5:00 Fridays

I'm mixing things up in a whole new way this week. I'm hosting Dirt & Noise's first ever 5:00 Fridays giveaway! Woo hoo! Yeehaw! Yowza! Please, people, try to contain your excitement. It's not even 5:00 yet.

As my regulars know (Warning, sidebar coming: Hey, bars have regulars, and so do I! Cool, eh?), I have a special affinity for Dirty Sue. Dirty Sue has changed my cocktail life. Let's just say I've come an awfully long way from the Virginia Gentleman bourbon mixed with ginger ale and occasional white zinfandel I drank college. Blech. Blech. Gag. I have featured Dirty Sue before, and continue to love the good ole Dirty & Noisy martini.

Dirty Sue, for those folks who aren't regulars...yet, is pure and fine olive juice. Just the juice. I use it in the obvious dirty martini. I also add a splash to my bloody mary (shhh...it's my secret ingredient, along with just a tish of dill pickle juice). The other night I even added Dirty Sue to my wok. Gasp! I did. Really. I sliced up some chicken sausage, tossed in diced fresh garlic, chopped red onions, slivers of red peppers, and pitted black olives. Splash of Dirty Sue, dribble of chicken broth, and voila! Dinner. Splendid with a cucumber salad and pita bread to sop up the divine sauce. As usual, I'm digressing. And now I'm hungry.

So on to today's giveaway...

2, count 'em 2, bottles of Dirty Sue and a Dirty Sue T-shirt! Mac Daddy and I have T-shirts, and trust me, they are way awesome. Mine red one is particularly kicky and make my boobs look fantastic.

All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me which Dirty Sue recipe is going to be your new favorite. I'll let random.org do the rest. The winner will be announced on next week's 5:00 Fridays post. So go ahead, check it out. Pass it on. Tweet it. Facebook it. What? You don't tweet or use friend as a verb? Well then, we gotta talk. But not today. I have drinks to shake.

And if you don't want to roll the dice, go here to buy your own Dirty Sue. Also, Amazon.com over there in my sidebar has a great deal on four bottles. Stock up, friends.

And now, a special deal for Dirt & Noise readers only: If anyone wants to order six or 12 bottles, contact Eric at et1969@mac.com, mention Dirt & Noise for a spectacularly deep discount.

Bartenders love it. I love it. What more do you need? And for the record, I'm not getting paid for this giveaway. I just happen to love the stuff and want to share the goods with my crew.

Cheers to your favorite Dirty Sue recipe! Mwah!

Wordless Wednesday: The Case of the Disappearing Baby Cheeks

Wise Words from Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor's comments on Obama's election

An excerpt from a wise Midwestern man:

"Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves
a few more weeks of quiet exultation.
It isn't gloating, it's satisfaction at a job well done.
He was a superb candidate, serious, professorial
but with a flashing grin and a buoyancy that comes
from working out in the gym every morning.
He spoke in a genuine voice, not senatorial at all.
He relished campaigning. He accepted adulation gracefully.
He brandished his sword against his opponents
without mocking or belittling them.
He was elegant, unaffected, utterly American,
and now (Wow) suddenly America is cool.
Chicago is cool. Chicago !!!
We threw the dice and we won the jackpot
and elected a black guy with a Harvard degree,
the middle name Hussein and a sense of humor
he said, "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac,
and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher."
The French junior minister for human rights said,
"On this morning, we all want to be American
so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding
before our eyes." When was the last time you heard
someone from France say they wanted to be American
and take a bite of something of ours?
Ponder that for a moment.
The world expects us to elect pompous yahoos,
and instead we have us a 47-year-old prince
from the prairie who cheerfully ran the race, and
when his opponents threw sand at him,
he just smiled back. He'll be the first president in history
to look really good making a jump shot.
He loves his classy wife and his sweet little daughters.
At the same time, he knows pop music,
American lit and constitutional law.
I just can't imagine anybody cooler.
It feels good to be cool, and all of us can share in that,
even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads.
Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport
to the man with the badge, he's going to see
"United States of America " and look up and grin.
Even if you worship in the church of Fox ,
everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama,
and you may as well say you voted for him because,
my friends, he is your line of credit over there.
No need anymore to try to look Canadian."

Read the entire Salon.com article here.

The Birth of a Writer: On Why I Blog

I've been blogging at Dirt & Noise a little over a year now. I started just to have an outlet to write and get thoughts out of my head and onto paper. Well, proverbial paper. I missed my gig at the local newspaper and figured a blog was the next best thing. Soon I learned that blogging was even better. My readers are my editors. And my fans, my cheerleaders, my challengers.

Then blogging became a part of me. An addiction if you will. It also transformed me.

I think it's safe to say that all the crazies having a dance party in my head were causing a fair bit of anxiety in my overall being. I often felt overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time; a strange paradox of an existence. I was full of energy and ideas. And admittedly full of piss and vinegar. I was a veritable rolodex of zany ideas and blasphemous thoughts. I was all dressed up for the dance, but there was no high school gym decorated for the big event. And so there I sat alone with my thoughts, billowing tulle falling at my ankles, patent leather slingbacks slung through my manicured fingers.

And so I created my own dance party.

I blog for the obvious reasons. It's fun. It's an exercise in writing. It's a storytelling wonderland. It's a walk down Memory Lane. It's a way to share out of the ordinary anecdotes with friends and family. But it's so much more.

Blogging is therapy, but a whole lot cheaper. And thankfully for Mac Daddy, it's also way cheaper than retail therapy. Blogging forces me to dig deeper than I would otherwise let myself go. I come face to face with some buried emotions and experiences. I reflect on my own brand DNA, my shortcomings of motherhood, my worries, my celebrations, my fears. Some things I've seen crop up in my head are still too painful or controversial to manifest into words. But thanks to blogging, they're there, off the so called back burner and poised for capture and introspection.

Blogging also makes me think. I see life's events great and small through a different lens now. Rather I see them through various lenses. I can leverage my words to share ideas, heartaches, causes, or simply reflections. I can even use my words for good. Through my writing I vent, rant, judge, wail, and whine. I also use my cyberspace real estate to inspire, promote, tease, and tickle.

I have always aspired to be a writer. When my hopes were dashed to get into medical school, I turned my dreams to writing. Then the real world whacked me upside the head and forced me to get a job. A paying job. After years of building a retirement nest egg from the tender age of 22, funding an obscenely expensive graduate school run, and starting a family, I have decided that now is the time. The time is now to put my writing goals in overdrive. So my blog provides me with fodder for that book deal I covet. I won't see my name embroidered on a lab coat but I just might see my name on a book jacket. A girl can dream, right?

And so, my blog gives me a voice.