blast from the childhood past (now with humor!)

when i was a kid my family lived in spain, where we were friends with another american family called the bakers. the bakers had a bunch of kids (more than two and less than 12. i am afraid i can't be more specific than that) including two girls on either side of me age-wise, tina and elna (at least i am pretty sure her name was tina. if it's not becoming painfully obvious, a lot of these details are kind of fuzzy). i do clearly remember, though, playing barbies together and having sleep-overs and gorging ourselves on hard-to-come-by american treats like peanut butter and oreos. and then my family moved away and their family moved away and because my parents never send out a christmas card, we all lost touch.

that is until i was a junior in college and moved to london and it turned out the bakers were there, too (given the lack of christmas cards, i am not sure how i discovered this, but i did). by this time tina and elna had both flown the coop, tina on a mission (i think), and elna to nyu to study at the tisch school of performing arts. but, i had dinner with mama and papa baker a few times while i was there, and stored a bunch of luggage at their house while i went back-packing. the night before i came back to the states, mama baker made me a rootbeer float. and then i left and that was that. again.

until, just a few days ago. browsing on sweet suvi's blog, i stumbled on a video of one elna baker, a new york-based comedienne, performing a monologue on a program called "the rejection show." could it be? it looked like her. it sounded like her. and it was her. my childhood friend, elna baker. another miracle facilitated by this here interweb.

now, i don't have any clear memory of elna being particularly funny when we were kids, though she very well could have been. (i myself was a relatively un-funny child who has grown into an excessively hysterical adult.) but, either way, elna is damn funny now. yes, she is so funny that she deserves that swear. i laughed and laughed out loud until i cried at my desk watching this clip (it's funny because it's true!) and have retold the story many, many times. if i'm not careful, i might start to believe it is my own.



and the best news of all? i get to be friends with elna baker again. it will be just like old times, but funnier. and maybe fewer barbies.

the 20s, they're a-roarin'

ck and sallee both turned 29 in march (sad that i can no longer say "this month." where does time go?), so we decided to celebrate the end of their roaring twenties with none other than a roaring 1920s-themed extravaganza. (get it? i have to say, i thought it was a stroke of party-planning genius.) another stroke of genius? holding the party at the woolley mansion, complete with secret passageway in the library, pool table and hot tub, only adding to the prohibition-era ambiance.

thanks to a brilliant party-planning web site uncovered by sallee's nathan, and an impressively large collection of jazz contributed by nate c., authenticity was the order of the evening. food included gatsby-style crab-stuffed mushrooms and celery olive salad, which was, you may or may not know, president calvin coolidge's favorite side dish. for real. the site also had lots of dress-up ideas, including step-by-step instructions for creating the "finger wave" hairstyle. sadly, none of us attempted it but, as you can see, creativity was not in short supply when it came to the evening's costumes.


ck and her friends john and christie, enjoying delicious fried ravioli, spinach artichoke dip, crab-stuffed mushrooms and the coolidge classic. (can you tell i am really proud of the menu?)



kristin and sallee the birthday girl. sallee, by the way, made her own flapper outfit by sewing fringe on the bottom of a dress. it was hot.



susan reveling in a winning pool shot.



sus and heather duking it out on the pool table. heather promised to wear her tiara every day for a week, and i am pretty sure she meant it.



newsboy dan (definitely one of the best costumes of the night) with adrianna, marie and liz.



joel and dan take a boys turn on the pool table. joel had to take off his somewhat restrictive bright red and white striped jacket (don't worry, you'll get to see it later).



lovely ladies nicole, sarah and emily relaxing on the parlor couch. these girls also had amazing outfits with long gloves and everything.



rachel, ashley, nate and corey. rachel wore that hat to church the next day. awesome. nate was going for the 1920s gangster white on black look. i think he wears it well.



vamping with susan and chrislyn, who was wearing the most darling little hat.



my turn with the birthday girl. wearing feathers in your hair is remarkably fun. i think we should all do it more often.



jessica, dave and karen. dave went for gatsby sporty preppy, not too different from his daily attire, in fact.



these incredible shoes, however, he saves for special occassions.



betcha didn't know charlie chaplin was on the salt lake social scene.



heather obviously had a better pose than me. funny how "sexy kissing mouth" turns into "fish lips" so quickly and unexpectedly.



family photo! this one gives you the best glimpse of joel's coat, which we are pretty sure was made from a retired barnum and bailey circus tent. also while this photo was being taken, the following exchange occured:

joel to rachel: here, why don't you hold my cane?
sallee's sister, abby, who was taking the picture: never trust a boy when he asks you that.

other triumphs of the evening included a successful execution of an amazing chocolate bundt cake recipe pulled off caroline's blog, and successful execution of homemade mayonnaise. "what the...?" you might be asking. well, two of our menu items called for mayonnaise, and i had a minor cardiac episode when we realized we didn't have any. luckily, sallee's mom knew how to make it from scratch. she coached me over the phone and i did it! i would tell you how i did it, but frankly, its sort of gross, so i'll spare you the details. the important thing is, no one could tell the difference.

i also learned two important hostess lessons:

1. feather boas leave a trail. i had picked up some extra feather boas (as well as tiaras and strings and strings of beads) at the party store so people who didn't dress up wouldn't feel left out. it seemed like a good idea until i spent about an hour sucking up stray feathers, one by one with the vacuum cleaner after everyone went home.

2. the logistics of a kitchen-downstairs-party-upstairs event are exhausting at best. we decided to have people gather upstairs because it was a smaller, less formal space with more room to stand around and talk, and it's where the pool table is. but we made all the food downstairs because that's where the kitchen and the two ovens and the pantry with the automatic light are. i may have lost 10 pounds running up and down the stairs, and my calves totally hurt the next day.

but, it was more than worth it to celebrate two dear friends with a roaringly good time. happy birthday girls!

funny every time...

my editor, barb, and my co-worker, becky, are completely obsessed with funny cat photos, and look at them all day long. when there are problems with the funny cat photo web site, major panic, wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues. and no, that is not an exaggeration.

i, you may or may not know, am not super into animals, so this phenomenon is something of a mystery to me. i do not own animals. i do not watch movies where animals talk, or save the day. i am not very amused by people dressed as animals, and i am usually opposed to animals dressed as people. (an exception to this rule is an animal costume that features fake muscles. those are pretty rad.) i recently discovered, though, that animals dressed as other animals can be endlessly hysterical. see for yourselves. i saved this photo on my computer desktop at work, and i open it about once a day. i'm not quite sure exactly what it is, but it gets me every single time.

salt lake, it's my city

my old friend, peter, and some friends of his were in town over the weekend for some skiing. we were supposed to meet up, but i was laid low with a nasty bug i most certainly caught on my horrific return flight from new york and could barely make it out of the house for most of the weekend, so i had to settle for giving peter and co. recommendations on various activities and, more importantly, restaurants.

now, most people do not come to slc expecting to enjoy good food (peter and co. certainly didn't) but i sent them to two of my favorite local haunts, mazza at ninth and ninth (where i had just enjoyed a delicious dinner with my wonderful father) and that old stand-by, the red iguana. and everyone raved about both of them! i felt totally cool and not just because i had made yummy and well-received food suggestions. it really drove home the feeling that a) salt lake has become my home and b) salt lake is not a bad home to have. i was so proud of myself that i could send them somewhere (even two somewheres) that i could be proud of in this crazy city. a crazy city i have come, against all odds, to know and love. and that is, existentially-speaking, a pretty good place to "be."

by monday i was feeling more myself, so we rounded out the weekend of fine dining with the world's best sandwiches at toasters. three for three.



and then, they were off. but i think, against odds of their own, they'll be back. just like the rest of us.

to my mother, on her birthday

i know i just posted about my mom (the italian plaster drama ended safely, by the way), but today is her birthday, and a little birthday blog shout-out just seemed like the thing to do. (not that the completely awesome avacado slicer i got her wasn't enough, but sometimes you just want to give a little somethin' extra, you know?)

anyway, i thought of listing one thing i love about my mom for each year that she has graced God's green earth, but then you would all know how old she is and i didn't clear that with her first. so, instead, here are the top 11 things i love about my mother (who is, lest there be any confusion, certainly more than 11 years old).

1. she gave me life (it wasn't easy, but i daresay it was worth it. any opposed?)
2. she never speaks an unkind word, or, perhaps more remarkably, any unkind words strung together. she can, and does, see the good in everything and everyone.
3. she is unafraid. a new, scary job? done. a big, scary move (sometimes overseas, and sometimes with babies)? breezy. sending her kids to college, on missions and long motorcycle rides? not a blink. she embraces the unknown, and it embraces her right back.
4. she is loved. not just by me, by everyone. just as my mother never speaks an unkind word, i have never heard an unkind word spoken of her. and that's saying something, i think.
5. she is hip and hilarious. she has red shoes and says things like, "what's the haps?" and laughs out loud and signs cards with, "i heart you." she watches "the office" and "clerks." she loves jack black and owen wilson. she joined an organic farm co-op. she plays the autoharp and dances in the kitchen.
6. she is honest. and she is wise. she mourns loss but doesn't dwell on it.
7. she always gets her way, but never at the expense of other people. somehow, everyone else is convinced that they are getting their way, too. (this is not scary or manipulative, this is a gift. one i am still trying to master.)
8. she sends me valentine's boxes and easter dresses and decorates for every holiday. a lot.
9. she loves fresh flowers, especially from the farmer's market.
10. she collects. her most extensive collection is one of funky pottery from the 1950s. she actually has a dealer who brings new pieces to her house. this fills me with glee.
11. she knows herself and she is herself. this is that rare talent that is difficult to explain, but impossible not to notice. she is confident so she can build up others. she loves herself so she can love others. she understands true beauty and so she can see it everywhere. she doesn't need make-up or fashion magazines, or attention or praise. she is whole.

to my darling mother. may your day be happy.

coming home (an epilogue)

the pure delight and joy of my weekend in nyc were matched by an opposingly horrific and frustrating return flight. it all started when i got to the airport and saw this long and stalled line.



it made me sort of nervous because i hadn't left myself much of a time cushion. i got even more nervous when the ticketing agent told me the flight was delayed by 40 minutes, because i only had a 55 minute window to make a connection in las vegas. she assured me the pilot was a fast flier and all would be well.

she lied.

forty minutes turned into more like an hour late boarding, but i still had confidence we could make up the time. sitting on the runway for two hours, however, waiting for your turn to take off, can really set you back beyond recovery. luckily, the time flew by thanks to my cool seatmates, devin and stephen.



devin is a returning peace corps volunteer, on his way home from two years in ukraine, and stephen is a carpenter/electrician/volunteer firefighter on long island who had saved two lives earlier in the day and was on his way to spend time with an uncle in oregon.

the fun and games are over, though, when a mechanical problem forces you back to the gate. (especially if you really have to go to the bathroom. which i did.) after a little more than two hours on the runway, we were right back where we started, except this time people were swearing and demanding to be let off the plane. the doors opened, the demanders left, and the rest of us got some yummy snacks and water to smooth things over. eavesdropping on a conversation between two flight attendants while i waited in line for the bathroom, i heard this:

flight attendant #1: we're bringing in some snacks and catering is going to bring extra bottles of water to keep people happy.
flight attendant #2: the usual snacks?
flight attendant #1: no, not the crap we normally serve. it's nice stuff. from a different airline.

the mechanical problem was a relatively quick fix, and approximately four hours after our scheduled departure time, we were off. we landed in vegas a little after 3a.m. and found ourselves shuttled to hotels and rebooked on flights leaving the next day. i was pretty cranky (ok, really cranky) by this point in the game, but the bed was big and fluffy, and i slept like a babe until people started calling me the next morning to figure out where i was.



as you might imagine, rebooking an entire plane full of people creates some logistical problems, and it resulted in an amazingly inefficient flight plan, about which i was not amused. i left vegas at 1 in the afternoon, flew to phoenix and spent a little more than two completely un-fun hours there...



before finally getting on a flight home, a full 20 hours after my original flight would have landed.

the silver lining? they put me in first class for the final leg, and this little pre-flight treat made it (almost) all better.

i heart NYC (a photo essay)

one of the signs of true, independent adulthood is, i think, spontaneous travel, which i undertook this weekend with a close-to-the-last-minute trip to new york. i am happy to be at a place in my life where i've been to new york enough times that i don't have to worry about actually "doing" anything while i am there, so my agenda was nothing more than catching up with old and dear friends, which i did plenty of. before i get to a play-by-play of the weekend (complete with photo documentation) i will say that i had two firsts on this trip: 1. i used a car service to pick me up at the airport! (quite possibly another sign of true, independent adulthood) and 2. i was asked twice for directions, which says to me that i have finally lost the deer-caught-in-new-york-headlights look that a lot of visitors have (and the direction-seekers caught me at a moment when i didn't have a map unfolded).

on the flight over i was seated in the middle of a rambunctious group of new york locals returning from a boys' ski weekend. they cajoled eachother and talked out loud to their movies the whole flight. we also all enjoyed observing the antics of one of our flight attendants, who looked just like uncle frank from the "home alone" movies. (look what you did, you little jerk!) uncle frank's high point is a toss up between when he sat a bag of garbage right in the lap of the man sitting next to me and walked away with no explanation, and when he got into an altercation with the two women sitting in front of us about headphones.

i arrived on the upper west side thanks to the magical car service (after asking about five drivers if they were 1658. best response: "i wish i was") and crashed with my old roommate and dear dear friend, jane. the rest of the weekend was as follows.

on the subway with the man sitting next to me:

him: do you know where you're going?
me: yes, i think i'm all set, but thank you.
him: where are you visiting from?
me: i live in utah.
him: whereabouts?
me: salt lake city.
him: are you LDS?
me: yes, i am.
him: my daughter was married a year ago february in the mount pimpanooga temple.
silence and blinking.
me: um, the mount timpanogos temple?
him: yeah, that's the one. i was close. i spent a day in salt lake city at the family history library.
me: oh, that's wonderful.
(it has been my experience that people who go to the family history library do so on purpose, and are glad they did, so i thought this was a safe response.)
him: wonderful, are you kidding me? i was stuck there. i couldn't fly out because it was snowing in minneapolis. that's a real boring place you got there, salt lake city.
me: i think this is my stop.

lunch with carl.



he is so important he has a secretary and has to send e-mails while he is eating (he feels bad about it though, so you can't be mad). burgers, milkshakes and lots of laughing. just the way i like it.

walking to meet ryan i pass this intriguing place of worship, which shares a building with a mcdonalds.




i also walk past radio city music hall (how awesome would it be to be a rockette?)




and see a man carrying a comforter down the street like it ain't no thing.




ryan's apartment has a stunning view,




but a small kitchen.




a run of the mill subway ride turns exciting when a man rollerblades in.




we also spend some time debating this rather ill-advised tylenol ad campaign.



(if everyone starts getting massages to take care of headaches, then no one will buy tylenol, right? seemed like a bad strategy to us.)

at the strand bookstore (18 miles of books!) we play my favorite bookstore game: who can put together the most unlikely and/or hilarious combination of three book titles. i did pretty well with "radical christinity," "meetings, meetings and more meetings" and a book about wine tasting with "drunk" in the title, but ryan wins later with "a guide to building your own entourage" and "celebrity dads."







wandering down the street we come upon this costume shop, where the clerks say things such as, "bat wings? well, do you see the enormous red shoes? walk to those and then take a left..."



we also meet a harried young man searching for a regal looking coat for a jewish holiday. ryan didn't want his picture taken in front of the store because he said it could be mistaken for "one of *those* costume shops," but i made him.



we got lost around washington square park (where i get lost every single time i go to new york) but finally make it to pinkberry.



and see a fleshy and hairy man with a full body tattoo that may or may not have been a map of manhattan (i thought i saw chelsea on his arm). hot.

dinner was korean barbecue on the upper west side with jane and her betrothed.



they spent a lot of time whispering to eachother, so i made new friends with justin.



on saturday adam and i went to the moma. (note: i had not seen adam in three years, and it was too long.) people were scalping tickets outside the museum.



we found this strange. also strange? the "design and the elastic mind" exhibit we went to see.

the afternoon was sunny and delightful, so we walked along fifth avenue



and stopped in at the new york public library.



adam was temporarily drawn off track by some delicious-looking cornbread in a bakery window.



but he resisted and we made it to the east village and noodles with robin, fortuitously in town from san francisco.





after a wonderful performance of "the seagull," starring alan cumming and dianne wiest, robin and i headed to a wine bar (i had italian soda) to meet some friends of his.



it was great conversation and the time flew by, but by 3a.m., when the bar was closing, we were ready to go home.




but not before an early morning stop at the neighborhppd bodega.



sunday after church i met ben, who i have not seen in five whole years! he is like another version of myself and it was oh-so-wonderful to be reunited. we drank hot chocolate and talked about boys.




in the cab on my way to the airport my cab driver (who was "basically" from india) asked me how old i was. he was only 24, "but i've had experience." silence. "not with the woman. just with life." glad he clarified. that could have been awkward.

and then, good-bye nyc. i heart you.