The Fried Butter Balls That Took Over the World

I feel like Brain. You know, from 'Pinky & The Brain'. My diabolical plan to take over the world is in motion. (insert maniacal laugh here). And, if that's the case, Bobby Deen is my 'Pinky' because that's where all crazy ideas start.

My Deep Fried Butter Balls (even though Food Network touts them as Paulas) are the topic of many a blog. I have, with the assistance of Paula Deen and the Food Network, grossed out an entire nation!

I have to say, I agree with most of them. No on in their right mind should eat them. They were a joke. Period.

Not. Meant. For. Consumption.

However, a few brave (ok, crazy) souls made them. And enjoyed them. Yes, enjoyed them. Silly rabbits.


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What the hell?

I've said before that my special gift from God is that I see random, weird stuff while I'm driving around.

This past weekend was no exception.

I was sitting at at stop light when a white Scion drove by. Normally, I wouldn't care, but this particular Scion had polka dots all over it. Multi-colored polka dots.

This wouldn't have given me pause if say, the car was advertising clown services or for a graphics company. But there were no such advertisements. This person was driving around with mulit-colored polka dots for no good reason. It looked like her car caught the Clown Measeles or the Circus Pox.

I think that the reason that I'm around when this stuff happens and that I notice it is just proof that God wants me to laugh.

Bless their little hearts

I was thoroughly enjoying myself last Sunday morning. It was cold and blustery and I was at Einstein's enjoying a bagel and a cuppa coffee, when I saw a most peculiar site.

Three girls were walking towards the store. One was in a pink Juicy sweatsuit, with 4" heels, the second was in a t-shirt, skirt and flip flops, and girl three looked like she was getting ready to go clubbing. They had all obviously slept in their makeup.

And then it hit me. They had gone out the previous evening and had a slumber party and were going out for Hangover Breakfast. Their fatal flaw was not planning ahead and going to a bagel shop. I mean really...Clubbing 101 clearly states that the morning after breakfast shall consist of Diet Pepsi and curly fries. Silly rabbits.

It's just an unwritten rule that when you go out with your crew, you bring the obligatory change of clothes. That way, you don't go to Einsteins at 8:00 in the morning looking like a hooker.

pffft...ameteurs.

The Phoenix Open

I went to the Phoenix Open on Wednesday. This was my first forray into the golf arena. I have to admit I would love to learn how to play.

I was so excited, because we were going to a Skybox on the "party" hole - Hole 16. Free food, liquor and good company. What more could a girl ask for?

It was windy, cold and it rained like it was the second coming of Noah.

crap.

The game was called due to rain and we left early and headed to the nearest bar to drown our sorrows in Irish coffee.

The kicker is...George Lopez was there and I totally missed him.

double crap.

Giving back the good

Do you remember when you were little, finding a penny on the ground and saying, "See a penny, pick it up, and all day long, you'll have good luck!"?

I thought about this last night when I bought dinner and got two pennies back with my change.
As I walked out of the store, it dawned on me that when I would find a penny and recite the little song, my good luck came from someone else's misfortune.

I decided to give the good back.

I dropped my pennies on the ground for someone else to find so they could have a good day.
I did for no other reason than, I had a good day and I wanted to pass it on.

"Pass it on"...yet something else from childhood.

Pass it on, Pay it Forward, Random Act of Kindness...whatever....

I hope y'all find a penny today and that it brings you luck.

Oh, Goody! Valentine's Day!

I loved Valentine's Day when I was little. I loved picking out my box of Valentine's, deciding who gets which one (because God forbid someone "grody" got a good one), handing them out and, of course...the Valentine's party. Cookies, candy and the little message hearts. Wheeeeee!
Now it just irritates the hell outta me.

Especially the ads on television. "If you really love her, you'll buy her this $6,000 ring". Ummm, if he really loved me he would just, oh I don't know...tell me and not buy something that is just going to put us more into debt.

They should just change the ads to "Nothing says 'I love you' like being in debt up to your eyeballs!"

Why don't they have ads that say, "If you really loved him, you'll buy him this rachet set."

All the pressure is put on the boys to show us girls how much they like us. We get off totally easy. I know some women who will throw an ungodly fit if they don't get jewlery, dinner and flowers on February 14th. Why? I think they must be idiots.

Here's how I see it: Valentine's Day is just another day. And we all get so caught up in doing something special on that day. Why not all year long? Jewlery will loose its luster, dinner will only last an hour and flowers die.

I'd rather have something that lasts a lifetime.

Skulls? For Real?

On my way home last night, I saw something that made me start to wonder...

I had gotten off the freeway and was behind a truck with a tailgate sign that read:

Stockyard Bison Ranch

Meat Livestock Breeding Skulls

Skulls? I can understand buying Bison meat, even breeding…but skulls? What would one use a bison skull for? Voodoo? Native American love rituals? A planter?

Now, I've seen people use the Longhorn skulls to accent their Southwestern décor. I've always thought using dead animal heads to decorate was dumb, but to each their own.

The truck was from South Dakota, I guess there must be a market for bison skulls in Bismarck.

I've been chased by a mama buffalo before. Not fun, wouldn't recommend it. Maybe these people take care of the rogue bison that terrorize small children.

Just something else to add to my list of Really Wonky Random Weird Stuff That I See While Driving.

La Dolce Vita

This is an open letter to the Universe:

Thank you, thank you for this weekend!

Friday night dinner at mom's house.

Sleeping in on Saturday, shopping and lunch with my daughter, watching 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'...just a lazy, lazy day.

Sunday was the best of all. Having breakfast with my daughter while we discussed the finer points of lip gloss, finding two Hugh Grant movies at Target for $5.50 (seriously, they have a butt-load of movies for that price - run, Forrest, run!) and lunch with family would have been enough. But to watch the Studio 60 marathon on Bravo while it snowed outside (and of course, I had a fire going) was the cherry on my sundae!

* sigh *

(I feel like this should be a MasterCard commerical)

DAMMIT!

I've woken up at 4:00 am for the past two days. And I'm not talking slowly waking up and realizing that it's 4:00. I'm talking bolt upright and *ding* I'm awake. I'm not waking up from a nightmare, I'm just waking up.

fuck.

This really bothers me, because I love my sleep. A lot.

In my sleep deprived stupor this morning, I grabbed a thing of yogurt and headed off to work. I realized when I got here that I had not grabbed a thing of yogurt, I had grabbed the sour cream.

I hope we have Mexican for lunch today.

Well Smack my Ass and call me 'Susan'!

We all have our special gifts from God. Some of us can play an instrument, some of us can do math in our heads, some of us can even leap tall buildings in a single bound.

My special gift is being present when wierd, random, totally cooky things happen. It's a part of my charm.

For example, when I was driving home on Friday I heard sirens a-blaring in the distance. That wasn't the wierd random thing that happened, stay with me. All of a sudden two motorcycle officers stop right in the middle of the intersection and start waving traffic to keep on going through the light. Then about twenty more motorcycle officers (sirens a-blaring) come barreling through the intersection. "Hmmm...," I thought, "Something strange must be afoot. Let's sit back and watch the fun."

Then, two big ass tour buses (traveling at 55 mph, I'm sure) fly through the intersection with four more motorcycle officers by thier side. The original officers left and I was on my merry way.

It was like I was watching 'Speed 3: AARP Splinter Cell'. I'm not certain why over twenty officers needed to escort these tour buses. But, in my mind, they were escorting of a terrorist splinter cell of surly seniors visiting Scottsdale from Boca Raton to the local Furr's Cafeteria.

I have also been witness to:

A fellow walking around in a baseball helmet. No equipment, no uniform, no where near a park. He was just wearing the helmet for walkin' around purposes. Bless his heart.

A little old lady on her Little Rascal scooter driving in the bus lane during rush hour traffic. The bus driver behind her was not as amused as I.

A fellow dressed up as a ballerina standing on a street corner holding up a sign for the Halloween store. He was just wavin' as proud as could be in his little tutu. Out of nowhere, three ninjas appeared on the little hill behind him. A car pulled up, the ninjas got in and sped away.

An electric road-side sign that read, "B.J.'s this way -->" I thought to myself, "Well I guess hookers have gone high tech." In actuallity, it was a sign for the Barret-Jackson Car show.

I love that I notice this crap. It makes me giggle.

So, the reason why there is a stoopid amound of officers around guarding tour buses is...

The Gators and the Buckeyes are in town for the BCS bowl game.

All I have to say is this...

Go. Dawgs.

Ex-Husbands and Lesbians

In addition to being witness to random act of oddity, my family and friends add to the wonky factor of my life. I'm not really sure if I belong on Jerry Springer or if I should write a bestseller. Seriously, I'm not creative enough to make this shit up.

For example, my daughter had spent her winter break with her dad. We had plans to meet on Sunday so I could take her home. My ex-husband called me on Sunday morning and said, "I need to ask you a huge favor. If I gave you gas money, could you come down and pick up the baby."

Now, at this point I'm thinking that maybe his mom (whose health is declining) is ill, his truck broke, he's gotta work...something normal.

Thinking that something normal could happen in my life was my first mistake.

"Well, Mary left Tonya a week ago and hasn't come home or called to check on her kid. And Tonya is freaking out. So, I'm kinda dealing with that.", he said.

Oh, for fuck sake.

"Okay, let me get this straight," I says, "My ex-husband wants me to come pick up my daughter because he's dealing with lesbian drama and can't meet me?"

"Yeah, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

This is so yummy it should be fattening.

I picked up my daughter and learned that Mary did finally show up to pick up some clothes and her son.

I swear I've seent his exact scenario on a novella.

Deep Fried Butter Balls

The thing about making a complete jackass out of yourself on national television is that you get to see it in syndication. Again and again and again...

Because of a sarcastic remark by Bobby Deen, my friend Christine telling me I couldn't do sometihng and my complete inability to back down from a challenge...I ended up on 'Paula's Party' frying frozen balls of butter with Paula Deen.

This was, by far, the most surreal experience of my life. What happned was this...(I feel like I should start 'Once Upon a Time)

I watched Paula Deens chefography on Food Network. While they were rolling the credits, they showed her son, Bobby, on a tour bus talking to the tourists. He asked if anyone had any questions. A lady said, "Yeah. What's your mom's favorite dessert?"

"Butter," Bobby replied, "Fried butter with sour cream sauce."

Now that was funny.

I was talking about the chefography with my friend Christine the next day at work. She's from GA and I lived there for a while, so we've bonded over our love of all things SE Georgia.
I asked her if she had seen what Bobby had said. She did.

And I wondered out loud, "Now, how the sam hill would you fry butter?" Not that I thought fried butter would make great finger foods at poker parties, but...could it be done? hmmmm...
Christine looked at me like I was crazy, "You can't fry no damn butter! What the hell is wrong with you!?"

That's all it took. You can't tell me that I can't do something in the kitchen. I'll do it, and I'll do it twice. In heels if I mean bidness. ;-)

After a first failed attempt, I got smart about it and mixed the butter with a little cream cheese, froze it, battered and deep fried it. Yes Virginia, you can deep fry butter. Call me Wyl E., because I'm a Super-Genius!

I brought it in to Christine, who wouldn't even try it. But, who can blame her. Fried butter?

Eewww.

A couple of days later, I found a link on the Food Network website to appear on t.v. with Paula if you had a story/recepie on one of their listed topics. One topic was: "What is the strangest food you've ever deep fried?"

Oh, shit. My diabolical plan was set in motion.

So, I sent in my story. I never thought I'd hear back. Why would anyone want to fry butter? That's just wonky. But I did hear back. After a few e-mails and phone calls with producers, my best-good friend Vanessa and I were on our way to Savannah.

I love Savannah. I miss living there. I was going home.

Vanessa and I misbehaved all the way there.

So, we get to the day of taping. Wheeee. It wasn't until then, when talking to the producer, that I was told I would be cooking said butter balls with Paula Deen.

*gasp* If I would've known that I would've worn the "good" bra!

So, I fried butter with Paula Deen. I also said some completely inappropriate things after I was miked. But a chocolate gooey butter cake can do that to a girl.

Paula was very sweet and funny as hell. She even chatted a little with me after the show. I felt bad that she had to eat the butter balls. They're icky. However, if you substitued bleu cheese for the cream cheese, they'd probably be yummy on a grilled steak.

This moment in my life was truly surreal. I'm the subject of some foodie blogs and have the world at large thinking I'm insane. (insert evil laugh here) My diabolical plan is working!

My most favorite part of this experience is that I was able to share it with my best friend. I would say that she's the wind beneath my wings, but we're not that hokey.

The show we were on originally aired in October and just aired again last week. My friend Tom called, "Hey, you're on t.v. again! You're a total jackass. I think you scared Paula Deen."

Tom has been enrolled in the Ricky Martin fan club.

She humbles me

My daughter is 13. She's tall, skinny, independant and thinks I'm the most uncool person on the planet. My very presence with her in public can make her run and hide behind a display of 10 for $1 items, lest someone realizes that *gasp*...she has a mother. yikes.

A storm system moved in last night, so this morning was overcast and cold. I went into her bedroom to make sure she was awake and I heard her ask, "Mommy, will you cuddle me for a minute?"

My heart melted.

For five (yes, FIVE) whole minutes this morning I got to cuddle with my "baby" and remember what it felt like, as a new mother, to hold this child in my arms. I miss that I can't pick her up anymore.

Being a mother has not only taught me great love, patience and not to freak out when someone throws up on you...it's taught me humility. She is the reason I'm alive and I thank God for everyday I have with her.

Of course, when I dropped her off at school this morning and said, "Bye, have a good day!", she replied...

"Mom! Don't talk to me when there are people around!"

Did I mention that she's really good at being 13?

Boys dreams are made from...

There are some things from childhood that everyone holds dear. A toy, a relative, a memory...
I hold the following boys near and dear to my two-sizes too small heart:

Duckie Dale

Jake Ryan

Farmer Ted

Lloyd Dobler

Long Duck Dong

John Bender

Sporto

Blaine (yes, I know it's a major appliance and not a name)

Silent Bob

While I realize they are all fictional, I will have a total junior high crush on all of these boys forever.

And they will always live (at least in my mind) in Shermer, Ill.

I'm so bringing sexy back

At work, I sit in a row of cubes. Lined one next to the other, and back to back. Kind of like prison cells, except at work, we have all the coffee you can drink and Oreos.

While I was busy at work, I heard something in the distance. Music gently gliding through the office from the general direction of cell block four (this would be J's cube).

I listened intently to the muted melody. I know this song…


Hmmmmm….


Oh shit! It's Britney Spears singing "Oops, I did it again!"


Me being the silly rabbit that I am…I thought when my daughters' tweenage obsession ended, I would never have to listen to Britney again. Oh, how wrong I was.

However, I am not one to be outdone. He started it, and I intended to finish it.

I opened up my iTunes and promptly put on "Sexy Back" (okay, this wasn't really my idea…the Genius of Kate came up with this gem).

Then it dawned on me….I was having a Britney/Justin war with a man wearing blue/green plaid pants.