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Giving

January 5, 2012 By 8 Comments

I met a wonderful woman on the subway.  She was on her way home from a Lakers game and was clearly a huge fan, as she had all the gear and the glow that comes from a great win.  She shared a story with me about her night at the game.

 

A True Fan

 

Having been a season’s ticket holder with her husband for many dedicated years, this was the first game she had ever gone to by herself.  She thought about just staying home, but decided to go down to the Staples Center with the great intention of giving her tickets away in a random act of kindness type of moment.  To her surprise, no one would take her tickets.  The gift was too great and people felt it must be some suspicious trick.

Unwilling to give up, she made the choice to go inside and find two fans sitting higher up and offer to trade tickets with them.  While grabbing a bite to eat she met a father whom she thought would be elated to give his child the experience of sitting in prime seats, but he declined.  He also did not trust the situation.  She kept on trying to give and it took until the second quarter for her to have a taker.  A very lucky young man heard, and believed her when she said that she was at the game alone sitting in incredible seasons tickets seats and that she had an empty seat beside her available.  He decided to join her and he was the most grateful person for the gift he had received.  An ear to ear grin and a slowly whispered “Thank You” was the perfect end to her night.

We chatted passionately on the subway about the state of human nature.  Is it that we don’t give enough so people aren’t used to receiving?  Is it that scams do happen so often making us reluctant to trust anyone? Do we trust some people and not others based on appearance, age, or other factors? The way fellow fans reacted on that night left her feeling that a bit of the latter was true.  Before we parted ways she revealed to me that she has wealth beyond comprehension including jewels, incredible cars, and a high heel shoe collection to die for!  She stressed the importance of being kind to every single person you meet because you never know their story.  We shared a big hug and I have been thinking about her story ever since.

 

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The Potato Caper

December 29, 2011 By 3 Comments

There is a great mystery taking place in my kitchen and I have a strong suspicion it’s yet another member of the critter world playing games with me.  I have been in super sleuth mode the last week, but have been unable to solve the case.  Even Google doesn’t hold the answer to the clues I have found and searched for.

A short while ago we grabbed our bag of potatoes off the ground to cook with and noticed one of them had been gnawed on. Naturally we assumed the puppy had done it so we moved the bags to a new location.  When we went to use the potatoes again, another one had been chewed on.  We then relocated them to a higher place unreachable by puppies.  Many days passed and our potatoes remained safe.

One day, after awaking from a deep mashed potato slumber, we found a potato that had been left on the counter, still on the counter, but with a big chunk chewed away.  This is when my heart skipped a beat, because the puppy had been in her crate all night! The curious thing is that there was other food left on the counter, including a pie and nothing else was touched.  What kind of beast only goes for raw potatoes?!

Thinking we had a mouse on our hands we took all our food out of our open pantry, but saw no signs of anything else being eaten or chewed on.  We have not found any droppings either.  I am open to the thought that it could be some kind of bug since there are so many weird ones here in California.  We let a few more days pass and with our potatoes all gone, we didn’t have any more incidents.  We set a mouse trap with peanut butter, which is supposed to be the most effective bait but we didn’t catch anything and the peanut butter remained in tact.

Eventually having bought more potatoes for Christmas, we decided to do a test.  We put out a few food items and left a potato at the foot of our stairs.  Sure enough, in the morning, only the potato had been gnawed on!  Now we’re thinking we have some kind of well read mouse who’s on a potato only diet for some life enhancing reason.  This same mouse must only poop in a golden box somewhere, because we still haven’t seen any droppings.

 

Evidence

 

We set the mouse trap again, but with a small piece of potato on it instead of peanut butter.  The next morning, the potato piece was gone, but the trap was still intact with no critter!  Last night we tried again, but we tied the potato piece to the trap so it would be impossible to pick it off and escape.  This morning we found that the trap had been triggered, but nothing was in it…and the potato was gone!  What am I dealing with here?!?!

 

 

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Mega Size

December 10, 2011 By 1 Comment

This photo does not do the size justice.

Wow, it’s true what they say about food in America.  They like to give you unnecessary mega sizes!  I took my kids to the movies and ordered a popcorn combo so I could save 75 cents.  We ordered 1 large popcorn and 2 drinks with an extra cup to share amongst the 3 of us.  My eyeballs popped out of my head when they handed it all to me.  The drinks were abnormally enormous.  I made a remark to the guy who took our order and he told me it was a promotion they were having.  He said that for a special time the large drinks were going to be 44 oz. That’s over 1L!  The popcorn tub was shocking as well, but the out of control part was that they just gave us our free refill right upfront in a separate cardboard box.  This was for our convenience so we would not have to leave our seats during the movie.  The irritating thing is that they didn’t tell me about the promotion up front.  The kids were thrilled of course.  I am ashamed, although I guess not all that surprised to admit that we had it all polished off by the end of the movie! If everything was half the size we would have been just as satisfied though.  What are they trying to do to us?! If they want to give me a special promotion, lower the price of the movie…now that would make a lot of mom’s happy!

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The Crab Who Fought Back

November 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I seem to have a knack for attracting critters and weirdo bugs.  They must smell my fear! It’s either that or someone has planted a hidden camera chip in me, and is getting a huge kick out of my reactions to the ridiculous situations I find myself in.  Emme Rogers has enjoyed her share of laughs at my expense and has attempted to fuel the fire by suggesting I combine dining and insects.  It’s a good thing I have friends who are on my side and kids who find her challenges insulting.  They set out to help me prove something to her.  Unfortunately for me, I think she’ll have the last laugh.

My friends came up with the idea to cook up some fresh crab and enjoy a night in with garlic butter and wine.  I had eaten crab legs before so I thought the whole thing sounded pretty good, except for the fact that crabs remind me of spiders.  Oh well, I figured my friends would lead the way, I would drink the wine and look the other way most of the time.  They did make me go shopping with them to buy the crab though.  We went down to a marina area so we could pretend like we ‘caught’ our own fresh dinner.  A lovely man reached into the hundred-leg tank and pulled out a huge crab like it was nothing.  The next thing that happened let me know this night was going to be more than I was prepared for; my girlfriend asked how to cook it.  I thought they had done this before!  When I heard the man say what we had to do I knew I was going to have to be involved, that this would be a group project and I could not hide from it.

 

Just Look At All Those Legs Crawling Around In There!

 

Learning How to Hold a Crab

 

It's Really Happening, A Fresh Crab For Dinner!

 

We ran through the plan all the way home.  Take the crab out of the paper…pick it up in the right way to avoid the pinching claws, hit it REALLY hard on the middle of the sink to crack the shell instantly and have it be over with…remove the top shell and discard the parts we don’t want…boil it…eat it.  Of course the kids caught wind of our excitement and gathered around, refusing to miss our attempt at this.

Take the crab out of the paper: The crab slid right into the sink and turned around to stare at us. I have never looked a crab in the face before and I think we all froze for a moment.

 

The Stare Down

 

Pick it up the right way: My friend’s husband was designated to do this.  He kept going for it, but could not commit.  Finally he made the move.  He did it all wrong and it was totally awkward, but he managed to get it into position.

 

Trying To Hold It Right

 

Hit it REALLY hard on the middle of the sink: We missed the REALLY part and ended up with a sort of tap.  The crab jumped out of my friend’s hands and back into the sink and ran around like crazy with it’s big angry claws.  Oh the screams! The kids were screaming, we were screaming, the kids ran away, and we kept screaming.  Eventually we stopped, drank a lot of wine, and composed ourselves enough to try again.  Success!  Then it hit us, we had to do it two more times because we had 3 crabs altogether.  We got smart and kept the other two in the paper until the deed was done.

In the end after drinking more wine to forget everything, I was actually able to enjoy our meal.  It was really hard to eat it after I just saw it running around.  I did spill garlic butter everywhere trying to get the meat out of the leg, but no one can dispute the fact that I was an active participant in a crazy dining experience.

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Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I was invited to ‘mingle under the stars’ at my first LA house party.  I knew by the invitation that it was going to be outside at night, but I had no idea how adult contemporary, rich and fabulous it was going to be!  Contrary to what many people think about California, it gets really cold at night.  There is no humidity to hold down the heat from the day, plus at this time of year the days are much cooler as well.  I suited up for this party as a proper Canadian girl…dressing to look hot and stay hot! Check out the sexy boots I wore (think ski bunny!).

 

Guaranteed to Keep Your Tootsies Toasty!

 

I also brought the fun with me in the form of a barrel of glow sticks.  After all, it was a girlfriend’s birthday party and we all need to live it up on our special day.  As I walked up the driveway to the house though, I knew this was going to be a different experience.  Candles lit the walkway, which led around to the back of the house where a blue-lit pool with a red-lit hot tub let off a sensual fog that filled the yard.  There were swanky lights strung around and groovy music playing.  As soon as my eyes took in all the people I realized my fashion faux pas.  I was dressed for an outdoor night time party complete with a tuque and bohemian braids, while everyone else was dressed in designer cozy sweaters and high heels or slinky boots.  Most of them were gathered around a bonfire having very sophisticated conversations.  This was not your typical backyard bonfire either, it was a glorious architect designed bowl with gas flames.

 

A Bonfire With Class

 

Now  I had two choices here: I could quickly ditch my coat and leave the glow sticks by the side of the house, or I could stay true to myself and inject some fun into this party.  I went with choice #2.  I took two glow sticks out for myself, wrapped them around my boots and spiced up the conversations.  Oh I definitely got the ‘I’m better than you’, and the ‘We are too grown up for that now’ looks, but I could tell they were all cold and wishing they had warm boots like me! I do admit though, I was secretly pretending this was my fab house.

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