Somebody alert the FCC

I am currently experiencing a wardrobe malfunction.  I am wearing a wrap dress that has a zipper.  This morning, I put on the dress, zipped it up <insert dire foreshadowing music here>, and wrapped it, tying a cute little bow.  Then I skipped off to work.

At 4pm, I was in the restroom  and noticed that I did not zip the zipper up the whole way.  Alas, not even half of the way.  There is a big gaping hole on my side that should be zipped.

Luckily, I have a tank top on underneath, so there will be no decency fines a la Janet Jackson.  But I still looked really stoopid all day.  I’m not sure how my brilliant observational powers managed to completely miss this until late afternoon.

And now the zipper is stuck.  So I’m just wearing my jean jacket all day over the beshitted zipper and pretending it’s a fashion statement.

The End

The story of Micah and the zucchini

Two updates!  Both relevant to this picture!

First, Micah.  We still have our little Micah Mouse, and I’m shocked that no one has adopted him in the last five months.  He’s really come out of his shell.  He loves Rob and his foster sister Roxie, and he copies everything that Dr. Kevin does.

We took him to The Barking Lot to get a haircut a few weeks ago.  He went in a big white, marshmallow fluffball, and came out looking like Mr. Bigglesworth.   We seriously wondered if he was the same dog.  Judging by the way he continues to pee on Rob, though, we’re pretty sure it’s Micah.

Each time our rescue organization gets an inquiry about him, I get scared that we’re going to have to give him up.  At the same time, I think about trying to rent a place with five animals, as we may end up doing, and it just doesn’t seem feasible.

So I guess we’ll just enjoy having him as long as we can.

Second, the garden!  Remember when it looked like this?  Well, the plants have now grown quite a bit, enough to produced that enormous freaking zucchini.   We planted two 3 foot by 3 foot raised garden beds, and have managed to harvest the following: about ten strawberries, one enormous zucchini, two kohlrabi, two heads of broccoli, and one head of cauliflower.  We also have a butternut squash cooking and some small beets.  We also have lots of tomatoes.

We planted two red cabbage plants, but they are still small, about softball size – and they should have been done about a month ago.  We had some beautiful eggplant flowers, but the only one that started to form a fruit got eaten by a varmint.  We planted pumpkins as well but have not been having any luck there, either.

Regardless of what we got, it’s been really fun to watch the plants grow over the summer.   Just like it’s been fun watching Micah become a normal dog.

One last thing: my rescue group is raising money for a one-year-old Shih Tzu named Phillip.  He needs surgery and will die without it.  I understand the hard economic times (and in fact, just wrote a post about how cheap I am), but I wanted to pass along the website in case you were so inclined.  Thank you!

Oh, I have a blog. Right.

Wow.  I have not updated this here blog in a long time.  Updates!

Firstly, Rob and I went to Dallas to check it out.  My company was nice enough to send us on a “thinking about it” trip, where so we could check out the area and look at some living possibilities.  Some observations:

1. I should really call it “Dallas,” because we never actually made it into the city of Dallas.  My office is located out in the boonies in a suburb of Fort Worth.
2. I am not sure I am ready for the suburbs.
3. I did really like Fort Worth.  It reminded me of Milwaukee, a little bit.  It’s free to park after 5, so we just parked our car and walked around the town – to a movie, to Barnes and Noble, and to restaurants and bars.
4. It was hot.
5. But it was a dry heat.
6. I drove more in four days than I have in the last four months.
7. We saw some really nice houses.  They were cheap.  They were close to the office.  They were also far away from the city.
8. Everyone is so nice.  Not just the people at my office, though they were really helpful and welcoming.  Complete strangers are nice and talk to you without demanding money and/or sexual favors.

So, that’s that.  Our house is on the market now, and we’ll see what happens.

Secondly, I have started rereading Twilight.  Although I don’t know if you can say I’m “rereading” it, since I didn’t actually read it the first time – I listened to it on audiobook.  I had forgotten how smoldering hot Edward is.  Why is Rob not a vampire and what can I do to rectify this situation?

Thirdly, have you ever had Moosetracks ice cream?  I have, and now I have five additional pounds on my ass to prove it.

Well.  That is all that is exciting in my world.  How about you?

Cheap

People, I have become a bit … cheap.  Frugal.  Whatever.   I always get excited when I can go home at the end of a work day and I can tell Rob that I spent ZERO DOLLARS that day.

Which is all well and good.

Except that my company has not been affected by the recession and likely will not be, so the vast majority of my co-workers wouldn’t think twice about asking for money for charity.  And I feel like an asshole when my co-workers come around to my desk and ask me to sponsor them for the Hunger Walk my company’s doing.  Or ask why I didn’t contribute to the company charity so that I could wear jeans every Friday.   Or want to know why I’m not participating in the Wii Bowling tournament.  Etcetera.

Whatever I do, I feel like I did something wrong.  If I do give, I’m mad that I spent money I shouldn’t have.  If I don’t give, I’m feel like an asshole for saying no to charity when I still live in a nice house and eat three meals a day.  (Okay, four.  Whatever.)

I know there’s a middle ground here, but I’m not good with those.

Where am I?

Yesterday, I had some dental work done.  My mouth?  So not happy with me.  Neither was my dentist, frankly.*  I have to go back tomorrow and am shaking in my flip-flops.

When I went to bed last night, I decided to take a leftover Tylenol with Codeine** and 1mg  melatonin to make sure I’d be able to sleep.  I fell asleep at 10pm.  At 10:45, Rob tried to wake me up.

Him: “Baby?  Your work called.”

Me: “Huh?”

Him: “Your work.  That same lady that called before.”

Me: “Where am I?”

Him: “You’re home.”

Me: (I look up at the picture hanging from the wall.  This cannot be home.  That is not our picture.  We must be in a hotel.  Why are we in a hotel?  Why is work calling me in a hotel?) “This … is home?”

Him: “Yes.”

Me: (This is not home.  Why is Rob telling me we are home?  Work.  Why is work calling?  Why didn’t I hear the phone ring? What should I do?)  “Huh.”

Eventually, I figured out that I was at home and drugged, not in a hotel, and that I needed to call into the office.  Fortunately I didn’t have to actually attempt to solve any problems.

* Just kidding, Dad!  The dentist loves me!

** I got this prescription filled after my D&C.  I have only ever used it for two things that have been more painful than recovering from outpatient surgery:  my first period following the miscarriage (seven weeks later), and the aftermath of the dentist.

You or Someone Like You

I chose You or Someone Like You because it sounded perfect for me, given my nerdiness with books and love of crappy reality TV. In this novel, Anne, the narrator, is married to Howard Rosenbaum, a famous producer in Hollywood. Both Anne and Howard have doctorates in literature, and one of Howard’s colleagues asks Anne to come up with a reading list for her. Within weeks, Anne is holding book groups for half of Hollywood and starts unintentionally playing an important role in which projects get made and which ones get shelved.

About a hundred pages into this book, I thought it was going to be a cliche plot – the story about the Hollywood starter wife being traded in for a younger model. Or the story about the wife who has always been in the background, supporting her husband, and then her career takes off the husband gets jealous and steps out on her in order to feel important again. Etcetera. Still, I found the book enjoyable in spite of these perceived cliches because of all the literature that’s interspersed and woven into the plot. Anne uses novels and poetry to tell her reading groups – as well as the reader – about her life, about how she sees the outside world.

Then I felt the novel suddenly became a totally different book about religion and God and Judaism and the Holocaust. Though I guess it’s not completely fair of me to say that it became a different book – the groundwork for Howard’s religious crisis was laid early on. I just never saw it coming, much like Anne.

I found the second part of the book completely fascinating. I had never thought about the rules of Judaism, how the religion demands that the world be separated into Jewish and Gentile – as something racist and wrong. That the outrage over the Nazis singling out the Jews to die in the Holocaust was hypocritical, as it was just the inverse of what Jews have always done by singling themselves out. I found this idea pretty unsettling, actually, and I’m still am not sure what I think about it.

There’s a lot in the book. Fun details about how Hollywood works. Name dropping of celebrities (J.J. Abrams attends the book group.). Literature and how it can illuminate life. Religion. Homosexuality. The meaning of life.

I really enjoyed this and would recommend it.

Good Things I Wish You

I’ve read a couple of books – Sister, Midnight Champagne – by A. Manette Ansay, and always enjoyed them. When her new book came up on my HarperCollins list, I was pretty excited and knew that I wanted to read and review it.

This book weaves in the love story of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms with that of the narrator, Jeanette, and a German man, Hart, that she meets through a dating service. Jeannette is writing a book on the two, and over dinner learns that Hart also has an interest in the two composers. They become friends and he helps her translate letters and diary entries.

I found both love stories compelling, though I didn’t necessarily understand them. I felt like I was trying to understand Jeannette and Hart’s relationship, just as Jeannette was trying to understand Clara and Brahms’. In both relationships, the couple starts out intending only for a friendship over a shared passion – in Brahms and Clara’s case, the piano; Jeannette and Hart both have an interest in Brahms and Clara’s story and in their music. As time goes on, they become closer and deal the age-old question of whether or not men and women can ever be friends.

Ansay includes pictures of Schumann and Brahms and excerpts from those letters and diaries in her novel, which I liked. Aside from giving the reader a little of the history, it made Jeannette’s research feel more real and more authentic.

There are a couple of sections where the conversation between Hart and Jeannette is put on the left and right side of the page, respectively, so that the reader can see where interruptions occur (and frequently are ignored). At first, I thought there was something wrong with my book and found it a little distracting. However, it was kind of interesting to read a conversation like that; it felt a bit more real.

One thing that I really liked is the title of the book. It’s taken from a letter that Brahms wrote to Schumann, and it’s so bittersweet – this longing and wishing for intimacy and closeness, while knowing that it’s futile. Also, being an English nerd, I get a kick out of metafictional things; I enjoyed the fact that the narrator is writing the novel that the reader is reading.

Overall, I would recommend this. It’s a quick, interesting and thought-provoking read.

Dallas

We at the Blue Soup household have been having some discussions about my taking a transfer to my company’s Dallas office.

Because I am a nerd, I like to make lists.  Here is my current list of pros and cons.

Dallas – Pros:

1. Big-ass house, small-ass mortgage.
2. All closing costs and moving costs to get us out of current big-ass mortgage would be covered by my company.
3. No more horrible, 8-month long winters.
4. Sometimes it can be fun to start over in a new place, to wipe the slate clean, and change up old habits.
5. I like the office down there better.  It’s smaller, quieter, and calmer.  I would still talk to all my friends in the Chicago office just as often as I do now over IM and the phone.
6. My parents are very supportive of the idea and talked about moving down there as well.
7. I think I could wangle a promotion and a raise out of it.
8. More and better quality margaritas.

Dallas – Cons:

1. No more white Christmases.  Though I suppose we can always go to Wisconsin for Christmas.
2. Texas is a red state.  It is a bright fucking red state.   I am not sure I can handle living in a state where the news network of choice is Fox.
3. My friends, obviously.  I have an awesome group of friends here.   I would really miss everyone.
4. Summers.  Horribly hot summers.
5. Making new friends is hard.  Starting over socially is hard.
6. I don’t think I could ever find a book club as awesome as the one I currently belong to.   I would really miss those women.  Perhaps I could Skype into the book clubs?
7. I like living in a city.  I like walking places.  I like taking public transportation and reading my book on the train.

You know what I think it comes down to?  I think moving to a new city for three or four years would be fun, and I would be totally up for it.  It’s – it’s thinking of myself as a 45-year-old, SUV-driving, surburban Texan (hopefully) mother that sort of freaks me out.  It’s not that there is anything wrong with being that – it’s just not what I’d pictured myself to be, somehow.  I’m not sure it’s who I want to be.

Anyway.

Larry the Lobster

Last weekend, Rob and I took care of Sophie and Max, our friends’ dogs.  Our friends were in Boston, and to say thank you for taking care of the pups, they brought us lobsters.

Live lobsters.

I love lobster.  I think it’s totally delicious.  But the idea of throwing something that’s alive into a boiling pot so that I can eat it just freaks my seafood-eating vegetarian shit out.   It seems inhumane and wrong.

I just … couldn’t handle it.  The thought of the live lobsters in our fridge all night – ew.  Rob assured me that they wouldn’t be crawling around in there eating our sour cream, and that they were well packaged, but still.  And the next day, I pictured myself coming home from work just as Rob tossed the lobsters into the pot.  Hearing the screams.

So I called him from the deck to verify that the lobsters had met their maker before I opened the door.

This goes against every belief that I have as a conscious, responsible eater.  I don’t actually have a problem with eating meat, my beef (har har!) is with the industrial food complex.  Since I became a vegetarian, I’ve thought that if you eat meat, you should be able to kill the animal yourself.  Because I couldn’t, I didn’t eat meat.  I did think that I could fish, though, which (along with some rather serious dietary deficiencies) caused me to start eating seafood.

I learned that I can’t kill a lobster.  Sorry Larry.  You were delicious, though.

So, I guess lobsters are out for the time being.   However, I’m pretty sure that I could kill me some salmon.  That stays on the menu.

Could I respectfully request that no one bring a live salmon to my house anytime soon?   Thanks.

Stuff I’ve Been Doing

1) Jizzing in my pants re: True Blood being back!   Though I am finding it very difficult to comprehend how I am going to be able to have the massive crush on Eric Northman the TV character that I do for Eric Northman the book character.

It’s just – long, dirty blond hair doesn’t really do it for me, I guess.

2) Trying to figure out how to get some freelance writing gigs.  I’ve had luck with craigslist (I sold an article about my identify theft.  Woo hoo!) and have been doing some writing for ecopywriters.com.  So far it’s hasn’t paid particularly well, but I’m hoping when I figure it out I’ll be able to make some extra money.  If anyone has any advice, please let me know, as I have no idea what I’m doing.

3) Eating delicious vegan ribs at RibFest!  I loves me a festival with fake meat.