Wednesday, October 31, 2007

What's a Music Geek to Do?

It's Halloween and I'm in a quandry. What do I listen to today? Do I go with WFUV who is playing "guilty pleasure songs" today? Do I find recordings of Robert Goulet to pay tribute to him? Do I listen to the classical station of the NY Times who will surely be playing things like "Danse Macabre" and "In the Hall of the Mountain King" - an intellectual celebration of Halloween??

I went with WFUV. I mean, c'mon. They're playing things like Kenny Loggins, Genesis, James Brown singing "Hot Pants" and M.C. Hammer. If that's not inducing some fun in your workday, what would?

But I do feel bad about Robert Goulet. I'll have to play him tomorrow. RIP Mr. Goulet.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Mmmm......Gooey Cheese

I'm loving grilled cheese lately. And I've perfected the process completely, resulting in perfectly toasty, gooey cheese goodness. The tricks are:
* Using both American AND Fontina cheese.
* Cooking the sandwich over low heat slowly.

Perfection can't be rushed.

Friday, October 26, 2007

FORTUNEoff's

We've had gift cards to Fortunoff's since our wedding. Almost 5 years ago. Fortunoff's, I've discovered is one of those places where you feel bad spending money there. Even if the money isn't yours. So I went there looking for a Vera Bradley overnight bag. I figure, if I'm going to get one, it might as well be a nice one, right? So I look around and pick one out. (Isn't it pretty?)
Then I figure, I need a watch. One that works. With minute tick marks on the face. And I'm fairly picky. I want a leather (or pleather) band and a square or rectangular face. Simple. So I go to where I see watches and notice names like Bulova and Mr. Fancy Expensive Watch. So I figure maybe they have a section with lesser watches like Timex. So I ask someone and they say, "Oh yes, we have another "fun watch" section outside to the right." Okay. So I go outside to the right and see the "fun watch" section. Which consists of Tommy Hilfiger, Fendi, and Coach. Who wears a Coach watch for fun?????

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Just Get Off the Road

I'm amazed by the amount of stupid-ness I see driving to and from work. Mostly to. Maybe the morning brings out the stupid-ness in people. I don't know. All I know is that I've come up with the following:

*I'm not psychic. I can't tell if you're changing lanes if you don't use your turn signal. There's a reason it's there. Use it.

*If you're not moving faster than the lane to the right of you, get out of the one you're in. The left lanes are called "PASSING LANES" for a reason. They're not there for you to park your ass in for the length of the parkway.

*Your vanity plate/rear window decal/license plate border is not cute. It's not witty. It's not funny. It's just pissing me off even more and making you look like a loser. (Hence my start of collecting loser vanity plates.)

*Merging is not something you can be creative with. Just get onto the parkway as soon as you can and get out of the way. There's no reason to zoom around traffic trying to accomplish this so you can get 5 car lengths ahead of everyone else.

*I'd also like to know how those ridiculous landscaping trucks are legal. How is it remotely legal to have grass clippings and other assorted stuff flying out the back of your truck. How is it remotely legal to have 4 or 5 illegal immigrants hanging out in the back of said truck? If they were so concerned with the illegal immigrant problem here, they could seriously just follow these trucks around and solve a good portion of it.

There. Rant complete. Thank you.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

An Open Letter to Old Navy

Dear Old Navy,
Please send your pants designer back to design school. Or at least get him some face time with Tim Gunn. I don't know why your pants designer despises women's waists so much that just about every pair in your stores are "low waisted". Nor do I know why you'd create "low waisted" maternity pants. They fit okay in the dressing room, but after wearing them for an hour and a half I want to rip them off. My growing belly needs support and I certainly don't need to be hitching my pants up every time I get up off my chair.

Nor do I understand why your pants designer doesn't subscribe to the theory that "less is more." Why do most of your pants have inexplicable pockets or drawstrings around the ankles? Why do my "low waisted" maternity pants have the most unflattering pockets? And why are there darts around my knees?

I understand that a large majority of your consumers are the youthful, hip, slender types, but there are more of us out there. You used to make great, simple clothing. And your dresses and tops are affordable and stylish. But your pants have just always left me sad.

Sincerely,
One Who Cannot Wear Your Pants Even When She Isn't Pregnant

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Okay. So I tried doing the "good mom" thing and was visiting "babycenter.com" frequently. I liked the little calendar they had that gave me a little tidbit each day. I liked being able to click on my week that I was at and get a little synopsis of what was going on.

But then they changed their format. Now I can't find anything. No little weekly calendar and all I get is my weekly synopsis. So I figure let me try the bulletin boards there and see what other women who are due in December are up to.

BIG MISTAKE.

They're all crazy. Seriously. They all have little animated cartoons of themselves all pregnant-like in their signature. They all post things like "What's for dinner tonight?" Ummmm.....let's see, I have to teach a lesson and I work all day, so whatever Trader Joe's is demoing is for dinner. The following posts there weirded me out:

"What outfit can't you wait to dress your baby in?" - How about I'm just looking forward to getting them out of my body in one piece let alone thinking about what I'm going to dress them in.

"What are you wearing to your shower?" Ummm.....aren't showers supposed to be a surprise?

They just all give me the heebie jeebies.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Top Chef Challenge

I've been dying for chocolate and peanut butter lately. Not really in candy form, more so in like a cake or cookie type form. So last night I tried hitting the local 7-11, which is usually a vast resource of snacks that could satisfy any craving. Not so. Nothing other than candy with both chocolate and peanut butter. Not even any Funny Bones. Grrrrrrr. So I had to pull a Top Chef. I bought a brownie that looked fairly tasty, sliced it horizontally and slathered some Trader Joe's creamy peanut butter in there and nuked the whole thing in the microwave. Pretty creative, if I do say so myself, and it scratched the itch. For the time being.
How interesting would a pregnant lady craving challenge be on Top Chef?? More apt for their quick-fire challenge, you take a selection of pregnant women and the chefs have to appease their changing craving. Case in point, on my way to work I wanted eggs so I treated myself to a Panera souffle. By the time I got to work, souffle in hand, I wanted a corn muffin. *sigh*

Friday, October 12, 2007

Only a "High Nerd"

Maureen took this nerd test and posted her result. Since Tommy loves calling me "nerdo" I thought I'd see if there was substance to his claim. Apparently there is some credence to his labeling me as such.

The sad part? I had wished I did better on it.


Monday, October 08, 2007

Mmmmm......More Food

I decided I wanted to go food shopping last night after the show so I wouldn't have to muck up my day off today with a chore. Which is funny, because I LOVE food shopping. I love how organized everything is. I love that walking up and down the aisles just opens a million possibilities for things I can cook or bake or prepare. I love everything about supermarkerts. But I decided last night that it'd be the perfect night for a simple dinner. So I bought greens, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella. I bought that pepper that comes in its own little grinder (can we say sucker? I should have bought a real grinder and peppercorns, more economical and environmentally sound in the long run) in preparation for making a nice salad. Which was just perfect. And it went along with my all-time favorite Trader Joe's item. A pizza that's more like a tart with a thin crust, creme fraiche, grueyer cheese, carmelized onions and ham. I sigh inside just thinking about it. I could easily eat a whole one myself. But it was the perfect Sunday dinner.

And today, the 2 most highly anticipated items on my list to do are to make homemade macaroni and cheese with a new recipe that comes highly acclaimed on chow.com and a pumpkin pie to stink up the house with yummy baking smells. *sigh*

Lost in the Music

I had completely forgotten what yesterday was. Utterly and completely. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Should I be cognisant of the fact that 3 years ago yesterday I was diagnosed with cancer and started a long climb uphill to being healthy again? Or should I just let it fade into the past, as far as it'll go?

I was checking my email before dashing out to the Sunday matinee just in case there were any last minute directives from the music director. But there was an email from my dad. It was a journal entry had made 2 Februarys ago about a nice dinner we had shared and how it gave us some normalcy from the then hard routine of radiation treatments (I had driven 50 miles from work to radiation and then another 30 or so home - 5 days a week for 3 1/2 weeks). And under that was a new entry about how far everything has come and how I have this new miraculous event going on and where we all were 3 years ago. And WHAM! It was like a wet towel hit me in the face. How could I have forgotten? I mean, fall always reminds me of that hellacious time, where we didn't know what was going on with me, what was wrong, what would fix it. And I just lost it. Cried and cried and cried. Luckily, it's a long-ish, quiet drive to the theatre because I cried the whole way there. It was as if something had been bottled up for a long time and had to be let out.

By the time I got to the theatre, I was a little more composed. Crying had stopped and I was ready to just go it and play. I decided to just throw myself into the score in front of me and get lost in it. And it worked. I played really well (or so I thought!), and enjoyed the music. It's really a good score and we're at the point where we know our parts and are really just cooking together. The tempos are familiar and we just click along with it. I'm not even feeling pukey when those 2 honkin' cello solos come up now, I'm more comfortable with those.

So even though I was dragging my feet to get up and ready yesterday, it was the best thing in the world for me to have played. Cleared my head, got me going and made me feel good. While I was playing I kept saying to myself, "F&ck you cancer, you haven't taken ANYTHING away from me." A little cliched, yes, but true.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Too Funny

Coming home from IHOP (mmm...pumpkin pancakes) we saw an ambulance in front of the topless bar, or rather "gentleman's club" as they tote themselves as being. We tried thinking of the various scenarios that would warrant an ambulance at such an establishment:

An 80-year-old gentelman got too excited looking at boobies.
A bar fight.
An exotic dancer slipped in her stilettos off the stage.

It's horrible, but we just laughed the whole way home.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Mmmmm.......Bacon

This baby is all about loving bacon. Now don't get your panties in a bind, I'm not eating it every other day. Just in clumps of days. With a few days off in between. But I made this discovery. It's called a "Chicken Carbonara" sandwich at Quiznos. It's got white meat chicken, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, bacon and BACON ALFREDO sauce on it. And they toast it on sesame seeded bread so it's all toasty and warm. It's the tastiest thing I've had in a long time. And helps me get through a 3 hour show. PLUS.....I discovered that Quiznos has the most deliciously soft chocolate chip cookies (that they'll warm for you if you so desire) which are essential in getting the blood sugar back up at intermission of said 3 hour show.

Another Opening, Another Show

So 'Jekyll and Hyde' opened last night at the "new theatre." What a hassle. First, parking there is abominable. It's either get there super-early or drive around for 20 minutes sweating and swearing, hoping someone pulls out of a spot. So luckily, I get there early and get a decent spot. Sit in the car and relax a little. Get to the theatre. There's a sizeable reception going on. I pull my cello in behind me and am told, "Ummm yeah, we're going to have to ask you to go around to the stage door on the side because we have a big client here tonight." What? Do you not see I'm lugging a cello behind me? Maybe you don't see that I'm largely pregnant. And you want me to do what? So I lug some more, find the stupid-ass door and the stairs which look like they were built on a 65 degree incline. Luckily, someone came in behind me and carried my cello down. I'm coming in a different door from now on and will sneer at anyone giving me flack. Then....we're told we can't go to the lobby at intermission. What am I? One of those immigrants traveling in steerage? THEN......we go to the lobby at the end of the show to get paid and we're told we have to put our instruments in the car and come back if we want to get a drink at the bar. I'm wondering what their deal is with musicians. You'd think they'd want to flaunt the fact that they have real musicians playing and not canned music. I don't get it. PLUS....the actors jumped lines during the honkin', high, exposed solo which made me sound like an a$$hole.

Luckily we get paid:
-fairly well.
-weekly.