Eating My Feelings

Tonight as my boss man was leaving he said he was going to a dinner... at Nada. He seemed less than excited.

I reacted coolly.

"OMGosh, really?! I love Nada! Get the chicken tacos, they're like CRACK."

Still he was unconvinced, which just goes to show you that you can be a brilliant scientist and co-director of a big time Heart Institute yet still have no clue about other important things... like chicken tacos.

Had I not sounded like a complete freak I'd have outlined for him my Nada strategy:

• I like to kick things off with a Nadarita. At $7 it's the cheapest margarita on the drink list, but it's still guaranteed to knock you on your ass. Two thumbs up!

• Chips and salsa are a must. Of course.

• Sure it's $17 for three tacos, but believe me when I tell you that you will steal money from your best friends to pay $5 each for these delicious black bean puree, pico and guacamole chicken tacos.

• But what I really want while at Nada is someone to order the chicken tacos while I order the Mexican mac 'n cheese. (Or vice-versa.) I know what you're thinking, mac 'n cheese? LAME.

No way José. It is fantastic. Pasta shells with just the right amount of poblano heat plus some sort of crispy, crumbly things that add texture. Omg awesome.

So basically what I'm saying here is if you want to get me drunk and stuff me full of Mexican food, I'm in. Then you can watch me pass-out on the couch... Come on, who wouldn't want that?!

Disturbing

Maybe you've noticed a disturbance in the force recently. An eerie breeze that moves across your face, even when you're indoors. And that breeze smells like biscuits, or frying eggs, or grilling chicken.

What you're feeling is me making dinner at home. And then eating it. Usually.

The last time I ate at home this consistently was when I lived at home, and my mom made dinner. For the past, ohhhh, I don't know, 10 years I've eaten most of my meals "out."

Fine cuisine like Taco Bell, Chipotle, pizza, Panera. You know, health food.

Occasionally I'd go through a spell where I'd declare I was going to start eating at home. Then I'd have to force myself to make a plate of spaghetti once a week.

That's the other thing, I don't really "cook." It was within only the last year or so I could tolerate touching a raw chicken breast enough to put it in a pan to cook it. (Bleh, I'm still icked out by it though.) And there's no way I'd touch or attempt to prepare any other type of meat. So my homecooking mostly consists of noodles and frozen broccoli.

I know what you're thinking, "YUM! I'm going over to Gina's for dinner!" I get that a lot.

But the tide has turned. Ever since I moved, the adorable kitchen table and I have become... well, like peas and carrots you could say.

Speaking of peas, I love peas. So I had some for dinner the other night. I microwaved them myself, and had them with augratin potatoes and grilled chicken. Mostly I eat grilled chicken, usually on top of a salad with red peppers, cucumbers and dried cranberries. (See photo above) But last night I made scrabbled eggs with biscuits and gravy. More health food.

It's been nice, all this eating at home. The warmth of the kitchen. The cooking smells.

Now don't go and drunk dial any exes. It's not the end of the world.

Probably.

A Rousing Friday Evening

After having Chuck Klosterman sign my paperback copy of Downtown Owl to "Billie Jean" I walked over to Madison Park for a three-person softball game.

First base was a branch and second base was a bunch of leaves. There was no third base.

We all hit bottom-of-the-ninth bases loaded game winning homers. It was a quite a night.

The Way You Make Me Feel

Picking this week's TGIF Video was the toughest ever. How to send-off the man who moonwalked his way across my heart.

Thriller was the first cassette tape I ever got. It was a Christmas present along with a portable cassette player that I carried from room-to-room convinced that P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) was written especially for me. (I went through a "center of the universe" phase when I was 8, Ok.)

As a commenter on NYTimes.com said, for my generation, the greatest moonwalk had nothing to do with NASA.

I'll be piping the once King of Pop through my headphones all day... try not to stare if you see me tryin' to moonwalk.

TGIF.

Dear Sweet Baby Jesus In the Manger

Thank you dear sweet baby Jesus in the manger for getting me my job at Children's where I met my colleague Michael, who told me about Noah the scooter mechanic, who rebuilt my other colleague (and Michael's friend) Jason's scooter engine.

And also dear sweet baby Jesus in the manger, thank you for the Internet, where I was able to find a muffler for a 2000 Honda Elite 50. And thank you that I have the means to drop $120 - $120!!! - for this new muffler to replace the one that's rusted out and causing my scooter to be deafeningly loud, which brings me back to thanking you for my kick-ass job.

One more teensy-weensy request sweet baby Jesus if you have the time - and if not, hey, no big deal, ok?! I'm totally grateful for what I have, believe you me - but could you please maybe send a signal to Noah, my new favorite person on the planet who is also my new-found scooter mechanic, to not hose me on the labor costs to install this new muffler that you have so generously bestowed on me.

But if Noah needs the extra cash to buy a new water pump for his house or pay some medical bills or get his kid a new bike for his birthday or whatever, then forget it, go ahead and let him charge me whatever he wants. (Within some reason, though, Ok sweet baby Jesus in the manger?)

Amen,

Gina

It's A Sad, Sad Day, People

Uhm, can anyone reading this weld?

Tonight Stella and I were cruising the streets of Clifton with Dean when all of sudden Stella got deafeningly loud. Like, ear splitting. And I was even wearing a helmet.

I know what you're thinking, How loud could it be, it's a scooter?

Well, I'm talking I-cut-a-hole-in-my-Harley-exhaust-pipe loud. Sound bouncing off of guard-rails and cars loud. Embarrassing loud, even.

"It sounds like an aggressive weed-eater," I told Adam solemnly.

After some inspection we found that nearly 10-year-old Stella has a crack in her rusted exhaust pipe. Sad. I guess that's the scooter equivalent of having bronchitis.

The good news though, I guess if there's good news here, is that Stella is way faster now. As I was coming home I noticed it felt like I was flying, though I wasn't sure if it was actual speed or just noise.

Turns out, it was actual speed. Dean said I was going about 43.

"Back pressure," my dad explained. Too bad my dad the retired mechanic isn't closer. Not only would I have him replace my exhaust, but I'd also have him keep Stella super-speedy.

But alas, Stella and I are stalled right now. The summer just got a whole lot less fun.

Supa Fly

The White House needs a screen door, y'all. TGIF!

Copywriting At Its Finest

I appreciate how Sony isn't trying to oversell these headphones.

My only suggestion would be to add, "Look, you paid $9.99, what do you expect."

18 Miles of Asphalt

Wait, make that 19, because according my dude's Garmin, we technically rode 19.3 miles. Ow ow!

This morning was the 3rd Annual Ride Cincinnati for Breast Cancer Research.

Waking up before 10 a.m. is usually met with swearing and me hitting snooze 47 times, but this morning I was bright-eyed and ready to roll at 7:30.

Now if only I didn't have the heaviest, crappiest Target bike on the planet I would have been gold! (As it was I'd say I was more steel.)



Here's everyone lined up at the start on the Purple People Bridge.




I'm pretty sure Adam is singing Welcome to the Jungle in his head... to get pumped.




This was at the turn-around at mile 9. Note how my tongue is out. It looks like I'm joking around, but really, I kinda wasn't. My bike weighs like 40 pounds I swear, and has big fat knobby mountain bike tires. You got to dig deep to move that thing around!




I was back to being hella-sporty in no time though.




So that's what that pocket is for, animal crackers!




Adam was hungry too.




I packed as many animal crackers as I could into my pocket, which left this little guy vulnerable to Adam riding up on me and stealing it. Jerk!





Caution - People flipping.




My first chain tattoo! I'm thinking about making it permanent instead of WD40.




Victory was ours!

Make It Work, Designers!

It took a model and two handlers to get this dress down the runway.

You guys are going to be so jealous, but guess who had rock star fourth row seats to the DAAP fashion show on Friday night? Oh yeah, this one. Right here.

Ok so I was like tenth in line for the tickets, but since she couldn't find anyone else who wanted them my friend Katherine hooked me up with her Cincinnati Magazine comp seats.

And wow... what a stellar show. I sat there in my shiny dress and heels and thought, "What. Would it be like. To have such skill."

I can't cook. I can't sew. My home-grown vegetables taste like weeds.

And look, look at all of these students, creating such fantastic pieces. So not all of it was practical, but still... it was extraordinary to see these students' designs come down the runway - all lights and models and fashion and music.

I was in awe of them. I channeled my inner Tim Gunn and said things like, "Work it like there's no tomorrow!" and "That's a lot of look!"

And how lucky that I happen to know one of the graduates. Her collection was all red dresses and YOWZA. Believe me, Elyse's designs could turn anyone into a goddess. They were so stunning I swore they would float off the stage.

My pictures from the night turned out crappy, but here's one and
here's some others.

They're what I call a two-step dress:

Step 1: Zip it up

Step 2: Own the room

Hats off to the class of 2009.

Did Somebody Say Dance Off? TGIF!!!

Here's hoping this happens to you on your next rain delay. I feel like the blue team started off strong, but the green team really brought it in the end.

Happy weekend!

The Snack Ninja

This is my new desk space. Next to the microwave AND mini-fridge.

I know, right?! AWESOME.

When I asked my new boss-man about this arrangement he said, "You do like to snack, right?"

Busted.

This week alone there's been lots of snack action, mostly of the Japanese variety. First there was this cookie. My thought when it was given to me was, "How bad can it be? It looks like a tiny waffle."



Turns out, pretty bad. It went down like a Girl Scout lemon cookie. Unfortch the aftertaste was like vomit. And I think it gave me a headache too.

Then today I was instructed to try one of these little snacks and rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. "Looks like a smashed tater tot," I said. "How bad can it be?"



Turns out, it was delicious. I gave it a 7.5. Crispy like a rice cracker, but with a touch of spice.

Needless to say the new gig at the Heart Institute is going swimmingly.

And if you work on my floor and you put something delicious in the microwave and you're not there to get it out... Can't prove it.

Baby, We Were Born To Ride

Look. At. Me. And Stella. We're on a boat!

Instead of our usual ride down Eastern, over the Southgate Bridge and to Graeter's in Newport, Dean suggested we mix it up a bit this weekend.

So we headed down Eastern, across the Southgate Bridge and kept on going, y'all. All the way down River Road to Anderson Ferry.

We were winding around downtown on Mehring Way when suddenly Dean stopped and kind of looked around.

"We didn't end up where I thought we would," he said, looking at Stella. "We can do this, right?"

"Totally. We can do this." I said this with complete and utter confidence. I had no idea what he was worried about. To me it looked like we were just getting ready to head down a country road. Stella can only go about 37 mph, but hey, this wasn't our first rodeo, you know.

We flipped our helmet shields back down and took off.

It was about, ohhh, 30 seconds later when I realized that the country road we were facing suddenly turned into the 6th Street Expressway. Four lanes of highway.

"Ohh, shit." I said it outloud, into my helmet.

I pulled Stella's throttle all the way back and whoa, y'all, we took off like a freakin' rocket.

Uncle! I cried to myself.

Outta my way beeyotches! Stella yelled.

It was downhill a bit, so we must have been going at least 39 or 40. And fortunately it was only a quarter mile or so to River Road, so I didn't pee my pants that much.

Here's Dean and me on the ferry, post-terror ride down the expressway...





...and me posing with Dean's scooter, Buddy. (Dean's scooter has a lame name.)



After winding our way through Kentucky on Route 8 you'll never guess where we ended up... Graeter's in Newport! Who'd have thought. Dean treated me to a chocolate scoop in a waffle cone, I think because he felt bad he nearly got me seriously maimed.

Needless to say, it was the best ride yet.

In other scooter news, I've noticed a new phenomenon lately. Most scooter riders wave to each other when they pass. It's like acknowledging your tribe or something. But lately, I've gotten several waves from motorcycles as well. Men, women, Harleys, crotch-rockets. There doesn't seem to be a pattern.

How fab is that.

TGI Friday, Y'all!

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

I don't want to get ahead of the glorious weekend ahead, but my nerd readers out there know that Monday is going to be big for those of us who like slick, shiny Apple products.

Will Apple reveal an even more gleaming iPhone?! Will the iMac monitor get even more giant?! Will the new Snow Leopard operating system be an actual snow leopard you will have to feed and walk?

Questions people!!!

The only thing we know for sure is the new Mac Wheel will be awesome... "Nothing's more simple than a single giant button!"

TGIF!!!