The lost week

I don't know what happened. Maggie came over last Monday, and then it was Easter Sunday and my head hurt. Maggie was all "let's go out all night!" and I was like "okay" and she said "drink this" and I muttered "if you insist." Events progressed in this manner. What specifically happened, I couldn't say. We brought Sarah and Zan along with us for much of it, and there were exotic fruits. Here's one. Yeah, we ate that thing.

That, by the way, was a cactus pear, which looked like it should taste like an overripe berry, and instead was like a mealy cucumber. I have dubbed it "the fruit of lies." Other fruits were far more palatable. Gooseberries, we discovered, taste like orange Starburst. Highly recommended.

We had purchased all kinds of crazy fruits because Maggie wants to taste 1,000 fruits. This is the great thing about Maggie Mason, that these things even occur to her. When she told me of her quest, I insisted that everyone knows there are only four fruits in the entire world—apples, bananas, grapes, and bananas—and that she is a silly goose. But oh no no no, she insisted, there are in fact quabillions of fruits. And so we went to a fancy grocery store and found all manner of nutty fruits, and we took them to a bar. And when she told the host and the waiter to give us a sharp knife and plates and also share in our exotic fruit experiments, they had no choice but to comply. This is the Power of Maggie.

And that's not all! With the greatness of our collective mind-force, we came up with the most brilliant fetish site ever. Introducing: wheresmyshoe.com. Featuring helpless, lovely women, wondering what could have become of their missing shoe. Won't someone help them?

We will make millions.

Scott pointed out that in the picture I've linked to, Maggie is in fact holding her other shoe in this picture, which makes it not so much "Where's my shoe?" and more "Confused about shoes." "Unsure as to how shoes work." "You mean the other one goes on the other foot? It can't be that easy."

Somewhere in there we spent the day with Dara Torres—which, if you're sleep-deprived and achy, can really mess with your head. When one is feeling that unfresh, one should not spend an afternoon with a dazzling, glowy creature. Nevertheless, we had a great time, and discovered that Dara Torres is (not surprisingly) gracious, especially when faced with sexually aggressive elderly women (long story). She is also (surprisingly) enthusiastic about Rock of Love. So that was nice. We were there courtesy of Hewlett Packard, which arranged for us all to get together and fed us sushi. I had a few minutes to interview Dara, but I had no idea what to interview her about because I have only a personal blog in which I talk about my dumb feelings. So we chatted about the Internet. And I learned that Dara Torres has, like the rest of us, read mean comments about herself, and she has cried. You guys, the Internet made a mermaid cry. (I wasn't supposed to tell you that part, about how she's really a mermaid, but now I'll pretend I'm just kidding.)

And now I am recovered and will drink nothing but sparkling water for the next fifteen years. Unless Maggie comes back to town, in which case I promise nothing. Nothing!

Comments

[Hayley]

If you and Maggie talk like this in real life, I would totally go get smashed and eat exotic and/or misleading fruit with you!

I so want witty friends. Good post!

[Courtney]

I need to get myself one of these "maggies!" Too much fun!

[Lisame]

I've never heard them referred to as "Cactus Pear" before today. I grew up (in Texas) calling them tuna. Pronounced toon nay. We love them! I prefer them pressed thru a sieve and served over ice with tequila.

[frances]

Has Maggie tried saskatoon berries? They are awesome and delicious and, if she's ever looking for an excuse to leave home, would give her a reason to visit the Canadian prairies. (I'd bet they also grow in North Dakota.)

[Alison (aka cluckandtweet)]

I want Dara Torres to be mean, or at the very least, extremely unfunny. Because you can't be that beautiful and nice and have a sense-of-humor because that's just not fair.

[tara]

gooseberries make me think of my nana and her gooseberry jam. ooooh, i'd love some now. and i promise i'd share with you, and with maggie. you seem fun. we'd be friends.

[Tricina]

That sounds like a fantastic week.

[DM]

Okay, you make me want to drink again and that is not good because instead of eating odd and exotic fruit, I will be telling men that they're like Batman. Adam West Batman. Adam West is HOTTTTTTTT!

God, that still embarrasses me three years later.

Plus I also want to hang out with you because you made me snort. A lot.

[Laura]

You have no idea how much sense that made* after drinking a few Delerium Tremens.

*a lot of sense

[PB Rippey: blogma (sleepless m]

I give the shoe website a HUGE thumbs up and make one for lovely babies, too, because I have no idea where several of my son's little shoes have gone to. Perhaps the cat ate them. It's weird.

[Holly Strebel]

OMG, soooo glad you tried that cactus pear before I did. I keep picking it up and then putting it back at Whole Foods. You can actually SEE me THINKING about it. It looks amazing but I have no idea what to do with it? Throw it against the wall to break it open? Peel it? Bite into it's fleshy weirdness? Guess if I'm wasted though, it wouldn't matter.

Sounds like you guys had fuhhhhnnn!

PS- Don't worry about a lost week, I've got a lost year. Oopsie.

[Deanna]

So many times on my walks to and from work, I'll spy a single shoe on the sidewalk. I've been thinking for a year about starting a blog where I just post pictures of these lonely shoes and maybe make up a story about each of them and how they got there.

[The Football Wife]

my dog is the webmaster for wheresmysock.com & he'll soon be adding Zen cart features... just something to think about!

[Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com]

It sounds like you guys had fun! =)

For the record, you do not even want to know how many times I have picked up a cactus pear and put it back down and then picked it back up and put it back down. Seriously. This is why something like trying 1,000 fruits would never occur to me. Because my taste buds have commitment problems.

[Lioness]

Hey, that's not a prickly pear you're dissing before the whole world, is it. I can't tell from the picture but it must not be, for the prickly pear is the tastiest fruit on earth - especially refrigerated. If you were indeed dissing the prickly pear I would have to immolate myself in protest, surely neither of us could live with that.

[MamaCass]

Did you ask her if she knows of any new exotic mermaid fruits?

[NJ]

Yum - mealy cucumber!

[Sheba]

I realy hope Maggie comes back to town for your sake, b/c as lovely as sparkling water is, you should not be without drink for that long.

[Tammy]

When you're done with your 1,000 land fruits, perhaps you could move on to the various fruits of the sea. And if you do, please invite me. I am not a glowing mermaid.

[SarahThe]

I do believe that is what we Texans refer to as a Prickly Pear fruit. My husband and I picked a whole gaggle of them a few years back and made Prickly Pear Jelly. After hours of laborious scrubbing and boiling and stirring and cooling and canning, we smeared some Prickly Pear Jelly on a piece of toast, only to discover that Prickly Pear Jelly tastes a hell of a lot like Smucker's Grape Jelly.

[Mom101]

"The internet made a mermaid cry."

Well that just about broke my heart. Except for the fact that she could slice the internet in half with one of her ab muscles which would be some fine, fine payback.

[kasey]

hello.just came across your blog..don't quite know where from but i love it.love it.xoxo

[Rebecca]

Nope, don't believe it. Only four fruits. Four fruits.

[mfk]

I am still pissed at cactus fruits after I bought one and NOT ONLY was it mealy and cucumber-like, but it left tiny, invisible thorns in my hand that hurt like large, visible ones. let's start an anti-cactus-pear website called screwcactuspears.com.

[Lauren]

Cactus fruit/tuna(what they're called in Chile) are gross! Yes, mealy cucumber. I couldn't agree with you more!

Exotic-ish fruit that tastes delish: mangosteen, lychee, green papaya, rose apple

Sounds like you had such a fun night!

-Lauren