email with gmail, the address is weetiny
On our recent trip to 7 grand in the newly bourgie downtown, we became reacquainted with mounted heads, low lights and stiff drinks. The knowledgeable barkeep made great prohibition era recommendations and so we sampled, sampled and sampled some more!
all done! time to jam!
I went for one and well, they multiplied. Not my fault I swear.
* anything less than 1/3 of the original price is fair game.
Every so often we girls get together and get our cook on! In the midst of this Los Angeles summer we made a spread of grapes and brie, white wine, homemade french onion soup and a salad of baby greens, black tomatoes with fresh lemon, raw garlic dressing.
to start...
le table
mon dieu! it really is that big!
I was saddled with FRISKY.
congrats D!
*wedding's this Friday...debaucherous photos to follow!
It's State Fair time! Having dinner with my Parents tonight, we started telling stories about all my childhood adventures at the fair each summer. The fair is where I discovered food on a stick. There really ought to be more of those. Everything just tastes better on a stick. Chances are it's fried and that may help.
It is where I had my first no-parents-rowdy-teenagers-only afternoon. I still remember how free and spirited I felt (it was 1992 perhaps I was just high on Pepsi, Birkenstocks with socks and Gn'R). There was my best friend (coincidentally also a Jessica, but she had fabulous curly hair and a waaaay cooler last name), and a smattering of our friends from smart-kid-summer-school, including the boy I had a crush on. Oh Aron with only one A, you were cute. He was taking Shakespeare and I French, then as luck would have it we all found ourselves in art class. Sigh. I know Jessica and I spent more time writing notes than drawing pictures but no matter, I went to art school for college and made up for a few lazy summer afternoons. I digress - sorry. The afternoon was nearly the site of my very first kiss and then the doors on the haunted water ride flew open throwing us into the sunshine and obviously the moment passed. I am pretty sure we went for something on a stick shortly there after.
There were the years of High School where we went every summer before school began and showed off our tans and caught up outside the confines of a school hall. We discussed who hooked up with who over the summer, who had the worst summer job, was that haircut really a good idea and how we had survived yet another family vacation. All this was accomplished of course over something on a stick.
Then there was the summer I became fascinated by the cow giving birth. Yes me, the child who passed out at the sight of blood or worms (being eaten, not the kind on the side walk after the rain. I saved those). This event came well before the fair became a social hunting ground, back when I still loved the fair for the animals, county crafts, silly photos and the hours walking around with Mom eating something on a stick. But, back to the cow birthing tent. Anyone who's ever been on a farm knows the birthing of animals is a slow, sweaty, down right nasty process. At 7 years old, me, not so much.
After our sawdust filled tour of the baby chickens, goats, piglets (more on them later) we came to the large animals (I am still not sure who thought the pigs weren't large. They looked mighty big to me). There she was, pacing back and forth, occasionally letting out a cow sized groan in the birthing pen. I drug Mom up into the noisy metal bleachers believing I was in for a nice little show. Pretty soon I was fidgeting and driving Mom crazy. "Can we go?" said Mom. "Yes, if you promise we can come back for the baby part." I bargained. Off we went back to the aisles of something on a stick.
Periodically I tugged Mom back to the cow tent to check on the progression of the heifer. Eventually (no really, it was well after dark by now), things looked like they were getting good. Excitedly I perched on the bleachers once again. This is about when the trouble began. Was it me or was it getting warmer in that tent? "Something shot out of the end of that cow!" I pointed and squirmed. Mom nodded. The something was not the kind that comes on a stick - just so we're clear. I stared disbelieving. Where was the baby cow? What was all that - whoa! More stuff came shooting out and landed in the hay. Mom stared to smile. I started to go green. "Um, Mom, I think I want to go." She looked over at me and shook her head. It was pretty pretty pointless to argue, I had been dragging her back here for the last 5 hours.
When the feet started to poke out it got better. Then the nose showed up and the farmer climbed into the pen and took 2 fingers and cleared out the nostrils. It was rather cool to see it sniffing away in there. Then things really got going. A few big pushes, the cow finally laid down and - BABY COW!! Finally. Mom started licking, the cow mom not mine and the little cow made some cool baby noises. Soon thereafter both were standing, the baby on wet wobbly legs. I squealed. Mom laughed.
Then I noticed the mom cow was pushing the hay around and chewing. "Hey, what's she eating?" Suddenly she lifted her head and whatever had come shooting out of the business end of the cow, was now hanging from her jaw. The cow was perfectly content to chew, re-chew and chew on it some more. That was it. I flew out of that tent like my ass was on fire. I could hear Mom inside howling from laughter. There I stood under the stars, in the summer nighttime heat, at the fair, totally disgusted and for once not wanting something on a stick.
20 years later I still love going to the fair but I avoid the baby animals. And actually it is not because of the cow, but because I can't stand the crack of the newborn pigs getting their baby teeth clipped. Ack.
I smell like cold air, Mexican food and mid day sleep. That's a beautiful thing. It means that today I ventured into the belly of the hospital and faced what is unquestionably my biggest fear. A recurrence.
Several weeks ago this blog suffered a sudden neglect that startled friends and disappointed the author. My mind wandered all the time and something like a blog seemed somehow too trivial for my precious words. I started countless entries and wiped them out like a napalm crazy editor on a permanent tour of Vietnam. I was short with close friends and became known for not returning calls. I was living in Cancerland.*
July 22 was the 3 year anniversary of having cancer push me out of the driver's seat of my life. It was a Sunday and it felt like finally I could end all this. Monday next year I would forget all about the anniversary, and focus on the fact that it is just another day. Then this year's Monday happened. Everything came to a halt.
There is was. A lumpy, little area, sticking out across the ex-tumor site. I yelped. I cried. I couldn't stop touching it. I turned off the water, stepped out and faced the steamy mirror. I pulled open the door and made C come in and review it. Her clinical analysis was that, yes, something was obviously there (and woman please find yourself a towel)! Here we go again.
So started 4 frustrating weeks of Dr. appointments, hairy tests (not hairy chests!), and lots of truncated emails. Mostly it left me with gobs of questions and few answers. Signs pointed North, South, Down and Yellow. I holed up in my parents house for a whole week while they vacationed. One of my best friends smashed her brand new car and had it fixed and returned before I ever even knew it had happened. I looked up and the whole end of my summer had vanished. The plucky little pudge of swelling had not (it just waved and continued eating lunch - roast beef in case you're curious).
This morning C and I practiced our comedy duo live show in the first floor radiology lounge. Barium jokes ricocheted from the walls to the floor and whizzed past a nurse into the hall. The fellow patients grew dizzy and lightheaded (with laughter not asthma). And I waited. Finally my name was politely called and off we went to that room behind the curtain. Sadly there was no man with fun buttons and levers on the other side.
We emerged several hours later sticky but victorious! No signs of cancer here!** Whee!! I wanted to cartwheel home but C insisted we drive. Good thing too, since she needed her car later. Once safely home I toppled into bed and any geologist would have easily confused me with a rock. I took a phone call from London when it woke me up. I shared my good news with A and it brightened a bleary day for her. Later I toasted taquitos with my LA parents at dinner, while enjoying the side of screaming baby we apparently ordered. Then my little family breathed a collective sigh of relief (and onions).
We had made it. We had conquered our first fire drill. Somebody sound the all clear, just in case Cancer hasn't heard.
* This is the place you live when your diagnosis is still uncertain. Once diagnosed you proceed directly to life in Hell.
** I nicely skipped over the trauma of getting all my questions finally answered. Cheers!
So Mom and I sat around eating salt water taffy, watching a documentary on crazy cat show people all evening trying not to think about some other things. Because in terms of these other things, this could mean nothing more than I have been eating too much taffy lately. Okay so, no, not exactly. After all I have only been eating taffy for the last 2 hours and all that afore mentioned stuff has occurred over the last few weeks. But, sigh, a girl can dream among her wax paper wrappers.
PS - watermelon taffy rocks and I think all cat show people are lesbians (all due respect).
Um yeah. How do you write about a subject that leaves you speechless? Thanks buzzfeed for totally creeping out my Friday!
The realies (that originated in California of course), have now gone world wide. I can remember watching something about these ladies (can I really call them that?) a few years ago and wondering what would become of them. I could never have imagined this. It is Pygmalion for the 21st century. Some people's whole lives now revolve around these silent partners. I guess with the available interchangeable tongue feature, who needs a real person?
Listening to these interviews I couldn't help myself from thinking up all kinds of ridiculous pranks to play with these realies. What if she commited suicide? Or what if Mattel makes a life sized Ken? Afterall he's bound to be hotter, and much more her type - strong and silent. What if she is really a cutter or some other self injuring masochist (would her partner hysterically rush her to the ER)? I know it's wrong but I kind of just wanted to light these bitches on fire, toss them in a flaming pile and say grow up boys!
I like raisins. I said it. Especially those yellow guys. Umm.
However I do not like raisins in boxes. In theory the product would be fantastic. Individual portions of raisins to take away with you on grand adventures. You and the raisins go to the Sahara. You and the raisins at Niagara Falls (okay maybe not there, for fear that you might actually take that grade school advice and marry the wrinkly, little dudes). Sunning in Jamaica Mon, with you guessed it - the raisins! Life should be so perfect.
However, the cardboard box while excellent for say laundry soap, sucks for sealing in raisin moisture. And take it to heart, a dry raisin is a 10 on the yuck scale. So my quest for eco-friendly individually portioned raisins continues. Dime bags probably aren't such a hot idea. Last time someone found me with one of those there was no convincing them that it was sage. Really. Sadly at that time it actually was. So raisins packed up in those is probably asking for trouble as well.
Man is it a slow news day.
