Slumming With the Rich People

Yesterday I met Cherita and Julianna at Scottsdale Fashion Square. For those of you not familiar with Phoenix, it is a fancy schmancy high-end mall made entirely of gingerbread and recycled diamonds in downtown Scottsdale. All the pretty people go there. Unattractive people and those who wear tie dye need not go inside. Sadly, I once made the mistake of showing up a few Christmases ago without tweezing my eyebrows, and was promptly escorted off the premesis by security. They were just about to stone me when someone walked by with last year's Prada bag. Thankfully I was able to sneak away.
Anyway, I rudely invited myself along to their excursion because I was dying for some girly girl time. And they are the girly girliest of them all. We had a lot of fun gushing over the minature serving tongs at Crate and Barrell and eating overpriced soup at Paradise Bakery. I'm just glad that we live in a civilized country where one can rush out and buy a snowflake shaped pancake maker if necessary. Or an ice cube tray that spells out the entire Greek and Hebrew alphabet. It was very nice of them to let me tag along. Though the average sweater cost the same as a lung transplant, I still had a lot of fun with them. Plus, I got the last laugh when I sneaked past security wearing shoes that didn't match my purse.

Cooking with Roseanna and other FEMA Disasters

A couple of weeks ago my mom took to Goosberries for my birthday where the tomato basil soup is so good, it is actually delivered to you by singing cherubs on a pink cloud. Anyway, I thought it would be really cool to whip up a batch myself. There are few things as satisfying as making a big ol' batch of soup and squirreling it away for later when you are wearing scrunchy socks and are in a homemade eats kind of a mood. I had visions of myself pirouetting around my kitchen making soup while a soft acoustic guitar soundtrack accompanyed me in the background. Soup so good that eating it at my break area at work would transform the ordinary patio into a magical atrium of flying peacocks and Halleluiah choruses. So after a finding a recipe on the Internet, I bought enough tomatoes to almost weigh as much as God's address book, and got to chopping and simmering. My first clue should've been when it didn't turn that nice, rosy red color:

Is this supposed to look like burned transmission fluid?

I gamely stirred on, hoping for a pre Christmas miracle. I threw in some more salt and pepper, added some more tomatoes. But still my pathetic creation still came out tasting like a bland cross between heated up Play Doh and Gerber's pureed something. The worst part of the whole ordeal is the whompin' mess I made in my kitchen. If one were to walk in, it would be easy to assume that I have been laboring away on a four course meal for Martha Stewart. There are pans and cans and dirty cutting boards piled up self-importantly on my counter implying something much tastier than my lame-o soup. I just had to blog this because if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? Especially if that laughing puts off cleaning up your dirty kitchen.

No Purse in Store for Me

The tragedy of it! I sit here with a lip ulcer so big, that I will christen it "Winston." Anyway, Winston and I have been surfing the Internet looking for the ideal purse. I have been searching for a good one for ages, and have cruelly stymied by the evil fashion whims of those who would foist mustard and electric green Oompa Loompa parachute sacks as acceptable merchandise to stores out there.
A purse is a very sensitive issue. It has to be just so. It can't be too small, or too frumpy, or too weird-shaped. My purse is where I keep the important things: bobby pins and crumpled receipts from 8 months ago. For several months I also lugged around a Starbucks gift card that had like two and a half cents on it, but presenting to the cashier would have been like trying to pay for my cinammon dulce latte with a peso. My friend Sandy has a total mom purse. On the outside it looks trendy enough, but one glimpse of the cavernous inside reveals what is really held in its depths: keys, wallet, medicine, water bottle, collapsable staircase, several parchment scrolls from the Greek revival, magic flying slippers, etc.
So anyway, I suppose I am stuck for now with my little black Liz Claiborne number that I bought at Ross. I guess it could be worse. I've stocked up on shoes, because now I hear that puce is making a comeback...

Now For Something Encouraging:

Johhny shared this with our church while he was pitch hitting in the pastor's pulpit. Pretty cool. There are 4 or 5 parts to this. I'm including part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfNiZrt5FjU

Election Day is Almost Here (Unfortunately)

Ah, the winds of change, they are a blowin'. And even if that wind consists of the hot, rancid breath issuing forth form Obama and McCain, we as American citizens still must to our part to deliberatly and methodically research our options. Even if the choices for voting can be equivicated to choosing between being led to the block, or being stuck at a Barry Manilow look-a-like convention, we still have the obligation to prepare to make the best decisions we can.

Sunday afternoon at Suzy's house, Janet and I fevershily researched our way through the devisive issues. Armed with highlighters, intrepid fact finding skills, and peanut M&Ms, we marched through the information to get the answers. Suzy was there too, but as evidenced by the pictures below, she decided to take a more passive approach:

I sit with a smirk of satisfaction, knowing full well that Evil cannot prevail against truth, justice, and spellcheck.

Here Janet displays a look of keen intensity knowing that she is researching issues that could quite possibly stop the rotation of the Earth.

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