Growing Up
December 11th, 2006
Adonymous called me at work today to let me know that my laptop was fixed – yes, fixed! OMG! I must have thanked him about a bazillion times and I almost wept with joy at seeing my baby again. Oh, iTunes, I’ve missed you! Music! Podcasts! My own store! MY DOCUMENTS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. And then…I fired it up. And, uh, the motherboard fried with this giant, sweeping black screen of death. Ad assured me that he was able to boot it before, and it’s just so…so…TYPICAL that it fried the first time I turned it on. I miss her, and now I am afraid she’s gone forever. RIP, Rosebud.
A random housekeeping issue: I’m not pregnant, and I’m not planning to become pregnant, you know, at this exact moment. Although I have a relatively small readership, apparently something I said accidentally set off the pregnancy alert button, for I got a few emails, including some from people I know in real life, which made me feel terrible, for dude, if I were pregnant, I would TOTALLY TELL YOU FIRST, before making a half-assed announcement on some blog.
So! Moving on! To what, I’m not sure, but we’re moving on! My mind is completely blown by the fact that it’s mid-December, by the way, and Christmas is mere weeks away. I’m….well, I’m a little horrified, if I am to be honest, because not only does it continue to be hot and humid (festive!), but I have done absolutely no shopping for anyone in my life, as in, if you missed it: none. I am also having a few issues with turning 31 (on Dec. 27), and I’m not sure why that is, given that I turned 30 without really noticing. I mean, it’s not like I think it’s old or anything, really. It just seems THAT MUCH OLDER THAN 30, and I don’t know why, because it isn’t, and if I were having this conversation with someone other than myself, I’d tell her to shut up. It’s been an odd sort of adjustment as I’ve grown up, if I may use such a juvenile word, to see what my life has actually turned out to be vs. longtime expectations. Certainly in areas, I’ve far surpassed any expectations, but in others, well, I continue to be surprised at how quickly the years fly by. Like many little kids, back when I thought that 22 was the pinnacle of OLD, I assumed that by 25, I would be married with a house full of children, and would be well on my way to some fabulous career with an assload of scrapbook-worthy accomplishments. Because 25 was practically DEAD, God. I wonder what my 12-year-old self would have thought of 31.
It’s not that I’m unhappy – quite the opposite, in fact, for it’s been a great year. I’ve done a lot of things I never would have expected, and I feel pretty good with where we’ve ended up. Not that there isn’t more that I want to do – certainly not – but I no longer feel this overwhelming drive to accomplish my face off, for I learned that’s the quickest way to completely miss out on your life. Not to bring it back to the initial topic of kids, but it surprises me even today that I’ve reached this age so quickly without having kids – not that I would change it, really. And the truth is, I still don’t feel old enough to be this age, or any age other than 17. I remember when I got married at 27, I felt so shockingly young to be getting married. I almost laughed through my wedding vows because I couldn’t believe someone was actually allowing me to get married, and shouldn’t someone take my parents aside and remind them that I am far too young for this, and maybe STOP ME?
I am not sure where I’m going with this. I guess to say simply that I feel far too young for my age, which completely shocks me, since I’ve spent the vast majority of my life feeling old and introverted and partied out. I don’t feel young in the sense that I still have to get my shit together, because, shockingly, my shit is extraordinarily together, but young in the sense that God, life is coming at me so fast and I can’t figure out where the years went. And also, it doesn’t really help that I have an almost primal need to call my mother every time I get sick or feel overwhelmed with something and if she lived close by, I would have to be restrained from crawling into her lap.
Finally, and shockingly unrelated, I collect old housekeeping/self-help/cook books from the ’50s and ’60s. I find them hilarious on so many levels, from the complete chapter in a vintage copy of Hints from Heloise that tells women what to do when their man comes home from work (“Smile! Put on lipstick! Make sure ashtrays are empty! Fluff your skirt!) to the transformation of cookbooks everywhere with the advent of prepared convenience foods. Nothing makes me smile more than countless recipes for the new-fangled Ritz cracker mock-apple pie (Why use real apples, when Ritz taste the same?) or entire chapters devoted to figuring out how to work with this new thing called “cheese food” also known as Cheez Whiz. I recently came into an old copy of the Joy of Cooking, and really, given a recent conversation about peanut butter sandwiches (and also given that there were some of you, oh my God, who were way into peanut butter and bacon because you are gross), I feel oddly compelled to share this little number which seriously, makes me want to throw up. This is the recipe exactly as it appears in the 1962 printing of the JoC. Frankly, it’s the random commentary after the ‘preheat broiler’ statement that kills me.:
Peanut Butter & Bacon Sandwiches
Preheat broiler
Virtue, however admirable, is frequently dull. Peanut butter needs enlivening! Try this mixture on the unconverted.
Combine:
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pickle relish or chili sauce
1/4 cup cooked minced bacon
Toast on one side:
4 slices white bread
Spread the untoasted side with the mixture. Broil the sandwiches until the tops are brown and slice diagonally. Enjoy! [Ed. note: Vomit! VOMIT! CHILI SAUCE AND PEANUT BUTTER.]
*Peter Gabriel. My ghost likes to travel.
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
23 Comments Add your own
1. Sundry | December 11th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
I would be all over that bacon/PB concoction except for the RELISH. God, relish. Hork. Talk about ruining a perfectly good combination of peanut butter and pig.
Oh wait, I just noticed the mayonnaise. Okay, that’s officially gross.
2. TwoBusy | December 12th, 2006 at 6:53 am
Don’t think of yourself as being 31 — think of yourself as being halfway to 62.
3. Lawyerish | December 12th, 2006 at 7:18 am
Ok, the peanut butter and bacon sandwich I had no mayonnaise, chili sauce, or pickle relish anywhere near it. That really IS gross.
I always love when they have the recipe for the Ritz cracker “apple” pie on the Ritz box. That is too awesome. Disgusting, of course, but awesome.
I think I would like to have a retro dinner party where everyone has to bring something weird from one of those cookbooks.
4. Sadie | December 12th, 2006 at 7:58 am
Lawyerish, I will bring the ‘angels on horseback’ and the baby shrimp mold. Nothing says “party!’ like gelatin-encased canned seafood on Ritz crackers. Except maybe Jonniker’s peanut butter and bacon sandwich recipe.
5. a Random Person | December 12th, 2006 at 7:58 am
that is so very, very disgusting. I can’t imagine bacon and peanut butter, either! and I love me some bacon. Some of these out-there recipes are so mind boggling. I mean: it’s like pineapple on pizza. You wonder just HOW someone came up with it, and just HOW MANY disgusting things were ingested (and promptly vomited) to get to the point of finding something that’s tasty (questionable term).
6. Suebob | December 12th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Ok, it is time for an admission: growing up, my mom “invented” peanut butter, bacon and sweet pickle chip sandwiches and I ate many of them with gusto.
Think of the peanut butter not as a sandwich spread but like Thai peanut sauce, which people happily put on all kinds of meat…And think of the pickle chips as…well, I don’t know but they were cool and crispy and sweet.
7. Heather B. | December 12th, 2006 at 9:01 am
I remember when I thought that at 24, I was totally going to be married and about to have a baby.
Are you laughing? Do you find that as hilarious as I’m finding it? Because dude, according to my calculations I’ve got about 10 months to get cracking on that.
8. -R- | December 12th, 2006 at 11:03 am
Two years ago, I taught a class of 14-year-olds at church. I felt like I was relatively close to their age. They thought I was soooo old. I was 25.
Sorry about your computer!
9. Orange Peacock | December 12th, 2006 at 11:55 am
First of all, your blog has the weirdest security code confirmation word thingies. They’re like almost-words.
Secondly, I don’t think I’ll ever feel like my age. I felt too old for my age until I started feeling very definitely eleven or so. I think I’m just going to be stuck there until I’m 80. Besides, it’s probably better for your sanity to be young at heart.
Thirdly, peanut butter and bacon? EW EW EW.
10. karen | December 12th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Jonniker-you could have been writing COMPLETELY about how I felt this past week turning 32. How is it even humanly possible that I am this age? And while I have lots of little “accomplishments” tucked under my fringed belt (joking) I still feel like I might wake up tomorrow and realize I misread my own birthdate and am in fact, 17. With bigger boobs.
11. lizgwiz | December 12th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
I have somehow made it well into my 40s without feeling like an adult. How does that happen? I have wrinkles, things creak and pop that never used to creak and pop, and yet I don’t feel “grown up” at all. Maybe I never will? Maybe nobody does?
12. Claire | December 12th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
though my boyfriend tried to tell me i was now officially 30 last week, my last birthday hasn’t bothered me yet. (see, i turned 26 and that means that i round-up to 30, instead of last year where i rounded down to 20… like people actually do that. for real? who does that. no one. so shut up) not you. nevermind.
oh, and pb and bacon – gross. does mayo even mix with peanut butter? probably just as well as honey does with vodka.
pb and banana, however? heaven.
13. Jen | December 12th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Probably once a week I look over at my husband and say, “Can you belive we’re MARRIED?” And it’s been almost three years, we’ve lived in three different places and own a house, and yet I still can’t believe it somehow. I mean, I was there! There are pictures! Just wierd. So it goes without saying that I don’t feel old enough to have kids, if I’m still expecting to wake up one day back in my old room at home.
14. marit | December 12th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
I always thought I’d be married at 25 and have my first child around 30. Um…I’m 27 and not even engaged. Times, they are a changin’.
And–for your Mac. I feel your pain. I had the same thing happen. It was sent off to get a new logic board and never came back. Instead–they replaced it with a MACBOOK PRO. Hell to the yes. (read about it on my blog if you’d like)
It could happen to you…..
15. Beth | December 12th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Peanut butter = good.
Bacon = good.
Peanut butter + bacon = super good.
Peanut butter + relish + mayo + bacon = doubleplusungood.
16. H | December 12th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
I’m 44 and still feel 19 inside. I’m guessing that’s how we all feel, no matter how we look on the outside and no matter how our bodies fail.
The sandwich sounds gross, but who am I to judge. Growing up, we ate ketchup sandwiches, sugar sandwiches and soda crackers in milk (like cereal, only in a glass.)
17. happy and blue 2 | December 13th, 2006 at 6:47 am
“Virtue, however admirable, is frequently dull. Peanut butter needs enlivening!” As do 31st Birthdays and every other thing in life.
One can never have enough enlivening, ha,ha..
18. rhea | December 13th, 2006 at 8:53 am
My Mom and Sister went through a phase of peanut butter and onion sandwiches.
Peanut butter goes well with a lot of stuff, but bacon? Mayo? Relish? Onions? People please! ewww
19. Alexa | December 13th, 2006 at 9:06 am
Oh, how this post spoke to me! (In a kind, reassuring, hand-patting sort of way, is how.) I feel the same way about getting married, and every time I have an appointment with my fertility doctor I expect her to tell me I am much too young to be having a baby, because I am only a baby myself. But as someone above mentioned, that feeling disappears pretty quickly when teaching–when I taught 16 year-olds they thought I was ancient.
20. Allison | December 13th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Peanut butter, cheese (preferably Velveeta) and mayonnaise. OH, so delicious! Cheddar works in a pinch though. Mm. I wish I had that for lunch today.
21. Jen W. | December 13th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Dude. Peanut butter needs enlivening? Who comes up with these things? It’s probably some joke to see if people would actually make and eat these disgusting things. It’s just fine with jelly, I say.
22. marian | December 13th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Imagine what it was like for those of us who actually grew up with parents who thought it was OKAY to mix mayonnaise, peanut butter and pickle relish. Or Jello, marshmallows, ham and mayonnaise, or any of the other horrifying mixtures we had to actually EAT. And many of us knew it — KNEW I tell ya, that this was not food, this was some kind of crazy neurotic post-war PTSD, but there was nothing we could do!
23. wordgirl | December 13th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
Yeah…horrified that Christmas is so close? I know exactly how you feel.
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed