And it's been a long, dull couple of weeks around these here parts, which is why I haven't been posting...if my life is boring ME, for God's sake, I can only imagine what it must do to my readers.
However, things are looking up. Tomorrow I'm back at the law firm (which admittedly doesn't do a whole lot for the boredom factor), and Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday I get to do a featured role in The Wolf of Wall Street, the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie.
And I even got a few things done around the house! Not nearly enough, but a step in the right direction. I bought new garbage bins...I can hear you all just panting with excitement here, but really, I'm quite pleased. My old ones were white, you see, and old, and life is too damn short to spend half my time scrubbing down grubby white plastic garbage bins. So now I have nice new shiny black ones, and if they don't get wiped down for a few days (or, you know, a few months...we all know about my hideous housekeeping habits), nobody will notice. I also bought a nice set of little divider bins for the kitchen drawers so I don't spend half my time hunting utensils, twist ties, paper clips...all that stuff that ends up in the kitchen drawers and is so often never seen again. Of course, I haven't unwrapped them yet...
What I've really been doing is hanging out on the computer becoming more and more horrified at what's coming out of the mouths of Republicans. I do realize that there are perfectly nice Republicans with brains out there. It's just that they're not the ones who are being quoted.
Ban ALL abortion, including in cases of rape and incest? The Holocaust never happened? A woman's body has a method of cutting off its own reproductive system if she gets raped? And my favorite, in Arizona, where they have just decided that pregnancy begins two weeks before conception.
This is beginning to be frightening. Paul Ryan...that adorable young man...referred recently to rape as a method of conception. Well, yes, that is strictly true...but...um...
We all know about Todd Akin, who was responsible for the fascinating notion that a woman somehow secretes birth control when she gets raped, so she won't get pregnant. Why are the Republicans so fixated on rape, for heaven's sake? I would truly hate to think it has to do with their deep unspoken desires.
And then there's Art Jones, who is running for a congressional seat in Illinois, who said, "As far as I'm concerned, the Holocaust is nothing more than an international extortion racket by the Jews." This gentleman (for want of a better term) is an avowed racist who runs, among other unsavory activities, "family-friendly neo-Nazi gatherings." What on EARTH can a family-friendly neo-Nazi gathering be like? Adorable little Aryan babies in tiny onesies printed with itsy-bitsy swastikas? Young John 's very first Ku Klux Klan outfit, and doesn't he look cute? Get a picture for the album, Martha...and let's blow it up so we can hang it on the wall next to our prized shot of Darlene lighting the first cross last year! Yay!
I would love to think that these people are in the minority, and to be fair, I'm sure they are. But the notion that even the vice presidential candidate is so completely clueless that he can refer to rape as a method of conception is enormously disturbing. And the GOP platform completely bans abortion under any circumstances and, of course, gay marriage. What they're going to do about all the gay people who are ALREADY married is somewhat beyond me...annul their marriages?
And here's the problem. We forget, we liberal, well-educated urban people, that we are distinctly in the minority. There is a whole lot of America out there, people, and there are a lot of God-fearing Americans who sincerely and deeply believe that homosexuality and abortion are against the laws of God and that rape happens because women ask for it (well, come on...if you're coming home at 10 o'clock at night and you're wearing a skirt, OBVIOUSLY you are). I said almost exactly this in 2008, and we won that time. Let's try to do it again, shall we?
So I am not sleeping terribly well these nights. Get out and vote...early and often, as we used to say in Chicago.
Love, Wendy (who seems to be twitching a lot these days)
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
I Hate Patricia Wells
For those of you who aren't as fascinated wth cooking and cookbooks as I am, Patricia Wells is a cooking teacher and coookbook author, and she drives me flying INSANE.
I am in the process of trying to cull my books (yet again), and to that end, am re-reading things. I have decided that Patricia Wells MUST GO.
Now, the recipes sound WONDERFUL. I mean, mouthwateringly good. BUT...there is no way you or I could ever cook them properly.
Because, you see, Patricia Wells lives in Provence, France, in a million year old farmhouse with a garden and olive trees and a built-in bread oven and a built-in pizza oven and French markets to go to at least twice a week. She insists on telling you where you can get the ingredients for all her dishes, which is very nice of her...but it's terribly difficult for those of us who don't happen to be a neighbor of hers. One of her recipes starts out chattily, "Now this is something I make with the olives from our olive trees." Well, that's very nice. I live in one bedroom in the East Village, lady. I don't happen to HAVE any handy olive trees.
Nor do I have any of the lovely olive oil she gets from a supplier in Provence...admittedly, she very helpfully gives the name, address and phone number of said supplier, but it doesn't do me a lot of good, now does it? Even though I spend a fair amount of time in France, I don't spend it in Provence.
I know perfectly well that I could get a lot of these ingredients right here in Manhattan, but the running around it would entail is madly involved (let's see, I can get those olives on East 79th Street, and that olive oil over at the place on the Lower East Side, and I think Citarella in the West Village can order the langoustines...oy). And I know I can order a lot of things online, but the cost is pretty astronomical...and since I live in a small rental apartment, it's unlikely in the extreme that I'm going to have that bread oven and pizza oven built.
So I bid farewell to Patricia Wells. I wish her many more years of lovely eating in Provence, and feel that she can probably get along without me quite well. And when I want large shrimp, I will happily go to Chinatown, a short bus ride away and an excellent price. And you can't beat it for freshness...sometimes when I've been browsing fish markets in Chinatown, a live fish has thrown itself off the pile and landed at my feet. You can't GET any fresher than that, can you?
Love, Wendy
I am in the process of trying to cull my books (yet again), and to that end, am re-reading things. I have decided that Patricia Wells MUST GO.
Now, the recipes sound WONDERFUL. I mean, mouthwateringly good. BUT...there is no way you or I could ever cook them properly.
Because, you see, Patricia Wells lives in Provence, France, in a million year old farmhouse with a garden and olive trees and a built-in bread oven and a built-in pizza oven and French markets to go to at least twice a week. She insists on telling you where you can get the ingredients for all her dishes, which is very nice of her...but it's terribly difficult for those of us who don't happen to be a neighbor of hers. One of her recipes starts out chattily, "Now this is something I make with the olives from our olive trees." Well, that's very nice. I live in one bedroom in the East Village, lady. I don't happen to HAVE any handy olive trees.
Nor do I have any of the lovely olive oil she gets from a supplier in Provence...admittedly, she very helpfully gives the name, address and phone number of said supplier, but it doesn't do me a lot of good, now does it? Even though I spend a fair amount of time in France, I don't spend it in Provence.
I know perfectly well that I could get a lot of these ingredients right here in Manhattan, but the running around it would entail is madly involved (let's see, I can get those olives on East 79th Street, and that olive oil over at the place on the Lower East Side, and I think Citarella in the West Village can order the langoustines...oy). And I know I can order a lot of things online, but the cost is pretty astronomical...and since I live in a small rental apartment, it's unlikely in the extreme that I'm going to have that bread oven and pizza oven built.
So I bid farewell to Patricia Wells. I wish her many more years of lovely eating in Provence, and feel that she can probably get along without me quite well. And when I want large shrimp, I will happily go to Chinatown, a short bus ride away and an excellent price. And you can't beat it for freshness...sometimes when I've been browsing fish markets in Chinatown, a live fish has thrown itself off the pile and landed at my feet. You can't GET any fresher than that, can you?
Love, Wendy
Friday, August 10, 2012
Rain, Rain, Go Away
Never let it be said that I cannot use a cliche with the best of them, but really, this rain is annoying. I yield to no one in my adoration of most rain...thunderstorms are one of my favorite things in the world, as we all know...but I happen to have about a million things to do today in various corners of the city, and for once, I could do without it.
My list for the day incudes a stop at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. That's the 14D bus to the M8 bus all the way crosstown. Then I need to get a birthday present for a 2 year old friend of mine, which is the M8 bus back across town to 2nd Avenue. Then I really want to get over to the grocery store, which is a three block walk over to 4th Street because they have cantaloupe on sale at 2 for 3 bucks, and in this heat, I find myself madly craving fruit. Also I need kitty litter, because every time I go to the john, the litter box sidles over to me and starts yanking on my pants leg, saying, "Clean me! Please!" Also at some point I've got to do something about the ironing because if I have to go somewhere where they expect me to look halfway like a normal adult human being, I got nothin'. All my pants and skirts need ironing. (Yes, I KNOW I'm probably the last person in the world who irons. I don't care. Bad enough to look like an old tired broad...I don't need to look ike a SLOPPY old tired broad.) And I'd like to finish up the cleaning and reorganizing I've been doing in the kitchen, because it's almost there. So, a big day.
Last Friday was just lovely on the Boardwalk. It was another one of those weird shoots in terms of hours...van at 6:15 pm, then into costume and makeup and hair, then, for some strange reason, an extremely truncated meal, not like our usual bountiful spreads at ALL. Just some chicken, some fish, and some rice and a vegetable. Good food, you understand...just very little choice. Luckily, I'll eat anything that won't eat me first, so no problem. Odd, though. I guess it's because this was really just a fill-in shot, since we're at the end of the shooting season now. Meanwhile, of COURSE we were in winter clothes, and of COURSE we were dying of the heat. Ugh. We finished up around 2 am...I got home around 3 and dove immediately into an ice cold beer.
The reason I want/need to get a lot done today is that I'm off on a marathon tomorrow. The parents of the aforementioned 2 year are throwing him a birthday party tomorrow, which also happens to be Sarah's birthday. So it's going to be a LONG day...the baby party from 3 to 7, and then barhopping with Sarah...followed immediately by a car service home. And I can foresee that this will wipe out Sunday altogether, as I try valiantly to recover.
Ah ha! It looks like it might be clearing up a bit! Wish me luck...
Love, Wendy
My list for the day incudes a stop at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. That's the 14D bus to the M8 bus all the way crosstown. Then I need to get a birthday present for a 2 year old friend of mine, which is the M8 bus back across town to 2nd Avenue. Then I really want to get over to the grocery store, which is a three block walk over to 4th Street because they have cantaloupe on sale at 2 for 3 bucks, and in this heat, I find myself madly craving fruit. Also I need kitty litter, because every time I go to the john, the litter box sidles over to me and starts yanking on my pants leg, saying, "Clean me! Please!" Also at some point I've got to do something about the ironing because if I have to go somewhere where they expect me to look halfway like a normal adult human being, I got nothin'. All my pants and skirts need ironing. (Yes, I KNOW I'm probably the last person in the world who irons. I don't care. Bad enough to look like an old tired broad...I don't need to look ike a SLOPPY old tired broad.) And I'd like to finish up the cleaning and reorganizing I've been doing in the kitchen, because it's almost there. So, a big day.
Last Friday was just lovely on the Boardwalk. It was another one of those weird shoots in terms of hours...van at 6:15 pm, then into costume and makeup and hair, then, for some strange reason, an extremely truncated meal, not like our usual bountiful spreads at ALL. Just some chicken, some fish, and some rice and a vegetable. Good food, you understand...just very little choice. Luckily, I'll eat anything that won't eat me first, so no problem. Odd, though. I guess it's because this was really just a fill-in shot, since we're at the end of the shooting season now. Meanwhile, of COURSE we were in winter clothes, and of COURSE we were dying of the heat. Ugh. We finished up around 2 am...I got home around 3 and dove immediately into an ice cold beer.
The reason I want/need to get a lot done today is that I'm off on a marathon tomorrow. The parents of the aforementioned 2 year are throwing him a birthday party tomorrow, which also happens to be Sarah's birthday. So it's going to be a LONG day...the baby party from 3 to 7, and then barhopping with Sarah...followed immediately by a car service home. And I can foresee that this will wipe out Sunday altogether, as I try valiantly to recover.
Ah ha! It looks like it might be clearing up a bit! Wish me luck...
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Nothing in Particular
Well, I'm actually only blogging because otherwise I will have to continue cleaning...which, for a change, I'm actually doing. Mainly because I haven't got any movie work, although I got a heads up from Boardwalk for an overnight on Friday which I hope happens, and the law firm is ignoring me altogether, so I've just been sitting around doing damn near nothing.
I've discovered the reason that I'm currently not sleeping well, by the way. Evidently that damn Chelsea apartment is still following me around (mentally, I mean). I seem to be desperately afraid that someone will come and inspect this apartment, because people did come in and out of the Chelsea place...caulking things for smoke, giving me smoke eradicator sprays, etc., etc., and I always felt they were spying on me. Which they probably were. This feeling is still in the back of my head, evidently...and it's taken me this long to track it down and isolate it so I can do something about it. The something I'm doing, obviously is cleaning. And no, I can't see any possibility that anybody around here is going to come and inspect my apartment or anything else...it's just my weird brain. And there's no reason I can't clean the damn place...one bathroom, one bedroom, one kitchen, one living room. So I'm doing it, in the hope I'll sleep better. Brains are strange.
Meanwhile, I'm off to Chicago for a few days in October. My cousin Cathy and her husband Charlie are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, for God's sake. I was thinking about boycotting the whole thing because I'm STILL pissed at her about that hideous...truly, truly HIDEOUS...electric blue satin dress she made me wear, but I thought that would be mean spirited. However, I can't answer for myself if she has actual pictures of me in that thing. Anyway, I haven't been home in years, and I've got a lot of pals to see. It should be fun, and Chicago's gorgeous in October.
I had more fun watching the opening of the Olympics. The British really are flying insane. That notion of my beloved Queen parachuting into the Olympic stadium was more than worth the price of admission...and with James Bond, yet. I always knew she had a sense of humor. And I loved the totally batty number with the sick kids in hospital beds, with dancing doctors and nurses, Voldemort, Dementors, Mary Poppins (lots of them) and that bizarre giant baby. A tribute to the National Health Service. Of COURSE. Naturally. And next fall, I'm going to London, my favorite place in the world, come hell or high water. I wanted to go this year, but the combination of the Queen's Jubilee AND the Olympics defeated me. Imagine trying to get a hotel room. Or a flight. Or any other damn thing.
Meanwhile, my kitchen is almost done...I actually organized the cabinets into something more logical. I'm quite proud of myself. When I moved in, I naturally (it being close to Christmas) just threw things into cabinets, which ended me up with the food stuck right next to the stove, where it shouldn't be. So I've fixed that, and put the things I rarely use on high shelves, and cleaned the stove (oh, all right, the top of the stove...let's not get carried away, shall we?), cleaned off the counters, and I'm quite proud of myself. Now I'm going to mop the floor and call it a day. I'll attack the bathroom tomorrow.
Love, Wendy
I've discovered the reason that I'm currently not sleeping well, by the way. Evidently that damn Chelsea apartment is still following me around (mentally, I mean). I seem to be desperately afraid that someone will come and inspect this apartment, because people did come in and out of the Chelsea place...caulking things for smoke, giving me smoke eradicator sprays, etc., etc., and I always felt they were spying on me. Which they probably were. This feeling is still in the back of my head, evidently...and it's taken me this long to track it down and isolate it so I can do something about it. The something I'm doing, obviously is cleaning. And no, I can't see any possibility that anybody around here is going to come and inspect my apartment or anything else...it's just my weird brain. And there's no reason I can't clean the damn place...one bathroom, one bedroom, one kitchen, one living room. So I'm doing it, in the hope I'll sleep better. Brains are strange.
Meanwhile, I'm off to Chicago for a few days in October. My cousin Cathy and her husband Charlie are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, for God's sake. I was thinking about boycotting the whole thing because I'm STILL pissed at her about that hideous...truly, truly HIDEOUS...electric blue satin dress she made me wear, but I thought that would be mean spirited. However, I can't answer for myself if she has actual pictures of me in that thing. Anyway, I haven't been home in years, and I've got a lot of pals to see. It should be fun, and Chicago's gorgeous in October.
I had more fun watching the opening of the Olympics. The British really are flying insane. That notion of my beloved Queen parachuting into the Olympic stadium was more than worth the price of admission...and with James Bond, yet. I always knew she had a sense of humor. And I loved the totally batty number with the sick kids in hospital beds, with dancing doctors and nurses, Voldemort, Dementors, Mary Poppins (lots of them) and that bizarre giant baby. A tribute to the National Health Service. Of COURSE. Naturally. And next fall, I'm going to London, my favorite place in the world, come hell or high water. I wanted to go this year, but the combination of the Queen's Jubilee AND the Olympics defeated me. Imagine trying to get a hotel room. Or a flight. Or any other damn thing.
Meanwhile, my kitchen is almost done...I actually organized the cabinets into something more logical. I'm quite proud of myself. When I moved in, I naturally (it being close to Christmas) just threw things into cabinets, which ended me up with the food stuck right next to the stove, where it shouldn't be. So I've fixed that, and put the things I rarely use on high shelves, and cleaned the stove (oh, all right, the top of the stove...let's not get carried away, shall we?), cleaned off the counters, and I'm quite proud of myself. Now I'm going to mop the floor and call it a day. I'll attack the bathroom tomorrow.
Love, Wendy
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