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Roll it Out!

"But do you think the dough will rise the same at altitude?" I asked Tiffany as we packed our bags to visit her sister in Denver for Christmas.

It was my 117th pizza-related question in two days.

"Oh my god," Tiffany said. "Please stop worrying about the pizza."

I couldn't help it. I had volunteered to make homemade pizzas for Tiffany's family--her mom, Patty; dad, Gary; cousin from Peru, Alessandra; and sister, Melody--on Christmas Eve. This was partly because I wanted to contribute something to the weekend and partly because the original Christmas Eve dinner--Gary had offered to make tofu stir fry (none of us are vegetarians)--had been booted from the menu.

"Okay," I said.

But I lied. As we waited to board the plane the next morning, I was still worrying. I feared I had bitten off more than I could chew--figuratively speaking. Literally speaking, I could eat homemade pizza every night of the week and never tire of it the way Tiffany was tiring of my questions. The problem was, I had only made homemade pizza dough once, the weekend before, after I volunteered to make the homemade pizzas in Denver and then found out Denver does not have a Trader Joe's, which is where Tiffany and I cheat and buy our pre-made dough.

"There are only six of us," I said. "My recipe will make about eight dough balls for eight-ish-inch pizzas. Do you think we should make all eight pizzas or freeze some dough for Melody or not make all the dough?"

This is a trick I pull when I'm trying to get in as many questions as I can--I bundle them into a long run-on question in hopes that Tiffany will answer one of them before she stops responding to me at all.

But she didn't even look up from her crossword puzzle.

So I fretted. That night, I was head pizza chef and Patty was sous. Tiffany was second sous/drinking beer with Gary. While Melody was at work, we mixed with our hands and kneaded with our fists. Short a rolling pin, we used the bottles of wine Gary had bought to roll out the dough. And, because I was terrified of not having enough to go around, we made all eight pizzas, baking them on baking sheets, broiler plates and the bottom sides of pans.

As the pizzas started to come out of the oven, crispy-crusted and golden-cheesed, I was feeling very fine. And then Tiffany and Gary came back from picking up Alessandra at the bus stop. She's living in Colorado for a few months while she interns at a ski resort. Guess where she's been assigned?

The kitchen.

Guess what she makes, five days a week, several hours a day?

Pizzas.

Ah, well. Some things cannot be foreseen and therefore cannot be worried about in advance.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

Go Team! (Whichever team! I Don't Care!)

Last night, Tiffany and I went to watch the University of Kansas' men's basketball team play UC Berkeley, and I was reminded of two truths about myself. First, why I was a better soccer player than a basketball player. The speed of basketball and the size of the court made me play that particular game in a constant state of claustrophobic panic-- once, the first year I played on a team as a 6th grader, an opposing parent (what a jerk!) yelled "Shoot it!" as I was dribbling the ball past half-court. I did shoot it. And, as you might expect, I missed. Also, the fact that basketball teams call plays was not conducive to my personality. When a play didn't work, I didn't know what to do, so I'd dribble straight for the basket without a thought for any of my teammates. In soccer, there's no such thing as plays, so I could never feel inadequate not completing one.

The second thing last night's game reminded me of is this: I have no loyalty as a fan. I grew up in Kansas, so you might think that, although I did not attend KU, I'd cheer for my hometown team. Alternatively, because I live in San Francisco, you might think that, although I did not attend Cal across the Bay, I might cheer for the Bears. But I cheered for neither team. Instead, I did like I always do when I'm watching a game and cheered for a good match. When Kansas was on a roll, I cheered for Kansas. When Cal got too far behind, I cheered for Cal. I was happiest for the few minutes in the game when only four points separated the teams. Having been an athlete all my life, I am curiously indifferent to who wins games in which I do not play.

My brother cannot understand this about me. When the Giants and the Rangers were set to play in the World Series, I bet him the Giants would win. He was horrified that I'd chosen the Giants over the Rangers. It was as if I'd told him I was pregnant but had decided to donate my baby to Goodwill.

"But you were born in Texas," he said sadly.

"So," I verbally shrugged on the phone. "I live here."

Anyway, of course I won the bet, but I wasn't happy about the way I won it. I wanted the series to last longer than it did, and so, while I bet on the Giants, what I really wanted was a lot of fun games to watch.

Tiffany, also, is not a fan of my indifference. When the Patriots or the Red Sox play, she cheers wholeheartedly for them because she grew up in the Boston area. I'm happy for either of those teams to win, but, if they're winning by too much, I cheer for whomever they're beating.

"Wooo-hooo!" I yell, when the opposing team scores.

"Rebecca!" Tiffany screams. "Shut up! If we* lose, I'm blaming you and it won't be funny!"

I'm an intensely loyal person in other areas of my life. As a spectator... not so much. But I guess that's a kind of loyalty too-- I'm consistently, passionately, faithfully loyal to the idea of a good spectacle.

*As an aside, we have a good friend who hates it when spectators use the first-person to cheer for a team, as in, "We're winning" or "We made a great trade last year." She thinks if you're not on the team, you don't get to have ownership in the team. But I take ownership of all teams... as long as they're giving me a great game.

Commitment... And Everything That Goes With it (And Everything that Doesn't)

A few days ago, over a bowl of shared udon noodles, Tiffany told me she was ready to take our relationship to the next level.

I finished slurping a noodle up from the not-so-secure grasp of my chopsticks.

"Really?" I asked.

Now, before our families start calling to bemoan the fact that I've revealed some very big news on my blog, let me explain what level Tiffany meant:

A Christmas card picture.

Yes, after almost six years, Tiffany felt committed enough to me to plaster a picture of the two of us on a card and mail it out to all our friends and family. We've been co-signing Christmas cards since we moved in together, but I think we can all appreciate the seriousness of The Christmas Card Picture--it's what couples do when they're married, when they buy a dog, when they have children.

"Hmmm," I said, stabbing at another noodle and grinning across the table at her. "This is a big moment for us!"

Those were the wrong words, of course. As any half of a couple knows, the minute you assign significance to a moment, the other half will verbally backpedal until any significance is lost. But Tiffany, brave soul, stood strong. She remained committed to The Christmas Card Picture even as I splattered her with noodle broth.

We couldn't discuss the idea much more that night. We were late for a showing of "Burlesque"--a movie Tiffany couldn't wait to see and a movie I had no desire to see whatsoever.

But a few days later, the topic came up again as we prepared our Christmas card lists. We decided to find a suitable picture. This is tougher than it sounds because Tiffany and I are the World's Worst Picture Takers. We very rarely have a camera with us, and, when we do, we almost never point it at ourselves.

"It's like we don't even exist," Tiffany said, scrolling through the hundreds of pictures on our computer, 99.9 percent of which featured someone else.

"How about this one?" I asked, pointing to a shot of the two of us taken by a tour guide in Vietnam from so far away we look like Fisher Price people.

"Eh," Tiffany replied.

Clearly, The Christmas Card Picture called for new material, so, when we got our Christmas tree, we begged one of the workers on the lot to take a photo of us loading it up to carry home.

"You're carrying it home on that?" he asked, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head at our battered Vespa.

"Yes," we answered.

Click.

The photo was a little bit blurry. That's not the fault of the man who took it because our camera takes blurry pictures when Tiffany and I use it too. We just haven't bothered to figure out why. Still, the blurriness almost looked like soft-focus (like all the scenes of Christina Aguilera in "Burlesque"--you know, where her hair fades out in a soft glow--or maybe you haven't seen it? Good for you.). By our standards, it was a keeper.

But when we played around with the picture and some card-making software, we both got cold-feet.* And it's not because we're not ready to "commit" (clearly, we are: Tiffany, who hates food-in-mouth noises proposed The Christmas Card Picture over my noodle-slurping, and I went to see "Burlesque"**--what more commitment can a couple endure?). It's because, in comparison to The Christmas Card Pictures we are receiving from our friends (with babies laid out on plush carpets and toddlers squeezing each other around the neck and puppies in reindeer antlers), we just look like a boring couple with a tiny half-naked Christmas tree. And we don't want to inflict upon our friends and family the cheesiness of just the two of us.

I mean, come on...

That's what this blog is for.

*Despite the fact that this picture never went on a card or into the mail, I've posted it here for illustrative purposes.

**I secretly enjoyed the movie, mostly for the music.

O (Naked) Christmas Tree

The other night Tiffany and I went to get our Christmas tree.

This is a big event. We don't have a house to string lights on or a staircase to drape garland over. After the tree, the most extravagant decorating we do is to put a Santa Claus toilet lid cover on our toilet. My grandmother sent us the cover, which is literally Santa Claus' face, and we like it because it's funny and also it keeps the seat warm. Anyway, you would think that, given the prominent role the tree plays in our holiday-ing, we would put a lot of care and time into the decision of which tree to buy.

You'd be wrong.

But that's not because we don't care. In fact, it's because one of us cares so much, gets so excited, that she cannot even take the time to consider all the trees on the lot and rushes to the first tree she sees. That one is Tiffany. I pointed this out to her last year after we purchased our tree. We had barely stepped onto the vacant lot where a non-profit organization sets up its tree-selling operation when Tiffany, unable to control herself, rushed to the tree she wanted (the first one she saw) without even a "how-do-you-do" to the other trees:

"How about this one?" she cried.

Seeing her face, I could hardly refuse. I took a deep (quick) breath of the fresh Christmas tree smell and then we paid for our tree and left.

This year, we took a more measured approach. To show how capable she was of taking her time, Tiffany diverted us away from the section of trees that met our height and size requirements (short and tiny) and led us around the lot, pointing out massive trees the size of the ones her family used to have. Only after our lap did we return to the section of small trees and proceed to ponder them.

"Which one?" I asked.

"I know, which one," she answered, smugly. "And I know which one you picked too."

I doubted that. When I was little, my mom bought my brother and me a book about how all the imperfect Christmas trees never get chosen and how they're only imperfect because they offered their branches and needles as shelter and food to forest animals (I get a lump in my throat just thinking about it!). Since then, I can't bear to buy a tree without any blemishes.

"This is the one I want," I said, trailing my fingers over the branches of a perfectly imperfect tree.

"That one!? It's naked!" she cried, pointing to the wide gap between its top and lower branches.

We compromised on a half-naked tree. At the apartment, we nestled our tree in the place of honor in front of our biggest window, twenty feet from the bathroom and Santa Claus' face.

Wranglers

This is how it came to pass that on a recent Sunday I was standing waist-deep in brush waiting to wrangle a bull:

Our families celebrated a little early Christmas and the birthday of our good friend Robert on an overnight at Robert's farm just outside of Austin. After a late night by the campfire, we were enjoying a batch of breakfast tacos on the porch when Robert came back from checking on his horses.

"Anybody want to go help wrangle a bull-calf that got loose?"

It's safe to say I never expected those words to be directed at me. In fact, I wasn't sure what wrangle meant. I pictured wrestling. Although you might think I would turn down the invitation with that mental image, I jumped up with Tiffany, my brother Brandon, my best friend Zac and Zac's girlfriend Kate to get some wrangling gear on (Brandon's girlfriend, Lindsay, was in bed with a head cold. No wrangling for her.).

Brandon came back pulling on a lavender Provincetown sweatshirt of my mom's (perhaps the first wrangler to ever so do). Zac emerged buckling his favorite leather belt, which has his last name etched into the hide. Tiffany, Kate and I couldn't think of anything we couldn't wrangle without. I did wish, however, that I'd put my contacts in earlier. I was wearing what Kate has dubbed my "special occasion" glasses. These are the glasses I bought two years ago ostensibly to replace the glasses I bought twelve years ago. Instead, I wear my old glasses most of the time to extend the longevity of my new glasses. I didn't see how wrangling could help in that regard. Alas, there was no time to waste.

Zac drove his truck, with the rest of us, plus my mom and Zac's mom Marilyn, piled in the back. Marilyn's cell phone rang as we bumped along the gravel road.

"Can't talk now! We're wrangling!" she answered.

Wrangler Robert shook his head, laughing.

A couple of pastures away, we met Robert's neighbors who had only moments before nearly wrangled the wayward bull into a trailer. Our task was to re-wrangle the bull.

We introduced ourselves.

"I'm Rebecca," I said, shaking the hand of a woman who was busy trying to call the bull. She wore a sweatshirt that read "No Outfit's Complete Without a Few Cat Hairs."

"Hooooo---woooo," the woman responded. I thought her bull-call sounded more like a train whistle, but who was I to judge?

A man in a cowboy hat passed a long rope to my brother.

"You get close enough, toss this over him," the man said.

My brother nodded, mute.

"Then, I'm warning you, you're going to want all your friends tugging on that rope," the man went on. "That bull's gonna fight."

And with that, we traipsed off into the brush.

"Is this a problem?" Tiffany asked as we set out, looking down at her red scarf.

"No," I said. "I think the bull will be more offended by Brandon's lavender."

(It turns out Brandon was an okay shot with the rope--he was able to lasso my arms to my side without any trouble at all).

Early on, Robert got within touching distance of the bull with the help of a bucket of feed. But, because we had not snuck around to cut off the escape route, the bull trotted off without any difficulty. We pursued, at one point breaking into a run ("Oh no," Kate said, as she fell in line behind us, dodging the branches we flung back as we went, "I'm not wearing my running shoes!").

But we never did wrangle that bull. In fact, if there is such a thing as unwrangling, that's what we did because we never even saw him again.

We had a lot of fun, though.

Yes, that's one thing we know how to do.

Safety First!

It poured all day Wednesday, and that night Tiffany walked in the door from work wearing our scooter rain gear. It's fairly unattractive stuff... a gigantic yellow waterproof jacket that zips up well over any collar you might have on and baggy charcoal-gray waterproof pants that bunch at the ankles and make a swish-swish noise when you walk. I'll tell you what, though, it works. After you've had to sit on a wet seat in a pair of jeans, splashing down without a care in latex feels fantastic.

The jacket is yellow the better to see us in the rain. When we first bought the scooter in Los Angeles, I made Tiffany wear a reflective vest whenever she rode it despite the fact that she passed her written and driving tests on the first try, something I did not do. I failed the written exam, missing the cut-off by one question and had to stand outside the DMV's office for 15 minutes before I was allowed to go back in and retake it. Tiffany thought this was hysterical. I did not. Besides an exam I had to take at the end of Confirmation class at church, it was the only test I'd ever failed.

A few minutes later, as it turned out, I failed another one--the driving exam. First, I scooted too slowly around a circle in the parking lot so that I lost my balance and had to extend my legs to catch myself from falling. Then, the former highway patrolman/instructor asked me where my clutch was.

"I don't have a clutch," I said smartly, knowing he was trying to trick me. "We don't have gears."

"Really?" he asked.

"No...?" I asked, trying to read his eyes for a double-trick question.

Silence.

"This thing?" I asked, pointing to a red button.

"You don't have a clutch," he said.

I bowed my head in shame.

Apparently, he liked me because he let me ride around the circle again, which I did without trouble, and he pretended that I hadn't changed my mind about the clutch under pressure.

So anyway, despite the fact that Tiffany was a natural-born scooter rider, I enforced the vest policy because I couldn't bear the thought of someone running her over because they hadn't seen her (or for any other reason, come to think of it). Then I wore the vest. It was my first solo scooter trip at night, and a car of teenagers pulled up beside me.

I smiled at them, thinking they were admiring how cute I was on our clutch-less scooter.

Then, they pointed and laughed.

"Look at that vest!" they howled, pulling away when the light changed.

When I got home, I stuffed the vest in the back of the closet.

"You don't have to wear that anymore," I told Tiffany.

At least the yellow jacket serves an important second function: keeping us dry. As for the rest, well, I leave it in God's hands. Hopefully he doesn't hold a grudge about that Confirmation test.

Bugs! (The crawly-kind not the computer-kind)

I have an outrageous fear of bugs. Always have. When I was little, if I saw a bug in the room I was occupying, I would take refuge as far away from the bug as possible (on the seat of the toilet, on the arm of a chair)--still keeping it in sight (the only thing that scares me more than a bug is a bug I know is still there but can no longer see)--and scream:

"DAD! BUG!"

Or:

"MOM! BUG!"

Or:

"BRANDON! BUG! PLEASE!"

Brandon required a "please" because, as an older brother, he sometimes enjoyed watching me suffer. Few things cause me more suffering than bugs. Strangely, I used to let Brandon drape my outstretched arms in his pet snakes and was not the least bit perturbed.

Anyway, what makes my fear of bugs all the more bothersome is that, although I hate bugs, I also hate to kill them. I hate bugs and I hate killing them, equally. Killing them makes me feel bad, in the case of some of the more innocent-looking bugs and even some spiders I know are doing good things (like eating other bugs), and it makes me feel disgusted, in the case of bugs that crunch when I smush them with a wad of paper towels or bugs with a million legs some number of which inevitably end up separated from the body when I smush them with a wad of paper towels.

Also, I cannot kill bugs with the bottom of my shoe (gross! I have to wear them after all!) or rolled up-magazines (I have seen too many people swing and miss, thereby notifying the bug of his impending death and sending him scurrying into couch cushions or tiny cracks in floors). No, when I am by myself with a bug, I use the wad of paper towels, and I don't skimp. I do not like to feel the bug in my hand.

I know I am not alone in my fear of bugs. I also know that many women in my situation will call upon a man to de-bug a room. And now you see the problem Tiffany and I have, don't you? We do not have a man. We are man-less, by design.

Tiffany does not like bugs either. And she would NEVER reach for a bug with her hand even if her hand was covered in a wad of paper towels. So sometimes we are left in a situation like this:

"TIFFANY! BUG!"

"EEEEK! GIVE ME YOUR SHOE!"

"NO! DISGUSTING!"

"YOU KILL IT THEN!"

A few nights ago a long-legged flying bug flew directly at our faces while we were preparing dinner. He was not so scary looking. But I hated him all the same. In a moment of self-sacrifice, I reached for him with cupped hands and... caught him!

"I caught him," I said to Tiffany, "open the window! Quick, he's flying around in my hands!"

But instead of opening the window, Tiffany screamed at the top of her lungs at the thought of the long-legged flying bug flying around in my hands. In so doing, she scared me, and I dropped him.

And then I am sad to report that Tiffany reached for a magazine, rolled it up, and... well, she didn't miss.

First Word. Sounds like love (is, in fact, love).

The night before my family and our two best-friend families left New Orleans where we'd gathered to spend Thanksgiving, we crowded into the tiny living room of the house we'd rented to play charades. We snacked on left-over turkey and ham and made a gigantic bowl of "queso" (melted Velveeta cheese with canned Rotel tomatoes and chilis) to sustain us.

Charades used to be an annual Thanksgiving tradition for us. Over the 25 years we've celebrated the holiday together, we've played charades in my family's home, a hotel room in Laughlin, Nevada, a rented house in Florida and a number of different cabins in national parks across the southeast. The last few years, however, the game has been left off the agenda. This year we decided to bring it back.

For the record, I am not very good at charades. It takes me at least 10 seconds of my allotted 90 to count off how many words are in whatever movie, book or television show I am supposed to act out. If I wasn't so competitive, I'd be too embarrassed to even try to act out anything. But before my cheeks have time to redden, I just think about the points my team needs and start waving my hands and pulling on my ear and trying to communicate without using my words.

Anyway, it was a particularly dramatic Thanksgiving this year. Just how dramatic, I'll save for my book. It's enough to say that so much happened between lunch, when we passed a pen around to write our titles on scrap paper, and dinner that most of the group had forgotten about the Big Game.

Not Little Rebecca.

"Y'all," she finally called out into the kitchen, different bedrooms and outside patio space, "can we please just play charades?"

And so we did.

My mom was one of the first to act. We were on opposite teams. When she took her crumpled piece of sticky-note, I saw the panic set in. She doesn't like to be the center of attention. Like, at all.

"This is yours," she said to me, dejectedly, "I can tell by the handwriting."

My mom then set about trying to use her hands and body to depict the movie "Lady and the Tramp." She wasn't doing well--mostly using her hands to fan out a dress for her first word and then putting her hands on her hips and trying to look seductive for her fourth. The longer people had no idea what she was doing the more awful I felt for her. I'm very competitive, but I'm also compassionate. I'm what you might call a compassionate-competitor. I whispered that she should call on my favorite lifeline in charades, the trusty "sounds like" clue.

"Sounds like 'ramp,'" I hissed into her ear as a suggestion for something she might be able to successfully pantomime.

I saw my brother coming before I heard him. Brandon and I were on the same team.

It was like slow-motion only fast.

"No--o--o--o," he yelled. "Don't help her!

He reached for my head and pushed it back away from my mom's ear and, accidentally, right into the arm of the chair I was sitting in.

Thud.

Well, so now you know my brother is very competitive too. But compassionate as well. No sooner had my head hit the arm than he cradled me in a bear hug until I pushed him away telling him I was fine.

"Okay, you get 30 extra seconds for my disruption," Brandon told our mom and her team.

Unfortunately, the extra time didn't help.

I wish I could tell you who won. Probably Zac's 86-year-old grandmother could. We were 13 in number (sadly, three of our group had already departed) and she decided to sit out to make even teams of six. She acted as the keeper of the titles, referee and sometimes clue (when one of my teammates pointed to her, I successfully called out "old" for the first word of "Old Yeller"--for the record, she might also have been used for "elegant," "beautiful" and "damn good grandma.")

Love comes in all shapes and sizes. But sometimes it looks like this: a group of friends and family sitting three to a couch cushion and two to a chair shouting out guesses, laughing their asses off and passing each other chips dipped in melted Velveeta cheese.

Bumps on a Road

"Bumps on a road, bumps on a road, bumps on a road."

That's what I tell myself every time I fly through turbulence because one time Tiffany told me that turbulence is just like "bumps on a road." Her dad is a pilot and so this, in theory, should make me feel better. After all, it comes from someone who knows someone who knows.

But it only works for a few minutes. Then, I remember:

"Holy sh*t, there is no road. I'm six miles up in the air."

I have to fly a lot. That's what happens when you live far away from your family. You'd think I'd get more comfortable flying, but I don't (I also don't like the smell of airplanes, but in comparison to bumps on the road, this seems like small potatoes). Every time I fly, I say the same prayer and promise I'll do something with my life (like blog!) if whoever's up there lets me keep living it.

Last week, Tiffany and I flew to New Orleans to meet my family and friends for Thanksgiving. On the way there, we hit a lot of turbulence. After a few minutes, the pilot cheerfully came on and told us that, although traffic control had recommended he fly around the hail storm raging below us, he thought it had subsided enough to go on through it and keep us on schedule.

My heart sunk to my stomach. My palms, already sweaty, became sweatier.

"We should be through it in about 20 minutes," the pilot breezed, signing off.

Whenever Tiffany and I are traveling together and hit bumps on the road in the air, she reaches over to take my hand. This makes me feel better and worse. It makes me feel better that Tiffany--who I always find out later was also nervous--is calm enough to think about helping me stay calm. It makes me feel worse because it reminds me that holding hands with the one I love just means I have a one to lose in case of a cr-sh (it feels safer to not spell that word out).

Anyway, our flight back home to San Francisco was a little better. But we hit a few bumps on the road about 30 minutes before we landed. I was handling this okay until the flight attendant got on the intercom and said:

"Remember, in case of an emergency landing, your seat can be used as a flotation device."

Tiffany grabbed my hand.

But fortunately, I was too angry to be scared.

"What the f*ck?" I whispered to Tiffany. "They never say that at the end of the flight!"

I was so distracted trying to find the flight attendant in question to give her a dirty look that I hardly even noticed as we flew over all the bumps. Then we landed.

I found the flight attendant on my way out the door. But I only thanked her. It seems silly to hold a grudge once you're on the ground.*

*This picture is one we took from the window of our plane on our way to Vietnam. Thank god there weren't many bumps in the road on that lo-o-o-n-g flight.

Thank You!!

Thanks to all who read my blog last week and participated in the 50th Post Celebration extravaganza! You bumped my page views up by more than 1,000 in one week (prior to that it took me four months to get to 4,000, so that's quite an accomplishment).

I hope you keep reading, commenting and passing me along.

Bookmark me! Check back! I promise to keep posting... including one immediately following this post of gratitude.