CEiMB: Greekish Indian Strata

I have a hard time telling this to people, especially when I'm invited over to someone's house, but I really don't like eggs. Fried or scrambled, put into little holes in toast, omelets or Benedicted, they always leave me with a bad feeling in my stomach. The only way you can really enjoy eggs is if you cover them in cheese, salsa, and avocado (in my humble opinion), and after that epic event, you spend the rest of the day on the couch, flatulating, holding your stomach, watching random movies from 2003 on FX and wondering two things: How did Jamie Foxx go from "In Living Color" to "Ray"? Was Satan involved? and Why the hell did you eat those eggs?

I hate talking about my issues with eggs because I personally have a huge problem with the Texture People. You know who the Texture People are. They're the ones who refuse to eat artichokes because of the texture. They can't stand eggplant. They turn their nose up to ground beef and baklava. They start looking at your plate of tilapia and roasted Brussel sprouts, and you can see them envisioning a more welcoming plate of broken glass. You really want to push them under a bus when they start talking about how Swiss chard reminds them of feet.

So because the Texture People have gone and ruined everything again for all of us, I try to keep my dislike of eggs to myself. I smile when someone lovingly says "I make the best omelets!" To me, that's kind of like saying "I'm a great hiccupper!" Good for you, but really, of no great use to me. Now, say "I make the greatest coffee you've ever tasted," and there is a chance my firstborn will share your name. But no one ever says "I make the best coffee you've ever tasted." It's too intimidating to say. Coffee is serious, delicious, and absolutely vital to my daily life. Eggs suck from the beginning, so even if you totally and completely f them up, they're still going to be better than they were at first. So go ahead! Make those best eggs!

I should share one caveat. I do like the runny eggs, or eggs over easy. Because that way, they, like ketchup and maple syrup, serve as a vehicle for all the other delicious things you put on your plate. In my case, this means I have an all-natural gravy to go on my bacon and hash browns. And the Lawyer from Southie makes awesome eggs over easy, with plenty of runniness. This is possibly one of the reasons why I have physically attached myself to him permanently: once you find the perfect man, you cannot let him escape.

But the strata! Ellie's strata! It's awesome! It's full of vegetables and bread and cheese, so it's HARDLY an egg!

No...not really. It's still an egg. It's basically a quiche, which again, go ahead with your hiccupping. So I did change things a little. Because I knew that I would have to overpower the taste and texture of the eggs, I soaked my bread and then added green chili paste, which I get from an Indian grocer. I wanted to really stuff the thing with flavor, but not the flavor of broccoli, onions, and mushrooms. Those are the flavors of a stirfry, and stir fried eggs make me need to take some personal time to myself. I instead went easy on myself, using a plum tomato and a quarter of an avocado.

I also held back on the cheese, which is why I don't have the gorgeous golden brown that everyone else seemed to end up with. I topped the strata with some homemade tzadiki sauce, which I needed to cut the heat of the chilis.

I would eat this again. I won't lie - I walked past three Dunkin Donuts this morning on a variety of walks, and the urge to get a Boston creme donut was rampant within me. You know that feeling when you see someone walking down the street with a box of mixed dozen, and you think to yourself "How much jail time would I really get for pushing him down and stealing donuts? I'll bet they'd never even catch me. And if they did,there wouldn't be any evidence to convict me with..." Yeah. I had that feeling this morning. And when you do have that feeling, it's hard to get excited over eggs.

But I'm actually really happy I made the strata. It was fabulous.

TWD: Crumbled Meringuey Pineapple Travesty

I'm in the process of going through a bunch of old boxes and getting rid of things in anticipation for yet another move. And in the process of doing this, I came across all of my old yearbooks and report cards from high school. I've mentioned this on the blog before, but I did in fact graduate from a military school. While I think my experience was a little less what most people envision when they think of military schools, it still sucked. And I am still bitter about several events, which I will try not to bring up in public. Save it for the reunions.

While I was in military school, I had to attend a class entitled "Leadership." Leadership class was taught by Major Duckett, who was both a veteran of foreign wars and the swimming coach. He was a man who most likely had watched the movie "Patton" a few too many times, and could have used a little more "Stripes" or "Private Benjamin" in his life. Leadership class was affectionately referred to as "Guns and Swimming" by his students. Because, according to Major Duckett, all examples of effective leadership could be summed up with an analogy using either guns or swimming. Successful takeover negotiations had something to do with an AK-47 or the flutter kick, trust me.

"Now, picture yourself deep in a hot, wet, stinking jungle, crawling on your stomach through a mud bog that is booby trapped with fire ants and 80 pounds of explosives. You've got 30 minutes to rescue your buddy Tommy from back in Omaha, cuz he's locked in a bamboo cage guarded by a tiger and a 13-year old with a twitchy trigger finger. And now your lieutenant has his panties in a bunch because the radio isn't working and the sliver in his darn butt might be infected. YOU'VE GOT 27 MINUTES TO SAVE TOMMY. NOW. WHATCHA GONNA DO?"


The answer never involved pacifism, I can tell you that. I tried that one a few times, and poor Tommy got eaten by the tiger.

Guns and Swimming started being called "Nam and Swimming," and toward the end of the term, "Divorce and Swimming," which I think all of us failed.

So in looking through my old boxes of yearbooks and report cards, I found my leadership assessment from Major Duckett. This was an assessment of my ability to lead "in the field," where I was apparently not very exceptional. The assessment was then given to my dorm mother, who would communicate it to me. Because, honestly, in the chain of command, the dorm mother plays a crucial role.


It read: "Duffy _____ has a decent head on her shoulders. However, she often tries very hard for no great reward. She needs to learn that sometimes the most effective leaders are those who bring up the rear."

I actually remember getting this assessment and being very angry at Old Ducky. My friend Tony offered to shine a pen laser in his window after dark, sparking a possible flashback. We decided that was probably too cruel, but it was a great idea. However, something about this assessment must have stuck, because I've been bringing up the rear since then.

I thought about Major Duckett this week, while I tried in vain to make this recipe. I mean, I should have known, you know? We're talking about a cake, made of layers of meringue.

Those layers of meringue are then topped with ganache.

Major Duckett probably needs my email address. He needs to remind me: "Duffy - just remember how much you sucked at Guns and Swimming. The meringue cake is beyond your abilities as a cook, and you should instead put forth your energy into something you're talented at. Like, well, the many things you are talented at. I'm sure you'll think of something."

Because here you have it. It's what I'm going to call my Crumbled Sweet as All Hell Pineapple Travesty. I honestly thought I was onto something when my egg whites actually came together, whipping into stiff, glorious peaks. But then, well, blah. I read all your Ps and Qs, and followed all the directions with the focus and intention of an Amish cab driver. But here you have it. My crumbly mumbly travesty. All the separate elements tasted wonderful independently, but I'm still thinking about actually eating this thing. We'll see. I have guests tonight, so there's always the opportunity to make them suffer my failures.


HOWEVER, I am going to take this opportunity to lead from the rear, and do what I'm good at, which means I'll be looking at all the other amazing creations from other TWD bloggers, and commending them for their leadership skillz.

weekend 6.12

We made what is really becoming the usual retreat out to Rhode Island again over the weekend. The Lawyer from Southie is really fortunate to have parents who a) are very cool, b) live in a very cool house, and c) live in a cool town that is within a reasonable distance from Boston. And I think it might make sense that I'd be stressed out, spending the weekend with someone else's family and all, but strangely enough it's the most relaxing place I can imagine. We seem to get out of Boston, off I-93 and my stress levels seem to drop instantly. Maybe it's looking at the water, maybe it's the nice people we're visiting, maybe it's the fact that my dog is off the leash and not threatening to maim a small child....I'm just much more chill.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that they were all looking at buying a new boat, and the new boat has been found and bought. It's a used motor boat, but I think The Lawyer and his father are the kind of people whose interest would be lost on something new. Because if you get something that's a little older, you have the option of taking the entire thing apart and putting it back together again. You can say things like "I have no idea what the previous owners were doing - they were clearly idiots." If you buy a boat new, you don't have this option. You can't really claim that a boat dealer is incompetent. Well, honestly, give them a few hours. They'll

find a way, I'm sure.

So The Lawyer and his father disassembled their new boat and laid everything out neatly on the dock. They put it back together over the weekend, in between trips out to the cove and harbor booze cruises. When it comes to sailing, I never, EVER drive. Never. The one time I did, I ran us aground and almost lost my brother to the sea. The lawyer knows this, but attributes my lack of helm time to a serious low self-esteem issue rather than karmic disposition. So on Saturday, as we were cruising around the harbor, he nudged me and offered the wheel to me. I protested a little at first, but then thought to myself "Hell, this is going to be awesome. I so want to drive."


The steering wheel was in my hands for less than 45 seconds - enough time for me to feel a surge of power, of exhilaration and satisfaction at the wind in my hair, the pulse of the boat under my control - before Dixie barfed all over the Lawyer from Southie's mother's rain jacket. All. Over.

See? This is what happens when I'm at the wheel. Not even a minute before everyone's puking.


I spent the weekend relaxing. I sailed, I reclined on a motorboat while The Lawyer ferried me around, I read The Divine Comedy on the back deck and drank wine from a box. I baked cookies and photographed snails. I prepped dinner for The Lawyer to grill, and I ate seedless watermelon. It was a great, great weekend.

One thing we did do was make a great blue cheese dressing to go with some Buffalo chicken breasts we grilled. It was simple and delicious, and I highly recommend it. You can eat that blue cheese stuff that comes in a jar, or even worse a bottle, but it's not real. Whatever it is, it's fake and you know it. But this is an easy enough recipe to make on your own, you can tweak it to be more or less blue cheesy. It's great as a dip on potato chips, or as a spread on your sandwich.

Blue Cheese Dressing

1/2c buttermilk
1/2 low fat sour cream
1c blue cheese, crumbled or grated (note: do not use gorgonzola)
zest of half a lemon
crushed black pepper

Make sure you let everything meld in the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving. If the dressing is too "runny" for you, add more sour cream, but be sure to balance it out with black pepper.

Oy vey.

I was supposed to bake a delicious, nutritious chocolate pie last night. But things didn't decide to work out in my favor.

We raced in Boston harbor last night. I was on a boat with a man who suffered a stroke a few years ago, and as such, he has a very difficult time communicating, moving, seeing. The one thing he can do, however, is sail a ridiculously nice, fast boat. He keeps his foot at the center of the boat, feeling the keel pull against the tiller and the vibrations below him. We beat everyone else by miles. I try not to talk about this at home, because the Lawyer from Southie was on one of the boats that we beat by miles. It's hard to tell the man who just cooked you dinner that a sailor who can't really see, walk, or talk just kicked everyone's ass. It's like squirrel versus coyote, and squirrel is all like "YOU GOT PANTSED, SUCKA." Or something along those lines.

At the same time, however, I got my left knuckle slammed by a winch handle and it bruised to the size of a golf ball. We had Heineken to ice it with, but I got impatient and just drank the beer. That helped temporarily. The crew boss couldn't remember my name for the entire night, so I answered to the name Oprah. It rained.

I went home to spend exactly seven minutes there, 5 of which were in the shower, before heading out to eat a frozen pizza and fall asleep in front of Conan, who honestly wasn't that great. We're still trying to make jokes about George W. Bush being stupid, apparently.

So far this morning, I've gotten a $40 parking ticket, scrutinized Kate Gosselin's abdominals for her tummy tuck scar, traded coffee and a bagel for a Diet Pepsi and a PBJ on (gasp) white bread, and been asked by my assistant whether or not I meant to have my hair look like that. I've read a blog post on the mucous plugs of pregnant women, considered google-imaging said mucous plugs, then decided against it. I've looked at this photo of Phil Specter for minutes on end, wondering who the hell he thought he was fooling with all those wigs. And what is his new wife's IQ? 30 maybe? Someone guess.


I'm guilt-ridden because my dog's hair is too long. I'm guilt ridden because I haven't picked up the posters for an event I'm supposed to be promoting. I'm guilt ridden because I violate at least four of my friend's eight cardinal rules for wearing sandals. I'm guilt ridden because my good friend is in town to see the Yankees-Sox game, and it's going to rain. I'm such a shitty hostess.

Happy Birthday, Mom. Your daughter misses you uncontrollably.

TWD: American Baked Apples

I realized recently that sometimes we push the ones we love into situations they're not wholly thankful for. Sometimes we push the ones we love into situations that cause them great anguish at the cost of our own enjoyment. Sometimes we push the ones we love into eating food that they might not totally appreciate as much as all the people who commented on the epicurious website.

This comes on the tail end of a weekend of shared experiences between the Lawyer from Southie and me. Over the weekend we went on a little vacation together. I was extremely excited to get on the plane with him - I couldn't stop fidgeting and dancing around, I kept hugging him and patting his cowlick down.


"Aren't you so excited?" I asked him. "We're going on our first vacation together!" It seemed like a magical moment for me.

"Yup," he answered, in that noncommittal way he has that I think I overlook just because he carries my bag. "But you do realize this is a family vacation, don't you?"

And a family vacation it was. We spent two nights with the Lawyer's brother and pregnant sister in law, two days with my mother, and an afternoon with my cousin and her two perfect, extremely athletic children.


While we were at the Lawyer's brother house, I was told one of the most disgusting, disturbing stories I've ever heard. Apparently a family friend of theirs is a bit off-balance up top, and he showed up to a wedding with a woman he met when he advertised for the need for a nude model. TLFS's brother was having a conversation with the guy and his model girlfriend at the wedding table when he was told how she ate a deer heart out of a carcass of roadkill to prove her love to her new boyfriend. Apparently this was his idea, he had found the carcass and taken out the heart and cooked it for her. And apparently up until this time, she had been a very strict vegetarian.

All the while, the model girlfriend sat next to her batshit crazy boyfriend and nodded in agreement. She had eaten a deer heart, from roadkill, to prove how much she loved him. Now, the real question is who was crazier, the batshit crazy boyfriend or the model girlfriend. It obviously became very difficult for TLFS's brother to hold a serious conversation with the two of them after that. You have to sit there at a wedding and pretend like everyone is normal. You can't really just segue into a conversation about the bridesmaids' dresses.

So I started thinking about all the things we make each other do, and eat, as a gesture of how much we love each other. If you've looked at this blog, you'll see that I have some real doozies on here - some real disasters that belong more in a HAZMAT bag than a kitchen. And I feel as if I suffer a deflated sense of self-esteem whenever TLFS cooks, mainly because he's a really decent cook and seems to have an innate sense of exactly what I want to eat. I seem to gravitate toward men who know their way around a kitchen, which is very interesting since my older brother serves his steaks crispy, and my father's culinary piece de resistance was always turkey loaf. My grandfather was known for his suet pudding, which is just that. Suet and pudding.

Monday night, the one night I had time to actually cook something, I looked at the Dorie recipe for Parisian Apple Tartlet. Ridiculously simple. You needed four ingredients, and even Dorie was like "Go buy your puff pastry, don't bother trying to make that stuff - it's a pain in the ass."

But you know, I had procrastinated, just like I do every week. And I had no puff pastry, no car in which I could drive to the grocery store, no hope. And the thought of trying to make puff pastry at 10pm was about as enticing as the idea of stepping on my roommate's earring at 7am and puncturing my heel, an idea I didn't have last night but a reality I had this morning. I didn't want to make puff pastry.

So I gambled for the sake of my baking group. I adapted this to work as an American recipe - as American as apple pie, but apple pie without the crust. We could say this is healthy, but it's just lazy. I stuck to Dorie's recipe for a crumb, stuffing the apple with oats and brown sugar, then I drizzled a red wine reduction overtop. We slid a scoop of vanilla ice cream behind the apple before eating it.

I suffered a great fear when I handed the Lawyer his plate. I didn't want to serve him something so rudimentary, elementary, primal and bland. I felt badly for making him suffer through my baking disasters, one after another. This was my deer heart, I thought, I was mistreating him in just the same way as that jackass at the wedding. He deserved more, he deserved something delicious, I thought. I thought about this horrible feeling I had while I shoveled baked apple into my face, unable to slow down and actually communicate my thoughts of remorse because it was so good.

I Love You This Much Pulled Pork Sandwich

Sometimes when I put something on the blog, I get all sorts of emails about my language. Now, this generally doesn't involve the standard language issues most people have - that is, curse words. People seem to be ok with an F bomb here and there. The list of things people generally seem to have an issue with are grouped into these words:

Armpit
Skid marks
Infection
Toe nail
Moist
Grunties

As long as I avoid this list of words, I'm generally safe from the vehemence of your emails.


And for the sake of honesty, I want to just say that The Lawyer from Southie's boxers are skid mark-free. Really, people.

I actually have a very soft spot in my heart for his boxers, besides the obvious reasons. I feel that they actually worked to bring us together into an exclusive relationship without us having to have the big "I'm not dating anyone else" talk, which is only painful, even in the best of circumstances.

See, it all comes down to those epiphanies you have when you're at the laundromat. Not the "Wow, fabric softener really does work," or "My clothes don't discriminate between colors" epiphanies that you can have. It's when you're looking through the pile of clothes you wore within the last week, and you realize you're washing someone else's clothes. Somehow, unexpectedly, someone has crept into your life and become incredibly important.


So when I found his boxers at the laundromat, I sent The Lawyer from Southie a text message about it. He was at the office, so I kept it short. I said "Hey. I hate to tell you this, but I'm pretty sure we are definitely in a relationship now. Because I just washed your underwear."

His response?

"Sounds good. Busy. See you tonight?"

You have to appreciate the fact that I have found someone who is as much of a helpless romantic as I am.



This realization always leads to the greater vocabulary of relationships, which, like the list above, needs to be utilized with caution. You think about when it's the right time to tell someone that you love them. You agonize over it. Maybe you get drunk one night and tell him that you love him, then regret it in the morning. Or even worse, he tells you that he loves you right as you are falling asleep, so that in the morning you're asking yourself, DID HE SAY IT? DID HE REALLY SAY IT? I THINK HE SAID IT BUT I DON'T KNOW FOR SURE. But you can't really ask if he said it. You just have to wait for another opportunity and hope he says it again, hope he says it first. This is something that will keep you up at night.

And love is a very difficult emotion, when you think about it. We misuse the word "love" all the time. We love our spouses, we love Doritos. And then, when it comes down to it, we realize that we don't really know how to communicate the word at all. "I love you, but I'm not in love with you." "I love you, but I can't live this way." "I love you, but that mustache has got to go." If you're in a relationship that isn't working, you might start listening to every time your significant other uses the word love to describe his feelings for something. Then, being the sarcastic snob that you are, when he tells you that he loves you, you might ask him to qualify it for you.

"Really? You love me? Do you love me as much as you love picking out paint colors at Home Depot? Do you love me as much as you love bratwurst? Do you love me as much as you love driving a convertible? On the whole paint-choosing, brat-eating, convertible-driving sliding scale of YOUR LOVE-O-METER, where does your love for ME stack up?"

When we do find ourselves in love, we have no idea how to communicate it. All the I Love Yous of the past seem to fall very heavy on us, and we realize that this emotion that is within us wholly surpasses us. We become silly, stupid even, with ridiculous sentences and emotions coming out of our mouths.

"I look at you, and my heart beats so fast it makes me get really thirsty."
"I'm so excited to see you tonight, my eyes feel like they're going to pop out of my head."
"Sometimes I'm so happy to see you, swallowing gets really hard because my stomach is, like, here."
"You make me have to pee."

All these things are ridiculous, but they are the language that we find ourselves using to communicate because we realize everything else we've ever said has been insufficient.

WELL I'M NOW HERE TO HELP YOU OUT, INTERNET.


You all want that one recipe that screams "I love you this much," and in this case, that recipe is "I love you so much, I made you homemade pulled pork." This is not barbecue, or BBQ. This is a pulled pork sandwich, one worthy of summer picnics with your family, graduations, tail gaiting and church potlucks. I'm not going to advise you to go out and find yourself some pork butt - I'm going to tell you that it is the best way to pat yourself on that back of yours and get some I Love Yous from those who are close to you. They're really just saying "I seriously appreciate your cooking and want to be invited over more often," but take the I Love Yous to heart.

I Love You Like I Love Pulled Pork
adapted from this recipe, but as usual, I had only half the ingredients and none of the patience

2-3lbs pork butt, excess fat removed
2C blackberries
1C strawberries
1C chopped onion
1/4C rum
1/4C vinegar
1/4C barbecue sauce (I used The Lawyer from Southie's family recipe, but I'm not privileged to that information)
1t salt
2t black pepper
4 garlic cloves
1t red pepper chili flakes
1t ginger powder

Put pork butt, fruit, onions and garlic into your crockpot on low and set it for 10 hours. Mix all the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and pour on top. Go to work, remember to pick up kaiser rolls on the way home from work. Top with the remaining barbecue sauce, serve with a cold beer and a side of slaw after a good night of racing.

Enjoy.

TWD: Cinnamon Crumb Cake (not a square in sight)

There are a few things you can count on in life, more than just death and taxes. Like getting a tickle in your throat during a job interview. Having your dog take a crap right in front of the man of your dreams.

Realizing that you don't have half the ingredients to make cinnamon squares at 6am on the day you need to make cinnamon squares.

And so you adapt. And you make that square thing into a coffee cake. I've never really been a big fan of coffee cakes. I just can't understand why they're necessary. Cakey and crumbly, they always seem like something that's not going to satisfy you through the morning when what you should really be eating is eggs over easy, oatmeal with raisins, a smoothie. And the fact that coffee cakes generally don't involve coffee in the recipes always annoyed me. Why can't we make a green tea cake? Or a hot chocolate cake? Even better, a hot toddy cake. Now that is something I'd eat.


So this morning, at 6am when I woke up to make the cake, I thought about all the different ways we adapt to our surroundings, come to recognize things for what they are, enjoy them to whatever extent possible. The coffee cake that I've never really been a fan of became the cake I'll most likely make to impress friends the next time I have any. I mean, the grated orange zest, although somewhat overpowering, is enough to make someone say audibly, "I always thought coffee cakes were what you took to a nursing home on Sundays, but MacDuff's orange thingy the other day, well, that's something I'd eat on a regular basis."

Because really, coffee cakes are experiments with something that should really be wrong, but then end up kind of changing our minds. I'm not a cake-in-the-morning eater, and I've often thought that I could really use a diet from this whole TWD experiment. But I got up early this morning, forsaking my oatmeal and peanut butter to eat some coffee cake, and you know, I can see why we bring them to nursing homes on the weekends.


This week has been full of surprises. I realize that if you've been reading my blog, my last two posts are going to seem horribly orally-fixated. And that's unintentional. But I came to realize this weekend that sometimes the biggest surprises, those situations when you anticipate your emotional reaction to be extremist, you find that things don't really upset you. Sometimes you are saved by an emotional calm that makes you wonder whether or not there was anything to be surprised by in the first place.

This comes off the tail end of a weekend when I spent doing that which I love to do, that is, sail with a really hot guy on open water. We raced up in Marblehead, spending the night at a friend's house that overlooked the water, eating fried clams and drinking rum and pineapples. When we fell asleep that night, the smell of salt water came in through our open window. The next morning, another family friend created a breakfast spread that would rival any upscale brunch, and we sat on the porch in the sunshine thinking about how great the spring is. We walked on the beach and collected sea shells.


Sounds lovely, doesn't it? Well, then my dog, the incorrigible Dixie Lu, decided to roll in organic compost. I can only imagine she thought to herself "This is like poop, only better." We managed to give her a bath, but the car ride home was a little rough. I kept thinking to myself that her whole existence must be to humiliate me - I mean, it's not like she lives to watch Days of Our Lives or anything.

We were going to a friend's barbecue that afternoon, and while we were driving over to her apartment, The Lawyer from Southie informed me that a girl he had dated briefly would be attending the same barbecue.

Now, I don't care who you are. When you hear those words from someone you're dating, your first thought is "I'm going to have to fight someone to the death. Where did I leave my shiv?"

There is no way you can expect to feel anything other than insufficient. The other woman doesn't even have to be anyone special. She could be totally lame and you would still be thinking to yourself "I need to get back into yoga." I completely realize this, because when I look at my list of exes, I can see a direct progression of Aiming Low during 2004-2007, specifically. There's a definite check list I must have gone through in my mid-20s: overweight? Unemployed? Living with your parents? Backne? Questionable sexual preference? Thin hair? OR NO HAIR AT ALL??? AWESOME. Let's get serious. When I tell you about my exes, you don't have any reason to get intimidated. But at the same time, I'm never going to put you in a broken elevator with them.



We got to the barbecue, and everyone was already partying pretty hard. The band Phish was playing later that afternoon, and everyone was "pre-gaming." I was a little nervous walking in, but as we made our way back to the yard, there was a woman who said hi and chatted for a few minutes. I immediately pegged her as THE ONE I WILL FIGHT TO THE DEATH. I don't know why - she didn't look anything like me, but I just knew it had to be her. But instead of having a bad reaction, she was actually pretty cool, and sent us upstairs to find the free beer and food. So, no go on the fight to the death. We met other people, I had a really lovely time. Old Dixie Poo underneath me was really smelling, despite the bath The Lawyer from Southie gave her back in Marblehead. The organic compost was proving to be a very strong scent, I could see why she would love it.

About an hour went by, and I got a chance to catch up with people I really like and find interesting. There was no shenking. I did not throw any plates, I did not pull anyone's pink hair. At one point, however, I heard The One cooing over Dixie. I'm sure Dixie had just eaten some grass, dug up a dead squirrel, something to embarrass the hell out of me. I turned my head to look and see what was going on, and I watched in horror as The One knelt down, took Dixie's head in her hands, and full on French kissed my dog.

My Dog. Dixie, the Licker of Buttholes. The Taster of Feet. The Epicurean of All Things Deceased. She French kissed a face that had only hours earlier been reveling in organic compost and goose droppings.

Now, ok. My dog totally and completely saved me. Because while it is EXTREMELY awkward to be at a party with a woman who has made out with both the man you are smitten for AND YOUR DOG, the fact that Dixie parted her lips and shoved that rancid tongue down The One's mouth made me laugh out loud. It made me think to myself "Despite the size of my thighs, I have never French kissed the dog of my ex's new girlfriend at a party." And there is something to be said for that. The two of them parted, Dixie sat down and stuck one leg up in the air and sniffed her butt, then came running over to see me, all proud of herself. I gave her the rest of my pasta salad. Good dog.

And that is like coffee cake. Surprises you every time.