The Zucchini Story (Final Entry)

   3/29/2014

   The zucchini takes up valuable freezer space, sometimes.

   Hoo boy. These couple of beauts are a batch made out of my one zucchini bread recipe, mixed together with the two banana bread recipes from home. The bananas were also taking up freezer space. That opened up a lot.

   And just, one by one, or two by two, batch by batch (this particular batch of three recipes blended required two casserole dishes of course- a one-quart one and a two-quart one. Which we can no longer seem to find after this batch...)

   And... Well, that's it, actually. Last week I brought in the final zucchini bread, Data Quality zone's annual "Green Food Day" to Celebrate Saint Patrick. What better thing to bring in than green jello, a green box of Girl Scout cookies, and the bread on which I spent the last of the frozen zucchini?

   This Tuesday, the last of if finally got all eaten up. Phew. Proof, here's the quart casserole dish, soaking.

   Delectable.

   I had one last zucchini, on top of the final three frozen bags (each baggie equaled about a cup of shredded zucchini- three baggies = three cups = the amount of zuke called for in a single recipe.) Brought it from apartment to apartment to apartment, however long I had it. Finally peeled it, once I used up the final baggies, but a bit too soon of course- the casserole dish I could use, the one we could find, was being used by the other zucchini bread! So the peeled zucchini, not ready to be shredded, sitting out in open air a couple of days...

   Yep.

   Though it wasn't that bad, just, unusable. Which is just as well, since I used up all the last of the flour (and the eggs, and the oil I think) on the other zucchini bread. So I was swamped anyway, that-wise. The flour, woo... I'd bought a 25 pound bag of flour; you can see how monstrous that thing was in the background of one or two of the previous entries' photos when we're attacking the first zukes. And now, finally used up.

   More proof. The sheer magnitude of the feat is boggling, using up that much flour, and still having needed to have more if all the horsey zucchinis hadn't gone bad. (horsey zucchini, hmm...)

   Sorry about that. But it really has been quite a, um, ride.

The Zucchini Story (Part IV)

   3/22/2014

   So, as I cliffhanger'd last time, we thought that we had enough zuke shreds to make plenties of breads. But that turned out not to be the case.

   It wasn't that it turned out that we didn't have a big bowl entirely full of shreds, that it wasn't all the way full somehow. Oh no it was not that at all. Neither was it that the recipe called for more zucchini than we'd initially thought, that packing the zuke down made what seemed like three cups at first a lot less than that. Nor was it some third thing that it wasn't. We definitely did have enough zucchini to make a boatload of batches. Did have...

   See, I'd completely forgotten the one thing that everyone knows about storing zucchini shreds, the thing that newborn infants know about it. Put the zucchini into tiny little baggies and freeze that stuff, right? 

   Nope, though, I just let that stuff sit there, on the top of the fridge, at room temp, for several days. And then, it was the night before a Data Quality snack day. So, deciding to make zucchini bread for that, having all the other ingredients mixed and everything, I went to to add the zuke. 

   And it was dry on top, soggy underneath, and moldy everywhere.

   No, I'm not getting you a photo of that. Have a horsey in a hat, instead:

   Isn't that a more pleasant image?

   I debated (for hopefully less than 5 milliseconds) whether to just add the less moldy smelly stuff in the middle (where it was neither dry nor soggy) to the recipe, but, nope, instead I had to make an emergency move for the huge zucchini, with an hour and a half to get the whole thing shredded by myself with no help from the blender or anything. 

   I made it, barely, but had to wake up early the next morning to bake the thing.

   So from then on I learned my lesson:

 

   Freeze the zuke.

   Next (and final) entry: getting rid of the remainder.

The Zucchini Story (Part III)

   2/22/2014

   There was the fresh young zuke and the big old zukes. This is a bowl of the shreds. Guess which half came from which zucchini.

   At first we just grated the zucchini in a cheese grater, and although that was effective it wasn't the quickest and well I've still got battle scars on my fingers.

   Luckily that morning I'd also bought that blender, to make pizza for dinner that night (yes (...long story)), knowing it would also possibly be useful for shredding zucchini. So bright and shiny when we started off.

   It, uh, it wasn't as effective as we could have hoped. That blender's dead now. For the record, though, this morning I dismantled it to see if I could try fixing it. Uhh... No luck so far.

   But

it worked fine enough once you learned how to do it right. 

   And after that, we had a big bowl of zucchini shreds!

   This big red bowl on the left, filled up to the brim. Sweet! And that's even without cutting much into the huge one. 

   So, now we had enough zucchini shreds to make like 10 batches of zucchini bread.

   Or so we thought....

The Zucchini Story (Part II)

   9/7/2013

   The Zucchini wasn't the only zucchini I brought home. I also brought a normal-size one and a puny one. The "puny one" was actually an average-sized zuke, and the "normal one" was pretty large but hardly legendary. With this much zucchini, I was going to have to get some major software.

   But first, a recipe for zucchini bread. Elder Snell had one on the computer, zapped it over to a printer. The next day, I went on a hundred-dollar shopping spree, splurged on enough ingrediants to make a sexagintible batch. Plus, a blender and a grater, for cutting the bits down to size.

   But how am I going to goshdarn peel that goshdarn zucchini?

   With a goshdarn peeler, goshdarn it!

   That poor peeler got abused. Have a couple pics of it in action:

   See how I tried to start peeling on the largest one first but had to give up? That thing had thick skin.

   And then, once that had been accomplished, grating the zuke. Which maybe I'll talk about next time.

The Zucchini Story (part I (a serial!))

  8/17/2013

   First of all, I'm going to have to talk about the Zucchini itself. (Yes. The Zucchini. With a capital Z and everything.) 

   Brad, the guy I work under (you know Brad,) Brad's got this garden, apparently. Up in Data Quality we've got this thing called the Snack Alley, where I used to work before they moved me to Main Street. You know Snack Alley. Brad, see, his cubicle is right next to Snack Alley. He can peek over the cubicle wall down to the Snack Table, to see if there's any of what he calls "temptation food." And occasionally, apparently, he offers his own contribution to the table.

   It could have been any amount of time ago; I think I remember it being a month or so from when I write this. It's in my journal, but I don't have that on me. He's got a garden, apparently, and this year's crop of zucchini had been particularly profitable. By the time he got to the center of the patch this year, his zucchini had had so much time to grow, that after all this time, when he finally got into the center, there it sat.

   The Zucchini.

   Actual estimates to its size and weight vary, and have grown to legendary proportions over time. No accurate measurements were ever made. To my knowledge. Maybe Brad himself knows; I don't know. What is generally agreed upon is that it weighed at the minimum 15-20 pounds. I'm not sure what the average weight for a zucchini is supposed to be, or if that's particularly heavy for a zucchini, but I'm trying to stick to the facts here. 

   I think maybe that's why big fish stories were invented. Everything's so much more extreme up close, sometimes you paradoxically need to exaggerate the facts in order to be true to life. More is more. In this instance, though, less is more, so I'm sticking with that estimate. 15-20 pounds.

   And it was fun to heft, too. My companion and I got more total exercise in those couple of weeks that we had that thing, than in the entirety of the our missions up to that point.

   All photographs of me actually hefting the Zucchini itself make me look really ugly, so I'm not going to show those here. Maybe it'd be anticlimactic of me to publish a picture of the Zucchini at all, after all that buildup. But maybe it won't be. (I'm not sure; a zucchini of that size is no longer outside the realms of my experience, so I've got nothing to compare it to.) I'm going to do it; if anyone out there can say "I've seen bigger," well... nnnng. Remember, though, the ideal zucchini is more or less indistinguishable from a cucumber from the outside.

   (That thing was hard to cut.) And on the inside, with another, average zucchini on the side for comparison of size (and to prove that it was in fact a zucchini and not some other squash variety.)

   Yep, that's clearly the same species, alright.

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, April 25, 2010

Click to embiggen.

TRANSCRIPT:
Marvin: Here we go again.
Shoot, um...
 ...
Hey, umm...
Collin!
 ...
Wanna know what's cool?
(imitating Collin) Why, I certainly do!
Affadavits! Them things is radcore!
...
One of these days I'm gonna kill that boy.
Whew!

Sketchings: Oh, Man, I Misspelled Yogurt

   I was talking to... this kid. A student. He saw I was making sketches, yeah? He asked me if I had any dog drawings, and I showed him the dog on this page. There was the head right in the middle there; I had been rather proud of it when I drew it as I was experimenting with a new style. He noticed it and agreed, but said it was too "stretched," whatever he meant by that. Like, the top of the head.

    I suppose I can see it.

Heads (Drawings of Them)

   What does the 

way I draw

heads say about

me?

Other than that

I've got no idea how

hairlines work,

And that I like heads

at a slight angle?

   Actually, those last few weren't bad. I think that last one might be Colt Carmen.

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, April 18, 2010

Click to embiggen.

TRANSCRIPT:
Marvin: Hey, umm...
Collin!
...
Wanna know what's cool?
(imitating Collin) Why, I certainly do!
Hey wait a second.
Marvin: What?
This is just like the comic on 11/15/09!
Marvin: Yeah, well
since Collin's gone, and it's time to get back to business as usual,
I figured that this was the only sketch I could do by myself. So, anyway, proceeding.
Affadavits! [sic] Them things is radcore!
...
One of these days I'm gonna ki-...!
*sigh.*

Adam's Play, Act I Scene 2

SCENE 2

(This scene takes place the very next day.
Pamela, Alex and Julie are sitting on the sofa
reading a newspaper)

PAMELA
(Mad)
33 people died and 15 other people were injured. Why don’t they give the victims names.  I need to know if Kevin is all right or not.

ALEX
Just calm down.

JULIE
You left a message on your parents phone right?

PAMELA
Of course I did. They should have called by now.

ALEX
I’m sure they have a reason. They might not be home yet, you never know. There could be weather problems holding them up or something.

PAMELA
This is sickening. I need answers. Why haven’t my parents called? Is my brother safe, and who would kill 32 people and himself?

ALEX
We don’t know, just sit down and we’ll figure out what to do.

(Just then the phone rings. Pamela rushes to the phone and she picks it up)
PAMELA
Hello. . . Mom, dad, oh thank heavens you’re all right. I was worried. . . Yes I heard about it. Is Kevin all right. . . What news? Tell me. . . I can’t calm down. I’ve been worried about Kevin since yesterday. I hardly slept last night thinking of what could have happened. I couldn’t stop thinking about him . . . What, he
got shot? How is he? . . .
(Losing her mind)
Why didn’t you call me earlier? You have known about this for hours and you finally decide to call your daughter! I have been worried to death about my brother for so long. How thoughtful of you guys! . . .
(Controlling herself)
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things but I was scared. I’ve been worried for a while . . . So how long has he been in the hospital? . . . Ok, I’m going to leave today. . . I don’t care if I miss school. My brother’s life is more important than college. . . I’m leaving as soon as I can get my things together . . . Thanks for calling. I’m sorry for my reaction over the phone about you guys not calling earlier . . . I love you and I will see you when I get there. . . Ok, goodbye.

(She hangs up. During this monologue Julie and Alex will
react to everything she says.)

ALEX
So when are you leaving?

PAMELA
I’m leaving as soon as I get my stuff together.

JULIE
It’s about a 12 hour drive from here to Virginia, do you want one of us to come along?

PAMELA
No, this is very personal to me. Kevin is my brother and I need to face this by myself.

ALEX
I am not letting you travel by yourself. I am coming along and there is no way you can stop me.


PAMELA
All right, you can come with me. Julie you stay here and make sure nothing happens.

JULIE
I’m coming with you guys and I don’t care what you say. I have been your best friend since kindergarten. I can’t leave you in a time like this. I’ve known Kevin almost all my life and I’m going to be there with you in this time of crisis.

PAMELA
Please Julie. You don’t have to do this we will be fine.

JULIE
I’m coming Julie I really need to be their for you and Kevin.

PAMELA
All right, you can come also.

(Pamela opens up her room door and walks into her room. We can see a dresser and a side of a bed. Pamela opens the dresser drawers and she puts clothes into a bag.)

JULIE
Thank you Pamela. You don’t realize how important this is to me to be with you.
                               (Julie walks into her room and starts packing also, from
       her room)
So how is Kevin?

PAMELA
(From her room)
He’s ok. He got shot and he’s been in the hospital. The doctors said he’ll be all right. He’s probably going to have to be in the hospital for a couple of weeks but he will be fine. That’s all my parents told me.
(Pamela zips up the bag and leaves her room. She closes her
door. Julie walks out of her room and closes the door)

ALEX
I need to stop at my place so I can grab my clothes and other things we might need. Can you guys pick me up there.
PAMELA
Certainly just hurry, we need to leave as soon as possible. Make sure you drive safely darling. I can’t have two men in my life in the hospital.

ALEX
I will darling. Make sure you two drive safely also. I wouldn’t know what I would do without you. Well I better hurry. I will see you two in a couple of minutes. I love you Pamela.
(Alex and Pamela kiss.)
Goodbye.

(Alex exits the room through the DL door. Blackout.)

Adam's Play, Act I Scene I

WHAT IF?

a short play



by


Adam Perazzo



















Copyright © 2007 by Adam Perazzo
Churchill County High School
Thespian Troupe 3918
6262 Stillwater Rd.
Fallon, NV 89406
(775) 423-2284
CHARACTERS


PAMELA Kevin’s caring sister.  Alex’s girlfriend.  Julie’s roommate. 20.

JULIE Chemistry major.  Pamela’s long-time friend and college
roommate. 20.

ALEX Tall with blonde hair and grey eyes. Pamela’s boyfriend. 22.































SETTING

Pamela and Julie’s apartment on the University of Chicago campus.  The apartment has 3 doors. One leads to Pamela’s room and another to Julie’s room. These are located in the UC of the room. The last door leads to the outside and it is located DL. There is a sofa in the middle of the room with a coffee table in front of it. There is a small kitchen DR. There is a kitchen cabinet separating the kitchen from the living room. In the kitchen there is a sink, oven, and fridge. There is a phone on the kitchen cabinet. There is a table directly in between Pamela and Julie’s room. There is a bouquet of roses inside of a vase, on the table.





TIME

April 16 & 17, 2007





















SCENE 1

(Pamela and Julie’s apartment on the University of Chicago campus. The lights come up and we see Pamela in the kitchen, and Julie sitting on the Sofa.)

JULIE
(Julie has a Chemistry book in her lap)
How are the cookies coming Pam?



PAMELA
They are almost done. Hopefully they turn out all right with this new recipe I used. This is the first time trying this recipe. I hope you like Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies because that’s what they’re called.

JULIE
Sounds interesting, I’m sure they’re going to be fine.

PAMELA
I got the recipe from my mother and I decided to try it out.

JULIE
Can you help me with this Chemistry homework?

PAMELA
                          (She walks out of the kitchen and crosses to the sofa)
Sure, what do you need help on?

JULIE
(Picking up one of the pencils on the coffee table)
I don’t understand how to find the formula weight of a compound using the atomic mass found on the Periodic Table of Elements.

PAMELA
Huh? English please. You want to repeat that please using words that the average person can understand?


JULIE
Never mind, you won’t know. You’re majoring in Alex, I love you career. What does he do for a living anyways?


PAMELA
He’s a dentist and he does some ventriloquism on the side. Also we’ve only been dating for a year

JULIE
Only! That’s a long time when you think about it. I bet you when he finally does propose he will have his puppet by his side doing the speaking.

PAMELA
Ha, ha, ha, very funny. He’s a very nice guy and just because your relationships never last doesn’t mean you have to make fun of our relationship.

JULIE
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just --

(She is Interrupted by Alex barging through the
door without knocking.)

ALEX
(In a panicking, scared voice)
Did you guys hear about the shooting?

PAMELA
What shooting? Where?

ALEX
There was as shooting at Virginia Tech.

PAMELA
(Worried)
Oh no.
What about Kevin?


ALEX
I’m sure that Kevin is all right.

PAMELA
(Still worried)
Kevin is my brother. I need to know if he’s safe or not. I’m going to call him right now.

(Pamela rushes to the phone on the kitchen cabinet)

JULIE
(To Alex)
When did this happen?

ALEX
About 40 minutes ago. I came here as fast as I could but I got stuck in traffic. I heard the news on the radio and I was going to call but I forgot my cell phone in my apartment.

PAMELA
Pick up! Pick up please! Kevin answer the stupid phone! He’s not answering his phone. That means he could be. . .
(Choking back tears)
DEAD!

JULIE
No that doesn’t mean he’s dead. Don’t even think that. He’s probably with his friends.

ALEX
Try your parents, maybe they know something.

PAMELA
(Tears streaming down her face)
They’re not home. They went on vacation for two weeks and they don’t get back till tomorrow.

ALEX
(Getting nervous)
Well there has to be at least someone you could call.

(The alarm for the cookies go off)

JULIE
(Trying to lighten the mood)
The cookies are done. Let’s all relax and have some milk and cookies.

PAMELA
(Exasperated)
How can I relax when my brother could be dead because some lunatic shot him?

ALEX
There has to be someone you can call. How about your Grandparents?
(Pamela shakes her head no)
No, ok how about an Aunt or uncle.
(Again Pamela shakes her head no)
There has to be someone.

PAMELA
(Yelling)
Don’t you get it. There is no one to call. My parents are the only people I know that live in Virginia except Kevin and they aren’t even there. They’re probably on their way back from Disney World. They would be the only ones to know if Kevin is safe but they’re gone and I can’t get a hold of them until tomorrow.

JULIE
Maybe you should try Kevin one more time.

(She goes and gets the cookies and milk. The milk is located
 in the fridge. She brings them back and sets them on the
 coffee table)

PAMELA
He’s not there. He’s dead.

ALEX
Knock it off.

PAMELA
He’s dead.

ALEX
Don’t say that.

PAMELA
He’s dead!

ALEX
You don’t know that.

PAMELA
He’s dead!! He’s dead!! He’s dead!!

ALEX
Just shut up! Your going to sit down here and not think about it. We are going to wait and call your parents tomorrow. I’m sure Kevin is fine. Like Julie said, he’s probably with his friends and there is nothing to worry about. So just sit down and eat some cookies and wait till tomorrow. There’s nothing that you can do but pray. So for now you are going to put this out of your mind and relax. I don’t want to hear another word about it do you hear me. We will figure out what to do tomorrow. So until then there’s not going to be another sound about Kevin.

(Pamela, Alex and Julie sit on the sofa and they start
eating cookies and milk.)

JULIE
These are good cookies you need to give me the recipe.

PAMELA
Thanks, there not that hard to make, you just need chocolate chips, peanut butter, oatmeal, sugar, oil, and a couple other ingredients.

JULIE
Well what ever you did they’re good.

ALEX
I better be going. I will come back tomorrow. I have some homework that I need to get done. Now don’t worry I’m sure that Kevin is fine and there is nothing to worry about.

PAMELA
Well be safe dear. I love you and have a good night. See you in the morning.

(Pamela and Alex kiss. Blackout.)

WHAT IF?

   The next couple of days I am doing some very special posts. Adam wanted to be a lawyer, but he was also an amateur poet and, as a Thespian, something of a playwright. He wrote this one act play  about the effects of the Virginia Tech massacre, and I have decided to publish it here, for the first time, on the anniversaries of the dates the play takes place.

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, April 11, 2010

Click to embiggen.

TRANSCRIPT:
SFX: *pshhhhhh*
*tease tease*
*tease*
Marvin: *glargle glargle glargle*
*ptyoo!*
SFX: *shkshkshk*
Marvin: ...
*sigh*

Mein Fridge

   Compare, prose to poetry. Poetry is about the look and shape and feel and meaning of the words, the words achieving their highest potential through every aspect of them being used. The way this is achieved, the difference between poetry and prose? Metrical structure. Basically, poetry comes in lines and prose doesn't. And that's it. That is the only difference. I'm using this to illustrate, which I wrote in High School for no real reason. As I could find no other use for it, I feel it could at least be useful here.

   It is boxy, made out of plastic on the outside and a metal frame interior of the walls. It is about 5 1/2'' tall, I'd say 3'' wide. There is a freezer on top of it attached. Inside there is food, tortillas and leftover stuff and bologna. There is milk.

   Compare to:

It is boxy,
made out of plastic on the outside
and a metal frame interior of the walls.

It is about 5 1/2'' tall, I'd say
3'' wide.
There is a freezer on top of it attached.

Inside there is food, tortillas
and leftover stuff
and bologna.

There is milk.

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, April 4, 2010

Click to embiggen.

TRANSCRIPT:
Marvin: ZZZZ
ZZZZ
um...
Marivn: ZZZ
Rise and Shine!
Marvin: ZZZ
Good Morning, Sleeping Beauty!
Marvin: ZZZ
WAKEY WAKEY EGGS AND BAKEY!!!
...
Marvin: What!?
You look like an Animé...
Marvin: I get bedhead, alright?