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Fancy Like

I've been listening to a lot of country radio lately. I love it, I hate it. That Applebee's song comes on and I hate it then I love it. I want tequila-little time with you. Hair piled high big hoops. He ain't mine but he's my boy. Sittin here, drinkin beer, talkin God Amen, where the peaches grow.

The picture it paints is just simplicity, good old American life, partying, and a few happy tears. A long gone fairy tale.

People. This is what Covid has pushed me to. The brink of top 25 country commercial radio.

Just turn it off, you say. No. I have this old dial radio in my kitchen. It was my Uncle John's. He would sit in his chair in his apartment in the Northern Liberties in Philly and listen to all kinds of stations. He was listening to it when he died in that chair. He wasn't found dead until days later. I told this story here.  Throwback to 2007! OMG!

This music just transports me out of my house/home office/sanctuary/prison into another world where we're all healthy, with glowing sunkist skin, a pair of jeans that fit just right, bare feet in the cool grass, big wine slushie in hand during a gorgeous sunset.

Maybe soon I'll turn the dial back to the classic rock station, when Salty D loses his mind because Fancy Like is played almost every hour. Until then I'll live in my sunny country fantasy.

So the old radio is playing the country music while I work and I just decided to blog again.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

Last weekend after feeling a bit drained by media coverage of the Boston bombers terrorizing my friends' neighborhoods in Watertown, Salty D. and I ordered Chinese food and watched Finding Nemo.

Two grown ups, no kids around, quietly watching Finding Nemo.

It's a really good movie. I adopted Dory's "Just keep swimming" song this week as my own motto. In a world gone mad, just keep swimming.

This weekend promises to be full of excitement. Here's what's going on:

• Attending a Weight Watchers meeting
• Eating a lot of pizza after the meeting, because I have points left and I'm freaking hungry
• Watching the Duck Dynasty season finale
• Working on setting up my will
• Supervising my mentally deficient brother in his job as my landscaper
• Dragging shit to the compost center
• Shopping for cheap clothes that fit my changing body
• Eating at a Chipotle for the first time ever

Are you dazzled by these plans? Oh, there's even more fun on the schedule that will just have to stay offline.

It's good to have lists and get shit done, to just keep swimming.

Winter Vacation, day 11

If you got a box of pears for Christmas, here's a really good idea for them: pear martini. Marinate sliced pears in vodka. Puree pears, mix with vodka, shake in a cocktail shaker with ice, pour into glasses garnished with pear slices. It was delicious. I had three sips that did me in at the party last night.

Later in the evening, as predicted, I fell asleep on the couch next to a six year old. It was 1:00 am. The party this year was mellow and we ended up watching a lot of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. How did Jenny McCarthy keep her eyeshadow so perfect and what work has she had done on her face?

Our hosts made us a big brunch and we got back home mid-afternoon. The reality of the end of leisure is hitting me. This is my last day of lazy vacation.

Time to go pick up Chinese food for dinner.  I forgot to defrost the petite pork roast I have, so I'll cook that tomorrow and wish for good luck in 2013.

Winter Vacation, day 8

Snowed in by myself.

Postponed a trip to go see friends in New Jersey.

Drank a lot of coffee and finally read through the stack of magazines that had piled up. Breezed through some Vogues, Moneys, Entertainment Weeklys, and Real Simples. Now I have a short stack of tear sheets of books that I won't read, recipes I probably won't make, and recommended vacuum cleaners I won't buy.

Made a pot of popcorn on the stove.

Reflected on the show I saw last night, which included an on-stage marriage proposal. Sweet.

Decided I'm going to join Weight Watchers in the new year. It's been a while. I could use the boost.

Watched the football game that Salty D. went to, at Yankee Stadium.

Shoveled snow.

Winter Vacation, day 7

Oh, what happened to day 6? I was so busy with reading a great book (title to come) getting a makeover (photo to come) making an amazing meal from scratch (no sauces from a packet for me!) and going to a cocktail party (with a fabulous drink called The Snowflake!) that I just didn't have time to blog.

Let's get real. The highlight of my day yesterday was arriving 2.5 hours early to my hair appointment because I messed up my calendar. My therapist cancelled our appointment which is good since I screwed up the hair appointment. When I finally went to get the hair colored at the right time, I got some fun panels of red in it, then I went home and made a mediocre uninspired dinner of chicken and pasta.

So I skipped ahead until today. Tonight we're going to go see The Hold Steady, the tickets for which were one of my Hanukkah presents. Before we go, I've just been filling my day with boring errands and appointments.

 

Winter Vacation, day 5

Some people don't believe me when I say that I'm boring.  This post, however, will prove it.

Today was to begin with a breakfast with two friends, one of whom is my favorite independent bookseller.  But he ate too much figgy pudding yesterday and was too sick to meet up at a diner. Since I was up early anyway, I decided to go to the grocery store at the same time as all the senior citizens, to buy lentils. Had to do something with the ham bone mom gave me from the big ass ham, so I thought it would be a good day for a lentil ham soup.

Then I made a potholder.

You know, with one of those looms like you had as a kid in the 70's.  I got one for Christmas, so I used it.  It took me two freaking hours to make that potholder.  This is why I buy potholders. But it turned out pretty decent so I'll probably make another one.

 

Winter Vacation, day 3

It's Christmas Eve and I'm waiting for the snow to start falling. 

Today was, as my Auntie D. would call it, a lay day. I woke up late, ate a bagel, and forgot to go to the gym again. Total lazy ass.  Then I went to the grocery store with the rest of the entire world, and then I caught up on Glee episodes. Glee used to be my favorite, now I wish they would have pulled the plug at the end of season 3. I don't like any of the new cast. 

Sometimes on Christmas Eve, we dine on lasagna with my parents. Sometimes, we don't. Salty D. is Jewish and I'm in limbo so we don't go to church services, even though I think church on Christmas Eve is so beautiful. One year we spent Christmas Eve at the local casino. We ate oysters, drank a lot, and gambled a little. The place was almost empty. It was weird.

Tonight, we're dining on the best appetizers Wegmans had to offer. A buffet du nosh. Shrimp, stuffed clams, crab and artichoke dip, fresh warm bread. We're building a fire in the fireplace and putting on Love, Actually for a quiet evening at home.

Love actually is all around.

Winter Vacation, day 1

I have 11 1/2 days off for the holidays. How will I spend them? 

I resolved to blog each day. Then you can see how boring life has become for a 40-something, married-with-no-kids, slightly mental woman.

First, on my half-day, I met with my financial adviser (dad) to update him on my retirement planning. Because at 40-something, if you're employed, you definitely need to do that. It's never easy thinking about it and planning my demise but I did it. 

Today, Saturday, is officially Day 1  of break. I started the day off right by waking up 4 hours later than normal, thereby throwing off my meds schedule and blowing off the gym. Way to go! But it's cold and windy outside.  Whine. 

I made red and green New Mexican chile sauces from the ground chile that my uncle just sent me from Santa Fe.  The brunch casserole I serve tomorrow to my friends can then be ordered up "Christmas."

I'm washing a new flannel duvet cover that I'm particularly excited about, especially since I got a great deal on it. It's wintry out, time for the big comforter.

Since friends are visiting tomorrow I am about to become a nervous white tornado in the house, up until the time we leave for dinner. We're meeting some other friends tonight at an Italian restaurant up in the hills of coal country. It's an annual tradition.

My Christmas presents are wrapped, but I'm thinking I may need to bake more cookies. My butt doesn't think so, but my brain does. I made these pistachio-white chocolate cookies last week. 

I'm now listening to Salty D. make a "mix" tape of every version of "Sweet Jane" that he has, including a cool one by Sweet.   Which is kind of fun to say, Sweet's Sweet Jane.

If you're you're on home holiday break, I'd love to hear what you're up to, too.

 

Numb and Dumber

I'm pretty sure my meds are making me numb.

Not numb to emotions like some people may think drugs cause, because I have a lot of emotions. Lots.

Just kind of oblivious. Not uninformed, but unfazed by my surroundings.  Not really paying attention to the way I'm interacting with my surroundings, moreso than usual.  I almost picked my nose in public the other day. It's come to this. A whole big basket of DUH.

That leads to feeling dumber. I have not felt so stupid in a long time as when I played Draw Something on my iPhone and someone drew an "X" on a box and then wrote "X+____" and I couldn't fucking comprehend that the answer was xbox and I had to end my winning streak with that player.

I don't even want to recount some of the dumbass conversations I've had lately, where I sound like a complete moron. It's not as bad as asking someone at a restaurant "Is your tuna like tunaFISH or tuna?" -- what does that even mean?   That wasn't me.

But I actually said aloud, about hot yoga, "What is hot yoga?"  Did I think it was a new breed of casserole? I mean, it's just hot. Yoga.

How about I keep pronouncing Steve Jobs as in biblical-Job. Imagine using that pronunciation for every "job".

At a party, people asked me "What's new?" and I said, "Nothing." What a great conversationalist I have become.  Who invited the boring chick?

I got excited because Ted Nugent is coming to play my town. That's so weird, because, I've never before been excited about Ted Nugent except when the Flying Bobs ride would play "Free for All" at the local amusement park. Isn't this a sign of some stupification?

So that's what I get to tell my doctor when I see him again, that I'm a blockhead.

Yeaaaaaaah buddy!

What's in your rider?

You know those crazy contract riders that you hear about, for big road acts, that say "remove the brown m&m's from the bowl" or "requires a dressing room painted in white and stocked with 38 dozen white roses?"

When I worked in an little theatre, visiting acts all had contract riders, and most of them didn't specify much in terms of amenities except some towels and bottled water. Our green room was a sad, sad dusty room with a worn out orange sofa and a cracked mirror. The theatre barely had money to sustain itself much less make interior decorating a priority. I had worked to get the public spaces dressed up a little more, so the green room was the least of my concerns, as it usually is in little theatres.

This one visiting artist came and had an actual list of specific desires outlined in his rider. Included were:

• A room with a view of nature, not of a parking lot
• 3 bottles of natural, no-sugar-added grape juice
• 4 new towels, washed
• A bowl of fresh fruit
• Healthy pre-show dinners including green salads 

What a pain in the ass, running around to get this stuff before a show opens, even a little list like this. It's pretty difficult to find a room with a view like he wanted, when funds were so limited. He expressed disappointment at being put up at the Hilton Garden Inn, and we were, like, "but there's GARDEN in the name." 

At least we picked some fresh flowers for the green room. Polishing a turd.

My fantasy rider would include grapes, pistachios (natural, roasted & salted,) a gallon of spring water, camomile tea, a fresh pillow with a clean pillowcase, a Snuggie, flowers, and, why not, 4 new hand towels.  And peanut m&ms, all colors included, especially the brown ones. Basically I would consume the food stuff, turn on my nature sounds, snuggie up and take a nap.

I'm not a stage performer but I am an expert napper.

What's in your rider?