Wednesday, March 27, 2013

My Armpit is More Beautiful than Yours


Adam and Alma and I visited a few vineyards in Napa on a lazy beautiful Sunday a few weeks ago. Yes, it weirds me out that I can do such things. At one of the vineyards, we ended up at a standing table next to two absurdly talkative middle-aged brothers. At first they started talking to us about wine but when that didn't get much intelligent response from us, they moved on to telling us about their girlfriends and ex-wives and how the one was considering getting his 25 year old girlfriend pregnant. One brother downloaded a random dinosaur puzzle app on his phone and handed it to Alma. They asked for our contact information, offered to take us out on their boat, and eventually paid our tab. It was a little strange. 

In the middle of all that, one of the brothers asked where we were from. When I explained that we had just moved from Philadelphia, they both loudly groaned. "PHILADELPHIA!!! What an armpit. Thank God you are here!" He then went on to explain that he was from San Antonio, TX, an even bigger armpit than Philadelphia, so he was allowed to say that. 

[Insert really long rant on how Philadelphia is overlooked and underrated and may be filled with more delicious food than San Francisco. Yes, I mean that.] Whatever dude, my armpit is pretty and I miss it.







Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Cascarones

I have a special attachment to Easter. As an end of March baby, my birthday always wound up being somewhere near the holiday. I have scores of egg themed birthday parties in my past. For instance, at my 7th birthday we had an easter egg hunt. It was all harmless fun until my brothers got involved. They hid several eggs that had not been hardboiled. And, because they were 9-13 year old boys, they preceded to throw those eggs at me. What girl doesn't want to be covered in egg yolk at her birthday party? I tell that story often, but it really is one of only a hand full of "it was SO hard growing up with 3 older brothers" stories. They really weren't that awful, but don't tell them that. 

My birthday last year was all about pretending I was a kid and wasn't in the middle of a very grownup BAD year. There was an old school sleep over and penny candy I got from the Amish store behind my grandparent's house in Lancaster.  And cascarones. Cascarones are hollowed out eggs which are filled with confetti and are meant to be broken over the heads of party-goers. It's the responsible version of the game my brothers played on my 7th birthday. We played the game in my all time favorite city park, Washington Square in Philadelphia. It was fantastic.


       





 





Sometimes I use the brillant blogs of others as inspiration and tweak ideas so much that they become my own. Sometimes, I take an idea just as it is. This was the latter.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Nothing says "Happy Birthday!!!" quite like owl puke


It is an obvious fact that I miss the people that are no longer within a two hour drive of me.  But this feeling is most poignant and novel when it relates to little people. There is now 3,000 miles between me and the best collection of imaginative, creative, brilliant, hysterical nieces and nephews a girl could ask for. There is even a little nephew whom I have not met yet (it hurts to write that sentence). It feels epically unfair to be so far away from them and miss their joys and feats. Enter the party in a box (I didn't send the cat but only because the last time I brought a cat into the same house as the recipient's  mom, the mom ended up in the hospital for a few days and I kind of like that girl and she has enough on her plate as it is). A simple party box for a five year old boy: Number PiƱata, Slimy Experiment Kit, Candle, Hat, Poppers and Noise maker, and Owl Puke. My favorite part was the owl puke.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Pi Day

I don't have a strong attachment to Pi. But, I do have a strong attachment to pie and homophones. Swiss chard, pear, and sausage pie. My favorite absurdly buttery crust, this plus sausage and cheddar instead of gruyere, and presented like this.

I wish that I was good at change, but I (like a lot of humanity) am not even close to being good at it. I am decidedly bad at it. To say that I am in a rut is an understatement. Baking something new helps, for a minute.

A new day, a new beach





 




















Beaches are a relatively new thing to me. I grew up in a Campsite Family, not a Beach Family. I can make my way around a Coleman Stove way better than I can around a boardwalk. But, that being said, I am familiar with what they look like. At least, I thought I was. What is pictured above should have its own separate dictionary entry. The "beaches" pictured above are as followed: Asilomar State Beach in Monterey, Seabright State Beach in Santa Cruz, Fort Funston, Somewhere between our house and Halfmoon Bay, and Ocean Beach. We didn't necessarily seek out all of these beaches, it just appears to be the kind of thing that happens around here. Kind of like getting flicked off at a four way stop for stopping is the kind of thing that happens in Philadelphia.


Sand is pretty novel for Alma. Sand is currently in the same excitement causing category as Twizzlers, Pteranodons, Anything that Flies, the MOON, her cousin Ian, and trapping our cat, Kiwi, in closets.  The second we step off the gravel onto a beach, she does a belly flop into the sand, even though this belly flop is usually onto a crowded rocky path. What typically follows is a 7-10 minute walk down to the actual beach, even if it is only 20 feet away, as every inch of sand must be smushed and dug and sand-angeled. Given all of this, sand is my new scourge. It is the pockets of my sweater, under my pillow, in my coffee cup, and caked into the corners of my phone case. It's the new marbles (damn you, marbles).

THIS and THAT


It is not snowing where I am. It was warm enough today that I was wearing a tank top and wishing that I had packed sunscreen. However, it was snowing a month and a half ago when all of my belongings, and the belongings of my daughter and husband, were loaded onto a large dingy van by three burly men. THAT was Philadelphia. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. THIS is San Francisco. San Francisco, California. THAT was the place where I had lived, except for one roller coaster of a year, since I was 18 years old. It was the place where I realized that I loved medium rare meat and liberals. It was the place where I arrived wearing a pair of giant shapeless blue polyester pants with a hole at the heel which I had made myself, an untouched unibrow, and not a smidge of make-up. It is a place where I learned to look up when I walked, to slow down when I talked, to do research, and to paint my nails. It is the place where I fell in love (with knowledge, with cities, with difference, with humans, with coffee, with a boy). THIS is unexplored territory. I'll let you know how it goes.