Summer Hit List: Food & Drink

Rosé chilling in a fountain in Aix-en-Provence (photo by LMB)

I don't know if you've noticed, but we love to eat and drink over here in the Bossy-Melear household. And that goes double when we're in foreign countries. Wherever we go we try to partake of all the local specialties, wander the aisles of grocery stores, and spy on the natives at neighboring tables to see what they're having. Then we have long discussions/Google searches of how to incorporate our favorites once we're back home. I thought you might like to know what made our list this summer:

• Chocolate sprinkled on cappuccino: With the amount of Nespresso that gets consumed at our house, I don't know why we never before thought to put chocolate on top. They do it everywhere we went in the UK and most places in Italy. Once we got home we hunted down a shaker (we found one at Sur La Table, similar to this one, exactly like this one that Williams-Sonoma is charging double the price for, lame), and now we get a little sprinkle of decadent chocolate with every cup!

• Rosé: In Aix-en-Provence it felt like every person in every restaurant was drinking rosé. I wasn't sure about it (I think I was associating it with the Franzia of my youth), but it turned out to be the most light, refreshing summer drink. Plus, there are lots of delicious choices in the $10 range—can't beat that! To keep it cold, lots of outdoor cafés in Aix use plastic wine chiller bags. Wouldn't these be perfect for picnics?

• Pecorino al forno with honey: We first discovered this last summer on our honeymoon: pecorino cheese, on bread or with bread, melted in the oven and then drizzled with honey and cracked pepper. Maybe the best thing I've ever eaten. It's tricky to reproduce it here because the kind of pecorino usually found in grocery stores is aged. The key is to look for "pecorino fresco." We're lucky enough to have Central Market and their wall of cheese nearby, which is probably why we got too excited and bought an entire (smallish) wheel of the stuff. Who could blame us?

• Potato chips: When you order a glass of wine or a Negroni in Tuscany, more often than not you are served a bowl of potato chips with it. At first we thought it was bizarre (if not a little trashy), but now we're sold. We even learned how to say "potato chips" in Italian for the rare occasions we had to ask for them ("patatine fritte," if you're wondering). Back home, classic Utz chips do the job just fine.

We could not be happier to be home after so long away, but it's good to have a little taste of vacation on hand when needed. What delicious things are you eating and drinking this summer?

Weekend in Vienna

Surely there's no better place to sip wine and nibble schnitzel on a Friday night than the Weingut am Reisenberg. Seated high above Vienna, it takes a subway, a bus, and an uphill climb of 300 meters (whatever that means—we're too busy learning German to learn the metric system, too) to get to your table, which just means you'll feel you deserve every bite of Rösti you devour. Austrians sit around casual picnic tables with friends or strangers. Sounds of laughter fill the air as the sun sets over the city. The waiter speaks with an unintelligible Viennese accent, but it turns out all he's asking is whether you like your food. Ja! Es hat sehr gut geschmeckt! A dog wanders over from a neighboring table, and all of a sudden you're making friends and getting recommendations for where to live. You'll probably drink too much wine, just so you can prolong the night, gazing over this incredible town that already feels like home. Then you'll stumble down the hill to the bus stop, laughing all the way, and kiss in the street like teenagers.

***

And why would you spend a Saturday morning anywhere else but the Naschmarkt? Already bursting with produce and international flavors on weekdays, on Saturdays the market explodes with stands selling everything you can think of. Also with tourists. Why not sit for a while and eat breakfast? No need for a restaurant recommendation—just wander down the aisles until you see plates full of delicious things. It shouldn't take long, and in the meantime you can gawk at people eating sushi and/or drinking beer at 10am. Then you'll sit at high stools, eating something revelatory involving feta and the freshest eggs you've eaten, people watching, and trying to figure out the difference between a mélange and a cappuccino. Once you're full of breakfast, you can wander through the market without wanting to buy up every gram of hummus, giant ravioli, and cheese...almost.

***

And certainly there's no better way to explore the city on a sunny afternoon in August than by bicycle. You can walk down the hill from your apartment to the closest CityBike station, and after a quick swipe of your credit card (even an American one!) you'll have a bike, and the city is yours! Whip down dozens of paths and lanes designated just for you, the Viennese cyclist, merrily ringing your bell at the pedestrians dawdling in the bike lane. You'll find your way to the Danube Canal (Donaukanal), where you'll ride right next to the river, past boats, past little fake beaches complete with sand and lounge chairs and tropical cocktails, past locals with fishing poles and hoodlums with spray paint. One quick hill to get you to street level, and you can find the Ringstrasse, planning picnics in every park and pilgrimages to every ancient building.

***

These days, these weeks, these precious few moments, these firsts, you know that these are the ones that will stay with you forever, once you've moved away and moved on. So you'll hold them fast, cramming them full but finding room to breathe. And you'll happily end your weekend curled up in bed with your love, watching a classic and surrendering to sleep accompanied by the comfortable sound of his laughter.

Postcard from Prague

We went to Prague for the weekend. Why? Because we're hip Europeans. Obvs.

And the moral of the story is... I will climb almost any number of stairs for a great panoramic view (or, as they say in Czech translated into English, panoramatic). This time, 287. Worth it.

That's my handsome fiancé. In Prague. On vacation. Boy, I love our life.


I also love me a gothic cathedral.

Please. Like I was going to pass a giant baby statue and NOT climb on it to have my picture taken. Have we met?

The real reason we went to Prague. I'm just saying.

My spiritual guru

I've never really gotten into yoga, which might surprise you if you've ever met any of my extended family (or had Thanksgiving dinner with 35 of them—just ask CameraMan). CM and I attempted Bikram (if you're not familiar, that's the one where they lock you in a room for 90 minutes and crank up the heat until you cry) several times a couple years ago. It's weird: you're convinced that you're dying pretty much the whole time, and then at the end you have this incredible feeling of accomplishment mixed with an overwhelming need to leave that room. We did not finish out our prepaid month, I'm sorry to say. There is a very small, masochistic part of me that would like to try it again, but for now sanity is winning.

Recently there's been a flurry of Bossy Cousins heading over to a Thailand yoga retreat for months at a time and coming home lean and tanned and happy. I have so much admiration for them, but I cannot imagine doing anything even remotely like that myself. Yoga just isn't my thing, nor is anything that smacks even a little of New Age (or as I usually refer to it: hooey). I cannot get on board with chanting, or auras, or chakras. I see people doing yoga, and it looks amazing (as do they), and I want to be a part of it. But, you know, MY way.

Thank God for Jillian Michaels, who is serving as the perfect spiritual guide for my first foray into the world of yoga. Jillian, who clearly has made the DVD because she was told it was a great marketing opportunity, does very little to hide her total disdain for yoga. She would probably rather be benchpressing Biggest Loser contestants in order to get a real workout. (I, on the other hand, would rather be benchpressing Oreos into my mouth.) There are little hints throughout the workout that she doesn't buy into the whole yoga thing. Whenever she says something like "melt your heart to the sky" she does this little eye roll, and one time she actually refers to it as "yoga speak," complete with epic air quotes. She follows that one up with pledging to "speak English" instead.

I would find it annoying if I wasn't enjoying the workout so much. It's challenging, but manageable, and at the end I feel stretched out and energized. Actually, it's making me want to find a real yoga class and give it a try for real.

If I do, though, I just might miss those eye rolls and air quotes. Who knows of a great Sarcastic Yoga class I could try?

Project LMB

Privately, I think of myself as kind of lazy. Not at work, of course, where I am nothing but über-productive, helpful, and quick (hello to any potential employers out there). But on my free days, I generally bear an uncanny resemblance to a slug in pajamas. I can and will happily while away an entire day reading or watching a whole TV series on DVD from beginning to end.

Which is why I was really looking forward to these few weeks, the first real time off (I do NOT count the time spent packing) I've had since I went to Paris a year ago. At various busy moments during the past few months, as I pushed projects and ideas onto the back-burner, I thought, "I will work on that when I'm on vacation in Virginia." The problem is, I now have absolutely no recollection of what any of those things were. I find myself at something of a loose end, not quite sure how to spend my days. This leads to a lovely double whammy effect, in that when CM comes home I am grumpy, and I also have nothing to contribute to conversation. Not a great combination. A full day of being horizontal on the couch might be relaxing and rejuvenating in the midst of a crazy work week—in the midst of other days spent exactly the same way, it's demoralizing and guilt-inducing. A week in, and I'm already longing for projects and to-do lists.

The trick is to not get too ambitious—we all know how that turns out. Now is probably not the time for grand self-improvement projects. I am on vacation, after all, and I would like to enjoy it. But it's funny how, with ample time (and much of it by myself), I can actually forget what I enjoy.

I decided to take a look at my Ultimate To-Do List, which has been languishing unchecked of late. First of all, I added a couple things I've been wishing were on the list, and didn't take anything off, so it's now a list of 102 things (16 down, 86 to go). I'll probably add more as I think of them—100 was an arbitrary number anyway. I need to get cracking if I'm going to finish it all by April 22, 2018.

I will definitely cross off #23 this summer. I'm going to work toward #12, #21, #24, #76, and #83, although I'm sure I won't finish them until later. And I see no reason not to cross off #26 and #36—let's do this thing.

It's easy to start thinking productively on a good day. And today was a good day, filled with happiness-improving activities. I made delicious mango smoothies for breakfast. I worked out not once but twice: once on the treadmill, and once with Jillian's latest. I had delicious sushi and girl talk on Rahree's porch. I got excited about the potential schmanciness that infused simple syrups could add to our nightly cocktail hour, and we now have 3 bottles of homemade syrups in our fridge: basil, mint, and ginger. I read several chapters of my book. I had a long gab session on the phone with the Best Friend. And tonight, there will be Vienna Inn deliciousness.

The slug in pajamas is nowhere to be found.

Opera Girlfriend

To get you up to date (and scroll down if you don't care about the minutiae of my schedule), I'm in Virginia keeping CameraMan company for the next month. Then I'm flying back to H-town (I know, I know, I JUST left), picking up my car and getting my hair done, and driving to Santa Fe, where I'll be spending 5 glorious weeks making a new opera and rooming with The New Oregonian. And consuming huge quantities of guacamole and margaritas, obvs. Then it's a hop, skip, and a jump back to Houston, where I'll ship some boxes to Vienna (the one in Austria—are you still with me?), fly back to my CameraMan, and we'll have 3 days before we cash in our one-way ticket to Europe. Phew. I'll save the rest of the year's schedule for another time (but, quickly, I'll be here, here, and here).

For the moment, I'm enjoying a few weeks of sweet, sweet vacation. The real kind, with no boxes to pack, no belongings to organize, no deadlines to meet. I'm prepping for my next few shows and studying a little Deutsch, but my main task is being Opera Girlfriend. CM is already hard at work—that boy never gets a vacation. So I'm busy setting up house in our corporate apartment, driving him to and from work (we're a "one-car family," as he likes to say), and cooking along with all the jobs that go with it: meal-planning, grocery shopping, etc. We have cocktail hour and appetizers after CM gets home, and then I've been making real, honest-to-goodness dinners. Last night was Toasted Pita Salad and Baked Salmon with a White Wine Marinade, with Fresh Peaches and Yogurt for dessert (everything sounds fancier with capital letters, doesn't it?). Tonight: Crispy Baked Drumsticks (we had too many appetizers to eat a salad with it—oops), with Lemon Sorbet and Berries for dessert. Who knows how long this attack of domesticity will last, but for the moment I am loving my life of leisure.

The first few days in a new place are always a flurry of activity, as we stock up on the essentials and figure out where everything is. Usually the Bossy Cat is very adaptable, sniffing every corner and quickly sussing out her favorite spot to lounge. This time, for some reason, her favorite spot was under the bed. Oh, she'd come out to eat or use her litterbox or snuggle for a few minutes, but then she would dive right back under the bed. I was starting to get worried—would she stay there all summer? Then finally this afternoon she emerged, and she's been happily exploring (and sleeping on the balcony, the armchair, and the carpet) ever since.

Yes, we're settling in quite nicely here at the Trap, thank you very much.

In which LMB kicks a** and takes names

CaliBoy tells me he is concerned that my blog has taken a turn for the melancholy in recent posts. Looking back, I see that he is right, and I shouldn't be surprised. I've been going stir crazy, apparently unable to get motivated to do anything, spending all my time moping around the apartment. Last night when CameraMan got home from work he suggested we go out and do something fun, like have a beer and play some darts. My reaction? I teared up. Over beer. And darts. Clearly, I need to get out more. Or at all.

If pent-up frustration and mild depression are good for anything, it's beer-drinkin' and dart-playin'. Only halfway through my first Blue Moon, I won the first game handily. I don't mean to downplay it; this was a momentous occasion. After countless such evenings filled with Blue Moon (or Leinenkugel's, when they have it) and dizzying numbers of dart games, before last night I had beaten CameraMan exactly one time (you only wish you were there to witness my victory dance—I am the Usain Bolt of darts). Usually I am behind for the entire game, until it comes down to the very end, both of us needing one bullseye for the win, which he invariably throws before I do. Not this time. I lost my stride in the second game, and he beat me easily. The third game looked like it might go the same way, and I started getting pouty (yes, I'm a sore loser, which is unfortunate, considering how often I am one). We got down to the crucial moment, one bullseye to go on each side, and then, shockingly, amazingly, I got it! Best 2 out of 3 for the very first time. I was so proud I couldn't sleep.

And it's all been uphill from there. As of today I am employed!! Well, partially employed. The lovely people at the opera took pity on me and hired me as a temp until my real contract starts. I have never been happier to sit behind a desk researching travel, keeping the boss's schedule, and filling out expense reimbursement forms.

And to top it all off, we're heading out of town for a couple days. CameraMan's playing a recital in glamorous Longview, Texas, and I'm tagging along as Girlfriend Of. It'll be the last trip for a while, and I can't wait.

How's that for melancholy?

What time is it?

With the exception of my Little Miss Bossy t-shirt, I only wear t-shirts with writing on them to bed or to the gym, and I rarely buy new ones. As a result, my t-shirt collection has reached a certain…umm…vintage. There's my 6th grade gym shirt sporting my elementary school's colors. There's the souvenir from San Francisco featuring Kliban cats riding a streetcar. And then there's the one from the theatre where I played Amaryllis in Music Man (circa 1991). That one has so many holes in it that CameraMan has forbidden me to wear it in his presence.

It might be time to go shopping.

***

On Friday I made the mistake of getting the free fitness assessment that comes with my new gym membership. My worst fears were confirmed: I am a skinny fat girl. I may look skinny, but that is only an illusion, masking my through-the-roof body fat content and complete lack of upper body muscle tone. Also, turns out I weigh 13 pounds more than I thought I did. Ugh. There is a reason I don't own a scale. I was so scarred by the experience that I had to take the weekend off from going to the gym (aka the scene of the crime).

It might be time to get off the couch.

***

These last few weeks before I go back to work are moving as slow as molasses in winter (as they say). I have become completely impossible to live with, prone to heavy sighs and proclamations that I'm "sooooo booooored." It's all very reminiscent of high school. I'm driving myself (and, no doubt, my loved ones) crazy, and there are still 3 weeks to go before my prep week begins.

It might be time to find a hobby.

Internet intervention

I've decided I spend too much time on the internet. This is not some shocking revelation, nor is the situation so dire as to require a cold-turkey approach—I am not relying on iChat to replace actual chatting or iSex (it must exist) to replace actual sex. I have not yet been reduced to ordering groceries online and having them delivered. However, earlier this week there was a day that, during an especially intense Facebook excursion, I almost rationalized that I did not have time to go the gym. Now, in my current pathetic jobless state, there are some things I'm lacking: Extra cash. Motivation to get up early. Self-respect. But time? Time I've got. In spades. Time that I could surely be putting to better use doing charity work, starting my novel, or, you know, learning the shows I'm working on this year.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I am as big a fan of the internet as the next guy. I find it quite useful for blogging, emailing, picture-sharing, finding out when the next season of The Office comes out on DVD (this Tuesday, I'm so excited!), settling arguments about the proper use of "capitol" v. "capital," and, of course, stalking ex-boyfriends. But realistically, all of that should take under an hour per day, which is not realistically the amount of time I generally spend staring at the screen.

First there are the blogs. Until about 5 minutes ago, I was subscribed to 74 blogs on Google Reader. As of now, that number has been cut down to 44 (I'm pretty sure that's the second step, after admitting you have a problem). Lately I've been packing on the design blogs in a vain attempt to curtail my nesting instinct, as well as trying out new blogs linked to by bloggers I like. Not surprisingly the ones that made the cut are either friends or blogs I've been reading for a long time, with a few notable exceptions (I'm looking at you, Carl).

But worse than blogs, worse than shopping, worse than (and oddly similar to) porn, is Facebook (or Stalkerbook, as I prefer to call it). All those people you've tried hard to forget since high school, college, or that one dreadful summer? They're on Facebook, and they want to be "friends" with you and show you pictures of their drunken escapades, lists of their favorite movies, and the eclectic groups of people you have in common. And the worst thing is…it's fascinating. Never before have I felt so intimately involved in the lives of people I barely know. When I go to my Facebook home page, I'm alerted as to which of my friends have talked to each other, which have broken up, and which have recently thrown toga parties (a bizarrely high number, considering my age). And, while there is a part of me that would like to quit altogether, or at least make a drastic friend purge, I know I won't. Even after witnessing dramatic (and false) rumors started based on someone's "status" and sick days busted after drunken photos of the night before are posted. The best I can do is to turn down friend requests from people I don't recognize (or, let's be honest, just don't like), hold myself back from posting too many details about myself (that's what this blog is for, right?), and try to take days off.

It helps that internet reception at CameraMan's apartment, where I'm shacking up temporarily, is sketchy at times and limited to only one computer. It also helps that almost everybody is back in town, so I'm starting to have something resembling a social life: happy hour on Tuesday, Astros games last night and tomorrow, meals on the go between CameraMan's rehearsals, and gym dates with Little Miss Hardcore.

It does not help that My Gay Husband has just started a wickedly funny blog.

Oh well. One day at a time, right?

Tick…tick…

The technological world of Little Ms. Bossy seems to be experiencing some kind of universal system crash, sending the emotional world of Little Ms. Bossy into near-meltdown status. The Sanity Threat Level was already pretty high, probably about orange ("elevated"), based on a seemingly unending period of unemployment summer vacation and general malaise stemming from a lack of purpose. The latest spate of crises, which when considered together can only be interpreted as signs of the Bossypocalypse, just might edge it up to red.

It started out with the BossiBook, which I suspect may have been engineered to fail exactly 3 years from the date of purchase, rendering me 100% liable when I throw it across the room and sheepishly attempt to exchange it at the Apple Store. Saying that the computer is "slow" doesn't really do the situation justice. It calls out for a clichéd metaphor like "slow as molasses," or "snail's pace," or "slow enough to drive Little Ms. Bossy to drink." I've tried everything I can think of. I bought an external hard drive and transferred all my music and photos, freeing up about 12GB of space on my computer. Papa Bossy ran some top-secret code on the Terminal utility. Even begging "pretty please with a cherry on top" didn't make any difference. Every once in a while we have a good day and I gain back my optimism, only to have my hopes dashed the very next day when it won't let me do something simple, like…I don't know…USE THE KEYBOARD. The Bossy Camera, which miraculously seems to be unharmed, has been working overtime taking lots of pretty pictures. I would love to show them to you, but I can't. The BossiBook won't let me.

Good thing I have my trusty BossiPhone, right? WRONG. The Maps feature of my phone crashes every time I open it, and Safari is having some crashing issues as well. Even the phone feature has been exhibiting some quirky behavior, vibrating at random and forgetting to ring when someone calls.

And then there's the Bossy Beetle (Frankie). Her check engine light lit up right before I left for Denver, so I didn't have time to bring her in until yesterday. Turns out, lots of things are wrong with her, the details of which I have only a very shaky grasp. I shelled out about $1000 today to get her ship-shape. And that's not including the $600 of repairs I decided to hold off on, including the part of my car that is currently held together with string (truly). Spending that kind of money on anything always leaves me feeling slightly sick to my stomach, and the timing on this one could not have been worse. I'm doing the responsible adult thing (it doesn't come naturally) and canceling my trip to LA to see Woody's first opera, as well as putting plans for my very own apartment on hold.

All of this has put me in a very crabby mood. Thank goodness the refrigerator still works. It's not too early for beer, is it?

After all

At any given party full of opera people (and let's face it, that's the only kind I attend), there are a staggering number of conversations going something like this:

Oh, you're from Houston? Do you know ____?
Yes! We were in the same class at Juilliard.
You were at Juilliard? Well then, you must know ____ and ___!
Of course! I love ____. Have you met her sister?
Oh my gosh, we were roommates at Merola!
What a small world.
I know, isn't it?

And so on and so forth. It sounds tedious, and sometimes it is, but I have a pretty high tolerance for it. Opera professionals spend so much time traveling from place to place that it can be difficult to maintain friendships and other close relationships. When we arrive somewhere new, we play the name game so that we can establish connections right away. We're not really strangers if we have a mutual good friend, right? And it gives us something to talk about besides the current show we're working on, which is usually a refreshing change of pace.

Of course, you can only play the game if you're operating in a small enough circle of people. And, given the number of opera training programs and regional companies in this country, it's sometimes surprising just how small the opera world really is. Once you get to a certain level, though, you start seeing the same people over and over, and even the ones you don't see often are all friends with the ones you do.

There are perks to living in such a small world. Chances are, you'll never work somewhere where you don't know anyone, it's mighty helpful when networking, and, best of all, if you feel like summer festival-hopping, you will undoubtedly find friends wherever you want to go.

I took advantage by visiting Central City and Santa Fe last week. At Central City I stayed with Little Miss Hardcore and the Airstream Diva, saw The New Oregonian's show, and ate my body weight in crab legs (yes, crab legs in Colorado, don't judge).

LMH and I drove down to Denver to spend the night at her folks' house and have breakfast with the Hardcore Niece and Nephew, who completely wore me out and then inquired whether I would be returning for Christmas.

Then it was down to Santa Fe, where we stayed in CaliBoy's incredible house, saw The Prodigy's stylish production of Falstaff, and spent most of our time swooning at how naturally gorgeous Santa Fe is. We also had some entertaining adventures, including (but not limited to) The Time a Security Guard at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Told Us to Stop Taking Pictures OUTSIDE and Then Forced Us to Erase the Pictures, The Time We Saw a Car Run Into a Building in Downtown Santa Fe, and (my personal favorite) The Time We Got Locked INSIDE the Santa Fe Opera and Had to Climb Over a Bar to Get Out.

Now I'm back in H-town, discovering that the world of people who stay here during the summers just might be the smallest world of all. Friends, come back to town—I have lots of time to hang out with you!

In other news, after some extensive poll-taking, I have decided that a strenuous 6-hour hike does indeed count as an all-day hike.

4 down, 96 to go.

In critical* condition

This was supposed to be the summer I got hot. I'm not referring to temperature. I'm talking about the svelte, slim-hipped model type I'm convinced is trapped inside of me, currently sulking and bringing home report cards that say "not working up to her potential," but just aching to break free and prance around in size-4 pants. This summer (the one that's almost over) seemed like the perfect time to let her out, given my employment status and copious free time.

Unfortunately, the situation seems to have taken a turn in the opposite direction. My gym attendance has been sporadic at best, and despite optimistically signing up for a month of Bikram Yoga, CameraMan and I only went to 3 classes before deciding it was too cruel and unusual for us.

And then there was the eating. Some of it was trash: the occasional Vienna Inn debauchery and the all too frequent Chick-Fil-A lunches. Most of the eating, however, was done during incredible meals with friends. It's been a decadent summer. Mussels and frites with The Wise(ass) Soprano. Getting back to my roots by cooking Bratwurst and Rotkraut and Kartoffeln for CameraMan. Picnics at the Filene Center. Tapas with MuseumGirl and then again after a Spy Museum outing with CameraMan, Wise Soprano, and Diva-in-Training: dates wrapped in bacon, chorizo with garlic potatoes, monkfish with eggplant puree, and anything we could get our hands on that came with their amazing alioli. The list goes on and on.

It's all been delicious, but it's taken its toll. It's clear to me that the only reasonable solution is to stop eating for the month of August.

Just as soon as I finish these curly fries.

*critical ass adj. The stage in fat accumulation when fabric can no longer contain the enormity of one's buttocks.

Living the dream

I've been craving magazines. Thick glossy fashion pages, trashy celeb gossip, over-intellectual pieces printed on recycled paper, reviews and profiles and ads…I want it all. Maybe it's a direct result of my early 20th-century novel burn-out (3 down on my book list, 97 to go—I'm officially taking a little break), or maybe it's just a side effect of living the life of leisure. I've been somewhat successfully ignoring them in grocery check-out lines, instead being content to daydream about which subscriptions I'll splurge on this fall (at the moment I'm thinking The New Yorker, Women's Health, and Domino).

I had just about reached a breaking point, succumbing yesterday and buying the Atlantic Special Fiction Issue. And then today I got the most glorious, perfectly-timed package in the mail. Before I left for the summer, I got a private mailbox in H-town, but I keep forgetting to have them forward my mail because I pay all my bills online. I finally called them Monday to get the past 6 weeks' mail, which, as I discovered today, contained almost exclusively magazines: 5 weeks of Entertainment Weekly and a Vanity Fair with my (gossip) girl Blake on the cover. I'm in magazine heaven.

The BossiPod's playing the "My Favorite Ladies" playlist, the Bossy Cat's dozing with her chin on my arm, and I'm drinking lemonade and eating green grapes with Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar, happily ensconced on the couch surrounded by magazines.

Unemployment has its perks.

Into the woods

Nature called this week, and for once I didn't let it ring through to voicemail. Instead, I strapped on my Tevas, slathered on some sunscreen, and headed down to Shenandoah National Park with CameraMan for a short vacation (or in my case, a vacation from vacation). Although we were only about an hour from DC, it felt like another world, a foreign land where the accents are thick, the deer are fearless, and the gas prices are under $4.

Up on the mountain the weather was gorgeous enough (and CM was tired enough from his other girlfriend) that we could have done nothing but laze around in chaise lounges for the whole trip, but instead we went in the complete opposite direction (and judging by the fact that CM can barely walk and I can only turn my head to the left, maybe too far) and decided to prove just how rugged and outdoorsy we could be.

We started the trip with a kayak trip, a first for both of us. We rented a tandem kayak, and though we quickly discovered that we knew next to nothing about how to steer a kayak, we found other ways to amuse ourselves: "Oh, Shenandoah" sing-alongs, posing for goofy pictures with our waterproof disposable camera (you'll see some soon, I promise, just as soon as we scan them all—we are of course completely inept when faced with pre-digital technology), and oohing and aahing over the COWS(!) in the river. And despite getting on the water totally unprepared for how to kayak, the one thing we were worried about (capsizing, obvs) never actually happened. And then there was the added bonus of being able to cross another item off my list.

77. Go kayaking.

Which brings me to the next day, in which we hiked up and down mountains (seriously) for 6 hours, pausing briefly to snack on trail mix and Lunchables, and whimpering only when absolutely necessary. The Bossy folks tell me this counts as an all-day hike (see #22). What do you think? In some ways it felt like all day (in that I had to be horizontal the rest of that day and into the next), but in other ways it didn't (in that the being horizontal part of the day started around 2pm). So, I'm taking a poll. What say you, dear readers?

"I am rugged and outdoorsy" is my new mantra, although I'm quickly reverting to my old self. Since we got back I've been spending way too many hours swimming in HTML and CSS, going to see bad movies (Don't see Mamma Mia. Just don't.), and eating things that would not be on any hiker's diet.

Still, if she calls again, I just might get back to Nature.

The Itchy & Scratchy Show

A few years back I spent the summer making opera in a small college town in northern New England. On a rare day off, I set off with a group of friends to go tubing for the first time. We floated down the river for hours, drinking beer and frequently falling out of our tubes (I deny any connection between the two). At the end of the afternoon we climbed out of the river up a plant-filled embankment to get back to our cars. It should have been no surprise when almost exactly 24 hours later a patch of raised red bumps showed up on my arm and started itching like crazy. By that time, of course, the poison ivy oil was on my towels, my sheets, and my clothes, so the rash spread for the next few days, eventually making it up my neck to my face. It was a highly unpleasant experience that prompted me to learn what poison ivy looks like and become ultra-vigilant when hiking and doing other outdoorsy activities.

Which is all fine and good, except that I haven't been hiking recently. In fact, I haven't been outside much at all, unless you count walking from the apartment to the car, or sitting in the outdoor theatre for Candide. Since I got back to the Trap I've been deliciously lazy (and it's been hot hot hot), so I've been spending all my time in air-conditioned interiors. I couldn't possibly have come into contact with poison ivy.

And yet…

Bossy Biscotti Bake-off

As I write this I'm munching on the results of the latest item crossed off my Ultimate To-do List: Papa Bossy's famous biscotti, which we baked together while I was in Oregon visiting the Bossy Ranch.

I don't use the word famous here loosely. My dad got the original biscotti recipe a long ago from my Great Aunt Bossy, who had it passed to her from real Italians in earlier Bossy generations. He spent years tweaking and perfecting the recipe, and what he came up with is more Oregonian than Italian. He replaces some of the flour with ground hazelnuts (Oregon grows 99% of the hazelnuts grown in the US—did you know?) and uses all natural, organic ingredients. They're softer and denser than traditional Italian biscotti, and all who taste them become immediately addicted. They're expected at family gatherings, and it's entirely possible that the Marion County Democrats (the Bossy folks are very active behind the scenes in local politics) owe all their recent successes to biscotti fuel.

Papa Bossy is a perfectionist and a craftsman; he doesn't do anything half-way. The biscotti baking process is detailed and exact. He refers to his Kitchenaid stand mixer as "the biscotti machine" and generally has a jar of orange peel soaked in liqueur at the ready should the urge to bake biscotti come upon him unexpectedly. He spent a morning teaching me how to make it. I haven't done it alone yet, but as soon as I get back to Houston and my own "biscotti machine," I'll try my hand at it. In the meantime, here are some pictures of my dad working his magic.

37. Learn to make Papa Bossy's famous biscotti.

2 down, 98 to go.

Yadda yadda yadda

I spent a little time this weekend with my other boyfriend (aka the Bossy Camera, which is slowly but surely revealing all the wonders it can perform) and CameraMan's other girlfriend (aka Alcina). Yes, I'm back at Wolf Trap for a nice long visit.

As I've mentioned all too often, I am currently a homeless nomad (although maybe not for long—more on that soon). Faced with an entire summer with no employment and/or housing, the question was, where to go? The obvious choice was to the Trap, which this summer has the greatest concentration of people I adore (although Central City comes in at a close second). Add to that a lovely place to stay for me and the Bossy Cat, the proximity of DC (and MuseumGirl, a good friend from college), and my familiarity with the area from the last two summers, and I was sold. In the back of my mind, though, I was concerned about what it would be like to be here without working here. I don't have a great track record of being content during stints of unemployment, and I worried that watching all my friends working where I had been so happy in the past might just send me over the edge.

But as it turns out, I'm having the best time. I keep forgetting that so many people here now know me as a girlfriend rather than as a director, but I'm getting used to it. And I'm so thankful to be able to just sit in the balcony during a rehearsal, taking pictures when I feel like it, reveling in the beautiful music being made by CameraMan, The Wise Soprano (pictured above), and everyone else in Alcina, not to mention everyone who sang the hell out of Candide last night (I'm looking at you, ACB). And it turns out that being an Opera Girlfriend comes with many of the same perks as actually working here: comp tickets, party invitations, etc. So while I don't expect to make a lifestyle change anytime soon (I still have more fun when I get to run the rehearsal, of course), it's been good for me to realize how much of what makes me happy has absolutely nothing to do with work.

Plus, if I hadn't come here I probably never would have been at a party with George Costanza like I was last night. True story.

Nectar of the Gods

As if you needed another reason to love Oregon…

This chocolate milk bears absolutely no resemblance to the kind you make at home by mixing milk and Hershey's syrup. It's rich and creamy and it tastes like liquid chocolate pudding. For years the only place I could find it was a bakery in Three Forks, Montana (true story), but not anymore. Now I know it lives right in the dairy cases of Oregon grocery stores.

I guess I'll have to come back soon.

Oregon, O Oregon

I defy you to find a more gorgeous place at this time of year than Oregon, where I've spent the last few weeks at my parents' house. The weather is perfection: clear, sunny days coupled with cool, dry nights. Here at the Bossy Ranch we've been eating loads of fresh avocados, local berries, and cedar planked salmon, all of which we eat on the deck, where the wildlife sightings are plentiful. I've seen baby deer and any number of birds in the backyard, not to mention the 4 kitties lounging on patio chairs, sunny patches of deck, and curled up in the coiled garden hose. It's the perfect weather for long walks along the river, and I even got outside to mow the lawn, something I haven't done since… ummm… quite possibly never.

It's also, of course, the perfect place for a tie-dye themed wedding reception in a vineyard full to bursting with pinots both noir and gris. The bride wore tie-dye, the groom wore tie-dye, the cake was tie-dyed (see left). It was one of those "Only in Oregon" kind of events, and I'm so glad I went, although I myself did not wear tie-dye, in case you're wondering. I didn't know many people there, so after saying hi to those I did, I mainly hid behind my camera. I even chatted up the wedding photographer to geek out over lenses which led to him lending me his $1100 lens to try out. It was a good day.

I ended up taking more pictures of my parents than anyone else, and one of them has led me to be able to cross the first item off my list.



I framed this picture and gave it to Mama Bossy for her birthday, and it is now holding pride of place in the living room at the Bossy Ranch.

28. Have one of my photographs hung on the wall of someone else's house.

1 down, 99 to go.

Oh, and by the way, thanks to Papa Bossy for all his help on the new header. If you read Little Ms. Bossy on Bloglines or Google Reader, come check out the new look.

War stories of the travel-weary

It's no great secret that I love to travel. I write about it frequently in this space, I talk about it incessantly to anyone who will listen, and I could easily fill up an entire to-do list exclusively with travel goals.

Some days, however, push even a travel addict like myself to question whether it's all worth it. Like yesterday, for example.

12:00p EDT All packed. Spend the next 3 hours congratulating myself on fitting everything I need for 20 days in Oregon into my allotted 2 carry-ons. Eat some lunch.

3:00p EDT Off to Dulles Airport a bit early.

3:30p EDT Happily ensconced at my gate with Starbucks and magazines.

5:04p EDT Scheduled departure time for flight to JFK.

5:50p EDT Actual departure time for flight to JFK.

7:30p EDT Scheduled departure time for flight from JFK to Portland.

7:30p EDT Actual arrival time in JFK, followed by feverish running to my gate while shoving people out of my way right and left.

8:00p EDT Delayed departure time listed at gate slash cruel joke played by airport employees.

9:00p EDT Thunderstorms cause the airport to close its ramp to all departing and arriving flights. Coincidentally, all airport restaurants close. Whiny phone calls to CameraMan and the Bossy parents ensue.

10:05p EDT Board the plane to Portland. Attempt not to faint from hunger.

12:00a EDT Stumble back to the flight attendants to beg for food. Receive crackers as a reward.

11:00p PDT Scheduled arrival time in Portland. I include this only for emphasis.

3:30a EDT Wheels up. Nobody applauds.

6:00a PDT Arrival in Portland, only 7 hours late. Met by Bossy parents with food and a pillow. Have never been more grateful to see a banana in my life.

7:30a PDT Asleep in my bed. All is right with the world.

All I'm saying is, the next time I spend 11 hours on a plane, I better end up in Europe.