December 14, 2011 · 11:59 am

my favorite gift this year

Some very wonderful friends have just moved away.

I wanted to do something to say just how sad I am that we won’t be neighbors anymore, how much I will miss them, and how much I’ve appreciated having them around.  What with all this holiday business, my floodgates of spend are wi-i-ide open and in fine form; I figured that I’d find something great to buy them.  But instead, I had a wonderful idea that I think I like better than any of the Christmas gifts I’ve gathered.

Rather than telling them how about how sad I feel and how that sadness equates to love, I clevered up a plan to tell them about how much fun they’ll have exploring a new home.

I polled some friends on Facebook to get opinions, did some scouring of Yelp, and started buying gift certificates for places that they might like to check out in their new town.  I go two for yarn stores, two for rock climbing gyms, a book store, a movie theater, a coffee shop and a mobile food truck.  All local, independent places – so I largely had to make calls and talk to people on the phone (dislike!) to get them, but I really love the idea of taking part in helping them get out there and get to know about neat places in the area.

After a particularly creative flurry, I also drew my own card!  Drawing is a thing I do largely never.  Although my mother would probably disagree and reference this series of dad cartoons I created in 1987.
Anyway.  I drew a card!

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty sure that you could probably tell what this is… right?

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It’s a dinosaur exploring his new cave!

So now I am full of that hooray feeling of happy that comes from good gifting.

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Filed under Up to Stuff

December 9, 2011 · 1:44 pm

really old celebrity gossip

So, my lovely friend Corinne posted this image from a blog I’d never heard of called Old Love.

Corinne, being all aesthetically oriented, is appreciating how sweet and beautiful this photo circa 1966 of Michael Caine and Natalie Wood is.  And it is cool.  They’re both dressed in this really awesome retro way.  Except it’s only retro to me at this point in the space-time continuum.  For them, it was probably very modern.

Anyway.

What I’m seeing is Michael Caine and Natalie Wood?  Holy cow!  I had no idea.

And then this site unleashed one gobsmacking revelation on me after another.

DID YOU KNOW THAT LISA TURTLE AND ZACK MORRIS WERE A THING?!
(also, that bikini bottom is something.  am glad i was only 8 years old during this fashionable era.)
Scott Baio and who?  Pamela Anderson?  Holy crap.  She is unrecognizable!
Is there anything sadder than being reminded of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins?

What?!  Tom Cruise and Cher was a thing?!

This whole site is like an epic edition of the best US Weekly ever.

Yeah.  You’re welcome.

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December 7, 2011 · 8:37 am

which coat?

I’ve had a mission to acquire a coat for the longest time.

As good as I am at buying other stuff, buying a coat seems to be a sticky wicket for me.  So many choices are just ho-hum sufficient.  Uninspiring.  And pretty much all of the choices are expensive, so whatever I might pick is a commitment.  A commitment to something that I would wear every day for months at a time!

Resulting in a coatless Maggie who makes do with one of the umpteen velvet blazer-jackets crammed into the closet.  Which are very pretty and velvety!  But yes, pretty much don’t fit, if you feel like buttoning them up in the front is a priority.  And a jacket with two layers stuffed underneath does not a coat make.

So the other day, I tried on some of the coats on the sale rack in Anthropologie.  Two of them fit.  And I liked them.  But oooh the commitment!  I couldn’t decide.  I bought both of them with the idea that The David would have something helpful that would lead to a decision and I could take one back.  But it was not to be.  He found them to both be generally favorable.

Thus, help me!  Which one?

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Option #1
Pros:  fun fluffy (detachable) fur collar
good color – close up of the fabric below.  the darker bit is kind of a burgundy color.
Cons:  short sleeves – you can see the sleeves of my cardigan underneath.  but i’m not sure that this bothers me…20111207-083649.jpg

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Option 2:
Pros:  longer and heavier
interesting shawl collar
velvet lined pockets!
Cons:  on the boringer side.
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I am slightly leaning towards #2 because I think it’s more practical, but I kinda like the weirdness of #1 better…

Help!

(sorry about the crappy phone photos.  my fashion photographer was unavailable and my creative problem solving elf was working from home today.)

********UPDATE********
Monday, December 12
Both coats, which had already been on sale ($200 down from $300) went on further sale to $100 each.  Plus Anthro was having a 30% off discount on sale items.
Suffice it to say, I have been saved from having to make this gut wrenching decision and have kept both coats.

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Filed under Maggie's closet

December 2, 2011 · 6:48 pm

a workout partner partner

So, ya’ll know The David is fit.  Like really fit.

And lately, he’s gotten into personal training.  Not that he’s out to get certified or anything, but he’s read a bunch of really boring books and manuals.  He started doing assessments of his friends’ fitness levels and creating plans for them to follow.

Once upon a time, he’d said that he thought it was a bad idea for couples to ever train one another.  Too much potential for resentment and frustration.  But now that he’s really excited about his new personal training mission, he’s slacked on his standards about what couples should do and wants to try it out on me.

An out of town lady friend is here visiting and she wanted to do a workout with me, so The David took the opportunity to this morning to lay a workout on us.

It sucked.

I told The David, in a way that I would never have told a trainer at the gym, “No, I can not do a kettle bell swing with this 30 pound bag of sand. It’s too heavy.”
I scoffed at him when he asked if we ready for the next set.
Virginia and I shared a look of terror when we watched David start his set of 40 weighted lunges dropping each knee down so far that it touched ground.

I wasn’t wretched or anything.  I largely did what he asked and I didn’t bitch or talk back.  I did my best.  But he planned a very hard workout and I wasn’t terribly happy about it.  It was not like those couples in Shape magazine who are all grinny and sparkly at each other as they pass the medicine ball back and forth.

I guess it’s always easier to workout with someone who’s a bit closer to you in ability.  Ideally, maybe someone just a little bit better enough to push you.  And even though The David isn’t a person like that for me, I do think that it’s also good to workout with someone who supports you and wants you to do well.

So maybe he’ll catch on to what’s too hard for me and what’s just challenging enough.  And maybe I can just tell him ahead of time what I can and can’t do.  But I think we can do it again.  And I actually think it’s good for us.

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Filed under I'll be up in the gym

November 29, 2011 · 4:15 pm

“It was worth every second next to that hot nut cart”

Have you seen this TED talk from Brittany Gibbons?  She’s one of the founders of Curvy Girl Guide, an online magazine that covers all your basic lady magazine fodder, but told from the perspective of regular sized women.

She started this campaign to get women to hate their bodies less by showing off her own body, standing in Times Square in her bathing suit.  The video of this talk is breathtaking.  Her conviction is contagious and her palpable fear at being on stage makes her seem real and relatable.  She’s not some Amazonian plus sized super model lolling about in her knickers telling me that I should believe in my own beauty; she’s a regular lady, being nervous about taking off her clothes in front of strangers.
At the end, she shows photos of other women in their bathing suits.  They all saw her on tv, baring it (mostly) all, being brave, and sending this message that she’s ok with how she looks.  And I totally teared up.  People being inspired by other people is always a tear jerker for me.

I loved everything about it.  Almost.

About five and a half minutes in, she says “I’m a mother three times over… I’ve earned ever single curve on my body.  And if that’s not sexy, I don’t know what is.”

And I felt annoyed at her.  Like she didn’t totally own up to her body, which she did say was the same body she’s had since she was 8.  She *earned* every curve by being a mother, which made those curves holy or something, instead of just the ordinary result of too much couch time.  No free pass for being fat if you haven’t been a mother?  Does she think she wouldn’t be sexy or be less sexy if she hadn’t had children?

I asked her about it, actually, and she graciously responded saying that it took motherhood for her to understand and appreciate her body.  Which I get.  I think.  I’m not really sure how much I can grok that perspective without being a mother myself, but I think I get it.

But still.

I don’t think it matters why you got fat, or why you stay fat, or if you’re working to be less fat.

What other people say or think is irrelevant.  Be ok with who you are.  Change things that you don’t like if you don’t like them.  But you can still be ok along the way.  You’re ok if you’re a mom.  Or a dad.
I’m ok.  You’re ok.

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Filed under Chubby girl, the interwebs

November 28, 2011 · 3:16 pm

This one goes on the Boo Shelf: The Particular Sadness of the Lemon Cake

I spent some of my precious Thanksgiving weekend hours reading The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender.

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The girl character, Rose, can taste the feelings of the people whose food she eats.  Kinda like Like Water for Chocolate, except she doesn’t feel rage if the food’s full of rage, she just won’t like eating that cookie.  So there’s an element of mysticalness, but it doesn’t spin into something cool.  She eats factory made potato chips instead and we continue to plod through the dynamics of her adolescence.  It’s a typical lady-literature bit of fiction, that delves into the very ordinary little pains and misunderstandings and disconnects of a family.  The mom is a little too flighty and dad is a little too regular.  The brother probably has Asperger’s and our heroine is just sliding under the radar.  We get extra bittersweet insight into other characters, especially the mother, due to Rose’s foodie affliction.

It turns out that weird super powers run in the family, though, ’cause her brother turns into a folding chair and no one ever sees him again.

You think I kid.

But seriously.  Her brother vanishes never to be seen again, because he has turned into a chair.  Only Rose knows the truth.  Dad acts like it’s fine, maybe a little puzzling, that his son has disappeared.  And mom just believes that he’s exploring the Andes.

And Rose keeps her brother the folding chair safely tucked away in her closet.

Boo.

I can’t even pretend to appreciate this lady’s nice writing style because just eye roll.

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Filed under Book crave

November 27, 2011 · 7:40 pm

weekend in pictures

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Filed under Photography, weekend in pictures

November 26, 2011 · 9:47 pm

what boys like

I don’t do Black Friday.  Too wild and woolly for me.  But I have spent an inordinate amount of time in the past two days scouring gift guides, catalogs and websites in an online shopping fiesta.

I usually find shopping for guys to be a challenge.  They don’t seem to be as covetous of stuff as the ladies, unless they’ve got an itch for some $800 rucksack for extreme camping.  While I don’t scratch those  kind of itches, I think I’ve actually come up with a ton of great stuff this year.

Men folk in my life will be receiving some of this bounty come Christmas.  Have a gander…

For guys who can rock a good cardigan…

Osterley Fair Isle Cardigan - $169

For an elbow patch appreciator…

H&M elbow patch sweater - $29.95

For your favorite ninja…

Samurai Sword Handled Umbrella - $29.99

For your beer guy…

Brew Your Own Beer Kit - $38

For the guy with spirits…

Ice Melts. Whisky Rocks. - $20

For meat snacks on the go guy…

7 Flavors of Jerky - $33

For meat snacks at home guy…

2 gourmet salumi - $25

For the guys with shoes…

Benjo's colored shoe lacing - $6

For the goofy guy…

Animal Butt Magnets - $14

For the outdoorsy guy…

Classic Opinel Pocket Knife - $16

For the puzzled guy…

Metal disentanglement puzzles - $15

I haven’t gotten all my guys yet, though, so any finds that you’ve been partial to are most welcome!  What are you getting for your dads, brothers, husbands and various other flavors of man-friends?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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November 25, 2011 · 4:15 pm

my favorite day of the year

couch pyjamas

The Friday after Thanksgiving is a marvelous day.  It has no purpose.  No agenda.  There’s still a whole weekend after that I can push the chores and errands into it.   It’s a day that seems specifically engineered to pay homage to pyjamas and movies on tv.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Thanksgiving is a pretty good day, too.

The David and I ran a 10K Turkey Trot in the morning.  He ran the whole way with me, which I loved.  Thankful doesn’t begin to describe what it feels like to have a person who’ll do that.

My head rationalizes that 6 miles isn’t really that far, but it sure feels like an epic saga while you’re in it.  An hour and fifteen minutes is a big chunk of time!  There was a good amount of trudgery struggledy.  And an unholy number of uphills.  But the recollection of that yuck seems vague and fuzzy now.  What I do remember was the incredible rainbow that we saw for much of the way in between miles 3 and 4.  And I remember the vanilla It’s-it I got at the finish.

Race bling in a tree

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And then there’s the wonderful gluttonous feasting of Thanksgiving.  Oh the fabulous feasting!

My friends-who-are-family set up a deep fryer in their little backyard every year.  If you’ve never had deep fried turkey before, it’s not like what you get from a bucket at KFC.  Mostly it’s the same as everyone else’s turkey, but it cooks in about half an hour.  And because it cooks so quickly, it tends to be moister than roasted birds.

But it is pretty feckin terrifying to watch.

the turkey goes into a vat of boiling oil

We had a an impressive spread.  The David and I made Smitten Kitchen’s Chard and Sweet Potato Gratin and Thomas Keller’s Creamed Pearl Onions.

plate full of yum

We also made a Pumpkin Panna Cotta with pomegranate seeds for dessert.  I had no idea how easy panna cotta was to make.  Seriously.  It’s like making Jell-o.  I highly recommend trying it out.
The hardest part really was getting the extra ramekins we needed to serve 8 since I’m Maggie and I needed to have the fancy porcelain ones from France.

pretty dessert

And now I’m eating too much popcorn, half way paying attention to movies and deepening the ass divit in my couch.

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Filed under Foodery, these are the days of my lives, Uncategorized

November 23, 2011 · 4:34 pm

little facts

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1.  I just tried to use the word kniving in a sentence.  It looked so weird that I started to doubt whether it was even a real word.  Which, of course, it is – but only if you spell it conniving.

2.  I had an opportunity to use the word conniving in an email to my boss type person today.

3.  You’re more likely to hurt yourself with a dull knife than a sharp one.

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Filed under Little Facts, Tidbit