Confessions of a Cookie Mom

(Writer's note: this just ran in the Huffington Post's Parenting Blog, so I'm running it again here. Because I can.)

As much as I would love to tell you that I'm the kind of working mother who has her act together, it's simply not the case. I'm the mom who keeps a razor in her car because inevitably, I'll be driving to a meeting and realize I have one hairy knee, because I don't even have my act together enough to have a matching set of hairy knees. When a school party sign-up list goes up and all of the other parents work hours cutting fresh fruit into the shape of the school mascot, I sign up to bring napkins. That way, if I forget the napkins (and believe me, I will), the kids won't starve, and they can just wipe their messy little hands on their clean little pants.

It's not that I haven't tried to be the kind of mom who has her act together. When my now 18-year-old stepdaughter was in elementary school, I stepped up to be the Girl Scout Cookie Mom. Looking back, I'm pretty convinced that one of the other moms drugged me and got me to say yes, while all of the other moms laughed wickedly behind my back. After all, I was a fairly new stepparent. That alone automatically made me feel like a second class citizen, and at that point in my life, I didn't know The Secret to Being a Cookie Mom.

Now that I know the secret, I'm going to share it with you. Considering being a Cookie Mom? Grab a box of Do-Si-Dos and a glass of milk and sit down for a little lesson.

If you've been a Cookie Mom before, I will enjoy having a glass of wine with you in God's special spa retreat in heaven, because we deserve it. If you haven't been a Cookie Mom, let's start with the job description:

Wanted: Cheerful, naive sucker. Must pass a background check that rivals the FBI and CIA combined. Requirements include attending training sessions with instructors who wear Christmas sweaters in June and being willing to gain 10 pounds during Cookie Sale. Candidates must own a minivan and be proud of it. Should delight in outdated, inefficient business practices. Must have space in your home to house a minimum of 1,500 cases of cookies. Should own a dolly, a strong husband, or both. The ideal candidate will possess the physical and emotional strength to fight off their strong husband with a stick when he cracks open cases labeled for other kids and eats Thin Mints while laughing manically.

The candidate will graciously manage mothers who appear organized, but inevitably show up two hours late to pick up cookies at the same time you've stripped down to your bra and panties in the hopes of diving into a hot bath. Scheduling consideration during the Cookie Sale: Be prepared to call in sick to work at least once to cry uncontrollably while counting piles of loose change. 

I'm probably breaking some kind of Girl Scout code by revealing the truth, so to balance things out, here's a site devoted to helping new Cookie Moms get ready for the task. My favorite part: "Are you a new cookie mom? First, I want to tell you, don't panic!"

I'm telling you, the loose change alone should make you panic. I had so much money to handle I felt like Al Pacino in Scarface, minus the gritty, gangster glamour. While Pacino sat at a table with stacks of cash, I was slumped in an overstuffed Pottery Barn chair buried in nickels, dimes and quarters, shoving cookies down my gullet, scribbling illegible notes on post-its, trying to learn Accounting 101 while warding off an extended visit to our local mental health facility. But damn, I was a good stepmother! The other mothers were SO impressed by my Girl Scout spirit!

Don't get me wrong; I completely appreciate what the Girl Scouts do for our impressionable young girls. Both of my daughters had a blast doing it, and the mothers who volunteered to take on the meetings are getting extra complimentary spa treatments at God's spa retreat in heaven. The Girl Scouts teach sisterhood, female empowerment, and basic finance. During the cookie sale, girls learn about customer service (a lost art), door to door sales (that's a little scary), and how to handle rejection. Good lessons, all.

This weekend when you stroll past a cookie booth, please buy some cookies. Who cares if they're loaded with calories and ridiculously overpriced? You'll help a local troop keep a fraction of the profits, make a kid smile, but most of all, you'll make that Cookie Mom feel worthwhile. And if you're really feeling charitable, write a check for the exact amount, please. The Cookie Mom will thank you.

52 Weeks of Gratitude: Week Four

This week, I'm thankful for my dear friend Candace. Our friendship is one of the most important things in my life.

I've known Candace since middle school, when we passed notes in Texas History class and often got in trouble for giggling. We haven't stopped laughing since. 

When we were 18, we each spent a year in Europe as exchange students. At the end of the year, we traveled through Europe by train with two other girlfriends, and together we laughed through every country. In Italy, while waiting to board a ferry, we watched young Italian sailors prank each other by holding lit cigarette lighters to each other's butts. We screamed and laughed when we checked into a hotel in Paris that had a hole in the floor that doubled as a toilet and a shower. In Greece, we cracked plates on each other's heads and took nasty shots of Ouzo, and possibly partially skinny-dipped in the Mediterranean. But don't tell our moms.

We reunited after college, randomly bumping into each other one night on 6th street, and we were attached at the hip from then on. We laughed our way through The Dating Years, especially the time we decided meeting guys in bars wasn't working, so we went to the First United Methodist Church in Austin and went to a single's Sunday School class, only to find the men there were old enough to be our grandfathers. At one point, I dated a guy who was so toxic it nearly ruined our friendship. Lucky for me, I dumped the guy and kept my friend, and she was with me through it all.

We briefly considered starting a business together, mixing up some of the most fabulous salsa on the planet. We were going to bottle it up and sell it as Blondie's Salsa. To this day, every year the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival happens, I wonder what would have happened if we'd gotten our act together and started a salsa empire. Then again, it's never too late!

Soon, life went into fast-forward. Through the years, we've celebrated graduations, birthdays and weddings. Together with our other girlfriends, we've spent many nights over glasses of wine, sitting on Candace's porch, talking through problems and working out life together. We've been there for each other as we lost loved ones. We've cried our fair share of tears together, but somehow, we always end up laughing.

As long as I've known her, I feel confident that I can speak for Candace when I say that we are both most proud of being mothers. Parenting-wise, I got a head start on Candace by falling in love with a man with children of his own, and I had the good fortune of learning about parenthood by being a stepmother. Less than a year after I had Emily Rose, Candace had Kendall, and the second generation of giggly girls entered our lives. Being mothers of girls so close in age has been one of life's biggest blessings, and the laughter has just gotten louder. 

Candace pushes me to challenge myself, reminds me to live in the moment, and is always there. When I'm being a worrywart, she sends me articles about whatever I'm worrying about. When Tim and I are being stupid married people and fighting over something ridiculous, she lends me the right book to work out our problems. Just this weekend, she took Emily Rose for a sleepover when I was too sick to get out of bed. And just a few moments ago, she sent a text that made me laugh so hard tears streamed down my face.

Candace, I'm doing this gratitude project because of course you inspired me to do it. Thank you for your friendship. Let's keep on laughing no matter what!

52 Weeks of Gratitude, Week Three

(By the way, these are in no particular order! Don't feel like you've been skipped; I have 49 weeks left!)

For Week 3 I pick this guy. This is Taco Bob.

I didn't want a dog. I've never been a dog person, and, if you ask my friends with dogs, they have had to go out of their way to make special arrangements to put their dogs up when I go to their houses because I'm scared of them. When a person on the street is walking their dog, my first inclination isn't to talk about how cute it is, or reach down and pet it. I always felt that no matter how cute the dog might be, I would be the person it would bite.

We had a cat. She wasn't particularly fun, but we didn't need another animal. We were NOT getting a dog.

When our daughter Emily Rose was approaching her 8th birthday, she asked for a gerbil. I gagged just thinking about the potential smells that a gerbil would bring to our small home, and gagged again thinking about what might happen if our old cat 007 got a hold of it.

My husband Tim always felt that kids need dogs -- that it teaches them responsibility, and that it's a great bonding experience for kids. I worried about what a dog would chew on, and dreaded the thought of being the person at happy hour who had to leave early to let the dog out. Why would we want that responsibility when we already had three kids?

Emily Rose talked to Tim about the gerbil. In the conversation, she said, "I'd like to get a gerbil because it would show you that I'm responsible enough to take care of a dog."

This yanked on my heart strings so intensely that I immediately began searching our local animal shelters and adoption services and found Austin Pets Alive, an amazing no-kill non profit run almost entirely by volunteers. Browsing their site, I stumbled onto a picture of a dog named "Patch."

Emily Rose and I went to meet Patch. The foster owner took us to her back patio where Patch waddled around with his siblings. As soon as I picked him up, it was over. The same week, we brought him home. Emily Rose named him Taco Bob.

Austin Pets Alive told us that Patch was a rat terrier/beagle mix. His little body grew into a tell-tale Dachshund hot dog shape. He has weird legs. He licks the couch continuously when he can't find a person to kiss. He goes nuts when Tim puts bacon grease on his dog food. He loves Cheeto cheese puffs, but I'm probably not supposed to admit that I give them to him. He rocks a bow tie like no other dog I've ever seen. And even though he's tiny, he barks when people approach the sidewalk. He's our little protector.

Taco Bob made me a dog person (or at least a lot closer to a dog person than I've ever been). When I travel, I miss him. I love how he greets us like we've been gone a month when we've only been gone an hour. I'm truly grateful that Taco came into our lives, and even more grateful that we never got a gerbil.

52 Weeks of Gratitude: Week 2

Week 2 of  52 Weeks of Gratitude.

I'm grateful for my stepmother Pam. When she married my father, she didn't have children of her own. Instantly, she had two young girls to care for part time. She did it with pure love from the start. In the over 30 years I've known her, I can only remember one time when I saw her angry. She fed us, listened to us with sincere interest in our often long and rambling stories, and gave us her whole heart. She understood that we were extremely close to our mother, and she handled the often awkward position of being a step-parent with grace. She was and is a fantastic stepmother.

Today, my sister and I will drive to East Texas to attend Pam's father's funeral. It's an opportunity for us to return some of the comfort she's provided to us through the years. I'm grateful to be able to be with her today, and grateful for her presence in our lives.

And Now, 52 Weeks of Gratitude

My beloved gal pal Candace just introduced me to the concept of the "365 Grateful Project," a project that began in 2008 by Hailey Bartholomew, a photographer who was battling depression and overcame it by focusing on gratitude. She began a project in which she took one Polaroid a day of something she felt grateful for, and by doing this for 365 days, she was able to transform relationships and experience significant personal growth. Ultimately, this project made her happy.

Happiness is the topic du jour at our house currently. Today, my husband and 10-year old daughter and I watched the documentary, "Happy." It was one of those films that sat on my "to watch" list, but because it fell in the documentary column, never got enough family votes to beat out mainstream comedies and family-friendly movies. However, it was worth the wait. Even my 10-year old, who rolled her eyes at the thought of watching a documentary, put down her gadget and paid attention. Afterwards, we discussed our thoughts on the film together. It definitely had an impact on us.

One of the themes "Happy" discusses is how we human types are motivated by extrinsic and intrinsic goals. Extrinsic goals have to do with money, image and status. Intrinsic goals are about personal growth, relationships and helping others. For those that focus heavily on extrinsic goals, they feel caught on what's referred to as a "hedonic treadmill," while those who focus on intrinsic goals are happier.

So, back to the "365 Grateful Project."  My gal pal Candace is going to do it, and asked if others would join her. She's a motivated individual who takes on such projects and completes them. I, on the other hand, start projects like this and flake out quickly. Therefore, I've decided to do my own take on the project, and begin a "52 Weeks of Gratitude" project in which I include a photo, but I also include a bit of writing, since this year I intend to write more.

Without further ado, here is Week #1 of Gratitude for 2014:

Tim and Emily Rose. 12/24/13, Dallas.

I'm grateful for my husband Tim. He's an amazing father to our kids. I can't count how many photos like this I've snapped of him through the years, where one of our three kids is cuddled up next to him. He provides them with a sense of warmth and safety. He's their rock. He's patient, fair, unwavering in his support for his children, and their biggest advocate. He's the perfect example of someone who lives their life focused on intrinsic goals, because the thing that makes him happiest is helping someone else.

When his two older kids were little, we would laugh because they could pull on his ears or yank on his hair or tug on his collar until it stretched, and Tim didn't care. When our youngest daughter grew old enough to pull on his ears and yank his hair and tug on his collar, she did it, too, and Tim would laugh his huge laugh and flash his amazing smile, filling the room with happiness.

This photo was taken this past Christmas Eve. We'd stopped by Tim's mother's house for an afternoon visit. I love how the sun is pouring in on our youngest daughter's arm, and how she managed to snuggle up in Tim's space even though there was ample seating in the room. They are listening to Tim's mother tell stories from her childhood. It fills my heart with love.

The Art of the Semi-Foul Mouth

Last week I was waiting for my husband to pick me up from work, so I stood outside my office in downtown Austin for some people-watching. I try to make a conscious effort to watch people because I'm finding more and more that when I'm alone, I have a tendency to use my gadget to entertain me, when in reality the most entertaining stuff is right before my eyes.

While I watched people pass, two 20-something dudes approached. They were both smoking, and waving their hands around in what appeared to be an extremely animated conversation. As I looked closer, I noticed that one of the guys had on pants with super wide legs.  These weren't sweatpants or any kind of workout gear, rather, they were really wide-legged dress pants. They were upsetting.

Since I didn't snap a photo, I searched for a pretty long time to find a visual representation of this guy's pants. They looked most like the ones in black on the right side.

Unfortunately for this guy, he looked nothing like these fetching little runway boys. He looked more like a casual, schlubby software sales guy with a complete lack of judgment when it came to purchasing pants.

As the guys got closer I was able to properly eavesdrop on their conversation. Typically I delight in little tidbits from conversations like this. I'm constantly writing down random sentences from partial conversations I catch here and there. For example, here are a few little snippets from things I've heard in the past few years that I've quickly keyed into my phone before they were forgotten:

"STOP with the games! Just STOP IT, dammit!" (A completely frazzled red-faced, bald little father yelling at his Nintendo-wielding son.)

"Get yourself a stylist, darling. I mean Savile ROW, for heaven's sake!" (An eccentric wiry-haired woman with expensive glasses and yellow teeth throwing back martinis, talking to her colleague about someone that they clearly both hated.)

"And THAT will give you some historical perspective on the shit I've been dealing with for DECADES." (A cute and exasperated old man in the car next to me with his window rolled down, talking loud enough for me to hear that goodness.)

Usually, I write this stuff down because I assume one day I'll use it for dialogue for a short story or screenplay or whatever, but mainly because things like this can make me laugh for days on end. I like to write down these sentences and sometimes I challenge myself to insert them randomly in unrelated conversations. Did I mention I'm weird?

I gather a lot of this material when I travel for business, because eating alone is a great opportunity to eavesdrop. Often when I'm on work travel, I eat at the bar because sitting at a table alone feels very awkward to me.

Once when I was in in Boston, I was having lunch before a customer meeting and sat down next to a drunk guy and his equally drunk mother who were discussing his recent breakup. I never looked at their faces, but they both had reddish freckled arms and sausage fingers, and the only reason I knew the woman was his mother was that he started every sentence with "Ma." The conversation came out in thick Boston accents, which made it ten times more awesome. The guy was telling his drunk mother about how he went into a strip bar with his friends, only to discover that his girlfriend worked there as a dancer. There were so many great things about that conversation. The guy being sincerely surprised to find his girlfriend was a stripper. The mom not being surprised in the least. The intermittent belches by both parties. While all of it was hilarious, perhaps what was even funnier was that never once did the drunk son nor the drunk mother figure out that I was feverishly keying in their conversation on my little phone keypad, trying very hard not to get busted or burst out laughing.

Given my habit of listening in on conversations I'm not invited to attend, when the dude with the unfortunate pants and his friend finally made it to eavesdropping territory, I was extremely eager to hear what they had to say. I hoped it would reveal something about his pants, or why he was flinging his arms around with such dramatic flair. It was bound to be good.

I was sorely disappointed when the guys approached and all I could hear from the guy in the bad pants was a string of expletives so strong even I was shocked, and I have a pretty bad potty mouth myself.  If the word didn't begin with "f," it was one of the even more foul ones that I can't even mention. It was so distracting I couldn't decipher what he was talking about at all.

Something about hitting 40 has given me the confidence to confront these young kids when I feel like they are out of line, especially when little kids are present. There are few things that bug me more than grown-ass adults cussing around little kids. And while I don't mind what people say to each other in a private setting, this wide-legged pants man was speaking that way in public. It wasn't cool.

So I followed my snarky gut instinct and looked straight at the guy and said,

"I'm not sure what's worse, your pants or your mouth."

He looked up, kept walking and said, "Sorry?"

It was hard to tell if he was apologizing or if he was actually asking me to repeat myself, but by the look on his face, I believe my point was delivered effectively. Now, I am pretty certain that my little comment did not cause this guy to go home and promptly donate his pants (or, for the betterment of society, burn them). I highly doubt my comment caused that guy to immediately clean up his mouth, either, but I said what I needed to say. I felt better, and perhaps in that scenario, that's all that matters.

While I'm certainly not advocating that we all censor ourselves to a G-rated level, I do think there's something to say for moderation when it comes to cussing. I'd suggest we all take a page from the lesson book of my 82-year old stepfather, James. James is one of the most polished, gentlemanly men I have ever known. He has impeccable table manners. He taught several of my high school boyfriends the valuable lesson about about discarding your hat at the dinner table when those poor boys seemed to have no idea otherwise. He opens doors. He is incredibly polite. He also avoids confrontation, once telling me that the few times in his life he's had to have a confrontation in the workplace his voice gets high pitched like a little girl. Despite all of these qualities, he is far from wimpy. He has strong opinions and isn't afraid to make them. He is just genteel about it all, and these days, that kind of a man is rare.

When it comes to cussing, James really doesn't do it. Growing up, I learned most of my good cursing from my incredible maternal grandmother Mabel. She was a lady but she had a mouth on her, and I appreciated that. James, on the other hand, never cussed in front of us. In the privacy of his art studio he may have let it rip like a you-know-what, but I never heard it, and that's important to me. Also, because James is so even-keeled, we rarely saw him angry.

One afternoon, when I was probably in 8th grade or so, James was loading the dishwasher and struggling with the bottom rack. The rack had a tendency to fall of the track, causing you to have to yank it around in all sorts of directions before it would go in properly. James went at it several times and finally jerked it so hard a dish broke, shattering all over the kitchen floor.

"SHIT!" he yelled, and as he did, I believe the walls of 2914 Pounds Avenue trembled in fear.

This was ridiculously shocking stuff for us. James cussed? James cussed. James cussed! This meant so much all at one time. James was most definitely angry. James meant business. It was big.

Though we wouldn't have let him know it at the moment, after we got over the initial shock, James' outburst was extremely funny. Because it was fresh. When someone who never cusses says a curse word, it has so much more flavor than if they said it every other word. Think about it. What if your priest stubbed his toe and said, "Son of a bitch!" Imagine the Queen of England saying, "I call bullshit!" Wouldn't that be hilarious and newsworthy?

When I first started this blog, the original idea was that I would provide advice, partly because I'm bossy but partly because people thought it would be funny if I doled out advice. That's because everyone who knows me knows how ripe with imperfection I am as a mother, a wife, a friend and more, so advice from me would not only be funny, it would also be wildly hypocritical.

After many posts where I didn't dole out advice, I'll take this opportunity to offer some now. Consider when and where you choose to cuss. I promise that the less you do it, the more power it will hold. I'm not telling you not to cuss at all; I'm simply suggesting that you cuss sparingly, like you would when thoughtfully spritzing on body spray or slapping wasabi on your sashimi.  And please, do as I say, not as I do, because I drop an f bomb every time I catch my toe on the edge of the bed, which is at least three times a week.

My great grandmother Vera Conrad (the one with the chin whiskers who rode in a wheelchair and talked about idle hands being the devil's plaything) was a classy Methodist woman who lived in a nursing home when I was little. I never knew her very well, but what I did know of her was that she had great manners, was kind, and spent her latter years making quilts for her grandchildren and great grandchildren. In many ways, she was the picture perfect great grandmother. I certainly never heard the woman cuss.

One fateful day, Great Gran got into a fight with another little old lady at the nursing home. I don't know what the fight was about, but according to legend, Great Gran got up in the other lady's face and said,

"If you wash your face, you can kiss my ass."

And that, my friends, is how cussing should work. Save it for the right moment, and it can pack one hell of a punch.

You're welcome.

Ickle Me Pickle Me

A few weekends ago Tim and I celebrated our anniversary. We're terrible at remembering our anniversary, and particularly, what our anniversary date is. It's been a joke between us for years. Is it October 24th? 26th? Who knows.

The only way we can remember our anniversary date is because of our beloved handmade pottery bowl, a wedding gift by our family friend Dave Hendley of Old Farmhouse Pottery. (If you're in the market for some beautiful pottery, check it out.) Inscribed on the bottom of the bowl is our anniversary date. The key is to sneak into the kitchen, pull the bowl off of the top shelf, and flip it over to check the date without the other person busting you. Tim has the clear advantage because he's tall, so it's a little unfair, but whatever.

This year, our anniversary fell on a Saturday. We didn't even have a plan set the day before, and were discussing options at our daughter's school Halloween carnival when friends suggested a literary pub crawl, part of the weekend events at the Texas Book Festival. Since Tim and I are clinging to whatever sense of hipness we have left in us, and because it was taking place on Austin's East side, we figured it might be an interesting way to celebrate our anniversary. Plus, we like pubs and we kind of like crawling, so we agreed to give it a shot.

The pub crawl offered several different options so that you could map out your own custom crawl. One of the most appealing options was to check out Derek Waters, the host of Comedy Central's Drunk History. If you aren't familiar, the premise is simple but genius: wasted storytellers discuss historical events, and then famous actors act out the scenes using the drunk dialogue as their script.

Because we're lazy pub crawlers, I determined that if we stayed in one place, we could enjoy more pub than crawl, so we started at the first stop, then hurried over to the venue where they were playing Nerd Jeopardy. Nerd Jeopardy was Jeopardy with a literary twist -- definitely nerdy but hilarious all at the same time. Directly following Nerd Jeopardy was Drunk History, and by the time that was about to begin, the venue was totally packed out. I consider myself too old to stand at bars anymore, so as soon as we spotted six inches of available picnic table space, we landed like vultures and squeezed ourselves in.

Here's what the scene looked like. It was quite lovely. You might see us if were weren't sausaged in between 25 other people at the back table.

(photo courtesy of the Texas Book Festival website)

As we were figuring out how to adequately fold our butts without half-sitting on strangers, I checked out our table mates, and noticed that the girl across from me looked familiar. I also noticed the girl next to her looked exactly like her.

"I think I know you from somewhere," I said to both of the girls, studying them from across the picnic table.

We went through the various possibilities - school? Nope. Neighbors? Nope. Work? Nope. The guy next to me chimed in.

"Have you had her pickles, maybe?"

"Pickles?" I asked, getting tickled.

"She makes the best pickles I've ever had in my life," he said. "That's Sheena from Sheena's Pickles."

He said it like he was speaking about pickle royalty. The clouds parted and a host of angels squeezed in at the table behind us began to sing. His wife/girlfriend leaned in from down the table.

"Yes," she said, "Her pickles are TO DIE FOR."

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know much about the pickle business. I've never had a huge passion for pickles. I'd consider myself to be a plain Jane Vlassic girl myself. But that wasn't going to stop me from learning. In a series of probably fifty questions, I began interviewing Sheena and her friends, and by the time it was over, I had a rip-roaring craving for pickles.

Here's what I learned that fateful night:

• Sheena makes home-made, hand-packed pickles, and offers up four varieties: "The Dilly" (dill), "Texas Heat" (spicy), "Bread & Butter" (B&B) and "The Jefe" (a beer pickle made form an IPA that's usually a special order item)
• She doesn't yet have a website, so to find her, you need to like Sheena's Pickles on FaceBook and you can message her there. If you order pickles from her now, she will deliver them to you. It's so great!
• The sister who sat down across from us is Sheena's beautiful twin, a graphic designer responsible for Sheena's adorable logo and personified pickle logo, a pickle named Pete. Pete has a gap in his teeth like Sheena. I love this so much.
• Sheena attracts amazing friends. She has a friend named Roxy who was also at the pub crawl that I want to somehow steal and bring into my friend world, mainly because when bragging on Sheena, Roxy said, "I swear to you, my pH is completely off because of these pickles. I'm like ALL vinegar now!"
• Sheena hosts an annual Pickle Party. I'm hoping to purchase enough pickles to get on the invite list.

By the way, the pickle discussion was much more entertaining than the Drunk History session, mainly because it was really crowded, and Derek Waters tried to get someone drunk enough to read a funny version of The Giving Tree, but it wasn't really funny because the guy simply wasn't drunk enough. I thought that was pretty funny that it was hard to find someone drunk enough at a literary pub crawl. After all, writers and literary types are not exactly afraid of the bottle. I guess the timing was just off.

Either way, it was fate that we stumbled upon Sheena, her sister, her hilarious friends, and the news of her blossoming pickle business. I feel strongly that I was meant to meet Sheena, and that big things are going to happen to this gal. Let me explain.

While my husband plugged his ears, I told Sheena that she needed to touch my arm, because at one point in time, I went on some dates with a certain vodka maker who was just dreaming up his ideas for a vodka company. I met him long before he made it very big in the vodka world. My husband isn't wild about this story, but that's just because my husband doesn't realize he's the much better catch, and also because I don't really like vodka anyway.

But given the fate of the vodka maker, I like to think I have something of the Midas touch when it comes to meeting people before they make it big. I met Matt Damon when he was barely starting out as an actor. He was absolutely the nicest guy -- he told me how lucky he was to be getting paid to do what he wanted to do for a living -- and look what happened to him. I met Ashton Kutcher before he was Ashton Kutcher. He's certainly doing okay. Once, Andy Dick was behind me at Randall's, and well, he was three sheets to the wind and belligerent, and nobody likes him anyway. But if you ever need a volunteer to read The Giving Tree drunk, Andy Dick is your guy.

So after our fateful anniversary night, we ordered up some pickles from Sheena. When the order was ready, Sheena delivered our pickles to Pei Wei, where we were having an early dinner with our 10-year old daughter. We resisted the temptation to open them at the table at Pei Wei, but as soon as we got home, we cracked a jar open and WOW. Holy moly, they're delicious. All three flavors we tried (Dilly, B&B and Texas Heat) were fantastic, and we had to pace ourselves not to wolf down all three jars in one sitting. They were even better the next day after chilling out in the fridge overnight. Sheena suggested that we make pimento cheese, so that weekend I made my mom's pimento cheese recipe, served up crackers and pickles, and that was lunch. And it was delicious.

I believe that Sheena is going to make it big in the pickle universe. I'm absolutely rooting for her, and am excited to help spread the word about this pickle dynasty in the making. In honor of today, National Pickle Day, here's to Sheena's Pickles!

(photo courtesy of Sheena's Pickles FB page)