Girl Friday

Don't Worry

I'm still here!

This summer is about 75% busier, workwise, than last summer, and that seems to go for just about everyone around me. While I'm happy this means we're all gainfully employed or at least involved in professional projects, it also means I have less time to cook, eat and shop.

Actually, I don't know how anyone can eat in this heat. I've been slurping smoothies at home and merely picking at appetizer plates when I'm out. This has been breakfast every day lately:

1 banana
1/4 frozen blueberries
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon raw honey

It's an awesome smoothie, full of vitamins and protein.

Sh*t, well, I'd type more except my friend Kyle just called, demanding I go out on the lake with him for a couple of hours.

What's everyone been up to this summer? Anyone else busy as hell?

5 Valentine's Day Love Notes

I've been going to a chiropractor the past month after a pretty bad car accident on New Year's Eve (more on that in the next post). He gives me "homework" after each adjustment; do this exercise when you wake up, document your pain level at this time of the day, et cetera. Today, being Valentine's Day, apparently warranted a special homework assignment. I was given the task of writing 5 Valentine notes before the end of the day, so here we go.

1. To my nephew, Julian: I love you. It sucks that we're no longer a 15-minute drive apart, but I think about you approximately 50 times a day. Now that I'm working 5-6 nights a week and always on the weekends, it's tough to make time to drive up to North Branch to see you. But know that you'll always be my little buddy.

2. To my Vita.mn readers: You're the best. Thanks for putting up with some pretty mediocre columns since my accident. January was a truly horrible month for me personally, and the damage done to my neck and spine is no small part of that. Again, I'll go into more detail in my next Girl Friday post, but I will say here that the injuries have really affected my ability to write. It's not just physically painful, but it's often just plain difficult due to the type of nerve damage I have.

3. To my Ford Fiesta: I never thought I could love a car the way that I love you. That goes for my first Fiesta that was totaled in my accident, as well as Fiesta 2.0 that I bought last month. You're little, so you can fit in any parking space, which is awesome for someone who sucks at parallel parking. You get like 25 miles to the gallon in the city, so I don't have to spend too much time doing one of my most-hated activities: pumping gas. And your premium sound system rocks my face off.

4. To Prairie Ale House: Unlike the others, I don't just love you for your cheese curds. I love you for having a vegetarian soup option every day (soups courtesy of Chef Seth Bixby Daugherty as of late), I love you for making the best black bean burger I've ever tasted, I love you for stocking real English cider and I love you because I get to see AJ, Chad, Brad and Joe whenever I stop in.

5. To my Shuga: Because, to paraphrase myself, it would be dumb to not acknowledge you today. You might not even see this post, but that's okay. I gave you an earful on the street in front of my house yesterday, and I meant every word. I love being around you and it makes me feel good to do things for you. Things I won't mention here because my mom reads this.

 

Pretending to Sound Smart on Fox 9 News

Wow, it only took me 2 days to log into Typepad this week. I better double up on the blog posts while I'm in!

If you didn't catch it, here's me on Fox 9 news the other night looking like I know what I'm talking about.

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/sex-survey-an-eye-opener-for-couples-oct-4-2010

Girl Friday's 2009 in Review

My babies. I know I slacked off a little towards the end of the year. I know Girl Friday hasn't been jammin' like it has in the past. But I've been busy; I've been busy trying to wrap up a cookbook for publication by spring 2010. I've been busy finding the right investor for my business partner and me in our next venture, which will be food-related. Details to come on that, but for now it's tucked pretty tightly under our hats.

Since it was a sorta quiet year for blogging for me -- unless you follow me on Twitter, then I'm sure there were days when you wish I'd just shut the f**k up -- and since I've run out of time to compile a lengthy end-of-year post encompassing the works and highlights of all my fellow bloggers, writers and otherwise creative artists, I'll just post some pivotal Girl Friday moments from 2009.

January: I lost two pets. Coco and Steve, the most awesome goldfish in the world, may you rest in peace.

February: I finally hit the big time. In North Branch. I was profiled on the front page (above the fold!) of my hometown paper.

March: Fugaise, the best restaurant in Minneapolis, closed, but at least I got in for one last meal. (And someone else picked up the tab.)

April: Johnny Michaels and I threw a fundraiser for the animals and raised $1,178.00 for Home for Life. We've since had trouble securing a liquor sponsor for future events, but we definitely still want to turn this into a regular, roving event.

May: Star. Trek. 

June: Gabby's Saloon and Eatery fought the law... and Gabby's won! Score one for the businesses of Northeast Minneapolis.

July: I became a Nintendo brand enthusiast -- yes, we all hate the term and, no, I've never once been under obligation to blog, Tweet or Facebook about it -- and I'm glad I did. They send me free stuff all the time, including over $50.00 worth of LORAC makeup.

August: I joined forces with two other lovers of Tego Calderón to create the crusade to bring Tego to Minneapolis. He will come, because we will bring him here.

September: I got a new tattoo! It's a kitty.

October: October sucked. Let's talk about something else.

November: I participated in Erik Janzen's "Stories from Exile" short film series, and it was a hit. Erik's just been invited to screen the series at the University of Minnesota Duluth where he will speak on a GLBT panel, and Erik is also planning to take the films on a Midwest tour.

December: I was reminded just how much fun being a freelance writer can be.

Have a great night tonight, everyone! And a wonderful new year! 2009 sucked for a lot of us for a million different reasons, but 2010 looks pretty promising already.

Birthday Henna Tattoos

After a week of transition, I'm finally moved into my new place, so blogging should resume at regular intervals once again. As an aside, Comcast can't come out until later this week so I linked up to the Minneapolis Citywide Wifi. It sucks.

Friday the 23rd was my birthday and, after a failed attempt to get an appointment for 4 manicures at the Aveda Institute after lunch at Brasa, I decided that we would all go get henna tattoos. There's that place in Eden Prairie Center that does henna and eyebrow threading, but it seemed like a long way to drive for such a little thing. Then Erik remembered that a girlfriend of his got henna done at the Somali mall. Google led us to 24th and Elliot, to a concrete structure more or less void of windows and certainly no henna shops. It turns out we were at the wrong Somali mall. (Yes, there are multiple Somali malls in South Minneapolis.)

Some nice ladies directed us to the Suuqa Karmel Somali mall at Lake and Pillsbury, where the henna tattooing can be found in suite #110. You'll recognize it by the complete lack of any indicators that henna tattooing is done there. You will, however, see a lot of long black dresses adorned with sequins.

So four of us walk in, two girls, two guys, without really giving it a second thought. My cousin Tony actually stops just short of the back room where the tattooing is done, since he wasn't really thrilled about the idea. But Cristina, Erik and I just stroll on in, to where at least four Somali ladies have their sleeves up around their elbows and their skirts pushed up to their knees. Erik was, of course, quickly ushered out -- "women only!" -- and joined my cousin in the front room to pout. No henna tattoos for boys. Modesty aside, no wonder they were pretty wide-eyed when a guy walked into their henna salon. According to Wikipedia: "Traditionally, only women apply this body art and it is absolutely strange for men to apply such art on their hands and feet."

Our henna tattooist, Sabrina (whom we later renamed Sabrina Fierce), was a master of multi-tasking. Not only did she complete both Cristina's and my tattoos in like 5 minutes, she did while texting.

Cristina's hand:

Waiting for my henna to dry:

Getting knifed (the fun part):

Note the six-year-old giving a henna tattoo in the background. She had a sucker in one hand and a squeeze-bag applicator in the other. Sabrina Fierce couldn't have been older than 20 and she said she'd been doing henna for at least 12 years.

The tattoos were $10 each and I'd totally go back for another one. We went right around 3-3:30pm when school got out so it was a little crowded with youngsters, but we probably only waited about 5 minutes for Sabrina Fierce to get started.

Happy 32

It's my birthday! I'd like to thank all the readers of Girl Friday over the last nearly five years for checking out this blog and making it a regular stop (and let's not forget those of you who were following me on LiveJournal before I moved the blog to Typepad).

Here are the last 4 posts from October 23rd on Girl Friday:

2008

2007

2006

2005

And here's a song that Pandora re-introduced to me today. I can't believe I'd forgotten all about it, since it's totally one of the best songs from my adult formative years. Download it, put it on your iPod, play it for some hottie and get lucky this weekend.

In honor of my birthday.

Time Out

G-F is taking a little T-O.

I'm having a bit of a rough time with some stuff right now so, for the first time in Girl Friday history, I'm taking a short break from blogging. My goal is to return to some regularly scheduled recipes, bar and restaurant reviews and cruelty-free shopping tips on my birthday, which is next Friday (Amazon Wish List being updated accordingly.)

Since I'm under a contractual obligation to do so, you will still see me blogging on vita.mn. And, for those that can handle my dirty mouth, I'll still be all up in Twitter.

Drama - Aging Variety

Look, I don't want to alarm anyone. I certainly don't want anyone getting as upset as I got upon looking in the bathroom mirror this morning. I suppose it was only inevitable.

But really? 11 weeks short of my 32nd birthday? Couldn't it have held out just a little while longer until I got an official chronological confirmation that I'm really not getting any younger?

Am I officially old now? What does this mean, my first gray hair? More importantly, HOW IN THE HELL DO I STOP IT FROM HAPPENING AGAIN?

Where Did I Go?

Pick up this week's issue of the ECM Post Review and you'll read all about... me.  Oh wait, you probably don't live in or near North Branch, MN and have no idea what The Post Review is.  That's okay.  It's my hometown newspaper which, luckily, also has an accompanying website where you can read the online version of today's front page profile:

"Where Do They Go When They Leave North Branch?"

About 50 miles south, usually.

I hate it when reporters reveal my lifelong ambitions.  Now I'm actually under pressure to realize them.

In other Alexis news, a book I was interviewed for has just rolled off the printing presses:

"An Introduction to the Entertainment Industry"

It's a course book co-authored by a professor and a lecturer at Cal State.  I kind of want to pick up a copy, but I think you can only get it from Amazon right now.  (Or maybe a college book store where these types of courses are taught?)

See Ya

I booked a solo trip to Vegas for later this week.  I'm leaving Wednesday and am super excited for some much-needed Lexi Time (no masturbation jokes, please). 

Between 2001 and 2005 I went to Vegas more times than I can count -- my BFF used to live there and it's the cheapest possible vacay -- but this will actually be my first time staying in a Downtown hotel versus a Strip hotel or someone's condo.

I'm pretty well over the Strip, though.  Musical fountains, blah, blah blah.  The initial wow feeling of walking through those giant casino hotels doesn't last long and the clubs are somewhat boring to this aging gal.  I'll still go to The Wynn for one night, though, if just to have dinner at Bartolotta. 

Yum, I'm totally salivating already.