Miss Me?

I took a vacation from writing this past week because this year Christmas snuck up on me like a west side mugger. However - I did create a new website as a gift for my cousin Thomas. Every day I will update his site with something new and awesome that I think he would like. I am trying to keep it worksafe, which considering it is a website for a family member, you would think that would be easy, but no...

Anyway, here is the site:

For Thomas

The Four Year Rule

This is a story that will terrify my mother, but it has been four years, so I can officially tell it!

Ok, so I have to explain about the four years thing, right? If we, the kids, got away with something, then four years later we could tell our parents about it without repercussions.

Anyway – at my old job, when I first started, I got a “new” desk. I say new in quotes because I am pretty sure, or I am at least speculating, my boss grabbed this desk from the side of the highway. That’s the way it looked. It looked like the kind of desk that DCFS would come and take its drawers away, or the kind of desk that begs for money for a new tape dispenser on the side of the road.

So, one day I come in all early in the morning, per my usual GOD AWFUL SCHEDULE (6 am to 3 pm), and I hear movement inside my desk. It sounds like two badgers are going at it. Being the little idiot that I am – I grab a broom and open up the desk drawer.

Out of the desk flies about 4 pigeons and they start going NUTS and bashing themselves against the windows.

Now, I should say, because everyone reading this is probably wondering at this point:

Yes, I opened all the drawers when I first got it. I even Lysoled the desk until my nose and eyes were watering.

To this day, I have no idea how those birds got in my desk. I do know how I got rid of them, however. I opened the large bay door and tried to shoo them out with a broom. When they would not shoo (because they are city pigeons, so I could have come at them with a flamethrower and they would not have budged) I got out the shop vac, and sucked one right up. Then suddenly the rest of them were willing to be shooed out of the place.

I am partly telling this story for your amusement on a Friday, but also to remind myself that my current job is pretty darned sweet. Any job where it is not required that I suck up a pigeon with a shop vac is a pretty sweet job.

Maturity

Every time someone says "fur trapper" I still giggle my ass off.

Obviously adulthood has changed me so much.

And you would be surprised how often "fur trapper" comes up in conversation!

The Valley of Death

(This is not going to be a funny post. To read something humorous in nature, click on any of the links on the right.)




A couple of Christmases ago, Eric and I went to New Orleans to visit with his parents. Starting at 4 a.m., I drove through Illinois and all the way into Mississippi before I switched with Eric. I drove most of the way down because he had worked a double shift the night before, and he needed to sleep more than 6 hours.

I fell asleep in Mississippi, and when I awoke, we were crossing into Louisiana. I looked out the window and it looked like death outside. It was pitch black, and there was a forest of dead trees sticking up out of what seemed like the ocean. There was water everywhere. In my drowsy state, it looked to me like the highway was just floating upon water. At the end of the highway, we could see a small patch of lights that were shining in the darkness. The French Quarter was this small, well-lit city bursting through the darkness.

The radio was on low and was playing some Philip Glass, and I honestly thought, for a whole moment in time, that I had fallen asleep behind the wheel, and we both had died, and we weren't heading to New Orleans,  but heading through death into the afterlife.

I will dream about that long stretch of highway leading into New Orleans. Each time I do I wake up with a start and check to make sure Eric is still breathing. I smell the trees rotting in the water every time I dream about it. And that, my friends, is what I imagine I will smell when I die - what the valley of death smells like.

Chanukah Surprise!

If there is food in front of me, I will eat it. I will pick at it and eat little bits of it. It's a terrible habit of mine that will someday cause diabetes to develop in me, but I cannot help it!

This weekend, I went over to my sister Leah's store to help her put together small gift bags for her vendors for the holidays. The store is busy with customers, so I start scooping marzipan into the bags while Leah helps her customers.

I cannot help myself -  I pop one into my mouth.

I start chewing, and notice that there are customers staring at me.

And then I realize why:

I am eating soap. They only look like marzipan - they are actually soaps.  And to make matters worse, people are now watching me eat soap, as though I was in the zoo. (Yes, I know I should be in the zoo.)

I didn't want to embarrass myself further, so I swallowed them. They looked like strawberry marzipan, they smelled like strawberry marzipan, but I'll be darned if they didn't taste like concentrated evil.

Someday I hope to update this site with something along the lines of "Today I went out on the town, I didn't break a heel and fall down a flight of stairs, I did not get any runs in my nylons, I did not slouch, I didn't eat too many rolls, people thought I was charming and witty, and I was not flatulent once during the night!" ...But we all know that will never happen, which is good, because that kind of night is hardly entertaining!

Japan and a Check

I recently got a check in the mail from my car insurance company. Puzzled, I call them up and ask about it.

"We dropped your coverage. That's for your last payment. Our system shouldn't have accepted it. Sorry about that."

UH WHAT? So, I ask the obvious question "Wait, do I have coverage currently?"

"No."

Which gave me a mini panic attack at work considering I drove through SNOW AND SLEET to get to work that morning. Dicks. And they didn't give us a reason we were dropped, we just WERE. Neither Eric and I have accidents or tickets. It's the weirdest shit I have ever heard.

So, instead of just moving on I decide to tell off my now former insurance agent. Because I am a dick, but also because I drove OUT OF FRICKEN STATE ON BUSINESS THIS MONTH AND APPARENTLY DIDN'T HAVE INSURANCE.

Seriously, I used to sell insurance for a living, and when you drop someone, you send a certified letter and call them incessantly. My former insurance company instead decided to take the Deadbeat Dad way out of it, they will ignore the problem until it goes away. And it won't send me birthday cards.

Seriously, this is the first insurance company I have had that didn't send me a birthday card. Think about it. You KNOW you get a postcard or something on your birthday from your insurance company.

And now, for Japan:

Dear Japanese Woman (from Tokyo):

I am not quite sure how you got my name and address, and I know I do not know you, so I am a little confused as to why you would send me American Cash in the mail.

You probably thought that you shouldn't send an explanation in Japanese, because I couldn't understand it. Here's the thing - my friend Nia has been taking Japanese for a couple years now. So, if you are reading this, feel free to WRITE TO ME IN JAPANESE WHY YOU SENT ME A FIVE DOLLAR BILL. I am very, very confused. I have known quite a few foreign exchange students in my day, but none from Japan. So, I guess what I am trying to say is thank you for the money, I bought myself a strawberry shake from Steak N Shake on the ride home yesterday. After I got more insurance coverage.

It has been quite the weird week people.

It's a Christmas Miracle!

I heard a loud thump from my living room in the middle of the night last night, so I woke up, put on my sleeping cap, and went to investigate.

What? Like you don't have a sleeping cap.

I wander into the living room, and in the center of the living room is my doll Carrie just sitting there. Obviously confused as to how she got there, I ask the only logical question:

"Carrie how did you get there?" Because shit, when you wake up in the middle of the night and see a small doll staring back at you, why not ask how it got there.

A small voice replies "I fell." Which, in my drowsy state, shocked the hell out of me.

So, being shocked and all, I decided to ask the next logical question "So...since you're real, do you want something to eat?" Because really, I assume coming to life takes a lot of effort and would leave a person pretty darned hungry.

Eric comes up from behind me "Dude, that was me, come back to bed."

Now that I know that, I feel a lot better.

But all the same... I am looking at that doll a little closer now.

What? Like you don't still believe that your dolls come to life when you go to sleep. I know I do.

Blorg

I am feeling like crap, so instead of a normal update, here's a comic:


superpoop.com

A Really Late Introductory Post

Hi! You might have come here because you read about me in the newspaper. Or you might be here because you are my parents.

Either way, I feel the need to tell you that I ate 4 hotdogs for breakfast.

Ok ok ok, I am only telling you all that so you can all imagine what I am imaging right now in my own head - my mother looking horrified at her computer screen (complete with her hand over her open mouth,) and my dad sitting back in his office chair with a sense of pride.

Also - kudos to you newspaper people for actually still reading the newspaper. I just kind of want to put you newspaper people in a jar like you're some kind of magical literary fireflies!

Anyhoo - welcome! The links on the right are my "best of" and some of those stories even appear in my book. (Like that gratuitous plug right there? Yeeeeah you do!)

Your Pants Are on Fire!

I love seedless oranges. Ok, I know they are technically called tangerines or clementines or whathaveyou.

When I go shopping, I look for the little sticker that says "seedless" and I buy ONLY those oranges.

I just bit into an orange segment and it was nothing but seeds.

THAT STICKER IS A LIAR!

I just spent the last 20 minutes pulling seed bits out of my teeth.

Eight Years Later

I totally forgot to update about this last week,  but hey - Eric and I have been together for eight years. We don't remember our exact anniversary, and I think I mentioned that fact before, so we just declared it to be Thanksgiving.

So, thank you Eric, for putting up with me for the last eight years, and not just putting up with me, but loving me too!



Not that it is particularly hard to love a drunk woman in a dashiki and a babushka. Or maybe it is. I am pretty boozed up in this photo, and it is only a matter of time before I get into the bacon grease...

The Netherlands

Eric and I were in Blockbuster and I realized something:

Night at the Museum is a franchise - they just keep moving it from museum to museum. It is at this point that I start laughing out loud.

"What?" Eric asks.

"If they ever film a Night at the Museum at the Anne Frank Museum House, I bet all the Franks come back to animation and beat the living crap out of Peter every single night!"

Eric just shakes his head slowly.

My Mother's Heart is a Putterin' and Flutterin'

I am at a Hilton in Wisconsin for a conference.

Actually, I am in the middle of the conference RIGHT NOW (shhhh do not tell on me,) and I wanted to say something:

"MOM! The hotel folds the toilet paper into little points! LITTLE POINTS JUST LIKE YOU DO!"



That is all.