Your Name Here

As I sit here at what the IRS loving refers to as my "job" and I refer to as "that place I go to everyday where they suck the living soul out of you" (and simmer down, 'tweens, not Forks (as an aside, is that still a relevant reference? I never know anymore)) I look over to my right and see a little gold spark of inspiration. It seems the silliest little thing in the world but it brought me back from the brink of financial ruin (well, not RUIN, per se, but unable to finance myself out of a paper bag with directions, two hands and a flashlight).

On a day like today I'm needing a little inspiration and as I stare at this little gold miracle I have dreamlanded myself into the back story that I'm about to share with you now.

What could this mystery talisman be? A magnet. Yep. That thing that goes on the fridge that keeps your grocery list and next dental appointments all snug & secure and in your face.

This one came from my friends at American Express. Only they weren't really my friends (refer back to paper bag statement noted above). It came addressed to me in an envelope and it FELT like a credit card was inside – you all know the little jolt of excitement you feel when you touch the bottom corner of the envelope…maybe? Just MAYBE some company was feeling generous that day and sent you a card you didn't apply for? Maybe you got lucky? Maybe whatever, who cares as long as there's a card inside with your name on it?

I quickly tear open the envelope and pull out the coveted prize…and it was this magnet. The American Express Gold Card. Looked just like it. With a number on it and everything! Oh Happy Day!! And I looked at the bottom left corner and it said "Your Name Here". Sigh. What the hell? Like THAT was ever going to happen.

Flashback a decade or two earlier.

My hair was bigger, body parts where they should be, not where they've fallen to, optimism written all over my soul and hope all over my face. My Dad had an American Express Gold Card and because my dad rocks totally, *I* had an American Express Gold card. With My Name There. And then one sad, sad, probably rainy, winter day Dad decided that he no longer wanted to pay the $50 annual fee (Gee, that really WAS a long time ago!) (I KNOW!! Right??) and he decided he was going to cancel his card. Which meant my card too. Which so totally sucked (again, I refer you back to the paper bag reference above). What was I going to do? No credit and no hope of credit until I cleared up my previously debauched, college-days-abused and discarded credit of my youth. F-U-C-K!!!!!!!!!

Flashforward to me, looking dejectedly at this magnet that had the audacity to mock me in my own living room. I couldn't even get a secured $250 credit card from Bank You Up The Ass. I laughed at this Holy Grail totem of that once possessed, but now lost, treasure. And I tossed it in the trash. I opened the rest of my mail and it, too, went the way of the circular file. And I sat on the sofa. And sat. And moped a bit – no lie – but I mostly just sat.

And I got up, and went into the trash ("Ew! Gross!" – the recycling – relax) and I pulled that damn magnet out and brushed it off and brought it here with me to work. And I put it in a place where I had to see it every single day. And I made one of those dorky "After School Special" promises to myself that one day – ONE DAY – My Name would be Here. I cringed & ordered a copy of my credit report and barely peeked at it before I cried. LOL! HORRIBLE!!!! But I chipped at it one little piece at a time and by God, six years later, it came in the mail.

The real one. With My Name Here.

So I have to remember as I wallow in despair at nearly closing time that with enough patience and enough determination and SOMETHING to inspire you, we can get out of whatever shithole we've dug ourselves into. We just have to figure out what that is. Sometimes you'll know it instinctively and sometimes it will come to you out of the blue, in the mail, daring you to be.

Where does your name belong?

 

The Next Food Network Star

Oh. Em. Gee.

We thought you were dead.

No, dear Reader, but in living up to the name of this blog, my short attention span has taken me in crazy, new directions and sadly, I've ignored you all like the cat box in desperate need of some love. Or at least a good scooping. So, what's the dealio? Can I tell you that my food allergies have absorbed all my time? Can I tell you that I've had a birthday and have been way too preoccupied with Oil of Olay products? Can I tell you that "The X-Files, I Want To Believe" is a genius movie that I have seen more times than any movie in the last several years? Can I tell you that it's summertime and the livin' is easy? I can. All of these things are true. It's been a busy summer between re-learning how to cook, counting wrinkles, blowing out candles and over & over again seeing the cinematic masterpiece of our time.

I'm sure you've been busy, too. Tell me, friends, what did YOU do on your summer vacation?

So now I'm feeling fall coming around the bend…the first chilly evenings have settled on Los Angeles. I have lit the oven and not sauna'ed myself into a smaller dress size. Yankee Candle Company has sent me their Back To School catalog. Plaid Mary-Jane's are on sale at Nine West. White Wine takes its annual step back to allow Red back into my life. Ah, fall…

What else happens in the fall? The new TV season, of course! How many of you, like me, waited with bated breath for the TV Guide New Fall Season to come in the mail? How many of you, like me, took pen to paper and calculated, with the war mentality of Napoleon, what your perfect tv week would be? Or, more accurately, what you could cajole your parents into letting you watch? The excitement was palpable!!

Huh? No? You had lives, and boy/girlfriends and better things to do? Oh. OK. Well, imagine you had none of those things and the best thing in life was trying to figure out how to get Mom & Dad to let you watch BOTH Moonlighting AND Scarecrow & Mrs. King without sacrificing their Hill Street Blues or Dynasty. What? They were all on different nights? AH HA!! Caught ya!!!

I digress. My whole point is that with the new tv season comes a whole new round of reality shows promising to humiliate anyone with enough balls to show up past the first audition. And this suggestion is what my friends are thinking I should do with one month of my life: namely, go to NY and try out to be The Next Food Network Star. Their logic is sound: This whole allergy thing has opened up a new world for me – I've had to completely re-vamp my cooking and eating habits (pretty successfully, though I say it myself)…and they're sure I'm not the only one. This would be a clever and inventive angle to get noticed. They also think that the visual of Stroke Girl Meets Drunk Girl would be precious on national television. While imparting my wisdom on the masses sounds initially tempting – and the whole "TV Star" thing sounds fun, do I really want to put myself out there like that? While I love the idea, the reality of 14 hour days and panic-stricken pressure-cooking give me hives. Besides. If Alton Brown doesn't like something I make, I know I'd cry. I'm way too delicate for criticism.

Though…fame and fortune is a tempting lover…and it would make winning the lottery instantly "Plan B"…I don't know…who's to say they'd even like my idea? Right?

Quinoa, Part Deux

Wowy, wow, wow. Just when you think the Universe can't get any weirder…just this moment, as I'm reviewing my post to correct any errors, I scroll to the bottom of my page and looky what The Vancouver Sun has as an article of interest today…TODAY!

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=656d91e6-1acf-48c0-a157-a1a482a79c11

Strange, yes?

Quinoa

It's pronounced Keen-wa, not Queen-Noah I've just learned. I've never paid attention to it before because, frankly, I never had to…to me it was weird, hippy-grain that was an odd man's risotto. Or an allergic woman's… who knew? I have now been educated and apologize to any of the hippies that don't like quinoa and to the quinoa who aren't fond of hippies.

Don't worry – you'll all be sick of my allergies l-o-n-g before I am, I promise!!!

So here we are…allergy watch – end of day 2. Only 28 to go and already I'm feeling super healthy…NOT!!! So far I feel pretty much the same as I did on Sunday – minus the hangover, of course. My environmental allergy symptoms have not abated, and my insides, to date, are still inside. Good!

A trip to Whole Foods this evening proves to me one thing – no one is allergic to everything. Except, seemingly, me. There are breads and pastas and cake mixes and flours up the whazoo – but all have at least one of the following ingredients: wheat, yeast, gluten, rice, potato, soy or sunflower.
I want to cheat, but can't fake it. I'm trying to be good and follow the rules. Anyone can do anything for 30 days, right? Shows character and stick-with-it-ness. Like college – minus the hangover, of course.

There is hope, says my doctor as he shines a bright light into my dark, carb-free room. Quinoa. The one grain I am not allergic to. YIPEE!!!! I'm on it… I have no idea what it takes like (probably chicken) but am hopeful that it's good!

Question: what the hell do you make with this stuff??? All the recipes I've found so far have at least one of the "bad" ingredients in it…I am hoping that I can cook it up like rice or cous cous, but no luck with recipes so far…can anyone help me out with a recipe that is both good and good for me?

Here's hoping you won't find me keeled over in a huge vat of quinoa when it probably would have been healthier for me to eat some s'ghetti on occasion.

Maintenance Squared

Ah, Hollywood (probably Los Angeles, in general)…where nothing is ever shocking. Where , in other parts of the country, conversations usually confined to a quiet corner bistro on girls' night after a few cosmopolitans are discussed casually over a non-fat decaf double shot with a twist at 7:00 a.m. This is my home. Where I live and love. Where I get my hair and nails done. Work on those love handles. Groom the chin hair. Chatting with my pal Kate, I've been enlightened to the existence of such strange grooming "maintenance" as vaginal rejuvenation and anal bleaching. Dear Lord…!!!! Really!?! http://katedating.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html These things to me are like Mikey from the Life Cereal commercial dying because he ate Pop Rocks & drank a Coca Cola at the same time…and the Ban du Soleil gal dying of skin cancer…rumors, but surely unfounded and untrue.

Tomorrow promises to be one of the warmest days of Spring. Ergo (that's Latin!) (I watched Rome on HBO!) I decided that I will probably want to put on a pair of shorts – maybe a bathing suit if I have enough wine – so I place an emergency 9-1-1 call to the person that knows more about me than my priest and manicurist combined….Lottie, the gal that waxes my unmentionables. And Lottie, understanding gal that she is, says yes, Bubbula, come in, we'll fix that embarrassing mess tout suite. Thank God, because the pasty white skin is enough to scare anyone away…I don't need the Fay Rae Stalker Hair to go with.

So I tottle in, disrobe & wait. And Lottie comes in with Someone Else following behind her. "Is it ok that Lily practices on you? She's new, but she's good and I am here, too. She'll do one side, I'll do the other. OK?"

um…"practice" ?????

If you've ever had your unmentionables waxed you know that this is not an enterprise you take up lightly. There is a comfort level that (for me, anyway) that needs to be achieved. I can't just have any Jane, Sally or Mary maintaining my hoo-hoo. Is it too late to dress & leave?

But Lottie rocks and what can I say? I got a last minute appointment that I was told was a 'squeeze in' because I'm me (yep. Thankyouverymuch) so I wanted to return the favor. Besides, Lily seemed sweet, if a bit nervous. Which is never good when you're holding a hot wax wand & a cloth.

Neither here nor there.

If you've ever had ANYTHING waxed in your life, you know it's not a pain free experience. But, have you ever had your hairs ripped out from the belly button south, you know it's an exercise in zen. Remember the beauty that comes after. No shave-rash. No Shave Rash. So I lie down. And then I'm thinking, I'm getting waxed tag-team? Oh. My. God. I can't even begin to tell you how weird and painful and strangely clinical the experience was. It was definitely a teaching session. "No, you missed here. Don't be afraid to just pull. It hurts worse when you don't". LOL! Small fumbles aside (no shave rash. no shave rash.) I was done lickety split (no pun intended) which was the really good part of it but when I got to the car I let out the primal scream of all primal screams. OWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!

And only then did I take two seconds to consider the oddity of the appointment. On one hand, everyone has to learn, but why was I chosen as the human guinea pig…or Rhesus monkey? Clearly lots of material to work with. On the other? Weekend beauty, worth the price.

Happily Mikey and the Ban du Soleil gal and the aforementioned fringe grooming practices are still a mystery to me.