This is not Daisy

This is not me and that is not my new baby, Daisy.

This is a gorilla in the London Zoo and her new baby.

Image via AP and Jezebel.com

But we're both a bit tired and a bit busy, so please be patient for a few more days because unlike this mama gorilla, I'll be back here soon...

And my sweet Daisy is cuter than this baby gorilla, if you can believe it....

The Culinary Habits of Elves

Once upon a time I had an elfin grandmother.

She was not an actual magical creature like a dwarf* or a woodland sprite, but she was short and round and mischievous.

Also that is not some cropped out ex-boyfriend.  It's one-half of my brother, but he is not germane to this story, so he didn't make the cut. He won't mind. 

Seriously, look at the photo.  I am short-ish person, but I am hunched over and folded up on the sofa.  She is sitting up straight and tall.  And her feet were so small, that I always wondered how she didn't topple over.

My point is, I've been thinking about her lately, for a variety of reasons, but also because she could cook.**

She did "farm to table" when it was just called "dinner."

She was such a good cook that the day before her funeral, we gathered in the minister's office to talk about her, so he would have stories to tell from us to use in his sermon.  The first thing any of us said was, "She sure could cook." And we talked about her fried chicken and her lemon pies. About how she would always want us to eat.  And how most of the time*** it was so good that if you had one bite, you would eat every single bit.

I should have written down more of her recipes or at least learned the name of what I loved.****

For years I have been looking for little green peas or purple butterbeans.  And a about a month ago, I found small tubs of what they called "cream peas" in the Whole Foods.*****

So I bought the entire stock and came home and started googling for recipes.  I found this one, which is not exactly how I remember Meme's (I highly doubt she would use garlic, for instance), but it's sort of close.  So I've been playing with it and modifying it and below is what I've come up with.  It's not exactly Meme's peas, but it's close and it's good.

Elfin Cream Peas
Buy what you can, then you'll need the following for each pound of peas. (I highly recommend starting with at least two pounds.  They only get better each day.)

- 4 slices bacon
-1 small onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 cup water

Chop the bacon, onion and garlic.  Rinse the peas.

Toss the bacon, garlic and onions in a big pot.  The bacon will provide enough fat to cook the onions and garlic.

Stir around until the onions are translucent and the bacon is cooked.

Then add the peas, salt and pepper.

Then add water, which should just cover the peas.  (Below is probably just a little too much.) And don't be shy with the salt and pepper. Taste it all occasionally and add more.  The amount of salt and pepper is just a starting point.

Bring it to a rolicking***** boil for about 15 or 20 minutes. Then let it simmer for at least an hour.  Good stuff, I promise.

Meme would make you eat at least two helpings.

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*Not to be confused with dwarves, woodland sprites or any other actual magical creatures.

Bonus points for recognizing one of the dwarves.

Though, on the subject of woodland sprites....Would you know one if you saw one? Googling comes up with this.  But for years, I've always thought of one as more like this.  No joke.  Then shrink him down just a little bit so he's about as tall as I am, shave his mustache, put him in loose overalls, douse him in pachouli, take away his shoes, make him a mega-fan of the Grateful Dead and "natural substances," circa 1995 or so.  Then make sure when he gets hyper or excited, he hops sideways from foot to foot.  I know this because I am 98% certain that I met an actual woodland sprite once at a friend's mountain cabin.  We had sneaked off after exams to take a day off before holidays with our families. And our own personal woodland sprite showed up for a little visit.  Trust me on this.  It freaked me out. 

**I am still pregnant and hungry.  And along with Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls, chocolate milk and peanut better sandwiches, I want Meme's cooking. Elliot was made almost entirely of pickled vegetables, chocolate popsicles and mandarin orange slices.  This baby girl has a serious sweet tooth. 

***Her skills did not extend to all foods, though. You could always trust anything fried, vegetable based or if it had Cool Whip or frosting as a component.  But with any baked goods, it was wise to check twice before eating.  Based on her brownie making skills alone, I was in my early twenties before I realized that "from scratch" was not "synonymous with 'tastes like shite."  No joke.  But really, as long as you remembered to stay away from the brick-like brownies, you'd be all good. 

****Let this be a lesson to write it all down...also, to snag the cast iron skillet while the snaggin's good.  I don't know where her skillet ended up, but I hope whoever has it, appreciates that it is seasoned with six or more decades of goodness.

*****Another Southern raised friend of mine says they are called young field peas and I think she may be right, but cream peas was printed on the sticker, so that's what I am going with today.  She stared at me blankly when I said purple butterbeans.  But I know they exist out there somewhere.

Here's what's been going on...

Lots has been happening over the past few months since my last regular posts.*  


But before I get started again, I want to keep things a bit in order, here's the catch-up on the past few months----you can either read the bits or scroll through like a sort of flip book.  Some of the topics I've been thinking on and will revisit in the future, others are just bits....


-----------------------------------------------


I've been culling.**


One of the items in the photo below went to Goodwill, the other stayed, just in case of emergencies.  Can you guess which one?  It all depends on whether or not you think it is more likely that my future self may one day:

a) work in a suited up corporate environment 

b) stay out all night dancing

I also went through boxes and boxes of papers, letters and one menu from a restaurant I frequented in college. I even found a handful of notes from my sixth grade bully.***

Elliot learned lots of things, like drinking from a cup,****  

Escape...

And all about fish...

We took family photos.

Elliot turned one. 

Husband and I went on our first trip away. He can drive with his eyes closed.  Yes, he is that good.

We flew to Key West where I was appalled by some of the sights, but enjoyed the chocolate covered Key Lime Pie anyway.

Husband stuck mainly to the more conventional seafood. 

Elliot and I went to the beach with the Jackalope and his mom.

We went to the Easter Beer Hunt.  

Elliot scored three pieces of chocolate and three beers. 

We went to a birthday luau pig roast.   It was awesome.  Seriously awesome. 

I got to try a bit from each section of the pig.  Even the brain.***** I have a new appreciation for pork. 

And somewhere along the way, I got pregnant.****** Two will arrive in late October.

See you next week...

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*And I want to get back to it.  It's good for me---it gives me a few minutes of amusement and creativity for myself, much like I imagine it is for a non-professional ballerina.  They may still work out just to keep their muscles in shape and to revisit their skills, but it's not what they do anymore.  That's probably the most concrete way I can explain it.  I like to write.  I used to be a journalist and probably one day I will be again, but in the meantime, I like to try to keep it all a little bit in shape...

**Everything happened so quickly when Husband and I got married and moved that I didn't go through anything.  It either went with us or went into storage here. So I've had LOTS to cull through, including giving more than half my clothes to the Goodwill. 

***I don't know why I kept them, but I'm glad I did.  Twenty-five years past, I have a much better perspective on the whole experience.

****This is a big deal.

*****It tastes a bit like savory marshmallow.

****** This is a big part of the reason for my absence.  We're really, really excited. (Well Husband and I are.  I'm not sure Elliot gets it yet.) But overall, we've been busy and I've been TIRED.  I feel better now.  And by Two, I mean that's its name in the meantime, not the actual number of babies.

A Short Story Involving Magic

Yes, I have been absent for a long, long time, but it’s been busy in these parts, with lots going on.  I'm making new plans and I will rectify it all soon, but today I saw a little news item and it reminded me of this little short story…..

Once upon a time I was covering one of my very first events. 

A swanky four wheel drive kind of car company created an obstacle course on the top of a building in the lower west side of town, so semi-industrial, I am pretty sure it didn’t have a cutesy name yet. 

So, if you were one of the UES elite invited to the party, you had to navigate through a car showroom and then ride a cargo elevator to the rooftop. 

Then the guests had to wait an excruciatingly long time in an excruciatingly long line for quite possibly the stiffest free drinks ever poured on the island of Manhattan. 

Once they made their way to the bar, they would make their way over to the test drive area, crank up and fly over fake hills and giant puddles.*

It was a pretty beat event as those things go, celebrity-wise. There was an aging actress/model type who had once been ultra famous, with her much younger actor boyfriend.** I was working on a story about them and that was who I was there to interview. 

But there was also a middle-aged magic-type.  He was a “name” but also he showed up to everything. Every single event, ever.

And in the beginning, when I was pretty new to it all, I often got assigned the lower priority events,*** so he and I knew each other a little bit.  This was mainly because he would talk to me incessantly, clearly hoping to get some sort of quote in the magazine.

And on this particular evening, as I was waiting for my five minutes with the couple, he sidled up as he did.  And I gamely asked him a few questions, then waited for him to start telling me all about his next big trick. 

But on this night, he decided to take another tactic.  

He asked about me.  

And then started on that faux-deep sort of soul-searching sort of nonsense.  

He wanted to know if I believed in alternate planes.  Could there be things out there that ordinary humans did not understand?*****

After several long minutes of politely trying to deflect the conversation, he wasn’t letting me scoot past it at all.  

Pressing on, finally he said, “Just tell me, do you believe in magic? What would it take for me to make you believe?”

“Well,” I said, “I would absolutely believe in magic, if you could make a drink appear.”

He disappeared****** soon afterward. 

THE END

************************************************************************** 

*Yep, but that is not the point of my story.

**She was a cougar before it was hip. 

***It was excellent practice and fun, too. 

****Now, it’s not that I don’t believe in magic, that is also not the point of my story.  What I do not believe in are phony deep conversations that include equally phony soul-searching looks when I am in the middle of working at an event. Also, I did not want to insult his business or hurt his feelings.  He has been hugely successful at what he does, but do I believe that it is attributed to his connection with a higher plane or some special psychic talent? I just didn’t know. 

*****I am pretty sure that he did not count himself as the ordinary human variety.  This is someone who has made major, major giant things disappear. 

******Via his feet.

A story about The Olds, an Anniversary and Supermodels

It's been a bit since I've blogged.

It has been a bit overwhelmingly overwhelming in these parts lately with the moving and settling in, so I haven't had time to sit down and think on things.

But everything is shaking out and getting in place, so I will be back much more frequently.

On another note, a few weeks ago, I read a news story the blogging is for The Olds.**

**********************************

This morning I took our wedding cake out of the freezer.

In non-shocking news, we are a little late to the game.

Today is our second wedding anniversary and I am hoping we haven't missed all the good luck.

It's super pretty.

And if I remember correctly, on the inside are both vanilla and chocolate layers.

This was the one bite I got.

And, also, if I remember correctly it was really good. 

This is the way it looks today.

For the past two years while we were on our first big adventure, it sat cooling in BigD's refrigerator** freezer.

You're probably aware that most couple eat the top layer of their wedding cake on their first anniversary, but we couldn't work all of the logistics out in time.

But I just learned that the practice of saving the top layer comes from the 19th century when all cakes were mega, mega expensive.  And cakes were needed for both weddings and for christenings.

So, since christenings tended to come relatively soon after the wedding, they would just freeze the top layer and use it about a year later for their baby's christening.

This was from our first anniversary.***

 
Who knew we were so old fashioned?

In any case, as much as I tried to convince Husband to wear our wedding garb**** our to dinner tonight, he sweetly refused, but he did agree to our fancy rehearsal party get-ups.

Happy anniversary, sweet Husband. It's been a big two years and there's only more goodness to come.


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*This is not a deterrence, but this morning when I sat down to type, Andy Rooney and his eyebrows popped in my head.  He does not blog, but he does pontificate on things in a particular manner that seems (to me) to be a precursor to blogging. (Also, he does not even know exactly what a blog is, and he kind of hates what he does know about it, so by that logic it must be for The Youngs. Score.) If you are following this, that might mean you are one of The Olds, too.  If you are too young to get it, then "google" it like all the other young'uns.

**I can NEVER spell this word. No joke, I think it's one of the hardest ones in the entire English language.  Why isn't there a "d" in it?  I think there should be.

***Yeah it's a pretty horrid photo of me.  But in my defense, it was a rotten angle.  Even skinny people look gross from that angle.  Also I was 38 weeks pregnant.  Only celebrities and supermodels are cute then, and then only a few of them.  The rest of them go into hiding on their compounds only to emerge a few months later super fit and gorgeous to make everyone feel inferior.

****I loved my dress and think the whole wedding event happened so quickly that I didn't get to wear it long enough.  I wore it the next day in our hotel until we had to change to get to the plane.  Then when we got back from our honeymoon, I wore it again to eat a breakfast of boiled eggs with Husband and my sister.  I do not think this is weird.  On our tenth anniversary, we're going to do it all again.  Only eight more to go...

A Short Story Involving Cake*

Today is Husband's birthday.  

He is now a number that I cannot tell you, but it's a good round one. 

Husband is not an easy birthday boy.  

He half-heartedly pretends that he would rather than we skip it all together, but really does like it when we celebrate just a little bit. 

Four years ago today was the first time that we celebrated together.  He and I had a been dating about four months and we were pretty serious about each other, so of course I was going to do something to celebrate the day.**

I started with asking about what kind of cake he would like. I am firm believer that it is massively important to blow out candles on the actual day, for luck, one to grow on, etc...

He said it didn't matter.  And of course it did, so I asked what I thought were questions that would lead to the correct answer:

• What is your favorite cake?
• What is your favorite dessert?
• What did your mom make for you every single year for your birthday party?
• If you were starving and the only place to eat within a thousand miles only served sweets and all kinds of them, what would you order?
• If you were famous and I was a reporter for Teen Beat magazine tasked with writing your fan page, what would go into the blank space next to "On my birthday, I like...?"

All of these were met with blank stares, but he was thinking.

Finally he said, "I'd really like a chocolate loaf."***

Of course, having gleaned this bit of information, I was not going to comment on it at all.  I just promised  that on the appropriate day, I would deliver a chocolate loaf.  

But the thing is, there is no such thing***.

So I called Kathleen, who knows everything.  She cooks and bakes and really, foodwise, her only fault is that she is a vegetarian.****  

And we thought and thought and poured through her myriad cookbooks and scrawled notes and recipes lying about her kitchen.  

There was not one loaf cake anywhere.  

And no, I wasn't going to call (One Day Would Be) Husband and ask.  He made his request with such authority, that clearly it was a thing and we couldn't find it. 

So we kept looking. 

Finally, we decided that it must be another name for Chocolate Pound Cake, which is much more challenging to make than you would suspect.  And we didn't have all the exact ingredients nor did we have an exact recipe, but because dear Kathleen is a pro, we just decided to dump some chocolate into the mix.

In retrospect that may have not been the best idea because by the next evening, the chocolate loaf had hardened to a consistency closer to a rock than a cake.  

But dear (One Day Would Be) Husband chomped through several pieces and (pretended) to love every bite of it. 

It turns out that Chocolate Loaf Cake was another name for a familiar kind of cake.   What he really meant was a chocolate cake sans frosting, which, I suppose if you look at it in the strictest definition, that is exactly what it is. 

So the next year and every year since, that is exactly what he gets.

Tonight, we're going to have a little tiny family birthday party, which is exactly what Husband wanted.  

But this weekend, we were at the BigD's house picking up some things.  And she loves birthdays, so she planned a little birthday breakfast brunch for Husband and it went just like this...

Elliot and I played...

While Claudia rapped cooking instructions to BigD...

Elliot showed his toys to Bill...

Then it was time to eat...

Claudia sat across from me...

And Elliot and I sat across from Claudia...

Then we all sang and BigD cut the (cheese)cake...

And then we had a family picture...

Then Elliot and I took turns eating cake...

Mmmmm Mmmmm Good....

The end.

__________________________________________________________

*This weekend, I ran into a regular reader of this blog...And she said, "So when are you going to be blogging again." I started to explain that I had been blogging, a little.  She interrupted and said, "I know, I know, your stuff hasn't arrived, but that's not why I read you.  I read you for the funny stories, when will you post more of those?"  I was a bit stung and didn't even bother to explain while I've been feeling a bit funny lately, I hadn't been feeling all that amusing.  I told Husband about it and of course he made me feel better and got me thinking about things. And along with a few other thoughts, I decided that today I would try to post a funny story, because she's been one of my longest readers.  And she's not the only reader.  There is actually a pretty respectable number of people just like you who click here every single day.  And if you are one of the ones who comes around for the funny stories, I'm working on it. This is my best effort for the day and they'll be back again soon.  

**I've found that birthdays can be fraught with danger.  There is always a history of how things should or should not be done and that coupled with new(ish) dating can equal all sorts of conundrum-like situations.

***Oh my gosh!  I promise you that four years ago, these were not the answers I got from google.  There must have been a chocolate loaf trend since then.  No joke.  This would have made my life soooooo much easier. 

****I kid, I kid.  I do love some steak though.

Naw

We've been back in the United States for about six weeks now and (almost*) every single conversation I've had has started with, "So are you guys settled into your house yet?"

And the answer is, "No.  Thanks so much for asking, but we are not."

See this photo?

This photo was taken in the guest/man room in our apartment in Stavanger the day before the movers came to load everything into the giant container, which would then be put onto a cargo ship.  And then, one day, four to six weeks afterward, that ship would pull into a port in Savannah, Georgia, where then it would clear customs and then be put onto a truck and one day show up at our house in Atlanta.

That should have happened last week.

That did not.

Not one of those boxes in the photo in are in our house. Neither are any of the other boxes, filled with all our things that we thought were vital enough to send over to Norway and then send back to the United States.  Those boxes are in the country, still stuffed into the giant container that transported them across Europe and then the Atlantic Ocean.

But they are stuck in Savannah.

We've been flagged by the US Customs Authority for a random search.  Of. Every. Single. Box. And. Every. Single. Item. In. Every. Single. Box. In. Our. Container.

Much like the random searches going through airport security, we've been pulled aside.

And I am not against searches.  I was in New York when all of that happened, so (within reason) I am all for doing what needs to be done to keep everyone safe.

But, along with the annoyance of it all, pulling us for a random search does not make good sense.

Seriously.

First of all, Husband and I have been wracking our brains to think of what could have caused an alarm to the security force.  There's no contraband in the shipment.  We did not smuggle any explosives, pickled herring, dirt from a potato field or a live sheep from the meadows near the beach.  We claimed every piece of baby furniture and the vast majority of the clothes we bought over the two years.

Also, we did not pack it ourselves.  The goods were packed by a company, hired by Husband's employer, whose sole job was to pack our possessions securely while making sure all the international import/export/customs laws were followed.

And Husband called our relocation handler yesterday who said, "I have no information about why your container was flagged.  I also don't know when it will show up, as it might be a queue. And we shouldn't ask any questions.  Not only do they not have to give us any information, they don't like to be asked."

And again, I am not against any searches.  I really do believe that, within reason, the government should do what is necessary to keep us all safe.

I do question whether or not it is the best use of time and resources, man and financial to search a family consisting of a couple and an infant**, relocating from Norway***, completing an expat contract****, packed by a vetted moving company*****.

And no matter how I go over it, I am thinking, "Nope."

But that's how it is.  So, until the U.S. Customs Authority is done pawing through our stuff, we'll just be hanging out, with our six suitcases and giant new television.******




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*My mom (BigD), my sister and my sister-in-law, along with a few others, do not ask this question anymore.  Also, I talk to the three of them almost every day. So there's that.

**None of whom have any sort of negative record, credit, criminal or otherwise.

***Not known to be a hotbed of insurgency.

****With one of the world's largest companies.

*****This is their bidness.

******Which is slightly trashy, if you think about it. We have practically no furniture(don't worry, we have some things from my old apartment, toys and several boxes random things) but we have a  television, not as giant as Wendy's who happens to have the largest television I've ever seen outside of a sports bar, but I love it all.  Really, it could only be tackier if we took the wheels off the cars and parked them in the front yard.

We're back and no H is not my middle name

It's been more than three weeks* since my last blog post, and to be fair that one was pretty weak.**

(This is currently how we eat dinner.  We have no table yet and the pizza is frozen.  We are hobos.  Hobos with wine*** and nice chairs, but hobos nonetheless.)

Yesterday the plumber came and finished the repairs.  Over the past few days, we've had most of the cast iron pipes replaced as well as all the piping in the kitchen replaced, the damage which was found by the crew replacing our furnace and all the dusty dusty ductwork underneath the house.

I mention that because while it sounds boring (and it is) those pipes and ductwork, I suspect, are our anniversary trip.  Yep, a first-time-traveling-sans-the-little-man trip to somewhere that does not allow children**** may now be stuffed underneath the floorboards in the crawlspace.

But things are getting done, but it's been a transition.

Right now, as I type this, I am sitting in what most likely (in the not too distant future) will be the man-room*****/office.

I am surrounded by boxes, many of which are labeled "BOOKS/PAPERS."

When we got engaged, things started moving ultra-fast, so we could get all hitched up and move overseas.

In the process, (almost)Husband went to Norway to start work for a few weeks.

I packed up my apartment and moved things.  We were in such a hurry (packing, wedding planning, etc...) that, instead of sorting through much of it, I just tossed it into boxes and put it all into storage, intending to deal with it when we moved back.

In retrospect this may not have been the best idea, at least not completely.

I really don't need all those paperbacks including that unread copy of The Tao of Pooh, given to me by suitor whose name has long been forgotten, mainly because after that gift, there were no further dates.  But also because I abhor the vast majority of cartoon characters and especially loathe ones that lisp.******

But I do have every single one of my reporter's notebooks******* as well.

And on the top of the pile in one of the boxes was one of them with the notes from one of my favorite moments, in which I was confused with a major deity.

It was late in the evening in a nightclub in New York, after an award show. My intended interviewee was a southern rapper redneck type, who is not actually one bit Southern, but has perfected the redneck act to a tee. At the time, he was rumored to be engaged to a large bosomed actress, who once favored red swimsuits and had always favored musician types.  My orders were to ask him about the wedding plans, to get any detail at all.

The club was dark and smoky.  The music was at top volume and every conversation varied between shouting and speaking close into each other's ear.  My target interviewee was well into his bottle and had commanded the deejay booth.********

I walked up and it went something like this:

ECD:  Hi

SouthernRapperRedneck:  Hey darlin.'  What's your name?

ECD:  I'm Elizabeth from NameOfMagazine. I just wanted to come over and say congratulations about your engagement.

SRR: Uh.  Thanks.

ECD:  (I am not quite sure exactly what I said here, I scribbled "Chatter about wedding, etc...")

SRR:  That's none of your f***in' business. Get the f*** out of here.

ECD:  Well, alright, thanks so much.

And I turn to leave. I asked the questions.  He declined to comment.  So at that point I consider that part of the evening done. Oddly enough, SRR does not. He grabs my upper arm, holding me tightly enough that I cannot move.

SRR:  Seriously, get the f*** out of here.

ECD:  I would sir, but you're holding onto me.

SRR:  Who do you think you are!!?!!  Jesus H. Christ!!?!!

ECD: No sir, I don't.

SRR: Smartass!  Seriously, get the f*** out of here.

ECD:  I would sir, but you're holding onto me.

SRR:  Who do you think you are!!?!!  Jesus H. Christ!!?!!

ECD: No sir, I don't.

SRR: Smartass! Seriously, get the f*** out of here.

This went on for a few minutes, in varying forms.

He got more irate, I got calmer and more amused.

Then his manager pried his fingers off me.

And while I did not get the details of the upcoming nuptials, I did have a hand shaped bruise on my upper arm for the next week or so.

And I had forgotten that until I just read it again and I still think it's funny.

So that's something.

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*Or thereabouts. I could figure out the exact number of days but that would require me to find a calendar, count the days, etc... and I just don't care enough to do that, and really, I'll bet you don't care enough either...

**Hilarious, but weak. 

***Dear PC Police, Let me explain. First of all, I think most hobos tend to have wine, so that's apropos. But I do not mean to be insensitive to the plight of legitimate hobos, both past and perhaps present, I merely mean to identify somewhat with the act of carrying around all of one's possessions on one's back, or in one's suitcase, if you will.  Sincerely, Elizabeth

****Listen, there's no offense meant and we adore our little guy (and also many of the children we know), but to be clear, we adore our little guy.  If we're going to spend some cash to go traveling without him for a few days, we don't really want to hang out with strangers' children.  

*****I suspect that if you are married and are reading this post, the term "man room" needs no explanation.

******Yeah, yeah, yeah...but even in light of this shocking fact, it's pretty likely that Elliot will have a pretty alright childhood anyway. 

*******Except for the drawerful from my last semi-fulltime job.  One morning I came in, sat at my desk, opened my drawer and found it completely empty.  The mail clerk, misunderstanding a request to clean out some old file cabinets, dumped out three of my key drawers, including files, notes, tapes, a calendar from that current month and all of my personal items.  I spent the rest of that day, not reporting, but climbing through the three dumpsters in the bowels of the AJC building.  No kidding.  It was two years' worth of notes and ideas, including loads of interviews I had conducted for upcoming stories.  It was a BIG deal. And so I dumpster dove, all in vain.  I did not find one of my own things, but I did find really interesting unshredded expense reports.  These did not make the experience worthwhile, but did make for some interesting reading.

********Hey, don't judge.  This was a publicity event.  The famous people who were there were mainly B-list and below and were clamoring for ink. Every single one of their publicists knew exactly which magazines were sending reporters and to a certain extent, what the content of the questions could be...And also, to be fair, I saw SRR perform at another magazine's celebration about a year later.  He killed.  No joke, it was an awesome show.  I did not interview him that time, so I cannot say for sure if he was still confusing reporters with deities or if it was just a one-time event.