Scanning for Wieners

The village of Kensington, Maryland is the greatest place to be on Labor Day Weekend - it's the last hurrah at the neighborhood pool, an amazing parade, and the Pitchfork Block Party. (It has that title because three streets that host the party form the shape of a pitchfork.) The shindig starts on Sunday afternoon with music rocking, children running, and grown-ups grilling. Some adults mingle into the wee hours of the morning which was when my neighbors ravenously opened a package of Oscar Meyers that sent one dog flying into another person's back yard. The recipient is a master gardener and would be perplexed if she pulled up a wienie weed of that sort. Someone had to go on a hunt for the hot dog.

Looking around for a snaaaausage is a daunting task in the dark, but I've also found it overwhelming in the fluorescent lights of the super market. The first time I entered a grocery store after moving from New York City, it took me over two hours to find what we needed. In NYC, I had a service deliver the goods. There were not many products because the only thing I knew how to make was reservations. Ok, bad joke but true. I could scramble eggs. In college, I lived off of stewed tomatoes and macaroni. Ask my college roommate and dear friend Jennie Plentie. Not anymore. We moved here and somehow I magically became a cooker. My kitchen is sizzlin'. Maybe it was because someone had to feed my kids. Maybe it was because I needed a creative outlet.

Ingredients are necessary for my "hot cookin' that's going on tonight, and the temperature is rising just right", as G Love and Special Sauce sings. (The music video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stOfN0y_bpo) I know, I could order my groceries to be delivered even in suburbia but I want to experience the food, to touch it and smell it. I love how I FEEL when I walk through Whole Foods. I feel a sense of the primal when I go on a quest to Balducci for miso paste and other obscure ingredients. But lo and behold, there is always the utilitarian markets trips that remain daunting.

Even though it's swell to forage for food, the grocery store process is stuck in the 1950's! It is inefficient. You put products in a cart. Take products out of cart. Cashier picks up each product, scans it. Each product is put in bag. Bags of products go back in cart. Bags are put in trunk. Products are emptied into kitchen. It is enough to make you put on a poofy petticoat and do yourself in. However, the grocery goddesses heard my prayers and someone decided to help me work my skirt in the food aisles.

The grocery store revolution has begun and I may seem hopelessly suburban* but I am loving it. I'm now my own checkout chick. The hand-held scanner at Giant allows me to ring up my products as a I go along. I put them in the bag I want. When it is time to pay, the cashier takes my scanner and POOF, I'm outa there. I've saved four steps in the store! Even putting away the food is much quicker because I've bagged things according to where they go. And, I know this sounds silly, it is satisfying, maybe even borderline fun. Ever play cashier when you were a child? You can re-live the moment. My daughter is living it as a reality. She doesn't even want to watch Dora in the kid grocery carts anymore. She is busy being my helper, zapping UPC codes on Oscar Meyer wieners. Hot diggity dog!

* "hopelessly suburban" was coined by my friend Brooksie Brooks
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Celebrity Tourette Syndrome

“Hi Michael Jackson” is what I would have said if I’d seen him on the street. That’s one celebrity I sadly won’t be able to glam. Glam is the positive way of describing how one uses a special ability to charm a famous person. Celebrity Tourette Syndrome is the other way to describe it, especially by those people who are embarrassed by my actions. It is an uncontrollable urge to connect and blurt, “Hi, (celebrity first name) + (celebrity last name)”.

Sorry to name drop but I have made some involuntary "Hi's" to really big names. It first started with George Clooney at a bar in LA called Jones. “Hi George Clooney.” The next thing I knew I was having a cocktail with him and his posse. (Those were the early ER days, before he was a superstar.) “Hi Robert Redford,” I said as he was getting out of his town car outside the Sundance building in NY. He looked at me stunned. Was he thinking, “Does she know me?” or “Should I call security?”

In most instances, the tics are a positive social grace. In my favorite restaurant, Il Buco, a man was blocking the entrance. I gently touched his back to try to get a little movement so that we could get to the hostess area. He turned around and looked a bit miffed, which is when I realized who I had pushed. “Oh, Hi, Dustin Hoffman.” He wasn’t mad anymore. (By the by, my tic kicked in at that restaurant on various occasions when I brushed up beside Matt Damon, Harrison Ford and Liev Schreiber.) I had a “Hi Diana Ross” outburst in the gift store at Canyon Ranch. We actually had a conversation but she was trapped because she was paying for her merchandise. Jon Bon Jovi was my latest “Hi” last December - I was at a very crowded club and the only way to the restroom was to walk by me. I gave him enough room, patted his shoulder and said, “Hi Jon Bon Jovi.” He smiled. Ooh la la!

My favorite celebrity tic was to Esther Williams because many moons ago, I produced the show packaging and promos for an all day movie marathon, The Esther Williams Splash Bash on TNT. She is amazing in her films - she dives, does tricks, and glides through the water wearing a smile with perfect lipstick. If you know me for five minutes, you know that I don’t go anywhere without my lippy. When I lived in London, my friends knew that if I got ran over by a double-decker bus, before calling an ambulance they were to apply a fresh coat. The same love for lipstick has been passed on to my daughter. See picture at right.

Is Celebrity Tourette Syndrome inherited? My children may have it. For two and half years, they seemed pretty excited to see the mailman EVERY day. The mailman is a big deal in a child's life. The scene : Mailman Willie slides the mail through the slot on the front door. The kids open the door when he is barely off of the front porch. They blurt, “Hi Willie.” My son tells Mailman Willie he is eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Willie asks, “Again?!” There is a picture of Mailman Willie with the kids at right. The same impulse happens when we see the Mayor of Kensington. “Hi Mayor Pete.”

I’ve decided while writing this entry that the outbursts are not a disorder but should be considered the gift of glam. The sexy vampires in True Blood glam people all the time. I don’t want to suck anyone’s blood but merely want the person of influence to feel the adoration. Tonight we are having a King-of-Pop-family-dance and I’ll say to the sky, “Hi Michael Jackson,” wherever you are.