Mustachio's · Daily · Investigations

My therapist just said the words that I've been thinking for awhile. My mother is emotionally abusing me. I just got approved for summer classes at Harvard and if the financial aid goes through I'll be able to move out ASAP and won't be living with her ever again. Maybe after she gets cut off from my life she'll realize she was wrong.
I also spoke to one of my cousins and it turns out that every single on of my aunts have been emotionally abusive and cruel at some point. Makes me very unsure of who to turn to, other than my cousins.

In an effort to lose weight and an experiment in self control I've decided to stop drinking Coca Cola.  This is going to be extremely hard because I average about 3 cans a day (which is why I'm optimistic about the losing weight benefit).  Starting today I cut myself completely off.  I think the main thing that has stopped me from doing this before is I always get sick of water and need something tasty to drink.  So I'm on a quest to find a replacement drink that has at most half the calories of Coke (240 for a 16 oz. bottle) and is tasty.  I had two today.The first was a drink that I got from the Japanese deli where we got supper.  It was green tea enfused with roses which is why I got it, my last name is Rose.  It was surprisingly good.  It had more flavor than plain tea, but not much.  It wasn't as good as Coke, obviously, but it has 0 calories!  It definitely was not 240 times worse.  So this one has possibilities.  Plus it reminded me that I could just buy green tea and make it myself, with the added advantage of being pretty cheap.  I'll probably try that tomorrow.  Overall I was excited by this one, and it's pretty which can't hurt.
I got this one in the vending machine at Columbia where my selection was limited.  I figured that anything green tea would be low in calories and I would know that I would somewhat like it.  Unfortunately this one was a dissapointment after the last.  It just tasted like watered down mango juice.  Not very good.  Plus it had 120 calories.  I definitely won't be trying this one again, unless I happen to be back by the vending machine with nothing to drink.  

I just finished watching Top Chef and I had a few questions/comments.
First, if you can't pronounce the  word charismatic doesn't that pretty much mean that you aren't?  Especially when on television?  I thought that proper pronunciation was essential when explaining how to cook your food on TV segments. 
Secondly, I'm actually starting to like the Italian guy who I don't believe is actually Italian and acquired his accent through years of playing Super Mario Bros.  He put down the Dr. Chase lookalike for making super fancy food with ingrediants no non-chef would know about.  If you're going on the Today show you're marketing to older women for the most part.  So sorry they don't have the sophisticated palette that you do.
I am in love with Tom Collichio now.  I loved how he quickly shut up the guy talking about how the show was all about pushing yourself by saying that it actually was all about winning.  I hate how people claim they went on competition shows to "grow".  You went on to win.  Shut up.
Right now I hope that fake Italian wins, after revealing at the last minute that hes from Kansas or something.ti

This Thanksgiving from Wednesday night until early Friday morning was so strange I really have to write about it.  All of it, from the meanie graduate students to the fudge to the smug medical students.
So it started with board games night at Columbia because Mitch was such a nicey he organized it so the grad students who aren't from the area would have something to do.  Unfortunately only one person really came.  Fortunately he liked Star Trek so I got to talk about my new obsession.  As we were leaving, after 2 1/2 hours, these two guys walked in all pissed off that we were leaving.  Claiming that since Mitch didn't specify an end time we really should have sat there all night with our games.  Which we brought.  They could have brought their own games.  I'm glad we didn't play with them.  They probably would have been awful at Scattegories and Guess Who.
Anyway, we had to get home to make our dessert for Thanksgiving - chocolate and peanut butter fudge.  Unfortunately we once again suffered from making something brand new to us the night before the event we need it for.  Neither worked correctly.  We didn't have enough butter for the peanut butter fudge, and used the wrong kind of peanut butter, so it turned out to be just gooey peanut butter with sugar.  Still tasty, but not as tasty as fudge.  For the chocolate fudge we messed up so badly the first time we had to start all over again.  Ended up giving up the stirring process at 2:30 am and were left with fudgy-esque chocolate.  Pretty much on the same level as our applesauce pie, caused by overcooking the pie for about an hour.  Hopefully we have learned our lesson and the vodka popsicles planned for Christmas Eve will work better.
More to come later if I'm not killed by this mouse in my room...

Tonight the Harvard Band was in town so me and Mitch went to see some friends I haven't seen in awhile.  Of course I didn't want to see them enough to actually sit through the boring concert, so we had drinks at the Columbia/Princeton club and waited for them to come to us.  So much fun to be able to drink instead of lead the band around, and much less stressful.
Afterwards we decided to go with friends to Serendipity instead of see High School Musical 3 because as Mitch pointed out the purpose of the night was to see friends, not Zac Efron.  We had trouble getting a cab, ridiculous trouble, so much that when a stretch limo pulled up and offered us a ride we took it.  It ended up being $30, which split 7 ways isn't too bad.  Better than walking 18 blocks at least.  We also got a better deal because we unintentionally lied about how far we were going, and since it's not legal to pick people up in anything without a medallion he had to honor the price he gave us upfront.  So haha, we rode in a limo to Serendipity.  I've never actually been there so was surprised at how yummy the dessert was.  We split many chocolate things, super tasty.  I had so much chocolate that normally I would be asleep in a chocolate coma by now, but my awful insomnia prevents that. 
Getting up at 8am tomorrow.  Shouldn't complain though since I can sleep in the car and don't have to stay at the football game for the whole time.  I'll be going to the fabric store to get supplies for our awesome Halloween costumes. 

Today Mitch and I went to Mood fabrics to buy fabric for a dress I wanted to make.  While we were walking around looking at fabrics their mascot dog Swatch (an adorable bulldog) came running up to Mitch and started jumping on him.  He followed us around the whole store, up and down stairs.  Sooo cute.  We figured that he must have smelt our cat Crystal on Mitch's coat. 


We also had a fun experience while getting the fabric cut.  A man came up to ask the person helping us where he could find lycra fabric.  The salesperson asked what he was making, and the guy turned beet red and said "just a crappy costume".  After he left we tried to figure out what he was going to make that was too embarassing to tell.  It was hilarious.

I'm so excited.  A few days ago I embroidered a shirt with the digestive tract, complete with the stomach and intestines.  Then today I found out that someone posted about it on a Craft blog!!!  So cool, I love getting confirmation that what I make is creative.  Plus, I made it because of my Crohn's disease so it's cool that people like that.

So cute! This is her after pretending not to be using my laptop. I'm not fooled Crystal.

are seat takers. Seriously,I think that these people are the absolute worst people. My biggest pet peeve. I was at a debate party the other night in a small apartment without enough seats and I had a feeling that someone was going to do it. The people who got there early were sitting in the seats and one got up to get food in the kitchen, which was in clear sight of the living room, and one person went immediately and sat in their chair. Apparently the person whose chair was taken doesn't care about this as much as me as they didn't say anything. Then another person got up to get food and seat taker #1s wife sat in the seat. And when the person got back, someone else got out of his seat to give it to her. Very loudly. The seat taker pretended to not even notice. Seriously. Do they not realize what they're doing? Everyone knows that in this situation, watching television, the person is going to be coming back. It is so infuriating.