Hot Wing Dip

Last Saturday, I went to my cousin’s house to celebrate my aunt’s (her mother’s) birthday. My cousin served the most delicious dip. She generously sent me the recipe. Here it is:

HOT WING DIP
2 to 2 1/2 lbs Chick Breast Cutlets
8-10 oz Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
8 oz Ranch Dressing
(2) 8 oz packages of Cream Cheese
8 oz (1 cup) Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Boil Chicken until cooked mostly through. Fork chicken apart, raking it to shred.

In a bowl, heat two 8 oz packages of cream cheese, about 30 seconds to soften.

Combine hot sauce, ranch dressing, cheddar cheese and cream cheese. Mix with electric mixer.

When chicken is shredded and all ingredients are combined, mix it all together.

Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Note: My cousin said that instead of boiling chicken, you can just use the leftovers from a rotissiere chicken.

Vegas Schmegas I am happy to be home

As soon as I emerged from the Southwest airplane, I fell to my knees and quickly started to kiss the cool Philadelphia earth. Four days in Vegas was too much. Let me rephrase that, four days at my company’s sales training conference held in Vegas was too much. Vegas is fine for holiday but it sucks as a conference location. Our hotel was just far enough from the convention center that we had to walk. This meant you really couldn’t go back to your room on breaks or meals. My feet ached from the walking. I couldn’t go outside within the convention area because that’s where all the smokers congregated and I wasn’t allowed near the pool area since I didn’t hold a hotel room key. I felt trapped inside this huge artificial world. I kept glancing at my palm to see if I had a life clock embedded in my skin. The speeches and the break out sessions were insultingly basic. My colleagues spent the evenings drunk out of their minds and I couldn’t seem to get far enough away from them. Everywhere I looked I saw posters of women in differing states of undress. There was a restaurant in my hotel called, Cat House. I am not a prude but I don’t want to be at a business function confronted by “women as objects” paraphernalia. I am so glad it’s over. I am so happy to be back home.

Viva Las I wanna go home

I wanna go home. I don’t like Vegas anymore. I feel like I am trapped in a huge mall with no way out. I changed my plane ticket so I am going home Thursay rather than Friday– I just can’t take this anymore.

Zoom!

Can it be? Could I finally have updated my Captain Zoom page? Apparently. I actually went through my email, found all the emails I received over the last two years regarding Zoom and posted them. I think I am missing some but what can you do?

Tomorrow I am going to Vegas. I have pretty much decided I will skip Trent Carlini– 100 bucks is so much money for a ticket and there are other acts out there that I haven’t experienced yet.

Railing

The weekend was relaxing yet full of activity. It feels like the weekend started on Thursday because Rob and his friend’s played the Open Mike that evening at the Whitpain Tavern. Their set list was another one in which I was clueless to almost all the songs they performed: The Boys Are Back in Town, 5:15, Thunder Road, War Dogs or Pigs, I can’t remember, and Blue Morning. One day Robert is going to read this blog and realize that each time I write, “I really wish Rob and his band would play a song I know like something from the Monkees or Elvis, it’s really a very very very subtle hint that I would like him to play a song that I know, like something from the Monkees or Elvis.

On Saturday, Audra and Steve visited. I said I would serve dinner. They got to the house, we talked for a little while and THEN I ORDERED PIZZA! I tell you– dinner parties are silly and the time spent cooking is ridiculous– I say, forget dinner parties– instead– PIZZA PARTY! It’s much easier and quite frankly, comparing it to the food I serve, it tastes better.

Sunday afternoon, Rob and I went to the grocery store. As we exited, we used the RedBox dvd kiosk to rent 3:10 to Yuma. I was not happy with this rental but there was absolutely nothing else in there that I wanted to see (actually, wouldn’t have minded seeing Failure to Launch). Oddly enough, I ended up really liking it. The movie reminds me of a cross between the movie, High Noon with Gary Cooper and the Albert Camus short story, The Guest. I’ll just leave it at that and recommend everyone watch it. I am going to see if I can rent the original version with Van Heflin and Glen Ford as well as Rio Bravo with Mr. John Wayne.

Now I must finish getting ready for work. It’s gonna be one heck of a week. I am sponsoring an event on Wednesday that has proven to be more popular than I ever imagined. I gotta get ready.

Motivation needed HERE!

I was flying down Rte 1 at 6:30 this morning. I got into NYC in no time flat and gave a quick little presentation. Once it finished, I jumped into a car with a colleague and we drove to southern NJ. By 3:00 I was home and trying to return my voicemails. It’s now 6 and I really want to get some work done– work that I’ve been putting off for days. I don’t know why I find myself so paralyzed. I am always so relieved once the work is done but just getting started is so difficult. I am strange, I guess.

Uh cad eh me awards

I turned on the Oscars. Watched maybe 15 minutes of it. Turned it off because I was sickened by all the smug faces.

Last night I finally watched La Vie En Rose. It was good– not my favorite movie ever, but not bad. Robert and I talked about it afterward and agreed that the nonlinear storyline was more distracting than artistic. It was odd how WWII was completely skipped over. I was surprised at how it wasn’t until the end that it was quickly mentioned that she had a daughter that she pretty much abandoned. Looking back, there didn’t seem to be a single scene in which she wasn’t drunk, doped up, or throwing a tantrum. My favorite scene was when she discovers her married lover has been killed in a plane crash and she runs toward the camera with her arms outstretched and her fingers wiggling, crying and calling out, “MARCEL! MARCEL!” Reminded me of Faye Dunaway in Mommy Dearest, “Tina, GET ME THE AXE!” Regardless, it was an interesting movie and I did enjoy it.

Tomorrow I need to awaken early and get myself over to the New York office. Not looking forward to it. I just want to close my eyes and think about Longwood Gardens. Rob and I visited it yesterday. It’s one of the estates of the du Pont family. Apparently Pierre du Pont loved gardening and so he built this huge sprawling greenhouse where he grew tons of gorgeous plants. I’ve never seen so many orchids in one place. After touring the conservatory, we caught a reenactment of a Japanese Tea Ceremony. A man and his son performed the ceremony. I think it was a father and son. Rob said they weren’t father and son but rather “life partners.” The age difference between them makes me think otherwise. Regardless, I had a strong suspicion that in addition to reenacting the Japanese Tea Ceremony, they might also reenact episodes of Star Trek in their basement. I just got that vibe. The whole ceremony seemed so overblown and insane to me. Bowing and inspecting utensils and slurping down the tea and placing the ladle so very carefully, turning the bowl 2 quarter turns so as not to drink from the front of the bowl since “we offer respect even to inanimate objects.” To each their own. Rob looked glassy-eyed and read to commit harakiri so we left before the ceremony officially ended. On our way out the door, he said he’s like to partake in an American Beer drinking ceremony. I agreed.

La Belle Lucie

Years and years ago my father bought a set of computer Solitaire games. I got hooked on this one game called La Belle Lucie. I would play it for hours! Unfortunately the games were only compatible with Windows 95 and when we went to Windows 98 the games would not install. Every now and then I would get the urge to play La Belle Lucie and instead I would play Spider or some other solitaire game. Just now I found a really lovely online version!

I am suddenly reminded of a conversation my father had with me when I was about 11-years-old.
“Get over here kid! I am going to teach you to play Solitaire!”
“Solitaire?”
“Yeah, with your personality, I have a feeling you’re gonna be playing a lot of it!”
How right he was…

Sitting on a burner

I just checked the clock and was surprised to note that it is the time I usually get home from work. The day seemed to last longer than usual. I went home and helped my dad with his computer. My mom and I went to Ann Taylor Loft and I bought some clothes off the clearance rack. I had a wonderful lunch with Lisa and Mom and Dad– stuffed peppers! After lunch, Lisa and I test drove a VW Beetle at a dealership in Princeton. Back at my parent’s house, I talked to my dad and played with Bo. I noticed it was around 5:00 and I decided to get back to the Donnavilla. I still have tons of stuff I need to accomplish. I gotta do a couple loads of wash. I want to check my commission statement and start my February Expense Report. I should also go to the grocery store.

Hannah Montana

Over the last few months, I kept hearing about this Hannah Montana. I had NO clue what the heck it was all about. Eventually someone said it was Billy Ray Cyrus’s daughter. Later I found out it was a television show. I still didn’t have much of an understanding of its premise but at least I now kinda knew what all the headlines were screaming about. The last few days I ‘ve spent the evenings at my parents’ house, puppysitting Bo. They have every single station known to man on their television and I found myself watching an episode of Hannah Montana. I am pretty impressed with it since of the two episode portions I watched, the first one featured Vickie Lawrence and DOLLY PARTON and the second episode featured Heather Locklear. This seemed pretty amazing considering the show looked to be a grade B cheap kids’ show. I didn’t watch the entire episode so I am still rather confused over what, according to the credits, seems to be a dual identity between blonde Hanna Montana and brunette Miley Cyrus. One of the actors on the show was very familiar to me and I wondered, “Who could that older lesbian woman be? She is so familiar!” Turns out, it’s Billy Ray Cyrus.