Why I Own So Many Cardigans

A true, and somewhat embarrassing fact:

When I buy clothes, I have to leave the dressing room and find the most cutely attired sales lady, preferably around my own age or a little younger.

I show her what I'm wearing and then I ask: "Do I look like a 65-year-old librarian?"

Okay, no, wait. There is NOTHING WRONG with being a 65-year-old librarian. One of my favorite people in the whole world was a librarian, and honestly, it would be an enormous accomplishment to resemble her in anyway.

But that said, I am not 65, nor a librarian, and should not dress like one. And also one of the most surprising things about My Favorite Librarian was the extent to which she bucked one's expectations of librarians and their ways. So what I am really asking the sales person is: Picture the most stereotypical image of a tragically fuddy-duddyish person at their most ridiculous. Do I look like that?

The answer, btw, is almost always yes. And I am then required, almost always, to swap out one or more pieces of clothing until the overall look more closely resembles something a person of my age, gender and professional background would wear.

(Note: A process which more exhausting than ever, now that I work in an industry that considers a blazer-with-jeans appropriate wear for everything up to and including weddings and, depending on the deceased, some funerals.)

All of this is a long way of saying that even though I know it is wrong, even though I know I must not give in, nonetheless, I am drawn, like a moth to the flame, to this beauty:



God, it's awful. I know that. It's a half purse, with a wallet sort of fused onto the back. And yet, it has a siren's hold on my heart.

In part, it's the little pockets. Oh Jesus, how I love little pockets. Remember those commercials for that purse that allowed bedraggled career gals to stuff a metric ton of possessions into one easy-to-tote purse? (Available in black, brown and, fascinatingly, bone. Always bone. I don't know if I've ever seen a woman with an off-white leather handbag even once in my entire life.)

If I can think of an appropriate Google string, I might look for a copy of the commercial online. I remember a few of the things that fit inside the bag: A hook for keys, a slot for a wallet, and I think, a pocket for a small umbrella. And yet I remember there were at least a dozen specific pockets. And all this well before the era of cell phones, PDAS or even Walkman radios.

The madness will pass in time, preferably before Levenger sells out of the bag and I am reduced to eBay stalking. (Have I no shame? Apparently not.) Until then, I will pine for this wildly age-inappropriate item like a wolf, yearning for a poured-concrete zoo habitat even as she takes for granted the freedom of her native scrub-covered plains.

Not A Serious Problem

The last time I went to the Funky Gourmet Food Shoppe (tm), I bought a bottle of something called Blood Orange Bitters.

I had some vague notion that Blood Orange Bitters is an ingredient in champagne cocktails, and it occurred to me that once my cold cleared up, we might finally bust open that long-neglected flagon of New Year's Eve ambrosia. I also thought this might be a way to perk up the stuff the day after it's opened.

(Between MG and myself, we can put away about 8 oz. of wine per 24 hour window. It helps that we have an elaborate pump/cork system which really does a pretty good job, but it's not perfect, especially when sparkling wine is involved. And who likes to throw out champagne? Answer: Not me.)

It turns out, yes, a sugar cube soaked in Blood Orange Bitters is the main ingredient in champagne cocktails. And also that champagne cocktails are AWESOME.

So now I'm really boned, because my new favorite drink only comes in $35 bottles that must be consumed in the next 48 hours, or those wee splits, which are $10 less, but, to quote the ancient Roman philosopher, have hardly any booze in them.

The Best Things About 2007

I am addicted to the iPod Nike +. I bought it on Black Friday 2006, and December 2006 was such a blur, it barely got any use. But since then, I've become obsessed with keeping the little sensor strapped to whatever pair of shoes I'm wearing at the time. So much so that I actually exhausted the battery on the sensor in just over a year of use and had to buy a replacement.

I tip my hat to the U.S. Postal Service and its $4.60 Priority Mail. Something like a dozen or more packages left Santa Monica for points east this month, and thanks to Priority Mail, they all arrived in a timely fashion for not a lot of cash. It almost makes up for the fact that 90% of my Christmas stamps are now 2 cents short of official postage, thanks to recent rate hikes.

My Treo 755p. Totally exceeded all my expectations. And thanks to Google Maps and its traffic feature, I now no longer need or want a GPS unit. As the young people say, WOOT!

Bobbi Brown Tinted Lip Balm in Pink Raspberry. Bought one, lost it, and promptly stocked up on three more tubes so I'd never be without it again. Like a classy black tube of Chapstick, with just enough color to keep me from looking washed out. If BB discontinues this item, I cannot vouch for her personal safety.

Vanilla Bakery macaroons. At this exact second, we are still well stocked on cookies of all kinds, but when this era of sugar largess passes, I know Vanilla will be there for me, with their excellent coffee and pistachio cookies.

And the very best thing about 2007, for the eighth year running: MG, who continues to shatter all previously held records for Awesomeness in the Field of Husbandly Arts. This year's secret weapon: Horn rim glasses that make him look like the illegitimate son of Ewan McGregor and Marcello Mastroianni's disturbingly handsome sister.

And Don't Even Get Me Started on Hoagy Carmichael

I've seen "To Have or Have Not," hmmm, a dozen times. Maybe more. There's not a single good thing in the whole movie -- it's just a chaotic shambles. Ernest Hemingway hams it up in the source material, William Faulkner drinks his ass off as he wrote the script, Howard Hawks cribs major swaths of "Casablanca." And yet I love it so.

I love 19-year-old Lauren Bacall. Slim isn't the word. She's a size 0 by 2007 standards, and since it's 1943, she comes across the tallest drink of water to ever wear heels. I don't think any 19-year-old has ever been so glamorous or knowing before or sense.

Humphrey Bogart's earning his paycheck and checking out Ms. Bacall's rack whenever he thinks the camera isn't looking.

Walter Brennan is nailing what, conservatively, might be his 900th rummy role. He's got this crazy jittery walk and insists on asking people "Was you ever bit by a dead bee?"

But above all, I love the dialogue. Rich, campy, over the top and wonderful.

"You know how to whistle, doncha Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

"A dead bee can sting ya just as bad as a live one, 'specially if he was mad when he died."

"Sometimes I know just what you're thinking. And sometimes... sometimes you're just a stinker."

Today, It Came!

I am a born wine steward. Someone should hire me to acquire young vintages for their cellar, or possibly, assemble a small inventory of cheeses, to be aged right up to the threshold of perfection.

Because I am very good at waiting.

How good? A brief survey of the internet reveals that Palm-branded smartphones have been around since 2002. I've wanted one since the very first Treo 180 came into existence. I subsequently wanted, in order, a Tungsten W, a Treo 600, a Treo 650, a Treo 700 and a Treo 750.

But there is no reasoning with Kate's Ability to Wait. For wait she can, as long as necessary, for the Device of Her Dreams.

I've limped along with basic cellphones -- whatever model you can get for free when you sign a two year contract. For a while there, MG and I shared one phone, licking our wounds after a savage termination fee debacle when we moved to Los Angeles. In the same window of time, I've had two PDAs, a Palm IIIc and a Tungsten C. And I love that little Tungsten C, but oh my God, a fully-functional wifi device it is NOT. And yet I hung in there.

Back in June, with the dawn of the iPhone, I was sorely tempted. I hate AT&T's network and their customer service. I hated that the iPhone worked with the much slower EDGE network. And I wasn't a huge fan of the touchscreen keyboard. And still, I was tempted. But no.

No, I waited until yesterday, when the waters parted and Verizon released the Treo 755p -- designed to work on the lightning-fast EVDO network. Thoroughly QA'd to work out the bugs that filled page after page of angry forum comments all over the internet. And most importantly, not hooked up to the fearfully spotty Sprint.

I hesitated for a moment, then remembered that the next generation iPhone won't be out until this time next year, which really means the soonest I could possibly want it would be late 2009. Reader, I bought the phone.

Verizon, god bless them, piled on so many rebates and discounts that it knocked the $570 price down to $250. Even so, I had several long, miserable hours, when I discovered that the phone would not be black or silver, but a shade called "azure green."

I know it sounds ridiculous, but when you've waited FIVE YEARS to buy a smartphone, you'd like it to be a non-stupid color.

Happily, azure green is basically greenish grey, kind of a scarab-shell color, which I can live with. The internet access is wicked fast, the voice quality excellent. J'adore.

It was worth the wait. And now, happily, the future stretches ahead of me, unoccupied by ambitions or expectations.

For now.

Get Thee Behind Me, Mushroom Pizza!

Writing on deadline will break you of bad habits faster than a mean nun with a ruler.

I still love sugar and chocolate and, especially, crusty bread. But every single one of these things makes me crash like a dosed-up heroin addict, and so I had to give them up in order to get my work done.

Now that the dust has settled, I'm having trouble going back to my old ways. I remember the crushing energy drop, the hours of lethargy, waiting for my blood sugar to normalize, and I just can't do it. For this reason, as much as any other, I have given up Peppermint Bark. Yes, you heard me. Me and the PBark, we're quitsville. Look, it's still minty delicious, and I still enjoy a small piece when I walk past a Williams-Sonoma. But that's it.

In a similar vein, I've shattered yet another barrier to the wheat-free life: Mac and cheese. In my version (stolen from here, and apparently, she stole it from Nigella), I roast a butternut squash then toss it with blue cheese and toasted pecans. I think it might be proof of God's existence.

Christmas Miracles

1. My long lost scarf arrived from Ireland. Technically not the lost scarf, but a replacement, yet I feared that it had been eaten by Customs and would never arrive. But no, it came yesterday afternoon.

2. With six hours of sleep, three caffeinated beverages, some sea salt and vinegar potato chips and the final hour of "The Winslow Boy," I managed to finish a draft of my rewrite homework.

3. Somehow, I am still awake and able to function well enough to do laundry. Which is a godsend, because I am down to my last pair of clean knickers.

4. MG has taken fantastic care of me through these last arduous weeks. This is not so much a miracle, as he is the best partner a girl could hope for, but in the spirit of being grateful for all the little things, he definitely belongs on the list.

5. I had two dollars discretionary money on my student ID and the film school's coffee stand was a) open, b) equipped with a working espresso machine and c) stocked with skim milk, so I could purchase what might be my very last medium non-fat latte for some years to come. It will be three years this February that MG and I sat on a bench outside Lucas, waiting for the school tour to start, when I decided to see if I could find a bathroom and discovered the Lucas Coffee Cart. Never in my life have I felt such a powerful desire to enroll in a school, as I felt at that moment.

6. Barring complete disaster, I have in fact finished my MFA. Only thing left is to get the fancy document in the mail.

Countdown

T-Minus 90 minutes to Sweetbread Consumption.

Gonna be good. Can barely wait.

Yum.

Oh My God!

Did everyone else know how easy it was to post photos to Blogger and they just forgot to tell me? Wow, it was almost impossible to put pictures up when we drove across the country--and now it's a piece of cake.

Anyway, this is my most prized possession, my Bialetti espresso pot. Technically, it makes four 2 oz shots of espresso, but I use it to make 2 shots, and it works like a dream.

Like most young adults, I have a powerful caffeine addiction, made worse by a dislike of coffee qua coffee. Keep in mind, I learned to like coffee by eating coffee ice cream at the University of Wisconsin. So for the last 5 years, I've been hitting the latte pretty hard--particularly over the last 3 years, when I've lived within walking distance of 2 or 3 Starbucks. But who likes to spend $4 a day on a coffee-flavored glass of warm skim milk?

I'm also old enough to have already tried owning an espresso machine. I think maybe every young couple has that moment in the housewares department, where they see the Krups espresso maker and think: Hey, we could make our own espresso! And it's only $99! Then they break up, and the smarter one "graciously" allows their ex to keep the machine, knowing perfectly well that it doesn't work and they never used it. (Because you need some serious pressure to make decent espresso, and it can't be produced in the tank of a $99 espresso machine.)

But magically, it can be produced in the cast aluminum belly of a $30 espresso pot. Add some skim milk, et voila! Latte!



This particular latte is made with cold milk--it was a warm day. But on chilly days, it takes no time to pour the milk into a sauce pan and heat it up while the Bialetti ticks over.

That's actually my favorite part--you have to be veeerrry quiet to hear the Bialetti do its magic. For 3-4 minutes, it's totally silent. Then it burbles very, very softly for about 30 seconds, and gives off one whiff of steam. If you miss the burble or the steam, you could stand around quite a while, waiting for your espresso. It's like waiting for a caffeine fairy to come and leave you a magical treat. You have to have faith.