Maria's Sunday: June 22, 2008

Hey True Story of Sunday Reader,

This was quite the Sunday! I was out there saving the earth, meeting new friends, and doing stand up.

I am a co-host of the Energy Smackdown, a reality TV show that challenges families to reduce their carbon footprint. Throughout the course of the show, we have "challenges". This past Sunday was the "Smart Transit Challenge" and we got some press.

We started in Davis Square. Three teams: Medford, Arlington and Cambridge were set to travel a course of 5 checkpoints using alternative methods of transportation. They could carpool, bike, walk, take public transportation. After John Herman and I welcomed them to the challenge, I told them "Get out of here and travel smart!" And they were off.

***On a side note, John Herman introduced me to the practice of mobile twittering, which he touts as a great tool to let everyone know what you are up to. So I did. Now everyone knows what I'm doing at all times. So if my sisters are reading this, and they're like, 'Maria I never know what you are doing, you never ever call me,' then know that if you are on twitter, you will always know what I am doing.***

I spent some time at Medford City Hall waiting for the teams to pass through, and made friends with Medford City Representative Carl Sciortino, Jr. He is young, smart, and political. Vote for him, Medford! Also I met Pem, short for Pemberton, which was his mother's maiden name. I don't know Pem's last name, only that he's good people.

By the end of the day we all assembles back in Davis Square and enjoyed the banjo melody goodness of Chris Merenda. Hoo-wee! people, he sounds good! Even the homeless hung out with us and were in a good mood, partaking in our table of goldfish and pretzel and juice refreshments.

I entertained the crowd, honing my crowdwork skills on 8 year olds with questions like "So, anyone have a pet?", "What sports do you play?", and "Who has a special talent? Who?" I got karate chopped, and there was also an opera whistler who did a beautiful version of "We Are The Champions".

Arlington won the Smart Transit Challenge, using the least amount of carbon per person per mile. Basically they biked a lot. Cambridge was none too happy about this! Medford did a great job carpooling. Baby steps is what Medford says.

Love,
Maria

Maria's Sunday, May 25, 2008

I woke up in a hotel room on Route 1 with the bride-to-be in bed with me!

And that is the elevator pitch for my new romantic comedy destined to be the shittiest made for TV movie on Lifetime.

My friend Mitzi didn't want to be alone the night before her wedding. So she invited me to stay over.

I was like, "Really? This is the last night of your life you will ever be able to be alone? And you don't want to be? This is your LAST CHANCE EVER for ONE peaceful night. And you don't want it?"

I like to speak in extremes and toy with the fragile emotions of soon to be married people.

So we woke up, and I started in with an impromptu song called "wedding day". Here it is:

Wedding day
the day you get wedded
you're gonna get hitched
you'll look hot in ya dress
wedding day, bitch.

It sounded nice sung in my morning voice. I don't think Mitzi loved it.

It was 7 am, the wedding wasn't until 1:30, but Mitzi was all business and she kicked my ass out of bed. A milli-nanosecond later, the bed was fully made and her wedding dress, veil, shoes, and ring pillow were neatly set on the bed.

She had lots of bridey stuff to do, so I went downstairs to the gym, then to breakfast.

Mitzi found me and put me to work. I carried messages between her room and the groom's room, where my man Justin was. (Justin was the best man.)

I said things like "The photographer will be here at 11:30. You have to be ready then. Your limo will be here at 12. You have to leave then. Your wife-to-be is going to look wicked hot in her dress. Are you ready for this? Are you? YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED BUB. GET YOURSELF READY."

The boys were more nervous than the girls. By mistake, Justin got a tux for a fat man and needed safety pins. None of them knew how boutonnieres should look, and they didn't know the schedule. Total bitch-boys.

Then we all left for the wedding and they got married. I did a reading where I talked about "if I don't have love, I'm nothing".

Then we went to a Mansion in Ipswich, MA by Crane's beach that was effing amazing, see?


Then we ate and drank and danced and ate more. Justin did a speech, which was delightful. I have never heard my husband make a speech. Just delightful. He does not have a career as an orator.

Then I realized there was no way I was making my 7 pm show. I felt awful about canceling a show, but what can you do? Leave a wedding at a mansion, when you had slept with the bride just the night before? No. You stick it out. You eat more cake. Then you pass out.

Bethany's Sunday 5/25

Sunday was the day before Memorial Day, and this is what we did to memorialize.

BTW, I'm sorry. iMovie has no rotate function. So lie down before you watch it.



It's kinda cool anyway, right? I promise I'll rotate it when I figure out how.

Maria's Sunday 5/18

On this Sunday, I woke up in Northampton, MA at my sister Sarah's house.
But Sarah was at my house - we did a house swicheroo.
I was feeling good from a fun show I did the night before in Holyoke. It was Jennifer
Mysclowski's Girls! Girls!Girls! show.

Justin and I got in our piece of crap car and drove to East Longmeadow to my sister-in law Tianna's graduation. People talked about all the struggles of college they had overcome. Ok.

Then we all went out to eat at a steak place. There was a waitress there who told us all about how tired she was because she had worked a double Friday, a double yesterday, and today they needed her to stay late. I like people, but I didn't really care about her schedule. I thought about telling her some unsolicited information about myself in return. I didn't.

After the steak place, we found that our piece of crap car got a flat. Justin called Triple A. I noticed a Dick's Sporting Goods in the plaza. I bought a Diamondback bike. I was so happy to get this bike. I have been wanting one for months. On the way out of the store, I actually said, "I love Dick's!" And there is their new marketing slogan. You are welcome, Dick's.

My bike makes me so happy. Happy and a little sweaty and stinky for work. When I am riding my bike, I sometimes realize that I'm smiling like a happy retarded person or a very old person - a pure unsullied happy. I don't even try to look cool again. It's my new cool face.

Then Justin realized that we didn't even need Triple A. His OCD nature had made him put a whole new tire, instead of a spare, in the trunk. So we drove home with a new tire on the car.

Bethany's Sunday 5/18

My liver isn't speaking to me.

It tried to warn me sometime on Saturday night. It tapped me from the inside and said, "Look. This Nantucket Wine Festival stuff is great, but I'm old, and don't wanna work this hard. Tomorrow (Sunday), you need to give me water. No more wine. "

I didn't listen. Not because I didn't want to. But because this weekend of all weekends, we eat the best food, by the best chefs, which is matched to the best wines, by the best sommeliers around. I wanted to say no...

No, I didn't.

Sunday started out swimmingly. It was sunny and 58°, a spectacular day for Nantucket in May. We enjoyed it with a breakfast sandwich (ham, egg & cheese on the fluffiest english muffin) and orange juice (Nantucket Nectar, of course!). I helped hubby open wine for his table, then went to a cooking demonstration, where I learned:

• sous vide is not fancy or douchey, it's just another way to cook things
• mustard ice cream sounds gross, but tastes great on sous vide pork
• the char of a grill on your meat is worse for you than liquid nitrogen

I saw many former colleagues at many wine tables, and tried the yummy things they said I had to try. And I spit. I swear. Because that's what wine people do, and what my liver wanted me to do.

But then, (after a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of eating the best food and drinking the best wine) at 5:00, after the big tasting event ended, the guys from Island Creek Oysters decided they didn't want to waste all the bushels of oysters they had leftover. So they set up shop on the patio of the Boarding House, and shucked and shucked, while everyone ate and ate. Yes, and drank. I had a sparkling pinot noir from Slovenia (right?). It was exactly what oysters like. We had dinner plans looming, so I decided not to research the answer to the question "How many oysters does it take for a Bethany to get wicked ill?" But I can tell you it's not 12.

I was still on speaking terms with my liver at this point. It was tentative, but still speaking to me.

Then... 7 of us went to a friend, and amazing chef's restaurant, with 6 bottles of wine in tow. Our sommelier friend, who is not one to be outdone, gleefully matched our 6, and raised us 3. And invited us to stay for a "night cap" after the restaurant closed. Because he had a $1000 bottle of wine he thought we might like to try.

Then my liver stopped talking to me.

It is talking, just not to me. I am almost positive that while we were standing on line waiting for our ferry back home, through a fog that was not coming from Nantucket, I heard my liver speaking to the ocean gods, beseeching them to toss our boat around like a 90 lb. cheerleader.

Apparently the ocean gods do listen to my liver.

Maria's Sunday 5/11

Whoa people it was Mother's Day this past Sunday!

Aaaaaaaaah Ciampa family gathering.
***
(Quick explanation: there are 7 kids in Maria's family. 3 girls, one boy in the middle, and another 3 girls. She is the 5th. She grew up in an old Victorian house in Beverly where there was lots of food, yelling, running around, and confusion. Certain bathrooms in the house never worked, so you needed to plan where you were going to take a shit, an hope it panned out for you. The house was part of the underground railroad and, along with standards like 'house' and 'doctor', as a young girl, Maria enjoyed playing 'let's free the slaves'. Once, in an effort to educate his children, Maria's father Papa dissected a sand shark on the family's kitchen table . It had washed up on the beach down the street. Maria was fascinated. In her native environment, Maria tends to revert to old behaviors, like making very loud stupid jokes for attention and eating everything that exists. Maria just realized that these are also current behaviors.)
***
My sister Dr. Sarah Ciampa, OD (7th kid of 7) was visiting the weekend and we made the brave trek to the Beverly Ciampa house together.

On the way there, we stopped at Esposito's on Rt. 1 in Revere and bought Calzone, cookies, and pastries. Ciampas make sure not to eat anything healthy when they convene.

When we got there, we were immediately directed to the 27 tons of homemade leftovers from the night before.

There was:
stuffed mushrooms
stuffed shells
chicken cordon bleu (this was disconcerting to Papa, who in his 82 years had never eaten it)
asparagus
tomato sauce and meatballs
fancy bread from a fancy bakery
pound cake
lots of wine
cheese
crackers
cookies

And everything else you could ever imagine eating.

I started with chicken, mushrooms, and shells. We ate. My father talked about how McCain was a war hero. He said something about taxes and what our country needs. Papa was in WWII, and all he cares about is that the "banana-brains in the government not take his money."

Then Sarah, Mom and I took Precious for a walk. Precious is a Yorkshire terrier. Why yes, funny that you ask, my Mom DID used to breed Yorkshire terriers. At one point, when I was in high school, there were about 48 yippy little shit dogs running around. The more to kick! I thought at the time. (I never kicked them. I did think about it. One of my sisters did put one in the microwave. She did not turn it on. I think.)

On the walk, we talked about what people we know are doing, who has cancer, and family fights. It was awful.

Then we got back home and Mom insisted that Sarah and I change into sweatsuits and do some gardening with her. She laid out the sweatsuits on Sarah's old bed, she informed us. My brother mowed the lawn and burped and farted a lot. My father feebly pushed a Kohl's cart around the yard, picking up weeds with his one hand that works and putting them in the pushcart. When he did this, he looked like a refugee from the Eastern Block. Papa and Joe yelled at each other and made comments to me and Sarah about the other one when they thought the other was out of earshot.

Then I watered the garden and planted some bulbs. Sarah held the hose and watered for a bit too. We did not change into sweatsuits though.

Then second round of eating - asparagus, stuffed mushrooms, red wine, about a whole sausage and pepper calzone, and all the pastries and cookies I could possibly fit into my organ called a stomach. By this time, I reverted back to 11 year old Maria, and the sweatsuit was calling to me. An elastic waistband would be awesome right about now, I thought as I ate 11 more canole.

Then came the part of the Ciampa family gathering where Mom tells us to take all her plates, kitchen gadgets and food. Surprisingly, Sarah took her up on this and began to wrap gold line fancy plates from the dining room cabinets in newspaper. She was serious. I think she'll get married soon - this is a sure sign in our family. When any of my sisters have started to let Mom give them plates or pans or juicers or food dehydrators or ravioli makers, they are gonna get hitched soon.

I took Mom's lemon press and a teapot. I love the teapot. Also some non-alcoholic champagne she put in my bag. I don't know why - my fight was diminished by that point.

It took me 6 days to recover from this Sunday. And I am 4 pounds heavier from it.

Bethany's Sunday 5/11

I had an audition Sunday evening.

But before that, and quite importantly, it was Mother's Day. I wanted to pick an outfit that would work swimmingly for both things, because I am a lazy cow and knew that I would rather nap than change between things.

I wanted to stay away from my everyday outfit of a button down shirt, sweater vest, skinny jeans and sneakers. Please be aware that I do not wear the same button down shirt, sweater vest, skinny jeans and sneakers everyday. But it does seem like everyday I have some version of that on.

I didn't try to stay away from it because that outfit doesn't represent me. It does so well. I just wanted to show Mother's Day, and my audition, that I thought they were very special, special enough to wear a different outfit, than I do everyday.

This is what came of it:
orange Walgreen's tank top under a
cream long sleeve t-shirt under a
brown cropped sweater w/orange, purple and other colored embroidered flowers
blue skinny jeans
pale gold silk ballet flats
purple head band

I know. The skinny jeans were still in there. But they were blue, not black. And skinny jeans will be out of style soon enough. So I wear them everyday now that they are hip, to make up for the future, in which I will be still wearing them everyday, but looking out of date and stupid.

Nobody hated it, or at least nobody said so.

I had eggs benedict, and 1 bellini. I wouldn't have had 1 even, but it was Mother's Day and mommy likes when I sometimes relax, and have a drink on Sunday afternoons.

I went home and Googled 'orange' and 'purple', and was satisfied enough with their so called meanings to keep my outfit on. I napped an hour and went to my audition.

If I did good at all, it's because of this;

I walked into the Studio and up to the booth. A bunch of boy comics were standing there, Ken Reid was one, and before I said 'hi' he said "BVD, which is the best Schwarzenegger movie for quotes?" Without pause I said "Commando." He said "Nice."

I said "Haff yoo seen my taaaawtaah Chenny?!" He laughed.

Now everything was good.

I did my audition, and I think it was just fine.

See you very soon, David Letterman!