Me: Stop growling at the waiter.
Captain: Tell him to get his hands out of my lap.
Me: He was just arranging your napkin for you.
Captain: If he arranges anything else in my lap, he’ll be serving salads at the rehab center.
Me: And you’ll be eating them in cell block 9. Here comes the first course. Remember to use your cocktail fork.
Captain: If that dude puts his hands in my lap again, he’s gonna find out what my cocktail fork is for.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, everybody at the party is going know you’re from a place where the dogs wear tags instead of tiaras. Nobody will ever confuse me with Paris Hilton. I pick clothes by the “will it show food” method, and my Labrador could eat a herd of her Chihuahuas and still have room for a Poodle snack later on. But I like to think that when it comes to manners I know enough not to blow my nose on the dinner napkin unless it’s paper and comes in an economy pack. Or at least a low thread count.
Sometimes, though, no matter how you try to disguise the poppy seeds wedged in your Saturday night smile, you may as well pack it in and head off to make a living as a camel farmer in Dubai because everybody can tell you come from a place where smoke detectors take the place of kitchen timers and you use 911 to call the family to dinner.
I’ve read up on the subject and even though camels have a reputation for expressing their opinions in unsanitary and vehemently saliva-filled ways, there are times I would opt for my hand at camel-milking and brave the spit rather than have another head waiter discover that I took my au gratin for granted.
Recently, I had occasion to visit the Ritz. And when I say Ritz, I don’t mean the cracker.
There are some places where a small town Southern girl is as comfortable as a garden tomato on white bread; center stage at the Miss Fried Okra Festival, the discount makeup stand at the corner flea market, the cushioned rocker in the church nursery holding a lap full of a baby made of wet and drippy.
Note that the Ritz-Carlton hotel during cocktail hour is not on this list.
I’m the girl who honeyed her crumpet upside down when invited to tea. The girl who shot a grape across the floor like fruit flavored buckshot at an outdoor café. The girl who thinks that any dessert plate within her orbit is an open invitation for food tasting.
I discovered that life at the Ritz isn’t the same as it is at Motel 6. At the Ritz, they’ll leave the light on for you, but they tally the wattage and charge it to your bill. I’ve paid less that than that for a permanent bridge to anchor my molars against Tootsie Roll devastation. The good folks at the Ritz will run your bathwater too, but for that price, the Captain says they should christen the QE II in it and scrub the bathtub ring with a live mink.
In my world, college and antibiotics comes in courses. At the Ritz, dinner does. All in all, we came through the maze of salad forks and bread plates unscathed. A line of waiters strode out with each course and circled our table like General Santa Ana closing in on the die-hard Texans at the Alamo. Those waiters put up a good fight, what with extra spoons and not a Bowie knife in the lot, but we showed those guys we knew what a finger bowl was good for.
Captain: We didn’t have finger bowls. You kept rinsing your hands in my Scotch and soda. Didn’t you see it on the video they made during dinner?
Me: Do you know the area code for Dubai? I hear there are some great opportunities in camel farming there.
Captain: There may not be any job openings. That’s where that waiter said he was headed the last time he tried to put that napkin in my lap.
Laugh
Showing posts with label nursery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nursery. Show all posts
Monday, September 13, 2010
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
In Cahoots
Collaborating on a novel with your spouse is like sharing a piece of bread that only one of you wants toasted. When one is heartbent for modern romance and the other is set to strike out down the stony path toward gothic horror, it seems like the easiest thing to do would be to meet congenially in fantasy or science fiction. But by the time the opening sentence finds its place on the electronic media screen, things are already personal. If redecorating a house together leads down the long and winding road to relationship stress, collaborating on a novel is the short, straight path to dividing your assets.
My husband, Damien Spielberg, took a perfectly lovely and sincere story about the relationship between a maiden apprentice and her mentor and turned it from a lively, endearing romance into a Renaissance Wizarding Extravagana complete with recreational lightning bolt action. And he made it a screenplay, to boot.
“If we’re going to be in cahoots on this thing, you’ve got to learn to give a little bit,” he said, striking through an entire page of my rich, descriptive prose with a wide-point permanent marker.
I snatched my beloved pages from his jagged claws. “Cahoots? You make it sound like a bad western. We’re collaborating.” I bit the eraser off my pencil.
“What happened to my colorful description of Abby meeting Bob for the first time?” I asked, wrinkling my brow as I flipped through the pages.
“Here it is,” he said, wiping out another paragraph as he gestured nonchalantly with his Sharpie.
“Scene I. Abby meets Bob.”
“That’s all? The humor of the scene comes from Abby, a modern businesswoman accustomed to a sterile and structured environment, coming to terms with the fact that she is competing for a promotion with a man whom she’s just discovered is a 500 year old member of wizarding royalty who is grandfathered into her company’s pension plan.”
“I put wizard in the script notes. See here in the margin? Bob wears a pointy hat.”
“A pointy hat? Bob is not a dunce. Bob is a staff-wielding mage who served in some of the most influential governments in history. He talks to fish!”
“Calm down. I mentioned the fish. See here in Scene III. There’s a nice bit here in the willows by the pond.”
“So how do we know he talks to the fish?”
“Easy. Dialogue.”
“Dialogue? You mean a conversation? This is coming from the man who told me he was in a wreck two hours after he totaled his new car and the rescue team delivered him to the emergency room? You didn’t call me until the nurse dialed the number for you.”
“And after they gave me enough painkillers to make me count to ten in three languages and sing the Lumberjack song to a burly intern. But this is different. It’s Bob talking. Not me.”
“That’s a good thing. Otherwise it would be the world’s shortest book.”
“We’re supposed to be working on this together. Be nice.”
“I’d rather be the dental hygienist in the tiger cage at Ringling Brothers.”
“Need references?”
“Never mind. Tell me more about our wizard’s wonderful world of words.”
“The only way you can see into the man is to hear him talk.”
“I’ve got to hear to see? What about my searing description of their awkward encounter in the elevator?”
“I covered that. In the second scene you see the looks on their faces when she realizes he can read her thoughts and she splashes peanut butter milkshake all over his topcoat, tries to scrape it off with his cane, and accidentally pokes him in the n---.”
“Stop!”
“I was going to say nose. When you see that, you can hear their hearts.”
“Okay, now I have to see to hear.” I turn a page in my narrative version and mark out several paragraphs describing Abby’s clothes. “So how do you come up with all this clever conversation?”
“I listen to people talk. Then I write it down.”
Easy enough. “By the way, back at the pond, what are Bob and the catfish discussing?”
“Whether he should take the job.”
“What do they decide?”
“The catfish advises against it.”
“And why is that?”
He says that Abby is a bad influence and Bob should leave the company entirely.”
“I’ve given her a beautiful home, a killer figure, and a sparkling wit. Why doesn’t he like her?”
He sighed and scratched his head. “She talks too much.”
My husband, Damien Spielberg, took a perfectly lovely and sincere story about the relationship between a maiden apprentice and her mentor and turned it from a lively, endearing romance into a Renaissance Wizarding Extravagana complete with recreational lightning bolt action. And he made it a screenplay, to boot.
“If we’re going to be in cahoots on this thing, you’ve got to learn to give a little bit,” he said, striking through an entire page of my rich, descriptive prose with a wide-point permanent marker.
I snatched my beloved pages from his jagged claws. “Cahoots? You make it sound like a bad western. We’re collaborating.” I bit the eraser off my pencil.
“What happened to my colorful description of Abby meeting Bob for the first time?” I asked, wrinkling my brow as I flipped through the pages.
“Here it is,” he said, wiping out another paragraph as he gestured nonchalantly with his Sharpie.
“Scene I. Abby meets Bob.”
“That’s all? The humor of the scene comes from Abby, a modern businesswoman accustomed to a sterile and structured environment, coming to terms with the fact that she is competing for a promotion with a man whom she’s just discovered is a 500 year old member of wizarding royalty who is grandfathered into her company’s pension plan.”
“I put wizard in the script notes. See here in the margin? Bob wears a pointy hat.”
“A pointy hat? Bob is not a dunce. Bob is a staff-wielding mage who served in some of the most influential governments in history. He talks to fish!”
“Calm down. I mentioned the fish. See here in Scene III. There’s a nice bit here in the willows by the pond.”
“So how do we know he talks to the fish?”
“Easy. Dialogue.”
“Dialogue? You mean a conversation? This is coming from the man who told me he was in a wreck two hours after he totaled his new car and the rescue team delivered him to the emergency room? You didn’t call me until the nurse dialed the number for you.”
“And after they gave me enough painkillers to make me count to ten in three languages and sing the Lumberjack song to a burly intern. But this is different. It’s Bob talking. Not me.”
“That’s a good thing. Otherwise it would be the world’s shortest book.”
“We’re supposed to be working on this together. Be nice.”
“I’d rather be the dental hygienist in the tiger cage at Ringling Brothers.”
“Need references?”
“Never mind. Tell me more about our wizard’s wonderful world of words.”
“The only way you can see into the man is to hear him talk.”
“I’ve got to hear to see? What about my searing description of their awkward encounter in the elevator?”
“I covered that. In the second scene you see the looks on their faces when she realizes he can read her thoughts and she splashes peanut butter milkshake all over his topcoat, tries to scrape it off with his cane, and accidentally pokes him in the n---.”
“Stop!”
“I was going to say nose. When you see that, you can hear their hearts.”
“Okay, now I have to see to hear.” I turn a page in my narrative version and mark out several paragraphs describing Abby’s clothes. “So how do you come up with all this clever conversation?”
“I listen to people talk. Then I write it down.”
Easy enough. “By the way, back at the pond, what are Bob and the catfish discussing?”
“Whether he should take the job.”
“What do they decide?”
“The catfish advises against it.”
“And why is that?”
He says that Abby is a bad influence and Bob should leave the company entirely.”
“I’ve given her a beautiful home, a killer figure, and a sparkling wit. Why doesn’t he like her?”
He sighed and scratched his head. “She talks too much.”
Friday, May 23, 2008
Top Ten Memorable Things About Being Pregnant
(I’m going from memory here. This is History, not Live at Five.)
1. Because you’re not famous, you don’t have a “bump.” You have a baby.
2. You finally have cleavage. And it’s not in the back!
3. You get to decorate the nursery – but nobody will let you lift, paint, or use harsh cleaners. Sweet. Interior design without the gruntwork. It's like ordering dinner from the Martha Stewart cookbook and instructing Martha to be gentle with the egg whites.
4. You cry over sentimental things like Budweiser commercials. Or because they’ve run out of Choco Tacos at the corner store.
5. The gas station before your exit has the bathroom key ready for you every morning at 7:30. And they remove the chain and tire iron it was originally attached to and replace them with a ribbon and a cookie.
6. Cravings – Like who doesn’t cross four lanes of rush hour traffic to peel into the Quick Stop for a Slim Jim?
7. Stressful things like, say, naps make you want to take a nap.
8. Getting so accustomed to giving urine samples, you feel the urge to empty your bladder every time you go down the Dixie Cup aisle at the grocery store. Sometimes you feel the urge after it’s too late.
9. Lying on your back for nine months like fried bologna on an open-face sandwich.
10. Your belly button pops out like the timer on a Butterball turkey when the baby’s done.
1. Because you’re not famous, you don’t have a “bump.” You have a baby.
2. You finally have cleavage. And it’s not in the back!
3. You get to decorate the nursery – but nobody will let you lift, paint, or use harsh cleaners. Sweet. Interior design without the gruntwork. It's like ordering dinner from the Martha Stewart cookbook and instructing Martha to be gentle with the egg whites.
4. You cry over sentimental things like Budweiser commercials. Or because they’ve run out of Choco Tacos at the corner store.
5. The gas station before your exit has the bathroom key ready for you every morning at 7:30. And they remove the chain and tire iron it was originally attached to and replace them with a ribbon and a cookie.
6. Cravings – Like who doesn’t cross four lanes of rush hour traffic to peel into the Quick Stop for a Slim Jim?
7. Stressful things like, say, naps make you want to take a nap.
8. Getting so accustomed to giving urine samples, you feel the urge to empty your bladder every time you go down the Dixie Cup aisle at the grocery store. Sometimes you feel the urge after it’s too late.
9. Lying on your back for nine months like fried bologna on an open-face sandwich.
10. Your belly button pops out like the timer on a Butterball turkey when the baby’s done.
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