I needed a real laugh after watching Anne Hathaway and James Franco try to pry one out of Hollywood’s finest. I just watched an old episode of Flight of the Conchords.
Season 3! Season 3!
I went to a bridal shower for one of my sorority sisters this past week-end. The bride-to-be is one of the youngest of my sorority sisters from my pledge class. We used to joke her that she was the baby, that we were bringing her up, bringing her along.
At her shower the other day, I noticed that she, her sister, and her bridesmaids are still in their twenties (late twenties, but twenties nonetheless). Other guests included her mother, her aunts, her grandmother and other family and friends that were older than me. Two other of my sorority sisters, one the same age as me, the other slightly younger, were also in attendance. Talk turned to weddings, parties and receptions. One remarked that if she were to do it again, she would love to have another big wedding. The other said that if it were her, she’d keep it small and quiet.
“Why have another big wedding?” I ventured. “Let’s just have a big blow out party just because. Or let’s do it for the next big birthday. What’s that going to be anyway?”
*Pause*
“Thirty-five,” we said in unison.
Wow.
I don’t know if my other two sorority sisters felt what I did just then. It was this odd sense of being in an age limbo. Not quite as young as the bride to be and her attendants, but not quite as mature as the mother of the bride and her guests. Maybe I’m over-thinking, building up that mountain out of nothing.
I never have given much thought to how old I am. I don’t feel old. I don’t look old (at least not according to the bartender at McCormick and Schmick’s). And yet, discovering that my next big birthday number is 35 was jarring.
Fact: I’m closer to 35 that I am to 30.
Turning 30 wasn’t a big deal for a several reasons.
1. Like I said, I’ve never given much thought to how old I am
2. Now that I share my birthday with Coever, truly, it’s her birthday, not mine.
3. 30 for me fell on the first day of school for the girls and my priorities were elsewhere.
When I turned 25, I had a big blowout at our house. We hired a DJ, had it catered, had all manner of friends and family. Truth be told, I liked the planning and the execution of the whole thing. I love getting together with family and friends; I wish we did it more often and on such a large scale. I’d do it again for 35, but I think it would be more poignant for me because I, in fact, would be turning 35.
When you’re mistaken for 17 one day and then realize you’ll actually be twice that age in a matter of months, it’s easy to see how your nose can get out of joint.
What do you see here?
I’ve been blessed with good genes that will serve me in good stead as I mature. My parents are into their late sixties and are often mistaken for being at least 10 to 15 years younger than they really are. My brother, well, he’s 9 years older than I am and yet, there have been times when I’ve been mistaken for his older sister. I swear, he’s got a portrait of himself squirreled away in his attic.
I do have to laugh at myself, though, because I’m sure I’ve lead to you believe that I’m going to be 35 this year.
Not quite.
More like in 2013.
But hey, I’ve always been a planner. I’m just thinking ahead. You know, as you get older, the mind’s the first thing to go.
Yesterday’s insanely warm temperatures (hello, 71 degrees) had me wanting to shed the multiple layers that have been cocooning me against this winter’s nastiness. Certainly, I wasn’t about to strip down to a tank and some shorts, though I did see some crazies out there attired as such. I was about to swap out my Danskos for a pair of flip flops for the short walk to get the kids from school. Then I took off my socks and looked at my feet.
Ugh.
I have some funky looking feet. I know, I know, I said I was going to be nicer to myself, but truly, I’m just stating facts here. The last time I painted my toenails, I only did so because we were going to a Christmas party and I was wearing peep-toe shoes. Even then, I only painted the two toes you’d see through the peep hole. Yeah, I’m that girl.
I’m rough on my feet. I’m on them most of the day. I work out pretty vigorously either doing cardio training or pounding up and down the tennis court. My feet don’t stink, but they do sweat. I’ll even ‘fess up to having a corn and what looks like the beginning of a bunion. It’s atrocious, but I’ve earned it with all the pointy toed shoes I’ve worn over the years.
Add to that, the genetic quirk in our family known as the Bennett Toe. Left foot, second toe. Graciously passed down from my maternal grandmother, to my mother, to me, the Bennett toe, used to have me studiously avoiding open toed sandals during the warmer months. The toes just refuses to lie flat. The nail is a speck of calcium that refuses to grow flat, but instead rises out of the nail bed like a cone.
It looks like a boiled turtle head wearing a party hat.
Anyway, no flip-flops for me yesterday. I wasn’t ready to turn people to stone by having them cast a wayward glance at my hooves.
Last night while paging though pins on Pinterest, I kept seeing lots of tattooed feet. Words, phrases, names, world maps. All inked on the tops, sides and insteps of feet.
A friend of mine recently had her deceased grandmother’s name inked on her instep. She had saved her grandmother’s signature and had it transferred onto her foot as a tat. Very cool.
I go back and forth about getting some more ink (yes, I said more). I don’t think you’re ever too old, though DH would beg to differ. Still, I’m at a point in my life where the places I may have put something when I was in college are not the places I would put something now.
Morgan just looked over my shoulder as I was typing and remarked, “I’m never getting a tattoo because God gave me this skin and it’s beautiful just the way it is.”
Clearly, I’m doing something right, but just in case she changes her tune, I am SO printing this out for future reference.
So that funk I was telling you about? Yeah, it’s decided to settle in for a while. I’m still trying to beat back the blues, keeping up with my favorite things, but I’ve hit the wall. I really want to write, and yet, I’ve got nothing to say. I used yo do this exercise in my journals where I would just write, “I have nothing to say. I don’t want to write. What am I talking about,” and inevitably, I would end up with pages of verses and paragraphs that I would string into poems.
I think that’s where I’m headed today.
What started as a”I don’t really have much to say” type of post has morphed into a “Let me tell what happened to me” type of post. So, let me tell you what happened to me. I sliced off the tip of my ring finger cleaning the tub. Yes, if you draw blood with doing housework, it’s time to get someone else to do the housework.
Yesterday, in a fit of insanity, I decided to clean the bathtub. I was already wiping down counters, vacuuming carpets and sweeping floors like my name was Cinderella. I was in the girls’ bathroom, scraping dried toothpaste from the sink and turned to give the tub a wipe. Then I took a good look at the shoddy lick and a promise method I’d previously employed and decided to get serious with the Soft Scrub.
As I ran my cleaning rag around the rim of the tub, where the tile meets the tub itself, I felt a sharp stab of pain in my finger. Then, I noticed red spots dotting the newly cleaned bathing surface. I looked down at my hand. Hmmm, you’re missing part of your finger there, chief. What the what? Turns out, a piece of tile close to the faucet some how cracked and separated from the wall. In my zeal to clean, I just ran my hand around and basically scored the top of my finger off. Nice.
Still, I’m not going to let a missing fingertip slow me down. I’m not Jamie from Top Chef. I had a lot of momentum going behind this cleaning binge and it was going to happen now or never. I grabbed a washcloth, wrapped up my finger and kept on cleaning. The bleeding eventually subsided, but I found myself in a situation like when I sliced off the tip of my other finger using that flipping mandolin to make onion rings. Yes, there is a lesson to be learned in all this.
I need a housekeeper.
And a chef.
Oh, and a transcriptionist (yes, that’s a real word) to get all of these thoughts down while I tape up my finger tips.
Remember when the name Disney immediately conjured up thoughts of a mouse and his best girl?
How can you not smile when you see this?
As the holiday baking season truly gets underway, I am wishing for more workable (granite) counter space, a double convection oven, a center island with spacious seating, and that Samsung 28 cu. ft. French Door refrigerator. Throw in a Viking range with a pot filler faucet? *le sigh* I love Country French with neutral granite counter-tops, brushed steel fixtures, and creamy, blond cabinets. I guess I can make do with cherry cabinets if I have to. I mean, I’m not totally inflexible.
I really wish I liked cheese.
I feel like there is an entire gastronomic universe out there that I am unable to reach, constrained by the persnickety-ness of my own taste buds.
If anything, I’m a finicky cheese eater. I’ll eat lasagna and pizza, but wrinkle my nose in distaste at the thought of a cheeseburger (What? Sully the taste of hormone enhanced ground beef?!). A grilled cheese sandwich? No, thanks. A cheddar topped Triscuit? Pass. And to all the holiday hostesses out there, I’m truly sorry that I can’t get behind the softened cream cheese with the red pepper jelly.
I can only barely trick myself into slathering a cracker with some pecan and Kahlua topped brie.
I could eat this with a ladle AND slap my mama
. . . if it weren’t for the brie.
I doubt that Robert Frost and his “should I” or “shouldn’t I” food choices were the source of inspiration when he wrote “The Road Not Taken,” but I see myself as that traveler, standing at the fork in the road, deciding, deciding, deciding. Ultimately, I take the non cheese path and indeed, that has made all the difference.
One of my dreams is to live abroad. While I have had the chance to visit several foreign countries, I’d really like the opportunity to make some European city or town my home address. And yet, who can truly live in Europe and not eat cheese? It’s everywhere! In France, I was forever ordering things sans fromage or pas du fromage. The waiter’s looked at me like, “Mon Dieu! Zut Alors! Nous sommes en France! Il ya un millier de types du fromage ici!“
No need to get snooty! Or is it snotty?
Anyway, the point is I love food. I enjoy cooking, I enjoy baking. I like the satisfaction that comes with a well executed recipe and the thrill that follows a well consumed meal. I made that pesto and spinach stuffed flank steak for DH a few weeks ago and seeing his surprise at a new dish, the pleasure of his first bite — it was like getting the high score in skee-ball.
I’ve been keeping up with a former college pal who is now a sous chef in DC. His posts are like transcripts from Top Chef, without Padma Lakshmi and her inanity. He was talking about a birthday dinner he treated himself to at the Ritz. His description of Humboldt fog goat cheese and its subsequent photo has me wiping drool from the corners of my mouth. See for yourself here. Yet and still, for as luscious as that cheese looks, for all of his exquisite descriptions, I just can’t do it.
I keep egging myself on, encouraging myself to be brave and slide a piece of cheese into my omelet. What’s a few grates of Parmesan atop some spaghetti? Some blue cheese crumbles holding hands with pecans and craisins in a salad? Ugh. I just can’t.
Oh, cheese, how I’d love to love you.
But alas, I cannot.
