Luckybwaygirl

Big, Stiff...and a little Sloppy.

Freddie, talking on the phone with me a few weeks ago, while on a business trip in El Paso:

Freddie:  "...after my Walmart run, I went to the local Mexican restaurant for dinner.  The-Only-Other-Guy-On-The-Team was already there, sitting by himself, so he waved me over to join him.  Just as I sat down, the waiter brought his margarita...which was, like, as big as a fishbowl!  It was HUGE!  Both our eyes bugged out."

Me:  "I know!  Hah!  That's happened to me before.  But they usually aren't very strong."

Freddie:  "Oh but this wasn't a franchise.  It was a real hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant."

Me:  "Oh, dayum.  Those are the places where your tongue starts to numb out after the third sip."

Freddie:  "Riii-iiiight?  So TOOGOTT was not expecting such a big drink... so he was all "Wanna Share?" ...so the waiter brought over another straw and we did."

Me:  "You sat with TOOGOTT and shared a margarita with two straws?"

Freddie:  "WELL IT WASN'T ALL LADY AND THE TRAMP!  We didn't drink out of it at the same time!"

Me:  "...ok..."

Freddie:  "..."

Me:  "..."

Freddie:  "Do you think people thought we were on a date?"

------------------------------------

Cut to last night, back in El Paso - I get a text from Freddie:

an hour later, another text:

Then....?  The drunk dial:

"I ORDERRED THE FITHBOWL!"

"Yes, I know."

"I DRANK IT MYTHELF!"

"Yes, I know."

"IT WATH DEEELITHSHOUS!"

"I hope you don't wake up with a headache tomorrow."

"MEEEEEE TOOOOO.  OKAY.  BYEEEEE."

Endless Shrimp? Endless LOVE.

So remember back when Freddie and I had a movie date under the stars....?

And I asked him to bring snacks AND HE BROUGHT THIS:

And remember how I had to explain to him the "Bring Snacks" is girl code for "Actually?  I mean bring Wine, Cheese, and Thou"?

Yeeeeeeeeeeah.

So I posted that episode and it got its fair share of positive responses.  People thought it was cute.  And Freddie learned, y'all!  He learned that I'm a girlie girl and I like fancy food.

"You said BRING SNACKS!"

"Not YOUR kind of snacks!"

"I'll make it up to you."

"How?"

"I'll take you out for dinner!"

"Something nice?" 

"Yeah!...like...Red Lobster!!"

Oh, BLESS.

Now....I have to confess:  I *do* have a special place in my heart for suburban franchise restaurants.   I spent a chunk of my young adulthood (age 17 - 21) out in Southern California pursuing my brand new thee-ah-tah career.  And I did A LOT of community theater.  And you know what's great about community theater?  THE COMMUNITY. 

"The Community" feels that it's not enough to kill yourself doing 10 out of 12s for tech week. 

"The Community" feels it's not enough to hole itself up in a teeny dressing room every night.

Nooooo. 

"The Community" feels it's very, very necessary to go out after the show (as if you haven't spent enough time together already) and squish around a table and continue cavorting far into the wee hours with drinking and burger eating and God-bless-whatever-else-should-happen.  Because your mamma always told you nothing good happens after midnight.  And this is especially true if it involves a gaggle of actors.

It was a magical time in my life.

(Me and my friend Katie after a performance of "Guys and Dolls") 

(HOLY GLASSES, BATMAN.)

I have a special place in my heart for Denny's/Red Robin/Ruby Tuesdays/Co-Co's/Mimi's Cafe/TGIF/Soup Plantation/fill-in-the-late-night-eatery-here.  

These types of eating establishments were (and I think shall always be) absolute gems about staying open and feeding little theater gypsies who come pouring in at - literally! - the eleventh hour.

(Unlike the time I was doing summer stock in Nowheresville, PA and in order to get a late night Scooby Snack we had to drive 20 MINUTES to Harrisburg.  McDonald's freakin' McCLOSED on us just as we got to the door.  It's like the late shift worker took sadistic pleasure in turning the lock all "SOR-REEEEE!" just because.  I hate you, stupid Harrisburg McDonalds.)

ANYWAY.

When I moved to New York in the mid-nineties, mid-town was a litter box.  I mean, sure, there were fantastic little eating establishments on 46th Street and all up and down 9th Avenue, but none of those behemoth franchises in which a group of 20 came come in without a reservation and there's not much of a wait beyond "hold on...we just need to put five tables together".

Then we got and OLIVE GARDEN.  Right across the street from TKTS.  THREE FLOORS!!  Except, it wasn't COOL to be a New Yorker and actually eat there.  Olive Garden was for the damned tourists.  Don't even mention Olive Garden to a group of actual New Yorkers as a possible place to eat.  Just....no.  So I've only eaten there TWICE.  I took some tourists.

Then we got an OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE on 23rd.  And OH MY.  That was Heaven.  My friend Christine and I used to don dark sunglasses and make clandestine trips to Chelsea to eat at the Outback Steakhouse.  We'd never mention it to any of our friends.  It was just me and Christine.  All she'd have to do was text "Steak?" and I was THERE.  Outback, man.

SO.

Freddie and I decided to celebrate our "anniversary of getting engaged"....

(But, really, it was Freddie. I didn't know that celebrating this was crucial, but Freddie pointed it out: five years!  This is a very girly thing to do.  So why does he have such a mental block on girlie SNACKS is what I wanna know?!) 

...and Freddie decided it would be most romantic to go up to the top of the Empire State building, where he proposed five years ago.  And then go out to eat.  

You see where this going, right?

"So, I was looking at places to eat near the ESB.  Wanna have dinner at Red Lobster?"

"OHMYGODYES."

"Well, that was easy."

"I love Red Lobster and I haven't BEEN to one in over FIFTEEN YEARS."

"I've never been...EVER."

"Oh, that's right.  Because it's so FANCY?"

"Is it?"

"No."

"Oh."

"It's just a chain restaurant.  Like Abuelo's."

"...oh."

"Who told you Red Lobster was fancy?"

"Well....when we first got one in Lubbock...? I was just a little kid and all I knew was that you could order liquor there.  I didn't know of any other restaurants where you could do that.  I guess I thought that make it fancy."

"Hooters serves liquor.  Is Hooters a fine dining establishment?"

"Nooooooo!  ...heh.   Hooters."

So Freddie made his virgin voyage to Red Lobster last weekend.  Where he learned that it's really not that fancy, but you CAN have a massive-yet-somewhat-weak frozen margarita with your blackened trout. 

FANCY.

Passive Agressive

*gasp*

YOU GUYS!!

There's a Note War in my apartment building!!

So, I noticed a small grocery bag with some trash in it on my neighbor's welcome mat.  It was tied up at the handles.  Fine.  I figured the neighbor was probably cleaning up around the house and intending to throw said garbage bag in the incinerator on their way out of the building later in the day.

But someone in the building took UMBRAGE.

"PLEASE KEEP YOU TRASH INSIDE THE APARTMENT"

to which the neighbor flipped over the note and replied:

 

STOP, okay.  Just STOP.  Oh, and MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS .

(Thank you for your concern.)

Seriously, guys.  All you need is love.  And a thick blue sharpie.

A Weenie of a Halloween

I was ALL SET to go to the Annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade this year, but my plans were foiled!

It all started with a phone call from Freddie (in Kansas City) on Friday night.

"I missed my flight back to NYC."

This was sort of a big problem because he was supposed to be at his Naval Drill at 7:30am on Saturday morning.  Well, he called his peeps at the reserve center and luckily they gave him grace and said he could come in for a half day.

So then it was:

"Can you meet me at La Guardia and take my bag home for me?  I have to go straight to drill."

Okay.

Except...come Saturday morning, his new flight was DELAYED.  By HOURS.  So he didn't get to go to drill at all and never mind about picking up the suitcase.  I was thinking, "Hey, it's okay!  Because now he'll have more time to go to the parade."

Except......he arrived in NYC at 5pm and his suitcase did not.  It was sort of crucial that we get the suitcase back in our possession as soon as possible because he was planning to go to drill at 7:30am on Sunday and then go straight to Newark to catch another flight.

You can see where this is going, right?

We COULDN'T go to the parade because we HAD to stay home and wait for the lost suitcase.  Knowing the flight that his suitcase was on wasn't landing until 7pm, we very quickly put on our costumes:

 

We walked around the neighborhood, hoping to at least buy a pumpkin.  I mean, if we had to stay home, at least we could carve a pumpkin and toast the seeds...

Except...the three closest grocery/produce stores were SOLD OUT of pumpkins!

Except...we ran into some friends of our who have an actual HOUSE with an actual BACKYARD right in our neighborhood (not too many of those!)  They were on their way to see a show at  The Public Theater, but said we could take a pumpkin from their backyard.

Except...they left the side gate key at home so there was no way for us to get into the backyard.  So we said, "Oh, too bad!" and bid them goodbye.

"I want to go check their house ANYWAY," said Freddie, "I mean, we have to get back home soon.  It's not like we can GO ANYWHERE ELSE tonight."

So we went to their house...and guess what?

They had TOTALLY left the lock unlocked on the side gate by accident.

And that's how I - dressed as a pirate - plundered a pumpkin on Halloween night! Arrrrgh!

 

Oh, I know it's just a little thing.  But it made a perfect amount of toasted seeds for the two of us.

 

The suitcase, by the way, never came that night.  And - in fact - it was not delivered to our house until Sunday night at 7:15pm.  I was housebound for HOURS waiting for it.  Freddie had to go to catch his next flight and buy a toothbrush and extra underwear at his destination.  No suitcase for Freddie.

But is this a trick (because it caused drama) or a treat (because it made us laugh)?

Attached to the suitcase (WHEN IT FINALLY ARRIVED!) was this tag:

 

And I'm thinking -- Um, NO.  The Perfect Delivery would have been Freddie walking off the plane and into the baggage claim area to find his suitcase spinning around on the wheel with the rest of the passengers' luggage.

Perfect Delivery?  I think not.

It's not Halloween without PUMPKINS!

A few weeks ago, we spent a very wet afternoon with our family in a pumpkin patch in Texas.

 

My valiant efforts at decorating my apartment (inspired by this trip!) have not met the high standard I envisioned.  It's turned out sorta...

 

...Meh.

I was feeling pretty cocky at first.

 

I was going to make Pumpkin/potato soup.  I was going to make my first pie from scratch.  I was going to try to find Orange twinkle lights (I've seen them before! I know they exist!)

 

But then I became such a BUSY BEE with my show.

I have twinkle lights, but they are clear colored.  I have a few Autumn-y throw pillows on the couch and a Happy Halloween banner in the kitchen window.  My pumpkin candle is almost used up.  And...I'm going to buy a pie instead of make one.  Because I need some couch time this weekend!

 

Three things I promised Freddie we'd do this weekend:

1) watch the Halloween episode of "The Office"

2) check out the Halloween parade downtown

3) carve a pumpkin and toast the seeds

 

Halloween is a fun holiday, but I never get into it as much as I'd like. I am usually already wading thru Christmas music (already 3 weeks into rehearsal!) and this time of year just entropies -- the year somehow gets faster at the very end.