Q & A with Bowlergirl

So, if you watch The Office you can imagine the following dialogue in the voice of Dwight. If you do not watch The Office, well then, shame on you. This is what El Senor asked me today:

---------ES: Question, would you drive a car if it got 100mpg, no

--------------matter what the design?

---------BG: Most likely yes, I like those hideous little Euro cars

------- -------and they do not get 100mpg.

---------ES: Well, this goes against all you stand for.

---------BG: I'm guessing it's HUGE, so that will be tricky, I must say.

And yes, it does seem to go against all that I stand for. If you want to find out more about the hybrid Hummer go here. I did get the final word however with this comment:

--------BG: I would just paint it green and have a huge sticker on the

--------------huge @$$ bumper that said HYBRID. Or perhaps

--------------Hippy-Tree-Hugger-at-Heart would take care of my guilt.

I think I will go hug a tree right now.

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Happy Fierce Friday

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I hope you all are feeling fierce on this fine Friday afternoon!

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Darling,
I just wanted to tell you how much I love you. It was so nice to wake up
and see you snuggled up next to me in bed. Your eyes are always smiling,
even so early in the morning! I love that you give me kisses and hugs
before I run out the door. I even love that you ask me to drive carefully each day...

and because you ask me I really, really, try not to be a maniac on my
way to work. Just thought I would reassure you on that. So, please remember my darling man, you are the sunshine in my soul. I love you with every fiber of my being and hope you are having a wonderful day.

Your always loving,
Wife

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So back in the diz-ay I took a little quiz. That quiz gave me the crazy news that I was most like Ghandi. I must have taken my crazy pill or something that morning.

Azucar got to be Saddam Hussein, which at the time I was completely jealous of. Who doesn't want to be compared to a mad-man-of-mass-destruction? In retrospect, that is a little less great since he met such an unfortunate end.

Today I took that same quiz. Two and a half years later I have apparently shed the beautiful soul, and moved on to the beautiful people. Is this a closer representation of myself? Do I need to begin working on the inner beauty again? Really, increasing my sexual options through my powerful connections is not going to get me far, since I continue to remain a one-man-kinda-lady. Not to mention JFK met his own unfortunate and untimely end.

Interesante, no?

Who is your innner bad a$$?

*Let me know who you most resemble today in the comments section.

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Food Adventure

El Senor and I were helping a friend on Monday move to a new apartment. I dashed home from work, made us a quick dinner then we headed out to pick up Christine. She has only been in the US for a few weeks, she just moved from South Korea. That said, she did not have much to move, a few boxes and suitcases. This made for one easy trip in the Suby.

Christine had been staying with a friend while looking for another place. She is waiting for all her paper work to be finished up before she can start her new job. Using the trusty Internet she had found a room to rent from a Korean family in the area.

We chatted as we drove to her new temporary home. We arrived, met the family and helped carry her things to her new room. We chatted with the father of the family for a bit. While sitting, sipping apple juice he looked at me and said in his lovely English, "Do you like Korean food?" Let it be known, I have a problem filtering my thoughts. "Yes, everything I've had except Kimchi. I have to say no to Kimchi" To this our newly acquired Korean friends all laughed. Apparently my saying yes to liking Korean food in general, equalled a dinner invite.

Twenty minutes later we were seated with the family at a table loaded with enough food to feed a small army. El Senor was invited to bless the food, then we proceeded to dig in. Carefully each dish was pointed to and described. This is a traditional chicken dish, it is very good. This is just rice, we all eat the rice. A small plate of dried seaweed wrappers, use it to put rice in. A spicy fish noodle, add it to the rice. Kimchi, you should not eat that one. Fried eggs, we like to put it on the rice. Sesame leaves drizzled in oil and spiced with garlic, you wrap rice in it. On and on, each plate described and explained how to eat.

El Senor and I looked clumsy with our forks and knives while everyone else expertly used their tiny silver chop sticks. The conversation flowed between English and Korean. All musical and delicious to my ears as I consumed the strange foods.

As I was carefully eating each item on my plate I realized I was getting very full very fast. Without any warning a little laugh escaped my lips. I covered it with a nervous smile. I realized the reason I was not very hungry was that I had eaten dinner less than an hour before. In our rush to get Christine settled, I had forgotten my earlier dinner. I slowly continued to eat.

I somehow ate most of my food, leaving a few random scraps of rice and unfinished noodles. Thinking I had made it, that I had eaten enough not to offend our hosts I realized I had a bowl of soup sitting next to my plate. Gingerly I spooned up some of the clear broth and green noodles. As I took my first sip, once again I was told what the dish was. This is seaweed soup, it helps to clear the blood of impurities. One sip, pause. Another spoonful with less of the seaweed. Longer pause. Chat, ask about the family. How long have you lived in this house. Third small spoonful, I was unable to chew the seaweed, it went straight down to be digested. I laid my spoon down and tried to look attentive to the conversation.

Dinner finished pleasantly. I was teased that I had eaten so very little. I was told that I should never go on a diet by the skinniest little Korean girl I had ever seen. I was prodded to "Just eat a little more." Which I graciously did. After the meal had concluded El Senor and I were told to visit again, there would always be food for us.

We waved good bye and headed to the Suby. As we closed the doors we looked at each other and laughed a little at how unexpected the whole situation had been. Then I told El Senor "Darling, as much as I don't like Kimchi, seaweed is a hundred times worse in my book." Then we drove home to our little house and I had another glass of apple juice to wash away any remaining taste of seaweed soup.
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In like a Lion, out like a Lamb

I had to post this before Tiff called her posting hiatus quits and beat me to it. This was such an outrageous occurrence, that it is possible she would have come out of hibernation for it.


Tiff is in town, let that be the preface to this entire story. On Friday I zipped down to the Newark airport to pick her up. She stated that she was starving, and since I've been there and done that we hit a drive-thru. This is shameful for me to admit, we went to McDonalds. I haven't been to a Mickey-Dees since the Food-Poisoning-Incident-of-2001. I will say that I only got a strawberry shake and a sprite. Food avoidance seemed the best option considering my last experience.

Food in hand, we headed for NYC. During rush hour. On a Friday night. Did I mention New York City? After an hour and forty five minutes we finally pulled up to the hotel. We gave the valet the Suby (I know, classy right?) and headed to check in. While standing in line I realized that I had left my phone in the car. I headed back to the valet service, waited for 10 minutes while they located my car, brought it up to the 1st level of underground parking then walked down to the 1st level of underground parking to retrieve the phone. At least it was in the car, had I found it in my purse while waiting I would have really felt like a dumb#$%.

Phone located, problem solved.

Next came the room. I'm sure Tiff will have much to say on this subject, all I will say is we are pretty sure that it was a converted janitor's closet (it was that small). Next on the list was the concierge that gave bad directions, very, very, bad directions. We proceeded to be 45 minutes late for our dinner reservation. On the plus side, the restaurant and food were excellent. I had amazing cheese and spinach ravioli in a sage-butter sauce. Yum.

After dinner we strolled back to the closet, ahem...hotel. We visited with a different woman at the concierge desk and asked for a nice place to listen to music and get some dessert. Enter the cab-driver-from-the-other-side-of-the-world, perhaps even from the underworld. This is where I would also like to interject, if you are cab driver in NYC and it's the first day of Spring, consider yourself fore-warned. Perhaps not so well fore-armed.

Tiff and I climbed in the cab. As we piled in we asked the driver, "Do you accept credit cards? We don't have cash." When he said yes, we proceeded to hand the little-man-in-a-turban the address of the place written down on a piece of paper. Easy, no? No miscommunication, no room for things to get lost in translation. Oh, ho I say! I thought for sure I was going to die or toss my delicious raviolis on that Mad-Hatter of a cab ride. Not pleasant.

We finally ended up in the general vicinity of where the lounge was supposed to be. Finally we asked the driver to pull over, we were close enough. Just as Tiff was ready to swipe her card the cabbie clicked the pay-out button. "No card!" he said. Ummmm, the first thing we asked when getting in the cab was "Do you accept credit cards? " Let's review. Is there really any way that can be misinterpreted? Apparently. The next section of this is highly embarrassing for me. As Ma Bowler would say "Bowlergirl, you are really loosing your cool." I think that Ma Bowler might have even put me in a permanent timeout.

So there you have it. I went from trying not to loose my dinner to loosing my temper in less than point two seconds. I yelled at the-little-man-in-a-turban. I said some very bad words. I screamed that I wasn't a stupid tourist to be taken for a ride (I failed to mention that he circled the block several times....like we wouldn't notice). I proceeded to rant that there was no way we were paying him in cash since we had none. He responded with "Go to the ATM across the road." That did it. I yelled some more. I was calling the cops, this was ridiculous, I was calling the cab commissioner.... Tiff was kicking my sorry mean butt out of the car. She did what my mother would have done in that situation. She gave me a much needed timeout.

I stood fuming on the sidewalk while Tiff rationally dealt with the situation. Got some cash. Negotiated the $13 down to $5. Then walked away like a calm woman. Not like the mad woman that was still standing in an angry rage on the sidewalk (in case you lost track of the situation, I was the angry raging one standing on the sidewalk). Now we realized we were lost. The cabbie had sped away from the Banshee post-haste, leaving with the address of the lounge. We were somewhere in the Village, with no idea where to go.

First stop for Tiff, bathroom. This involved a Duane Reade, a bottle of water, some Skittles and Rollo's. Second stop, another street corner and another cab hailed. The entire time I had my arm out I feared that Karma was going to bite my sorry butt and send the same driver to pick us up again. Somehow we dodged that bullet and a very nice, not crazed, not miscommunicating driver picked us up. Third stop, movie theater in Time Square.

Here Tiff and I watched a terrible movie. Terrible, terrible. However, we decided amongst or two-selves that it was a much needed diversion. So there ended our adventurous evening. The first day of Spring came in a truly vengeful style. Hopefully the month of March will hold true to the saying, "In like a Lion, out like a Lamb". There was already one lion in the city this last week. I'm hoping it will be the last.

Impulse Buying

We all do it. Impulse buying is about as American as apple pie. While standing there in the check out line, you might think "Hmmm, I need those mints, I haven't brushed my teeth for the last 15 minutes and I wouldn't want to offend anyone with my stinky breath." Or perhaps it's the sensational mag that you can't resist. "Really, the news is just important. I should really be current on what is going on with Tom and Katie."

Realistically we know, there is a reason these are considered impulse buys. The little things not on our grocery lists yet somehow manage to make it onto the conveyor belt and into our grocery bags to be taken guiltily home. I confess that I impulse buy. Next confession, I had a severe case of the weird impulse and non-returnable buys this weekend. Thankfully I didn't suffer too badly from buyer's remorse.

Case study #1, the NYC hot dog.
I went to the temple in the city on Saturday. By the time the session was done I was ravenous. Seriously , I thought my stomach was eating itself. I was with several women from my Branch since we had driven in together. They took their time getting dressed in their street clothes, then they needed to go to the Distribution Center to buy a few things. I let them know I was going to just step out and grab myself something to drink. I felt a little ashamed that what I really wanted was a hot dog. There is nothing quite so good as a little NYC street meat.

I made my guilty purchase, and added a orange soda to cover my little lie. I stood out in the city sunshine and savored that hot dog. It was so good. I then returned indoors to wait for my friends to finish their purchases. While sitting there I thought, "Wow, I could really go for another hot dog." As soon as the ladies and I rejoined forces I casually said...."Hey, does anyone want to stop by the hot dog stand?" Stopping by really meant walking out the door, turning left and moving 10 feet to the corner where the cart was situated.

Case study #2, another NYC hot dog.
Everyone was in agreement that this was a good idea. So there it is, I made a second impulse hot dog buy in less than 15 minutes. I was just grateful that the vendor did not give up my guilty secret. Although she definitely had a twinkle in her eye as I asked for a hot dog with mustard and ketchup

After we returned to Jersey I had another impulse. It was time to cut my hair. Waiting was not going to do at all. As soon as I departed my current company I made a beeline for my local barber shop/salon (that is a whole different story). When I arrived, the shop was closing up and to my dismay the lady that regularly cuts my hair doesn't even work there anymore. I was desperate, I felt my eyes prick with tears as I desperately tried to figure out where I could get my locks taken care of. Answer below.

Case study # 3, Patty's Place.
As I drove myself home I passed a local beauty shop that I had seen and perhaps even mocked. I decided to roll the dice and take my chances. I parked the car, pulled myself together (no place for tears I say!) and strode into Patty's Place. I was somewhat unsure if I was mistaken and was actually entering the local biker's bar.

The door swung open and I entered the safe haven of the beauty shop. Do not think that this place in any way resembled a salon. I'm calling it what it is, your mama's beauty parlor. I had found the local watering hole for all the blue-hairs. One of the lady's looked confused, surprised and a little shocked. I just blurted out "Can someone cut my hair?" The confused one was Patty herself. She replied with "Sure, you just want me to follow your same cut, or something different? I think I can feather your bangs like that." Feather your bangs like that should have been the tip off.

Impulse still running strong I replied, "That is exactly what I want." Somehow I managed to leave the place of beauty without looking 80 years old. Not that there is anything wrong with the blue-hairs, but I prefer my youthful age for now. My cut did look a little bit like a bowl cut gone right, but that was nothing a few minutes with my flat-iron and some wax wasn't able to fix.

So there you have it. Impulse buying at its best. For approximately $20 I ate 2 hot dogs, an orange soda and got my hair did at the local beauty parlor. Would I do it again? In a New York City minute.

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