Does That Make Me Selfish?

Have you read the book Eat, Pray, Love?

I read this book for book club last year and, for the most part, enjoyed it. The Italy section was so much fun, India (all the meditating) bored me a little, and Bali was romantic. Overall it was a very nice book. While reading it however, I was told by a few people that they felt the author was selfish and a narcissist. Which surprised me because I so didn’t get that from the story.

Now that the movie is coming out, I’m hearing those critiques again. I don’t really get it.

If you are not familiar with the story here’s a quick synopsis. The author, a travel writer, is a woman in her 30s who divorced her husband after she concluding she wasn’t happy and didn’t want to have children with him. After falling for a much younger man, she realized she needed to live her life without a destructive relationship, but instead learn how to be happy. She decided to take a year to travel to Italy, India, and Bali; wanting to get something specific out of each country.

I guess wanting to take care of yourself is, by definition, selfish, but that word has such a negative connotation. How is wanting to make sure oneself is “ok” before taking care of anyone else negative. If you’re not happy you will be no good to anyone!

In addition, to me, what better way to make yourself happy than to travel. I tell ya what, if I could afford it, I’d go away for a year!

I don’t see what is so wrong with what she did, but maybe there’s something I’m missing???

The Problem With Baby Oil

In the spring of my senior year of high school my parents went out of town for the week, and since I was only 17 during my senior year they asked Kristen, one of my closest friends, to stay with me as my guardian since she is about 4 years older than I am. 

It was a pretty good decision by my parents because we were both rule followers and pretty good kids.  That week went well and we had fun hanging out without our parents around.  That Thursday night we went out to dinner with our friend Robyn, who was also a senior in high school and not yet 18.  We had so much fun that night together that we talked Kristen into calling us both in sick to the school office the next morning so we could continue the fun on Friday.

The next morning we got up at the regular school time and Robyn came over to my house instead of going to school.  Kristen called the school twice and pretended to be our moms.  Robyn and I jumped around in excitement because I don’t think we had ever ditched school before.

We decided to spend the day hanging out in the backyard swimming and “laying out”.  Now that was the early 90s and taking care of your skin wasn’t that much of a concern.  The three of us lathered up in baby oil and spent the day by the pool.  Every time we swam, we reapplied. 

Now friends, I’m not an olive skin gal like my two partners in crime.  I’m Irish and have the stereotypical fair, freckly skin.  Let’s just say my skin, baby oil, and spending all day in the sun didn’t mix.  By the end of the day, my backside was so sunburned I looked like a lobster. 

It was an awful night.  My skin hurt so bad and I couldn’t sleep on my back.  I never did blister, but it was red and sore for several days.  I think that was the worst I’d ever been burned.  Since that day, I’ve been so very careful in the sun, and never used baby oil again!

On a side note, my parents never found out that I ditched school until just a couple of years ago.  My mom was in town and a group of us got together for drinks at a wine bar.  Kristen and I told her the story that night.  We should have just kept it to ourselves because she didn’t find it quite as funny as we did. 

Tasty Tuesday

This week’s Tasty Tuesday is probably one of the simplest dishes I’ve ever made, and most of my recipes are pretty simple so that’s saying something. I love sandwiches, and this is a really great sandwich! Slainte!

Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 bottle buffalo wing sauce (like Franks 12oz)
1/2 package dry ranch salad dressing mix
2 tablespoons butter
6 sandwich rolls

Directions
1. Place chicken (frozen or thawed), 3/4 bottle of buffalo sauce, and salad dressing into a crock pot.
2. Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours.
3. When chicken is cooked through and tender, shred it using two forks (I do it right in the crock pot).
4. Stir in the butter to thicken the sauce up a bit. Cover and begin prepping the sandwich rolls.
5. Use the shredded chicken as the base of the sandwich. I add it to toasted sub rolls and then top with blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing.

Add some farmer’s market white peaches and Kettle Chip salt and pepper potato chips and it makes a great (and EASY) summer meal!

A New Star

This afternoon I did something kind of unique; not something that I do everyday anyways…the unveiling of a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame!

My friend Marcie sent out an invite to attend the event on Hollywood and Vine for Louis Prima. She is a big fan and really wanted to attend. Louis Prima was a great jazz, big band, Vegas singer. My grandparents were big fans and used to go to Vegas to see him perform back in the 50s. I remember my grandma listening to his records when I visited her on weekend.

His name is not very well known, but his songs really are. He originally sang Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody, Angelina/Zooma Zooma, Jump, Jive, and Wail, Buona Sera and tons more. A lot of the mafia shows like Casino and the Sopranos used his music. Plus he was King Louis in Disney’s The Jungle Book.

Since my grandmother would have loved to have seen one of her favorite singers get his star in the same place she spent most of her life, and it was something different to do, I decided to join Marcie.

It was so much fun! In addition to the regular event, this is also the 50th year anniversary of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, so they had extra special events planned around the ceremony.

We took the Metro into Hollywood and walked to the Ricardo Mantalban Theatre, another name my grandma would have been thrilled with due to Fantasy Island fame.
Since we were not VIPs, we didn’t get to sit right up close, but we got there early enough we had a pretty good view.

When we first arrived, the star was covered in order to be unveiled in dramatic fashion.

It was a very moving ceremony. His children and grandchildren were spoke and were so proud. On top of it, this year is his hundredth birthday.

After the ceremony, his son Louis Prima Jr., who is also a musician, performed many of Sr.’s well-known songs right there in front of the theatre.

Afterwards the party was moved to a margarita bar right around the corner and family, fans, and others drank margaritas, listened to music, and mingled.

Three margaritas later, we decided it was time to depart. We did head back over to the Montalban Theatre in order to take a look at the star up close without all the people around. It already looks like it needs some cleaning!

Sometimes I want to kick myself for living so close to Hollywood and not taking advantage of these types of events more often for one reason or another. What a fun day!

Shake, Rattle, Roll

I hate earthquakes! I’ve lived right on top of the San Andreas Fault in Southern California my whole life (with the exception of 8 years in and after college) so have experienced my fair share. They are very unsettling and make me quite nervous. However, the earthquakes I’ve felt have been fairly mild; mainly 4s and 5s. The largest earthquake in SoCal in my lifetime was the January 17, 1994 “Northridge Quake” which was a 6.7 and I was not in the state for that one.

On January 16, 1994 I returned to New Hampshire for the 2nd semester of my junior year. Due to the time difference, I got to my apartment pretty late that night and just crashed. The next morning, when I woke up, my roommate had the TV on, and she told me that the news was reporting an earthquake in the Los Angeles county. I kind of shrugged it off thinking, “Yah, we have them a lot.” But when I joined her on the couch, it was apparent that this wasn’t one of our 4-5 magnitude quakes.

Watching the damage in Northridge on the news I was shocked, but the closeness to home really didn’t sink in until I saw these…

This is the 5 and 14 freeway interchange also known as the only way in and out of the town I live in. “Oh my god!” I blurted out, “I live there!” Complete and utter panic set in at that time. I, of course, picked up the phone and dialed home right away. Nothing but a busy signal. I tried everyone I knew. Nothing but a busy signal. In the meantime, the footage on the news was getting worse and worse. After a couple of hours I finally got a phone call from my cousin who lives in Ventura County. They felt the quake, but didn’t have any damage and their phone lines were still open. They had been in touch with my parents and they were ok, so that was a relief.

Over the next few days more and more information came in and my parents were able to contact me. Things were a mess, but everyone I knew was safe and sound.

Because of cost, my parents only brought me home from school for Christmas and for summer, but I really wanted to go home for spring break to see them. I used my credit card and got myself a ticket to fly home in March. Things had been cleaned up, but the property damage had not been repaired, waiting on the insurance. It was crazy! One of our chimneys had fallen off the house, one whole side of our brick wall had fallen onto our neighbor’s house, our fireplace facade had fallen over, and their were numerous cracks in the walls inside and outside the house. My parents had pictures of the house before things got cleaned up. Some things that really hit home happened in my bedroom. The small television that sat on the armoire across from my bed had been catapulted off the armoire onto the bed. There was also a cheap, plastic, and empty CD holder that sat on the floor against one of my walls. In the shaking, it impaled itself into the wall. Crazy!

Part of me is SO relieved that I was not there during that earthquake. Everyone said it was so scary. On the other hand, having not gone through it, I’m so dreading the next one we have because I don’t know what to expect.

There have been a lot of earthquakes recently; earthquakes in really weird places, places that aren’t known for them. Some say these quakes lessen the “pressure” on the faults, others say they are just a precursor to what’s to come, while others still say one doesn’t have anything to do with the other. Whatever they are, I don’t like it!

Have you been in an earthquake before?

The Puppy Honeymoon Might Be Over

How can someone so cute

be so rotten?

The Junk Drawer

I’ve been meaning to do the junk drawer post for quite some time, but am just now getting to it. What really lit a fire under me was while I had people over for dinner one evening. A friend was helping me with dinner because I had had a few too many cocktails beforehand and I pulled out an oven glove from the drawer by the oven (aka the junk drawer) for him to use. When he reached his hand inside the glove it wouldn't go on correctly. Instead, he pulled his hand out of the glove holding onto my extra car key; the car key which was also kept in the junk drawer.

Since I am on summer vacation I thought this was a good time to clean the junk drawer…
The culprit is the top drawer.

Here it is open, well kind of since this is as far as it would open before getting stuck on all the junk.

This is everything that had been put inside that little, tiny drawer.

Some interesting highlights…
These are pictures of my “nieces and nephews”. Emily, in the top picture, is going into 1st grade this year. I get pictures of the kids which are great, but I don’t ever really know what to do with them afterwards, so they end up in the junk drawer. These have been in the junk drawer for about 4 years.
Here are some coupons and receipts. The most recent coupon had an expiration date of August 26, 2006!

The 3 items here are so outdated it’s not even funny – a calculator that no longer works, a transmitter for my first ipod, and a cassette tape. Yes, a cassette tape! Can you even remember the last time you used a cassette tape? I can’t, but I had one in my junk drawer just…in case.

These are old calendars (go back as far as 2005) and check registers. Since I do all my banking online, and have for some time, I don’t even use check registers anymore. And why oh why would I need calendars from 2-3 years ago?

Keys! There are maybe 3 in this pile that I know what they are used for. The others? I have no idea, but they might be needed someday.

I use a lot of chapstick and whenever I’m at Target I pick up a pack, just in case. Usually it’s because I don’t remember seeing any left over in the junk drawer. It was probably hidden under the old coupons and keys, but I’ve got enough to last me for a little while anyways.

After throwing out all of the things that were either expired or haven’t been used in over a year and finding better places for some other things, I have a very clean junk drawer now. It even opens all the way!

What kind of junk are you holding on to?