I'm more patriotic than you

Know why?

This is what I ate for dessert. It took 3 cakes to yield 1, 7" American Flag Cake and trust me, it tasted like freedom.

Creativity credit goes to: 17 and Baking

More about this cake later. Time for bed.

Happy 4th of July!

Yes, yes, I should talk about something patriotic. INSTEAD, I'm going to talk about fireworks. The real reason we all love the 4th so much.

Fireworks were banned in Issaquah - which didn't stop Nick and Chris from going to the reservations...but I digress. As a result, it's been almost 20 years since I've gone to a fireworks stand.

I remember it fondly - we'd show up with dad. I'd ask to buy a mega pack - No dice for this one. Dad knew the "good ones" and made up his own pack. My favorite was the one that sent an army ranger into the air and then floated to earth. Thankfully, Uncle Brad always bought a mega pack, so we had our share of crappy fireworks.

Well, it's 4th of July and we wanted some good ol' fashion fun. Sparklers. I told Nick we needed to buy sparklers and he looked at me like I was crazy. I believe his words were, "sparklers, you're serious." If it doesn't make a loud noise or emits lots of light, it's apparently not worth it to this pyro.

In any case, I was on a mission. So we found a fireworks stand in Dublin. The woman tried to sell Nick the mega pack - one of which was $500 and as tall as I am. The saleswoman was quick to chime in that it was a $700 value. We'd be dumb not to buy it. Which brings me to my main point. I have no conception of how much a firework should cost. None.

My sparklers were $7.99 + tax. But they were doing a buy one get one free deal. Great. So I ended up with 60 sparklers. I have no idea what I'll do with all of these, but I have them. And I still have no idea if I got ripped off. The only thing I can gauge against is candles - specifically the ones that spark. Those are effing expensive - maybe $3 for 12. So if I use that as a measure, it was a steal. However, I wouldn't recommend putting sparklers on a cake....the little black pits and smell of sulfur will probably keep folks from taking a bite.

Before I wrote this little post, I decided to check into fireworks laws. Here's a funny one for Livermore-Pleasanton:

"The Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department is reminding residents that all types of fireworks — even the legal kind — are illegal to have or use in both cities."

Even the legal kind are illegal. Go figure. Happy 4th!

Terra Bella Family Farm

My officemate participates in a CSA - Community Supported Agriculture program. What is a CSA? Well, Nick and I found out today.

You see, my officemate couldn't make her weekly pickup and offered us the basket if we wanted to pick it up ourselves. Why not?!

Here's the scoop:

1. You pay $30/week but have to sign up for 11 weeks.

2. What we got: a bunch of kale (not "a lot" but an actual, physical "bunch"), 1.5 lbs of onions (not sure what we'll do with all that), 1.5lbs of squash (a few different varieties), 2 peppers, 1 "bunch" of basil, broccoli, 1 loaf of olive/wheat bread from a local bakery, a basket of strawberries, 1.25lbs of pluots, 1.25lbs of peaches, a bag of different lettuces and one more extra loaf of bread from the "free" bin.

3. You pull up to a farm house and they have all the stuff sitting out with a scale, so you just wander around and take what's on the list.

It's quite cute and if you're the type of people who frequent the farmer's market, this could be right up your alley.

The downside - you get what you get. I'm glad we weren't planning on making cucumber salad - we'd be out of luck. On the plus side, you get to try new things. Other downside - you have to pick up your produce on a specified day, so if you're busy, you're out of luck OR you get your friends to help you out.

Not sure if we're quite ready to take the farm fresh, organic plunge, but it was a fun experience and it feels good to patronize local businesses.

Airplane etiquette

Can you tell I just got back from a work trip? It always puts me in a chipper mood (although by today, I'm probably better - wrote this last Thursday).

It's family vacation time - which means, learn how to go through security and board a plane efficiently. Is that mean of me? I'm sure I'll pay for it if/when I ever take a family through the airport. But let's be honest. We'll have practiced at home. We'll get through with amazing speed. But I digress.

There are business travelers and there are leisure travelers. Each with very distinct and different goals. I fall into the business traveler category, and I get frustrated by the leisure travelers. Tips for you kids that never ride planes:

1. Liquids go in a plastic bag. If it's close to a liquid, just put it in there.

2. Take off your jacket, sweater, sweat shirt, belt, shoes....basically, go through almost naked. Think about being naked and then start putting clothes on (mentally). As soon as you have put on enough clothes that you would be willing to walk out the door, that's where you need to be when walking through a metal detector.

3. Take your laptop out of it's sleeve. Laptop needs to be naked.

4. Make sure your stuff gets on the conveyor belt. You'll get turned around if you don't.

5. Let's pretend like you made it through without beeping. Go grab your stuff, slide on your shoes and get out of the way. The stuff is coming off the belt faster than you can put it back in your bag. Grab it and move.

I'm relatively unbothered by boarding planes. Not sure why....but it's no biggy. But here's my peeve. Over talkative seat mates.

So on my last flight I got a window seat. The guys next to me says, "shoot I forgot my iPod." Oh no. And I was going to read my Martha Stewart and Lucky! Nope. Talked to me for the entire plane ride. Learned that he has a buddy who married Madeleine Albright's daughter - "I didn't go to the wedding, but I was invited." And he almost made the US Olympic soccer team. So I said "oh, did you go to the training camp?" He says, "Well, no, I didn't make it to training camp." So technically I almost made the Olympic soccer team as well. He was nice and fine to chat with. But I know I talk kinda loud and I don't like talking to someone in such close proximity when I don't know them well - hello? Bad breath on either side makes it 1o times more awkward!

So get this. My Lucky magazine dropped to the floor during the flight. No worries. When we landed I asked the middle aged, balding man behind me if he could hand it to me. He passed it over really fast so I joked with him and said "oh, did you read a little" - thinking that if he had it handy, he must have flipped through it. Funny funny, haha, right? He responds with, "not much substance in there to read." Wow. Awkward. Who says that? I mean, it's no New Yorker or Vanity Fair, but seriously? That'll teach me to tease middle aged balding men!

Wedding cards

I have a confession. I have a hard time being serious at weddings. Don't get me wrong, I still choke up when a bride walks down the aisle....but I'm not about all the lovey dovey stuff.

With wedding season upon us, it's time to purchase wedding cards. Here's my issue with 95% of most wedding cards - kinda make me wanna barf. The cards are typically over italicized - because italics = love OR there is lace and pink and cakes everywhere.

I recently found this little gem at a small store in SF. It made its way to a wedding in DC. I hope they found it as funny as we did.

Anyways, I just bought 2 cards for 2 different weddings and had a rough time finding ones that weren't overly sap-y or trying too hard to be funny. So it made me wish I'd bought the above card in bulk.

And if you have friends that weren't actually living in sin, you might also like this one.

My gas tank holds at least 11.4 gallons

I've had my car since 2005. I fill it every couple of weeks, usually right after the gas light comes on.

I filled it up today and got an all time high - 11.4 gallons! It's the little things, and until today, I thought it was closer to 11.25. Yes, I could probably read the manual to see just how many gallons it can hold, but isn't this more fun?

Secret!

I have 2 secrets to share with you.

1. Have you ever typed an email in outlook and tried to include a link? Copy, paste, then BLAST! The link didn't turn blue and get underlined - it won't link!!! Now what? Well, put carrots at either end i.e. <> It'll turn that puppy into a link!

2. I get gas at costco. Why? It's cheap and it's 2 minutes from my house - 1 minute if you catch the lights right. Anyhow...did you know that you can go on either side of the pump? Yep, the pump is long enough to reach all the way around your car. Maybe it's a California thing, but nobody knows this! I feel like such a cheater. I pull up to costco and there are lines for all of the cars with tanks on the left (mine is on the left as well). I pass them all and pull into a right side filling station. I'm done before any of the other cars are close to pulling in. Awesome!