Samantha Hoffman

What More Could You Wish For - Coming Soon!

2012-02-13T17:21:00.001-06:00

The publication of my book is right around the corner - August 7th. So exciting! Check out the countdown clock off to the right - isn't that cool? I get a little thrill every time I look at it.
So anyway, it's time to really start getting the word out.
How the heck do I do that? I don't know yet what St. Martin's marketing plan is but I do know that I'm going to have to be very involved. Which, you know I have no problem doing. I'll try not to inundate you with email blasts, I'll try not to bore you with publicity. Can I ask you, tho, to spread the word? If I send an email about my book I would love it if you could forward it on to one or two of your friends, anyone you think might like it. As much as I would love for men to read it I think my best audience will be women - probably forty and up, or anyone who's connected with an old flame on a reunion website or Facebook. Do you know anyone like that?
Okay, now for a little shameless self-promotion: YOU CAN PRE-ORDER MY BOOK NOW! At a discounted price. Yay! Be the first on your block to have a copy of What More Could You Wish For. Just click on the book cover:
Oh, and when you get there please click the "LIKE" button.
Thanks so much for your support.

Shalom to Israel

2012-02-08T07:31:00.001-06:00

Saturday - my last day in Israel. So sad.

Day Nine

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Five of us would be leaving very early Sunday morning to go home, the rest were going on to an optional tour to Eilat and Petra.
I was on intellectual overload by that time, so leaving at this point was fine, although going on with the rest of the group would have been even finer. Ah, well…
We spent the morning on a walking tour of the old city, walking along ancient history. And then through the bazaar area. The afternoon was ours to do whatever we wanted. Five or six people did their own self-guided tour of various churches but I opted out of that – I was churched-out and toured-out by that time. I went with Elaine and Sandy to have lunch at the YMCA, an unlikely place to go for a meal but it was recommended by Arie, and one of few places open on the Sabbath. Well…it was wonderful! Not only delicious food but a gorgeous environment.
After lunch I relaxed for a bit at the hotel (played Words With Friends on my Kindle Fire) and then went to wander the old city on my own. An Israeli man approached me as I was walking, and started a casual conversation, asking where I was from, how did I like Israel, that sort of thing. He asked me to have coffee with him so we went to a hotel and sat in the lobby but he couldn’t buy me a coffee because it was still the Sabbath and so he didn’t have money.
So then we walked around a bit and he showed me his neighborhood and since we “just happened” to be near his home he asked me to come meet his 90 year old father who lived with him. So I did. I know, I know…
There was his father, sitting in the living room – no TV on or anything, of course – on oxygen, eating pistachios, wearing a suit.
I didn’t stay long but it was a very funny view of life in Israel.
Said goodbye to my new friend and went back to the hotel to meet up with my group for a farewell dinner.
Should I admit that I was overserved that night and don’t remember much of the evening? Well, I guess I just did. Sad to say goodbye to my travel companions. Sadder still when I got my wake up call at 1:30 in the morning for a 2:30 am pick up to take us to the airport. I threw on the clothes that were strewn across my bed, washed my face, packed my bags and got on the shuttle.
We flew to Istanbul, then a long-ass fully-packed flight to New York, then a tight connection and on to Chicago, and it all worked out perfectly. Bags where they needed to be, flights leaving on time…
It’s been fun doing this travelogue – it brought back the memories and made me smile. I hope it made you smile as well.

Israel–Day Eight

2012-02-07T14:42:00.001-06:00

Day Eight

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Friday was another emotional time – a visit to the Holocaust museum. Oh man. I can’t imagine being able to walk through there dry-eyed. To see such a comprehensive display of what happened; the scope of it, all of the countries that were complicit – well, it’s just beyond understanding, truly.
There were many videos of survivors telling their stories and those were what touched me the most. And then there were the piles of shoes and clothing, and confiscated silver, and photographs that people had thought to take with them. Its power is impossible to describe.
We went to the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, where the Dead Sea Scrolls are housed. And in the afternoon we took a tour of Bethlehem and visited the Church of the Nativity. Our guide couldn’t go to Bethlehem, and turned us over to a Palestinian guide. That was a trip. Not the guide part, but the church part. Masses of people being funneled down some narrow stone stairs, pushing and shoving (not very Christian-like) to see the altar where it’s said that Jesus was born. If I hadn’t been stuck in the middle of that crowd I might have opted out of the whole scene but once inside there was no going back. It was an interesting experience and the church was beautiful, but as a Jew it obviously didn’t have the same impact for me that it did on the Christian folks in our group.
Back at our hotel things were very quiet as Shabbot began. Elevator service was minimal, and non-Jews set up for the evening meal. There were lots of people hanging around in the lobby, which had been fairly quiet before then, just talking.
It was raining that evening so we did a brief bus tour of Jerusalem and the illuminated walls of the old city, and then we went to a Shabbot dinner at a kibbutz. Yes, another buffet.

Israel–Day Seven

2012-02-07T11:50:00.000-06:00

Wednesday had been busy and exhausting – I forgot to mention also going to the Temple Mount and the Christian Quarter and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and King David’s Tomb and the room of the Last Supper. By the end of the day my head was ready to explode and I was full to bursting with the sound of Arie’s voice and all those facts and dates and geographic locations. I was sorely tempted to take a pass on Thursday’s tour and just explore Jerusalem on my own in blissful silence.
Whew, am I glad I didn’t! Thursday was the day we went to Masada which I think was my very favorite part of the tour.
It’s possible I learned about Masada in Sunday School but that was too long ago to even think about, and even if I did I wasn’t interested in history back then (some things don’t change) so I had no memory of it.

Day Seven

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Arie, our guide, told the story with such passion - and truly, he’s an amazing guide – so smart and so knowledgeable, but the amount of information he has is encyclopedic and exhausting and overwhelming. Nine days isn’t enough to hear it all.
Anyway, the tour of Masada was very emotional for me, mainly because of how personal it is for Arie and the obvious pride and admiration he has for what the Jewish people did in the face of such struggle.
Masada is the excavated ruins of a fortress where about a thousand Jews defended themselves against Roman occupation. They were vastly outnumbered and in the end they chose to die rather than be taken into slavery. The women and children were killed by the men (suicide is forbidden by Jewish law), then the last ten men drew lots to see who would kill the last nine and then kill himself.
It’s a story of courage, and of the cost and value of freedom. I had tears rolling down my cheeks as I listened and walked among the ruins.

Later we went to a spa at the Dead Sea where we had a delicious (albeit buffet) lunch and then some people (who’d thought to bring bathing suits – I wasn’t one of them) floated in the Dead Sea.

For dinner that night my BFFs and I found another wonderful restaurant with great food, where a huge family (20-30 people) celebrated some major event with a singer (accompanied by her computer), while children played games and threw balls next to our table. When we asked the waitress if she could kindly ask someone to control the children she puffed up with purpose and went off happily to do just that. I think she’d been hoping someone would ask her to do that.

On the way back to the hotel we came across a small park with this tribute:

Israel–Day Six

2012-02-04T22:45:00.001-06:00

The sun was actually shining on Wednesday in Jerusalem. Yippee! It was short-lived, but nice to see.

Day Six

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We did a walking tour of the old city, the Mount of Olives and the Wailing Wall, where it’s tradition to put prayer notes in the cracks in the wall. Some of our group did that but it’s probably unnecessary to say I wasn’t one of them.
And we walked the Via Dolorosa and the stations of the cross, said to be where Jesus carried his cross on the way to his crucifixion. Lots of old stone buildings and stalls with vendors selling everything imaginable.
Had lunch at an outdoor café and then the afternoon was free to explore the city on our own. I took a nap.
Tony, Nel and I went to a seafood restaurant for dinner. Not our favorite place for food but the wine was good. (See my attentive companions, below.)
After dinner we went in search of a nightclub that someone had told us about and didn’t find it until we were too exhausted to go inside.

Israel–Day Five

2012-02-04T12:31:00.002-06:00

Tuesday was another gray day but at least it wasn't raining. We did not luck out with the weather, I have to say.
We went to the Man in the Galilee Museum which we just sort of whipped through on our way to a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. The boat ride was sweet – they played music, including the hora (which we didn’t dance to) but I have a lovely video of Elaine and Sanford from Cleveland dancing to something else. (I'm going to bore you with pictures of the whole group - it's the only time I got pictures of everyone.)

Elaine and Sandy

You know how when you travel with a group there's usually one colossal jerk? Well, that didn't happen on this trip - everyone was great; easy to get along with (okay, maybe not ALL the time, but mostly), flexible, not complaining...pretty amazing, actually.
Cool, I just found a way to embed the pictures in an album that you can view as a slide show.
After the boat ride we went to Tiberias to visit Capernaum, the site of an ancient Byzantine synagogue and a church believed to be on the site of St. Peter’s house. (I’m quoting the itinerary because at this point I was so overwhelmed by all the facts and dates and stories, and my brain had ceased to process the data. But I loved looking at it so enjoy the pictures.)
What I really liked about this tour was the balance between Jewish stuff and Christian. Half of us were Jewish, half not, so there was something for everyone and it was interesting to all.

Day Five

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Then we drove through the Jordan River Valley and into Jerusalem. Our hotel, the Dan Panorama, was very nice and in a great location near the Old City and near lots of stores and restaurants.
Tony, Nel and I went to dinner that night at a restaurant called (I think) Gabriela, a kosher Italian restaurant where we had delicious food. Nice not to be eating at a buffet.

Israel–Day Four

2012-02-03T14:56:00.001-06:00

Monday morning was another gray, rainy, cold day. Off we went to Safed (pronounced tzvat - try that out!), the highest city in the Galilee region at 3000 ft. It's a quaint artist's colony with narrow cobblestone streets of shops filled with beautiful art, jewelry, scarves...whatever you're looking for. And some of what you're not. But really, if I had any space left on my walls I could have bought some wonderful pieces.
We visited a synagogue that was founded in the 1500s. Check out Tony’s little dome-shaped yarmulke (below).
Safed is also the center of Kabbalah (but we didn't see Madonna there).
Then on we went to a kibbutz for lunch – great food (they’re big on buffets in Israel, at least where we were) and plenty of it. We had a guide who told us about kibbutz life and how it works, what it takes to get in. She said it’s good to be a tuchas-licker. I thought I hadn’t heard her correctly but then she explained, “ass-kisser,” for the goyim.
She also told us how when she was young she took care of the cows and how good the warm cow shit (her words) felt oozing into her boots on a cold winter morning. Very colorful.
Kibbutz life is very strange and cult-like to me, and the housing is less than elegant. But, whatever floats your ark.
After lunch we toured the area (I think it was the Golan Heights) but I can’t remember what all we were looking at so enjoy the pictures. I really needed a documentarian.

Day Four

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I didn’t need one, tho, for our next stop – it was a winery where we toured and sampled. One of our group wasn’t feeling well and I couldn’t resist taking her picture lying on the window sill like a cat.
Whew! That was a full day, wasn’t it?
Dinner that night was at our Kibbutz hotel. Another buffet.

Israel - Day Three

2012-02-02T08:34:00.001-06:00

Goodbye to Tel Aviv. On Sunday morning we drove north along the coast to Caesarea. I'm putting up a link to the history of Caesarea because there's no way I could explain it to you, being that I'm history-challenged, but it's an amazing archeological site with a huge amphitheater and port. Unfortunately it was a cold, blustery day - not the best time to visit a port.

Amphitheater

Then on to Haifa to see the Baha'i Shrine. Did a drive-by on that one due to the driving rain (no pun intended) and then drove on to Nazareth to see the Basilica of the Annunciation.

Basillica of the Annunciation

For Bill

No idea what this is - maybe one of the group will know

Our new hotel was in the Galilee region and was a Kibbutz hotel. I didn't have high hopes for that one but it was nice. The rooms could have used a little accessorizing but they had free WiFi so that tipped the scales in its favor.
Breakfast and dinner were enormous buffets of fine food - not like in 'fine dining' - more like in 'okay' dining, but I have to say I liked the way they poured wine - right to the rim. Another scale-tipper. One has to have priorities, after all.

Lavi Kibbutz Hotel

More Pictures of Tel Aviv

2012-02-01T22:16:00.000-06:00

Tel Aviv at night – no explanation on these, they’re just beautiful to look at. Enjoy!

Tel Aviv at Night

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Israel - Day Two

2012-02-01T06:18:00.000-06:00

Have you noticed that I love doors?

Neighborhood of Tel Aviv

Breakfast was bright and early on Saturday, which was fine since I woke at 2, 5 and 6:30am. Afterwards we gathered for a briefing from Arie (left, with his arm in the air), which turned out to be a history lesson about what we were going to see, and lasted longer than my attention span - no surprise there, since I'm not a history person - all those facts and dates and locations...zzzzzzzzzz. Don't tell me, SHOW me. And finally we set off on a walking tour of the Neve Tzedek neighborhood of Tel Aviv. Beautiful buildings, narrow streets with low, attached housing and then streets of newer Art Deco buildings. Then a ride along the beach and through the city and then I got off the van on the beach for free time and watched a couple hundred people dancing on a lovely Saturday afternoon. I was mesmerized. They were mostly older people (my age) and they were incredibly beautiful. I talked to one of the dancers who told me they took lessons and then came out on Saturday to show off. I so wanted to be one of them.
Later our group met for a tour of Old Jaffa and dinner which, for the life of me, I don't remember. But I'm sure it was delicious.
After dinner, I set off with my new BFF, Tony, and his partner Nel, and we wandered the city at night taking beautiful pictures and having a wonderful time. Tony and I connected immediately and the three of us spent the rest of the trip together. They made this experience so much fun. Really. It's always about people, isn't it? It would have been a great trip if Tony and Nel hadn't been there but it was a spectacular trip because they were.

Tel Aviv Beach

Dancing on the beach

People With Wings

Tony (left) and Nel

Dancing in Tel Aviv

2012-01-31T20:54:00.001-06:00

Doesn't this look like fun? I was mesmerized by the dancers at a place along the beach in Tel Aviv.

Day One in Israel

2012-01-31T06:41:00.002-06:00

It's my second day back from Israel and here's the benefit of jet lag: when you wake up at 3:00 a.m. you can go through your pictures and write about your trip on your blog.

Israel wasn't on my travel radar until a few years ago, there were other places that called to me more, like France, Italy, Spain... Years ago I traveled to Greece with my friend Barbara, which also wasn't a place I'd pined to visit but Barb wanted to go and I'm always game to travel, and it turned out to be one of the best trips of my life. It taught me not to pre-judge, that all travel is exciting, adventurous, and life-enhancing.Anyway, suddenly I had a penchant to go to Israel, did some research, made some reservations, and off I went on January 19, 2012, about 5 or 6 hours before Chicago got dumped with 7 or 8 or 112 inches of snow. Aw, too bad I missed that.
I went with smarTours, a company that's been in business for years and was recommended by friends of a friend. Check them out - for my first trip I found it an amazing travel value - very nice hotels, an excellent guide, transfers and everything else were taken care of efficiently and...the price includes airfare. I don't know how they do it but I'm not going to be the one to tell them they should charge more.

Tel Aviv Airport

I have to say tho, and if you do any research on them you'll read this same comment, their customer service is less than spectacular, but not to worry, they've got this travel thing down - it all works. So...Chicago to New York on Jet Blue, then New York to Istanbul, Istanbul to Tel Aviv on Turkish Air. Ever heard of them? Me either but they're great. A chef greets you when you get on the plane - cool! Okay, it's not Emeril Lagasse but the food was great. Well, it's airplane food, but really, it was good.

Tel Aviv Airport

They have a funny little video with all the emergency instructions. At one point they tell you if there's an emergency "loosen your tie and collar..." and they show a guy in a white shirt and rep tie doing just that. Really? Would you bother to loosen your tie if there was an emergency? Would there even be anyone on the plane wearing a tie? Don't think so.
Anyway,

My room

we arrived in Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon after 8 or 9 or 100 hours in the air. It felt longer (even tho most of the middle seats on the longest flight were empty - a big bonus). There were 15 of us in the group, we were met by our guide, Arie, and driven to the Dan Panorama Hotel, on the beach in Tel Aviv. Great location, nice hotel. By now it's around 3 or 4 in the afternoon and Shabbot is about to begin. We get a little orientation and then we're on our own for the evening. A few people went together in search of something to eat - not an easy task on Shabbot but Arie told us some places that would be open. I went off on my own, wandering the streets behind the hotel, and I found a cute little wine bar where I had a couple glasses of Turkish wine (very stingy pours) and a carpaccio appetizer that was delicious. Had a nice chat with the cute bartender (law student) and then went back to the hotel to drop into bed like a rock.


View from my room

Stay tuned for Day 2.

Remember When...

2012-01-17T16:43:00.000-06:00

Remember when you used to be able to open a medicine bottle without an owner's manual, or take a hair dryer out of a box by pulling out one little end-flap?
Jeez, there are obstacles everywhere we turn. Why do they make things so difficult? Not to mention all that industrial-strength plastic that's flooding our landfills.

Check out the packaging for Walgreen's brand face cream. Can you say overkill? I'm not going to eat it. I just want these wrinkles to disappear. What danger could be lurking if they simply screwed on the lid and plopped it on the shelf? Why do I need the jaws of life to get through all that heat-sealed plastic?
This packaging craze goes back to the Tylenol poisonings in the 80s, when someone laced the over-the-counter drug with potassium cyanide and seven people died. Okay, I get that we needed to make sure drugs weren't accessible and tamper-able, but face cream?
I bought a combination hair dryer/curling iron the other day (a whole 'nother subject) and it took twenty-three minutes to get to it. Is that necessary?
Okay, I'll jump down off my soapbox now and get back to trying to figure out how to get my new Kindle Fire (so excited!) out of that damn box. They should provide instructions in four languages just for the packaging.

10 Worst Movies of 2011

2012-01-03T10:46:00.000-06:00

Okay, here's my list of the ten worst movies for 2011, in reverse order. I love great movies but I have to say it's a lot more fun writing about the bad ones.
You can read the reviews by putting the title in the search box, up at the very top left of my blog, or in the column on the right (scroll down a bit).

10. My Week With Marilyn
9. The Beaver
8. War Horse
7. Higher Ground
6. No Strings Attached
5. Young Adult
4. Melancholia
3. Tree of Life
2. Potiche
And the number one worst movie of the year:
1. Jack and Jill.
Okay, I have to come clean...I didn't actually see Jack and Jill, just the trailer, but I'm quite sure it's a horrendous movie. And since this is my list and I only reviewed nine bad movies last year (even tho I'm sure I saw more bad ones than that), I've decided to lift the requirement of actually having seen the film to put it on this list.
So sue me.

10 Best Movies of 2011

2012-01-01T13:22:00.001-06:00

Here's my list of the top ten movies for 2011, in reverse order. You can read the individual reviews by putting the title in the search box, up at the very top left of my blog, or in the column on the right (scroll down a bit).

10. My Afternoons With Marguerite
9. Cedar Rapids
8. Beginners
7. The Help
6. Super 8
5. Bridesmaids

4. Source Code
3. Moneyball
2. Win Win
And (drum roll, please), my pick for the best movie of 2011:
1. Martha Marcy May Marlene
Stay tuned for my '10 Worst' list.

Movie Review: War Horse

2011-12-31T11:32:00.001-06:00

War Horse is the Gone With the Wind of horses, both in melodrama and length. Okay, it's not really four hours long - it just feels like it. There's even an, "As god is my witness..." line when the soldier takes Albert's horse for war duty and says, "Man to man, I swear I'll bring him back to you..." and swelling music plays in the background. Oh, please.
Nothing in this story rings true - not necessarily a requirement for a good movie, but nice if nothing else is working.
Albert, the main character, is very one-dimensional but...man, he's the king of horse whisperers. Not very creative, tho, when it comes to naming his horse. Joey? Really? You couldn't think of something better than Joey? Okay, well, I guess Trigger was taken.
Here are a few other nits to pick:
1. Joey and Albert plowing a field (the size of Rhode Island) full of scrub and rocks, and turning it into rich, loamy soil.
2. The little French girl (with the laughingly phony accent) getting on Joey and riding like a steeplechase champion even tho she's never been on a horse in her life.
4. The grandfather traveling for three days and three nights to buy a horse he only thinks might be Joey to pay homage to his dead granddaughter (the steeplechase champion). Oops sorry, that's a spoiler, but I promise you won't miss her.
5. Albert blinded by a gas explosion during the war and in the next scene, voila! he can see again.
You're probably getting the idea here so I'll quit ruining it for you.
One and a half stars out of five for War Horse. And those are for the cinematography.

Movie Review: Young Adult

2011-12-28T13:50:00.003-06:00

If you like beautiful but hateful protagonists, Young Adult is your movie. Charlize

Theron is Mavis Gray, who goes back to her childhood home to seduce her now-happily-married-and-expecting-a-baby ex-boyfriend. If that seems like a funny concept, go see this movie.
Diablo Cody wrote the exceptional Juno. That was a sweet and funny film with flawed characters that you liked. Not so here. Mavis's flaws are sad and despicable. There's no rooting for her, even though she's spectacularly gorgeous.

Then there's the former classmate she hooks up with. "Oh, you're that hate crime guy," she says. He was brutally beaten as a kid for being gay, although he wasn't and isn't. Now his legs and penis don't work quite right, and to top it off people still think he's gay. And if that's not distasteful enough we have to hear about his dysfunctional dick (sorry) way too many times. It made me cringe.
You can see this coming for miles but this is a spoiler alert - he and Mavis get together, sexually, which doesn't work on any level, but the scene just comes and goes (thank god), and we never know if she 'healed' him.
The more I write the more I dislike this movie. My recommendation? Take a pass.
One out of five stars for Young Adult.

Calling All Book Lovers

2011-12-18T22:13:00.001-06:00

Do you have a book lover on your holiday list? Need some last-minute gifts?
Reading is one of my passions - there's always a book (sometimes two or three) on my nightstand - and with all the books I've read this year it's not easy to pick only five favorites (so I may have to do a couple more lists) but these are the books that come to mind, the ones I read this past year and said, "Oh my god," the ones I want to share with everyone.
If you have someone on your holiday list who loves to read get them one of these:

The Grief of Others - Leah Hager Cohen
Exquisitely-written story of a family coming to terms with grief, each in his/her own way.
This is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper

The funny and poignant story of a dysfunctional family full of human, real characters.
Plainsong - Kent Haruf
Beautiful writing, engaging characters, compelling story.
State of Wonder - Ann Patchett
I'm amazed and awed by this unusual story about a pharmaceutical researcher who travels to the Amazon to find out what has happened to a colleague, and the status of the drug research project. This may not sound like something that would draw you in but take my word for it. It will.
The Help - Kathryn Stockett
Unbelievable that this is Kathryn Stockett's first novel. Fantastic writing, compelling storytelling, beautifully drawn characters. I hope she's working on number two.

Movie Review: My Week With Marilyn

2011-12-13T21:22:00.000-06:00

My Week With Marilyn is kind of an annoying movie. Michelle Williams does a credible job as the icon but really, if Marilyn Monroe was truly that high maintenance (and that term doesn't come close to describing what a pain in the ass she appears to be) how did she ever get work? Yes, she was beautiful, yes she was appealing on screen, but so are a million other, more cooperative, women.
This film gives very little sense of her appeal except that people continually fawn all over her, and that's not enough to pull you in. Some dimension would have helped.
All in all, it's kind of an uninteresting story about a very interesting person. Of all the stories there are to tell about Marilyn Monroe's life I wouldn't have chosen this one.
It's aptly titled, tho, because that's how long it feels while you're waiting for this movie to end.
Two stars out of five for My Week With Marilyn

What More Could You Wish For

2011-12-09T18:20:00.000-06:00

Check out the cover for my book. Just received it today!

What do you think?
I'd love your comments.The book will be released in August from St. Martin's Press.
Oh my god, this is real. And so exciting!

Movie Review: Melancholia

2011-12-07T07:29:00.000-06:00

Here's my review for Melancholia: WTF???
As I was writing that I had déjà vu, and then I remembered another movie I reviewed

the same way: Tree of Life. These movies are of a genre, one that my friend Bill W. really gets into, that is: bizarre, quirky, thought-provoking, unusual...in other words, not your grandma's movie.
I have to say, I think Melancholia would benefit from a second viewing but there's no way I could sit through it again.
There was nothing surprising here, I wasn't shocked by anything that happened. It's just an unconventional story about a dysfunctional family.
And isn't that the definition of family?
I like Melancholia better when I think about it than I did while watching so I don't know how to rate it.
You tell me...did I like it and how should I rate it?

Family is Family

2011-12-02T09:32:00.000-06:00

Where do you stand on gay marriage?
I have to admit I'm conflicted. Not that gay people don't deserve the same rights as everyone else, but why is marriage so important? It's just a word and a piece of paper. Civil unions give people the same rights under the law without rewriting the definition of marriage.
Family is family, and obviously this one did something right. Zach Wahls speaks very eloquently about the issue. Food for thought.

Movie Review: The Descendants

2011-11-27T11:21:00.000-06:00

It's got George Clooney in it. Need I say more?
Okay, he wasn't enough to make me see The Men Who Stare at Goats, so I guess I do.
Alexander Payne is one of my favorite writer/directors. He directed About Schmidt

and Sideways, two movies I love. So between Payne and Clooney it was a no-brainer for me.
The Descendants is the story of "the back-up" parent (Clooney) reconnecting with his daughters (Shailene Woodley is wonderful as the older daughter) as his wife lays in a coma. Typical of Payne movies there's humor, pathos, poignancy, and a road trip - this one in beautiful Hawaii.
I connected with these flawed characters, sympathized with their situation and felt their desire to get to know each other and bridge the distance between them. It's a sweet story. Worth it just for Clooney's running scene where he looks like the world's biggest klutz. Certainly against type and a very funny visual.
Four out of five stars for The Descendants.

Thanks A Lot!

2011-11-23T22:39:00.002-06:00

I've been going to my friends Lauren and Bill's for Thanksgiving for most of the last ten years, and it's always lovely with an elegant table setting, exquisite food and charming guests. I bring my corn souffle every year, and a bottle of wine, and for me the only stress to that meal is figuring out how much food I can pack away without throwing up. Thanksgiving's my favorite holiday and my favorite meal.

But here's the thing: Lauren's Bill always asks people to say what they're thankful for. He goes around the table calling on people who may or may not know about his tradition. So then you have to come up with something to say. Sounds easy, right? Well, there are rules: it can't be about friends or family, it can't be about work, and it can't be about health.
Oh. My. God. Try coming up with something that meets those criteria.
It's so stressful.
There's so much pressure to come up with something everyone will appreciate, and even better if it's something poignant but funny. Humor is always a big hit.
I start thinking about it the day after T'giving for the following year.
Holy crap, I'm a writer. How hard could this be?
IT'S TORTURE!
I'm thankful for so many things. I'm thankful for my whole life. But I can't say that. I'm thankful to have people like them to spend T'giving with. But I can't say that. I'm thankful that I have work that I love, family that I cherish, friends who make my life richer, a comfortable home in the most desirable neighborhood in Chicago...but I can't say any of that.

This year it's a no-brainer: I'm thankful that St. Martin's Press is publishing my book and making my dream come true. It makes me feel like a rock star. But that may be against the rules - Bill will surely consider that work. So I have a fallback position: I'm thankful that I don't have bedbugs. My neighbors had them but the little suckers don't crawl through concrete and for that, I'm truly thankful. At least they haven't made it so far. If one gets through during the night, tho, I'm screwed.

Two Kinds of People

2011-11-21T22:29:00.000-06:00

There are two kinds of people in this world. You know, like toilet paper people - unders and overs; belly buttons, in'y and out'y; people who put bumper stickers on their cars and people with good taste; people who spit on the street and people with class.
And then there are pet people - those who will spend their child's inheritance to treat their pet's illness and others who will have them put to sleep to end their misery. On my morning run I've been seeing this guy with his dog, a terrier of some sort, who can't walk, so the guy bends over and holds the dog by the belly, moving him along, hoping, I suppose, that he'll move his little legs. He won't.
I stopped to talk to him one day and asked what was wrong and he said the dog just didn't want to walk any more. He had taken him to the vet and the vet said he needed to get some exercise so this was the exercise.
I saw him a couple more times doing the same thing and then I saw him carrying the dog. The dog, Popcorn, didn't want to walk. But the guy was hopeful. He'd just had him back to the vet; they ran some tests, did acupuncture, so he thought that would help. Popcorn's 15 years old.
Now, looks are definitely deceiving but this guy doesn't look like someone with money to burn. Popcorn's old and clearly tired. He looks so sad.
So I guess the question is, when do you let go?
Some years ago the same sort of thing happened to a friend's dog and she spent thousands looking for a miracle cure, buying leg braces, physical therapy, then carting the dog around in a little red wagon. When I suggested the dog was telling her he was ready to go she said, "If he was a person would you just let him die?"
My answer is yes. If only it were that easy and humane. If only we had the same option with people.
When my father was sick, almost 90 and in a nursing home, he told me he was ready to die. If I could have helped him along I would have. If I could have saved him the indignity of being cared for by strangers, wearing diapers, being fed, I would have.
I believe animals let us know when they're ready to die, and all we have to do is listen. It doesn't mean we love our pets any less if we let them go.

Writing Tip

2011-11-14T22:33:00.000-06:00

WRITE THE WAY YOU SPEAK
Don't overthink it and don't overwrite. Sometimes people, especially beginners, want to sound smart, literary and professional. Well, we all do, right? But if you're trying too hard it makes your writing stilted and pretentious.
Do what comes naturally. Use your own voice, be authentic.
Write so that people will want to read your work. Make it natural and casual, particularly when writing dialogue.
A tip: read it out loud. If your dialogue doesn't sound like you and your friends talking, re-write it until it does.

Pomegranate: The Really Ugly Fruit

2011-11-14T08:00:00.001-06:00

I wonder who was the first person who thought of eating a pomegranate. The outside certainly doesn't say, "Eat me." But then grapefruit and oranges don't either. When you open them, however, you have some tasty fruit (mostly, depending on the season). Open a pomegranate and it looks like an internal organ. Not very appetizing. And all you get are seeds. Pretty-colored seeds, but seeds nonetheless.
Not to mention all the work it takes to get those friggin' seeds out of there and once you do...so what? It's not like they're all that good. Oh sure, they're sweet/tart but if you eat the whole seed you get that pithy seed part that tastes like fiberboard. So what you really want to do is suck the juice out of them and spit out the chewed up seed.
Not very ladylike. And not worth the trouble.
So are those pomegranate fetuses?

Movie Review: Like Crazy

2011-11-12T07:45:00.002-06:00

I've been waiting for Like Crazy ever since I saw the trailer, probably six or eight months ago. It looked like the kind of movie I would fall in love with. It came to the Chicago Film Festival but I missed it then, but finally it opened. At ONE theatre.
So I went to see Like Crazy, and settled in with great anticipation. I can't even explain why I was so drawn to the trailer but I so wanted to love it.
And I almost did.
The beginning pulls you right in; Jacob and Anna meet, they fall in love, they're separated. It's the basic three-act structure - Act One: boy meets girl, boy gets girl, Act Two: boy loses girl, Act Three: boy gets girl back. It's a good formula, one that the great movies follow, a recipe for success. I almost loved it. But not quite.
Good performances by Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin, who are both appealing on screen but something about the last act fell off a bit for me, as if the filmmakers ran out of steam.
Still worth seeing.
Four out of five stars for Like Crazy.

Movie Review: The Skin I Live In

2011-11-08T09:00:00.000-06:00

A picture is worth a thousand words. Is this image freaky and creepy? It nearly kept me from seeing the movie but I love Almodovar's films, tho they're far from universally appealing. They always have a weird, fantasy vibe.
It's a beautifully photographed film with beautiful characters and wonderful performances. And who couldn't watch Antonio Banderas for two hours?
But the story is so icky and off-putting. I wanted a shower when it was over.
Whew! That's not to say I didn't like it. But it's not to say I did, either.
Frankly, I don't know how to rate this movie. Go see for yourself and then let me know.
? out of five stars for The Skin I Live In.

Rasta Thomas and The Bad Boys of Dance

2011-11-06T16:33:00.004-06:00

Wow, three of my favorite things: dance, music and muscular, lithe men without shirts.
Did you ever hear of The Bad Boys of Dance? Me either but who cares...isn't that the best name? How could you not want to see them?
These guys are so cute and fun and, oh yeah...great dancers.
Fantastic program at the Auditorium Theatre, who needs to do a better job at promoting these things. The theatre was only half full (if that) but if people knew about it they'd have flocked to see The Bad Boys of Dance.
The music is great: Black Eyed Peas, U2, Coldplay, Michael Jackson, and, bonus...my favorite rock song of all time: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
The whole thing is inventive and creative and engaging. They did a number in the first act with blow-up dolls that was just hysterical, dancing to Maria Callas singing Carmen.
Too bad today was the last performance but if you ever have the chance to see them, do it.
Word of note: you have to wait for the second act for them to take their shirts off but it's worth the wait.

Movie Review: Martha Marcy May Marlene

2011-11-06T08:10:00.000-06:00

Martha Marcy May Marlene is one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. It's not a horror film, per se - the horror comes from the fact that it's so realistic and you're utterly sucked into the story. It's a fairly quiet movie but the tension just builds and builds and builds. I sat through much of it, dreading what was going to happen, hand over my mouth.
Elizabeth Olsen is Martha, who has spent the last two years living in a commune headed by an insidious Manson-like leader (John Hawkes who is suitably creepy). She's just run away from the cult (escaped, really), and calls her estranged sister (Sarah Paulson) who brings her to stay with her and her husband. Olsen is mesmerizing in this, her first leading role. She has a beautiful, expressive face and her performance seems effortless. We'll be seeing lots more of her, I'm sure.
All of the performances are stellar, so natural and real that you feel like you're watching a documentary.
I'm sure there are those who won't like the ambiguous ending but I, for one, couldn't have handled any more.
Five out of five stars for Martha Marcy May Marlene.

Just in Case You Don't Know How to Wash Your Hands

2011-11-05T07:40:00.009-05:00

Washing hands has become a national pastime. In the Starbucks bathroom there's a big sign on the mirror saying ALL EMPLOYEES MUST WASH THEIR HANDS BEFORE RETURNING TO WORK. Well we've seen that sign for years, but now, just in case you were raised by wolves, there are six little graphics on the towel holder showing you how to do that.
1. Wet hands
2. Soap
3. Lather for 20 seconds - scrub palms, backs of hands, wrists, between fingers, under fingernails
4. Rinse
5. Dry hands with towel
6. Turn off water with paper towel.
Really?
Scrub? Wrists?
Come on...
Turn off the tap with a paper towel?? Oh, please. I'm surprised they don't tell you to also use your paper towel to open the door. I've seen people do that.
There are two types of people in this world: obsessive germophobes who wash their hands forty-three times a day, pump germicide when there's no sink, use an antibacterial wipe before pushing the grocery cart, sneeze into their armpit...
And then there are the rest of us. I'm one of seventy-six million baby boomers who grew up washing our hands before dinner, after using the washroom and before bed. Done. And we all grew up.
We're raising a whole generation of people who will have no immune system because they've never been exposed to germs. Germs won't kill your kids. Relax. Let them eat dirt.

Jonathan Tropper, Author

2011-10-27T09:27:00.007-05:00

Jonathan Tropper's books are smart and breezy, beautifully written and poignant. I LOVE This is Where I Leave You - great writing; not a comedy but told with a humorous perspective. I also really like Everything Changes and The Book of Joe. They both get bogged down a little in the middle for me but worth staying with. I had tears rolling down my face for the last twenty pages of The Book of Joe.

Here's a sample of his writing - a perfectly written scene from Everything Changes. The main character, Zack, is in a bar and sees a woman across the room talking to her girlfriend. He walks over to her and introduces himself (told from Zack’s POV (in second person).

“There’s no easy way to break this to you,” you say, “so I’m just going to come right out with it. I’m here to hit on you.”
Hope laughs, and it’s a rich, musical laugh, unguarded and comfortable, like you’re old friends. Not at all what you expected. “Well,” she says. “I appreciate your candor.”
“May I begin?”
“Go for it.”
And what follows is two hours of perfect conversation, the kind you couldn’t have scripted if you wanted to, the kind where it becomes instantly apparent that your sensibilities and wits jibe, and when the conversation turns to banter, it’s easy and fun and never veers away from the substance of the discussion. And she quickly becomes familiar, touching your wrist when she laughs, leaning in to you easily when the crowd jostles her. And after a while, you realize your friends have left, and her girlfriend is long gone, and it’s with mixed feelings that you realize that they’re ringing last call at the bar, because on the one hand, when was the last time you made it to last call, but on the other, what the hell do you do now? You’ve long ago determined that tonight will not be about sex (as if it were up to you anyway), not because you don’t want it, God knows you do, but because you don’t want to ruin this one with a crude one-night stand.
But you don’t want the night to end, either, even though it already has. So you offer to walk her home and she acquiesces, and that works out well because it’s bitterly cold outside and she doesn’t so much hold your arm as wrap herself around it, and the wind blows her hair into your face, drawing tears as it whips at your eyes, and there’s intimacy in this, so much more so than with casual sex. Her building is one of those posh monoliths on Fifth Avenue, and you start to say good night, your voice hoarse from hours of shouting above the jukebox, but she pulls you past the doormen – “Hi, Nick. Hi, Santos” – and into the elevator. And before you can work up the nerve for a good-night kiss, she does it first, kissing you deeply, hungrily, backing you up against the elevator wall, the full length of her body pressed against you, making you wish to God you weren’t both wearing thick coats. And this goes on for fifteen flights, and then a little bit more, since she doesn’t stop when the door slides open on her floor. And then she steps back, breathless and windswept, deliciously disheveled, and says, “That was lovely.” She pulls out a silver Cross pen from her bag and writes her name and number down on your hand, and under that she writes To Be Continued, and then she turns serious and says, “Listen, Zack. I’m not into games and I don’t like players. If you like me, call me, okay? There’s no appropriate waiting period. If I don’t hear from you tomorrow, I’ll assume you’re not interested.”

Didn't that put you right in the middle of that scene?
You should read his books.

So Many Movies, So Little Time

2011-10-18T11:45:00.007-05:00

This is movie season. You know: end of the year, so films are being released in order to get Oscar consideration. And, if that's not enough, the Chicago Film Festival is in progress. Whew, it's tough to keep up. But I'm making a valiant effort.
I don't have time to write reviews of them all (have to keep moving forward on my new book: The Ones You Left Behind - yes, a shameless plug), so I'm doing a mass movie review: a quick synopsis of the films I've seen in the past month. (Probably more like three weeks but that's just embarrassing.) Okay, let's start with
Moneyball ***** Great baseball film, excellent acting-Brad Pitt is great. Jonah Hill is fantastic - he has such a great face that tells the whole story. If you like rooting for the underdog you'll love this film. I did.
50/50 **** Based on a true story about a young man with a rare form of cancer. The script is a little heavy-handed but it's basically an engaging story told with humor and poignancy. There's nothing funny about cancer but I believe that finding humor in life helps us with the tough times. So does this film.
The Ides of March ***1/2 How bad can it be with George Clooney and Ryan Gosling in it? Also Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood. Good cast, interesting story, acting/directing very solid (Clooney directs this film). My problem is with the script and the way it deals with the central theme of idealism vs. realism vs. corruptibility - just doesn't quite work for me, especially the ending.
Toast ** This could have been a sweet film about a young English boy who develops a love for cooking and becomes an accomplished chef. But the characters are so poorly written (except for the boy) that it's hard to get involved. The mother can't be characterized as a lousy cook - there are no words to describe a woman who boils cans unopened. Stupid, right? And the father is implausibly cruel. And then the mother dies and a caricature of a housekeeper (soon to turn evil stepmother) comes on board (Helena Bonham Carter) but there's no saving that role the way it's written. It was written by the screenwriter of Billy Elliott which was a very sweet film. This one is not.
My Afternoons With Margueritte ****1/2 Okay, now THIS is a sweet film. It's about an unlikely friendship between Germain (a super-sized Gerard Depardieu) and 90 year old Margueritte who meet in a park. The relationship is lovely and as we learn more about the characters we grow to love them. Beautifully told.
Contagion ***1/2 Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law. Story about a rampant virus that crosses the globe at the speed of light and the people trying to figure out where it came from and how to stop it. Pretty good story that pulls you in.
Without ***1/2 This is a film festival film about a young woman who takes a job in a remote location caring for a catatonic old man while his family takes a vacation. The man is in a wheelchair and cannot speak. We're told that he makes his needs known but we never see evidence of it and we don't know how aware he is of what's going on. The young woman slowly unravels in her solitude, alone with thoughts of an event that we slowly learn about. Really well done and beautifully acted, and I'd have given it more stars if parts of it hadn't been so difficult to watch.
What Love May Bring *1/2 Claude Lelouche's (a Man and a Woman) 43rd film about a woman on trial for murdering her husband, and the lawyer who defends her. Very self-indulgent film that repeats itself throughout and seems like a compilation of his (and others') previous films. I was bored to tears and annoyed by all the repetition and the songs we had to sit through for no reason. And then people clapped when it was over. Go figure.
Fireflies in the Garden **1/2 Great cast: Willem Dafoe, Julie Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Emily Watson. Again, could have been a good story with better characterizations and more subtlety. Another implausibly cruel father. I'm sure there are cruel parents in this world (hard for me to imagine) but I have a difficult time believing that a mother would allow the kind of abuse that's depicted in this film. Michael (Ryan Reynolds), an adult now who has somehow survived his childhood, has turned into a fish-bludgeoning, firefly smashing role-model for his niece and nephew. Nice.

WebSite Story

2011-10-15T08:58:00.003-05:00

Since West Side Story is one of my all-time favorites I couldn't resist sharing this video with you. It's a very clever parody from CollegeHumor. Check it out.

CollegeHumor is a comedy website based in New York City. Funny stuff.

Ushering in a New Era

2011-10-12T09:48:00.003-05:00

I'm probably the last person on earth with a picture-tube TV, and I'm tired of waiting for the damn thing to break. It's got to be 30 years old. What's up with that? Things don't last that long today. (Jeez, I sounded like Jed Clampett just then.) So I've decided to euthanize it - I'm getting ready to send it to TV heaven.
Drum roll please...I bought a FLAT SCREEN TV. Yay!
You know you've got a problem when you watch TV shows and movies on your computer and the clarity is immeasurably better than your TV. The picture on my TV is fine, but hey, it's 2011. Time to get with the program. So I called Abt, told them what I wanted, gave them a credit card number and it'll be here on Thursday. They'll hook it up, fine-tune all the settings and cart away the behemoth and recycle it.
Can an iPad be far behind?
Hmmm...I wonder if I'll be able to hook up my Betamax to it.

What's Your Legacy?

2011-10-06T07:13:00.017-05:00

Steve Jobs is one of the geniuses of the world, alongside Einstein, DaVinci and Isaac Newton, to name a few. Jobs changed the world; not just people around him but the ENTIRE world; the way we think, the way we live, the way we work and play, the way we communicate, the way we listen to music, the way we read...and the list goes on. How many people can say that? It's an awesome legacy.
Do you ever think about your legacy, what you'll leave behind? I think about it a lot, probably because I don't have children. I think about all the things I've collected over the years; the thousands of photos, the family antiques, tapes of my father's voice, videos of family events, journals I've kept for most of my life...and it's sad to know that when I die no one will want those things or care about them.
If you have children, you're lucky (on so many levels). They still might not want your things, but you have a built-in legacy. Right? So what's mine?
That's part of why I write - my words are what will survive me. With the publication of my book in the spring (yay!) - and hopefully many more - I'll leave a piece of me behind, something that people for generations to come will be able to pick up in a library or bookstore and in some way know me. It's my hope that something I've written will resonate, that my readers will be moved or touched in some way, that my words will have made a difference.
What more could you wish for?

It's a Strange New World

2011-10-01T10:55:00.002-05:00

Mark Zuckerberg created the early derivative of Facebook in retaliation for a girl breaking up with him (if the movie is to be believed). That early version was mean and vindictive, unlike the Facebook community we know now. But when Mark and his friends were creating FB I wonder if they thought about what would happen when Facebook people are married or in a relationship and they break up.
Who gets custody of the Friends?
Gone are the days when your ex just vanished from your life. Today, all you need to do is open your Facebook page and voila! there's your ex and everything he or she is doing, right there in front of you, ready to piss you off or make you jealous or break your heart at a moment's notice.
In the olden days the only way to find out what your ex was up to was to drive by his or her house. Or call and hang up. Well, that doesn't work any more cuz you don't even have a car. Oops, I mean some people don't have a car. And caller i.d. has put the kibosh on the call-and-hang-up method of stalking. (I haven't done those things since I was 16. Truly. Well alright, maybe 30...when was caller i.d. invented?). But now it's a new ballgame. You can cyber-stalk your ex right on Facebook! But be prepared -
you may see some things you don't want to see. Like when this comes up on your FB page:
_______ (insert the name of your spouse/S.O./ex/FWB here) and _________ are now friends and you think...Hmmm, what's going on there? And then your mutual friends "Like" that, and you think...Really? I thought they liked me.
And even for people who are still together, isn't there a myriad of cyber ways to make yourself crazy? Suppose your husband or wife has just friended a high school sweetheart. Should you worry? Should you ask about it? Should you friend your own high school sweetheart and see how your spouse likes it?
Do you think Demi took notice when Ashton friended Sara Leal on Facebook? (I obviously read too much People magazine.)
How to deal with this strange new world we live in?
Vodka. It's the only answer.

Porn Chicken

2011-09-30T07:28:00.010-05:00

PETA's offended by the NY Times' sexy chicken. Founder and president Ingrid Newkirk told the Atlantic Wire: "It's necrophilia. It's not amusing. It's just ghastly and sickly."
Necrophilia? Really? It's a chicken.

Chicken’s Attraction Is Truly Skin Deep
By SARAH DiGREGORIO
Published: September 27, 2011
THERE are white-meat people and there are dark-meat people; there are those who swear by the drumstick, thigh or breast.
And then there are skin people. They are the ones who cannot help themselves around roast or fried chicken, ripping off the crispiest bits of skin before the bird makes it to the table.
Nate Gutierrez, the chef and owner of Nate’s Taco Truck and Nate’s Taco Truck Stop in Richmond, Va., could not stop snacking on the skin left over from his roast chickens. So about six months ago, he decided to make the skin crisp on the flattop and offer it in a taco. The chicken-skin tacos sell out whenever they are on the menu.
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

And if you're so inclined, here's a recipe for the chicken skin tacos, which sounds deliciously gross.

Chicken Skin Tacos
Adapted from Nate Gutierrez, Nate’s Taco Truck, Richmond, Va.
Time: 45 minutes for boneless breasts, 60 minutes for bone-in breasts
1 pinch kosher salt
1 pinch coarsely ground black pepper
1 pinch ground cumin
1 pinch granulated garlic
1 pinch onion powder
1 pinch dried oregano
2 skin-on chicken breasts (these can either be bone-in or boned)
Corn or flour tortillas.

Shredded Colby Jack cheese, salsa, sour cream, shredded romaine, chopped cilantro, chopped white onion and lime wedges for serving.
1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, combine the salt and spices. Rub the chicken breasts with the mixture. Roast until cooked through (160 degrees at the center) and the skin on the breast is crisp, about 30 minutes for boneless breasts, 45 minutes for bone-in. Remove from oven and cool. Pull browned skin from the chicken and cut into half-inch strips. Shred the meat, discarding any bones.
2. Warm a skillet, preferably cast iron, over medium-high heat. Crisp the skin in the pan, 2 to 3 minutes.
3. Fill tortillas with shredded chicken. If desired, top the chicken with shredded Colby Jack cheese, salsa, sour cream, and shredded romaine or with chopped cilantro and chopped white onion. Garnish with chicken skins, and serve with lime wedges.
Yield: 2 servings (2 to 4 tacos).

Movie Review: Moneyball

2011-09-26T16:05:00.004-05:00

Moneyball has everything: appealing characters you care about and root for, a story that draws you in, great acting/directing, humor, inspiration...need I go on? It's based on a true story about Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), the GM of the Oakland A's, building a winning team with the lowest budget in baseball, based on on-base statistics and signing underrated players at low (read: reasonable) salaries. It's a great concept that should be part of sports in general, instead of paying exorbitant salaries and creating greed and inflated egos. Oops, sorry, I'll get down off my soapbox now.
Anyway, who doesn't love rooting for the underdog? Well, underdogs abound in this story.
This is Brad Pitt's finest performance in years - understated and real. And there's no better actor than Jonah Hill, an unlikely movie star with a face that tells his story before he's spoken a word. Nice play between the two of them.
I can't imagine anyone not loving this film. But I've been wrong before.
Go see it and let me know!
Five out of five stars for Moneyball.

Movie Review: Higher Ground

2011-09-17T21:16:00.003-05:00

Whew, boring movie. Vera Farmiga has a great face that shows lots of emotion, and she's wonderful. And does an admirable job of directing. Unfortunately the script doesn't allow us to get close enough to these characters to really care about them.
Farmiga plays Corrine, who feels pressure to accept Jesus as a young girl and to claim she's been saved, but she never feels it. Not as a child
and not later when her husband finds god. She tries. She spouts the platitudes, recites the party line, but it's not in her heart. Faith eludes her.
She and her bible-thumping husband raise three children in this cult-like atmosphere, and Corrine's lack of acceptance and lack of faith sounds like a great conflict for a riveting story. Too bad it's not. The story moves excruciatingly slow and is so boring that I considered walking out. I didn't. Should have. Cuz nothing really happens. She has a big confessional moment at the end which is sort of touching but not enough to salvage the film.
One and a half stars out of five for Higher Ground. Take a pass.

Grown-up Mac 'n Cheese

2011-09-15T19:58:00.003-05:00

4 to 6 servings

1 pound fettuccine or linguini
2 cups grated Asiago cheese, plus 1/4 cup for topping
2 (8-ounce) containers creme fraiche
1 cup grated Parmesan
1-1/2 tablespoons fresh chopped thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 9 minutes. Drain pasta reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking liquid.
In a large bowl combine 2 cups Asiago cheese, creme fraiche, Parmesan, thyme, salt, pepper, cooked pasta, and pasta cooking liquid. Gently toss until all the ingredients are combined and the pasta is coated.
Place the pasta in a buttered baking dish and sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup asiago cheese. Bake until golden on top, about 25 minutes. Let sit for at least 5 minutes and then...pig out. This is delicious!

It's All About Customer Experience

2011-08-31T07:13:00.007-05:00

Maybe I'm just a narcissist but if I frequent your business and you recognize me when I walk in the door I'll keep coming back, even if you charge a little more. And if you remember my name...well, I'm yours for life.
Mostly. I mean, you have to back that up with a good product or service, but it generally follows that businesses who consider their customers important enough to remember will provide excellence all around.
I went to my dry cleaner the other day, a business I've frequented for six or seven years. The lady who owns it knows my name and does a great job (although I hate that she staples the plastic bag closed at the bottom). She's not a smiler (some people just aren't) and she's never been the friendliest person but no problem, I'm not looking for a new best friend. That day I just had a question for her, wanted to see if there was a way to fix a small rip in a silk blouse.
Picture this: there's a quarter wall behind the counter and it has a small pass-through and she sits behind that wall and sews and talks on the phone and watches her little tv. When I came in she got up and poked her head around the wall and said, "Yes?"
Okay, first of all, don't you come up to the counter to greet your customer? Wouldn't you assume I have some dry cleaning?

Guess not.
"I just have a question," I said.
"Yes?" Still from behind the wall.
I asked my question.
She said, "Bring in. I see."
I said, "Yes, I will but I don't have time right now, I just wanted to see if it's possible."
"I have to see. Bring in."
"Okay. But are there ways to fix something like that?"
"I have to see."
Well excuse me, but fuck you. Can't you come to the counter? Can't you imagine a small tear in a blouse and spend two and a half minutes discussing the options? So sorry I interrupted your tv program.
My friend Jeannie Walters is a Customer Experience expert (I stole the image from her website!) and there's always great info on her website, like this one: Customer Expectations, Promises and Regret. She helps business engage with their customers, and isn't that what it's all about?
If you're in business your customers want to be engaged. And they have expectations. I don't think mine are unreasonable, dry cleaning lady (are they?), and if I'm loyal to you the least you can do is act as if you have time for me.
So I found a new dry cleaner. She cleaned my dress in one day and...she fixed my blouse quickly and easily and didn't charge me. Oh, and she smiled.
I don't expect her to remember me next time I walk in, after only two visits, but if she does I'm hers!

Chapter One of My New Novel

2011-08-29T07:57:00.007-05:00

Have you read the first chapter of my new novel yet? Well, here's a slightly revised version of chapter one from The Ones You Left Behind.

When Jack wasn’t back from his run in time to go to Mollie’s piano recital I wasn’t surprised. Just pissed, for Mollie’s sake and she, of course, was beside herself.
“No,” she said, “we can’t leave without Daddy.”
“We have to, honey, or we’ll be late,” I said, and packed her and her black velvet dress into the car, her tears smudging the light coat of mascara she’d talked me into. “I’m sure he’ll be there before you begin.” Ever hopeful, she nodded solemnly, stopped crying, pulled down the visor and worked at the blackness under her eyes, spitting on a finger and wiping.
Schmuck, I thought, but of course I kept that to myself. You don’t say that to your thirteen year-old daughter about her beloved father.
You wait until she’s at least fifteen.
I was used to Jack going out for a quick jog through the forest preserve and not coming back for hours. Sometimes many hours. Jack often got caught up in nature, examining every rock as if it were from Stonehenge, looking at every twig and flower. He was a botanist, after all. When we were young we’d go to the Indiana Dunes and he could see the changes from one year to the next while I’d walk impatiently behind him tapping my fingers against my leg while he pointed out a newly formed dune or some new thistle. I think he really thought I was interested and I didn’t let on that I wasn’t. Well, not intentionally. But one time he caught me rolling my eyes and he took my hands in his and looked at me earnestly and said, “I know this isn’t as fascinating to you as it is to me but if you pretend to be interested I’ll pretend to be interested in your knitting and then we’ll both be happy.” I was knitting that year as if my life depended on it; not just sweaters and scarves and socks but afghans and coats and toaster covers. Jack joked that I was going to knit us a house one of these days.
“And sometimes if you pretend long enough it’ll happen,” he’d said. “Maybe nature will grow on you – pun intended – and maybe I’ll take up knitting.” That made us both laugh. And that’s when I knew what our marriage was going to be about; give and take, yin and yang, compromise, respect and laughter, and since we shared so many other things it seemed that feigning the occasional interest was a simple price to pay.
Jack’s never veered from his love of nature but I bounced from knitting to beading to children to throwing pottery to computers to water color…and he feigned interest in them all. And he did it well. Probably better than I, but I tried. And I know he appreciated my effort.
* * *
I didn’t save a seat for Jack at Mollie’s performance. I guess I wanted to punish him a little. I didn’t want him to think it was okay, that I’d always save his ass. But my punishment was for naught since he didn’t show up.
Mollie looked beautiful on stage. She never ceased to amaze me, this lovely, self-possessed child, our not-so-little “surprise” when I was forty-two years old. Whew, that had been a shocker. Of course there had been alcohol involved.
Clara was sixteen and Spencer about to go into junior high and there I was, pregnant. They were both very grossed out by this turn of events. And I had been horrified at first. Jack and I had been so ready to have some freedom again, to do more traveling, see more movies, maybe go dancing once in a while (we loved to Tango). But I warmed quickly to the idea of this tiny, new, dependent person who would love me unconditionally. Jack not so much. He didn’t have the benefit of those hormones. They do incredible things to your brain.
“We don’t have to do this,” he had said.
“What do you mean, we don’t have to do this?” I wasn’t stupid, I just couldn’t believe he’d suggest it.
“We have choices, Hannah. We didn’t make this decision but we can alter the outcome.” This from nature-man, the man who loved all things ecological and biological and environmental; the man who planted dune grasses in our Midwestern yard and cultivated wild flowers. “We’re almost at a point where we’ll have our lives back, when we can do all the things we didn’t get to do when we were young. We can go live in Bolivia if we want to, join Habitat for Humanities and build houses in Egypt,” he said.
I’d looked at him, his pleading eyes, the fine lines that were appearing around his mouth, the gray at his temples.
“You want to kill our child?” I said.
He’d flinched. “Jesus, Hannah,” he said, and dragged his hand over his face, pinched the bridge of his nose. I walked away from him and we never discussed it again, ever, and when our Mollie was born I was forty-two and Jack was forty-four, prime ages to have grandchildren.
Jack fell in love with Mollie the minute he saw her of course, and they have an even stronger connection than he has with the other kids, but it’s been tough on him all these years, having to postpone his dreams again. I know that.

Mollie sat down at the piano looking poised and confident, her mind only on her music now. For such a small girl she had a big presence, a natural appeal. I don’t know where that came from, certainly not me, but it puffed me up with pride. She played with energy and passion but her performance was unexceptional. It didn’t matter to the audience though, they clapped and cheered as if she were Billy Joel, taken with her bright, appreciative smile, her mass of red curls.
When I met her backstage the first thing she said was, “Did Daddy come?”
“No, honey, he didn’t. And he’s going to be sorry. It was a great performance. You were amazing.”
“I was not,” she said. “He didn’t miss anything. I messed up three times.”
“I’m sure no one noticed,” I said, “I know I didn’t.”
“Well you wouldn’t, you don’t know the music.” I held my tongue but it took everything I had. Of course I knew the music. I’d heard the mistakes. I’d only listened to her practice it about 6800 times in the last month.
She said, “Daddy would have noticed. I was awful.”
“Sweetheart, you were not.”
“Whatever,” Mollie said. “Let’s just go.”
When we got home the house was dark and I thought Jack had probably fallen asleep after his run. I’ll kill him, I thought. “Jack?” I called as I turned lights on and walked into the kitchen. “Jack!” I called again, louder this time, hoping to wake him. Not bad enough he doesn’t show up for his daughter’s recital but does he have to make it so apparent that it was so unimportant he could sleep through it?
“I’ll find him,” Mollie said, kicking off her shoes and shrugging out of her coat, leaving it on a stool at the breakfast bar. I started to suggest she hang it in the closet, but resisted the urge.
“Why don’t you go change and I’ll find him,” I said but she was already on her way upstairs. I was cloaked in sadness and frustration as I stared after her narrow, straight back. I had always been very protective of Mollie. Which she hated, of course. Well, she didn’t hate it so much when she was four or five or six, but at thirteen she found it invasive and insulting. She thought of herself as very grown-up and truth was, she was. But she was still my baby.
* * * *
I was cutting up a chicken for paprikash when Mollie came back into the kitchen, transformed into teenage self in torn jeans and T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail.
“He’s not here,” she said.
I stopped trimming and looked at her, knife in the air. “What do you mean he’s not here?”
“I mean I looked in your bedroom, in the den, in his workout room and all the bathrooms, and he’s not here.”
“Did you look in the garage?”
“Well, duh…we drove into the garage.” This gave me a glimpse of a future Mollie as an antagonistic teenager. I prayed she wasn’t going to go through that my-mother’s-useless stage like Clara had. That was so unpleasant. Why don’t they hate their fathers too? It’s so unfair.
I put the knife down and got my phone and called Jack’s cell. I didn’t hear it ringing anywhere in the house so I knew he had it with him but it went into voice mail.
“Jack,” I said, “where are you? Call me as soon as you get this.” Now my mind was going a mile a minute. What time did he leave? Was he dressed in running clothes? Had he told me he was going somewhere this evening? Had I reminded him about Mollie’s recital?
But I still wasn’t worried. Jack got distracted easily, he always had, and it took me probably the first ten years of our marriage to get used to it, but after thirty years you go with the flow.
I went up to our bedroom and looked in his closet. The floor was a jumble of shoes but his running shoes weren’t among them. Clothes hung haphazardly; pants in with the shirts, short sleeves and long all mixed together, sweaters hanging out of drawers. I shut the door in disgust. The thing that probably saved our marriage was the double closets in our bedroom. That and the fact that Jack did his own laundry.
His wallet was on the dresser along with his wedding ring and a pinky ring he wears, some slips of paper from his pockets; Post-It notes and small, ragged, lined sheets torn from a spiral notebook. I read the phone numbers, names and to-do kinds of things in Jack’s messy scrawl but nothing meant anything to me.
I went back downstairs and checked the pockets of his jacket and found his gloves and car keys. So it looked like he was still out running. But how long had he been out there? Three hours? Four? Was he training for a marathon that I forgot about?
Okay, so he obviously forgot about Mollie’s recital and was probably with his running buddy, Ted, and they went out for a beer afterwards. “We’re replenishing our carbs,” Jack always said when I pointed out the incompatibility of running and beer drinking. Beer or not, there was an explanation, I was sure. Nothing I would be happy with, nothing that would make Mollie feel better, but something rational and benign. And that’s what I told Mollie when she asked, “So where is he?”
“I don’t know. But you know your dad. You know how he gets involved in things and forgets about the world and everything in it. He’ll feel terrible when he realizes he missed your recital.”
“Whatever,” Mollie said.
So I finished making the paprikash and Mollie made a salad with arugula and pears and dried cranberries (delicious!), and then we ate and pretended we didn’t notice that Jack wasn’t there to eat with us. It was kind of a lonely meal but the paprikash was delicious, if I do say so myself.
Later, when Mollie was texting her BFFs, thumbs flying all over the minuscule keyboard, I called Jack’s cell again but still it went to voice mail. By now there was a little bubble of something like anxiety (but could have been heartburn) simmering in my stomach.
Why doesn’t he call me?
Still, I wasn’t going to get into the trap of working myself into a frenzy only to have him stroll in at midnight saying, “Oh Hannah, what are you so upset about? You knew Ted and I were going out tonight. It’s his birthday,” making him look like the injured party.
In times like these I let my mind go back to the night before our wedding, our rehearsal dinner where thrity people and I waited for an hour and a half for Jack to show up. After forty minutes I was a blubbering mass, sure he’d run off with Carley Vaughn, his lab partner in college, Carley Vaughn of the long, perfect legs. My mother was talking me down from sawing at my wrists with a butter knife when Jack came rushing in full of apologies and sweetness, kissing my face and lips and hair, wiping my tears with the sleeve of his shirt, swearing he’d never to do it again. He’d just lost track of time, he said, but said I meant more to him than his own life and that of his Golden Lab and that of his grandmother. I meant more to him than his Corvette. He pushed my hair behind my ears and looked into my eyes and said, “Can you ever forgive me for being such an asshole?” Of course I could, and did. And he showed up for the wedding on time and so in my innocence I believed the night before was an anomaly.
Hah! Little did I know.
So after Mollie went to bed I paged through an In Style magazine and watched TV for a while and fell asleep on the couch. And then I was awakened at 3:10 in the morning by my own snoring and there was still no sign of Jack and that’s when the back of my neck started to throb.

The Meaning of Life

2011-08-25T13:50:00.009-05:00

Do you ever think about how amazing life is? Sometimes (often) I lay awake at night in my estrogen-deprived stupor, waiting for sleep to return, and I think about how we're all so unique in who we are, how we look, what we think, the choices we make. But it's the thinking part that never ceases to amaze me - all those thoughts going around in our heads...how do we do that? Do other species have thoughts?
Problem with me is I can't stop those thoughts from ping-ponging around in my mind. Can you? Meditation is completely and utterly beyond me. Sometimes at night I try this trick of counting backwards from 300 to get back to sleep (doesn't work). You're supposedly concentrating so much on the numbers that it drives any other thoughts from your head. Hah! Not from mine. I'm an excellent multi-tasker. I can count backwards and still plan the next day's menu or ruminate over a conversation I had or figure out where to hang a picture or come up with my next blog post, all at the same time.
That said, it's all incredible to me and I love being alive. Even when life is sad, like when you lose the one you thought you'd grow old with, it's all part of the experience. So if life doesn't turn out the way you expect (does it for anyone?) it's still amazing and interesting and baffling and extraordinary.
What's the purpose? I don't know. Do I care? Not really - I just want to relish it, and the people in it, for as long as I can.

More Condo Board Shit

2011-08-18T10:56:00.003-05:00

(FEEL FREE TO IGNORE THIS)
Last year I wasted precious real estate on my blog (that should be devoted to vital things like movies and plays and food) to write about all the angst of the condo association in my building.
And then we elected a new board and things seemed to settle down. Unless you went to a board meeting and were subjected to the shouting matches caused by board member Brian Connolly. Brian was actually on the board some years ago and got kicked off in 2002 (not an easy feat) and somehow here he is back again, like a bad penny. Brian can be very persuasive, which would be a great attribute if he played well with others. He doesn't.
So now there's a movement to remove him again and this is long overdue.
My only agenda for our board of directors is that they be able to work together toward the goal of keeping our building financially solvent, running smoothly, maintained aesthetically and preserving our investment.
I’m all for dissenting opinions, that’s how you judge the merits of an issue - by addressing the pros and cons, listening to other opinions and talking through disagreements. Conflict on a board is inevitable, and reaching consensus is how you arrive at the strongest solution.
And let me say that as a person Brian Connolly can be very friendly and charming. As a board member he is neither. He is not fit to be on the board. His dissenting opinions might have validity but it doesn’t matter because he presents them in an incendiary, argumentative way that’s counter-productive. He’s accusatory, quarrelsome and unreasonable, and you only need to attend a board meeting to substantiate this.
If you don't live in my building you've undoubtedly stopped reading long before now, and if you do you will receive a special proxy in your email or via hard copy. This is just my opinion but I encourage you to vote FOR REMOVAL of Brian Connolly from the Association’s Board of Directors and FOR amending the Association’s Bylaws…
We need people on the board who are willing to work toward the common good. Enough of this bullshit.

Movie Review: The Help

2011-08-16T09:10:00.003-05:00

However great the book The Help is, that's how good the movie is. It's rare for a movie to be as good as the book it's based on, but a special treat when that happens. The trailer for The Help makes it look like a comedy, which made me not want to see it, but fortunately I saw it anyway. It's not a comedy, altho there are some funny parts, but it holds true to the elemental story of the book - race relations in the 60s.

Watching the atrocities that were visited on black people in those days will bring tears to your eyes, especially if you were alive then and know how factual it is. It's hard to imagine that it's possible, but it is.
Viola Davis is brilliant. She's such a subtle actor, letting her face tell the story. Octavia Spencer is really good as Minnie - all of the performances are wonderful; Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard...
It's a moving story and a faithful adaptation of an amazing book. Read the book and then see the movie, or vice versa, it doesn't really matter, but you should do both.
Four and a half out of five stars for The Help.

On To The Next...

2011-08-15T07:17:00.007-05:00

I just sent off the revisions of my novel (formerly titled Mr. Right-Enough, now called What More Could You Want) to my editor. Yay! The publication date is Spring 2012, right around the corner. I'm so excited!
So now it's time to get back to my second book, The Ones You Left Behind. I hadn't looked at it for a few months as I worked on the revision so I sat down and read it last night and I thought, "This is good! Did I write this?" Hah! What a nice feeling.
Okay, so now that I set you up, here's the first chapter. Let me know what you think (all comments welcome, even if you don't agree with my completely unbiased opinion!).

CHAPTER ONE
I was used to Jack going out for a quick jog through the forest preserve and not coming back for hours. Sometimes many hours. Jack often got caught up in nature, examining every rock as if it were from Stonehenge, looking at every twig and flower. He was a botanist, after all. When we were young we’d go to the Indiana Dunes and he could see the changes from one year to the next while I’d walk impatiently behind him tapping my fingers against my leg while he pointed out a newly formed dune or some new thistle. I think he really thought I was interested and I didn’t let on that I wasn’t. Well, not intentionally. But one time he caught me rolling my eyes and he took my hands in his and looked at me earnestly and said, “I know this isn’t as fascinating to you as it is to me but if you pretend to be interested I’ll pretend to be interested in your knitting and then we’ll both be happy.” I was knitting that year as if my life depended on it; not just sweaters and scarves and socks but afghans and coats and toaster covers. Jack joked that I was going to knit us a house one of these days.
“And sometimes if you pretend long enough it’ll happen,” he’d said. “Maybe nature will grow on you – pun intended – and maybe I’ll take up knitting.” That made us both laugh. And that’s when I knew what our marriage was going to be about; give and take, yin and yang, compromise, respect and laughter, and since we shared so many other things it seemed that feigning the occasional interest was a simple price to pay.
Jack’s never veered from his love of nature but I bounced from knitting to beading to children to throwing pottery to computers to water color…and he feigned interest in them all. And he did it well. Probably better than I, but I tried. And I know he appreciated my effort.
Anyway, so when he wasn’t back from his run in time to go to Mollie’s piano recital I wasn’t surprised. Just pissed, for Mollie’s sake and she, of course, was beside herself.
“No,” she said, “we can’t leave without Daddy.”
“We have to go, honey,” I said, “or we’ll be late.” And I packed her and her black velvet dress into the car, her tears smudging the light coat of mascara she’d talked me into.
“I’m sure he’ll be there before you begin,” I told her and, ever hopeful, she nodded solemnly, stopped crying, pulled down the visor and worked at the blackness under her eyes, spitting on a finger and wiping.
Schmuck, I thought, but of course I kept that to myself. You don’t say that to your thirteen year-old daughter about her beloved father.
You wait until she’s at least fifteen.
* * *
I didn’t save a seat for Jack at Mollie’s performance. I guess I wanted to punish him a little. I didn’t want him to think it was okay, that I’d always save his ass. But my punishment was for naught since he didn’t show up.
Mollie looked beautiful on stage. She never ceased to amaze me, this lovely, self-possessed child, our not-so-little “surprise” when I was forty-two years old. Whew, that had been a shocker. Of course there had been alcohol involved.
Clara was sixteen and Spencer about to go into junior high and there I was, pregnant. They were both very grossed out by this turn of events. And I had been horrified at first. Jack and I had been so ready to have some freedom again, to do more traveling, see more movies, maybe go dancing once in a while (we loved to Tango). But I warmed quickly to the idea of this tiny, new, dependent person who would love me unconditionally. Jack not so much. He didn’t have the benefit of those hormones. They do incredible things to your brain.
“We don’t have to do this,” he had said.
“What do you mean, we don’t have to do this?” I wasn’t stupid, I just couldn’t believe he’d suggest it.
“We have choices, Hannah. We didn’t make this decision but we can alter the outcome.” This from nature-man, the man who loved all things ecological and biological and environmental; the man who planted dune grasses in our Midwestern yard and cultivated wild flowers. “We’re almost at a point where we’ll have our lives back, when we can do all the things we didn’t get to do when we were young. We can go live in Bolivia if we want to, join Habitat for Humanities and build houses in Egypt,” he said.
I’d looked at him, his pleading eyes, the fine lines that were appearing around his mouth, the gray at his temples.
“You want to kill our child?” I said.
He’d flinched. “Jesus, Hannah,” he said, and dragged his hand over his face, pinched the bridge of his nose. I walked away from him and we never discussed it again, ever, and when our Mollie was born I was forty-two and Jack was forty-four, prime ages to have grandchildren.
Jack fell in love with Mollie the minute he saw her of course, and they have an even stronger connection than he has with the other kids, but it’s been tough on him all these years, having to postpone his dreams again. I know that.

Mollie sat down at the piano looking poised and confident, her mind only on her music now. For such a small girl she had a big presence, a natural appeal. I don’t know where that came from, certainly not me, but it puffed me up with pride. She played with energy and passion but her performance was unexceptional. It didn’t matter to the audience though, they clapped and cheered as if she were Billy Joel, taken with her bright, appreciative smile, her mass of red curls.
When I met her backstage the first thing she said was, “Did Daddy come?”
“No, honey, he didn’t. And he’s going to be sorry. It was a great performance. You were amazing.”
“I was not,” she said. “He didn’t miss anything. I messed up three times.”
“I’m sure no one noticed,” I said, “I know I didn’t.”
“Well you wouldn’t, you don’t know the music.” I held my tongue but it took everything I had. Of course I knew the music. I’d heard the mistakes. I’d only listened to her practice it about 6800 times in the last month.
She said, “Daddy would have noticed. I was awful.”
“Sweetheart, you were not.”
“Whatever,” Mollie said. “Let’s just go.”
When we got home the house was dark and I thought Jack had probably fallen asleep after his run. I’ll kill him, I thought. “Jack?” I called as I turned lights on and walked into the kitchen. “Jack!” I called again, louder this time, hoping to wake him. Not bad enough he doesn’t show up for his daughter’s recital but does he have to make it so apparent that it was so unimportant he could sleep through it?
“I’ll find him,” Mollie said, kicking off her shoes and shrugging out of her coat, leaving it on a stool at the breakfast bar. I started to suggest she hang it in the closet, but resisted the urge.
“Why don’t you go change and I’ll find him,” I said but she was already on her way upstairs. I was cloaked in sadness and frustration as I stared after her narrow, straight back. I had always been very protective of Mollie. Which she hated, of course. Well, she didn’t hate it so much when she was four or five or six, but at thirteen she found it invasive and insulting. She thought of herself as very grown-up and truth was, she was. But she was still my baby.
* * * *
I was cutting up a chicken for paprikash when Mollie came back into the kitchen, transformed into teenage self in torn jeans and T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail.
“He’s not here,” she said.
I stopped trimming and looked at her, knife in the air. “What do you mean he’s not here?”
“I mean I looked in your bedroom, in the den, in his workout room and all the bathrooms, and he’s not here.”
“Did you look in the garage?”
“Well, duh…we drove into the garage.” This gave me a glimpse of a future Mollie as an antagonistic teenager. I prayed she wasn’t going to go through that my-mother’s-useless stage like Clara had. That was so unpleasant. Why don’t they hate their fathers too? It’s so unfair.
I put the knife down and got my phone and called Jack’s cell. I didn’t hear it ringing anywhere in the house so I knew he had it with him but it went into voice mail.
“Jack,” I said, “where are you? Call me as soon as you get this.” Now my mind was going a mile a minute. What time did he leave? Was he dressed in running clothes? Had he told me he was going somewhere this evening? Had I reminded him about Mollie’s recital?
But I still wasn’t worried. Jack got distracted easily, he always had, and it took me probably the first ten years of our marriage to get used to it, but after thirty years you go with the flow.
I went up to our bedroom and looked in his closet. The floor was a jumble of shoes but his running shoes weren’t among them. Clothes hung haphazardly; pants in with the shirts, short sleeves and long all mixed together, sweaters hanging out of drawers. I shut the door in disgust. The thing that probably saved our marriage was the double closets in our bedroom. That and the fact that Jack did his own laundry.
His wallet was on the dresser along with his wedding ring and a pinky ring he wears, some slips of paper from his pockets; Post-It notes and small, ragged, lined sheets torn from a spiral notebook. I read the phone numbers, names and to-do kinds of things in Jack’s messy scrawl but nothing meant anything to me.
I went back downstairs and checked the pockets of his jacket and found his gloves and car keys. So it looked like he was still out running. But how long had he been out there? Three hours? Four? Was he training for a marathon that I forgot about?
Okay, so he obviously forgot about Mollie’s recital and was probably with his running buddy, Ted, and they went out for a beer afterwards. “We’re replenishing our carbs,” Jack always said when I pointed out the incompatibility of running and beer drinking. Beer or not, there was an explanation, I was sure. Nothing I would be happy with, nothing that would make Mollie feel better, but something rational and benign. And that’s what I told Mollie when she asked, “So where is he?”
“I don’t know. But you know your dad. You know how he gets involved in things and forgets about the world and everything in it. He’ll feel terrible when he realizes he missed your recital.”
“Whatever,” Mollie said.
So I finished making the paprikash and Mollie made a salad with arugula and pears and dried cranberries (delicious!), and then we ate and pretended we didn’t notice that Jack wasn’t there to eat with us. It was kind of a lonely meal but the paprikash was delicious, if I do say so myself.
Later, when Mollie was texting her BFFs, thumbs flying all over the minuscule keyboard, I called Jack’s cell again but still it went to voice mail. By now there was a little bubble of something like anxiety (but could have been heartburn) simmering in my stomach.
Why doesn’t he call me?
Still, I wasn’t going to get into the trap of working myself into a frenzy only to have him stroll in at midnight saying, “Oh Hannah, what are you so upset about? You knew Ted and I were going out tonight. It’s his birthday,” making him look like the injured party.
In times like these I let my mind go back to the night before our wedding, our rehearsal dinner where thrity people and I waited for an hour and a half for Jack to show up. After forty minutes I was a blubbering mass, sure he’d run off with Carley Vaughn, his lab partner in college, Carley Vaughn of the long, perfect legs. My mother was talking me down from sawing at my wrists with a butter knife when Jack came rushing in full of apologies and sweetness, kissing my face and lips and hair, wiping my tears with the sleeve of his shirt, swearing he’d never to do it again. He’d just lost track of time, he said, but said I meant more to him than his own life and that of his Golden Lab and that of his grandmother. I meant more to him than his Corvette. He pushed my hair behind my ears and looked into my eyes and said, “Can you ever forgive me for being such an asshole?” Of course I could, and did. And he showed up for the wedding on time and so in my innocence I believed the night before was an anomaly.
Hah! Little did I know.
So after Mollie went to bed I paged through an In Style magazine and watched TV for a while and fell asleep on the couch. And then I was awakened at 3:10 in the morning by my own snoring and there was still no sign of Jack and that’s when the back of my neck started to throb.

The Best Summer Meal Ever!

2011-08-11T19:34:00.006-05:00

Okay, I know I said I was only going to eat gazpacho and ceviche until summer was over but variety is the spice of life. Right?
So here's another summertime option. This corn salad is OH MY GOD delicious. Serve it with salmon for an easy, impressive meal.

Roasted Corn Salad
Serves 4

• 4 ears of corn, cut off the cob (I used Mirai from Twin Garden Farms - the BEST corn in the world).
• 4 teaspoons unsalted butter, melted
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 red onion, sliced
• 2 tablespoons diced roasted red bell pepper (store-bought is fine)
• 1 tablespoon slivered green olives
• 2 scallions, white and tender green parts, thinly sliced
• 1 avocado, chopped into pieces and sprinkled with lime juice
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
Heat large cast iron skillet on high heat till smoking hot. Add corn to dry skillet and roast and char kernels till they begin to pop.

Add in butter and red onion and mix. Cook for about 3 minutes, stirring.
Add remaining ingredients.
Season and serve warm or cold.
I served it (to myself - and myself loved it) with salmon, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with s&p and sauteed in an iron skillet to medium-rare.
Yum!

Movie Review: Friends With Benefits

2011-08-11T07:25:00.004-05:00

Cute movie, some funny lines, some stupidity. Nothing all that new, but all in all, not a bad way to spend two hours in air-conditioned comfort when it's 150 degrees outside.
It's that ever-popular theme of sex without attachment. Don't we love exploring that concept? There are lots of movies about it these days, some better than others, but don't they always turn out the same? No matter. If it's done well we can still enjoy it and this is done pretty well.
If you've ever seen Justin Timberlake on Saturday Night Live you know how funny he is - he can do anything, play any part, and he's so unselfconscious about it. I really love that about him. And I've liked him in most of his films. He's cute in this but there are times he seems not quite comfortable in this part.
Mila Kunis is very appealing on screen (they're cute together) and altho the part's written a little too glib for me she's fun to watch.
The flash mob scenes don't work and the magician kid is pointless but you have to have some gimmicks, I guess. It's a good cast but Jenna Elfman is wasted here (although she looks great), Woody Harrelson is a caricature and Patricia Clarkson is a reprise of her role on Six Feet Under (but with dark hair), but the best supporting role is from the reliable Richard Jenkins, a brilliant actor with the world's most expressive face. If you haven't seen The Visitor rent it now. It's my favorite performance of his and a great film.
Back to the concept of Friends With Benefits, I was watching a Sex and the City Episode the other day and Carrie says, "According to certain scientists, when a woman has sex her body produces a chemical that causes her to emotionally attach. This chemical may account for the series of questions that involuntarily pop into our minds. Like,
1. Does he like me?
2. Will he call again?
3. Where is this going?
Do you think sex without attachment is possible? Does it ever work for anyone?
Three stars out of five for Friends With Benefits

Broadway in Chicago

2011-08-08T07:21:00.008-05:00

West Side Story is one of my all-time favorites, both as a musical and as a movie. I know every word to every song, every line of dialogue for every character. I could slip right into the role of Maria seamlessly. Well, okay, maybe Maria's mother. Anyway, I saw it seven times at the theater when I was a kid, and countless times since (really, I can't count them), and I've seen the stage production at least six times. It's been a while tho, so I just saw the new touring version that's here in Chicago for a limited run.
Can you see something you love too many times?
Maybe.
I settled in for two hours of bliss and imagine my surprise when I realized I wasn't loving it.
So sad. Oh, it wasn't that I hated it, or even that I disliked it, that's not possible, it just wasn't the same. Not necessarily a bad thing.
But mainly my problem was with the two leads who left me longing for Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. Ali Ewoldt played Maria, delivering her lines as if she were auditioning for a high school production, and her voice was screechy on the high notes. Not pleasant. Tony was played by understudy Cary Tedder and while I liked his acting he seemed to be searching for notes half the time. This is a problem when you're talking about the key characters.
The other change is that the Sharks speak Spanish a fair amount. Interesting. And not a problem for me, I could have translated the lines since I know the script, but a loss for people who don't, and who don't speak Spanish.
All in all, it was fine. I was happy to see it again - I got my fix. But I don't know if I'll be so quick to search out another stage production. But no worries, I've got the video.
Three and a half stars out of five for this traveling version of West Side Story.

Alternative Energy Source

2011-08-03T18:24:00.003-05:00

If I harnessed the energy from my hot flashes I could power the world. Cell phone out of juice? Plug me in. Need your laptop on a plane but your battery's low? For the price of a ticket you can take me along and boot up at will.
I've heard that by 2050 one-third of the world's energy will need to come from some renewable resource. Plan ahead...I'm your girl and I have a seemingly endless supply.
I have girlfriends my age who've never had the pleasure of experiencing a hot flash. If there was a god he'd spread them around, don't you think? I have way more than my share and I have to say, enough, already. You made your point.
So all you husbands out there...want to experience a hot flash? Just to see what it's like? Take one of mine. I have plenty to go around and they're free.
There's no cure for these damn things, except being EVEN OLDER than I am now and that just doesn't seem fair. Where's the upside in that?
Wouldn't you think they could just zap a little segment in my brain and end this madness? Well, until that happens my remedy is to drink copious amounts of wine. It doesn't stop my hot flashes but then I just don't give a shit.

Ever Call the Cable Company?

2011-07-30T19:59:00.003-05:00

Of course you have. So you'll appreciate Molly Campbell's take on their customer service. God, she's funny!

CAN I HELP YOU, PLEASE?
by Molly Campbell

My television service is abominable lately. Recordings freeze. I love things “on demand,” but apparently my demands are unreasonable, because the last two movies I have rented won’t play. “America’s Got Talent” went black right at the most crucial moment, and I wasn’t able to see if that guy survived the fifty foot fall into the baby pool. My computer is no longer wireless. The phones are a bit wonky. We have limped along with all of this, but when we lost the signal right in the middle of “The Marriage Ref” the other night, the camel’s back was broken.
I dialed the number for customer service. The sales rep, Bill, answered, and was full of enthusiasm and sincerity. “Oh, Mrs. Campbell, that is terrible. I just love that show myself! Those couples are hilarious! Wait just one minute so I can verify your account. What is your favorite restaurant?” I informed Bill that where I chose to eat was none of his business. “Oh, no, Mrs. Campbell. That is the secret question. Your answer let’s us know if you are who you say you are.” Of course, it was my husband who established all the secret questions and answers. I have no idea what his favorite restaurant is. I tried Taco Bell. No go.

Read the rest of this hysterical article.

The Only Thing to Eat in This Blasted Heat

2011-07-29T09:00:00.002-05:00

Since we're having one of the hottest summers in recent memory I'm recycling the column below that I originally wrote last summer. These are my favorite hot-weather recipes. Both are in the fridge right now and I'll be eating them for breakfast, lunch and dinner until October.

Oh my god, this heat is killing me. And don't say, "We complain when it's cold, we complain when it's hot," cuz I NEVER complain when it's cold. As a runner, I'd so much rather run when it's zero degrees than in this heat and humidity.
I just walked to the grocery store and had to wring out my clothes when I got back. I'm done. I'm not going out again until it's 62 degrees.
In the meantime, I've made ceviche twice this week. It's the only thing to eat in this blasted heat. Well, that and gazpacho. Both delicious, both cold.
Here you go:

Ceviche
8 servings
1 lb. firm fish like tilapia, salmon, cod or other very fresh fish, cut into ½” dice
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, minced, or hot sauce to taste
½ cup freshly squeezed lime juice
¼ cup diced red onion
1 tbsp minced cilantro
½ tsp salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
1 avocado, cut into ¾” dice, optional
1 ripe tomato, cut into ¾” dice, optional

Combine all ingredients in a non-reactive bowl; marinate 1 hour in refrigerator.

Gazpacho

1/4 of day-old baguette, crusts removed, coarsely chopped
2 pounds vine-ripe medium tomatoes, seeded and coarsely chopped
2 small kirby cucumbers, coarsely chopped
1 red or yellow bell pepper, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 cups tomato juice or water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon Spanish paprika
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup sherry wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
1/2 lemon, juiced

Soak the bread in 1 cup of water for 5 minutes, and then squeeze out the excess water. Place the bread in a blender or food processor; add the tomatoes, cucumbers, bell pepper, onion, and garlic. Puree the ingredients until almost smooth, leaving a little texture. Pour the vegetable mixture into a large bowl; stir in the tomato juice, sugar, paprika, salt, pepper, vinegar, oil, parsley, and lemon juice until well combined. Refrigerate the soup for at least 2 hours until very well chilled; the flavors will develop as it sits.
Season the gazpacho again with salt and pepper before serving.

Yum!

What's Better Than Graffiti? A Mural!

2011-07-27T07:14:00.008-05:00

Remember last March when I wrote about the graffiti on the Oak Street underpass? (photo at left) Well, look what's happening now! (right) These pictures were taken last week - it's even further along now.
Chicago artist Jeff Zimmerman's work is part of a campaign to raise awareness of beach health and water quality issues, i.e. not feeding the birds or littering, another of my pet peeves.

And for all you negative people grumbling about your tax dollars, don't worry, it's funded by a grant. Now can you get on board?
BTW, I wrote the original post on March 17th about how awful it looked under there and within two weeks the graffiti was gone, and I'm taking credit!

5 Foolproof Steps to a Great Relationship

2011-07-26T19:00:00.003-05:00

Hah! As if I know. But I bet I grabbed your attention, didn't I, because who isn't looking for some enlightening news about how to insure a successful relationship?
I would be the one to ask if you want five foolproof steps to ending one - I've done that countless times in my life - but you'd need to look to someone else to tell you how to keep one going.
Some people think if it's a good relationship you don't have to work at it. And that's true if one of you is a blow-up doll. The fact is, working at it is what makes it good (I'm convinced, but then what do I know?), and when you stop working on it is when it's sure to fall apart.
So the relationships that survive, are they ones where people have the most tolerance for each other's imperfections? Or ones where one of the partners is a peace-keeper at all cost? Are they ones where people communicate, or ones where they turn the other cheek? Are they ones where you can laugh at yourself and see the humor in life or ones where you take things seriously?
What the hell's the secret? Does anyone know? In my opinion (take it for what it's worth...) it's equal parts communication, respect, humor, tolerance, and a big dose of luck.
I know some (few) couples who've been together for many years and who seem happy, but you never know what goes on in a relationship, do you?
If all else fails follow the example of my friends Lucy and Ricky (names have been changed). They've been married for 36 years. The other day Lucy told me Ricky is looking for his own place nearby. My (classy) response was, "WTF??? What kind of place? An office? A studio?"
"No...a place place, as in home."
"Are you getting divorced?" I asked.
"No," Lucy replied. "We have no plans to get divorced. We just can't live together any more." Doesn't anyone who's ever been married or lived with someone understand this? "Ricky will still take care of things around the house," she said, "and pay the bills and stay here on holidays. We'll still travel together. We just won't live together. We're both really happy about it. We're getting along better than we ever have." She sounded giddy.
Is this the baby boomer generation's answer to a successful relationship?
There's a quote I like (unattributed) that says, The grass may be greener on the other side but you still have to mow it. Not sure how that applies here, but it does somehow.
BTW, stay tuned for the next installment: What To Do When You Lose The One You Thought You'd Grow Old With.
Hmmm...this may take some research.

Ray Romano on David Letterman

2011-07-22T08:55:00.004-05:00

Men never talk about getting old and women can't stop talking about it. Who even knew there were men's issues? It's refreshing to hear the other side.
Some thoughts on getting older:

When you get old, your secrets are safe with your friends. They'll never share them because they can't remember them.
Forget about eating health food - you'll need all the preservatives you can get.
You can't be young forever, but immaturity can last a life time.
Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.
Isn't it nice that wrinkles don't hurt?
I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.
It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

I'm in The Writer Magazine!

2011-07-19T21:14:00.010-05:00

Elfrieda Abbe, Publisher of The Writer Magazine, mentioned me in her article about the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Check it out...so cool! (You can click HERE to go to the entire article, you'll find me about halfway down.)

Reflections on the Santa Barbara Writers Conference
Posted Mon, Jul 18 2011 11:28 AM by E Abbe

Founded in 1973 by Barnaby and Mary Conrad, then owned and directed by Marcia Meier from 2004 to 2009, the Santa Barbara Writers Conference enjoys a reputation as one of the best in the West. After a two-year hiatus, it was back in full swing this summer thanks to Monte Schultz, who bought SBWC last year and Nicole Starczak, who did a stellar job as conference director.
What a difference a few years makes. In just two years, the publishing industry’s tectonic plates have shifted, maybe not a 6.5 shift, but enough to feel a rumble. Agents have always been in great demand at the conference and it was no different this year. As usual the agent panels (there were two panels this year), were among the most popular with attendees.

Read the rest of the article. I'm mentioned about halfway down. How fun is this?!

Ten Thoughts to Ponder

2011-07-15T10:09:00.003-05:00

This came into my inbox this morning. I don't usually even read this stuff but for some reason I did, and it just made me laugh.

Ten Thoughts to Ponder

Number 10 - Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 9 - Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Number 8 - Men have two emotions: Hungry & Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

Number 7 - Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.

Number 6 - Some people are like a Slinky--not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

Number 5 - Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospitals, dying of nothing.

Number 4 - All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Number 3 - Why does a slight tax increase cost you $800.00, and a substantial tax cut saves you $30.00?

Number 2 - In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

and...the number 1 thought - Life is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers--what you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.

Wonder What Goes on in Retirement Communities?

2011-07-14T07:38:00.007-05:00

Next thing you know they'll be dancing to Thriller.

Advice To Writers from Molly Campbell

2011-07-13T09:00:00.003-05:00

Molly Campbell is my favorite blogger. She's the Erma Bombeck of blogging. No, really...she actually won the Erma Bombeck Writer's Competition. She's a very clever lady with a unique and funny perspective on life. And a great writer.

ADVICE TO WRITERS
I am not a famous author. I am not really a famous blogger, either; however, I have convinced my neighbors and some people on twitter that I am. Since I have achieved this rarefied celebrity status all by myself, with the help of a laptop computer and Jack Dorsey, Al Gore, Mark Zuckerberg, and several thousand business cards randomly left on restaurant tables and in dental waiting rooms, I feel ready to distill advice to those of you readers out there who want to be just like me, or maybe even better. I can help you do this. I have been posting my thoughts and feelings into cyberspace on a very regular basis for over three years. This gives me the credibility I need to call myself a writer. Oh yeah, and I have won a writing prize, gotten a job blogging for somebody else, and I am writing a book. So listen up, all you wannabes!
Click here to read the rest of the article.

Movie Review: Super 8

2011-07-11T08:55:00.002-05:00

Super 8 is a movie about kids but it's not a kid's movie. I mean it's great for kids but it's as much a movie for adults. It's also about an alien being but it's not science fiction.
It's 1979 and a group of kids are at a train station shooting their own zombie movie, not on a Flip Camera but with a regular old movie camera and sound equipment. They accidentally record the crash of a truck into an oncoming train and then the action begins.
Incidentally, the guy driving the truck doesn't die, and okay...that takes some effort to suspend disbelief but it's a small point.
It's really an intelligent script. It's been compared to ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and it certainly pays homage to those films but it's its own movie. The performances by all the kids are great, especially by new kid Joel Courtney as Joe, and Elle Fanning as Alice. The best part of her performance is the performance within the performance, when they're making the movie. But I love the chemistry between her and the Joe character. And I always like Kyle Chandler.
The music's gorgeous, perfect for the time, and I loved the camera work, especially the shots when they're in the holding area.
Oh, my other nit to pick (you know I always have something) is the kid with the braces - I'm sure he doesn't have braces in real life. He seems to have an extra set of braces-encased teeth over his own, and he can barely speak, his mouth is so full. Weird.
But all in all it's a well-done movie that grabs you and holds you until the end. I loved it.
4-1/2 out of five stars for Super 8.

So Much To Do in Chicago

2011-07-09T12:39:00.010-05:00

Okay, here's my weekend so far: yesterday I went to see OVO, the new Cirque du Soleil show. I'm crazy for Cirque du Soleil but have to say this wasn't my favorite, although there were some wonderful things, especially the last act. On my way home I stopped by Millennium Park to listen to the free concert in the park. What other city does that? God, what a lovely thing.
Today I went to the Michigan Ave. Art Festival which is a fantastic display of creativity, and I got there before the full blast of heat of the day, which is even more fantastic, and ran into my friend Carolyn Durocher (dancer extraordinaire - left). Then I stopped at Bandera on Michigan Ave. for
a glass of wine and the Hacked Chicken Salad (delicious!) and then stopped once more for a gelato - some chocolate-y, caramel-y, espresso confection. Oh my god. Need I say more? I need a nap and it's only 12:30.
I may see a movie this afternoon, then I'm going to need another nap because I'm doing the L.A.T.E. Ride with my friend Joann, which is a bike ride through Chicago neighborhoods that starts at 1 a.m. Yes, you heard me correctly: 1:00 a.m.! OMG. What was I thinking?
Tomorrow, other than sleeping, I'm going to see the play Bug, by Tracey Letts with my friend Claire, and there's still the Gold Coast Art Fair to do.
Holy crap, how will I fit it all in? Are you exhausted?
Sophie Tucker is - here's how she reacted when I recounted it all to her.

Movie Review: The Tree of Life

2011-07-06T07:33:00.006-05:00

WTF???
Nothing happens in this movie. NOTHING. There's an opening sequence that lasts at least half an hour (could have been 45 min. - I don't know for sure, I nodded off for part of it) of nature shots; oceans, flowers, amoeba, dinosaurs... This is an excellent opportunity to get popcorn, refill your Coke or use the washroom. I counted four people who left and never returned during this part. Oddly enough I stayed for the entire 2 hours and 18 minutes and I have no explanation for that. I guess I thought there was going to be a big payoff. Let me just say,
there isn't.
There's very little dialogue, only breathless, whispery voices asking spiritual questions. There's no plot, no real story. There's something about grace and nature, which I suppose is the central theme but you'll have to ask someone else what all that means.
I usually agree with Michael Phillips but he shockingly gave this film 3 1/2 stars (out of 4). For a completely different take read his review in the Trib.
For me? Zero out of five stars for The Tree of Life.
If you want to see a really, really good movie go see Super 8. Review to come.

Women Are Crazy Because Men Are Assholes

2011-07-05T20:55:00.000-05:00

Okay, that's not my personal commentary (is it?), it's the name of a play I saw at The Mercury Theater which, unfortunately for you, is no longer there.
It's a great show, the story of five couples who get together for brunch to meet Nicole's new boyfriend, Dylan, the love of her life, the man she's going to marry. Unfortunately they've never met. They've had a two-month relationship but the it's all been online.
And if that isn't enough material for two hours each couple has its own issues to make fun of. There's a little something for everyone: commitment-phobes, lesbian love, three-way sex...it's all there.
Here's what the program says: This is the last reasonable thing any of them will do for the day (referring to coming to the brunch). Secrets will be screamed, sex will be weaponized, and sanity will have its throat sliced.
They are assholes, they are crazy. Try to love them anyway.
There's so much laughter from the audience you just know you've missed some sure-to-be-great lines. If it were still here I'd see it again, hoping to catch those. If it comes back, you have to go with me!

Move Over Susan Boyle

2011-07-04T11:46:00.003-05:00

Get some tissue before you watch this.

Didn't I tell you?

One of my Favorites: Mythos Greek Taverna

2011-07-03T08:48:00.009-05:00

Check out Mythos. Go for the amazing food and the cozy ambiance, and then you'll keep going because you'll feel like you're home.
This is one of my favorites, a BYOB Greek taverna at 3947 W. Montrose, just west of Damen. The owners are two sisters; Vicki (right) does the phenomenal cooking and Toni (left) is front of the house; greeting customers, making sure everyone's happy, introducing customers to each other. If you're there more than once she'll remember you and it'll feel like family. I love this place!
(left, the chicken regante) Go, you won't be disappointed.

Faith in Humanity

2011-07-03T00:22:00.006-05:00

Last Saturday I got home from Santa Barbara at 1 a.m. and took a taxi from O'Hare. Later that morning (after only about four hours sleep - whats up with that?) I went for a run and then I went to get my wallet so I could go to the farmer's market and my wallet was nowhere to be found. Crap! Then I remembered taking it out of my purse, taking out some money and leaving the wallet out so I could put the change away. But apparently I left it in the taxi.
So I called the cab company to see if it was found, but no luck.
Fortunately I only keep money and my drivers license in that wallet so I didn't have to worry about credit cards. So, writing it off, I got a new drivers license (and wasn't charged for it because I'm so old!).
And what do you know, today, voila! I got a FedEx envelope from L. Kevin Green, Director of Accounting for Load Delivered, with my wallet, everything intact.
What a great guy. Validates your faith in humanity, doesn't it?
Some months ago I was taking Metra out to Itasca to have lunch with my best friend, Judi, and when I got to the ticket window I didn't have my purse. I'd left it on the damn bus. Jeez, what the hell is wrong with me these days?
So I went tearing back out to the street to see if the bus was still there - thank god it's the end of the line so it sits there a while and it was there and the bus driver had my purse (intact) and I ran back inside and still made my train.
Amazing.
I'm a very lucky girl, aren't I?

The Dream Keeps Getting Better

2011-07-02T08:00:00.002-05:00

My lovely editor at St. Martin's Press asked how my edits were going on Mr. Right-Enough (now called What More Could You Wish For). She said she wasn't trying to rush me but they’ve had a couple of requests from foreign publishers wanting to see the manuscript and she wanted to be able to give them some sense of a time frame.
Yippee! This dream keeps getting better and better.
So, here's the revised first chapter. Take a peak and let me know what you think.

Chapter 1
Sometimes people throw out the question, “If you could turn back the clock what age would you go back to?” and I would always say, “I wouldn’t...I love the age I am.”
Well, fuck that. Ask me now.
When you're 20 or 30 or even 40 you can't imagine being 50. But all of a sudden there it is, smacking you in the face and you think, "Holy shit, how did that happen?" It's better, as they say, than the alternative but really...holy shit.
I thought if I ignored my fiftieth birthday it would go away but Michael, my significant other, called on his way home from work, bursting my balloon of denial.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said. “Let’s go to that new sushi restaurant for dinner. What do you think?”
“We don’t have to go out tonight,” I said, thinking that crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head would be the preferred alternative. ”We’re celebrating at my folks’ tomorrow.”
“I know, but it’s not every day you turn fifty.”
“Thank god,” I said, examining myself in the mirror on the wall of my workroom and face-lifting sagging skin with my free hand.
Michael and I had been together nearly two years. We didn’t live together but traded off staying at each other’s house several times a week. It was a nice arrangement and we had a sweet, comfortable relationship, far more peaceful than any relationship I’d been in before, including my two marriages.
Michael and I had planned that he’d stay at my house tonight but I was thinking we’d spend the evening quietly at home with a nice bottle of Malbec and take-out from my favorite Szechwan restaurant. But he sounded so pleased with his sushi idea that I agreed. It was just dinner out, after all, not, I knew, a surprise party. I’d made him swear more than once that he’d never do that to me and Michael was a man of his word.
I finished hemming one of the purple satin bridesmaid dresses I was working on for my best friend Sophie’s daughter’s wedding. There were four duplicates hanging on a rack and I was anxious to finish them and get that purple extravaganza out of sight. It clashed with the décor.
My workroom, which was in the finished basement of my Chicago-style bungalow, was painted soft pale yellow and had nubby Berber navy blue carpet. The windows were small and high up on the walls but there was a fair amount of natural light, and lots of indirect lighting in the drop ceiling with spot lights for specialized work.
In one corner there was a big, soft two-person chair and ottoman that were upholstered with striped yellow and navy fabric and next to that was my desk, computer and some bookshelves. The room was bright and crisp, but cozy and snug. I loved the look of it but I especially loved what it represented: my independence from the sterile corporate world I used to inhabit.
Now, while I waited for Michael to return phone calls and take a shower, I turned on my computer, double-clicked the AOL icon and heard, “Welcome! You’ve got mail!” I loved that. It was like winning a little prize.
An email from my mother said, Happy birthday, Libby. I can’t believe you’re 50! It makes me feel so old.
Tell me about it, I thought.
I’m making some of your favorite things for dinner tomorrow. Come over about 6.
By the way, I saw this article and thought you might be interested.
She’d attached a link to an Internet article titled Retirement Planning for the Single Woman.
Jeez, AARP was already sending their damn magazine, wasn’t that enough? Did I need this from my mother, too?
My parents couldn’t grasp why I’d quit my job as a graphic designer six years ago and went into business for myself as a dressmaker/tailor. I think they worried my clients would dry up and I’d end up living in a cardboard box under an expressway. Or worse, at their house. But the fact was my business was thriving. It had taken a few years but I’d had some money saved. It’s not as if I didn’t plan the transition. Didn’t I get my resourcefulness from them? How could they not appreciate what I had done, how hard I’d worked at getting the word out about the new business; going to networking events, doing mailings to large apartment buildings in high-end neighborhoods, sending out eBlasts. And now I had a nice client list that kept my hair stylist in business, stocked my cupboards with smoked oysters and champagne, and paid for some nice vacations. And I was even putting money into a retirement fund, which I guess I needed to tell my mother.
I answered emails from clients, checked an eBay auction, looked at some fashion sites, and then just browsed, checking out the AOL welcome box with news briefs and weather forecasts and “Best Cities to Retire In.” God, more retirement stuff. It was everywhere.
At the top was a hyperlink for SearchForSchoolmates.com, and a picture of a girl who could have graduated in my high school class in the seventies. She wore a dark turtleneck sweater with a locket on a small gold chain, and had long straight hair parted down the middle. It was exactly like my own senior picture, and I smiled, thinking of my high school days. So I navigated to the website. I had to select my state, then the city, then my high school, and finally I could enter the years I attended and my own name, Elizabeth Carson. And voila! a list of 104 alumni from my graduating class came up. I laughed, looking at the familiar names; Mary Blevins, Susan Caldwell, Danny Schultz. I could picture Danny’s blond hair and dazzling smile and wondered if he was still cute or if he was now sporting a comb-over and forty extra pounds.
Page two was more of the same and vague memories swam through my brain, memories of walking the locker-lined halls and sitting in various classes passing notes to my friends. And homecoming and prom and the gymnastics competition. It had been thirty-two years since I’d seen any of these kids. The thought that these kids were all fifty now was unimaginable.
I was on page three when I saw a name that made me sit back in my chair. Patrick Harrison. Wow. That was a name that hadn’t surfaced in my brain for a hundred years. Patrick had been my first love, the one I thought I couldn’t live without. He was the bad boy with long hair, the one my parents didn’t like and I couldn’t resist. I remembered how we’d walk the tiled halls hand in hand, how he’d drop me at my classroom and give me a soft kiss before he’d walk off to his own class. My heart would just about beat out of my chest and I thought I’d never survive until the hour passed and I could see him again. I clearly recalled that sweet terror, the heart palpitations, the blush that started at my chest and infused my whole body when I saw him walking toward me. Was it possible to feel that way at fifty or was that territory reserved for teenagers?
“Libby,” Michael called, “you about ready?”
“Be right there,” I said and saved the SearchForSchoolmates.com website to my Favorite Places.

Michael seized a piece of sushi with chopsticks and popped it into his mouth.
“Raw fish good,” he said in his best caveman voice.
While we waited for our dessert of green tea ice cream Michael told me about his new listings and a high-maintenance client he’d just started working with. Michael was one of the top real estate agents in the city and I admired his dedication, I really did, but he always gave me more details than my attention span had room for. So now I nodded and smiled and thought about Patrick Harrison, wondering what he was doing now, what he did for a living. I couldn’t imagine him an attorney or an accountant. Definitely not a real estate agent. I could see him as a forest ranger or maybe something in non-profit. Or maybe he was a fifty year old bike messenger pouring himself into spandex and still wearing a ponytail.
I knew I was going to send him an email and thought about what I’d say. Hi, remember me? Remember when we slept together on New Year’s Eve when we were seventeen?
The waitress brought two tulip-shaped glass dishes, each containing a perfect scoop of green tea ice cream. Mine had a sparkler twinkling in the middle.
“Happy birthday,” she and Michael said in unison. I braced myself for them to break into an off-key rendition of the song and let out a relieved breath when they didn’t. I pulled out the sparkler and we both dug in, remarking how yummy it was; cold and creamy. Then Michael put down his spoon, reached into his pocket and placed a small black velvet box in front of me. I blinked.
“Open it,” he said pushing it closer.
I stared. I had a bad feeling. It was surely a ring but hopefully it was a cocktail ring or a friendship ring. I’d even be happy with a claddagh ring. Even though I wasn’t Irish. Trepidation swirled around my throat.
The waitress and two busboys stood watching from a respectful distance, grinning like kids with a new Game Boy. “Go on,” Michael said.
What could I do? Refuse? So while everyone watched I gingerly lifted the little lid. There, like a searchlight, sat an enormous diamond ring. My mouth fell open. The waitress clapped her hands together.
“Will you marry me, Libby?”
Marry him? Really? I studied his face thinking (hoping) maybe he was kidding but he watched me eagerly.
What was he thinking? Fifty percent of all marriages fail. Not to mention one hundred percent of mine. “My god, Michael, it’s huge,” I said. What I wanted to say was, What the fuck, Michael? If you wanted to get married couldn’t we have talked about it privately instead of turning it into a spectacle? “How could I wear this? It’s bigger than my fist,” I said. He laughed. “You shouldn’t have bought this. I’m too old for an engagement ring.” And I don’t want to marry you.
“You’re never too old for diamonds,” he said
Well, of course I knew that, but still...
I noticed then that the only sound in the restaurant was the faint clanking of dishes from the kitchen and I looked around to find five or six tables of patrons watching me. A plump, gray-haired woman in a flower-print blouse smiled encouragingly. A small blonde girl with a pink feather in her hair sat on her knees, arms crossed on the back of the chair. It was like a stage play and Michael was enjoying his role as the romantic male lead. What was I supposed to do now? How could I say anything other than yes with all these people watching?
“Put it on,” he said. I hesitated. “Go ahead.” I took it out of the box. I made a show of it being too heavy to lift and Michael and our little audience laughed. When I slid it on my finger his eyes sparkled and he leaned forward.
“Well?” he said. “Will you?”
I held up my hand and made another show of being blinded by the glitter. The crowd loved it but I was just stalling, trying to think what to do. The silence enveloped me as they all waited for my answer. I had a quick vision of taking off the ring, putting it safely in Michael’s hand and then running like hell out of the restaurant, disappearing down the street, maybe going into witness protection. Instead I said, “How could I not want to marry a man who would buy a ring like this?” Not a yes, I reasoned. An answer I could explain away later when I told him what I really meant was no.
The waitress let out a little squeak and there was a spattering of applause.
“Did you pay these people?” I asked.
Michael’s smile illuminated his face like a sunrise. He put his arms around me and pulled me close. “I love you, Libby,” he said and kissed me.
As I kissed him back I waited for the tingle, the blush, the thrill I’d felt with Patrick Harrison so many years ago. It didn’t come. What came was like a solid mass of cement sitting on my chest. Shit.
“You’ve made me a very happy man,” Michael said, his eyes crinkling with pleasure. “We’ll have a great life together.” He laughed. “Well, we already do, but somehow it feels different now. Don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said. “It definitely feels different.”

Rahm Emanuel, My New BFF

2011-06-27T07:00:00.005-05:00

Rahm and I went to the Lookingglass Theatre last night to see The Last Act of Lilka Kadison. He looked very handsome in a navy blazer, khaki pants and black loafers (no socks), and I was proud to be sitting next to him.
Okay, well I wasn't exactly next to him (there was an aisle between us) and maybe we're not BFFs just yet but I'm sure he wants to be - after all, I did shake his hand in the lobby before the performance. Oh, oops, I forgot to give him my name. Hmmm...that could be an obstacle.
Well, anyway, the play was wonderful. Very sweet story, and beautiful performances by Chance Bone, Usman Ally, Nora Fiffer and Marilyn Dodds Frank.

The Last Act of Lilka Kadison is the story of an old, dying Jewish woman (Frank) and the secrets she has kept. She's being cared for by an in-home aid (Ally - wonderful in the role) and she's at first resistant to having him there, grilling him about his training. She asks where he went to school and, fed up with her interrogation, he says, "The Al Quaida Home School for axe murderers." (Rahm and I laughed at that.)
Later, telling him about her son who married a shiksa and lives in Maine, she says, "What kind of a Jew lives in Maine?" (My BFF and I laughed at that too.)
It's an intelligent and moving story and I was drawn in by the characters (although Frank's character is a little too vibrant and hip for a dying woman).
It's poignant, funny, heart-wrenching and beautifully staged, a lovely way to spend 90 minutes.
Four stars out of five for The Last Act of Lilka Kadison.
I say, go see this lovely and clever production.
What do you say, Rahm? BTW, if you need a writer, or a personal assistant/organizer I can clear my schedule. It's H-O-F-F-M-A-N. Call me.

Movie Review: Beginners

2011-06-26T11:57:00.005-05:00

This is a very quiet, leisurely-paced film told from the point of view of Oliver (Ewan McGregor) whose father (Christopher Plummer) has recently died and who meets an intriguing new woman, Anna (Melanie Laurent), at a costume party, causing him to reflect on love and relationships, and why he always leaves them.
After having lost his wife, Oliver's father admitted he was gay and set about living the life he'd always suppressed, leaving Oliver with ambivalent feelings about relationships and life; a father who lived with vigor and a mother who accepted the way her life turned out. I loved the quirky mother character, tho if she were my mother I'd have put myself up for adoption.
Laurent is an amazing actor who inhabits her characters with such warmth and appeal. It's easy to understand why Oliver falls in love with her (I actually did, myself) altho not quite so easy to understand it from her point of view. He's a little too sad and serious but of course appealing.
It's a sweet, poignant, sometimes funny film. There's a cute device with a dog who has subtitled thoughts that Oliver understands. Clever, and who can resist a Jack Russel terrier cocking its head at you?
Four stars out of five for Beginners.
(Sorry, Woz, next time I'll see The Tree 0f Life.)

A '65 Mustang and Charles Manson

2011-06-24T09:59:00.007-05:00

This is one of the pieces I've been working on at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (SB is a great backdrop for the writing process).

Jennifer came bounding down the stairs long hair flying like a banner, small breasts jiggling beneath the low-cut, silky tank top. Her face was aglow with excitement, or maybe some dewy, tinted moisturizer.
“How do I look?” she asked, twirling, light glinting off her braces as she stood before her parents.
“You look adorable, honey,” Lora said.
Like an adorable hooker, Nick thought.
Jennifer’s eager eyes were on him. “Daddy, what do you think?”
He knew she’d probably worked on her hair for forty-five minutes, coating the bathroom with all that gel and goop, but he wanted to go over and pat it down into something calmer. Something a little more Donna Reed.
“Doesn’t she look cute, honey?” Lora prompted.
“Uh huh,” he said, but disappointment veiled Jennifer’s face and he knew he’d have to do better. He couldn’t point out that her tits were in danger of slipping out of her shirt or that her hair looked like she’d just gotten out of bed so he said, “You look very grown up,” the ultimate compliment, and was rewarded by her pleased smiled.
When the doorbell rang Nick started up out of his chair.
“Stay”, Jennifer said, putting up a hand. “I’ll get it.”
“Okay, but I want to meet him,” he said to her back. He looked at Lora who smiled and patted his knee.
“Calm down, Nick, it’s just a movie. She’ll be back in a few hours. It’ll still be light out. Her virginity will be intact.”
“It better be,” Nick said, tapping his fingers on the arm of the leather sofa, frown lines etching his brow. He picked unseen lint off the black polyester shirt that courageously attempted to camouflage his considerable stomach, and longed for the days when he could run the length of the basketball court; the days when Jennifer lay cradled against his muscular chest, sighing and tweeting like a bird.

She came back, electric with energy, her eyes bright as glass. She held the hand of a skeletal figure in low-slung jeans with tattoos painting one arm starting at his wrist and disappearing beneath the arm of his black T-shirt. Nick’s knuckles whitened. My god, he thought, it’s Charles Manson.
“Mom, Daddy, this is Brady,” Jennifer said looking adoringly at the mass murderer who smiled and put out his hand to Nick.
“Nice to meet you, sir,” he said, but Nick sat dumbly, eyes riveted to four silver studs climbing Brady’s left ear. Brady faltered, as his outstretched hand remained empty.
“Daddy…” Jennifer said. “Hell-o…”
Nick coughed. “Sorry,” he said and got to his feet. He managed a polite, if insincere, smile and gripped Brady’s hand, hard, pleased to note he had a good three inches on the boy.
Brady winced a bit but recovered nicely, turning to Lora. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Symonds.” He smiled, flashing dimples.
“Thank you, Brady.” Lora said, clearly charmed. Nick looked at the three of them smiling beatifically at each other and thought, give me strength.
“Are you driving them to the movies or do you want me to?” he asked Lora, jingling his keys out of his pocket.
Lora laughed. “We’re not driving them, honey. I’m pretty sure those days are behind us.”
“No need,” Brady said. “I’ve got my car.”
“Your car?” Nick asked as if he’d said his Lear jet was parked out front.
“Yes, sir.”
“How old are you, son?”
“Almost seventeen, sir. I’ve had my license for six months now. I’m a very safe driver.”
Yeah, so is Evil Knievel, Nick thought while Jennifer beamed and Lora nodded.
They all walked out on the front porch and looked at the dark blue 1965 Mustang that sat in front of the house. “Is that yours? The Mustang?” It was said with reverence.
“It is, sir,” Brady said, straightening his spine.
Nick’s face softened with the album of memories paging through his mind. “I had one just like that when I was about your age,” he said. “Same color, even. I loved that car.”
“Yeah, it’s awesome,” Brady said.
“What’s under the hood?”
“V-8, 200 horses,” Brady said. “Want to take it for a spin, sir?”
“Brady,” Jennifer said, her hand tapping her leg. “The movie.”
“It’ll just take a minute.” Brady said, touching her lightly on her arm and flipping the keys to Nick.
“Mom, do something,” she said as the two men walked to the car.
“They’ll be right back,” Lora said. “It’s good. It’s a male-bonding thing. Look.” She nodded toward them as they walked to the gleaming car. Brady raised the hood and they gazed into it talking quietly.
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Oh, great.”
Nick got in behind the wheel and Brady ran around to the passenger side.
Jennifer turned to Lora. “So what do you think of him?”
“He seems nice, honey.”
“Isn’t he cute?”
“Yes, he’s cute. He reminds me of someone.”
“I know, like a cool Justin Bieber, right?”
“No…” Lora said. The engine roared to life and she smiled. “Someone who had a ‘65 Mustang when I met him.”
“Daddy? Oh Mom, get real.”
“I know it’s hard to believe we were ever your age but your father was a fox when we met.” Jennifer chuckled at her mother’s term. “Not that he’s not cute now,” Lora added. “But back then all my girlfriends were hot for him.”
“Hard to imagine,” Jennifer said and then slid her eyes to her mother. “No offense.”
Lora laughed. “Picture him thirty pounds thinner with longish hair and those penetrating eyes,” Lora said. “He just had a way about him that drew you in.”
Jennifer cocked her head and squinted at her father.
“Actually Grandpa was a little afraid of him,” Lora said. “Thought he looked too much like Charles Manson.”
Nick put the '65 Mustang in gear, waved to them, and then peeled out, burning rubber all the way down the block.

I Want To Be T.C. Boyle

2011-06-23T10:16:00.005-05:00

Well, I don't really want to BE him but I definitely want to write like him. He spoke at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference last night, and read two of his short stories that had the audience mesmerized.
I hate to admit I've never read his work before and unless he read the only two good things he's ever written, I'm in for a plethora of reading happiness since he's written 13 novels and I don't know how many short story collections.
After the reading he signed his books and as I stood in line with my new friend K.C. (new as in, just met in line) we pondered the correlation between bad hair and writing talent. T.C. Boyle is exceptionally, extraordinarily talented but I'm sorry to say he has really bad hair (sorry, T.C., I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know and I'm sure your hair was glorious when you were younger). And then there's me, whose hair is thinning even as I type, and I have to say my writing has improved with each strand that falls. Should I hope I go bald?
And then there's K.C. who hasn't been able to write a word (except for policy - his job - which I'm sure is page-turning and nail-biting) and he has the GREATEST head of hair.
So next time you see me don't feel sorry for me if you can see my scalp through the pitiful strands of remaining hair on my head. I will probably have just won a Pulitzer.

Free Spirits of Santa Barbara Part 2

2011-06-22T19:54:00.008-05:00

This is Dan with his beautiful dog. Dan's a really nice guy, a songwriter and author who's been living in his van for about 17 years. He told me he recently decided he spent too much time on the internet so he put his laptop on the ground and ran over it several times, back and forth, back and forth, and then threw it in the trash.
Dude, I hope you at least recycled that.

And finally, here's Michael whowas having coffee with his friend Patty Ann on the "stoop" of the van he's been traveling around in for about three years.

Nice meeting you guys!

Free Spirits of Santa Barbara

2011-06-22T19:00:00.006-05:00

Wait...what year is this?
I'm so glad I'm a runner - it's one of the best ways to explore a city. I took my camera with me on this morning's run where I'm attending the SB Writer's Conference (and loving it - more about that later).
This morning I met the boys of the beach, the van guys, the free sprits who are doing their thing. I talked to three of them and they were all gracious and welcoming.
I came to Santa Barbara in 2011 but I think I'm now in the 60s.
The video is of a guy who calls himself One Feather, who has the most amazing van (more pictures below), every inch covered with...well, something. He's lived in it for about 17 years. I can't imagine how long it took to decorate his vehicle.
Check it out.

More van guys in my next post.

Slaving Away in Santa Barbara

2011-06-21T08:27:00.009-05:00

I'm working.
Really.
What could be better than a writing conference in a place as beautiful as Santa Barbara? That's where I am, posting from my hotel overlooking the ocean. The sun's shining and I'm finished with my workshops for the day, having a glass of wine and getting ready to go downtown on the 25 cent trolley (with free transfers), which is very exciting, as witnessed by one of my fellow passenegers (left).
I haven't been to Santa Barbara in more than 30 years and it's just as beautiful as I remember.
When I run in the morning I feel as if I'm in a time warp; the homeless people sitting on the benches look as if they just hitchhiked back from Woodstock and there are vans parked at the beach painted with peace signs in psychedelic colors. Groovy, man.
The first person I met, at the opening night barbeque, is arguably the craziest person at the conference and I've been trying to avoid her ever since. She told me she writes literary erotica (which sounds like an oxymoron to me but what do I know), and said as soon as she gets published she's leaving her husband. Alrighty then. That's a motivating force.
I just got back from a humor workshop taught by Ernie Witham (very funny writer) where people read some amazingly great stuff. And then, after the engaging, funny stuff someone read a piece about special needs kids which broke our hearts but, excuse me, wasn't funny. Why the heck was she reading it in a humor workshop? Another read a piece about getting beat up and biting off part of her tongue and having two broken shoulders. Ha, ha. Right?
But we all have our perspective, we're all children of the universe, the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter is aligning with Mars, and all is well with the world. Groovy, my brothah.

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

I'm always nostalgic around Father's Day. My dad lived to 90 and I'm so grateful that he was healthy and strong for most of that time, but, damn it, it wasn't long enough. I still miss him so much. When I think about him it isn't what he gave me or what he did for me or what he bought me that comes to mind, it's just how he looked at me with love in his eyes, as if I were a shining star. He was my biggest fan and loved me unconditionally. Not that we always agreed on everything because we surely didn't - we were very different people - but it didn't matter.
Once, toward the end of his life, I was visiting him in Toledo - he was at a residential facility at that time, in the independent-living wing. I was there on Saturday and when I went back the next morning he told me he hadn't slept all night because of the men who were there writing on the walls. I was taken aback. "Really?" I said.
"Yes, look..." and he pointed high up on the walls. "See the writing?"
I told him there was no writing but he insisted.
"Why can't you see it?" he asked me. "It's right there."
Well, that scared the crap out of me, even though he seemed fine otherwise, and I took him to the emergency room. They put him in a bed while we waited for the doctor and I sat with him, and all of a sudden he said, "Oh look at him go!" and he pointed down the hall.
"What do you see?" I said.
"That little boy on the tricycle there. Look! Look at him ride that thing!"
There was no one there.
They told me later it was called "sundowning," a deceptively sweet-sounding term for the fact that your mind is deteriorating and playing cruel tricks on you.
But as we waited I held my dad's hand and we chatted, and I said, "Daddy, do you know how much I love you?"
And he said, "However much that is, I love you a hundred times more."
That was the best present my dad ever gave me, the vastness of his love. You're never too old to revel in that. He was a good, kind man and his memory warms my heart every day.

Dear Beach People...

2011-06-08T16:17:00.007-05:00

I'm guessing your mom is not at the beach with you, right?
When I run along the lakefront in the morning it's early, before the clean-up crew has had a chance to pick up the heaps of trash that the pigs who frequent the beach have left behind. What's with you people? There are trash cans about every 50 feet (picture at right, just in case you don't know what they look like). Can't you walk over to one?
When I was a little kid it was pretty commonplace for people to just blithely throw garbage out of their car windows and no one thought a thing of it. Do you remember that? Isn't that amazing? Where did people think it was going to go? It wasn't until the late 50s that there were anti-litter campaigns, that people even became aware that it was a problem. Remember the crying Indian ad? That was in 1970 (see it below). If he was crying back then think what he'd do now, seeing that there are people who still don't give a crap (no pun intended).

Oh, and beach people, I'm sure you're the same ones frequenting my movie theaters (mine because you know how much time I spend there), eating massive quantities of food (nachos, industrial-sized vats of soda, Parmesan pretzels...), leaving all the wrappers and cups and crap right at your seat and just walking out. You walk past the damn trash bins when you exit the theater. Clean up after yourself! What's so hard about that?
(That's rhetorical since I'm sure everyone who reads my blog already does that.
And the crying Indian thanks you.)

A Book You Can't Put Down

2011-05-28T15:26:00.002-05:00

What do you do if you belong to a book club and you don't like the books that are picked? It's the standing joke in my book club that I'm usually the guilty party who hasn't finished the selection. I try, I really do. I start them all and I'll give them at least 50 pages, sometimes a little more, but I can't bring myself to finish a book I don't like.
Then why go, you ask. Because I really like the ladies (why don't men join book clubs?), and besides we always have wine and a wonderful dessert (maybe the men don't know that) so that's a win-win for me. And every once in a while I'll really love the book and what a treat that is!
Don't you love finding a book so engaging you don't want it to end? It doesn't happen all that often but when it does it's a joy. Actually it's kind of a double-edged sword, isn't it? You don't want it to end but you can't put it down.
Some of my favorite recent books are The Help by Kathryn Stockett (this was one of the few book club selections I loved). So exquisitely written with real characters you can empathize with. Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen is another that was so engaging.
And of course my all-time favorite: To Kill a Mockingbird, which I've read at least half a dozen times. And if you haven't read that, why not? DO IT NOW!
I recently finished Plainsong by Kent Haruf. It was a book club selection and surprise - I loved it!
It took me a bit to get into it. It's not that I disliked it, I just thought it was slow in the beginning and the story didn't seem to be going anywhere. But then it hit its stride, and I couldn't wait to get back to it. Now I'm reading the sequel, Eventide, and it's just as good. Very sad, tho.
Have you read anything lately that you didn't want to end?
Share it!

Yum! Easy Braised Chicken

2011-05-26T15:46:00.002-05:00

Easy to prepare and delicious to eat. Is there a better combination? If you like chicken you have to make this:
Braised Chicken and Vegetables
2 tbsp olive oil
4-5 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs (about 1-1/2 lbs.)
Kosher salt, pepper and paprika
1 tbsp flour
1 lb. red potatoes, halved
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1" pieces
6 cloves garlic, smashed
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
3 jarred roasted red peppers, drained and cut into 1" strips

Sprinkle chicken with salt, pepper and paprika. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook chicken about 3 minutes per side, until browned.
Transfer to a plate.
Add potatoes, carrots and garlic to pan and cook for a couple minutes. Add the flour and stir until coated.
Add chicken broth, wine and thyme, and bring to a boil.
Add chicken back in and bring to a boil again. Then turn down the heat, add in the peppers, cover and braise for about 30 minutes.

Serve with crusty bread to mop up that delicious sauce.
Yum!

Wacky Uses for Household Products

2011-05-24T17:36:00.007-05:00

New use for Polident! What fun. Not that I have Polident hanging around my house, mind you (at least not yet). But I heard that an antique dealer found some lovely old glasses that were cloudy and he put them in a bucket of water with a whole bunch of Polident tablets and...voila! crystal clear glass. I was so excited because I have some very old glasses that I love that are foggy and I've tried all measure of things to clean them: baking soda, toothpaste, ammonia...nothing worked.
So out to the store I went, could only find a package of 84 tablets, but what the heck. I'll clean all my glasses (and yours, too).
I pulled out my large Calphalon pot, filled it with warm water and dumped in a whole mess of those tablets and they fizzed like crazy so I just knew this was going to work. I put in the glasses and let them soak for about four hours and then I took them out and washed them and voila! they were the same cloudy glasses I put in there. They do smell minty fresh, tho.
But the Polident did an excellent job of eating away the finish on my expensive Calphalon pot.
Shit.
I'm thinking these things might do a first-rate job of cleaning the toilet bowl.
I'll keep you posted.
Meanwhile if you need Polident I'll make you a great deal.