As most of you know, Meg does NOT live on the frontier, but in a suburb right outside of Boston. Yesterday, she did have a rather close call in her little hamlet that made her know for sure she was neither Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman nor Barbara Stanwyck on the Big Valley (look that one up, kids. I need to keep you on your toes with old cultural references).

Yesterday the family was walking Jack in the Town Forest, and SOMEONE decided it would be much more interesting to take
the Boy Scout trails in the woods because they were “more adventurous”. Meg likes the traditional wide trails herself, as you don’t have to fields streams and climb over trees. Nonetheless, Meg agreed to hike along the ridge of the yellow trail.

The family trooped along with Jack off-leash as he bounced and leaped over trees; looking back every once in awhile for some approval and a little smile:

(typical Jack attitude in the woods)

Suddenly, Jack’s amazing tracking ability kicked in, and he took off like a jet, leaving his 2 masters in the middle of the woods whistling for him like a couple of fools. Anyone pity the fools?

After about 10 minutes the fools agreed to split up and each take a direction in hopes their little dog would listen and come running. Soon Meg spied something moving in the distance, and thought the objects looked rather LARGE. As the objects came running toward her and became GINORMOUS, she realized they were a pair of whitetailed bucks, thundering toward her.

All of her camping expertise and backwoods experience kicked in (and that would be NONE people, Meg doesn’t camp anywhere except at a W or a Westin) and she hugged an oak tree for dear life, whereupon the deer sprinted within 10 feet of her mighty oak hideout. She saw the sharp hooves and sinewy hindquarters up close and way too personally, and her heart friggin raced. Raced, she tells you!

Out came trotting Jack, COVERED from head to toe in mud. In fact, he looked like an exact replica of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, complete with pirate boots and dreadlocks.

Meg bravely grabbed his collar and shouted for the person who had the leash, and everyone safely made their way to the nearest watering hole to get Jack to clean off.

You think that dog would step a paw over that one inch of ice on the shore? No. The family went back home, where they managed to turn their garage utility sink into an impromptu grooming salon. Little Jack rested in his crate for the remainder of the day, all proud he chased deer, and a lot peeved he had to get a bath.

Meg thinks she’ll just walk him around the block next weekend.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

The Lounge wishes you all Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Happy Hanukkah and a fruitful Solstice!

And I finally got to send a card with my kid on the front of it!

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

You know those radio stations that start playing music on Thanksgiving week? The ones that play Suzy Snowflake and Dominic the Donkey? Don’t get me started on Madonna’s version of Santa Baby; the one where if Eartha Kitt weren’t already dead she rake her nails down Madonna’s cheek for destroying her classic song?

Yes, those stations torture me, which is why we are going to watch videos today. Pay attention class!

Meg had NO idea the Royal Navy was so cheeky. Yeah, baby!

Speaking of British humor, Mr. Bean is pretty creative with a interactive Nativity:

In an ode to her Boston roots, Meg would like to give you The Real Housewives of South Boston, doing their Yankee Swap:

She is WICKED HAHHHD PRESSED not to ask for that Tom Brady crucifix. Especially since her Tommy is going up against the Zadge’s Tim Tebow this weekend. Meg hopes the theme from the Departed isn’t playing when her Pats visit Denver!

Let’s end with Jon Stewart, who takes a trip back to 1789 to see how the colonial fathers celebrated Christmas:

This weekend, relax, decompress, and throw a little eggnog back. You deserve it, people!

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

The stakes for Jeopardy Blog Potpourri could not be higher this week! The house is finally festooned for Christmas, thanks to Meg’s husband, who took last Friday off from work. He set the tree up, dragged boxes out of storage, and created a whole new category called Helpful Husbands for $1000. His assistance was actually worth a cool million, and it showed as she started lighting things up:

This room is the sunroom, aka Meg’s office, and she tries to string as many white lights as she can to create an aura of peace every evening. Sometimes at the end of a long day, Meg dreads shutting off all the peace she has created, so she bought these:

Meet her new best friend, the remote control! Now Meg has an entire command center at her fingertips, which magically controls not only the outside lights, but the inside as well, so she doesn’t have to shlep these stairs every night:

Even Jack gave a paws up on all the decorating, giving his seal of approval:

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In the best $20 the family has spent this year, they won a raffle and got rinkside seats to Saturday’s Boston Bruins game:

Meg will vouch 100 percent that hockey players are extremely rugged and ultra cute close up, making the game experience even more pleasant. The team played the Toronto Maple Leafs, and many of our Canadian friends to the North were in town for the game. Meg loves how the crowd gauged the Toronto fans; it was a more genteel rivalry than say, the Montreal-Beantown where you have the usual dust-up’s and f-bombs. The worst insult she heard was between face-offs when shear a Boston fan shouted “Nickelback is the WORST Canadian band ever“! Meg smiled and the crowd laughed, although she would beg to differ, she thinks that title belongs to the band Rush.

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Meg has a new hobby at the end of each day, it’s called recycling:

She cannot believe the outlandish amount of paper that comes her way each day, and she has even gotten on one of those direct mail lists to CEASE and DESIST with all this crap. Anyone else dealing with this?

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Meg is sort of sorry Herman (my ass is toast) Cain is bowing out of the Presidential race; he was an endless source of amusement for the past several months. She was especially baffled at Herman’s reluctance to go home to Mrs. Cain and do come ‘splainin about the his mystery friend.

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Lastly, Meg keeps hearing gasps of shock about the whole Kardashian fake wedding debacle. Why anyone is surprised Kim did not really want to be married to a 26 year old basketball player is beyond me. She especially did not think Kim was ever going to set foot in Minnesota (no offense to the good people of the state, except of those who elected Michelle Bachmann), but I always thought the real wedding nuttiness belonged to these two:

Meg never trusts a man that sports multi-carat diamond earrings in BOTH ears, or a woman who wraps herself like she’s going to pop out of a birthday cake.

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Meg thinks the whole Kardashian clan should celebrate Christmas in Vegas, that way what happens there can stay there, God willing.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

Main Entry: primer
Part of Speech: noun

…is a first textbook for teaching of reading, such as an alphabet book or basal reader. The word also is used more broadly to refer to any book that presents the most basic elements of a subject.

The other day Meg wrote a cheerful post about some cool holiday things you can buy for yourself your friends and family. She isn’t especially enthralled with shopping, but she like to express appreciation for her loved ones with something nice.

The other thing Meg likes to do at this time of year is go out of her way to be thankful to those serving customers, the public at large, and those that have to put up with the assholes from the rich town next door. Today she was at the garden center and a super nice woman helped her out with something; it wasn’t even her section. But Meg told her she was incredibly nice, an awesome employee, and that Meg truly appreciated her help. I mean, how hard is that?

Meg sees people stomping around when they can’t get the attention of those poor customer service people, and when they snap their fingers, Meg PRAYS that the employee tacks on bonus time to ring up the purchase or make sure their wait is long and painful. Isn’t snapping is for beatniks with bongo drums?

The other night Meg and her husband were trying to dine is peace at their favorite Chinese restaurant, the one there the staff hugs them and gives them a great table in the corner. But that table was not available, and they had to sit in another corner, one that was cursed. Apparently, it’s a new thing to let your kids run circles with knives and forks and scream at the top of his lungs. And it’s even more chic when the parents bring no activities or toys for said heathen to play with.

So let’s replay what happened:

Parents finish dinner (blessedly) and get up to leave. BUT NOT BEFORE STOPPING TO TALK TO MEG.

Incensed Mother: I saw you looking at my child! You should be ashamed!

Me: Umm, I couldn’t help but notice I wasn’t the only person being disturbed.

Incensed Father: You should just have another drink!

Me: Actually, I’m going to now that I can relax. Have a nice Thanksgiving, OK?

Meg has dined out with many children in her day, none that were ill behaved like that. And if they did, they were escorted to the lobby for a time out so as not to disturb other diners. No matter how much it inconvenienced the parent. Sigh.

Lastly, Meg is very good about letting people go when road conditions dictate common sense, and it means avoiding cluster fu**. She likes to wave people along and ensure a good flow of traffic and karma. Another new rule Meg has noticed is no one waves thank you in return. She doesn’t expect a full on Kate Middleton princess wave, just a friendly thanks. It must be hard for those Escalade drivers to lift their bejeweled hands from the steering wheel!

None of this will stop Meg from her position of politeness and dignity; it will drive her however, to have a cocktail an hour or two earlier than scheduled.

And the moral of Meg’s parable today, is something she often says to her little dog Jack. BE NICE!

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

Let’s start the week with a little Potpourri, shall we?

Check out this ad in Meg’s local newspaper:

I know you are all dying to make your kids dreams come true with a home of their own! Just think of all the free time you parents are going to have while your kids are busy cooking meals and doing laundry in their very own home! I told you I don’t make this stuff up.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a crowd at Harvard’s Kennedy School on Friday, that the solution to income inequality is to fire school janitors, and replace them with children. He suggests that these nine to fourteen year olds replace “union janitors” in poor neighborhoods, and that the kids work under a single “master janitor.”

You know, nothing says holiday like Dickens Oliver Twist, and playing the role of Fagin, ladies and gentlemen, is Newt Gingrich. Kids of America, you are all the collective Oliver Twist.

Please Newt, may we have some more porridge?

Meg thinks the Macy’s Snoopy balloon kicks Sponge Bob’s ass:

She’ll be watching him float down Fifth Ave Thursday morning while she relaxes with some coffee. She’ll also be queing up her Peanuts Christmas CD in the car as she heads over to Ain’t Misbeehaven’s house to eat herself silly!

What’s everyone got planned for this week? Travel, grandkids being born, dealing with wacky in-laws? Spill it!

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

Guess what everyone, it’s Jack’s birthday today!

This was Jack after his very first bath, all fluffy and smelling like vanilla shampoo, replete with a Halloween scarf. Aww!

Meg remembers the trip she took to the shelter; she wasn’t too optimistic about a dog. She has previously adopted Cujo and returned him pronto after the vet sternly said the dog was insane and not to keep it.

When the family arrived they saw this little face, and Jack was twirling a little blanket around in the corner of his kennel, nicely staying out of the fray and hoping his charms shined compared to the other barky dogs:

After a walk around the dog trails, they were smitten with Jack and they brought him home:

Jack instantly took to his new doggy bed:

We had to teach Jack to fetch a tennis ball because being stray in San Antonio, Texas didn’t exactly mean play time:

Soon winter was upon us and it turned out that someone just loved the snow:

That someone was not his family, but at least Jack turned the tundra into a fun adventure!

He made friends with other dogs in playgroup:

Spring came and Jack played Warren Beatty in Splendor the the Grass:

He rooted for his favorite baseball team:

Why Jack let them implode in September I don’t know. Maybe because he spent too much time frolicking at the beach?

As the family looks back upon their year with Jack, it brings a smile to their faces and joy in their hearts; they were clearly matched up with the perfect dog!

Good boy, Jack!

P.S. Here is the reluctant Halloween devil:

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

Meg decided this post was worth 600 bucks for sharing a really great fall recipe with you today!

Sick of the same old boring chicken dishes? Meg is, and she decided to replicate (meaning follow the exact instructions) for this pork saltimbocca recipe which she had this summer while vacationing in Maine:

Melissa Kelly’s Pork Saltimbocca
Serves 4
2 pounds boneless pork loin, cleaned and cut into 3-ounce medallions
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup shiitake mushrooms, sliced
3 sprigs sage, chopped
½ cup Madeira wine
1 cup chicken or pork stock

Gently pound medallions into scallopini. Heat olive oil over high heat. Dredge pork in flour you have seasoned with the salt and pepper. Place pork in pan, being careful not to crowd. Brown well on first side, turn, cook for 10 seconds on the other side. Remove pork from pan and repeat with remaining pork. Once all of the meat is browned, add 1 tablespoon butter to pan. Once the butter foams. add mushrooms and cook until they are softened. Add sage and then deglaze with the Madeira. Cook the wine down in pan until it has evaporated. Add stock and reduce by one-third. Add last tablespoon of butter and swirl in to thicken. Taste and adjust seasoning. Add pork back to pan. Serve over a bed of mashed potatoes, wilted spinach and a thin slice of prosciutto.

Meg served the dish with this squash:

It’s a delicata squash, and it’s brilliant because you can roast it with the skin, which is perfectly edible. Try it this way for something new and different.
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Yesterday Meg had a number of interesting customer service experiences. She had to call National Grid because they want to inspect her had meter. So OK, she’s been putting that one off for awhile, but she called and was put through at least 12 separate voicemail prompts. She’s not kidding, and then there was the wait time. Meg finally got a time slot, in which the beaten down phone person was like “well, we can call you 15 minutes ahead, but if you don’t pick up right away we just go to another appointment and then if you don’t answer a second time we cancel it and blah blah blah. Meg was all like, “OK, then how is that helpful? If I have to wait here for 5 hours then who really cares if I get a call? Why don’t I just fucking wait and not be bothered with the call?” The f-bomb part was a bubble over her head but she thought it, and then Twittered it:

To her surprise, she got a response from National Grid asking if she needed help and they would give Meg’s feedback to the right people. I love it when social networking uses it’s power for good!

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In another customer service experience, Meg was trying to get her 10 percent off at Talbots. On your birthday month you get a little gift card, and it didn’t work on her on-line order over the weekend. So she called to get it applied, but she ended up speaking with cartoon character Peggy Hill:

That’s right, Meg talked to Peggy for a good 15 minutes, trying to figure out how 10 percent of $149 dollars equaled 8 dollars and change. She implored Peggy to run that math and Peggy put Meg on hold three times, all the while shouting “JEEPERS CREEPERS WHAT IS GOING WRONG HERE?” That was Meg’s first clue that this woman was not a resident of the Northeast, where you would never hear those two words in a sentence. Peggy finally remediated the problem, but it took a damn long time and there was talk of Meg actually CALLING BACK again, and this is when mankind went down the tubes completely.

She hopes those pinstripe pants are worth it when they arrive.

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It’s a dog eat dog world, people. During a recent championship Scrabble Tournament, one opponent demanded the other be strip searched for the letter G.

Meg can only imagine if that letter was the coveted X.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

This time of year Meg always thinks of the whole back to school experience. The smell and sound of crunchy leaves, the crisp fall air, the bright yellow school busses dropping kids off. The smell of new leather when Meg cruises through a shoe department. It occurred to Meg her love of shoes was born at that tender age, all in the name of getting prepared for the first day of school. Anyone else on board with that one?

For some reason the school year 1969-1970 made a big impact on Meg. That whole era was tumultuous; Bobby Kennedy and MLK both assassinated, there was social revolution, LSD, Woodstock, and men traveling to the moon. And then there was her sixth grade teacher, Miss Fullonton.

Miss Fullonton, as you can deduce from her photo was a stylish and very cool teacher. She recognized everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, and tried to give each student individual attention when needed. For those of us that were avid readers and adept in English, she threw a little Hemingway our way just to see how we’d roll with it. She was very big on creative writing assignments, and Meg realized she had a whole folder full of papers where she waxed about a variety of subjects, including friendship:

Check out that penmanship! Do they even teach that anymore is school?

Meg is sure her teacher’s writing assignments for her off on the right foot in her scholastic career. She was always able to whip together a cogent essay in class, and search the stacks at the library for her subject matter. Writing off the top of your head certainly comes in handy while blogging, especially when Meg gets up and has no idea what she is going to talk about that day.

Another one of Miss Fullonton achievements (besides having an awesome royal blue Camaro she would drive you down the street in) was she encouraged appropriate social unrest. Back in the the day, it was written that you wore a dress to school. That’s right kids, no shorts, jeans, or slacks. If there was snow you wore leggings under the dress and whipped them off in the coatroom, while someone held up their winter coat so the boys couldn’t see your underwear. Yeah, they tried to see a lot of flowered cotton underwear.

During that particularly cold winter, Meg and her classmates decided that would stage a genteel protest and submit their demands to wear pants to the principal, Miss Sheridan. And in short order, because of their smart and well thought out request, the 6th grade girls were warm for the rest of the season!

Meg would like to think Miss Fullonton would also be approving of the protests going on today:

Actually, I think she would be reflecting back, thinking her 1969-1970 class did a better protest job. She’d also be thinking Meg’s circa 2011 shoes would be totally rocking, too!

Who was your favorite teacher?

P.S. I forgot to mention she had the best in-class explosion when she told two boys, Randy and Wayne to “GO BLOW”. In fact, she inserted the words Jesus Christ right before that phrase and walked out. Randy and Wayne never again turned homework in that said:

FBI – Female Body Inspectors.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

No, no. not the family. We aren’t rich (except in spirit)! But you know who’s really really rich and just got married?

Sue and Bob.

You guys don’t know Sue and Bob, but their wedding announcement was gloriously displayed in the Sunday paper for all to see.

Sue and Bob were married on the evening of August 13, 2011 by the Rev. Dr. Randy Simmonds at their home, True Vine Farm in Hamilton, Massachusetts. Following the ceremony, Ms. Orsini and Mr. Johnston entertained family and friends at a black tie affair at their residence, where 200 guests celebrated with cocktails, dinner, music and dancing.

Already we know money is involved, they have a farm. But can’t anyone call their residence a farm? Because if so, I want a name change here at 127 Howard. Maybe Nectar des Dieux Ferme?

Want to hear more?

The couple was introduced while fox hunting in Unionville, Pennsylvania with Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Fox Hounds. Ms. Orsini is a member of the Master of Fox Hounds Association of North America and the ex-Master of Fox Hounds of the Rombout Hunt and Stone Valley Hounds. Mr. Johnston, a member of the Myopia Hunt Club on the North Shore of Boston, has competed domestically and abroad in show jumping and eventing.

The burning question I have here is, who is Mr. Stewart and why do his pack of hounds rate in a wedding announcement?

The 411 on the bride:

Ms. Orsini graduated from The Parsons School of Design with a Fine Arts degree in Environmental Design and founded her award-winning interior design firm in 1978. Orsini Design Associates was ranked by Interior Design Magazine as the number one design firm in the U.S. in 1997 and as an Annual Design Giant for 26 consecutive years.

The 411 on the groom:

The groom is the founder and CEO of Beacon Hill Financial Corporation in Boston. He introduced the concept of third party marketing to institutional investors in 1982, specializing in the distribution of private equity and hedge fund partnerships. Beacon Hill has been ranked as #1 placement agent by Private Equity Analyst.

Meg gave you the short version of their storied and fantastic lives, but it pretty much looked they they pimped some overblown resumes as part of their wedding notice. Which Meg found COMPLETELY obnoxious, and oh so juvenile for people that are fifty somethings. Aren’t the really rich supposed to be discreet about this? Don’t they know we can Google them to substantiate any of this information?

Meg found the most amusing part of this whole announcement advertisement was the date under their names:

Meg was sort of happy she saw the date so egregiously misspelled. She had a vision of Sue and Bob carefully crafting the dissemination of their marriage, confident in how they would be portrayed in the Sunday paper. Meg’s next vision was of Sue stamping her riding boots all over the farm, wailing inconsolably.

Meg could almost hear the boots clicking and making marks on the hardwood floors, it brought a smile to her face.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.