Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Fantasies collide: Senator Mark + Han Solo
Oh my goodness gracious.
Confession: I do not even know or care what they are talking about. Something about airplanes, I assume. I just turned down the volume and watched them sit next to each other. I don’t know why they had to clutter the video up with those other guys, though. No offense, other guys.
Can someone tell me if this meeting is going to keep happening every year? Because this video makes a really nice addition to my Stalkerish Collection Of Media Featuring Sen. Mark Begich Just Barely Touching Harrison Ford, and if it’s going to keep growing, I’d better make room on my hard drive.
Confession: I do not even know or care what they are talking about. Something about airplanes, I assume. I just turned down the volume and watched them sit next to each other. I don’t know why they had to clutter the video up with those other guys, though. No offense, other guys.
Can someone tell me if this meeting is going to keep happening every year? Because this video makes a really nice addition to my Stalkerish Collection Of Media Featuring Sen. Mark Begich Just Barely Touching Harrison Ford, and if it’s going to keep growing, I’d better make room on my hard drive.
 |
| Actual screen grab of my desktop in the Alaska Dispatch newsroom, circa 2010. |
Thursday, October 13, 2011
PSA
“She-Ra: Princess of Power” is now streaming on Netflix. I’m not coming out of the house until I’ve found Loo-Kee 68 times. See you in a week or two, world.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Very Mary-missing
Let’s talk about the fact that there have been no new episodes of Very Mary-Kate in, like, forevsies. Her absence makes it brrr in the place where I should have a heart. I’m going to need a mango-Klonopin smoothie to make it through. Or just, like, watch them all again from the beginning for like the eleventyeth time. Whatevs.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Spam of the Week
Guess what? If you list your contact information on your Internet weblog, you get a lot of lame junk mail from people who want to sell you page views and domain names and "exchange links." This one slipped through the Gmail spam filter...
Hi,I would like to know if you are interested in purchasing the domain name cheapestchampagne.com (View Domain). Based on your contact information I see that you own ownthesidewalk.com, correct?At least this spammer bothered to learn what my interests are...
cheapestchampagne.com can provide an SEO boost in this market, sending new leads and new traffic to your existing site. Redirecting an exact match keyword domain is more cost effective than paying for CPC advertising (advertisers are paying $170.00 per click for these exact keywords). This domain can help improve, secure, and protect your web branding identity while bringing in relevant keyword searches that you would not have received otherwise.
The price for this domain is just $450. I am reaching out to other related businesses in the next few days, and this domain will go to the first company who replies.
Thank you,John
If this domain is not of interest, simply reply to this email with your industry category and keywords and I can respond with available domains.
1040 Hosbrook Dr.Cincinnati, OH 45236
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Nine years ago today...
...I moved to New York City.
On September 27, 2002, I landed at JFK with a DKNY tote and a cross-indexed reference binder listing the locations of all my worldly possessions. The first thing I did after dropping my bags off at my apartment was find the closest grocery store (D’Agostino’s 76th Street Market, in case you were wondering, although later I switched to Gristede’s on Second for late-night needs and Eli’s and a natural food store up a few blocks on Lex for most of my staples, which at that point in my life mostly consisted of “meat” made out of various textured vegetable and soy products), where I discovered that Diet Cherry Coke was a real thing. So my life really changed twice that day.
I lived in a teeny tiny studio on the fourth floor of a building my boss’s best friend owned on East Seventy-Fifth Street, and the following Tuesday I made the first of many daily commutes to New Jersey via NJ Transit. I started reading the whole New York Times on the train, every single day, including the sports section. I ended up knowing a lot about baseball in my mid-twenties. I have actually sustained entire conversations about the Boston Red Sox starting lineup.
If you’d told me then that nine years later, I’d be working in advertising and living in a two-bedroom condo with my husband, our dog, and a whole bunch of All-Clad cookware, I would have found that perfectly natural (although I might have asked after my hypothetical children).
If you’d told me that two-bedroom condo would be back in Anchorage, I would have told you to shut your lying face.
If you’d told me that within two years I’d start a blog that would end up costing me a job and earning me a job and getting me a mention in a book about bloggers and landing my wedding in the Alaska Ear, I would have said “What’s a blarg?”
Even when I moved back to Alaska in 2005, on some level I assumed I was going to be a New Yorker for the rest of my life, but it looks like it’s probably not going to work out that way. Turns out I love having a back yard more than I love being able to walk to Bloomingdale’s. (Yeah, I couldn’t have called that one, either.) Which, unfortunately, means I’m going to have to do something from which I normally try to refrain at all costs, namely, quote John Lennon, who, of course, sang that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
Sorry. I tried to find a way around it, but it just kept creeping in.
On September 27, 2002, I landed at JFK with a DKNY tote and a cross-indexed reference binder listing the locations of all my worldly possessions. The first thing I did after dropping my bags off at my apartment was find the closest grocery store (D’Agostino’s 76th Street Market, in case you were wondering, although later I switched to Gristede’s on Second for late-night needs and Eli’s and a natural food store up a few blocks on Lex for most of my staples, which at that point in my life mostly consisted of “meat” made out of various textured vegetable and soy products), where I discovered that Diet Cherry Coke was a real thing. So my life really changed twice that day.
I lived in a teeny tiny studio on the fourth floor of a building my boss’s best friend owned on East Seventy-Fifth Street, and the following Tuesday I made the first of many daily commutes to New Jersey via NJ Transit. I started reading the whole New York Times on the train, every single day, including the sports section. I ended up knowing a lot about baseball in my mid-twenties. I have actually sustained entire conversations about the Boston Red Sox starting lineup.
If you’d told me then that nine years later, I’d be working in advertising and living in a two-bedroom condo with my husband, our dog, and a whole bunch of All-Clad cookware, I would have found that perfectly natural (although I might have asked after my hypothetical children).
If you’d told me that two-bedroom condo would be back in Anchorage, I would have told you to shut your lying face.
If you’d told me that within two years I’d start a blog that would end up costing me a job and earning me a job and getting me a mention in a book about bloggers and landing my wedding in the Alaska Ear, I would have said “What’s a blarg?”
Even when I moved back to Alaska in 2005, on some level I assumed I was going to be a New Yorker for the rest of my life, but it looks like it’s probably not going to work out that way. Turns out I love having a back yard more than I love being able to walk to Bloomingdale’s. (Yeah, I couldn’t have called that one, either.) Which, unfortunately, means I’m going to have to do something from which I normally try to refrain at all costs, namely, quote John Lennon, who, of course, sang that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
Sorry. I tried to find a way around it, but it just kept creeping in.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Sorry, Flipper
MLB: “If you try to make me see that stupid dolphin movie, we’re getting a divorce.”
Me: “If you knew anything about me, you’d know I hate touching animal movies.”
Me: “If you knew anything about me, you’d know I hate touching animal movies.”
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Really?
Scene: We’re in the car, on our way to a dinner party. We pass a minivan that looks like it got attacked by the Slogan Fairy.
Me: “That certainly is a lot of bumper stickers.”
MLB: “I’m going to say something mildly insulting.”
(Pause.)
MLB: “You just sounded exactly like your mother.”
Me: “F--k you.”
(Pause.)
Me: “Did that sound like my mother?”
Me: “That certainly is a lot of bumper stickers.”
MLB: “I’m going to say something mildly insulting.”
(Pause.)
MLB: “You just sounded exactly like your mother.”
Me: “F--k you.”
(Pause.)
Me: “Did that sound like my mother?”
Friday, September 2, 2011
Short order
MLB: “I’m hungry.”
Me: “Me too.”
MLB: “Make me some breakfast.”
(Long pause.)
Me: “So... like... put some cereal in a bowl and... like... pour milk on it for you? ... I don’t understand.”
MLB: “It was worth a try.”
Me: “Me too.”
MLB: “Make me some breakfast.”
(Long pause.)
Me: “So... like... put some cereal in a bowl and... like... pour milk on it for you? ... I don’t understand.”
MLB: “It was worth a try.”
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Stuff you're not allowed to buy when you're married
Oh, is it fall? I didn’t notice because I’m not allowed to buy an iPad.
Apparently when you get married and start merging your finances with another person, you have to “make responsible decisions” and “wait until you get your first paycheck at your new job” before you start buying “unnecessary” things like the iPad you really really really need because your five-year-old laptop and your six-year-old desktop are so decrepit you literally can’t replace your also-outdated cell phone because you would have to buy a whole new operating system just to be able to download the iTunes update that would let you even sync the phone at all.
I’m telling you people, it’s like I’m living in a Third World country here. *
This is theargument mature, married people discussion the hubs and I had in the Apple store earlier this week. (Oh yeah, Anchorage totes has an Apple store now. We’re getting real fancy up in this piece.) And this is where being married bites the big one. Because if I were still single and I were in the financial position in which I currently find myself, I probably would have replaced my desktop and bought FIVE iPads by now. And some really great boots. But instead I have to “make good decisions” and “wait for Dividend time” because “we’d like to buy a bigger house” — the unspoken subtext being “so we can fill it with those chubby-cheeked Irish-Jewish children you claim to want so much.”
So instead of posting this from the shiny new (refurbished! Because I’m being responsible!) iMac I’m not allowed to buy yet, I’m chugging away on my same old laptop, which huffs and puffs and wheezes and is all like “What’s going on? Where am I? What is this Inner-Net you keep trying to access? What does this Aeroport device do? Let’s just flash it on and off until something happens! Microsoft Word — Microsoft Word?!?! I can’t take it! Too much memory! I’m melting! Me-e-e-e-l-l-l-t-i-i-ing...”
I have been allowed to update my grownup business lady wardrobe (which, during my years of re-entry into the blue-jeans-and-clogs world of journalism, took a serious nosedive) in preparation for returning to an office setting that requires a bit more care in dress than the good old Dispatch did. This I have done mostly responsibly; I used Ebates when I ordered from the Banana Republic “Mad Men” collection, and I did the rest of my shopping at Filene’s Basement when I was in Boston last week. Which saved us literally tens and perhaps hundreds of dollars. Dollars that I am not allowed to spend on an iPad.
In the meantime, any post-wedding hopes I may have had of updating my casual wardrobe has been dashed. Which, fine, OK. I suppose I can make do with the jeans and sweaters I already have. And honestly, I would rather have a bigger house than some new boots. (We’re running out of room for my craft supplies.) So I guess it’s for the best that I have someone around who will stand in my way when I try to make frivolous shopping decisions. Like building a new fall wardrobe around the Burberry tote MLB bought me for my birthday last year.
To that end, I suppose it’s time to say goodbye to this aspirational Polyvore set...
...and hello to compromise.
For the record, despite the whining, I do feel I’m making the right decision here in letting go. Those boots cost almost as much as an iPad, and you can’t even play Angry Birds on them.
* I realize I’m not actually living in a Third World country. I just ate organic beef and watched an entire television show all about people making desserts, for crying out loud.
Apparently when you get married and start merging your finances with another person, you have to “make responsible decisions” and “wait until you get your first paycheck at your new job” before you start buying “unnecessary” things like the iPad you really really really need because your five-year-old laptop and your six-year-old desktop are so decrepit you literally can’t replace your also-outdated cell phone because you would have to buy a whole new operating system just to be able to download the iTunes update that would let you even sync the phone at all.
I’m telling you people, it’s like I’m living in a Third World country here. *
This is the
So instead of posting this from the shiny new (refurbished! Because I’m being responsible!) iMac I’m not allowed to buy yet, I’m chugging away on my same old laptop, which huffs and puffs and wheezes and is all like “What’s going on? Where am I? What is this Inner-Net you keep trying to access? What does this Aeroport device do? Let’s just flash it on and off until something happens! Microsoft Word — Microsoft Word?!?! I can’t take it! Too much memory! I’m melting! Me-e-e-e-l-l-l-t-i-i-ing...”
I have been allowed to update my grownup business lady wardrobe (which, during my years of re-entry into the blue-jeans-and-clogs world of journalism, took a serious nosedive) in preparation for returning to an office setting that requires a bit more care in dress than the good old Dispatch did. This I have done mostly responsibly; I used Ebates when I ordered from the Banana Republic “Mad Men” collection, and I did the rest of my shopping at Filene’s Basement when I was in Boston last week. Which saved us literally tens and perhaps hundreds of dollars. Dollars that I am not allowed to spend on an iPad.
In the meantime, any post-wedding hopes I may have had of updating my casual wardrobe has been dashed. Which, fine, OK. I suppose I can make do with the jeans and sweaters I already have. And honestly, I would rather have a bigger house than some new boots. (We’re running out of room for my craft supplies.) So I guess it’s for the best that I have someone around who will stand in my way when I try to make frivolous shopping decisions. Like building a new fall wardrobe around the Burberry tote MLB bought me for my birthday last year.
To that end, I suppose it’s time to say goodbye to this aspirational Polyvore set...
...and hello to compromise.
For the record, despite the whining, I do feel I’m making the right decision here in letting go. Those boots cost almost as much as an iPad, and you can’t even play Angry Birds on them.
* I realize I’m not actually living in a Third World country. I just ate organic beef and watched an entire television show all about people making desserts, for crying out loud.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Cheese Balls’ Epic Journey
I had the following exchange with a pair of TSA agents recently at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport:
TSA Agent #1: “Do you have any liquids, ma’am?”
Me: “No.”
TSA Agent #2: “Just a whole lot of cheese balls.”
How did we get here? Backing up...
We received a tremendous number of lovely gifts for our wedding. Some were expected and others were slightly more surprising. For example, we arrived home from our honeymoon and started digging through the mountain of accumulated gifts to find these:
Yes, that’s a large plastic jar of Utz Cheese Balls, a gift from my dear camp friends Kevin and Murph. (Side Note: Murph would feel slighted if I didn’t also mention that they did, in fact, send actual wedding gifts as well.) The gift is hysterical if you’re party to an inside joke from a snack shopping outing last summer at America’s Camp during which Murph and Kevin purchased a similar jar of Utz Cheese Balls and were assisted by a Price Chopper checker who made an unfortunate remark about balls and bags.
I guess you had to be there.
At any rate, we didn’t open them; the hubs doesn’t like flavored snack foods (something about the powder weirds him out), and I was afraid I’d eat all 35 servings in one sitting if I broke the seal. So we decided I should bring them to camp with me. I mentioned this to Murph on the phone the week before camp.
“You can bring them to camp,” she said. “But you can’t check them. You have to carry them on.” I would, however, be permitted to carry them in a bag for ease of transport.
The gauntlet thus thrown down, I had no choice but to accept the challenge and carry my Cheese Balls all the way from Anchorage to Peru, Massachusetts, via San Francisco and Boston. To prove I hadn’t chickened out and checked the jar, I documented the trip via iPhone photos texted to Murph and Kevin throughout the day...
As for Cheese Balls’ ultimate fate... well, I don’t have photos of that, but the demise of my traveling companion looked something like this:
TSA Agent #1: “Do you have any liquids, ma’am?”
Me: “No.”
TSA Agent #2: “Just a whole lot of cheese balls.”
How did we get here? Backing up...
We received a tremendous number of lovely gifts for our wedding. Some were expected and others were slightly more surprising. For example, we arrived home from our honeymoon and started digging through the mountain of accumulated gifts to find these:
Yes, that’s a large plastic jar of Utz Cheese Balls, a gift from my dear camp friends Kevin and Murph. (Side Note: Murph would feel slighted if I didn’t also mention that they did, in fact, send actual wedding gifts as well.) The gift is hysterical if you’re party to an inside joke from a snack shopping outing last summer at America’s Camp during which Murph and Kevin purchased a similar jar of Utz Cheese Balls and were assisted by a Price Chopper checker who made an unfortunate remark about balls and bags.
I guess you had to be there.
At any rate, we didn’t open them; the hubs doesn’t like flavored snack foods (something about the powder weirds him out), and I was afraid I’d eat all 35 servings in one sitting if I broke the seal. So we decided I should bring them to camp with me. I mentioned this to Murph on the phone the week before camp.
“You can bring them to camp,” she said. “But you can’t check them. You have to carry them on.” I would, however, be permitted to carry them in a bag for ease of transport.
The gauntlet thus thrown down, I had no choice but to accept the challenge and carry my Cheese Balls all the way from Anchorage to Peru, Massachusetts, via San Francisco and Boston. To prove I hadn’t chickened out and checked the jar, I documented the trip via iPhone photos texted to Murph and Kevin throughout the day...
 |
| Cheese Balls travels in a chic Steve Madden shopping bag for earth-friendly convenience. |
 |
| Cheese Balls visits with some distant cousins before boarding a flight to San Francisco. |
 |
| Cheese Balls wonders if the airplane is being stocked with an adequate supply of tasty snack foods... |
 |
| Cheese Balls prefers a window seat. |
 |
| The play area in the San Francisco airport is a great place for Cheese Balls to take a break from the stresses of air travel. |
 |
| Sometimes exhaustion gets the better of even the most enthusiastic traveler. |
 |
| Cheese Balls peruses some San Francisco souvenirs. |
 |
| Cheese Balls prefers Alaska Airlines and its 20-minute baggage guarantee, but doesn't mind waiting for the luggage... as long as it doesn't take too long. |
 |
| Cheese Balls' first taxi ride -- Logan to Copley Square. Step on it! |
 |
| Cheese Balls buckles up for safety in a Camp Danbee van. Next stop: The Berkshires! |
 |
| At last, Cheese Balls arrives at camp, ready to bring 35 servings of powdery goodness to AC10. |
Thursday, August 25, 2011
End of an Era
This week marked the completion of the last session of America’s Camp, a program I’ve been involved with since 2005.
I’ve written about what America’s Camp has meant to me in Portland Magazine and at Alaska Dispatch. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I’m more proud of anything else I’ve ever been involved with. So far, the media that visited camp during our last week have chosen to dwell on the end of camp, but those of us who were there know that while we won’t be together at camp again like we have been, we’ll always be connected — and we made something wonderful out of something terrible.
I’ve written about what America’s Camp has meant to me in Portland Magazine and at Alaska Dispatch. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I’m more proud of anything else I’ve ever been involved with. So far, the media that visited camp during our last week have chosen to dwell on the end of camp, but those of us who were there know that while we won’t be together at camp again like we have been, we’ll always be connected — and we made something wonderful out of something terrible.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Generation Gap
Dinner table discussion at my parents' house last night: Facebook. My parents are both on. Although this exchange perhaps illustrates the fact that we probably use it very differently:
Me: "I hate when people you don't know try to friend you without any sort of note -- like 'I'm friends with so-and-so,' or 'We met at that thing' or something."
Dad: "Yeah, and then you see that they have, like, eight or nine hundred friends."
Me: "...Um ... I have eight or nine hundred friends."
Dad: "No. You don't." (Pause.) "You might have nine hundred Facebook friends, though."
Me: "I hate when people you don't know try to friend you without any sort of note -- like 'I'm friends with so-and-so,' or 'We met at that thing' or something."
Dad: "Yeah, and then you see that they have, like, eight or nine hundred friends."
Me: "...Um ... I have eight or nine hundred friends."
Dad: "No. You don't." (Pause.) "You might have nine hundred Facebook friends, though."
Monday, August 1, 2011
A New Day Dawns
Well, hello there, friends. You may have noticed things look a little different around the old homestead. That's because this isn't actually the old homestead. You've been redirected to a whole new Own The Sidewalk.
Why? Well, I'm embarking on a new era in my life. OTS has chronicled most of what I would consider my adulthood. And we've had a lot of fun along the way. I was a 25-year-old single New Yorker when I started blogging, and now as a 32-year-old married future pillar of the Anchorage community, I'm ready to close the door on OTS 1.0 and start fresh with OTS 2.0. An OTS with less whining and more rhinestones.
The Sidewalk has been refinanced, if you will.
I haven't destroyed the old Own The Sidewalk, but I am going to close the archives to public perusal. I've moved over a handful of favorite recent posts. If there's something you're dying to have access to, e-mail me and maybe we can work something out.
Thanks for coming along for the ride. And thanks for sticking around for the new (possibly improved) OTS. I feel obligated to caution you, though, if you're not interested in screen-printing misadventures and cocktail recipes, you're going to be terribly disappointed. Consider yourselves warned.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
That Just Happened
And that’s about all I have to say about it right now, except that it was the best day of my life (as it should have been) and MLB has been walking around with a big smile on his face for three days (as he should be) and the dog finally has two married parents and can hold her head up at the park. Where we may actually have time to take her now that we will no longer be filling every waking minute with wedding-related tasks.
Also, my Aunt Donna made that bouquet. For reals. And every other bouquet, boutonniere, corsage and arrangement in the joint.
Also, it may have been the best party ever held in downtown Anchorage. But that’s just my wildly biased opinion.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Now All We Need Is A Thousand Tchotchkes Tacked To The Walls
There’s a longer-than-I’d-like-to-admit list of Fantastic Restaurants At Which I Never Ate When I Was A Vegetarian Because Why Bother?, which includes almost every single great restaurant in New York City and don’t even get me started on what a waste that was because I’ll weep, but at least I can say I’ve probably eaten at Candle Café more times than almost anyone in the whole world due to the fact that I lived right around the corner for two years and where else can the 24-year-old-girl-on-the-go get a tofu club sandwich before she heads out for a night of serious drinking?
Anyway, near the top of the Alaska section of that list is the Double Musky Inn, a favorite haunt of the late Sen. Ted Stevens where there is literally nothing on the menu that I would have eaten between 1995 and 2000 or 2002 and 2008. Seriously. Not one thing. I can literally produce an e-mail from the summer of 2007 in which I declined to have dinner with friends from school who I hadn’t seen since the semester ended because they wanted to go to the Musky and I saw no reason to drive all the way to Girdwood just so I could watch them eat.
Fortunately, I snapped out of my meatless ways for good sometime in the summer of 2008, and MLB and I have since made a couple of trips out to the Musky, where we have waited up to two hours for the privilege of being served gigantic slabs of brontosaurus meat a la “The Flintstones.”
That may be slightly hyperbolic. But for reals, the steaks are huge. Bigger than your head.
I wouldn’t say I love the Musky (it’s not a Prada backpack, y’all), but I do like it quite a bit once in a while — and there is one thing I am totally crazy about on the Double Musky menu. Like seriously craving let’s-serve-this-at-our-wedding crazy: a lavender-scented Champagne cocktail called the Bogalusa Belle. Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about it. It’s that good. But it’s hard to come up with a good excuse to drive the most dangerous stretch of highway in the state just for a few marked-up Champagne cocktails. (And as my dad and his buddy Chief Chadwick would point out, also probably not a good idea to drive home afterward.)
But! I am a resourceful thing, after all, and I figured it could only be so difficult to make this fairly straightforward but totally awesome drink. So I stopped on the way home and picked up a $9 bottle of sparkling wine that apparently costs only $8 in places that aren’t Alaska (seriously, Barefoot Bubbly extra dry, totally quaffable, check it out if you like to drink Champagne as much as I do and have a grumpy man watching your credit card transactions like I do) so I could give it a try.
Want to make your own? You’ll need:
OK, well, actually it’s because a few years ago my mom and her friends went on a lavender buying trip to the San Juans and she brought me back all kinds of lavender stuff, and I’ve never gotten around to using this tin of culinary lavender even though I’ve been thinking for ages that I should try to replicate the house lavender-maple vinaigrette from Sack’s, which I could seriously guzzle by the vat. This particular tin of lavender comes from Purple Haze Lavender Farm, which was my mother’s favorite stop on the Soap Tour because, of course, my parents are dirty filthy socialist hippies.
The Bogalusa Belle, according to my memory of the description on the Double Musky cocktail menu, has approximately two ingredients: Champagne and lavender simple syrup. I had the Champagne, so all that was left was to concoct the fragrant additive. It’s entirely possible that recipes exist on the Interwebs for lavender simple syrup, but I winged it because (a) again, that’s how I roll; and (b) honestly, they call it simple syrup for a really good reason.
Here, then, are Maia’s Basic Instructions For Making Lavender Simple Syrup:
Yes, that’s cheap store brand olive oil on our counter. Don’t hate. We’re trying to pay for a wedding.
The final product, I’m pleased to report, was just as good as the Musky’s, and at a grand total of $8.99 (plus maybe a dollar’s worth of lavender), I’m getting about four of these babies for the price of three-quarters of one mixed at the bar. And saving about a million billion dollars in gas by not driving 30 miles to get there in the first place. Oh, and since I ended up with about two cups (or so... whatever fits in the not-quite-the-smallest Rubbermaid container), there’s plenty more for many, many nights of Bogalusa Belle knockoff consumption.
And yes, I said “getting.” I’m two deep in homemade Bogalusa Belles and I intend to finish the bottle before the evening is through. Apparently there are like seven professional sports having big exciting playoffs right now, so I’m left alone to commune with the dog and my wedding projects while MLB enjoys some quality time with his TiVo. Ah, romance.
Anyway, near the top of the Alaska section of that list is the Double Musky Inn, a favorite haunt of the late Sen. Ted Stevens where there is literally nothing on the menu that I would have eaten between 1995 and 2000 or 2002 and 2008. Seriously. Not one thing. I can literally produce an e-mail from the summer of 2007 in which I declined to have dinner with friends from school who I hadn’t seen since the semester ended because they wanted to go to the Musky and I saw no reason to drive all the way to Girdwood just so I could watch them eat.
Fortunately, I snapped out of my meatless ways for good sometime in the summer of 2008, and MLB and I have since made a couple of trips out to the Musky, where we have waited up to two hours for the privilege of being served gigantic slabs of brontosaurus meat a la “The Flintstones.”
That may be slightly hyperbolic. But for reals, the steaks are huge. Bigger than your head.
I wouldn’t say I love the Musky (it’s not a Prada backpack, y’all), but I do like it quite a bit once in a while — and there is one thing I am totally crazy about on the Double Musky menu. Like seriously craving let’s-serve-this-at-our-wedding crazy: a lavender-scented Champagne cocktail called the Bogalusa Belle. Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about it. It’s that good. But it’s hard to come up with a good excuse to drive the most dangerous stretch of highway in the state just for a few marked-up Champagne cocktails. (And as my dad and his buddy Chief Chadwick would point out, also probably not a good idea to drive home afterward.)
But! I am a resourceful thing, after all, and I figured it could only be so difficult to make this fairly straightforward but totally awesome drink. So I stopped on the way home and picked up a $9 bottle of sparkling wine that apparently costs only $8 in places that aren’t Alaska (seriously, Barefoot Bubbly extra dry, totally quaffable, check it out if you like to drink Champagne as much as I do and have a grumpy man watching your credit card transactions like I do) so I could give it a try.
Want to make your own? You’ll need:
- Champagne (or sparkling white wine; as we all learned from Rob Lowe in “Wayne’s World,” “all Champagne is French; it’s named after the region. Otherwise it’s sparkling white wine. Americans, of course, don’t recognize the convention, so it becomes that thing of calling all their sparkling whites ‘champagne,’ even though by definition they’re not.”
- Sugar
- Water (you will find this in your tap)
- Culinary lavender (which, of course, you have on hand in your baking cupboard)
OK, well, actually it’s because a few years ago my mom and her friends went on a lavender buying trip to the San Juans and she brought me back all kinds of lavender stuff, and I’ve never gotten around to using this tin of culinary lavender even though I’ve been thinking for ages that I should try to replicate the house lavender-maple vinaigrette from Sack’s, which I could seriously guzzle by the vat. This particular tin of lavender comes from Purple Haze Lavender Farm, which was my mother’s favorite stop on the Soap Tour because, of course, my parents are dirty filthy socialist hippies.
The Bogalusa Belle, according to my memory of the description on the Double Musky cocktail menu, has approximately two ingredients: Champagne and lavender simple syrup. I had the Champagne, so all that was left was to concoct the fragrant additive. It’s entirely possible that recipes exist on the Interwebs for lavender simple syrup, but I winged it because (a) again, that’s how I roll; and (b) honestly, they call it simple syrup for a really good reason.
Here, then, are Maia’s Basic Instructions For Making Lavender Simple Syrup:
- Gather your ingredients. Simple syrup is one part sugar and one part water; I used about two cups of each, along with about this much lavender. (You can’t see my hands, but I’m holding them up to show maybe two tablespoons. To tell you the truth, I didn’t actually measure. I just shook some lavender off the top of the can. I shook out about enough to cover the surface of the water in my saucepan. So that’s about how much you should use.)
- Bang them in a saucepan and stir them together.
- Bring to the boil, stirring now and then so you feel like you’re contributing something to the process.
- Turn the whole thing down and simmer it for a couple of minutes, stirring now and then, until all the sugar is dissolved and the mixture turns a pretty clear honey color.
- Run it through a sieve to strain out the lavender.
Yes, that’s cheap store brand olive oil on our counter. Don’t hate. We’re trying to pay for a wedding.The final product, I’m pleased to report, was just as good as the Musky’s, and at a grand total of $8.99 (plus maybe a dollar’s worth of lavender), I’m getting about four of these babies for the price of three-quarters of one mixed at the bar. And saving about a million billion dollars in gas by not driving 30 miles to get there in the first place. Oh, and since I ended up with about two cups (or so... whatever fits in the not-quite-the-smallest Rubbermaid container), there’s plenty more for many, many nights of Bogalusa Belle knockoff consumption.
And yes, I said “getting.” I’m two deep in homemade Bogalusa Belles and I intend to finish the bottle before the evening is through. Apparently there are like seven professional sports having big exciting playoffs right now, so I’m left alone to commune with the dog and my wedding projects while MLB enjoys some quality time with his TiVo. Ah, romance.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Gocco & Me Makes Three
Someday you might be thinking to yourself, “Self, I’d like to invite some people to my wedding, and I’d like to make the invitations really special.” And then you might consider instead just using Vistaprint. I had this conversation with myself some months back, and the conclusion I came to was that Vistaprint is for suckers who hate beautiful handmade things, and I would be damned if I would send out invitations that weren’t personally and painstakingly handcrafted by me.
Here’s what I learned: Vistaprint is not for suckers. It is actually for people who want nice-looking wedding invitations and also enjoy having lives. But if you’re willing to sacrifice your social life... if you love spending time and money... if you don’t care if you ever see your friends again and you don’t mind having five nervous breakdowns... then complex, personally painstakingly handcrafted wedding invitations might just be for you.
My process evolved from MLB’s idea that since we’re getting married at a theater, we should have an invitation that looks like a ticket.
Oo, look, pretty:
Don’t be fooled. THEY ARE PRINTED IN BLOOD. Well, not literally. But figurative blood for sure.
A while back I showed you the cutting process (thank you, trusty Cricut, and thank you, Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts, for that Black Friday deal). Each invitation was composed of two covers (which also had to have their scalloped edges trimmed off so they would fit inside #10 policy envelopes and also not look super lame) and three to four pages, including a pre-stamped, pre-addressed response card to be cut out and sent back. As I mentioned before, that’s a lot of cutting. But we’re so past cutting now; today we’re talking about
How to Gocco Your Wedding Invitations
Step 1 (not pictured): Buy a Japanese tabletop screen printer on eBay and learn how to use it. This process involves a not-in-English instruction manual, several YouTube videos, and much reading of other people’s Gocco mishap recaps on the Internet, as well as several personal Gocco disasters and questioning of plan and purpose, and is not worth recounting in detail.
Step 2: Insert flash bulbs in Gocco flash unit.
It almost looks friendly, doesn’t it?
“Bleep blorp. I am a robot.”
DO NOT BE FOOLED. The Gocco is a temperamental beast. Sometimes it creates beautiful, crisp, pristine prints, and sometimes it catches on fire. YOU CAN’T TELL WHAT IT WILL DO. Be prepared for anything. Speak in calm, even tones.
Step 3: Create your original. If you are lazy, you can do this on a computer and then print it out on a laser printer (or print on an inkjet printer and then make a photocopy). If you love your friends, though, you’ll hand letter it using your special Gocco carbon marker.
You can use more than one piece of paperif when you screw up. Just don’t let any of the paper overlap with any other pieces of paper because then your screen will burn unevenly and you will likely end up in tears of frustration, unless you have cried out all your tears, in which case you will just stare numbly at the wall for a while, wasting precious seconds you could be using to frantically order more supplies from Etsy sellers.
Step 4: Place your original on the pad and close the lid. Look through the window to make sure your design is where you want it to be.
Of course, where you really want it to be is ON THE PAPER AND IN THE EFFING MAIL ALREADY, but the center of the window will do.
Step 5: Insert the flash unit and press down.
If you did it right, you’ll see a flash of white light. So you probably shouldn’t look directly at the Gocco while you press down. Maybe I should have mentioned that before I told you to press down. Oh well. Your eyesight will come back eventually.
Step 6: Remove the flash unit (Don’t touch the bulbs! Hot! Hot!)...
...and open the lid. Your original should be stuck to the screen. (Oh, I skipped the step in which you insert a screen to be burned. Um... OK, go back up and pretend I wrote “Step 4B: Insert a blank master screen and a blue filter.” There. All good.) If your original is not stuck to your screen, YOU ARE EFFED.
Good news: Stuck! Success.
Step um... 7? Peel back the clear plastic on the master screen and squirt ink over all the places where your original is stuck to the master.
Now peel back the original...
...and you’re ready to print!
Oh, wait. That should have been Step 8. Eh. Whatevs.
Step 9 (depending on your math): Insert a piece of test paper.
And push down.
SQUISH!
Open it up...
...peel it back...
...say a prayer to St. Jude...
Et voila!
You have successfully printed legible text. Now it’s time to do it for real.
Step 10 or so: Take one of your thousands upon thousands of Cricuted ticket pages and center it on the printing pad. Press down firmly and cross your fingers.
Peel it off and:
There you have it. One perfect print!
Step 12ish: Repeat many times.
Many, many more times.
So many times.
OH THE AGONY so many times. You didn’t want any of those horizontal surfaces anyway, did you?
Oh P.S., they should probably dry overnight. So I hope you didn’t need to use that room. For like a week.
Once all your one million pages are cut, printed and dried, the fun is just beginning! Now it’s assembly time.
That’s a front cover, a ceremony invitation, a reception card, an RSVP card and a back cover. And then there are some with a rehearsal dinner invitation as well. Yeah, I like my wedding way more than I like trees. Don’t hate.
All those pages have to be stacked up in order, and each stack has to be anchored with a little bit of double-sided scrapbooking tape.
And then lined up perfectly.
That is, until you run out of scrapbooking tape, and then you use the rest of the regular double-stick tape you usually use for gift wrapping, and once you’ve gone through that you just sort of stack them together and hope for the best.
Step 437 (roughly): Take all the invitations upstairs to MLB (or whoever your fiancé happens to be; mine will never agree to do this again, actually, so he’s probably out), teach him how to set eyelets, and have him bind all the booklets while you go down to the craft room to cry.
Oh, but by the way, the finished product is awesome.
People are just starting to get them (and confession, there are just a couple more that have to go out tomorrow because for whatever reason we didn’t have those addresses and didn’t think to get them before we sent out all the rest. Sorry, five or six people).
I got a call from MOH Alicia tonight. She started off by telling me she had gotten the cutest wedding invitation in the mail. Then she said, “I honestly think you’re insane. What were you smoking that you thought that would be a good idea?”
Truthfully? I don’t know. I have no idea. BUT I EFFING DID IT. I’m only planning on having one wedding, so I wanted the invitations to be epic. Sure, I cried a lot. Sure, I had no life for weeks. Sure, MLB thought I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And sure, we could have just gone to Vistaprint. And then a movie or dinner or effing CHINA ON FOOT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD with all the time we had left over. But I didn’t just want these invitations to say “Come to our wedding.” I wanted them to say “I used to be Google’s top result for ‘dating woes’ and now I’ve found a man who cooks me lamb chops and gets excited about deals on Le Creuset and lets my dog sleep on his pillow and thinks I’m equal parts hysterical and adorable and we are getting MARRIED, dammit, and you should effing COME TO OUR WEDDING because it is going to be AWESOME and here is some Stardream cardstock cut out on my fancy scrapbooking machine and screen printed with my OWN HANDWRITING on a thing I had to ORDER FROM JAPAN because that is the only way to adequately express how EFFING UNBELIEVABLE it is that we have gotten to the point at which we want to publicly declare our desire to spend the REST OF OUR LIVES together. Also, ALL CAPS.”
Which I think these accomplish.
Here’s what I learned: Vistaprint is not for suckers. It is actually for people who want nice-looking wedding invitations and also enjoy having lives. But if you’re willing to sacrifice your social life... if you love spending time and money... if you don’t care if you ever see your friends again and you don’t mind having five nervous breakdowns... then complex, personally painstakingly handcrafted wedding invitations might just be for you.
My process evolved from MLB’s idea that since we’re getting married at a theater, we should have an invitation that looks like a ticket.
Oo, look, pretty:
Don’t be fooled. THEY ARE PRINTED IN BLOOD. Well, not literally. But figurative blood for sure.
A while back I showed you the cutting process (thank you, trusty Cricut, and thank you, Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts, for that Black Friday deal). Each invitation was composed of two covers (which also had to have their scalloped edges trimmed off so they would fit inside #10 policy envelopes and also not look super lame) and three to four pages, including a pre-stamped, pre-addressed response card to be cut out and sent back. As I mentioned before, that’s a lot of cutting. But we’re so past cutting now; today we’re talking about
How to Gocco Your Wedding Invitations
Without Losing Your Mind
Step 2: Insert flash bulbs in Gocco flash unit.
It almost looks friendly, doesn’t it?
“Bleep blorp. I am a robot.”DO NOT BE FOOLED. The Gocco is a temperamental beast. Sometimes it creates beautiful, crisp, pristine prints, and sometimes it catches on fire. YOU CAN’T TELL WHAT IT WILL DO. Be prepared for anything. Speak in calm, even tones.
Step 3: Create your original. If you are lazy, you can do this on a computer and then print it out on a laser printer (or print on an inkjet printer and then make a photocopy). If you love your friends, though, you’ll hand letter it using your special Gocco carbon marker.
You can use more than one piece of paper
Step 4: Place your original on the pad and close the lid. Look through the window to make sure your design is where you want it to be.
Of course, where you really want it to be is ON THE PAPER AND IN THE EFFING MAIL ALREADY, but the center of the window will do.
Step 5: Insert the flash unit and press down.
If you did it right, you’ll see a flash of white light. So you probably shouldn’t look directly at the Gocco while you press down. Maybe I should have mentioned that before I told you to press down. Oh well. Your eyesight will come back eventually.
Step 6: Remove the flash unit (Don’t touch the bulbs! Hot! Hot!)...
...and open the lid. Your original should be stuck to the screen. (Oh, I skipped the step in which you insert a screen to be burned. Um... OK, go back up and pretend I wrote “Step 4B: Insert a blank master screen and a blue filter.” There. All good.) If your original is not stuck to your screen, YOU ARE EFFED.
Good news: Stuck! Success.
Step um... 7? Peel back the clear plastic on the master screen and squirt ink over all the places where your original is stuck to the master.
Now peel back the original...
...and you’re ready to print!
Oh, wait. That should have been Step 8. Eh. Whatevs.
Step 9 (depending on your math): Insert a piece of test paper.
And push down.
SQUISH!
Open it up...
...peel it back...
...say a prayer to St. Jude...
Et voila!
You have successfully printed legible text. Now it’s time to do it for real.
Step 10 or so: Take one of your thousands upon thousands of Cricuted ticket pages and center it on the printing pad. Press down firmly and cross your fingers.
Peel it off and:
There you have it. One perfect print!
Step 12ish: Repeat many times.
Many, many more times.
So many times.
OH THE AGONY so many times. You didn’t want any of those horizontal surfaces anyway, did you?
Oh P.S., they should probably dry overnight. So I hope you didn’t need to use that room. For like a week.
Once all your one million pages are cut, printed and dried, the fun is just beginning! Now it’s assembly time.
That’s a front cover, a ceremony invitation, a reception card, an RSVP card and a back cover. And then there are some with a rehearsal dinner invitation as well. Yeah, I like my wedding way more than I like trees. Don’t hate.
All those pages have to be stacked up in order, and each stack has to be anchored with a little bit of double-sided scrapbooking tape.
And then lined up perfectly.
That is, until you run out of scrapbooking tape, and then you use the rest of the regular double-stick tape you usually use for gift wrapping, and once you’ve gone through that you just sort of stack them together and hope for the best.
Step 437 (roughly): Take all the invitations upstairs to MLB (or whoever your fiancé happens to be; mine will never agree to do this again, actually, so he’s probably out), teach him how to set eyelets, and have him bind all the booklets while you go down to the craft room to cry.
Oh, but by the way, the finished product is awesome.
People are just starting to get them (and confession, there are just a couple more that have to go out tomorrow because for whatever reason we didn’t have those addresses and didn’t think to get them before we sent out all the rest. Sorry, five or six people).
I got a call from MOH Alicia tonight. She started off by telling me she had gotten the cutest wedding invitation in the mail. Then she said, “I honestly think you’re insane. What were you smoking that you thought that would be a good idea?”
Truthfully? I don’t know. I have no idea. BUT I EFFING DID IT. I’m only planning on having one wedding, so I wanted the invitations to be epic. Sure, I cried a lot. Sure, I had no life for weeks. Sure, MLB thought I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And sure, we could have just gone to Vistaprint. And then a movie or dinner or effing CHINA ON FOOT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD with all the time we had left over. But I didn’t just want these invitations to say “Come to our wedding.” I wanted them to say “I used to be Google’s top result for ‘dating woes’ and now I’ve found a man who cooks me lamb chops and gets excited about deals on Le Creuset and lets my dog sleep on his pillow and thinks I’m equal parts hysterical and adorable and we are getting MARRIED, dammit, and you should effing COME TO OUR WEDDING because it is going to be AWESOME and here is some Stardream cardstock cut out on my fancy scrapbooking machine and screen printed with my OWN HANDWRITING on a thing I had to ORDER FROM JAPAN because that is the only way to adequately express how EFFING UNBELIEVABLE it is that we have gotten to the point at which we want to publicly declare our desire to spend the REST OF OUR LIVES together. Also, ALL CAPS.”
Which I think these accomplish.
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Road To Sectionals Is Paved With Cardstock
Sometimes you think to yourself, “Self, you should totally make your wedding invitations. It will save you money and be a lot of fun.” So you buy a Japanese screen printer and you spend a lot of time comparison shopping for paper and you order samples and you cut samples and you order a special Cricut cartridge and you select paper and order it and unwrap it and spend an afternoon cutting it all in half and then you order way too much ink because you had a nightmare about all the ink for your special Japanese screen printer running out because although something like one in three Japanese households has one of these machines apparently the supplies are now discontinued and being hoarded by other people who bought this special Japanese screen printer to make their wedding invitations and now you have a huge box full of special Japanese screen printing ink and still you think to yourself, “Self, it was a really good idea to make your wedding invitations. You are totally having fun.”
Oh, and originally you wanted to do pocketfold invitations but then you decided they were either going to be too labor-intensive or too expensive. So instead you decided to make a booklet invitation.
A six-page booklet invitation.
So you spend your weekend afternoons re-watching the first season of “Glee” and cutting out invitation pages. And after ten episodes of “Glee,” almost all the way down the Road to Sectionals, you have almost cut out half the pages. And your craft room looks like this:
And you know what? You were partially right. It is kind of fun. Which is a good thing, because once you’ve finished these you’ve still got half the pages to cut out.
Which is what the Road to Regionals is for.
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