Random stuff: Advertising, fruit, Mary Roach ...

I was waiting in the drive-through line at McDonald's this evening (yes, yes, I often get cravings for McD's french fries, and will periodically satisfy them -- everyone's got their vices!) and I had the random thought that a really great advertising idea would be to hang TVs en route from the ordering thing to the cashier/food windows. Sometimes you're waiting in line between the two locations for a few minutes, and this seems like a great time to slam folks with ads -- they ain't goin' nowhere! I've seen grocery stores that have those TVs by the cashier (with the sound on, they can be extremely annoying), so this idea is a natural extension of that. Think of the extra $$ fast-food restaurants could make. And when the weather's wet/cold and folks keep their windows rolled up, well, fire up the closed captions!

Random note #2 -- was at Albertson's over the weekend and made a splurge purchase -- limited-edition strawberry milkshake creme Oreos. They're a bit pricey for the amount of cookies that you get, but I love all things strawberry and even better -- they're dairy free! Yum, they're delish. Oh, and speaking of all things strawberry -- I did make a second splurge purchase on that trip -- one of my favorite treats: Good Humor strawberry shortcake ice-cream bars. There is no substitute! My other favorite cold treat is (are?) Snickers ice-cream bars. I think I have Julie to blame...er....thank for the introduction to those ;o)

In other randomness...

We ate lunch outside today for the first time in, well, 2008, really. It was a little breezy, and the sun sort of came and went, but it was definitely bearable. This was after it was nasty and raining all morning. I know I talk a lot about the weather, but it's been bloody weird around here the past few months! We're all just eagerly waiting for summer!

My new favorite night-time snack: really cold schoolboy-size Braeburn apples (I get them at Fred Meyer, where they're always $0.98/lb -- nice!) with peanut butter. Semi-healthy, zuibun oishi (Japanese for "very delicious"). It can be a little tricky sometimes spreading PB on the apple slice, as the PB won't really adhere to the apple, so if you tip the slice at all -- whoosh! PB overboard.

If I were a rich girl, I'd hire someone to do nothing but prep fruit for me. Namely, peel oranges, wash and cut apples/pears, de-stem strawberries ... I got an 8 lb. bag of oranges the other week -- which amounted to like 14 oranges -- and thus have had the icky, sticky fun task of peeling one basically every day since then. It becomes a bit of a process when I'm in the office -- 1. get the orange from the fridge (it's gotta be cold); 2. wash hands; 3. wash orange (because I'm a bit of a germaphobe); 4. go back to office; 5. peel orange over the garbage can and try to separate the wedges without giving my face a bath of (too much) orange juice; 6. go back to kitchen and wash dried orange gunk off my fingers; 7. get a fork and go back to office (the fork is so I can eat and work at the same time). Whew! And, of course, then that lovely orange scent gets absorbed into the skin of my fingertips..

Finally, the latest book by one of my favorite authors, Mary Roach, has recently been released. The title is "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex" (more deets on Amazon). She is HIL-arious. I randomly picked up her book "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" at the library a few years back because I was intrigued by the cover (click to see the image and get more info). I loved it from the first page, and have since gotten several friends to become fans of hers as well. If you're looking for an informative, witty and just plain fun read, I highly recommend "Stiff." Her second book, "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife," is also great, but I like "Stiff" better. Can't wait to check out "Bonk"!