Useful info...no, really

I don't know where you live but I live in one of those upscale neighborhoods where people steal the shopping carts from stores. To combat the shrinkage, all the stores have installed sensors near the mouths of their parking lots. If you push the carts too close to the edge of the lot, the front wheels lock up. Simple and effective.

Last night, I was running errands as I do most Friday nights (when I am not doing laundry). The plaza near my house has a variety of big box stores such as my store of preference, the one with the bullseye for a logo. Due to the popularity of this plaza, the traffic situation is often similar to the intersection of 128 and 93 at 5:30 on a Friday. To avoid the idiocy, I take a secret back way into the plaza and sneak into one of the various parking lots. My parking lot of preference belongs to the big orange home store but is literally 20 feet from the front door of the bulls eye store.

There were only a few items on my list - prescription prilosec, cat food, and paper towels - so it was going to be a quick trip. While I was waiting for my prescription to be filled, I walked up and down the aisles browsing. Guess what? Wine fridges were on sale! I am definitely not a heavy drinker or an impulse shopper but I could use one of these. My apartment has old radiators that I cannot control. Consequently, the lair stays at a constant 85 degrees year round. I love it but my chocolate truffles do not. Needless to say, most of my food and drink go right in the fridge for storage.

The wine fridge itself was surprisingly light; however, it was big enough to require a shopping cart. Of course, that was no problem until I tried to wheel the cart to my car. I realized my cart probably would not make it through the electric fence to my car as I was officially parked in another store's lot. UGH!!!! Sure enough as I hit the lip of the parking lot, my cart stopped.

I am not sure what inspired me to do this but I spun the cart around and pulled it. It worked! I don't know if it's a function of the carts or I just got lucky. Apparently, you can pull the carts backwards through the sensor but you can't push them. Needless to say, I was able to get my purchases to my phat ride and off I went...after I pulled the cart backwards into the proper cart return, of course!

Consider yourself informed!

Going to the travel clinic was so much more fun...

If you know me really well, you know that I silently stress about everything. Actually, I only stress about the small things. For the big things, I get my surfboard and ride the waves.

I am not exactly sure where this story began - maybe at my last job? Maybe 36 years ago when I was baking in the oven with family genes? Who knows? I do know that I woke up at 5 am the morning after this past Thanksgiving with the most awful heartburn from hell. I seriously thought I was going to die as I had never had it before then. My family suffers from it regularly but I always prided myself on my cast iron stomach.

Fast forward to 2009...I had been noticing lately that I'd been having burning sensations in my stomach. Towards the end of last week, I completely lost my appetite. I just figured I was tired and once I got a full night's sleep, I'd be ok.

Saturday night, as I was getting ready to go to dinner, I was scary sick. It was a cross between Linda Blair in the "Exorcist" and the "Don't" trailer from Quentin Tarantino's half of "Grindhouse". Instead of having a fabulous 7 course degustation with wine flight, I spent the night at Mass General having 3 pints of blood, 2 bags of Nexium, and many liters of IV saline.

I'm not going to lie - it was a little frightening. I've never spent the night in the hospital. I absolutely abhor needles but I needed 2 IVs. For some reason, they couldn't get a vein in my left arm so it's all kinds of banged up now. The grimmest thing of all though: When the nurse was pulling the good IV out of my arm during my discharge, she exclaimed, "That's the biggest IV needle I've ever seen.". EWWWWW

Teddy saw the IV needle and he can vouch for how big it was:

"It was this big I swear!!!!!" - Teddy

It wasn't all awful though. The night nurse, Melissa, was so nice. She told me all about her 5 week trip to India while she was administering my 2 pints of blood. The 2 nurses after her, Tatyana & Carolyn, were very sweet. Obviously, Phil brought me his teddy bear so they made sure he was always tucked in the bed with me.

The absolute best part of the stay though - VALIUM!!!! I am not a drug user at all so I am not used to the high feeling. They gave me valium before they scoped my stomach and it was awesome. I hadn't felt that good in days. Of course, I remember nothing except asking the doctor repeatedly if I needed to be on Prilosec for the rest of my life. Apparently, the repeated answer to that question was "no".

In the end, I have 2 ulcers that were bleeding on Saturday caused by taking Aleve. Their names are Timmy and Tommy. I wish I could show you their pictures because they are cool looking. Did you know the inside of your stomach is yellow? Weird!

Now, I have a prescription for industrial strength Prilosec. I have to go in for another scope in 6 weeks (valium). Other than that, I should be good to go. I just have to lay off the stress and the NSAIDs. Wish me luck!!!

R.I.P. Volkswagen of Destruction

They say your life changes every 7 years. I do have say my 35th year has had a few transitions. Fortunately, almost all of my transitions have been upgrades whether it's new friends or a new job (fingers crossed) so it's all good in the hood.

Unfortunately, today has been a bit of a sad day for me as I finally parted ways with my beloved 1990 Volkswagen Golf, Wolfsburg edition. My love affair with this particular generation of car started in 1995 during a trip to Belgium. Everyone in Belgium had these cars and I loved them. They were small enough to fit in tight city spots and they rode nicely. Of course, they had that European look that I just love. Needless to say, if I ever had the chance, that was the car I wanted.

Life changes and I ended up with an Oldsmobile, a Subaru Shortbus (Forrester), and a VW Cabrio. In early 2002, I found myself living in Los Angeles with the completely wrong guy. I bought a ticket back to Boston, leaving with $35 in my pocket and 1 suitcase. I was so happy to have my freedom that I just did not care that I had no job and had to move back in with my parents. Soon, I found a job and I was back on the road to financial independence. Eventually, I had enough money to pay cash for a car. Sure enough, somebody was selling the VW I fell in love with years before in Brussels.

I had 7 years with my beloved VW. 7 years of happiness and...2 alternators, 6 tires, 1 set of brakes, 2 batteries, 1 exhaust system, 10 tows from AAA, numerous bottles of antifreeze and oil, 2 back doors that didn't open, a battery light that would go on when I drove through puddles, and spark plugs that wouldn't work in the rain. It didn't matter. It was mine and I loved it.

2 months ago, the VW received $300 worth of repairs. Then, the directionals stopped working. Then, the battery light went on. In all sincerity, I was hoping it would last until next year so I could get antique plates for it but not so much.

Today, the VW took its final tow truck ride to the charity car lot. When the driver pulled the plates off, I just started to cry. Loudly. It was embarrassing.

You never do love anyone else the way you love your first love.



N.B. Each time I see the picture of my car, I start crying. Pathetic.

Favorite Food Memories

As you now know, I've been floating in space not doing much of anything except looking for work and working at the radio station. Since I've gotten my act back together, I've been indulging in artistic pursuits such as watching episodes of "30 Rock" and making trivets out of wine corks.

Another favorite artistic pursuit of mine is taking pictures of some of the delicious things I've eaten in my life. Needless to say, I was quite excited when I saw that Raw on Boston.com was posting food pictures. I submitted this photo and it is now online!!!!!!!!!!!! I am soooooooo excited!

http://www.boston.com/community/photos/raw/2009/01/your_food_shots.html



This was a smoked salmon bagel with creme fraiche and watercress from the Great Bay Salmon Cafe in Franschhoek, South Africa. It was in a paper lunch bag that opened up on my lap. When I looked down, I couldn't believe how cool it looked. I have to tell you though...it wasn't super super tasty. The salmon, creme fraiche, and watercress was amazing but the bagel was really dense and hard. I ended up just eating the filling as I did not have enough beverage to wash down the dry bread.

Anyway, scanning the pictures on Boston.com reminded me of some of my favorite food memories. When I was a child, I was a very picky eater. As I got older, I realized that I wasn't so much a picky eater as much as I never really liked meat. When I was 14, my mum finally allowed to me to eat what I wanted at dinner. At the same time, grocery stores started getting bigger with more international fruit and vegetables and bigger bakeries. All of the sudden, I had the freedom of choice with lots of options...which is benefit of growing up that can only be appreciated by a teenager.

There were a lot of remarkable food milestones in my childhood though. When I was very little, we had Filipino neighbors who taught my mum how to make fried rice. Way better than anything from Bora Bora restaurant. My best friend's family is from Italy & Finland so from time to time, I would have wild Finnish mushrooms or fennel. Occasionally, my family would go out for breakfast and I would get a grilled corn muffin with all the flavors from the griddle. Heaven!

On the flip side, there were a lot grim food memories:
- Canned vegetables boiled for 20 minutes before being served. I had no idea asparagus could be crunchy until I was 18.
- Anything made in the Presto counter top skillet
- I don't want to go down this path because I just threw up in my mouth a little thinking about American Chop Suey

Deep breath - happy thoughts of fresh pineapple!

If you're hungry and ever out & about, may I recommend the following items to you?

Fazer chocolate
Cornets of frites with mayonnaise
Waffles made from dough rather than batter
Lucuma fruit
Cape Gooseberries
Fizzy Naartjie water
Jacobs Afternoon Tea Biscuits
Mozambique Prawns
African Red Grape Juice
Joko Tea
Passionfruit Yo-Yo cookies
Tim's Cascade Maui Onion chips
and the list goes on...

If you ever find strawberries that actually taste like strawberries, please let me know!

In the words of Julia Child, BON APPETIT!!!!!

And we now interrupt this blog...

Well, really...interrupting what? It's been a full month since I've updated this. For those of you who don't know, I left my travel job at the end of October. My life spun out to orbit. I seriously have no idea what I have really been doing with my time until recently. It is the first time in 16 years where I've not had 2 jobs or been working 6 days a week. I had no idea how burnt out I was. Now, I am back in a sort of routine which includes updating this blog. Lucky you!

On with the show...

merry, merry

It's Christmas Eve and I am still addressing my holiday cards (in my pajamas no less). To my friends overseas, I promise to send your gifts this weekend. To my friends here, I PROMISE to ring you & return all my emails.

Please do know though - The Hoff and I are definitely thinking of you.

Holidaze

It's 1 day from Hannukah and 5 days from Christmas and I am not ready. My shopping is half done. I haven't even bought holiday cards yet, much less all the stamps needed to send them off. I wish I could justify my slothful behavior by saying I was working or something but not so much.

My solution to this holiday conundrum? Everybody in my life is getting New Year's gifts. It's very Japanese of me to step out like this. Everybody will be getting prezzies of Black Boss coffee and Pizza Hut Doritos wrapped in festive washi paper. Yeah, I know - you totally wish you were on my gift list.

Regardless, I sincerely hope your holidays are what you need them to be. And remember: no matter how bad your life might be, it's probably better than this guy's.



JOY, JOY, STUFF, AND THINGS TO EVERYONE!!!!