Extravagant Dinner Party

I have an idea to share for entertaining. It goes like this.

HOW TO THROW AN EXTRAVAGANT DINNER PARTY

When I was in college I lived in a student co-op. We met a budget of one dollar per person for dinner.  i.e. we fed 20 people for $20. We had some fine-ass meals, too.  Sometimes the cooks would do something simple like a bean bake and fresh bread, and because it didn’t take long they’d also set the table and make Kool-aid with oranges sliced up and floating at the top of the pitchers. Sometimes we’d decide to eat outside and haul all the food up the kitchen basement steps onto the side yard. Fine times, fine times.

I went back to visit the co-op  a few years later and they were living in, well, extravagance. They were feeding people on TWO dollars per dinner. They had meat, even!

So, here’s my idea. Throw an extravagant dinner party where you feed everyone on $2 per person. 4 people = $8 dollars. If you absolutely must adjust for inflation since I last checked this out in 1996, you might go to $3 per person. I’m looking to try this out.

Ann Arbor’s Commie High newspaper up for Pulitzer of High School journalism

Ann Arbor’s Commie High newspaper up for Pulitzer of High School journalism

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Between NPR and a Hard Spot

So, it’s pledge week again on NPR. Fall is the season my hubby and I give. I called when I got home tonight. One of the prizes for new members was a T-shirt. They went on and on about how cool the T-shirts were. On and on. I decided I wanted a T-shirt.

A friend informs me that T-shirts are for new members only. I inform her I intend to negotiate for my T-shirt. I’m kidding. I mean, it’s a T-shirt advertising their business that they are giving away to people sending in less money than I am.

I call with my pledge and go through all the rigamorole – name, date, serial number. At the end I tell her I want a T-shirt. She says no. The woman says no. Then she says they are only for new members. I tell her that’s rude. I tell her I am going to withdraw my pledge. I tell her I have been giving to NPR since I was 18. My parents have been giving since I was 5. I am not kidding. I am indignant. I am serious. I want a T-shirt. She says she’ll get a manager.

The manager gets me my frickin’ T-shirt. I’ll send ‘em an extra $20 with my pledge for the shirt. I’m not trying to rip anybody off. What a sister has to do up in this town for a T-shirt.

Love NPR, love, love, love… and happy to advertise them.

Mating Call of the Southern Belle

Boooooyyyyyy, am I drunk.

Reacquainted with the joys of getting drunk with friends. Morning headache included.

Rhett Butler

3 weeks ago I realized I badly needed a vacation. I asked for two weeks and it was granted. It started this weekend.

At first I decided I’d keep up with email while I was away. My colleagues found out about this and nearly beat me over the head. NO EMAIL. And they have these evil ways of testing you. Like they send you an email with the subject line: “Revised Executive Order speaks directly to viability of MeL” and they can see if you’ve opened it from their email client. Busted.

By the time my last two days rolled around I kept repeating, “I need a vacation” until my colleagues were rolling their eyes saying, “You so need a vacation. This is not brain surgery. No one is going to die.”

The start of my vacation will be spent having a sleep-over at my mom’s with our favorite restaurants and a movie. Part B will be hangin’ in Lansing doing stuff I like but never have time to do. The second part will be spent in Milwaukee with Scott’s family.

The third part.

The third part is that I’m brushing the dust off this town off my size 9 tennis shoes and taking myself to Charleston, South Carolina. Every once in a while I need a vacation just to myself. Hubby does the same.  Some vacations we spend together, others alone pursuing our particular interests.

And my particular interest is a hot, muggy, historical, beautiful city with good restaurants and the chance to meet Rhett Butler around every corner. I’ll tweet it as I am not taking a computer with me. And try to do a better job of tweeting it than I did on my recent trip to Traverse City which I realized, when I re-read it, was a bit hard to follow.

Two Words

Root Canal

Mailboxes, Etc.

Customer Service Challenge at the Corner Quality Dairy

So, part of my healing from sciatica has involved gentle, daily exercise. I walk 40-60 minutes a day and build this in by including a 40-minute circuit down to QD for my morning coffee.

When I first started this I showed up one morning before they opened (they open at 6). I was abrupt with one of the sales clerks, asking her when they open although it was perfectly obvious as right at 6 am she came to unlock the doors. The sales clerk has an unforgiving nature.

For the next few days she was rude to me, refusing to look at me or speak to me beyond telling me that my refill was going to run $.61. I figured, no problem, this will wear off. In my turn I was particularly nice. Cheerful “good-morning”s. An effort to provide my $.61 exactly. Always left her with a genuine, “Have a nice day.” I’m not bad at winning people over although most people don’t dig in their heels. But this QD Lady is different. Now she’s taken to cheerfully talking to people in line behind me while she doesn’t make eye contact with me. I continue my friendly, “Have a nice day,” as though we make pleasantries every morning.

A QD challenge! It’s like my time Zingerman’s all over again with a little role reversal thrown in for good measure.

The Snakelady Is Back

So, where the heck have I been? Ladies and gentlemen I have been down the rocky river known as sciatica. Which is an ailment I did not expect. It meant I couldn’t sit for more than 10-30 minutes at a time. Seriously. Not even to Twitter much and certainly not to blog. I set up a standing workstation at work but I don’t actually think that well standing all day and had no interest in doing so in the evenings at home. But I’m feeling lots better and will hopefully be back to blogging now.

Cheers!

Welcome to the Pick-Up Truck Side of Town

A follow-up note on our fantasy shopping for a gas fire insert for the family room. This weekend we went to the store near “our” side of town and talked to a perfectly reasonable shop owner about prices and options. Of course his price was lower than the store in the aspiring town. He talked about practicalities – size and heat production and thermostats and such – while the other store had concentrated on looks. We told him, wow, you’re a lot nicer than the people in the aspiring town. He said yeah, he liked living and working on the pick-up truck side of town.