EastGirlsWest

Once every few weeks we end up buying one of those delicious rotisserie chickens at the grocery story for dinner. And my sister always saves the wishbone.

After it dries out for a few days, it’s time to break. We have a ritual. We stand in the kitchen, each grab one side, and close our eyes.

The first time we did this, Tay made a beautiful suggestion: we should each make a wish for the other so that we’d always be pleased with the outcome, no matter who pulled the larger piece.

We are each other’s delicate mirror and solid foundation. We share memory, pain, and a bottomless well of laughter. It only makes sense that we should each embrace the other’s wish - to have the daring to ask for our sister what she is certainly afraid to hope for herself. Now every time I tug on my end, I think about our future, uncertain but entwined. I know her joy is my own, and my happiness has plenty of room for her.

Right before the final tug, I open my eyes to look at her. I want to kiss her closed eyelids and whisper that we will always be okay.

Snap.

I win. And she has her wish.

I could have posted a photo of the turkey, or the stuffing, or the potatoes, or the apple pie. But let’s be honest - it all comes down to one essential, delicious ingredient!

There are so many things I’m thankful for today I don’t know where to begin: my amazing family, my wonderful friends, The Betrothed, the abundance of food we’re cooking, the Democratic majority in Congress, The Wire, the cocktails my sister just whipped up, the cute green dress I’m wearing, Southern California weather, and so much more.

Happy Stuff Yourself Day to you and yours!

Like many of us, I love reading feature articles about other people’s homes. The New York Times real estate section, Dwell, Domino, Elle Decor…this is my porn. And the photos! Oh, the photos! For years I would flip through the pages of these magazines, staring at the psychotic perfection of each residence, thinking “who ARE these people?”. Because really, if your house looks that good, and your life sounds that good, and you are actually plucked from among those who have it THAT GOOD to be profiled in a publication that other people pay money for in order to read about your sickly perfect existence…well, in that case, you have CLEARLY — at some point — sold your soul in exchange.

Then I got into a relationship with The Betrothed. And fell in love with his very intact soul. And eventually moved out of my thift-store chic, one-bedroom, third floor walk-up apartment and into his beautifully furnished, photogenic home.

Two days ago, said home was featured in SD Home, the local, quarterly glossy published by the Union Tribune. We are now those people.

(go here for an easier-to-read version of the article)

The day this magazine landed on my coffee table, I settled on the couch to read the piece and admire my home as it’s never looked before or since. Then I happened to glance up at the place where the ceiling meets the wall, and noticed it was moving. Teeming with a parade of ants, marching en masse from somewhere hidden in the ceiling to somewhere secret in the wall three feet away. So gross.

Now the truth is, we’ve been fighting the ants for weeks, and from what I hear from my friends and neighbors in San Diego, we’re not alone. Our main battleground is the master bathroom, but they seem intent on exploring the entire place. With all this experience, you think I’d be more skilled with the RAID can by now. But the ceiling is tricky. I sprayed the ants in transit above me, but their corpses started falling onto my head, along with a fine mist of insect killer. Even more gross.

So with dead insects in my hair and poison in my lungs, I again sat down to read about how great it is here.

As you know, I work in television. I am no stranger to the miracle of lighting, the tricks of the camera, the outrageous time that can be spent preparing a space to be photographed. But I have to say, it’s very different when it’s the place you inhabit every day. The place where a layer of crumbs coats the kitchen floor, a film of toothpaste covers the bathroom sink, and a pile of dirty laundry lives permanantly in the corner of the bedroom. Don’t get me wrong, I think this house is wonderful. I love living here and feel very lucky to do so. And while it’s never spotless and shining, it is relatively clean on a regular basis. But when I saw the photos it was if I was looking at the Bizarro World version of my home. And really, it would be even more fun to live in THAT version.

I love the article that Ann Jarmusch wrote. It’s an accurate relflection of how much care and hard work The Betrothed has put into making this house a comfortable and special home. And the photos! They are gorgeous. But in the interest of full disclosure, I feel there could have been a disclaimer at the end — one that said something like: Before these photos were taken, Hanson and The Betrothed cleaned until their fingers bled. Random crap was moved off of shelves and counters and hidden in closets. Flowers were purchased and put in vases that are never used. Furniture was moved. And when the photographer arrived, the windows were still not photo ready, and his assistant had to pull out the Windex and paper towels and clean them himself. (Hanson was mortified).

We celebrated the birth of our nation this past Tuesday as many Americans did, with meat cooked on a grill. Although, to be fair, we had some veggie burgers, too. And potato salad, pasta salad, cole slaw, guacamole, watermelon, beer, cake and illegal fireworks.

Looking around, I felt rather proud of the America we represented. Among us were members of the press and members of city government. Small business owners and entrepreneurs. Artists and teachers. Many different definitions of “family”, and a wide variety of flip flops. Plus, not a single one of us managed to harm ourselves with a sparkler.

At one point we lit a Duraflame in the fire pit outside, and two of our youngest guests were helping me blow on it to get the flames going. Of course, they had no sense of when it was time to STOP blowing on the log. Because when you are four years old, forcing air out of your mouth towards a flame means one thing: birthday cake!

Pam, who is a mom and therefore endowed with the gift of quickly responding to innocent why? and what? questions with a clever answer, asked them to back off a bit - since their enthusiastic blowing was now including a fair amount of spit.

“It’s not a birthday cake, girls. It’s a log.”

“Is it a birthday log?”

“No, just a log. For the fire.”

“It’s a birthday log!”

“Okay. Yes, that’s right. A birthday log for America.”

So vacation here on Cape Cod is a true step back from the usual pace and activities of our real life. For instance, we don’t usually play board games in San Diego, but every summer here we end up gathered around one at the dining room table. A few nights ago, it was the game of LIFE.

Remember LIFE?

You start off with a car, a little bit of cash and a dream. Then you start spinning to move around the board. One of the first decisions you have to make is whether or not to go to college. I choose the academic route and lucked out by landing on the space that made me a doctor. A doctor! My $20,000 salary added up, which is important because GUESS WHAT? In the game of LIFE, the person who ends up with the most money wins.

It’s so sick. You either end up on the ‘Poor Farm’ or at ‘Millionare Acres’. Clearly, Milton Bradley was able to predict the dissappearance of the middle class long before it started to actually happen. And did I mention that every player is FORCED to get married? My mother rebelled by putting another pink figure in the car next to her own.

Plus, you have to buy insurance, worry about your investments, pay too much interest on debt and shell out lots of money for gifts every time another player has a child or a wedding.

Really, I can’t explain why it’s fun to play.

Oh - there is one thing: it’s really fun when you win, which I did. It’s Millionaire Acres for me, suckers.

On the eve-eve of my 35th birthday, I somehow found myself at an all-ages concert. It was the Arctic Monkeys first show in San Diego, and we watched them perform with thousands of other fans, many of whom were half my age or younger. I think even the band members are still freakin’ teenagers.

Now to be fair, there was a decent smattering of people who looked our age in the audience. But I couldn’t help wondering if they were parents, lurking towards the back, a safe distance from their young teenager but close to enough to make sure they didn’t end up in the parking lot drinking beer after the show with some skeevy 22-year-old. On the other hand, the whole Grup philosophy claims that despite a 20 year age difference, we are all listening to the same music. So maybe they weren’t parents.

But the age thing really hit me as I was standing in a long line for the ladies room in front of three 14-year-old girls who had braces, but no breasts yet. While waiting for my turn in the stall, I could actually feel my ovaries shrivel as time passed. They were giggling together over every picture they’d already snapped with their cameraphones, all wearing the same Artic Monkeys t-shirt and self-conciously stroking their hair. I did not have my camerphone. I left it in the car, which was not very MySpace of me. Instead, I was eyeing the traffic in and out of the stalls, and the general condition of the bathroom, thinking “I bet there’s not going to be any goddamn toilet paper when I get in there.”

So I leaned over from my place in line and grabbed two paper towels to take in with me. The girls stared, wide-eyed, and actually stopped giggling for three seconds. One of them whispered to the other, “that’s a really good idea.” They followed suit. And I coudn’t decide if I was cool in my experienced, concert-going, ladies-room wisdom, or really mom-like for thinking about toilet paper so much.

Meanwhile, The Boyfriend is perenially loved by the youth. Thanks to umpteen semesters of teaching Electronic Media Management at SDSU, we are constantly running in to his former students. Somewhere between the opening band and the main event, one of the guys standing in front of us turned around and said, “Dude! You were, like, the best teacher I ever had!”

And then the Monkeys came out, and they were loud and fun and we cheered and shook our hips and moved our arms and possibly even sang along a few times. And it felt great. And you know what? I didn’t feel so old.

Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling’s smug mugs will look so much better behind bars. I couldn’t be more pleased about the Enron verdicts, although, they will probably end up with a cushier incarceration than deserved.

Still, I long for a day when the same G-word would be leveled publicly against The Man Posing As President and many in his administration; for starting a war with false intelligence, torture of prisoners of war, complicity in the Enron debacle, leaking the identity of a CIA agent, stealing an election (or two), having ZERO command of the English language, being really freaking stupid and SO much much much more.

While I’m at it, I’d also like to convinct my HMO (I’m talking about you, Pacificare), for taking my $250 monthy premium and actively contributing to the deterioration of my precarious health. I’m pretty sure that sending me to specialists who can’t squeeze me into their schedules, denying me medication that I desperately need, and reducing me to tears of sheer and utter frustration every single time I call customer service is NOT helping me “get better”.

But hey, at least they’re making money off me so it’s all good, right?

P.S. I must reserve a kind, positive word for Amber, the nice, helpful customer service agent at Pacificare that I spoke with today. I was still reduced to tears, but it was by jackass Pacificare policy, not Amber. She tried to mitigate my hysteria with kindness while I hyperventilated. She probably couldn’t even understand what I was saying half the time.

Thank you, Amber. Thank you.

Unless you are really enthusiastic about the whole theme park thing, I can’t recommend a visit to Orlando. While I have to admit I spent most of my time there in the confines of a very chilly Marriott, I’m not convinced there were many good reasons to venture out.

Meal highlight was at bluezoo, the Todd English restaurant - which was also, coincidentally, the ONLY restaurant I went to that was not in a strip mall. It was in the incredibly tacky Dolphin Hotel.

There’s much to catch up on - including my sleep, about 20 hours of programs on the DVR, three issues of the New Yorker and a week’s worth of news from Angela.

It’s good to be home.

Spent a wonderful day in LA yesterday. You know, I’ve been meaning to start a recurring post theme called “San Diego We Feel Good About”. Places and things in San Diego that, well, we feel good about. The proximity of LA, my friends, falls into this category.

When I first moved here I heard a lot of “…and LA is only two hours away…” from the many who were trying to sell me on the merits of America’s Finest City. I’ve lived lots of places that were only two hours away from other places. And honestly? The effort was rarely made. For example: I grew up in Connecticut, less than two
hours away from New York City, and I think my parents took us there once.

But now, all the rules have been broken! We actually DO go to LA on fun little adventures, quite often. And it doesn’t take that long to get there. It’s the perfect day trip - you love it while you’re there, but are happy to return to sleepy San Diego at the end of the day.

So we managed to go to three (3!) museums, eat two meals and get some shopping in. A more successful day I cannot imagine.

Started off at The Getty Center. OMG. I had been told it was extraordinary. Heard first-hand accounts of it’s fabulousness. Read that it was breathtaking. Once there, I was overwhelmed. The setting, views, architecture and landscaping all work perfectly together, creating a space that is truly grand, yet still welcoming. I never even made it inside to look at the art. While The Boyfriend did research in the library, I spent the entire time wandering through the spaces between the various pavilions, walking through the garden, admiring the views. Note to Richard Meir and Robert Irwin: well done.

After lunch at the Getty, we drove to Little Tokyo to check out the Noguchi exhibit at the Japanese American Museum. Talented man, that Isamu. The sculpture and furniture were of course great, but we particularly enjoyed seeing a selection of the set pieces he built for Martha Graham.

After the Noguchi exhibit, I somehow found myself at a certain car dealership that The Boyfriend had sniffed out and driven to as if the location were embedded in his personal GPS. I barely had time to register what was happening. One minute we were driving by the Disney Concert Hall to admire it’s wavy Gehry-ness, and the next thing I know I’m on the roof of a building in downtown LA, wandering among a sea of luxury cars with a salesman named Anton.

From said car dealership we drove over to Reform Gallery in West Hollywood. Reform is not a museum, but is, in fact, just like visiting one. This is because everything is extremely beautiful and somewhat rare, and we could never afford to own any of it. Still, we hardly miss the chance to stop by when we’re in LA.

Also stopped into one of our favorite stores, OK on Third Street, where I overheard the following conversation between two salespeople:

“What should I get my mom for Mother’s Day? Is there something I can get her here? What would she like?”
“How about a book?”
“Yeah, but we don’t have any books on plastic surgery.”

Our last museum stop was the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA) for two shows: Gustav Klimt and Ettore Sottsass. We waited until after 5:00 to go because then it’s free.

I had never been to LACMA either, and it’s quite a lovely collection of buildings and public space. There was jazz band performing for free to a large crowd of wacky Angelenos, who were dancing, drinking and generally enjoying themselves. You can read (and listen) about the Klimt exhibit here. The paintings were recently returned to the heir of the family they were looted from by the Nazi’s. And they were beautiful.

Finished the day off with yummy Cuban food at Versailles on La Cienega, and a drive home that was nearly traffic-free. Car tunes? Currently obsessed with Elbow - third album, Leaders of the Free World.

Apologies in advance that more than one of my post-Austin posts will be about shopping. But when a woman leaves town to visit her sister, shopping is bound to occur. This is a story about our trip to Hem, the denim bar.

My sister was determined to help me find a pair of dream jeans while I was in Austin, and pretty convinced that Hem was where it could happen. By day two of my visit, somewhere between lunch at Whole Foods and dinner on South Congress, I ended up purchasing and being photographed in a pair of PaperDenimCloth. Let me start at the beginning:

So we saunter into the denim bar. My sister in her super-sexy jeans she bought there a few weeks ago, complete with studded belt, studded tanktop, appropriately messy multi-colored hair and the pure-hearted goal of helping her sister. I followed in my baggy cargo pants, feeling somewhat dowdy and slightly afraid.

I have to explain, on some level it was meant to be that I would end up at Hem with my sister. After the first time she went there, she called me flush with excitement about her successful purchase. “It’s a new denim bar, owned by two sisters! I can’t wait to take you there!”

Then, two nights later I was watching Letterman, and Dave was doing ‘Audience Show & Tell’. His first contestant was a young woman from Austin, who told him she owned a denim bar along with her sister. I called MY sister immediately to report, and upon arrival at Hem this weekend promptly told the owner I saw her on Letterman. She was thrilled.

Not exactly sure what “denim bar” means. If it’s “bar” in the sense that a traditional bar has a many varieties of one thing (alcohol) to choose from, then I can see the comparison. They had a whole lot of jeans and nothing else. On the other hand, they did offer all of us a beer while we were shopping, so maybe it’s actual alcohol in combination with the denim that makes it a “denim bar”. Unclear.

There were three women working while we were there, and they ALL scattered to help me the perfect pair of jeans. Amazing customer service experience. I must have tried on 15 pair, which is probably nothing compared to what they’ve seen there, but for me, an immense commitment. My sister stood at the dressing room, directing the traffic of pants in and out, rating each pair that made it around my hips with either the nod, the wince, or the occasional eyebrow raise.

Meanwhile, the boyfriend and my mother were settled in the exhausted-shopping-companion chairs, each trying to be patient in the face of, let’s be honest, a worse-case scenario for the person NOT interested in buying jeans. I can’t prove it, by I think there may have been some eye-rolling. Before long though, they discovered the Hem Book of Butts on a coffee table. This is a photo album the ladies of Hem have put together - an essay of satisfied customers modeling their successful Hem purchases…all shot from the rear. One smiling butt after another, in every shade and style of denim imaginable. (I guess the one thing everyone in these pictures has in common is that they all paid over $150 for a pair of jeans.)

While Mom and the boyfriend were in hysterics over this book, I was nearing a purchase. Although there were a few pair that nearly triggered a crying fit, there were some that actually seemed to have magic powers. Butt-shrinking, leg-lengthening powers. We narrowed the pile down to two promising pair, and after a few laps around the store in each, a selection was made.

Since my sister was wearing jeans she bought there, and I was waltzing around in a winning pair, it was suggested that we pose together for a photo. I was drunk with confidence and possibility. I’d found a pair of jeans that didn’t make me cry! Surely my butt was photo ready! So we posed, side by side, while I tried not to think about the fact that my sister once did pilates every day for two years (the results remain). In that brief moment of denial, all butts were equal.

The final touch on the Hem polaroid is that you get to add your own caption. My sister grabbed the marker and wrote, “Butt…we’re sisters!”. Then our photo was added to the Book of Butts for all eternity.

As we were hurtling down the runway for takeoff on Sunday night, I turned to the boyfriend and said, “I can’t believe the one thing I left in Austin is a picture of my ass.”