Friday, February 22, 2008

Help Me Choose ...

Ready, Set, Kaboodle!

I love this site. And not just because it's one of the sites I work with right now. :)

Honestly, the more I use it, the more I love it. Kaboodle is all about discovering new products, saving what you want or love (or both!) to wish lists, sharing those items with friends and getting input from the community at large. It's "social shopping" -- finally, an internet experience that comes pretty darn close to mimicking the browse-and-windowshop-and-longingly-linger-over-the-$1500-bag-that-I'll-never-buy shopping experience that many women undertake as seriously as an olympic sport. In short, Kaboodle is the modern woman's BFF.

But don't worry guys -- you'll love it, too. While it definitely does enable the endless browsing that can characterize the physical shopping experience, Kaboodle is also very practical and utilitarian. If you know exactly what you're looking for (and what guy doesn't??), you can still "shop" (using the term rather loosely in this case) with that same laser beam precision that enables you to park the car, walk into the store and emerge with a crisp new blue button-down dress shirt in exactly 2.5 minutes.

If I haven't already sent you an invitation, check it out at www.kaboodle.com. I promise you'll love it. Look me up when you're there -- My username is "sashad"... which is meant to really be "Sasha D" (long story).

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

So Many Earthquakes, So Little Time


It turns out that on any given day in California, there are numerous earthquakes registering on the Richter scale. Thankfully, the vast majority are extremely small (in the 1's and 2's on the scale) and go unnoticed by regular mortals like you and me.

Sometimes, however, they are big enough to feel but not big enough to cause damage or injury (again, thankfully). I'm in San Diego this week and while in a meeting today, one of my colleagues poked her head in and said "Did you feel that??" We had just had an earthquake. I actually didn't feel that one, but when I checked one of the local San Diego news web sites, I saw they were reporting a 5.0 quake this afternoon just south of the US/Mexico border, not far from San Diego. The AP wire story referred to it as a "moderate" earthquake.

Tonight, as I was finishing up a few things at the office, there was another tremor, and I did atually feel that one. It was brief, but there was no mistaking it. I don't know how to explain it, but you can just tell that the movement you feel is not being caused by a big truck rumbling by on the street.

The map in the picture shows a total of 61 earthquakes, all which probably occurred in the last 1 to 2 weeks. (The top 30 have all occurred within the last 4 days or so.) It's a little freaky when you think about it too long.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Jamaica Mistake?

A couple of blog entries ago, I casually alluded to an “interesting” incident at the hands of a Jamaican spa esthetician. Since I know you’ve been impatiently checking my blog multiple times per day, waiting with bated breath for the full story (ha!), let me not keep you waiting any longer…

As I mentioned, we stayed in an all-inclusive resort near Montego Bay which featured a full-service spa. (You'll ponder the real meaning of "full-service" in just a moment.) Special K and I decided that we should take full advantage of our mini-vacation and after perusing the extensive menu of facials, massages and scrubs, we booked ourselves for a full body scrub and wrap.

The next day, we showed up at the spa at our appointed time and were graciously shown into a room with two massage beds. Jennifer, the lead esthetician, was a pleasant, friendly Jamaican woman, stout and round in her white spa pant suit. Before she and her colleage, Claudette, quietly slipped out of the room to allow us to get undressed, she handed me a tiny thong made out of paper and elastic and instructed me to put it on. Special K stifled a laugh and when they left the room, he raised an eyebrow and said "Now, THAT is sexy!"

I rolled my eyes, donned the paper underwear, and slid under my miniscule towel just as Jennifer and Claudette reappeared. The scrub progressed from the treatment room where we started, to an outdoor (but enclosed) shower where we had to rinse the scrub particles off, into the steam room, back to the treatment room where we were slathered in some sort of seaweed-based compound, wrapped up tightly like giant burritos and then left to contemplate our suddenly itchy noses in silence for about 20 minutes. Finally, we were unwrapped, herded off to the outdoor shower again to get rid of the seaweed dressing and then back to the treatment room for one last scrub. Quite the gauntlet for what was supposed to be a relaxing massage and body scrub.

While we were in the steam room, Jennifer poked her head in to check on us and when she saw me with my towel wrapped around my chest and Special K with his wrapped around his waist, she said "You need to take off the towels to get the full benefit". We nodded and said ok, and then waited for her to leave and close the steam room door. But she didn't leave. No, she stood there, arms folded across an ample chest and looked at us expectantly while she waited for us to drop the towels. "Now." she said. Obediently, we unwound ourselves from our towels and finally satisfied, Jennifer disappeared.

Now, I'm not a spa rookie by any means, and I have experienced a number of different treatments, but I will admit that my cultural blinders have made me somewhat accustomed to an Amercian level of modesty and so when Jennifer pulled my towel aside (completely aside, not just strategically folded over to reveal the side of a bare thigh) during my scrub, I was momentarily surprised. But not nearly as surprised as I was when she ordered me to roll over onto my back and she did not bother to replace the towel. There I was in all my glory (paper underpants included) and Special K was blissfully unaware as he lay on the table next to me, eyes closed and his towel still snugly in place.

Let's just say that more of me was exfoliated that day than really needed to be.

Old Mother Hubbard

Well, I'm not old (no sassy comments, please), nor am I a mother in any sense, NOR does Hubbard make an appearance anywhere in my name, but I will admit that my cupboards are painfully bare at the moment.

This is what happens when I’m on the road on a near constant basis and only drop in on my NYC apartment once every week and a half or two. I came home after work tonight a little bit hungry and this is what I was greeted with when I swung open the door of the fridge:

- Half a loaf of oat nut bread
- Sharp cheddar cheese
- Goat cheese
- Cream cheese (sensing a theme here?)
- 2 hard-boiled eggs
- 6 bottles of Vitamin water
- Salsa
- Soy sauce
- Strawberry jam
- Bag of baby carrots
- Batteries (supposedly they work longer if you store them in the fridge – I have NO idea if that’s actually true)
- 4 bottles of Stella Artois (part of the overall scheme to entice a certain CA gentleman to come and visit me in NYC)

I knew I should have stopped for sushi on the way home.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful

It's slushing in NYC right now. I don't know how else to explain it. It's not exactly snowing and it's not exactly raining. It's more of a shower of slushy, icy cold wet gobs falling from the sky. It's kind of how I think you'd feel if someone blew a 7-Eleven slurpee at you through a straw. It's pretty disgusting really.

I just got home from a fun business dinner (in a toasty warm Italian place) and I must take a moment to bow to the taxi gods because as luck would have it, I was able to hail a cab right outside the restaurant. But even still, by the time I got home, the freshly dry cleaned pants I put on this morning were soaking wet on the cuffs and part way up the legs and even worse, I have those tell-tale salt stains appearing at the bottom of each pant leg, making me cringe when I think how hard this city is on EVERYTHING, even your clothes.

I also want to remind you that almost EXACTLY one year ago today (it was Valentine's Day 2007 to be exact), New York was pummeled by a wicked ice storm that shut down all major means of public transportation and left me stranded in Gotham for the President's Day long weekend when I SHOULD have been cuddled up with Special K in sunny California.

So, along with the taxi gods, I am also vehemently appealing to the weather gods for their kindness since I am meant to be on a flight on Thursday, heading back to CA for the long weekend. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. But I'm pretty sure it won't be slushing in Orange County. (I'll stay away from 7-Eleven's.)

Sunday, February 3, 2008

A Giant Upset

Oh... my... God. OH MY GOD. I'm not even sure that diehard Giants fans thought that this was possible. Defeat the mighty Tom Brady and fellow Pats after a perfect regular season and decisive play-off wins? To have thawed out enough from the Packers' game two weekends ago to even be able to PLAY in balmy Phoenix?? Un-BE-lievable.

This is the first time I've actually been in a city at Super Bowl time whose team is actually IN the game. I met Stacy and a bunch of her friends at The Pinch, a friendly and fun Irish pub down in the Village, for the game. The bar exploded when the Giants were the first team to put points on the board. We were subdued for a bit with Brady's first touchdown pass. None of us could believe it was still only 7-3 at half time. (Heck, it was still 7-3 at the end of the third quarter!!)

The flip-flopping score in the fourth quarter just about caused heart attacks throughout the pub. I remember muttering to Stacy when the Pats went up 14 - 10 that there were still almost three minutes left in the game and anything could still happen. And happen it did!! With only 35 seconds left on the clock, Eli Manning made a clean pass to Plaxico Burress (love that name) for the winning touchdown. Many of the Pats fans immediately threw their coats on and left the bar, but the rest of us were jumping up and down, high-fiving, hugging and losing our voices from cheering so much.

It was such fun making my way from the bar back to the subway to head home because by this time, people had spilled out onto the streets from all sorts of bars and restaurants and everyone high-fived me as I made my way to the 4th Street stop. The atmosphere on the subways is usually somewhat subdued with no one really ever looking at anyone else or making conversation. But tonight, the carefully arranged expressions of disinterest were nowhere to be seen. The A train was a bubbly place of euphoric celebration.

I am just disappointed that I'll be on a flight heading west on Tuesday when the victory parade is meant to happen.

And finally, a Super Bowl blog entry wouldn't be complete without some sort of commentary on the commercials....

Best commercial this year? Well, I wouldn't be a true citizen of Steeler Nation (see previous post) if I didn't say it was the one with Ben singing "If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain..." I mean, COME ON. The guy is BOUND to make a Super Bowl appearance one way or another.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Random Friday Night Conversations

A bunch of us met at McGee's, one of the favourite neighbourhood pubs, last night for drinks, appetizers and some much needed time to let off steam after this past week. While we didn't quite make it to the karaoke bar down the street (next time, for sure!), we managed to amuse ourselves for few hours anyway.

LOTS of belly laughs arising from random conversations and story re-tellings:


-- As a white elephant gift (over the recent holidays), Oda's hubby got some soap on a rope. Which seems pretty vanilla until you hear that it was called "Stroke on a Rope" and that the soap was fashioned into the shape of a partially clenched fist with a well-placed hole in the middle. That's right, people, use your imagination.


-- Stacy's friends wanted to see that something-something-Yuma movie a couple of weeks back, so they consulted the paper for the local showing times. Thinking it was strange that every theater was showing this film at 3:10 pm, they just shrugged and showed up at the theater, but a few minutes late. It seemed that they had even missed the previews. Wait a minute, what the heck is going on? We can't follow a single thing! 30 minutes later the movie ended and the lights came up. One of Stacy's friends descended upon the the unsuspecting, sixteen-year old movie usher and launched into a tirade that they published the wrong start time for the movie in the paper and as a result, they'd shown up and only seen the last 30 or so minutes of the show. The movie usher calmly replied, "Sir, the movie's name is "3:10 to Yuma". That's not the time it shows."


-- One of Nick's friends went to a high-end salon for a haircut for the first time instead of returning to his usual neighbourhood barbershop. The stylist handed him a smock and sent him off to the change room saying, "You can go get undressed." Not realizing that this simply meant "You can take your shirt off if you don't want to get hair trimmings on it, and then put this smock on", Nick's buddy emerged from the changing room sans shirt AND pants, but KEPT on his black dress shoes and socks with the shortie smock. The hairstylist finished the colour treatment before he sent him back to retrieve his pants for the rest of the appointment.

-- The prostitutes that were subletting the apartment across the hall from Ally and her roommate finally moved out. (Got kicked out?) No more random guys named John accidentally banging on Ally's door in the middle of the night.

-- And finally, I shared the story of how I lost all of my modesty at the hands of a Jamaican spa esthetician a couple of weeks ago. Ah, but you'll have to come back for that story since it's worthy of a post of its own. ;-)

Can Someone PLEASE Make a 3 Oz. Tube of Toothpaste??

Over the past few months (and 50,000+ miles), I've developed a list of must-have travel products, guidelines for getting through security unscathed and techniques for simply making the whole travel nightmare just a little bit more bearable.


Get the right bag. So, I've spent months now trying to figure out the right approach to lugging not only my suitcase, but also my laptop and related work items along with me every week. I decided that I was going to commit the $$ and buy the Coach or Louis Vuitton carry-all so I could fit laptop, files, wallet, reading material, camera, headphones, single one-quart clear pastic bag with toiletries, water bottle etc all into a single bag. But a few weekends ago, Special K and I were heading to the movies when we stopped into a little store we'd never been in and I found what just might be the perfect travel bag. It's not chi-chi in any way, but it's moderately cute and highly functional. And because it was among the post-holiday sale items, it literally cost only about $30 once all the discounts were factored in. You KNOW I love a good deal!

Be Free -- Nike Free! Frankly, this has been one of the biggest challenges of traveling. The thing with going to the gym is that you need runners. And running shoes tend to be big and bulky and take up half of your rollerboard suitcase. Nike to the rescue! Nike makes a line of running shoes called "Free" -- they are very lightweight (meant for running) and have extremely flexible uppers. The whole shoe squishes down flat, now taking up just a tiny corner of my suitcase. And they are infinitely comfortable, too.

Create your own personal theatre in Seat 10D. iPod Nano plus Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Music, video, podcasts, and padded headphones that block out the incessant drone of the airplane engines. And of your chatterbox seatmate in the middle seat.

Abide by the 3-1-1 Rule. Or at least be wily enough to work around it. Have you seen those signs in the airport security areas? It's something like "For carry-on purposes, all liquids and gels must be 3 oz or less, must fit in a single one-quart clear pastic bag and each passenger may only have 1 bag." Since I'd rather carry on my bags whenever possible, I've had to get creative on this one:

First of all, you don't really realize how many items you use in your daily "take on the day" routine until you try to cram them all into a tiny plastic bag. I've done the obvious things like dump shampoo and conditioner into small, travel-sized plastic bottles, but the biggest challenge has always been make-up remover and face cleanser. My preferred brands of each (Clinique and Origins respectively) don't come in travel sizes and I am loathe to check a suitcase just so I can bring a bottle of makeup remover. BUT I have discovered an excellent alternative. Now, I pack Boots' No. 7 Quick Thinking 4 in 1 Wipes. They cleanse, tone, moisturize AND remove eye make-up. Those Brits are bloody brilliant.

My second beauty/hygiene challenge has been toothpaste. You can certainly buy the tiny travel-sized tubes, but honestly, they're too small to last for anything longer than just 2 - 3 days. So, I started taking the big tubes with me, but only after they were about half-way consumed already. Then I could fold the tube over on itself, still fit it into the one-quart plastic bag and it looks like it's only 3 ounces. I have managed to get through security 5 or 6 times like that, congratulating myself every time on my clever thinking, only to have the power-hungry security agent at the San Jose airport uncover my shady scheme and confiscate my illegal toothpaste last week. Sheesh. (And THEN about 20 minutes later, I heard an announcement in the terminal asking for the person who left his/her toothbrush and toothpaste at security to please come back and claim it. How ironic.)

Defend against the germ-fest swirling around in that tin can. I try to remember to take Airborne before every flight. (Or at least every cross-country flight.) Knock on wood, so far I have not yet caught a cold (or anything else) in my recent travels. I don't know if it's actually the Airborne working or if it's just my mental state of invincibility after I take it. Whatever it is, I'm sticking with it.
Can you "240" me please? I just learned about this trick and have not yet had the opportunity to use it. Apparently, in the days of airline regulation, there used to be a something called "Rule 240" which stated that if your flight was delayed for any reason other than weather, you could invoke Rule 240 and the airline had to put you on the next available flight (on any airline), not their next available flight. Now that the industry is deregulated, this isn't technically a rule anymore, but many airlines will still abide by it if you ask. (It doesn't apply to airlines like JetBlue and Southwest since they weren't part of the original regulated industry back in the day.)
I hope not to have to use it, but next time there's a broken loo on the plane and they delay the flight for 3 hours to fix it, I'll try to 240 my way onto another, competing airline's flight.