Deep thoughts while running : Spiders.

F*$k Spiders.

I started thinking about what I hate most about them.  I started with the ones with fat bodies and scratchy pin like sharp short legs.    And then I went onto small body spiders that have crab like jointed long legs and huge "fangs" you can see.    Then there's ones that jump, spiders that grow to the size of Atlantic King Crabs, spiders that can walk on water, spiders that crawl out from under your couch and at the corner of your eye you catch it scampering across the floor as you wonder how long the two of you had been sharing a quiet evening on the couch watching Expendables 2 together.  Too fucking long.

I hate the way spiders move, I hate the way they look.  I hate that they live inside and outside and that all they do is kill flies and some insects.  Well you know what spiders?  Someone new is on the block for that job and they're already much better at it than you.  Black Flag called and they said to pack your bags we're going to kill insects through harmful carcinogens.  Your week long building web thing,  catching two flies, eating one slowly work ethic, just isn't going to cut it anymore. Spiders, you suck at your job, you're slow, ugly to look at and your webs aren't in the same place they were the day before and it freaks me out to walk through them.

Yes, I like to eat crab and they are called the spiders of the sea, sometimes.  Crabs are DELICIOUS.  I can see them, control them, boil them and dip them in delicious BUTTER.  Spiders are sneaky little bastards, they get in through the plumbing, my door cracks, windows and well, other ways I don't want to think about right now, I'd actually like to sleep well tonight.

Spiders can make not only webs, but NESTS.  Just Google Spider Nests.  Yeah.  No sleep tonight either?  Cool, see you on Facebook at 3am.    I'm not going to post any photos of spiders I hate on this blog post because I hate ALL OF THEM.  Just Google images of "spiders" and that's what I mean.


Ok, so I hear the hippies talking.   There's a place for all animals on this planet.

This place for spiders is on the bottom of Mr. Price's shoe.

Why Mr. Price's shoe?  I don't want spider guts on my shoe, I don't want them anywhere near my shoe, I want spider guts spread about the wall as a warning to the rest of them.  I'd like to make a Mexican drug cartel joke here but that shit is getting serious and my spider joke is just a horrible example in bad taste.  But you see where I wanted to go with that.

Did I mention I'm from Australia?  Yeah, grew up with the most deadly snakes and spiders in the world.  Maybe that had something to do with it.  I'm even more of a wuss now knowing what danger I was in growing up in the land Down Under.  

While running and in deep thought I thought about how all children should watch Arachnophobia and THEN watch/read Charlotte's Web.  I took the liberty of realizing a future where all children approached spiders in this new educational format and I re-wrote Charlotte's Web for the kids.  Here  it goes.

This is a cute story about Charlotte.  She's a spider.  So I took off my shoe and I smashed her spider brains in and killed her and sent her to spider hell.  Just because all dogs go to heaven, doesn't mean that spiders go anywhere other than hell.  That's where they come from and where they go back to when they meet my shoe.  The End.  PS.  The pig won first place.  For best organically grain fed BACON.

So how does this tie into running?

I'm back at it again.  So I'm back to deep random thoughts because that's what I do when The Offspring is blaring in my ears as I pound the pavement.  I actually don't see many spiders when I go running.   This could be a good thing for me but maybe I'd run faster if I thought I accidentally ran through a spider's nest?  Nope.  I'd just freak out and 1 mile down the road my heart would explode from my adrenaline attack and the spiders would find me and eat me.  First they'd start with my eyeballs.

Spiders are fucking awful.  Now that I've written this hate blog against them, I expect for all the spiders around my house and property to march together in a massive frightening organized fashion and wake me in my sleep by crawling all over my body and just being creepily disgusting.  I shall be expecting this.  I will be sleeping with MANY shoes under my pillows.  Bring it.

This is my Pizza. My Pizza is amazing.

Yes, yes, the dough from scratch and FRESH ingredients.  I DID go laz-o-mode on the sauce and pre sliced mushrooms, but, if you had tasted my pizza, these minor details would have been sun-blinded by your adoring gaze upon my pizza as your mouth devoured it, one delicious nom after another.

Also, if you think I'm lazy by using pre-made sauce and not slicing my own mushrooms, then piss off anyway.

Here it is.  This is my Pizza.  My Pizza is amazing.  And I'm going to tell you how to make it as well.

If you have spent hours and hours on Pinterest looking at a ton of Pizzas for ideas like I did, save yourself the forehead slap and just go with mine it's so simple stupid.  I can't BELIEVE making pizza and my own dough was this simple.  Forehead slap, again.

Another version of people who'd rather be drinking, than cooking.

Ingredients for the dough:

• 1 packet of yeast (they come in a three pack at my local Kroger for 89cents) - don't stress out about the measurement here.  Literally one of those small three packets.
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2.5 cups of flour (regular all purpose)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 and 1/2 cups of warm water
• You will need a mix master.  Kitchenaid thing.  Bloody heavy and well worth the $200 + price tag.

So, here I am, Tuesday.  I'm nursing a powerfully painful combination of limited at home tough mudder workout with Mr. Price along with a night filled with the bottom of two wine bottles.  A hangover and a hurt body.  My mind is twitching like Macauly Culkin looks (Seriously, have you seen him lately? Check out a photo of him here and even in photos he looks like he's twitching.  ugh.  Yet another "child star" gone down the child star path.  Twitchy McTwitch.)

I have to think of carbs.  Not just greasy salty carbs, but delicious nom carbs, I must think about them, set a goal towards them and achieve that goal.  I drink 3 liters of water today and I pee once.  My liver and kidneys have staged a mutiny and I must give them a peace offering before they team up with my colon and I can't afford an at-work organ failure-to-comply with neurological rules.  Homemade pizza it is.  Pinterest, here I come.

Looking for a vegetarian pizza as we have a friend who, for some reason, WON'T give in to Mr. Price's relentless tirade of "Just try a steak, you'll love it." onslaughts and insists she STAY vegetarian.  She's nice for putting up with that, so I make vegetarian stuff, which really, is just stuff I like, without the meat part.  So it's a win for the friendship all around.

I decide the vegetarian will consist of fresh sliced tomatoes, red onions a SHIT TON of garlic, fresh spinach and all the mushrooms on planet earth that I can find (pre-sliced of course) with a healthy Roald Dahl BFG fist full of mozzarella.   Whole mushrooms and mess with a cutting board and large knife AND I'm already MAKING MY OWN DOUGH?!!  Ain't nobody got time for that.  (Only regret here is that I didn't use FRESH MOZZ, but it was spastic delicious anyway, forget your food snobbery, so yes, that was pre-sliced too.)

So, even though I am making this pizza, I'd rather be drinking, but I can't because my left kidney will file the paperwork necessary with my intestinal tract to go into renal failure as payback, so I don't drink, but I made delicious food as a substitute/organ peace offering. 

Instructions:

• Start at 5pm and dinner will be ready by 7.  Hang out, play cards against humanity during the down times and watch everyone else enjoy social drinks while you silently barf.
• In your mixer put the warm water and yeast together, stir for a bit then let sit for 10 so the yeast can "activate".  I don't know what that really means so here I'd take a drink, (can't - barf) but instead think about how yeast is actually a bacteria and it's alive, and that starts to freak me out but still, occupies me for a solid ten minutes until I complete the next step.
• Yeast looks weird with the water now, cool.  Assume this is "activated".
• Put in your sugar, and salt and put your mixer on low for a while.  Starts to smell like yummy bread. (that's yeast doofus) and add olive oil and keep mixer on low.  Totally mix it through.
• Add your flour and beat on low/medium until the dough is sticking mainly to your paddle of the mixer and not the mixing bowl.  Like, 3 seconds.  It's quick.
• Spray a big silver bowl with PAM ready for the dough.
• Pull the dough out of the mixer and it's sticky, so coat your hands in flour first, actually, have a bowl of about 1/2 cup flour handy, just for your hands to handle the dough.
• Toss it about a bit, roll it into a ball and dump it in the big silver bowl coated with PAM.  Roll it around in the PAM in the bowl.
• Cover it with a tea towel (Americans call this a hand towel or kitchen towel) and put it in the sun for ONE HOUR.

Play a few rounds of cards against humanity, check on the dough once or twice as the yeast makes it rise and one hour later, punch the middle of it with your fist.  That's pretty fun.  But coat your fist in flour first so it's not sticky.

I took the dough out of the bowl, attempted to roll it around (on wax paper) to make a ball, I cut it in half, placed one half on top of the other, rolled it out and realized I didn't have a pizza pan.  BUT I DID have a Candy Corn teflon pan I bought at Target on Halloween clearance.  So Candy Corn shaped pizza it is.

OK - Pizza Toppings:

• One jar of Simple Truth Organic Tomato and basil PASTA SAUCE.  I used half a jar on the pizza.
• Almost an entire packet of shredded mozz cheese.
• Half a packet of sliced mushrooms (should have used more, but the pizza was SO HUGE already)
• An entire medium sized tomato, sliced then halved.
• Half a medium red onion, sliced.
• Fist full of fresh spinach.
• 5-20 cloves of fresh garlic.  Ok here, I'm being obnoxious. But I love garlic and used like 5 or 6 big cloves.  Roughly chopped.
• Or just whatever the hell you want.  It's homemade.  Nobody is going to call your customer service line and complain about the cheese adhering to the top of the pizza box that it was delivered in.  Go crazy.

Your pizza dough is on the candy corn pan - yes?  Pour out the sauce on the dough, SPREAD IT ON!  Trickle over top the sauce, the garlic.  Add half your mozz cheese, put in the oven at 450 for 10-12 minutes.  Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you to preheat your oven. 

You're going to need to use your oven at 450.  Yeah, do that sooner than here.

10 minutes later, add mushies, onion, tomatoes, spinach and the rest of your cheese.  Continue baking for another 10-12 minutes or until you think it's done.

Slice it up, devour it and thank my mother for birthing you a homemade pizza genius.

Here it is again for you to admire: