Hard Work Pays Off

I've just gotten the job offer that I wanted. Hooray! It's exciting to be joining a company that I'm excited about and doing work that challenges me.

I'm a little worried though . . . today someone on my team told me that old joke about heaven and hell. The job applicant dies in the middle of the interview. She goes to heaven, and St. Peter decides to offer a choice between heaven and hell. So the applicant checks out heaven and thinks it's okay. Then she checks out hell where they're having a great party. She chooses hell, but when she goes back it's all fire and brimstone. "What's up?" she asks. "Yesterday you were a freelancer, today you're an employee."

Hmm, I wonder when my start date is.

All kidding aside, I'm really thrilled to be on this path.

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

I am rereading this book by Louise Erdrich. I picked it up a couple of years ago. I've always liked Louise Erdrich because she writes about Native Americans and reservation life, and I grew up on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana.

This story is different from her other stories, or at least different from how I remember them. I would say that in this book, unlike her others, her style is magical realism. I could be wrong in thinking this is the first time she's written in this style--it makes me want to go back and read or reread her other books.

The story is about a priest who goes to the reservation called Little No Horse in 1912 and whose life is shaped by the people he meets as much as he tries to shape their lives and bring them into the Catholic church. We learn early, though, that the priest is actually a woman who came across the "real" priest's body after a flood in which she almost drowned. A vision leads her to assume the priest's identity and she goes to the reservation. Erdrich speaks beautifully and eloquently of the dichotomy the woman feels living as a man and how when she is a priest she is not man or woman, but both and neither at the same time. It's a beautiful and, for me, provoking examination of how our spirits transcend our bodies.

The other story lines in the book are as compelling, stories of the people on the reservation during illness, famine, hardship and joys, births, deaths, marriages and the tragedy of losing the land that is everything to the tribe.

This is a difficult book to read in some ways, but it's beautifully written and has layers and layers of meaning.

My favorite cooking ingredients

olive oil
cayenne pepper
spinach
feta cheese
goat cheese
veggie sausage
sweet potatoes
eggplant
ginger
garlic
onions
walnuts
sun dried tomatoes
basil
coconut milk
curry powder
red peppers
mushrooms

I don't cook that much, but I enjoy it when I do. My best dishes are curries, stir fries, and pizzas.

Matchstick Men

Trailer

I have HBO on Demand, which is about the greatest invention ever. I never, ever rent movies. In fact, I don't even have any kind of video store membership. But once in a while, it's great to sit down to watch something that starts when you want to watch it. Enter HBO on Demand.

I picked Matchstick Men out of the list on HBO and was pleasantly surprised. It was a little slow for me at first, and I'm not the biggest Nick Cage fan, but the story became more interesting, and Cage was very good in this movie. He plays a neurotic con man who finds out that he has a fourteen-year-old daughter. She impacts his life dramatically . . . but not in a sappy way. And watch out for the twist at the end. I love it when movies surprise me.

Definitely worth watching.

Angels and Demons

When I started hearing hype about The Da Vinci Code I figured I should read it, but the women who rode my train said that Angels and Demons was first (and some said it was better), so I decided to read the books in order. It took me about two days to drag myself through the pages of Angels and Demons, one miserable weekend when I was stuck in bed with a bum knee. And to make it worse, I actually purchased this book--though I'm hoping I got it at the O and that it was inexpensive.

If you love Dan Brown and his books, you might want to stop reading now.

I HATED Angels and Demons. I thought the main story, the secret cult stealing secrets from CERN, was okay--hey, I like spy stories as much as the next girl. I thought the subplots (the Vatican intrigue, the romance between . . . I can't even remember the characters' names) were weak and completely predictable. And I thought the writing was at about a sixth grade level. Not at a sixth grader's reading level, though it was probably that too, but like something that would be written by a sixth grader. And not a sixth grader in an advanced creative writing class.

But even worse than all those things, I absolutely HATE when authors of fiction falsely claim that their stories are based on fact. And now that I've heard more and more about The Da Vinci Code, more than I could ever want to hear, I'm very glad I didn't read it. Even hearing about it makes my blood boil. It's not real!

I admit that I'm not an expert or even an enthusiast, but there are plenty of people who have looked into the topic, and the credible ones all agree that The Da Vinci Code is fiction. There's an article on Salon that examines the issue clearly .

Of course, there's nothing wrong with making up a conspiracy theory and adding to the intrigue by tying it to reality. I think that's what's known as FICTION.

All I'm saying is this: if you're writing fiction, call it fiction. Lots of people like to read fiction. And try to write well.

And if you think that the fact there's no proof of the secret society makes it all the more real . . . just please don't try to convince me.

I guess it wasn't the straw after all.

Congratulate me. I ordered windshield wipers for my car.

Okay, maybe that doesn't sound that important to you, but here's why it's important.

I remember buying the wrong kind of wipers once, long ago, in another lifetime, when I was married (and my dumb-ass ex-husband obviously didn't know jack about wipers either, or we wouldn't have brought the wrong ones). So I have a vague notion that there are "right" and "wrong" wipers for my car. But I've never actually had to change them myself. Once in a while when I get my oil changed, or my belts checked, or some other routine work on my car, the guy in the shop says that I need new wipers, and that he would be happy to change them for me. I don't even have to bat my eyelashes.

Well the last time they changed my wipers, when I got my car inspected in December, they gave me the CRAPPIEST wipers I have ever seen in my life! They're already worn down. So obviously, I need to take care of this, and I can't always trust the guy in the shop to give me the best wiper bang for my buck. Which means I need to know at least a tiny bit about what I'm trying to do.

Unfortunately, though I have needed new wipers for several weeks at least, I have had a mental block to going and figuring this out for myself. I do everything for myself. I pay my own rent. I get myself up in the morning. I make my own meals. I plan my own trips to Brazil. I know this all sounds just dandy, and mostly it is, because I'm pretty self-sufficient and in general I prefer the way I do things to the way anyone else would do them for me. But every once and a while I'll encounter something I just DON'T want to do for myself. Windshield wipers were on that list, until today. Until I remembered that I'm an independent sort of girl and fending for myself when it comes to windshield wipers is not a big deal.

So I realized there were several ways I could take care of my wipers. I could go to a car part store and ask the salesperson for help and buy the right blades and figure out how to put them on in the parking lot. I could go bat my eyelashes at the corner gas station and make sure they give me the good blades. But I live in New York City and I work in Connecticut. While I'm sure I pass hundreds of purveyors of fine wiper blades on my way to and from work (fifty miles each way), I don't have time to go browsing for wiper blades.

So I did what any red-blooded, independent woman would do: I shopped online.

And there you have it. I found out that my driver's side wiper is 20 inches long and my passenger side wiper is 18 inches long (or is it the other way around? Well I'll worry about that when it comes time to put them on). I ordered silicone wipers guarenteed for five years (which means I won't have to do this again for a while!). And I found a brand that makes colored wipers . . . although I got grey to match my silver car instead of red or yellow or green. If they had pink, make no mistake, I would have gotten pink.

I'm hoping that I will see things a little more clearly.

And I learned that I probably CAN take care of everything I need. Even if I don't want to.