for your entertainment

I bring you some entertaining sites for any kind of enforced time-wasting.

First, extremely meta cartoons.

Second, the best fuss-buckety column ever.

Third, my grand-naby (and his mom, who's totally in love with him).

That's all for now, folks.

the spoonful game

I found myself eating spoonfuls of something straight out of the carton tonight (and no, it wasn't ice cream or chocolate pudding) which made me think of the Spoonful Game, this horrible competition where you go into the kitchen and load up the spoon with one substance that you think the other person would rather die than eat.

Things like Crisco.
Or wasabi paste.
Or raw eggs.

I, of course, not being in the middle of the game at all, was just happily eating spoonfuls of orange juice concentrate.

(It was so good I couldn't help myself!)

Other good things for the spoonful game?
Worcesteshire sauce
Mint jelly
Old fish
Wheat germ (hard to swallow without having it come out your nose... not that I'd know)
Soy sauce
That dreaded liquor of choice (whatsoe'er it be)

Your contributions?

what i couldn't say two years ago

I had dinner with an old friend tonight (our friendship is old... we, ourselves, are quite young, thankyouverymuch), which was a date we rescheduled from last week, which she cancelled because she wasn't feeling very well. As we sat at dinner I very offhandedly and calmly said the following, which I never would have been able to say to her two years ago:

So, last week was no big deal, it sucks that you were feeling barfy, and you can totally cancel on me anytime for anything, but next time, could you give me a little advanced warning if you aren't feeling well? You didn't know this, but I was in New Jersey at a party which I had to leave early to meet you for dinner, and I was already on the train back to the city when I got your message to cancel.

Her response? Totally calm, agreeing, nodding, and saying, "Oh yeah, that's cool. I'll totally give you advance warning next time. I'm sorry, I didn't know."

Two years ago I was so afraid of myself (and of the threat of her rejecting me) that instead of saying something this simple, I would just sit on it. And stew. And brood. And every time she cancelled or was late or did anything that I could interpret as inconsiderate, I chose to see it as her being malicious or thoughtless instead of living her own life (with its own complications).

Now it's just so much cleaner. It feels fresh. It feels like we're miles closer, even though we see each other less. It feels like we're both covered in magnets and when we choose to live responsibly, the polarity brings us together instead of forcing us apart.

I'm immensely grateful, both for her and for the changes in my life. (And for the image of me being covered in magnets and accidentally getting myself stuck to my fridge.)

i'm a grand-neighbor

I am blessed with an extended family that I've chosen for myself, and tonight we had a baby! My friends Lisa and RJ called me this afternoon to tell me that the doctor was thinning Lisa's membrane (a visual I'd rather not have, of a procedure that apparently can be kind of painful), when the following ensued (cribbed from RJ at www.procrastinet.com) :

Lisa: Are you doing it?
Dr.: Yep! You're very ready.
Lisa: Wow I heard it was really painful!
Dr.: Well, for some women it--oops.
Lisa: ... Did you just break my water?
Dr.: ... So let's get you to the hospital!

With the fam in the hospital, I came to the house to relieve grandma of her babysitting duties (and send her off to the hospital to do her motherly duties) and, of course, to bake cookies. Because what baby shouldn't be celebrated by a big batch of kitchen sink cookies?

It is with much glee that I welcome Charles Owen into the world tonight. (And slightly more glee that I got Max to finally fall asleep.)

the pooey stall

So something's been going on at work, and I just have to tell someone about it, and it's too mean to really tell my co-workers, so I'll just tell you guys and hope for the best.

There's a woman I work with who has a colostomy bag. Ok, well, I don't know that for a fact. What I do know is that she has some set up that involves what I can only call a Poo Tube. And when my firm was at our old location, you could periodically come into the bathroom to find her washing out her poo tube in one of the sinks. (Not exactly the most appetizing of events.)

Luckily, when we moved to our new location, the firm built a stall especially for her -- one with a sink inside of it, where she can cleanse her poo tube with anonymity. And that has eased the poo tube viewing conundrum considerably.

However, a number of my other co-workers, who never had the pleasure of viewing the poo tube cleansing, and have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of even the existence of the poo tube, have started to use the special stall. They don't know that the sink in there is all pooey. I bet they think it's less pooey than the other sinks that get shared by everybody.

And the worst part of all this is that while my other coworkers are in her stall, the special coworker is cleaning her poo tube in the regular sinks -- but not while the special-stall-hogging coworkers can see it happening!

It's like a very pooey moebius strip.

That nobody can really talk about.*



*I would like to make it clear that I in no way blame the special coworker. In fact, she's always been very decent about her situation, and very businesslike about something that must be fairly embarrassing and unpleasant for her. I do, however, blame my special-stall-hogging coworkers for not knowing something that they have absolutely no reason to know. Because that's the kind of girl I am.

same assholes everywhere

So I had another speed dating adventure this weekend, but since a number of my friends were at the event, finding me (and this blog) through them could be way too easy. So I'm going to reserve comment on it. At least for now.

However, something that happened after the rapid courtship event (as I'm now calling it) has proven shareworthy. I went with my girlfriends to a Yale class of 1998 mini event. Nothing formal, just some drinks in the back room of a decent bar, so we headed over after the RCE (see above). Keri and Tracy and I were near the only entrance to the special Yale room, so as a guy was leaving, I said, "Thanks for coming! Hope you enjoyed your stay!"

He smiled, so I thought I'd engage him in a bit more conversation before losing him to the night, and we ended up talking about what colleges we were in and what we studied, and then along came this guy who I'm sure I know, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I knew him. Maybe he dated my roommate? Maybe he was in improv? I didn't know. So I asked him.

"Did you date my roommate, Liz Pontikes?"

"Um, no."

"Hmmm. Did you do improv?"

"No."

"Hmmm. I know I know you, but I just can't place you. Were you in SAE?"

"No."

"I was!" chirps the other guy who has miraculously not left yet.

"Oh, you were?" I asked. "I was good friends with Patrick Egan." I added, but at that point, Leaving Guy had started taking to Familiar Looking Guy and wasn't listening to anything I was saying. So I continued, "I was good friends with Patrick Egan, WHICH I HAVE JUST ANNOUNCED TO NO ONE IN PARTICULAR."

The girls had a good laugh, and the guys continued talking because they hadn't the slightest clue that I had even just called them out on their rude behavior.

Awesome.

You know what they say about SAE...*



*my dad was SAE, so I don't actually subscribe to the theory en masse. but this guy definitely warranted it.

my most recent netflix

This morning I crawled out of bed (after having a horrible dream that my mother was dying of cancer -- boo!) and spent several hours trying to get my wireless router to work. (It still doesn't, so I'm stuck typing in my office. Rude.)

I got fed up after a while and called it quits. I tromped into the living room and popped my recent netflix arrival into the dvd player. I plopped down on the couch, and when those familiar orchestral strains hit my eardrums, I was almost instantaneously in tears.

That's right folks, Netflix sent me Little House on the Prairie: The Pilot.

(It's a hell of a movie, actually.)

Some statistics:

Number of whole family hugs: 5
Number of braids: 4 (5, if you count Ma's french twist as a braid)
Number of outfits for each girl: 3, I think.
Number of God, Bible or church references: 5
Number of logs Ma split wearing a floor length, impeccably clean blue skirt: not sure. lots.
Number of near drownings: 3
Number of Indian visits: 3
Number of wolf-related incidents: 3
Number of prairie fires: 1
Number of miraculous, Little House-saving rainfalls: 1
Number of times the adults snapped at the children: 2
Number of times the adults were severly guilt-wracked over it: 2
Number of foals born: 1
Number of times I fell in love with Michael Landon: about 100
Number of times I found myself in tears: at least 12

Some excellently memorable quotes:
"Charles, I'm worried about the girls growing up proper... so far from a church.""Caroline, don't you worry about that. You can't get any closer to god than this."

"I was sure glad Pa had brought his fiddle, for it made a most joyful noise."

"I thought Pas never got scared.""Oh no, half-pint, Pas get scared.""But not as scared as Mas."(chuckles) "No, I guess that's right. Not as scared as Mas."

Mix in a little John Denver and a bowl haircut, and you have my childhood.

(No wonder I was in tears...)