Drip Baby 7 November 2009

We realized sometime over the summer that we were getting HBO for free.  Well, not free exactly, since we had already given our first-born to the cable company in order to be able to have full access to AMC’s Hoarders.  What?  We have our reasons.

So, we’ve been enjoying our free year of HBO.  If, by enjoying, you mean sometimes remembering to see if any good movies are on, deciding there aren’t, hoping for a rerun of True Blood instead, and otherwise forgetting we even have cable.  But, we have it and with it we have access to semi-risque programming that involves scantily clad women.  As you can imagine, we’re all about scantily clad women.

This has led us to the early 90s wackiness that is Real Sex.  Have you seen this show?  Between segments on all manner of kinky indulgence (like phone sex, masturbation and mutual massage – the horror!) folks on the street are asked to give their opinion on topics relevant to the clips.  These are usually early thirties folks out for a night on the town, often tipsy, usually giggly, holding forth on everything from spanking to talking dirty.  Not a huge range. Especially not considering the favorite topic of Real Sex – getting messy.

Perhaps the producers were really into food and sex.  Or maybe they love the idea of women with whipped cream on their noses.  One way or another, episode after episode of Real Sex features beautiful women  in some state of food or paint related mess, often in a ring, or pool with chubby, messy men looking on.  Wikipedia describes this fetish nicely, though I wonder if there isn’t a more technical term for it.  Whatever it is, someone out there is fascinated by it.

That someone is shilling faucets.

Happy National… 3 November 2009

Let me tell you people, November is one wacky month.  Today, for instance, is National Sandwich Day.  By the way, November is host to so many commemorative days that I’m bound to mention more than just this one.  But first, let’s talk sandwiches.

Fact one about sandwiches.  In my house we do not refer to them as sammies.  Oh no, my friends.  Just as the acronym EVOO does not cross my lips, neither shall the word sammies.  If you don’t know the horror from which these words come, I’m not going to enlighten you.

Fact two about sandwiches.  I do not like peanut butter and jelly to touch.  Not today, not ever.  Not within the sweet confines of a loaf and not outside of it.  Not jam, not preserves, not crunchy, not natural.  No PB and J.  It’s a flavor combination to kill for – me killing you, that is.

Fact three about sandwiches.  As a child, I begged my mother to wed marshmallow fluff and peanut butter.  She never did.  I had one sandwich, once, at a friend’s house that blended warm, toasted, white bread with a sleek layer of peanut butter and a thick, fluffy cloud of marshmallow.  I have never forgotten the beauty of that moment.  I’ve also never fixed such a sandwich for myself, preferring to let that sunbeam streaked kitchen and sticky little fingers keep the memory.

Fact four about sandwiches.  I really only like to eat them for breakfast.  My prefered breakfast (besides a hamburger and fries…but that’s another post) is a sandwich.  In fact, the best sandwich I can think of for breakfast is a hard roll with one slice of thinly cut ham and a slice of cheese, nothing else.  However, be warned, you’ll never get me to eat ham and cheese that have been touching at any other time of day.  I barely even tolerate ham.  But, in the morning, I fall into some mysterious twilight zone breakfast hole that renders most dairy, all eggs and whole grains kryptonite and installs the duel combos of ham and cheese and hamburgers and fries as my saviors.

Happy National Sandwich Day.  Have one for me.

Death Defying Loops 14 September 2009

When is the last time you’ve ridden a roller coaster?  And how did you feel afterward?  Not just in the woohoo moments when the ride cruises to a stop, but in the day-after moments?

We’re all adults here, you can admit it if you felt like you might die.

D and I went to an amusement park this weekend to shake off some of the last month.  And shake it we did, on teeth-rattling, head-banging, gut-wrenching, twisting and twirling rides.

I didn’t grow up enjoying roller coasters.  I particularly hate the click click click of the cars going up for the first big drop.  The rattling, jostling ride of a wooden roller coaster is a recipe for a skull cracking headache.  But as an adult, I love the rush of the propelled coasters, the smooth steel tracks that zip under and over without the need for a slow initial rise and deep drop.  I love to laugh as the ride shoots through loops and curls and suspends me upside down for a perfect moment.

But let me tell you, we hadn’t been to a park in a couple of years and something about my equilibrium has significantly changed.  The first ride we went on featured a set of twists that just about sent my stomach onto the pavement.  While the rest of the day was terrific, I don’t think we ever really recovered from the nausea courtesy of our first trip.  I’ve definitely felt it in my bones for the last couple of days.  Ouch.

Even in the moment, I think we knew that our inner children had taken a beating.  When I was little, I remember running from ride to ride, insatiable for more excitement, thrilled as the park lights twinkled on and the lines got shorter.  It didn’t matter that we would race from one point to the next just to stand in line or even that we rode the same ride again and again.  It was a matter of cramming as much as possible into the minutes we had left.  It was always time to go too soon.  This time, we arrived shortly after the park opened (but not early enough to beat down the door) and left well before it closed, satisfied and happy, delighted to both have been there and to be wrapping things up.

I never thought I’d want to leave before the park closed.  But oh was I delighted to be home.  People, my bones might be too old for roller coasters, but luckily, my soul isn’t.

County Fair 28 July 2009

Dear readers, you know that I have a long history of country fair attendance.  You’d think that now that I’m more rural than ever, D and I would have more to write home about.  So far though, the only notable fair commentary I’ve had is what puts the county in county fair.

Admittedly, D and I are particular about what sort of fairs we go to.  We tend to steer clear of the smaller, Ferriswheel-only type events.  Don’t get me wrong, we’re not in it for the rides. We have two, clear criteria.  Food and a demolition derby.  Yes, we have attended fairs without those two crowning glories (one fair with no food – NO food! – and another with no transportation more exotic than pony rides).  But what makes my summer complete is a bang up, hootin, hollerin, demo derby followed by something deep fried and delicious.  So we keep our eyes open for candidates.  You’d be surprised at how many fairs eschew the demolition derby demographic.

We thought, since moving to Charlottesville brings us into a decidedly more rural territory, that we’d have our pick of the (junk)yard.  We were wrong.  So far only one candidate has proven to meet our minimum requirements – the Madison County Fair.  And what a fair it was.

The Madison fair had all the standard fair features.  Cows and other barnyard 4H standards, blue ribbon arts and crafts, rides, games and food.  There was a even a tiny three ring sideshow featuring (if you believe it) a giant alligator, a Man Eating Snake of the Desert Nations and the SMALLEST HORSE IN THE WORLD.  Well, clearly, Madison County has got what it takes in the fair department.   They even have a demolition derby, bless them.

So off we went.  An hour north and $10 later, we were walking around the midway (and a wee one at that) admiring the hometown fun machine and the win-a-fish ping pong toss.  We skipped the WORLDS SMALLEST HORSE (pity) in favor of a fried twinkie and a corn dog and moved out to get a seat in the bleachers well in advance of the main demo derby event.  While our 30-some bodies practically fell apart after an hour on the hard wooden seats, we were glad we held them since it quickly became clear that this was the most happening thing going on Saturday night in Madison County.  Lawn chairs, bleachers, standing room only, there was no place to be if you didn’t have a place already.

We had local company just behind us in the form of a family of 20; mothers, nieces, Paw Paws and Aunt Sissy’s of indeterminate familial status.  Who knows if they were blood, co-workers or just benchwarmers like us, but they were friendly enough, if a bit invasive.  At one point, Maw Maw leaned over and whispered close in D’s ear, “You all wanna mint?”

Maw Maw was holding down her family’s chunk of the bleacher like an anchor dropped in sand.  Never budging an inch but taking up more and more, she spread and melted in the humidity.  Eventually, the clan formed around us into a swarming hive and we had to give up reclaiming our seats from the matriarch.   After all this, it was easy to tell they enjoyed the derby as much as we did (Ma! Ma! Did ya see that? did you?) and I got the impression they made us as comfortable as possible in the heart of the chaos.

That said, while I had already noticed that my accent was more newscaster and less rural, Maw Maw’s country drawl spotlit my yankee clang well enough to send me shamefully into whispers the rest of the night.   Or maybe I picked up a little seashore Virginian from D and called it a day.  I’m not telling, I mean, tellin.

Lettuce, I Cannot Live Without You 5 May 2009

We joined a sort of CSA* this spring. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years. In DC, the idea of a box of vegetables delivered to my doorstep was a temptation I couldn’t stop craving but also could justify paying for.  I won’t eat beets, who knows what else they might deliver, and why would I pay someone to gift me with a brussels sprout?  The answer?  I would not.   Sealing the deal was the effort going into getting those vegetables to me – gas for the truck, etc – vegetables that might well rot in the refrigerator in a wave of restaurant nights and lackadaisical cooking efforts.

It’s my downfall.  I’ll admit it to you.   I love the idea of vegetables, but not the reality of them.  Not the earthy flavor that creeps into some bites.   Not the wilted, wet blackening of lettuce.   Not the contortionist thinking when I try to determine what to do with something my mother never cooked.  I bring fresh veg home (and by this I mean only broccoli and green beans) and then I guiltily toss them after determining that we’re tired of tough broccoli or the black spots on the beans might be dangerous.  I know.   It’s criminal.

Charlottesville drew me in with the offer of a CSA drawing from multiple farms, offering a variety of pick-up spots (relieving me from the guilt of a door-to-door delivery) and providing a huge variety of produce.  After much debate (and by this I mean me telling her repeatedly I was going to do it and her nodding sympathetically), D and I agreed that we would commit.  Commit to eating our greens.

I’ve repented, mended my ways, found religion in this CSA.  I had no idea that rhubarb tasted good.  Historically, one bite of standard strawberry-rhubarb pie left me alternately scraping my tongue of sweetness and wondering why there was a slight vegetable taste.  My lettuce lexicon consisted of iceberg (ugh), romaine (bland), and arugula (bitter and not really a lettuce).  I’d never seen an actual beet.  It’s shocking, really, that my love of cooking and food could have resisted variety for so long.

Last week, we picked up spinach, beets, rhubarb, chard and red sails lettuce.  This was week three of spinach and so it went into a dip for a party (and by this I mean there’s a bodily limit to how much spinach a person can consume).  However, the generous addition of dip ingredients and crunchy bread made up for the side effects. The beets are awaiting a sweet potato/beet roast while the chard will be joining us in a parmesan prosciutto pasta.  We discussed the rhubarb at length (why does it look like celery?  Does it taste like celery?  Why are the leaves poisonous but not the rest?  What is it about strawberries? How can we avoid the sickly sweet berry/barb combination?) before tossing it into a rhubarb bread pudding.  In theory, this would be redeemable because D prefers bread pudding to even me and I prefer her happiness to everything else except yours.  It went into a bread pudding looking weird and celery-like and came out of the oven tasting delicious.  Horizons broadened?  Check.

The real star of last week’s haul was the red sails lettuce.  This beautiful cluster of tender, flavorful leaves trumped everything that had come before it (including both the apple butter and the honey).  We’ve eaten it as quickly as we could, testing the previous leafy limits set by the spinach.  I had no idea a lettuce could be anything so perfect.  Pretty, delicious, slightly sweet and useable all the way through.  I realize I was a hostage to iceberg as a child and only begrudgingly welcomed romaine into my life as an adult.  For having never met the red sails lettuce, I am deeply sorry.

Here’s to this week’s bounty.

*for local folks, we joined Horse and Buggy Produce a “local natural foods cooperative”

Coming Out 7 November 2007

Already you’re thinking this is a gay post, but it isn’t!   I just used the cleverly deceptive title to fool you!  Ha ha!  Do you feel fooled?  Extra points, dear reader, if you didn’t sigh at yet one more post cleverly trying to fool you into thinking it was gay when – gasp – it wasn’t!

While I could regale you with stories about my own coming out (uneventful, I assure you, unlike the time I left the vibrator out in the middle of the living room.  Which was, of course, all in the same week.  My poor parents) I will instead delight and awe you with the tale of my blog coming out.  You don’t have to look so disappointed.

We were at a party this weekend with a passel (like how I used that word there?) of lesbians that D. knows but I don’t.  It was delightful actually, homemade wings and nachos, football, tons of yummy beer and easy conversation.  Apparently, I enjoyed myself so much that I casually mentioned having a blog.  Unlike the way I’d envisioned it, the conversation didn’t stop, no one eagerly demanded my url, waiting with bated breath to jot it on a napkin, no one even looked surprised.  Of course, I had my eyes closed, wondering why I would say such an appalling thing.   I’m delighted that I was able to come out while not having to actually share anything.  Now, as long as I don’t go and leave the vibrator on the footstool, no one will even remember.

Points for your own coming out story.

Check the Calendar 1 November 2007

It’s November.  No surprise to you dear reader, but you probably haven’t got the same birthday rules my family has.

You read correctly, birthday rules.  Rules! 

No one in the family produces babies at anytime other than Sept 28 – Oct 5, November 20 & 21 and April 24 – 29.  You might think I’m kidding, but even the cousins and the married-ins conform to the strict birthday date limitations.  I once thought I’d marry a woman with a birthday in January.  As you can imagine, it didn’t work out.  Not least of all because of her non-conformist birthday (or was it in February?  That also might be why it didn’t work out…)  D. of course, has an appropriate date, as does my sister’s husband.  His birthday is on my birthday, followed immediately after by my mother’s birthday – shared with my sister and one second cousin.  Lost yet?  Never-mind, it’s the rules that are important.

• Rules
  Everyone shall have his/her own birthday cake/pie, no matter how many cakes are produced for one day.  One year, there was a pecan pie, a refrigerator cake, an angel food and a stack of celebratory cookies.  No, we aren’t a slender group, us November borns.
• No other holiday shall adversely affect celebrations.  Therefore, Easter treats and Thanksgiving abundance shall carry on, unaffected by consumption of cakes/pies produced in Rule 1.
• No one shall discuss, breathe mention of, circulate a gift list for or otherwise think of any November birthdays before the September/October birthdays have passed.  You guessed it.  This is the big one. 

As you can imagine, as a little girl, my Sept. birthday sister sulked, in the way a non-twin might do in the face of twin birthdays with exponentially more stuff.  Her sulking generated the Rule.  And so, us Novembers were left only two short months to anticipate while she basked in the balmy, easy-going months between April and September.  Oh that lucky girl.  As adults, we still stick to the rule (perish the thought that a September born should suffer for a pair of November borns.)  But as adults, we sometimes forget to get excited.  And believe me, that results in sub-par gifting.  So join me in my enthusiasm for the best holiday of the year – the end of the ban on birthday discussions! 

Bonus points if you, too, share a birthday.

Food Love 5 August 2006

I’m not going to be tiny, ever. Here’s why: Flavor.

It’s not that I love to eat. In fact, most of the time, I think of it as maintenance…or necessity…or a chore. It has to be cooked, chewed, and digested. Don’t get me wrong. I love to cook. I like the way garlic smells with olive oil and onions. I like the way things blend together (or don’t), burn or brown, combine to make whole new flavors. I enjoy eating. But the other night at dinner, I was reminded why I love to eat.

We went to a spot we’d been eyeing called Artie’s. We thought it was probably middle-of-the-road American – in fact, we were looking for something easy. Instead, we got the most flavorful calamari resting on lobster cream. We got delicate flounder wrapped in kale, crab meat and slender slices of crisped potato. We got braised pork tenderloin with a slightly caramelized chili glaze and shredded parmesan potatoes flecked with a hint of dill and broiled just enough to crisp. All we drank was water, but it was appropriate as everything had the perfect consistency; nothing melted when it should have crunched, nothing was gummy when it should have been flaky. We thought we were satisfied (no, thank you, I couldn’t eat another bite!) but in fact, the strawberry shortcake proved beyond our willpower and the from-scratch biscuity cake (not too sweet) and the layer of rich cream (not too bitter) with the plumpest blueberries (none soft) and the ripest strawberries (perfectly juicy) went beautifully with the hand-churned ice cream (not too firm).

I felt like I could have rolled home, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. The waiter was friendly without being flirtatous (which I find unappealing in a waiter), the booth we sat in was deep and comfortable, slick brown, padded cushions blocked by a shiny, glossy…buttery…dining table. The napkins weren’t too stiff and the service was perfect; our water glasses never got low, unobtrusive busboys cleared plates at the appropriate time, the staff seemed to truly like each other. I don’t know how soon we’ll go back, but I’ve been back three or four times in the last week alone.

And that is why I’ll never be the girl in the magazine.

More Bad Luck 5 July 2006

You might have noticed. I’ve had the most incredible string of bad luck. I’m not even much of a fate/luck/providence believer, and mostly things work out right for me. I have to admit, even in light of the string of bad luck I’ve had recently, things still work out better than they could under the circumstances. Last night when we came home, the AC had leaked, soaked the dining room ceiling and was working on soaking the carpet on the floor below. But I do live in an apartment and so the maintenance men were dispatched first thing this morning and now I have a large hole in my ceiling but the AC is at least on. You see? The best of the bad.

Still though, it’s the constant, recurring bad things that are bringing me down. You wouldn’t believe what google turns up when you search bad luck, but this voodoo egg remedy has to be the best of the bunch.

Bonus points if you have an egg in a sack moving under your bed…

G – Gooooooooooooool 1 July 2006

I love the World Cup. When I was first in training for the Foreign Service, we would bribe our Portuguese teachers to let us out early to go to a neighborhood bar and watch the games. We’d bring them any Brazilian treat we could think of, even going so far as to buy Romeu e Julieta from the expensive, import market near the school. We would almost never get out in time to see the first few minutes, in fact, I’d bike faster than I thought possible just to get to the meeting spot before the chance of an early goal. Arriving hot and sweaty didn’t bother me; the cold restaurant, the icy beer in the middle of the afternoon and the fact that all of my friends would be more interested in the game than the way I smelled assured that it didn’t matter if I arrived in a sheen of heat and bike dirt. Four year later, at a small town fourth of July parade, my childhood friends and I gathered around a fist-sized tv set to watch Cameroon shame a powerful European team as floats and bands trooped down Main Street. In Mozambique, while the early games were showing, I’d rush home for a long lunch and turn the TV toward the window so that the guards could watch the game as well.

This year, I’ve had to contend (pitifully) with a full time job. I haven’t been able to watch most of the games. I’ve tried to bring D. into the soccer fold, showing her how the game works and what to watch for, much like she did with me during the NFL season last year. Unfortunately, with most games falling during the week, we haven’t had much time to follow the teams. Of course, we watched the US avidly (that is until the riotously unfair calls by the ref in the Italy game and the subsequent stomping in the Ghana game) and we’ve followed Brazil for the sheer joy of it. We’ve missed most of their games, getting only to see recaps and watching the occasional Telemundo replay (even though we knew the score and none of us speak sufficient Spanish).

But my love for Brazilian soccer goes back almost a decade. My first assignment was to Brazil. I spent two beautiful years in Sao Paulo. I travelled extensively, had Brazilian friends and saw my fair share of local games. As an honorary Paulista, I cheered for the Corinthians and was firmly against the Palmeiras (sorry, links in Portuguese). The stadiums in Brazil are impressive. Huge cement structures with no chairs (why give anyone incentive to rip them out?), just cement risers appropriate for standing, singing and screaming. The Brazilians have a list of songs for every occasion, all memorized, none published. I think you must be born knowing them if you’re native to the area. Every match is a chorus of supportive song, each teams’ fans singing as loud as possible. There is nearly always showing off on the field (unlike in cup games) and there is inevitably an argument or two, if not with the ref then among players. Fans are fenced off from each other – each section is team specific, separated by high fences – to keep them from killing each other. At the end of the game, the losing teams fans are dismissed first while the winning teams fans remain kept in, chanting, singing and surging down the cement platforms to the front. This prevents fights outside of the stadium (in theory) but promotes trampling inside the stadium. Friends of mine bruised ribs underfoot, one broke a wrist. I always fled as soon as possible, in part because of claustrophobia, in part because of articles like this (English). I miss those events a little (saudades, nao e’?) but am getting my fix this year watching Brazil.

Bonus points if you, too, are cheering for Brazil.