Operation Pink Herring

Gameday

I was on my way to my bi-weekly physical therapy appointment last night when I got a text message from Joel: Might get tix for game tonight, want to go?  Normally, when I send Joel a text message, he tells me I owe him ten cents, so I figured this was a pretty big deal. I wrote back, "Football?  Sure if you get tickets I'll go."  And that is how I found myself at my first professional football game last night.  

It's no secret that I'm not exactly into professional sports; in fact, you could say that I couldn't give less of a shit if I tried.  I find televised sports to be the height of boredom, akin to video games.  To me, it's just like erasing hours from your life.  You can just watch the highlights later or read in the paper who won!  But, still, I am open to new experiences.  Especially when I'm promised a vegetarian burrito with both kinds of beans and guacamole as a bribe for my attendance. 

We had pretty good seats, and it was actually kind of exciting to see the players, like, playing the game and stuff.  Like, this one time, this guy was practicing kicking and I was really impressed.  He kicked that ball really far!  It just doesn't look that impressive on TV.   And this other, time, this one guy ran superfast and caught up to this other guy.  No, I mean, like, really, really  REALLY fast.  I guess you had to be there.

Other than that, I found the entire experience extremely disappointing.  There were two things about football that could potentially excite me: seeing drunk fans get into fights and cheerleaders.  This game was the Ravens playing the Redskins, and I've heard the term "Battle of the Beltways" enough times to have at least expected to see someone get a beer dumped on their head.  (In fact, funny story, it was actually that phrase that clued me into the fact that the Redskins play in Washington, DC.  Not Washington State.)  But there was not a single fight!  What the heck, football fans?  I saw drunk people!  I wanted to see drunk people fighting, and possible getting carted off by the police!  

And you guys, the cheerleaders.  Let me just say this: THEY DIDN'T DO A SINGLE COOL DANCE.  Their moves weren't even choreographed to music!  And at halftime, when I was sure they'd be busting out all their best secret moves, they went inside.  Instead some high school football teams played a mini-game.  I know that Hollywood doesn't always do the best job of representing reality, but I wasn't expecting Bring It On to top the list of Fake-Ass Hollywood Bullshit.  My heart, it is broken.

Mission status report

Operation One Car: Phase One - Scooter procurement

It took the police less then 24 hours to find our adorable stolen scooter.  And then it took us a week, three trips to the city impound lot and $300 in fees to get the city to relinquish custody.   The repair shop a took another week and an additional $79 to assess the damage and report that it would cost a minimum of $1600 to get our poor scooter running again.  Since that's more than we paid, that's  not going to happen.  So... the poor scooter is sitting forlornly in the rain, guarding our rear deck. 

The question is, do we get a new scooter?  A dude who lives down the block came over to talk to us when we were unloading the sad, broken scooter from the back of Joel's truck and turns out he's had his scooter stolen too.  His was locked up better than ours was, so that's discouraging.  He said some other people a block over also got their scooter stolen.  It looks like locking it up on the sidewalk is out of the question.  The other option is to keep it in the backyard and wheel it through the house when we need to use it (NOT IDEAL), or to move some of the junk in our alley around and see if we could possibly squeeze it through there.  We did try that at first and it just seemed too difficult... but now that we basically know that anything left on the sidewalk is going to disappear, locks or no locks, I guess we can try it again.  There's a suitable replacement scooter in Virginia.  I just don't know.  I am not sure I can stand having my heart broken and my faith in humanity shaken again.  Or to have my bank account depleted any further.  Maybe I'll just get a bike instead.  Sigh.  Mission: on hold.

Operation One Car: Phase Two - New Car selection and purchase

In happier news, internet, say hello to our new family member:

She's a 2008 Mazda 3 hatchback, which makes her by far the newest car either of us has ever owned.  You guys, get this: THE AIR CONDITIONING WORKS!  We no longer need to keep a sweat towel in the car.  Basically, I am in love.  I feel like it took us FOREVER to make a decision (we also considered and/or test drove aNissan Sentra SER, Nissan Altima Hybrid, Ford Escape Hybrid, Honda Civic SI, Honda Civic Hybrid, Honda Fit and a Toyota Camry Hybrid), but I am really, really happy with this car.  It is the perfect car for us.  And have I mentioned that the air conditioning works?  

So, let's review: in our quest to be a one car/one scooter household, we now have... three cars and one broken scooter.   Right.

The next order of business is to sell my Jetta as soon as humanly possible.  The plan was to trade it in and avoid the hassle of dealing with the kooks and loons and possible murderers on Craigslist, and that would have been all fine and good if the Mazda dealership had offered me more than three hundred dollars for my trusty VW.   I mean, yes.  It has its problems.  But THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS?  No.  Especially when the very day before, Honda had offered me $1,000.   And to add literal insult to injury, the Mazda salesguy had the nerve to call my car a "beater".   And then I walked outside, started up my beater Jetta and ran him over.  The end.  No one talks to my car like that. 

Dealing with Craigslist so far has been predictably ridiculous.  One dude offered me half of my asking price to pick it up "2day in person".  Two others send identical two-word emails with no punctuation.  Another guy said he'd come and look at it immediately and then never showed up.  All in all, completely unsurprising.  There seem to be a few viable buyers mixed in with the kooks, so keep your fingers crossed.  And if you're interested in a 1998 Jetta, come on over.  She's a good car, and I want her to go to a good home.  I don't want to take her to Carmax.  That just feels like the equivalent of dropping her off at the pound and hoping she gets adopted. [UPDATE 6PM: And my Jetta just sold for the full asking price of $1,000.  I got over 20 inquiries in the 24 hours it was up on Craigslist.  SUCK ON THAT, ASSFACE SALESGUY. WHO'S A BEATER NOW?]

After the Jetta gets sold and we decide if we're getting a new scooter or not, Joel's truck will be next up on the chopping block.  As much as I've complained about that truck (it's too tall, it's hard for me to get into, the seatbelt cuts into my neck, there are no cupholders, ET CETERA), I'm feeling ridiculously nostalgic at the thought of selling it.  I told Joel this weekend that we could keep it if he really wanted to, and he pointed out that that would completely defeat the purpose of this whole mission, and I know that.  But still!  Sob.  I'm sorry for all the mean things I said, old truck.  Remember when you moved all our furniture to our new house, one truckload after another? Man, those were the days.  And how will I know when Joel is coming home from work without the distinctive sound of the 14-year-old truck engine cruising past the house in search of truck-sized parking space?   Jesus, I am going to cry.

Good day, sunshine

Item #1, Good News File:

You guys, the impossible has happened: the Baltimore City Police Dept recovered our adorable stolen scooter.  If you had asked me on Friday what the chances were we'd ever see that scooter again, I would have said about 10%.   And then I would have said there was a 1% chance she was driveable.  I really thought the only possibility was that the thieves would ditch her somewhere when they realized they couldn't drive her -- probably after beating the hell out of her, just for kicks.  

But it seems I have a lot to learn about grand theft auto (that's what it says on our police report, by the way.  Adorable scooter theft is Serious Biznass) and the hotwiring of scooters, because the cops apprehended a suspect in the act of riding our stolen scooter.  Riding it!  Without the key!  So... I guess it is possible to release all those built-in brakes.   Who knew? 

She's being stored in the city lot right now, which I imagine to be the vehicular equivalent to a dog pound.  Hang in there, little scooter, we're coming!  We just have to go down to the lot during the inconvenient hours of 8:30am and 5pm and submit proof of ownership, wait for the city to verify said proof of ownership, and then return with Joel's truck (which is currently in the shop) during those ultra-convenient business hours and pay the $130 tow fee and the daily storage fee.   Then we're planning to take her directly to some sort of scooter store to be repaired, because the message from the police indicated that there was "some damage" to the ignition and the gas cap.  So we should have her back in riding condition sometime this month, if we're lucky.  And dudes, I can't even bring myself to be annoyed.  WE'RE GETTING OUR SCOOTER BACK!  YIPPEE!

Item #2, Good News File:

I went to a wedding this weekend and I think it was probably the most fun I've ever had at a wedding.  A bold statement, I know.  I was, um, not exactly excited about going to this wedding for the following reasons (in descending order from most valid to least valid): 

• The wedding was in Iowa, and Iowa is far away. 

• Northwest Airlines changed my flights and added two hours to my layover in Minneapolis. 

• Joel had to coach, so I was going alone. 

• I was ridiculously tired after getting up at 5am on Wednesday and then having insomnia on Thursday because I was still pissed off about the scooter. 

• When I booked the flights, it seemed like a good idea to save $150 by flying out of DCA (a 45 min drive and then another 45 min metro ride away) instead of BWI (a 20 min drive).  

• I wanted to stay home and play with my cats all weekend. 

• I felt poopy and my knee hurt. 

• I couldn't decide which dress to wear and felt like wearing sweatpants all weekend. 

• My social anxiety, let me show you it. 

• I had a lot of TV to watch. 

• I didn't feel like packing. 

• Joe Biden says you get swine flu on airplanes.

My mood started to turn around the minute I arrived in the Des Moines airport.  The hotel shuttle I'd reserved not only showed up, but was right on time and the driver greeted me by name.  The hotel itself turned out the be the nicest Holiday Inn in the United States.   And when I finally dragged myself to the Friday evening pre-party, I had an awesome time.  The groom is a good friend of mine from college, and he was in a crappy relationship with a girl who can only be described as Pure Evil Incarnate for most of our undergrad years.  I met his new girlfriend, who'd later become his fiance, two years ago when he brought her to our college reunion, and I immediately wanted to give her a bear hug.    She is so wonderful and nice and perfect and at the risk of sounding really corny, their happiness was just infectious.  Plus, I had a free glass of wine at the hotel bar, followed by several free shots from the friendly hotel bartender, followed by several more free drinks at the Friday night pre-wedding party.  And then the best man performed an interpretive dance to Like A Prayer.  Naked.  It was a good time.

As an added bonus, I was able to convince my friend and his wife to drive out to see the bridges of Madison County with me on Saturday morning before the ceremony.  I am almost ashamed to admit that I not only read Robert Waller's book, but I loved it.  And yet, I managed to miss the fact that that the bridges in question were located in Iowa.  Fifteen miles from our hotel. 

But no matter what you thought of the book (or the movie, which I haven't seen), you have to agree that it'd be a shame to spend an entire weekend in Iowa and NOT see these bridges.  Well, that's what I say, anyway. 

We managed to squeeze in four of the remaining bridges before the ceremony started at 2pm.

Have I mentioned that I very nearly left the camera at home?  Joel took the small one to his race, and I didn't feel like lugging the big Nikon alllll the way to Iowa.   Yeah, I was THAT cranky on Thursday night.

Oh, and we also did a drive-by of John Wayne's birthplace-- we were planning to skip it, but all roads in Winterset, Iowa lead to the John Wayne museum.  No matter how many twists and turns we made trying to find the next bridge on our list, we were still forced to drive directly past the museum.  And when we saw the painted van tribute to Mr. Wayne outside, we figured we might as well stop by for a minute.  We drew the line at paying $6 for the guided tour, though.

I'm utterly exhausted, but in a happy way.   Thanks for the memories, Iowa.

 

Hello, Goodbye

We've been thinking a lot about what to do with our car situation.  Mine continues to suffer from gremlin-itis, which isn't exactly debilitating (the latest thing to go was a vacuum hose, which slipped off its bracket and got chewed up by the alternator and made the engine sound like a lawnmower for two days) but it is very annoying, and makes me nervous that a Big Break is looming on the horizon.   Joel's truck works fine, but is nearing its fourteenth birthday -- not to mention the fact that it's a bitch to find a parking spot big enough for a pickup truck.   We've considered selling the truck and making do with the ailing Jetta for as long as we can, since a sedan is far more practical than a pickup... and we've considered selling my car and learning to live with the truck, even though the seatbelt chokes me and it's impossible to park.. because after all, it's a perfectly good vehicle. 

And then we took the Jetta to York, PA for Joel's race last weekend -- the weekend when it was 90 degrees out -- and were reminded of what it's like to drive a car with no air conditioning in the summer in Maryland.    That settled it for me: we need a new car. 

So we've been looking at cars online, buying car magazines, even test driving a few at Carmax this weekend (a Mazda 3 and a Nissan Sentra, both of which we liked very much).  And on Sunday, we implemented Step 1 in our plan to become a one-car family: we added this beauty to our fleet.

She's a 2003 Honda Metro scooter, and isn't she adorable?  I really think that downsizing to one car is do-able, especially since once Joel finishes coaching in two days' time, neither of us will need to use the car to get to work.  But even so, I thought we really should have some way for the person left carless to get around.   And so Joel found this little beauty on Craigslist, and we drove to DC on Sunday night to pick her up.   I didn't get to ride her to work yesterday because I couldn't remember how to release the kickstand lock, but I DID manage to ride her to yoga and the post office and it was FUN.  Oh, how I loved our new little red scooter.

Notice I said "loved", past tense?  Yeah... that's because someone stole it last night.  Just over 48 hours after we bought it.  That's got to be some kind of record.

Both the built-in locks (the kickstand and the front wheel) were on, and neither can be released without the key, so the thief must have lifted it into a truck and spirited her away.  I also had it chained with a cable to a signpost, just to to be extra-sure.  If I'd been smarter, I would have put the U-lock directly through the front wheel (instead, I just used it to secure the two ends of the cable, and the cable was looped through the tire and around the post).   But... I didn't think of that.   I actually thought it was pretty redundant to be locking it up with two built-in locks already in place.  But we hoped that a visible lock would deter people from even trying to steal it.  I mean, that's why I put The Club on my car.  Sigh. 

It could be worse, that's what I'm telling myself.  We still have the two cars, there are bigger issues in the world, yadda yadda.  But I'm really sad.  Now what?  We're out $1150, for starters.  We could get a new scooter, but would that just get stolen too?  Do we try to be a 1-car household with no auxiliary vehicle?  Do we go back to the drawing board?

I filed a police report first thing this morning (and I do mean first thing, Joel noticed it was missing at 5am when he left for practice), so maybe the thieves will ditch it when they realize they can't ride it.  Maybe.  We can hope.  IN the meantime, if you see this scooter, tell her to call home immediately.  She's in big trouble for breaking curfew.

Citizen's arrest

If I had to pick the one thing I hate most about city living, it would be the parking situation.  Hands down.   Why, internet, what's that?  You'd like to hear all about the latest development in the ongoing parking saga?  SO GLAD YOU ASKED. 

Parking, it sucks.  Parking on my particular block sucks even more because we have two handicapped residents, and both have designated handicapped parking spaces outside of their houses.  That's fine and dandy, except for 1) their spaces are big enough for a yacht, 2) one of the spaces is arranged so that there is space for about 3/4 of a car between the end of the space and the "no stopping" sign at the end of the block, and when the meter maid is in a grumpy mood she gives out tickets to anyone parked in this 3/4 space.  This could have been avoided if they had moved the space up two feet when the city marked it off, and 3) one of the handicapped dudes is a total asshole who refuses to park in his designated space.

But! Back in the fall we reached a happy turning point in the parking saga:  our street (and several others in the neighborhood) was converted to angle-in parking.  There was a heated debate over this proposed change, with the nay-sayers claiming that angle-in parking would ruin the "historic look" of the neighborhood.  (To that I said, tell me if you care about the "historic look" of the neighborhood when you've been cruising around for 45 minutes looking for a parking space.  And how is changing the direction of parking ruining the historic look, anyway?  I mean, we're still talking about parking CARS, trade in your sedan for a horse-drawn carriage and then talk to me about the "historic feel" of the neighborhood)  In the end, practicality won out and I came home one day in October to find that I suddenly lived on a one-way street with freshly painted angle-in spaces.  This was a glorious day.  Sure, it's a little annoying to live on a one-way street. Now we have to go around an extra block to get to the house and it's harder to double-park while unloading groceries, but WHATEVER.  This has really helped, parking is a bit easier to find.  O, happy day!

Except for one little thing: The handicapped spaces.  When the city came to re-paint the angled lines, they failed to move the signposts marking off the boat-sized handicapped spots.  So, now the signposts spanned two spots each, from the middle of one spot to the middle of another.  Which spot was the actual handicapped spot was anyone's guess for Handicapped Space #1.  For Handicapped Space #2, they'd thought to mark off the actual handicapped space with hash marks.  Unfortunately, the dubiously marked Space #1 is the space belonging to the asshole neighbor.  I've seen him call the two truck twice so far on people parked in one of the dubious spaces, EVEN THOUGH THE OTHER DUBIOUS SPACE WAS OPEN FOR HIM.   I'd resolved to call the city and demand that they come over and move the signs or paint a handicapped symbol on one of the spaces or arrest him for being a total asshole or something, but Inever got around to it.   Instead I just made sure to never park in either of those spaces and grumbled about this asshattery to myself. 

And then yesterday, when Joel and I came home, Mr. Old Man, the kindly owner of Handicapped Space #2, called us over to let us know that the parking cop had been by and tried to give Joel a ticket for parking in the space NEXT TO his marked handicapped spot.  We were incredulous.  How can we get a ticket for parking next to  the handicapped space?   Well, the parking cop told Mr. Old Man that the hash marks on his handicapped space did not actually designate a handicapped parking spot.  No, they meant "No parking whatsoever in this space".  The cop explained that this was so that a wheelchair van would have space to unload.  Mr. Old Man explained that he didn't have a wheelchair, nor a wheelchair van, so he'd be happy to just park in that space.  The cop told him he couldn't; he needed to park next to it.  On either side.  That's right, the spaces on BOTH SIDES of the hash-marked space belong to Mr. Old Man and his ONE car.   The old handicapped signpost is in the middle of one of these spaces, but any rational person would assume that the sign was outdated (since it is) and negated by the markings on the actual new space.  There is absolutely no signage of any kind indicating that the spot on the other side is off-limits.  That's the spot Joel was parked in.  That's the spot we almost got a ticket in. 

So, five of our glorious angle-in spots are now off-limits for two handicapped vehicles. I cannot even put my rage over this into words.  I want to call city hall and demand they fix the signs.  I want to report Asshole Neighbor to the cops for calling the tow truck on innocent people when one of his two half-spaces was perfectly available for him.  I want to report the entire situation to the Sun's Watchdog (we're not the only ones with ridiculous signage, check this beauty out.)  I want to cry about the entire situation on my blawwwwg.

We also got a call from BGE last night.  They'd like to come out and service our meter because apparently it's "not reading correctly".  I am pretty sure that's BGE code for "we're going to try to charge you more money".  They offer appointment for this mandatory service that I did not request during convenient 8-hour windows.  Weekdays only.   

My god, I hate this city. 

Grumble, Part 3... and let's all hope there's no part 4

At the risk of turning this into an all-bitching, all the time blog... let me just tell you about my doctor's appointment yesterday.  

I went to an orthopedic surgeon last month to have my knee checked out, because it was still feeling awfully sore and ache-y, six weeks after The Accident.   It didn't hurt per se, but it felt really sore when I did certain things, like "yoga" and "sitting cross-legged," and if there's one thing I learned from years and years of competitive running, it's that you don't mess with your knees.   So, the lawyer that I have obtained to deal with the paperwork nightmare that is a personal injury claim set me up with an appointment to see an orthopedic surgeon that they work with.  Now, I've seen more orthopedic surgeons than I care to remember (see: years of competitive running), and I have yet to find one that I didn't want to kick in the teeth with the various malfunctioning parts of my body, so I was fine with going to whoever the lawyer recommended... especially because this meant they arranged the appointment for me and the bill went directly tot he lawyer's office (see: paying a lawyer to deal with my hassles for me).   I went to the initial appointment and the doctor said he thought that what I had was a cartilage bruise, which would eventually heal on its own.  Just to be sure, he sent me home with some prescription-strength NSAIDs and orders to obtain an MRI and return in a few weeks.   Fine and dandy.  I think that, including the time I spent filling out the load of insurance paperwork, the entire visit probably took 40 minutes.

Now, this is embarrassing because I used to live in the general neighborhood of this doctor's office, but I sort of got lost on my way to the follow-up appointment yesterday.  The short story is that office is on a street that's one way running south, and I was coming up a street that's one way running north, and I thought I turned the right way to loop around past the office but I didn't.  The longer story involves a panic attack as I tried to drive slowly down the (wrong) street, looking for the office's street number, driving about a mile in the wrong direction, a lot of cursing, and a long history of not being able to navigate my way out of a paper bag.  When I finally got my bearing, I decided to just park the damn car and walk the two blocks to the office because I was really, really getting tired of wasting my entire afternoon off from work driving around one-way streets.  Besides, I rationalized, there were all these signs up the last time about parking in this lot instead of that lot and how anyone who parked in that lot would be towed immediately, and you know what I really don't need?  To have my car towed.  Right, so I'll just park here behind this moving truck and would you look at that, the last person overpaid the meter and I still have an hour and forty-five minutes of time left.  And... I guess I'll put the club on my steering wheel and take the radio face-plate off because wow, this area is a little more ghetto than I remembered. 

Since I was running late by this point, I took a shortcut through an alley.  This was, to say the least, not smart, but by this point I am sure that no is surprised.  What's important is that I made it to the doctor's office with ten minutes to spare during his open clinic hours.

And then I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  People, I sat in that horrid waiting room for nearly an hour and a half.  To make matters worse, not only had I forgotten my book at home, but I was also the only person in the room who wasn't 1) faking a worker's comp claim, 2) suing Walmart, or 3) both.  I was also the only person who noticed that one of the many screaming children in the "play area" had taken to throwing around duplo blocks, one of which hit me squarely in the back of the head as I was flipping through a year-old Time magazine article about the Dalia Lama.   And the only person who was perturbed by the fact that there was not a scrap of toilet paper to be found in the single bathroom stall in the waiting area.  Also: the only one without an iphone.  Right.

After I'd given up all hope of getting anything done for the rest of the afternoon, I was finally granted my thirty seconds of doctor face-time.  Happily, I do not have any torn ligaments.  So... that's good. 

I walked back to my car in a petulant mood, thinking of all the enjoyable things I could have done with that last two hours of my life when I realized that I'd indeed been gone for two hours. As in, fifteen minutes more than my parking meter allowed.  Oh, shit, I thought.  PLEASE let me have a parking ticket.  Please let me have gotten a ticket in the fifteen minutes I was over the limit, so I can put it in an envelope and mail it to the lawyer's office with a note that says "PLEASE ADD THIS ONE (1) PARKING TICKET, ALONG WITH TWO (2) HOURS OF MY LIFE TO THE SETTLEMENT.  AND ALSO ONE (1) DUPLO-SHAPED BRUISE ON THE BACK OF MY HEAD."

I walked closer and closer, with a sinking feeling in my stomach as I noticed that there were now far fewer cars parked on the street.  Oh, shit, I thought (again).  Was this a no parking between 4 and 6pm zone?  I didn't even think to look since I thought I'd be out of there by 3pm at the latest, but yup, even the moving van I parked behind is gone. 

And then I noticed that my car was gone too.  And for one heart-sinking minute, I thought I'd been towed. 

But then I found my car behind a white van that had just done a terrible parking job.

I got in and drove away. The end.  

Good story, right? 

Crash

"Don't forget the time," my coworker, Liz, reminds me.  It's 4:30 and I've promised I'll be ready to go at 4:55 sharp.  I'm always late in the morning, and I'm always late leaving in the afternoon.   But tonight I've sworn to have my computer shut down and my coat on by 4:55 so we can make the earlier shuttle to the parking lot.
"I'm on it," I assure her.  "I am sending one more email and then I am shutting down!"
"Good, because we need to make the 5pm shuttle, otherwise we'll be stuck with the slow guy and we'll miss the movie!" 
"I promise, I'll be ready," I say.

"I just need to clean out my car a little bit before we pick up Kelly," Liz says sheepishly.  Her car is a mess, but I assure her that mine isn't exactly the picture of cleanliness either.   She tosses papers and bags and clothes into the trunk, clearing off the passenger seat and half the rear seat in her pretty blue mustang.  As the radio comes on, I remark that’s she’s a smartypants, listening to NPR in the car.

"I just like to know what's going on outside our dungeon office," she says, blushing.  "I only listen in the car."
"Huh," I can’t resist teasing her, "that's weird.  There's a world outside our office?"
"What station do you listen to?" she asks, her hand on the radio dial.
"Do you have the Twilight soundtrack?"  I ask. 

As we start drive, she turns the wrong way out of the parking lot.  "Um, we need to go right, don't we?" I ask. 
"Oh, sorry!  I was just on autopilot, heading home!"   We U-turn and get caught at a red light.  She pulls our her cell phone.   "I'm just telling my husband we're leaving," she promises.  "I don't text while I'm driving, don't worry."
"No problem," I say.

We hit rush hour traffic leaving the city, and we agree we're both lucky not to deal with this on a daily basis. 
"People here drive like maniacs," I say.  "I'm still not used to it.  I mean, people drive aggressively in New Jersey, but here... they're just insane.""I know," she agrees.  "I'm hate it!"  We talk about how nice drivers were in Kansas, where her husband was stationed with the Army.  I tell her how impressed I was with the drivers in Illinois.   We watch cars weave between lanes and cut each other off until finally the traffic clears and we sail along 83, heading north to pick up our other coworker, Kelly, who's just had back surgery last week.  We're planning to take her to see Marley and Me and then meet up with the two other girls from our office for dinner.   Lisa had already seen the movie, and Sarah is sure she won't be able to make it through the film without getting hysterical.   So it's just us three for the sad dog movie, but we're all looking forward to blowing our diets at TGIFriday's.  The afternoon was spent discussing which appetizers we'd order, and I'm salivating just thinking about the prospect of potato skins in the near future.

We're quite proud when we find Kelly's house without a single wrong turn.  I get out of the car to give her the front seat, and Liz apologizes again. "I should have cleaned off the other side of the seat, now you have to sit cramped behind me!  Do you want me to put that stuff in the back so you can sit behind Kelly?"
"Don't worry about it," I say, sliding into the back as she holds the seat out of the way. "There are benefits to being 5'1!"

We're running a little bit late, but Kelly knows the way to the theater and we've built a few minutes of getting lost time into our schedule.  I glance at the dashboard clock; it read 6:08.  The movie starts at 6:10.  I tell myself that there certainly won't be a line at the movies on a Wednesday night.  We might miss the previews, but that’s OK.  Better than going to the late showing and not getting home until midnight.

I see the crash first and feel it second.   What's happening, my mind thinks, confused.  We're going the wrong way.  Instinctively, my body braces.  Then I hear the sounds.  Metal, loud.  Tires, screeching.  Glass, breaking.   We're in an accident, my brain realizes.  We're crashing.   The car is still spinning, I have no sense of orientation.  Please don't let anyone else hit us, I think.   We're crashing.

We stop spinning, but we're still moving.  I hear the brakes screaming and we slow to a halt.   I am frozen, braced for another impact.  It's dark.  It's silent. 

I hear Liz start to cry in the front seat.  "Are you OK?" I ask, reaching forward, while I simultaneously wonder if I am OK.  I don't feel any pain, but I'm shaking.  Liz is crying and freaking out.  Kelly's not answering.   The other car hit her side, she's lying still in her seat.

I find my phone and dial 911.  "I was in a car accident," I say, nearly unable to get the words out.   I feel very stupid when the operator asks question after question and I have not a single answer.   I don't know if anyone is hurt, I think so, my friend just had surgery.  I think she is conscious but I can't tell.  I'm in the backseat.  I don't see any smoke, but I'm not sure.   I can't tell what the other car looks like.   I have no idea what street we're on or what we're near.  I can't remember the name of the theater.  We were going to see a sad movie about a dog.

A woman appears at the window and is very excited.  She's already called the ambulance and she saw the whole thing, she tells us.   She asks for a paper to write down her information.  "I'll testify for you in court!" she says.  "We saw it all!  He ran the red light!"  I hand her the Mapquest directions to use as scrap paper, but I can't find a pen.  I thought I had one in my purse but I can’t find it.

We sit in the car for what feels like a very long time.  I am fairly sure that I'm not badly hurt, but I can't stop shaking and nothing feels right.   Kelly is awake, but clearly in pain.  Liz is panicking.  She can't find her phone, it was in the door compartment and she can't find it.  I had her mine and she calls her husband, leaving a tearful message.   "What is taking them so long?" Kelly wonders.  "The fire station is right up the street."

Several off-duty firefighters appear at the window, assuring us that we'll be fine.  There were in a car waiting at the light; they've called on their radios and the ambulance is on the way.  They seem calm enough, so I decide that everyone must really be OK.  They'd be doing more than standing there if someone were really hurt.  

Soon a firefighter in full regalia is at the other window.  She helps Liz out of the car and holds the seat forward for me.   I try to step out, not trusting my legs.   I exit the car, thinking to turn back for my purse.  I should call Joel, I think.  Liz has my phone.  I can't see where she's gone.   There are so many cars around.  So many lights.   I look down and see my employee badge lying on the asphalt.  The cord is still around my neck, so I can't figure how it got there.  I pick it up and walk in the direction the firefighter is pointing.   As I move to the other side of the car, I see Liz's badge lying on the ground there.  How did it get outside the car?  The windows were closed.   I pick it up.    I turn as the firefighter calls me, and she hands me a silver cell phone that was on the backseat of the car.  It's Liz's.  I take it. 

I stand around awkwardly, not knowing what to do.  I don't want to get in the way, and I don't know where to go.  I feel very stupid.  I stare at the car and see that firefighters are struggling with what looks like a giant pair of pliers, trying to wrench the passenger door from its hinges.   A white sheet covers a body in the seat, and for a moment my heart stops.  Kelly is dead.  Why aren't they HURRYING, I wonder, she needs help!   I can feel my eyes growing wide, but everything else is frozen.   As they move with excruciating slowness, I realize the sheet is protecting her from the broken window they're clearing off.  She's OK, I realize.  They'd move faster if she weren't.  The sheet is just for the glass.  The door comes off and they roll a stretcher to the car, slowly. 

I see Liz sitting in a fire engine and I hold up her cell phone.  She takes it and hands me mine.  "I'll pay for your minutes," she says, sobbing.  "I'm so, so sorry."  I want to tell her not to worry, but I don't think I say anything out loud.

I am herded into an ambulance and sat down on a gurney.   "I think I'm OK," I respond when asked.  I am not sure what to say; I'm pretty sure that nothing is broken or badly injured, but everything hurts.  My neck hurts, my chest hurts.  Is that bad, I wonder?   I give them my license when someone asks; otherwise I just stare blankly at the ambulance doors in front of me.   I hope Kelly is OK.  I tell myself over and over that they would have hurried more if she weren't.  She's OK. She has to be OK.

"What's your name?" asks the paramedic.   I tell him it's Jennifer.   "Hi, I'm George," he says.  You're going to be OK; we're going to take care of you.  I just need to get some information.   Can tell me how old you are?" 

“Twenty-eight,” I tell him, and immediately realize that's not right.  "No, 27," I correct.  “Twenty-seven until tomorrow." 
"Happy birthday," he says sincerely.  He's nice. I like him.  He's ignoring the driver of the other car, who's been brought into the ambulance and sat down behind me.  I wonder if George is ignoring him because he's mad.  Does that mean that the accident was the other driver's fault? I wonder. 

"It sucks having a birthday so close to Christmas, doesn't it?" he continues.  "I've always hated it.  I'm one-one-eighty-five."
"New Year's Day, wow," I say.  In my head I'm thinking eighty five?  He's younger than my baby brother. 

The ambulance starts moving, and I'm surprised that there are no seatbelts.  I've got one strap holding me to this gurney, but I doubt it will do me any good at all if this ambulance flips over.  It seems like a very long ride, but we don't crash.  I leave two messages on Joel's voicemail, knowing he's at the gym right now.   I am impressed when the driver backs the ambulance right up to the curb.  Nice parking job, I think.  

I'm terrified when they start to move my gurney out the back of the ambulance.  I'm afraid they're going to drop it, drop me.  Even when they don't, I still feel nervous.  I flinch at every corner we turn, sure the gurney is going to slam into it.  We don't hit a single one and I'm finally moved to a wheelchair.  I want to refuse it, but I'm not sure I can trust my legs.  I sit in it and am instantly glad I did.  I don't know where to go, but it's OK because I'm being wheeled the right way.   They drop me at a desk where a bored-looking woman in pink scrubs is sitting at the computer.   She takes all my vitals, and when she puts the thermometer in my mouth I realize I'm still chewing gum.  It tastes terrible.

She gets up and another woman in identical pink scrubs sits down.  She asks me all the same questions as the last woman, and I answer again.   She asks if the other woman took my temperature and shrugs when I tell her "yes."  She puts the thermometer in my mouth again, and then tells me to take a seat in the waiting area and listen for my name to be called.  Before I'm wheeled away I think to ask her where I am.  She tells me the name of the hospital and I repeat it in my head, trying to memorize it.  I've never heard of it before.  I ask her if my friends are here, and she promises to look them up and tell me in a minute.  She never returns.

I'm taken to the waiting area, reeling.  The TV is much too loud.   My neck and chest hurt.  I wonder why Kelly and Liz aren't here.  Does that mean they were more seriously hurt?   I text my other two coworkers.  "We were in an accident.  Everyone is OK I think but Kelly and Liz went somewhere else.  No dinner tonight."  Immediately, Sarah calls me and offers to come out.  I tell her I think Joel is coming soon and promise to call her when I find out where Kelly and Liz are.  I hope I won't get in trouble for using my phone in the hospital.

I hear my name called and struggle to get out of the wheelchair.  My legs won't work correctly and I'm tangled in a blanket.  I clutch my jacket and purse and feel around for the sweatshirt I had to take half-off so my blood pressure could be taken.  I can't find it.  Where did it go?  I finally see a swatch of green fabric and pull it out from under the blanket.   I stumble forward, moving slowly.  Everything hurts and I'm not sure who called my name.   Seeing my confused look, a man in pink scrubs asks me if I'm Jennifer.  I nod my head and he points to a room to his right.   "Get in there," he says.   He's so mean and I want to start crying, but I just walk to the room as quickly as I can.

Inside the room is a woman wearing a sparkly shirt under her lab coat.  The shirt has a tattoo pattern and I can make out the world "love" on it.  She's the nurse practitioner, she says, and then asks me what happened.  "I was in a car accident," I say stupidly.  Shouldn’t she know this?  I feel like I've repeated this a million times.   When she asks me what hurts I'm not sure how much I should tell her.  I don't want to seem like a drama queen and I know that I'm OK, generally speaking.  But everything hurts.  Especially my neck and chest.  She pokes me all over and proclaims that my trapezius muscles are spasming, as if that explanation should make me feel better.   It still hurts and as I've been sitting there my knee has started to throb and now I'm seeing spots, too.   That scares me.  Is that normal?  The longer I sit here, the worse I feel.   "It hurts a lot, I tell her as she looks at my scraped knee," I say.  

"It's going to hurt a lot worse tomorrow," she tells me.  I want to cry.  

Why are they being so mean to me?  I didn't do anything wrong.  I wasn't even driving!  I struggle not to cry as I am ushered back to the waiting room.  I dial my mother's number and I'm so happy when she answers. 

Joel calls and wants to know where I am and I know nothing but the name of the hospital.  I look around for someone to ask, but I am afraid of all the people in the pink scrubs.  I find a security guard at a desk, and he tells me the name of the street.  I have no idea where it is, but I repeat the name for Joel.  He needs more information, and I start to ask the guard for more details but he just gestures for me to give him the phone.  He looks very annoyed.

I'm called back to the desk and asked to sign some papers.   This man isn't mean, but he talks very slowly and deliberately, as if I'm a child.  I'm grateful because I'm not sure what I need to do.  Do I need to pay?  I want to go home.  Everything hurts.  He gives me some pills, which he says are muscle relaxers and will make me sleepy.  I hope he's right.  

 Finally, Joel arrives and we leave this stupid, mean hospital.  I hate everyone here and I am so worried about Liz and Kelly.  Sarah is at their hospital and I'm so glad.  She's the kind of person you want around in an emergency.  She always knows what to do. 

I want to stop at the other hospital on the way home.  I need to see Liz and Kelly with my own eyes and know they're OK.  I feel terrible and I was in the back, away from the crash.  They must feel even worse.   We arrive there after one wrong turn and we find the emergency entrance.   Sarah finds me and takes me to Liz's room.  Joel isn't allowed to go back; they're over the visitor limit.  

I'm braced for Liz to be hysterical, but she is laughing.  Her husband looks OK, too, they're OK.  She's had a lot of painkillers, Sarah explains.   She's hooked up to an IV and has electrodes on her chest and a blood pressure cuff on her arm.  

Kelly looks worse.  She's in a hospital gown and has wires everywhere.  She's OK, her dad assures me.  They did a CT scan and took x-rays and everything is OK. 

Everyone is OK.   I watched the driver of the other car walk out of the other hospital, and Liz and Kelly are OK.   Everyone is OK.

Sarah is outraged that I wasn't given a single x-ray, and I wonder if she's right to be angry.   "I didn't like that hospital," I say.   She tells me that I need to go home, and I agree.  I'm so glad she's there.  She's called our boss already and she promises to take care of everything.  "I have a conference call at 9:30 tomorrow," I tell her.  She promises she'll take care of everything.

We stop for burritos on the way home so I can fill my prescriptions for 600mg ibuprofen and muscle relaxers.   The CVS pharmacy is closed.  The burrito doesn't taste right.   I take a shower and then run a bath, but the hot water runs out.  I sit in the bath for a few minutes, shivering.   I notice a nasty-looking bruise forming on my left arm and I wonder where that came from.

Joel microwaves the hot/cold pack and I settle into bed with it under my neck.  I'm so thankful that we have our comfortable bed.   I get as comfortable as I can and read a few pages of Breaking Dawn before falling dead asleep. 

The next morning, Joel kisses me as he leaves for work.  "Happy Birthday," he says. 
Oh.  I'd forgotten. 

"Thanks," I say.  I test out my limbs and they still feel sore.  I roll over and go back to sleep.  

Not even a mouse

(Oh, yes. I sent these out.  There's no turning back now!)

("... and the stockings were hung by the chimney with care duct tape..")

(Max says the best thing about Christmas is the sweet, delicious tree water.)

Merry Christmas, Internet, from our cat-laden household to yours.   God bless us, everyone*!

*except the jerk who stole my Christmas lights.

Redemption

After a week off (extra time to catch up on some obscure Gilmore Girls reruns at the gym and re-read Eclipse and Midnight Sun), we returned to Pub Quiz last night.

As it turns out, the TWO losing teams got to pick the categories for this week's final round, which... I am pretty sure is a rule they made up when they saw the words "Lolcats" and "Twilight" on my list.   BUT ANYWAY, two of our categories did make the final round cut.

The first round was, again, a visual round... but this time, instead of Country Singers, we had to identify stills from Christmas Movies.   Needless to say, we got all five correct (last time we got ONE right, and that was a giveaway... I mean, I don't even LIKE Johnny Cash, but I still know what he looks like!)

That put us in a tie for first place.  Which was bad, very bad, because the method for breaking ties is a chugging contest.  If it were a chugging contest to see, say, who could pound an entire Nalgene bottle of water the fastest, that would be one thing.  But chugging beer... that's another thing entirely.   Joel argued that I should go, since i have far more experience chugging drinks... and I argued that he should go because I hate beer.  

Joel went.

ANYWAY.   We did reasonably well in the second and third general trivia rounds, and then we CLEANED UP during the fourth round, where you get to wager between 10-50 points on five different categories.   We wagered 50 points (the max) on Gilmore Girls, and 40 points on Comic Books and we both got the answers right in our respective areas of expertise.

That put us in second place going into the final round.  We wagered 50 of our 230 total points....

and....

DUDES, WE TOTALLY WON. 

Clearly we will never be going back again.  I like to go out on a high note. 

Now, here is the real question:Some of you dear readers expressed an interest in the formation of some sort of OPH trivia game... are you still interested in that, or should I spend my entire Christmas break reading Harry Potter instead?  Leave a comment or email me if you want to play, and I'll either start compiling questions and rules, or.... I'll queue up the Tivo and prepare to OD on backlogged episodes of Heroes.

In other news, there are now seven bulbs missing and the entire strand of lights is kaput.  But all I have to do is make it through one more half-day of work before embarking on a glorious four-day weekend... and it's a casual day.  Happy holidays, internet!  Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Happy Casual Day to each and every one of you. 

Happy fucking holidays

Even though I ponied up the extra cash for brand-name, officially sanctioned outdoor Christmas lights last year, we still had a problem with half the lights on the strand we hung on the window box going out periodically.   So I wasn't really surprised when half the strand went out again this year, but I was sad that the remedy I discovered last winter -- lifting the cover on the outdoor outlet and letting it slam down on the strand's plug -- no longer seemed to be working.   We mounted a more careful investigation and found that one of the bulbs was missing.

Huh, no big deal.  Some replacements came with the box.

Then I noticed there was more than one bulb missing.

More than two.

More than three.

Six of our bulbs are missing off of one strand of lights.  I put those lights up myself, and I am positive all the bulbs were in place at the time.  So, either the six bulbs entered into a suicide pact and jumped to their deaths on the cold, hard sidewalk, or.... someone fucking stole our Christmas lights.

Dear Christmas thief: you are officially on my shit list, along with the neighbor who refuses to make use of his designated, reserved parking space and the person who stole my tulips.

Pub Quiz Losers

Have you guys ever played one of those pub quiz trivia night things?  I always thought that they looked like fun, but because we are an old couple with three cats and we don't so much go to bars (especially on weeknights), I'd never been to one.

Until last night. 

As it turns out, Joel and I not only suck at trivia, we also suck at making up a cool team name under pressure.  And if we had been engaged in a tie, it would have quickly become apparent that we also suck at drinking Guinness through a straw.  

Thankfully, we didn't have to break any ties... because we were in dead last throughout the entire game.  

We were about to limp home to nurse our bruised egos (Joel and I both HATE to lose, which is probably why we seldom use our Trivial Pursuit set at home) when we were informed that the losing team gets to pick the categories for the next week's final round.

Yeah, we'll see who's calling who a loser next time.

Holiday spirit, south of the ol' Mason Dixon Line

Some cities like to put up a big tree and an ice skating rink for the holidays...

 

Here in Baltimore, we like to light up a monument in midtown and then celebrate with a somewhat terrifying pyrotechnic display in the middle of Mount Vernon.   Because nothing says "happy holidays" like a little fire and brimstone!

I'm pleasantly surprised that some of my pictures of this... uh, festive event actually turned out.  It was cold and raining steadily, the crowd was pushy and crowd-like and I hadn't used my camera in several weeks.  I thought to bring one of the tripods that my mom's friend bequeathed to me, but the lighter one I chose turned out to be way too short, and I wouldn't have been able to set it up in the crowd anyway.   Harumph.

 

(The monument, wired up but turned off.  An impatient crowd stands in the rain, rifling around in backpacks and purses to find a copy of the brochure because wasn't this thing supposed to start at 7pm?  What's going on?  Why can't we hear any of the speakers over here?)   

 

And finally, we have blastoff!  Uh... I mean, merry Christmas!

 

KABOOM!

 

(This part was actually sort of terrifying.  I was not using the zoom at all.  Have I mentioned I'm sort of scared of fireworks?)

 

Take note, cities of America.   We'll see your Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and raise you a few tons of explosives.  And that's how holiday spirit is done in the Greatest City in America.   

This Really Old House

Over the past few weeks, I have become somewhat obsessed with completing some of the home improvement projects that have been hanging around on our to-do list since, oh... we bought our house?   Which was in 2003?  I am not really sure what triggered this particular compulsion in my brain, but it has been activated and there is no going back.  Last week I had a plumber come over and fix our kitchen sink, which leaked occasionally under some unknown set of circumstances.  I never could get it to leak on purpose, and trust me, I tried.  I turned the water on super hot, ran the garbage disposal, tried the dishwasher on various different cycles, did all of these things at the same time while wearing a blindfold and hopping on one foot -- NOTHING.  And yet the pan I put under the pipe would have water in it from time to time.  Not every day, not every week, but sometimes.  If there's anything I hate, it's a pipe that doesn't even have the decency to leak consistently. 

Anyway, the pipe is hereby fixed.   I still have a pan under there, just in case.  Obviously this pipe cannot be trusted.  But I feel better, it's fixed, box checked.  NEXT!

We have finally purchased a new window for the broken bit of glass over our door that's been serving as a convenient escape route for all of our heat for the past five winters; now Joel just needs to install it.   Joel has also fixed the broken weatherstripping around our front door and scraped off all the chipped paint around the doorframe so we can re-coat it with paint that is actually intended for outdoor use.  Sigh.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the assholes who rehabbed our house?  HATEHATEHATE.  I am trying not to project this hatred onto the house itself, but oh, it is hard.

Tomorrow I have a dude coming over to clean and tune up our furnace and clean out all the air vents and most importantly, the dryer vent.  When Mr. Dude came over to take a look and give me an estimate earlier this week, he seemed very concerned that our dryer is packed on top of the washing machine in a closet that has about an inch of clearance on each side.  When I informed him there was no possible way that the dryer can be pulled out from the wall because it doesn't fit through the door frame and there's no way in hell I'm taking that door frame off again, he seemed to think this was going to cause some problems.  Have I mentioned that sometimes I really hate our stupid 107-year-old house?  And the rehabbers who made a laundry closet that's too small to fit any machines manufactured on this planet?

Next on the list is to find a good roofer to come over and determine if it's our roof or the neighbor's roof that is leaking water into the litterbox room when it rains.  Because, yes, water, it is leaking into our house.  I discovered this when I was vacuuming out the poo-room and the vacuum brush was suddenly leaving wet marks across the uber-dusty surfaces of the plastic storage containers we keep in there.  My first reaction was to round up Henry and Max into separate interrogation rooms and then force one of them to flip on the other and tell me who had managed to piss on the rug underneath a pile of junk, because that takes considerable skill.  But upon a complicated forensic investigation, my nose and I determined that it wasn't cat piss soaking the rug, it was rain water.  So, yeah.  Anyone know a good roofer? 

Last but not least, we had a handyman come over to see about replacing three of our windows.  Two of them are permanently fogged up inside, which has been the case since we moved in, but suddenly it has become absolutely intolerable.  Joel need to call the manufacturer to try to get us some replacements for free, and that better happen soon because those windows and their foggy trickery are driving me insane. We also need to buy a new window for the poo-room because the one that's in there... well, it's the wrong size.  The propped-up drywall that's holding it in place was serving quite well until a few weeks ago, when a heavy sideways rain storm resulted in a huge bubble of water behind the paint.  DEAR PEOPLE WHO REHABBED OUR HOUSE:  ROT IN HELL.  So, yeah.  Windows.  Need to buy some.

And when the handyman/window installer is here again, I'm going to get him to re-seal both of our bathtubs too, because all of a sudden the DIY job we did a few years ago after the great Water Leaking Out of Tub and Through Wall Incident (HELL. THE REHABBERS ARE GOING TO HELL.) is now driving me crazy as well.  It is working, but it looks crappy and it must be fixed.  Soon.

All of these minor-ish (with the exception of the water leaking in, that's a real problem) repairs are suddenly driving me nuts and I am not really sure what my problem is.  Joel is out of town for a race this weekend, and last night I found myself moving all of the furniture in the front room (which is heavier than I remembered) so I could roll up the carpet in search of the source of the mysterious cat piss odor.  The phantom cat odor has been surfacing at irregular intervals for years, but last night just seemed like the right time to move all the couches (by myself) and roll up the rug (by myself), wash the floor underneath and carefully inspect for signs of cat piss (none found) and then move all of the furniture back (by myself). 

The really strange thing about all this is that these minxy fogged-up windows and a less-than-professional (but fully functional) tub sealing job are really weighing me down, while the fact that we haven't had a bed frame since we sold our old bed (in JUNE) doesn't bother me a bit.  And until we have a new bed frame, the new mattress and boxspring (which are not really that new anymore) are just resting unattractively on the floor.  I am OK with this.  And because the mattress is sitting on the floor, the storage containers full of clothes that used to go under the bed are stacked up in the hallway, serving as a cat condo for Henry.... also, fine with me.   I have a stack of picture frames next to the nightstand, still waiting to be hung and a drawer full of fall clothes begging to be organized and donated to Goodwill. 

But all of that seems unimportant when there are dusty air vents and magically foggy windows to be dealt with. 

This is as close as I come to blogging about politics

There are a lot of outrageous/funny/interesting bumper stickers in our neighborhood.  Like this one, for example.  I would love to have a conversation with the owner of this vehicle.  I can only assume that they'd be open-minded and not at all judgemental!

 But there is one car that is my favorite, by far. 

I'm not even sure what I love the most about this car.  The back window that has consisted of a tarp for as long I can remember?  The innocent Ravens sticker thrown in with the political rants and "FORDS SUCK"?   The fact that this "car" (which is really more like a peice of installation art) is up on blocks more often than it runs?   No, I think the entire rear bumper (which reads  "Hey Martin* Give Me Back My Money, You Thief!") is my favorite part.

*I assume this refers to Martin O'Malley (D), former mayor of Baltimore and current governor of Maryland**.

**Maryland is actually a blue state.  Yes!  I swear. 

There's another "sticker" on the front bumper that I forgot to get a picture of... it says "Vote for Freedom!  Thanks VETS!!!" 

But that's not all.  Simple painted messages on car bumpers won't cut it in an election year.  And that is why this patriotic fellow has now started painting on the lamp posts in our neighborhood. 

God, I love Baltimore.  Don't ever let me tell you differently.

Dude, where's my UPS box?

I had my first wedding-related nightmare last night.  (I say "first" because I'm sure there will be more... worrying, it's what I do.  Even in my sleep.) 

In the dream, we were apparently having our wedding in some sort of island destination.  My family and friends all went out to this island about a week before the wedding and we were having a great time until I suddenly realized that the wedding was the next day and holy shit, I'd forgotten to do everything that I was supposed to do during that week. 

First, I realized that I'd never ordered any wedding bands, and I sent Joel off to find something we could use for the ceremony in a one of the local shops.  Then I started running around the island looking for florists and photographers when my mom reminded me that the dress was still way too long - I'd never had it hemmed.  I ran and found a tailor who said she'd happily fix it that same day... for $1,000.  The flower ladies were spouting on about some island rock (yes, rock) had made traditional bouquets impossible BUT they could do this weird thing with rope instead when my two friends came back with long faces on.  The local butcher had no idea how to cut up the wild hog I'd brought for the wedding feast (I finished Omnivore's Dilemma, in case you couldn't tell), they said.  We'd have to find a caterer instead.  Joel came back, saying he couldn't find anything but a pair of gold hoop earrings for us to use for the ceremony, and at that moment I realize that I had never found an officiant.

This whole time someone (who shall remain nameless because I know she would never do this in real life) was laughing.  Just as I was screaming "this isn't funny, STOP LAUGHING AND HELP ME!" I woke up and realized that I was mega-late for work.

See, I told you.  Breaking Point!  Officially reached!

In other news, I cannot find my car.  I was going to drive to work this morning so I could go to the grocery store after work, but car = missing.   Does anyone know where I parked my car?  Black Jetta covered in pigeon poop?  Anyone?

Lastly, I came home last night to find a note from UPS saying that they'd left a package my brother had shipped here with some last-minute stuff for his bike trip "BY FLOWERS -->".  I looked in in the shrub that the United States Postal Service so enjoys abusing, but there was no box to be found.  Someone stole it, which isn't all that surprising since UPS basically left a nice shiny box on the sidewalk on our heavily foot-trafficked street.  I am officially adding "mailbox" to the list of requirements for our next house, right after "closets", "designated parking", and "more closets". 

Rat-a-tat-toille

I've recently started watching Ace of Cakes, and I love everything about the show.  I love Duff, I love everyone on his staff, and I love every shot of the outside of their studio because OMG I KNOW WHERE THAT IS!  Most of all, I love their cakes.  Dude, these guys are amazing.  Do you watch the show?  Even if you're not into cooking, you can appreciate how awesome these guys are at their jobs... and some of the cake requests they get are hilarious.

One of my personal favorites was the rat cake they did for a local wedding, and I have been wondering if viewers not intimately acquainted with Baltimore truly appreciated how fitting that cake was.   I am sure that every large city has its fair share of rodents, but in Charm City... well, you just have to live here to understand.  It's not just that the rats here are common (which they are), or that they're extremely large (also true) -- it's more their audacity.  Baltimore rats aren't menacing, but they're also not afraid to show themselves.  They'll saunter right out in the middle of your path, look you in the eye, and then continue on their way, unconcerned by your human presence.  I remember one time in college, I was walking home from the library when a rat scurried across my path.  I jumped, startled, and then continued walking.  The rat continued scurrying right along side me.  FOR TWO WHOLE BLOCKS.  I remember calling my housemate, Liz, and leaving her a panicked voicemail that there was a huge rat following me, and that if I didn't make it home she should look for my body somewhere along Calvert Street.  And bring a baseball bat.   And maybe a stun gun.

On Tuesday night Joel and I were watching TV downstairs, enjoying the cool weather with the windows open.  Of course, this means that we can hear everything going on out on the sidewalk, including a group of people exclaiming over something they'd apparently run over.  "It's so huge!", they exclaimed, "I don't think I've ever seen one that big!"  We wondered what they were talking about, and I crossed my fingers that it wasn't Mr. or Mrs. Duck. 

The next day, Joel asked if I'd seen the rat when I left for work.  I hadn't.  "It's huge," he told me.  "Those people weren't kidding.  I saw it." 

When I got home he showed it to me, and I immediately got out the camera.  Of course I did.  People, this rat is material for the Guinness Book of World Records.  It was simply too big not to photograph. 

(If you are afraid of rats, I strongly encourage you to NOT look at the picture below)

(In fact, even if you aren't afraid of rats, you might not want to look if you are eating breakfast.  Or lunch.  Or if you just don't like pictures of dead rodents.)

I didn't really feel that Joel's foot provided an accurate frame of reference. So, I recruited Madison for the job.

 

(Do you like how Madison is less interested in the giant dead rodent at his feet, and more entranced by the sweet, sweet freedom all around him?)

Madison is an average sized, approximately 10-lb cat.  I am pretty sure this rat is the biggest one ever. 

You're all very welcome.  You may now carry on with your day.

Venue searching, new beds and assorted other goodness

Although we've still not set a date yet (SO STOP ASKING EVERY DAY, FRONT DESK LADY, SHEESH!), my thoughts have been preoccupied lately with all things wedding.   Every morning when I look in the mirror, I contemplate whether my hair has grown any longer, whether I should get a trim this week or push it off a little longer, whether I should go for a casual, flowy down-do for The Big Day or perhaps a simple, low bun instead?   I wonder whether I should look for a makeup artist and risk having a panic attack when she tries to put foundation on my face, or if I should just go to the Clinique counter a few weeks before, stock up on some new mascara and lip gloss and call it a day.  Ooh, maybe I should ask Sister-Wife Jenny to do my wedding makeup!  She's good at makeup, and she won't try to sneakily put foundation on me.  That's a great idea!

And this is all before I've finished brushing my teeth in the morning.

I've also been suffering a compulsion to buy things, especially things that are on sale, "for the wedding".  Like that three-strand pearl necklace I saw in the Macy's One Day Sale circular, marked down from $400 to $99: I was thiscloseto buying it.   What if I never see such a great deal again?   What if I can't find this exact necklace next month?  And wouldn't it be nice to have another thing checked off the list, one less item to worry about down the line?   I tell you, I almost had myself talked into that necklace.  And the matching earrings.  And a pair of shoes I saw on Piperlime.  All these things, for a wedding whose date has not even been set yet.  Is this what "nesting" is like?  Because I think maybe I should have bought that necklace.  Damnit.

Although we still haven't set a date, we have been making excellent progress in Operation Wedding.  Over the past few weekends, Joel and I have visited no less than eleven potential weddings venues.  I have almost finished entering these all into an exel spreadsheet that tracks the date we visited, their prices on everything from ceremony fee to chivari chair rentals, the cost difference between Saturday and Sunday, and everything in between.  So far, we have four real contenders.  And a dozen more places to look at.  (What can I say, I like to be thorough!)   While time consuming, I'm really quite enjoying the great venue search.  I didn't think that driving around all around Maryland every Saturday would be enjoyable at all. In fact, I kind of thought it was going to suck.   But it doesn't suck!  It's actually been a fun way to spend time together.  The set appointments force us out of bed at a reasonable hour, and with coffee in hand, we set of to conquer another corner of the state.  Driving through the beautiful scenery in Western Maryland on Saturday was downright idyllic.   I can't wait to see which place we end up going with.

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After spending Saturday looking at four different venues, the only task I wanted to get accomplished on Sunday was getting the new bed upstairs, by hook or by crook.  Joel and I managed to get the boxspring upstairs by ourselves on Thursday, which involved some tricky engineering and a bit of walking on our neighbor's roof, but I had this sinking feeling that the extra-thick, extra-foamy mattress was just not going to make it up the stairs.  I'm a worrier, that's what I do -- and let me tell you, I was worrying plenty when three kids from Joel's team arrived on Sunday to help move it.  Luckily, we needed neither hooks nor crooks, and it only took the four of them less than 20 minutes to get the entire job done.  One of them actually said "That's it?", when I showed them the mattress.  "Dude, when people say they need help moving furniture, they usually mean, like, the whole house," he explained.  God, I love the college mentality. 

You know what else I love?  Our new mattress.

And as you can see, I'm not the only one enjoying all the magical little Swiss masseurs.   Madison plopped himself in the middle of it within minutes after it was set down, and I thought he was going to die a happy cat right then and there. 

I've slept very well both nights so far, and I haven't even been doing what Joel calls my Alligator Death Roll during the night -- turning over and over until I have managed to wrap all the sheets and blankets around myself.  I consider that a very auspicious start.  With all the money I'll be saving on Tylenol PM and coffee, this mattress is practically going to pay for itself... after about 35 years.   But you know what, you can't put a price on a good night's rest.  That's what Madison says, at least.

Thanks to the wonder of Craigslist, our old bed was sold and gone by Sunday evening.  During the 48 hours it was listed, twelve people responded to my ad.  When I informed interested parties that it had already been promised to a buyer, two people tried to offer me more than the asking price, and another wanted to come over right then to whisk the bed away first.  I turned them both down, of course, but I still made out with $40 for a 5+-year-old mattress and a slightly warped wooden frame (which was fully disclaimed in the ad).  The best part is, I only paid $20 for the set five years ago.  I think I've stumbled upon my life's calling: stalking craigslist (already do that), snapping up underpriced items, and selling them for a profit.  All I need is a partner who has someplace to store all my finds.  Any applicants?

Max was the only one sad to see the old mattress go.  I came downstairs on Sunday afternoon, after we'd carefully laid it across the couch, to find him sleeping right in the middle of it.  When the buyer came to pick it up, I swear I saw Max shed a single tear.  I promised him that the mattress went a good home, where it would receive lots of attention and plenty of Fancy Feast, but he still wouldn't speak to me the rest of the evening.

 

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An adorable duck couple was hanging around on our block yesterday.  I saw the male sitting on the sidewalk in the morning when I left for work, and I thought he must have been sick.  I mean, ducks don't hang out on city sidewalks, right?  There are plenty of ducks in the harbor and plenty more in the nearby park, but I've never seen any just wandering around the 'hood.  I thought this poor dude would surely fall victim to the stray cats that prowl our block, but when I arrived home that night he'd been joined by his wife and they were marching around together, quietly quacking to themselves.  I found it so adorable that I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures of them.  I wasn't the only one interested in them; the orange cat that lives a few houses down looked like he would have killed to be able to jump through that screen. 

>

I assume that the Mr. and Mrs. Duck were visiting because one of the crazy ladies on our block (the owner of Orange Cat) likes to feed the pigeons, and our sidewalk is constantly littered with birdseed (and pigeon crap, but we won't get into that).  I didn't see them this morning, so I'm telling myself that they were just out on a daytrip and they've now safely returned to the park or the harbor or wherever they came from.  They were NOT hit by a car or eaten by a stray cat, so don't you even THINK that.  No, I can't keep them as pets, and, yes, that makes me sad. 

WANT

I feel like I say this all the time, but I really need to win the lottery.   Lately, I have been making a mental list of all the things I WANWANTWANT, and the reality is that we just can’t afford all of them.  Or maybe even any of them. 

We’ve been toying with the idea of putting in some new cabinetry in the kitchen for a while, and it just seems like this would be a perfect time to do it.  Next summer, if all goes to plan, we’ll be in full wedding-planning-OMG mode, and I’m thinking that probably won’t be the best time to be taking on any major home improvement projects.  Also, if the current plants don’t change, next summer will be the first time Joel’s family sees our house.  So, naturally, I want it to look ass-kickingly awesome.   Plus, new cabinetry will certainly help our resale value.  Our kitchen isn’t tiny, but it’s not big either, and it could really (REALLY) use some extra storage space.  Currently, we are using a white Ikea bookshelf that belonged to my freshman year roommate to house our cereals and other boxed goods, and that poor bookshelf is approximately 468 years old in Ikea-years.   Also?  It’s ugly.  So, if we’re using the logic that the new cabinets will increase the resale value, why shouldn’t we just go ahead and install them now, so that we can enjoy them for a bit first?  Right?  Yeah, that’s what I think, too. 

I am also dreaming that this new cabinetry will free up enough floor space for a small (very small) kitchen table.  Like this one, perhaps?

Why, hello lover.

And while we’re on the topic of home improvements, I also want to put up crown molding throughout the house.  The imperfect paint jobs (which I did myself, but it’s really the house’s fault for being so damn old and historic and UNEVEN) are driving me crazy, and I think some nice, simple molding would go a long way in improving the house’s overall appearance.  Again, why should we race around trying to raise the resale value when we’re ready to sell, when instead we could have it installed now and enjoy it for a few years?

While we’re at it, we also need to have our front door frame (which is an energy conservation nightmare) replaced, get the upstairs tub re-grouted, and find someone to fix the kitchen window that is constantly fogged up inside.

I’m also dreaming about getting a new bed (no pun intended).  Our current bed is another item of Swedish design (not that there’s anything wrong with that!  I loves you, Ikea!), and it makes me want to cry.  We purchased the mattress secondhand five years ago, which means that it’s served at least a seven-year tour of duty.  While that may be completely reasonable for some mattresses, this one has GOT to go.  I wake up every morning feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck, sore and stiff all over.  I’ve been considering just buying a nice pillowtop thingie, but really, this mattress is a piece of junk. An uncomfortable, kinda small piece of junk

Instead, I’d like this one.

And you know what else I want?  A scooter.

I have truly come to hate driving in the city (PARKING PARKING ARGH *SMACKS HEAD AGAINST BRICK WALL*), and I just think I cute little scooter would be a great, fuel-efficient way to get around.  I can just picture myself zipping to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning, or riding it to work on mega-hot days, or making an evening run to the grocery store without having to go through the soul-killing experience of searching for a quasi-legal parking spot when I returned.  I’d just park my scooter right in our very own alley!  As soon as our new neighbor figures out that our shared alley does not equal her own private dog run and stops propping a hunk of plywood in front of the gate, I guess.  Details, details.

Also, I want a new camera.  A nice, expensive one.  Mmm, I can almost taste all those deliciously blurry backgrounds. 

The sad reality is that (in case I haven’t mentioned this enough lately) we’re trying to save for a wedding, and as it turns out, weddings are expensive.  Even cheap weddings are expensive.  I think my scooter and my fancy camera and my cute little kitchen table will just have to wait, unless Santa is looking for something to keep him busy during the summer months.  We’ve got a chimney and everything, St. Nick!   And I will even put out cookies!

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In completely unrelated news, we watched the Tivo-ed MTV movie awards last night and I almost died laughing during the Ben Stiller/Robert Downey Jr/Jack Black viral video skit.  If you missed it, do yourself a favor and watch it here. 

Dear USPS

Dear United States Postal Service,

What did I ever do to you?

I'm pretty used to getting the neighbor's mail by now, and I don't even mind.  It's not too much trouble for me to shove it in between their glass door and real door, I just have to do so silently so that they don't think I'm leaving a bag of flaming poop on their doorstep.  It's a little bit difficult since their screen door squeaks like crazy, but really - it's no trouble.  Please don't worry about delivering the mail to the correct house.   I'm on it.  Plus, when you accidentally deliver their Netflix to us, and I accidentally rip them open and then accidentally watch the movie before turning it over... well, no one has to know about that.  Although, maybe you could have a word with them about their taste in film.  I mean, Elizabethtown?  Seriously? 

And the whole throwing packages in the alley/leaving them on the doorstep in the pouring rain/shoving them into our poor, mistreated shrubbery thing?  Whatever.  That time you stamped my mom's birthday package "return to sender" and shipped it back to NJ because I didn't pick it up the same day it was delivered?  No big deal.  The time you took 26 days to deliver a box of chocolates and then refused to put it through the mailslot?  I'm over it.

But when Janet told me that she got me a Crazy Cat Lady present during her thrift store extravaganza weekend, I was pretty excited to see what she'd found.   Even though she warned me that it was sort of weird and it only cost 5 cents, I was looking forward to to seeing what it was.  My life is pretty boring, I'm not going to lie.   Getting something in the mail is grounds for celebration in our household. 

That's why I'm so crushed that I'll never see this particular bit of vintage awesomeness, handpicked for me by one of the coolest bloggers on the internet.   

I do appreciate that you were thoughtful enough to put the mangled envelope in a plastic bag that said "We Care!" and deliver it, sans contents, to our house.  That does mean a lot.  And, hey, these things happen.  It's a whole 40 miles between Janet's house and mine, you can't be expected to deliver an envelope all that way without accidentally dropping it into a shredder.  No biggie.

But can I ask a favor?  The next time you're looking through my mail trying to find something for your rabid pet donkey to chew on, could you grab one of those Jury Duty notices instead?  Because, really, do I need to be called for Jury Duty FOUR TIMES?  I mean, I guess it's up to you.  You're the government agency, I'm just a lowly citizen who is apparently REALLY GOOD AT JURY DUTY. 

Hey, and could you maybe explain to my fiance that when I bought those cute superhero stamps for him, they were intended TO BE USED.  Not to be saved.  Maybe you could have a word with him about our Netflix queue while you're at it.    

Thanks a bunch! 

O. Pink Herring, bedraggled postal customer extraodinaire

PS - Those boring flag stamps are so 2006.  Maybe we could get a design with a cool eagle, or something? 

I survived.

If you are wondering why I was so stressed out about this reunion weekend, let me explain:  I am crazy.  I have problems.  And have I mentioned that I'm crazy?

In general, I just hate these sorts of forced functions.  I got one email (among dozens regarding this reunion because I made the mistake of accepting the invitation to join Reunion Facebook group) last week about a networking event on Friday and the phrase "break out your business cards" was actually used.  I almost threw up reading that - do I need to explain, or have I sufficiently covered my hatred of networking in over the past two years of blogging? 

Because I still live in the same city as my alma mater, I've gone to Homecoming events every year.  It was never great, but never that bad.  The Young Alumni tent is an overpriced frat party, but it can be entertaining if you're drunk enough.  The homecoming lacrosse game is still a boring lacrosse game, but it can be entertaining if you're drunk enough.   

I've never panicked the way I did this year because there was always the possibility of just ignoring homecoming altogether.  If there were people I cared about coming back, I'd show up at a few events, pay my $20, collect my commemorative beer mug, and catch up with people.  But this year was The! Big! 5! Year! Reunion!  It was going to be So! Much! Fun!

For most people in our class, this was the first reunion they'd attended.  And I can see the excitement in that.  But this is my FIFTH.  And quite honestly, I'm over these reunions.  I feel like I need a disclaimer here, because I didn't hate college.  I LOVED college.  I had a minor life crisis when college came to and end and my life as I knew it ended with it.   Twenty-two was a not a good year for me.   I spent the majority of it feeling simultaneously lonely and overwhelmed as I struggled to adjust to working full time, cohabitating with Joel, and just becoming an adult.  I wished a million times that I could turn back the clock and just go back to school, where everything had a purpose and I knew what  my role in the world was.... even though I spent quite a lot of time senior year stressing out about tests and papers and thinking about how easy everything would be once I just graduated and started working, because then I'd have money and my weekends would be free from endless studying and staying up all night bullshitting papers.   Grass: greener, etc.

But then Joel and I bought a house, moved out of our craptastic apartment, got some cats.  I got a new job that sucked significantly less than my old one and paid significantly more.   At some point, I stopped feeling like a college student masquerading as an adult.  I moved on, for lack of a better phrase.  And I'm happy.  Though I may complain about trivial (and at times, not-so-trivial) things here, I am so content with my life it's ridiculous.  I love where we live, I love my friends, I love my family, I love my fiance.  I  love my three adorable cats.  This is the life I want. 

And yet, when I find myself forced to make small talk with people I don't know well, I inevitably feel a crushing sense of inadequacy.  I feel like a loser because discussing careers and networking opportunities makes me want to throw up.  I feel like I suck because I don't have a fancy job title or a posh city loft or crazy stories about my wild nightlife.  I feel kind of boring.  I don't WANT one of those fancy jobs, I don't want to be a single girl partying hard in NYC, I don't want to be in law/med/business school.  But I do feel bad for NOT wanting those things.  Sometimes I feel like I used my reserve of overachiever, reach-for-the-stars gasoline during high school and college, and now I'm just a slacker.  Honestly, that is probably a good thing.  The level of perfection that I used to demand from myself in every area of my life was unsustainable and I am so much happier and healthier now that I have let all (most) of that go.  But I still feel guilty about it.  If that makes no sense at all to you, that's because you're sane. 

In a nutshell, that's why I was dreading this reunion.  I felt like I was supposed to be SO! EXCITED!, when I really just wished I could hole up in my house and ignore the whole thing.  But I couldn't do that, because that would be antisocial.  And so  my friends and I decided that we had an obligation to attend at least one official reunion event.  We decided on the lacrosse tailgate because 1. It was cheap, and 2. It was not the frat party Young Alumni Tent.   I was OK with this decision until we were sitting in a coffee shop across from the lacrosse field half an hour before the tailgate was scheduled to begin, and all of a sudden I started having a panic attack. Why are we going to this?, I asked my friend Sarah.  What the hell were we thinking?  Do you want to just cut our losses and run? I seriously would have PAID the $15 ticket price just to not have to go to that event.

What is my problem?  Well, let me try to explain the totally irrational roots of my social anxiety reunion disorder: 

1. I have totally sucked at keeping in touch with people from college who aren't either A) Joel B) My friend Liz , who doesn't really count as a "college" friend because before we were college friends, we were high school friends, C) From my track/XC team.  Over the past few weeks, I've spent a lot of time thinking about why and how this managed to happen, and I think it's partly because I overscheduled myself SO much during college that I missed out on a lot of just hanging out time, and partly because I hate talking on the phone so much, and partly because I just suck.  Remember my New Year's Resolution to keep in better touch with my friends?   I made that resolution because I KNOW I suck at this and I want to get better.

I was afraid I'd come back and see how everyone is still BFF with all their college friends except for me, and then I'd feel like a giant loser.

2.  I really hate making small talk/bullshitting about "what I'm doing now".   I feel like I have nothing to report on my life.  Still living in Baltimore, still working at a job, same old same old same old.

3. Sure, I have the big engagement news, but the next logical question is "so, when's the wedding?" and I'm not positive on this one, but I don't think that durrrrrr? is a socially appropriate response.

4. Did I mention that Joel was out of town all weekend?  I usually have no problem being on my own while he's coaching or traveling for work, but at these kind of extremely stressful social events it would be really, really nice to have him to lean on, instead of calling him from a bathroom stall and begging him to come home right now PLLLLEEEASE.   

5.  We found out last week that Max has cancer, and that is not related to any of this at all except for that it isn't exactly making my mood any better, you know?

So those are all the reasons that I am crazy.  Now for the good news: this weekend was not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be.  Actually, it was kind of awesome.   After having a joint anxiety attack, Sarah and I agreed that we would go to the tailgate for half an hour fifteen  minutes seven minutes.  We'd grab some snacks to get our $15 worth, and then we would book out of there and we would be able to say that we went to the stupid reunion.  Our two friends who abandoned us "forgot to register" agreed that they'd go for a walk around campus and that if we hadn't re-emerged within fifteen minutes, they'd call us so that we could pretend there was some emergency and extricate ourselves.  And just as we were about to get up and go in, I spilled coffee all over myself.  Oh, yes.  I did.  I am THAT awesome.

We purposely went at the very beginning of the tailgate to avoid the crowd, and it was beyond awkward.  There was ONE other person there, and she was weird.  She chatted us up.  It was bad.  And we still had five of our seven minutes to go.

And then something amazing happened.  Other people showed up.   People that I love and haven't talked to in years.  People who are now married to other awesome people, people that I actually wanted to talk to.  People whose numbers I obtained so that we could meet up later and hang out.   People who just laughed and helped me and Sarah exit gracefully when the tent actually started to fill up with ex-sorority sisters and a dude who actually refers to himself as HK03 (Homecoming King) (I'm not joking) and the whole thing started to go downhill very, very quickly. We lasted thirty-three minutes in an Official Reunion Event, and it was actually sort of fun! 

And then we went to Holy Frijoles, which now has a liquor license.  I pounded a pomegranate margarita and ate every bite of my burrito and everything was alright.  Because sometimes alcohol really DOES make things better.

The rest of the weekend was actually wonderful - I got to see my friends, my cats didn't cause anyone to go into an allergic fit (although they came close), people actually called me and came over to my house and we all hung out and it was so lovely.  Best of all, since I didn't know that that People I Haven't Seen in Five Years would be coming to my house, I didn't even have time to freak out and obsessively clean beforehand.  (But things were still generally in a VERY clean state, thanks to my mom's visit a few weeks ago, don't worry).  We spent time watching TV in our pajamas, I stayed up until 2am catching up with people I truly love, laughing so hard that my abs hurt on Sunday. 

Sunday was a laid back day, filled with a long lunch, and a lot of chilling out.   I didn't even have to call Joel once to beg him to come home early from his race. 

Even though the weekend as a whole turned out extremely well, I've never been so happy to return to normalcy.  Joel came home soon after my last friend departed, and we quickly settled into our normal Sunday night routine of making dinner, watching TV and getting ready for the week ahead.  God, I never knew normal could feel so good.

Coupon Cheerleader

My friend Jenny was visiting over the weekend, and I even took Monday off to hang out with her while she is on Spring Break this week from grad school.  Hey, I'll do anything to support my friends.  Especially if it involves taking a random three day weekend. 

We had a Weekend of Healthy Living, which means that we still spent an ungodly number of hours watching chick flicks (High School Musical 2, The Breakup, Little Black Book, Something Like Love... need I go on?) and lolling around unshowered in our pajamas - BUT!  We also exercised every day and made healthy meals.  You know, instead of binging on pretzels and peanut butter and then washing it down with ten gallons of Franzia. 

We also ran some errands on Monday - I finally dropped off a package I've been holding on to for weeks at the post office and we made a much needed run to the grocery store.  I warned Jenny that, clad in our sweatpants and greasy hair, we would woefully underdressed for a trip to the Canton Safeway, but that I didn't care if she didn't.   She was a little confused.  Isn't Safeway the ghetto grocery store?   I mean, you dress up to go to Ukrop's or Wegman's, but Safeway?   Yup.  Welcome to Baltimore, where the Canton Safeway is the place to be seen in your cute biznass pants after work.

I also warned Jenny that she couldn't judge me for shopping like I was feeding a family of seventeen starving orphans.  I have a problem when I grocery shop -- I cannot leave without filling the cart.   If something is on sale, I don't buy two -- I buy ten.  I also enjoy going to the grocery store when I'm starving, because then my hunger inspires me to buy things that normally would not look appealing at all.  And I hate going to the store if I don't have at least an hour, because then I don't have time to wander up and down every aisle.  Problems: I have them. 

When I saw that Family Value Packs of ground beef were on sale for 99 cents a pound, I looked at Jenny and said "Don't judge me. I'm getting two."  You know, since my meat-eating "family" consists of me (a wannabe vegetarian), Max, and Joel, so CLEARLY I needed TWO supersized packages of 80% lean ground beef.  Without blinking, she responded that she'd judge me if I ripped open the pack and shoved a handful of raw meat into my mouth - otherwise, me and my ten pounds of ground beef we were all good in her book.

(Have I mentioned that I have the best friends in the world?  And that after our long weekend of grocery shopping, power walking, and preparing balanced meals that are on the table when Joel gets home from work, we've taken to calling each other sister-wife?  Because we have.  I would gladly enter into a polygamous relationship if it meant I had a live-in BFF like Jenny.  We decided that for it to work, we'd just have to have one husband that neither of us were romantically interested in to support us, and our real husbands on the side.  And no creepy compounds.) 

We pushed my overloaded cart into the checkout line, clutching our matching coffees (from the in-store Starbucks, of course.  FANCY!) and I commented that I knew I was really getting old because the cover stories on Oprah's O! Magazine looked more interesting to me than than Cosmo did.  And then I sealed my geriatric status by whipping out a coupon from my giant wallet and handing it over to the cashier. 

It must have been a slow day at the Canton Safeway, because that coupon made the the cashier's day.  It was, admittedly, an awesome coupon - $10 off my entire purchase - but I wasn't expecting her to cheer "WOOHOO!  YOU GO GIRL!" as she scanned it.   She was so excited about my coupon that she didn't even notice that it hadn't properly gone through.  But don't worry - I noticed.  After all, we old ladies read our receipts to make sure we got that ground beef for 99cents a pound, and not a sixpence more.

How was your weekend, internet?

My parking skillz. Let me show you them.

Parallel parking is hard.  There's a reason everyone fails it on the driver's test -- myself included.

When people come to visit us, they often say something like "I can't believe you have to parallel park!  I could never do it!"  Well, yes you could.  If you were faced with the choice to either 1. drive around indefinitely looking for a wide, open parking space or 2. manage somehow to parallel park in the space in front of your house, I guarantee that you'd start learning how to parallel park.  It's just like learning how to drive a stick shift:  it seems impossibly hard before you know how, you'll stall out a whole lot in the beginning, and after a few months (uh, maybe weeks for people who learn faster than I do) it will feel so natural that you won't be able to explain it to others.   Five years later, when your boyfriend asks you to teach him how to drive stick, you'll run through half a tank of gas in an empty parking lot, saying things like "no, you let of the clutch WHILE pressing down the gas -- no, not EXACTLY at the same time, but sort of, like... I don't know!  You just DO IT!" 

You (meaning, I) can't really learn how to parallel park unless you're forced to do it ALL THE DAMN TIME.  After four years of living in the hell that is overcrowded street parking, I have a black belt in parallel parking.   I'll admit that I suck at judging whether or not I can fit into a space -- sometimes, just for the hell of it, I'll try to get into a space that I'd swear wouldn't hold a SmartCar and what do you know?   I'm in it on the first try.  Other times I'll think I've got a spot nailed, and after trying ten times to get my rear bumper to fit into it, I'll realize that my Jetta cannot, in fact, fit into a space two and a half feet wide.   But give me a space that's actually wide enough and I can get my car into it, regardless of side of the street (I do favor parking on the right), whether the space is on a 45-degree incline, even if there's a screaming cat pissing on my backseat while I'm trying to cut the wheel.   My one weakness: An audience.   

If someone else is in the car, I invariably screw up the parking job.  I think that stage fright is a pretty universal phenomenon, and that leads me to my point here:  yesterday I saw a girl trying to park her sedan in a space that was plenty big.  She was having trouble, but she was making progress.  UNTIL, this dude walking by appointed himself her Official Parking Assistant.  He stopped walking and stood in front of her, making motions with his hands and yelling instructions.  "No, you've got plenty of room!  Keep coming, keep coming!  KEEP COMING, you've got space!  OK, stop, CUT THE WHEEL, CUT THE WHEEL!" 

People in Baltimore do this ALL THE TIME.   It's happened to me on more than one occasion, and I just don't get it.  Do these people actually think they're helping?   The girl last night was visibly annoyed and embarrassed, but she muttered a thank-you when she got out of her car because the helpful Samaritan was just standing there, waiting to be congratulated for his good deed.    Once I saw a girl abandon a perfectly good parking space because some creepy dude "helped" her parallel park and then hung around her door, waiting to be thanked.   

So here's my public service announcement for the week:  If you see someone trying to parallel park, LEAVE THEM ALONE.  No one wants an audience when the tap the bumper in front of them.  Uh,  not that I've ever tapped anyone's bumper. Those scratches were on my car when I got it. 

Checking in

Hi, internet.  What's up?  Oh, me?   No, I'm fine!  No, not really that busy.  It's just a bit of blogger's block.  No, nothing serious, I'm sure.  Yeah, I'll go to my doctor if it gets any worse.   Maybe I'll call in sick tomorrow if I'm not feeling better by then.  Don't want to pass this think around to the whole office, ya know?

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So, my week of "baching it" flew by uneventfully.  I successfully became a vegetarian for the week, if you don't count the lasagna leftovers I ate for two lunches.  Fine, and two dinners.  But otherwise I would have had to throw it away, and how is throwing perfectly good (delicious, meaty) lasagna in the trash saving any cows?  Exactly.  So I'm saying I was vegetarian for the week and I'm proud of myself.  It was actually easier than I thought, and that's probably because I had Honey Nut Cheerios for dinner several times.  And also for breakfast.  And pop tarts for lunch.  Being vegetarian doesn't mean being healthy, who knew?

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Joel came home from his annual Spring Break coaching trip with a nasty cough/bronchitis/Asian bird flu.   I am pretty sure I got myself put on some sort of watch list when I bought every cold and cough medicine the pharmacy had on its shelves.  Dude, I'm not a meth dealer.  But I'll take any spare percocets you guys have lying around.  Hey, just offering.  Waste not, want not and all that jazz.

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As much as Joel's bronchitis/Asian bird flu sucks (a lot) (for him), at least that's all he brought home.  YES, WAY.   SAME CAMP JOEL WAS AT. Needless to say, I've spent the past three days asking Joel if he could check his bags for snakes just one more time.  And what about under the bed?  And in the closet?  Under the sink?  Under the couch?   Oh, AND THEN THERE'S THIS.  Hey, did I ever tell you guys about the boa constrictor that we found living in the dropped ceiling of Joel's old house?  Man, that was a riot.  FUCKING SNAKES.

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In other news, Max went to the vet last night (looong boring story involving calcium levels, but they threw out the big C, and who's NOT going to take their beloved fatty in for the test when they throw "IT COULD BE CANCER" at you?  Not me, that's who) and when they printed out the receipt for me it had a little picture of Max's face in the top corner.   That made paying $179 for a cancer test much more bearable, for some reason. 

Max would like me to note that he does not agree.  NO MOARZ NEEDLZ PLS KTHXBAI.

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We went for a walk last night, and it was downright idyllic.  We were thoroughly enjoying the springtime weather and the lingering daylight until Joel suggested that we walk around the boat/duck pond in the park and came upon quite a ruckus.  A big white duck was trying to drown a smaller mallard duck.  I know what you're probably thinking: he wasn't trying to drown her, stupid.  That's what we call mommy and daddy duck's special time.  Well, that's what I thought too.  At first.  But the more we watched (oh, shut up, you would have watched too), the more suer we became that he was not uh, "loving" her, but in fact drowning her.  Horrified, I turned to find a rock to throw at him and I almost picked up a dead, squished rat.   Ah, Baltimore.   

I found a stick to throw (missed by a mile), and some neighborhood hooligans arrived and managed to actually hit the white duck with their projectiles, giving the female mallard a chance to run off.  As funny as it was watching a duck try to run, for the rest of the night I couldn't stop wondering why that one duck was trying to drown that other duck. 

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Will you guys still be my friends if I admit that I've been watching The Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious?  And that I sort of love it, but not as much as I loved The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll?  There is too much Robin Antin and not enough of Mike the choreography dude yelling at people in this season.  But still... love.  It's like America's Next Top Model but WITH CHOREOGRAPHED DANCING.

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And... that's all I got.  Time to go check for snakes under my desk.  Again. 

Rats of the sky

Until Heidi mentioned it a few days ago, I'd never heard the term rooster-cat, but BOY DID I KNOW WHAT THEY SOUND LIKE.   Unfortunately, I can't follow Heidi's lead and shut the window on the damned thing because our neighborhood rooster-cat LIVES WITH US.   He sleeps in our bed and he's cute and cuddly and adorable most of the time.  Except for when he sees a pigeon, then he morphs into hunter-cat and becomes more than a little bit psychotic.  Henry, he HATES pigeons.   HAAAAATES THEM.  He expresses his deep-seated hatred for all of pigeonkind by howling a strange, awful crow-meow at them and trying to jump through the window when they make their early-morning flybys. 

Henry talks a big game.  You should hear the names he calls those pigeons, and all the things he says he's going to do to them.  He's going to kill them, maim them, eat their babies and make sure there's not a pigeon left alive to tell the tale, that's what he's going to do.

At least, that's what he said until a big, scary pigeon had the audacity to land on our very own window ledge. 

Pigeon watching from Pink Herring on Vimeo.

Most boring video ever, or thrilling documentary one brave pigeon who wouldn't back down?  You make the call.

You want me to think of a title too? Sigh.

I hope it's not totally lame and way too late and completely repetitive to say thank you again to those of you who organized the little online party shindig, and thank you as well to all of you who participated.   I loved reading everyone's particular takes on the wedding theme.  And I checked out those knot.com message boards.  And now I am terrified for my life.   

Not only do you guys rock, but you made me an honest woman.  I DID need my ring back early for my Fake Totally Real Online Engagement Party!  The universe must have sense this white-lie-turned-truth, because on Saturday morning we picked up my newly sized ring.  The rest of the weekend was spent trying to take a decent picture of it.  I am not even kidding.  Apparently I am incapable of taking a picture with one hand while simultaneously holding the other hand still.  And also incapable of taking pictures in non-natural light.  Or using a flash.  Or finding the battery charger for the camera.

The results of that thrilling quest are here.   I officially feel like a self-absorbed bridezilla now, as if I didn't before.  But my mom the people, they demanded photos.  And my mom the people, they will not be denied.   

Hmmm.  What else?  Last night I spent the evening painting the room Joel's team uses for indoor practices, a task Joel has been asking me to do for approximately one billion years.  I put it off for months before finally getting down to business last night.  And it was fun!  Why don't I do stuff like this more often, I wondered to myself.   And then we spent half an hour looking for a parking spot when we got home and I remembered, oh yeah.  That's why.   

In other news, anyone who had President's Day off yesterday officially sucks.  And by that I mean please trade lives with me.  And also please contact Superman to turn the earth back so that I can enjoy yesterday.  As you.

It's been a long week.  Already.  It's Tuesday, for those of you keeping track.

Peace out.

Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor hail

There was a notice from the post office slipped through our mail slot on Tuesday, saying that they'd make a "FINAL ATTEMPT" to deliver a package to me and that I could pick it up at the local post office between the hours of 8am and 5pm.  If I didn't pick it up by Friday, they'd be shipping it back to the sender.

I was confused for a few reasons.  I wasn't expecting a package at home.  The sender's name, illegibly scrawled by the mailman, was unfamiliar.  "Final Notice" implies that prior notices had been left, but we hadn't received any. The post office has never had a problem tossing our packages into the alley (and in the "item left _____" section of the undeliverable notice, they cryptically wrote "SIDE", which had us completely stumped until we saw our soggy, bruised Amazon.com box lying halfway up the alley, half in our neighbor's patio), or, more recently, dumping a box into the shrub next to our steps.  (That time, it said "Item left PLANT", which was much more clear).  But since I was too curious to let my mysterious package be returned to its sender, I got up extra early yesterday and went to the post office before work to pick it up. 

After the woman at the desk spent 10 minutes explaining to the dude in front of my why he couldn't ship a UPS box from the Post Office ("Wait -- they're not the same?  What do you mean?  Isn't this where mail goes?"), she fetched my mysterious package.  I tore it open on the way to work and was delighted to find a Christmas Card and a box of chocolates from Marriage-101.  But again, I was confused, because the lovely card talked about Sweet Pea the Dog, and didn't Sweet Pea run away over Christmas?   Then I looked at the postmark:  December 22nd. 

It took 26 days for this package to make it from Missouri to Maryland.  That's an average of 32 miles a day.

Also, the package would have easily fit through our mail slot.

Also, when I got home (having picked up the package that morning!), I got another "FINAL NOTICE", this one claiming the package would be returned to sender on Monday (not Friday).

Um.  Okay.  Whatever.  The choclates were delicious and were much enjoyed by my coworkers and I for breakfast.  Thanks again, Liz!

Back on January 7th, when Marriage-101's package was probably slowly making its way through Louisiana, I ordered some Feliway refills from Amazon.  These things are expensive, but they work wonders for our cats.   I started using them last year when they were brawling during every waking moment, and within hours of plugging them in the fighting had stopped.  I'd phased them out gradually since the catfights are mostly a thing of the past, but I thought it would be a good idea to get a few to plug in while we're away, especially since there has been a phantom rug-peer for the past couple of weeks.  Knowing that this box would never fit through the mail slot, I shipped it to my office address.  Tracking confirmed that it was shipped on January 10th and delivered on January 12th at 11:33am.   Today is January 17th, and I have yet to see it.

Does anyone else have this many problems with the mail?   I'm off to track down my package, since the whole point of buying those refills was to keep the cats from pissing all over the house while we're in Spain and holy crap WE ARE LEAVING IN THREE DAYS. 

Buenas Suerte con el Pumpkin Pie!

Yesterday I got into the mood to free myself of some of the unnecessary things in the house.  The main target of this cleaning was my VHS tape collection.  I used to collect movies like crazy.   I used to actually watch them, too.   But with the advent of those new fangled DVD thingies all the kids are using nowadays (not to mention Tivo) I have come to accept that the chances that I'll ever sit down and watch my Happy Gilmore VHS are quite slim. 

Plus, I really needed that cabinet space to put a new batch of junk. 

I was going to add my VHS collection to the two big bags of Goodwill stuff in our closet, but I have a LOT of VHS tapes and there wasn't really space in the closet.   So instead, I put them out on the sidewalk.  I've used this method for unloading stuff before, and it works like magic.  Our house is right on the route that parents walk to take their kids to the local elementary school, so we get a lot of foot traffic.  And who doesn't like free stuff?  I've gotten rid of old magazines, picture frames, shoes, even a toaster in this manner.  People take what they want, I'm rid of it, I'm saved a trip to Goodwill, and best of all, I get to tell myself that people are actually going to get some use out of our old things.  It's a win/win/win/win situation.   I always tape a sign that says "Free/Gratis" (we have a large Hispanic immigrant population in the neighborhood) so that people know that I WANT them to take this stuff.  As opposed to the groceries I sometimes leave on the stoop when I come home from the store, and then forget about.  Don't be takin' my pop tarts, people! 

Because I heart recycling, I took two index cards with recipes on them out of our paper recycling bin (bin = grocery bag) and wrote FREE on the back of one and GRATIS on the other, and taped them to the wall above the stack of VHS tapes. 

I checked back an hour later, and about half the tapes were gone.

And another hour later, all the tapes were gone.  And so were my signs.  Apparently someone was in the market for some discarded, handwritten recipes on index cards.  Happy baking, whoever you are!  I was never able to get that pumpkin pie to turn out right.   

Part 2: Max is watching you

Being able to run again was bizarre.  I’d gone through the five stages of mourning my life as a runner, and I’d accepted that it just wasn’t a part of who I was anymore. I was OK with it.  I had come to see that the mentality that had been drilled into my head during college training (you MUST run every day or the world WILL fall apart) wasn’t necessarily healthy. I enjoyed the extra free time that not having to run every day gave me.   People don’t think of time when they think of running, but let me tell you – a Sunday long run takes up the whole day. You have to psych yourself up for it, plan your meals around it, actually run for an hour or more, and then stretch, shower, and lie on the floor for at least an hour to recover. And then you have to EAT.  Next thing you know it’s time for bed. Honestly, I didn’t want to get back into the grind of guilt, constantly thinking about when am I going to run today. But I did want to get some semblance of exercise back in my life, and the only real exercise that I five minutes is running.

I started out in small doses on a treadmill, as recommended by my (very) personal medical professional.  I joined the gym, and immediately became addicted to the cable television and Gilmore Girls reruns from 5-6pm.  As it turns out, running on a treadmill is not bad, as long as you have cable TV at your disposal.  Not bad at all!  In fact, it’s wonderful.  There is no guilt over watching crappy TV, because I’m exercising, dammit. 

But with the recent influx of students at the gym, space has become a real issue.  I do not enjoy fighting with people for my 30 minute maximum time on a machine.  Plus, the almost-fall weather is beckoning me to just do something outside after being locked in my office all day.  Fall is tied with summer for the prized position of being my Favorite Season, and that’s only because fall leads to winter and I hate winter.   If fall led directly into spring, it would be miles ahead of summer and its sweaty, three-showers-a-day humidity. I resolved to run outside more.

And it felt good. It felt GREAT.

I’m not giving up the gym, because hey – I paid good money for that stupid membership and there was a 6 month minimum and with God as my witness, I will get my money’s worth, even if it has to be 30 minutes at a time.  But there is something spiritual about running outside, about seeing actual people and the world around you that not even Gilmore Girls reruns can live up to.

(Except for maybe the episode where Jess and Dean fight. That episode is awesome).

I came home after a particularly brutal day last week in desperate need of blowing off steam. I should have gone to the gym, but I just couldn’t deal with it. Instead, I put on my running shoes and went out for a sunset run, and it was better therapy than the half bottle of wine I drank after I got home and showered.

God, I missed running. Real, simple, outside running.  Where you can see the sun actually setting, people walking their dogs. Homeless people playing cards by the harbor. I was so inspired by the sights and sounds (not the smells, because... fishy.) of this place that I live, that I take for granted and bitch about on a daily basis, that I took the camera with me on my next run.

(Yeah, I went running with our not-iPod in one hand and a camera in another.  What of it?)

Sunset over the harbor, city skyline in the background.

Sailboat race. (Regatta!)

BIG BOAT. (Ship?) Ladies and gents, that is a WAREHOUSE next to the front of it (bow? stern?)

Speaking of BIG, is this not the biggest car in the history of cars? It was kind of scary. My head came up to the sideview mirror. (So a normal person's head would have been about a foot above that.)

Some boats sitting quietly, city skyline in the background post-sunset. 

Happy Friday, internet.  It's been a long week, so kick your feet up and enjoy the sunset.

Max orders you to.

And he's watching you.

Take me out to the -- wait, are we in Boston?

Guess where I went last night.  I'll give you a hint: it was a place where you could get a free set of bobbleheads with just the low price of a season ticket!  What a bargain!

Yes, I, disdainer of all things relating to professional sportsmanship, went to a baseball game.  And it was fun!  Mostly because it was free.  And because my $6 Italian sausage was delicious.

This was only my second time attending an Orioles game during my tenure in Charm City.   Shame on me!  I should really be out there supporting the home team, right?  Apparently not.  There were more Red Sox fans at this game than Orioles fans by a loooong shot.  Every time the crowd would cheer, I'd instinctively cheer too (even though I had no idea what had just happened because I was too busy watching the Crowd Cam on the big screen or planning what kind of delicious overpriced dinner I was going to get (hot dog or pork BBQ sandwich?  Sausage or pizza?  French fries?) to actually pay attention to the game).  So there I'd be, cheering away, rooting for my team, when all of a sudden I'd realize, hey, why are those guys in the Orioles jerseys over there giving me dirty looks?  BECAUSE I'M ROOTING FOR THE WRONG TEAM.   Well, you know what I say to that?  Joel got a totally unfair parking ticket yesterday, so I MEANT to root for Boston.  Screw Baltimore.  Yeah.

Besides the danger of dying of boredom during a 3-inning stretch where no one got even one run and the risk of being crushed by the crowd trying to leave the stadium (what?  I'm the only one with a paralyzing fear of crowds?), baseball games are just a lawsuit waiting to happen, if you ask me, because DUDE -- they players cannot keep the balls on the damn field.  I swear, I was wishing I had a pith helmet... or at least a bike helmet and some body armor.   People just sit in the stands and act like a beat up old baseball glove is going to protect them from a 100-mph foul ball.   People actually seemed to WANT these deadly projectiles to come for them!  They fight over them!  Seriously, this kid was PISSED that he didn't get any balls. 

 

There were at least 3 fouls that came right over to us (stupid Joel's work, giving us tickets in the third row with no regard for our safety) and the ball girl (whose job it was, apparently, to stand around near third base for three hours just in case a foul ball rolled into her vicinity, and then pick up the ball and give it to someone in the stands) didn't choose him to receive the precious ball.  He was outraged, completely incensed by the unfairness of her choices.   He was all, WHAT!  THAT GUY WITH THE BABY IN THE ORIOLES ONESIE GOT A BALL?  THAT BABY DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT A BALL IS!  THIS IS SO UNFAIR!

When someone pointed out to him that he might not be getting chosen because he was dressed head to toe in Red Sox gear, he responded by turning his shirt inside out.  Yeah, that really fooled 'em. 

Who knew?  Baseball is kind of fun.   

Another reason to shop at Sam's Club, besides the free samples

On Saturday, Joel and I went to the yuppie grocery store to pick up a few very specific items.  I am trying my very best to resist the ingrained urge to buy things in bulk, since we are leaving on vacation in 4 days (!) and there is no way we will consume 6 avocados, two pounds of turkey, a giant block of cheddar cheese before then.  We were determined to stick to the list: cat litter, apples, pasta sauce, and a ream of paper for me to write one of my characteristic insane notes for the petsitter on.  My record is three pages (front and back), but we have a whole extra cat this year so I'm aiming high.  Better crazy than sorry, that's what I say. 

We made it through the yuppie Safeway in record time and pulled our cart over to the aisle with the shortest line.  Since Saturday night isn't exactly prime time for grocery shopping, there were only a few lanes open.  When I peered down the aisle to gague how much stuff the people in front of us were buying (and therefore how much time I had to read US Weekly), my eyes locked with the cashier's.   My heart sank a little when I recognized her as Inappropriate Comment Cashier Lady, and I cursed my luck. 

I'm not sure what kind of training Safeway gives its cashiers, but I'd assume that they give them an overview of the basic skills -- how to operate the register, how to call for an override, and the like.  Apparently, they also instruct their cashiers that it is OK to comment on each and every item a customer is purchasing, and ICCL graduated from this part of the course with high honors.  As soon as the customer in front of us finished counting out twelve dollars and thirteen cents in change (I'm not kidding -- the Coinstar was broken, so he decided to simply pay his grocery bill in nickels, dimes, and pennies), the real fun began.  As she scanned my bag of cat food, she looked at me and asked my how many cats I had.   After shooting Joel a look to say "Here we go, feel free to jump in and kill me at any time!", I replied that we had three cats. 

"Oh, wow!" she exclaimed, and without missing a beat, added "we just had to put down my mom's last cat in June."

"Oh, that's sad", I said, trying to sound sincere (for the record -- the first time she told me this story, I was honestly sad for her.  But after you hear the same story, word for word, three times, it stops pulling at your heart strings).

"Yeah, but it was her time to go.  She was thirteen, poor thing could hardly jump up on the bed anymore."

"You don't say." [trying with all my might to keep a straight face, while Joel concentrates fully on loading our other purchases onto the belt]

"Yeah, but it was real sad.  June 13th was when she went."

"I'm very sorry," I said, as she scanned our next item -- two packets of guacamole mix, which warranted the comment, "MMMM!  Guacamole!"

The apples and a few other things made it through the scanner comment-free, but then we got to the cards.  Joel had picked out a birthday card for this mother, and I had taken the opportunity to buy a long overdue engagement card for a friend of mine, along with several wedding cards for the upcoming nuptials-filled year.  "Oooh, looks like everybody's getting married!" she exclaimed, giving me a knowing glance.  I'm not sure what the knowing glance was supposed to mean, did she think I was buying wedding cards for myself, perhaps?  Is that the new passive-aggressive method for trying to get your boyfriend to propose?  We will never know, because I swiped my credit card and high tailed it to the parking lot so that I could burst out laughing.

"That was the fourth time she told me about the dead cat," I told Joel.  "THE. FOURTH. TIME.  How many times do you think she tells that story every day?  Does she tell everyone about her mom's dead cat, or does the 20-lb bag of cat food give me special status?"

While these comments are pretty harmless, it troubles me to wonder what she would say if I were buying anything a tad more... personal.  Like, what happens when I need to stock up on tampons?  Is she going to announce to the whole store, "Oh boy, looks like someone's going to be cranky for the next few days [wink, wink]"?  And since my family reads this site, I'll stop there -- but can you imagine the awkward factor that certain purchases from the family planning aisle could illicit?

On our drive home, I started to speculate about possible responses I could give the next time I make a cat-related purchase (which is pretty much on every single trip, in case you were wondering) and she asks me the inevitable How-Many-Do-You-Have question.  "Next time, I'm going to tell her I have twenty seven cats, and see what she has to say to that," I told Joel.  "No, better yet, I'm going to say, 'None. Why do you ask?' "

"You should tell her you feed the cat food to your dog, because that's what he prefers," Joel suggested.

"I'm going to tell her that it's for my Brazilian baboon.  And he specifically requests Iams Original Flavored with Chicken.  You know, in sign language."

"You should tell her you just keep it around in case we run out of snacks.  And that it really does taste like chicken."

The chances that I'll actually have the guts to deliver any of these lines the next time I get stuck with Inappropriate Comment Cashier Lady?  Close to zero.  But if they weren't so expensive, I would totally throw a few packs of adult diapers and a pack of Monistat-3, just to see what she would say.

Oxymoron

I seem to have contracted some sort of cold, complete with a stuffed up head, excessive sneezing, and a runny nose.  I really feel that this should be illegal or something, given that this is the forecast lately:

Tonight Jul 10 Mostly Clear 102°/81° 20%

102°F

6am 82°F Feels Like 85°F

9am 89°F Feels Like 92°F

12pm 96°F Feels Like 103°F

3pm 99°F Feels Like 104°F

6pm 96°F Feels Like 101°F

9pm 90°F Feels Like 96°F

That might not look so bad to those of you over there on your precious West Coast.  All I have to say to you is: HUMIDITY KILLS.

Now that I've officially devolved into complaining about the weather on my blawg, I'll just go and dunk my head in a bucket of ice, if you'll excuse me.

Much Ado About Bamboo

Last night, around 11:45, I was reading in bed when I heard the distinct sound of something crashing.  It sounded like glass-on-glass or glass-on-tile, but not exactly like glass shattering, and so I was able to convince myself that I should go downstairs and see what the cats were getting into, rather than grabbing the phone and shaking Joel awake at the same time, dialing 9-1 and then keeping my finger poised over the 1-button for maximum speed in alerting the authorities to our impending death.  This was a major improvement over two weeks ago, when I heard a thud on the deck and made Joel get up to investigate while I cowered behind him, only to find that the potential thief/murderer/escaped convict was nothing more than a stray cat trying to take a dump in our lilac bush in peace. 

I discovered that Henry, with his overly excited tail-wagging (yes, Henry plays fetch and wags his tail when excited.  I should stop whining about how I want a dog, since apparently I HAVE ONE ALREADY) had knocked over a bud vase in the window, where one of those "lucky" bamboo shoots they sell at Ikea has been languishing for months.  Much to my delight, it hadn't broken when it hit the floor.  I put it in the sink and went to sleep.  This morning, I decided to take the poor bamboo shoot to work, since this is the 5,867th time it has been knocked off the window sill, and lucky bamboo shoots only have 5,870 lives.  Plus, I just can't throw a perfectly good plant in the trash -- even if Max has chewed on most of its leaves.  No, I'd rather bring it down to my sunless cave-office and let it wilt for a few years first.

As I was nearing one of the busier intersections near my office, I noticed a middle-aged guy hesitating to cross the street.  The walk sign had just changed to a flashing "don't walk", so I hurried up and scurried across the street.  Apparently, feeling embarrassed for being so cautious, the guy shuffled along behind me and narrowly made onto the sidewalk before the light changed. 

This put me in the extremely uncomfortable position of being faced with a stranger who wants to make conversation at 8am.   To make things worse, this guy looked like a real kook, to use Joel's term.  He was wearing white keds with scrunchy socks, jeans that were just a little too short, and a t-shirt that clearly used to be pink, but was faded to orange.  He had unruly white hair tied back by a bandanna, and a HUGE cell phone clipped to his belt.  He didn't seem to be sure of where he was going, and the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat.  In other words: he looked like exactly the kind of Crazy I try to avoid whenever possible. 

"Got a plant, there, huh?", he asked me.  "Um... yes," I replied, trying not to make eye contact as I hurried down the sidewalk.  "What kind of plant is that?", he asked.  "Um... bamboo," I told him.  Now I was sure he was a kook, because even a plant-killer like me knows bamboo when they see it.  "Growing a garden at work?", he asked.  "No, um, my cat was eating it, so I thought I'd bring it to work."  Inside, I was kicking myself for opening up the conversation and wishing I could just walk a little faster without dropping all of my crap.  I looked over at the security guard across the street and wondered if I should just duck into a building and wait until he passed to continue on to my office.  "Ah, saving the plant from the cats.  That's nice.  I'm sure you'll have a forest in no time," he commented.  "Yeah, um, bamboo grows really fast," I said nervously.   "That's for sure," he said.  "Bamboo grows fast.  'Specially in Nam."

I'm not sure why, but that statement just made me so, so sad.  It's pathetic that I've trained myself to be so suspicious of every friendly stranger on the street.  It's sad that I have to be suspicious.  It's sad that a lonely vet is avoided on the streets.  I wonder how much he went through to defend this country. 

Or, maybe he was just crazy.   Who knows.

Housekeeping and the weather

From an interoffice email news alert (and I get waaaay to many of these on a daily basis, on everything from "FuN WeEkEnd EvEnTs!!1!" to "Pass on this prayer because you're one of my favorite 12 people"), I have just learned that Baltimore City Schools are closing 2 hours early today due to the weather. 

It's raining.  CLOSE THE SCHOOLZ OMG WATER IS FALLING FROM THE SKY.

Sometimes this city really makes me want to bash my head into the wall, and then cry for the children who can't read because the schools here are so freaking ridiculous.

In other news, I have a few blog-o housekeeping issues:

#1: I will be deleting the old site at the end of the day.  I know that some people are still getting here from that link (the referral stats don't lie, I'm looking at YOU).  Update your links or lose me forever, Goose! (Does that movie reference make sense to anyone but me?  No?  Didn't think so.)

#2: Due to another attack of paranoia, I have temporarily upgraded to Typepad Pro so that I could use their "Find and Replace" tool.  I used this to replace my last name anywhere it appeared, which was in every photo title that was carried over from the old blog.  The result: I am thisclose to having my blog(s) not show up in a Google search of my name.  Oh, and also, all pictures from before the site switch are gone.  Oops.  I honestly don't think anyone will care, but if there are particular back-posts you're reading that NEED the pictures and you're DYING to witness my mad photography skillz, email me and I'll fix those particular ones.

#3: I have finally gotten around to writing an "about" section.  If you care to know how I came up with the genius name for this new pink site, I've explained it there.  It's not exactly deep or meaningful, just to warn you.

#4: HAPPY FRIDAY, INTERNET.  I know I say this every week,  but every Friday is a good Friday in my book.

Ikea Ate My Weekend

The newest trend in the ghetto practice of putting a couch out on the porch -- a couch on the balcony!  Classy!

But enough about me, what did you do this weekend?

And ya'll said it would never happen....

We are currently under a "Winter Weather Event" Advisory.

Currently
Updated: 1:30 PM EST Observed at South Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland
Temperature	27.3 °F / -2.6 °C
Humidity	85%
Dew Point	23 °F / -5 °C
Wind	NE at 12.0 mph / 19.3 km/h / 6.2 m/s
Conditions	Light Ice Pellets Snow Mist

Never mind that not the snow has not accumulated at all, and that it is supposed to turn to rain by tomorrow morning... my office is closing early today and opening late tomorrow.  HALLELUJAH!  Thank goodness for "Light Ice Pellets" and "Snow Mist"!  I'm not even sure those are real weather terms, and I don't care. 

On Thursday, Joel and I are going to Chicago for a little Valentine's Day trip.  We planned this trip in January, when it was 60 degrees and sunny out, and at the time I thought "How bad can Chicago be in almost-March?  Screw Florida, that's boring.  Let's go to Chicago!" Now I am wondering just how crazy am I? as I look at the forecast for "Snow Blowing Snow" (really, that's what it says) with a temperature of 6 degrees/feels like -7 degrees.   But even if it totally sucks outside, I'm looking forward to getting away for a few days.  I love staying in hotels.  I love how the closets have plenty of space for all the stuff I can possibly pack, and how the trash just magically gets emptied every day.  I love sleeping in a non-sucky, non-ikea bed with a giant bedspread and plenty of pillows.  I love how the curtains actually block out the light, and I don't have to wear a sleeping mask.  There are a bunch of museums that Joel wants to go to.  Other than that, we don't have anything planned.  I can't wait.

Of course, this all means that I might not be posting much for the rest of the week.  I'm sure the internet will be down at home due to the "winter weather event", and we're probably not going to pay for access in the hotel in Chicago.  But I'll be back... with pictures.  You know you're excited.

Speaking of excitement, there are going to be some changes around here next week.  Some very exciting changes.  In honor of my blogoversary, I am going to be moving my blog to another site.  One that will not turn up when someone Google searches my full name.  I am still testing it out and figuring out how to migrate everything over, which is difficult when you are a borderline techno-idiot, but I expect it to be fully operational by the end of next week.    That is, if the massive snowstorms don't destroy the internet before then.

A new twist in the never-ending parking saga

I drove halfway to work this morning, which is something I do when I have to go somewhere right after work or if I'm really, really, really late.  I drive 4-5 blocks towards my office, park the car, and walk the rest of the way.  This saves me about 5 minutes of walking time on the way home, and another 5 minutes of driving time to reach the highway.  At rush hour, those 10 minutes can save half an hour.  The difference between hitting I-83 at 5:15 and 5:30 is unbelievable.  Just in case you're wondering, and your probably not, I stop at halfway not because I like to do things half-assed (although I certainly do, at times), but because after the halfway point, we enter 2-hour parking zone.  So I would either need to move my car every two hours (no thanks, I'd prefer to use that time for visitng the coffee shop or the diet coke machine), risk a ticket/tow (been there, done that), or pay to park in one of the overpriced garages (I am morally opposed to PAYING for the privelige of coming to work).

I only do this on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, because there are street cleaning signs on one side of my preferred street on Thursday, and on the other side on Friday, which means I will likely spend more time looking for a spot than it would take me to walk all the way in.  The city has not actually cleaned that street in the two years I've been walking to work, but they are amazingly precise about giving out tickets for parking in the street cleaning zone.  Every Thursday and Friday, the meter maid is there at 8am sharp, and I can actually gague how late I am by how far she's made it up the street when I walk past.  If she's still on the third or fourth car, I'm early.  If she's halfway up the block, I'm on time.  God forbid, if she's already left, leaving a little white and red ticket on every windshield on the block, well, crap.  I'm late.  Again.

I decided to park on the block before the street cleaning block today, even though that puts me one block farther from work.  I couldn't see any open spots ahead while I was stopped at the light, and there was a nice big space right next to me, so I took it.  I pulled my car right up to the No Stopping in Front of This Bus Stop sign, so that another car could fit behind me.  I'm nice like that. 

I put The Club on my steering wheel, gathered up all my crap, hit the Lock button on my key chain, and I'd just started to walk away when a lady waiting at the bus stop started hailing me down, yelling, "Miss!  Miss!  Excuse me!  Miss!"

My heart sank, and I was sure she was going to tell me that my engine had been smoking or alarm lights were going off all over my car (on the outside?  I have no idea how that is possible, but in my mind my car might have been giving off some sort of Morse code with the non-working blinker), because I KNEW it was sounding funny this morning, damnit, I really am going to have to take it to the dealer, I hate my stupid car.

But, surprisingly, she wasn't trying to tell me that my car has developed conscienceness and is now able to alert bystanders to it's plight.

"You might not want to park there," she said.  "They give out tickets for parking in the bus stop."

I looked back to make sure my front bumper wasn't poking past the sign, and it wasn't.  I was pulled right up to the sign, not an inch past it.  A damned fine parking job, if I do say so myself.  I thanked the woman for her concern, but pointed out that I wasn't actually in the bus stop.  See, I'm right behind the sign, and the red arrow points forward.

"I'm just sayin'.  They give out tickets here for blocking the bus stop.  I live on this block, the meter maid was just by," she replied, folding her arms over her chest.

"Um, I'm not in the bus stop".

"I'm just sayin'.  It's an expensive ticket, too."

"But.... I'm not.... in the bus stop..."

"Well, I'm just sayin'.  Don't be surprised if there's a ticket on your car when you come back."

"But...huh?"

The saddest part of this conversation is that I moved my car.  That crazy woman is probably riding the bus right now, patting herself on the back for being such a good samaritan.  I, on the other hand, was late to work.

Again.

Can't we all just get along?

I was planning to post today about how delighted I am that Election Day is over, putting an end to all of the political ads on TV, all of the phone calls and surveys trying to convince me to GET OUT THERE AND VOTE, and by the way: you should totally vote for this guy, he's the best, he'll save the state!

But even when it's over, it's never really over, is it?

When I walked home from work yesterday, it was sort of exciting.  There were people on every street corner wearing shirts and holding signs, promoting the two candidates for governor. There was even a van driving around blasting out messages from two speakers mounted on top.  For the first time a long while, it felt like maybe everyone wasn't just completely apathetic about our political system -- including myself.

Last night I went out, and I voted, and I came home.  There was a brief moment when it looked like The Unit and NCIS would be pre-empted for political crap, but luckily, that was not the case, and I was not forced to throw my television out the window.  Even though we had to suffer constant updates running across the bottom of the screen (1.5% OF THE PRECINCTS HAVE REPORTED HALF OF THEIR VOTES!  SO FAR, THE RACE SEEMS CLOSE!  STAY TUNED!) and live updates during every commercial, this was far better than the commercials that we've all been bombarded with for the past few weeks.  Smear campaign, anyone?  Well, at least it's over. 

Or not.

For all of you non-Marylanders (I can't believe I just insinuated I am a Marylander), this race has been pretty heated.  The mayor of Baltimore City, Martin O'Malley (Democrat), is trying oust the current governor, Robert Ehrlich (Republican), who has been in office for 20 years.  The fact that these two men HATE each other is widely known.

This morning it looked like O'Malley had won.  In fact, he declared victory last night and had a big party.

But, Ehrlich refused to concede.  He wanted to wait until all the absentee ballots were counted.  If nearly all of those  ballots were in his favor, he could still win.   According to the Sun:

"We don't know, folks, we just don't know," Ehrlich said. "We will count the votes. We will count all the votes. ... We've been around 20 years, and we've got a decent shot to be around four more."

Ehrlich's speech interrupted O'Malley's televised victory declaration, prompting boos from the crowd at the Hippodrome who could see the governor's image on a big-screen television.

"I'm still waiting for the call, by the way," O'Malley said.

(Sound a little snarky to anyone else?)

Election workers will begin counting those ballots on scanning machines tomorrow, but election challenges from the lawyers who have been retained by both political parties could prevent a winner from being officially declared for weeks. The last time an election was this close, in 1994, the losing candidate, Ellen R. Sauerbrey, pursued a legal challenge for two months and never conceded defeat.

The prospect for legal challenges was unclear early this morning.

"There are many things we're paying attention to, but tomorrow morning we'll put our heads together and see where we stand. Once we see what the facts are on the ground, we'll know better," said Sev Miller, the Ehrlich campaign's general counsel.

O'Malley campaign manager Josh White said the mayor would be prepared if Ehrlich does mount a legal challenge.

"I'm sure they'll pull out all the stops," White said. "We just hope the governor does the right thing."

Oh. My. God.  What's worse than mean politicians?  Mean politicians AND THEIR LAWYERS.

This is all on top of one of the nastiest campaigns I have ever witnessed. 

First there were ads by O'Malley saying that Ehrlich had "forgotten where he came from", insinuating that he is in bed with the big businesses instead of the working man.

Ehrlich retaliated by calling O'Malley a "whiner".

Then there were ads by Ehrlich saying that O'Malley manipulated crime statistics to make himself look better.  To which O'Malley retaliated, Oh yeah? Well you approved those statistics, SO THERE! 

Somewhere in the middle of all that, one of Ehrlich's henchmen got caught fabricating rumors about O'Malley's marriage being on the rocks, and O'Malley called Ehrlich a big fat boogerhead.  Then they both went out and drew mustaches on each other's billboards.

Yesterday I was actually feeling better about our political system, feeling like my vote mattered.  Now I'm back to general bitter disillusionment.  Why do we have to resort to attacking each other's families?  Didn't your mommas teach you any manners?

I think a woman that the Sun quoted put is perfectly:

"It was a very nasty campaign," said Jennifer Arnold, 39, a freelance writer who said she reluctantly voted for O'Malley. "I'm sort of disillusioned across the board."

Right on, sister.

Want to hear about how I got my lock popped?

Hello internet, how are you?  I'm fine, thanks for asking. 

Today I got the annual email saying "request your holiday days off NOW, before they're gone!"  Which got me to thinking about the holidays and what we're going to do... but mostly, about how much traffic there is going to be on the New Jersey Turnpike.

But, whatever, I told myself.  Nothing can be as bad as two years ago.   

Twas the morning before the night before Christmas of 2004, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. 

Joel had departed early in the morn, off to Vermont to sit by the fire and eat popped corn. 

I was nestled all snug in my bed, with visions of sugar overdoses dancing in my head.

When out in the hall there arose such a clatter, I knew in my sleep exactly what what the matter. 

It was the sound that Max makes when he's not feeling quite well, the warning he gives before all goes to hell. 

Into the hall I flew like a flash, thinking "Not on the rug, Max!  Don't be such an ass!" 

Hack, hack, cough cough, the fat kitty said, and before I could reach out, vomit sprang from his head.

Off he ran down the stairs and into the bathroom, while I spotted up cat puke with my face filled with gloom.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear, just as I'd found the carpet cleaner and was in the clear?

Another pile here and yet another there, Max had even puked on my neatly folded underwear.

As I stood bewildered in my rumpled nightgown, I heard more hacking commence, two floors down.

Max was very sick, of that much I was sure, and I could only wonder what on earth could be the cure?

As I closed him in the bathroom with a towel and bowl of water, I marched off to work, feeling as if I were on my way to a slaughter.

I'll just call the vet, it will all be all right, a Merry Christmas indeed, but we'll have a fine night.

Two years ago, Joel and I decided to do holidays with our separate families.  Joel left for the high hills of Vermont early in the morning of December 23rd, but I was scheduled to work a half day, since I had just started my job three weeks before and totally got screwed with holiday time off. 

Max is not a healthy cat, and him throwing up is nothing new.  But the way he was acting on this morning, I knew that something was seriously wrong.  He wouldn't stop barfing, and in between he was lying in the bathtub, panting.  He was hot to the touch and looked about as miserable as a cat can look.  He was not exactly in the shape I'd like to make a 200-mile drive home to New Jersey, but I had to go to work, since I was the only one scheduled in that day.  I locked Max in the bathroom and went off to work, where I immediately called the vet and scheduled an emergency appointment.  They told me it would cost $50 extra since it was such short notice, but they didn't say anything about it being Christmas Eve-eve, and for that I was grateful.  Four hours later, I trudged back home in the pouring rain and started loading up the car for the trip home for the holidays.

I was not particularly looking forward to getting Max into his carrier.  Have you ever seen footage of people who are, for whatever reason, trying to wrangle a greased pig?  They're diving on to the pig, the pig is squealing and running as fast as his pig legs can carry him, then they manage to grab him and he flails and squirms and breaks free, and it starts all over again?  That's what it's like trying to get Max into his carrier.  It doesn't help that, most of the time, Madison is sitting in the carrier because HE never gets to go ANYWHERE, insert whining here.  Oh, and have I mentioned that Max was vomiting quite a bit?  Good times!  So I did what anyone would do in this situation, and I made myself a sandwich for the road.  Then I ate some chips and had a Diet Coke and looked out the window to see if it was still raining.  It was.  I decided to save the best for last, leaving Max in the bathroom while I packed up the last few bags.

As I walked out of the house with my purse and my sandwich, I instinctively turned the lock on the inside of the door and slammed it behind me.  As it was closing, my stomach sank and I turned in slow motion... but it was too late.  I had my lunch in one hand, and my purse in the other, and I'd left my keys on the kitchen table.

Thankfully, the little baby Jesus* was feeling gracious (or I was just stupid) and I hadn't locked my car.  So, I got into the passenger seat and began digging through my purse, praying that I had my cell phone somewhere in there.

Have I mentioned that I am a nervous traveler?  Well, I am.  I get irrationally nervous whenever I'm traveling, especially by plane.  It's really quite counterproductive, because my nerves cause me to forget things (like cell phones, wallets, cell phone chargers, the address of the hotel I'm staying at, KEYS TO THE HOUSE I LIVE IN), which in turn makes me even more nervous. 

(Don't you just want to take a trip with me now? )

Luckily, I had my cell phone on me.  I called Joel, who had been driving north for approximately 6 hours at this point.

Joel: Hello?

Me: OMG I locked myself out of teh house!!!1  Where r u??  Can u come let me in??

Joel: I am in New Hampshire.

Me: Oh, $@%&.  I was hoping maybe you hit a lot of traffic or something and were still close by.

So I did the next logical thing that a person would do, I knocked on the door of our neighbor two doors down, who we'll call Mr. Old Man, or MOM.  MOM is the prototype for a certain Baltimore breed, he is always home, except for when he's carted away in an ambulance, which happens approximately every other week.  He has lived in his house since he was born, which is a long time, since he is approximately 177 years old.  He has a handicapped parking spot, which makes me angry at him, even though I should probably be sympathetic or something instead.  MOM's favorite hobbies include watching TV with his door open, standing in front of his open door spying on the neighborhood, going to the hospital, and gabbing with anyone who will talk to him.

Since the house next to us was vacant at the time, and I knew the neighbors on the other side were already gone for the holidays, and the rest of our block is made up of white trash folks of varying degrees of Scary (the Scariest kicked out one of their residents, who I think is the brother of one of the other residents on the block, and then he proceeded to sleep on their front steps for over a week.  And then he got tired of them kicking him every time they came in or out, and he moved to sleeping on the church steps across the street... that is, until he was arrested for Something Mysterious in a big to-do in front of said church and was never seen again), I decided MOM was probably my safest bet. 

For what?  I don't know.  But I knocked on his door.  And sure enough, he was home.

Me: Um, hi.  I live two houses down.  I think we met when I moved in or something.  Um, I like sort of locked myself out of the house.

MOM: OK. 

Me: Do you have a phone I can use?  And maybe a phone book?  Do you know a locksmith?  Can you pick a lock?  Can you make it stop raining?  Do you want half of this sandwich I made myself before I got locked out?

MOM: OK.

[pause]

[pause]

MOM: I'll go get a phone book.

While he was gone, I got a good look around his living room, which was exactly what you would expect: shag brown carpeting, a TV from the 60s playing Jeopardy, and LOTS of brick-a-brack.  I quickly realized that waiting alone and wet in my car would be much preferable to waiting in awkward silence with MOM, so I shut his door, got into my car, called 411, and got the number for a locksmith.  Why did I not do this in the first place?  Your guess is as good as mine.  I'm going with Travel Nerves.

When I called 411, they wanted to know which listing I needed, and the only locksmith I could think of was this company called Pop-A-Lock, who have a van that I often see parked nearby.  Their slogan is "Free if Child Locked in Car!"  So, I called them.  Hey, maybe they were also "Free If Barfing Cat Locked in House!" 

The Pop-A-Lock operator said they would be there in approximately 30 minutes.  THIRTY MINUTES!  But I have to be at my emergency vet appointment in 15 minutes!  Dios mio.  But I said OK, because really?  Was I going to argue?

Just then, I saw MOM's face appear in his window.  He had a phone book in his hand.  I rolled down the window and yelled "Oh, thanks!  But I got someone!  I'm fine!"  He gave me a look that said he was sick and tired of all the damn crazy people on this block, and shut his door.

I sat in my car and called every person I knew in an attempt to pass the time, and take my mind of the fact that I really had to pee.  You know how you always wait until right before you leave on a long trip to pee, so that you won't have to pee again 15 minutes after you leave?  BAD IDEA.

Then I ate my sandwich. 

And drank my Diet Coke.

And REALLY had to pee.  But not quite enough to go back to MOM's house and ask to use the bathroom. 

I called Joel again.  He was still in New Hampshire. 

I called the vet and told them I wasn't going to make it to my 1pm Emergency Appointment. 

I looked at Madison sitting in the window, and wished I had trained him to pass me my keys through the mail slot, instead of wasting all my time training Max to stand on his hind legs for a treat.

I called Pop-A-Lock again to see where the hell they were.  They told me that someone would be there in 45 minutes to an hour. 

I still really had to pee.

Two hours after I'd first called them, Pop-A-Lock showed up.  But they refused to pop my damn lock**, because it was "raining" too hard.  So I sat in my car some more. 

The rain didn't let up. 

Finally, they popped the lock.  It took less than thirty seconds, but yet it cost me $55.  MOM watched through his screen window.   I wrote a check and ran to the bathroom.  I shoved Max into his carrier, grabbed the last two bags, and sped to the vet.

When I got to the vet's office, I was informed that the vet has just started a surgery.  I would have to wait for her to be done. 

I waited.  Max slept.  Madison cried.

An hour and a half later, the vet saw us.  She poked and prodded Max, and told me she thought he might have ingested something that was making him sick.  I told her that was highly probable, as I found him snuggled up with a half-eaten purple string that he had pulled out of my hoodie sweatshirt last night.  She said that was bad, and I said that I knew... that was one of my favorite sweatshirts, and now Max had ruined it.   

The vet said there were two options:

1. Wait and see what happens (Cost: Free)
2. Do an xray to see if there IS a foreign object in Max's intestines, and then do surgery to remove it (Cost: $98,233,487,234.99)

Since I didn't actually have $98,233,487,234.99, and they weren't accepting IOU's for first-born children, I chose option number 1.  I was sent off with some nausea pills, and Max got a shot of fluids since he'd been barfing all day and was dehydrated.  For these, and the emergency visit, the cost was a mere $400, which seemed like a bargain.  Except for that my cat was still sick. 

I collected my cats, who were none to pleased after spending over two hours in the vet's office, and my much  lighter wallet, and we got in the car to start on our way to New Jersey.

I had originally planned to be on the road no later than 1pm, in order to avoid the worst of the holiday traffic.  At this point, it was 4:45.  I got to the freeway at exactly 5pm, and hit rush hour traffic.

The drive to my mom's house is just over 200 miles, and takes about 3 hours and 15 minutes on a good day, with no major traffic and one stop to pee/get gas.  On this day, it took just over six hours.  Max cried for every single second of those six hours.  I cried for a few of them, too.

But we made it, and now I can rest easy knowing that no matter how bad the traffic and how stressful the holiday, nothing can be worse than that day. 

I hope.

__________________________________________________

*I just like the little baby Jesus best. 

**This is not a euphamism for ANYTHING, you sick, sick people.

Some people lose their car keys. I lose the car.

I love where we live.  Sometimes I have to remind myself of that.   With the complete lack of neighborhood research that Joel and I exhibited while we were househunting, it is really kind of amazing that we ended up in such a great location.

When I decided that I was sick of crapass landlords charging us $400 cleaning fees FOR STUFF THAT THE NEW RENTERS HAD ASKED US TO LEAVE IN THE APARTMENT FOR THEM, and convinced Joel that buying a house was really a good idea, we tricked this poor Long and Foster agent into taking our case and began househunting.  This lasted, oh... a month or two or five.  It was frustrating, to say the least.  We had very little money to work with, because at the time Joel was unemployed, and I was making less than any college-educated person should ever make in their life.  Ever.  We also didn't really care where we lived.  I mean, we wanted to live in a nice neighborhood and not have crack dealers as our neighbors, and that did narrow the search down a bit, but East, West, South, North... we didn't really care.  And so, we looked at everything.  Everywhere.  And every day, when we were driving to meet the agent, I would give us a little pep talk. "Today is the day we're going to find  a house.  We are going to find the perfect house today, I just know it.  I can't wait!"  And day after day, we would see more houses that were "Meh" at best.  Or, houses that were pretty good, but on a street that I would be afraid to drive on at night.  Or literally one block from the football stadium.  Oh sure, I bet there are some people who think that would be awesome, right?  Not me.  I freaking hate football.  I did not want to have to listen to the games and have the drunken fans driving by my house every given Sunday.   This much I knew.

A few times we thought that we might have found an acceptable house.  We went home and thought about it, and called the agent in the morning to put down a contract.  Lo and behold, the house had been purchased by someone else overnight.  You know the saying "having the carpet pulled out from under you"?  I learned what that really meant from trying to buy a house in Baltimore.

One day, we looked at this one house.  It was the last one on our tour for the day.  Joel really wanted to buy it, and I have to admit that it was a really nice house.  It had these great details, like original crown molding and this gorgeous original stain glass window outside of the bathroom.  It was a good price.  But it needed a lot of work.  Among other things, it needed a new roof and a lot of rehab work before it would be truly livable, although we'd be living in it before then, because we could not get out of our cockroach-infested, wood-paneled, dirty, grimy apartment fast enough.  I talked Joel out of it, because he had just gotten a job, and it was taking a ton of his time.  He was also just starting to coach his rowing team, which was also taking up a ton of time.  I knew I couldn't do all that work myself, and on top of that, with the new roof, it was really out of our price range.  I stand by my decision, because: the walls.  The holes in them.  We just painted it with a basecoat yesterday.  IT TOOK US 8 MONTHS TO PATCH HOLES IN THE DRYWALL.  A new roof?  A complete rehab?  Too much for us.  Period. The end. I knew it, and I told him so.

As we were leaving, the agent, who really seemed to like us for some reason, even though we had been dragging him all over the city for the entire summer and were looking at houses that were probably going to make him $50 in commission, asked if we wanted to see this other house a block away.  It wasn't really in our price range, but he was showing it to another couple, and since we were right here, he wouldn't mind letting us look around.

That house is the house we live in now.  I loved it at first sight.  Compared to what we'd been looking at, it was beautiful.  It was completely rehabbed.  It had a cute patio, exposed brick walls, the original hardwood floors from 1901, and a rooftop deck.  The 100-year-old floors sold Joel.  The new kitchen and working bathrooms sold me.  The fact that the other couple had shown up, and also seemed to like the house brought out my competitive instinct.  No way in hell I was letting these people steal my house.  We begged the realtor to let us go out and sign a contract on the hood of his car. It was more than we'd been hoping to pay.  A lot more.  But Joel's job was looking good, and we figured we could manage it.  Mostly, we were afraid that we'd never find a house this good, in this great of a location, ever again.

I love our house.  I really do.  Even though, sometimes I want to find the person who rehabbed it, and ask them why they didn't put in any closets.  And why they couldn't hook up the garbage disposal properly.  And why they couldn't have installed the washer and dryer.  You want a story?  Now THAT was a story.  But the many, many reasons why Sears Roebuck and Company is the devil is another story for another day, my friends.

Possibly the best part about our house is the location.  I walk to work.  It takes me 15 minutes.  Joel rides his bike to work.  It takes him 7 minutes.  I can walk to my beloved yoga studio, to the vet, the dry cleaner's, and the grocery store.  Is there really anything else that a girl needs? 

The problem with living in such a great location is that other people tend to realize how great it is, and they want to live there too. And this has resulted in a not-so-small parking problem in our area.  It borders on the ridiculous at times.  I've had people steal spots from me.  Like, I'm driving by, and I see a spot and throw on my hazard lights and start to reverse, and someone will speed up at 50 mph and steal it from me.  One time, I was lucky enough to happen upon a Ford Explorer leaving a spot, and went to back into it, when to my surprise, it had disappeared.   The girl in the spot behind him had moved up, so she was now occupying both spots with her Honda Civic.  What the hell?  I sat and waited for a minute, and then gave her a very polite toot of the horn to see if she could please move back so as to only occupy space for 2 full cars, and let me park in the remainder.  She gave me the finger.  After my head exploded (and I found another spot, 5 blocks away) I saw that she was saving the spot for her friend in the Explorer, who had since returned and re-parked in the same spot.  But by far, the worst is when you're stopped at a light and you see a spot right ahead.  A spot you can fit in.  A spot that isn't No Parking 8-11am.  A spot with no hidden fire hydrant.  And while you're anxiously waiting for the light to change, someone comes along from the opposite direction, and slows down.  They start to do a U-turn in the street, they're hurrying to get turned around before the light changes and oncoming traffic T-bones them.  Right before your eyes, they steal your spot.  And there's nothing that you can do about it, except for bash your head into the steering wheel a few times and then quietly move along.

It's so bad, that Joel and I weigh every possible venture that requires the car against how hard it will be to park when we get back.  Going to the movies on a Saturday night?  Probably not worth it.  In fact, going almost anywhere after the hour of 7pm? Not worth it.   As a result, I sometimes go weeks without using my car.  Over the summer, I went 6.5 weeks on half a tank of gas, which was a personal record, thank you very much.  I like to think that this whole oil mess?  Totally not my fault.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that I don't personally contribute to global warming, the garbage in the Bay, or the hole in the ozone either. 

When I do take the car out,  I usually manage to park on a select few streets, because I am smart enough after three years in this neighborhood to plan my trips to the grocery store for times when I will be able to get a spot on our block.  But when I don't get one of my usual spots, things get interesting, because my short term memory is not always reliable.

Like, this morning, for example.  I was running late (I overslept!  shocking!) and, since it was raining AND I needed to bring something heavy home from the office, I decided I would just drive in and pay to park in the garage.   Actually, decided I would drive in and use my illegally obtained parking passes to park in the garage for free.  It was perfect, since I was really, really late.  "Leave my house 5 min before I am supposed to be at work" late.  "Then realize I forgot to put out the recycling and feed the cats" late.  But it's OK, I won't actually be late, because I'm driving to work today!

Except when I got to where I thought my car should be, my chariot was not awaiting me.  I walked up the block a little farther (by now I am supposed to be at work 5 min ago), still no car.  I rack my brain.  Joel parked it here yesterday when he picked me up from the train station.  Did I take it anywhere later that day by myself?  No....   Is my car stolen?? No, I put the club on, I remember that.  Did Joel maybe drive my car to work and not tell me?  He did leave at 5am, that's reasonable.  Let's call him.

Joel didn't answer the phone, and by then I had decided he MUST have taken it, because who would steal a car that looks like mine (131,000 miles on it, hasn't been washed since mile 50,000, several cats have peed in it...)?  I start walking to work at a very brisk pace, because my boss just got back from vacation this morning, and she is now going to think that I was late every day she was away.

When I'm about halfway there, I remember.  We did take the car out.  Joel had to pick that stuff up on campus for practice.  We took my car because his was having problems earlier in the day.  And then I parked the car approximately twenty feet from my front door, and just didn't see it when I WALKED RIGHT PAST IT.  Because, you know.  I was in a hurry.  To get to my car. 

I wish I could say this was the first time this has happened.  I wish I could say this is the last time this will happen.  But I think we both know that neither of those statements are true.

The first post in a long time with no mention of Cats, Kittens, Pictures, or Vacation

Yesterday the house phone rang around 6pm, and I made the mistake of picking it up.  Because Joel's been out of town all week, and my cell phone is dead because I never charge the battery, I guess I was momentarily delusional, and thought it might be Joel -- forgetting that we get at least 4 hangups from telemarketers and a fellow in the state penitentiary on our machine every day.  Yes, we are on the Do Not Call List.  No, we do not know anyone in jail.  But that doesn't stop the telemarketers from calling, nor the jailbird from placing collect calls to our house, which DON'T WORRY MOM -- we have never accepted.  In fact it's a funny story, the first time it happened, I just declined the charges and hung up, but then Joel got me all worried, saying "what if it's someone we know?  Maybe they got pulled over for speeding or something and talked back to the cop and now they're in jail using their one phone call to call us, and you just hung up on them?"  This prompted me to make a mental list of all the people I know in Maryland who would possibly call me if they were in jail, which totaled to one person, and was followed by a series of text messages that went something like this:

Jennifer: R U in jail?

Liz: No... r u in jail?

Jennifer: No... but someone from the jail is calling me and I thought it might be U

Liz: Why?

Jennifer: I don't know. Nevermind.

Except I would never, ever use "r" and "u" in place of real words, even in a text message, because I just can't bring myself to do it.  But I thought it really gave you the text message feel, if you will, so I just went with it.  Call it creative license.   

Anyway, what I was saying, yesterday the phone rang, and for some reason I picked it up, even though I NEVER pick it up unless my dad has told me he is going to call on the house line, because my dad is the only person who ever calls me on the house line. 

It was a survey person.  Usually, when I get duped into talking to a survey person, I will either say "No, I'm sorry, Jennifer isn't home right now" -- a trick I learned freshman year of college when I accidentally sort of gave my phone number to a person my friends affectionately called "Fat Bastard", who called me 97 times a day to ask me to give me the details about his frat formal, which I also accidentally agreed to go to with him.  It may not have been the most mature way to deal with my own stupid actions back in the days of yesteryear, but it is a damn effective way to get out of talking to a telemarketer, if you're unlucky enough to be the one answering the phone when they call.  Really, you should try it.  Then when they ask when you (but not you!  remember!) will be back so they can call again, say something like a quarter to never.  (I've never gotten up the nerve to say that myself, but it would be awesome if someone really did.)  The other thing that works really well is to say that you're not 18.  Most of the time they will know you are lying because their magical spy information mining programs tell them your age, DOB, SSN, address, and color of your underwear.  But if you say you're not 18, they can't talk to you, end of story.

Anyway, this survey person wanted me to do a survey (shocking, I know) about politics in Maryland.  Actually, she said "about the upcoming elections in November."  For a moment I racked my brain, because I was fairly sure that this country is stuck with Bush for a few more years, is it really possible he's out in November?  No, I decided she must be talking about some local election.  The fact that I was not even sure what election she was talking about made me think I should decline the survey, since clearly I have no idea what I am talking about.  But, then I was hit by a feeling of patriotic duty.  Much like when I was picked for jury duty back in January, I was overcome with a notion that since I am an educated, reasonably intelligent citizen, I should do my part and contribute to our social systems.  And, much like the jury duty experience, this line of thinking won me the chance to see just how stupid our country can be sometimes.  Thankfully, the phone survey only lasted half an hour, instead of the mind-numbing two and a half days of jury duty, and the phone survey only resulted in a newfound scorn for Robert Ehrlich, rather than two convicted felons being released back onto the streets because 11 of my peers were even stupider than I could have ever imagined.

It started out something like this:

Phone Survey Lady: Hello, we are conducting a political survey for the upcoming November elections.  Your participation is very important to us. 

Self: I know nothing about local politics.  Is that OK?

PSL: Oh, yes, that's fine.

First she started out by listing the names of local politicians, and I had to say whether or not I'd ever heard of them before.  I was not optimistic, but as it turned out I'd heard of almost all of them, which is not so amazing, since our television has been bombarded with ads about how this person supports education and this person supports lowering crime whenever I am trying to peacefully watch my beloved fictional legal shows.

PSL: Martin O'Malley.

Self: Yes! I know him!  He's the mayor!

PSL: Robert Ehrlich.

Self: Yes!  He's the governor!!

PSL: Michael Steele.

Self: OHHH! YES!  He's the Lieutenant governor!

PSL: It's not necessary for you to identify them.  I just need to know if you've heard of them before.

Self: Oh.  Sorry.

Apparently, she was not impressed by my stellar knowledge of local politicians.  Good thing I didn't tell her that I also knew the name of Marin O'Malley's Irish rock band (O'Malley's March) and that I had possibly heard them play one time and they were not half bad.  Or that I also remembered that someone in Michael Steele's office was proven to have started those rumors about O'Malley having an affair, and although that person was summarily fired, did anyone believe that Steele really didn't know about it?  Or Ehrlich, for that matter?

(Baltimore:  It's better than Days of Our Lives!)

Then we moved to some questions about my voting habits, which were easy to answer, since I have only voted one time in my  life and it was not in a local election.  Since this was an anonymous survey, I didn't hold back when she asked me questions like whether I thought George Bush was doing a good job as president ("Um, hell no?") and whether Robert Ehrlich was doing a similarly good job as governor ("Um, I have no idea?") And this was the point where I started to get annoyed.  After every well-thought out response, the woman would say "I understand".  I suppose she was probably trained to say this, instead of making the typical grunt or "uh-huh" that telemarketers usually use to signify that they've understood and recorded your response.  However, I got the distinct impression that this woman did not agree with my responses, and "I understand" took on a distinctly condescending tone.

PSL: Would you describe yourself as very conservative, conservative, neutral, liberal, or very liberal?

Self: Very liberal.

PSL: Hmmmm... I understand.

Soon we came to a section of the survey where she would read me a statement, and I would tell her whether this statement described Martin O'Malley (who is a Democrat, by the way) or Ehrlich (Republican).  Perhaps I should also mention that O'Malley is planning to run against Ehrlich for governor this year, for those who haven't been forced to watch 3,412,354 political messages during every commercial break. 

PSL: Reduced the budget deficit and created a budget surplus.

Self: Um... O'Malley?

PSL: Raised state test scores by 57%

Self: Um... O'Malley?

PSL: Stands up to private interest groups in Annapolis.

Self: Um... O'Malley?

Now that I'm writing this, I realize that some of those were certainly supposed to describe Ehrlich.  Hello, O'Malley is the MAYOR.  Ehrlich is the GOVERNOR.  Anything related to STATE = EHRLICH, dumbass.  But at the time, I honestly couldn't tell.  I was waiting for there to be a statement like "Slots at Pimlico will be good for Maryland," to which I would respond. "I know that one!! Ehrlich wants the slots!", because that is the only really position I am sure about for either of them, and that is only because no one around here will shut up about it.  Slots!  They're the devil!  Slots!  They will save Maryland!  It's easy to tell those two positions apart.  Education, unemployment, corruption, and crime: those things are harder to differentiate, since everyone claims they are going to clean up the schools and the streets and create more jobs. 

Speaking of schools, the next line of questioning in the survey went like this.  Phone Survey Lady would read me a statement, and I would tell her if knowing that statement, I would be more likely to vote for Ehrlich or not.

PSL: Governor Ehrlich has increased school funding, and test scores have gone up XX% statewide

Self: More likely.

PSL: Somewhat more likely, or much more likely?

Self: Um... somewhat?

And then there were about 10 more questions about how Gov. Ehrlich likes to save baby egrets in the bay, supports kids knowing how to read by the end of 8th grade, is firmly against police brutality, and enjoys long walks on the beach and coffee oreo ice cream.

Then she switched things up.  Now she was going to read statements about O'Malley, and I would tell her whether knowing the statement made me less likely to vote for O'Malley or not. 

Um, what?  That's not the same thing.  I realized that she never said this was a bipartisan survey.  But still, I felt like I was being swindled into something.  And if there's one thing I hate, it's being swindled. 

PSL: Under Mayor O'Malley, the police department has changed the way it counts homicides, in order to manipulate the city's murder rate.  Now when the police arrive at a scene with multiple victims, that is recorded as one homicide, regardless of how many people were killed.

Self: No change.

PSL: Hmm.  I understand.   

For the last section, I got to hear even more statements, and then say whether I would vote for Ehrlich or O'Malley based on that statement only. 

PSL: Governor Ehrlich has raised school funding statewide by over $175 Million, while Mayor O'Malley has increased school funding in Baltimore by less than one half of one percent.

Self: What?  That makes no sense.  You can't compare the state to the city.  And how much money is one half of one percent of Baltimore's city school budget?  How does that compare with the size of the state budget?

PSL: I'm not sure ma'am.  I can only read the statement.  Would you like to hear it again?

Self: No!  I can't answer that question.  It doesn't even make sense.

PSL: Well, I understand. Thank you for participating.

END OF SURVEY.  THANK GOD.

What this half hour out of my life taught me, other than to never pick up our house phone again, is that I am SO GLAD I got out of that Government grad program when I did.  God, I hated that thing.  I hated every second of the one class I took, I hated every person in my class, with their "oh I work for such-and-such's secretary's personal assistant and so I think I'm important" attitudes and their messenger bags embroidered with political messages. I hated my pompous, condescending, Ben-Stiller look-alike professor.  But most of all, I just hated the politics.  The bullshit, the outright lying, the manipulation, the greed.  I try not to go off on political rants, because I don't know enough about the issues to really have an educated opinion.  And the reason I don't know enough to have an educated opinion, is that every time I do start to read the New York Times, or learn about the local political issues, I just get so MAD. And so sad.  Why does it have to be such a dirty, corrupt, soulless business?  Why do we have to suffer with one president who does a reasonably good job in office, but can't keep his pants on, and then another president who can at least manage not to have sex with any interns (or at least not get caught), but who instead has poured trillions of dollars into a war that will never end, and thinks that the public should all make a contribution to help New Orleans, because the federal government needs that money for the war?

See, this is why I try not to talk about it.  Because I just get angry, disillusioned, and more bitter than I already am.  Don't ever mention the words "gay" and "marriage" around me, because sometimes my head starts to spin, and I start spouting off phrases like "illegal" and "constitution" and "separation of church and state", and then it just gets ugly.

The one thing I do know: Leaving that Government Master's program was probably the best decision I ever made.   Liberal Arts may not be practical, but it allowed me to preserve my sanity, and some illusion that the world is not a completely terrible, morally bankrupt place.  I'll take that over practicality any day.

Dear Citizens of East Baltimore: Leave Me the Hell Alone

On Friday night, I was going about my business, trying to make something for dinner, when I lit a burner on the stove to cook some pasta, and out of the stovetop came a brigade of ants fleeing from the fire.  Oh, hell no.  Eating the cat food is one thing.  Messing with my dinner is quite another. 

I have no problem spraying Raid all over the floor (and in the electrical outlets), but I have enough sense to know that spraying pesticide into the oven is probably  not a good idea.  I lit all the burners to scare the little fuckers out, but it didn't work as well as the toaster, and most of them got away by scrambling through the crack between the backsplash and the wall.  I reached for my bottle of Raid Earth Options, and found an ant CRAWLING ON IT.  You want a fight, little ants?  You've got one.   And that's how I discovered that ordinary countertop cleaner is more effective at killing pests than Raid Earth Options, and as an added bonus, does not make the house smell like chemical death.

I have yet to find a similar cure for the penchant people in this city have for speaking to strangers, especially when that stranger is me and it is very early in the morning.   I may be overreacting because of the little incident on Friday, but why do people in this city feel the need to greet you AFTER you've already walked by?  There I'll be, just trudging my way to work, shuffling past a person who, for some unknown reason, is sitting out on their stoop at eight o'clock in the morning.  And just as I pass, he'll mumble "Hyadon", which is Baltimoron for "How are you doing?".  But I'm already past him.  Is he expecting me to turn around and say "I'm very well, and thank you so much for asking kind sir"?  Am I so wrong to just keep walking?  Please remember that 1) I do not actually know this person, and 2) it is very, very early in the morning. 

Well, today I opted for the latter option.  Which prompted the gentleman on the stoop to repeat himself, more clearly and loudly.  Again, I kept walking.   And kept right on walking as he yelled after me, "Oh, so that's how it's going to be, shorty??"

Which brings me to an incident that occurred last week, that I decided not to mention on Friday, because compared to the slimy, hairy, fat man leaning out of his van, being accosted by a stranger who did not make me feel like I needed to take a shower just seemed kind of trivial.  But, honestly, why do people feel the need to give others unsolicited advice?  For instance, if I am walking down the street, absorbed in deep thought, and a stranger took it upon himself to stop and say, "Smile, baby!  It ain't that bad!", what would be the proper response?  I need to know, because this happens to me more often than most people, I'm afraid. 

I am always tempted to quote the Beastie Boys and say "Don't you tell me to smile, you stick around I"ll make it worth your while," but I fear that it might be taken the wrong way, and I might end up in a dumpster outside an abandoned warehouse, and then who would take care of my cats?  And kill the ants?

I'm starting to think it must be me who has the problem, because I seem to be the only one who has this problem, or at least the only one who has it to the degree that I do.   So here I am, attempting to smile on a Monday morning.   

Except, I just can't.  Who is he to tell me "it ain't that bad?"  He doesn't know me.  For all he knows, my  house burned down, my puppy got run over, and my boyfriend left me for my sister.  I smile plenty.  I smile when I come home and see Madison waiting for me in the window, when I get a funny text message from my friends, when I am HAPPY.  I consider myself a happy person in general; I am satisfied with my life.  I can say that in all honesty, even though I just got a call from the mechanic who currently has custody of my car informing me that the work is going to cost more than the estimate.  I am happy, but that doesn't mean that I go around beaming every second of every day.  I make no apologies for not skipping my way to work whilst whistling an upbeat tune.  I have the right to scowl, and you, dear sir, have the right to look away if that bothers you.

Because there's a Sex and the City episode for every situation

This past weekend, one of my best friends lied, and we busted her on it.  Then we related it to the Sex and the City story line when Carrie is back with Mr. Big, but is afraid to tell her friends because of all the stuff that happened in their relationship before, how terribly he treated her, and how she said she would never speak to him again.

Jenny was thinking of the particular episode where Carrie's diaphragm gets stuck, and she has to ask Samantha for help removing it, and Samatha demands to know who she's having sex with because she'd said she wasn't seeing anyone.  I was thinking of the one where Carrie is doing the walk of shame and runs into Charlotte on the street, waaaay far away from her neighborhood at like 7 in the morning.  She lies and said she had a dentist appointment, and she's all dressed up because it's a "laundry day".   So, in some instances there are multiple SATC episodes to describe a situation. 

Unfortunately, the episode I was reminded of this morning did not have such a happy moral.  There was no "Your friends will always be there for you" punch line.  Oh, no.

Remember the episode where Miranda is addicted to going to Blockbuster every day, and the construction workers heckle her every day, making her feel disgusting and dirty, on top of being ashamed at having Blockbuster as her surrogate boyfriend?  One day, she finally snaps and says, "Oh yea? You've got what I want? You've got what I need? Well I need to get LAID, so I don't have to spend my evenings with a rented movie.  Can you help me with that?" 

Man, I wish I was able to think of something that great to say.  Because maybe THAT would make the catcalling on my way to work stop.

I've gotten sort of used to it, but I still hate it.  I can remember when I was little, asking my mom why ladies aren't happy for the compliment when men say that they're looking pretty.  Now I know better, and instead I wonder why men feel obligated to say something to every person with two X chromosomes that walks by them. 

Here's the thing: It's not like I'm that hot.  I'm not trying to be self-deprecating; just realistic.  I'm NOT a happy person in the morning.  I like to be comfortable.  I's not like I'm sauntering down the sidewalk in a cocktail dress and stiletto heels, winking at all the gentlemen I pass as I make my way to the stip club.  It's more like I'm trudging along, in a sneakers/jeans/tshirt ensemble (casual friday! I should be HAPPY!), carrying my backpack because it's just more practical than a purse with all the crap I carry around, trying to hurry because I'm perpetually late, but not doing a very good job of it because it's way too eary and already 80 degrees out, trying to remember whether I remembered to put on deoderant. 

And yet, every day, there are the comments.  "Hey mami, how you doing,"  "where you going baby", or if I'm lucky maybe I'll just get a whistle or some smooching noises.   When I first started walking to work, I was tempted to give these offenders, who are 99% Hispanic, a lecture on propagating the negative stereotypes about their culture, but now I just ignore them and try not to make eye contact.

Every once in awhile, though, it won't be a Mexican or Honduran man leaning out of the third story window to blow kisses.  Instead, it will be a white guy, usually over 40 and overweight, in a car driving by.  And these assholes are infinitely worse.

Although my walk to work is only 3/4 of a mile, there are three separate areas I pass through.  First, there is the nice yuppie rowhouses, where I pass the same folks watering their contaner gardens, taking out the garbage, and walking their dogs every morning.  Sometimes we say "hello" to each other.  Sometimes we just walk by.  It's peaceful.  This quickly deteriorates into The Catcalling Zone.  And then, when I cross Baltimore Street, I enter The Ghetto, and the unwelcome "compliments" are replaced by a genuine fear of being mugged/assaulted.  I was well within the real physical danger zone this morning when the white van driving by slowed down to drive alongside me.  I was not prepared for their advances, which is probably why I had the guts to react like I did.  Or maybe they just grossed me out THAT much.  I'm not sure.

Hanging out of the passenger window was a greasy, dirty, fat man who was about 50.  "Hey!", he shouted to get my attention.  "Look at you, walking down the street!  Looking good, baby!  Oh, man, yeah, looking good!".

I shook my head and just kept walking.  They were driving the opposite direction, and actually stopped the van so that he could continue the conversation.  "Oh yea, you better walk away, baby, because I wanna get me a piece of that!"

I snapped.  A simple whistle is one thing.  Actually addressing me, not just in passing, not letting me walk away in peace, is where I apparently draw the line.  I turned around, gave him the finger, and yelled "SHUT THE FUCK UP", while looking him right in the eye. 

And guess what?  He listened. He shut the fuck up, and drove away. But he also succeeded in ruining my morning, and  putting me in a worse mood than I usually am on my way to work.   TGI FREAKING Friday.

Bass Pro Shops -- Where animal killers come to shop

If I had to sum up Saturday in a sentence or less, I was say it was a day of trials and triumphs; of moderately cheap wine and the full-fledged cheap wine hangover that it brings; of lovesick cats and feline home inspections.

That is one sentence. Yes, it is.

So, if that was Saturday, then I would describe Sunday as a testament to the utterly bizarre nature of Maryland, which is stuck somewhere in between Modernized Mid-Atlantic Suburban Sprawl Wonder and Confederate Wannabe.

Since we got drunk and missed the movie on Saturday night, we pledged we would go and see it during the day on Sunday, when it would be cheaper anyway, so actually it’s a good thing we are so lazy and always late because now we’re saving money.

(If that’s not some first-rate drunk rationalizing, then I don’t know what is)

So off we went to the Arundel Mills Mall, to see 16 Blocks at 2:20.  We were going to see the 12:30 showing, but, you know how it is.  We are slow.  We were tired.  It didn’t happen.  But I made sure we left plenty early to get to the 2:20 show, because, by this point, it was me against this movie, and I wasn’t about to lose to a movie with Mos Def in it.

The Arundel Mills Mall is the greatest mall I've ever seen -- and I'm from New Jersey, where there are at least three malls within a 30-minute radius of any given location.  It's one of those fabulous specimens of suburban sprawl, with the mall being about 20 square miles in itself, and surrounded by big box stores.  But it gets better -- it's about half outlet stores, including a Gap AND Banana Republic outlets.  And, they have a movie theater.  A 24 screen, Egyptian-themed movie theater, which is supposedly the most trafficked movie theater in the nation. The problem with this awesome movie theater is that there is never any parking within a mile of it.  Even in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, I wasn’t taking any chances, because I get my fill of parking space shortages around our house in Fell’s Point.  So I parked outside the Bass Pro Shop, in between two massive trucks.

As I parked my car, I felt a little shudder run down my spine.  At the time, I thought it was from Joel insisting on turning off the heat in the car, with no regard for my comfort (if you couldn’t tell, this is one of our recurring battles.  We could live a happy, happy life together if our body temperatures and television preferences weren’t polar opposites).  But now I realize that actually, that shudder was a physiological reaction to the fact that I was about to enter the Twilight Zone.

Here is the description of the store from the Arundel Mills’ website:

Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World

Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World offers the most comprehensive selection of Fishing, Hunting, Camping, Boating, Golf and Outdoor Gear, that you will find anywhere under one roof.  More than just a fishing and hunting store, you'll finda tremendous selection of outdoor and casual apparel, gifts, toys and merchandise for the entire family, with great brands, all at a guaranteed low price!

Unlike most self-promoting descriptions, this is not an exaggeration.

On this particular Sunday, they had several events going on outside the store, and before we even got in we’d passed through a boat show, a blood drive, and a BBQ/raffle.  There were more people waiting in line for their $6 pit beef sandwich than there are in the entire state of Rhode Island.

At this point of writing this entry, I was seriously struggling to think of how I could possibly describe what we encountered inside this "store".  Honestly, I wasn't sure that it could be put into words.  But!  Luckily, Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World has a website.  And their website has pictures, which are, in this case, worth much more than a thousand words.

After we'd navigated through the boat maze and the sanctioned blood-letting and the rabid meat consumption, we pushed our way through the entrance, which was lined on both sides by wire bins filled with these:

I picked one up and stuck it in Joel's face, saying "RIBBIT! RIBBIT!" Several people turned around to stare at me, and I commented under my breath that these people were pretty uptight if they couldn't laugh at a good frog imitation.  Joel just looked at me, then at the can cooler in my hand, and said "Um... that's a bass."  Ah, a bass, as in, not a frog.  I didn't see what the huge deal was, but apparently, I'd violated the Bass Pro shops Outdoor World credo, which is that animals are not funny or cute.  Animals are for killing.

We quickly walked away, and we were still on track with plenty of time to make it to the movie, until Joel was drawn in by the power of some orange rubber pants with suspenders, which looked something like this, except that they were orange.   In the time that I have known him, Joel has never been fishing, and certainly has not been doing the sort of fishing that would require pants like this (in orange).  But such is the power of the Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World brainwashing, that he was seriously considering paying nearly $100 for these.  I had wandered over to watch the demonstration that was going on in front of the 9 billion gallon fish tank over to the right, but I looked back just in time to see Joel's look of anguish as he desired those pants, he had to have them, they were his precious.  I knew I had to do something to break his trance, so I shouted out "Hey, my uncle fishes all the time and he has a hat he wears all the time and guess what it says.  'I'm a BASSHOLE'  Hahaha!" This tactic was not appreciated by the audience in front of the fish tank, who were learning from a very distinguished man with a gray mullet how to kill more fish in less time.  I suspect that several of them owned the same hat.

On the day in question, the nice little children watching the nice alive fishies were replaced by an audience of Maryland hicks learning how to catch more bass.

I was starting to become afraid for my life, so I walked away from the enraptured redneck audience, and I stumbled upon these, right next to the orange rubber pants that Joel was pining after.

Hey Dad!  Ever wonder what to dress your toddler in when you want to bring him hunting with you?  We have just the thing!  And now, also in a lacy version for your little girl.   

Yay!  Kill Bambi again Daddy!

As I held those lace-trimmed camo diaper covers in my hands, the theme from the Twilight Zone started playing in my head.  I quickly replaced the children's hunting apparel and tried to make my way out of the store (I abaondoned Joel when I remembered that I was carrying his wallet in my purse, so he was in no danger of succumbing to his desire to purchase The Orange Pants).  But before I could exit, I had to get around the indoor climbing wall.

On Sunday, the wall was speckled with children in bright yellow helmets struggling to make their way up Mt. Bass Pro Shop.  At least this is good, I thought.  Helping kids get exercise.  Teaching them survival skills.  All good things.  Until, I made it to the other side, where....

...two huge, dead, stuffed moose blocked my exit path.  And from the looks of it, they were getting ready to fight.  I don't think that the cougar about to pounce on the mountain goat were there on Sunday, but I might be mistaken.  The DEAD MOOSE gave me a little bit of a shock, I must admit, and I'm not sure that I looked up the mountain to see if there were any additional dead animals posed on it.  There might have been.

**I worked on this post for a long ass time yesterday, only to find that typepad had deleted everything after this point, probably because they are on Bass Pro Shops' payroll or something. But, I rewrote it, so screw you, Typepad, I will not be censored. Unfortunately, it was much better the first time.  You'll just have to trust me on that.  And I'll just have to start saving things to my hard drive**

So, now I was more than a little wierded out, and also very lost.  Because it's a big ass store.  And, I have no sense of direction.  If I had been thinking clearly, I might have gone over to the camping section, grabbed a compas, and navigated my way out of that place. But my head was spinning, and all I could think about was find Joel and getting the hell out of there, so I started looking around for the giant fish tank so I could orient myself.

I oriented myself right into the gun section.  Guns in general make me very uncomfortable (except when they are being handled by the able detectives in Law and Order), so I hightailed it out of there, but not before I saw a nice looking boy of about 9 or 10 years of age, hoist up a crossbow, aim it at his little brother, and fire it.  Don't worry, it wasn't loaded.  Bass Pro Shops are smart enough to store their ammunition behind a secure glass counter, and I'm sure those boys will grow up to be well-adjusted, producive members of society.

I started walking very briskly through aisle after aisle, desperately searching for Joel, and at every turn I seemed to be confronted by more dead, stuffed animals staring at me with their glassy eyes.  There were dead geese suspended from the ceiling in perfect V formation.  A dead baby bear climbing on a log in the camping section.  Dead ducks, otters, and partridges.  There was even a fake man, walking across a suspension bridge made of ropes and wooden planks that was hanging from the ceiling.  An idyllic scene... except that the man was falling through two broken planks in the bridge, which he was crossing in the first place because a large, angry, dead, stuffed bear was chasing him.

Then, like a shining beacon, I saw a patch of bright orange rubber hanging from the wall.  It was The Pants.  And closeby stood Joel, who was now enraptured by the bass fishing demonstration by the huge fish tank. 

I grabbed him and tried to tell him that we had to get out of that godforsaken place, but he'd fallen under the Bass Pro Shops spell.  A breif scuffle ensued as Joel desperately tried to extract his wallet from my bag in order to purchase The Orange Pants, and just as I turned to run screaming back to the car, I saw IT.  A moment later Joel saw IT too, and we both stood in utter, horrible, awe.

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At this point, I need to pause for a moment to give you a little background.  One fine day, circa 1979, a mama raccoon was killed on the road outside our house in New Jersey, which, sadly, is a pretty common occurence on our particular stretch of road.  But the pathetic wailing that my parents heard was something new, and they went to check it out.  They found two baby raccoons clinging to each other, having just witnessed the tragic death of their mother.  My mother and father brought the baby coons into the house and raised them, keeping them as pets even after they were fully grown.  Eventually, they released Rocky and Missy back into the wild, but they still returned whenever we called them, with their own babies in tow, to eat Wonderbread crusts out of our hands.  Needless to say, there is a special place in my heart for raccoons. (And anyone from Disney who would like to purchase the movie rights to this heartbreaking true story, feel free to email me).

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Standing in front of us, on top of the display, was a stuffed raccoon.  He was standing upright, with a terrible, sad look on his face.  Through each of his front paws, some industrious Bass Pro Shops employee had hammered a nail.  Propped up between the two nails was a fishing lure.  Apparently, this was the lure that the Raccoon Jesus would recommend.

The sight of the raccon with his stigmata was enough to snap Joel out of his trance, and we speedily exited the store and entered the actual mall.  And once The Orange Pants had lost their hold over his mind, Joel remembered the original reason for this trip: we were supposed to be seeing a movie.  Oh God, the movie.  I looked at my watch and stared for a moment in amazement.  Less than 15 minutes had passed since we had gotten out of the car.  For the first time, Joel and I were going to be early.

Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World: Check Your Reality at the Door