Did You Ever, part I

~ Today I completely and unabashedly am stealing the style of this post from one of my blogging heroes, Momo Fali.  The post is mine, but the genius is hers. ~

Did you ever have a weekend when friends, who are as close to you as family, have come to town and you took your kids out of school on Friday so that you could all hangout together at the hotel pool for the day and eat peanut butter sandwiches in between dips in the whirlpool and sweating in the sauna,  all in one day before you spend Sunday bundling up the entire gang and taking the train downtown while drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows, laughing lots and wearing a pair of jeans that you haven't been able to fit in for two years that your oldest child swore just the other day that you would never be able to get one leg into just the other day and meet up with your friends at the outdoor German Christmas market where you drank warm spiced wine and hot chocolate and ate stuffed pretzels, potato pancakes and wiener schnitzel and bought a few absolutely gorgeous ornaments for the Christmas tree before you went to eat lunch together at the oldest and best Italian restaurant in the city and topped it off with a cannoli before you said goodbye to each other until summertime and hopped a train back to Weaselville?

Well, you should.

The Weasel Constitution

It's not often that I pull something out of the archives and re-post it.  However, this morning I came across an oldie, but a goody from way back when.  More than one commenter described it as 'genius' and thus I ask you to click through and read the Weasel Constitution;

Ask Not What Your Momma Can Do For You, But What You Can Do For Your Momma  



Have a great weekend!

Pasta! Pasta! Read All About It!

........Cause I won't share mine with you, you'll have to go order your own.

Life here in Weaselville is buzzing along busily as we, and I am sure most of you, make preperations for the biggest holiday celebration of the year ..........

MY BIRTHDAY!

Monday, December 13

In that vain, I want to share with you a special little present that I got myself.

First, a little back round....

If you are a regular around here, you already know that I was born and raised in Philadelphia. South Philadelphia to be exact.  A wonderful bastion of eclectic entertainment in the form of the Mummers and highly ethnic area of Italian immigrants sprinkled with vivacious pockets of Irish neighborhoods.

In the past, I have shared with you the masterpiece of mouthwatering satisfaction of a real Philly Cheesesteak. I make my own water ice that rivals, if not surpasses Italiano's.  Tastycake is the only boxed cake that crosses over these gums, but today I want to share with you the pure, unadulterated, joy that is P & S Ravioli Company.

P & S makes The Best, fresh, homemade pasta that has ever tickled my taste buds, bar none.  This I say as a woman with an incredibly picky palate who grew up eating in the kitchens of people who take traditional Italian Cooking and produce dinners that make Mario Batali look like Chef Boyardee.  Yes, my standard of good Italian food is set high.  

When I was a kid, our favorite answer to the age old question of 'what's for dinner?' was, you guessed it, P & S.  Their ravioli makes me want to dance cheese is my favorite.  Their sauce is something that I can eat by the spoonful.  It's smooth and clingy thick without any chunks I hate chunky sauce.  Their pastas are so tender, yet firm don't ever overcook pasta for me.  I'm melting just fantasizing about it.

So anyway, I haven't had the sheer delight that is P & S in about twenty years and yes, I still dream about it.  It's that good.  and every so often I still get a craving for it that I can't ignore.  However, they are family owned and local to the Delaware Valley, i.e. Philadelphia area.  I called a few years back to see if they would/could ship their little delicacies, but alas they were not yet equipped for the task.  My longing would continue.

So, to make a short story longer, two days ago I had an intense want for their cheese ravioli in my mouth,  I had to settle for elbow macaroni and butter. and decided to check if they were online yet or had starting shipping.  Eureka!  I hit the jackpot!  They are online and they now ship anywhere in the country!  Their site is still pretty old school, but if you call them you can place your custom order.

I decided that I wanted P & S for my birthday dinner, just as I had done so many years long ago.  The next morning I got on the phone with Patty whose accent put an even bigger smile on my face and she helped a girl out.  Uber friendly and happy to get me this special treat that I have been hanging for.  Those of us that have eaten the manna that is this pasta truly understand.

I ordered 3 dozen cheese ravioli, 3 quarts of that luscious sauce and 3 lbs of spaghetti,  I should have ordered some linguine too. and got off the phone as giddy as a school girl and went running upstairs to tell Mr. Weasel all about it.  He, having never known this culinary delight, is looking forward to eating it.  Yet, couldn't help himself from laughing at me and my excitement,  "You sound all hot and bothered about this stuff".  I am.  P & S can only be described as a taste-gasm and I can't wait until next week.  I might not share with him.

It doesn't take much to make me happy.  It's all about the simple pleasures and when I find a pleasure this good, I savor it. 

*BTW - No, this is not a paid review.  It's just that when there is something this good that I find in life, I opt to share it with you, my dear readers.  I paid for my own order and have not received any compensation for advertising or links.  However, if P & S wanted to send me a t-shirt that reads 'My pasta kicks your pasta's butt' and a life long supply of ravioli and sauce, I wouldn't stop them.

An Answer To My Prayers

To: God The Almighty Father
cc: St. Peter in Heaven
Re: Answering My Prayers
From: WeaselMomma

Dearest Heavenly Father,
      In this time of faith, hope and gratitude, I would once again like to thank you for all the years we have worked together and the relationship that we have built that has been the cornerstone of the success of Weaselville. 

     However, without diminishing my ongoing gratitude, there have been a few points of miscommunication between myself and your staff that I would like to rectify for our future dealings, so as not to become points of contention in our relationship in the coming years.

1.  When I prayed for a husband that would always be able to provide for me, dirty looks, dirty laundry and dirty dishes were not on the list of provisions that I had in mind.  The dirty mind, however, was an unanticipated bonus.
2.  When I prayed that my home would always have an abundance of humor, I did not necessarily intend for it to be at my expense.  Case in point, I offered Eldest Weasel some useful coupons to consider using when shopping for a gift for me and she replied, "where to? Lane Bryant".  In all reality, this was actually hysterical, but This was not the laughter that I had expected.
3. When I prayed for children that would grow to be independent, but not so independent that they wouldn't need me, I did not intend that they only need me as their personal ATM, personal shopper, housekeeper and personal valet.
4. When I prayed for children that would bring me so much joy that the choirs of Angels in Heaven would sing, I never imagined that those choirs of Angels would be singing the Beer Barrel Polka  and laughing themselves silly with the refrain of "That naive lady only asked for healthy, so we threw in feisty for good measure". 
5. When I prayed that you grant me the Grace of patience to endure family life and struggles, testing your handiwork with challenges that could snap the disposition of a Saint was a little overboard.  In the future, I think it would be best if I learned to crawl before I have to walk.

Once again, I have full gratitude for the relationship that you and I have continued over the years and am grateful for all that you have provided Weaselville.   In the future, I will consider my words more carefully for the purpose of complete clarification and thus diminish the possibility of miscommunication between us during prayer.  However, if the misinterpretations continue in this fashion, I will have to correspond my prayers in written form to you, after having my attorney gloss over them to ensure no further loopholes are to be exploited.

Yours in Christ,
WeaselMomma

No Thanks, I'll Drive.

Next month I am getting away for a few days to spend some time with one of my BFFs who lives a couple of states away. Yay, Me! The getaway is her birthday gift to me and she has offered to fly me to out for a visit in celebration of the biggest holiday of the year.  How cool is that?  I say very.

However, the more I think about it, the more I don't want to fly.  Mind you, I am not afraid of air travel, nor have I ever had any anxiety about boarding a plane,  until now.  It's not mechanical failure or security threats that have me anxious and unwanting to fly, it's the TSA and airport screening procedures.

The implementation of full body scanners does more than give me the hebejebees, it invades my privacy to a unacceptable degree.  Sure, I can opt out of that scan, but that means subjecting myself against my will to an 'enhanced pat down' that is a little too close to molestation for my comfort in it's aggressiveness.

The body scanner reveals nude black and white pictures of the subject in such detail that you can determine an individuals personal grooming preferences.  Plain and simple, that's nothing short of pornography and you're not even paying the subjects.  If I wanted you to see me naked, I'd be naked.  No thanks.  I don't care if it's one person viewing the images or a bachelor party.  I deserve my privacy and the scanner goes too far.  Of course procedures and protocols are in place to ensure that your image doesn't show up on the internet or the local bar, but you can go ask Domino's Pizza and Burger King about procedures being broken.

If you opt out of nude photos of yourself being taken and analyzed, you get fondled for free!  The 'enhanced pat down' involves someone groping and grabbing at your genitals and breasts.  That's a little too intimate for someone who hasn't even bought me dinner.  If you did this to someone on the street or in a bar, you would be in jail facing sexual assault charges and getting labeled as a sex offender for the rest of your life.

Neither of these options allow me to maintain any semblance of privacy or dignity. It's too much. I certainly would not want to subject my children to being searched in this overly invasive way.  If these procedures happened at school, the cops would be called.

Yes, I understand air safety and the threat of terrorism, but not at the cost of such a personal and intimate invasion of my body is plain and simple not worth the perceived benefit.  Nor is the convenience of flying worth the loss of my dignity or a personal assault on my body.

There are better and less invasive ways of identifying possible security threats in our skies.  Save the scans and or the uber intimate pat down for individuals that send up red flags behaviorally or give some other cause for a more invasive search to be necessary.  I'm already taking off my shoes and belt,  emptying my pockets and submitting to a metal detector.  

I let my BFF know, that yes indeed, I will be coming to visit.  However, I will be driving.