Yesterday evening, I stood in my brother's kitchen with red eyes and an (almost) empty stomach. I had just flown back to Pittsburgh from my extended Thanksgiving break in Wisconsin, and had suffered the consequence of not flying with Midwest airlines: no in-flight cookie.
As my boyfriend pointed out as we drove past billboards with giant chocolate-chip cookies on them, Midwest uses this American symbol of comfort as a major selling-point to fly with them. You can't be called "the Best Care In the Air" without serving your guests cookies.
I shouldn't complain. Some airlines don't give you jack anymore. As I flew with AirTran yesterday for the third time, I refused the offer of a complimentary beverage as I was squirming in my seat like a child waiting for the flight attendants to move the cart out from between myself and the restroom. Why did I have to pound that bottle of Coke right before take-off?
I graciously accepted the offer of a bag of pretzels, but stuffed them in my coat pocket. They're just not up to par with the cookies.
While I stood in the kitchen, still with the pretzels in my pocket, I rooted through what I know to be my brother's junk food drawer for a little something more substantial than the salt in a bag that the airline had given me. My dry, tired eyes lit up when they came across the holy grail of snack food: E.L. Fudge cookies.
"Can I have one?" I asked. They weren't yet opened.
"No," my brother said, "They're for the food bank."
"But don't you want to donate to the Liz Russell charity to help a poor college student?" My stomach growled.
"No. I'll pass on helping a poor college student with frequent flyer miles."
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
It's the Middle of November Already (For the Bold and the Curious)
I am getting too old to drink like I used to.
My mother saved this struggle of a day by bringing home cheese sticks and cookies for me to eat while in awful shape. She was lovely enough to even bring them to my nauseous ass while I was still lying on the couch. I only had to move my arm and my mouth to eat and get on my way toward feeling better. If I would have foreseen that, I wouldn’t have put myself through the trauma of making a frozen pizza while trying not to vomit.
Last night, I felt and acted as if I had been drinking all day from the fountain of youth. I had actually been drinking from the brandy bottle. My friends, family and I were “getting our sauce on,” as my best friend enjoyed putting it. We were gathered together in a high school chorus room putting Croatian costumes on to get ready for our performance as alumni of a junior tamburitzan group here in Pittsburgh. There were three bottles of brandy in the room, and someone poured small shots for everyone. We toasted and relaxed and smiled and got ready to go on stage.
Throughout the show, in shifts, performers would go back to the room for another shot. And we all thought we did really well. Maybe we did, perhaps we didn’t, but we were feeling great about it. After the show, as the tradition goes, we gathered at the group’s Croatian home, where we ate pirohi and sarma and yummy things. After everyone was fed, we moved up one floor to where the band was playing. Oh, and there was a makeshift bar up there.
And we drank. And we danced and we sang out of key (at least I did). I hope you’ll pardon my lack of detail here, but my memory is not as sharp from that part of the evening. But this morning, naturally, I was suffering through my self-induced sickness. I had even drank plenty of water before bed and taken a couple ibuprofen tablets. No dice.
Ginger ale really does make your stomach feel better. I drank it along with the junk food my mother had nurtured me with and used it to wash down the two Aleve tablets my boyfriend advised me to take.
NSAID painkillers like Aleve and ibuprofen can have renal side effects.
I read the other day that an 86-year-old CEO cited never taking any pills as his secret to longevity. Either I call his bluff or he never drank, either.
My mother saved this struggle of a day by bringing home cheese sticks and cookies for me to eat while in awful shape. She was lovely enough to even bring them to my nauseous ass while I was still lying on the couch. I only had to move my arm and my mouth to eat and get on my way toward feeling better. If I would have foreseen that, I wouldn’t have put myself through the trauma of making a frozen pizza while trying not to vomit.
Last night, I felt and acted as if I had been drinking all day from the fountain of youth. I had actually been drinking from the brandy bottle. My friends, family and I were “getting our sauce on,” as my best friend enjoyed putting it. We were gathered together in a high school chorus room putting Croatian costumes on to get ready for our performance as alumni of a junior tamburitzan group here in Pittsburgh. There were three bottles of brandy in the room, and someone poured small shots for everyone. We toasted and relaxed and smiled and got ready to go on stage.
Throughout the show, in shifts, performers would go back to the room for another shot. And we all thought we did really well. Maybe we did, perhaps we didn’t, but we were feeling great about it. After the show, as the tradition goes, we gathered at the group’s Croatian home, where we ate pirohi and sarma and yummy things. After everyone was fed, we moved up one floor to where the band was playing. Oh, and there was a makeshift bar up there.
And we drank. And we danced and we sang out of key (at least I did). I hope you’ll pardon my lack of detail here, but my memory is not as sharp from that part of the evening. But this morning, naturally, I was suffering through my self-induced sickness. I had even drank plenty of water before bed and taken a couple ibuprofen tablets. No dice.
Ginger ale really does make your stomach feel better. I drank it along with the junk food my mother had nurtured me with and used it to wash down the two Aleve tablets my boyfriend advised me to take.
NSAID painkillers like Aleve and ibuprofen can have renal side effects.
I read the other day that an 86-year-old CEO cited never taking any pills as his secret to longevity. Either I call his bluff or he never drank, either.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
It's the Middle of November Already (The Short List)
Today I noticed:
I'm getting too old to drink like I used to.
I'm getting too old to dance like I used to (especially while drunk).
The outcome of the football game really affected my day.
My mother saved this struggle of a day by bringing home cheese sticks and cookies for me to eat while in awful shape. She was lovely enough to even bring them to my nauseous ass while I was still lying on the couch. I only had to move my arm and my mouth to eat and get on my way toward feeling better. If I would have foreseen that, I wouldn’t have put myself through the trauma of making a frozen pizza while trying not to vomit.
Ginger ale really does make your stomach feel better.
It was absolutely beautiful outside today. We’re headed for at least three months of frozen hands and feet and roads and I can’t say that I’m ready for it. Are you?
NSAID painkillers can have renal side effects. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?
I read the other day that an 86-year-old CEO cited never taking any pills as his secret to longevity.
I'm getting too old to drink like I used to.
I'm getting too old to dance like I used to (especially while drunk).
The outcome of the football game really affected my day.
My mother saved this struggle of a day by bringing home cheese sticks and cookies for me to eat while in awful shape. She was lovely enough to even bring them to my nauseous ass while I was still lying on the couch. I only had to move my arm and my mouth to eat and get on my way toward feeling better. If I would have foreseen that, I wouldn’t have put myself through the trauma of making a frozen pizza while trying not to vomit.
Ginger ale really does make your stomach feel better.
It was absolutely beautiful outside today. We’re headed for at least three months of frozen hands and feet and roads and I can’t say that I’m ready for it. Are you?
NSAID painkillers can have renal side effects. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?
I read the other day that an 86-year-old CEO cited never taking any pills as his secret to longevity.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Dog-Eat-Dog
My dog sleeps next to me at night. She even sleeps next to me throughout most of the evening, as I do homework or just watch TV. Thanks to the loudest snores her 17-pound body can produce, I never feel like I am alone.
My mom bought my dog from me yesterday. When we arrived at the emergency veterinary office, I filled out the paperwork as the animal's registered owner in Westmoreland County. But when it was time to pay the people, we were confused as to who should be filling out the forms. My mother knew she was going to take care of this bill, as my earnings are meager at best. The woman behind the counter, with eyeballs enlarged by her glasses almost to the size of the giant Steeler-emblem earrings she wore, straightened us out by asking, "Well, who's taking financial responsibility today?"
When I got my dog about a year ago, I was ready for the financial responsibility of feeding her, getting her shots and flea medication, and getting her spayed. But now, like many people, I am not in the same financial situation that I was in a year ago.
As my mom signed the papers, she said, "This seems about a fair price. I mean, she is used."
According to the article linked to below, some places in the country are seeing fewer pet adoptions and more pet surrenders due to the recession. So it's not only the people who are suffering. My dog and I were both lucky that my mother didn't have a dog, and that she is generous enough to help me with these unexpected expenses when they come up so that my dog gets to continue spending her evenings snoring next to me.
http://media.www.redandblack.com/media/storage/paper871/news/2009/10/14/News/Recession.Leads.To.Fewer.Pet.Adoptions-3802254.shtml
My mom bought my dog from me yesterday. When we arrived at the emergency veterinary office, I filled out the paperwork as the animal's registered owner in Westmoreland County. But when it was time to pay the people, we were confused as to who should be filling out the forms. My mother knew she was going to take care of this bill, as my earnings are meager at best. The woman behind the counter, with eyeballs enlarged by her glasses almost to the size of the giant Steeler-emblem earrings she wore, straightened us out by asking, "Well, who's taking financial responsibility today?"
When I got my dog about a year ago, I was ready for the financial responsibility of feeding her, getting her shots and flea medication, and getting her spayed. But now, like many people, I am not in the same financial situation that I was in a year ago.
As my mom signed the papers, she said, "This seems about a fair price. I mean, she is used."
According to the article linked to below, some places in the country are seeing fewer pet adoptions and more pet surrenders due to the recession. So it's not only the people who are suffering. My dog and I were both lucky that my mother didn't have a dog, and that she is generous enough to help me with these unexpected expenses when they come up so that my dog gets to continue spending her evenings snoring next to me.
http://media.www.redandblack.com/media/storage/paper871/news/2009/10/14/News/Recession.Leads.To.Fewer.Pet.Adoptions-3802254.shtml
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Re: "Rule of Thumbs: Love in the Age of Texting"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091401972.html
Dear Natalie Y. Moore,
I understand your sourness toward texting, I think I really do. I had the same opinion of it that you do when my significant other lived with me. But you overlook a key demographic of the texting age: those of us crazy and in love enough to be in a long-distance relationship.
I love technology, because it's allowed me to be in touch with a man I fell in love with while studying abroad in Costa Rica. While we were there, we did everything in person, only talked on the phone once, and sent a few Facebook messages back and forth whenever we needed to make sure that we had understood a class assignment correctly.
It was very personal, we made plans face-to-face, walked to each other's homes and caught cabs and buses together with other friends. And then on St. Patrick's Day, we kissed. And kissed. And pissed the other two people at our table at the bar off. A lot.
We didn't know where our relationship could go, and I remember him saying to me that night, "Why are you from Pennsylvania?" as I wondered why the hell he had to be from Wisconsin.
For about two weeks we continued in this way, making out in cabs, pissing friends off, and sitting in the street until 5 AM when he would walk me to my front door and kiss me goodnight.
When the day arrived that we both had to leave for the U.S, we kissed one last time and that was it, neither of us knowing what would happen to the relationship we had started.
But the internet and texting saved us. Now really, I don't know what would have happened if our story were set in 1976, but technology has made it so easy for us to be in touch. We say frequently, "We are kicking the long distance's ass."
We text all day, whenever we can, to tell the other about our day or just to remind the other that we love them. But we also talk on the phone whenever we both can, to hear one another's voice, and in the case of Skype, to come as close to being face-to-face as possible.
The other night, we were chatting on Skype, solely through text because I was working on homework and he was watching a movie with a friend. I have had this feeling before, but he voiced it very well: "I've realized that this can be good for us. I think it makes us a lot stronger."
And damn right it does. It's not convenient to have to go weeks at a time without seeing the one you love, and it's not always easy. But in relying on forms of communication like texting and phone conversations and internet chatting and video chatting, we have had to become really good at understanding one another. And when we're together (usually for at least a week out of every month) we are flawless. There's not a single nuance we don't pick up on nor any mistaken nuggets of sarcasm.
Like everything, Natalie, it's not that simple. Frequent texting is not terrible; you can't wrap it up into an evil little package and stamp it as such. Of course there are abusers, but any technology is dangerous when in the hands of unintelligent and inconsiderate people.
I love you,
Liz
Dear Natalie Y. Moore,
I understand your sourness toward texting, I think I really do. I had the same opinion of it that you do when my significant other lived with me. But you overlook a key demographic of the texting age: those of us crazy and in love enough to be in a long-distance relationship.
I love technology, because it's allowed me to be in touch with a man I fell in love with while studying abroad in Costa Rica. While we were there, we did everything in person, only talked on the phone once, and sent a few Facebook messages back and forth whenever we needed to make sure that we had understood a class assignment correctly.
It was very personal, we made plans face-to-face, walked to each other's homes and caught cabs and buses together with other friends. And then on St. Patrick's Day, we kissed. And kissed. And pissed the other two people at our table at the bar off. A lot.
We didn't know where our relationship could go, and I remember him saying to me that night, "Why are you from Pennsylvania?" as I wondered why the hell he had to be from Wisconsin.
For about two weeks we continued in this way, making out in cabs, pissing friends off, and sitting in the street until 5 AM when he would walk me to my front door and kiss me goodnight.
When the day arrived that we both had to leave for the U.S, we kissed one last time and that was it, neither of us knowing what would happen to the relationship we had started.
But the internet and texting saved us. Now really, I don't know what would have happened if our story were set in 1976, but technology has made it so easy for us to be in touch. We say frequently, "We are kicking the long distance's ass."
We text all day, whenever we can, to tell the other about our day or just to remind the other that we love them. But we also talk on the phone whenever we both can, to hear one another's voice, and in the case of Skype, to come as close to being face-to-face as possible.
The other night, we were chatting on Skype, solely through text because I was working on homework and he was watching a movie with a friend. I have had this feeling before, but he voiced it very well: "I've realized that this can be good for us. I think it makes us a lot stronger."
And damn right it does. It's not convenient to have to go weeks at a time without seeing the one you love, and it's not always easy. But in relying on forms of communication like texting and phone conversations and internet chatting and video chatting, we have had to become really good at understanding one another. And when we're together (usually for at least a week out of every month) we are flawless. There's not a single nuance we don't pick up on nor any mistaken nuggets of sarcasm.
Like everything, Natalie, it's not that simple. Frequent texting is not terrible; you can't wrap it up into an evil little package and stamp it as such. Of course there are abusers, but any technology is dangerous when in the hands of unintelligent and inconsiderate people.
I love you,
Liz
Monday, November 2, 2009
I Hate You, Hollywood
Last night, as I sat in my bedroom here in my mother's house, I watched the movie I Love You, Man and was transported into the characters' world. For those of you who haven't seen it, no, it is not a fantasy, but it may as well be to me.
It's funny, and the characters are intelligent and at least somewhat three-dimensional. It entertained me for an hour or two and took me away from what's going on around me. I was no longer regretting Saturday's hangover or thinking about Monday's homework, but about these characters and whether or not Paul Rudd's character would ever become a man.
I watched the actors drive their brand-new cars and argue in designer kitchens and go to their high-powered-LA real estate jobs.
Of course, I envied them. It's brilliant and wonderful that these sort of comedic films never detail how the characters came into the money and lifestyles that they have. You don't have to know that the person behind the windshield of that Jaguar is still paying off their student loans every month, just like you don't have to know what minimum wage was when they started their job at Subway to appreciate the punchline or the simple silliness that makes you laugh.
Wouldn't it be lovely to be one of those characters? To be born in the mind of a screenwriter and be portrayed by a beautiful actor? To live in the bubble of Hollywood that doesn't understand the concept of a recession just like it doesn't understand what a temperature below 50 degrees is?
Oh wait, that California doesn't exist. Real Californians can't afford their mortgages, just like the rest of us, and in this time of struggle and belt-tightening, they have Mr. Universe himself to turn to.
I guess I really am o.k. to sit in my warm bedroom in Pennsylvania, work on the blanket I am knitting for my boyfriend and escape for a while.
It's funny, and the characters are intelligent and at least somewhat three-dimensional. It entertained me for an hour or two and took me away from what's going on around me. I was no longer regretting Saturday's hangover or thinking about Monday's homework, but about these characters and whether or not Paul Rudd's character would ever become a man.
I watched the actors drive their brand-new cars and argue in designer kitchens and go to their high-powered-LA real estate jobs.
Of course, I envied them. It's brilliant and wonderful that these sort of comedic films never detail how the characters came into the money and lifestyles that they have. You don't have to know that the person behind the windshield of that Jaguar is still paying off their student loans every month, just like you don't have to know what minimum wage was when they started their job at Subway to appreciate the punchline or the simple silliness that makes you laugh.
Wouldn't it be lovely to be one of those characters? To be born in the mind of a screenwriter and be portrayed by a beautiful actor? To live in the bubble of Hollywood that doesn't understand the concept of a recession just like it doesn't understand what a temperature below 50 degrees is?
Oh wait, that California doesn't exist. Real Californians can't afford their mortgages, just like the rest of us, and in this time of struggle and belt-tightening, they have Mr. Universe himself to turn to.
I guess I really am o.k. to sit in my warm bedroom in Pennsylvania, work on the blanket I am knitting for my boyfriend and escape for a while.
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