i'm a freak of nature

i don't like chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven.

well, i like making them. i love the way they make the house smell. and i sure love to eat them - just not when they're warm and gooey, the way most normal human beings do. nope, i always wait until the next day, when they're completely cooled off and the chocolate has solidified again. weird, huh?

this got me thinking about my other weird food-related quirks. you already know i don't do fruit - i like fruit-flavored stuff, but i won't touch anything that contains fruit chunks. texture. ew. and yes, this includes avocado. gross.

but there are lots of others, like when i'm spreading something on any bread-like substance (toast, rolls, bagels, etc.). i have to cover the entire surface with whatever i'm putting on there - edge to edge, corner to corner - not a single bite can be left without. i'm cool with food touching on my plate, or mixing sweet and savory (sometimes). i like my ice cream a little melty - when i was little, i'd put it in the microwave to soften it for a few seconds. i never heard the end of that one from my grandfather. i prefer my water to be at room-temperature (i once heard that j-lo does this, so my friend quirky, who also liked her water sans ice, and i dubbed it "j-lo water"), although everything else i drink has to be ice cold - milk, juice, soda (preferably coke on ice in a glass). i love mushrooms, but won't eat 'em raw. i hate cilantro and hard-cooked egg yolks.

there are more, but i think you already think i'm a freak as it is. might as well not add even more fuel to the fire.

in other news, the teen managed to hurt her ankle again in p.e. on monday. and this time, it was the OTHER ankle! oy. it's her week with her dad, but when the nurse wasn't able to reach him to pick her up, i got the call. and although it was under not-so-great circumstances (they even had to bring her down from the field in a wheelchair because she couldn't put any weight on it), i was excited to get some extra bonus time with her.

she got picked up pretty quickly, though, and then we spent the afternoon trading text messages. yesterday morning, the phone rang, and my trusty caller ID told me it was the ex. usually, the sight of that name and number fills me with dread, but i knew this call was most likely teen-related, and i picked it up quickly.

turns out that she still couldn't stand on the leg with the injured ankle, so he decided to keep her out of school and take her straight to the doctor. x-rays had already been taken and the ankle proclaimed as sprained (not broken, thank the good lawd), and they were waiting for the doctor to return to give them a note to pull her out of p.e.

shockingly, it turned into probably the longest conversation the ex and i have had in years. we chatted and laughed and talked about old friends (who all maintained their friendships with him after we split up), caught up on relatives, discussed other stuff going on in each other's lives. and it was really *gulp* great.

i got to thinking that a lot of people tend to remember the good things in failed relationships. but not me - i've been so consumed with the bad (SO much bad) in ours that i'd forgotten that there was actually some good in our twelve years together. i mean, come on - i like to think i'm fairly smart, so there had to be some reason that we lasted so long, right?

i don't know if this will lead to improved relations between us from here on out, but it was nice to be reminded that, aside from the teen, the relationship i'd had with the ex hadn't been all bad.

speaking of the teen, it turns out that the doc decided her sprain was bad enough that it warranted a walking cast. behold:

oy vey! she gets to rock this thing for two weeks, and it's scheduled to come off, of all days, on her birthday. sheesh.

the bean let me take more pictures of her:

i saw a recipe for cream cheese mints last week, and ever since, it's been haunting me. i love cream cheese. i love mint. and i love sugar. sounded like a winner to me. but i didn't have a special occasion to make them for. although i'd spent the entire day in my pajamas, so i decided that was good enough.

these are yummy - creamy, sweet, with a light minty flavor. reminds me of those shamrock shakes i loved so much last month. mmmmm.

and that leads us to last night's dinner. nice segue, huh? but the hub said it was one of his all-time favorite meals, and it's so simple and delicious that i had to share. i think i've made it before, but all that high praise got me all proud and happy.

laughing cow chicken is a recipe i discovered while surfing the cooking board on the nest. i paired it with some quickie rice pilaf from a package and added some delicious spinach salad.

hmmm. it seems like my recipes are becoming rather repetitious. booooring. time to find some new ones!