Where Has the Love Gone? And Where Will It Go?

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls of all ages,

I
Love
Potatoes.

That's right! I've made it though this agonizing month of growth and foodery! I'll be mere hours before my date with Wendy's and their new infamous fries. I'm gonna gobble those suckers up like Pac Man in a cherry factory. You'll get video footage or pictures, I promise.

Well folks, this is the end of the line. Now, I've decided to give you all a few options.

1.) Send me suggestions as to where you think I should go next. Anywhere at all.

2.) I'll do a little something twice a week or so as a "choose your own adventure" blog, where I start the business, but I give you options (a, b, c, etc.) to choose from and whichever is chosen I present and then offer further choices. So a blog that you AND I make.

3.) I continue to journey about the land of food, meeting different characters and learning new recipes, therefore educating myself and you of the lovely (and humorous) place in which our edibles dwell.

4.) A Masterpiece Theater spoof with potatoes as the characters. (In this you really have no choice. I'm doing it regardless because I love the concept and Sesame Street's Monsterpiece Theatre that I saw on youtube.) I'll start with a story I like and you can suggest others that you want performed by our potato actwahrs.

Whatever ends up winning, I really would like this to turn into more of an interactive place. A lot of people coming together and helping make one thing has always been an idea I've been attracted to, and I don't see why it couldn't work here. You're all intellegent readers, I'm sure (except for you over there) and it'd be fun to make you part of my blog. Aw, it'll be like "our" blog. We should get towels made up.

So, either comment below, send me a little somethin' somethin' on facebook, or feel free to email me any of those numbers or input of any kind. I'll still continue, regardless; I've heard from enough of you to know your lives just wouldn't be the same without me.

On to the finality of science!

Height: a Final Fantasied Five Feet.
Weight: The End of what is 123 lbs.!

I believe I am indeed victorious. I think Mr. Lay and I will be friends at this point, but I am through being infatuated with him. He'll just have to find someone else. Let's hope it isn't you. Unless you're into that sort of thing. No judgment.

So long, but not farewell,

Rini

The End is Near. Repent!

Potatoes and I are starting to get along again. I guess.

I mean, as opposed to my hatred for them yesterday. Well, you know, truth is, I've got two days left of this spud-free lifestyle, and I can honestly say that I'm not craving potato chips at this point. Mr. Lay and I might just have to call it quits.

Those new Wendy's fries and I have a date, however, and at 12:00 a.m. on December 1st, you know where I'll be.

Be that as it may, I've had a jolly good time on this whole little adventure (except for the parts that I was dying or in a feeble struggle with potato lust) and think I'm a better person because of it. The only question is: where do I go from here?

Not that Mr. Lay will disappear entirely, you realize, but stick figure me is going to have to find a new place to live and new lessons to learn. I suppose I'll just have to keep you all in suspense whilst you wait for what's next.

Please enjoy this potato haiku:

Potatoes are great.
They will never let you go.
I love them long time.

;)

Science!

Height: a miraculous 5 feet.
Weight: a jaunty 123 lbs.

Loving you long time,

Rini

I'm Not Thankful for You. Get Out.

I HATE POTATOES!!!

At this very moment a large bowl of their mashed state stares at me every time I open the fridge. It's huge. It's impossible not to stare back. I have to denounce them in my mind to get my eyes off of them. "I'm NOT going to eat you. I'm NOT."

Temptation, outrage, and butter: all things of which my Thanksgiving consisted.

You know, that time? Thanksgiving? That holiday of hunger? The feast-ival of foods? The Christmas of our stomachs? The gravy train ride of green beaned and creamed corn passengers alike?

Yeah, that happened.

It happened hard.

Not one, but two big ole bowls of mashed pertaters were set on our long table that fateful day. The one sitting in front of me stared me down like a territorial cat with a severe lack of eyelids. It smelled wonderful.

I filled my plate with many other things that day, turkey, ham, green beanies, broccoli, and countless desserts, but not one morsel of potato anything passed my lips that day. My perseverance is absolute. My commitment is commendable. You people should be proud of me. It was like being a crank addict in a meth lab. (Yes, I did have to do wiki research to form that sentence.)

Yet, somehow, I survived, instead opting to eat a lot of cheesecake with a Reese's layer baked into it to compensate. I was still full and happy, since all it really takes to make me happy is being full of food.

I'm sure Mr. Lay was distraught and depressed this Thanksgiving without me. This year broke one of our most sacred and hallowed of all Thanksgiving traditions: after stuffing myself with table foods, I would retreat to the back room with full bags of chips and my cousins and continue to eat. (The chips, not the cousins.) As glorious of a tradition as it was, I'm sure it was time to retire it.

I apparently have the metabolism of a hummingbird, have acquired a tapeworm, or a micro black hole inside my stomach to eat the way that I have for all these years and still be fairly small.

Perhaps I am a food god. Yes, I like the sound of that. Rini, the god of food. I'll have to print up business cards.

Well! So I hate potatoes, but only because of how they torment me with their delicious butter-injected goodness. Lucky for them I'm the forgiving sort. I should really be shaking my metaphorical fists at my giggling family for the enhanced temptations (I see you there, Aunt Lisa O.o), but I love them far too much to ever be angry at them.

I'll just get bitter and slowly rot from the inside instead.

I'm sure all the ice cream I eat will keep me sweet enough.

Legitimately thankful for family and friends (and ecstatic to have them up and see them),

Rini

Get Me to a Spa. Stat.

I love potatoes.

I find myself wishing at this point for a source of comfort from all of this potato related madness that has absorbed a rather large portion of my month. Single digits are counting down to my freedom, but those digits are even lower when it comes to another date drawing near: Thanksgiving. Oh, the inhumanity.

Here's what I would rather be doing.

Welcome, welcome to Spudly Spa, a place where all of your potato dreams come true. We'll show you a spud is better than mud. Right this way please.

Your deluxe package is comprised of our finest services. First, you'll be soaked in our finest mashed potatoes to exfoliate and invigorate your skin. We'll add our patent formulated lavender gravy to soothe your troubles away and leave your skin silky smooth!

This will be followed by a Hot Potato Massage, where we place carefully temperature regulated baked potatoes along the body to induct heat and relax those tightened muscles!

Our specially trained masseuses will then provide their expert skills, releasing all of your built up tension with our fantastic french fry massage. Let us flail your troubles away!

Following all of this decadence, we invite you to lounge in our all-you-can-eat buffet room. Stuff yourself 'til your heart's content from our splendid buffet of every potato dish the world has devised, then sleep off the food coma on the luxurious couches!

Yep, that's what I'd rather be doing. Spudly Spa, brought to you with inspiration from my unbelievably awesome uncle in Maui. :)

To the sumptuous science!


Height: what could be a healthfully pampered 5'0".
Weight: what should be a massaged 124 lbs.


You want to go to a spa now, don't you?


Contagiously yours,


Rini

What Middle Earth and Potatoes have in common.

I love po-tate-ohs.

Found this:

Honestly, I don't think I can follow that. Hope you enjoyed. I'll be taking the Hobbits to Isengard now.

The sci-ence:

Height: the 5'0" of the precious.
Weight: the 124 lbs of a potato-free existence.

Thoroughly amused,

Rini

The Origins of the Were-Potato: A Spudly Abomination.

My love for the potato is frightening.

But not as frightening as some of the things that happened today at work.

- I had folks try to order $180 worth of ice cream pints with a continually declining credit card (it was expired)
- poorly-parented children knocking things over and running all willy-nilly about the store
- a host of older folks with interesting hairstyles (my favorite being a man with a white mustache, light brown eyebrows, and black hair), scents (insert those of your wildest imagination here), candor (they were doozies), and jewelry (my favorite set was a broach and earring set that were shaped like lion doorknockers. The thick framed glasses really set them off).
- Of course, we also had strange calls (yes, plural) from Tennessee asking specifics about flavors that we haven't even released yet. Calls came from other places too, but the Tennessee lady was my favorite. I like telling you guys my favorites. It's my favorite.

I was calm and friendly to all, of course. I am an ice creamian professional. That's opposed to a hot creamian professional, although I am a whipped creamian specialist as well.

So what is so significant about today that is making the crazies come out to play? Apparently it must be the full moon. That's the only explanation I can possibly conceive.

Knowledge of tonight's full moon got me thinking about were-things after I returned home. That's probably not too far a cry from today's thought processes with all the tween supernatural phenomenon, but I'd be in this place of mind regardless from all of my comic book upbringing.

Where does the were-thing train of thought take you when you're like me? It drops you off at Potato Station. And never picks you back up.

So, right here, right now, just for you, I reveal the first findings of the Were-Potato.

Born of moonlight in a potato field next to a graveyard, the Were-Potatoes first rose out of a desire to live among humankind. 

 Originally a peaceful breed, after constant rejection by man, they turned violent, eating all humans they came across just as the humans had done to their lesser brethren. After a great war that lasted decades, the Were-Potatoes fell to General Bob Evans, who scalped and skinned them all and then sold their entrails in packages that were marketed with adorable children.

Some say that there are a small band of Were-Potatoes that survived. It is legend that they lurk in the shadows when the moon is at it's fullest, waiting, regrouping, biding their time until the war can begin again. Beware, humans; that rustle in the darkness, those eyes you feel watching you, may just be the Were-Potatoes out to eat you alive. *cackle, cackle!*

Yup, it's the delusions settling in permanently. Just over a week left. Dying!

Looking to the science:

Height: the 5'0" of a hardened Were-Potato Hunter.
Weight: the 124 lbs of what is not Were-Potato Chow.

It's dangerous to go alone. Take this:

Rini

Au Naturale! And I Can't Touch Them!

I love potatoes like the day is long.

Fortunately for me, the days are getting shorter. Unfortunately, potatoes and their wiles are drawn to me like leeches on a blood-balloon.

In the grand conspiracy of the world against my life, Wendy's has decided that this month, of all months, was the appropriate time to unveil their latest creation of taste and delight.

Pics courtesy of phone!

My outrage is evident. My favorite supplier of the golden wonder that is the fry has perfected their concoction. The words "natural" and "sea salt" perk up my ears like a little blind dog who's just heard the can-opener. I WANT THESE. I want them NOW.


However, like a brave, young soldier, I leaped promptly away from Wendy's Midas touch, for I was not about to have my insides made golden with goodness and have all these weeks be in turbulent vain. Like the mighty Christina Aguilera so aptly puts it, "Made me learn a little bit faster, made my skin a little bit thicker, makes me that much smarter, so thanks for making me a fighter." That's right, Wendy's, you make me a fighter. I'm a better person now because of you and Aguilera. Though, she also has made the past claim that she's a genie in a bottle, and that just sounds like a great deal of tomfoolery to me. Perhaps she isn't the best person to trust and quote.

Well! Returning from that bunny trail: Wendy's has natural fries, I want to eat them, the urge is like that of a maniacal mad man with a curled up mustache, but I am a super trooper 'til the end (of the month).

The mad man's science says:

Height: a 5'0" tall of Frankstein's daughter.
Weight: the 124 lbs of an Egorian hump.

I'ma eat like twelve of these when I get out of this month.

All Natural and lightly Sea Salted,

Rini

Dwarves, Dinner, and How It's Done.

I love the Potato.

Although, I must admit, I'm finding ways to cope with not eating them. I'm stir frying a lot more. Heck, I even made a dessert the other night with my dinner. This process is forcing me to actually cook; something I've been trying to get myself to do for a long time now.

Cooking with Rini used to look like this:

Bag of fries and/or fish sticks and/or chicken strips.

Turn on oven.

Put on cookie sheet.

Look at how long to cook said bagged foodstuff.

Put cookie sheet in oven.

Wait.

Check food.

If ready, take out.

Put on plate.

Eat like dinosaur.

Of course, if I were being REALLY honest with you, plain ole Eating with Rini looked like this:

Find bag.

Open bag.

Take bag to room.

Eat entire bag whilst watching Dr. Who/ Big Bang Theory/ 30 Rock/ and/or full length movie of some humorous sort.

Stare at bottom of bag for a moment and realize all chips are gone/ inside stomach.

Feel sort of sad that chips are gone. Do not feel bad that you ate whole bag of chips. In fact, if there are more bags, maybe open another bag.

If other bag is open, repeat. If no other bag is opened, throw empty bag away.

You are now done eating.

Now, I could still do this "cooking" business mentioned formerly even without my beloved potatoes, since fish sticks and chicken strips are, well, potato-free. I really think this whole endeavor has been more about self-education than anything, though, so a-cookin' I have gone. You know, for science and all that. I'm what would happen if Snow White's seven dwarves and Alton Brown got thrown into a teleportation unit and accidentally combined together and suddenly became female. Yep, you got it. I'm Chefy the dwarf. Or Hungry the dwarf. Yes, that makes more sense. Hungry the dwarf eats all the things.

So now Cooking with Rini looks like this:

See what's in fridge.

Find - green peppers, carrots, bean sprouts, red onion, mushrooms, and raw chicken.

Cut things into bite-sized pieces and put in little bowls.

Throw all things found into a skillet with some sort of oil.

Cook until done and tasty.

Eat like dinosaur.

So there's improvement, I'd say. Maybe if I actually looked up things to cook I'd cook more things. I like food.

Here's a whole box of shake 'n' bake science!

Height: the 5'0" of a master Iron Chef!
Weight: the 123 lbs of secret ingredient!

Just imagine what things will be like when I'm a-cookin' with potatoes. It'll make me as happy as a dwarf named after the emotion for which it is consistently, I'm sure. Did that make sense? See, now I'm Confused.

Wishing for the Spud I love,

Rini