Products I Love

1. President’s Choice Butter Chicken sauce I've tried to make Indian food at home on numerous occasions, and after what feels like hours of chopping, sauteeing and simmering, it seems to end up looking a lot like baby poo, and smelling only slightly better. But The President makes a Butter chicken sauce that is wonderful, and requires only opening a jar.
2. L’oreal Voluminous Mascara I possess only four very long, very dark eyelashes on each lid, and making them look like normal person eyelashes is a lot of work. I've tried almost every mascara on the planet that promises to make my eyelashes look full and lush and thick, and L'Oreal's is the only one that seems to actually make that happen.
3. Keri Lotion For many reasons, I am glad to have been born in the late 20th century: antibiotics, modern dentistry, cheap and abundant chocolate. But had I been born in an earlier time, I'm sure I'd have died prematurely, simply because my skin would have blown right off me. I have the driest skin imaginable. I am very grateful for Keri Lotion, because it is blissfully moisturizing, and it leaves a nice, sort of shiny finish to my skin. And I like looking like I'm made out of latex.
4. Glad press and seal It's the most expensive cling wrap you can buy, but, man does it do the job. You can seal that sucker down on almost any bowl or plate or to itself and make a near indestructable seal that stays put. Worth every penny.
5. Neutrogena Healthy skin lotion This is the stuff I put on my face. (For reasons inexplicable to me, women use one kind of stuff on their faces and another kind of lotion on their bodies. I'm sure there is not a lick of difference between the two products, but I'm been brainwashed like everyone else to believe there is, so I persist, even though I'm well aware of it.) This is great stuff; it has an SPF of 15, so lazy slobs like me don't have to put on sunscreen as well, it's got an alpha-hydroxy acid in it, so my skin never looks dull or flakey, and, best of all, it's cheap.
6. Tetley tea My mother, who takes her tea very seriously, uses only Tetley tea, and therefore, so do I. I once tried to save, oh, about 35 cents by buying the store brand tea, and rued the day, let me tell you. It was awful stuff, and my mother has not quite forgiven me for serving it to her. We still can't laugh about it yet.
7. Frizz-Ease by John Frieda You can beleive me when I say I have tried every imaginable product on the market to tame frizzy hair. (I think one of the reasons I became a hairdresser was to support my hair product habit.) And you can also believe me when I say that few people have the ridiculous access to the cornicopia of hair products out there that I do. So when I say that Frizz-Ease by John Frieda is the best hair de-frizzer out there, believe that, too.
8. Lindor chocolate My sister-in-law actually owns her own chocolate company. which is stupendous, and you really should find some of her stuff immediately. And I am endlessly in awe of someone who wants a certain kind of chocolate so badly that she would set up her own company to make it....I mean, that is dedication. And she has badly ruined me for any sort of mediocre chocolate at all. I can't be bothered with Kit Kats or Aeros now, it's Belgian and Swiss chocolate for me all the way. When there's no Hazelnut Crunch to be had, Lindors Truffles are a very nice alternative.
9. Pampered chef stone ware Many moons ago, I sold Pampered Chef products, mostly because I am a kitchen gadget junkie and it was a good way to get some at a discount and not endanger my marriage. Anyway, one of the things I discovered along the way is their stoneware baking sheets, cake pans and roasting dishes. They are genius. Because they are porous, things crisp up way better than on metal, and although food can over cook, it doesn't seem to burn as easily. And you just give it a good scrubbing with hot water (NO SOAP!) and they are clean. I don't know what I'd do without them.
10. Smuckers Seed-Free Jam Raspberry jam with seeds is pure torture. Smuckers makes a tasty, fruity jam without seeds at all, and it's amazing how much better your day goes when you aren't picking seeds out of your teeth.
11. OPI Nail Polish The Cadillac of nail polishes. Fabulous colours, it goes on beautifully and stays on for days and days.
    

11.

Bad Advice

When you are growing up, people who have already been there, done that, are inclined to dole out advice to give you a heads up about what you are facing. Because most of it comes from hard and bitter experience, I’m inclined to give the doler-outer the benefit of the doubt and accept that the advice is probably good. At lease until proven otherwise. Occasionally, one gets advice that is dubious in both intent and content, and sadly, it’s not until you have a bit of your own hard and bitter experience that you can tell the difference. Among the bad bits I have gotten are:

• 
  Relationships are hard. Actually, no, they are not. BAD relationships are hard. Good relationships, whether it be friends, families or romantic entanglements, hum along quite nicely if the participants are suited to one another and are invested in making the relationship work. There is very little point in working on a bad relationship. Because it is bad.
• 
  Give the client something new every time. Once I got this piece of advice from another, more experienced hairdresser, and, because I am a very slow learner, it took me ages to figure out that this was not really good advice at all. Lots and lots of clients want their hair trimmed; same style only shorter. End of story. When a client asks for a “trim”, give it to them, rather than working yourself and them into a lather trying to work in something new.
• 
  Who needs a second language? I foolishly dropped French in university, because the classes were at 8:30 and there were two labs in a week. How stupid was I? Instead of going to an academic counselor to see if I could change it, I instead asked my friends, who came up with that gem. And I BELIEVED THEM.
• 
  You can sleep when you’re dead. Spending every Christmas for about 6 years flat out on the couch heaving and groaning and wishing I were dead because I was sick as a dog had taught me that when I burn the candle at both ends, I pay dearly for it. I will get sick if I don’t get my sleep, and no amount of wishing it were otherwise will change that.
• 
  Just get 2000 together and we can start investing for your retirement. If I had known then what I know now, I would have started investing teeny-tiny amounts in my retirement and taking advantage of compound interest years ago. Instead, I had a financial genius tell me this bit of advice when I was making minimum wage and still living at home. $2000 may as well have been 2 million dollars for all the spare change I had in my pocket. I wish I had known that I could have started with 10 bucks. Maybe I’d be retired by now.

Dos and Don'ts At the Hair Salon

I've worked in a hair salon for 27 years now, so I'm pretty sure how to behave there. Judging from the number of questions I get about hair salon ettiquette, it's a mysterious and murky subject, fraught with potential faux-pas, and immiment embarrassment. I had no idea. But, I have no clue how to behave at the monster truck rally or at Chinese New Year, so we all have our gaps.
So, as a public service, I offer up the following:

DO:

• Tip the shampoo girl. She doesn't make much, and you will make her day with a two dollar tip. And no, you don't have to tip the owner. In fact, you don't have to tip anyone, it's not a restaurant. (But we really do appreciate it.)
• Come on time. Our number one pet peeve, clients who breeze in 10 minutes late with a Starbucks latte in their hand and have to make a phone call before we start.
• Bring a picture of what you want. It's great to have a starting point in the consultation, even if the starting point is "there is no way in hell I can make any part of you look like Angelina Jolie. Not even your bangs".
• Have an idea of what you want. Saying "I don't know" makes me crazy and you look like a ditzy idiot. Of course you have some idea of what you want; at least you have some idea of what you don't want, don't make me pull it out of you.
• Have a time in mind when you book your appointment. Seems simple, I know, but you wouldn't believe the number of people who call, say they'd like a haircut, and then get all flustered and confused when we ask when they would like it. It's not exactly a surprise question, you know.
• Be discreet. This isn't a big city, and the person in the chair next to you can hear you perfectly well. And that might be your cousin's neighbour who works with your husband who knows who you are, but you don't know who she is. And now she's heard all about the cat hair cookies she supposedly brought to the company Christmas party.
• Eat before you come. I can't cut hair and not get it in your salad, I'm sorry. Physics and all.
• Ask when you book the appointment how long it will be if your time is tight. I don't know how many clients have freaked out because they still have foils in their hair and they have to pick up their kids in 10 minutes. We work on a schedule and it's fairly predictable, all you have to do is ask.
• Change into one of the gowns provided if you are getting colour done (to protect the collar of your shirt) or if you don't want little bits of hair down your back for the rest of the afternoon. Really, that's what they are there for. You can ask to change if it's not offered.
• Complain if there's something you're unhappy about. If we can fix it, believe me, we will. If we can't fix it, we'd certainly like the opportunity to make it right. Our feelings aren't that delicate.

DON'T:

• Lift your head when you are getting shampooed. You're not really helping me as much as you think when you do that. Now, as well as getting all the soap out, I have to make sure I don't shoot water right down your back and get the waistband of your underwear all wet.
• Ask to be squeezed in. There are only so many hours in a day. Mine are full; if I've said I'm booked, that means I don't have any more time available. If I did, I'd say "I can book you in for 2 0'clock. See how that works?
• Tell me about every bad hairstyle you've had since your mother cut your bangs in 4th grade. I don't need to know, it's not a medical history. The only hairstyle of yours that is important to me is the one I'm working on right now. And as for hair colour, I really only want to know about the hair on your head. Seriously.
• Tell me about every lousy hairdresser you've ever had in your entire life. I'm doing my best. And the common denominator in that story is you.
• Cross your legs when you're getting a haircut, particularly a haircut, like a bob, that depends on being very straight across the back. It throws out your posture when you cross your legs at the knees, and makes for some asymmetry that's not always pleasing.
• Ask for a discount. Your discount means a pay cut for me personally, because I get paid on commission. I may not be able to afford that, or want to do that, and you asking me in a very public place puts me in an uncomfortable situation that makes me really, really not want to do you any favors.
• Feel like you have to make conversation. You don't have to be my entertainment committee, you can just relax and enjoy the first opportunity you've probably had in some time to sit in one spot and not say anything.
• Bring your dog to your appointment. I can't believe I have to say that.

Now, I hope your next hair cut will be all the more pleasant. You're welcome.

Things Other Women Do That I Don't Understand

Sometimes I feel very sorry for the Mister; he's surrounded by estrogen. He lives with females, his staff is all female and the majority of his clientele is female. Maybe that's why he wanted to get Toby: one sure-fire dose of testosterone to his day. You'd think the Mister would be a freaking expert on women by now, but sadly, he is quite the opposite. He's learned to never, ever leave the toilet seat up, and he would never ask a woman if she was pregnant unless he was actually seeing a baby come out of her, but other than that, he's as bewildered about our behaviour as he ever was. And not that I blame him, I'm a woman and I find our species to be more than a bit puzzling myself...

• Being afraid of insects. Things flying around my head are annoying, but don't make me shriek and yell and dance around like a lunatic. I'm not sure why they would; they are much smaller than me, and unless a mosquito is carrying Dengue fever or malaria (an unlikely scenario in Southwestern Ontario), unlikely to inflict any serious harm. Why woman react the same way to a caterpillar as an axe-murderer is beyond me.
• Shopping for recreation. I shop to get things. Things I need. I don't shop if I don't need anything. Acquiring more things is not fun for me, let alone relaxing. If I want to relax, I will read a book, not get more shoes I can't afford.
• Men as meal tickets. I like the men in my life, and would hang out with any one of them simply for the pleasure of their company. If they buy me dinner, that's fine; sometimes I would buy them dinner, too. But spending time with someone you don't particularly like or respect because they buy you things doesn't seem like very much fun to me. It seems like prostitution.
• Feigned helplessness Okay, this is the one that puzzles me the most. Why would you pretend to not know how to do something useful, like fill the car with gas or cook a hamburger or change a printer cartridge? Or worse, why wouldn't you ever learn to do any of those things? Why would you want to wait around for someone to come home to do those things for you? What possible payoff is there? I suppose sure, you get someone else to do them, but....you'd have to get someone else to do that for you. Beats me.
• Expensive Handbags The way I see it, a $25 handbag performs exactly the same function as a $2500 handbag. It carries my stuff. It does not do it a thousand times better. What's the point?
• Ask your boyfriend or husband his opinon on your clothes, hair or general appearance. This happens all the time in the salon; a woman is just finishing getting her hair done, her boyfriend/husband comes in to collect her, she asks what he thinks, he says "looks okay, I guess", and she either A) gets pissed off because he didn't respond with the appropriate enthusiasm, or B) panics because she thinks he doesn't like it. News flash: he doesn't notice that it looks any different whatsoever. If you had shaved half of it off and lit the other half on fire, he's say "looks okay, I guess". That's because he doesn't care. If you are happy he's happy, but honestly, he really doesn't care. Don't bother asking any more, you will NEVER like the answer.
  

May 2-4

Yesterday was Victoria Day, which is the first long weekend of the summer around here. It is usually marked by distinctly unsummer weather, but this year was a pleasant exception in that the rain did not come down horizontally and the temperatures stayed up in the double digits for most of the weekend, and it was sunny, sunny, sunny.

We put out all the breezeway furniture and got some plants in the ground and I washed some windows and cleaned up around the yard. It was nice to get moving and feel like summer is almost here.

After dinner, all four of us went to the driving range. Surprisingly, we all love going to the driving range. I say surprisingly, because only one of us actually knows how to golf. Who knew the driving range would be the one family activity that ends with everyone smiling and still talking to each other?

The Mister, of course, is very good at the driving range. The Mister is pretty good at most sports, possessing a modicum of physical co-ordination that eludes me entirely. He regularly astonishes me by catching things tossed to him, descending stairs in an orderly fashion and landing upright on both his feet at the bottom of them, things I cannot do at all.

Thing 2 is very good at the driving range, too. Both her grandfathers are avid golfers and she seems to have inherited all the athletic DNA from both sides of her family. The first time she picked up a golf club she asked what she was supposed to do and she just….did it. And when she hits the ball, which she does every time, it goes. Far. In a straight line. I am in awe.

Thing 1 and I are cut from the same cloth, meaning that what we lack in talent we make up for in enthusiasm. We hit the ball more often than not, but where the ball will go is anybody’s guess. At one point last night, I saw a ball dribble past me at the speed of grass growing, and looked behind me to see Thing 1 doubled over with laughter at her efforts….I said I didn’t even know how you make a ball go that slowly, let alone at a 90°angle to where you meant it to go. I managed to hit the ball more often than not (Yay! A new personal best!), and have decided that an entire game of golf might be beyond me just yet. (Can you imagine? It would take me days to complete a round.) She also managed to go through six tees in a half an hour, which, if you don’t know? Is a lot of tees. I was beginning the think she wasn’t hitting golf balls at all, she was just swinging away at the tees.

Thing 1 and I giggled and laughed our way through our bucket of balls, and Thing 2 and the Mister actually hit their bucket of balls, and everyone got what they wanted out of it. Bring on the summer.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up.

At the dinner table this evening, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were pondering the wonder that is peanut butter. (I know, but it's what passes for conversation in our house.)

Thing 1 said she didn't know what she'd do without peanut butter; it has practically been her only source of protein since the day she started solids. (I've read recently that you shouldn't start babies on peanut butter until they are 3 or so, to avoid possibly triggering a peanut allergy. I can tell you straight up that Thing 1 would never have made it to the age of 3 if she hadn't eaten peanut butter. It was, quite literally, one of the four things she would eat at all between the ages of 18 months and 3 years, the others being: crackers, toast and french fries. I nearly went insane.)

Thing 2 said that she wouldn't mind being allergic to peanuts, since she didn't like peanut butter. (Because, you know, that is the ONLY thing that contains peanuts in the entire world.) She said that peanut butter was "too dry" for her.
Thing 1 noted that her sister often complained that things were "too dry" for her, "for example, peanut butter, chocolate.....my humor...."

Well, it made me laugh.

In A Nutshell

Our receptionist at work, Barb, was shopping at Winner's last night when she noticed a couple of kids who caught her attention.
Clearly brothers, the youngest, about 7, was marching up the aisle with a boxed toy in his steely grip and a look of determination on his face. His older brother, about 12 years old, was skedaddelling up behind him, saying "she's not going to buy that for you, you know, mom's not going to get that, you should put that back, she's not going to get it" in a snotty, older brother kind of tone.
Wherein the younger brother stopped, turned around most purposefully and firmly said to his brother: "Why don't you just f*** off". And then continued on his merry way.

And that is probably their entire relationship, for the rest of their lives, right there.

We Won't Be Invited To the PETA Convention This Year

The salon is in an old building in an older part of town. Old buildings have mice; it's just the way it is, I know that. But when I was doing one of the staff's hair this afternoon, even I was somewhat startled when we saw a mouse run across the doorway and behind the water bottle we use as a doorstop. (When the mouse was behind the water bottle, it was magnified to about 40x it's size. It was most disconcerting, let me tell you.)

Now, I've seen plenty of mice before, and they don't scare me or freak me out. (Not like maggots or earwigs. Now those I freaking hate.) We haven't had mice in this house since Toby came along, and I'm happy to not have to deal with them.

The two other occupants of the colour room had other ideas, however, as they proceeded to shriek and scream and jump up on chairs. Not me, though, I gave them both a withering stare and chided them for their hysterics and went to go capture the mouse. When it came running right at me!! No one was more surprised than me to hear the spine-tingling screech that I conjured up....it was blood curdling.

Anyway, Barb, the Fiercest Receptionist In All the Land, who is a champion of animals everywhere, and myself, who managed to compose herself after her unseemly display, chased that thing all over the salon in an attempt to catch it and take it outside. We were quite a sight, jumping around and down on all fours and giving the occasional yelp of surprise when it charged at one of us. Thank God there were no clients at the time. (Summer said "imagine if someone came in right now", just as Barb and myself were crammed into the closet with just our bums poking out.)

Finally, after about 10 minutes of this, Barb cornered it and I managed to slip an empty tupperware container over it, and she was able to carefully bring it outside, where she let it go beside the gate leading to our back alley. ("All the easier to find it's way back to our basement", I said.) She tried to coax it into the alley, but the dumb thing ran straight out into traffic and got run over by a truck.
Seriously. It was tragic.

So next time we see a mouse in the salon, we plan to catch it, train it to do shampoos, and never let it go outside.

In Praise of Rhubarb

I'm very happy these days because spring has really and truly arrived. Spring, in case you didn't know, is a very tempermental and moody season here in southwestern Ontario....we tend to get a half-hearted winter for a few weeks, and then, boom, it's summer. Not much of a spring at all, usually.
One of the reasons I adore the spring is rhubarb. And it is, indeed, rhubarb season here.
My family do not appreciate the delights of rhubarb at all, witnessed by the fact that Thing 1 plugs her nose and staggers around the kitchen, crazed with repulsion by the very smell whenever I cook it. Thing 2 and the Mister just look at me with a sort of bewildered distaste whenever I eat it. They just don't get it. ("But it's a vegetable! We grow it in the vegetable garden! How can you eat it with whipped cream?!?")

Rhubarb has a reputation of being "grandma" food, like canned fruit cocktail, or turnip. Or aspic. The words "stewed rhubarb" have nothing hip or funky or elegant about them. "Stewed rhubarb" is the orthopedic shoe of the culinary world. Which is a pity, because it's awesome. (For stewed rhubarb, you cut up the rhubarb, put it in a pot, dump a whack of sugar on top and let it cook down over medium heat until it is all unrecognizable. Done.)

I suppose part of that reputation is because it was very popular during the war; it was one of the few fruits my parents ever got when they were growing up in Ireland, simply because it grew there. I'm not sure what they did about the sugar, though, because the only thing about rhubarb is that you have to cook it and you have to add sugar, near-lethal amounts of sugar. Like, almost equal parts, because, man, is rhubarb sour. (When I was a kid we used to eat it raw, dipped in sugar, and it was so mouth-puckeringly sour that I recall actually getting cramps in our cheeks from it. ) Once my mother made a rhubarb pie and forgot to add the sugar before she put it in the oven, and OH. MY. GOD. was it sour.....one bite and all the moisture left your head. And it was no help to add the sugar afterwards, that just made it every bit as sour, but teeth-rattling sweet as well. Good times. Anyway, I've made some beautiful rhubarb pies, and rhubarb cheesecakes and a stellar rhubarb ice-cream that was the stuff of legend.

Tonight I made some stewed rhubarb that I served with strawberries over angel food cake, and tomorrow morning I will have the rest of that stewed rhubarb for breakfast with some custard and and I won't have to share with anyone. All is right with the world.

Amazing Race 14, Ep. 10

Yay for Tammy and Victor....they ran a good race all along, and it was a well deserved win. Mostly I'm happy Jaime didn't win.

I'm glad each team's results was directly because of their strengths and weaknesses, not just because of a good or bad taxi driver. Luke was doing well until Victor showed up, and then he started to psych himself out and succumbed to his paralysing frustration. (Band name!) Just as he has done before. And Jaime was doing okay, albeit she started way behind the other two, and although she got down to business and got to work, she spent a lot of energy freaking out and shouting. (At least she helped Luke, after Victor and Tammy left.) And Victor got out of there first because he's smart and he worked hard.

I wish those Hawaiian locals had been more drunk.

Who knew a pig would be so difficult to manage? I mean, a real pig, not a metaphorical one, or a chauvanist one or even a live one. I thought Jaime's head might actually burst into flames right there on that beach. Which would have made for a spectacular luau.

Also, I noticed she doesn't do very well with cab drivers who actually do speak English, either. Thing 1 and I both remarked on her urging the cab driver with the bait of "we're in a race for a million dollars"....unless he's in line to get some of that cash, I doubt he cares one way or the other whether you win or not.

Thank you Anonymous Hawaiian Taxi Dispatcher. You have avenged hapless taxi drivers from all over the world.

Yes, yes, I get it. Deaf people can do anything. Now, please stop convincing me, I'm getting tired of it.

Favorite Line of the Night: "I have no pants". And also, "When did we see JESUS?!?"

Did you notice that the fake-out surf boards had symbols from past seasons? Irish donkeys! Clowns! Giant Kiwifruit! I really wish I could find out what event Luke thought that Grateful Dead psycadelic skull represented.

Apparently, there will be another Amazing Race in the fall! Until then!

My Hero

The salon where I work is on a busy, main street. It gets plenty of car and foot traffic, and is a main artery through the city. If I was going to commit a criminal act, that street is not where I'd do it. But someone thought otherwise yesterday.

We have a small area outside the shop where we set up a table and chairs when the weather is nice. We keep some of the salon's newsletters on the table for passers-by, and they are weighed down by a small vase with some fake flowers in it. (The newsletters, not the passers-by.)
The Mister happened to be looking out the front window yesterday, when he saw a young woman stop, look at the newsletters and pick up the vase and the flowers to take one. Or so he thought. No, she just picked up the vase and the flowers and kept going.

He took off after her, and caught up with her a few steps away, saying to her "Excuse me, before you put that in your backpack, do you mind giving it back???" Whereupon, she ran. And so did he.

They didn't get very far, and he managed to grab her backpack while yelling "give it back", and she was yelling at him to let go. He said she was acting like he was trying to get at something of hers. He did mention that, all the while, he was conscious of the fact that he, a middle-aged man, was having a fierce and public tussle with a young woman; this had the potential to not look so good to anyone else.

She was wearing some fancy looking sunglasses (WHICH I BET SHE STOLE FROM SOMEONE ELSE) and it occurred to him to pluck those off her face and say "hah!", but figured that could spiral out of control really fast.

Anyway, she finally could see that he wasn't going to give up, and she threw the vase on the ground smashing it, and said "there!", like she had just scored some sort of moral victory. Our receptionist, the Fiercest Administrative Assistant In All The Land", managed to round the corner right as she smashed the vase, and loudly called her a very, very bad name. Which didn't do much except make everyone who heard her laugh out loud.

So, the Mister and the receptionist went back to the salon to explain their hasty departure to all and sundry.

That's my husband: mild-mannered hairdresser by day, brave crime-fighter by, um, later in the day.

Dressed For Success.

As I mentioned last week, blogging does have it's up side. My good friend Carolyn generously donated a set of hip waders AND chest waders to me because she saw on my blog that I was going fishing in Quebec at the end of the month. (I suspect that Carolyn really didn't want the waders hanging around her garage any longer. Her husband is a fisher, and from the looks of things, Carolyn has stored about as much fishing gear as she can stand.)

So this weekend, I went to pick them up, and here is the result:

Fetching, no? I love them. Hide belly bulge? Check. Entirely waterproof? Check. No cutting waistband or itchy lace? Check. One piece that requires no accesorizing, including shoes?? Check. Embarrasses the snot out of my children? Check and double check. What's not to love. I wish I could wear them all the live long day.

Amazing Race 14, Ep. 10

An appearance by Jerome the Gnome!! It was like seeing an old friend again! I liked how Jerome had to wear a headpiece in the Opera House.

As someone with the tiniest bladder in the history of human anatomy, I can totally sympathize with Jen's desperation to get to a toilet. In that state, it's all you can think about, million dollars be damned. But four bottles of water? Damn, no bladder can sustain that enslaught, I don't care who you are.
It did seem to me that Killer Fatigue had gotten to Jen in the last episode, and she had checked out of the race already.....remember, this was right after her meltdown at the pool. You could see when they found out they were U-Turned her whole body language said "Screw this".

I was laughing out loud at the translations of the sister's Mandarin at the restaurant. I could have watched "good western head lacks fish" all night.

I also laughed at the Redhead's cab driver when they launched the gnome over the seat at him to show him the bottom and the directions. I don't know how to say "What the hell is that!?!" in Chinese, but I sure know how it looks.

Jaime continues to give the entire nation of China a reason to hate her. (And having a billion people hate you is nothing to sneeze at.) When she snotted "see, this is why I didn't want to go to China. It sucks" I hoped we'd see some of the Chinese government's famed human rights violations whirl into practice right there and then.

Have you noticed that Jaime never blames herself for their performance? They spent 3 hours (!) looking for that clue box and it was right in the Opera House, and yet she never said "how could I be so stupid", she blamed Cara. And of course, the cab drivers. Always the cab drivers. Do you think maybe her shreiking and yelling had anything to do with nobody helping them? No. Couldn't be that.

Cara I am starting to really love. Unfortunately, Cara winning would mean Jaime winning, and that would be no good at all. I think Cara has finally had enough of her partner, witnessed by the WTF look she gave the camera when Jaime was giving out about her. And she rocked that roadblock...I read that she was the fasted racer there, taking only seven minutes. (Jen apparently took 30.)

Favorite Line of the Night: from Margie...."He made me look like Alice Cooper".

Until next week!