Comino

My friend John had an appearance on 30 Rock tonight, and I somehow missed it. I am pretty sure he won't want to be my friend anymore.

My February trip down 75 is shaping up to be even more fun than I'd planned. There's a possibility that I'll have some driving companions to and from Cincinnati. There's also a possibility that my drive to and from Atlanta will be me stuck in a car with 3 dudes for hours at a time. So, this is sort of a half-full/half-empty debate.

I needed to use wire cutters today for a project at work, and it led me to today's lesson. If you have nerve issues in some of your fingers, be mindful of using wire cutters. I gave myself two massive f-ing blisters and I had no idea that it happened until I was speaking to a client, and suddenly felt some sort of fluid in my folded hands. Yeah, it was blister oozage. (I am not familiar with the chemical composition or nomenclature of the fluid that seeps from blisters.) So, yeah. If for whatever reason someone asks what happened to my fingers, I'm going to pretend that they just outed me as a circus acrobat and the blisters are from my elaborate trapeze routine.

Sometimes, your past comes back to haunt you, and it totally sucks. You feel as though any progress you've made to grow as a person is entirely wasted. But, other times, your past comes back to sort of bless you, and it totally kicks ass. You feel as though you were on the right track, and that the paths you took or connections you made were important and enriching. I've had a little run-in with the latter. So, Alison, my soon-to-be married friend in Atlanta, has really been in my thoughts lately. We were thick as thieves in middle school, and during that time, I think I spent about as much time at her house as I did at my own. Her mom, Jann, is a phenomenal cook, and of course I didn't appreciate it at the time. But, I remember one occasion when Jann made tacos for us out of venison from a deer that Alison's dad had hunted. It was unreal. And, I remember being totally impressed that Jann didn't need one of those Ortega spice packets to make taco filling. She used actual spices. UNHEARD OF. (And since Alison's dad is a native Spanish speaker, Jann would use Spanish words for everyday things. So, the cumin she used for the meal was comino. Love that.) Anyway, in the last few weeks, I've been reminiscing about the Misadventures of Alison and Dana, totally incredulous at how long it's been, and tonight, I made tacos for dinner. I used actual spices.