Don't get around much any more.

Things have been awfully quiet around here lately, and you might be wondering why. Well:

1. I no longer have any household help. Now that I don't have them anymore, I think it's OK to admit that I used to have a weekly cleaning lady and a part-time babysitter who had (because my children are now in school all day) morphed into more of a housekeeper, thus allowing me ample time to bum around on the internet work on my dissertation. Well, I'm not going to finish the dissertation, so it seemed an excessive amount of enabling help. So now it's just me doing the dirty work around here, and it kind of keeps me busy.

2. I'm not doing much other than housework, at least, since I had seven drinks the Friday before last and woke up with the mother of all hangovers. There was nothing to help but a bottle of Grape-Flavored Liquid Children's Tylenol and a big bottle of that low-dosage Enteric Aspirin your doctor wants you to take so you won't die of a heart attack. (Which is so dumb, I can't believe it. OK, I was an English major and science is not my strong point, but I wasn't going to die of a heart attack; I was going to die because my brain was going to implode and fall into my abdomen, and then I was going to vomit it back up--that's how it was going to happen.) Well, eventually the enteric aspirin kicked in (even the low-dosage stuff is effective if you take enough of it) and I survived. But I spent some time repenting and self-flagellating and whining about my hangover and what-not.

3. I'm expecting a visit from my mother, so everything she could possibly criticize me about has to be done. Yesterday. Which means I'm so stressed that I can't type straight. But one lucky thing is that I

4. discovered the cure for lack-of-cleaning-lady-itis. It's called "child labor." With "child labor," you pay your child (or children, if you're lucky) anything between a quarter to $3.00 to do the dirty jobs you don't want to have to do. A quarter gets the recycling bin pulled to the curb; $3.00 polishes a mountain of silver.

5. I have other blogs to keep up with, people!

6. I need to come up with something to write about for Mamarazzi. Yes, yet another blog. My day is Friday and I'm combing the gossip sites, and nothing is happening. Somebody throw me a bone, please!

7. I still have to go pick up the kids at school and oversee the homework and cook dinner and buy groceries and wash dishes and basically do all the stuff I was doing before I invented "child labor."

8. I just took the kids to the library for books they needed. I got five books for myself. That means I need to read--read like the wind!

'k bye!

A shout-out to my man Joke.

I was on the phone for a really long time today, and have pretty much talked myself into a pulp. I may even have exhausted my verbal abilities. No, really. And I feel the need to do something somewhat less frivolous with the rest of the day, so I'm indulging in a meme.

Sunday Meme: Word Beads

Word Beads for May 28, 2006

Salutary
Myth
Immemorial
Girt
Maroon

The object is to string the above words into a sentence.

"Girt, as was his custom from time immemorial, in a maroon madras plaid jockstrap (and nothing else) Joke strode, glowing with a combination of self-tanner and oil, onto the stage of the Florida Body Builder's Tournament, feeling pleased, that, as he was about to achieve the status of myth, it was to be in such a salutary fashion."

In which I channel Blackbird

Where to begin?


We met for coffee almost two weeks ago. How can I describe it? You're dying to know.


First, what does Blackbird look like? I'm sure you all have an idea.

Yes, I am taller than she is. But we didn't look like this. -->








I wasn't wearing a hat.

This is more like it--a big smile, and especially the hint of primness about the throat. She had this interesting high collar/scarf thing going--somehow both ladylike and fin de siecle fop. (She was probably just cold. It was freezing.)

But her style suited her, as she is somewhat more reserved than I am. I mean, after a while I finally had to come out and ask her name. No, it's not blackbird.

But I had recognized her right away. No, she doesn't look like a sock monkey. I don't know how I knew her, but I did. It must have been telepathy.

You want more details? OK. There is also that hint of the exotic in her style:



Not that exotic!

We sat in the cafe and talked and laughed like old friends. I suspect my hands flew around as I talked; other internet friends have mentioned it.

We like the same blogs. And the same bloggers.

She is a foodie. I am not. I was dumbfounded by her description of her eponymous restaurant here in Chicago.

I'll never eat there.


We hung out for what--an hour or so? Not long enough. Long enough for me to say some of the stuff that's important but that I don't bring up here. We had a lovely time. She is funny and sweet and just as cute as a button. (I had to say it.)

Then I drove her to her next appointment. Which was with the Anthropologie store.

Next time lunch?

The Best of the Worst.

You may remember that a while ago, I announced that I was running a contest for the absolute worst recipes my readership could come up with; the prize to be an autographed copy of Jen Lancaster's Bitter is the New Black.

(Or then again, you may not remember. You might be a stranger in these parts. If so, welcome! I like stranger. And if you're here from Mamarazzi, Hi! That's my entry about Jodie Foster. Please be gentle with me.)

At any rate--I challenged my readers to come up with foul, revolting recipes for the benefit of my other blog, Horrifying Foodstuffs. And I received four, count 'em, four! entries. So here are the winners:

1. Fiddledeedee, for "Green Bean Casserole a la Betty"

This is a variation on the classic Green Bean Casserole as adapted by my beloved mother-in-law. She created this dish on the occasion of her hosting my sister-in-law's soon-to-be in-laws for an evening of culinary adventure and wedding planning.

1) Substitute 2 cups of week-old pork gravy for the mushroom soup. Don't worry if the gravy has separated--this will add to the recipe's complexity;

2) If you are out of frozen green beans, don't bother going to the store; a can or two of green peas should substitute nicely;

3) Likewise, crushed potato chips will stand in nicely for the French fried onion rings;

4) Dust liberally (and I mean bolshi-liberally) with paprika.

2. Vickee for "Veg-All and Lime Jell-o Delight:"

My mother put a can of Veg-All in Lime Jell-o with cottage cheese served on the side. She proudly offered it as not only the main course, but dessert! It is the only time in the History Of Our Family that my father took one bite, put down his fork and proclaimed:

"Children, You Do Not Have to Eat This." We stopped, forks in mid air, and quickly plunked our forks back on our plates. It was beyond disgusting. My father actually retched on the first bite.

We had PBJ's while my mother sulked in the laundry room. We didn't see Jell-o for years.

3. Badger, for Veal-Oyster Loaf:

This is stolen directly from Kathy Casey's Retro Food Fiascos, a copy of which I would be willing to swap you for one of your copies of Jen's book assuming that (a) this recipe isn't disgusting enough to win your contest thingie, and (b) you don't already have a copy. Unless you want another one. Anyhoo:

Veal-Oyster Loaf

1/2 pint oysters, drained, bits of shell removed, finely chopped
1 pound ground veal
1 1/4 cups crushed corn flakes
1/2 cup minced onion
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 egg, beaten
mixture of:
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. monosodium glutamate
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. marjoram
1/8 tsp. thyme

Lightly mix together oysters, veal, corn flakes, onion, milk, egg and seasonings. Pack lightly into greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours [or until your kitchen smells like something died]. Unmold loaf and serve with Swiss cheese slices. Garnish with a parsley sprig [because presentation counts!]. Serves 6 to 8 [people you really, really don't like].

If that doesn't do the trick, I would be happy to forward recipes for Gingersnap Tongue and Hamburger Melba. Or a Spam Shake (which involves Spam, anchovies, beer and tomato juice, among other things). Or a cake made with Veg-All. Or fudge made with Velveeta.

Or I could just send you one of my Glamour Shots.

And an honorable mention to blackbird, for the following. Which I actually didn't find all that horrifying. But that's because I'm from New England, where bad food abounds.

well, I don't know if this will count..
and I certainly never win anything, but here you are (from the
lexicon of my MIL)

Seafood Dip

1 slab of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, with marks from the vinyl
wrapper still on it
1 pile of crab meat (real or otherwise, usually otherwise)
1 jar of supermarket cocktail sauce

Do not make the cream cheese attractive in any way.
Plop the 'crab meat' on top of it and
pour the jar of cocktail sauce over it all.
This is eaten sliced onto Ritz crackers.


Muenster Toasts

5 slices of muenster cheese
2 tablespoons of mayonnaise
5 slices of party pumpernickel bread

Mince the cheese, add the mayo, spread on bread, and BROIL till brown.
Die of heart attack.

This last one is dredged in mystery - or flour, it's hard to tell...

Clam Roll Ups

1 can of minced clams, drained
4 tablespoons of mayo
sprinkling of mystery ingredient no one can remember and she's out of
town
1 small onion
6 slices of white bread
12 teaspoons of butter

Mince the onion, mix with mayo.
Add mystery ingredient.
Add clams.
Remove crusts from white bread and press bread to within an inch of
it's life, until it is like paper -
this can be done with a rolling pin but is best done with fingers.
Liberally butter both sides of now unrecognizable bread.
Smear clam mixture on bread and roll up.
Secure with tooth picks and bake till golden.
Slice in sections like maki rolls -- but without any of the flair and
panache of Japanese food as this is the staple of a wasp dinner
party, being: white bread, butter, mayo and clam.

So there you have it! Congratulations, ladies. You have done well.

p.s. If you're wondering how I graded the entries--well, first of all, the fact that Fiddledeedee lives right down the street and could come by and TP my house had no bearing on her first place win. No indeed!

No, the judging was weighed according to 1) how non-ironically the food was being served and 2) how much of it was eaten. I'm figuring that anyone who, like Fiddledeedee's mother-in-law, could serve that slop at a dinner party where she's meeting her daughter's fiance's parents is as un-ironic as you can get. And I'll bet the parties in question each managed to choke down a couple of bites, just to be polite. Vickee's recipe scores highly for its sheer revoltingness, plus I truly hate gelatin salads, but only one bite was actually ingested. Badger's recipe is amazingly revolting, but something tells me that no one in the Badger clan has actually cooked and eaten a single bite of Veal-Oyster Loaf. Also, Badger loses points for plagiarism, which is naughty (then regains them for her original commentary, making the whole thing a wash.) And Blackbird? Well, honestly, I'll bet I've eaten all that stuff before (when I was young and foolish) and probably liked it just fine. After all, I'm a wasp of the white bread variety. Those clam roll ups on squished white bread? That's soul food, baby. Oh! I'll bet the missing ingredient in the clam roll-ups was Beau Monde seasoning. Or Accent.

Blackbird's honorable mention stems from the fact that she bothered to enter in the first place, my awe at her obviously superior taste, and mostly, see these scans? They aren't just mega-cool retro images, they are the front and back cover of a cookbook that the lovely Blackbird gave me as a present when we met for coffee. And bribery counts, people! Especially a really good bribe like Jiffy Cooking. This is the motherlode of horrifying recipes. Seriously, every time I open its pristine pages, my head swims with mingled fear and delight.

So ladies, email me your names and addresses, and I'll forward them to The Governor of Jennsylvania. And a heaping helping of congratulations to you all.

(And if you've read this far, thank you. I'll bet you're glad to see the back of the book ... and the entry.)

Get to know me!

Swiped from Badger and Joke.

1. What's in the glove box of your car? I don't know.

2. Favorite classes in college (or high school): High school: English. I was so fluent, it was unfair to the other students. College: Any music history course taught by Peter Bloom. He was a positively effervescent combination of scholarship and wit.

3. Shampoo brand: Currently Kerastase Color Reflecting crappe in a hot pink bottle. It is extremely expensive and hard to find, so I find myself making do with a squirt of my daughter's L'Oreal Kids Cherry Kiwi Ripple Delight.

4. Favorite piece of furniture you own: My bed. It's a king-size Stearns and Foster pillow-top mattress and boxspring with a red and white toile upholstered headboard, and a matching toile duvet cover and dust ruffle. I also have a red and white quilt to break up the toile monotony. Sheets are white 100 percent cotton with a thread count as high as the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Pillows are goose down. I sink into bed at the end of the day and say "Bed ... good." And mean every word of it.

5. Idea of a really good first date: Dinner with someone who can keep up with me conversationally and laughs at my jokes.

6. Favorite fruit: The lowly orange.

7. Pick a passage from a favorite book: From J. P. Donleavy's The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival & Manners

Upon Being Not to the Manner Born

When this unpleasant remark is made about you, stand up, making sure your flies are closed and announce in a firm voice,

"To hell with that shit."

You may add, with a hint of hurt modesty flavouring the voice.

"I was born, wasn't I, and that's enough for me."

Of course your opponent's high pitched riposte will be.

"But sir, that is not enough for us."

Sit down and think. A valuable antique chair helps. Cross your legs and pull up your socks. Right away if your socks are white or otherwise bright you are in trouble unless you happen to be in yachting or tennis gear. In these latter equipages you can assume you are not entirely without hope.
Examine your background. If you really stare it straight in the status it's surprising the amount of dignity which can be salvaged from the unvarnished truth. Even from the unmitigated wrong side of the tracks or floor of the apartment building, there's bound to be something that will entitle you to make an effective reply to the lousy remark above. This is why everybody should research around a little in his lineage. Back far enough or out to the side, someone must have been something once.
For orphans who do not know who their parents were, this is sad but by no means socially fatal, and affords you a fresh start. If you have received a Red Cross Life Saving Certificate, riposte pronto with this information. After that first few ha ha ha's, your temporarily superior opponent will cringe at your hopeless effort to give an accounting of yourself. And you will really feel rotten. Your crestfallen demeanour, however, will make them clear off. They will not be inviting you to their parties. But you are left with a marvelous incitement to social climb.

8. What would you eat for dinner if it were your last night on earth? Somehow--and I know this will shock people who have seen me put on the foodbag--I think I'd have lost my appetite.

9. Free Will or Destiny: Free Will.

10. What would you sing at karaoke? "The Man I Love." I would be besieged by stage-door Johnnies bearing lavish bouquets and small velvet boxes of sparkly goodness. And then they would all go away crushed upon discovering that I'm already married to him.

11. Sweater or Sweatshirt? I'm bi. Sweaters for dressier occasions, sweatshirts for working out.

12. Paris, NYC, Tokyo, or Rio de Janeiro? Paris. I feel leery about going anywhere where I can't communicate effectively with the natives.

13. What do you wear to bed usually? Until I had children, I slept in the nude. Now I wear extremely unprovocative pjs.

14. If you dyed your hair, what color would you dye it? I used to dye it brown. Now someone else does.

15. If you went back to school, what would you study? Theology. (But really. Are you kidding me? Go back to school? I just escaped!)

16. Gum or mints? Gum. Sugarless. Eclipse Peppermint when I can find it, except it's crack and all the other junkies manage to get there first. And mostly when I'm driving. Never in front of anyone else.

17. Recurring nightmares? I used to dream that I was Little Red Riding Hood and was being eaten by two wolves. (Alas, it was not prophetic.)

18. Age & location of first kiss? I was in seventh or eighth grade, and it was on the dance floor at one of the horrifying dances I used to have to go to.

19. Describe your favorite pair of shoes: They are Casadei pony skin leopard print stilettos. Even at 60 percent off, they were obscenely expensive. They gave me a pain across the metatarsals and I have never worn them. Once in a while I take them out of their box and gloat over them. They are so perfect, I may never wear them. How could I bear to alter their pure ethereal?

20. What movie/TV character do you feel like you relate to most? I am a housewife with dreams of becoming a cabaret star. Therefore, Lucy Ricardo.

21. First CD purchase: I can't remember. The first record I bought was some Nonsuch early music thing.

22. First concert: The Rolling Stones.

23. Do you like camping? That depends. Can I bring my bed?

24. If you were doomed to be mauled to death by an animal, what animal would you prefer that to be? A tiger. Or maybe a leopard, in honor of my shoes. To tell the truth, I'd prefer not to be mauled. But I like the big cats, so I suppose I might as well give one of them a thrill. And a square meal.

25. Do you/would you own a gun? No. But I'm a late adapter. When 85 percent of my peers owns one, I'll probably get one. Grumbling.

26. What religion would you like to know more about: My own (Anglicanism.) Then Roman Catholicism. And Judaism. When I exhaust them (ha!) I'll branch out. It's lucky I believe in an after-life. That will give me the opportunity to finish my studies.

27. Favorite food as a kid: Melted Jell-O. I'd put a teaspoon of Jell-O over a candle whenever my mother went into the kitchen.

28. How many languages do you speak? Two. English and French. With French I do a lot more listening than talking. To the great relief of the French.

29. If you were a natural disaster, would you be a tornado, hurricane, or earthquake? Can I be a hailstorm? As in, I come on suddenly, throw things around, then go away?

30. If you could make one state in the US just go away, which state would that be? Indiana. Like short people, it has no reason to live.

31. How many prescriptions do you take? One; two when I'm in the mood.

32. Lake or Ocean? I'm bi. Lakes for dressier occasions; oceans for working out.

33. What is the worst lie you've ever told to get out of work, (and don't say you've never lied to get out of work, because that my friend is a lie and you know it)? I've been unemployed for so long, I can't remember. But ask me what was the worst lie I told to get out of a social obligation, and I could come up with something right away.

34. Do you carry a backpack, a satchel or "man bag", tote bag, brief case, or a backpack on wheels? I carry a "pocketbook," except when I'm carrying a "shoulder bag."

35. Have you ever been arrested/cited for anything other than traffic violations? No. Cops are stupid, man.

36. Would you ever consider spending some time at a nudist colony? Not unless it comes with the tree of knowledge.

39. Best thing you can cook? I'm a good cook. But I'm not a foodie. Omelets, apple pie, turkey with stuffing and gravy--normal stuff.

40. If you were going to donate 1000 dollars to a charity, what would that be? The Friends of Badger's Book Collection.

The Opinions of a Punctuation Princess (and her Peeps).

I'm such a tease. I've seen all of those comments. Not to mention the positive trickle of emails ... So yes, I know you all want to hear about coffee with Blackbird.

But I won't gratify you. Not yet. (And I'm not being coy. I'm too busy photoshopping the pictures to make me look thinner.) (Actually, I don't have time to write anything good enough, and that's why.)

Instead, I'm sending you away to check out two other blogs. The first is Mamarazzi, a virtual celebrity mom slambook I'm co-authoring with Angie, Lisa, Lucinda, M'Kay, and Susie Sunshine. Yes, even though I don't even have time to keep up with my other blogs, I agreed to contribute to Mamarazzi. (Luckily for me, idiot starlet-mother-du-jour Britney Spears almost dropped her baby yesterday, so today's entry took very little time to write.)

The other place I'd like to send you is my tenant's blog. The Lovely Mrs. Davis Tells You What to Think has, as is immediately obvious, a brilliant title. Genius! But then there's her writing, which is also brilliant. Her specialty is children's music, and the Lovely Mrs. Davis reviews a lot of CDs. Now me, I think children's music is whatever I happen to be listening to when my kids are in the room,* but I like reading Mrs. Davis's reviews, anyway. They're just written so damned well. And for me, it's all about good writing. (After all, "All Style! No Substance!" is the unofficial motto of this blog. Which you only know if you visit Blog Explosion or use Bloglines, but anyway, it's out there.) Mrs. Davis writes such good reviews that she has my 1-click finger itching to buy children's CDs. Itching, I tell you.

Oh, and one other thing. Mrs. Davis's copy is about the cleanest this former copy editor has ever encountered, and that's saying a lot. I don't know whether I've mentioned it before, but I am the Princess of Punctuation. My Mamarazzi peeps will back me up here; I was no sooner on board when I nabbed the role of Colon Cop.

I realize a lot of bloggers don't care about punctuation; they just want to write what they feel. But fuck that! I say clean up your punctuation immediately, or I'll kick you in the semi-colon. So anyway, Mrs. Davis's punctuation is an absolute poem. It brings a tear to my eye.

So do yourself a favor and check Mamarazzi and Mrs. Davis out. Meanwhile I'll try to come up with an evocative entry about drinking a skim latte with your favorite Tuvalan.

Oh, and I realize I'm overdoing the italics, OK? I read just like Helen Gurley Brown. I know. Don't worry. It's just a phase.

* I'm lying. Unfortunately, I can boast quite a collection of Teletubbies, Power Puff Girls, Disney, Veggie Tales, and Kids Bop fill-in-the-number CDs.

Let's talk about the weather.

OK, this is a preemptive strike. Before Joke and Badger start whining about hurricanes or day after day of 100 degree heat when it's only May, I've got to get my licks in.

I recently remarked that this extremely cool, extremely rainy spring has prompted me to head down to City Hall and file for a legal name change. With all this lack of sunshine, and rain, and mist, and overcast-skies nonsense, this isn't Illinois; it's Ireland. And with a mayor named Daley, why not go whole hog and rename Chicago "New Dublin?"

Now, I really don't mean to complain. After all, my yard looks great. The lawn guys overseeded the bald spots a few weeks ago, and they left one of those instruction sheets for me--full of those vague, yet picky commandments that leave me feeling totally inadequate. What with the "keep the ground evenly moist" and the "water lightly so as not to drown the seedlings" it's all "Do-this! Do-that! Water the lawn, already! Yikes! Not that much!" Therefore, I'm happy that Mother Nature has kindly taken it upon herself to ensure that my lawn is evenly moist at all times. So for a while there, I was all "Can I have a shout-out for Big Momma N.!"

But you know, a girl can get depressed when the sun never shines. I realize that my Northern European, fair, freckled, burns-never-tans complexion should feel grateful for the lack of UV rays, but I'm too busy curling up in a fetal position sucking my thumb to jump around over the fact that I probably won't come up with malignant melanoma this week.

Also--what the hail?--things are just so damned schizo. Take yesterday. In the morning it was warm and sunny. By lunch time, it had started to rain. In the late afternoon the lightning started, and shortly afterwards, hailstones the size of albino M&Ms fell from the sky. This morning it was warm and sunny, then overcast again (when I started writing this entry) and now--now that we've made it through the spell check and are about to post--it's warm and sunny again. A lovely day. Perfect for a walk. As long as I wear hipboots.

"Enough!" I say, and again I say, "Enough!"

A few weeks ago we sprang for a Weber gas grill and a Weber charcoal grill. I would like to use them one more time before Labor Day. At this point, I suspect that only divine intervention will have me out there playing Satan while a side of ribs takes on the role of Lost Soul. I therefore ask you to all join me in asking the following Saints: Honoratus of Arles, Columba, Magnus of Fussen, and Gratus of Aosta, to pray for (respectively) a cessation of rain, floods, lightning, and hail.

My husband thanks you. My son thanks you. My daughter thanks you. And my seratonin level thanks you.