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Thursday, June 19, 2003 ( 8:45 PM ) Girl Detective Sadly, after months of keeping up two weblogs, I must finally admit that it's too much for me. I have a birthing class starting next week, a pre-natal yoga class starting soon after that, a baby due in August plus I'm trying to edit my novel. I made it to my year anniversary of Girl Detective earlier this week, but I find that I just can't keep up the pace. I'm happy with the writing I've done for this weblog, and I don't want to fizzle it away into the ground, so as of tonight, I will no longer be posting regularly to Girl Detective. I won't take down the site, though, because I may post occasionally when I get some pop-cultural bee in my bonnet. I will continue to post at my other weblog, the pregnancy diary at Mama Duck. Many thanks to all who have spent time here. I appreciate your kind attention, and good night. | ( 8:44 PM ) Girl Detective Windfalls There are some purchases that have come into my life that were so fortunate, and so perfect, that I find it hard not to believe in fate. One was my wedding dress. I had ducked into Filene's Basement to look for bridesmaid dress ideas, when I found a pale-green taffeta confection on the rack. It's original price was over $1000, but I bought it that day for under $200. Another time, during a low cashflow period, I had steeled myself to purchase a pair of Dansko professional clogs. They cost about $125, but my job at the time had me standing for 8+ hours a day and my back was not able to take much more. Then I wandered into Nordstrom Rack and found the exact pair, in my size, for $37. One of my favorite memories, though, was when I was working at a bookstore at the beginning of the Harry Potter phenomenon--just as the second book was about to come out in the United States. Our store received a box of remainders that contained a trade paperback of the first and a hardcover of the second, both British editions, when the U.S. edition of #2 hadn't even been released yet. I was flabbergasted and elated--it was like book nirvana just got dumped in my lap. My poor friend Queenie works at a bookstore now, and has to do crowd control tomorrow night for the people waiting to buy Harry Potter #5. I won't be one of the angry mass at her store, though. That kind of planned thronging flies right in the face of the possibility of lovely windfalls. | Wednesday, June 18, 2003 ( 6:28 PM ) Girl Detective In high school I had a tremendous crush on my friend Simon. During the summer before senior year, we often "hung out", the word that my parents couldn't understand for spending time with a guy I wasn't dating. We even took a road trip to see Sting for his "Dream of the Blue Turtles" tour, at an arena that inexplicably didn't have any restrooms. (There were porta-potties outside, but once you left you couldn't get back in. Brilliant.) Simon was good looking, funny, and a year younger than me. He'd recently broken up with a girlfriend and I thought I was an ideal candidate for next girlfriend. So I waited. And I waited. Nothing. I tried to hush the voice in my head. It would start to say, "Maybe he's..." but I would cut it off. "La, la, la, that's silly." Eventually, though, my denial wasn't strong enough to prevent me from finishing the sentence. I decided I would get him drunk and ask him. So we made plans to go see Desperately Seeking Susan (can't remember if it was his choice, or mine, but still, it did nothing to quell the internal doubts.) I agreed to drive and bring the soda, he agreed to bring some booze to mix. We had plenty of time before the movie so we found a secluded place to park. Unfortunately, at our young age we hadn't quite gotten the hang of what's a good mixer. Gin does not mix well with Coke. Especially when it's warm. Bleah. Also, he'd had trouble sneaking it out of the house, so he brought it in a peanut butter jar, and the gin took on the essence of the jar's former ingredients. We were young, though, and desperate, so we drank it anyway. After we'd had a few, plus a few cigarettes, we were both nice and tipsy. I decided it was time. "Simon," I asked, taking a deep breath. "Are you gay?" There was a long pause. His eyes widened and he burst out laughing. "Ohmygod, yes! And you're the first person I'm telling." Part of me--the part that was crushed out on him--was devastated. The other part, the friend part, felt honored. "Really?" "Yeah, but did you get me drunk on purpose to out me?" "Well, yeah." He laughed again. "You bitch! You got me drunk and took advantage of me!" I sighed and wished that it were true. And then we went to see the movie, which we both enjoyed. | Tuesday, June 17, 2003 ( 6:10 PM ) Girl Detective Camp Growing up, I was not a happy camper. My first experience came when my father, an allergist, was a staff doctor at a camp for asthmatic kids. My two sisters were young enough to stay with my parents, but I, about 7, was deemed old enough to go into a regular cabin. I was promptly despised. I don't know if it was my personality, my looks, or the fact that I was the only one who didn't have any swimming, food or exercise restrictions, but those other girls shunned me immediately. I was thrilled when we got to go, only to discover later that I was not leaving unchanged--I no longer had my collection of hair ribbons and barrettes that my mom and I had been collecting for years. All my pocket change was gone, as well as my watermelon strip of Bub's Daddy bubble gum. I was annoyed, but still glad to be gone. In fifth grade, I went with two friends to a sleepover camp. Again, I was quickly identified as the loser in the group. One of the friends did confide in me to watch out--they were going to try to make me pee the bed and cover me with shaving cream. Sadly, this friend left after one week, and I was left with the other, sneaky one. It was a tough second week and I never thought I'd be so happy to see home. Later there were several rounds of band and flute camp. These were not nearly so traumatic as the experiences when I was younger, but perhaps that was because we were a self-selected group of geeks. I know many people, my sister Ruthie included, who have had lovely camp experiences. I envy them--I was never one of them. All camp ever did for me was show me, pre-adolescence, that being on the outside of a bunch of mean girls is a shitty thing. It's not as if the lesson wasn't repeated over the years--I would've picked it up at some point. Learning it at 7 didn't put me ahead of the game, it just prolonged the misery. | Monday, June 16, 2003 ( 6:30 PM ) Girl Detective Anniversary It was one year ago today that I posted for the first time. I began this weblog to develop a writing habit. It has most definitely worked. Not only do I update this five days a week, but I started a pregnancy journal that I originally planned to update weekly, Mama Duck, which is now also at five days a week. Over the past year, I've written through writer's block, illness, fatigue and more. The writing isn't always something I'm proud of, but the act of having written absolutely is. My first topic was foot tubes. Ironically, a year later I'm still obsessing about them. Why? Because I bought two pair--black and nude. They served me fine all last summer, but between then and now I lost one of the nude ones and can't find replacements anywhere except in egregious shades of fuchsia, turquoise with daisies or somesuch. It's maddening, because I can't wear the shoes I need them for. A year later, I find myself writing on a regular basis. My only concern is that updating two blogs leaves little time for other, non-self-published, potentially paying gigs. That's my goal for this next year, then. I'll be able to juggle that, plus the blogs, plus my job, plus caring for a small infant come August. No problem. | Sunday, June 15, 2003 ( 9:29 PM ) Girl Detective I've watched in embarrassment as the recent spate of anti-French sentiment has flared to ridiculous lengths over the past few months. But there may be one area in which I'm anti-French, and others in the country are pro-. I think French pedicures are silly. I saw the French pedicure, where the tip of the toe nail is painted white and the rest is painted pink, for the first time on Lucy Liu's toes in the first Charlie's Angels movie. Huh, I thought. That looks so good in a manicure, but silly for the feet. Apparently, I'm the population of one on this. Ever since, the French pedicure has been a look of choice. I find this baffling, because one of the big differences between finger- and toe nails is that the former can be long but the latter must always be kept short, for practicality, hygiene and appearance. Yet the French pedicure makes it look like they're long--the exact opposite of how one is supposed to groom one's toes. I don't find the illusion of length--that bit of white nail at the tip--to enhance one's toe aesthetic. As I said, though, I'm in the minority on this one. So I choose to shun the status quo and opt instead between two extremes for a pale, natural look or a bright, sassy one. Currently, I'm wearing OPI's Smokin' in Havana. Other favorites include Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle, one coat each of Essie's Waltz and Mademoiselle, and OPI's Samoan Sand and Russian to a Party. | Thursday, June 12, 2003 ( 7:10 PM ) Girl Detective Graduation night
| Wednesday, June 11, 2003 ( 6:40 PM ) Girl Detective Wherefore art thou, Madonna? Last year on 06/26/02 (again, sorry about the screwed up permalinks) I wrote about being a Madonna fan over the years. Now, though, I think she's gone where I don't want to follow. Her new album and her political shenanigans around it? I'm not impressed. On one song she claims over and over that she's not religious. I think she doth protest too much--in that paragon of trusted information, Us magazine, she's identified as attending Kabbalah--Jewish mysticism--classes. This kind of thing--trendy religion--works my nerves. Guess what, Madonna, there's a long and interesting history of mysticism within the tradition you were born in, just waiting to be discovered. There's Julian of Norwich, labyrinths and rituals of the ancient church which included a cup of milk during communion to symbolize the mother. And that's all in Christianity/Catholic history, just waiting to be found for those who look. One of my myriad pet peeves is people like Madonna who rebel against their religion and think that if they dabble in Jewish mysticism or Buddhism or somesuch than that's much more authentic. And it's not more authentic, it just feels like it because it's different. Last year Madonna was the healthy yoga mom that I could relate to, with an album I enjoyed. This year, she's doing pretentious silly stuff and put out an album that I don't enjoy. Will things change? Quite likely--she's nothing if not mutable. But I think I'm going to take a little break. | Tuesday, June 10, 2003 ( 6:26 PM ) Girl Detective I scream for ice cream When I wrote about the late, lamented Minneapolis restaurant Rock Star, I noted that the best way to support local places was to frequent them. I then listed some of those that my husband and I had been to recently. My husband called me on this later. "Wait a minute. You're claiming some sort of moral imperative because we went out for ice cream?" he asked in disbelief. Why, yes. Yes I am. For a place that gets pretty damn cold in winter, the twin cities have a lot of ice cream places and many of them are beyond just good. Poor Dara Moskowitz, the food critic for the City Pages. Each year she has to pick one--one!--as the best. There's no way I could take that kind of pressure. Not only do these places have great ice cream, but they also have some of the nicest staff and owners I've ever met. There's Izzy's, where I went for my birthday treat this year--a Sprecher's root-beer float. Izzy's is in downtown Minneapolis, St. Paul and they just opened a new outpost in Marshall Field's that is dangerously close to where I work. The owners did a tour of Italy a while back to study gelato, and the ice cream reflects their attention. Not only is it great, but with any single or double, you also get a mini "Izzy" scoop of another flavor. It's cute and delicious. Today I had strawberry with an izzy scoop of chocolate chip. At Sebastian Joe's, one of the old timers in town, the raspberry chocolate chip is the stuff of legend. Once I paired it with coffee/oreo in a chocolate dipped waffle cone. Ummmm.... Crema Cafe in Uptown is where they make the microbatches of Sonny's and Ahana ice creams. Their signature flavor, Crema, is one of my absolute favorites. It's espresso infused vanilla, so I'm forgoing it during my pregnancy. The other night I had a divine duo of blood orange sorbet with vanilla, though, and hardly missed the Crema. (Hardly.) There are others that I've visited and enjoyed but that aren't in the regular rotation, only because they're a bit farther away from me: Edina Creamery, Grand Ole Creamery and Adele's Frozen Custard. (Not technically ice cream, but plays in the same league.) I visit them all, doing my small part to sustain the businesses. Why shouldn't that be a moral imperative? | ( 7:52 AM ) Girl Detective Successful day off! Last year, on 12/11/02, I wrote do's and don'ts for having a good day off. (Again, sorry about no permalink--they're still messed up.) After being gone or busy many of the last several weekends, I decided to take an extra day today to catch up on some stuff that just wasn't getting done: clearing the paper piles off my desk, editing a chunk of my novel and creating room in my closet. At the end of the day, I can declare success. Things that I did that helped: I focused only on these three things, taking short reading breaks in between if I needed to de-fuzz my brain. I started with the hardest task (clearing the desk) and didn't quit till it was done. I had leftovers to eat for lunch. I called my grandmother, but kept the call on the short side, plus it was related to something I was clearing off my desk. Then I did the editing, and finished tonight with the closets. Things aren't perfect, though. There's still some mess to clean up from the closet re-arranging, and I'm not blogging till now. Also, my vision of how I'd clear the closets out was much more organized that was the actual dumping stuff into bins. OK, I did fold things. Fairly neatly, too. But the upshot? My desk is clearer than it's been in months, I edited about a third of the novel, and there's now breathing space in the closets. As I said, success. | Sunday, June 08, 2003 ( 8:52 PM ) Girl Detective I don't want the power of prophecy Last week on 06/04/03 I wrote about the closing of Aquavit and other downtown Minneapolis restaurants. I said that I was worried that others would close and named Rock Star as a possibility. My husband G. Grod and I made plans to go to Rock Star for lunch on Friday to do our part to keep it in business. We were too little, too late. Rock Star was empty--no tables, and no more bad art on the wall. Rock Star also closed last week. Rock Star was a good restaurant. It had an amazing signature burger. They ground the meat themselves, and topped it with melted gorgonzola and crispy prosciutto, all on a buttered grilled bun with a nice side of perfectly dressed greens. I had several delicious meals there. Whenever I went, though, it wasn't crowded, in spite of the high quality and originality of the food. It was located on S. 9th Street, far enough off Nicollet Mall that many people did not know where it was. So another restaurant has gone, ironically opened and closed since the last Twin Cities Zagat guide was released. My lesson is not to take these places for granted. There's no guarantee they'll be open, or even stay the same, unless people go and spend money in a show of support. In recent weeks we've done that for many of our favorite places: Origami, Ike's, Sweetski's, Pizza Luce, Sonny's Crema Cafe, Izzy's Ice Cream, Cafe Brenda and Restaurant Alma. And we've had great food at all of them. Sadly, it wasn't enough for Rock Star. My sympathies go out to the staff and chef, and I hope this recent tide of closings is coming to an end. | Thursday, June 05, 2003 ( 9:02 PM ) Girl Detective I just finished reading Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. It's young adult fiction and it is fabulous. I knew as soon as I started reading that it was good--the voice of the author and the main character was powerful and strong--nothing rang false. The story was compelling and the characters were engaging and real. Reading this book was intimidating--the novel I'm working on is YA fiction and this book sets a very high standard. I bought it a little while ago, looking for recent examples of fiction for teenagers. The other books I read were good, but not great. This one was, though. It's kind of sad that I find reading a great book kind of depressing, but there it is. I'll work on trying to find the healthy balance between admiring and jealous as hell. I don't think I'll get there tonight. | Wednesday, June 04, 2003 ( 7:09 PM ) Girl Detective Downtown Minneapolis: a ghost town for fine dining? Aquavit closed this week; cafe un deux trois closed a little while ago. The Loring Cafe shut down a bit prior to that. Zinc closed before that. And Bistro Francais even before that. And these are just the ones that I was familiar with. Is downtown Minneapolis able to sustain a fine dining community? According to this article in the Star Tribune, the restaurant downtown and closings have been in part due to the aftermath of 9/11. Since then, and with ongoing terrorist threats, business travel and expensed dining has declined. That makes sense. But it's a bit facile. With the exceptions of the late, great Bistro Francais and Loring Cafe, which both had both great service and wonderful food, I would only have been able to give qualified recommendations to the other restaurants. They were good, and sometimes even great, but never consistently. My experiences at the latest casualty, Aquavit, were slow service, uneven food and big checks. These do not add up to a restaurant that I want to frequent, so I didn't. And it closed. For a while, cafe un deux trois was my favorite restaurant downtown. It had great service and reliably good food. But the food declined, and declined again. Plus the restaurant was slightly off the beaten path. It was worth going to when I knew I could rely on it, but not so when the food became just so-so. Zinc, though centrally located, also had a steady decline in its quality of food. The Loring Cafe had fabuous, creative food in a lovely space and the service was pretty good. There was some unpleasantness, though, when the management fired many of the staff suddenly. Management alleged theft; those fired cried foul play. I have no idea who was in the right, but someone definitely was in the wrong, and a good restaurant closed because of it. Bistro Francais maintained quality till the end, but its out of the way location, nearer to cheesy bars than to other fine restaurants, probably spelled its doom. So what does it take to succeed? Certainly good location helps. But overall, none of these closings were a tremendous surprise. A disappointment, certainly. I'm not blaming the victim here. I'm sad for all these restaurants and their staffs--I have fond memories from each of them. But rushing to blame the closing on the economy is too easy. Each of these restaurants had additional problems they couldn't surmount. What about those restaurants that remain--are they safe? I see two potential problem spots. Rock Star offers great food, but in an ugly space that's hard to find. Its location might be its downfall. Additionally, old time classic D'Amico Cucina has been coasting on its reputation, but still charging sky-high prices for inconsistent quality. Newer restaurants like Vincent have it right by keeping the quality consistent, the location central and the bill not astronomical. But can they sustain it over time? I truly hope so. | Tuesday, June 03, 2003 ( 7:51 PM ) Girl Detective Update: itchy bumps I wrote on 05/06/03 about an annoying series of bumps on my hands. I few people wrote in both with sympathy (yay, I'm not crazy!) and suggestions. Unfortunately, most of the suggestions involved drugs like Benadryl, which isn't so good for me while I'm pregnant. My dad is an allergist, and he said it was contact dermatitis of some sort, but it didn't go away after weeks, so I'm not sure that's true. I tried to leave it alone, but it lingered. Finally, the thing I found that helped was Dr. Hauschka's Neem nail oil. Neem is some sort of exotic flora that has natural antibacterial properties. I usually use it on my cuticles. When I tried it on the bumps, they cleared up within a matter of days. So this is completely anecdotal evidence, but they cleared up and haven't returned, and I see no reason not to give credit to the Dr. Hauschka line. | Monday, June 02, 2003 ( 6:50 PM ) Girl Detective Writers' mecca I moved to Minnesota almost exactly five years ago, sight unseen, from Philadelphia. My husband moved out first, then I moved a few months later. We picked Minnesota by a detailed, scientific analysis. First, we discussed other cities around the U.S. that we'd heard good thing about, like Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Austin, Denver, Phoenix, Atlanta, Chicago. Then my husband applied for jobs. The two best offers came from Minnesota, so we decided to move. I knew a few things about Minnesota. One, the people I knew on the east coast who knew it said they loved it and missed it. I was continually surprised by the fervor of the nice things people said about it, often ending with "I'd move back there in a minute, even with the winters." The other was that it got rather cold in winter. I didn't have so much of a problem with that. I have more problem with lack of sun (Seattle and Portland) and extremes of heat (Phoenix) so that seemed manageable to me. The third thing, which was probably the deciding factor for me, was the number of Minnesotan authors. As an aspiring writer, I believed that there had to be something good going on out here for so many of them to congregate in one place, even if that thing was the long winter. Some of our favorite sci-fi and fantasy novelists lived here, such as Lois McMaster Bujold, Neil Gaiman (who actually lives in Wisconsin, just over the border) and Steve Brust (who has since relocated to Vegas). I saw all three of them at one event soon after I moved, which put me in geekjoy heaven. Other writers/artists I've met and come to read since I've been here include Zander Cannon and Gene Ha--the art team for the comic Top 10, Kate DiCamillo--who writes stunningly lovely children's books, Allison McGhee, and Louise Erdrich, to name just a few. It was this sense of a writing community that made me suspect that it would be good to be a reader/writer here, and I wasn't wrong. Not only is there a thriving author population, but they give frequent appearances and most all are quite charming in person. Additionally, Minnesota has a great number of used bookstores, all within easy distance and with knowledgeable and (mostly) friendly staffs. Finally, as I've mentioned before, there is the Loft literary center, which has readings, conferences, workshops and seminars, many featuring some of the aforementioned authors. So while I may waffle a lot lately on how far my husband and I live from our families, I do maintain that Minnesota has one of the best reading and writing communities in the country. Was that a good enough reason to move here? I think so. | Sunday, June 01, 2003 ( 8:51 PM ) Girl Detective Tip on tax, or not? It is a truth universally known that one doesn't need to tip on tax. I usually do, though, and here's why. Way long ago, I was a waitress for a summer. I was a terrible waitress. I forgot things, I spilled things and overall, I just couldn't handle being cheerful to all people no matter what. During that job, though, I learned a few things about tipping and tax. The figure that I reported as my gross at the end of the night for my own tax purposes included the tax on all my checks. I was then required to report the tips I'd taken in from those checks. According to the IRS, of course, this was supposed to be the total for every last tip I earned. The person who trained me, though, said that the IRS would automatically assume that I'd made 8% on the gross tips whether or not I had, (which again, included tax) and that most servers ballparked it at around 10%. What I've carried with me over the years is that the percentage, no matter if it was the minimum required, a ballpark 10%, or the actual amount of tips, was calculated based on the total plus tax. Therefore, I usually tip on tax. I do this too because I remember that waiting tables is a difficult job--for all the 20% tip tables there are the dine-and-dash tables as well as the people who think they're giving you a compliment by handing you a $5 bill on a $50+ check. Yes, I have sometimes tipped exactly 15% on the amount before tax if I have bad, or sometimes just adequate service. But if the server at least makes a little bit of an effort, then I do the math based on tax--I can still recall that summer of aching feet and one spectacular guacamole spill down the front of my white, oxford-cloth shirt. | |
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