I'm not sure what made me think of this...

It's weird the little phrases that come into fashion. I hear them from Little Sis, 'cause she's a follower and thus a parrot of whatever trends come into the high school. Like who started "epic fail?" All of a sudden everyone started saying it. It's weird.


At some point in second grade, someone decided that it was really cool to say, "so what; who cares?" Whenever you tried to tell an interesting story, or state a fun fact, or recount some fond memory to a friend, you were met with a cold, nonchalant, "so what; who cares?"

It was a very nerve-wracking time for everyone in my class, I think. At any time, your friends could turn on you. And once you got hit with a "so what; who cares?" in front of a group of your peers, it was like you became a leper. No one cared what you had to say. You were unimportant, uninteresting, and unworthy of anyone's attention. 


If you got hit on a Monday it was the worst. Then you remained a leper for five whole days. Your friends shunned you until everyone eventually forgot about it over the weekend. And then the following Monday you made damn sure you hit one of your friends with a "so what; who cares?" the first chance you got. 


The "so what; who cares?" faded away after a while. I think by third grade it was replaced with the Casio Magic Diary. Remember those things?

You could put all your friends in your address book and personalize their entries by designing a face to go next to their names. You could write journal entries. You could even make it tell you your fortune for the day. All the girls had Magic Diaries. 


I did not have a Magic Diary.


I begged and pleaded and stomped my feet, but since I could only do this properly every other weekend, it didn't get me very far. Mum left for work really early, so I only saw her for like 2 minutes on weekday mornings. She usually went out drinking with friends or out with her boyfriend after work, so she didn't come home on weeknights until after I had gone to bed. 


(This is why I had a Jamaican accent [from my nanny] until I was five.)


Dad didn't get me things because he didn't believe in spoiling his children (which I agree with now), so I never bothered begging him for a Magic Diary on his weekends. He kept me pretty busy doing fun things, too. The Magic Diary wouldn't cross my mind until Monday, when I went back to school and all the other girls were playing with their diaries under their desks. 


And then at long last, Mum got me my very own Magic Diary. (I still have it somewhere in the depths of my closet.) I played with that thing all weekend. I put all my friends into my address book. I delighted in the fact that I could write entries into my electronic diary and password protect everything. I must have changed my password 50 times. I could not wait for school on Monday, so I could show all my friends my brand new Magic Diary. 


Guess what two of the girls in my class brought in that week?

The brand new Casio Super Magic Diary. 


You could point two of the Super Diaries at each other and send messages. (That was how we texted back in 1993.) And that thing could also work as a remote control for most televisions. They even made a non-pastel one for boys. This was the hottest sh*t to ever hit Toys 'R Us. Within a week, everyone had one.


Everyone except me, who had to finally get the original Magic Diary two days before Casio released the new one. I think I gave up on the Magic Diary as a bad job and returned my focus to Mortal Kombat.


Recipe time!


This is like a pasta and sauteed vegetables dish. It came out pretty friggin delicious, considering I just made it up while I was food shopping.


You will need:
- Spaghetti squash
- broccoli
- 1 small onion
- 1 red or orange pepper
- 1 or 2 tomatoes (I just used the tinned kind)
[You can really use any vegetable you want, but I def recommend the onion, broccoli, and pepper. I also used some leftover Brussels sprouts and they tasted quite yummy.]
- garlic
- pasta sauce (I used low-fat Vodka sauce)
- butter (or use oil to make the recipe vegan)
- white cooking wine


To make it:
- Cut the squash in half and bake it in the oven at 400 degrees F for about 1 hour, or until it's tender when you poke it with a fork.


- Mince the onion really tiny (I used my slap-chop), but cut the broccoli and pepper up in big pieces. 

- In a big frying pan, heat 1 tbsp butter (70 cals for the whipped kind) and a spoonful of garlic, then add the onion and fry it until it's transparent golden. Then add 2 tbsp cooking wine (20 cals) and the broccoli and peppers. Stir it up with the onion and garlic so everything is nicely mixed, then reduce the heat and cover the pan. Stir it every few minutes. (Covering allows you to sort of steam the veggies so they're evenly cooked and you don't need to add more butter, wine, oil, etc., and so you don't need to add more calories.)


- Once the broccoli is as tender as you want it, add the tomatoes. I used the tinned ones because then I didn't have to add any more butter or oil--they could cook in their own juices. 


- When the squash is cooked, take it out of the oven and let it sit for a few minutes so you don't burn your hand when you turn it into spaghetti. Using a fork, scrape the insides out into a bowl. 


- I served the veggies, spaghetti, and vodka sauce separately so everyone could make their own plate, but you can mix them all up and serve it that was as well. The entire thing was around 800 calories, and there was  A LOT of food (so like 200 or less per serving). Here's a photo of the leftovers:

It turned out delicious. Even got the stamp of approval from Mum, which is pretty darn impressive.