Mmm…mmm…soup

I am not really a soup lover but I was looking for dinner ideas yesterday and I stumbled across a recipe for spinach soup on the Whole Foods website and so I decided to give it a try. I am so glad that I did because it is really tasty soup! I had the rest of it for dinner tonight and it was even better. The colour is a little alarming due to the spinach but it tastes good and it is really good for you. So I have decided to share the recipe in case anyone else out there is looking to make a really simple yet very tasty soup. Enjoy!

Creamy Spinach Soup
Serves 4
• 5 oz frozen leaf spinach (half a 10-ounce package)
• 1 large baking potato (8 oz), peeled and thinly sliced
• 4 scallions, coarsely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 cup canned chicken broth diluted with 1 1/4 cups water, or 2 1/4 cups homemade broth
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup low-fat (1%) milk
• 1 tsp unsalted butter
• 2 TB grated Parmesan cheese
In a large saucepan, combine spinach, potato, scallions, garlic, diluted broth, pepper, and salt. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until potato is tender. Using a hand mixer or a food processor, puree the mixture. Stir in milk and butter and warm soup over medium heat, stirring frequently. Serve and sprinkle with Parmesan.

Man I have a lot of clocks

Today the time changed and so I went through the process of changing all of my clocks. I don’t really give it much thought normally but I have a lot of things that display time in my house. Alarm clock, bathroom clock, VCR, computer, living room walk clock, microwave, stove, phone, cell phone, blackberry and 2 watches. Thankfully the phones and computer update themselves but everything else had to be done. As I was flipping the time back an hour in the various locations I was wondering if all this access to time is healthy? Would it be more relaxing in my house if I had no concept of what time it was? Or would that just stress me out? The time dictates when I get up, when I eat, when I go to bed and when I do just about everything else in my life – that’s a lot of control. I feel completely lost if I leave the house without my watch. I actually get stressed if I don’t know what time it is. How sad is that? Perhaps I need to perform an experiment and spend a day without time – just to see if I survive. Time is a part of our society and so it is an evil we must all endure – however maybe spending a little time at home without the pressure of time would be good for us. Maybe a time-free weekend is something we could all benefit from.

I still don’t want to buy a phone

So I saw a male version of the phone ad last night and I have shocking news – I didn’t run out to buy a phone. The guy was hot, there was skin showing and yet I was not suddenly filled with an urge to buy a cell phone. Wow – shocking!

Hot chicks, phones and billboards.

You are walking down the street and you notice a billboard with a scantily clad hot chick holding a phone. What do you do? Option 1: Run off and buy whatever phone it is even though you can’t tell which model it is from the picture cause all you can see is the hot chick? Or Option 2: Ogle the woman as you walk by and completely forget what product the ad was even for as soon as the hot chick is out of sight? For the majority of the intelligent population I would guess Option 2 is more likely. I am really hoping that our purchasing choices are based on more than half-naked gals holding phones. There is an ad that I see on my walk to the office that has one such gal. I have seen it every day for a couple of weeks and every time I have to remind myself what product it is for – something tells me this is not effective advertising. Or maybe I don’t retain the product knowledge because the model is wrong – would I be buying a new phone if it was a hot guy on the ad? Somehow I still don’t think I would be running out to the phone store. We are an intelligent society (with some exceptions of course) so why the lowbrow attempts at getting our money? Is it even working?

Someone please explain it to me

The following entry is directed to all the men out there that seem to think spitting on the street is acceptable behaviour. Can someone please explain what this is about? Is it supposed to be cool? Is it an attempt to project a bad-boy image in some misguided attempt to seem attractive to women? As a woman I can say this is NOT an attractive sight. As I watch men launching gobs of saliva at the sidewalk I can guarantee you that I am not thinking “Man is he hot, I just need to meet him”. Somehow seeing your saliva flying through the air does not make me all that interested in getting to know you. I realize boys have some gross habits but come on – is the spitting really necessary? My friend Jeff used to do this all the time when he was a smoker and he claimed that the smoking was the reason for the spitting. Well I smoked as much as he did then (we have both been non-smokers for many years now) and I wasn’t spitting all over the place. So seriously, what is it about?

My own personal dollhouse

The condo building behind mine is quite close and so from my couch I can see the goings on in a number of the units across the way. There is one guy who strolls around his apartment in his underwear all the time. He lives in a bachelor apartment and really really enjoys spending time in his underwear. He is quite a popular fella though as he is on the phone all the time. And then there is the man a couple of floors up who puts on soft lighting and candles to have dinner by himself. I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised given the neighbourhood I live in, but the building does seem to have a lot of male tenants. Having that building there is like having my own dollhouse. From my vantage point on the couch I can see them but they can’t really see me as my building is angled away from theirs. And I don’t mean to watch but is it my fault that they leave their blinds open and stand in the windows? Any person who is standing in front of floor to ceiling windows at night with the lights on is just asking for an audience. And in my defence I do only look when there is a commercial on TV. Oh brother, that sounds shady. I am a sociologist not a peeping Jane – honest!
I was thinking of putting up signs in my window to give them something interesting to look at. But I have yet to come up with any interesting content ideas.

Warning: Low Battery

I experienced the strangest thing on my walk home from work today. I was about 3 blocks away from my house when my body suddenly went into some sort of energy deficient slump. My legs got shaky, I started seeing black spots and I could barely lift my feet to walk. It was if my internal battery pack was suddenly sucked of all its power and started flashing “low battery”. It was the oddest feeling. I had to slow my walking pace down to a crawl because I didn’t think I was going to make it home without collapsing. I have never fainted before but I was seriously concerned that it might happen tonight. I have no idea what caused the problem but after some juice, some salad and some pepper steak, things seemed to have returned to normal. Whatever it was that caused the drain has passed. Phew!

Whoa – that’s freaky!

I have found the perfect costume accessory for those hardcore Halloween fans in the crowd – scary contact lenses. You can have flames shooting over your pupils, you can give yourself banshee eyes or you can add spider webs. There is a wide selection of crazy looking eyes. Personally they kinda freak me out but I am sure there is a market for them out there. Clearly Contacts has decided to tap into that market apparently. I think I will pick up a pair of Vampire Red to wear around the office. I’m not sure people would even be that shocked – perhaps they would just think the real Gwen was finally showing. (bwah hah hah hah)

All for the bargain price of ZERO cents per minute

Today I had a 5 hour transatlantic phone conversation for FREE. I’m a big fan of this internet phone thing. It has all the benefit of telephone with none of the cost. Hurray for Skype. My sister/friend Linda lives in London, England and we don’t get to talk as much as we would like. We talked everyday when we lived in the same city and the distance has been hard to adjust to. It is hard with our schedules and the time difference but we try to make time to talk as often as we can because it is important to us both. Today we had one of our trademark conversations that lasted 5 hours and covered every topic imaginable. It was great! I’m going to see her in November and I am really really really really looking forward to it! I would happily pay to talk to her but hey, I’ll take the free ride when I can. I’ll use the money I save in phone bills to do some shopping across the pond. Woohoo!

Let there be light

There is a light in the ceiling between my bedroom and the bathroom that has not worked since I moved into my condo. It is actually a little odd that there is even a light there seeing as there aren’t lights in any other room except the kitchen. I don’t really think about it that much, but when my aunt was here moving my cousin Amy in she noticed the light fixture didn’t have a shade – so I told her that it didn’t work. Well after a trip to IKEA to buy a new light (my protests that I didn’t need her to buy me anything in exchange for letting Amy stay here obviously fell on deaf ears) I was told that my uncle would come into the city at some point and change the light. So today was the day that my uncle and cousin and my cousin’s wife stopped by to install the light. The reason the fixture didn’t work in the first place is because the wires weren’t attached – way to go builders! So now I have a new light that actually works. I probably could have fixed it myself but I don’t do electricity. I would rather be stuck in the dark then have to fiddle with electricity. I realize this may seem like an odd thing to be excited about but it was one of those things that I have been putting off for over 2 years and so it is exciting that it now works. Big thanks to my electrically savvy uncle!!