Operation Pink Herring

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.

Phantom cat odor, keys, and pickup lines

When we arrived home on Monday night, I was braced to be hit in the face by a wall of Phantom Cat Odor when we opened the front door.  Every once in awhile I'll catch a whiff of PCO in the front room, undoubtedly from the period of time last year that I like to call Hell On Earth, when Henry was peeing on EVERYTHING with no explanation.  I've treated spots he peed on with hundreds of dollars worth of Resolve, Nature's Miracle, Arm and Hammer Pet Odor Treatment, regular old Arm and Hammer sprinkled (dumped) liberally all over the carpet, Special Enzyme Cleaners Ordered from the Interwebs, and basically tried everything known to mankind to get rid of the smell, and STILL. Still we smell it sometimes.  I even ordered a black light to find hidden pee-spots (which was a total waste of money) and soaked pretty much the entire carpet in gallons of enzyme cleaner and STILL.  I smell it, sometimes.  And that's the problem: I only smell it sometimes.  Which I take to mean that most of the time, I've become so acclimated to PCO that I don't even notice it.  When we returned from Lake Tahoe this summer after being away for over a week, we were bowled over by the stench upon returning home.  Oh my God, we realized, This is what our house smells like to normal people.  And that is why you'll find me burning seventeen different strategically placed scented candles whenever someone is coming over.

Before this turns into an entire entry about cat pee (which I'm sure would be thrilling, but I've got more important things to tell you about) my point is: when we came home from Barcelona on Monday night I did not notice any tangible cat odor upon walking through the door.  Success at last!   Nor did I find any passive-aggressive pee spots anywhere in the house.  Nope, all we came home to was an excessive amount of cat litter tracked through the Poop Room and one pile of barf.  Not bad, not bad at all!

But that would just have been too easy.  There is always a price to pay for going away and having a fabulous time, and for this trip that price was hopping into Joel's truck on Tuesday morning to find the battery had mysteriously died while we were away.  We abandoned ship truck and Joel and I switched keys so he could borrow my car for the day.   When I went to the grocery store that evening I took my spare set of keys, rather than be bothered with walking all the way upstairs to get my primary set back from Joel.  When I got home, I remembered that I hadn't been able to get into my office that morning because my office keys are on my primary key set, so we switched back. I gave him his keys, and I took back my keys. But the spare keys remained in my purse, and so when I kissed Joel goodbye on Wednesday morning and told him, "Sure!  Borrow my car again!  Of course, darling!", I waltzed out the door with both sets of keys to said car. 

This is what Joel has to look forward to FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. 

But whatever, it was a good excuse for me to meet Joel downtown for lunch to deliver my spare keys. 

I borrowed my coworker's metro pass and rode it one stop, which left me a few blocks from Joel's office.  As I was getting off the train, the guy behind me mumbled something.  I ignored him, which I believe is standard protocol for such situations.  He caught up to me on the escalator and mumbled again, slightly louder, "So, just getting off for lunch?", which I'm sure you'll all agree is the most original pickup line EVER.  I told him "yes" and tried my best to walk away, but he was having none of it.  He walked with me for three blocks, chatting me up with conversation about his business, how important he is, blah blah blah, but since he was just full of himself and not a total dangerous-looking psycho, I figured there was no harm in it.  He was asking me about my job, and then it turned out that we went to the same college, and then he told me he was looking for someone just like me to come work at his big important company.   I realized exactly how lame this line was at the time, but I figured what the hell -- maybe he really does want to give me a fabulous job and pay me lots of money to work from home in  my pajamas.  So I gave him my card.  (After he asked for it, I didn't just throw it at him and tell him to call me, anytime, day or night.)

What should really shock you about that statement is not that I gave my card to a total stranger who tried to pick me up on the shady Baltimore metro, but that I actually had a business card with me.  The only reason I did was because I had re-organized my massive wallet the night before to remove all the Euro coinage that was weighing me down.  God, I'm so professional.  Except for the fact that I'm pretty sure I gave him my outdated card with my old position title.  Whatever.

And then he asked if I'd like to have lunch with him at Panera Bread, and I told him that I was sorry, but I couldn't because I was meeting my fiance for lunch.   It was the first time I've said that lovely French word in a real conversation (as opposed to the many conversations I have with myself in my head and the conversations that I have with the cats when I get home at night, who's my schmoopy kitten-head?  You are!  Yooou are!)

Then I got to tell my fiance that we couldn't go to Panera like he wanted to because I'd just given my card to a random stranger in there. 

So we went to Chipotle instead.

And thus ends the most discombobulated entry in history.  I had my usual, a vegetarian burrito with both kinds of beans and corn salsa, in case you were wondering.  And yes, I do know that the pinto beans have pork in them and I don't care because I'm not really a vegetarian.

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PS - Thank you all so so very much for breaking this site's comment record with your congratulations.  In return, I promise not to become an Interweb Bridezilla.   And I will write The Proposal Story, but be forewarned that it might induce gagging and diabetic comas because it is just that sweet.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

PPS - OMG WE'RE GETTING MARRRRRRIED!!!!

PPPS - I promise, that's the last time I'll do that.

PPPPS, Confidential to Ruthie: Dude, you have to leave an email address when you comment so I can reply!  Yes, I heard, and CONGRATS to you too! 

 

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 h