The Special People Club

I had dinner at my friend Anne's tonight. Anne, my friend Soni, Anne's housemate Gillian, and I drank wine, talked smart, and ate great chili. (Thanks, Anne.) Soni brought a little electronic game called 20 questions . It's vaguely magic 8-ball shaped, but instead of shaking it for wisdom you play the kid's game 20 Questions with it and it guesses your answer. Sounds pretty gimmicky, right? No way it could guess correctly, right? Wrong. It's like this thing is a mindreader. Things it has guessed correctly so far: door. sushi. curtains. cat. leopard. dacshund. boxer. (like the dog...yes it can differentiate between small breeds.) It's not perfect. For tight pants, it came up with rubber ball and basket (which is insightful, if you stop to think about it.) Tight pants lead to cameltoe (as they usually do), and it got close...with belly button. (Sorry Mom. I know you don't approve of talk like that, but a few glasses of wine and the girls get bawdy. F

One of the things I miss most while I'm in England is a good, rousing game of Scrabble. Brits aren't big board-gamers, and even though anyone who's truly intimate with the finer points of the game will be gasping about now, to the average person in the UK, Scrabble is exactly that...a board game. This is a big disappointment to me. There's nothing so satisfying as a good "pixies" with a triple X - double word configuration, or a chance to play "waxy" on a triple word score. (I'm a big fan of the x tile. And cut the jokes about the triple-X pixies. You know what I mean.) I was really looking forward to finding some pals who would spend long hours drinking wine and memorizing two letter words like "nu". Unfortunately, I spent six weeks in Scrabble oblivion. Talk about a bummer. I just don't get it. Scrabble is mesmerizing. Endless possibilities of spelling and strategy. Figuring the opportunity costs of playing the Q tile immedi

Happy Holidays to you all. Yes, Happy Holidays. God bless you, my conservative family and friends. I've specifically avoided discussing world events and other controversial topics in this blog so as not to offend any of you. Even though I strongly disagree with your politics, I love each and every one of you anyway, and out of respect I refrain from demanding explanations for all sorts of things that frustrate and annoy me. (Unless, of course, we're in person and can have a reasonable discussion, in which case you might want to be prepared for, "WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING???") Anyway, back to the point. I try to be respectful of you. So please show ME some respect and stop giving me crap about saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" when I'm talking to non-Christians and people I don't know well. WARNING..... I'm going to rant here. Mom, you should stop reading and just wait for another entry in a few days.

Two entries in one day! I should stay home sick more often. I go to a lot of movies. I'm not all that picky...I'll see my share of "Films", but I also enjoy kung-fu flicks and stupid teenage romantic comedies and Julia Roberts vehicles...I just really like movies. And I see a lot of stuff that I'd say is good or enjoyable or thought-provoking, but it's not all that often that I see a movie that really resonates. Well, I've found a new film that inspires me, and that film is "Napoleon Dynamite" (available on DVD December 21st.) Now, I'm not recommending that everyone in my personal blog-o-sphere rent this. For example, my mother would HATE it. And I admit that I have unconventional taste in films. Last year, I was one of the people who thought "Lost in Translation" was a beautiful story of pure love, and I this year I'm bucking the trend by asserting that "Garden State" is uplifting and sweet; trust me when I say

Okay, so. Saturday morning I woke up to some nasty banging at like 630. Not happy. Furthermore, I was puzzled. What on earth can someone be doing at that hour that sounds like steel poles raining in the street? Answer: constructing the booths for the Christmas Fair, an all-day flea market/eat fest/dancing/singing/parading event that culminated in the official lighting of the Christmas lights on the high street at 430 that evening. By the time I got out of the house, the party was in full swing. I registered to win a VW Beetle, then met the girls at the Swan Revived , where they were staying. We intended to give the watery eggs another go, but the restaurant was full. They must not get a lot of requests for breakfast there, though, so they were very accommodating and settled us in the sitting lounge. This was MUCH better as, immediately outside the window, we had the back of a girls choir from the local school. They were singing lame Christmas songs that we didn't know (and a few

I have returned and recovered from my travels around the neighborhood with The Girls. I was giddy, I tell you. Giddy to have guests! Dinner was, in fact, at The Moghul Palace (see previous entry for the link), and the food was delicious. I even managed smooth parallel parking on the wrong side of the street. We feasted on prawn balti, chicken tikka masala, and all sorts of delicacies. We lived it up and ordered the Banquet for Three. It was Thanksgiving, after all, and what kind of Americans would we be if we didn't eat to the point of bursting to celebrate the occassion? Stopped in a little pub on the way back to the car for a quick pint. There was a great band playing. We knew that karma was on our side when the first complete song they played after our arrival was the Helen Reddy classic "Angie Baby" (with a celtic lilt, of course.) Note to those of you who have not been part of our LP dinner parties in the past...I am obsessed with this song. Basically the creepy