(I am willing to overlook the fact that I have not posted for five months, if you are.)
So let's get to it: My recent trip exceeded all of my expectations, and I refuse to allow this fact to be eclipsed by my present situation, which mainly involves me sitting on the sofa in front of the computer with a quite recently empty plate by my side and also a quite recently empty glass (more on the dishware in a moment--ahhh, the plot here thickens, I assure you).
An hour ago I was being very responsible by parsing through my backed-up email accounts, separating the "World Will End if You Do Not Immediately Respond to This" emails from the daily "I Wasn't A Girl Scout but That Doesn't Make Me a Lesser Person Just Because I Can't Build a Canoe Out of Postage Stamps" emails, which I admit are of the motivational kind. The world, so it appears, did not stop during the weeks I stopped* while traveling abroad.
Now I find myself in a bit of a bind. Mere minutes have passed since the house phone rang and, as is my habit, I let the call be picked up by the answering machine.** And then came an important, perhaps even life altering, message in what was a strange vocal crisscross among God, Big Brother, and that GPS woman with the overwrought British accent, whom all of your boyfriends select to be the one to navigate them to Dick's Sporting Goods around the corner, as they are pretending:
1) to be dating her
2) to be James Bond
3) or to be both dating her and James Bond.
(This little vixen, by the way, obviously refers to Strunk and White regularly--her grammar is irritatingly spot-on always), though trust me--if she could, she'd be a lifetime subscriber to Cosmo, too. See ** or strumpet).
Over the answering machine, the voice spoke to what could have easily been a non-existent audience were it not for my previously mentioned self-discipline and responsibility.
"Hello. It has been brought to our attention that someone***in your household purchased an organic cucumber from the Howland Giant Eagle between May 25 and May 29. We are calling to inform that person, our valued customer, that an urgent recall has been initiated as it is believed that some or all of our organic cucumbers purchased between May 25 and May 29 may be linked to a salmonella outbreak. Please do NOT (emphasis mine) consume your organic cucumber. You may bring your organic cucumber along with your receipt to the Howland Giant Eagle where you, as a valued customer, will receive a full refund. Should you have any further questions, please contact your Howland Giant Eagle, the Center for Disease Control, or your closest emergency room."****
Right. As I assume my readers are the quick and clever sort, you have already guessed at my problem here (beyond the creepy feeling induced by my stalker local grocer). For anyone who is not putting two and one together: my plate, only very recently empty as just mentioned, and my glass, also only very recently empty as just mentioned, are both so because it seems as though my afternoon tea at The Claridge Hotel in London 2 weeks ago (consisting of not a list, but a book, of tea choices, confections that Kate What's Her Name swore off the day William proposed and you guessed it: an abundance of cucumber sandwiches) inspired me OH BRILLIANT GIRL THAT I AM to make my own little feast of cucumber sandwiches for lunch, which of course required that I buy organic (no pesticides for this Brilliant Girl oh no, no, no) cucumbers from the Howland Giant Eagle. Yes, between May 25 and May 29.
Oh. God save the Queen! I'm fairly certain that I just felt the first pang of a bacteria-induced cramp in my stomach. Just moments ago, I was feeling very prim and cultured as I nibbled on dainty little cucumber sandwiches. And, and! I was feeling very full-speed-ahead-life-is-too-short-for-plain-old-drinking-water, so I decided to spike mine with...OH GOD NO.
Now we feel a bit silly, don't we? It is one thing to be taken down in convulsions from eating the exotic likes of puffer fish or even some disgustingly good chicken salad at a Memorial Day Picnic, but a cucumber? An organic cucumber!!!!
I can see the obit now:
Woman, 32, dies from playing tea party in her parents' house (where she lived)
or
World traveler, 32, perishes not while doing something brave like horseback riding on a cliff or driving on the left hand side of the very (obscenely, really) narrow road in the Irish countryside but from a certified organic cuke
It is very considerate of the Howland Giant Eagle contact me, its valued customer (Business 101: DO NOT KILL YOUR CUSTOMER), but perhaps in the future (God willing) but perhaps in the future, it could be a bit more prompt in stalking me and my purchases.
I imagine that as I sit here on the sofa waiting for the first sweat-inducing wave of nausea to hit, I feel very much like a woman about to go into labor, or a recent graduate skydiving with one foot in the airplane and one foot not in the airplane. THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN. YOUR CONSENSUS AT THIS POINT IS IMMATERIAL.
Should I survive, I have much to write about my recent travels including the present working titles:
The No. 1 Fix When You are an American in Paris Who is Quickly Developing Low Self Esteem Despite Decades of Self-Esteem Education Due to Your Increasingly Obvious Inability to Speak French.
When the Utterance of the Simple Phrase "1776" while Visiting London is Not Only NOT Rude but Totally Called For.
and oh I just thought of this one:
The Bright Side of Food Poisoning: Yeah, Those Five Pounds You Gained from the 10,000 Scones You Ate in Ireland? Consider Them Gone. Cheers!
Keeping calm. Carrying on.
m.
*"Stopped" of course is used here for the dramatic effect which can be achieved through the careful and well-plotted use of parallel grammatical structure and repetition, as astutely pointed out by Strunk and White (for those to whom this reference means nothing, Strunk and White's language guide is to English professors what Cosmo is to strumpets). Visiting nine cities and a (now dead) duck who unfortunately crossed my path suggest that I did not, in fact, stop much in Europe.
**I realize that this post forces me to admit to the world (and myself) that I am in fact living with my parents just a few weeks shy of my 33rd birthday. My parents are one of only four people I know who still have a land line, though I am NOT judging because I was the girl who made all the tenants in my Manhattan brownstone sign a promise to not disconnect their landlines so that in the highly unlikely event that something like the Great Blackout of August 2002 occured again, my then boyfriend who lived downstairs in the building could not entirely ignore me by claiming his cell phone was out of commission and he swears baby he was just in his living room with his roommates having a prayer circle the entire night and sooooo not out with the Wall Street boys wreaking nocturnal havoc in TriBeCa while I was stuck in an elevator. ANYWAYS.
***Me!!!!!!!!!!!!
****OK, OK, I made up this last bit.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Dear Girl Scouts Troop Leader #6,791 or Whomever
Today is Friday, January 28, 2011. Snow emergency advisories are popping up on cell phones throughout the northeastern part of the country. Dr. OZ has announced that sunscreen causes major depression.* And in a short text from a concerned friend on the other side of the country, I have been notified: WARNING!!! They are starting to sell Girl Scouts cookies. Order forms have been sighted.
Soooo? you may be asking yourself. What's her problem? (her meaning me)
I will tell you the problem, my friend.
No one** eats just one Thin Mint.
Now, the Girl Scouts, being the clever, honest, upstanding girls that they are, ought to be applauded as it seems at first glance that they recognize this universal truth; the serving size on the back of the Thin Mint box is in fact clearly marked as being 4 cookies.
However.
No one** eats just four Thin Mints.
I mean, they are air-like by definition. Their very paltriness is advertised in their moniker. Four Thin Mints are the equivalent of one regular cookie, and just like no one eats only four Thin Mints, no one eats only one cookie.**
So...
Dear Girl Scout Leader** Troop Number 6,791 or Whomever:
I am writing to petition for truth in labeling so that the innocent consumer is well aware of the penalty before committing the infraction with regard to your deceptively benign and cheery looking little cookies. But before I do so, a little about myself:
First things first--I was never a Girl Scout (or a Bluebird or a Brownie). I freely admit that I am still working on straightening out the surprisingly tightly-woven ball of deep psychological hurt nested inside of me due to this childhood deprivation.
For nearly 25 years I have repressed the awful truth. Last year around this time I saw the top of someone's head just barely peaking out from a four foot tall snowbank at the end of my neighbor's driveway. As a concerned citizen I approached the oddity and was, as you can imagine, shocked to see that the top of the head belonged to a small girl child. I began to dig and in so doing discovered that this girl child was in fact one of your very own--a full-fledged be-ribboned Girl Scout. In her small, frozen hands were two boxes of cookies-Samoas and Tagalongs.
I am no stranger to living in cities where snowbanks are in fact large enough in size to swallow relatively large objects. However, it has been my experience that a little shoveling usually uncovers a bicycle or, say, a frozen cat, or perhaps a person who has lived his life in such a way that it is not unexpected that he has found himself lodged in a snowbank. But a Girl Scout! As far as I can reason Girl Scouts belong in the salt of the earth category (God, Country, Cookies). It was at this moment that as a 32-year-old woman I realized I was wholly shafted during my youth. I mean, imagine the sort of perseverance and inner fortitude this little girl must surely have been taught to tolerate being frozen in a dirty snowbank in the name of delivering cookies to their rightful owners!
Had I been allowed to participate in such life-skill development, I'm fairly certain that I would have by now:
a) thought of the Red Box idea before the Red Box guy did
b) found a clever way to convince Prince William to marry me and not Whatshername
c) climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro
or
d) at the very least circumnavigated New Zealand in a mere rowboat.
But no, I was forced to spend my Thursday afternoons sitting at Mrs. Zoss's piano breaking out in a cold sweat as I tried to play my scales without allowing my wrists to touch the ruler she had taped to the keyboard several years earlier when she had grown tired of telling us brats "Wrists up! Keep your wrists up!" and subsequently hunkered down at the dining room table, silently chain smoking (arguably a run-on sentence).
And while my friends who were Girl Scouts were learning how to make bow and arrows out of felt and silly string, all I have to show from my extracurricular curriculum is a half-remembered Fur Elise and panic attacks at the mere sight of a Steinway (which of course renders any talent for a half-remembered Fur Elise obsolete).
And now that I am on a bit of a roll, my lack of enrollment in the Girl Scouts meant I was shafted in an entirely different manner as well. I clearly recall now that every Thursday the Girl Scouts were permitted to wear their official Girl Scout uniforms to school, which by my calculations means that they escaped approximately 180 days of having to wear the stupid black watch plaid uniform that I had to wear for nearly thirteen years of my life. And what did I have to show for that? Another string of panic attacks my first year away at college when I realized that I would actually have to choose clothes (as in different, non-school-issued clothes that were supposed to match) to wear to class.
And finally in regards to how disadvantaged my girlhood clearly was as a non-Girl Scout is the fact that these little strumpets of yours Mrs. Troop Leader #6,791 or Whomever have easy access to the goods. Probably the craftier among them--with all due respect Mrs. Troop Leader #6,791 or Whomever--simply say things like "Oh, I'm sorry Mrs. Smith, we are out of Shortbreads" all the while stockpiling the buttery treasures for their closet-diabetic aunt or "You know Mrs. Smith, you could simply pay for a box of Lemon Chalet Cremes and I'll mail them off to Kuwait for our men and women in service there straightaway. Scouts honor." (Grrrr....)
OK. I'm OK.
Anyways, now to the reason for my correspondence, Mrs. Troop #6,791 or Whatever.
It is the opinion of this experienced Thin Mint consumer that you ought to change the serving size on the back of all your boxes of cookies to include the number 8 or perhaps the word "sleeve." Pushing your ethos of "moderation in all things" onto your paying customers (who were likely not fortunate enough to be taught your ethos because they were busy holding their wrists up in precarious situations) is neither realistic nor nice, and the last time I checked the Girl Scouts, if nothing else, aim to be nice.
Also, now that I have broached the subject directly, I would like to point out that "Thin" Mint may be slightly misleading, if not downright cruel--especially given the fact that Girl Scout Cookie season is quite in line--thankyouverymuch--with Countdown to Swimsuit season.
Next up: New Year Resolution Math vs. Girl Scout Cookies' Calorie Count
*And I thought all along it was just my paper white paleness that was bumming me out.
**Liars--each and every one of them that says he or she eats just one (or four).
Soooo? you may be asking yourself. What's her problem? (her meaning me)
I will tell you the problem, my friend.
No one** eats just one Thin Mint.
Now, the Girl Scouts, being the clever, honest, upstanding girls that they are, ought to be applauded as it seems at first glance that they recognize this universal truth; the serving size on the back of the Thin Mint box is in fact clearly marked as being 4 cookies.
However.
No one** eats just four Thin Mints.
I mean, they are air-like by definition. Their very paltriness is advertised in their moniker. Four Thin Mints are the equivalent of one regular cookie, and just like no one eats only four Thin Mints, no one eats only one cookie.**
So...
Dear Girl Scout Leader** Troop Number 6,791 or Whomever:
I am writing to petition for truth in labeling so that the innocent consumer is well aware of the penalty before committing the infraction with regard to your deceptively benign and cheery looking little cookies. But before I do so, a little about myself:
First things first--I was never a Girl Scout (or a Bluebird or a Brownie). I freely admit that I am still working on straightening out the surprisingly tightly-woven ball of deep psychological hurt nested inside of me due to this childhood deprivation.
For nearly 25 years I have repressed the awful truth. Last year around this time I saw the top of someone's head just barely peaking out from a four foot tall snowbank at the end of my neighbor's driveway. As a concerned citizen I approached the oddity and was, as you can imagine, shocked to see that the top of the head belonged to a small girl child. I began to dig and in so doing discovered that this girl child was in fact one of your very own--a full-fledged be-ribboned Girl Scout. In her small, frozen hands were two boxes of cookies-Samoas and Tagalongs.
I am no stranger to living in cities where snowbanks are in fact large enough in size to swallow relatively large objects. However, it has been my experience that a little shoveling usually uncovers a bicycle or, say, a frozen cat, or perhaps a person who has lived his life in such a way that it is not unexpected that he has found himself lodged in a snowbank. But a Girl Scout! As far as I can reason Girl Scouts belong in the salt of the earth category (God, Country, Cookies). It was at this moment that as a 32-year-old woman I realized I was wholly shafted during my youth. I mean, imagine the sort of perseverance and inner fortitude this little girl must surely have been taught to tolerate being frozen in a dirty snowbank in the name of delivering cookies to their rightful owners!
Had I been allowed to participate in such life-skill development, I'm fairly certain that I would have by now:
a) thought of the Red Box idea before the Red Box guy did
b) found a clever way to convince Prince William to marry me and not Whatshername
c) climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro
or
d) at the very least circumnavigated New Zealand in a mere rowboat.
But no, I was forced to spend my Thursday afternoons sitting at Mrs. Zoss's piano breaking out in a cold sweat as I tried to play my scales without allowing my wrists to touch the ruler she had taped to the keyboard several years earlier when she had grown tired of telling us brats "Wrists up! Keep your wrists up!" and subsequently hunkered down at the dining room table, silently chain smoking (arguably a run-on sentence).
And while my friends who were Girl Scouts were learning how to make bow and arrows out of felt and silly string, all I have to show from my extracurricular curriculum is a half-remembered Fur Elise and panic attacks at the mere sight of a Steinway (which of course renders any talent for a half-remembered Fur Elise obsolete).
And now that I am on a bit of a roll, my lack of enrollment in the Girl Scouts meant I was shafted in an entirely different manner as well. I clearly recall now that every Thursday the Girl Scouts were permitted to wear their official Girl Scout uniforms to school, which by my calculations means that they escaped approximately 180 days of having to wear the stupid black watch plaid uniform that I had to wear for nearly thirteen years of my life. And what did I have to show for that? Another string of panic attacks my first year away at college when I realized that I would actually have to choose clothes (as in different, non-school-issued clothes that were supposed to match) to wear to class.
And finally in regards to how disadvantaged my girlhood clearly was as a non-Girl Scout is the fact that these little strumpets of yours Mrs. Troop Leader #6,791 or Whomever have easy access to the goods. Probably the craftier among them--with all due respect Mrs. Troop Leader #6,791 or Whomever--simply say things like "Oh, I'm sorry Mrs. Smith, we are out of Shortbreads" all the while stockpiling the buttery treasures for their closet-diabetic aunt or "You know Mrs. Smith, you could simply pay for a box of Lemon Chalet Cremes and I'll mail them off to Kuwait for our men and women in service there straightaway. Scouts honor." (Grrrr....)
OK. I'm OK.
Anyways, now to the reason for my correspondence, Mrs. Troop #6,791 or Whatever.
It is the opinion of this experienced Thin Mint consumer that you ought to change the serving size on the back of all your boxes of cookies to include the number 8 or perhaps the word "sleeve." Pushing your ethos of "moderation in all things" onto your paying customers (who were likely not fortunate enough to be taught your ethos because they were busy holding their wrists up in precarious situations) is neither realistic nor nice, and the last time I checked the Girl Scouts, if nothing else, aim to be nice.
Also, now that I have broached the subject directly, I would like to point out that "Thin" Mint may be slightly misleading, if not downright cruel--especially given the fact that Girl Scout Cookie season is quite in line--thankyouverymuch--with Countdown to Swimsuit season.
Next up: New Year Resolution Math vs. Girl Scout Cookies' Calorie Count
*And I thought all along it was just my paper white paleness that was bumming me out.
**Liars--each and every one of them that says he or she eats just one (or four).
Saturday, January 15, 2011
up it's sleeve: 2011 So Far So Good. Mostly.
2011: So Far So Good
I am happy to report that given the general thematics of 2010, the first 15 days of 2011 are looking exponentially better, which is NOT to say that every silver lining doesn't come with a bit of its own cloud.
Silver lining: in the summer I will be traveling to a particularly intriguing city that straddles Asia and Europe to write feature articles about young women and faith.
Cloud: according to Fodor's guidebook, men from this particularly intriguing city tend to assume --I kid you not--that all youngish, blondish women are Russian sex workers.
Silver lining: I will be paid to go undercover at an undisclosed location as part of a sting operation to smoke out suspected employee rats.
Cloud: While I can't discuss this too much yet, I am told that truckers and math tests will be involved--neither happen to be my forte.
Silver lining: According to Vogue, long arms* are in for Spring 2011
Cloud: As is orange lipstick.
Silver lining: Any day now, both refined white flour and an AOL email address will be retro-cool.
Cloud: Ditto Milli Vanilli.
Silver lining: Officially, Girl Scout Cookie season in Northeastern Ohio is only four weeks away.
Cloud: Officially, Spring in Northeastern Ohio is four months away.
Silver lining: In about a week, I will no longer feel guilty about breaking my New Year's resolutions...
Cloud: ...if I had made any.
Silver lining: Soon, all the salespeople of the world will stop saying "Take an additional 50% off the lowest marked price" while pointing to one of the 250 blaring red signs in the store that say "Take an additional 50% off the lowest marked price."
Cloud: Soon, we fools in Northeastern OH (delirious from lack of sunlight and in a sort of defiantly hopeful gesture) will be paying full price for the new Spring arrivals, which of course we cannot wear for four more months.
Silver lining: After an inordinately long conversation about the topic over dinner last week, I have reason to believe that I am thisclose to cracking the age-old mystery as to why all males** insist on turning down the thermostat in the winter to the temperature that is just one degree below bearable.
Cloud: As suspected all along, spreadsheets and ego are both involved.
Silver lining: My guy friends are much more verbally descriptive and imaginative than I have ever given them credit for.
Cloud: I apparently look like a Russian spy who has stolen Sherlock Holmes' winter coat after having moved to London and taken residence in Paddington Station. Huh?
*'bout time. AMEN.
**and I do mean all.
***this observation would have meant very little to me if it weren't for the fact that I happened to be present at the little caucus held among FOUR of my male friends during which this verdict was declared despite my protestations. That they spent even five minutes discussing my sartorial choices instead of prowling among the hundred or so hot women in attendance at this party can only imply that these boys felt VERY strongly about my winter attire.
I am happy to report that given the general thematics of 2010, the first 15 days of 2011 are looking exponentially better, which is NOT to say that every silver lining doesn't come with a bit of its own cloud.
Silver lining: in the summer I will be traveling to a particularly intriguing city that straddles Asia and Europe to write feature articles about young women and faith.
Cloud: according to Fodor's guidebook, men from this particularly intriguing city tend to assume --I kid you not--that all youngish, blondish women are Russian sex workers.
Silver lining: I will be paid to go undercover at an undisclosed location as part of a sting operation to smoke out suspected employee rats.
Cloud: While I can't discuss this too much yet, I am told that truckers and math tests will be involved--neither happen to be my forte.
Silver lining: According to Vogue, long arms* are in for Spring 2011
Cloud: As is orange lipstick.
Silver lining: Any day now, both refined white flour and an AOL email address will be retro-cool.
Cloud: Ditto Milli Vanilli.
Silver lining: Officially, Girl Scout Cookie season in Northeastern Ohio is only four weeks away.
Cloud: Officially, Spring in Northeastern Ohio is four months away.
Silver lining: In about a week, I will no longer feel guilty about breaking my New Year's resolutions...
Cloud: ...if I had made any.
Silver lining: Soon, all the salespeople of the world will stop saying "Take an additional 50% off the lowest marked price" while pointing to one of the 250 blaring red signs in the store that say "Take an additional 50% off the lowest marked price."
Cloud: Soon, we fools in Northeastern OH (delirious from lack of sunlight and in a sort of defiantly hopeful gesture) will be paying full price for the new Spring arrivals, which of course we cannot wear for four more months.
Silver lining: After an inordinately long conversation about the topic over dinner last week, I have reason to believe that I am thisclose to cracking the age-old mystery as to why all males** insist on turning down the thermostat in the winter to the temperature that is just one degree below bearable.
Cloud: As suspected all along, spreadsheets and ego are both involved.
Silver lining: My guy friends are much more verbally descriptive and imaginative than I have ever given them credit for.
Cloud: I apparently look like a Russian spy who has stolen Sherlock Holmes' winter coat after having moved to London and taken residence in Paddington Station. Huh?
*'bout time. AMEN.
**and I do mean all.
***this observation would have meant very little to me if it weren't for the fact that I happened to be present at the little caucus held among FOUR of my male friends during which this verdict was declared despite my protestations. That they spent even five minutes discussing my sartorial choices instead of prowling among the hundred or so hot women in attendance at this party can only imply that these boys felt VERY strongly about my winter attire.
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