With all the speed of a tortoise on Ambien

So it turns out there's an explanation for why I run slow as molasses and get beat by women twice my age: I'm lazy and should just learn to pick up the pace.

Now that I've received a personal smackdown for my sloth at the hands of the New York Times style section, I have gone ahead and registered for the Nashville Half Marathon, so I'll be busy come April 26, 2008. Any and all comers who'd like to join me in running the half (or the full, if you're really a masochist) are welcome to sign up here.

And if you're tempted to criticize the half marathon distance as a marathon for weenies, (a) it totally is not, and (b) so what if it is, are you running it, punk?

Farewell, Grandma A.

This weekend we went to a memorial service for J-P's grandmother, who died in May and whom I never had the pleasure of meeting. It was a really special service -- all three of her kids, three of her seven grandchildren, a cousin, and two friends all spoke fondly (and humorously) about her. I learned how she used to practice chipping golf balls into the crease of the couch in the living room when J-P's dad was a kid, that she believed the best-tasting water in the world could be found on the 11th hole of a course in Birmingham, Alabama, and that she could outdrive J-P when she was well into her 80s.

She also was what people sometimes call a "strong woman." I've gotten the "strong woman" comment too, and I've realized that can mean anything from "one step above an invertebrate" to "crazy-ass bitch," depending on who it's coming from. But if one thing was clear, it was that Grandma A. knew what she wanted and how to get it, and that she would not hesitate to ask anyone for anything.

After the memorial service, we had a reception at the Spokane Club where we feasted on crudite, carved ham and turkey, and delicious super-jumbo shrimp cocktail. At one point after we polished off all the shrimp, the waiter brought another huge tray out to replenish it, but by that point the reception was winding down and we were getting ready to head back to the hotel, where the plan was to open a few bottles of wine, order some pizza, and recreate the appearance of a post-prom-party hotel room.

The grandchildren gathered around, eyeing the shrimp that was left out looking lonely and delicious. There were too many shrimp to eat there and then, and too much to leave behind in good conscience. Would it be tacky? rude? unfathomably crass? to ask for a doggy bag for the shrimp? I suggested jokingly -- JOKINGLY! -- that it was too bad we didn't just have a gallon Ziploc to load the shrimp in and take back to the hotel. At that point, my HUSBAND, the MAN I MARRIED, disappeared, and before I knew it returned with a gigantic plastic baggie that he had procured from the kitchen. He proceeded to load up the bag with shrimp, packed it into a box with a bunch of Grandma A.'s golf memorabilia, and off we went to the hotel. And we celebrated that night over shrimp, cocktails, and Little Caesar's.

I think Grandma A. would be proud.

Really big news

Sorry if you've had trouble accessing Rhino Legs during the last few days -- I was making some much-needed updates to the site. And I've got some really great news. Are you ready for this? Are you sure???...I finally have everything sorted out so you can get to the site from EITHER www.rhinolegs.com OR just plain rhinolegs.com. Aren't you excited? C'mon! I'm excited! You should be excited too! This is great news! (Seriously, I've spent more time working on this little problem than J-P and I have spent househunting since we've been in Nashville. I think I'm a little slaphappy.)

The best part of the whole fixing-the-www-thing was on the phone with the customer service guy at Go Daddy. After he helped me solve the problem, he asked me how I'd heard of Go Daddy. He probably had a list of three or four common answers to this question, and expected to check off a box based on my answer. You know, for marketing or something.

I thought about it for a minute, and of course I remember EXACTLY how I'd heard of Go Daddy. And since he asked, I decided to tell him the truth. So I said that I'd heard of Go Daddy because I saw its offensive and sexist commercial during the Super Bowl a few years ago. At this point, J-P almost choked on a Nilla Wafer. There was an uncomfortable silence on the other end of the phone before the guy pulled it together, thanked me for calling, and hung up as fast as he possibly could to get away from the crazy woman he now realized he was talking to.

What can I say? He asked me how I'd heard of them! I wasn't going to lie! Sure, I could've spared him my editorializing, but now, what fun would that be?

[And if you're wondering why I'd even bother giving my business to Go Daddy in light of that offensive and sexist commercial, the fact is that I went with another company first, but that company's product, website, and customer service were all atrocious. As much as it killed me to switch to Go Daddy, I decided not to settle for a sub-par product just on account of that commercial. So I really had to get my dig in on the phone, just so I wouldn't feel like I was completely abandoning my principles.]

Hallelujah, we will eat well in Nashville even if we have to cook it ourselves

After a brief detour through Virginia, we finally made it to Nashville a few days ago, and we've moved into a temporary place while we look for a house. For the first time in over two months, I am not living out of a suitcase. This is a major change in lifestyle, and I don't think it's really going to hit me until a few days from now when I don't get to pack up my backpack and go somewhere new.

Now, I'm sure this will come as a shock, but one of the things I most enjoyed about our trip through SE Asia was the chance to eat lots of yummy food. We enjoyed the food so much that we took a cooking class in Vietnam, and made mental notes of the dishes we ate in restaurants and on the street so that we could reverse engineer them at home. Of course, on our last trip to Nashville, the only good food we found was either Mexican or spelled with an apostrophe (you know, good ol' Southern cookin' like 'cue or biscuits'n'gravy). So I was expecting that sourcing some of the ingredients for Thai and Vietnamese dishes -- fish sauce, rice noodles, good sesame oil, green papayas, Thai basil -- would be a challenge to say the least. I figured that I'd have to order a lot on the internet, bring some back every time I visit New York, and substitute American products as a last resort.

But this morning, as we drove around in a futile search for a Kurdish restaurant we'd heard about, we stumbled on a gold mine -- an international food market down Nolensville Pike. As soon as we walked in J-P spotted the green papaya, and we knew we'd hit the jackpot. There was Thai basil, Vietnamese pho noodles, good green curry paste (no cilantro or mint here, thank you very much), and row upon row of sauces of the soy, fish, and chili varieties. There were Mexican quesos, shumai wrappers, and more kinds of rice than I ever knew existed. Alas, there was no durian.

We picked up a few staples, and I'm planning to work out a recipe for green papaya salad, which was one of our favorites. Once I have an internet-worthy recipe, I'll be sure to post it!

A day in the life

9:00 AM: Get out of bed. Put on bathing suit. Lounge in hammock. Take a dip.


10:30 AM: Breakfast (fresh fruit, croissants, coffee, juice...)

11:30 AM: Bike ride.




1:00 PM: Massage.

2:30 PM: Sit by the pool. Read, more fresh fruit, drink a cocktail. Swim.


4:00 PM: Yoga.

5:30 PM: Lounge in the hammock. Have another cocktail.


6:30 PM: Stroll on the beach.


7:30 PM: Take a shower and get ready for dinner.

8:00 PM: Dinner, champagne, dessert.


10:00 PM: Return to bungalow and rest up for all the relaxing we have planned for tomorrow.

Drink specials, redux

It turns out that not only is it impossible to get a good gin and tonic in Vietnam, but it`s also impossible to get a good martini in Thailand. I know, I know, we should have known better. But what can I say -- we had a fever, and the only prescription was more martinis. Plus, we were staying at a schmancy resort for a few days, and the bartenders had successfully mixed all sorts of fruity gin-based concoctions for us, so I figured if there was anywhere we could get a martini in SE Asia, this was it.

Now, to understand this story fully, it will help to understand the proper way to make a dry martini. First, you fill a shaker with ice. Then you add vermouth and shake. You dump the vermouth out so all that remains is a bare coating of vermouth on the ice. Then you add gin and shake, then pour the drink into a martini glass and garnish with an olive. The resulting drink is mostly gin, with just a touch of vermouth, and it is dee-luscious.

So one evening before dinner we ordered two martinis to our room. (Resort life is great, by the way, but more on that later.) The martinis arrived an odd shade of green, and since we hadn`t ordered dirty martinis, or lychee martinis, or any other type of bastardized martini, there was no explanation for the color. There was also no explanation for the taste, which was like a mix of dry vermouth and Rose`s lime with nary a hint of gin.

Disappointed by the first round, we persisted nonetheless, but decided that for the second round we would go to the bar ourselves to discuss proper martini-making with the bartender, a guy named Boy (not kidding) whom we had befriended the night before. We told Boy about our first round of martinis (which he had not mixed), and I stressed that the only ingredients in a martini should be gin and vermouth. Gin and vermouth. Boy assured us that he knew how to mix a proper martini, having learned his technique from a previous guest at the resort. Confident in Boy`s skills, we watched as he prepared our second round.

Things started well enough -- Boy placed ice in two martini glasses to chill them, filled a shaker with ice, and got out the dry vermouth and the Bombay Sapphire. Then we watched as he poured gin into the shaker and shook it with the ice. I could practically taste the juniper on my lips, when all of sudden J-P and I watched in horror as Boy drained all of the gin into the sink, and then filled the shaker with vermouth. We found ourselves unable to speak for the shock of it as Boy filled our glasses with a drink that was 99% vermouth.

Boy was so proud of these drinks -- he presented them to us triumphantly and asked how they were. Not willing to rain on his parade, we told him gently that we like our martinis with "a little more gin", and he happily obliged by topping us off with a splash of gin. And then he explained the technique he had learned from the previous guest -- to make a dry martini, he rinsed the ice with gin, and then dumped all the gin out before adding vermouth. We didn`t have the heart to tell him that though his technique was perfect, he had gotten the ingredients backwards. But we did get what we ordered -- two drinks with nothing but gin and vermouth. I just wouldn`t call them martinis.

A little slice of paradise

We spent the last few days on Thong Nai Pan on the island of Ko Phangnan in Thailand. Thong Nai Pan is a tiny, mellow little beach where all there is to do is sip fruit juice and Thai beer, eat pad thai and onion rings, snooze on the beach, and get six-dollar massages. It's a pretty nice place, but since we haven't done anything here I have no stories to tell, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Here's a shot of the beach from under the shade of a coconut tree:


I call this one "Farmer's Tan with Watermelon Juice":


This is the beach at Thong Nai Pan Noi, one of two beaches in Thong Nai Pan:


This is the other beach at Thong Nai Pan Yai, at sunset right near the bungalow where we stayed:


Here's another one of J-P, because I think he's cute:


This is The Photo That Got Away. A late afternoon thunderstorm was rolling in, and this boat was heading straight in towards Thong Nai Pan. I waited and waited until the boat tacked so I could get a nice profile shot, and just as I clicked the shutter, they dropped the sail so all I got was the empty mast, so you'll just have to use your imagination: