SEAFOOD FEST

I just may have to stay up all night so I can eat all the most delicious foods in the world that I just happened to buy tonight. I can't even believe this. I went out on THE coldest night of the year to pick up some cherry pie filling and shrimp... and walked away having spent over $200. Oops. That's pretty damn pricey cherries and shrimp, if I say so myself.

So it sorta went down like this: After a lovely afternoon of working with Deanna on an invitation she needed for her New Year's Day Open House... I woke up from a long nap all spiffy and raring to go once again. So... I then began working on making an excellent pearl bracelet that I'm sporting as we speak. Man.. threading those pearls is way harder than it used to be given my eyesight is now basically fair at best. But whatever. I'd say that took me about an hour and a half and then... I was beginning to feel antsy.

Therefore I toyed with the idea of should I or should I not go to Fresh Market. Normally I'd elect to stay put given the cold temps, etc. but... I decided the hell with it. I've already got my wooly lined boots on, I've already got my jeans on and I've already got my fleece tunic on, so basically all I'd need to do was boom. Throw on my winter coat and head out. Which I did. Especially since I figured that I'd almost bet the closer it got to Thanksgiving, the better the chances of the store not having what I wanted. Bingo. I braved the elements.

Oh yeah... the pre-bonus to this little shopping trip was that next to Fresh Market is SteinMart so naturally I had to stop in there first to check out the shoe department. And the chunky jewelry, too. Astonishingly, I walked out when I realized OMG... the grocery store is going to close in about a half hour. No need wasting my time on shit I didn't need in the first place. So I hightailed it over to the grocery store. Anyway....

I walked into Fresh Market and headed straight to the pie baking department. Mission accomplished. Got the cherries. However... on the way to the seafood department I noticed: STANDING RIB ROAST - $6.99 A POUND - TODAY ONLY. About two seconds of decision making went into it and next thing you know, the roast is in my basket.

Finally I walked over to the shrimp. But THEN I remembered: the alltime best deluxe crab cakes are there, so yep. You guessed it. Three of those went into my cart. As did 4 lobster tails that were on sale, also one day only. Add to that, the 4 packages of pre cooked huge lobster bits that I like having in my refrigerator for quick snack emergencies. Eventually I got around to the 2 pounds of shrimp and I was then merrily on my way.

Until that is, I passed the deli and saw the baked chicken wings and drumettes that I totally adore. Believe me... my basket was piled up to the hilt. WITH A SEAFOOD DELIGHT LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE. Not to mention the chicken and beef. Oh man... my mouth was watering just thinking about the fantastic shopping I had just done. No wonder. I was STARVING.

Which means: just how long you think it took me to get home, grab the chicken wings, pull up a chair and DOWN 10 OF THEM LICKETY SPLIT 1-2-3. I swear. I just couldn't stop! I devoured those deals in mere minutes, not even having put away any of the groceries yet, either. Ahhhh... the glories of delicious food.

Needless to say, my refrigerator is now stuffed with all this food that looks like I'm feeding a family of eight. And, apparently it's going to be that way for a few days yet, given that tomorrow night I'll be going out to my alltime next best type of dinner... Chinese. I can only hope my Fortune Cookie will include something about six more people soon moving in so I can clear out the fridge and share the feast of a lifetime all in one fell swoop.


Bottom line: I'm apparently the only woman in American not stocking her home with Thanksgiving food. I'm doing seafood instead. On the other hand, I sometimes like living outside the box. Uh... the ice box that is.

HAPPY ALMOST THANKSGIVING

Man... I've sported several looks in the past month and this one is the latest. It was also the one into which I put the least amount of work. I have to assume it's because its enough already with the parties that require me to don SOME sort of costume.

Besides... I'm running out of simple ideas. I am certainly not going the purchased costume route, so I basically have to draw upon whatever happens to be in my closet. Which is no easy feat, actually. Case in point: each year I know for sure that I'll be invited to at least one Halloween party. This year however, there were two.

Over the past few years I've gone as an upscale call girl, a Grande Dame socialite, a Japanese Geisha girl and then last weekend... well you see it up there in the picture. I was so over costumes that for this latest party I merely took a black hat I had around the house, taped on a white Pilgrim buckle that I made out of card stock and added a white lace scarf around my neck. Oh yeah... I also wore a pair of leather square toed boots to which I had had already added great pretend baby diamonds covering the entire toe box.

Anyway... viola'... I was a Pilgrim. Not a great costume for sure, but at least everyone knew what I was going for, when first I walked in. And trust me... this look couldn't have been easier. Unfortunately, I had to go easy on the jewels given Pilgrims were pretty blah in the bling department. You know. Puritan and all. Anyway....

I actually had a pretty good time at the party. And it just knocks my socks off seeing what everyone ELSE puts together. IT'S AMAZING. The creations of adults 65 years + are fantastic. Some are pretty ingenious, if you ask me. Of course as much as I loved seeing everyone, equal to that, is always the food. I totally loved the huge container of cooked pasta with 3 choices of toppings. I personally went for the fettuccine on half of my pasta, then the meat sauce on the other half. Absolutely excellent.   


In the meantime... down below are a few of the looks I think you've already seen. The last one however is the look I think I'll go for, for the NEXT costume party I ever have to attend. I got the idea just tonight actually, and I've to imagine it's a pretty easy look to capture. No wonder... again, I can just grab something from my closet. Seriously... like just hard can this be?? Wig... eyeliner... red lipstick. Boom. Done. 

And with that my good friends... I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

DEAR DIARY...

Well today started out pretty good. No wonder... I woke up at almost noon. What could be bad about THAT?? Got up, got dressed and spent the entire day at home. Which was also good since I had all kinds of papers to sort through with the hopes of ditching 3/4 of them. Mission pretty much accomplished on that front.

I also had to tailor the shoulders of a new dress I got, but unfortunately the finished work turned out to be a dud. Bingo... I had to rip the seam apart and decided: the hell with it. I'll wear it as is. THAT WAS EASY.

Got lots of phone calls and chit chatted for a bit before I went on my two searches. WHERE THE HELL IS MY WILL, ANYWAY?? You can't beLIEVE how I tore apart the drawers, cabinets and file folders. It's totally not here. I did find the codicil of the will however, which was done about 10 months ago, I bet. Anyway... called Evan's office and lo and behold... the original is in his office safe! Finding that out however, didn't do much to calm my pounding heart so boom. Downed half an Ativan.

Then I began my next search... the hunt for my new pair of Issac Mizrahi jeans that I was in the midst of tailoring a while ago and quickly put away somewhere when company was coming. WHERE THE HELL DID I PUT THEM? I still have no clue in spite of my looking through every closet in the house. They've been missing for about a month now. Man... for someone as organized as I am, I can find nothing around this place.

I then toyed with the idea of taking a nap, but figured that can't be good for someone who woke up at noon. So... I went through all the papers I wanted to file away and yippee. Found my AFLAC POLICY which I had not seen in two years, I'll bet. I also found the WARRANTY POLICY for my car which I think is only good for another two years at most. Ooops.

Then I tried to find something decent to watch on TV but as usual, found nothing. Totally boring shit although I did spend about 15 minutes of channel surfing. Evan called me back and I got sick to my stomach again hearing how his young daughter is going through all kinds treatments for her leukemia and who will soon have to head over to Duke University for a bone marrow transplant. Talk about heart breaking.

To ease my concern for her, I decided to have a fantastic dinner... a huge bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup on top. It definitely eased my broken heart to some degree. It also did a number on my caloric intake.

Was pretty happy when my son called. Unlike ME, he was able to get Sirrius Radio to renew my subscription at half the price they quoted me. I had called them twice in the last two weeks, but they would give me no such fantastic pricing. Which naturally is when I got my kid to take over since I've long ago figured out that it is indeed a man's world out there. Sorry Gloria Steinem but it is what it is. 

I considered going over to my next door neighbor's house but was afraid her husband my be there. He's a pilot and has been out of town on his new schedule and it's been about 3 weeks since he was home. I love going there though, because their baby will soon be about a year old even though the wife is already making plans with her attorney to leave the husband after January, taking the baby with her, to live at her parents' house in a different state. Thus... I'm sort of expecting a nuclear war to go down when the hubby returns one day to find wife and kid kaput. Now THERE'S a soap opera waiting to happen.

I did get a kick out of George Zimmerman being in front of a judge once again. I love watching his misery piling on over and over and over. Geez... this guy had GOT to be the biggest joke of all time. For someone who wanted to be a part of law enforcement, he's involved in the law alright. Just on the wrong side of it. What an idiot.


So that was pretty much my day, Dear Diary of mine. I guess I better go wind down now so I can shower and get ready for bed since tomorrow Susan, Claudia and I will head over to Old Navy and then grab some lunch. Best part of tomorrow will be that Teresa will be here when I wake up. YAY. Better yet.. NEXT Wednesday I'll wake up to go pick up my kid from the airport! Have already got my Manly List of Things To Do pretty much completed. Of course I just hope I'll be able to find it. 

PIE IN THE SKY

I totally love pies. Most of them anyway. I'd never do a potato pie nor a kidney pie however, since in my book, they aren't even pies to begin with. On the other hand, I do love chicken pot pies. 

But... if I could choose from some REAL sorts of pies, my alltime favorites would include either a cherry or a chocolate or a lemon or a pumpkin or a pecan pie. A couple of weeks ago, I chose cherry.

It went down like this: I originally wanted to make an apple pie since I had so many fresh apples in the house. I was just going dice them all up and add them to a store bought apple filling product, mixing it all together until boom. I'd bake a sorta semi-fresh homemade apple pie. Already I was smelling the aroma filling the house. Except for one major glitch, however.

When I got to the gourmet grocery store, there WAS no apple pie filling in the aisle. There was only cherry. And... pretty much fancy schmancy cherry too, given the packaging. Not to mention the pricing. Soooo... 1-2-3 my mind thought: HMMMM... APPLE CHERRY PIE. NOW HOW BAD CAN THAT BE?? Pretty good, right?? So bingo. I bought two jars of the cherry filling and raced home to my kitchen to make the delight of the century.

OMG. WHAT A GREAT DECISION I APPARENTLY MADE. I brought home the jars of cherry filling, chopped up the apples, mixed them together and zippo. I added this mixture to my pie tin that I had already lined with pie dough. Store bought of course, but it doesn't even matter. AND... to make sure the top layer of dough was equal to the fancy cherry/apple filling, I even did an egg wash on top before I pinched the sides and vented the top. Whoa... IT LOOKED SO GREAT.

Next I popped it into the awaiting oven and the next thing I know... not only was it done BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY it was by far THE BEST cherry pie I've ever ever tasted!! OMG. I was in sheer heaven. I was also HORRIBLY ADDICTED. I could NOT stop eating this delicious pie! Totally in my glory. No wonder. Just LOOK at the finished product up there in the picture. Well, what was left of it, anyway. 

My biggest fear of course was that I'd finish the entire huge pie in mere MINutes. Seriously... I so could have. Thank GOD for restraint. In fact, I deserve an f'ing medal for stringing it out to 6 days before I downed the entire treat. It was like every damn time I walked past this pie I just HAD to take at least one bite. Which I did for each of the 6 days it lasted. Seriously... I just couldn't get enough of it.

Man was this so damn delicious it's crazy. I so have to make another for Thanksgiving even though I'm not even dining at home that night. Just having it around will make my holiday even happier. The cherries were just the right tartness, the apples were just the right sweetness and the crust was astounding. In fact, when Claudia saw it she didn't even believe I made it, given it was so professional looking. I could SO make this my meal 3 times a day... plus my midnight snack... if only the Calorie Gods would let me.   


Now that I think of it... this cherry pie might even have to take precedence over the Famous Chocolate Wafer log cake I make and trust me... THAT is pretty damn delicious as well. On the other hand... yippee. Just a couple more weeks and I get to taste... tada!... some pumpkin and pecan pie, too! Come the New Year I should be plenty roly poly for sure. As if I even care.

THE KILLING MACHINE

See that machine up there? It's what they call an elliptical training machine. Totally opposite of my core training class btw, given that in core, our bodies ARE the machines. We use our OWN core muscle strength. Which is an idea I totally love, but who's counting.

In any case... on Tuesday I decided I wanted to use my free Medicare Silver Sneakers membership card at a local gym so I could build up some cardio, endurance, stamina, etc. etc. Walking on a treadmill would probably be just as good, but my according to my kid, the elliptical is even better. Given I'd never been on the elliptical, I had no clue how to use this machine and needed some instruction. Bingo. Turns out even an idiot could figure it out but whatever.

And... to make it even better, Betsy is at the gym on Tuesdays since she has a yoga class there. Thus I told her PERFECT. YOU DO THE YOGA CLASS. I'LL LEARN HOW TO DO THE ELLIPTICAL AND WHEN WE'RE FINISHED WE'LL WALK ACROSS THE STREET TO HAVE LUNCH TOGETHER. Yippee. It would be great. Uh... until I wanted to die, that is.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? YOU THINK I CAN POSSIBLY LAST ON THIS MACHINE??? OMG. It was killing me! I wanted to die, and I said so the entire time I was on it. Which by the way was MERE MINUTES. I was absolutely EXHAUSTED within seconds. I mean it. It was crazy. Plus... during those mere minutes? Trust me. I must have taken four breaks, easily. I was STUNNED at apparently how totally out of shape I am, cardiologicallly speaking. Especially since I do core each week AND yoga almost nightly. 

According to the Linda School of Fitness I need to go use this machine every three hours just to build up to a five minute workout! Seriously. If YOU think you're in tip top shape, I highly recommend you go try this out as a complete test of how you, like me, might be totally living in LaLa Land, fooling yourself. Who KNEW I could be this short of passing out altogether? Anyway...

While Betsy was in the yoga class, I was on this machine. And so was Hildie... a gray haired lady of about 75 who was in the row behind me, watching me pant and suffer. It was only after Betsy's class did Hildie come up to me and say: OH GUESS WHAT. YOU WERE ON THE HARDEST ELLIPTICAL IN THE WHOLE PLACE. YOU NEED TO GO TO THE ROW I WAS ON AND USE THOSE MACHINES INSTEAD. Now she tells me. Not only was SHE going a hundred miles an hour but so was the guy next to me and now that I think of it, so was EVERYONE there. Plus... they all were on it for a minimum of about 25 minutes. I was a complete LOSER in this entire gym of oldie goldie grey haired Silver Sneakers. Talk about embarrassing.

So that was last Tuesday. THIS Tuesday I will try this again, but I can see already it won't do shit for me unless I go almost every day, every three hours. I WANTED to go more often last week, but I was so busy that I just never got around to it. Which only means: by the next time I get to the gym, it's possible that I'll want to pass out even SOONER than last week. VERY possible, in fact.


Man. Whoever made up this machine was either THE fitness guru of all time or the most f*ucked guy on the planet. But give me time... I'm pretty sure I'll work up to a six minute workout eventually. It's the SIXTY minute workout that I'll never see. Ever.