More Fun, Less Money

It's Sunday, the night of pondering the week ahead and watching The Amazing Race.

As I've mentioned many times before, I ♥ The Amazing Race and this season is better than ever! The clues actually sometimes require the contestants to think and they've managed to keep the herd pretty close together for the most part, which is always more fun.

My kids keep asking when they're going to do another family edition - my guess is never because I have to imagine that it was a logistical nightmare having minors traveling all over the place and generally being at risk of injury. However, if they ever did announce another one, I'd consider trying out, mostly because I don't think we'd get chosen. While it would be cool to be part of a show I love and travel the world for free, I do not think I would love being in a constant state of high-stress and sleep deprivation with my husband and kids. We'd end up with a whole reel of our worst parenting moments. No thanks.

As for pondering the week, nothing big to worry about in the near term, so my attention then turned to all of the things I want in the longer term. I can blame The Amazing Race, actually, because now I want to visit Vienna at Christmas time...which got me wishing we could take an international trip every year because there are so many places I want to go.

And then I was thinking, what if we could take one international trip and then one beach vacation every year?! Maybe we'll only bring the kids on one or the other. That felt manageable for a second...but then am I swearing off Vegas and New York for the foreseeable future? And what about the places in the U.S. that aren't beaches that I'd still like to see?

All that pondering was really just a distraction from the fact that paying our regular bills is getting tighter thanks to the fact that it's been an entire year since we had two incomes. Which is to say that if I want to continue fulfilling my travel fantasies, something is gonna have to give somewhere else. (duh)

The fact is that I'm just not good at not spending money...wait, let me rephrase that: I'm not good at not doing things in order to save money.

I'm not a big shopper or anything, but I like to make plans, and those plans generally involve eating out. Plus there are the emergency fast food dinners with the kids, or the "It's Friday! I'm not cooking" dinners with the kids. And then all the other stuff that falls under "entertainment": happy hour, movies, dessert after the movie...it all adds up. I won't share how much we actually spent on these things in 2010 (I track them in Quicken), but it's safe to say that we could have taken a nice trip to Vienna.

So how do I give my social life a thrifty makeover? I want to see my friends and do fun stuff but not end up spending so much. Is there a reality show for that? Is it called "Saturday nights at the Bowling Alley"?

The Fanciest Tasting Menu Race

"It's not death, it's just cake" is my new motto.

If you haven't been watching "Top Chef: Just Desserts," you've been missing out. Probably lots of people say it's not as interesting as the original Top Chef because it's all one general idea (Make a fantastic dessert...GO!), but those people must not have enough cake, ice cream, or salted caramel in their lives. I love it. Plus, it's fun to see how weird pastry chefs apparently are...I mean, Seth is making Marcel look almost suave. (P.S. Am I going to have to wait for the reunion to find out how Heather gashed her forehead open?)

If you've missed Just Desserts until now, the good news is that you've still got lots of season left. The same is not true if you missed "The Great Food Truck Race," which I really think was the most under-publicized and under-rated food show of the summer. (I say that having no idea how it was publicized or received by critics.)

With the premise being simply that six food trucks were going to drive around the country trying to outsell each other - and with the host being everyone's favorite Applebee's chef Tyler Florence - there was a high risk of failure for The Food Truck Race. But fail, it did not.

Sure, it might have been even more fun if they'd made the teams solve clues to figure out where to go and what to do, but as it was, the way they'd make them drive to some new city and then set them loose to figure out how to get their ingredients and where to park their trucks and how to make the most money, was awesome. The lack of strict rules was pretty refreshing, as most reality shows pretty much control everything so tightly that contestants rarely have room to show how they got good at what they do in the first place. But alas, it's over. All I can do is hope for a season 2...and watch "The Amazing Race," which finally started its new season on Sunday!

I love treasure hunts. I love clues. I love travel. The Amazing Race is all of that, plus reality television drama. And I'm happy to see that they're bringing back the requirement that contestants have a tiny bit of common sense in order to solve some of their clues. If you've ever watched the early seasons (they are now in season 17!), they used to make the clues kinda hard. Then it got dumbed down to the point that no one really had to figure anything out, they just went where the next card told them to go...which, I should add, did not stop me from watching the show, but I like it better when there's more room for error.

While I don't particularly fantasize about being a contestant on The Amazing Race due to all of the surprise bungee-jumping and bug eating, I do fantasize about running around the world solving clues and traveling for free...maybe with more happiness and fun and less fear and injury.

But as soon as the Top Chef producers get together with The Amazing Race producers to create some sort of competition involving racing around the world to eat gourmet food, I'm totally in.

The Fluffy Stuff

Wow, turn around for a second and it's been 11 days since you last blogged.

I never told you this, blogosphere, but I had been toying with the idea of writing a 25 days of Christmas blog...or rather blogs, since there would have to be 25 of them. But then I couldn't narrow down the theme enough to make it feel manageable...and then, well, it turns out that I had almost nothing to blog about for nearly half of the month, so I guess it's good that I didn't take on that particular challenge. Whew.

Not to say that the contents of my last blog were nothing, mind you. In fact, I thought I might have to make a very special appointment with my therapist in order to process that bit of information (therapy has been put on hiatus), but as with most things, it fades with each morning that I wake up. Now I'd say it's been moved from my mental "examples of failure to protect unborn children" file and put in the "possible explanations for Owen's autism" folder...which is to say that it's soaking into the fabric of my daily existence...which is okay.

Man, I hate it when serious stuff creeps into what I think are going to be light and fluffy blogs. Well, in an effort to balance out the heft of the beginning of this entry, let's talk about reality television, shall we?

Danny won Biggest Loser by losing more than half of his original body weight in, what, less than 6 months? There's no way that can be healthy, but it sure does make for good TV. Plus, Shay gets to come back and get paid $1000 for every additional POUND she loses! Forget health, Subway knows how to motivate.

Top Chef Las Vegas is also over and the egomaniac won. This displeases me. I feel like they were all fairly equal in terms of culinary talent and therefore one of the two nice guys should have taken the grand prize. But did you see this interview with the winning Voltaggio? Did he say he has children or is he speaking in the future tense? Because I don't remember ever hearing about any children and it makes me a little sad to think he might have some, but never mentioned them. Oh, and on one other Top Chef-related note, did you hear about this? It's like my dreams became television producers.

The Amazing Race also came to an exciting close. Perhaps to make up for Top Chef's change of locales for the finale (or not), it ended in Las Vegas! I have to say it was one of my favorite Amazing Race finales even though it didn't have all the suspense of making them fly from, say, Alaska to Hawaii mid-leg. It was no surprise who won, but it was still fun. My Sunday nights now feel empty.

Somehow it's already time for the finale of So You Think You Can Dance. I feel like the auditions took longer than the competition. My favorite part of this season was the guest appearance of The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. Not that some of the contestants aren't great dancers, but those guys seem to defy gravity. As for picking a winner, I like Legacy and Russell, but I don't really care that much.

And over in the category of happy returns, both Intervention and Hoarders are back! Hooray for dysfunction and mental illness! I know, I know, but how can you possibly look away? Plus, sometimes they get better, which makes it all okay, right? Right?

There's more, I'm sure, but my Tivo is calling me.

TV Time

A couple of years ago, I began getting my boys into watching a few of my TV shows. I think it started with cooking shows and then we picked up The Biggest Loser, which I never even used to watch, but the weigh-ins appealed to Owen's obsession with numbers, so we all got hooked. 

Anyway, I'll admit that my initial reasons for introducing my boys to some of my shows was to be able to actually watch them while they were awake, versus trying to cram all my TV viewing into the few hours between when they went to bed and when I collapsed in exhaustion. 

 

Now we regularly watch several shows — The Amazing Race is our favorite, but there's also Chopped, The Biggest Loser, Will Work For Food, and sometimes Food Network Challenge. "TV rots your brain" arguments aside, I love having the opportunity to get both boys to sit in one place and cuddle them (plus, they've actually learned a few things). But I'm starting to wish these shows were still "mine" and not "ours." 

We've basically flipped scenarios, so that rather that being able to watch these shows when the boys are sleeping, I now have to wait to find a time to watch with them. And yes, of course I could just watch the shows and tell the boys they missed out, but that feels a little mean. 

And btw, thanks to the supposedly family-friendly Amazing Race, Aidan said "bitch" for the first time last night after reading it in a subtitle on the preview for next week's episode. Sheesh.

On another topic, we are only halfway through April and I'm running out of steam on these Autism Awareness Month moments. But my moment for today is a question for those other parents of kids with autism: Do your kids play tag?

I'm not sure whether it's an aversion or a complete lack of interest, but Owen is not a tag player. He does okay when he's being chased, but once he's it, he pretty much loses complete focus and ends up going to do something else — much to the frustration of his brother, who apparently like nothing better than being chased. I'm just wondering if this is typical or just another Owen-specific quirk. 

TV head

Wednesday has arrived, which means another new episode of Top Chef tonight! 

I've decided to root for Jamie. It would be awesome if a bad-ass girl won the whole thing (no offense to Stephanie, but she was little too timid for my liking). I also must admit that Fabio is growing on me. There was something endearing about him last week. However, I still have no love for Stefan. I don't doubt that he's an awesome chef, but on a reality TV competition, personality has to count for something and, so far, his seems to suck...although I am interested in seeing what this hype about him having a crush on Jamie is about. 

Since we're talking about TV, I should mention that I feel bad having not mentioned the season finale of The Amazing Race. **If you don't want to know who won, stop reading now.**

So, Nick and Starr winning wasn't all that climactic -- not like when TK and Rachel won last season -- but what I was more interested in at the finish line was figuring out what the hell happened to poor Toni and Dallas. 

I had been cheering for them all season and was hoping that the whole losing the passport thing in the previous episode had been done mostly for dramatic effect. I mean, I knew Dallas had actually lost his passport, but I felt like the camera crew had to have been able to grab it or at least track down the cab...I mean, they've got it all on film, right? But then when the mother and son team weren't at the finish line with the other contestants I realized he really did lose his passport. So I suppose it's good that they got eliminated because they wouldn't have been able to finish the race anyway. 

Since the show aired, I did some Googling and found an interview with Toni and Dallas that told me the following:

1) In Russia, anyone can be a cab driver - there's zero regulation (scary?) - so there was no way to track down the cab. 

2) The reason his pack with his passport and all their money got left in the cab is because the crew made him take it off so they could replace his mic battery and then with all the rushing around, it got left on the floor. Bummer! 

3) A good samaritan ended up turning in his passport to the consulate, so even though they missed the finale, Toni and Dallas did make it back home.  

You'd kind of think the producers would have an action plan in the event of a lost passport, but maybe even the almighty Amazing Race crew can't get around the government. Oh well.

In other reality TV news, Lauri left The Real Housewives of Orange County! Clearly, as the only one remotely in touch with reality, she didn't fit in, but do you think it was really her decision to leave or do you think the whole my-son-is-a-drug-addict story line was just too heavy for an otherwise completely shallow program? Hmmm...I can't say I'm interested in meeting yet another new housewife, but Vicki's insanity keeps me coming back every time. 

And finally, did you watch the premiere of Secret Millionaire last week? For those unfamiliar, the premise is that millionaires are sent to live in impoverished areas for a week and they can't tell anyone who they are and then at the end of the week, they have to give away at least $100k of their own money (they can give more if they want). I know, I know, it's Fox, so it's a little smarmy, but I do love the idea of totally unsuspecting and deserving people being handed large sums of money that would probably otherwise be spent some millionaire's next dinner party. 

The little girl with cancer whose parents didn't have medical insurance made me sob. I kind of thought the millionaires would ask how much they owed in medical bills and just write them a check for that amount, but I suppose $50k will make at least a small dent in their debt. 

Then, of course, you throw in anything related to Hurricane Katrina and you've got me sobbing again. I know it's been said a million times, but it's really unbelievable that so many of these people still have nothing more than 3 years later. To throw anyone into that situation and ask them to decide how much of their own money to give is almost cruel in a way, but I was happy to see them handing out checks for $100k right and left. 

And the moral of this story? Reality TV is making the world a better place...okay, well sometimes, at least.

Great Urban Racers, Are We

BFF Kevin and I successfully completed the Great Urban Race yesterday. I think I'm hooked. I might have to refocus my travel obsession on going places to compete in treasure hunts, although had we not been familiar with the city, we would have been at a big disadvantage.

So we went to the registration/starting point yesterday, having no idea what to expect. I wondered how many other people would actually have heard about this thing. I also worried that it would be a bunch of drunk college students and we'd be the ancient 30-something team trying to keep up with the kids. 

Turns out there were somewhere around 75 teams spanning in age from early-20's through 50's. Good crowd. You could tell by the serious game faces on a few of the teams that they were there to win  -- the top 3 winners got free entry into the national competition, where the grand prize is $10,000, so I suppose that's serious business...if you think you've got a shot at it. We chose to be more realistic and simply focus on finishing the race. 

At noon, the Race staff handed out envelopes to every team and told us we could open them on "Go!" What we got was a list of 12 clues and we had to solve 11 of them (you got to choose one to skip) in any order that we wanted. 

A flash of panic washed over me as I first scanned the list: the first clue was in hieroglyphic code that had to be deciphered. The second one listed a specific location - unfortunately, we had never heard of it. Another clue made reference to "the Weezer song that hit as high as #2 on the 1995 US Modern Rock tracks." There was word scramble, a riddle, a physical challenge, and, of course, a couple scavenger clues that required us to bring certain items back to the finish line with us. 

We knew we needed to make a plan, but standing amid 150 people running in all directions, our first instinct was to run, too. Right away we knew we had to get downtown for at least three of the clues, so we tried to take the bus (only public transportation is allowed) while also calling our phone-a-friend to have her start googling. After maybe 4 minutes of sitting at the bus stop and seeing no bus, we started walking. 

This brought us to the always-welcoming Grumpy's Bar, where we made the decision to use the wi-fi (I brought my laptop) and compile our list of every location we needed to visit. (And btw, Kevin gets full credit for cracking the hieroglyphics and solving the riddle.) I maintain that this was a smart move, even though we would later learn that by the time we were leaving Grumpy's with our itinerary, the first place team was 15 minutes away from crossing the finish line. They are either superhuman or had a GPS and a lot of people standing by to Google for them while they ran.

Right away, we had our "skip" clue chosen for us by failing to notice that we only had a 1-hour window to get to one of the clues - oops. I guess that saved us the trouble of having to choose. 

So off we went. First we jumped on a bus, thinking we'd head to our farthest point first. That was a fabulous plan, only we got on the wrong bus...so we found ourselves in the middle of downtown. No problem. We expertly navigated the city, banging out 5 of our clues...including this one, which required us to get a picture of 4 or more people cartwheeling in front of Candyland:

They weren't kidding about pushing you out of your comfort zone. 

After the impressive accomplishment of solving nearly half of the clues, we felt we deserved a celebratory drink. Since we chose to have this drink in the middle of Gameworks -- one of our clue locations -- we had the pleasure of pointing many teams in the right direction, while they looked at us quizzically as we sipped our cold beverages. One team actually came up and asked us why we were just sitting there. We told them we knew we weren't going to win, so we were just having fun. 

The looks on their faces was both confused and possibly angry that we weren't taking it more seriously. Perhaps as way of apology, Kevin felt compelled to start giving them answers. I was okay with one, but by the second I thought we had been congenial enough and should perhaps let them solve their own clues. I mean, it's not that fun if someone just gives you all the answers, right? (really, I was protecting their fun...)

After our downtown leg, we headed to Loring Park, where we had to complete a physical challenge involving "Buddy Walkers." It's sort of like a pair of wooden skis with ropes that you hold onto, and you have to walk in tandem so no one falls off. Falling off means starting over. I should point out here that there is a 17 inch height difference between Kevin and me. But thanks to our strategic use of "right, left, right, left," we didn't fall off!! Woohoo!

Next it was across the bridge to the sculpture garden (Clue #3: "Take a photo of both teammates in front of the real sculpture that's pictured somewhere on www.greaturbanrace.com."), then onto another bus to get to Uptown. Naturally, we got on the wrong bus AGAIN (my fault), so more walking, walking and then we were able to knock off our last 3 clues within minutes of each other. 

This is a where a more competitive team might have rushed back to cross the finish line. We, however, chose to have another celebratory drink at Liquor Lyle's. Somehow I'd never been there and Kevin felt it necessary to right this wrong immediately.

After more bus mishaps, we did finally make it back to the finish line. I believe our time was 4 hours and 15 minutes -- well clear of the 5-hour limit. Did we place? Um, no. Pretty much the top 25 teams finished in about half our time. But hey, we weren't last and we did manage to solve all of our clues correctly, so I consider it a success.  

Is it too late to become a professional treasure hunt competitor? 

Competition, Here I Come...

Tomorrow I am doing something I have never done...

Competing in a RACE! Not just any race, mind you, a race based on a reality television show (really, what other kind of race would I enter myself in?). 

It's called the Great Urban Race. This company goes from city to city staging these Amazing Race-type events -- only unlike The Amazing Race, you actually have to solve clues to figure out where to go. (How can I get such a job?)

Those of you familiar with my affinity for treasure hunts can appreciate the dream-come-true quality of this occasion. 

Of course, I'm not competing alone. It's teams of two and my BFF/cosmic twin Kevin has agreed to be my partner...his commitment to winning is questionable (that's a total understatement), but I am confident we can at least finish the thing within the allotted 5 hours. 

Our team name is K-squared (he's a KK, I'm a KK). We even got matching shirts made! Here's our team logo:

In case you're not well-versed in Wingdings, this is what you get when type "KK", which is an amazing coincidence since it's also an accurate depiction of our attitudes toward most things. (But not treasure hunts, treasure hunts get a giant, beaming smiley face from me!)

I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. It could end in victory. It could end with us crying on the street corner, still stuck on clue #1. More than likely, it will be somewhere in between those two scenarios...let's hope there is no skyscraper bungee jumping or eating of pig intestines. Cuz we are not competing for a million dollars.

I promise a full recap tomorrow (or possibly Sunday if I'm wrecked after the intense competition).  Go K-squared!

Feeding the Need

**TOP CHEF FINALE SPOILER ALERT**

Top Chef is over. Yay for Stephanie! But I am sad that's it's over...far more sad than I should be about a television show. 

I liked the finale, but it definitely wasn't as exciting as previous seasons. I don't know why exactly...maybe because it really felt like Lisa was crashing the party and maybe because even though Richard was the clear frontrunner, it was kind of obvious that he really couldn't win. I'm not saying it was fixed, I'm just saying that a woman had to win this year. Maybe Richard knew this somewhere in his subconscious and it threw off his game - who knows? Ted Allen had some nice (and more articulate) things to say about the debacle in his Bravo TV blog. 

All I know is that if I am ever in Atlanta, I will definitely be stopping by Trail-Blais. 

So what will fill the void left by Top Chef? Well, The Next Food Network Star will make a valiant attempt, but watching people learn how to be TV chefs just isn't as entertaining...unless maybe you're an aspiring TV chef. 

Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days show has started again - finally - which has nothing to do with cooking, but is a thoroughly enjoyable (and sometimes educational) way of meeting my weekly reality TV quota. 

Then there are the other Bravo hits: Flipping Out is starting again in a couple weeks. Woohoo! I love me some OCD-fueled drama. Then Project Runway returns in July - double woohoo! We must all enjoy it before it moves to the Lifetime Network and turns into some kind of afterschool special about anorexic models. 

This, of course, is all just filler while I await the return of The Amazing Race, the show that blends my love of travel with my love of treasure hunts (they aren't really on a treasure hunt, per se, but I will take what I can get). And since there are people who are clearly far more obsessed than I am with this show, I was able to find out that there are only 107 days left until season 13 begins. And by the time that's over, I'm sure it will be almost time for Top Chef again. 

I feel much better now.