You see before you - or read before you, anyway - the wreck of what was once a woman.
I swear, it's the one drawback to getting old. I quite enjoy being my age (if for no other reason that it is now really easy to pull age rank on people and blather on about "When I was your age" - well, until they throw things at me, anyway) except for the party factor. I don't know what it is, but I just can't party the way I used to when I was 25. Wait. That's wrong. I CAN still party that way - it just takes a LOT longer to recover.
My child Sarah threw a terrific birthday party for me on Saturday night with a whole bunch of my favorite people and neat things to eat (made by Sarah - I have trained the Grasshopper well) for which I didn't have to do a damn thing except put on some makeup and look pretty and drink humongous amounts of beer until nearly 5 am - and it was GREAT. Hey, I even made it up that damn spiral staircase to my bed all alone. Admittedly, I sat down to take my clothes off and promptly passed out cold (still dressed), but hell, I didn't fall down the stairs, now did I? I call that a victory.
Of course we all crammed into the kitchen. Now I have a really, really large, high ceilinged living room - but somehow, the best part of any party goes on in the kitchen, and so it was on Saturday. Great conversations and great food - what more does one want in a party? It was terrific.
And then came Sunday. I woke up at about 8 to go to the bathroom (good morning, beer!) and decided that was the worst idea I ever had in my life (waking up, I mean - going to the bathroom was a truly EXCELLENT idea) and went back to sleep until around noon. Then I got up and went downstairs and had a bagel and started to read the Sunday papers until I discovered that I was dozing off with my head in the NYTimes Styles section. At which point I went back to bed until about 6 pm, and THEN got up, read the papers and ate something. At that, I did better than Sarah, whom I didn't lay eyes on all day - I know that Joshua brought her up some food the girls had made about 10:30 pm, but visible she was not.
And today I went to work, which was a terrible mistake - the curse of temping is that there's no such thing as sick days. Also I was sitting next to an extremely annoying woman. I've been sitting there for a few days, and she keeps getting more annoying. Today (what with still being hung over and all), I wanted to grab her by the neck and shake her. She leaps on phones like a hungry vulture on a nice dead body - meaning that the phones I'm supposed to be answering are jumped on - which sounds pretty idiotic until you remember that I don't actually HAVE anything to do but answer the damn phones and it breaks up the monotony a little. (I let it ring twice and then pick up...she won't let it get to the second ring, thereby annoying the lawyers who need the first ring to get their eyes off the computer, for God's sake.) Today she had to type about six or eight cover letters for bills, and the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth that went on was truly alarming. Cover letters for bills are identical. You type one, save, and then keep copying it. Six or eight of them can be easily done in about 20 minutes. Well, with this gal, she had to call the help desk because there was something she couldn't figure out, then she had to ask me to type the labels for them...and she fed me the addresses for the labels one at a time about every twenty minutes, presumably under the impression that I needed LOTS of time for this activity. Presumably she felt this way because it took her a good four hours to do six or eight three line letters. Growl. I can't live with this sort of thing with a lingering hangover.
Then I got home and my life turned into some sort of bizarre slapstick comedy routine. I opened the front door and found that I couldn't get into my house because our tall wooden ladder was blocking my entry. Since I was extremely eager to get to a nice cold restorative beer, I failed to notice this soon enough, and sent said ladder crashing to the floor - luckily not toward me. Then Mel came and moved the ladder, and I attempted to get into the house only to get myself tangled up with a shopping cart that was in the same general vicinity. Then I tripped over something else...and all this to find that the girls were working on the kitchen floor and had my table dismantled again, meaning that I couldn't sit in the kitchen. GROWL!
You have to understand that I am like a spider, and my kitchen table is the center of my web. My house is on various levels, and the kitchen sits about four steps up from the living room, so that sitting at my seat, I can survey my domain, check out who's coming in the door, monitor everything, etc., etc., and so forth. It's MY SPOT. I get very twitchy with no kitchen table. However, Mel and Rebecca put it back together for me, bless them, and I was able to finish my evening in peace and quiet.
Oh, and the reason the ladder was blocking my entrance to begin with is that Joshua is hysterically paranoid, and thinks that the immediate world is attempting to gain entrance to our house to commit some sort of mayhem. They were using mineral spirits or some damn thing to get the leftover glue off the kitchen floor and had the front door open because of the fumes, so Joshua immediately became consumed with the notion that "THEY" might try and get in the house. Ergo, I was blockaded at my own front door. How friggin' silly can you get? If I were a bad guy, and I saw an open door that looked promising, I'd take a look inside, see three able bodied people working ten feet away, one of whom is a butch bull dyke and one of whom is a very well muscled six foot tall man, and go in the other direction. I mean, really. How damn silly can you get? Joshua's paranoia is also the reason that I can't get any light in the living room, because he insists that the curtains be closed at all times because people are looking in the window. People are indeed stopping in front of our little complex because it's gorgeous, but they're not staring in our window - if for no other reason that I have nice white sheer curtains that let light through but block any kind of view inside. But this doesn't satisfy Joshua who, if he had his way, would have iron gates on the windows. Sheesh.
I'm going to bed to continue my recovery. But it was a great party!
Love, Wendy
Monday, April 7, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Pirates?
I am completely fascinated with a bit of news I actually ran across yesterday on CNN.
"Pirates Seize French Cruise Ship"
Pirates? We still have PIRATES? How can we have pirates? In the first place, I thought Johnny Depp was somewhere else shooting a movie. How would you have piracy going on without him?
Secondly, I was completely unaware of any pirate ships still around - you know, with all those neat sails and a real crows-nest and lots and lots of rigging for poor downtrodden cabin boys to swarm up. All I ever see on the Hudson are garbage scows, water taxis, and those freakin' gi-normous cruise ships that look like they have more than enough room for, say, the entire population of Enid, Oklahoma. (Hmmm. Has anyone been to Enid, Oklahoma recently? Does it still HAVE a population? I mean, if I lived in Enid, Oklahoma, I'd think moving to a cruise ship was an extremely excellent idea.) (One of the nice things about currently having a fairly limited audience for these ramblings is that I can be just about positive that I'm not going to get nasty comments from Enid, Oklahoma telling me all about their vital cultural institutions. Even though I'm sure they have a very fine community theatre group.)
And what do you do with the ship after you've seized it? I mean, what do the pirates want the cruise ship for? Parts? There weren't even any passengers on it - you know, with all that jewelry to wear to dinner in first class. Maybe the pirates are really tired of beef jerky and hardtack biscuits and wanted the chef. That would make sense. If I was forced to eat beef jerky and hardtack biscuits at every meal, I'd certainly want a cruise ship chef. (It's becoming very clear that I have seen all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and read Treasure Island as a child, isn't it? Hey, I know my pirates.)
And one more question comes to mind. How do you get on a cruise ship if you're a pirate? Everybody knows that when a pirate ship takes another ship, they climb up all those ratlines. Since all ships are computer powered these days - wirelessly, one would assume, on account of I can't quite see them being plugged into anything on the ocean except maybe electric eels (you may perhaps be getting an idea here of what happens when anybody tries to explain something technical to me, and you would be absolutely right) - there aren't any of those handy ropes hanging around for the pirates to climb.
Call me confused - but I'm still thrilled to know that when every New York street has turned into a blurred blend of bank, Starbucks, Gap, Old Navy, bank, Starbucks, Gap, Old Navy, Duane Reade, bank, Starbucks...well, hell, we've still got PIRATES! Cool.
Love, Wendy
"Pirates Seize French Cruise Ship"
Pirates? We still have PIRATES? How can we have pirates? In the first place, I thought Johnny Depp was somewhere else shooting a movie. How would you have piracy going on without him?
Secondly, I was completely unaware of any pirate ships still around - you know, with all those neat sails and a real crows-nest and lots and lots of rigging for poor downtrodden cabin boys to swarm up. All I ever see on the Hudson are garbage scows, water taxis, and those freakin' gi-normous cruise ships that look like they have more than enough room for, say, the entire population of Enid, Oklahoma. (Hmmm. Has anyone been to Enid, Oklahoma recently? Does it still HAVE a population? I mean, if I lived in Enid, Oklahoma, I'd think moving to a cruise ship was an extremely excellent idea.) (One of the nice things about currently having a fairly limited audience for these ramblings is that I can be just about positive that I'm not going to get nasty comments from Enid, Oklahoma telling me all about their vital cultural institutions. Even though I'm sure they have a very fine community theatre group.)
And what do you do with the ship after you've seized it? I mean, what do the pirates want the cruise ship for? Parts? There weren't even any passengers on it - you know, with all that jewelry to wear to dinner in first class. Maybe the pirates are really tired of beef jerky and hardtack biscuits and wanted the chef. That would make sense. If I was forced to eat beef jerky and hardtack biscuits at every meal, I'd certainly want a cruise ship chef. (It's becoming very clear that I have seen all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and read Treasure Island as a child, isn't it? Hey, I know my pirates.)
And one more question comes to mind. How do you get on a cruise ship if you're a pirate? Everybody knows that when a pirate ship takes another ship, they climb up all those ratlines. Since all ships are computer powered these days - wirelessly, one would assume, on account of I can't quite see them being plugged into anything on the ocean except maybe electric eels (you may perhaps be getting an idea here of what happens when anybody tries to explain something technical to me, and you would be absolutely right) - there aren't any of those handy ropes hanging around for the pirates to climb.
Call me confused - but I'm still thrilled to know that when every New York street has turned into a blurred blend of bank, Starbucks, Gap, Old Navy, bank, Starbucks, Gap, Old Navy, Duane Reade, bank, Starbucks...well, hell, we've still got PIRATES! Cool.
Love, Wendy
Friday, April 4, 2008
Bed. Bed, Bed, Bed.
Well, so Caesar finally turned up to collect his damn credit card at nearly 11 last night, the result being that once again, Mother here did not get a decent night's sleep.
And I came home tonight to find the kitchen tiling being done by Mel augmented by a REALLY thorough kitchen cleaning being done by Rebecca, which I frankly think is neat. I can't think of a better way to say thank you for letting us stay with you than that - I mean, hell, I can always manage about money, but God knows I was never, EVER going to actually clean the coils in the back of the refrigerator like all the housekeeping books tell you to do. (Who in their right mind, in cold blood, actually moves a goddamn REFRIGERATOR?)
By the way, while sitting on the bus coming home tonight (no further word on Simone, et al, darn it), it occurred to me that someone might find my references to Mel as my friendly live-in lesbian offensive. The answer to that is that Mel is highly amused by it. Every time I hug her and say thanks for all her work around the house and tell her that everybody needs a live-in lesbian, she says, "Yo, Mommy! I'm a big butch bull dyke! I'm a MAN!" If the lady - sorry, gentleman - doesn't think it offensive, I don't think anyone else really has the right to. So anybody who was going to bitch may now calm the hell down.
Then my pal Jiggers came over, so I had to sit around and talk to him for a while. Anyway, I have finally escaped all this conversation and mad industry and am happily ensconced in front of the computer with my nightcap of beer feeling nice and sleepy.
I must say that all this rain is starting to irritate the hell out of me. Not to mention the fact that I think I'm beginning to mildew. And because I'm irritated, I spent most of today cataloging things that people were doing to irritate me. Like so:
When you leave your building on a rainy day, please check to see that it is in fact raining at that particular moment. I cannot begin to tell you absolutely ridiculous you look as you walk out putting your umbrella up, having entirely failed to notice that no one else has an umbrella up because it has STOPPED RAINING.
If you are going to have an intense three person conversation, having it directly in front of the revolving door to the building is not a good idea because I will hit you to get you out of my way.
If you are going to have any sort of conversation with someone else in the elevator, BOTH of you should get off the elevator at the same floor. Leaning on the door to continue talking as the elevator begins to make that truly annoying beeping sound is NOT okay. Furthermore, it causes other people in the elevator to arrive at their desks with cold pizza.
The person at the next desk who feels you are interested in her life story while you are merely trying to read the NYTimes should be shot.
People who walk down the street with their earphones in while texting away at the same time on their phones are highly amusing when they walk into lamp posts. They will get unamusing and really messy if they don't quit doing it while crossing 6th Avenue at lunch hour.
I have this fascinating notion about some sort of performance piece running around in my mind. I envision midtown at 5:30 pm - 44nd and 6th would do nicely - and there is a sniper somewhere in one of those buildings. He is taking out whole hordes of people. And those that remain are phoning and texting and listening to music and racing to get their trains and all they do is cast a very brief and annoyed glance at the fallen and step right over the bodies. In the back of the stage there is a large screen which carries what they are texting: I can't believe some damn fool just died on the street in front of me and I nearly tripped over him and simply ruined my new shoes and I'm never going to catch the 5:45 to Larchmont now and aren't people just so inconsiderate?
You think that's a joke? Don't be in midtown at rush hour.
So I will now finish my beer and take my book to bed. The cats (who are quite pissed off about all this work in the kitchen because A. that's where their food usually lives and B. no one will let them get their paws permanently stuck in the tile glue) have all been fed and watered, I have been fed and beered, and all's right with the world. And tomorrow is Saturday and somehow or another we're going to have a birthday party for me in the middle of a construction zone. Well, what the hell. At least the kitchen is clean!
Love, Wendy
And I came home tonight to find the kitchen tiling being done by Mel augmented by a REALLY thorough kitchen cleaning being done by Rebecca, which I frankly think is neat. I can't think of a better way to say thank you for letting us stay with you than that - I mean, hell, I can always manage about money, but God knows I was never, EVER going to actually clean the coils in the back of the refrigerator like all the housekeeping books tell you to do. (Who in their right mind, in cold blood, actually moves a goddamn REFRIGERATOR?)
By the way, while sitting on the bus coming home tonight (no further word on Simone, et al, darn it), it occurred to me that someone might find my references to Mel as my friendly live-in lesbian offensive. The answer to that is that Mel is highly amused by it. Every time I hug her and say thanks for all her work around the house and tell her that everybody needs a live-in lesbian, she says, "Yo, Mommy! I'm a big butch bull dyke! I'm a MAN!" If the lady - sorry, gentleman - doesn't think it offensive, I don't think anyone else really has the right to. So anybody who was going to bitch may now calm the hell down.
Then my pal Jiggers came over, so I had to sit around and talk to him for a while. Anyway, I have finally escaped all this conversation and mad industry and am happily ensconced in front of the computer with my nightcap of beer feeling nice and sleepy.
I must say that all this rain is starting to irritate the hell out of me. Not to mention the fact that I think I'm beginning to mildew. And because I'm irritated, I spent most of today cataloging things that people were doing to irritate me. Like so:
When you leave your building on a rainy day, please check to see that it is in fact raining at that particular moment. I cannot begin to tell you absolutely ridiculous you look as you walk out putting your umbrella up, having entirely failed to notice that no one else has an umbrella up because it has STOPPED RAINING.
If you are going to have an intense three person conversation, having it directly in front of the revolving door to the building is not a good idea because I will hit you to get you out of my way.
If you are going to have any sort of conversation with someone else in the elevator, BOTH of you should get off the elevator at the same floor. Leaning on the door to continue talking as the elevator begins to make that truly annoying beeping sound is NOT okay. Furthermore, it causes other people in the elevator to arrive at their desks with cold pizza.
The person at the next desk who feels you are interested in her life story while you are merely trying to read the NYTimes should be shot.
People who walk down the street with their earphones in while texting away at the same time on their phones are highly amusing when they walk into lamp posts. They will get unamusing and really messy if they don't quit doing it while crossing 6th Avenue at lunch hour.
I have this fascinating notion about some sort of performance piece running around in my mind. I envision midtown at 5:30 pm - 44nd and 6th would do nicely - and there is a sniper somewhere in one of those buildings. He is taking out whole hordes of people. And those that remain are phoning and texting and listening to music and racing to get their trains and all they do is cast a very brief and annoyed glance at the fallen and step right over the bodies. In the back of the stage there is a large screen which carries what they are texting: I can't believe some damn fool just died on the street in front of me and I nearly tripped over him and simply ruined my new shoes and I'm never going to catch the 5:45 to Larchmont now and aren't people just so inconsiderate?
You think that's a joke? Don't be in midtown at rush hour.
So I will now finish my beer and take my book to bed. The cats (who are quite pissed off about all this work in the kitchen because A. that's where their food usually lives and B. no one will let them get their paws permanently stuck in the tile glue) have all been fed and watered, I have been fed and beered, and all's right with the world. And tomorrow is Saturday and somehow or another we're going to have a birthday party for me in the middle of a construction zone. Well, what the hell. At least the kitchen is clean!
Love, Wendy
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Caesar's Working Late
So I have nothing but time on my hands here to get thoroughly blitzed waiting for someone to bring me food, on account of tomorrow is payday and I have exactly enough in my pocket for the morning papers (there is no morning without the NYTimes crossword puzzle - in ink, I may add) and that damn doughnut. And Caesar is stuck on a job until around 10 pm.
But the ladies have finished the middle of my floor and I must admit it looks divine. Actually, now that it's partially done (and they haven't yet put glue on the bit in front of the icebox (I know, I know...refrigerator, but I'll never be able to say that) I could actually get something to eat - except that then I would have to stomp over the new floor to get to the microwave because the only thing there is to eat is some leftover lo mein, which isn't particularly nice cold. There aren't even things I could eat on crackers. Cousin Joshua is so hysterically into eating for his health that when he even buys things you could put on a cracker (I'll eat just about anything if you put it on a cracker - shades of my cocktail party youth), they're wrong, as far as I'm concerned. Who in their right mind buys sardines in WATER? Aside from the fact that good olive oil is extremely healthful, the whole notion is disgusting. Sardines belong in oil...oil, oil, oil. That would be OIL. I did have them once as a first course in some London restaurant, however, when they weren't in oil. They were fresh, they were just gutted, and they were grilled and served on hot buttered toast. Wow. Citarella occasionally has fresh sardines and I'm going to try this one day - it was so wonderful. Even if I do have to stick my fingers into the middle and haul out their messy little guts...which I will have to do in the powder room downstairs with the door shut, because me playing around with fresh sardines in the kitchen is going to get me an avalanche of cats who want to play too.
This powder room thing is why my own cousin called me extremely weird the other night. I had tried to sleep and discovered dat ole debbil insomnia creeping up, so I promptly went downstairs to eat some ice cream.
Now we all remember those three cats (two and a half cats when you adjust for the fact that Gypsy is sort of half dead in a very alive fashion). Well, all three of them are passionately fond of ice cream, and if one sits down at the kitchen table to eat ice cream it turns into a mad free-for-all, with me trying to get ice cream into my mouth without it getting yanked off the spoon. So now I go into the powder room with a book, a spoon, and the ice cream and sit on the toilet seat (lid down) with the door shut and eat my ice cream in peace and quiet (except for the frustrated yowls and scratchings on the door). Which is when I was surprised by Joshua as I was coming out...book, ice cream and spoon in hand. Which is when he called me weird. Personally, I think it's extremely sensible of me. I find it really hard to eat when I have to beat off hordes of animals with one hand.
Speaking of Joshua, I am finding him way more annoying than usual in the last few days. He turned 60 last October 2, and I really wanted to do something for his birthday, but I didn't have a single cent - I believe I managed to eke out a card for him. He has evidently decided that I should be punished for this dereliction by his ignoring MY birthday - and, being Joshua, has carried it to quite insane extremes. I have literally not laid eyes on him since Sunday. Unfortunately, since LOTS of people celebrated my birthday on Monday and lots more are coming over on Saturday to celebrate it some more, I don't actually give a shit whether Joshua wants to mark the occasion or not - and it's really, REALLY nice not to have to listen to him for a few days. Presumably he will eventually emerge from the den, but I'm afraid this little fuss of his has backfired on him. Giggle, giggle, giggle.
I swear. Nobody should live without lesbians. The girls have gotten to a point where they could get to the icebox and microwave, and Mel's girlfriend Rebecca remembered that I hadn't eaten anything - and by God, she microwaved my lo mein for me and sent it up via Mel. I feel much better now.
I think that I'm going to drink some more beer and wander around the internet picking up weird bits of information...but probably just going to Youtube and looking at bits of the Muppet Show, which suits my mood precisely. Miss Piggy and Rudolph Nureyev doing Swine Lake should just be the thing.
And it'll shut me up! Won't that be nice?
Love, Wendy
But the ladies have finished the middle of my floor and I must admit it looks divine. Actually, now that it's partially done (and they haven't yet put glue on the bit in front of the icebox (I know, I know...refrigerator, but I'll never be able to say that) I could actually get something to eat - except that then I would have to stomp over the new floor to get to the microwave because the only thing there is to eat is some leftover lo mein, which isn't particularly nice cold. There aren't even things I could eat on crackers. Cousin Joshua is so hysterically into eating for his health that when he even buys things you could put on a cracker (I'll eat just about anything if you put it on a cracker - shades of my cocktail party youth), they're wrong, as far as I'm concerned. Who in their right mind buys sardines in WATER? Aside from the fact that good olive oil is extremely healthful, the whole notion is disgusting. Sardines belong in oil...oil, oil, oil. That would be OIL. I did have them once as a first course in some London restaurant, however, when they weren't in oil. They were fresh, they were just gutted, and they were grilled and served on hot buttered toast. Wow. Citarella occasionally has fresh sardines and I'm going to try this one day - it was so wonderful. Even if I do have to stick my fingers into the middle and haul out their messy little guts...which I will have to do in the powder room downstairs with the door shut, because me playing around with fresh sardines in the kitchen is going to get me an avalanche of cats who want to play too.
This powder room thing is why my own cousin called me extremely weird the other night. I had tried to sleep and discovered dat ole debbil insomnia creeping up, so I promptly went downstairs to eat some ice cream.
Now we all remember those three cats (two and a half cats when you adjust for the fact that Gypsy is sort of half dead in a very alive fashion). Well, all three of them are passionately fond of ice cream, and if one sits down at the kitchen table to eat ice cream it turns into a mad free-for-all, with me trying to get ice cream into my mouth without it getting yanked off the spoon. So now I go into the powder room with a book, a spoon, and the ice cream and sit on the toilet seat (lid down) with the door shut and eat my ice cream in peace and quiet (except for the frustrated yowls and scratchings on the door). Which is when I was surprised by Joshua as I was coming out...book, ice cream and spoon in hand. Which is when he called me weird. Personally, I think it's extremely sensible of me. I find it really hard to eat when I have to beat off hordes of animals with one hand.
Speaking of Joshua, I am finding him way more annoying than usual in the last few days. He turned 60 last October 2, and I really wanted to do something for his birthday, but I didn't have a single cent - I believe I managed to eke out a card for him. He has evidently decided that I should be punished for this dereliction by his ignoring MY birthday - and, being Joshua, has carried it to quite insane extremes. I have literally not laid eyes on him since Sunday. Unfortunately, since LOTS of people celebrated my birthday on Monday and lots more are coming over on Saturday to celebrate it some more, I don't actually give a shit whether Joshua wants to mark the occasion or not - and it's really, REALLY nice not to have to listen to him for a few days. Presumably he will eventually emerge from the den, but I'm afraid this little fuss of his has backfired on him. Giggle, giggle, giggle.
I swear. Nobody should live without lesbians. The girls have gotten to a point where they could get to the icebox and microwave, and Mel's girlfriend Rebecca remembered that I hadn't eaten anything - and by God, she microwaved my lo mein for me and sent it up via Mel. I feel much better now.
I think that I'm going to drink some more beer and wander around the internet picking up weird bits of information...but probably just going to Youtube and looking at bits of the Muppet Show, which suits my mood precisely. Miss Piggy and Rudolph Nureyev doing Swine Lake should just be the thing.
And it'll shut me up! Won't that be nice?
Love, Wendy
An Early Evening Blog
Well, it would be my usual on my way to bed blog except that my friendly family lesbian is busy retiling my kitchen floor (in one of those nice speckly patterns that doesn't show ANYTHING and is madly easy to wipe off - we have had horrible wood veneer in there since we moved in and you couldn't get anything off it without major scrub brush action - when two of your cats major in creative vomiting, you don't need this) and therefore she and her lady are pinned into the kitchen waiting for the floor glue to get tacky so they can put the floor down. The result of this, of course, is that I cannot do what I always do when I get home from work which is to sit down at the kitchen table and drink beer and smoke cigarettes and check the mail. So I've got the beer and cigarettes up here in the bedroom and I already checked the mail, which consisted of a bank statement and two pleas to donate to causes I've never heard of (Have pity on this child who will never know the joy of designer clothing without your help! Take a moment of your valuable time to send a check to the Amateur Mime Society!)
However, Caesar is coming over to pick up his bank card which the idiot left at the restaurant on Monday night which I just picked up for him, so maybe he will take pity on me and take me out to dinner. Or at least order Chinese food.
And I've decided I'm never taking the subway again. Today I got on the downtown 7th Avenue bus at 42nd Street as usual, and there were two people of a New Jersey sort of persuasion sitting across from me. Just as the bus was pulling away from 42nd, the gal's phone rang, and we started off on a tale that lasted until she and the gent got off at 16th.
It seems that Simone was picking up Kristin and/or Janey from somewhere or another when all of a sudden Scott came out of nowhere and tried to grab either Kristin or Janey (this part wasn't entirely clear). And would you believe, Simone finally had the guts to punch him? Isn't that great? (The guy half of the pair was really delighted about this. He went on for about three blocks about being so proud of Simone for "finally having some guts".) Well, everybody thinks (both the people on the bus and, evidently, the people - of whom there seemed to be several - on the other end of the phone) that this will mean that Simone can finally get Scott put in jail now and stop screwing around with that order of protection, because, as the gentleman on the bus pointed out, this was clearly an attempted kidnapping. And Scott's already out on bail for that assault charge, and that's not gonna help him a lot (direct quote there).
I'm sure you'll glad to know that Simone, Kristin and Janey are all just fine (even though Scott hit Simone back when she hit him), and Scott seems to have gone to turn himself in, or at any rate my pals on the bus seem to feel that's what he's going to do (presumably otherwise his parole officer on the assault case will track him down anyway, so why not).
Oh, I tell you - I swear I was going to get off the bus and follow these two, because I needed so much more information here. I mean, clearly Simone is an ex-wife or girlfriend, and I presume that either Kristin or Janey is a child of this relationship, or maybe both of them are - but I really wanted to get some phone numbers and email addresses to find out the beginning and end of this story on account of coming in for the middle like that.
Now, isn't this better than that Spanish telenovela you were going to watch? And to think I would have missed the whole thing on the subway.
Oh, and by the by, before anybody leaps on me for making light of poor Simone's troubles, I am taking my cue directly from the two on the bus. They were clearly thrilled that the whole thing had come to a head so that Scott could get put away, and they made very sure that nobody had been in the least harmed by the whole episode, and were all in all quite pleased and smiling and clearly relieved. So I'm taking my cue from them. So don't do nasty comments on my unfeelingness. So there.
Love, Wendy
However, Caesar is coming over to pick up his bank card which the idiot left at the restaurant on Monday night which I just picked up for him, so maybe he will take pity on me and take me out to dinner. Or at least order Chinese food.
And I've decided I'm never taking the subway again. Today I got on the downtown 7th Avenue bus at 42nd Street as usual, and there were two people of a New Jersey sort of persuasion sitting across from me. Just as the bus was pulling away from 42nd, the gal's phone rang, and we started off on a tale that lasted until she and the gent got off at 16th.
It seems that Simone was picking up Kristin and/or Janey from somewhere or another when all of a sudden Scott came out of nowhere and tried to grab either Kristin or Janey (this part wasn't entirely clear). And would you believe, Simone finally had the guts to punch him? Isn't that great? (The guy half of the pair was really delighted about this. He went on for about three blocks about being so proud of Simone for "finally having some guts".) Well, everybody thinks (both the people on the bus and, evidently, the people - of whom there seemed to be several - on the other end of the phone) that this will mean that Simone can finally get Scott put in jail now and stop screwing around with that order of protection, because, as the gentleman on the bus pointed out, this was clearly an attempted kidnapping. And Scott's already out on bail for that assault charge, and that's not gonna help him a lot (direct quote there).
I'm sure you'll glad to know that Simone, Kristin and Janey are all just fine (even though Scott hit Simone back when she hit him), and Scott seems to have gone to turn himself in, or at any rate my pals on the bus seem to feel that's what he's going to do (presumably otherwise his parole officer on the assault case will track him down anyway, so why not).
Oh, I tell you - I swear I was going to get off the bus and follow these two, because I needed so much more information here. I mean, clearly Simone is an ex-wife or girlfriend, and I presume that either Kristin or Janey is a child of this relationship, or maybe both of them are - but I really wanted to get some phone numbers and email addresses to find out the beginning and end of this story on account of coming in for the middle like that.
Now, isn't this better than that Spanish telenovela you were going to watch? And to think I would have missed the whole thing on the subway.
Oh, and by the by, before anybody leaps on me for making light of poor Simone's troubles, I am taking my cue directly from the two on the bus. They were clearly thrilled that the whole thing had come to a head so that Scott could get put away, and they made very sure that nobody had been in the least harmed by the whole episode, and were all in all quite pleased and smiling and clearly relieved. So I'm taking my cue from them. So don't do nasty comments on my unfeelingness. So there.
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
It's Only 9:15!
This is deeply exciting to me, since I haven't managed to crawl into bed before midnight since last Friday. Which was fine for Saturday and Sunday, but Monday, Tuesday and today were fairly ugly since I get up at 6. I kept dozing off after lunch...a fairly easy thing to do at my current office, since my entire function is to answer the telephone six or seven times a day and copy one or two pieces of paper every now and then. Clearly, staying fully awake is not a necessity here.
And today's desk had a bonus gift - somebody had left one of the gossip magazines at it - OK or In Touch or one of those with "Can Brittany Save Herself" in great big letters all over the cover. I absolutely adore these things and I'm WAY too embarrassed (and for that matter, too broke) to buy them. If I have money for a magazine I buy Gourmet or Bon Appetit or something of that nature. (Speaking of embarrassment, in her later years my mother fell madly in love with Tater Tots, but I always had to buy them for her. She ordered her groceries over the phone, you see, and felt idiotic saying Tater Tots. Evidently this sort of thing runs in families.)
And now I am going to take my nice murder mystery and curl up in my bed and read a few pages of same and conk out with enormous delight and get a decent night's sleep. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to this.
Snnnoooorrrrre.......
Love, Wendy
And today's desk had a bonus gift - somebody had left one of the gossip magazines at it - OK or In Touch or one of those with "Can Brittany Save Herself" in great big letters all over the cover. I absolutely adore these things and I'm WAY too embarrassed (and for that matter, too broke) to buy them. If I have money for a magazine I buy Gourmet or Bon Appetit or something of that nature. (Speaking of embarrassment, in her later years my mother fell madly in love with Tater Tots, but I always had to buy them for her. She ordered her groceries over the phone, you see, and felt idiotic saying Tater Tots. Evidently this sort of thing runs in families.)
And now I am going to take my nice murder mystery and curl up in my bed and read a few pages of same and conk out with enormous delight and get a decent night's sleep. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to this.
Snnnoooorrrrre.......
Love, Wendy
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Too Much Fun
I am a dead person. I was supposed to be in bed by 9 pm. However, my pal Steve, one of the great cooks of all time, came over, and we got talking about mustard, garlic and rosemary on a leg of lamb, and what with one recipe and another, things got out of hand. (Oh, the lamb. One leg of lamb. Make sure that fell is off it, then make slits all over it and stick a slice of garlic and a couple of rosemary leaves in each slit. Then slather it with Dijon mustard and cook the sucker.)
But I truly must sleep, because last night the gang took me out to dinner for my birthday (from which, I may add, Tiger Lily and the Boss were conspicuously absent and owe me a meal when they get back from London - you guys listening?), and we had a lovely meal at Le Deux Gamins on 10th Street and then came back to the house and had birthday cake and ice cream...isn't that cool?
And I got a cookbook I'm been DYING for...Roast Chicken and Other Stories which I've been reading assiduously and I can't wait until payday so I can try some of this truly great, great stuff. It's all plain, ordinary recipes like sweetbreads and a marvelous recipe for crisp fried brains and a neat chocolate mousse recipe, and a vindication of what I do with a roasting chicken (Simon Hopkinson's recipe is slightly different, but not very)...my roast chicken goes like this:
Take a nice big roasting chicken - 6 pounds or so. Remove chicken guts and do whatever you do with them. (I know perfectly well that I'm supposed to save the livers in milk in the freezer to make chopped chicken livers when I gather enough of them, but I never do - if I want to make chopped chicken livers, I buy some chicken livers - I know, I know...me, the great saver and conserver...yeah, well, who's perfect?) (oh, the milk? It removes any bitterness that might be in the livers.) ANYHOW. Then you take a cut up lemon, a whole bunch of cut in half garlic cloves (say, six or eight), and an entire bunch of parsley and shove all this up the chicken's ass. Then melt say, half a stick of butter and slosh some white wine into it (oh, don't ask me how much - quarter cup? half a cup? Well, shit - a slosh. Say quarter cup, if you're that into precise damn measurements.) Pour this over the chicken. Then throw the thing into your preheated 350 degree oven and cook until it's done. (About 15 minutes a pound or so.) Take it out, let it sit for fifteen minutes while whatever else you want with it gets finished up. Then carve it, spoon out the juices and pour them over the servings, and eat the shit out of it. There you are. One never fail recipe.
And about (since I mentioned it) precise measurements. If you want to bake a cake, cookies, make puff pastry and like that, you MUST measure precisely. Otherwise, you've just got to learn what you like to eat and what you want it to taste like. I undersalt everything, because I'm a mad salt freak, and if I put in what I think is the right amount of salt, lips get puckered all around the table. And I usually halve the amount of tarragon called for in a recipe, because even when I know it belongs there (i.e., a decent bearnaise sauce), I am unfond of tarragon (I hate licorice...no, I don't like fennel for the same reason).
But to cook, you need to know your own taste. And if you have peculiar tastes (when I was a little girl, I used to make the best sandwich in the world...sardines and peach jam on buttered rye toast), remember that there are things you make for yourself alone, and learn to make food that pleases other people too.
However, there are pitfalls here. When I make a Boeuf Bourgignon, I slavishly follow Julia's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, because it's simply superb. It is also one HELL of a lot of work. Brown the meat, brown braise the onions and mushrooms seperately...etc., etc. It's a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the winter (and your house smells DIVINE). But what happens is that people scarf it up and go, "Hey, great beef stew!" They have no idea that you just spent seven hours on the damn thing.
But there's another thing I make that I threw together once because the ingredients were in the house. Take a pan. Minor digression here. I learned to cook at the feet of my mother and grandmother, both unbelievable cooks. We had a wok in the 1950's on the South Side of Chicago, because my grandmother loved the Cantonese food at our one lonely Chinese restaurant (Jane's Cantonese) and wanted to learn how. So she went and asked for Chinese cooking lessons in their kitchens. Other families had meatloaf on Wednesdays...we had homemade sweet and sour pork. From our very own wok. In 1957.
Well. What I threw together was I took a pan, I slicked up the bottom with some olive oil, I threw in some chicken thighs (the BEST part of the chicken) and a bunch of little creamer potatoes cut in quarters and a whole head of garlic separated into cloves (don't bother to peel), then I tossed another slick of olive oil over the top and threw on some herbs de Provence and tossed the whole thing in a 350 oven for an hour. This entire operation took a fast fifteen minutes to put together. Sling together a salad with a nice mustardy vinaigrette, put a loaf of bread and some butter on the table, and voila!
And this fifteen minute wonder is the one where people say, "Oh, my God! You're such a gourmet cook!" Well, damn...seven goddamn hours for the Boeuf Bourgignon and all I get is "Great beef stew!"
Oh, and Saturday night's gathering of the theatre clan got me an offer of a one woman show and a movie. And a pal of mine even bought all my drinks. I would call that a damned successful evening. (Yes, yes, of course I will yap further about the job offers when - and if - they come to fruition. One never knows in the acting business.)
Okay. One aging body on its way to bed. I cannot even begin to tell you how utterly peculiar it seems to be 63. Intellectually, I know perfectly damn well how old I am (and if I lose track I can always check my passport), but being a lady who grew up with "Never trust anybody over 30", I find it very difficult to get my mind around any of this aging shit...very weird.
Love, Wendy
But I truly must sleep, because last night the gang took me out to dinner for my birthday (from which, I may add, Tiger Lily and the Boss were conspicuously absent and owe me a meal when they get back from London - you guys listening?), and we had a lovely meal at Le Deux Gamins on 10th Street and then came back to the house and had birthday cake and ice cream...isn't that cool?
And I got a cookbook I'm been DYING for...Roast Chicken and Other Stories which I've been reading assiduously and I can't wait until payday so I can try some of this truly great, great stuff. It's all plain, ordinary recipes like sweetbreads and a marvelous recipe for crisp fried brains and a neat chocolate mousse recipe, and a vindication of what I do with a roasting chicken (Simon Hopkinson's recipe is slightly different, but not very)...my roast chicken goes like this:
Take a nice big roasting chicken - 6 pounds or so. Remove chicken guts and do whatever you do with them. (I know perfectly well that I'm supposed to save the livers in milk in the freezer to make chopped chicken livers when I gather enough of them, but I never do - if I want to make chopped chicken livers, I buy some chicken livers - I know, I know...me, the great saver and conserver...yeah, well, who's perfect?) (oh, the milk? It removes any bitterness that might be in the livers.) ANYHOW. Then you take a cut up lemon, a whole bunch of cut in half garlic cloves (say, six or eight), and an entire bunch of parsley and shove all this up the chicken's ass. Then melt say, half a stick of butter and slosh some white wine into it (oh, don't ask me how much - quarter cup? half a cup? Well, shit - a slosh. Say quarter cup, if you're that into precise damn measurements.) Pour this over the chicken. Then throw the thing into your preheated 350 degree oven and cook until it's done. (About 15 minutes a pound or so.) Take it out, let it sit for fifteen minutes while whatever else you want with it gets finished up. Then carve it, spoon out the juices and pour them over the servings, and eat the shit out of it. There you are. One never fail recipe.
And about (since I mentioned it) precise measurements. If you want to bake a cake, cookies, make puff pastry and like that, you MUST measure precisely. Otherwise, you've just got to learn what you like to eat and what you want it to taste like. I undersalt everything, because I'm a mad salt freak, and if I put in what I think is the right amount of salt, lips get puckered all around the table. And I usually halve the amount of tarragon called for in a recipe, because even when I know it belongs there (i.e., a decent bearnaise sauce), I am unfond of tarragon (I hate licorice...no, I don't like fennel for the same reason).
But to cook, you need to know your own taste. And if you have peculiar tastes (when I was a little girl, I used to make the best sandwich in the world...sardines and peach jam on buttered rye toast), remember that there are things you make for yourself alone, and learn to make food that pleases other people too.
However, there are pitfalls here. When I make a Boeuf Bourgignon, I slavishly follow Julia's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, because it's simply superb. It is also one HELL of a lot of work. Brown the meat, brown braise the onions and mushrooms seperately...etc., etc. It's a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the winter (and your house smells DIVINE). But what happens is that people scarf it up and go, "Hey, great beef stew!" They have no idea that you just spent seven hours on the damn thing.
But there's another thing I make that I threw together once because the ingredients were in the house. Take a pan. Minor digression here. I learned to cook at the feet of my mother and grandmother, both unbelievable cooks. We had a wok in the 1950's on the South Side of Chicago, because my grandmother loved the Cantonese food at our one lonely Chinese restaurant (Jane's Cantonese) and wanted to learn how. So she went and asked for Chinese cooking lessons in their kitchens. Other families had meatloaf on Wednesdays...we had homemade sweet and sour pork. From our very own wok. In 1957.
Well. What I threw together was I took a pan, I slicked up the bottom with some olive oil, I threw in some chicken thighs (the BEST part of the chicken) and a bunch of little creamer potatoes cut in quarters and a whole head of garlic separated into cloves (don't bother to peel), then I tossed another slick of olive oil over the top and threw on some herbs de Provence and tossed the whole thing in a 350 oven for an hour. This entire operation took a fast fifteen minutes to put together. Sling together a salad with a nice mustardy vinaigrette, put a loaf of bread and some butter on the table, and voila!
And this fifteen minute wonder is the one where people say, "Oh, my God! You're such a gourmet cook!" Well, damn...seven goddamn hours for the Boeuf Bourgignon and all I get is "Great beef stew!"
Oh, and Saturday night's gathering of the theatre clan got me an offer of a one woman show and a movie. And a pal of mine even bought all my drinks. I would call that a damned successful evening. (Yes, yes, of course I will yap further about the job offers when - and if - they come to fruition. One never knows in the acting business.)
Okay. One aging body on its way to bed. I cannot even begin to tell you how utterly peculiar it seems to be 63. Intellectually, I know perfectly damn well how old I am (and if I lose track I can always check my passport), but being a lady who grew up with "Never trust anybody over 30", I find it very difficult to get my mind around any of this aging shit...very weird.
Love, Wendy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
