A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm!

When I'm There, I'm Family-- A Starving Family of Three

Today I was reading some oldish gossip item making fun of Jessica Simpson for going to the Olive Garden with her boyfriend, Tony Romo, and his family.  Apparently, the big punchline was that they actually made reservations to the place.

The thing that struck me was that some of the comments were not joining their voices in unison to make fun of J.Simp and her latest in her long series of faux pas, but instead were pledging their love and allegiance for the Olive Garden.

And you know what?
I love the Olive Garden too.
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I wish I could mill about, telling you just how grateful I am that there is such a place where you can actually get a nice dish AND endless salad, breadstricks, or even soup, all for a reasonable price; and where things don't have to be snooty and it feels a little like upscale cuisine with training wheels but in a good way. 

I wish I could expound on my love for the 'Garden, and for its foofy drinks and for its waiters who will pour your wine glasses right to the rim-- how can you NOT love that?--  and for its puzzlingly delicious braised short ribs, but I just can't.

My eyes keep on trying to close on me.  Good night and happy Tom Cruise birthday to every boy and every girl.

Happy dreams of safe Italian dishes to all!

Preview: I Can Remember Almost Every Single Burger I've Ever Eaten

You know... I get this feeling that food and foodstuffs just sound easier to write about than not. 

I mean, I guess it's a little like thinking that you can be a chef just because you like food, right?  You get all gung-ho and apply for a show like Hell's Kitchen thinking that if you can make really good lasagna and seafood tacos that you think are good because your kids will eat them, that THAT will suddenly qualify you to work in a fast-paced, demanding, hot, vicious, loud and dangerous kitchen meant to churn out delicate, ornate bites with ingredients that cost more than your entire week's food budget back at home.

Now, don't get me wrong-- sometimes it does happen that sheer love of, passion for, and knack with, come together felicitously in such a blessed individual.  But it's also worth noting that a person like that has not won Hell's Kitchen yet, for instance.

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So back to food and blogging-- they are both organic and intuitive processes that can happen most often with unnoteworthy mediocrity (when was the last time a school cafeteria chicken patty sandwich brought you to tears, really?); and about which there is little noticing until it's something saliently good or outstandingly bad (chances are you remember every single time you ever had food poisoning). 

Blogging is not a necessity like food is, it's true; though one could argue that when a person gets involved in the world of writing, the urge to express oneself through the written word becomes of a spiritual essence akin to feeding one's soul-- if such a thing, indeed, exists.  And as with food, most blogging is functional and mediocre out of necessity: the blog is there for pedestrian yet useful and important needs such as an outlet for self-expression; a communication between peers and clients and potential customers; a news source; a family ledger; and a means of simple gossipping.

But when done right, blogging can transcend that thin, membranous wall upon which our words are projected and take us beyond the simple subject matter at hand --tips for better living; harrowing infertility; bad or good parenting; amateur photography; everyday silliness-- and into a place where the writer takes us by the hand and leads us into a sensory world beyond Times New Roman, fourteen point, right up there with the best of classic and contemporary literature. 

A place right up there with the one lava cake in Hawaii that has made all others pale by comparison ever since; a place next to the spiciest, most thickly delicious chai latte drunk on a warm spring day with a new friend; a place as warm and comforting as, yes, that one amazing school cafeteria chicken patty sandwich that could take away those bad-teaching-day blues.

Maybe blogging about food won't be nearly as hard as I think it'll be.  It'll just be far more personal than I think it can be.

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I don't usually do audience-participation blogs (out of fear that all I'll read will be the sound of crickets in the night), but I am curious to know about your food-related memories.  What are some of the things you remember most fondly eating?  What are some blogs that feed your spirit?

Tomorrow I will try to have a more detailed answer to both questions (and will feature a thank you to a very nice blogger who gave me a lovely award-- you know who your are!)

But "Food for Thought" Would be Such a Clichéd Title!

I find that NaBloPoMo is a good way to get the blog regularity going again.  In a way, NaBloPoMo is like those delightful products that keep you regular-- anything from a lovely bowl of prunes (mm mm!), to a hearty bowl of something with  lots of fancy-sounding grains, and culminating with crashing of cymbals at the hallowed halls of Metamucil and colonics.

Oh yes.  This month's theme is food.  I like food, and therefore I will do food.  But I will do more food tomorrow --I think the token digestives qualify as a food entry.  In the meantime, won't you stop by Zen Sarcasm Reviews and read up on a delightful summer book you might very much enjoy?

It's good to be back on East Coast time.

Soon to Worship at the Altar of the Half-Smoke

I'm emptying a drawer right now, but I need a distraction.  God, I need a distraction.

Rev. Mom, very in character, is watching some documentary on the nature of forgiveness, and how it's okay to forgive but forgetting is not part of the equation, necessarily.  It's interesting stuff, but it's not what you would call a welcome distraction, as the word "forgiveness" always makes me feel guilty.

Many things make me feel guilty, incidentally.

But as I comb through the contents of the drawer, an empty cache of stamps beckons me. 

A happy image.  I need a happy image.  And this is the happy image that arrives from the nebulous depths of my step-father's desk's drawer: 

Have you ever seen these stamps?

Just in case you don't care to follow the link, this was a 2004 stamp series on American artists.  "Giant Magnolias on a Blue Velvet Cloth" was the contribution by Martin Johnson Heade. (thank you USPS for the pic)

Now, it's a very pretty painting, and one which apparently was sold in some Arizona estate sale along with another one of this man's paintings for eighty-eight measly dollars.  It later sold at auction for the rather-impressive sum of $937,500.

I didn't know that until I read the Wikipedia article, really.  But that's not what draws me to these magnificent, evocative flowers.

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June is prime time for magnolias, especially around here in California.  Unfortunately as it never gets warm enough in this part of the state, that bright and delicious magnolia headiness seldom perfumes and lingers in the air as it does in swampy, sooty, pork-barrel-infested DC.

Did DC just win a beauty contest in my mind?

Am I yearning to sit with my thighs sticking together in the 90-plus degree heat and smelling the perfume of late-blooming magnolias while slapping mosquitoes away instead of hiding from the 55-degree weather in the folds of my hooded sweatshirt?

You bet your ass I am.

And for now, I'll leave it at that.

And Most Things Seem Possible With the Help of a Really Good Shredder

If you are a regular to this space, you may be wondering what on God's green earth happened to me. 

I probably won't be able to condense, as I'm aiming for brevity here, but here we go:

1. "God's green earth" is actually a cruel, cruel joke around these here parts.  California has been burning everywhere and it's at times scary and at times frustrating.  True-- Chaparral forests will burn, as is their wont.  But when you know that the fire that held you up for hours somewhere between Santa Cruz and Monterey in the amazingly and unbelievable temperature of 94 degrees was caused by someone and not by the sheer forces of nature, it's a little harder to understand the will of nature.

2. Do you have a yearning in your heart for leading a less complicated existence?  Pretend you're moving and can only ship a very select amount of belongings!  You'll be struck at just how useless most things suddenly appear.  Right, Rev. Mom?

3. One of the most amazing things of early pregnancy (and you may feel free to roll your eyes at this whole item) is the fact that your sense of smell becomes like a weird superpower.  I am Super Smelling Pregnant Lady, and I can tell there is a magnolia three blocks away!  SHAZAM!

4. It's amazing how nearly 20 years' worth of memories can fit in two boxes.

5. It's even more amazing how 10 years' worth of living in one place can produce three obscene trips to Goodwill that didn't even appear to make a dent.

6. A two-year old can reduce your vocabulary to "NO!" and its derivatives, "DON'T!" and "STOP!"

7. One or two really good friends can make ten okay-acquaintances seem nearly pointless.

More later, promise.  July is just around the corner, and with it comes the food-themed NaBlo.

Because I'm insane.

And all Highways Out of the State Say: "Go back."

I'm pseudowatching Telefutura.  They announce they will soon be replaying a pretty good telenovela, with some ridiculously good-looking people. 

I don't usually watch Telefutura --Univisión's little sister channel.  But there is something about being out here, out west in California and hanging out with Rev. Mom and knowing that we're floating somewhere three hours in the past, behind everyone else and putting the world to bed, that makes it okay to be lingering long and watching people bursting into tears inexplicably and at regular intervals.

There is something in the air here that is hard to define.  Maybe it's the way the Pacific ocean colludes with clear, cloudless days here in the Central Coast to make the light so crisp and well-defined that you swear you can see individual leaves as they sit on the tree.  It's like an HDR image.

I wish life itself could be as clear as these lovely sunny days with their high-resolution light.

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I am keeping an eye on the telenovela as I write.  The plot is, to be blunt, rather stupid-- how can people who love each other pretend not to do so because they "want to set each other free so they can find their true love"?

But this is just the kind of circular logic that makes daytime dramas such hits: it's always refreshing to see really good-looking people doing really dumb things and making themselves cry needlessly.  Somehow good looks don't assure that you'll be smart about your life's decisions, right?

And yet, there is also the pity element.  You get to feel empathy for people-- a luxury that can be afforded by even the most misanthropic among us.

But possibly the most important thing that one of these guilty-pleasure shows offers is perspective.  Things have a beginning and and end, and you know that the better looking the character both inside and out, the better the odds that there will be a happy ending. 

"Happy ending" optional.

____________

This may be the last time my family and I get out to California in possibly a long while.

This is the place I feel most comfortable calling home in my life, and yet it hasn't been so for a while.  There is something comforting here, in the light and in the windswept trees and in the crispness that cannot be found elsewhere -- not even in the cool marble of the monuments of the city I presently call home.

Rev. Mom and I have been going through belongings, rolling our eyes at unexpectedly tacky finds (she's just unearthed a pink mirror etched with the words, "Your acts of caring are God's hands on earth!" appears in time to make my point) and reminiscing over books and clothes and glassware.

We need perspective.
We need the reassurance that we can have a happy ending soon, and that maybe that ending includes coming back here sooner than we think.

But suddenly all those telenovela tears over what may happen make sense.  I'm not sad, exactly, but I am overwhelmed (again).  And yet, it's also exciting to be in this postion-- with life happening as it ought.

Stay tuned, folks.

Some People Don't Want Miracles

Another magical St. Anthony's day has come and gone.  If you don't know what St. Anthony's day is or who St. Anthony is, please click here to read last year's entry.  Incidentally, this is one hotly-searched-for post in the Interwebs, because it seems that there are lots of people searching for lost things. 

And boyfriends.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, please, again, I exhort you to go to last year's entry.

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It's funny that what I'm about to write should have kind of transpired today, traditional day where people celebrate the saint to which so many pray for lost objects.  And boyfriends.  And girlfriends too, I imagine, though maybe not as wildly.

Today the Meows went to be swingin' with the beautiful people at happy hour. 

Okay, we were just getting some dinner; but you know, it was Friday and the partying starts early.  So as we were enjoying a lovely family dinner (sample snippets from our sparkling repartee included, "Sit down! Eat your food!  Don't go under the table! Stop climbing over mommy and daddy! Sorry, what did you say? Hand the credit card over! Stop doing that! WHAT? Eat your food! No! No! No!")*, we couldn't help but notice that we were the only family at an establishment that unabashedly was catering to single people.

Now, I have no problem with single people: as a former single person, I have been there for both the good and the bad (though exactly how much "good" and how much "bad" as compared to other single and formerly single people I've done is hard to gauge), and there are times I wish I were single.  No, not fervently or ardently or actively, but there is always a little fun and mystery and adrenaline  when it's just you and there is flirting and there is money only for shoes.

But when you're no longer single and, in my own personal case (because I know there are many people who enjoy the single life very much), you are glad that the nights are not so soul-crushingly lonely and you're glad that every social occasion and gathering does not become another opportunity to pine, flirt, ignore, and get involved in weird is-he-or-isn't-he cycles.  You're also glad that you can enter a fine, or not-that-fine-really, establishment in shorts and a peasant top and with your hair in a ponytail and that it's quite okay (even if you feel slightly underdressed amongst the patrons with adorable dresses and tight pencil skirts and cute peep-toes and proper pedicures that don't look like you got your cat drunk and took inappropriate pictures of her and then threatened to release them unless she painted your toes) because you're not trying to dazzle anyone with your polish and your undernourished frame.

And so, being the lonesome couple in an area that's increasing in meat-market-y level also places you in some sort of display: you can imagine some quiet tour guide whispering sotto-voce,

"And over here you can witness the endangered species Nucleus familiaris var. unigenitum.  Note their sparkling repartee and the way the adults hover over the child-- this is called 'posture of impending doom.'  We're walking... we're walking...."

Some people love seeing Herr Meow, both within and without a restaurant.  They wave or smile or shake their head in a conciliatory way when he runs into their shins at 40 mph and we whisper "sorry!" here and there.  Some people are even interactive and ask for high-fives or call him "buddy" or wave goodbye. 

Some people are more reserved --this would be the larger group: they politely get out of the way or simply prearrange their route to circumvent the Whirling Dervish.  If in the same room with him, they may smile momentarily and go back to their amazingly-uninterrupted and possibly grown-up conversations. 

But then there is the third group. 

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It's hard to put into nice words this feeling --this static-- but the best way came through Monsieur Meow.

"Did you see those people back there?  They gave us the 'Breeder!' look."

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Some people resent the husband and wife team, and the fruit of what people refer to as, "The Nasty."  They stare openly as we walk into what they may perceive as their terrain, daring to disrupt their Pad Thai or their perfectly chilled cocktail with our flurry of arms and legs and shrieks and admonitions and sorries and hellos.  They look up from menus or roll their eyes derisively into their BlackBerrys and wonder what we are doing infiltrating their five o'clock no-children-allowed world.  They raise eyebrows and nudge elbows and cringe inwardly.  They think they are subtle.

They shoot looks of hostility, as if we were deliberately flaunting our... what?  Our conformity?  Our lack of fluid dinner conversation?  Our fertility, perhaps? 

This didn't put a damper on our evening, but it did make me wonder if those looks of open hostility are nothing but a subverted longing for what appears to be greener grass.

Or maybe I had spinach in my teeth.

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*Note: This dinner conversation was, effectively, drowned out by the din of about 80 office workers and about as many other Marines who lined the place from wall to wall.  Normally our dinners would include some of the same repartee, but just at hissing level, and peppered with more frequent threats of, "If you don't stop that by the count of three WE. ARE. LEAVING!"

This is Your Brain on Hormones. Any Questions?

To say that I haven't felt like blogging lately is to say that Russia is kind of big.  But yes, I do have reasons:

1. We've been roasting here in the Southeastern You-inted States for four days in a row-- all in the upper 90s.  Now, I remember a while back I was complaining about 102 degrees in August and how it was a record-breaking temperature and I had a reader in Australia chide me about that being nothing, compared to Australian heat.  Yes, dear reader: that's because this is NOT Australia and temperatures over 100 degrees are highly unusual around these here parts.  If I were in California, I'd be complaining about someone spitting a little too forcefully and getting a rock wet, understand.
2. I've been tired and distracted and stuff because,
3. I'm pregnant.
4. It's due in February-- I'm just amazingly bad at keeping anything a secret.
5. Also, Herr Meow had a very scary accident today.  He's okay, but I'm still traumatized.  More on that later.

Alrighty.  Um.  Enjoy the thunderstorm, those of you who get to live through it, and for the rest of you, enjoy your June 10/11 timeframe.  Whee.

Pee Ess: It's in awkward moments like these that I realize why it's important to have a catchy valediction or closing line to fall back on, such as, "I remain your ever faithful servant and admirer;" "Good night and good luck;"  or, you know, "Seacrest, out!"

Not as Many Pieces as James Frey's (but he was Lying Anyway)

Ah yes, about that overwhelm: it's still there but it seems to have moved a little to the back burner.  Thank you to those of you who left nice comments of encouragement: it was wonderful to read what you all had to say.

Monsieur Meow returns today and Herr Meow is taking a lovely nap with his new friend from IKEA, Albert the weasel and the house is nice and cool but not too cool and it's nice and quiet and I'm going to get up and continue to do things that need to be done this afternoon.

I had a great day with a wonderful friend (which really makes this husbandless break almost a complete and total raging success of female support) and I feel like I've accomplished things today.  Or at least some things. 

But by far, what I've gotten out of these past days is a little bit of perspective on what's truly important-- like loving people around you; health and a sense of well-being; a cute and adorable child who cracks you up even as you want to start screaming; modern telephony; french fries; crafty Swedish people; the mist setting on a hose; really good canned soup that does not taste canned; and one's mommy.

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And so I wanted to share a meme I saw over at Frances's wonderful blog, blogjem, and which I thought was really fun and beautiful.  And something you can definitely try whether you have a blog or not and still enjoy immensely.

Without further ado, my photomosaic:

Here are the instructions if you so wish to do this in your own blog (or just for fun):

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

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1. What is your first name? Maria
2. What is your favorite food? Hamburger and french fries!  Is there anything else?
3. What high school did you go to? Monterey High School
4. What is your favorite color? lavender
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Heh.... yes, Cristiano Ronaldo-- among others.
6. Favorite drink? Gin & Tonic
7. Dream vacation? Spa vacation.... mmm... and a bottomless credit card.
8. Favorite dessert? Chocolate cake (a la mode, but that got hardly any hits)
9. What you want to be when you grow up? A Renaissance woman
10. What do you love most in life? My baby, of course.
11. One Word to describe you. Observant
12. Your flickr name. Madame Meow

Thank you to the following Flickr people:

1. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, 2. hamburger cake, 3. IMG_0845.JPG, 4. Lavender bokeh, 5. Cristiano Ronaldo, 6. That Cool Refreshing Drink, 7. spa bento, 8. Our hand painted bakery menu board, 9. Maria Portinari by Hans Memling, 1470, 10. Baby cat, 11. snowflake melting on my coat, 12. Madame Meow

Also, My Hair is Getting a Little Frizzy

I am overwhelmed.

For some reason, those words are not easy to dislodge from one's heart-- they cling on stubbornly, as if prying them too forcefully might cause a violent rush of either blood or tears to gush and engulf everything.  And really, the overwhelm is a very manageable overwhelm, as far as overwhelms are concerned.  It's just so hard to accept the condition and move on.

So, why am I overwhelmed, you may wonder.  Maybe you're even rolling your eyes a little and calling me a weenie or some such.  That's okay: I kind of am.

I am overwhelmed because,

1.  I am a single mother for the week (with a champagne toast to my good friend who does this EXTREMELY HARD DUAL ROLE THING every day of her life).
2. I am still really sad over the death of Yves Saint Laurent: he and his brand were such icons throughout my entire life.  I know that sounds selfish because after all it's a life of a person who's passed on and here I am blabbing about me and my recollections of what has always meant to be well-dressed.  However, I think it's still somewhat meaningful: he was an iconoclast who decreed it was okay for women to wear pants and look fabulous while doing it.  As a woman born in the 70s, I've never had to confront the static and reproach of wearing pants and all the other little ways in which women and men have kept women passive-aggressively dominated for ages.
3. Which leads me into overwhelm #3: I read a novel from the early 1970s about a woman who struggles with the unhappiness she feels trying to be a liberated woman while quite obviously not grasping the full idea of what liberation means to her, and I'm all up in arms feeling the women's lib pain.  Why couldn't Hillary be a better candidate so I could proudly vote for the first woman in office?  Raaargh! (and sorry fellow sisters who support Hillary)
4. Also, Herr Meow had a really hard time going to sleep tonight. 
5. And he has way too many toys-- I spent the better part of the afternoon rearranging train tracks.
6. And I'm starting to realize that shopping for clothes does not hold the same thrill it has before.
7. Partly because it's more fun to shop for kids' things and for home goods-- lots and lots of delightful house goods.  Naughty, I know.  And oh-so-predictable.
8. I really need to get a handle on my gardening clutter too.  And my craftling clutter, which is woefully out of hand.  And you should see our garage.
9. I hate my husband's motorcycle with a deep and abiding passion.   There Internets: now you know. (eta: hate is too strong.  I do like it but I resent it.  AND IT TAKES UP TOO MUCH DAMN SPACE!)
10. And finally --for now-- I gotta say that keeping up with NaComLeavMo is getting to me too.  There are way too many blogs to read and the pressure of reading new blogs plus my steady list is getting to be too much to bear: I want to leave nice insightful comments that don't just sound like I skimmed the entry and thought of a platitude to say.  So I think that I have to bow out, for my own sanity.  I thank you if you're coming through NaCom and I will do my best to visit all the bloggers who stop here directed through the blogroll, but I must needs take a sanity break (I told you I was kind of a weenie).

So there you have it: I have cracked like a fresh egg.  I just hope I don't smell too bad and that you can scoop me up and use me in an omelette or something. 

Toodles, dear Internets!