it's not me, it's what you do to me

today i'm going to share what i would say to a 'friend' if i could say anything to her and have her actually listen instead of waiting politely (or not) for me to stop talking just so she could resume talking about herself.

and i say 'friend' because she's one of those relationships that you're almost forced into, to be nice. like say, your sister's neighbor, who always happens to be around enough to know random details about your life and therefore feels it's appropriate to require you to do friend-like things with her.

so i'm going to call this 'friend' marvin, for annonymity's sake.

yes, that marvin, because i'm pretty sure this chick is from mars.

since i imagine myself talking to her in person, and so having to deal with her wacky interruptions, i will be inserting those into this conversation, which in no way is meant to be a dialogue.

"marvin, we've known each other for a few years now, and we've both had some amazing changes happen in our lives, (i know! yeah it's so great that you can come over with the baby just in time for me to break out the new enormous bbq grill we just paid a million dollars for!!)...which would normally connect two people and help to build a stronger foundation for a friendship. however, this is not the case with us.

as we find ourselves in situations that pose similar questions to us, we are increasingly following diverging paths. what i mean by that is that the life choices you make for your family are the exact opposite of the choices i make. the values you esteem, i find meaningless. the traditions you neglect, i treasure and wouldn't give up no matter what opposition i faced. (so i really want to open an etsy shop, should i call it 'made by marvin' or 'shop here sista!'??)

i've always said, and still firmly believe, that each person/family has the innate right to do as they please without interferrence from others. marvin, with you, i find myself wanting to grab you by your ears and shake you into reason. it's increasingly harder for me to partake in your irreverent ways, all the while keeping my mouth shut about how you're totally fucking your life up.

i can't keep up with the charade. (do you like my new drapes? i wasn't so sure about the color, but now i think it's totally the right shade of mocha.)"

this relationship has never been on the level where i would genuinely feel that any helpful advice would be worth the air required to suck in and brace myself for the worthless discussion, nor would it ever be solicited from marvin. and that's the reason why this is all hypothetical. because the message would never get through. i just have to let this one die off into that land of 'oh yeah, whatever happened to her?' we're all going to be better off in the end.

when blogger's block attacks

i've been in a slump lately. somewhere between returning to work for exactly nine hours and then finding out i'm not working again for another two weeks, and making mass quantities of baby food for little miss, i began to think that i've actually run out of interesting things to say.

in the past three days i've had several rejected posts. some have made it almost to the publish button, only to be deleted at the very last second. rather than over think the shit of out every little detail, as is my normal custom, this time i decided to just throw out some of my ideas in list form and see if there are any bites:

1. discuss why people who want to live 'off the grid' really annoy me

2. explain my extreme aversion to 'weird money'

3. share my experience of sheer terror when i thought that i had an old pair of contacts actually fused to my eyeballs

4. talk about how addicted i am to specialty beer and how i've always wanted to brew my own yet most likely never will

5. tell someone (anonymously, of course) about how i can't be friends with her anymore because she makes me into a hypocrite

i completely understand if the consensus is to wait for me to be struck with some other miraculous inspiration. hopefully i'll be back to my true form soon. in the meantime, i won't beg, but i'll ask nicely, don't give up on me yet.

i want to call this post anything other than 'lazy sunday' even though it really is

after my first shift back at work, in the bronx no less, i find myself sitting here suffering from a severe lack of intelligent things to say.

so i thought i'd be lazy and just throw out a link for your viewing pleasure. i still can't stop laughing at this one. b just proclaimed the tone of the day to be 'man, if you do couchie right, it'll sure do you right.'

on that note, just look.

simple math

this:



will always equal this:

can i really do this?

tomorrow is the big day, my return to work. i'm excited, anxious, and nonchalant all at the same time.

while i pretty much know what i'll be getting myself into, things will be a little different. last summer i was the raging preggo who was on a very long leash. in the food business, it's typically a big no-no to consume more of your product than you actually send out to your customers. try telling that to an eight months pregnant lady who's been on her swollen clownshoe feet for upwards of ten hours.

so i think that this time around i'm going to have a small list of goals i want to achieve as i re-enter the world of the working:

1. be the one who gets along with everyone (i.e. no shit-talking)
2. do at least one thing per shift to help that i wasn't asked to do
3. try not to go to the pastry department's dry storage and eat all their jellybeans
4. get better at ass-kissing for my boss's sake (he's one of those 'napoleon complex' types and could always use a few words of encouragement)
5. let someone else have a turn at cleaning out the short-term cooler (i called it 'the matching game' because there was always two of the same thing opened and you had to combine them, i loved it)
6. try not to use my broken spanglish with the dishwashers hoping they'll see how smart and considerate i am by attempting to speak in their own language while i'm really just making it harder for them to understand me
7. don't get annoyed when i ask for more responsibility and actually get it

i'm not sure how well i'll be able to stick to these guidelines, but i really am going to try. i may end up giving myself some form of dissociative disorder, polite and charming at work, bitchy loudmouth everywhere else.

that thought almost just made it more interesting.


update: i just remembered another item for my list:

8. do NOT nag the tool who borrowed my signed copy of the murray's cheese book, with all my favorite gourmet cheeses labeled and noted, and then ignored my fervent pleas to return it

you sure you don't want to change first?

as a nod to the many incongruities we experience every day, i offer you the following discussion about family portraits.

it all began this morning when my husband, who happens to be the funniest human being alive, showed me his corporate weekly rag with a huge photo of the newest new york regional director front and center. now i must say that this was interesting to me because the old big boss left in somewhat of a flurry of drama and mystique, as much as can be expected in the financial world anyway, and they found a new guy really, really quickly.

back to the photo. it's clearly professionally done. husband on the left, big toothy smile, one arm wrapped around wifey, the other lovingly resting on boy child's lap. oh yeah, and let's not leave out the most important detail, they all matched. mom and pop in pale blue button-downs, mom's collar open wide enough for you to see her glorious string of pearls. little boy, maybe only 18 months old, in his blue pinstriped polo shirt, complete with the little polo player logo shouting from his chest 'hey! hey you! we have more money than you!'

they look like the typical lexus-driving, golf club membership-holding, run-of-the-mill yuppies. when i pointed out the matching garb to my husband, hoping for a 'let's burn them up for being so lame' session, he surprised me with 'oh yeah, they all do that. you know, it's what you're supposed to DO for family portraits.'

to which i replied 'um, not OUR family portrait. ever. period. never ever. ok? you clear on that one? NEVER.'

b comes back at me with 'but they do that so you don't look like a douchebag in the picture.'

natural response, 'funny, because the end result is actually that you look like a douchebag in the picture.'

now this is the absolute last thing i would have expected from b. he continually spends his days dressing the part at his office, keeping his real personality under wraps. he then comes home in an explosion of hilarity, finally letting his true self emerge from the confinements of his job.

i won't mention the name of his company, for fear that the evil compliance officer (who won't even let b have a facebook account) will come running in here screaming about how many rules b's breaking for being human and not a drone. but suffice it to say that the b i know loves to come home and tell me about how bad he wants to tell big huge corporate land to suck it.

so maybe now that the shock of the portrait controversy is starting to hit you, i ask who's right here? as i ponder my own gut instinct to not falsify my family with an image that could cost a pretty penny and then lurk in our house for years and years to come, i wonder, am i being too quick to judge?

then just as i was sinking into a foggy gloom of doubt, b bends over to kiss the baby goodbye and says to me, 'fuck it, let's just all match her pink and brown flowery pajamas in our family portrait, 'cause that's a picture i'd hang in our living room.'

i almost teared up a little. that's the b i know and love.

don't let the pineapple talk you into anything

today i'm going to be sharing my deep philosophical thoughts about the vast abyss that exists in my kitchen. it's a wasteland filled with forgotten food items, so depressing that when you gaze into its lonely world you are almost compelled to shed a tear. yes friends, i'm talking about my pantry.

in restaurant lingo, it's known as dry storage, or more commonly, that place to go when you want to raid the pastry department's stash of jellybeans and imported chocolates. in kitchens near and far, large and small, this is the dead zone of food. this is where you will actually find dust bunnies gathering on top of canned goods and bags of rice that seem to sigh if you touch them, exhausted by the effort of attempting to look appealing.

i have ventured forth into this dismal realm in hopes of either a) using some of the miscellaneous crap i have accumulated or b) throwing out (i mean, donating) those innocuous food items i must have purchased while delirious in my immediately post-partum phase.

this mission has brought to mind a certain anecdote about canned pineapple. my husband's sister, bridget, was telling us about the time she was at their parents' house and heard a loud sudden, banging noise. after careful inspection, she discovered that a can of pineapple chunks had mysteriously exploded in the pantry, spraying everything within a five foot radius with it's sticky syrupy bits. at which point in the telling of this anecdote my husband's brother, conor, jumps in with 'it was so tired of living there it killed itself!'

while i laughed so hard i cried a little at this story, i found myself wondering if i too, was driving any of my neglected consumables to suicide. when my eyes landed on the bag of barley, long passed it's expiration date (um, wtf is there an expiration on barley for anyway? it's just a grain, and if you keep it in an airtight container, or in the original bag with a paper clip holding it shut, it should be good for a long, long time, right?), i cooked it up for dinner, mostly to ease my guilt. it helped a little, but i needed to go further.

so far it hasn't been as bad as i thought it would be. i actually made black bean soup * the other night using canned beans. not only did it look exactly like the picture, but it tasted pretty good too. score one for the wasteland.

this small step in the right direction is what i needed to revitalize my pantry. i will make the commitment to keep things current if you, pantry, will promise to take your prozac and not let any 'accidents' happen on your watch. working together i know we can build a solid relationship based on mutual respect. no more will i stuff you with soups i never intend to eat, or 9 out of the 10 ingredients needed to make a recipe, doomed to perpetually being 'almost' used.

pantry, i'm here for you. we'll get through this rough time. and then, just when you're starting to show vibrant signs of life, i'll revert back to my old ways until the next passing moment of introspection strikes.

*note: i did modify the recipe slightly. i added an extra can of beans to the pureed part to make the soup a little thinker, and i think it was for the better. the soup needed it, and i got to use one more can from the pantry, everybody wins.