Opera Night (insert air quotes if reading aloud)

I thought it was opera night at the Rose Tree Park amphitheater, where free concerts are held through the week all summer long. On this night, members of a community group get up and perform solos from famous operas. I hoped to see a castrato. In the 18th century, around 4,000 boys were castrated annually for the sake of art. Are such barbarous practices still in place? I hoped so. I spread my beach blanket as close to the stage as I could, which merely meant that I could not get up and leave without being rude when it turned out that opera night wasn’t tonight after all. It’s tomorrow, and I’m majorly bummed.

What was playing tonight? A concert band, performing standards, show tunes, and the mandatory George M. Cohan tribute. If you have been reading this blog for a couple of weeks, you’ll remember my previous run-in with a George M. Cohan tribute, which was difficult to escape. This has been the summer of George; I wonder how many more times I will hear “45 Minutes from Broadway” before the end of August?

There was nothing left to do but chill out politely and entertain myself by watching people, because there are often some unusual characters hanging out at Rose Tree Park free concerts. For instance, at Beatlemania last year, I was mesmerized by a woman who performed orchestrated, rhythmic hand movements for her own enjoyment while singing along to Beatles favorites in a piercing soprano. (I particularly enjoyed her hand-choreography for “Blackbird.”) At the fake Johnny Cash show last week, the teenager in front of me performed the Charleston alone while making realistic train whistle sounds by blowing into her cupped fist. But what are you going to do when a concert band starts playing Flight of the Bumblebees? Are you going to jump around and get excited about it? I’ve heard Flight of the Bumblebees approximately 5,000 times before, and I’ve only been alive for just under 22 years. In other words, the audience wasn’t dancing or doing anything weird/obnoxious—they simply weren’t motivated.

I did have one very strange sighting, depicted below: someone had brought a beach towel expressly for their banana. I watched the banana the whole time, and no one claimed it or moved it. I wonder if the banana enjoyed the show as much as I did.

Note: perhaps this isn’t as weird as I previously thought.

I made this picture black and white, because it is a color scheme that inspires jealousy in others. "You WISH you were black and white at this concert, like me."

I was a Reborn Baby

This feels suspiciously like real human hair...

Don’t ask me why, while browsing online, I stumbled across some footage from a British news channel depicting a national obsession with Reborn babies—dolls so lifelike that if placed next to an actual child, you might not be able to tell the difference aside from the rise and fall of the real infant’s chest. The deadpan news reporter gently rocked a doll in the nursery of a woman who had “adopted” 20 or so such babies, treating them as real children and even taking them for walks in the stroller, er, perambulator. “If I could have had more children, I would have,” the woman said sadly, as she passed snacks to her four live offspring while jiggling a Reborn baby at her hip. The location then shifted to the home of a doll artist, who removed a baby’s head and forearms from her kitchen oven before beginning to paint the scalp with lifelike veins.

Sure, all of this was pretty funny. But these dolls, which are popular in the US too, can sell for thousands of dollars. And suddenly, I stopped laughing. Because I remembered that I owned one. Sort of.

About 20 years ago when I was a toddler, my grandmother had a baby doll made to look like me, and she saved it to give me when I was old enough to appreciate it. The day never came. Dolls were boring, and somewhere along the line, they became creepy. After that, they became sad. When a friend and I sold our childhood dolls at a joint yard sale (all of them in un-played with condition) the somewhat manic woman who purchased them assured us she would give them “a good home” in her doll room which was “stacked floor to ceiling with precious angels.” It was none of my concern what she did with them—I had made five bucks on each doll, and that was enough for me. But she was so earnest that I thanked her for letting me know they would be in good hands. And I was filled with a wave of pity for her, for caring. At this same yard sale, a scandalized customer scolded me for selling my First Communion jewelry, but then she bought it all from me. I can give a pretty convincing sales pitch, and I am very mercenary.

Eventually my grandmother did turn the Shannon doll over to me, though with less ceremony than might have taken place had I liked getting such things, and I packed it away carefully in a box. But which box? I tore apart every storage space in my house looking for it. Perhaps I was sitting on a gold mine! I came across boxes of other toys that were potentially valuable, yet not my style anymore—for example, a bunch of Breyers—they are collectible plastic horses with realistic paint jobs and in-scale miniature saddles. Do you want some? They’re for sale. When I finally found the doll, it turned out to be not quite as realistic as a Reborn baby, though still probably worth something to a doll collector. If I could find that woman from the yard sale again, she’d be perfect—after all, this doll is ME, author of this blog, and I can’t just let it go to some sicko. Maybe I’ll keep it for sentimental value. It may seem out of place in the minimalist décor of my future super-cool apartment, but perhaps I can display it ironically next to a salvaged neon sign that says Live Girls! On one of those floating shelves.

That settles it, the Shannon doll is not for sale. But the following items ARE. See pics below. If you are interested, please submit a sealed bid.

1. A plastic cannon from Barnum and Bailey Circus that shoots out a little man. I expect this to appreciate in value, as Water for Elephants has ruined the circus forever, and soon we’ll be talking about the Ringling Brothers like we talk about Dr. Walter Freeman, originator of the ice pick lobotomy.

2. A turtle finger puppet.

3. A Breyer model of Roy Rogers’ horse, Trigger. Did you know that when the real Trigger died, Roy Rogers had the horse embalmed and placed in his living room? You didn’t?

4. Assorted Star Wars PEZ dispensers. Note: the candy has been eaten.

I'm not the man they think I am at home, no no no nooo, I'm a Rocket Man!

Yoda appears to be unhappy with the sleeping arrangements. "Chewie, I didn't know YOU carried a lightsaber."

Soul-sucking: free Slurpee day

Coca Cola and Alien

In honor of 7/11, it’s free Slurpee day at 7-11! Ordinarily, I would have had no interest in this event at all, but yesterday I cashed in my final jar of loose change at a CoinStar machine. It came to $46. So basically, $46 has to last me the rest of my life until I get a job, and I can’t afford to turn my nose up at free sugared slush. Besides, would you believe it, I’ve never had a Slurpee before! How can someone go through their entire life without tasting one of the staples of suburban childhood? It had something to do with Brendan Frazer “wheezing the juice,” or sticking his mouth under the Slurpee nozzle, in a terrible movie from the 90s called Encino Man. If you never saw this movie, forget I mentioned it. If you choose to add it to your Netflix queue, I bear no responsibility for your disgust.

Anyway, I waited in a long line behind a group of preteens who did not look to be above wheezing the juice. I figured I would stick with cherry, a pretty safe choice considering there was a limited-edition Alien flavor created especially for the burb rats repeatedly hip-checking each other into the beef jerky display. By the time it was my turn, horror of horrors, the little bastards had used up all the free cups. So I was forced to upgrade. I tentatively selected a cup and stuck it under the cherry nozzle. But instead of a thick icy stream, I got warm red liquid. I was just going to go along with it, but then I couldn’t get the lid to stay on my cup. Red crap sloshed everywhere as the sticky lid popped off into my hand repeatedly.

Enter Slurpee troubleshooter. An intelligent man who probably has a degree from IITB in, like, computer troubleshooting, he works all day in his dad’s 7-11 keeping the Slurpee machines from clogging up and preventing deviant children from stealing all the straws. Slowly and patiently, he explained that you have to affix the domed plastic lid onto your cup before you proceed to fill it with frosty goo in colors insulting to nature. Hence, the hole the size of a Slurpee nozzle on the top of the lid. Ah. He kindly allowed me to throw my sticky cup away and start fresh.

There really was something wrong with the cherry, though. “But Alien looks okay,” the Slurpee tech said, pulling the lever to test it. Yup, Alien was ok. And because I was put on the spot, I allowed him to fill the cup with a blue substance the same shade as the carpet cleaner I use when my dog throws up. What’s more, I made myself say, “mmmmmm,” like I was looking forward to it.

El Cheap

I used to think cooking was antifeminist unless a man (or my culinary genius grandma) was doing it, a convenient little prejudice when you’re a person who meets with disaster when trying to make, say, banana bread. True story. If engineers were to test my banana bread, they would find adequate building materials, with a hardness rivaling adobe, but little that was edible. I don’t really want to use the “burnt water” cliché, but, well. True story.

Lately, though, my viewpoint has changed. It has everything to do with my love of really good Mexican food, which I can no longer afford. The last time I was at a good Mexican place—El Vez on South 13th St.—a friend and I were astonished by a bill that came to almost $100 for tacos, guacamole, and a couple of, honestly, the best mojitos I ever had. I should have taken it as a warning when the server didn’t card me for the mojito—they don’t do that to you in establishments that charge $100 for tacos and guacamole. I guess it isn’t considered polite. Another tipoff: the restaurant’s website was funky and creative, like they actually had to pay someone to design it.

Anyway, El Vez is fun and delicious, and even though I knew I could not replicate the “fun,” I figured I could make some headway on the “delicious,” which has mostly to do with the use of very fresh ingredients. Not to get all Martha Stewart-y, but I just happened to have some fresh herbs growing in a container. Ok, I bought them on purpose. Each plant cost less than three dollars and promised to provide me with fresh ingredients all summer. I got cilantro, parsley, and mint, all of which are necessary for the three delicious recipes I’m about to provide. They will be somewhat unorthodox recipes, since I don’t feel like trying to figure out the proportions of everything. Just use some common sense, and keep tasting everything until you like it. For instance, the salsa didn’t taste quite right at first, so I added a little bit of orange juice and I suddenly couldn’t keep my chips out of the bowl.

Note: I’ll leave tacos alone, for now. I really don’t want to get into making a homemade corn tortilla, like they do at El Vez, because frankly, it would be a disaster.

Here are all the ingredients you need.

Salsa

Finely chop an onion. Then chop some tomatoes, crushing them slightly as you chop. The reason I ended up crushing them was because my knife was dull, but it was okay because it released the juices. Chop up your fresh parsley and cilantro. Use enough of these two ingredients so that you have uniform green specks throughout. Drain and rinse a can of black beans. You may not wish to use the whole can; the amount you use should be in proportion to how much you like beans. Chop up a small jalapeno or half a large jalapeno, leaving the seeds in if you want the salsa to be hot. Add salt, pepper, and garlic. You can use fresh garlic if you have a wonderful invention that my dad introduced me to: a garlic mincer. If you don’t have a garlic mincer and are thus reduced to chopping it into tiny pieces yourself, know that you will never succeed; they sell jars of minced garlic, and that works too. Add a tiny bit of orange juice or lime. Let the favors combine overnight if you can wait that long.

Guacamole

The avocados come last here—otherwise, they turn an unappetizing corpse-gray—so don’t jump the gun and begin peeling them immediately, though it’s tempting. This starts out the same as the salsa. A chopped onion and a chopped tomato. Maybe you could just save some aside from your salsa, so you don’t have to chop twice? Then chop cilantro and jalapeno. Mince your garlic. “Hey,” you may be thinking, “this is the same recipe from above!” Well, almost, but this one doesn’t have black beans or orange juice.

The most important step in the guacamole is, of course, adding the avocados. Your avocados should be perfectly ripe. I read online that a perfectly ripe avocado has the same firmness as the cartilage of your nose, so I spent an inordinate amount of time in the produce department touching my nose while frantically squeezing fruits. It’s an anxiety-inducing experience, but after making guacamole a couple of times, you will know exactly what a ripe avocado feels like. If you can’t find three that feel like your nose, put them in a paper bag for a couple days to ripen.

When you’re ready, cut them in half and remove the pit, which is the most exciting part. Refer to the pictures below. Then scoop out the flesh, squeeze it with the juice of approximately 2/3 of a lime, and mash it up with the other stuff. I may have left out a few steps, but I’m sure it will turn out fine. Oh yeah, a pinch of salt too. You could add truffles too, like they do at El Vez, but I have no clue where to buy these.

To remove the pit, whack it bravely with a knife...

...then pull it out. This is oddly satisfying.

Minted iced tea

Make some iced tea. Wash some mint and put it in the tea. Always remember to write iced tea, not ice tea. Why? Because if you write it as ice tea, you’d be wrong.

Remember to strain out the mint leaves. This is so good with spicy food!

Peppermint oil=Christmas in July

I returned home from my Poconos trip yesterday, and my suffering began shortly after. I don’t mean to whine, but I have discovered via WebMD and other online means of self-diagnosis (cheaper than a doctor) that I have a worse reaction than most people to the sun. It’s genetic and torturous, and I’m barely even exaggerating.

This is what happened: I got moderately sunburned, and my nerve endings fried, causing subcutaneous itching—that’s itching below the surface of the skin, therefore unscratchable. I spent last night suffering while trying to remember all the good things I’ve heard about morphine drips, and debating the ER. Don’t laugh, because you don’t understand. A woman from the 2005 archive of a health forum understood—she defined this condition as “an itch so extreme it pinches you from the inside until you want to rip your skin off.” Another forum member described an itch so maddening that he drove recklessly, behaved crazily, and abused numerous substances in an effort to find relief, eventually crumpling on the floor of the ER in a drunken, sobbing heap. Another forum member sternly advised him against using alcohol to self-medicate.

Aren’t those outdated forums comforting? So many people with the same problems as you, seeking answers! Except, no one had provided an answer to those people from 2005. Were they still suffering? Had they discovered a remedy or cure?

On a one-page website which I’ll call vinegar.com, a woman touted vinegar’s magical anti-itch properties. “It’s a miracle,” she wrote. “My sunburn itch is cured!” So I doused myself with a bottle of it at around 5:30 this morning, and the result was that I was smelly but still itchy. The old standby, aloe lotion, didn’t do anything either. One answerer on Answers.com even suggested practically scalding yourself in a hot bath, which I wasn’t brave enough to try.

Then, finally, I came upon relief, and a heavenly chorus swelled. The deliverer was peppermint oil. Peppermint is quite potent, and in fact the bottle advises you to cautiously dilute it with olive oil if you MUST apply it to your skin. I poured a quarter of the bottle onto my body, undiluted, and repeated this throughout the day. The resulting deep, stinging numb rendered me crippled on the couch at first. But I got used to it. I acquired more peppermint oil. I am now typing from within a peppermint aura, my vision blurred by a peppermint haze. I smell like a Junior Mints factory, but I don’t itch. What the long-term consequences of peppermint oil are, I can’t say. Perhaps by tomorrow, my skin will have dissolved, forcing me to seek solutions from still other homeopathic forums and quack websites. But for now, I remain optimistic, invigorated, and, oddly, craving a candy cane.

The rules of My Farm

This game trumps Farmville, which bored me within fifteen minutes of starting my little plot of wilting digital radishes, probably because I’d played My Farm before. In My Farm, the world is at your disposal. You can only play on road trips through the countryside, which made it perfect for this vacation through Pennsylvania farmland. The game involves claiming actual elements of people’s farms and properties to plant/furnish your own farm. There’s no real winner, but it can get highly competitive. Here’s a sample scenario:

Ted: I call those cows for my farm!

Fred: Well, I call that cow barn for my farm.

Ted: I call that tractor for my farm.

Fred: I call that laborer driving the tractor for my farm.

Ted: You can’t do that.

Basically, when you play My Farm, anything goes. The goal is to have the most complete agriculturally and geographically diverse money-maker of a farm you can acquire on the same road trip. You can claim multiple vehicles, homes, animals, and shrubbery. You can claim bodies of water and whole forests. You can’t, however, claim the whole universe for your farm. And someone inevitably ruins the game by claiming “that farm for my farm.” So play the right way, people.

Yesterday, I could have claimed any number of natural splendors and oddities for my farm. Check out the pictures below of Boulder Field and the swimming lake at Hickory Run State Park.

A lake bed filled with boulders from the Ice Age

If I'd had appropriate footwear and a hand-carved hiking stick, I could have explored this field of sweltering hot rocks like the prepared people in this picture. Damn.

To think that I was walking barefoot among dozens of these guys like some kind of spider-whispering wood nymph, aka shoeless idiot

Ahh, lake water is so soothing to spider bites

Whole lotta coal

A weird duo: sustainable energy right next to the coal mine

Day 2 of vacation. I learned more about coal than I ever desired to know. Rode a miner’s car deep down into a coal mine in Ashland, Pa. At the gift shop, I discovered a nominee for Stupidest Souvenir Ever: a dog bobblehead glued to a chunk of coal. Hey kids, it even leaves REAL coal smudges all over your hands!

We then headed to Pottsville to tour the Yuengling Brewery, with samples. This was free, and you get two glasses of beer. I wasn’t feeling the dark Porter–I only tasted it because the description said “caramelly” and “chocolately.” Um, no. Better: the heavy-on-the-hops Lord Chesterfield Ale.

We then ate in this random diner staffed by Marilyn and Elvis. Aww, they were sweet. They were super enthused to take a picture with me. So today was coal, coal, coal, beer, impersonators.

I want to wear a wig, too

Cheap vacation, day 1: Jim Thorpe

I’m on vacation this week in the Poconos, so this will be a short one. We drove up this afternoon and checked out Jim Thorpe, alias Mauch Chunk, where my ancestors lived when they first came to the United States. Our hotel room smelled like Miss Havisham’s laundry basket, so I was in search of a cheap scented candle–needless to say, the Mauch Chunk 5 and dime doesn’t actually sell anything for a dime, but I procured a fairly cheap giant candle that smelled like spring rain, albeit spring rain polluted by runoff from a Glade factory. Check out the pictures; this is a really beautiful old mining town. We ate at a pub which is a nominee for Worst Iced Tea on the trip, but it’s early on yet. I will be sampling others, and will announce the much-anticipated winner at the end of the trip. Contender #1, Molly Maguire’s Pub iced tea: full-bodied Clorox flavor with a spoiled-lemon top note. Crab cakes and baked potato were pretty good though.

Me sitting on some anthracite. Have you ever sat on anthracite? Didn't think so.

Lunch paparazzi: let’s talk about food photography

Food memories last forever; pictured: a mediocre sandwich

The last time I was on a plane (to Disney World for the first time in my life, but that’s another post) I was startled when I noticed a woman across the aisle from me taking a picture of her miniature beverage. You know, the half-sized can of coke the flight attendant brings you for free, the price of which is built into your plane ticket. I soon realized that she was photographing the cola can to make her enjoyment of it last longer, and perhaps to impress others. She uploaded the picture from her memory card onto her laptop, where she used photo-editing software to add more shadows around the coke can and change the image to a thought-provoking black-and-white. She then did the same thing with a miniature bottle of duty-free Skyy vodka, and she had just enough time before all electronics had to be turned off for landing to upload both pictures to Facebook. We should all learn a lesson from that woman on how to optimize the value of our food and drink purchases by photographing them tastefully.

However, there are some pitfalls and stumbling blocks one might encounter when using photo documentation to add permanence to mealtimes. Some people will just take pictures of anything, like their bowl of alphabet breakfast cereal or an ordinary beer. They are egged on by the fact that so many of their friends “like” these commonplace sights, probably because they have just eaten that same cereal and uncapped the same brew. It’s my opinion, though, that food photography should be reserved for those out-of-the-ordinary splurges. For instance, you don’t get the chance to have sushi very often, and everyone knows that sushi is an exquisite art form. Or you have been to a bakery that sells those expensive and mouth-numbingly sweet Cake Pops. You know you will never again eat cake crumbs mixed with frosting and rolled into a little ball before being dipped in food-dyed candy coating and decorated to look like a baby chicken. Then, and only then, should the camera come out.

What camera you use is very important, and before embarking on a memory-making foodie experience, you should spend some time evaluating your equipment. If your camera is shitty, your meal will come through less like a page from Bon Appetit magazine and more like one of those vaguely disturbing diner menus where the color is always off in the pictures of the dishes—think bloated, banana-colored omelets and morgue-drawer meatloaf. It takes a lot of work to make 2-D representations of food look delicious. Remember that show where the food technician uses tweezers to tuck in all the loose ends of a plate of spaghetti, or replaces the whipped cream on a hot fudge sundae with shaving foam? Your bowl of pho bo tai or chicken masala—how daringly multicultural you are when you eat!—will not look it’s best unless you follow a few basic rules of food presentation.

Tell your server that you are doing a photo shoot to get your money’s worth out of your dining experience. He/she’ll understand, and will supply you with extra garnishes, like parsley sprinkles, which will improve the appearance of almost anything. Ask him/her for help in adjusting the lighting of the restaurant. Finally, add a prop! If you are dining el Mexicano, perhaps the establishment has a loaner sombrero or small potted cactus. Here’s a tip: dessert is by far the best photo opportunity, especially if the plate is white and drizzled artfully with chocolate sauce. Your friends will all be jealous of the fancy mint sprig and chocolate curls adorning your stacked mousse cake. And that’s the point, right? To make them wish they were you, or at least with you at the Red Lobster.

Remember, most people would rather look at what you’ve been eating lately than albums of your child or your enviable vacation. Give them what they want, and increase traffic to your social networking profile or blog!

Save money: don’t buy ugly clothes

It was a Calvin Klein skirt from Filene’s basement, and I figured I was getting a good deal because it was half-off the manufacturer’s price. I told myself the pattern was artsy and spring-like. Within a couple hours of bringing it home, I realized it resembled an elf-specific skin disease. I hated the crinkle fabric and tie belt. Also, I look awful in green. Why did I buy this? Here is my theory:

1. The skirt was made by a recognizable designer.

2. The skirt was cheap.

3. I have no sense of personal style, and therefore can be led like a sheep by the motherly fitting room attendant, who assured me the skirt was adorable and made me look like a “precious wood fairy.”

I don’t have an original picture to show of this, because after a year of looking at it in my closet and trying to tell myself I hadn’t made a mistake—I would find the perfect blouse and shoes to go with it, and get a lot of compliments—I donated it to Goodwill along with about 5 bags of other hideous and unfortunate buying decisions. Miraculously, I was able to find an image of it on a website where a hopeful seller who made the same mistake as me is attempting to recoup her loss.

We all buy ugly things from time to time. It’s not completely avoidable, but here are a few tips to minimize these wasteful expenditures:

–Develop a personal color scheme. I buy things only in different shades of blue, navy, lilac, and gray, because I think I look good in subdued cool colors. If it’s any other color than those listed above, I won’t buy it because it doesn’t go with what I already own. I don’t have time to waste on matching things, and neither do you!

–Know your style. I’m not sure of mine. I’m not really preppy, but I can’t pull off crocheted tops and ankle-length hemp skirts, either. I can’t stand leggings or knock-off Chanel bags. I’m not a hipster. This is hard. Refer to point 3, above. The thing is, you may like a bead-accented top in an ethnic print from Lucky Brand, but it will not go with high-waist tweed pants from J.Crew, which you may also like. Maybe you can afford to dress one way today, and a different way tomorrow. But probably not, so channel Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice and just decide, already.

–Know what people your age should be wearing. This isn’t always completely obvious. If you are shopping at a jumbled-together store like TJ Maax, Marshall’s, a thrift store, etc., clothing aimed at all different age demographics will be thrown together on the same rack. Know that some types of ugly transcend all age boundaries, though, e.g. the skirt pictured above will not look good on anybody.

–If you screw up and buy something ugly even after reading these tips, save your receipt and be honest with yourself! If you admit early on that you made a terrible mistake, you won’t miss the refund deadline on the return policy, like I did.