one last time...

no time to write, but had to acknowledge that it's OPENING DAY! it's very exciting for me because i wasn't sure i'd be excited. it was a difficult off-season, and the Giants stole my passion and affection there for a while. it never fails, though. mid-March i start to feel the fever. by Opening Day, i'm a verified nutjob again. there's a big Yankee banner hanging in my apartment hallway, i put on my Yankee cap for my commute this morning, and i'm wearing a little silver baseball mitt charm around my neck. 

it's way too damn cold to be playing baseball in New York and my father thinks they shouldn't start the season 'til May 1st. i sort of agree, but that would leave us with only hockey to watch in April and - come on - who watches hockey at all anymore? so, chilly, gloomy weather be damned. i say: PLAY BALL!

mb

in case you didn't believe me...

this is how tired i am:

earlier, my boss came up to my desk and asked me to come over to her desk to go over something. i said sure and attempted to get up from my seat, only to have my phone cord attack me (not for the first time) via wrapping itself around my feet and forcing me to come thisclose to falling on my face. this caused my boss to burst out laughing and tell me, "i think you might be a bigger dork than i am." (this is an on-going debate we have.)

later, i dipped into my stash of mini peanut butter cups - aka lunch - and didn't realize that a half-unwrapped one had fallen into my lap. eventually i glanced down and saw that i had made quite a mess in my pants - or at least that's how it would have looked if anyone else glanced in the same place. after making the mess worse with paper napkins and a tissue, i grabbed a couple Chlorox wipes and managed to salvage my pride. 

well, what's left of it at this point anyway. 

mb

incoherent ramblings of a happy girl

i'm really happy.

i just thought i'd record that. lately i have felt, more than anything else, happy. not that jumping-up-and-down, giddy-all-the-time happiness. that's too fleeting anyway. it's more a content, breathe-easy, hopeful-about-the-future sort of feeling, and it's nice. 

i won't lie - i am utterly exhausted, too. i saw Lauren last night - she's the loveliest, really - and (after we got over the fact that we were dressed almost exactly the same in white blouses and sweater vests of a similar color) we were talking about how our jobs are quite draining. we get home after a long day and it's all we can do just to eat dinner and NOT fall asleep on the couch watching TV. but i guess it's supposed to be this way at this point in our lives. we're finally settling into careers and now we have to bust our rear ends. no more messing around. 

and you know what? it's sort of a relief. 

on Sunday, Kate, Christine, her husband Durrell (and their devil dog Spencer) stopped by my parents' house for a bit since it was the only time all of us could manage to get together. we were all hanging out in the sunroom and at one point i realized we were talking about really wacky things - aging, babies, politics. talking about them as if they were perfectly normal things to be talking about at our age! and, good god, they are. 

and that's part of why i'm happy. for all my griping and fretting over fine lines on my face, i find it all sort of exciting - settling into life as an adult. yeah, it's sort of crazy to think about. (i realized over the weekend that i will have been out of college for NINE YEARS this May, and i know that seems like nothing to many people reading this, but it was sort of a 'whoa' moment for me.) and in some ways i still feel like a clueless kid. but it's just nice to look around at my friends - and, i guess, look in the mirror - and realize we're all doing it. we're all getting the hang of this life thing, and that's pretty amazing because i know all of us, many times over the last several years, severely doubted we ever would.

anyway, my point is: it's nice to be happy. (it will also be nice to catch up on sleep this weekend and write more coherent entries next week...)

mb

easter miracle

i went home for Easter because the Easter Bunny still thinks i live in Pennsylvania, and delivers my Easter basket thusly. 

yeah, you heard me: Easter basket. i still get one. 

the contents have changed since i was a kid. whereas i used to receive a mix of chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, marshmallow chicks, and stuffed animals or coloring books or Barbie dolls, over the last ten or so years i started finding lip gloss and nail polish in my basket with the candy instead of toys. 

well, the basket waiting for me yesterday morning took the cake. mingling with the jelly beans and Peeps and dark chocolate coconut cream eggs was... wrinkle cream. yep. the Easter Bunny apparently caught on to my recent worries about laugh lines and worry lines and thought a little wrinkle cream - and a gift certificate for a European facial at my favorite salon - was in order.

i admit, on one hand i'm thinking: if the Easter Bunny has to give me wrinkle cream, perhaps it's time to, you know, stop receiving visits from the Easter Bunny. but on the other hand, the Easter Bunny clearly loves me and who am i to spoil my mother's fun? i mean, the Easter Bunny's fun...

mb

oopsie

something pretty hilarious happened at work yesterday and i feel compelled to share it, but i have to change names and keep things relatively vague to protect, well, my ass. 

so, i work for a fashion designer. there are myriad VPs and EVPs and Ps (that would be 'presidents') within the company, and they are revered as deities. i'm not sure why, but that's how it is. so to have a meeting with one is sort of a big deal. 

on Monday, i had a brief meeting with a VP - let's call him Mario. he's Italian. i'd met with him once or twice before, and was feeling like i'd developed a nice little working relationship with him. that's why yesterday, when one of my coworkers - we'll call her Liz - arranged a meeting with Mario, she asked me to come along. she'd never met Mario face-to-face, their only contact had been on e-mail, so - despite this coworker being slightly above me on the totem pole - i was the one leading the charge.

(it is important to note here that my previous one-on-one meetings with Mario had all taken place in a showroom, not an actual office.)

we took the elevator down a couple floors to Mario's department, and Liz admitted she had no idea where his office was. no sweat! i told her i knew exactly where it was. i lead her to the place, we waved at the assistant sitting at a desk outside Mario's office, and strutted in, a flurry of waves and hellos and thank-you-for-meeting-with-us. Liz went on about how it was so nice to finally meet him, after all their correspondence. Mario was friendly, shook our hands, and welcomed us, though he was looking at us with a slightly bewildered expression. 

Liz and i sat down in chairs on the opposite side of his desk, and she launched into her schpiel, the reason we were there to chat with him. it took me about eight seconds of listening to Mario's suddenly very French accent to come to the sickening realization that this guy was not Mario. he was, in fact, Pierre (fake name), the PRESIDENT OF A WHOLE BIG DIVISION OF THIS MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY. we're talking senior management, right hand guy for the fashion designer this company is named for, and we had marched into his office, acted like who we were, plopped ourselves down, made ourselves at home. and he had no idea why we were there. 

the next ten minutes inside my brain were a mix of comical and chaotic. i did not hear a damn word either Liz or Pierre said the entire time. the rapid fire, panicky, inner-monologue in my head was drowning out all other sounds. how had i mixed this up? in my defense, Mario and Pierre bear a striking resemblance - silver hair, European, blah blah blah. and i'd met with Pierre in his office once before - he called me in while i was meeting with someone else, and i think Mario was there at the time, so maybe that's why i got confused? it didn't matter, we were where we were and it was not good.

i contemplated a few options: 

a) write Liz a note on my little notebook ("THIS. IS. NOT. MARIO.")

b) ask Pierre to excuse us for a moment and reveal my gaffe to Liz out in the hallway

c) continue to sit there like a deer in headlights and pray like mad that Liz would not say, "thank you, Mario" at the end of the meeting

i was truly at a loss. in the end, i went with option c. Liz kept giving me sideways glances during the meeting, presumably because i was sitting there doing my best impression of a statue, making no sounds or movements, when typically i'm chatty and actively involved in such meetings. i just stared at Pierre, willing him to somehow, by some miracle, morph into Mario. i just could not imagine how it would all go down. i've gotten myself into some sticky situations before, but never one as a freelancer with a very non-secure job at a very high profile company. if Liz went ahead and thanked "Mario" as we were leaving, what could i do? how would i explain? would sprinting out of his office and then out of the building and then out of the city be a reasonable option? 

i snapped out of my reverie long enough to realize the meeting was wrapping up, and i was out of my chair and walking toward the door before the goodbyes even started, partly so that i wouldn't actually witness Liz calling Pierre "Mario" if that's how it went, and partly because i thought if i got the hell out of the office quickly, perhaps Liz would take my cue.

she did not, in fact, call Pierre "Mario," for which i will be eternally grateful to whoever arranged that little twist of fate. the goodbyes were pleasant and generic and once we were safely out of earshot, i pulled her aside and whispered, "umm. i f*cked up. that wasn't Mario." 

i'm not kidding, her face turned a spectrum of reds. it started out a nice light pink, then turned a little crimson, then went to cranberry, and then came dangerously close to full-on violet. she wasn't angry, just beyond mortified, because she realized before i could get the words out that we'd just been sitting with one Very Important Honcho named... Pierre. 

we spent the next several minutes alternately laughing hysterically and somberly trying to predict what would happen next. Liz was sure Pierre was at that very moment sending an e-mail to the VP of our own department, informing her that two of her very brash and ballsy subordinates had barged into his office blabbering about a project he knew nothing about. we wandered around for a few minutes, half-heartedly trying to find Mario's office. we gave up quickly and came back up to our floor and pulled another coworker (my direct boss, who thankfully has a great and twisted sense of humor) into the conference room to tell her about our adventure.

she couldn't stop laughing, and that made the both of us feel better. the panic went away and the ridiculousness of it set in. 

while we were laughing, Liz got an e-mail via her Blackberry from Mario, wondering where we were. i scooted back to my desk and wrote my very best BS reply, stating that a funny thing happened on our way to his office - we'd caught Pierre's eye and sat down with him to go over the project. it seemed to be in Pierre's hands now, though we'd happily still come down and meet with Mario at his convenience. i cc'd Pierre on the e-mail, to reinforce that what happened was a spur-of-the-moment and actually quite brilliant move. why bother with VPs when you can go straight to the top?

thank my lucky stars, it all ended happily. no one suspected a thing. on my way out last night, i apologized to Liz for the 643rd time and she assured me that it was a truly funny, memorable moment for her. but she agreed with me that we should probably avoid a similar mishap for a while. like maybe forever.

mb

is it just me...

or is marriage starting to seem like a really scary, almost foolish idea? a recipe for heartache and disappointment? i hate feeling that way, but it's sort of hard not to, when you've got this and this and now this splashed everywhere. 

it's strange. i think about my extended family and the parents of the vast majority of my close friends and there's not a lot of divorce among the group. it's pretty astonishing, actually, when you consider the oft-mentioned statistics. then again, i haven't the faintest idea what goes on behind closed doors for any of these folks. my state's new governor, David "Love Machine" Paterson, seems to believe he's only a reflection of his constituents, that most marriages go through the shredder at some point or another. 

and, you know, i'm sure he's right. maybe i just think life was better before so many people's marital woes were considered headline news. before all the sordid details of people's bedroom behaviors were written about at length, every day, and used as fodder for feature-length stories about mistresses and prostitutes and men's biology and why women stay and why marriages fail. 

i mean, are you kidding me? for those of us not yet hitched, it's enough to scare us away from the institution permanently.  it's enough to make us wonder what the point of marriage really is anyway. it's not like a ring on your finger means much anymore. you're either committed to another person or you're not. what's a document from city hall or your church and a fabulous cocktail hour or a rockin' DJ got to do with the price of eggs? 

and i'll be honest. i think sometimes all the coverage these scandals get just reinforces the notion that affairs are inevitable. if even high-ranking, elected officials can't keep their zippers zipped, what chance do the rest of us have? in some weird, twisted way i think "normal" people see that as a free pass of sorts. "everyone's doing it, why shouldn't i?" sometimes - all the time - i wish we could get away from the dark side of things and just focus on the happy side, the success stories.

such as the couple featured on the Today show yesterday morning. married 83 years and still happy, still together. there have to be so many more stories out there like that. let's put them on the front page of the paper and talk about all the joy and comfort and fulfillment marriage can bring, rather than the turmoil and ickiness. 

because, frankly, i've had about all the ickiness i can take right about now. 

mb

going green

today is one of my favorite days of the year. know why? because i took a two-and-a-half-hour lunch (with my boss's blessing) and saw a bit of the parade (including Rudy Guiliani, who got a hero's welcome, go figure), had a few pints of Smithwicks in a great little Irish bar, and got to see six innings of the Yankees versus the Red Sox in spring training on TV. there was loud Irish music playing, green beads and Guinness stickers being tossed around freely, and everyone was in a happy mood. 

seriously, show me a better holiday.

happy st. patrick's day! drink a pint with someone you love...

mb

shameless

there was an incident at work yesterday, strangely related to the Eliot Spitzer case, that has me thinking about how hypocritical people are in this country. so many of us clamor for the latest news, gossip, dirt. we don't care if it's true or not, long as it's entertaining or titillating. yet, so many of us are quick to get offended, to turn around and accuse someone of being unfair, or insensitive, or mean, or hurtful. everyone wants to be the victim, even as they victimize others. 

i have no patience for this sort of behavior. as my friend Geev so eloquently put it in an e-mail to me this morning, "people these days need to stop crying and get their shit together." amen, sister. 

i was thinking about my own "dirt" - things that could be dug up about me and potentially used to embarrass or tarnish me someday down the road. you know what? i got nothin'. or, rather, i think i'm immune to being truly embarrassed. for example, i don't mind sharing with you that:

1. i still have the same teddy bear i had when i was eight years old. his name is Bixby. he lives on my bed.  sometimes i say hello to him, not because i believe he can hear me or because i've had too much wine, but because sometimes it's so nice to see a familiar face and it comes out before i can stop it. 

2. my Sunday morning ritual since i moved has been: wake up, go to corner market, buy Daily News (that's right, i don't do the Times on Sundays - frankly, it intimidates me), buy box of Fruity Pebbles, go home, eat most of contents of box of Fruity Pebbles, and flip through Daily News whilst watching George Stephanopoulus on ABC. i don't do brunch, i don't do yoga, i don't tune into NPR. i end my Sunday by watching Ty Pennington lose his mind on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." and you know what? I LOVE IT.

3. i am thirty-one years old and look forward to "American Idol" with the amount of excitement six year olds reserve for Christmas and summer vacation. i have an ever-growing crush on Simon Cowell and hope someday he will wink at me the way he winks at certain people on that show, like he's sharing a funny, private joke with them that only they understand and later, after the show, they'll laugh about it together over a drink.... ahem. i think Ryan Seacrest is funny. OK? i said it. i do. i actually LOVE the guy. i also want to be best friends with Carly Smithson because i think she's really, really, really cool. 

4. i watched "Two Weeks Notice" about three times last weekend. it's a crappy movie with a really flawed storyline, but i couldn't stop myself. 

5. despite the end results usually being up to snuff, i am a disaster in the kitchen. i drop things, spill things, forget ingredients, cut myself, burn myself, and last Saturday i stupidly placed the plastic lid of a tray i was using on top of a burner i had just turned off moments before. it promptly melted onto the burner's grill and created quite a mess, not to mention a really bad smell.  

6. i watch the "Today" show every morning, and i enjoy it, even when it's cheesy, which is basically all the time. (and sometimes i get a little bummed if Matt or Meredith is on vacation.) 

7. i listened to showtunes, almost exclusively, during high school. my mother listened to her Ricky Nelson tapes, almost exclusively, while i was growing up. my father's favorite song of all time is sung by Simply Red. therefore, my knowledge of music is, in a word, pathetic. i have tried to catch up over the last several years, there are many things i want to know, but i fear it's a lost cause. the space required for retaining the history of rock and roll is still occupied by Sondheim lyrics. possibly permanently.

8. i love looking words up in the dictionary. LOVE it. 

9. i've been reading "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret" by Judy Blume, a book i last read when i was probably nine years old. because it's meant to be read by girls that age. i don't care. 

10. the other night, right after i'd gotten into bed, i thought i heard a noise in my apartment. i got up and actually looked in the closet in my living room, just in case. i checked the locks on my windows and my door and got back into bed, but i was really spooked. at least i had Bixby.

mb

what the...?

a drink with Dolch last night at one of our old haunts turned into several drinks and impromptu conversations with two (sort of lame) businessmen and a crazy cab ride home much later than i anticipated. this is my way of explaining that my brain may not be functioning properly, but i wanted to write today anyway.

this whole Eliot Spitzer thing is, in a word, icky. i admit, i didn't know much about him until yesterday, despite the fact that he's my governor. now i wish i knew much less. i don't understand what goes through these people's heads. in this age of dirt-digging and instant and constant news coverage, how does anyone expect to get away with anything? i mean: DUH. 

i feel very badly for his daughters, but worse for his wife, Silda. many folks are saying she shouldn't have been up there next to him during the press conference. perhaps. but i'm guessing she'd just found out about it, and sometimes women go into crisis-management mode without fully thinking things through. our impulse - maybe our nature - is to be there, be strong, assist, support, love unconditionally. Silda was probably on auto pilot and standing there with him seemed like the right thing to do at that moment. my opinion is no one can say how to handle such a situation until they've experienced it. 

but i was feeling anxious and queasy just reading about Spitzer's escapades this morning in the paper. i can't even imagine what must be going through Silda's mind and gut and heart, considering she's actually experiencing all the ugliness. every account i've seen indicates they had an ostensibly wonderful marriage: twenty years, three daughters, two successful careers. not that that means anything. no one but the two people involved ever know what goes on in a relationship. but it does beg the question: how do things get SO off-kilter? how does a husband and father - and, you know, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE THAT CONTAINS THE CITY THAT IS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE - decide to sneak off to the nation's capital to spend a few hours with a very expensive hooker on the night before Valentine's Day? like, what is the thought process there? how is someone smart enough to become governor of New York, and dumb enough to do something like that?

i don't know. i find the whole situation extremely depressing. and i'm not affected by it in the least. i just really can't imagine how Silda feels. 

mb

worth the wait

last night i finally got to do the thing i've been waiting to do for months now: show my girls a little of the love and hospitality they showed me over the last year. 

the winos came over last night - Kate, Dolch, and Lauren - and we had a ball. 

we kicked off the night by opening the bottle of wine my dad gave me as a housewarming gift - remember that 1997 Rabbit Ridge Reserve Avventura? my oh my, was it delicious. the bottle was empty in no time at all, but we thoroughly enjoyed it while it lasted. and i was happy to share it with friends who more than deserved something special. 

the night was hilarious and wacky and wonderful, as it usually is when the four of us are together. Dolch tried on her LeVar Burton glasses for us (you had to be there) and then at one point called me Lauren by accident and apologized, saying, "it's just confusing, because half of us are Laurens." later i tried on the bridesmaid dress i'll be wearing in Lauren's wedding in July. the girls gushed over it, and as i walked back into my bedroom to take it off, Dolch suggested that i needed to work on my walk before the big day. she said i was doing the Megan walk. i asked her to show me how i walk and she basically imitated a cross between Frankenstein and a Weeble Wobble.   

i wanted to get a group picture of us, and naively thought it would be a snap considering my camera has a self timer. it took a few tries before we were happy with one, and then it became a minor obsession - we took group shots from all angles, they got progressively ridiculous, and i just need to share a few of them here:

i won't share the individual "artistic" shots we took after that. i do still have a modicum of pride. suffice it to say that we were laughing 'til we were almost in tears. and i was a little on top of the world last night, having my friends in my own apartment, feeling a lot more together than i did even a few months ago. i told them i couldn't have gotten here without them, and i meant it. 

there's a pile of dishes in my sink and tons of leftover cheese in my fridge (and i sliced my thumb pretty bad while making the bruschetta - oof) but i'm already looking forward to having them over again. 

we might have to opt for wine from 2006, but i think we'll be OK with that. 

mb

sunshine in an envelope

so last night i straggled home a little after 8 o'clock. i was dragging a heavy bag of groceries from Whole Foods, a bag of goodies from Crate + Barrel, and feeling generally tired and PMS-y. my downstairs neighbors were having a battle (the first time i've heard a peep out of them) and lobbing the F-word back and forth like professional tennis players (him: "eff you!" her: "well eff you too!" him: "yeah, eff you more!" etc etc.) i grabbed my mail from the table in the hallway and a big smile spread across my face. i would recognize the handwriting anywhere, but the return address sticker confirmed it: my cousin Scotty had sent me a letter.

as soon as i made it inside my apartment, i dropped my bags in the middle of the floor and opened the envelope. my smile only got bigger. two weeks ago when i got the flu, i wound up having to cancel a whole weekend of fun i'd planned with Scott. we were going to go bowling on Saturday afternoon, i'd sleep over that night, and then we'd go ice skating on Sunday. i was so psyched, and then so distraught - no, really, literally - when i got sick and had to miss it. 

that's why his letter made me so happy. it was a perfect, adorable note inviting me to go bowling some weekend soon. Scotty said that he and i could be on a team, while his parents would be on a separate team. he drew a picture to go with it, which cracked me up. (i'd sent him an e-mail last week apologizing for having to cancel, but telling him that if i'd tried bowling with the flu, i probably would've wound up throwing myself down the lane along with the ball - he drew an illustration for my story.)


anyway, my entire mood changed once i saw the letter. what's better than a letter from a seven-year old who wants to hang out with you? and i can't wait to be on Scotty's team and shame my aunt and uncle at the bowling alley.

mb

cleveland rocks (and so does the rest of ohio)

i've tried to stay away from talking too much about the election here, because i don't want to turn this into a political blog, or piss anyone off, or pontificate. but my alarm clock went off at 7 o'clock this morning and the first thing i heard the newscaster on WCBS-880 say was that Hillary Clinton had pulled out Ohio AND Texas, and her campaign would keep going.

i was pretty damn happy about that.

last night i focused my attention on "American Idol" and stayed away from CNN as much as i could manage. this election has been having a strange effect on me. i'm easily stressed out over it. i mean, seriously - i feel anxious, nervous, worried. it's a little crazy. i guess i didn't realize how passionate i feel that this country needs to change it up and let a woman - one particular woman - sit in the Oval Office for once. Obama is not a bad guy, he's not an idiot, and he's not totally incapable. i just feel that he's not the right guy, and this wave of hysteria that was sweeping the country - the crowds at his rallies, the big endorsements, the obsessive campaigners (not to mention those hilarious-and-true skits on SNL) - was baffling to me.

i said to my dad a couple weeks ago that idealism is a great thing - we need that in this country, in this world. but we need a realist in the White House. all this stuff that's talked about and harped on during the campaign, all the goals and plans and ideas - they're all well and good, but it is incredibly hard to affect change in this government. it's set up so that everyone involved spends most of their time trying to secure another term, not actually doing a damn thing to help the country evolve. there's so much red tape, and all those lobbyists, and so many people who are resistant to change in the first place.

it sounds nice and earthy and "fresh" to have a dreamer in the White House, but let's be serious here. that ain't gonna do a damn thing for the United States. we need someone who will dig in, take office swinging, and start trying to undo as much of the damage that's been done over the last almost-eight years as possible.

i believe, from the tips of my toes, that Clinton is the only person currently in the race who can do that. Obama is fabulous. he's charming, smart, likable. he's just not President material. not yet. the world doesn't need another U.S. President who's not exactly qualified for the job. there's a lot on the line right now, so much on the line. and i'm just really relieved that the people of Ohio made the right choice last night.

the only other thing i'll say is: if nothing else, wouldn't you rather spend four years watching Amy Poehler harpooning Hillary on SNL than that other dude doing his weak, dull impression of Obama? come on - there's really no contest there.

mb

something's gotta give?

on the train going home last night, i had a sobering thought that crosses my mind every so often: i may never publish a book.

i know i shouldn't think that way, but sometimes it gets frustrating. i was recently invited to join an advanced fiction workshop in the city. the session starts this Thursday and i really, really wanted to participate. some really good writers i've been in classes with before had been invited, too, and signed up. i was eager to work with them again - and also looking forward to having deadlines and a trustworthy group to read my stories. but March is apparently going to be a torturous month at work and i didn't want to slack off on either my job or the class. i knew one or both would suffer. and since i need my job to make money to pay for where i live, the job won. no workshop for me.

and it's not that i NEED the workshop to write. it just helps motivate me, and keeps me inspired. my real issue is that i just don't know how to fit it all in: the job, the social life, the family, the exercise, the housekeeping, the sleep - and the writing. do i need to become a hermit in order to write a book? do i need to sleep four hours instead of eight every night? do i need to win the lottery and quit my job, so then i can spend all day on my laptop?

i don't know. some days it just seems more impossible than others. most of the time i walk around just trying to assume it will happen, it will work itself out somehow, i'll figure it all out. then there are times when it hits me like a mack truck - what if i don't? do things just fall by the wayside as you get older? does everyone look back and wish they'd had time to do more?

my priority lately has been to just go with the flow of life. sounds hippie-ish, i know, but i think it's a good balance between nudging your own life along and letting the pieces fall where they may. because - as i'm reminded again and again - you can only control so much in the universe. i guess i need to assume that if i really want to write a book - and i do, i swear, i really, really do - it will happen.

of course, i'd be OK with it if someone discovered this blog and offered me a deal and everything worked out fantastically. you know, whatever happens...

mb

public service announcement

as you all probably know, it's tax season. i'm hearing in all sorts of places - from friends, at work, on the subway, on TV - people talking about their rebates. the chatter is about everything from how large the rebate might be to where that money might go (new clothes, vacation, down payment, new car). and i just feel compelled to share something my father shared with me several years ago:

getting a rebate is not really a good thing.

much more often than not, i have had to pay up in April. it pains me every time, but i keep in mind that it's actually good to pay. the truth is, if you're getting a rebate - big or small - it just means the government held onto your hard-earned money all year long, interest-free. whether you get that money in your paychecks or from the IRS in the spring, IT'S STILL YOUR MONEY. sometimes i wonder if people think of taxes as a lottery of sorts. "oooh, how much will i get this year?" no. it's just cash - YOUR cash - the government took during the year because you told them to. come April, you submit paperwork letting them know that they need to give some of it back to you, and they do. but just the amount they took. penalty-free.

you're better off keeping that money up front, tucking it into your savings or an ING account, earning some interest on it, and THEN forking it over only when the government forces you to (ie, April 15th).

i know, i know, this seems crazy. who wouldn't rather GET money at tax time than have to write a big-ass check to the stupid government. but when you really think about it, why would you let the government hold onto your money when they do nothing with it? why do they get that privilege? especially the current government, total disaster that it is? i feel much better having control over as much of my money as possible all year long. if it means feeling a pinch in April, rather than flush with funds, so be it.

i don't mean to be on my soapbox here, i just thought it was a worthwhile bit to pass along. just looking out for you, my friends.

ok, PSA over now.

mb

kitchen mojo

i didn't write about this, but in the last few months i've been sort of worried about my culinary skills. not having my own kitchen for six-plus months left me little opportunity to practice, and after an ill-fated pork chop incident in January (not to mention two lackluster batches of my mother's famous linguine with white clam sauce), i was feeling disheartened.

so it was with great trepidation that i began to make Barefoot Contessa's portobello mushroom lasagna on Friday night. i was having friends over the next afternoon - my first foray into entertaining in a very long time - and i admit i was doubting my abilities. i did OK boiling the lasagna noodles, but was sure i was totally screwed when i accidentally let the milk for the bechamel sauce boil over (i was just supposed to bring it to a simmer). i recovered enough to saute the mushrooms properly, but even after the thing was assembled - and looking the way i thought it should look - i still felt worried. i covered it with foil and stuck it in the fridge overnight and hoped for the best.

i didn't feel confident until it was almost done in the oven on Saturday afternoon - one whiff told me it couldn't taste terrible. and, so far, everyone who has tried it (which, OK, is only three people, including me) has assured me that my cooking skills are still in tact. only Geev could make it for lunch on Saturday, but she claimed to have thoroughly enjoyed not only the lasagna, but also the kalamata olive tapenade and fresh bruschetta that i made that morning. i took the leftovers across the street that night - because OH, were there leftovers...i'll be eating lasagna for a month! - and had a happy customer there, too.

so: whew. i'm back. the pork chop incident was an anomaly. thank god, too, because how sad would it be to finally have a kitchen i can spread out in, only to find that i actually suck at cooking?

mb