I'm going to hell

So I'm sitting there with Curtis, watching the Democratic debates on CNN, and the camera pans to the audience and lands on Stevie Wonder sitting in an aisle seat among all the other celebrities.

"Stevie Wonder?" I sputtered. "Why does he need such a good seat? Doesn't he just need to be able to hear what's going on?"

Book of the week

Every once in a while -- not often, just every few years -- I become a mini-survivalist. I don't move to a shack in the Idaho wilderness, a la the Unabomber, or start honing my knife skills. It's more a matter of looking through the cupboards and drawers and realizing that, if disaster were to strike this very moment, I wouldn't have enough toilet paper or canned tuna to make it through the weekend. And so I start stockpiling -- again, not huge amounts, but a little extra dried pasta here, a couple of boxes of "strike anywhere" matches there. Things I will use no matter what and that will give me peace of mind when all hell breaks loose. Because it will, someday!

What prompted my current mini-mania was running across this list of 100 items that are bound to disappear quickly should the worst happen. (Last night I showed a copy of this list to Curtis, and he asked me, "What is it you think is going to happen?" "Um. An earthquake? Or maybe a huge blackout, where grids in multiple states go down at once. Or a terrorist attack! Yeah, an earthquake is a lot more likely than that last one," I responded.) Yes, the source of this information is highly suspect, but the list itself seems more or less sane. As I perused it, I mentally checked off items: "Yes, I have a can opener. Yes, I have a propane-powered stove. I have several air mattresses and a 200-gallon water storage tank and a switchblade. But damn, we sold that generator! What are we gonna do now?" Although we could use some extra food stores, I realized we own a startlingly large number of items that could be thought of as "survivalist."

Last night, while we were snuggled in bed, I started talking to Sean about building a small shed in the backyard that could be powered by solar panels mounted either on the roof or on the south wall. As luck would have it, I bought the plans for just such an outbuilding a couple of years ago from the ReadyMade magazine shop, and I'll bet it could be adapted to accept solar power. Sean was, as usual, enthusiastic and encouraging, even suggesting that if I used a trailer hitch as the foundation (so that the whole shebang could be moved), I wouldn't have to worry about getting a building permit. Sweet Sean, probably assuming I want a little room to call my own, when really I'm hoping to ensure a spot to charge my laptop and perhaps even power a heater or fan if the power fails in the rest of the neighborhood. Earlier in the evening, when I was feeding a new batch of sourdough starter, I started fantasizing about building a woodburning masonry oven in our backyard; when our starving neighbors are making do with stale Pop Tarts and moldy muffins, we'll have fresh-baked bread straight from the oven!

So... the Book of the Week. Somebody dumped a copy of When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes on one of my displays last night, and I noticed it when I was cleaning up this morning. I met the author, Cody Lundin, a few years ago and was impressed by him -- he's short but powerfully-built, and looks ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. Also, he treated me, a fat girl with no apparent physical coordination, like someone who could handle anything life threw at her. I recalled that the list of 100 quickly disappearing items had mentioned that survival guide books would be among the first things to get snatched up, so I took a look through his book. It fell open to a page that describes how to cook mice directly in an open fire, and I knew I had to add this book to my library.

Complaints department

This morning the store manager showed me a neatly typed, polite complaint letter she had just received. The writer was complaining that he had overheard one of our employees, in a transaction with a completely different customer, refer to an author's "alias." The complainer felt that the employee should have used either "pseudonym" or "nom de plume," and he had written to inform the manager of this egregious grammatical error on the part of our employee "in the spirit of cheerful helpfulness."

"Honestly," the manager said to me. "Don't people have anything better to do with their time?"

A month or so ago she received another letter of complaint, which she showed me at the time, from a woman who was horrified by the dog-themed display in one of our windows. The display features a book entitled Designer Dogs, an attractive photo book of purposefully-crossbred dogs like puggles and labradoodles. The letter-writer was a breeder of purebred dogs and felt these mutts are polluting the dog gene pool or something, and that the bookstore was being "irresponsible" for promoting them via this particular book.

Customers really do complain about weird things. Not just complain, but actually take the time to lodge a formal complaint. A few years ago I recall helping a lady buy a globe as a gift. Globes aren't my bailiwick, but I did some research for her, helped her select a particular style, boxed it up, and took it upstairs to be giftwrapped. The whole transaction took quite a bit of time but went smoothly. At the end of it, the woman thanked me profusely and I told her it was no problem at all; we may even have shaken hands.

Later, she called the store to complain to a manager that I had said "no problem" instead of "you're welcome." Apparently, that was all she took away from the transaction.

Nothing, though, beats a weirdo letter -- not exactly a complaint -- that our webmaster received several years ago from a regular customer at another bookstore he was managing. The customer had berated a bookseller over the phone, and P. stepped in and told the customer to shut up and stop giving his booksellers such a hard time. The next time the customer came in, he handed P. the following letter, which P. has kept a copy of and shared with me today:

Kind Sir**********:

I am compelled to offer a sincere apologia for my rather abrasive dialogue
during recent overtures to the extraordinarily learned & ENVIABLY
POLITE++++++++++ staffers at [bookstore]. There is no need for me to raise an
eyebrow, let alone my voice, in their direction inasmuch as they've been
inordinately courteous/solicitous & superogatorily generous with their time
& the deference toward me no matter the time nor the volume of my at times
cavalier approach toward their GENUINE DESIRE to please this misanthropic fellow
from the Bronx. A thousand pardons, I am genuinely SORRY for having
exasperated some of your scholarly associates. [This last sentence is underlined
twice in the original.] In closing, it is mandatory that I proffer
additional praise for the INNUMERABLE interludes whereby I've rung, asked for
some "information" about an author and they've provided me with copious data on
said subject sans ever saying, "T____, what has this got to do with selling you
a book?" In the future, I shall endeavor nay unwaveringly ACT as they do
and this reciprocal magnanimity on my part commences NOW, Saturday eve, July
12th.

SINCERELY,
T____

One good reason to live

Last night, Norman, Curtis and I were discussing the sad, untimely death of Heath Ledger. We all agreed that all the rumors about drug use, depression, etc. are nothing but pure speculation. I contended that his death could not have been a suicide because he had a masseuse scheduled to arrive at the house, and who would kill himself before a massage?

Norman asked me if I thought the "masseuse" was really there to provide a "massage."

"Even more reason for him to live!" I cried.

Comparison

Part of my job -- probably the part I like least -- is setting up the big display windows outside the store. It's hot, dusty work, and I don't enjoy working in confined spaces. Fortunately, I only have to change the windows a few times a year, so I put a little effort into each display I set up. For instance, here is an array of dog books and merchandise that is due to come down soon:

Brilliant? No way. I wouldn't even say it's one of my best efforts. But it's eye-catching and has some variety (not to mention some weird items, such as a book on how to throw themed parties for your dog). I'm not ashamed of it. Still, it looks like just about every other window I've ever dressed. Ho hum.

When I feel insecure about my work, I look at the window display in the used bookstore across the street from us:

There's a lot of glare on that window so it may be hard to see. Let me draw your attention to a bit of the detail:

What the hell is that? I'd be offended by the complete lack of caring if I weren't so wigged out by the strangeness. It makes me feel a LOT better about my own display windows.

I feel safe here

(via xkcd)

Life's too short

Last night, about an hour into I'm Not There, I leaned over and whispered to Norman, "How long is this movie?"

"A little over two hours," he whispered back.

Shit. I slumped back in my seat and sighed loudly. I think Norman added something about how the movie was bound to get better soon, but my head was so full of angry, buzzing thoughts that I didn't really hear him. Fifteen minutes later, I'd had enough.

"Norman," I said, quietly but very firmly,"I hate this. I absolutely hate this and I'm leaving." I believe that caught his attention: I don't think Norman has ever walked out on a movie in his life. But as soon as I said the words, I felt so much better. After all, I didn't need to stay and torture myself with misery; I didn't owe anyone a ride home, and I believe my imminent departure revealed the direction any post-movie discussion would take. I grabbed my purse and coat, and by the time I hit the lobby I was feeling good enough to wave a cheery good-bye to the kid at the ticket counter. Yeah, my walking out cost me $10.50, and it means I won't honestly be able to say I watched every movie on this year's List, but so what? It also means that I rescued an hour of my life that would otherwise have been spent watching the worst movie I've seen in years.

Is there much to say about I'm Not There that critics haven't already said, and no doubt much more eloquently? In case you're out of the loop, it's that movie about Bob Dylan (sort of) starring, among others, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, and a little black kid as Bob Dylan (sort of). I think Heath Ledger was playing an actor who was portraying Christian Bale's version of a Dylan-esque character in a movie-within-the-movie, but I'm not sure. (Did you even understand what I was trying to say in that last sentence? I didn't think so.) By the time Richard Gere showed up, playing, no doubt, yet another manifestation of Bob Dylan, I was so pissed off and confused that I threw in the towel. It might have helped me if any of the characters in the movie had actually been named Bob Dylan.

Right now I am trying to decide whether handing ten-and-a-half bucks over to the box office constituted paying for the privilege of watching director/screenwriter Todd Hayes masturbate in public or letting him take a dump on me. I have the feeling it was both.

Assessment

Overheard conversation between a couple browsing the psychology aisle:

HE: This is a much more engaging psychology section than the one at Barnes and Noble. Their section is just crap for women who can't get their lives together and are looking for a man.

SHE (frowning while staring at the pages of an open book in her hands): ....

HE: I, uh, I guess it's not crap if you really need it.

Execrable dialogue of the week

I admit it. Just as I have a weakness for big, dumb movies (The Day After Tomorrow, National Treasure), I also have a weakness for big, dumb novels. Case in point: Blasphemy, the latest bad book from Douglas Preston. I have read, and to a certain extent enjoyed, several other bad books by Mr. Preston, but his latest one is unusually lame.

The really bad dialogue appears on page 160. Wyman Ford is a new member of a team of scientists who have built and are trying to run a supercomputer. One of the team members has just told him that there's a small possibility that running the computer at 100% power might create a black hole that could sink to the earth's core and swallow matter until the earth is destroyed. Kate, another team member, tells him not to worry.

Ford lowered his voice. "Kate . . . Don't you think even the smallest possibility is too high? We're talking about the destruction of the earth."

"You can't shut down science on outlandish possibilities."

"Don't you care?"

Kate flared up. "Damn it, Wyman, of course I care. I live on this planet, too."

I always feel like somebody's watching me

So... who's reading this blog, anyway? If you've arrived here, by choice or otherwise, and you have a few spare seconds, please say hi -- I'd like to get to know my vast readership and visit their homes as well.

Last post today, I SWEAR

Because I felt so bad for my boss, with her birthday being a celebration of yucky-sounding fish, I went to Famima!! to pick up a few items so that we could celebrate National Bittersweet Chocolate Day in style. I bought some nice, expensive organic chocolate bars, and then I saw these things. Pocky Stix are nothing new to me, but I'd never noticed Men's Bitter Chocolate flavor before. Men's? What does that mean? It reminds me of the Yorkie, an irritating English candy bar that Norman insists on buying every time we go to Cost Plus. It's a solid milk chocolate bar, nothing special, but the packaging says, "Not for birds," i.e., not for girls. I think that's why he buys it. Anyway, the bitter chocolate Pocky Stix are superb, and I'll fight any man who tries to come between me and this new taste sensation.

Bittersweet

Today is National Bittersweet Chocolate Day, which I discovered via this site. My birthday is National Cheese Fondue Day, and Sean's birthday is National Pickle Day; my poor boss, on the other hand, gets to celebrate National Crab Stuffed Flouder Day on her birthday -- that's just sad.

Cinema paradiso

Entertainment Weekly has once again published their list of "The 25 Movies You Need to See Before Oscar Night." As mentioned last year, I willingly enslave myself to this list every year, dutifully seeing every movie before the big night. I'm in pretty good shape this year, as I've already taken in 15 of the 25 recommended flicks (those I've seen are in red):

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Atonement
3. Juno
4. Michael Clayton
5. There Will Be Blood
6. Into the Wild
7. American Gangster
8. The Diving Bell & the Butterfly
9. Sweeney Todd
10. Charlie Wilson's War
11. The Kite Runner
12. Away from Her
13. Eastern Promises
14. La Vie en Rose
15. I'm Not There
16. A Mighty Heart
17. Gone Baby Gone
18. The Assassination of Jesse James...
19. Lars & the Real Girl
20. Hairspray
21. 3:10 to Yuma
22. The Savages
23. Enchanted
24. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
25. Ratatouille

I'll be seeing Charlie Wilson's War tomorrow night, and La Vie en Rose is the next item in my NetFlix queue, so I feel I'm in a good position as the last-minute rush to Oscar begins. I admit, I made a couple of educated guesses that turned out to be blunders -- I figured The Kite Runner and A Mighty Heart were dead in the water so I could safely ignore them; now I need to track them down. I understand that EW's list is no award in itself and can be riddled with errors, but still I'm glad to see Casey Affleck's 2007 efforts, Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Jesse James, both made the cut. His performances in both were revelations to me -- who knew the kid could act?

Now the question is, will there be an Oscar ceremony this year?

Pinko!

Lucy tagged me with this quiz that figures out which presidential candidate is most aligned with your views. Lucy figures she is leaning pretty far to the left because her top three "matches" are Clinton, Edwards and Obama. To which I respond: Amateur! My top three matches are Dennis Kucinich (I love that little guy), Mike Gravel, and Bill Richardson. Not one of them stands a chance in hell of being elected, so it looks as if I'll be making some major compromises come election day.

Would you like fries with that?

Today the Los Angeles Times food section ran a lovely article about fried foods. Regina Schrambling, the author, tried to elevate the subject matter by focusing on various types of beignets, but the very first sentence of her article undermined her determined efforts by getting to the heart of the matter: "Deep-frying is the bacon of cooking techniques." Were truer words ever written? Last night, Norman and I split an appetizer platter of tortilla chips with artichoke dip, fried potato skins stuffed with cheese and bacon, breaded fried chicken strips, and onion rings, and while my arteries may never forgive me, I consider it money well spent. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to top the whole meal off with a deep-fried Snickers bar; since we weren't dining at the county fair, however, we had to make do with a slice apiece of pecan pie.

The Times article went on to test and rate six different countertop deep fryers. The person who tested them cooked a batch of breaded zucchini strips in each and evaluated their performances. All well and good, but do you think she bothered to include her recipe for deep-fried zucchini? Noooooooo. Deep-fried zucchini, served with a side of bleu cheese dressing, is one of my favorite things in the whole world, and I feel profoundly cheated. Consequently, I have spent much of this evening scouring the net for deep-fried food recipes, including a few oddities, to which I now direct your attention:

DEEP-FRIED
apple pie
artichokes
asparagus
avocados
bacon
beef or pork
cheesecake
chimichanga
chitterlings
chocolate chip cookie dough
chocolate pound cake
cicadas
clams
Coca-Cola
corn fritters
corn on the cob
crab rangoon
dill pickles
duck
eggplant
frog legs
green beans
hushpuppies
lobster
macaroni & cheese
meatballs
mozzarella
mushrooms
okra
olives
onion rings
Oreos
pie
pizza
pretzels
rattlesnake
shrimp
Snickers
squid
strawberries
tofu
tomatoes
turkey
Twinkies
zucchini

Unexpected find of the week

Forget platitudes and campaign promises. Mike Huckabee knows that the best way to appeal to American voters is by writing a diet book!

Prediction

After she read yesterday's dead pool post, Lucy called me and said excitedly, "I've got dibs on Britney Spears!"

I don't really care if Britney Googles herself and learns that people are predicting her imminent demise. I mean, even if you're not actively wishing her dead, really, don't we all know that girl is doomed? Even Britney herself must suspect.

Do drop dead

Last night over dessert, Mary, Norman, Sean and I decided to come up with a dead pool for 2008. Nothing too fancy: we didn't feel like dealing with rankings or point values or anything like that. Just a simple list of 10 names apiece, and at the end of the year, whoever has predicted the greatest number of deaths wins. Wins what, I don't know, though I think it should be something more than bragging rights. Perhaps an all-expenses paid outing to Forest Lawn would be appropriate.

I thought about listing all of our predictions, but it seems like a mean thing to do. Can you imagine some celebrity Googling him- or herself and reading that some insensitive Angelenos are betting they'll die in the coming year? Although, in all fairness, most of the people on our lists are not of a generation that would typically Google themselves. But I will mention some of the duplicates from our lists. Phyllis Diller, Ernest Borgnine, and Sidney Lumet, you'd better watch yourselves.

Battening down the hatches

Storm Watch 2008! I'll bet that's the lead story on all the local news shows. Supposedly there are three big rainstorms headed for SoCal, the first of which is supposed to arrive this afternoon. (Actually, it was supposed to arrive last night, so I'm already irritated at it -- I despise tardiness in both humans and weather systems.) I know we need the rain, and spacing it out over a number of days is probably the wisest way to receive it, but I can't help wishing all the storms would show up at once and decide to duke it out for superiority. I would sincerely love to be stuck inside this weekend during a superstorm, listening to thunder and cowering from lightning strikes while rain pools around the foundation of our gutterless house.

Right now it's all about waiting, and what's making it worse is I've got a sick headache I can't seem to shake. Normally I'd pop a couple of ibuprophen tabs, but I think my tendency to do just that is what's causing the headache -- I believe I've got "bounce-back" pain or whatever they call it. So I need to ride this one out. Maybe, once the lulling sound of the rain starts, I can catch some zzzzzzs and sleep off this pounding ache behind my forehead.

Oh, and I must tell you about my favorite new napping spot. I'm chronically sleepy and can doze off just about anywhere, but of course I prefer my bed or the couch in our den. Since Christmas, though, I'm in love with naps in our old La-Z-Boy recliner, now that I'm equipped with perfect slippers and a heated throw thanks to the most thoughtful and wonderful husband in the world. The chair is perfectly situated to take advantage of our television surround-sound system, and I have an excellent gooseneck lamp next to it that's ideal for reading or doing cross stitch. Some evenings I get so cozy in my chair that it's difficult to drag myself to bed. Today the La-Z-Boy seems like the perfect place to ride out these imminent storms.

Happy new year!

2007 ended, not with a bang, but with multiple cheesy side dishes. (From left: corn souffle, hash brown casserole, and green bean casserole topped with Cheddar cheese. Not pictured: warm & cheesy bacon dip and green salad with crumbled Gorgonzola.)

I spent part of the final afternoon of 2007 getting my first-ever mammogram. Sorry, I neglected to bring my camera, so no pictures of my mashed bazooms to spice up the ol' blog. Actually, the whole ordeal was hardly an ordeal -- the procedure took barely ten minutes and consisted of a mere four shots, the set-up for only one of which was at all uncomfortable. I've heard that small-breasted women can have a really rough time of it, and, well, let's just say that, in my favor, I have plenty for a mammogram technician to work with. I'll have the results in a week or two, and I don't anticipate any bad news.

Last night I went to dinner at Grand View Palace with Sean, Mary and Norman. (We usually eat Chinese or soul food on New Year's Eve, since rice and black-eyed peas = prosperity in the coming year. Not that we're superstitious or anything.) Before dinner, I made a big deal about how our fortune cookies were going to set the tone for the whole year, so they would be very important. Then I ended up with a lame fortune that said something like, "You are sociable and pleasant." That sounds less like a fortune and more like the result of an online personality quiz -- and a not terribly accurate one, to boot. And Mary got the same fortune I did, which seems like a rip-off. After dinner, we walked along the Rose Parade route, marveling at the unbridled slobbiness of humanity. Granted, the city of Pasadena should put out zillions more trash receptacles on December 31, but it appears that it never occurred to any of the parade-goers to haul away their garbage with them after the festivities ended. When I drove down Colorado Blvd. late this afternoon, it looked like I was seeing the aftermath of a riot.

I'm bad at keeping New Year's resolutions. The only one I've ever kept was to take my vitamins every day, a resolution I've stuck with since 1994. I toyed with a few for 2008, and the only one that appeals to me is the notion of trying new things: when faced with an opportunity to try something unfamiliar, I will push myself to be brave and give it a shot. I have already made it clear, however, that I will never try skydiving. Or bungee jumping. But I will, say, taste peculiar new candies, which I had an opportunity to do last Friday.

Sean and I joined Mary and her daughter Cameron for a trip on the Gold Line to Union Station, where we alighted and then walked the block or so to Olvera Street. For those who have never been, let me tell you that Olvera Street is one of the biggest tourist traps in Los Angeles. Yes, you can find good Mexican food there, but it's no better than the Mexican joint in Pasadena that I visit all the time. There are cheap HECHO EN MEXICO goods to be had, but you'll also find an enormous array of things like Disney princess wallets. Basically, if you live anywhere in Southern California, you can easily find more (and more interesting) Mexican food and wares than you can in Olvera Street. I fail to see its huge attraction to tourists, but even my sister, a lifetime L.A. resident, finds it inexplicably charming, though it may just be the taquitos offered by one of the street's vendors that bring her back again and again.

Anyway, I was drawn to the large selection of unusual candies at one of the booths. Mary had recommended their cocada de horno (coconut candy) and she was right on the money about it -- lightly crisp on the outside, it was sweet and creamy on the inside. I bought a few other, more daring flavors to try later.

At home that night, I sampled calabaza (pumpkin candy), tamarind candy, biznaga (cactus candy), burnt milk candy, and sesame seed candy. I should have taken pictures of all of them, but I was so busy spitting out what I had just put into my mouth that I completely forgot. The tamarind, actually, was the only truly terrible flavor; the others were mostly just overwhelmingly sweet and made my teeth ache. The burnt milk candy turned out to be the tastiest of the bunch, though none of them could hold a candle to the coconut candy I'd eaten earlier in the day. The sesame seed candy wasn't too bad, either, though Norman pointed out that it looked like something you'd leave out for the birds to nibble on, and I kept burping and tasting sesame seeds the rest of the evening. Still, I don't regret trying any of them, and now I never need to again as I will know exactly what I'm missing.