Pop Quiz

Pop Quiz:  What do these things have in common:  tights, pantyhose and paper towels?  

They can all come in white?  True, but no.  They all can be shredded pretty easily?  Again, possibly true, but no.  They’re things we (or maybe it’s just me?) are particular about?  Getting closer!

Here’s a clue:  What’s the first thing you do once you’ve opened these things up?  Throw away the packaging, right?  At least, that’s the first thing I do after I open stuff up, despite all the warnings about “original packaging required for full refund” (electronics and clothing excluded—those items come under the rules of one of my Systems: If something is expensive and you’re not sure it’s going to keep living in your house as long as you intended, KEEP EVERYTHING REMOTELY CONNECTED TO ITS PURCHASE).  But paper towels and tights?  Where the heck am I going to keep all that annoying, clingy, floaty plastic once I’ve ripped it up to get at the paper towels?  Or the little piece of flimsy cardboard those tights came in?  Because who ever expects to return paper towels, and who ever has the courage to return pantyhose?  Or even tights.  Not me, at least.  So out it goes.

Which is a mistake.  Not because I want to return them.  Just the opposite:  because I want to buy them again. 

Because the answer to the pop quiz, what these things have in common, is that once opened up and the packaging has gone bye-bye, there is absolutely no identifying mark, anywhere on the darn things, to let you know what you just dried your hands on or just wore to such nice effect with your very happening knee-high Michael Kors boots and short skirt.  No identifying mark, I tell you, not a one.  

I’ve discovered this the hard way many times. 

Tuscan Pears

Paper towels are one item I buy without care for cost.  I buy paper towels because they have the cutest pattern.  (Is there even such a thing as a really expensive paper towel?  So how bad could the hit be?)  No white, a pattern please, and around holiday time, there is always a holiday-themed towel gracing our kitchen.  But the rest of year, too, I strive to find the most charming pattern.  Which involves a little bit of time standing in the paper goods aisle, sorting through all the options, be it the store brand, the brand with that Lumberjack (who is that guy, again?) or Rosie’s quicker-picker upper, looking for the cheeriest print or the one that best reflects who I am—at least on that particular day.  Am I feeling Vegetables today?  Happy Days and Shared Moments?  Maybe Tuscan Pears?  Or no, maybe at this time in my life Toasters and Starbursts will really express the inner me.  (In actuality, our current towels are sporting red and green candies and candy canes, signaling the official start of the Christmas season in our house.)  Anyway, I work hard to get it right.  And the payoff is that when I spill something, or Jimmy (our really really really cute little blonde dog—did I mention he’s cute?) has thrown up all over the kitchen floor, or Steve has (yet again) paid no attention to the fact that there are thousands of coffee grounds all over the floor under the coffee maker, I am immediately made happy just to tear off those paper towels and see one of those charming prints crumpled in my hand.  Despite the less than idyllic situation (does he not SEE the grounds???).

the culprits

So like I said, I work hard to get it right.  And after finding just the right towel to wipe up the dog vomit or the ever-present coffee grounds, I want to be able to perpetuate that lovely moment.  I want those towels again, so I can re-live that moment.  Well, or maybe re-live the moment before those things happened and I was just enjoying the towel in its holder, pre-catastrophe.  So when I get to the end of that paper towel roll, darn it, I want to be reminded of what this fabulous product is that I’ve so grown to love.  So I can buy it again.

And then there are the tights.  I love to wear tights all winter, and this, just like the paper towel selection, takes some research.  They need to be opaque enough to not see through (even in the knees, thank you), thick enough to stretch but not lose their shape (even in the knees, thank you again), and long enough so the crotch is not heading south as I walk.  (I do recall one unpleasant incident a year or so ago, when the waistband of my tights had somehow lost its hug, if you will, and the crotch started falling lower and lower, so that I had to make an emergency stop in Target to buy a new pair, and prayed all the way to the checkout stand that my waistband wouldn’t be hugging my knees before I got to the restroom to put on the new pair.  It was a very close call, that’s all I’ll say about that.)  It’s so important to find just the right pair.

And on that note, let me take a moment to stray off-topic just a bit and offer a little tip here:  If you’re a gal –and I suppose this would apply to men, too, but I’m not quite sure of the ramifications of their sizing—who gains weight from the waist up, you’re in like Flynn:  go with the sizing right there on the package.  You’re 120 lbs  and 5’6”?  (You lucky girl.)  Get the small!  Ignore that “shaded area”:  be bold and get the smaller size!  (And by the way, if you’re 5’6” and 120 pounds, I can only assume there isn’t anything you need to worry about, other than making sure your paper towels are adorable.)  But if you happen to be a gal who gains weight sort of all over, or maybe even from the waist down? (And ladies, if, perhaps, you’re anticipating weight gain--due to upcoming holidays, boredom or perhaps a looming break-up--this applies to you, too.)  Then all bets are off.  A great system I put in place here is:  ALWAYS GET AT LEAST ONE SIZE BIGGER THAN THEY RECOMMEND.  Pay no attention to helpful tips on the packaging such as: “Sized for real women” or “Now more accurate sizing!”  “Now with more stre-e-e-etch!”  Disregard all such “claims.”  THEY ARE NOT TRUE.  Always go up a size; I don’t care if you’re skimming the lower end of the chart, just do it.  You’ll thank me, I promise.  Word of warning here, though:  please don’t take this advice too much to heart and go up too many sizes or you, too, could find yourself in the parking lot of Target sending up one last prayer, before getting out of the car and starting that long walk to the store and into the hosiery section, that your tights will hold their own until you make it to the restroom to replace them.

So I think you can see how important it is to get the right product.  These things don’t just work out by chance or miracle.  There’s a lot of research and effort and, yes, frankly, emotion, put into creating a successful experience.  And as the saying goes, why reinvent the wheel?  Why start all over again the next time you venture out to buy paper towels or tights?  We’re not cavemen, after all; these things have been done by better and smarter people than I, right?

Turns out, possibly not.  Because once you’ve wiped up the last spill or worn those tights till there’s a hole in the toe, lotsa luck.  Because, unless you’re one of those super-organized aliens who anticipates things like this and comes up with a system for it (that’s what I’d call a Ph.D. level system--too much for me, I’ve tried), there is no way to know what it was that you purchased those weeks or months or even years ago.  Because, despite our current fashion system, where every designer in the world from Target to Chanel splashes their logo from the rooftops—or at least from the chest or handle or derriere—there are no identifying marks on these things.  Is it masochism on the part of the manufacturer?  A vengeful brand marketing company?   Is it too hard to print on a cardboard roll?  Are their machines not capable of printing lettering tiny enough to go on the back of a waistband?  Are they just too cheap to make the effort???  My guess is that a committee is somehow involved, and you know what happens whenever something is decided by committee.  Just look at our current Congress for the less than successful results of that little system.

Sadly, I don’t have the answer; I only have the plea.  Bounty, Brawny, Safeway Select, HomeSense, hear me now!  DKNY, HUE, L’eggs, Berkshire, Hanes, listen up!  I want to buy more of your stuff.  Yes, I want to give you more of my money!  I’m dying to!  Why won’t you let me?  How are you missing this opportunity?  Please get your board of directors together, get this on a committee agenda, get your little worker bees to write it out by hand, for heaven’s sake, but do something--print your damn logo somewhere on your product.  Pretty please?

And by the way, guess what?  Remember my falling tights?  There was no tag on those, either.  So I can’t even rest easy, certain that was a once in a lifetime experience.  Oh, the pain.

You Gotta Love the System

   I’m very organized.  And I love to come up with Systems.  Systems are the key to a life that doesn’t involve the daily insanity and awfulness of trying to find something---my keys, my sunglasses, my purse, the bill that I know is due today (or was it yesterday?), that little scrap of paper I wrote something very important on.  Very important.  Not that any of that has ever happened to me.

Mom, aka Jeanne Eimers & Jimmy

   And I have lots of systems; some I created myself, and some I inherited from my mom, the very organized Jeanne Eimers.  Here’s a classic Jeanne Eimers System:  always keep a “back-up” of kitchen items that you really don’t want to run out of.  So the system is this: the first time around, you buy two of, say, Jane’s Krazy Salt (did you ever use that stuff?  It’s great).  You start using one right away, and you stash the second one in the back of the cabinet.  Then, a year later or so, when you actually use up all the JK Salt, are you up the creek without a paddle—or salt shaker?  No, my friend, because you’ve got your back-up salt waiting for you in the hinterlands of the cabinet, waiting for just this moment that you anticipated all those months ago.  You will NOT have to do without salt!  Ah, life is good, as my mom loves to say.

 The system depends on two things:  First, that you and everyone in your household remember you have this system so that when that last little speck of salt has floated out of the shaker, no one panics, thus avoiding ugly accusations.  (“Who was the last one to almost use up the salt and NOT take a minute to write it on the grocery list that’s right there on the fridge door; right there in front of your face???!!” …should anyone in the family tend to resort to such uncouth displays.)  The second crucial part of the system (and this is where it can break down) depends on your family members—HUSBAND--remember to follow the system.  Because as soon as you take that back-up item out to use it, and before you even think about using it, you had better write it down on the list again.  So you can buy another back-up the very next time you shop, in anticipation of that moment, months from now…   You get the picture.  But of course a system is only as good as its users (STEVE). 

  That, I think, is my favorite system.   Here’s another:  If you have a house with multiple stories, in order to avoid a million little trips up and down, put whatever it is that belongs upstairs but is downstairs, in a little pile toward the edge of a lower stair.   Then the next time you’re going upstairs, you just reach down and scoop up that little pile (warning:  this only works with small things; otherwise, injury could result, for which I have no real system)  and take it upstairs to where it rightly belongs.  And voila, you’ve saved yourself a hundred little trips in an exhausting effort to keep the homestead neat and clean.  That’s a good one, too, courtesy of Jeanne Eimers.   Of course, this one also relies heavily on family participation.  I remember my mom trying to get us to use this system when I was growing up. Mostly in vain.  (And we only had a split level, so there was only a half flight to climb.)  So come to think of it, I don’t actually practice that one now that I’m a grown-up, even though I again live in a split level house.  (Weird, huh?  Are there that many of those around?  I don’t really even like them.)   

Steve thinking about all those steps

   But the lack of that system works out fine in our house, because my husband Steve loves to take as many steps as he can in a day.  I’m not kidding!  Very handy for keeping the house neat.  But I have to say, this little quirk is not so endearing when we’ve driven to the movies where there’s a giant parking lot and it’s 110 degrees out and he parks as far away as possible so he can get in all his steps…   OK, I’m digressing.  The point is, he loves making many, many trips up and down the stairs; as many as he possibly can, in fact.  So there’s really no need for this system in our lives.  Although now that I think of it, I do sort of have my own version of this system currently--for my own things that Steve wouldn’t know where they go.  I carefully place them on the ledge above the stairs, for the next trip downstairs.  And then, about a month or so later, I bring them down.  Well, no, really every two weeks, because I have to clean up before the cleaning lady gets here like clockwork, every two weeks.  (That is, unless we’ve canceled her for the week because we’ve been too busy to clean up for her.)  So they’re only really there for two weeks.  And it’s only a little tiny problem if there happen to be any bills due in that little pile.  Not that that’s ever happened to me, of course.

  So I’m good at creating and following systems, is the point.  It makes me happy and eliminates stress and inefficiency from my life.  And inefficiency is my enemy!  Steve, in addition to loving to take lots of steps, also loves inefficiency, if you can believe that.  I find it hard to.  And certainly hard to accept.  His driving habits are a prime example.  He simply does not see any value in the concept of getting somewhere in the most direct way available.  When we’re on our way somewhere in the car, I’ll often make a comment like, “Hmm, Steve, do you know where we’re going, or would you like a suggestion on how to get there?”  This type of inquiry is usually made after I notice that we’ve traveled 3 miles south when our destination lies oh, about 7 or 8 miles north, or when I happen to notice we’ve been circling the same block for quite a while now, despite the fact that we’re nowhere near our destination.  Steve’s typical response in these situations is, “Oh, I was just checking something out over here.”  Which is not true. On other occasions I might be heard to observe, “The speed limit is 65, just so you know.”  This type of comment might be prompted when we’re traveling along the freeway and cars--and I mean all the other cars on the freeway, even those pulling trailers and those with their flashing yellow “I’m having car trouble” lights on--are passing us at what looks, from inside our car, like the speed of light.  The response to this type of helpful hint is usually something like, “Oh, are you in a hurry?” As you can see, Steve does not see value in efficiency.  And these are just the driving examples; I could give a million more on many topics if asked.

   Oh, did I hear you ask?  Well, let me think, OK, got one.  On the weekends, he does not like to have to put forth any effort.  For anything.  It’s understandable, because he works himself to the bone all week long (at something he loves, I want to add, but nevertheless, he starts his day at about 5am and works until about 7pm.  No joke.)  So you can see why on the weekend, he wants to just relax and regain his energy.  This shows up in all sorts of little ways.  In fact, it shows that he, too, has a system or two of his own.  The first is, when dressing, he will grab whatever shirt happens to be closest to his hand.  Now with that little system, the winning shirt is not necessarily the neatest or most pristine or best looking.  Lucky for me, he does include “going to the movies” in the Relaxing category.  And often, as we’re about to leave the house and I glance up and get a glimpse of his outfit, if you will, there results another wise, always helpful observation from me.  “That shirt is kind of wrinkled.”  Steve:  “Oh, it’ll be fine.”  Me:  “Well, I don’t think it will.  It looks like it’s been crumpled up in a ball.”  When I play the “crumpled in a ball” card, he’s almost always willing to go find another shirt.  He’s very easygoing and cooperative.   Another time, that glance will prompt, “You know, corduroys—especially those heavy-duty wide-wale corduroys--are kind of a cold weather thing; it’s 110 out today.”  Steve:  “I’m fine.  I feel great.  I’m not hot.”   At this point, I become the cooperative one and let it go.  But I do then manage somehow to make it look like I’m not with him as we wait in line at the movies and even while he pays for our tickets.  It’s a trick I’ve cultivated over the many years of our relationship.  (This skill was honed in the early days when Steve would wear his huge, old gym shoes with his dress pants.  And not as a fashion statement; just because they were the "best walking shoes.")

  OK, but back to systems!  Other quick, easy to do systems that make me happy:  storing smaller suitcases inside bigger ones so they only take up as much room as the biggest one (the only flaw in this system is when you have to lift that suitcase filled with all those other, smaller ones…  This is yet another instance where Steve, or possibly your own husband, comes in handy); not bringing my purse or wallet or anything extraneous to the gym so I don’t need to waste time getting a locker or worrying whether my stuff will get stolen; keeping an extra driver’s license in my glove compartment in case I get pulled over on the way to the gym and get cited for not having any identification (in hindsight, maybe you should ignore the previous system); keeping each set of sheets and one of its pillowcases folded, then placed inside the other pillowcase, so all the pieces don’t get lost in the linen closet; keeping two laundry baskets next to the washing machine—one for colors, one for whites, so I save myself that very annoying step when I do the wash; unloading the grocery basket so that all the heavy stuff goes on the conveyer belt first, so that light things aren’t crushed by, say, the gallon of milk or giant bag of dog food barreling down to the end (the flaw here—can you see it coming?—is that the bagger, who obviously has not yet earned his Ph.D. in this particular skill, just bags them as they come, resulting in some bags being ve-e-ery heavy, and others light as can be.  Major flaw, actually.  And that always seems to happen when no one (Steve) is home to help me carry the bags in.  Note to self:  you may want to re-think this system.)

  I’ve got a million of ‘em.  These are just a few.  I may tell you more later.  And I'll be certain to tell you more about Steve's quirks, er, "systems."

Pop Quiz!

     Okay, which is better?  The New York Hampton Inn or the Santa Barbara Four Seasons?  Think you know, right? Wrong!!  Read on....

Best Western Carmel Bay View Inn

      I love to travel.  Especially the part about staying in a hotel.  It doesn’t have to be a fancy hotel--although I do love them for sure.  But one of our best trips over the last few years was to Carmel, where we stayed at a Best Western that was, well, the best.  Amazing views looking out over the treetops to the ocean, fireplace, neat deck, cute lobby, continental breakfast.  Now, the room wasn’t fancy, and the only chair in the room was the desk chair, and the bathroom window--which looked right out on the walkway and the parking lot--had no curtain. 

Cute Lobby, huh?

So it wasn’t perfect.  But it was fabulous!  We just covered the bathroom window with a pillow (they very conveniently had extras on the bed), and we used the bed as the easy chair.  And it didn’t cost a fortune--and them is words rarely spoken in Carmel.  It was so great that I’ve recommended it to many people.  (In fact, my dentist and his wife took our advice and had a great time there, too.)  We fully plan to stay there again next time.  (If the word hasn’t gotten out and now it costs a bunch, that is.)

See the Fireplace in the Corner?

     So I’m not a hotel snob.  I say there’s something magical about checking in and then waiting as the door to the room opens to reveal where we’ll be living for the next day or weekend or week.  Holiday Inn?  Courtyard by Marriott?  The Ritz-Carlton?  I love them all.  Some more than others, of course (hello, Ritz-Carlton), but I love them all, nonetheless.  Must be something left over from childhood. 

     I’m remembering our fab Carmel trip because Steve and I have taken a number of trips in the last few months and once again, just like in Carmel, our hotels surprised us.  Some were good surprises!  And some not so good.  You just never can tell.  

W/Graham and Kathleen

W/Steve's Childhood Friend Rett, and Rehana

     In early January we went to New York for a business trip, and we made a long weekend out of it and met friends for dinner a few times and wandered the streets of SoHo.  We both love NYC, even spent half of our honeymoon there.  And we mostly have stayed (at my request) near all the touristy, upscale stuff.  Park Avenue (we stayed at the Waldorf once!), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park (the Essex House for half of our honeymoon).  And had a blast walking to Rockefeller Center, Tiffany’s, Bloomingdales, the Plaza Hotel, and the museum.  Very neat! 

     But this time, we stayed in SoHo.  I couldn’t even tell you where SoHo is on a map of NYC, but I can tell you it’s neat!  Lots of shops and galleries and pubs and restaurants.  And people, of course.  (We had lunch in a neat pub called the Broome Street Bar and while we were eating, in walked Tyne Daly and some elderly, but classy, gal pals.  Fun!)  We stayed at the Hampton Inn.   And let me tell you, if you ever want a fabulous place to stay in NYC, I don’t recommend the Waldorf: charming rooms, just ok service.  Or the Essex House: great location, cozy and elegant restaurant for breakfast, but mostly a business hotel, I thought.  Or the Cooper Square: tiny tiny rooms with breathtaking views, but so dark in the hallway and elevator you need a flashlight--we're not cool enough for that place, I guess.  And not the Stanhope: right across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but oops, it’s not there anymore.  Nope.  I recommend the Hampton Inn in SoHo.  It's better than all of them.
  

     From the moment we got there, we were treated so well, thanks to Amanda, Klein, and Ginnia, the front desk staff.  They are the go to people for everything there.  And they were friendly, nice and always offering to help us—help us find a restaurant, help us figure out why the vending machine didn’t seem to have Diet Coke (it did, it just looked like it was regular Coke), help us decide how to get to a theatre, or whether we should cab it or walk to our destination.  Whatever we needed help with, they were there.  And they were so nice.  Nice!  My favorite feature, I think.  Well, that or maybe the chocolate chip cookies always on the front desk.  So how great is all that?  I mean, I think I’ve always had good experiences at Hampton Inns, but this was something else!

View from the Deck

     And then, there was the room.  Holy smokes.  They gave us a corner room on the top floor (19).  If you’ve ever stayed in NYC, you probably know it’s famous for rooms that barely fit the bed.  Not this one.  A nice seating area, comfy chairs (two!), a lovely bathroom, a huge shower with so many spigots and shower heads it was terrifying, and a deck.  A deck that overlooked not only the streets and tops of buildings of New York, but also the Hudson River.  Yes, from our 19th floor deck at the Hampton Inn, we looked out on the Hudson River.  The room also had an entire wall of floor to ceiling windows.

      But it gets cooler. Because a good part of that wall of glass was in the shower.  The shower was in the corner of the room, and not just one, but two walls of that shower were floor to ceiling windows.  Not opaque glass, not glass blocks, not rain glass.  Clear windows.  Overlooking NYC and the Hudson River!  I add with relief that there was also a curtain rod running all along those walls that were windows so that one could pull the curtain across for privacy from the outside world while showering.  (Although I have to say that the people in the really tall building across the way could probably see in over the curtain anyway.  And they probably got over that thrill long ago.  That’s what I told myself, anyway, each time I approached my shower.)  Actually, the other two walls of that shower were also clear glass, but those looked into the room.  Weird, right?  So you

Shower with a View!

kind of had to really know your roommate well if you were going to take a shower, because there warn’t no shower curtain between the room and the shower wall for privacy.  Or maybe you could just ask them to avert their eyes while you were cleaning yourself.  Very New York, I have to assume.   And very neat, I have to admit.

     Between the fabulous room (or shower, at least) and the fabulous service, that hotel ranked right up there with the Carmel Best Western.  And next time we go to NY—and we will—we’ll stay there again for sure.

      Too bad the same can’t be said for the very fancy place we stayed for our trip to Santa Barbara in November.  Steve and I went there for almost a week to celebrate our 10th Anniversary.  (Which means we’ve actually been together 19 years, but still, the wedding date is the one to celebrate, don’t you think?)

Nude Beach!?

     We've had Santa Barbara right up there toward the top of our Places We Want to Go list for a while.  So it seemed like the perfect place to go for our anniversary.  Gorgeous, lush, relaxing, filled with long drives, walks on the beach, and reading involved.  But we (I, that is, being our resident travel arranger/concierge) decided not to test the Santa Barbara Hampton Inn or Best Western this time around, and went for the splurge. La di da, we went to the Five Diamond Santa Barbara Four Seasons Biltmore.  How could we go wrong?      

Four Seasons Santa Barbara

     Believe it or not, we did!  Because I can only assume that either the Best Western or the Hampton Inn would have been just as good, if not better.  And a whole heck of a lot cheaper, of that I am sure.  Not a slum certainly (it was unbelievably lovely and pretty and lush), but with the service of the DMV, might be a good way to put it.  (We did see Dr. Drew there at breakfast one morning, though, so our trip was not a total loss.  And if you don’t know who he is—well it’s a good thing you weren’t there instead of us, or you’d have virtually no takeaways from your trip!)

     In all fairness, there were some really great parts about the place.

Outside our Room

       The resort itself was just beautiful, and our room was lovely with French Doors out to a patio, and a really beautiful bathroom with this gorgeous aqua Mexican tile.  We heard the sound of a train going by regularly, which Steve and I both loved.  Room service was great, and the spa (a birthday treat from my mom), was kind of spectacular.  And everyone knew it was our anniversary and wished us a happy anniversary.  How nice is that?  And we had an amazing anniversary dinner sitting outside at the Tydes Restaurant, overlooking beach and bay as the sun went down.  Pretty good stuff huh?

But the rest of our stay?  Not so stellar.  I mean, we weren't treated badly, and no one was rude, and nothing awful happened.  But when we stay at a 5-Diamond property (which is not often!), boy, we at least expect the staff to be friendly and courteous and maybe even (maybe it's too much?) interested in helping.  WE WANT TO BE TAKEN CARE OF, gosh darn it.  But apparently they don't do that there.  Instead, we got a staff with a general attitude of chilly--but polite--indifference. Can that be??

Yes!  I'll tell you how.

     First the concierge.  She was, in a word, bored.  By us?  By her job?  By her life?  Hard to say.  (but please please please say it wasn't us)  Our first experience, once inside the hotel, was to mistakenly go to the concierge desk to check in (in our defense, let me say it looked exactly like the Front Desk.  And there was no sign!)  Anyway, in response to our apparently horribly annoying gaffe, the concierge dismissed us with, “Check-in is on the other side of the lobby,” gave a vague wave of her hand, and then turned away.  Gee, no "Welcome to the Four Seasons, you wonderful people, we've been waiting for you all day!"?  (Well, maybe that expectation is a bit over the top.)  We tried to warm her up a number of times during our stay, but she remained aloof.  Us: "We're here for our 10th anniversary.  Can you recommend a nice place for dinner?" Concierge:  "The blah blah blah Restaurant.   Go here, turn there, it's on your left.   Who's next?"   The next day:  Us:  "Can you recommend a nice drive?"  C:  "Go here, turn there, and drive.  Next?"  After a few tries, we got kind of scared of her and left her alone to her phone calls.  (That's beat only by a concierge we once tried to talk to at the Sun Valley Resort in Idaho.  Tried in vain.  Because (we were proudly informed by her manager) this was only her second day in the United States!  And we could sure tell, because she could hardly speak English.  I mean, like until two days ago she'd never spoken any English.  A concierge who doesn't yet have a grasp of the language.  Huh.  We laughed about it afterward, but at the time all we wanted to do was to get to the damn restaurant.  Which she was totally unequipped to help us do.)  But back to the Four Seasons.

    Registration: The ladies at the front desk were not as indifferent or chilly as the concierge, we were thrilled to discover.  And they even welcomed us.  Phew!  But I have to admit, when one of them said, "Wow, you're here for six days??" I felt sort of intimidated.  Isn't that okay?  Is that too long?  Has no one ever stayed that long before?  (Although in hindsight, her puzzlement makes more sense.)  Anyway, these gals seemed young and just sort of unprofessional.  Why do I say that?  Well, here's a little Front Desk scenario:  The following day I had a question.  I walked up to the front desk, where one of the front desk ladies was standing, putting a Band-Aid on her finger.  Me:  "Did you hurt yourself?"  Her:  "No, but I keep picking at my finger, so I’m putting a band-aid on it so I’ll stop.” Five diamonds, indeed.

      Bellman:  The bellman who took us to our room was fine.  He took our bags just fine.  He found the room just fine (not an easy task at that place, I admit).  He just didn't know much about the room, didn't give us the little room tour, and he also had a hard time with English. (What is with these hotels and staff who can't communicate?  I just don't get it.  I mean, he's not a behind the scenes guy; he's in a job whose main function involves communication.  Right?  Is it just me???) Anyway, we didn't get our little explanation of the lights, the mini-bar, how to get ice, how to call room service.  And not even a mention of the fireplace, let alone how to use it.   (See, I WANT TO BE PAMPERED!)

And so it went.  There's more, but I'm sure you get the picture.  So all in all, the stay was kind of fine.  Which was a bummer. Because we went to the Four Seasons based on their stellar reputation.  We were even willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money (I'll pretend I'm not saying just how much because I am a gal of discretion, but really it's too humiliating to admit at this point).  We were willing to pay because it was a special occasion, and we wanted to be pampered and treated well by nice, friendly people in gorgeous surroundings.  WE WANTED TO BE PAMPERED.  Didn't happen.  (Except for Manny from Room Service, for whom we are so grateful!)

Now, we're nice people.  We don't find people not liking us as we get around in life.  And so we weren't looking for trouble.  WE WANTED TO BE PAMPERED!  (Did you get that yet?)  Isn't that why they give out the little stars and diamonds?  I'm pretty sure it is.  And I speak from experience, I'll have you know.  I was a concierge at The Phoenician in Phoenix (which was a Five-Star property when I was there.  Shortly after I left they "lost a star," as they say.  The two things are probably unrelated, but I like to think it's no coincidence, baby.)  Anyway, my point is that I understand the standard that's expected.  I liked giving that level of service, and I think my clients could probably tell.  (Well, except maybe for the nasty, scary ones, and hey, I was pretty good at faking it with them, so even they felt good about it all.)  And I like to get it when I make a point to stay and pay money at a place that's suggested, by its ratings and its name and its rates (oh yes, especially those rates), that it will provide all that good stuff.

Ahhhh, This Is the Life!

We were so unimpressed by our Four Seasons experience that we checked out early.  We weren't mad, just disappointed and maybe just a little resentful.  (Well, Steve wasn't resentful--he is always in bliss and calm--but I, semi-unenlightened gal that I am, was a teensy bit resentful.)  We decided we'd have more fun spending the rest of our anniversary vacation at home.  So we went home, sprung the dog from his pet resort early, and pampered ourselves, instead. A lovely anniversary, after all.

      And I did write them a lovely, long, letter (friendly and polite and not chilly, I swear) about our whole experience.  So far?  No response.  Should I be surprised?  Hmmm.

So, what's the lesson here?  Heck, I have no idea, I'm not a teacher, or even a parent.  But what I do know is that if you're going to NYC, stay at the Hampton Inn SoHo, and if you're going to Santa Barbara?  Well, you're on your own.

      Just my humble, but always correct, opinion.

      Now, our next trip is to Napa.  Anybody know a good inn?  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Black Friday!  It’s 7:30 am, and we’ve been up since 2, having just now gotten home, completely finished with our Christmas shopping, and boy it was cold camping in our tent outside of Best Buy this year.  Just kidding!  In truth, I haven’t been out shopping on the day after Thanksgiving since they started calling it Black Friday.  Used to be that the day after Thanksgiving was a fun day to shop, only because it was the official (or maybe it was unofficial) first day of the Christmas season.  Which was what made it exciting and fun.  We weren’t really hunting for bargains, just for the perfect gift.  It was lovely and had that sense of excitement because no one ever shopped for Christmas earlier than that.  Well, I suppose some people did—there have always been those strangely organized people who do all their shopping early—but most of us looked forward to those 4 or 5 weeks before Dec. 25 to immerse ourselves in the enjoyable hustle and bustle of shopping and snacking special Christmas-only treats and buying the tree.  Which, by the way, was not color-coordinated, but instead full of big lights and ornaments we loved, in every color imaginable.  Remember?  Some were lovely hideous handmade ones; some were old ones handed down from Grandma and Grandpa Eimers or McCormick, in my case; and a few were brand new ones we bought in a set at the drugstore.  Boy, there was nothing like it.  In fact, I still do it that way, pretty much.  And I still like a red and green Christmas, although I have gotten to really like some light dusty blue in there, too, in the last few years, for some reason.  Which is certainly a departure from tradition.  I mean, better to not totally live in the past.

Steph & Jim

Our Thanksgiving was quite nice this year.  In the morning, in what has become our Thanksgiving morning tradition, our kids/ grandkids Steph, Bobby and Stevie came over to hang out and then go walk at their old school near our house, while Jimmy got a chance to run like a wild boy.  You can hear his paws thundering as he flies past, and he’s so excited he’s often airborne as he chases the birds.  It’s a sight to see.  I, however, chose to be a martyr and stay home to slave in the kitchen this year, rather than doing any exercise on a holiday, for heaven’s sake.

Stevie

When they came back, Steve made eggs on the stovetop at the exact moment I was trying to put the bird (as Martha Stewart loves to call it) in the oven and then we ate breakfast way too late to be hungry for our 2pm dinner time.  First snag!

Steve & Bobby

And why was I slaving in the kitchen when I never ever make the Thanksgiving dinner?  (We always always always go somewhere else for Thanksgiving: my parents’ house, Steve’s brother’s house in Tucson, my brother’s house in Phoenix, to a restaurant with the family.)  But this year the stars aligned in a unique way and it was just Steve and me to be thankful at our own table.  Which meant it was my turn to do it all.  First time!  I was very excited to do it, but also a little anxious.  I kind of enjoy cooking, but hardly ever do it.  But I’d have to say it was a success!  The turkey turned out brown and beautiful.  But it was done an HOUR early, which I've never heard of happening and which threw everything off as you can imagine. (I mean, it was only supposed to cook for 3 hours total, so an hour early is pretty early, don’t you think?  I did.)  Anyway, I was prepared for it to take much longer than expected—that had certainly long been the tradition in my family growing up, when that damn button would never pop up.  But no, in the Chandler/Eimers oven, the button popped up and the temp read 190 (!) after only 2 hours.

But here I have to admit something.  I mis-identified my bird parts and thought the calf, if you will, was the thigh.  I didn’t really know birds had both a calf and a thigh.  So even though the directions very clearly said to put the thermometer in the thigh, I thought the leg was the leg.  Steve very kindly and off-handedly mentioned that he thought just maybe the thigh was the part underneath the drumstick.  So it did have to cook a bit longer--but not much.

Thank heaven for Steve, who exerts no pressure and would have been perfectly content to eat either early or late, without care.  He made potatoes and gravy and I made cornbread, roasted nuts, and avocado/black bean salad.  (I was going to make the pumpkin pie, too—which I have made before, many times--but in the grocery store on Wednesday it was so overwhelming trying to find the darn Eagle Brand condensed milk, and then I saw all those finished pies sitting there ready to eat looking just perfect, and realized they were the best idea I’d ever had.  So I bought two!  Cherry for me and pumpkin for Steve.)  The potatoes were supposed to be mashed, but we now know that we do not own a potato masher.  I suggested Steve just use a big fork, but he came up with an even better and definitely simpler option: boiled potatoes.  No mashing needed!  Or more importantly, no masher.

 

I had also planned, as an elegant before-dinner treat, to serve baked brie in puff pastry.  I was quite excited about it, having heard a very simple recipe on Martha Stewart Sirius radio last week and was all ready to go.  However, we had a little glitch in the system and that plan had to be aborted because (1) there was no time since the bird was done early, (2) we weren't really hungry since we’d just eaten breakfast an hour and half earlier, and (3) Steve put wet potatoes on top of the puff pastry that was thawing on the counter.  When I questioned, with horror, why my puff pastry was wet, he said, "What is that?  I put the potatoes on it.  I thought it was a towel."  There was no talking for quite some time after that in our kitchen.  And an unspoken agreement to skip the brie.  But in the end it all turned out just great, and the food was delicious and even beautiful to look at.  Very neat!

So the day turned out to be sort of lazily chaotic and very nice all around.  We finished the evening reading for a long while, then watching an episode of The #1 Ladies Detective Agency.  W never got to the dessert, but after Steve went to bed I had a piece of cherry pie all by myself, while finishing my book. Just right.

And now it’s Black Friday, and it’s time for another first.  We’re in “need” of a new flat screen big TV, so what better day to do it?  Wish us luck and pray we don't get trampled.

Bring on Christmas!

The Town

[Readers Beware:  Spoiler Alert!]

Steve and I went to see another movie.  The Town, with Ben Affleck.  I highly recommend it.  It’s a juicy one!  Ben Affleck is good.  The whole cast is good.  It’s got good writing, there’s fantastic tension, there are great characters, there’s a car chase that’s great not because of all the crashes, and it really grabs you and gets you involved.  My guess is it’ll be considered a good movie.  But those aren't the things I remember most about it.

I like to think I’m a principled gal.  I mean, I take stands on things.  Maybe not big issues, but still.  Like not shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch due to their (imo) sleazy ads that suggest inappropriate behavior to impressionable teens.  (Not a popular decision in my house, where suddenly everyone seems to want things from there—even Steve lists their men’s cologne as his all-time favorite).  Or never looking at the cars as I drive by an accident, on the theory that I wouldn’t want someone staring at me, or worse, my mom or dad, if they were in a bad way.  So before this movie started, we were treated to an ad—on the giant movie screen, mind you--for Calvin Klein men’s underwear.  It shows lots of hunky men, clad only in snug-fitting underwear, looking down, saying things like, “Do you wanna see my (bleep)?” (actual words bleeped in the ad) and “It’s all about the (bleeping) Calvins.”  And, “Hey, eyes up here.  You wanna see more?”  All accompanied by a provocative snap of the waistband.  I’m not making this up.  It was obscene and totally sleazy, all in the guise of being cool as ice.  How can this be okay?  It makes me crazy.  Crazy, I tell you.  So just before the movie started, I leaned over to Steve and whispered, “Now we have to boycott Calvin Klein.”  So I like to think I’m a principled gal who stands behind her beliefs. 

But after seeing this movie, I’m not feeling so smug about me and my ironclad principles.  Now that’s a good movie!

The lights go out, and the movie begins.  It’s a really moody movie about residents of a blue collar neighborhood outside of Boston where bank robberies and armored car heists are a way of life, where life is hard in the projects but it's even harder to get out, and generations have been following in the family footsteps, and those steps lead smack dab into the middle of a life of crime

Ben Affleck (“Doug”) and his buddies live in that neighborhood.  They’re bank robbers.  The movie opens with a spectacular bank heist, and we have front row seats.  Their plan comes off like clockwork, obviously prepared down to the smallest detail.  They wear masks, which means no one can identify them, which in turn means no one has to get killed.  (Heck, I support that.)  Just a simple robbery.  This is their standard M.O.  But this time around, there’s a hitch.  One of the thieves, who we later discover is a loose cannon who’s already done nine years in prison, loses control and attacks one of the bank employees.  One of his partners in crime stops him, but not before he also drags Claire, the lovely young bank manager, out with them to use as a hostage if necessary.  Luckily for Claire, it doesn’t become necessary, and they release her without her ever seeing their faces.  The masks, remember?

All is not fine for long, however.  Their certainty that Claire knows nothing becomes a bit shaky when they discover she lives just a few blocks from them, and they realize she may actually run into them from time to time.  Doug, being the natural leader, volunteers to discreetly check her out to determine whether she knows more than they (and she) think she does.  He follows her to the Laundromat, chats her up, and is relieved to see that no alarms are going off in her head as her clothes tumble.  But by time the last item is folded, the die has been cast:  not only does Doug realize the toll their little bank escapade has taken on her personally, but he is smitten.  He invites her out for a drink, she accepts and, well, you can guess the rest.  Doug and Claire become an item and fall in love, and all the while she has no idea who he really is.  

The story is intriguing; I was totally engrossed.  But here’s the fun part.  We’ve got bank robbers who violently rob a bank.  We’ve got an innocent working girl who falls for a nice guy—who just happens to be one of those bank robbers. We’re shown both sides of the law:  the law enforcement side, and the bank robbers side.  And which side did I land on in this moral dilemma?  On the side of the bank robbers.  The criminals.  The law-breakers.  I found myself wondering, What would I do if I fell for a criminal?  A bank robber.  A law-breaker.  I’d like to say, based on the principles I’ve always been so clear about, that I’d tell him I couldn’t become involved, that I can’t have that kind of choice happening in my life.  That maybe I’d even turn him in.  I mean, after all, he’s broken the law.  And that’s wrong, I’m pretty definite about that.  You don’t break the law.  And if you do, you take responsibility and accept the repercussions.  I always believed it’s a pretty clear line for me.  (Hey, I’ve had a speeding ticket or two in my time, and I’ve never tried to talk anyone out of it; I did it, I get the ticket.  Simple stuff.)

But here I was, rooting for the bank robber without hesitation.  Rooting against that darn wily FBI guy.  I did not want Doug to get caught.  I didn’t want Claire to turn him in when she inevitably found out.  I didn’t even want Claire to dump him when she found out.  Yeah, I would have liked it if he returned the money he stole, but regardless, I did not want Doug going to jail.  Not Doug!  Because, hey, he was a victim of his upbringing.  Of his neighborhood, even.  (“The bank robbery capital of America,” the movie posters declare.)  This is a good guy!  He committed a few robberies, I know, but within those parameters, he’s kept to his own moral code:  you don’t kill, you don’t harm anyone, and you stand up for your friends no matter what.  Within that framework, Doug is an honorable guy.  This stuff is supposed to be black and white, but it just wasn’t.  I love that. 

Doug even tried to make good; he left the neighborhood and became a professional hockey player.  But that didn’t pan out as he’d planned, and so he came back to his roots.  And those roots were of the criminal variety.  He even tried to get out a second time, after he fell in love with Claire.  But one of his partners in crime, his lifelong friend whose family took him in as one of their own when he was left alone as a child, for heaven’s sake, made it clear that to do that would be to betray everything they’d been through together.  Holy smokes, the lines are blurring all over the place.

It’s easy for someone like me to have strong principles that I stand on.  Things like not shopping at a cool store.  Wow.  Impressive, I know.  But I’ve had a pretty easy life.  I didn't grow up in the projects; I grew up in a middle class family, with nice parents and a nice brother and sister, and lived in neighborhoods that were just fine, and went to schools that never even considered having cops stationed at any of the doors.  I never had these kinds of dilemmas to deal with.  Or even think about, really.

But here comes Doug, who is a really good guy, at heart.  I mean, Claire fell for him easily, and no one in the theatre wondered why.  Certainly not me!  But he’s done a bad thing.  Many bad things.  So now I’m just wondering about all this.  What do you do when a good person does a bad thing?  I mean, is prison for everyone who breaks the law?  Or is it just for “bad” people?  I’m a very conservative gal, personally and politically.  I do believe it’s fair to consider someone’s circumstances when doling out a sentence.  But I’ve always thought that’s just something to use in mitigation of the sentence, not in determining whether they’re found guilty or not.  And I’m pretty sure I still believe that.  But boy, how interesting it is to have your principles put to the test in a “real-life” (well, a movie-life) situation.  Do they stand up?  I think so.  But suddenly I’m not 100% certain.  On paper, the appropriate result is so clear to me.  In theatre, the line has somehow blurred.  And I love that. 

Now I know this isn’t groundbreaking stuff.  I’ve seen it in other movies and I’ve enjoyed being manipulated lots of times.  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid comes to mind.  And a zillion others, I’m sure.  But it was more personal this time around.  Is it because it was so serious?  Because it involved a girl--an actual victim of their crime--and her innocent personal relationship with a crook?  The fact that she became involved before she knew who he really was?  Yes, yes, and yes.  Or maybe that's what a really great movie does.  Or maybe it was just the mood I was in that day.  Whatever the explanation, it made for a fabulous afternoon.

At the end, we hear Doug’s voiceover talking to Claire, telling her he’s going to be paying for what he did for a long, long time.  And then we see him all alone, somewhere far, far away, pensively staring out into a harsh but beautiful landscape.  I mentioned to Steve that that didn’t seem like very harsh payment to me, but Steve pointed out his prison was “in here,” pointing to his head.  I know, I know.  I get it.  But is that enough?  Shouldn’t he be in prison?  I kind of think so.  But I'm not sure.  What do you do with a good guy who does some bad things?  It’s a hard question.

After the movie, as the credits were rolling, I leaned over to Steve and asked another hard question.  “What do you do if you fall in love with a criminal?” I whispered.  His answer?  “Love him.”  Boy did I pick the right guy.  Now keep your fingers crossed he doesn't go rob a bank.

And that’s just my humble (and always correct) opinion.

To Hell in a Grocery Basket

Somebody give me a chill pill, I just got home from Fry’s!

Have you ever shopped at Fry’s?  Am I crazy, or is shopping at this store a total nightmare?  A uniquely rotten experience?  (Clue:  I'm pretty sure I'm not crazy.)

The very first time I shopped there, over 9 years ago, is etched in my memory forever.  As I waited in line to check out, voices were raised, and a loud, ugly argument occurred.  An angry couple that couldn’t agree on what to have for dinner?  No.  A shopper confronting another shopper who had cut in line?   Nope.  It was the checker in my line, arguing and yelling at the customer.  I don’t remember the specifics of the argument (I’ve tried hard to erase the whole distasteful incident from my mind, mostly unsuccessfully), but it was definitely loud, nasty and involved lots of name-calling.  Mostly on the side of Your Friendly Fry’s Employee.  Sadly, as I shopped there regularly, I realized that that was typical shopping day at Fry’s. 

Over the years, things got a little better—there are almost no loud arguments any more (by the employees, at least)--but the employees remained surly and rude (“Having a good day today?”  “Oh, yes, it’s going great,” I respond with a smile.  Only to be met with a glare by the checker; she was talking to the bagger.).  And they remained true to their unspoken promise to always open two fewer lines than are needed.

They pretend like they have improved that last little issue.  Because they now give us a choice:  We can wait around forever in the one line that’s open in order to have a surly or maybe just disinterested checker ring us up, along with a bagger who’s paying no attention to what he’s doing.  Or, for our convenience, we can just do all the work ourselves.  Because they’ve so nicely installed about nine or ten self-checkout lines.  Are they kidding?  Now I have to do all the work that an employee is paid to do?  And I don’t even get a discount?  The real puzzler is that I seem to be the only one who minds. People are like sheep! my mother used to say.  And there are all the sheep in Fry’s, waiting in line to do the work they’re paying someone else to do.  Sheep, I tell you. 

But I suspect this has all been part of Fry’s Master Plan.  The long con, if you will. (And in case you’re not versed in the world of the con, there are two kinds of cons: the short con and the long con.  The short con is where you take someone’s money quickly, like a fraud that uses sleight of hand—a shell game, for example.  The long con involves a plan and lots of people.  Think The Sting. I learned all about this stuff when Steve and I started watching this British TV show called Hustle, about a group of con artists playing the long con.  I recommend it!  The TV show, not playing the con.)  Anyway, back to Fry’s.  I’m thinking they decided to make the checkout experience so unpleasant that customers would do anything, just anything, to avoid it.  They started it years ago, with the yelling fights.  Then, just shy of losing all customers due to their fear of shopping there, Fry’s toned it down by just having routinely unfriendly and rude employees.  Next, they taught all their baggers a fun little system that involves any number of short cons: making each bag as heavy as possible (I once weighed my bag when I got home: 17 pounds); or putting just one thing in each bag so that you may find yourself unloading 15 bags into your car; or cramming the warm chicken in next to all the frozen items; or that tired old con, putting the strawberries underneath the gallon of milk.  They’ve beaten us down so far that all we want to do is get out of the store without having any contact with any employee from the time we enter to the time we push out little basket out through the door.   

Lately, they’ve stepped up their game and this time they’ve gotten nasty.  Well, nastier.

Because this time they’re playing on their certainty that no one is going to complain about an employee doing a poor job when that employee is…slow? retarded? special? mentally disabled? mentally challenged? What is the correct term these days?  Let’s say mentally challenged.  (I realize that even acknowledging that such a state actually exists is, these days, offensive in itself).  At any rate, my Fry’s now apparently has a program where they employ the mentally challenged.  Right on, I say.  I’ve seen McDonald’s do it for decades with great success, in my experience.  But Fry’s has a little different take.  Instead of using their skills to their best advantage, Fry’s has decided to use them as…baggers!

Oh no, say it ain’t so!  Haven’t I just suggested how very complex the art of bagging is?  It was bad enough as it was, with the villainous baggers and their calculated mis-baggings.  But now, ever since they’ve started using the mentally challenged for this complicated feat?  Well, virtually every time I come out of Fry’s, I have to re-distribute all the groceries before I load them into the car to make them carryable, to balance them out, to get rid of the unnecessary bags, muttering to myself like a crazy person all the while.  One time I had to go back in the store when the bag with the eggs, which was perched precariously on top of the cart, came crashing down around me.  This involved waiting at the service counter while those ahead of me bought lottery tickets, bought their tickets to the Van Halen or Ted Nugent concert, bought their cigarettes, complained about bad service, and the various other thousands of things one can only do at the “customer service” desk.

I admit I've fallen prey to their plot.  I have succumbed to the self-serve checkout line once or twice.  But I’ve concluded that I’m just not smart enough to handle this job.  The little lady’s voice is constantly telling me I’ve done something wrong.  Many things wrong: “Please place items on pad.  Please remove items from pad.  Please remove item and re-scan.  Please insert your Fry’s card.  Please enter code before placing items on pad.  Please call assistant.  Please call assistant!”   So by the end of the nightmare, not only have I weighed my own vegetables, hunted down various produce codes, and done my own bagging—but I’ve had to get the help of the “assistant” (shhhh, she’s really a checker!), anyway.  That would be one assistant.  For all ten checkout lines.  And I’m not the only mentally challenged customer there; it appears that virtually everyone needs her assistance.  So then I wait 5 minutes or so for Your Friendly Fry’s Assistant to come rescue me, once she’s rescued every other self-checker.  And I had to wait in line to do it all.  And all for the same price I would have paid in a real checkout line, with that wonderful surly gal to wait on me.  Oh, how I long for her sneer right about now, I think as I’m waiting for that darn assistant.

So I may think Fry's is evil, but really maybe they're the smarties, after all.  Because I think they’re winning on all fronts:  I still shop there.  More and more sheep are using the self-checkout.  Prices are not getting any lower.  And they can hire fewer and fewer employees.  Voila, we’re conned!  Baaaaa.

But, hey, that's just my humble (but always correct) opinion.

Of Mice and Me

Steve and I went to see the movie Dinner for Schmucks a few weeks ago. And it changed my life. I swear.

Steve didn’t want to go. I had to convince him. I normally wouldn’t want to go to one of those guys-being-guys movies, either. But I think somewhere in my subconscious, ESP (as we used to call it)-laden mind, I knew that this movie would be important for me. And I do kind of like Steve Carell. Who doesn’t? (Well, Steve doesn’t, but everyone else does.) The reviews suggested it was kind of touching (not that I ever agree with reviews—especially reviews of those kinds of movies) and my sister Nancy said I’d like it, too. Nancy knows me pretty well—we’re sort of like twins in that way, even though we’re 3 years apart—so that was a pretty convincing review for me.

So anyway, we went and I was prepared for it to be just okay. Which, by the way, is the best attitude to have going in to a movie. Have you ever noticed that? If you have great expectations, look out. They’re usually just too hard to live up to. But if you go in expecting a turkey (although why am I in the theatre if I think it’s going to be a turkey?), it’s like magic. You almost cannot be disappointed. It turns out to be a turkey? No disappointment, it’s what you expected. It’s just okay? There you go, now you’re already happy; it’s exceeded your expectations already! And if it’s good? Well, see how good that theory is?

So I didn’t expect much. But from the moment the movie started, I was thrilled. I mean, thrilled. Yes, the story was pretty cruel—in order to fit in with his superiors at the office, a guy with dreams of advancement agrees to play their cruel game: each guy must bring a loser to a dinner party they all attend. Whoever brings the biggest loser is, well, the winner. Of course, the losers (i.e., schmucks), don’t know that’s why they’re there. Making the whole thing even more cruel than it sounded in the first place.

So that wasn’t so nice. And the biggest loser of all—no surprise here—is Steve Carell. And he makes a lovely loser! He’s got all the requirements: funny teeth, glasses, interested in unusual things, klutzy, naïve, eager to please and, like I said, interested in unusual things. But he’s so much more than just your typical movie-loser: he’s vulnerable and sweet and manages to maintain a bit of self-confidence and self-worth, even while all around him are laughing at him behind, or even in front of, his back. I found myself really liking this odd guy. You might even want to hang around with him. I did.

So this particular loser has an unusual hobby for a grown man: he makes dioramas. (Do you know what those are? They’re like little miniature scenes, I now know.) And not just any dioramas; his dioramas use mice, that are so carefully crafted that they are, believe it or not, the cutest, sweetest things you’ve ever seen. (Don’t be distracted by the fact that he actually uses real dead mice that he’s taken to the taxidermist to be stuffed … I mean, I think we’ve established that he’s an odd duck.) He gives them hair, he dyes the hair, he makes their glasses, he dresses them in adorable little outfits. There’s a mouse Mona Lisa, a mouse Benjamin Franklin flying a kite, and even the Wright brothers mice flying their plane. He also makes scenarios re-enacting moments from his own life. There he is with his little mouse wife on the Ferris wheel, on the swings, having a picnic in the park.

These dioramas start the movie. This is all you see for the first 10 or 15 minutes. Just hands crafting the glasses, putting on the outfits, and placing the little “people” in their scenes. And there’s where it really got good for me. See, one time, my sister’s husband Bill told her he thought I was (in a complimentary way, I’m just certain) eccentric. And when I saw those little mouse scenarios, with all their little mouse details? Mice on swings! Mice in the park! Mice wearing little pink checked dresses! Well, I was transfixed. Transfixed. Yes, the rest of the movie came along but really, I think I would have preferred to just spend the entire hour and a half watching those hands making those mice and their mouse world. It was like it was the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen. And all I could think the whole time I watched was that I had to do this myself.

I’ve been searching for a hobby for years. I’ve taken a knitting class, taken piano lessons, made Christmas ornaments, tried scrapbooking, and who knows what else. But nothing stuck. I live in Arizona, what am I going to knit? And Christmas comes only once a year, and by the time I’d finish an ornament it was well into spring. So the search continued. I always feel such envy when I read people’s bios that mention some fascinating minutiae they’re an expert on, or hear people talk about what they did on their long weekend. “I spent the whole weekend painting hollow eggs like flags from countries around the world. Then I’ll shellac them and give them as gifts. Next I’m going to paint eggs with all the Scottish tartans.” Man, why can’t I want to do that? Steve always tells me he sees me as someone with lots of interests, rather than wasting myself on one specific one. (Steve is the best!) But I want a real hobby that I love to do. I love to read, but that’s not the same thing. Reading is so enjoyable, but it’s not like you have a creation after a book. Unless you wrote it, of course.

So there, sitting in a movie probably geared toward teenage boys, I found my hobby! I decided then and there to make dioramas of my own. Just thinking of it makes me excited (not something that ever happened with the piano, knitting, or even Christmas ornaments). I even thought of all kinds of scenarios I could create: My “Ideal Life Scene” (a lovely concept I learned during my very brief stint in the Spiritual Psychology program at the University of Santa Monica). Christmas morning (oh my gosh, we even have a toy train I gave to Steve a number of years ago that’s dying to be used. I can picture the little mouse engineer already!). My brother’s silver Airstream Trailer vacation home in Patagonia, AZ (although how could I make that any cuter than it already is? See here for proof.). Every house I’ve ever lived in. Man, I’ve got a million ideas!

And then I had another cool idea. Where is the most logical place to put doll-like creatures? In a dollhouse!

I actually have a tiny bit of experience in the dollhouse buying world. My sister Nancy decided a few years ago she’d like to have a dollhouse like the one she had when we were kids. Not a big fancy wooden one, but one of those metal ones from the fifties. They were made by Marx, and they had the furniture, rugs, pictures, beds, cribs, and even bushes painted on them already. It doesn’t sound too nice, but it really was very neat. They were so beautiful! Full of color, inside and out. That way, you didn’t have to get furniture if you didn’t want to. (Now I’m thinking about this. Were they supposed to be for those of us with limited funds? Who couldn’t afford furniture? Who would be thrilled to just look at pictures of furniture? Wow. But I don’t think so; I think they were part of that fifties “modern efficient life,” where we no longer needed to do everything by hand.) Anyway, Nancy shopped for her house on eBay, and I helped her search, from across the country on my computer. We had a blast. She ended up with a house we think might be exactly the one she had as a kid. Neato, for sure.

So I went on eBay, too, and found a dollhouse of my own. Mine isn’t a metal one, though, because I don’t want to copy Nancy exactly (after all, we are not twins, as I said) and I want to do all that decorating stuff. Painting and wallpapering and filling it with—mice. Not real ones, though, I swear! My dollhouse is a little wooden cottage, and I have to build it myself from a kit. Which is where it could get a little dicey. My brain is good with details, but my track record with hand detailing is not as stellar. I was the kid who always had glue blobs on everything in art class. And I suspect time has not diminished that lack of talent. But no matter. My house might well have blobs of glue. I think I can call it "character.”

I couldn’t wait to get started. And I didn’t want to have to wait until the dollhouse arrived in the mail to get going, so I decided I could get started on the people. (Okay, they’re really mice.) Nancy suggested I go to the pet store and get some stuffed toy mice they have for cats to play with. Perfect! I found some that are just right, with little arms to hold purses and other necessities in life, and big enough to dress and accessorize without needing a microscope. (And in keeping with all things miniature, if you want to see some amazing sculptures that you do need a microscope to even see, go here.) I even bought some really little mice, sans arms, for the children, should they want to multiply. I suspect they will.

And for my very first couple, my own little Adam and Eve if you will, I was inspired by our good friends Fred and Lynette. Steve and I were supposed to be in the skiing town of Telluride a few weeks ago for their secret wedding. Steve was even supposed to perform the ceremony. He got ordained online, we got him a priest’s stole, he found a few beautiful poems and readings, we had a song or two ready to sing; we were all set. But then, as you may know, I broke my ankle, and we decided at the last minute that flying around the country and then maneuvering myself all over a small, rustic town—and mountain!—would not be a wise thing for my foot. Not with my crutches and not even with Rollerboy. So we canceled. And felt awful!

The Happy Couple

So last weekend we had a private little dinner for the two of them to make up for it, and I decided to make a wedding couple for them. A mouse bride and groom! But get this: it turns out the mecca of all things crafty, Michael’s ("where creativity happens," they tell me), does NOT do doll/dollhouse stuff. Apparently that kind of creativity happens elsewhere. No houses, no clothes, no nuthin.’ So I had to make everything. Which I was not expecting, but which turned out to be a blast, so thank you, Michael, whoever you are. I used a crocheted doily I had around the house for a wedding gown, made a top hat out of felt, and even used some tips I’d seen from the movie to dress my little friends. So I’ve actually finished my first mice people!


We had the dinner in our suite at the Arizona Inn in Tucson. (Wow, if you ever want a nice play to stay in that town and be treated like royalty, that’s it! No further looking needed. But be sure to bring a fat wallet.) We sat the mice right next to the (real) wedding cake. And they made the best bride and groom ever—after Fred and Lynette, of course. Well, and after Steve and me, too. At least I think so. I think Fred and Lynette were pleased, too. Perhaps they thought it a bit eccentric? Well, they wouldn’t have been the first!

Another Happy Couple