Back in the saddle....

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've written! But it's so nice to know that you people somehow, someway miss me! Unfortunately, today I'm sick and the creative juices aren't necessarily flowing.

My joints and muscles hurt like hell and it feels like someone lodged a spiky golf ball in my throat. I'm reluctantly revisiting the days of unemployment on my trusty family room couch.

But in the spirit of optimism (inspired by tonight's State of the Union Address, notwithstanding boos from angry republicans), I thought I'd make a list of things making me happy while I'm sick:

Ocean Spray sugar-free blueberry (blueberry!!!) juice. Straight up deliciousness.

Alleve and all the other members of the pain-killing family.

The 3rd season of "Big Love." Gotta love that crazy family and their polygamist shenanigans.

Hulu and missed episodes of "30 Rock" and "Modern Family." By far the best sitcoms on TV.

Egg white omelettes with old friends who live far away (and tell you how you're "not learning to be sick very well.")

My new subscription to "The Wine Spectator:" making me more of a vino snob than I already was. And you thought that wasn't possible....

Thoughts of being up in Tahoe in a week from now with my amazing new boyfriend, skiing, eating, drinking, and repeating. My sore throat and achy muscles aren't invited.

And, for venting purposes, a short list of the things not making me happy:

The "homemade" chicken noodle soup from our grocery store that is slimy and tastes like it came out of a can that's been sitting on a pantry shelf for the better part of a decade.

The end of Brett Favre's season. That guy fought the good fight and came up just a bit short. Sad.

Does anyone else think that our vice president looks like Guy Smiley of Sesame Street fame?


Twilight.
That movie flat out sucks.

Bacon.

I wish I knew what transpired in my head to drive me to publicly pay respect in the form of an entire blog post to this unfailingly welcome addition to any meal.

But if you haven't played around with the term "bacon flavored" on Google, and you have some time on your hands, it's fun, and like bacon itself, a bit addictive.

Turns out there exists a Holy Church of Bacon, aiming to "promote consumption of, and unfaltering love for, the holiest of holy foods: Bacon." They abide by the "Five Baconic Laws," bacommandments if you will, and I love them so much I had to share them:

* Thou shalt not consider Bacon on the same level as any other food, as it is above all.
* Thou shalt not consume imitation Bacon.
* Thou shalt not stop pursuing Baconlightenment until it is reached.
* Thou shalt not forget to consume Bacon for ten days.
* Thou shalt spread the word of Bacon to all.

And now for a few enjoyable bacon things I found that I may or may not like to try someday:

"Bakon" Vodka: "clean, crisp, and delicious." Really? Some of the recipes look great, but clean and crisp are just about the last possible adjectives I would use to describe any pork-flavored alcohol.

A site dedicated to "bacon porn." Photos of everything from bacon cinnamon rolls to bacon lubricant to good old fashioned plates of cooked bacon. Bacon porn for every taste.

There's scarves, watches, underwear, wallets, mints, and toothpicks. And there's this:



Pretty awesome, right? That's a guy who loves his bacon and isn't afraid to show it. Bonus: it smells like bacon. Hopefully homegirl in the red enjoys cured pork as much as he does.

Christmas memories

Does anyone else find the day after Christmas vaguely depressing? It's always such a bummer, realizing I have to wait another 9-10 months to begin listening to Christmas music again.

Fortunately, I have copious memories of this Christmas with my amazing family and friends to keep me company until then.

I thought I would write a bit about a dream I realized this week: the dream of eating the biggest, most delicious pancakes I've ever seen.

While I agree that there is no need to elaborate further on my pancake issues, risking personal embarrassment and complete dissatisfaction on the part of you, the reader, I feel the need to share it with you.

Rapidly working their way into an elite premier holiday eating list that includes my grandmother's sausage stuffing, apple pie on Christmas morning, and triple cream cheeses that wouldn't warrant a gaze at any other time of year, I think pancakes of this magnitude may become a holiday tradition for me and my future family. If breakfast addiction is at all hereditary, my future kids are sure to grapple with similar breakfast pastry issues.

My pancakes this particular morning had brown sugar-baked bananas, caramel, walnuts, and streusel, all baked into buttermilk batter, topped with caramel, walnuts, streusel, and a portion of whipped cream that, if eaten alone, would be sufficient as a meal in itself.

We didn't eat until noon. We were hungry and I was getting grumpy (an inevitable and sure-fire sign of my hunger.)

Three pancakes come in an order. I ordered two (pancakes, not orders), and I ate about half of one. This is what it looked like:

It was an admittedly pathetic display of my "off putting pancake gluttony." But they were massive. Just looking at the plate as it arrived at the table began my journey to that familiar uncomfortable fullness native to this time of year.

I was so full.

A friend I spoke with on the phone a while afterward asked if I was having trouble breathing. Seriously.

Still, it was one of the best breakfasts I've ever had, and certainly the best (half) pancake I've ever eaten.

Bonus: each customer's coffee is individually french pressed. When it's noon and I haven't had coffee yet, I'd consider licking it off the floor of Grand Central Station. But great coffee is always a welcome addition to an already fantastic breakfast.

I'm not sure I'll ever be crazy about LA. But places like this certainly don't hurt the cause.

It's Onion Friday--a day late

Early Humans Finally Drunk Enough to Invent Dancing.

Even though it's The Onion, would this story really surprise you if it came out of the Smithsonian, Popular Science, or any similarly respectable publication?

Only when early humans consumed an adequate amount of fermented fruits and vegetables did they "develop the impulsive series of rhythmic movements known today as dancing."

While friends who think making fun of my dancing is a sport speak to the contrary, I imagine that my dance moves are no more graceful than those of early man.

I'm talkin' people who didn't quite walk erect or spoke strictly in monosyllabic grunts.

But the first step toward improvement, on the dance floor or anywhere, is acceptance or wrongdoing. Sometimes, in a desperate effort to avoid subsequent humiliation, I issue a disclaimer before getting down so that people aren't surprised by my unadulterated lack of rhythm.

Sometimes, if the drinks have been flowing for a while, I don't.

Which is why this story is not at all off the mark.

The Cougar

Ah, cougars. The term is everywhere these days, creeping it's way into American vernacular quicker than "sexting" and "celebutante."

But as it turns out, the definition of cougar is actually quite subjective.

Most typically, it looks like this:

"A 35+ year old female who is on the "hunt" for a much younger, energetic, willing-to-do-anything male."

But here's a different one:

"An attractive middle-aged woman who is fit, active, confident, independent, somewhat bohemian and not yet brain dead who is attracted to younger men because most of the available men her age are opinionated lazy slugs with beer guts."

I'll let you make your own judgments.

Anyway, I read this morning that the world's first ever "cougar cruise" set sail from San Diego last week.

Promoted as a trip for "the woman who knows what she wants and what she doesn't want is children, cohabitation, and commitment" the cruise headed to Mexico for three days of "what happens on the cougar cruise stays on the cougar cruise" good times.

It even featured a visit by Miss Cougar America (yep, she actually exists), an honor given by the annual Cougar Convention (yep, that exists also.) Bonus: she's from my from my neck of the woods. Apparently the Bay Area is quite the cougar habitat. Who knew?

Considering that 2009 is "the year of the cougar" according to Newsweek, this type of cruise makes perfect sense from a business standpoint.

In better news, 2009 is almost over.

On a more serious note, though, I believe there is unequivocal and rampant age and gender discrimination inherent in the "cougar" term.

People don't blink an eye at older men dating younger women. And I should know. I work at a Ritz-Carlton.

But behold, the male equivalent to the cougar.

Meet "the Rhino."

"An older man on the prowl for a younger woman. The rhino is usually found in warmer locales and can be spotted wearing either a flowered or pastel shirt (with 3 buttons opened to expose a mature mane of chest hair) tucked into khaki shorts and sporting boat shoes. Also look for horrendous dance moves, a white man's overbite, male pattern baldness and a penchant for picking up the bar tab."

The best part is the photo of Rod Stewart next to the definition.

It won't catch on like "cougar." It doesn't have the predatory innuendo or derogatory insinuation of "cougar."

But I still have to commend whoever wrote it for at least attempting to find a male equivalent.

Education and wine....

I've always been of the mindset that you should learn something new every day.

For instance, the other day at work I learned that Brentwood, CA, is actually not a town but a neighborhood made famous by OJ Simpson in the early 90s.

But today I learned about something even more fantastic.

There's a winery by my house where there's cheap wine. Really cheap wine. Good, cheap wine.

Great wine at an killer price ($4.99 a bottle!!!!!!) as long as you bring your own bottle. It's called Bottle & Cork Day, and you should be angry that there's no such thing in your neck of the woods.

The description of the event on the website is delightfully, if not a bit dissatisfyingly vague, "premium wine at a great price."

It's delicious. And I'm proud to report that it has earned the Stark family seal of approval, something that is coveted and quite rare when applied to inexpensive booze of any kind.

Needless to say, it was a good day.

I work tomorrow morning, and all I really wanted to do tonight was sit on my couch, drink wine, pet my dog, and watch college football followed by Christmas movies that will make me laugh and cry simultaneously.

Now I have the perfect excuse:

I drank a whole lot of wine earlier.

I'm not old and boring.I'm just an early bird, ahead of the curve, and in bed on time for work in the morning.

Nice and refreshed and ready to learn something new.

San Francisco Living...

Now that I've received my first paycheck, I'm thinking realistically about where I'm going to live--away from home--like a regular, functional, self-sustaining 29-year-old.

Fortunately, I found this handy map to assist me in my increasingly frequent forages through Craigslist (yep, I'm already back on Craigslist):


It's San Francisco's "yuppie index" wherein the red signifies the highest concentration of yuppies in a given neighborhood. Their definition designates a "yuppie" as a young professional making more than $100,000/year. While the entire city is clearly blanketed by a pinkish hue, it is not surprising to me that my brother's neighborhood, the Marina, is #1. Equally as unsurprising is the fact that I have a long way to go before I fit this description, at which point, I'll no longer be young.

Digging further, I found a fantastic website--TownMe--where other maps are available for like minded curious real estate shoppers. In addition to yuppies, there are maps for populations of cougars (also highly crimson in my brother's hood), sugar daddies, starving students, single moms, single dads, and most relevant to me, people overextending themselves on rent, which sadly, will inevitably include me, as well as most people in the city.

At least I can rest assured, though, that Manhattan is more in the red on this front than San Francisco.

I'm still actively working to overcome lingering sticker shock from my time in the Midwest, a magical and glorious land of sub-$500 rents. Once the prospect of writing a monthly rent check with more than three digits doesn't make my heart race and my eyes tear, there will be no stopping me.