Everything I Like Causes Cancer

Remember that prom picture of me that I told you I submitted to Promtacular!? You know, the one you demanded to see immediately but I made you wait until it was published?

My attorney teammate and I have been hosting/broadcasting a web seminar for our clients every week for the past two months. We hold classes on Thursday mornings. My job has been to coordinate all the attendees, to attend and monitor the broadcast to make sure the slides are working and visible, and to let the next speaker know when it's almost time for their presentation.

Each week as I attend I put my phone on mute so that the other attendees can't hear me clicking away at my keyboard or talking or whatever. It was uncomfortably silent at the end of the first presentation last week when the speaker (my BFF) asked for questions so I picked up my handset, went live, and got everybody talking for her. And then I hung up my handset, proud that I had helped my friend out of a sticky spot.


So then I was sitting here at my desk, being all comfortable in my own space when I belched, loud. I followed it with a tiny "'Scuse me!" because I think that's cute. And then I looked up and saw that I HAD FORGOTTEN TO RE-MUTE MY PHONE. Before I could even think I exclaimed, "OMG! I'm not muted!" And then you could hear my friend giggling.

Yes, you heard me: I belched over the phone in front of almost all of our west coast clients.


Thankfully, everyone in the conference room on our end thought it was hilarious and none of the clients seemed to notice. BUT STILL! I was so ashamed and embarrassed. It took half an hour for my face to return to its usual shade. It was an hour before I could laugh. It will be years before I live it down.

Dear Steamy Becky:

A month or more ago a bunch of us gals tricked our friend The Plant into hosting her own birthday party. (Yeah, we're pretty awesome. Wanna be friends?)

Anyway, she sent her husband to LA for a soccer match and then spent all day calling in an order for preparing fresh pasta. We showed up for dinner and surprised her with stupid hats, noisemakers, and gifts ranging from the beautiful to the ridiculous.

Over the years I'd heard rumors about The Plant's impressive B*rbie collection but was seriously amazed when I saw her hauling out trunk after trunk of dolls and clothes. The most amazing part is that the majority of the clothes were hand made by women in her family. And she still has them. And we still play with them.

About fifteen minutes into dressing the dolls and brushing their hair things got . . . well . . . out of hand? Silly? Surreal? Hilarious? Inappropriate?

Eh, judge for yourself:

Things started out nice enough.

Sure, Titty McBonbon is topless, but she's still classy.

Class? Just left the building.

Poor Joe (Namath), lost his feet and his right arm after he hit on that sportscaster lady.

But he can still get with other ladies.

Go Joe!

Seems Ken doesn't care about Joe's lack of limbs, or that he never takes off his helmet.

Oh. Wow. Ken's in love.

Ken! Think about things! If you consummate it's harder to get an annulment!

Aaaaaand . . . the reception gets out of hand.

Filled with shame, they drank the Kool-Aid

and lay down together to die at the end of the night.

Before they went to the Dreamhouse In The Sky, however, they filmed an off-the-cuff but highly entertaining reenactment of Mad Men. Help honor the memory of these dead plastic hedonists by enjoying their performance.

"Bring four packs, we're going to be in there for an hour!"

Just some stuff . . .

Every year I choose a new project for the garden: one year I might focus on a particular family of plants, like roses or bulbs; the next year I might tackle a troublesome area, like the dark/wet/cold corner by the house (evil lives there, and little else.) I went into this winter planning to focus on herbs in 2010. I immersed myself in plant catalogs and herb guides and recipe books and spent countless hours studying leaf texture, fragrance, flowering potential, sun preference, size, uses outside the garden . . . but that wasn't enough. No, I got super ambitious. I decided to start the majority of my new 2010 plants from seed.

"Hey, baby, nice cotyledons.

Wanna set some roots together?"

It's a mighty endeavor but I'll never be good at it if I don't try, and I want to see if I can. Plus, all the time I spent plotting the new beds, researching what I would need and when I should start, and shopping for the seeds felt enough like gardening that it kept me from losing my cabin-fevered mind and robbing the 7-11. Well - that, the security cameras, and my fear of jail.

Last spring I worked Saturday mornings for a woman who runs a small nursery out of her basement. Miss V, a dynamic octogenarian, started her first plants from seed after her father-in-law told her she wouldn't be able to do it. She also backhanded me on my first day for referring to her expertly prepared soil as "dirt." To say I've learned a thing or two about starting plants from seed under the tutelage of Miss V is an understatement, it's just a matter of whether or not I can do it without her space and equipment and guidance.

Much of what I read this winter warned me to start small, to attempt no more than ten different types of seed. Last year I threw some dry seeding mix (no water + no nutrients = slim chance, dummy) into two trays, poked a seed into each slot without regard to size and set them in a window with southern exposure. I did okay: most seeds germinated; most of those plants made it outdoors; and most of those thrived all season. And since I started those seeds before I had been schooled by Miss V, I consider last year my "start small" year.

But this year I'm going large. In addition to the seeds I collected last fall but failed to tag (Trial and Error 2010: Lesson One), I bought lavender, bachelor's button, cosmos, white coneflower, strawflowers, chives, sweet cicely (myrrh), chinese lantern, 'cherry brandy' rudbeckia, 'bright lights' swiss chard, dichondra (for hanging baskets), and verbena.

I am particularly excited about the strawflowers. The strawflower isn't a fancy plant; it's hardy and laid-back and prolific (the proletariat of the flower kingdom, if you will) but it's one of my favorites. I think I was in first grade when my grandpa tilled a small, circular patch between his rose garden and my favorite tree and told me it was mine. He said I could plant anything I wanted in it but that it was my responsibility. I loved that patch of dirt (soil?) because I loved to be anywhere my grandpa was, and I grew strawflowers in it.

Part of the reason this blog has been woefully neglected since Christmas is that I've been super busy being the best Maid of Honor I know how to be for my best friend, LilBRR. She joined our office six years ago and within six months of knowing her I was a better person. She believed in me when I didn't and gave me courage when I had none. I would not be who I am today (and I'm pretty awesome) without her.

My style team came over Thursday night for a dry-run and, being back in tune with this here corner of the web, I remembered to document the evening for your voyeuristic pleasure.

Pizza Rolls: fuel for champions, beautifully coiffed champions.

No hairstyling party would be complete without Edward Scissorhands.

(I like what he's done with his image since the movie. Much prettier.)

The dress I'm wearing to the rehearsal dinner is hanging in the doorway.

Size? Juniors Medium. Snap. Thank you, spin class.

Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.

And this is what it looked like when it was done:



It took me a while to get used to it. It's radically different than anything I've ever done with my hair, but as the evening went on I kept catching glimpses of myself in the mirror and I liked what I saw. ROWR.

Did you know McDonald's sells a McFalafel in some countries? I want one, if only to be able to say I had a "McFalafel."

McFalafel: it just rolls off the tongue.

McFalafel: an Irish Catholic Arab.

McFalafel: "There's protein in them balls!"

As my own blog creativity wanes I get excited when I find it elsewhere. The blogs I'm about to tell you about may not be NEW but they're new to me and that's all that matters when you're scrounging for inspiration and material. (This is where, if this post were a college essay, Dr. Metcalf would have written "Expand on this." but since he doesn't read this (OH DEAR LORD I HOPE HE DOESN'T READ THIS) I don't have to if I don't want to.)