Shake It

Last night I was at The Mama's house for our weekly dinner when the house started to shake for rather a long time (15 seconds is an eternity to wait to see if this is the Big One). Turned out to be a 5.6 quake centered near San Jose, about 50 miles away.

I used to live on a San Francisco hill sitting on bedrock for seven years and never felt one single earthquake. I have lived in the east bay now for almost two years and I now know that earthquakes happen all the time. Hopefully this is not a sign that the ground under my building is headed for liquefaction.

But, it was a good reminder to check the emergency supplies. Water, check. Tasty Bites, granola bars, instant oatmeal, tuna, peanut butter and crackers, check. Plastic bags, check. Flashlight, check. Batteries, whoops! Extra food and medicine for my dead cat, check.

Things I should have according to the California Office of Emergency Services but don't: good God, too numerous to mention. But I'm a harm reductionist--having something is better than having nothing so don't be paralyzed by this crazy long list and get cracking. Even if you don't live in a shake/hurricane/tornado/levee failure/blizzard zone, it's not a bad idea to stock some water.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I forgot to tell you! When I went to Seattle in August with Lizh to see Loyal Washington Reader, one of the items on our to do list was to check out the Bitten line at Steve and Barry's. Much shopping ensued.

Items were definitely inexpensive as promised, but rather strangely made. I found a super cute blazer which I was not able to button in an XL. Since I'm a size 8 in a jacket, this was odd to say the least.

The jeans--disaster. You know the annoying butt-crack-exposing gap that happens in lower rise pants? In most jeans, this gap can be closed with a belt. This gap was so big I could and did stuff a large Nalgene water bottle and a box of homeopathic yeast infection medicine* in the back of the pants. I then pranced around the dressing room so Lizh and Loyal Washington Reader could see the items jostling around in my trunk indicating that there was still room back there.

Here's what I did buy:

One gray t-shirt: holding up well, maintaining its shape and color. A wardrobe staple. Thumbs up.

One long sleeved purple v-neck t-shirt: thumbs way down. At first, this shirt was good--great color, nice fit. But after two washes it became totally stretched out and seems to have lost all its elasticity. I look like the hapless fashion fool on "What Not to Wear."

One 3/4 length sleeve black stretchy work shirt: I never wore this. After putting it on I realized that it was way too long and looked like I was wearing my dad's shirt as a smock for art class.

Overall rating of Bitten: Meh.


*I was traveling, but ordinarily I would go for the boric acid cure.

Trapped in a Flying Tin Can

On the red-eye east I'm usually blissfully enshrouded in an Ativan induced fog. Without it I definitely would not sleep and end up a total freaking disaster that no amount of Dunkin Donuts coffee and old fashioneds could salvage. But the flight back, dear God. It was interminable. There were delays on the ground in NY, nearly vomit-inducing turbulence, and rerouting out west which prolonged our flying time even more. I seriously thought I was going to flip out, I was so uncomfortable and bored. As I'm writing this I'm coming to the conclusion that I need to be drugged going west, too. But! The Jet Blue in-seat entertainment system helped me to not completely lose my shit. Here are the highlights of my seven hour tv-fest:

Tom and Jerry: Hands down, my favorite childhood cartoon. The thousands of hours I watched these two bash each other with frying pans without ever once hitting anyone with a frying pan myself speaks for either the relative lack of influence of television or the influence of my non-violent parents. Or maybe both.

A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: Do you know who Tila Tequilia is? I didn't, but she has almost two million friends on MySpace, for what that's worth. She's an entertainer and by that I mean stripper, porn star and singer, using the loosest definition of that word.

Tila is looking for true love--the stuff reality shows are made of. There's a twist though--Tila is bisexual and so men and women are vying for her affections. I was immediately hooked. The men were a pretty sorry lot, a bunch of knuckle-scraping dullards. The woman were much sharper and more interesting. I only saw two episodes so someone with MTV will have to bring me up to speed on who gets a shot at love with Tila.

But the best part of the flight was Purple Rain. I haven't seen this since it came out in 1984, which would have made me 13. I have very vivid memories of sitting in my friend Jodi's den having my mind blown by Prince. He may have replaced John Taylor that day as my fantasy object. It was the 80s, so they both wore eyeliner and ruffled shirts, but Prince was so hot and so ... freaky dirty. I've been listening to the soundtrack all day-skipping over the bigger hits but looping Take me With You, The Beautiful Ones, Computer Blue--that's the one that starts mysteriously:

Wendy?
Yes, Lisa
Is the water warm enough?
Yes, Lisa
Shall we begin?
Yes, Lisa

I never knew what that meant and I still don't. But this article suggests an enema, which never occurred to my 13 year old brain, but sounds like about as good a guess as any. I love it when the eggheads talk about pop culture--she used the word "gnosis." Excellent.

"Look at This"

This blog is up the alley of any self-respecting Professional Critic. The unnecessary use of quotes on signage (don't even get me started on rampant nonsensical air quotes) both drive me completely batty.

Have a "pleasant evening."

The Visit Home

Cast of Characters:

The floppy love dog

The oldest and his tattoos

The enchanted middle child

The youngster

Professional Auntie

Act I

Enchanted Middle Child: ... remember when we went to the fair?

Professional Auntie: Yesterday?

EMC: Yeah. Remember the rides?

PA: Yes.

EMC (wistful, awash in memory): That was fun.

Act II

Tattooed Eldest: Here's a little story that would have been really bad if I was on a bike. Once when I was going to the car when I was coming back from Burger King and I was in Crocs and once I took a wipeout--

PA: While you were walking?

TE: Yeah. (Describes dramatic wipeout and resulting injuries)

PA: (Notes that he is wearing Crocs): So would you say you still wear Crocs because they're fun and easy?

TE: Yes, but not when it's like very dark and wet.

PA: Cause you could slip?

TE: Yeah. (Nods, serious). You could slip.

Act III

The Youngster runs in from stage left, breathless and excitable, wearing a long black cape, a Spider Man mask, brandishing a play sword. He is talking a mile a minute, though not one word is intelligible. He looks to PA expectantly.

PA: ... That's fine.

TY runs off stage right.

Act III

The End

Greetings from the Island

Nay, Professional Critic is not writing from some tropical paradise but rather Long Island. My family just gifted me with a lovely digital camera so that I will be able to post some pictures on my text-heavy blog. Alas, the battery needs charging so I was not able to capture the slice of Long Island on display at the Oyster Festival we attended yesterday. Words will have to suffice for now. The hair is still big and stiff here. It's like a page out of my high school yearbook circa 1989. Sure, there were plenty of glossy blown-out 'dos as well--not mine of course, as we all well know Professional Critic brushes her hair about every other day, though never on vacation--but still a lot of bad perms and evidence of Aussie Scrunch Spray. I remember the ultra-toxic grape-y smell fondly.

A shocking number of people here still smoke. I know my perspective is skewed, what with living in the woo-woo Bay Area for eleven years where it is not at all uncommon to encounter the wheat free, sugar free, macrobiotic, raw diet and yogarific lifestyle. There, citizens have free reign to give smokers the death stare and smoking is being outlawed faster than you can flick your Bic.

I also want to point out that this is my first time using Blogger in Internet Explorer. This means HTML shortcuts, which means no typing of tedious HTML required in Safari, the default Mac browser. I just may go completely overboard with formatting just because I can. In fact I just may link you all into oblivion because linking is by far the most tedious thing to do by hand and who thinks they can stop me?

Monday Buffet

Though I search high and low, no justifications appear for my stubborn refusal to switch from incandescent to compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Sucking up more energy, creating more heat, more emissions and more expensive, incandescents appear to be the lightbulb of suckers. To my credit, I bought a package and replaced all my bulbs--for about ten minutes. Too dark. Too depressing. Still too institutional. But incandescents may cease to be an option in a few years, so I better stock up.

Better news for flying direct. Since take-off and landing consume the most fuel, direct is the greenest way to fly. Check out other greener flying tips here.

Did you know there was such a thing as National Meatloaf Appreciation Day? Now you do. In anticipation of the big day, I will share a tip: pulverized pretzels instead of breadcrumbs. Cut down the rest of the salt since you won't need it. My contribution to the well-worn path of meatloaf.

Strange thing that I cannot get more information about: Moaning Lisa, some kind of sex doll that supposedly makes you a better lover of women. (This is probably not great for work.) I don't really get it.

I do get the fabulousness of America's Next Top Model, whose new season started a few weeks ago. The drama revs up, but there's something slightly different this time around. No, it's not the inclusion of a "plus size model," although there is one of those, too. Here's her portfolio so you can see just how huge she is.

What's really different about this season is that one of the models Heather has Asperger's. She describes it as a "mild form of autism," and the Mayo Clinic describes it as "social awkwardness and an all-absorbing interest in specific topics." Anyway, last episode the girls in the house were getting a little catty about Heather (who by the way is drop-dead gorgeous. Her portfolio pics are not quite capturing how beautiful she is yet). But as long as she can keep it together I think she'll do great. Although when they get to the commercial Easy, Breezy, Beautiful--Cover Girl! she might have a hard time.

What Does Crazy Look Like?

I used to think it looked like this:



Happily married. Not gay! Before Liza started beating him in drunken rages and what have you.

But this! This takes the crazy cake:



Here's David again, not married and still--not gay! And also not the victim of plastic surgeries performed by a blindfolded, one armed chimpanzee. And also not styled by Vanilla Ice.