Aunt Lucy's funeral

(Technically, Great-Aunt Lucy's funeral.)

Driving to Virginia was a bitch. What took me 9 hours on Sunday, with no traffic, took 12 hours on Friday. Some asshat decided that the Friday of a holiday weekend was a good time to do construction on the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which means I sat--SAT--in traffic for 2 hours, to traverse 2 miles, because they took 6 lanes of traffic down to 2.

The swearing inside my car was epic.

I made it to Grandma's in one piece, eventually, took a long hot shower, and drank the rest of Grandma's hooch from Christmas with my mom and dad. The funeral on Saturday was very nice; there were probably at least 150 people there, including a bunch of extended relatives I hadn't seen in years. Saturday night we all went out to dinner with my brother so that I could meet my new niece, Aislynn.

She's a cutie--and she makes faces in her sleep, which is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. Almost as cute as a basketful of kittens, yawning.

One day of socializing, and then back on the road, back home to Boston.

Remind me the next time I decide to drive 9 hours each way for a three-day weekend, that it's not a good idea.

Then, predictably, all hell broke loose at work on Monday because I'd missed Friday.

Fortunately, there are three things to cheer me up:
1. Spring weather.
2. Book club tomorrow night, which means martinis.
3. My friend L and her new boyfriend are coming over for dinner Saturday night, which will be AWESOME. I may even break out the good wine.

My hubby flew his son back to LA while I was at the funeral, and somehow the rental car gods smiled on him while he was there: he got magically upgraded to a Mustang convertible.

He described it as "awesome, and growly."

I'm so jealous.

The end of an era

The last of my grandmother's sisters died this week. She was one of eight, born in the living room of the house she grew up in and that her brother lived in his entire life, the house that has been in the family continuously since 1600-whatever, still with the original root cellar. Grandma's taking it hard--because her sister died, duh, but also because my grandma is now The Last One Standing. The two brothers that are left are both younger than she is.

I think I'm going to drive down for the funeral this weekend. Not because I was particularly close to my great-aunt, but because all my uncles are coming in for it and it occurs to me that my grandma's time left on earth is now probably pretty limited. It will be the end of an era when she finally goes, and I'm hoping she hangs on with tooth and nail to these last years and does not go quietly into that good night.

I hope that for everyone, actually, that we all suck all the juice out of life right up to the last minute and that our last thought is not a pain-filled, weary acceptance of death but a "Goddamnit, who drank the last of the margaritas?" before keeling over of a heart attack in the middle of the conga line.

A blast from the past, part 2

Remember that post I wrote about fellow alum Adam Kaufman? Turns out he read it.

*blush*

I went back and re-read it, and I realized that most of my memories of him were shaped entirely by hearsay. I had very little personal contact with him (outside of the hot drunken makeout session), and I don't mean for that to sound like I wanted very little personal contact with him.

On the contrary--most of what I heard from other people made him out to be some sort of acting legend, The Guy Who Is Obviously Way More Talented Than Any of Us Who Will Become Rich and Famous, and so in my brain, he was transformed into the Untouchable Hot Guy Who Will Never Have Anything To Do With Me.

Until, you know, we made out, which if I didn't make that clear in the last post, totally blew my mind.

It blew my mind because the guy who never should have noticed me, did.

And that small pebble set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to me acquiring some measure of self-confidence.

Only some, mind you. I'm still amazed when hot guys hit on me.

But the point of the story is this: hearsay can supplant actual memory. I'll be the first to admit that the intervening years have washed away large chunks of my collegiate memories, so I may have had more contact with Adam than I remember now. But outside of the makeout session, I'm not sure I remember much else about him. I don't think we were ever in any shows together, though I saw him in several. (He was excellent.) I do remember doing a show with Renaissance Theatre, after he had done one there, and being regaled with stories about him. I also remember my fellow theatre majors regaling me with stories about all the auditions and parties he was going to in New York--which, as it turns out, were completely false.

So let this be a lesson to us all: second-hand information may not be accurate. Memories may not be accurate, either.

I went back and rewatched the episode of Mad Men he was in ("Indian Summer," first season, he played the air conditioning salesman). It was really good. He was really good.

So Adam, in case you're still reading, congratulations on your career and your baby and feel free to email me at brokefoodie@hotmail.com if you want to trade war stories about Renaissance sometime.

And the rest of you that know me from college--my God, what else is my brain harboring that's completely inaccurate?

On second thought, don't answer that. It's probably a lot.

I heart NY

...and Tortilla Flats.

On Saturday, we took my stepson H into NYC for 24 hours or so of...well, NYC. We saw downtown/Ground Zero, went to MoMA, saw the view from the top of Rockefeller Center, and had dinner with friends at Tortilla Flats.

When we finally settled on the dates for the visit, I emailed my friends in NY and let them know we were planning on dinner there at 6 pm, and to meet us if they could. Normally, when I email 20 people and tell them I'll be at a certain place at a certain time, I'll get a return rate of maybe 3 people. Truthfully, I was expecting less than that--Saturday night was very stormy in NY, with thunder and lightning and strong winds and pouring rain. Not the kind of weather people go out in. But lo and behold, suddenly we needed a table for 13 (with 2 additional kids).

The maitre d' managed to accommodate us (with a few dramatic eye rolls) by squeezing us into the outdoor area, which was cordoned off with heavy plastic flaps. Normally fine, but a bit blustery in stormy weather. However, it turned out to be one of the best dinners I've had out in quite some time.

I need to sidetrack a little here and tell you the history of Tortilla Flats. My grad school program at Columbia was small--there were five of us in my graduating class--and every month since graduation, we've gotten together for drinks to talk shop. (Well, not all five of us every month, these days, since two of us live in the Boston area, but that's beside the point.) The first time we went to TF was February of 2007. We were celebrating Maria's birthday, and it just so happened that night was the annual Ernest Borgnine Look-Alike Contest. Bob won, in a dance-off, getting the table free t-shirts and a few rounds of free tequila shots.

My mother was also there that night--she was helping me move into a new apartment, and came along for the evening out. Brian, a TV producer, plied her with the neverending margarita pitcher and stories about producing TV shows. I was worried she'd be out of her element, but she had a great time. She called my dad after we got home that night, and I overheard this part of the conversation from the next room:

"I had a good time, they're a lot of fun." Pause. In a quieter voice: "They drink a lot."

Ever since then, my dad has been convinced that margaritas are somehow my mother's downfall, and every time she drinks in front of him, I hear, "Don't give your mother any margaritas!"

Anyway, so that first visit was an epic evening, one that immediately earned a soft spot in my heart for TF. I've been back a few times since then (none quite as fun, although the next year we reprised the evening and watched a drunken Maria get spanked by one of the waiters "for her birthday"), and because it's a loud, raucous, very casual Mexican restaurant with cheap food, I figured it would be a good place for adults and children alike to have fun.

I was right, and Bob was in rare form. He set the tone for the evening before we'd even ordered--as a group of women decided they didn't like the outdoor seating and took the party inside, he proclaimed, loudly, in front of them, the kids, and everyone: "Someone got their twat hairs in a tangle!" Later he waxed rhapsodic about the gay porn collection he'd once had on his Palm Pilot, and announced that the hand dryer in the men's room was so forceful that it "blew his piss sideways."

I haven't laughed so hard in months.

For a table of randomly assorted friends, most of whom didn't know most of the other people, it was a great time. Everyone had fun, the kids seemed oblivious to the adult conversations (thankfully; I was sure they'd be scarred for life), and we got a couple of free rounds of tequila shots out of it.

H announced his favorite parts of the trip were the subway and Rockefeller Center. I was worried about what he would think (we were staying in Bed-Stuy, traditionally a run-down neighborhood, and the subway was looking dirtier and more decrepit than usual) but he took it all in stride and helped me find subway rats while we waited for the trains.

The one downside was not being able to spend quality one-on-one time with each of my friends. I promised them all individual dinners next time I'm in town, which I hope is soon. This weekend made me painfully aware of my mostly self-imposed suburban isolation. I think more trips, and more weekend time out of the house, will have to be arranged.

Special visitor!

Tonight my stepson comes to visit for the next ten days. My hubby left yesterday to fly out to the West Coast and pick him up (everyone except me thinks he's too young to fly by himself). So last night, in the absence of my better half, I had a slice of ham and a bowl of peanut butter ice cream for dinner. And went to bed early. Hot stuff, I tell ya.

I've laid in a supply of kid food (Cheerios, hot dogs, white bread) in anticipation of his arrival. I'm already horrified by how much more crap food costs than regular food, and I'm also horrified that a loaf of premade bread a) costs 16 times what it costs to make a loaf at home, and b) requires at least 37 separate ingredients, when my 25-cent-homemade loaf required only 4: flour, salt, yeast and water. But what can I do? He won't deign to eat homemade bread, and I'm tired of fighting the food battle. If he wants to subsist on hot dogs and PB&J while he's here, fine. At least the hot dogs are kosher and the buns are whole wheat. I'll report back after he's gone.

We're taking him to NYC for a day this weekend, which I'm very excited about. I've asked all my friends to meet us for dinner--it'll be great to see everyone again. Tomorrow night the neighbors are coming over with their boys, one of whom is my stepson's age; we'll have pizza and let the kids play video games. I'm hoping he makes a friend.

A blast from the past

So last week, I went to the mailbox after getting home from work and found the alumni magazine from my undergrad alma mater, Lynchburg College (my hubby went there too, you may remember). It was a slow mail day. Anyway, I was flipping through it as I walked back up the driveway, and my eyes landed on this article (on page 42).

It's about a semi-famous theatre alum, Adam Kaufman. You'll know him from a stint on Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and a few indie movies. I know him because a) we majored in theatre at LC at the same time, and b) we made out after a party once.

It's not much of a story--even at the time, he was The Untouchable Lead Actor, skipping classes so he could go to New York for auditions. His disdain, for the small college and for everyone in it, was palpable. Well, whatever. I wasn't an acting major, so our paths weren't going to cross much anyway. But he was awfully cute.

I don't remember how exactly it happened, but I do remember we started talking at a party one night and that turned into a drunken make-out session back in my dorm room. It never went farther than that (I was seeing someone else at the time, and he was The Great Adam Kaufman, you know, and I'm sure he didn't even know my name), and the story would end there--except that I gained a small amount of notoriety in the theatre department for a week or so afterward, because I Made Out With Adam Kaufman.

And then I promptly forgot that it had ever happened, until I opened the LC alumni magazine 15 (16?) years later and landed on his picture.

His IMDb bio tells me he was in an episode of Mad Men, too, which I think I will have to watch again, so I can pick him out of the crowd.

I shared the story with my husband (if I remember correctly, this happened before he and I ever met/started hanging out), and he gave me an expectant look after I stopped talking. "What?" I said. "That's it?" he said. "That's the story?"

Yep, that's it. Slow mail day, slow news day. Another minor brush with celebrity, shared with you, o my patient blog readers.

11 things I hate and 10 I like. Those numbers were chosen completely at random.

Things I hate:

1. Unexpected bills.

2. Unexpected bills delivered in a completely unethical way. For example: our student loan company raising our monthly payment from, let's say, $500 a month to $1,200 a month, TEN DAYS BEFORE THE NEW PAYMENT IS DUE. Then claiming, it will take 10 days to process any change to the payment plan, then claiming that because any change to the payment plan won't take effect before the due date, there is nothing we can do and we have to cough up $1,200.

SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK?

3. See Number 2, only this time, it's the township we live in, delivering two personal property tax bills within five weeks of each other (claiming, "one is for 2010 and is prorated, and the other is for 2011--sorry it's so much higher than the 2010 one, but we only operate on a 30-day billing cycle, so you have to pay us in 30 days whether you like it or not because we don't offer payment plans.")

4. #2 and #3 happening AT THE SAME TIME. Isn't sh*t like that illegal? Aren't we supposed to be, you know, WARNED about 600% payment increases in a timely fashion? It's not even the money at this point, it's the principle of the thing.

5. This stupid goddamn weather. Where's spring, for the love of God?

Sorry, all the ranting about bills makes me want to swear. I'll try to contain myself.

6. Politics.

7. Politicians.

8. Busy yet unproductive days at work.

9. Hauling my tired ass to bed at 9:30 thinking, "Why am I so tired at 9:30? Why can't I do something productive after 6 pm, like, you know, finishing my book?"

10. Dealing with numbers 1-9 without a decent vacation.

11. Or a pretty new dress.

Okay, that's enough. Here are some things I like:

1. The smell of tomato plants.

2. Watching my cats frolic in the yard.

3. I just finished a wreath that I hung over the fireplace. I made a wreath!

4. Vintage Tom Hanks comedies.

5. Wine with #4.

6. The fact that my husband will cuddle with me quite often when I drag my tired ass to bed at 9:30, instead of staying up to play computer games until 2 am, which I know is what he really wants to do.

7. A good martini.

8. The idea that one day the universe will quit ambushing us with unexpected bills and we'll be able to go on vacation.

9. Hey, next month is our first wedding anniversary! I think I just realized that.

10. Even if we can't afford to go anywhere for our anniversary, or even go out to dinner for pete's sake, I will at the very least put on the sexy red shoes from the wedding and crack open a good bottle of wine. That's a good way to celebrate, right?

I could use some hugs, I think.

Y'all send me some blog love. I was all set to take my stepson to NYC next weekend when he's here visiting, but I fear all this bill nonsense has blown a trip to New York completely out of the water.

I guess I will have to go fix a martini, bury my head in the flats of tomato seedlings in my sunroom, and remind myself that it's just money and there are worse things in the world.

I heart Steve Martin

My husband and I saw Steve Martin, and he was awesome.

Of course he was. He's Steve Martin.

Just a couple of things: he has a new CD and a new book out. There was a scandal recently involving the 92nd Street Y; because of that, he was on Stephen Colbert.

Miss O

I generally equate "high school" somewhere between auto-cannibalism and being eaten alive by fire ants. That's one of the reasons I left at 16--another year of that would have turned me into a tower killer.

But there were two good things about high school, and both of them were teachers. (Okay, my Latin teacher was pretty entertaining and we might be able to count him as #3. But that's another post.)

One was Mrs. C, my biology teacher. She had a Ph.D. (what she was doing teaching high school biology in the backwoods is beyond me), and more importantly, she knew how to engage students. While I could care less about biology, I had a great time in her class. She turned me onto all kinds of books I never would have considered on my own, including St-Exupery's The Little Prince and Stephen Hawking, and was one of the very few adults in my life at that time that didn't talk down to me or make me feel like a freak for being smart. She's not teaching anymore--last I heard, she'd dropped off the grid and was living in a cabin in the woods somewhere. Good for her.

The other was a teacher I never actually had as a teacher: Miss O'Hara.

My freshman year of high school was what you might politely call "awkward." Puberty hit my face hard and left the rest of me alone, so I was a tall, gangly, accident-prone stick with no figure, bad skin, bad hair, an unfashionable hand-me-down wardrobe, and Coke-bottle glasses. The only thing I had going for me was that I no longer had braces.

And because I grew up in a small town, I'd acquired the reputation of the school nerd in first grade and it had never gone away. If I'd blossomed overnight into Cindy Crawford, I still wouldn't have gotten a date.

So I had no real friends, no prospects for dating, and I was bullied and harassed constantly.

Fortunately, that was the year I discovered theater.

The summer before ninth grade, I got involved in the local community theater. The most controversial thing they ever put on was "South Pacific," but I didn't care. I fell in love hard with it all--the acting, the backstage stuff, the camaraderie, everything. When I started high school, I gravitated immediately to the drama club, which almost single-handedly saved me from contemplating suicide.

Miss O'Hara ran the drama club. She was young and brash and insouciant and for all those reasons was forced out the next year, despite being an excellent teacher. (This is why I don't live in small towns anymore.) She taught English; I wasn't in her class, but I wanted to be. My freshman-year English teacher was approximately 147 years old and insisted on calling me "Sandy" all year long because she couldn't remember my name.

Miss O was another one of those rare adults that didn't talk down to me or make me feel like a freak. Even better, the drama club was filled with people that never would have given me a second glance otherwise--popular seniors, a couple of cute jocks, several class clowns. In short, the cool kids. And we hung out all year long.

Well, the next year she was gone. But by then I'd somehow managed to acquire my first boyfriend (he was older and didn't go to my high school; thereby cementing a lifetime habit of dating older men), a couple of friends, and more importantly, the assurance that this town was not the entire world. That escape was possible. That one day I might not be an outcast.

So imagine my joy when Miss O'Hara floated back into my life several years ago. She lives in New York now and writes a fantastic blog about teaching.

This story didn't really have a point, except that I wanted to shill for her blog.

So go read it.

And if you've ever had a mentor/great teacher or two, write them an email and thank them.