Al Capone meets Emeril Lagasse

Going to the private home of someone you’ve never met or heard of before.  Eating at a table full of strangers in an intimate living room crammed full of people.  This was what we decided to do for our 4^th Wedding Anniversary.

My co-worker had described going to an “underground party” for Valentines Day with his wife.  He said that it was some secret speakeasy dinner club that friends of his had invited them to.  The dinner was held in an obscure building in the industrial part of town.  A classy decorated space, food to die for, and free flowing wine was all I needed to hear before I thought of doing the same thing to surprise my husband for our Anniversary.

I found Speakeasy Culinary Club by goggling it.  They said they were booked for their March  dinner but that they’d put me on the email list for future dinners.  Then a few days before their March dinner, they emailed me & said they had a cancellation.  I quickly jumped on the opening and said we’d be there.  She gave me the location of the dinner, a private home address, and a password to get in.

The night arrived and I kept it a secret all the way up until we were in the car and I was directing my husband where to drive.  I said, “So let me warn you, we are going to an event that is an anonymous underground party at someones house”.  He said “Someone’s house?  Who’s house?”, and that’s when I confessed “I have absolutely no idea.  It’s something a co-worker told me about, it’s supposed to be an amazing culinary experience, but we’re going to some random private residence, of whom I have absolutely no idea”.  I could see the panic on his face.  He laughed just to humor me but I could tell it was an unbelieving laugh, a searching for more information laugh.

Nervous, we both arrived at the dinner, we had to park a little ways away due to the street layout and we could see fancy, dressed up people all headed in the same direction.  We eyed each other up, not knowing what we were really getting ourselves into.   We were greeted at the door by a nice young lady who asked for our names and the password.  It felt kinda neat like we were in the movies or something.

We entered the front door and found the first free seats at a table by ourselves on the far wall of the room.  We felt awkward.  Everyone seemed just as awkward as we were though.   We got up and indulged in the cheeses & breads.  Then  the last couples arrived and filled our table.  They were a few older couples .  One a teacher at the Albuquerque Academy and her husband, and another a retired medical doctor and his wife.  Little did we know that by the end of the night we’d shut down the place with our new friends and prove to have had the most fun amongst all of the tables of strangers.   Go us.

The 5 course meal was an experience.  Everything was exquisite.  Prepared with perfection, presented with perfection.  It was like we were on an episode of Top Chef.  The flavors complimented each other and the next.  They even paired each course with an appropriate wine. The good company at our table was the icing on the cake.   It was truly a culinary experience to remember and we’d do it again in a heartbeat.  Perhaps for a special occasion next year.

Speakeasy Culinary Club Dinner Albuquerque, NM

No shoes, No shame

I have to reflect on my first day of heading back to the gym last week after taking 6 months off.  I hastily threw my workout clothes & shoes into my work bag and rushed off to work.  When I got to work, I threw my bag under my desk and suddenly realized that I there were two different sneakers in my bag, one a grey, blue, & yellow New Balance and the other a black & purple Asics sneaker.  In my haste, I had pulled two different shoes out of the dark closet.  Ugh!

But bound and determined to get my first workout in of the Spring, I borrowed my sisters running shoes (luckily she & I work at the same company and wear the same size shoe).   She was very gracious & willing after she laughed at me for packing mismatched shoes.  She stated “I’m never having kids, they ROT your brain”….  I was more than willing to blame this incident on my having kids now, but then I remembered back nearly 7 years ago to the date, and I was in the same boat…  I must have also ALWAYS been running late so I can’t blame that on my kids either anymore…:
Tuesday, January 24, 2006

I had heard of it happening to other people and wondered if it might actually ever happen to me….

Well….this morning the dreaded thing happened to me… and I didn’t even notice until two hours into work….

I probably deserved it though…

Right after I made a snide remark to my husband (Karma is a BITCH!),  I ran to put my shoes on, glanced in the mirror and shuffled out the door at 8:05am (in my usual late style)….

So as I’m running from where I park downtown to my federal building, I sort of notice that one heel sounds differently hitting the sidewalk than the other but I don’t really pay attention to it because I’m in a full-on sprint to make it before my bosses boss makes the rounds and finds that my computer is not even booted yet at 20 after.

So I get in, unnoticed, and settle in, check my email and go on calls, moving PC’s, fixing issues, etc.  My bosses boss calls me into fix a problem on his PC, so I walk in and upon walking on his chair pad (whatever that hard plastic thing is called that your chair rolls on) I again notice that my heels sound different, so I casually look down…..

And *GASP*….I was in disbelief!

So he looks down to see what I was so stunned about….”You’ve got on two different shoes” he says.  OMG!!!  I couldn’t believe that I had actually done it.  Holy crap!  These were really two different shoes, both high-heels but one shiny with a flat bow and the other matte with some foe black suede and a little buckle and higher than the other….

Sheesh!!  The epoxy kill-every-last-brain-cell-you-have paint crap that we had used to resurface our bathtub on Sunday must have really killed some important brain cells, first I didn’t remember to set my alarm for Monday morning, and now this? This is why I could never get away with doing drugs (or sniffing paint).  I can’t believe it happened to me! ME!  But it’s so funny acutally, everyone who has noticed just cracks up and shakes their head.  I had to tell people on the street on the way to lunch that this was just “the new trend for 2006, haven’t you seen it yet?”.  So embarrassing though!  What a twit I am.

Furthermore, last week on the same day that I packed the mismatched tennis shoes, I was running late to the 4:15pm class at LA Boxing so I had to change in the car at stoplights along the way.  I finally get there and park and I cannot for the LIFE OF ME, get the zipper of my skirt down. It was STUCK about a quarter of the way down.   Any normal person would have gone home but I was still bound & determined to do the class.  It was my first day back and I couldn’t let it defeat me.  I was 15 minutes late anyway so I knew most everyone would be paying attention to the instructor. So I head in, find the General Manager and ask her to accompany me to the rest room. She looked at me funny but followed me.  Once in privacy, I tell her that I cannot get my skirt zipper down and if she could tug on it for me.  So we try everything for a good 5 minutes with no success.  The thing wouldn’t budge up nor down.  I finally just have to tear myself out of the skirt, incredible hulk style, (yep, just like I did in that dressing room several months ago). Humiliated, I still did the class, tasted blood in my lungs, & nearly passed out, but I did it.  So THERE you EVIL Girl Scout Cookies!!

I’m still going to return and finish my month out.  I apparently have no shame (I think you lose the ability to have shame once you give birth to a child LOL!)

In hindsight, I think my body was subconsciously trying to get me bail on working out, it wasn’t ready for the winter hibernation to be over.  Either that or the universe was trying to:

a:) get me to look like an idiot with 2 different shoes on at the gym

b:) let me know I’m too fat to change in the car

Anne of the Little Theatre

Growing up, my family never had cable. The closest thing to a BRAVO show was watching the Young & the Restless after school on CBS, or watching Beverly Hills 90210 (the original one) on Fox every Thursday night. One of my favorites though, was watching Anne of Green Gables on PBS. I was absolutely hooked on the little spunky redhead and all of her adventures. So when we got a reminder in the mail that the Albuquerque Little Theatre was having a 3 week showing of Anne of Green Gables, I was beyond excited.

My husband bought tickets through his office and we attended the evening show on Friday March 2. Though more verbose than I remember from childhood, the live play was everything that I had hoped for. The actress was just as spunky & sweet as I remember. All in all, It was a great show, giving me plenty of nostalgia. Previously we had attended one of my favorites from last December, “A Christmas Story”. From the on stage narrator to the cast, everything got the true essence of the movie, just like Anne of Green Gables had.

This year, the theater is putting on a production of “It’s a Wonderful Life” during December, which is probably my all time favorite Christmas movie. I have no idea how they could ever come close to James Stewart ’s performance but even If they can capture the spirit of it, I will be thrilled.

Bonus: I had no idea that The Albuquerque Little Theatre was a 501c non-profit. This makes me feel even better about attending shows there, knowing that they are helping to cultivate appreciation of the arts.