Blogging for Dummies

Did anyone else notice 21 posts this month? Okay...half of them said “no post today,” but whatever. I thought about penning my own “Blogging for Dummies” how-to manual, but it turns out that “Blogging for Dummies” [in addition to being redundant] is quite a serious trademark infringement. Who knew?

So in lieu of a whole volume, I will just list what I consider to be the keys of successful blogging:

• Generously define success
• Have easy access to caffeine [Most blogs are best written after about 840 mg of caffeine.] This blog sponsored by Sixbucks
• Blog in the Palin era
• Have no serious loyalty to the truth
• Don’t let the mortified looks of your family discourage you from taking notes at every family event
• Apparently….suggesting upcoming dirt on your mom’s visit is good for blog traffic…..[I see how many time you checked the site yesterday Sis.]
• Have a bunch of friends with nothing better to do than read blog postings…

=)

Visit Highlights

As previously mentioned, my mom and niece Michal were in for a visit this weekend. While the visit was actually fantastic, there were a COUPLE of moments that were a little tough-and-go:

• A minor imbroglio about whether shrimp, in fact, fell under the “no face” rule for my vegetarian niece. I guess, on second thoughts, the person doing the eating really OUGHT to be the arbiter of that.
• Michal found out that her birthday present/Southwest airline ticket only cost me $5
• The awkward moment where we had to challenge mom’s assertion that it was Michal who had smoked in the bathroom [kidding, kidding, there was no smoking in the house! ]
• The Mexican standoff on butter vs. margarine for the apple crumble [my fat-loving ass did not have a dog in THAT fight]
• Michal found out what Molly’s bully sticks are made of [you’ll just have to look it up]

Overall it was an AWESOME weekend. We (and the gucci couch) are ready for more visitors!

Mom's visit

We just finished our long weekend with my mom & my 24 year old niece, Michal [that’s right – HER name is Michal. The names are just a McC thing…]. I thought I would offer some highlights from the weekend:

• My sister Nic helpfully reminded me that “Michal doesn’t eat anything with a face”. Well now…whatever happened to just saying “vegetarian”? I don’t really need to think of my food’s features when deciding who to serve it to.
• My OTHER sister’s contribution to the weekend’s itinerary – “take them to that hang-gliding place. You could see the nude beach through the camera zoom lens!” [Mom loved it, by the way]
• With mom AND Rita cooking, I got to wash dishes I never even knew we had.
• Michal and I returned from our dog-walk around the neighborhood to find my mom regaling the yard guys to the point that they were Laughing. Out. Loud. And I’m pretty sure they don’t speak a word of English.
• Only ONE of Rita’s really, really good bottles of wine is gone. [And that’s from BEFORE mom got here =)]

Tune in tomorrow for some of the lowlights =) [smiley face down payment]

My Editor...

....missed a deadline today, so no post. [I thought it best to thoroughly edit any posts about my mother's visit - lest I permanently end up in the dog-house.] Will hopefully be back on-line tomorrow.

Air Conditions

Now I know how Tipper Gore must feel.

So while we purchased not one, but TWO portable A/C’s, it turns out we’re not actually supposed to USE them. Okay, okay – I may be exaggerating a LITTLE…but usage is definitely frowned upon. At first I thought it was because we didn’t want to run up the electric bill. But then I realized that we were trying to REDUCE, reuse, recycle. We are supposed to use these things “for when we are sleeping”. Ummmm, call me nuts, but shouldn’t we use them at the hottest point of the day…not the coolest? =) [smiley face]

And let me just tell you, Rita can be outside, behind the house, in the garden and STILL pick up the nano-second I sneak in and turn the air on [of course, it’s a dead giveaway when Molly sprints from the other end of the steam house for a drop of precious coolness for her fur-lined self].

I keep trying to work out a cap-and-trade system with Rita. Like…I will recycle one more yogurt container for 20 minutes of A/C. And I’ll even wash it out like you’re supposed to. But really, I think Rita and I ARE a cap-and-trade system. All her conservation and meanwhile I haven’t turned a light off since 1997.

Talk about an inconvenient truth.

No Post Today

Sorry gang, with my mom and niece in da house - I am focused on my hostessing skills and don't have time to blog. But I should be back on-line on Monday.

Job Evaluation

I usually have a firm rule to not blog about work. I call it the “this-blog-is-all-fun-and-games-til-McC-gets-fired” rule. That is why you have not heard anything about the job description that one of my supervisors prepared that included this honest-to-god, I-am-NOT-even-embellishing job requirement for her staff:

“No holloering. Unless it’s positive.” [Her spelling, not mine]

But I recently got my 6 month review and I figure it’s okay to blog about work if it’s about me, right? I may have changed some of the words, but here’s what I think my boss was trying to tell me:

• It’s great that you are feeling more comfortable in your role, but please quit using the f-bomb on all your conference calls.
• We’d like to recommend a SLIGHTLY different approach to team-building in that we would like to see you actually….ummm, quit scaring off your team
• We’re glad you’re a VP too, but “because I said so” is not an appropriate response to a policy question.
• Would you mind not wearing those khaki’s with a pen stain on the pocket where you ran them through the washing machine?

And the best advice I’ve gotten yet…"You know…you should be suspicious if your team laughs at ALL your jokes.”

Mom's Coming to Town

Well – my mom and my niece are coming to visit this week. In preparation for mom’s visit, there’s a couple of things I needed to take care of:

• Cancel the business trip I had inadvertently scheduled for the day she arrives [I’m no Nicola, that’s for sure]
• Identify something slightly more stable than an air mattress for my mother to sleep on. I preferred to purchase the lower priced sofa-sleeper, but Rita ultimately prevailed with a slightly more couture version. The fact that we are putting mom in the master bedroom should tell you everything you need to know about the new Gucci couch.
• Get some wine for this house, by god…Oh wait, I forgot about the wine room we have. There’s no spare bedroom – but there’s a wing of the house dedicated to the wine inventory [just as it should be!]. Which seems to say “please join us for a glass or ten, just don’t plan to stay” [that was pre-Gucci couch, so that’s not true anymore]
• Ummm….install central air conditioning?! Nice HEAT WAVE we’re having in the land-of-no-central-heat-or-air (!). Seriously – it’s 87 degrees and we have no central a/c. Meanwhile, my mom has installed the climate of the north Atlantic in her own home, so this knee-sweating ambience is NEVER going to do. We do have one of those stove-sized, portable air-conditioner jobbies that you can wheel from room to room for a little mobile chill. I’m thinking of strapping it on my mom’s back for the weekend.

At least there are no subways involved so I stand a decent chance of being on time to pick my mother up from the airport. I must remind myself to mapquest directions...

Wait For It..Wait For It

Okay – this story has been a long time coming because it actually happened during our trip to Argentina in the spring. [And no – the voters of South Carolina did not pay for OUR travel].

Despite a great deal of modernization, the Argentineans still don’t seem fully committed to certain amenities like…air conditioning. Which is why I and my three co-travelers were riding with the windows down in a taxi in Buenos Aires immediately following a huge torrential downpour.

About halfway through the ride…in some freak conspiracy of nature and traffic…a giant WAVE of petrol-infused water…splashed from the wheels of a passing bus…through the driver’s side window….and all over…ME. A wall of dirty-ass water that miraculously hits not another soul in the whole car. President Kennedy’s magic bullet did not take a more improbable path through a vehicle - leaving my fellow passengers untouched while I sat there like Droopy Dog. Either I was running low on my Karma Bank or in some Argentinean baptismal miracle – it was time for me alone to be saved during the taxi ride to the hotel.

And talk about “ick”. This traffic-spawned tsunami was half day-brie and half motor oil. It’s a good thing nobody smoked because they would have set me off like a bottle rocket. And so much for Latin chivalry. The taxi driver wiped the five droplets of water off his arm without so much as offering me a tissue [as I sat there like some refugee from a Carol Burnett skit].

Everyone ELSE jumped out of the taxi ready for dinner. I, on the other hand, looked like I had spent the afternoon running through a pipeline sprinkler.

Apparently....my turn in the cosmic dunking booth?

Karma Bank

My sister [who really is going to wish she was reading this blog] has a grand theme to life that we are all working from a Karma Bank. That’s right, your good deeds build your Karma Balance and….well…you’re misdeeds….

So if either of us says a particularly catty witty comment, we like to call it a “withdrawal from the Karma Bank”. And my sister will freely admit that she rarely runs a karma balance surplus despite her life’s work teaching teenagers. [i.e., she is REALLY witty] =)

And I just got to thinking that I keep making frequent withdrawals from the Karma Bank lately:

• All of my blogs on Sarah Palin
• The blogs about my brother
• Okay, okay – every non-Nicola blog I’ve ever posted
• Whatever the heck I did to earn the nickname “BTB” at the office…which...come to find out….means Big Tall Bitch. Seriously.
• Walking around with doggie bags like I really am going to scoop the poop [don’t tell Rita]
• My behavior in the “A” boarding line of my Southwest flights
• What do you MEAN Molly’s karma hits my account?!!

More Southwest Tales

Look – I can spot a Southwest Business Select passenger a mile away. They smell like an expense report. So when some hapless soul wonders into the front of the boarding line with half-eaten pizza and a dazed look – I know they’re not in the right place. And so it was earlier this week as I waited to board my cross-country flight, when a young, ditzy woman with a gi-normous yellow beach bag wondered into the spot for A5 [in front of me] and stopped.

In such instances, I TRY to be polite – I really do. But most of the time these dingbats are shielding their boarding pass like it’s a state secret and are oblivious to the other 59 people lining up according to some…system. [It’s not the Rosetta Stone, people, it can be deciphered] And THAT is generally when I start to get a little….ummm…pushy.

I merely suggested that “about 30 people are going to need to get past you in a minute.” Innocuous, I thought. But when the gate agent starts asking for the "A" boarding group…a certain mob mentality takes hold…I mean…there are exit row seats at stake here. As I nudged [only nudged] past dingbat, I MAY have editorialized a little…“well, lady…just as predicted…you and your Subaru-sized beach bag are RIGHT in the path of 30 people who are lined up CORRECTLY”. From which this oh-so-witty exchange followed: “Oh…world traveler” “That’s right lady – it takes a lot of savvy to count to 30”. [The promise of a little extra leg-room makes me crazy.]

After I smugly settled into my almost-exit row seat [damn those through-fares] I anxiously watched the gi-normous yellow bag settle into the row across from me, lean over and say...“Well hello Bitch. Looks like we can travel across the country counting to 30 together.”

Southwest Primer

I keep forgetting that everyone in the world doesn’t fly on Southwest three times a month. Since I tend to blog a lot about crazy people who travel [and they're ALL crazy], I thought I might need to offer a refresher on Southwest travel. First, there are no assigned seats and you board by a letter/number sequence – A1 through 60, B1 through 60 and then the general “you’re screwed” set that is the “C” boarding group [or as half the Southwest waitresses flight attendants like to say: “C” stands for “C a middle seat – take it, that’s yours”].

This letter-imposed hierarchy is in effect unless you 1) pay extra money to be a ”Business Select” [read: sucker] passenger (and then you are assigned A1 through A15) or 2) single-handedly supported Southwest’s Q2 earnings report and then you are given a permanent assignment in the high “A’s” [I’d like to introduce myself – I’m Ms. A16 and you’re in my way]. The guy walking down the aisle looking for seat C14? Yeah….he’s never flown Southwest before.

Shew. I think I am going to put that in one of the “widgets” of my blog – a permanent footnote that will come in as a handy reference to the 40% of my blog posts that seem to relate to Southwest. I had to do this reminder because the moral of tomorrow’s blog is “careful who you are mean to in the boarding line of your Southwest flight”.

Happy Beerthday

So now I can finally blog about the *surprise* birthday festivities. The irony is that Thursday’s actual-birthday night pub crawl was followed by Saturday’s *surprise* microbrew crawl. Hmmmm, does anyone see an issue theme here?

That’s right, Rita surprised me on Saturday by organizing a tour of various microbreweries in San Diego. How fun is that? What made this all the more special is that most of the 7 or 8 people who joined us don’t even drink beer. [Perhaps they just joined because they didn’t want to risk missing another rousing chorus of Whiskey in the Jar]. It really is so odd…nobody in Nashville drinks wine and nobody in California drinks beer. Must I bridge EVERY cultural divide?? [I’m still working on that football thing.]

Honestly – it’s like the Mississippi river is the demarcation line of alcohol. Tanins to the west, hops to the east and never the twain shall meet – or as Dr. Seuss put it: Red State, Blue State, Cab state, Brew state.

But when my wine-drinking friends DO engage in beer drinking, they are apt to say things like…”ohhh I taste apricot on the finish of this beer – don’t you?” Ummmm, I generally taste another beer on the finish of my beer. Just sayin’

And with the conclusion of the pub-crawlin birthday festivus…we officially return tomorrow to more installments about Southwest travel.

Pub Crawl

Before we get to the Saturday *surprise* birthday festivities, let me recap last Thursday’s actual birthday night event. Given my choice of any plan – I opted for a pub crawl in the neighborhood:

• Who knew that Rita lived in Tin Pan Alley? No joke, there are like 14 bars within walking distance of her house. I knew I moved out here for a reason.
• Next year, I think we'll introduce food at stop 2 and not stop 13
• The Irish drinking song “Whiskey in The Jar” must come with the juke box starter kit – because we played it at EVERY single bar we went to. Someone put so many quarters into the jukebox at the The Ould Sod that it’s STILL playing there.
• My mom’s visit to San Diego is now planned
• You know it was a good night when members of your party are alternatively doing the moonwalk and a two-step (neither one being location-appropriate at the time, but no matter). It does look a little funny to see your neighbor moonwalking to Whiskey in the Jar, but the girl with the pool glove kind of liked it.
• Tell me again how Joe and Emily ended up entangled in the boot of that Audi? I might be wrong – but I think they came out wearing each others’ shirts.
• The pool hall was a particularly interesting stop. It spawned its own mini-list:

1. Ummm, do NOT challenge the woman with her own pool cue to a game of pool a) you’ll lose b) she thinks it’s flirting
2. I’ve been to a pool bar or two in my day (I am from Southern Indiana, afterall) and didn’t even know they MADE pool gloves. It’s like a glove for only your index finger & thumb – so as to leave your other fingers free & clear to grip your beer
3. Where else can you get an hour’s (or hours) worth of entertainment for 75 cents?

Books

Rita got me the Kindle for my birthday. How cool is that? It is a pretty appropriate gift given my propensity to read these big non-fiction tomes while criss-crossing the country. Seriously, in 2007 and 2008, I read the book “Harry S. Truman” by David McCullough. At 975 pages, the book was akin to carrying around the actual bodyweight of our 33rd president. Given that I read about 3 pages an hour…the book saw me through two winters. Which means it traveled from Evansville to Philly to Rio to home. If they had stamped it like a passport, it would have at least become interesting.

So a Kindle should be MUCH more convenient. At first, I was a little ambivalent about the Kindle because I wondered how I could pretend to be smart to the people sitting next to me on the plane. Oh well...everytime I think I am going to impress the person sitting beside me with my newest historical opus, they pull out something like the Bible and I feel foolish.

Actually, I have fairly diverse taste in books. My recent shipment from Amazon consisted of “Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea” and “Gandhi and Churchill”. I’m sure they were all equally offended by the company being kept in the shipment box. Guess which of the two I actually finished.

Well…gotta run, time to download Sarah Palin’s new autobiography.

Birthday celebration

I like to subtly remind people that my birthday is coming up…mostly by saying things like – hey it’s my birthday Thursday. This year, however, Rita has beat me to it by inviting a group of friends in San Diego to a special Saturday birthday celebration tomorrow (apparently she didn’t get the memo about celebrating AFTER my birthday, but it’s okay because I’ve outgrown such things). But here’s the kicker, I don’t have any idea what the Saturday celebration involves. That’s right – a complete unknown. So after some understandable discomfort resulting from my lack of total control of the proceedings, I am now getting quite excited about the event.

Here are some of my theories on what Rita may have planned for the all-day surprise celebration:

• An all-day garage cleaning festivus. (I keep telling Rita that branding it a festivus does NOT make it festive)
• I have no idea because Rita gives really, really bad clues…e.g., we have to drive there [well at least that garage thing is out]. You should wear something comfortable [good to know that I shouldn’t be uncomfortable during this particular celebration], food will be provided [and I was SO sure I would be cooking for my own birthday]. Really – a LOUSY clue giver. [Did I mention lack of control of the event?]
• It starts at 9 am – so it must involve the breakfast beer
• I take this as a good sign – so far, nary a single seating chart has been prepared
• It couldn’t possibly involve those big fat sumo costumes again – it isn’t going to be anywhere near 103 degrees on Saturday
• Wait a second…a secret event…a group of friends…is this an intervention!??!?
• I don’t know what it is…but I think Jon Stewart is going to be there (expectations for the event have obviously NOT been managed appropriately)
  

At least I am reasonably assured of having something to blog about next week.

Dining Out

Rita & I recently joined our friends Joe & Paul in an excursion to a one-of-a-kind restaurant. It was no accident that we ended up at this particular restaurant because the foodies in the group (hint: not me or Joe) have been stalking this place for years. All it took was the Great Recession and voila – reservations are available to the common folk.

This restaurant is apparently famous (fame being relative, of course) for pioneering new ways of preparing and serving food in the most extravagant aesthetic way possible. By way of context – if Rube Goldberg were still alive, he would be in charge of table service. For example, one course was served on a pillow. That’s right – a pillow. But wait, there’s more. A pillow filled with lavender-infused air. As the pillow deflated, lavender escaped and mingled with your rhubarb sorbet. Are you freakin kidding me?? (The waiter did NOT appreciate my comparison to a “pot-pourri satchel who’s fragrance would enhance your entire underwear drawer”.)

The steak course (and by course, I mean 2 inch square of wagyu beef) was presented alongside a ceramic vase­ on the table containing dry ice and herbs. When our waiter added the water to the centerpiece, clouds of rosemary-infused smoke began erupting from the vase and cascading onto the floor. And I mean ALL over the floor. Between our particular table of patrons and the billowy smoke effects, we were one Donna Summer song away from official gay-bar designation.

The presentation of each course seemed to escalate throughout the night until I was certain the last course was going to be shot out of a dessert cannon from the kitchen (I was NOT that far off).

I find it challenging enough to deal with any food that isn't served in its own wrapper. If you provide a course inverted on its head, suspended over a soup bowl or dangling off a wire – you better expect some tablecloth casualties from the food “day-brie” that will go flying around me. (Obviously “aethestics” do not call for low-centers-of-gravity that might otherwise assist when Lucy Ricardo’s bumbling cousin comes to dinner). By the second course, the restaurant had allocated one whole server to nothing but my spillages.

And the topper…Rita bought the cookbook.

Is Sarah Palin Breaking Up with Us?

Sarah, don’t do it. I still have two more months ‘til football starts and I need SOMETHING to read on the internet during all those conference calls. Surely it will take more than one rambling, incoherent resignation speech to stop the juggernaut of Caribou Barbie.

Have you honestly seen any other failed VP candidate cause this kind of a stir? Lloyd Bentsen lived to be 105 and never accumulated this much publicity. (My apologies to Lloyd Bentsen if he’s actually still alive – but it would underscore my point.)

Actually, in this particular episode of Northern Exposure – it's the pundits and professionals that are the most fun to watch. People who would otherwise be in President McCain’s cabinet right now are busy engaging in an especially catty episode of Gossip Girl all over the pages of Vanity Fair magazine. Bloggers have started a “Shoe Watch” in anticipation of the rest of the story. And Sarah Palin is alternatively “crazy like a fox” or “one nutty buddy” depending on whether you lean Wall Street Journal or New York Times.

I read the text of her resignation speech which…I swear…contained 17 exclamation points and 2 smiley faces. As Gail Collins wrote: “Truly, Sarah Palin has come a long way. When she ran for vice president, she frequently became disjointed and garbled when she departed from her prepared remarks. Now the prepared remarks are incoherent, too.”

But me? I couldn’t help but feel inspired to “effect positive change outside government at this point in time on another scale and actually make a difference for our priorities.”

Oh, Sarah…I can’t quit you.

Cooking Class Part II

So the class that I gave Rita for her birthday was all Vietnamese cooking. Mostly I picked this class because I thought it included sake (turns out sake isn’t Vietnamese after all…).

I expected the teacher to be a little Asian woman. Imagine my surprise when we were met by the whitest 2nd whitest woman in San Diego. She immediately had my sympathy because would you want to be the one to teach cooking to Rita (or worse…her trusty sidekick Papa John)? I knew when she passed around the scrapbook of her recent visit to Vietnam that we were in for a long night.

My key takeaway from the Vietnamese cooking class is this:
A good cook in Vietnam only buys live animals because then they know how their meat stock died.

I don’t know about you…but to me…the sign of any good meal is its dependence on an autopsy. And my friends want to know why I don’t want to join them on their next trip to Vietnam. [“That steak looks lovely – but how was it feeling the day before it died?”]. You know…”eat what you kill” has a MUCH better connotation in the consulting world.

The other valuable tidbits I took away about Vietnamese cooking:

• Fish sauce lasts forever [ummmm….so do Twinkies? Do we know how the fish in this sauce died?]
• Fish sauce is the Vietnamese equivalent of ketchup [smelly, sticky, nuclear-winter survivin’ ketchup]
• If it takes forever to fry your crispy noodles, than your oil is too cold [For this I went to class?]

And my BIGGEST takeaway from the TV-like cooking show…it’s a lot easier to be a great cook when someone else cuts everything up for you. Unfortunately, Rita learned the same thing =(

Cooking Class

I didn’t blog during the height of the birthday season…but that doesn’t mean I didn’t take notes. Specifically, I took some notes on the cooking class that I signed Rita and I up for as one of Rita’s birthday gifts. [Can I just say….if we are talking about me going to a cooking class…than my presence REALLY IS my present]

The class is taught in the back of a cooking store and is a complete racket. You walk into a TV-studio-worthy kitchen with its giant island and three stoves and 8 burners and every single participant says “I could sooo have this kitchen.” So the class is only the loss-leader to steer you towards the store’s remodeling services.

There were also about a dozen TV screens situated all over the “classroom”. I was all excited because I thought we were going to class in an upscale sports bar. Turns out the TVs are all trained to the teacher’s every move. Rita looked mortified when I asked if someone could turn the fridgecam to Jon Stewart for the husbands in the room. (I might go for the remodeled kitchen if it comes with 8 flat-screen TVs….and the NFL Ticket…just sayin’).

The nice thing about cooking class is that you can take lots of notes for your blog and people just think you’re writing down recipes. Which is why you should tune in tomorrow when I give you the highlights of Vietnamese cooking.

You Should Watch This...

I've got nothing to post today...so i thought i would link to one of my friends who has a HILARIOUS stand-up routine. This is an excerpt of her debutante bit in her routine...it is excellent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spwj937C5HM

Check it out.