I've Got the Fever!

Having an eleven year old in your life can really get the creative juices flowing.  It seems there is always some event or project coming up that requires hot glue, duct tape, spray paint, and - if you're lucky - dry ice.  I got my dry ice fix when hosting Willow's (my boyfriend's daughter's) eleventh birthday party this year. 

I've never hosted a kid's birthday party before, and I wanted to pull out all the stops.  We opted for a pool party at our house, so naturally a luau theme was quickly adopted.  Last year, my duty for the bday beach party was the cake, and Adam and I, along with his friend Barbara, made the most amazing cupcakes, each of which was decorated like a mini-beach with graham cracker sand, creamy blue water and candy flip flops.  I had to one up myself this year.  So I decided on a volcano cake.

After much internet research, I came up with a plan.  I made two bundt cakes -one chocolate and one vanilla tinted with orange coloring.  Then I stacked them and shaped them into something vaguely resembling a volcano.

I then frosted it with chocolate frosting, leaving the shaved off parts of the cake crumbled up at the base to look like rocks.  I used some orange glaze drizzled on top for lava, and fitted the hole inside the cakes with a small metal glass filled with dry ice so it looked like it was smoking.  Topped it all off with some candles and tiki heads, and voila!  Volcano cake perfect for any respectable luau.  The eleven year olds loved it.  I even overheard one of her friends remark "What a cool cake, Willow is such a lucky butt!"  Fine praise indeed.

Riding on the heels of this success, I was asked by Willow if I could make her Halloween costume this year.  She has decided to go retro and dress up as Ms. Pac Man.  How could I possibly say no?  I was definitely up for the challenge.

Again, after much internet research, I decided my best bet was to use a couple of leftover moving boxes, a roll of duct tape, some staples, a little garden shade cloth and a whole lotta spray paint.  I started by cutting out my pac man shape:

I really didn't have any clever ideas about how to engineer this, and knowing that it only needed to survive a couple of wearings, the whole thing is pretty much held together with duct tape.  A LOT of duct tape.    I cut some armholes and covered the mouth area with shade cloth so she could see out without anyone seeing in.  Then we got some tights, a shirt and a skirt at the thrift store (I love any excuse to go to the thrift store) and again - voila! - we had our Ms. Pac Man.

Willow and I are so happy with how it turned out I'm scoping out all the local Halloween parties so we can pimp this costume out and win some contests!  Might as well capitalize on my creation, no?

Go Happy!
Amy

Even Billboard Queens Like Arts & Crafts

I had my weirdest "celebrity" sighting in LA today.  Okay, I didn't even know this person was famous until I came home and told Adam the story, but she certainly caught my attention, so it's not too surprising that people know who she is.  As soon as I began to describe her, Adam shouted, "Oh my god, that was Angelyne!"

My response, of course, was "who the fuck is Angelyne?"  Well, this is Angelyne:

I guess I'm too new to Los Angeles to have seen her billboards, but Angelyne became famous in the 1980s for a series of billboards throughout LA funded by "investors" (when talking about Angelyne, alot of things need to be in quotes, like she's "blonde" or "pretty" or has "good taste").

All I know is that I went to the Michaels in Encino this afternoon to buy Martha Stewart labels for my fig jam, and happened to notice two firemen in uniform in line talking to this bleach blond hottie with neon pink fabric in her hair wearing a tight pink mini-skirt, pink pattern jacket and pink wedges (remember, this is a Michaels craft store).  As I approached this funky trio in line, I could only see the woman from behind, and I took her to be about oh, twenty three.  She was a piece of work, I'll grant you, but she had nice legs - no cellulite, no varicose veins.  But then she turned around.  She may have had Tina Turner - like gams and a set of the biggest tits I've ever seen, but her face was  like post-plastic surgery Barry Manilow with a bad blonde wig.  She looked at least 70 from the front.  I nearly gasped out loud and dropped my jam labels.  It was one of those things where I didn't want to stare but I couldn't not look at her, she was a walking contradiction.  And a total freak show.

As we made our way up the line I tried to keep my eyes averted by watching the Paula Deen look-alike on the TV at the check out giving instructions in how to paint on a t-shirt with a stencil.  Riveting stuff, let me tell you.  It was finally my turn, and I made my way up to the cashier right next to the Pink Nightmare.  I could hear Pink and the cashier having a "disagreement" of some sort, and as I casually tried to "not listen" I came to understand that Pink thought the cashier didn't understand store policies and that the cashier thought that after working there for five years that she, in fact, did.

"I hope I never see you again" Pink replied as she took her leave.

"Feeling's mutual" retorted the cashier.

As the doors swooshed shut behind the Nightmare, my cashier, who was casually "not listening" like me, could barely contain her amusement. 

"What was that about?" she asked he co-worker.

"She tried to tell me that she didn't use this" she said as she showed us a half-used bottle of Mod Podge.  "Gimme a break.  You think I'm gonna trust a porn star?"

With that I took my change and exited Michaels just in time to see Pink pulling out of the parking lot in her pink Corvette.  Of course she has a pink corvette, I thought.  Then I put it all out of my mind until later this evening when I thought to tell Adam the story and learned that Pink was the notorious Angelyne and that I was probably the only person in the store who didn't know who she was.



"I thought I'd make a decoupaged picture frame of my pink pooch, Buddha,
to give to my manager for Christmas this year"

Which just goes to show you, even billboard queens like arts & crafts.  And firemen too, apparently.  And that everyone is pinching pennies these days, even going so far as to return used glue.  And that you can't go anywhere in this town without the threat of running into people like this.

Go Happy!
Amy

From Garden to Plate

After waiting patiently all spring and summer, I'm happy to say it's finally time to harvest the corn!  As a first time gardener, you just can't go wrong with corn.  It definitely gives the biggest bang for the buck.  It's pretty easy to grow and it grows fast plus it's magnificiently tall and creates a wonderful green border in front of my ugly wooden fence.  And in my particular case it was almost entirely free since I got the seeds gratis from the Sowing Millions Project.  The only real expense was time spent, which was pretty pleasant all around.

However, I really didn't pay too close attention to exactly what kind of corn seeds I was sent, so color me surprised when I discovered that I had purple corn.

Turns out I have Inca corn, with is a South American strain of corn.  Ever had it?  If you've ever eaten Peruvian food you probably have.  The first time I ate at  Peruvian restaurant here in LA I was taken aback by how BIG the corn was - and chewy.  The first couple of ears we pulled off we prepared on the cob - you know, like they do with sweet corn in Indiana where I'm from.  That's pretty much the only way to eat corn there.  Well, that is not an appetizing way to eat this kind of corn.  It's dry and chewy and most of it ends up coating your teeth like paste.  We decided that since we're about to have about, oh, 50 ears of corn ready to eat we best come up with some new recipes for this corn.

I found this wonderful recipe online for South American tamales, or humitas.  I found it on this wonderful blog called Laylita's Recipes.  It's the same place where I found the recipe for Dulce de Higos after we came back from Ecuador.  Laylita's blog is a treasure trove of South American recipes, complete with stories from growing up and preparing these dishes with her family.  Love it!  Here's the recipe I used, with a few tweaks:

Ingredients:

6-7 fresh ears of corn, with husks

3 cups grated or crumbled cheese, mozzarella or a fresh farmers cheese (I used a mix of both)

1 cup diced white onions, about ½ large onion

1 tsp ground coriander

2 garlic cloves, crushed

About 1 cup corn meal

¼ cup of heavy cream (I used half and half)

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

Sides – Aji de tomate de arbol or tree tomato hot sauce (I couldn't find tamarillos at either the Mexican market across the street or at the Mexican chain grocer Vallarta, so I made a roasted tomatillo salsa)

Preparation:

1. Remove the husks from the corn; try to keep each husk intact, the large ones will be used as wrappers for the humitas and the smaller ones will be broken into long strips to tie around the humitas. (I found it helpful to cut off the bottom of the corn so that the wide husks wouldn't tear down the middle when you peel the corn)
2. To help make the corn husks more pliable place them in a pot of boiling water for a couple of minutes, then drain the water and save the husks until ready to use.
3. Remove the silky hairs from the corn and use a knife to cut the corn kernels from the cob, if you don’t have a steamer save the cobs to use as a steamer.
4. Place the corn kernels, 1 cup of cheese, diced onions, crushed garlic, ground coriander, corn meal, cream, eggs, and salt in the food processor, mix until the corn is pureed.
5. In large deep pot place about 2 ½ cups of water and a steamer, the water should be just below the steamer, if you don’t have a steamer arrange the cobs on the bottom of the pan instead and cover them with some of the leftover husks.
6. To fill each humita use 2 of the large corn husks per humita, place them on top of each other, fold the left side of the husks, then fold the top half over the bottom half, this creates a semi-pocket, fill it with a spoonful of the mixture (how much mixture will depend on the size of the husks, the larger the husks the more filling you can add) and stuff some of the remaining cheese in the middle, now fold over the right side of the husk and tighten it up a little bit, use the thin strips to tie around the wrapper and keep it closed. (okay, this was really, really hard for me, and I cheated a bit and tied them with kitchen string because the husks were just too delicate for my large, clumsy hands)
7. Place the humitas in the pot on top of the steamer, I like to keep them slightly inclined with the open end on top. Place any leftover husks on top and cover well.
8. Place the pot on the stove over high heat until you hear the water boiling, reduce to a simmer and cook for about 35-40 minutes, the cooked humitas will be slightly firm to firm when they are done.
9. Serve warm with aji de tomate de arbol or tree tomato hot sauce. (I used roasted tomatillo salsa and a I also made a yummy Peruvian green sauce which I found a recipe for here)

Adam and I decided these were super yummy and perhaps I'll make them again so I can practice my tamale-rolling skills.  So there you have it - from garden to plate!

Go Happy!
Amy

I Don't Give a Flying Fig...I Just Make Them

The quest for fig recipes continues, and tonight I think we found a winner. 

Adam is the chef of the family, and I'm the mixologist, so when I happened upon a recipe online for a Flying Fig cocktail, I knew I had to try it.  Original recipe is found here, I made just a couple of slight variations based on the ingredients I had on hand:

3 fresh organic figs

1/2 ounce St-Germain elderflower liqueur

2 ounces lemon-flavored vodka

juice of half a lemon 

2 ounces simple syrup, or 2 tbsp sugar (to taste)

Fresh mint sprig

Muddle diced fig in the elderflower liqueur (reserve one slice for garnish). Add cracked ice, vodka, lemon juice, and simple syrup. Shake vigorously. Rim chilled martini glass with one mint leaf dropped in.  Garnish with reserved fig slice. Strain cocktail into glass.

Can you say yum?  The muddled fig gives it a most lovely pink color, like a Cosmo.  This will go excellently with the Hawaiian burgers with caramelized pineapple and bacon that Adam is making tonight, recipe courtesy of Bitchin' Kitchen.

Go Happy (and slightly Tipsy)!
Amy

In a Jam and Gardenly Pursuits

Well, the figging continues.  Figs, figs, figs, figsfigsfigsfigs everywhere!  Another round of figs has ripened on the tree and we took in a harvest of I would guess about 10 pounds.  Yikes.  What to do with that many figs?

Well, first I made my dulce de higos, or sweet Ecuadorian figs (recipe found here).  I hope y'all are coming over to eat them because we'll never, ever eat all of them.

Second, I made wine soaked figs, recipe found here.  We had had a little party last weekend, and I had some half-empty bottles of red wine so, well, necessity was the mother of invention here. 

Third, I made my first foray into the world of jam-making and canning.  I'll admit I was scared, but now that I made it through relatively unscathed (there was a bit of scalding-hot splatter, so not entirely unscathed) I am anxious to get to the next batch.  This time I made two:  a quick, microwave type of jam you can make in single can sizes.  It's spicy orange fig jam and it is utterly delicious!  The second I made the old fashioned way which produced about a dozen cans.  Aptly, it is old-fashioned fig preserves.  I thought I'd start with that as the base and try different types of jam for the next batches.

The moral of the story here is that if you like fig jam, you best let me know and I'll be sending you some.


Aren't they lovely?

 In other news, the corn I've planted is going gangbusters and will be ready to harvest anytime now.  This is the first time I've grown any kind of vegetable and I'm ecstatic by how well it's doing!  I feel like I'm at home in Indiana.

I'm also hard at work trying to make the front yard look nice.  We rent, so we don't want to spend a ton of money on plants and things, so my thrifty self is hard at work on this project.  I just made two small beds by the front gate with plants salvaged from a restaurant in Long Beach (they were pulling them out of their planters and putting them in bags as I was walking by they gladly let me take them) and the bricks are salvaged from our backyard.  Just the beginning.

Before



After

Go Happy, Dear Blog Friends!
Amy

Here figgy figgy!

We have an embarrassment of figs here at my house.

I don't think I ever even ate a fig until I moved to LA.  Figs were something that made brief appearances in songs around Christmastime, not something I'm accustomed to having on my plate in the summer. 

But now we have an enormous fig tree in our yard, with my hammock from El Salvador hanging underneath - I'm so excited to finally be using it!

view of the tree from the hammock

About two weeks ago we started getting our first ripe ones.  From what I can tell, it seems we'll have fresh figs from now until mid-fall.  At least 100 pounds of them.  Question is - what the hell do you do with all those figs?  I certainly don't want them to go to waste.

When Adam and I went to Ecuador last November, we stopped for some street food at an outdoor market in Otavalo.  A black, bubbling concoction served with cheese on a roll.

Turns out they were figs, and they were beyond delicious.  As soon as we got home I tried to find the recipe, which I finally did online at http://laylita.com/recipes/2008/09/23/dulce-de-higos-or-figs-in-syrup/ and is reprinted below.  At the time it was hard to find figs, but now that I'm pulling about 20 a day from our tree, I've made it twice in the last two weeks.  It takes three days to prepare, but it is worth it!

some lovelies from our tree

Ingredients:

20 fresh ripe but firm figs, washed

Pinch of baking soda

1 ¾ lb brown sugar

Cinnamon sticks, cloves and other spices – optional

Water

Sides – Slices of cheese, bread (we found Hawaiian bread particularly tasty with this)

Preparation:

1. Make a crosswise cut on the thin side of each fig.
2. Place the figs in a bowl, cover them with water and let them soak for 24 hours.
3. Rinse the figs, place them in a saucepan, and cover them with water, about 8 cups.
4. Add the baking soda and bring the water to a boil over medium heat, cook for about 15-20 minutes or until soft.
5. Remove from the heat and let the figs soak in the water they cooked in for another 24 hours.
6. Drain all the water from figs and gently squeeze each fig to remove as much water as possible.
7. Place the brown sugar and the spices in a large saucepan, cover with about 6 cups of water and cook on low heat until it is completely dissolved.
8. Add the figs and simmer until the syrup begins to thicken, at least a couple of hours, stir occasionally.
9. Serve either warm or cold with a slice of quesillo, fresh mozzarella, queso fresco, farmer’s cheese or the cheese of your preference.

the finished product - so tasty!

Go Happy!
Amy

Guerilla Gardening

Seems my love of finding new uses for old items has extended to the garden.  Or at least my love of all things free.

Recently Adam and I were watching the Today show, and chef Rick Bayless was a guest.  He was talking about the Sowing Millions Project that he's involved in with the company Seeds of Change.  They committed to giving away 100 million seeds (you just pay the shipping).  Give away?  Free, you say?  Well, gee, I'll try anything if it's free.  So I went to the website, signed up for my free seeds, and promptly forgot all about it.  About six weeks later, after we moved into our new place, a big, unmarked manila envelope addressed to me showed up on my doorstep.  I love getting packages in the mail, and the best part is when I don't expect them, so the giddy anticipation of finding out what was inside was delicious.  I carefully opened the package to find...dozens of packets of seeds, of course!

There were sunflowers and corn (LOTS of corn) and eggplant and different kinds of radishes and lots of different kinds of lettuce and beets and on and on and on.  I have little (okay, no) experience with vegetable gardening, and my backyard is mostly cement, but I'm proud to say I've done quite a bit of container gardening in the last few days and I also dug up the soil next to our fence and planted two rows of corn and two rows of sunflowers.  The daily excitement of watering them and seeing how much they've grown since the day before makes me feel like a little kid.  I can't wait til they're all growed up!  Pictures to come when there's something a little more exciting to show you than just soil.

Speaking of gardening and free stuff, I've become addicted to trolling the free section on CraigsList looking for plants and pots and just about anything for the garden.  Having lived in an apartment for over a decade, I have no outdoor accoutrements.  But one man's trash is often my treasure, especially if it's going to live outside.  A little scrub, a little paint, and a little love is usually all it takes to make something usable and nice again.  And I can't believe the stuff people give away for free.  A couple of nights ago I happened to see a posting for some free palm trees and aloe vera plants that someone had dug out of their yard and were sitting by the curb.  My conversation with Adam went something along the lines of:

Me:  You wanna get some free palm trees and free aloe vera plants?

Adam:  Sure.

Pause.

Adam:  Oh, you mean now?

Me:  Duh.

So at 10pm we hopped in the car, basically in our pajamas (amateurs!) and drove to this house which wasn't too far from ours.  However, the street had no lights, and my flashlight didn't work, nor did we bring gloves or wear appropriae shoes (I had on flip flops - amateur!).  So hoisting a 5 foot tall, 100 pound palm tree covered in sharp spikes into the trunk of my car was amusing to say the least.  We made so much noise the owners came outside, although they were cool and informed us that one of the palm trees in their yard was in the movie The Ten Commandments.  Even trees in Hollywood get their 15 minutes, I guess.  They watched as we struggled with the palm.  Okay, we watched as Adam struggled with the palm, and I nonchalantly picked which of the 30 or so aloe cuttings I wanted.  Adam finallygot the palm in the trunk - incidentally, most of it sticking out the back end, and we gingerly and laughingly made our way home.  Okay, maybe I was the only one laughing.

Our plan is to plant the palm in a big pot, so we can take it with us wen we eventually leave, but Adam thought we needed to plant it somewhere right away so it didn't die.  So at 11pm we were in our front yard digging a big hole to put the body, I mean plam tree, in.  It'll be a little embarrasing when the gardener comes by (again, amateurs!), but so far it's hanging in there. 

Don't let the picket fence fool you, I'm mean!



Some of the aloe have made it into planters, but many are hanging out in a pot full of water at the moment.

Of course, the pots either came from garage sales ($2) or from the neighbor's trash (free!). 

Did I mention I love free stuff?

Go Happy!
Amy



mmmmmm....tasty!

I believe I've found one of my favorite go-to recipes:  Moroccan b'stilla.

"What the hell is that" you say?  Well, I didn't know what it was either until I was browsing through one of Adam's dozens (okay, hundreds) of cookbooks looking for a recipe that called for filo dough.  I had never used filo and had an itch to try it out.  From the dizzying array of recipe books to choose, I hesitantly pulled out one specializing in Moroccan fare.  Now I've had Moroccan food before (a particularly romantic Valentine's Day dinner comes to mind) but I'm not well-versed, or even vaguely familiar with the names of dishes, types of ingredients or characteristic flavors from this North African state.  I've been to North Africa (Tunisia, to be exact) but all I really remember is the couscous and getting severely dehydrated which resulted in hospitalization.  But I digress.

This particular collection of recipes contained instructions for making b'stilla, which is encased in filo dough  -so I knew I had my dish.  I informed Adam via text message my plans for dinner, to which he responded "that's really hard to make".  Oh - a challenge!  I was determined to make this work.

What I discovered is that although not technically difficult, it is a time-consuming recipe (about 3 hours from start to finish).  Not necessarily something you'd want to make on a weeknight (unless you are temporarily unemployed, like me, then it becomes a practical time-filler).  The smell of it cooking is intoxicating, a thick mix of sweet and spicy.  The sight of it coming out of the oven - wow.  I actually jumped up and down with excitement.  It's a beautiful dish that's also fun to eat.  Traditionally, the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand are "plunged through the pastry crust into the steaming filling and the size mouthful required is pulled out and quickly transferred to the mouth".  Finger food at its finest.  Here's the recipe, from Hilaire Walden's "The Moroccan Collection", if you'd like to give it a try, which I highy suggest you do.  You won't be disappointed.

1 small chicken
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
good pinch of crushed saffron threads
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
 3 tablespoons chopped parsley
4 eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup blanched almonds, chopped
2 teaspoons sugar
9 ounces packet filo pastry
olive oil, for brushing
salt and pepper

To serve:
confectioner's sugar
ground cinnamon (optional)

1.  put the chicken into a saucepan with the onion, ginger, saffron, cilantro, 1 tsp of the cinnamon, parsley and season with salt and pepper.  Add enough water barely to cover the bird and simmer gently, covered, for 45 minutes until the chicken is tender.

2.  Transfer the chicken to a plate.  Boil the cooking juices until they are reduced to a thick, dryish sauce.

3.  When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and take the flesh from the bones.  Coarsely chop the flesh.

4.  Beat the eggs and butter with half of the cooking juices and cook, stirring constantly, until scrambled.

5.  Toast the almonds in a dry, heavy frying pan, stirring frrequently, until lightly browned.  Add the remaining cinnamon and sugar.

my frist time blanching almonds - so easy!

6.  Using overlapping sheets of filo pastry and brushing each sheet with oil, make a square 3 layers thick (I acutally used 5) and 18 inches across on a baking sheet.  Spread the remaining cooking juices in a 7 inch circle in the center of the pastry.  Cover with the egg mixture, then top with the chicken and the almonds.  Fold up the sides of the pastry to enclose the filling.  If necessary, patch any gaps with more pastry, brushing them with oil.

7.  Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and crisp.

8.  To serve, sieve confectioner's sugar ove the top and make a random or lattice pattern with ground cinnamon, if desired. 

Be careful, it's super hot!!!!



BEFORE


 So pretty!  But it wasn't long until it looked like this:

AFTER

Go Happy!
Amy

This Is Not An Exit

I got a sense the other day of what it feels like to be trapped.

Not trapped emotionally, like in a bad relationship, or trapped mentally with some problem or other that seems unsolvable. No, I was trapped physically, and in a pretty disgusting place: a public bathroom.

Yeah, I managed to get myself locked inside a public bathroom.

You see, I was at an audition, and like the good student I am, when I arrived at the audition location I went directly to the bathroom before checking in, just like they taught me in grad school. Have a pee, check the hair, apply a little lipstick, you know the routine. At this particular casting location, they have a co-ed bathroom. You walk in, and there's the sinks and a mirror and then down a short hallway are two bathroom stalls, completely enclosed with locking doors. The first time I went to this particular office, I had a moment of complete embarassment when I walked into the bathroom and was immediately confronted with a man standing there. I assumed I had walked into the men's bathroom by mistake and was just about to make my mortified apology when a woman walked out of one of the stalls. Oh. Co-ed. How forward-thinking of them. Or cheap. The only other time I've been in a co-ed bathroom like this was on a party boat in Amsterdam, which was not only co-ed but had urinals to boot. What do you men do with that? How do you navigate without actually directly focusing on anything? How do you find the toilet or the sink without accidentally looking at a penis? And how do you think women feel walking into this situation, completely unprepared? Needless to say I ended up holding it all night. But I digress.

It was pretty late in the day, so the casting office was mostly cleared out. There wasn't a soul in the bathroom, which was unusual. The Modest Mouse part of me (yes, I do have one) was thankful that I wouldn't be running into a man in there, and that I didn't need to rush since there was no line. I chose the first stall, painted a nauseating lime green, and noticed that, of course, the seat was up. Men! I was tempted to try the other stall, because there's something about using a men's bathroom that kinda skeevs me out, but I though, hey, that's ridiculous, just get over your damn self, Amy. So into that first stall I went, closed and locked the door, and went about my business. I won't get into those details, of course, but in no time I was finished, hands washed, and ready to have my leave of this germ-ridden toilet closet. I unlocked the handle, pushed the door and....the door wouldn't open. Wait a minute, I thought, maybe I didn't unlock the door all the way. So I jiggled the handle a little bit, turning the lock this was and that and tried to open the door again. Again, the door wasn't budging. Perhaps it's just stuck, I thought. I gave it a good shove. No dice. The door didn't move.

At this point, my brain went into overdrive. Am I stupid? I thought. Am I missing something really obvious? If I start banging on the door to have someone let me out, am I going to embarass myself in front of everyone? This office has a distinct funereal atmosphere - there may be 50 people waiting in the lobby, but you'd still be able to hear someone fart down the street. So I paused a moment to figure out the best way to proceed. Clearly I'm stuck. I examined the door, I pulled up on the knob as I pushed the door, thinking perhaps the door is just a bit out of alignment. Nope. Still stuck. I thought about getting out my credit card to jimmy the lock open, but I could see that the plunger in the knob was turning, so that wasn't what was keeping me trapped. Is there a door open on the other side maybe? Is that forcing my door closed? What time does this place close? Do they check the bathrooms before they leave at night? Will someone not find me until morning?

At this point, I started to feel a bit panicked. I only had a couple of minutes before my scheduled audition slot. If I was late, would they believe that I was really stuck in the bathroom? Or just chalk it up to some lame actor excuse? Suddenly this germ-infested man toilet starting feeling really small. I started imagining what it might be like to be trapped in the rubble after an earthquake. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I could imagine it! Fuck it, I thought, I've exhausted all my ideas for getting out of here, save breaking the door down (which probably wouldn't have been to hard, it was a cheap hollow-core door anyway). It's time to start knocking.

Knock, knock, knock. Nothing. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK, a little louder this time. Seriously? Is there noone out there? Or is everyone so wrapped up in prepping for their audition that noone will come save me. KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK!!!!!!!!!!

"Hello?" comes a voice from the other side. Finally!

"Hey, hi, um, I'm stuck in here, the door won't open even though it's unlocked."

"Oh. Hmmmm. Do you want me to get someone?"

No, asshole, I want to spend the night in here. "Yes, could you please? Thank you!"

I hear the clueless guy walk away and seconds later that door magically opens, completely unhindered. On the other side is the befuddled Asian guy who found me in there and the girl from the desk.

"This happens alot" the girl said, completely deadpan.

"Oh. Hm. Well, thanks. I was starting to get a little panicky."

The girl gives me a vague stink-eye as I high-tail it out of there. How'd the audition go? I can barely remember. As a friend suggested to me, perhaps the bathroom interlude was my audition for No Exit. Or my introduction to an existential crisis. Or just some silly story I can now entertain my friends with.

Regardless, I'm never using that stall again.

Go Happy!
Amy

That's Amore!

I'm a bit of a girl when it comes to my favorite movie.  When I was a kid, I desperately wanted to be both Italian and a New Yorker, so it's no wonder that I had seen Moonstruck over 30 times by the time I finished high school.  Oh, how I wanted to be Cher, and have big, jet black hair, and wear a pretty dress and go to the opera with a hot, passionate guy.  Even if he did have a wooden hand, I wouldn't care.  He would touch me with that wooden hand and I would go crazy, I tell you.   "Hollow me out so there’s nothing left but the skin over my bones!" I would cry.  Then I would have a good, stiff drink and cook him a steak.  And two days later we would be engaged.  It would be awesome.  This is what I had come to expect from love.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I have learned over the last few months a different meaning of love.  See, I have this cat, his name is Mars.  Some of you may have met him.  He is a curmudgeon.  His typical mode of communication is the persistent, loud meow or the more menacing hiss.  He'll stand at your feet, meowing insistently for attention, and the moment you bend down to pet him he'll bite your hand.  He acts like he doesn't want you around, but if you go out of town for a few days he'll pee on your bed.  Just ask any of my former roommates.  I'm surprised some of them still speak to me.

Well, Mars is almost 14 now (he'll be 14 on tax day, how fitting).  And now, not only is he a curmudgeon - he's a stinky, pooping, peeing, barfing curmudgeon.  If it is foul-smelling, it has come out of him.  In copious amounts.  In my living room. 

Until lately.  You see, Mars has been constipated for the last few days.  And boy, is he not happy about it.  And he has let me know it.  He meowed nonstop for an entire day, and walked around the living room straining, just trying to get that poop out.  So I did some research online.  And I discovered that, just like people, you can give a cat an enema.

Oh yes, you read that right.

So I went to Walgreens at 2am to get the proper supplies (and some Ben and Jerry's for me, because fuck it, if I was giving the cat an enema, I deserved some fucking ice cream afterwards).  I did all the research, prepared the feline enema solution, watched the online how-to videos, and steeled myself for what was about to happen.  I scooped Mars up, plopped him in the tub, and proceeded to, well, try to get him to show me his ass.  Ha!  He knew what was up, he had my number.  And as much as I tried, he was just too squirmy.  I needed reinforcements.

This is where Adam comes in.  The next day, we repeated the same scenario, this time with Adam holding Mars and me in the tub with him.  In went the enema, and in a few moments....out came some truly vile-smelling things that I won't horrify you with the details.  Needless to say, Mars was sequestered in the bathroom for a few hours while he....worked it all out.  By the time it was over, my entire apartment smelled like the inside of a cat, and he desperately  needed a bath.

What's the moral of this story?  Well, to me, it's that love isn't about sex with hot guys and going to the opera.  Love is figuring out how to work out all the shit - figuratively and literally.  Love is giving someone an enema and cuddling with them on the couch later.

This afternoon, Mars and I watched Moonstruck, and I felt the love.

Go Happy!
Amy

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays!

Here I sit on a Southwest plane, mid-flight, on my way from California to Chicago.

That time of year is upon us again:  the holiday season.  My absolute favorite time of the year.

But before I get into that, dear Blog-Friends, I must take a moment to apologize for my prolonged absence.   Many friends who have become unemployed recently had warned me as I began this adventure that within a month I would find that, suddenly, I was completely overwhelmed with things to do.  This is one of the big ironies of unemployment.  I have no idea how I got things like laundry and cleaning the bathroom done when I had a job, because I hardly have time to do them now.  I suppose for me, as a way to transition into this new way of being, I have over-structured and over-planned my days, weeks and months.  I definitely operate from a schedule, and strive to have concrete activities to complete every day, however mundane they may seem (organizing and labeling all my crafting supplies into a tower of tiny drawers, anyone?).  I’ve gotten a little wrapped up in all these varied tasks and have neglected this particular project.

And not only have I become obsessed with the minutiae of everyday life, I’ve also had the privilege and luxury to do some international travel and mull over the idea that I am part of a much larger world.  And I’ve begun to get my life as an actor in order.

But all that is for a different blog entry.  Tonight I am consumed with thoughts of home, and family, and snow, the ending of an interesting year, and the beginning of a new one.  I suppose it’s normal to take time for reflection this time of year, and I’m certainly no different.

Adam and I had a friend over for dinner the other night at our apartment in Los Angeles (I made really delicious pizza from scratch, but again that’s another blog entry), and he asked me what I was up to since we hadn’t seen each other in a few months.  Since I was in the throes of planning Christmas presents and travel itineraries and packing and all that, I remarked that I was getting myself ready to go home.

“You are home” he replied.

Which, really, brings up a question that I’ve never been able to successfully answer:  where is home?  For the last 17 years I’ve lived away from my family, sometimes thousands of miles.  And I notice that every time I visit the place where I grew up, where my whole family still lives, I tell people I am going “home”, and that when I tell people I am returning to wherever it is that I live, that I call it by the city name.  I rarely refer to my apartment as my home, unless I’m talking to local friends (as in “I’m sorry, I can’t have another margarita because we’re in the Valley and in order to get home, I have to drive on the 405 in the dark”).   Yet, by definition, I feel “home” is fundamentally where one lives, and I know that I can no longer imagine myself happily living in Indiana.  So why after half a lifetime away do I still call it “home”?

I just finished reading a quiet, lovely little book by Dominique Browning called “Slow Love:  How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness”.  In it, she also reflects on this idea of home, and has rested on the idea that home is the place where you want to go to die, or to be buried.  Since my parents had the foresight to get cemetery plots for themselves, my brother and myself when I was five years old, I know that unless something drastic happens, my final resting place is in Calumet Park Cemetery in Schererville, Indiana, with the rest of the Armstrong clan, my mom’s side of the family.  So by that definition, I guess Indiana is home.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something – or more appropriately, missing out on something.  I spend 95% of my time right now in Los Angeles, living with my boyfriend of 4 years, surrounded by wonderful friends who feel like family.  I want it to feel like home, but somehow all the satisfying parts don’t add up to a whole home.  Is it possible that I can’t feel a sense of home unless I have blood relatives living in close proximity?  I don’t feel any less connected to them, all of them, living so far away.  I don’t have the luxury of popping in on a moment’s notice to chat, or to have dinner together on a week night, or to attend every birthday celebration, anniversary, or, sadly, even funeral.  But I still feel like I’m a part of their lives and they are a part of mine.

But none of them has ever set foot in my apartment, or met my boyfriend’s kids who live with us part-time, or marveled with me at standing outside in shirt sleeves in February in that miraculous southern California weather.  I don’t get to share these things with them, things that have become part of my everyday life.

As 40 is no longer a far away concept, something that will come upon me naturally when I’m “older”, I’d like to feel like the place I’m living, the life I’m building, the relationships I’m nurturing, gives me a sense of being “home”.  But that feeling still eludes me.  And I don’t stop getting older.

I’m curious if any of you wonderful readers have felt this sort of thing?  I know many of you have chosen a similar path to mine, which is to say the path of a creative person, a life a little off the beaten track.  Is there something endemic to this lifestyle that promotes this sort of restless yearning for a place to call “home”?  Or is it something bigger than that?  Something generational, perhaps?

I don’t anticipate solving this question over the coming week, but I’m certainly going to enjoy playing cards (Michigan Rummy), chatting with my dad over a cup of coffee while my mom is at work, skiing with my brother (apparently you can ski in the Midwest, who knew?), and in general reveling in the grand, messy splendor of my uniquely weird and lovable family.

Go Happy,

Amy

Home

Surviving the Rat Race

Last Sunday I ran my second half marathon.

If you've never run in an organized race before, I can tell you that you learn a helluvalot about yourself during those precisely measured miles - and the hundreds of miles of training leading up to the event.  I've learned that I am the following:  tenacious, disciplined, determined - and also irritable, complaining, bitchy, competitive and that in the "tortoise and the hare" scenario I'm definitely the slow-ass turtle.  Let's examine, shall we?

Tenacious, disciplined, determined:  there is something about distance running - and perhaps any sort of endurance event - that magnifies aspects of your personality.  I think I can confidently assert that I have drive and stamina.  Well, at least if I have a specific goal.  Let me make this absolutely clear:  I hate running.  I always have.  I joined the track team in 7th grade so that my BFF wouldn't have to go it alone.  The 100 meter was my event, and if memory serves I never even came close to winning a race.  The only thing I hated more than breaking a sweat at practice was actually running in front of people at the meets, showing the world that I look moronic, perhaps even slightly "challenged", when I run.  Not good for this nerd's already precarious social standing in those cruelly awkward adolescent years.  Needless to say the team (my BFF included) breathed a collective sigh of relief when I didn't  go out of the team the following year.

But I digress.

It's not running that I like so much as achieving something that is both physically and mentally difficult, in my case that is running 13.1 miles.  I like the challenge.  I don't don my running shoes at 6am and head out into the dark and smoggy LA morning because I'm an eager, thrill-seeking masochist. It's because if I don't I'm gonna regret it on race day, when at mile 6, huffing and snarling and sweating in sheets, the race chews me up and spits me out and I lay in the filthy LA streets next to the dog poo and used hypodermic needles until someone decides to come by and scrape me up.    So maybe it's the fear, or the latent Catholic guilt (I heard somewhere that God doesn't like quitters), that propels me out of bed at that dreary hour.  Whatever it is, it works.  And keeps me hurtling towards the finish line, arms and legs akimbo, come race day.

Irritable, complaining, bitchy,competitive:  is it telling that I can come up with more negative words than positive to describe how I am when I run?  It brings out the best - and the absolute worst - in me.  Just ask my boyfriend.  If he innocently decides to question whether or not I'll be heading out for a run that morning, he gets a three-minute expletive-peppered tirade about the minutiae of my schedule that usually ends with something like "and I don't see you out running today, old man!".  I get pretty touchy.  He's a saint.

And have I mentioned that running is perhaps the most boring exercise on the face of the planet?  On those dreaded days when I have to put in serious miles, I find myself compiling a laundry list of things to think about while I'm out running, such as "what outfit am I going to wear to dinner on Saturday?".  "What can I make for dinner this week?".  "What are some most-excellent comebacks I can craft to win any argument?".  "What will I be doing when I'm 40?  Do you suppose I'll still be in deferment on my student loans?" and so on and so forth. 

The funny thing about race day is that all of sudden this solitary endeavor becomes a huge social event.  Instead of passing another runner here and there, you are surrounded by 15,000. And I have to tell you, some of those people don't have the same ideas about personal space as I do.  Take, for example, the "speed walker" next to me whose arms, bent at right-angles,  furiously pumped at his sides, as though he'd still be able to cross the finish line if he found his legs suddenly stopped working.  Just try to pass this guy, you'll get clocked in the face.  And pass him I tried, but the fucker kept pace with me the entire race.  He could walk as fast as I could run!  It did not do wonders for my self-esteem.

But I did manage to make it to the finish line with a time of 2:42:36.  Not as good as I had hoped, but I finished and without much injury (unlike the woman who took a face-dive while crossing the finish line moments before me, I hope she decides to buy one of her commemorative finish-line photos).

I think I'll be doing yoga for the rest of year.

don't let the smile fool you, I'm out for blood.

Go Happy!

Amy