Kitchen Fail.

I love, love to cook and I am really good, oh and modesty, one of my best traits.  I spend our vacations in Michigan cooking something new everyday; never a fail.  So, when my friend Renae tells me that she has the recipe for Macaroni Grill's Penne Rustica, I was all over it.  I invited my parents, my sister and her husband.  My dad told me that I am seriously the best cook EVER, who cares that he subsides on Lean Cuisines, and Stouffer's Lasagna; he still knows what a great cook is and I am so it.

I set out to the grocery store for the 50 ingredients that it calls for.  Okay, this is dish is going to be VERY labor intensive.  I started the cream sauce last night so that I would be a step ahead for today.  I needed to reduce the EIGHT cups of cream sauce to half.  I stepped away for FIVE minutes, yes, 5.  I reduced it by half, but I seriously doubt that the picture to the left is the method intended.  First Fail.

Second fail, my mother and preggers sister do not like shrimp.  I watched as my sister met the aroma of the shrimp and nearly threw up as she managed to get out, "Uh...uh...we-a, uh...will just visit for a bit."

Fail.  I do not want to blame Renae, but come on-it is kind of her fault.

Change

I have a real problem committing and a big problem letting go.  More so, I have a problem with change-let's hope Obama does, too; but that is not the change that I am referencing here.  Change of all sorts irk me, even if in the end it turns out to be better-the anxiety of the thought of getting there is crippling, at best.  It all starts with the decision to make a change and then it hits...my heart races, the heavy sighs come, next, the wave of nausea rushes over me, followed by the feeling as if I will faint.  I become terrified and I feel helpless, until it hits me-I can order the same f-ing thing everytime I go to Teller's; there is no NEED to switch it up; I know what I like.  Who cares that I only order the same thing every time. So, I take the Crab Cake over a hearts of palm salad, after all I have been ordering it for 7 years; my friend takes the Buffalo Chix Egg Rolls. 

I try the freaking chix-whatever-rolls, after her almost freakish-overly, persistent begging.

I only order Buffalo Chix Egg Rolls at Teller's.

Edward Cullen has nothing on me.

Or that tramp, Bella.  I sparkle!  All courtesy of  Clinique's up-lighting!  I step out into the light and voila!

I love make-up.  All make-up; and this discovery has really made me excited.  Just when I had been convinced that Clinique bonus bags were full of a rejected line or color; oh, and another flipping eyelash curler (BTW, I have like 4 if anyone needs one)-I have really seen the light.  Clinique cares.  I am going to buy a BIG bottle tonight.

I always use too many exclamation points.

Everything I do is in excess...and I kid you not, I can seriously get crazy with exclamation points-almost to the point that I am sure it is almost nauseating for the recipiant of the email.  I try to keep it under control.  Look at this email that I sent today-I had no idea that I did this until the client replied and I saw it again:

"Oh no, Vanessa!  I apologize!  I had no idea that I had the incorrect contact info!  I will be sure that it is corrected right away!

Thank you!"

Seriously?  WTF?

I bet she has never seen someone so excited to f* up.

They say "nothing exceeds like excess."  I am not sure that applies to punctuation.

Big Brother read my blog last night...

and requested that every radio station in Cincinnati play only songs that compound my depressive state, oh except for "The Stray Cat Strut."  Actually, that was probably a slam...the goverment must know about my cat getting knocked up by a stray black cat that resides in Madeira's only trailer park.  Either way, just another area in my life that the government wants to interfere with.

On another note, you were probably wondering about the status with my parking garage and if I had made any new friends.  Well, sit down.  Yes!  I did not write about it last night...last night was terrible, not that today is better, but I stepped out for a diet coke and saw my new friend. 

It is actually kind of wild how everything panned out.  Yesterday morning I was turning down the alley that dumps me across from my garage.  Well, this BMW is infront of me, turning into the alley, but then stops and goes into reverse.  I book it in reverse.  I let it go, but I think he is an idiot, he waves and I think "aww...well that is ok."  Now, fast foward to after work...I stop at the grocery and this BMW pulls up next to me.  A man that I recognize from my garage gets out.  I say, "oh you park at Bartlett--I did not know that you lived here!"  (Like, why would I???  I am so dumb.)  So...he says, "I know, I recognize your car and I am the guy who almost backed into you this morning and you were kind enough to back up so quickly."  Anyway, I know that he also owns a Jeep Cherokee, but I kept my mouth shut.  I do not want to lose my friend.

Jeopardy

The answer is sobbing.  The winner would be who ever responded, "What do you do when a glass of vino or a dose of xanax no longer pacifies the deep anxiety and pure emotional distress that you experience?"  So, I sobbed.  I am seriously so flipping smart that I did not even have to consult Alex Tribek.  Honestly, I doubt that he has to deal with anything more tramatic than which Audi or Mercedes that he should drive to Starbucks.  Although, truth be told, I would choose the Audi, but it depends on what Mercedes we are talking about...I could have a severe case of indecision. 

Sometimes...

I am not sure if I am coming or going.  I feel like I would have forgotten my ass had it not been attached.  I want to be 4 or 8 years old.  I want to cry when I want something, or like, when I decide to not wear dresses anymore or I hate everything that is pink: even though I insisted that I wanted to look like a walking Pepto Bismol-toddler, I want it to be accepted as reasonable.  I want simplicity.  I want to cry, just because I can.

Being dumped is the worst.

I have a lot of friends (I mean a lot and everywhere I go); I did have one work husband, until recently.  Anyway, I have friends in my parking garage, friends in the elevator, the doorman, all the people that I pass to and fro my office.  I have figured out where most of them work-sometimes I stop by and just wait in the lobby by the elevators to see if they are around.  Seriously, everywhere.  Many of them have actually never acknowledged that we are friends and I do not know any of their names (if I did we would be friends on facebook and then I would try to find out where they live).  I think that a lot of them may be mute because they never respond verbally to my cheery "Hello" and I do not want to walk up and say "Hi!  I'm Hazel!"; it could be very awkward and embarrassing for them.

Back to being dumped-it was my first ever parking garage friend.  The first day in my new garage I was assigned to the 3rd floor.  It is festival parking which is good for me, because I am very social.  Almost immediately I had set my eyes on a friend.  We drove the same car; I knew that I wanted to park by him, but it would take some work.  I tried to park by him everyday the first week, without success.  The problem is that a mini-van with a mobile library ( including but not limited to those stupid stickers where there is one of each member of the family and their pets) parked there everyday.  I have a mobile library, too, of sorts, but one is a quote from Reagan and the other says "Reagan for President", I love to see the faces of people enjoying them in traffic.  The 3rd is a sticker, "M 22" and only other sticker carrying-card members know what that is.  So, it only took me 4 days to figure out what time I needed to arrive so that I could truly bond with my friend.

My friend and I left the garage at the same time everyday.  I would smile at him and I found out exactly where he worked-I followed him.  I would wave at him anytime we passed one another on the street.  I ran into him at Roly Poly one day-he loves Roly Poly.

One morning I saw the he moved 6 spots away; but I could tell that he picked a place where we could remain close; after all, people move from house to house.  The next morning he moved us again-strange, but we are friends so I moved.  This happened the next 3 days in a row.  He dumped me without a word or a note.

I stopped waving and saying hello.  I moved to the 2nd floor the next day.  My spot kicks ass and he has to drive by my car everyday.  I take joy that he can see that I have moved on to a bigger and better parking spot.

Please let me know if anyone needs a parking friend-I am so available.

Saved

MJ

I am exhausted.  Morgalin just awakened prematurely from the dose of a cocktail of chardonnay and xanax that I so graciously granted her this evening to tell me that Michael Jackson came to her in a dream.  She had a dream.  MJ sang at her sister's (Mad-girl's) birthday party and told her to "not give up" on her dream to become a "pop-star."  I am way excited...I would love nothing more than to ride her coat-tails to success.  I would even wreck my  Mercedes and crash at the Beverly Hills Hotel before notifying the police that some dumb-ass tree ran into my bitch-of-a-ride.

My Narnia

I had the pleasure of watching Narnia with my daughters while on vacation, like 19 times. I have to say, it was a serious welcome change from the flipping Disney Princess Cult.  I would have made a better ending to all of that fantasy crap; Snow White would have been killed by Grumpy, Cinderella would have some how had a freak accident in the forest-like her leg was eaten by a wild boar, Ariel, oh FFS, Ariel would have been caught by a fisherman, and Jasmine-seriously?  She is just what I want my daughters to aspire to be; a selfish daughter who marries a thief.  Anyway, so after the 5th time watching Narnia, I thought "Damn-that would be awesome if I could go into my closet and poof! be in another land!"  Not Narnia as the movie depicts, but more like the Sonoma Valley, I would call it "Sovino."  Strangely enough, I actually celebrate my "time-outs" in my closet, generally with a glass of Yellow Tail chardonnay, to prevent a homicide; but I have been known to drink a bottle of Rabbit Ridge in the closet-that is from the Valley.  However, I have never looked beyond the clothing in my closet...and to my dismay, there was only drywall-I went through all of the closets.  Desperate I even wished that I would find Narnia-snow rocks when it is 95 degrees.