Fudge

We got a second guinea pig. His name is Fudge. How could I say no when Sophie offered to use her birthday money to buy her brother his own guinea? So now there are two.

In other big news at our house, almost all of the girl scout cookies have been delivered. Thank God. I have one last destination. It'll be good to have that monkey off my back. I did open a box of tagalongs last night... it wasn't pretty. They go down so easy. And then suddenly the box seems to be gone... and I feel sick.

This isn't much of a post, but I can't think of anything else to say. It's like I sit down, look at the screen and suddenly my mind goes blank. It's the same way I feel when I try and do the crossword puzzle. I look at it and my mind goes totally blank. I can never come up with any of the crossword answers, which is irritating because I know I must know SOME of the answers... but it's like the missing sock from the dryer. You know it must be somewhere, but that doesn't matter - you can't get your hands on it.

253 Boxes of Girl Scout Cookies

We had a banner year for Girl Scout Cookie sales this year. Feeling pressure to perform as a new member of our troop, I really pushed sales. We dressed Sophie up in her cute Brownie uniform vest, brushed her hair, practiced our speech and hit four offices downtown: my current firm, my old firm, my favorite client and my favorite brother's office. And we cleaned up. 253 boxes sold!

Then pick-up day came. What I'd gotten myself into really hadn't hit me until pick-up. We arrived at our troop leaders house and the kids and I filed in to pick up our cookies. Our troop leader pointed to an entire wall of cookies in her living room and said, "those are yours." Huh? Which ones? "All of them" she said (laughing).

So, we loaded them into the SUV and I signed my receipt - agreeing to be on the hook for over $1,000 of GS cookies. And it's been stressing me out since then. Just driving around with $1,000 worth of cookies is stressful. On top of that is the overwhelming task of delivering the cookies and gathering all that money. And then to just add insult to injury, this unseasonally warm weather has thrown me for a loop. I suddenly realized the cookies were likely melting yesterday afternoon. I sprinted out to my car and pulled it into the garage. Phew!

Today I started the delivery process. I may be smart enough to practice law, but I am not sure I'm smart enough to organize the logistics of delivering 253 boxes of cookies to 4 offices and over 55 people. So far, I have delivered the wrong cookies, I have shorted someone and I am evidently not good at making change.

And I've been sweating.

I hope to be done tomorrow. My personal goal is to resist eating an entire sleeve of thin mints in any single sitting. Over two sittings? Well, maybe. That seems reasonable. Just not in one sitting.

Posting just a little bit more...

I've decided I will try and post a bit more. Maybe not every single day, but closer to that. And maybe not every post will be the bestest most wellest written thing ever... but hopefully it'll have at least something worth your time.

We went to Lauro Kitchen Saturday night to celebrate the day of my birth and to begin to tackle the new year's resolution list. I give it two thumbs up. First of all, there is a lot going on on SE Division these days. We passed ridiculous lines at Pok Pok and Whiskey Soda Lounge as we approached Lauro. And we were thankful to have made reservations at Lauro earlier, because the bar was pretty full with people waiting. You can make reservations for small parties in a convenient on-line form at Lauro. I love that. Why the phone call seems so hard and so much extra effort, I do not know. But it does. I love an easy on-line option (www.laurokitchen.com).

I started with a French Fizz which was some sort of special champagne cocktail. It had champagne (duh), creme de cassis (is that raspberry? I think it is...) and lillet (no idea what that is). It was delicious. Ben had his usual - crown royal on the rocks. We proceeded to do a little people watching while our table was being prepared. We made some funny observations. Not to be repeated here.

I ordered the butter lettuce salad with blue cheese and candied pecans. The thing about a salad with candied pecans and blue cheese is that it cannot be bad. It was delicious. I think you could put blue cheese and candied pecans on cardboard and I would still eat it with joy.

For the entree I went with the goat cheese stuffed chicken breast with quince sauce over a bed of sauteed spinach. Despite the way it makes your teeth feel, I love spinach. And the nice couple next to us ordered the same thing first - I could hear them making happy grunts as they ate, so it seemed like a good call. Ben got the braised short ribs in some sort of red wine sauce over mashed potatos and broccoli. I'll be honest - it may have been better than mine. Mine was really good. But his was crazy good. But I love him and I did not feel jealous (I also ate half of his....).

For dessert - brown sugar ice cream with a warm bourbon chocolate sauce, peanuts, cherry and whipped cream. Need I say more?

Then I rolled myself home.

New Addition to the Family

We are the proud owners of a new guinea pig. His name is Racer. He is white. Two of his paws are pink and two are gray. He makes an adorable noise that I can only describe as a cross between a cat purring and a mouse squeaking.

Racer also has red eyes.

Yes, it's a little scary. But my sweet and kind daughter picked him out and with a lot of heart explained to me that she was probably the only one who would love him and give him a kind home. Because she loves ALL animals, regardless of how they look. How could I say no? So we brought the possessed looking albino guinea pig home.

In the short 5 hours since we've owned him, he's grown on me. I'm over the red eyes. He's really quite adorable. But be warned - if you drop by our house be ready to meet Racer with the red eyes. You'll probably be won over by him in a short time and find that you ignore the red eyes. And if you're not, you can be certain that your children will. And will spend the whole drive home wanting their own guinea pig...

2010 New Year's Resolution

Screen Door
Apizza Scholls
Queen of Sheba
Foster Burger
Le Pigeon
Fire on the Mountain
Lauro Kitchen
Acadia
Autentica
DOC
Grilled Cheese Bus

Department of Motor Vehicles

Yesterday I went to the DMV. About a week ago I got pulled over - expired plates. Not recently expired plates. But REALLY expired plates. The cop was super nice and sent me on my way with a fairly inexpensive $15.00 ticket and an order to go to a vehicle checkpoint after I got new tags. Otherwise, I'd have to go to court.

So yesterday morning I got up and dutifully made my way to the DMV. There was a long line but it moved pretty fast. I met a nice guy named Hank who used to work for the Hillsboro school district. He's retired now. Probably because he was Really Old. He just can't believe how truckers drive these days (he used to drive a truck from time to time...). The thing is that he knows their brakes are really good, but still... should they be driving that fast? Hank was getting his license renewed. They were going to need to take an eye exam and he was ok with that. He totally understood. As he said, "at my age you can't take anything for granted."

I got to the DMV at 9:09 and left at 9:34. Not bad. But I still had to get through DEQ AND back to my son's class for my 10:00 reading groups volunteer slot. I rushed to DEQ and found no line. Got in. Passed. Got the new tags. Got out. It was 9:48. Got to reading groups by 10:00 no problem.

Every time I have to do this I am shocked that it really is fairly painless. Less than an hour and I am done. Good to go for another two years (or, if you're me, three years because you don't renew on time). And as I drove away from DEQ I promised myself next time I wouldn't procrastinate for so long... and get another ticket.

The thing about all of this is that there is always a point in the vehicle renewal process where I assume it would just be easier to buy a new car.

This makes absolutely no sense. But it goes through my mind. There I am sitting in my old 1997 car with just the one cup holder and no cd player (and obviously, no ipod jack!), thinking I should just buy a new car so I don't have to go to the DEQ. Makes me wonder a little about my personal "decision tree." There could be some room for improvement there.