befabulo.us

Introducing....

Pirate Coasting, my new blog about life on the Gulf Coast.  It's still a work in progress... I have a few posts up, but haven't yet done much in the way of adding links or making it pretty. 

Bookmark it now, please, as befabulo.us is going to disappear in about 48 hours.

Thank you all for reading.  You're awesome, did you know that?

Shutting it down, and not in a Rachael Zoe way.

Let's not fool ourselves.  This blog is dead.  It never really got off the ground, never found its niche.  It's time to put it out of its misery.  My subscription to Typepad ends on November 21, and I'm not renewing.

I'm fooling with the idea of a new blog -- a free one this time, so as to take the pressure off if I wind up not doing much with it -- that will focus on this crazy little part of the world.  I intend to launch it before this blog kicks the bucket, and I'll post the new URL here.

In the meantime, I finally gave in a few months ago and joined Facebook.  I suspect that most of the people who read this have already friended me, but if you haven't yet and you'd like to follow me there, you can look me up as summeronthebeach.  Just tell me that you know me through my blog when you send a friend request.

RIP, befabulo.us.  Donations to your personal wine and chocolate fund are suggested in lieu of flowers.

When tequila shots lead to thoughts of Lysistrata. (Top Chef 6, Ep. 2)

Once again, I find myself more interested in talking about drama than food.

The chefs were broken into teams, boys vs. girls, and given the challenge of creating food for bachelor and bachelorette parties.  Team Male had to prepare food for the bachelorettes; Team Ladies had to cater for the bachelors.  Both teams had to match their dishes to flavored shots, the favorite drinks of the soon-to-be-wedded couple.

The girls seemed significantly less thrilled about this challenge than the boys.  Jen, the clam shucking girl wonder from episode 1, is shown complaining to the camera that selecting the teams based on gender is sexist -- what she was really trying to say, I think, is that she's tough enough to hang with the boys and doesn't want to be stuck in some girlie kitchen ghetto.  But it was Ashley, who looks like she should be on the boy's team, who really flipped out.  It's unfair, she says, that she and the other gay contestants are forced to cater for a bachelor party when they don't share the same legal right to wed.

Say what?  I'm with you that it's criminally unfair that gay couples can't enjoy the same rights as hetero couples.  I agree completely.  But what confuses me is the idea that she shouldn't have to produce food for someone else's wedding until she can have a wedding of her own.  So... you're saying you would want to refuse to professionally have anything to do with heterosexual nuptials?  If a man called to make a reservation at your restaurant, and asked for help in making the evening special because he planned to propose to his girlfriend, would you tell him to take his straight ass to Burger King?  Let's face it -- except for the super-wealthy, the most likely reasons a regular American would either throw a splashy party or go out to a very high-end restaurant revolve around love and marriage.  Engagements, weddings, anniversaries.  Would you seriously throw away all that business because of politics? 

I'm not the only one who thought Ashley was out of line.  The cameras show her trying to recruit fellow lesbian Preeti to her cause, but Preeti's response seems to be no more than "whatever."

But it did get me thinking... what if Ashley and every other GLBT person in the country refused to do wedding-related business until the laws are changed?  What if every gay restaurant owner and chef refused to allow proposals, anniversary celebrations, or rehearsal dinners to occur on their premises?  What if gay fashion designers made no wedding or bridesmaid dresses?  What if gay event planners wouldn't work with brides?  What if every gay waiter and bartender in the nation put down the trays of mini crab cakes and stopped mixing Grey Goose and tonic until such a day when they could cater the wedding of Tom and Harry?  Think about it.  No gay hairdressers.  No gay calligraphers.  No gay photographers.  No gay florists!  It would bring the country's bridal industry to its knees.

Might be worth a shot.  Your move, Ashley.

The best first day of school so far.

August 2006, First Day of Pre-K3: The boy has his first ever day of school, full-day Pre-K for 3 year olds at the charter school near our home in DC.  I drop him off and then spend several hours in a weepy pity party because my BABY is in SCHOOL and I'd expected to have another baby, or at least be pregnant, but I hadn't expected that I'd get smacked with secondary infertility.  Pity party is interruped mid-day by a call from the school.  My son fell off his cot at naptime, gashed open his lip and chin, and can be heard wailing in the background.

August 2007, First Day of Pre-K4, no, make that Kindergarten: He begins his day in the Pre-K4 classroom led by the teacher that I hadn't wanted for him, the teacher who had made some serious errors the year before when my friends' kids were in her class.  He expresses mild disgust that the first scheduled activity is a coloring project.  "Where are the journals?", he asks, expecting a more rigorously academic curriculum.  Mid-day, he's removed from the Pre-K4 classroom and taken to a kindergarten classroom.  Two days later, he's officially enrolled in the kindergarten class.  (I frequently have to explain the circumstances now, to make it clear why he's now a 6 year old second grader.  When he started Pre-K, DC had the rule that the child had to be the appropriate age by December 31.  He missed the cutoff by less than two weeks, making him one of the oldest children in his Pre-K class.  He started reading well during the year and was showing other signs of being academically gifted.  His first Pre-K teacher recommended that he go directly to kindergarten, and since the age difference was so small and the chance of him being bored and acting up in Pre-K was so great, we agreed to skip him ahead.)

August 2008, First Day of First Grade: I sent him off on the bus for his first day at his new Florida school.  That afternoon, I stood at the bus stop and waited for him.  The bus arrived... but he wasn't on it.  I raced back to the condo to grab my car keys, and as I walked in the door, my husband was answering a phone call from the school.  They wanted to know why no one had picked him up.  It seems that at some point in the day, he decided he didn't want to ride the bus home, he wanted to have us pick him up in the car.  However, we did not get his psychic message, resulting in his being stranded at school on the first day.

August 2009, First Day of Second Grade:  Yesterday was his first day of second grade, his first day at his new school, the stand-alone gifted school I spent most of the winter and spring obsessing over.  I sent him off on the bus and then spent the rest of the day mildly anxious.  What if he got lost on the campus?  What if he didn't get along with the kids in his class?  What if he cried, vomited, or had his eye pecked out by a hungry heron?  This school means a lot to me, and could be his academic home for the next ten years -- it seemed crucial that his first day be a good one and create a good first impression on him.

He was smiling when he got off the bus.  He gave the day a thumbs up, and when asked what was good about his day, replied "everything."  He had lunch in the Student Union with a new friend (one who wore a Pokemon t-shirt, even) and got to go to the library, where he checked out the one book in the Captain Underpants series he'd never been able to find at the county library.

It was a good day.  No question about it, it was the best first day of school he's every had.

No trash, no groceries. (Project Runway 6, Ep. 1)

Surprisingly enough, I find myself without much to say about this first episode of Project Runway.

This challenge -- to make a red carpet dress out of $200 of fabric, for no specific wearer or event -- was boring.  There was no twist to make it really difficult.  They didn't have to make a dress out of banana peels or trash bags or napkins from Arby's, just nice, ordinary fabric from Mood.  BORING.  I'm grateful I read an interview with Tim Gunn in which he said that the first challenge was originally supposed to be something different, but they had to switch at the last minute because of legal issues relating to the change of network.  Thank goodness, because if I didn't know that, I'd be afraid that every challenge would be so dull.

My biggest issue with the judging this week (other than the fact that one of the judges was wearing leggings with an inset lace panel, who could it be, LOHAN?) was that my favorite dress was completely overlooked.  I thought for certain that Irina would be top three, if not the winner.  If the guest judge had been a celebrity stylist instead of a celebrity skank, Irina might have gotten more notice.  According to everything I know from watching The Rachel Zoe Project, Irina's dress was perfect for the red carpet.  The fitted lace top with the deep V would look fantastic in photos from any angle, and the skirt moved so beautifully.  Red carpets aren't just photographed; for the big ones like the Oscars, they're televised, and so it's crucial that a gown look gorgeous as its wearer walks.  As Irina's dress came down the runway, the skirt fluttered and flowed and managed to look both interesting and graceful.  I think what killed her chances was the color.  The nude lace wound up looking a bit too boudoir, although I could definitely see certain very fair actresses wearing this dress and looking amazing in it.  For instance, if Nicole Kidman had been the intended wearer for the dresses in this episode (rather than being a vague reference in the preceeding Project Runway All-Stars) I bet she would have chosen Irina's as one of the top designs.

I completely agreed with the dresses that made it into the bottom two, but I would have kept Ari (at least for another week) and sent Mitchell home.  Why?  For one thing, Ari is a more interesting character than Mitchell -- it's a good sign, actually, that the judging went this way, because it indicates that the specter of Producer Manipulation will be little felt in this series.  But the more important reason is that I can imagine someone wearing Ari's creation on the red carpet.  Admittedly, I can only imagine one person wearing it: Bai Ling.  She might have to modify it to show a little bit more side-boob, but surely one of Bai Ling's eight miniskirt-wearing-panda spirits would like this outer space halter top.  Even the way Ari styled the runway look reminded me of Bai Ling.  The tiny shorts and hooker boots are definitely something Bai would wear.  She'd rock it, too, and manage to look sexy while everyone shakes their head and says, "oh, Bai Ling.  You so crazy.  Don't ever change."  Don't believe me?  Look at Bai Ling's archives on Go Fug Yourself and tell me I'm wrong.

Mitchell's "dress," on the other hand, NO ONE would wear.  What he sent down the runway was a disgrace, but ultimately I think he was lucky that his model didn't fit in the dress he made.  I suspect that the judges, hearing that he had to remake his dress in the last hour, gave him the benefit of the doubt.  They didn't get to see what we saw, the original dress in the workroom, which was even worse.  Who was he designing for?  An 80 year old Olsen twin?  NO.

That is all.

Offense Taken. (Top Chef 6, Ep. 1)

"No offense, but a girl just shouldn't be on the level where I'm at," says Michael, chef at DC restaurant Zaytinia.  "No offense," he says, which is what everyone says when they can already taste the sole of their shoe on the tip of their tounge, when they know that what they are about to say is incredibly offensive.

I know that the producers were being savvy when they edited in that nasty nugget of a soundbite.  I know all too well that they are trying to rile me up, make me angry, give me someone to hate.  I know it, and yet I can't help it.  It worked.  It infuriated me.  And what a delight that the "girl" he insulted, Jennifer, wound up winning the Quickfire round, netting a neat $15,000 jackpot.  I would have suspected a touch of producer manipulation in Jennifer's win, but I don't think Michael's sexist interview was filmed until after the Quickfire was over.

[Sigh.] It had to be the guy from DC who takes the asshole role.  This makes me extra-annoyed.  I've eaten at Zaytinia, been to parties there.  This is not how I want my hometown to be represented!  Last season's DC girl, Carla Hall, was charming, sweet and goofy.  Michael from Zaytinia... well, his bio says he's from Jersey.  JERSEY. 

I'm sorry, Jersey.  Go slap your boy upside the head for me, ok?

The first episode of a competition show like this always seems to be rather chaotic.  Too many characters all introduced at once, making it hard to tell one from another.  There were multiple heavily-inked girls, multiple girls who looked like boys, multiple Michaels, even a set of similar looking brothers.  (Helpful hint: the sunburned one is the one who lives in LA.)  Despite the chaos, I though the show did a good job of letting us see each of the final dishes, even if we only got to hear the judges questioning the four top and four bottom chefs.

I think you can make some good guesses on who is going to go home early based on how much screen time they got.  Looking at the list of chefs on Bravo's website, some of them were almost invisible in last night's episode.  I don't think we'll be seeing Laurine, Eve or Ash around for very long.  ("Who?" you're saying.  Exactly.) I predict that there will be a little bit of drama milked out of Robin's cancer, and then she'll go home in the first half of the series.  I don't forsee much of a future for Preeti, either.  If she hadn't bungled the job of opening clams so badly, I don't think she would have been a notable character in this episode.  (That aforementioned bungling was not her fault.  She TOLD her teammates she'd never opened a clam, and no one volunteered to trade off with her.)  The chefs I think have a chance of making it until the second half of the series, at least: Michael the jackhole, the Volt brothers, big red Kevin, Jennifer "the girl," and "I spent 27 days on a boat, I'm Haitian don't MESS with me" Ron.

Also: I am completely delighted that Rick Bayless won Top Chef Masters. 

Best. Week. Ever.

My son has fallen victim to a contagious disease rampant among schoolboys.  It's called Pokemon, and one of the symptoms is that the sufferer CAN NOT STOP talking about Pokemon.

I decided yesterday to attempt a radical therapy, one that has no chance of curing the Pokemon obsession but that would, I hoped, mitigate the verbal onslaught.  We were in the car, driving home from camp, and from the backseat my son kept up a steady monologue about Pokemon.

"...so you could have a fire type, or a psychic fire type!  Which one would you want?"

"Actually, I don't want either.  You know what?  I'm really not that interested in Pokemon. [deep breath]  You know what I am interested in?  PROJECT RUNWAY.  A new season is starting on TV this week and I'm so excited because it's been forever like MORE THAN A YEAR since the last season was on TV because the producers wanted to switch to a new channel and there were all these lawsuits but they're finally resolved and they filmed the new season a long time ago but they couldn't show it and the new season is starting on Thursday and it's gonna be awesome and on Thursday before the premiere there's going to be a special Project Runway All-Stars episode with a bunch of my favorite people from past seasons of Project Runway and I just CAN'T WAIT."  [runs out of steam]

From the backseat, a moment of stunned silence.

"Hey, guy?  Did you notice what just happened there?  How I wouldn't stop talking about something you're not interested in, and it was really boring?  That's how I feel, sometimes, when you talk about Pokemon."

Then for the rest of the evening and into this morning, we had conversations about subjects OTHER than Pokemon (or Project Runway), about matters such as the importance of frequently saving the files you're working on and whether putting too much jam on a sandwich qualifies as a mistake.

It's been pleasant, but I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that the Pokemon obsession is fading.  For that matter, I know that my cable TV compulsion is only going to grow stronger in the weeks to come.  You see, this week just might be the best week of cable reality programming EVER.  On Wednesday, Bravo will air the finale of Top Chef Masters AND the season premiere of Top Chef.  Then on Thursday, Lifetime will broadcast the aforementioned Project Runway premiere and the Project Runway All-Stars Special.

I have been working extra-hard on my ass in Pilates class, just to prepare it for all the gleeful couch-sitting to come.

The difference between being a child sufferer of Pokemon Obsession and being an adult stricken with Cablephelia is that as an adult, I can chose when and where to discuss my chosen subject matter.  I am choosing to discuss it here, on my blog (though you'll likely also see my comments if you are a reader of Endless Simmer or Tom&Lorenzo.)  So consider this fair warning: I intend to blog every episode of both Top Chef AND Project Runway.   

If you're not interested in those shows, could I tempt you with a guest post about Chimchar and Pikachu? 

Your questions, my answers. (Part 1)

You've asked some good questions, my friends.  Hopefully my answers will be equally satisfying.

Libby asks: Why did you move to Florida? Did you sell your business? Do you miss winter?

Short answer is: because living at the beach is AWESOME!, yes, and absolutely not.  I'm actually surprised how often I've been asked if I miss winter or miss snow or miss the seasons.  Winter does exist in Florida.  It gets colder, and the sky turns clear crystal blue, and the citrus trees bear fruit.  But do I miss cold, icy, bleak grey winter?  Nooooooo.  I never was a fan of cold weather, and I'm perfectly happy to miss out on it.

A much, much longer answer to "why did I move to Florida" can be found in the entry I wrote on New Year's Day.  But it's me at my wordiest, I'm just warning you now.

Melody asks: Are you still a big coupon, bargain shopper when it comes to groceries?

I'm still all about bargain hunting to keep our grocery budget down, but I don't do coupons so much any more.  There are two reasons I've been neglecting my coupon folder.  The first is that none of the grocery stores do double or triple coupons, so there isn't as great a payoff for saving coupons, and the other is that the local newspapers blow.  In DC, it was doubly worthwhile to subscribe to the Sunday Post.  The Washington Post is one of the country's great newspapers, and the Sunday paper was always good for at least an hour of lazy reading.  I loved the Travel section and Style, and the Magazine was a staple of my bathroom reading.  Even if the coupons were disappointing, at least I still enjoyed the paper.  Here, the local paper publishes photos of people's grandchildren who've come to visit.  I am NOT kidding.  If it's one of those coupon-free Sundays, the paper goes straight into the recycling bin unread.  So I gave up, essentially.

What I do instead is carefully go through all of the sale flyers and plan out my shopping for the week.  It's not unusual for me to hit two or three stores in a week.  I'll go to Publix just to get their buy one get one free items, and then go to Albertson's on Friday or Saturday so I can use the $5 off $50 coupon they often publish.  If none of the sales look good, God help me, I'll go to Wal-Mart to get the essentials, even though that store saps my will to live. 

The real bummer is that the farmer's market closes over the summer... they have the best, cheapest produce, and they won't open up again until October.  I also miss the grovestand, which is also closed until fall -- they always have a big bin of unattractive citrus fruit, and for $5 you get as many as you can cram into a plastic bag.  I got 40lbs of grapefruit in a bag once.  The only way to beat that price is to make friends with someone with some grapefruit trees, which we have.

Melody also asks: Is there any wonderful new food that you've tried in FL that you hadn't had before prior to moving there. Any new restaurants or take-out places that you love?

Yes!  I've become a huge fan of steamed oysters.  Even though I grew up not too far from the Chesapeake Bay, I hadn't eaten steamed oysters before.  I'd had fried oysters, which I like, and I've always thought the raw oyster thing seemed gross, but it turns out that I really like steamed oysters, especially when accompanied with plenty of lemon and melted butter.

Our favorite restaurant is a sushi bar, at which we are such regulars that they now always give us free food.  And I just found a fantastic little Mexican carry-out, the kind of place where they don't have a menu and it really helps if you can speak Spanish.  It's on the way to the beach, too, which is a major bonus.

Lynn asks a question which is actually related: Do you miss anything about DC?

I miss Ethiopian food so much.  I really, really miss going down to U Street for Ethiopian, and every time I go back to DC I have to go to Etete for a vegetarian platter with fish.  I also miss having easy access to ethnic grocery stores.  When I lived in DC, if I wanted to go to an Asian store, I had to ask myself if I wanted to go to the Chinese store or the Thai market or the Korean mega-mart.  Here, I have to drive 20 miles to buy a bottle of fish sauce.

I'm out of fish sauce.  This makes me sad.

Of course, I miss my family (especially my mom) and my friends, but it's kinda surprising how little I miss living in DC.  There are things I miss, but a much longer list of things I don't miss.  But no one asked me that....

I haven't answered all the questions yet, I know, but the ones that remain unanswered are ones that demand entries of their own.  I don't have that much time left before the finale of "The Fashion Show" starts!  So stay tuned, there's more to come... and if you think of another question, feel free to ask.

Interview me.

One year ago today, I flew to Florida to begin my new life here, accompanied by my husband, my son, a few carry-on bags, and an undiagnosed case of pneumonia.

Today, in celebration, the cold I've had for the last week has moved into my lungs.  Hooray!

I know that over the last year I haven't been the greatest or most consistent of bloggers, so I suspect that some of you have questions that I haven't answered.  So to mark the day in a manner more pleasant than coughing, I invite you to ask me questions about my new life (or the life I left behind in DC) in the comments section, and I will post an interview-style entry with all the answers tomorrow.

So whaddaya want to know?

An adult-themed surprise on the Fourth of July.

I'm a DC girl.  I've got high standards for Fourth of July fireworks.  I'm not going to spread my blanket for just anything.  I want to be impressed.  Honestly, going into our first Florida Fourth, I didn't know if our little town could match my big city memories.

Now that the Fourth is safely behind us, I can confidently state that this year's festivities weren't as much fun as those I've enjoyed in the Capital.  No.  It was MORE FUN.  A LOT more fun.

Our town shoots off fireworks over the Gulf, close to the drum circle beach, and from the drum circle beach you can also see the fireworks going off on the beach town a dozen miles north.  Saturday is our normal drum circle night, so we arrived at five bearing our usual supplies: coolers full of drinks and food, the Djembe and assorted percussive devices, glow sticks, sunscreen, and the zebra striped fleece blanket that once was a crib blanket and now lives on as our beach blanket.  I was wearing a brand new white bikini top, because what says God Bless The USA more than a white bikini?  "I'm so glad you wore that," said our Sailor Friend.  He'd brought two huge black lights, connected to a marine battery, and he was clearly looking forward to watching me glow.

We'd arrived at just the right moment.  The beach was already getting crowded, but we lucked into a fantastic parking space.  We nabbed a good spot in the circle, right next to one of the black lights, right in front of a family whose little boy always plays with my son.  My son took off, running and playing with a few other boys in the center of the circle.  As I watched them, I noticed that my son kept spitting.  I pulled him back and sat him down on our blanket, lecturing him about how disgusting and disrespectful it is to spit.  When he went back to play, though, he kept spitting!  I retrieved him again, and this time a little light bulb went off.  I asked him to open his mouth, and there they were -- two new adult teeth, poking up behind his baby incisors.  From the looks of these teeth, they've been there for a while.  I just hadn't noticed.

(For the record, this discovery freaked me out a bit, because surely it cannot be normal to possess two rows of teeth in the bottom of one's mouth.  Google, for once, has been reassuring, and I've learned it's quite normal for adult teeth to come in behind their wiggly baby counterparts.)

Other than the shock of finding extra teeth in my baby's mouth, the evening was just perfect.  Well, there was the bizarre appearance of cops who were threatening to arrest anyone who had glass on the beach (like, um, me.  I had a bottle of shiraz-cabernet in my cooler bag, which I was mixing with Pepsi and drinking out of a travel mug.  I just kept the bag zipped unless I was actually pouring.) but even that was funny.  In DC on the 4th, the place is crawling with cops on Super Heightened Terrorist Alert.  They're worried about dirty bombs and fanatics with shotguns.  Here, the big crime concern is people who've brought bottles of Corona rather than cans of Coors.

Really, it was perfect.  The weather wasn't too hot, it didn't rain, the sunset was gorgeous, the drumming was excellent, and I'd skipped Friday's Pilates class so I wasn't too sore to dance.  And I danced and I danced and I danced, all through the fireworks display and on into the night, while around us kids ran with sparklers and adults lit Roman candles.  The beach was more crowded than I've ever seen it, and yet the crowd had a happy, friendly vibe.  And yes, my white bikini top was extremely impressive in the black light.  I was definitely glowing.