• a variety of fine pickles •

elements of an opry

the power of carrot cake

it's been a while since i last sat down and wrote a good, meaty blog entry. i blame it partially on my lack of two good working hands for the last several weeks since my surgery. my hand and arm are getting better though it still takes me a bit longer to type than it used to. it's coming along nicely despite my many attempts to set it back (read: i keep smacking it and falling on it). still, no matter how long this takes to type, i have a story i want to tell.

yesterday i recieved an email message telling me i had a new comment on my blog entry picking apples in a rain storm. i opened the email and found the most mysterious, cryptic comment i've yet to recieve:

"That pie looks amazing...
Many years ago, you baked carrot cake for me, for my birthday. It was my first carrot cake, it was the perfect carrot cake. It was an akward birthday for me, and we were not even close friends, but you had this extra special detail that made my day. I remember that carrot cake every year for my birthday. Your friends are very lucky.
Do you know who I am?"

well, needless to say, my curiosity was piqued. i emailed my friend sara immediately and sent her a copy of the comment and asked frantically (as frantically as email will allow) "who could this be???" she had no idea either, but was smart enough to figure out that the email address ending in .es looked like spain. but i don't know anybody in spain, do i? i didn't know it at the time, but i guess i do. i tried and tried to remember anybody that i'd baked a carrot cake for, and couldn't come up with a thing, although i did vaguely remember having baked a carrot cake for someone... once... but i couldn't remember when, and i couldn't remember for whom. i was officially stumped. this had become a bona fide mystery. all sorts of horrifying thoughts swam through my head as to whom it could be... that stalker ex-boyfriend? someone i used to work with at the police department? no bells were going off. i told sara i wondered if the email that was used to send the message was a ruse; i could easily find out by emailing that address to see if i got a mailer daemon message back or not.

i emailed the address at 9:26 am. i didn't get an error message back.

i did get an email back at 11:12 am.

the mysterious comment had been submitted by someone i haven't spoken to since 1988, when i was a junior at trinity high school in euless, texas. it was my friend sylvia! she had gone to my high school for one year as a foreign exchange student from paris, france. immediately i remembered her, and instantly i was thrilled. (also relieved that it wasn't the stalker ex-boyfriend or any one of a handful of exes that i want nothing to do with ever again.)

sylvia was a petite, shy parisian that i met through our theatre department my junior year. i thought she was wonderful; sweet and charming, very continental and tres parisienne. i loved her french accent and the fact that she spoke french so effortlessly (the fact that it was her native tongue didn't seem to quell how impressed i was at her ease and mastery of the french language) and had seen so much of the world that i'd never seen. she was quiet, mostly, around all these loud, rude americans, but warmed up a bit as time went by. still, she was somehow just like me, and just like the rest of our friends. she was a teenaged girl, just displaced from her home so far away. i remember we spent many of our lunch breaks together sitting with the rest of our friends "at nature", where we used to eat and hang out. "at nature", as sara will also remember, was a grassy hill with a tree, overlooking the fine arts building's drama and speech entrance. it was higher ground than the fine arts building, having been built up and surrounded by a brick wall. it's where sara fell on her face that day, her hair spread out like rays of the sun, her arms and legs splayed out in four different directions... and there i sat, up on nature, laughing my ass off instead of going to help her back to her feet. everybody that knew me was horrified that i sat there, doubled over, laughing at sara, instead of rushing to see if she was alright. i'm humiliated to say it today. but sara knows the truth; it was so damn funny i had no choice but to laugh until i cried and just about wet my pants, and had it been me that had fallen instead of her, she'd have reacted the same way. still, i am SO SORRY sara...

i digress.

within seconds of recieving sylvia's email yesterday, memories came flooding back to me; memories that haven't had a visit in many, many years. i remember how heartbroken i was when she had to leave and go back home to paris. i remembered a party we had at dusty's house where we all made a tape of our "goodbyes" to sylvia. i remembered sylvia coming over to my house one time, and sitting on the sofas in my family's living room, we talked and talked for what seemed like hours. i think this was just before she left the states. but mostly, i remember sylvia just being a wonderful person that i knew my junior year in high school, someone i always wished i'd gotten to know better in the short time she was living here in texas. she was sweet and funny, she had a great laugh and a great smile... and apparently she really liked that carrot cake.

sylvia lives in barcelona, spain now with her husband and her OH-SO-ADORABLE little boy alex and has told me she is very happy in her life. i'm happy that she's happy. she deserves happiness in her life. she has told me that she's been reading my blog for some time now, keeping up with me and some of the things in my life, but didn't quite know how or when to ask if i remembered her, then she read my blog entry about baking an apple pie and decided, thankfully, that this was the place to make her entrance...

i'm so glad she did! there is a very short list of the people i went to high school with that i care anything about keeping in touch with, and sylvia is definitely on that list.

thank you sylvia, for reaching out and getting in touch with me after all this time!

***UPDATE***

after scouring through scrapbooks, i finally found the picture i knew i had somewhere...

a picture taken at a going away party for dusty. from left to right: sayra and her glasses of large awesomeness, dusty, craig jenest in his big gay les miserables shirt (a second appearance of said shirt here on the blog!), suzie woodrow (i never liked her), me with the scratched-out face (i can remember doing that in 1990 or something during a fit of incredibly high self-esteem) and SYLVIA!

birthday parties ROCK with photo goodness

my very dear friends bob & mary threw a birthday party for me last night (my birthday is monday, so friday just seemed a natural for a party) and a great time was had by all, and i had a little too much to drink. yay, me!

bob got some amazingly attractive photos of me (sarcasm) looking like an escapee from some sort of institution. seriously, i have a knack for just looking completely nuts in candid photos. but he did get some photos that my mom wouldn't balk at.

big thanks to everybody who attended my party last night, and for all the goodies! thanks to kata, john, erica & ellie, steven & becca, joe (and the conspicuously absent and terribly missed lynn), monique (thanks for the picadillo!), jaz & nico, mariah, aislyn & ian, mark, and bob & laurie in absentia. and a humongous, ginormous thank you to bob & mary (the cake was gorgeous and delish!) for such a great time.

fuzzy navels are awesome. candles that don't go out even on the 5th try suck.

bob was kind enough to snap like a mad man during the party last night, and then give me permission to use them on my blog. here are some of the highlights, and a few lowlights:

mary made me a birthday cake!!!

good lord, somebody call the fire department.

wish made: check.

wait a minute... are these those wacky re-lighting candles?

yeah, i guess they are. you people suck.

alright, i'll play along.

okay, are you kidding with this? what the...

okay, one more time.

oh COME ON. I'M NOT GETTIN' ANY YOUNGER HERE.



mary tried to stab me but i was able to talk her out of it.

sometimes opening presents makes me giggle!

and sometimes it makes me look nuts.

i like to pose in an adorable fashion with new gifties.

i like to smell my presents.

and sometimes i like to smell my friends.



sometimes, i channel the spirit of peewee herman.

i get really excited about ceiling fans for my tent!

my favorite little evil faerie! really.   

i had such a good time. thanks again to all of you for making my birthday so special.

if you live in NYC!

for my friends, bloggers & readers in the big apple - this is for you!

my friend sara at lightbulb oven & bawk! is having a culinary salon... tres swanky!

if you're in NYC in any of the 5 boroughs, you have plenty of advance notice and NO EXCUSE not to go! but hurry - the clock's a'tickin'!

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It's light-bulb oven!

Please join me on Saturday, February 17 for an historical event: the first-ever light-bulb oven dinner!

It's a culinary salon, a cooperative dinner party, an underground restaurant... what our friends in Cuba call a paladar: one person cooks and everyone else chips in to cover groceries.

It's 35 bucks (a deal!). You'll meet new people and eat four courses of fantastic food.

It's in prospect heights, Brooklyn (3 blocks from the 2 and 3 trains; also near the N/Q/R/4/5 trains; address divulged upon purchase of ticket)

Visit the website for more information, past menus, fun facts about yours truly, and because it's pretty:

http://lightbulboven.com/home.html 

Go here to see the menu and buy your ticket!

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good morning

big day for melissa today.

i'm going ROLLER SKATING with my friend mary! we're going for her daughter's birthday party, and we'll be two of only four grown-ups (and i use that phrase with some hesitation) on wheels at the party. i haven't been roller skating since... well, since i had my 29th birthday party. we went roller skating. if memory serves me, i skated something like i imagine a cave man might have (no offense to any caveman. i've seen the geico commercials and i don't need a lawsuit.) and spent more time on my ass than on my wheels. i don't get it. when i was a kid, it was like i was born with wheels on my feet. suddenly i can't remain upright now that i'm an adult? well, maybe not so suddenly.

what is the current etiquette for grown-ups when rollerskating? presumably, the management and parents of small, impressionable children wouldn't take any too kindly to a grown woman shouting expletives and profanities whilst crashing into a 6 year old. i'm gonna have to watch my language. not that i have the mouth of a sailor, mind you. but i have been known, from time to time, to express myself without having given thought to my surroundings, damn it.

case in point (but without profanity):

my friend sara & i were at a bank drive-thru in dallas, and we'd been there for what seemed like most of our young adult lives, waiting on the transaction to be completed. tired of waiting, i shouted from the passenger side "what's the HOLD UP!??"

yelling any sentence ending in "HOLD UP" at a bank is inadvisable. and that's how i know for certain that i don't always think before i speak. 

after roller skating, i'm heading right to the show in copperas cove. rehearsal at 4, then the performance at 7. hopefully i won't be singing with a sling on my arm or a cast on my leg. or with any teeth missing. i've sung in worse shape than that, but i'm not in the mindset to do it tonight.

if i break anything, i can't be held responsible for my language.

*i finished my first roll of 120 film last night! i'll be dropping it off for processing this afternoon. shortly, i'll (hopefully) be processing my own black & white film myself. unfortunately, the 4 rolls 120 black & white film i ordered that arrived day before yesterday are C-41, so i can't process those myself. i know the right film to order now, though!

okay. i kept my promise.

i promised i would shut my fat yapper about my new holga until it arrived.

it's here!!!

i can't stand it. i want it to be daylight so i can go outside and take a whole roll of pictures.

i've got it loaded with a roll of HP5+ 120 film and a modified 6x6 mask. it's got velcro holding the back on (thank you SO much randy - you're a freakin' genius, i swear to god.), randy smith's custom cable release, randy's custom bulb modification, custom tripod mount, interior flocking so it won't reflect light, and the lens cap is IN MY JUNK DRAWER, just as randy prescribes. not throwing it away, just putting it away to avoid shooting a whole roll of film with the lens cap on. this ain't digital.

i am giddy like a school girl and i can't quit grinning.

i said it before, but i'll say it again because it certainly bears repeating, again and again...

if you're going to buy a holga, please do yourself a favor and spend your hard-earned money as wisely as you can, with randy smith at www.holgamods.com

i have never in my nearly 36 years experienced the level of customer service that randy has given me within the last several days. i'll be purchasing more holgas in the future, and i'll be buying them from randy, and no one else. nobody else. ever.

i've spent the time since i got home from work this evening loading film, attaching velcro, running around like a 4 year old, taping up the back of my camera to avoid light leaks, laughing uncontrollably, and taking 2 pictures in the brightest light possible. i took the obligatory "picture of myself holding my new camera reflected in the mirror" in the brightest of my 2 bathrooms, and then i went into my studio and lit it with studio lights and took a photo of those terribly cute, terribly terrible necco valentine's sweethearts (the ones with the messages on them) that nobody ever actually eats because they taste like flavored chalk.

i took a picture of them last valentine's day as well, in color, in digital:

but this one was black & white, and it was with a HOLGA!!! no telling how it's going to turn out, or even if it's going to turn out... but i don't care.

i may not sleep at all tonight!

one last thing about the holga...

then, i PROMISE i'll shut up about it. until it arrives, that is.

i mentioned before that i purchased a custom modified holga from randy at www.holgamods.com and i just have to take a moment to scream it as loud as i can that i have never, as long as i can remember, had such a wonderful customer service experience than i have had with randy.

to the best of my knowledge, holgamods.com isn't a huge corporate machine. as far as i know, it's randy, modifying holga cameras by himself, and that may be all.

after several years of making online purchases with a machine, recieving a reciept from a robot, and a few days later getting a box or envelope in the mail, that's what i've become used to: no interaction whatsoever. randy changed all that. he's a real person. he's a real nice person.

i not only bought a holga, i made a friend. i have honestly never had customer service like he has provided before. maybe not even in person. he's just a decent, nice guy. there's a very short list of that type of person left, especialy when you're talking about the online marketplace.

here's another little "something" - randy emailed me this morning with the head's up that his interview in JPG magazine was published. you can see it here. it's on page 40, and although you can "flip through" the pages of the magazine from the website, i suggest you download the PDF of the magazine - MUCH easier to read... you can actually make out the words that way. besides that, there are some great photos and articles and they're worth the read. but especially the article on randy.

my friend, randy.

thanks again randy. i wish i knew more words to say how appreciative i am.

i feel pretty!

turn up the sound - and click here !

congrats, bob!

my friend bob sumbitted a photo to cnn.com yesterday with all of the icy weather we've been having, and they used it!

click on the photo and you see bob's photo a little better, and read what cnn.com wrote.

you can also click here and scroll through to see his photo and the rest of the photos taken by people all over the country. 

congratulations, bob! 

i needed to have a good time something awful. mary and i had some kind of fun today, that's fo sho!

it was rainy and gray today, but we managed to have a great time. as evidence of a great time had by all, here's proof. mary had gas.

we gassed up and went to mary's cardiology appointment where she was fitted with a 24 hour holter monitor, and then had an echo cardiogram. i got to see mary's heart... it was really something to see someone's heart beating; the valves opening and closing, the rushing sound of blood and the visual to go along with it. that was pretty amazing.

after the doctor's appointment we headed off to the orchid for thai food.  mary had never had thai food, so i introduced her to my favorite thai dish, shrimp padd thai. she liked it, and i just can't get enough of it. i wanted to take a photo of the padd thai when it first came out, but i was so excited that i just started chowing down and forgot to take a picture until we were nearly done.

mary's shrimp padd thai



the 3-ring binder menus at the orchid. pictures! w00t!



then we headed off to the tattoo shop where cameras and camera phones are strictly verboten, so no pictures of the actual tattoo process, but both of my tattoos only took about 10 minutes, and mary's only took about 5. that's right kids, mary got a tattoo as well! we got the same tattoo.

that's mary on the left and me on the right. i know i said i was gonna get my heart covered with a star, but i decided at the zero hour this morning at mary's house that i would get the heart fixed after all, just filled in solid black. mary called me day before yesterday and said she wanted to get the same star tattoo as me, so voila! as seen above. mary's is a smidge smaller than mine, but it's the same star. we're like sisters, mary & i.

and peek-a-boo: all those wires are from the holter monitor.

so now the grand total of tattoos: 6.



 

i kept saying "5 is enough. i'm done." 

sure.

tattoos. people either love them or hate them. people either have them, or they don't.

i have them. i have 5 of them. no, my parents aren't thrilled about it.

of all 5 tattoos, all are in places out of the view of the general public save for one. I have a small tattoo of a heart on the inside of my left wrist that i had inked 2 years ago on valentine's day. the heart had nothing to do with it being valentine's day; it was for other reasons, to remind me that my heart belonged to me and no one else. it was supposed to have been a solid red heart, but something went terribly awry when the artist went too deeply with the needles on the inside of the heart. if you know anything about tattoos, you know that the outline is always done first, and it's usually done twice with a very fine grouping of tattoo needles, usually between 2 and 5. the shading can be done with a larger group of needles, anywhere from 7 to somewhere around 15-20ish or so. i'm not really sure how large they can go.

about 2 days after i got the tattoo, a perfectly heart-shaped red scab came off of my tattoo. yeah, it was pretty grody but also it left only the outline of a heart. 

the outline, also done with too heavy a hand, is a little blown out, or blurred. you can see it a little closer-up here.

as you can see, there is residual ink in the middle, but only a small bit. the result has turned into what my mom calls my "heart-shaped ringworm", and what my friends have begun referring to as my "prison tat". i fully intended to go back and have it fixed as soon as it healed, but clearly i never followed through with that plan. i joked that although i got the tattoo to remind me that my heart belonged to me, my heart was telling me it was empty.

come on, it was only a joke!

i'm not going to have it fixed. i don't take color all that well. black is my best ink. this friday i'm having it covered with a small, solid black 5 pointed star, just big enough to cover all of the red. fortunately the scar tissue is minimal, and has left no raised scarring.

my friend mary is coming with me, and i'll make sure we have a camera to have the cover process fully photo-documented! i'll post photos of the new tattoo as soon as i get it!

 
yay for stars!

belljam

my boys & me, the belljam band.

photo by bob toth 2007

left to right: greg whitfield, lead guitar & vocals; me, vocals & percussion; laron tubb, keyboard magician; david scaife, drums; bruce campbell, bass; fred fuller, acoustic & vocals.

these are the pickers i sing with. they're the most amazing bunch of musicians anyone could ask for. if you don't believe me, email me & i'll send you audio proof of their kickass-ness.

these guys just.kick.ass. i'm lucky to be able to sing with such amazing pickers.   

so i have this friend...

we'll call her janie. janie got married, then a short while later gave up a really good job and the home she owned to move to the god-forsaken-middle-of-nowhere, oklahoma with her husband for a job that he took. before i proceed, 

back story:

one day about 4 months ago, janie's husband's phone rang. it was family in oklahoma (the god-forsaken-middle-of-nowhere) telling him his grandfather was on his deathbed and he needed to get "home" to oklahoma as quickly as he could. they didn't know how long his grandfather had, but it couldn't be too long. he left immediately for oklahoma for a bedside vigil over his dying grandfather.
his grieving process included drinking lots of beer and going fishing with his brothers, cousins, etc. apparently that's the way they mourn their dying in that neck of the woods.

long story short (yet still convoluted): grandpa miraculously got better and shacked up with his girlfriend-on-the-side, and janie's husband decided to listen to his brother and take a job in oklahoma. no "hey honey, here's an idea..." or "janie, what do you think about..."
he just took the job. so...

janie, being the good, dutiful wife that she was, wanting to do whatever she could to make her marriage work, put in her 30 days notice at work and made arrangements to rent out her house here in texas. this included packing all of their belongings herself and making the necessary renovations to her home so it could be rented. she hauled all of their worldly posessions to oklahoma - by herself and attempted to settle into her "new" life in oklahoma. in the god forsaken middle of nowhere.

long story short getting, longer by the minute: things didn't quite work out no matter how hard janie tried - and she did definitely try - and one day a couple of weeks ago while janie was visiting her mother-in-law, her husband called her on the phone to tell her he wanted a divorce.

then, on christmas day, he gave her the gift of a phone call telling her he was screwing somebody else. merry christmas. she returned all of the christmas gifts she'd bought him. she was crushed.

not content to be defeated, janie decided to exact her revenge upon her husband, who works a 7-on 7-off job at an oil refinery. while he was "on", janie decided to pack up her toys and leave for texas, but not before she took care of a few money-related issues.

as soon as his paycheck posted to their joint checking account (remember, he was away at an oil refinery with no access to their money) janie paid off a credit card, made significant payments on 2 other credit cards, bought a new car insurance policy in her name only, made the payment on her vehicle, paid her cell phone bill, opened up a savings account in her name, opened a checking account in her name (with ample padding thanks to his ample paycheck), had his cell phone cut off, had their joint-checking account check cards permantly frozen, bought christmas presents for anyone and everyone she could think of, and got herself a new piercing and a new tattoo, and a matching tattoo for her best friend. thousands of dollars in a matter of just a few hours.

she didn't leave her husband completely high and dry; she left him $4 in the joint checking account. he'll have to access that $4 in some way other than the check card however, because it's permantly frozen. read: reported lost.

in her last gesture before she left oklahoma forever for her home in texas, she put her husband's only christmas present in his truck so he'll find it when he gets home from his 7 days on. sitting on the front seat of his truck, wrapped in christmas paper and tied with a festive bow is a lump of coal.

welcome home, janie.   

merry christmas with only minor injuries

merry christmas to all! i hope today found you surrounded by family, friends and other loved ones, warm and toasty and filled with joy.

i was at work all day today. boo.

i did however enjoy an exhausting, fun-filled weekend full of all of the afore-mentioned things like family, friends and loved ones, and warmth and toastiness and joy. and a slightly sprained ankle.

i spent saturday with my entire family in dallas celebrating my grandparent's 56th wedding anniversary in high style. it was a lovely cocktail event, hosted and catered by my aunt rosie & uncle peter who flew in from hollywood for this event and for christmas. we had prawns as big as your head and lovely cocktail-sized focaccia with prosciutto, shaved parmagiano reggiano & arugala in a beautiful viniagrette. champagne (not the cheap stuff!) was served in ribbon-wrapped flutes with dried cherries bobbing up and down and floating in the tiny bubbles. and of course, my mother and i drank our champagne with a little sugar (no sugar cubes were to be found) because we're hookers and enjoy a nice champagne cocktail.

each member of the family was tasked with performing something for my grandparents, whether a poetry reading or a song, and it proved to be a very moving evening filled with tears and laughter. it was a wonderful evening and one that none of us - 29 of us in all - will ever forget.

christmas eve day was spent chatting, drinking coffee, catching up, and exchanging christmas gifts. it rained all day long, a slow, steady rain. 

at about 3pm, sara came to my grandparent's house and we drove back to her brother jon and sister-in-law laurie's house about twenty minutes away. i was so excited to see sara; it's been more than 10 years since we've seen each other! it was great!

we pulled up in front of jon & laurie's house and i opened my driver's side rear car door to get her little giftie-bag and somehow stepped directly into a hole in the yard by the curb with a sprinkler head sticking out of it. i stepped in it backwards, so that's the way i fell: right on my kiester. i busted my ass in the front yard in the rain and the mud and made quite an impressive landing.

some things never change.

i probably busted my ass the last time sara saw me, too. i don't remember, but anybody that has known me for more than 10 minutes would not find that surprising.

i had a GREAT time with sara & jon & laurie and their two (nearly grown) children, both in their teens. still one of the coolest families around. i dried my ass off by the fireplace, and we all laughed and caught up and noshed on pizza and fudge and took stupid pictures of ourselves with sara's macbook and watched something on television about clam penises or something... that part is sort of fuzzy. i got lots of pictures of the family. this one is by far my favorite.

i'm pretty sure i sprained my ankle and my left wrist when i busted my ass in the yard. i'm fine, but somewhat tender, and have some swelling and black & blue-ness on my ankle and wrist. i'll live. i've done worse. i've done worse in the last 3 or 4 weeks, as a matter of fact.

i got home late-ish last night and crawled in bed after unpacking bags and slept as hard as i could for what seemed like 20 minutes, then got up and went to my parent's house for christmas breakfast, then "worked" from noon - 9pm. i use the term "worked" in its loosest form.

i had a great holiday, and i hope all of my friends and family did too.

merry christmas to all, and to all a good night.

note to self

sometimes you just have to go out on a limb.