Good Friends and Ghiradelli

There are friends and there are friends. There are friends who will pull you out of the burning wreckage of your car and stay with you until emergency assistance arrives. There are friends who will loan you money when the sure thing pulled up lame at the race track.

And then there are friends who will invite you to their beach house and feed you chocolate, which in theory could turn out to be a stalker scenario, but is definitely worth the risk. I don't know about you, but

when the chips are down and you've defrosted the last pack of freezer burned hamburger in fridge and you don't know if your dinner plate will be empty the next time the clock strikes half past supper time, I know which friends I want to have rally around my hunger pangs.

Chocolate wins every time.

So while other folks took their seats at a table full of the trimmings of a dreary turkey dinner basted in tradition one Thanksgiving, my companions and I tucked into bowls full of designer chocolates. The only catch? We were supposed to guess which chocolatier originated each confection. That's like choosing which animal has the spots. The one with the cheap dry cleaner. No problem.

Okay, so I scored low on the test. The consolation prize was still sweet.

But to choose which one I like best? That's like choosing Shakespeare over Tennyson. Renoir over Van Gogh. Marvel over DC. I have a multi-level palette. When the chips are down it doesn’t really doesn’t matter if it’s Spiderman or Superman that keeps your cookies crisp. I can appreciate them all.

So if trying out chocolate samples to see if Godiva can beat Ghiradelli off the line while I’m peering out through a bank of windows that reveal sunlight sparkling on the sea is the ultimate challenge, I have to think that I'm willing to pay the price for friendship.

Chocolate. For the win!

Happy Birthday, David.

I'll Take "No Clue" for $100, Alex

Because it’s human nature to forget pain, and also because I have the memory retention of an aquarium-based goldfish, I gather the family together in front of the TV every night to feed my Jeopardy addiction.

I may not rinse and spin with any degree of regularity, and if it's going to take me past starting time, the roast may just come out of the oven at half past rare, but at 7:30 Alex Trebek is going to find me poised on the edge of the recliner screaming, “Dust Bunnies for $100!”

I’m a perennial loser at Trivial Pursuit, I don’t store random facts about movie titles away in my cheeks for the winter, and I’m at the point in life when I have to slap a sticky note on my forehead to remind me why I’m looking in the mirror, but I’m going to get the video clue to finish out the category or die.

Meanwhile, my husband and two sons, human memory dumps in baseball caps, are spouting off the answers to history, science, and technology questions like it’s the entrance exam to Romper Room. By the time I get to answer a question, the Jeopardy music is giving way to a commercial featuring a bear in the woods.

I was an English Major. I can compare and contrast diction and theme in Shakespeare and Chaucer with one poet tied behind my back, but give me three seconds to come up with the name of Tex Ritter’s horse and I crash and burn.

The show ends, high fives are awarded all around and the living room empties. I feel like the last kid on the school bus.

“Oh sure, everybody leaves now,” I snarl. “I was about to stage a come from behind victory.”

“The show’s over, Mom.”

“Why don’t they have essay questions?”

“Because Alex Trebek is getting older. He doesn’t have enough time left to grade papers.”

That hurts. Alex was my first love. If it were up to him, I’d probably be the Vanna White of the light up board.

I pop back in the recliner, grab a handy copy of War and Peace and prepare to do some light reading.

I’ll get ’em tomorrow. Double Jeopardy or nothing.