In a clutch moment, I'd rather drive a standard

If you know my real name and have hung out with me recently, you're officially on notice. Starting this summer, my new philanthropic effort is going to include teaching all you standard transmissions virgins the fine art of popping a clutch and rolling into first.

After a year and a half hiatus of driving a sports car with an automatic transmission (a complete oxymoron), I'm back driving stick with a vengeance. I am not super religious, but I firmly believe that God created empty parking lots to teach the uninitiated the mechanics of driving with two hands and two feet. You may stall, and I may yell (out of love, not hate) but if you're up for the challenge, I think you will be wicked excited to have mastered an important life skill. Afterall, if you think that adjusting your lipstick, driving, and sending a text message is multi-tasking, wait until you try it while downshifting. It's practically poetic, my friends.

Surely I understand that driving a car with a standard transmission is easier to avoid than jury duty. However, like so many other life skills it gives you options. It gives you the option to use less gas by driving a more fuel efficient car. It gives you the option of saving money by not upgrading to an automatic transmission. It gives you the option of being able to negotiate the price of a car with a stick shift because the salesman knows that they're much harder to sell. More importantly, it gives me the option of throwing you my keys and shouting "no, it's your turn to make the beer run!".

If you're up for the challenge, give me a holler.

She's Just Not That In To You (and it's probably something you did)

I've been on many, many first dates, some more prominent than others. I figure that I've got the rest of my life to be married so why be stuck with someone that on a good day I can tolerate for the next 70 years. Many consider Boston a great place to be single, though I secretly suspect that it's only because a great many of the men you meet in Boston are so frightening that you're probably better off not to get involved in the first place.

While everyone has their quirks, it seems as if the vast majority of guys my age are either over confident, coddled, or socially inept. Finding a guy who fits nicely into just one of these categories is something every Boston girl strives for; tonight I found myself on yet another adventure with a guy who fit all three. Chivalry is dead and most guys are tricked into thinking that "low maintenance" equals "no standards". I've met a lot of mothers and most would be horrified by what their sons consider proper dating etiquette. A few tips for the gentlemen of Boston who's "A game" is laughable at best:

Use the phone as a phone. Honest-to-God you have an electronic phone book so it's not like you even need to make the effort to dial all 10 digits. Don't text message or hide behind e-mail. If that's the case, why not just pass us a note asking us if we like you (circle Y or N)? No woman over the age of 15 wants to date a man that's too scared to call us and ask us out on a real live date.

Have a game plan. When we ask "hey, what do you want to do tonight?" the correct answer is "gosh, I thought we could grab an ice cream and walk through the Commons". Reflecting the question back to us is irritating. If we're in to you we probably spent half the afternoon primping and figuring out what to wear for the date. All you have to do is think of a suitable activity. It's really not that difficult.

Equal rights to damned, it's still the man's duty to pay for the first date. A nice girl will politely ask but there's no way in hell that we honestly expect to cough up cash for our portion of the bill. If as a male you're not ok with that then don't expect a respectable lady to grant you a second date.

Whether it's the first date or the thirtieth, offer to walk us to our cars. Offering to walk us to our cars says "I like you and I care about your safety". Remember, if we get stabbed to death walking back to our vehicles the chances of us sleeping with you greatly diminish.

As women we expect your humble abode to be an utter shithole, complete with mis-matched furniture, questionable bathroom cleanliness, and a $5,000 entertainment system. We also expect something to eat and drink. If you have nothing to offer your female guest aside from a frosty mug of tap water you'd better brush up on your hosting skills. On someone else. Because we're off to find a man who doesn't act like he was raised by a pack of hyenas.

Follow some of these rules, and you'll make a Boston girl very happy. Follow all of these rules and live in a place that has convenient, free parking and we may want to have your children.

And the Cat Came Back the Very Next Day

I was quite the scardy cat this morning when I discovered that two huge, ugly strays had taken to shacking up on my porch. Since I hate cats, especially ones with potential diseases and anger managment issues, I dialed in for reinforcements. Much like a Domino's Mom and Minnie were at my place in under 30 minutes.

Before all of you animal lovers freak out, Minnie would never intentionally harm another animal. She can, however, display a remarkable show of force when having encounters with the random dog, cat, or wild turkey. With Minnie by my side, I was now confident enough to show those cats who's boss. Barreling out of the house, Minnie sniffed the cats, saw the cats, and without growing or even making her presence known decided she wanted to go back into the house.

Mom and I then took Minnie for a walk, where she barked at just about everything around her that moved. About 10 seconds Minnie and Mom decide to head home to Stoughton, I am greeted by the cats who are now staring at me from about 2 yards away. I am more determined than ever not to let the cat terrorists win.

I'm not sure who these cats are or what their purpose for tormenting me is, but I really want my porch back. If I dare to aid them by leaving out food (they look pretty hungry) I know that I'll never get rid of them. If I call the animal control officer then there's a chance they could be euthanized. Adopting them is obviously out of the question. I'm hoping that they decide to leave on their own, or else I may have to suck it up and call animal control.

Because everything tastes better with peanut sauce

While I'll never turn down the opportunity to hang at Fugakyu, I'm kind of over the whole sushi thing. Seeking a new food discovery, I recently ventured over to Viet Grill in Canton Center and fell head over heels in love with their chicken skewers with peanut sauce combo. Peanut sauce and I are on very intimate terms, and like crushed red pepper, I'd gladly add it to my chicken, shrimp, or morning cereal.

Trader Joe's practically has a whole aisle dedicated to peanut sauce, none of which are very good. Because it's shameful to pay $10 at Viet Grill when I have 5 lbs of chicken in my freezer I searched the Internet high and low before coming across the best recipe for peanut sauce ever.

For this recipe you will need:

1/4 cup of peanut butter
2 teaspoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon
1/2 cup of water
red chili flake to taste
1 clove crushed garlic
1 teaspoon of rice vinegar (optional)
1 teaspoon of sesame oil (optional)

Whisk all of the above ingredients together until smooth and then transfer to a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until sauce begins to boil and thicken (this takes about 10 minutes).

This just in

At a weekend bachlorette party, my friend Shelbs informed me that she would like to start drinking scotch. After practically wetting myself with excitment over having a friend under the age of 50 to drink scotch with, I gave her a few lessons on the nuances of single malt versus blended whiskey. I also mentioned that when I first starting drinking scotch that I was pleasantly surprised at the immediate street cred I received from good looking men with fancy jobs.

This afternoon I received this e-mail:

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To: Pahkcah02
From: Shelbs
Re: 'Cue

....Also, let me tell you something. I have finally found the perfect pick-up line. "I'll have a Glenlivet on the rocks, please. No, no. The 12 is fine." As soon as the words came out of my mouth last night, the guy next to me was like "That sounds good." Then, when he switched, he and his friend bought us a round. And we were making out by the end of the night.

Thanks Pahkcah02!

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There you go, folks. I can't say this scenario has ever happened to me, but apparently scotch is more effective than JDate, Match, or e-Harmony. To quote Anchorman: "scotch, scotch, scotch, in my belly. Down it goes"....

You've Got the Right $tuff, Baby

Ok, I'll admit it: sometime during that dark period in the late 1980's, before punk became mainstream and all rap was completely old school, I would pillage the newest editions of Bop and Tiger Beat for pictures of Donnie Wahlberg wearing his wicked hot fedora. I owned the NKOTB t-shirts. And the lunchbox. And pretty much every other product emblazed with their logo that graced the Strawberries shelves at the Westgate Mall. While I'm pouring my heart out I'll also fill you in on the fact that on more than occassion I may have screamed my 9 year old head off when the Kids crooned Hangin' Tough in Foxboro Stadium.

Donnie was the bad-ass of the group, so naturally he was my favorite. The Troll looooved Jordan while Melissa M was definitely Joey's "Cover Girl". That was the greatest part of being a pre-pubescent boy band groupie: you could maintain your identity while flaunting your obsession all at the same time. As the human race continued to evolve into the 1990's, we all realized how cheesy the NKOTB pop songs actually were and focused our attention on folks we considered to be "real" artists, such as Marky Mark and Vanilla Ice.

Shoving their pride completely by the way-side, the Kids (who are about two decades from collecting social security) are back like gangbusters trying to promote their new album and tour. 20 years ago I swooned as the boys from Dot convinced me that I had the "Right Stuff". However, now I'm convinced that the "Right Stuff" is money, as in money to download their new hit "Summertime" with and money to cough up for their reunion tour tickets. Unfortunately, boy bands (like milk) have a shelf life. Watching 40 year old men sing lyrics about meeting a girl on the beach and asking for her number is actually kind of creepy.

Admitting that you were a die hard NKOTB fan is like picking your nose: everybody does it but it's rarely discussed openly. Once one of the biggest acts on the planet, you'd be hard-pressed to hear any of their former hits on the radio dial outside of an open-request hour. Their upcoming concert will be a (expensive) reunion back to childhood, and one this blogger is content to miss.

Happy Birthday, Israel!

The State of Israel turns 60 this week and nobody knows how to "make a party" quite like the People of the Book. A-listers Tony Blair and President Bush are heading to the Middle East early next week in anticipation of May 14, the day Israel was officially recognized by the United Nations by majority vote in 1948. My work colleague in Tel Aviv is currently partying and I am forced to blog about it from afar (and daydream about July 4 on the beach).

As the crossroads of the world's three major religions, Israel is a country of contradictions (to quote MSN). 6 million Israelis packed into a land the size of New Jersey is an island of democracy flanked on all sides by hostility. People of all religions get blown up in buses and in markets yet they continue to stay tuned for their regularly scheduled life. IDF soldiers patrol the streets with guns not because it makes a good tourist photo op (my mom wasn't happy when she saw a photo of me smiling while doing a present-arms pose with an M-16) but because the next war could happen outside of the bar that you're sucking down cocktails in.

On the flip side, Israel is beautiful country that is hands down the perfect environment for a Jew with a short attention span. Don't like the weather? A two hour drive north or south will take you either to a mountain ski resort or to the Negev desert. Life here is fast, whether it's watching scary drivers drive 100mph in their mini-cars or as an employee in one of Israel's world-leading tech firms. Created during an era of post-colonialism, Israel was and still is a model of how a nation can rise from nothing and achieve greatness in such a short amount of time.

Jews from all over the world have made aliyah (became citizens of) to Israel and while it's a wonderful place to visit, I certainly wouldn't want to live there. Sure after you've heard your umpteenth anti-Semitic comment Israel definitely looks attractive but America has corrupted me and I couldn't possible move to a place where central a/c is limited and walk-in closets are unheard of. While my heart may yearn for Israel but my ass belongs in America, and I'll gladly raise a glass of Maccabee to that this Israeli Independence Day.