It's a soft g.

As I was running some errands today, I stopped off at Trader Joe's for some groceries. I approached the cashier and found myself behind a teacher from an area high school that I had worked with for a week when I was a sub. He was a baseball coach, which I am sure he's good at, because he is not the greatest teacher on the block. He was teaching English and mispronounced gerund. I digress; I'm not here to make fun of his teaching skills, or lack of comprehending rudimentary pronunciation guidelines for his native tongue and teaching subject matter. I should state that I didn't realize I was behind him until... well let me start over.

At Trader Joe's I was buying more than the three things I had gone in for and was regretting not getting a basket. My arms chock full of produce, and some dried mangoes (damn you Joe!) I looked for the shortest line. I am very skilled in always picking the wrong line--I had done it at Whole Foods 15 minutes earlier*, I always get the chatty cashier, or the person who doesn't know how a debit card works, or the classic "shoot I forgot mushrooms, can you go wait while I take forty five minutes to go grab some?" egomaniac. It's a problem I have. I saw a line with one guy in it. In his arms were two bottles of wine. BINGO! That's the line. So the cashier speedily rings up the wine and announces the money due. "$4.98." The guy hands the cashier a $5. I look at the bill, and I am gobsmacked that I have not misheard the total. Five dollars? For two full sized bottles of wine?!? I have to look at this fellow patron to see what kind of person would buy that kind of wine, and there he is: the man who doesn't know when to use a hard G and when not to. Fascinating.



*At Whole Foods it was a chatty cashier who decided to engage the customer before me in a conversation about the documentary Forks Over Knives. I fully support that sort of conversation, but I'm not sure it was the most appropriate timing, given that there were three people waiting. I just wanted to buy my ginger, beets and Portland Bee Balm! Although it gave me time to try to decipher whether this chatty cashier was wearing crazy eyeliner or if she had a face tattoo. Jury is still out, though I hope that it was make up.

Fennel

When I was in New York, I was able to visit with my dear friend Rachel. She is a super cool chick, and I really enjoy our time together. She was telling me about her new blog venture Made Weekly which has garnered plenty of positive attention in the tumblr sphere in its short life span. Rachel's concept is great - five recipes, five days, one ingredient. At our lunch we discussed our mutual love of fennel, and I told her about how a few days before I went to Mario Batali's tiny tapas place, Bar Jamon, with Ashley to commemorate our trip to Spain a few years back. We enjoyed lots of delicious things, including the greatest pan con tomate ever*, but specifically a plate of malvarosa cheese with fennel infused honey. It was a taste sensation, let me tell you. A combination I would never be creative enough to think of, but I certainly enjoyed it. Thank you Batali!

And thank you, Rachel! Last week's ingredient was fennel on Made Weekly. Go check it out. Be inspired to add it to a marinara sauce over pasta, throw it in a chicken salad, or do any of the beautiful suggestions offered up by Rachel.


*Even the salt was extraordinary, I kid you not.

Hug a tree.

Today was fairly warm, sunny and wonderful in Manhattan. Ashley and I decided to take advantage of the sun and walk around Central Park after lunch. We started in the North Woods. We were walking along a trail when we noticed a woman hugging a tree. I mean, this woman was literally hugging a tree. She was out for a walk with her dog. Her dog was patiently waiting, rested and ready to go, and she was just embracing this tree. As we approached, I expected to see a companion with a camera, or something to explain this visage. No companion. No camera. Just her patient dog, and a long suffering tree. After about 90 seconds she let go of the tree and continued on her walk. As she passed us, she carried with her the strongest scent of marijuana this side of a Phish concert.

Sometimes I am an idiot.

Correction: Most times. Most times I am an idiot. But sometimes my actions instill fear (in me and probably others) for my failing mind and make me woefully aware of what a burden I am.

I am sitting at the Portland International Airport, waiting. I am about to head 3,000 miles East to visit with a few of my dearest friends. I have checked my luggage, but I have yet to go through security. Why the wait, you may wonder. Well let me first tell you that I did remember a few things that I usually forget: my dslr, its charger and usb cable, my fitbit's charger, my iPhone charger, my supplements, gum, a coat and a jacket. Pretty good right? Laptop and power cord? Check and check.

Unfortunately, I forgot my phone. Yep. My phone. That little delightful concoction of plastic, metal and glass that would tell me where Jen lives/where I am supposed to travel to when I arrive at JFK. I realized this as my sweet, (and sick with a bad cold) mother dropped me off. She decided to race to go get my phone and bring it back to me, like a saint. And I decided to sit near the ticket counters, hoping the line for security stays really short and that I'll be able to dash through it and make it to my gate in time.

Oy vey, Molls. I used to have such hope for you... And thanks mom, for helping me, yet again.

This made me think of the time when I left my phone at my house in Provo when I was flying home for Christmas one time. I would love to be more responsible or even more remember-ible. If I had remembered my phone, I could be playing songpop and not have elevated cortisol levels, and I could have not made my mother drive the 20 miles each way to the airport 4 times. Oh and did I mention I didn't have enough gas in my car to make all of those trips? Well I didn't.

I would make a terrible boy scout.

"How's that New Year's Resolution working for you?"

was the super-sassy question from Shara yesterday.

The truth is, I have written about fifteen blog posts over the last few weeks, and for whatever reason, they have stayed in their draft versions because I didn't really want to post them. I'll go through them soon and decide if I want to actually share about the time I was an accidental racist at Sephora, or how I finally bought myself a new computer and phone, and was welcomed to 2013 by a couple sassypants girls at church who have been making comments on how old my 3Gs every time I saw them for an exhaustively long time, and when I called them materialistic in a bitter joking way, they then called me materialistic because I went from one Kate Spade phone case to another,* or how song pop is my new favorite app, or one of the dozen of other topics I saw fit to start to share, but then didn't.

But for now, let me tell you that I have been organizing a YSA activity for church for March, and things keep not working out as desired, so we'll see how it actually goes. But yesterday I found this in the course of planning and it totally made my day. 

P.S. his foot is over the line, but I bet old Tricky Dick counted the pins he knocked down on this turn instead of treating it like a foul.


*That's pretty much the gist of that one, except for who cares that I had my phone for 3 years? It still worked, it was still fine.**
 **THAT SAID,  I couldn't turn it off and consequently felt super guilty and anxious about not being the rule-follower I like to be on flights to and from LA in December.

101 Reasons I love Reem, Part 3

A few weeks ago the excessively charming Reem told me about what I thought was the best/most marketable/hilariously original idea I've heard in a long while. I could very easily see this idea of hers as a successful blog, a book or a segment on some hilarious show like Fallon. So, I told her she should blog this. While there's no blog yet she has taken to the page and started journaling. On Sunday night she read me an entry she'd written after our conversation about this idea and about the pending end of the world, entitled "I have two weeks to live."


In classic Reem style it was charming, funny, and a little over dramatic. One line from the entry was, "I asked Molly what I should do with the little time I had left and she suggested I blog." So, in the reality that Reem is putting forth to her progeny and anyone else she is sharing it with currently, I am being presented as someone who sees blogging as something that should be prioritized in order to live a fulfilling existence (if I am telling her to make it a top concern before the world/Mayan calendar comes to an end) and yet here I am with a blog so scarcely populated and so sporadically updated of late that I am being made to look a fool and a hypocrite.  Well no more, Reem/Reem's journal/Reem's progeny. No more.


New Year's Resolution #3 - blog more frequently. For me and for you, my sweet friends who keep asking me to. I promise I will try, but I can't always be funny and snarky, and I know that's what you want, but it's just not always in me. Lie. It is always in me, but it is not always in me to document my snark. But will try.

Tucked behind Ralph's on Rte 123

Wednesday morning, I was talking to Nancy, a super sassy girl at work whom I find pretty funny. I said something that reminded her of a song by RuPaul, and when I said I hadn't heard it she told me I had to look in to it, that RuPaul and all drag queens were the greatest ever, and that she was probably a drag queen in a past life.

Thursday morning, Nancy handed me a thank you card to fill out with a pen. I then reached for my cute pink pen to sign it with. Before I passed on the card to someone else to sign, I read the pen, "Van Nuys Center for Cosmetic Surgery - Specializing in Difficult Gender Reassignments - Tucked behind Ralph's on Rte 123 - call 800 - ALLNEWU"

I asked Nancy if that was hers*, and she told me that the very innocent looking, middle aged, LDS bookkeeper at the school had given it to one of our students because it had green on it, and he's obsessed with all things green.  We passed the pen around and got a good giggle out of it - specifically the "tucked behind..." line. A quick google search found that this pen is from an anti-theft line of pens. But I am super curious how this bookkeeper, who clearly hadn't read or understood the pen at all because she gave it to a 13 year old with special needs, came to have this pen in the first place. Is she so worried about people stealing her pens that she would have these hilarious things in a school, or is she a pen thief?

*thinking that the "past life" she mentioned might have just been a past time in this life