Reality Truck

Bye Bye Blackberry, Hello iPhone

2012-01-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

"I did what I always do with technology: first I resist it; then I embrace it; then I act like I invented it; then I go forth like a zealous preacher to convert the masses."

--Reality Truck, February 15, 2010

My first BlackBerry arrived as a Valentine in February 2008. I have a troubled relationship with technology and it wasn't an easy transition, but I am nothing if not loyal. It has taken four long, arduous, co-dependent, passive-aggressive years, but this was the weekend they finally drove me to iPhone.

2001, A Space Odyssey, or: Me in 2008

I wrote, in March 2008, "Long after everyone else in my line of work embraced the iPhone, I finally traded in my seven-year-old Nolia for a Blackberry. I liked that Nokia. I knew where the buttons were. There was nothing wrong with it. But when I finally wore the number 8 off of it (and lots of important phone numbers have an 8 in them), I gave in and went to the Evil Empire store. I went to the front of the non-iPhone line, and two hours later, I walked out with a Blackberry and a vaguely queasy feeling."

"The model I chose was, of course, obsolete long before I got to the car, but I'll still probably have it for the next seven years. I don't like change. I don't even like to talk on the phone."

The Blackberry and I had a pretty good six month honeymoon, and then the downhill slide began. August 2008 is when the first Pearl (trackball) died.

It wasn't a total loss though, because that's also when I met Lucas, the guy who's been taking care of my phones ever since:

"Adam stepped behind the desk and conferred with Lucas. Oh sure, maybe he wasn’t quite as tall. Strawberry blonde. A sprinkling of freckles. Glasses. But Lucas is NOW the man I’m REALLY gonna marry. (I’m nothing if not a serial monogamist.) Turns out, I’d been running with the wrong crowd all along. I mostly socialize with iPhone types (I think Adam was double-holstered into a couple of them), and they didn’t know how to help me. Nor did they care. I’ve decided iPhones are the glitzy hot girls from highschool. We blackberries are the earnest workaholic smart girls with glasses who probably did the iPhone’s homework. And it was Lucas, a blackberry guy if ever there was one, who came through for me."

I met many people along the way, because my blackberries were constantly breaking:

"I reflected on all this as the store filled up with hollow-eyed souls who looked more desperate than I felt. I was sanguine. I was relaxed. I had faith in Lucas.

But I could (over)hear the entire conversation of this guy Hiram who kept protesting into the 'courtesy' phone 'the damn thing ain’t but six weeks old. How is it NOT under warranty? Piss on THAT!' Hiram was very tan and wore a gold chain around his neck. I felt for him.

Hiram’s frustration was only exceeded by the once-smug soccer moms/tennis ladies who came in optimistically bubbling about their 'insurance,' only to visibly deflate when told about their 'deductible.' They were like once-pert little flowers who’d just been left too long in the evening sun. (Story of their lives I imagine.)

Through all this, Lucas hunched over my phone, punching buttons, blasting it with canned air, and speaking into a headset to (perhaps) a control room somewhere in Texas.

Much like the kind of brain surgery where the patient has to stay awake, he’d left it active while he operated— which meant I could hear it ring—and then I could hear the distinctive three-tone bleat that all blackberries emit. I felt like a mother who couldn’t defend my young while some predator gnawed away its insides."

By August 2009, the bloom was most certainly off the rose.

"All I know is, I have gone through three Blackberry pearls in one year, and two bolds in the last six months. In all of them, the track ball has stuck. When I upgraded to the Bold, they insisted the design flaw had been remedied." In fairness, thanks to Lucas, they warrantied all of them out, without any argument. (You can watch the American Tourister 1970s commercial here which approximates my "beta testing" of blackberries through the ages.

Even back then, I readily admitted, "I realized I was starting to sound like an abuse victim trying to rationalize away the damages." With inertia, loyalty, and a stubborn refusal to admit I was wrong thrown into the mix, I insisted, "I still think there are Blackberry people and iPhone people. I am a word-girl. I gotta have a keyboard at my fingertips. Touchscreens are a little too Philip K. Dick-ish for me...I nearly cried when I had to replace my old dial-microwave with a flat-front digital model."

By December 2009, I wrote, "could they work any harder to convert me to iPhone? Yes. Yes they could.

In 2010, I traded in the Bold for the Torch, and coincidentally, I happened to do it on the day that the Provider somehow knocked out service to the entire southeast. "There were massive signs on the door saying they didn't know when the outage would be restored. And the store was filled with angry would-be torch-wielding Villagers. One guy was mad because he couldn't bring his dog in the store, another middle-class guy in a golf shirt seemed on the verge of beating his child in public, but contented himself with hissing through clenched teeth, 'you touch one more thing in this store, and I am going to ... go bananas.' I got the sense that 'bananas' was the only euphemism he could think of that was child-protective-services friendly. But under my breath, I promptly responded "bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s. Bananas," because it's impossible not to."

I hated the Torch instantly. It was slow, and weighed as much as a puppy -- it was like trying to talk on a Labrador Retriever.

In the intervening time since then, two important things happened. I got an iPod touch for my birthday, followed by a Valentine iPad2. They turned out to be Apple gateway drugs. Except for my hatred of iTunes (which never synchs properly, and should just behave more like Netflix: sign in, and access all your stuff, where ever you are, on whatever device -- we are not all pirates, Steve Jobs), everything about them has been dreamy. They're light, they're skinny... they don't play a lot of videos because of that whole Flash feud thing, but they are otherwise Magical. I was sold; I was long past due for an upgrade; and yet, inertia ruled the day for quite some time.

When I ran into Lucas last Summer while we were moving our office lines, I told him I'd be making the switch to what I expected would be the iPhone 5 in the fall. He said, "let me know, we'll add staff."

He had to work through dinner last Friday to make the transition seamless, while his four-year-old child waited patiently for him in his office, but I walked out with nearly everything imported successfully from the blackberry relic to the shiny new iPhone.

I'm not entirely happy with the 4s. It was time for the 5. Siri isn't exactly revolutionary; there were already apps for that. Of course, it could be better, faster, thinner, but couldn't we all?

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Why I Hate Paula Deen

2012-01-19T16:12:00.000-08:00

"If you're comforting yourself with the dictum 'Never trust a thin chef,' don't. Because no stupider thing has ever been said. Look at the crews of any really high-end restaurants and you'll see a group of mostly whippet-thin, under-rested young pups with dark circles under their eyes: they look like escapees from a Japanese prison camp -- and are expected to perform like the Green Berets."

--Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw

I have never eaten in a Paula Deen restaurant and have no plans to. I have never bought a Paula Deen cookbook, or prepared a Paula Deen recipe. (I have eaten Paula Deen pies prepared by others, and they were delicious.) I have certainly seen her shows, and I cringe every time I hear her food referred to as "Southern," as I have noted her fond over-reliance on Southern cuisine's trashier cousins, Velveeta and canned soup.

My mother (a virtual prototype of her target demographic) despises her, because when she and my stepdad ate at her Savannah restaurant, a staffer there told them that whenever a meal had to be comped (for whatever errors or complaints), that comp ticket came out of the staff's paychecks. Now, that might or might not even be true. That could've been a rogue employee who was just mouthing off about his boss. But it left a sour taste in my Mom's mouth; screw with the help at your peril.

While I thought Anthony Bourdain might be a little over the top (as he often is) in characterizing Paula Deen as an enemy of America, I was far more put off by her response, "You know, not everybody can afford to pay $58 for prime rib or $650 for a bottle of wine. My friends and I cook for regular families who worry about feeding their kids and paying the bills." I don't care for the implication that parents have to feed their kids imitation food like Velveeta or factory-farmed-pork (from which she earns a healthy stipend) or canned soup to make ends meet. And even at the time (this was before her big Announcement), I didn't care for her implication that her Empire was just all about helping Families get by. (Smithfield is not exactly known for being a friend of the Worker, and this is old, old news).

So, I skeptically watched Deen come out to avuncular weatherman Al Roker with her Type 2 diabetes, while evading all dietary questions, snapping at his questions about her paid pharmaceutical spokesperson status ("I am compensated, just as you are for your work"), and I watched her backpedal the next day on The Chew, where she assured Mario et al that she and her sons were happy to be in a position to share some of her new Big Pharma proceeds with the American Diabetes Association. She didn't say how much, and it can't have escaped anyone's notice that Roker was the perfect soft-pedal choice to "break" the news (remembering how he evaded questions about his gastric bypass weight loss surgery for nearly a year back in 2002). I watched her "confess" her lifelong smoking problem to Dr. Oz a while back, while continuing the three-year facade.

Chefs are not doctors (and Paula Deen is not a chef), but it's disingenuous to protest "I'm yo' cook, not yo' doctor" out of one side of your mouth, and sell drugs out the other. You can't profess that your cooking is really meant to serve as "entertainment" in one breath, and call your books "the Bible" in the next. The word "Bible" suggests you are positioning yourself as something of an authority.

Of course sugar does not, per se, cause type 2 diabetes, and schadenfreude is a shitty, shitty thing. Nobody deserves a life-threatening disease, and all the online chatter that suggests she had it coming is shameful. Just because she's an asshole doesn't mean you have to be one too.

But, it is more than a little coy for her to repeatedly tapdance around all the "multiple, multiple" contributing factors like "age" and "genetics" without at least acknowledging that weight and diet are the Top Two. (Smoking isn't doing her any favors either.) No one dropped a safe on her head. She has been conferring with her doctor about this for three years post-diagnosis. Three years -- because she wanted to wait until she had "something to bring to the table" -- and this is is the best she could do? What she's bringing to the table is a spokesmonkey gig shilling diabetic drugs? (Will those "regular families" she's so worried about even be able to afford this controversial $500 prescription? Should their docs just tell them to give up on nutrition and exercise and weight loss?)

Yes, Deen is a big girl, but this is not an anti-older woman, weight bias issue. Before Jezebel and the gang hops on the bandwagon to characterize this as an age-ist, sexist, weight-ist debate, it isn't. Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten is an equally entrepreneurial and ample-sized cook (one with a far more delicious repertoire), but she isn't serving you her gorgonzola cream sauce with one hand, and selling you Lipitor with the other. Of course Deen has a right to both her lifestyle choices and her medical privacy -- she can inject butter right into her veins for all I care -- but if Giada DeLaurentiis smoked and then pitched asthma drugs on the side, there would be a similar outcry.

I TiVo'd every word Deen had to say on this subject, because I take it all personally, with a near missionary fervor. I know my A1C and odds are, I've asked you about yours. On New Year's Day, I went to a family birthday dinner where I sat across the table from a diabetic double-amputee. At the table behind me was a cousin who'd barely emerged from a diabetic coma and lengthy hospital stay in time to attend the celebration. His wife called 911 when his insulin pump malfunctioned, and he nearly died in the ambulance. On my left, was my cousin LJ, who candidly confessed to me (over mashed potatoes) that she'd had to recently consult a nutritionist because she was having a difficult time managing her diabetes, in conjunction with a diet that also accommodated her acid reflux. (The nutritionist purportedly recommended ice cream.) To my right was my diabetic stepdad, who's admittedly never carried an ounce of spare flesh in his life (but who is a lifelong drinker -- the ongoing kind, not the AA it-works-if-you-work-it kind). He was eating the fish and green beans. Whole, non-fake food is not a punishment. He does not suffer. Butter is real food -- he doesn't eat it by the pound, but it isn't on a banned list. Cream has a lower glycemic index and fewer grams of sugar than most milk. When he visits, I do not stock the fridge with "lo-fat" or processed "diet" food. I don't bake up any Splenda desserts (though my mother does). I do make sure he gets enough protein and vegetables, and I don't feed him white food.

What I wanted to do at this birthday dinner was whip out my iPad and conduct an impromptu seminar. Out of the 33 people seated, it's likely 25 of them have "The Sugar." And before anyone jumps to the genetic predisposition conclusion that Deen references, no, this was a table of in-laws and outlaws and steps -- only a few of us were related by blood. Also, their dogs have the same weight problems most of them do, and we know that's not genetic. No one in the family, extended or otherwise, is a Type 1 Diabetic (what used to be commonly referred to as juvenile diabetes). I whispered all this to my mother, and got some very stern looks that suggested I should keep my mouth shut. They wouldn't listen to me anyway. (But I know for sure they would pay attention to a Paula Deen.)

I did the "Diabeetus" Diet and exercise homework when my stepdad was first diagnosed a few decades ago (it didn't take me three years, and I barely had email at the time). But I really got serious about it when my favorite Uncle was diagnosed (the Uncle who threatens to buy me a wild Pomeranian).

I would like for him to live forever, and I was always a little concerned that on his diet of 32 Pepsis and a side of beef per day, he might not. We spend hours on the phone talking about what he should and shouldn't eat, and I spend most of my time infuriated by his doctor, who recommended potato chips to him for a mid afternoon snack, and told him tomatoes (one of three vegetables he will eat) are "hard on the kidneys" (though he's never had a kidney stone, which was the only thing I could find that might be incompatible with an otherwise perfect food like tomatoes). For Christmas, I got him soy nuts to try in place of his afternoon potato chips, and it was my greatest culinary accomplishment of the year that he didn't mind them.

Not everyone has my Uncle's willpower. He went from 32 Pepsis a day, to zero Pepsis per day. He smoked Kools for 40 years, and then flirted with Merits another ten as a "non smoker." But one January when his health insurance premiums went up, he asked the broker what the difference was between a smoker and non-smoker. When the answer came back $13 grand, he quit smoking on the spot. He's never picked up a cigarette since. He works 18 out of 24 hours a day and gets in more physical activity on the farm by 7 am than I do in a year sitting behind a desk.

I bring all this up to suggest that not all of us southern, salt-of-the-earth middle Americans fit that ridiculous fat, lazy slob stereotype. But I have observed that it can be difficult to find great medical care and advice and accurate guidance in small towns where "registered dieticians" regularly prescribe diet soda and diet ice cream and all manner of fake food, and where nephrologists perpetuate weird vegetable biases and outright misinformation.

Paula Deen is correct that diabetes does not have to be a death sentence, but it does have to be managed, and there are a million tasty ways to do that. Medication should be the last resort, not the first (particularly $500 medication that carries a blackbox warning). I would never suggest she move her show from Food Network to Discovery Health, and it's fair for her to say she's not a doctor. But, she does have a platform -- a bully pulpit that reaches millions and millions of folks with the same lifestyle issues and diagnosis she has.

It didn't take her three years to figure out the most lucrative way to say "y'all take a pill."

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Bye, Bye Birdie (or, It's nearly curtains for cousin's parakeet, Baby.)

Post-Holiday Shopping with Mom

Little Cuba

Reality Truck Column and Blog: The Year In Review, 2011

2011-12-31T19:00:00.000-08:00

Since Facebook algorithms changed this year, easy access to links to the posts here (particularly via iPhone, iPad, smart phones, mobile access) seems to have fallen off.

So here are the links to Reality Truck, the column and blog, for 2011, in one handy location.

2011

Post-Holiday Shopping with Mom...for Baby Grease... 12.28.2011

Car Talk 2011 BFF's car breaks down and we track down a craigslist replacement. No Camaro. 11.13.2011

Little Cuba, or: a Trip to the Suburbs involving a deaf mute, albuterol, INS, EMTs, asthma, and coconut ice cream. 9.29.2011

Rest in Peace, Vlad. College Classmate/decorated war vet, dies of Cancer. 09.26.2011

Housesitting: Sometimes, Joel, you just gotta say....09.13.2011

The Office Move 9.11.2011

Check Engine Light. 9.06.2011 (Joe's car.)

Niece's Sweet 13 Rude babies nearly wreck surprise party. 07.24.2011

Active Ingredients, or, Summer Cold 2011. 07.17.2011

Bye Bye Birdie It's nearly curtains for cousin's parakeet, Baby. 06.12.11

Mom Talk Pretty One Day Mom attempts facebook and email. 06.03.2011

Hold the Mayo also known as: The One Thing I Will Not Eat. 05.30.2011

On the Half Shell Reconnecting to oysters. 04.10.2011

The Chicken or the Egg: Which to Kill First Or, things might not go so well at the niece's Montessori. 03.15.2011

Bitten or, my permanent memory of Jack, in the form of a jagged scar. 03.14.2011

Pink Socks and Candy, the BFF takes a trip to Africa. 03.05.2011

The Pink Tibetan Goat Hair Beanbag otherwise known as the Design Fantasy that gets me out of bed every morning. 01.03.2011

The New Year's Day Parsley Miracle 01.01.2011

Post Holiday Shopping with Mom ...for baby grease

2011-12-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

"Why don't you tell us what you want and save yourself some disappointment?
No. I'd rather be surprised by a disappointment than happy with what I expected."

--Happy Endings

The January 2010 snowman at Bed, Bath & Beyond

Post Holiday shopping with my Mom is an annual tradition. It is exhausting. We go to places I would usually never go, see things I would never see, and hear things I would never hear. By the time we've changed her third cannister of oxygen, I am usually ready to hold my hands up in the same position of supplication I learned while shopping with her in toddlerhood -- the universal whine for "carry me!"

This year, we were both shopping for floor lamps (separately), and each of us had a price peak beyond which we would not budge. As she told the girl at the department store who insisted that the one we liked was not part of Clearance, "No, I wouldn't give that for it. I've been out of a lamp in that back bedroom for three years and I don't care to go another three."

Pickings were even slimmer at the Dollar Tree, where we were in search of red chargers, but definitely not in the market for ...baby grease.

That's what the gentleman to the right of us shouted to the checkout girl, 30 feet away, "Sweetheart! Hey! Sweetheart! You! You got any baby grease?"

Apparently, she heard what I did and clarified, "grease? You mean like motor oil? That's in aisle four."

"Naw," he yelled back, "baby grease", as if his renewed emphasis explained it. ("Made from real babies?" I was thinking, having no idea what he was talking about.)

Observing her blank expression from across the store, he clarified, "grease like you put on a baby, y'know," adding in a conspiratorial stage whisper, "like for after where he's circumcised."

Clearly non-plussed (maybe not the first time she'd been asked this), she responded, a bit over-familiarly, "sheeeeyittttttt? You got a new baby? Another one? When you gonna figure out how to quit that?" Then she asked if it was a boy (which I thought the aforementioned circumcision would've made obvious), and he laughed, answering with a good-natured laugh, "yeahhhh, I reckon we can quit now."

We never did find any red chargers, but baby grease is on aisle seven.

We also did not buy a single CloseOut Santa, which is unusual, because her Santa collection is legendary, well into the hundreds (like shopping, this obviously skips a generation). I pointed out several, "this one seems nice? He's all in white...Do you have this one?" Even at 80 percent off, she had no interest.

Finally, I asked, "where were all your Santas this year?" I had just been there Christmas weekend, and there were no Santas, no elves, not even a tree. Not so much as a poinsettia. While the only seasonal decor I allow in my house is a token sprig of mistletoe, hers has always been bedecked and bedazzled -- every square inch glistens with snow and sparkles and moving trains conducted by drummer boys and wise men that whistle and wind through Bethlehem and past the Baby Jesus in his creche. It is no small setup. Every year, she talks about divesting herself of her collections, but my brother and I -- with no interest in kids or heirs and less in seasonal decor -- are disappointing prospective recipients, and the topic is inevitably tabled.

There was a long intake of breath, suggesting it was a good thing I'd asked. And what followed was a lengthy huff about my stepdad and his endless complaints about bringing the decorations down from the attic, the amount of work this entails for him, and what a pain in the ass it will be for him to pack them all up and return them to the garage. It's all true. Every year, he grumbles and mutters from Thanksgiving to January, "Jeeeeeesus Christ, I don't know what we're doing with all this shit... awwww, for cripes sake, I said I'm leaving her if she brings one more goddamn Santa into this house." It's relatively good-natured -- just part of the ambient noise that seems to occupy their daily life -- and most of us tuned it out decades ago, the way he turns down his hearing aids when we're not saying anything of interest to him (which is always). She hauls stuff into the house, he waits until she's forgotten about it, and hauls it out to the trash. It's a good system.

But not this year. This year she'd had it. "Bitch, bitch, bitch. That's all he ever does and I'm sick of it. Sick. Of. It. So I quit. We didn't even have a TREE," she said triumphantly with a twinge of sadness, as though she'd won an epic battle, but that it had cost her dearly. "Why didn't you just tell him to knock it off?" was my innocent question. This is obviously the Family Dance -- she hoards Santas and he complains. She gets more Santas and he gets to complain even more loudly; the acquisition makes her happy and the grousing makes him happy. My theories were instantly met with righteous indignation, progressing swiftly towards outrage at me for even asking such a stupid thing, and further implying that I know absolutely nothing about how Marriage works (which is one hundred percent true).

"You know I had to run into your father's first ex-wife last week" she said, my cue that the topic had changed and I'd better keep up. "Mom, you are dad's first ex-wife," I countered.

"Oh," she seemed puzzled for a second, then snapped,"Well you know the one I mean. She's married to some bald-headed guy now." Yes. I didn't know about the new hairless spouse, but I know she's the one he left my Mom for. As opposed to his current wife, which is the one he left the second wife for. (See also, our family's own War of the Roses).

"How did that happen?" I asked -- always mystified that in a Mayberry-sized smalltown with only two grocery stores and a handful of gas pumps, my parents have crossed paths less than a dozen times in the nearly 30 years they've been divorced.

"I had to wait on her." It turns out the new bald husband regularly patronizes the Christmas bake sale at my Mom's church, and my Mom had to sell her a Diet Coke. "Did you poison it?" I asked mildly.

"No," she said primly, "And I also did NOT slap her. And I did not say, 'well how have you been, you Old Whore?' which is what I felt like saying, and I didn't tell anyone anything about except our priest."

And what did he say? "He said that was very Christian of me, and he knew it must have been awkward."

I wondered aloud if she'd even recognized my Mom (it's been thirty years). "Oh she knew who I was all right. And she looks exactly the same. You know she was always so coarse."

"Yes," I agreed. "The old whore."

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Car Talk 2011

2011-11-13T11:26:00.000-08:00

This has been the Year of the Car. Mine spent all Spring in and out of the shop -- new tie rods, a CV boot, and too many other things to count. It has to head back in soon for brakes, a serpentine belt, and a suspension system. I'm just happy it's held out this long, but the worst part is, it's clearly contagious.

A few weeks ago, I got a text from the BFF that her car had quit about 75 miles from home, in the middle of the interstate. Though this is (not so secretly) my worst nightmare, I tried to pretend to be calm and helpful, finding her mechanic's number and making sure her Triple A package had the 100-mile tow plan, which is when she texted back, "I will just maybe live here. Forever." I had to admit, this seemed like a reasonable plan. Sure, nobody wants to live at the Flyin' J truckstop. But people do.

While I called around to describe the engine symptoms and try to get a verdict, the tow driver picked her up. An always-look-on-the-bright-side-type, she was heartened to discover he had "both Metallica and Five Finger Death Punch in the cab," and she seemed downright elated he was letting her smoke. She thought it was a good sign that he called her "sweet pea," as in "you wait right here sweet pea," while he went to find the guys who were manning the weigh station.

I responded, "I think those might be the exact words of the Mechanic in The Hills Have Eyes."

It wasn't til this weekend that she told me she'd almost threatened to run off with him, after he'd enthusiastically described his considerable assets to her, including, but not limited to, "a paid-for motorcycle, a paid-for boat, and a paid-for 79 Camaro."

I said I was just surprised we're all not dancing at her wedding right now.

"PAID FOR!" was her answer.

"Which is exactly how he'd describe you post-wedding," I said.

"A 79 Camaro that can make it to Florida," she insisted.

I thought he sounded like quite the catch, even before I spent a week spent scouring the craigslist for a replacement car, where I discovered that people actually post ads that read, "transmission out, but OTHERWISE a great car." Um. Define great? Wouldn't that include a working transmission?

Camaro, you say? All the way to Florida? I wonder if he'd take it out in trade.

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Little Cuba

2011-09-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight, BFF94 invited me out to dinner with a group of her friends I mostly hadn't met, but had heard great things about. They were all going to meet up at this little Cuban sandwich shop I've been hearing about for years, but had never gotten around to trying. It's in the suburbs, so nobody ever invites me.

Shortly after arriving, we spotted giant containers of coconut ice cream for $5 bucks in their cold case, so obviously, these proprietors were good people. I don't know a lot about Cuban food, beyond learning to make black beans and rice and ropa vieja from the elderly Cuban neighbor who lived two doors down from me at my first house. (His care came with the house -- assigned to me by Miss Bea, the first owner -- and when I sold it, I deeded him to the new owner.) He was always threatening to kill the frat boys on the other side of my house with his machete (which he pronounced Muh-CHET-Tay) when they got too loud and rowdy.

We were all getting acquainted over our delicious plantains and such when a RUCKUS erupted outdoors. I wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention (I'd parked just outside what appeared to be an unsavory-looking bar two doors down, and then tuned out the whole neighborhood), until one of the girls at the table tapped her husband on the shoulder and said, "that guy's in trouble," and before any of us realized what was happening, he was outside examining the man who'd collapsed out front.

"Mi esposa es el medico," she explained to the owner (something like that). I was busy worrying about universal precautions and locating the giant container of Purell that was clearly displayed on the counter. We all immediately began speaking in ALL CAPS.

My social media updates for the evening read:

"ordered the Cuban" followed by,

"A guy just COLLAPSED outside the Restaurant, AND we had a DOCTOR at our TABLE. (He is outside now, SAVING the guy's LIFE.")

He was actually outside talking on his iphone, probably saying LIFE SAVING things, we surmised, and then the owner ran inside and grabbed... a pen. (Oh yeah. "On site tracheotomy?" I'm thinking. "Emergency thoracotomy?") We could see that the guy was having a hard time breathing. Then he was clutching his chest. "Maybe he needs an epi?" I guessed out loud (because I couldn't remember albuterol).

But he was on the phone so long, we were laughing nervously and speculating about whether or not he was on with MovieLine ("for movie times for Chunnel, press one...why don't you just say the name of the movie?")

It was about this time when the owner came over and ... apologized to us. "Sorry, so sorry," she said, reassuring (?) us with, "he's American." At this point our eyes were fairly glistening with liberal tears. Why would she apologize? Who could be angry with someone for collapsing? Did we seem like such ugly Americans that we would summon INS instead of EMTs?

Despite the scene of carnage outside (EMTs, fire trucks, paramedics, etc), we noticed that several undeterred diners breezed past it all and marched right up to the counter to place their orders. Clearly our culinary faith in this establishment was well-placed. (Or else this is a commonplace occurrence? Yawn?)

When our doc returned to the table, after the paramedics had supplied oxygen and loaded the man onto a gurney, he explained that the man's asthma was causing respiratory distress, but that this was further complicated by his inability to speak. (We had figured that out earlier, but we didn't know the politically correct term for Mute, so everyone just thought he was too choked up to speak, instead of realizing he could not speak.) Complicating that, what little he could communicate was via sign language, but in Spanish. He could write a few English words (hence the emergency ink pen), which amounted to "call my wife."

All I know is, it sounds like the albuterol inhaler he has really isn't doing the trick, and our response to that might be to start a small reality tv series which we'd call "STREET MEDIC," where we just happen upon people in distress, and then make the appropriate phone calls.

My final post of the evening was: "THIS is what HAPPENS when we come to the SUBURBS?"

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Rest in Peace, Vlad

2011-09-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

Last week I got a message from one of my favorite college buddies, Bob-O, that he and another pal would be in town for our upcoming college Homecoming. They're a little older than I am, so it's a Reunion year for them, but not for me. Even though it's less than an hour's drive, I typically only go for the big years: five, ten, 20, and eventually 25. But it would be great to see them I thought, and added the weekend to my calendar.

This immediately set off a "whatever happened to..." facebook search -- maybe I could re-connect with a few other old friends -- and I started first with one of my very, very favorite classmates. There's no way to describe him that would do him justice, except that I remember him best for the most contagious laugh I've ever encountered. It was impossible to keep a straight face in his company.

We saved each other seats in history class, where the new hipster professor never took roll, but instead, had us sign in. Every day, we would make up new aliases for each other and crack ourselves up. We eventually settled on "Vladimir and Buffy," and he would erupt in giggles every time the professor earnestly called on us with those names. Hey, we were 18. We might not have been that funny, but his reactions and his timing were inescapably hilarious. Whenever the professor would recount his 60s PhD memories from UW, Madison -- where police helicopters would circle over student protests as they spelled out human Fuck Yous on the ground -- his expressions would set us off, and we'd all but collapse in the aisles tittering.

We went our separate ways after college -- I went to grad school, and he went on to marriage, kids, and a long, distinguished career in the military which I'd read about occasionally in the news. He had been in officer training with my college boyfriend and I always knew he'd go on to great things, but we didn't keep in touch, except when we'd all re-convened briefly after a fraternity brother's suicide decades ago.Then he went off to war and multiple tours of duty in Iraq etc.

I had heard he'd retired, and I knew he didn't live nearby, so I figured it would be a long shot to find him in town on a non-Reunion year, but I did a quick search anyway, and immediately landed on a page that said, "Pray For..." and then his last name. When I clicked on it, I saw his daughter had last posted info for his memorial service in July, and then I read backward on the timeline and the long chronicle of his battle with cancer.

Too late, I said a prayer for him anyway. And I went straight to a basket on my coffeetable where I keep a couple dozen of my all time favorite photographs -- three of them are of him: two are from graduation day, and one is of him and several of his fraternity brothers the day we all packed to leave school.

Then I started reading some of the articles I could find about him, and was especially moved by this quote from a newspaper clipping where he described reunion festivities with his Dad during a visit home from Iraq, "'It's difficult to put into words,' he said with a smile. 'It's like you've been anticipating a movie -- something you've been waiting to see for a long time -- and now you're in the first five minutes and it's really good so far.'"

Rest in Peace, Vlad.

Housesitting: Sometimes Joel, You Just Gotta Say...

2011-09-13T18:02:00.000-07:00

Last night is the first night I've spent in my own bed for the past two weeks. To say I missed it would be an understatement, even though the bed I was staying in for those two weeks was a Tempur-Pedic, and now I've decided I don't know how I lived without one this long. But I had to get home and check on my toothpicks...make sure they're where I left them. Count them. See if any are missing. Or re-arranged.


Here's their Vacation View. They're sweet to invite me every year, but who'd mind my toothpicks while I'm gone?

August is the month my gay husband and husband-in-law go on vacation, and I live at their place while they're gone, to take care of the dogs and fancy saltwater fish. And while their house is the one place where I spend the second-greatest amount of time, and feel most at home, everything is still a major adjustment for someone like me who ...thrives on routine (is one way of putting it).

There is a reason they returned to find every tube of toothpaste in the house had been re-squeezed from the bottom (the way I like it...because that's the correct way), and not the middle (the way they like it, which is incorrect). They're free to go back to their old habits of course, but they know the next time I'm over, I'll just fix it. And yes, I realize it isn't my toothpaste.

I kept logs and feeding charts for the dogs and fish. And then I left them detailed notes about nearly every single thing that happened every minute they were gone (which is the only way I was able to avoid really abusing their iPhone International plans).

For example,
"I called the Fish Guy on Friday Sep 1, when the tank made a very weird noise – like a choke going out on a 1972 Buick. But he didn’t call me back. So I called him AGAIN that night and he said, oh, he was outta town for labor day and pour a bucket of water in the below tank (so I did – but I had already been putting water in it, everytime it sounded cranky). I don’t think he ever did come by. It sounds ok now."

What that was code for was this: I don't think the Fish Guy fully appreciates the enormity of his responsibility, commensurate with what he is paid to do. For heaven's sake, I didn't call him on Labor Day weekend, I called him EARLY on Friday, the day before the holiday weekend. He should've called me back then i.e., I think it might be time for a new fish guy. Plus, if Nemo dies anytime in the next week, I want it to be pretty clear that didn't happen on my watch -- that guy should've fixed the choke when I told him it went out.

I had very few dog notes. Only one dog threw up one time in two weeks, another got the hiccups for an entire day (which I checked out with our favorite twitter vet), and the rest of the accidents were typically limited to one or two a day. I expected far, far worse. (The last weekend I'd stayed over there left a pretty good scar.) There was no bloodshed this time, just a mishap or two:

"The episodes of Destruction are hidden in the back bedroom. As a straight girl, I don’t know how pricey throw pillows are, but they sure LOOKED expensive."

What this was code for was: Please don't kill me for letting the dog eat the Valentino pillows (and the Ralph Lauren shirt, which possibly they haven't found yet). When I told one pal about all this last week, he asked "have you said anything about this yet?" I said I had hinted a little on facebook, but that No, they didn't know the extent of the damages. I didn't want to ruin their vacation. He said, "aww, too bad." I thought what he had in mind was maybe leaving the stuffing and feathers all over the floor, and feigning ignorance, but he said no, "it would just take a few wires and a little singed carpet." On further quizzing, he seemed to think a small-ish fire -- where I got all the animals out safely and was the Hero -- would've been the way to go. But since I'd already blown it by giving it away on facebook, it probably wasn't an option, and he definitely wouldn't help me. Then he laughed and walked me out to the husband-in-law's car, which I was driving that day, and said, "Sometimes Joel, You just gotta say... What the..." (And now we all know he is NOT the guy we should ask to housesit.)

Of course I alphabetized all their DVDs while I was there (as anyone would expect me to do if I was in their house for longer than five minutes. And I borrowed their copy of The Social Network because they always say they'll watch it with me, but they never do. And I borrowed their copy of Wishful Drinking, because reading Carrie Fisher is always good homework.

I pointed out, "I ordered up a few movies, but NO PORN, so if the bill is crazy, just dispute that. Also: don’t watch Blue Valentine. Man. That is two years of your life you’ll never get back. Catfish is overrated too." (It really was.)

What I'm thinking is, if the Fish Guy lets himself in and watches a whole bunch of porn sometime when everybody's at work in the next week or two, I don't want anybody thinking that was me. (If I had ordered porn, I'd be glad to tell them and I'd just let them know to expect a $375 cable bill. But I didn't.)

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The Office Move

2011-09-11T17:01:00.000-07:00

I haven't written as much as I want to lately, partly because my office moved.

In terms of actual mechanics, one really has nothing to do with the other. Twenty years ago, even ten, I did sit at a computer at my office and write things. But that hasn't been true for a long time. I write long notes in an iPod and iPad (along with actual, honest-to-god notebooks and legal pads), but I do most actual writing on my little pink netbook, which goes where ever I go. And most of our work lives in The Cloud. (Although I am the only one who believes our words are just roaming around up there, in an actual cloud.)

There is a big screen that sits on a big desk, and I do all kinds of non-writing work on it, but I primarily think of it as the place where the iTunes live (and refuse to synch properly, ever, to anything else, which is why every device I own, mysteriously, has a different version of Cee Lo's "F you" on it).

Work still had to get cranked out during the Move, and September's our busiest time of year (not Anna Wintour-September busy, but twice the work of any other time of year). There's never a good time to move though, and even I have to admit it's nothing like it was ten years ago, when disconnecting those lines and cables, even for a minute, was an epic undertaking.

I'm just not good with change (...is one way of putting it).

The Move was something I've known was coming all summer, but managed to stay in denial about for several months. Our old building was becoming a bar however, so unless I wanted to develop waitressing skills, the move was inevitable. Many nights, I toyed with just staying at my desk and letting them demolish the place around me ("Mr. Gorbachev...tear. down. these. walls.") My brother joked frequently that the patrons of the new place would just have to get used to me, as the bartender shot me sad, sidelong glances and explained to all the customers, "pay no attention to her boys. She came with the place."

In the middle of this move, I was housesitting, so this meant, not only did I go home to find my toothbrush at a different sink, in a different bathroom, in a different house every night, I got up and went to an office where my staples were packed and my post-its had migrated without me. This was a combination destined for disaster.

It is lucky that I work with tech guys, who know me pretty well by now, and had re-arranged the office once already last summer when they got new sofas and a different conference table. What they discovered then was, as long as everything is oriented in the same exact direction (my chair still rolls the same two feet between my desk and credenza; the computer screen is on the right and the phone is on the left; the silver bowl where my keys go is in the middle, next to the black Swingline stapler), I don't really notice much. In fact, I am relatively oblivious to my surroundings, as long as my stuff is where it's supposed to go.

Ever since I had a grad school job with a desk that looked right out on a beautiful lake, I've maintained that gorgeous views (much like extremely good looks in a boyfriend) are a waste of time. In a week, you stop noticing.

There was actually a small sapling growing out of the basement, through the floor and into my file cabinet drawer -- which they could not believe -- but at some point, I adapted to it, and it adapted to me. I'm sure it was a sign of some serious structural and foundation flaws and declining property values, with a side order of demolition by neglect, but I didn't own the building, and that tree wasn't bothering me. (They swept up the leaves and put them in my silver key bowl.)

They found the movers and they hired the movers. There were a few times they asked for my input, but I largely stayed out of it. They picked up the computers at the old location and put them down and hooked them up at the new one. My primary contribution was to fill multiple dumpsters with ten years of trash (it wasn't like Hoarders or anything; nobody keeps dead cats in an office), and to move the fax machine. (And I didn't do that. My best friend carried it to the new place, because I really didn't want the phone company screwing around with it. She's not an engineer or anything; I just didn't mind her touching it.) The fact that no one faxes anybody anymore is not lost on me, but for some reason, I was obsessed with it.

By and large, it went miraculously smoothly. The new place was in pristine perfect move-in condition. When the fridge didn't seem to be working, our new architect/landlord picked it up (himself); hauled it to the curb; drove to Home Depot for a new one; hauled it back up the stairs and plugged it in. His wife (our landlady) went along to buy us new towel rods and blinds for the bathroom. The central air system froze up, but the central air guy was there within an hour to fix it. This weekend I noticed a few scuff marks on the stairwell wall, but they've clearly been meticulously patched and spackled, and I suspect I'll see a fresh coat of paint on them in the morning.

The only thing that went wrong (if you could call it that.... and boy, did I) was the key going missing to the file cabinet that goes in my office. Inasmuch as file cabinets could be said to be nice, this one is nice. The two big lateral drawers (all set up for my nice pendaflex, legal-size folders) just whisper in and out at the touch of a fingertip. It's not fireproof, but it is fire-resistant, and it was the only office "furnishing" I ever asked a boss to buy for me -- more than a decade ago (having made do at nearly every job with the rusty, crooked, creaky variety). Everyone else wanted a fancy chair or desk (to say nothing of state-of-the-art computers), but all I wanted was this one thing. It isn't teak or mahogany or anything fancy; it's plain old black metal; but it does work, and I really, really like it.

In the old office, the key to it lived in the pink Princess coffee mug over the mantle (this doesn't constitute a huge breach of security, because it doesn't live there anymore). It got lost once earlier this year, but it turned out the bookkeeper had a spare at her office, so... crisis averted.

Before the move, I knew it was the one place I could stick things for safe keeping, because it was absolutely going with us and I thought it would be the first thing off the truck. The IT guys had a girl helping them coordinate the move and I asked her several times, "did you tell them they're moving full file cabinets. Because they'll need to strap those closed, or duct tape them shut. Movers have these big straps...." She looked at me like I was nuts, til I finally said, "well sure, they're Movers. I guess they've moved a few file cabinets. Why am I telling them how to do their job?" Then I laughed nervously. But my mind was by no means at ease.

Then I took the key out of the pink Princess cup on the mantle and put it in the lock. I thought, well, any one of us could lose track of that coffee mug, but we're sure not going to lose this giant file cabinet. (I didn't just pocket the key -- your obvious question -- because I thought everybody would need access to the stuff I had packed into it, and because, since I was housesitting, I didn't know where my pockets might be.)

So, that was the last time I saw it. The key, that is. The file cabinet's sitting in the new office right where it's supposed to be. Mocking me. Locked. It turned up, but the key vanished. The boys say it probably just fell out along the way... but I explain to them how this is not possible, because you can't lock those drawers without the key. If the key fell out, how did the drawers get locked? They don't know. The Movers don't know. ("Ma'am, we would never take a key out of a drawer. We ask the customers to do all that before we get there.")

My plan was to just jam the lock repeatedly with a flat-head screwdriver til it gave way, but the screwdriver is inside the file cabinet. It's inside this nice zippered black canvas handyman kit that somebody gave me a long time ago (probably as a joke), along with a hammer, and nails, and picture hangers and everything else you might need to coordinate a move. (So then I brought my screwdriver from home, and it didn't work anyway, because like I said, it's pretty nice -- it wouldn't be that nice if any idiot with a hammer could just bust the lock.)

That's how the most efficiently-coordinated office move anyone's ever seen turned into The Move That Wrecked Everyone's Labor Day Weekend (racking up a minimum of 47 texts, emails... but no faxes...as expected, the phone company took a long time to move that line). Since then, the boys had a new key made (probably plaster molds were involved or something; I don't know, because I didn't even want to go to that office... where everything was ruined. Ruined.)

One of my cousins -- a former college basketball player and later a high school coach -- used to sense my resistance to change or disruption even when I was a little kid, as he witnessed more than one of my go-to-pieces if I stepped too far outside my routines (the holiday weekend I spent throwing up in his parents' bathroom comes to mind). Feeling a kinship, I imagine, he'd reassure me with stories of how his own life was so tightly wound, so finely calibrated, that if so much as a bug hit his windshield, it was all over. For some reason, this soothed me.

He managed to stay married to the same woman his whole life; raise a big family; and coach a winning team. I certainly looked up to him, and while I wouldn't consider the fact that he dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 50 the mark of an unsuccessful life, I would acknowledge it might be a less-than-rousing endorsement of our family's tendency towards the... high strung.

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Check Engine Light

2011-09-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

I'm driving the husband-in-law's car today. Mostly because his has gas in it, and mine doesn't, plus my tires are low, and his aren't. Every time I try to put air in my tires, I let the air out instead, so it's a good idea if I don't do that.

When I dropped off my Mom for a doctor's visit in it, the only thing she said was, "for God's sake, don't break it. It probably cost more than you make in a year." (I suspect she underestimates his car and overestimates my job.) He left the insurance card with the key though when he and my gay husband jetted off to Santorini, so I'm sure he's well covered. And I'm an excellent driver. Excellent, excellent driver.

I have to admit, it's darn sporty. Not to mention quick. As much as I've always loved my monstrous SUV, I bought it primarily to haul two monstrous dogs, who aren't around any more (God rest their souls). My friend Walt made no small amount of fun when I got it, marveling at how he'd never seen a straight girl so obsessed with large dogs and tow capacity.

Push it. Push it real good.

It's a little ...liberating...to hit the gas and not be dragging three tons of steel behind me for a change. And anyone could grow accustomed to the attention it gets. At first, I thought my new haircut was really working it, but then I realized that the men pulling up at traffic lights and whistling admiringly were actually pointing at the car. I had just forgotten I was driving it. I'm also guilty of forgetting the fact that it is a nice ride, because it's one of the few that could legitimately wear the bumper sticker that says, "my other car is a Ferrari." (And here it is a few Easters ago, captioned, as it usually is, with "Push It Real Good.")

I could've been driving it if I'd really wanted the men-at-traffic-lights attention, but first, I would've had to get it started, and then I would've had to hope it would make it around the block. And while it's admittedly a beauty, it's a beast to drive. That's a high class problem, but it isn't my high class problem, because it isn't my car. But my general experience is that performance cars are just like those men, a lot of work. (Though everyone jokes that the guy I marry will have to wear a t-shirt that says, "my other husband has a Ferrari." And not one guy I have ever gone out with has thought that was one bit funny.)

After a summer plagued by mysterious "engine trouble," I have had to think about the much-dreaded day when it comes time to replace the old workhorse. This SUV is only the third car I've ever had. I don't choose them lightly. And my primary pre-occupation with them has always been, and always will be, does it start every single time I get in it, and will it take me from point A to point B without any unscheduled maintenance stops along the way? Nothing inspires me to fall apart faster than a breakdown. Will I be trapped? Can I walk from here? What if I can't get home? Do I have to live here now?

I read Stephen King's story "Big Driver" this summer -- all about the worst things that could ever happen to a woman stranded by car trouble -- and trust me, it's nothing compared to what goes through my head every time a transmission stutters. One of my girlfriends was driving her brand new convertible on a Chicago expressway this summer when everything suddenly and inexplicably died. Every instrument, gauge, and needle. Dead. Telling me the story, she said, "oh, I knew exactly what you'd have been thinking."

"What?" I asked.

"That I got ripped off. That I'd bought a lemon. That I should've taken you shopping with me."

All good guesses (and all true), but nope. I'd have been thinking one thing when all the lights went out. "Nuclear winter."

She clearly wasn't expecting that answer, but that would've been my go-to theory. That, or an alien invasion like War of the Worlds. I'm no scientist, but I know there's something about atomic bombs and aliens that kill the electromagnetic pulses, so yeah. That would've been my assumption. Humoring me, she acknowledged that, ok, that might've been ... plausible... except, she asked, "wouldn't you notice if all the cars around you kept going?" It's a testament to my sheer ability to catastrophize that that hadn't even occurred to me.

I'd have to let go of some of those obsessions if I traded in my ultra-hardy survivalist four-wheel drive for some zippy little two-seater. I don't see it happening.

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Sweet 13

2011-07-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

Pank runs in the family.

Today was my niece's SURPRISE 13th birthday party, but because it didn't start on time, the "surprise" aspect was desultory at best -- she was more or less greeted with a spectacularly halfhearted chorus of "oh, hey, look. She's here."

This was thanks to the two babies who showed up a half hour late, thereby delaying the arrival of the Guest of Honor. Her Mom stalled her as best she could once she heard from the latecomers (texting me to make sure everyone had their drinks and had duly written our birthday wishes out for the ensuing scrapbook) and killing the mood outright. I think I got one photo of the birthday girl's "surprise."

Thank God I was seated next to G'Uncle Mike, on my left, with whom I could trade sarcastic asides. Decades ago, he and I sat together (with his husband, the Late Great Reg) at the wedding that pre-dated our niece as well, so we have some history for smartass and not necessarily welcome observations. My mom was seated on my right, threatening me with dirty looks every time I opened my mouth. For some reason, she kept rejecting the guest book concept to the nice lady who came around with it, "I already have a card. And I wrote on THAT." She finally sat down with the glitter pen and wrote a short note, but she dodged it for most of the party -- I can only assume the concept or execution wasn't up to her rigorous Martha Stewart crafting standards, because usually she's a good sport about anything Family.

My stepdad sat between us, and his significant hearing impairment ("deaf as a post"), combined with his social discomfort at being trapped in a roomful of people he didn't know well, meant everyone was treated to a series of uncomfortable pronouncements, all delivered at 72 decibels, including but not limited to, "SO WHOSE BABIES ARE THOSE ANYWAY? ARE THEY LESBIANS? YOU KNOW THAT DOES NOT BOTHER ME AT ALL. I WAS JUST ASKING," and "TELL ME AGAIN WHY THOSE TWO AREN'T SPEAKING?"

(Great) Aunt Eleanor served as the de facto hostess, trying to make everyone comfortable, dispensing hand sanitizer to all of us, but explaining, "I'm sorry I don't know you all. I have facebook, but I don't understand it, so I never see all these pictures you all are talking about. And I can't afford Twitter." I thought maybe that was just an "expression," and tried to clarify helpfully, "but Twitter is free." She looked at me goodheartedly, as one would with simpler relatives, and said, "no dear, it isn't."

The first thing I asked G'Uncle Mike when he sat down was, "are those kids related to you?" (gesturing to the din in the opposite corner). After reassuring me that he'd never seen them before in his life, he asked why I wanted to know, at which point I whispered into his ear, "because they are assholes." I was filling him in on how they'd showed up late (who shows up late to a children's SURPRISE birthday party? -- timing is everything -- even a stoopid baby knows that), when Emma's Mom somehow caught wind of the conversation and whirled around to shut it down. "You. All," she said in a voice that threatened she might separate us any minute, "That is NOT NICE."

"Ahhhhh KNOW," was my response. "I texted you when that first baby walked in that they were being assholes, and I told you I was gonna be mean to them." Then I turned to Mike and said, "if these were dogs, you'd never reward them with all that attention; they get confused and think they should keep behaving badly."

She added something along the lines of, "well let's just see how you handle it when you have two babies..." then trailed off, realizing the absurdity of what she'd said.

About that time, Emma was hauling the twins around the room, as she showed off her loot. I gave her a Starbucks card, and felt virtuous about not tossing in a carton of smokes -- as her second Uncle Mike pointed out, "it is Kentucky." G'Uncle Mike had given her a wonderful ceramic from the Late Great Reg's collection, filled with angel pins (which we threatened to use to puncture the balloons the little kids were punching and kicking all over the room). I think we both nearly misted up thinking of the glee Reg would've enjoyed at us invoking his spirit in such a manner.

Then he and I used the opportunity to remind Emma what a wretched baby she'd been -- crying all the time, at unimaginable volumes. "The Screamin' Demon," I'd affectionately called her. She didn't spend her first sleepover at my house til she was three (and by then she was a model child, and still is, though I am not optimistic about the teen years).

Emma then carried the toddlers over to us and held them out, "would you like to meet...."

"Nah," I said, pushing back from the table and raising my hands in the universal signal for "I'm good, Thanks." She then deposited one of them on my Mom's lap, where it promptly slumped over asleep (probably exhausted from all that crying).

"YOU CAN'T KEEP IT," my stepdad admonished her. "WE'RE NOT TAKING IT HOME."

Then my Mom leaned over and stage-whispered to me, "Stop being so ugly. Emma loves babies. That's why they're here." (It's true, she does and always has -- babysitting at every opportunity; approaching them at restaurants; creating imaginary baby families "The Butters," that accompanied her everywhere when she was little. All while I've tried to re-route her interests into technology, tiaras, academia... anything that I think might have a more productive outcome for her.)

"Yeah," I said. "Indulge that, why don't you? Cause that's not gonna come back and bite her in the ass."

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Active Ingredients

2011-07-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

I only get a really bad cold every few years or so, so when one hit last week, I didn't have any cold medicine in the house, specifically, Drixoral -- which I always found to be a pretty reliable over-the-counter remedy -- or actually behind-the-counter remedy. It's not a prescription, they just (presumably) don't want you to make meth with it.

fellow alum Lee described this July 4 photo as "a patriotic meth lab"

By Day 2 of the recent plague, I conceded home remedy defeats and dragged myself to the corner drugstore to ask the pharmacist for it. He was a young, non-helpful guy, who just said, "never heard of it," and handed me a box of generic sudafed. Too worn out to argue or inquire further, I came home and googled it, only to find it's off the market, and has been for some time. I didn't know, because I'd only averaged a box every five years or so.

Angry former customers had a lot to say about its removal, and I never did get a straight answer on the backstory, other than it might be possible to get some in Canada, and I noticed a few conspiracy theorists had some opinions about phantom lawsuits that they said were probably settled out of court under gag orders.

Geez, what do they put in that stuff? Seriously. I needed to know, in the hopes of re-creating it. The active ingredients are dexbrompheniramine and brompheniramine, so the BFF was dispatched to the Disco Kroger in search of anything that contained those. She painstakingly read all the labels and came home with Children's Dimetapp, and an assortment of capsules filled with Dextromethorphan, Guaifenesin, and Phenylephrine. Or as the husband-in-law put it, "you've gone Breaking Bad."

Because I didn't want to accidentally Heath-Ledger-it, I took out a little notebook and wrote down what I took and when I took it, observing the Dimetapp label that cautioned, "do not use to sedate a child or make a child sleepy." (That struck me as an advisory that might come in handy for the Moms I know.) Since it's designed for kids and didn't have a weight chart, I never did figure out the grown-up dose, which I suspect is a bottle a day. (I still have half a bottle left, so presumably I was taking less than Anna Nicole, which was what I was concerned about, since apparently I have a new phobia about celebrity overdoses, despite not being a celebrity, or a user of recreational drugs.)

The next few days, I survived via regular deliveries of soup, juice, and cases of Posh Puffs (with lotion -- which I now know are completely worth the wild extravagance). It took a village, and then some. Nothing worked. By Day 5, I had even unearthed my Mom's stash of Vick's VapoRub and fashioned a "poultice" with hot towels straight out of the dryer. It was just like that episode of Beverly Hillbillies where Granny insisted that she'd found a cure for the cold, and everyone who took it discovered that "in a week or ten days, the cold was gone."

All I know is, I had to sit out the July 4th funnelcakes and parades and festivals, making me feel exactly like I did when I was seven and came down with strep and had to miss the Christmas pageant. And I didn't even get the Lauren Bacall sexyvoice that usually accompanies the end of a cold. I just barked like a seal for a week, while eyeing (but never actually raiding) Cooper's kennel cough prescription.

Somewhere along the way, in my Dimetapp fog, I did think "Active Ingredients" would be a great name for a band. But it turns out, that is a band. (And I feel bad for any of their fans who actually landed here.)

Bye Bye Birdie

2011-06-12T07:50:00.000-07:00

I don't want a bird. I think they're nasty, dirty, creepy, difficult pets. (Unless you have one, in which case, I'm sure it's lovely and probably not especially diseased at all). It's the sort of thing you expect to have some control over -- which pets live with you and which don't -- but that's not always the way.

As we're in the process of transitioning an elderly relative into a residential, long-term care facility, the constant conversation has centered around "What will become of Baby?" She loves that bird, and while I really, really think the elderly should be allowed to take their pets with them to the old folks home, it isn't the way the world works (maybe it is at the high-end places, but this is merely a mid-range facility -- where, my guess is, the goal is to let you die in a clean bed, but nothing much more luxurious or extravagant than that).

So, in the last week, my Mom has decided that Baby will come to live with them. I protested heartily. She has lung disease and is oxygen-dependent, and while I don't know much about birds, I am positive they are not for people with compromised immune systems and pulmonary ailments. When I conveyed all this concern to her, her response was, "Bullshit. I'm going to keep him on the back porch."

This sounded like a much, much worse plan. I might not like birds, but come ON.

"Mom!" I said, "Baby will die on the back porch. It's a hundred degrees out there in the shade!"

"You kids worry too much about nothing," was her answer. "It's screened in."

In the last couple decades of her life, my grandmother had a myna bird. It was a gift from my Uncle Bobby and Aunt Margie. I don't remember the details or circumstances of how he came to live with my grandmother, but he must have been more of a hand-me-down than a present, because the bird had been with them long enough to have adopted my Aunt Margie's voice, expressions, and manner of speaking.

Whenever anyone came in the front door, he'd shout, "Hell-OOOooooo FELLaaaa," and then he'd cackle as if this was the funniest thing anyone had ever said. The unnerving part was that it was my Aunt Margie's very distinctive laugh. Then he'd bark like a dachshund.

He had another few stock phrases (I don't know how gifted myna birds are supposed to be), but the main one was, "Stop it Big Dog! Stop! Stop!" Big Dog was the name of a long succession of miniature dachshunds that belonged to Uncle Bobby. (Or as we call them in my family, Dash Hounds.) I think there were four or five of them, but they weren't even named according to their sequence (Big Dog 2, or Big Dog Four). One would die, and then another one would turn up, and he would henceforth be known as Big Dog, with no memory or acknowledgment of the ones who came before him. I imagine "Stop it Big Dog!" was a constant expression in their house, but I mostly remember my very large, barrel-chested, gravel-voiced Uncle tipping him on his back and cradling him like a baby, while laughing and growling, "Bite Easy, BigDog! Bite easy!" as the dog pawed the air impotently and gnawed bad-naturedly on his giant fist.

I always thought that my uncle's Joe Cocker-like voice would've been far more amusing coming from a bird, but for whatever reason, he used my aunt's voice instead. I assume they only have so much range.

Uncle Bobby was a truck driver, and each of these dogs would be his faithful cab companion. On his travels, he smoked and collected pipes (which smelled fantastic and permeated the whole house whenever he visited), and the one I remember best had an ivory bowl carved into the shape of a naked mermaid, the kind you'd see on the prow of a ship. My grandmother did not approve of it. She didn't much care for the dogs either -- or any kind of pet -- so how we ended up with these people's bird, I'm really not sure. Pets are a fairly unsentimental commodity on a farm -- one she had little patience for -- but she was genuinely fond of that bird. (Their sons had a brief and disastrous history with spider monkeys for awhile, and thank God we didn't inherit those. The monkeys were followed by a series of temperamental Afghan hounds.)

When the bird arrived, his name was Bill, but he couldn't keep that name because he shared it with my youngest uncle who'd died tragically in his 30s (oddly, no reminders of him were allowed in the house at all; I guess it was just too sad), so the bird became Little Joe. Or L'il Joe. No one really called him that though. No one really called him anything.

At night time his cage was covered with a king-size orange sheet from Sears, but if the grownups were out of the house, he spent considerably longer periods of time under it. "Goooood NIGHT, Nasty Bird," I'd say as the sheet came billowing down around his cage and I flipped on the TV, then flopped down on the sofa for Days of Our Lives.

"Hellloooooooo Fella!" he'd respond optimistically.

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Mom Talk Pretty One Day

2011-06-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

"I went to France the following summer knowing only the word for 'bottleneck.' I said 'bottleneck' at the airport, 'bottleneck' on the train to Normandy...I'd hoped the language might come on its own, the way it comes to babies, but people don't talk to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They don't hypnotize you with bright objects and repeat the same words over and over..."

--David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

My Mom is not my friend on facebook. She doesn't use it enough for us to actually communicate with it, so instead, she calls once a week or so, and fills me in on The Family in the 60 second version. The conversation rarely lasts longer than that, because as she puts it matter-of-factly, "I DON'T WANT TO USE UP MY MINUTES!" (What if someone better called and she'd wasted a conversation on me?) She'd never call me on her land line because "it's long distance!" This way, I only get the Readers' Digest version of what's going on with my relatives. Most updates include some variation on "she's out of her mind," followed by stern instructions: "don't you EVER let me get like that." (Uhhhhh. Might need more specific instruction than that.)

On Mother's Day, I went with her to visit one of our elderly cousins, and innocently observed with mild, but cheerful surprise on the walk out to the car, "she seemed pretty sharp." The answer was, "That just shows what you know. She sits in that chair all day and talks to that damn bird. She won't read a book. She never even turns on the television." (She did talk to the bird the whole time we were there, but if talking to pets was the criteria for institutionalization, I would barely know anyone this side of the walls.)

After Mother's Day, I posted a few pictures from the day on her facebook page, which was followed by texts to me from my cousins wondering why my Mom won't be their friend, or why she never answers their messages.

I waded back into her account with the idea of responding to everyone, and as I roamed around, I was actually impressed to discover she has obviously been putting some effort into it. Everything about social media that I think of as second nature, I remind myself is a foreign language to most of her generation. (There's no room for Smug here: the first computer I ever touched was a Radio Shack TRS-80 that someone had handed down to the nuns, and I could never even figure out how to turn it on. Many years later, I was the first person in my office to insist this email thing was "a mess" that would "never catch on," and everybody better just stick to turning in their work to me on DISKS the way God intended).

I was proud of all her hard work, but the net results would be the same if you found me trying to translate a french newspaper on facebook; it's a strange, hybrid, baby-speak that sounds absolutely nothing like her.

I can see that she is trying to communicate with her friends via her wall, with brief missives like these:

"ok. ken. i'am here."

and

"i just wanted to see if i am getting anywhere with this silly thing. been sitting here for hours." This statement is inexplicably linked to a youtube clip of Jimmy Kimmel, Guilty Dog.

Then there is a post from me, "Hi Janet, Mom can't seem to figure out her facebook. She's doing great -- we just had a big dinner. "

Below that, she has written a note, "i am in town and trying to find a way onto my page but it keeps eluding me so at ten twenty i am going to bed!!! one day i will throw it out the window. if i happen to email you, hi! hope you are well!" This is paired with a link to google's page for "suggestions on navigation errors."

Then she posts an answer to my cousin Marie's question as to how she was doing. "in town again. not too much longer to go. good. getting very tired. what is a thumbnail? i don't have one i guess. the computer says so anyway. GOODNIGHT WHOEVER YOU ARE!!!"

An earlier statement reads, "i am alive and well. i am not trying to ignore anyone just do not know what i am doing. keep trying. i'll figure it out someday." This is linked to a google search of facebook.com, which turns up all the people on facebook with the same name as her.

The last time I clicked to open her gmail for her, it inexplicably opened up into the email account for a strange name and a person I didn't know. "Mom, who is Mark?" Mark is a man they go to church with. "Why is his email on this laptop." She didn't know. As I clicked around, she eventually remembered that he had been trying to help her open her facebook one day after mass. My eventual conclusion was that he had, at some point, opened his email on her machine and inadvertently saved his password there. After logging out of his account, I asked her if she had accidentally been reading his email.

"Oh sure," she said, shamelessly. "I read it all."

Didn't she notice none of it was intended for her?

"Well, yeah. It was mostly these love letters back and forth between him and Annie."

Didn't she consider this an incredible invasion of privacy?

"Nahhhh. He's married to her now."

I asked her last night if she'd seen any of my brother's emailed pictures from his last trip. She hadn't, because she said, "my email won't open anymore. But Mark and Annie's popped up on there the other night, so I've just been reading theirs instead."

Prodded as to how she managed to consistently load their email, instead of her own, she answered, nonplussed, "I don't know. I guess I'm a hacker. Isn't that what you kids call it?"

At least my parents will never be one of those scandalous couples who ends up on Dr. Phil because they reunited with their high school sweethearts on facebook. Any hot senior singles with mischief on their minds are going to have to come right to the front door and knock on it. (They don't know how to check their voicemail either.)

It reminds me very much of David Sedaris's french class where everyone had to explain Easter to non-Americans: "He call his self Jesus and then he die one day on two...morsels of....lumber..."

Sounds about right.

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Hold the Mayo

2011-05-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

"[He] brought me to his apartment, and without even inquiring, set to work frying in olive oil two eggs with the darkest orange yolks I had ever seen, then sprinkled them with a coarse sea salt and cut a slice from a thick, crusty loaf of bread...I was craving salt and starch. Eggs and bread. In the evening, we walked to a restaurant near the Acropolis. Without wasting a moment on that awkward and tedious conversation that will unhappily precede so many hundreds and hundreds of future restaurant meals in all of our lives -- whether to share or not to share and whether or not there are food phobias and dietary restrictions among us -- [he] simply ordered food for the table without even consulting a menu, and so set the standard for me for all time of excellent hospitality: Just take care of everything....I forever want to arrive somewhere hungry and thirsty and tired and be taken care of..."

--Gabrielle Hamilton, Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef

I am the farthest thing from a picky eater. It's not just a culinary position, but an ethical and cultural one. Even if I had a real food allergy, I would probably willingly die of anaphylactic shock before I would ever insult a host's offer of, say, Strawberry Nut pie. If someone goes to the trouble of making something for me, by and large, I will eat it. If somebody orders something for me, I'll eat that too.

I've always hated green peppers, but I would never pick them off a pizza. Still, lots of people cook with them. The net result is, I eat a lot of green peppers. Big deal. At this age, I'm probably never going to cultivate any affection for them, but so what. I hate beets too, but hardly anyone cooks with them so it rarely comes up. Again, I wouldn't pick them off a salad. I file this under being "a Good Sport," (and I pride myself on being A Good Sport). About the only thing I will not eat is mayonnaise. If it's sneaked into some potato salad or something, and I don't have to taste it, fine. It's not a religion. But I do not like it. Everyone knows this. In its unadulterated state, it's culinary kryptonite to me.

Like anybody, I have tastes and preferences, but I generally never let them impede anyone's impulse or prerogative to feed me, which is what I love more than anything in the world (second only to: feeding everybody else). I make decisions all day, every day. I'm not working in a steel mill, but at the end of that day, I will still be hot and thirsty and hungry and tired. I do not always want to be the food boss.

Last weekend, the electronics husband was in town and inevitably wanted me to decide about dinner. The first decision was an easy one -- an absolute veto on going out. I would wither, dehydrate, and hook up my own IV before I'd stand in line with a crowd anywhere on a Friday night. This was followed by a flurry of texts and calls about what he could order and then pick up. Again, this would've involved a line (a line he'd have had to stand in -- not me -- but I'd have still had to make up my mind, and then wait on it).

The last time he picked up dinner, I wanted a Big Salad, so of course he brought home BLTs. Fine. I love BLTs. But these had mayonnaise on them. They usually come with mayo unless you tell them to leave it off, but they asked him, and he instructed them to leave it on. It was months ago, but I was mad then and I'm mad now. In the spirit of being A Good Sport at the time, I even tried to separate out the bacon, lettuce, and tomato and just make it into a Big Salad, but the mayo had touched (and polluted) every crevice. They really slathered it on. I ended up throwing it all in the trash, which he should've taken for the major Statement it was, because I am not someone who throws away food, let alone someone who throws away bacon.

His defense was that he had a vague memory that I had a thing about mayonnaise -- but he couldn't remember if it was pro or con. Then, he said, he remembered that he'd seen it in the fridge door, so, he reasoned, it must be ok. I had one response, which detailed, at great length, how many times in my writing career I've gone on the record about the only thing I will not eat. I had another response about how many years he has seen me go out of my way not to eat mayonnaise. And I had a third response, which was, "That. Is. Not. Even. Mine." He thought that was ridiculous, arguing, "What do you mean it's not YOURS?! This isn't college. We're not in a dorm. YOU are the only person living here." (That's just stupid. There's always Diet Coke in my fridge and I haven't had a Diet Coke in 25 years. Other people might get thirsty. And they might like a nice Diet Coke. I have it on hand because I am a Good Sport.)

So, when he called Friday, I had no faith in his ability to even procure anything edible. The whole process got so irritating, so fast, it was just easier to make dinner, with no input from him. In fairness, he would've picked up any dinner from any menu in town, or any ingredients from any venue I specified. I was just in no mood to direct.

All Spring, the gay husband and I have been undertaking endless date night culinary experiments based on whatever's fresh at the market. He doesn't care as much about cooking as the rest of us, but he has a fine appreciation for ingredients -- he hunts and gathers the most intricate flavor profiles he can find, then brings home the raw materials for me (or the husband-in-law) to transform into "food." His big finds last week were some unbelievably sweet watermelon (which became a watermelon/feta/baby arugula salad with balsamic vinaigrette) and Cipriani's pasta (which became a pretty interesting variation on bagels and lox when stirred into creme fraiche, capers, and salmon). The consensus is, they're both dazzling, but easy dishes -- three ingredients each. The hard work (conceptualizing) was already done, so even factoring in a ten minute walk to and from disco Kroger for extra salmon and feta, it was maybe a 20-minute proposition to then come up with Friday dinner. In other words, no trouble at all. You'd think.

After dinner, we went upstairs and curled up to watch Fear. I spent the first half hour tossing and turning trying to get comfortable and just could not. My shoulder was all out of whack probably from a week of heavy digging in the garden, and by the time Marky Mark had gotten to second base with Reese Witherspoon on the rollercoaster, my whole right side had gone from a dull throbbing ache to searing pain. So, I turned off the movie and told him I needed to sleep off this horrible injury...and he had to get out. If I have to suffer, I have to do it in solitude. I need the room.

As he was getting dressed, he was obviously irritated with me -- not mean, but not exactly a Good Sport either. I told him I'd make it up to him, but I was otherwise unapologetic.

The next day, the BFF was appalled at my rudeness, and wondered aloud why I had to kick him out to get to sleep (there's a spare bed and sofa). The gay husband backed me up though, "yeah. I can see that," he said, as he gestured dramatically, "your pain would need to take up the entiiiiiiire house." It actually occupied more like a city block, but I didn't think I could plausibly get the neighbors to evacuate.

Now, consciously, I don't think my poor achy shoulder had anything to do with what was or wasn't for dinner. I certainly wasn't making it up, and it's still pretty throbby. I'm usually not the passive-aggressive type, I'm more the aggressive-aggressive type. Subconsciously, I make room for the possibility that maybe I just needed a Big Salad.

On the Half Shell

2011-04-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

photo courtesy ChefTom

Last night I ate my first raw oyster in thirty-odd years. The last time I had them was as a 12-year-old girl on one of our annual New Orleans family vacations, at either Messina's or Visco's (I think both are out of business now).

On this particular trip, we had already feasted on beignets at both Morning Call and Cafe du Monde, muffulettas at Central Grocery, and a crawfish boil at a roadside stand that also served cayenne-injected fried chicken. Despite our pre-teen status, we had all sipped Pat O'Brien's hurricanes out of boxes on Bourbon Street (just a taste). We had gone crabbing in the lake using shrimp for bait that was considerably nicer and fancier than any shrimp I'd ever eaten until then. And then we ate the crabs.

I bring all this up, somewhat defensively, by way of pointing out that I was not then -- nor have I ever been -- a fussy, or picky, eater. I was excited about going to an oyster bar for dinner. I wasn't exactly sure what one was, but I was certainly game.

I remember sitting in a row with our host family, pulled up to something like a trough. The "bartender" shucked the oysters and shoved them out to the waiting patrons as fast as he could. His name was Danny, and I was competing with my arch-nemesis (and host daughter), Laura, for his attention. I think the only garnish was lemons, though maybe there was cocktail sauce or even mignonette. Having sucked the heads of a countless abundance of crawfish at lunch, I was undeterred by their unfamiliar appearance and ready to have at it.

And then Laura threw me off, with a long-winded, complicated explanation of how to eat oysters ("you have to swallow them whole and whatever you do don't bite into it; slurp it, don't suck it" etc etc). She then slid one over that was about the size of the palm of my hand, and said, with more venom than good-hearted mischief, "cheers!"

I tipped up the shell and slurped for all I was worth, sucking down a few salty drops of ocean and the beginning of what would've been the oyster, when halfway through the operation, it became clear that its little valve (or whatever) was still attached -- about the time I bit down, despite the express instruction not to. It hurt my teeth so bad I saw stars, and that was nothing compared to the awkwardness of having my meal half in and half out of my mouth -- not going down, but not exactly coming up either. I was mortified. Bested by my dinner, I dropped the whole thing into the trough, and drank an entire glass of ginger ale to cover the tears of pain and embarrassment. I was slightly consoled when Danny shucked forth a practically microscopic little pearl and handed it to me later in the evening, though we'd been cautioned ahead of time that the oysters we eat are not the same oysters that make jewelry -- all I know is I got one, and more importantly, Laura did not.

Unfortunately, since I didn't get right back on the horse -- there were no more oyster bars that visit -- I never really got around to overcoming that initial incident. They don't show up on that many menus this far inland, so it's never been much of an issue.

So, when they appeared at last night's birthday dinner -- where I was surrounded by friends who wouldn't judge -- I had a taste from Chef Tom's oyster platter. They were salty and icy and spicy and slid right down with a slight clean taste of lemony ocean.

I think I'll have another!

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The Chicken or the Egg: Which to Kill First?

2011-03-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

At dinner with my tween niece tonight, I was thrilled to hear her school has a bit of a farm-to-table project going: they're raising chickens and selling the eggs.

Unlike me, she's being raised as a city child (with the exception of horseback riding, which I don't count), and this seemed like a good development where she'll learn more about what food looks like on the hoof (or claw), as opposed to packaged up in the grocery store, or worse, as chicken McNuggets.

The plan's had a few glitches though. For the chicks they're supposed to be hatching in the classroom, somebody turned the incubator ten degrees too high one night, and then ten degrees too low the next night to compensate. Her mother and I were none too optimistic about the outcome, but she assured us "oh, there's movement." And we felt worse.

"Those chicks might not be....ok," I explained.

"Like, what do you mean," she asked. "Like they might have three heads? Because that would be awesome."

"Well they might," and I added, "It wouldn't be awesome. Because then you'd have to kill them."

"I'm not killing anything," she protested. (We'd already had a discussion over appetizers about how some of the dogs she knew from childhood aren't really "living on a farm in the country.")

Her mother clarified helpfully, "Not you personally." So I reassured her, "Right. Not you. 'One' will have to kill those chickens. You don't have to do it yourself, but yeah, they'll have to be destroyed."

"So you'd just kill anything that was deformed?" she asked, and I could see where this was headed.

"Emma," I said, "them's mean streets out there for a chicken with three heads." (It turns out she'd seen a stuffed two-headed calf at some point, and explained in great detail how the vet said the calf had died of suffocation because they were feeding the wrong head, and apparently it was the head it was using for breathing. It didn't exactly make sense to me from an animal husbandry perspective, but whatever. The taxidermied heads were, as one would imagine, "awesome.")

"What if it just has six toes?" she asked.

I allowed we could probably live with six-toed poultry... again, seeing where she was headed with this line of questioning.

"So where do you draw the line?" she asked.

"I don't know," was my answer. "That's an excellent discussion on moral relativism for another day."

She weighed this for a few seconds before responding, "So...an extra head is out of the question?"

"Yes, Emma. An extra head is out of the question."

I just hope I don't have to be the bitter Aunt who visits the school for Show and Tell and has to clobber a nest full of baby chicks.

Bitten

2011-03-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since the days of college housesitting where every gig brought with it the prospect of new revelations. Did a dean like it rough? Why did the mild-mannered humanities professor stow a vast array of birth control options in her kitchen... behind towering pyramids of pink Whiska cans? (Seems like the cats alone would've done the job.) Which faculty members were so smug they didn't allow TVs in the house (presumably they performed masterpiece theater for the children after supper)? Who was on the road to divorce?

That was the last time it was exciting. Now it's just an occasional weekend here and there where everybody swaps houses and pets based on travel plans -- nobody looks for anybody's toy drawer or porn stash or naughty pics -- those already get swapped via iPhones over dinner. It's the facebook/twitter era: what don't we know?

This weekend I was in charge of three dogs and a few fish (who live on sophisticated oceanic-style timers anyway), so no special challenges were anticipated. I stored all my weekend's worth of work up in the Cloud, where I could pull it down as needed. In between, I figured I'd catch up on this season's Californication (since I always kill the Showtime once Weeds ends), and that'd be that. I was looking forward to raiding the lovingly stocked fridge, and maybe reading a new book I'd brought along.

Everything was going according to plan til the most senior, elderly dog wanted out at 2 am Saturday, which was no big deal, until he had a tough time negotiating the stairs to come back inside. But when I went to give him a boost (as I've done a hundred times before), "CHOMP." He clamped down on my right ear.

Blood spewed everywhere in true Dan Akroyd-as-Julia Child style. But, not to be undone, I quickly grabbed one of the dogs' "wee pads" and fashioned myself a turban/burka that would staunch the blood and at least avoid ruining the floors and furniture.

I needn't have worried, because the dog wouldn't come back inside anyway. I checked him lightly but thoroughly for injuries and he wasn't hurt; he just wasn't moving.

My first thought was: "I'll fashion a travois." Seriously. That's because I remembered nearly every word of the 1960s children's thoroughly non-pc classic The Indians Knew, which taught other assorted miracles like painting from berries and that kind of thing. You drag the travois (a blanket between two poles) behind a horse, and haul stuff on the blanket. There, the plan pretty much fell apart. I had a giant quilt, but once I'd scooted him onto it, and then experimented with dragging him a few feet, I realized we were getting nowhere fast without the horse or the poles.

I tried carrying him, but couldn't get much of a grip because I was trying to dodge the snapping and keep the one good ear out of his reach.

The exotic fish stared out at the escalating debacle from their saltwater aquarium, judgmental and a little smug.

The other two dogs waited reproachfully in front of the fish, silently rebuking me for leaving the door open while I figured this out, having been chided by me, more than once, over the years, "In or out! IN OR OUT! We can't air condition the whole goddam world!"

While I knew nobody would have their ringers turned on at that hour, I did check twitter and facebook to see if anyone was up, but no one was except my BFF, who admitted she could provide little assistance from AFRICA.

I'm sure many solutions would've presented themselves had I thought them through, but I went with what now seems a fairly stupid option. I dragged all the dog beds out to the patio and we all slept in the yard, (except for the fish). I bled copiously into the dirt, all night long, once my turban untied itself. This is consistent with my memories of what "camping" entails. We watched the stars. They howled every so often at the neighbor cats. They wrestled me for the covers. Like me, they are most assuredly House Dogs.

By 5 am, my soul-sister "Evangeline" who just happened to live four doors down, had checked her facebook and sent a text, "BRT." I wasn't sure if that meant Be Right There, or was possibly a new variation on a BLT (maybe a Bacon, Rutebega, Tomato sandwich), I was just happy the Cavalry was on the way.

I instantly knew things must not look so good to an outsider when she said, "oh please, please, please let me take an iPhone picture." Flat NO. "I won't even get your face... just all the blood and dirt and your ear... hey, is that urine in your hair? You don't smell so good."

Luckily, she is both a dog person and a mom-person, which means, she's not easily grossed out, and she's prepared for emergencies. First things first, she'd brought along a giant towel, which we used as a sling to haul the dog's hindquarters up off the ground, whereupon he then scampered right up the steps and trotted into the living room where he flopped down dramatically to take a nap and catch up on Showtime.

That left me. She plunged my head into the sink and irrigated my ear punctures with alcohol. That stung, but not half as much as it did when the alcohol trickled into my eye, and then we had to flood that too. I wasn't that worried about my sudden inability to ever wear earrings again, but I did briefly fear going blind. Then she polysporin'd the whole affected area, bandaged it, and decided she needed to wash my hair -- she was afraid I'd just re-route all the caked-on mud and blood right into the wound she'd just cleaned til it sparkled. (She was right; I couldn't really see at this point. Plus I didn't want to look.)

We finally settled on the orange Dawn dishwashing soap as shampoo, for its antibacterial properties, though she "made no representations, warranties or claims" about what it might or might not do to the color of my hair. I think I might've signed an indemnity waiver. She washed it; blew it out; and then "styled it" with an array of her preschooler's pink barettes and headbands to keep my hair from getting stuck in all the bandaging. I suspect she really, really wanted to shave my head, but somehow restrained herself.

After a day of treatment, it looks a little better. It actually hurts worse though. And I find myself wishing he'd at least bitten me somewhere more visible or prominent -- someplace that would earn me a little curiosity and maybe sympathy. I can't stick a big CAST on my ear. It's not like I'm going to go to a doctor. What's he gonna say? "Stay off that ear."

The good news is, my newly anti-bacteria'd hair is pretty shiny. The bad news is, some of it seems to be falling out.

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2011-03-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

I am unmoored since my BFF left for Africa yesterday. She was in London and Dublin for two weeks at Christmas and I did not get through that well at all. On about the tenth day, I was emailing her testily, "this is bullshit. When are you coming home?" (Eventually, I took to watching re-runs of Barefoot Contessa - in - London and Oprah-and-Gayle in Yosemite episodes, because as I always say, we are just like Oprah and Gayle, if they were straight, or if we were rich.)

Actually, I fell apart before she even got off the ground that time, because her flight got delayed while she sat for hours on the tarmac in a giant snowstorm. I wasn't so much worried about the snow or ice or flight conditions (though I should have been), I was just projecting my claustrophobia onto her, and hyperventilating in sympathy. As her battery ran down, I kept texting her "CALL ME ON THE SKYPHONE," (I don't even know what a SkyPhone is.) Several people pointed out, she is the most capable person we know, and would've flown the plane if she needed to. (Now I have a flighttracker app where I can watch her as a little green dot floating over the ocean. It's soothing.)

I can relax a little knowing she arrived safely; that she watched two Coco Chanel movies on the plane; and that it's night there now.

But this will be a long two weeks, for a million reasons. She's the one who keeps my Rainman in check ("snap your rubberband Rainman!" or "get off your hamster wheel Rainman!") Who else will drop by the cave and watch the Parking Lot Movie with me (and be able to identify all the rockstars)? Who else will care what new documentaries will be on HBO this week? Who else could drop by my classroom to wrestle the online access into submission? (Well, technically, there's an IT department, but they would laaaaaughhhh.)

Who will bring me pink socks and candy? Whenever she sees pink socks on sale, she buys them and drops them off. I love my pink socks. And I can never have too many, because the dryer eats most of them. I hope I don't run out of them while she's gone, because I don't know where they keep the pink socks. They just appear here, like magic. (Once she brought me a "lardon needle" -- for threading more bacon into my recipes I guess -- and she's a vegetarian.)

She and BFF94 are the only friends I have who are willing to clear out Target's entire stock of Oatmeal Express and bring it back to me because I looooove Oatmeal Express, but haaaaaate to go Outside the Circle (and Target's the only place that has it). They are hunter/gatherers. I tend the homefires, and will cook whatever they kill. Preferably, Cinnamon and Brown Sugar flavor.

On her way to the airport this trip, she left a big bag of pink candy on my door. She knows cherry is my second favorite flavor (after coconut), and that when I was a kid, I somehow got it into my head that strawberries were what poor people ate because they couldn't afford cherries, but that everybody knew cherries were the superior fruit. That is why I don't like strawberries. I might know everybody's favorite flavor in our social circle, but only she knows everybody's second favorite flavor.

At any rate, the Pink Candy's almost gone.

I should've paced myself.
Also, my feet are cold.

The Tibetan Goat Hair Beanbag

2011-01-03T18:52:00.000-08:00

"If we had any questions, we could talk to the owners. She then gestured to a stained orange couch on which three elderly people of questionable hygiene were staring into space smoking cigarettes, their ashes cascading around a glazed ceramic ashtray on the floor, sometimes landing in it. Sometimes not...The asking price on this house was $425,000."

--Meghan Daum, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House

At brunch this weekend, one new guest asked the perfectly obvious and reasonable question, "did you just move in?" Lucky for him, I'm past the "embarrassment" or "shame" phase that a normal hostess might feel when asked such a question. He wasn't being ungracious or anything -- it was a thoroughly plausible query. While the boxes are mostly unpacked, he was sitting on a rickety kitchen chair in the living room, looking out naked windows onto a busy street. That's because, in nine months, I haven't managed to find a stick of furniture I want in that room, much less window treatments.

The Rainman in me has its own schedule, and I refused to move anything in that I don't love. Add to that, I can't move on to something new until the last project is done and The Cave isn't quite finished yet. It's very tight quarters in there and while there's no room for more furniture, there is one corner left where somebody could sit, and my well-considered Design within Reach solution to this is: a beanbag chair.

I probably watched 13,000 movies from one between 1972 and 1982. ("So easy for you to die dramatically Billy Jack! It's a helluva lot tougher for those of us who have to keep on trying!") The night after we watched The Blob, my Dad thought it would be funny to stuff my beanbag chair through the bedroom window at about 4 in the morning. Hi-Larious.

Mine was a hideous robin's egg blue, and my brother's was a buttery soft fire-engine red. They were both permanently parked in front of our giant wooden Magnavox, which had long since stopped working and had become an "entertainment center" for the working RCA perched precariously atop it, with giant navy bath towels swathing the surface in between (to avoid scratching the grain of the "wood?" to improve the acoustics? I don't know.) Over time, the tiny little pellets leached out onto the floor, and you could feel each one of them grinding into the rug underneath in a strangely satisfying Princess and the Pea scenario. The seams slowly strained, and eventually burst. Duct tape was applied, and then re-applied. At some point, they were retired. I don't remember giving my permission and I'm certain my opinion was not sought.

The first few I found were easily as hideous as the models from my halcyon 1970s memories, or worse: cheap plastic molded into the shape and design of baseballs, footballs, and bowling balls. Of course I was having none of that. I was thinking more along the lines of fine leather, or sheepskin, or flokati. Something shimmery or furry. I knew it had to exist. After a few months of futile in-store shopping, someone finally suggested that there is such a thing as online retail these days. (I'm sure there is, but I'm glad to say that, except for an annual visit to 1-800-Contacts, that's one Revolution I haven't kept pace with.)

The Tibetan Goat Hair Pouf from HB

I searched on TempurPedic + West Elm + beanbag and landed at House Beautiful's ode to the beanbag chair. They had some lovely patterns and fabrics and I skimmed along the iPod until I was stopped dead in my tracks at this: "the Tibetan Goat Hair Pouf by Maison de Vacances through Calypso Home."

In my head, that crazy cat lady Susan Boyle started singing "I dreamed a dream..." I never saw that show, but I sure as hell saw those clips on the damn "news" every morning. (I found her name by googling "crazy singing cat lady.") I guess it stuck. I'm humming it right now. It is the inevitable soundtrack that goes with a pink Tibetan goat hair Pouf.

It violates my one central law of design, which is that I am not allowed pink in the house. I can have pink computers and pink phones and pink shoes (where "pink is a neutral" according to my Spanish Heiress friend). I might have pink pajamas and pink house slippers and a pink blowdryer, but I can't paint rooms with it; I can't decorate with it; it's not allowed on the furniture; that kind of thing. You have to draw the design line somewhere. I'm not going to drive a pink car. I'm not Mary f-in Kay.

That absolute RULE is the cold comfort I used to console myself with once I saw the price: $1,365... For a beanbag. I thought Maison de Vacance meant, more or less, empty house, but now I think it's French for, are you fucking kidding me?

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The New Year's Day Miracle

2011-01-01T19:50:00.000-08:00

Here is the FRESH parsley Chef Tom found growing out back on New Year's Day. It's a New Year's Miracle.

I thought parsley was supposed to be Lucky, and then I looked up The History of Parsley and now I'm not so sure. It seems to mean Death and Punishment, depending on the Variety. I liked this part: "Greek gardens often had borders of parsley and rue which led to the saying 'Oh! we are only at the Parsley and Rue' to signify when an undertaking was in contemplation and not fully acted upon." Hmmm. I don't really think that's a saying.

The article also says the person cutting parsley will be "crossed" in love. Oh well. I cut three batches of it for guests to take home, so I guess this won't be the year for Romance after all. (Damn, that was going to be my word too.) It does say, "only if the woman was master of the household would parsley start to grow." Now that is a saying.

This parsley is closely guarded by The Bitch Faerie, purchased back in funnelcake days by the FoodGays for my birthday, not knowing (at the time they bought it) how horribly rude the faerie-purveyor had been to me. She especially hated pictures, so, obviously, this photo is the first in the Series.

Another New Year's Eve

2010-12-31T18:24:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve rang in this morning with news that a lifelong friend had died, and with it, came a day devoted to writing a Memorial for him. Because of the holidays, and his pre-expressed wishes for an absolutely private service, almost no one has heard the news, and for a while, it will be able to stay that way. Not long. He was beloved by many, known by very, very few.

He lived a tremendous life. I have spent the day calling a few people, and putting off most others. It would be nice for them to welcome the new year without knowing something so unbearably sad.

I also know that unless they were on the call list, he wouldn't much care if they ever find out. The time for them to think of him -- to go see him and call him and invite him to dinner -- was long before his last few days. I am happy for the holidays and special occasions he was able to celebrate at my house this past year.

Because his death was so unexpected (no long vigil at a hospital bed), I found myself thinking all day: what would he want? what would he do? I believe he would want very little time wasted on grief or ceremony, and a lot of time spent celebrating his life by trying to do more of what he did -- which was walkin' his talk. If somebody was hungry, he fed them. If they were homeless, he took them in. He never screened a call. If he was alive, he picked up and asked what you needed. If someone was cold, he gave them the coat off his back. That's not an expression. He really did that. I saw him do it.

I went through the entire holiday season without experiencing one moment of faith, but I find myself clinging to one now, in my hope and belief that he is in a better world, because he was sure too damn good for this one.

Up on the Rooftop....

2010-12-26T18:25:00.000-08:00

At one celebration last week, the Chef whipped up a batch of "fennel cakes" as a special Christmas treat for me. He could've made funnelcakes, but knows I won't eat them out of season, so, much as the title suggests, these represented a savory (and genius) take. I couldn't begin to tell you how to make them, but they were fennel-infused and lightly dusted with parmesan. For dipping sauces, we had an onion chutney/type/jam; sundried tomato pesto; and an herbed goat cheese spread.

They seemed like a truly extravagant amount of trouble, but God knows, I certainly hope they become an annual holiday tradition like Harriette's cheese straws.

I credit the richness of the holiday fare with the completely insane cartoon dreams I had all night, from which, I awakened at 4 am to a persistent scritch, scritch, scritch on the rooftop, just over my head.

I opened one eye.

The TV was off. The stereo was off. I had left the blackberry downstairs on the charger on my way to bed. The iPod battery had died and I had clawed my way out of the ear buds in my sleep. The only light in the room came from the dim glow of the on-switch for the electric bedwarmer (which I have named Steve, after my three alltime favorite boyfriends). The usual street sounds were completely deadened by snow. It was as quiet a moment as has ever existed in this house, until, there it was again. Scritch, scritch, scritch.

At this point, I sat bolt upright in bed, rubbed my bleary eyes with the backs of both hands, and said, out loud, with some fog-induced expectation of a clear answer: "Santaaaaaaa?"

It wasn't him. As far as I know, anyway.

After further listening, it sounded just like the raccoon/cougar/hobo/possum that got caught in the attic this summer. I'm not sure what the critter turned out to be, because he (or she) never took the bait that the critter-catcher set for him. Eventually, the scritching stopped, so I figured s/he died, or moved to a nice farm in the country.

Of course it might not be the same animal. It could be a cousin. It could be anything. I considered calling Trapper John, who interrupted a wedding to come check my traps last summer (and that's not a euphemism). But I quickly thought better of it.

They might be willing to come set traps on Christmas Eve, but certainly no one would come monitor them on Christmas weekend, and the whole point of a humane trap is to catch and release. If you don't release fairly quickly, it isn't very humane at all.

I already hate the holidays. I don't think I could take the prospect of euthanizing a damn reindeer in my attic.

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Spoke Too Soon

2010-12-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

"Remember, you can't spell Families without Lies."

--Robert Duvall, Four Christmases

a stocking stuffer from my Mom, 2010

I don't mean to be smug about the Holidays, but I am far from the last-minute shopper type.

Sometime around Halloween, I procure everything I could possibly need from the suburbs for the next six months (dog food, 50 gallon drums of Palmolive... the usual). Then a week or two before Thanksgiving I issue a travel advisory, reminding everyone I know to stock up, as if preparing for the apocalypse. "I'm out of Eukanuba," they might idly observe. "GO!! GO NOW!!" I say. "You won't be able to get within a million miles of PetSmart til January," I insist. "Do you have shampoo?" I'll fret out loud. "You might need it."

Holiday traffic, like ballgame traffic, rarely "happens" to me. I plan ahead. I re-route. (I said I don't mean to be smug; I didn't say I'm successful.)

So it should be some indication of the love that I have for my mother that we ended up at Bed, Bath and Beyond two days before Christmas.

It's a mother-daughter tradition that we grab a movie and a meal sometime Christmas week. I remember the first ones were Terms of Endearment and Working Girl circa 1980s. One year was Brokeback Mountain. A couple years ago it was Four Christmases (Dwight Yoakam plays a pastor!) This week, it was Little Fockers. The movie isn't important (obviously). It's just a couple quiet hours away from the usual holiday chaos. Then we usually hit the January sales, a few weeks later.

This week, as I scoured Fandango for any movie playing as far from any shopping corridors as possible, she lobbed in a bombshell. "Would that leave us time to run in Bed, Bath & Beyond so I can use my gift card?"

I think my response was along the lines of "WHAT??!! Bath and WHAT?!! NO. That would take FOUR HOURS." I wasn't even being hyperbolic -- for once -- I'd heard tales all week of people spending an entire day trying to turn left out of the Target parking lot. (And I chuckled a little under my breath when I heard these tales. "Amateurs," I thought to myself, a little self-righteously.)

"Bullshit," she observed matter-of-factly. "I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and it was fine. I was in and out in no time." It's "practically Christmas already," she added, along with some rationalization about how everyone had already finished shopping by now. (Seriously?)

I offered a few token protests. We were already going to have to re-route around ballgame traffic downtown. There might not be time to eat. We were all gonna die. That kinda thing.

This was met with an incredibly intricate array of shopping necessities revolving around two gift cards that were about to expire, a one-day discount that was maybe 150 percent off, and some sort of elaborate point system that I believe involved her becoming CEO of the company if she spent a certain amount before midnight.

At which point, I shut my mouth. This was obviously important to her. And when we got there, I realized why. There were all sorts of restrictions that involved one special-per-shopper and one-offer-per-transaction and spend-this to get-that. I think at one point we schlepped one load out to the car, donned disguises outta the trunk, and went back for another round. I can't be sure. I know I lost her in the crowds more than once and nearly went to the register to have her name announced to come get her abandoned child. Then I would catch sight of her little red knit pom-pom Santa on the top of her Christmas cap bobbing along just under the rack of 2-for-1 balsam candles.

As family jobs go though, there are worse gigs than Christmas Mule.

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If We Can Make It Thru December

2010-12-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

"The office Christmas party. A time when they all think they pre-ordered the beef wellington. Then, when you bring out the starters, they have remembered otherwise. But by now the entire group have swapped seats or are sitting on each other's laps and there are bodies on the kitchen floor."

--Ross Raisin, in What the Months of the Year Mean to Me, from The Guardian

Today is the shortest day of the year. From about Halloween on, I white-knuckle it til today. Tomorrow, the days will begin to get longer. Tomorrow, I'll begin to count the days til Spring. With all due respect to Hag, who might not "mean to hate December" ("it's meant to be the happy time of year"), I loathe it with everything I've got. I start with the weather and the miserably short days and work my way through to every single thing I hate about Christmas and the fact that I can't go to a bookstore any time from Thanksgiving til January 2 without a helicopter. This is the first winter in a decade I've lived without a garage (like an animal), so throw a perpetually iced-over SUV into the mix, along with a few impotent cans of Prestone, which precipitated something like a rage stroke when my windows perma-froze into the OPEN position last week.

From the moment that first "oh-oh-oh overstock.com" commercial rings in the season, I want to "oh-oh-oh open a vein."

My pal Pete asked me a couple weeks ago just what it is I hate about the holidays and I had to admit I wasn't sure. After some thought -- besides the music and the decorations and most of the food (flaccid broccoli anyone?)-- I believe it's the disruption to routine that completely discombobulates my Rainman. I like order and I hate chaos and I don't like having things out of place. As long as I can run along on my little inner hamster wheel, I get along ok. Disturb my carefully controlled environment and schedule, and I'll either die, or I'll accidentally stress-eat all the other little hamsters. I am nothing if not a fear biter.

I do like presents. I like to give them and I like to get them. I celebrated with Electronics Santa last weekend and a new Blu Ray (for me, not him; he got a book; it is a very good book). It was supposed to come with ElectronicsSanta's flatscreen TV two Christmases ago, but I could only take so much change at once. I insisted on waiting two years to see if Blu Ray is really the last word on the agenda for awhile (having gotten screwed in the early years of 8 track tapes, although it is the best way to listen to my Jim Croce Greatest Hits collection), so now that I have one, expect something truly digitally extravagant to be invented later this week. I certainly don't require anything as grand as electronics to be happy though. One year, all my friends gave me batteries and light bulbs, because I constantly complain there's nothing worse than running out of either one. That was a great year.

The only other thing I like about the Holidays -- and they're soft of a present -- is Harriette's Cheese Straws. They are the stuff dreams are made of. In fact, I wrote a little song. It goes like this... Well, I can't write music, but if I could, I would endlessly compose odes to Harriette's cheese straws. They somehow manage to be simultaneously light and fluffy, yet delicately crispy. They're wafer-thin. The flavor is indescribably tangy and tart, with just a hint of bite. It would not be an exaggeration to say I think about them all year long. It is the only reason I am ever nice, because in the back of my mind, I am thinking that if I am good, I might earn some of them at Christmas. It's the only time she makes them. She's given me the recipe, but I've never attempted them. It wouldn't be the same.

So it was a source of no small distress at my cousins' going-away dinner last night when we were head-counting for Christmas Eve reservations and it came up that Harriette will be out of town for this year's festivities.

What? Out of town? Where was she going? What would she be doing? Who would she be with? And then.... eventually.... Inevitably..."Well.... What about the cheese straws?"

What about em?

"Did she... you know... leave me some cheese straws or something? I mean... she wouldn't just leave town without... making provisions...?" Would she? Surely not. This is the woman who, confronted with a mudslide on her road on the way to Easter brunch, somehow hiked down a mountain and handed her homemade country ham biscuits off to a fellow guest so that her offering to the gathering wouldn't even be late. In my mind, I think she handed them over a raging river and that river was filled with alligators. The road washed away... but by God, we all had country ham biscuits. The food gays have pointed out on more than one occasion that all of our menus suffer a bit from Gone With the Wind syndrome ("as God is my witness....")

This.... this is the woman who made dog biscuits from scratch last year for the neighbor basset (dog biscuits that Ian ate... Ian! the neighbor husband, not the neighbor hound).

At some point at last night's dinner, it was implied (if not stated outright) that maybe I was being a little... selfish. I think the question was along the lines of, "you mean with everything she has to do to get ready for her trip, you expect her to stop and worry about getting you cheese straws?"

Why?

Would that be wrong?

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Sit, Jack. Stay.

2010-12-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

"We ate, my father remarked, 'as if there were no God.'"

--Katherine Anne Porter

Jack camps out in The Cave

This is the week that my gay husband, finally undone by the kitchen renovation at his house, temporarily moved in. Even Jack packed his little doggie bags and came along. The poor husband-in-law was left behind to manage the chaos and construction dust.

It has been the idyllic living situation. He likes to shop and decorate, and I like to cook. By the time I got home from work, he'd fixed the stereo and had Iris DeMent playing and had somehow found a roaring fireplace on HD TV. A warm cashmere sweater was waiting for me with my pajamas, and the Cave was softly lit and scented by a delightful series of what I imagine to be $432,000 candles.

The first night, we made my grandmother's macaroni and cheese. I had no idea I even knew how to make it. I tested a trial run, with coaching from my fellow southern pal Rache, the week before on my BFF. We agreed it was good, but I had made too many substitutions. Penne pasta. Fancy cheeses. A pecan crust. Not what I had in mind.

So once he arrived, we walked to DiscoKroger in The Driving (if hyperbolic) Snow for a box of honest-to-God elbow macaroni. I had never bought it. Never made it. You would be surprised how far a box of that stuff goes, as we ended up with 42 gallons of mac and cheese. (We're down to two or so now.)

The next morning before work, I somehow whipped up biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast (again, I had no idea I knew how to make sausage gravy, but it turns out, I do).

By this point, it's fair to say that the kitchen was coated, floor to ceiling in a fine film of butter and flour. There was butter in crevices I didn't even know existed. (But by the time I got home from work, order had miraculously been restored.)

Last night, to celebrate his birthday, he treated everyone to a big night of Theater, and then we happened upon the one place in town that had Lamb Chops as the Special. After which, we concluded that we now completely believe in The Secret and the Law of Attraction and maybe even Oprah, because -- since we had had at least roughly 37 conversations about lamb chops this week (in connection with planning the Christmas dinner menu) -- we are completely convinced we conjured them onto this Menu (where we'd never seen them before). So while we ate these lamb chops, he was scrolling catering menus on his iPhone, figuring out where we could score more lamb chops in time for Christmas.

By the time the cheesecake arrived for dessert, that reminded us of the grilled cheese sandwiches he'd made last week and how good they were, but what we really needed was a good homemade tomato soup to go with them. Bisque. We needed to make bisque. Barely pausing long enough for them to wrap up our doggie bags, we marched straight to the DiscoKroger for the celery and onions we'd need for the mire poix. Then we stood there a little stunned in the glare of the fluorescent lights realizing there were no cashiers, and they had abandoned us to the U-Scans. As far as I was concerned, at that point, we had two options. We could abandon this store in favor of one that was staffed, orrrrrrrrrr, one of us would just have to create a distraction while the other bolted out the door and ran for the getaway car. I was already busy creating just such a plan in my head when he mysteriously started punching buttons on The Machine. He eventually fed it some money; it burped up some change; and our incipient life of crime was momentarily delayed.

Within an hour, the soup was on, garlic was roasting in the oven, and we'd each staked out our respective positions in the cave, found a great movie (which neither of us remember), and were nodding off over our reading material (out of the 173 new releases on my bookshelf, he'd somehow unearthed my freshman year annotated copy of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness... I had the new Vanity Fair).

The night before, I'd fallen asleep in front of Restrepo, which I'd been looking forward to for months. It's an incredibly loud movie, and he made merciless fun of me for snoozing through it, while I insisted I was just resting my eyes (much like my grandmother and his Aunt Mae). Not surprisingly, I fight sleep violently, so he gets a big laugh watching the process. He says, "it's like Sunset. You know it comes every day, but you hardly ever catch it when it happens."

Last night, we fought the good fight til about 4. I heard him snoring and went over to tuck a blanket under his feet, at which point, he sat bolt upright and said, "Vigilance!"

Startled, I said, "What? Bilbo Baggins?"

"No. Vigilance," he said, and went right back to sleep.

Then I wandered upstairs to bed, and the only sounds heard around here the rest of the night was the occasional opening of the refrigerator door, followed by the unmistakable whisssssh of aerosol made by the spray-whipped-cream can from the Snooty Falooty Store. I don't even know if that was him or me.

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Take Me To The River

2010-11-14T08:24:00.000-08:00

"Gayle, I do not get out much, and I certainly don't get out to sandwich stores."

--Oprah, to Gayle, on why she kept mispronouncing Panera on their big Yosemite adventure

I am not a roughing it kind of girl. I did it when I was a kid: real camping, in the Smoky Mountains, with tents, sleeping bags, and inner-tubing down the river. (I should admit, however, there was indoor plumbing... geezus, we weren't animals.) I did my time. That was enough.

Once in a while though, I do like to get out of town and see some trees. Luckily, I have friends who live in The Woods and The Country. Some live on Farms. And another has a cabin down by the River, which is where we all went today for an all girls chili "campout." Meaning we "camped out" in the upstairs ski-lodge style great room, with our feet propped up in front of a big fireplace (it is possible the air conditioning was on to facilitate the apres-ski effect, because we hadn't expected it to be 78 degrees in November -- I would not, of course, post that on facebook for fear that crazy anti-air-conditioning lady will pop back up on there and accuse me of blowing the tops off mountains). After we ate for awhile and drank some good red wine, we "hiked" down to the River and observed some "Nature."

As usual, I refused to get too close to the water because everybody knows about my Jessica Savitch phobia of drowning in three feet of water (I don't want to drown in any amount of water, but it seems especially cruel to be afraid of water and then drown in a ditch, to say nothing of the fact that her dog died with her).

It was a tremendous day, with half a dozen highly interesting and entertaining women from all over the world, catching up on art and politics and our jobs and boys (nearly everyone had a new one to report).

I don't like Oprah. I think she's smug.

But this was a little like Oprah and Gayle's big Yosemite adventure, which I watched last week, so I could text the BFF all about it in real time, along with my plan to try fly fishing -- including the fact that Gayle managed to catch her shoe on fire.

If I were going on a trip, I would take my BFF, and she pointed out, it's because "we are united in the fact that we go to four star lodge or excellent three star lodge because, Hell, you won't fly. And we just forego the actual nature." She then clarified, "Nature = the lodge in that Wyoming/Montana-ish movie with Brad Pitt... but with wi fi. And paths through the pines. Definitely paths. I am not saying we get Brad Pitt. I am saying that we get the lodge."

I concurred, pointing out, "you know I don't like Brad Pitt. He's smug."

I said we are a lot like Oprah and Gayle, only straight.

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Dad's Estate Planning

2010-11-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

"Do you need a set of buggy springs?" my Dad asked when he called last night.

Hmmm. I know from previous queries this summer ("do you have any use for an anvil?") that this is partially another adventure in estate planning, and partially a segue into a meditation on the state of health care reform.

"I can't imagine that I do," was my answer, as I pictured the looks on the neighbors' faces if I just parked a skeleton of rusty wagon wheels in the driveway.

"They're probably at least 150 years old," he added by way of modification - slash - persuasion.

"Nope," I said, refusing to elaborate, knowing that otherwise this could turn into a fairly lengthy debate on their merits (which I'm sure are substantial). Then I asked an open-ended question, certain that the full story would come out, uninterrupted. (According to the audiology tests after he punctured his eardrum last year, his hearing is about 70 percent gone... but to be fair, he never listened. His preferred conversational format has always been The Monologue.)

So his latest brush with death -- precipitating the necessary dispensation of the buggy -- involved some sort of injury incurred while feeding the catfish in the pond. Possibly, something was broken tripping over a bucket. Did he go to the doctor? Don't be absurd. Why not?

"Do you know what it cost me last time I went to the doctor?" he asked indignantly. "A hundred and ninety bucks just to rub some salve on my belly!"

"You mean the ultrasound?"

"Yeah, I guess. But what I am saying is that was just MY PART of it. It COST more than THAT. A lot more than that."

"Is that the one where they found out about those last couple heart attacks?" I asked.

"I got a new haircut," was the answer. "You know my barber retired. And every time I went in there I had to wait and wait and wait. And you know all those men in there don't have but seven hairs on their head all together," and this was followed by a long list of the virtues of Myra, the new barber, and how he found her.

So, what about this injury?

"What about it?" he responded. "Oh, I cussed more than I probably have in the last six months," he added.

Was that the entirety of the treatment? "Nahhhhhh. I found these two old pills from the Dentist. So I took them, and then I laid on the sofa and watched Gunsmoke."

Anything else?

"Yeah. Midnight Cowboy."

What?

"Oh you've seen Midnight Cowboy. Jon Voight? Dustin Hoffman?"

I must have paused too long there. "You knoooooow, Ratso Rizzo."

I wondered aloud if maybe an X-Ray or something was called for... something more restorative than the powers of say, AMC or TNT.

"Did I tell you about my new phone?" was the answer.

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2010-10-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

Wanna See Somethin' Scary?

You either love scary movies or hate them. I love them. My typical problem with them, is they're usually not scary, or at least they're not scary as advertised. Sixth Sense? Don't try to Shyamalan me. Blair Witch? Oh, I'm so scared. Of twigs.

For Halloween last year, I recommended The Strangers. It isn't precisely scary -- nothing supernatural or paranormal happens -- it's just a couple in the woods who answer the door to someone they shouldn't. That's the entire plot. The couple is played by Liv Tyler and the guy from Felicity (I think there were two; this is one of them). When Liv Tyler asks their uninvited guests (again: not giving anything away here) "why are you doing this?" the answer is: "Because you were home." It isn't my usual kind of scary movie, but I stand by it. It's good.

My type of scary movie is more Paranormal Activity, which I watched for my birthday with Nick. I am not normally a fan of gimmicks, or low-budget, much less shot-on-video, but I did like the premise of inexplicable things that go bump in the night. We started out the movie with him on one sofa, with one dog, and me on the other, with another dog. I thought that would be fine. About ten minutes in, I gave up and said, "ok, you're gonna have to come over here and hold my hand."

We both have a high, high tolerance for scare-factors, and by the end, we were both whimpering in fear. Success.

I had high hopes for the sequel...and I still do. I just can't judge it properly, because we saw it sitting next to an insane clown family who spent the entire movie talking to the screen, "oh no you ditn't!" and "girrrrrrrrrl, Jesus ought not've let them make this movie." This was accompanied by a lot of screaming, and on at least one occasion, a break to answer a ringing cellphone. "What am I doin? Nuttin'...." (followed by, likely in response to a query about the noise,) "Oh. Yeah. I'm at the Movies."

Was it scary? I always judge people by the way they respond to the guy in the movie who says things like, "don't be ridiculous!" or "there's no such thing as ghosts." Aside from the normal horror movie conventions (that guy's usually the first to meet a terrible gruesome fate), it always irritates me, because in my experience, if one of my otherwise sane, reasonable, non-Addict, non-Drunk friends tells me about something out of the ordinary happening to them, my first response would never be, "oh ho, you must be nuts." (This doesn't apply to my friends who are already known to be nuts, because you always have to take what they say with a grain of salt.)

I know this much from all those childhood years of reading Stephen King. If somebody ever asks you, "Wanna see something scary?" the best-advised answer is always, "No."

So, here's what happened after the movie. And then I'll judge you by what you think of it.

We spent a long evening of prep work in the kitchen, and then my visiting houseguest turned in early, while I sacked out in front of the bigscreen. Before she went up to bed, I told her to close the door to the TV room (it sticks, and it takes a pretty hefty amount of force to open or close it). I pointed this out to her because... well, it was relevant after I watched the first movie.

About a half hour later, I heard her walk down the stairs (probably to get something from the kitchen I assumed). And a few minutes later, the door to the TV room swung open. "Ha, Ha Sooz," I yelled. "Very funny." (Thinking she was screwing with me, which, admittedly, would've been a little funny.)

But there was no response.

After a few seconds, I got up and wandered out to the kitchen. No sign of her. She was still upstairs. With her bedroom door closed. She said this morning she'd heard me talking but figured I was probably on the phone or something.

Do I wanna see something scary? Why no. I'd rather not, thanks.

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An App for That

2010-10-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

"Next WEEK? That's the worst thing you can SAY to an early adopter."

--Phil, not getting his iPad the first day on Modern Family

After years of resisting the iPhone, I now have what I've always wanted instead, which is the iPod Touch, an iPhone without the irritation and annoyance of an actual phone. And because it was a birthday present, I have zero guilt about all the features it wastefully duplicates that I already have on my phone, or kindle, or laptop, or camera, or any of the other 417 devices currently quietly humming at me from the surge protector.

For a phone, I still have my BlackBerry. I switched to the Torch the day it was released, which was, coincidentally, the night the lights really did go out in Georgia as AT and T service went out all over the south, and half of the eastern seaboard. It has the touchscreen I want, with the blackberry keyboard I stubbornly insist on retaining. If you wanted to talk on it (and I don't), it would be like trying to talk on a Labrador Retriever puppy. If I had to estimate the weight, I'd say it's about 17 pounds or so. (Don't get smug iPhoners; yours is at least a cocker spaniel.)

Which is why I love the iPod Touch...it's skinny and it's light, which is what I will settle for, until I can finally wear a phone on my WRIST like God and Gene Rodenberry and George Jetson always intended.

The important thing is, I can play Scoops on it. (Well, that, and Fruit Ninja...Blame the art department.) I am also hearing a lot about these angry birds, but I suspect they might be above my skill level.

It came along with a nice romantic birthday dinner (lamb chops) and a lengthy address about its many features. Apparently, I can add all of my music to it, and all of his music to it, for example. I refuse to type much on its stupid little electronic keyboard, but I can at least read social media and stay caught up. I just can't say anything, which is probably better. It has a lot of stuff the Torch probably already does, but I don't have to bring a Sherpa along to carry it for me. The present followed months of quizzing about what I might like, where he called on the first day of every month and erroneously wished me a happy birthday (because he can only remember that it is on the first, and that he has a one in 12 shot; this is one of those times where it would be helpful if he just joined facebook for chrissake).

On one of those days of repeat texting, my cousin (who happened to be over hanging blinds) suggested, "why don't you just switch your birthday to January 1st like the racehorses and then we can all keep it straight."

But the birthday app means I'm no longer burdened with even checking into facebook to appear appropriately thoughtful.

My stepdad immediately fell in love with the maps feature and was trying to figure out a way to look into his brother's window via satellite in New Mexico.

My mom's response was the usual "find the black lining in any silver cloud approach," eyeing us dismissively. "Yeah. Some present. What is THAT thing going to cost you to run every month?"

There was a temptation to explain wi-fi, but I knew what I was dealing with. When I moved earlier this year, I made the mistake of paying an offhand compliment to the summer Romance who was so diligently and solicitously helping out every hour of the day and night -- "so big, so strong," was I think what I'd said. And her comment was the usual sigh of pained resignation, accompanied by the non-sequitur to end all non-sequiturs, even for her: "Well.... I just hope he doesn't hit you." I promptly envisioned Frankenstein accidentally squashing the little girl. I'd never make light of domestic violence of course, but even with the many admitted problems I have in forming lasting relationships and attachments, I can honestly say no one has hit me since third grade.

All I know is, I was scanning through a dozen or so of the news apps I'd promptly added, when I ran across this article about how Steve Jobs isn't selling computers at all, what he's selling is PRICING. And the article is filled with details about how "Decoys explain why Apple often sells each gadget in a pricing series, such as the new iPod Touch's $229, $299, and $399 price points for different storage capacities. You may gladly spend $229 to get a hot media player, thinking it's a deal compared with the highest-priced version and not blink that you could instead buy an iPhone 4 at the lower price of $199 with more features."

Huh. I am happy to report that I had no idea what an iPhone costs, and that it does not bother me at all that it's apparently cheaper than the iPod. It's all Rainman to me (hunnerd dollars? bout a hunnerd dollars?) So I also had no idea what the iPod cost either, but am curious now as to whether I was worth the $200 or $300 model. What I had assumed was that it was something poor people buy because they can't afford the iPad, which I also have no interest in because, A. it doesn't have a keyboard, and B. as far as I know, it doesn't come in pink.

Yeah. Ol' Steve Jobs is gonna have to wake up pritty, pritty early in the morning to outsmart me.

###
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2010-09-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever looked at a picture of yourself when you were a kid?... There’s one of me in a cowboy hat, pointing a gun at the camera, trying to look like a cowboy but failing, and I can hardly bring myself to look at it now. I’ve put it back in a drawer. I keep wanting to apologize to the little guy: ‘I’m sorry, I’ve let you down. I was the person who was supposed to look after you, but I made wrong decisions at bad times and turned you into me.’

—Nick Hornby

To even make the qualifying rounds for the title of Miss Navajo a girl has to be able to perform all of the traditional Navajo women’s tasks — including slaughtering, butchering, and cooking a sheep.

Of course, I didn’t grow up in the Navajo nation, and vying for the title of Miss Nibroc back in the early 80s in my hometown wasn’t nearly so arduous. Lucky for me.

on the left

The only experience I brought to the event was a brief and glorious stint as some sort of Little Miss Homecoming something-or-other when I was five years old. I wore a fluffy pink dress, itchy white lace tights, and white patent leather shoes. My then-best friend (and later, arch-nemesis) Karen Sasser and I carried the train of the queen, Marie Cima. Or it might have been her tiara.

A dozen years later, I was ready for the real deal.

All I needed was a swimsuit, a few nice dresses, a convertible I could ride in for the parade, and a driver who’d be willing to wear something other than a t-shirt.

I didn’t have a “talent,” and fortunately, one wasn’t required.

In fact, I don’t recall doing anything especially strenuous to prepare — beyond lying in the sun, basted in baby oil, with my hair coated in lemon juice. But, I was probably going to do that anyway.

I’d like to pretend to be blasé and sanguine about the whole thing now — as if the pageant and the festival were things I just happened to do a few decades ago. Ancient history. A sign of the times that I just went along with. The same way I might now be vaguely embarrassed by pictures of me with feathered hair and leg warmers.

But that’s not true.

I had that initial taste of glory at 5 on that basketball court, and I’d been dreaming about my moment ever since. Every August I would stand in front of JCPenney’s with my family and we’d watch the candidates in their shiny Corvettes, waving benevolently at the crowd and smiling.

I thought they had it made. A handsome boyfriend in the front. A spiffy car. The adulation of thousands (maybe it was just dozens) of cheering admirers lined up to see them and talk about how pretty they were. They were the closest thing we had to rock stars.

And I fantasized about how one day I’d be the one in the convertible. (Only I — plotting with the cunning that any five-year-old might exhibit— planned to throw candy, so the crowd would really love me and applaud loudly.)

I grew up and developed real goals, of course, but I never forgot that one.

Oh sure, I got good grades. I held a few class offices, including president a couple times. I made the National Honor Society and was a National Merit Semifinalist (St. C had enjoyed a brief moment in the spotlight as the school with the highest percentage of National Merit Semifinalists in the country — though it’s worth pointing out that I think my graduating class was only about 17 kids. The high school has since closed). I was even headed off to my first-choice college (thereby successfully spiting Sister Agnes Marian who’d refused to even give me an application, insisting “trust me dear, your parents can’t afford it.”)

Frankly, at 17, that was all just gravy.

I wanted a parade.

I was sure it would change my whole life.

BIOGRAPHY OF A PLACE

The theme of this year’s Festival is “linking the past with the future.”

It seems appropriate as I drive through town and am struck both by how little and how much it’s changed.

The directions that I’m given for this trip are exactly in keeping with the nature of any small southern town, “turn right where the Stuckey’s used to be.”

I remember when the first McDonald’s came to town. I remember when Burger Queen became Druther’s. And I well recall the excitement of the first Pizza Hut, and how we longed in vain for something more exotic, like a Godfather’s.

Now there’s fast food from one end of town to the other. Wendy’s. McDonald’s. Burger King. Arby’s. Domino’s. Papa John’s.

A giant Wal-Mart has nearly invaded and supplanted Black’s Barn.

Bonza and Wyrick’s IGA burned down a few years ago (Mr. Bonza unwittingly foiled my incipient life of crime when I stole a blowpop in first grade and my mother made me take it back to him and confess). By then it was E.C. Porter’s.

The Southern States I used to frequent with my Uncle Don is now Farm and Garden. The former proprietor, Arlis Fuson — who gave me my first set of little yellow chicks to raise — is retired. Don tells me Arlis is now “growin’ dogs and sellin’ ‘em.” When I ask what kind, he says, “Whatever kind you want. Big or little.” But, he adds, “I believe he’s got out of the bird business.”

The Somerset Oil up the road from the Fusons’ house is now closed down.

The downtown has now been overhauled and realigned on a grid. Kentucky is now one-way south and Main Street is now one-way north. Depot is still two-way, and will lead to the old underpass, which used to flood in every hard rain.

Hall Watson still anchors Center and Depot, but Sterchi’s is now a parking lot.

Distad’s jewelry store is gone (where I got my ears pierced the first... and second time).

Daniel’s dress store just closed this year.

A Chinese restaurant sits where the old Holiday used to be.

A True Value hardware is in place of the old Piggly Wiggly (more commonly known as The Pig), and across the street the Tastee Freez has been replaced by a pizza chain. The downtown Sonic is now a car lot, and there’s a new Sonic out on “new” 25E.

The old Hippodrome Theatre on Main was torn down long before I left.

The JCPenney I worked in all through high school also relocated to new 25E. Belk Simpson moved from Main Street to the shopping center decades ago.

The nation’s first Kentucky Fried Chicken is still on old London Highway on the way into town, and doubles as a museum (also on the National Register of Historic Places)— a museum that serves fried food. Colonel Sanders knew one of my grandfathers, and I met him on several occasions as a child — but no one I grew up with cares about chicken.

All the natives from my generation know the town cuisine is all about the chili.

The Dixie, home of “the world-famous Dixie Dog”—where I used to eat on my lunch break—is still on Main Street, but under new management.

A few doors down, the Krystal Kitchen is still standing, but appears to be hollowed out.

Next to that is the Fad Pool Hall, equally famous for their chili, but also for the fact that, as long as I was growing up, women were prohibited. The ban might have been lifted at some point, but at any rate, I’ve never been inside.

Chili loyalty was and is fierce in the tri-county area, and my family came down on the side of the root beer stand on Falls Highway (on the way to Cumberland Falls, home of the Moonbow — one of only two sites in the world with a moonbow; the other is in Africa).

The stand was torn down a few summers back, and reconstructed in a site about 50 yards west.

I’d be surprised if they changed the oil.

As an adult, I’ve had to continuously explain the concept of “chili buns” to the uninitiated — it’s a chili dog without the dog. “Oh... that’s just a sloppy joe,” is the usual response. Well, no, it isn’t. And in fact, it’s blasphemy to even mention them in the same breath. (This is usually followed by a discourse about the relative merits of bun-chili versus bowl-chili — but at some point, spaghetti enters the discussion, and I’ve found that there’s no point in even attempting to talk to anyone who’d put pasta in a bowl of chili.)

I’m not sure how world-famous any of this was. Bob Green did write an essay about the chili there years ago, but I don’t remember whose side he was on.

When I worked at Penney’s, we sold a t-shirt that named my hometown and said, "It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.”

THEN AND NOW
When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, ‘what will I be? will I be pretty? will I be rich?’ Here’s what she said to me, ‘Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.’

—Jay Livingston and Ray Evans

One thing I know, when I was 17, I traveled light — a tube of strawberry Kissing Potion lip gloss, a comb, and a dime to call my mother, and I was set.

For this trip, I am weighed down with a digital camera with spare battery and charger; a cellphone with spare battery and charger; tape recorder, tapes, and notebooks; and a laptop.

I look like a sherpa... a sherpa from The Matrix.

The first thing I notice about this year’s crop of candidates is that they have a healthy appetite. I had invited myself along to their brunch hosted by the Woman’s Club and held at a local hotel. (We ate at the mayor’s house when I was a candidate, but I decide it might seem... smug to point that out.)

The girls are encouraged to “go on and get your pictures made now, in case you spill something on yourself like Miss June over here.”

I was happy to see them come away from the buffet with their plates groaning under the weight of bacon and eggs and sausage and biscuits and gravy.

The president of the woman’s club, Lib Fore (former proprietor of Jack’s Market) is glad too, confiding conspiratorially, “one year they didn’t even eat enough to pay for it.”

I resist the maternal urge to tell them to wash their faces because they’re too pretty to need all that makeup. Because the other thing that strikes me —as I scan their applications and do the math — is that they were not even born the year I was in the pageant. And if I’d been a little more ... precocious... any one of them could be my daughter.

I feel very middle-aged.

I wonder if they’ve even heard of any of the characters who populated the national consciousness when I was 17 — names like... Madonna... Michael Jackson... Tom Cruise.... George Bush.

Sigh. It’s a different world.

They’ve filled out questionnaires — the same way we did — answering questions like, “what do you feel is the most pressing issue facing southern women today?” To a girl almost, they’ve answered with some variation on this succinct response, “Southern women don’t have enough confidence or ambition to stay in school, to go on to college and get a life, rather than get married and start having children in their teens.”

Almost all of them mention the dearth of jobs awaiting the girls who do go on to school and then try to come home — only to find that most of the opportunities for women are vo-tech or service sector (nurses and bank tellers and fast food servers can usually get a gig, for example), but high-paying professional options are still limited. (Though most of them assure me they will be back.)

So the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The night of this year’s coronation, the emcee promises an evening that includes everything from “pop to country to ... interpretive dance.” I sense that I’m not the only adult shifting uncomfortably at that last item. The upcoming carnival is announced (Tuesday you can ride all night for 10 dollars). Wednesday is a gospel sing. Mitch Ryder will do a concert the following weekend, along with the guy who wrote “Flowers on the Wall” (a song “made popular by the Statler Brothers,” as the emcee reminds us — but I’m thinking my friends would only remember it because it’s on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack).

The 1999 queen takes the stage, and this year’s candidates are introduced, as “American Woman” plays on the sound system. The theme of the pageant is “American Beauties” (hopefully a reference to the roses, and not the movie — which would really be tragically ironic as pageant themes go).

The “big production number” has changed considerably. The girls are in capri pants and pastel tops, and they do a spirited little set of kicks and aerobicizing to Mellencamp’s “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” which (even though it’s over a decade old) was terribly contemporary compared to the number we did.

Although almost no photographic evidence from my pageant survived the fire when our house burned down my sophomore year in college, at one point, there was a Super 8 recording of my own blush-inducing role in “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.”

First: we wore black leotards, black tights, and black bowler hats — accessorized by a neon green garter, waistband, hatband, and a tambourine.

“Way down on the levee in old Alabamy/There’s daddy and mammy, there’s Ephraim and Sammy/ While they are waitin’ the banjos are syncopatin’/ What’s that they’re sayin’?/...While they keep playin’ they’re hummin’ and swayin’./ It’s the good ship Robert E. Lee that’s come to carry the cotton away.”

Second, as we wound up to the big finale — shuffle, shuffle, step step, step-ball-change, Charleston, and HALLELUJAH HAND — they turned off all the lights and illuminated the stage with a black light, so we looked like a bunch of invisible, yet disembodied, dancers in a minstrel show.

“See them shufflin’ along./Go take your best gal, real pal, go down to the levee, I said to the levee/ And join that shufflin’ throng, hear that music and song./ It’s simply great, mate, waitin’ on the levee, waitin’ for the Robert E. Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

This year’s program also includes an actual on-stage “swimsuit competition.”

I have to confess I feel vaguely uncomfortable watching a group of teenage girls parade around in their tankinis (they are allowed to wear two-pieces this year, a rather scandalous new development that the organizers seem a little unsure of) — as the emcee says things like, “Miss So and So plans to major in molecular biology as part of her pre-med curriculum.”

When I competed, we actually attended a “pool party”with the judges — thereby affording us a nominal pretense as to why we would be standing around on any summer afternoon in swimsuits and stiletto pumps.

Now, it should be pointed out that none of us had any intention of going in the water. And there wasn’t one girl among us who’d have dreamed of getting her carefully coiffed, Aqua-netted hair wet. But the illusion — the excuse — for the swimwear somehow provided the chimera of seemliness that the stage does not.

I am told this year’s parade route will be just like mine was — proceeding down Main and back up Kentucky. Only this year, the organizers have scheduled all the pageant events and the coronation the week prior to the festival, so the Queen’s car will be labeled, and she’ll get to —in effect — reign over the festival week, as well as the parade.

It’s a good theory, but I’m not sure I would’ve shown up for the parade if I’d already known I had zero shot at the title.

It was traumatic enough as it was.

I had managed to secure the loan of a restored El Dorado Cadillac convertible that belonged to my friend Casey’s father. The rumor was that it had been owned, at one time, by FDR. But I can’t confirm that. I do know it was the dreamiest — candy-apple red with a white leather interior and it perfectly matched my giant white ballgown with red piping.

Mr. Taylor agreed to drive it, with the proviso that his two little boys be allowed to ride in the backseat, more or less underneath my copious skirts where no one would see them. I was extremely unhappy about that last proposition, but wasn’t about to look a gift Caddy in the mouth — and their presence ended up being fortuitous anyway.

As it turned out, the car’s mint-condition appearance was pretty much confined to cosmetics, and not the engine, which stalled repeatedly while we waited for our place in the queue on Falls Highway.

By the time we had turned onto Main, and the parade route proper, Mr. Taylor had figured out a way to simultaneously pop the clutch and gun the engine so that the car would lurch forward, a few feet at a time. At which point, gravity and the car’s forward motion would propel me backwards, plastering me, face up, onto the trunk. The only thing that kept me from sliding off the back was the hearty instructions Mr. Taylor boomed to his sons, “HANG ON TO HER BOYS! WE’RE MOVIN’!” and they’d each grab a leg as we jerked and sputtered our way down Main.

I never had a legitimate shot at Miss Congeniality anyway, but I’m pretty sure the stream of obscenities this chain of events provoked on my part probably didn’t help my chances any.

My face still gets kind of warm from the memory as the girls are winding up for the final high kicks of their dance.

The production number is followed by an intermission. Then the candidates have to get through an evening gown competition, and the crowd has to get through some more “entertainment,” before the coronation can commence, and the 1999 winner can hand over her crown and title to this year’s winner.

As I’m packing up my gear, it dawns on me how tiny the high school auditorium really is. I doubt it seats more than a few hundred people, and it’s not even full.

From the stage though, I know from experience it looks as big as Madison Square Garden.

And for those of you who said I’d never amount to anything? Good call.

—Jon Stewart

Driving north on I-75 at the end of the evening, I turn off the air conditioning and roll down my windows, letting the muggy August air pour into the truck cab.

I reach into the white sack I’ve stowed in the console and pull out a neatly-wrapped, warm package. There are traces of orange around the edges of the waxed paper where the grease has soaked through.

I unwrap it carefully, and stow the paper back in the bag, relieved that the seats are leather and I won’t be able to make too much of a mess. I have rules against eating in my car, but I make this one-time exception.

I demolish about half of the (first) bun in one bite— the perfect bite of chili, sharp mustard, soft white Rainbo bun, and pungent minced white onion, followed by a long cold swallow of root beer.

I find exactly the right Alejandro Escovedo CD to keep me awake and keep me company.

In a few hours, I’ll be back in my little kitchen dicing six pounds of tomatoes for the gallon of homemade gazpacho that I’ve promised to contribute to a dinner party the next evening.

By the time I get to that party, I’ll be back among my friends — friends who probably can’t imagine me wearing four-inch stilettos with a swimsuit. I doubt they’d believe I ever danced to the ‘Robert E. Lee.’ And I probably don’t strike them as the type of girl who would’ve spent her entire childhood dreaming about riding in a parade in the back of a shiny red convertible.

But I did.

I had forgotten it all myself. Forgotten that there was another muggy August evening about 17 years ago when all this mattered, and mattered desperately.

And I miss the excitement and passion and sense of relentless, breathless anticipation I felt that summer — as if something important might happen at any minute.

Maybe something great.

--sidebar from the column--

MISS AMERICA 1995

"Accidentally leaving the pricetag on your breasts." That's one of Letterman's top ten ways to get disqualified from the Miss America pageant. Another is "when asked about hobbies, reply 'rich, elderly men.'"

As usual, Dave has the right idea here-which is not to take any of this too seriously-unlike the rest of the free world, which seems to have gotten its collective panties into quite a bunch over this whole swimsuit hoo-ha. Why, it's as if physical attractiveness actually had something to do with the pageant's outcome! Say it ain't so!

They can call it a scholarship contest all they want, that don't make it rocket science. The pageant is, after all, an evaluation of physical, feminine beauty-which is, as we know, only skin deep, so why not evaluate as much surface area as possible? I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying there's a market for it. The participants involved volunteer, they aren't drafted. And unlike more obvious forms of prostitution, it's all perfectly legal.

So I ask you, just how coy is this nation going to get? What's next? An outcry from the prize 4-H heifers at the county fair about weight requirements?

Now I can hardly hear myself think over all the meowing and hissing in the background, so let me go ahead and make a confession right now (before someone from my hometown beats me to it): I was actually in a high school beauty pageant. That's another column entirely, but let's just say I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone that I didn't get many votes for Miss Congeniality.

Nor did I win the talent competition. The things I was good at weren't necessarily anything I could show off for the judges. Although my then-boyfriend helpfully suggested that I ought to have tried sword swallowing.

If they'd had a category for irony, I might have had a shot at some points, but they didn't, so I went home with some lovely parting gifts instead. I've since managed to piece together the crumbled shards of my ego and get on with my life-but feel free to judge my ranting as mere sour grapes.

I didn't realize just how badly the pageantry circuit had deteriorated until we tuned into this year's spectacle in anticipation of the big swimsuit vote (cast, appropriately enough, by phoning a 900 number).

Apparently, the only acceptable "talent" (and I use the term loosely) is singing and/or playing piano. We longed for the days of baton twirlers, trampoline tumblers, or even a really cheesy "dramatic monologue." If they'd had a phone-in for that, Hoss was going to cast his vote for the "interrogation scene from Basic Instinct."

Mostly we entertained ourselves (while waiting for the swimsuit votes to be calculated) by proposing alternative talents for the candidates-ones we'd actually like to see. Perhaps a thematic approach where Miss Louisiana could come out and shuck oysters, Miss Kentucky could strip tobacco, or Miss Arkansas could blow the governor.

What we really wanted to see eliminated though, much more than the swimsuits, was that big production number. Not wanting to send the audience home unsatisfied, we propose replacing it with something else. Like, oh I don't know...maybe strapping Miss Congeniality to a big rotating wheel and allowing blindfolded semifinalists to throw knives at her. Now THAT'S what I call talent.

I think for me, the most excruciating portion of the evening was Regis's interviews with the contestants in which they announce their "platforms." That's where, in anticipation of a year of important speaking engagements (at state dinners, mall openings, and the like) the show ponies get to expound on issues of importance to them-such as split ends, exfoliation, and silicone. No, just kidding...that would've been great though, wouldn't it? In reality, this year's issues du jour included snoozers like sexual abstinence (for) and juvenile crime (against).

As much as I kid the show, it really was good cheap entertainment (which probably isn't the first time that's been said about some of those contestants). And there's just nothing more romantic than a man who turns to you at the end of an evening of Miss America watching and says, "Honey, I know your platform would have been much better than those girls'." Romance that is in no way diminished by the fact that he's just trying to get you to dust off your old sword swallowing act.

The Facebook Movie: the Me Generation v. the iGeneration

2010-09-25T00:52:00.000-07:00

"I really think this whole performing thing is a way for me basically to just be myself...and have a microphone. To be myself, and be louder than anybody else in the room."

-- Lyle Lovett, 1992

"Facebook profiles are always something of a performance: you choose the details you want to share and you choose whom you want to share with."

--The New Yorker , 2010

Security was irritating at last night's screening of The Facebook Movie (the Social Network), precipitating an exodus out to the cars to stow the banned cellphones. Kids could've been emptying bags of syringes and spoons as long as the iPhones didn't make it in. "Here's your lighter, miss. And your pipe."

It wasn't a sell-out, but it was a good crowd -- filled with exactly the 20-somethings director David Fincher aimed for -- all batting their eyes a little at the late afternoon September light, still recovering from the afternoon when facebook crashed.

Sadly, the news had to break on Twitter that facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had just given the New Jersey public school system $100 million bucks. (PC Magazine -- and the ultimate Twitter Transparency Mayor Cory Booker -- suggests that Zuckerberg nearly made the donation anonymously. But it's hard to imagine Oprah standing for that. "YOU get an education! YOU get an education!" A commenter notes that it's like the "episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Ted Danson gets lots of praise for donating an art gallery wing 'anonymously' while Larry David is scorned because his donated wing had his name on it.")

It seemed cruel to deprive the audience of such a self-referential, self-aware movie an opportunity to discuss it while it played out in front of them. (If a tree fell...)

This is a movie made entirely, and expertly, by grownups Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) and Sorkin (A Few Good Men, West Wing) and to a great degree: for grownups. The hippest thing about it is Trent Reznor's score and Trent Reznor is what...46 now? The dialogue is smart, sharp, and sparkly -- and bears no resemblance to how Zuckerberg speaks in interviews -- you can't handle the truth? On paper (if such a thing still existed), it might be hard to imagine how a movie with long sequences devoted to coding -- and explaining coding -- could be riveting, but it is.

This movie is big and expensive and almost 80s-like. It's the Me Generation vs. the iGeneration.

It is all Wall Street (the original), not the handheld verite of the new indie facebook-preoccupied Catfish.

(The movie previewed the same night that Twit My Dad Says premiered on TV -- painfully illustrating that not all social-media stories or phenoms are transferable to the screen. The TV suits took a slight, modestly amusing twitter feed and tried to shoehorn it into the nearly-dead sitcom format, brought to you by KoMut "Will and Grace" Entertainment.)

The grownups seem a little angry. Much like the 80s. Even cocaine makes a comeback (at least for the Justin Timberlake Napster character, Sean Parker) ...just like the 80s.

Fincher, Sorkin, and Jesse Eisenberg (the Squid and the Whale), who plays Zuckerberg, go out of their way to "disclose" that they don't personally use facebook, and that it's immaterial to The Story (which is played out as half Shakespearean, and half courtroom drama, which has now been replaced by the new procedural: the deposition drama, where nothing ever actually gets to court).

Newsweek ("Friends Without Benefits") is pissed off because Facebook -- unlike the old HP/Intel/Apple days of Silicon Valley -- doesn't actually make anything. (In related news: GET OFF MY LAWN.) Plastics. Plastics. Their argument is, facebook isn't science and it doesn't solve problems. Elsewhere though, they turn in an elegiac rave review, quoting Thornton Wilder and the "typical American battle of trying to convert a loneliness into an enriched and fruitful solitude."

But facebook has made something -- and it isn't inherently good or bad -- it's a platform, a tool, a means for connecting, or not. The typewriter wasn't evil when it replaced the pen. The phone wasn't evil when it replaced door-to-door communication. In the early days, nobody wanted to be the douche who stood around Starbucks talking on his cellphone, but these are universal social network applications as well. (Just like everybody shuns the guy on Twitter or Facebook who always tries to sell you a house.)

As the New York Times review puts it, puts it, "Mark builds a database, turning his life — and ours — into zeroes and ones, which is what makes it also a story about the human soul."

###
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Archives. May 31. 2001. Whatcha Gonna Do, Moulin Rouge.

2010-09-20T06:01:00.001-07:00

COLUMN MAY 31, 2001

WHATCHA GONNA DO?

We were on our way to see Moulin Rouge (which I would characterize as visually dazzling rococo filmmaking surprisingly and yet effectively juxtaposed against conventional burlesque, play-within-a-play Noises Off-esque narrative) when I saw the flashing lights in the rearview and pulled onto a side street (overcome by a wave of panic-induced nausea).

"Do you know why I stopped you ma'am?"

I pondered several potential answers in the 5 seconds or so it took me to respond, the most obvious of which was, "because I drive a vehicle commonly and stereotypically favored by rappers and drug dealers and you don't think it belongs in this neighborhood, which explains why you let the Chevy Suburbans doing 65 in the right-hand lane cruise right by without so much as a second look, because THEY are the preferred vehicles of soccer moms, Martha Stewart, and the CIA."

That's not what I said though.

And my college-pal Bazz (who's a lawyer) confirmed for me later that the correct answer to ANY question posed by a police officer is NEVER, "because you're a racial profiler?"

So what I said, instead, was "No."

At which point I was informed I was going 40-something in a 30-something.

Whatever.

I gave him my license and registration and he headed back to his car (for an eternity).

At which point - trying to lighten the mood, I guess - my fellow cineaste joked, "Huh. Guess HE's not a big fan of your column?"

Which I countered with something vicious about the fact that if we'd taken his idiotic six-cylinder imitation toy car, we'd never have been stopped in the first place because it won't even GO 35.

I'm not usually so mean to him, but... well, that's not true. Sometimes I'm even meaner than that.

Then he wanted to know why I had LIED about why I was stopped.

I did NOT lie.

I did not know I was speeding, and for all I know, he could've been stopping us to see if we were wearing our seatbelts (we were).

Besides: I have 13 lawyers on my cellphone speed dial - all of whom would've crucified me if I'd answered ANY questions on any subject without a lawyer present... Duh.

Hop Sing suggested I should've responded with humor, along the lines of:
"because of the illegal drugs in the console?
the unregistered gun in the Kate Spade bag?
the pedestrian we ran over back on Main Street?
the expired tags?
...and finally,
because we stole this vehicle (from a drug-dealing rapper)?"

NONE of those things are TRUE of course - Hop Sing just has a vivid imagination (and poor impulse control).

The officer gave me all the paperwork to take to city hall and bid us a sarcastic good evening.

So we get to the movie; retrieve our tickets from my coworkers whom we'd sent ahead as scouts; and I promptly curl into a fetal position where I remained for the next two hours.

My date then went off to the concession stand and returned with approximately a bushel of popcorn and a what appeared to be a multi-litre keg of bottled water (approximately the same size as the kind you'd normally find attached to a water cooler) - positively elated that he'd scored this bounty for only a dollar more.

As I relayed this to Ouisie, she says this size obsession is common tribal behavior among the hunter-gatherers we know - as her betrothed has begun clipping coupons which lure him in with the promise of "buy ONE gallon of Picante sauce; get the SECOND gallon free!!" It seems to escape his notice that even if our entire social circle moved into a commune together and pooled our culinary resources - it would still take us the better part of a YEAR to consume ONE gallon of picante sauce, let alone two.

Anyway, the movie wound down more or less predictably (the narrator had already telegraphed the ending in the opening sequence - much like in American Beauty, except not). I hated it, and (as usual) my date loved it.

But as the denouement approached, he - worn to a frazzle by the middle-aged magpies sitting behind us who'd chatted throughout the course of the film - actually turned and SHUSHED them.

I was shocked (he is so passive he barely has a pulse). And aghast.

I was as annoyed as he was, but I'd had enough drama for one night, and I had no interest in him starting a fight I knew I'd have to finish. At the very least, I expected one or both of us to end up suffering a jaunty blow to the head.

In the event we had been hauled off to jail for assault, I was pretty sure I could take care of myself. At a minimum, I planned to swallow a razor blade wrapped in tape and then throw it up later to deal with the bulls and my fellow inmates. ('Cause that's just the kinda thing they teach you in the liberal arts.)

He, on the other hand, was sure to be somebody's bitch by morning. 'Cause I hear they like 'em pretttttty in Cellblock C. This is just one (of many) flaws I find in dating someone excessively prettier than I am.

Archives. May 24, 2001. Boys. Meat. Grill.

2010-09-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

ARCHIVES. COLUMN MAY 24, 2001

BOYS. MEAT. GRILL.

It's been a long time since I've been to a dinner party where the lack of ketchup was the biggest problem to be solved.

I hate to be sexist, but sometimes this is what happens when you leave the menu to men in their late 20s.

But I was just so relieved not to be THROWING last weekend's cookout, that if they'd put an elk knuckle in front of me, I'd have eaten it, and been glad to get it.

In fact, I pretty much weep with gratitude when someone says, "HERE's what we're doing this weekend," as opposed to "WHAT are we doing this weekend?" (Of course, that means you have to live with the consequences, and not bitch about it.)

I offered to help (and included an array of items I could provide), but quickly got an email back saying, "Whoa there little filly!! Cookouts are for the menfolk!"

Hmmmm.

I was dubious.

I've relaxed my standards a lot. But I still think a good party should LOOK easy. A good hostess should be able to breeze in with a tray or two of crab puffs, drape herself across the closest male companion, sip a martini, and be prepared to gracefully greet the guests within five minutes of the party's designated commencement.

A good social gathering should be what Bird is to jazz, what Pollock is to painting. Everyone should THINK "Hey, I could do that." And they should be wrong.

It's why I haven't personally enjoyed most of the big parties we've hosted this year - because I think once you've engaged the teamsters, the ATF, the ABC, and security - and you have ordered a sorority girl intern onto her hands and knees to scrub a urinal in a Banana Republic sundress, your guests have a pretty good idea that some EFFORT has been expended on their behalf, and their expectations are UP.

It definitely comes to no surprise to anyone who's ever been to one of my parties that I am NOT the gracious hostess I aspire to be. As the guests arrive, I'm usually the one with an amp under one arm, a case of bourbon under the other, while I bark obscenities into two cellphones.

So I was justifiably excited by the idea of going to someone ELSE's house and eating food THEY had prepared.

I wasn't stupid though.

I brought my own provisions (some nice boursin herb spread and Bremner wafers), and I knew Ouisie had picked up some Parrano cheese and French bread. At least we wouldn't starve.

And there our pathetic little offerings sat....in the middle of the coffee table, surrounded by what looked to be the slaughtered carcasses of a corral full of livestock.

The first course? Big hunks of charred andouille sausage with barbecue sauce.

Pretty soon the second course was ready to come off the grill: barbecued chicken.

"How're we going to serve this honey?" was the hostess's question to the host.

His answer "uhhhhh, on buns?"

The only green in sight was the grass under the grill (which didn't stay that color for long), and the closest thing to vegetation at all was.... coleslaw. (Which reminds me of a suburban seafood restaurant I recently went to with my friends Greg and Lesli - where apparently the trend is to EMBED a bucket in the middle of the table? I was mystified. Is it for the convenience of bulimic diners? Or is it there for a demographic survey - just toss in whatever you find objectionable and they'll adjust the menu accordingly?)

Anyway.

This being a gathering run by straight men, by the time we GOT to said second course, we WOMENfolk realized that it had somehow escaped everyone's notice that we might be, at some point, in need of.... utensils.... plates even.

I offered to 1. run to the grocery for picnic products, or 2. go back to my house and pick up my service-for-16 fiestaware, but eventually we scrambled together enough to get by. I, for example, dined on the special "collectors' edition" of Hercules plates. I think the sportwriters took all the Little Mermaid series before I could get to the table. (I asked the hostess if we could register for these at McDonald's prior to her upcoming nuptials.... which she did not seem to think was funny.)

The fourth course - dessert - was brought by a late arrival, who showed up carrying two six-packs of bratwursts under his arm.

(Later on, we had cupcakes, but I can't be sure they weren't stuffed with veal.)

We're having another cookout this Sunday, and I've learned my culinary lesson here. (For one thing, eat a late lunch.)

If it ain't on a stick, they probably ain't gonna eat it.

I'm making gazpach-sicles.

Archives. May 17, 2001. The BIRDS.

2010-09-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

COLUMN FROM MAY 17, 2001.

THE BIRDS

Last night, I was working late, standing by the copier when I look up and see a Chow-Chow running loose (but wearing a collar, making my odds at a rescue at least 50-50).

I (naturally) go running out into traffic to try to keep him from meeting a messy fate.

I should also mention that I'm wearing a little tobacco-colored AnnTaylor shift, pearls, and three-inch heels.
(The story's OK if you DON'T know what I was wearing, but it's better if you've got an image you can work with.)

At some point, it occurs to me that this is not safe or responsible behavior.

And this is around the time I start getting a LOT of heavy commentary from 1. guys in lowriders; 2. guys listening to rap music with blacked out windows (I couldn't catch all the lyrics, but I think they went something like this: "@#$% #@$% %$!! #$%&"): 3. drunks shuffling past (because it WAS cocktail hour), and 4. rednecks with Confederate flags in their trucks.

At almost all times, I am within sight of our building - but I somehow dimly realize it would take all of 4.3 seconds for any one of these guys to drag me into a car and flee the jurisdiction. (Plus I can see my coworkers already have their hands full with the schizophrenic who's screaming into the imaginary cellphone. They're probably going to be of limited assistance. Plus, unlike me, they are pacifists.)

I wonder briefly if I really have what it takes to slip off my sandal, plunge the heel into a guy's eye socket, withdraw it, slip it back on, and continue on my canine rescue mission of mercy without breaking stride. (I decide I do.)

Then I wonder where the hooker is who usually cruises the nearby bustop? I wonder if she'll think maybe I'm crowding her corner?

Ultimately, I gave up the chase, recognizing 1. its futility, and 2. an incipient cramp in my left thigh.

I'm tired. I'm hot. I'm sweaty. I'm despondent - because I haven't even achieved my goal which was to get the dog back to his owner (who is PROBABLY a drug dealer, not that I'm stereotyping).

I dejectedly head to the back of the building to burn a little more midnight oil. As I climb the stairs, I hear a commotion from the west wing.

Of course the place is deserted. The security system is off. And the building has been unlocked the entire time I've been chasing the dog.

Naturally, I do what they do in EVERY horror movie - which is to stride forth and recklessly OPEN the door to my office.

The source of the ruckus? (Ominous music would be good here.)

A roomful of BIRDS.

STRAIGHT out of Hitchcock.

I was, as you might guess, taken aback (i.e., I slammed the door, screamed, and went running up and down the halls EXACTLY like a cartoon character).

Of course my cellphone was trapped in my office (with the birds) and I no longer know any phone numbers by heart.

So I just (very sanely) decide to go door to door, up and down our street until I could find someone who'd help me.

That didn't go too well. Probably, (and here I'm guessing), because I'm imagining people heard me screaming and banging on their doors with both fists, and quickly and logically decided they wanted NO part of whatever was on the other side of THAT. ("Sell crazy somewhere else Sister," is most likely what they were thinking.)

Luckily, our neighbor (and good Samaritan), the appropriately named Carleton Wing was A. home, and B. willing to answer the door. Not only that, he was COMPLETELY nonplussed. Almost as if Tippi Hedrin pounds his door down everyday.

He told Ginger (his dog) he'd be right back. He walked into my office (whereupon I dramatically slammed the door and braced myself against it - as if he was going to TRY to escape, like in Young Frankenstein), and within minutes, had it calmly and peacefully cleared of all wildlife. I was imagining a scene right out of Snow White.

The staff has been busy speculating all day how I COULD have otherwise resolved this scenario (if Carleton hadn't been home), the most popular being the one where I SHOT the birds.

After dispatching them, I would've paged Gary (we call him the Wolf, but he's really our cleaning guy) whose first question would've been, "what time's your staff gettin' there? 30 minutes? Be there in 7," as we cut to a shot of him squealing up out front on two tires.

The next thing I could picture is him and his crew patiently cleaning all the gore off my walls, rolling their eyes, and musing aloud, with their usual long-suffering sighs of goodnatured resignation, "I'm not EVEN gonna ask how THIS happened."

Running Out of Food at a Party: Shame on My Family, the Sequel

2010-09-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

This picture, snapped by my BFF on Friday night, completely captures my response to every social gathering I've ever hosted, i.e., "WHERE'S MY FAINTING COUCH?"

I woke up to this facebook message from my husband-in-law this morning, "The only other things I need to accomplish this fall is our kitchen redo. Are you up for our annual Holiday Party. I've already been asked about it."

Of course I knew he'd been asked about it, because people were quizzing me about the date at a little gathering we had this past Friday, and I told them all, "go ask Joe.

Holiday parties are a LOT of pressure, and this one moreso, because last year, it was the first party -- in all my years of hostessing -- where I ran out of food. It might sound funny now (actually, it doesn't... too soon), but it was scarring at the time. To this day, I don't know if I underestimated the guest list or overestimated the food, or what -- but I do know that by 11 pm, my husband and husband-in-law were ordering pizza for all of us. It was mortifying (tasty, but mortifying). It is the party where I learned the expression it's like havin' a dove field, so I don't mean to imply the evening was a total loss.

Chef Baby Brother suggested at the time that I might as well move to New Jersey and start shopping for shrimp rings and Entenmann's coffee cake. I can't even repeat what my Mom said, but I think tears were involved.

It turns out, Joe shares his own burden of shame in that party because one of our best college buddies kept helpfully loading the dishwasher (and he kept going behind her unloading it, because the dishwasher doesn't work -- as far as I know, it's never worked -- it's more... sculptural).

It doesn't bother me, because, Social Hermit that I am, if I can get away with it, I will spend 100 percent of my time at every party in the kitchen washing dishes as opposed to socializing out front with the guests where I should be. I used to get in a lot of trouble at the McSwankertons in the 80s and 90s because their caterers did not like having me back there, so if they banished me to the front rooms, I would compromise by sitting on the floor in a corner and feeding the hosts' dogs straight from my plate. (That got me kicked off quite a few guest lists, and that was ok by me.)

This was my last message from Joe, "On my way to buy a dishwasher, new stove and a new fridge. All part of the kitchen redo which begins tomorrow. I wouldn't dare embarrass myself again with a fab party and a drab kitchen."

I told him to pick up a disposal while he's out. I have some cooking to do if I'm going to get this menu completed by Thanksgiving.

###

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Me and My Laptop

2010-09-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

I have not yet adjusted to having tech roommates at work. The other day I was complaining about the slow speed of the browser I'm forced to use, and why I don't like it, when they asked why I didn't just switch?

Welllllll, I explained (patiently... surely they knew this one?), because the other one is just too virus-friendly -- it's dominant, so all the viruses are written with it in mind.

"Whaddayou care?" they asked. "If you break it, we'll fix it. Big deal."

I had to let that sink in for a second. I have lived in fear of tech breakdowns for so long, I don't know how to live any other way. Til now, I've mostly considered my life with computers to be one long hostage crisis.

if you search "gerbil" by p10 you will hit Richard Gere

I don't know how they work and I really don't want to know. If they told me I needed to stop at the store and pick us up some more gerbils to run the little wheels that power the hard drives, that would not seem unreasonable to me. Sad for the gerbils probably, but not unreasonable for me.

I look around my desk at the giant shiny monitors, the glossy new modem and router, and mostly I just pet them, reassured by their glossy high-tech gleam.

My spirit has been bruised and battered and a long time healing, but after that comment, I think there will come a time one day soon where this is a fair representation of me and my laptop.

I am Oofie the Chimp.

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Things I Ate On Deadline

2010-09-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

"By the way, your food obsession is not as endearing as you think it is."

--30 Rock

When the BFF stopped by earlier this week, she mentioned something about rich-girl-fridge as she fetched a Diet Coke from the top shelf. I had to examine it more closely to see what she meant, and finally narrowed it down to these little blinis I found at the snooty-falooty store last weekend. I haven't eaten one yet, but will report back when I do. The rest of the contents were a bit of an admitted contrast -- like some very fauncy cheese a local chef had sent home with me from a wine tasting, right next to two jumbo bags of peanut M and Ms. There was a bag of "baby" (i.e., sawmilled/planed carrots) with a container of hummus; some boiled eggs (which were somehow going to pair with the blinis); and several containers of gorgonzola crumbles (because I'm apparently afraid of running out and just keep buying more; I'm not sure if I know when gorgonzola is spoiled?)

I was attempting to gear up for a long deadline week, more or less unsuccessfully. This was also a week with the parents in town, and I had warned them ahead of time there would be no cooking -- which meant I ended up eating a lot of whatever they left in the fridge.

With a few exceptions (fried green tomato sandwich with goat cheese from ChefTom), this week will not mark a culinary highpoint for me, and I feel the need to confess, because I certainly show no reticence when we're snobbing it up.

So, things I ate on deadline include, but are not limited to:
Sbarro's pizza (beloved by straight men everywhere -- it always reminds me of Kathy Griffin's ex-husband);
carry-out California Roll;
Tumbleweed Tacos from "Taco Tuesdays";
one bag of peanut M&Ms (one's left, but not for long) -- I rationalize that the peanuts are "protein," not "candy";
one "condiment cup" of Tumbleweed guacamole (they don't have "side orders" of guacamole, and you can't get them, at any price) with Xo-Chitl tortilla chips (THE best);
one container of Oatmeal Express, but not the Quaker brand (Mom was experimenting);
sour patch kids and beef jerky;
and a pint or so of tomatoes (as the season winds down) -- possibly the only non-processed thing I ate all week; and
peanut brittle (which I don't even like, but again, it's not like it's candy).

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The Best Book I Read This Summer: Life Would Be Perfect

2010-09-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

I read so many books this summer, so quickly, that it's hard to even keep them straight, but my favorite is Meghan Daum's, Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House.

It's probably because I moved this year that I just wanted to read things about moving. I started with her L.A. Times piece about selling her house and then I moved on to her book. It seemed everyone I knew was buying and/or selling this summer, and I sent the LA Times link out so many times, I lost track. I figured they could use the moral support from her common experience in real estate, "It meant the agents supplied an eye-pleasing duvet and matching pillow set that had to go on the bed every time they showed the house to potential buyers. It meant our own (apparently vile) pillows had to be stuffed into our cars because there was no way to cram them into the closet without breaking the illusion that our lives fit neatly into 890 square feet."

I still have her first novel, The Quality of Life Report (the main character names her dog Sam Shepard), and her collection, My Misspent Youth: Essays, should be handed out with the diplomas at any liberal arts college (she includes the essay on her site).

She's a little younger than I am, but I've watched her career for about a decade, impressed that she found a way to make a living as a writer, and sustain a primary relationship with the concept of "home," all without getting married or having children. (She has since gotten married, but looking at her moving day blog, it appears they're sticking with Rex, the sheepdog. No sign of any kids. At this point, maybe I ought to clarify that I'm not actually stalking her.)

In the book, she housesits at a cottage for a single girl in Venice, prompting this observation of single woman living behavior, "often this woman's furniture is made of wicker (not including the ubiquitous halogen torchiere lamp); other times it's composed of lightly stained pine of the sort that's frequently used for futon frames and collapsible bookshelves...The bad furniture is almost always provisional. As soon as true love -- and a corresponding mortgage -- are reeled in, the wicker and pine will be traded in for items from proper furniture retailers. In the meantime, however, the only things for which the single woman will willingly overpay are scented candles.She will have loads of them: fat and thin, pear scented and vanilla scented and 'rain' scented, in every imaginable color and shape." I have never had a futon. (I have had a candle.)

Her sense of details stick. Of one house hunting episode, she says, "If we had any questions, we could talk to the owners, who, contrary to custom, were actually on the premises. She then gestured to a stained orange couch on which three elderly people of questionable hygiene were staring into space smoking cigarettes, their ashes cascading around a glazed ceramic ashtray on the floor, sometimes landing in it. Sometimes not...The asking price on this house was $425,000."

Because I liked this book so much, I found myself constantly trying to repeat it. Next, I read All Over the Map by Laura Fraser. But I didn't get interested in it until, on page 231, she makes an offer on a house in Mexico that's "three and a half meters wide by fourteen long -- it has potential." By the time she hires an architect on page 249, I'm riveted. But by page 267, the book is over. All the reviews say it's a memoir from a 40-something travel writer and her experiences all over the world -- but to me, it's a book about how she re-built that house in Mexico. Smith Mag did an interview with her which actually talks about what the book is actually about. It turns out, Laura Fraser also has a blog, which is where I'm trying to see if she ever names that architect.

Then I read Sloane Crosley's How Did You Get This Number, which, again, I fell in love with on page 225, for the chapter "Off the Back of a Truck," which is nominally about a one-year relationship with a boyfriend who turned out to have never really left his girlfriend. It's a pretty spectacular story. But it's nothing compared to how she furnishes her apartment with ill-gotten gains off the back of a truck, from a store she refers to as "Out of Your League." In this chapter, she writes, " It's extremely rare to be alone in Midtown Manhattan outside of a post-apocalyptic film. Instead of the silence-inducing panic and an acute curiosity about the edibility of dog meat, it lends itself to everyone's favorite game: What If This Was My House? Often played at art galleries and upstairs bars, it also works for more unexpected spaces. Like botanical gardens. I know this fern terrarium is humid, but will you look at that light? Will you? Look at it. The third floor got a whole lot of light." What I wrote at the time was it's the best chapter you'll ever read about heartbreak and home decor. It's not a spoiler to reveal the last line of the book, "it was all just a bunch of somebody else's stuff."

Which brings me to, the last book I read on this topic, Brooke Berman's No Place Like Home: A Memoir in 39 Apartments -- which has a lot to do with moving, as the title would suggest, but which is also a memoir of coming to terms with her ailing mother; recovering from a rape; how she found her career as a New York playwright; and a conflicted relationship with a longtime on-off macrobiotic chef boyfriend in search of "enlightenment," to whom she tries to explain, "Where I come from, people don't live in vans." I was downright relieved to find her blog, where I learned she eloped last month, (and not with the guy who wanted to live in a van). I wanted a chapter that talked more about the late great Waldorf Hysteria ("tiny white retro kitchen table - a find!") and more about the time she spent temping at House and Garden/HG. It seems she would have been there during the Dominique Browning years -- and Browning wrote the last book about housing that I planned to read this summer but have not yet gotten around to, though I have checked in at her Slow, Love, Life blog. I'll get to it, probably on Kindle, but right now I have to fret about Brooke Berman, because on page 169, she says, "I buy myself a vanilla-grapefruit scented candle, which I set on the kitchen table..." and which makes me worry Meghan Daum is NOT going to be happy with her when she finds out about THAT.
------------------------
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Tamales and Tablecloths

No Place Like Home

Blurb Transparency

Julie Powell's Cleaving: NOT the Sequel to Julie and Julia

The Last Day of Summer

Critters in the Tomatoes

2010-09-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've been waiting on this particular tomato all summer [pictured left]. It's an heirloom breed I haven't grown before, and this particular plant only yielded a few blooms and this one tomato -- which I picked, with great enthusiasm, this morning. I love its beautiful heart shape, and when I saw the tiny seam running down the middle where it was just beginning to split, I was so relieved I had gotten to it in time. But, here's what I found on the other side [pictured right]. Something obviously got there first.

Now, here I am preparing to guard the crops until first frost.

------
You might also like:

The Last Day of Summer

A Few Words About Tomatoes

The Best BLT

Archives. June 17 2003. Car Trouble. Walkin' Tall

2010-09-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

I ran across this old column just as I was reading about Tim Gunn's spat with Anna Wintour, who reportedly isn't happy that his new book tells everyone about her having five men carry her down the stairs after a fashion show.
This column about an episode of car trouble reminded me that there is a print record making it clear that at least I never asked the Interns to do that.

ARCHIVES. June 17. 2003

Walkin’ Tall

…‘Cause all my cars they broke down, they layin’ in my front yard. I oughtta get one together Lord, but the work just seems so hard.
-Steve Young, in “The White Trash Song”

There are a few things worse things than car trouble—death, taxes, cancer...chiggers —but not that many. And as for alternate transport, the options are damn minimal.

While I applaud walking and cycling (in theory, and for other people), these are really not things that have ever caught on in my life.

Partly because I’m usually transporting heavy, bulky items that’d never fit on a set of handlebars and which are guaranteed to bust open if you drag them any distance… 40 pounds of dog food, dozens of bags of mulch, 48-pack “cubes” of Mountain Dew… those kinds of things.

Also, partly because I’m horribly out of shape—in fact, I got winded just typing that paragraph — but that’s really not the issue.

My neighbors, in their usual gracious spirit of kindness and generosity, recently offered to loan me one of their vehicles. But I couldn’t feel right about tossing giant bags of compost into the trunk of one of their exquisite cars. Also, I try not to drive anything that cost more than my house.

They’ve already gone far beyond ordinary neighborliness (I’m pretty sure they’re about one meal shy of declaring me as a dependant on their income taxes)—regularly mowing my yard and bringing me dinner after I work late, while my dog shamelessly imposes on their hospitality every chance he gets—darting through the fence uninvited so he can visit his “harem” (a smallish pack of all female Labs and an English sheepdog, which I think he sees as his very own Laker Girls). I strongly suspect that while I’m at work, he’s lolling about on their sofa in a smoking jacket while Josephine (the sheepdog) mixes dry martinis (she is English).

I’ve damaged their property values enough as it is, and I’m pretty sure it’s my house that’s responsible for their ant problem, since the little bastards showed up in my kitchen first. (It probably says something about our respective households that their ants march purposefully up and down the walls in well organized columns. You can practically hear them chanting “OOOO EEEEE Ohhhhhh” as they intently go about their work. Whereas the ants at my house mill about like a bunch of lazy anarchists, pausing only to cough and sputter on the rare occasions I can be bothered to launch a sporadic cloud of pesticide dust in their general direction—probably mutating the genes of everyone in a two-mile radius, but scarcely disturbing this breed of hippie ants in the slightest.)

Anyway. In the interest of harmony, I ultimately concluded it’d be very bad for my neighbors to come home to find one of their exquisite pieces of European automotive engineering wrapped around a telephone pole in their driveway.

Unwilling to avail myself of several incredibly generous offers of a loaner, my first thought was, obviously, a rickshaw… but as soon as the interns got wind of that, they threatened to go on strike if they had to tow me around town in one. After that spontaneous revolt, I pretty much knew there was no point in even bringing up the idea of a litter that they could carry me around on.

The first hint of all the vehicular travails to come was the weekend the Engine Light came on in my truck (oh how its mocking wink now haunts my every waking and sleeping moment).

I happened to be on my way to a movie with my gay husband that Saturday (he has all the escort and host duties of a real husband, but his conjugal preferences lie elsewhere) and we pulled into a full service station (where the gas is roughly $382 a gallon) so I could at least have the oil checked. (Yes, I know how to do that myself; I’m just too short to reach the hood without a stepladder. Also, I was wearing kitten heels.)

What annoyed me was the way the service station guy directed all questions to my male companion. Who I’m pretty sure doesn’t even know where the oil is, or what it does. (I bookmarked a website called “Lubrication: In theory and practice,” to send him, from Do It Yourself network — but I suspect it’s not what he thinks it is.)

I’m not disparaging his brilliance, mind you. He’s a doctor—and he’s definitely your guy in any sort of crisis involving say, a severed limb, a late night need for prescription pharmaceuticals, or perhaps common sense questions about which wine might best complement a mood elevator; to say nothing of what an absolute ROCK he was when I insisted I had a 24-hour case of “the SARS” — but practical things involving home or vehicle are not his forte.

So you can imagine the effort it took to restrain the guffaws when the Chevron man asked him “what weight?”

I suspect he was on the verge of telling him “about 160, but these Gucci jeans add ten pounds…” when I leaned over to order a couple quarts of 10W-30, and we were on our way.

The engine light stayed on all the way home, and with no time to hunt up a new mechanic (who’ll deign to work on American-made cars), I just parked the 3-ton piece of now-useless yard art out front and switched over to my emergency backup vehicle, which is my 15-year-old Toyota from grad school. I’ve never had the heart to part with it, since I define it as the ultimate in luxury vehicles, in that, it’s paid for.

I tooled around for days and sanctimoniously touted my new environmental consciousness (at about 38 miles per gallon) to anyone who’d listen—until the clutch went out later that week, at the precise moment I happened to be driving up the Broadway hill at Rupp Arena (causing me to slide precipitously backward and nearly into the lap of some soccer mom in a Lexus SUV, whose expression clearly indicated that she had neither the time nor inclination to swat a nuisance like me off her windshield should I land there, marring her view).

That left me with no wheels, relying on the kindness of strangers, caught up in what could only be described as a mobius strip of despair for someone as cheap as I am (why would anybody sink $350 of repairs into a car that’s barely worth twice that? On the other hand, where’s the mechanic who’s willing to lift the hood on three tons of Detroit steel for a penny less than $437,000—and that’s just diagnostics. I hear it’s more if they actually fix it.)

My Ex suggested I just swipe a shopping cart from the grocery near my house, and use it to cart around my cargo, but I pointed out, A. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal, and B. the sight of me pushing a shopping cart filled with dog food up and down my street might be the straw that finally breaks the back of my Neighborhood Association.

So if you see me on the side of the road with my thumb extended, I’m actually (probably) not making an obscene gesture.

I just need a lift.

Archives. August 2002. Batteries Not Included

2010-09-09T16:14:00.000-07:00

After a long week in the office with my new high-tech roommates, I am finally getting the hang of just how much they're changing my life for the better. This is one of the archives they rescued from the Wreckage. It's the first real light I've seen at the end of the long, tech tunnel since the day the hard drive crashed because this particular column was really, truly, buried. The file wasn't named correctly and it's about ten years old. If they found it, there are probably others.

You are NOT supposed to take pictures in this store.

I was just thinking of this column as I re-visited this particular store this past weekend with a girlfriend. Because of this first visit, documented here, I was proudly able to steer her in the correct directions, though I'd obviously become more jaded and practical with age, cautioning against the body stocking (it will just get tangled), and barely flinching when I heard the word "antibiotic" exchanged between two other customers shopping one row over from us. I was able to recommend the appropriate anti-bacterial cleaner she would need for her "appliances" (before the clerk could upsell her), and I was also able to warn her in advance that the salesgirl would be opening up her purchases and testing the batteries. (They look just like waiters with the peppermills and the universal motion for "say when," as they push every button. Waiters in surgical gloves.)

Batteries Not Included

“I miss nothing by not dating a lot. If I was dating, I’d still be single. I’d have just spent a lot of bad nights at Tony Roma’s.”
—Gilmore Girls

I thought I was pretty much embarrassment-proof, or at the very least, not-easily-shocked… until I went toy shopping at an “adult” toy store last week.

It wasn’t my idea. It was my insignificant other’s (whom, it should be pointed out, is a little lazy, and was in search of something to lighten his “workload”).

I’m sure most couples probably do the shopping together for this sort of thing — to get into the spirit — but we both have jobs. We’d be lucky to get enough time to find a use for the toys; if we had to coordinate a shopping trip, it’d never happen.

I’d been to this store before, of course — for staff Gift Cards at Christmas (I’m a coworker who can be counted on for gifts that keep on giving) — that’s when I found out that they don’t take checks, and I got stuck using my Mom’s Visa which was in my purse because of some shopping excursion she’d sent me on for scrapbooking supplies at some MarthaStewart sale — and then I had to explain it to her, before the bill arrived. (It’s a testament to her easygoing Episcopalian nature that she thought the whole thing was funny.)

But I hadn’t been toy shopping at this place, just a quick in and out (as it were).

My friend Pothead Paul had endorsed this store as “the Disneyland of Porn” and had assured me it was clean, well-lighted, with wholesome and helpful staff. I think maybe he even said there was an old fashioned soda fountain in the back (or maybe I imagined it, thinking it lent whole new meaning to egg cremes and soda jerks).

So, after his assurances, I hadn’t even felt compelled to invent much of a cover story (I figured I was “shopping for a shower gift” if I had to ask for assistance and the topic came up), but the toy aisle was helpfully marked, and conspicuous in its domination of inventory.

The array was dazzling.

Dizzying if you ask me.

Because of the sheer volume, it was difficult to distinguish between the vibrating appliances (which we wanted) and the more “life like” prosthetics (which we did not).

My eyes were glazing over in confusion when I finally spotted “The Rabbit” — at last a name I recognized. It should’ve actually been labeled with “as seen on Sex & the City.” (It only dates us to reminisce aloud that we all remembered the episode where Charlotte got addicted to her Rabbit and refused to leave the apartment, but we do.)

Admittedly it was tough to make out the fine print without my reading glasses (vanity and self-respect had to kick in at some point), but honestly, the bunny just looked too complicated — multiple features, buttons, switches, lights, and (I think) even a remote control (how lazy do you have to be?). Plus, the Calvinist in me just refused to pay $99.99 for the lucky little lapine (though the REAL Calvinist in me would’ve never even been caught dead in the neighborhood, except to eat at the conveniently adjacent Cracker Barrel — which probably gives the senior tourists something amusing to do while they wait for their hash brown casserole).

There were other impressive specimens too — one with a kickstand and shoulder mount comes to mind — but really, as my partner in crime pointed out, we needed to walk before we could run, and something with training wheels seemed more appropriate (I also think he just didn’t want the competition — I said he was lazy, not stupid).

I finally settled on a plain vanilla model (no bigger than a slim, discreet flashlight), and a pair of faux fox fur mittens (an impulse buy which helped conceal the rest of the merchandise), and headed to the checkout.

Where a line began to form behind me.

And then the interrogation began.

For the number of questions involved, you’d have thought I was trying to get on a plane with the thing or something.

First up, did I need the accompanying anti-bacterial cleaner for my “appliance?”

Hmmm.

Hadn’t thought of that.

Anything that needs thoroughly sterilized at my house (like my garden tools, for example) just goes in the top rack of the dishwasher. That didn’t seem right though (and if it had, I suddenly foresee a lot of rejected dinner invitations to my house).

So, Yes, I allowed — as much as I hate upselling — I guess I did need the anti-bacterial.

Now. Would I be “needing batteries?”

Well, again, the Calvinist part of my soul was sure they’d be cheaper at Rite Aid, but somehow the 480 percent mark up of 15 bucks for a pair of double As seemed suddenly justifiable in the name of one-stop shopping.

As the line behind me got a little more impatient, I began to breathe a sigh of relief, sure I was almost out the door.

Then the cheery co-ed salesgirl grabbed the hard plastic clam shell of the toy packaging and, before I could realize what she was doing, much less stop her, ripped it open, proclaiming without a trace of self-consciousness, “we have to test your toys before they leave the store because of our No Returns policy,” and in one skilled practiced move she had slipped on a pair of latex gloves, installed the batteries, and was looking for the on-switch.

Now.

I see what they mean about the No Returns policy. It strikes me as highly reasonable, advisable even. (I can get why they don’t take checks either.)

But that did nothing to ameliorate my horror as she clicked it on and it came skittering and skipping across the counter toward me (sorta like those dancing wind-up teeth with feet?) — while everyone in line behind me shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. Even the guy with the 70s porn ‘stache looked embarrassed on my behalf.

After everything was determined to be in working order, she unassembled it all just as quickly, like a marine efficiently breaking down his rifle, and slid it back in the bag. (I half expected a sing-song “I don’t know but I been told…” sound-off refrain.) Then she reached under the counter, grabbed another appliance that looked almost identical to the one I’d just bought and tossed it in, adding “here, these are free.”

I thought several things.

Like, why did I just pay good money for one if they’re free?

Or, did I seem like a two-toy twin-fisted kinda gal to her? (I would’ve thought the Elizabeth-Arden red of my face would’ve given me away as a novice.)

And, finally, I thought, if the gals at the Clinique counter came up with THIS kinda “gift with purchase” I would spend a lot more time at the Mall, and buy a LOT more of their “all about eyes” serum.

A Perfect Potato. A Perfect Egg.

2010-09-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

When I talk about the joy of cooking, I'm often surprised by how many people who say they don't know how. And I shouldn't be, because it isn't a skill I was somehow genetically infused with -- I learned -- like anyone else. I had many good teachers, and I had a lot of trial and error.

The simplest things often came the hardest for me. For example, the humble baked potato. By the time I got to college, the hideous trend of microwaving them was catching on, so I just stopped eating potatoes. (I wasn't an Animal, for chrissake....which reminds me....)

Since today is Rosh Hashanah, I am thinking of one of my first culinary mentors, my former colleague and friend Joanie Abramson -- who taught me the perfect hollandaise, mouth-watering brisket, and that it was both acceptable and preferable to eat asparagus with one's fingers (as long as it's not sauced).

I often asked if I could just "apprentice" in her kitchen, and over the course of many holidays and cookouts and river trips, she graciously did take me under her culinary wing.

She also taught me how to make the best baked potato ever. I watched her do it repeatedly, but insisted she let me write it down. "Oh Buffffffffffffff, she'd say, it's a Potatooooooooooooooo." But finally she got out a post-it note and scribbled this down:

Wash. Butter. No fork.
425 degrees.
For 30 minutes.
THEN fork it.
Then 15 to 30 minutes more.

That post it has held a place of honor on the inside cupboard of every house I've lived in since then: first Hanover, then Clay, then Marquis, then back to Clay.

The second thing she taught me was the perfect hard-boiled egg. (Go with farm-fresh and you'll alleviate the guilt + fear that the poultry system can outrun your immune system: it can). Mine were always runny, or developed a green ring around the yolk.

put the water on to simmer,
and put your eggs in a big bamboo spider under hot running tap water,
to temper them (so they won't crack).
Ease them into the water which should, by now, be a simmer-to-boil.
As they boil, turn off the water.
Cover.
Let sit for twelve minutes in their hot water bath.
Then peel.
The yellows will be bright gold, but not runny, with no green tinges.

You might also enjoy:

The Last Supper

A Taste of Romance, with Potatoes Anna

The Sombre Frittata

Smuggles at the Movies

In Rejection

Everybody deserves their own Personal Joanie.

It's Like they KNOW Me

2010-09-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

No one has more healthy respect and fear than I do for the web's ability to scan and know our every preference before it has even reached the conscious level.

But even I was taken aback by this email I just received at the Office, in the work inbox -- where I never order anything pink, of any kind -- from a party outlet store I have never heard of, much less shopped at, in person or online.

Vosges Bacon Chocolate

2010-09-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

No one was sadder than I was when bacon jumped the shark. For me, it happened on December 9, 2009.

It's been a few years now since it went from an acceptable religion to passe. It was just ten short years ago when my office crew chipped in and got me Bacon of the Month Club for my birthday, but it feels like yesterday. Hop Sing was ordering me bacon-tinis more like twelve years ago.

Fashionable or not, the taste hasn't changed, so when my BFF asked which Vosges chocolate I wanted her to bring back from Chicago, bacon was still the obvious choice.

I'm eating it now (was there any doubt?) and it's a salty-savory-sweet combo that's a lot like fleur de sel ice cream (which I love, and I don't even care about ice cream) -- applewood smoked bacon + Alder wood smoked salt + chocolate.

My only criticism -- if you could call it that -- is that when you open it up, it smells just like beef jerky.

I haven't tasted much of the bacon bandwagon as it's been applied to the candy market, but dialing back on the "smoked" component might take care of that.

I have now segued into the Naga Bar (haute chocolat): sweet Indian curry powder, coconut flakes, deep milk chocolate. I consider coconut a major food group, so this works well for me. Just enough heat without being overbearing -- almost like a slightly Asian/Indian influenced mole.

The Last Day of Summer

2010-09-06T15:59:00.000-07:00

My Favorite Photo from This Summer

"I'm beginning to think that the secret to happiness is to befriend those who can cook and [who] enjoy entertaining."

--author Kyra Davis on Twitter

"Packing up. Summer officially over for us. All the things I said I'd do are left undone."

--Judy Blume on Twitter

As a kid, I would write at least ten times as much as the other kids when we were assigned "what I did on my summer vacation" essays. They would turn in a page each, maybe, whereas I would turn in a crudely-crafted book, subdivided into smudged makeshift chapters: Here is where I went; this is what I read; these are the movies I saw; here's a list of my new records; and This is What I Ate.

This summer, I did not finish the book that was scheduled to come out October 1. It is highly unlike me to miss a deadline, but this is the year the hard drive crashed. I'm trying to let that go.

I went to my first baseball game this summer. The pink bat is definitely the best part.

maybe a third of the books I read this summer

I read a lot of books this summer, I just didn't write any. Some I've mentioned, some still merit their own posts. About half of these would've been fine on Kindle. My two favorites, so far are, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House and the "Off the Back of a Truck" chapter of How Did You Get This Number.

It was a terrible summer for movies. (See also: The American, or better yet: Don't.) I liked two: Please Give [Blu-ray] and The Kids Are All Right.

I moved.

I had a lot of company, which inspired me to be a little more socially organized. One houseguest insisted "just do what you would do if I wasn't here" -- but I had to admit that, left to my own social devices, that would consist entirely of a Closer marathon.

I had a brief and minor summer Romance with a sweet guy where we both just sort of ...drifted off. He doesn't live in my neighborhood. He isn't on facebook or twitter, which I love -- but if it wasn't for a couple pictures in the blackberry, it means I would almost swear I hallucinated him. He said and did only nice things to and for me -- all things that made my life easier and not harder, without one second of drama (unless you count the time Lowe's was sold out of the particular garden hose we went shopping for) -- so I am counting him in the Success column. He was almost crazy-big and strong, and beyond good-natured -- repeatedly lifting very heavy things for me and putting them down right where I asked him to, so I will always remember him fondly ("Up, Guenther. Up!")

More significantly, I finally found a sofa, or more accurately, a sofa found me. That means, over the course of an entire summer, one room is finished at the new place. One. Still, if my cousin is to be believed, it is the sort of room straight men everywhere dream about.

I grew a decent tomato and basil crop, despite the drought. The tomatoes turned all of us into farmers this year. Harriette turned to me at a birthday dinner a few weekends ago and sighed, "I still have to pick tonight, do you?" Yes, I do too, I said. It's like we all agreed to take a second job this summer, and that job was tomatoes. Not that we take them for granted. It's a safe bet we'll all be reminiscing fondly about them at the next New Year's Potluck.

I killed off everything else, including the late great lemon thyme. R.I.P.

Despite ambitious plans, I did not accomplish one sprig of non-edible landscaping -- not one hosta, not one lily.

That makes it the summer of slack.

The Lemon Thief: Moral Relativism at the Disco Kroger

2010-09-06T08:50:00.000-07:00

I refuse to use the U-Scan at the Disco Kroger for one simple reason: I don't work for Kroger. I think if they want me to bag my own groceries, they should pay me. Next they'll be asking me to mop the floors.

But I may be rethinking my position now that I've learned that "some people I know" have occasionally used the U-Scan to beat the system. To right the scales of justice and stick it to The Man. For example, if they go in to buy avocados or peppers or (just for an example, say, lemons) and the regular versions are sold out or damaged, they get the organics, and ring in the regular price. (In my mind, they look exactly like Michael Douglas in Falling Down when they do this.)

Michael Douglas in Falling Down

This struck me as "sheer genius" while it struck others as "stealing."

Dozens of rationalizations immediately sprang to my (obviously criminal) mind.

For one thing, Kroger constantly overcharges me. And I do mean constantly, as in, practically every time I have more than a dozen items and lose track of them ringing me up.

For another, their increasing reliance on U-Scan infuriates me. I can't count the number of times I've gone in to shop and those lanes were the only ones open. They're happy to install a "Bull" or a "Screw" (as I believe they're known in prison-speak) to stand at the end of the U-Scan to ensure nobody pockets a lime. If they have time to stand there and monitor you, they could just as easily be operating a register. I either make the Bull check out my stuff, or I park my basket at the entry to the self-serve lane and abandon it in protest.

And, finally, if they want to make self-serve available to those who prefer it, great, but they should compensate those shoppers for doing their job for them. Make everything in that line, say, half off.

My mastermind pals made it clear that they only engage in this savvy (or questionable, depending on your point of view) practice, on A. items they ring in themselves (like produce), and B. items where the price difference is negligible. They'd draw the line at, for example, organic beef. That would seem wrong. (Also, it would be easier to be busted on scanned items that are clearly packaged, whereas one head of broccoli pretty much looks like another head of broccoli.)

What I wanted to say was: Teach Me.

But what we all know is, I am not cut out for this -- not because of any overriding moral compass -- but because I absolutely can not learn how to operate one more piece of technology. The Kindle has overloaded my circuits and I'm contemplating an iPad for my birthday. There is no room for anything else.

In my mind, I already look exactly like Yul Brynner in Westworld.

Yul Brynner in Westworld

The Worst Movie I Saw This Year: the American

2010-09-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

Until today, the worst movie I saw this year was Dinner for Schmucks. And it was bad. Relentlessly awful. Of course, plenty of people steered clear of it because of the theoretically nasty premise -- invite the biggest loser to dinner and mock him -- but that could have worked. The 1991 River Phoenix/Lili Taylor indie Dogfight had a similarly cruel plot line -- marines compete to bring the ugliest girl to a dance before they ship out to Vietnam -- but it ended up being a good, small movie.

Others stayed away because the marketing campaign suggested typical summer guy comedy -- but The Hangover was one of last year's better movies, so that argument didn't hold up. It turned out to be a terrible movie for none of those reasons; it was just an especially miserable American idea of French farce. It's true there's no accounting for tastes, and I would hate farce under any circumstances -- it would never be anything I would find funny -- but it would be hard to imagine anyone could have been amused by that movie. Nothing about it worked, and it wasn't just lost in translation.

Although it's obviously a different kind of movie, The American fails in some of the same ways...before spectacularly veering off to new and unexpected depths of epic failure that are difficult to find in any kind of movie. (This would typically be the correct point to insert a spoiler alert, but really, if anything said here can persuade you not to see either of these movies, keep reading.)

It certainly feels European in that slow, plodding, pretentious manner that you wouldn't typically expect outside of an arthouse indie with subtitles. Lots of time is spent ordering and contemplating coffee, in Italian. There are long, lingering, symbolic shots of lambs. Just in case you missed the symbolism (innocence, sacrifice, etc.), mutton stew turns up on a plate in the very next scene.

And in case you don't get the obvious stylistic references to Sergio Leone (the guns, the shootouts) ... there is an actual Sergio Leone movie playing on a tv screen in a coffee shop. And in case you didn't get that... a character helpfully points out to our hero/assassin George Clooney, "Sergio Leone...Italian." And by the end of the movie, there is an actual Sergio Leone shootout, which is all but footnoted in subtitles. And in case you missed any of that, poor George Clooney wields an actual sledgehammer in his little DIY gun shop, timed to coincide symbolically with the loud peal of a church bell. But wait, couldn't we get a butterfly in there somewhere? Why yes. Yes, we could.

Catholic imagery and icons pop up everywhere, and not just the storyline with the priest (which goes nowhere more scandalous than a harmless Thornbirds-esque revelation) -- one, of maybe 732 red herrings that just gasp and flop around. (It doesn't help that the priest is virtually unintelligible, and bears an uncanny resemblance to Rodney Dangerfield.)

There's even a "pro-cess-i-Ohn" led by a statue of the blessed virgin that even Francis Ford Coppola would reject as too over the top for the Godfathers. Get it? It's a morality play. See, there's crime and sin and there's redemption. There are curvy naked women (who've clearly never visited an American gym), so see! See how they can free their sexuality and those pendulous, pendulous udders. Madonna/Whore/Madonna/Whore. My sister/my mother/my sister/my mother. Even the most devoted straights will be sick, sick of bare breasts by the end of this movie.

Clearly, director Anton Corbijn has no fundamental understanding of Chekhov's gun, beyond any literal interpretation that would entail Clooney taking that gun and beating someone to death with it. (The shady mechanic? Forget about him.Why do we meet the hooker's girlfriend? Why not?. How and why is somebody killing hookers? Don't know. Doesn't matter. Who are The Swedes? Who cares?)

In the end, we know that the girl assassin works for "the ....same...man...as....you...." death rattle, death rattle, rattle, rattle. Snipers typically call those bullet-through-the-brain kill shots for their eloquently descriptive characteristics. One rarely lingers past a kill shot long enough to choke out "The Moral of the Story."

Aren't we all working for the same man? Really. It's Clooney. There must be a political nuance.

At this point in the narrative, we were just praying for Clooney to package her head in a box and hand it off to Kevin Spacey so he could drive into the desert and hand it to George's buddy Brad Pitt.

Remember Kubrick explaining the desolation on the streets of New York as part of the intentional stylized affect he was going for on Eyes Wide Shut? And how that "affect" was mostly his lazy indulgence in refusing to leave England long enough to make a damn movie, with the unfortunate consequence that the "New York skies" shot on London soundstages for Eyes Wide Shut, looked suspiciously like "the city of Hue skies" in Full Metal Jacket. That's not "eccentric," it's just self-indulgent.

And this is too. Corbijn is to be faulted far more than Clooney. He directed the thing right into the ditch. Although Clooney does need his mouth smacked in his clear bid to attain the Oscar for "most tensely chewed gum by a lead actor in what should've been a $28 buck foreign language entry." Who does he think he is? Billy Jack?

As arted and tarted up as this movie is -- from Focus Features, no less! (the guys who brought you Brokeback Mountain!) -- Corbijn needs to spend a long weekend with Jason Statham and the first Transporter movie. Let that bring him down to earth a little.

Then make him watch Taken, with Liam Neeson, so he can figure out that while sometimes less is more, sometimes it's just less. Taken was a throwaway January release with Liam Neeson as a guy who kills people for a living (in a slightly more sanctioned governmental role), and he's delightful at it. Plus he never chews gum at any point in that 92 hours. And he delivers the movie's best line in context -- you just have to watch it to see why it works -- "apologize to your wife for me."

Would this movie have been as bad if Liam Neeson or Jason Statham had starred? No. It would've been marginally better (but still hard to watch). Not because they are better than Clooney, but because less is expected of them. If an indie band in Omaha sends you a bad CD from their mom's basement, that hardly merits a review, or even a comment. If Radiohead puts out a failure, that's news. Clooney is a movie star, not just an actor, and this movie is too slight a vehicle for him, or anyone else. He has done perfectly good Actor turns (Up in the Air, Syriana), so this is especially disappointing. It's fine that he doesn't feel compelled to deliver Ocean's 27 every time at bat, but if he's going to make Art, it should at least be Art, not a straight-to-DVD poser that would be justifiably ignored if it was anybody but him in it.

It's hard to say this out loud, but this movie is even worse than eat, pray, love -- but they are awful in some of the same ways. By and large, it is not interesting to watch people think for vast, uninterrupted expanses of time. It just seems more plausible when Clooney does it than Julia Roberts.

Fans have long said they would pay to watch George Clooney read the phonebook. They just about get it in this -- see how you feel watching him contemplatively drinking his seventh cup of coffee or hammering his 28th nail.

From the Archives. November 2008. Lenny Briscoe, Represent. Step up to the Wu.

2010-09-02T01:38:00.000-07:00

Now that I can remote into my office from anywhere in the world, I can fish a few more columns out of the wrecked archives when I have a few minutes and continue the process of loading them here. This was an episode where the TiVo busted and I simultaneously came down with food poisoning. It wasn't pretty.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: November 2008

Lenny Briscoe, Represent. Step Up to the Wu.

"We all know that cash rules everything around us; cash, green, get the money, dollar dollar bill y'all. That's why it's time to enter the 36 chambers and step to the Wu."

—Wu Tang Financial, Chappelle's Show

I woke up on election day with a busted TiVo. As usual, I went to Fast Forward through the bitter, inane, insulting campaign commercials, and…nothing happened. I aimed the remote again. I jabbed the button really HARD for emphasis. Nothing. Impotent! No pause. No rewind. Just live television. In real time. Like. An. Animal. Every box I clicked said, “call your Cable Provider....”

Oh and I did. You betcha I did.

I went to work, and Rodney the Cable Guy called my cell a few hours later. (I don’t like to brag or anything, but....I’ve never waited at home for the recommended 12 hour window. Good ol’ Rodney’s been takin’ care of my box for the last 10 years or so; he knows all my numbers. And henknows I will levitate home to meet him if I have to if it means he can get the cable back before Martha Stewart comes on at two.)

"Protect yo Knight, Bitch." (WuTang Financial)

As he autopsied the box, I knew it was just a matter of time before he admitted the inevitable: it couldn’t be saved. Sure, he’d get me a new one. But the memory—and the memories—would be gone. Could I be sure I would ever retrieve“WuTang Financial” (“protect your knight bitch”) or “white people dancing” from Chappelle? What about my 13 episodes of Yoga Zone (Lime TV isn’t even ON anymore)? Where I will find my Fine Living archives of Dwell Magazine on TV?

Season One of Mad Men? The season 2 finale of 30 Rock? (Yes, I could get the DVDs, but that piece of crap broke a long time ago and I refuse to buy a new one until they swear they won’t invent another thing. I barely resolved VHS or Beta in time for everyone else to fight out Blu-Ray vs HD. You’ll take my 8-tracks when they pry them from my cold dead hands.)

How long would it take me to rebuild?

Rodney installed the new box, and I began the resurrection immediately. I wasn’t picky either. Oprah. The View. Season Passes. Gilmore Girls (at 5, not 11). And of course, the election coverage. Insomniacs know how to hedge desperation. One way or the other, there would always be something on.

Until I got home from work the next day and…there wasn’t. Just another message that said “call your cable operator.”

This time, they sent Doug.

what's left of Cable Guy

Doug’s a good man, but he’s no Rodney.

He didn’t even try to save my election coverage, my paltry episode of Dirty Sexy Money. He went right to the truck; came back with the new box; installed it; and left after showing me only one short-cut feature.

I played with the new buttons for a few minutes and then realized something wasn’t right. Was this box busted too? Was it the tv? Noooo…I was actually dizzy. The room was spinning, and my neck got clammy. Was I taking this harder than I thought?

I had a brief few moments to curse the very existence of Mediterranean food before I was quickly treated to a repeat viewing of the carryout dinner I’d picked up a few hours before. Followed fairly quickly by lunch.

Then breakfast. Then, maybe....was that a candied apple I’d had sometime around Halloween?

In between heaves, I grabbed some pillows, and a comforter, and bedded down on the bathroom floor. (Relax, it’s VERY clean.)

I put on some music and turned it up so the hot sorority girls next door wouldn’t hear me retching and call for an ambulance. Or an Exorcist. Though I kept thinking around 3 am, surely all the Evil had been expelled. I was up at 3 a.m., because even the AMBIEN wouldn’t stay down. The next day dawned with little improvement and I began to cancel things.

Work. The Girls’ Night Dinner Party I’d been planning for weeks.

I couldn’t think clearly, except to admire how lean and taut my stomach muscles were beginning to feel, though I dimly realized that throwing up won’t get you to a six-pack the way say, Pilates, might.

I posted a few facebook entries, a few micro-blogs. I dozed in and out of consciousness. I awoke to the online social circle’s diagnosis that I probably didn’t have food poisoning; it was probably the stomach bug that was going around. (One girl had thrown up four times standing in line to vote. Now THAT is democracy. Though I’m glad she doesn’t live in my precinct.)

When I wasn’t any better the next day, after much agonizing, I asked a friend to drop off supplies. I have a hard time asking anyone to go to the grocery for me. First, the front door to the store is about 100 steps from my front door. That’s just lazy. Second, a grocery list makes me realize how high maintenance I am, and wonder that I have any friends at all. I know that beggars can’t be choosers, but I can’t help myself.

“Wellllll, I need applesauce, but it has to be Mott’s. And it can’t be in a jar, it has to be in those lunchbox size kid packs. I need ginger ale, but it has to be in glass bottles, not plastic. And it can’t be Canada Dry, it has to be Schweppes [though honestly, I think everybody already knows that]. And I need bananas, but....”

Plus, I can’t really stand anyone to be around me when I’m sick, so she basically came in, unpacked enough rations to stock a smallish third world hospital; stored cold spoons in the fridge for me for the Jell-O (don’t ask me why; cold spoons seemed VERY important to me at the time); and skittered right out in a hasty = retreat. I think I said, “go! Save yourself!” before I collapsed in a nap on the kitchen floor, but I don’t remember much beyond making really disgusted faces over the PediaLyte Pops.

When I woke up the next day with a stiff neck (meningitis, I was pretty sure), I gave in and started googling all the medical websites— something I NEVER do, because I’m not ALLOWED to. Whatever I read, I catch.

If I watch an episode of House devoted to a rare form of prostate cancer, I will have every symptom by the end of the show.

But I was beginning to think this wasn’t Normal.

What I discovered was: there is no such thing as the stomach “flu”—if it’s “influenza,” it’s respiratory. WebMD confirmed pretty much what I already knew which is that I’ve never even met anybody who’s had “the Flu.” What everybody gets is a COLD, and they say Flu, because it’s more dramatic.

And then they take antibiotics (which have no effect on ANY viruses), because…they
are stupid. And THAT is why we now have resistant SuperBugs. And that's why we're all goonna die.

What I had was ordinary, garden variety “gastroenteritis.” I wouldn’t die, I’d just bemthirsty, though I should go to the E.R. if I developed “neuro” symptoms, like “dizziness” (who doesn’t get dizzy when they don’t eat for three days?)

I crawled back in bed with a Law & Order marathon (there hadn’t been enough time to amass much else), and figured I should take comfort in attaining my goal weight without bothering to develop an eating disorder.

From what I learned while bedridden, it seems the new TiVo will record TWO shows at the same time while allowing you to WATCH a third. Maybe it’s even time to think about Blu- Ray…Or am I still hallucinating? ■

12 ACE November 13, 2008
COLUMNS.
Lenny Briscoe, Represent
Reality Truck

Let's Take the Long Way Home

2010-09-01T17:02:00.000-07:00

I started this new book today -- the first physical book I've opened since the Kindle came to live here on Saturday. I read the NYT Review and excerpt on Sunday. In it, writer Gail Caldwell writes about her BFF, writer Caroline Knapp (who wrote Drinking: A Love Story), who died of lung cancer.

I didn't know it was an Oprah-approved title until I got it (or I might have harshly pre-judged it), but I'm still looking forward to a book about two writer BFFs and their dogs.

I'm only one chapter in, but I have to admit I was irritated -- irritated! -- when I had to get up and walk into another room to find my highlighter (I thought I had really arrived in this century when they started pre-loading the barrels of highlighters with post-it flags), like an Animal.

After one weekend, I've already gotten used to the Kindle's highlighting and tagging feature (though I should also disclose, I haven't gone back to look up any of those marked passages yet).

For both Kindle and a book, I still have to turn on a lamp, which supposedly reduces iStrain, but I'm beginning to think that's why God made iPads.

Playing with my Google

2010-08-31T16:08:00.000-07:00

posted by my gay husband today

"We're huge in Belgium."

-- Matt Dillon, playing Cliff, front man for Citizen Dick, in Singles

Today I decided to go down the rabbit hole of who's reading this blog, and when, and from where after my gay husband posted this picture from Greece, where he's vacationing with my gay husband-in-law.

I like the picture, because I think it makes me look like I took up languages this summer.

Then I started poking around. It turns out, he's not the first or the only reader in Greece. And apparently, I'm big in Australia. (I always suspected as much.) Ukraine, I knew about, because my niece was over there visiting, and I assume her Mom still checked the blog religiously to see if they were missing anything important. Like maybe I had eaten something interesting. (I still call it The Ukraine and am disproportionately irritated that they changed it.)

Chef Baby Brother is just back from Budapest, but there doesn't seem to be a single check-in from there, although there's been a lot of traffic from Denmark and the Netherlands (possibly related to all the posts about Voss Water and IKEA). Don't ask me, I can't be expected to understand the Internets. Or to actually know where Denmark and the Netherlands are. I assume the visits from Russia are that guy who crashed twitter and facebook.

I can tell from looking at the graphs and pie charts that the most popular thing I've ever written is a post about 30 Rock. I'm not going to link to it here -- even though I could. Oh yeah, I don't like to brag, but I know how to -- I taught myself that maybe a year or so ago (sometime shortly after I figured out how to post pictures) -- but I don't really want to encourage anybody who thinks they might be getting a Tina Fey fanzine.

After that, people mostly seem to be reading for: Sam Shepard, bacon, Martha Stewart, and sofas, in order of popularity. That sounds about right to me.

I see that far more people read me on iPhones than BlackBerry --which means that they now know that I think iPhones are the hot girls from high school, and that we BlackBerry types are the smart girls with glasses who did the iPhone's homework. That's ok. I'll say it to their face.

As I've said before, I tend to think I know each and every reader -- a population that is comprised in my mind of: my college roommate's father, Aunt Ronni, and SandraL. And by and large, people do land here from twitter or facebook. I am not sure, however, how people are getting from the Wall Street Journal to here... but they are. Perhaps I have been linked somewhere as a cautionary tale.

Google is, of course, what dumps most of the traffic, and it is perfectly obvious that tons of people land here expecting good advice about how to buy a t-r-u-c-k or what they should watch on r-e-a-l-i-t-y television. (I am spelling it out, because I have realized that if you write blogs about how you are NOT a t-r-u-c-k-i-n-g company or r-e-a-l-i-t-y television site, you will only encourage Google to send more visitors to you who are looking for that kind of thing.

(The title was my friend Matt's idea for the column, over 15 years ago, long before any of us had figured out the implications of s-e-a-r-c-h e-n-g-i-n-e-s. I am sure blogs existed, but I am equally sure I thought they were something that could be cleared up with Levaquin.)

The Sofa and the Kindle

2010-08-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

"I'm not a literary genius...I was not an orphan. I have never blown anyone for coke or let other people do coke off any part of my body. I have never struggled with addiction and I was never molested. Tragically, my life has only been moderately fucked up. I'm not writing this book to share wisdom or to inspire people."
-- Sarah Silverman, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee

I am seventeen percent of the way through Sarah Silverman's new book on my new (to me) Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G, 6" Display, White - 2nd Generation. I think that's right.

Today was a big, big day in that I was lovingly handed down two of my favorite friends' two most cherished possessions. One handed down his kindle, and one handed down her Arhaus sofa (the kind with the down cushions that you squish into). They both seemed a little wistful to see these things go, but I reassured them that this is an Open Adoption. I'll send pictures. They can visit any time they want, confident in the knowledge that these treasures have a home just as loving and appreciative as their own. They won't drive by and see the kindle tied up in the yard, or the sofa sitting on the front porch.

My quest for the perfect sofa has been in overdrive since I moved last Spring, because I refused to move the old one into the new place. There wasn't anything wrong with it, but I stopped liking it, and I refused to move it.

This has meant a long summer of guests literally sitting on the floor (utterly without complaint...at least not to my face), but I have stuck to my guns. The Big Ass Chair seats two at the most -- and even that requires a certain romantic commitment... not to mention an embrace of certain principles of yoga.

The rule is if I don't love it, it can't live here. I'm not all snooty about it -- I'm happy to go without until the right thing presents itself. I have made one exception for a lamp I like that has an ugly shade, because it seemed a little extreme to light the living room with a bare ass bulb. I can picture the shade I want, but I haven't found it yet.

My bud Ian says my problem is champagne tastes on a beer budget -- and that's part of it -- but that isn't precisely true. I just have very, very specific taste, which I have a very difficult time articulating. I wasn't born speaking Dwell Magazine, I'm learning the vocabulary one painstaking mistake at a time. For a long time when I tried to describe "contemporary," I was saying "modern," and ended up with some terrible Jetsonian errors.

Harriette in her Kitchen

I do know my friend Harriette's house in the country (our bleugrass Hamptons) is perfect, so at least she gives me a jumping-off point, but it's a point of inspiration-only. I know her sofa is a magnificent B & B Italia and that if I had it, the general response would not be "wow!" (as it is when you see Harriette's), but rather "who does she think she's kidding?" It's Art, and I'm not sure I can pull off a room where you sit on the Art.

Luckily, I can read all about it in all the Design Magazines I plan to subscribe to on the new Kindle.

Today is the first time I ever touched one, and yes, I do realize I am several years late to the party. I wasn't boycotting them -- as some writers do -- it was just on the list of things I hadn't gotten around to. I've never had a "sky is falling" philosophical opposition to them "replacing" books. I won't be hauling the kindle to book club. There are books I want to keep and physically annotate and look at on my shelves so I can go back to them over and over again, but honestly, not all that many. I've never been much of a book hoarder.

I am, however, both a compulsive reader, and an insanely fast one. On any given weekend, I can power through a half dozen new releases that have piled up on my desk during the week. If they're good, I try to force myself to slow down because I want to make them last, but I never can. Factor in the insomnia and I constantly run out of things to read in the middle of the night, long after the bookstores are closed and amazon isn't shipping.

The kindle strikes me as a perfect remedy for that. The new Sarah Silverman is a good example. She is way, way too scatological for my taste in humor. Sometimes I think she's funny, and sometimes a little repulsive. I wouldn't take down a tree for this book, but I am happy to read it. Midway through, I did have to text Michael and ask him if the Kindle lit up, or if I was expected to turn on the lamp like a goddamn animal. I can see myself reading it by kerosene during the next Ice Storm.

I am not an early adopter (remember, I insisted writers bring me their stories on disk for years because their stupid attachments wouldn't open and I really didn't see "that whole email thing catching on"), but I'm not a Luddite either. My cousin and I had a long talk yesterday where I explained to him the fax machines of yore with the curly paper, and he made fun of the days when I tied my columns to the ankles of carrier pigeons and dispatched them throughout the city.

Disdain for technology is a luxury for folks way higher up the literary food chain than I am. It's fine to adore Wendell Berry and all, but it's equally fine to remember that his lovely wife types all his manuscripts. I don't have a wife. I have facebook. And if somebody shows me something that makes my life easier and better, I am happy to take them up on it. I love information and I love knowledge (two different things, I realize) and I'm glad to improve my access to both.

As I was typing this, however, I got a voicemail from my BFF that says, "I am calling you on the Gmail." She said I could call her back on it too. I have no idea what that means, but apparently, somebody has now replaced telephones. Perhaps she will read this blog crudely fashioned from twigs and berries and call me back. Last Thanksgiving, I talked to her on The Skype while she was in Siberia, so if she says phones are over, we'd best believe her.

Between you and me, I suspect It's Like Havin' a Dove Field.

Not Sam Shepard at the Door

2010-08-27T20:54:00.000-07:00

"I looked at the dog. Even at eight weeks, he was handsome. He had the blue eyes of a seducer. Half Samoyed, half Australian shepherd. Suddenly his name was clear to me.
"Sam Shepard," I said.
...And that was how I came to live out my original fantasy. That's how I came to live on a farm with Sam Shepard."

--Meghan Daum, The Quality of Life Report

from Sam Taylor-Wood: Crying Men

It would not be an exaggeration to say that my new blackberry torch almost melted yesterday from the incoming calls, texts, and direct messages informing me that Sam Shepard was in town. He's here often enough that I actually have to go out of my way NOT to run into him. Everyone was nice and respectful to send me the messages rather than posting them, but I did find it funny that his privacy for the evening depended on my discretion --- but, if I'd wanted to stalk him, there have been plenty opportunities over the years.

Actually, I was otherwise occupied. Too busy for Sam, really. My cousin was over here installing the new door shades from IKEA.

IKEA, for their part, had neglected to provide screws. There are apparently more than five things I don't know about IKEA, and one of them must be the fact that they all live in a world where everyone's presumed to have their own toolbox, because there is always something left out of their assembly packages. In addition to socialized medicine and a civilized view toward the non-married, apparently they must subsidize every house with a cordless drill and a few basic tools -- a sort of Swedish-chicken-in-every-pot.

So we really didn't get that far into the process, but my cousin is always happy to spend a little R and R in my man-cave (which is really just a TV room). It's the one room in my house where everything is designed for comfort, from the Big Ass Chair ("I feel like angels are lifting me!" he says every time he sits in it) to the deep soft rug ("it's like I'm walking on sheep!") to the wide screen HDtv ("it's like I was blind, but now I see!") while he sipped a cold frosty Voss directly from its chilly Norwegian bottle, determined to cement a Scandinavian afternoon.

He's always volunteering to housesit, proclaiming, "I could be in a relationship just based on this room," and asking why I don't whip out blackberry pictures of it in bars, "take a look at this, fella," to lure innocent boys home to my lair.

It actually isn't the man-cave at all though. It's my domain. Boys are banished to the upstairs or the outdoors. The cave is my turf and they're only allowed in for community-movie-watching. Sometimes I'll find one curled up in the sun on the widow's walk upstairs with one of my house slippers inexplicably tucked nearby for company. Or as my cousin puts it. "Lady smell nice. Where Lady go?"

He comes up with great scenarios for the den.... "Imagine a fire in the fireplace...it's 20 degrees outside...you've got a bottomless cup of hot chocolate on a Saturday morning and there's a Closer marathon on." (That Brenda! She's feisty!!)

After we'd run through a prospective housesitting schedule for him and the missus that would ensure them ample use of the clawfoot tub, he headed back to work.

Shortly after that, I heard a knock at the door. Followed by a few persistent rings of the doorbell. Thinking he had probably left a tool behind, I ducked out of the cave and into the parlor, where I almost opened the door on reflex. Until I saw a perfect stranger standing on the other side of it.

But my hand was already on the knob, while I paused to think: Well, THIS is awkward. I hate making snap stereotypical judgments as much as the next person, but I'm sorry, he was clearly an Unsavory Fellow. Still. It did seem rude not to open the door. Then my common sense kicked in, and I realized it would be stupid to open the door to a prospective serial killer, just because I didn't want to seem ungracious, or politically incorrect.

So I left the deadbolt where it was and asked politely, "May I help you?" (I'm not an ANIMAL for God's sake. I'm not a goddam fishwife.)

"Uh, yeah...I need a plastic bag...you got any plastic bags?" I assured him I did not...while thinking to myself, "why, so you can use it to dispose of my decomposing corpse after you kill me?"

After that, we were at a bit of an impasse, and I had no finesse for ending this kind of conversation. I mean, I couldn't just say "shooo! shooo!" which is what my grandmother frequently did when uninvited hobos appeared at her door. And I didn't feel like I could pull off, "Go on now. Go on. Git." which is what the men in my family would say, if similarly greeted. Instead, I think I mumbled something like, "Bye now!" and just ducked back into the cave and closed the door behind me.

He rang the bell a few more times while I promptly posted his description on Twitter and Facebook: "5'5. Bad teeth. Broken/chipped in the front . Ballcap. Striped t-shirt. Dirty. Dark complexion. Wiry build." (My cousin speculated later his teeth were like that from gnawing the bones of his prior victims, and I don't doubt it one bit.) I vacillated between envisioning the prospective headlines "Murder solved via social media!" and picturing scenes straight out of The Strangers, where the only reason he would provide for torturing me would be "because you were home."

To make myself feel better, I turned on all the security lights and fished a ten-year-old bottle of Mace out of my tool box. I'd heard that they expire, so I thought I should test it first. I took it out to the backyard in a particularly spider-prone area; released the safety; and spritzed it a few times --- all over my pink pajamas. By the time I had stripped them off and thrown them in the washer, I was aware of an increasingly urgent stinging starting at my feet, and crawling up my calves. The pain reminded me of the time I was cutting hot peppers in the sink and turned on the disposal, mace-misting everything in sight.

Hopping into the shower only made it worse, but when I got out, I slathered myself in such a slippery head-to-toe concoction of aloe vera, solarcaine, and Noxzema, that I think if the Hobo had turned back up, I would've at least slid right through his fingers like a prized, greased pig.

By the time I'd gotten all cleaned up and slightly cooled down, a new array of comments had arrived on the phone, forcing me to go back and post, "NO. That was NOT Sam Shepard at the door. He is NOT 5'5. Stop SAYING that."

Related Links

The Right Stuff.

You ASKED.

Surveying the Wreckage.

In the Pank.

Sam Shepard on the TV.

Related Books:

The Best BLT

2010-08-27T06:42:00.000-07:00

BLT subbing in gorgonzola crumbles for mayo, and lettuce-leaf basil for lettuce. Plus heirloom tomatoes.

From the Archives. August 2008. BlackBerry Adam

2010-08-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

Every day, the IT guys fish a few more columns out of the tech wreckage and I post a few more of them here. This one is from August 2008. Reading it, I realized it carbon-dates the beginning of my trackball wars. It also marks the first appearance of Lucas, who's become quite the recurring character in my life. (Adam, as expected, was a fly-by-night cameo.)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: August 2008

Blackberry Adam

Today I met the Man I’m gonna marry. Tall. Dark. Handsome. I know his first name is Adam. He was the guy who met me at the door when I took the new Fed Ex’d blackberry to the phone store to replace the busted blackberry in my pocket (it was just a defective pearl actually—I could go left or right but not up or down—story of my life).

That’s where Adam came in.

The wireless provider told me on the phone I’d just have to snap the SIM card into the new model when it arrived and it’d be good to go.

But I knew better.

I knew that wireless maintenance—much like hair color and brain surgery—isn’t something I should try at home, much less practice on myself.

And so that’s how I met Adam.

Adam didn’t even make me write my name down on the list with all the other cattle.

Once I told him what I had in mind, he just took my equipment in his hands and said he’d “take care of it.”

Oh Adam.

Even now I smile at his naivete.

Within minutes, his handsome brow was furrowed and beads of sweat were beginning to glisten above his manly upper lip.

It seemed that my memory had been saved to my device and not my SIM card.

Moron! (Me. Not him.)

The device wasn’t giving up anything unless it could be obtained in a left-right fashion.

The pearl would have to be cracked.

And that’s when Adam stepped behind the desk and conferred with Lucas.

Oh sure, maybe he wasn’t quite as tall. Strawberry blonde. A sprinkling of freckles.

But Lucas is NOW the man I’m REALLY gonna marry. (I’m nothing if not a serial monogamist.)

Turns out, I’d been running with the wrong crowd all along. I mostly socialize with iPhone types (I think Adam was double-holstered into a couple of them), and they didn’t know how to help me. Nor did they care. I’ve decided iPhones are the glitzy hot girls from highschool. We blackberries are the earnest workaholic smart girls with glasses who probably did the iPhone’s homework. And it was Lucas, a blackberry guy if ever there was one, who came through for me.

Since the phone store wisely neglects to provide chairs for us cattle (the better to shorten our stay I presume), I promptly stretched out on the floor with my back against the cool, soothing plate glass window. I was hungry. I was tired. And I’d already spent two sleepless nights without my blackberry. This was the longest I’d ever been separated from it with the exception of a Sneak Movie Preview where all recording devices were confiscated at the door by studio security.
I sent mine out to the car with my buddy who turned out to be stoned at the time (neither option was all that reassuring to me, but then she bought us $78 bucks worth of watermelon Sour Patch Kids, and I remembered, sometimes it’s good to have friends who are high). We sat in that theatre for two agonizing hours. No text. No micro-blogs. My blackberry elbow and blackberry rotator cuff were both sending out phantom pain. I couldn’t focus. There was something onscreen about a C4 deadman’s switch in a bank job and I remember thinking “how obvious.”

That’s about it.

And I was reminded of what Dave Chappelle once said about how you never want a President in a position to be addicted. (You don’t want the President of the United States shuffling up to Prime Ministers and muttering, “got any rock? Yo man I’ll suck yo…”) That’s the level of withdrawal I felt when I was separated from my phone during that movie. Two hours. They don’t call ‘em crackberries for nothing.

So you could imagine what I was like after two days. For 48 hours, I couldn’t call anybody because I had no
rolodex. The only phone numbers I know by heart are my Mom’s and my college roommate’s. And they both got pretty sick of me pretty quick.

When I had to call in a prescription refill (and believe me, I needed one), I couldn’t just type in Rx on the keypad like usual; instead I tried shouting into the phone like Andy Griffith, “Halllooo, Sarah…could yew get me the Apothecary?”

I never knew where I was supposed to be or when I was supposed to be there (the phone usually handles all that and sends me 15 minute reminders). I was reluctant to schedule anything in the future, because would there be one; and if so, how would I keep track of that kind of information?

For two days, I was reduced to writing things down on paper. LIKE AN ANIMAL.

I reflected on all this as the store filled up with holloweyed souls who looked more desperate than I felt. I was sanguine. I was relaxed. I had faith in Lucas.

But I could (over)hear the entire conversation of this guy Hiram who kept protesting into the “courtesy” phone “the damn thing ain’t but six weeks old. How is it NOT under warranty? Piss on THAT!” Hiram was very tan and wore a gold chain around his neck. I felt for him.

Hiram’s frustration was only exceeded by the once-smug soccer moms/tennis ladies who came in optimistically bubbling about their “insurance,” only to visibly deflate when told about their “deductible.” They were like once-pert little flowers who’d just been left too long in the evening sun. (Story of their lives I imagine.)

Through all this, Lucas hunched over my phone, punching buttons, blasting it with canned air, and speaking into a headset to (perhaps) a control room somewhere in Texas.

Much like the kind of brain surgery where the patient has to stay awake, he’d left it active while he operated— which meant I could hear it ring—and then I could hear the distinctive three-tone bleat that all blackberries emit. I felt like a mother who couldn’t defend my young while some predator gnawed away its insides. Every so often, he would glance over at me nervously
and say, “you’re going to have a lot of voicemails.”

Post-op, Lucas had good news and bad news. He sat down next to me on the floor. He broke it to me in phases.

Most importantly, he was able to restore the rolodex. But the photo IDs didn’t transfer (so that cool picture of your dog no longer pops up when you call me).

The internet was back on, but…the bookmarks were gone (it’ll just take time and a little imaginative googling to re-create all that porn).

And the calendar is gone. So if you were planning on giving me a root canal or a haircut anytime in the next six months, you’re gonna wanna have your staff call and remind me.

Birthdays. Weddings. Anniversaries. All. Gone. I was never that thoughtful…but the blackberry was.

And my “Brandy” ringtone was lost in the operation (not the pop singer, the ‘70s classic from Looking Glass).
Frankly, it had grown tiresome. I’m thinking about the theme song from The Wire as a replacement (“way down in the hole”).

As for Lucas, I would think an offer to bear his children would only begin to indicate the depth of gratitude I feel for him, but somehow I know such a gesture would ring every bit as hollow as my rapidly-aging reproductive organs.

But I will gladly BUY him a baby as a token of my appreciation.

Maybe I’ll even pay an iPhone kinda gal to show him a Dave Chappelle-style good time on da pipe.

A Few Words About Tomatoes

2010-08-19T17:53:00.000-07:00


Fried green tomatoes are best with the slightest blush.Varmint!

After about an hour spent picking tomatoes this evening, I realize that I have transcended mere gardener status and promoted myself to farmer.

I have so many that I could probably afford to spare this one for the birds, but the sight of it makes me want to sit out back with a shotgun. (You can take the girl off the farm, but....)

My friend Walter recommended netting, but then my friend Harriette reminded me that the snakes get stuck in the netting. I don't know.... if the snakes eat the damn birds, I'm tempted to let them stay, but after one slithered over my foot last weekend, I'm not so sure.) I also found the voles' hole, but have not yet discovered any means of humanely dispatching them. Wiki insists that the "woodland vole" -- which I can only assume is the variety found here -- is also "usually monogamous," but there is such a tremendous crop of them this year, I doubt it. All I know is that they, along with the birds, take ONE bite out of everything and then move on. Bastards.

The tomatoes seem plentiful now, but I am determined not to take them for granted. I remember how many times over the long cold winter that I looked back at my Last Harvest pictures, and how they sustained me through a long bitter winter. (Some of this stuff I write mostly for me. Obviously.)

But I would like to share three of my favorite tomato blogs from this Summer.

Here is my friend (the aforementioned) Walter (a Professional Writer...a Michener Fellow no less) on A Glory of Tomatoes.

I am going to sneak in two from Chef Tom. Here is how he makes panzanella salad. And here's something he did with roasted tomatoes. Many of my plants this year came from him and Michael, and all of my basil last year came from them after mine was destroyed by a careless yardman. I always get a very Alexander-Godunov-in-Witness-Amish-barnraising feeling of infinite goodwill whenever I think of those plants turning up on my front porch. Were it not for the Food Gays, there would have been no pesto... no caprese. Remember when they rang that bell in the movie, and everybody came, but the first thing you see is just the top of Alexander Godunov's hat cresting the hill? It was just. Like. That.

And my third recommendation is Elizabeth Bard's recent post, Tomatoland. She writes one of the first blogs I ever followed -- even before her book came out. It's never too late for a beach-read, but just get a gander at her tomatoes. She's planning a Tomato Tatin, so stay tuned for more food porn.

Walt's right. It's a glory.

From the Archives: Aug 5 2004, Martha Stewart's paint

2010-08-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

This is "Howard" from Ralph Lauren's "urban loft" series.

I have a long relationship with paint. I usually select palettes that range from what some have called "ambitious" to what others have called "brave," in a tone that's clear they don't mean it as a compliment. I tend to use Ralph Lauren and MarthaStewart for color inspiration, maybe a little Farrow & Ball, but I am a diehard old-fashioned Porter girl when it comes to what goes on the walls. I am not afraid to paint, and I'm not afraid to repaint if it doesn't turn out. (See also: my current dining room. Right finish, wrong color.)

In the ongoing quest to re-populate the lost archives, I ran across this today.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: August 5, 2004

A Good Thing

"Her kitchen is dense with Stewart touches: 48 gleaming copper pots hang above the stove, hundreds of antique dishes fill the glass-fronted cabinets, and the dishwashing liquid is decanted into a glass cruet beside the sink. Still, I said, it’s a pretty small room to produce much food. Not to worry, she replied, smiling. ‘I have 18 burners in an annex out back.’

—Jeffrey Toobin’s New Yorker interview with Martha Stewart February 3, 2003

Just because she's headed to the big house, doesn't mean Martha Stewart’s influence is really going anywhere—a rude awakening that I’ve come to in the weeks post-sentencing—a realization that I’ll never really be free of the standards she's set. She'll be back. Mark my words. And she will crush everyone who crossed her.

This first came up when I started getting my house ready for my Mom to move in as my roommate for a few months here, a few months there while she undergoes medical treatment nearby—treatment we all frequently refer to as “rehab”—which has had the unforeseen effect of lots of people thinking my mother has substance abuse issues (which she obviously doesn’t, because God knows if she did, I’d have written about them long before now).

So when the facelift at the house started, it was pretty easy to attribute all this renewed zeal for home and hearth to the impending arrival of my mother—whose standards for keeping an impeccable house far exceed my own.

But while there’s no denying she is the very epitome of the charming, southern, Episcopalian hostess (at least that’s the Mom everybody knows NOW, refusing to sympathize even remotely with the incredibly CRUEL version of her that I remember from childhood—the one who repeatedly sent me to bed without Chico and the Man for the most MINOR infractions)—I must finally acknowledge that it was the spectre of something far more insidious that has long since permeated my house.

I came to this conclusion when I recently painted my kitchen (after having my new upstairs bedroom painted…three times, along with the dining room).

After the bedroom and dining room, I discovered that the kitchen (formerly a charming periwinkle) now clashed with the ENTIRE house.

I had screwed up the first two color selections so badly that I realized it was time to just admit the obvious and go to theMartha Stewartcolor palette. C’mon. It’s a kitchen.

It isn’t as easy as it sounds because there were roughly 8172 colors to choose from (color number 8172 is, by the way, “buttercup” if you’re interested.

I narrowed the field to Lawn Frost, Fen, and Rubbed Sage.

I toyed with Gull, Sourdough, and Otter Point—but honestly, they were just out of my league.
I am not the kinda woman who can pull off “Gull…” It’s the sort of subtle (yet slightly breathtaking) shade that—upon one look—would have visitors muttering under their breath, “Who the hell does she think she’s kidding?”

Overcome with an uncharacteristic insecurity, I solicited reams of advice—making it very clear that I wanted “discernibly green, but subtle.” I was adamant after the first version of the bedroom turned out to be “Vietnam,” despite its pleasant sounding label of “hearth.”

A committee of close friends and advisors agreed on Lawn Frost.

Next up, I had to find a painter—because frankly, I was too embarrassed to call the first crew back.

After asking around, there was a consensus that “Jimmy” worked fast and cheap (I think that’s his real name, but if he has a last one, I don’t know it). He’s not in the phone book or anything. You just have to leave a message with his brother-in-law. Hey, I was desperate (what with the clashing periwinkle and all).

So Jimmy arrived at the appointed time and I headed out to Farmers’ Market to give him some time and space.

I interrupted him briefly, later on, to put away some produce—whereupon he asked, appropos of nothing in particular (or so I thought), “you don’t care if I’m a beer drinker do you?”

I responded with a generous "No, of course not," thinking it a largely rhetorical/theoretical question.
To be honest, I detest it, and while I don’t personally drink it, if I developed any real moral objection to beer, my social circle would dwindle to even smaller ranks.

And then I went about the rest of my Saturday chores—without a single debate on the merits of say, foreign vs. domestic (or even cans vs. bottles), because this is just one area of taste where I really couldn’t care less.

It was only when I went to empty the trash and noticed an inordinate amount of clanking aluminum that I realized his question had been logistical, rather than theoretical, as I sorted an astonishing surfeit of empty Keystone cans into the recycler.

And so here’s the thing—something I really should’ve learned after multiple, painful, expensive, heart-wrenching lessons—contractors don’t really deal in the “hypothetical.” They tend to require excruciating degrees of specificity.

Instead of saying I had no objection to beer, it would’ve been prudent to follow that up with a disclaimer about how I think it’s an ill-advised beverage to consume when trying to complete most ANY task. (And here I’m trying not to be rigid. I’m trying to give folks the benefit of the doubt… but …. No, I can’t think of any job performance that would be improved by the consumption of beer. Particularly none that are scheduled for TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING.)

In the end, it didn’t matter.

Aside from paint all over the flooring (which needs to be replaced anyway—at least that’s the philosophical, zen-like response I’m going for), the quality of the work turned out to be irrelevant.

Because “lawn frost” is actually “off-white” once you get it on the walls.

True, it’s not as bad as periwinkle, but it’s sure as hell no “Gull” either.

I’m now debating Fen versus Rubbed Sage, and in the meantime, just trying to stay out of the kitchen.

It’s just as well, after I completely WRECKED the last meal I made.

After spending an ungodly amount of time picking a selection of the 13 varieties of basil I grow in my kitchen garden to make the perfect pesto (a passé 80s trend that’s happily making a culinary comeback—it’s the new black), the entire dish was RUINED when I couldn’t find handmade fresh pasta and settled for some equally over-priced, annoyingly precocious brand that was supposed to be just as good.

Well. It wasn’t. It had all the taste and consistency of library paste (not that I was a kid who ate that stuff, but I heard the reviews).

Not content to suffer alone, I complained endlessly, ensuring that my Insignificant Other couldn’t enjoy his meal either —despite the fact that he generally has the palate of a 13-year-old and would likely eat anything I put in front of him, in peace, up to and including the aforementioned paste. (Since he lives out of town—where NO one cooks—and travels constantly for work, anything above truckstop fare gets a rave review from him.)

And the thing is, neither of us even really LIKES pasta, but based on the handful of occasions a year that I serve it, I still impetuously concluded that a pasta-maker would have to be purchased and lessons taken.

Then I spent the rest of the evening banging around in the kitchen, taking out my rage on cleanup and the dishes (which are most definitely HIS jobs).

Nobody’s gettin’ leftovers either.
Reviewing the debacle, it’s clear that there’s only one person to blame and that’s Martha Stewart—because while I was raised by two great cooks with perfectionistic tendencies, NEITHER of them taught me that there’s any dish that would necessitate 13 varieties of basil. We certainly didn’t have a “kitchen garden,” we had a FIELD. It definitely wasn’t “staffed”—it was a weed-infested, chigger-ridden corner of hell that served as the bane of mine and my brother’s existence.

And if you asked any of the actual farmers in my lineage to distinguish between lawn frost and rubbed sage, their response would most certainly include some unenlightened aspersions about homosexuality.

--August 5, 2004. Archive.

"Torch" Wielding Villagers

2010-08-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

"Next WEEK?! That's the worst thing you can SAY to an early adopter!"
--Phil not getting his iphone the first day on Modern Family

Early adopters get on my nerves. I think they're smug. So it was with a great deal of trepidation and irritation that I entered the store last Thursday to pick up the new Torch, on the day it was released.

I had no choice. The BlackBerry Bold trackball had frozen. Again. I have lost count of how MANY times this has happened. Six? Seven? I know if you search blackberry on this blog, it will come up at least as often as "food" and "Ambien," which is saying something.

I didn't even WANT the first BlackBerry -- it was a gift after the number 8 finally died for good on my trusty little Nokia. But I have stuck with them, long past the point of reason, and am now flirting with what might just be a co-dependent/abusive relationship.

I don't know what I get out of it....except....it's not an iphone. I am a word girl. I want my keyboard. I always said if BlackBerry added a touchscreen that retained the keyboard, I would get one. And that's when I heard about the Torch. But it wasn't out yet. And I still had a bold with a dead trackball, again.

I called up the provider and explained, but he said since it was past warranty, I would have to file an insurance claim.

"Oh, no. I will not," I explained, "because that isn't FAIR."

I believe he thought he was reasoning with a two-year-old, but I had had it. As I told him, I am happy to pay the Insurance Premium as "insurance" against something stupid I might do -- drop the phone in a puddle, lose it... anything could happen. But I am NOT paying that $100+ deductible to "insure" against their design flaws.

I barely ever even had a "new" Pearl, or Bold, despite having bought several of them, because the trackballs always died within a month or two. Then they were warrantied out with "refurbished" phones. And a month or two later, the trackballs on the "refurbished" phones died too. There's nothing wrong with recycles. But I got frustrated paying full price for new devices with such obvious design flaws, and then getting stuck carrying around their beat-up "refurbished" models the rest of the time. Even if they'd just fixed my new phones, that would've been better.

I explained all this to the young man on the line in Bangelor as politely as I could, over and over, until he eventually kicked me over to a "supervisor." I repeated the whole scenario as calmly as I could to the nice lady. I used my inside voice, and I told her I was doing my best to refrain from profanity, because I did realize that none of this was her fault, personally. In turn, she "apologized" for my "frustration," and said she would make it right with a new Bold.

So I took the new Bold to the store, with an eye toward trying out the Torch.
Which was a problem, because AT&T service promptly went out all over the southeast. We lost signal, and apparently so did pockets of Georgia. The outages were broadcast all over the news -- which I was forced to read about on the big screen, like an Animal.

At the end of the process, I have to say, I have never worked so hard to hand over my hard-earned money to someone who so clearly couldn't be bothered to take it in my life.

Since Lucas was off the day I went in (the one guy in the city -- as far as I know -- who understands blackberries), everyone else in the store was an iphone guy. There were massive signs on the door saying they didn't know when the outage would be restored. And the store was filled with angry would-be torch-wielding Villagers. One guy was mad because he couldn't bring his dog in the store, another middle-class guy in a golf shirt seemed on the verge of beating his child in public, but contented himself with hissing through clenched teeth, "you touch one more thing in this store, and I am going to ... go bananas." I got the sense that "bananas" was the only euphemism he could think of that was child-protective-services friendly. But under my breath, I promptly responded "bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s. Bananas," because it's impossible not to.

The outage meant I came home with a phone on which I had no training, and no understanding of how the features worked -- or, as it turned out, even something as basic as how to pull the battery. (Try googling it -- all you'll get is a lot of answers about appropriate and inappropriate disposal and battery-life.)

This left me at the mercy of @blackberryhelp on twitter which I've been busy messaging like it's my fulltime job (and to their credit, I have to say, they respond everytime -- and they even knew how to pull the battery).

That is... until my twitter app started popping up a screen that said, "You have been rate limited," which is, apparently, a message no other smartphone user has ever seen, in the history of time. Believe me, I asked around.

I started with AT and ;T. They double-checked. All my plans include unlimited data, so there was no chance they'd "limited" my "rate" on anything. After researching every permutation they could think of, they routed me to blackberry -- explaining that if I were to call them on my own, I would be paying for tech support.

I was already mad, but I was downright indignant at the prospect of that.

"Are you....kidding me?" I asked, slowly... pausing because it took profound mental exertion to refrain from inserting my usual profanity of choice before the word "kidding." By this time my teeth were clenched so hard I was coming down with TMJ. I could not believe this.

"Do you mean to say that after I have suffered through all these years of blackberries... defective blackberries, with design-flawed trackballs...and a parade of used phones.... that two days after I buy the brand new model that they have spent a jillion dollars advertising and promoting but their staff can't use because they're all too busy with their iPhones ....or they would be, if they could get service... Do you mean to tell me, that after all that, they would also like me to pay them for the privilege of troubleshooting this device... this device that I just paid hundreds of dollars for...that even they can't operate?"

His answer was something along the lines of "uh, yeah," but he assured me I wouldn't have to pay for this particular call, because he was routing it through. Which he did, so that I ended up with a young man on the other end of the line, presumably in Canada, who divulged that they didn't even have their Torch simulator screens working yet, and that there was only one or two of the actual phones floating around the building.

What I was thinking was... A. he probably should not be telling me this (regardless of whether or not I happen to work in media), and B. if they aren't prepared to support the device, they probably shouldn't be selling it -- regardless of the gazillion dollar ad campaign.

Although he gamely tried to start an online support session, linking into my laptop, and attempting to download a bunch of (probably completely irrelevant) software that I'm quite sure my IT guys would kill me for. (For one thing, he wanted me to sign in using Internet Explorer and they forbid that a long time ago.)

Sometime in the middle of the session, "the rate limited" menu disappeared from my twitter screen. No one knows why. It isn't anything he did. The phone was in the other room. It wasn't anything I did. It's probably the same thing that happens when you take your car to the mechanic and it refuses to make that noise in front of them.

At that point, he admitted defeat, and so did I. But I couldn't hang up without getting one thing off my chest. I said I didn't know what RIM's relationship is to AT&T, but if I was allowing AT&T to be the exclusive carrier of my product, I would make sure that AT&T put somebody on that sales floor who actually carried a blackberry. If they want to be an iphonestore, they should put a sign on the door that says they're an iphone store, and then stop selling BlackBerrys.

And then we poor, unwashed blackberry masses who can't seem to shake our clearly unhealthy, one-sided, co-dependent loyalty no matter how hard they try to drive us away would know up front that we have to take our business elsewhere -- probably to some back alley blackmarket operation, which soon may be the only option left.

Because that's what it's coming to. I might head down there later and try to sell some busted trackballs.