Dear Retroneu Sextet 18/10 (KOREA)-
I want to thank you for your 8 years of service to me. In college I used some terrible dollar store silverware, er, flatware is really a better word. The metal coating began to flake off and the “silver” part kept coming out of the plastic handle after a while. It was bad. It even tasted bad and last I checked? Silverware isn’t supposed to have a flavor.
After graduating, I’d picked out a silverware pattern for a wedding that didn’t happen. That was you, Retroneu Sextet 18/10 (KOREA). The Petermans generously bought it for me as a graduation present. 4 place settings as well as the extras: Serving Fork/Knife, Ladle, Cake Slicer, and Tiny Butter Knife. I’m sure those are the proper names.
Over the years, I’ve had hand-me-down plates, cups that didn’t match, I’ve NEVER had a dining room table in my adult life, but I’ve had you. I’d sit down on my couch to whatever ghetto-fabulous meal I’ve concocted, eating it off of an old china plate of my parents’ and I’d have this well-designed, shiny fork in my hand. The weight of your handle is something I found comforting. (Low-quality flatware weighs practically nothing.)
I couldn’t have a meal for more than 4 guests without someone having to use the “baby spoon” or the “baby fork,” but I didn’t care because you always held your own. There’s something about having nice silverware that is more important than having nice other things. It ranks right up there with nice sheets. Bed? Optional. Super soft sheets? Mandatory.
But unfortunately I have to give you up, Retroneu Sextet 18/10 (KOREA). It’s not by choice. But you’ve been discontinued and you have practically no pieces anywhere. I just put a bid on one of your spoons on eBay because that will complete my original set. Just one spoon. 8 years and somehow I’ve only managed to lose one piece.
So I’m replacing you with a pattern from Crate & Barrel that costs . . . multiply that by 2 . . . carry the 1 . . . oh, a MILLION times more than you did. But I’m clearly not over you because I picked out the pattern that was most like you: classic but with modern lines and a nice weight. None of this 3-tine fork stuff, or perfectly circular spoon thing (what IS that part of a spoon called?), or shiny mouth parts with matte handles. NO. This looks just like you except instead of the handle being hexagonal, it’s rectangular and has a single 90° twist, hence the name, Twist.
I suppose it IS time for me to move on and not cling to a silverware pattern that I picked out when I was a completely different person. And not be so hard-headed. But for now, I’ll keep you as backup silverware in case we need to use you. Or maybe I’ll give you to one of my siblings that moves away from home so that they never have to superglue a fork back into its plastic handle.
So here are 3 YouTube videos that I’ve been loving. They are not new b.c I am not that cool.
Keith showed us this one on the way back from New Braunfels (NOT pronounced New Bronzevilles) and I think we were crying we were laughing so hard.
This one I heard about from my yoga instructor. Not really sure of the connect-the-dots that happened in his mind bring this up to us during class, but here it is.
And this last one is one I’m currently loving. So much. I bought the song.
Enjoy.
We drove to Austin this weekend so that Dave could do a 60 mi ride, put on by Rapha. Since I’ve decided that I’m a bike-rider and not a cyclist, I’m chillin. I’m not out fighting a headwind or pedaling faster than I want to. And I’m so okay with that.
I’m enjoying a chill morning at the cafe that’s connected to Mellow Johnny’s. Dave left at 8:30 so if he’s doing 20mph or so, he should be back pretty soon. (He just Twittered that he fell but he’s okay.) I am drinking a Pellegrino and enjoying free wireless and non-boiling temperatures. It’s cool and breezy, surprisingly.
This bike shop is cool. It’s ginormous (for starters) and the fact that it has a little cafe that’s part of it that serves healthy foods is awesome. I’m enjoying seeing all the people riding up on their bikes, getting a coffee/smoothie and leaving again on their bikes. Nice.
And this Rapha company has really cool products. For . . . men. I was excited to come to a store in Austin where I could buy commuting riding gear. Like breathable, stretchable shorts with pockets for iPods, keys, granola bars. Right now I’m riding to work in either padded biking shorts (not cute) or my cropped yoga pants (cool, but I also want to wear them to yoga). I’m not as worried about shirts. Anyway, I got here and . . . nothing. All spandexy bike clothes. I was surprised that I could walk through this entire store and not find something I could not live without.
Dave wasn’t so lucky. It’s pricey, but when he called it the Lululemon of cycling gear, I couldn’t argue. I have 2 pairs of Lululemon yoga pants that are 3 years old and they fit like new. Quality costs money. And when he got here this morning I know he was tallying up the dollar signs of all the other riders’ gear: $3,000 custom bike, $220 shoes, $980 wheels, etc.
But who CARES? Dave looked GOOD. Black shorts with white seams, black jersey with white sleeve stripe and pink zipper detail, black/silver shoes, white helmet. Who cares if you’re riding a Seven bike when ALL your bike clothes have ConocoPhillips plastered all over it? My husband actually looked good in bike gear and that’s no easy task. (Especially when very few companies make awesome gear for your gender!)
Okay, he just twittered that he jumped in the lake to cool off. Too bad I love my job so much- I’d love to live here! The first riders just got back, Dave will probably be here soon. I’m sure I’ll keep you updated on my search for well-designed commuting bike gear for chicas!
UPDATE: Those riders that got back were SO not part of Dave’s group. The first guys from that group just got back now at 1. Boy howdy, I’m glad I didn’t go.
So last summer I was looking for a mascara that wouldn’t leave black crescent-shaped shadows under my eyes by noon. I tried cheap, I tried expensive, I tried all-natural, I tried not applying mascara to my bottom lashes. And still the tiny mascara particles would swan-dive off my lashes and snuggle up to my skin. I bought one that was okaaaaaay and I decided to live with it, but it dried up and I recently had to replace it. So I asked for a suggestion at Sephora and they pointed me to their best-seller.
And it works. Unless you sleep in it, then it will be on your skin for, like, ever. (For removal, I use coconut or olive oil, then wash my face as usual.)
(Warning, it ain’t cheap.)
So today I bought a bike. I didn’t think I’d get this bike so soon. We’d been talking about it, but when Dave lost his job I put it out of my mind. Then he got another job a week later- not a job that he loves, but a job- and so the financial strain I was preparing for didn’t really happen.
And when he got his final paycheck from his last job we expected one week’s pay, but it was that PLUS all his unused vacation time. Which was much more than the cost of one of these:
So I asked him if he minded using his extra money on a bike for me. He said, “First of all, you NEVER have to ask me about spending money on a bike. Second of all, it’s better for your back.”
“And third of all, it means you get a Bianchi.”
I think he’s excited about it.
Me too. I had to order my new bike today so I don’t actually have it in my possession. But I’m looking forward to commuting more- to yoga, the grocery store, the library, etc. Maybe I’ll get a bell and a basket. (And your little dog, too.)
I didn’t like to commute on Queen Frostine (the name that I don’t think Dave will continue to use) because, man, I didn’t like to leave her anywhere. But this is easy to lock up (folded!) and more easily replaced if stolen. (Costs about what an iPhone costs.) Oh, and I have a kickstand!!
As much as I love my Civic, I’ll hopefully be only filling her up once a month . . .
Any ideas for names for the Dahon? The color is “Denim,” if that’s any inspiration.
Today I saw this magazine cover and was tempted to talk to random strangers about it:
Rolling Stone - Obama
It’s perfect. Looking down, laughing, the flag lapel pin. And the best part is the 4000 headlines that are not on the cover like they usually are.
Kudos, Rolling Stone.
(Now maybe I should go read the article.)
Good luck getting that out of your head.
Of course, you could always listen to Girl From Ipanema.
So I read in a magazine that one way to ease stress in your life is to turn off the computer or TV an hour and a half before bedtime. This resonated with me because how many times have I been on my computer at 9 or 9:30 and thought to myself, “This would be a great time to wash my face, brush, floss, stretch and get into bed for 30 minutes of reading and going to sleep so I can get up early and meditate?”
And I don’t close my computer or do any of those things and then it’s 11 and there’s no way I’m getting up early to meditate now.
So I’ve been trying it. It’s nice. I definitely am enjoying The Omnivore’s Dilemma’s much more when I read more than one page at a time. The downside is that I don’t blog as much.
You know when I want to blog the most? When I can’t. When I’m driving or waiting at the DPS (though Twitter helps with those), but especially when I’m biking. I’ve been riding my bike to work about 3 days a week and I love it. I notice the headwind but don’t let it control me because it’s irrelevant. The route I take means that if it’s windy, half my trip will be pleasant and half of it will be slower. And there’s something about biking as transportation vs. biking as leisure that makes heat/rain/wind just part of the journey and not THE MOST GIANT NUISANCE EVER.
And it’s definitely more enjoyable since I’ve found my Shuffle and have uploaded NPR’s Most E-mailed Stories Podcast to it. A girl needs her fix!
One thing that I have been wanting to blog about is a smell I’ve noticed for about 10 years. As far as I know no one has described it, or if they have I haven’t come across it.
I first remember noticing it about 10 years ago when I was a camp counselor. I was hiking along and smelled the most delicious woodsy aroma. I followed my nose but eventually became convinced it had no source. And I could only smell it on the hottest of days and fairly deep in the woods. It wasn’t like freshly cut cedar after the rain or sweet mesquite on a breeze, but something earthier and unidentifiable.
It was the smells of summer, sex, heat and nature all rolled into one. I say sex because the smell was so stimulating and sensual that it belongs in the same category. Not so much as an aphrodesiac but as something that heightens all of your senses. Also because to me it smells masculine and intimate, like the smell of a man’s skin after a shower but before the deodorant and cologne.
I tried to tell people about it, but how do you share with someone a smell that you can’t locate or describe or whose existence you can’t predict? I eventually decided that it was the smell of leaves and foresty-floor stuff decomposing and for whatever reason I found it pleasing to the nose. Not sexy, I know. Or maybe it was an animal giving off its mating pheromone and I wasn’t supposed to smell it but I did? Sorry, Bambi.
Anyway, I’ve smelled it on occasion since then and I think I’ve even been with people and asked, “Do you smell that? Right there! That! Do you smell it?” And either they didn’t and were humoring me by saying yes, even though they were NOT weak-kneed and gripping the nearest tree saying, “Oh my GOD why has no one bottled this scent??” Or they did and weren’t biologically wired to appreciate it like I apparently am.
Relevance? I smell it when I’m riding my bike, even though there’s no forest. I no longer care what it is or if anyone else can smell it, I just enjoy it and try to inhale it with all of my pores, (who start coughing and spitting when I inhale OTHER smells from the bayou, but that’s another post). And even though I say I don’t care what it’s made of, that’s not going to stop me from attempting to recreate it at Naked.
About a month ago, we made plans to go tubing down the Guadalupe River with Keith and Sarah. If you don’t tube down the Guadalupe at least once during the summer, it’s not really summer. Or at least it feels that way to me.
We almost canceled because of Dave’s job situation but at the last minute decided to go anyway. It it always a good idea to choose tubing down the Guadalupe over any other options you might have. Because when you’re laying on your back in a tube floating lazily down a river with a cooler full of beer next to you it’s hard to imagine anything being wrong in the world. Even when you just bought a Sony digitial camera and underwater housing and lose it within your first 5 minutes of being in the river and spend the next 30 minutes searching for it to no avail. Even when that happens in 2005 and you have to buy a new one before your trip to Miami in a week, you can still have a good time tubing down the Guadalupe. Trust me.
And it’s June so the weather is boiling (already 80 when you wake up for work at 6am), but the Guadalupe is a cool 65 degrees. That sounds cold - and it is - but that’s why it works. There are very few naturally cool places in Texas in the summer and when you’re trying to get your booty into the freezing cold Guadalupe River, you DON’T EVEN NOTICE that’s it’s 110 degrees in the shade.
It was Sarah’s first time to tube down the Guadalupe and Dave went tubing for the first time last summer, only down the Comal (it feeds into the Guadalupe and is 5 degrees warmer). We brought a few snacks: chips, sandwiches, etc. Keith of course brought salami, olives, goat cheese and ciabatta. (Keith said he’d wager any amount of money that we were the only group on the river snacking on goat cheese.) And of course beer. Only cans are allowed on the river, so we brought Corona and Tecate. Under normal circumstances, Dave and I will go through a six pack in about a week, maybe 2. On the river, we’ll go through 2 six packs in 3 hours.
There’s something about the combination of cold water, hot sun, and floating that makes me drink beer a million times faster than my normal pace. (Seriously, ask anyone. I don’t care at what temperature a beer is served to me because by the time I finish it, it will be room temperature anyway.)
Anyway, on this trip we floated near a father with his 2 kids, a boy of about 10 and a girl of about 8. The 2 kids had water guns and the dad borrowed his daughter’s to shoot his son, who was on the other side of us. The dad thought that since he was near “civilians” the son wouldn’t shoot back. Right. So we were caught in some (cold) crossfire for a while, but we weren’t upset. If we didn’t want to get wet, we had no business being on the river.
We watched and laughed for a while and then I turned to look at the daughter, who had her water uzzi back and pointed at my face. I thought she was joking, so I laughed, if a bit nervously. But she didn’t waver. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “No one will ever know about this.”
I turned my face and she sprayed water at my head while I heard her dad wrestling the gun away from her and saying, “Have you lost your mind? We don’t know them!”
As they floated away the dad apologized, but I said it was okay, and that I was going to blog about it.
Jen- 1, Little Girl Who Watches Too Much TV? 0.
