hundred dollar burger...??? oh, and some recipes from the kitchen of heatheradair

Yep: read this on FoxNews today:

"Heaven on a Bun' Costs a Pretty Penny

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — A hundred bucks might buy you more than six-dozen burgers from McDonald's, but the swanky Old Homestead Steakhouse will sell you one brawny beef sandwich for the same price.

Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams could barely speak between bites as he devoured the 20-ounce, $100 hamburger billed as the "beluga caviar of sandwiches."

"Heaven on a bun," restaurant owner Marc Sherry said.

The burger debuted Tuesday at the restaurant in the Boca Raton Resort and Club, where a membership costs $40,000 and an additional $3,600 a year.

At about 5 1/2 inches across and 2 1/2 inches thick, the mound of meat is comprised of beef from three continents — American prime beef, Japanese Kobe and Argentine cattle. The restaurant will donate $10 from each sale to the Make-A-Wish Foundation."

Hmmm. They're donating $10 to charity.

BUT, rather than a predictable rant about how the mayor would be REQUIRED to oooooh and aaaaah (he just spent $100, he'd feel like a chump to admit he was anything other than floored by the international culinary behemoth), I decided, in the spirit of the 4th of July (which in my family means BARBEQUE!!!!!!) to pass along some of my favorite outdoor recipes (because, in addition to being a bored cost accountant and aspiring celebrity arm candy, I am nothing if not a fabulous cook). And reading about that burger made me hungry. So here (in no particular order) are some of my favorite summer foods (my, aren't I shockingly domestic!!!):

Heatheradair's Pico de Slaw/Slaw de Gallo (because both names sound funny)
(this is a great, light side dish when it's hot and you don't feel like taking the time to make potato salad)

• a few cups pre-made, packaged, ready-to-go cole slaw mixins (cabbage, carrots, whatever)
• a few cups or so of REALLLY diced up white onion (soak it in water for a few hours if you wanna take some of the "onion" taste outta the onion..?)
• a few cups of really chopped up cilantro - be liberal with it!
• a good drizzle of olive oil
• a BIG drizzle of lemon juice
• another BIG drizzle of lime juice
• a few shakes of sea salt
• a few splashes of hot sauce

Toss it all together, you're ready to go! Very tasty!

Heatheradair's Halibut Tacos (makes about 6 tacos)

• 2 good-sized Halibut filets (you don't say!!!)
• 6 or so soft taco shells
• Avocado Ranch sauce (recipe below)
• Heatheradair's Pico de Slaw
• Enough monterey jack cheese to garnish

BARBEQUE up the halibut filets (I like 'em blackened, seasoned with a little lime juice), spread each tortilla with a some avocado ranch sauce, top with some Pico de Slaw, add a few halibut chunks, garnish with jack cheese, roll 'em on up

Heatheradair's Avocado Ranch Sauce

• 1 large avocado
• a few tablespoons of ranch dressing
• garlic salt
• lemon juice
• hot sauce
• chipotle chile powder
• more cilantro (summertime theme for me)

Mash it all together until it's nice and smooth (if you're one of those food-processor types, have at it. I'm old-school. I stir with a FORK.). Makes a good salad dressing, sandwich spread, taco accessory, vegetable dip, etc. ("Thanks Heather, sounds yummy!")

Heatheradair's Chipotle Chicken Burger

• Well-seasoned chicken breasts...I let mine marinade for half a day or so in a sort of spicy southwest combo - some lime juice, salsa, and all of the spicy, peppery stuff I can find - chili powder, cayanne pepper, you name it. The hotter, the better.
  
• Guacamole (I make my own, but the Trader Joe's-type guac-in-a-box is the next best thing. Anything sold in a round plastic carton tends not to taste like guac...)
• Pepper Jack
• Burger/sandwich accessories (buns, onion, tomato, lettuce)

Grill the chicken, add the cheese at the last minute, pile the bun high, try to get your mouth around it!

Heatheradair's Pineapple Margaritas

• Tequila! Lots of it!
• Triple sec
• Lime juice
• Sour mix
• Dole Pineapple Juice

I usually make an entire pitcher at a time...always on-the-rocks. Mmmmmmmm.

Now I'm supposed to sit here and do WORK? I wanna fire up the grill....

i dreamt i was harrison ford once...

Recalling my really bad "chased by Misha Barton" dream the other day got me thinking about other bizarre dreams I've had over the years...celebrities actually pop up quite a bit. Some of my favorites:

The one where my mom sold me to Nick Nolte as a child bride

I was probably 12 when I dreamt that I'd been given to Nick Nolte as a wife. I cried while mom stood nearby and watched, telling me, "He'll give you the sort of life your father and I will never be able to give you...it's what's best for you." It was a windy day on a strange beach when Nick came to pick me up - mom was nearby to make sure I didn't try to bolt. He gave me a bouquet of candy roses. Yep. Candy Roses. Huge bouquet, too - all the colors of the rainbow. Woke up from that one in tears. Mom had a good laugh.

The one where I was Harrison Ford

I was Indiana Jones once for Halloween once (last-minute costume...borrowed a brown bomber jacket from dad, a funny hat, and stuck some rope through my beltloop that was supposed to look like a whip...I think that was the last year I trick-or-treated. Costumes were tough), had a definite Harrison Ford hangup as a kid...so how exciting that I actually got to BE Indiana Jones in a dream - problem was, in the dream, I was Harrison Ford being run down by a giant Oldsmobile...the dream ended with me/Harrison Ford pinned against a wall, smooshed by the Olds. Woke up glad not to be Harrison Ford in real life.

The one where Jacko stalked me through Grandma's house

In the first installment of a creepy recurring dream (often featuring accomplice celebrities like Misha Barton) I'm chased through my grandma's house by a knife-weilding Michael Jackson...at once point, I hid under Grandma's bed, and he came so close to finding me that his hair brushed my hand - I remember it was crispy like uncooked spaghetti and didn't feel anything like real hair...it was like alien hair. I knew there was a car parked in the driveway that I could use to get away, but Grandma kept her car keys in a drawer in the kitchen, and in my dream, it was both dark and I couldn't run properly (of course) - so I was afraid that by the time I dug through the drawer for keys, he'd have heard me fumbling and I'd be caught. And if I found the keys, would I be able to "run" with them all the way to the car in the driveway, get the key in the ignition and drive away before he found me? Even worse, Grandma was working WITH Jacko - right before I woke up I heard her whisper, "Michael...she's in the kitchen." Shudder.

The one where I stole pottery from Aaron Eckhart

Very bad idea. Aaron Eckhart: Runs very fast. In my dream, he owned an entire warehouse full of ugly pottery, displayed on grocery-store-style shelves, organized by color. I found a pretty rose-colored vase that I liked, grabbed it and ran. Aaron followed. Since - of course - you can't run quickly in dreams, I remember grabbing the sides of his pottery-display shelves and trying to use momentum to slingshot myself ahead of him. He caught me in the end. Woke up...not sure what happened to the vase...

The one where Matthew McConaughey renounced all other women and begged me to run away with him

REALLY disappointed to wake up from this one. He was articulate and poetic and desperate and pleading...he told me I was more beautiful than Ashley Judd or Penelope or Sandra Bullock. He wanted to be with me forever. We'd live on a Texan ranch and drive lifted trucks and I'd never be without a stash of Sour Patch Kids. He couldn't wait to tell his mother about me, to parade me around in front of his friends, I was the woman of his dreams. The only drawback - my sister. In my dreams, she sort of hovers in the periphery, popping up at inopportune moments to berate my common sense and remind me that I'm doing something wrong. In this particular dream, she followed Matthew and me everywhere, warning me that I was "just a temporary fix until he finds someone famous. It won't last."

guess who's number 1....

According to my recent junk mail I ended up subscribed to the "Ask Men" email newsletter (as far as I can tell, askmen.com aims to be the online Maxim equivalent -- i'm just not sure a MAN has ever even cruised the site, and without "Hometown Hotties" to generate interest, I think it's a bunch of women writing about what they imagine fashion-conscious men might read...correct me if I'm wrong). Interestingly, this week's Ask Men spam contribution caught my eye:

"Top 99 Most Desireable Women of 2006: The most dreamed about...the most asked about...the most desireable women of the year."

Wow, neat!

Lists are great: whether it's the AFI's tribute to "the greatest songs in film" or VH1 cranking out the Worst Anything Ever, or Billy Bush hosting some prime time fluff piece about the greatest TV commercials in history, I always want to know what takes the top spot. So this got me curious. Who are the top 99 women of the year according to Ask Men?

And how do we know that number 87, for instance, is REALLY all that much more desireable than woman 93? And who decides who makes the list? Who's dreaming about these women? Why are there women on the list I've never heard of? And isn't it conceivable that just because certain women recurred in a lot of different dreams they might not all be GOOD dreams? Sure, I may have had a dream that I was in a high-speed chase trying to avoid Misha Barton weilding an AK-47 and driving a station wagon, but if I were a man and had that same dream about her, would that boost her up on the list? It just says "Most dreamed about," not "Most dreamed about in an 'under 17 not admitted without an adult' way."

And how is Dallas Howard possibly more desireable than Gabrielle Union?????

At any rate, I made it all the way through the list...number 1 was no huge surprise. Number 99 was Anna Kournikova (down from the 52 poll position last year, apparently....so, does that mean that almost HALF as many men dreamt about her this year as last year? Or only half as many bothered to "ask men" about her this time around?)

And why is Jessica Simpson higher on the list than just about anybody? For that matter, why is Jaime Pressly on this list at all? Do men actually dream about Piper Perabo? And how do the List Powers That Be decide that one Brazillian supermodel model is hotter than another Brazillian supermodel?

In the end I decided that 99 women was perhaps too large a list...It left too many questions. To list the top 10 most desireable women, that seems more reasonable...but 100? Doesn't that just about cover every major actress, recording artist, sitcome star and up-and-coming intern we've even heard of this year? At any rate, the list accomplished two things:


1) Inspired me to pluck my eyebrows with renewed artistic vigor

and

2) Propelled me to Google Sophia Vergara. The girl has fantastic...hair.

people having scarier-looking tuesdays than I...

I. Am. Sunburned.

Seattle was in rare 96-degree form this weekend and I was a little too ambitious. All told, I probably logged 18 hours in a lawn chair over the weekend. As such, I'm burned. If the apartment wasn't hot enough this weekend, I was my own bunsen burner, my own space heater, an unwitting radiator making the house even warmer. HOWEVER: pink as I may be, I found a few people looking at least as strange as myself (courtesy mostly of dlisted and perezhilton):

Sharon Stone
It appears she's been attending the Britney Spears School of Beauty, where shimmery eye-shadow and rat's nest hair refuse to relinquish their stronghold. That said, she's got fantastic teeth, even if the rest of her screams "I've still got it! I'm not getting old! I'm at least as hot as Tara Reid!" bwuahahahahahahahaha. Now, let's talk about that "Sixteen Candles-esque" prom dress item she's wearing...It's amazing how quickly a reasonably "well-respected" actress can become a parody of herself.

Janet Jackson
I'll have to plead ignorance to the "fat" phase that sparked the amazing weight loss that sparked a million photographs of her abs that sparked this spooky-looking picture...when was she fat? Where was I during those extra 50 pounds? And why does she look perpetually startled? To be further skeptical, why is her new song so lackluster? I heard a local dj call it "smooth." I would err more on side of "boring," but maybe that's because I expected something a little more high-octane to accompany her unveiling...something that at least projected the illusion of "I was recording this song AND doing a complex step aerobic routine AND benching a school bus all at the same time."
And by the way, Stevie Nicks wants her sleeves back.

Marcia Cross
She's a...striking woman most of the time. She also belongs in that "raptor-class" of people who end up looking more "dangrous reptile" and less "svelte tv star rumoured to prefer girls." I guess the fact that she's engaged partially takes care of the lesbian whisperings. She also falls into the "chest bones too prominant" category, and the "skin so wan she looks like she belongs in a wax museum" but hey, it reinforces the fact that there's someone out there for everybody.

Tara Reid
Something about the high neckline, unusual looking bun-coif and big beads around her neck looks like it's trying to be taken seriously (a recurring theme for Tara these days), but her eyes betray her. A tactic better than a funny-printed shirt (which, I have decided, would look more at home if it were made into a polo shirt and worn on the PGA circuit) would be to marry Chad Lowe (you know, now that he's single) and be cast in a movie as a boy. It worked very well for Hilary. So well, that I'll bet my sister and I are the only ones to remember her turn as the SHE-Karate-Kid in a movie so awful only I could love it (and watch it three times in a row).

a very scientific movie-selection criteria.

I have a secret:

I love BAD. MOVIES. If it's tepid, uninspired, otherwise poorly produced and stars lackluster actors reciting cardboard dialogue, I'll probably go see it once or twice in the theater and most definitely snatch the thing up on dvd. Bottom line: I'll love it if it completely blows.

I got a text message from my sister yesterday that got me ridiculously excited for "The Lake House."

Sis: Oh, meant to tell ya - j and i went and saw the lake house. it was everything we dreamed it would be. awful dialogue, bad plot, twas perfection.

Me: And were they completely chemistry-free, like brother & sister???????

Sis: Yes! It was awkward to watch and their letter-reading voice overs were read totally flat. no voice inflection of any kind. keanu cried. it rocked.

Decision made: this will be my summer favorite. My sister and I are fans of anything starring Paul Walker or Kevin Bacon or Freddie Prinze Jr and get particularly excited when pop stars flex their acting chops...the movie gets bonus points if we have to cover our faces out of sheer embarassment for the actors:

"From Justin to Kelly" anyone?

for those times you need to grate cheese on your CHEST BONES:

What happened to pretty little Kate Bosworth?

This was Kate back in the smokin-hot Blue Crush days:


And this is Kate today in a "please buy that I'm Lois Lane and not an alien masquerading as a sack-of-bones with some shiny skin stretched over it" phase:

I won't get into the issue of the work she's had done to her nose (leaving her looking less Sandra Dee and more TURTLE), but the chest bones are really, truly horrifying.

Yes, I watched Lara Flynn Boyle and Calista Flockhart and Nicole Ritchie and Posh Beckham and Lindsay Lohan disappear before my eyes, but there's something about Kate's chestbones that leave them all in the dust. They could grate cheese, those chest bones. Oh that I could peek inside those grocery bags she's pushing in that cart...I'm guessing there's no Boboli or Corona or Wonder Bread or Fruit Loops in those grocery bags. My money's on fifty dollars worth of Evian and a dozen cucumbers (enough to last her until Thanksgiving).

Honestly, however - all levity aside - watching women lose dangerous amounts of weight, particularly high-profile women with the entire magazine-reading, movie-going American public as their audience, terrifies me to no end...

After watching my very best girlfriend in the world waste away - the girl who was more fun than anyone, the girl I went to prom with instead of taking a normal date, the girl who's house I slept over at every saturday night through school, the girl who knew which guys I'd earmarked as my "future husbands" from the time we were fourteen, the girl that kidnapped creepy lawn ornaments with me in the summertime and shared clothes with me at summer camp and knew my deepest secrets and to whom I was attached at the hip for most formiddable years of my life - I became heartsick watching such brazen disease go undiagnosed and untreated. To watch that sort of self-abuse dress itself up as celebrity and go excused for years because it wears a movie-star mask is a devastating commentary about our beauty standards...

It's clear that Kate needs help.

For once, I would love to see Hollywood elect NOT to work with these poor, desperate women until they get a handle on their disease...I would love to read of a studio or a producer opting to save a life rather than profit from it's malfunction. I would love for the fists that wield the power to refuse to endorse the parade of disorder eaters, to refuse to market sickness as beauty, to refuse an actress work until she's been treated, to acknowledge the disorder rather than sneak the actress off into the hills and mislabel it "exhaution" when her heart first fails or she faints from malnutrition on the set.

It's a pipe dream, but one that hits particularly close to home...

Eat a Sourdough Jack, Kate. Come out on top.

a pause to long for coffee.

I'm not a terribly disciplined person.

I spend money impulsively, I oversleep, I run late in the morning (or the afternoon, or the evening - punctuality: very elusive) , I let the dishes pile up, I never obey the speed limit, I order dessert...

Occassionally, I surprise myself. Recently I decided to stop drinking coffee and I've been STARTLINGLY disciplined about it. In all fairness, I wasn't much of a coffee drinker in the first place until landing my current job - I opted to work the earlier shift and get in at about 6:30 most mornings. Something about rolling into work before most people's kitchen lights come on made coffee a necessity.

It broadsided me. It happened quickly - I moved straight from "non-coffee-drinker" to "all-day-coffee-drinker." I never had a cup of THICK, STRONG, constuction-man-style coffee out of arm's reach. Sure, I added girlie, flavoured creamers to dress it up (love the Cinnamon Hazelnut and the Chocolate Raspberry and the Vanilla Dulce and - around the holidays - the Gingerbread Spice), but in no time at all I had become that employee.

The employee that stumbles into the office and makes a beeline for the coffee before even turning on the computer.

The employee that complains when it's too weak.

The employee that gets irate and waves the empty pot around when someone drinks the last and doesn't brew a fresh pot.

The employee that recognizes when we change brands..."Hey, this tastes funny....where's the normal stuff?"

I didn't like being that employee.

Furthermore, I didn't like the fact that coffee in general wreaked bloody havoc with my complexion, with my stomach, with my sleeping habits...

So: I gave it up.

Takes quite a bit of discipline.

Difficult to walk into the office, past the coffee pot and ignore the smell, particularly when the pot never runs dry around the office and it's always a FRESH coffee smell (a smell I actually found horribly disgusting until becoming a coffee drinker at which point all sensory bets are off...I felt a little betrayed by myself, frankly. I never liked that icky coffee stench, why did I get excited about it now???? I hated the taste of that stuff, why am I a fiend?????)

It went very well. For months now I've opted for a cup of tea in the morning. No, it's not as fun as dumping a good quarter cup of Coffee Mate Irish Cream into a mug, but I'm learning that a good part of the "must have cuppa joe" reflex centered around the ritual of starting my day by holding something warm and cozy...tea is plenty warm and comes in at least 967,000 fun and exciting flavors.

I've been disciplined. I've hardly wavered. I've been impressed with myself. I've even told people, "You know, it hasn't been hard to quit!" in a cocky moment.

And then this morning came around...

It's killing me!

For no particular reason!

I can hardly stand it!

Need coffee! Want coffee! And while you're at it, bring me a cinnamon roll!!!

(see, even my punctuation suggests desperation)

So far, I'm hangin in there...it's easier since I'm clean out of the prissy creamer to gussy up the coffee, so to drink a cup would mean a run to the store at which point the impulse becomes ridiculous and I may as well just wait it out.

Guess it's time to find out what I'm really made of.

where does myspace find these nitwits???

I noticed two separate stories in the news this morning about dim-witted myspacers doing embarassing and desperate things. In both events, I've pretty much decided that if they'd happened in association with a less high-profile website, it would hardly be news, that people would read the story and think, "what a couple of nitwits" and not give it a second thought. BUT, because these poor desperate people DID try to lure and marry and ARE trying to sue in association with myspace, they're not the idiots: the website is to blame. The vicious, predatory, full-of-lurking-evil website.

Admittedly, the world of horrible, canned page layouts ("thanks whateverlife.com!!!!!") and lame "everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-me" surveys is a slightly different ballgame to me than to that much-targeted 14 year-old girl perpetually falling victim to online stalker-schemes in the news.

I've dabbled with myspace. It's a novelty. It's a place to gawk at pictures of old high school friends all dolled up for halloween, or a place to leave silly little "How was your date last night?????" messages for a friend. It's a fabulous venue for my smug self-satisfaction, because half the point of tracking down people I went to high school or college with is to see if they've gained weight or married that moron they were dating 10 years ago. It's harmless. My friends and I send each other stupid song lyrics and post pictures of our engagement rings and make fun of our bosses. We bug each other on our birthdays. We waste time at work. It's an easy way to keep in touch.

But, as with every "time-wasting, harmless, easy way to keep in touch," there's that caveat. Anything fun and novel can apparently be turned into a predatory device that targets the naive, the inexperienced, the young and eager.

And the NITWITS.

Here's the first Myspace Nitwit Story of the Day: (article here)
A 20 year-old Palestinian man child "fell in love" with a 16 year-old Michigan girl and convinced her to come to Palestine and marry him. They were soul mates, apparently. They "loved the same songs." If that's not reason enough to leave your Michigan suburb and your sophomore girlfriends and cozy up near the West Bank, I don't know what is. To this poor lovelorn boy's credit, he DOES have a job in Palestine...he's never been in "trouble," for whatever that's worth...and he promised that his blushing bride-to-be would sleep in his sister's bedroom. Not his.

The girl made it as far as Jordan before her passport was seized and officials sent her back home.

I'll allow that there is a star-crossed, Romeo & Juliet element to the entire charade, but are they IDIOTS??? This girl gives the entire wonderful world of online social networking a bad name. Yes, let's leave mom and dad and fly our grown-up, in-love self all the way to Jericho and live happily ever after! The nitwit-turned-fiance "decries attempts to portray him as an internet predator." I think I'd side with the heartbroken Palestinian kid in this case. Hey, he wanted to "walk with her through the tree-lined streets of Jericho." Sounds romantic. Very "Ten Commandments." It's myspace's fault anyway.

UPDATE: I just read that the groom's family is campaigning to get their would-be-daughter-in-law back. Back to Palestine. Is is just me, or does that smack of international kidnapping super-plot? sure, she SEEMS like a nice would-be-mother-in-law...


The second Myspace Nitwit Story of the Day is here:
A 14 year-old girl sued the website yesterday after being sexually assaulted by another member. I think we've heard this scenario a few dozen times already. Sweet young things fall prey to malicious man's story about being their team's star quarterback, they convince the sweet young thing to meet them somewhere, the rest is criminal history. Poor judgement to meet face-to-face with someone you'd became aquainted with in a notoriously dishonest capacity? Yes, poor judement even for a 14 year-old girl. Is she a victim? Yes. Is it her fault? No. Is it myspace's fault?

*Sigh.*

I just don't understand. The girl and her family allege that the site has "no meaningful protections or security measures" to shield the underage from predatory users. Apparently her parents have no meaningful protections in place, either. I'd also venture a guess that right up until the assault, during the entire wooing process while the aggressor convinced her he was a high school senior on a football team, the girl LOVED the lack of protection. She loved logging on and seeing that big, bright red, "NEW MESSAGES!" indicator. She reveled in the lack of security, because it allowed her to do stupid things and put herself in stupid positions.

How on EARTH is this the website's fault?

Brings me back to the ultimate finger-pointing American way. Why take responsibility for ourselves and our families when we can be indignantly litigious and demand $30,000 retribution for our pain and suffering. THIRTY GRAND??!!

It's enough to make me want to change the age on my profile to 14, aggressively "befriend" people I've never met, then act like it's the website's fault when things take a turn for the uncomfortable.

people with mondays worse than mine: 6/19/06

This was one of those "woke-up-feeling-like-my-bones-were-made-of-lead" mornings...where I hit the snooze something like 27 times and still wanted to shove my head under the pillow for another hour or 10. On the bean-counting, desk-jockey front, this definitely promises to be one of those 12-hour days (made longer, no doubt, by my inability to STEP AWAY FROM THE BLOGS. HOWEVER...I figure these guys have it worse:

Brad Pitt
Woe is Brad. Apparently before Angelina's c-section scars have even healed she's planning to adopt another orphan, nationality as yet undecided. Because three small children aren't enough. So between the middle-of-the-night-feedings and the diaper changes, Brad can ponder the fact that giving birth to their "Messiah-baby" was such a positive experience for Angie that she promptly declared to Anderson Cooper and the greater CNN-following public that her next child will be another adopted refugee orphan.

Side thought: has she tattooed over her c-scar yet? I figure that will be her next move...

Kevin Spacey's Career
I've always loved Kevin Spacey, even after his ookily asexual turn as Bobby Darin. He's dashing, accomplished, tasteful...and yes, noticeably absent from stage and screen for awhile now. PerezHilton posted this quote this morning:

"As far as I'm concerned, when I looked at what happened in my career in 2000 - after American Beauty - I thought it couldn't get much better. What was I going to spend the rest of my life doing? Trying to top myself? Trying to stay hot, trying to make sure I was in the right movies? I'm trying to do something with my success which is bigger than myself. I'm no longer interested in my personal career. I am interested in the impact I can have on a lot of other people's careers and on audiences." (emphasis mine)

In other words, his mechanism for coming to terms with the fact that he plateaued half a decade ago is to try and pass his decline off as HIS choice. Sort of the way that uncomfortable-looking women in Hollywood come to their own defense by using the "men are intimidated by my success, so I choose not to date" excuse. Not to compare Kevin to a dateless diva...heavens no...

Jenny Craig
Did a double-take when I saw this headline on Fox News: Nestle to Buy Jenny Craig for $600M. Nestle claims to have a "nutrition" sub-unit and has aspirations to turn the public's attention away from its powdered chocolate milk endeavors (well, that's noble enough, I suppose) and transform themselves into a "nutrition, health and wellness company."

I suppose it's possible that someday our children will hear the word "Nestle" and equate it with something more like "Newman's Own" than with miniature crunch bars languishing in the bottom of an easter basket after the Cadbury eggs had been picked out, but it seems to smack of corporate desperation that a company so ingrained in America's chocolatey way-of-life would decide to begin their overhaul by swallowing a company that's more "butt-of-elementary-school-childrens'-jokes" and less "health! nutrition! wellness!"

And where does this leave Kirstie Alley???

people for the ethical treatment of lobsters?

I KNEW there was a reason I avoided super-yuppie Whole Foods: They're a bunch of illogical pansies.

Apparently the fact that Whole Foods is no longer selling live lobsers and crabs is newsworthy...fine, fine, fine. Apparently they're the "next generation's big-box retailer with a conscience." Good for them and their fantastic bacon (I hear it's fantastic...everyone says it's fantastic. In fact, people in my neck-of-the-woods can't even hear the word "whole" and "food" in the same sentence without launching into a sort of google-eyed state of fantastic-bacon-worship).

I can appreciate a certain degree of..."crustacean sensitivity" (i like watching crabs crawl around at the beach as much as the next girl and generally opt to toss them into the tide pools instead of let a kid with a chunk of driftwood bludgeon the poor things) but not when the cause is spearheaded by DITZES. Yes, ditzes.

Maybe it's the consummate literature student in me, but I tend to expect people (or well-intentioned yuppie foodstores with fantastic bacon) to substantiate an argument with reasonable evidence. I don't care if it's a beer commercial or a doctoral thesis...if you're making a point, back it up.

And try not to sound like a ditz.

Back in the middle school days, I had a bunch of girls over for a sleep-over, and the next morning, my dad made all of us a fantastic breakfast. I passed one of my friends a plate of dad's fantastic bacon and she looked absolutely. horrified. "I can't eat bacon...those poor little pigs!!!" So we passed her a plate of grilled ham. "Ooh, yummy, thanks!" said the friend, and ate three pieces.

This Whole Foods Social Conscience rearing it's head is the commercial equivalent to bacon versus ham (and i'm becoming conscious of the fact that i've never written the word BACON so many times in my life...)

The basic premise of the "we won't sell live crustaceans" argument is that it's cruel to the animals. Inhumane. They're kept in small lobster-dungeons (my favorite part of the family trips to Red Lobster as a kid--aside from the hush puppies which you CANNOT get on the west coast--was watching the little lobsters in the tanks writhe all over each other), then *GASP!* dropped into boiling water once their time has come.

But here's the kicker - this was the statement that earned the "ditz" label:

According to Fox News, a spokesman for PETA announced that they were thrilled with Whole Foods' decision because:

"The ways that lobsters are treated would warrant felony cruelty to animals charges if they were dogs or cats."

Well if that's the way you feel, People for the Ethical Treatment of Lobsters, I expect a likewise lofty crusade tomorrow against ground beef, your fantastic bacon, chicken breasts (free range or otherwise, because let's face it, the chickens died in the end, too, in a way that I'm certain would NOT be acceptable for Rex or Scruffy or whomever), salmon, giblets from ANY animal...etc etc etc.

FURTHERMORE, Whole Foods will continue to sell "frozen lobster products." Because it's difficult to watch lobsters writhe in your own stores knowing they're destined for someone's pot of boiling water, but if a processing plant somewhere in Connecticut stores them, slaughters them, disassembles them, and ships them to your store, you can feel warm and fuzzy and equitable about the entire process.

was i born without the "wedding gene?"

I really think there IS a gene that dictates "eagerness to plan a wedding."

I'm short that gene.

I have a wedding coming up (in a startling SHORT amount of time, in the opinion of
people who were born WITH the wedding gene). I'm sure nine months down the road, once the wedding is behind me and pictures are framed and hung on the wall with care, I'll "be able to laugh about all of this."

In the meantime, however...

Here are some excerpts from recent conversations:

My wonderful mom: You're going to carry flowers, though, right?
My wide-eyed, oblivious self: I'm supposed to carry flowers? What for?
My wonderful mom: Well don't you want something to hold? Like a bouquet?
My wide-eyed, oblivious self: Oh...do I have to carry flowers? What kind of flowers would I carry? Could I just carry...ONE flower? I haven't thought about this...
My wonderful mom: Maybe you should ask your cousin to find you some flowers to hold.
My wide-eyed, oblivious self: ...........

This one occured between a co-worker and myself after they overheard one of those conversations during which I absolutely lose my cool and broadcast my emotional deficiencies to the entire office during one of those "personal phone calls."

Fatherly Co-Worker Guy: How's everything going today?
(my nose is still red and my eyes still puffy from the lost-cool-phone-call)
Me: I've had better days.
FCWG: You've had better days huh. Yeah, this stuff can be tough....us guys, we usually just go with 'whatever..doesn't matter to me.' Makes it hard for the lady.
Me: Trouble is, I wanna say, 'whatever, doesn't matter to me,' TOO! That's the way I feel..
FCWG: And everybody has opinions, don't they...a lot of opinions coming out of the woodwork...
Me: Seems like it. So why don't I have as much of an opinion as everybody else?
FCWG: We've all been there...all been there.

This is not totally true...I have an opinion. I don't want fancy flowers and big puffy dresses and bridesmaids in tulle and coordinated shoes...I don't want caterers and rehearsal dinners and tableclothes and flowers and poetry recitations...

HOWEVER...I'm a young, suburban, 20-something female...when I throw up my hands and say, "I don't want to plan a wedding!!!! I don't care what you wear, or who you bring, or where you sit...I don't wanna be responsible for it! No! NO NO NO!!!!" people give me this sort of unusual, sideways, "were you dropped as a kid?" look...it's a sort of squinty expression.

Fiance is likewise laid-back. Likewise not inclined to want to plan much.


So far I've spent $30 on a white sundress. I'm going to the local grocery store for a cake. The reception will be about a dozen pizzas from the italian joint down the road. There will be ONE bridesmaid (my sis) wearing WHATEVER she feels like wearing and ONE groomsman wearing WHATEVER he feels like wearing...

I'll be sportin a $30 Forever21 dress and trying not to drip pizza sauce on it. Then, I'll wear the dress whenever I want to for the rest of the summer - because it's PRETTY, dangit - and there's no tulle or beads or anything to stand in my way.

My one good idea so far: party favors. Mixed cd of our favorite tunes. Seems like an honest, substantial (CHEAP!!!) thing to toss at the people kind enough to endure the Saturday-afternoon-in-july-debut of my gross genetic shortcomings...

people with mondays worse than mine: 6/12/06

I think this will be my new monday-morning ritual...since I'm sitting here wondering how on earth another weekend could disappear SOOOO quickly, biding my time until another one rolls around and lamenting the rainy, icky, grey, dreary, depressing sight of the Ugliest Highway In America right outside the office window, can't hurt to do a little digging and figure out who (or what) else woke up this morning and wished they hadn't:

Superman
Been a rough couple of weeks for the Man of Steel, what with his unwavering heterosexuality being called into question by just about every major gossip source, not to mention aisle 4b of the local grocery store...apparently reports were so rampant that the director of the upcoming spandex-fest issued an "official" statement about the hero's orientation. Statement went something like this:

"Superman 'is probably the most heterosexual character in any movie I've ever made,' said Bryan Singer, director of 'Superman Returns,' a new movie about the crime-fighting superhero that opens June 28. 'I don't think he's ever been gay.' "

The rest of the denial is here. No one's talking about Clark Kent, however...that could give the movie an entirely new dynamic. Sport coat and dockers: Gay. Tights and cape: Straight, straight, straight.

Denise Richard's Abs
Rough Monday for her abs because last Friday, they unfortunately had no choice but to appear with the rest of her body at the Pussycat Dolls Lounge, in the sort of trashtastic regalia that does NOTHING but help her efforts to gain full custody of the SheenSpawn. I admire Denise's tummy, I really do...in fact, if I were going to abandon my children and galavant around Europe with a rock star's sidekick, I'd be sure to take abs like hers with me...but if a genie popped out of my coffee cup and gave me the option to sport Denise's body and Denise's head/neck/hair/face combo OR my own tummy and face, I'd keep my own softer, more...approachable figure. In short...that's one uncomfortable-looking woman. With uncomfortable-looking hair.

Bruce Willis
James Blunt beat him to the Petra Nemcova punch. Pictures of Jimmy looking pale and young and out-of-his-league here. Interesting, however, that even a $50k donation and ultimate action hero status weren't enough to secure the girl. Bruce would have to drop 40 pounds, spend a solid year avoiding all natural light, develop a fatalistic-emo-pop vibe and learn to sing like a girl. Now that I think about it, Kale's insistence that the metro craze killed the burly man's appeal is starting to seem more and more accurate. I'll stick to my guns - I'd take Bruce over Jimmy any day.

Keira Knightley's Abs
Her abs might not realize it, but if the rest of Keira's body has anything to say about them, their days are numbered. She's trying to kill them. In an attempt to score "decadent flesh" a'la Scarlett Johansson, she tells Elle magazine that's she's gorging on pasta and wine - here's a snippet of the article. I guess pasta and wine are the poor-man's implants? I actually think she might win this battle...I vaguely remember cleavage back in the early Pirates days, so I htink she's got it in her...

verdict: i'm still a kid!!!

I'll always remember the time my mom told me she never stopped "feeling 19 years old." I was probably 16 or 17 then, and couldn't figure out what she meant. Surely I'd feel more mature, more accomplished, more...perhaps cosmopolitan at 20 than I did at 16? Surely I'd wake up on my 21st birthday with sudden, precise, unassailable grown-up wisdom? Surely I'd feel well-adjusted and self-confident at 25? Surely I wouldn't feel 16 forever?

I was right. At the cusp of another birthday, I don't feel 16 (whatever that feels like).

Most days, I feel about 10.

Increasingly, I realize that many of the things I never outgrew are the most precious to me. Ok, I finally shelved the pilled, threadbare, limp little stuffed dog that slept with me every night. For the most part I can drink a glass of pinot gris without making an "ewwww" face, but for every little adult-ism I've gradually adopted, there's a 10 year-old-ism that I just can't shake. And with each year that passes, I proudly stick to my guns on this point: I'M STILL A KID!!!!!

For example:

Sugar Cereals
They were (blessedly) never outlawed around my family's breakfast table. Corn Pops, Sugar Smacks, Fruit Loops, Cocoa Pebbles, we ate them all (Dad was a Cap'n Crunch man, for instance...). I get the feeling that I'm supposed to have moved on to things like protein shakes or power bars or frittatas...but the cozy feeling I get from the pink milk in the bottom of a fruit loop bowl is all the wake-up juice I need. I don't think I'll ever out-grow the wide-eyed wonder of standing in the cereal aisle (with the "adult benefit" of shopping for myself and myself only) deciding whether I'm in an Apple Jacks or a Honeycomb mood...

Saturday Morning Cartoons
Up until a year ago (when PBS rearranged their saturday morning schedule), I'd still wake up early on the weekends to catch "Jakers! The Adventures of Piggly Winks," an adorable cartoon about school-aged Irish farm animals. My sister and I would call each other as soon as an episode ended to yak about how cute they were with their little cartoon brogues and "Full House-"esque moral dilemmas.

I spent waaaaay too many afternoons during high school (and college, if I could adjust the bunny ears just right) watching episodes of "Batman: The Animated Series." Had a big crush on cartoon Batman. His milk carton-shaped head and spooky, lipless mouth together with his clearly tormented past made him more faceted and interesting than most of the X-Men (although I watched them, too). I've probably seen every episode. These days, I don't watch tv (chalk it up to an unwillingness to pay ridiculous cable rates, though my cable-free reception is so awful that UPN was my only option), but the shows I miss the most are the weekend cartoons.

Barbies
Give me a Barbie, I'll follow you anywhere. The magic hasn't worn off. Any gift-giving holiday is more merry when I get to unwrap a Barbie. These days they're passed off as gag-gifts, as gifts-with-kitsch or as inside jokes, but the girl in me has yet to outgrow the thrill of my very own leggy blonde in a box.

(on a completely unrelated note: this caught my eye when I was trolling for Barbie pictures...)

When I'm sick, I want my mom
I battled a nasty case of strep-on-top-of-bronchitis-on-top-of-a-mean-flu awhile ago and when I was laying there trying unsuccessfully to sleep, waiting for the pain killers or the anti-inflammatories or the horse tranquilizers to knock me out, I wanted my mom there to squeeze my hand, wipe my hair off of my face and bring me some Saltines and earl grey. Sisters and boyfriends and roommates do the best they can, but no one makes me feel better like Mom. As I grow up and have to deal with the same old stuff (like realizing that cliques and don't go away just because we get older and we battle the same insecurities when we're 40 that we battle when we're 14...the break room at work can feel just as uncomfortable as the cafeteria in middle school when hormones hit just right or someone says just the wrong thing. Bad hair days persist, regardless. Some days, when you're sick, you still have to get up and go to work, even as badly as you'd like to stay in bed and watch "The Price is Right"), the remedy stays the same: after a bad day, I still automatically send an email to my mom. She's always steadfast and supportive, particularly when I feel unhinged.

So, as another birthday approaches,** I cling a little more closely to the things that have made me happy, comfortable and at home since my earliest memory (which, incidentally involves a large rock, my big toe and ends with a cure-all green Otter Pop).

In the meantime, here's to Fruit Loops, Superman, Barbie dolls, and mom's secret "aspirin-crushed-in-a-spoonful-of-honey" remedy for any and everything.


**Yes, I realize that I'm a bona fide spring chicken. I have no "I'm a dried up old lady" illusions, I just get retrospective around my birthday, realizing that time passes quickly...that it seems like just yesterday I was riding my first bicycle straight into the bushes at Grandma's house because I couldn't steer and brake at the same time. I'm young. I'm inspired. I'm twenty-something. EVEN SO, I'm allowed to reflect on the good ol' days. While eating the kind of sour candy with the neon sort of wrapper that 4th grade boys usually dig.

things that are better than cake:

I work in a relatively small office - an office that is unnaturally fixated with celebrating the office birthdays once a month ("3:30 pm, first Thursday of the month! hope you can make it!"). We've been known to go ahead with the birthday celebration when all of the people who actually have a birthday during the month are on vacation, out to lunch, at a meeting, wherever - big deal...any excuse to celebrate.

With cake.

Expensive cake.

$50 cake.

This is not a huge sheet cake to feed 150 or a beautifully conceived piece of melt-in-your-mouth, confectionary genius. It's just a plain, round, layer cake from the bakery down the road...I peeked between the layers for the hidden gold once...it wasn't there.

Problem is, I don't like cake. Ok, I might make a concession for a made-from-a-Betty-Crocker-box Cherry Chip cake the way mom used to bake it, but to generalize, I just. don't. like. cake.

The office doesn't understand.

"You know, Heather, if you're eating it to celebrate a birthday, the calories don't count."

("Don't assume i'm one of those calorie-averse types. I LOVE my calories. Just not in the form of cake." )

"Look Heather, we ordered the white cake with raspberries this time instead of chocolate, so you can have some, too!"

("It's not the CHOCOLATE I dislike. It's the CAKE. Ok, and the chocolate. I don't like chocolate.")

"Hey Heather, are you sure you don't want even a little piece? There's ice cream to go with it!"

("I know what your'e doing and it won't work! They taught me about people like you in D.A.R.E! Bandwagon tactics! Broken record! Coersion!!! I won't fall for it! I won't eat the cake!!!! NO! NO! NO!!!!)

Welllll - now it's my birthday month. This Thursday at 3:30, I'll be celebrated. Just me.

I've been so unabashedly, predictably anti-cake for so long it's no surprise that they sent Troy to my desk this morning as a...cake ambassador, to find out what I'd like in lieu of cake. Trouble is, the "in lieu of cake" applies to the entire office. In honor of Heather's June Birthday, NO ONE will eat cake. No pressure.

It took me most of the morning, actually, to come up with some viable alternatives. Things--other than cake--that everyone can enjoy:

CHEESEBURGERS. Mmmmm. probably one of my favorite things. and french fries. I kind of like the idea of inflicting a tower of cheeseburgers on everyone - the vegans, the vegetarians, dairy-phobics - all of them.

All things sour and sugary and gummi...I'm a candy fiend...so in the spirit of celebrating right along with Heather, I suggested a pinata. Or at the very least, a conference table full of assorted candy-things...hershey's bars, licorice, Sour Patch Kids - whatever. I like it all.

But I don't want to hit the pinata. Not my style.

Guacamole is rather difficult to put a candle in and serve up in any pretty way, but it's another of my favorite things...so I'd imagine if you slapped down a big bowl of guac, big bowl of salsa and some tortilla chips, I'd be pretty happy...and I'd love to see them all stand around and try to make witty small talk about tortilla chips the way they try to make witty small talk about the cake.

I like champagne. And breakfast burritos. And cinnamon rolls. And anything with cilantro.

Coconut ice cream is pretty tasty. Same goes for most things involving butterscotch, but that's a little ambiguous. I like oatmeal cookies and those big, awful Costco muffins...and powdered sugar mini-donuts (that could be a fun party trick...watch Heather devour an entire box of hostess powdered sugar donuts!).

A tower of anything sounds fun to me...if it can be stacked, layered and then otherwise disassembled after singing "Happy Birthday" it's all that much more fun.

Three days to go...my suggestions were taken under advisement and will be passed up the line to those ultimately responsible for deciding how we'll celebrate...me.

I'll keep ya posted.

people with mondays worse than mine...

Since it's monday, and I'm generally prone to feeling sorry for myself for at least the first 4 hours of the day, i'm trying a new tactic this morning: finding people who's mondays are a whole lot worse than mine. Sure, I could sit until lunch time lamenting whatever decision I made years ago that landed me here, at this desk, in this temperature-inconsistent office, in this uncomfortable chair, but instead, here's my list of people for whom this monday is almost certainly worse than mine:

Joe Simpson's ex-Son-in-Law
Jessica has offered Nick a $1.5 million divorce settlement. Apparently he's entitled to something like $17.5 million from 2005 alone...my guess is that money is tight at Camp Simpson after the Hair Extentions Venture and $1.5 is about all she's got left.

The brighter side: If the stock of "Team Jessica" versus "Team Nick" t-shirts at Kitson boutique in LA is any indication, the greater Beverly Hills shopping public prefers the mister. So he can take his million and a half to the bank and rest easy with the smug satisfaction of a man that just won the ultimate Rodeo Drive t-shirt challenge. And if that's not better than alimony...

The Briterline Fam
Must be nice to be born with the proverbial silver spoon...but that distinguished entitlement now comes with a new set of grueling expectations. According to The Artist Formerly Known as K-Fed, ""It's completely unfair when a child is brought into this world and now he's already looked at like a prince," the soon-to-be-dad of four explains to Item magazine. "My kids are going to have to learn what a real job is, what life is. You don't have it easy with me. Period ... My kids are going to work at Taco Bell, dammit!"

The brighter side: "real job" is a flexible term. If fast-food doesn't work out, they can check with daddy for a more palatable list of alternatives. The market for celebrity child tell-all exposes is practically unlimited.

Cloned mules
Don't know why this made me think of the Brangelina baby, but the cloned mule offspring of a horse and a donkey (the same two animals that previously produced a champion racing mule) came up short in competition against "traditionally bred runners." See, the genes of two stellar parents doesn't necessarily spell W-I-N-N-E-R for the next generation (still thinking of Brangelina Baby...how first reports suggest that she has "brad's nose." shudder...) Rough day at the Reno racetracks for genetically engineered MULES.

The brighter side: according to researchers on the cloning team, the clone's "athletic performance" is "one thing that will make people feel warm and fuzzy about cloning." That's the word from Kenneth White, a Utah State University professor involved with the project. And you know, I think Ken's right...cloning-for-sport makes ME feel warm and fuzzy.

Beyonce
She spent her weekend with Wal-Mark executives and Taylor Hicks in what had to be her most fun public appearance in recent history. If it wasn't bad enough that her featured Christmas marketing campaign didn't really connect with the megastore's target audience (what??? you mean the average Wal-Mart shopper didn't buy the idea that Beyonce shops there, too???) she must have had some final contractual obligations to fulfill...it's the only believable reason to explain her performance at the annual shareholders meeting in Arkansas.

The brighter side: while Wal-Mart rejected its shareholders' requests for humane chicken slaughtering, they "agreed to quantify its women and minority workers and to define their duties." So Beyonce was more than just a great end to a great meeting, she was also an inadvertent poster child for "The New Wal-Mart." An "organic" Wal-Mart. A Wal-Mart that "loves change."

There...now I feel muuuuuuuuuuuch better about my monday. All I have to do is come to work and warm the seat. My weekend was spent cruising the Barnes & Noble bargain racks...I have it pretty easy!