Salmon Burgers because Blaine cooks burgers

This is one of my favorite episodes.

I love how perfectly timed it seems for Liv to have an assassin brain and the whole sequence while she goes after Blaine. Blaine grills up some burgers for zombie Billy Joe Armstrong and so I decided to tackle one of my favorite meals.

I burnt my finger making these. Like really badly. I've burnt my finger a lot, but never in hot oil. It went cold before it started searing. Is there such thing as numbing cream?

Teriyaki Salmon burgers is one of my favorite meals. Almost sounds too straightforward to butcher but

HERE WE GO

I got pineapple, salmon (raw) and teriyaki sauce from the grocery store. I have bread at home, because I don't like hamburger buns...well not from the grocery store at least. And you know I need wheat bread.

I grilled the onions, assuming that was my first step.

Then I tried to cut up the salmon, but it was attached to the skin...then I realized I should probably cook it.

15 minutes later. I mixed the cooked salmon pieces with the onion, bread crumbs and an egg.

Then I learned how to slice a pineapple which was the most exciting part for sure.

Then I realized I only had Teriyaki and mayo to dress my burger. So...I cooked a boring burger, but at least I did it on my own.

This was very easy and probably cheaper than Costco Salmon burgers, but I wished I sprung for lettuce, etc. And I wish I didn't burn my finger.

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"What? No, you're not."

She stared up at him, if only she were a little taller, she could stare him down.

"Why Tennessee?"

"There's a lot of money in Tennessee and people need to know how to manage it." He took advantage of her loss her words, "It's a good place for a boring white boy like me."

"You wouldn't move there."

She was frustratingly slow on the concept of a job interview, but he knew why.

"If they offer me the job with a competitive salary, I would."

"Money isn't everything." She had broken eye contact at this point and stared at his toes instead. The toes that were going to leave her.

"When you work in finance, it kind of is."

"Alright, enough wisecracks. You're going to fly there...tomorrow?"

A nod.

"You can't do that."

"Correction: You can't do that. I can."

"Planes are death traps. They fall out of the air all the time." She was pivoting now, stepping in circles. Close to ripping out her hair. "All the time."

"That's just not true, Elena."

She stomped her foot in anger. Actually stomped her foot. "They crash. They break down. They explode."

"So do cars, Elena."

"You're going to die."

"You don't want me to leave."

"I don't want you to die in a plane crash when you're perfectly capable of working a job here."

"I wasn't going to take the job."

She huffed. That was about as good as he could hope for.

"I just want to get away sometimes, you know?"

She didn't know. She spent her whole life trying to get in, not get away. He fit in everywhere. Tennessee would eat him up. She knew that.

"I want to see what else is out there, drink in some new scenery."

She sat down. Sick of this conversation. He wouldn't leave and she wouldn't miss him. That's all this would amount to. She ripped blades of grass from the ground and tossed them, staring into the distance.

He sat down beside her.

I can't list all of the times I've cried on an airplane. I read somewhere that every human understands subconsciously or consciously the fact that they may die on a flight, and we all feel this electric current of vulnerability whenever we're in the air.

I feel that.

It's funny because this Christmas my mother told me that imagining plane crashes is her way of deciding who is really important. I think most people plan an imaginary wedding reception, but I have no clue what most people do. I just now know that my mother imagines them dying in a fiery crash and then decides whether or not she would care. Okay, I'm making her sound callous, that part if woefully my own, but it struck me because it was a joyous holiday. And it struck me because that's what I've been doing my entire life and not known why.

Sometimes I'm in the plane crash and I know why I would hope to visit me in the hospital. Sometimes it's other people and I realize who I like the most.

Most of the time I feel numb.

The truth is Buddy Holly dies in a plane crash and I can't handle it. I spend the day moping. I can't handle death. So I obsess. Because it happens all the time.

So, I'm on an airplane and I'm crying because I miss someone. Because I'm 16 and think I've had the most profound emotional connection and I'll never feel whole again. Because I'm 18 coming home from college and I don't know if I have the strength to stay away from home. Because I'm 20 and it doesn't feel like home anymore and I can't determine what I've lost and what I've kept. Because I'm 21 and I know I'll be alone on New Year's. Because I'm 26 and I don't know where my life is going. Because a pigeon got sucked into a jet engine. Because there's turbulence and if it all ends right now, I won't know what I've got. Will that matter? That I don't want my life to end because nothing I've done will have mattered, when I'm the one who it can't matter to anyway?

Now you see that I'm the dark callous one.

The truth is, I can't imagine any of it. Someone's gone and the immediate sadness is just customary. Life goes on again and numbness takes over until I can't decide what I've even lost anyway.

I can't decide if I'm missing someone or I'm missing something. Just that something else is supposed to be here instead of this feeling.