Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub

Four years ago, I vowed that, even if it's the only thing left on the registry, I will not ever again give sheets as a bridal shower or wedding gift, because I discovered after my own bridal shower that the thank-you-note-writing is terribly awkward there. I generally like to give money for the wedding and fun gifts for the shower, especially if the couple's registered for things that I own and love, like an ice cream maker.

I was at a shower earlier this year at which one guest gave a cookie jar, and said that's her signature shower gift, always, for friends with even a bit of a sweet tooth. For a few days, I was enamored of the idea of having a cookie jar, and then quickly reversed myself on that, because we have enough crap in our kitchen, both kitchenware and junk food, without another non-necessity cluttering it up more and making us fatter.

Anyway, I'm missing my cousin's bridal shower next month because we're heading back to the Outer Banks (I know you're all excited for the return of daily vacation blogs!), but I was just looking at her registry online, and was delighted to see that she's asking for a waffle iron, and that it's still available.

But I kept scrolling, just to see what else was on the list, and discovered that they have also registered for a bathroom scale. If we were closer (I have tons of cousins, and she and her brother are pretty much the only ones even remotely close to me in age, but I think in part because we have such a huge immediate family, we just never spent much time with extended family), I think I'd want to get it for her as a jokey gift, just because I'd enjoy the thank-you note:

Dear Cousin Tangent,

Thank you so much for the thoughtful shower gift. Fiance and I are doing tons of emotional eating as we deal with all of the stress of wedding planning, and we'll be sitting on our asses and drinking a ton on our honeymoon, so the scale will come in super-handy to help us get back into shape when we return. So nice of you to think of us and our expanding waistlines!

We missed you at the shower; hope to see you and the Smelmooo at the wedding!

xoxo
Cousin Bride

Oh, also

The fake, forced chumminess of the Enterprise staff in Denver? Clearly a company-wide practice. Although at least the Enterprise folks this time around did not force me to "go shopping" for my car; they just told me what I'd be getting, and where it was located, and sent me on my way. But still, I think I need to get myself back to Avis.

Stuck

And I don't mean that metaphorically (which actually makes me feel a little better).

But I am stuck in St. Louis for the night, when I should be home by now. I've only been gone since Sunday, but it feels like weeks, and I practically cried when I found out I couldn't get a flight out tonight owing to bad whether back home. So here I am, in another Hampton Inn (a good chain! I just left one yesterday morning, and there is impressive consistency across different hotels), grateful that at least I'm a little obsessive and always pack extra underwear when I travel, just in case something like this happens.

And, really, I should be grateful that my trip to Iowa didn't coincide with the tornado, and that, even if it had, I was far enough outside of the affected area that I probably wouldn't have even noticed (that reality, of course, did not keep me from waking up repeatedly last night in my hotel in Cedar Rapids, certain that I was hearing evacuation sirens and certain that I was completely screwed, being on the twelfth floor).

[quick tangent: my TV seems to have gremlins causing the channel to change all on its own, and it's just switched to CNN, and although I'm not sure why Scott McClellan's new book is considered "breaking news," I am startled anew by how alike he and Mark McClellan look. I just had to double-check that they are not twins (they are not).]

And I was grateful that the first half of my travels went so smoothly: The Smelmooo and I hit almost no traffic during our drive down to Virginia for J and M's wedding on Sunday, and had a lovely stay there. I had an easy ride to the airport yesterday, with a lovely shuttle driver from Cairo, who told me about his family, including two small kids, who are still in Egypt until he can make enough money to bring them over to the States (I think that was not a ploy to get a bigger tip out of me, but if it was, it worked), and who talked passionately about the U.S. presidential campaign. I was able to catch earlier flights out of both Dulles and St. Louis yesterday to get me to Iowa in time for dinner and a movie (Recount on HBO, which I thought was "eh" despite some pretty good reviews). And even though I was a few days early for Brett Michaels' stop in Iowa (tickets still available, although the show will be sold out! I was reminded by every one of the 20 or so television and radio ads I caught during my 12 or so waking hours in Iowa), and even though I opted not to visit the real-life Field of Dreams because it seemed too far away, especially when I didn't have my camera, my time in Iowa overall was really good.

And even the flight cancellation wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been. The airline didn't delay it and delay it and delay it until the wee hours; they called it around 7:30, and were pretty helpful in sharing information with those of us who were stuck. The only hiccup was a jerky cab driver on the way from the airport, but otherwise it's been a surprisingly good trip. Except that I was really, really ready to call it a day, and even if I were spending the night at the Ritz, I would still be feeling a little wistful that I'm not at home.

The only thing more exciting than going home? An all-new season of The Mole!!! I'm so sad that my boyfriend Anderson Cooper isn't hosting, and it may suck, but I'm really enjoying the anticipation, at least.

Things I learned in Denver

This is my first time in Denver, except for a layover in the airport years ago, en route to New Mexico, and at that time all I learned was that (1) Denver is really cold in December, and you'll likely have to wait around while they de-ice your plane if you're flying out at night and (2) I hate, hate, hate flying in those little 12-person puddle-jumper planes, especially when I'm sitting on one for an hour, in the dark, while it gets de-iced.

This time, I've mostly just been inside the hotel, but nevertheless, a few things I've discovered on this trip:

-- It sucks not being Elite. I know, I know, carbon footprint, blah blah blah; for a lot of reasons, it's good that I don't fly as much as I used to for work (I have not checked out Amtrak's contribution to global warming, though), but it means I lose my preferred status, which means longer security lines, and a seat closer to the rear of the plane. Which mostly doesn't bother me, especially if there's a rear exit door, but yesterday, I realized a huge disadvantage of being in the back: I could not get to the bathroom.

The plane I was on had only two restrooms in coach, both at the back of the plane. I was four rows from the back, so everyone was queuing up next to my seat, sometimes leaning on my armrest or headrest. Which was annoying, but there was no one in the middle seat, so not awful. But then I realized that every time there was a line of more than four people -- and that was probably the case for about 50% of the flight time when the seatbelt sign was off -- I could not get myself in that line. Every time I seemed to have an opportunity, someone else came staggering down the aisle, and I couldn't squeeze my way through.

-- Climate change is real. I didn't actually check the weather before coming out here; I listed to a colleague who told me it was supposed to be 70 and sunny. And then, the guy at the rental car place asked if I was ready for the snow. I sort of laughed in a "yeah, you're hilarious. Ha, ha" kind of way, because it was, in fact, in the high 70s when I landed. And then, as the day wore on, it turned out that there really was rain and snow.

-- Enterprise Rental Car, at least at the Denver airport location, is not my type. I'm sure that there's some kind of research that suggests that their (figurative, thank goodness) song and dance routine is appealing to a broad swath of customers, but it was just not my cup of tea. Really, after a long, turbulent flight, and a schlep through the airport to the rental car shuttle site, and the five-mile ride on the shuttle, I don't need to shake hands with an overly bubbly agent, and I don't need to be brought "shopping." I know some people care deeply about the type of rental car they drive, and I'm sure that plenty of people enjoy the opportunity to pick out the specific car they'll drive, within the category they've signed up for. But when I tell you, more than once, that I'm only driving to and from the hotel, and that I don't care what kind of car I get, please quit it with the charade of browsing all the possible rides. Especially when, just to get it over with, I say, "Yes, great, I want that Mazda," you realize suddenly that the Mazda is in fact not available, and then, as we approach my second-choice car, it's clear that someone else is making a beeline for it and are going to claim it first. Really, I just want to get out of the blazing sun, into my car, and over to my hotel. Why make it so complicated?

-- I think I'm going to get sucked in to seeing Sex and the City. I think it will not be a great movie, but I'm starting to feel like there's some inevitability there. I've been surprised how many women have confided in me that they've hatched plans to cut out of work early and see an afternoon show, either on their own or with girlfriends from work.

-- Two out of three room service customers were watching Dancing With the Stars last night, according to the guy who delivered my undercooked-but-still-delicious burger (I felt a kinship with Minnams, who also had a raw-burger problem with room service recently -- what's up with that?) and perfect fries. I skipped the yummy-looking dessert selection because I'd eaten chocolate-covered strawberries at my work reception earlier in the evening. But I was starving when I got back to my room, because I had to make remarks at the reception, and the even organizer was adamant, for some reason, that I not eat or drink before I spoke. I did not want to cross this woman -- I saw her checklists for this event, and she was not messing around -- so I obeyed, but I'd not eaten since the cornflakes on the plane, and I was famished. So probably wise of her to forbid a glass of wine before my remarks, but I'm still not sure why a couple of forkfuls of tortellini or beef wellington would have been a problem.

-- "Business casual" is the new "no gifts, please." Almost everyone at this meeting was in a suit yesterday, despite the consistent message about it being business casual. I wore a suit yesterday, too, because I had to do remarks, so at least I fit in for one day. But today, I'm definitely rocking the business casual, even more than I'd planned; because of the SNOW, I had to scrap my cute summery top for a sweater.

-- I'd rather be home. Yeah, yeah, I know. This is a given, and I say this pretty much every time I travel, enough already. But I guess it's a good thing, that I consistently feel this pang when I'm away from home, that it crops up every time I'm away. Tonight, fortunately, it's back home to my guys, one of whom is stuck in his Elizabethan collar with an eye injury. Which has been stressful for all three of us, so I'm especially glad to get back home, and trying not to think too much about the fact that tomorrow I take off again.

Black and white and read all over

I'm saddened, truly, by the demise of newspapers across the country. Yes, I definitely use the web to get news and information -- like when I'm obsessively tracking election returns and superdelegates -- but I love actually sitting down with the newspaper spread out in front of me on the couch or the breakfast table or the train. And I hate that, because print is now somewhat passé, good reporters have to jump ship, or -- if they are lucky enough to stay on -- to cover 27 different beats instead of one or two. I work with a handful of former journalists, and I interview a whole lot of candidates who are former journalists (the puker is not among them), and they reminisce about the halcyon days at the papers, the liquid lunches, the curmudgeonly editors who always make me think of Garry Marshall in Never Been Kissed. And it seems like there's nowhere to go but down. And yes, bloggers have their place, and newspapers are businesses, but it's troubling to have fewer and fewer actual journalists writing smart, thoughtful, unbiased pieces.

Somehow, though, our local weekly newspaper keeps on chugging, and it doesn't seem that the star reporters leaving more prestigious papers are flocking there. For example, the weekly's political reporter consistently gets congressional committees' names wrong, and subcommittee chairs' titles wrong (she almost always makes our local congressman chair of the full committee, rather than the health subcommittee, although I doubt that he or any of his staff are rushing to correct her on that). Part of it is sloppy reporting; part of it is sloppy editing. I can overlook the occasional typo or grammatical error (well, okay, I can't overlook it -- I grew up spending every weekend morning taking turns with my dad to read aloud clips from the local daily, outraged by how many egregious mistakes went unchecked in every edition -- but I can forgive it), and there are half a dozen corrections of fact in reputable papers every day (hey, even People sometimes gets it wrong!). It happens.

But I think that our local paper's editor has just totally given up. If I may make another How I Met Your Mother reference, it's like when Robin kept saying wildly inappropriate things in her local TV news stories and got away with it because no one paid attention. Here, I'm not sure if the editor is lazy, or making some kind of protest statement, but the opinion page is kind of out of control.

A recent letter-- not in the April Fool's edition -- implored our state's lawmakers to change Middlesex County's name to Middle County, on account of the "sex" part being dirty. I wish I were making this up.

And this week, there's a screed about no-bid contracts, but the author's panties are mostly in a bunch because he doesn't agree with the successful applicant on a project that was, in fact, put out for bid. He twice uses the term "collusion-like," concluding: "The governor needs to be removed from office for his most secretive and collusion-like of administrations that this state has ever seen."

I don't know; maybe the editor just feels worn down by the volume of idiotic letters, and he figures, "Hey, why not? I'll just run this one verbatim, because no one sane has written this week, and I need to fill the page." I actually get that instinct, if that's really what's behind all the madness on the opinion page. But I fear that it's not, and it might make me even more depressed about the state of journalism, and of my little neighborhood, which seems increasingly filled with illiterate crazy-heads.

ROTFLMAO

If you haven't watched How I Met Your Mother, you should start doing so, and not because of Britney, whose performance elicited the following reaction from me: [shrug].

It took a while to get going, and partway through the DVDs of the first season, I was almost ready to give up, but I had caught some snippets of later episodes and knew it would eventually pay off if I stuck with it.

So, to any fans, I say, simply: "Their meat...is...delicious..."

Truly, I have not laughed out loud that hard at a sitcom in a very, very long time (although the Sandwich Day episode of 30 Rock last week was also quite funny). I heard someone on the radio yesterday positing that shows have gone way downhill in the wake of the writers' strike, but I don't think I agree, at least based on the shows I watch pretty regularly. I'll give you Earl and the whole coma arc, but otherwise I've been pretty consistently impressed with the shows I liked pre-strike.

More memories in unexpected places

So, lots of blasts from the past yesterday, including one that I forgot to mention: the slideshow my sister put together included a beautiful shot from my parents' wedding day, in which my parents are flanked by both of their parents. I think somehow, in all the time we spent with our photographer on our wedding day, and the extensive shot-list we developed in advance to make sure we got every imaginable permutation of people, the Smelmooo and I did not get such a photo. I regretted that yesterday, because seeing the six of them all lined up together -- my mom and dad, young and radiant, alongside their parents, still relatively young themselves, and healthy -- struck an incredibly emotional chord for me.

I never met my dad's dad, and I lost my last remaining grandparent, my mom's dad, 12 years ago. I was closer with my mom's parents -- both her mom and her dad lived with us, separately, Gammie when I was in fourth grade and Pop when I was in high school and the very beginning of college. Pop was very much a curmudgeon, but Gammy was the sweetest, most gentle person I've ever met, and I have incredibly strong and precious memories of her, despite having had only a few years with her, until the spring before I turned 10.

I get a couple of things from Gammy. I definitely don't have her patience, but my mom tells me I have her hair. And, oddly, the weird tic where I absently bite the right side of my left index finger when I'm anxious? Identical to my grandmother's. I don't have a conscious memory of her doing that, but I do remember her hands, strong and sure when I was very young, and frail, thin-skinned and ropy as she got older. I remember being incredibly upset by that change in her hands, even at eight or nine. She still had the spark in her eyes, the brightness in her smile; the limp she developed, she and I could pretend was a temporary injury, but her hands we couldn't fake.

When I went through all the boxes of cards and letters during our spring cleaning, I found birthday cards from her and my Pop-Pop, all addressed to "Our Irish Beauty." That gave me a huge lump in my throat, along with a bittersweet feeling that I was incredibly lucky to have had them in my life, and so sorry not to have had them for longer.

But they stay with me, in odd ways. I think of my grandfather whenever we have ice cream cake at family gatherings, because, at his 90th birthday party, Pop so enjoyed his ice cream cake that he literally licked his plate clean. I think of him around Christmas, when I hear the Nativity story, because Pop had convinced all of us that the Three Wise Men were named Gus, Sam and Gregory Peck (fortunately, it was one of my sisters, and not me, who whipped herself into an indignant frenzy when one of her elementary school teachers told her otherwise).

And I just realized, after thinking, "I must have written before about Gammy," that I have, in fact, written about this briefly, but one of the things that reminds me of her are those pastel-colored candies, covered with non-pareils, that seem to be called Misty Mints:



At lunch today, there was a huge chocolate cake covered in mini-Misty Mints, which made me think even more about Gammy. It also puzzled me, because every other menu item in our cafeteria was consistent with a Cinco de Mayo theme, which these do not seem to be. But whatever. I'll take happy memories, and chocolate frosting, whenever I can get 'em.

This and that

So much going on, so few opportunities to blog. So, some quick snippets:

Wheeeeeeee! -- The Smelmooo has a great story about his experience purchasing our Wii, and I'll leave that one to him. But I have enjoyed playing the Wii, even though I suck at pretty much everything but bowling. Tennis, baseball, and golf: not so much (although I somehow got lucky on the last hole and ended up tying the Smelmooo in our golf game, much to his dismay). I'm quite skilled at the bowling, though. And for those of you who've seen me bowl in real life, no, I don't do my signature hop with Wii bowling. I do, however, stand on my tiptoes.

Schmoozing and boozing -- Every year, I join the Smelmooo on a work trip outside of Atlantic City for a weekend in May. Two years ago, I got very, very drunk at this event. Like, "Hey, Smelmooo's board member! We need a self-portrait together!! Cheeeeeee-eeeeeessse!!!" drunk. I have since been much more temperate with this crowd, and I had just one glass of wine on Friday night. But I woke up on Saturday feeling like I'd drunk an entire bottle, I was so parched and headachy. I often feel dehydrated in hotels, even if I haven't been on an airplane, even if I'm not drinking. Someone suggested that it's because we ate too salty a meal too late at night; I don't know. I do know that 8:30 dinner reservations, especially on a Friday, are way too late for me at a fancy place. We didn't get our salads until like 10 o'clock, and by then, it's almost beside the point, and I'd rather just skip it all and go to bed.

Love, late in life -- In the room adjacent to our Friday night dinner was a wedding reception for an older couple. Like, maybe the woman was in her late 40s or early 50s; the guy was probably late 60s. And I was shocked by how many people around our table were making snarky comments about the couple. I think if they'd been a bit older -- or even if just she were a bit older, if they were both truly in their golden years, there would've been more of an "Awwww....!" reaction. But instead I think it struck everyone as a little silly and sad, this middle-aged woman in her veil, seeming pleased as punch, hugging and laughing with her friends and family, but almost never at the side of her drunk, drunk new husband. I never think that bodes well, when the bride and groom spend the reception apart from each other.

Surprise! -- Today was my dad's birthday party (and not a moment too soon for my poor mother, who remarked to me earlier this week that she doesn't understand how people have affairs, just logistically, because it was so stressful and awful lying to my dad about his surprise party). It was a lovely afternoon with family, and friends who feel like family, and I think my dad was, in fact surprised. But possibly not as surprised as I was when, as I went in search of scissors as we were setting up in our party room at the restaurant, I found myself face-to-face with Old Boyfriend. Ah, yes, the ex-boyfriend, who I'd not seen in seven-and-a-half years, whose niece's First Communion party was at the same restaurant as my dad's birthday party. It was super-bizarre, seeing him, but not as awful or awkward as I'd have thought. We both just sort of startled, visibly double-taking, exchanged "hi"s and "Wow, I haven't seen you in a while"s, explained our reasons for being there, and gave a "Okay, then, take care."

I ran into his sister in the bathroom later, with her four-year-old daughter in tow. This sister was always super-sweet to me, and I was reminded during our massive spring-cleaning effort that she and I kept in touch with cards even after the break-up. So it was nice to see her, but so odd. It's always weird to see someone you knew super-well, for a long time, after not having seen that person for a long time, and being reduced to two minutes of, "What's new?" and "Not much..." even though, of course, a whole lot happens in seven years. In her case, new job, new house, two kids. In mine, house, husband, dog (I somehow knew about the kids; she somehow knew about the husband).

And there was a lot of that, this weekend, small talk with people I see every few months, or once a year, or every few years (many of the people at the party today, I'd not seen since the Smelmooo and I got married, and it was weird to have so many of the "how's married life?" questions). It's a little exhausting for me, the being social thing, so I'm happy now to be at home, watching the dreadful, dreadful 27 Dresses, of which Judy Greer is the only good part. I think her TV show probably got canceled, but she is freakin' awesome.