A Car Story
Yesterday morning started off great. I made a stack of pancakes for Maya and her sleepover friends, I cleaned up the house, watered the plants, ate breakfast, and then informed Ali that if he didn’t come home with a car by the end of the day, then he shouldn’t come home at all. Although I meant this as a threat I could see Ali contemplating the upside: sure he’d still be in a state of perpetual limbo car-wise but maybe that inconvenience was worth finally unloading me.
For those of you who don’t know, Ali has been borrowing his parent’s extra car since April of 2009 when his lease ended. So that means that for the last 10 months he has been visiting car dealers, doing test drives, daily debating the pros and cons of about 8 different cars, tweeting with random people about their opinions, dragging me to car dealers across the city, making me be friendly to the most annoying and pushy sales people that have walked the earth, and generally exhausting me to the point where I told him I simply could NOT talk about it for one more second.
I used to love cars. (Note the past tense.) I used to love visiting showrooms for fun with my dad and brother and eagerly anticipated the Auto Show every December. I even attended a Nascar racing school with Ali where I slipped into a super unattractive jumpsuit and drove a ridiculously fast car on a track in 110 degree temperatures. For years I have fully appreciated and supported his need for a dual exhaust and completely unnecessary features such as a heated steering wheel. But after a fairly patient 10 months my patient streak finally ran out and even Ali knew I wasn’t kidding around when I dared him to test my ultimatum.
So while he drove off bright and early to either find a car or hire a divorce lawyer, Maya and I headed to my in-laws place and then my mom’s. The day was full of rest, relaxation, tea, and conversation that did not address the predicament of 19″ wheels in chrome or alloy. By 2pm I was a bit surprised to not see or hear from Ali but I poured my self another cup of tea and promptly forgot about it. By 4pm I was back at my in-laws and engaged in a battle with Maya and the TV, still no word from Ali. By 6pm I decided to enjoy my rare night of freedom, called up my brother and headed out to meet him for dinner.
After have dinner at our favorite Fresh Corn Grill, my brother and I headed to the Montage in Beverly Hills for a cup of coffee. My gut instinct told me that coffee was not going to do anything to help the scary nauseous feeling that had suddenly come over me, but I was determined not to waste a good hair day. And enjoy I did…the lobby lounge was gorgeous and packed with people who were having an even better hair day.
We settled in at the only available table, ordered some decaf, and chatted away. You can’t see it in this unsurprisingly terribly dark picture, but there was a piano player and singer.
I listened to Nat King Cole and Etta James covers as my nauseousness took a turn for the wost. Still no Ali but I didn’t really care because I was quickly becoming sick to my stomach. I came home and spent the rest of my “night out” huddled on the couch with my laptop as my only distraction.
It had been a long time since I felt as sick as I did last night, but I guess it was only fitting since I told Ali that I would drop dead from shock if he came home with a car. Ali finally did come home. With a car. And there I was delirious with pain and looking like death warmed over.
A fitting ending to the day, wouldn’t you say?
Tandoori Chicken Pizza
Although I am pretty sure I managed to avoid gluten today I am unfortunately in the middle of an epic stomach ache. Luckily I sent a guest post over to Sophia of Burp and Slurp a few days ago and she was kind enough to post it tonight. Perfect timing!
I met Sophia at my first blogger meet up last month and not only is she a very sweet and nice person, but also a fellow USC Trojan. So while I recover from the most horrendous pain since having Maya, please check out my guest post on Tandoori Chicken Pizza on Sophia’s great blog www.burpandslurp.com.
14 Questions
Maya was not pleased yesterday when I told her that we couldn’t go to the park after school. She quickly perked up, however, when I told her that my sweet friend Bonny was coming over for tea instead. Since Maya had never met Bonny before I quickly braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions. And Maya didn’t disappoint.
In the 15 minutes it took us to get home from her school I answered the following:
Who is Bonny?
My friend from work.
Have I met her before?
No Maya, you haven’t.
What does she look like?
She has long black hair.
Is it curly like Isabella’s or straight like yours?
It is very straight. (Of course my hair is anything but straight but I chose not to open up a whole new line of questioning by explaining that to her. As an aside, thank you Chi Flat Iron for changing my life forever.)
How else does Bonny look?
She is Chinese.
Does she speak Chinese?
Yes she does.
If she speaks Chinese, how are we going to understand her?
Well Maya she speaks English too.
Does she live far away?
Yes she does. About an hour away.
China is only an hour away?
No Maya, Bonny lives in California where we live.
Well why doesn’t she live in China if she is Chinese?
Some Chinese people move to other countries and Bonny is one of them.
Does Bonny live with Ni-Hao Kai-Lan? (Kai-Lan is a Nickelodeon character who speaks Chinese.)
No Maya, Kai-Lan is pretend. She doesn’t live with Bonny.
What kind of car does Bonny drive?
I’m not sure. (Is it obvious my kid live in Los Angeles or what?)
How can you not know if she is your friend?
All I remember is that her car is black.
A black what though?
At this point I thanked the lord that we reached home and the questions stopped. Instead Maya and I directed our energies to make a snack for our impending tea time.
We had every intention of making an Oatmeal Ball recipe by Martha Stewart but unfortunately I couldn’t find the piece of paper I wrote the recipe on the last time I made them. Even better? Martha’s site was down! Her site is finally back up today but is as slow as molasses. I’m sorry, but if Martha of all people can’t manage her website how is there hope for the rest of us?
Anyway, since the Oatmeal Balls were such a hit the last time we made them, I decided to go against my better judgment and make them from memory.
When will I learn that I should trust my first instinct? I had no idea what I was doing. Thus, I made something that looked similar to Martha’s Oatmeal Balls, but they certainly aren’t worthy of the same title. Hence, may I present:
Average Oatmeal Balls
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup of brown rice cereal
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup of almond butter
2 tablespoons of honey
1/3 cup of dried cranberries
1. Toast the oats in a dry pan for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Sprinkle with the cinnamon. Remove the oats from the pan.
2. In the same (now empty) pan add the olive oil, vanilla, almond butter, and honey. Stir well.
3. Add the oats back, the rice cereal, and the cranberries. Stir until well combined.
Here is where things went wrong – last time I made these I was able to form them into little balls and refrigerate. But this time the mixture turned out too dry and crumbly to form into balls. So we improvised by putting the mixture in cupcake liners and put them in the fridge to harden up a bit. Texture aside, these actually tasted okay, but I was disappointed in the final product. The funny thing is my picky husband, the same one who proclaims meals that I slave over for hours as “decent,” ate two of these yesterday. Apparently he likes them. I say apparently because he wasn’t exactly tripping over himself handing over compliments, but Ali eating seconds of anything speaks volumes.
As a side note, thank you all for your nice comments yesterday. I know that for every negative comment/e-mail I receive, countless positive ones make up for it. You have no idea how much I appreciate your nice comments and your appreciation for my non-stop sarcasm.
While I'm not going to win Mother/Wife of the Year Award anytime soon, I haven't killed anyone yet or shot myself in the head. And that, my friends, is how I calculate success these days. 
FANCY THAT FANCY THIS 
