Email, The Modern Caveman's Club

To: Gretchen
From : Captain Underpants
Subject: Dinner?

Hey, would you allow me "take" you to dinner sometime this week? Or next?

Captain Underpants

P.S. If the restaurant isn't metro accessible, I'll let you provide the transportation. :-)

And here I thought chivalry was dead. Silly me!

Mixing Up Your Holiday Mixers

It's the time of year in which Holiday parties are running rampant. If you find yourself with multiple parties to go to in one weekend I recommend that they be as different as possible. You don't want to stagnate halfway through and thereby deprive yourself of your share of swedish meatballs and mini quiches. The key to avoiding Holiday Burn Out is mixing it up. Its the same principle I use when creating seating arrangments at a dinner party. Just as a simple shallow-deep-shallow-moody-shallow-deep pattern works best for encouraging conversation, you should mix your party types to stave off a crushing sense of pointlessness. You shouldn't pool your shallow people or your shallow parties. Just a tip I've picked up over the years.

Take this weekend, for example.

Friday night was a sweet and innocent affair as I took my Young Women for pizza and to see Enchanted. Then we came back to my apartment where we gossiped and read fashion magazines. (I love pretending I'm a teenage girl!)

Saturday night's house party, on the other hand, was not exactly sweet and innocent. The Diet Coke was flowing, my hair was in excellent Farrah Fawcett-flipping condition, the music was just how I like it (loud, danceable, old-school), and the flirting was in high gear. I was lucky to be home by 4AM. It was a little bit crazy. And by crazy, I mean Crazy FUN!

And then on Sunday, as befits a holy day, I attended an intimate dinner party. You know those dinner parties that you see on romantic shows like Notting Hill where the table is immaculate and there are several courses of food, all of which is amazing? And everyone is clever and stunningly funny? And you think, "Oh my gosh, that looks like it would be so much fun! Why aren't the dinner parties I go to that much fun? And why isn't Hugh Grant at any of them? This is so unfair." Well, friends, that was the dinner party I went to on Sunday (complete with the role of Hugh Grant as performed by my adorable friend Joseph). I sort of couldn't believe I was at such an amazing event. Everything was perfect! Especially the company. I have some damn funny friends, just so you know. And I could really wax lyrical about the food. It was all so beautifully prepared! And even more beautifully tasty. I practically made myself ill with all of that eating and laughing and eating and laughing. That can't be good for the digestive tract.

Three parties in three days, each as different as could be, but each one super fun. See how that works? Without mixing the formats up I would have been bored half way through, I guarantee it. I may not know much about some things, but by golly, I know how to get through the gauntlet of Holiday parties.

A Christmas Miracle

Today's special thing wasn't so much something that I did on purpose, as it was something miraculous that happened.

To truly understand the miraculous miracleness of this you need to know two things.

1. I am the QUEEN of parking tickets. If I'm even a minute late back to my meter I can pretty much guarantee that I'll have a ticket waiting for me.
2. The meter maids of Bethesda will be reincarnated as vultures. Vicious and unrelenting vultures. From hell.
   

So now that you know these things, you will of course jump to the same conclusion I did when I was sitting in my boss' office at 3PM and realized with a jolt that I was supposed to go out and feed my meter at 2PM. And I had TOTALLY FORGOTTEN. And worse yet, I was stuck in her office for like 20 more minutes, just sure that there was no way on this earth that I would get away without owing the county $35.

As soon as I got out of her office, I sprinted down 6 flights, said, "Hi! What are you doing here? Sorry, can't talk now!" to a friend in the lobby who as far as I knew was A) in Columbia and B) going blind (both topics that really needed some immediate discussion) before I darting out into traffic to get to the parking lot, noting that the meter maid was at that very moment giving some poor guy a ticket. I had hoped that since it is so snowy and cold they wouldn't be working ... but clearly they were. It was my last scrap of hope. And now it was gone.

So I walked defeatedly to my car. And looked at the windshield, where my ticket would be waiting for me. Ready to grab it and curse and cry out, "WHY ME?? WHYYYY??" But lo ... there was no ticket! I'd been expired for at least an hour and a half and had somehow eluded getting a ticket.

Like I said, It was a Christmas Miracle. Perhaps the most miracally miracle EVAH!

Beat this Courier and Ives

Yesterday I found myself driving through Rock Creek Park at dusk. Here's the thing about Rock Creek Park: It's this huge wooded park that runs through DC. But even though there's a MASSIVE metropolis all around it, once you get into the park you would not have a clue. You're totally isolated.

This abrupt move from urban to rural is kind of popular around here. One second it is wall to wall buildings and asphalt, but turn a corner and all you can see is hardwood. It never fails to surprise me, and I'm always like, "Holy crap! I'm in the COUNTRY! Everywhere I look there's NATURE! I gotta get the hell outta here!" You'd think that growing up in Colorado I'd be more comfortable with nature, and I am when I'm expecting it, like when I deliberately leave the city and go to the Mountains. Here there is no gradual transition. It just springs up on you when you least expect it. And you just can't throw that on a person and not expect them to freak out a little bit.

So anyway, I've been through this particular section of Rock Creek Park before so I was prepared to be transported to the wilds of the Yukon. But even if I hadn't been prepared, the line of cars in front of me would have been a comforting reminder that I was still very much within the city limits. I have not, however, been in RCP when it is under a blanket of new snow. And I have to tell you, seeing the park like this was beautiful! I was completely charmed! And I wasn't even annoyed to be going at a snail's pace, since it just provided more time to enjoy the beauty. (I mentioned the line of cars in front of me right? And I mentioned the snow, right? Round these parts they call that Peas and Carrots. Peas and Carrots.)

Wanna know how beautiful it was?

Well, just picture your favorite snowy forest scene ... Got it? Now throw in some stone bridges, a cardinal or two, and some gently falling snow in the pearly evening light. If your imagination wants a little more action, you could add some kids sledding down a hill. And then if you're feeling a bit chilled because it's really cold out there and those kids sure look chilly with their pink cheeks, just imagine that you are sitting snug in your little MINI with your seat warmers going. And imagine you are singing along heartily with Christmas carols.

And if you've imagined all of that, then your little heart is probably near to bursting at the coziness of it all. Or else with envy. It can be hard to tell which.


(Do I need to mention that this was the "special" thing I did yesterday? This countdown is going to get tedious if I have to keep mentioning that. What do you think? Did you get it?)

One Battle Does Not a War Win

This was the view from my apartment two weeks ago:


This is the view today:


Winter, that cold and calculating season, has successfully broken through Fall's defenses and won it's first significant battle. Even though this is the first snow -- and so it's kinda exciting and beautiful and all that crap -- this is no time to embrace snow angels and sledding!!

We must go to Anti-Winter Defense Level DefCon 4.

Deploy the Chili and Cornbread!

Load Ratatouille, and snuggle in your down comforters ON THE DOUBLE!!

And Pray, men, PRAY like you've never prayed before for a Snow Day! Otherwise none of us might ever see Spring again.

It's up to all of us. This war can't be won single handedly. Over and out.

One Month From Today ...

It will be my Birthday!!!!!!!!

Aren't you totally STOKED? I am. 32 is the age I have always wanted to be ... and while it has been an OK year it hasn't completely lived up to the hype. There are only 30 more days for 32 to show me what it is made of.

So, readers, this is what sporty types call a Hail Mary. For the next 30 days I'm going to try to do something special each day to make 32 the year I always hoped it would be.

If you have suggestions I would appreciate them! Or if you have birthday presents I would appreciate them too!

Who Moved My Cheese?

I've got a serious problem, people. There seems to be a conspiracy afoot.

A couple of months ago I was grocery shopping and went to get some grated parmesan cheese. I like the pre-shredded kind, like what Sargento provided. I do not like to grind my own (hello that’s WAY more work than I approve of doing). And I don’t, out of snobbery, like the green can powdered kind. Do they even make that anymore?

Anyway, so I was shopping at the oh-so-ghetto Safeway across the street from my house and lo and behold when I went to refresh my supply of the queso there was NO parmesan, of any ilk, available. This had never been a problem before. What happened? Isn’t parma one of the most popular cheese of all time?

I chalked the missing cheese up to this particular Safeway being HORRIBLE. And since I like to make dramatic statements that don’t impress anyone but me I decided to immediately switch grocery stores. So I started shopping at Bloom which was a heck of a lot further away, but had attractive vegetable displays, those cute little half-carts, and a hearty supply of my favorite cheeses.

This worked very well for several months.

Last Saturday, however, I went to Bloom for my weekly shopping. And when I got to the dairy case I looked, and I looked, and I LOOKED. But even though they had specialty cheeses such as goat, Muenster, and even HAVARTI, there was NO PARMESAN! Oh sure there was mozarella in 5 lb bags all ready for the fatification of America, but no, no parmesan could be had for love nor money.

How can this be, I ask you? Is it just me? Am I the only one in the world that is buying parmesan cheese – thus making stocking it impractical? It seems unreasonable to me that there should not be any parmesan cheese at any of my local grocery stores. But perhaps I am just unreasonable. (I'm not.)

Just so you know, I have a history of my favorite foods being removed from the grocery store supply chain and it's getting old. First it was my favorite salad dressing: Parmesan Peppercorn, followed by my favorite flavor of Barilla pasta sauce (Green & Black Olive), culminating in the removal of the entire Barilla pasta sauce line. Sigh ...

My needs are few, grocery store people. In fact, here is my weekly grocery list so you can make sure to have everything I need stocked. I'm sure if we work together we can make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen anymore.

• Chicken Nuggets (or other frozen treat like pizza or tater tots)
  
• Apples/Pears (or some other seasonal fruit), 5 pieces
• Roma tomatoes, 3 pieces
• Romaine lettuce, 1 bunch
• Parmesan cheese
• 3 pkgs Deli Meat
• 1 pkg Sliced cheese, Colby-Jack , Muenster or Provolone
• Frosted Mini-Wheats
• ½ Gallon Skim milk

That’s it. (Generally speaking of course, sometimes I get all crazy and throw a can of chili in). Could you please try not to remove any more of these items from your stock? I'm not sure how much more paring down this grocery list can take.