I struggled through the aisle, tossed my backpack into the overhead bin, sat down and buckled my seatbelt.

“Wonder if my Viper could beat this plane,” he said, looking out the window as we taxied down the runway toward takeoff.

Okay, I thought. I’ll play along.

“Oh, you have a Viper?” I asked, vaguely aware that it was some sort of fast car.

“Yup. She can do 180. I’ve only taken her to 125 or so, but I was drunk at the time, so that’s not really a good idea.”

“No, I wouldn’t imagine.”

He was bald, tan, probably in his early 60’s. Over the course of my 3+ hour flight to Albuquerque, I would never learn his name, but I would discover so much more.

He was retired, but not really. He liked to keep busy, so in the summer he was a gardener. A master gardener, in fact. And in the winter, he was an aerobics instructor slash personal trainer.

“I teach a class on Michigan Avenue sometimes. The women come into class with their necklaces and dangly earrings and never take them off the entire time.”

“Huh. That’s crazy.”

“Yeah. And then we all go out for drinks afterward. It’s great.”

He told me several times that he was a ‘gearhead’ and talked about Milwaukee and Harley Davidsons. I can’t recall how he worked this into the conversation, but at one point, told me about a woman he met who was into Harleys.

“She would get all decked out. Wore a leather bustier. But she was totally flat chested,” he said, glancing down at me quickly. I put in my headphones, but it didn’t matter. He kept on.

He was a single dad, had a daughter who was either 32 or 33, he wasn’t quite sure. She broke up with some guy and moved back home. He also had a son. I discovered this bit of information when he told me he had a ‘crotch rocket’ but didn’t like riding it so he gave it to his son. But then he worried his son was going to kill himself on it, so he made him get rid of it.

“Are you just visiting Albuquerque?” he asked.

“Yes. No, actually I’m staying in Santa Fe.”

“Santa Fe? I usually only go there to buy Indian stuff. Lots of good deals. You gotta bargain with ‘em. It’s part of the fun. You going with friends?”

“Yes, I’m meeting a group of friends down there. We rented a big house.”

Why did I say that? When are they coming with the drink cart?

“Oh, man. So a whole bunch of you are staying down there? Guys or girls?”

“Both.”

“Oh, man. Bunch of girls drinking margaritas. I’d love to see that.”

“Hm.”

“I go to Albuquerque every couple years. Got some friends down there. We’re going to this place called Sophie’s. Sophia’s? It was on this show called Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Gotta check it out.”

He told me I would like New Mexico. He told me they have a hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque, and all sorts of antique stores. He liked antiquing. He collected antique brass sprinklers and had one that looked like a frog that cost him $1,000.

“Once, I went to an antique store in Albuquerque and asked if they had any sprinklers. The guy looks at me and goes, ‘Do you know where you are?’ I just about died. Boy did I feel dumb.”

“Oh… right. The desert.”

I would see roadrunners all over, he promised. He told me he had chased roadrunners before.

“They’re fast,” he said, “but they don’t go far. Usually just hide behind a bush.”

And coyotes, too. I would see coyotes and roadrunners, but no sprinklers.

He told me about his girlfriend who owned a restaurant in Marco Island. He was a silent partner in the business.

“I have an interest in the restaurant. Well… I have an interest in her. Heh. She’s young. Very young. She’s 30 or 31.”

He wasn’t quite sure, but he didn’t mind the age difference.

“I like physical labor. You know, working outside? I helped a buddy of mine build an adobe house down in New Mexico once. It’s pretty neat. You just throw the mud and straw and water and shit all into a pile, and we mixed it up with a back hoe. Cut it into blocks, let it dry, brought it to the site, put the damn thing together.”

He warned me about the sun. It’s a lot more intense there, he told me. His dermatologist told him he had some pre-cancerous spots on his head that he has to get taken care of every year. This time, he remembered to wait until after Easter to get them removed. The family photos, he said.

His best friend’s name was Jen, and she weighed about 400 pounds.

“Amazing cook. Amazing. She taught me a thing or two. Her margaritas will blow your mind. I don’t know what she puts in them, but I have one and a half and I’m done for the night.”

His newest specialty was an appetizer that you could make a meal out of. Red potatoes, hollowed out and stuffed with chorizo. Then he would put some sliced chili peppers on top and bake them.

“Three ingredients. Best damn thing I ever made.”

“That actually sounds pretty good.”

Did I just say that out loud?

“It is. You have that with an ice cold beer? Little piece of heaven.”

We were preparing to land in Albuquerque, so he left me with a final warning.

“Watch out for the altitude. One drink will hit you hard.”

“Guess I’d better just have the one margarita then.”

“One? Hell no. You girls just call a cab.”

13 Comments; | Filed under: General

TequilaCon recaps.

For some reason, they are some of the most difficult entries for me to write. And not because I don’t want to talk about them, but because there’s simply too much to tell. It’s like when you meet up with an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time, and you both start talking at each other, quickly trying to fill in every detail you’ve missed over the years, and then you walk away feeling just as distant as when you began, and exhausted.

So instead of trying to recount every detail of this past weekend, let me describe some of the moments that defined it for me. Even just the key moments make for an annoyingly long blog-entry. But if I had to sum up the trip in one word, it would be magic, for so many reasons.

Home Sweet Home
This year, instead of being split up among different hotels, we decided to rent a house for the TequilaCon Planning Committee. Dave, Brandon, Vahid, my friends Melinda and Reg (who typically make appearances on this blog as Natasha and Farnsworth), and I rented a house that made all of us squeal with excitement just about every 30-45 minutes. Well, I squealed. The men did whatever the masculine version of squealing is. Grunting? Chest-thumping?

Four bedrooms, five fireplaces, gourmet kitchen, gorgeous décor, back patio, fire pit, bottle of wine waiting for us… we couldn’t stop commenting on how beautiful it was. It was the embodiment of sheer joy. I was so excited about the house that I completely forgot to take any photos of it, so it will just have to live on in my memories, and in the link at VRBO.com. But for the record, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to want to rent a hotel room again on a vacation. Ever.

Waking up and eating scrambled eggs and toast slathered in creamy Irish butter and sitting around a high wooden table with friends you get to see far too infrequently in a house too beautiful to describe with magpies flying across the yard as the sun streams in was almost too much for my heart. I was in a constant state of giddiness.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to live with three incredibly funny, intelligent, beautiful men at once, let me illustrate:

[Clickety, clickety, click. Bloggity, blog, bloggity. Twitter, tweet, tweetify. Format, upload, resize. These boys are addicted, I say. ADDICTED! And I loved every minute of it. I want to live with them forever.]

Apples to Apples
On our first night there, we were still exploring the house and stumbled across the game cabinet. They had all sorts of puzzles and board games, including the greatest game ever invented – Apples to Apples. Trying to describe the game to people and make it sound fun is almost impossible – like trying to retell a joke whose punch line you don’t have quite right.

No wait… I think it goes, So, the Rabbi says, ‘You think that’s bad? You should see her sister!’

Nevertheless, let me attempt to explain the rules: there are green apple cards and red apple cards. Everyone gets a bunch of red cards with nouns on them. The judge lays down a green card with an adjective on it. All the players lay down the red noun card (facedown) they believe the judge will feel most accurately fits the adjective, and the judge gets to pick the winner. If the judge picks your noun, you get to keep the green card. First person to get seven green cards wins the game. Now, usually any board game that involves parts of speech is not exactly one people are lining up to play, but trust me when I say that it’s a blast.

The reason I’m going into this much detail about a board game is because Apples to Apples is responsible for a new hip expression that all the kids will be using soon enough. During one round, Dave was the judge and he laid down the adjective, Extreme. I don’t remember what all the noun cards were, but his decision came down to my card, which was Adolph Hitler, and Melinda’s card, which was Sharks. I’ve found in the past that if you want to win at Apples to Apples, you should always play the Holocaust card whenever possible, because it’s really hard for someone to not choose it as the winner without coming off as a total jerk.

So clearly, I knew I was going to win when I threw down Hitler. The man is responsible for murdering over 11 million people. Does it get more extreme than that? Apparently for Dave, it does, because he chose sharks. Sharks. I lost it.

“Are you kidding me?! Sharks are more extreme than Hitler?! ADOLPH F*CKING HITLER? What are you talking about?”

“I’m not saying Hitler wasn’t extreme, but sharks have been around way longer than him. They’re still killing people today. They’re killing machines.”

“Sharks are fish! They’re not extreme! They’re not evil and calculating! They go off of instinct! They’re just hungry!”

“Look, the Discovery Channel devotes an entire week to sharks. That’s extreme. It’s really extreme. In fact, it’s shark extreme.”

shark ex·treme (shärk’ ik strēm), adj. exceedingly intense; the utmost or highest degree of extremeness: I’m a big fan of rollercoasters, but even I couldn’t handle the Blazing Phoenix at Six Flags over Molokai – that was shark extreme!

So there you have it. Sharks are apparently more extreme than Hitler.

Taos
On Friday, we loaded into our tricked out Toyota Sienna minivan and I drove us up to Taos for the day. The trip became a battle of navigators because we had Brandon with his vixen GPS and Dave with his iPhone and Reg with his map from the house. Taos is not on the 3G network, so Dave was helpless. Brandon’s possessive whore of a GPS kept trying to keep us from Taos. So, ultimately, it came down to Reg and his old school lines on paper that got us to our destination.

We visited the Taos Pueblo, where we bought blueberry and cherry pies made in adobe ovens and took pictures of skulls.

Then we drove to the Gorge Bridge which crosses the Rio Grande. I was terrified that the high winds would blow away my newly purchased cowboy hat, but found the courage to soldier on to try to get a few good photos. It was far more stunning than I was able to capture in these photographs.

But really, the most memorable thing that happened to me in Taos was Lindsey. Melinda, Reg and I were wandering through some of the shops when I saw a sign that said, Horsefeathers. Pre-Loved Hats & Boots. Magic Tricks.

“Magic tricks?!” I yelled. “Ohmigod! We have to go in there!”

As we walked through the door, we were greeted by a smiling man with pale blue eyes, wearing a pink shirt and a cowboy hat.

“Like your lids, ladies,” he said.

When he saw the momentary look of confusion flash across our eyes, he touched the brim of his hat.

“Oh, thank you! We just bought them.”

We wandered toward the back of the store where all the pre-loved boots were located. Mel and I were jealous that all the boys had already found used boots the day before, so we were committed to finding our own.

The owner came back to check on us and asked us where we were from. He introduced himself as Lindsey, and we talked for a while about the time he visited Chicago many years ago with his son. He saw a Cubs game and ate at the Billy Goat Tavern.

“Cheeborger, cheeborger. I sure loved that old Saturday Night Live. And that Gilda Radner, boy she was funny.”

He was charming and polite and looked you directly in the eyes when he spoke to you. He was everything you hope for in a Southern gentleman. Lindsey told us to holler if we needed any help, and he walked back to the front of the store.

I gravitated toward two different pairs of boots – one was a very old, vintage beat up pair that had clearly seen their share of clearing brush. Paint splotched, the leather worn down on the toes, they were $88. The other was a much fancier and stylish pair, in far better condition. They were $295. I had one boot on each foot when I walked to the front of the store to check out the full-length mirror. Lindsey looked at me, looked down at my feet, then pointed to the $88 pair and said, “Those are your boots. They fit your style. They fit you. Those are yours.”

And he was right. He sold them to me for $60 even. I was giddy.

As I left the store, I remember thinking that I didn’t see any tricks anywhere, but I know without question that Lindsey was pure magic.

The Reminiscing
An hour or so before TequilaCon began, we all headed over to the venue, The Pink Adobe, to make sure everything was in place. After countless hours of research, Vahid had settled on the most perfect location for the event. We sat outside and sipped drinks in the breeze and admired our new boots while we waited for guests to arrive.

Brandon and I started talking about how this whole event began, with me asking two people I had never met to come visit me in Chicago, for no other reason than the fact that I loved their writing and wanted to hang out with them. Why did they agree? It’s so crazy.

We talked about how I was excited and nervous when they arrived, and how amazing and special it is that five years later, we are still dear friends and still meeting up to laugh and meet new people and eat and drink. I started to get choked up, and then my 12-oz Maker’s Mark arrived just in the nick of time.

The Event
The TequilaCon gods blessed us once again by leading us to a private room upstairs. Bloggers started filing in, greeting each other with hugs and laughs and I knew it would be a good year. I got the chance to talk to people I met in Philadelphia last year, to finally meet bloggers I’ve known for years in the virtual world, and to get to know brand new bloggers.

The smaller crowd seemed to make for more mingling than in TequilaCons prior, and I was so happy to see everyone having a good time. Everyone loved the customized tequila bottles and lanyards and buttons that Dave designed, and Vahid was busy at work applying temporary tattoos.

Then, at one point in the evening, I walked out of the bathroom and straight into a familiar and wholly unexpected face – Dustin. He was the only member of the planning committee from Philadelphia who wasn’t going to be able to make it to Santa Fe, but unbeknown to all of us, Dave had arranged just days earlier to fly him down for the event as a surprise.

Upon seeing Dustin’s angelic face, I, of course, immediately shoved past him and punched Vahid on the arm, because that is how Sicilians show their love. When I realized that Vahid had been as duped as I was, I turned to Dave and then became a weepy pile of goo, which is also how Sicilians show their love.

From our magical house to my magical boots to my magical friends and all the magical people who made their way to Santa Fe, I couldn’t have imagined a better weekend. I can’t thank everyone enough for coming to this event and bringing their stories and humor and kindness and making it the wonderful celebration that it was. I can’t even imagine what next year has in store for all of us.

[My heart, she explodes.]

[For more photos, go here]

15 Comments; | Filed under: General, TequilaCon

If I had the energy, and it weren’t 1:15am on a school night, and I hadn’t already drunk five glasses of box wine while talking to fellow bloggers, I would tell you so many things.

I would tell you about the long journey I took to upgrading my site to WordPress.

I would tell you about my friend kris, who not only designed my new beautiful masthead, but also endured hour upon hour of my total blog ignorance, with questions like, “Wait… I have an FTP client? What’s that?”

I would tell you about the wunderkind, Nikki, who migrated my site and designed my new template so that I didn’t have to attempt to do it myself.

I would tell you that most of you probably will never see this entry, because I haven’t yet figured out how to forward my RSS feeds to the new platform.

But most of all, I would tell you about how UNBELIEVABLY excited I am to finally be packing my bags for Santa Fe, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of TequilaCon with bloggers old and new!

Once again, innumerable thanks to my dear friends and fellow TequilaCon Board Members, Dave, Vahid and Brandon for their tireless efforts at planning this event. They don’t know it yet, but I plan on slipping some peyote into their margaritas and marrying them all in a moonlit pagan ceremony. Our only witnesses will be a cactus and a prairie dog, just as the gods intended.

I am the very definition of giddy with anticipation right now!

Safe travels to everyone who will be making the trip to the Southwest this Saturday. I can’t wait to hang out with all of you!

And my apologies to everyone else for all the template bugs I am undoubtedly leaving behind. Thanks for your patience while I fumble my way through WordPress…

21 Comments; | Filed under: General, TequilaCon

A few months ago, I was harassing my friend Natasha about how I’ve known her for over 15 years and I’ve never been invited to her family’s house for Passover Seder.

“That’s not true! I’ve definitely invited you over!”

“Oh really? When?”

“Dozens of times!”

“Never!”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“That’s terrible! How is that possible? Well, you’ll have to come to our house for Passover this year.”

“Finally!”

Side note: I’m pretty sure she has invited me before, but sometimes it’s important to lie to get your point across.

Last night on the train ride to her parents’ house, I spent the entire time researching Passover on the most reliable source I could find: Wikipedia.

“Will your dad be wearing a white robe?”

“Robe? Like a bathrobe? What are you talking about?”

“No, it says here that the leader of Seder wears a white robe.”

“Hmm. I’ve never heard of that. I think that’s wrong.”

“But it’s on Wikipedia!”

“No, he will not be wearing a robe.”

“Will there be a lamb shank?”

“Yes.”

“Will we talk about the plague of boils?”

“Yes.”

“Will we eat bitter herbs?”

“Yes.”

“Will we eat parsley?”

“Yes.”

“Will we dip it twice?”

“Yes.”

“Will your dad hide some matza for me to find and then give me a prize?”

“The afikoman? Yes. Well, the children are supposed to look for the afikoman.”

“But sometimes do the new guests get to do that, too?”

“Yes.”

“Will we drink four cups of wine?”

“Well, I’ll probably be having a gin and tonic, but yes, we’ll all drink wine.”

“Will we all get to read some scripture?”

“The Haggadah.

Yes. And if you’re lucky, you’ll get a good part, like the one that talks about putting the hand on the asses.”

“That would be so great.”

When we all gathered around for dinner, I took my place near the head of the table so I would be close to the action. On the cover of my Haggadah, I saw the words, “Sponsored by Maxwell House Coffee, good to the last drop®,” and immediately knew this was going to be an evening to remember. I followed along as all the guests read, ate my bitter herbs at the appropriate time, and pantomimed washing my hands along with everyone else. Natasha elbowed me when it was my turn to read, but I was more than ready.

I got to read one of the parts where everyone holds up their wine glass, and it made me feel like the father of the bride or maybe a motivational speaker. They were hanging on my every word, and until I was finished, they couldn’t put down their glasses. I had them completely in my control, and the rush of power was invigorating. I never wanted it to end.

Side note: I’m pretty sure that’s not the intended emotional response to reading from the Haggadah, but I’m new at this.

Every time I thought we were done eating, another dish would be passed around. There was delicious lamb and turkey, short ribs and carrots, mashed potatoes, some things whose name I forgot but they were like round cornbread cakes made out of matza, asparagus, little dishes of nonpareils, sweet jelly fruit slices, cake with berries and cream… it was wonderful.

The one thing Nat forgot to tell me about was the gefilte fish. I’m pretty much game to try anything – I can’t think of any food I wouldn’t at least taste, unless it was still alive – but nothing quite prepared me for the sensory overload that is sweetened carp that has been puréed and reconstituted into little semi-gelatinous slabs. One of the other guests recommended I slather on the horseradish, but even at a 2:1 horseradish to fish ratio, I couldn’t finish it. Then I noticed that about half the guests – including Natasha – hadn’t even touched theirs. I had been punk’d, Seder-style.

Once we were through with dinner, the hunt for the afikoman was on. It was really a competition between another Seder newbie and me – we weren’t even going to give the children a chance. After I tore through the house looking through drawers and cupboards and behind furniture, Natasha’s sister, Baby G, informed me that her dad is “not much of a hider,” and seconds later, my rival found it lying on the kitchen table, hidden in plain sight. Punk’d again.

We ended the evening with the time-honored Jewish tradition of gathering around the television and watching the previously recorded episode of Lost, before heading back into the city.

Afikoman loss aside, my first Passover was a total success. If any of you have Jewish friends and you haven’t been invited to Seder, I highly encourage you to start pressuring them now. Because we goyim are just like vampires to the Jews – we have to be invited in, but once we pass through their doorway, it’s an eternal party.

14 Comments; | Filed under: General

What is that, you ask? Well, aside from being irrefutable evidence that my mother is the BEST gift-giver in the entire universe, it is also quite likely the tool that will one day save my life. Maybe even this weekend.

Late last year, my friends Natasha, Dee-Dee and I signed up for a beekeeping class. It seemed so far away at the time, but now, that weekend has finally arrived. This class has a different significance for each of us. Dee-Dee wants to support local farmers, Natasha wants to overcome her fear of bees, and I want to find financial freedom in the form of sweet, sweet bee honey. Goodbye corporate America, hello Aunt Jenny’s Old Tyme All-Natural Honeycombs and Bee-Related Products!

I’ll sell honey, honey combs, honey sticks, honey candy, honey cakes, honey butter, beeswax candles, beeswax lip balm, beeswax hair gel, honey hair gel, honey lip balm, bee pollen makeup, bee stickers, bee coloring books, and peanut butter and royal jelly sandwiches.

Through what can only be described as fate, my friend Dr. Greene dressed up as a sexy beekeeper for Halloween this year, and ever the perfectionist, he bought a real beekeeper suit for the costume. When he came to visit from DC last weekend, he handed me a bag containing the suit. Natasha claimed dibs on it, since she’s kind of scared of bees, but we’ll share it as we tend to the hives.

I hope to have all sorts of bee-related stories after this weekend, unless I discover that I’m allergic to bee stings, in which case, please tell everyone that I died doing something I loved and was passionate about all my life. Or at least ever since I read about the class a few months ago.

PS: That’s an antique bee-smoker.

15 Comments; | Filed under: General, Uncategorized

Well, when I posted this entry a couple weeks ago, who would’ve thought that the correct answer would’ve been “a”? I know I certainly didn’t.

Pre:

During:

Post:

I mean, not to look a gift ceiling in the mouth, but I was kind of excited at the prospect of having the entire thing cave in before it would get fixed. But now, since I was so patient with my landlord, not only did he fix the ceiling, but he ran all over my apartment fixing other random things I wasn’t even worried about.

And plus, now how am I going to get rich if it doesn’t involve a lawsuit from being partially paralyzed by my upstairs neighbor when she and her bathtub came crashing down on top of me? This is a bunch of crap. Well, I guess I always have my 401k to fall back on. Oh wait…

13 Comments; | Filed under: General

“Hey, thanks for that thing the other day,” she says to me as I’m standing in the hallway.

I flash an uncomfortable smile as she follows me onto the elevator. I quickly pop in my headphones so I can buy myself some time.

Thanks for that thing? What thing? Which other day?

I have absolutely no idea what she’s talking about. This has been happening to me a lot lately. Absentmindedness. Disorganization. Conversations and events all becoming blurry outlines, like trying to recall the details of a dream.

Lately, I’ll leave people voicemails, and when they call me back a day later, I have no recollection of why I called them. So now, I mostly send emails to give me a written record of what I so desperately needed from them.

It started to worry me a bit, but then I read this article about brain decline, and I realized that it’s not my fault.

According to this study, my mental powers peaked at age 22, and now, only hours away from turning 38, apparently the only thing I have left to look forward to is being able to retain my vocabulary until I hit 60. After that, people should expect nothing more from me than rhythmic tongue clucking.

Back on the elevator, I pretend to busy myself with my iPod but really I’m racing through my mental archives to unearth some memory of what I possibly could have done for this woman.

Thanks.

It was something she needed. Something important enough for her to make a point of mentioning it again. I must have gone out of my way. Probably wasn’t even my responsibility.

For that thing.

A sales report maybe? An article on a competitor, perhaps. Did I do a research project for her? That’s what we have a research department for. I don’t report to her – why is she giving me busy work?

The other day.

So it couldn’t have been yesterday, or she would’ve said yesterday. That means it was probably last week. Maybe even longer. Was this from February? And she’s just now getting around to thanking me?
So I bust my ass to pull together a huge research project for her – which isn’t even part of my job description, by the way – and clearly must have gotten it to her in record time, or she wouldn’t have been smiling, and all it warrants is a hallway thanks? This is bullshit. Utter bullshit. I’m telling you right now – I know I’ve probably said it before, but this time I mean it – this is absolutely the last time I do a thing for her.

18 Comments; | Filed under: General

A few months ago:
Me: “Hey, it’s Jenny, from Apartment 1A. There’s a crack in the ceiling above my bathtub, and I saw some drips of water coming down from it. Seems like a potential problem.”

Landlord: “Hey, thanks for calling. I’ll send the guys over this week to check it out.”

Later:
Me: “Hello?”

Landlord: “Hey, so the guys checked it out and said it looks like an old crack.”

Me: “But I saw water dripping out of it a few days ago.”

Landlord: “Okay. Well, probably what we’ll need to do is tear out the ceiling, find the leak, fix it, replaster everything, and then repaint. Your bathroom will probably be out of commission for a couple weeks.”

Me: “Ugh. That sounds like a drag. I guess if you’re not worried about the crack, I’m not worried about it.”

Landlord: “Okay.”

A few weeks ago:
Me: “Hey, remember when I told you about that little crack in the bathroom ceiling? Well, now it’s huge, and I came home to about a quarter inch of sand and mud splattered all over my bathtub and shower walls. Seems like a real problem.”

Landlord: “Ugh. Thanks for calling. I’ll send the guys over this week to check it out.”

Later:
Me: “Hello?”

Landlord: “Hey, so the guys checked it out and said they can’t recreate the problem.”

Me: “But I had to sweep sand out of my bathtub.”

Landlord: “Okay. Well, probably what we’ll need to do is tear out the ceiling, find the leak, fix it, replaster everything, and then repaint. Your bathroom will probably be out of commission for a couple weeks.”

Me: “Okay, sounds like we need to take care of it.”

Today:

Which of the following will happen first?
a) My landlord’s guys will fix the ceiling
b) My upstairs neighbor and her bathtub will crash through my ceiling, killing me instantly
c) My upstairs neighbor and her bathtub will crash through my ceiling, but miraculously, no one will get hurt and we will have a really funny story to tell people, except for the fact that I will have seen her naked, which will make our rare encounters by the mailbox even more awkward than they already are
d) I will break my lease in order to take advantage of the buyers’ real estate market and finally get that condo with a huge patio I so often dream of
e) I will get a lung infection from whatever toxic mold is certainly seeping into my apartment
f) A nest of cockroaches will tumble down onto my head while I am in the shower, but I will be in the middle of conditioning my hair, so I will just have to deal with it
g) Jimmy Hoffa will tumble down onto my head while I am in the shower, killing me instantly

Place your bets now, folks!

19 Comments; | Filed under: General

A couple weeks ago, I met my friends Natasha and Farnsworth at a Mexican restaurant for dinner. While I debated between a margarita or Negra Modelo, I heard Natasha say, “Ohmigod – did you see these appetizers?”

“What?”

“This says it has grasshoppers in it!”

“What? Where? Ohmigod – we’re totally ordering that!”

Farnsworth was all for it, but Nat was less than enthusiastic. She called over the waiter to clarify if they really meant to say grasshoppers, or if it was perhaps a bad translation. Indeed, they meant grasshoppers.

“They’re very good. Crunchy, salty! You put some guacamole on them… very good!”

Since crunchy and salty are my two favorite food groups, I was immediately sold. When the appetizer arrived, it looked innocuous enough – just a flour tortilla folded in half, with some guacamole and salsa on the side. I was actually a bit disappointed, since this was hardly the exotic dish I was imagining.

But then I decided to add some guacamole like the waiter suggested, so I opened up the tortilla and for a moment, stared in disbelief at what was simply a giant pile of curled up dead bugs inside a tortilla. Nothing else. No cheese, no lettuce, nothing to disguise the fact that these were bugs we were about to eat.

I looked over at Natasha, and she just sat there shaking her head. I didn’t want to seem repulsed by the idea of eating bugs, even though that is entirely the appropriate reaction, so I grabbed one and handed it to Nat, then took another for myself, and Farnsworth selected one of his own as well.

“We have to eat one plain, first.”

I popped the bug into my mouth and was immediately surprised by how salty it was. It tasted kind of burnt, very crunchy, and overall, not bad. Aside from the legs. And the head. And the antennae.

Natasha made a slight grimace as she tossed her grasshopper into her mouth, chewed very quickly, and washed it down with a big sip of margarita.

“Hey! These grasshoppers are kind of good,” I said.

Nat raised her eyebrows, “Okay, I don’t think I’d go that far. And let’s be clear on something – grasshoppers, my ass. These are crickets. Crickets they probably caught behind the restaurant a couple hours ago. Or they got them from the snake food department at Petco.”
An inexperienced bug-eater might think, cricket, grasshopper… what’s the difference?

But as I looked down at the open tortilla filled with brownish black bugs, I realized that Nat was right. These were absolutely not grasshoppers, and most definitely crickets, as evidenced by their striking resemblance to cockroaches.

And she was also right about their country of origin. No way were these free-range Mexican grasshoppers. We were staring at a plateful of street crickets that were probably caught in the back alley using a net made out of some old pantyhose.

But crickets or not, we had paid $10 for some sort of bug taco, and damned if we weren’t going to eat it. I quickly folded the tortilla back over the bed of insects, and slathered some guacamole and salsa over the top. We cut it into three pieces, and quickly ate them.
Farnsworth was completely unfazed by the experience, and was actually disappointed when the waiter said they were all out of some worm appetizer they had on their specials menu.

The following week, Nat called me at work to tell me about an episode of Survivor Man she had just seen.

“So they drop him off in the middle of nowhere, and by the third day he’s totally starving because he only has a granola bar left.”
“Mmm hmm…” I said, as I tried to multi-task and update some PowerPoint slides.

“And then he finds a big grasshopper and gets all excited about having some protein. So then you know how he prepares them?”

“In a tortilla?”

“Nope. He twists the head and slowly pulls it off so it takes the whole stomach with it. Then he puts them on a stick and roasts them. Know why he roasts them?”

“Uh uh.”

“BECAUSE GRASSHOPPERS CARRY TAPEWORM! They have tapeworm, Jenny. Are you happy now? Are you satisfied? Now we’re all going to get tapeworm because you just HAD to have bug tacos.

“Guess it’s a good thing we were eating crickets, then, isn’t it?”

“Funny.”

“Look, Nat. Your theme for 2009 is courage – you said so yourself. This was just a good opportunity for you to overcome your fear of eating giant piles of bugs. And my theme for the year is discovery, so I got to discover something new, too. We all win.”

“So basically what you’re telling me is that for all of 2009, you get to discover disgusting things that I have to be courageous enough to eat?”

“Exactly.”

“2010 can’t get here soon enough.”
*********************************************************************
As a side note, I just took this quiz below and, although there wasn’t a question relating to grasshopper consumption, I’m still not entirely thrilled with these odds. I guess as long as I keep up with my annual tapeworm shots and weekly self-exams, I should be fine.

[via Neatorama]

17 Comments; | Filed under: General

I tend to be a creature of habit, and nowhere is that more evident than in my lunch routine. I gave up decades ago on trying to pack a lunch to work because the plain truth is that a) I’m lazy, b) that would require me to cook and/or grocery shop, and c) dammit, I just like going out for lunch and yes I know how much money I’m wasting.

But because I don’t want to have to think about where to go each day, I tend to frequent the same three to four restaurants each week. One in particular is right across from my office, so I eat there at least once, maybe twice a week.

Today, after grabbing a table and heading over to fill up my soda, I noticed the manager walking toward me in a deliberate fashion. I quickly shifted my cup from Coke to Diet Coke because I didn’t need him up in my business.

“Hi there!”

“Oh, hi!”

“I wanted to come talk to you because…”

And this is where about twenty things ran through my head at once.

- Because I saw you mixing Coke and Diet Coke and we don’t allow that here…
– Because someone just ran off with your purse and I thought you should know…
– Because I’ve been trying to build up the courage to ask you out…

But what he said was, “…because we’re kicking off a promotion to name some of our menu items after customers who come here often. And I know you’re somewhat of a regular here, so I wanted to see if you would be interested in participating. My name is Bill, by the way.”

Strained smile, eyes looking around, I said, “Jenny.”

“So for example, on the menu, we might have an item called ‘The Jenny’ and that would be whatever your favorite meal is here. It’s a way to recognize some of our best customers.”

Even tighter smile, eyes darting from side to side, I said, “Uh… so you want to put my name on your menu…”

“Just your first name.”

Mouth pulled back, baring teeth, eyebrows raised, eyes squinting, I said, “Uh… can I get back to you on that?”

“Oh sure, but I need to submit all the candidates by Monday. I’m here every day, and I know you’ll probably be in again, so just let me know! Thanks!”

Shoulders slightly releasing, teeth unclenching, I said, “Yeah, uh, thanks for considering me…”

When I went back to the office and told my co-workers what had just happened, they were all shocked and disappointed that I didn’t jump at the opportunity. This was my one chance at fame, they said. Now I’ll be telling people years from now about how I almost had a cool sandwich named after me.

But that’s just it. I don’t get a cool sandwich at this place. I don’t mix it up and create something no one ever thought of eating. Every week I get the exact same thing: chicken, rice and salad. And that’s exactly the way it’s listed on the menu – chicken, rice and salad. I don’t customize it, no additions or substitutions. No extra this or light on that.

I tried to explain this to my co-workers, but they didn’t get it. They couldn’t possibly get it because they don’t have the keen gift of foresight that I was born with. Because the idea of being in line behind some stranger next week when he orders “The Jenny” is absolutely horrifying to me. I can see it all playing out:

So what comes with The Jenny?

It’s chicken, rice and salad.

Chicken, rice and salad? So what’s the difference between that and the chicken platter?

Same thing.

Then why is it called The Jenny?

Dunno. Some dumb marketing scheme, I guess.

Wow. The Jenny sucks.

And then it would just escalate from there.

Don’t get The Jenny, it’s the worst.

The Jenny gave me food poisoning. Now every time someone mentions The Jenny, I vomit.

I hate The Jenny.

The Jenny totally isn’t worth the money.

That’s all they give you with The Jenny?

I tried The Jenny once. Never again.

What’s so great about The Jenny? They should just call it The Loser.

It did cross my mind to agree to be a part of the promotion, but to invent a whole new persona. Remarkably, for as often as I go there, they never remember what I order, so I could create some fabulous menu item that people would be proud to order. How do they know? Maybe Jenny is a vegetarian and substitutes eggplant for chicken in her sandwich. Who doesn’t love baba ghanoush? Or maybe Jenny is really exotic and eats lamb skewers with falafel and extra spicy sauce.

But then, what if I did such a good job at creating the ultimate lunch item that they chose it to be featured on the menu, and when I went back there, they kept trying to make me eat the fake The Jenny when all I really wanted was the old The Jenny?

“Hey, Jenny! So I guess it’ll be The Jenny for you today?”

“Mmmm… no, this time I think I’ll try the chicken, rice and salad.”

“Oh, so you mean you want The Kevin?”

17 Comments; | Filed under: General