Lessons learned about food

Was invited to lunch yesterday at the Centerton Golf Club.  When we got there I found that the cost was $38!  Gulp... So, even though I am on a diet (I mean life long eating plan) I HAD to get my money's worth!
That is the problem with the BUFFET.  I should have just eaten from the hors d'oeuvres table....they had gigantic, delicious shrimp, roasted vegetables, cheese (my favorite food) and grapes.  The hot buffet was ho hum compared to that.  I ignored most of the desserts because I eat there once a month and am overly familiar with all of their offerings.  Was quite captivated by the three tiered chocolate fountain.  And, naturally, I had to completely cover my strawberries, pineapple and pretzel sticks with chocolate.  I think it would have been better (and more sensible) to just put a BIT of chocolate on those things.

Insane city, a novel by Dave Barry.  I love Dave Barry but I prefer his humerous essays.  This novel was way over-the-top Florida insanity.  There are a few Florida authors who take it too far.  And I know that Florida CAN be crazy.  It involved some madcap adventures with a family preparing for a wedding and running into lost luggage, marihuana brownies (medically approved), an escaped orangutan, Haitian refugees, hired henchmen, snake wranglers, Russian gansters, drug dogs, angry strippers and more.  There is an overemphasis on coversations.

Now, TODAY would have been a good Easter day.  Yesterday, it was somewhat cloudy and cool.  At least, the rain held off until after the egg hunts were done.  Got to see some kids, dye some eggs, eat some chocolate, sing some songs in church, receive some compliments about the singing.  I wore my same Easter dress from last year.  Luckily, no one seemed to notice.  Two shades of purple, with pink kneesocks.
Someone gave me some eggs, someone STOLE my eggs, someone gave me some daffodils.  Found out my neighbor stole my eggs because a friend of his said go outside and look for the eggs I left for you.  He said they were delicious.

The Bible is HOT

Heard this on the radio today.  After the success of The Bible mini-series, producers are falling all over themselves to design Bible-related shows.  I could have told them that, just from the requests we got at the reference desk at the Vineland Public Library.

So many helpless people!  Guy with a cane at the Wawa today couldn't find the newspaper he wanted.  Probably because all of the names have changed due to REGIONALIZATION (hate it).
Anyway, I do not want to become one of the helpless people.  That is a struggle as you age.  That is why I am exercising.

Little known things about me: I punched a time clock for 37 years.  Three different jobs.  In fact, I punched a clock today.  But do not feel sorry for me, because THIS job I only do once a month (and not EVERY month).

The shark bited him and he died

Six year olds have such an adorable way of speaking.  I just can't bring myself to correct their grammar.  Had breakfast with two adorable twins who are very affectionate.  Trying to notice the differences between them each time I get to see them.  Someone kissed me and said "I love you" but which one?  Today I learned that one of them just kisses the "BB" (a cross between a pillow and a stuffed animal).  The other one kisses "everybody".  Then he clarified...."Not everybody.  Just my family and my teacher."  So, I had ONE arm around O. (who was watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on his iPad) and one arm around D. (who was playing a sword fight game on HIS iPad).  Talk about cacophony!  Oh, they were both coughing and sniffling too so I hope I don't catch anything.  One of them wanted to kiss me ON THE LIPS.  I couldn't avoid such an offer!  Also watched part of The hobbit and some other hideous action movie from long ago.  Charmingly, when they first arrived in Fairton, they wanted to watch The Swiss family Robinson, the same movie we watched the LAST time they visited Fairton. 

All the libraries are closed today (Good Friday).  Luckily I got into the Sweet life bakery (on Landis Avenue in Vineland, NJ) which is ONLY open Fridays and Saturdays now.  Unfortunately, they are cutting back more and more.  First, they stopped making breads and now they have stopped making soups and sandwiches and now they have cut way back on their hours.  Seems like a nice crowd is in and out today, anyway.

Went to a nutrition lecture and did some dances with the WII.  That was really fun.  The nutrition program was full of old people (I mean "actively aging" people).  Wonder if we get on the nerves of the people who work there.  I know we get on MY nerves.  A lot of characters who insist on putting in their "two cents".

Things I am tired of hearing about

- gay marriage (or any kind of marriage)
- Justin Bieber's escapades
- how people need guns to defend themselves AGAINST the government

Life is getting very complicated as far as the social calendar goes.  It is REUNION time.  Reunions are being promoted for residents of ASH, Women of Bridgeton (these are all things which happened 3 or 4 decades ago).  Then I have the Girlfriends of the 70's group and the French Group and the Mes amies group and the Book club.

Book - The importance of being seven (the new 44 Scotland Street novel), by Alexander McCall Smith.
This series is about all the people who live in a building in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Bertie Pollock is the only child we know.  His mother is very controlling and not very likeable (even her new baby does not like her).  Other characters are Matthew, the owner of an art gallery and his new wife, Elspeth, who is newly pregnant.
Three of the the single people go on a trip to Italy and a couple emerges. I borrowed it from the Vineland Public Library (LT FIC McCall Smith Alexander)

the embers of the pre-computer chip world...

Nicely put in my audiobook about giving board games to children after they had become enamored of video games.

The weather MAY be remembering that it is supposed to be Spring.  Nice and sunny but still windy and chilly. Looking out the window down here in Greenwich.  it is nice to see clothes on a line blowing in the breeze.  Very country.

Finished a book by Simon Doonan, Eccentric glamour : creating an insanely more fabulous you.   One was enough. He is quite over the top.  I wanted to read it just because he is the husband of Jonathan Adler, who grew up in Bridgeton.  I am less thrilled hearing the Jonathan won't admit that.  He says that he is from Philadelphia.  Simon has some good points such as that all women are aiming for the same look....the librarian look is out and, due to the easy availability of  many FAKE things, everyone wants to look like a porno star.  He suggests eschewing this look and going for individuality.  He describes various categories of looks.  Celebrities are pictured along with their answers to his questionnaire. He was dropping a lot of names but I had not heard of most of them.  He also describes games he plays with his husband to keep the love alive.  Simon is a window dresser at Barneys New York and wrote several other books, including Confessions of a window dresser.

So much easier to just stay home

The more I stay home, the more I get aggravated when I go out.  Left the house today and saw my new neighbor children hanging out in front of MY house with their dog (no leash).  Looking out the window I get the impression that they are not the kind of people to pick up the poop.  Almost stopped to warn them, but I will wait until they do something bad before complaining.  Also saw trash in their yard ALREADY.  And they have a white van with Virginia plates.  (We don't like them kind in my town). I always greet the thought of new neighbors with a great deal of trepidation.  It is all just so horribly predictable.  And I AM a glass half empty kind of gal. Then I got annoyed following an SUV that had a super reflective back window that was blinding me with the sun.

Went to the health club, although I really didn't want to.  Gained weight this morning and almost felt like saying f*** it and going back to being a couch potato.  It is so much easier than trying to work out EVERY DAY.  Felt better after the fact and they really do have a nice shower and free products there.  They also have this new kind of water fountain where you can fill up your water bottle.  I haven't used it for that but apparently it is the latest thing.

Finished a book, my first by Salman Rushdie.  I was forced to read it by my book club.  The title is Luka and the fire of life and it is a fantastical young adult novel.  Sort of clever, with a Dog named Bear and a Bear named Dog and Gods behaving badly.   It involves a quest to get the fire of life to help his father recover.  I experienced my usual reluctance in the face of science fictiony stories.  It was written for his son, during the time of his hiding.  I borrowed it from the Vineland Public Library (FIC Rushdie Salman).

I've been living in the past all weekend

Is this what it is like to get older?  The past suddenly seems more interesting than the present.  Saturday night I went to  a concert at the Landis Theater in Vineland, NJ.  Lauren Fox sang songs of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.  She seemed like Joni Mitchell of long ago.  When she sang Leonard's songs, she put on a fedora.  It was interesing getting the back story behind various songs.  She sang the one Joni wrote while hanging out with Leonard at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City.  Then she sang the one that HE wrote there, but it was about Janis Joplin.  He was quite the womanizer.  (Actually, weren't we all?)  It was taking me back to my youth.  She finished up with a song by each of them.  The word "FREE" came up an awful lot.  We all wanted to be free forever, not realizing that we could be imprisoned by our own selves.

Also thinking about the past a lot as someone is researching a communal house I lived in perhaps from 1975 - 1980.  So, there is a flurry of emails back and forth as we all recall things.  I have been procrastinating on my answers for a questionnaire that he sent out.  I had better hurry before all the stories THAT I REMEMBER have already been mentioned by others.  It was a good time at Atlantic Street House in Bridgeton, and I still love all the people, those that are not DEAD.

Sunday I went to a classical music concert which was fabulous.  Had to drive all the way down to Stockton State College in Pomona but at least a friend went with me.  I HAD to hear Rachmaninoff piano concerto #2 as it holds great sentimental value for me.  I was in LUST with a Frenchman who chose that record at my mother's house (she was away), put it on the stereo and proceded to tell me that it was "the most erotic piece of music ever written".  Need I say more about our subsequent activities?  I enjoyed hearing it again and reminiscing about former loves and one night stands. (I need to make a list!)

Finished a book, Beautiful ruins : a novel, by Jess Walter.  It has been mentioned in quite a few places and lists.  It jumps around a bit between time periods and locales.  Interestingly enough, I was on the Italian coastline in 1967 and there was a rumor that Liz Taylor and Richard Burton were dining in an outdoor cafe in Protofino.  So this guy writes a fictional (?) tale of a hotel owner who encounters an actress who apparently had a daliance with Richard Burton and is being hidden away in this obscure town and inn on the coast.  Later in life, an old man and a young writer meet at an agent's office in Los Angeles and, along with his assistant, they reveal more details about this story.  I thought is was pretty interesting and suspenseful and could almost have been true.  I borrowed it from the Vineland Public Library (FIC Walter Jess).