Friday, April 27, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Something With a Ring To It
Friday night I ditched a gig for my part-time job in lieu of hanging out with Biker Boy. By the time I got home on my bike after eating ice cream and brownies with a certain somebody, I was kind of grumpy. But I figured that Biker Boy and I would go for a walk around the lake, I would burn off some of the brownie calories, and I would be less grumpy.
While walking, I talked about how the thing with Paul Wolfowitz getting a job at the State Department for a woman he had a romantic relationship with. Whatever, I don't care (okay, I do care, but that's not the point here), but I'm absolutely fascinated by the language used to describe the relationship by the media. Some news sources called her his girlfriend, some say his partner, some say they were romantically involved, some say close companion, and on and on it goes. And I found myself telling Biker Boy that it was sometimes difficult to put a label on our relationship. Because boyfriend and girlfriend sounds so juvenile, like we're in high school and "going steady." Partner makes it sound like some sort of business deal. Companion sounds nice until you think about "paid companions" and you realize that you don't mean that at all. Sure, you can say you're romantically involved, but somehow that seems to be a bit too personal.
Then we got back to Biker Boy's place and he made it quite clear how we will define our relationship from here on out.
While walking, I talked about how the thing with Paul Wolfowitz getting a job at the State Department for a woman he had a romantic relationship with. Whatever, I don't care (okay, I do care, but that's not the point here), but I'm absolutely fascinated by the language used to describe the relationship by the media. Some news sources called her his girlfriend, some say his partner, some say they were romantically involved, some say close companion, and on and on it goes. And I found myself telling Biker Boy that it was sometimes difficult to put a label on our relationship. Because boyfriend and girlfriend sounds so juvenile, like we're in high school and "going steady." Partner makes it sound like some sort of business deal. Companion sounds nice until you think about "paid companions" and you realize that you don't mean that at all. Sure, you can say you're romantically involved, but somehow that seems to be a bit too personal.
Then we got back to Biker Boy's place and he made it quite clear how we will define our relationship from here on out.
Who's The Best Puppy?
GIZMO!!
He totally looks naked. This is a dog who once looked like the furriest creature ever. He loves his summer cut.
He totally looks naked. This is a dog who once looked like the furriest creature ever. He loves his summer cut.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Duty Calls
So, yours truly, NGS, has been summoned for jury duty!! Jury duty begins on Monday and lasts for two weeks. I have to call in twice a day every day for those two weeks to see if they need me to actually go to the Government Center. Yay for my life not having to come to a complete and total halt. Just two teensy little disruptions a day.
I'm insanely excited about the process. Here's how I see it going down in voir dire.
Attorney: Have you ever been to court before?
NGS: Before coming to live in Minnesota, I was a court advocate for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. I also volunteer for an organization that monitors court cases involving domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault. So, yes.
Attorney: Do you think you could presume the defendant innocent until proven guilty in this case?
NGS: Well, I think that prosecutors want high win ratios. If the case has gone this far and there hasn't been a plea bargain yet, I tend to think the prosecutor must have a really good case. So, no.
Judge: You may be excused. Please go back to the jury room.
However, it is super unlikely I will get anywhere near voir dire. On the questionnaire jurors fill out prior to even getting into the possible jury pool, I will answer these questions and I will be weeded out. Also, my roommate was on jury duty last year and she was never even called in. Maybe I'll never even have to go downtown at all.
But I want no one to claim that I have not done my civic duty with enthusiasm!
I'm insanely excited about the process. Here's how I see it going down in voir dire.
Attorney: Have you ever been to court before?
NGS: Before coming to live in Minnesota, I was a court advocate for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. I also volunteer for an organization that monitors court cases involving domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault. So, yes.
Attorney: Do you think you could presume the defendant innocent until proven guilty in this case?
NGS: Well, I think that prosecutors want high win ratios. If the case has gone this far and there hasn't been a plea bargain yet, I tend to think the prosecutor must have a really good case. So, no.
Judge: You may be excused. Please go back to the jury room.
However, it is super unlikely I will get anywhere near voir dire. On the questionnaire jurors fill out prior to even getting into the possible jury pool, I will answer these questions and I will be weeded out. Also, my roommate was on jury duty last year and she was never even called in. Maybe I'll never even have to go downtown at all.
But I want no one to claim that I have not done my civic duty with enthusiasm!
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Stuck at Eight
A few weeks ago, there was a story about an obese eight-year old in England whose mother almost lost custody of him because of his extreme weight. Okay, well, besides bringing up issues of the government as a parent (quite literally in this case), bullying, and food guidelines, the discussions on talk radio about this reminded me of another, perhaps less important, but still salient, point. We generally learn all of our eating habits by the time we are this boy's age.
One evening, I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as part of my dinner (which also included a small salad and a stick of string cheese). My roommate commented that if only his wife would let him, he too would eat like he was a little kid. And then I had to acknowledge to myself that I was stuck at eight years old.
Because of Biker Boy's gluten-freeness, we rarely eat out. And since I can barely boil water for pasta and don't have the patience for preparing meals involving more than 20 minutes of prep time, I rarely eat well. Biker Boy has a saying that some people live to eat and some people eat to live. I fall into the second category. I always eat breakfast (did you know some people don't?), but after that, things get fuzzy. Lunch? Almost never. And dinner. Dinner can be just the PB & J. This has a lot to do with why I always eat breakfast. I'm starving when I wake up. Starving. I also cut off eating at 8:00 at night no matter what.
Then I was balancing my checkbook and realized I spend way too much on food. For someone who doesn't cook and doesn't eat out, I sure do stop at the grocery store and fast food places a lot (most of the time I order salads and baked potatoes at fast food places, but I can make those at home). So I decided that this week I was going to try a food plan. Did you get that? A food plan.
I spent two hours on Sunday coming up with ideas for three meals a day and a snack each day. There were some limitations on these things, however. Prep had to be limited to 20 minutes. No recipe could involve any ingredient I feel is disgusting (like oregano). Also, I subscribe to the three food groups a meal society, so each meal must contain at least three food groups. Also, I'm not on a diet, but if my calorie intake per day is over about 1500, there is a bit of concern. I am a picky eater, to be sure, so that's why this took two hours. Then it took me another half an hour to make a grocery list and a full hour at the grocery store. Man, this housewife stuff takes forever.
But, surprisingly, with the meal plan, I am actually excited to eat. I still am not the kind of person who starts talking about the next meal while I am still eating one meal, but I look forward to the eating. Not the making (oh, no), but the eating.
So, since I know everyone else is eager to hear what I consider decent meals, here you go. Here is what I have actually had to eat so far this week. If the experiment continues on in a good manner, you may hear about it more. Especially when I try to convert some of these things into gluten-free options.
Monday:
Breakfast - 1 cup Frosted Mini Wheat with Silk enhanced soy milk, banana, cup of orange juice
Lunch - salad with romaine and Boston lettuce, crumbled feta cheese, craisins, cashews, and some white balsamic salad dressing
Dinner - turkey burger (ground turkey, one egg, some bread crumbs [I'll admit I didn't have bread crumbs and had to use some of my roommate's], black pepper, dry garlic, onion flakes), on whole wheat bread (what? a roll - surely you jest), green beans
Tuesday:
Breakfast - I was at Biker Boy's, so we had a gluten-free hot cereal (FYI - Bob's Mighty Tasty Gluten Free Hot Cereal) complete with a tad bit of brown sugar, walnuts, craisins, and 1% milk
Lunch - Okay, I admit it. I skipped lunch. There was no time.
Dinner - Panera. In my defense, I knew I'd be downtown on Tuesday night and this was on the actual food plan and budgeted in the food budget. I get the Pick Two and always get the broccoli cheddar soup with a salad.
Wednesday(planned):
Breakfast - A mixture of lemon juice, lemon zest, and a couple of teaspoons of granulated sugar spread on an English muffin, banana, strawberries
Lunch - Leftover turkey burger, small salad
Dinner - Strange recipe I have for lasagna for one. I'll let you know how it turns out.
For those of you who don't care about my eating habits, sorry! I'll write a more interesting post next time around!! About biking! Thanks for coming spring! Or my summons for jury duty!! Can't wait.
One evening, I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as part of my dinner (which also included a small salad and a stick of string cheese). My roommate commented that if only his wife would let him, he too would eat like he was a little kid. And then I had to acknowledge to myself that I was stuck at eight years old.
Because of Biker Boy's gluten-freeness, we rarely eat out. And since I can barely boil water for pasta and don't have the patience for preparing meals involving more than 20 minutes of prep time, I rarely eat well. Biker Boy has a saying that some people live to eat and some people eat to live. I fall into the second category. I always eat breakfast (did you know some people don't?), but after that, things get fuzzy. Lunch? Almost never. And dinner. Dinner can be just the PB & J. This has a lot to do with why I always eat breakfast. I'm starving when I wake up. Starving. I also cut off eating at 8:00 at night no matter what.
Then I was balancing my checkbook and realized I spend way too much on food. For someone who doesn't cook and doesn't eat out, I sure do stop at the grocery store and fast food places a lot (most of the time I order salads and baked potatoes at fast food places, but I can make those at home). So I decided that this week I was going to try a food plan. Did you get that? A food plan.
I spent two hours on Sunday coming up with ideas for three meals a day and a snack each day. There were some limitations on these things, however. Prep had to be limited to 20 minutes. No recipe could involve any ingredient I feel is disgusting (like oregano). Also, I subscribe to the three food groups a meal society, so each meal must contain at least three food groups. Also, I'm not on a diet, but if my calorie intake per day is over about 1500, there is a bit of concern. I am a picky eater, to be sure, so that's why this took two hours. Then it took me another half an hour to make a grocery list and a full hour at the grocery store. Man, this housewife stuff takes forever.
But, surprisingly, with the meal plan, I am actually excited to eat. I still am not the kind of person who starts talking about the next meal while I am still eating one meal, but I look forward to the eating. Not the making (oh, no), but the eating.
So, since I know everyone else is eager to hear what I consider decent meals, here you go. Here is what I have actually had to eat so far this week. If the experiment continues on in a good manner, you may hear about it more. Especially when I try to convert some of these things into gluten-free options.
Monday:
Breakfast - 1 cup Frosted Mini Wheat with Silk enhanced soy milk, banana, cup of orange juice
Lunch - salad with romaine and Boston lettuce, crumbled feta cheese, craisins, cashews, and some white balsamic salad dressing
Dinner - turkey burger (ground turkey, one egg, some bread crumbs [I'll admit I didn't have bread crumbs and had to use some of my roommate's], black pepper, dry garlic, onion flakes), on whole wheat bread (what? a roll - surely you jest), green beans
Tuesday:
Breakfast - I was at Biker Boy's, so we had a gluten-free hot cereal (FYI - Bob's Mighty Tasty Gluten Free Hot Cereal) complete with a tad bit of brown sugar, walnuts, craisins, and 1% milk
Lunch - Okay, I admit it. I skipped lunch. There was no time.
Dinner - Panera. In my defense, I knew I'd be downtown on Tuesday night and this was on the actual food plan and budgeted in the food budget. I get the Pick Two and always get the broccoli cheddar soup with a salad.
Wednesday(planned):
Breakfast - A mixture of lemon juice, lemon zest, and a couple of teaspoons of granulated sugar spread on an English muffin, banana, strawberries
Lunch - Leftover turkey burger, small salad
Dinner - Strange recipe I have for lasagna for one. I'll let you know how it turns out.
For those of you who don't care about my eating habits, sorry! I'll write a more interesting post next time around!! About biking! Thanks for coming spring! Or my summons for jury duty!! Can't wait.
Monday, April 09, 2007
The Scent of Success
Picture this. I'm supposed to meet Biker Boy at the Neiman Marcus fragrance counter at the downtown store. I get there a bit earlier than he does, so I start looking at shoes. Because - shoes. But, let's back up. It's a cold, wintry, February day. I'm wearing my winter coat. It's a purple puffy down coat. Oh, and don't forget my hat. It's purple, too, with ear flaps and a purple pompon on top. It's Neiman Marcus. As I pick up the $545 Manolo Blahnik Mary Janes in patent leather (oh, god, I think I'm going to cry just thinking about it), I could feel the eyes of the saleswoman on me. I can imagine her thoughts, "what's that overgrown five-year old doing touching those awesomely beautiful, capable of inducing orgasm by sheer wonder, incredibly shiny shoes?" Then, I spy Biker Boy coming up the escalator. I put the shoe down, pet it sadly, and walk over to the boy, and kiss him on the cheek. But I want you to note that Biker Boy is at his absolute dapper best. He has on an overcoat, nice slacks, and is freshly shaven!! Goodness. What's he doing hanging out with trash like me? And that's what the saleswomen were thinking too.
Anyway, back to the fragrance counter. When I first started to date Biker Boy, lo those many years ago, his signature scent was Helmut Lang's Cuiron Pour Homme. It was delicious. But then, Helmut Lang sold out. He up and decided that fashion was no longer his fate and sold his label to Prada (damn you Helmut!). Prada made some lame declaration that the Helmut Lang label was not profitable and discontinued all the collections, including (imagine my horror) the perfume collection.
Okay, fine. Damn you Helmut! But then the journey began to find Biker Boy a new signature scent. It couldn't be available in mainstream stores, though, because that was too common. The boy read reviews of fragrances at Basenotes. The boy read me reviews from Basenotes. I learned, from trip after trip to fragrance counters that you smell coffee beans between fragrances to clear your scent palate. How do I even know the term scent palate? This was never part of my world until Helmut Lang left me (damn you Helmut). Biker Boy stalked the fragrance counter at Neiman Marcus, doing his best to score free samples. He would email companies how much he loved their products to try and get free vials of perfume sent overseas. He would pay for samples.
The system was that he would try a scent first. Then if he decided that he liked it, he'd wear it for me. But he'd generally have one scent on his left wrist, one on his right wrist, on one on his neck. This led to some pretty classic moments.
Once, upon leaving a Macy's store, I leaned over and said, "I think you put too much on." Everyone stayed away from us on the train. And so my hatred of Gucci pour Homme began. The scent of Gucci stayed with me for weeks. It was on my bag, it was on his coat, it was everywhere. It wouldn't go away. And it was awful.
But I don't want you to think he just goes around sampling and never buying. I love Jo Malone's Black Vetyver Cafe and convinced the boy to buy it even if he doesn't love it (it doesn't have staying power and it's not unique enough, he says). He got some other scents and I'm a bit ashamed because as I started to write this, I realized I don't know their names. There is another vetiver scent, a rose scent (I'm not kidding that when the boy wears this scent, I am instantly transported to a rose garden outside an English manor estate on a damp morning in the 1800s), an iris scent, and some really crappy incense scent (oh, those Catholics, they never get it out of their system). But Biker Boy is not satisfied. He wants a signature scent. So the drama continues.
He recently went to a conference in Las Vegas. (Biker Boy suffered from some severe overstimulation in Vegas and when I picked him up at the airport, he immediately got into my truck, turned down the radio, instructed me not to say a word, and after a silent ride to his apartment, he said, "isn't the quiet wonderful?") He became quite obsessed with the designer shops in Las Vegas (see above: dapperly dressed man hanging out with grown woman wearing a hat with a pompon) and found a Hermès store where he was able to score a good deal on a set of four Hermès fragrances that were boxed together. We have started the process to determine if one of these could be the boy's "signature scent." (And may I just add that the packaging when you purchase something from a Hermès store is approaching the level of beauty of those Blahnik Mary Janes?)
What all of this means to you is very little. But to me, it means I must troop across Minneapolis tomorrow to meet the boy at a fragrance counter to see if I like his new scent.
Anyway, back to the fragrance counter. When I first started to date Biker Boy, lo those many years ago, his signature scent was Helmut Lang's Cuiron Pour Homme. It was delicious. But then, Helmut Lang sold out. He up and decided that fashion was no longer his fate and sold his label to Prada (damn you Helmut!). Prada made some lame declaration that the Helmut Lang label was not profitable and discontinued all the collections, including (imagine my horror) the perfume collection.
Okay, fine. Damn you Helmut! But then the journey began to find Biker Boy a new signature scent. It couldn't be available in mainstream stores, though, because that was too common. The boy read reviews of fragrances at Basenotes. The boy read me reviews from Basenotes. I learned, from trip after trip to fragrance counters that you smell coffee beans between fragrances to clear your scent palate. How do I even know the term scent palate? This was never part of my world until Helmut Lang left me (damn you Helmut). Biker Boy stalked the fragrance counter at Neiman Marcus, doing his best to score free samples. He would email companies how much he loved their products to try and get free vials of perfume sent overseas. He would pay for samples.
The system was that he would try a scent first. Then if he decided that he liked it, he'd wear it for me. But he'd generally have one scent on his left wrist, one on his right wrist, on one on his neck. This led to some pretty classic moments.
Once, upon leaving a Macy's store, I leaned over and said, "I think you put too much on." Everyone stayed away from us on the train. And so my hatred of Gucci pour Homme began. The scent of Gucci stayed with me for weeks. It was on my bag, it was on his coat, it was everywhere. It wouldn't go away. And it was awful.
But I don't want you to think he just goes around sampling and never buying. I love Jo Malone's Black Vetyver Cafe and convinced the boy to buy it even if he doesn't love it (it doesn't have staying power and it's not unique enough, he says). He got some other scents and I'm a bit ashamed because as I started to write this, I realized I don't know their names. There is another vetiver scent, a rose scent (I'm not kidding that when the boy wears this scent, I am instantly transported to a rose garden outside an English manor estate on a damp morning in the 1800s), an iris scent, and some really crappy incense scent (oh, those Catholics, they never get it out of their system). But Biker Boy is not satisfied. He wants a signature scent. So the drama continues.
He recently went to a conference in Las Vegas. (Biker Boy suffered from some severe overstimulation in Vegas and when I picked him up at the airport, he immediately got into my truck, turned down the radio, instructed me not to say a word, and after a silent ride to his apartment, he said, "isn't the quiet wonderful?") He became quite obsessed with the designer shops in Las Vegas (see above: dapperly dressed man hanging out with grown woman wearing a hat with a pompon) and found a Hermès store where he was able to score a good deal on a set of four Hermès fragrances that were boxed together. We have started the process to determine if one of these could be the boy's "signature scent." (And may I just add that the packaging when you purchase something from a Hermès store is approaching the level of beauty of those Blahnik Mary Janes?)
What all of this means to you is very little. But to me, it means I must troop across Minneapolis tomorrow to meet the boy at a fragrance counter to see if I like his new scent.
Target Knows What It's Doing
I went to Target today to buy an item that cost $12.99. I spent $37.31. Nice.
Desk lamp $12.99
Kashi bars 3 at $0.97
Trident orig $0.97
1 pk sock $1.49
Bubble sock $6.99
1 pk sock $1.49
1 pk sock $1.49
Xhil sock $2.99
Rattle $2.99
Chex Mix $1.79
I'm obsessed with socks. It's true.
Desk lamp $12.99
Kashi bars 3 at $0.97
Trident orig $0.97
1 pk sock $1.49
Bubble sock $6.99
1 pk sock $1.49
1 pk sock $1.49
Xhil sock $2.99
Rattle $2.99
Chex Mix $1.79
I'm obsessed with socks. It's true.
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