Category Archives: Cartoon Blogs

The Green Queen

I am not green, yet.

At work today, I threw a personal-sized water bottle in the black bucket when the blue bucket was sitting right there beside it. This does not mean I’m a bad person. I took it back out and put it in the blue bucket. What it does mean is that I have not sufficiently trained myself to make greener choices by habit. The very fact I had a water bottle in my hand at all would be your first clue.

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I’m not okay with this, but I take solace in the knowledge that awareness is the first step in any improvement program. I’m heading in the right direction. Meanwhile, as I tag along at the end of the parade with horse poop on my sneakers, my sister Sandi is at the front with the big baton, leading the grass-roots band. She has the greenest It Starts With Me campaign of anyone I know personally, except maybe Pamela McDaniels, and I only know her from work.

Sandi unplugs her microwave and computer when she’s not nuking seaweed for soup or editing stories for her online writers group. She sends old computer bits to recycle depots. She’s on a first-name basis with the folks in the health food store where she buys all natural soap and cleaning products. She recycles used tea bags, although I forget for what… does she put them in the soil of her tomato plants to keep bugs away? She signs and forwards online petitions to ban the mining of uranium, and joined millions around the world in “Earth Hour,” shutting down her electricity for one hour. Her search engine of choice? Blackle, an energy-saving version of Google.

The thing is, it’s not just a focused devotion to a cause. Sandi actually celebrates Earth Day. She loves to sit and watch birds at the feeder, and will grow particular flowers because the hummingbirds like them. She really does stop and smell the roses. And there was nothing better than sitting on the warm rocks at the front of the cottage at sunset, soaking in the softness of the calm lake and listening to the loons.

Sandi, you’re an inspiration. Happy Birthday! We sent some pretty flowers to let you know we love you. I only hope they were grown in composted organic soil and delivered by a guy driving a Prius.

Dim Sum Touches Heart

It’s an incredible heart joy to stumble on a little authentic taste of home when you’re in a foreign country. The unexpected whiff of fresh Johnnycake… the first flaky bite of tortiere on Christmas Eve… the scent of fresh-from-the-fryer poutine…. That’s how I’d feel about dim sum at Loon Wah, if I were Chinese.

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I’m not. I’m Canadian, so for those less fortunate, the above food items translate into cornbread, spiced ground pork pie, and french fries covered in gravy and fresh cheese curds. But I do know the taste of someone else’s home when I encounter it. Don’t ask how: it’s a gift, and so is Loon Wah.

I should know, since I have eaten Saturday lunch there almost every week I’ve been in the SF Bay area for the past nine years. And I’m the one who bores quickly, remember? However, I never tire of the ballet.

Daniel, Peter, Cathy, Mei and the rest of the crew move through the modest space like koi in a crowded pond, swooping smoothly from table to table with fresh place settings, bottles of ice cold beer, glass tubs of hot chili oil, the occasional fork, and steaming wicker baskets of non-MSG’ed goodness.

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The cart servers fly in from the shadows, and flit away with empty plates. Whatever it is that keeps fish from crashing into one another is in these waters as well. There’s an open, unpretentious friendliness not just toward the customers, but between the staff. That kind of energy translates easily across cultures, no matter what’s on the menu.

There are a few selections requiring a tad more gustatorial courage to broach than others, best introduced to your more intrepid dining partners (unless you think Aunt Tillie from Tuscon would like chicken feet, straight up). But even people who would prefer eating at the McDonald’s next door will find plenty to delight their delicate palates.

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Unwrap a steamed lotus leaf and discover the piping-hot niceness of sticky rice waiting inside. Drizzle rice vinegar on a pot sticker tinted lightly with chili oil and wash it down with a hit of Tsingtao. Wrap your dimples around the dumplings known as “chiu chow.” Before you know it, you’ll be asking yourself, “How come Mom never made dumplings stuffed with peanuts, chives, and tiny bits of pork in a slightly sweet sauce when I was a little kid? Why didn’t she give me beer? Why don’t we have a tuba?”

You’ll ask the question because you’ll start feeling at home.

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“Dim sum” translates literally to “touch heart,” and I guess that’s why we keep going back. I’d rather eat at a place that serves “touch heart” than one that only delivers “fill belly,” any day.

The Gripper

Spoiler warning: This post contains very girly concepts. If you’re likely to break out in a rash at such ickiness, bail out now and come back on Sunday. We’ll be posting the riveting new ramblings on our favorite Bay Area dim sum restaurant, Loon Wah. It will be much easier on the testosterony ganglions, I’m sure.

A few years back, I was facing the wardrobe challenge of being the mother of the bride in a stinkin’ hot July. I just knew I wasn’t going to make it through the day in pantyhose, yet without some assistance, my dress fell squarely in to the category of “too much information.” If I could just find something as lightweight as pantyhose with the legs cut off, I was sure that would do the trick. Off I went to Macy’s “foundational garments” section with grand hopes and a high-limit credit card.

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Armed with about 8 different brands, sizes, and control options, I hit the busy dressing room. By the time I had tried on and taken off the first seven items, I had broken a major sweat and had stubbed my toe twice in the “dancing out of tight underpants” routine in the limited floorspace. However, I was willing to give the cause one more shot. Unfortunately, I had left the most robust item to the last.

I’m not prone to anxiety attacks, but by the time I had struggled and squished myself into place, I will confess to a rising level of panic. It was like sticking your head through stair railings: the view wasn’t as great as you had anticipated and now you were facing the really tricky part.

I needed out. Quickly.

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It became apparent that the only way I could successfully liberate myself was to roll the whole shebang off my thighs like a rubber band off a newspaper. The beast came to life, picking up steam as it hit my ankles, whistling off into the corner of the dressing room. After a few jerky death flails, it lay in a four-inch square of unrecognizable beige spandex. I let out a little hysterical bark. The changing room chatter dulled to an alert silence.

I clearly was not going to spend good after-tax dollars on an apparatus that would have been banned by the Geneva Convention. However, I couldn’t bring myself to return the involuted mess to the attendant in its current condition.

Grabbing what looked like the waist hole with my right hand, I felt for the thigh opening with my left. I got it on the first try, so I gave ‘er a good yank and voila! With shaking arms, I wrenched it back into its correct orientation, holding it extended at full arms-length for five seconds so we were both clear who had the upper hand. Unfortunately, instead of letting go of the waist opening, the stress of the previous fifteen minutes caused me to lose my head. I let go with my left hand first. The elasticized thigh opening came ricocheting directly towards my face, with the price tag boomeranging around the edge. The stinging impact left me with a gaping wound on my nose.

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Okay, “gaping” might be a stretch, but it was bleeding.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, I started to howl with laughter. In a nervously quiet dressing room.

A voice from three cubicles down called out, “What ARE you trying on? I want one!”

I looked at the offending tag. “It’s called ‘The Gripper.'” Honestly, one could hardly hear oneself pant for breath in the ensuing snorts and sniggers.

The nose wound has healed, but the emotional scars remain. So… this should explain a lot.

Carmel Cheese Shop

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We wandered in and weren’t five steps across the threshold before The Cheese Kid was unwrapping the cellophane off of half a wheel of some cheese so creamy and delicate he didn’t cut it: he scraped off two glistening pearls on to the sides of a wide knife, like butter. Without so much as a “Hello… allergic to dairy?” he leaned across the counter, paddle extended.

So right off the bat, I figured out you don’t have to cut the cheese. (And to all my readers who delight in a good ol’ fashioned sophomoric flatulence riff, I say: be strong!) You are apparently permitted to scrape, paddle, rip, dip, or squish a mouthful off the round in whatever way gets the job done. For someone who has been trying to hack delicately away at melty Camembert for decades, this comes as a great relief. And this from a twenty-something to whom we had not yet been formally introduced.

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“Here, try some of that. It’s a saucy little 2006 goat’s milk Gouda with hints of butter and dill, made in the direct light of a full moon by Armenian trolls. It’s a big seller.” Honestly, I can’t quite remember exactly what he said. All I remember is thinking, “I’m in cheese sample heaven, and it doesn’t even look like there’s a tasting fee.” The sample details elude me, but what lingers is just how freaking good the cheese tasted.

I don’t know if we looked like we were wealthy, or large consumers of cheese, or hungry, but the wheels kept rolling on to the sample cutting board. With an evening “sampler” cheese plate in mind, though, we had to get down to it. But how to “pair” cheeses?

“Well,” said Cheese Kid, “I like to think of the process by theme.”

I’m telling you, if this retail gig doesn’t work out for CK, there is a robust career in consulting waiting for him in Silicon Valley. Anyone who can answer a “how to” question with a full-blown thinking model is gold in these parts.

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“I go with either year, milk type, region, varietal… anything that helps compare one thing to another.”

What epiphanies abound in that sentence! I love that there’s no wrong answer here, just like Bill and his theory about wine pairings. I always appreciate the opportunity to be right.

Of equal importance is that this approach keeps your cheese-mixin’ options open for years into the future. As I tend to bore quickly, plan to be around for a long time, and intend on eating a lot of cheese, that’s good news. In addition, consider the permutations and combinations of the major food groups of Northern California: an unlimited variety of cheeses, wines, olives, breads, tapas, and chocolates. Youíll quickly belly up to the astounding reality that even if you never leave the San Francisco Bay area, you wonít have to eat the same meal twice for as long as you can keep from tipping off the perch. And if you travel at all, the possibilities are equivalent to thinking, “How far is up?”

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Thanks, Cheese Kid. You’re quite the culinary philosopher. Plus, you sell great cheese.

[Note: The word “cheese” appears 16 times above. By all measures, that’s a LOT of repetition, so I did a thesaurus search to see if I could mix it up a bit. No joy: further research revealed that the only synonym for “cheese” is “tofu,” and that’s only true in those awful health food stores that sell fake cheese.]

How Not To Look Old

I’m just going to have to get the ugly facts on the table right up front.

I have bought and read the book How Not To Look Old.

I love it.

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I’ve learned tons. I have been through both my shoe and clothing closets with a gritty determination I normally reserve for removing burnt-on lasagna from a favorite casserole dish. (It happens, on occasion.) I’ve dumped dark lipsticks I had worn just the week before. I had Jafar cut in bangs. I’ve bought more new face goop than I have ever owned before so I can look like I still don’t need it.

I liked the straight up, “Girls, we’re gonna call a wrinkle a wrinkle” writing. She knows that women want to buy a little tub of reasonably priced pink froth, pat it on their face, and look better, thinner, AND younger.

“Diet and exercise are essential to staying healthy over the long haul. There isn’t a woman alive who doesn’t already know that. Eating salmon and doing yoga are good things for sure, but they won’t give instant results. Other anti-aging books tell you to run a bath, light a candle, chant and practice acceptance. Not this one. We want real, visible, results.” Speaking on behalf of all over-the-long-haulers of a certain age, I say, “Sign us up!”

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You’ll note the shift to the plural pronoun there. I decided it was such a great asset that I would give copies to all my long-haulish friends. And that’s when it got tricky. How do you give women in the salmon/yoga/candle/acceptance stage of life a book with the title How Not To Look Old staring them right in the face? Trust me, it’s not as easy as it looks.

But I love my friends, so I decided to brave the possibility of offense. Having given away at least 12 copies so far, I’d like to share what I’ve learned.

1. Order drinks. Make sure at least half a Cosmo is down the hatch before before handing it over.

2. Wrap it. The gentle alcohol buzz, coupled with the pleasure of tugging on bows and peeling back tape, will still be fresh by the time the implication of the title sinks in.

3. Avoid saying things like, “This is for you! It’s great. Hope you enjoy it.” All true statements, but coupled with the title, you may find yourself sitting alone at a table with two half-consumed Cosmos, a huge plate of nachos, and the bill. It’s much better to consider something like, “You don’t need what I’m about to give you. However, you have given me so much great advice over the years, I know you’ll have other friends you’ll want to loan this to. Think of this as a gift for your library.”

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4. Finally, immediately flip to the chapter on how to buy great jeans. Highlight the section on how to recognize “mommy jeans” in your own closet, and kill them. Point out you can learn how to choose the right shoes for your perfect jeans, what kind of pockets and how high up, etc. Most importantly, have a sticky note on the “Brilliant Buys” pages that give specifics on where to buy all the brands mentioned at a wide range of prices. Then slide quickly to, “And look! It’s the same thing for the chapters on glasses, hair, make-up, underwear….”

How not to look old in your underwear?

By the time you take a breath, she’s ordered two fresh Cosmos and is canceling her evening appointments. She’s got some reading to do. And, she’s still your friend.

I write this today because the book is coming out in paperback in just a week or so. You will buy this book (if I haven’t bought it for you already). And then you’ll want to share it with your friends. And now you know how it’s done.


Update: October 27, 2014

Still no equivalent book and set of lessons for men (are we surprised, shocked, and appalled?) but a steady flow of good reads on the topic for women:


How to Look Expensive: A Beauty Editor’s Secrets to Getting Gorgeous without Breaking the Bank


The Wardrobe Wakeup: Your Guide to Looking Fabulous at Any Age


How to Never Look Fat Again: Over 1,000 Ways to Dress Thinner–Without Dieting!

What I Learned From Bill Williamson

The Williamsons make and share some very fine wine in lovely Healdsburg, California.

Plus, Bill Williamson knows more about the inside of my mouth than my dentist or I do. This is both disturbing and a real shame. However, as a result of a ridiculously informative, hilarious, and occasionally out-of-control tutorial on the landscape of my taste buddies, I am rapidly catching up.
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What I learned from Bill:

1. Wine changes stuff.

Of course, I already knew this, but in a more limited sense. For example, I already knew that wine can change a Canaan wedding from another unmemorable event to “Honey, bring that empty wine skin! Vinny just uncorked the GOOD stuff!” It can change how good I sound when I sing, or my ability (and desire) to count calories. It can transform a train ride from just a way to get from east to west, to a life-long memory of drinking champagne out of paper cups.

Bill enlightened.

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Wine changes the flavors you can find in food. Honestly, there is bliss for your taste buds in Irish cheddar you never even knew existed. I’m not going to explain it all here, mostly because Bill is downright effusive in his generosity.

He says at the outset of the pairing experience, “If you want more of anything, just ask.” And darn it, as the time ticks by, you realize he means exactly what he says. Having a great time? Really enjoying that particular wine and want just one more chance to try it with the truffle oil salt against the Parmesan cheese? If you have that look on your face and your glass is empty… Poof! A lovely winery elf, Mrs. Williamson, appears with extra splashes for all. They made me feel like I was a dear old friend over for dinner after a few years absence. They also made me feel like I should just surrender to the moment and not worry about taking notes.
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And this is why I won’t try to explain how Bill made Williamson chocolate give up a more serious hit of cocoa than you would believe possible: the Lovely Winery Elf visited our table frequently, and I can’t remember much that Bill said, except for Number 2 below.

2. There is no such thing as the right wine for the right food. Every wine is distinct. Therefore, each wine will bring a slightly different something to any food you put in your mouth at the same time. The only thing required of you is to close your eyes and chew. Do this with Bill’s magnificent Cabernet Sauvignon, and you end up awash in a delicious existential understanding that there’s not one thing more important you need to be doing right now. Of course, as I have learned in cooking, this “pairing freedom” still leaves a wide open window to the possibility of putting two very good ideas in isolation into a very bad relationship, like the honey-and-mustard sandwiches my sister made as a kid, for instance.

So there are a couple of rules, after all.

Bill made it easy. He explained in simple terms how to think about wine varietals with families of food flavors, and then gave ample samples of both so you get the point. I won’t illuminate further. See #1 above.

Maybe the final thing Bill taught me was the most important, and better caught than taught. You’ll just have to go see for yourself.

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3. It’s possible to do what you love.

How I Almost Chipped A Tooth On An Inflatable Bed

The copy said, “The incredibly comfortable Inflatable Memory Foam Raised Queen Airbed Mattress by Intex quickly and easily inflates with a convenient wired remote control. Remote can also gradually release air if the mattress is too firm. Inflates in about three minutes. Deflates for travel and storage.”

There isn’t an untrue word in that entire piece.

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It did inflate quickly. It was as comfortable (amazingly so, actually) as promised. And the remote did function to gradually release enough air to adjust the firmness. With time, you could go from the uber-firmness setting of “Why am I not just sleeping on the floor?” to the squishy bounce of “If he abruptly rolls over once more and slingshots me from a dead sleep to within inches of the ceiling again, I’m going to change my name to Giselle and join Cirque de Soleil.” The tricky bit came when Rick and our delightful company left for the airport. I thought, “I’ll just tidy up quickly and put the bed away.”

The remote did as advertised. It gradually released enough air to adjust the firmness of the mattress. And no more. In my opinion, we had barely begun to creep into the “Trampoline Giselle” Zone of Support when the gentle breath of air that was shushing out of the bed stopped.

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Problem #1: I could hear the motor humming along, but breeze had died down and could not be resurrected, no matter how many times I revved the engine. And I still had a queen-sized bed that needed to fit into a storage bag the size of a single-occupant kitty carrier. I couldn’t find the instructions and figured they had been thrown out with the box. Oh well. I’m smarter than an air mattress.

Near the remote control connection in the side edge, I noticed two big black valve covers, one for each chamber. With resignation and a silent promise to God that I would read the ad copy more carefully for future online purchases, I flipped open the opened the top covers so I could start the process of manual air release.

Problem #2: There didn’t appear to be any internal hole plugger-upper doomahickey. All there was, in both deep narrow valve orifices, was a thick filament of plastic, as though the manufacturers had left a rubber thread hanging. I poked my finger around in one and was startled to be rewarded with a loud blap of air. Unfortunately, as soon as I moved my finger a micron, it stopped. After a minute (really) of gentle probing and intense concentration, I figured out how a light pressure applied directly to the top of the wisp of rubbery plastic would open the flood gates of air.

Thus, the plan: if I sprawled on top of the mattress and held my two hands above my head and reached around down to the valves–and if I could maintain the finicky angle of attack that was necessary to keep the valves open–I would eventually best the beast. And I remembered no one said it would be easy. Or quick. Or painless.

Problem #3: Hours passed. (Okay, the whole experience was 47 minutes from beginning to end, but trust me. It felt like hours.) As the mattress s-l-o-w-l-y deflated, my fingers kept shifting and the air would stop flowing. Eventually though, with my fingers frozen in place and the feeling leaving my arms, I did feel my belly gently touch down on the floor. However, I was just one woman in the middle of an only partially deflated 20-inch high queen-sized bed. While my body was now resting solidly on terra ferma, there was still a solid wall of inflated blue vinyl towering above me on either side of my prone self. (Think of a hot dog nestled in the bottom of an over-sized bun.) The only way I was going to force out more air was to roll around. But you see the issue here, don’t you?

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Problem #4: I couldn’t roll around and keep my fingers in place. That’s when it occurred to me: if I doubled the mattress on top of itself, I could make a run for it, flop on top like an Olympian high-jumper, and reach WAY around to the bottom layer where the valves lived. A concerted application of gravity-induced pressure, some fine finger dexterity, time, a little luck, and, voila! I’d be off to other campaigns. Fortune favors the bold, so I implemented.

All I can say is that for once I was glad I have long arms and determined toes: I was now perched without a net on top of three feet of bouncing, slippery vinyl, like a circus bear on a balance ball. Except bears apparently have a better sense of balance than I do. Despite my best efforts to keep my fingers in place, my toes dug into the carpet behind me for balance, and my focus riveted on staying still, I started to roll forward.

It must have been a combination of the plastic fumes I was inhaling with my head upside down over top of the releasing air, and my determination not to lose purchase on a proven finger angle. No matter the reason, by this time I was in a zen-like stupor. I’m just glad I only bashed my head into the wall. If I’d been let loose on a longer trajectory before making contact, I have no doubt I would have hit the floor with such enthusiasm I could have chipped a tooth. Thank God for small mercies.

A quick shower rinsed away the sweat of battle and the bump is already receding, so it’s all good. The mattress is still taking up one third the bedroom, but it will just have to wait now until the cavalry comes home. (I’ve got the video camera batteries charging as we speak.)

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P. S. Ironically, Rick created the 4-panel cartoon a week before our company arrived. I thought you might enjoy both stories.

P. P. S. The cavalry just came home, listened to my story, walked up to the valves, and unscrewed the covers, leaving a huge hole behind. The mattress deflated the rest of the way while we stood there and watched. He then walked over to the storage bag, reached in to the bag, and removed the instructions for use. The valve I was messing with is for inflating the bed with a conventional foot or manually operated air pump.

I don’t know whether to kiss the cavalry or pinch him for being so smart and/or hiding the instructions in the bag. And if you see me running with scissors, stop me.