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Polish American

"But you'll get nail polish on your dress."

"I promise I'll be careful."

Famous last words between my mother and my 5-year-old self. I was desperate to try painting my nails with anything other than clear nail polish. I had my sights set on her bottle of red. My mom's signature nail color was a brownish raisin. But she kept a handful of pinks and reds in her bathroom cabinet. Long story short, she gave in to my begging, and she was right. I ruined my pretty yellow dress. But I unlocked the mystery of nail color that day, and there was no turning back. Along with my Barbie eyeshadow palette, I managed to get (probably for Christmas) two colors of Tinkerbell nail polish in Reddy or Not, and Tickle Me Pink. They were latex paints that peeled right off, but after the yellow dress fiasco, they would have to suffice while I honed my craft.

The first time Mom let me purchase my own real nail polish, it was a fantastic pearlescent fuchsia from L'Oreal. I shook the bottle as we walked through the grocery store. I suppose I got a little overzealous in my shaking, because before I knew it, the bottle slipped out of my hands and broke in a million pieces. A stockperson rushed over to mop up the surprisingly large violet puddle. We got another bottle of the same color, and mom held it for me until we checked out.

My neighbor Angie had gold, silver, and multicolored glitter polish from Wet 'N Wild. She would paint one of your nails for 10¢, or a whole hand for a quarter. Luckily, she didn't charge extra for doing a variety of colors. I couldn't possibly decide on just one. In an effort to create more punky polish, I went home and tried adding a drop of blue food coloring to my clear polish. when I saw little bubbles of blue refusing to mingle with the clear lacquer, all I got was a hard lesson in the difference bewteen water soluble dye and enamel. I obviously needed more colors in my arsenal.

My summer break interests matured quickly from getting a Bomb Pop from the Good Time Store to scoring some nail color from Osco Drug. Jenny Frey and I would walk a mile, past Itsa Italian Ice, past the Zia playground, straight to the makeup counter at Osco. We spent hours perusing the racks of color. I distinctly remember the month Maybelline came out with three crazy summer colors. There was a créme peach, custard yellow, and a translucent periwinkle. They had been advertised heavily in Seventeen. I wasn't really crazy about any of them individually, but I acquired each with my hard-earned trash-removal allowance. It was many years before Hard Candy came out with comparable shades.

I bought three bottles of Hard Candy (blue, yellow, and pink) at Buffalo Exchange my first year of college. To this day I'm suspicious they weren't the genuine article. The colors were horrible. I might as well have bought white-out. I'll never forget the navy blue and vampire purple (neither with a hint of shimmer or girly-ness) I bought a year later on the clearance rack at Express. I went back the next day for two versions of green, one called Grass Stain, which was the inspiration for the name of a Midori cocktail we enjoyed in college. The dark colors cooled my nail-biting ways, and I liked the idea that I and Alanis Morissette wore similar polishes.

Through the years, I've developed an understanding of the viscosity and drying time of most storebought brands. However, I'm not brand-loyal. The day I bought a second bottle of Cover Girl's Mauve Mist (in my opinion, the undisputed all-around most perfect polish ever), I learned the sad truth that cosmetic companies can change formulas willy-nilly. The color was off by a shade or two, and I've never found a satisfying substitition for that original bottle of pearlescent perfection. Although I think my ideal avocation is to name nail polishes, the names of colors don't move me to purchase, especially. That is, with the exception of Lippman's Happy Birthday and my newest fascination, Illamasqua's Milf, which is the genesis for this blog.

When I moved from Las Cruces to Chicago, I had to fit my life into my car, and found myself in need of a grand purge. My 200+ nail polishes could be replaced, right? When I threw them in that dumpster, along with numerous board games, jewelry, and knick-knacks, I cried. Each bottle represented a moment in my life. A reward for a good grade, a soothing device when a boy broke my heart, or the perfect pink that made me feel like a girl. I said goodbye and started over. I read an article about detoxing your cosmetics yesterday. The author talked about her voluminous collection of glosses and their sentimental value, such as her 6-year old wedding lipgloss. I understood completely. She pointed out that lip gloss is the cosmetic equivalent to a woman's shoe collection. They pile up for no reason. With my 2-3 bottle-a-week addiction, I'm definitely the Carrie Bradshaw of nail polish, and no, I don't think I have a problem.

Silent House

I bit off more than I could chew this year. As a dedicated crafter, I feel guilty shopping for gifts. Before you roll your eyes, I don't crochet neon orange plant hangers for my family. I attempt to make useful, memorable, unisex gifts. Primarily a knitter, it takes a great deal of ingenuity and timing to knit items that will be useful to the family members who live in warm climates. Strangely enough, the weather was perfect for the pair of socks most people got this year. I became a sock machine over the summer, and with two people left on my list, I decided I was ready to take over the mysterious family heirloom stocking.

Since the 1940's, ostensibly, my great aunt knitted a new Christmas stocking for every member of the family. The stockings are identical, except for the back. Each person gets an embroidered line from 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, starting with the father, followed my the mom, first born, and so on. When a baby was born, or a marriage took place, you knew a stocking was in the making. They were mostly perfect, but there were little handmade variations. My brother's was slightly smaller than the rest of the family's, and our dad's had a calf panel of red that didn't quite match the rest. My great aunt passed away about 15 years ago, and with her went the secret of the stocking. How I wish my childhood self had been more inclined to sit with her and my grandmother and learn the art of conjuring a garment from single strand of yarn. When I become critical of my own creations, I try to remember how much our family loves their stockings, despite their imperfections.

Years ago, during my first knitting lesson, I asked my teacher if she could help me map out this stocking. She told me it was a little early, but when I was ready, she'd be happy to help. That was 2006, and these days I can follow a pattern pretty well on my own, so I borrowed one of the stockings from my mom, and took a look. I was lost. There was all this intarsia, and I didn't feel confident about it. Rather than just ask for help, I stubbornly studied articles and videos, and experienced some major trial and error. I knew I could follow a pattern, but how to find it? A Google image search of "Christmas stocking" amazingly lead me to a picture of our family heirloom. I contacted the creator, and begged for her charity. She generously handed over the pattern after I described my situation. More weeks of blunders and frustration, but I refused to ask for help. Looking back, I think I wanted to keep this project in the family. This ability was in my blood, I just had to tap into it. Somehow, I got through that first panel. Then the next. The final was easiest of all. All I needed was the embroidery, and to weave in the loose ends. The stocking was done.

I just sat there looking at it. I hung it up on my bookshelf, right next to the old stocking I'd used as a model, like clones. I wanted to show someone. I wanted my great aunt and my grandmother to see it. I wanted them to turn the stocking inside out and run their fingers over the woven ends. I wanted them to see that they'd finally passed the torch, and I could take it from here. There's a song called Silent House by the Dixie Chicks about a family member slipping into Alzheimer's Disease. A little heavy, I know, but the lyrics played in my mind, "Everything that you made by hand; Everything that you know by heart; And I will try to connect; All the pieces you left; I will carry it on; And let you forget." I'd never felt such relief, completion, or emotion over a single knitting project. Hours before, Marky had fallen asleep on the couch next to me. But I woke him to show him my masterpiece. He sat with me, staring at the 25-year-old prototype and the 25-minute-old creation. Then he patted my knee, and told me it was time for bed. I finished the stocking late in the evening, the last day of November.

The next morning, my mom called to tell me that my grandmother had passed away. Most of the family got to visit Grammie during Thanksgiving. The general consensus was that she held on long enough to say goodbye to everyone. I think a little part of her stuck around to see my stocking finished.

Who Do I Think I Am, Exactly?

During a conversation about Julia Child, my proclaimed that it's no tragedy that she never had children. Otherwise, she couldn't have become Julia Child, Amercian queen of gourmet cooking. Although I think she should have gotten to have kids if she wanted them, I kinda see his point. She might've had her hands full and not been so possessed to be succeed as a chef. Don't ask me why, but this conversation inspired me to make the greatest holiday dessert ever: Bûche de Noël, or the Yule Log, as it is commonly known. I've seen it lovingly prepared by Jacques Pépin, elongated to ridiculous proportions at Disneyland on a Guy Fieri Christmas special, and mass-produced on Unwrapped. It seems like a smallish cake for all the steps involved in its preparation. But I'm well-versed in all the building blocks. Well, all except for one.

You start with a chocolate creme-filled jelly roll, and frost that sucker. Easy enough. Jacques dotted his lovely chocolate-encrusted Bûche with mushroom meringues (this is really the only way meringues should be made) and white chocolate leaves and branches. So much fun stuff. I wanted to make this confectionary ode to nature it from the ground up, so to speak. The only problem was the sheet cake. I'd never made one, and even Jacques got his from the bakery rather than bothering himself to make it. I trotted down to the House of Fine Chocolates, sure they would be able to hook me up. Although they make sheet cakes all day long, unfortunately, they don't sell 'em. The gal at H of FC told me to just bake a box cake in a sheet pan. Now, the chef at Disneyland said the recipe uses one part cornstarch, one part flour to ensure a springy texture, so a box recipe couldn't possibly work. I tried in vain to contact the Dominick's bakery department, but couldn't find a number. How hard could it be to make a sheet cake? I found a recipe online.

I went home and followed the recipe to a T. It smelled delicious. I never considered the fact that there were no eggs included in the list of ingredients. After a few minutes of baking, the wonderful smell turned to a smoky smell. I opened the oven, and my sheet cake was bubbling over, spilling out into the hot oven, looking like a huge toasted marshmallow. I covered my hands in towels and gingerly extracted the molten mess from the rack. After it cooled, I sang a little hymn, and dumped it all in the garbage. It was time to consult The Joy of Cooking. After much page-flipping, I found a simple recipe for sheet cake. The mixture seemed hardly enough to cover the bottom of the pan, but miraculously, it bubbled and grew like a science experiment. It came out perfect. I started the meringues, which commandeered the oven for two hours, forcing me to steam our fish dinner on the stovetop (which ended up tasting awesome). I found another recipe in the cookbook for Chocolate Crème Patissière (basically pudding, but from scratch), and let everything cool overnight.

I melted chocolate for the meringues the next morning. What I didn't use, I spread out on a sheet of wax paper. I melted and added a handful of butterscotch morsels to add some color, et voilà, tree bark! I melted and burned half of the white chocolate. Starting over, I had no more green food coloring, just what was left over after scraping the bowl. I melted the rest with more caution, and created light green leaves and twigs on another sheet of wax paper. The holly berries were stolen from Marky's bag of dark chocolate M&Ms.

I'm going to be completely honest, after my epic cake fail, successfully filling and rolling the cake, creating all the decorations and bark, I'd been working for 2 days. I was mentally drained. The frosting came from a can, okay? Don't judge me. I stuck the bark to the frosting, and stuck the goodies to the bark with melted chocolate.

Now, let's not pretend you're actually going to attempt to make this thing. Just have me over to your house for your next holiday gathering, and I'll make it for you. If you try to outdo my craftiness, I might get my feelings hurt. That's why I'm sparing you from reading every recipe involved. I will, however, give you a tip that you can use for frosting any cake. You know the pesky frosting around the edge of the cake that you can never perfectly wipe off the plate? Well, rather than lining your plate with a big square of wax paper and plopping the cake atop, cut four strips of wax paper, and place them under the north/east/south/west areas, masking off the plate. When you're done frosting, you can just pull them out carefully. No messy frosting.

The cake was truly delicious and a rewarding endeavor. Would I have felt so accomplished if I'd gotten the sheet cake premade? Probably not. I'm no Julia Child, but sometimes it's important not to get what you wished for.

Lost and Found

Transplantation from Southwest desert to Midwest tundra requires a wardrobe overhaul. Pros include scarves (previously colorful yet unnecessary accessories), down coats (great at camouflaging post-Thanksgiving blubber), umbrellas (the true window into a city girl's soul) and gloves (the variety is simply staggering). Cons include lost scarves (it was in my coat sleeve when I got to the bar), lost coats (did I hang it up where I was trying on leather jackets in that cozy department store?), lost umbrellas (I lent it to that agent, and they lent it to someone else) and lost gloves (airport, snowdrift, restaurant, sidewalk, etc).

Dealing with the loss of a cold weather wardrobe essential is frustrating. Usually they cost a pretty penny. Even worse, you probably spent a long time looking for the right fit/color/style. Of all the aforementioned items, I definitely feel the worst about losing a glove. Bargain hunter by birth, I never spend a ton on clothing. It's not the money, though. It's the fact that when I lose that one glove, I have a lonely, presently useless glove to remind me of my carelessness. And it's always the really great gloves I lose. I should be thankful, because I've had the same set of gloves since I took up residency in the Windy City. They are ugly, brown, cheap pleather gloves from Target. They literally stink. But for the life of me, they just won't get gone. So I continue to wear them. Sure, I've had other gloves. One a silky set of apple green leather, cashmere-lined beauties from Marshall Field's. Lost the right glove in the snow the second time I wore them. There was also the set of extreme cold weather gloves I wore a total of three times. After a mad dash to the closest restroom upon exiting the airport parking lot, I realized lefty was gone with the wind. Back to the stinky brown pleather.

A few weeks ago, I steeled myself to brave the cold on my bike. Freezing rain is a deterrent, for sure, but I'm taking on the cold air. Marky and I trekked to Dick's Sporting Goods to gear up with under armor. Gore-Tex shoes, facemask, and the perfect gloves. I try to avoid big name brands, but these black Nike ACG gloves were perfect, at the perfect price. Grip on the palm and fingers to shift gears. Washable, waterproof, slim-fitting, and not too long for my sausage fingers. Bring it on, winter!

This morning, the sixth time wearing them, I, well, I, uh... Okay, I didn't just lose a glove. Even though the temperature was low, there was hardly any wind, and the sun was beating down. Halfway through my ride, against my better judgment, I neglected to snap my pockets shut when I removed the gloves and placed them there. My seat was giving me trouble, and I got off the bike at two different intersections to adjust it. I tried to clamp the seat down tighter than usual, and in my rush to take advantage of the green lights, I did a half-assed job. The clamp handle was sticking out, jabbing me in the right thigh every time I pedaled. I was distracted. They must have fallen during my readjustment tango.

It wasn't until my lunch hour that I realized the right glove was gone. Since I changed in the bathroom, dried my hair in the storage room, and applied makeup in the key department, I had quite a few steps to retrace. But it had been hours. I texted Marky, and his unfazed response was, "Oh bummer. That's my Breezy." I went downstairs to check with reception, and when I looked in the lunchroom with no luck, I decided it might be time to look online for a new pair. The only pairs I could find were girly pink and girly turquoise. I'm a badass biker. Pink clashes with camouflage. My pulse raced. I did another quick look around the office. Then decided to find that glove on the street. What's the worst that could happen? I could spend my whole lunch hour riding between work, home, and back.

I rolled up my jeans and grabbed SexyBike. Stairs. If I waited any longer, it would be too dark to see the glove. Broadway. Would I have to go all the way to Wilson, where I first took the gloves off? Halsted. I needed to be careful to keep one eye on the parked cars, and one eye on the opposite side of the road. Clark. People wouldn't just pick up an abandoned glove, would they? Melrose. There's the mini construction site I almost got sideswiped by a pedestrian. Roscoe. And there it was. Laying peacefully on the pavement. The embossed ACG insignia glimmering in the sun. Asking myself aloud, "Is that it?" I pulled over. My glove patiently waited for me all day. And I didn't even have to leave the neighborhood. Ah, Persistance.

Na na na na, hey hey hey...

Just yesterday I heard that Ken Ober passed away. I immediately texted my brother. He shared in my shock, and his memory of Ken is the same as mine. After school, before our parents came home to turn on the 24-hour news channel, we watched our version of the news: MTV. Chris was wrapping newspapers for his route, and I was puffy painting my canvas shoes/jean jacket. There were nonstop music videos all day, all night, but in 1987 MTV tried something new. An original game show called Remote Control. We wanted to be on that show. Either that or Double Dare. The quiz show was set in the basement of host Ken Ober, a pop culture know-it-all. Along with La-Z-Boy recliners, TV trays, a washer machine and a huge television set, we saw for the first time, Colin Quinn, Adam Sandler, Denis Leary, and Kari Wuhrer (if you didn't want to date her, you probably wanted to be her). My intense desire to be a contestant on Remote Control is probably the reason I have such a huge database of rock trivia stashed away in my cranium. I'm still gearing up for my turn in at naming the artist and song in the 9 screens in 30 seconds, or to Sing Along With Colin.

More than just a game, RC also had a ton of zany comedy bits, a keyboardist who musically accentuated every moment with his Casio, audience participation, and a snack break. Gosh, the 80's were just such a colorful, weird time. You might look at his high-waisted Z Cavaricci jeans and L.A. Gear tennies and think Ken Ober an 80's fashion plate. But he was just the everyman, spitting out lightning round questions, restraining Colin, and respectfully dismissing contestants who couldn't keep up.

I have two favorite memories of the show. Once, Ken asked the contestants to finish the line "Way-oh, way-oh, ay-oh, way-oh," à la Bangles singer Susannah Hoffs.

When a contestant answered in a beautiful singing voice, "Walk like an Egyptian," Ken paused, considered the response, and then didn't award her the points because she didn't blink and look around with googly eyes while singing.

My other favorite moment was when Ken broke up a rolling-on-the-ground fistfight between Colin and his little brother (Denis Leary) by saying, "Guys! Guys! Guys! Uh... I got a potato." It was funny then, but I didn't really understand how funny until I married an Irish guy.

Remote Control is certainly one of the reasons MTV started to suck so much in the 90's. But it was such a fun way to spend a half hour as a tween. It's hard to believe that was 22 years ago. I can't say I really kept up on Ken Ober's projects after Remote Control, but he was definitely too young to die. I feel more than a little sad and nostalgic for the hours I spent watching him on MTV.

557 Channels And Nothin' On

We used to have cable. There were 3-4 roommates at the time, and we split the bill. We had a ton of channels and each paid about $10 monthly. When I moved to Chicago, I had a TV, but didn't want to commit to cable, so I got a great antenna and a DVD player. Although I was tragically out of touch with The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, I caught up on some great movies. I forced myself to walk to the movie store (this was before Netflix, obviously), and sometimes Marky and I would get on our cell phones and watch the same movie simultaneously. If Scrubs' reception was bad on a rainy night, it wasn't meant to be. I found something better to do than watch TV. For a person who is this out-of-love with the idea of TV, I suppose I have a very romantic view of the boob tube.

Yes, I believe too many people are too addicted to their shows, and that might make my next statement seem hypocritical. Network television is a right. Even snowy, blurry, network television devoid of vertical hold. True, I get to enjoy the special channels on the treadmill at the gym, but that's only a few hours a week. When we recently made the switch to digital, thankfully Marky and I had the right kind of set. Sadly, what used to be a fuzzy image is now crystal clear about half the time, complete darkness the other. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I know this "upgrade" is the cable companies slowly making TV-viewing impossible without paying the piper.

Today I read an article about NBC being bought by Comcast. Between gaps of black silence, I heard fragments of this story the other night on Conan O'Brien, my favorite host on my favorite network. Surely NBC won't immediately disappear into Cableland. But the insidious crossover is imminent. When I think of the free shows that made a huge impact on my childhood (The Cosby Show, Saturday Night Live, Family Ties), I have to put myself in my parents' and grandparents' shoes. They remember radio shows and first television sets. And that's really where NBC started. Like them, I have no choice except to let broadcasting evolve to meet the needs of its staff and audiences. However, this might just push me further to the left as far as being that audience. Perhaps I will finally have an answer to the oft-queried: "Gosh Bree, where do you find the time to do that?"