onions and good concerts make me cry

my first concert was michael jackson. my parents got me tickets for my birthday; i think i was nine. i might have been 10. the three of us went and it was pretty much awesome. it was the tour for whichever album it is where, on the cover, michael's face is a big mask that's also a gate... anyone? maybe it was "black or white." i'm not sure. but he sang "beat it," so i feel like other details don't really matter.

it was a great first concert experience, to be sure, but it didn't really turn me into a concert lover. i feel like i can, and do, appreciate good music, but i've just never been the type of person to spend time and money catching every live performance i can. i have managed a few really great shows in the recent past, including bonnie raitt and the indigo girls and erasure, but i usually only hear about good concerts after they're over. and i'm usually not too bummed.

this weekend might have changed all that, though. thanks to hip and concert-loving em and chelsea, i heard about the hotel cafe tour 2008 and, since tickets were only $15, i decided to check it out. and thank goodness for that. because it was so. good. so. so. good. soul-soothing good. tear-jerking good. dance in front of strangers good. don't mind standing for hours good. can't sleep that night good. never want it to end good. so. so. so. good.

the headliner was ingrid michaelson who i had heard good things about but never really listened to before. now i love her with a love that is true. there is something i appreciate about a busty woman who still wear glasses, and tell stories on stage about chewing her hands when they fall asleep (the hands, that is). she was darling. and i just know we would be friends. my favorite song of hers was one she had just written two weeks before (so new it doesn't even have a name!) about being on tour. i had never before witnessed a newborn song. it was sort of like holding a newborn baby really, comforting and somehow familiar.




and the other performers were oh-so-good as well. meiko was so cute and shy and cruddy on stage and she sang my new favorite song, "you and onions make me cry." it's sort of about hot dogs, and i had a hot dog for lunch that day, so i sort of felt like it was fate.



and jim bianco was kind of like that guy who you love even though you know you shouldn't, the one who can get away with doing and saying all kinds of dirty things because somehow he makes it seem charming, the one who sweet-talks all the ladies, but always makes you feel like it's just you. you know the one? that's jim bianco. (i feel like this could become part of our vernacular. like, "oh, that guy is such a jim bianco!" or "don't pull a jim bianco on me, mister!" i am going to work on this.)



carey brothers sang my favorite song of his, "blue eyes," and told funny stories about having a song on "grey's anatomy" during a montage of a character born with both sets of reproductive organs (yes, you read that right) trying to decide which ones to keep, and about getting dumped and being single and all that good stuff. (i couldn't help but think that if he cut his hair and washed it every once in a while, things might turn out differently for him. but that could just be me.)



carey brothers is also, apparently, the man behind the whole tour concept. and, let me take a moment to say that it is a concept of which i whole-heartedly approve. each of the artists played rotating 15 minute sets, so you got to hear everyone more than once but not all at once, so you never got sick of it. this was especially handy when dan wilson came on stage.



his gyrating hips are nothing to be scoffed at (in fact, i spent most of the night imitating them), but he was a sort of awkward old man with bad jokes and white sneakers and we couldn't figure out what he was doing there. until, in the largest revelation of the night, he told a story about writing a song with his old band about the birth of his son, and then launched into "closing time." holy...!!!! remember that song? semisonic was not joking around. ponder on some of the lyrics and it will all become clear. "this room won't be open 'til your brothers or your sisters come"...? it was right there in front of us, the whole time.

the highlight of the evening, though was when jim bianco announced that all the artists were now going to "penetrate the crowd" (me: "i love being penetrated." em: "blog that!") and the next thing we knew, everyone was down in the crowd, inches away from us, singing a little song. chelsea touched ingrid michaelson, em said "hi" to meiko, and i sang right in the ear of the drummer. i think heaven is probably something like this.




the only non-heavenly part of the evening? the most foul smell any of us had ever endured, coming from one of the people standing in front of us. i don't know what the problem was, but i seriously think it might require medical intervention. em's eyes tell the whole story.



but even that could not ruin a night of magical goodness. and now, all i want is more.

(and thanks to chelsea for all these pictures. credit where credit is due, right?)

so say we all

this blog has been pretty light on the soul-baring confessional, but i am about to make a big share, so everyone get ready. it's time for me to just get it out there. i am addicted to "battlestar galactica."

there. i said it. i am addicted to the spaceships-and-robots, possible-end-of-humanity, purveyor-of-mystical-religious-dogma, sci-fi wonder that is "battlestar galactica." and, believe me, i am just as shocked as you. baffled, really. still completely mystified that i am drawn to my television like a junkie to crack, watching hours of episodes on end. i even went to the video store on a sunday-- a sunday!-- to rent the first disc of season two, because i couldn't stand to have the season one finale cliffhanger unsolved a moment longer. i know, i know. i probably need an intervention. but since i have brought my roommates down with me, i don't think there's much hope for any of us.

the catalyst for this downward spiral into science fiction obsession was chris, who told me for ages how awesome the show was. and i, as you might expect, dismissed it out of hand as something ridiculous that i would never like. but, it only took watching the pilot episode before i was depriving myself of sleep, night after night, to watch just one more episode, thinking of the galactica crew as my friends and family (especially dream-yacht lee adama), and worrying about possible cylon double-agents in my midst (those would be robots programmed to perfectly approximate human behavior until they are activated to carry out some deadly mission against humanity. don't judge me. please). i knew i was in deep when someone pointed out the constellation orion to me one night and i blurted out, with no thought at all, "orion points the way to earth!" brother. my subsequent rattling on about the arrow of apollo and the tomb of athena (like that's supposed to make me seem less insane) most definitely did not help my case.

ashamed and confused, i have held this a little-known fact for a long time. but, as today marks the premiere of the last season of BSG (yes, i am obsessed enough to abbreviate it), i felt like i should come clean. i have actually learned to embrace this newfound part of myself. i now see "battlestar galactica" as a tool for learning and awareness. the show intelligently addresses lots of present-day issues, including terrorism and torture and military occupation and abortion. not to mention spiritual "big issues," like The One True God and forgiveness and resurrection and redemption. it's almost like going to church. almost. and, have i mentioned lee adama is totally hot?






i thought so. join me, won't you?

frances cake, take one

there is a phenomenon in my life that i call the "friend crush." friend crushes work, basically, just like romantic crushes. i'll meet someone, maybe through a friend, maybe at a party. maybe i see them at church or i stalk them on facebook for a while. however it happens, i just *know* that i want to be friends. friend sparks fly, you might say.

from there it's also remarkably like a real crush. i get all cruddy and i trip over my words and i don't know what to say. i blush a lot. i get all nervous to ask for a phone number, and then i worry about calling too much, being too clingy. the trickiest part of a friend crush is also the same, too: the first friend date.

first dates are rife with all kinds of danger and awkwardness, and first friend dates are no exception. how do you extend the invitation? what will you do? what will you talk about? and so was born the idea of frances cake (i wish i could say i came up with it all on my own, but dallas was the one who thought of it first). the premise is simple. i pick a friend crush. i invite him or her over to my house to make a cake. frances cake to be exact. we make the cake, we bake the cake and we eat the cake, all while basking in our newfound love and friendship. brilliant, right?

my first frances cake outing was with amy.



amy and i have been in the same ward for a couple years now, but we never really hung out until recently. and i am glad we didn't wait any longer! we settled on chocolate cinnamon cake, with a chocolate-y walnut glaze. delicious, and the recipe was super simple.

while the cake was baking, i had time to practice my sweet break-dancing moves.



and a chance to get to know amy better. i learned that she used to name her pets after food (including two cats with oreo-related monikers), and that her dad sounds just like ross perot. she's from south carolina. she used to have long hair, but now it's sort and sassy, just like her (the sassy part, at least. she's actually pretty tall).

the cake baked up nicely,



but the frosting/glaze presented something of a challenge. the recipe said to put it on while the cake was still hot, but it didn't really drizzle. it needed to be spread. but spreading it tore the top of the cake because it was still warm. amy is pretty meticulous, and she was very carefully dabbing the frosting on, one spoonful at a time,



but we finally just dumped it all and spread it as fast and as best as we could.



the final result? success!



even susan, who was taking a "break" from sugar, made an exception and had a piece with us.



and the frances cake fun had just begun.

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.