The sexy, it has been broughten

Today, I had two amazing encounters that confirmed for me once again that America is great and when I don’t eat enough, I yell at homeless people.

The first was a man who was asking people for money, and instead of the normal sob story, he flat out admitted he wanted to buy vodka.  “Please give me money.  I want to buy vodka,” is a direct approach.  I applaud his honesty and hope he finds some Stoli – it’s cold out there tonight. I didn’t give him any cash, because I never give money to people on the street, and also, dude, I want some vodka, too.  Get your own.

The second was a man who was asking for money because he was blind in one eye.  A worthy cause, but when I walked by him without contributing, he shouted at me “Lady, come on, you got two good eyes.”  Oh. No. You. Didn’t.  I turned my head and replied back to him sternly and loudly, “Nuhhhhuuuhhh I do not not!!!!” even though I was half a block away and he could not hear me.  I actually wanted to shout “I have fourth trochlear nerve palsy and a competely structurally reconstructed right and left eye, and sometimes, I have bloody tears for no reason, so top that, biatch.”  I didn’t, mainly because I was afraid all the men on the street would chase me down and try to buy me drinks – because NOTHING is hotter than stitches that come through your cornea and cause eye stigmata.  NOTHING.

And the reason I starved myself today to the point of yelling nonsense is not, in fact, that I attended the University of Richmond (which pretty much guarantees graduation with at least one of the following: a)an eating disorder, b) the clap, c) massive debt) but was due to the fact that I faced the Lunch of Death.  Allergic to the main course of shrimp scampi, I looked forward to the opportunity to eat two desserts as my entree with no guilt.  Then I realized dessert was strawberry chocolate cake, and thus, my lunch wound up consisting of one roll and a salad of weeds and feta cheese….and no time to grab something else.

Upon  re-reading this blog, between the food allergies, the screwed up eyes, and the yelling at homeless people, I’m just not quite sure how the husband can handle all this sexy in one place.

If I steal anything, it’s going to be the flat screen TV

I’m currently in a very nice hotel in midtown Manhattan.  I was amused to drag out the ironing board to iron my pants for tomorrow and discover that the iron is essentially chained (with a plastic phone cord type dealie) to the ironing board, and there is some kind of security tag attached to the iron itself.

I want to know who comes to New York and thinks, “wow, I totally steal a shitty iron.  What a perfect souvenir to remind me of my time here.”

Probably the culprit was the woman with amazing 1980s bangs in the elevator carrying an FAO Schwarz bag (possibly concealing her stolen iron) and a fanny pack who loudly complained to all in the elevator that she just “could not believe how small the room is.”  Yeah, and the drinks at the bar are expensive.

All I know is I can get Bravo on the talking picture machine, which is essential on a Project Runway night, and my husband will be here in two days for fun, shopping (ha!), freezing our asses off, and giving Mario Batali 300 dollars. So I can deal with the securely fastened iron. Also, I get to learn about Performance Measurement for Marketing and Compliance Professionals tomorrow.  I am actually pretty excited.

Tis the season

Christmas is coming, and we must decide once again how we will split our time and which family we will not see on Christmas Day.  Normally, we’ve decided by now, but this year, several wrenches have been thrown into the plans, and I am completely stressed out about it.  Things are up in the air.  I like them to be on the ground.

The only certain thing is that my husband and I will spend the majority of the holiday in the car, driving from one set of parents to another, rolling down the windows to cut the dog stink, and we will have little time to relax.

We’ve found ourselves completely booked for every weekend from now through the holiday between work functions and friend functions, and I’m wondering if all this holiday celebration is a mistake…suddenly, telling both our families that we will see them after the holidays are over and taking off for a spa somewhere sounds incredible.  They’d recover.

Compound this with the fact that the last time either of us have both been home at he same time for the entire weekend was Halloween.  And we are gone this weekend as well, but at least we’ll be together.  Since my husband cannot stand crowds of any kind and temperatures below 60 degrees, and I despise waiting in line in any sort of store around the holidays and fake Christmas cheer, we’ve made the brilliant decision to complete all our Christmas shopping in one and one half days in New York.  Mainly because I have a weekend off between work conferences there with nothing to do, but this could get very ugly.  I predict right now that we try to buy one gift, yell at each other because we cannot control everything in the world, quit, pledge to give everyone gift certificates, and spend an obscene amount of money on dinner and alcohol.

There are worse problems to have, I know.  But Christmas has lost its charm for me, and I’ve come to dread rather than look forward to it with any sort of excitement.  Also, my husband will not allow me to dress Gus up as Santa Claus.  Grinch.

The benefits of in-dash blue tooth speakerphone

“So that’s how guys talk on the phone to each other?”

“Yup.  Quick and easy.”

“Let me get this straight – you don’t talk about Britney Spears AT ALL?  And then you just get off the phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Bizarre.”

I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat

Chris over at Tales of a Post-Grad Nothing is one of my favorite bloggers, and I love her even more right this very second, because it is this very second that I realized the title of her blog references Judy Blume.   I’m slow to catch on sometimes.
She wrote a hilarious post about this website.  It doesn’t get much funnier than analytical graphic representations of rap songs.  Things like this are reasons I love America.

It wasn’t until I saw the venn diagram of The Unified Bitch Theory by Drs. Dre and Dogg that I realized exactly how much I have to be thankful for this holiday season.

Turkeys up, hos down.  Happy Mother Effing Thanksgiving, y’all.

Joy via Gmail

In the last several days,  checking my email has been amazing.

One friend who has been looking for a teaching job for two years finally got an offer, which will most likely improve her family’s life in a million ways.

Another friend just let me know that not only is she eloping over the Christmas holidays, but her mom is getting a kidney.

And my cousin is having a baby.

I’m verklempt for all of them.

We swim in the shallow end

This weekend, a conversation:

So, did you see Heidi Klum’s ass cleavage?

Yeah.  That was something else.  I always think she’s slightly unhinged and will one day lose her shit completely, but she’ll be the hottest crazy person everh.

Right.

That bitch has it all.

Charlie’s Soap rocks the hizzy

Recently, we stopped using regular detergent and started using Charlie’s Soap. A few free samples were included in my husband’s order of specialty car-cleaning products, and after one use, we were hooked. I gave my husband a hug and could not stop smelling his shirt, which smelled naturally clean and fresh, not chemically clean and fresh. Big difference.  It also did not smell like nacho cheese or Grandpa Eddie’s Barbecue, so way to go, honey!

Our clothes and towels are cleaner than before, and the best bonus is that the product is not tested on animals and is eco-friendly. I have incredibly sensitive skin, and I notice less irritation with this stuff than with any “allergen-free, dye-free, scent-free” chemical detergent I’ve used. It took some getting used to, as there are no suds; however, we made the change to this in the midst of The Great Gusbus Poo Explosions of Sept/Oct 2007, and I can attest to the fact that I put the nastiest towels you could imagine in the washer, and took clean, non-poopy towels out. If I could have put Gus in the washer with them, I would have.

On a side note, it looks like Gus is on the mend and might, knock on wood, actually be close to healthy for the first time in his young, poo-filled life. Cross your paws.

I know he spent at least two minutes deciding which cans to buy, too.

For a variety of reasons, I don’t normally write much that includes specifics about my husband.

These reasons range from “he has a very important job and he appreciates his clients not having to read about his personal business on the internets, and I appreciate his salary from this job which is approximately 4 times my own because I like shampoo that costs more than cocaine” to “my husband never goes out in public without underpants, so Britney is much more interesting a subject” to “our dogs have much more dynamic lives than we do.”

I’m breaking with tradition here for just a moment to send him a very public thank you – because when I walked in the door on Saturday, I discovered that he had cleaned the house, done all the laundry, had not sold Gus to the gypsies, and stocked the fridge with the Coke cans with polar bears on them.  This meant that I got to spend all Sunday in bed, half-asleep, watching everything I had Tivfauxed from the previous week.

Sometimes, I’m not the world’s greatest wife, and I’m not the most affectionate person in the world.  I am challenging to live with, as I often accidentally put the remote in the laundry, or put the dishwashing detergent the fridge.  I am not a good cook, and sometimes, I don’t think before I speak.  In my daze of exhaustion and iron deficiency, I’m not sure I told him exactly what it meant to come home to a clean house full of clean clothes, happy dogs, and coke with polar bears.  It was like coming home to perfection.  So thanks, booger.  You rock my socks, even after eight years.  I’m not sure I know how to function without you.

And I hope to someday live in a world where a person could tell a hilarious AIDS joke

I’m away from home on a business trip. When I was a kid, I thought “business trip” sounded like the most grown-up thing you could do besides “eat ice cream whenever you want because there is no one around to say no.” I associated them with my dad, who had to travel somewhat frequently during a particular stretch of time. When he was out of town, my mom and sister and I would always go out to eat every night, and sometimes, we’d get to stay up a bit later than normal.  Then, a few days later,my dad would come home, always incredibly happy to see us, and we would get presents from exotic places we hadn’t actually been too, like London, and Brussels, and Orangeburg, South Carolina.

I couldn’t wait until I grew up and got to go on my own business trips.

Somehow, now that I am actually an adult, the mystique is gone. It’s been replaced with the knowledge that you really aren’t allowed to charge six pairs of shoes on your corporate credit card, and expense account dinners are fun, but then your pants mysteriously don’t fit the next day. And – you have to work all day. But mostly, I’ve rediscovered something lurking in the back of my brain that only resurfaces infrequently – I hate being away from my family for more than a day. The novelty wears off quickly, usually right after I blast the hotel air conditioning to sub-zero and don’t pick my clothes up off the floor IMMEDIATELY. I can’t believe I am that person, that girl who comes upstairs to an empty hotel room and wishes that her husband was here so we could fight about the thermostat. I fancy myself a pretty independent lady, and mostly I am. But not right now, because I completely just thought the Uno commerical said “you better watch out, or you might get AIDS,”* and there’s no one here who I can tell without completely offending them, no one else but my husband who would find that funny rather than totally offensive.  I wonder if that’s why my dad was always so happy when he returned home – he thought up a ton of infectious disease jokes while he was on the road.  I’ll have to ask him.

*I think it said “you better watch out or you might get eights,” but I’m not sure.  Maybe Uno is trying to become more socially responsible.  Next thing you know, Candy Land will replace the Molasses Swamp with Chlamydia Cove.