SUPER BOWL, HERE WE COME!

Many years ago, soon after Lou & I met, I gave him some gift giving advice if he wanted to steal my heart. I told him, “Don’t buy me jewelry. It doesn’t really interest me. AND if you were going to spend that much money, take me somewhere instead! Preferably a sporting event!” He has followed that advice wonderfully over the years with lots of fantastic trips & getaways.

We have been to the Daytona 500 (my favorite driver, Jeff Gordon, won) & Talladega 500 NASCAR races & the Indianapolis 500 open wheel auto race. The Giants beat the Phillies at the Major League Baseball playoff game he surprised me with in 2010 (the Giants went on to win their first World Series). There have been several NBA playoff games that we attended back when the Sacramento Kings were contenders. A couple years ago we watched the U.S. Open Golf Tournament & a professional tennis tournament in Palm Springs where all the big name players competed. And just this year we saw the America’s Cup yacht racing finals on San Francisco Bay.

BUT this year’s Christmas gift just may top the list! For several years, Lou has entered a lottery to be chosen to purchase Super Bowl tickets. Only 500 to 1000 pairs of tickets are given out for sale to the general public each year. They aren’t cheap, but going on Stub Hub or other resale sites jacks the price up three or four times or more of the face value.

There is only one entry per address allowed & it must be sent via registered mail. For many years Lou has entered using his dad’s, his sister’s, my sister’s, my son’s & my dad’s addresses in addition to ours. Each year we have all received postcards telling us we weren’t chosen & thanking us for participating – UNTIL THIS YEAR!

My sister, Karen, received an envelope advising her that she had the opportunity to purchase two tickets to the 2014 Super Bowl at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey!! But, there was a stipulation that this year (they had changed the rules without informing the entrants) ONLY the person whose name was on the letter could purchase the tickets & MUST pick them up with a photo ID & the credit card used for purchase, in person, at the stadium. Damn it!

Well, Karen & I figured out how to do it within minutes. We each have a credit card on my dad’s account in our names. She purchases the tickets using that credit card. Then she goes to the DMV, says she lost her driver’s license & gets a new one. Now, she gives me the old license & the credit card in her name. We are similar height & weight, both have long blonde hair & I just pull a ski cap over my head & pick up the tickets. Voila!

But Lou wasn’t too keen on our deceptive scheme & vetoed it. Hey, I know we could have totally pulled it off. However, Lou emailed & phoned the NFL office in charge of the lottery tickets. At first he was told they wouldn’t allow the transfer. The whole purpose of this new system is to prevent people from obtaining tickets & scalping them. Between Lou & Karen making several phone calls & sending emails back & forth (& an NFL guy who happened to go to bat for us with his supervisor), they made it happen! Lou was allowed to purchase the tickets for his use!

We have put together a week long trip to New Jersey & New York in the dead of winter so please, everyone, cross your fingers that the weather doesn’t turn nasty with a huge blizzard in early February! But if it does, what the hell, we’ll figure it out. It’s all part of the adventure!

Sure, I already know that my Christmas present is a trip to the Super Bowl, BUT half the fun of any gift is the anticipation – & I have a little over two months to let the excitement build. How cool is that? This is way better than a surprise. And WAY, WAY better than any pearl necklace or diamond earrings.

Does my sweetie know how to give a gift or what???? THANK YOU! Imagine – a trip to the SUPER BOWL! Be still my heart. How much better does it get for a true sports fan? What events could be left? Hmmm . . . . maybe the NBA All Star Game or the Olympics sometime – hint, hint. J

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

Tell me, have any of you ever looked at something in the grocery store & thought, “Yum, that looks good”, only to find out later that it was not even close to a good choice? Well, that happened to me today at Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s (for those of you who don’t have them nearby) is a great store with lots of good food, reasonable prices, easy to prepare & fairly nutritious.

Of course, the VERY best thing about Trader Joe’s is “Two Buck Chuck” or now, “Two & a Half Buck Chuck” since they raised the price. It’s a great, everyday wine that used to cost $1.99 a bottle & is now $2.49 a bottle. It really pissed off the wine snobs several years ago when their Chardonnay beat some of the $20+ bottles in a blind taste test.

But, I digress. Today I was shopping at Trader Joe’s. While looking for something interesting for dinner, I spotted some frozen salmon burgers. I’m not a huge fan of fish but do try to eat it once in awhile for the health benefits. I’m always searching for an interesting, tasty way to consume fish. These salmon burgers sounded pretty good – along with the sweet potato tots that were nearby.

I was picturing these delicious ground up salmon burgers that are seared on the grill with just a bit of crispiness to them. It sounded like a great choice for dinner & I was getting just a little bit hungry. I grabbed the salmon, the sweet potato tots & a couple of artichokes – along with a few bottles of Chuck. Woo hoo, dinner tonight was in the bag!

Fast forward a few hours to the time to get dinner started. I pulled the salmon burgers from the freezer along with the tater tots. When you think back to your childhood, I mean, who didn’t love tater tots? They were so good! Of course, my guess is that my mom fried them in oil to make them so crispy & tasty…..& loaded with fat & other non-nutritious things. Now days, they are baked & most of the bad stuff has been removed, leaving them relatively tasteless.

There were several ways to prepare the salmon burgers – in the oven, in a frying pan or on the grill. Well, it’s November & raining here, the grill was out. I started in the oven but after a few minutes they were not looking the least bit appetizing. So, I pulled out a frying pan, added some olive oil & plopped them in there. By now, I was getting the old “this seemed like a good idea at the time, but . . . ” feelings.

Again, not being a fan of fish in general & not having any real clue how to cook it or make it appetizing, the salmon burgers began to ooze this white, goopy stuff as they cooked. As Charley would say, “Ooooh, that’s gross!” And she would have been one hundred percent right. It was pretty gross. But dinner was too far along to make any drastic changes by now.

To his credit, Lou never complains about my culinary skills, or lack there of, for that matter. I put the salmon burgers (with most of the icky white goop cooked out), sweet potato tots & artichokes on the table. He ate it all & said it was good. Ya gotta love that man. As for me, not so much. It was okay at best.

So, please, tell me honestly, how many of you have had the experience of thinking what a great idea this was at the time only to have it dawn on you half way through the preparation that this kind of sucks & you screwed up?

My guess is that this is not the last time one of my cooking adventures will go awry but I need to remember a few things when it comes to dinner preparation. 1) Don’t shop when you are kind of hungry & anything looks good, 2) Don’t believe that the pictures on the boxes will look anything like the actual product, & 3) If it seems like a good idea at the time, it probably isn’t, so don’t do it!

THE JOYS OF AIR TRAVEL

Disclaimer: If anyone is offended by colorful language then maybe you had better skip this post because their just aren't enough non-curse words to adequately describe the current experience of flying halfway around the world. I wrote this on our recent cruise a couple days after arriving.

I'll start by asking a question. When exactly did flying become a fucking nightmare? I am old enough to recall when air travel was half the adventure of a far away vacation. It used to be such a civilized endeavor – room to actually stretch out a little, fellow passengers eager to ask about your plans, friendly flight attendants & service that included edible meals.

When I graduated from high school, a friend & I actually drove to San Francisco airport to simply wander around watching the passengers arrive & depart. This was when anyone could walk to the gates, not just ticketed passengers who had been frisked, searched, scanned, questioned & radiated with xrays. Anyway, we gazed at the airplanes jetting off to faraway places & fantasized about traveling the world since we were out of school!

Now, 45 years later I am literally halfway around the world on a cruise ship that departed Istanbul, Turkey. Currently, all is well, smooth seas, full stomach & a semi-decent night's sleep behind me. My high school fantasy of jetting off to foreign lands is far from the reality of present day air travel.

Here is my experience of flying from SFO to Istanbul. Our itinerary began with a drive to San Francisco (about two hours from home) on Saturday afternoon where we spent the night in a park 'n fly hotel before our 7 AM flight on Sunday morning. We awoke, not so bright-eyed & bushy tailed, at 3:45 AM on Sunday morning to begin our adventure.

The five hour flight from SFO to Newark, New Jersey was on time & glitch-free. Our initial itinerary had included a 1 hour 40 minute connection to our international flight to Istanbul. Experience is a wonderful teacher. After missing our flight in New York on our trip to Egypt several years ago, we both agreed, nope, that is not enough time. No way! We changed the initial flight to an earlier one that allowed us 3 hours & 35 minutes before the international flight.

After a leisurely lunch & sitting in the Newark airport for close to 3 hours we thought we were home free. Oh, what silly travelers! Just as I went to the bathroom for the last time before boarding, they made an announcement. That is never a good thing. Our plane had mechanical issues. Shit, shit, shit! They were getting a different plane & our gate would now be changed.

The mass exodus began as we all trekked to gate C102 from C128, not nearly as short a walk as it sounds. Our new plane would be landing from London shortly, then needed to be cleaned, fueled & restocked for us. Now our time was getting too close for comfort. It is something that is totally out of our control but a few well placed swear words really do seem to ease the stress – son of a fucking bitch! Here we go again. We finally left Newark 2-1/2 hours late.

You are so crammed into airplanes nowdays that even short people like me struggle to get comfortable. If you are 6'3” like Lou forget about any semblance of comfort. It makes for a miserable 9-1/2 hours when the seat reclines maybe 3 inches & you only have room to cross your legs if you pull your foot up around thigh level & force it over your knee.

The trip to the tiny bathroom down the narrow aisle has you bouncing off of arms & shoulders or tripping over errant feet of soundly sleeping people. How do they sleep like that? It also involves standing in a line with passengers & flight attendants squeezing by initiating body contact that is normally reserved for sexual partners! And, by the way, what do people do in airline bathrooms that takes so damn long???

None of this eases the somewhat unnerving experience of knowing you are hurtling your way at 500+ miles per hour across the night sky, over the ocean, with 200 other people, in a long skinny tube that can crash & kill you at anytime. When you also consider that this huge heavy aircraft has somehow propelled itself off the ground into the air & is bouncing all over said sky, it is best not to even think about it. Yes, it amazes me how quickly we can travel the world by air now but I sure as hell don't understand how it all works.

Fortunately, the procedures at Istanbul airport moved quickly & we arrived at the gangway of our cruise ship a full 11 minutes prior to the deadline for boarding. Nothing to it! The reason it was such a tight schedule is that a week prior to sailing the cruise line informed us that they had changed the departure time from 8 PM to 6 PM. That coupled with a two hour plus delay in Newark used up our cushion of time, but we made it! Ah, the joys of air travel.