He Didn't Go to Business School for Nothin.

Today was a day of much celebrating in the MarthaWho household. Today, we dined at the Olive Garden.

Why the jubilation? you might ask. Why would a family of serious foodies celebrate a totally blandified, pseudo Italian, tackily decorated, mass-marketed pop-up dining establishment like the Olive Garden? To which I would respond, GOOD QUESTION.

I could whip up a long answer about the constraints of dining with a feisty two year old, or the pre-menstrual siren-like lure of all-you-can-eat breadsticks. But the real reason we are celebrating our visit to the OG is simply because we actually got in.

In city with a freakishly high ratio of phenomenal restaurants to year-round residents, the wild success of the Olive Garden has been somewhat of a mystery to us. The parking lot is always filled to overflowing, and the line outside the door, in any iteration of Maine weather, resembles an LA red carpet premiere. Certainly the masses knew something we did not about the treasures awaiting beyond the grapevine-encrusted threshhold. Having never been to an Olive Garden, our interest was piqued. We knew we needed to see for ourselves.

Alas, our repeated attempts to dine at the OG were denied. Snotty teenage hostesses with delusions of Sardi's grandeur offered us hour-plus waits or a takeout menu and reminded us of the merits of "call-ahead seating" as they shooed us past the throngs of patiently waiting pasta-lovers on our way to the parking lot. Our disastrous failure to dine at the Olive Garden during our first 6 months as Maine residents breeded a near-obsession with actually accomplishing this dubious goal. Nonetheless, we never made it past the hostess. Until today.

I wish I could say that our entrees were surprisingly innovative or delectable, but I'm afraid I can only say what I'm sure you already know to be true -- that they were just... fine. The service, while not smashing, was certainly... adequate. The entire experience was pleasant enough, but nothing to write home about, and certainly nothing we'd ever wait sixty, or even sixteen, minutes for under any circumstance. Our insatiable curiousity had been quelled. The beast was at rest.

But why the wild success?

Mr. MarthaWho, over his parmesan encrusted tilapia, made a compelling case that the Olive Garden is a business that simply knows its constituency. That they've done a damn fine job of researching and understanding their market. He pointed out, among other things, the double size portions, the "bottomless" salad and breadsticks, and -- perhaps most appallingly -- the fact that our well-padded, indestructible wooden rolling chairs were about 1.5 times the size of a normal restaurant chair. In a time where 60% of Americans are battling obesity, the Olive Garden has made it OK to come out and eat an oversize (bottomless, even!) portion, in an oversize chair built to withstand the weight of the Eiffel Tower, while teenage servers gleefully shred cheese on anything not nailed down. The fact that the OG succeeds as a PASTA joint in this carb-wary Atkins-obsessed era is also seemingly worthy of admiration.

Mr. MarthaWho makes a good point. Perhaps the marketing strategy behind this gluttonous fantasyworld is the Olive Garden's biggest success story of them all.

Now, can anyone explan WTF "call-ahead seating" is???

Blessed Art Thou Among Women!

Three cheers to Jenn over at Yo Ambro! for answering the Meme call. Y'all are good sports.

Something on Jenn's list really hit home...

From Jenn's list:

"...6. I'm not a religious person, but when I'm feeling nervous about something, I will often say the Our Father and/or the Hail Mary over and over to myself to calm myself down.
..."

I do the SAME THING. And I end up having to bust my own repressed Catholic chops every time. For me it's all about the Hail Mary. EVERY TIME I am on a plane (which is often for work) I have to say three Hail Marys in a row as the plane is leaving the ground. I do it almost against my own will and then immediately psychoanalyze the act for ten minutes. Or at least until the drink cart rolls my way.

Why the Hail Mary? I have no idea. But it does make me feel better every time.

While I feel like a dork for participating in and sharing the Meme love, I have to say I have learned a lot about people, and I've been reassured as well that we all share many of the same idiosyncratic tendencies. Makes me feel a bit more human.

Mercury and Me

Yesterday, in the USAirways terminal at LaGuardia, on an interminably long delay between legs of a business trip flight, I purchased a book called "Marley and Me" and sat down to kill some time. I had seen the author, Josh Grogan, in a quick TV interview last week, and although I was only half listening, the subject matter (pet dog) was interesting, and I gathered that the book was becoming somewhat of a cultural phenomenon, as it rapidly tore up the bestseller lists, unseating the Joan Didions and Sue Graftons and Clive Cusslers along the way. ( a quick check shows that Marley is now second only to some memoir written by Laci Peterson's mother -- a quick pulse-check on issues that are most sacred to literate Americans -- grisly homicides and treasured pets).

Anyone, anywhere who has loved and lost a pet, should read this gem. It's no spoiler to know what the press already announces -- that the book is a memoir of a dog's life. The author recounts the 14 years of Marley's life, from the moment he leaps into their lives, until he quietly crosses the rainbow bridge to that big doggie park in the sky, and of course everything in between... managing to both entertain and touch an enormous heartstring, while capturing the essence of life with a Labrador Retriever.

Back at LaGuardia, perhaps the only person in a business suit sobbing like a red-headed stepchild for two hours, I devoured Marley's adventures, and reflected on the impact that pets have had in my own life.

I came home to my cozy snow-covered house late last evening, and as Mr. MarthaWho was busy putting our daughter to bed, my Lab Mercury was my welcome wagon. I sobbed all over again, as I let him jump all over my suit, my laptop, and tear apart my purse... Mercury is a youngster... barring any unforeseen tragedies or illnesses, I have at least 5 or even up to 10 more slobber-ful years with my loyal companion, but last night after reading this book, I was somehow already mourning the death of my bestest boy.

Surely by the weekend he'll be back to his second-class citizenship status, but last night he slept at the foot of our bed and there were a few extra cookies in his bowl when he woke up.

Mr. Grogan, Mercury and Me thank you.

Somewhere in Samoa, A Native Rejoices.

I could always tell it was March when we lived in Boston. Fresh mangos returned to the Haymarket. The chess players returned to Au Bon Pain. The EuroWannabeHipsterFreshmen took their lattes onto the Harvard greens.

And, perhaps most importantly, the return of the Girl Scout Cookies. For the last 5 years I have purchased Girl Scout Cookies in the bowels of the MBTA transit system. Dark transactions in seedy corners, handing crumpled bills to middle aged women surrounded by boxes. Usually nary an actual Scout in sight. I marveled at how far the Girl Scouts had come... building a vast cookie empire without the involvment of any Girl Scouts whatsoever. It now appeared as though the Girl Scouts had successfully abandoned the door to door cookie canvassing in favor of around the clock subway station kiosks, staffed by moms and troop leaders. A brilliant strategy, perhaps conceived by the little brownies themselves... I liked to imagine that somewhere in Brookline, a 9 year old was on her cell phone at Starbucks, earning a scout Badge while her mom hawked TagAlongs in the Big Dig. Now that's progress!

In Maine, confidence in humanity was briefly restored this weekend when an actual, bonafide, sash-wearing, beanie-sporting, REAL LIVE Girl Scout knocked on my door with a cookie order form.

Brilliant!

Not only could I be motivated by seeing what my neighbors had already signed up for ("oh.... Mrs. Henderson ordered 4 boxes? Well, Mr. MarthaWho and I will take 7!"), but I could pore over the full color photographs of the delectable treats. The instant gratification of the dank subway impulse buy pales in comparison to the simple art of the traveling salesman. And what better marketing gimmick is there than an adorable 9 year old kid with a toothy smile and a long order form?

Another note about progress... Of course Mr. MarthaWho and I ordered up on our favorites -- we really love Thin Mints. But everyone who's everyone knows that The Cookie Formerly Known as Samoa is the best.

Thankfully someone at Scouting Central realized how culturally insensitive this cookie was and changed the name to Caramel Delites a few years back. Now if someone could just DO something about the pricks behind Hawaiian Punch and Brazilian bikini waxes, I think we all agree the world would be a better place.

Holly GoDarkly

I just finished Truman Capote's recently discovered last (first!) novel, Summer Crossing, and thought it was heartbreakingly wonderful in that Breakfast at at Tiffany's kind of way, except darker and more hopeless. I had to read the last page 5 times to make sure I understood what happened, and that I understood it was the end of the story and that there wouldn' t be any more pages coming after it.

I definitely hopped on the bandwagon in 2005 and had a Capote-assaince of my own. There are worse things to admit to, I suppose.

I'm now finally making my way through this David Sedaris book and thoroughly enjoying it as I have every other time I've tried to pick it up. I 'm not sure why I can't even just read it cover to cover...?

Next on my reading list is The March by E.L. Doctorow. My other half is 50 pages from the end. I'm literally starting at him waiting for him to finish. Ahh such is the excitement on a winter Friday night in the burbs. Glad I have a laptop and a new remote-control operated fireplace to kick back in front of. Nothing like the click of a button and the roar of a propane generated flame to get the party started.

The Baby Gourmet: An Extremely Short Play

SETTING: The pre-dawn darkness of MarthaWho's home. MarthaWho is sleeping in the Master Bedroom. Marthawho's 21 month old daughter is sleeping in her own room in her crib. The time is roughly 4:30AM.

DAUGHTER

(breaking the stillness via the baby monitor in MarthaWho's room):

Ma-ma!

Maaa-ma!

Polenta.

I want Polenta!

PLEASE!

Please.

CURTAIN.



p.s. I think my daughter has had polenta once. Months ago.

Martha Who? Me! Me! Meme, that's Who!

What the hell is a meme? I had no idea until Kristen over at Cookie Crumbles gave me the tag. I don't recall ever responding to one of these via e-mail but it is a new year after all. Though I'm totally challenged to find ten things that nobody knows about me... here is the college try:

Ten Things You Never Knew About Me

1. I saw the New Kids on the Block live in concert. Twice. When I was old enough to know better.

2. In 6th grade I deliberately misspelled a word in a county spelling bee in jr high school so that I could avoid the pressures of advancing the State spelling bee. It had been 60 minutes in gridlocked final spell off with an intimidating 8th grader from another district (oh where are ye now Scott Chelidona?), and I couldn't take it anymore. The word I took the fall on? "Trove" (which I spelled as "Trough" which caused a brief controversy when the judges thought I had misheard the bee-master and wanted to give me another word. I had to remind them I asked for a sentence and a definition. It nearly blew up in my face). I felt a bit idiotic. But that sense of relief in the car on the way home... well it's a euphoria I will remember forever. I misspelled words on purpose in the 7th ("Proponent") and 8th grade ("Parallel") school spelling bees so that I'd never have to advance beyond school, district, or county again.

3. I had never eaten (or heard of) tortilla chips and salsa until I went to college. I grew up in rural Maine in the 80's. Dorito's were ethnic food.

4. I once interviewed the band, Collective Soul, when I was a DJ on my college radio station. I found out about the interview 15 minutes before they showed up. I had never heard of Collective Soul. I was DJ-ing a jazz program.

5. A roommate and I used to house-sit for a DC family with an enormous and lovely house in NorthWest and a menagerie of pets. On separate occasions, the following happened: all of the fish in their tank died. Their Golden Retriever had a stroke. We got locked out of the house and had to call a locksmith. The hamster died. The dog broke his front leg while on a very gentle walk in the park. We started a small fire in the kitchen. There was an intruder on the lawn and we had to call the police. And on the last time I house sat alone while mom and the kids were visiting family in France, dad came home from his "business trip" and slept in the basement while I was upstairs living in his house. I think there was a "le divorce" soon after that. We never saw them again.

6. I am about to embark on a massive re-write of a musical version of The Scarlet Letter (stay tuned...)

7. In 2002 I lost 30+ pounds after visiting a vegetarian health spa that literally changed my life. The following year, when I was 9+ months pregnant with my daughter, I never hit that 2002 pre-spa weight.

8. I have a chronic and legendary problem with losing my house keys. This condition peaked in the 90's when I was living with my best roommate in Washington DC. Perhaps the subject of another post entirely, those madcap years were full of broken doorknobs, angry landlords, midnight scalings of three story buildings to reach unlocked windows... My roommate bought, as a joke, an incredibly cool key holder made out of an old door, with an antique doorknob in the middle of it. Ten years later it is still in my life, the only thing separating me from a long term contract with a locksmith.

9. I will do nearly anything, and at almost any physiological cost, to keep from vomiting. I will suffer for hours, days, "willing" the nausea away rather than take the instant (and probably better) relief of actually expelling the badness. I also almost never take any medications, and have a pain threshhold higher than most people I know.

10. Even in the age of Tivo, I still don't answer the phone on Thursday evenings when Survivor is on. Sad, but true.

OK. So I think the deal is I'm supposed to "tag" 5 new people. I'm not sure I have deep personal relationships with very many other bloggers ... so there will be some familiar faces and some long shots. Pony up friends -- be a team player!

1. My favorite Bourgeois Deviant (do it for bananas)
2. Mr. CheckyPantz (love your show, babe)
3. Yo Ambro! (it's about time I start linking to your blog anyway! :-)
4. LuckySpinster (maybe I'll send YOU a bumper sticker...)
5. El Guapo (Dios mio! if you haven't read this guys' blog, you must start...)

Let the wild rumpus begin.

Haiku, por vous

Oh my stars...

I didn't win, but it truly was an honor for my Best Buy Hate Haiku to be honorably mentioned by the great Spinster.

Thanks for the bumper sticker and the creative outlet.

I mean like, you know
Serious Haiku Poets
Crave outlets like these.

Art Imitating Life?

I rather spontaneously auditioned to be in the ensemble for a local production of Ragtime last week and have just been invited to a callback this weekend for this part.

I sincerely hope that anyone who knew me prior to 1996 will see the irony, ...or at least smile.

Letter from my Daughter to: Home Depot

the third in a random series...

Dear Home Depot,

For as long as I can remember -- and I'm almost two, so that's a loooong time -- I have loved shopping at your store. Thank golly god that we have always lived within a 5 minutes drive of one of your mega home supply stores. At least once a week I beg my parents to take me to your store, crying, "Home Depot? Deeeeee-Poh? Deeeeeeeeee-Poh? Pleeeeeeze?" until they drive me there -- there, where I can run freely up and down your wide aisles, hiding my face in the big hanging rag rugs, staring in wonder at the forest of lumber, ten times higher than my self.

I can wistfully recall times spent with Mommy browsing paint chips for the 300 times she re-decorated my room. And Daddy and I, well we enjoy looking at the big guns - lawnmowers, snowblowers, and riding John Deere's we'll never have use for (but a girl can dream, can't she?). And then there were all the hundreds of times we popped in for a lightbulb, or an ant trap, or a battery, or a roll of packing tape.

Anyway, the point is, every time I've needed you, you've been there. Until now.

After the many years of our satisfying retail arrangement, the thousands of dollars spent, and the projects we've completed around the house, we decided to take the next step in our relationship -- hiring the Home Depot to install a new floor in our kitchen.

It took Mommy 5 months to convince Daddy that we could afford to replace the disgusting circa 1940 linoleum floor in our kitchen. And when we finally sold our old house, and were back to one mortgage again, Daddy gave his consent. Together and triumphant we made a family field trip to Home Depot and spent hours picking out the coolest slate-looking laminate. For $50, a nice man came out to our house a few days later and measured the kitchen. He also checked the floor to take a moisture reading -- because, as we learned, moisture is the enemy of laminate flooring. After a quick check, we had the all clear to order our floor. We did have to listen to that guy Pete talk for 2 hours about the installation process, but he did give us a 20% discount on the special order. We were feeling great, paid for everything and scheduled our installation for after the new year.

Last week your flooring subcontractor came out to install the floor. As he was starting to tear up the linoleum he remarked that he should have the whole room done in one day instead of two. We were wicked psych-ed. But an hour later, as more of the linoleum came up, he discovered a huge moisture problem under the floor. Unable to install the laminate, we had him rip up the rest of the hold floor (he was almost done anyway).

Now we're left with a room that looks more like an archaeological dig than a kitchen. All this because your measuring man did not report a moisture problem when he came out. And of course you have agreed to refund the installation labor, and some of the other ten hundred nickel and dime line items on the invoice (I mean, does it really cost $150 to slide the refrigerator out of the way as you work?), you will not allow us to return the floor unless we pay a 15% restocking fee. Of course the cost of the floor is where you were making your money anyway, so why would you let us out of that easily? Even if it was your mistake, and your fault now that I can no longer walk in our kitchen for a juice box and some goldfish unless I wear shoes to prevent splinters and nailheads from piercing my tender toddling tootsies.

On the upside, Mommy and Daddy really do like the floor we purchased. And we are planning on fixing our subfloor this month and hopefully we can still use the tiles. But you can rest assured we will not be coming back to you for the installation, nor will we be coming to you for our next few projects. And since Daddy says we live in a Money Pit, I think you're going to be the big loser here.

I'm sure we'll continue to stop in for batteries and paintbrushes, but it will take a long time before my confidence is restored. In the meantime, I suggest you take a step out of your big box retailer mentality and put some service back in customer service. You may also consider at least temporarily changing your slogan to:

Home Depot: You can't do it on your own, and We're going to leave you hanging.

My regards,
MRK

New Vision

For anyone still lurking on this blog... a shameless plug for a policy think tank started by my cousin Scott -- you can read their mission statement here.

I also received this message from Scott/NV this morning with some exciting news -- please vote if you have a moment!

From Scott:

"...I have two exciting bits of news to report. The first is actually a request for your help. The service employees' union has been sponsoring a nationwide contest to come up with ideas from beyond the beltway, from people other than the usual suspects, etc. We submitted a handful of ideas last month, and my friend Chris's idea was among 21 chosen out of over 22,000! Now we need your help. Until 11:59 EST on Sunday, January 15, anyone in the US can vote for their top 3 choices out of the 21 remaining. We need you to vote for our idea! It's really easy to do so. Just go to www.sinceslicedbread.com. You'll have to create a username and password, then you can vote for 3 ideas (in fact, you have to vote for exactly 3). Chris's idea is "Retool the EITC to Promote Savings". It proposes that the tax code be changed so that recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit -- a tax credit that goes to working families in low-wage jobs to encourage work rather than welfare dependency -- can direct some of the credit toward interest-bearing savings accounts. The federal government would match a fraction of the amount redirected. The policy would not only reward work through the EITC, making sure that "people who play by the rules" benefit, it would encourage savings among the poor, who are often unable to save even minimal amounts.

"...The second bit of news is that the policy brief on scholarships for summer programs for young disadvantaged children that I wrote with four of my classmates and that the Center for American Progress sponsored has met with a good measure of success so far. Last month, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) submitted a bill in Congress funding a demonstration project based on our proposal. The STEP UP Act is officially Senate bill 2149 and is available at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:s2149is.txt.pdf. Senator Obama's floor statement may be read at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r109:FLD001:S14189 (click on the S14187 link). We are excited that the first product that New Vision undertook has reached this level of success, and we hope to see Senator Obama's bill incorporated into the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind later this year. For more on New Vision, including recent housing briefs produced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, see www.newvisioninstitute.org..."

More of my regularly scheduled ramblings soon...

Peace out.