name these famous tv writer-producers.
I have to remember that what's good here is the hamburgers.
One year ago: We see Mystery Men.
Two years ago: We finally get home after a very long time on the road.
Three years ago: We celebrate Darin's grandfather's 90th.
Four years ago: I seem to have disliked political conventions as much four years ago.
Today's news question:The governor of which state declared his entire state a disaster area, and why?
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
Today Darin and I went for lunch sans Pookie. We went to the Bistro Garden, which we'd never gone to before but had heard good things about. Rating: B-. The food was okay but nothing leapt out at us as being special. The chocolate souffle dessert was especially disappointing, as it used a bland, milky chocolate instead of a richer, darker chocolate. There is nothing so awful as a bland chocolate taste.
On the whole, if we're going to pay those kinds of prices, we'd rather have been at Pinot Bistro.
We did, however, see two celebrities: Garry Marshall and Stephen J. Cannell. Yes, writer-producers famous for making cameos. Shoot us now.
I am so happy. I have discovered HomeGrocer.com. Well, actually, a couple of other moms from yoga told me about it, and I decided I should check it out. After all, it's an Internet thing.
I do the food shopping around here, such as it is. Darin does the cooking (when there is cooking done), but I do the shopping. This has gotten a little trickier since Sophia arrived: I have to take her with me, which is awkward; I have to leave her with Darin, which is not as easy any more because she has gotten way more energetic than she used to be; or wait until Dora gets here, in which case I use some of the time I had scheduled for writing for food shopping.
And I hate lugging the bags upstairs from the garage. Especially when they're heavy, thereby ensuring that I will have to make several trips.
Darin and I went through the website one night and made a large order. I kept thinking of everything heavy that I hate carrying in and searched their database to see if they carried it. And everything I haven't been picking up at the store. Stuff for the cabinets. Stuff for the refrigerator. Heavy things.
The truck arrived right on time -- when you make your order, they tell you when the truck is coming -- and the driver wheeled large boxes up to the front door. Then he unpacked lots of bags of groceries from the boxes and asked me where I wanted them. He hefted them onto the countertops for me.
At that moment, I decided I was using Home Grocer from now on.
Darin and I were both underwhelmed by the meat and produce we got -- we threw out the package of peaches. So I will definitely go out to Gelson's to get our fresh meat and vegetables and fruits. But I am going to use Home Grocer for everything else.
When I wrote my little screed about how annoying Verizon was, I did not know they were on strike. I don't read newspapers, I don't watch TV news, and I hadn't seen mention of the strike in any of the online news sources I browse through. (I used to listen to NPR a lot, but then a)I had a baby and b)the multiuntalented Juan Williams replaced Ray Suarez on "Talk of the Nation," and so my NPR listening is way, way down.)
Then I read Columbine's entry about the Verizon strike and I said, "Whoops, wish I'd known." I wouldn't have gone to the store. But I didn't know, because there were no pickets, no signs. I don't know how workers get their message out these days.
I hope no one thought I was being unsympathetic to this strike. I didn't know. I don't know why I care so much about honoring strikes. I'm a white-collar kind of chick -- no one's seriously thought about organizing Silicon Valley. Maybe it was growing up in San Francisco, a very pro-labor town. Los Angeles has been styled as a right-to-work town, perhaps in opposition to heavily unionized San Francisco.
If I get anywhere in Hollywood I'll have to join a union, the WGA, which has done a good job of protecting writers. (Not a great job: witness the possessory credit.) But a good one.
Of course, the WGA is revving up to go on strike next year. Heh.
(Get ready for a ton of reality shows next year if the WGA goes on strike.)
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@nobody-knows-anything.com