Month: August 2007 (Page 1 of 2)

I am starting to see the appeal of putting a bucket on your head and running into walls.
I had a woman nearly sideswipe me tonight & at the sound of my horn, gave me a wave. I then encountered a woman on my street, driving alternately between 8 mph and 25 mph, and when I finally passed her, she was on the phone. I arrived home & informed my husband that if someone is so selfish that they have to get into the intersection as the light’s changing & they have the back half of their car hanging out so an entire lane of traffic has to swerve into another lane of traffic just to get around them? They should be ticketed heavily. And perhaps dragged from their car and forced to watch barbershop quartets while I get to punch them in the nose whenever the urge strikes me. Given that I’d have to listen to the barbershop quartet as well, you can bet the urge would be striking me.

I haven’t had so much road rage in one week – I’m wondering if the heat has just cooked people’s brains, or with back-to-school in swing, more inexperienced drivers are out, or what in hell is going on. But I’ve had no less than three occasions this week where I’ve had to defensively swerve because someone abruptly has changed lanes, and seriously, I’m not in a blind spot, nor am I invisible. Perhaps if I put a bucket on my head, I would be.

Can Friday get here soon, please? Please? The forecast has been changed again & now it’s dropped to -wait for it – 79 degrees. Right now that sounds downright chilly. I’m ready for Fall. I’m ready for normal. I’m ready to find my peace, ready to drive to work without incident, ready to relax. Crisp air, woolen knits, dusk bringing a chill, I’m just so ready. It’ll be delicious when it gets here.

She was a total beyotch, but upon learning, just moments ago, that Leona Helmsley had died, I gasped aloud. For all her bad stuffs, she was an icon. Here’s my post from 2005 outlining my marginal obsession with her & her ads in the New Yorker when I was a child. Because I couldn’t be normal and be obsessed with say, Farrah Fawcett or Daisy Duke as my role model. Nope. Not me. Queen of Mean and don’t give me a wire hanger or I’ll beat ya with it. Leona wouldn’t stand for it, why should you?

(Yeah, I’m mixing icons, but you know Joan Crawford & Leona would have made a hell of a club-hopping duo. They sure as hell wouldn’t need any ice for their drinks!)
Enjoy giving the devil his due, Queen Leo.

So, “wii” are going to be buying something “wii” tried out this “wiikend” and by now surely, you have guessed that it is a “Wii“. Holy crap is that a kickass fun thang!

Our friend Roger has a system, and we all engaged in some bowling, and from there it led to trying all the sports out. I was sold when it came to boxing, and the Wo and I went up against each other. OMG! Virtually punching my husband in the face? Priceless! Of course, I spent too much time hitting him in the head & he got in all sorts of kidney punches & he knocked me out in no time. But we both broke a sweat & agreed it was a great fitness tool, and fun to boot! I somehow foster some unspoken belief that if you get closer to the television, it’s like you’re moving in closer to punch the hell out of your opponent. Good thing they have those straps on the remotes!

We’ll need to wait a couple weeks to let the vacation expenditures settle, and of course there’s the other challenge of actually FINDING a system, but it was darned fun. If listening to my husband collapse in laughter at my (in)ability to play tennis was ANY indication at all. (So what if I kept falling down? I have a MEAN backhand, dammit.)

OK, so first, thank you all for your comments and good wishes and crossed fingers, I do appreciate the virtual hugs and love and they help! Let’s get our chins up & tits out, it’s the weekend, I’m not dragging my anchor today, and I’m going to tell y’all about the Birthday Bacchanal we had last night.
For yes, whenever the anniversary of Elvis’ death rolls around, it is also the birthday of The Wo! The King of my world, anyway. And thank heavens he doesn’t have a penchant for white jumpsuits! Eesh! In any event, he wasn’t feeling up for a big celebration, so he sent me off to knit night on Thursday (his actual birthday), knowing we’d go out this weekend instead. I hadn’t really planned on it being so – Bacchanalian – but like they say – when in Rome! And seriously, I understand why those Romans wore togas. For the feasting! Draped sheets just don’t confine a gal when she’s waltzing through a multi-course meal!

We went to Pierpont’s last night with Momma Linda for dinner. I had squirreled away a couple gift cards this past year, and then my dear friend Kyra, upon hearing we were going there, whipped out her (very large) stack of customer loyalty cards and other various plastics, and bestowed upon me two additional gift cards she didn’t think she’d use. “Have a couple drinks on me,” she said. Um, you betcha?! Plus, Pierpont’s has a great email loyalty program, where you give them your anniversary and birthday, and they send you a coupon for a free entree (with purchase of another entree), up to $20/off. So I encouraged James to get whatEVER he really wanted. And get it all. I wanted him to experience the meal the way I’ve had so many rep dinners over the years – don’t worry about the check and savor every bite.

I think we accomplished that. We’d also discussed steaks since the last time he’d had one, and I firmly insisted that he get a filet. He always ends up getting a ribeye, or a t-bone, and then there was the dreadful porterhouse we shared on our anniversary, and none of those pieces of meat are ever as good as the filet, and it has reinforced in him a disappointment with beef. Well, he still sees it as too expensive, but I think he was pretty delighted with his blue-crab-topped/smoky-tomato-Bearnaise-sauce filet last night. Every single thing was impeccable. We had Asian beef carpaccio and flash-fried calamari for starters, we shared a grilled tomato salad with goat cheese, basil, and balsamic vinegar (holy mother was that awesome and I am so re-creating that recipe), and he also got a side of bourbon-candied sweet potatoes, that were perfection – just enough bite to them and not a soggy piece to be found, all infused with an essence of the bourbon candying that didn’t overwhelm, but with enough sweetness to complement the potato. That’s the rub, you know, you spend a ton of money, but every single thing was top-notch. I had two martinis, and after the week I’d had, a third or fourth might have actually removed some of the brain cells holding the memories, but then there would have been the whole walking-to-the-car thing (which let’s not lie, it was more like waddling by the time our two-hour meal was complete.)
Dessert – and yes, you have to have dessert – was also delish, accompanied by cappuccinos; James got the banana split, which was banana fritters served on top of hot fudge, with a side dish of ice cream – a chocolate chip, and then he substituted two scoops of the caramel-cashew, skipping the strawberry. Momma Linda got the creme brulee, which was also delicious, and I broke everyone’s expectations and got the bread pudding. I’m not normally a big bread-pudding fan – too many times it’s too soggy, or too dry, or overly sweet, or loaded with raisins – and yet something about the description (“white chocolate ganache and roasted peach coulis flambeed tableside with rum”)? Just said, “Jennifer, this is the dessert for you.” Holy mackerel, was it ever. I regretted not having a camera because they even put the “P” of their logo in dark chocolate on top – a perfect replica, some sort of computer-meets-chocolate magicry. And it was perfection. Firm, sweet, the right amount of moisture, the right amount of sauce, all the flavors coming together – my mouth is watering from the memory of it. And the service was excellent. Just enough checking in, keeping us hydrated, and ever-so polite. By far one of the best birthday dinners we’ve ever had together, and even though we ate way too much, it truly was a great way to end what had been a pretty rough week for all of us. MommaLinda’d had a crazed week at work as well, and James had his first week of school with the kids. My guess is next week will be a lot more normal, and that means – sigh – no Pierponts again. But, that’s what makes dinners like that so special!

Could we all have a big shout-out for the happiness that is FRIDAY? Oh mah lord. I can’t believe I’ve only worked 3.5 days – the work & stress has been the equivalent of a couple of weeks, and that EXCEEDS the recommended dosing! Everything has been in some state of uproar or drama or irritation or frustration, and that is work, life, the whole shebang. I’m very, very tired.

Until my father’s death, I excelled at denial, and avoidance. I still do – but emotional things are a lot harder to shake free now. But I’ve learned about drowning in grief and the whole process of breaking the surface and finding your breath again and eventually staying afloat – and even swimming.

I had some news this week, and it’s the reason for my watery metaphor – my beloved Auntie Karen had a false negative on a biopsy earlier this month, and she does, after all, have breast cancer. I suspected something had happened when we returned from vacation & she’d left a message. I called her back right away and when I heard the news, I just felt myself sinking. Not fighting it. Legs together, toes pointed, sinking like a stone. She continued, with positive information (it’s Stage I), the treatment will be pretty aggressive, she has all the faith in the world with her doctor, he feels the prognosis is very good, so on and so forth. She told me not to panic or think the worst.

I’ve done a pretty good job of following her instructions this week, in which I’ve had numerous emotional bungee drops and confrontations and stress. Mostly because I didn’t talk about it much. Didn’t let it break the surface. I have a very obsessive mind, I’ve always described it as my “inner terrier”, the dog that cannot and will not back out of the hole until it has dragged every goddamned rat out of the darkness. Some might call it a futile attempt to control everything, in a search for reassurance. Terrier sounds a little cuter.

My voice cracked when I told James, and later this week, at lunch with my girlfriends, when I described my aunt, trying to be wry and pretend it’s ok, as “my only living relative who still speaks to me…” Yeah, it’s a sucker punch of a twist on the truth, but I’m tired. My terrier is tired of hunting rats, of not coming in from the rain, of having to sink to the bottom before I can rise to the surface again, tired of paddling, tired just so tired.

Despite my words here, I’m still optimistic. I know my Auntie will pull through this, that all will be ok, that the stress at work will continue but it will, too, resolve itself, and that the general stress of life ebbs and flows. I just hit my limit today, and in the silence of the office, as people scramble to leave early, I felt the realities of my life rush in, no longer held at bay by business and calls and meetings. ….and yes, I’m still quite happy it’s Friday. I have a great evening planned, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to see this post as just a little dip in the Sorrows Pool on a Friday afternoon.