Look What Santa Brought

November 29, 2010

Did I mention that one of my less glamorous holiday season tasks is to really tackle the basement purge?  We made some headway with our ill-prepared garage sale in October, but we are going to bring in contractors to properly finish the basement after Christmas and that means it has to be cleared out. 

I thought this might be motivating.

Isn't it pretty?

The name really says it all.

I’ve given P a choice — move his stuff into this lovely pod or take up residence in there.  I know the latter choice sounds mean, but in reality, it’s probably not much smaller than our first NYC apartment — he would really be just fine.  Yes, I do joke with him that he’s a borderline hoarder, but let’s just clarify now — he’s not — well, at least not reality show-worthy by any stretch.  And, yes, I’m becoming increasingly Type A  — so the ever-present boxes of old stuff aren’t so funny anymore.  Time to throw. the. shit. out.

Obviously I’m in the holiday spirit — threatening my husband and obsessing over a clean basement.  I’m great at parties. 

While visions of a clean basement dance in my head, I know it will take a while — I’ll keep you posted, if for no other reason than to keep us accountable.  In the meantime, maybe I should go back to more traditional merriment like making pie, drinking wine and Cyber Monday purchasing now.  Ho, ho, ho.

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Filed Under: Holidays, Project Colonial, That Which Drives Me Crazy, To-Do Lists Extraordinaire 3 Comments

The Day After

November 26, 2010

Sometimes tradition gets a little warped along the way. 

I’m referring to one of my favorite days of the holiday season, which is today.  Not because it’s Black Friday, but because it’s the day when my dad’s side of the family celebrates — in our own special way. 

This started when my aunt and uncle were in the restuaurant business.  They always had to work on Thanksgiving so they started hosting their dinner on Friday instead.  Yes, we have the whole turkey dinner, lots of friends and family, great conversation, tons of cocktails. 

But we also have a dirty little secret — an annual night of highly competitive and somewhat unorthodox gaming.  Catch Phrase is our Thanksgiving game of choice (come Christmas, I’ll cover Extreme Charades).

The instrument of competitive holiday evil

Quick primer for those who don’t know the game.  Basically, this disc of terror beeps with increasing frequency as it’s passed around a circle, while each person has a turn, and the opposing team gets a point if you’re left holding the game when it buzzes.  Your turn requires you to look at the word you get on the screen and describe it to your team mates until they guess it.  Sounds easy, right?  Wait until you’ve had four glasses of wine and a near-tryptophan overdose while trying to convey “Leningrad” to your equally disadvantaged team mates.

This all seems harmless enough on the surface.  But I need to reiterate that it’s *highly* competitive.  As in, yelling, screaming and utter intimidation — all in the name of advancing to the championship round (yes, we have so many people that we use a bracket tourney set up) and ultimately claiming the title.

Yeah.  We’re out for blood. 

The hard part is the arrival of a few newcomers every year.  These poor people — they arrive for a nice holiday meal and maybe they’ve been told we’ll play a game afterwards.  How sweet. 

Bwahahahaha.

Meanwhile, my cousin, my sister’s boyfriend and I are sizing up the newbies over dinner — their overall global knowledge, speed of response and academic background (would asking for transcripts be too much?). Because the teams are randomly drawn, you can really get hosed by having a new player on board.  Or my Aunt J.  She’s an awful player — truly — but she’s the hostess, so there’s a required level of acceptance/resignation that applies only to her.  A highlight of her Catch Phrase career was calling out “Uncle Ben’s Tavern” instead of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”  It’s true. Then there was my cousin’s neighbor who thought “Lasagna” was “Los Angeles.”  That one really cost us dearly and I have lobbied to never allow him to come back.  What a shit head.  If my kids ever turn into such a Catch Phrase liability, I’ll be so upset.  I have to start training them young.

Keep in mind that this all happens while wearing required, hand-crafted headgear to designate your team affiliation (Pilgrims vs Indians, Santa vs Reindeer, etc). So just picture some tipsy, screaming, competitive lunatics with homemade headgear and a beeping Catch Phrase disc.  It hits a fever pitch at the championship round with all eliminated teams gathered around as spectators.  I’m pretty convinced you can hear us down the street.  Really.

Anyway, it has been a few years since I was on the winning team but I’m feeling pretty good about 2010 — as long as I don’t get any dumb-ass newcomers.  Wish me luck.

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Filed Under: Entertainment, Family, Holidays 5 Comments

When Tradition Goes Up in Flames

November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
To warm your hearts, please gather ’round the virtual fire to hear one of my favorite — if not one of the strangest — Turkey Day celebration stories, as told to me by its participants.   All parties shall remain nameless to protect their future eligibility to run for public office or secure employment.

Picture a family with three adult sisters — we’ll call them 1, 2 and 3 to make it easy.  This family is in a weird place — the parents are in the middle of an ongoing divorce, the mother is dealing with some health issues and Sister 1 is on yet another infamous hiatus from her boyfriend.  There was a general lack of merriment all around this family, to say the least.

Sister 2 decided to host the Thanksgiving festivities at the place she shared with her boyfriend in Brooklyn.  It would be just them, Sister 1, Sister 3 (home from college) and the mother.  Nobody was really in the mood but they were pulling it together.  They managed to have a nice meal.

Dessert rolled around.  Sister 2, the hostess, has always been on the non-traditional side.  With all good intentions, she decided to try to smooth out the day with her own special blend of brownies.   So, her guests had a choice between the traditional, all-American pumpkin pie or the far less conventional Brooklyn brownies.  Sister 1 quickly ingested not one, but two of these Brooklyn treats. This is where running for public office could get tricky one day.

Oh dear.

At this point, the family is watching TV in a state of we-ate-way-too-much-and-doesn’t-this-year-just-suck.  Friends comes on (a family favorite) — specifically, the Holiday Armadillo episode.  Sister 1, now in a special post-brownie place, simply cannot hold it together.  In her mind, at that moment, this is clearly the funniest scene in the history of television and she fears she may, in fact, pee her pants.  Just take a few minutes and picture her predicament.

YouTube Preview Image

She had to collect herself.  She went into the bathroom and splashed some water on her face.  There were festive candles flanked along each side of the sink.  She had very long hair at the time.  Oh, and she wasn’t exactly on her A-game.  Here is her inner dialogue as later described to the group:

———–

What the hell is that fireball I see creeping up the side of my head out of my peripheral vision?

What is the awful smell?  It’s like someone’s hair is on…

Fire.  Mine.  My hair is on fire.

I should do something.

I can’t believe this doesn’t hurt. 

God my hair is long.  I really could use a trim.

And that fucking Holiday Armadillo — now, that is funny.

I should put this little fire out…

———

And she did.  No real damage done.  But do you know the smell of burnt hair?  It’s vile. 

She returned to the living room.  Sister 2 and her boyfriend are yelling, wincing — “Ew, that smell.  You set your hair on fire?  Oh God, just leave.  It’s awful.”

So she leaves.  The festivities had run their course, anyway.  Sister 1 gets on the subway.  It’s packed.  Sister 2’s neighborhood in Brooklyn was “in transition” but hadn’t yet approached the good side of transition yet.  People could be sort of tough.  On this particular night, offended by the stench of charred hair, a few passengers hopped up on liquid merriment start making sniffing faces and yelling “Whose hair is burnt?  That’s fucking nasty.”

Or something like that.

Sister 1 begins to cry.  The hair, the bluesy season, the yelling on the subway, the Holiday Armadillo — it’s all too much.  Apparently. 

She makes it home.  She calls her ex — they are on a break but speaking as needed.  She tells him the whole story.  He has no idea who the fuck the Holiday Armadillo is or what she’s saying.  But he gets the gist.  He asks her if her hair looks funny.

She goes to bed and wakes up to the smell of her hair and the muddled memories of the Holiday Armadillo.  To this day, it reminds her of her family’s most unlikely and bizarre Thanksgiving on record.

From that year forward, she opted for the pie.

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Filed Under: Family, Food & Drink, Holidays 3 Comments

Let the Madness Begin

November 22, 2010

It’s here — Thanksgiving Week.  The official kick-off to the holidays, a short work week and time to feast, gather, give thanks.  Maybe even rest (yeah, right).

I’m excited.  I’m a holiday dork — I love this season, even though it causes me all kinds of stress.  Every year, I vow to enjoy it more.  Some years I do better than others. Since I’ve had kids, it has become both more important to me to enjoy it and simultaneously more complicated/stressful.

And so it begins this year.  I have a few things up my sleeve this week.  We are going to P’s family for Thanksgiving Day and then off to my family for Thanksgiving 2.0 on Friday (there’s more coming on that soon).  We’re also planning to hit the holiday festivities in town this weekend.  And, on the more practical/less fun, yet highly satisfying side, there will be some purging of the basement — again.  Yesssss.  This time, I’ve upped the ante.  There’s a storage pod coming to our driveway and I’m going to be ruthless (purge, purge, purge).  I’ll fill you in when said eyesore arrives on our property.  I’m sure our neighbors will love our Sanford & Son look as they hang their lovely holiday decorations.

This time of year always brings up some great and even strange memories of past holiday seasons.  We’ve all got the bizarre-yet-funny-in-retrospect family stories, right?  I’m working on recapping one or two of those over the next couple of days, just to help get into the spirit.

In the meantime, let’s talk about the main event — the food.  Everything is pretty traditional fare in our family but I will share with you my mother’s crown jewel Thanksgiving dessert.  Hope that’s OK, Mom.

For those of you who, like me, find pumpkin pie a little too, well, pumpkinny, check out the Pumpkin Chiffon Pie (or, as we call it, P-Chiff).  It’s much lighter — at least in taste, no promises on the calorie front —  and I think much better than the traditional version.   And super easy.

Ev’s P-Chiff

  • 2 pie shells (graham cracker tastes best — psst, I buy mine pre-made but Ev makes her own)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 30 oz. can Pumpkin Pie Mix (make sure it says Mix, not straight pumpkin)
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups Cool Whip

Combine sugar, gelatin and salt in saucepan.  Blend in milk.  Cook and stir over medium heat until sugar and gelatin are completely dissolved.  Gradually stir mixture into beaten  eggs in bowl.  Slowly blend pumpkin mix into bowl.  Chill until very thick (about 2 or 3 hours). Gently fold about 1 cup of Cool Whip into mixture.  Spoon into pie shell and refrigerate overnight.  Top with Cool Whip.

Enjoy.  And remember, the recipe yields two pies — so keep one at home for yourself (it’s really good for breakfast — trust me on this).

* * *

Gwyneth/Glee Stuck Song Update:  No relief today.  She’s still singing in my head.  My friend Nessa said that this is called a head splinter, according to urbandictionary.com.  I asked her if she had a large cranial tweezer.

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Filed Under: Family, Food & Drink, Holidays 2 Comments

One Track Mind

November 21, 2010

I would love to know what causes a song to get stuck in your head.  We’ve all had it happen and sometimes it’s a couple of hours, maybe a day or two.

Well, I’m now going on five days since I watched the last episode of Glee, and in that time, Gwyneth Paltrow has basically moved in with me.

I didn’t even know the damn song (though it appears I’m the last one on Earth to have heard it), but I liked it right away.  The sort of old school R&B sound — some hybrid between maybe Al Green and a tamer Sly Stone — sucked me in, though it was pulled off by an Oscar-winning blonde, who, apparently,  has zero flaws.  (By the way, am I the only one who wanted Gwyneth not to be a great singer, to make the rest of us feel just a little better?  If she sucks at something, just one thing, that would be great.)

So there was the catchy song, over and over in my head, but not knowing the words was making it worse — or so I thought. I downloaded it and figured if I played it a few times I’d get it out of my system.  If I could sing along, instead of mumbling like a lunatic, maybe I’d be able to purge it from my memory.

Epic fail.  Now I know all of the words and it’s like an eternal repeat loop in my head.  My kids were dancing to it yesterday at breakfast.  P likes it too.  We need a family intervention for someone to come and take Gwynnie away.

I had some time alone in the car yesterday and blasted the radio in the hopes of deleting Gwyneth & Co from my head.  No.  I even resorted to Christmas songs.  Ugh, no.  I watched Thomas the Tank Engine with my son and figured I’d at least get the annoying Sodor tunes to take over for a while inside my mind.  No.  Nothing is working.  And I like the song (somehow, still) but please — somebody, make it stop. 

I may have to be hit in the head, hard.

In the meantime, I figure maybe I shouldn’t suffer alone.  So, here — welcome to my personal hell.  Enjoy. 

YouTube Preview Image

Who’s on Glee next week?  I should prepare myself now.

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Filed Under: Borderline Neuroses, Entertainment, That Which Drives Me Crazy 4 Comments

Morning Glory

November 18, 2010

One of the big trade-offs of moving to the suburbs was dealing with a daily commute into the city.  I knew I wasn’t going to love it but, in the grand scheme of the moving equation, it seemed tolerable.  What I didn’t know is that NJ Transit is one of the most poorly run operations in the history of modern (or even ancient) transportation.

Take this morning, for example.  I’m, as usual, running my ass off to make it to the train on time.  This entails missing a belt and shoving an oatmeal down my throat while kissing my kids goodbye and trying to find the car keys that I misplace every single day.  It’s kind of like a scene from Groundhog Day (which I hated as a movie but enjoy the everyday reference).

I speed through town with years of pent up road rage (remember, I hardly drove for the 16 years I lived in the city, so I have some vehicular aggression to catch up on).  This involves tailgating, honking, cursing and trying to fumble for the $5 that I’ll need to park (don’t get me started on this).  Wait, that’s not $5 in my bag, that’s the shopping list I couldn’t find last weekend at the store.

Are you feeling the early warning signs of a stroke with me yet?

Then.  I arrive at the station, somehow on time, basically in a full sweat (it’s 44 degrees out, FYI).  I run up to the train platform and take out my Blackberry to see what work I am inevitably behind on already.

And I see this email from NJ Transit.

Raritan Valley Line train #5714 up to 20 min. delay, due to disabled train ahead.  Sent: 7:27 AM

This isn’t good.  Not good at all. Thank God I don’t have a 9:00 meeting.

Then, several minutes later, this.

Raritan Valley Line trains are subject to 10-15 minute delays in both directions due to slippery rail conditions.  Sent: 7:35 AM

First, what happened to the disabled train as the cause of the delay?   Second, notice that the delay is now affecting all trains on the line.  And, most importantly, WTF are slippery rail conditions on this non-icy and quite sunny morning, you ask?  Excellent question.  If you’re new to NJ Transit lingo, let me enlighten you. I was told a few weeks ago (because they use this phrase chronically) that “slippery rail conditions” means we have a problem with wet leaves. 

?Wet leaves?

Yes, folks, the entire NJ Transit operation is easily thwarted by the presence of wet leaves on the tracks. 

?Look, I’m no engineer.  Maybe it is a legitimate issue.  I have slid in my car before on wet leaves, so it’s definitely feasible.  But doesn’t it seem ridiculous?  Shouldn’t we be able to solve for this after, say, hundreds of railway-operating autumns in the Mid-Atlantic where leaves have predictably fallen, right on schedule?  I don’t know the answer but I’m going to need something better than this.  I’m in PR, after all.  Let’s put some spin on this, I say.

?OK, Fordeville, you want better?  How’s this:?

Rail Update: Raritan Valley Line trains are subject to 20-30 minute delays in both directions due to disabled train.  Sent: 7:46 AM

Note that we’re back to the disabled train.  I guess the perilous wet leaves were properly disposed of in the last  11 minutes.  Meanwhile, we have various unhelpful PA announcements at the station regarding ongoing delays.  The train platform is really getting full but most folks don’t seem too bothered.  I guess they are used to it.  I was about to have an embolism. ?

Raritan Valley Line train #5422 is cancelled ; passengers may use train #5902.  Sent: 8:40 AM

?Oh, my God.  Did I mention I hadn’t had any coffee yet?  And that I pay $133/month for this bullshit?  (By the way, NJT, learn how to spell “canceled” correctly since you have to use it so frequently.)

I think someone at NJ Transit told the person hitting the email button to just stop talking because we had sheer radio silence for a while.  And then later, the train finally arrived.  I somehow even managed to get a seat.  I spent the ride thinking about selling our house and leaving the suburbs.  Surely the NYC subway system wasn’t so bad, right?

?Did I mention that NJ Transit is only half of my journey? Once I am free of their nonsense every morning, I have to deal with the PATH train, whose torture tactics make NJ Transit look like Amateur Night.  I’ll give full attention to that another day.

In the end, it took 1 hour and 45 minutes to travel the 35 miles from my home to my office.  You have to ask what’s in store for me once we hit the freezing mark.  How will NJ Transit manage this?  More to come.

Oh, and here is the email that can only be described as the pinnacle F-U of the morning.  Note that I received this after finally arriving at my desk.  Perfect.   

Final Rail Update: Raritan Valley Line trains are now operating on or close to schedule. 

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Filed Under: Places Near and Far, Work Stuff 4 Comments

A Walk With an App

November 16, 2010

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’ll remind you that I have little to no skill in photography.  It’s not my gig.  I’m better with a keyboard.

But I do have two kids, a pug, some fall foliage and a camera, and I’m sort of obsessive about trying to document a lot of everyday happenings — even if my skill doesn’t match my will.  So that means, unfortunately, that you have to suffer through my bad photos now and then as part of the blog posts. 

Now I’ve added my newly found iPhone photo apps into the mix.  It’s like having no skill on steroids (or acid, if you look at some of these colors). 

We went out for a walk this past weekend and everything was downright stunning — the weather, the colors and even the toddler dispositions.  It was an alignment of the suburban planets.

Out came the photo apps.  Before each photo, I gave the baby my iPhone and told her to shake it (which she loved, as I prayed it wouldn’t meet an early demise landing on the sidewalk).  Many of you who have been iPhone-indoctrinated long ago  — yes, I’m light years behind — know that shaking it will randomly change up the lenses and film on some of the apps to give you a different look each time. 

So I guess what we have below is some photographic roulette, courtesy of a 16 month-old and me.  We have the same level of competence with a camera, so it seemed fitting to include her as my apprentice.

Here’s our app-fueled, color-tastic trip around the neighborhood.  I feel a little like Dorothy after the  tornado.

My assistant, mentally framing the next shot.

And back at the ranch (well, the colonial):  Fun with mud and trains — basically, the Holy Grail for a 3 year-old boy.

I like the whole retro-color look.  It reminds me (as I assume the app marketers intended) of the types of photos my parents and grandparents took when I was a kid.  I wasn’t overcome with nostalgia as much as with some residual jaundice from the overblown yellows.  But it gave our walk a color boost and my non-skills a little help, both of which were welcome.

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Filed Under: Family, Places Near and Far 2 Comments

Back in Business

November 15, 2010

My husband has so much patience.  He can wait and wait for things to be precisely as they should be.  He is highly methodical, very detail-oriented and he never backs down from a challenge.

So when the Trojan Horse virus punks came along and seized the full contents of our computer about six weeks ago (more on that here and here), they were messing with the wrong guy.

P was on a mission and, let me tell you, his resolve paid off.   The stand-off has ended.  Fordeville wins.  The home computer is up and running.

In my infinite impatience, I was already thinking about which replacement computer we should buy.   We were done for, I figured.  Not P.  He was researching the virus nonsense during the work day when he had time, and then kept bringing home new CDs, memory sticks, etc., to download various remedies onto our imprisoned computer.  Foiled, foiled and foiled again — until one night, I heard this coming from our upstairs office at some ungodly hour:

“Yessssssssssssssssssss.  Got it.” 

This was followed by the joyous sound of Windows booting up — something we had not heard in weeks.

We had won!  But not.  By the next day, the Trojan Punks had resumed control.  This was like a carefully played chess match.  Not only were we dealing with strategy, but also some psychology and trickery. 

My husband *loves* this shit.  Not me — I was over it.  I continued combing through the holiday circulars for our new computer.

This went back and forth for weeks.  Trojan Punks up, then P resumed control.  Then foiled again the next day — on and 0n.

Until this weekend, when there was a series of major breakthroughs.  (Don’t ask me what they were — I was out looking for the new laptop.)

Last night, P was finally ready to cautiously claim victory.  Everything seems to be working — at least for now — but who knows what kind of damage/access occurred on the back end.  We’ll see, I guess.  Let’s just say that we’re not doing any banking on that computer in the near future.  

And if any of my blog posts were particuarly weak in the last month, perhaps I’ll blame it on the Trojan Punks.  You didn’t like that entry?  Well, they posted in my name.  Why yes, I’m sure their goal in methodically taking over our machine was to wield their power through my blog.  They just needed a platform.

Anyway, hats off to P:  Engineer by day.  Anti-Trojan warrior and general online badass by night.  ?And truly the patience of a saint.

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A Constant Ringing

November 11, 2010

Dear Former Owner of 908-xxx-xxxx (also known as my recently acquired iPhone number):

Maybe you didn’t mean to skip out on what seems to be all of the bills you ever had.  I’m not judging.  But can you do me a huge favor and tell the six collectors who phone me (formerly you) regularly that we are not the same person?  Can you tell them that a phone number is not a Social Security number — that it actually can have multiple owners in a lifetime?  They seem to be mystified by this.  They think I have created an elaborate ruse to get out of my (your) payment obligations. 

It started out as annoying.  Now it’s really getting under my skin.

You don’t know me but maybe you can make it stop and just call these guys back.  I don’t care if you pay them or not — just tell them that you are you and I am me, and that a common phone number over time does not bind us by blood or finances.

Thanks so much.  Now I’m going back to my 917 area code life.

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Filed Under: That Which Drives Me Crazy 2 Comments

The Canine Evil Eye

November 11, 2010

The poor dog had to have three teeth pulled yesterday.  He’s pretty pissed off right now.

I’m sure his pissiness exists on several levels.  First, there was the 12 hours of fasting beforehand (for general anesthesia).  This is a dog who doesn’t miss a stray scrap of food from the kids’ errant table manners.  He’s the resident Swiffer.  So 12+ hours without a morsel is pretty catastrophic for him (I would feel the same way).

Empty stomach, stitches in his mouth, shaved paws (for the IV).  I feel really bad for him.

And for me, to a lesser extent.  His surgical pain was physical, while ours is monetary.  Perhaps there were hidden nuggets of gold in these teeth.  If I typed what the vet charged me to extract them, I might cry.  If I put it in writing, it would then be true.  So let’s not.  Let’s just focus on getting the patient to feel better.  Let the kids throw some extra lunch scraps on the floor today — he deserves it.

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