10 Jun 2013
by wifemothereventplanner
in I need to tell you about this right now
Tags: Angelina Jolie, Bridges, Chicken, food, Harrisburg, humor, Life, Monsoon, Movie, Obsession, Oscars, Pennslyvania, Photograph, travel
This is the Susquehanna River, in my hometown, Harrisburg, PA. We took a quick trip over the weekend to visit family and do a joint birthday celebration for my sister and me. Me and my sister. My sister and I. Pick one.
Fun, useless fact: Did you know that Girl, Interrupted was filmed here? This is the Market Bridge, featured many times in the flick. The movie starred Angelina Jolie - in her Oscar-winning performance – and Wynona Ryder before her shoplifting days. And that poor gal Britney Murphy, before her dead days. The title of the post is an homage to one of her lines in the movie (she’s one of the patients in a mental hospital and is obsessed with owning a home with an “eat in chicken…um..kitchen” She’s also obsessed with eating whole chickens. It was a great movie. This was not a major plot line but I think of this line whenever I see a whole, roasted chicken. Freakish but true).
We came home to the below monsoon.
07 Jun 2013
by wifemothereventplanner
in I need to tell you about this right now
Tags: Airplane, Australia, australian accent, Entertainment, fashion, Flight, food, France, French, humor, inflight meals, Julia Roberts, Life, man of my dreams, Marie Antoinette, Movies, Pretty Woman, travel
I flew back home last night on a delayed flight that got me home at about midnight. So, approximately 14 hours at the airport, in transit and on the tarmac. Awesome.
But there was a silver lining. I met Leo. The French Australian gay man of my dreams. Here’s what I learned about him during our travels together:
- He grew up in Versailles. He laughed when I made my Marie Antoinette joke and asked if he lived in the main palace or the petit appartement de la reine.. I’m completely sure he’s never heard that before.
- His father and mother are both tailors. He has 4 sisters who are all still in France. He went to school to become an accountant but realized he wanted to join the family business.
- He has lived in Australia with his boyfriend for 20+ years. They almost adopted a baby some years back but spent the money on a vacation instead.
- He had a stroke at 30 and was blind for 4 months.
- At one point in the conversation he said in a very thick French/Australian accent,” I ADORE your scarf.” Then I regaled him with the story of said scarf. Bought in Paris (kismet!) by my husband. It’s a beautiful blue with what look like dark boxes from afar. Close up they are TVs. Yes. TVs.
- As we watched Safe Haven together on the flight (it was awful, I still cried at the end), I convinced him to download Sleeping With The Enemy – a much superior woman-runs-from-abusive-relationship-to-small-town movie. He admitted that he thinks Julia Roberts looks like a horse and he doesn’t know why Americans love her. I then spent 20 minutes talking about Pretty Woman, “incase I forget to tell you later, I had a really good time tonight”, “Welcome to Hollywood! What’s your dream?”. Come on. You can’t hate Vivian.
- He asked for 2 inflight meals and polished off both in an instant – which was surprising because he was small enough to carry in my pocket.
- When he first boarded the flight he walked right over to the seat and said, “hello friend”. Like Little Bill. That’s when I knew I’d love him forever.
By request – pics of my scarf.
04 Jun 2013
by wifemothereventplanner
in Brave New World
Tags: Airplane Meals, Airports, Asian, food, humor, Indian, Life, Photography, Planes, travel, Vegetarian, West Coast
Thought this would make you chuckle, or smile, or at least distract you for a minute. Your welcome.
Every once in a while (like last week and today), I have to fly to the West Coast. Per our company policy – if your flight is over 6 hours or a red-eye, you get to fly business. Before you think this is all fancy and neat, please realize that it also means selling your soul to your BlackBerry and having a phone surgically implanted on your face, but other than that, it’s cool.
After you make this pact with the devil and board your business class seat, it ain’t so bad. Free food, free booze, and enough leg room to really stretch out. All good. But in order to book these flights we have to create a profile at work, window or aisle, carrier preference, frequent flier miles and meal choices. I guess when I filled out my meal choices I picked something called Asian Vegetarian. Which I am. Which is me. So it make total sense right?
Turns out that Asian Vegetarian means that while everyone else gets a salad and some chicken with pasta, I get a full-on Indian feast. Two vegetables, rice, bread, yogurt, condiments. Delish. But also…very…fragrant. The first time I got it, I was mortified. But I still ate it. And it was so much better than salad and pasta.
On today’s flight a really nice insurance rep who was sitting next to me tried to exchange his meal for mine. No dice. You can’t just decide to be Asian Vegetarian on a whim people. Nope. Go to your travel profile and commit for life. That’s how its done.
The picture doesn’t do it justice.
02 May 2013
by wifemothereventplanner
in Brave New World
Tags: Amazing Story, Bermuda, Cruise, Fate, food, humor, India, Indian Restaurant, Kismet, Life, Photograph, Shrimp, Spicy Food, strange, travel, tv, Twilight zone, USA, Weird Story
Insert Twilight Zone Music….
In 1997, my husband and I took a cruise to Bermuda from New York City, where we lived.
Back then, there was none of this relaxed cruising stuff. You were assigned to a table. And that’s where you sat all week.
Every night, we had the same staff serving us. They were amazing.
This is a picture of one of our waiters, a gentleman from Bangladesh who loved me.
As almost all men from the old country do. Just kiddin’
He took such good care of us. Special veggie dishes. Extra spicy, for me.
Loads of extra shrimp in my husband’s scampi. That kind of thing.
We found out that he lived on the boat 10 months of the year.
Went home to his wife and kids for 2 months and was back at it.
At the end of our week we took this photo, said our goodbyes, and left a nice tip.
Cut to 2006
We were now living in Eastern Pennsylvania with our two kids and a cat
Miles and miles from Bermuda. Or Bangladesh.
I’m in Harrisburg, with my whole family.
We were there celebrating my sister’s bday – at the local Indian restaurant.
Like usual.
Guess who our waiter was.
Guess.
Yes.
I swear.
Really.
He left the cruise job, brought his family to the US, and moved to my hometown. Happened to get a job at my parent’s favorite place to celebrate all things. Happened to be working the night we were there. And happened to be our waiter. Again.
Insert Twilight Zone music again….
04 Apr 2013
by wifemothereventplanner
in I need to tell you about this right now
Tags: Cars, DC, Easter, Holiday, humor, Life, Monument, Museums, Photography, Smithsonian, Traffic, travel, Trip, Vacation, Washington DC
We took a quick trip to DC after Easter – literally. As in we cleaned up, packed leftovers, said goodbye to our family and hit the road.
My husband and I have both been to DC often, but just for work. From train to conference room to train. This was an all out tourist trip.
We landed in the capital at the stroke of 11pm. After miles and miles and miles of traffic, here’s what we saw heading into our hotel. Pretty friggin cool.
For the next two days we traveled by trolley, monument to monument, museum to museum.
It was cherry blossom festival time but a late snow meant no blooming trees (actually there were a couple but we couldn’t see them with all the Japanese tourists surrounding them. True story).
This is Julia Child’s kitchen. Recreated spoon by spoon at the Smithsonian. This was my favorite monument in all of DC. Cluttered. Utilitarian. Completely unMartha. It was awesome.
Thanks Easter bunny.
05 Mar 2013
by wifemothereventplanner
in Brave New World
Tags: America, Asia, Beach, Europe, Family, Hawaii, Holiday, Hotels, humor, Kids, Life, Peru, Pool, transportation, travel, Tropics, Vacation
I have a problem.
A Tripadvisor problem.
It happens every year.
At about this time, my mind and body starts craving/dreaming/needing a vacation. Somewhere different. Preferably to a place where trains are called metros and where you can stay in a flat instead of an apartment. Or maybe a tropical turquoise retreat where I can drink from a coconut and lay on beach.
A place where I can be Vacation Mom and Vacation Wife. The one that doesn’t worry and nag and yell and order. The one that lets you buy obscenely pricey gum from the gift shop and stay up until you feel like falling asleep. The one that doesn’t care if anyone has brushed their teeth or combed their hair. She’s awesome. I miss her.
But in order to transform into this groovy, go-with-the-flow chick we need to get the hell out of dodge first.
And in order to do that we need to find a place to go.
And every time we find a place I am compelled to that damn website to check out the reviews.
It never ends well for me.
Everyone has an opinion, and I read every last one.
MaryS from Wichita thinks the rooms at a certain resort in Puerto Rico aren’t clean enough.
George from New Jersey didn’t like any of the restaurants but loved the pool at his hotel in Hawaii.
clevergirl8 from Texas loved Peru but had a horrible time with customs at the airport.
I try to focus on just the positive. You can’t make everyone happy, I say to myself.
But then I toss and turn and doubt. And doubt.
Are people just really really picky?
I realize that I could never have been one of those people backpacking through Europe or Asia or Idaho. I need research. Data. Background. I need to know that others have gone before me and had a good time. Or not.
So we’ll make our plans for vacation and it’ll be very exciting, but deep down I’ll be thinking about MikeP from Albany, who thought Dublin was beautiful except for the hotel concierge who was a bit grumpy the whole time.
I give Tripadvisor.com 3 out of 5 stars. Lots of consumer information which usually results in the firm knowledge that no matter where you are going or what you are doing – it could have been better somewhere else.
23 Feb 2013
by wifemothereventplanner
in I need to tell you about this right now
Tags: aviation, Cars, Farm, humor, Life, Nature, Ocean, Photography, polaroid camera, transportation, travel, Trees, Woods
21 Feb 2013
by wifemothereventplanner
in I need to tell you about this right now
Tags: Car, Driving, highway, humor, Life, Nature, Photography, travel, Vacation, Vermont
I’ve never done an all nighter. Not even in college. So, last Saturday night, well into my 40s, I did it. We had 3 short days to enjoy in Vermont and my daughter had a dance she couldn’t miss. So around midnight, we loaded up the kids and left. In 6 hours we’d be having breakfast in our favorite spot in town.
My husband drove. We had coffee. We had snacks. We were on our way.
I fell asleep before we hit the highway.
To be fair, I did get up a few times. So it wasn’t a deep sleep. Does that count?
Here I am waking up at 2am…
And then 5am…
And 6:30am…(apparently I slept thru an accident that set us back an hour)
And then I woke up to this…
And this…
Totally worth the lack of sleep (on my husband’s part).
28 Oct 2012
by wifemothereventplanner
in I need to tell you about this right now
Tags: Cheese, Family, Farm, food, Gorge, home, humor, Maple Syrup, Nature, Photography, Restaurants, storm preparedness, transportation, travel, Vermont
Oh Sandy.
Right now, at this minute, we are supposed to be tucked away in Vermont. But instead we’re home, having cut our trip short. Doesn’t everyone drive 6 1/2 hours each way for a day and a half? I’m not bitter. It was a great little visit full of food and family and fun.
The East Coast of the country is a flutter – the perfect storm, a hybrid Frankenstorm is on its way! Save yourselves!
I’m not making light of it. I hope everyone is safe and sound.
So we headed home and bought a ton of crap and some booze to get us through. Isn’t that really what storm preparedness is all about?
Here’s some quick shots of our weekend.
All good times start with my munchkins -here they are on the farm. We missed the foliage by about 2 weeks – typical.
So during that short time, we went on a cheese tasting and a maple syrup tasting. We were busy. I liked the lightest and darkest versions of the syrup. All or nothing for me baby.
Cheese wise I’m not picky – except for anything “smoked” which is the devil.
And because I’m making a conscious effort to “stay in the picture” (read Allison Tate’s post on The Huffington Post called,”The Mom Stays in the Picture”). Here’s me with my husband’s gorgeous cousin. She’s the hot blond on the right. That’s her hubby getting personal with a horse on the farm.
We went to Quechee Gorge which was really cool and funky. It also reminded me of what a chicken shit I am about heights, large falls, falling to my death, etc.
Here’s my girl and my sister-in-law – this is one of 40 photos I took titled “Gorge Glam”. What?
As I posted this I noticed that my girl is a wee bit taller than her god mother! Then I cried about how fast time goes by and about how my sister-in-law was just holding her swaddled up in a rocking chair. Yesterday. Anyway. I digress.
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