A PSA for the Jersey crowd

On Thursday night, I had the great good fortune to join Minnams at a screeing of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie (thank you, Minnams, for introducing me to the books, and for your fab connections, and for inviting me to join you!). The screening took place outside of Philadelphia, and we were a little anxious about getting there in time to get a seat, because they send out more passes than the theater can hold, so I didn't even stop for gas on the way. We made it in plenty of time, and both of us really liked the movie (what is up with People magazine giving it only 2-and-a-half stars?!), and the environment was just surreal and hilarious and bizarre and fun.

So on the long ride home, as I'm driving down 95 and yammering with Shari on my cell phone, my gas light went on. No worries -- I found an exit with both a Mobil and a Shell, and the Mobil was 24 hours. So I drove in, and pulled up to a pump, and waited for the attendant to come out, but he appeared to be doubling as the cashier in the convenience store part, and I was sick of waiting, so I figured I'd try the Shell station, reasoning that because it hadn't been advertised on the the exit ramp as 24 hours, but was still open, it'd probably be cheaper than the $2.23 per gallon that the Mobil was charging.

Shari was still being a sport, staying on the line as I went in the other direction to the Shell station, which was indeed open (and indeed much cheaper than the Mobil). Again, I pulled up to the pump, waited a couple of minutes, and finally said to Shari,

"God, why is no one helping me?! It's 10:45 at night, I have no gas, I'm going to be stranded in Pennsyl...CRAP! Shari, I'm in Pennsylvania. God, I'm an idiot."

Because, you know, in Pennsylvania -- like every other state except Jersey -- gas stations are actually self-serve. And I hate that NJ is full-service only, precisely because you have to sit in your car waiting for someone to saunter over after he's finished making a phone call or getting someone else cigarettes or doing whatever else, and by the time you actually say "10 bucks of regular, please" you couldn't filled the car up yourself and been back on the road.

And so, as the summer travel season begins, remember, my fellow Jerseyans, that you're allowed -- and expected -- to pump your own gas when you're outside of the great Garden State. And for you non-natives who travel to Jersey, remember NOT to get out of the car and fill your own tank, because the attendant will be right with you. But you might want to bring a book or something while you wait.

Absolutely not

This weekend, the Smelmooo and I are hosting his family to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday (introducing Tucker to his...cousins? is a secondary goal for the gathering). Smelmooo will grill up some dinner (which of course means that it will rain), so I've been thinking about appropriate side dishes. And, now that I'm a grown-up, I realize that I can't just think about the side dishes that I like, because that would be an incredibly bland, boring meal.

So I was thinking that MIL (for whom I still have no name; I think that the birthday card I give her will have to read "Dear Hey, You!," or something) usually has some sort of pasta side dish, like her famous tuna-macaroni-casserole, so maybe I'd kick off the summer barbecue season with a pasta salad of some sort. My friend Sallie makes an outstanding pasta salad that's really light on condiments (we share weird food habits and strong aversions to condiments, which is part of why we get along and can travel well together) but full of flavor, but unfortunately she's on her honeymoon through the first week of June, so no luck there.

So I turned to my trusty "How to Cook Everything" cookbook by Mark Bittman, which is an excellent -- if underused in my kitchen -- resource. I wasn't sure if pasta salad would be in the pasta section or the salad section, so I found it in the index under "Pasta Salad -- note on" which seemed a little odd, but I turned to the appropriate page to discover that Mark Bittman firmly believes that there is no reason for pasta salad. I'm paraphrasing, but he basically says that although leftover pasta is a reality we all encounter from time to time, and if there's truly nothing else to do with said leftover pasta it's okay to add it to an existing salad, under no circumstances should one set out expressly to make pasta salad.

I don't have a whole lot of experience with cookbooks, but I was truly surprised to see such a bold statement. I've never really been one for pasta salad, but I'd never heard of anyone having an explicit objection to it in theory. What power Mark Bittman wields, making a blanket anti-pasta-salad policy, making those of us who considered serving our guests pasta salad hang our heads in shame, trying to recover our dignity, stammering, "No, no...what I really meant was an Italian salad, not a pasta salad! Pasta salad! Pfft!"

If my mom wrote a cookbook, she'd make a similar edict about peas in penne vodka dishes (actually, the Smelmooo would do the same), although I quite enjoy the splash of color and unusual texture they add. If I wrote a cookbook...well, no one would buy it, because it would be called "The Lazy Girl's Guide to Preparing Bland Food" and have at most 10 recipes in it. But if I did write a cookbook, I hope that I'd be able to write as confidently, disparagingly and authoritatively about mustard as Bittman did about pasta salad. Forget the great American novel! I think this is my new publishing goal.

101 in 1001

During the last couple of months, I've done a bunch of cool stuff that I'd never done but always wanted to do: saw U2 live; played poker in an actual casino for actual money; got a dog. There are boatloads more things like that that I'd like to do, so I've decided to jump on the "101 in 1001" bandwagon, which I first discovered on this stranger's blog that I really enjoy and read religiously (I wonder if the author is creeped out by that -- religious readers whom she's never actually met and about whom she knows nothing).

Anyway, the general idea is to identify 101 things to do in the next 1001 days, which takes me to February 15, 2008 (I realized I'll be 30 then, which is crazy to me). I'm hopeful that I'll be able to do at least most of them; even if I can get through half, I think it'll feel pretty good. I'll use this space to track my progress. Here goes, in no particular order:


1. Plant a vegetable garden (at least tomatoes, but preferably cucumbers and maybe some other stuff, as well).[done, spring 2006. I planted both tomatoes and peppers, and the tomatoes popped up in August and have been really yummy, but no luck seeing any actual peppers. Oh well. Maybe next year. Good enough to cross off the list.]

2. Visit Alaska. [9/6/07 -- If I haven't planned it by now, it ain't happening by February]

3. Visit Australia. [ditto]

4. Buy some artwork in a city I visit for the first time, or even a museum exhibit I visit anywhere, frame it properly and display it in our house. [yeah, no. Unless you count the ceramic fish we bought on our trip to Maine, but that wasn't quite what I had in mind when putting this on the list.]

5. Plan and spend a girls’ weekend with my mom and sisters. [I came close to half-completing this, and I think I won't actually complete it until my nieces and nephews are older, but we at least had a girls' dinner on the table for February '08. And then, stupid weather snowed us out, despite our best efforts.]

6. Take a Spanish class that is actually relevant and that I actually complete. [eh, I'm sort of over this for now. But maybe in the next 1001 days it'll be more of a priority.]

7. Sign up for an aerobics/yoga/Pilates/other fitness class and actually attend every session. [8/16/07 -- This isn't necessarily completed to the letter, because I'm not in, like, a 12-week class at the Y, which is what I'd initially envisioned. But I've been pretty regularly going to the aerobics class at the gym at work, and even more regularly doing the Pilates class there, so I think I'm in enough of a disciplined routine with each of those classes that I can cross this off the list.]

8. Visit at least five state parks that I’ve never visited. [I may or may not have completed this one; I think I really meant national parks but got confused with the nomenclature when I first wrote this one. Either way, eh.]

9. Spend a weekend at an inn in New England in the fall. [done 10/22/05, at the Farmington Inn in Connecticut. Happy anniversary to us, and thanks to Minnams and Dave for the gift certificate!]

10. Go back to Colgate and show the Smelmooo where I spent my wild youth. [done October 2007, although the bar where I had my first legal drinks has been shut down, and the bar where I spent the bulk of my Monday and Wednesday nights senior year didn't open until 11, and that was, frankly, way too late for me. And my favorite pizza joint was closed because it was fall break for the students. BUT: we got to walk around campus, play pool and darts and drink at the awesome townie bar, go to a hockey game, and, most importantly, eat Tollhouse Cookie Pie at the Colgate Inn, so it was all good.]

11. Go back to Columbia for a chocolate chip muffin from a street vendor. [I just haven't really had occasion to go back, and it seems like an awfully long trip just for a muffin. Although once Lent is over I might feel differently...]

12. Visit the grease trucks in New Brunswick and eat a Fat Darrell.[done 11/12/05. I forgot this was even on the list, but the Smelmooo and I were out in New Brunswick for a fab meal at Makeda and drinks at Tumulty's, and he suggested we pop by the grease trucks so we'd have something to eat the next day during football. And although they're not quite as good on day #2, fat sandwiches hold up pretty well if you heat them in the oven, not the microwave.]

13. Volunteer. Not just a day here or there: find a place/cause/organization that I really support and where I feel like I can contribute consistently and usefully, and then do it. [I thought a couple months ago that I'd actually have crossed this one off; I found a great local organization right after Thanksgiving, but a few weeks of phone tag plus holiday madness plus life just getting in the way has me stalled on this one. But I think I'm partway there, and it'll go on a future list.]

14. Walk in another Breast Cancer 3-day. [totally not happening before the deadline, because I didn't sign up for one, although I'd like to do it at some point.]

15. Run in a 5K or a 10K. No, really. RUN. Preferably for a good cause. [half-credit? I've gotten myself to the point where I can actually run 5K without stopping or nearly dying, and I'm even doing so fairly regularly on the treadmill, but I reached that point probably only in November or December, which is not prime-time for charity races in the northeast. Anyway, even though I thought I gave myself cover here with the "preferably for a good cause," the part about not just "run 5k" but "in a 5K" probably means this one counts as a total incomplete. But getting there!

16. Go to a service at the Catholic church in town and see if I like it. If I do, go back once in a while, at least. If not, find a different church and see if it’s a fit. [I guess the fact that I haven't managed to do this once in three years suggests it's not a real priority. But every once in a while, mostly when I'm morbidly thinking about my own death, I get a pang that I should do this. We'll see.]

17. Come up with a signature dessert other than Rice Krispies Treats. [Sharico tells me I can take credit for this, even though I don't feel it's entirely appropriate that the peanut-butter cup brownies that are HER signature dessert are now one of mine, as well. And I'm not sure if the three times I've made the flourless chocolate cake make it a signature dessert, especially when I've decided it's way too much work to make except for the specialist of special occasions.]

18. Come up with a signature dish other than pasta or “pre-prepared item from Wegmans.” [yeah, no, but I sort of don't care.]

19. Find and use a great recipe for white bean soup or split-pea soup with ham. [why have I still not done this?! This winter, really.]

20. Take Tucker to obedience school.[he started classes 9/19/05 and will finish up 11/7/05, although I'm such a bad "parent" that we may need to do another round. But I figure it's completed because I did, in fact, take him!]

21. Get Tucker to walk downtown and back without having to carry him for any part of the journey. [This was hugely satisfying, and we were able to make it downtown two days in a row! And then it was horribly cold, so we're probably back to square one now, but done, sometime in January or February 2006. I guess it wasn't as memorable as I'd hoped].

22. Put our wedding pictures in actual, physical albums. [another one that I'm fairly embarrassed about. The most progress I've made is buying some albums and moving the boxes of pictures to different rooms of the house hoping that location would spark inspiration]

23. See the Nerds, preferably at Jenkinson’s or some other cheesy Jersey Shore spot. [done 8/10/05, at Jenk's -- and I loved, loved, loved them, particularly Pour Some Sugar on Me]

24. See 20 movies I’m embarrassed never to have seen, including: Schindler’s List; Citizen Kane; Casablanca [watched Nov. 2005]; The Godfather [watched in '05, along with Godfather 2!]; Gone with the Wind; It’s a Wonderful Life [watched December '05 and cried like a baby]; Sunset Boulevard [watched 5/28/05]; 2001: A Space Odyssey [started watching 2/06 and boy was I bored. I watched enough that I will mark it as an accomplishment, but no way can I sit through the whole thing]; The Maltese Falcon [watched Jan 2006]; Annie Hall [watched 7/9/05]; Vertigo [watched 7/3/05]; American Graffiti [watched Nov. 2005, at the old movie theater in town, which was awesome]; Rocky [watched November 2005] ; Fargo[watched 6/23/05]; The Jazz Singer [watched Jan 06, and hated it]; Goodfellas [watched I think December 05, maybe Jan 06]; Cool Hand Luke[watched at the end of 2005]; Rosemary’s Baby [watched December '05]; Meet Me in St. Louis [watched toward the end of '05]; and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon[watched 7/3/05]. [started off strong here, and really if I'd been paying better attention to my deadline, could've pushed this one through. I'll get there eventually.]

25. Read 20 books I’m embarrassed never to have read (particularly given that I was an English major); these include: Atlas Shrugged; The Handmaid’s Tale [partway through by my deadline]; The Sound and the Fury; Catch-22; 1984 [January '08]; Slaughterhouse-Five; Lolita; Portnoy’s Complaint; The Divine Comedy; On the Road; Brave New World; Wuthering Heights; Crime and Punishment; Madame Bovary; Don Quixote; The Scarlet Letter; The Picture of Dorian Gray; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [finished January '06, and loved it]; The Importance of Being Earnest; Naked Lunch and any others I have purchased at garage sales and library book sales over the years. [I still feel like I should read most of these, but part of my challenge is that these aren't great beach reads, for the most part, and that's when I mostly have time to read more than a few pages at a time. Maybe I need to listen to them on tape during my commute to work. That might be a good compromise moving forward.]

26. Resist the urge to buy the books listed above unless I love, love, love them; initially, at least, borrow them from the library. [obviously too linked to the incomplete item above to be considered complete, but the books I do have from that list are/were either library books, in my possession before I started the list, or purchased for less than $2, so I kept with the spirit of this one, at least.]

27. Get at least 3 papers published in professional journals. [on my way! I'm second author on a paper that was published in January 2006] [and nothing else; I passed on two opportunities for this, which I think does not count at all. Just hasn't been a priority with everything else going on in work and in life.]

28. Write a short story. [nope.]

29. Renew my New Yorker subscription.[Completed 6/5/05]

30. Complete a New York Times crossword puzzle (even if it’s only a Monday edition)[Completed a Tuesday puzzle, on 6/28/05].

31. Reinstate my pumpkin-picking tradition with Shari.[done 10/15/05, despite the soggy field and my pumpkin losing its stem during the long car ride home]

32. Hitch my bike to the car and take a several-mile bike ride somewhere other than Metuchen or Bradley Beach. [nope, sadly. I think that renting bikes in Florida doesn't quite count]

33. Host a “just because” dinner party for friends. [8/16/07 -- I'm going to call this done, even though we've primarily held dinner parties that we call the "guinea pig" dinners as trial runs for Christmas Eve dinner. But I think they're primarily "just because."]

34. Ride in a hot-air balloon or go parasailing. [done January 2008, parasailing in St. Thomas, which was awesome. A little nauseating on the way up, real quick, but such a cool experience overall. Still would like to do a hot-air balloon at some point, but this was nifty, and we got some fun pictures from the guys driving the boat.]

35. Bet more than $2 on a race in Saratoga. [done 7/30/05 -- and I won! very exciting]

36. Buy a houseplant (cacti, bamboo and garden plants don’t count) and keep it alive for a least one year. [8/16/07 -- I didn't buy it, but I have kept a clipping from one of my mom's plants alive for more than a year. Actually, does it count as a "houseplant" if it's in my office at work? I'm getting desperate -- it counts.]

37. Learn to knit.[I don't know if I can say I've totally learned, but signed up to take an introductory course, September 2006, which I think counts. We'll see.] [Update, April 2007: So, that fall class totally got canceled, but I took one in March, and learned to knit and to purl. It has not come easily, and I can't imagine I'll ever be able to create anything more complicated than a potholder, but I did learn.]

38. Give up ice cream and chocolate for Lent without cheating once (I did this in 2004, but made a complete mess of it this year, so trying to get back on the horse).[done 2006, and not a single day passed that I did not want ice cream]

39. Join a book club (preferably one in which people actual read and discuss the book), even if it’s only for one meeting. [nope, and didn't even try.]

40. Give my siblings and in-laws who are parents a night, or even a weekend, of baby-sitting for their birthdays so they have a chance to celebrate with grown-ups. [nope, although I have done the occasional baby-sitting stint, which I always enjoy, so I need to put this back on a new list, because I think it's good for my siblings, and good for my relationship with their kids to do more of this.]

41. Go camping. [I am thinking that spending the night in a tent in the backyard doesn't count.]

42. Spend an entire day without looking at my Blackberry or turning on my computer.[even better than that -- I went an ENTIRE WEEK, from 8/6 - 8/13/05. Not once did I look at my Blackberry or the computer. And nothing fell apart.]

43. Spend a week without turning on the television (this may be the hardest one of all). [nope, and if it didn't happen during the writers' strike, it's probably not going to happen.]

44. Learn a card trick that I can pull off every time. [no, although I kind of don't care about this one at all.]

45. Convince the Smelmooo to go ice skating and/or rollerblading with me. [Done! We went ice skating 2/18/06, much to my surprise. It was less "convincing" him than "shutting up about it" and him suggesting it in the end.]

46. Send a hand-written card or note to Jenny at least once a month while she’s out of the country (it’s pathetic how hard I find it to do this), and make sure that birthday and Christmas gifts for her and her family are on time, or even early. [not even close, which is awful.]

47. Find a cheap but functional sewing machine at a yard sale and figure out how to use it. [I've actually looked quite a bit, but no luck -- I think that people are really reluctant to part with their sewing machines, and even the most basic models are super-expensive, I've discovered.]

48. Get a fabulous, totally-unlike-me ensemble to wear when I celebrate my 30th birthday. [9/6/07 -- I'm not sure if this precisely should count, but I'm wearing an awfully cute skirt today that I purchased on a huge pre-birthday shopping trip, with Minnams serving as my personal shopper (really, everyone should be so lucky). And I'm planning on wearing another cute new skirt from that same trip when I celebrate tomorrow night in NYC with Sharico, so I think that counts.]

49. Finally watch “Angels in America,” which the Smelmooo taped for me months ago. [still no. And now, I would probably just get it on DVD, given that we've now moved the VCR to the office and I hate watching anything in there. Sorry, Smelmooo!]

50. Renew my lapsed NPR sponsorship. [Done, 12/30/05, and even got a free cookbook by Mark Bittman in the deal, although it's still not arrived almost a month later...];

51. Track my charitable donations so I can include them on our tax return. [Done for '05 returns. That wasn't so bad.]

52. Take the Smelmooo on a date at Dan’s on Main for no special reason. [Dammit. It closed, summer 2006. See also #91, below, for another example of my power to close good restaurants via this list. What the hell? I did actually take him to Dan's before it closed, but it was in part a celebration of his promotion, so at the time I didn't count it as "for no special reason." But close enough, given that I have no future opportunity here.]

53. Play pool in a bar and pull a legitimate win. [I can't count it when my opponent is killing me and then scratches on the 8-ball. That just doesn't fit with the spirit of this one.]

54. Play darts in a bar and pull a legitimate win. [I did this when the Smelmooo and I went up to Colgate, but I'm 97% sure he let me win, so I can't in good conscience count this one, either.]

55. Seriously look for a new job. Even if I don’t actually take one or get one, I’ve been out of the interview mix for way too long. [We'll call this done, during the first eight months of 2006. I haven't posted about it here because, you know, people at work read my blog, but done. And I now have a new job with the same organization, and I think it's good. So done, as of 9/06, and not eager to do it again anytime soon.]

56. For one week, cook a proper dinner every night (popcorn and cereal don’t count, and pasta counts only if it’s more involved than throwing jarred sauce and shredded cheese on it). [nope, although the Smelmooo and I both are getting a little better about cooking and making healthy meals semi-regularly. But with work and travel and our shared love for Pizza Thursday, this hasn't happened.]

57. Sing karaoke in public. [no, but I'm sort of thinking this is a good thing. I could've knocked it off easily at one of the Smelmooo's work functions in St. Thomas, but I love him too much to sing in front of his colleagues and board members.]

58. Make a more legitimate effort to learn – and like – golf, even if it’s just pitch and putt. [no, although I may try to play this summer when we go back to Maine, if the golf course is as deserted as it was last year.]

59. Finish my holiday cards, shopping, wrapping and shipping by December 15th. [sooooooo close in 2007, but the perils of online shopping did me in, both because I sometimes hated what I ordered once I actually saw it in real life and because of shipping delays. One of the Smelmooo's gifts didn't arrive on our doorstep until Christmas Eve.]

60. Hold an old-fashioned slumber party with bad movies, bad food, and makeovers. [no, but I still really like the idea of doing this. I should have done this for my 30th.]

61. Re-learn how to change a tire. [I'm going to call it a no, even though the Smelmooo showed me again on my own car this fall when I had a flat. But the sun was about to go down, so it was all a little rushed, and I'm not sure I could do it all on my own.]

62. Learn how to drive stick-shift (Smelmooo had started to teach me on his old car Skip, and then ended up with an automatic after Skip went to automotive heaven). [nope. But if anyone out there would be willing to let me take their car out, I'm still interested.]

63. Establish and stick to a filing system – at home and at work – that’s at least marginally more sophisticated than “throw it in a pile and hope for the best.” [yeah, no, not in a sustained way.]

64. Use the obscenely expensive mixer that my boss gave us for a wedding gift. [I think maybe the Smelmooo used it when cooking Christmas Eve dinner, but I still haven't. One of these days I will use it for Sharico's cookie recipe. Note to all you engaged couples: if you don't need the mixer now, probably having the super-fancy one won't make you change that behavior, so sign up for something different. Although that did not hold true for either the waffle maker or the ice cream maker, so what do I know.]

65. Be the person who hardly leaves the dance floor at a wedding or some other party. [I think I can safely cross this off following my behavior at Mike and Nicole's wedding in November 2005];

66. Make the Smelmooo a homemade birfday cake. [Yay! Done, November 2007, a flourless chocolate cake, which I never would have picked, except the recipe came from my boss's wife, and my boss cared deeply about me making it. And I'm glad I did, because I thought it was delicious, although when I made it again for a non-birfday occasion, it seemed like a real pain in the ass.]

67. See Bruce Springsteen or Bon Jovi in concert, as a good Jersey Girl should at some point in her life. [I forgot this was even on the list, but my sisters and I have tickets for a December 2005 show!!]

68. Build a sand castle. [I've contributed to my nephews' sand castles on a couple of occasions over the last few years, but I don't think I can count that.]

69. Build a snowman on the front lawn. [nope.]

70. Buy cute gardening clogs. [done, April 2006. They are so adorable: yellow with a ladybug print]

71. Go to the opera or ballet. [no, but I'm on my way, with a gift certificate to the opera -- thank you, Sharico. Just need to find one to attend now.]

72. Join a professional association and/or board. [no, but much like the journal article thing, I've gotten out of being on a board I'm not interested in. I think that doesn't count, but being approached makes me feel like I'm making at least some minimal progress.]

73. Excise from my closet any clothes that I’ve not worn in the last year, because, really, I’m not fitting into those pants I wore in college. [I've done this fairly regularly, although there are still a handful of things that I seem unable to part with, despite all evidence indicating that I am not wearing them ever again. I'll give myself credit anyway]

74. Send thank-you notes to the teachers/professors who had a lasting impact on me. [I haven't done it for all of them, but I'm glad I've sent the ones I have. Need to keep on this one.]

75. On a day I work from home on a writing project, spend the afternoon with my laptop at Brewed Awakening so I can catch a glimpse of what it might feel like to live the life of a freelancer. [nope]

76. Use the ice cream maker for something other than mint cookies-n-cream and cookie dough, even though those are awesome. Maybe try peanut butter cup or Thin Mint during Girl Scout cookie season. [Didn't do PB or Thin Mint, but made chocolate marshmallow, which turned out pretty well, for Christmas Eve 2005. I may try Cherry Garcia next if I'm feeling really ambitious.]

77. Go to a water park with the Smelmooo so we can relive our immense enjoyment of the waterslide in Hawaii. [Who knew there's such a dearth of water parks (at least ones that aren't totally skanky)? Maybe when we go back to Hawaii next year]

78. Try water skiing. [I still want to do this, but have felt safer with the standard kayaking and other non-motorized water sports and have been too chicken.]

79. Give snow skiing one more shot, preferably at a nice little resort where I can do other stuff if I still hate it. [I think I just need to accept that I'm not interested in skiing, although there's a teensy part of me that wants to listen to the people who tell me I should at least go out west to give it a whirl.]

80. Make at least one new friend. [I think I've actually made a few new friends, both through work and through the Smelmooo and through other friends. The couple friends and friends-of-friends are relatively easy; the on-my-own friends are trickier because I'm still so socially awkward and I feel like the rules are more complicated when you're an adult making new friends. The parameters seem more confusing than when you're a kid.]

81. Track down my friend Jamie and reconnect with him. [not done, although I've tried to track him down unsuccessfully. I think I just need to give his old email address a shot and see if it works.]

82. Contribute substantively to the painting of our bedroom. [paint cans still unopened. Does paint eventually go bad, even if you haven't opened it? I'm thinking yes.]

83. Reinstate the tradition of including silly poems in my family members’ birthday cards. [I've started doing this, but not consistently. I find that people really, really enjoy them, though, so I should do a better job of doing it regularly, although I recall that I initally gave up because it was just too much pressure. But I think the trade-off is worth it, and I'm buoyed by the reaction that my new year's invitation got.]

84. Start wearing my watch again, but only during the week. [Done, now that I've gotten the clasp fixed and gotten a working battery. Now I just need to start remembering that I'm wearing a watch, and actually look at it when I need to know the time.]

85. Use the picnic basket I got three years ago. [nope. It's like the mixer -- so good in theory, so not something I'm using in practice]

86. Go to Musikfest and actually remember to bring my mug with me. [Clearly not happening, because the 2008 fest is past the deadline for my list]

87. Clean out my car, including the trunk. [done 10/8/05, and not a day earlier -- see #100 below]

88. Clean the house from top to bottom when we’re NOT expecting company. [done, with some more regularity than previously.]

89. Spend a good-weather day wandering around NYC with the Smelmooo, with absolutely nothing planned. [I don't think I can count this as done; I think we have always had at least one thing planned when we've gone into the city.]

90. Read the biography of Robert Wood Johnson from cover to cover. [nope.]

91. Make it back to the Northstar Café for tapas and sangria.[not completed, but they shut down the restaurant, so I guess this one's a failure! so sad.]

92. Continue the tradition of throwing all my change (along with Smelmooo’s) in a big container, dumping them in the Commerce Penny Arcade when it’s full, and buying something nice for ourselves (last time it was our new digital camera; who knows what will be next…). [Continued in '05, and we got a portable DVD player]

93. Take a dinner cruise in the summer; I can’t figure out whether this will be cool or just super-cheesy, but either way I want to give it a try. [It wasn't actually a dinner cruise -- pretty much a drinking cruise -- but I'm considering our Shearwater Sail on 9/1/07 as fitting the spirit of this item and counting it as complete]

94. Go horseback riding; I don’t think I’ve gone since I was 13. [done January 2006, in Puerto Rico, and it was at first pretty scary, but then lots of fun.]

95. Succumb to the urge to buy TiVo or its equivalent.[done 7/15/05 -- DVR, which I'm enjoying, but which might be less awesome than TiVo, but it's also way cheaper]

96. Get, wear, and don’t lose a nice piece of jewelry in addition to my engagement and wedding rings. [So far so good with the necklace the Smelmooo got me for Christmas 2006]

97. Get, wear, and don’t lose a pair of sunglasses that costs more than $10.[done 8/3/05, but I'm only giving myself partial credit, because I broke my old cheap sunglasses in Saratoga, and then bought this new pair for like 15 bucks at Logan Airport. I think the spirit of this one was to invest in a NICE pair of sunglasses, but I have met the letter of the law on this one.]

98. Buy a proper coffee table for the living room. [Done, finally, Sept. 2006. For some reason, Labor Day weekend is our lucky time for finding furniture.]

99. Donate blood, which I haven't done in ages, despite knowing how important it is and once upon a time being a regular donor. [still not done. I'm kind of a jerk.]

100. Get a new car. [done 10/8/05 -- welcome home, Honda Accord!]

101. Eat a fried Oreo on the boardwalk or at a fair. [Completed 6/4/05 at the 7th Avenue street fair in NYC]

An "aha!" moment

It seems like every time the Smelmooo and I have been in the car during the last couple of weekends, the song "Blinded by the Light" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. And we sing along, as we do with pretty much every song on Big Joe Henry's show on NJ 101.5 on the weekends, and then we completely stumble over a line that we simply cannot decipher.

Finally, today, exhausted from last night's U2 concert (which was amazing, but I am getting way too old to stay out so late on a school night, particularly with a puppy who gets back at us for abandoning him by waking us up at 5am) and unable to focus on the journal article I'm supposed to be writing, I found the correct lyrics here. The site's title comes from the misheard lyrics to a Jimi Hendrix song, but I actually found it by searching "The girl with colitis goes by," which I remember from the Baby-Sitters Club books is a common way of hearing "the girl with kaleidescope eyes" in "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds."

Anyway, once I got there, I searched on (ew) "douche" and, voila! The actual Blinded by the Light lyrics:

Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night

So there you have it.
I need another Diet Coke.

Scatterbrained

I can't call this "Random Thoughts on a Tuesday" because that's Minnams's thing, but that's pretty much what it is. My brain's so fuzzy right now that I can't shape a substantive story or thought or diatribe about anything, so a few tidbits floating through my head:

-- Even though I'm much braver about spiders in the workplace than Minnams is, I hate, hate, hate when they appear inside our house, particularly, like this morning, when they appear in the shower. I have a secret fear that I'll somehow ingest a spider and it will lay eggs in my body and I'll be like a science-fiction story but real. I'm sure I first internalized this during a sixth-grade slumber party or something, you know, when people tell stories about the guy who was on drugs and thought he was an orange and started peeling himself and he died? There must've been a spider one once, although I don't remember it, that I just can't shake.

-- I am completely obsessed with ill-fitting formalwear that exposes women's back fat. It's truly extraordinary; how does a skeletal woman like Renee Zellwegger appear to have back fat in her wedding gown?! Who knows; maybe I had it in my wedding gown, too, but I really scrutinized myself in the bridal salon during my fittings to try to protect against it, because it's really unattractive. Maybe Renee had too much of the Southern comfort foods at their ultra-casual rehearsal dinner. I don't know. I still can't believe she married the guy who sings "You Think My Tractor's Sexy," which I discovered on the radio in Miami in I think January 2000. It was my first rental car ever, on my first big solo business trip ever, and it was so liberating to drive down the highway singing this country song at the top of my lungs.

-- We had this bizarre ceremony at work today to honor the people who've worked here for 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years. It's a lovely tradition, actually, where the president says nice things about each person, and they can all make some remarks and they get cash and prizes, essentially. But before they're allowed to return to their seats, they have to receive congratulations from a lineup of about 10 senior staff members, who are seated on a riser as though they're junior high kids at the spring concert. This is the totally weird part of the event, because there are all of these awkward hugs exchanged, and the man-hugs, and the not-sure-which-cheek-to-smooch conundrums (conundra?), and it's just a freaking train wreck. If nothing else, this is my incentive to leave before I hit ten years at this place.

-- My car door had been squeaking madly for about three weeks; when I got in yesterday morning, after not having driven for almost a week since I was out of town, no squeak!! Thank you, Smelmooo, for working your magic, and for such a thoughtful gesture.

-- For my train ride back from D.C. last week, I got the new short story collection that David Sedaris edited. I of course spent the train ride sleeping and reading Star magazine (what is up with the new Lindsay Lohan?! Horrifyingly emaciated and blonde. Someone pointed out that the hair is Hillary Duff-like, and I've got to agree; I don't think I'll even be able to stand watching her on SNL this weekend), but I read Sedaris's introduction in the train station and a handful of the stories yesterday. I just so enjoy his writing (and, so far, his reading selections, some of which are by authors who visited the Living Writers class I took in college, which I just adored because it introduced me to great writers like Amy Hempel and Carol Shields, who was supposed to be our last speaker of the semester, but it was right when she got really sick, so I never got a chance to meet her, which makes me so sad. She was just a beautiful writer, and every time I read her work I want to cry because she died too young).

Sedaris's story about going to speech therapy as a child is one with which I completely identify. I was taken out of class once a week to go to a trailer, where I worked on my lisp with a therapist who had me place a Cheerio on the tip of my tongue to encourage its proper placement on the roof of my mouth. Scarred, scarred, scarred by this whole experience, and to this day can't eat Cheerios. Anyway, reading this collection makes me want to start writing again, or maybe just to become a more voracious reader of the writers I love.

Toilet technology

The Smelmooo's post on restroom etiquette, as well as my vast experience this week with public restrooms in D.C., has got me thinking about a similar issue, related to technology rather than human behavior.

Those toilets that flush automatically? Suck. Almost without exception, in my experience anyway, they flush before I'm done, or not until I'm already out of the stall, which in both instances means that I've manually flushed anyway, so two flushes instead of one. I'm not really sure if the primary goal of the manually flushing toilet is to conserve water or simply to ensure that the waste is actually flushed, but it's sort of failing on both counts there.

I do love the automatic faucets in public restrooms, because boy those faucets must be filthy, and although I can flush with my foot (although not with those damn automatic flusher toilets, because they just have that little button, so strike three on trying to improve the restroom experience through automated flushing), and push the paper towels down with my elbow, and turn on the faucet with a paper towel (yes, true germophobe and proud owner of a degree in public health), it's nearly impossible to find a good way to turn OFF the faucet without touching it or wasting a bunch of water. I feel like I need to write a letter or something, but I don't really know to whom; is there an Association of Public Restroom Suppliers or something?

Olfactory overload

I'm a relatively sensitive person, both in that "cries-when-they-throw-Michael-Keaton-a-circus" sense of the word, as well as in the winces-when-hearing-a-loud-noise, smells-a-cucumber-a-mile-away kind of way.

And I love how cucumbers smell, and taste, which is one of those areas in which the Smelmooo and I are polar opposites, because he'd rather die than be near our kitchen when I'm peeling a cucumber, which I sometimes just eat whole, which I guess is a bit gluttonous.

Anyway, my uber-sensitive nose is a true blessing when it comes to cucumbers, and my mom's apple crisp, and pizza from Roberto's, and the fresh herbs we had all last summer when we did the farm share thing with Gina. And then, of course, I curse my nose when it comes to everything else -- taxicabs in the summer, leftovers left in the fridge even 5 minutes too long, flatulent colleagues, our house after Tucker's been left alone for too long, cigarette smoke five houses down the street. "Dear God, what is that SMELL?!" comes out of my mouth entirely more often than I'd like.

So as I said, this week I'm in D.C., staying in this incredibly swanky room...some might even call it..ahem..."Heavenly." That's the rumor, anyway. So yesterday morning, I hopped into the shower and opened up the "Heavenly Shampoo" and...DEAR GOD, what is that smell? Eucalyptus? Eeesh. It was not heavenly, or soothing, or clean-smelling, or anything. It nearly knocked me over. But then last night, out of desperation, I used the same stuff in the Heavenly Jacuzzi (because seriously? Heavenly Bed my ASS; I woke up with the back of a 70-year-old coal miner yesterday morning), as there was no Heavenly Bath Gel to speak of. And somehow, in that context, it did the trick, and it did relax me, even though in the back of my mind I kept thinking that, even though I'd cleaned it out, that I must just be lying in filth, because people are disgusting. Perhaps more worrisome was the possibility that I still smelled, but that I'd gotten used to it, like the people on Survivor (go, Ian!), who think they're like a bouquet of roses until their loved ones show up and tell them they stink, literally.

Minnams is similarly cursed/blessed with an overly acute sense of smell, and we occasionally commiserate over stinkiness in the workplace. A couple of months ago, she decided that she could sum me up with three adjectives, two of which were "hilarious" and "odorless -- both of which the Smelmooo vehemently disputes. I forget the third, but the Odorless one is really the highest compliment one could ask of someone like Minnams or me. So thank you, even if it's only who I really am on my best days.

On a totally unrelated note, my crush on Orlando has officially ended -- if it hadn't before -- as a result of that incredibly girly cover shot of him on Rolling Stone. Yick.

Behold, the power of Diet Coke

I've never been able to drink coffee, and even when I lived in England for four months, I couldn't get into tea. My caffeinated beverage of choice, far and away, is Diet Coke, preferably in a 20-oz bottle, although each morning I fill a giant plastic cup from the soda fountain at work (and then, for the rest of the workday, I drink water, which was a very big, painful shift initially, but in the long run I'm a much happier camper with the water).

This week, though, I'm in D.C. for a work trip, and -- as is usually the case -- the giant breakfast spread each morning includes boatloads of coffee and tea, but no Diet Coke. And it is a Coke hotel, not a Pepsi hotel; I will drink Diet Pepsi, and the Smelmooo prefers it, so we usually compromise and buy whatever's on sale and/or has a game involved when we're buying our 2-liter bottles for home.

So anyway, desperate, I went up to the gift shop, which was supposed to open at 7, and literally waited outside, arms crossed, feet tapping, passive-aggressiving until they opened at 7:10, and bouth a $1.99 bottle of sweet, sweet nectar, and happily brought it to my breakfast meeting.

The guy across the table, whom I'd met the day before but hadn't really talked to, was starting at me for much of the morning, but people often do that because they think the Diet-Coke-in-the-morning thing is weird. And then all of a sudden, he caught my eye and mouthed, "I COVET your Diet Coke!!" And suddenly, we were like old friends, and have been chatting it up every time we see each other. And this morning, I brought him his own 20-ouncer at breakfast, and I thought he'd burst it made him so happy, even though he has a slight preference for the mini-glass bottles that you generally get with room service.

Every once in a while, I come into contact with someone who just decides, for no real reason, that he likes me, immediately. This happened with an old co-worker, whom I really credit with getting me more visibility and more opportunities in my organization, just because he decided at hello that I was smart and capable, even though I'd done absolutely nothing to demonstrate that that's the case. I think it's the same thing with the Diet Coke guy. It's a lovely feeling, but the flip side is that I'm equally likely to have people decide immediately, and for no good reason, that they DON'T like me. That's the snap judgment I'm always more likely to make, and 9 times out of ten I'm right. I used to make those calls, and then decide maybe I'd been unfair, or really they're just shy and not bitchy, or just clueless and not manipulative, but in the end I'd realize I'd been right all along, so now I just generally go with the initial impression.

And, really, I can't think of a single one of those "lost me at hello" people who drinks Diet Coke for breakfast.

Belated Mother's Day Wishes

I wrote recently about how I've bonded with my mom over being a good wife at social functions. But this weekend, as my dad, four siblings, husband, brother-in-law, two nieces and four nephews -- a decidedly ragtag, noisy bunch -- gathered on Sunday to celebrate Mother's Day brunch with Mom, I got to thinking about all of the other stuff I've learned from her, and inherited from her, and internalized from her.

My mother is truly wonderful; she's generous and wise, loving and lovely. She once tried to give another driver the finger, and ended up flashing the "I Love You" sign. That pretty much sums her up.

With apologies to Robert Fulghum, I do believe that All I Really Need to Know, I Learned from my Mom:

-- If a boy is "a little too smooth," it's best to keep your distance.

-- If you don't have opinions about things, you may as well be a tree.

-- Always keep a cushion of emergency money in your wallet and/or glove compartment.

-- Always keep a stash of homemade chocolate chip cookies in the freezer.

-- God had a good idea when He made a pineapple.

-- Brush your teeth, wash your hands and bring a jacket.

-- Call if you're going to be late.

-- Marry a man who has nice eyes and warm feet.

-- Watching the ocean is good for the soul.

-- It's good to have a pina coloda by the pool on vacation.

-- If you have a cold and you've used the phone, wipe off the receiver with a cloth sprayed with Fantastik; never spray the receiver directly.

-- Sometimes, you just have to let things go and say, "That's not my weed to pull."

-- You can mess with me, but if you mess with my family or friends, look out.

Happy Mother's Day, mom; I'm so glad you're not a tree.

Fish bait

I know, I know, for someone who's not a dog person, I'm writing an awful lot about our dog...

But this week, we learned that Tucker again has worms. We know that it's pretty normal for puppies, but still, we (the Smelmooo moreso than I) can't help feeling that we could've done more to prevent it, and we're frustrated because we'd really thought he'd be forever worm-free after he was rescued from the mean streets of West Virginia.

So anyway, we're giving Tucker his medicine (which we first disguised with peanut butter, but he's gotten wise to that, so now we wrap it in cheese....which, by the way, confirms that the Smelmooo loves Tucker more than pretty much anything) and he seems to be getting better.

I still, however, can't stop laughing every time I think of the Smelmooo's sad face when he and Tucker arrived home from the vet, carrying a pamphlet titled "When your dog has intestinal parasites." I don't know why this language struck me so funny, but it continues to make me dissolve into giggles every time I think about it. It just seems like a parody, like the scene in Reality Bites when they're doing the pre-enactment of Steve Zahn's character coming out to his parents:

"Is there a support group that I can join to help me come to terms with my own homophobia?"

[looks at pamphlet, has epiphany]

"Oh! PFLAG!...I'm beginning to like the sound of that!"

Anyway, get well, Tucker, and may your worms be forever vanquished by the time you return to the vet on Monday, so we can stop feeling like bad pet parents...

Coming out of the Blogset

That title sounded so much better in my head, but anyway...

I've been writing fairly regularly for about a month now, and I think I'm finally ready to start telling people about my blog. I was going to wait until I had a particularly compelling entry up top to entice people to read, but I decided that was too much pressure, and just to go with it as is, so as not to create unreasonable expectations for future entries, some of which will undoubtedly be misses.

So anyway, the door is open, the welcome mat is out, I've baked you a virtual cake, so come on in...

Life is good

My oldest friend in the world, Christopher, is finally back in the States after three-and-a-half years in El Salvador, first with the Peace Corps and then with an NGO. It makes me so happy to have him back, even though I haven't seen him yet and who knows where he'll end up. But knowing that he's nearby, at least for the foreseeable future, makes me immeasurably happy.

In related news, my dear friend Jenny is back (or en route, at least) for a two-month visit from Tanzania, where she and her family have been living for almost a year. I can't wait to see her and her little girl, who's just over 16 months and who I'm sure has grown and changed remarkably since I saw her in October.

So hooray, and welcome back, and also Happy Birthday to Christopher, who turns 28 today, which means we've known each other almost 18 years.

Shuffle up and deal

The Smelmooo and I have enjoyed watching the World Poker Tour for a while now...2 years, maybe? We were flipping channels one night and stumbled upon the WPT, and both of us sort of mocked it: "Poker on TV! Riveting!" But, as it turned out, it really is!!

I'd played poker a little bit in high school and, inspired by the WPT, played Texas Hold 'Em with my in-laws (and even, once, with my co-workers, during an especially boring conference call. I totally won, but we unfortunately were playing for paper clips). But I'd never actually played poker in a casino. I'd been to Atlantic City a couple of times, and played a few slots, a few hands of blackjack, fewer hands of Let it Ride. I made 10 bucks on the slots during a layover in the Las Vegas airport. But that was it...until this weekend.

The Smelmooo and I took a break from his work convention to head over to Harrah's in Atlantic City, which was incredibly crowded on this rainy, yucky weekend. I had planned just to watch, or to go shopping or something while he played poker, but there was a huge wait to get a seat at a 2-4 table (which, for the uninitiated, means that it's about as low-stakes as you get...2 bucks to bet; blinds are $1 and $2, so you're forced to put in only $3 every 10 hands, which isn't so bad for a skittish gambler like me), so I added my name to the list, and all of a sudden, there I was, actually playing real poker in a real casino!

The Smelmooo and I initially ended up at separate tables, which actually was probably a good thing, because I sort of established myself on my own, and then he joined our table about 15 minutes later, so it was perfect. We had a lovely afternoon, which surprised both of us a little bit, because we didn't really plan the day, and we definitely didn't expect to stay for so long. But in the end, we both came out ahead, and I was totally shocked to be up $33! Which, to me, is huge, although I realize in the gambling world it's impossibly small potatoes. But when you'll only put out $50, it's not a bad return on investment. I may be hooked.