Two fancy meals

My husband and I both occasionally pick up classes at the French Alliance here in Philly, mainly to sit in a room the size of a closet and try our little hearts out to butcher the language with slightly cleaner cuts than we had managed the week before. This has led to a few friendships, and more than a few acquaintances, some of whom appear to be prominent (and wealthy) city socialites - people who jet off to their apartment in Paris "for the weekend" and attend galas and fundraisers in ballgowns. I'll never quite understand the connection people automatically make between France and haut culture (a connection that, I'll admit, I sometimes make too), but learning French, no matter how late in life, is apparently a must in high society. One thing that we've both noted about this sophisticated lot is that they compare chef stories and restaurant experiences like teenagers compare song collections on their i-pods - whoever can call up the little gem that nobody else knows definitely triumphs as the true connoisseur, a position envied by all.

H and I never find ourselves in the running. He has at least managed to pick up a few important chef's names here and there, but I'm hopeless. It's not that we haven't been to nice places in town, for birthdays and anniversaries and such - it's just that they've amounted to a handful of cache when you really need a mountain to play the game.

We've been trying lately, though. Last weekend, we were invited out by a woman, nice enough to put faith in our manners, however simple they might be, to an Italian restaurant everybody's apparently been raving about - "It has a real following..." her friend told us over wine and handmade bread. H and I had the pheasant. It was bony. I was hungry again an hour after we ate, and wished I had gotten dessert. It just didn't meet my expectations of fancy dining.

Our attempts to culture ourselves with good cuisine didn't stop there, though - this week happened to be Restaurant Week, a little celebration of all food Center City that some corporation or other sponsors twice a year, when you can sample a real, live, fancy-schmancy 3-course meal for a mere $35 dollars, a steal of a deal in some restaurants. Choosing the restaurant is an art in itself - some places are a bit dismissive of restaurant week eaters and end up giving you the cheapest bits of the menu while turning up their noses at you for going the bargain route. On the other hand, you don't want to choose a restaurant that's too cheap - the point of Restaurant Week is to experience something a little beyond your normal price range. Very delicate. I have to say, though, we made the perfect choice, and it's all thanks to our Alliance friends. Apparently, Bistro St. Tropez has been the talk of the French Alliance for awhile now, and we had a delightful meal of FOUR courses (they threw in an extra, just to be nice). They were overly polite, doting and generous, and we stuffed ourselves silly with mushroom curry soup, scallops in a cream sauce, bleu cheese encrusted salmon with pistachios and duck on a bed of lentils and raspberry chutney. The glow of the neon, blinking palm tree somehow managed to enhance the ambiance, and the 4th floor view of the Schuylkill River, was perfect. It might not be a mountain of cache, but it's another chip, I suppose, on our little pile. Even if it was during Restaurant Week.

Girl Scout Cookie Season

Those girls. They work so hard. According to a colleague with two girl scout kids, there's so much competition to push these little boxes of happy that some troop leaders actually try gorilla tactics of sabotage, making deals under the table before the official start of selling season, and stabbing other parents in the back for prime real estate. And who could deny the vital importance of the parent's workplace in the fundraising formula?

I was never a girl scout myself, but having the cookies in the house reminds me of my childhood in a different way -- I would be offered, as a treat, a box from my parents, or I would scrape together enough allowance to indulge myself a little with a box of samoas (always my favorite), and squirrel them away under my bed. The sad image of me hunching over to dig one out every so often, eating it on the floor alone while picking at the carpet isn't really my favorite childhood memory, but, looking back, I'm amazed at myself for how long I stretched those babies. I sometimes still had unfinished boxes the next time girl scout cookie season rolled around. (Where did that resolve go? Sweets are so much more precious when you're a child.)

This year, my coworker, a confident, assertive woman with a healthy streak (she steers clear of the 25-plus birthday cakes we help ourselves to every year) sent out an e-mail announcing the start of cookie season, and I went the same day to put in my order. She handed me the brochure with a sigh - she has only so much patience for things like fund-raisers, apparently even for her kids. I stood in her office, drooling over the pictures and agonizing over the fat content of a single thin mint before telling her exactly what I wanted. I hadn't even gotten to samoas yet when she replied in a chipper but slightly cautious tone: 'that's enough.' That's enough. Three boxes is enough. "Oh," I said. A girl scout cookie mom telling me to stop the madness that is my gluttonous free-fall into cookie overload. Yes. Now there's an admonishment you should really listen to. She brought me my cookies the following week, and I must say, I'm slightly disappointed. Have the cookies changed, or have my tastes? All I know is that next year, three boxes will, indeed, be more than enough.

The best remedy for food poisoning

I'm terrible at being sick. Whenever I get even a hint of the sniffles, I put on my pajamas, shuffle around our apartment wrapped in a blanket, pouring myself nonstop cups of tea and complaining to anyone who will listen. I was caught this weekend with a mild case of food poisoning - at least I think that's what it was, those ripples of pain in my ab muscles that someone I can't recall, probably a Web M.D. addict, once told me was a sign food poisoning. I spent yesterday on rotation between lying on the couch and clutching the porcelain bowl, between sleep and watching VHS tapes of pretty horrible romantic comedies that I used to collect in college - Emma, As Good as it Gets, and -- the worst of them all, and, shamefully, still a favorite -- You've Got Mail (oh Meg Ryan, remember when you could actually move your face?) You have to understand that normally I'm an avid reader, and I don't think much of turning on the t.v. unless H and I are watching a Netflix-ed item, curled up on the couch, an hour in the evening that we warmly consider 'together time' (we, in fact, had a decent conversation about what would happen to the character of Jackie on The Sopranos today, proving once again that t.v. can be the best bridge between spouses who might otherwise pass a lonely meal without exchanging words - thank you, HBO, for making my marriage just a little bit more stable). But, when it comes to being sick, I have a natural aversion to anything printed (What? I'm sick! You expect me to concentrate on reading when I'm sick?? Who can read when they're sick!).

Today I knew it was the last straw when I pulled out the second season of Full House on DVD that my sister gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. (She got it used and cheap, and it was meant to be a gag gift. Sort of. Who doesn't have a small soft spot for little Michelle Tanner?) Two episodes in, I decided I better try and eat something. Because if bad '80's t.v. shows don't have the power to heal, then what the heck does?

Neighborly nice

It's amazing what sort of neighborly congeniality natural disasters, or any kind of disasters, can conjure up. Last month during the winter crisis, neighbors were out in the street, shoveling the sidewalks together, helping to maneuver cars out of parallel parking spaces, smiling at each other with a Wow, can you believe this?? sort of expression. H helped a neighbor push his car, wheels spinning, to a spot where the tires were able to catch, building up enough speed to get himself down the street. His wife, a neighbor who must live within 20 feet of us, and seemed quite charming, dropped by some lemon bars the next day as a thank you. We had a short conversation, I closed the door, commenting to myself that they seemed like nice people, wondering vaguely about the possibilities of striking up a new friendship, and I haven't seen her since.

A friend of mine once commented that the end of a final exam was like that - you could walk out of the exam with someone you hadn't spoken to all semester long, and chances are you would still have at least a 15 minute conversation about the exam questions, how hard you thought it was, how you thought the professor would grade, etc. - because all of a sudden you had something stressful in common, the same vulnerability and desperation.

Our neighbors have crawled back inside their apartments, gone back to their normal social circles, and began diverting their eyes quickly again when they see each other. I suppose it says something that people ban together in a desperate situation, when they really need each other. Maybe it's a bit sad that we really don't have things to say to our neighbors on a regular basis. I do think it's a shame that connections and nice encounters don't happen like that more often. Guess we'll be waiting until the next winter crisis to make headway on our neighborly relationships.

My to-do lists

When I start to feel a little overwhelmed at work, I often start a to-do list - scrap paper, a pen, my scribbly handwriting, and a quick 30 seconds makes the day suddenly seem much more orderly (take that, technology!). Today, I did so around 10 a.m., and this represents the internal dialogue I had at 11 a.m. - a dialogue that I often have with myself throughout my working days as I turn back, periodically, to that to-do list:

Yes! Finished something else. Can scratch it off my list. Where is my list? Ah yes, here we go -- e-mail to Christine, done! Hmmm, where is...? Oh. I didn't add that e-mail to my to-do list. Wow. That's too bad, it would be really nice to see something scratched off my list for the effort I went to. I mean, it did take me a good 15 minutes, and it was productive. Hmm. Maybe I'll just add it to the list. E-m-a-i-l C-h-r-i-s-t-i-n-e...That really deserves an exclamation point, too - it was pretty important. And -- drum roll, please! Line through it! Mission accomplished! That's THREE things on my list with lines through them!

I really wonder if this is normal.

Christmas trees

The holidays have nipped at my heels like a beast that's excited with innocent energy but doesn't know the most appropriate ways to show his affection. They've been wonderful, really - kept me running around with visits to special people, and I honestly haven't sat down at a computer for longer than five minutes in the last week. All of this is supposed to be a pathetic apology for not posting. So there it is.

I received, for the most part, very nice gifts this year. My friends and I have all agreed on no gifts (and it's a relief - we have too much stuff already, and it's nice to be able to spend a little less). A woman that helped raise the children of our family (and who is by virtue of this fact a family member herself), Louise, gives us a tree every year in a city park - a really special gift that goes beyond stuff. She brought us a picture recently of the first one, the one that we planted ourselves (since then, a simple phone call takes care of the arrangements and the actual planting), us bundled up in our coats, me with mittened hands folded in front of me, squinting at the camera and flashing a grin that showed off the large gap between my teeth that braces have minimized since. No one could remember the exact year, but everyone agreed I must have been about five or six. She's given us a tree, and we've met there every year on Christmas day, ever since.

As we drove to the park this year in search of the new one, I felt a pang of guilt for not having any idea where any of those trees actually were. Sadly (and slightly ironically), Louise informed us that the first one (the one we actually worked so hard to drag to the middle of the park and plant with our own hands) died a few years ago (there goes any suggestion that our thumbs might be even the slightest shade of green). Still, there must be over 20 others. I can blame my incredibly dull sense of direction, and the fact that I don't live in my hometown anymore. Truthfully, I'm not sure any of the other children (inside and outside my family -- she took care of lots of children during the same period) she devotes the tree to have any idea about their locations, either. But maybe someday, during a warped reunion where we all marvel a little longer at grown-up versions of ourselves, we can walk through the park and map them all, so that we'll have a key back to each one. And we can put a little red 'x' on the map, marking the hole where the first one used to be.