Ridiculous.

Yesterday I saw a guy pedaling along on recumbent bicycle, yawning.

Yo Momma

My mom's hilarity really only manifests itself vocally, so sadly I have nothing to contribute to Postcards from Yo Momma, but that is probably for the best, because even though these moms come across as endearing, they also sound totally nuts. Last night I had a dream that my mom was publicly mocking me for everything I did, so I really don't even want to think about pissing her off right now.

Also, the other night I made baked ziti and garlic bread and roasted asparagus with parmesan and roasted carrots with an olive tapenade that I whipped up at the very last minute because Hartz left a bush-sized clump of fresh parsley in our fridge, and what the hell are you supposed to do with parsley other than get it stuck between your teeth? Make an olive tapenade, that's what. And then there were chocolate cupcakes that resulted in a seriously tasty mess.

Yo momma.

Yay for rot!

I just bought a composter! I am super pumped to turn all of our veggie castoffs into food for our plants. The thing has a spout for "compost tea", which is so nasty it's exciting. Supposedly this is an odorless process, but I am highly dubious.

Skiing Fail

I love The FAIL Blog. It was pretty much the centerpiece of family dinner this weekend, and for good reason. I made this one for the friend who introduced me to it.

One of those weekends

Usually the debauchery of weekend evenings is evened out by the Healthy Lifestyle I live by day; not so this weekend. Friday night, friends had an art show, and there was an after party that involved lots of wine drunk straight out of the bottle, burritos, and the cops threatening to bust the shindig up, high school-style. It ended with five of us having to walk several blocks back to my car; out of the five, only two (myself and Scrambly) were sober. The other three were falling down, vomiting, and speaking gibberish all over the place. I have no idea how this happened.

But! The art was pretty,
everyone had fun, and I got everyone home safely. The highlight of the night (for me) was when a stretch limo pulled up to us at a red light, just as a friend started heaving out of my rear window. The driver looked at her, then looked at me; I smiled and gave the thumb's up, as if to say, "No worries. Her insides are on the outside of my car, true, but she will be a-ok." He bounced his fist against his heart in solidarity.

Then the next day we had to scrub down the side of my car.

Saturday night's family dinner was, as a result, a subdued affair. We did manage to make a huge amount of tomato sauce from scratch, green beans, brussel sprouts, chocolate-covered strawberries, and crepes with nutella. Stuff I Eat! And it was good.

But back to our not-healthy days. Mike currently has sinuses that make him snore like an old man, so he is less than super perky. So instead of our normal hiking or biking excursion, we joined friends at Chrissy Field, sat in the sun, and flew kites. I got a hint of sunburn on the fleshy part above my knees that is going to look super gross when I am an old lady, and that made me pleased.

Sunday we went to Goodwill, where I got a badass wrought iron thing with lots of hooks that now hold all my necklaces. It! Is! Great! If I could just be a professional organizer, I would be very happy. I would have a business card that just said "Organizer", and people would look at me in awe when I gave it to them. Who doesn't like organization, right? And not only that, but I am not even anal retentive - I believe deeply in baskets. Baskets are where you can throw shit and still have it be neat; so long as they are thematic (for example, we have a Technology Basket with wires and headphones and batteries and shit), you are good to go.

Oh my god, I need to focus. Plants. Mike and I bought lots of plants on Sunday - seeds and dirt and already-grown plants that will provide us with vegetables and flowers and better air quality. I am pretty sure if I am in charge of them they will die soon, but luckily I am not, and soon we will be eating tomatoes we grew on a San Francisco fire escape. Yee haw.

Knife Fight.

I just saw a guy with his entire arm and hand in a cast. All that was written on it was KNIFE FIGHT.

I also saw a sizable group of my fellow employees playing what looked like Steal the Bacon.

And I am tipsy, as I am every Friday at this time, since my employer started giving me alcohol at 4:30.

Stuff I Eat

I recognize that this is self-indulgent, yet I continue.

Last night - I baked a fake turkey roast that was made of some not-soy product (mushroom-based, I think), roasted garlic, and puree sunchoke and carrots with garlic. Steamed up some broccoli, and ate it all with sourdough bread.

Lunch today - I don't eat a lot of meat, but they had baby back ribs in the cafe today and I just cannot turn those down. Also had potato salad with artichokes, and blue cheese coleslaw. May hit up the dessert "pizza" - sugar cookie crust, icing, and glazed fruit. Nommmmmm.

The New York Times is pushing me over the edge

I usually avoid their movie reviews (I prefer to read the Real Estate section articles on rich people who pay a ridiculous amount for housing and call it a "find"), but I read this one because it was, you know, about Tina Fey.

Baby Mama Review

The last line (emphasis mine): "Real funny women...come along every few decades, so the timing seems right."

WTF.

Triumph!

I am on the work shuttle, and these two dudes are discussing stocks. I know they don't know what they're talking about because they keep repeating the same phrases.

"They have big margins."
"They do? Really? Big margins?"
"Yeah, totally big."
"You know who has big margins? Apple."
"Oh my god, I bet they do, I bet they have huge margins."

I was about to plug in my earbuds when Doofus One or Doofus Two ACTUALLY SAID, "You know what man? I don't know what I'm talking about."

And then you know what he did? He repeated it.

Angry groupie.

Last night my boyfriend played a show at a bar that was too big for its own good - like, you would need to have an agent and a tour bus and a record contract to have enough attention to fill that place up. But there was a good amount of people there, and most of them were batshit crazy. That was my impression, anyway.

Aside from the people we know, who are all pretty much off their rockers, there was a frat boy with dreds who yelled out "Freebird!" while Mike was rocking out. Awesome. Also there were a bunch of middle-aged men who straight up videotaped a set by this girl group from L.A. Those girls have a lot of angst, and I understand, because I would too if a dude in a hockey jersey was all up in my shit with a camcorder.

There was also a guy in a blazer and jeans and date rape shoes who was dancing around like a nutbar. My friend and I had a bet as to whether the blazer was velvet or corduroy - my friend was brave and got close enough to Nutbar to report back that it was velvet. I won the bet, but in the end, I think we all lost.

Also my friend showed up wasted with the guy she is now dating, and they made out a lot, but that was ok. I was supposed to tape the show with Mike's digital audio recorder, and somehow I messed up, and that was not ok. But you know what? Oh well! Because in this rock and roll lifestyle, you just gotta roll with the punches, baby.

Stuff I Eat.

I saw a foodie blog where the chick kept track of everything she ate. I don't want to do that, because it would probably make me depressed, but I do get to eat some neat stuff. Aside from breakfast, that is - I am very not into breakfast. I eat cereal because every nutritionist on earth says you have to have the first meal of the day blah, but I really don't get why people are so into the kinds of greasy, heavy, ok-on-weekends-but-not-every-day type stuff that is breakfast food. Fried is not my friend.

But I digress. I am really into food, and I am working on becoming a better cook. So here's what I've had in the last 24 hours or so:
Last night - Escargots en brioche with garlic butter (as a warmup for 3 vodka red bulls and a few Buds. Barf, right?). I got this shit at Trader Joe's, and it was deeeelish.
Today - Spinach salad with blue cheese, strawberries, carrots, beets, cucumbers, candied walnuts, and poppy seed- yogurt dressing. Tomato bisque. Home- (i.e. cafe-) made mint chocolate chip ice cream.

And tonight I'm cooking! And opening a bottle of wine we got in Sonoma! Yippee!

Try It.

In uploading my photos from Austin, I remembered a game that two crazy girls there taught me. Actually, it is not so much a game as an exploitation of a latent vulnerability in the human psyche. Take an object - a pen, an ashtray, a chewed piece of gum - and hand it to someone while saying their name. They will invariably take it, and then be confused. When they ask you what they're supposed to do with it, you get to laugh at their expense.

My only worry is that this might work well in places such as Texas and California, but might not work on the east coast north of DC, where I am imagining that saying "Nicole" and trying to hand Nicole a dirty tissue might just get you a dirty look.

These are the things that happen when you ramp up out of a hangover straight into giant margaritas.

Beans!

When I first moved to California, it was to help out on my friend's organic farm and to get to know the West Coast. Lots of Wellesley ladies were living in San Francisco, so I decided to sublet a room and see how I liked it. I wound up moving in with two Texans named Mike and Michael. They had two lady cats, named The Baroness von Esmeralda von Scratchenpurr XIV(XIIII?) and Beans. Mike is now my R4L (roommate for life i.e. boyfriend) and Ezzie is now my cat. This is Ezzie on our fire escape.If she were a normal cat I would say that she looks like she is Up to No Good, but Ezzie is the least adventurous cat around so she is probably just Anxious.

Anyway, last weekend we went to Austin to spend some time with Mike's friends, including our old roommate Michael. When Michael moved back to Texas two years ago, he took Ezzie's sister-from-another-mother Beans with him. This was a sad day for the Breckis (this is what we call ourselves when we are trying to be family-ish), and for me in particular, because I liked to think that Beans and I shared a similar tomboyish spirit and disdain for strict interpretations of the gender binary. And last weekend, Beans and I were reunited! Here she is, obviously thrilled.
It was so good to see her! And to see Michael, too. And to be in Austin, which Mike things represents the highest heights of citytude, and which I think is pleasant and full of people who crack my shit up.

I also went outside. In New York, I mean.

I did some other things in New York, too. I saw a lot of people I wanted to see, but didn't see some people that I wanted to see. Those that I did see joined me in eating rich foods and drinking dehydrating beverages such as red wine.

My friends are all grownups with jobs and apartments, which is weird to see. Even though I am now a grownup too, I didn't really expect it to happen to us so soon. Here are some of the fields in which my friends work:

• theater
• fashion
• finance
• real estate

That is all so very New York! I really cannot say I like New York very much (even though I am a product of its loins, or whatever), but I do like the people that are there.

Here is what I did in New York

Well, one of the things I did in New York. To optimize our intensive catch-up time, Morgan and I cloistered ourselves in my hotel room, drank red wine, and had a prop-tastic good time. For the record, I remember very little of this.