from the department of things that don't belong where I found them...

This:

was wrapped around the beater of my vacuum cleaner.

This:

was nestled secretly in my frozen spinach.

And this:

was in my fannypants.

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

1. Online dating handles that do not appeal to me:

(These are, in fact, the actual handles of users who can be found on okcupid. Feel free to look them up. Perhaps they appeal to you...)

beardinyourbush

iamtoowildforu

thatfukinguy

nudeslutm

warlockflash

mstluvoral

rolly_tacco

2. Amusing things that were said at my birthday party:

"'The Most Wonderful Thing I Did with my Futon' would make a great name for a musical."

"I didn't mean to hit your boobs. They just stick out."

"If I give them cake, do you think they'll stop making out?"

3. Have you ever noticed that when you're really exhausted, it seems like there's never enough time in the world to get done the six million things you need or want to get done? But when you get some sleep, and are on your game, not having finished this week's New Yorker doesn't seem like such a crime?

4. Rapping vs. Crapping

A coworker of mine recently complained that it was quiet in her office and that her officemate was "practicing his rhymes." In response, I sent her this message:

Why are there no new matters?

'Cuz they're all as mad as hatters

And they climb up crazy ladders

Where their minds just shatter.

a-bump-cha-a-bump-bump-cha!

Fernando then sent this:

So today was slow

The firm didn’t grow

What could be worse??

Listen to me flow….

My coworker then responded with:

I sit in chair

At Elite, I do stare

Why don't no one care??

Cuz the D-man doth Scare

boom-chi boom- chi boom

I wasn't ready for the day to end yet, so I sent back:

Nando and me

We're as sad as can be

Cuz you're snarkin your tea

And stuck there with D

But Nando's so funny

I'd pay him some money

He ain't my big honey

But I won't trade him, sonny!

ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chOW!

Fernando was finally the voice of reason, pointing out that our rhymes weren't bad, but our beat boxes sucked.

s-s-s-s-s-s-s-su-su-ucked!

5. Friends don't let friends drink and cook.

Tonight I was making dinner tipsy. Which means that I almost strained my noodles by pouring them into the sink.

Wheeeeeee!

don't get suckered!

Rarely (if ever) do I offer you wisdom that will save you money. But it's a new year, and today, all of that's about to change.

Three Things To Avoid Wasting Your Money On, by Katherine Surgeon.

1. Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum

Nando and I got free passes to Madame Tussaud's that expired at the end of December. So we had to visit during high tourist season, and, if you can score these passes, DO. Otherwise, skip the museum all together. Forever. Avoid the block. Hell, don't go to Times Square.

With the free passes we had, we got to bypass the line that snakes through the lobby like an airport security line. Flash your passes (ha! I typoed that as "flash your asses" -- which would also probably work) and you skip right to the head of the line. Nando and I ended up behind a clusterfucky group of six hundred (ok, ok, five) and heard the exorbitant price -- $38 per ticket! That's nearly two twenties to walk around in a crowd of tourists taking pictures with statues of people that don't look like the people they purport to be. Nothing says "waste of money" like futile, crowded, annoyingness.

Nando and I had fun, though, because it was free. While we were waiting for the elevators (at the beginning of the exhibit and at the end), we contemplated a suicide bombing, just because it was annoying to be stuck like a herd of cattle with no one telling us why we were waiting. In the end, we decided against it because we had tickets to yet another waste of money:

2. Cirque de Soleil's Wintuk

We were very excited by the IDEA of Wintuk. We spent all week pronouncing things with fake German accents ("Vintoook!" "Vonderful!")* and thinking magical, wintery thoughts. We got to MSG and into our seats, and the set was beautiful! So exciting! Such Vintery Gutness!

Then the show started and it was poop. Cirque de Soleil makes their money by spectacle, and there was definitely spectacle in this show, but it was UGLY. The costumes looked like what you'd get if you melted a box of crayons over a gang of skateboarders. All the performers looked like children, and they're all in sixty five layers of clothing. Part of what I love about circus performers is seeing how hard their bodies are working when their faces are so serene and fun-filled. When they're in big, ugly, puffy jackets (or, in some cases, a garbage can), that ruins it for me.

There's supposed to be a plot to Wintuk, but it essentially just keeps coming back to an annoying little boy saying "When is it going to snow??" There are six dogs in the show -- people in dog costumes -- and they have a theme song. The lyrics? "Dog. Dog dog dog. Dog. (whispered) dog!"

At intermission, I looked at Nando, he looked at me, and we both agreed that we had gotten our $40 worth. In fact, more than that. We had gotten as much Vintook as we could handle.

And we left.

3. Emergen-C's Pink Lemonade Flavor

After New Year's and the concomitant freezingness that is winter, I'm succumbing to a touch of the plague. So I bought a box of Emergen-C Pink Lemonade, and I have to say, it tastes nothing like lemonade (pink or otherwise). If I had to guess the flavor, I'd say Strawberry Banana, because it has that cloying sweetness and yechiness I associate with fake strawberry banana. And the best part? On the back of the box it says "The color pink carries many connotations. Power, strength, and energy aren't usually among them."

Go with tangerine. At least then you won't be subjected to colorism!

* I'm not entirely sure why we pronounced things with fake German accents, as Cirque de Soleil is a Fronch getup. But if Nando and I did things that were rational, you probably wouldn't read this blog.

happy old year!

As we race into the next decade* I thought I'd give you a going away present.

A few, actually, because I'm so generous.

1. Oh Fernando, Why Are You So Eloquent?

The other day my dear officemate declared that he was listening to "poopular music," which gave us a good chuckle. And then, yesterday, when I was wearing the new fleece I got for Christmas (sort of), he told me that my fleece was very "action." "It looks like you're going to do things," he said, as I put it on.

2. That's Very Surprising!

Have you ever eaten a lot of beets? I bought and roasted a bunch of them last week, and they were delicious. However, there's a shocking side effect: purple poo.

3. I Heart My Mother

Among the many ridiculous things we all said over the Christmas holiday, here are my favorites from my mom:

me (over the phone): What are you doing?

Mom: Sitting around in our Santa hats, eating candy canes, waiting for you to come home.

Mom: (in a game, trying to come up with a verb) To be-is-am-are-were-run-fuck!

My Aunt: (describing an imaginary friend from childhood) Yahudie [pronounced "yay-who-dee"] lived in the refrigerator and turned the light on and off.

Mom: (very matter of factly) No, no, no. That's not right. Yahudie lived under the sidewalk.

(duh, everyone knows that.)

3. Oh-S0-Irritating!

You know what drives me crazy? Asterisks on product labels that lead nowhere. My mom had some disinfecting wipes, and they made a claim that it killed 98% of bacteria, which was followed by an asterisk, which I assumed meant that statistic would be explained or expanded on.

But no! They either forgot to add the information -- information someone thought at some point was important enough to highlight with an asterisk! -- or they never thought anyone would catch it.

But I did. (Call me Asterisk Watch Dog if you want to.)

4. A Lesson For Everyone

Not you, of course. You're perfect. But everyone else should look here.

* I hate it when people say this. (See? I follow up with my asterisks!)

cookie party, 2009

How does a tradition start? By doing the same thing year after year, I guess, or at least doing it enough times that people start to say, "oh yeah, doesn't Kate throw a cookie party every year?"

So, since there was a party in 2006 (which I totally forgot about until I was writing this piece!), one in 2007, and one in 2008, I guess that by doing it in 2009, I'm actually on the path to a real-live tradition!

This year's cookie party was once again fabulous, with frosting flying every which way, and sprinkles (like pine needles or beach sand) ending up in the strangest places.

The attendees this year were both new and old. Andrea and Lisa (with the boys) repeated from years past, and Patricia and Ellyn joined up anew. (Keri and Avery didn't make it that day, but were with us in spirit.)

The improvements I made over previous years -- more actual food! more presents for the children! -- were tremendous. This year I served rosemary butternut squash lasagna, garlic mint potatoes, bean soup, sugared cranberries, and apple almond quinoa. The number of debilitating sugar headaches dropped dramatically!

The OCD factor was back, as Andrea had missed last year's party, and this year, her meticulous decorating skills inspired Ellyn and Patricia to reach new heights, in an effort to reach the winners' circle. Max -- who is now six and a half -- was also driven to "make a contender." So driven, in fact, that he created about sixty five thousand contenders (not realizing, of course, that he had his own category -- the Under Seven Cookies).

The boys, in fact, had some creative decorating techniques. Max's plan of attack was to wad a glob of frosting into the middle of the cookie (for best dispersal later) and then to dump a handful of sprinkles into the palm of his hand. With a somewhat slow rotation of his wrist, 70% of the sprinkles landed on the table or floor, 5% hit the dry part of the cookie and about 25% reached the glob of frosting. So, of course, to meet with satisfactory sprinkling results, the process had to be repeated four times for each cookie.

Having just swept and mopped my floor (and knowing full well I'd have to do it again after the party), Lisa and I made valiant attempts to curb this decorating method. To no avail, of course, because a child under 7 + sugar + lots more sugar + anyone saying "no" = Disaster, Pure and Simple.

Charlie, on the other hand, had a strangely more self-contained approach to frosting. Which is to say, he frosted himself. He got some on a cookie (probably by accident) and the rest of it on his pants, hair, shirt, brother, seat... He reached for sprinkles once, but that idea was quickly squashed by the entire apartment. And he seemed fairly pleased with the prospect of merely frosting himself. (And, the rim of a volcano, as you'll see below.)

But enough talk, already, Kate! Let's see the winners!

In the Under Seven Category, Max was the all around winner!

The best traditional cookies:
Clockwise from top: "Jew" cookie by Lisa, "Glove" by Ellyn, OCD Tree by Patricia, OCD Bear by Andrea, and Self-Strangulating Snowman by Yours Truly.
In the Best Non-Traditional Category:

Clockwise from top left: Awkward Teenage Bear (complete with acne and the ugly outfit his mother made him wear) by Andrea, Creepy French Manicure Hand by Kate, The Shitting Dove of Peace by Ellyn (note the poop in the crack of the cookie), Festive Lederhosen Guy with Big Package by Patricia, and Almond Coat Bear by Ellyn.
And everybody's favorite category... The Ugliest!!

Clockwise from top left: Cracky Bear by Lisa, Flickery-Vagina-y Lightbulb by Kate, Amoeba by Patricia, Plaguey Pig by Ellyn, Clean-the-Table CandyCane by Kate, and Max's contribution to the Ugly field, which really isn't all that ugly, actually...

I feel eternally grateful to these women for making my life, my home, and my kitchen all the friendlier and warmer. It is starting to feel like without the party, it might not be Christmas.

now that I'm older and wiser, my posts will be, too!

Yeah, that's a lie. I have absolutely no plans to up the quality of what you find here, even though I'm now 33.

Do I feel bad about that? Yeah, kind of. To use a phrase Fernando employs when he does something really stupid and feels awful about, "I'm sorrytarded."

So here are a few of my observations since we last saw each other.

1. I saw a fabulous dance piece recently, called Nut/Cracked. Unfortunately, it's closing today (I knew I should have posted sooner!) but it's a more modern version of the Nutcracker. I'm not a big modern dance fan, but this piece was terrific! My favorite moment was a solo where this woman walks on stage, unrolls a sheet of bubble wrap about three feet wide by five feet long and then spends the next six minutes NOT stepping on it. Flailing herself over it, wiggling around it, I'm-not-touching-you-I'm-not-touching-you it, until finally, she can't stand it any longer and then just flings her body, full force, smack into the middle of the sheet with the most gratifying POPPOPPOPPOPPOPPOPPOP of all time! Like a pig in shit or a kid in frosting, there is no way around the fact that this was orgasmic.

In truth, it made me want to go home and get some bubble wrap.

2. At work the other day, a woman stopped by my office.

"I have a problem I need you to look at in my email," she said.

"Ok, what is it?"

"It's Sarah."

"Who's Sarah?"

"I think you should come and see."

So I got up, walked over to her desk and looked at her inbox. She was drowning in emails from Sarah. All 87 of them had the same subject: "Sarah has added you on FuckBook!"

"Who is this Sarah?" asked my co-worker, "And what, exactly, does she think I'm going to do on FuckBook?"

The best part of all this? Not my co-worker hounding Fernando with stories of FuckBook for twenty minutes in a row (although that was really funny). No, it was having to forward the message to the head of IT, asking for help to block the emails from Sarah from FuckBook.

Wheee! Legitimate use of the word Fuck at work!

3. I would like to take a moment to thank all the cute guys of the world who actually look good in tight pants for wearing them. And, while I'm at it, to send a reminder to the not-so-cute guys in the world, who don't look good in tight pants, to go out and invest in some lovely khakis. You know, the ones with AMPLE room in the seats...

a cure for holiday loneliness

The holidays can be tough -- causing some people to feel despondent, bummed out, and just plain lonely. If you fall into that last category, perhaps you should spend more time with quality people online.

Visit your pals at Hot Chicks with Douchebags. There, you can mix and mingle with fine examples of humanity (and the nasty-assed guys they allow themselves to photographed with).

Like your friend, Cheeto-Man and his girlfriend:

If they don't lift your spirits, how about a visit with People of Public Transit?

The "Pole Polisher" should cheer you up a bit:

No? You're still feeling lonesome? Head over to your local Walmart and visit with the People of Walmart...

And yeah, you're welcome. Go ahead and happily hide under the bed for the rest of the season. We'll come and get you in the middle of January.