What I have learned from my vast and varied experiences:

It’s hard to think of something witty or pithy to write if you’ve spent the past 24 hours asleep.

I was thinking I’d have reincarnate a Bobby Jindal rant, which can’t have been a move in a positive direction, and show you Kenneth the Page’s response.

Hooray for Yellaphant!  She gave me this award:



Which, for some reason I cannot understand, is in Spanish, but, according to my Spanish to Yellaphant to Well Read Hostess dictionary, means, “you live near me, physically or spiritually and I think you’re A-OK.”  Well, right back at you Yellaphant, and not just because we’ve discovered that our boyz know each other, too.  WEIRD! 

So now, in the chain mail pay it forward spirit of these bloggy blessings, I will point you, gentle readers, in the directions of some other folks near and dear.  Sometimes more dear than near.  But…it’s the virtual world, so it’s all relative, right?

Formerly Fun

GwenAlisonWonderLand

BabsPeapodDiscoBubbles

A Widow For A Year

A Child Is Born

Mothers of Brothers

The Baroness

The New Girl

This is the part where I’m supposed to elaborate on why I think these are great writers and worthy of the awardo Spanisho.  Sorry, I took French in high school and don’t feel like finding the translator online again.  Did I mention that I slept all day yesterday? 

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. 

In other words, trust me.  They are good. 

I’m worried that I sound over-it and ungrateful.  Not so.  Just Friday’d out.  In fact, the discovery that Yellaphant’s fiance has been my husband’s tennis teacher for months now, and I just met her a few weeks ago, made me smile all night.  This awareness was a soothing balm on my “what the hell is this blogging thing and why am I doing it” rash I’d been scratching at for a week or so.  The Big 8 listed up there all represent equally effective …uh…balms for the rash. 

That can’t be right.  I’m trying to say that I love these people and what they do and what they say and how they make me think about myself as a person and as a writer (holy shizzz…I’ve never written that before, the w—-r word to describe myself), but somehow I ended up indicating that I am too lazy to articulate why they are special and/or they remind me of calamine lotion or Gynelotrimin. 

Trust me.  None of you remind me of Gynelotrimin.

Identity Crisis derailed.



“Well Read”

You heard it here first.  Actually, you heard it in about every major newspaper, in numerous magazines, and all over Amazon.com.  But play along.  Humor me.

My formerly BFF (Best fake friend) and now officially ok, so we’ve never met in person but in this day and age does that really matter?  There are people married, for f’s sake who don’t meet until the day they have their eHarmony commitment ceremony surrounded by vaguely mortified family and friends and at least six attendants or cousins who wonder if it would work for them actual friend, Cindy Guidry wrote this great book, The Last Single Woman in America.  And by great, of course, I mean hilarious and moving and joyful and poignant and so dead-on.  Maybe you noticed that I mentioned it once or twice or eleven times.  Anyway it’s coming out in paperback and you should buy it for anyone you know who a) isn’t married and wants to be b) isn’t married and who doesn’t particularly give a crap either way – married, not married, whatevs c) is married and wonders, “what the hell was I thinking?”  d)  is married and used to not be married or d) needs to lighten the hell up and/or read something good. 

Don’t just take my word for it.  Entertainment Weekly gave it an A-.  And I heard that the editorial board marked her down two points for talking about post-coital bed slime, so really she got an A.

I seem to be beginning a relationship with Janet Evanovich.  I KNOW.  I didn’t think I’d ever go there either.  I mean…not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just not for me.  Lots of my best friends are, you know, LIKE THAT, but I never thought of myself as someone who was, I don’t know, broad-minded enough or experimental enough to investigate the lifestyle further.

Seriously.  Consider it.  It’s a series of books, which I like, but it’s a cutely named series, about a girl detective, the covers are all in neon colors, and you can buy the books at Eckerd. 

What did you think I was talking about?

Once you get past the garish covers and, if you are a terrific snob like I am, the fact that everybody and their mother reads these books, it turns out that they are pretty damn good.  Like that really good Australian red licorice that comes in little wads, as opposed to sticky and artificial-tasting Twizzlers, you just keep plowing through them.  The most significant appeal has to be the characterization and the tension between Stephanie Plum and the two completely unsuitable, mysterious bad-boy boyfriends she juggles.  OK.  In truth, the biggest appeal is the fact that she has two unsuitable, mysterious bad-boy boyfriends and they let her juggle them.  As a bonus – one relationship is actually consummated and the other seems (I haven’t read them all) to be a constant and prolonged dance of ever-escalating steaminess that is never consummated.  For Christ’s sakes…tell me that’s not your fantasy (men and women alike) and I’ll show you a Liar Liar Pants On Fire  – perpetually on fire, as it turns out.  So you should read them.  But try not to get my copy of One for the Money from the library near my house because whomever had it last chain smoked through it and it still stinks.  I’ve got like six Bounce dryer sheets jammed between the pages and I still feel like I might be coming down with the Black Lung.

“Hostess”

If you like seafood, which I do not, you’ll like this.  The Merfolk TWGH loved it.  True confessions:  my mom made it, not me. 

Pile together 1/3 packed cup flat-leaf parsley and 8 large cloves of garlic.  Sprinkle with salt.  Coarsely chop the pile.    Peel and devein 1 1/2 lbs medium shrimp.  Or just buy them already peeled and deveined because why the hell would you want to peel and “DEVEIN” a life form, which sounds like something that would occur during the Inquisition  “Cooking for Conquistadors.”  Yeah, I know.  Wrong century even.   Divide 2 cups Spanish (!!!)  extra-virgin olive oil between four 6″ cazuelas – which is apparently some kind of earthenware pot; heat them over medium heat.  Divide garlic mixture, 4 bay leaves, and 4 dried chiles and cook.  Stir occasionally, until garlic is fragrant – by which I suppose that means “smells like garlic” and sizzling.  This is the point in any recipe when I burn the garlic.   Divide shrimp between the cazuelas (give me strength) and stir until shrimp is just cooked, 2-3 minutes.  Season with salt to taste.  Serve with chunks of bread to dip into the luscious, garlicky oil.  Or just drink it out of the pot when your wife isn’t looking, like my husband did.  Serves 4. 

Now honestly, just cook the stuff in a skillet.  You don’t need to go to Mexico and purchase “cazuelas.”