Intervention

February 8, 2010 at 11:51 am | In The Truman | 3 Comments
Tags: , , , , ,

Truman has always had a “thing” for chewies. If anyone is to blame in this situation, it’s me. I’m his enabler. I can’t help it. Any time his troublesome Mr. Hyde alter-ego comes out and we find him dragging his food bowl around the living room or nipping at the back of Drew’s bicep (which I have since been informed is commonly referred to as a “tricep”, thanks to the higher educated among you) I can shove a chewie at him and he is nice Truman again, at least for as long as it takes for him to demolish said chewie.

I know I should be exercising him or paying him some loving attention when he acts terrible, perhaps I should work on his commands for “stay” and “come” that he gleefully ignores most of the time, but for now, in the spirit of someday becoming an AMAZING parent, I think I’ll just shove a chewie at him.

I thought he was old enough to chew in moderation, I really did. I knew he loved a good chewie, the way I love a good, stiff martini with three olives for dinner. But I usually stop after that one. And I thought Truman did too. That is, until this weekend.

This weekend, we bought new rugs. I would have done an entire post on rugs, but since we’re just now buying new rugs after inhabiting our humble abode for two years, this is clearly not a design blog. You’re obviously not here for information and tips on how to make your living space more beautiful. But rest assured, if I felt more qualified, I would have done an entire post on buying new rugs, because the new rugs have changed my life. I didn’t want to leave the house all weekend. I wanted to stay. And walk on the rugs. Sit on the rugs. Revel in the fact that for the first time in two years, our bedroom doesn’t echo.

We bought two, one for the living room, one for the bedroom. Here they are, just for fun. I couldn’t get Truman off the rugs to take a photo if I tried. He loves them so much he’s even started shoving his mouth full of food, then walking over to the rug to spit it all out and eat it at his leisure. Just when I think he can’t pick up one more annoying habit.

So on Saturday, we arrived home with our rugs, and set about moving all of our living room furniture so I could endure the disgusting task of vacuuming up everything that had accumulated beneath the furniture in the two years since we’d moved in. I expected dust bunnies. Dead roaches? Dead mice? Dead rats? I wasn’t sure how big the space was under there, so I really couldn’t gauge how large the various dead things beneath the couch would be.

We held our breath, Drew lifted his end, and I scooted mine. To our utter horror, what was waiting for us beneath the couch was far worse than we could have imagined.

Friends, Truman is a junkie. And he was using the space beneath our couch as his drug lair.

He was angry when we confronted him, but fortunately, he’s agreed to seek treatment.

PS: If you live in Houston, and you need a rug, I suggest Great Rug on Fondren and Westpark. Great prices! And they let you check out your rugs to “try them out” to make sure they fit in your space! Amazing!

How to Get the Best Butt in America

February 4, 2010 at 9:55 am | In Guarantaryn | 6 Comments
Tags: , , , ,

Morning yoga has been fun, it really has. But I’m pretty sure the only way to lose a pants size through yoga is to also not eat anything, and given the fact that I’m juggling a love affair with both gravy and butter right now, that scenario is pretty unlikely. I’ve never been good at confrontation, and telling either of them to hit the road would be impossible.

So, in an effort to keep gravy and butter in my life and get rid of the saddlebags I don’t need and am not carrying anything in, I decided to add something new to my morning work out.

Kim Kardashian.

Drew and I have differing opinions on Kim, or KK as me and all her other friends call her. Drew thinks she’s a little much, and I would date her if she asked, so it’s nice that Drew and I will never fight over girls.

If you don’t regularly peruse the On Demand offerings of Fit TV, you might not know that Kim has a 20-minute butt work-out. When I discovered this, I immediately began to see visions of myself in short little dresses, my magnificent derriere staying put without the help of Spanx or, more accurately, the knock-off brand of Spanx I buy at Target. I think the fact that Kim is willing to share her secrets to having a fantastic butt with the rest of America shows how secure she is. And let’s be honest here. Unless Kim aspires to write about riserless light well intervention for a living, I think we can both co-exist peacefully sharing the title of best butt in America.

Tuesday morning was my first morning with Kim. I awoke at 6 AM to the sound of rhythmic pounding downstairs. I brushed my teeth, threw on a sports bra and some work-out pants, shoved an old headband in my hair, and went downstairs to discover my shirtless husband jumping up and down. He’s the 8th wonder of the world, as far as working out is concerned. He usually runs on Tuesday mornings, but it was raining. It would be unthinkable for him to wake up, look outside, and decide to go back to bed. That’s what sissy men (and his wife) do.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Jumping rope!” he cried between bounces. Now he was switching legs. Speeding up tempo. Doing an improvised version of Double-Dutch.

“You don’t have a jump rope.”

“I know!” he said, still jumping.

Whatever.

I unrolled my mat and turned on my Kim Kardashian butt work-out. There was Kim, in all her painted face, push-up bra, perfectly curled pony-tail glory.

What I didn’t expect was the addition of the trainer. I thought Kim and I were going to be alone. Instead, the trainer was leading most of the work-out. Every once in a while, the camera would stop on Kim, and she’d put in her two cents.

Like in the middle of my 50th squat, she stopped squatting and batted her eyes demurely.

“Keep going guys. Don’t give up. You’re really doing so amazing. I’m so glad we’re working out together today.”

Instead of making me feel like we were best pals, this pissed me off. I looked at Kim, all perfect hair and perfect outfit, then I caught a glimpse of myself in the French doors, all mis-matched sports bra and work-out pants, headband shoved in my home-dyed hair, my shirtless husband jumping over an invisible jump rope behind me.

During normal hours of the day, I can be OK with the fact that I look the way I do without a team of people to help me out. But at 6 AM, in the middle of my 50th squat, when I’ve lost all feeling in my dad-gummed legs and there’s no stylist to tell me how to get my hair out of the awkward growing out stage (am I growing it out or just too cheap to get it cut? hmmm…) and no celebrity dermatologist to resurface my skin and no make-up artist to give me smoky eyes that don’t make it look like someone punched me in the face, I just can’t do it.

So KK and her perfect hair and perfect make-up and perfect push-up bra have officially been banished from my 6 AM living room.

But I’m not giving up on my dream of having the best butt in America. I’m confident I can get there without Kim. According to the internet, the fastest way to a fabulous derriere is jumping rope with a fake jump rope anyway.

Lovely, Annoying, Truman

February 3, 2010 at 10:36 am | In The Truman | 8 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Monday night, we came home to discover Truman waiting for us with an enormous, puffy snoot and swollen eyes. We called the vet and were told to watch him, and were given the number for the animal emergency room just in case.

Cue the moment I officially became an over-protective psycho.

As we stood up eating tepid leftovers from Sunday night, both staring intently at Truman, I began to imagine I could see his soul trying to leave his body.

“Drew, he doesn’t usually lay like that. Why is he laying like that?”

“Did you hear that last breath he took? Did it sound ragged to you? Is he taking ragged breaths now?!”

“Is his collar getting too tight? Is his throat closing?”

When I finally yelled, “No, soul of Truman! Don’t go toward the light!” Drew put down his fork and told me to load our giant-faced pup into the car. At this point, a trip to the dog ER was going to be cheaper than a six-week stay at a psych ward for yours truly.

An hour later, Truman had been called Mr. President by a kind-faced vet and had received a shot of cortisone in the butt for what is believed to have been a spider bite. The shot made him sleepy, and all the way home he laid comatose in the back seat and I imagined myself as a mourning dog mother, black-veiled hat and all.

Last night, we sat at the dining room table, me cutting out a dress, Drew studying for another level of the CFA. Before Drew could even get his books open and his notes arranged, a familiar ritual began.

Drew never had an annoying little brother, and Truman knows this. He feels bad that Drew had to miss out on that experience. Because he loves Drew so much, Truman has his own interpretation of the way a little brother would have behaved toward Drew. He waits for Drew to focus on something else.

He creeps up stealthily behind him.

And he nips him over and over again on the back of his bicep.

Somehow he knows that is one of the most tender parts of the human body, despite not having a true inside of his own bicep.

And the more Drew pushes him away…

The more excited he is to bite off more of Drew’s bicep.

Because Truman chooses to irritate me in more covert ways, such as peeing at the top of the stairs and watching while I slip in it, I can sit back and admire his determination.

Since Truman made his appearance at our house a year and a half ago, he’s done this to Drew nearly every single night. Except for Monday night.

So, in the midst of pushing Truman off of his arm for the trillionth time, Drew looked at me and smiled.

“Have you ever been so glad to see this dog acting like a tool?”

Who knew we’d ever be so thankful that Truman is back to his annoying self.

That’s Mrs. CEO To You

February 2, 2010 at 10:38 am | In Employment | 6 Comments
Tags: , , , ,

And so, it would appear, that I am now the CEO of my own company. I know this because over the holidays, I had to sit in an accountant’s office. An accountant that WASN’T related to me. (I specify because I spend every holiday in some accountant’s office, though I am usually calling that accountant “Dad” or “sister” or “uncle” or “aunt” or “cousin.”) I had to explain in intelligent language what it is I do for a living (write) and why it is I need to start my own company (because I am a CONTRACT employee, which apparently means something different to the tax man than FULL-TIME employee). Then I had to keep my eyes in focus while Drew and the accountant said things like “limited liability” and “Form 1099″ and “business expense.”

Before I knew it, I was a CEO. Of Peine Consulting LLC. I am quite possibly the youngest sitting CEO Peine Consulting LLC has ever had. The board has promised to put their full weight behind my decisions, which include doors and windows on every office, no speaker phones allowed, well-behaved dogs and Truman welcome at work and ice cream for everyone.

I’m very visionary.

I have to confess to you that I never wanted to be a CEO of anything. I just want to do what I’m passionate about and hope that someone will pay me for it. I don’t want to manage anyone. I don’t want to negotiate. I don’t want to put in “face time” and create “synergies” so people will believe I’m a “superior young talent.” And even though my new CEO title doesn’t come with any of these strings attached (since I’m the only employee) I still drug my high heels so much that we have to replace some of our wood floors.

I am reluctant to become the CEO of my own business because “doing business” gives me heart palpitations. And so, when Drew informed me I needed to “run by” the bank to sign some forms for my business bank account, a chore that would “only take five minutes” and I was finally released from the shackles of said bank two hours later, you can see why I scream-cried.

The moment I sat down, I felt like I was being interrogated, except the interrogation was in another language that I sort of knew well enough to understand, but not well enough to form sentences of my own. The conversation went something like this.

Bank: “What’s your tax ID number?”

T: “I don’t know.”

Bank: “What’s your account number?”

T: “I don’t know.”

Bank: “Would you prefer a credit card, a debit card, or are you going to keep $5,000 in this account.”

T: (rocking back and forth) “I don’t know.”

Bank: “Do you want to link this to your husband’s account? Doesn’t he work here?”

T: “No, he works for ____.”

Bank: “We’re all the same company.”

T: “Oh.”

Bank: “What kind of fraud protection do you want?”

T: (weeping) “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

When the bank finally accepted I couldn’t answer any of their questions, they let me go. I drove directly to the grocery store for beer. Before I could make it back to the cold aisle where I knew a Tall Boy and a paper bag were waiting for me, I ran into a man holding a bunch of brochures near the entrance.

Man: “Excuse me ma’am! Who’s your electricity provider?”

T: (screaming) (running) “I DON’T KNOW!”

As CEO, I’ve made my first order of business.

Never, under any circumstances, do I have to go back to that bank again.

That is all.

Carry on.

The Matron of the House

February 1, 2010 at 10:17 am | In Guarantaryn | 5 Comments
Tags: , ,

It’s generally understood that it is mostly the woman’s job to make a house a home. I know it’s 2010, women and men are equal, but when I met Drew, his home-decorating scheme consisted of two sets of horns on two different walls, and he doesn’t even hunt. He also had this awesome idea to make one of his super-tall walls into a rock-climbing wall.

So, as I was saying, it’s pretty much the woman’s job to make a house a home. And that’s why it pains me to look around our house. Today is our two-year anniversary of owning our home. (Or, squatting in our home while we pay the bank all of our money.) Sure, home decorating is an ever-evolving thing. You never have to be truly “done.” But you could get up the nerve to finally buy yourself some blinds so that your home full of enormous windows wouldn’t be covered in paper blinds like this:

What makes these paper blinds even more ghetto than they would normally be all by themselves? Oh, just the fact that they’re taped up with Scotch tape after Truman, in a fit of adolescent angst, tried to eat most of them.

We may as well be covering all of our windows in tin foil. (Not that any of my kin-folk ever did that.) (It was just in the garage.)

The windows that aren’t covered in half-chewed paper blinds are covered in nothing at all, which leads to many creepy nights where I can’t see anything but my own reflection, but every peeping Tom and Tammy can see everything I’m doing. Like that I’m alone in the house. With only a fuzzy blind-eating dog to protect me.

So when 2010 dawned and I still had no blinds to lower to keep the sun out of my eyes, I put my foot down. I said Taryn, this is enough. You are the matron of this house. Put your big girl pants on and DECORATE. So, I ordered samples.

And then I promised to make Drew his favorite meal if he would just measure every single window and order some blinds for us. And put them up when they come in.

(He majored in Architecture for a minute, so he felt it was necessary to draw a blueprint.)

Because isn’t that what the matron of the household does? She DELEGATES.

Next on my list? Buy a house that has a better view than this:

Then we’ll really need blinds…

PS: New in the shop today, it’s almost time for baseball season!

Owning a Teenager

January 28, 2010 at 10:13 am | In Love & Marriage | 12 Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,

As Drew and I skip along our marital path toward the having children fork in the road, I find myself doing my inevitable pre-worrying. Because why wouldn’t I worry about something that hasn’t even happened yet? What, the rest of you don’t sit up nights wondering how all the world’s dirty diapers aren’t ending up in your drinking water?

The thing I find myself worrying most about when it comes to the eventual spawn of Drew and Taryn, Draryn, if you will, is not how I will cope with an infant. Not how I will deal with three hours of sleep and screaming for no reason and figuring out how to fix my hair with a wriggling living thing attached to my body. My worries lie much farther down the road. I’m worried about how I will love a teenager.

Of course, my worries about this particular thing stem from my own experience with teenagers, namely, Taryn the teenager. Friends, it was not pretty.

Hey Blossom! There’s a teenage boy in Oklahoma wearing your hat!

Gangly, awkward, with a gaping mouth the size of the Grand Canyon full of braces, under-weight, loud…and the worst part about all of this? I didn’t know. I DIDN’T KNOW. I thought I was fantastic! I thought I was going to get stopped on the street and asked to participate in the Miss Teen USA pageant! I thought my perm made my hair look natural and a little wild. I thought my rolled up jean shorts accentuated my stork-like legs. I thought high-top BK Knights with neon laces and mismatched slouch socks made me look like I might start break-dancing at any moment. Somebody stop me. I was a wild animal waiting to be tamed.

What all of this means is that as a gangly, awkward, terrible-looking teenager, I was missing the self-consciousness that should have made me hide beneath a burka. I was all pretend tap-dancing, non-funny joke-telling, fart noises with my hand shoved under my armpit, “Did I do that?” Steve Urkel-imitating, Grease soundtrack-singing at the top of my lungs.

In short, when I think of myself back then, I cringe. I visibly cringe. I cringe so much that I start to think of ways to avoid owning a teenager of my own. Maybe we’ll have children, and when they reach their awkward 11th birthday, we’ll send them off, then ask for them to come back at age 22, when they think we’re smart again and realize we’re not made of money.

Hey Taryn! Pose with that award you received for having the best bangs in Bartlesville and the most serious set of shoulder pads! Hold on a moment – Teen Vogue is on the line!

After-work dog walks on our street have recently revealed that a girl I knew from these terrible teenage years is somehow, thanks to God’s infinitely hilarious sense of humor, my neighbor. Of all the streets in the world, she lives on mine, and I avoid her like the Bubonic Plague. Surely I’m not recognizable anymore. Sure I’m still pretending to tap dance and I still tell un-funny jokes, but my hair is a red bob now! I’m not gangly anymore! And I have a husband, which no one who knew me back then would believe. (Except for me of course. I thought I’d have to enlist private security to deal with all of my eventual suitors.) I don’t know why I’m avoiding her. It’s not like we did time together and I don’t want anyone else to know I was in jail. Being in middle school is a little like doing time, I suppose, but we all did it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

So, I’ve decided the next time I see her, I’m going to say hello. I’m going to cross the bridge of awkwardness and admit I was the girl who got kicked off the school bus for hitting a mouthy kid in the back of the head with my trumpet case. I’m going to hope she waits to go back in her house before she points and laughs. I was telling Drew of my plan, and he being the kind of annoying kid who only has a couple of silk shirts in his awkward years to be embarrassed of, thinks it’s a great idea.

“Maybe you’ll make a new friend,” he said optimistically.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” I scoffed. “I didn’t even like her that much in middle school.”

“T, I bet you wouldn’t like YOU very much in middle school either,” he pointed out.

Touche, Drew. Touche.

Make This: One-Bowl Chocolate Cake

January 27, 2010 at 12:33 pm | In Recipe | 4 Comments
Tags: , , , ,

Right before the holidays, I discovered Orangette and the book Molly Wizenberg wrote that was inspired by her blog, “A Homemade Life.” I inhaled both the blog and the book, and I loved every second of it. The book is a memoir arranged in a series of anecdotes, each ending with a corresponding recipe. Molly is a woman after my own heart: her most vivid memories center on food. I could have written a book about my life with every chapter ending with the recipe to make what I was eating during that chapter of my life, but my recipes wouldn’t be for Dutch Baby pancakes or vegetarian bean soup. They’d be for fried porkchops and extra-thick cream gravy, served out of a big bowl with a ladle instead of a prissy gravy boat. They’d be for my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies that actually originate from the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag. They’d be for my dad’s New Mexico enchiladas, which can make it impossible to feel my lips.

In short, my own culinary history isn’t a glamorous one. But once you’ve drenched your porkchop in gravy, come back and talk to me about glamor. Gravy can make glamor seem so yesterday.

I’ve made quite a few of the recipes from Molly’s book, but it’s the recipe in the last chapter of her book that has made me a converted believer. Anyone who has ever sat down at my table knows that I have terrible ADD when it comes to cooking. I hope you’re enjoying what I’ve cooked tonight, because I will be too bored with it after today to ever make it again.

But this cake of Molly’s is different. I made it for the first time two weeks ago, and when I discovered we’d eaten it all, I pulled out all the ingredients and made another one, without even stopping to change out of my work clothes. That a cake should be so easy to pull together – one bowl, one spoon, one cake pan, nothing else – and so ridiculously delicious, should be a crime. But it’s not! It’s legal. And you should make this very legal, very delicious cake, in your very own kitchen, tonight. Without even changing out of your work clothes.

This was Molly’s wedding cake, which makes me like her even more. Not that I was cool enough to have a simple, delicious cake for my wedding cake. Four tiers of red velvet covered in buttercream, naturally. I put the “hi!” in high maintenance.

Here’s your ingredient list:

  • 7 ounces bittersweet chocolate
  • 7 ounces (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter
  • 1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 5 large eggs
  • 1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour

To start, preheat your oven to 375 degrees and butter an 8-inch round cake pan. Line the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment and butter that too.

Next, you need to combine 7 ounces of bittersweet chocolate with 7 ounces of unsalted butter and melt them in the microwave at 30 second intervals. It usually takes me about a minute and a half. When the mixture is good and melted, add 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of sugar and stir until the whole mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool for five minutes. Then, add five eggs one at a time, stirring well after each addition.

Next, add one tablespoon of all-purpose flour and stir to mix well. The batter will be dark and silky. Pour it into your prepared cake pan. Mind my super-classy beer bottle in the background. I usually try to keep that sucker out of my cooking photos, but you guys know a girl from Oklahoma doesn’t cook with a nice bottle of wine…

Use your spoon to even out the batter in the pan until it’s nice and smooth.

Bake for about 25 minutes or until the top is lightly crackled, the edges are puffed and the center of the cake looks set. Set the timer for 20 minutes then check every two minutes until it’s ready. You’ll know it’s done when the center of the cake only jiggles slightly, if at all.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Turn it out of the pan and then flip it onto a serving plate so the crackly side faces up. This is maybe the hardest part of the process. The first time I made this cake, half of it landed crackly side up on the plate, and half landed crackly side up on the floor. It goes without saying that I just opened up another beer and ate it anyway, but it wasn’t beautiful. So be careful with your cake flipping.

After the cake is completely cool, Molly suggests serving with some lightly sweetened whipped cream, but at the Peine house, we prefer a nice big scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Either would be delightful.

Store at room temperature sealed in plastic wrap for up to three days, or in the refrigerator for up to five days. Molly says it’s even better after it’s been frozen, so go ahead and whip up two for when company stops by! Simply wrap tightly in plastic wrap and then foil after the cake is cool and it will keep for up to a month. Before serving, defrost at room temperature for 24 hours still fully wrapped.

I’m pretty sure this cake will make you as deliriously happy as it has made me. AND Drew. And Truman, if he were allowed to eat chocolate cake, which he’s not. Make it this weekend and tell me what you think!

Employment Qualification: Must Be Super-Still

January 26, 2010 at 11:15 am | In Guarantaryn | 6 Comments
Tags: , , ,

Maybe most of you went into college knowing what you wanted to be. If that’s the case, then you won’t be able to empathize with me at all when I tell you about the countless hours I spent in my counselor’s office, hemming and hawing, until finally, after I called and announced I had switched my major for the third time, my dad let me know I could try out every major on campus if I wanted to, but he was only going to pay for four years of school. And then I imagined paying my school bill with barbecue-stained dollar bills from my waitressing job and I got all panicky and decided that whatever I had just changed my major to was going to be my official major. What’s that form say? Journalism? Oh. Ok, then. I’m going to be a journalist!

This little tale makes me sad that I didn’t go to college in New Orleans. In New Orleans, there is a whole new area of employment that no one ever told me about in Oklahoma. The only qualification? You have to be super, super, still.

Painted in silver, and standing super still.

Climbing a ladder, and standing super still.

Walking a cigar-smoking dog and standing super still.

Standing super-still acting like a dog:

Lord knows I’m about as good at standing still as I am at whispering, so let’s move on to something I would have been amazing at: directing traffic.

Anyone can direct traffic in New Orleans. Even transvestites in hot pink mini dresses. Here’s one traffic cop we ran into on Bourbon Street, who took a moment from letting trucks turn left to take a photo with my friend. All innocent faces have been obscured.

She was having so much fun with us that she offered to take another photo, provided we pose HER way, which involved her positioning two of my friends up against a hot dog stand so that she could do this:

Now that I think of it, I’m no good at multi-tasking, so maybe directing traffic isn’t for me. I don’t know if I could pose like this all day with tourists and tell cars when to turn left. New Orleans traffic cop turns out to be a really stressful job.

Not to be awkward, but that girl must work OUT.

PS: Seersucker in the shop today! Get ready for spring!

Who Dat!

January 25, 2010 at 10:12 am | In Guarantaryn | 2 Comments
Tags: , , ,

On the road to maturity, I found myself on six-year detour wherein I dyed my hair blond, memorized the night every bar included “ladies drink free” specials and regularly curled up into bed at 2 AM with a Whataburger chicken tenders meal, extra gravy. Apparently I had some wild oats to sow.

But now, I’m 27, I’m married, I don’t eat after 8:00, I take a glass of red wine per night “for my heart” and I spend most evenings on my couch with Drew and Truman. Every last wild oat was taken care of, my friends, I can assure you. So I don’t ever pine for the days when I was “Old T-dawg” singing “You Don’t Have to Call Me Darlin’” at the top of my lungs. Been there, done that, will probably pay the price when I’m 80. But on occasion, Old T-dawg, buried so deeply beneath holy matrimony, casseroles and mortgage agreements, she calls to me. She says, “I’m still here and you’re boring! And old! And you can still bring it!”

One such occasion was this weekend. New Orleans. My dear friend’s bachelorette party. I answered the call of Old T-Dawg. I brought it.

At first, it seemed like nothing had changed. 27 is the new 21 PLAYA! We can still suck down hurricanes and dance on stage at Cat’s Meow and Razoo’s! We’re still cute enough to get beads without pulling up our shirts! We’re still AMAZING.

But then. Then I’m in the middle of a transaction to own my very own WHO DAT bedazzled t-shirt to wear over my dress and my credit card gets declined. And I’m RUINING me and Drew’s financial future! And the credit score he worked so hard to keep perfect! And no one wants to wear their engagement rings because of MUGGERS! Someone wants to pay for an earlier flight home because she’s worried about a WORK TRIP! The bachelorette gets her head rubbed into the giant bosom of a bartender at Razoo’s and begs for ANTI-BACTERIAL! Someone else has to get up in the morning and take three Aleve because she “got too low” on the dance floor and hurt her back! None of us can function without coffee. All of us need a quiet corner to call our significant others. All of us go to bed at geriatric hours when we finally make it home on Sunday.

We all left New Orleans yesterday morning feeling proud of ourselves. We hadn’t spent the weekend watching Pay-Per-View in our hotel. We hadn’t insisted on tasteful shopping in the Garden District. We’d brought it, on Bourbon Street, almost like the good old days, and we’d had an amazing time.

And now, we’ll spend the next three weeks recovering. And I hope to not hear even a peep out of old T-Dawg, at least for the rest of 2010.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a photographic tour of the creative professions available to you in New Orleans, all of which my counselor at OU completely forgot to tell me about. Thanks for nothing, lady.

PS: New in the shop today! The onesie Audrey Hepburn would want to wear, and the perfect trousers for barrel racing!

Downward Facing Dog

January 21, 2010 at 10:05 am | In The Truman | 8 Comments
Tags: , , , ,

In very exciting news, I’ve just discovered Fitness TV on my On Demand cable channel. This has completely solved my problem of really enjoying pilates and yoga, but having anxiety attacks every time I’m crammed in a sweaty room with 45 pairs of bare feet. Now, I can get up early and work my core muscles all from the comfort of my own living room. The only feet in the room are mine, and I know exactly where they’ve been.

The only problem with this arrangement is Truman, the world’s nosiest dog. He can’t imagine allowing me to exercise for 20 minutes without being smack dab in the middle of what I’m doing.

So now, I start my mornings with downward facing dog, in the most literal sense.

PS! Clutches and hobo trousers and baseball trousers – all new in the shop today!

Next Page »

Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.