Things I Cannot Do

For those of you who think I can do anything...this post is for you. 

When I first decided to move to San Diego, I knew it would be a time for personal growth. I didn't really know what this meant, but I decided to go ahead and take control of the situation by creating my own mental-make-believe-list of all the things I would learn and start doing once I got here. A "bucket list" per se...After all, with no friends surely I could pick up a few hobbies, read some best-sellers, learn another language, and acquire some new skills with all my free time, right? I'm sure I'll get to that ground-breaking post eventually, but for today, as my dinner experience has inspired me, I have decided to let you know a few things that I have learned I cannot do upon moving here. A little motivation for my bucket list...

1) I cannot follow a GPS. I have had 3 specific instances of this in the past week, and no, this does not include just being lost.  Not knowing where I am pretty constant these days (and I'm fine with that), but making ridiculous navigational errors has become my new forte. Forget physical maps! Even with the latest technology of all kinds, I still can't manage to find my way. This talent really came in handy when I was with my boss in San Francisco, and I convinced him that following the blue dot on my iPhone screen was a safe way to get to our appt on time...or at least it was until the satellite realigned us up a street and in the opposite direction after I bragged about it being a fail-safe technique (note: we were only 5 minutes late, and hey, it's not like we wanted to appear over-eager). Jump to the weekend now, where I led a car-full of people to the wrong Washington Street for dinner using my high-tech Tom Tom GPS machine. You better believe that when they say West Washington Street instead of Washington Street, they mean it! Different zip codes and everything...Then there's my personal favorite, when I set out on a quick roam by foot around the neighborhood. I eventually made it home 6 miles later after realizing that the loop I thought I was making ran smack into a gated neighborhood. Surely I could find a way back that was shorter than 3.2 miles of back-tracking...but what turned out to be 2.8miles instead actually ended up putting me on a freeway in the bikelane with puddles splashing at me from passing cars. Needless to say, it was not really worth the saved mileage.

This is what makes getting lost in Southern California okay.

2) I cannot speak Spanish. Although I have taken Spanish for about 7+ years of  my life, and I even lived in Salamanca for a Summer in a Spanish-only speaking home -- I have realized this week that I still don't even know enough to get by in casual conversation. Sure, I can do some exercises in a workbook, or get a vague idea of what a paragraph says/means, but if you think I know how to say things like: "Are you the one collecting my boxes from the UPS man and placing them in a secret location?" or "Have you seen my bed frame?" or "No, the problem is now that the blinds are stuck down in my bedroom, and I cannot get them to roll up" or "You have been named a top local restaurant in San Diego, and I'd like to come by to give you an award" -- you are mistaken. After I finish this post, I'm actually on to Rosetta Stone practice, so at least in the future I may be more prepared. Bucket List! 

And finally...

3) I cannot cook. This is really my favorite one, and I'm considering my inability to cook as the new theme of my blog. Let me give you the proper set up...As you know, Austin and Lauren just came here to visit this weekend, and we had a fantastic time. It was full of delicious food, good times, and fun people. Saturday night we went to Lucha Libre (WTLE's vote for Best Tacos!) and ate the most amazing tacos of my entire life (which is when I fell in more-than-love with homemade corn tortillas). Follow that up with Sunday night, when Lauren cooked some ridiculous home-made pizza for the Academy Awards. She made it look very easy and encouraged me that I'd definitely love cooking if I just tried. "Very therapeutic," she says.

Taking both experiences into account, I decided that tonight was the perfect low-key night to make my first real dinner at home, and I was craving MORE CORN TORTILLAS! So I walked down to the store, picked up some ingredients, and had all the necessary parts to make a chicken sausage, spinach, jalapeno, onion, and cheese quesadilla. Sounds like an easy dish to start with --That is, until you put me into the mix. See my masterpiece below.

Mmmm

This actually pictures better than it looked, by far.

The first problem came with the initial flip, which caused it to completely fall apart; however, I  decided aesthetics weren't going to get me down. Not tonight! "This will taste great!" I thought to  myself...All ready to go, and I take my first bite... :(

Turns out, the sausage was not exactly cooked, but rather, it was just burned on the edges. Oops! I decided to eat it anyways for a couple more bites (smart, I know), but then after googling "undercooked sausage" I decided  that low and behold, I had to pick all the sausage out and cook it longer...So much for my oh-so-pretty quesadilla! Fine. Still not going to care. 

After all, who isn't allowed to mess up once? and I have plenty of tortillas...Now for round two. This time I decided not to even bother with meat, but to just use spinach, onion, and cheese. Right as I'm getting cocky about my latest improvement, I realize that my wrist is kind of hot (I am pressing down on the tortilla so it all melts together and doesn't fall apart on the flip), and when I look down, I realize that my sleeve is down in the gas flame...After doing this to both sleeves (yes, I did it again after this time), I called it a night with my singed long-sleeve shirt, ate my ugly (but cooked!) quesadillas, and considered this cooking experience a FAIL.

I took this picture before I burned the other one too. The marks you can see in this are actually hard & plastic-y now. Do you have a shirt with such memory & character?

In conclusion I must ask, dinner anyone? I'll drive, or should I say, "Puedo conducirte" (???).