Sunday, April 30, 2006

People Watcher

My sweety is a people watcher. I notice it every time we’re at a restaurant. She likes to situate herself so she’s facing the direction where people come in. We’ll be chatting, and even though my back is to the door, I’ll know every single time someone is walking this way because I see her eyes scanning them.

First she’ll look up at their faces, then glance at what they’re wearing, then look down at their shoes. She’ll look up at their faces again, then back at the shoes. She seems to spend a long time examining the shoes. (Gee, I wonder why? If you read this post you’d know!) Sometimes I’ll call her on it and ask what kind of people are behind me. She’d look slightly embarrassed because she does it out of habit.

Me? I’ll glance at ‘em, but almost immediately dismiss them because I’m an oblivious person who could care less about other people if I don’t know them. (It’s also known as being self-absorbed.) So if the place suddenly becomes a crime scene later, the police will love her, but not me. She’ll be giving them detailed descriptions, right down to their Kenneth Cole wedge heels, and I’ll be telling them all about what I ate!

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Super Coffee Woman

I finally learned how to make coffee! Oh put those incredulous looks away. I’m not a coffee drinker and my sweety is, so I had to learn. I don’t drink the stuff, so no matter what was in it, it would taste nasty to me. So I learned the correct proportions of everything that went in. Early in the relationship she was an instant coffee girl. The coffee machine would be used occasionally, but for the most part it was the instant stuff. I learned just how much to put into the cup, how much cream, and how much sweetner to put in so it would be to her liking. I was good at it. No really, I was!  There were even a few occasions where various relatives, who all seem to like their coffee the same way, remarked that I made the perfect cup of coffee. I was proud.

Then the french press came into our lives. We were in Ikea and there they were on display. We took one home and she fell in love with it. The taste of real coffee with the near-speed of instant. I was bummed. I had NO clue how much of anything to put in there. My first 10 times were either too strong or too weak. To make matters worse we switched from artificial sweetners to brown sugar because chemicals are bad. So not only was the coffee too strong/weak, it was also too sweet or not sweet enough. It was disastrous. It was like losing one of my [few] super powers.

But I am a learning being. Oh yes, I caught on. Eventually. Last night, as I was standing there waiting apprehensively for her to sip it and tell me what was wrong with it, an amazing thing happened. With a surprised look on her face, she said, “This is really good!” Believe me I was surprised too. But I was triumphant! YES! I can make a good cuppa french pressed coffee without tasting it y’all! My super power has returned. Thank goodness, because I don’t have that many.

Friday, April 28, 2006

Giving the gift of oatmeal

After my last post I was making myself chuckle, thinking about “giving the gift of oatmeal”.  (I did, in fact, have some for breakfast.) In the real world, however, I think if you were to present someone with a gigantic bowl of oatmeal you would be looked at funny, among other things. But how about for breakfast? It wouldn’t be so odd to give oatmeal then. And why shouldn’t you? Little gifts here and there, just to say I care.

I personally hate obligatory gifting. Oh it’s your birthday? Greeaaaat. Crap, what the hell do I give this person?? Trying to come up with something because I have to seems to make me lose my creativity. All the great ideas I might have had for giving fun gifts is suddenly gone. In such situations I often find that gift baskets are a safe bet. With 20 different kinds of crap inside, there has to be at least one thing they like! (Someone was telling me about gift baskets by Gourmet Gift Baskets. Apparently they have a basket “work of art” for every occasion, like housewarming, thank you and sympathy. Gourmet goodies make lots of people happy. I wonder if they have an “I’m sorry my tire popped off my car and took off your prosthetic leg” basket?)

Receiving gifts can also be a challenge. You have to express thanks, even if you received the most hideous sweater known to mankind. When I get a basket of things, I’ve got some stalling time. I peruse the goodies and go ooh and ahh, all the while silently coming up with something thankful to say. Finally I’m able to latch onto one thing in the collection and say, “Wow, how did you know I’ve always wanted to try gourmet Irish oatmeal? Now I don’t have to be curious anymore.”

If I manage a third post today, I’m going to see if I can work oatmeal into that too. I like it as a theme. Makes my blog high in fiber and oh so good for you.

Rounds of oatmeal for everyone!

Not nearly as bizarre as the last dream I wrote about, but I’m quickly learning that the dreams that are “normal” to me are a bit weird to everyone else. Let’s see if this one is too.

I’m in this car with other people. No idea who these other people are. We’re driving on the street behind this VW bug. Instead of car tires it has bicycle wheels, of the wider, bumpy, dirt bike variety. Still way too skinny for a car. I notice that one of the rear wheels is a little wobbly and I think to myself, that’s gonna fall off soon. The car rounds a corner and whoops, there goes the wheel. It pops off and heads towards the car I’m in. I guess I’m in the back seat, only my point of view is from outside the car, because I clearly see the wheel rip off the right front fender and take the leg off the front passenger.

Right now I’m thinking, damn! How did a bicycle wheel do that? But you never wonder those things while you’re dreaming it. Lucky for my peace of mind, the passenger had a fake leg. His prosthetic leg goes flying off to the curb with the tire. The passengers of the bug all get out and suddenly they’re these rich people with mink coats and they’re apalled that this has happened. They immediately offer cookies to the guy who lost his leg. Then they ask me if they’s anything else we need. I said, “I think he could use some oatmeal.”

Okay, maybe I was hungry, I don’t know. But in the dream I thought scoring some oatmeal would be a really cool thing. The lady looks ever so slightly peeved that I had taken her up on her offer, but she disappears into a Marie Callender’s restaurant that we were parked in front of. Minutes later she and her butler emerge with two gigantic punch bowls of steaming hot oatmeal. I was surprised. I was expecting one little bowl for the dude with no leg. Rounds of oatmeal for everyone!

Mmmm, oatmeal for breakfast sounds really good right now. 

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Things that make you go arrgh

After parking the car this morning I was walking towards the office building when I noticed some new signs that were put up. They were facing the direction of the building so you’d see them when you were walking towards the parking area. They said, “Watch for moving vehicles.” WTF??

Okay, this is a parking garage. Full of vehicles. Where people drive in and park. What kind of an idiot walks into a parking garage and doesn’t expect there to be, I don’t know, moving cars around?? I hate some pedestrians, the ones who never look for traffic and just cross the roadway, smug with the knowledge that they have the right of way. Dude, have some sense of self-preservation, don’t have so much faith that every car is going to stop for your stupid ass.

Which brings me to some of the drivers in this parking garage. Some of these people come whipping around the corners as if they were out on the street. Worse than that is when they whip around the corner, completely cutting the corner so that if there were ever a car in the opposing lane… BAM! Assholes. Someone needs to tell these drivers to chill out. It’s because of these dipshits that they installed so many annoying speed bumps all over the damn place. All I need is my car being rattled to pieces from daily speed bumping.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Ducks on Vacation

My sweety and I were walking the doggies around the neighborhood. We rounded the corner of one block and I stopped. “Are those… ducks?” We looked intently at these two birds waddling down the sidewalk across the street from us. They were indeed a pair of ducks, a couple by the looks of them. (Aww how cute!) We live in a suburb of a major metropolis. There are no lakes or ponds anywhere near us. Where the hell did these wild ducks come from? They must be lost. Or on vacation. Take a break from wilderness paradise and go visit the suburbs!

I immediately ran back to the house to get the camera because I’m a die-hard blogger and I want photographic evidence. When I left they were waddling around, nosing some flowers.  When I got back, they were gone. They had flown away.  But as luck would have it we encountered them again, two blocks later, lounging in a a puddle of water by the gutter. The mallard was actually sleeping!

We thought it was so funny how these two ducks have just decided to hang out in our neighborhood, sample the exotic floral cuisine (what do ducks eat in the wild anyway??) and take a nap at a random watering hole. Total tourists. Then I noticed they were camped out underneath this sign. It’s a good thing it’s Wednesday!

Loving the ocean, but not the beach

When the air is not too cold and windy, and the offshore breeze is blowing just right, I can smell the faint tang of the ocean. I love that smell. I’ve never encountered that scent successfully duplicated anywhere. Various candles that say “ocean” smell more like rain (which I also like, but it’s not ocean). When I’m actually at the beach the smells are even more wonderful. I don’t mind rotting seaweed at all. It’s like a pungent, salty, organic… well if you don’t know what I’m talking about I can’t describe it to you. It just invokes a sense of well being in me.

The funny thing is I don’t actually like being on the beach. All that sand gets everywhere and into everything. On hot days there’s no shade, the sand scorches you, and the heat just emanates from all directions. On not-hot days the wind is usually freezing and blowing everywhere. Being on the beach annoys me.

I guess I like being near it. I like watching the waves crashing, the birds doing their little dance on the sand as the water washes up and recedes, and best of all, that soothing ocean smell. Deep breaths y’all, it’s good for the soul.

The things I do for renters

I don’t suppose you’ve checked out this week’s renter yet? Her name’s Tracy and she’s a nice gal who will dedicate an entire post to someone just for helping her test her blog. She has wings of emotion… no wait, emotions that fly… tempers that fly? Goshdarnit that’s not right either. Oh crap now that stupid Whitney Houston song is in my head, “I get so emotional baby, every TIIIIIME I think of you..."Arrgh I hate it, get it out! Get it out!

The things I do for my renters.

Now, how does one go about getting rid of annoying songs from their heads? Any suggestions? Replace it with another song I guess. How about “Don’t Worry Be Happy?” Hey what’s with all the groaning? It’s a cute song, and all acapella! Okay fine, a different one then. Ooh I got one. “If you wanna be with me, baby there’s a price to pay, I’m a genie in a bottle, you gotta rub me the right way...” Oh what now?? Okay fine, YOU think of one then! Humph.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Doc, what do these dreams mean?

Had a couple of weird dreams last night, so of course I have to share them. In the first one, I got hired to be the primary stockperson for some store’s CornNuts section. Apparently they had like five different flavors of CornNuts and the display was so extensive they needed an exclusive CornNut stockperson to keep track of it all. And that person was me. CornNut stockperson extraordinaire. CornNut in Chief, if you will.

The next one is a lot weirder. Let me preface this by saying that whenever I’m dreaming and my bladder is full, the dreams tend to be centered around my nether region.

Okay, so in this dreamworld I guess genitals are interchangeable. You can pop yours off and lend it to a friend. From what I can remember, this guy lent me his penis. I don’t remember him giving it to me, I just had it. So I’m standing in a room by myself, swinging in the breeze. Weeeee! Ding dong ding dong. It’s like a foot-long hot dog down there. It’s kinda neat.

I think I thought about, you know, spanking it, but I fell asleep instead. What a waste of a wiener. Upon waking up (in the dream) I really needed to pee. The guy that owns the penis walks in and I’m afraid he wants to take it back before I had a chance to do anything with it. Fortunately he just picks up the cell phone he’d accidentally left behind and then leaves again. Yay I get to try peeing with this thing!  So I go to the bathroom, and in a huge fit of moronic forgetfulness, I sit down. I end up peeing on the toilet, on the floor, what a mess. What an idiot.

It’s right about then that I wake up for real, and I really do need to pee. Yes I have my female parts back. And no I have no desires to be a man. Although not dealing with the monthly bleeding thing would be nice.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Seeing past the cover

I’m so lucky to have found someone who could look past my totally unpolished exterior and see the me inside. You never get to know a person until you do that. It’s why I love the Internet so much. You never see my drab, unpolished exterior; all you get is me, unplugged (and sometimes unhinged).

This is the basic story behind Beauty and the Beast, one of my favorite Disney cartoons. I’m a big fan of not judging a book by its cover. See, my publisher was cheap and didn’t want to pay for the nice slick book jacket, so all I got was the plain boring one with no graphic design that gets overlooked all the time. Lucky for me my sweetheart enjoys my contents. Heehe, that sounds funny. I like it. MY SWEETY ENJOYS MY CONTENTS!!!

You know who else loves Beauty and the Beast? You do? Then go visit her!

Dealing with infatuation

T wrote a post involving crazy bisexual ex-friends… which reminded me of one experience I had with a bisexual girl. I was fortunate that she was not psychotic, but there’s still a bit of a story to tell.

Way before I ever met the love of my life, I was infatuated with this other girl. I had answered an online ad she had posted on a whim, and she was surprised that someone had actually responded to it with some sort of intelligence. I guess I intrigued her, so we kept writing. We seemed to have a lot in common, so we decided to meet. She was very charming in person—vivacious, flirty and she loved to laugh at my lame jokes.

So we hung out some more. None of them were ever official dates, much to my chagrin. We would go to this gay bar she liked to frequent, and even though I was bored to death there, I went anyway because she was there. We would hang out with her little brothers (they liked me too because I often think like a kid myself). She kept giving me mixed signals. She would tell me she was emotionally unavailable, but then she would turn around and tell me how she thought my tomboyness was so cute.

Part of me told me to quit chasing her, the other (stupider) part of me said I still had a chance. One day she told me that she still missed her ex-boyfriend. Apparently he cheated on her after I don’t know how many years they’d been together. Ass. She had enough sense to not go back to him, but she still had feelings for him. You’d think I would’ve cooled it when I heard that. But at that time in my life I was lonely and pathetic and I thought if I hung around long enough she would eventually be ready for another relationship and I would be right there.

Well one night we were hanging out at the little bar and she’s off talking with her usual group of friends. This girl comes in, I’d seen her before on several occasions and she likes to flirt with Miss Emotionally Unavailable. Well she walks in and talks with her, and they start kissing. I’m like, WTF??? Have they been going out and she just didn’t bother mentioning it to me? This was no peck on the lips. It was full on macking out passion. I was devestated. All along I thought she didn’t want a relationship yet and all along she just didn’t want me. I was just friend material. I felt like she had strung me along for kicks. I felt betrayed, even though we never had anything. What happened to still loving your cheating ex? Just a story to fend me off I guess.

I’m in a much better place now, so whatever I felt for her then is completely irrelevant now. But I sometimes wonder how different people handle situations like this. If you had this cute [insert appropriate gender here] who had the hots for you, but you didn’t like him/her/it that way, how would you deal with it?

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Bean Slag

slag - noun - The vitreous mass left as a residue by the smelting of metallic ore.

We like to keep a pot of black beans handy because it makes for some quick and easy, good-for-you breakfast material. Blend them up and you’ve got yummy refried beans. Well our pot ran out two weeks ago and my sweety has been having frijoles-deprivation withdrawals. (It runs through her blood, much like coffee.)

So I opened up a new bag of black beans, emptied it into a pot, washed it, filled it with water, and put it on the stove to boil. It takes about an hour to cook, so we decide to go watch the America’s Next Top Model - Cycle 1 DVD we rented. (That show is sooooo addicting, I’m upset they don’t have all the other seasons on DVD!)

We’re halfway through the disc when all of a sudden Mar grabs my arm and says, “THE BEANS!!” I tell ya she scared the living daylights outta me! Her tone of voice and sudden grabbing motion was similar to, “THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE!!” Goodness gracious woman, what are you trying to do to me?

I run to the kitchen and immediately notice the burning smell. I lift the lid to the post and saw smoke in there. Absolutely no water was left. I shut off the burner and poked the beans with a spoon. I could feel the bottom was all clumped with beans and completely fused to the pot. I had smelted the beans and made bean slag. Yet another accomplishment to add to my list of unique domestic skills. I am talented y’all!

Saturday, April 22, 2006

A Mini Photo Odyssey

It’s a mini-odyssey with photos, not an odyssey of mini-photos, just wanted to be clear. Well actually the photos aren’t that big, so… oh whatever, continuing on…

So last night we went to the Brazilian barbecue restaurant. I had horrible directions. (Damn you CitySearch!!) We drove around looking for a street that was parallel to the one we were on. Needless to say we never found it until we called the damn restaurant. We may have wasted some time, but it turned out not to be a wasted trip.

During our semi-lost wanderings we passed by a little Marie Callender’s shop. We’d never seen one of these before, only the sit-down restaurants. Outside was a banner proclaiming “Strawberries and Cream Pie - $8.99” I drove past it and sweety says, “Ooh we should get a pie...” It sounded half like a joke and half serious, so I decided it was serious because I love me some strawberry pie! Piled high with whipped cream, mmmmmm… I immediately made a U-turn. This is the pie we brought home.

We finally found the place and we were all, “Oh! It’s right here by the harbor!” Why did no one mention this useful fact? We could have found it without the stupid [mis]directions. We were seated near the window, and wow, what a beautiful view. The sun was just setting and twinkling right off the water. The only camera I had on me was my cell phone, so the following photos are going to be really poor quality. But I’ll share them anyway.

While we were eating, we were reading the little sign on the table about live music and samba shows. We were all, “So where’s the music and show they’re talking about?” A few moments later this drumming starts up. We see a guy with a big booming drum and a lady with a small—I don’t know my musical instruments—snare drum? Anyway, they march up to the tables drumming away and it’s really catchy. I love good drum music. Then these three girls show up, scantily dressed in sequined bikinis and feathery headresses. This must be the show! The girls start shakin’ their booties in time to the drumming and, wow, there we are right next to them. Their sexy abs were right at eye level so I’m able to get several eyefuls of bare skin twisting to the samba drumming. The food was pretty good, but I think the drool was caused by, um, something else, heh. The place wasn’t very brightly lit, so my poor little phone took super-crappy pictures. You’ll have to use your imagination to sharpen the blurry images. Sorry.

Thus ends our little photo journey. We paid our overpriced bill and left. We hope you enjoyed the ride. Please check your seats for belongings and exit to your left. Thank you and come again!

Friday, April 21, 2006

When your sweetheart decides to be a bigger pest than you

Tonight we decided to try this Brazilian restaurant we’d heard about. So we’re in the car and I’m trying to remember which street I was supposed to turn on, and I ask.

Me: Baby, where are the directions?
Her: I don’t know.
Me: They were around here somewhere.
Her: I don’t know.
Me: You haven’t seen them?
Her: No.
Me: Did you even turn your head at all?
Her: Nope.
Me: You couldn’t even look down??
Her: Nope. You didn’t ask me to look for the directions.
Me: What? But it was implied!
Her: You still didn’t ask me that.
Me: Guhh, forget it!

At the next stoplight I twisted around, searched, and grabbed the page from the back seat. At this point she starts to giggle. Why you little… What a brat!

Do you have a guy like this at YOUR office?

Do you know certain people who, for some inexplicable reason, they just irk you? For all intensive purposes they’re nice people, have never done anything to you, but they just annoy the crap out of you? Yeah me too.

There’s this one guy… we’ll call him PrintingFreak. He sits two cubicles away so it’s easy to hear him. He’s got this voice that, I don’t know, isn’t shrill or whiny or anything… but it just sounds so… snobby! It bugs! And I hate the way he laughs. It sounds sooo nerdy. Kinda hard to describe a laugh, but it’s like “Huh [sharp inhaling noise] huh [sharp inhaling noise] huh” very rapidly. I just wanna duct tape his mouth shut. I hate the way he yawns too. And he yawns often.

But what earned him the title of PrintingFreak is his habit of sending a 200-page document to the printer, and then walking to stand next to it to stare at it while it prints.  The stupid printer is right next to me, so of course he’s standing right behind me.  I’ve mentioned him before, but damn it’s so annoying I have to mention it again! He just stands there, staring intently at the pages as they slide out of the printer.

Then when the damn thing is finally finished printing, he’ll take the stack, take two steps away from the printer and then stop to just stare at the printouts. Dude, read your frickin document at your own desk, that’s what it’s there for! Freak.

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