Emily Triplett Lentz and Andrea Badgley. Photo credit Ben Macaskill.
“How should we do the intro? Should Andrea reveal the slide, or do you want to do that when you get up there?” Scott looked to Emily Triplett Lentz, writer for Help Scout’s blog, who would soon take the stage to share their 2016 Customer Support Salary Study with SupConf attendees.
I looked to Emily for her answer as well, and as she spoke, I saw some of the coolest earrings I’ve ever seen. Long golden tear drops, substantial, dangling perfectly, 3 inches of shiny, sleek metal. I reached out to touch one, felt its weight, tipped it to see how smoothly it moved on its hook.
And then realized I had just touched a stranger’s earring. I looked at Emily, horrified. “I’m so sorry! I couldn’t help myself — I don’t know why I just did that!” I looked at Scott, SupConf’s lead organizer. “Oh my god, did I violate our code of conduct?”
He and Emily were laughing hard enough that I felt maybe she’d forgive me. “You’re fine,” she giggled.
The next day, the two of them were chatting in the back of the room. I approached to say hi, and Emily pulled the hair back from one of her ears. “Do you want to touch them?” she asked. We all laughed (and yes, I did want to touch them, and yes, I did touch them).
It wasn’t until a couple of days later, when I struggled to recall the everything from SupConf, that I realized Emily and I made a connection. The connection has nothing to do with support, or with our careers, or with anything substantive from the conference. It has everything to do with goofiness and with breaking down barriers, though, and it is memorable.
This is the magic of getting together in real life. Thanks for letting me touch your earring, Emily. I now follow the Help Scout blog because of this, and will always feel like Emily and I are pals.
In Durham, North Carolina, there is a dreamy ice cream establishment called The Parlour. Within 5 seconds of looking at the menu, I stopped at the fifth item and ordered. “One scoop of Salted Butter Caramel in a sugar cone, please.”
I swooped my tongue across the smooth caramel cream and knew I had made the right choice. My coworker behind me ordered.”Rum raisin,” she said. I looked at the menu, two items down from what I ordered, and saw they use the same brand of rum in their ice cream that we drink in our cocktails.
“Dang, I didn’t see that one. Can I try that, Chrissie?” We took a bite of each other’s ice cream and oh my goodness. I’ve never ordered rum raisin before, and after tasting hers, I wanted my own.
“Maple walnut,” ordered another colleague.
“Maple walnut?!” I knew based on the two flavors I tasted that their maple walnut would be exceptional. “I didn’t go far enough down the menu,” I said. “I saw Salted Butter Caramel and stopped reading.” I studied the menu as I licked my cone. I decided we needed to move to Durham for a while.
Aside from frozen custard we’ve made at home, this was possibly the best ice cream I’ve ever eaten.The cold scoops were smooth and creamy, like silk on the tongue, and the flavors were vibrant and authentic: they tasted like the thing they were supposed to taste like (I recognized the Cruzan rum in the Rum Raisin).
I observed the selections of each person in our large group — some had multiple scoops in different flavors, some ate waffle cone drizzled in sauce, some savored a single flavor. If I would have read through the entire menu, I’m not sure how I would have decided. Do you go with what you know you like, or do you take a risk and try something new?
Afterwards, as we talked ice cream, one colleague said, “I love chocolate. It’s my favorite. I know that if I don’t get chocolate, I’m going to be disappointed. But that leaves me locked into never getting to experience new flavors, right?”
I nodded. I know this dilemma. I suffered this very thing just now, tonight, when my family went to the frozen yogurt bar where I always, always get chocolate frozen yogurt topped with wet walnuts and Reese’s peanut butter cups. Always.
Except tonight. I felt like trying something new. I even tasted the frozen yogurt ahead of time. And tonight I made something different: Oreo cheesecake frozen yogurt with crumbled Oreos on top. It was good on the first couple of bites, but couldn’t sustain itself through the whole cup.
“When I order,” my chocolate-loving colleague said, “I get two scoops. I always get a scoop of chocolate, so I know I’ll have my favorite. And next to that, on the side, I get a scoop of something new I want to try.”
Genius. She knows herself well enough that she has figured this out. She has a strategy for ice cream.
I should have followed her lead tonight. I could have stopped with the sample, then ordered my regular, or even split the cup down the middle. I would have saved myself some disappointment. Next time.
And next time I’m in Durham, I will read the whole menu. And when I order, I will order strategically. Next time, I will order two scoops.
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
My best friend and me, 1992ish, with the Bug, parked on one of Savannah’s squares. I’m sure I just said something annoying.My first car was a convertible: a 1976 robin’s egg blue VW Super Beetle with a white top. I was the first of my friends to turn 16 and get my license, and we drove all around Savannah, Wilmington, and Tybee Island, Georgia in that car, top down, sun and sand.
Convertibles are the most fun cars, there’s no doubt about it. They are a sign of freedom and fun, they give the best experience of driving: wind and sun on a gorgeous day. They remove the barrier between you and the outside world when you’re on the road. I remember that feeling of wind on my face, of smelling the salt marsh on the causeway and the ocean at the beach.
Later, when my husband and I were courting, long after the Beetle was gone and I’d left for college and gotten a more dependable car, he drove a soft-top Jeep Wrangler, navy blue with a tan top. Taking the top down and having the doors off was even more wild and wilderness feeling than the Bug. Brian and I drove Jekyll, St. Simons, and Tybee Islands, we drove the Appalachians, we camped, we were carefree.
When we lived in Florida, convertibles weren’t as attractive as they had once been. It was very hot there. We’d see someone sitting at a traffic light with the top down in July, their bald spot burning, the heat rising from asphalt unbearable. I liked my closed up car with air conditioning in Florida.
But now we live someplace with seasons, someplace that more times than not has perfect convertible weather. I think how fun it would be to put the top down, pop in some Tom Petty, and go for a drive. Every time I see someone in a convertible on a TV show (Don Draper on Mad Men), I want one again.
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
When we lived in the D.C. Metro area, we subscribed to The Washington Post. It landed on our stoop with a thunk before dawn. Reading the paper was part of my morning ritual: make coffee, unfold the newspaper, open it up, and read while I sipped coffee. The paper rattled as I turned pages or folded it to make it more manageable to hold. I’d touch the sharp edge of a page to turn it, or lick my thumb to unstick sheets.
My fingers turned black from the ink, and on weekends I would sharpen a pencil, fold the crossword page so only the puzzle showed, and feel the recycled texture of newspaper-grade paper under the side of my hand as I filled in boxes with my wooden pencil. The pencil smelled of wood shavings when I pulled it from the metal blade of the sharpener.
I don’t read a newspaper anymore. I get my news from the radio and from podcasts: electronically.
I was thinking about this in the shower today (my thinking place), about how we listen to music electronically, news electronically, I work electronically on a computer screen. Much of my tactile interaction with the world is via fingers on a keyboard, wrists resting on metal, fingertips tapping plastic buttons. Before our record player, much of my audio interaction with the world required pulling up music on a screen, whether a laptop, desktop, or mobile device.
A majoity of my visual interaction with the world is looking at pixels on a screen — two dimensional, the screen creating its own flat glow rather than revealing texture via reflected light.
I wonder if this sensory experience is why we crave physical objects of yesteryear — manual typewriters, vinyl records, film cameras, bound books, newspaper. These physical things have weight — the heft of a Minolta, the tension of typewriter keys; they make sound: clack and crackle, click and crinkle; they have scent — metal, oil, typewriter ink, paper pulp; and they provide a tactile experience that connects with all the other senses: the satisfying sounds they make, the textures that light reflects, the scents they emit.
Physical objects are interactive in a sense-driven world. They connect all of these sensory experiences. When we touch a newspaper, we feel its texture, we smell its pulp, we hear it rattle, we see its movement, what section we’re in. We see how many pages we’ve read and how many pages we haven’t. We create piles: finished; not interested; still to read. And when we’re done, we have compost for the garden, or fuel to start winter’s fires.
All that being said, digital life is convenient. The delete key has changed writers’ lives; records can’t be played in the car, can’t be played for 4 hours of continuous background music; digital photography is quicker and more accessible than film; I can carry a whole library with me (and enlarge the font!) with my e-reader; we don’t waste trees to carry newsprint we’ll never read.
Still, The Daily Post’s Newspaper prompt got me thinking. I miss my morning Washington Post ritual. As a digital worker, I need to be mindful of engaging all of my senses, in a three dimensional world.
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
We ate late lunches in Baltimore — large meals at 3 o’clock in the afternoon that left us still full at dinner time. On Easter, by the time evening rolled around, we didn’t want a full meal. So instead of eating dinner, we had desserts and drinks instead.
Well, I had dessert.
We ate and drank at the B&O Brasserie, a place which delighted me because of the trains on the sign and the nostalgia of the B&O Railroad in Monopoly. For deseert, I saw things on the menu I knew my husband would like — mocha creme brulee, a chocolate torte — but what I wanted was the banana pudding. I’ve been having unusual dessert attractions lately, often wanting peanut butter or banana desserts when I’ve never cared much about those in the past.
The cocktails and the cheddar stout fondue with fresh potato chips had been amazing, so I was excited for my dessert. I anticipated a similar level of deliciousness.
When it arrived, I knew I made the right choice. Our server placed a small Ball jar filled with layers of fudge and caramel sauces, smooth pudding made from fresh bananas, glossy white marshmallow creme, and three slender wafers as long as my finger and flecked with vanilla.
The pudding was phenomenal. Even better than I imagined it would be. The marshmallow creme was pristine and perfect: gooey and soft, but breaking at the exact time you wanted it to so that you didn’t have to fight to get it onto your spoon, and you didn’t have to worry about drizzling it across the table (or your chin).
The banana pudding was at the bottom of my husband’s list of desserts he would have chosen. Banana pudding made him think of the pans on buffet or elementary school potluck tables: layers of browning banana disks, Jello pudding, and boxed ‘Nilla wafers.
When he tasted the B&O pudding, his eyebrows rose up. He took another small spoonful.
“I have to give it to you,” he said. “That’s really good.”
I nodded and “Mmmhmmm”ed, dipping in for another spoonful.
“I love the little jar,” I said. “It works for this. It reminds me of a dessert I ordered in New Orleans that was not as successful. A deconstructed pecan pie, served in a jar like this.”
My husband dipped a delicate cookie in the marshmallow creme.
“Everything else at the restaurant had been amazing,” I said. “And we were in the South, where I know they can do pecan pie.”
He spooned smooth banana and caramel into his mouth.
“But it came in a jar like this, and it just didn’t work. The pecan layer on top was like a scab. It was impossible to crack with my spoon. Once I did, pieces fell out of the jar, and the pie filling leaked over the side each time I tried to dip my spoon in. The goo was too sticky, too. It was really hard to eat.”
I sunk my spoon easily into the soft pudding.
“On top of that, there was no crust! There were these little attempts at crust pieces, tiny garnishes on the plate, but it just wasn’t right. The pie needs to bind with the crust — the crust can’t be separate.”
“You can’t have pecan pie without crust,” I continued. “WTF is up with that?”
My husband placed his spoon on the table and savored his final helping of pudding. “The thing with that is that banana pudding can be improved on,” he said. He pointed at the jar. “This is a major improvement.”
“Pecan pie, however, is already perfect,” he said. “Why mess with it? You can’t improve on perfection.”
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day, initiated by a prompt from my prompt box. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
My husband and I don’t get out alone much at night these days, what with children and all, but when we do, a new favorite thing to do is visit classy bars and order swanky cocktails we’d never make at home.
Actually, scratch that. Change it to we never make as well at home.
At home I like to make relatively easy cocktails that require only basic ingredients: gin martinis, rum or whiskey sours, Tom Collins in summer, Old Fashioneds in winter. If we want to get fancy in summer we’ll make basil gin smashes.
For all of those we use economical brands of liquor, and we make them in our formica-countered kitchen.
I love getting dressed up, ironing my hair, and going out for cocktails. I have fond and vivid memories of three nights out, and the associated cocktails I drank. Though two of the nights involved basic martinis, which I make all the time at home, the drinks were elevated by the quality of the gin, the elegance of the service, and the atmosphere of the establishment.
Miami, Florida: The Regent Cocktail Club
The Regent Cocktail Club, courtesy of Southern Living
Oh, The Regent, how I love thee. The picture above absolutely captures the experience of The Regent Cocktail Club: bowties and waistcoats, dark wood, fine glassware, and lots of charm from the bartenders. I ordered a martini there, and it was worth every penny of the price.
Each barkeeper had his own style of shaking cocktails, and it was like watching a dance to see the three of them behind the small bar: pulling glassware out and turning it; shaking high and low for one keep — above his head then down to his waist, above his head, down to his waist, like he was playing a musical instrument — while another keep shook outward and with a small twist from torso to chest; garnishing tumblers with fresh mint, creating lemon curls for martinis, placing ice cold crystalline glasses on silver trays for serving.
My husband and I lounged on a leather couch, watching the patrons at the bar, while we sipped our drinks. There was one man, lean and dressed in a slim, trendy suit, who was obviously a fixture at The Regent; the keeps knew him, and he made himself at home. He talked to everyone who came in and sat near him, or moved to a new stool if the ones next to him became empty.
We couldn’t hear the conversations at the bar, but we watched body language. My favorite scene was watching as a woman got bored when her date was polite to this regular, and got sucked into a conversation, ignoring her completely. The date realized his mistake and moved, incrementally, to the far side of his stool from the regular. He tried to turn his body towards the woman accompanying him. But the trendy-suited fixture leaned in, his entire body pointed toward the man, while the man, polite to a fault, would not be rude to the Regent regular. The woman poked around in her glass with a stirrer, stared at the ceiling, checked her phone.
Eventually her date turned his back to the regular to face her again, but it was too late at that point. She slipped her arms into her cardigan sleeves, and they left. The regular moved two bar stools to his left and started talking to a new patron who had just arrived.
I really loved being there, and I highly recommend it. The people-watching was brilliant. Fair warning, though: be prepared to spend some money if you ever decide to visit.
The B&O American Brasserie in Baltimore was our most recent cocktail adventure, and is the only one in this list where I ordered something other than a martini. We walked to the B&O from our hotel near the Inner Harbor, and I was delighted to see the trains on the B&O logo: the B&O Railroad! Monopoly!
Inside was warm, dark, and cozy. It was Easter evening, so it’s hard to judge what the ambiance is usually like, but it was pretty subdued when we were there. The cocktails (and the Cheddar And Milk Stout Fondue) more than made up for the sparse patronage, though. My husband declared that his Coppertop No 1 was possibly the best cocktail he’s ever had — and he’s not prone to hyperbole. Made with “Dorothy Parker” gin, Yellow Chartrreuse, ginger syrup, lemon juice, and pink & black Pepper, the Coppertop was clean and light with gin and citrus, yet warm & spicy with ginger and pepper.
His was quite good, but I’d go back for the Farmstead: Bulleit bourbon, Solera sherry, lemon juice, basil syrup, and lemon bitters. I’m a sucker for basil in a cocktail.
Anna Maria Island, Florida: The Beach Bistro.
Inside the Beach Bistro, Anna Maria Island, FL
The food at The Beach Bistro is life changing. I think I’ve written about it on my blog before. But since this is a post about cocktails, I have to say that their Tony Jacklin martini is life changing too. It was so cold it felt like drinking liquid ice. And those blue cheese stuffed olives. My god. The balance of flavors was sophisticated and perfect. From the cocktail menu:
“THE TONY JACKLIN” Bombay Sapphire martini with Maytag blue cheese olives … Icy blue, like Tony’s nerves.
I remember delighting in every small sip of that martini, and of the visual of how clean and cold it was. I don’t remember much after the martini, but that’s kind of the point, right?
For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day, initiated by a prompt from my prompt box. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
Butterfly Mind 