I want that horrible spaghetti.

When I was a kid, one thing I liked to do was help my mom cook dinner, especially meatballs. OK, and especially any kind of dessert.

When I was in elementary school, I ordered the Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls from one of those book-order newsletters. Do they still have those? This was an orange softcover book with some kind of 70s-looking food on the front. I don't know how else to explain it. They're cheeseburgers with faces.

One thing I always wanted to make but never did was this:
http://epicute.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/cute-food-dog-salad-betty-crocker.jpg

Because, come on.

In the section entitled "Mmmmm! Main Dishes!" was a recipe for One Pot Italian Spaghetti. You cooked it in a Dutch Oven. Betty's protocol was to brown the ground beef, then add the sauce, then add some salt, water, sugar and spaghetti, and cook it all together.

I only made it twice. I was only allowed to make it twice.

The sauce's consistency was kind of gluey. I could have probably assembled a school project with it. And the spaghetti, as I remember it, was adamantly on the al dente side.

I freaking loved it. Do not ask me why. I grew up with a mom who regularly made pasta, and made it well. My great-grandmother made fresh pasta from scratch into her 90s. My uncle makes wonderful Italian food (my uncle just makes wonderful food, actually), and my grandmother always had a pot of good spaghetti sauce on the stove when we visited her when I was young. So it's not like I've never had good home-made spaghetti. I have. And this stuff totally wasn't it.

But I freaking loved it anyway. Part of that is probably just that I made it myself, but I don't know. I can't say. I do like my spaghetti al dente, and I do like my sauce a little on the burnt side, so maybe this was something that combined my deviant tastes.

Whatever the reason, tonight, I'm craving that spaghetti. My dad is probably shaking his head in disbelief right now. He's the one who put the kibosh on me EVER making it again. When I protested and told him that my grandmother asked me for the recipe, he told me that she was just being nice.

In case any of the rest of you want it, through the magic of Google, here is the recipe for the burnt gluey sauce/crunchy in one pot spaghetti:

One-Pot Italian Spaghetti
Amount Ingredient
1 pound ground beef
2 tablespoons instant minced onions or 1/3 cup frozen chopped onion
8 ounce can tomato sauce
15 ounce can spaghetti sauce with mushrooms
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cups water
7 ounce package long spaghetti
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (if you like)

Preparation Instructions:

1. Crumble the ground beef into Dutch oven. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until brown on all sides, about 10 minutes. Spoon out any fat and throw it away.

2. Stir minced onion, the tomato sauce and spaghetti sauce into the ground beef. Add salt, sugar, water and the spaghetti (uncooked). Heat to boiling over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

3. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer over low heat about 15 minutes or until the spaghetti is tender. Remove from heat and stir once. Sprinkle with grated cheese just before serving.

I know what you're all thinking. Why, Chrissy, would you want to make this, given your track record? Just go to the store and get yourself some pasta and some sauce and cook it in two separate pans, the way God intended.

I am undaunted. Just because something isn't conventionally delicious doesn't mean that it has no value.

Tonight, I'm a little cold, and a lot tired. I'm overwhelmed with the work I have to do for grad school and some of my after-work commitments. It's been one of those weeks when the check engine light comes on in your car when the cat is sick and you can't fit in a nap or a workout, but you also can't focus on the paper that you're 3/4 done with. I want some comfort food. I want my bad spaghetti.

Haunted Hartford

If you're anything like me and you live in New England, then fall is probably one of the highlights of your year. The leaves change color, there's a great smell in the air, and hot apple cider gives you that delicious cozy feeling.

October is one of my favorite months of the year, and this year, I'm already starting to fill my schedule.

Two events that I highly recommend are full of local history as well as some ghosts!

Cedar Hill Cemetery will host its annual Haunted History Lantern Light tour on October 23 at 7 pm. Bring a flashlight and wear comfortable shoes. You'll be led around the cemetery grounds after nightfall (the only night of the year that the gates are open after dark!) to the graves of some of our most interesting residents. For those of you who come every year, we've added some new spots to our tour. Admission is $5, and the money benefits the ongoing restoration and preservation at Cedar Hill.

The Mark Twain House and Museum is hosting a haunted tour as well called the Graveyard Shift. Come listen to spooky stories about happenings inside the home of Connecticut's most famous writer! Strange smells, things that go bump in the night... is the mansion haunted? This will take place on October 9, 16, 23 and 30. Admission as follows:
$17/adults and seniors, $15/members, unlucky $13/children 10-16 (not recommended for children under 10!). Reservations are highly recommended! Email caitlin.thayer@marktwainhouse.org for more information.

Do you know of any other Connecticut fall events? Leave me a comment!

"Where's the flatware for going on vacation alone?" --Carrie Bradshaw

This is part of a longer quote from Sex and the City: "Think about it. If you are single, after graduation there isn't one occasion where people celebrate you ... Hallmark doesn't make a "congratulations, you didn't marry the wrong guy" card. And where's the flatware for going on vacation alone?"

I'm not whining. It just made me smile, because honestly, I don't need the flatware. I have lots of flatware, actually, but that's another entry. My kitchen is kind of full at this point. I just reorganized my kitchen gadget drawer, and I found out that I own no fewer than four vegetable peelers. I texted a friend of mine who just got his own apartment and offered him one, plus a ladle, a large two-pronged fork for turning things in a pan, a rubber scraper, a corkscrew, a slotted spoon, some measuring spoons, dry-ingredient measuring cups and a can opener. Again, that's another story.

Alaska. That's the focus of this entry. :) I haven't actually written about this trip yet! I know I touched on it on Facebook, if you follow my status updates, and I posted some photos, but I haven't really blogged about it, and people (my dad) are asking me for that, so here we go. :) I'll start at the beginning of the journey and blog about Ketchikan, then pick up again tomorrow. :)

First, I drove to New Jersey. My awesome friend Dana was nice enough to let me leave my car in her driveway while I was gone so I didn't have to leave it at the airport for two weeks. Then I took a shuttle to the airport before the sun was up so I could get on my plane at 7 am. This is all the boring stuff, though, right? I ended up in Vancouver, BC, and boarded the Carnival Spirit the next day. :)

This is the second cruise I've been lucky enough to go on, and it's still kind of daunting how huge a cruise ship is. After a couple of days at sea, we finally docked in our first port: Ketchikan.



I was one of the first people off the ship, and I grabbed a self-guided walking tour brochure out of the information booth at the dock. I had the whole town to myself for a while! I had fun walking through the back roads and neighborhoods with my pamphlet, looking at the houses and churches. There were ravens everywhere, and they are loud! I heard what I thought was an alarm overhead, and it turned out to be a raven on top of a totem pole.



I also saw a huge bald eagle in a tree above the creek, which was a big deal to me, but the local man walking by me just smiled and said, "Yes, we see him every day."

The most exciting part of Ketchikan, though, was the flightseeing tour I took. I highly recommend seeing the Misty Fjords if you ever have the chance. It was a little expensive, but it was so worth every penny. I went with Taquan Air for an hour-long tour. I really don't have the words for it, so I'll post a couple of photos for you. The pilot landed in the water for a bit and let us get out onto the pontoons so we could take more pictures. I was afraid that I was going to fall in!






Tomorrow... Juneau. :)

#70: Renew the Mensa membership

Here's one I can solve by throwing money at it!

I became a member of Mensa in 2007 after I took the official test in November of 2006 and passed. I wasn't actually expecting to pass. I was inspired to take the test by a book of puzzles in one of the math classrooms at work that was published by Mensa. I had fun working them out between classes and decided to give this a shot.

I was a member for about a year and went to some of the social functions, but when my membership was up for renewal, I just never rejoined. I'm not sure why.

But I'm willing to give it another shot. :) So tonight I renewed my membership.

Check. :)

#63: Send a postcard to Post Secret

I love the Post Secret Blog. It's a place you can go every Sunday and read the secrets of perfect strangers from around the world who create postcards that contain the darkest (or sometimes happiest!) secrets they have that they can't tell anyone. Some are store-bought and embellished, and some are made from scratch. Most of them will bring up some kind of emotion in you.

I've always wanted to send one in. The idea is that once it's out there, it's not a secret anymore. You unburden yourself, even if it's anonymously, and then you don't have to carry it around with you. You let it go.

So I made one tonight about something that's been bothering me for a while. It's not elaborate, but I think it gets my point across. I'm going to drop it in the mail tomorrow and let it go.

And if I told you what it was, it wouldn't be a secret!

I'm just a girl who can't say no...

Here's something that should be on the list: saying no when I want to.

For a very long time, I wouldn't say no to people. If someone needed a favor, I would do it no matter what. Sometimes that meant loaning money that I never saw again, sometimes it meant giving people rides or loaning out books or "helping" someone with their work. But whatever it was, for a very long time, I just said yes because I felt bad saying no. There was guilt, but there was also the fear that whoever I said no to would be mad at me, and I don't like that feeling. Besides, karma is good, right? Help someone out and they'll help you?

When I turned 30, something in my head clicked. I've seen a pretty significant change, in a good way. I don't know if anyone else has noticed it, but I've mellowed a little. I've started keeping the house a little neater (just a little!) and I've stuck up for myself more.

Without going into detail, a friend called last week and asked me for a favor that was set to happen yesterday. I said that I didn't think it would work out, hoping he would get the hint. He did, but he didn't take it the way I was hoping. He became indignant when he realized that I was about to say no, and started pouting, so I relented.

For days, I berated myself. I'm a Jersey girl, for God's sake. I don't say yes when I mean no! I'm a professional, I almost have a masters degree, I've been a homeowner for almost five years. I teach high school. I can't let myself be bullied.

Yesterday, he called me and said he'd be at my house in about two hours. I said OK, but then I said that since I'd already said yes, it was fine, but in the future, when I say that something isn't going to work out, he needs to respect that. He became incensed and said that there's no good reason for me to say no to him unless I'd had pre-existing plans. I did offer a few reasons, but he countered each of them. Finally, he became so angry with me that he said he wouldn't be coming after all.

I don't think he's speaking to me right now. And honestly, I'm OK with that. Look at me being fine with that. Because a friend who tries to bully you isn't actually a friend.

So let's pretend that saying no and sticking to it when it's important was on the list. :) Check!

#6: Bike 20 Miles of CT's Rail Trails

Check! Sort of.

Last summer, a good friend of mine inspired me to buy a bike. He's always riding his and always talking about how much he loves it, and I used to love to ride my bike as a kid, so I decided to go for it. I went to Dick's Sporting Goods and brought home a light blue bike (and a light blue helmet to go with it). When my friend saw her for the first time, he Christened her Beatrice, which now usually gets shortened to just Bea. Now whenever I ride her, I feel like Bea Arthur is with me, which isn't a bad thing. :)

Anyway, Bea (the bike) spent the winter and spring in my storage closet, and I was coaxed to unlock her and bring her out recently. We went to the rail trail in Vernon, starting at Valley Falls park and riding west to Manchester. Then we rode back. The thing about trail is that you can't see it, or even feel it when you're walking it, but it has a very slight uphill slope when you're going east. So when we were riding west, I was flying, and then the way back to the car, I was huffing and puffing. Round trip, roughly 6 miles.

I did the same ride solo the next day, but I went in the other direction so I could do the work and then have the easy part at the end.

And then yesterday, I parked at the Manchester trail head and rode all the way out to Bolton. At the site of the former train station in Bolton is a sign that tells you that you've gone 6.9 miles. So round trip, almost 14!

And now I've biked 26 miles of Connecticut's rail trails. The reason that I say "sort of" is that they're not exactly 20 unique miles... It's the same bunch of trail a few times. But since I didn't qualify it in the list, I guess it counts. We're going on another ride tomorrow, so maybe we can cover some new ground.

In other news, I'm covered in primer from last night's venture into the guest room (#28). This afternoon there will be more yellow going up. I can't wait to get that room done (#38)!

I also have an audition scheduled for an a capella group (41). I'll let you know how that goes. :)

Having a list really seems to be helping, because it's easier to see where my goals are, rather than just keeping them in the nebulous "someday maybe" cloud in my head. :)