A Word About Throwing out 50 Things...

The author of "Throwin' Out 50 Things" tells us to not ever throw away anyone else's stuff.

So a reader of this blog reminded me today that the Julie and Julia book that I threw out (per previous blog) was, uh, hers. HA! This has given me an hour of solid laughter. Apparantly, I let my cleaning kick get in the way of good sense. It honestly never crossed my mind that the book didn't belong to me. I guess since I didn't care for it and was in cleaning frenzy, I never stopped to think that it was on borrow. Don't suppose people will be lending me books anymore--look out!

Off to book store now to replace book.

Movie Review - Julie & Julia

So recall that I really didn't care for the book (loved it so much it got to be victim of the throwin' out 50 things and was donated to Goodwill). However, the "plot" behind the story was so interesting to me, that I still had to see the movie. To quickly recap, it's a true story about a woman named Julie who decides to cook every recipe from Julia Child's book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in a year and blogs about it. Her blog takes off, she gets all these interviews with magazines and TV, she turns her life around, etc. (You know, my dream life.)

The movie makes up for the boring book. It's one of those rare occasions where the movie actually was better. Here's why: 50% of the story line was about Julia Child and her life (in the book she's about 20%) and of course Meryl Streep nails the character. And the love affair she had with her husband played by Stanley Tucci was so charming I sure hope that part was all true, the clothes are great and the shots of Paris--oui oui oui. Nice Sunday afternoon matinee.

Despise Them All Equally

You'll find that I don't get all passionate about politicians, political parties or elections. My attitude is to despise them all equally. When I vote, I tend to vote for the person I think is the least worthless.

Now the Memphis Mayoral race is movie material. Among the typical City Council people and lawyers running, we also have: professional wrestler Jerry Lawler (who speaks some sense actually) and Prince Mongo. Let me paint a picture for you. On last night's televised debate he wore: A long blonde wig, and on top of that a beaded Indian head-dress, and goggles over his eyes. At least he was clothed. My mom saw him at the grocery store once, naked except for a fur coat.

And if the attire seems strange, you should have heard his rants. It was one of those funny but uncomfortable funny times. Borat would be proud. The moderators had to literally compose themselves to try and take the event seriously. Please go see if he's on You Tube. Some of the better lines:

1) Q - what would you do if the big earthquake comes? A - What will I do? What can I do? The city is going to go down like a stack of matches. Go to church and pray, that's about all I can tell people to do.
2) Q - what would you do about crime in the city? A - Arm every citizen with a machine gun, oozy and hand grenade and let them all fight it out and defend their property.
3) Q - how would you handle the city budget? I wouldn't trust my money to these people. I'd rather give it to Saddam Hussein, even in the grave, than give it to these people.
And my favorite:
4) Q - what makes you qualified to be mayor? All these politicians are turds that need to be flushed down the toilet.

So talk about some straight talk. And guess what, me and some Mongo maybe have something in common in that clearly, he thinks about as highly of politicians as I do. Scary!

Mama's House!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My mother keeps my toddler twice a week. My son calls her Mama. This child is filled with absolute glee every time the mere mention of a trip to "mama's house" is made. Oh, and it's more like maaammaas houuuuse in a "I'm going to Disneyland" ecstatic kind of way. And what's not to love, she gives him chocolate milk and not the organic kind like us-the Nestle Quick squirt kind--you know super healthy, then iced tea (yay! caffeine for a two year old), lets him watch countless hours of TV and serves candy for breakfast. And to top it off Papa Bill (my dad) comes home from work with a hot fudge sundae for him in tow. Wish I still lived there.

Anyway, true story, one day the child was begging for pancakes one morning so I whipped in McD's on the way to the drop-off. At least I felt like "pancakes" was a semblance of a normal breakfast. I get there and he refuses to eat the pancakes. That's a two year old for you. Instead, he wants ice cream. I explain to him that we need to eat a normal breakfast. My mom attempts for a nano second to be on my side by saying, let's not have ice cream today...and then without missing a beat says "let's have chocolate cake instead!" Now, I know I'm making fun of this situation but in truth it doesn't bother me that much. He's a kid and part of the grandparent/grandchild scenario is a degree of reckless abandon with typical kid nutrition rules. So to that end, it's okay. Seeing them all ga-ga over each other is so worth it.

Random Ramblings

Just finished "The 19th Wife" by David Ebershoff. I'm not in the mood for one of my full fledged book reviews today, but I was totally engrossed in this work of historical fiction. Loosely based on the rise of the Mormon church and Brigham Young's divorce of his 19th wife, Ann Eliza. Because of her scathing memoir on polygamy, the Mormon church was forced to renounce plural marriage in 1890. It also has a parallel story of a true modern day polygamist town (Mesadale, UT) where a man of prominence was murdered, supposedly, by his 19th wife.

2) Todd and I hired our first-ever paid baby-sitter and had a semblance of a date night last Friday. This is part of "try and have a date night" once a month plan. Worked great!

3) The "Throwin Out of Fifty Things" continues. This weekend, I tackled my dresser and bathroom and donated or threw out countless items. Observations include: a) stop buying hair care products that the hair stylist uses. I use them once and then they go in "that drawer" because I can't keep up with any hair regimen that requires the formality of the application of product. b) was glad to throw out 20+ pairs of hose. I'm so happy that panty hose are so OUT! Let's hope they forever stay that way (sorry Hanes workers) c) donated countless T-shirts from all those walk-a-thons, work events, etc. The reality, is I don't wear these shirts. I will start refusing to accept them and ask that they just give mine to the next person.

4) Project Runway was good the other night. My favorite line came from the gender ambiguous Asian who said: "There is no vocab to describe my work." To which I say, I have two words of vocab for you: ugly dress.

Project Runway Eve

So here we are on the eve of the greatest reality show ever, Project Runway. Gosh I've missed Heidi (goddess) and most of all Tim Gunn. He is my professional icon in that, he has a gift of critique in that clutch the pearls way that I envy. No one can tell a person they are basically a tacky no-talent with the style and grace of Tim Gunn and the amazing thing is, the recipients of such critique don't seem to realize they've been assessed as a tacky no-talent. They're like, "sure, okay, thank you for that." That is how good he is.

My friend Sean and I got in a conversation one day that of all the reality shows, we felt like Project Runway was by far the hardest from a participant standpoint. A lot of people can sing, or learn to sing. Ditto with dance, but to whip out an entire runway ready outfit made with eggshells, rutabagas and safety pins in 10 hours has got to be really hard to do. My hat is off to each and every one of the contestants.

So don't disappoint me Lifetime channel. Make it work! (Thursday, 9C/10E)

Desserts of LA

In LA last week on business. But with business comes dinner "out." And with dinner out comes dessert. Let our tour begin.

First, banana cream pie from Bandera. For those of you not familiar, Bandera is a sister of the Houston's restaurant chain and very similar, but the menu has sort of a southern/tex mex thing going on. This banana cream pie concoction is likely on my list of the top five desserts of all time. Vanilla cream, chocolate chip/graham crust, caramel/fresh whipped cream and the bananas in that perfect not too firm, not too mushy stage.

Next day, we went to a restaurant in the OC (see - don't I sound so LA?) called Mesa. My friend described it as "tragically hip." Here, food is served on sofas. Given I'm not an ancient Roman, this concept is lost on me, but it was good enough and the people watching out of this world. All the women look like Playmates and their dates, well, lets just say most are sort of mismatched couples. (trying to be nice here but even I felt like a troll). The dessert here though was really fun--jelly donuts. Warm sugared donuts and you insert your own jelly or cream. Judging by the looks of some of our fellow patrons, it was probably the only dessert served that night.

Can't go to LA without cupcakes, and on this trip we skipped Sprinkles and went on to Susie Cakes. Now that I've had Susie, I can't go back to Sprinkles. I had the best chocolate cupcake of my life. Moist cake, mounds of soft buttery icing. Like Tesla sings, Oh, Little Susie....

And of course, on the way out of town, went to Randy's Donuts. If you haven't heard of this place, I'm sure you've seen the sign on Travel Channel or the like. It's a block from the car rental drop off place at the airport, so no reason not to go if you're in LA. Nice donuts there, and 80 cents each compared to the $200 dollar ones we had at Mesa (kidding). Just no Playmates. Darn!

Throwin' Out 50 Things

There is this book called "Throw our Fifty Things" I'm reading. The premise is that you go through each room of your house and throw out 50 things. If you haven't used the item in a long time, if it brings no value to your life or uplift you, nor does it have sentimental value--you should throw it out. And if you have to think about it too much--it goes. With the husband out of town, I can toss things with reckless abandon guilt free this weekend.

Now by "things" each category counts as a "thing." So if you throw out say 16 books, it only counts as one. I decide to start with the public areas of my house first tackling my dining room closet which has become the catch all for way too many china pieces, serving platters I never use, two complete sets of china--one of which is service for 15! That will be the day when I have 15 people over and serve on china and not Chinette!

The following were donated to Goodwill:
* 2 crystal toasting stems as already have a set and we don't toast a whole lot around my house
* Dollar Tree stuffed animals someone gave me (why are these in my china closet?)
* a pasta serving bowl--my pasta is served out of a colander at my house so this item pointless
* random place mats for two, we're now three, so the twosies need to go.
* napkin rings. Long, long gone are the days where I use cloth napkins
* five tablecloths from a size table I don't even own any more
* an ugly ceramic cardinal on pine cones candle holder center piece. Not sure what I was possibly thinking when I bought that
* an old school standing mixer that hasn't been used in over 15 years and was probably purchased in 1985 when my family took the Wilton cake decorating class at JC Penney--ah memories.
* that china service for 15 and all the accoutrement was boxed up and put in the attic for a potential daughter in law someday.
Total: 9 "things"
And some happy reminiscing about an item I will never, ever toss. The bunny candy dish my mom made me in the 70's when she took ceramics. This comes out every Easter and I have always loved it my whole life. It will have a special place on the shelf.

Summer Avenue Double Takes Part 1

This will be the first part of no doubt a "series" on my sightings on Summer Ave. For some reason, often when I travel down that road, I see something so out of the norm or just plain weird.

So one day, I'm on the dicey part of Summer...you know that point at Summer and National where you decide locking doors is a good idea. Anyway, traveling west you pass a Church's Fried Chicken which is next to the "Paris Adult Theater." Not the best real estate for Church's (the juxtaposition of the two terms in and of itself is sort of funny actually). Anyway, there is a little patch of grass between the front of the Church's parking lot and Summer Avenue. And on that grass patch sit three male Hasidic Jews. This is odd to me because:

1) Hasidic Jews although present in Memphis, are not an every day sighting. And in this part of town, even the more strange.
2) Why are they on the grass lounging around? Are they waiting for a bus? It was not the Sabbath when I saw them. Are they homeless? Then why all this free time to lounge as if this were a park or something.
3) Do they own the Church's? Or the land? I would find this odd as well. Surely Church's is not kosher.
4) Why would a religious person want to be seen anywhere near the Paris? Lest someone get the wrong idea. That'd be my luck, lounging on the grass in front of the Church's next to the Paris and ten people drive by that know me.

See what I mean? Weird stuff. Not bad stuff, just weird. Oh and before you start jumping to conclusions, my destination was not the Church's Fried Chicken OR the Paris for heaven's sake. I was on my way to the zoo. I promise.

Play Date Paradise in the Magnolia State

Wish I'd brought my bathing suit.

Don't worry, we didn't let our two year old actually drive.

So we had the best play date last Friday. We went down to a friend’s house in Mississippi who has a working farm originally with the intent to see horses, because my child is a horse freak. But alas, we go there, and per usual, the impostor child didn’t care to see horses at all. And why would he want to pet boring old horses when there were water slides and go carts and big wheels, acres and acres of land, a fishing pond, two other little boys to hang with and chocolate cupcakes.

As a sidebar, one of the little boys declared “I HATE CUPCAKES” as apparently this child sustains only on chicken tenders. I burst out laughing as those are words that would never ever be uttered out of our household past or present. Oh to have a child that really didn’t like sweets. Apparently they do exist.

And you think your car needs detailed?

Pop this picture “big” so you can see this one a little better…how do people drive like this? He/She had no more than 12 inches of butt space in the driver’s seat. And isn't it important to see out of your passenger side window, or back window, I don't know, to be a safe driver? And the smell? I can only imagine. It was taken in the parking lot of McDonald’s. You got it, as I was getting my McCafe Iced Mocha.