Twelve steps to make the perfect margarita:
Fill shaker with ice
Squeeze two fresh lime wedges into shaker
Add 2 oz. Cuervo 1800
Add 1/2 oz. of Jose Cuervo White
Add 1-1/4 oz. of Roses Lime Juice
Add 1/2 oz. of Bols Triple Sec
Add 1/2 oz. of Cointreau
Add “a splash” of Bols Orange Curaco
Cover shaker tightly and shake vigorously for 30 seconds
Salt the outside only
Strain mixture over ice
Squeeze in 1 lime wedge
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
I’m officially on vacation. For a week. A much needed break from the chaos around me.
Work has been crazy for the last couple months. One event after another followed by a series of minor crises. At least my life’s not boring. Add weekend visitors to that mix and you get a touch of madness.
The heat in DC was almost unbearable last week. And the a/c in my building was on the fritz. As in – the temperature in my apartment was higher than the temperature outside. And outside was hot! So it’s been a challenge.
Of course the building engineer claims a/c will be up and running tomorrow. But I won’t be here to enjoy it. Instead I’ll be in Massachusetts, crashing on my parents’ couch, with no a/c. I only hope the weather cooperates.
Two friends came down from NYC this weekend for today’s March for Women’s Lives. I begged off, claiming exhaustion. But in truth, I feel jaded towards these marches and protests.
The first march I remember is the Million Man March. Since then I have participated in a dozen rallies (including the Tibetan Peace Concerts and have met protestors from around the world, participating in the hundreds of protests and marches organized each year…. all causes are represented from PETA to the World Bank and IMF to Earth Day to the WWII Memorial. Some groups are small and other events require the DCPD to put up barriers and put in overtime.
I have a been there, done that attitude. So I stayed in for this one – watching updates on tv and relaxing.
What did you do this weekend?
I can see the Made-for-TV movie now…. a lovely, bright co-ed played by Hillary Duff logs onto her boyfriend’s laptop to find (GASP) emails, flirtatious messages, definitely romantic in tone, to a female (maybe they’ll reinvent Jennifer Love Hewitt to portray this phantom vixen). Distraught and desperate, she deliberates the pros and cons of various plans to get him back.
I’ll tell him I’m pregnant.
No, that’s been overdone. And we haven’t had sex in months. I can come up with something better. Hell, I AM a college student.I’ll hire someone to take out that bitch.
Nah – that’s too Quentin Tarantino-ish. I need to be original. REALLY grab his attention.I’ll abduct myself.
I mean, make it seem like someone kidnapped me. Then he’ll realize how desirable other men find me and worry that he’ll never see me again and … and… then he’ll find me and we’ll live happily ever after.
WHAT is wrong with this girl? Talk about crying wolf! She disappears from her apartment, with no coat or purse, and four days later is found in a marsh. Hundreds of people band together to search for Audrey Seiler, fearing the worst. After she’s found, she claims a man with a knife abducted her, setting off a police manhunt that cost the authorities $96,000.
And her lawyer is great. Randy Hopper keeps stating that Seiler is a “model student and a model citizen.” I’d like to know his definition of the word ‘model.’
I prefer the word manipulative. And the phrase big trouble.
What would be a proper punishment for this woman? And aside from the charge of lying to police, what other crime(s) is she guilty of? Or perhaps you’re convinced she’s a troubled soul who needs help? What do we do about Audrey?
It all began when I decided to make copies of the photos I took at Christmas. I looked near the photo albums…. behind the DVDs…. in the bookshelves….. nothing.
I live in a tiny apartment. TINY! But I’d gotten to that point where I couldn’t find anything. So I decided to clean.
Sounds simple enough. Clean out the apartment. Throw away the clutter. Donate. Recycle. Eliminate.
I ended up making more of a mess during the process. I hauled boxes out of my walk-in closet… boxes filled with mementos of past trips, old birthday and holiday cards, calendar fillers dating back to 1990.
That’s when I discovered I was missing 2002-2004. How exactly does a person lose two years of their life?
I’ll tell you how. You lose all calendar and journal entries made during 2002 and 2003. Without the written proof, it’s as if the time never passed. Dates get muddled. Did I go to Portugal in August 2002 or August 2003? Will my cousin Jason celebrate his 1st wedding anniversary in May or his 2nd?
Yes, I agree, it IS pathetic that I can’t remember anything without having it written down.
5 boxes and 24 enormous trash bags later – my home is spic `n span. And I’m telling people I’m two years younger than I really am. Because, hell – if you don’t remember, it’s like it never happened.
I had the strangest dream last night. Actually, it started off as a dream, but ended as a nightmare. Well, not really a scary nightmare, but very…. disturbing.
A group of people were sitting at a conference table. I looked around and recognized faces from my past, people I knew from college and high school. I thought, “How weird, what are they all doing here? Never thought I’d see HIM again.” That sort of thing.
This guy stood up at the head of the table and announced that he had made his decision. He looked nothing like Donald Trump, but I knew it was Trump. Very, very peculiar.
I realized the situation was something out of the “Apprentice” (which I’ve never watched, but seen plenty of promos for), but it was real life and not some reality program.
So Trump’s standing at the head of the table and all eyes are on him. He points to me and says, “I’ve selected her.”
All heads turned in my direction and a collective groan grew in volume as everyone complained at once. “What? Her? Why her? But I’m so much better. But I have more talent. She was the token idiot. She can’t run anything. Give me another chance. She’ll run your company to the ground.”
And all of a sudden, while everyone in the room protested my selection, they all started getting undressed. As if, by taking off their clothes, Trump would reconsider and choose one of them instead. I just continued to sit there, horrified, as people around me stripped during this business meeting.
I didn’t say a word the entire time I was in that board room. Just remained seated in a leather swivel chair, wearing a navy blue suit, looking around in constant bewilderment.
Anyone out there have a clue what all this means? Do you want to take a stab at deciphering this dream?
If you live on the second or third floor and call for the elevator, you’d better be:
1. pushing a stroller with a cranky baby
2. traveling with 6 suitcases
3. physically disabled
Because when you step on, in your 4-inch heels and Coach briefcase, we’re all going to stop and shoot you a very dirty look while praying that you have the worst day imaginable.
Take the stairs!
This movie was a pleasant surprise. Ann, a 23-year-old married mother of two vivacious little girls, finds out she has 3 months to live. She keeps this news from her husband, mother and friends, deciding instead to take control of her life and make the most of the the time she has left.
She makes a list of all the things she wants to do before she dies and sets out to complete each item on her list.
What would you do? If you collapse one day and go to a doctor to find out what’s wrong and he tells you there’s a tumor that’s spreading from your stomach to your liver to your lungs and there’s nothing they can do to help you….. what would your list look like?
I don’t think I’d tell anyone. I wouldn’t want my last precious moments to be spent cooped up in some hospital.
Things to do before I die:
1. Take 2 weeks off work and visit my family.
2. Drink and smoke as much as I wanted.
3. Always say what was on my mind.
4. Fall deeply, madly and passionately in love with someone.
5. Publish something – so a part of me would always live on.
6. Talk to an attorney and file a living will – specifying that all viable organs are to be donated. Make it failproof so no one could contest it.
7. Go sailing.
8. Spend a long romantic weekend at the El Conquistador in Puerto Rico.
9. Sing and dance everyday.
10. Say “I love you” to the people I care about everyday.
It’s a lame list – I’ll have to give this some thought and revisit it later, but it’s a start.
When I think back on my childhood, I remember trips to the library, kickball games on the street, sitting in classrooms, field trips to museums, playing with transformers and television. I grew up in front of the tv.
My childhood is filled with snippets of episodes involving extra-human strength and right trumping evil. I grew up in the era of the Superhero.
How many of you remember watching Lee Majors in the Six Million Dollar Man? Or Lindsay Wagner, his mate, in the Bionic Woman?
And then there was my all-time favorite show – Wonder Woman. I wanted to be Diana Prince and sometimes actually believed I was. (see #44)
I had the biggest crush on Aquaman and rarely missed an episode of The Man From Atlantis.
Meanwhile, my brother’s favorite program was The Amazing Spider Man with Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker….. followed closely by reruns of Batman and Robin. One Halloween, being particularly clever, my parents brought home a Cinderella dress for me, and Batman suit for my brother. A few days after our night of trick or treating, my brother managed to get on the roof of our one-story ranch in full Batman regalia. He wanted to “test out the powers in his cape.”
On that occasion, it was Wonder Woman to the rescue. I don’t remember what I said to talk him down, but we got off the roof safely and lived to tell about it.
And how can I leave off icons like Lou Ferrigno as the Incredible Hulk and, although he was a film star, Superman?
One of my Seseme Street-watching, Highlight-reading pals was horrified after I wrapped up the list. She commented that in spite of being subjected to all those hours of trash growing up, I turned out okay.
Trash? Wonder Woman wasn’t trash. She kicked some serious bad guy butt every week. AND she was really smart. My bionic friends taught me that you could be human, and a crime-fighter, even with all sorts of artificial limbs. The Hulk, well, c’mon – admit it. We’ve all got two sides to our personalities – the civilized self we present to society and our more private self that drinks milk from the carton and dances naked in the shower. Oh – and there’s Aquaman (sigh)…. I’m still searching for that perfect Atlantean.
Trash – ph
eh – whatever!
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg my friends. Part II takes on the primetime soaps.
Did you grow up in front of the tv? What did you watch? Do you [would you] allow your children to watch tv? How much?
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