Hot Buns

Today's Culinary Adventure: pan-fried, juicy buns with the boys. 7 of these tasty morsels now reside in Mama Foo's gut, threatening insulin levels to death-defying heights and mortifying lows. Burp.

"The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory."

Good to Go until 2017

A trip to the PO box this morning offered up one piece of junk mail (no thanks Verizon, I don't want a Crackberry), a thank-you note from my niece Easton and—after 8 weeks of anticipation—my updated US passport.


It's a lovely thing, peppered with all sorts of regal American symbolism and poignant quotes from cover to cover. But Foo is a bit distressed at its newness. The poor thing is just begging to be broken in, even if it's a quick jaunt to Canada just to hear the words, "Passport, please" quickly followed by the ga-dunk of the self-inking date stamper.

Little tiny adventures

In order to qualify as an adventure, the event doesn't have to be bullhorn-worthy. Just a simple little thing really, like preparing to run 9 miles in the predawn light for a marathon that's less than 2 months away.

Stop yer whining

"Enough said", harumphs Foo.

Brain Freeze

For whatever reason, Bunny is enamored with Slurpees.

The story of Slurpee drinks began in 1959 with a broken soda fountain machine in Kansas. When Omar Knedlik's soda machine broke at his drive-in hamburger restaurant, he began serving icy-cold bottled soft drinks from his freezer. Customers fell in love with the slushy drinks, sparking Knedlik to come up with the idea of creating soft-serve frozen drinks.

After failed attempts to create a machine to make his icy beverages, Knedlik contacted the John E. Mitchell Company, a Dallas machinery manufacturer in 1959. Mitchell was attracted to the idea and began working with an automobile air conditioner to create a machine that would freeze carbonated soft drinks that could be served in a sherbet-like form and would be drunk through a straw. Mitchell's machine used a complex system to freeze the beverages so they could be served at an icy 28 degrees.

Although a revolution in the soft drink field, Mitchell's frozen drinks were not a huge success with retailers. He tried selling his machines to drugstores and restaurants between 1960 and 1965, but the product's novelty and stores' inexperience with refrigeration equipment kept it from making an impact. But a chance encounter with a 7-Eleven manager would forever change the success of the frozen beverage.

While visiting a competitor's store in 1965, a 7-Eleven zone manager came across one of Mitchell's machines and thought that it had a huge potential for success. In the Fall of 1965, 7-Eleven purchased three machines to test the product in their stores. They were an immediate success, and by the Spring of 1967, the machines were in almost every 7-Eleven store.

The Slurpee mark was created in May 1967 during a brainstorming session at 7-Eleven's in-house ad agency. While drinking the product through a straw, agency director Bob Stanford commented that it made a slurping sound. The Slurpee drink phenomenon was born. For the past 42 years, Slurpee drink has evolved from Fulla-Bulla to Fire Water to Shrek-a-licious. But no matter the flavor, it will always be The Coolest Drink on Earth.

With Age comes Wisdom

Some folks prefer to spend their birthday eating Devil's Food cake in the oxygen-rich flatlands of suburbia—but not Foo. She prefers the lung-burning exercise of scaling Northern California's highest peaks; reflecting on days gone by in the comfort of her hiking boots, a cheese sandwich and a handful of chocolate chip cookies.

Somehow life is simpler at 10,000'. No work woes or drama queens to deal with, just the pleasure of finding your groove pace while winding your way up 1,400' of switchbacks in an hour. There's no email, voice or text message to answer—just the call of thirst and hunger. Or perhaps the tiny blister on your right toe that quietly reminds you it's there but not a big deal.

Life is good—but better at altitude, she thinks.

Blog This

An iPod and 42.5 days worth of music only gets you so far. If you want to be cool, you've got to Blog.
—Overheard at Peets

Foo's not sure how posting the benign details of one's life while listening to Velvet Revolver qualifies as cool—but she's willing to give it a try.