Dog Days of Summer

SweetbabyJesusthestatisticsclassfromhellisfinallyover. Listen, I consider myself to be a fairly decent smarty pants but man, taking this as an online class was a serious oversight on my part. Essentially it ends up being self taught because the teacher is boozing it up on her sabbatical sending only sporadic drunk emails. Sheldon, my personal math tutor, was supposed to help but opted to move in with her little wing men and avoid house rules like that pesky curfew. But……the agony is over, I have a few short weeks before I head back to ASU where I’ll be driving myself over the cliff taking 5 classes while working full time at Giant Engineering firm.

So many topics were swirling in my head while trying to determine if I should divide by the square root of “n” or the standard deviation, it was hard to decide on a subject. It seems like all everyone on Facebook and CNN can talk about is the weather. It’s hot, it’s humid, my thighs are stuck together, well man up the rest of the nation. It’s been over 100 degrees since May in Phoenix, I don’t care how much they say it’s a dry heat. Sure, we’re all high and mighty in February when you’re covered in snow and ice but it’s our reward for living in Satan’s cellar from June to October. This paired with my newfound hot flashes make Mrs. Tuna a tiny bit hostile.

Other strategies I employ are getting up at 3:45 AM (no that is not a typo) to ride two horses, take a shower to remove my helmet head before running into my office veal fattening pen by 8:30. This translates into going to bed at 8:00. I feel like a toddler, overwrought and overtired. Please, someone, anyone, put me down for a nap already. Of course I add ice to my wine to keep hydrated, I mean water is just silly.

In a former life I was a vegetarian for 7 or 8 years. It had nothing to do with feeling like it wasn’t moral to eat animals, it was all about texture. Any meat a little chewy caused instant gag reflex. That’s why ground beef is okay, because its pre chewed. Being married to Mister Meat and Potatoes causes me to create some veggie dishes to offset the clogging of my arteries.

Roasted Garlic Cauliflower
1 head cauliflower separated
5 cloves chopped chunky
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 teaspoons toasted pine nuts
3 tablespoons lemon juice
Parmesan Cheese to taste

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. On a rimmed baking sheet toss cauliflower with garlic and 3 tablespoons of olive oil and salt. Spread in single layer stirring occasionally until cauliflower is tender, approximately 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to large bowl and combine with remaining oil, pine nuts, lemon and parmesan cheese.

We’ve been hit with two gigantic dust storms in last couple of weeks. The first, over 100 miles wide and over a mile tall was so thick it left a half inch of fine powder everywhere and full coverage on the weather channel. The chicken sh*t dogs clung to us like we were covered with bacon fat. Earlier this week we had phase two of operation permanent dust in our teeth. One of my coworkers caught it on tape from our 31st floor, pretty impressive. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto.