Last year at this time…

Here’s links to some postings I wrote last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

September 1, 2005

September 6, 2005

September 7, 2005

One year later, it’s hard to say what has changed for the better.

Travesty

Seen today in Short Pump:

A brand new 7 series gray BMW. This is a car that costs approximately eleventybajillion dollars and if sex was a car, it would be this one.

On the back of this gorgeous car was a hideous bumper sticker. It said “I heart knitting.”

No, BMW driver. You are wrong in your choice of slogan.

You heart ruining perfectly beautiful cars.

Sorry to rain on the ignorance parade…

…but Katherine Harris, you can shut the fuck up.

You made some of the most ignorant comments I have thus heard from an elected official. I would direct you to find the correct section explaining separation of church and state in any civics book. But as you demonstrated in the recount of 2000, you can’t count well enough to find the page number.

Seriously, shut the fuck up.

Flipping the bird

I hate one of the birds that lives in our backyard.

He’s a cardinal and he is an asshole. He pushes the smaller birds off the birdfeeder. He gets all up in their faces and intimidates them so that they fly away screaming in terror. He flaps his wings around like he owns the birdfeeder. I have news for you, cardinal. I own the birdfeeder. Step off.

I hate him. The little sparrows and goldfinches shouldn’t have to live in fear. They deserve sunflower seeds just as much as anyone else.

Watch it, cardinal. I will loose my hound on you, and you will be dead. Don’t be fooled by her ridiculous plastic headgear, her seasonally themed bandanas, or her stylish courdory winter coat. She is a stone cold cardinal killer and will comit bird homicide for cheese.

We’re watching.

Requiem for a Sofa

We said goodbye to our sofa yesterday.

We bought it about five years ago while living in sin and poverty before we were married. I was in the beginning of my short-lived teaching career, and my husband was an exhausted law student. At that point, we really couldn’t afford anything, because when a teacher is the primary breadwinner and the only person working full time, you can’t really afford groceries. That was what saving change was for, anyway.

But we also needed something to sit on other than the tiny and hideous loveseat and chair left over from my husband’s college days.

So we wound up buying a sofa for $600 on sale at Hechts. At the time, that seemed like too much money for anything that didn’t provide sustanance, shelter, or health benefits. When it finally arrived, I felt like a grownup for the first time since graduating from college. It wasn’t a futon, or a hand-me-down, or something from goodwill. We owned an actual piece of furniture. Surely this was a signal that better times were ahead.

It turned out not to be the best purchase. Initially, it was incredibly comfortable, but a few years into it, the springs broke or got loose, and anyone who sat in it sort of sank down on one side. But as long as you rearranged the cushions correctly, it was still ok. It was too big for our apartment and barely fit, but both of us could sit on it at once.

There was no chance of replacing it, because I had just had major surgery, taken a bunch of unpaid leave to recover, and then switched jobs. My husband also was in the throes of starting his own law practice. If you think you’re poor when one of you is attending law school, that is nothing compared to what happens when the student loan payments start and you essentially still have one income.

That sofa was covered in rawhide residue, because shortly after we got the sofa, we got a dog who became the main source of joy in our lives. Her favorite thing was leaning her rawhide chew toy against the sofa so she could expend less energy holding it up and more energy chewing it. We tried valiantly to remove the dried-up remains, but that resulted in bigger stains. so perhaps we should have tried more valiantly to get the dog to not put her chewed up bones on or near the furniture. Both of us just decided cleaning the sofa was a lost cause, because at some point in the future, we would have to replace it. The dog continued to use it not only as a resting place for her bones, but also a place to bury them. The edges of it served as a napkin for her to wipe her face on after eating. At least she doesn’t shed, we thought.

So all three of us sat off-kilter for what seemed like forever, sinking down into one side, pulling half-chewed dog bones from underneath the cushions, shoving the dog to the middle.

Eventually, we moved out of our tiny apartment and into our tiny house. The broken, too-big sofa came with us. It was in worse shape, but you could still sit on it, and since it was still relatively functional, it stayed.

Suddenly, I got several promotions at the new job. My husband’s law practice took off, and he took on a partner. We actually forgot to take our pocket change to the store to turn it into dollar bills. When we finally remembered, we had over $61 dollars, and instead of buying groceries, I bought two pairs of Pumas and laughed about it.

Like Dorian Gray’s fabled portrait, as our lives got easier, our poor sofa fell into a greater state of disrepair.

We decided it was time to say goodbye.

The new sofa we bought was more than twice the price of the old one. It was the subject of much dicussion. I do not exaggerate when I say that it’s entirely possible we looked at every furniture store in the greater Richmond metro area. I wanted a giant monster that sucked me in and did not allow my feet to touch the ground while sitting in it. My husband wanted one that did not take up our entire living room and had back support. Our desires at odds, we fought and argued and finally, I uttered “I don’t f’ing care what we buy anymore. Just order something. If I have to look at another piece of furniture, I will kill someone, possibly myself.”

I wasn’t quite sure if I was going to like what we bought. And then, I realized how much better our lives had gotten since the last sofa. I realized how lucky we are to have been able to walk into a store and say “we’ll take it” without having to consider and agonize and then walk out without buying anything. So even if I hate this new sofa scheduled to arrive in an hour, I’m going to love it.

We sold our old one on Craigslist yesterday. The person that came to pick it up was a poor, broke, exhausted law student, just like my husband used to be. I hope that it’s as lucky for her as it was for us.

Disgusted

If anyone besides me heard the presidental press conference today, I ask you:

Did you:

a) Honk your horn in frustration?
b) Say the words, ” I can’t fucking believe this shit?”
c) Turn the car towards Canada and floor it?
d) Think “at least no one was legally blind!”
e) Light some candles in front of your Jed Bartlett shrine?
f) All of the above

Please leave your response by filling in the correct circle with a number two pencil.

I try to keep this blog about mundane shit that no one but me cares about, such as my list of allergies and my personal shampoo choices. It’s really nothing more than an exercise in self-centered egotistical indulgence that some other people also get a kick out of once in a while. But sometimes, no matter how hard I try, the real world seeps in and I climb up on my soapbox. Today was one of those days.

There is a time for levity, and a time for jokes. There is something to be said for breaking tension. But the place for those things is not a press conference about some of the most serious issues facing my generation. I do not appreciate comments from the president making fun of what reporters are wearing nor do I see any humor in hearing the president utter “since I dissed your outfit” in between questions about Iraq and terrorism and civil liberties.

THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD SHOULD NEVER USE THE WORD DISSED.

THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD SHOULD NOT TALK SHIT ON REPORTERS.

I might finally have to concede the fact that the president is “just like you and me,” because I certainly can be an inappropriate asshole sometimes.

I’m disgusted. And I am wearing seersucker tomorrow.

Pollen – 1 Kristin – 0

Today, as I suffer the great indignities of what the Weather Channel Desktop calls the “GRASS POLLEN IN YOUR AREA IS VERY HIGH” special alert, I got to thinking about all the things to which I am allergic. Here is a comprehensive list in no particular order, including things that could kill me in bold

1. Pollen in all its forms
2. Mold
3. Dust
4. Cats
5. Horses
6. Shellfish
7. Strawberries
8. Bees
9. Wasps (with wings, not madras plaid)
10. Yellow jackets
11. Wal-Mart
12. Pine trees
13. Neo-conservatives
14. Bill O’Reilly
15. Lactose
16. Goose down
17. Carpet adhesive
18. Tapered jeans
19. Cigarette smoke
20. Flavor Flav
21. Unwashed apples
22. American Idol
23. Certain eye-drop preservatives
24. Organized religion
25. Many perfumes
26. Celine Dion
27. Certain chemicals used in lipstick
28. Censorship
29. Wearing socks
30.Mica
31. Unfinished lumber
32. Charles Dickens
33. Billy Budd, Sailor
34. Oil paint fumes
35. People who purposefully misinterpret the true meaning of the 2nd amendment
36. Erythyromicin

More proof that Jesus reads Double Vision, and that I do in fact control the world with my thoughts

Yesterday, on the way to the driving range, my husband called me in quite a state of excitement. We had the following conversation.

“Honey, sit down. I am pretty sure God is actually reading your blog.”

“Well, duh. I already knew that. What further proof have you found?”

“There is a Wawa going up about two miles from Broad and Lauderdale, right before the 288 exit.”

“No way.”

“Total way.”

“That’s right down the road. I fucking rule. Let’s just hope it wasn’t Tom Cruise’s creepy alien god of weirdness that made this happen. I might have to become a scientologist, which I would do for the holiness of sandwiches and coffee that is Wawa”

“I’m hanging up now.”

Even my dog loves Wawa, as the picture below demonstrates. And before you call animal control, she is not drinking coffee cup out of that cup. We would never give the dog coffee. It’s beer.*
*It’s actually water. We taught her to drink out of paper cups for traveling…I know she came from Ireland and could probably handle her liquor, but dogs are prone to alcoholism and there is no AA meeting around here for dogs, so we don’t risk it.

Praise be to the whatever from high atop the thing!

Dear God/Buddha/Tom Cruise’s Creepy Alien God of Weirdness,

I am sure you recall my correspondence of 10 May 2006, as you are rumored to be omnipotent. You failed to answer my humble entreaties or accept my offers of the finest muffins and bagels in all the land. I have been angry for several months.

However, this evening, we got to see the pilot of Aaron Sorkin’s latest offering, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

I still am pretty damn pissed at you for a variety of reasons not limited to the current situation in the middle east and the lack of Wawas within a one mile radius of my house. However, you’re off the hook for now in regards to this particular subject. The pilot made stand up and cheer at the end. Sorkin is back and I am his bitch once again.

I should clarify. You’re off the hook for now. If this show gets cancelled, I put you on notice.

And seriously. Wawa. One mile radius of my house. Chop chop.

Sincerely,

Kristin

Merge

Growing up in Pennsylvania taught me many things, but first and foremost, it taught me how to merge into traffic. In PA, there is no such thing as a “merge lane” in most places. Like a non-violent Eagles fan, they simply do not exist. If you want to get onto another road from an exit, you better do it the minute you hit that dotted line. Or you will quite literally be dead.

Pennsylvanians will run your ass over if you hesitate. We have places to go and red lights to wait at, but damn it, we’re getting there before you do.

Here in Virginia, we are spoiled with nice, long, wide merge lanes. They are borderline existential. When I first moved here and started driving around, I was completely confused and rather overwhelmed that I had more than .2 seconds to get into the right lane before I became roadkill. It appeared to me that the fabled and famous Southern Hospitality extended all the way into highway planning.

However, fellow drivers of Richmond, just because the merge lanes are long and distinguished does not mean you need to take a long and distinguished time and wait until the very end of the lane to merge into traffic. As soon as you have a clear shot, get your ass over. Don’t wait until your lane becomes one with the far right lane. And also? Don’t drive in the right-hand lane near a merging point if the other lanes are free and clear of traffic. Because while you may extend kindness and hospitality in your driving, a good number of are interloping Yankees, and we may run you over. We have red lights to be the first ones to get to after al.

And yes, I know, “if I love Pennsylvania so much, I can go back there.” But I can love Richmond, too. I love the women with the same blond helmet bob who wear twelve silver bracelets at once and have beribboned and monogrammed purses and never leave the house without makeup and a manicure. I love the old men who call me “girlie” and “honey” and let me cut in front of them at the grocery store just because I am young and cute. I love the history of this place and am fascinated by the contradiction of its insular nature and the people who just randomly and genuinely ask and truly want to know if you are having a good day. This has been my home for almost nine years, and I don’t plan on leaving it any time soon.

So when I get all misty-eyed while hearing “Do you want to learn to speak Philadelphian?” over the loudspeaker while pumping gas at the Wawa over on Brook Road, don’t laugh at me. Don’t tell me to go back to Pennsylvania. I’m part Richmonder now. There’s just another part of me that will always long for a good soft pretzel.

Value your merge lanes, Richmond. Use them wisely and correctly. Not all Commonwealths are so lucky as you.