I cooked dinner last night, for a girl named Kim!  The remarkable part of this story isn't that her name is Kim (while that's cool, it's not the focus of this entry), it's that I cooked.  I don't normally cook.  I think that I've prepared dinner for myself twice since early December.  Mostly I've been eating out or just skipping eating.  But I got a recipe (from my mother - don't snicker) and I made it.  It required use of the oven.  I normally hate the oven.  You know how you put stuff on the grill and there's fire telling you what's hot?  The oven is different - the entire damn thing gets hot!  I mean, you flip a switch and PRESTO - burn central!  I'm a wimp when it comes to pain and I reserve a special kind of wimpiness for burns.  However, I faced down my fears like a man, or at least like a wimpering little girl, and put a chicken dish in the oven.  50ish minutes later I had edible food - food that actually tasted good!  This exceeded my expectations.  Now I'll have to try again.

-- Matt Ranlett

And to those of you snickering about how my Mom helped me to cook (long distance), you should know better than to knock Jewish boys and their mothers!