Shake, Shake, Shake

February is the month that always speeds by. It is shorter by a few days than most, but there is something about that short transition we have from "winter" (as we call it) in Southern California that quickly turns to spring. Admittedly, the temperature difference is maybe 5 or 10 degrees and the amount of rain may or may not be the same, but we like to pretend as if we have seasons.

The movement from February to March for me means that St. Patrick's Day is coming and for that, we celebrate with...Shamrock Shakes!!! Remember my obsession two years ago with getting one, only to be denied two different times for various reasons? (I blogged about it, see if you remember the entry here). Last year, I completely missed out because I guess I just didn't go to Mickey D's. I seem to recall trying at the end of March, only to be told that they were out for the season.

2011 brought a gentle reminder from a friend last week during a conversation, when she reminded me about my obsession and asked me if the Shamrock Shake was in season yet. I made a mental note to put March 1st on my calendar so I could indulge in the deliciousness, and then went along my merry way.

This morning I had a plethora of things to do early before I left the house and then an early start time in the office, so instead of my usual fakey sausage and a banana, I opted to get an oatmeal and iced coffee from the Golden Arches on my way down Malibu Canyon.

Imagine my delight when I pulled around the drive through to see the banner proclaiming the good news...my beloved shake is already here! Talk about a little dose of serendipity at 6 o'clock in the morning!

I love the fact that no one even batted an eye when I placed my order, they even offered me whipped cream for the shake (I declined, empty calories, you know!). Yep, spring is officially here in my book, even if that means we are going to have rain and even some snow at the 1000' level. I've got my shamrock to keep me happy!

In My Grill

Two months of stalking have at last paid off!

The food truck phenomenon is alive and well in Los Angeles, with just about any gastronomical delight you can imagine being prepared and sold out of a truck, strategically parked on some street corner. In addition to having some darn good food, the simple fact that these trucks fly in the face of conventional marketing practices amazes me.

There are a few sections in town (such as the Miracle Mile, across from LACMA) where you can count on a row of food trucks lined up beginning at about 11 am, but these are not the hot, everybody wants some, find out where it is NOW kind of trucks. I have been in search of...The Grilled Cheese Truck.

I first heard of this delectable delight from a friend on Facebook who happened upon it. Once I saw that such a thing existed, I looked it up, "friended" it and started to watch for the location updates every single week to see where it would show up. There were a couple of close-but-no-grilled-cheese incidents when the truck was in range by about 15 miles, but I held out, knowing that my day would come.

Thursday, February 25, 2010 proved to be the day. Not only was the truck planned to be within 6 or 7 miles of the office, but it was parking at the Frosted Cupcakery, ANOTHER place that I love because of the delicious hi-top cupcakes. Clearly meant to be, I blocked the time on my calendar and invited another GCT admirer to come with me.

At the same time I blocked the time for the Grilled Cheese run, a last-minute appointment landed on my calendar, smack dab in the middle of my planned grilled cheese goodness...NOOOOOOOOOO! Undeterred and intent upon nothing coming between me and my future delicious lunch, I coordinated 4 different people for 3 different meetings all to occur in my car en-route, in-line or returning from the outing. Not the most traditional setting for a meeting, but productive AND it got me to my eventual goal...lunch nirvana!

I am here to tell you that my stalking days are not over. The sandwich options are fantastic and they allow customization, so this will be a regular stop whenever possible. I personally am voting for a regular gig and pairing with the fine people at the Frosted Cupcakery...this makes my stomach and my taste buds very, very happy!

Goggle Eyes

I opted for a quick "splash and dash" workout yesterday, which means that I went to the YMCA for 30 minutes of swimming in the pool, then jumped onto a treadmill for 30-minutes of running. Not to be confused with the "Y-Tri" which adds a stint on the stationary bike into the mix, this is the signal that triathlon season is fast approaching and I don't want to fall behind in my readiness.

I had great plans to be at the Y at 6 am when they opened. Some cute dogs and husband distracted me as they followed be around with hopeful eyes, looking for a bite of cheese and conversation (David did not get any cheese). I also did not pack the night before, so I was trotting around the house, throwing items into my duffel bag so that I could shower and leave directly for work after the workout was complete.

Because this is the first pool workout in quite some time, I was a bit out of sorts and did not have my usual routine in place, so I was very dismayed when I was in the locker room to realize that I left both my goggles and earplugs in my other duffel bag with no back-ups anywhere to be found.

I was already running late and had carved the time out to do my workout, so I forged ahead, swimming for 30-minutes straight in a very chlorinated pool. I attempted to keep my eyes closed, but after 3 or 4 collisions with the floating lane chains, I had to just suck it up and dry out my eyes.

I showed up to work almost 2 hours after I had originally planned, looking rather red and glassy-eyed. I met Holly for lunch later in the day and she was curious as to what I had been doing to have such suspicious looking eyes. I explained my goggle dilemma and while I know she believes me, she still had to tell me the thing that everyone was thinking but no one had said, "You look stoned."

I trust that she knows this only from a distance and not first hand!

Just in the Nick of Time

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The Pampered Schnoogs

Holly and I attended a Pampered Chef event on Sunday. Ebe has recently joined the ranks of the PC Consultants and in getting ready to take her show on the road, she hosted two parties with friends and family to get into the swing of things. This was the 2nd event, the first was about a week ago and was naturally wildly successful.

After church, we trotted on over to find Elizabeth already set up and ready for us, plus the bonus Miss Sadie (Ebe's cat who loves to stare) out and about, looking for attention. Our group grew by two more and we spent the next couple of hours eating and checking out Elizabeth's wares, along with being her test group for recipes and the general presentation style.

Good eats were not in short supply, and at some point in time everyone got in on the cooking action, including the Schnoogs who doubled as recipe reader AND garlic presser.

I was the official taster. I am proud to report that I excelled at my job!

Dream House

I have been entering twice per day, every day for the HGTV Dream House Giveaway sweepstakes for at least a month. The last day to enter was on Friday, and I fully expected to get a phone call on Saturday, congratulating the family and I on our new home in Stowe, Vermont.

Oddly, the phone call has not yet come, so I checked in on the website to see if the HGTV peeps have put out an APB for me, letting me know that it is time to pack the moving truck and make my way east. Those tricksters! The winner reveal and move-in is going to be featured in a special on March 19th.

I have things on my calendar, the HGTV team needs to give me a call and coordinate this soon if they want to have me do their special for them when I move in!

Focus

I spent two evenings this week listening to focus groups of lapsed users of the fancy yogurt place. I am always fascinated by consumers and what makes them tick...especially when they aren't too clear on what they buy or why.

I watched Murphy Brown back in the day and one of my favorite episodes involved the cast sitting behind the 2-way glass in a viewing room for some network focus groups, listening to viewers criticize their performance. Murphy, in her aggressive, bold fashion has enough of the commentary and goes crashing into the panel room, yelling and swinging at the open-mouthed panelists, shocked to have her coming after them.

There were a couple of consumers in each of the 4 groups that had me rolling my eyes. While we are certainly expensive, fancy yogurt, some of the snotty comments seemed pretty unnecessary and were hard to not take personally, especially when accusing the brand of being over exposed in one statement, followed almost immediately by a statement that they would come more often if we built a store closer to their home or work.

Crashing through that door would be pretty fun.

Conehead

The cost of owning a large pack part 2...Penny serves as exhibit B.

During one of Charlie's visits to the vet, it was time to have Penny in for a routine check-up when some funny lumps were spotted on her belly. The vet was pretty concerned that there could be issue with one or two of them, so surgery was scheduled for Monday of this week.

Penny came through the process well and now has a Frankenstein-looking set of stitches on her belly to show for it. We are still waiting on the final word on one of the lumps (the other two were fatty deposits), so stay tuned for that news.

Entertaining is Penny in the cone of shame. She is a MENACE! That dog has absolutely no sense of the space around her or anyone else, which means that she bangs and bumps into anything in her path. At first, we all felt so sorry for her, as to see the sad little face in the cone just breaks your heart. The first 15 times or so that she nearly knocked me over, I still felt compassion for our poor little pup in the cone. After having her clip me AND drag the cone all along the wall in the hallway, I found myself quickly losing patience for the annoying dog in the plastic shield.

David was in the same camp and called me on Wednesday to tell me that he couldn't take it anymore, so he took the collar off. Having Penny and the collar and all of the other dogs in the truck was creating chaos, and David thought that Charlie was going to snap and have a nervous breakdown. Even calm and collected Scooby was about over Penny and her bumping ways.

She must realize what a menace she was in that collar, because she hasn't picked or poked at her stitches even once. She was probably tired of having all of us glare at her!

Pup in Boots

The Newton dogs have been visiting the vet lately - a lot, and in some cases for some seemingly random things that end up costing a pretty penny.

Mr. Charles here is exhibit A. About a month ago, he took off to chase after some unsuspecting prey on the Los Robles trail and when he returned 20 minutes or so later it was near dark and he was limping a bit. David gave him the business for taking off, then the once over to see if he could figure out why he was limping and then they came home.

The next couple of days Charles was just a little off and he was spending a lot of time tending to his foot. David again tried to figure out what was wrong and then Charlie snapped at him...clearly something was wrong and he was in pain, so off to the vet they went.

Turns out that Charlie ripped his nail and it is going to take something like 2 months to heal. We have been back every week to change the bandage after the initial same-day surgery was done and it is a slow process to recovery. The vet suggested that we kennel Charlie all day and limit his time on his foot to just a few minutes a day.

I think that Charlie would as soon have his leg amputated rather than be sequestered all day. David bought the little booties to protect the bandage and keep it dry, and we seem to be doing OK now.

Not sure that Charlie is super excited about his one-boot fashion statement, but this is the price that a dog has to pay for running amuck in the Santa Monica Mountains. That and about $600 in vet bills!

Love Knows no Holiday

Monday was of course Valentine's Day and while it is indeed the day to celebrate the one(s) you love, I must confess to being a bit inundated with work for the two weeks leading up and then of course the day of. We had a big promotion at work that was ideated in the 2nd week of January (right before I left for vacation) and through a herculean effort on the part of everyone in the organization, we pulled it off and executed it in the stores.

I have lived in the workspace where a holiday completely consumes once before - the cinnamon roll place killed any element of free time that I might have thought about using between Thanksgiving and Christmas. While it is energizing to be a part of something that makes our customers happy, it doesn't leave a lot of free time to celebrate with one's own family, so by my admission, I really didn't do anything for David or Holly this Valentine's Day.

Sure, I sent Holly one of the packages that we were making and included a gift card (which I will almost guarantee she has already used), but that doesn't rank up there with the cool things of years past, like the Wii of Valentine's 2010 (or was it 2009??). David gave me a very funny card and while I did make a nice dinner (as I do most nights) and got a little teary eyed as I told him how much I appreciate him and our family, no gift-giving or card-signing happened on my end.

Luckily, we have a good track record for him to know that I love him!