Going to the beach...don't leave without....

Going to the beach with my family has taught me a few valuable lessons prior to school letting out and summer beginning:

1.  Sand is evil.  It has this power, I call it the crotcrakmiserwear power, the ability to find the one place that would annoy you and working it's way in there.  Here are a few example:
In the hinge of my glasses, so every time I open them it crunches.
In my beverage/food/mouth so I can hear the crunch between my teeth.
Inside my bathing suit just as I go for a long walk and feel every inch of it.
On the lollipop BEFORE the child even gets first lick - I just take lollipops and roll them in the sand then say, "Here honey, let's just get this out of the way."

2.  It is very easy to skip your mortgage when at the beach.
It starts with the trip to the grocery store for every snack food you can imagine without any nutritional value.
You then spend a fortune in the souvenir shop so you don't have to buy them a LIVE hermit crab to bring home.
There's not one, but many trips to the arcade and each involves lots of money, money for THE CLAW, the one game that has taught too many children the agony of defeat.  With THE CLAW is the DRAW, if they hit it big, there's a iPod Touch they could win!  Children will result to digging through the couches to satisfy their claw addiction.

3.  Food at the beach has no calories, especially those that are good for you like - French Fries, Funnel Cake, Ice Cream, Candy, and especially Caramel Popcorn - when followed by a Diet Coke.

4.  Everything will stay perpetually wet at the beach - your bathing suit, your towels, your clothes, toilet paper, coffee filters and especially

5.  There is no way to look sexy running - Bo Derek was a fluke, probably because they filmed her in slow motion so she didn't fall all over the place when her feet hit the sand.  When you do fall in the sand, it's usually with that lollipop in hand.

6.  If you want to feel better about yourself - go to the boardwalk.  Your choice of bathing suit is so much better than 400 lb men in Speedos and women in thongs where their butt cheecks eat up the butt floss.  If they are not walking in bathing suits, they are in too short shorts, too tight T-shirts, and usually holding the extra size bucket of French Fries.  Feel better about your self and go on a diet all at the same time.

7.  Thinking about a tattoo - go to the boardwalk - best deterrent out there.  The 70 year old female in the thong with the tattoo of Free Bird from the 60's that now looks like a Turkey Vulture on crack will make you think twice.

8.  You will look like shit at the beach, beach hair - that fully humidity, kinky, hard water shit you can't get a comb through will be the norm.  Want to feel better, go to the boardwalk and see that everyone else is in the same predicament, some worse than yours.

9.  The pirates had it right - the only way to survive the beach - the sand, the boardwalk, the mini golf, the food is with rum.

What have you learned at the beach/

"What do you do?"

What a loaded question as I stand with another friend at a pottery show on a beautiful Spring day.  What do you I do?

I inspire, I see so many beautiful talents in my family and friends, that I do everything I can to inspire them to run with it (get it? run with it?) to take that chance and put it out there.  I know first hand that it's hard to put it out there, and there will always be those that try to knock you down, but having people in my life that inspire me keeps me going, keeps me out there-inspiring.

I engage - I love being creative and watching as I engage people with something I created.  Be it good or bad, engagement means living, and living means loving and loving means, well, life.  My engagement is not inflamatory, it's because I find you interesting and I want to know more about you.

I educate - I love being assigned something I didn't know a word (get it a word) about and learning.  As I learn, I then turn around and help others learn.  I don't interject my opinions, my feelings, my emotions because that's not what I'm supposed to do, I teach, you create your own opinions, feelings, emotions.

I entertain - people are at their most beautiful when they laugh, did you know that?  Their faces soften, their eyes sparkle, all decorum is lost as they let themselves get lost in a moment.  Why do you write comedy?  Because I love to see that special moment in people, I love to see them laugh.

I persever - there's that moment when you think, "this is just too much.  It's much easier to quit, no one will know."  I push through those moments in life and continue down the road that I chose, knowing that I wouldn't forgive myself if I quit.

I do nothing, there are some things that should just be left alone, and let themselves play out.  Doing nothing can be the best gift you give someone, you can just be there and wait, wait until they come back to you or kiss them goodbye if they never do.

So that's a snapshot of what I do, oh wait, were you talking about work?

Trigger Fish Piccata - They Actually Ate It

I've been lucky with my boys, they're open to trying anything new, so when I came home with Trigger Fish, they looked at it, looked at me and said, "What are you going to do with it?"

That was a good question.  Trigger fish is a dense fish that doesn't flake easily, making it a good candidate for the grill.  But it was pouring outside so I decided standing out the rain was not a good idea, my boys love the combination of lemon and garlic so I decided to do my take on Piccata.

2 large filets of Trigger Fish

1/2 pound of butter (never said it'd be totally healthy)

1 clove of garlic

1 lemon

1/4 cup of white wine

capers.

Take half of the butter and melt it in a frying pan, lightly dust the fish with salt and pepper and saute in the pan until a golden brown, turn the fish and finish cooking the other side until brown and the fish is cooked through.  Remove the fish and set aside.

In the pan add the last of the butter, the garlic and onions.  Saute for 3 minutes then add the wine, cook until the sauce gains a nice consistency finishing with the capers.  Add the fish and warm on both sides.

Transfer fish to dish and drizzle with sauce.

This fish had the taste of lobster which worked well with the butter, lemon and garlic of the piccata sauce.  Add a tossed salad, some steamed green beans and everyone's happy.  Especially if it's followed by ice cream sandwiches.

Have you tried trigger fish?

Is your cell phone dumming you down?

Now that everyone has decided that the only way to communicate is through text on cell phone, we've abandoned all semblance of decency as we let our phones take control.  We're creating our own code of talk and it's dumbing us down.

Normal phone conversation:

"Hey girl, can you believe those storms last night!  Wicked!  How is it going?"

"Oh yeah, I was up listening to the thunder, I love it.  Doing pretty good this morning, busy day ahead."

"Really?  What do you have going on?  Want to meet for lunch?"

"I've got several big meetings at work, then my refrigerator is bare so I've got to do something about that."

"I know the feeling, my family sometimes thinks I'm trying to starve them into submission."

But since texting, we've dumbed down all of our conversations so a normal conversation now turns into this:

"Hey, how u?"

"Fine, U"

"Lemme c, gotta hit the grocery store.  dislike."

"Ugh!"

A normal conversation full of words longer than four words would stimulate our brains wouldn't it.  A texting conversation has no substance and leads us to consistently misspelling words in daily life to save time.  I watched a teenager fill out a job application and under prior experience, she penciled in LOL.


With all the cellphones autocorrect, it's become commonplace to proposition anyone anywhere and get away with it.

Normal Conversation:

"Did you get the story I wrote and approve?"

New Conversation

"Sex in the potty a for you and me?"

The recipient of this text is not surprised at the proposition, his phone does the same thing when sending back a reply.  Actually, he's already translated what autocorrect did to the text and reads it to say, "Did you get the story for you and me?"  May not be totally correct but he understands there isn't anything remotely near the potty for the two of you.   People are now used to seeing the words, sex, poop, homophobic, meniscus, and other words as normal part of texting.

I'm trying to remain smart about this, trying to actually call someone and have a meaningful conversation in English without the word sex slipped in.   And a few of my friends when I do actually call them, their voice is bewildered on the other end (we still use phones for talking) as they answer with, "Yo, how u?"

Is your phone dumming you down?

What would you ask your Mom?

It' s been a great mother's day for me, starting with breakfast in bed and now a champagne toast to the resident celebrity - ME!  My family is trying really hard to show me the love in not fighting for a day, smiling as they listen to Colbie Callait, and even making baked kale chips instead of fritos!  It's days like these that make me miss my Mom, I think about all the silly thing we did for her for Mother's Day.  She loved every hand made card, just like me, loved all the burnt toast, just like me, AND didn't pass up a champagne toast, just like me.

I miss my Mom in that I wish I could ask her questions.  I mean did she really get all the billy goat hairs that are appearing on my chinny chin chin?  As I edge closer to immortality, are these changes normal- specifically the fricking weight gain after a day of only eating a blueberry and almond?  Was I such a pain in the ass as a child and how did she get through it?  Some of my questions serious, some of them funny, but I guess what I'd love to hear the most is her voice.

She could tell me all her usual sayings, "oh, I'll give you something to cry about" or "don't make me have to come over there," "you are so much like your father," just to hear her say it.  I'd laugh with her about all the obedience classes for our Golden Retriever and how the neighbors knew our dog shit in their yard because it had flourescent crayon specks in it.  I'd laugh about Dr. Mom, when the head popped off of my doll and she had to "go into surgery."  I'd laugh about her going out in the rain and wind because a neighbors trash can fell over and all his Playboy magazines were blowing down the street (my brother later took those from our trash cans and disappeared with them)  I'd laugh that she still hung the laundry during locust season in a trench coat, boots and hat.  I'd finally tell her where I hit the silver belt she used to beat me with and most of the times I deserved it.

Then we'd sit and have a champagne toast to each other, her for teaching me so much, putting up with her wild child and me for getting it right - for a change!  Then we'd pull out the tweezers and pick out each other's billy goat hairs.  What would you ask your Mom?