wreinathewriter

Frustration from the Gazpacho Zone

2007-10-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

I swear I have made correction upon correction to my last entry, only to open it up later to see the same errors in hideous black print. Errors in agreement, in flimsy wording, tyop's, uh, I mean typo's. They look like a cold sore jumping out at me from the blog. A specific type of cyber virus. The life of a virus is long and diligent, but for the moment thankfully out of site. HA!

This time I mean it!

2007-09-25T14:38:00.001-07:00

Life in the Gazpacho Zone (written for the answers.com vocabulary challenge)

2007-09-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Mother, this gazpacho is positively dreadful. It’s full of ingredients I can't hope to identify. Can’t we do something about Gui?

Pearl, you know how Gui feels about the Spanish. He is a superb chef, but tres sensitive. If you insist on requesting gazpacho, you should know what to expect.

Mother, his grandfather’s ties to that fifth column, the French Resistance, does not justify serving julianned pig snouts at my tapas party last week. And it certainly does not excuse the frog leg paella he concocted when Father invited Dr. Sanchez for dinner. Although the good doctor attempted to be polite, you must have noticed his attempts to disguise his revulsion. My skin is covered with horripilation just thinking about it. I was agog at his uncontrolled gagging just after the main course was served. I heard from Nan later that night, she found a morsel of flipper on one of the napkins when she was laundering the linens.

Pearl, in our salad days, your father and I endured many a disappointing meal. Finding a decent chef on the pittance our trust funds yielded was close to impossible. It wasn’t until after your grandmother died that we could afford a reputable chef. I refuse to let him go and have someone of the recently-riche ilk of the Jensons abscond with his culinary genius. We would be the laughing stock of club.

Mother, from the family stories, I’d have to refer to your salad days as what most people would think of as their Kew Gardens days. Radicchio and truffles are a far cry from iceberg lettuce drowning in Seven Seas Italian.

Pearl, love, have you tasted this paté? Velvety, just superb! How can we consider replacing someone who can create this masterpiece from the liver of a goose? When we go to heaven one day, I pray that this paté, most certainly an opus dei, is there to greet us at the buffet table. Gui’s paté, a crunchy little bagette smothered in brie, served with an endless glass of something vintage, dry and red. Pearl, the ambrosia of heaven.

Mother, Gui is an ignorant simean of a man. His wife Babette is not much better. There’s hair everywhere. Hair in his nose, hair in her arm pits, hair in his ears, hair on her ankles. These people could find day work as anthropological displays at museums. And PUH-LEASE, have you noticed the fug that follows them wherever they go? The mélange of food and human particles they leave in their air stream is stunning. I feel as if I have been the victim of olfactory assault. Gui smells like a three week old escargot when he wafts through a room.

Pearl, jewel of my heart, after 13 years at Our Lady of No Nonsense, I had hoped you would see things more clearly. Life is about perspective my dear. Perhaps your university is exposing you to much too much personal choice. I think we need a delightful trip to the islands to cleanse our mental palates. What do you say love?

Oh Mother, let’s do. I think a break from the tedium of the Hamptoms is the perfect solution. OH BABETTE, ma cher, s’il vous plait, please bring us some more paté and a bottle of that ’45 Beaujolais the Jensens brought to dinner. We're going on holiday!

Just thought I'd mention, I'm honorable

2007-08-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

So, I have an honorable mention to my credit.
This is my badge of honor. I love purple, so I'm pretty happy with it. BUT the next round, I expect some big winning. The Wreina lives to write another day.

It ain't easy bein' technically challenged

2007-07-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

This has been a revealing lesson in learning how clueless I can be. I know where the on-button is on my computer, and felt pretty content with the limited power that knowlege gave me. Now, not only can I blog, kind of, I can create a hyperlink. All these years the hyperlink button has been staring at me, daring me to do something useful with it. And tada! And God said, "Let there be hyperlinks, and it was good." I can see a lot of referencing in my future for the sake of showing off. I may even venture beyond the answers.com site for references. Thanks to Liz of answers.com and Tom, my nephew the patient genius.

To the Hot Box Mrs. Thornton (written for answers.com vocabulary writing challenge)

2007-07-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

What ya’ got here, Officer, to all intents and purposes is a kind a’ quid pro quo situation, I mean ya’ know, like that movie, The Yo-Yo Affect. Let’s say there’s a wife, and she’s on a tropical vacation at a resort in Belize with hubbie and the kids. Some kinda trip he says he's won for bein' a big shot travel booker. She's real happy gettin' massages and thinkin' maybe he's not the loser she thought he was all these years. And let’s say, she finds out from the poolboy, inadvertantly like, that it’s the same place he took his mistress last month when he says he’s on a business trip to Newark. Let’s say the wife keeps it to herself and then she hires a P.I. and tracks down Jezebel. Then she confronts her at her place of employment, Nail’s N Other Stuff. And finally, let’s say the mistress didn’t know nothin’ of a Mrs. in Mr. Sugar Daddy’s life. Now there’s gonna be all H. E. double hockey sticks to pay. See, the Yo-Yo Affect is what the poor sucker set into motion.

I didn’t see that one Detective, The Yo-Yo Affect that is. All I know is the front of Quixotic Travel Agency here is covered in the strangest graffiti I’ve ever seen. This isn’t the ubiquitous art-work we see every day down at the train yard. It’s apparent this isn’t our usual graffiti perp. Who the heck uses, ABROGATE OR ELSE as their social statement? Abrogate or else? And what’s with those insect carcasses crushed all over the display window?

I’m way ahead a' ya officer. The guys from the lab were here earlier and took some samples. The initial report says it’s either the remains of African killer bees, or about a gallon full a’ mashed brown recluse spiders. They’ll let us know when they finish runnin' a few more tests. Now I’m thinkin’ it’s the killer bee theory. Try ‘n follow this. It seems like our Mr. Loverboy Thornton is the owner and main share holder in the Quixotic Travel Adventures. He comes in early ta work this morning and finds his window covered in red paint ‘n bug guts. When he called us he was babblin' about his wife an' his girl friend, an' Newark an' was askin' for a priest. We also found out that he has a serious case a’ beephobia on account of a childhood bee situation he didn’t want to talk about. He can smell bees a mile away. He practically broke out in hives when he found this mess. Then I got to thinkin’ about the spiders. Where would a body get a bucket a’ spiders this time a’ year. Especially ones as shy as those ones. I’m puttin’ my money on the bees.

I want to understand the facts so far Detective. We have a two-timing husband with a case of guilt and a worse case of mellisophobia. We have one vandalized store-front. We have two likely subjects, Mrs. Thornton and Mrs. Thornton WannaBe. Where do we go from here?

Officer, if we’re lookin’ for a suspect, my instincts tell me it’s the wife. And here’s why. She’s tee’ed off at her cheatin’ husband. She’s sick of her perfunctory housewife life. She’s at home washin' his socks and he’s takin’ them off for some other woman. She don’t want a divorce. She just wants to shake things up and get the old boy back in the harness. Make 'im sweat for awhile. Who else would know about the bee problem but wifey? Who else would be demanding some kind a’ breakup but wifey?

It could have been the mistress Detective. Isn't that a possibility? What I'm saying is, it’s possible he could have told her about the bees too. She could know about the bees, right?

Well, here’s where I earn my badge Junior. The secret’s in the words. Abrogate or else. If you're a word person like myself, that tells ya’ everything. No need for a divorce, just a break up. If it was the mistress she would a’ scrawled, DIVORCE OR ELSE, ya’ followin’ me? No reason for a divorce if you're only lookin' for an abrogation, see? Listen, while I get myself a mega-mocha-latte down at the Piggly Wiggly, why don't ya' stop by the Thornton place 'n see if there's any red paint n' bug juice under Mrs. T's finger nails?? It might be time to bring 'er in for a little one-on-one conversation in the hot box Officer. Put a little Matlock pressure on 'er. Nothin' too pushy, just let 'er know we mean business. Dollars to donuts by the end of the day we’ll be able to say, this case is CLOSED.