The more I shop at Costco, the more I realize that there are really two kinds of treat ladies (I say 'ladies' because I have only seen one guy in the many years I've been shopping there). The first kind makes the treat stand run like a well-oiled machine. She has 2 or 3 trays goin' in the toaster oven, and the plastic tray with bite size samples is always generously stocked. One need not even halt the rolling wheels of the gargantuan Costco shopping cart to sample the garlic buttered shrimp. Then there are the treat ladies that are always causing cart pile-ups and shopping delays because they cannot or will not churn out the DiGiorno slices fast enough. They fidget with the toaster oven controls, fastidiously check lineage of each child hoping for a sample, and keep a tray of empty napkins in the bullpen, waiting to emerge with pizza slices, should they ever show up.

This week at work, I witnessed two phenomena that often occur in presentations, and they caught my attention for some reason. The first is the urge for a presenter to ask (after spending an hour or so speaking) "has this been useful?". This is typically asked by an important person after he/she has given a highly esoteric talk to a room full of silent employees. Regardless of the situation, this question breaks the employees out of their trance, and the presenter hears a jumble of comments like "of course" and "sure it was", as if anyone would be crazy to think otherwise. It's as if we're going to audibly mumble "complete waste of time" or "I'd rather have been filling out HR benefit election forms in my cube for the last hour". The second thing is the concept of the "hard stop", as in "we have to wrap up in 15 minutes because I have a hard stop at 4:00". This makes a mockery of our ability to manage time in the absence of the "hard stop". It suggests that the meeting organizers would just love to have everything drag on for hours on end, but today will be prevented from doing so by the trotting out of the phrase "hard stop".

This weekend, I finally conquered spare ribs. Back ribs have always been easy - hard to make them anything but tender and good in a little over an hour. However, I have had limited success with spareribs. Probably my best showing was when Mom and Dad visited us in Pittsburgh, but I've only been able to get tender meat inside by burning the outside. This time, however, the grill was just the right temperature, I sprayed the ribs with apple cider every 3o minutes just like Steven Raichlen told me to, and voila! - perfect spareribs. They were amazing. BTW - if you want a BBQ book, get "how to grill" by mr. Raichlen. It's great for beginners like me, and takes you through all the steps w/pics. It got us hooked on bbq during our summer in Evanston. That's about it for now. Pics - Kai trying to see out the front window (on tippy toes). Me stealing Asha's princess crown, Asha in on the swingset with Kai, and Kai in the kitchen.