People say the funniest things

Last Saturday, I was on a walk with my dog on my way to meet Tom at the gym.  This is our little Saturday routine: I feel guilty from not walking her as much as I used to (see earlier discussion re: damanding work schedule) and he feels guilty for not working out much during the week, so instead of leaving her home on Satrudays when we go to the gym, I walk her and put her in Tom's car once I get there.

On that walk, I came across the following scene:

Has this ever happened to you, either figuratively or literally?  This has happened to me.  I had two bikes in college, one of which was stripped similar to this poor bastard, and the other of which simply vanished, leaving nothing but a shattered Kryptonite (R) lock on the ground in its place.

While my home has never been robbed, my car was stolen in law school.  I'll never forget stumbling towards the driveway in an effort after a late night to make it to class, and seeing nothng but pavement where my beloved car used to be.  I remember wailing into the gray morning sky: "Who the hell steals a Peugeot?  Did they get tired of boosting le Cars and Yugos today?  Now how am I going to get around?"

Luckily for me, my mother gave me her car, which I fondly referred to as the Oldsmobuick (attribution to Chevy Chase in "Fletch," which is, by the way, one of the finest films ever made).  This gave my friends at the school something even better to laugh about, because whereas before they gave me grief for driving a car built in France (apparently, this made me somewhat of an elitist), now they could flip me shit for driving a car that their grandmother would drive.  By this I mean no offense to my mother, and I point out quite accurately that she obtained the car from her grandmother, so technically they could have come at me for driving a car their GREAT grandmother would drive.  I'm glad I never divulged that little detail about the car's provenance.

This has also happened to me figuratively.  I met a woman some time back who I made an effort to get to know because of a common interest we shared.  The problem was, after each time I socialized with this woman, I felt like the bike in the picture above.  I felt as if my conversations with her were so draining that at the end, I was missing valuable parts of me.

She was a classic Complainer.  Do you have one in your life?  She was always moaning about her financial situation, despite how good it was and how lucky she was that money was provided to her via a successful  and generous husband.  She was always feuding with the contractors working on her home (and there were always contractors working on her home) and threatening to sue them.  She was obsessed with a gentleman in the neighborhood with whom she served on a board, and ranted for hours about how much she hated him.  The funny part was, all the characteristics she claimed he had (but didn't) were her most prominent ones: arrogance, pettiness, and a unique ability to take the majority of credit when credit was either not due or due to a large effort on the part of many people.

She rarely smiled.  She rarely laughed, unless it was one of those scary laughs, that tells you a person is on the verge of shrieking.  And then there were her favorite comments that she whipped out on a very regular basis with much the same talent as a criminal would brandish a weapon:

Her:" bitch bitch bitch bitch I can't believe I have to take Timmy to practice and Sally to piano and you'd think my husband would help but does he ever no and I have to sue the floor guy and my sister is a whore and Portland sucks it's not at all sophisticated like the east coast and of course I'm from New York and I don't mean a bridge and tunnel girl and do you think my ass looks fat because I am pretty sure my ass is fat..."

Me: "Look on the bright side, _______________, everyone in your family is healthy and you have a beautiful home in a lovely neighborhood plus your husband is great!  He's pretty busy with all those surgeries he's been doing lately!"  This is said in my best polly-anna voice, which I hate to use but on occassion it is simply required.

Her: "Look, no offense Robin, but you really have no idea how hard my life is.  I have two kids, you have one, and you only have to have him half time."

Some of you are reading this right now and saying to yourselves, "Robin's kidding.  She's employing exaggeration as a literary device to increase the impact of the story.  Nobody can be that much of an insensitive asshole, right?"

Wrong.  After I picked my jaw back up off the floor, I asked her what she meant.

"Well, you are basically just a part-time mother, and for only one kid.  I just don't think you can really relate to my problems."  So said the woman who belonged on the cover of Pampered Bitch magazine.

"Look," I said, still trying to recover from my shock, "you must know that both Jake's dad and I wish we could have him all the time.  Our lives just didn't work out that way, and it still hurts to this day.  I don't think either one of us consider ourselves part-time parents.  And you know I work, so it isn't as if I don't have things going on in my life too.  I can relate."

She sniffed and began plucking imaginary lint off her $350 cashmere hoodie.  I had not convinced her that my life as a divorced mom was not foot-loose and fancy free, filled with chocolate and sex and long nights lingering over champagne at Fenouil.  What was even more interesting was that this became one of her favorite things to say.  I let it go for a long, long, LONG time.  Finally, during an outing at the zoo and after listening to another diatribe about the trials and tribulations of her life being a West Hills Kept Woman versus my carefree existance as a "part time mom," I decided it was time for a gently worded confrontation.

"You know, ________, when you say that, it really hurts my feelings.  As I have told you, I wish things had worked out differently for my family.  But I am glad that Patrick and I figured things out and divorced, instead of living a sham of a marriage and bringing up our son to think his parents were a fraud.  So if you don't mind, I'd appreciate it if you stop referring to me as a part-time mother."

She didn't say anything.  I wondered at the time if she had heard me.  "Hello?  Hello?  Is this thing on?" I wanted to say.  Regardless, I told both Tom and Patrick that if she ever said another word in that vein again, I was pulling the disconnect on her.

About two weeks later, Patrick and his fiance Crista and Tom, Jake and I met up at a book fair at Jake's school.  The woman in question found us all standing together, and said hello.  She then immediately said, "Have you seen my children?  Good God, you guys all have it so easy, since you only have one child and you only have him part-time."

Patrick, Tom and Crista eyed me nervously.  I think they thought I was going to go nucular, in the words of our esteemed former president George W. Bush.  I just walked away, and kept walking.  Sometimes, that's the only answer.

Behold, the view yesterday from my office.  Now that is something to be thankful for.

The politics of blogging

The other day, I was having a convertextion with my sister Melinda. We don’t usually talk on the phone, as it is too much of a hassle. We find that punching out our innermost thoughts on our cell phones is a much more efficient and psychologically rewarding way to exchange information and personal feelings. She had read a recent blog and was trying to guess the identity of who I was referring to in my post about the Match.com date from hell. 

We then got into a discustextion about the cruel irony of creating a blog to express yourself, but simultaneously being restrained from writing about certain experiences because of the audience you have invited to your blog as well as your unknown readers (a.k.a. "lurkers"). This subject arose because she had a topic suggestion for my next blog regarding an issue with which we have both struggled.
“I have an idea!” she announced, “You should write a blog about (blanking) a (blank) (blank).

“Are you kidding me?” I laughed (as much as one can laugh on a text message, that is).  "I can’t write about (blanking) a (blank) (blank)!  Tom would kill me!”

This got me thinking about all the topics I really can’t go near, given who I know is reading this and that I am not exactly sure who the rest of my audience is. While I may only have 24 “public” followers, something tells me (a wildly optimistic ego and a little word on the street) that at least 2,450 other people are reading my almost daily musings.  Some of you, I know about.  Others, I don't.  But I wonder, and I worry.  Still, like a bulimic sorority sister anxious to purge the latest trip to Pizzacato before the big barn dance on Friday, I have thoughts and opinions that simply must be expressed, or I'll explode.

Therefore, to be on the safe side today, I am going to blog a Mad Lib. If you don’t know what a Mad Lib is, google it. I don’t have time to answer your stupid questions.

MAD LIB BLOG

Today was a (adjective) day. I started out the day by (verb) ing my (noun).  It  had been a few days since I had (past tense verb)ed my (noun) and it really made my morning.

My (noun) was shortlived, however, when I received a(n) (noun) from (noun). 

"(pronoun) is at it again," (pronoun) said.  "I just don't know how much longer I can (verb) this without (verb)ing  (pronoun)."

"Screw (pronoun)," I said in response.  (Pronoun) is just (adjective) because you are a (adjective) (noun) and (pronoun) is the most hated (noun) in Portland.  You know (pronoun) is just doing this to increase revenue and cause dissention.  Ignore (pronoun) and concentrate on how (adverb) it will be to (verb) (pronoun) tonight!"

See, this doesn't work.  The Mad Lib approach to what my ex-husband refers to as "that blog thing of yours, and no I don't want to follow it publically," just doesn't work for me.  So the question is, do I write about painful and embarassing subjects and enjoy the cathartic release despite causing myself (and potentially others) discomfort?  Do I avoid all touchy subjects?  Or, in the alternative, do I just bury what I am saying so deep in metaphors, similies, analogies, personification, metonymy, etc that nobody knows what I am talking about?  And if so, why bother writing at all?

The other option my sister suggested was a contest blog to see whose dog is cuter: hers or mine.  And to that end, I present Suki

and Margot

Poor Suki doesn't stand a chance.

Great first date. Profoundly bad third date.

I have a pretty awful cold right now, which resulted in me spending most of yesterday in bed.  I did get up for breakfast and lunch (both prepared by Tom - wow!) but other than that, I hibernated and spent the day caught in that weird place where you are too tired to keep your eyes open, but you can't quite fall asleep.  I hate that place.

Since I couldn't sleep and I couldn't read, I occassionally would entertain myself by shouting out something to Tom, who was working in the office next door.  My favorite exchange of the day went something like this:

Me: "Tom?"
Tom: "Yes, sweetie."
Me: "Do you remember our first date?"
Tom: "I sure do!  Best first date ever!"

And then Tom went on to describe exactly what I was wearing on our first date, right down to the shoes.  Although the Chinese say (well, maybe not all of them, but surely some) that the faintest ink is better than the best memory, I'd say Tom's memory of our first date is pretty good.  I mean, come on - the shoes?  That's pretty cool.

Tom and I had a series of email exchanges leading up to our first date, and it was clear to me that I was going to meet someone pretty special.  He was smart, funny, and had a naughty streak similar to mine.  He also was a little bit older, but I figured that's OK, because with the way I am living my life I am probably not going to make it past 70 anyway.  And who would want to?

We met at the Veriatable Quandry for drinks and then headed over to the Blues Festival.  One of my all-time favorite bands was playing that night - Little Feat.  Suddenly, during a rocking rendition of "Dixie Chicken," there was a dry electrical storm and lightning about every 30 seconds.  The crowd went crazy, the band played even better, and Tom and I looked at each other and knew.  That's when we had our first kiss, and it will go down in my book as the best first kiss ever.

Later that night, as we were walking from the park to a nearby restaurant for dinner, I truly fell for him.  And by that I mean, I fell.  Those snazzy sandals I had chosen for my first date with Tom came with a four inch heel and no discernable form of ankle support.  I tripped, and launched myself about 20 feet in the air before landing on my hands and knees.

 The most embarassing aspect of the fall was that the contents of my purse spilled out and were strewn about the walkway.  If you are anything like me, the contents of your purse may not be something you want anyone to see, especially if it's a first date.  I tend to carry a pretty big bag, which means all sorts of things are in there.  Specifically: feminine products, lotion,snack food, my shitlist, and small barnyard animals.  It wasn't that bad that Tom saw a tampon roll out of my purse and down the hill, but I think the fervor with which I chased it may have given him pause.  In my defense, those little buggers are expensive and it's a really bad day when you need one and it isn't there.

He picked me up, dusted me off, and we continued on about our evening.  Like I said, an amazing first date, which led to an even better second date the very next evening.  And a third, and a fourth, and the rest is, as they say history.

I tell this story to contrast it with one of my favorite Bad Match.com Date Stories (and I have a lot of them - look for this as a regular feature on my blog).  I don't want to identify this gentleman (**ahem**) by name, but here are some clues:

1. He considers himself to be a real big shot in our town;
2. He is so pompous that he wouldn't tell me his name until we met in person, and only identified himself until then as a "local celebrity" (who, by the way, I had never heard of, and I've lived here my entire life); and
3. He was once nominated for a Grammy.  It's an honor just being nominated, you know.

When I first met this fellow, I was intrigued.  He wasn't all that handsome but he carried himself like he was looking at George Clooney's reflection in the mirror.  Within ten minutes on our first date (and after he finally told me his name, looking crestfallen when I didn't recognize it and instantly throw my panties at him), he explained to me how different he and I are from the general population.

"You see Robin, it's like a bell curve," he said, and traced a bell curve on the wall of the little Italian restaurant.  "You and me, we're over here," and he gestured to the far right of the curve.  "The rest of the world, they're over there," and he waved his hand dismissively to the left.

While I certainly appreciated his quick recognition of my brilliance and overall superiority to, well, everyone, it did feel a little strange.  He didn't know me well enough to know how fabulous I am, as that takes at least four dinner dates, three happy hours and a trip to a karaoke bar.  Was he trying to flatter me?  What was his angle?  I was puzzled.

Despite the fact I found this man a little strange and I didn't like his shirt (if you know me at all you know that can be a real deal-breaker), I accepted a second date with him, during which he told me he loved me.

Uh oh.

I then accepted a third date, planning it at a restaurant owned by a friend so I could break up with him there and watch him leave, then sit at the bar and commiserate with the owner about the lack of decent single men in Portland.  I had the whole "it's not you, it's me" speech written on 3 by 5 notecards in my purse (see, you don't want people looking inside your purse) and I was pretty optimistic that I could get 'er done by the salad course.  The conversation did not go as I planned, however, because of what happened when he picked me up for our date.

Mr. X showed up at my door that evening with four things, each disturbing in their own way, one especially so. 

1. A dozen red roses with baby's breath.  Can you say "trite?"  I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but for Christ's sake, it's all about the tropical flowers these days;

2. A teddy bear for my son Jake, who was 5 at the time.  He had never met Jake, and Jake eyed him suspiciously when handed the stuffed bribe bear.  "You do know I'm five, right?" he said, tossing the offending item on the couch and returning to his game of Grand Theft Auto;

3. His scrapbooks (plural!) put together by his mother, detailing every major event in his life including significant bowel movements, and last but not least;

4. A wrinkled brown paper bag that looked like it had seen better days.

"What's in here?" I asked him, and started to open the bag.  He remained silent as I pulled out not one, not two, but three different brands of personal lubricant.

"Um, what's with the lube?" I asked, trying to shield my son from seeing the bag's contents and simultaneously conjuring up a really good excuse to get this guy out of my house immediately.

"That's for you, sweetheart, 'cause I'm really big, and you're gonna need it."

To say that I was flummoxed is the understatement of the century.  I was so shocked that I actually got in his car and went to dinner with him.  I think I knew that ending this "relationship" should take place in a very public arena and away from my innocent child.  I also sensed that my prepared remarks would no longer be adequate, and that I needed something more concrete to ensure he would lose my number, and fast.  We sat down, ordered drinks, and I told him the following:

"You are such a great guy, I really think you are wonderful, but I can't date you anymore.  The truth is, and I'm so sorry for not bringing this up sooner, I'm actually dating someone else, and we are in love, and we just decided to get married.  So technically, you see, I'm actually engaged, and really shouldn't be here at all."

"I don't see a ring on your finger," he astutely pointed out.

"Oh, well, we don't really buy into those social conformities," I laughed, and illustrated this point by wriggling my fingers and raising my eyebrows.  "He actually proposed to me with a salmon.  A really fresh salmon.  We are getting married next month.  At a salmon cannery.  It's going to be very special."

"Aren't you still married to your first husband?" he querried, clearly not buying into my story.

"Oh, um, yes, but it turns out we weren't really legally married after all, because I was very drunk at the time and he was still married to his first wife, so I've got my lawyer working on an annulment."

He was starting to turn purple and his breathing became rapid.  His silk shirt (ugh) started to show sweat stains in the armpits.

"Why on earth would you need an annulment if you were never legally married in the first place?"  This was a good question - a very good question indeed.
 
"You know," I said, in my very best lawyer voice, "Since you aren't a lawyer you really can't understand.  It's very technical and has to do with res judicata and habeas corpus.  I'd explain it to you but I'm really not sure, despite your position on the bell curve, that you would get it."

For weeks afterward, this man called and emailed me incessantly, telling me I would never meet someone like him again (well damn, I hope not).  I did not answer any of his emails until the last one, which was so threatening in tone and content that I felt I had to address it.

"Dear _____, while I appreciate your enthusiasm for pursuing a relationship with me, I am busy planning my wedding to the salmon guy, so please do not contact me anymore.  I know you will find someone soon who can appreciate all your interesting qualities.  Fondly, Robin."  I pressed send.

Immediately, yahoo mail shot me back the following message:
"You have been blocked by this yahoo customer.  You are not authorized to send mail to this account."

He got me.  Damn it, he got the last word.  I hate that.

Finding deep meaning in everyday household items

If you are like me, you may find yourself from time to time having a suddenly epiphanous (no, I'm not sure that's really a word)  moment, brought on by seeing something that seems more than just what it is.  A beautiful sunset can bring about wistful thoughts of youth gone by and lost opportunities. 

A wounded animal can summon up feelings of how helpless we all are in this cruel world. 

"What the hell are you looking at?  Like this has never happened to you?"











A smiling baby often leaves me ruminating upon how quickly my son is growing up, which in turn makes me yearn for the days when I could just hold him and be the center of his world.

And then there are times when enlightenment comes through less obvious avenues.  Like today, for example.  Today I was feeling a bit lazy, as Tom and I had worked out pretty hard and I had just finished cooking my favorite ziti for some friends who will be joining us tonight for dinner.  I knew I should vacuum, but I was tired.  Thank goodness for Zumba, our new robot friend and vacuum cleaner.

As I watched him roam around the first floor of our house, I was impressed.  This little guy just goes and goes, and then at some point, he decides he's done enough and returns to his battery charger, ready to juice up for another day.  It's impressive.  He's got gumption.  But then I saw something a little disturbing: Zumba can get himself into bad situations, and spend an enormous amount of energy expending efforts to get himself out, only to get right back into them.  To wit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvvgWLBCRyw

It's both endearing and somewhat disheartening, isn't it?  He gets himself stuck under the table, and through a long series of trial and error approaches at getting out, he finally makes it past the chairs and back into the freedom that is the rest of the open kitchen.  And what does he do?  He goes right back in there.  In sum, he's a tenacious little fucker, but he's stupid, and continues to make bad choices even after spending considerable effort to get out of the last bad decision he made.  Does that remind you of anyone?  Because it reminds me of myself in years gone by, and a few other people as well.

As I found myself tempted to move the chairs to help Zumba out of the mess he had created for himself, I realized that this was not the thing to do.  Like a child, Zumba was learning an important lesson about life, and hopefully it was being programmed into his microchip, or whatever serves as a robot vacuum's intelligence center, so that in the future he could navigate the table and chairs more successfully.

"Isn't that interesting, Tom?" I said, happy to share my epiphany with my husband.  "He's working so hard to get out from under the table, just to go right back in.  It's inspirational and frustrating all at the same time.  It's like raising children or becoming a more self-realized person, isn't it?"

"Robin, it's a vacuum cleaner."  Clearly he wasn't getting it.

"I know, but it's one of those, what do you call it, analogies!  The vacuum is an analogy for all of us who struggle to make good choices, redeem ourselves when we make bad ones, and avoid screwing up in the future."  I was convinced I was onto something.  Something worth blogging about, which is a pretty big damn deal, frankly.

"I think you mean metaphor," he snorted, and gave me a pat on the back.  "Maybe you should lie down for a while."

They say that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time.  If we can teach ourselves, and our children, how to avoid returning again and again to places that don't work for us, I think life would be much more serene. 

I, for one, am not going to Ben and Jerry's anymore.  Well, maybe tomorrow, but not after that.

Things are not always what they seem

One thing that I have had to come to terms with over the years, especially since becoming a mom, is that there is always someone who does things better than you (me, I mean, maybe not you, but definitely me).  It starts when you announce to your friends and family that you are pregnant, and continues until you expel the baby from your nether-regions.  For example:

Scene: Me working out at the gym on my lunch break, circa 16 weeks.  I'm looking in the mirror, feeling pretty good because I think I might be getting That Glow I had heard so much about.  That Glow would beat the severe case of acne I have developed on my upper back and shoulders since becoming pregnant, which I was now calling "backne" in an effort to be funny about something disturbing and unattractive.

I'm standing in front of the mirror, chatting with a woman I had become friendly with at the gym.  I hadn't seen her for a few weeks, so I dropped my happy bomb on her.

"Guess what?" I announce gleefully.  "I'm having a baby!"

She smiled, and offered her congratulations.  "I knew it!" she said, and gave me that knowing smile that all women with children give to first-time-mom pregnant ladies.  "You look great, and you are still working out which will really help.  How far along are you, about 30 weeks?"

The woman in question was one of those extremely athletic types - you know the kind.  Judging from her BMI (which I estimated to be around 4) and her complete lack of breast tissue, it appeared that she ran marathons on a bi-weekly basis and did Iron Man Triathalons just for shits and giggles on the weekends.  Frankly, I found it hard to believe she could summon forth a menstrual cycle, much less carry a baby to term, given her lack of body fat.

"Well, you see, I'm only 16 weeks, but the women in my family always show really soon, plus I had a very salty lunch, and my posture isn't great which makes my stomach look bigger..."

She looked worried, not only that she had offended me (she had) but also out of genuine concern for my health and the health of my child.  She launched into a long dissertation about gestational diabetes, and warned me not to "let myself go" simply because I had the convenient excuse of being pregnant.  Seeing as how I spent most of my days at work either vomiting or sleeping under my desk, I didn't see how being pregnant was all that convenient.

"Be careful," she warned, "you don't want your husband to lose interest in you after the baby is born (oops!  too late!).  I myself only gained 16 pounds when I was pregnant, and I had a 10 pound baby!"

I excused myself and hopped on the treadmill.  "Bitch," I grumbled.  "I'll show her.  I can keep my weight gain under 20 pounds; 30 tops."

After 50 pounds, I started turning around on the scale at the doctor's office.  Sometimes we don't want to see just how bad things are. He too made noises about weight gain and my ability to retain my husband's affections.  Normally something like that would launch me into a tirade about what a sexist pig he was, but since I had Pregnant Brain, instead of getting upset, I developed a massive crush on him.  After much Internet research and chatting with friends who had been pregnant before me, I found out it is very common for Women in That Condition to fall in love with their obstetrician.  After all, he's the only one paying attention in that area after a certain amout of months go by, and you know the relationship has an expiration date, unlike marriage, which is supposed to last forever or at least a little while longer than a crush...

Back to people doing things better than you (me).  There are always moms who are more involved in their children's school than you (I mean me, sorry).  My son goes to a great school that has a very strong element of parental involvement, as long as you aren't talking about my involvement, which has been limited for two reasons:

1. I find it inconvenient to volunteer at the school given my work schedule, which you should know from my earlier posting is an inconceivably stressful 20 hours per week, and
2. Some of the other moms annoy me.

They bring snacks.  They volunteer to tutor kids in the class.  They go on those god-awful field trips and actually pretend to have a good time.  For shit's sake, some of them actually work on fundraising for the school, a thankless task that requires tenancity and the ability to make people feel guilty and hand over money.  I'm tenacious when it comes to something like getting a bartender's attention when it's three deep at the well, but getting people to donate money to my favorite cause has never been something at which I excelled.  I believe that in my six months of fundraising for my law school, for example, I brought in around $500.  This was especially unfortunate, since I was paid by the school for my alumni development efforts.  By the time I was done with them, I think they were in the hole about 3 grand.

Anyway, I digress.  I am a good mom.  I am just not one of "those" moms.  That's OK, because like I said, some of those women are annoying.  But I do my best, and that usually means getting Jake to school every day on time and without incident, helping him with his homework, teaching him the fundamentals of a happy life (minus the grown-up fun stuff, which will come all too soon), and basically just making sure he is alive at the end of each day.  And usually, I feel pretty good about my efforts.  But sometimes, I am reminded that there are a lot of other women out there doing it better than me, especially when I see things like this on an internet website:

Mom Plans Dinner Menus For Entire Year

Texas mother always knows what's for dinner -- that's because she has planned it out a year in advance. Leslie Chisolm and her husband started mapping out meals for their children after trips to the grocery store became too expensive.

She said the family was wasting money on things like eating out and compulsive shopping. Chisolm said her new plan works because she always has a menu she can take to the store and she knows exactly what to stockpile when things are on sale.

View the family's menu calendar here: menu calendar here.

See, before I clicked on the menu, this story made me feel really bad about myself.  Not only do I rarely plan out a meal before mealtime, I often wing it and throw in the (kitchen) towel, too exhausted from my stressful career to do anything.  On those nights, we either order food to be delivered (http://www.delivereddish.com/), go to Papa Haydn, or, as we did last night, trek up to Skyline Burgers.

That's not to say I don't cook.  In fact, this is sort of a cooking blog, except I never post recipes or write about cooking anymore.  I do cook, often, and Jake loves most of my recipes, especially my salmon and of course what he calls The Kobe.  But plan out menus a year in advance?  No way.  So upon first glance, a story like this can make you (me) feel sort of like a bad mom, right?  Or if not a bad mom, at least flirting on the border of inadequacy, which is not pleasant.

Upon further investigation, however, I am satisfied that this woman is not my superior in the maternal skills department.  If you look at the menu calendar, the first thing that springs to mind is: what is with all this possessive food?  Taco's?  B. (I assume this means baked, but could also mean braised, boiled or broiled I suppose) Potato's?  Frito's?  Many of the food items on the menu were appropriately pluralized, but these three items often got the possessive treatment.  It was confounding and made me feel superior.  Smug, even.

So there.  Not only is the food on this menu really unhealthy and uninteresting, it is also often improperly punctuated.  I win!

Quit yer crying, give me a call

Below I have copied an interesting email that my husband recently received at work. Tom is constantly inundated with junk email at his workplace, whereas I never have any. Back when we were first dating and he was complaining about the amount of spam he received, I teased him that his firm firewall was really a firecolander.


He didn’t think that was very funny.

I think he secretly likes being able to complain about the massive amount of email he receives on a daily basis because it makes him sound even more important and impressive than he is already, at least in my eyes. Here is an example of a typical exchange at our home over dinner:

Me: "Well, I had an interesting day today. We’ve got this crazy plaintiff who is suing us because he is a Pagan and we wouldn’t let him have Halloween off with pay, not to mention the issue of his costume, which involved spikes, cutout panels and visqueen…"

Tom (interrupting): "That’s nothing! I had 200 emails in my inbox this morning and I’ve only dealt with half of them!"

Me: "Well, honey, isn’t it true most of that is spam, and you just have to delete it?"

Tom: "You just really don’t understand how hard it is to be me."

The subject line of the following email was, quite presumptuously, “stop weeping.” Of course, if it had come to me directly, instead of through Tom, the subject line may not have been all that assumptive (see earlier post re: dark moods, brain chemistry, and amputees). Please be advised I have not done any editing on this material, so assume “sic” all over the damned thing.

DEAR SIR/MADAM.


My Name IS LINDSAY FORD s Am 75yrs old of age, i stay in New York U.S.A. i am a good merchant, i have several industrial companys and good share in various banks in the world. I spend allmy life on investment and coporate business. all the way i lost my husband and two beautiful kids in fatal accident
that occur in november 5th 2003.i am a very greedy woman with all cost i dont know much and care about people, since when i have an experience of my lovleyones i felt weak.i found it difficult to sleep and give rest. later in the year 2004 february i was sent a letter of medical check up, as my personal doctor testify that i have a lung cancer, which can easily take off my life soon.i found it uneasy to survive myself, beacuse a lot of investment cannot be run and manage by me again.

i quickly call up a pastor/prophet to give me positive thinking on this solution, as my adviser.He minister to me to sharemyproperty, wealth,to motherless baby/orphanage homes/people that need money for survivor both student that need money/ business woman and man for their investment for future rising.

Sotherfore i am writing this letter to people who are really need help from me both student incollege, to conatct me urgently. so that i can make available preparation on that. espectcially women of the day, who are divorced by their husband, why they cannot survive the mist of feeding theirself. please contact me to stop weeping.

probably let me know what youreally need the money for, and if you can still help me to distribute money to nearest orhanages homes near your town.now am so much with GOD, am now born again.may the lord bless you, as you reachme, please to remind you,dont belongs to scammers or any act of fraudulent on internet.

THANKS.

LINDSAY FORD

Ok, where do we start? There is just so much good material here that a person such as myself, prone to over-indulgence in just about every area of her life, could go on for pages and pages, thus leaving the blog reader bored and impatient and wondering when I am going to get back on the subjects of weight loss, exercise, and posting fattening recipes. Let’s say we limit our commentary to 8 items, OK?

1. This woman’s name (Lindsay Ford) is decidedly Anglican, yet her command of the English language would suggest that she was either raised in a third-world rural village with no school, or on the planet Pluto. Oh wait, Pluto isn’t a planet anymore. Oh well, you get the drift.

2. She’s supposedly 75 years old, which piques my suspicion on two counts:

a) She lost her husband and “two beautiful kids” in a car accident only 7 years ago, in 2003. When I think of the term “kid,” I think of 18 at the very oldest. That would make her a comparatively very old mama indeed, to almost all of us except for Elizabeth Edwards. Of course, it is possible that her two adult children were tooling around in the car with dad when this terrible fate befell them, but let’s face it: if you are lonely enough to be hanging out with your parents in your 20s or 30s, you are taking your own vehicle, as a rapid escape is often necessitated. 

b) A 75 year old woman using the internet? I think not.

3. If she has several industrial companies and “a good share” in many banks throughout the world, how the hell does she have any money to give away? Shouldn’t she be standing in a soup line somewhere, given recent developments in our economy?

4. Her doctor told her in a letter she has terminal lung cancer? Come on. I don’t find doctors to always be the most tactful people in the world (unlike lawyers, who are filled with grace and charm always) but I doubt any patient in this country, despite our pathetic health care system, would get this information in the mail. I can just see some doc dashing off a note on his way to the golf club through dictation to his secretary: “Um, yeah, Margie, could you please put me down for a twosome on the 12th with Harry Goy and call my wife and tell her I’ll be late for dinner? And oh, could you get a letter to my patient Lindsay Ford and let her know she has terminal lung cancer? Great, see you tomorrow, I’ll be in early, around 10:30.” This is not even to mention that in 2004 email was a very widely-used communication device, and since we all know email is a very personal way to communicate without the possibility of misunderstandings and miscommunications, that would have been the better way to go.

5. This woman lost her husband and two kids in a horrific accident, she has lung cancer, and now she finds it “uneasy” to survive because she can no longer run and manage (and what is the difference between “run” and “manage” anyway) her investments? If I lose everything that means anything to me and I am facing the prospect of a painful and drawn out death, I’m thinking I might be focusing on bigger issues than my investments. To put it rather bluntly, something I almost never do, she doesn’t have to worry about leaving anything to her family. If it were me, I’d be worried about my chances of getting into heaven (which I never believed in until my diagnosis) or who was going to take care of my dog when I died, or how many Kobe steaks I could eat between now and the Big Day, since the calories and fat content no longer matter anyway…

6. She asks her pastor/prophet (these are two totally different concepts! Doesn’t she watch Big Love??) where she should direct her money, and he tells her basically: orphans, people that “need money for survivor” (because these days it can be expensive to get together a really good audition tape for that show), students, and businessmen and women who need money for future rising. Financial Viagra, as it were. This of course would never happen, as any decent pastor, or prophet for that matter, would instantly convert the estate into a secret slush fund for the benefit of the church wine cellar and the settlement of child-abuse cases.

7. She addresses “women of the day” who are divorced by their husbands, which somehow leads to intolerable misty weather conditions and famine. She also assumes these women are weeping, and that contacting her will alleviate their depression to some extent. That begs the question, has Ms. Ford never heard of the term “gay divorcee?” Have you seen some of these women, let loose after years of marriage and on the prowl? I’ve seen them – hell, I’ve been that woman. They ain’t weeping, they creepin’. Fo sho.

8. Towards the end, she seeks assurances that if you choose to respond to take her money, please do not be an internet scammer. Alrighty then. That’s what we in the legal business call “due diligence,” and it is a critical aspect of any large-scale business deal or charity drive.

It's too bad this email is bullshit, because there are a lot of people in Haiti right now who could use some help.  I have sent some money but it doesn't seem like enough, so now I am attempting to adopt a Haitian orphan.  Shhh, don't tell my husband...

Cleaning house

Yesterday, out of what I am sure is my father's gratitude for providing him with the profound wisdom and insight of my blog, my dad gave me a few gifts.  Of course, not one to simply accept a gift without pondering the potential hidden meaning within, I was up late last night trying to discern the unspoken intent of the following additions to my home:

1. A vacuum cleaner that is also a robot.  We have named her Zumba, and Margot hates her.

2. Several cookbooks; and

3. A clay pot.  Clay-pot?  Claypot?

Being the ultra-sensitive and often irrational and paranoid person that I am, I of course assumed the following:
1. He thinks my house is messy;
2. His opinion of my culinary repertoire is that I need some new inspiration; and
3. He is tired of the le crueset calling the kettle red (ha!  if you read my blog regularly you would get that joke) and that he yearns for me to experiment with new cooking mechanisms as well as new euphamisms for hypocritical assholes.  Perhaps the clay pot calling the kettle kiln-fired?  Wow, that's pithy and really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate these gifts, and I am kidding about the hidden meaning behind them.  In truth, he just needed to get rid of some extraneous cookbooks and since one of them was a clay pot cookbook, and I do not have a clay pot, throwing in the pot seemed logical.  Plus, I asked him to give it to me, which sort of put him in an awkward position.

He also sent me a book in the mail recently, which was very thoughtful and for which I failed to thank him because 1) I have been so busy blogging, 2) I have been so busy reading said book, which is very engrossing, and 3) frankly, I just forgot.  Bad Robin.

I know you are wondering what book he sent me, and the suspense must be killing you.

Chelsea Handler is funny.  She says what she thinks and doesn't pull any punches.  She also has an interesting friendship with alcohol and has had a somewhat rocky history of personal relationships.

I just can't figure out why he sent me her book.  Go figure.

Speaking of difficult relationships, yesterday (as I mentioned in my blog posting) I had an unfortunate encounter with someone I used to know.  More accurately, I thought I knew her, but I didn't.  Actually, that's not true.  I knew this person better than anyone, which is why we could no longer be friends.  Once again yesterday, the le crueset called the kettle red, and I am still pondering how she can go through life with such a major case of projection going on.  I like to think that I am pretty familiar with my own faults, and I have them listed alphabetically on my iphone so I can check in from time to time to see if I have made any progress on improving myself in these areas.  Here are the major ones:

Insecure?  Check

Overly-sensitive?  Check

Prone to dark moods?  Check

Too concerned about my appearance?  Oh yeah, big check there.

Yesterday, I was accused of being hateful, unhappy, and fat by a woman who was angry that I called her out on some shady behavior.  Caught in a major lie, this was her only way of expressing what I can only assume was major embarassment.  Since I have no interaction with this woman any longer and only run the risk of a chance encounter with her at my gym (and someday I suspect that won't happen anymore, once the Sugar Daddy stops paying her bills), I don't know why this bothered me so much.  I am not a hateful person, I just dislike her.  I am not an unhappy person per se, though it is true I suffer from feeling blue from time to time.  I chalk that one up to unfortunate brain chemistry and I don't really think it's very nice to fault someone for a brain wiring issue.  It seems almost as inappropriate as making fun of an amputee.  And finally, although I'd like to drop a few pounds and get a little more definition in my abs, I don't think I qualify for gastric bypass. 

Yet.

So, why does this person get under my skin?  I guess it's because I feel like a fool for ever trusting someone who I knew was lying to and about others who were close to her.  I was shocked and deeply hurt when I was told by mutual friends that she was spreading false stories about me to people we knew.  What I finally realized yesterday is that my shock in her behavior was ridiculous.  If you spend time with someone who is constantly deceiving other people, don't fool yourself into thinking they aren't doing it to you at the same time.

"Same old Robin," she said in an email yesterday.  And that's the thing - I am not the same person I was when I was spending time with her.  Tired of living an unfulfilling life and wasting time on people that were unreliable and toxic, I turned things around about three years ago.  I met a great guy who did me the honor of becoming my husband, and I am thankful every morning when I wake up and see that it wasn't all a dream.  I am not the same person I used to be, and I am proud of that.  Some people keep growing, even later in life, and some people stay the same.  I'd rather evolve, but that's just me.

Why I tuned in, turned on, and dropped out of Facebook. Again.

I joined Facebook in the summer of 2008 because some friends asked me to post pictures of my recent wedding on the website. After a few days of reconnecting with old friends the voyeuristic atmosphere had me hooked. I found myself checking in to Facebook several times a day, curious what others were up to and curious who would contact me next or comment on my status, photos and notes.


Several things lead to my decision to unplug from the Facebook experience the first time, around last April.  On one occasion, I found myself posting a status update from beautiful Forest Park while I was hiking with my new puppy. "Robin is loving hiking in Forest Park with Margot!" I declared, certain that everyone else would be interested in this fascinating development in my life instead of just enjoying it for myself.  My step-daughter Kendall would call this FOT, or Facebook Oriented Thinking.  FOT is similar to BOT, Blog Oriented Thinking, but even more insidious.

I also found myself too often thinking about my day in terms of status updates. This resulted in a bizarre tendency to talk to myself in the third person. "Robin is exhausted from her workout!" I would declare to myself, and often post as well. "Robin is annoyed with her vet," "Robin is so proud of her husband's win in court," "Robin detests opposing counsel in my favorite case," etc. Who was I talking to anyway, and why?

While I enjoyed following the exploits of one stepson, another ignored my friend request. Why? What had I done? I thought he liked me!! While I assume he didn't want me (and by extension, his father) privy to the Facebook-published details of his raucous college experience, the rejection did smart a bit.

There are some on Facebook who update and post excessively. These people are known by the slang term Facebook Whore.  If you are on Facebook you know the type I am talking about. With the excessive poster, it seemed that no detail of their life was private or mundane enough not to publicize.  And, let's face it, many people use Facebook to brag about their lives and their general level of fabulousness.  It isn't enough to be happy anymore, now many of us feel the need to assure the rest of the world how happy we are.

Although Henry David Thoreau noted that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," what I was witnessing on Facebook was the mass of men (and women) leading lives of loud desperation. Desperation came in many forms: some loudly proclaiming their love for a significant other when it was common knowledge the Facebooker was cheating. The "look at me" aspects of photo posting, noting vacations and parties that the poster wanted and needed everyone to know they had experienced. The proclamation of love for children: "he's the best!" "I just love my kid!!!!" that seemed bizarre: since when do we as parents need to publish our affection for our kids? Are we afraid people think we don't love them?

The final straw came when I received several friend requests from people who I have known in the past but who do not interact with me at this point in my life. For reasons good or bad, those friendships burnt out long ago and do not exist in the three dimensional world. Why then would they send me a Facebook friend request? And why did I confirm them as a friend? Auuugh!

What I finally decided to do was to take a break from Facebook and put my energy into a very few things in the physical world: my family, my work, and relationships with those friends most important to me. The result was liberating in ways that are difficult to describe, except to say that I found my life much more satisfying when I did not look for any form of friendship or validation via the computer.

And then, I'm not sure why, I went back.  I wasn't the first Facebook junkie to fall off the wagon, and I won't be the last.  But today I pulled the plug for good, after a Facebook-related ugly exchange with a former friend.  This person had hurt me very badly in the past (see Kitchen Item meet Kitchen Item blog) and I have never been able to forgive them because of the magnitude of the transgression.  I won't go into the details but I was unneccesarilly snarky to the person as a result and now I feel crappy about it because it was a ridiculous injection of blech into an otherwise really great morning.  So, I bid adieu to Facebook and I won't be going back.  Really.  I swear.

From now on I will call my friends and invite them over instead of just posting something on their wall. I will share the good things in my life with others if I think they would be interested, and I won't approach releasing information about myself via the shotgun approach of an Internet posting.  Except blogging of course, but that's different.  Blogging, you see, is a writing exercise.  And you know how important exercise is.

I have no objections to Facebook for anyone else, but my suggestion is to try going a few days without it and reach out to people in your lives in a more meaningful way. DesCamp, out.

Double Standards

Since I do not have to go to the office at all on Mondays and Fridays, I generally tend to put in extra time working out on those days.  I am able to get through 90 + minutes of cardio for one reason and one reason only: On Demand television.  Tom's youngest JT gave us an enormous big screen TV last year, and we installed cable in the basement for our home gym.  Don't be impressed, our home gym consists of one recumbant stationary bicycle and our washer and dryer.

Today, I indulged in some good old-fashioned ethnic stereotyping-through-television by watching not only an episode of The Sopranos, but also The Jersey Shore, MTV's latest attempt to prove that civilization as we know it is indeed coming to an end.  Behold, the heroine of The Jersey Shore, Snookie:

Snookie may be little (4 foot 9 inches) but she has got a real mouth on her.  In episode 4, Snookie persisted in berating a drunk fellow bar patron (male, and quite large) when he appeared to be stealing her drinks from the counter.  He rewarded this scolding by punching her right in her cute little chipmunk face.  Of course, she completely fell apart, and all the boys in the house were ready to kick some major ass, except the perp got hauled off to jail before they could assault him with their grotesquely large muscles.  By the way, if you think steroids are no longer in fashion, I suggest you watch this show and take another look at the issue.

MTV has decided that the incident is too offensive to show on television, so they blacked out the screen during the moments when she actually got smacked and landed on the ground.  Luckilly for you, I have provided a link!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I agree that the scene is hard to watch, and I agree that men should not hit women.  But then again, I don't think anyone should hit anyone.  What is interesting to me is that on the very next episode, another housemate (Jenny, also known for some inexplicable reason as "J-Wow") throws quite a few punches at a woman in a bar who calls Snookie fat.  Remarking on the BMI of her housemate is apparently the ultimate offense to J-Wow, and she went after this girl like a divorce lawyer after your 401k.  MTV did NOT choose to excise this footage from the show.

What's also interesting is that after the episode in which poor Snookie takes one on the chin, MTV posted information at the end of the show denouncing violence against women BY MEN, and posting information about public resources for battered women.  This was a bar fight, not a domestic violence situation.  No such announcement ran at the end of the show when J-Wow apparently went psycho during a major episode of PMS.

My brain has been occupied lately with society's strange expectations of men and women.  Even though women have made enormous strides in the past few decades, we still are often held to a different standard then men.  We are not more fragile than men.  We should not be physically assaulted by men, and at the same we should not be abused by other women either.  Or transgendered folks, for that matter.  By the same token, we should not raise our fists to anyone of any gender.

I just want to live in a world where we are all responsible for our own choices, regardless of sex or color or race or sexual preference or whatthehellever.  We should all be responsible for our own choices.  We should all be nice to each other.  We should all be allowed to make a living and be recognized for our achievments whether we have a hoo hoo or a ding dong.  I believe one thing holding us back from living in true gender equality is the coddling of our womenfolk, as illustrated by the story above.  As a society, we should abhor all violence, and not be more offended when perpetrators and victims have a particular set of genitals.

And finally, for your veiwing pleasure, I hereby present my first entry in my new feature I am calling "Dirty Food."  From time to time, I will be posting photos of pornographic food.  It's weird, I know.

That's mozarella, in case you were wondering.

Working women and the dogs who thwart them

As some of you know, I am lucky enough to have a great part-time job. While I would prefer a full-time position at my company, I am grateful in this economy to work the 20 hours a week I do. The cases I handle are interesting and often, quite frankly, fun.

While I am only in the office 2 ½ days per week, I am always connected to the office by my laptop at home. In order to work from home, I have to connect via a VPN, which requires me to input an access code that I get from what I call “the egg.” The egg is supposed to look like this:

Instead, today, the egg looks like this:

See, my dog is really mad at me. Back in September, I started this new work schedule. Prior to that point, I had been available to my puppy pretty much all the time since she came to live with us. Believe it or not, she loves me. A lot. And when I began working my grueling schedule of 2 ½ days per week in the office, she rebelled.

It started with toilet paper. Out of nowhere, about three days after I started disappearing from the home in order to earn money for her damn kibble, she started eating toilet paper. She would remove it from the holder and shred it all over the house. This was annoying, but given the fact she wasn’t gunning for my precious shoes, I overlooked it.

Next she started coming after anything I left on the bedside table. She got after a few books, and yesterday I came home to the chewed up access egg. So, literally, my dog ate my homework. She ate my ability to work from home, and even though I am only required to put in 20 hours per week, the fact is that I do quite a bit more from my home office, also known as my bed.

As if that were not bad enough, she also attempted to destroy my favorite pair of earrings, which Tom bought me on an ill-fated trip a couple of years ago. The trip was ill-fated for several reasons, most especially because all three of us (Tom, Jake and me) got sick. Tom was sick for at least two or three days before we left, and Jake was fine when we got to the airport (see photo)

but then vomited on the plane (more specifically, he vomited on me on the plane). And, the day after we arrived, I got sick.

Since Tom is just about the nicest guy ever (apologies to any ex-boyfriends or husbands who may be reading), he went into town and bought me a beautiful pair of earrings as a get-well gift. I wear them all the time and get many compliments on them, at which point I always tell the complimenting person the story of my wonderful husband and the fact that these are get-well earrings (I do this because Tom has gotten a bit miffed in the past if someone compliments me on something he has bought for me and I don’t instantly give him “credit”).

So, my dog is clearly retaliating against me for working “outside the home,” as it were. Margot is not your average dog. She is wicked smart, and as Tom says, “totally devoted” to me. I do the best I can to be with her as much as possible, but things just aren’t the same as they used to be. I can’t walk her every day, I can’t take her everywhere in my car anymore, but I am doing my best. Her hostility about this change in circumstances is clearly being manifested via her sudden need to chew things up that are very important to me. Yes, toilet paper is important to me, and don’t pretend it isn’t to you as well.

Yesterday, upon coming home to the chewed up access egg and earrings, I was upset. I was secretly a little pleased, since I was suffering a bit from bloggers’ block and needing a subject to write about, but mostly I was mad. I sat down with her and tried to explain that I need to work for my own sanity, and I did not put myself through the hell that is law school so I could sit around the house all day, baking cookies for her and Jake and Tom. I also reminded her that I needed to make a living, and that it wasn’t cheap keeping her in chew toys and Paul Newman treats.

She just looked at me, nonplussed. She thinks she is a princess and that the world revolves around her needs, and other people fulfilling them. My dog has no respect for the liberated woman, but then again, a lot of people don’t, as illustrated by this bus in London that was driving around a couple of days ago.

I have not forgotten that this is supposed to be a blog that shares fitness tips and healthy recipes, so let me try to remedy my lack of writing in those areas today with two fitness tips.

Fitness tip #1: get off your ass and get some exercise, every single day.
Fitness tip #2: see Fitness tip #1.

Greatest (?) Love Songs

Tom and I have a song - do you?  I don't mean do you have a song with Tom, because hopefully you don't (unless you are one of my friends who also has a husband named Tom, and there are actually quite a few), but I mean do you have a song that is especially special for you and your spouse/lover/sidekick?

At some point not too long after we met, but after we knew we were falling ass over teakettle in love, Tom and I were driving in his car to dinner.  We had just experienced the perfect day together, including some humbling golf, and it was just one of those days when you know, you know?  I looked over at him and I knew that no matter what, I was going to be nuts about this guy until the end.  Nuts in a good way, not the stalking version, FYI...

He turned on the CD player in the car and a song I wasn't familiar with began to play.  Tom suddenly told me, "this is our song."

"Huh?  What?  We have a song?  Why didn't you tell me?  Who is it?  What's it about?  Cool!"

"It's just that every time I hear this song, I think about you, and so I sort of consider it our song," he said.  He looked a little sheepish.  My heart did a major pitter-patter and I took his hand, started the song over again, and listened to the words.

Any of you know this one?  It's called "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Deathcab for Cutie.  Here is a sampling of some of the lyrics:

Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

Hmm, I thought to myself.  So basically, Tom is telling me I am going to die someday (and it sounds like it's going to happen pretty soon), I'll probably be alone when it happens (when I shit the bed, as it were), that neither heaven nor hell will be willing or able to provide me with accomodations, that as a result I will spend the hereafter in some sort of purgatory called "the dark," and that if this happens, he will commit suicide to join me in this place called the dark, where things are probably pretty boring and I am guessing chilly. 

He gets cold easilly, so that's a pretty big deal.  I was moved, really, but it seemed a little morbid for a couple who just fell in love.  It's sort of what you would expect Wednesday Addams to have played for the first dance at her wedding to Dracula.

Come to think of it, we did have that song played at our wedding. 

Better that song than "Love and Marriage," sung by Frank Sinatra.  On the surface, it seems like sort of a nice song, right?  The very basic meaning upon first blush is that love and marriage go together, and that's just a wonderful thing!  Then again, have you ever wondered why it was used in the opening credits for the show "Married with Children?" 

Love and marriage
love and marriage
go together like a horse and carriage
this I tell you brother
you can't have one without the other.

OK, first of all, I agree completely that love and marriage "go together."  They are supposed to, anyway, and hopefully for most of you that is your experience.  I don't buy for a second that you can't have one without the other, because we all know married people who don't really love each other and most of us have been in love prior to marriage.  Or after it.  Or in high school, which doesn't really count.

The part that gets me in the song is that love and marriage go together "like a horse and carriage."  That's a really good deal for the carriage, which can't do anything on its own but just sit there, but what about the horse?  Here you have a perfectly good horse, roaming around his or her field and sniffing out the local action, and the next thing you know, he or she is getting "hitched"  - chained up and expected to haul around this carriage that can't do shit without the horse and which keeps insisting on filling up with passengers and assorted stuff that is heavy.  The horse has no say over what is put in the carriage, all he can do is whinny for a carrot once in a while and hope he gets lucky.

"I didn't sign up for this."









Love and marriage
love and marriage
it's an institute you can't disparage
ask the local gentry
and they will say it's elementary!
Marriage isn't for everyone, so if I feel like disparaging it I will go right ahead and do just that.  I think a lot of smart people have made a pretty good case against the institution of marriage (including Mae West, who noted that marriage was a great institituion, but she wasn't ready for an institution just yet).  Personally, I think that when you have a really great match between two people, it can work (wow - isn't that both insightful and inspirational?).

But what does the local gentry know about it, anyway?  Aren't they busy counting their money and zipping to and fro in their expensive, gilded carriages?  And serving tea?

And that reminds me, I will leave you with a picture I took outside Phil's Meat Market in Uptown last week.  Dude in a skirt.  I love this town.

Kitchen item, meet kitchen item

Once again, I find myself pondering the etymology of another popular saying.  Today, we discuss the pot/kettle issue, which is often phrased along the lines of "well, if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black!" or in today's more hip parlance, "pot, meet kettle."

We all know that when someone uses this expression, they are indicating that someone is accusing someone else of behavior that they themselves engage in.  For example, if you are holding up a liquor store and another thief comes in for the same nefarious purpose, it wouldn't make much sense to say something along the lines of "how horrible - you shouldn't be robbing this store!  Go make an honest living, you!"  Assuming both your pot and your kettle are indeed black, that would really (but not literally!) be the pot calling the kettle black.


What I am searching for, however, is a new expression that will describe what happens when someone accuses you of being or doing something that you are not, but that they are.  And don't say "well, what's wrong with the word hypocrite," because it isn't as precise as I need here and frankly, it's overused and boring.  Let's go back to our earlier example, but you are no longer robbing the liquor store.  Instead, you are just standing in line with everyone else, waiting to purchase your life-enhancers (vodka, cigarettes, and lottery tickets).

Said robber comes into the store armed to the teeth and exhibiting poor hygiene to boot.  He points his gun at the cashier and acts in a generally menacing way to everyone during the commission of the robbery.  He even utters a few words of profanity, just for dramatic effect ("open the fucking register!  get down on the fucking ground!").

On his way out the door, he turns to you and says, "what do you do for a living?"

You look around behind you, and to your left and right.  He is clearly addressing you and it seems prudent, since he is the one holding the big gun, to answer.  In addition, you weren't brought up to be rude, and when people express an interest in learning more about you it seems unfriendly to not engage in the process.

"Me?  Um, I'm a lawyer."  You obviously don't need to ask the question in return, which is the polite thing to do in most circmstances, but clearly not expected in this one since it is rather obvious how he puts food on the table, or crack in the pipe, or whatever.

"Ugh," he groans, and grabs a few lottery tickets from behind the counter along with several miniature bottles of liquor.  "Lawyers are the worst.  I just don't know how you live with yourself."

You want to say something clever and cut this guy down a peg or two, not to mention defend your profession, but you also don't want to get shot.  So, instead of saying "well you may have an income but I earn a living!" or something along those lines, you keep your smarty pants mouth shut and say nothing. 

However, there should be a saying for that sort of situation, because doesn't it happen all the time?  I know a woman who was constantly cheating on her boyfriend, and yet her favorite topic of conversation was to gossip incessantly about a friend of hers who she told people was cheating on her husband, even though she knew for a fact she wasn't.  We can't say she was a pot calling the kettle black, what can we say?  I've got it!

She was the le creuset calling the kettle red!  As you can clearly see from the photo above, the le creuset is red, and the kettle is silver and shiny.  I'm hoping this expression takes off quickly and somehow I can earn money from it.  Perhaps I'll trademark it.  Let's use it in a sentence, shall we?

"Sarah Palin claims she performed poorly in her interview with Katie Couric because Katie Couric is unintelligent, woefully unprepared, and profoundly annoying.  Boy, that is the le creuset calling the kettle red!" 

I like it.  I really do.  Now on to the food portion of our blog.  Last night was a great evening.  Taylor and JT came over for dinner, along with the Haddons (very nice couple but they are both far too good-looking and I find that annoying).  Patrick and Crista joined us for the happy hour(s) portion of the night, but elected to have dinner elsewhere.  And boy oh boy did they miss something special!  I forgot to take a picture before we cut into it, so please forgive the leftovers shot.

If you are a lasagna lover, this is the recipe for you.  If you are not a lasagna lover, seek therapy immediately.

Three-Cheese Lasagna with Italian Sausage

SAUCE

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 cup finely chopped peeled carrots
4 tablespoons minced garlic
1 pound ground veal
1 pound spicy Italian sausage, casings removed

2 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes with puree
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoon golden brown sugar
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

LASAGNA

1 package no-bake lasagna noodles
2 15-ounce containers part-skim ricotta cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (about 3 ounces)
1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, squeezed dry
2 large eggs
4 3/4 cups grated mozzarella cheese (about 1 1/4 pounds)


FOR SAUCE:

Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, carrots and garlic; sauté until softened, about 12 minutes. Add veal and sausages to pan; sauté until cooked through, breaking up meat with back of spoon, about 5 minutes. Drain as much fat as possible from the pan.  Add remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer until flavors blend and sauce thickens a bit, 20 minutes should do. Discard bay leaves. Cool.


FOR LASAGNA:

Combine ricotta and 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese in medium bowl. Mix in spinach. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Mix in eggs.

Spread 1/2 cup ora little more sauce over bottom of 13x9-inch glass baking dish. Place noodles over sauce. Spread one third of ricotta-spinach mixture evenly over noodles (I actually pick up the noodles and spread the mixture on them, then put them in the pan). Sprinkle mozzarella cheese evenly over ricotta-spinach mixture. Spoon sauce over cheese. Repeat layering twice. Arrange remaining noodles over sauce. Spread remaining sauce over noodles. Sprinkle remaining mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese evenly over lasagna. (Can be prepared up to 1 day ahead. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate.) Cover baking dish with aluminum foil. Bake lasagna 40 minutes; uncover and bake until hot and bubbly, about 40 minutes. Let lasagna stand 15 minutes before serving.

This recipe is sooooo not on the diet.