They Call Me Galvez

This past weekend, I went to Comic-con in San Diego for the second straight year.  Don’t call me an uber-geek yet, because Comic-con is not just another geek-pilgrimage (although I’m a geek light weight, I would have gone anyways.)  It was really crowded, but I had a great time!   I actually attended three out of four days!  Sadly, I don’t think that gives me enough dork-cred.  The people that dress up in costume and line up at 6AM for panels are hard core!  I was impressed with the passion shown by all the attendees.  Comic-con is a very unique event where celebrities can directly interact with fans.  Pretty cool.  There aren’t a lot of events where this interaction occurs. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but anything movie-related holds my interest.  I know there were many die-hard comic book fans that scoffed at the presence of many non-comic related panels present there this year. Comic-con  has been becoming more of a pop-culture convention than a strictly comic convention.  The increase in popularity of comic book movies has helped to put this annual pilgrimage or “geek-rimage” to San Diego a holy crusade for geeks around the world!  I will admit I just wanted to go at first to geek-watch, but then I thought, “This is actually kinda cool!” I really enjoyed the movie and TV panels.  But don’t get me wrong I did pick up some comics and graphic novels, but I still don’t have my “dork-cred” yet.  My top 5 panels in order were:

1. the Avengers Cameo with Samuel Jackson, Scarlet Johansson, Robert Downy Jr, etc (this will be an awesome movie!)
2. The Other Guys with Will Ferrell, Mark Walberg, Eva Mendez
3. Family Guy with Seth McFarland, Seth Green
4. The Cleveland Show with a cast reading
5. The movie Super panel with the cast: Rainn Wilson, Ellen Paige, Nathan Filion, and Liv Tyler

Comic-con is like 4 days of Halloween.   People get dressed up in costumes, you carry a bag around picking up free stuff, and you feel like a little kid getting herded into panels like going to class.  Some people really get into dressing up!  The first day you are kinda in shock realizing these are grown-ups dressed up in costumes.  But almost everyone is there to have good time! I did take my mobility scooter (AKA the mAss Kicker mobile) with me.  It was great getting around and I now possess the skills to maneuver in a large crowd.  However, there was one thing I was not prepared for in the scooter.  I didn’t realize that in a crowded area, my head sits at or below armpit level.  Oh lord, the horror!  I do have more freedom to go out on my own, but I was not prepared for the many smells to which I would be exposed in large crowds of people.  While hygiene at comic-con is not the greatest, the guys bathroom floors are equally disgusting. (I’m sure this can be said about any major event.)  There are always little puddles of urine on the floor.  I never noticed how disgusting this is because for me it was always a quick pit stop.  When your balance is fine, you don’t really have to worry where your feet are. When you have to constantly worry about foot placement, balance, and aim… a trip to a crowded public restroom becomes an adventure.  It is a realization I’m willing to come to terms with, but I’m sure I will discover many other disgusting things.

I have always been a comic book fan.  In elementary school, my parents used to reward me with a comic book for every “A” I brought home.  They even let me subscribe by mail to MARVEL comics, The Amazing Spiderman and The Transformers.  Well… they got me reading, getting good grades, and excited about getting the mail.  When you are 9 years old, the only time you get mail is on your birthday or Christmas… I remember feeling so cool getting mail! The excitement and anticipation of getting the next issue was always something I felt after reading a great story.  Anyways,  I’ll definitely be going to comic-con next year.  Gotta think of a cool costume… Maybe then, I can join the ranks of the uber-geeks.

Testing my Droid. I have been using my whole arsenal of starwars jokes the whole weekend. I have named my Droid “EG-25″

Well, I’ve spent nearly two weeks by myself.  I can cook meals, clean up, and manage to “work” from home.  Still the biggest issue for me is transportation.  I have some friends that I can rely on to take me places if I really need to go somewhere.  Of course, I would prefer to go somewhere myself!  Independence with activities of daily living is not as big of an issue for me for me anymore.  I think efficiency is the real issue now.  Walking, cooking, and cleaning take twice as long as it used to.  Fatigue is an issue that I am still trying to figure out.   At least I know that I can function on my own at home, but I still need to figure somethings out.

The past two weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting in the kitchen.  I recently discovered the crock pot.  I have affectionately dubbed the act of crock pot cooking, “crock pottery.”  I really wish I knew about this in college.  It would have saved me from frequent trips to McDonald’s or Wendy’s.  I have one recipe that I like… jambalaya. It is so simple.   You just throw stuff in, turn it on, and at the end of the day you have a meal!  Last week I thought I’d be creative and try combining stuff I like… brats and beer.  Made total sense at the time because beer brats taste great!  Three cans of beer +brats should be fine.  Then I was thinking… fries taste good with beer brats…  OK, throw some chopped up potatoes in there.  Then I was thinking… fries need ketchup… OK, throw a chopped up tomato in there.  Garlic Fries taste good, so maybe I should add some garlic salt.   I giggled like mad scientist in a monster lab when I poured in the garlic.  My mouth was watering as I was proudly dreaming of the scrumptious meal I had just created.  In five “short” hours I would be able to enjoy my delightful culinary master piece!  For hours, I sat in front of my computer thinking of how great of a “crock pot-head” I am!  When my alarm went off! I rushed into the kitchen to behold my creation.  I was shocked and repulsed by the smell emanating from my magical crock pot.  It kinda smelled like a popular college bar after dollar pitcher night.  No matter, my masterpiece was going to taste incredible! The brats and potatoes were cooked perfectly!  I made a cup of rice to compliment my creation.  The tomato slices were extremely fragile and dissolved on contact in the bubbling warm beer.  Not sure I added enough garlic salt… oh well. The beer kinda grossed me out so I drained the brats and potatoes from the crock pot.  I put the brats and potatoes on a bed of rice.  My first bite of the brats was just what I imagined it would be.  Plump and hearty with a tinge of bitterness from the beer. Then I tried the potatoes.  Very warm, pungent, and bitter from soaking in beer.  Kinda gross.  Oh well at least the brats turned out well.  Then I realized, wait… I’m all by myself and I have all this food.  I know what I’ll be eating tomorrow…  I’ll just put it in the fridge when it cools off.  Well, I forgot to up it in the fridge and it gave my place the pleasant aroma of a dried-beer-college-bar floor.  The next day when I warmed up my creation, I completely avoided the potatoes.  I felt obliged to at least finish the brats.  Again bad idea… the beer brats don’t hold up well when reheated.  They get very bitter. For two more meals, I forced myself to finish eating those horrible brats.  I won’t be doing that again.

LESSONS LEARNED:

• THERE IS A REASON BEER IS NOT USED AS A BASE IN COOKING.
• STICK TO ESTABLISHED RECIPES/PRACTICES, DON’T TRY DOING SOMETHING NEW UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE WORKING WITH.
• IF YOU GOING TO TRY SOMETHING NEW, BE PREPARED FOR THE CONSEQUENCES AND IF IT WORKS… THE GLORY (UNFORTUNATELY KITCHEN GLORY WILL NOT COME EASILY.)