Sam I Am Would Be Proud

One good thing about living in the country is that a lot of people grow their own vegetables. And they usually have a lot of extra, so even those of us who don't grow our own vegetables usually get to acquire a fair share. And, although some crops aren't suited for the desert, one vegetable that does really well is the squash. There are a lot of varieties of squash, but don't ask me what any of their names are. Because I have no idea.

It's exciting to receive random vegetables because you get to try to find ways to cook them. One of my new favorite recipes is squash pie. I mean really, what else can you do with a ton of humongous squash (squashes)? I started making them with my roommate's stash of different yellow squashes, and they all turned out beautifully golden yellow and nutmeggy and delicious. Eventually, the only one left was this huge, dark green, bumpy squash that scared me a little. But I decided it would be fun to make a pie out of it anyway. The inside flesh was a nice white color, but Josh doesn't believe in peeling vegetables, so we pureed it skin and all, which turned into this interesting green color. I've been using this recipe for homemade pumpkin pie and it's been working really well for me (I don't measure anything exactly though.) The result was a lovely green pie that has been our dessert for the last couple of weeks (it really was a HUGE squash, so it made a lot of pie.) I highly recommend doing the same with your stash of squash(es.)

Not an Advertisement. Maybe an Endorsement.

Recently I've friended a handful of adults on Facebook ("adults" meaning people who are around my parents' age.) It seems it's finally acceptable for normal adults to join without feeling completely geeky. Congrats, Facebook people.

I know there are Facebook haters out there and certainly don't condone people who spend their entire existence on the site. But I do have to say that Facebook has proven its worth, at least to me. I'm probably the most terrible person in the world at keeping in touch. Email tag never lasts very long with me and I try to avoid talking on my cell phone if I can get away with it. However, for some reason, ever since I joined Facebook (I think it was around 2004) I've been a lot better at keeping track of people and letting people keep track of me. I think it's because of the lack of commitment it requires. You can jot a five-word message on someone's wall without having to commit to an entire conversation, and whether that person replies back to you or you ever write on their wall again doesn't matter. Even without regularly communicating to anyone you can "keep in touch" with people because you can see their recent pictures and statuses. Some may argue that this marks the deterioration of meaningful human relationships. But really, the way I see it, it's better than nothing, which I think is the inevitable alternative.

Buttons

The other day at a dinner party, a fantastic piece of trivia was brought to my attention. On men's shirts the buttonholes are on the left side, whereas on women's shirts the buttonholes are on the right. I never even knew there was anything different about shirts of the opposite gender besides size and shape. Delightful.

However, my delight was dampened slightly by the fact that apparently I was the only person in the group who didn't know this yet.

If any of you are possessors of similar information that thus far has been hidden from me, please feel free to share.

You're not or You aren't?

This is one of the many random grammatical/linguistic/stylistic questions I ask myself as I write all day at my desk while the computer turns my brain to mush: how do you contract the phrase "you are not?" My vote is "you'rn't." Maybe the countryside is rubbing off on me.