Our Heads Are In The Clouds

We are fortunate that we get to spend many days outside floating in our pool. It's a chance for us to relax, breathe fresh air and contemplate life. The Ipod is set on shuffle and we enjoy listening to the tunes it pumps out as we sing along and sip whatever cocktail we have concocted that day. You must be thinking, "man is there ever a time when you mavens don't have a cocktail in your hands?" Well, believe it or not, there is - because our floats have cup holders built in - woo hoo - and that frees up our hands to wipe off sweat, swat bugs, or to push off from the side of the pool. We have a plethora of floats too: chair floats, body floats and pool noodles. 

When lying on the body floats, especially on our backs, it can get very boring unless we just want to day dream or take a li'l snooze. But, when it's a beautiful day with lots of clouds in the sky, we play a game called ... "Well, Looky There!" Basically, it's staring at a cloud to see if we can make something more out of it than just a big visible mass - like a cool shape or form - and point it out to the other to see if we both see the same thing. We either do or we don't - and if we don't - then we give our own interpretation of what we see. This goes on and on until: 1.) the clouds disappear 2.) we need a bathroom break 3.) refreshing of cocktails or 4.) one of us falls off the float from drinking too many cocktails and the other has to jump in and save her. Hmmmm... a light bulb just went off in our heads. We think numbers 1, 3, & 4 could be alleviated if we just hired a Cabana Boy or two! Woo hoo! 

1.) It would give us something else to do when the clouds disappear [look at him] 3.) he would make and serve us any cocktail we desired allowing us more time to float about [and look at him] 4.) he'd also double as our life guard to save us when we "accidentally" fell off our floats [from looking at him]. It's a brilliant idea, right? Hey, where's Mark Cherry (an American writer & producer of television) when we need him? We have a great idea for a new show.

Mark Cherry wrote the dramadies Desperate Housewives and Devious Maids so why not write about De(w)ine Mavens? Ha Ha Ha Ha - Oh man that would be a hoot! And to think we saw that whole scenario being played out before our eyes like a moving picture in the clouds? Oh yeah, the clouds ... where were we again? Right, the cloud game. The rest of this blog is going to seem dull after the De(w)ine Mavens hire a cabana boy plot, but let's pick up where we left off. The thing is, it's a pretty fast game because clouds move rather quickly. Well, it really depends on the environment around them because they can actually move anywhere from 5-100mph depending on the wind - how about them meteorologist skills (heh-heh)? And you won't find us laying out in the pool trying to play the game if they are moving 50mph because that would mean we were in the midst of a hurricane or tornado or some other storm and...well, you get the picture.  What we were trying to say when we said the clouds move fast is that they won't stay in the same shape for long. One could look like the statue of liberty one second and then spread into a big blob of nothing the next. We made a drinking game out of it too (we know that is hard to believe). If we both agree on the image, then no one drinks; but if we happen to disagree, well then we both take a sip. We bet you can guess that we disagree more often than we agree, especially when it's really hot out and we are thirsty. And guess what? It gets even more fun after a few cocktails because your imagination can really run wild. We've seen all kinds of crazy things like: Mr. Hankey (from the show South Park), an alien spaceship, and Richelle claims she saw Adam Levine's face smiling down at her as she smiled back and waved to him. Then she started to giggle because she also claims that he winked at her just before he shifted into the scream mask and then into a big blob of nothing. OK, that's really the booze talkin' there, but a girl can dream (although she's adamant that she really saw his likeness). Actually, it's a great game to help you focus on your eyesight, stimulate your brain and use your imagination. One of Jenn's favorite quotes is by Albert Einstein, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." And she believes this wholeheartedly. So you see, it really is a productive way to use the creative part of your brain, especially if you have killed too many cells, as we probably have over the years, by enjoying one too many drinky-drinks. The photos of clouds that you are about to see are actual ones that we took in our own backyard while playing our game. We've added a split screen effect so you can also see a picture of our interpretation. You may see something different but either way, we hope you enjoy them. Perhaps it may inspire you to stop once in a while to really appreciate the clouds and use your gift of imagination. Oh, and Mark Cherry if you're reading this ... give us a call:)

Black Box Maven Almost Down

The wine mavens are trying to plan a dinner menu around the fact that Jenn's hubby, who has been working and playing music so much lately, has a night off. It's a rare thing when we are all home at the same time and can actually sit down together at the table and enjoy a nice dinner. Richelle cooks a mean tri-tip steak with sauteed mushrooms so we decide that will be the main course for tonight's dinner. Then we come up with the idea for surf and turf to include Jenn's garlic, cayenne pepper shrimp and our bacon wrapped asparagus. We get ready to start the meal preparation but first thing's first - we must pour ourselves a glass of Black Box Shiraz and turn on some tunes. Currently, the Outfield is playing and we are singing along as we cohesively move about the kitchen cooking our individual dishes. It's looking so good and our mouths are watering as the delectable aromas of bacon, garlic, onions and mushrooms (in a black box red wine sauce - of course) fill the air. At this time, our work in preparing the food is done - we are now waiting for everything to finish cooking. Hubby comes in to set the table while we stand around chatting about this and that and enjoy drinking our wine for a moment. Suddenly we hear the timer go off - beep, beep, beep - Ahhh.... the sound of "dinner is ready."

The wine mavens plate the food and hubby says, "man this looks delicious. I feel like a king. Thank you."

The three of us take our seats at the table and it feels like a scene from that show Three's Company  with Jack, Janet and Chrissy - because the three of us living together under one roof has a "quirky charm." Except in our sitcom, Jack & Chrissy are married and Janet & Chrissy are sista wives (see our blog: Two Bees in a Pod & Sista Wives Rock for our definition of sista wives).

Jenn cuts into her steak and notices that it's way too rare for her liking. She says, "gross this thing is still mooing" and jumps up to cook it some more. Richelle has just put the first bite of steak in her mouth and starts to laugh - as she does this, the steak gets sucked down her throat like a vacuum. Jenn is standing at the kitchen island when she looks up at Richelle and notices her acting strangely. "Are you alright?" Jenn asks. Richelle shakes her head 'no' then stands up and grabs her glass of wine and takes a drink. Jenn drops what she is doing and runs over and grabs her from behind and starts doing the Heimlich maneuver ("an emergency technique for preventing suffocation when a person's airway becomes blocked by a piece of food or other object").

It's one of the many life saving tools Jenn is thankful she has learned from her training as a flight attendant. Only this is the very first time she has ever had to use it. After a few pumps, the wine comes spewing out and both Jenn and hubby look at the wine on the floor, then at each other, then over at Richelle for approval shaking their heads yes? Richelle furiously shakes her head NO and continues to hold and point at her throat, so Jenn kicks it into turbo gear as she is hell bent on doing whatever it takes to save her friend. Not that she wasn't trying to save her earlier, but now it has just sunk in that this shit is for real and VERY SERIOUS! It's as though Jenn turns into the incredible hulk as she grabs Richelle again from behind and continues the Heimlich.

Only this time, she does it so hard that she actually lifts Richelle off her feet. She is determined to get the obstacle blocking Richelle's airway out of her mouth. It does not come out right away which is very scary because every second is crucial. After the third try, a huge piece of steak comes flying out of Richelle's mouth and lands on the floor. She gasps for air and then grabs Jenn and hugs her and Jenn hugs her right back. Richelle says, "OMG you just saved my life - I seriously thought I was going to die and I'm thinking, really, this is how I'm going down?  I literally couldn't breathe and saw my life flashing before my eyes." Jenn says, "well, you scared he shit out of me... look, I'm shaking." Clearly we are all shaken and still in disbelief as to what the hell just happened. Hubby high-fives Jenn and hugs Richelle and then we all sit back down at the table to try and relax and talk about it. Richelle says, "I can't even try to eat another thing - I'm so freaked out and my throat is sore."  Then we all look over at the steak on the floor as Jenn says, "Damn! That piece of meat is the size of a small country. What the hell were you thinking taking a bite that big?" We began to laugh through our tears because as scared as we still were, we seemed to be able to find humour in the situation now that everything was alright. Richelle said, "I wasn't thinking, obviously, but I had just put it in my mouth when you said your steak was mooing and that made me laugh and then the steak went down and the rest is history. I didn't even get a chance to chew it." "Well, don't do that again," Jenn says as she picks up her phone to take a picture of the thing on the floor that almost killed her friend.

Hubby yells, "do not do that;" but Jenn does it anyway. She says we need it as a reminder and he shakes his head in disbelief that his wife just actually took the picture. He then says, "This calls for a box of wine," to which both mavens interject, "EACH!" and then we all start to laugh some more because after that scare we really do all need our own box. There is no doubt that this was a scary situation and we know how very fortunate we are that it turned out to be a happy ending because not everyone is as lucky. The next night the mavens are sitting in the kitchen eating pasta when Richelle gives Jenn a scare by coughing. Jenn quickly stops everything she is doing and looks up at her. Richelle says, "relax. It's when you don't hear anything that you have to worry."  For the next several days, Jenn is still freaked out by the whole ordeal. She is so relieved and grateful that things turned out the way they did, resulting in Richelle being alive today, but she can't help but ask, "what if I didn't do the Heimlich right? What if I wasn't able to save you? What if? What if?" Richelle turns to her friend and answers, "then it would have sucked real bad." Jenn nods her head in agreement and replies, "True Dat"  and then the Black Box Wine Mavens/Sista Wives/Best Friends lift and clink their wine glasses in celebration of Life.

Poolapalooza!

It's Monday, Funday and we made plans to have our friends Nick, Summer and Huey dog over for a pool day and wouldn't you know it,  the sky is black with a 30% chance of rain all day.  Nick texts us and asks, "it is gonna be crappy out all day?" We text back that it better not be as it starts to pour down rain. It's really not looking good, but we refuse to let a dark, rain filled sky put a damper on our get-together. Besides, Huey dog is looking forward to reuniting with his Bitches of Eastwick co-stars

and meet his new friends the Sassy Supermodel Sisters (Petals and Blossom).

We decide that they are coming rain or shine because we will be eating and drinking and making our own fun anyway, and there are plenty of other options such as board games, pictionary, charades and dress up! Nick puts the kibosh on dress up right away, but after several drinks we may get him to change his mind. So... It's ON!!!

We volunteer to make lunch and Nick offers to cook dinner as we know this pool day will be turning into a sleep over. The lunch menu consists of ham and cheese sliders, chips, cold tri-pasta salad and homemade vanilla ice cream with Ma Doudou (a vanilla rum made in St. Maarten) poured over the top - Delish!!!

In the throws of preparing lunch, the rain stops, the clouds part and here comes the sun - Yippee!

Our guests arrive and the dogs are actually the ones to get the party started because they are so excited to be reunited and chase each other around the yard. Speaking of the yard (we will rewind to yesterday) the sista wives were hanging out in the pool when all of a sudden we got a whiff of stinky, hot, steaming poo. That's right, there's nothing quite like the smell of dog poop baking in the sun - it's foul. Well, we can't have guests over for a nice relaxing pool day and have them think they have arrived at a cesspool instead. Jenn looks at Richelle and says, "your dogs just pooped, therefore it's your turn to scoop." Richelle groans and then slips off of her float into the water. She throws on some shoes and grabs some bags and then groans some more as she sets out for dookie duty.

Jenn laughs at her and says, "hey I think there's some more over by the fence." Richelle groans then walks back and forth looking for it like she's that bear in a carnival game. You know the one, where the bear starts walking to the right and you shoot at it and once you hit it then it turns to left, while another hit makes it turn to the right again then left again and so forth. Still groaning, Richelle is successful at picking it all up and heads to throw the bag o' poop in the trash, when all of a sudden she slips and falls. Jenn is floating in the pool as she witnesses Richelle lose her footing - her right leg kicks out in front of her and her left arm with the bag of poop goes flying through the air as she screams "goddammit!" Then silence - Richelle is nowhere in sight - she disappeared as if she was sucked into the Bermuda Triangle.  Jenn jumps off her float, gets out of the pool and runs over to make sure she's okay. There's Richelle lying on her back, sprawled out in the grass, with one leg stretched out in front of her and the other bent back behind her butt, with her arm up over her head and the poop bag still in her hand. Jenn asks, "are you okay?" Richelle groans and says, "this is bullshit!" Once Jenn realizes she's okay she can't help herself and bursts into laughter. The visual of Richelle lying there in the grass with the bag of poop is hysterical; as a matter of fact Jenn is crying because she is laughing so hard. Richelle gets up, dusts herself off and walks over to the trash bin to toss the poop and says, "fuck off" to Jenn who is now rolling on the ground because her laughter is uncontrollable. Jenn tries to regain her composure as they both get back in the pool and onto their floats. It's silent for a moment and then Richelle starts to giggle which erupts into a roar. The sista wives continue laughing together as they rehash the scenario wishing they had it all on video. Now that all the poop's out of the way, let's get back to our pool day. The four musketeers kick off the reunion by toasting with piña coladas and then it's let's jump in the pool time.

The music is playing and so are the dogs (a.k.a. the bitches of eastwick), the drinks are flowing (now we have switched to Deep Eddy vodka with raspberry lemonade, sweet tea vodka, and ruby red grapefruit vodka ice shots) and the laughter is contagious.

We are all excited because Huey (a.k.a Michelle Pfeiffer) is swimming on his own for the first time, but we aren't sure if it's because he likes it, or if he's trying to avoid Nadra (a.k.a. Susan Sarandon) because she's covering him in love slobber, while Marley (a.k.a. Cher) doesn't give a hoot about anyone because all she wants to do is chase balls.

Meanwhile, we are engaged in some Esther Williams pool follies, but we don't think she is smiling down upon us. In fact, she just might be rolling over in the deep end because we are sloppily just goofing off - no competitive swimming or synchronization is involved. However, we are having fun just splashing about.

After several hours, we are hungry again so we send Nick (our "mister wife") into the kitchen to whip up some dinner for us. Richelle & Jenn help out by grilling asparagus and making cheese jalapeño corn bread muffins. Nick makes barbecue chicken, homemade white cheddar farfalle mac & cheese and Ghirardelli double chocolate brownies -Yummy!! As we are waiting for things to cook and bake, Jenn decides that we should have a little costume photo shoot. See, we knew after a few drinks we could get Nick to dress up - sort of. 

Miss Summer pops the champagne and pours us each a glass. Then she heads out to relax in the hot, hot, hot, hot...tub while she waits for the food to be ready. Hee hee get it? Miss Summer = Donna Summer? Hot tub = hot stuff? (Hopefully, Donna Summer fans like us will get and appreciate this).   

As Nick stirs the mac & cheese sauce, he kind of looks a little like Sideshow Bob - hahaha - and when he finds a hair in the sauce he gets mad and tries to blame it on one of us forgetting that he temporarily has hair.

It's time to sit down and enjoy the feast before us, as the conversation and wine (Black Box Shiraz and Pinot Grigio) flow freely. 

The hubby arrives home early from work and is happy there is plenty of grub left for him to eat - and eat he does. 

After we clean up and put the food away, we have to smile as we look down upon our passed out pups. They are exhausted after six plus hours of continuous play and mental stimmulation. It's a beautiful thing when your kids are happy. Today, we had the best of both worlds - human and canine playtime plus spells of both rain and shine making for one doggone good time.