasn't the one girls got wet over. I mean, most people recognize the names Daltrey, Townshend and Keith Moon. I'm sure there were reporters that said, "Who?" when Entwistle passed. And for every twenty of those reporters, there were probably seven music geeks that said, "Exactly."

Sorry, that's one of my dad's jokes.

Anyway...the NKOTB songs bring me back to the Neon Revolution of the early 90's. Remember how everyone had neon green shoes and those ghastly hot pink painter's caps? Yeah. The black & white checkerboard pattern was back. NKOTB shirts looked like they were splashed with highlighters, but you had to have one to look like you were with it.

They had a cartoon. Their bodyguard's name was Biscuit.

My cousin Shane and I would play "talent show" on my grandma's picnic table, with the vacuum cleaner as the mic stand. I would choose to sing NKOTB jams, while Shane went for the more masculine "Ice Ice Baby," and Bruce Springstein. I think he sang along to "Step by Step" with me. At least he must've done "Hangin' Tough." I did make him play Genies with me, so I'm sure I convinced him to sing a girly song at one point.

Tim and Ann sent Manda and I a VHS tape with their Boston concert. The Mother's Day when Dusty got in that bad bike accident at Gram's, Rita and I went over to my house to watch the tape. On the way back, we blew snot-rockets while walking through the field, and it was the funniest thing ever. Then we got back to Gram's, and Dusty had been taken away by an ambulance. Shane was in hysterics because he thought his best friend was going to die!

Look what NKOTB helps me remember!

Mom took Manda and one of her friends - either Karri Meyer or Betsy Hamilton - to Evansville for the NKOTB concert. In the meantime, Mom took me to Showbiz Pizza and I got a pencil pouch with the tickets I won during Skeeball.

Don't know Showbiz Pizza? Um, it's only the predecessor to Chuck E. Cheese...with a way creepier mascot. I don't think they could get away with a mascot like this today.

Nuclear Family, ca. 1991

When we picked up Manda and her friend, they were squealing about how some girl from school got to put her head on Jordan's abs! Squeee! That's what I remember anyway.

NKOTB, do you remember me?

So there's that,

Laura

First Installment

All right, I didn't weigh myself this week because I've been doing some pre-menstrual munching (and that sounds gross - think about it), so I didn't want to be counterproductive and get depressed at a weigh-in. I feel I maintained this week, though.





I did, however, invest in my first Le Creuset piece this weekend. I decided I deserved it; I came in to work Friday even though the offices were closed due to snow. I had to finish a big project, and I'd pretty much resigned myself to come in anyway - snow day or not. I got the project done with zeal...and ended up heading home at 6:30 pm. So I thought I deserved a little reward.

I bought the cherry red stoneware pitcher! Isn't it beautiful? I had some people over on Saturday, and I offered them wine, cheese, fruit, and iced water with lemons in my beautiful pitcher. I decided I would fill it up with lemons and water when I got home and drink out of wine glasses (or "sip of the chalice," for those in the know) for the next week, as a treat. Yay!

So there's that,

Laura

Okay Manda, Fine, Whatever...

My precious big sister Amanda doesn't like my recipe posts as much as the others, so I figured she'd like that I will post no recipes this week.  She's not so much into cooking; this is the woman who prepared gummy spaghetti for me once as a child.  Though her boxed macaroni and cheese skills were always top notch.  And you couldn't keep this girl from forcing open a can of corn or creamed corn and eating it directly from its source, to my great disgust.  Seriously?  I remember when we couldn't find the can-opener at Gram's once, and she and Steph tried to bust into a can using a knife.  You know what they say, "Safety...third."

 

She's not one for finer food prep.  Don't get me wrong - she could probably go on tour for her skills at preparing "Suddenly Salad" (she puts halved grape tomatoes in with the Bacon Ranch pasta mix - delicious!), and she once made Rice Krispies Treats and threw flour on her face to make it look like she'd been slaving all day at it.  Girlfriend's the queen of quick prep.   

 

So no recipes this week.  Why?  I decided to soup it up for the next two weeks.  After paying rent and bills, and investing in the large batch of paella, I thought it might be more cost-effective if I tried out all the new canned soups that are out there.  Today I'm pairing Amy's Organic Creamy Tomato Bisque with a quick sandwich I made out of whole wheat bread and gouda and manchego cheese bits from entertaining this weekend.  I just need to put some margarine on the bread and pop it in the toaster oven!

 

I'm trying out some new flavors found in the uppity grocery:  Pacific Foods, Amy's Organic, and the new Progresso soups.  I'm pretty excited - I got some wild flavors that I'm gonna pair with salads and different kinds of toast!  How lame am I?!

 

More later - it's time for yoga!

 

So there's that,

 

Laura