Operation Pink Herring

Destiny

You are not going to believe this.

Yesterday, at 2:42 I jokingly wrote "Maybe I'll find a wounded bird on the street that I can nurse back to health later, too.  Yea, that should fix it."

Well, guess what? 

On my walk home, I found a wounded bird. 

weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird weird

So, there I am, walking home, feeling pretty good because I went to the gym for the first and only time this week and had a good run on the treadmill.  It's starting to to rain a little bit, but the sun is still shining and it's nice and warm.   No rude or unwanted comments are received, no roaming gangs of children are harassing me, I'm just having a nice stroll home, thinking about what I'm going to make for dinner.

When I'm about three blocks away, I notice a little bird flapping around on the sidewalk.  He's hopping around, but when he flaps his wings, he doesn't seem to be able to take off.  He hops over to the corner formed by the sidewalk and someone's marble steps, and tries to hide. 

I just stood there and looked at him.  Normally, I would not have bothered him.  If he was hurt, I would figure it was nature's way, and he'd either figure out a way to hide from all the predators until he could fly again, or he would become a meal for the stray cats.  I don't believe in fate.  But I do believe in karma, and irony.   I've never found a wounded bird on the street before, and I've been doing this same walk twice a day for the past eighteen months.  I decided I would at least try to help him.

I had a plastic bag in the bottom of my backpack, so I took it out and crept over to where the bird was sitting.  He hopped away from me, towards the street, but when I put the bag's opening in front of him, he just sort of fell in.  I picked up my backpack and gingerly carried the bag home (with the top open -- I don't think that suffocating a little bird is a way to score any points).  He flopped around and squawked a bit, but he didn't fly out the wide open top. 

When I got him home, the cats were clamoring around for food and Joel was sitting at the computer, as usual.  I yelled for Joel to bring me a box or something, threw a towel in the bottom, and (gently) dumped him out of the plastic bag and into the box, which I then locked in the bathroom.  The cats, although they may fancy themselves Great Jungle Hunters, were wholly uninterested in him, because he did not come out of a Friskies can.

Now, here's the real problem: I know nothing about birds.  Despite what I may  have said in jest, I do not think I can nurse this little guy back to health, especially not in a house filled with felines.  But! I do know of a little place called Wildlife Rescue, because I am a crazy tree-hugging hippie cat lady, who knows about these things, and even gets their newsletters, and is able to fish said newsletter out of the recycling to find their phone number.  They didn't answer the phone.  So I decided to drive him there myself.

If I had been thinking clearly, I would have realized this was not a good plan.  But I was all riled up, with a chirping bird hopping around the downstairs bathroom, thinking about how destiny had chosen me to help this bird and I'LL BE DAMNED if I'm not going to save him.  Joel googled directions, I packed Charlie back in his box, and off we went.

Oh, yes, while I was in the shower, I decided to name him Charlie.  After Charles Lindbergh, of course.  Joel wanted to name him Dinner, but I didn't think that was very optimistic.

So, it's almost needless to say, I didn't find the place.  I made a valiant effort, followed the directions, used the trip-meter thingy, and got hopelessly lost.  At one point, I stopped and asked a man who was sitting at a busstop for directions, even though he was loudly talking to himself.   He gave me directions to the street I was looking for, and even offered to hop in the car and come with me to make sure I got there OK.  How nice!  (I declined).

Eventually I found the elusive Cornwall Street, but #8519 did not exist.  The street dead-ended into a cul-de-sac in the 3700's.  I gave up and went home, where I set Charlie up to spend the night in Casa de Cats.  I crumbled up some whole wheat bread for him to eat, and gave him a dish of water and a towel to sleep on.  When I opened the box, he hopped out and "hid".

   

After we had him settled, Joel and I did what anyone would do in this situation: we ate some pizza and googled information on taking care of a bird. 

From the great Information SuperHighway, we were able to guess that he is some variety of starling.  We also learned that starlings need a high protein diet, and bread is not good for them.  Oops!  Luckily, the recommended diet was dry cat food, crushed up and mixed with water.  Do you think he would like Low Allergen, Iams Adult, or Safeway Select Kitty Chow?  Because I have all three.  I ended up giving him the Safeway stuff, for no particular (logical) reason.

What the internet did not tell us is that starlings like to "chirp" (aka squawk -- LOUDLY), beginning at about 4am.  "Whose idea was it to bring home a songbird again?" Joel asked me this morning.  I was just happy to hear him yelling in there, because it means he's not dead.  If he dies in my house, I'll have ruined my chance to make things right in the universe.  And then I'll need to start taking out ads on Craigslist to find "Lady with a Baby/Young Kid on Train to Jersey: Sorry I Was a Rude Bitch, I Swear I'm a Nice Person.  PS -- You Didn't Have To Get Snippy About It". 

Home, Sweet Home

Although you may often hear me say that I love to travel, everything has its limits.  I reached mine some time around 3am on June 2nd, when I was freaking out about missing my first summer class because my flight for Atlanta took off 5 hours late.  Or maybe it was when I was sitting in the dumpy gray Toronto airport last Friday night, eating a nasty chicken salad wrap because it was the only thing in entire terminal that looked edible (appearances can be deceiving, especially when there is slab of tomato, black olives, and a slice of American cheese all concealed within an innocuous-looking tortilla), and listening to an announcement proclaiming that our flight home was delayed in English, French, and a still-unidentified Asian language.  Man, was I happy to be taking a train to New Jersey on Tuesday.  No airport security.  No hotel mixups.  Just a nice, quiet train ride and a night with my family before a quick work meeting in Morristown and another peaceful train ride home.

Ha!  Hahahahaha.  That's me, laughing at my own naivete. 

So, I thought I'd take advantage of my train's 10:12 departure time by finally go to the dry cleaners to drop off the pile of our "nice" (read: Dry Clean Only) clothes, that have been lying in a heap on our bedroom floor since...oh, I don't know... Joke's wedding?  As a reward for getting this postponed task completed with ample time left, I decided to treat myself to a Starbucks iced beverage, which I savored all the way to the train station.  I was pretty proud of myself for arriving with 20 minutes to spare.  Finally outgrowing my chronic lateness, I thought, giving myself a mental pat on the back.

But, wait. 

Why is there a sign in front of the parking garage saying the lot is full?  That can't possibly be true.  I'll just pull up to the ticket thingy anyway and push the button and I'm sure it will dispense me a ticket and allow me to park my newly repaired car in the garage.  "Monthly passes only"??? What?!!! "Please back up"?????

Oh.

My.

God.

Well, that's what I get for trying to be all frugal and drive myself to the train station, instead of taking a taxi like the spoiled brat that I am.  I have parked in that particular area of midtown before, as it's only two blocks from my beloved yoga studio, and so I knew that all the parking is strictly two hours or metered spaces.  What's a girl to do?

Abandon ship, that's what.  I left my car three blocks from the station and ran across the highway on-ramp to just hear the end of the "all aboard" call.  In these kind of situations, you've got to prioritize.  Get on to the train first, worry about whether your car will be there when you get back later.

I made it on the train, but then I couldn't find a seat.  The whole train was packed, and people who had two seats to themselves were all pretending to sleep across the whole row so they wouldn't have to share.   Um, sleeping on a train at 10am?  Even I don't believe that, especially when we all know damned well that you only got on an hour ago in Washington.  Lugging my gigantic backpack from car to car, I finally came upon a nice looking man who was sitting in the aisle seat, next to an empty window seat.  I boldly interrupted his conversation across the aisle with his wife to ask if the seat next to him was taken.  His answer was completely unintelligible, although he seemed to be speaking perfect English in his trans-aisle dialog.  The shocked look on his face made me think that the answer was a no.   There were people behind me trying to get past, and people in front of me, trying to squeeze through in the opposite direction.  I was sort of stuck, trying to figure out what to do next, when the woman in front of me broke my dazed stare to ask if I was going to take the seat or not.  "Oh, did you say it WAS open?" I asked Mr. Man.  "Hrmpshg yeoidhein" he replied, with a slight nod of the head.  Oh!  OK!  Yes!  And I somehow squeezed by  him and sat down. 

And then I noticed that the woman who had asked me if I was going to take the seat was carrying a child.  Before I could say anything, she pushed her way through.  "Well, that was nice and RUDE of her," she said as she stomped by. 

I would have felt really bad about being such a space cadet if she hadn't been so damned sassy about it.  Actually, that's a lie.  I still felt terrible.  Really, really horrible.   After we stopped in Philadelphia and the train cleared out a bit, I (hopefully) set the karmic balances back in place when I offered to change seats so that a mother and daughter could sit together.   Maybe I'll find a wounded bird on the street that I can nurse back to health later, too.  Yea, that should fix it. 

Other than the uncomfortable trip up, my grand finale of spring travel was uneventful.  I even cooked dinner for my family on Tuesday night, and it came out pretty good.  So good, that my father ate it, even though it did no contain any red meat or butter.   That should count as penance too, right?

I made it back, my car wasn't towed (or even ticketed), and I had inadvertently parked under a tree, so it wasn't even hot... and no birds had pooped on it.  The leftover whipped cream in my Starbucks cup was a little bit curdled and moldy, but that's just par for the course.  Besides, it helps to counter the smell of cat pee that I still haven't managed to purge from my backseat, despite several bottles of Febreze and Urine-B-Gone that have boldly surrendered their lives in the struggle.

It feels good to be home.  Even in a sweaty, humid, flooded home. 

Sacrilege

Normally I assert that I'm not a candy person -- that is to say, if I had my choice of pigging out on sweets or pigging out on food, I'd choose food.  I completely understand how my very good friend skips dinner and orders dessert as her meal whenever we go out, because why the hell not?  If that's what you want, go for it.  But don't mind me while I order soup, salad, and a meal because it just all sounds so good.

My own boyfriend eats ice cream for dinner from time to time, and I also understand that.  I, on the other hand, am often ridiculed for eating rice for lunch at work.  What?  It's good, it's cheap, it's (sort of) healthy. 

That being said, there are a few candies I made an exception for.  The first is candy corn.  Much like I believe there is no limit to how much Diet Coke a person can have in one day, I cannot get enough candy corn.  I am physically incapable of leaving a kernel uneaten. And don't even get me started on the pumpkins... I'm starting to drool just thinking about those gorgeous orange hunks of sugar.  I can't remember the last time I allowed myself to buy candy corn -- that's how bad it is.  I cannot permit myself to have it in the house, because the next thing I know I'll be hallucinating about talking jack-o-lanterns and dancing black cats from my sugar high/nausea. 

My next favorite candy is those hearts they make for Valentines day. The good ones, not the hard ones or the Sweet Tart kind.  The original, melt in your mouth, "be mine" hearts.  I also have not partaken in these for several years.  See reasons above.

Third on the list would be jelly beans.  Again, I am picky, and only the Brachs variety will do.  I believe that you should be able to bite off the hard outer shell of a jelly bean and savor the gelatin interior separately.  However, this morning I made an exception because some kind/evil person left a big bag of Jelly Bellys in the coffee room, and it's 10am and somehow I've forgotten to eat breakfast again.  I could make some oatmeal... or I could help myself to a cupful of jelly beans.

This occasion has reminded me of why I do not eat candy for breakfast, and why I do not accept Jelly Bellys as legitimate jelly beans.  Whose idea was it, anyway, to make jelly beans in the flavor of coffee grinds and dog crap?  If I wanted to eat buttered popcorn, I would have MADE SOME BUTTERED POPCORN.  When I bite into a jelly bean, should I be ready to savory its delicious, sweet goodness, or should I be cringing, wondering if this one is going to be as bad as the last?  I strongly believe in segregation of jelly beans, but if I so wished, I would like to be able to eat two or more colors together without having the taste of ant spray in my mouth for the next ten minutes.  But I will give them this: the black still taste like licorice.  Thank goodness, because that would just be a violation of all that is holy if those clowns at JB Central tried to infringe on the birthright of the black jelly bean flavor.

So, speaking of food, how would you like to see the menu I prepared for my class this Saturday?

• Mission Round Tortilla Chips (the best kind)
• Tostitos Organic Blue Corn Tortilla Chips
• UTZ Pretzels
• Guacamole
• Two kinds of Safeway salsa
• Three bags of popped popcorn
• Little Debbie Brownie Bites
• Amish Potato Salad

If that doesn't have Supermarket Sweep-style "panicked run through the grocery store" written all over it, I don't know what does.   I blamed it on the fact that my flight home from Toronto was delayed. 

Speaking of Toronto, here it is:

Looks nice, huh?  That's pretty much all I saw of it, since I left the hotel a total of one time during my stay.  I did find time to sqeeze in taking a few pictures of my new haircut with my phone, though.

 

I was quite happy with my hairstylist's choice of color and cut. 

And then I came home, and the humidity frizzed it out again, and now it looks the same as it did before. 

I guess I'll just be thanful for camera phones, for giving me proof that on one day of my life, my hair did look decent.   We'll always have Paris Canada.  

I know Canada is a

I know Canada is a "foreign" country, but it's kind of hard to think of it that way when your little brother used to drive across the border for Canadian bacon and beer.  However, I have noticed a few peculiarities of the Great White North that will surely make it easier to appreciate the autonomy of our border buddy.

1.  In Canada, Law and Order is hard to find.  Two episodes TOTAL between 5pm and midnight.  Oh, I'm sure -- I looked in the TV Guide and counted. In the US, L&O is on AT LEAST two channels between the hours of 6 in the evenin' and 2 in the morning. That's a minimum of 16 episodes, and more if there's a new episode during primetime.  Hey Canada -- This is a travesty.

2. The one episode of L&O I managed to catch had one of those parental warnings after every commercial break.  You know, "this program contains mature content, parental discretion is advised."

3.  Instead of L&O, there is a show called "Puppets Who Kill", and apparently it's a comedy.  We also have "Calgary Stampede: World's Wildest" on the Outdoor Life Network, "Why Dogs Smile" on PBS, and "Comfy Couch" on the Treehouse Channel.  Yes, I said the Treehouse Channel.

4. Have I mentioned how much I love my new laptop, with it's DVD player?  And also, Netflix?  And Nip/Tuck Season 1 Disc 4?

5.  Not only do they speak French here, but they also speak some sort of Asian language (I am ignorant and cannot differentiate one from the other).  They also jump from English to French to Asian with no warning.  It's not like, there's the English Channel and the French Channel and so on.  You're got the news on in the background, trying to write a paper that's due very soon, and all of a sudden you realize you're not being distracted properly by the television because they're no longer conversing in a Latin-based language.  Stop, change channel, repeat.

6.  Not only do the hotels (not just this one, all the others I've stayed in in Montreal and Vancouver as well) have a voluntary towel reuse program, they also have in-room recycling bins.  God bless America Canada.  Canada loves the planet.

7.  You know those duck tours that Baltimore has?  The ones that ride tourists around in converted WWII amphibious vehicles, while they blow on those freaking "duck whistles"?  In Canada they're called Hippo Tours.  Hippos are infinitely cooler than ducks for so many reasons, including the fact that hippos do not quack.  Hippos are very, very quiet.

8.  Canada is clean.

9.  A 6 inch Quiznos sub in Canada is smaller than a its US counterpart.  However, it tastes better.  And a sub, Coke Diete (that's a "cola sans sucre/sans calories"), Sun Chips, and side salad cost 9 Canadian dollars, which is pretty cheap, if I'm doing the conversion right. 

And the number one observation about Canada...

10.  I'm not sure what a Quay is, but there are a LOT of them here.

O Canada

So, I may have made a slight miscalculation and I scheduled my to Toronto flight a day early.  Which is fine, and actually I think I sort of meant to do that when I booked the flight (although I can't remember for sure because it was more than two weeks ago and I can't even remember whether or not I took my antibiotic this morning) because I know myself, and I knew that I had a paper due on Saturday, and I think that in my all-knowing wisdom I booked my flight early ON PURPOSE so that I would have a whole day of quiet time in the hotel to be studious.

Except that I realized at about 4pm yesterday that I never got a confirmation about the hotel.  Did the hotel ever get booked?  The travel coordinator wasn't picking up her phone or answering emails, but that didn't stop me from calling her every ten minutes, alternating between leaving more and more frantic messages and hanging up.  By 11pm, I was a little bit frantic, despite the fact that I was telling myself (out loud) "It's OK, calm down!  She has never screwed anything up before, I'm sure everything is taken care of, it's going to be just fine." 

As I was lying in bed, thinking about how OMG WHY HAVE I STILL NOT STARTED THAT PAPER, and also WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THIS STUPID BOOK, oh, and then OH SHIT I FORGOT TO MAKE THE GUACAMOLE! -- that's right, I'm responsible for bringing lunch for my entire class on Saturday.  When I signed up for that date, I neglected to remember that I would be out of town on Thursday and Friday, and I also neglected to check and make sure i would have to a place to sleep and connect to high speed internet while on said trip out of town -- on a whim, I decided to check my flight information again, even though I knew that it left at 10:30am.  I was excited about getting to sleep until the fine hour of 8am.  Guess what?  It was actually at 9:30am. 

Sleeping through something important, like a TRIP ON AN AIRPLANE, is one of my worst nightmares.  Not once, but twice, during college I jumped out of bed and ran outside in my pajamas thinking that I had missed a final.  I have panic attacks about being late for work on a daily basis, even though I am late to work more often than I am on time and I have yet to experience any sort of repercussion.  But oh my god, I almost missed my flight this morning.  What if I hadn't compulsively decided to check?  I would have missed my flight!  And it's not like there were four other flights later in the day.  Missing flights is unacceptable.

I am pretty sure that Niagara Falls is somewhere around this region of the Great White North, but a google search only determined that there is an entire city called Niagara Falls, and it's in Canada, but I have no idea if it's near where I am.  I know I am in Toronto, but I have no idea where that is in relation to anything else.  The flight here was only 50 minutes, which is kind of weird because I swear it takes longer than that to fly to New York.  Is Canada south of New York?  I don't think so, but I could be wrong.  Perhaps the flight time was shortened because the plane only had 40 seats on it, and the plane said "JAZZ" in huge green letters on both sides.  I'm so confused.  I think I better stay away from large waterfalls for my own safety.

Oh, and also, they speak French here.  I was,for some reason, surprised by that.  I was outraged when I was charged $21 for the bowl of French Onion soup and the Diet Coke I ordered from room service, but then I remembered, oooh yea.  Canadian dollars.  That explains the pretty money that came out of the ATM in the airport.  I was wondering about that.

Bitter is the New Blog

Hi.  I can't post anything today because I've been notified by Typepad that I've officially surpassed my weekly bitterness ration.  And also, I'm too busy preparing for my trip to Canada tomorrow, wondering whether I need a passport to go to Canada, or will my fake looking Maryland driver's license suffice?  Where the hell is my passport, anyway?  Why do I have the nagging feeling that it may have expired?  Is an expired passport enough to go to Canada? 

Also, I am supposed to have read Book #3 by Saturday morning as well.  I'm halfway done.  From what I can tell so far, it's about rain.  And trees.  And yet, it is confusing. 

Oh, and I also am supposed to be writing a paper that is due on Saturday.  That I haven't started, and after 5 pm today, I am going to have no way to print out before Saturday morning.  Might be a slight problem.  But I can't worry about that right now, because I am too busy googling the phrase "Blackberry sink water damage help". 

Oh, I'm serious.

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.

If I could just stop sleeping so damn much, I could get a lot more done. Where's insomnia when you need it?

Hi guys.  Sorry I have been sucking at blogging lately.   I think the novelty may have worn off.  And I have a list of things to do that is not only long, but filled with things that really need to be done, instead of ignored and procrastinated.

I desperately need a haircut.  After 5 years of short or at least short-ish hair, I decided to grow my hair a little longer for a change.  Then it started to get a little too long and I set Joke's wedding as the deadline for getting my hair cut and re-highlighted.  I had an appointment and everything.  And then, then the restaurant next door to my hair place had to have some problem with their sewage system and back up sludge into MY hair place on the day of MY appointment.  So my hair did not get cut, and now it has been three more weeks, and my hair is only longer and worse, and yet it is STILL not cut.  So there's that.

I also need to get my car fixed.  I called and got an estimate and everything, and it wasn't bad, so now I just need to make an appointment.  But eh, who needs a car anyway?

Joel called an exterminator, so at least that is done.  Or, it will be on Tuesday.

I need to have The House of the Spirits read by Saturday.  Currently I'm on page 120.  Out of 433.  Yesterday I had planned to "read all night", like from right after work until I fell asleep, with a minimum of 100 pages getting read.  But then I decided that I deserved at least a half hour break, and that turned in to an hour because there was a good episode of Seventh Heaven on (Mrs. Camden's BFF from high school moves to Glenoak and hits on Matt), and then there was this movie afterwards called "Good Boy".  It was about a dog from outer space.  And you better believe I watched it.

This is what happens to me when Joel goes out of town.   At least when he is dominating the remote, like he ALWAYS does, he watches something boring, and I am productive because I'd rather roam around the house with a magnifying glass looking for ants that have escaped my path of death and destruction than watch 80s sci-fi.  Sci-fi is for dorks.  Talking dogs from another planet?  Now that's just good shit.

There are about 1 billion other things I also need to do that unfortunately take place over writing on the internet in this twisted world we live in.  Things should be better by next week, and infinitely better next month when I'll go back to being a TV-addicted sloth.  So if I don't update very often, please don't be mad.  Don't take it personally.  It's not you, it's me.  I just need some space.  Can we still be friends?

Take some Ben and Jerry's and call me in the morning

If there's one thing I love, it's self-diagnosing.  The only thing I love more is probably self-medicating, but let's not talk about the fact that my mom had knee surgery on Monday, and has a fresh prescription of Darvocet.  This has always been a little problem of mine, which is only exacerbated by the fact that I work in the medical field and hear about scary diseases every day.  The variety of medical shows on TV don't help either.

Headaches?   Must be a brain tumor.

Exhausted all day?  Mono.

Thirsty all the time?  Diabetes.

Listen, I don't want to hear that all of these things are probably caused by the fact that I don't get enough sleep.  That would be no fun at all.

Yesterday I began a new hobby:  making up new diseases to describe the symptoms I have.  This idea was sparked by the acute Simulated Pregnancy Syndrome that I am suffering from.

I may have mentioned a time or two that I have some pretty strong food cravings from time to time?  They actually haven't been that bad lately.  But they have been replaced by an insatiable urge to burst into tears over things that are only mildly, if at all, upsetting/emotional.

Normally I am not a crier.  Oh, I have my fair share of emotional meltdowns.  But I don't cry at movies, I don't cry at books, I don't cry when I see Lost Dog posters on the street.... usually.   

Things took a turn for the worse when I was barely able to stop myself from sobbing at Joke's wedding.  But everyone cries at weddings, right?

I was a little concerned when I felt myself choke up as I watched Joel walk away on Sunday night, as he left for Baltimore and I stayed in Washington.  We've been apart for more than 36 hours before, in fact we've been apart for weeks at a time and, sure, I've missed him, but I haven't CRIED about it.

Then, yesterday, all hell broke loose as I was watching a Nip/Tuck DVD from Netflix.  Sitting alone in my living room, I burst into tears.  To be fair, it was the episode where Sean's girlfriend, who has a terminal cancer, decides to kill herself so that she can die with dignity, and he helps her.   They showed her sitting in her motel room, writing letters to all of her friends and family, and I just lost it.   

Sure, it was a very sad story.  Especially because Sean couldn't even mourn her death openly, since he was having an affair with her after all.  But that sentence alone should give a pretty good idea that this is a prime time soap, NOT MEANT TO INSPIRE ACTUAL TEARS.  Not even "based on a true story".  And this, my friends, is why I am starting to worry.

The cravings, the crying, what other explanation can there be but Simulated Pregnancy Syndrome?  (Just to be clear though, I am absolutely, positively, NOT PREGNANT with a real baby.)  What's next, having to pee 90 times a day and not sleeping through the night?  Oh... right.

On an unrelated topic, ants have officially taken over our house.  We get an ant invasion every year in the spring, I spray the entire house with Raid and Joel pours Borax in the basement, and they go away.  Usually.  This year, I've already been through an entire bottle of Raid (Earth Options -- DO NOT BUY IT) and the ants are only getting stronger.  I thought that ants were supposed to come marching in ONE BY ONE.  In our house, the song goes more like this:

The ants come pouring into the house, hurah! hurah!

The ants come in through every crack in the walls, hurah! hurah! 

The ants come up through the floor, the ants come OUT OF THE ELECTRICAL SOCKET, Raid Earth Options sucks but I taught the ants in the toaster a lesson!

And they'll all. Be. Dead. on Tuesday ... when the man comes... to gas them out... of the house....

Just pretend that rhymes and fits with the rhythm of the song, OK?  It's been a long week (and yes, I know it's only Wednesday, which makes it even worse).

It's the little things that make me smile. And the big things, too.

A quick look at my sitemeter this evening revealed two wonderful facts.  First, my site is the #5 match in a google search for "cure for a melodramatic drama queen."  That makes me unspeakably happy.  But, good luck with that, man.  I feel that you must be in a pretty desperate situation to be doing google searches like that on a Sunday night.

Secondly, and much more exciting: This site is apparently listed on http://www.newsamericanow.com/profiles/shakira/ under "Shakira Blog Buzz."

My life is now complete.

In other news, I am in Washington (DC, not state) for work.  I have a meeting at 5:45am tomorrow, and anyone who has been reading this blog for more than a day, or has ever had the pleasure of encountering me in real life before approximately 10am, will know that I am none too pleased about the timing.  But, you win some you lose some, right?  So this morning thing I lose on.  But Joel and I came down last night on a whim, booked a hotel on priceline and got a ridiculously nice room for a great price, and got ridiculously drunk with Bethy and Clay.  Bethy is one of my top 3 most favorite people in the universe, and the fact that she has been living in New Mexico for the past three years has been very sad for all of us still on the East Coast.  However, now she is back in DC and New York for the summer, and then in New York permanently for grad school.  Hooray!  It was worth celebrating with 5 shots of Jager, and then leaving my credit card at the bar.  More than worth it.

I'd hate to bet against myself, but my money is on Max

As my father used to actually own an auto repair shop, and my brother used to work for a different auto repair shop, I am outrageously spoiled with regard to motor vehicles and their maintenance and repair.  I have also had a bout of ridiculously good luck when it comes to cars.   As such, I have only been to a Volkswagen dealership one time during my life as a VW-owner, and that was in a dire emergency, when Clippy drove her parents' Passat down to visit and the oil filter exploded (or something like that, who can remember these things).  All I remember or sure is that the dealer was out in the middle of Baltimore industrial wasteland, we had no idea how to get there, and we were afraid that the car might blow up at any  moment.  Interestingly, this is a problem I encounter on a regular basis, which is why I now gladly pay AAA $60 a year -- it's small price to pay for peace of mind, I say. 

In my nine years of licensed driving, I have owned three different Volkswagens.  My beloved first car, a 1989 baby blue Jetta, was my pride and joy.  I loved it more than any person should love an inanimate object.  It was my mobility.  It was my life.  It also had a nasty oil leak, and when it rained, water dripped onto my foot and soaked my shoe.  But I'm not complaining.  It was the most perfect car to ever have graced the New Jersey Turnpike.  And then, one fateful morning, a truck rear-ended me on the Boulevard while I was waiting to to make a turn, and SMASH, my baby was dead.  The feeling of sadness and loss that I felt while I watched it being towed away, my Dave Matthews Band sticker and Horde Fest stickers ripped and mangled, was the same feeling I had when I watched Max being carried off through the double doors on his way to surgery.  Guilt, fear, and lack of control, all neatly rolled up in the pit of my stomach.

Going back to being stranded in Boonton Township, which is walking distance from NOTHING, was NOT OK.  It is not possible to go from being being a self-sufficient 17-yr-old with a personal vehicle one moment, to being stranded out in the middle of the woods the next, without going completely insane.  Luckily, I got something like $2000 from the company whose vehicle destroyed my baby, which was about 10 times its actual monetary value.  I instructed my dad to find me a new car, and FAST.  Which he did, because my dad is awesome like that.  It was a kicky VW Fox, bright red.  The only problem?  It was a stick. 

I learned how to drive stick in 3 days.   I am surprised that my father did not kill me, disown me, throw me from the vehicle, or do all three at once, because I am not what you would call "good under pressure".  And trying to start up a stick shift, on a hill, while your father is clearly wondering how his genes could have created a person with such a lack of vehicular intuition, is quite a lot of pressure.  But, total immersion is the best way to learn, and on Day 4 I drove my new Foxy to school.  I think I stalled out about 20 times on the way there, but we made it.

Once I knew how to drive a stick, MAN, I thought I knew everything there was to know about cars.  I was all, See this extra pedal?  It's called the clutch BITCHES, now watch me work it as I speed away! Oh yea!  You WISH  you could drive a stick!  Suckers.  Who wants to ride shotgun and man my TOTALLY AWESOME TAPEDECK?

Except no one told me that you have to put oil into a car.  Gasoline?  Check.  89 cents a gallon at the Mobil next to Mennen Arena.  I am ALL OVER THAT.  But oil?  Um, what oil?   So one day, my dad noticed that my engine was sounding awfully loud, and a quick peek under the hood revealed that I'd been speeding around the tri-state area for God-knows-how-long without a drop of oil in my engine.  Whoops!  But he added a quart or two or four, and the car continued to run just fine, and years later when I could no longer afford to pay the outrageously expensive New Jersey insurance while Foxy sat, unused in the driveway because I was 200 miles away at college, my dad managed to broker its sale to some poor, unsuspecting high school kid who didn't have the benefit of a mechanic in the family.  Occasionally, my mom would see it around town and I would feel slightly less guilty about having accepted money for a car that I'd spent two years driving into the ground.

I remained car-less until the end of senior year, when I realized that the real world was approaching all too rapidly, and I wasn't going to be able to walk everywhere much longer.  Plus, you try going to the grocery store with no car.  Have I mentioned that I used to subsist solely on Progresso lentil soup and Diet Coke?  That shit is HEAVY.

So I sent my father off to peruse the newspaper ads and his network of insider car-type people, with the authorization to spend up to $5000 (my entire live savings at that point) on a new car for me.  Although I don't think I ever actually said that it should be a Volkswagen, that point was clearly  understood:

1. First of all, I don't suffer through the endless mispronunciations and misspellings, and the knowledge that I, myself, pronounce my own last name wrong, because THAT'S HOW I GREW UP SAYING IT AND I'M NOT GOING TO GO AND CHANGE IT NOW, for nothing.  I consider driving a VW to be sort of my birthright. 
2. Secondly, I just think they're cool.  Maybe it's the German blood coursing through my veins, but SERIOUSLY -- how cute are the new beetles?   Sometimes I have the urge to gently stroke our neighbor's cute little Golf.  And other times, I have to take a few deep breaths to stop myself from keying the other neighbor's shiny new 2005 Jetta in a rage of jealousy.   
3. And, most importantly of all, VWs are the cars my Dad can fix.  For free.

I was a little nervous when I made the trip home via the good ole' Baltimore-Newark Greyhound express to meet my new car.   Sight unseen, I had written my dad a check to purchase a 1998 black Jetta GT. When I rolled up to the house, it was love at first sight. 

Although I may complain about my car in the summer, what with it's lack of AIR CONDITIONING, sometimes I have to take a step back and remember that the AC was working perfectly well before I crashed the car into a taxi.  And while that accident was totally NOT my fault, it was not my car's fault either.  In fact, my car deserves a round of applause for celebrating its 130,000th mile last month.  And he still doesn't look a mile over 100,000 when he's all washed and shiny and all the birds in Baltimore haven't used him as a port-a-potty.

The recent problems that have been occurring (flat tires, random stall outs, inability to start, coming out of the movies to find it supported by nothing but a shopping cart and a note on the windshield accusing it of having rolled into an Audi, etc) have been troublesome for me because 1) I now live 200 miles away from my father, which makes his working on my car a bit more difficult, 2) I have gotten a bit older, and therefore started to feel guilty for making my father slave away on my vehicle, 3) I am terrified of getting a new car, because I don't think that I can continue to be this lucky.   How many people smash their cars into a taxi, then have their fathers attach one end of a garage-door cable to the frame of the car and the other end to their van's trailer hitch, resulting in returning the car to very nearly it's original, pristine shape?   Not too many, I'm afraid. 

So, since the "check engine" light has been blinking on my dashboard for the past, oh, I don't know, 1600 miles or so (in these matters, it is of the utmost importance that you careful track and record things, so as to avoid being accused of "ignoring it"), and because lately, my car has taken to stalling out WHILE I'M DRIVING, I thought it might be time to get it looked at.  A trip to our local repair shop resulted in a $50 charge and a diagnosis of "random misfire."  Time to take it to the dealer, they said.  The dealership being open only Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm, was as good an excuse as any to take a day off of work.

I gave myself a major pep talk on the way the dealer.  "Don't let them talk you into anything!  You can do this.  You were a Psychology minor.  You are immune to their tricks.  No.  No.  No.  Just say NO!  DO NOT LET THEM WORK ON YOUR CAR.  Practice saying it with me, 'Just the diagnostic please!'".   And I managed to successfully walk out with a bill for the diagnostic only, and a laundry list of things that needed to be fixed on my car.  The estimate if I had the work done at the dealer?  $1000. 

Strangely, I was relieved.  You see, I would have been wholly unsurprised to get a diagnosis along of the lines of "your car has less than a week to live.  You  might want to start making funeral arrangements" -- but getting the distributor cap, spark plugs, fuel filter, and parking brake (among other things) replaced seems simple enough.  If I can pour some money into this car and have it last me another good 3 or 4 years, I'll be perfectly content.  And as long as no crazed taxi drivers decide to cut me off on rainy nights when I'm really tired, that seems doable.

So, now I'm in this sort of competition with my dad.  He wants to do the work, because, in his own words, "money doesn't grow on trees, Jennifer."  I want to take it back to my trusted local mechanic, who will be glad to accept monetary remuneration for his services, allowing me to avoid feeling terribly guilty for abusing my father's talents.  "Fathers don't grow on trees.  And neither does time," I told him.  He was hearing none of it.  "You call your place and see how much they will charge, and I'll call up my guy and see how much the parts will cost.  If there's a big difference, we can meet halfway at Kristopher's house and I'll do the work.  OK?"  I agreed. 

But there's another consideration.  Spending tons of money to keep a car running is a commonplace use of funds, wouldn't you say?  Much more respectable than, say, paying for a cat's oral surgery?  What I've got going on here is sort of a Celebrity Death Match going on between Max and my car, with the grand prize going to the one who can manage to cost me more money over the course of a year.  In the Jetta's corner, we have a new ignition, battery, brakes, and tires, and an impending "Major Tuneup".  In Max's corner, we have a year's worth of antidepressants and low-allergen food, countless vet trips, a recently completed (minor) surgery, and the cost of all the rug cleaner I've had to use since he returned to chewing off his own fur and then barfing it up on the carpet. Place your bets now, because it's going to be a close fight.   If Max wins, I will accept that I am one step closer to being a full-fledged crazy cat lady.  If the car wins, well, then I guess I'm just normal.

Out of the closet

Guess what guys?  As it turns out, that annoying Disney song is right.  It's a small world after all.  Especially when you work for, and go to school at, a behemoth university that owns the entire metropolitan area. This week I was outed not once, but twice.  And I'm not even gay!  Just sort of retarded.

So, the other day, Liz was telling a girl she works with the side-splittingly hilarious story of how I misjudged Louise Erdrich's body of fictional work.  This girl thought it was a pretty strange coincidence, since the class she happens to be taking, which also happened to have had its first meeting last Saturday, also has those two particular novels assigned.  Wow! Who would have though there were  TWO Johns Hopkins classes, which both met on Saturday to discuss the Literature of Oppression?  What are the odds of that? 

About a kajillion to one.   She's totally in my class.  And while Liz swears she's really, really cool, she now knows that I am sort of an idiot, which was not exactly the image I was going for.  But oh well, at least I"m not the person who's emailing around Sparknotes to the whole class, right?  No, I'm just the person who is emailing the whole class to say "Hi guys, I'm stuck in Atlanta and probably not going to make it, so can someone please tell the teacher that it's not my fault I'm absent, it's solely the fault of Delta airlines and the freaking Atlanta airport's inability to launch even ONE flight if it happens to be raining.  Thanks!  PS -- You don't know me, but I'm really cool.  I swear."

So there's that.  But actually that story is really funny, and just reinforces the fact that you shouldn't be a douchebag until you know your audience.

The second time I was busted was on Wednesday, when I got an email alerting me that I had a new MySpace message from "Andrew."  I assumed it was another person asking me whether I'd care to meet up and have casual sex, because in my picture is just so beautiful and they would really love the chance to meet me and be the man I deserve.  (Either that, or the kid from high school with that same name, that I wasn't even remotely friends with, who has invited me to be his MySpace friend.  He's still waiting in the Approve/Deny limbo, because I really don't want to be associated with him, but I don't have the heart to hit "deny".  I know, I know.  I'm a bitch.   A spineless bitch.)

However, it was actually someone from work. 

My first reaction was complete and utter panic, because I had a link to this site on my MySpace page.  And for some reason, my penultimate fear -- right behind my fear that there will be natural disaster/terrorist attack and I will not be able to get the cats into their carriers and I'll have to leave them behind when we flee the city -- is that someone from work will find this website.  I'm not sure WHY I am so terrified.  There's nothing so terrible to be ashamed of here, is there?  I guess it's just that I try to put on a facade if professionalism when I'm at work.  I'd like the people at work to not think that I'm a total flake,  and I think that this website makes pretty clear with each and every new entry that, while I'm pretty booksmart and I'm very proud of the fact that I have not received a single grade below an A- since Contemporary International Politics in 2002, I'm a retard when it comes to general, every day things.   And while I think that it's funny to almost blow up the house trying to bake a pumpkin roll cake, and my friends got a kick out the story about the time that I drove my car around with flat tire, completely oblivious until a car full of nuns dressed in full habits honked and pointed at me and made me pull over, these are not exactly things that I want to announce to the people who determine my salary increases.  I'd also like to keep the fact that I detest taking showers (and quite often skip them), that a brush hasn't touched these locks since approximately 1997, and that I would give my right arm to meet Shakira, within the circle of trust.

Andy has promised not to out me.  Liz has promised me that her friend is cool and won't tell our mutual professor about my little mixup in the Barnes and Noble.  And I have resolved to learn not to shake in fear every time I see the sitemeter number go up.

Dum(b), Dum Dum Dum...

I know I've said before that my life is boring, but at this juncture in time it is especially so.  I'm not complaining, just making a simple disclaimer.   My life is currently consumed by desperately trying to resist the urge to just turn the TV on for 10 minutes, just to see what that rascal Lennie is up to, and then straight back to reading 100 Years of Solitude (which was officially supposed to be finished by Saturday, but as of last night, I am still only at about year 67), nagging Joel to fix the holes in the wall, nagging Max to stop chewing his own arm off, and killing the ants that have had free reign over the kitchen since we ran out of ant spray on Saturday.  By the way, Raid Earth Options smells just as bad as regular Raid.   And it seems to actually ATTRACT MORE ants.

So instead of my typical cynical summary of the mundane happenings of my day, I respectfully submit a list of incredibly stupid acts I have committed recently.  Feel free to mock openly. 

Last Monday:  I decide that I'm going to pretty myself up for work today, jewelry and everything, for no particular reason other than the fact that I bought two cute shirts at Banana Republic over the weekend.  I don the green shirt, with brown pants.  I don't usually buy or wear green, but this shirt looked really good on me, if I may be so bold as to say so, so I bought it.  Plus, it was a steal at $9.99.  After some pondering, I conclude that I can pull off wearing a black belt and black jewelry with the brown pants, because DAMN, I'm looking good. 

When I arrive home in the evening, I notice that the "small" sticker, you know, the ones that are about a foot long and look like this:

S

S

S

S

S

S

S

.... is still firmly affixed to my left breast.   

Saturday night:  Joel and I decided to go out to a nice dinner, for no special occasion.   I put on The Most Adorable Dress Ever Made, even though the straps are a little too long and I haven't had time to fix them yet (most likely, I will never fix them, but for the moment I am still telling myself that I will get right to that, after I put the laundry from last month away, finish reading all those books I want to read, and have watched every episode of Law and Order ever made.  And fixed the holes in the walls) and we set out to walk the two blocks to this trendy new restaurant we've been wanting to try.   As we're walking along our block, something dark and furry scuttles along under a car.  I react by jumping into the air and letting out a high-pitched shriek.  "The Rat" turns out to be a cat.  One of the stray cats that I feed with some regularity.

Sunday: After an enchanting day spent strolling around our fine city, we stop in Barnes and Noble so I can buy the last book for my class, "Love, Medicine, Tracks" by Louise Erdrich.  I am puzzled when I cannot find said novel, which was promised to be readily available in any major bookstore.  I find the section by Erdrich.  But why can't I find this book?  Ah, because it's actually two books, "Love Medicine" AND "Tracks".  Excellent.  Not only am I a literary buffoon, I now have five books to read in the next seven weeks, not four.   No. More. Law. And. Order.  Waaaaaahh!

We're not even going there:  I take nervous, fat, and HAPPY cat to the vet to have his teeth surgically removed, because I CARE ABOUT HIS HEALTH and I've been threatened multiple times that if I don't do something about his rotten mouth this teeth will become impacted and infected and he will DIE, and the surgery prompts a return to chewing on his own body parts, a problem that had been  successfully resolved.   I have to sheepishly return to our regular vet, admit that I cheated on him, and beg for a refill of anti-excessive chewing drugs.

I take it all back

What a fabulous life I have!  My pets are healthy, I'm off jet-setting around the country... tra-la-la, I think I'll post a happy post on my blog about my excellent life.

Apparently, that's a good way to jinx yourself.  Remember how well Max was doing after his surgery?  His teeth were clean, all his hair grown back, and we even caught him sitting in the window on Wednesday.   Looking outside!  Being interested in the world around him!  Later that night, he was found sleeping in the cat condo, which previously he has never dared to enter.  Hooray, hoorah, Max is now a normal cat.

Last night I noticed a bald spot on his arm.  Upon closer inspection, I saw that he had chewed off all the hair along both his arms, and there was a small spot of thinned out hair on his left side as well.  Silly me, feeding him all that tuna instead of his low-allergen food.  Stupid, stupid idea, thinking it was more important to have him eat all the antibiotics, which he won't touch unless they're slathered in Chunk Light Chicken of the Sea. 

Oh, and remember how I was all, "I love traveling" on Thursday, as I was enjoying a steaming crock of french onion soup while watching Days of Our Lives?  I felt quite the opposite on Friday night, when at 1am I was still sitting in the Atlanta airport, waiting for my 10:45 flight to take off.   I never wanted to travel again when I finally arrived home at 3:15am, only to be struck with bout of insomnia which had me up all night watching the Laci Peterson Story on Lifetime.

While Dean Cain played a convincingly slimy Scott Peterson, staying up all night before my first summer class, my first 5 HOUR-LONG class, was not a wise idea.  I took two naps when I got home on Saturday.  Took a nap, ate some food, and took another nap.  And on Sunday, I was still exhausted.  Took another nap Sunday afternoon, which caused me to miss the the crucial part of the movie we were watching, the movie that I cannot even remember the name of now.  I think I am still tired.

I'm looking forward to another seven weeks of similar experiences.  How am I back in class already? What happened to my three weeks of glorious freedom, when I was going to go to the gym everyday and lose 5 pounds, cook real meals for dinner every night, catch up on Law and Order reruns, clean the house, and help all the starving children in Africa?  I went to the gym two times TOTAL.   I ate guacamole and chips for breakfast, lunch, and dinner one day, and I guess that does count as a gourmet meal, because I actually MADE the guacamole! And I don't want to hear anyone saying it's easy to make guacamole, and YES I DID MAKE IT WITH A STOREBOUGHT SPICE PACKET, because it's all I've got to hang on to.

Happy freaking Monday, internet. 

   

Is this Lukah guy supposed to be the new George Clooney? NOT EVEN CLOSE.

You know, I like to think of myself as a television connoisseur.   I will admit, I watch way too much TV.  But I have a very discriminating eye.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!1!!1, you're thinking.  Because I have previously admitted to watching Seventh Heaven.  But I watch Seventh Heaven for a reason:  It's a great way to build up rage, scream at the television, and then the anger is gone.  And thus, you don't have to choke the nice man, the one who ogles you on the way to work every single goddamned day and makes disgusting comments after you've walked by, to death.*  As Dr. Phil would say, it's a constructive outlet for my anger.  At least, that's what I think he would say, but I wouldn't know because I would rather stick my entire head into the cats' litterbox -- after a weekend when I've been away somewhere and Joel has "forgotten to clean it out" for 3 days -- than actually listen to anything that Phil McGraw, PhD, has to say.  Maybe it's the fact that his surname is the same as that horrific country singer's.  Maybe it's the fact that I was once forced to watch a Dr Phil episode in my family's living room, with my mother and both of my brothers, and that the topic of this particular segment was fellatio.   Whatever.  The point is, I actually do have a modicum of taste.  Or so I like to tell myself.

So, here I am, sitting in my hotel room, watching ER.  I'm watching ER because for some reason, this very swanky hotel which gets HBO and Showtime, only gets 4 other channels and they're all playing sports.   Now, I haven't watched ER in quite awhile.  Probably not since high school.  Because in college, I discovered Law and Order, which is playing on at least two channels between the hours of 5-10pm.  And then, along came Netflix.  And also... I am more than a little bit queasy at the sight of blood.  I suck it up for Nip/Tuck, but that's totally different because Nip/Tuck more than makes up for it by frequently showcasing Julian McMahon's naked butt. 

The point is, I used to like ER.  I used to think it was a "good show." So I am struggling to explain why, in the 15 minutes I've been watching, there has been a completely idiotic "heartwrenching" scene with an old guy who refuses to take his heart medication, but then gets chauffeured into a helicopter for a heart transplant at the "Mayo clinic", followed by a helicopter crash.  Which was caused by terrorists?  I am not sure.  But it seems a little overly dramatic.  Please keep in mind that I admitted earlier that I love the soap opera called Passions.  And still, this episode was inciting the "oh, COME ON!" reflex.

And then, wait, is that UNCLE JESSIE?  Oh my god, yes it is.  Uncle Jessie, what are you doing on ER??  Did "Jake in Progress" get canceled already?  Were you unhinged over the fact that your ex wife is appearing in another blockbuster film covered in nothing but a thin layer of blue paint? 

I'm sorry.  But there are limits to how far I can stretch my imagination, and seeing Uncle Jessie in a paramedics outfit, hitting on the Indian/British chick (and didn't she use to be a DOCTOR?) is far beyond them.

I'm going to sleep.

*And also, it cracks me up every single time I see Ashlie Simpson trying to act.  And now!  Haylie Duff!!! I LOVE Hilary Duff!! But that will not stop me from mocking her older, less pretty, sister!

Hello from Atlanta

I know it's like the golden rule of blogging (ugh, the word still sort of makes me cringe) that you're not supposed to talk about work, because you'll end up like Dooce.  (Which doesn't sound so bad, since Dooce now has a pretty sweet life).  But you can write about things you love about work, right?

I love traveling.  I love that I get to travel for work. 

I love the bustle of airports.  I love calculating all the frequent flyer miles I'm racking up.  I love plane rides (as long as they're not extremely bumpy or on one of those 50-person planes --those, I do not like at all) because it's like having permission to do nothing.  You have that time to read, to doze off, to watch the in-flight movie, to spy on the other passengers, guessing where they're going and who they are.

I love feeling like a grownup when I check into the nice hotel.  I love checking my email (on my new laptop!) while catching up on what's going on in Salem and Harmony (Days of Our Lives and Passions, respectively, for those who don't keep up with the soaps).  I love unpacking and hanging my clothes up in the hotel closet.  I love how uncluttered it is.   I love ordering French onion soup (my favorite soup, which I order in every hotel I go to) and sipping it while watching reruns of Charmed.  I love how no one can make fun of me for my addiction to crappy TV shows or beg me to change the channel.

I love getting to see new places without the pressure of seeing every last thing, which I always try to do on vacation.  I love getting to go out to dinner or coffee with friends who live in other cities, who I would never get to see otherwise.

I also love coming home.  I love using all the comp time to stay home and not leave the house all day.  I love sleeping in, eating tuna for breakfast, and watching hour after hour of Law and Order.