let's hear it for the boy.

A) I love Top Chef like I imagine most people like American Idol. And I'm so happy Richard Blais finally got his deserved victory last night - the moment where he looks straight into the camera, tears flooding his eyes, and says, "I willed this. I willed this to happen," - oh gosh, it killed me.

B) I also enjoyed this profile on "The Freak."

"Fifteen minutes before one of his first big-league starts, Lincecum was spotted tucking into a Philly cheese steak on the clubhouse couch in his underpants and shower shoes."

neighborhood.

(Limoncello making).

As much as my Dad worries, and as tedious as setting the alarm and closing the curtains every time you leave the house is - Spring really reminds me why I love the Oklahoma City neighborhood I live in: an intermix of socioeconomic statuses, every street different from the next, overgrown flowering brambles, plenty to look at while running because absolutely nothing is the same, wild dogs, ragtag children, homes designed from a bygone era.

There's this woman who lives by us on a corner lot and right around 5pm (and sometimes even early in the morning) I catch her sitting out in her yard in a white, plastic Adirondack chair, completely and totally engrossed in a book with several dogs running around at her feet.

Out there until the sunset fades.

Her parched lawn fenced in by chain link, transformed into sandy beach.

Spring seems to be her season - but I've also seen her out in the winter bundled up like an Eskimo, eyes peeping through a tightly drawn hood.

I love it, warms my heart: proof that having the good life is really quite simple sometimes.

wine-o.

(Mouth-watering pictures found here).

One of my favorite things about work is that we have these monthly wine and beer classes when we get new features in - we all pile into back tables right before closing and swish through the bottoms of glasses while our resident wine supplier/guru tells us what we should be tasting.

As we are getting a totally revamped drink menu, this week's wine class was a religious experience.

I love the descriptors: leather, perfumed, perfect for summer on the patio, notes of apricot, unoaked, coffee, Argentinian, spicy, spritz, aggressive, layered, bite, bright, medium-bodied, ripe plum, smooth, finish, creamy, delicate, citrus...

I love how some make your mouth go completely dry and some fill it with juiciness.

How you can taste a scent.

I love the acid in white wine, the richness of red and the completely new discovery of rosé (which is apparently the hot new thing, and not your prissy aunt's White Zinfandel).

I love food pairing - how well certain wines enhance certain foods (and vice versa): cheese and olives and Italian sausage, etc. And how Italians believe there's no such thing as too much wine, it all depends on how much food you eat alongside it.

...we also sampled a lot of beers and while I don't feel like I quite get it yet, I see the art in brewing as well.

So while I wont be claiming expert status and sticking the tip of my nose into every glass of wine - I feel like I have a definite, lifelong, exploratory interest and enjoyment in a great glass of wine alongside a great plate of food.

a "Carrie person?"

This past Sunday I caught the series finale of Sex and the City on television. Goodness, I forgot how much I adored that show - and absolutely hated the movie - haven't even attempted to see the second one, which I'm certain I've addressed somewhere on this blog.

(Meg and I used to covertly rent episodes at Blockbuster in high school and watch them upstairs, locking a curious Casey out of the room, and turning the volume below a whisper anytime something too risque happened).

Anyway, I came to the realization that, though I always thought of myself as more of a "Carrie person" - I am quite clearly a "Miranda person" that's under the delusion she's a "Carrie person." Quotation marks necessary.

Don't laugh - this may have done more for my own self-actualization than any amount of yoga classes and world travel combined.

currently reading.

At twenty-three, Dexter Mayhew's vision of his future was no clearer than Emma Morley's. He hoped to be successful, to make his parents proud and to sleep with more than one woman at the same time, but how to make these all compatible? He wanted to feature in magazine articles, and hoped one day for a retrospective of his work, without having any clear notion of what that work might be. He wanted to live life to the extreme, but without any mess or complications. He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph.

(David Nicholls, One Day).

...one of those books that makes you think, gosh, I just love books. They're really quite miraculous little things.

wag.

My plan was to go on this tirade about all the bumper stickers out there that I can not stand!

But instead of potentially offending everyone, I decided to go positive and take a lesson from the one bumper sticker I can stand, that even brings a smile to my face when I'm stopped at a red light behind it - and I'm not even that big of a dog lover!

I was reading an interview in Elle with Ty Burrell who plays Phil Dumphy in Modern Family and he described his character as basically a dog in human form - which I thought was the perfect description.

please tell me someone else heard this.

I do not keep a normal, daily schedule at all, nor do I spend a lot of time in the car - but somehow I randomly caught all three parts of an on-going NPR saga I found about as fascinating, and ultimately depressing, as a soap opera:

Part One:

NPR does a story on a child mentoring program in Portland where the mentors are paid. A reporter had interviewed one of the at-risk children (Anthony) when he was eight and was returning ten years later to follow-up on him.

Anthony turns out to be in college and interested in a career in music.

Conclusion: Mentoring makes an impact!

See: Money For Mentors: Portland Program Sees Success

Part Two:

A brief aside by Nina Totenberg that NPR recently discovered that the Anthony they followed-up with was not the same Anthony the reporter interviewed when he was eight. Apparently there was confusion within the mentoring program, because both Anthonys were the same age and had the same last initial.

Every step will be taken to track down the real Anthony B.

I'm thinking, well that's weird...

Part Three:

They were able to track down the original Anthony in the story - he dropped out of high school, threatened to kill his landlord, robbed a Safeway and is currently serving time in a Juvenile Detention Center for armed robbery in which a victim was put into a hospital after being badly pistol-whipped.

The entire conclusion and point of the piece has changed. My conclusion: life is just not that simple.

See: Two Anthonys: Two Tales of Youth Intervention.