the Cheez-it Situation

i've never had much of a sweet tooth. i don't really like cake or- gasp- cupcakes. usually the only "dessert" thing in our house is a bar of BT McElrath dark chocolate. what i do have is a salty tooth. i crave savory, salty snacky things. wheat thins, pistachios, oriental snack mix, tortilla chips, and my latest addiction- Cheez-its. i have zero self-control around Cheez-its. it started with a mid-afternoon snack emergency at work (random factoid- all items in our vending machines are kosher). i had forgotten how delicious Cheez-its were, and after a weekish i had zero change in my purse because i had given it all to the vending machine. so of course the next time i went to the grocery store, i bought a box b/c it's more economical and therefore smarter, right? wrong. if there is a box in the house or at work, it's gone within a day or two. i'm not saving money on Cheez-its, i'm just eating more Cheez-its.

i tried leaving the box at home and just taking a small portion to work with me. no dice- i get home and then eat all the Cheez-its. if the box is at work, there's no hope. how can i simultaneously allow myself a reasonable portion of Cheez-its while also protecting myself from what remains in the box?

well, i stumbled upon a solution and i'm quite proud of myself. recently at the grocery store i noticed a box of Cheez-its in small snack portions, like for kids' lunchboxes. so i bought a box and left it in the trunk of my car. now, if i am at home or work and want Cheez-its, i have to drag my lazy ass out to the alley/parking lot to retrieve a modestly-portioned bag from my car. folks, this has worked like a charm. i've had the box for weeks and have dipped into it maybe twice a week. it's a small victory in the grand scheme of things, but i'll take what i can get.

photos from here & here

yeah, good luck booking in Mpls too

my top 3 favorite smells, for no particular reason

1. Bombay Sapphire Gin. if i could wear it as perfume, i would.

2. the inside of the Seward co-op. warm, healthy, and inviting.

3. onions & mushrooms sauteing with a little garlic.

Mayor crowd surfs, bellybutton exposed.

have i told you lately, that i love our mayor? because here is another reason:

from the Trampled by Turtles show at First Ave last night. photo by Erik Hess, seen here.

errrnnggggh!

this totally encapsulates how i feel after a particularly long work week.
get me the eff outta here!

(photo from here)

cats.

what i learned last night: time on the couch is not a waste if there is a kitty in your lap. Gordon leapt up on my lap while i was watching Bill Cunningham New York and showed no signs of leaving when it was over. (usually he hangs out for 5-10 minutes and then moves on to the next thing in his itinerary) so i started another documentary in my queue- the Eames doc- and settled in for a little more kitty cuddle time.

my lesson learned takes on a new meaning when i saw these pictures this morning, from Tippi Hedren's home. she runs a big cat sanctuary in California, and Anton LaVey's former lion Togar came to live with her family as their household pet.

photos by Michael Rougier for LIFE, seen here.

Pearl Jam (Twenty)

i was born in 1980, so i came into adolescence right at the onset of the early 90's grunge boom. and i embraced it wholeheartedly. plaid flannel and thrift store clothes. beat up Chucks. crying over Kurt and wearing black to school the rest of the week. Headbanger's Ball on MTV. (MTV all the time, actually) Nirvana, Hole, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, even the one-off Temple of the Dog... but most of all, Pearl Jam.

oh, Pearl Jam. i was a little young for Ten, but then Vs. came out when i was 13 and it was love at first listen. and i was obsessed with Eddie Vedder. i had a bulletin board plastered with photos of him ripped out of magazines. (my only major brush with the law- i would rip them out of magazines at the grocery store! such a rebel.) anytime PJ was on MTV, i was there at the VCR hitting record. i had VHS tape after VHS tape of their music videos, their legendary Unplugged show, VMA award show performances... anything. i was so fascinated with & intrigued by them, by EV. his persona was so intense, he was this dark, angry, explosive, beautiful man... something this brand new teenager had never encountered before, and i didn't know what to make of him. to me he was a hard-shelled, impenetrable enigma. which is a great kind of person to crush on, really.


eventually, my musical tastes & priorities changed and my obsession slowly ebbed to nothing much. when my cd's were stolen in 2003, i didn't bother replacing the PJ ones. when Matt and i moved in together, i didn't even bother importing his PJ cds into my iTunes. they were just a part of my past.
i had heard that 2011 was PJ's 20th anniversary, and that the great Cameron Crowe had made a documentary in celebration. it was on American Masters one night and i caught about 10 minutes of it, enough to make me reserve it in my Netflix queue. i finally got a chance to watch it last week, and wow. total nostalgia attack. suddenly i was 14 again, sitting in front of the TV with my finger poised over the record button. the movie looks and feels like the 90's- crazy collaged multi-media, frenetic editing, tv clips and interviews from that era. you can tell this was the guy who made Singles. for me, the film totally evokes the energy and feeling of that time in music & culture.
also interesting was how the movie kinda revealed a little more of EV's personality & chronicled his maturation. the dark, angry explosiveness i used to see on TV seemed to be masking a naïve, vulnerable guy. in the early clips it manifests as a hyper little boy acting out, but in the later interviews, it's a mature, introverted tenderness that is really endearing.


plus he's aged really well, yes?


ps- while PJ fell off my radar, i absolutely love the Into the Wild soundtrack, which is all EV. my favorites from that album are Far Behind and Rise, but they're all worth a listen. the cd packaging is sweet too.

pps- (5/25/2012) i just finished reading the accompanying book Pearl Jam Twenty. while uber-detailed, it was really great... an amazing story of carving your own creative path by sticking to your gut and maintaining artistic & personal integrity. inspiring.