Operation Pink Herring

The good, the bad, and the ugly: Monday edition

The Good:  The vet called on Saturday.  I am the proud owner of three parasite-free cats. 

The Bad: Someone has started peeing on the rug in the litterbox room.  I can't be sure since I have yet to catch the offender in the act, but I think it's Max.   In that case, I take back all the nice things I said about being so proud of him and all that bullshit.  WTF, Maxwell?  No, really, WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

Also, Max and Madison are also both due for their 3-year rabies shots, and I've decided to take them in together.  Time-saver, or official proof that I have gone plum crazy, because OMGWTF ARE YOU THINKING WOMAN?  Only time will tell!  Stay tuned!  And in the meantime, I promise, no more crazy cat lady talk!

The Ugly:  I have somehow managed to sweat through my light, button-down shirt.  It's not even noon.  I only wore a light coat that was completely appropriate for the springtime weather this morning, and I wasn't all red-faced when I got to work.  I'm not a big sweater.  I put on deodorant this morning.  And yet, there they are: two big pit stains (luckily, not overtly visible because this shirt I'm wearing is a light color).   

I think I have my special expensive deodorant to blame for this, but I'm not really sure what to do.  And this is where you come in, interweb peoples, because I need help.  Serious help.  You cannot imagine how much stress I have over Deodorant Issues.

See, all my t-shirts that are even moderately fitted have black/brown pit stains on them.  I don't even buy white shirts any more. I am positive this is not sweat-related because the shirts I wear to the gym and to hot yoga classes have no such stains.  I was at the point of just giving up deodorant altogether last year when I complained about this annoying problem, OMG ALL MY SHIRTS HAVE PIT STAINS, WAHHHH, to my friend, KP, who admitted she had the exact same problem -- until she switched to the Adidas brand deodorant.  Adidas deodorant is aluminum-free, she explained, and it's the aluminum that causes the staining.   I rushed out to the store to buy a case or twelve of Adidas deodorant, and guess what?  Safeway doesn't carry it.  But they do carry Tom's of Maine deodorant, which for the $5-a-stick price tag is also aluminum-free.  It's also  all natural, organic, and cruelty free, which is all good and fine and great, but most importantly: NO ALUMINUM.

Since I've started using my hippie deodorant made from hops and rainbows and unicorn tears, I haven't noticed a single new pit stain.  Not even on the shirts I wear under sweaters, which tend to be tighter and of, ahem, a slightly lower quality than shirts I'd normally wear.  Hooray!  Except that I'm now sweating through my shirts in the middle of winter.  I fear what will happen when the Baltimore Summer rolls around.  I'll probably drown in a puddle of my own sweat before I made it halfway to work.  What am I to do?

Please tell me I'm not the only one who has this many issues with freaking deodorant. And then, tell me how to fix this.  Do you have strong feelings about deodorant?   A favorite?   A magical solution to my problems, preferably one that doesn't include showering more often?   I should mention that I have tried the Dove line, and while I love their "real beauty" ad campaign as much as the next girl, I hate their deodorant and you couldn't pay me to try it again.  (OK, yes you could, but you'd have to make it worth my while because that shit not only stained my shirts like nobody's business, it also STANK after a few hours of normal wear). 

I swear to God, just while I was typing this, I ACTUALLY SWEATED MORE.  My office temperature is normally set to "Polar Ice Cap" and I haven't moved from my chair in over an hour.   WHAT IS GOING ON?   Early menopause?  Global warming?  Severe Case of the Mondays?   I haven't a freaking clue, but I'm pretty sure this is all Max's fault.

May the Good Lord smite me down

Once upon a time I broadcast to the internet all the gripes I had with my new phone.  And then my phone was taken away from me for five days and I learned to never take it for granted again.  Even if the ring tone does still make me want to stab my ear drums with a number two pencil.

Around the same time, I talked some smack about the flu shot.  It was offered for free at my place of employment, and all my coworkers went and got one.  Not me.  I don't do needles, I told them.  Plus, the one time I did buckle down and get a flu shot, I was rewarded with not only a (painful) needle-stick, but also with three days of "flu-like symptoms".  Color me crazy, but I call flu-like symptoms THE FREAKING FLU.  Whether it is caused by a dead virus injected (painfully) into my arm or a live virus sneaking in through my nostril, I still felt like crap for three days and I swore I would never again get a flu shot.  You know, until I am ninety years old and at risk from actually dying from the flu.  (And even then, probably not).

No, I said.  I'll just take my chances with the regular old flu.  Ya'll can contribute to the development of resistant virus strands by getting unecessary vaccinations if you want, but not me.  Thanks but no thanks.

WELL GUESS WHAT, INTERNET.  I THINK I HAVE THE FLU. 

What is this, some sort of curse?  If so, I'd like to go on record saying that I will NEVER, EVER win the lottery.  No, siree.  I am POSITIVE THAT THIS TICKET IN MY HAND IS A LOSER.

Complain and Ye Shall Lose

You know what will teach you to stop complaining about how much you hate your fancy new phone?Being without it for five days.

My friends and I had tickets to the Bon Jovi concert in Newark on Friday night. Say what you will about New Jersey, but there is no better place to see Jon (we’re on a first name basis) than NJ. There were perms. There were feathered bangs. It was perfect.

In order to get to this concert, Jenny and I planned to meet on the #86 train. She caught it in Richmond at 8am, and I planned to hop on in Baltimore at 11:08am. I caught a cab to Penn Station, arriving at 10:41. I remember exactly what time it was, because I kicked myself for stressing myself out about being LATELATELATEOMG when, really, I had all the time in the world. Plenty of time to print my ticket, get cash from the ATM and get myself some coffee before settling down on a bench to call my mom and tell her that I probably wasn’t going to be able to stop by while I was in NJ. I fished around in my new bag for my phone and came up empty-handed. I put down my coffee so I could look with both hands. I took everything out. I put everything back in and took it back out again. No phone.

FUUUUUCK.

Just then the board clackity-clacked its updates into place and the #86 train’s status changed from “On time” to “15 minutes delayed”. It was 10:56.

I don’t really need my phone. If I leave now I can go back and get it. What if I miss the train? I think I can make it if I leave right now. But what if I miss the train? Jenny will kill me. But I’m sure there are other trains to Newark today. I really need my phone. I’ll just call Jenny and tell her I may miss the train. OH WAIT I CAN’T BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE MY PHONE. I have to go back and get it.

I left my coffee on the bench, grabbed my stuff and ran outside to the taxi line. The driver sped home and turned the car around while I ran upstairs to get my phone. I was certain I’d left it on the bedroom dresser, where I’d put it down that morning when Jenny called to make sure I was awake.

Except it wasn’t there.

FUUUUUUUCK.

I picked up the house phone so I could call my phone and find it. House phone was dead. I ran downstairs and got the OTHER house phone and called my phone.

Ring, ring, ring went the house phone’s receiver. No corresponding ring from the cell phone. Voicemail. I tried again. Ring, ring, ring went the house phone. Nothing from the cell phone.

FUUUUUUUUUCK.

It was now 11:07. I hopped back in the cab and sped back towards Penn Station, convinced that I had now arranged it so that I was going to miss the train AND have no cell phone. We arrived at the station at 11:20 and I flew out of the cab with my wallet $27 lighter.

They hadn’t even announced the track for the #86 train. My coffee was still on the bench where I’d left it. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not going to lie: after a moment’s consideration, I picked it up and took a big, delicious chug. I didn’t really care if it was roofied. I needed some damn coffee and I’d just blown $27 on a fruitless cab ride and my cell phone was still missing.I managed to kill the cup just as the train was announced.

Because Jenny is a smart girl, she’d told me what car she was in. I found her and we called my phone several times, my ear to my suitcase to listen for its telltale BEEEPPP BEEEEPPP.

And then, on the third try, someone picked up just before the call cut out. SOMEONE PICKED UP MY PHONE. WHO HAS MY PHONE?

We called back and learned that the thief on the other side of the call was actually my first taxi driver. Whoops, I left my phone in the cab! No problem, he said, he would bring it to me. Where was I, he asked. I’m on a train, I told him. Somewhere in Northern Maryland. I don't think you want to meet me in Newark, NJ to return my phone.

No problem, I’ll take it to your house, he said. I gave him my address a bit skeptically since I’d caught the cab several blocks away from home and as nice as the guy was, his English wasn’t great. Our street name is difficult to pronounce and even harder to spell. I was just hoping that if he dropped it in our neighbor’s mailslot that they’d forgiven me for watching the Netflix that the mailman accidentally delivered to our house. (It was Elizabethtown and it sucked anyway).

And that was all I could do. I called my mom and told her I wasn't coming by. I called Joel and told him my phone might be on the floor when he came home. That was all I could do. Time to relax and forget about it.

Except I can’t stop myself from instinctively reaching for my phone a million times a day. It wasn’t so bad while I was in New York this weekend, with Jenny’s phone to depend on. But this morning I flew all by my lonesome to New Orleans for work and I AM GOING CRAZY. I feel cut of from the world. As much as I hate the thing, I am completely dependent on it. And I promise that when I return on Tuesday, I will give my fancy phone a big, sloppy kiss and never say a bad thing about it again.

I swear.

Cell phone rage

Awhile back I mentioned that I hate my new phone and Erika mentioned right back that she would LOVE to a post listing all the many, many reasons why this is so.  Well, I aim to please people.  Let the raging commence.

The first problem is that I really hate replacing things that are perfectly good.  My old phone was fine.  It worked.  I knew how to use it.  It wasn't supersleek or stylish, but it was good enough.  And then Verizon started sending me emails that it was time for my "new every two" phone.  I ignored their emails.  This was back in May.  I would have been happy to continue to ignore their emails, living in happy ignorance with my aging but utilitarian phone.  But Joel would hear none of that.  You can't just pass up FREE STUFF, he said.  Let's go to the Verizon store and check out all the cool new phones you can get!

I thought that sounded like an awful lot of work.   So I decided I would just go online and order a new phone.  And then I promptly forgot about the whole thing.

Until I went to a certain bachelorette party and was blown away by my friend Jenny's supercool texting phone.  It had a full keyboard!  And it took great pictures!  And she could text people in about 1/10th of the time I could.  Not that I really text that often, but I WANT to be a texter.  I decided I needed a new phone rightnowOMGandIwantonejustlikeyours.

I went home and immediately got on the Verizon site.  Unfortunately, the phone Jenny had wasn't a Samsung, and I wanted to stick to Samsung so that I wouldn't have to get all new accessories.  My old phone was a Samsung and I figured that if I showed a little brand loyalty, I'd be able to use my spare charger, car charger, and hands free set with my new phone.  I found a Samsung that had a full keyboard and I hit "buy".

The next day it arrived. 

And that is when the poop hit the fan. 

First of all, all Samsungs are not created equal.   My old charger does not fit my new phone.  Which means I need to shell out for a new hands-free set and a new car charger.  Or just go back to living without these commodities, which, so far, is going OK.  This was annoying, but hey.  My own stupid fault for not researching the new phone more carefully.

The real problem started when I went to test out the ringtones on my new fancy phone.  My old phone had a ringtone that I LOVED, it was a little melody that has already slipped from my brain into oblivion.  Come back, my beloved song!  I can't even remember what you sounded like.   The ringtones offered on the new phone are beyond awful.  There is not a single option that I wouldn't be humiliated to have go off in a public place.  One sounds like La Cucaracha.  Another is more like some sort of techno-mambo.  Trust me when I tell you they are all AWFUL.  There is no standard ring ring.  Even the "Bell 1" and "Bell 2" make me want to stab a carrot peeler in my eardrum.  So I have my ringtone set so low that I never hear my phone ringing, which is very efficient and useful way to use a telephone.  I suppose I have to download a ringtone like all the kids are doing these days, but that just sounds so... hard.  I just don't want to.  I want my phone to come with at least one decent ring.  Is that so much to ask?

Apparently so.

Speaking of downloading things, guess what I discovered the first time I was bored in a taxi and decided to see what sorts of games my fancy new cell phone had to offer?   NO GAMES.  Oh, you can download lots of fancy games!  For just a small monthly fee!  What's that, you don't like paying monthly fees?  Well for just a slightly higher one-time payment, you can have unlimited access to games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Tetris Mania!

Fuck that.  I'm not paying for cell phone games.

Also, Mr. New Phone is not at all intuitive.  That sucks, but with some practice I'm now starting to catch on to his little tricks.   Like, when I hear a beep signaling that I've gotten a text message, I know to open the phone in rotated mode just in case I should want to reply using the qwerty keyboard WHICH WAS AFTER ALL THE WHOLE REASON I GOT THIS STUPID PHONE.   Because if I open the phone in regular mode (like a regular phone) and open the text, I cannot simply rotate the phone to reply.  It will close out the second I go into rotated mode and pretend like it didn't know that I was looking at that text message.  Oh, I thought you were done with that, it says.  I'm sorry, now you'll have to start all over from the main menu.  What were you doing again?  Trying to download some games for a small nominal fee, right? 

Hmmm, what else?  There's the fact that although I have a full qwerty keyboard which is visible in phone mode, I also have tiny abc associated with the 2-key, def with the 3-key and so on.  And if I am scanning through my phone book to make a call, and I want to say, call JENNY.  WHO TRICKED ME INTO THIS WHOLE MESS WITH HER FANCY PHONE.  I cannot hit the big "J" button.  That is just a tease.  I need to hit the 5 button, which also means jkl, but only in phone mode!  In rotated mode that key means D.  Don't get confused! 

Also, the front display when the phone is closed goes inactive after 1.2 seconds.   I like to use my phone as a watch, and now I have to go to the trouble of opening it up when I want to know what time it is.  Sigh.  Just thinking about all the energy THAT takes is making me tired.

But I'm OK, internet.  I'm going to a support group and I'm learning how to channel  my anger in positive ways, like texting all my friends OMG THIS PHONE TOTALLY SUX WANT TO THROW DOWN SEWER DRAIN.

Which reminds me that I really need to go and sign up for a texting plan, because i have a feeling that when I get the fancy bill for this fancy phone I am going to realize just how fast 15 fancy cents per message can give a girl a heart attack.

But I don't hate it anymore.  Really, I don't.  As soon as I figure out how to download the theme song to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as my ringtone, I might even be able to say we're friends.

Sometimes TGIF just isnt' strong enough

This has been a particularly hellish week at the office, if only because of the quantity of things that need to be done RIGHTTHISVERYMINUTE.  There's no way to avoid these times, sometimes the stars just align to drop thirty-seven emails in your inbox, all with the dreaded little red envelope icon.   Red envelope icons that actually mean red envelope icon, not just red envelope icons from people who send ALL their emails out with red envelope icons because they think that everything they have to say is just that urgent.  God, I hate those people.  Doesn't everyone hate those people?

That's my excuse for not posting, for not reading, for not doing laundry, for being in a terrible mood all week.   Today my coworker asked me about a meeting I'd promised I'd attend for her tomorrow in New York, and I was completely befuddled.   "No, I went to New York last weekend," I told her when she asked if I was going to do anything fun in the city tomorrow, "This weekend I'm staying home and catching up on everything and it's going to be gr...", to which she responded with a shocked look, realizing that I had completely forgotten about her meeting.

It's not the end of the world, and I'm not going.  Hotel rooms have been canceled, the usual excuses about "scheduling conflicts" have been made, and everything is fine.  Except it's not.  I NEVER do this.  I stress over trips, I send myself reminders to check in for my flights and leave post-it notes on my dresser reminding me to bring home my good shoes from work.  I forget my lunch in the morning, I forget to look up the  number of the plumber that my friend asked me for, but I don't forget MEETINGS, for cripe's sake.  Now I'm frantically looking through my calendar, trying to figure out what else I might have mistakenly dropped off my mental to-do list.

I have a list a mile long of things I want to do this weekend, and as counterintuitive as it may sound, just looking at it is making me feel so much better already.  I am looking forward to getting my oil changed, picking up dry cleaning, getting my emissions test done, putting up the shelves that are sitting in our living room and cleaning the house, because this, this is not me.  I am a person who is on top of things, dammit, and that's the way I like it.

Edited to add: No offense intended toward the fine citizens of Delaware

As we were driving to New Jersey on Saturday morning to attend an engagement party, I had the occasion to take special notice of the road signs along the way.  I'd like to thank the massive traffic on Route 95 for this rare opportunity.  Really, 95 went out of its way to make this trip memorable by first planting a massive traffic jam just south of the Maryland border and then following up with the requisite senseless Delaware backups.  When we finally got to the party, after FIVE AND A HALF hours of driving, we learned that someone else coming from Baltimore had just turned around and gone home after two hours.  That at least made Joel feel less bad for asking if it was possible to un-RSVP to a party.

On the way up, I surprised at how nice some of the signage was.  I'd never noticed this before, but is there a new school of thought relating to the psychology of road signs?  There was a sign that said "Please do not discard litter", and another saying "Buckle up!  We CARE!"  When we exited the NJ Turnpike, there was a sign asking us very politely to obey posted local speed limits.

Um, hello?  Isn't that sort of common sense?  I think the sign makers are thinking way too much about this.  I have designed a new sign that could replace all of these.  Enough with the "Please don't speed," "Keep a safe following distance", and "Don't throw your crap on the road".  Let's just get right down to it:

And while I'm doing the sign-makers' jobs for them, I'd like to suggest a few revisions to the iconic Delaware sign, too.  I mean, this does not really capture the true spirit of The First State:

This would be much more useful to travelers:

   

*Edited to add:  I mean no offense to the state of Delaware, its residents, or their pets.  Seriously.  I know that when people say "no offense," it usually just means "I'm about to say something really offensive", but I have no hard feelings for anyone or anything in Delaware, except for that particular 15-mile stretch of 95. 

**In fact, I've almost become fond of the Delaware traffic: it's dependable and reliable, and those are good qualities to have.  And by calling it "Delaware traffic", I just meant the traffic in Delaware, not the traffic caused by Delawarians. 

***You know who I am not fond of?  The guy in front of me who got in the EZPASS lane but did not have an EZPASS.  And instead of just running the damn toll like a normal person, he GOT OUT OF HIS CAR, crossed two lanes of traffic, and tried to pay the attendant at another booth.  He was an idiot, but I think he had Kentucky plates. 

****Nothing against Kentucky, either!  I've never even been there!  I'm sure it's very nice!  I hear they make great fried chicken!

*****Please don't kill me.

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For those of you who inquired about the cookie recipe, it's right here.

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I really do plan on posting about our vacation soon.  Seriously.   Right after I get back from spray painting that Delaware sign.

Nice guys arrive first

Sometimes I really wish I weren't so nice.  There are situations where I think it would really be beneficial to be the type of person who can really ream someone out.  Situations like this morning, for example.  I arrived on time for a meeting (yes, it's Saturday), only to find the meeting room suspiciously empty.  After checking with the hotel staff, the hotel meetings board, and my email to confirm that I was in fact in the correct place at the correct time, I was at a total loss.  Did I make this meeting up?  Am I sitting in a freezing cold meeting room, wearing a suit, at 7:30 am on a Saturday for no reason?  Is this just a bad dream?  There is breakfast set up, but no coffee... so, technically, it's more like a nightmare.  My first response is always to think that I made some kind of mistake, maybe I'm at the wrong hotel, maybe the meeting is actually next week, maybe it was 7:30pm instead of 7:30am.  Maybe I read the clock wrong.  All of these things have happened to me at some point, sadly. 

But no, slowly the meeting participants start to trickle in.  Coffee is set up.  This thing is going to take place.

Ah! The mystery is solved.  The other meeting participants decided at dinner last night that 7:30am (on a Saturday, in case I haven't mentioned it) is far too early to hold a meeting, and convinced the meeting planner to push back the start time by an hour.  Super!  I concur!  Splendid idea!  Bless your hearts.

Would have been nice if someone had informed me, though.

I'm just saying.

Especially because if I had arrived at 8:30, instead of 7:30 (am) (on a Saturday) (in a suit), I would have missed the kind gentleman in the parking garage this morning who stared creepily at me while I parked my car and packed my laptop in my purse, creeping me out so much that I felt compelled to take the faceplate off my CD player, lock it in the glovebox, and put the club on my car.  If I had been an hour later, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to approach me spewing a diatribe about having no fear in life, replacing fear with love, and allowing only pure love into my heart. 

That's not fear in my heart, buddy.  It's rage.  Which I will do nothing about, because I'm passive-aggressive like that.  Plus, it's too early in the morning (on a Saturday) to string words together and complain in a coherent fashion that this is news that would have been useful to me YESTERDAY.

Getting all riled up

A few days ago, Frema announced to the internet that she'd announced to her HR department that she'd be taking 12 weeks of maternity leave in December.  This has nothing to do with me whatsoever, but the whole issue of FMLA/maternity leave, for some reason, gets me all fired up.

The company that I work for has what is considered a fairly good maternity leave policy.  You can take up to 12 weeks at 40% of your salary and be guaranteed that your job will be there for you when you come back.  I guess that's not a bad deal, right? 

Except for two things:  First, you have to use up all of your vacation and sick days (for which you're paid full salary) before your "maternity" leave can start (at 40% of salary).  The total still can't be more than 12 weeks.  This completely violates the spirit of the FLMA Act.  Vacation is for vacations.  Sick time is for when you're sick.  Forcing a new mother into a situation where she's coming back from maternity leave with 0 time off accrued is just asking for trouble.  Babies get sick.  Babies have doctor appointments.  Mothers get sick.  Mothers have doctors appointments.  How are they expected to deal with that when all their sick and vacation time has been spirited away?

Secondly, in order to qualify for paid maternity leave, you have to have Short Term Disability insurance, which costs $166 a year.   I find this to be nothing short of discrimination.   Men aren't required to have a separate insurance that covers them for prostate cancer, so why should women need to shell out extra money for "pregnancy insurance"?  And while we're at it, since when did pregnancy become a short-term disability?   Since when is having a baby a disease? 

Of course, I should count my blessings, since some companies don't offer any pay while you're on maternity leave.  40% is pretty decent. But I still think the whole situation is completely unfair an discrimination against women. 

Also, I am not pregnant, nor am I planning on becoming pregnant.  Just to be clear.  I'm just ranting on about something that has nothing to do with me at all.  You want to hear what I think about the fact that gay marriage isn't legal in all 50 states?   No?  How about what I think of insurance companies, or the lack of emphasis on preventative medicine in our health system?  Maybe next time. 

In less controversial news, I made lasagna last night for dinner.  It was quite good, which is a bona-fide miracle, considering: I used a recipe for a mushroom, spinach and onion lasagna, which called for mushrooms, spinach and an onion (surprise!), as well as a package of "cholesterol free egg product" and a 14-oz jar of pasta sauce.  Since Joel doesn't like mushrooms or onions, I omitted those two ingredients.  Since I didn't have any spinach, I left that out too.  Instead, I substituted ground beef.  Fair trade, right?

I also just used regular egg.  I used 4 because that seemed like a good number.

Oh, and also, one time (like... 5 years ago?) my aunt told me that you could get away without boiling the lasagna noodles if you just added twice the amount of pasta sauce.  I thought that would be no problem, since I had a big Sam's Club sized jar of pasta sauce that was easily twice the size of a regular normal-person jar (we are not normal people, we have enough food in the house to survive a nuclear holocaust).  The problem?  The recipe said to add 1/2 cup of sauce to the bottom of the pan, and then "the remainder" on top of the last layer of (non-boiled) noodles.  It's very difficult to measure out (and then double) the "remainder" of a non-existent jar.  So I just estimated.  And then added a little extra for good luck.

Lastly, the pan I used was the wrong size, because our medium-sized baking dish died during the catfish disaster of last year.  And I didn't start cooking until 8:30pm. 

And after all that, it turned out to be delicious.  Or maybe I was just hungry, since after the 50 minutes of covered baking, 10 minutes of uncovered baking and 10 minutes of "resting", I was STARVING.

Perhaps my cooking karma is changing.  Maybe next I'll tackle baking!  Maybe not.

Happy weekend, internet.  They seem to be getting further apart, don't they?

It's not that damn big, honestly

Things that are pissing me off today, in list format.

#1. I have a large mug that I keep at work for the (many) days that I bring canned soup for lunch.  After I eat my soup, I take the cup and wash it out in the bathroom.  Crazy, right?

There is a lady in my office, and I swear to Jebus, she must go to the bathroom every 5 minutes because she is in there EVERY time I am.  EVERY TIME.  I'm not kidding, and this is a pretty big feat because I drink a lot of water and I pee approximately twice an hour.  Also, coffee makes me have to poop and I drink coffee at work.  Hey, I'm just trying to give you the necessary background to the story here.

The first time this particular person happened upon me washing out my soup mug in the sink, she commented on what a mighty big cup that was!  Boy, howdy!  That's one big cup!  I replied that, yes, it was a big cup and that I used it for soup.  You know, because it was so big.  It made it perfect for soup. 

Every subsequent time that I have washed out my cup, the same person has commented on what a big cup that is!  Wow!  That's one big cup!  The last time, she actually said, "That would be good for soup!"  Yes, yes it would.  Why didn't I think of that?

I know she is just trying to make conversation, but honestly.  Now I am going to have to start using the other bathroom on the floor, and it's like a whole extra 10 feet away. 

You tell me, is it really THAT big? (Other items placed nearby to provide frame of reference.)

#2. People seem to like commenting on my hair.  One person in particular tells me on a DAILY basis how long my hair is getting.  Wow!  Your hair sure is growing!  It's coming in real nice.  This sort of made sense back when my hair was getting longer -- but it's been about the same length for, oh, I don't know -- a YEAR OR SO?  Again, I know she is just trying to make conversation, but holy cow, she needs to try a little harder. 

#3. If you saw someone you knew sitting by themselves, enjoying a cold soda and reading a book on their lunch break, what would you do?  Would you leave them to savor their break in peace, or would you plop down right next to them and then commence to NOT TALK, forcing this person to make small talk with you and cut their lunch break short just to get away? 

If you would have sat down, I'm sorry, but we can no longer be friends.

Maybe it wouldn't have pissed me off so much if I was actually friends with this person, but I"m not.  In fact, it is the same person that comments on the astonishing growth rate of my hair follicles -- luckily she didn't mention the word hair, or I would have been forced to suffocate her with my ziploc baggie.  But still, I was in the middle of reading a book I'm thoroughly enjoying, and I really wanted to know what happened.  More importantly, I cherish my lunch break (when I actually get to take one).  I like to be alone and not talk to anyone for a few minutes a day.  I understand that some people would rather chitchat, which is why I make a point of going somewhere out of the way where these people cannot easily find me and burying my nose in a book. 

More and more, I'm thinking I should just shell out for this shirt.  Do you think it would get the message across?  I think it would also be an excellent deterrent for those annoying people who think it's OK to talk to their seat-mates on long plane rides. 

You know what, I HOPE United reads this

I hate United Airlines.  I hate pretty much everything about them.  I hate the ugly uniforms they make their flight attendants wear and the fact that all their flights are late and overpriced, and most of all I hate their craptastic customer service.   And yet, I keep getting sucked back into their lies.

A few weeks ago, I got a notice from United about a "special" "promotion".  This came along with the bagillion credit card offers they send me per week, but luckily -- LUCKILY -- I didn't rip it up and recycle it, as I do with the card offers.  Why do I do this to myself?  Because this is the nature of abusive relationships.

This particular promotion is offering a "choice" of "awards".  On "qualifying" roundtrip flights, you can get either 5,000 bonus miles or 2 upgrades.   ALl you have to do is book and fly before May 31, 2007!

And since I have some business travel coming up and I am a sucker for "bargains", I kept the paper, in the back of my mind knowing that there probably were no "qualifying" flights in existence, and even if they were, they'd probably only be to and from some random airport in Illinois.   

What do you know?  I just happen to have to go to a random airport in Illinois.  So I went to United's site, plugged in the "special promotion code", and lo and behold: the flights I wanted were eligible for promotion.

One small problem:  The roundtrip fare was listed as $458, which was significantly more than when I compared the flights with other airlines on Orbitz earlier in the day.  Then I noticed, below, a message that said "Lower Price Options (not eligible for promotion)".  Guess what the lower priced option was?  THE EXACT SAME FLIGHTS.  Except no promotion, and the cost was only $265. 

I should have just let it go, since this is not my money or my personal travel and not getting a crappy "reward" is really not a big deal.  But I hate United.  So I decided to call them and ask why the heck they send out mail about "promotions", when by "promotion" they really mean "Pay $200 extra and we'll 'give' you 'free' miles". 

And so I just lost an hour of my life sitting on hold with United, only to be told by a person who could not speak English at all that "that is how the promotion works".

You'd really think that I'd have learned by now, wouldn't you?

Possibly the worst part is, when the guy asked me for my name and frequent flyer number at the end of the call, I gave it to him.  Why?  I don't know.  I felt bad for the guy, maybe.  I'm not very smart, maybe.  But now I am flagged in United's system as a trouble maker, if I wasn't already.  In fact, United is probably reading this right now.  If I don't come home tonight, you know what to tell the cops. 

I hate fun and church bells. But I love apple pie.

First of all, I feel I must clear up a few questions.  I do, in fact, have a size 4.5 foot, as measured by a foot/shoe professional when I was being fitted for orthodics.  However, I do not wear size 4.5 shoes, as they do not exist outside of children's departments.  I can fit into a 5.5 or even a 6 in some brands, with the right socks.  It's not even that abnormal.  I'm very short, so I have very small feet to balance my very small body.  Really, it's my toes that are freakish, but we're not getting into that.

And secondly, it has been brought to my attention that the fine folks responsible for writing Law and Order: Criminal Intent did create a semi-plausible backstory for Detective Eams' sudden pregnancy.  Isabel assures me that it was clearly stated that Eams was serving as a surrogate mother for her sister, and that they even mentioned her sister and the baby a time or two after her huge belly disappeared equally suddenly.  So I guess I stand corrected.  I do feel a little better knowing that there was at least some effort to explain the mysterious baby in Eams' belly... but, seriously?  A surrogate mother?  They couldn't come up with anything better than that?  If the actress gets knocked up again, then what? Maybe an immaculate conception, or impregnated by aliens? 

Anyway, moving on. 

I know I have bemoaned The Parking Nightmare before, but I just have this dead horse here, and a stick in my hand....

Usually parking is only a problem at night, when everyone in the neighborhood is safely tucked in their houses, watching television and drinking Natty Boh. Therefore, Joel and I had no reservations about going out on Sunday morning.  Imagine our surprise when we returned at approximately 1pm to find nary a parking space awaiting us. I'm not talking nothing right in front of our house, or nothing on the block.  NOTHING.  AT ALL.

As it turned out, this weekend was the Fell's Point Fun Festival, which means that people from all over the city came to our neighborhood to eat pit beef and drink beer and buy useless crap from a multitude of vendors.  In previous years, this has not affected our parking at all, because our house is a 15 minute walk from the downtown area that houses the Festival, and people would rather park in front of a fire hydrant and get a huge parking ticket than walk for fifteen whole minutes.  But as luck would have it, Saturday was a cold and rainy day, so everyone came on Sunday instead.  And everybody had to park their cars somewhere; there are only so many fire hydrants to block and handicapped spots to steal. 

After cruising for at least 10 minutes and finding NOWHERE to park, we decided we might as well go to the grocery store, since we needed to pick up a few things anyway, and hope that there would be a spot when when got back.

Except the parking lot at the grocery store was also full of Festival parkers. NO SPOTS.

After we had patrolled the entire Safeway parking lot and still could not find one place to legally deposit our motor vehicle for a few moments, I was fuming.  I HATE THIS STUPID FESTIVAL.  WHY DON'T YOU ALL JUST GO HOME!, I might have said.

That's right.  I hate The Fell's Point FUN Festival.  You heard me right.  And I still hate it.

Possibly the only time I have caught myself sounding more bitter is when, in a half-asleep daze, I told Joel I hoped someone would burn a particular church in our neighborhood to the ground.  To be fair, they ring their very loud bells every time they have a service, and they just happen to have a service at 6am and 8am every day.  I do not condone arson, but I can't say I would be sad if someone stole the clappers out of those damn bells, Gilmore Girls-style.

Yes, I realize that I will most likely go to hell for using the word "damn" in reference to a set of holy church bells, but we've already established that I HATE FUN, so how much worse than that could hell really be?   

I actually had a pretty fabulous weekend, parking problems and general fun-hating aside.  Lately, I have been having this problem with feeling really frustrated and disappointed on the weekends.  I look forward to the weekends so much, and I am all for catching up on sleep and relaxation... but when Sunday rolls around, I can't help but feeling like we've wasted our precious weekend hours, nothing has gotten done, and Monday is already looming overhead.  It's a real Catch 22, because I love sleeping in, and I believe that a certain amount of couch-time is necessary to a healthy and happy life.  But yet, I always have 50 different projects I'm working on, books I want to read, movies I want to see, and places I want to go.  I can't tell you how many times Joel and I have found ourselves sitting in our living room on a Sunday afternoon saying "so, what do you want to do today?  Do you want to go for a hike?  Want to go see a movie?"  And by the time we've actually decided what we want to do, it's too late to really do anything.  And then I cry.

But yesterday, Joel planned a surprise trip to a pick-your-own produce farm.  It was a beautiful, perfect fall day, and we got up early (early for us = 9:30am) and drove out of the city, into rural Maryland.  I am always amazed at how fast the city drops away to cow pastures and horse farms, and on a warm autumn day, with the leaves just starting to change, it was nothing short of idyllic.

(we forgot the camera.  sunbeam photo effects brought to you by my crappy Samsung camera phone) 

The farm that Joel found didn't just have apples, but also a bunch of garden-y stuff you could pick yourself, including broccoli, beets, tomatos, spinach, various types of flowers and herbs, pumpkins, and of course, apples. 

(I am totally farm-ready, what with my pigtails and movie star sunglasses)

I picked us some broccoli and spinach, and we also got a bounty of apples.  While we were in the apple orchard, I overheard a conversation that singlehandedly explains many of America's problems:

Mom to kid: 'Honey, put down that apple.  We need to save room for hamburgers later."

I swear, that's what she said, and the kid threw his half-eaten apple on the ground for the bees to swarm around.

Anyway,  I asked Joel what on earth we were going to do with so many apples, and he replied that we could make a pie or something.

Um.  Make a pie? 

I am a pacifist, I hate violence.  Animal cruelty make me nauseous.  So why would we want innocent fruit to suffer a long, painful death at the hands of my baking?

Joel did most of the work, and all apples received a humane and ethical end, and were ushered into the afterlife in a flurry of sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  It came out wonderfully, especially compared to some of my past baking adventures.  I had my first taste of homemade apple pie, and it was a the perfect end to a lovely day.

Tomorrow I'll do Janet's questions, and we'll see if by the end of the week I can have these all finished, thus creating one less project that I've started and thoroughly enjoyed, but never finished.

I better not have a nightmare about falling off a cliff while being strangled by a snake tonight

I sort of do not want to write this post, because I had a very nice nightmare last night that involved me being bitten in the face my an angry fanged snake and waking up screaming, literally.  If I say one more time how happy I am that Joel is coming home tonight I will be guilty of sounding like a clingy dependent-type, but holy hell, am I ever sick of living in a state of terror after the sun goes down.  I am also looking forward to Joel's return because it would be nice to wake up to something other than Madison scratching my scalp so that HE can sleep on my $100 dollar memory foam pillow, and Madison doesn't dare come near the bed when Joel is home, because Joel is the stern rule-enforcing cat-parent, while I am the one who's getting the camera because they look so cute when they walk on the kitchen table and sleep on top of the fridge.

So, now where were we?  Oh yes. 

Part 2: Heights Kill.

For those who know me in real life, I would appreciate if you could refrain from making any "well it's a good thing you're so short!  Get it?? Because you're afraid of heights?  And you're only 5'1"?? Get it??" jokes.  Yes, I get it.  It's just not that funny. 

OK, so heights.  I also hate them, although not with the same intensity as our serpentine friends, but rather with a sort of biological revulsion.  I know a few people who avoid elevators because they are claustrophobic, and as a person who has been trapped in an elevator on more than one occasion (although I can only remember one at the moment -- and a word of advice, do not get into an elevator at the National Gallery of Art having just drank an entire 20oz Diet Coke and really  having to pee.  It's a bad idea), I can understand that.  Those people are lucky, because fearing enclosed spaces is a generally accepted, while for the most part, completely irrational fear.  However, if you tell people that you hate elevators because of that split-second when they start to go down too fast, and that the feeling of free fall does not inspire Disneyland style euphoria, but instead an overwhelming urge to vomit, they will not be quite as understanding.  I know from experience.

I'm not sure why, but for a long time I would go on all the roller coasters at amusement parks, even though when they came to the inevitable mountain climb followed by a free-fall plummet I would have to try to talk myself out of crying every time.  Instead of throwing up my hands and screaming with pleasure, you would find me with my face scrunched up and eyes closed tight, clutching the bar and trying not to vomit.  At least I was smart enough to pass up that elevator ride at Disneyland though, the one where you just fall something like 13 stories straight down, which was good because there was a really long line for it. 

The fear of heights doesn't bother me on a daily basis, and actually I think this fear might even be classifiable as "rational", because I'm not the least bit scared or uncomfortable if there is a railing or some sort of protective enclosure in place.  But one of the main reasons why I declined a family vacation to the Grand Canyon was a brutal fear of riding a donkey down while overlooking our nation's greatest rocky chasm.  And the whole not showering for a week and sitting on a raft all day.  And the parties I had while I was home alone.  But, mostly, the heights.  Oh, sure, those donkeys have sure footing, I know, but can they handle a hyperventilating 16 year old with an overactive imagination?  I'm not quite confident enough to risk my life on that, thank you very much.

So where did this come from?  Was I dropped on my head as as baby?  Well, sort of. 

When I was a baby, I had one of those Fred Flinstone runner things, where I sat strapped into a bouncy little chair and propelled myself around the house with my own two feet.  According to my parents, I loved that thing, and I was awesome at it, because I was awesome at everything and also a very beautiful child to behold.  The fact that I lost all my hair around the age of 2 and was ungodly pallid in color detracted nothing from my good looks.  I was also a baby genius, by the way.  My mommy told me so.

So, my parents were building an addition onto our house to accommodate all of my baby genius paraphernalia, such as the Nobel Prize they were sure I'd win before the age of 5 and the many infant beauty pageant trophies I kept winning.  I mean, sometimes they didn't even enter me in the contests.  The judges would just see us walking by on the street and strip the medal off the other kid and give it to me.   It was hard having a child that good-looking, but my parents were making due.  This home addition included a large living room, which was two steps down from the kitchen area that had been built first.  While the foundation for the living room was being built, a "shoe" was put around the kitchen, and from what I remember (I was so goddamn smart that I remember my own birth, which was, of course, easy and painless for both Mother and myself) this consisted of a two by four nailed along the border of the kitchen.  I'd run around (training for my baby marathon, which I was favored to win) in my runner-thing, smash into the "shoe", bounce off, and run off in the other direction. 

Well, one day during the living room's progress, the shoe had to come off, and marathon training schedule was overlooked.  As I ran at full speed across the kitchen, I sailed right off the two-step cliff and into the new living room, breaking the world record for baby long-jump.  Unfortunately, I botched the landing and broke my fall with my skull. 

Now, I think I might have mentioned that, strangely, many of the people in my life are afraid of medical professionals, with my mother leading the pack.  Well, Mom secured her spot as Most Afraid of Doctors forever when, in a fit of panic-induced denial, she pretended that I was fine and sat me at the kitchen table for some lunch.  I promptly passed out in my plate.

I'm not going to lie, my memory of the incident is spotty, what with my FRACTURED SKULL and being less than two years old and all, but if Dr. Phil and his food friend Sigmund Freud were here, I think they'd tell you that I am completely justified in fearing high places for the rest of my life.  And if Carl Jung were here too, he would tell you that snakes are also totally evil, because that's in my collective memory and also in the BIBLE.  God, sometimes I loved being a psychology minor.  Can you tell?

I didn't fully realize how scared I was of heights until we went to Hawaii in December.  I knew we were going to be doing some serious hiking, because Mom had told us to be prepared for some "long hard days" -- what every person vacationing on an island paradise expects, I suppose.  One of these treks up a mountain included a long section with a trail a foot wide and a vertical drop down the side of the mountain on either side.  I'm not going to lie, tears were shed.   I hear it was quite a beautiful view when we mad e it to the top, but I was too busy vomiting in a bush and sobbing to notice.  And then my brother told us how he and his friends did the same hike in Teva sandals, including one fellow whose flip-flop broke early on, who went up the mountain barefoot.  Also, it was raining.   

When we finally made it back to sea-level, my mom wanted to know if I felt proud for having done something I was afraid of.   Somehow, I didn't feel too empowered for having broken down into tears in front of my family while on a tropical vacation -- at the age of 25.   I did feel an aura of love when my brother returned sunglasses that I had unwittingly dropped miles before without a word of jest or scorn at my melodramatic behavior.  I wonder what Freud would say about that?

The Devil Wears Prada. And is Also in Charge of United Airlines, I’m Pretty Sure.

Well!  I know I promised I was going to write about how I fell headfirst into some fresh concrete as a baby today.  Soon.  Right now, I’m too busy plotting how I can get revenge on United Airlines. 

“This voucher can be used on ANY UNITED FLIGHT with an open seat”

That’s what the flight attendant in Chicago said when I agreed to give up my seat on a rainy night last October. 

"You should book the frequent flyer ticket first, because that has restrictions and the voucher doesn't." 

That’s what telephone booking agent told me last week, when I called to make sure the flight attendant hadn’t lied.

"There will be no problem, just call us right back when the miles have transferred into the account, and we'll book those tickets for you."

That’s what the OTHER booking agent, the one who informed me that to fly for a mere 25,000 miles you also need to throw in a little bit of your soul and make an animal sacrifice, told me yesterday. 

But that’s not what agent #3 told me today!  No, there are “restrictions” on vouchers she said.  And oops!  There are no flights on the day you want to fly available using a voucher.  I’m so sorry about that.  Would you like a few stabs with my pitchfork?  No? How about a redeye flight, with a quick 3-hour layover in San Francisco in the middle of the night?

I can’t say what I want to say right here, because I hear you can get arrested for making bomb threats nowadays. 

But here’s the good news.  I managed to fake them out and pretend I was my mother on the phone, without slipping up once.  One time they tried to trick me, and asked me   “What’s your first name again Ms. ?” LINDA, bitch, and don’t you forget it.  Now get back to booking that ticket for my daughter and her boyfriend to go on vacation, because I am strangely able to make travel decisions without consulting them and I’m sure that they’d prefer the 2:07 flight through Denver.   

So, to make a very, VERY, long story short, I booked a ticket for myself with frequent flyers, and reserved one for Joel with the voucher.  It’s a day before we wanted.  But that’s OK.  We also had to come back a day earlier than we wanted, so it all sort of worked out. 

Except, not so much.  You know what’s possibly the best thing about this “free” voucher that can NOT get you on any United flight?  In order to use it, you have to either mail it into United, and trust them to receive and process it in a timely fashion, or you have to take it to the airport in person within 24 hours of booking the ticket on the phone.  Um, there is no way in HELL – pun very much intended – that I am going to drop this precious slip of paper (which, coincidentally looks sort of like I could have printed it on my own computer if I was a little bit better at Photoshop) into a mailbox and entrust it, first, to the United States Postal Service, and then to the friendly demons at United.  Oh, I don’t think so.   

So MY ticket is supposedly booked and all set.  I’ve been waiting for email confirmation since 11am, nothing yet.  I decided to call them, just to make sure, and I had a long conversation with a friendly robot-phone.  I got him to read the email addresses on file with relatively little trouble.  And the lady who booked it this morning?  Who CORRECTLY SPELLED MY EMAIL BACK TO ME LETTER BY LETTER? She typed it into the computer wrong. SURPRISE!!!! 

Well, I tricked them.  I got the computer to fax it to me, and now I am in possession of one very official looking slip of paper that I could DEFINITELY have printed off my home computer that suggests I have a ticket to Seattle and another home from Portland. 

So all that’s left to do is go to BWI, and officially transfer my voucher to Joel, thus booking HIS ticket.  You have to do this in the presence of a United Agent, with 2 forms of ID if you don’t mail it to them, which is reminiscent of what we went through trying to get a home loan, except I didn’t have to drive to an international airport within less than a day’s time in order to convince a bank to lend me a few hundred thousand dollars.  United has higher standards, I guess.  One can never be too vigilant in the war against free airline voucher fraud.

I’ve been assured by the latest telephone agent that Joel does not need to be present for this transfer to occur.  Which is good, since HE’S IN CHICAGO.

So, I’m off to the airport.  Anyone have a crucifix and some holy water I can borrow?

Be Kind To Spiders. But Not Snakes.

Well, since the frequent flyer miles I transferred to my Mom's account haven't posted yet (although they HAVE been debited from my account, and my credit card has been charged the $175 transfer fee), and I don't feel like starting the paper that is due on Saturday (the. last. one. EVER!), I figure I might as well bore you all with the reason I did not sleep last night: fear.  I can't promise this will be coherent, because I'm not sure if I'm really awake or not.

Last night the phone rang at 4am, and I was greeted by some delicious heavy breathing.  It also happens that Joel went to Chicago for the week, and that I'm sort of afraid of the dark.  So, I spent the rest of the night clutching the wooden oar that Joel refuses to throw away, and praising my boyfriend's packrat nature, with my eyes wide open, listening for sounds of people coming to kill me.  This gave me some time to think the irrational fears that I seem to have some problems with.  Such as?  Well, If I had to name the three things I'm most afraid of, it would be:

1. Snakes
2. High places with no railing
3. Being killed by an axe murder/serial killer/The Blair Witch

For some reason, being relatively free of all three of these beasties has only intensified my fear of all three.

Part 1: The Serpentine Creatures That Should Really Not Exist, If You Ask Me

So. Snakes.  I loathe and fear them.  I can't understand why anyone would actually LIKE snakes, and I would not be sad if the entire class of animals were wiped off the planet.  I know, I know, they do so much good, like keep the rodent population under control.  Well, you know what?  I'd rather live in a rat-infested diseased city than a clean environment with snakes slithering around.  Oh, wait. I already do live in a metropolis overrun by our furry disease-carrying friends.  AND THAT'S THE WAY I LIKE IT.   

I watched this show, called Man Vs. Wild I believe, on Sunday.  In the show, a very handsome man with an Australian accent, who allegedly was a former special ops agent for the FBI or some similar agency, is dropped off in the middle of the wilderness with a backpack of supplies and 5 days to make his way to a checkpoint many, many miles away.  At least I think that was the objective.  I sort of jumped in when it was 20 minutes in progress, and was enthralled, because: WOW.  You should have seen this guy.   As he woke up in the middle of the night, silently packed up his camp, and took off running through the woods to evade a grizzly bear on Day One, I was nervous for him.  On Day Two, when he jumped off a 70 foot cliff into a river to escape the bear and rafted down the raging rapids in nothing but his jeans and hoodie sweatshirt, clutching his backpack to his chest, I willed him on.  On Day Three, when he killed a snake with a rock, I cheered for him.  Then, when he roasted the snake over a fire and ate it, I lost interest and let Joel watch Tour de France.  Frankly, I'd rather starve.

I've determined that the reason I truly think snakes are so horrible because they are sneaky.  They slither around, and you could have no idea they're even there until BOOM! They bite you and you're dead (poisonous or not -- I would die of a heart attack either way).  The big snakes don't scare me as much as the little fuckers because it's harder for an anaconda to hide and surprise you than it is for a tiny garter snake.  I once had a dream that Madison was being crushed in the grips of a giant phython, but I killed that snake by chopping him up with my Cutco cleaver.  This was probably a direct result of the dead boa constrictor that was found in the ceiling of the house that Joel shared with the rest of my male friends in college.   Reason #1 not to have a pet snake: IT MIGHT ESCAPE AND LIVE IN YOUR DROPPED CEILINGS FOR THREE YEARS BEFORE IT DIES.   *Hmmm, have we found the root of my intense fear?*   In part, Dr. Phil.  But I'm more complex than that.  Because you want to know what's worse than small snakes and big jungle kitten-strangling snakes combined?  Water snakes.

I spent most of the summers of my impressionable youth frolicking at the idyllic Deer Lake Club, which was unfortunately home to a large population of water loving snakes, including copperheads and diamondback rattlers, among others.  Oh, and a huge snapping turtle aptly named "Chomper" who relieved fishing hooks of their curvature and prolifically procreated.  It's a miracle I survived to adolescence, really.  But I did, and when I reached the ripe age of 15, I realized my dream of becoming a lifeguard at DLC, and became charged with assuring worried parents with memorized phrases like, "The snakes are more scared of you than you are of them," and "Oh, no, those snakes you saw sunning on those rocks over there never come near the swimming area," and my personal favorite, "Of course none of the snakes here are poisonous!"  All of these statements were patently false, and I spent a large portion of my paid time throwing rocks and sand at vicious little child-biting snakes, trying to steer them out of the swimming area and back into open water.  They were fearless, and they were mean.  The worst was when they refused to leave the swimming area, and ducked their heads under the murky water, disappearing completely.  Cue the Jaws theme song, please.  Can you believe I only made like $7 an hour?  I'm billing that place for my therapy when I finally have nervous breakdown at the sight of a harmless snake on television.

Oh, and then there was this one time, when I was out running on my quiet little hometown street, blasting music over my vintage walkman, and I very nearly stepped on a snake that had been run over by a car.  It was completely flattened and baked into the roadtop, but I didn't know that when I narrowly averted stepping on it's head.   The scream that escaped my lungs must have been louder than I realized, what with the Ace of Base blaring in my ears, because when I came back along that route ten minutes later (on the other side of the road OF COURSE) there was an old man standing in his driveway, looking rather worried.  I stopped to ask him if he needed help, and he said he had heard a bloodcurdling scream a few minutes ago, and was trying to see what had happened and if he needed to call the police.  Um, oops.  Stupid snakes.  Now they're giving old people heart attacks, too.

And another time (much more recently, I'm afraid), I went on a hike with my family.  I believe it was for Mother's Day.  We hiked to this nice, cool pond on a hot, humid summer day.  My mother and brothers promptly dove in to cool off and tried to coax me into the water.  Um, let me think about that... HELL NO.  First, I hate swimming, but my hatred of all things water is another topic altogether.  Second, and more importantly, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY SNAKES ARE PROBABLY SWIMMING AROUND IN THERE?  So I contented myself sitting on a mildly uncomfortable rocky formation and attempted to make friends with the dog that a couple of European swingers had tied up under a tree while they groped each other on a rock a few feet away and talked in a foreign language about how pissed they were that we'd showed up and ruined their skinny dipping lovefest.  I was a little surprised that they hadn't even given the dog anything to drink on such a hot day, so I offered him some water cupped in my hands, and then I sort of lost my balance because I had taken off my shoes to dip my feet in the water.  I put my hand down to catch myself, and what to my wondering eyes did appear?  But A HUGE FUCKING SNAKE all coiled up, probably plotting how it could eat me and then have the dog for dessert.  Please do not think I am exaggerating when I say that this snake was AT LEAST four feet long.  I began to hyperventilate, and apparently it decided I was too nervous and stringy to make a good meal, and it slithered off INTO THE WATER.  And  then it ate my entire family, as well as the European swingers.  And you know what?  Served them right, because I told them so.

Oh.  And let's just talk about the lovely people who live less than two blocks from my house and have, at last count, three giant boa constrictors as "pets".  In typical Baltimore white trash fashion, these folks enjoy sitting out on their marble steps, smoking and drinking beer -- WITH THEIR FUCKING* SNAKES CRAWLING ALL OVER THEM.  Now, I have nothing against people who have tattoos (in fact, I've been meaning to get a cute little wing on my ankle for years now, but I have this thing about needles...) (SHIT, there's fear #4), nor do I hold any predjudice against those who ride motorcycles, whether it be for transportation or recreational purposes.  But I DO have something against people who sit on their stoops with Harley Davidson bandanas tied around their heads, a Natty Boh in one tattooed arm, and a boa constrictor sliding around the other arm, which is also covered in tattos of half-naked women.  Listen, I have a right to walk down the sidewalk without encountering a jungle snake on my way home from parking my car.  Just read the Constitution.  It's in there, right after my right to chop your snake's head off with a high-end kitchen knife if I even catch him THINKING about coming near one of my cats. 

When I was a freshman in college, there were rumors -- "urban legends" I believe people were calling them -- of snakes hiding in the dorm ceilings, living off the mice from the cafeteria (rumors which TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE, I might add, urban legend my ass), and to calm my frequent panic attacks about snakes slithering down from the ceilings in my sleep, my friend, who is a Maryland native, told me that there were no snakes in Maryland.  Nope.  They just don't like it here.   I believed him for quite a long time.  Until THE SNAKE WAS FOUND IN THE CEILING OF HIS OWN HOUSE, that is.  I would give anything to have that innocence back. 

But at least Maryland is no Thailand.  Because thanks to the "diversity" of private universities, I have a friend from Thailand, and MAN you should hear the stories he tells about the snakes there.  I used to think that no one could possibly understand my deep hatred and fear, and then I met Brooke.  And Brooke, he understood.  One time, he saw in the newspaper that a snake ate a cow, and then died because it's stomach exploded or something.  Another time, a snake ate a woman's baby.  If you don't believe me, why don't you ask this 18-year-old boy who was eaten by an anaconda?  He'll tell you it's true.  Anyway, Brooke lives in Guam now.  It's an island, and there are no snakes there.   

Snakes are horrible scary disgusting sneaky creatures and they either need to grow legs and become lizards or die.  The end.

Next time: I blame my fear of heights AND my inability to do simple math on our home renovations.  Stay tuned!

*I would like to apologize to anyone** who might, perchance, be offended by my use of profanity.  I've been trying to cut back, really I have.  However, there is absolutely nothing "ladylike" nor "educated" about snakes, so I think it's justified in this instance.  Snakes fucking suck.    

**Yes, Mother, I CAN read your mind.  Scary, isn't it?

Is it time for Keifer yet?

I can hardly believe this weekend is over.  Pretty much every Sunday night I'm left thinking that weekends are too short, but on yesterday I actually woke up and thought "Ugh, thank God I still have one more day to sleep in.  NO. WAIT.  IT'S ALREADY SUNDAY. AUUUGHGHGHGH!"  What I wouldn't give to be a morning person.  I think that on second thought, being able to sing like Mariah Carey wouldn't be as great as being able to pop out of bed at 7am ready to take on the world.  Or just not sleep at all.  So I'm back to being a non-somniac for my superpower.

This weekend went by quicker than most for a couple of reasons. First off, it was Homecoming weekend, and since I still live in Baltimore, I have no excuse not to attend at least some of the festivities.  Especially because one of my good friends from school just got a job in Utah, and this weekend was his last weekend on the East Coast for who knows how long. 

So our friend was staying with some other people who live across town, and got into Baltimore on Friday night.  His friends are fun people (unlike me, their bodies did not reach the lifetime limit for alcohol consumption at age 20, so they are not cursed with sobriety due to massive hangovers) and they were out bar hopping BEFORE hitting up the "young alumni" tent on campus.  Joel and I were going to meet him and his entourage at a bar in midtown, halfway between our house and the campus.  We arrived first, and we snagged the last table and ordered some dinner.  The others had already eaten, so we figured we weren't being rude by not waiting. 

Our friend arrived about 10 minutes after we got there, and ordered a drink, but before he even got to finish it, the girls he was with decided they wanted to go to the tent, and he got dragged along.  Which was no big deal, and we would also have been happy to leave had we not just gotten our food.  And paid a $5 cover to get into the bar (which, I am fairly sure, was the first time I've EVER paid a cover in Baltimore).  So we told him we'd just meet up with him in the tent in a little while.

Fifteen seconds after they left, a former classmate of ours (I hate the word "classmate" but I can't think of a better way to say it without using at least 5 words) came in and sat down with a group at the table directly next to us.  Neither of us actually knew him or had ever even talked to him, so we did the proper thing and pretended like we hadn't seen him come in.  We were almost done eating. 

A few minutes later, a couple, also former classmates, came in.  And because I am making a sincere effort to get over my "bitterness" and let the past go, the only description I'll give of this girl is that she was roomates with someone I hated, and who hated me, and so she hated me also, by association.  Needless to say, this was more than a little awkward.  I didn't know Joel at the time that all this hating was in its prime, so all he knew about the situation was that he recognized these people as Hopkins grads, and I was looking queasy all of a sudden.  We finished our food, paid, and ran out of there, where I told him the long and dramatic story of why this girl and I are not friendly as we drove my car that has no brakes up to campus.  I couldn't help thinking how it would be karmic retribution if my brakes gave out while I was thinking mean thoughts about people I still hated after so many years, but apparently the universe thinks I am sufficiently over the whole ordeal, because we arrived at the tent safely.

Or, I should say, we arrived at the tent location.  There was no tent there.  We were totally the losers who got told the wrong address for the party.  Once I checked my cell phone messages and found out where the tent really was, we moved the car and headed to the complete opposite side of campus. I'm just happy that the Hopkins campus is pretty small.  And that Joel has a parking pass for the athletic center parking lot.

I don't know why I was expecting the tent to be fun, since I've been before and it's always been an overgrown frat party.  This year was no different, except that instead of having multiple bars with long lines, this time there was only one.  ONE. BAR.  We waited on line for forty minutes, and by "in line" I mean "in the mass of people pushing and spilling their various drinks on me."  I HATE crowds, especially drunk, pushy crowds.  Which is another reason why I am no longer a fun person: I get claustrophobic in crowded bars. When I finally pushed my way up to the bar, I spent another 10 minutes having the obnoxious sorority girls (my ex-sorority, ironically) alternatingly shove their hair and boobs in my face as they snatched all the drinks the bartenders offered up and passed them back to all their drunk friends, spilling most of them on me.  There are times when I love being short, like on long airplane rides when I have plenty of legroom.  And then there are times when I hate being short.  This was one of those times.

When I finally forced myself to be assertive enough to grab two of the drinks, it was BEER.  I pushed my way out of the burgeoning crowd with my two cups of BEER, which Joel and I nursed for the rest of the night because neither of us wanted to go back up to that bar.  In case you missed that, I drank BEER.  I hate beer.  The only beer I can drink without gagging is Resurrection Ale from The Brewer's Art.  Needless to say, they were not serving microbrews at this tent, although for the price they were charging, they really should have been.   So I'll say it again: I HATE BEER.  And I really hate beer that I spent $20 cover (each) and had to fight to get.  At that point I would have preferred to just dip my solo cup into a garbage can filled with jungle juice.  If you're going to have a frat party, at least get the logistics right.  Maybe throw in an ice luge and some jello shots.  You'll never see people at a frat party WAITING for BEER.  I think that what pissed me off most about the whole situation was my own stupidity.  A few years ago, I not only would have snuck into that tent and avoided the exorbitant cover charge, I would have been sure to tote along my own water bottle filled with vodka.  Honestly, sometimes I wonder if grad school is actually making me less smart. 

The other problem with this reunion tent is that I sort of hate reunions.  Well, I shouldn't say that.  I don't hate reunions.  I hate reunions that turn into crowded, overpriced, wannabe-frat parties that can't figure out that 200+ people are going to require more than one bar and three bartenders.  I also hate reunions that include people that I didn't like in college, and don't like now.  And most of all, I hate reunions where I am forced to repeat, over and over, that I still work for Hopkins and I still live in Baltimore and I am getting a Masters in Liberal Arts.  Yes, I said Liberal Arts.  Yes, you can get a Master's in that.

From all that whining, you'd probably think that I had a terrible time at this tent/frat party, but actually, I had kind of a good time.  We did see several people that I haven't talked to since this time last year, at the tent that had FOUR BARS, and it was good to see them.  After several phone calls, we found our Utah-destined friend, and we got to spend most of the night with him.  I saw my old housemates and some friends of Joel's, one of which kissed me on the forehead.  He had remembered to bring his own bottle of vodka, apparently.  We left shortly after that, because this tent also closed at midnight.  Another good lesson they could learn from frat parties: don't close at midnight.  Duh.

But it was good that they closed at midnight, because it made us look less lame for leaving at 11:45 and going to sleep.  Joel left the house at 5:30am for a race on Saturday morning, and I woke up bright and early at 11am and was at the library by noon -- which would be reason #2 that the weekend went by so quickly: I spent SEVEN HOURS in the library on Saturday.  I'm dry heaving just typing those words. 

It makes me so sad that I spent the whole afternoon (and most of the evening) in the library, but it was necessary.  I got a lot of work done on my damned flaneur paper, although I am not sure that I enhanced its quality at all.  I know that I've said this before, but this time it's really true: this is the worst paper I"ve ever written.   I've stretched it to the limit, replacing phrases with other phrases that mean the same thing but are one word longer, and it's still 3 pages short of the minimum.  For the first time since I can't even remember when, I am going to resort to using Book Antiqua 12 point font to reach the 20-page minimum.  I feel so ashamed.  And to make it worse, a good 1/3 of the paper is not even on the flaneur.  It's about tourism in 1860s Paris, which was my topic before I realized that there was not enough information to write even a 10-page paper, let along a 20+ page one.  But I'd already written about 5 pages before I scrapped the topic, and I'll be damned if I"m going to let that work go to waste.   Another 1/3 of the paper is still in red type, because that signifies the portions that I copies directly from the textbook and still have to rephrase.   Like I said, WORST. PAPER. EVER.  But I'm through caring.  At this point, I just can't wait to hand it in and never think about the damn thing again.

My Maya astronomy paper, on the other hand, is beautiful, if I do say so myself.  I've just put the finishing touches on it, which includes different colored paper for the different sections and a nice binder that I found in the supply closet at work.  And THIRTY FOUR pages of my own writing.  34!  It's the longest paper that I've ever written, and I am thinking of attaching a not to my flaneur paper saying something like "I wrote a really awesome paper for my other class and I didn't have any brain power left to work on this one.  Sorry."

I can't end this post without mentioning the highlight of the weekend: on Sunday the Penn-State trio and I, after having put in a hard day's work at the library, went to the Blue Jay 5k, our team's fundraiser event.  Hil and Sarah ran it (and were awesome) and Laura and I watched, because apparently hamstring injuries are contagious and Laura has now contracted it from me.  During the race I did a headstand to show off my yoga skills and then I accidentally rolled forward and hurt my neck.  But that was not the highlight.  The highlight was when one of the younger alumns told me that Bobby, our illustrious and incestuous coach, is on MySpace.  And oh, is he ever. That made the fact that today is Monday today A-OK, because I could use the fast internet to peruse Bobby's profile, which is filled mostly with his hot female friends that are under 21.  Some things never change. 

A close runner up for the highlight of the weekend: I had pepperoni pizza for 4 meals in a row (dinner-breakfast-lunch-dinner, if you must know) and also managed to fit in a screening of the Lizzy McGuire movie. My arteries hurt.  And so does my neck.  Happy freaking Monday.

If a train leaves New York at 6pm, and another train leaves Chicago...

Let's say you had to do a research paper on... oh, I don't know, something like Paris as a tourist destination during the Impressionist era, for example. And suppose you did a cursory search of your school's library, found nothing, and decided to throw in the towel and just let the research librarians earn their paycheck and do the research for you. Hypothetically, if you emailed the librarian for Art History listed on the library's website, and got this hypothetical response:

To: Jennifer

From: Jerkface Librarian

Date: March 17th,2006 3:19pm

Subject: Re: Art History Research Guide

Dear Jennifer, If you're on campus next week, I serve on the library's Reference Desk on M Level on Monday (10am-12n), Wednesday (6pm-9pm), and Friday (10am-12n). Please feel free to stop by during those times. If those times are not convenient for you, please send me another email indicating 3-4 times that work for you.

Best regards,

Jerkface librarian

...to which you hypothetically replied:

To: Jerkface Librarian

From: Jennifer

Date: March 17th, 2006 4:36pm

Subject: Re: Art History Research Guide

Thanks! I will come by on Wednesday evening.

... what might you reasonably expect (hypothetically) when you arrived at the library reference desk at 6:30pm on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006?

I hope it's not that said librarian will be present. Because you'd be WRONG. It's "spring break" and all the librarians go home at 5pm. Duh.

What a great trick logic question this would make on the SATs. Consider this hypothetical situation Copyright 2006 Jennifer , Inc.