The Strangers

I don't observe Halloween. I do observe candy. Typically, I buy a lot of it, then turn off the porch light and eat it. I've lived in this neighborhood 15 years (give or take two blocks) and the only "kids" that ever trick-or-treat on this block have clearly driven here (apparently not even leaving themselves enough time to shave).


Baby Sister checked in tonight from the family farmstead where she's visiting for the weekend -- planning a BlairWitch-ish expedition of some sort into the woods for the kids. Then they're going to watch scary movies.

I told her to rent 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."


If I celebrated Halloween, this would be my pick for a Halloween movie. It's a movie that allows me to feel a little smug, because the precipitating point that leads to their predicament is: opening the door to the eponymous Strangers. (In fairness, I suspect they would've come in anyway -- but initially, Liv and Felicity's Boyfriend do answer a knock.) I would never open the door to Strangers. I haven't answered a knock at the door in three years. I'm not sure why anyone would. My friends can and do drop in of course -- they just text from the driveway -- it would never even occur to them to ring the bell, because they know I'd never answer.


My parents do it all the time though-- I can hear them do it on the phone, and it makes me crazy. There's the doorbell, followed by the dogs barking (another practice I've never allowed... once I got a Stalker, I then had to teach my dogs to bark at him because they'd been so meticulously trained not to; they weren't allowed to jump on anyone either, though Martha was perfectly capable of removing an unwanted guest's carotid artery flat-footed) -- and then you'll hear either my Mom or my stepdad yell, "Babe!! See who's at the door!!" And you never know who they're talking to, because, while, they address each other as Babe, it is also the dog's name. Meanwhile, I'm still on the other end of the line, nagging, "that's why they're called PUSH-INs and not BREAK-INS; are you two TRYING to get yourselves killed?" 



So, a Holiday that involves strangers coming to your door and begging for candy is not my cup of tea. But if I were going to recommend a movie for Halloween, it would be this one. (It is also maybe the best use of Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried" I have ever seen in a movie. I don't know why it isn't in the trailer.)

Shit MY Dad Says

"You worry too much. Eat some bacon... What? No, I got no idea if it'll make you feel better, I just made too much bacon."
--from ShitMyDadSays

My Dad called up today to wish me a Happy Birthday -- confident, I think, that it is November 1st, and that he was in fact, two days early (as opposed to one month late).

My friends pointed out, "well, at least he remembered." Yes. He did. He remembered I was born. Forty-some years ago. Give or take a month.



I enjoyed giving him a hard time, but I really did think it was kinda funny.


Once he realized his gaffe, he changed the subject(s) pretty quickly, which included: the sub-par barbecue he and Uncle Woody had for lunch today (the worst of their lives!); the outrage of the "tree-huggers" protesting naming that dormitory Coal, when it wouldn't bother ANYbody if they named it Makers Mark and how the mountain behind his house is "worth a lot more now than it was when Dan'l Boone come thru"; and, finally, on a semi-related note (somehow) "Rupert Murdoch might be the lowest sonofabitch to ever walk the earth but if you expect to have enough signal to watch Law & Order you goddam well better have Direct TV." (I think he was equating Murdoch with the Coal Barons, but I'm not sure.) 



 

Top Chef Spicy Twitter Style

I don't usually watch TV live (like an animal), I TiVo it and watch it later without the commercials (like a civilized human being). So I was late to the Twitter firestorm that erupted during last night's Top Chef.

I tuned in around 3 am and observed this exchange where @PerlLawLex (she has protected tweets so she can either let you in or not; it's up to her), observed: "Tom's got it all BUT heard he might be dating Padma which kinda makes him less attractive."

I promptly chimed in (not that anybody was listening at 3 am), "Whaaaat? Tom just had a new baby with his wife in August?? Dating Padma?! She's pregnant! How can she date TOO?!"

As soon as I typed it, I realized how many logical fallacies there were in that statement. For example, Tom's new baby and Padma's new pregnancy could simply be an indication that Tom -- in addition to being a good chef -- might be extraordinarily fertile. He could be impregnating people from across the kitchen, or over the GE Monogram® appliances. Perhaps he simply assisted Padma in her longtime fertility struggle against  The Heartbreak of Endometriosis via a handy GladWare receptacle? (That show is more brand-ed than Martha Stewart and nothing would surprise me.)

The TV Guide challenge was admittedly lame (as superbly chronicled at Videogum) but I was too distracted by the Twitter-generated subtext to even waste my usual time wishing either CancerGirlRobin or SaveechBeechJenn would go home. I barely even had time to notice (for the first time) that my Sweet Young Thang Bryan is only THIRTY-THREE and thus a practically felonious object of my (admittedly chaste) Chef Crush.

As naive as I am (How could Tom be Padma's baby-daddy when he just had a baby with his wife?!) even I got a little suspicious after last night's repartee. 

Padma: "It's like a little prick on the tip of my tongue..."
[Natalie Portman and assorted nobody-vegetarian-friends laugh uproariously and trade spicy rejoinders.]
Tom: "It went from a little prick to 'big in the mouth.'" [Blushes furiously. Anonymous-Vegetarians continue to laugh.]

Geez. Get a room you two.

The prospect of Tom and Padma conceiving made me want to rush right out and buy the product this commercial shilled 20 minutes in. (There is no way I could make this up.) Now THIS is what I call effective Product Placement.

Take THAT GladWare.

Iced Eggs?

When I was picking up carryout dinner at the snooty-falootie store (where a spoonful of brussel sprouts will run you about $438 bucks and the aisles are littered with the bodies of the liberals doubled over in guilt), I saw this outta the corner of my eye: an Iced Eggs tray? The picture on the box was what we call deviled eggs on one side of my family, and dressed eggs on the other side. No one in the family has ever called them Iced Eggs, as far as I know. While I was stuck online behind the Republicans who were chatting animatedly and unabashedly refusing to get out of anyone's way, I took a picture of the box. Everyone looked at me a little like I was a hobo who'd wandered in off the street and put my fist in the olive bar up to my elbow, but I wanted a closer look at these "iced eggs."

I found them online, and what it refers to is this incredibly cunning serving dish -- where you put ice in the bottom tray, and the indented deviled-egg impression-tray on the top -- thereby enjoying a fantastic funeral treat, while simultaneously avoiding the risk of salmonella. You can buy one for me  HERE.

I can eat deviled eggs at a volume and pace that would make Paul Newman proud in Cool Hand Luke. It's one of those foods I grew up on, but just never make as an adult (although I occasionally serve a pretty snooty-falootie version for cocktail parties that involves caviar and sprigs of fresh dill). Consequently, anytime I visit my parents' church-gatherings, you'll find me with my chair pulled up to the buffet where I can get at the eggs in sufficient quantity that would befit maybe a dying man at his last meal. The image wouldn't be unlike, say, John Belushi's face-stuffing in Animal House.

Unfortunately, it's been my experience that the Episcopalians in my hometown possess a certain miserly culinary nature, accompanied by zero ability to anticipate a crowd. This is in marked contrast to the extended Baptist family I was raised in -- characterized by vast homecoming dinners where the chicken n' dumplings was served in giant pressurized vats (were served? was served? Is the antecedent the chicken, or the dumplings?) fried chicken was made on-site in giant electric skillets, and never came out of a bucket. Episcopalian-ism is more of a late-life affectation for my Mom that came after she moved to town, about 25 years ago. Me? I been rollin' with The Catholics since first grade (that's largely how they're referred to in polite company where I'm from) -- and their focus is admittedly far more on Drink than Food -- which always leaves me as something of an outcast.

Anyway. The "Iced Eggs" platter was enough to make me go looking for the novel I wrote back in 1992, Dressed Eggs and Death.  I found it in a trunk in the guest room.

The first paragraph reads:

"She got to the house around seven. It was still light out and everything looked pretty much deserted. The lot was empty but for Uncle Buddy's orange Plymouth Duster. He had put it up on blocks when she was a teenager and left it there to rust. Pink and purple morning glories were twining through the old wheel hubs."

I think I'm going to keep it handy and force it on everyone who asks me to read their Novel-in-progress. It's an excellent reinforcement of Flannery O'Connor's response when people would ask her if the universities were "stifling too many young writers" and she always answered that they weren't stifling enough of them. It is very hard to build a novel around a plate of deviled eggs. Even a short one.

"Denise Handicapped "

Larry David after his BlackBerry gets thrown in the ocean on Curb Your Enthusiasm

I'm catching up on last week's Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry's supposed to be watching Jeff and Susie's daughter play in the ocean and when she gets caught in an apparent riptide, he pauses to stow his BlackBerry safely in a beach towel before attempting a rescue (by then, the parents have heard her distress cries and fished her out themselves).

He protests, "I was going into the water, and then I realized I had the BlackBerry..." trailing off into a scream of protest as Susie grabs it from him and pitches it into the ocean.

I don't think he behaved unreasonably, or at least not implausibly. I was out to dinner with a friend of mine recently when the server jiggled the table and sent scalding hot soup in every direction. Whereas I am normally the clumsiest klutz ever, I suddenly reacted with the speed and reflexes of a superhero (BlackBerryGirl) deftly snatching her Storm and my Bold off the table before so much as a drop of soup could even land and splash either of our precious phones. Prospective third degree burns for either me or my dining companion? Eh. An admitted afterthought. A blister is one thing, but everybody knows BlackBerry won't warranty a device out if there's water damage.

As Larry commisserates later with JB Smoove, who gives him a message that Denise called, he explains he can't just call information and get her number. He doesn't know her last name. He just has her stored in the BlackBerry under "Denise Handicapped" (hey, don't look at me, I didn't name her). She's in there with "Shawn Yoga" and "Teresa Masseuse." JB Smoove's, on the other hand, is populated with "Nancy Big Tits" and "Sweet Ass."

I realize how precarious my own contacts list is every time I go to the BlackBerry store and have to have Lucas or Russell back it up. I always apologize for the List, and they always reassure me, "oh that's nothing compared to what we see."

But how else would I know not to pick up the phone unless I could see names like "Idiot Jere," and "Ignore The Box Lady" and "Crazy Mad Doggie Day Care" or "BatShit Crazy Mavis" or "Asshole Realtor." You don't wanna know the names the Telemarketers are stored under.

Hell, I don't even remember who "Goofy Guy 7" is -- much less the identities of one thru six who must have preceded him. But I'm not about to pick up and find out.

(Who is the Box Lady? Honestly, I have no idea.)

"Hard to Keep Up the Lie"

"It's hard to keep up the lie. 'Cause you can't get nobody being you. You got to lie to get somebody. You can't get nobody looking like you look, acting like you act...sounding like you sound. When you meet somebody for the first time, you're not meeting them. You're meeting their representative. That's right. Look at you, all of you. You! You're a liar! You're all liars. You got on heels, you ain't that tall. You got on makeup, your face don't look like that. You got a weave, your hair ain't that long. You got a Wonderbra on, your titties ain't that big."
--Chris Rock

Pictured is the edge of a first date I eavesdropped on this afternoon.

After lunch with one of my girlfriends today, we stopped for coffee and inadvertently ended up ringside to a young couple's first (and I suspect, last) date. Whenever she went outside to smoke, I stayed inside and eavesdropped. It was clearly a first date because it went more like a job interview where they both presented their resumes, credentials, and qualifications. Plus they each talked about their favorite movie quotes. Nobody does that on a second date. They both talked about their five year plans. His involved school. Hers involved selling cosmetics. He asked about her plans for the evening, which was phrased as, 'so what are you gettin' into later?' Her response indicated that her plans wouldn't be including him, but was phrased somewhat ambiguously: 'I'll probably, you know, hang out. Lay low.' Pressed a little further as to whether those plans might be modified to include him and perhaps a more adult beverage than coffee, the answer was a clearer No, phrased as, 'I can't be hung over tomorrow.'

I remember thinking it was a little unusual to see kids that young on what was so clearly "a date" -- I thought everyone that age just "hung out" or "hooked up" or was "in a relationship" (a relationship that resulted from probably either hanging out or hooking up). I think of dating -- or more specifically, going on first dates -- as more of a 30-something, 40-something proposition.

I have one coming up and it isn't something I'm looking forward to because I really only enjoy dating in the spring and summer. I hate Fall, and I loathe Winter. I don't like my clothes. I don't like my hair. I don't like the food. I miss cooking straight out of my garden. And I live in fear of an ice storm from about November thru March. It all makes me unpleasant.

Which is is a problem, because I always try to be as close to Me as I possibly can on dates (just dressed nicer), the exact same way I always did in job interviews -- and my rationale is the same -- if I represented that I could or would do something in that initial contact, someone in a subsequent contact might fairly expect me to follow through on it as part of my duties and responsibilities.

I ask a lotta questions on dates the same way I always used to at job interviews, because I really want to know the answers. As much as they might be evaluating me, in the back of my mind, I'm always thinking: do I really wanna work here?

Consequently, I've never been one of those girls who feigns interest in a band or a sport I wouldn't like to impress a boy, anymore than I would try to convince a prospective employer that I was good at math. My first job was working for engineers. If I'd tried to convince them I could do things I couldn't, somewhere, a bridge might've collapsed. What if I pretended to be outdoorsy and a boy then wanted me to haul my ass out to the woods (yeah, where no one could hear me scream is the way I see THAT)?

So, the Me that shows up on a date in October is not the same Me that would show up on a date in April. I probably shouldn't even go on this date. I should probably hibernate til Spring and start over.

But, if it doesn't go that well, I guess I can always just put my dress back on and go home.

In Vino Veritas

Last night was "nibbles" at my neighbor Kate's house where we all got to meet her childhood pal Wendy, and taste her her wines from Australia. "Hers," as in: Wendy made them. (I think her husband helped, but still....) She's a winemaker, and they have about 100 acres (or 30 something hectares, or 130-something hectares... I got kinda lost in translation).

I was especially impressed that Wendy managed to get our tasting supply into the country, because I recently saw Bottle Shock and had the impression you could only transport two bottles at a time. (Alan Rickman shoutout to Rachel -- I consider Alan Rickman to be Rachel's property, sorta the way Sam Shepard is mine.) I had the Pinot Noir and found it precocious, but not pretentious... sporty, yet insouciant... sardonic, but not smug -- much like me. All I know is it held up very well to the plateful of wasabi tenderloin biscuits I ate.

I am trying very hard to take up drinking. I don't wanna end up face-down in a gutter or anything, but I do consider wine to be culinarily significant and if you're gonna take food seriously, you oughtta know your way around a bottle or two.

A fellow guest at the party was trying to give up smoking, and I felt bad for her, because it's my understanding that wine makes you want to smoke (so I expect I'll be taking that up around 2010). She said it was getting easier with the help of ..."Vitamin X," to which I expressed inadvertently loud incredulity. "Really? Ecstacy helps you give up sssssmoooooking?" That stopped the conversation for a few minutes til she clarified that "Vitamin X" is just Xanax, and that I'd probably learn about that when I was her age. (She didn't know I woulda ground benzodiazapenes into my childhood Cheerios if I'd been allowed, but I really did think "X" and "E" was what "the kids today" called Ecstasy.) I also felt sad cause she can't watch Mad Men while she's trying to quit smoking. Then another lady said she can't watch Entourage cause she's trying to quit smoking pot. I assumed most people had given it up cause it got so douche-y.

There were about a dozen of us girls last night. Kate and Wendy are English, but if I'm remembering correctly went to Catholic school together in Bahrain. Wendy had a scholarship to Cambridge in the Classics, but got married and had 4 kids in Holland with her husband before moving to Australia. Another lady was Swedish; another married to a Brit... and so on.

The only thing I could think of to conversationally fall back on in such a transcontinental crowd was, "What do your roosters say?"

[I got that from David Sedaris, in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: "'What do your roosters say' is a good icebreaker, as every country has its own unique interpretation. In Germany, the rooster greets the dawn with a hearty 'kik-a-riki.' Greek roosters crow 'kiri-a-kee,' and in France they scream 'coco-rico,' which sounds like one of those horrible premixed cocktails with a pirate on the label. When told that an American rooster says 'cock-a-doodle-do' my hosts look at me with disbelief and pity."]

Now, I'm not a total dumbass -- I didn't ask this completely out of context. We were talking about one of the ladies at the party who raises chickens in her backyard downtown -- which I thought was illegal (awesome, but illegal)-- and it turns out it isn't. You can raise chickens downtown, but not roosters. (Everyone else was far more up to date on the city livestock ordinances than I was, which was kind of embarrassing.) The problem is, when you order up baby chicks, you can specify hens, but inevitably, a rooster or two sneaks in. When they're babies, they look pretty gender-indeterminate (now this, I did know, having been raised on a farm and been disappointed by many a crop that grew up to lay no eggs, which was just one of many of my failed brilliant get-rich-quick childhood schemes).

So, I thought "what do your roosters say?" was a perfectly natural conversational segue... but it was initially greeted with uncomfortable silence, as if I'd asked somebody how much money they make. I didn't know it was so personal, or maybe just stupid. And I was just starting to awkwardly explain about David Sedaris, when the Swedish lady gamely stepped right in and said, "Kookly-Oooo." I think there was maybe an umlaut or something in there somewhere, but you get the idea.

She also reported their dogs say "voof, voof." How great is that?