The Holiday Party

Recipe for a memorable party:

Buckeyes: Peanut butter deliciousness covered in chocolate 

Puff pastry wrapped baked brie 

JoAnn's (my mom) Italian Beef

JoAnn's Oyster Stew

Kelly's famous Pork Loin

Mashed potatoes

Champagne

Top Shelf Vodka, Scotch

Tons of Ice

3-5 bottles of Red wine

Stephanie's Lethal Mulled Cider with Everclear

Pimm's Drink garnished with blood oranges, pomegranate, and tarragon

Clueless

Woman: "Have you been to Hellers? you should take your kids there. the donuts are incredible."

Man: "really, I will have to do that."

Woman: "the coffee isn't great"

Man: "Well, I am a coffee snob."

Woman: "Me too. Have you had Swings coffee?"

Man: "I have. I worked at the WH for years" (saying in a condensing voice..remember??)."Of course."

Woman: "I have beans in my freezer from Swings."

Man: "You'll have to make me a cup of coffee sometime."

Woman: (approaching the front door of apt). "Well, thanks for walking me home. Thanks for the beers."

Man: "You are welcome. Thanks for the conversation." (Insert: really bad kiss).

Woman: "Wow. I wasn't expecting that."

Man: "really? Take me upstairs ____. Make me a cup of coffee."

Woman: "Wow. That's forward. How about your girlfriend. How about...etc..??. No, I am seeing someone. I'm not messing that up. You obviously don't care."

Man: (kisses her again). "I can taste the hormones on your lips."

Woman: (throwing up in her mouth silently). "I don't want this right now. I am going upstairs. Alone."

Man: (calling woman by her first and last name now). _____.______. "Make me a cup of coffee!"

Man: "I've wanted you since the moment I met you."

Woman: "You obviously have no conscience."

Man: "I can keep this discreet, if that's what you want. We should go inside. This is a small city." (people will see us..).

Woman: (Thinking.. probably not good since your divorce is final and you're already attempting to cheat on your girlfriend). " I don't follow your logic. This is not happening. Good night."

Man: "Make me a cup of coffee. Make me a cup of coffee."

Man: (pulls her back, preventing her from getting in the door). Now, begging. "Don't push me away. Little girl. you're soaked aren't you."

Woman: (makes her way in the door). "Don't make that face."

Man: you can change your mind in the next 5 minutes, if you want. when I am walking home.

Woman: hmmm. Thanks... (Gets upstairs, safe and sound. Locks the door. Phone rings. twice. Silencing her phone.. ). She sleeps, in peace.

Holiday Cards-best written while slightly drunk on a half bottle of wine

The Ex-Boyfriend Holiday Card:

Hey,  I want my cufflinks back!!!!!!!!! Happy Holidays.  

The Boss Holiday Card:

"Thanks for the $100.00 bonus. I am using it to drown my sorrows while I search for another job that will hopefully pay better." Happy Holidays!

The Half-Sibling Holiday Card:

"Hope your home finds peace and prosperity in the New Year. If not, I hope that Santa brings xanax to your home."

The College friend who has become religious Holiday Card:

"Remember when we used to laugh at Ned Flanders?? Yeah..I think you are married to him. Please stop saying 'you are so blessed'  your post pregnancy baby fat has not left, your husband is unemployed and you are living with your in-laws." Happy Holidays!!

Night of the Banquet

Some highlights from my biggest fundraiser of the year.

The key note speech was TERRIBLE. If I heard one more stutter from the former ambassador I was going to fork my eye.

My boss acknowledged me (a good thing) but also butchered my last name. For the record, it is Kelly DaviEs, not Kelly Davis.

I was chased by a mad, Palestinian because I gave him a table by the doorway. An act that completely disrespected him and all of his countrymen. Therefore, I am complicit in a Zionist conspiracy (but of course.)

The lamb steak was undercooked.  But the orange truffle cheesecake a delight.

All in all, a great evening.

My camera goes missing for a few hours.

Not sure who is responsible for this. Some good close ups though. 

The Breakup

It seems to me that for most people,  breaking up, while never a fun thing to do has its moments of civility and respect that at times outweigh the value of the actual relationship.

"You know I think you a great, decent fellow."

"Suffice it to say that I think you're really great, and I'm sorry for how this turned out."

"I must confront my loss before I am lucky enough to trip along someone like you, and you are .. for       better or worse (for you) a great listener. Thank you." 

This may have something to do with the lack of emotional investment one has in the relationship, thus it becomes easier to walk away from or be let go. 

It was if we were partners on the dance floor. The music started, the dance began, I looked over his shoulder but not in his eyes, he looked at the floor. Neither stumbled nor mis-stepped but the dance was missing something crucial..passion, or even imperfection. Had he stepped on my foot, it would have caused a reaction, a laugh, something that we could connect over.  Something to make it worth elongating the dance. 

But as it is, the dance is done. The dancers part, and look for other dance partners. 

The Detox

It has been a summer of imbibing. Too many happy hours, too many regrets. Today is the first day of my first-ever detox for the next two weeks.


Things to avoid:


Cheese (all dairy really)
Unrefined sugar of any kind
Wine (any vintage, year, or color; regardless of occasion)
Beer/liquor (same as above--regardless of occasion)
French fries
Candy




Things to drink up:
Water with lemon/lime
Tea (black/green)
Black coffee
Sparkling water
Almond milk
Whey protein
cottage cheese
plain fat free yogurt
fresh fruit
fresh vegetables
lean fish




More running. More yoga .

Vanity Fair & Proust

This seems very unfair. It seems that Bill O' Reilly and I have very similar answers in our Proust Match Off.  




Vanity Fair will soon offer an interactive way for you to figure out how your answers to the infamous  Proust Questionnaire stack up against the glitterati.  


Until then, here are my very own answers to Marcel Proust's questions:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Sitting with friends and loved ones on a deck overlooking the ocean, enjoying a great meal, a better view, and unconditional love. 


What is your greatest fear?
That life will pass me by and I will not have not accomplished everything I set out to do.


What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Selfishness. 


What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Tightfistedness. 


What living person do you most admire?
My father. 


What is your greatest extravagance?
Buying a cocktail on a short flight.


What is your current state of mind?
Calm before the storm.


What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Fidelity. 


Which living person do you most despise?
People who think Michael Vick did nothing wrong.


What is the quality you most like in a woman?
The ability to rally.


Which talent would you most like to have?
To woo a constituency enough to vote for me.


What is the quality you most like in a man?
Integrity. 


What or who is the greatest love of your life?
The man who won't let me have my way.


When and where were you happiest? 
I am always happiest the day after a bad storm. 


What is your most marked characteristic? 
Charming you. Infuriating you. 


What do you consider your greatest achievement? 
Not marrying for the wrong reasons.

What is your greatest regret?
Talking back to my mother. 


How would you like to die?
The same way I was born. Yelling, kicking, and screaming. 

A case of mistaken gchat identity

Co-worker commandeers my computer and my g-chat while I am out of the room. While friend Delila is hammering on about boy problems, colleague impersonating me takes the conversation from the mundane to the impossibly weird. Even for me.  

Delila: Ha. "You're so vain...don't u .."

9:38 AM Comes to mind.. David called me last night

9:39 AM He was writing me an email back, abt "our relationship".. And just called instead

  After 3 min his phone cut out of signal...

9:40 AM I think he just couldn't handle talking :/ he's literally never just picked up the phone, instead of closed comm emailing...

 me: I AM KELLY

  I AM INTERNETS!

  LOOK AT ME

 Delilah: hahahahaa

 me: PAY ATTENTION TO ME!

  I USE WORK RESOURCES FOR SOCIAL ACTIVITIES!

9:41 AM I AM TAKING UP BANDWITH

 Delilah: JEsUS

  YES

 me: delilah --this is the real kelly that was my colleague Samson

 Delilah: Hahahaa

  Huh?

  Ok...

 me: i will explain shortly

9:42 AM Delilah: Aha ok

9:44 AM Tell Samson this is NOT social activities...

Dumbing Down Google Wave

Not knowing a thing about it, but knowing that its about to redefine how we communicate, I asked my friend Mat to explain Google Wave and to invite me to try it out. He could not do the latter but he did explain what it is.

In a nut shell Google Wave:

1) Will, with appropriate adoption rates, replace Twitter/Gmail, and maybe Facebook, and more generally, it will replace HTML.

2) You the user will be able to easily get access to it when it matters 

About Last Night --Explained

A study helps to explain why women do it, and don't do it.

About Last Night

Regret. Remorse. Recovery. We have all been there. Things people say ...the next day. 

"Oh my god. I just woke up with a 70 year old man. We spent 30 min looking for my pants and phone. In the middle of our hunt he screams, hold on, I have diarrhea!"

 " i think you're one of those guys who likes to have sex with old or dead people
which is fine. i'm just letting you know that i've figured you out."

"We did not have sex but I did wake up with him holding my penis and asking, 'Are you Polish?'"

"We have to talk abt (sic)  how this grown 41 yr old man I spent the night with can't kiss worth a damn!"

"Saw Ban Ki Mooon, Susan Rice, Prime Minister Erdogan and his wife. Oh and Amr Moussa. I also met the prime minister of Bangladesh. I did not sleep with any of them."

Bad Ending:

Girl: Did you actually just tell me that we've reached our shelf life?

Guy: well, do you wanna come back to my apt and have a glass of wine.?" 

Girl: [thinking yeah, sure, why not, I'll tell him how I really feel] "In all seriousness, I like your dog, your bed, and your scooter more than you." 

Guy: [crushed ego] "well, i would hope I could change that."

Girl: "I need to head on home."  

Guy; "don't leave, I'll drive you on the scooter. fuck i want you. i'm a total idiot." 

Girl: that's ok, really, I'll walk."

Guy: [action] pins her against the wall, in a valiant effort to seduce her.

Girl: "Wtf, who ARE you?"

BAD iDEA

Non-profit dogooder hottie says to a hot young conservative lobbyist: "it was probably a bad idea to fuck the girl who works in your building and lives in your neighborhood, not call back, and deny that it was a one night stand. At least I could get that birthday cake I brought over and my VS black lace panties?"

Winning audio books..

Since starting Margot Berwin's Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire  I can be seen on my morning commute riding my bike listlessly as I listen to this captivating audio book.   Reminescent of Eat, Pray, Love (sexier though, and without the god business) this is a book worth reading again. Word on the street is that it is being made into a movie ..starring Julia Roberts.

Cupcakes make the world go round

Happiness is just around the corner from my office...
My favorite is the Peanut Butter cupcake

Dear Saint Anthony,

I have lost:

Ipod  (FOUND-in my boot in my closet!)

The Historian A novel (left on a plane after a trip to Istanbul)
One pearl earring (swallowed up in my closet in old apartment on George Street in Chicago)
Grey sunglasses from Nashville
RayBan sunglasses from Wicker Park

Things women say... taken out of context and totally uncensored.

To be a fly on the wall when women are talking to each other..

"Today I have eaten including but not limited to: one old fashioned donut and three cannolis."  In response to a conversation regarding food having more meaning when reported...

"Men. A wide variety of attractive options walk the streets of NY! I am shell shocked."  Compared to the men of Salt Lake City is what she really means..

"I never liked him. I just made out with him."  This comment was made after said man was reportedly chatting up other women. 

"I may have a real boyfriend!" Woman squeals on the phone to married sister.

"The couple next to me at Tryst studying for the GMAT's together are making me sick!! I hate them!!! ahhh!"  This is code for..."I have just been dumped-I hate couples."

"I'm capping myself off at 10. Then lying to my husband with 3." Remember men multiply by 2, women divide by 2. 

"I have pretty much ducked out of society-I keep my phone off and jsut check it on weekends, emails a few days a week and I have almost entirely given up cocktails and parties. I am telling myself it is just a disgruntled 30 yr old phase where I can't admit I don't enjoy my life as much as I use to." Said lady made it to 21 shots on her twenty-first. Enough said. 

"oh god. please tell me I can sell that bridesmaid dress on ebay if I have too." I have the dress, are they gonna get married or not??? 

"Firstly. MARRIED. And then,devine on ski's, runs ( X company) and told me he fell in love the moment I kicked his ass on the ski hill :-) he was an instructor in his youth.....and, then offered me the official position of being his mistress."  Recent divorcee swimming in treacherous waters. 

"Babies are great--martinis are WONDERFUL!" Reported soon to be divorced girlfriend, lamenting that children were not to be had, but that cocktails were. En mass. 

"Thank you for helping me release my inner bitch." A woman confides in her hairdresser, as the hair dresser never judges. Her anyway. 

Lessons on relationships via Gchat:

me: You are not a victim. You are in total control.

 girlfriend: thanks, sweetheart. i love you

me: He would be lost without you, probably living on the streets with his skinny jeans. Not paying child support and dating a girl named Tina

 girlfriend: yuk!

 me: yeah.

so you just remind him of that the next time he is getting upset.

  Then give him 10 bucks and tell him to go down on you.

 girlfriend: she would cheat on him of course

 me: he has to work for it

 girlfriend: ha!

  you're a bitch

 me: yah I know.

 girlfriend: i miss you

 me: that is what the boys say

  I misss you too..

  I just laughed hard

girlfriend: i did too, but I'm crying too and i have to do it quietly because we have a loft office

  

New York State of Mind.

Trying to decide if I want to go up to New York City for a day to put on a frilly cocktail dress and schmooze with people I don't know.

I have decided to go. How many times does a girl get invited to attend a reception at  the Starlight Roof, at the Hotel Waldorf Astoria ? 

My monster --Hermione

Gremlin. Beast. Fraggle Rock. Don't feed her after dark, but if you do...Gruyere cheese, red wine, and latte's please. 

Trip to the Dead Sea

Caution: The salt water from the Dead Sea will render you blind. The mud will NOT take years off your skin.

Better to be lucky than good

Timing is everything in life sometimes. When my boss asked me if I would like to join her on a trip to Jordan last summer I readily and ecstatically (run and tackle hug) accepted. I knew little of Jordan, other than it was a small and strategically placed Arab country. My parents, tucked neatly in the Midwest, were not thrilled that I would be visiting a corner of the world thats neighbors included; Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. But being a child of the world and far past the age of consent I tried to ease their concern with images of crumbling roman cities and castles dating back to the time of the crusades. When that failed to work, I resorted to invoking a scene from one of my dad's favorite movies, and from one of Jordan’s most famous tourist spots, made even more famous thanks to the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  The parents were sold. 

Winter at Bryn Awelon Farm

In 2006, I found myself living back with my parents at our home in Indiana. Recently back from living abroad in Istanbul, the shock of living with my parents in their rustic, hundred-year old farmhouse was great.

It was not the shock of the debilitating cold, nor the endless- snow that got to me. It was not even the fact that my mother had seemingly become obsessed with adopting pit bulls, rottweilers, and other fierce creatures while I was away ("Don't sit on the couch dear, you are taking Emma's and Brody's seat").

There were two incidents which led me to the realization that country life was not good for my piece of mind. The first involved a small brown field mouse. LIVING in my Jeep Cherokee. (Warning: do not jump out of car while car is in motion) The second involved my mother screaming up the stairs to me one snowy morning to "Go outside and get that chicken out of Murphy's mouth!!!!" As I threw on my boots and ran outside, I saw my large Irish Wolfhound
throwing this pathetic, scared-out-of-its wits chicken up in the air, and then, after it hit the ground with a thud, picking it up again, and throwing it once more. I smacked Murphy hard on the nose and grabbed for the chicken. I picked the chicken up, wrapping her in a towel. My mother, already late for work, told me that I should "blow dry the chicken" as she got into her car and sped away.

So there I was blow drying a chicken in my bathroom. "Do you come here often?" I asked the chicken. If it was not so sad, it would be hysterical. "I gotta get out of here," I thought.

And I did. Less than a week later I was on my way to visit my younger sister in exotic Bangkok.

Miss Manners on Blogging

This blog is dedicated to my friends, family and loved ones. I promise to blog responsibly, never while driving, drinking (maybe), or while mad at you.


"Changeable women are more endurable than monotonous ones, they are sometimes murdered but seldom deserted."