Tag Archives: South Coasting

I Feel Mad About My Neck

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© Andresr | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

The older I get the harder it is to have heroes.

I still haven’t forgiven Molly Ivins for dying, Gwyneth Paltrow for that ill-fitting pink, Shakespeare in Love Oscar night dress, or Bill Clinton for that blue, slightly stained one. (By the way, a little club soda will clear that right up, or so I’ve heard.)

But today I’m mad at Nora Ephron.

I used to love Nora. How could I not love a woman who still makes me laugh every time I order a sandwich in a deli, thanks to that wonderful scene in When Harry Met Sally? And how could I not love a woman who “fictionalized” the story of her divorce–in Heartburn –by giving her husband a beard and making his cat into a hamster? When I divorce my first husband, I’m going to make him 4’9″ and bald, with extra toes.

Talk about a perfect hero for me. She writes that most of her mistakes turned out to be things she “survived, or turned into funny stories, or, on occasion, even made money from.”

But now I’m really mad at Nora. Thanks to her recent book of essays, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, I too feel bad about my neck, and that makes me really, really mad.

It’s hard enough to go through life with a disproportionately large behind, gigantic feet, and unpolished fingernails. Now I have to worry about my friggin’ neck?

There are days when the only solace I can find when I look in the mirror is at neck level. While my hair is still thick and thankfully low maintenance, the grays in my tresses are beyond the plucking stage and I know I’ll give in and start coloring them soon. My son is voting for green.

The laugh lines around my mouth are looking more and more like crow’s feet, and when I remember to put on lipstick, it invariably ends up decorating my teeth a lovely shade of coral. The same teeth that I now have to remember to use two different kinds of toothpaste for every day: Sensodyne in the morning, for my aging gums, and a teeny tiny prescription tube of $29 super-fluoride toothpaste at night, that will supposedly help prevent me from needing another $7,000 worth of dental work this year.

And my eyes, oh my eyes. My vision is getting so bad that I gave myself 47 new wrinkles last night, from squinting down at my 4’6″ husband and asking, “You want me to do what?”

But until I read this book, I was okay with my neck. It has kept my head in the right place for a long time.

Sure, it wasn’t dripping with the diamonds I once fantasized about. And okay, it’s not usually holding up a tiara. And it’s never worn an Olympic gold medal, or even a bronze. But I was okay with my neck until I read this book. To tell you the truth, I didn’t really give it much thought. If anything, I thought maybe the sagging boobs made it look longer, more elegant.

Now, I can’t stop thinking about my neck and I can’t stop looking at everybody else’s. I’ve become obsessed with looking at the necks of the other women at school, at Little League, at the grocery store, and at the gym.

The other day I was watching Grey’s Anatomy on TV, and I had to pause it so I could go put my nose right up next to the TV where I could see and stare at Kate Walsh’s neck. She’s supposed to be 40 on the show but I counted the rings around her neck and I don’t think she’s quite that old in real life.

Or maybe she is that old, and 40 just looks a lot younger than it used to, even on TV. It’s not that I never thought about these things before I read the book, but I never thought about aging in terms of necks. I never even noticed before how many women in their 50s and 60s wear turtlenecks on sunny days, or mandarin collars when they have to dress up. Cowards.

But now I notice. Everywhere I look there are necks, and thanks to Nora, I have this irresistible compulsion to rubberneck and check them out. I can’t stop myself.

What a pain in the … you know what.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on May 25, 2007

Outsourcing Gone Wild

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Image by Sandid, courtesy Pixabay

Image by Sandid, courtesy Pixabay

“Pasadena Now” publisher James Macpherson’s plan to outsource his city government beat to reporters in India got the boot this week, thanks to public outrage about the ability of writers to report on live news events while sitting at a computer screen 9,029 miles away in a time zone 12.5 hours ahead.

Offering his rationale for outsourcing, Macpherson said, “A lot of the routine stuff we do can be done by really talented people in another time zone at much lower wages.”

While I do think the ability to actually be in the room and ask officials pesky questions is an important aspect of the job when reporting about even the most routine workings of our government, Macpherson may have been on to something with this outsourcing idea.

A 2004 study at Cornell found that 406,000 jobs were outsourced to other countries, so by now there must be a bazillion U.S. jobs being done overseas.

I’ve got to get in on this action. I wonder if I could spend a few rupees to outsource some of my more “routine tasks” to a highly qualified Indian?

I draft my Craig’s List India post: “I am seeking a competent, experienced professional based in India to run errands, provide transportation, cook meals, attend meetings and functions, assist with homework, dispense medication and nursing care, keep house, listen to and resolve family problems, maintain family order and harmony, keep family on schedule, and care for pets and elderly relatives.”

Sounds good so far.

According to Edelman Financial Services’ annual Mother’s Day survey, the combined salary of these jobs–Caretaker, Chef, Computer Systems Analyst, Food/Beverage Service Worker, General Office Clerk, Registered Nurse, Management Analyst, Child Care Worker, Housekeeper, Psychologist, Dietitian/Nutritionist, Property Manager, and Bus Driver–is worth about $773,700 per year in the United States.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Luckily, this translates to roughly about five bucks a year in India. I think I can handle that. Plus my earning capacity would increase. Just think about how much more time I’d have to write if I could outsource all of that “routine” stuff.

Only five bucks a year. Hmmm …

You know what else takes a lot of my time these days? Upkeep. If I could get someone else to clean, condition, polish, hydrate, exfoliate and exercise for me, I’d really have a lot of extra time. Plus, what a great gig for an Indian woman who might not otherwise have access to top-of-the-line hair care products and an elliptical machine. It’s a win-win. I can outsource all of my grooming, earn myself boatloads of free time, and actually help out another woman in a far away land.

I wonder if this is how Anita Roddick felt when she had the Body Shop’s Pomegranate Seed Pink Grapefruit Peanut Butter Ocean Spray Body Lotion manufactured by Nicaraguan sesame farmers?

With all the money I could save outsourcing the “routine tasks” of my life to India, I could buy a huge house with an enormous yard and lots of servants. Then I could travel around the world with Angelina Jolie, adopting orphans to fill all of those empty rooms. Of course some of my new children might be babies, and require even more of those “routine tasks” to be outsourced. I wonder what the going rate is in India for changing diapers and midnight feedings?

When Leslie’s not actually doing those “routine tasks” she’d rather outsource, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on May 18, 2007

In Search of my Inner Audrey

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Breakfast at Tiffany'sShe was elegance, glamour, sophistication, and charm personified. She taught us the meaning of the word “gamine,” and was the epitome of boyish beauty. It’s been 14 years since her death and almost 30 years since her last major film role, but Audrey Hepburn is still an icon. Today would have been her 78th birthday, and it’s in her honor that I’ve spent the week channeling my inner Audrey.

Day 1

I immerse myself in all that is Audrey by watching “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Roman Holiday,” “Charade,” “Sabrina” and “My Fair Lady,” while gracefully sipping champagne and delicately nibbling on Bon Bons. When my husband asks, “What’s for dinner?” I laugh charmingly and say, “Love darling, we’ll dine on love.” He looks hungry and annoyed.

Day 2

I consider getting a pixie haircut, but it’s taken forever to grow the layers out, and I don’t think I have the cheekbones to pull it off. Instead, I buy an enormously stylish hat, which they still sell at Nordstrom. Since I don’t have access to the Ascot Race, I wear it to a Little League game instead. Everything goes with jeans, right? Bad news: my hat blocks the view of the five people behind me. Good news: it stops a foul ball from denting my skull, plus I get a 50 cent coupon to use at the snack bar. Thanks, Audrey.

Day 3

I need a dashing man to accessorize my outfit, but Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and Rex Harrison are all dead. My husband dresses in shorts and Hawaiian shirts, so he won’t do. I settle on the ticket taker at the Arlington. He’s a snappy dresser, and in the motion picture business.

Day 4

Trying to make my speech more ladylike, I walk around Paseo Nuevo with marbles in my mouth mumbling, “the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain,” and “wouldn’t it be loverly.” Bad news: I choke on a marble and have to be Heimliched by a group of tourists. Good news: I’m Heimliched with grace and style.

Day 5

I buy myself a swanky cigarette holder, fill it with licorice, and fling it around saying (sans marbles) ” I do well on trips to the powder room. Any gentleman will give a girl $50 for the powder room.” My husband says, “Yeah. What’s for dinner?” What’s this guy’s problem?

Day 6

I do my best to lose the sarcasm. Audrey once claimed, “I could never be cynical. I wouldn’t dare. I’d roll over and die before that.” I do quite well until 7:30 a.m. when my son wakes up. Yeah, like I’m going to spend a whole day not being sarcastic.

Day 7

I try to emulate Audrey’s saintly side by volunteering to read to the blind, sing for the deaf, and walk for the wounded. I get a little discouraged when the news crews don’t show up, and can’t believe that no one brings me Bon Bons. Can I be Audrey? I’ll never fit into those skinny black pants, and her stylish flats make my feet look like U-Boats.

Instead I decide to embrace the one Audrey legacy I can actually live up to: “The most important thing is to enjoy your life –to be happy–that’s all that matters.” To celebrate her birthday I have her quote etched on a champagne glass. I toast my emaciated husband. Cheers to the inner Audrey in all of us.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on May 4, 2007

Little League, big laughs

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© Artproem | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

© Artproem | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

My son finally graduated from T-Ball to Mini Minors Little League this season and I haven’t stopped laughing. As a mom, I don’t have a whole lot of ego invested in my son’s sports career. Most dads are another story.

My experience with dads who volunteer to coach is that they fall into a few major types: the “Super Dad,” who wants the kids to learn a little bit and have fun; the “Winning is the Only Thing Dad,” who feels he’s a failure if he doesn’t make everyone cry at least once; the “I Coulda Been a Contender Dad,” who plants all of his unrealized athletic ambitions onto his kid, and never takes him out of the game; “The Clueless Wonder Dad,” who thinks that he knows all about a sport despite all evidence to the contrary; and the “Dad on the Prowl,” who only picks the kids with the best-looking moms. My husband would never volunteer to coach, but if he did he would definitely fall into this last category, and wouldn’t even pick our own kid for his team.

Despite our child’s lackluster tryout performance, somehow we managed to get a “Super Dad” coach who lives and breathes baseball. Excellent. Maybe Koss–who has never actually seen an entire baseball game–can be the first one in our family to actually take to baseball. He certainly has the long, slow, sluggish pace of the sport down, especially when it’s time to go to school in the morning.

At our first practice we got the list of equipment. Pants, shirt, hat–check. Belt, socks, spittable snacks–check. Mitt, cleats, cup–check. Huh? Cup? A Dixie Cup or a Big Gulp?

When I bought it I felt like a teenage boy buying condoms–on my way toward the checkout stand I grabbed some freeze dried camping food and golf tees, just so that the Champro Youth Athletic Cup wouldn’t look so lonely in my basket.

Speaking of baskets, my next challenge was how to put the darn thing on. Did it go inside or outside of the underwear? Was it really supposed to be made of plastic? My husband was absolutely useless in this regard–apparently the Water Polo team didn’t wear cups either.

Koss tried it on.

“What if I have to go wee wee?” he asked. Wee wee? What kind of sissy expression is that? I may not have any brothers but I know enough to know that wee wee is for T-Ball players, baseball players have to take a piss.

“If you’re going to teach to say, ‘take a piss,'” argued my husband, “you should really go for it. Take a wicked rhinoceros piss.”

Koss ended up hating the cup and not wearing it. Apparently, none of the kids did. I heard that one of the boys wouldn’t wear it because it “made him look too big down there.” All of the dads laughed when they heard this–and none of the boys could ever find their cups again.

Cupless, we were ready for first game–except nobody told us they were 12 hours long. We spent five of those hours trying to decipher a sign that said, “Alcoholic Beverages or Softball Playing.” We were very close to choosing alcoholic beverages when someone pointed out the “No” that had faded from the top of the sign.

The 17th inning started off extra slowly–apparently because they were dressing my child in a Star Wars Stormtrooper outfit so he could play catcher. I guess a full body cup is better than nothing.

“What’s he doing?” I asked my husband, Zak, as the other parents started to giggle. Apparently when the coach told him to “get down behind home plate,” Koss took him literally and did just that. I was laughing too hard to yell to him to stand up. He played the entire inning on his knees, even chasing after balls. Does Knee-Ball come after T-Ball?

We really should take that kid to a Dodger game or something.

It was finally his turn to be up at bat. At the coach’s urging, he took a practice swing that actually looked pretty good. Then all of the sudden he started to do a little dance I recognized. “What’s he doing?” asked one of the moms. Oh dear. Koss dropped the bat and yelled to his coach, “I have to pee,” and ran to find the bathroom.

It brought down the house. Talk about comedic timing. It was my proudest sports moment to date.

“At least he could have said ‘like a rhinoceros,'” said his father, the “Coulda Been a Contender” comedian.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound

Everybody Loves Leslie

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© Jiristastny | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

© Jiristastny | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

My Life as a Sitcom

Wine, chocolate, and naps are indispensable tools in my “how to deal with life” arsenal, but sometimes fantasy is the only narcotic that does the trick. As a kid I thought that life at the Brady house or singing “Hello World” with the Partridge Family looked a lot more fun than anything my family had to offer. At the very least, it seemed like my little sister should have been recast in the third season.

And now, I’ve had just about enough of this “Life with Leslie” reality show. I want to my life to be a sitcom, where no matter how monumental my problems, they can always be happily resolved in 23 minutes.

It would go something like this:

Monday: My long-lost identical twin, Lisa Dimebag, shows up at my door. It’s teacher conference week, which means I’ve only got an hour left before pick-up time to write an article, return seven phone calls, read 57 emails and watch yesterday’s Oprah. The phone rings and its my crotchety but loveable husband reminding me about baseball practice, which starts right in the middle of basketball practice.

Lisa accidentally deletes all of my emails, falls into the pool, and volunteers to drive carpool. Amusingly clumsy, but what a lifesaver. She’s so helpful and friendly; I’m going to love having a twin around.

That night, when I return a call from Kyle’s Dad at school he says something about “taking me up on my very interesting offer” in a way that makes me think my twin may be a little bit TOO friendly. I sit her down and explain, in a very older-sisterly way, that she can’t act too slutty when she’s pretending to be me. We hug. She leaves and we never hear from her or Kyle’s Dad again. My crotchety but loveable husband seems oddly depressed.

Tuesday: Koss and I enter the parent-child talent show at school. The kids all laugh at our attempt to dance like the stars. Koss can’t even do any of the lifts, even though they worked fine when we practiced by the pool.

I cry because I’m so embarrassed by my dancing. Koss tells me to “man up, mom.”

We win first place in the talent show for our beautiful singing act. We hug. Koss cries because he’s so happy. I tell him to “man up.”

Wednesday: We go on a disastrous field trip to the zoo, where the kids are treated to the unfortunate spectacle of two otters mating, and my crotchety husband makes jokes that are completely inappropriate for the eight o’clock hour. Driving back to school, I accidentally sideswipe a police car because I’m yelling at the kids to quit saying, “Why, I otter…”

When I show Officer Bud my insurance card, Koss realizes that I don’t actually have the $10 million insurance policy that the school requires to drive a bunch of seven year olds around (probably because I’ve spent all my money on dance lessons instead of real estate). Busted. My own son tells Officer Bud to arrest me.

Officer Bud, a parent himself, arrests my son instead. Koss learns an important lesson about speaking out of turn. We hug. I make him finish all of his prison dinner before I bail him out.

Thursday: I accidentally TIVO last week’s news and find out I picked all six Super Lotto Plus numbers a week late. I fantasize about what I’d do with my millions.

Dripping with diamonds, I swoop out of my limo and hire a private detective to track down my twin sister and Kyle’s Dad. I have him put Lisa Dimebag in deep freeze in case I ever need any of her body parts. My crotchety but loveable husband seems oddly happy.

I hang out at the country club and drink martinis while I pay other people to golf for me. My now-spoiled rotten son has a fit when I won’t let him buy the Miramar. He tells me I was a better mommy before we got rich. I realize he was right. We hug and we’re right back in our living room watching TV again. We didn’t win the lottery but it’s still a wonderful life and “A Christmas Carol” is on TV.

Friday: We sit at a little league game for an entire episode, with no commercial breaks and no alcohol allowed. My crotchety but loveable husband is extra crotchety.

Saturday: I get bonked on the head when a bottle of wine falls off the top of my refrigerator. I contract temporary amnesia and we run Tuesday’s episode again in fast motion. My dancing doesn’t improve, but I’m blown away by own singing voice. Hey, it’s my fantasy.

Sunday: Clip show — television-ese for “day of rest.”

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound

Pillow Talk: Confessions of a Naphomaniac

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© F4f | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

© F4f | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

I am not looking forward to Sunday.

Sure, I’ll come to love the extra daylight that comes from “springing ahead.” And yes, sooner or later I will get used to waking up in the dark. But this Sunday morning I am guaranteed to be really really grumpy.

That first day of daylight savings time always ticks me off. The clock never stopped its tick tock, so where did that hour go? I never gave you permission to take it away from me. I want my hour back and I want it now.

Not that it makes it any easier on anyone who dares to cross my path, but I’m the first one to admit that I get cranky when the clocks change. You know that saying, “you snooze you lose?” When I lose an hour of sleep, I tend to get violent with my snooze button. You never know, if I slap it around enough, eventually maybe time will stand still. It hasn’t worked yet, but that doesn’t discourage me from trying again, year after year. I’m nothing if not determined when it comes to sleep. If I cared half as much about my writing career as I do about catching my zzz’s, I’d be famous by now.

And this year, thanks to a congressional calendar caffeine conspiracy, my computer is going to be crabby too. Did I mention I want my hour back? I think I’ve finally figured out a way to do it. Sunday is the day to set the clocks ahead, but Monday, bloody lovely Monday, is National Workplace Napping Day.

I kid you not.

This isn’t a Costanza tribute, but a real made-up holiday with its own website (www.napping.com) and everything. Conceived in 1999 by Camille and Bill Anthony (Can you believe we missed out on seven years of celebrations?) Workplace Napping Day–which occurs every year on the Monday after Daylight Saving Time kicks in–is our day to lie down and be counted.

Not only have the Anthonys written books on the subject (The Art of Napping and The Art of Napping at Work), they give napping seminars (Can’t you just picture the audience snoozing away without fear of recrimination?), and have even invented their own napping vocabulary. My personal favorites are “napkin,” a napper’s relatives; “snapper,” a person who nags at a napper; “constinaption,” napping irregularity; unable to nap for several days; and “naphomaniac,” a napper who overdoes a good thing.

I’ve long contended that naps are sometimes the only things that make life worth living. My favorite thing about pregnancy was being indisputably productive (“Hello, I’m growing a person here.”) while I was catching a few extra zzz’s. Now the research has finally come out to support my theory: adults who nap regularly have a 37 percent lower chance of dying from heart attacks or heart disease.

According to the Associated Press, “the workplace nap–once derided as the refuge of the worthless and weak–is being embraced like a soft pillow by American businesses”

I love that.

In the old days, when my boss caught me napping, I would say “amen” and claim I’d been praying, or sheepishly admit that I was channeling Albert Einstein, who napped frequently during the day to help him think more clearly. Thomas Edison and Leonardo da Vinci were also known to nap regularly, I’d explain, so I’m not just yanking your chain when I say that napping is part of my creative process, boss. Besides, it’s a national holiday, you know. I, for one, will be celebrating on Monday. In fact, I’m feeling rather patriotic. I may just get a head start on celebrating Sunday afternoon.

OK contestants, what’s the zaniest place you’ve ever taken a nap? Let us know by emailing leslie@lesliedinaberg.com.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound

The Twinkie Defense

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TwinkiesI’ve been thinking a lot about vitamins and Twinkies this week, and it’s not just because I’ve started on a new diet.

First there was the Women’s Literary Festival, where “chica-lit” author Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez used a vitamin-filled Twinkie analogy to describe her books. Her brightly covered book jackets tease with titles like The Dirty Girls Social Club and Playing With Boys, evoking late night cable visions of Manolo Blahniks and Cosmopolitan-drinking single gals, but apparently there’s some actual nutrition to go along with the fictional junk food that she’s serving.

Then there was the Academy Awards, where Letters From Iwo Jima was nominated for best picture, even though I’m betting most people would rather parade around in Borat’s lime green banana sling bathing suit than sit through a two and a half hour movie about World War II.

Given the depressing state of the headlines, and the stressful lives that most of us lead, I would rather spend my hard-earned $100 evening at the movies with a laugh out loud comedy (a Twinkie) than a Film with a capital “F,” (a vitamin) that requires me to stop munching on popcorn and think.

I consider myself a relatively intelligent person. I can carry on a conversation about world events, I read books (and not just the ones for my book club), and I balance my diet of People and Star with Newsweek and the New York Times. I even watch PBS when I have to, but when it comes to entertainment, I prefer to actually be entertained.

I can’t possibly be alone on this.

Look at the movie box office figures. Maybe it’ll do blockbuster business in Japan, but here in the United States, Letters From Iwo Jima made just under $13 million dollars. To give you some perspective, that’s about 33 times less than the domestic gross of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and five times less than Jackass 2 made.

That $13 million figure is also the amount that Borat himself, Sacha Baron Cohen, will reportedly get up front from Universal Studios for his next movie, Bruno, where he’ll portray a gay Austrian fashion show presenter with a Nazi streak. Sounds like a Twinkie to me. Or does it? Could there actually be some vitamin fortification to be found in something that’s bound to be flat out funny?

Borat, for instance, was really a vitamin: I learned not to wrestle naked fat men at insurance conventions.

Keep in mind, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare are now required reading for anyone who wants to graduate from high school, but both were considered Twinkies in their day. Come to think of it, so was Jane Austen, and that was long before Emma begat Clueless. Like, oh my god, totally, I’m so sure.

Then there are all of those comic goofballs that guys seem to worship, like the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers. To me they’re not really Twinkies, but more like those pink coconut Sno Balls that I can’t stand but I know some people adore. But I’ve heard the word “genius” applied to Groucho by people I respect, more than once. So are they vitamins or Twinkies, or a little bit of both?

After quizzing everyone I know about this for the past 73 hours, I’ve come up with a theory: the Twinkies that stick with you are really vitamins in disguise.

If I were to make a list of my all time favorite books and movies, they would all be entertaining, first and foremost, but there would also be some vitamin-fortification to make them stick in my mind all these years. Think about When Harry Met Sally. Sure we all remember Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm in the deli and “I’ll have what she’s having,” but along with a ton of laughs, the movie also had some real insights about relationships. So did Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Sure Thing, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, The Breakfast Club, and, come to think of it, just about all of my other favorite movies. They’re all vitamin-fortified Twinkies–and none of them won an Academy Award for best picture.

All of which is my brilliant way of arguing that we should watch Desperate Housewives tonight, hubby. Who knows–it could be next century’s Shakespeare.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound

Confessions of a Choc-Slut

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chocolate heartI have a confession to make: I’m not just a garden-variety chocoholic. I don’t just “like” chocolate, I am truly, madly, deeply, absolutely, completely and totally addicted to it. And I don’t have particularly high standards when it comes to chocolate. See’s Candy is great, but chocolate chips will do in a pinch, and so will that last finger-full of canned frosting.

I admit it. My name is Leslie, and I am a choco-slut.

Seriously, I can’t get enough of it. When I’m having a bad day (or, let’s face it, a good day, or an average day, or just a day), I put a piece of chocolate in my mouth, close my eyes and melt as the delicious flavor of cocoa spreads warmly over my mouth, caressing my tongue with its deep, rich essence.

Plus, chocolate is a lot cheaper than therapy and I don’t need to make an appointment. And I finally have science on my side. A recent study at Johns Hopkins University found that a little chocolate every day can cut the risk of heart attack.

You can imagine my excitement when I heard there was going to be a chocolate festival in Ventura. Scrumptiously delicious visions of chocolate rivers, waterfalls, dancing Oompa Loompas and magic glass elevators danced in my mind, as we drove to our destination. The festival’s website said we could help build a giant castle out of chocolate bars. I could just picture Count Chocula overseeing the towers by wielding a fudge-filled scepter over us minions.

By the time we arrived I was drooling with anticipation.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to sugarcoat this: the festival was a bittersweet bust.

Maybe my expectations were just too high. After all, I’ve been known to dance around the aisles of Vons when I spot the first itsy bitsy seasonally-attired Hershey Bars of each holiday season–and I can’t for the life of me figure out why they don’t do them up in red, white and blue for the Fourth of July, Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day.

A little chocolate usually goes a long way with me. And like I said before, the choco-slut in me isn’t all that particular.

But in the case of this particular festival, it was a little chocolate and a whole lot of tchotchkes.

For every Churro dipped in chocolate (which wasn’t as good as it sounds) there were at least three vendors pushing decorative loaves of soap and two selling animal-themed wind chimes. For every super-anti-oxidant dark chocolate menopause cure (which tasted exactly like it sounds), there were at least three Balinese clothing importers and two old ladies selling knitted purses.

Nothing says chocolate like bankruptcy lawyers, life insurance salesmen, and Jacuzzi vendors. At least give me some chocolate with my junk mail, guys.

Sure, there were thick slabs of generously frosted cake, chocolate chip cookies up the wazoo, and thousands of tons of varieties of fudge by the pound–but there were no chocolate castles, no chocolate rivers, no chocolate waterfalls and no friggin Oompa Loompas.

Quite frankly, I felt a bit betrayed.

I walked through three pavilions and I still had money in my wallet and a shirt that was relatively free of chocolate stains. Talk about a disappointment!

Then I came across a scroll, with the “The Rules for Chocolate” on it. The author is unknown, but I feel quite certain she (and these were most certainly written by a woman) wouldn’t mind if I shared them with you:

-If you’ve got melted chocolate all over your hands, you’re eating it too slowly.

-Clearly, chocolate is a vegetable. Chocolate is derived from cacao beans. A bean is a vegetable. Sugar is derived from either sugar cane or sugar beets. Both are plants, which places them in the vegetable category. Therefore, chocolate is a vegetable.

-Chocolate-covered raisins, cherries, oranges, and strawberries all count as fruit. Eat as many as you want. Fruits are an important part of the Food Pyramid.

– Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It’ll take the edge off your appetite and you’ll eat less.

-If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.

-Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger, therefore, chocolate is therapeutic.

-Put “eat chocolate” at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you’ll get one thing done.

-A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Isn’t that handy?

And finally,

-If you can’t eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can’t eat all your chocolate, what’s wrong with you? Send it to me.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound

Coffee Confusion

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coffee cupI know that a lot of people have been obsessed with Anna Nicole Whatshername lately, or those out of this world diapers that that crazy astronautress road-tripped with (I’ve forgotten her name already), but I’ve been fretting about the real news story of the month.

In a Consumer Reports blind taste test, McDonald’s coffee beat out Starbucks.

I know, I couldn’t believe my eyes either: a bunch of blind people thought McDonald’s coffee tasted better than Starbucks. I checked the date on my calendar just to be sure that April Fool’s Day hadn’t come early. Nope. Perhaps I’d entered some kind of Bizzaro world? Taken a wrong turn off the information superhighway? That GPS can be kind of tricky.

I checked my sources again–the LA Times, the Associated Press, MSNBC, USA Today, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Chicago Tribune, Shanghai Daily, the Belfast Telegraph, Taipei Times, and of course, Fox News–all ran the story, so it sounded like a legit consumer survey.

But still, something about it just didn’t pass the sniff test. Perhaps it was the thousands of dollars I’d still have in my bank account if I’d been driving through McDonald’s instead of pulling up to Starbucks for my coffee for all of these years.

I decided to do some investigating of my own.

I felt a little strange walking into McDonald’s without having to be talked into it by my son, like I was committing adultery or something. I looked around, but I didn’t see any of his friends, so I wouldn’t have any ‘splaining to do.

The not unpleasant smell of French fries overpowered any coffee aromas that might have been wafting through the air. The comfy couches and giant plasma screen TV threw me off a bit. If not for that familiar eau de fry bouquet, I might have thought I was walking into an airport lounge, or even, well, an extra Venti, oversized Starbucks.

Apparently McDonald’s is now going for a “restaurant casual” style of decor to go with its new offerings of Lattes and Mochas. Granted, the Consumer Reports taste testers tried medium cups of coffee without cream or sugar, but that’s not really my cup of tea, so I went right up to the counter to order a Vanilla Latte.

It wasn’t bad. It didn’t have the pretty little designs in the foam like they do at Northstar Coffee or the “now I’m really awake” jolt of caffeine like you get at Muddy Waters but it was a surprisingly serviceable Vanilla Latte. In the interest of science, I guess I should have had a wine tasting spittoon handy, but I didn’t, and it tasted pretty good, so I drank the whole thing.

Next stop, Starbucks. Thank God, the decor still looks the same as it did yesterday. After my McVisit to McDonald’s, I was starting to think that hell had finally frozen over. In the interest of science, I got in line (a long line) to order my Vanilla Latte. Uh oh. They’re serving something new at Starbucks: Fancy McMuffins. That’s right, McDonald’s started brewing lattes and Starbuck’s started reheating eggs and English muffins in fancy combinations like Black Forest ham, aged cheddar cheese, sausage, and baby spinach. There’s even a reduced fat version with a cholesterol-free egg, low fat cheese, and turkey bacon, which looks a lot like the yuppie version of a McGriddle.

It’s like Starbucks is trying to compete with McDonalds and McDonalds is trying to compete with Starbucks and the earth is spinning even further off its axis, and the world as I once knew it no longer exists and I’m getting dizzy from all of this change, and I think I need a little more coffee.

Make it a McVenti please.

I’m starting to understand the diapers.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound

How about a cookie with bite?

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© Karcich | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

© Karcich | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

I consider myself a connoisseur of all things take-out.

When I got married my mother’s friends (my fairy godmothers of wishful thinking) gave me a recipe shower, where each of them contributed a recipe and a kitchen item to start me off on my merry married way. It’s now almost 13 years later and the only card that is even a teeny-tiny bit grease-splattered is the one from my sister-in-law, which lists the “recipe” to call for take-out at Empress Palace, China Pavilion, Madame Wu, Pick Up Stix, and Jimmy’s House of White Rice and Brown Sauce.

In other words, we eat a lot of Chinese food at my house.

While the Kung Pao quality and the Won Ton worth can vary from place to place and night-to-night, one thing remains consistent in all of my experiences with Chinese food–the fortune cookie fortunes almost always bite.

First of all, 97.37% of the time they aren’t even fortunes, they’re sappy little aphorisms like, “The sun will come out tomorrow,” or “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” Things that make you go “duh,” even when you try to spice them up by adding “between the sheets.”

And on the rare 7.59% chance that you do get a fortune that actually aspires to tell you something about the future, it’s inevitably something uninspiring, like, “You won’t win any math contests,” or “A pleasant surprise is in store for you.” A “pleasant” surprise doesn’t exactly conjure up fantasies of “You won the lottery,” or “You’re really the long-lost princess of Kamchatka.” A “pleasant” surprise is more like, “My son’s shirt has very few bodily fluids on it,” or “Look, his aim is improving.”

Let’s face it, fortune cookies have become kind of, well, vanilla.

Imagine how different things would be if after you’ve had your fill of Moo Goo Gai Pan, your cookie read: “You lack social skills, and your skull is oddly shaped.”

Sure, after you stopped laughing you might be a wee bit insulted when you friends don’t stop nodding their heads, but you’d certainly be riveted by the next guy’s fortune. Especially if it read, “That wasn’t really chicken,” or “If you leave us a tip we’ll stop peeing in your food, dude.”

I think that mixing in some of these misfortune cookies with fortunes like the one my husband once got, “You will meet a handsome stranger,” would make getting Chinese food a lot more fun. Just think of the fortune cookie pairing possibilities.

One person cracks open their cookie to find, “Your true love awaits you–at Match.com,” while their dining companion gets, “Someone will find great prosperity and happiness by stealing your identity.”

At the next table over, a group of friends reads, “You are very loving,” “Your girlfriend is sleeping with Tom,” and “Are you Tom? Cut it out.” Talk about some interesting post-dinner conversation.

Of course there is a downside (“Confucius says, “there is always a downside to every great idea”) to mixing up the fortune cookies with the misfortune cookies. Do we really want to give our waiters and waitresses that much control over our destinies? What if they use x-ray vision into your wallet and see that you don’t have enough cash on you for more than the used-to-be-standard-but-is-now-considered-cheap 15% tip? Do you really want to risk opening up a cookie that says, “You will have good luck for the rest of your life, as long as you do not break the cookie.”

Maybe that boring, old, non-future predicting fortune cookie advice– “Ideas are like children; there are none so wonderful as your own”– wasn’t so bad after all.

What’s the best “misfortune cookie” you ever got? Email Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com.

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound