Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Dodgeball at The Violet Hour
What I've eaten today: A few sips of water and watered-down grape juice. A bowl of applesauce, brought to my bed by Jojo the cavalry-sitter. Half a Starbucks strawberry-banana smoothie, that tasted too warm to soothe. Ten or so Mickey-D fries with ketchup and a few much more refreshing sips of iced tea. A turtle sundae at Margie's Candies because I had to give the girls this experience and was feeling much better, thank you. More iced tea from the Italian café on Damen, a guilt purchase since both girls needed to use the bathroom within five minutes of each other.
Now that I am feeling much better, I am actually feeling MUCH better because a brush with danger can heighten the senses, but evading more than one bullet can send you on a gratitude trip through circles of gladness.
"You're doing Matrix kind of bullet dodging," says Jojo.
You'd think yesterday was enough.
I did nothing, of course, about my hinky feeling caused by the girl coming out of the fitness center locker room wearing wintery clothes and carrying no bag. Just grabbed my purse out of an unlocked locker and went home. The credit card company called a couple hours later to ask if I had spent $800 at Best Buy or $70 on cigarettes at the gas station this morning.
The lucky part? The girl took only one card, the one I never use, so the company knew to call right away. She left my drivers license and another credit card. "Long blonde hair and a long sleeved sweatshirt?" asked the police officer on my porch an hour later, who had already checked the gas station video.
Could have been so much worse. It was all over in a couple of hours - card cancelled, fitness center alerted, police on the chase. The story was almost an afterthought when I told Kerry and Pam a few hours later at The Violet Hour. There were so many other things to talk about - our kids, summer books, old and new work gossip, and of course, the incredible setting for our conversation - behind an unmarked door, down a pitch dark corridor, beyond a tall velvet curtain, a stylin' cocktail bar with clusters of high-backed seats - backs so tall, that you feel enclosed in a tiny private compartment, huddled over your candles.
But the main point was the drinks - oh these drinks. Complexity, depth, fragrance and so delicious. I had a "Hush and Wonder" with Matusalem Rum, lime and grapefruit bitters and an edge rubbed with violet. Preceded by a Pisco punch we shared out of white ceramic punch bowl - felt very Dickens - and followed by some kind of muddled blackberry concoction that was one past my limit.
"Dear God, it's eleven o'clock!" we laughed and went on talking, although talking doesn't quite capture the speed and volume and staccato rhythm of our bursting out ideas and sudden important memories recalled with near violence. God, you can't take me anywhere. I point fingers at my dear friends and make inaccurate personal pronouncements, vehemently argue points I've barely considered, and make up shit that I try to dress in authority while getting slurrier and sloppier by the minute.
Didn't notice my keys were missing til we stood to leave. Didn't really mind, I was feeling so good. We stepped out into the fresh summer air, walked down to my car, found a ticket but no keys, went back to the bar to leave my phone number, then hugged goodbye after a cabbie said he'd take my unstolen credit card. It's a very, very good thing I did lose my keys because if I had not, I may have spent a few idiotic moments actually contemplating driving home.
I woke after five hours of sleep with the words "Get 'er done," in my head but even with all that intention, little got done today (no daycamp) but the minimum of parenting and retrieval of the car I left in Wicker Park last night.
First things first: dry heaves in the bathroom followed by cool tile next to my cheek. The funny thing was that the usual self-loathing that follows a night of my stupidity went missing this morning - another bullet dodged, probably because I've been administering the world's greatest anti-depressent this summer - a daily walk or swim. I could tell myself, "this is temporary," "I love my liver," "the girls are fine," and "babysitter's coming soon" and I believed it all.
When Jojo, the girls and I finally made it back to Damen Avenue around 6:00, I was just happy to find my car unstolen, unsmashed and boot free. That was happiness enough, and the girls were all buckled in, ready to go home but a niggling thought had me ask Jojo for five more minutes. I walked up the sidewalk toward the stoop where I had sat last night after searching fruitlessly for the unmarked entrance to the bar. My cell had had a text from Pam with the magic words "it's behind a white unmarked door w/a black painting" and now I had a feeling I may have put down my keys as I read it.
The stoop was in front of Psycho Baby which had their closed sign hanging. I knocked anyway and the woman who kindly unlocked the door answered my question with "Are you Cindy?"
HOORAY and NO WAY!!
A woman at a store across the street had found them, then brought them over to Psycho Baby when they opened this morning. Gratitude. No one deserves such luck, but don't we all?
Now that I am feeling much better, I am actually feeling MUCH better because a brush with danger can heighten the senses, but evading more than one bullet can send you on a gratitude trip through circles of gladness.
"You're doing Matrix kind of bullet dodging," says Jojo.
You'd think yesterday was enough.
I did nothing, of course, about my hinky feeling caused by the girl coming out of the fitness center locker room wearing wintery clothes and carrying no bag. Just grabbed my purse out of an unlocked locker and went home. The credit card company called a couple hours later to ask if I had spent $800 at Best Buy or $70 on cigarettes at the gas station this morning.
The lucky part? The girl took only one card, the one I never use, so the company knew to call right away. She left my drivers license and another credit card. "Long blonde hair and a long sleeved sweatshirt?" asked the police officer on my porch an hour later, who had already checked the gas station video.
Could have been so much worse. It was all over in a couple of hours - card cancelled, fitness center alerted, police on the chase. The story was almost an afterthought when I told Kerry and Pam a few hours later at The Violet Hour. There were so many other things to talk about - our kids, summer books, old and new work gossip, and of course, the incredible setting for our conversation - behind an unmarked door, down a pitch dark corridor, beyond a tall velvet curtain, a stylin' cocktail bar with clusters of high-backed seats - backs so tall, that you feel enclosed in a tiny private compartment, huddled over your candles.
But the main point was the drinks - oh these drinks. Complexity, depth, fragrance and so delicious. I had a "Hush and Wonder" with Matusalem Rum, lime and grapefruit bitters and an edge rubbed with violet. Preceded by a Pisco punch we shared out of white ceramic punch bowl - felt very Dickens - and followed by some kind of muddled blackberry concoction that was one past my limit.
"Dear God, it's eleven o'clock!" we laughed and went on talking, although talking doesn't quite capture the speed and volume and staccato rhythm of our bursting out ideas and sudden important memories recalled with near violence. God, you can't take me anywhere. I point fingers at my dear friends and make inaccurate personal pronouncements, vehemently argue points I've barely considered, and make up shit that I try to dress in authority while getting slurrier and sloppier by the minute.
Didn't notice my keys were missing til we stood to leave. Didn't really mind, I was feeling so good. We stepped out into the fresh summer air, walked down to my car, found a ticket but no keys, went back to the bar to leave my phone number, then hugged goodbye after a cabbie said he'd take my unstolen credit card. It's a very, very good thing I did lose my keys because if I had not, I may have spent a few idiotic moments actually contemplating driving home.
I woke after five hours of sleep with the words "Get 'er done," in my head but even with all that intention, little got done today (no daycamp) but the minimum of parenting and retrieval of the car I left in Wicker Park last night.
First things first: dry heaves in the bathroom followed by cool tile next to my cheek. The funny thing was that the usual self-loathing that follows a night of my stupidity went missing this morning - another bullet dodged, probably because I've been administering the world's greatest anti-depressent this summer - a daily walk or swim. I could tell myself, "this is temporary," "I love my liver," "the girls are fine," and "babysitter's coming soon" and I believed it all.
When Jojo, the girls and I finally made it back to Damen Avenue around 6:00, I was just happy to find my car unstolen, unsmashed and boot free. That was happiness enough, and the girls were all buckled in, ready to go home but a niggling thought had me ask Jojo for five more minutes. I walked up the sidewalk toward the stoop where I had sat last night after searching fruitlessly for the unmarked entrance to the bar. My cell had had a text from Pam with the magic words "it's behind a white unmarked door w/a black painting" and now I had a feeling I may have put down my keys as I read it.
The stoop was in front of Psycho Baby which had their closed sign hanging. I knocked anyway and the woman who kindly unlocked the door answered my question with "Are you Cindy?"
HOORAY and NO WAY!!
A woman at a store across the street had found them, then brought them over to Psycho Baby when they opened this morning. Gratitude. No one deserves such luck, but don't we all?
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Summer Confessions
I've stopped combing my six year old's hair. She cries and complains when I try to pull the brush through her thick and wavy strands, so I've started pulling it up in an elastic ponytail and leaving it at that. The sun has turned her hair a shiny dark gold and it hangs around her face like that of a pre-Raphaelite maiden.
My four year old went to a birthday party last Sunday wearing a dress and no underpants. When Mia whispered the news in my ear while Nora bounced around in the inflatable castle, I fretted for a fraction of second then just laughed. Aw, what can you do? I wasn't going to pull her out of out the bouncy house. Her dress was long enough for a Mormon. The girls had a great time.
The garbage man and I shared a little sexy wiggle to "PYT" grooving at full volume out of his truck radio the morning after Michael died.
I don't really mind that we were roused out of sleep last night by the girl screaming in the street. I guess we're not the only imperfect family on this street. I thought she was out partying with her friends and briefly thought of calling the cops to ask them to drive by and scare her off, but by the time I finished that thought, I was asleep again. In the morning Randy, who got a more clear earful, said she had actually been fighting with her mom, who tried to hush her and get her inside the house. "A taste of things to come," he said, as Nora lay with her head on my belly and Mia flipped through a book on our bed.
For dinner one night last week I made myself a dip with canella beans, rosemary from a pot on our deck, smoked paprika, olive oil and sautéed garlic. I whipped it in the tiny food processor and spread it on tomatoes. Four year old Nora got store-bought baba ganoush out of the plastic container with pita triangles and carrot sticks. We put our feet on each other's chairs and ate off each other's plates. We may not even have bothered with plates, come to think of it. I just dipped my carrot sticks in the food processor.
Barely qualifies as "dinner" but Mia was off on an extended playdate, Randy was working as always and this was a positive feast compared to the corn dinner we had a couple of weeks ago. That night I had pulled a bunch of jars and bags off the shelves with lots of good intentions, but the only food that Randy and the girls ended up eating was boiled corn on the cob with butter and salt. And they weren't very happy about it.
Over our baba ganoush dinner, I watched Nora cram another piece of pita into her mouth and I thought, "Nancy."
It would impossible for me not to compare my daughters to my sister and me. Nancy and I were similarly close in age. Only a year and nine months separated us, while Mia was two years and four months old when her little sister was born. When I hear them play their elaborate imaginary games from another room, when they fight viciously, I remember my sister, my nearly constant companion for nine years of my life. I've carried her loss for so long and the girls are so fresh and immediate and funny right here in our house that the frequent memory of my dark-haired sister that is stirred up by the antics of my children most often makes me nostalgic but not terribly sad.
Tonight, however, I was not thinking of Nancy because my daughter reminded me of her; I thought of my sister because Nora felt like her. Here was a moment of companionship, out of the hundreds we share every day, that pushed me farther back to the wordless pleasure and complete comfort of a childhood sister.
My conscience flashed a yellow signal I willfully ignored. At that moment, I did not care if placing my tiny child into a hole in my heart is not fair to her. Perhap Nora was my little mnemonic device, but she is most fully my daughter and her own person. If I feel closer to her because she reminds me of someone I loved dearly long ago, it is only one small part of what makes her adorable.
My four year old went to a birthday party last Sunday wearing a dress and no underpants. When Mia whispered the news in my ear while Nora bounced around in the inflatable castle, I fretted for a fraction of second then just laughed. Aw, what can you do? I wasn't going to pull her out of out the bouncy house. Her dress was long enough for a Mormon. The girls had a great time.
The garbage man and I shared a little sexy wiggle to "PYT" grooving at full volume out of his truck radio the morning after Michael died.
I don't really mind that we were roused out of sleep last night by the girl screaming in the street. I guess we're not the only imperfect family on this street. I thought she was out partying with her friends and briefly thought of calling the cops to ask them to drive by and scare her off, but by the time I finished that thought, I was asleep again. In the morning Randy, who got a more clear earful, said she had actually been fighting with her mom, who tried to hush her and get her inside the house. "A taste of things to come," he said, as Nora lay with her head on my belly and Mia flipped through a book on our bed.
For dinner one night last week I made myself a dip with canella beans, rosemary from a pot on our deck, smoked paprika, olive oil and sautéed garlic. I whipped it in the tiny food processor and spread it on tomatoes. Four year old Nora got store-bought baba ganoush out of the plastic container with pita triangles and carrot sticks. We put our feet on each other's chairs and ate off each other's plates. We may not even have bothered with plates, come to think of it. I just dipped my carrot sticks in the food processor.
Barely qualifies as "dinner" but Mia was off on an extended playdate, Randy was working as always and this was a positive feast compared to the corn dinner we had a couple of weeks ago. That night I had pulled a bunch of jars and bags off the shelves with lots of good intentions, but the only food that Randy and the girls ended up eating was boiled corn on the cob with butter and salt. And they weren't very happy about it.
Over our baba ganoush dinner, I watched Nora cram another piece of pita into her mouth and I thought, "Nancy."
It would impossible for me not to compare my daughters to my sister and me. Nancy and I were similarly close in age. Only a year and nine months separated us, while Mia was two years and four months old when her little sister was born. When I hear them play their elaborate imaginary games from another room, when they fight viciously, I remember my sister, my nearly constant companion for nine years of my life. I've carried her loss for so long and the girls are so fresh and immediate and funny right here in our house that the frequent memory of my dark-haired sister that is stirred up by the antics of my children most often makes me nostalgic but not terribly sad.
Tonight, however, I was not thinking of Nancy because my daughter reminded me of her; I thought of my sister because Nora felt like her. Here was a moment of companionship, out of the hundreds we share every day, that pushed me farther back to the wordless pleasure and complete comfort of a childhood sister.
My conscience flashed a yellow signal I willfully ignored. At that moment, I did not care if placing my tiny child into a hole in my heart is not fair to her. Perhap Nora was my little mnemonic device, but she is most fully my daughter and her own person. If I feel closer to her because she reminds me of someone I loved dearly long ago, it is only one small part of what makes her adorable.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Rock And Roll!
When we're driving, Mia's stuffed elephant asks for rock and roll music on the radio so he can dance and make kung-fu moves on her lap.
I flip the channels, past talker after talker, until I hit a folky pair of singers with an acoustic guitar.
"This isn't rock and roll," says Mia.
I find Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know?" and the back seat is satisfied.
I flip the channels, past talker after talker, until I hit a folky pair of singers with an acoustic guitar.
"This isn't rock and roll," says Mia.
I find Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know?" and the back seat is satisfied.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The Hangover
I'm not sorry Randy and I went to see The Hangover Friday night; something stupid and fluffy seemed appropriate for a spontaneous date night after Randy's long day of golf and the imbibing that accompanies those kind of work functions. But I am sorry that the filmmakers had to make such a horrible movie. I did laugh, guiltily, at absurd lines like "I didn't know they handed out rings at the Holocaust" but more often I just sat and stared. The actors try desperately for hilarity in the leaden hands of a director and editor who make most of their efforts futile. Three white guys being beat with a tire iron by a naked Asian man could be tastelessly riotous if shot and cut with weightlessness and a sense of surprise. Not here. The trailer is cut more deftly than the film.
Compare The 40 Year Old Virgin's justly famous chest-waxing with Hangover's lame Tasering scene. Sure, Virgin had the spectacle of Steve Carell's genuine pain, but the staging, acting and cutting of the scene also work to maximize our shocked laughter. When the three protagonists of Hangover line up one by one to get zapped by schoolchildren, there's no tension, no growing suspense, and barely a resemblance of actual pain.
In fact, the entire search for the missing groom after a bachelor party gone bad lacks the crucial elements of urgency and risk. The show inexplicably needs to go on, but you don't feel why that is so important. The bride whose "special day" might be marred is portrayed as a cipher, yet a severe one. The three groomsmen are well-off enough to financially recover from trashing their $4000/night hotel suite.
The homophobia, racism and Helm's harpy girlfriend (Rachel Harris) are gut-churning enough, but I have to reserve some special ire for the character played by Brandon Cooper, a perfect ass who desperately needs his comeuppance. Lacking the endearing awkwardness of co-stars Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis, Cooper plays a cock-sure pretty boy with understanding wife, cute child and a never-ending stream of quips who lands on this feet by the end of the film, annoying confidence intact. I want him to lose the tooth. I wish this movie could have reached down deep into the funny place and tattooed Cooper's face.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Initiated by Muscle, Then Boney Movement
Did you watch Randi and Evan dance last night on SYTYCD? Jaw-dropping. Randy (my Randy, not the versatile little powerhouse on display here) says, "I have a new show to hate!" but he was really talking about cheesy production values. I'll forgive him his "Mummenschanz!" dismissal of the beautiful crash test dummies number from two weeks ago. The "dance-off" portion on results night is truly silly (low-scorers flail around and do as many splits as they can while the audience counts down until a deep voice intones, "So You Think You Can Dance?"), but the "Koop Island Blues" number last night was haunting, special, beyond the level of your typical reality show talent contest. Can you call 90 seconds of butt worship a work of art?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
