Soy Sauce Packets & Epiphanies: Happy Birthday Abe: Love, Bill Clinton...

i find it ironic that today, february 12, is the birthday of our 16th president, "honest abe" lincoln; and it is also the anniversary of bill clinton's aquittal regarding the monica lewinski scandal. two presidents that each meant a lot more to this country than our current president ever will. you know what they say...

i saw THIS VIDEO on youtube the other day. i though that it was amazing that this five year old kid knew so much more about our presidential history than i, or most of you reading this, do. so, to make myself feel better, i started reading up on wikipedia. what you don't see in the video is that this kid also knew the names of all the vice presidents in order too; most of which i've found that unless they became the president sometime later, i've never heard of. most interestingly, i found out (ironically yet again, after watching the movie 'hannibal' on tv the other night) that one of the vice presidents that served under the birthday boy, abe lincoln, was named hannibal hamlin. i had NEVER heard that name before, ever. i felt like such a dumbass. but alas, after yet another history lesson brought to me by my friends at wikipedia, i'm that much more informed.

happy birthday abe, happy anniversary bill and happy... well, nice to meet you hannibal.

EXPERIENCE+CHANGE=2008

the story behind ssp&e:

so i'm not sure if you're anything like me, but being the 'off the cuff cuisine' chef that i am, i try not to let anything go to waste. you know, when you bring home some bk or mickey d's, and after consuming your poor excuse for food, have ketchup packets or sauce shots left over that you throw in the door and forget about. same goes for chinese food, and you know they always give you enough sauce to put out a fire at the pentagon with your order. you throw them in your refrigerator door and forget about them. then one day you're trying to impress some last minute guests that have decided to stay at your place for dinner and all you have in your 'gourmet' kitchen are some ramen noodles, frozen veggies and some leftover grilled chicken from last weekend's cookout. the makings of a superb, on-the-fly stirfry. but wait, OH SHIT!, how are you going to make a sauce for your stirfry with no sauce? you look in the fridge and all you see is a bottle of ketchup, french's mustard (i use the term mustard loosely when describing french's), and a jar of pickle juice. oh no, what to do, what to do. then you bust open the butter holder, that invariably has never seen a stick of butter in it's life, and VOILA! soy sauce, duck sauce, hot mustard! packets, but instant chinkychow sauce nonetheless! each one of those packets, collected over time, came from a meal, inevitably eaten over conversation, an argument or during a lone lunch of self-reflection, came from a time and place in the past. as are our lessons learned. we learn through the years how to cope, how to inspire, how to teach, and how to live. we don't always remember those lessons, as we throw condiment packets in the fridge we throw life-lessons into the back of our heads, until one day we find ourself in a situation where it becomes relevant and we pull them from the back of our minds as to not waste the advice and lessons of the past. the moral of this story, and the linking of it to my blog- our life experiences are our 'soy sauce packets,' our hidden links to our experiences of our past...

e·piph·a·ny - noun - a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. [www.dictionary.com]

the epiphanies that we experience in life, questions or situations that we find ourselves in, and don't know how to resolve, can most often be solved my raking our brains in search of a 'soy sauce packet.' an answer to a question. a solution to a problem. and so this, this blog, is simply an ever-expanding culmination of soy sauce packets in my butter box, and the epiphanies that have helped to make room for more butter in my fridge...

2 comments:

Crazy Momma, 8:47 PM: Funny story:

My 7 year old, Zachary, says to me a couple weeks ago, "you know George Clinton, mommy"

Me: "yeah, he's Bill Clinton's brother"

Z: "Did you know that he was also a vice president?"

M: "Well, no, he wasn't. Bill Clinton was a president and George Bush was a vice president but George Clinton is just Bill Clinton's brother."

Z: "yuhuh, Mommy, he WAS a vice president, I know, I read it in a book."

M: "Buddy, I am sorry but you are wrong. You must be confused."

Z: "Nauuuhhh, I KNOW I read it."

M: "Whatever, I am not going to fight with you."

Just then, my husband pulls me to the computer...sure enough, George Clinton was a VP under James Madison and Thomas Jefferson...boy did I feel stupid when I had to conceded to my 7 year old that he was smarter than me...
tony a.k.a. isweatbutter, 9:18 PM: see... i'm glad i'm not the only one!

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Happy Birthday Abe: Love, Bill Clinton...

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

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