The Doctor is Out

Hi there,

If you've come to this blog looking for a treasure, I recommend you improve your google searching abilities. This blog is on indefinite sabbatical. But I do hope to return one day.

Love,
TAB

On Life and Living

I can now talk about the fact that my husband was in a ridiculously awful car accident on Sunday without my lower lip trembling. This is obviously because he walked away 100% a-okay, except for a few small scratches on his shoulder and bruises on his back. But let me tell you, I have worse war wounds than that I got after walking into the dresser of my hotel room in the middle of the night when I was in South Dakota. (I was very tired.)

But I am still working through the five stages of grief as defined by the insightful, but completely crazy Dr. Kubler-Ros in her book "On Death and Dying."

Observe.

Stage 1: Denial
While at the hospital to get Matt checked out, I kept saying "Maybe when we go home this won't have really happened." False. I saw our totaled truck in the middle of Highway 21. I found my empty tupperware covered in dirt and missing all macaroons in the shoulder.

Yesterday, when I came home from work, I didn't see the truck in the driveway so I assumed Matt wasn't home. False. Matt is on some major muscle relaxers and is not going much farther than the sofa.

Stage 2: Anger
Last night I woke up about 3 a.m. both furious and exhausted. If I weren't determined to go back to sleep, I may have gone further than proclaiming to Matt that he is " a bull in a china shop." I do remember ticking off on my fingers how I am careful and deliberate when I do things, like driving or buying car insurance, for example, but I can't promise that I was also conscious.

Stage 3: Bargaining
I think this involves the part of my day where Matt said "I am going to go to the Ford place and look at trucks." And I said "Okay, that sounds fine, but pick me up for lunch."

Stage 4: Depression
This is where I am now. I have been mulling over car payments and costs and realizing that the new car we were shopping for, for me, only a week ago is kind of a pipe dream right now. However, I did finally decide that--dadgummit--I was going to treat myself to a replacement rear wiper arm which I have been hemming and hawing about for over a year. I guess that means I am a tiny step closer to...

Stage 5: Acceptance
I'll let you know when I am driving my shiny new car around how this stage is. Oh crud, I'm back in denial!

Oh well. Matt is getting an outstanding 2006 F-150 with all manner of ammenities. And I got a new rear wiper arm! Dreams do come true.

A Few Words About Chorizo

As any of you who read Martha Stewart Living or Bon Appetit or Asymmetrical Emo Homemaker or almost any magazine that includes recipes may have noticed: chorizo is the ingredient du jour. (Perhaps not Vegan Times, although, so conspicuous is chorizo in the hipster cooking lexicon that I would not be at all shocked to see "chorofu" or "tofizo" in its stead in meatless circles.) That said, before it started showing up on cook's most wanted, the closest most people had ever come to buying chorizo was a time they were joking around with their roommates from college in Fiesta, trying to trick one another into buying such gastronomic delights as menudo and well...chorizo. So it may surprise you to see it suddenly so wildly popular and to learn that they're regularly running out of it at Scenester Restaurant.

Yes, even the ubiquitous "pecan-encrusted" has been given a run for its student loans (from ivy league cooking school, of course) by chorizo in sheer mentions alone these days. But just what is chorizo? Like its encrusted brethren, chorizo has humble roots in the world of disgusting. (Is it so hard to remember a time when "crust" meant something gross to you? I am not talking about on PB & J on Wonderbread, people.) The twixt of that which is encrusted and that which includes chorizo of course is that while I have had some deliciously encrusted items (with pecans or butter or oreos, or best of all: friedness), chorizo is disgusting any way you slice it--and I mean that quite literally. I don't want to be too graphic here, but the oversimplified "Spanish sausage," definition does not capture the true essence of chorizo as well as "the official meat of the olympic diarrhea team" or "the taste sensation from your local water treatment plant."

Am I speaking to your heart yet?

I don't know if this is an emperor's new clothes situation at Scenester Restaurant or if people are just so overflavoring/buttering/boiling their food as to not notice in the first place, but I've come to take a stand. Let's put a stop to the chorizo madness. It may feel plebian to do so at first, but just say yes to substituting regular, non-vile sausage in recipes calling for chorizo. And when you see chorizo called for in your Thanksgiving dressing recipe, or GASP!, as a suggested griller this Independence Day, make a scene in front of your friends and relatives. Proclaim chorizo unAmerican. Wave your hands wildly and declare it in cahoots with the Iraqi insurgents. And let's banish chorizo once and for all, together.

Yours in patriotism,
T.A. Bizard

This American Vacation

Dear Friend,

I am leaving tomorrow for a preservation leadership seminar in South Dakota for work. At the conclusion of the week, my dear old husby is meeting me (with the car! and our dog!) in Deadwood and we're going to wend our way home, stopping and visiting wherever our fancy takes us--through Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and a stop I am especially excited about: Palo Duro Canyon, Texas. If I had every vacation in the world to choose, I doubt I would have put South Dakota and its famous black hills anywhere on what would surely be a long list, not to mention the long trek from Colorado I have made so many times before. Yet, I am truly thrilled for the chance. There's something to be said about blooming where you're planted.

I am going to keep my twitter active as much as I can, but I won't be around the blogosphere for a couple of weeks, I don't think. Not that this will be a huge change from what most of you have been tolerating from me! But stay tuned and look out, America! The bizards are coming!

And Don't Forget My Black T-Shirt!

When friendships or romantic relationships break up, the involved parties sometimes feel wronged by material goods not returned. I speak from experience on this matter, as I still often lament several David Sedaris books, a few dvds, and my worn out copy of Matilda that I sacrificed to those I no longer consider worthy. But something that cannot be returned, but equally lamentable, is the loss of intellectual property. Specifically, I am talking about my jokes. MY jokes that I am sick of seeing broadcast on various social media outlets.

Ex-friends, you can't have them. If you are reading this right now and are planning to become my ex-friend someday, forget everything you're reading, every quip I've made to you. Do not relay this at a party as your own story. Do not open a twitter account (to which I will NOT subscribe, thank you) and use MY jokes. Do not even tell them to yourself and laugh in private. Maybe people are listening and laughing, but remember, so is Shiva, the destroyer. This is a serious warning with absolutely no teeth behind it. But just know, I'm out here, and I'm mad.

Death of a Salesman

Dear Friend,

This blog was initially supposed to launch on June 20, the eighth anniversary of the first-ever post on my old blog. However, I have never been much of one for formalities and frankly, it's hard to have a new beginning when I am so tied to the old way. Or even the olde way. So here we are. (I may even get crazy and start proofreading before I publish, so watch. out. world!)

I have recently been lamenting twitter abuse on twitter (obv.) and people who confuse it with a) their exceptionally private personal diary b) a blog of any sort c) their thinly-veiled attempts to relate to everyday people with industry-specific language (being in the tourism industry, I am especially aware of it, and annoyed by it, in that area) d) a chat client or e) some combination of those four.

This morning, as I began to tap out an observation on the uproar of swine flu vs. the uproar over iPhone on a series of four consecutive tweets (don't miss that riveting series), I realized: the time for the return of the blog and the death of the hypocrite had finally come. Well, maybe the torture of the hypocrite. (That side of myself is ever the occasional rebel and forcefeeder of my own words to me.)

So if you're a longtime friend, welcome back to the fold. If you're just joining us, welcome. This is This American Bizard.