Klassy

The New York Times generally does a good job with their slideshows, so when I saw one under the heading "Tasteful Giving," I decided to take a look. Sure enough, I was confronted with beautifully shot images of high-end muddlers and funky cocktail napkins, and then when I clicked on image 16 of 28, I got...um....well, THIS:









My first thought was: what's so tasteful about an ornament in the shape of Mr. Hankey? And then, after I read the accompanying blurb, I wondered: what's so tasteful about an ornament in the shape of a tater? Granted, Samwise and Frodo would love it, and if you were the senator of Idaho, this gift would be perfectly appropriate. But I can only imagine what my brother would say if I wrapped up this bad boy and handed it to him on Christmas morning. It would probably go something like this:

"Ummmmm. Thanks?"

Christmas Decorations!

I LIVE for this time of year. There is nothing more fun then coming home from work in December, putting down my purse and plugging in the lights on my Christmas tree while the Carpenters Christmas album plays softly in the background.

Sadly, this year the Scooby and I were planning on being away for so long (as in, he's LEAVING ME on Sunday and won't be back until the 12th of January), that it didn't really make sense to get a real, live tree. It's too bad too because I'm an expert at picking out Christmas trees. I've been accompanying my father on this particular errand since I was about 6 years old, and I've been breaking the hearts (and busting the balls) of Christmas tree vendors ever since.

The process generally goes something like this:
My father and I arrive at the tree lot and enlist the help of said vendor. We get him to pick up a series of about 15 trees off the ground, each time finding a portion of tree that just IRKS one of us somehow.
"I don't know," Dad would say. "Doesn't it seem to be missing a few pine needles?"
"It just feels empty," I'd reply. "It just doesn't FEEL right to me."
And then Dad would come back with: "But the height is good."
And I'd say: "Well yeah the height is good. It's perfect!.....BUT....can we look at another one?"

The best part is that we would often end up settling on the first tree. Then we'd take it home, realize it was too tall, and Dad would lop off the top yielding less of a cone-shaped effect and more of a Christmas tree box.

But like I said, this year the Scooby and I couldn't buy a real tree. So we did this instead:


So rather than pine needles on the ground, we're going to end up with 28 holes in our wall, but I convinced Scooby that it was worth losing our security deposit, because, hello?? It's CHRISTMAS.

Of course, what's Christmas without stockings (even if we don't have a mantle)? And more importantly, what's Christmas without an ostentatious blue and silver Christmas tree-shaped centerpiece?

Hmmm. I may have gone a leetle overboard...









But then I got an email today that made me miss being home for the holidays. My dad is going to pick out a tree this weekend, and he needs his sidekick. He suggested that I take a redeye home on Friday night and then get an evening flight back to San Fran. "I think you need to do it for the good of the family," he wrote.

I thought maybe he would appreciate that I was carrying on the tradition in my own offbeat, little way, so i sent him a picture of my Christmas tree.

Being such a connoisseur of good trees, his response was understandable:

"That's sick."

Alright Already

So after a month-long hiatus, I'm back to blogging. I know all four of you out there have been really missing me, but I have an exceptional excuse: in the month of November, I wrote a book. That's right, I signed up for National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo to us insiders, and in 30 days I was tasked with writing 50,000 words.

I can't tell you how many people asked me what I would win if I completed the book in the allotted time. I've received more blank looks than I can count when I attempted to explain that writing a book is the prize. Well, that....AND this:







Yup, it's an icon. It's alright to be jealous.

There is one problem with writing a book in a month though, which is that for 30 days, you've been valuing quantity over quality. So now I have 50,000 words, 30,000 of which probably need to be rethought. But at the advice of other, more experienced NaNoWriMoers, I'm taking a breather from the process. Maybe in January I can take another look at what I've written and, with fresh eyes, start the onerous editing process.

In the meantime, I'm just going to be blogging. And I have to admit--it's good to be back.

Nothing says Christmas like a little A.C. Slater

I was just flipping through the channels, looking for a little background noise while I update my resume, when behold! I stumbled upon a movie entitled "Holiday in Handcuffs."

And here--honest to god--is the synopsis:
(2007) A struggling artist-cum-waitress (Melissa Joan Hart) kidnaps a customer (Mario Lopez) to take home for Christmas, in hopes of impressing her perpetually disappointed parents.

These are desperate times for TV watchers considering the writers' strike, and there was a moment when I thought to myself, "don't Sabrina the Teenage Witch's parents notice that her alleged boyfriend is in handcuffs throughout Christmas dinner?"

But (and this is a very bad sign for A.C. Slater) I decided to watch a rerun of CSI: Miami instead.

The mythical quest for adulthood

I'm trying. I really am. As I'm making new friends in this strange new place, in the hopes that they don't find me odd, I've been confining conversation topics to job talk, relationship banter and pop culture references. Of course when my friends from college came to visit two weeks ago, all of those pent-up fart jokes came pouring out, but after they left I quickly hopped back on the adulthood wagon.

When my sister and brother-in-law (the Jojies and John) came to visit last weekend, I took great strides to appear as grown-up as possible. And even though I wasn't fooling them, it made me feel better to partake in some adult activities. When they picked me up at the office on Friday, I introduced them to my boss (1 point for adult behavior), then we came back home and I cooked a very grown up dinner of pork tenderloin with a pomegranate sauce, a green salad and pasta with butternut squash and zucchini. That's another point right there. I did however make some suggestive gestures with the tenderloin before cooking it. That's minus one point, I suppose, and John please delete that picture from your camera; I think I was a bit drunk. Oops, do I have to deduct another point? Is drunkenness juvenile? This is so complicated.

We went to a wine bar after dinner, which strikes me as incredibly grown up. And then we came home and got into a bed at a reasonable hour. Point! Point! And then at midnight I got a call from the Scooby snacks, and my adult facade disintegrated.

"I'm sorry," he whimpered when I answered the phone. He had been at a party/beer pong tournament. The last thing I said to him before he left was, "be careful" and "don't get sick."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I'm sick...oh wait, I have to go." And then he was gone. I got three more calls from him following a similar pattern, the last one culminating in him begging and pleading for me to come pick him up in Oakland. Quite unadult behavior on the part of Scooby Snacks, wouldn't you say? But I had more than a few moments in the car to contemplate this situation. I was somewhat irked as I dragged my ass out of bed and into a pair of sweatpants. By the time I tracked down my keys and walked downstairs to my car I was nearly irate. But as I was driving, I thought about all of the times I had been drunk along with the countless times I had made myself sick from beer, or wine or bourbon. You name it, and it's induced vomming. One particularly bad morning, the Scooby drove me from his place to mine, while I sat in the passenger seat and puked into a black plastic garbage bag. Another time, as I was mid-recovery on a late Saturday afternoon, Scooby ran to McDonalds to pick up a cheeseburger, which I was convinced was the only thing that could save me. He brought me an oreo McFlurry for good measure. Needless to say, it worked.

When I stumbled upon Scoobs standing next to a closed gas station on College Avenue, and he told me all about how he'd thrown up the entire three-block walk from the party he had attended, I did the most grown up thing yet. I took care of him--without even one "I told you so"--and I didn't even hold a grudge.

Movie Review:The Darjeeling Limited

As a former student of poetry and, more tragically, as a person who insists on sharing poems with poetry-haters, I'm used to hearing four little words: I don't get it. Upon this common refrain, I immediately jump into action--I try to explain the brilliance of some tiny (possibly unintentional) symbol, the serenity of the cadence, clues in the word choice. And it is for this reason that I appreciated The Darjeeling Limited. It's more a puzzle than a movie, but I suppose that makes sense because Wes Anderson is beginning to seem more like a lyric poet than a director.

As the movie unfolds, we meet three brothers played by Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman (both Anderson fixtures) and Adrien Brody. They have met on a train in India, with matching leather monogrammed luggage, at Wilson's urging to try to reconnect. You see, the three haven't spoken in the year since their father's funeral. And thus the story unfolds in, with one exception, the present tense. The audience is privy to cryptic discussions of what happened in the past and, aided by one flashback, is tasked with piecing it all together. Of course, symbols abound, and I constantly found myself asking questions like: what does the peacock feather mean? The pile of rocks? The sunglasses?

And without asking myself these questions, I have to say that the movie would have felt a bit empty. Atypically, Anderson threw in a pivotal and tragic event. Yet, I felt less saddened by this one tragedy than by the constant sorrow in Brody's eyes. So although more actually happened in this movie than Anderson's others, I felt less affected by any of the action, which I doubt was his intention. Then again, when you know so little of a character's past, it's hard to identify with their hardships.

Of course, as with Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic, the screen was mesmerizing--I keep picturing the light blue train against the stark desert. But are beautiful images enough? I think it would take me at least a couple more viewings to feel like I understood the actions and words of each character. And even then, I might just give up and say those words I dread so much: I don't get it.










What does it all mean??

Movie Review: Jane Austen Book Club

When I heard about the premise of this movie, I thought it had major potential. After all, what wouldn't I like? I've read every book by Jane Austen, some twice; I own most of the cinematic reproductions of said books; I am a connoisseur of romantic comedies. In fact, if I come across a romantic comedy I especially like, it's filed away into an elite category known as the R.C. Deluxe.

But I'm sorry to say that the Jane Austen Book Club has no place among the likes of Love Actually, Bridget Jones Diary and You've Got Mail. And why? Because I was never emotionally invested in any of it. While I adore Elizabeth Bennet's fierce attitude in Pride and Prejudice and I empathize with Elinor Dashwood's selflessness in Sense and Sensibility, the members of the Jane Austen Book Club couldn't give me a reason to care about them. Because they weren't nuanced, and they stuck so closely to their shticks, they weren't worthy of my emotions.

As the movie unfolds, the book club forms, including Prudie (Emily Blunt), the prudish (yes, it's that prosaic) French teacher who is married to a meathead and is falling in love with one of her students; Jocelyn (Maria Bello) who breeds dogs and vows to never fall in love; her love interest Grigg (the dashing Hugh Dancy); the earth mother Bernadette (Kathy Baker); Sylvia (Amy Brenneman), who has just been dumped by her husband; and her daughter Allegra (Maggie Grace), the daredevil teenaged lesbian.

Each of these characters fits easily into his or her mold. Prudie wears turtlenecks, Bernadette makes flighty, flaky comments, and Allegra skydives out of airplanes. And in case the audience couldn't figure out just how stubborn Jocelyn is, or how smitten Grigg is, we are hit over the head with their feelings during the monthly book clubs. For example, as one might suspect, Sylvia identifies with Fanny Price from Mansfield Park because Price is such a loyal, caring individual. Could it be because her husband of 20 years just left her? This question is too easy for a high school freshman's English exam.

But the biggest downfall of the movie comes in the first 15 minutes when Sylvia's husband admits that he's seeing another woman and leaving her. As I watched Sylvia's stunned reaction, her contorted face, I wanted to feel for her. I kept thinking about Love Actually when Emma Thompson finds out that her husband may have cheated on her. Joni Mitchell starts to play in the background as the audience is treated to an intimate moment in which Thompson convinces herself, for the sake of her children, that she can't cry, that she has to suffer in silence. During that movie, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

But I guess that's what makes Love Actually an R.C. Deluxe and what makes The Jane Austen Book Club just a waste of eight dollars.










Grigg tries to work his magic on the stubborn dog trainer

Fun with pumpkins

I don't know what it is, but whenever a holiday rolls around, I feel the need to cover my apartment in holiday-specific decorations.

Oh wait. In fact I do know why I have this unfortunate compulsion--it's called nature AND nurture. That is, assuming my mother's affinity for decorating is a result of genetics. You see, every Friday after Thanksgiving, my family used to march upstairs and start an assembly line. One person would stand up in the terrifying, freezing-cold attic and start handing boxes to the person standing on the ladder steps, who would hand that box off to the person standing on the second floor, who would hand that to another person, who would go through the boxes to figure out where everything goes.

On average, there are probably about 15 boxes, each filled to the brim with decorative orbs for the window panes, Christmas CDs (including the Carpenters--hollah!), advent calendars, stockings, garland for the banisters and three separate nativity scenes to (I kid you not) name a few.

I always thought this was normal.

You know what else I thought was normal? Bringing out the life-sized rabbit, complete with a hat and bright blue trousers, for Easter, dressing our street lamp up like a cornstalk for Thanksgiving and placing a moving, eerie-sound-producing, fluorescently lit spider on the front lawn for the 3 weeks preceding Halloween.

In short, we know how to celebrate. So this year, since I'm far from home for at least a few holidays, I've started to get the itch to decorate. Of course, I don't know how well the Scooby would take to my decor-antics, so I'm trying to tone it down--there will be no moving spiders. But then, the other day I was in Target and I wanted to buy EVERYthing. There were Halloween dish towels and wash cloths, Halloween mixing bowls and paper lanterns. It was all so adorable that suddenly I could understand why my mother has filled our attic in Virginia so that there are more holiday decorations than dust bunnies.

I decided that I should go on a hunt for tasteful holiday decorations. What I really wanted were some things from Gump's, because, despite the name, they have the most beautiful decorative items. But, per usual, I couldn't afford any of it. See exhibit A, the beautiful glass pumpkins for $180 a pop.












Even the evil green men below, although much more reasonable at $45, were a tad more than I wanted to spend for something I would display for a mere 3 weeks.









So I finally settled on this. It's from Target and at $9.99, plus the price of tea light candles to light the sucker up, I was able to get my Halloween decorating fix.






Of course, you never know if I'm done. One day this week, Scooby might come home to find one of these hanging from the living room ceiling...

Courage under fire

The other night I was hiking in the woods with a new friend, when a thought occurred to us: we need apple crisp. There's just something about the fall (as muted as it is in California) that screams for some kind of dalliance of the apple variety, so we hit up the grocery store, bought apples and oats (and wasabi peas, but that's neither here nor there) and then she dropped me off at home to make my apple crisp, while she sped away to craft her own creation.

But something unexpected happened that interrupted my apple-euphoria. I was just about to pour the crumble topping on a pan of skinned apple slices when the Scooby Snacks did a bit of skinning of his own: cutting into a peach, the knife slipped and sliced his thumb. The cut bloomed and blood began to immediately pour out.

He grabbed his hand, began to pace back and forth across the room and kept repeating,, "this is going to be bad. Oh yes. This is a bad one." I grabbed some paper towels and told him to clamp down on his thumb while lifting his hand above his heart.

After a couple of minutes, I told him I needed to see it so that I could determine whether or not we should go to the emergency room. He looked at me, terror in his eyes, and then began to whimper. "No, no. Don't make me. I don't want to see it."

"You don't have to see it. You can close your eyes."

"No. I don't want to see it."

"I don't really want to see it either," I assured him. "But if I don't, how will I know if we should go to the hospital?"

After a few back and forths, I finally lost it.

"Pull yourself together!" I yelled. And, although he still looked terrified, he held out his hand. As soon as he lifted the paper towel from his finger, blood began to run down his hand like lava out of Mordor. We decided to wait a couple more minutes. If the bleeding stopped, we'd put a band-aid on and call it a night. If not, to the emergency room we would go.

After a little while longer our valiant Scooby began to complain that his good hand was cramping up from putting pressure on his bloody thumb.

"It hurts!" he whined. "I can't do it." It was around this time that I realized. I can never have kids. In fact, I shouldn't even own a hamster. It's bad enough that I don't know what to do in these situations, but I also lose my cool fairly easily.

"Well why don't you let me put pressure on it instead?" I pleaded. But he wouldn't stop pacing around the room like some possessed Energizer bunny, except (at that moment) a lot less adorable. I could feel the urge to yell again, so instead, at 9 p.m., I grabbed my shoes and his jacket and ushered him into the car for a ride to the hospital. On the drive there, Scoobs alternated between apologizing and saying, "I'm such an idiot. You think I'm a klutz don't you?"

I would never tell klutzy mcklutzerton the truth: if there is a glass of red wine within a 1 mile radius, he will spill it. If he CAN lock his keys in his car, he WILL. When I looked over at him slicing into his thumb, I thought to myself, "business as usual."

"No, sweetheart. You aren't a klutz!"

It took a little over an hour for the doctors to call Scooby back. I had toyed with the idea of going with him, but it was late and my patience was waning so I opted to sit in the waiting room and read my book.

About an hour later, there was still no sign of Scooby. There was however a sign of some crazy people, most notably, a woman who had crawled on hands and knees out of the ER and into the waiting room. She was screaming expletives at the top of her lungs as the door to the ER closed and locked behind her. She also appeared to be on her cell phone.

"Fuck you motherfuckers. Y'all are ugly," She yelled. A moment later a single file of doctors and nurses from the ER and stood in front of her as she hissed and screamed. She yelled up to them as she sat defiantly on the ground. "What are you all going to do? Fuck you. I don't give a shit."

Where the hell am I? I wondered.

Most of the doctors rolled their eyes and proceeded back into the ER, but one man knelt on the floor and offered to help. "Just tell me what's wrong and I can help you," he pleaded. But she wasn't having it.

"Oh hail no. I'm not your daughter. Get the fuck away from me." Then she started talking into the phone. "Yes, police department? I am at Alta Bates Hospital and they won't help me. Yes. I had a seizure and they won't help me."

"I take it that you're leaving then?" The kind man said to her, but she just looked right through him.

The woman stayed there. Occasionally she would bang on the door to the ER screaming, "Y'all are motherfuckers." Sometimes she would even heckle people coming out of the ER, including a young couple with a toddler.

Suddenly Craig's histrionics didn't seem so bad. I got the security guard to unlock the door to the ER, and then I tiptoed around Crazy Yelling Lady so I could see my sweetie. He was at the end of a corridor, lying on a bed, napping. I woke him up to tell him about the crazy woman, which we both agreed was a hilarious addition to our traumatizing night. Shortly after, a doctor stopped by to check out the wound.

"Oh we can just glue that shut," he said.

Ummm. What? I came to the hospital to have his wound glued?

"Yes, it's essentially sterile super glue," the doc told us. Well next time I'm just going to glue it myself, I thought.

We finally arrived home around 12:45. My apples were still sitting sliced and naked in a pan on the counter. I quickly threw the topping on and threw the pan into an un-preheated oven (Martha Stewart would be ashamed, but it was late), then I sat on the couch next to Scooby who was in remarkably good spirits.

"I wasn't very good at that--at being a nurse," I admitted. And then I thought about how easy it is to just live alone without having to take care of anyone. It was so simple when I only had to worry about myself; and if I did a sloppy job, no one else would have to suffer. He assured me that I had done a stellar job--that we had both been exceptionally courageous and cool-headed that night.

Plus, if I didn't have Scooby around, who would eat my apple crisp with me? And who would drive me to the hospital if I needed stitches? And most importantly, who would laugh with me about the crazy "fuck you motherfucker" ladies of the world?

New Find: Patina

So I made a somewhat amazing find today as I was blog-surfing. As I've mentioned, I'm faced with the dilemma of decorating an apartment on a very tight budget, so I'm always on the lookout for stores that have interesting housewares and miniature price tags. On Apartment Therapy, they showed some autumn leaf colored mixing bowls with a link to the online store: Patina. With a mix of home goods, jewelry and stationery, the store reminded me a little bit of Fred Flare, but a lot less like a garage sale.

Speaking of garage sales, in a fit of desperation (specifically, the desperation for a coffee table and/or tv stand), I decided to spend a Saturday visiting garage sales in my neighborhood. And all I can say is: Wow. I've never seen so much junk in a 4-hour period. At one house I visited, the family was actually selling their condiments. They put a bottle of gravy on display with packaging that looked like it was from 1976 and they were selling it for 50 cents. After such a frustrating and fruitless morning, I wanted to walk up to them and scream, "nobody wants your fucking gravy! Just give it away or throw it in the trash."

I couldn't do it though; I couldn't summon the energy after realizing that I'd wasted a perfectly good Saturday.

It's so much easier to just order online, and skip rummaging through your neighbor's garbage, or garage. So here are some funsies from Patina:

Sukie Stationery, $14.95









Swallow Compact, $9.95









Dot Over Dot Tray, $15.95









Kitsch can be so cute! (in moderation) Sweet Pea Plate, $8.95

Reasons to Love Tuesdays

Although it's Wednesday, I have been contemplating the exceptional wonder of Tuesdays. I used to hate them. They are so close to the beginning of the week, that the anticipation for the weekends just isn't there yet. Plus anything that sits so close to Monday starts to smell like Monday, and everyone knows Monday smells like poosies.

BUT, a few people out there answered my call to perk up Tuesdays. Besides the stellar yoga class at my gym, there is also some nationally observed loveliness to be found each and every Tuesday.

1. Slate publishes a poem every Tuesday. I know, I know. A lot of people aren't completely smitten with poetry like I am, but the one from yesterday really rocked my world. It's about the south and all it's backwardness and, for some reason, it spoke to me. Since I moved to California, I have become intensely aware of people's views of the south. I grew up in Virginia, right outside of Washington, DC. But if I say I'm from Virginia, people don't think of suburban D.C., they see confederate flags plastered across the battered bumper of a rusty pickup. Or Dixieland Delight blasting from an old boom box (which, of course, has bunny ears) on a gravel driveway next to a dilapidated refrigerator.

What's funny is that since I noticed how people view Virginia, I'm more apt to say I'm from good ole V-A than D.C. I guess I like messing with people, plus it's funny to be underestimated. Unless you're in a job interview, then it sort of sucks. But I love getting The Look from people, as if they want to ask, "so does that mean you're, like, part of the confederacy or something?" Well the answer is "no." Plus, haven't you heard? Virginia is for Lovers.

Tangent accomplished. It's time for another reason that Tuesdays are climbing the rankings in the Best Day of the Week race:

2. Tuesday is Apple Free Download Day. The same day that new albums are released, iTunes gives away one free download for a band that they view is up and coming. There are certainly weeks when the download turns out to be musical drivel (Guggenheim Grotto? Seriously? And now they're on my iPod for eternity between two awesome songs because I'm too lazy to remove their musical stylings), but other weeks, Apple exposes me to something I might never have downloaded, but fall in love with.

Case in point: The Editors, Justice's D.A.N.C.E. (it's more uplifting than an iced Americano), and my new fave R&B ditty Ledisi's Alright. She's sort of a mix between Erykah Badu and Jill Scott and she makes me want to shake my booty, which I never ever do.

And the best news of all: from October 2 until November 7, every day is Tuesday. Word on the street is Starbucks is giving away a different free song every day to customers. So you can get your iced Americano AND your D.A.N.C.E. fix all at one time, which may be more excitement than one person can handle.

New Trends in Etiquette

At my old job, my sister and I used to joke about the people who brought newspapers into the bathroom with them. One repeat offender even had the gall to borrow one of OUR (she was a reporter, we were on the sales staff) newspapers, take it into the stall with her for a good 15 minutes and then bring it BACK to us. Has the girl never seen Seinfeld? That is such a breach of both newspaper borrowing and bathroom etiquette.

But then again, I am pretty sensitive to these things. When I go into a friend's bathroom and they have books, magazines or, heaven forbid, "Passing Time at the Loo" (or whatever it's called) I do tend to blush a little. My thinking is: get in, do your business and get out of there. I don't want to sit there any longer than I absolutely have to.

But the real reason for this post is that I just witnessed something far worse than any of the said transgressions. I just watched a man bring his open laptop into the bathroom with him. It wasn't in a bag. It wasn't even closed and inconspicuously tucked under his arm. No. It was open, as if he was going to read the newspaper ONLINE while in the bathroom.

Please tell me this is not a new trend.