Don't Text & Walk (unless you want to make new friends or possibly buy antiques).

Last night, I was on the way to a Leftovers Party at a friend's house (what a freakin' brilliant idea!)... Walking distance, so I could drink as much as I wanted and crawl home if necessary. Awesome, right?

I'm walking along with my container of mac and cheese, a container of smoked salmon spread, and a box of water biscuits... texting with a college chum who had asked for my mac recipe and was quizzing me about making collard greens (because it makes perfect sense to ask the WASPiest and Yankiest and Britishest of your friends how to do these specific things). Anyway...

I make my way to the big yellow brick house on the left and ring the doorbell, which is duly answered by a woman I've never seen before. This doesn't surprise me a bit. It's a party. Party Rules - the person closest to the door answers, whether that person is the host/ess or not. Right?

Me: Hey. I'm Jen. Sorry I'm a bit late.

Woman Who Answered Door: Umm. Hi. John... Jen's here.

Enter John, holding an antique phone receiver. Like this one:

Western Electric 302, Metal with Bakelite Handset.
From oldphones.com.

John: Umm. Hi. Are you here for a pick-up?

Me: (Puzzled look.) Umm... no? (Internal monologue: But maybe I'm hoping someone will try to pick me up at this party. It's possible that that's why I'm wearing kinda tight jeans and my new Chatham College t-shirt that kinda maybe emphasizes "the twins" just a little bit. But I don't think that's what you mean. Even at all.) This is Nita's house, right?

John: Umm. No. Are you a new babysitter? Because we're always trying to find a reliable sitter.

Me: Umm. No. But I love you for thinking I might be a teenager or an undergrad. I'm looking for my friend's house. For a party.

Mrs. John (who answered the door): Of course you are. You have water biscuits. Babysitters don't randomly show up with water biscuits. That would be weird. But... do you babysit?

Me: Umm... wait. This is why I shouldn't text and walk. I think I turned on the wrong street. But that's a really cool receiver. I love antique phones.

John: Well, then, you need to see this.

Opens pocket doors to gigantic living room... FULL OF PHONES. Hundreds of them.

Me: Oh. My. God. This is so cool.

John: Do you have an old phone?

Me: I got one for cheap on eBay once, but I never got it working. (Starting to worry that this might work like stamp collecting and I might have to hear the differences between every single phone in the room).

John: Well, drop it by. I run old-phones-dot-com.

Me: I think I lost it in the divorce. Or threw it away. Or something. But if I ever get a landline again, I know where I'm getting my phone.

Alas, I did not get picked up at the Leftovers Party. No breakfast pastries involved. I did, however, have a great time at said soirée. And someone thought I was an undergrad looking for her babysitting gig. Which means that there's hope for me to get picked up at some other party. Or bar. Or street corner. Maybe by a younger man. Which would make sense, since my alma mater's mascot is, and I swear I'm not even kidding...

(Rachel) Carson the Cougar.

Rawwwwwrrrr!

Happy Snarksgiving!

Okay, so... Wow. Where to begin? Let's start with the fact that my (awesome) family does a HUGE Thanksgiving every year, but I couldn't handle it this time around. My life is just too fucked up right now to be able to cope with all of the questions... especially the ones surrounding just what the hell happened with the man of my dreams nightmares, who turns out to be incapable of sustaining a relationship if there's any discord whatsoever. Especially discord that he created himself by being bug-fuck nuts suffering some kind of crisis that, for reasons that are beyond me and the rest of the universe, he can't / won't let me or his friends help him to get through. Whatever. Maybe I'll write more about that later, but for now... let's just say that it's his loss in a huge way because I can't imagine anyone else who would put up with his bullshit idiosyncrasies and be as (a-hem) "flexible" as I am (literally and figuratively).

So, since I couldn't cope with the huge gathering this year, I was thrilled to bits to have an invite to join a group of supremely snarky local friends who are serious foodies, absurdly intelligent, and a load of fun.

At some point, I think on Wednesday night, it came to our attention that Pat Robertson had put his foot in his mouth - again - to a degree that it's a wonder that bigoted jackass doesn't have athlete's tongue.

No idea what I'm talkin' bout, Willis? Well... he asked his co-host if mac & cheese is "a black thing."

Don't believe me?  Here's the proof:

Aging Televangelist Who Reckons it's 

Okay to Divorce a Spouse with Alzheimer's 

Makes Racist Comment... Shocked?  Me neither.

So, how does my lily-White Anglo-Saxon Protestant ass respond? First, by railing about it with friends on Facebook in an epic session of comments... which of course, because my buddy Dan was involved in this, turned ultimately into a series of sexual innuendos focusing on breakfast pastries. Because that's how we roll. Much to the chagrin of some of our other friends and Dan's long-suffering wife Becky, who, I hasten to add, is ultimately responsible for the giant metal peacock that I still can't believe she didn't buy immediately, but instead alerted the rest of us to its existence and made us egg on Christine until she bought said giant metal peacock. Admittedly, it didn't take much to get her to buy it. Because we all agreed that Beyoncé needs a friend and partner-in-crime. Also, Ich bin ein berlinner. But I digress. And I'm probably not nearly as much of an ancestral WASP as my name suggests. But that's not the point.

Then... the light switch flipped, a choir of angels sang, and I remembered that Thanksgiving is really supposed to be about being grateful for all the blessings of our lives the food.

Game on, foodies.

White People Eat Mac & Cheese Too, Asshat.
Sorry. That's Reverend Asshat, I guess.

The only reason I didn't spell out "Fuck you, Pat Robertson" in cheese letters that would have browned nicely so that you could read the message (and we could have emailed a picture of it to him) is that I dropped the last few slices of cheese on the floor and the dog ate them.  To be fair, I didn't have enough cheese for the whole message even before it landed on the floor and made its way into the dog, but "FU, PR" would have gotten the point across and been cryptic enough that children who could read wouldn't have been corrupted and taught to swear by a side dish.  Also, by that time, I was eleven shots of espresso deep, I had to be ready to go in fifteen minutes, and I was covered in flour and had splattered whipped cream everywhere while making butter and buttermilk from whipping cream... because if you're going to make buttermilk biscuits from scratch, you'd damned sure better make the buttermilk yourself as well as the butter to slather onto the biscuits. Anyone care to open the betting on how many shots of espresso I've had today?

But seriously. Look at that food. Damned near all of it locally and sustainably produced. When my high school friend, Shannon, saw the pictures of our Thanksgiving spread, she commented, "Next year, I'm coming to your house."  When she learned that there was tiramisu, homemade by my awesome new friend from Milano, she said...

Correction: Next year, I'm coming to Your house... and I'm wearing clown pants (because sweat pants would simply be unacceptable). 

I'm holding you to that, Shannon. But if you're wearing the pants, you have to wear the shoes too. Because the shoes make the outfit. Or break it.

The next Village Foodies Event here in our little corner of Pittsburgh is going to involve a gaggle of astonishingly cool women... and the giant metal peacock, whom we've christened Jay-Z. We'll set a place for him and send pictures to The Bloggess. And post them here. Because we can. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, Happy Snarksgiving Weekend!