speedbumps....bad

I am looking forward to this Christmas season for a few reasons and dreading it for others. I suppose everyone could make such an astoundingly boring statement. I have become a tad Grinchy over the years--overcome by the shameless shallowness of the whole affair. I think a perfect year end would stop at Thanksgiving and pick up somewhere around Valentine's Day. I predict that someday technology will afford people like me the ability to be temporarily cryo-parked for several months at a time in a dreamless holiday-free state of chilly bliss. But whatever. Maybe in another post I'll list the things that piss me off/irritate me/depress me about Christmas. But not today. Justin is in love with Christmas and for his sake, I am trying to be a jolly ol' elf about it.

In other news, I got a skateboard for my birthday. Oh yes. It's huge - a monster, a massive monolith of mythic proportions. I am teaching myself to ride it and so far I am only riding at night so as to not draw attention to myself. This will give you an accurate mental picture: Imagine someone standing up but convulsing, or hula-hooping. Imagine that person's face frozen in an expression of intense concentration while waving their arms like a windmill in a hurricane. That's me sk8ting. Oh yeah - good stuff. So far I haven't hit the ground, but I have developed a new language that's a phrenetic combination of profanity and panting. "Oh Faaaaaaaahhhhh!" I wanted this skateboard because everytime I see some little kid doing it, it looks like so much fun. To hell with that little dignified voice in my head that says a woman of my age and decorum has no business adjusting her trucks. If it's fun, then I have to at least try it. So far I can tell you this: speed bumps are bad.

Dirty Laundry and the Penny Boy

So I learned a few interesting things this weekend. Justin’s kids were over and they are apparently quite a fount of information. The first thing I learned was from Abigail, who’s learned quite a bit in her six short years upon this earth. As we were driving along in the car, she was weaving a continual chain of chatter, and once in a while I would grab hold and give a little tug. One thing she said caught my ear:
“Sometimes grownups lay in bed naked together”.
That was too good to let pass so I asked, “Really? What’s up with that?”
She, seeming unconcerned about it added, “I don’t know, but I think it’s because all their clothes are in the wash.”
I accepted her reasoning and let it drop not wanting her to think too much about it but decided right there to stop doing my laundry for a while and see if I end up in bed naked.


Presidential hopefuls would do well to take into consideration what Ethan had to say. He’s five, and he knows stuff. Take politics for example. He was talking about a trip he took to Washington DC and mentioning the various memorials. What he said went something like this:
“They have a giant penny-boy there, but they have guards and policemen so you can’t draw or paint on it. It’s HUGE.” (Visualize big brown eyes and arms stretched out wide)
I had to ask, “What’s a penny-boy?”
He seemed genuinely surprised that I didn’t know. As if adults aren’t so smart after all. “You know!” he answered incredulously, “Penny-boy!! His picture is on a penny! That’s why he’s the president!”
Ethan does this thing that never fails to crack me up. He sticks one finger in the air, raises his eyebrows and closes his eyes as he says “Actually…” And that’s what he did when I asked him why people’s pictures are on coins.
“Actually, you can only be the president if your picture is on the money. That’s why Penny-boy is president, because he has a lot of pennies with his picture.”
His rationale is adorable, but if you think about it, it usually works out that way – the one with the most pennies gets to be president.

aaah....Justin

Can I just tell you (whoever you might ubiquitously be) how wonderful my fella is? He got home from work a little before midnight after working a 12 hour shift in the E.R. Earlier in the day, I had some trouble with some files on the computer. If you know me, then you know how sadly common an occurrence this is. So he comes home, schleps up the stairs to the apartment, showers, and sits down at the computer to try to figure it out. He finally comes to bed and a few hours later, he wakes up to comfort me after a nasty nightmare that had left me sweating and seriously creeped-out. A few hours after that, I get up and hop in the shower. When I get dressed and emerge, half ready to face the day, I find that he has gotten up and cooked me a hot breakfast. His plan is to go back to bed after I leave for work so he can get a few more hours of sleep. I know I don't deserve to be with someone like him. Being on opposite schedules sucks, as you might well imagine, but he is making it easier than I thought it would be. Here are a few of the crazy things we do to cope:

• 
  Dry-erase markers on the bathroom mirror. "Can you have lunch with me and mom on Friday? Check one: yes/no/maybe". Gotta love the throw-back to the third grade.


• 
  Lunchbox notes. Reminders to take vitamins. Encouragement of various persuasions.


• 
  Coming home to a clean apartment. I can't tell you how many times I've come home to find that before he left for work, he's vacuumed or put away the dishes or some such.


• 
  God bless the public library! To distract myself from the fact that I'm home alone a lot, I'm reading like crazy. On the nightstand today: Naked in Baghdad: The Iraq war as seen by NPR's correspondent by Anne Garrels.


• 
  Candles. As silly as it sounds, when I am up and getting ready for work and he has just gone to bed, I use only candlelight to dress, do my hair, etc. No comment on the questionable results. He has done the same when I've already gone to bed and he's just getting home.

Those are just a few of the things we've figured out. We have less time together, but in many ways, it's still sweet.

uh....yeah

I can't believe it's been a month since I've blogged about anything.*

There's nothing particularly noteworthy going on just now. Since Flora moved to NY, I've saved a bunch of money on going out and such, but the flipside of that is that I'm not having nearly so many adventures. Justin and I went out the other night and on the way home I said, "We could go out for pancakes, but it's not even 1am yet..." Just not the same. Don't get me wrong, Justin rocks my world (apologies for the cliche) but you just can't beat Flora for pure trouble-making impishness.

Now this!

In other downer news, I fedexed paperwork to an attorney in Maine today to wrap up the closing on the sale of our camp. Ron and I owned it and even before the divorce, we had decided to sell it since we were hardly ever going there anymore. One of these days when I am less depressed about it than I am today, I will write about the camp. It was truly Nirvana, and the halcyon days spent there have been some of the best in my life. But now the little three acres on the bank of the Penobscot River belongs to someone else. No more chopping wood to go in the stove at 2am, no more lantern-lit trips to the privy, no more sunbathing and kayaking in the swirling smooth current of the river. But I said I wasn't going to talk about it! Hearing about someone else's favorite vacation spot is about like being forced to see silent 8mm reels of a pipefitter's convention in Cleveland. So I digress about the camp.

I recently joined this thing called Book Crossing. The idea is good, but there seems to be a shortage of books I care to read in the greater Jacksonburg area. Still, the idea intrigues me so I'll hang with it for a bit and see if anything good pops up.



*visualize self-flagellating comment here with corresponding excuse/reason for same

Immature and Funny

Today was a bit of a downer for me. I've been working for almost a year at a new job. During that time, I made some interesting friends, a few of which you will soon come to know. What made today sad was that it was my best friend Flora's last day there. She's following a dream and will be hopping on a plane early in the morning to fly to New York. There she'll become an obscenely rich and famous fashion designer (but in the meantime she'll feed herself and her cats by writing copy). If you know Flora, you know that there's just no one like her anywhere. She has a knack for distilling the bizarre humor out of the mundane details of office life. One of her disciplines was to keep a collection of off-beat quotes that she'd hear at the office. Since I've been there, it's been (for the most part) me, Flora, Jeff and Bryan observing each other and the usual gamut of office goings-on. Before she left, she passed the book to me and I'll try to keep adding to it.



So in homage to Flora, who sees so many things as both "immature and funny", here are several of the quotes she collected:




Food Fight
“Hey, why does this asparagus look like Super Mario?”
-Flora

“Who would want to just put this on their lips? I want to eat it!”
-Joe (talking about Chapstick)

"I'm either having a cake-baby or a bulky moment."
-Angela

“You’ve got the donuts and I’ve got the holes!”
-Kristi

“Screw you guys and your Indian food!”
-Chris

“It’s hot dog o’clock.”
-Bryan as Harry Carey

“Those aren’t bananas, but thanks anyway Mortimer.”
-Flora

“I just got out of a meeting and I need a banana to relax.”
-Jeff

“That’s the world’s rudest banana.”
-Flora

“Let me tell you, I have contributed plenty to the banana cause.”
-Angela

“You know who I hate? Sanctimonious vegans!”
-Flora

“Jeff is the spice in the SEO stew.”
-Shayne

“I don’t need 4 beers to be 25% queer.”
-Bryan

“Hey this is really nasty – make Bryan drink it”
-Jeff

“I’m sitting between the vomiters.”
-Flora


Body of Knowledge
“I’m pumped like a super soaker.”
-Bryan

“I don’t want to mingle my fluids.”
-Bryan

“So I’m thinking that it fell into your black hole.”
-Melissa (to Phil)

“Oh God, I have a song in my heart and it wants to come out.”
-Flora
“That’s just gas.”
-Angela

“Potty time is private time.”
-Jeff

“You should see my ear holes – wow!”
-Kristi

“Your heart’s going to explode and mutant bacteria are going to eat it.”
-Flora (to Jeff)


Huh?
“Yeah ok, you suck it and have a nice day.”
-Flora (on the phone to her editor)

“Where the hell is my sasquatch?”
-Melissa

“I don’t exactly get transvestites, undead Meatloaf and a Golden Boy who’s literally golden.”
-Jeff

“That was immature AND funny!”
-Flora

“You can get up off your caffeinated ass and do it yourself.”
-Angela

“You have to put it in the dark and squeeze it.”
-Melissa

“We are stupid with anticipation.”
-Angela

“I’m just locked up in my hole.”
-Gina

“The only good thing about this place is the smell emanating from you.”
-Flora (to Angela)

“Robots love to rape the Internet.”
-Jeff

“Okay, I’m missing two balls…”
-Angela
“I’ll say!”
-Flora

“I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.”
-Phil, on several occasions

“I thought they were going to shave you like a llama.”
-Ronnie

Fairest Flora, sweetie dahling, you will be sorely missed.