The night they invented champagne

A tip for those who are staying in town, celebrating Valentine’s Day, and want to appear loving and generous to their partner or friend on that day: do as I did today (my excuse – I wont be here on VDay): go out and buy a bottle of Michel Turgy, Brut – Blanc de Blancs Champagne. It is notable for a number of reasons:

1. It’s a relatively small house, and so you’re not buying the SUV of champagnes;
2. It is a great “sipping” champagne: full and robust, so as to keep you interested til the end of the bottle, dry enough that you never quite believe that you’ve already emptied the whole thing;
3. It is < $30. Now when was the last time that you had a memoralbe champagne (or ANY champagne for that matter) for <$30? Possibly never? I asked the guys (think: woman with short dark hair—she knows TONS!) at Steve’s if they had done a secret blind taste this year – where they taste a bunch prior to VDay and pick their favorites. I was told that indeed this bottle had come out at the top, right up there with Vilmart (those of you, and I know who you are:), who had met Laurent of Vilmart fame back in 2001 and have not yet admitted to being in love with the guy – I forgive you; one has to keep sane about things like that) and the other small family houses.

Write me if you end up buying this small treasure and agree – or if you get engaged or hooked up in an enduring relationship, or a civil union, or whatever as a result. I want credit.

Lord of the Flies, Redux

I drove up the street thinking good thoughts: the snow, Owen Woods Nature Conservation Park on the left, a bike path leading into a quiet neighborhood on the right.. winter light.. a peaceful landscape.. (the radio is off because of the pledge drive: I’ve come to my senses; see post below).

I’m home and so I take out my dog for a romp (that’s what I call a quick pace up to the neighbor’s driveway and back.. I mean, how long should it take..), I glance over at the snow hill, you know, the one with the flamingos (see Sunday post below) and I see --- chaos. The littlest boy seems to have his head stuck in the snow (or almost so) very close to that of the upside down flamingo. Big sister is whacking his torso with a broom. Middle brother is taking out the other flamingos one by one and throwing them rather meanly toward the bushes. Middle child (of yet unidentified gender) is staring at the scene, and am I imagining it or is there a hint of malice in his eye?

The building of a snow hill and the placing of pink birds in it was a beautiful image. I should have come home a half hour later. I’d never have noticed the missing bird or two, nor the hole in the hill where the boy’s head had just been.

On Wisconsin!

Today the Cap Times mentioned (here) that the NYT hinted at the possibility of having Doyle added to the democratic ticket. Governor Doyle has met with (courted?) all the contenders and so it is not impossible to imagine that if the one supported by Wisconsinites does get the nomination, there’ll be some gratitude floating around.

Doyle on the campaign trail? Well, he’s got the height thing going for him…(see post here)

Listening to the voice

The drive from my home to my office takes about 15 minutes. 90% of the time I have NPR going: it’s soothing in the morning (no one should start the day with rapid-fire speech of WBBM “all news all the time,” nor the thump thump thump of other invigorating musical venues; in the one yoga class that I ever took in my entire life the instructor told us we should start the day slowly, softly, contemplatively; I quit the class, but retained the idea), and it is fascinating during All Things C’d in the evening.

But I ask myself, what demonic force within me keeps the public radio station turned on during the pledge drive? “Why, thank you caller from Neenah, a very generous gift… we count on listeners like you to meet our financial goals… we need you to support the music and the news programming that you come to depend on.. we work for you… thank you for that call from Oshkosh, yes, Jane from Oshkosh called in, and so can you. The number to call is 1 800 000 0000, or locally, if you live in Madison, and we’d love to hear from you too, the number to call is 263, 7903..We have with us the chancellor of UW Extension, here to tell us what to him is so special about Wisconsin Public Radio.. Hello chancellor.. Remember, the number you should be calling, and our operators are standing by for your call… I see two lines open right now, so please, pick up the phone and dial..” and so on.

I have lived through pledge drives, and mini pledge drives, and during each one, for the 15 minute drive, the voice continues to make its case, in its atrociously monotonous drawl, on and on and on, and I am too lethargic, or inert, or unbalanced, or reasonless, or something (what?) to reach over and shut it off.

'Public radio. Funded through generous gifts of listeners like you.' Like me? Heaven forbid.

Really Lost in Translation

I have to say this, because I am hearing from some readers who do not know this about my writing: English is not my first language, Polish is. I learned (learnt? which one?) English during a six year stint in an elementary school in NY, but I spent my formative years (high school and most of college) in Warsaw. While everyone here was reading Hemingway and learning about “dropping the 'e' when you add ing”, I was in Warsaw reading Mickiewicz and learning about “kto uje kreskuje ten dostaje dwoje.”

NY elementary school English is not the language you can build a career on and I am happy that I have moved beyond phrases picked up on the streets (off the streets?), and in copies of the Bobbsey Twins. I mean Freddy and Flossie just didn’t have the vocabulary, nor the wit to say anything useful or intelligent.

But every once in a while, you can catch me. Although I think I am a careful writer and, in fact, I am not very tolerant of sloppy writing in general (hey, I had to learn the stuff the hard way, what’s your excuse?), I can easily be obtusely unaware of rule infractions. So, if someday I write something absurd (for ten years I thought the saying was “sufficient to say,” just because that’s what it sounded like to me), just say to yourself – oh, there’s one she doesn’t know. Chances are you’re right, I don’t.

Walk feminine, talk feminine

Tonya writes in her blog that by withholding “favorite movie rental” information (post, February 10), I am perhaps engaged in the flirtatious behavior of a bygone era: retaining elements of mystery in order to tantalize.

Could it be that she is right?

It all began in 1963 when my family took a road trip, and what was to be a pass-through in Las Vegas, turned out to be a five day layover, because my father had a bit of a car accident right there in the middle of the main intersection of Vegas.

Many jokes could be made at his expense now – all about wondering eyes and mind being elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the police faulted the other guy, though let me now, 40 years later, come clean and admit it: I was there, I saw it, it was my dad’s fault.

And so there we were, 10 year old me, 11 year old sister, frugal mom and stingy dad. We stayed at a seedy motel (that was the pattern of the trip) and waited for the sun to move from one end of the desert to the other while the car was being repaired. For a kick, my sister and I would go to the grocery store and work our way through pocket change at the slot machines. After two days of this my parents woke up and said enough: let’s do something that’s family-appropriate.

In those days, “family appropriate” in Las Vegas was hard to come by. Basically, it had to be a movie or back to the slot machines.

Not surprisingly, the theater was showing only one General Audience movie. These were the days that you normally didn’t let your kids watch “Lolita part 3” or “Sensuous Sandy” at the age of 10. So our movie was to be “Summer Magic” with Haley Mills over and over again.

The movie is a study in contrasts: Haley’s character (a teen age girl whose father just died, leaving the proper Bostonian family destitute) was one of resilience and strength. She single-handedly found an old house in Maine where they then moved, living off the land I guess (that part isn’t really explained, and the mother continued to wear fancy hats and dresses, even in Beulah, Maine). But the girl was also intent on being more feminine and a successful flirt.

The reason this story is at all relevant here is two-fold:

1. I have now demonstrated to Tonya my willingness to share favorite movies (Summer Magic) and real life dramas (car accident).
2. The movie taught me the lyrics of an influential song – one that I repeated to myself again and again as I failed to attract the boy of my dreams in my Polish high school (initially; he later succumbed to my wily ways; but then he turned his attentions elsewhere, proving that flirtatiousness will only get you so far). The song goes something like this:

You must walk feminine, talk feminine, act shy and smile feminine, complement his masculinity,
That’s what every girl should know
If she wants to catch a beau.
Let him do the talking, men adore good listeners,
Laugh, but not loudly, if he should choose to tell a joke.
….
Be demure, sweet and pure, HIDE THE REAL YOU!

So Tonya, perhaps you are right. I am but a product of my times, taught to be mysterious, secretive. True characteristics of a fanatically dedicated blogger.