Author Archives: metamegan

>But Soft!

>What light through yonder window breaks?

From misc

Well, he looks a little more Shakespearean without beans on his face. But this is a new pose that he does quite frequently and on demand. I just have to start quoting The Bard.

>Second Last Person on Earth Joins Facebook

>MetaMegan joined Facebook this week, making her the second last person on Earth to join, her friends and family said Sunday. “I just wanted to see what it was, but I can’t really figure it out” she was heard to say, stating one of the three excuses people over 30 mention when explaining why they have joined a social networking site developed for college students. Other excuses include, “I wanted to look up old boyfriends” and “my 2o year reunion was coming up and everyone was getting in touch via facebook.”

Mentioning that you do not really understand how Facebook works is another common Facebook related utterance according to Dr. Magoo, Sociology Professor at Ohio University. “People like to say they don’t really understand facebook for several reasons. In the over 30 crowd, there is a reticence towards seeming overly enthusiastic about something that may in fact be too ‘young’ for them to fully enjoy. A pretend ignorance can also be a defense mechanism used to explain a low volume of friends. People of this generation grew up programming their parents VCRs, but there is also always a possibilty that they may, in fact, not really understand how Facebook works.” The professor continued, “The case of MetaMegan, a technologist, who installs, documents, uses, and trains people in different software systems on a daily basis, is probably a case of the first situation, also known as Too Cool for School Syndrome.”

“Ooh look, I am up to 23 friends!” Metamegan was heard to say late Sunday night, but she rarely has been known to post a status because she “doesn’t really get what she is supposed to say.”

>Where is MetaMegan?

>I have spent the past week working on an essay for a memory book about a good friend who died last year. I have mostly been laughing and smiling about the many funny memories, but there have been some tears too. And I had been procrastinating writing the essay for more than a month, so I couldn’t be blogging about how annoying it is that “insert trivial annoying detail here” when I should be writing down memories of my friend for her children to read. But the essay is almost finished, so you can expect that I will be back to my regularly scheduled programming very soon!

One piece of info to make you jealous! Guess where Jack and I were today?


And by today, I mean yesterday, since I just noticed it is after midnight.

>MetaMegan’s Mangled "Me Time"

>Luke has swimming lessons on Thursdays, and the pick up time is between 5:45 and 6:00 at the pool, which is very close to my office. Since I finish work at 5:00, that means 45 whole minutes of glorious “me time” between work and pick up. I declared Thursday to be Megan Day! I dressed nicely because on Thursdays I have to drive! I brought the paper to read while I sipped a latte somewhere between Whole Foods and Barnes and Noble after leisurely strolling the magazine and fiction section! Thursdays, how I have looked forward to you, lo these many weeks since I signed Luke up for swimming lessons. How I imagined what I could be doing instead of hovering around the lesson that first week. How I wished I was more organized the second week when I was speeding to pick Luke up after we had stupidly scheduled his parent-teacher conference at the school at the end of the day, forgetting he would be across town at lessons.

Maybe it was a case of too much anticipation? Maybe 45 minutes isn’t really that much time? Especially because 10 of those minutes were spent talking to my boss, not realizing it was already 5:00 pm? And 10 minutes were spent finding a parking space at Whole Foods, and 10 minutes were spent purchasing peanut butter at Whole Foods so I can make lunches this evening. And 5 minutes were spent waiting for my latte. So yeah, I browsed for 2 minutes, spent 3 minutes in line debating just chucking the book and running for the door. I made up excuses in my mind for not being there when the lesson ended. Like, “I couldn’t find a parking space!” (Eerily, that came true.) Alas, when I arrived at the Y, Luke was lounging on the couch watching TV. He managed to slide one eye in my direction to glare at me reproachfully for not being the first parent there, all the while keeping the other eye glued to Nickelodeon.

And then we left, and he immediately and completely melted down into a pile of crying, screaming, hungry goo. I brought him a plum for a snack. That made things worse.

But! The day was saved! Because if are coming down from a relaxing three minutes of me time, and you have a screaming child in the car who needs a snack, and you have recently purchased some peanut butter… I think you can see where this is going. I loaded up a spoon full of peanut butter to take the edge off his hunger meltdown, while simultaneously gluing his mouth shut for the rest of the drive home.

Megan Day was saved.

>Panic Attack Magazine

>I have sworn off Parents magazine, hilariously referred to as Panic Attack Magazine in Baby Blues, and by one of the nurses at my OB’s office as One Thousand and One Ways Your Kids Could Die Magazine. But that’s all there was to read in the lactation room yesterday, so I told myself to just read it for the crafts, advertising, and halloween costumes. I swore I wouldn’t read any of the recall notices, milestone alerts, “it happened to me” horror stories, or parenting tips.

But then I got to the section on what to do in cases of emergencies, and I thought maybe I could use some brushing up on my first aid. So I read what to do in case of burns. Always good to know what to do in the case of a burn. Next section: Tornadoes. OK, I could use a refresher on that. Next: Bear attacks. I have bear-aphobia, so this looked like a good read. There was a lot of info on black bears, who normally don’t attack you. Grizzly bears, not so much info beyond: Grizzlies are not found East of the Rocky Mountains. Thanks a lot, Parents magazine! I guess your demographic is more Midwest/East Coast? Blood pressure rising. Next up: What do to if your car becomes submerged in water while driving? What!? Seriously? Who needs this kind of info? Who will remember it when it happens? And since it was presented as
1.)Problem
2.) Myth about how to solve problem
3.) Actual way to solve problem – OK, now all I remember is the myth, and not the actual way to solve the problem. Maybe because I tossed the magazine aside in disgust before I read what to do. For future reference, if your car is sinking in a lake, don’t wait for the car to become completely submerged and the pressure to equalize before you get out. That is a MYTH!

So I stormed off to complain about Parents magazine to Carolyn and she agreed that we’d never remember what do to if any of those freak accidents happened to us. But that maybe if I tore out the article and acted like an authority on under water car accidents that my mom would feel more comfortable going on drives with me.

>The Messy Cook: Zucchini Bread Revisited

>When I was a junior in college, I moved into a house, and I started inviting people over for dinner immediately. As I started cooking that very first meal I realized that I did not, in fact, know how to cook. By Christmas someone had wised up enough to give me a cook book. And once I had a recipe to go from, things started to improve. Slowly. I would make one delicious thing from the cookbook, with no regard to how many people it served compared to how many people I had invited, and I only made one thing. Side dishes? What? It probably took about 10 years for me to start incorporating side dishes. But at the beginning, on 27 Mound Street, when I was making Cajun Lentil Stew, I was having a panic attack because the recipe said the lentils would be done after X amount of time and they weren’t done. Dave was there, and I think he suggested that I add more water. Once the meal was served, I remember Eliot and Nellie saying that I should have a cooking show called The Nervous Cook. I would have a bunch of friends over, start cooking, totally freak out about something, get some advice from the friends/audience and then everything would turn out fine.

So, things have improved, but now my show would be called: The Messy Cook. And instead of a show, it would be a blog.

The accidental fat free zucchini bread and the peach cobbler blog posts are the ones that have generated more hits than everything else, so people are obviously very interesting in finding recipes on the internet. And I feel sorry for the ones that end up here with my bad photography and recipes gone wrong. (Although the peach cobbler is delish.)

So on my pretend cooking blog, I will now review 3 zucchini bread recipes.

1.) Blue Ribbon Zucchini Bread from my Simply Colorado cookbook.
3 eggs beaten
½ Cup sugar
1 C. brown sugar
½ C. oil
1 T maple flavoring (I leave this out)
2 C. zucchini shredded
2 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
1 tps. Salt
½ C. wheat germ
2 ½ C flour
1/3 C. walnuts, chopped
Cooking spray
¼ c. sesame seeds
Preheat to 350
Coat two 9x5x3 pans coated with cooking spray and flour
Beat together eggs, sugars, oil and maple flavoring until foamy and thick
Stir in zucchini.
Mix dry ingredients, stir into above.
Add nuts
Spoon batter into pans
Sprinkle tops with sesame seeds
Bake 45 to 60 minutes until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes before removing from pans.

This used to be my go to recipe for zucchini bread, and when I accidentally made it without any oil, it turned out fine, but it seems strangely short. This was a good one because it seems to be the healthiest, but at the same time, I haven’t been inspired to make it again yet. Luke didn’t like it because it had nuts, and no raisins. Or none raisins, as he would say. Of the three, this is probably the best one though, if you are looking for something that is on the lower end of the fat and sugar scale.

2.) From my fave food blog, the antithesis of The Messy Cook, Smitten Kitchen

I made this without nuts and with raisins. It was fine. Luke really liked it. I’m not really inspired to make it again though.

3.) Then Dave came home raving about his co-worker’s wife’s zucchini bread, and I can’t be outdone, so I made that. I think maybe I didn’t cook it long enough because it was kind of gooey and one half of one of the loaves stayed in the pan. But if you are looking for a dessert zucchini bread, served straight out of the pan with a spoon that you pass around the table, then this is the one for you. Or you could just cook it a little longer. Details:

It all started at some festival, where we saw the great zucchini races, and Luke wanted me to grow a gigantic zucchini. I had a zucchini in the garden that was about ready to be picked, so I just didn’t pick it. Three weeks later, Dave noticed it while looking out the window. If I had waited any longer to pick it, it would have been visible from space. Weighing in at 5 pounds, the zucchini:

From Zucchini

Luke helped me shred it in the food processor.

From Zucchini

I had enough for 9 loaves of bread.

I made sort of a mess.

From Zucchini

It turned out gooey.

From Zucchini

The end.