at least this year i am ahead of the game and may actually have purchased my husband's birthday present BEFORE his birthday actually gets here. go me!
before you think i'm some wicked wife, to my defense, i was hospitalized last year for the week before his birthday and by the time they released me, i really wasn't in the mood to go shopping.
this year will be different although i am determined to buy mam's birthday present at costco again. instead of ordering online a really cool hammock like last year that got to see more of the united states than i could ever dream on its delivery to casa mc-clotsky before it managed to get lost in transit, i plan to purchase his gift in the store.
just as soon as the item comes back in stock.
see i could tell you what the item is, but then i'd have to kill you. after i finally tracked down a live, honest-to-goodness costco employee that wasn't either carding at the door like a bouncer or stuck behind a huge line as a cashier (try it, i bet you go as crazy as i did trying to find one) and drug him back to the display, he merely shrugged his shoulders and told me i was outta luck.
"sorry, lady. we don't have anymore in stock of those. i could sell you the display but if you want a box, you'll have to wait until tomorrow." as i contemplate the number of scratches on the display and whether it would bug the shit out of me over time because i didn't want to wait until morning, he added, "or i can just write you a raincheck."
nope. a raincheck just will not cut it this year. last year's blood clot gave me a reprieve on punctuality, i have no such excuse this year. (nor do i want one, fcuk you very much.)
"how many are you expecting in?" i ask, trying to gage if i need to make the return trip on saturday or if it can wait until sunday while i mentally rearrange my schedule in my head.
when he says "24", i begin to relax. i have plenty of time until he continues, "but you're the 20th person to ask me that today." damn.
knowing that they open the store at ten, i'm afraid i'll be camping out tomorrow morning, like it's tickets for some sort of super-fantastic-rock-legend-straight-out-of-hell-one-night-only concert. normally, i'm too lazy to be that cheap but it's a whole lotta smackers i'd save by getting at the warehouse of holiness, costco.
seriously, i'll be at the store at 9:30 to stake my claim on one of the 24 "things" due in stock tonight. if you catch the news tomorrow night and see a story about a suburban-assault-vehicle running through a crowd in a parking lot, you can safely bet i was gonna be number 25 in line.
and a random thought for a day...
what marketing genius decided to come out with strawberry-flavored blunts?
i couldn't believe my eyes at wawa while i waited for helga (my nickname for the old, gruff lady who works behind the counter) to take her good old time ringing up the people in from of me.
the pink carton stared out at me while all i could think about was how did this affect the marijuana most people use the friggin' blunts for in the first place? is the strawberry-flavor in the cigar wrapper or in the tobacco?
are the gangs hip to the new pink packaging? it doesn't exactly scream tough urban thug if some g-boy were to pull out a pink box before rolling a fattie joint.
is this the new gay version of blunts? something to entice the gangstas on the down-lo? a new replacement for the ol' friend of dorothy to signal that someone was homosexual?
as i got back into my car and drove away, i shook my head and thought what's next -- blueberry?
Showing posts with label martha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label martha. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2007
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
goldfinch
Goldfinch - Awakening to the natural spirits, summer solstice and season
a few posts and many weeks ago, i wrote about the strange little highlighter bird who came knocking at my kitchen window.
well, he's still here. and now he's brought a bunch of friends with him.
after about three weeks of him knocking on the window, i had resolved that on my next trip to petsmart, i would pick up a cage and bring him inside. with that much determination, the poor little bird needed some reward for his efforts. but after doing a little research on what to feed him, i realized he was not an indoor bird when i recognized his mugshot online. my little friend was a goldfinch and probably not used to having his wings clipped by living in a 24" cage.
so my next trip to petsmart involved wandering into unfamiliar territory - the bird aisle to look for seed and a feeder. the trip was supposed to only involve dropping the monkeys off for their late spring / early summer bath with the saintly groomers at petsmart.
how do i know they are candidates for sainthood? first, they bathe chloe, the only golden retriever on the planet to abhor water.
second, they manage to get her back into the bathing area without choking her. i watch through the large plate glass window as they gently pull ms. gandhi who has now gone utterly limp, legs splayed out like a giant dust mop towards the same swinging doors that sadie happily tromped through only a few minutes before.
without a doubt, chloe made a friend with another groomer along the way into the back and manages to not only ensnare the second groomer's legs with her leash, she also attempts to hop up on that groomer's table to get away. all of which shocked the shit out of the poor little bichon already on the table, who since he was already tethered to the table could only assume that naturally since he had nowhere else to go, that he claimed dominion over that 2 foot by 2 foot space. the poor guy had half of a haircut before an 75 lb golden retriever tried to make him a pancake by jumping on him. the fact that she landed on another dog did not faze chloe in the least bit.
meanwhile i stood there with my hand over my mouth watching this comedy of errors take place. like a mama watching her child go off to school for the first time -- i laughed at little, i wanted to cry a little, too. all as i sensed her fear and mental pain she would endure of her upcoming bath, until finally mam leans over and tells me, "c'mon, she'll be fine, let's go get the birdseed and get out of here.
so with forty dollars worth of birdseed under my arms, we head back to casa mc-clotsky to install the new feeder under the tree outside my kitchen window where finchy appears. (what you don't name your goldfinches who visit?)
mam managed to install the feeder with relative ease and which minimal advice offered from me as to location, location, location for which branch it should be hung on. while i was warming to the idea of having an outside bird as a pet, i grew cold at the idea of having bird poop on my car parked nearby.
so finchy and i made a deal -- i promised to supply food, he promised to not poop on my car. all of which worked swimmingly, he kept his promise and i kept mine.
except i failed to make similiar deals with the rest of the birds who hit the roadside diner outside my window.
we went through two large bags of seeds before the bombs started. first they started small and relatively unnoticeable. then they began drop them in clusters around my sparse garden, everywhere but my car. and as the pack of finches, robins, and woodpeckers began to show in droves, they also acted more and more like frat boys -- complete with all their cleaning habits as well.
but you think after all the hassles i put myself through that finchy would be happy. not only have a i provided food for him, i feel like a pimp with all of the female finchies who have stopped by the feeder. i'm not sure but finchy may have even gotten lucky if the little nest nestled high in the tree actually has baby finches in it.
so why would finchy continue to knock on the friggin' window?
it's not just the kitchen window anymore. he knocks on the window of whatever room i happen to be in. at first, i believed it was a coincidence that he knocked on the kitchen window when i was in there. when he began knocking on the windows in the family room, i thought he merely needed a break from the rest of the crazy females hanging out at the feeder.
but when the little sucker began knocking on my bedroom window as i was putting away laundry the other day, i figured enough is enough. it's bad enough i am now talking to the birdies like the crazy neighbor, "don't get too close to my car" and "keep it down out there".
figuring there must be some reason why the cosmos is stalking me with a 3 ounce bird, i checked "the google" for an answer for what symbolism lies behind finches flying into your windows like something out of a hitchcock film.
the result? goldfinches symbol an awakening to the natural spirits, summer solstice and season. the freakiest connect? the little brown finches who've been pooping all over my garden symbolism multiplicity. after the chills stopped running down my spine, i thought to myself am i doubly lucky if this bird who is reminding me to post to my blog also poops on me on my way out the door?
in anyway, i tell you what, if i find a yellow highlighter outside the bathroom window, i will know my life has really gone to the birds.
a few posts and many weeks ago, i wrote about the strange little highlighter bird who came knocking at my kitchen window.
well, he's still here. and now he's brought a bunch of friends with him.
after about three weeks of him knocking on the window, i had resolved that on my next trip to petsmart, i would pick up a cage and bring him inside. with that much determination, the poor little bird needed some reward for his efforts. but after doing a little research on what to feed him, i realized he was not an indoor bird when i recognized his mugshot online. my little friend was a goldfinch and probably not used to having his wings clipped by living in a 24" cage.
so my next trip to petsmart involved wandering into unfamiliar territory - the bird aisle to look for seed and a feeder. the trip was supposed to only involve dropping the monkeys off for their late spring / early summer bath with the saintly groomers at petsmart.
how do i know they are candidates for sainthood? first, they bathe chloe, the only golden retriever on the planet to abhor water.
second, they manage to get her back into the bathing area without choking her. i watch through the large plate glass window as they gently pull ms. gandhi who has now gone utterly limp, legs splayed out like a giant dust mop towards the same swinging doors that sadie happily tromped through only a few minutes before.
without a doubt, chloe made a friend with another groomer along the way into the back and manages to not only ensnare the second groomer's legs with her leash, she also attempts to hop up on that groomer's table to get away. all of which shocked the shit out of the poor little bichon already on the table, who since he was already tethered to the table could only assume that naturally since he had nowhere else to go, that he claimed dominion over that 2 foot by 2 foot space. the poor guy had half of a haircut before an 75 lb golden retriever tried to make him a pancake by jumping on him. the fact that she landed on another dog did not faze chloe in the least bit.
meanwhile i stood there with my hand over my mouth watching this comedy of errors take place. like a mama watching her child go off to school for the first time -- i laughed at little, i wanted to cry a little, too. all as i sensed her fear and mental pain she would endure of her upcoming bath, until finally mam leans over and tells me, "c'mon, she'll be fine, let's go get the birdseed and get out of here.
so with forty dollars worth of birdseed under my arms, we head back to casa mc-clotsky to install the new feeder under the tree outside my kitchen window where finchy appears. (what you don't name your goldfinches who visit?)
mam managed to install the feeder with relative ease and which minimal advice offered from me as to location, location, location for which branch it should be hung on. while i was warming to the idea of having an outside bird as a pet, i grew cold at the idea of having bird poop on my car parked nearby.
so finchy and i made a deal -- i promised to supply food, he promised to not poop on my car. all of which worked swimmingly, he kept his promise and i kept mine.
except i failed to make similiar deals with the rest of the birds who hit the roadside diner outside my window.
we went through two large bags of seeds before the bombs started. first they started small and relatively unnoticeable. then they began drop them in clusters around my sparse garden, everywhere but my car. and as the pack of finches, robins, and woodpeckers began to show in droves, they also acted more and more like frat boys -- complete with all their cleaning habits as well.
but you think after all the hassles i put myself through that finchy would be happy. not only have a i provided food for him, i feel like a pimp with all of the female finchies who have stopped by the feeder. i'm not sure but finchy may have even gotten lucky if the little nest nestled high in the tree actually has baby finches in it.
so why would finchy continue to knock on the friggin' window?
it's not just the kitchen window anymore. he knocks on the window of whatever room i happen to be in. at first, i believed it was a coincidence that he knocked on the kitchen window when i was in there. when he began knocking on the windows in the family room, i thought he merely needed a break from the rest of the crazy females hanging out at the feeder.
but when the little sucker began knocking on my bedroom window as i was putting away laundry the other day, i figured enough is enough. it's bad enough i am now talking to the birdies like the crazy neighbor, "don't get too close to my car" and "keep it down out there".
figuring there must be some reason why the cosmos is stalking me with a 3 ounce bird, i checked "the google" for an answer for what symbolism lies behind finches flying into your windows like something out of a hitchcock film.
the result? goldfinches symbol an awakening to the natural spirits, summer solstice and season. the freakiest connect? the little brown finches who've been pooping all over my garden symbolism multiplicity. after the chills stopped running down my spine, i thought to myself am i doubly lucky if this bird who is reminding me to post to my blog also poops on me on my way out the door?
in anyway, i tell you what, if i find a yellow highlighter outside the bathroom window, i will know my life has really gone to the birds.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
call me doolittle
okay, one would think after my last post containing photos of my devil dogs looking all pretty in pink that the animal kingdom would stay clear of me these days. after all, their eyes said yes, as their lips said "you'd give me cookies if you loved me" as i snapped their pictures that evening in my kitchen. i can be one mean muthafcuker.
do they believe me? nope.
seems like my home is the friggin' promised land for all creatures great and small. neighborhood dogs find their way to my door when they escape the clutches of their guardians grasp, knocking, breathlessly, "hey lady, is this chloe and sadie's house? i hear you have good cookies. lemme in, will ya?"
in the wintertime, we have tiny mice and the snakes that love to hunt them move into my basement.
now, it seems a little bird with a highlighter yellow body is convinced he should reside at our house as well. how do i know this? because the little fcuker keeps hurling his little day-glo body at my kitchen window. the first time i heard the clicking, i didn't think much of it. i was doing laundry after all, a time when all machinery on high begins to clink and wheeze and whirrrl throughout the house -- what's one more chink-chink really?
this time though, he's going to get hurt. seriously, having watched the movie the omen last week late at night (two thoughts on this: 1) never watch a scary movie of that magnitude late at night by yourself, and 2) why is it always rottweilers who are portrayed as the hounds of hell? when the devil seed need to be protected, who popped up -- rotties, looking all mean and vicious, too! do they ever show one in his or her true element -- curled up in ball, soundly asleep with one of their squeaky toys and her golden retriever sister? maybe passing a little gas for good measure? noooo...)... where was i?
anyway, the little bird hurling himself at the window reminded me of the scene where the monkeys and gorillas freak the fcuk out when damien goes to the zoo. i mean, these monkeys weren't having none of him in their house, that's for damn sure.
so after watching this bird hurl himself at the glass repeatedly, i began to look around the room. is there any sign of the pending apocalypse happening in my kitchen?
i wasn't cooking, so we could scratch that one of the list. as if my first ever successfully cooked meal could inspire the four horsemen to dinner, that would be my friggin' luck.
oh, wait? i am not pregnant, am i? because aside from sucking big hairy donkey balls, that surely would be the sign of the second coming. the alien creature would be checked for 6-6-6 on every part of its body before slain at the very unholy altar of martha stewart living in supreme and utter sacrifice for all of man- and womankind. puppy-kind, too.
good thing i lost that tampon last week to remind me, no, i will not bear the spawn of satan. or mam, for that matter.
nope, this little bird just wanted inside. just call me doolittle, and be sure leave your doo-doo outside the door, please.
do they believe me? nope.
seems like my home is the friggin' promised land for all creatures great and small. neighborhood dogs find their way to my door when they escape the clutches of their guardians grasp, knocking, breathlessly, "hey lady, is this chloe and sadie's house? i hear you have good cookies. lemme in, will ya?"
in the wintertime, we have tiny mice and the snakes that love to hunt them move into my basement.
now, it seems a little bird with a highlighter yellow body is convinced he should reside at our house as well. how do i know this? because the little fcuker keeps hurling his little day-glo body at my kitchen window. the first time i heard the clicking, i didn't think much of it. i was doing laundry after all, a time when all machinery on high begins to clink and wheeze and whirrrl throughout the house -- what's one more chink-chink really?
this time though, he's going to get hurt. seriously, having watched the movie the omen last week late at night (two thoughts on this: 1) never watch a scary movie of that magnitude late at night by yourself, and 2) why is it always rottweilers who are portrayed as the hounds of hell? when the devil seed need to be protected, who popped up -- rotties, looking all mean and vicious, too! do they ever show one in his or her true element -- curled up in ball, soundly asleep with one of their squeaky toys and her golden retriever sister? maybe passing a little gas for good measure? noooo...)... where was i?
anyway, the little bird hurling himself at the window reminded me of the scene where the monkeys and gorillas freak the fcuk out when damien goes to the zoo. i mean, these monkeys weren't having none of him in their house, that's for damn sure.
so after watching this bird hurl himself at the glass repeatedly, i began to look around the room. is there any sign of the pending apocalypse happening in my kitchen?
i wasn't cooking, so we could scratch that one of the list. as if my first ever successfully cooked meal could inspire the four horsemen to dinner, that would be my friggin' luck.
oh, wait? i am not pregnant, am i? because aside from sucking big hairy donkey balls, that surely would be the sign of the second coming. the alien creature would be checked for 6-6-6 on every part of its body before slain at the very unholy altar of martha stewart living in supreme and utter sacrifice for all of man- and womankind. puppy-kind, too.
good thing i lost that tampon last week to remind me, no, i will not bear the spawn of satan. or mam, for that matter.
nope, this little bird just wanted inside. just call me doolittle, and be sure leave your doo-doo outside the door, please.
Monday, May 28, 2007
because i can
normally, i scoff at people who dress their dogs in little outfits. these same folks are usually the ones carrying their little dogs around with them in $1100 specialty purses. (do you think those little dogs leave little "presents" for mommy in those purses? just a thought...)
anyway, when i was cleaning out my closet a few weeks ago, i came across an old navy sweater that met its fate with the washing machine and died a horrible shrinking death. (this shrinking death is nothing like the horrible shrinking death my "fat clothes" have undergone recently -- that is merely one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe. or a big fat clue my big fat ass needs to go back on a diet in a big fat way. but i digress.)
so what better way to say goodbye to a old friend but to drape it around the shoulders of my two favorite girls in the universe -- buffy and muffy. otherwise, known as the devil dogs, chloe and sadie.
all they need is pearls to make jen lancaster proud.
anyway, when i was cleaning out my closet a few weeks ago, i came across an old navy sweater that met its fate with the washing machine and died a horrible shrinking death. (this shrinking death is nothing like the horrible shrinking death my "fat clothes" have undergone recently -- that is merely one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe. or a big fat clue my big fat ass needs to go back on a diet in a big fat way. but i digress.)
so what better way to say goodbye to a old friend but to drape it around the shoulders of my two favorite girls in the universe -- buffy and muffy. otherwise, known as the devil dogs, chloe and sadie.
all they need is pearls to make jen lancaster proud.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
killing season
the killing season is upon us. while work may be driving me crazy, it's not coworkers that i keep in my sights.
nope, it's time to play in the garden.
now that mam and i have stopped building that ark in our garage to ride out the recent rain (read: super storms that so muddied our yard i wasn't sure if i had dogs or pot-bellied pigs).
and now that the rain is gone, i can see clearly that my garden is gone, too.
all the fcuking money, time and effort i put out last year, hasn't come back. oh, two bleeding hearts did come back this year but they look like someone just stuck two stalks of celery into the mud. (there are no flowers on the celery stalks.) the creeping purple phlox which did survive last winter and are now becoming little mounds of dreadlocks with green highlights woven in.
mam tried to comfort me that mother nature isn't ready make her big showy display yet. it's too early in the season. when i pointed out our neighbors have azaleas in full bloom and ours still are a russian winter, he told me our time to bloom will come soon, too.
last weekend, i created a reason to go to lowe's, just in part i think so i could walk the outdoor flower-y section. (note: lowe's does not carry laundry detergent in its aisles.) i gingerly touched each green stem. i pulled back the label to read -- actually read the friggin' label -- to see if it would be a good fit in our patches of super-sunny and super-shady, desert dry, mudpit.
but it's no use. i put it in my earth and watch my garden not grow. i covet my neighbor's green thumb. each weekend he's out plucking out weeds more frequently than some people tweeze their eyebrows. when he's not playing the drums, he's out there digging a hole and planting a new tree or bush.
and i'm jealous.
any five-year-old with a beach bucket and a shovel can dig a hole in the sand and plant daddy's car keys hoping to grow a new car. however, i stand lesser chances of getting a mercedes to grow in my front yard than the kid does.
but still a girl can dream. and in the meantime, i will plot and scheme, dig and dream my way to a less ghetto fabulous landscape. and manage to wipe out an entire colony of plants while i do it.
nope, it's time to play in the garden.
now that mam and i have stopped building that ark in our garage to ride out the recent rain (read: super storms that so muddied our yard i wasn't sure if i had dogs or pot-bellied pigs).
and now that the rain is gone, i can see clearly that my garden is gone, too.
all the fcuking money, time and effort i put out last year, hasn't come back. oh, two bleeding hearts did come back this year but they look like someone just stuck two stalks of celery into the mud. (there are no flowers on the celery stalks.) the creeping purple phlox which did survive last winter and are now becoming little mounds of dreadlocks with green highlights woven in.
mam tried to comfort me that mother nature isn't ready make her big showy display yet. it's too early in the season. when i pointed out our neighbors have azaleas in full bloom and ours still are a russian winter, he told me our time to bloom will come soon, too.
last weekend, i created a reason to go to lowe's, just in part i think so i could walk the outdoor flower-y section. (note: lowe's does not carry laundry detergent in its aisles.) i gingerly touched each green stem. i pulled back the label to read -- actually read the friggin' label -- to see if it would be a good fit in our patches of super-sunny and super-shady, desert dry, mudpit.
but it's no use. i put it in my earth and watch my garden not grow. i covet my neighbor's green thumb. each weekend he's out plucking out weeds more frequently than some people tweeze their eyebrows. when he's not playing the drums, he's out there digging a hole and planting a new tree or bush.
and i'm jealous.
any five-year-old with a beach bucket and a shovel can dig a hole in the sand and plant daddy's car keys hoping to grow a new car. however, i stand lesser chances of getting a mercedes to grow in my front yard than the kid does.
but still a girl can dream. and in the meantime, i will plot and scheme, dig and dream my way to a less ghetto fabulous landscape. and manage to wipe out an entire colony of plants while i do it.
Monday, April 23, 2007
bright lights, big ass
very psyched to hear jen lancaster read from her new book (see title of this post) coming out in exactly 8 days. very sad to hear she's ditching philly for nyc right after her reading so no time to take her out to vintage for a glass of wine. nyc is the "marsha, marsha, marsha" to philly's middle-sister jan self-esteem. way to pick at that scab, jen.
here's the details straight from jennyslvania:
"June 6 – Reading/signing at the Walnut Street Barnes & Noble in Philadelphia at 7:30 PM. Going straight to NY afterwards, so no drinks and I'm sorry."
still trying to talk alicia and alaina into sporting pink and green outfits or pearls that day. damn! i think i finally found a use for those mint green pearls i regifted at renee's holiday party.
anyone else want to join us (alicia and alaina and i) for wine before the reading? who are we kidding, like we need an excuse to drink?
here's the details straight from jennyslvania:
"June 6 – Reading/signing at the Walnut Street Barnes & Noble in Philadelphia at 7:30 PM. Going straight to NY afterwards, so no drinks and I'm sorry."
still trying to talk alicia and alaina into sporting pink and green outfits or pearls that day. damn! i think i finally found a use for those mint green pearls i regifted at renee's holiday party.
anyone else want to join us (alicia and alaina and i) for wine before the reading? who are we kidding, like we need an excuse to drink?
Monday, April 02, 2007
ironic chef
the recent rash of dog food recalls has me a bit panicked. how can i know what i am feeding my dogs is healthy and won't kill them? how can i distinguish chloe's pickiness with refusing to eat spoiled or rotten food? if my job is to protect the furkids, how can i do my duty if i feed them stuff made of plastic?
all of the doggy newslists i belong to, there have been people advocating a raw diet for dogs. not "raw" as in uncooked, but raw as in all natural origins and ingredients, not something that has been extruded (whatever the hell that means) into formulaic pellet-like shapes.
these are also women who can cook. my doggies are not so lucky to have a momma who can wield a spatula with ease. the great irony is they actually do eat what i cook for them unlike some 2-legged animals who are fearful of what i produce for them.
the puppies, on the other hand, are enthralled any time i am at the stove for them. normally, they get ground beef, cooked eggs, vanilla yogurt, cheese, chicken, pasta, or rice as a topping on their dry dog food. each time i top their bowls with one of these very lovely treats, they look at me adoringly.
as a strict vegetarian, i haven't eaten any meat, chicken or fish in more than 13 years, yet for the furkids, i'll cook ground beef and pull apart precooked chicken to feed them. mam complains that i'll cook for the dogs but not for him.
i'm quick to reply, "do you really want me to cook for you?" if he looked at me like how the dogs do, maybe i would try to cook for him. yeah, no. i still wouldn't do it.
all of the doggy newslists i belong to, there have been people advocating a raw diet for dogs. not "raw" as in uncooked, but raw as in all natural origins and ingredients, not something that has been extruded (whatever the hell that means) into formulaic pellet-like shapes.
these are also women who can cook. my doggies are not so lucky to have a momma who can wield a spatula with ease. the great irony is they actually do eat what i cook for them unlike some 2-legged animals who are fearful of what i produce for them.
the puppies, on the other hand, are enthralled any time i am at the stove for them. normally, they get ground beef, cooked eggs, vanilla yogurt, cheese, chicken, pasta, or rice as a topping on their dry dog food. each time i top their bowls with one of these very lovely treats, they look at me adoringly.
as a strict vegetarian, i haven't eaten any meat, chicken or fish in more than 13 years, yet for the furkids, i'll cook ground beef and pull apart precooked chicken to feed them. mam complains that i'll cook for the dogs but not for him.
i'm quick to reply, "do you really want me to cook for you?" if he looked at me like how the dogs do, maybe i would try to cook for him. yeah, no. i still wouldn't do it.
running on empty
normally, my non-superhero life is very clark kent -- mild mannered, unassuming even. at work or at home when i seem to pull off my superhero routines of staying on top of this project, dodging that deadline, completing this task and jumping through hoops of fire to meet that one, i give the appearance of someone who is "one the ball".
if only appearances were exactly as they seem.
turns out this weekend revealed the bullets my wonder woman-like bracelets couldn't deflect. i paid the idiot tax because quite simply, that's what is required when you pull a bonehead of such magnitude.
i "kinda" knew i didn't have the new sticker for my license plate. it's not like i didn't remember to renew my vehicle registration -- i did, but what i forgot to do is remove the friggin' little sticker from the envelope to put it on my car. and this is where penndot has gone wrong -- big envelope, little card and even smaller sticker that isn't really even in the main part of the envelope, it sort of hovers in its own separate-but-equal slot in the envelope never sharing the larger space afforded to the actual registration card.
hence the reason why i have thrown the fcuking thing out in the trash. for the second time. arrggghhh.
but before you think it's a simple blonde moment -- and i have lots of those -- this goes deeper than simply being too rushed in filing the trash where it belongs. nope, this time i sinned far greater. i forgot to get my car inspected, too.
oy. when my subconscious finally broke through the clutter (that phrase is worth 5-points in buzz word bingo) to alert me, "hey shithead, you forgot sumthin' over here" i think i was ready to acknowledge my mistake.
the trouble was, it broke through at 4 am saturday (or was it sunday?) morning, creating another sleepless night for me. mentally, i trolled my internal calendar to see when in the last four months i would have taken my car into the shop for inspection. the giveaway for me that i hadn't was that i needed an oil change. and i have needed one for the last 6 months. (okay shut up, i take the train everyday and still have barely broken 10k miles on my car.) i am the queen of multitasking, had i gotten my car inspected, i would have surely gotten the oil changed at the same time. i am my own personal if-then statement.
what was even more troubling to me was the fact i couldn't remember when i had forgotten to do it. damn that new car! with my old little putt-putt car, i knew exactly when things were due -- when to change the oil, when to put on new tires, when to get it inspected. like clockwork, reliable and settled. i love my new car, but it's still different -- different buttons, different timetables, things i realize i should know but hadn't really given a damn about until i realized that i did need to give one.
so i do what wonder woman would do when digging out from the mess, i dig out one spoonful and fighting each boneheaded mistake at a time.
even when they are your own.
if only appearances were exactly as they seem.
turns out this weekend revealed the bullets my wonder woman-like bracelets couldn't deflect. i paid the idiot tax because quite simply, that's what is required when you pull a bonehead of such magnitude.
i "kinda" knew i didn't have the new sticker for my license plate. it's not like i didn't remember to renew my vehicle registration -- i did, but what i forgot to do is remove the friggin' little sticker from the envelope to put it on my car. and this is where penndot has gone wrong -- big envelope, little card and even smaller sticker that isn't really even in the main part of the envelope, it sort of hovers in its own separate-but-equal slot in the envelope never sharing the larger space afforded to the actual registration card.
hence the reason why i have thrown the fcuking thing out in the trash. for the second time. arrggghhh.
but before you think it's a simple blonde moment -- and i have lots of those -- this goes deeper than simply being too rushed in filing the trash where it belongs. nope, this time i sinned far greater. i forgot to get my car inspected, too.
oy. when my subconscious finally broke through the clutter (that phrase is worth 5-points in buzz word bingo) to alert me, "hey shithead, you forgot sumthin' over here" i think i was ready to acknowledge my mistake.
the trouble was, it broke through at 4 am saturday (or was it sunday?) morning, creating another sleepless night for me. mentally, i trolled my internal calendar to see when in the last four months i would have taken my car into the shop for inspection. the giveaway for me that i hadn't was that i needed an oil change. and i have needed one for the last 6 months. (okay shut up, i take the train everyday and still have barely broken 10k miles on my car.) i am the queen of multitasking, had i gotten my car inspected, i would have surely gotten the oil changed at the same time. i am my own personal if-then statement.
what was even more troubling to me was the fact i couldn't remember when i had forgotten to do it. damn that new car! with my old little putt-putt car, i knew exactly when things were due -- when to change the oil, when to put on new tires, when to get it inspected. like clockwork, reliable and settled. i love my new car, but it's still different -- different buttons, different timetables, things i realize i should know but hadn't really given a damn about until i realized that i did need to give one.
so i do what wonder woman would do when digging out from the mess, i dig out one spoonful and fighting each boneheaded mistake at a time.
even when they are your own.
Friday, March 30, 2007
love thy neighbor
they say you gotta love thy neighbors, but sometimes, what i really want to do is beat them and bury them in my backyard.
if it didn't keep on happening, i would think maybe i'm being overly sensitive. sort of like the old poker adage: if you when look around the table and can't pick out the sucker, then the sucker is probably you.
well, in this case, i can identify the sucker, and it ain't me. but i think i am the asshole-attracting magnet.
right now, as i write this, my neighbor is playing the drums. loudly. even with the windows shut, it's a pounding thump-thump-thump like a broken metronome. if my neighbor played the drums with any skill, it wouldn't be half as bad. when i lived in my condo before we moved here, we had a neighbor across the hall that knew the opening chords to smoke on the water.
but that's all he knew. day and night, it's all we would hear: dduuuhhnnn, dduuhhnnnn, dduuhhhnnnn, dun, dun, dun, ddduuuhhhnnnnn. thankfully though, it was loudest before we ventured into our front door, and once shut, it was barely imperceptible until you opened the front door and waited for someone to scream "play free bird."
but my neighbor is either still learning how to play or he is calling the spirits of hades to rise up against me. it's not like we live that closely to one another. my house is not attached to his and furthermore his house is easily the width of a south philadelphia street from my house. although we do share a driveway, the driveway is wide enough to fit four car widths.
the driveway! that reminds me, two summers ago, he bought his children little crotch rockets motor bikes. (this is not to be confused with pocket rockets. that's just creepy.) because his spermatazoa are now about 10 years old, they can't exactly go far on their suuuu-zoo-keys. instead, all summer long, they would ride these gas guzzling bikes up and down the shared driveway. they could accelerate just enough in either direction to drive me crazy.
then one day, the bikes were gone. i danced a little happy dance. only to stop when it was replaced by a hot tub and a boat.
now, let's set the record straight -- these folks are not the rockefellers. they are industrious trash pickers. resourceful, even. but still trash pickers.
the boat was bought for a song from another neighbor who, if i ever track down exactly who it sold it to him, will be getting a flaming bag of poo left on the doorstep from me because i have a rusty, stinky barge-like thing taking up space in my driveway. (yes, it's mine. all mine.)
the hot tub is the scariest of all. situated against the back of their house, and steeped in darkness away from the stream of lights shone from either of our garages, the hot tub provides them with entertainment at all hours of the night.
i'll let the dogs out for a final pee and hear giggling in the dark. the dogs go wild looking for the source of the laughter. i'm just horrified once my brain wraps itself around where its coming from. one night as i was coming home late, i parked the car when i heard someone else coming, too. ewwwww.
so i guess for now, i should be relieved it's only the sound of drums being played. when the weather warms up in the next few weeks, my neighbors will be finding other ways to drive me crazy.
if it didn't keep on happening, i would think maybe i'm being overly sensitive. sort of like the old poker adage: if you when look around the table and can't pick out the sucker, then the sucker is probably you.
well, in this case, i can identify the sucker, and it ain't me. but i think i am the asshole-attracting magnet.
right now, as i write this, my neighbor is playing the drums. loudly. even with the windows shut, it's a pounding thump-thump-thump like a broken metronome. if my neighbor played the drums with any skill, it wouldn't be half as bad. when i lived in my condo before we moved here, we had a neighbor across the hall that knew the opening chords to smoke on the water.
but that's all he knew. day and night, it's all we would hear: dduuuhhnnn, dduuhhnnnn, dduuhhhnnnn, dun, dun, dun, ddduuuhhhnnnnn. thankfully though, it was loudest before we ventured into our front door, and once shut, it was barely imperceptible until you opened the front door and waited for someone to scream "play free bird."
but my neighbor is either still learning how to play or he is calling the spirits of hades to rise up against me. it's not like we live that closely to one another. my house is not attached to his and furthermore his house is easily the width of a south philadelphia street from my house. although we do share a driveway, the driveway is wide enough to fit four car widths.
the driveway! that reminds me, two summers ago, he bought his children little crotch rockets motor bikes. (this is not to be confused with pocket rockets. that's just creepy.) because his spermatazoa are now about 10 years old, they can't exactly go far on their suuuu-zoo-keys. instead, all summer long, they would ride these gas guzzling bikes up and down the shared driveway. they could accelerate just enough in either direction to drive me crazy.
then one day, the bikes were gone. i danced a little happy dance. only to stop when it was replaced by a hot tub and a boat.
now, let's set the record straight -- these folks are not the rockefellers. they are industrious trash pickers. resourceful, even. but still trash pickers.
the boat was bought for a song from another neighbor who, if i ever track down exactly who it sold it to him, will be getting a flaming bag of poo left on the doorstep from me because i have a rusty, stinky barge-like thing taking up space in my driveway. (yes, it's mine. all mine.)
the hot tub is the scariest of all. situated against the back of their house, and steeped in darkness away from the stream of lights shone from either of our garages, the hot tub provides them with entertainment at all hours of the night.
i'll let the dogs out for a final pee and hear giggling in the dark. the dogs go wild looking for the source of the laughter. i'm just horrified once my brain wraps itself around where its coming from. one night as i was coming home late, i parked the car when i heard someone else coming, too. ewwwww.
so i guess for now, i should be relieved it's only the sound of drums being played. when the weather warms up in the next few weeks, my neighbors will be finding other ways to drive me crazy.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
dismount
okay, i know it's been way tooo long since my last post, beware of spam monkey which was half-assed to begin with. my time has been severely crunched lately. you know it's been too long when people ask you why you haven't updated your site lately, and begin to think something is seriously wrong.
where to begin? where to begin?
hmmm, i have written and rewritten and rewritten a 20-page article for my class this semester. after telling me what a wonderful writer i am and completely fully fluffing my ego, i actually told him in class "where's the but? i know it's in there somewhere" -- he tells me i'm a propagandist. huh?
then he really insulted me. he called me "newt gringrich". newt-fcuking-gringrich. a white-haired, hardcore rightwing politico has-been from the 90s. are you kidding me?
i looked at him, mouth open because i've been called a lot of things in my life -- bitch, cunt, ass, feminazi, pink-o commie -- but a right wing conservative asshole is a new one to add to the list.
seems the "issues" piece i was writing was too one-sided. his solution? start over. from scratch. i hated him. i still don't like this socially immature prof -- but and here's the important part -- i have learned something from him. as much as i am loathe to admit it.
the clock rolled over on another year of my life. i have high hopes for "thirty won-derful". so far at least, there's been no sickness in me or my family like last year's dance into a new decade. now, all but one friend has transitioned to the decade of the big three-oh.
funny, growing up and watching thirtysomething, those people seemed sooo old. i mean they had kids and careers and seemed more together than me and my friends do. instead, we're like an older version of friends or at least how the version would be if the characters all played their real age from the beginning. we're still searching for our path -- some of us are further on the path but none of us are too sure of where its going and if this is where we'll be in 5 years.
now that i think of it, most of us want to be somewhere else in 5 years. the goddess girls want to be nurses, married and some with families of their own. belly wants to be settled somewhere, family optional. others are coming to terms with dreams we had as children may not be realized like lainey. i want to write books and quit the corporate grind, as much as i love the feverish pace, the politics, and the insanity a co-worker adamently calls "that's bullsssshhhit. bullshit."
and as much as some of us are freaking out, others are on cruise control and just enjoying the scenery. i am most jealous of them.
sleep has been scant these last few weeks. when i get stressed, my body reacts two ways: 1) i have trouble sleeping, and 2) chocolate becomes as essential to life as air.
you can joke but when i checked an email that said there could be a possible chocolate shortage, it brought a cold panic over me. i will be that crazy person caught on grainy convenience store footage holding the poor clerk hostage over a twix bar. or worse, i'll be found guilty of assaulting girl scouts over their boxes of thin mints.
regardless, when i'm stressed out, sleep-deprived and craving a chocolate fix, i can be.... oh, how to put this delicately...mmmm. bitchy?
okay, bitchier than normal. or as my brother is now quick to remind me these days, i need to dismount.
as in crawl down off my high horse.
i hope you forgive my tardiness in posting. i was trying to figure of how to jump off without crashing.
where to begin? where to begin?
hmmm, i have written and rewritten and rewritten a 20-page article for my class this semester. after telling me what a wonderful writer i am and completely fully fluffing my ego, i actually told him in class "where's the but? i know it's in there somewhere" -- he tells me i'm a propagandist. huh?
then he really insulted me. he called me "newt gringrich". newt-fcuking-gringrich. a white-haired, hardcore rightwing politico has-been from the 90s. are you kidding me?
i looked at him, mouth open because i've been called a lot of things in my life -- bitch, cunt, ass, feminazi, pink-o commie -- but a right wing conservative asshole is a new one to add to the list.
seems the "issues" piece i was writing was too one-sided. his solution? start over. from scratch. i hated him. i still don't like this socially immature prof -- but and here's the important part -- i have learned something from him. as much as i am loathe to admit it.
* * * * *
the clock rolled over on another year of my life. i have high hopes for "thirty won-derful". so far at least, there's been no sickness in me or my family like last year's dance into a new decade. now, all but one friend has transitioned to the decade of the big three-oh.
funny, growing up and watching thirtysomething, those people seemed sooo old. i mean they had kids and careers and seemed more together than me and my friends do. instead, we're like an older version of friends or at least how the version would be if the characters all played their real age from the beginning. we're still searching for our path -- some of us are further on the path but none of us are too sure of where its going and if this is where we'll be in 5 years.
now that i think of it, most of us want to be somewhere else in 5 years. the goddess girls want to be nurses, married and some with families of their own. belly wants to be settled somewhere, family optional. others are coming to terms with dreams we had as children may not be realized like lainey. i want to write books and quit the corporate grind, as much as i love the feverish pace, the politics, and the insanity a co-worker adamently calls "that's bullsssshhhit. bullshit."
and as much as some of us are freaking out, others are on cruise control and just enjoying the scenery. i am most jealous of them.
* * * * *
sleep has been scant these last few weeks. when i get stressed, my body reacts two ways: 1) i have trouble sleeping, and 2) chocolate becomes as essential to life as air.
you can joke but when i checked an email that said there could be a possible chocolate shortage, it brought a cold panic over me. i will be that crazy person caught on grainy convenience store footage holding the poor clerk hostage over a twix bar. or worse, i'll be found guilty of assaulting girl scouts over their boxes of thin mints.
regardless, when i'm stressed out, sleep-deprived and craving a chocolate fix, i can be.... oh, how to put this delicately...mmmm. bitchy?
okay, bitchier than normal. or as my brother is now quick to remind me these days, i need to dismount.
as in crawl down off my high horse.
i hope you forgive my tardiness in posting. i was trying to figure of how to jump off without crashing.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
wardrobe malfunction
what kind of girl am i you ask? obviously, it's what's on everyone's mind these days. but since you asked, i'll tell you.
i am the type of girl who wears black panties under tan pants. unintentionally, of course, not that it matters one bit now.
mornings are hazardous to my health and career. bumbling around the house, trying to feed the dogs with one eye open, not getting locked outside if the door closes behind me when i bring them in. getting dressed in the morning should not pose such hazardous results.
but it does.
getting dressed in the morning is like playing a slot machine in my closet -- pull back the arm to see if i win big. clean clothes, in sizes that fit, without any wardrobe malfunctions or oddly-paired combinations. we have a winner.
this morning, i pulled back the arm and waited:
ding, bar.
ding, bar again.
ding, lemon. so sorry, thanks for playing.
i didn't realize my losing bet (or is it that i am a loser?) until i got to work. yes, i am that girl the others talk about. and by this time, i can't insert another quarter hoping for a better outcome. the wrinkled black pants look pretty good right about now. i just need to face it -- i'm screwed. and i look slutty, ta boot.
my buddy alicia, the only one who i can call in such a situation, recommended a drastic course of action. "you gotta go commando. you have no other choice."
but i do another option. i can walk proudly and ignore the stares that follow me as i walk away. or run. quickly. to the victoria's secret on walnut street as soon as it opens.
i am the type of girl who wears black panties under tan pants. unintentionally, of course, not that it matters one bit now.
mornings are hazardous to my health and career. bumbling around the house, trying to feed the dogs with one eye open, not getting locked outside if the door closes behind me when i bring them in. getting dressed in the morning should not pose such hazardous results.
but it does.
getting dressed in the morning is like playing a slot machine in my closet -- pull back the arm to see if i win big. clean clothes, in sizes that fit, without any wardrobe malfunctions or oddly-paired combinations. we have a winner.
this morning, i pulled back the arm and waited:
ding, bar.
ding, bar again.
ding, lemon. so sorry, thanks for playing.
i didn't realize my losing bet (or is it that i am a loser?) until i got to work. yes, i am that girl the others talk about. and by this time, i can't insert another quarter hoping for a better outcome. the wrinkled black pants look pretty good right about now. i just need to face it -- i'm screwed. and i look slutty, ta boot.
my buddy alicia, the only one who i can call in such a situation, recommended a drastic course of action. "you gotta go commando. you have no other choice."
but i do another option. i can walk proudly and ignore the stares that follow me as i walk away. or run. quickly. to the victoria's secret on walnut street as soon as it opens.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
what a girl wants
what a girl wants, what this girl needs... is a wife.
the next few paragraphs will not be an expose on the benefits of lesbian marriage or the death of feminism (although i reserve the right to riff on those topics at a later date). stop reading now if you choose but, be sure, this will not center on those topics.
i need a wife to take care of me. now, in all fairness, i would kick the first guy who said those words to me squarely in the nuts without so much as blinking.
then, i would kick him again just to be sure he understood the first time.
if i had a wife, the dishes from sunday would have been washed on sunday instead of the tower of food-encrusted plates waiting for me to wash tonight at 10 o'clock. if i had a wife, my wife would have paid the bills already so after my long day at work, after dinner i can relax. if i had a wife, dinner would be waiting for me to get ho--, oh wait. mam does make dinner for me. and lately, with my fcuked up schedule, dinner is waiting on the stove for me.
i hear the whining you're doing right, now. "wahhh," you have a demanding job. "wahhh," you generally like what you do and earn a good living. "wait, aren't you a wife?"
bite me.
before those words even cross your lips, let me remind you what happens to people who piss me off. i believe it's not sexist at all for me to want a wife. my gender-neutral wife would clean my house weekly and vacuum daily. my wife would go grocery shopping, pick up the dry cleaning, run errands, put away laundry, wash the windows -- all things i have all intentions of doing but just can't seem to find the time.
christina, when she agrees to marry burke, negotiates the terms of her acceptance of his marriage proposal -- "i don't do the ring thing. we're both surgeons and we'll have a lot of money, we can hire a wife" couldn't be a truer statement for me. (aside from the medical school degree, but i am getting my master's degree in something else, does that count for something??)
after meeting up with an old friend travelling on a completely divergent path than mine, i was jealous for a minute or two of how simple her life seems in comparison. knowing myself though, there is no way on this planet i could step into her shoes and be happy.
yes, a wife -- definitely what this girl wants.
the next few paragraphs will not be an expose on the benefits of lesbian marriage or the death of feminism (although i reserve the right to riff on those topics at a later date). stop reading now if you choose but, be sure, this will not center on those topics.
i need a wife to take care of me. now, in all fairness, i would kick the first guy who said those words to me squarely in the nuts without so much as blinking.
then, i would kick him again just to be sure he understood the first time.
if i had a wife, the dishes from sunday would have been washed on sunday instead of the tower of food-encrusted plates waiting for me to wash tonight at 10 o'clock. if i had a wife, my wife would have paid the bills already so after my long day at work, after dinner i can relax. if i had a wife, dinner would be waiting for me to get ho--, oh wait. mam does make dinner for me. and lately, with my fcuked up schedule, dinner is waiting on the stove for me.
i hear the whining you're doing right, now. "wahhh," you have a demanding job. "wahhh," you generally like what you do and earn a good living. "wait, aren't you a wife?"
bite me.
before those words even cross your lips, let me remind you what happens to people who piss me off. i believe it's not sexist at all for me to want a wife. my gender-neutral wife would clean my house weekly and vacuum daily. my wife would go grocery shopping, pick up the dry cleaning, run errands, put away laundry, wash the windows -- all things i have all intentions of doing but just can't seem to find the time.
christina, when she agrees to marry burke, negotiates the terms of her acceptance of his marriage proposal -- "i don't do the ring thing. we're both surgeons and we'll have a lot of money, we can hire a wife" couldn't be a truer statement for me. (aside from the medical school degree, but i am getting my master's degree in something else, does that count for something??)
after meeting up with an old friend travelling on a completely divergent path than mine, i was jealous for a minute or two of how simple her life seems in comparison. knowing myself though, there is no way on this planet i could step into her shoes and be happy.
yes, a wife -- definitely what this girl wants.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
snakes ....
... in my muthafcukin' basement!
as if the last few days has not been enough of a whirlwind, topsy-turvy week, we find this new addition moved into my house -- a garter snake curled into a ball lay at the bottom of my basement steps.
when mam came back up from the basement the other night, he seemed a bit, well, freaked. hands in his pockets, he just kept looking up at the ceiling, until i had to ask him what the hell he was up to. he just looked at me with a weird look in his eye. i asked him if he found the skeleton from the mouse that snapped a trap -- yes, i gave in and resorted to a kill-trap after every mouse in our zip code became aware that we were the only house that offered room and board without fear of being smooshed or snapped -- and managed to escape without a trace.
"we have a snake in the basement."
after peeling myself down from the ceiling, i responded rationally. "well, get him out. now. if you're not sure how, get a hockey stick and a box. and a drink. an alcoholic beverage is an absolute necessity. one before and after, please. just get him out of here. and let me know when you're coming upstairs so i can be in a locked room."
he was clearly shaken, but i was not going down there to play samuel l. jackson. no way. in our untraditional marriage, there are very few occassions where we ascribe to traditional gender roles. killing bugs and ridding our house of vermin are it. he cooks, i clean. he does laundry, i put it away. we both take out the garbage. nope, he muthafcukin' OWNS the extermination business.
i realize it's cold outside and all creatures great and small are trying desperately to find a place to get warm. listen here, li'l creatures -- my home is not it. i already have two big dogs who leave enough dog hair, eat enough food and give enough love for all of you. once i throw picking up after mam into the list, you'll understand i don't have room for any more animals. please find another place to go. i realize the woods at the back of my property are your summer homes. although my friends may call my house the "lodge" or "chalet", it really isn't. and we're certainly not looking for any new creatures to add to our zoo.
if you do decide to try to come in, then be prepared for my own samuel l. jackson to escort your ass back outside.
as if the last few days has not been enough of a whirlwind, topsy-turvy week, we find this new addition moved into my house -- a garter snake curled into a ball lay at the bottom of my basement steps.
when mam came back up from the basement the other night, he seemed a bit, well, freaked. hands in his pockets, he just kept looking up at the ceiling, until i had to ask him what the hell he was up to. he just looked at me with a weird look in his eye. i asked him if he found the skeleton from the mouse that snapped a trap -- yes, i gave in and resorted to a kill-trap after every mouse in our zip code became aware that we were the only house that offered room and board without fear of being smooshed or snapped -- and managed to escape without a trace.
"we have a snake in the basement."
after peeling myself down from the ceiling, i responded rationally. "well, get him out. now. if you're not sure how, get a hockey stick and a box. and a drink. an alcoholic beverage is an absolute necessity. one before and after, please. just get him out of here. and let me know when you're coming upstairs so i can be in a locked room."
he was clearly shaken, but i was not going down there to play samuel l. jackson. no way. in our untraditional marriage, there are very few occassions where we ascribe to traditional gender roles. killing bugs and ridding our house of vermin are it. he cooks, i clean. he does laundry, i put it away. we both take out the garbage. nope, he muthafcukin' OWNS the extermination business.
i realize it's cold outside and all creatures great and small are trying desperately to find a place to get warm. listen here, li'l creatures -- my home is not it. i already have two big dogs who leave enough dog hair, eat enough food and give enough love for all of you. once i throw picking up after mam into the list, you'll understand i don't have room for any more animals. please find another place to go. i realize the woods at the back of my property are your summer homes. although my friends may call my house the "lodge" or "chalet", it really isn't. and we're certainly not looking for any new creatures to add to our zoo.
if you do decide to try to come in, then be prepared for my own samuel l. jackson to escort your ass back outside.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
brick house
on monday, i wrote about the brick i managed to ingest without knowing it. well, a coworker took a sledgehammer to it around lunchtime.
after spending the better part of my morning with increasingly worse pain where the brick seemed to lodge, i couldn't stand it any longer. i called debbie to see if she had any drugs -- immodium, aspirin, cyanide -- to remove the pain. the woman who self-diagnoses her own illnesses and manages to get herself prescriptions for just about anything, had nothing to help me. instead she gave me a tea bag of green tea. "it'll soothe your stomach," she tells me. between my sweating and wooziness, i almost to believed her.
back on my floor i head to the kitchen to make myself a cup of this green tea. maybe i could have tested her theory of green tea if the co-worker next to me hadn't decided to make her lunch at that moment. her choice of foodage? a big green healthy salad topped with rancid-smelling chunks of chicken which poured out from a never-ending ziplock baggy.
the smell of that chicken carcass hit me first in the nose. i tried to wave it away, turning my face this way and that trying to avoid breathing it in. too late. the boiled flesh, cubed to fit into the carnivore's mouth, hit me square in the brick where my stomach once sat. wham!
i haphazardly left my tea on the counter next to the hot water station. my only thought was, the brick has been hit and the pieces are going somewhere, anywhere and everywhere. now.
in a panic, i dove into the ladies room, which thankfully is only about 5 feet from where i stood. the first nauseous wave of bricks hit my throat, when i hear a voice behind me. "are you okay?" i pop my head out from the stall -- cause really, do you think i am okay with that large of a sound emitting from me? i can only imagine the look of panic that spread across my face with the knowledge of what comes next.
"are you going to be sick?" no, i just decided to test out being a bulimic for a while, since all attempts at anorexia have failed to date. before i could answer her, another wave of bricks decided they needed to escape my body.
wave after wave of bricks burst forth in away that can only be described as my screentest for the next installment of the exorcism. as the crowd outside the ladies room grew, because really, just in case it was an exorcism going on in the bathroom, they wanted to stay clear of any malevolent beings - myself included.
now, what do you think most people would think when a 30-year old woman begins to heave violently? right, not the rotovirus. not food poisoning. yeah, you guessed it. in between heaves i can hear the whispers starting on the other side of the door, is she pregnant? whisper, whisper, pregnant? whisper, whisper.
for the love of goddess, no! if i was, it could only be satan's child with a touch of food poisoning that could cause that much fevering, heavering and screaming. after i left pretty much most of what i had consumed for the last week in the septic system at work, i decided to go home.
in the options of being held captive on a train with others to infect or a solitary ride home, i opted to contain my germs and share them with only one person -- an immigrant cabbie who had the bad luck to pick my pale, weak self up and drive her home to the 'burbs.
"ahh, rich people live in the suburbs," he says. "i ain't rich, buddy." normally a comment like that might have set off some internal childhood ghetto alarms that shriek: if he thinks you're rich, he may try to rob you. you're in a strange car, with a strange man going very far away right now. all fight systems on alert. fortunately, i was too sick and concentrating too hard on keeping last tuesday's lunch down to care. sure, try to rob me. one push in the wrong direction and i'll hit you with a ton of bricks. (all puns intended.)
it was a miserable ride for both of us. i motioned for him to head to an atm not far from my home and one that conveniently shared a parking lot with a local police station. at least the cops could thwart any attempts at robbery i thought. instead of needing the police, i left them with a present on their lawn. yup, more bricks.
miraculously, i made it home okay. the cabbie? he probably regretted my fare, but not my tip. is there a rule about how much to tip a cabbie who will need to clean up your vomit after driving you 30 miles outside of the city? (i didn't think so either.)
i spent the next 48 hours praying for death to come more quickly or for the last load of bricks to leave. my ribs hurt. i felt as if my torso had turned inside out like a pair of old blue jeans to empty the pockets of any loose change before throwing it into the spin cycle. from hell. wash, rinse and repeat.
in those 48 hours, my nursemaids chloe and sadie never left my side. my husband left me a sink full of dirty dishes. we all know who loves me best.
after spending the better part of my morning with increasingly worse pain where the brick seemed to lodge, i couldn't stand it any longer. i called debbie to see if she had any drugs -- immodium, aspirin, cyanide -- to remove the pain. the woman who self-diagnoses her own illnesses and manages to get herself prescriptions for just about anything, had nothing to help me. instead she gave me a tea bag of green tea. "it'll soothe your stomach," she tells me. between my sweating and wooziness, i almost to believed her.
back on my floor i head to the kitchen to make myself a cup of this green tea. maybe i could have tested her theory of green tea if the co-worker next to me hadn't decided to make her lunch at that moment. her choice of foodage? a big green healthy salad topped with rancid-smelling chunks of chicken which poured out from a never-ending ziplock baggy.
the smell of that chicken carcass hit me first in the nose. i tried to wave it away, turning my face this way and that trying to avoid breathing it in. too late. the boiled flesh, cubed to fit into the carnivore's mouth, hit me square in the brick where my stomach once sat. wham!
i haphazardly left my tea on the counter next to the hot water station. my only thought was, the brick has been hit and the pieces are going somewhere, anywhere and everywhere. now.
in a panic, i dove into the ladies room, which thankfully is only about 5 feet from where i stood. the first nauseous wave of bricks hit my throat, when i hear a voice behind me. "are you okay?" i pop my head out from the stall -- cause really, do you think i am okay with that large of a sound emitting from me? i can only imagine the look of panic that spread across my face with the knowledge of what comes next.
"are you going to be sick?" no, i just decided to test out being a bulimic for a while, since all attempts at anorexia have failed to date. before i could answer her, another wave of bricks decided they needed to escape my body.
wave after wave of bricks burst forth in away that can only be described as my screentest for the next installment of the exorcism. as the crowd outside the ladies room grew, because really, just in case it was an exorcism going on in the bathroom, they wanted to stay clear of any malevolent beings - myself included.
now, what do you think most people would think when a 30-year old woman begins to heave violently? right, not the rotovirus. not food poisoning. yeah, you guessed it. in between heaves i can hear the whispers starting on the other side of the door, is she pregnant? whisper, whisper, pregnant? whisper, whisper.
for the love of goddess, no! if i was, it could only be satan's child with a touch of food poisoning that could cause that much fevering, heavering and screaming. after i left pretty much most of what i had consumed for the last week in the septic system at work, i decided to go home.
in the options of being held captive on a train with others to infect or a solitary ride home, i opted to contain my germs and share them with only one person -- an immigrant cabbie who had the bad luck to pick my pale, weak self up and drive her home to the 'burbs.
"ahh, rich people live in the suburbs," he says. "i ain't rich, buddy." normally a comment like that might have set off some internal childhood ghetto alarms that shriek: if he thinks you're rich, he may try to rob you. you're in a strange car, with a strange man going very far away right now. all fight systems on alert. fortunately, i was too sick and concentrating too hard on keeping last tuesday's lunch down to care. sure, try to rob me. one push in the wrong direction and i'll hit you with a ton of bricks. (all puns intended.)
it was a miserable ride for both of us. i motioned for him to head to an atm not far from my home and one that conveniently shared a parking lot with a local police station. at least the cops could thwart any attempts at robbery i thought. instead of needing the police, i left them with a present on their lawn. yup, more bricks.
miraculously, i made it home okay. the cabbie? he probably regretted my fare, but not my tip. is there a rule about how much to tip a cabbie who will need to clean up your vomit after driving you 30 miles outside of the city? (i didn't think so either.)
i spent the next 48 hours praying for death to come more quickly or for the last load of bricks to leave. my ribs hurt. i felt as if my torso had turned inside out like a pair of old blue jeans to empty the pockets of any loose change before throwing it into the spin cycle. from hell. wash, rinse and repeat.
in those 48 hours, my nursemaids chloe and sadie never left my side. my husband left me a sink full of dirty dishes. we all know who loves me best.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
out of words
it feels good to write each day. like a mental cleansing of my soul but afterwards, it leaves me feeling drained. out of words by the time i can sit and write a post, i am so tired that my snarkiness just gets sucked right out of me.
i am beginning to think that each time i think my working self will get a little downtime or a chance to catch up and catch my breath, a heavier weight or bigger project opportunity (depending on your point-of-view) gets dropped on me. and me, being the sucker/do-gooder or opportunistic-ladder-climber (again, point-of-view) takes the bait everytime. i am beginning to think i am a corporate whore. dirty girl that i am, sometimes, i even like it.
in the true spirit of multiplicity, i am just not a happy gal if all sides of my life are not in balance. so while i may not be able to share everything that i am working on these days in this format, i'll try to include a snippet here and there. and for those editing types -- you know who you are -- who i really piss off by writing for myself in ALL lowercase and sporadic punctuation, i'll even leave it in a proper writing style.
see, even i can be nice from time to time. a snippet is included below:
When animal control officers walked in with the stray, it was a scene that upset even the most experienced shelter workers. Jennifer Mead, then Director of Animal Welfare Programs at the shelter, remembers her first sight of the dog. “He was completely emaciated. My heart broke.” The stray, with his skin sagging, showed every bone in his long, lean body. His sunken eyes were cloudy and distant. His body fat stores had been depleted from weeks, possibly months of starvation, causing the bones on his face to take on a skeletal look. The shelter workers easily wrapped their hands around the top of his skull outlining where fat and muscle should be, dismissing their initial thoughts that his head was deformed. His coarse coat barely protected his protruding rib bones that seemed to end too abruptly at his narrow waist before meeting up with his jutting hipbones. Between the sagging skin and slow gait as animal control officers led him into the shelter, he gave the appearance of an old man, shuffling along with the animal control officer’s rope leash tied loosely around his thin neck.
let me know if you want to read more.
i am beginning to think that each time i think my working self will get a little downtime or a chance to catch up and catch my breath, a heavier weight or bigger project opportunity (depending on your point-of-view) gets dropped on me. and me, being the sucker/do-gooder or opportunistic-ladder-climber (again, point-of-view) takes the bait everytime. i am beginning to think i am a corporate whore. dirty girl that i am, sometimes, i even like it.
in the true spirit of multiplicity, i am just not a happy gal if all sides of my life are not in balance. so while i may not be able to share everything that i am working on these days in this format, i'll try to include a snippet here and there. and for those editing types -- you know who you are -- who i really piss off by writing for myself in ALL lowercase and sporadic punctuation, i'll even leave it in a proper writing style.
see, even i can be nice from time to time. a snippet is included below:
When animal control officers walked in with the stray, it was a scene that upset even the most experienced shelter workers. Jennifer Mead, then Director of Animal Welfare Programs at the shelter, remembers her first sight of the dog. “He was completely emaciated. My heart broke.” The stray, with his skin sagging, showed every bone in his long, lean body. His sunken eyes were cloudy and distant. His body fat stores had been depleted from weeks, possibly months of starvation, causing the bones on his face to take on a skeletal look. The shelter workers easily wrapped their hands around the top of his skull outlining where fat and muscle should be, dismissing their initial thoughts that his head was deformed. His coarse coat barely protected his protruding rib bones that seemed to end too abruptly at his narrow waist before meeting up with his jutting hipbones. Between the sagging skin and slow gait as animal control officers led him into the shelter, he gave the appearance of an old man, shuffling along with the animal control officer’s rope leash tied loosely around his thin neck.
* * * * *
let me know if you want to read more.
Friday, January 19, 2007
the "talk"
when i was ten years old, my mother sat me down for a little discussion about "the birds and the bees". i remember she gave me this little book to read. it was obviously purchased at the pharmacy on the corner to be used to facilitate ushering their young daughters into womanhood. after handing it to me with a stern, reprimand NOT to show it to my younger brother -- only one child can hit puberty at a time in our house - she told me to come to her if i had any questions. needless to say, thank goddess for girlfriends and planned parenthood.
now, as a married adult woman, it's my time to have a little talk with my mother.
"i talked with mom the other day," i said to my brother on the phone, "she didn't seem too excited that i was coming off the coumadin when i told her."
"yeah," he replied, "i talked to her before she spoke to you. she thought you were going to tell her you were pregnant. she said you had left her a message that you had good news from the doctor. she was disappointed."
oh great. i thought she had gotten the hints i have given her for the last, say, 15 years of my life that she probably should not look to me to reproduce grandkids. i am not exactly "kid-friendly". my uterus is a no-fly zone for sperm. for crissakes, i never really played with dolls and truth be told, i only wanted a barbie doll so that i could have an excuse to get the barbie townhouse to decorate and give them wicked haircuts.
sometimes, i think there must be some sort of genetic switch not turned to the on-position on my double XX chromosome. the very thing that turns adult women into smiling faces and all "cootchy-coo-coo" makes me feel icky and grossed out. frankly, the cute baby thing is lost on me, too.
now, my nephew is starting to be a cutie. at 18-months old, the little towheaded bruiser is developing his personality and you can see a person in him now. sorry, to say, my 6-month old niece is still in the guppy-phase to me. sure, she's all chubby-cheeked and starting to get a dimple, but she doesn't seem like she's a person yet. babies, in my opinion, are a bit like blank rounds of clay. there's plenty of potential for beauty in there, it just hasn't revealed itself yet.
my niece still has a penchant for oozing awful smelling substances from her mouth unexpectedly, and in great volumes. this causes me some alarm. no creature should be able to propel so much fluid out of their bodies without first:
a) being exposed to a parasitic stomach virus in a third-world country; or
b) having a spent the prior evening downing multiple bottles of wine with adelle.
either way, it's not going to be a pretty sight.
which leads me back to my current frustration with my mother these days. she knows how i feel. as you can imagine, i am not shy in voicing my opinion on the topic that abortion is still legal in this country and dammit, more people should be using it. but i digress because the point should be clear -- a breeder, i am not.
when we had first gotten married, the swarm started buzzing. "when will they start a family?" "they'd have such a beautiful baby." "oh, you guys will change your mind, you'll want kids some day." granted, the swarm consisted of mostly people who missed out on my hairy, feminazi days and really didn't get a true taste of the bitch-on-wheels that had joined the family. it grew old and i grew bitchy trying to find ways to tell them to politely stay the fcuk out of my bedroom.
my family could plead no such ignorance; they were all too aware that my first car proudly displayed a u.s. out of my uterus bumpersticker. they lived with me when i protested my catholic college's refusal to let me do my *required* community service program at planned parenthood. (i forced them to relent and got credit for my service. hah, take that, crappy college!) my family knew of my failed attempts at domesticity and the babysitting jobs i detested. no, ignorance would not play in their favor.
my mom, though, is getting of a certain age. all her friends' kids are doing it. peer pressure is causing my mother -- who i had always looked up to for her ability to perservere in the face of being a single-parent -- to turn into this whiny, sniveling mess because she's not allowed to "play grandma" like the rest of her friends and coworkers her age.
"well, why can't i be a grandma?" she whined pitifully, seated in the booth next to me in a buca di peppo's restaurant where everything is oversized, making her seem that much smaller in comparison. i look pleadingly across the table at my husband and brother to give me strength to not kill her in the restaurant full of witnesses and to possibly provide a quick change to the topic of conversation that's brewing. "chuckie (you know i call my mother chuckie), we've been through this before. you're just not going to get a grandkid out of me. you're best hope is that michael knocks someone up and you get occassional visitation rights out of it."
but she continued to sit there, childlike herself with arms folded against her chest, legs swinging back and forth in the booth because her stubby little legs were too short to reach the floor, pouting. i knew i needed heavy artillery at that point.
"would you jump off a bridge because your friends were doing it? you have two beautiful grandpuppies that won't ooze weird substances from their orifaces, need college funds or require diaper changes or round-the-clock feedings." (sidenote: i'm pretty sure that my dogs would eat round-the-clock if i let them or if they could figure out how to open the fridge. my argument only holds true on that point until that day arrives.)
my dogs, my girls, my furbabies -- them, i understand. running my fingers through their fur, breathing deeply into their necks, feeling the warmth from their big body curled against mine as i sit at the computer. that's love, man. that's what warms my cold, cold heart.
will someone help me explain this to my mother now?
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
un-christmas
now that we are firmly apres-christmas (ljam, that means after, not before), i am ready to un-christmas my house. i know that once that is done we can march firmly into the doldrums of january and into my most favorite time of the year -- organization season.
organization season marks the time of year, when after receiving lots of christmas doodads, tchotkes and clothes you discover you didn't really need or want, you need a place to stash your christmas booty. this should not to be confused with your christmas "bootay", the ultra-fine, rap-model's girlfriend's posterior you developed during your 12 days of potato feasting. although finding a place to park that these days can be problematic as well.
thankfully, i am starting to un-christmas as i write this. the stock market is closed for a national day of mourning because an ex-president has died, enabling me to enjoy an unexpected vacation day. i'm telling ya it's the best thing republicans can do for me these days is to keep dying. c'mon bush senior -- you're about time, aren't ya? momma needs a holiday!
in the meantime, i am going to work on dismantling the dying tree that lay in my family room, festively decorating in cheap pieces of glass and ribbon and lights that mythbusters swear won't catch on fire unless i heavily loaded the sucker with extension cord after extension cord of c9 bulbs. i'll put away the fake pointsettia plants i use to save li'l miss chloe from a certain death if she went crazy chewing the leaves on the real plant like she did on the plastic.
i'll put away the stockings that were hung by the chimney with care so that i can now use my fireplace without worrying about my living room going up in flames. the nights will be less bright now that the army of inflatable santas, rudolphs and homer clauses will be put away until next year. maybe the stupid people who designed them will come up with a valentine version like "cardiac my heart" with little replacement valves and cholesterol that float about inside the bigger heart that will beat bloody red. of course, you'll probably just find ones with insipid teddy bears instead with the words, "i wuv you" on the side. blechhh. how corny. let's ban them like trans-fat in a new york deli.
c'mon january, be still my organizing heart!
organization season marks the time of year, when after receiving lots of christmas doodads, tchotkes and clothes you discover you didn't really need or want, you need a place to stash your christmas booty. this should not to be confused with your christmas "bootay", the ultra-fine, rap-model's girlfriend's posterior you developed during your 12 days of potato feasting. although finding a place to park that these days can be problematic as well.
thankfully, i am starting to un-christmas as i write this. the stock market is closed for a national day of mourning because an ex-president has died, enabling me to enjoy an unexpected vacation day. i'm telling ya it's the best thing republicans can do for me these days is to keep dying. c'mon bush senior -- you're about time, aren't ya? momma needs a holiday!
in the meantime, i am going to work on dismantling the dying tree that lay in my family room, festively decorating in cheap pieces of glass and ribbon and lights that mythbusters swear won't catch on fire unless i heavily loaded the sucker with extension cord after extension cord of c9 bulbs. i'll put away the fake pointsettia plants i use to save li'l miss chloe from a certain death if she went crazy chewing the leaves on the real plant like she did on the plastic.
i'll put away the stockings that were hung by the chimney with care so that i can now use my fireplace without worrying about my living room going up in flames. the nights will be less bright now that the army of inflatable santas, rudolphs and homer clauses will be put away until next year. maybe the stupid people who designed them will come up with a valentine version like "cardiac my heart" with little replacement valves and cholesterol that float about inside the bigger heart that will beat bloody red. of course, you'll probably just find ones with insipid teddy bears instead with the words, "i wuv you" on the side. blechhh. how corny. let's ban them like trans-fat in a new york deli.
c'mon january, be still my organizing heart!
Thursday, December 21, 2006
breathe, just breathe
it’s 10 am on the week before christmas and i just want to scream out loud. i don’t belong here right now, my to-do list is sitting here mocking me with things yet to buy, pick-up or complete by days end. instead i sit here and attempt to complete some insane, inane things at work and i am wondering why i am here and not there, and how i got this far behind?
my frustration is growing -- growing pissed at the season, at work, at my family – grrrr. and i still don’t understand why i am so grrrr lately.
breathe, just breathe.
the simplest things are setting me off – a coworkers glib “you’ll get it on friday” comment when he knows i won’t be in on friday caused me to seriously contemplate standing up, grabbing his neck in my hands and twisting it loose from his shoulders. allie mcbeal would have been proud of my dream sequence, it would have ranked with the best of hers on her television show. and the fact that he was referring to my christmas present, well, that just made me want to cry.
breathe, just breathe.
in fact, everything makes me want to cry this week. the charities that keep hitting me up for money, the abused animals in need, the families without heat or food or gifts. the world is a sad sad place and the fact charities play sucker bets with busy souls like myself who may not be totally insensitive, but are removed from knowing what is going on in the world, well, that just makes me want to cry to. here, just take my money, alright. you’re worse than a pick-pocket. i would slug a pick-pocket who attempts to mug me and take my money. a charity hits me up and i’m reaching for kleenex and my wallet.
breathe, just breathe.
i’m not a crier. grrr-like riot girl, yes. bitchy? hell ya. crier? not on your life. except when i’m pms-ing. oh sweet plastic jesus tucked in a dog-house manger left out on the front lawn! i’m pms-ing at christmas. family-togetherness has never been so frightening a concept except when i’m getting ready to rag as mam calls it.
breathe, just breathe.
now, another all-spirited-up-for-the-holiday-coworker approaches me with a tin of home-made baked cookies, peanut butter chip snickerdoodles with a hershey’s kiss on top. oh, wait, is that a peanut butter-filled hershey’s kiss? how the hell can i say no to a pms-blessing in disguise? chocolate and peanut-butter makes everything better. the bigger question is how can i keep my face out of the tin and save any for my other coworkers who pass and say they’ll wait until after lunch to take one. lunch is hours away right now. “gimme chocolate now!” screams the pms-bitch lurking inside me. “there may not be any left after lunch for you sniveling, i’ll-get-it-to-you-on-friday coworker. mwah-hah-ha-ha!” yes, sometimes pms-bitch scares me, too.
breathe, just breathe.
which is why this christmas season is killing me. i’m a scrooge under the best of circumstances, a fault i believe acquired while working in a mall in the christmas season. any addition of a hormonal imbalance and family dysfunction just adds more fuel to my growing fire.
i just gotta make it through the next few days alive. a thought i’m sure mam is praying for these days too. as long as i just breathe and only threatento jack anyone with chocolate and peanut butter in a 5-mile radius, i'll be alright.
drop the cookie, beeyatch.
my frustration is growing -- growing pissed at the season, at work, at my family – grrrr. and i still don’t understand why i am so grrrr lately.
breathe, just breathe.
the simplest things are setting me off – a coworkers glib “you’ll get it on friday” comment when he knows i won’t be in on friday caused me to seriously contemplate standing up, grabbing his neck in my hands and twisting it loose from his shoulders. allie mcbeal would have been proud of my dream sequence, it would have ranked with the best of hers on her television show. and the fact that he was referring to my christmas present, well, that just made me want to cry.
breathe, just breathe.
in fact, everything makes me want to cry this week. the charities that keep hitting me up for money, the abused animals in need, the families without heat or food or gifts. the world is a sad sad place and the fact charities play sucker bets with busy souls like myself who may not be totally insensitive, but are removed from knowing what is going on in the world, well, that just makes me want to cry to. here, just take my money, alright. you’re worse than a pick-pocket. i would slug a pick-pocket who attempts to mug me and take my money. a charity hits me up and i’m reaching for kleenex and my wallet.
breathe, just breathe.
i’m not a crier. grrr-like riot girl, yes. bitchy? hell ya. crier? not on your life. except when i’m pms-ing. oh sweet plastic jesus tucked in a dog-house manger left out on the front lawn! i’m pms-ing at christmas. family-togetherness has never been so frightening a concept except when i’m getting ready to rag as mam calls it.
breathe, just breathe.
now, another all-spirited-up-for-the-holiday-coworker approaches me with a tin of home-made baked cookies, peanut butter chip snickerdoodles with a hershey’s kiss on top. oh, wait, is that a peanut butter-filled hershey’s kiss? how the hell can i say no to a pms-blessing in disguise? chocolate and peanut-butter makes everything better. the bigger question is how can i keep my face out of the tin and save any for my other coworkers who pass and say they’ll wait until after lunch to take one. lunch is hours away right now. “gimme chocolate now!” screams the pms-bitch lurking inside me. “there may not be any left after lunch for you sniveling, i’ll-get-it-to-you-on-friday coworker. mwah-hah-ha-ha!” yes, sometimes pms-bitch scares me, too.
breathe, just breathe.
which is why this christmas season is killing me. i’m a scrooge under the best of circumstances, a fault i believe acquired while working in a mall in the christmas season. any addition of a hormonal imbalance and family dysfunction just adds more fuel to my growing fire.
i just gotta make it through the next few days alive. a thought i’m sure mam is praying for these days too. as long as i just breathe and only threatento jack anyone with chocolate and peanut butter in a 5-mile radius, i'll be alright.
drop the cookie, beeyatch.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
faster, pussycat -- kill, kill
my apologies to russ myers on this title but i hope you find it a suitable one as you keep reading.
and no, this is not a tale about 3 strippers gone wild in the desert. this is a tail (pun intended) of another sort. the scritch, you see, is back.
the last few weeks, in the rest of my scuttle to wrap up a project at work and end a school semester, i had the lovely displeasure of waking up to poop. lots of little pellet poops, of the mousiest kind. argggh.
i do what any animal rights person in her right mind would do... i brought out the "mouse house" and humane traps to set around the kitchen where our newest boarder had taken to dining each evening.
"g'day, sir. may i seat you in the smoking or nonsmoking section?" i inquire as host.
"any seat by the fruitbowl would be suitable, thank you, miss. those apples you served last night, they're marvelous, simply marvelous."
"wonderful to hear, sir. our chef picked those apples especially to bake a pie but by you helping yourself to them, well, you really saved a lot of innocent folks from having to eat that apple pie. my compliments to you."
but if the mouse was as grateful and appreciative as that i wouldn't be asking him to leave, then, now would i? my goddess, he ate my cooking -- he should be worshipped! with nearly 200 lbs of wild monkeys dogs bumbling about the house, one would think something weighing only a few ounces would think twice about moving in. rightfully so, any person stupid enough to break into my house would be greeted by the drooling smile of my rottweiler -- why shouldn't a mouse feel the same the threat of impending doom?
because dogs are not cats. amazingly, this is a new discovery for me, too. the extreme difference in size sadly wasn't an earlier clue...
so when a mouse has settled in a "chez mc-clot-sky", the dogs i discovered will do no good as a deterrent. but a "mouse house" will. fittingly enough, the mouse also chose to move in when mam is away. for business -- that is -- not play, even if he is in vegas.
bleery-eyed that morning, i stumbled into the kitchen at 6:00 am looking to do just 3 simple things: make coffee, feed those 200 lbs of puppies, and pack my work bag for the day. that's it. so when i see the door on the "mouse house" closed with a no vacancy sign lit, well, i knew it was a monday. and i hate mondays.
the only thing that tops my hatred of mondays is my mother's hatred of mice. and guess who was coming over to feed those 200 lbs of puppies dinner while i was in class that evening? yup, the mouse-hater, my mother ... the chuckinator.
i struggled with full disclosure -- to mouse or not to mouse, that is the question. 'tis better to suffer the slings of punches as my chuckie fights her way out of the little tiny mouse's range of sight, or to lie, to lie perchance to deny, deny, deny the little mouse ever lived in the "mouse house" on the counter near the stove? aye, there's the rub.
i disclosed in true political fashion: i believed, there may or may not be a mouse in the house on the counter. potential for but no promise there was one, past performance is no guarantee, that sort of thing. i left this long-winded message on her voicemail at work. and then heard nothing.
the chuckinator had agreed to feed the puppies for me since mam was away for business and i had class. she had not agreed to come to my house when there was a possibility of a 3 ounce mouse trapped in my kitchen. her silence, i assumed, meant my puppies bladders would be just shy of erupting by the time i got home. or i'd be shampooing the carpets again.
what i didn't know is she called the next best thing to me -- my brother. in tears. i believe the conversation went something like:
my brother: "hello, company abc. oh, hey there chuckie. what's up w---"
chuckinator butts in before he can finish: "EEEKKWHATISYOURSISTERTRYINGTODOTOME? [gasp for air] SHECALLEDMEANDTOLDMESHEHASAMOUSEINHERHOUSE [gasp.] ANDSHEKNOWSIHATEMICE. [gasp for air one more time.] WAAAHHHH! [gasp.] WHATAMIGOINGTODO?IHATETHEMIHATETHEM. [another deep breath in. now release.] I'LLHAVEAHEARTACHEIFISEEIT,YOUHAVETOHELPMEPLEEEEAAASE!EEEK!" [the shrieking dies out to a sad, soft whimpering sound.]
needless to say, my brother wanted to bash my skull in for having to talk our mother down from crying in the middle of a workday for something i had caused. as if the mouse made reservations to stay at my place in advance.
she's a trooper though. she did arrive at my house, as she said she would but our normally, mild-manner mother turned a side i have never witnessed nor even would have thought she would have been capable of. there was bloodlust in heart when she walked through my door.
she wanted mickey dead in the worst way. when my brother arrived to escort mickey to his new home in the woods outback of chez mc-clot-sky, she shrieked in the background, "kill it, kill it". she stood fearlessly and chanted as he took the "mouse house" outdoors to release him and yelled through the doorway, "just kill it already for crissakes."
that is, until he unlocked the latch on the "mouse house" and tried to evict the tenant. only to have the tenant dart back towards the very door where she stood screaming for his head, that managed to shut her up real quickly.
and no, this is not a tale about 3 strippers gone wild in the desert. this is a tail (pun intended) of another sort. the scritch, you see, is back.
the last few weeks, in the rest of my scuttle to wrap up a project at work and end a school semester, i had the lovely displeasure of waking up to poop. lots of little pellet poops, of the mousiest kind. argggh.
i do what any animal rights person in her right mind would do... i brought out the "mouse house" and humane traps to set around the kitchen where our newest boarder had taken to dining each evening.
"g'day, sir. may i seat you in the smoking or nonsmoking section?" i inquire as host.
"any seat by the fruitbowl would be suitable, thank you, miss. those apples you served last night, they're marvelous, simply marvelous."
"wonderful to hear, sir. our chef picked those apples especially to bake a pie but by you helping yourself to them, well, you really saved a lot of innocent folks from having to eat that apple pie. my compliments to you."
but if the mouse was as grateful and appreciative as that i wouldn't be asking him to leave, then, now would i? my goddess, he ate my cooking -- he should be worshipped! with nearly 200 lbs of wild monkeys dogs bumbling about the house, one would think something weighing only a few ounces would think twice about moving in. rightfully so, any person stupid enough to break into my house would be greeted by the drooling smile of my rottweiler -- why shouldn't a mouse feel the same the threat of impending doom?
because dogs are not cats. amazingly, this is a new discovery for me, too. the extreme difference in size sadly wasn't an earlier clue...
so when a mouse has settled in a "chez mc-clot-sky", the dogs i discovered will do no good as a deterrent. but a "mouse house" will. fittingly enough, the mouse also chose to move in when mam is away. for business -- that is -- not play, even if he is in vegas.
bleery-eyed that morning, i stumbled into the kitchen at 6:00 am looking to do just 3 simple things: make coffee, feed those 200 lbs of puppies, and pack my work bag for the day. that's it. so when i see the door on the "mouse house" closed with a no vacancy sign lit, well, i knew it was a monday. and i hate mondays.
the only thing that tops my hatred of mondays is my mother's hatred of mice. and guess who was coming over to feed those 200 lbs of puppies dinner while i was in class that evening? yup, the mouse-hater, my mother ... the chuckinator.
i struggled with full disclosure -- to mouse or not to mouse, that is the question. 'tis better to suffer the slings of punches as my chuckie fights her way out of the little tiny mouse's range of sight, or to lie, to lie perchance to deny, deny, deny the little mouse ever lived in the "mouse house" on the counter near the stove? aye, there's the rub.
i disclosed in true political fashion: i believed, there may or may not be a mouse in the house on the counter. potential for but no promise there was one, past performance is no guarantee, that sort of thing. i left this long-winded message on her voicemail at work. and then heard nothing.
the chuckinator had agreed to feed the puppies for me since mam was away for business and i had class. she had not agreed to come to my house when there was a possibility of a 3 ounce mouse trapped in my kitchen. her silence, i assumed, meant my puppies bladders would be just shy of erupting by the time i got home. or i'd be shampooing the carpets again.
what i didn't know is she called the next best thing to me -- my brother. in tears. i believe the conversation went something like:
my brother: "hello, company abc. oh, hey there chuckie. what's up w---"
chuckinator butts in before he can finish: "EEEKKWHATISYOURSISTERTRYINGTODOTOME? [gasp for air] SHECALLEDMEANDTOLDMESHEHASAMOUSEINHERHOUSE [gasp.] ANDSHEKNOWSIHATEMICE. [gasp for air one more time.] WAAAHHHH! [gasp.] WHATAMIGOINGTODO?IHATETHEMIHATETHEM. [another deep breath in. now release.] I'LLHAVEAHEARTACHEIFISEEIT,YOUHAVETOHELPMEPLEEEEAAASE!EEEK!" [the shrieking dies out to a sad, soft whimpering sound.]
needless to say, my brother wanted to bash my skull in for having to talk our mother down from crying in the middle of a workday for something i had caused. as if the mouse made reservations to stay at my place in advance.
she's a trooper though. she did arrive at my house, as she said she would but our normally, mild-manner mother turned a side i have never witnessed nor even would have thought she would have been capable of. there was bloodlust in heart when she walked through my door.
she wanted mickey dead in the worst way. when my brother arrived to escort mickey to his new home in the woods outback of chez mc-clot-sky, she shrieked in the background, "kill it, kill it". she stood fearlessly and chanted as he took the "mouse house" outdoors to release him and yelled through the doorway, "just kill it already for crissakes."
that is, until he unlocked the latch on the "mouse house" and tried to evict the tenant. only to have the tenant dart back towards the very door where she stood screaming for his head, that managed to shut her up real quickly.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
hair devil
i went in looking for a trim and to have my roots touched up.
i walked out looking like a friggin' soccer mom in a minivan. (no offense, wendy, i know you are considering a minivan to transport your growing brood these days.)
seriously, it was a miscommunication of the highest degree. salman rushdie had a fatwa, "a hit" put on him in soprano-speak, for lesser crimes that what this stylist did to me.
i think i said something like: "i like the length, just trim up my layers in the front."
she said: "you should probably take a little bit off the length to trim up the edges there, too."
i said: "okay."
now what she heard was something like: "yes, you can trim a half-inch from the back of my hair. but you must also cut back in all of those layers that i have diligently grown out the last four-months, suffering from bad roots and missed highlight appointments in order to put some distance between me and your scissors. because really, i have obviously not suffered enough for my decision to do something drastic to my hair last winter. yes, almighty hair dresser, you have fixed my color addiction to dying my blonde hair a deep red by helping me settle on a more natural shade that does not look like i dipped my head in kool-aid. and yes, i listened when you told me it would take months before i would grow my hair back to an acceptable length, but each hair cut is like taking two steps forward and three steps back, so yes, please cut off all of the growth i have managed to scrounge up. and do it RIGHT NOW!"
true, i do believe in taking chances with my hair which is miraculously healthy considering the hell i have put it through over the years. fuschia, purple, deep red, light red, blonde, blonder and blondest highlights and let's not forget last year's red highlights over blonde. in my defense, it looked cool until it begins to grow out and then there goes my new look because as much fun as it is do actually take on a new style, i have the worst track record for maintaining it once i get it.
last year's attempt at a quarter life crisis arrived 5 years too late. on the eve of my third decade i tried to tell myself that i was still cool. i was hip. i went to a trendy salon in the city, told the stylist and colorist i wanted a change and they had free rein. what i hadn't noticed was the sucker stamped on my forehead in the mirror. the cut and color looked fabulous - angled, assymetrical and red, just the amount of edginess that my ego needed.
until i walked into work the next day and realized how that is not entirely who i am any more. sure, i still think like a counterrevolutionary at times but in reality, my harder edges have or are in the process of being honed to an acceptable level.
which is why this latest hair snafu is so discouraging. in 12 months, my hair has done a 180 degree flip from hipster to this mom-ster. this whole easing into adulthood is rough enough on its own, it doesn't need any acceleration at the hands of edward scissor-stylist-hands.
i walked out looking like a friggin' soccer mom in a minivan. (no offense, wendy, i know you are considering a minivan to transport your growing brood these days.)
seriously, it was a miscommunication of the highest degree. salman rushdie had a fatwa, "a hit" put on him in soprano-speak, for lesser crimes that what this stylist did to me.
i think i said something like: "i like the length, just trim up my layers in the front."
she said: "you should probably take a little bit off the length to trim up the edges there, too."
i said: "okay."
now what she heard was something like: "yes, you can trim a half-inch from the back of my hair. but you must also cut back in all of those layers that i have diligently grown out the last four-months, suffering from bad roots and missed highlight appointments in order to put some distance between me and your scissors. because really, i have obviously not suffered enough for my decision to do something drastic to my hair last winter. yes, almighty hair dresser, you have fixed my color addiction to dying my blonde hair a deep red by helping me settle on a more natural shade that does not look like i dipped my head in kool-aid. and yes, i listened when you told me it would take months before i would grow my hair back to an acceptable length, but each hair cut is like taking two steps forward and three steps back, so yes, please cut off all of the growth i have managed to scrounge up. and do it RIGHT NOW!"
true, i do believe in taking chances with my hair which is miraculously healthy considering the hell i have put it through over the years. fuschia, purple, deep red, light red, blonde, blonder and blondest highlights and let's not forget last year's red highlights over blonde. in my defense, it looked cool until it begins to grow out and then there goes my new look because as much fun as it is do actually take on a new style, i have the worst track record for maintaining it once i get it.
last year's attempt at a quarter life crisis arrived 5 years too late. on the eve of my third decade i tried to tell myself that i was still cool. i was hip. i went to a trendy salon in the city, told the stylist and colorist i wanted a change and they had free rein. what i hadn't noticed was the sucker stamped on my forehead in the mirror. the cut and color looked fabulous - angled, assymetrical and red, just the amount of edginess that my ego needed.
until i walked into work the next day and realized how that is not entirely who i am any more. sure, i still think like a counterrevolutionary at times but in reality, my harder edges have or are in the process of being honed to an acceptable level.
which is why this latest hair snafu is so discouraging. in 12 months, my hair has done a 180 degree flip from hipster to this mom-ster. this whole easing into adulthood is rough enough on its own, it doesn't need any acceleration at the hands of edward scissor-stylist-hands.
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