Family & Friends

This weekend

/ lintqueen / 4 Comments

Three major things of note:
(1) Friday night I “secret shopped” Rockfish.  They compensate you for your meal, and in return you fill out a *very detailed* report on everything (food, service, cleanliness of tables, outdoor lighting, you name it).  I think I’m pretty good at that sort of thing (noticing details and presenting them in a coherent written format), and what the heck?  a free meal’s a free meal, right?  In addition, this one was fun because we got to award a “gift certificate” to the server if she met all the criteria, which she did.  So fun all around!

(2) Saturday afternoon, my friend Heather and I threw a “girl’s afternoon out” thing.  Basically it involved eight women, four pounds of cheese, two pounds of chocolate, at least 5 bottles of wine (maybe more) and fire.  Yes, Fondue Forks for Everyone!  It was an interesting mix of people and ended up being a complete hoot.  We’re going to try to do another one soon, with perhaps some craftiness added in, as it turns out that a (surprising?) number of us knit, make jewelry, spin, scrapbook, sew or make cards.  Or all of the above.

(BTW, I’m trying to learn the lesson here that this — the throwing of casual events — doesn’t have to be incredibly stressful, time-consuming or expensive.  Yes, it took some time to put together and there was cost involved, but sharing the work with someone else made it ever-so-much easier.  And, of course, I was stressed, especially at the beginning when people were first showing up, but for no real reason, as it all was good!)

(3) Sunday night was my friend Kim’s birthday shindig.  As originally scheduled it was to have been a Saturday night get-your-groove-thing-on, adults-only party; however, due to Kim (and Tim, her hubby) needing to be out of town Saturday night, it got shifted to a more mellow, pot-lucky bring-the-kids Sunday evening thing.

First and foremost, I had a wonderful time.  T/K’s friends are, to a (wo)man, charming, intelligent people, whom I really enjoyed talking to.

With that important statement clear, I’ll admit:  it was *weird* and disorienting.  Not only was I (get this) the ONLY single straight person there, I was also the only one without child(ren)!  Me and my friend Kenny from high school and his partner David were the three representatives from the land of childrenlessness.

Now rationally I know that the majority of people my age are married, and of those, a majority probably have children by now.  That being said, some of my most immediate friends don’t have kids and at least a few are still single (getting fewer by the day, but that’s another story)** and I don’t regularly attend play groups or shop for groceries in the middle of a weekday afternoon*, so it’s pretty rare for me to see “the majority” in action.

So, honestly, it was a little disconcerting to all-of-a-sudden be dropped into a whole different demographic.  Honestly, I felt a bit like the Freakishly (/Childless) Single One — again, through no fault of anyone at the party, but just because I was the exception not the rule.

Anyway — maybe more on this later, but for now, just the observation.

** For example, the Saturday girl’s thing ended up being 2 single, 4 married, 2 married+kids.
* Not that all women with kids are stay-at-home moms, but more that many of the folks with free time to shop during weekday afternoon are likely to be stay-at-home moms (who would remind me of the “majority state” of things).

Weekend Edition

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Friday night was crazy, but everything ended up working out just fine. I had intended to go out with my friend Phil, but just as he and I were heading out he got a call from another friend of ours from high school, Steve. Steve and his wife MargEva are good friends with Laura and Jonathan (whom I also know through the Duke Talent Identification Program, where Jonathan was an instructor and I was a resident advisor in 1990). Since Jonathan’s step mom is affiliated with Duke, they often end up with basketball tickets, so Steve was calling Phil to ask him if he’d like to meet up with the rest of them (MargEva and Laura) to go to the ACC Tournament. Phil kindly said “oh no no, I’m going out with Gina,” but right after he hung up I told him not to be rediculous, that this was the ACC Tournament and fer-cryin’-out-loud he should go already. So he called Steve back, and Steve came over to Phil’s house to fetch him (bonus for me, since I hadn’t seen Steve in a while either).

Meanwhile back at the ranch — I’d gotten a call earlier in the day from my friend Elizabeth, whom I’ve known since I worked for her at The Limited during summers in college. She’d wondered what I was up to that evening, but at the time, I already had the Phil-related plans. So, after I talked Phil into taking the b-ball tix, I called Elizabeth back and ended up meeting her for a late dinner at a Japanese steak house, which was wonderful. It had been far too long since we’d seen each other, and it was great catching up.

See, I told you it all worked out.

Saturday night was all about fun! First, Meghan came over to Jeff’s house, where I presented her with her birthday presents: a little japanese siilly toy I’d bought for her at Giant Robot last time I was in San Fran; a 50’s style apron I’d sewn for her out of two pink and cream prints (must get photos!); and a necklace I’d made of thin leather cord, amazonite (I think?) and various shades of blue glass beads, which for once, I didn’t match exactly (as painful as that was for me), since Meghan’s not into matchy-matchy things.

Then we went out to Rockfish (mmmm! fish & chips!) for her birthday. We also got in a wee bit of QST (Quality Shopping Time) at Nordstrom’s, where Meghan scored not one, but two!, nifty belts. (Aside: that’s one whole area of fashion that I completely miss out on. I *never* wear belts!).

After dinner (eaten completely without poundage guilt over the fish-and–chips, I might add…it was that kind of evening), Meghan and I headed over to our friend John Santa’s house for his monthly music jam. John is a music producer and knows *tons* of pickers and players and singers… and once a month he gets a crowd of them together to just play.

John had been worried about a small turn-out, and had even considered cancelling, but we ended up full-to-overflowing! We even had four singers, which was incredibly fun. Virginia and Ruth have very strong lead voices, so Meghan and I harmonized on most things. (Meghan’s also got a fantastic lead voice, but she was not feeling up to it Saturday night). Ruth also brought a lot of new tunes to the party, and Meghan and I had a blast singing two of our favorite Tift Merritt songs, Trouble Over Meand Virginia, No One Can Warn You. And though this is a song I’m not particularly fond of, the four part harmony on To Know Him is To Love Him was amazing.

Didn’t get home ’till 1:30. Slept like the proverbial log. I got up, watched a bit of the barbeque show on PBS, got showered went to meet Steve (see paragraph 1, above) and his darling daughter Eleanor for lunch Sunday morning (ok, it was still Sunday morning to me). This was the first time I’d met Eleanor & she’s a real charmer.

After I got home, Jeff and I toook the bike out for a long spin since it was such a pretty day, ending up at Maple View Farm Creamery for ice cream. Poifect! It was pretty amusing to me, as it was 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon and the place was packed! I’d have thougt that all the parental units would have said “no, you’ll spoil your dinner”, but there was a line wrapping all the way around the inside of the place. I had cookie dough and butter pecan, and I did, I admit, spoil my dinner a wee bit. Jeff and I ended up makign soft tacos at about 8, when we finally were a bit hungry again. Iron Chef and Whose Line and bed followed.

Safety Freaks

/ lintqueen / 4 Comments

(Prompted by a comment that Sarah made in my journal:)

There are two kinds of people in this world:  the unpluggers and the not.

The unpluggers are the ones who, convinced that the curling iron/toaster/hair dryer/electric skillet will, of its own volition, take wing and land in the nearby sink full of water, electrocuting or at least severly harming everyone around, feel compelled to unplug any small appliance after every use.

The “nots” are people like me who assume that appliances, despite their sometimes seeming ability to be ornery, are not mobile and have no capacity for flight without assistance of a human sort (or maybe a large pet).  And since we’re not planning on throwing the curling iron/toaster/hair dryer/electric skillet into the sink, we don’t worry about it.

Which are you?

Do you unplug small appliances after using them?
Why, of course I do!  At any moment my toaster may wing its way to the sink, causing damage and despair.
No, of course not.  My curling iron knows far better than to go traipsing off towards the tub.
I don’t have any small appliances.  I live under a rock, and have unruly hair and raw bread.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Of a certain age…

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I accompanied one of my dearest friends to her biopsy today**.  This occasion has caused me to think about breast cancer and the impact it can have on my life and the lives of people I love.

Today’s biopsy is the first (of many, I’m sure) amongst my friends.

As I was thinking about this trip to the hospital, I remembered a conversation that happened seven years ago with some women I worked with at Nortel about breast cancer and how many of their lives it had affected.  At that point, these women were mostly between 35 and 45, and I was struck by the fact that every one of them had either had a biopsy or their mother, sister or best friend had.

Several years after that, my own mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and underwent a lumpectomy and radiation therapy.  She has been in remission for more than five years now, thankfully.

The risk of breast cancer increases with age.  And I and my friends are getting to be “that age”.  And this worries me.

For more info on breast cancer risks, see this quiz.  According to the numbers I’m looking at a 29% chance.  I know numbers are just numbers and probability doesn’t determine anything, but it’s still scary.

**NOTE:  the results are not in yet, obviously, but my friend’s radiologist was very positive and everything went well.  Positive thoughts are still appreciated, though**

UPDATED TO ADD: The biospy came back negative!!! YAH!!!!!

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Beackground: David & I were on a really boring conference call, so I was playing with PlayDoh. Amongst the things I made was a whale, which I left in David’s office. Here is the conversation we had afterwards:

ginathelintqueen: will you make sure lid is on playdoh good
David Hiscoe: yes
David Hiscoe: it shocked me
David Hiscoe: have it sitting on my window
David Hiscoe: and the static electircity was a joy
David Hiscoe: i was shocked by a playdoh whale
ginathelintqueen: OMG
ginathelintqueen: I am ROTFLOL
David Hiscoe: wiley monster of the deep

like I wasn’t feeling swell enough

/ lintqueen / 4 Comments

Quote of the day from this article, via Meep Meep and JasonJason0x21:

“[…] most singles are leaning against the bar, sighing, waiting for somebody — anybody — to happen by. The social swirl is a fallacy, at least after age 30 or so, when all the normal people get married. But like all fallacies — like the I’m-Crashing-Through-the-Jungle-in-My-Big-SUV delusion — people cling to it.

Thus the pressure from married friends. We are not, as the single people writing Rich seem to suggest, the malicious band of sideshow deformities in Tod Browning’s “Freaks,” keen to pull the unmarried into our nightmare as we chant, “You are one of us.”

Rather, in our eyes, we are trying to help our single friends salvage what’s left of their lives before the years pass, irretrievable. Single people are cowards and it pains us to see them strut around in their narrow boxes, declaring them the whole wide world.”

Yes, it’s a shallow, one-sided, rather silly article.  That being said, is it any wonder I’m anxious about my single-dom knowing that people actually think like this?  Do my co-workers or random acquaintances think I’m a loser for still being single… at 35?  I know my own grandmother sees my perpetual oneness as some sort of failure.

This is striking more of a reaction in me than it might otherwise because my “last single friend”* is now getting married.  She’s the one who always gave me hope, because she’s fabulous: funny, cute, successful, extremely smart and very nice (sometimes to a fault) — and if she was still single, then there was hope for me.  But now she’s engaged and will be married in June.  I am thrilled for her, and the fellow she’s marrying is great, but I admit, it’s caused my spirits to flag a wee bit.

*I do have other single friends, but mostly they’ve either (a) been married already or (b) don’t *want* to be married, which is an altogether different thing.

Sigh.

Blog steam

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I usually run out of blog steam on Friday. Too pooped to post.

Tonight, the Cherish the Ladies* show with Jacintha at Stewart Theater — should be marvelous. Tomorrow: uber-indulgent spa day incl. glycolic peel (!). A fresher-faced Gina to emerge. Then dinner in Raleigh — I’m voting for Melting Pot, though Shabu-Shabu** is close. Sunday over to Tim & Kim’s house to help them pack for move to new house.

* When I was in Ireland the first time (1998) with Meghan, I fell in love with a song called Inisheer that Pader, the flautist in the local pubs in Doolin, played. When I came home I had to had to find a copy of the song (which is beautiful, haunting and sort-of mournful). Enter Cherish the Ladies, who had recorded a wonderful version of it. I still miss Pader, though. (Probably not surprising that Pader looked a little like Kevin Spacey….mmmmmm.)

** I’ve always said “SHA-bu SHA-bu” but the other day I heard a radio ad where they pronounced it “sha-BA sha-BU”. Perhaps Melting Pot will be easier. ;-)

Weekend Update

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Busybusybusy, but really good.

Friday night Jeff and I saw Big Fish and had a very very late, snackish sort of a dinner at CPK. Big Fish was visually stunning (as are most of Tim Burton’s films, IMHO), and more touching than I expected to me. Kind of sad, but not in a boo-hoo way. Dinner was yummy (new salad at CPK: lettuce, blue cheese, walnuts and beets — mmmmm!) and reminded me how much I like Cosmopolitans (a lot).

Saturday I had lunch with Greta. I don’t really know how to describe it, except for this: anyone who knows me knows that I *hate* cold. Just not very interested in numbness and runny noses and shivering. Greta and I sat outside, with the temperature steadily dropping for three-and-a-half wonderful hours. The whole time I said Not One Word about the cold (indeed I didn’t even notice it for a while which, given how chilly it got, was pretty amazing in and of itself) because I didn’t want to interrupt the magic. Probably a lot more could be said there, but suffice it to say that it’s pretty incredible to meet someone who’s just like you want to be.

But wait! There’s more! Saturday night Meghan and I went to see Calendar Girls (really fun movie), followed by sushi (spiral ecstasy— yummmy!) (Ed. note: “ecstasy” is a really funny-looking word.)

Sunday afternoon I met my friend Ann for knitting lessons, part deux. She’s starting her first knit-in-the-round project (which will be her first DPN project too), a lovely little baby hat. I attempted to cast-on and knit the devil hat for Jacintha; however, upon examination of the results later that evening, it is clear that I’m not quite good enough yet to attempt seed stitch without my full concentration. Her hat’s turning out great, though I had to frog a bit on mine.

Sunday evening there was a baby shower for my friend Patryce (who was “Pat” when I met her in high school, so calling her anything other than that requires a conscious effort), wherein we crocheted squares for eventual inclusion in a baby blanket. Terribly clever idea. I had quite a comeuppance upon discovering that what I’ve been thinking was basic (aka “single”) crochet for the eons that I’ve been doing it is, in fact, chain crochet, and wasn’t at all what we were doing at the shower.n Uh-oh. Back to looking like a complete dolt while struggling to figure out which loops it is, again, that I’m supposed to pick up this time… Oh well. Now I know. And I’ll be finishing both my square and Amy’s (friend of Patryce who is also the sort-of-ex sister-in-law of my boss, David).

Then more knitting and home and *pizza* — regular old Papa John’s cheese pizza! I haven’t had “normal” (as opposed to Thai chicken a la CPK or Gorgonzola & Artichoke a la Loop) in *forever*. It was goooooood.

Southerners and Snow

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It’s snowing here — big floofy flakes — and sticking, which is even more exiting! Yes, exciting! My sense of excitement (/wonder) about this (which has, at times, been compared to that of an perpetual 11-year old) is very confusing to Jeff, who is … a Northerner. (Actually, technically speaking he’s a MidWesterner, since he’s from Michigan; however, as far as my admittedly geographically impaired self is concerned anyone who hails from north of the Mason-Dixon is a Northerner, at least until you get to Washington or Oregon, which is West Coast.)

You see, for me snow means:

  • the excitment of waking up, not being able to see the ground, but knowing, just from the color of the sky, that it had snowed
  • listening to the school cancellations on my old alarm clock radio (the sort that had the big numbers that FLIPed over as the minutes changed and an alarm that sounded like a huge duck blowing its nose)
  • a day off from school (“snow day” — yah! — the fact that we might have to make it up later in the year just didn’t factor into our joy)
  • tomato soup (Campbell’s, always with milk instead of water… why would they even put water in the instructions printed on the can… ICK!) and cheese toast
  • hot cocoa (yes, miniature marshmallows!)
  • getting to stay in pajamas until it was time to go play in snow:
  • pitiful (usually not much snow around here), yet proud, snow people (in fact, one year we made a snow dragon!). I still remember the apron we used to put on our snow woman, a light blue ties-around-the-waist sort with darker blue flowers.
  • snowball fights with all the neighborhood kids (I was exceptionally lucky to grow up in a “real” neighborhood, with probably 25 kids who were within 5 years of me in age)
  • sledding, though not on sleds with runners, as they’d certainly sink, but on either “flying saucers” or these sheets of rectangular plastic which would roll up when you weren’t sitting on them). We had a good (long and steep) hill growing up (the name of our street was Stonehill St.) so when it snowed the whole neighborhood would be out on the big hill.
  • then coming inside to dry out by the fire (with more cocoa and soup -)And even though I can now work from home (so a “snow day” doesn’t mean a “no work day” ) and even though I haven’t got a sled (or a proper hill, for that matter), I still do have hot cocoa and tomato soup and cheese toast and a “snow day” is still a cause for celebration.

    (And I didn’t even get into the strange southern ritual of filling the car with gas and buying every single loaf of bread, carton of eggs and gallon of milk in the grocery store in one crazed, mad rush…)

I just remembered a funny thing I learned at my Grumps’ 90th birthday party

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My Grumps’ 90th birthday was back in November and Jeff & I went to Charlotte for the party. I, of course, took along plenty of knitting for the car ride, so when talk after lunch turned to crafty bits I ran out to the car to get my yarn and WIPs.

Mom explained that both she and my aunt learned to knit when mom was in high school, in order to make the Norweigan-style intarsia sweaters that were popular at time. After high school I think she took up other crafts (decorating blown-out eggs with tiny beads and velvet ribbon, for example — those were *gorgeous*), and knitting slipped by the wayside.

Apparently before I was born my mom decided that now that she had a wee one on the way she wanted to knit me things (a baby blanket was the target project, I imagine). The only problem was that she’d forgotten how to knit.

So my (ever-inventive) Dad found some instructions on how to knit, taught himself to knit from those, and then re-taught my mother!

Yah Dad! (I haven’t checked with him to see if he still remembers how, but knowing how good he is at geo-spatial things, he probably can.)