LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

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Sortofamap

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I think I’ve mentioned before that I really like maps. Every once in a while I’ll see a link to a site about maps or remember to visit Strange Maps. Yesterday I ran across the “map” below. I spent a long time looking at it that I could have spent on more-or-less productive things. Click on the map for a larger version, but note that most newish browsers will reduce the size of the image to a single screen. You’ll have co click on that (apparently) smaller image to really see it bigger (I don’t know. It’s complicated).

Click to enbiggen

Yeah, it’s really long, right? If you’re wondering what to buy me for Christmas, I think you can still buy these maps. However, please coordinate your efforts, as I would hate to end up with, say, two of them.

Worst. Birthday. Ever.

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(sung)
Happy Birthday to you!
Cough-cough-cough and a-choo!
You got sick on your birthday
when you turned forty-two.

So, Lloyd doesn’t feel well, which really took the pressure off me trying to do something nice for his birthday. I brought him home a bag of Chinese food and a box of cold medicine. Happy Birthday, pal.

Since I don’t have any other pictures, let me just tell you about trying to make an appointment for getting new tires on my truck, yet another installment in the ‘Lauren doesn’t know how to handle car situations’ saga.

I’ve meant to call about tires since I got out of the ditch. The father of one of my preschoolers owns a tire place in town, and when I asked him about it he said, “Yeah – just call and make an appointment. They’ll figure out what kind you need.”

Newbie me thought that that meant I would make an appointment, take them my truck, and they would figure out what kind of tires I need.

So today I finally get around to calling… and it turns out I don’t know anything about my truck.

Me (calling from work): “Hi! I’d like to get new tires for my truck.”
Nice Man: “Okay. What kind of truck is it?”
Me: (thinking) ….. red? Dang it. What is it? (aloud, with confidence) A ’98 Mazda B2300. (Woo-hoo! Way to go, brain!)
NM (Checking his database): “A ’98? That would have to be a B2500, a 3000 or a 4000.”
Me: “I’m pretty sure it’s a 2300.”
NM:
Me: “Um. Just a second.”

I ran furiously down the alley to my truck, my heart pounding in my ears due to my firm resolution to never run unless being chased by a big dog or zombies.

Me: “It’s….*gasp*… a B…*gasp* 2500….Whaddaya know?… *wheeze*…

I held the mouthpiece of the phone up over my eyebrows when I’d suck air back into my lungs. I didn’t want him to hear that I was and idiot AND a weeny.

NM: “What size of tires are they?”
Me: “You have got… *wheeze* ….to be kidding me.”

It went on like that for a long time. If I knew that this was going to be a test, I would have studied harder.

Number 2a – Check!

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Lloyd and Brent had to go to Fremont for some Republican ritual, and I tagged along so I could visit my stuff in Omaha. We left early in the morning and drove in some dangerously freaky fog. Thank you, animals of Nebraska, for not running out in front of our car. (Oh, and zombies, too.)

Ahhhhhh!!!

It was a successful trip – I had several things I wanted to do, and one of them was to look at the rPod trailer at an RV store. (I guess you don’t call that kind of place a ‘store’, but what is it? A park? A gallery?)

Anyway, they had a fenced-in lot with many, many RVs, and I was in tiny house heaven. They had five rPods close to the showroom, and another one out by the highway – to lure people in, like me. I happily looked in each one, and when I was done looking at the one close to the road I turned around and saw

Hello there, beautiful.

*GASP* Is it going to be open? It’s GOT to be open – it’s in the open-RV place. Oh my gosh it’s going to be OPEN! Breathe. Breathe. This is it!!

I tried the door.

Locked. Vast disappointment.

I went around to the other door.

Insert Hallelujah chorus here.

Jackpot! I balanced my camera on an RV bumper and snapped a photo.

Woo-hoo!!

Then I spent a good ten minutes just opening and closing doors and lying there and messing with the windows and vent and imagining that I lived there. It was heaven.

I don’t need to own this, but do you think they’d let me borrow it? Or put it in my bedroom? Look at that angle – it seems to me we’ve found the solution to the acid reflux problem, huh?

Lloyd and Brent, I hope your Republican people brought you as much joy as this inanimate object brought me.

You light up my life

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I have an unhealthy love of flashlights. I think that they are the perfect gift for any occasion, and you should stock up on them. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them, because if you’re like me, you can’t believe that you can’t find one when you need it. “Don’t I own a dozen of these?”

Lloyd and I each have a Maglight in our vehicles – both for emergency lighting and also beating the tar out of any zombies that might get inside. They are the Cadillac of flashlights. (Big surprise: I didn’t know how to spell Cadillac.)

If you are a flashlight aficionado (I also didn’t know how to spell that), than you already know this handy trick of the mini-Maglight. Unscrew the top part, put the handle inside and viola’ – instant candle.

This picture’s for you, Peggy.

Get out quick!

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So, why did Lloyd make the zombie map?

It all started when I was watching an episode of “Hoarders”. I love those shows! I see somebody drowning in a sea of junk, and while I feel incredibly sorry for them, it is fascinating to watch them rationalize how they need all that stuff. It also makes me want to immediately fill a bag up with items to donate to Goodwill. (But I don’t, because I’m lazy.)

This one man was in his tiny apartment that was absolutely crammed full. The show had hired a professional organizer to help him, and the organizer asked: “Do you ever go through these things and ask yourself, ‘Do I really need it?'”

Hoarder: “All the time. I need all of it.”

Astonished Organizer: “Imagine that you have five minutes to get the things that you really need out of here before some catastrophe hits – what would you take?”

Hoarder (hemming and hawing for a long time): “Um… um …..I don’t know.”

Organizer: “That’s one minute gone. Now you have four.”

Well, isn’t that a fascinating scenario?

Lloyd and I spent a bit of time talking about it. What would we take if we only had five minutes? I looked around and realized that there’s very little in this house that I can’t live without. I’ve heard people say that their photos are the irreplaceable things in their life, and most of our mementos are in the living room trunk/coffee table, but other than that, I’d say that I’d need to take my wallet, since everything else in the house can be bought again. Clothes, furniture, dishes – all can be replaced….. if you have the means to replace it.

I tried a different scenario.

Lauren: “Ok, what would you take if you weren’t able to replace things and had to, say, live out of your car for two weeks with the stuff you brought instead of a cushy hotel across from Wal-Mart?”

Lloyd: “What situation would that be?”

Lauren: “I don’t know – some sort of mass catastrophe where the hotels are filled up and stores can’t sell you stuff. Maybe a plague or something.”

Lloyd: “You mean a zombie apocalypse.”

Lauren: “Of course.”

Thus began a very serious discussion about what to do in a zombie attack situation. Lloyd started listing stuff he would need, and I just said that I would go over to Mr. Royuk’s house since he has a gun. (I would not do well in a zombie situation and would “remove myself” – if you get my drift. I told Lloyd I’d shoot him too, if he needed it.)

So, just for kicks: What I would take if I had five minutes, and NOT an imminent zombie attack? (Say, if the house was going to be vaporized by aliens to make room for a hyperspace bypass.) Also, assuming all living creatures inside (now just Lloyd, but if we would ever have pets or guests) are safe and ok?
* Wallet
* Safe deposit box key, if I could find it.
* A change of clothes
* Drag the trunk of photos** to the lawn.
* I guess our bank records. Is that necessary?
* Surprisingly, I would leave the ukes. Being vaporized by aliens is great excuse to buy new ones.
* My camera & laptop, to record the catastrophe.

What would you take? Quick! You only have five minutes!!

**It seems to me my load would be lightened considerably if I’d scan all those photos to Flickr or something, huh?

Lloyd’s Famous Meatloaf

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We were grocery shopping today and Lloyd said, “I need to learn how to make meatloaf from scratch.” I told him, “It’s a method, not a recipe. You should make some for dinner.” He was game, so here is the documentation of Lloyd’s dinner, so he can recall it at a later date and make dinner again. 🙂

For meatloaf, you need: Meat, some sort of Bread Product, an Egg, Seasonings, Add-ins (purely optional, unless you’re making Lloyd’s Famous Meatloaf), and Topping Stuff (tomato-based). If you’d like to read a much-better-written article about this method, check here.

Cast and crew.

Preheat the cooking device to 350.

We bought some stuffing croutons, and Lloyd asked if he could use those for his Bread Product. I said ‘yes’, but he’d need to smash them up. Note: Lloyd, you could also use crushed crackers, oatmeal, breadcrumbs. Use about 3/4 a cup. Whatever.

Crunchy and blurry.

Cut up half an onion. Lloyd did it himself! For a beautiful tutorial on this, visit here.

Lloyd has issues with knives, so I was quite impressed.

Add a tube of hamburger from your dad. (Lloyd’s dad raises cattle.) We used a little one-pounder. (If you use a two-pounder, double everything else.)

Cut up your add-ins. These can be anything you like – but don’t go too crazy.

He only added olives this time, not the list of toppings from Pizza Hut.

Add an egg and some salt and pepper. (You used 1/2 a teaspoon of salt and a bunch of grinds of pepper.) If you want to put in other seasonings, now’s the time. (Our croutons were already seasoned.)

Who knows if this is the right amount?

Smoosh it up and pat into a pan, or you could free-form this on a cookie sheet with raised edges and make it look like a dragon! You should do that next time! (Wait – the head and tail would burn before his tummy was done. Rats.)

A boring rectangle.

Where were we? Oh, put it in a roaster on the kitchen floor and cook it at 350 for 20-30 minutes and then put your topping on. (You mixed ketchup and barbeque sauce – good call.)

That pan's not dirty - it's called seasoning.

Bake another 30 minutes or so or until it’s not pink inside (internal temperature of 160-170). Or better yet, don’t set the timer and keep playing your video game while your wife asks, “Is it almost done? It smells done.” Answer her, “It’s not done yet.” Keep attacking those zombies, and almost overcook it.

Way to go, Lloyd! I’m most impressed with how few dishes you used! Seriously, I kept getting bowls out for him but he just used the same dishes over and over – he’s going to be a much, much better cook than me if he keeps this up.