Healthy food is ugly...and my traumatic Verizon upgrade story

Oh sad. I wrote a whole post and the interwebs ate it. That's been my theme lately (or at least that is my segue to write about the horrible experience I had at Verizon upgrading my phone). I have been needing to upgrade my phone lately; the home button didn't work, it wouldn't hold onto any contacts, and it was slow as molasses. On the other hand, I was reluctant to get a new phone because I have been holding onto all of my voice and text messages from my mother. TW backed up the voicemails on her computer, but I liked having them in my pocket. I almost never listen to them, but the idea of being able to hear her voice at the touch of a button was such a comfort.

Anyhow, my sister upgraded her phone recently and by all accounts the rep at her store was great. She got her new phone, all of her contacts and voicemails were transferred over seamlessly, and basically everything was coming up roses. So on Friday, after I couldn't close out of a single screen because of my broken home button, I headed on over to the Verizon store closest to my Columbus Circle job to get my new phone.

Things were weird from the beginning. I signed in and texted TW while waiting to figure out if I should get a 16 or 32 GB phone. When the rep called my name we were in the middle of our conversation so I hadn't totally decided yet. She asked me what I was there for, what phone I wanted, and what size I wanted. I said I hadn't decided yet, and she asked me how she was supposed to help me if I didn't know what I wanted. I am not the most, say, tech-savvy, so maybe I have required more help than most at these occasions, but the store employees have always guided me through the process in the past. We finally figured out that I should get the 32 GB version. This is where it got bad.

The rep had to scan my phone a million times as part of the upgrade transaction. While she was doing this she was chatting with a bunch of her friends who were hanging out at the desk. At the same time, she told me that I would be losing all of my text messages when I upgraded. I freaked out and got emotional, and TW begged me to take screen shots of every text from my mom before going through with the sale. The salesperson was very patient while I did this, which clouded my judgment and made me think I liked her. We finished up, and I walked out with my fancy new phone. I sent a message to TW telling her that the salesperson had turned it around and ended up being great (because she was so patient). Then the message showed up on my phone. She had upgraded my phone to TW's number (because she was distracted and chatting with friends while doing all that scanning). I went back in, and she was able to get me back my number, but basically now everything is screwy. I initially lost all of my voice messages (of course, including my moms), then I got them back, and now they are gone again. Things still aren't working totally right. I had my contacts, lost them, now got them back again. I am unclear how much of this is Verizon's fault and how much is Apple's, but since the store experience is so fresh I am going with Verizon. I always sing their praises, too...

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest. The original post was all about how I keep taking beautiful foods and making them ugly, but tasty. Case in point. On this whole healthy kick, TW and I have been cutting way down on our meat eating (not that we ate much to begin with). For this one, I took a recipe I had made before (spicy beef and cabbage) and replaced the beef with lentils. Boom--vegan. And tasty. And super ugly. Despite using my real camera and not my iPhone. Oh well--the original recipe called for red tomatoes, this just happened to be what I had. If you used those, at least there'd be a little color contrast.

Spicy Cabbage and Lentils
adapted from Cooking Light

2 T peanut oil
1 cup thinly sliced shallots
1 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cups cooked lentils
4 cups thinly sliced cabbage
1 cup sliced tomatoes (I used yellow grape tomatoes, the recipe calls for plum tomatoes)
1/3 cup coarsely chopped peanuts

Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, salt, turmeric and cayenne pepper, cook until shallots are tender and starting to become translucent. Add lentils, cook for 2 minutes. Add cabbage and tomatoes, toss well and cover. Cook for 10 minutes, until cabbage begins to wilt. Add peanuts and cook for 10ish more minutes, until cabbage is soft and everything looks ugly. Eat. It's delicious. Promise.

PS Started tennis. I am a natural. Call me Serena Williams. Or a yuppie in training, either way.