A Grand Idea: Tea House in a Tree House

On Friday evening I surprised the gentleman caller with a night's stay in a beautiful bed and breakfast in town for our anniversary. We took the proprietor's advice and pretended we were living in 1904, playing chess by the library's fireplace, tickling the ivories in the music room, toasting each other with champagne chilling in a grand silver urn, popping in a DVD... Oh. Whoops.

In the morning we awoke to a winter wonderland; a freak late-April snow storm had blustered a coating of snow on our quaint surroundings. We continued our game of make believe at breakfast, enjoying a fine array of eggs and chicken sausages on lovely china and sipped hot beverages from the most darling teacups.

Our fellow residents were discussing what they should do that frigid but fine day to make their stays even more perfect. I knew there was only one thing that could complete my 1904 experience, and I had such a hankering for it (the likes of which the gentleman had never seen).

I needed a fancy tea house, stat. One where the waitresses wear long, striped aprons and funny hats, where one must be wearing lace gloves to be properly attired, where there is a delightful selection of cakes and cookies and other delectable treats. I required a place much like this fancy tea house I went to in Paris, but better somehow...

A tree house! Yes! My fancy tea house would be made all the better (and fancier) if it were perched up in a a weeping willow, or some other fancy tree. I could hollow out the trunk to create a dumb waiter system to ferry fancy treats on silver trays from the kitchen. I would build a grand spiral staircase around the tree's exterior so the fancily dressed little girls (who will flock to my tea house in droves to celebrate birthday parties and have Princess Pretend Days) needn't get runs on their fancy stockings by climbing up.

I will instruct the birds living in my tree to chirp only the most charming string quartet music, and I will hang the branches with colored lanterns to make the setting even more festive than it already is.

This idea is gold, I tell you. If you are interested in being my financier do let me know.

The temptation of the carbs

It’s been Passover for almost a week now, and I’m craving things I usually don’t care for. Someone has brought muffins—big cakey, chocolatey, sugary muffins, the ilk of which I normally disdain—and boy do I want one. I want one so bad.

Most people think Passover isn’t so bad. How hard can it be abstaining from bread for just eight days? But it’s so much more than bread. It’s anything with flour in it, including pasta and tortillas. It’s grains like rice and whatever’s in tabouli. It’s corn, dagnabbit.

That cuts out a surprising number of lunch options, most notably: The Sandwich. I’ve been subsisting on salads all week and I’m STARVING. Inevitably I fill up with the nearest non-yeasted calorie source, and in this office it’s my buddy Will’s candy bowl. Props to Will, by the way, for having luscious Dove dark chocolate this week so at least I’m getting some antioxidants.

My carbophilia has yet to enter my dreams, but it’s getting to that point. We’ll see how I survive the remaining two days.

Want to know when you're gonna die?

This organization called Blue Zones developed a test that tells you how long you're expected to be healthy and when you're probably going to die.

Anyway, I took it because how could you not? Here 'tis.

New keys!

Ok. I bought a new piano and it rocks. I want to show you how happy I am with it, but I must conceal my identity (as you understand). So here you go.


My next move will be to learn/start remembering how to play this puppy. Then I will write you a song, or perhaps learn your fav song and play it for you. Zoom!

Lil’ Green the Cell Phone: February 2008-April 2008

I was just getting to know you, little phone, and your ways were beginning to bewitch me rather than beguile me. I finally figured out how to turn on your camera at the touch of the button rather than hunting through menu options. I was just getting used to your predictive text feature, and you were learning with me—you understood that when I typed the “4” and the “8” I was usually trying to say “Huzzah!”

The tiny grooves on your slim body made the most wonderful squeaky sounds when I dragged my nails across them. Your fancy screen glowed paisley orange. Every time my gentleman caller rang you sang, “Hey There Delilah” and it made me laugh because my gentleman caller hated that song.

You were so funny, little phone. I’ll miss that about you.

But I guess the God of Electronics needed you more than I, for last night at approximately 9:48 p.m. you met your watery grave in my second floor bathroom. You sizzled and made a few feeble “mews”—so different from the songs you used to sing me—and then left me forever.

Believe me when I say I tried to revive you, little phone. After delicately cleaning you with a Clorox wipe I blew on you with all my lung capacity in attempts to make you a little less damp, a little less cold, a little less lifeless. But it was all for naught. Your screen grew milky, like the eye of a sheep afflicted with glaucoma, and that was that.

I only knew you for two months, little phone, but that was enough to change my life forever. I suppose I should be grateful that I kept your predecessor, for that means I can suffer through a sufficient mourning period before I buy your replacement. Just know that even when that day comes, I shall never forget you.

Bootastic.

My car got hit by this.


*sigh.

I was driving down the highway one completely normal morning when all of a sudden a truck full of rocks driving next to me and slightly ahead of me hit a pothole and a gigantor boulder bounced out of it, smashed my fog light, then bounced around underneath my car.

Ok so the rock was more like the size of a large head.

But no I didn't get the license plate (I was driving for cripes sakes!) and no I didn't see the name of the company. It was just a huge truck with a (loose) tarp over the top.

I got an estimate, and they said it's $330 to replace. No thank you.

Current fog light count: 1/2

She's a killer queen

I just finished a biography of Marie Antoinette and have come to the conclusion that, as Pink might say, she’s m!ssundaztood.

I expounded on the facts that led me to this conclusion in the first draft of this post, but then I realized I was just indulging the yearning to write an essay I have harbored since graduating.

Then I ordered myself to cease and desist from boring you. Then I obeyed myself.

Next up: a 700-page biography of Napoleon.

We would NEVER do this in real life.

Nuggs told me about a recent (really disturbing) dream she had and it made me realize that this is the third dream I have heard of in the last couple of weeks where someone violently cut someone else with a knife.

Observe.

#1. My recent dream:
Here's some context. In real life, I have been considering getting a cat because lately I have been feeling the intense urge to care for something small and alive. Also, I am constantly hearing stories about adorable little buddies that make people my age happy (like Gary for Toots). So my roommate Lady Latte and I decided to visit the Humane Society last weekend, but we picked the smallest and dingiest one to go to. We brought a cat to a cell-like room to "play with", but mostly she just hesitantly stared at us as we hesitantly stared at her. Then we put her back in her cage and left.
Moving on, I had started to reconsider the whole cat thing, when I had a dream that really solidified this reconsideration. In my dream, there was a cat trying to crawl up my body in order to claw my face. At first I tried as hard as I could to just push it down, but it was fiercely persisting. So finally, I took a knife off the counter, and cut the cat in half. Right down the middle.

#2. My coworker's dream:
Here is some context. In real life, my friend is the sweetest most kind and adorable person ever. She never says or thinks anything mean and when you're around her you just want to pinch her cheek she's so cute. She also watches a lot of cop/investigator shows in her free time. Sometimes the disturbing stuff she watches morphs in her brain then enters her dreams.
Moving on, a couple weeks ago she had a dream that there was this really horrible guy that was kidnapping other guys. He wasn't just killing them, of course. No no. He was killing them, then cutting off...certain...parts, then slicing those parts up, cooking them, and eating them. For her to even tell us this story it took every single ounce of courage in her body. And I courageously repeat it to you today.

#3. Nugget's dream:
Here is some context. Poor Nugget is plagued by absolutely insane dreams. On occasion they are awesome. Most of the time they're downright wacky. But sometimes...they are terrifying.
Moving on, here is what she said about her latest nocturnal adventure. "Last night I had a really scary one where there were these killers chasing me. I finally caught one in a chokehold and wrestled a butcher's knife from his hand. I knew I had to kill him, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I made some test cuts on his arm and was so disgusted that I was hurting him that I couldn't slit his throat. I handed the knife to someone on my "side" who did it instead. I woke up hyperventilating and sweating."

What does this mean? Why are three good-natured, guiltless ladies being reduced to violent and bloody knife dreams during our slumber?

Baby Mama Drama

I don’t know if it’s because an increasing number of my contemporaries are in the family way, but suddenly the contents of my womb has become an appropriate and frequent topic of conversation among my parents and their friends.

Ever since I moved home in January, my father has patted an invisible bundle of joy on his shoulder and looked to me plaintively. My mother has repeatedly made known her desire to be a grandmother. At a funeral I attended yesterday, my fellow congregants exhorted me to create some “happy news” this summer—an engagement would suffice, but what they really wanted was a little babyleh. The mazel tov’s would ring from the hillsides.

My guess is that it all comes down to bragging rights. Most of the folks in my parents’ set don’t have a whole lot to talk about now that their kids have ended their schooling and gone on to become boring adults. With no school-related achievements and accomplishments to laud, life events have become the new frontier. And if your kids are staying stubbornly single and barren, you lose.

But I still don’t really get the frequent hints and near-demands. I’m barely into my twenties and have yet to land a secure, benefits-providing job. Heck, I’m still moving cross-country at the rate of least twice per year. My baby would be raised in abject poverty and insecurity. Is that really what they want?

I’m clearly of fertile stock—there are four kids in my family—and I’m more than willing to pop ‘em out. It will happen, dear parents. Just give me some time to lay away enough capital to keep the tot clothed, fed and in clean diapers.

My parking garage attendant either has a crush on me or is plotting to kill me

Parking Garage Guy has sandy blond hair, chubby cheeks and prefers windjackets and the occasional baseball cap as garb. He seems to be in his late teens or early twenties, and is about 5'9'' from what I can tell (he's usually seated or leaning out his window). Please give this description to the authorities when the begin their inquest into who has buried a piece of my mangled flesh at every mile marker along I-35.

He's the type of guy who spends hours in his basement making YouTube videos of his light saber skills, the lovable weirdo who would burst into uncontrollable giggles with his buddies when teachers asked the class to turn to page 69, the overgrown pre-teen whose every Halloween costume involves a cape.

Our relations started innocently enough. At the end of my workday I would roll up to his station in my mom's battered minivan and we'd exchange pleasantries about the weather (me: Sure is frigid out! him: Yeah, my nose is full of booger-sicles), innovations in currency (me: Whoa-- the "5" is all huge and purple now. him: I could totally counterfeit that) and life events (me: Did you have a good weekend? him: Shyeah! Me and my friends head-butted each other's stomachs til we puked!).

His behavior has gotten more bizarre recently. Instead of saying something random and making me laugh, he's nervously repeated the same inquiry at least five times over the course of a few weeks:

Him: Do you need a receipt?
Me: No thank you.
Him: So why is it that you work downtown and stay here all day and never need a receipt? Don't you get reimbursed?
Me: No. Like I said, I work at the paper. They don't even have money to keep us all in a job. They're not going to pay for extras like parking.
Him: I think that's so lame.
Me: I know. That's what you thought the other four times we've had this conversation.

Last week, when I pulled up to his station he was pointing his opened phone at my face and grinning. I asked if he was taking a picture of me. "That's what they all ask," he replied. It's a natural thing to ask when there's a camera phone up in your grill, I said. He continued staring at his phone, smirking. Thoroughly creeped out, I put my ticket and the correct change on his ledge and got the heck out of Dodge. Lately he's taken to resting his chin in his hand and gazing at me, refusing to take my money and ticket until I say something to him. Then he pretends to have just woken up from a daydream.

I can only assume he's dreaming up ways to off me.

She needs a name. It's been 5 days already!

Guess who is not scrambling her stuff together and sprinting through the skyways, breathless, desperate to catch the bus home?

This gal.

As of today, you're not going to be reading any more horrific bus catastrophes from me. Uh uh sister thang. Say goodbye to the ol' bussin' me. And say hello to.........my new car!

Here she is, boldly crashing through icy waters.


I'm so excited! Help me name her. She is red. Here are some pending possibilities:

1. tuna tot
2. angela lansbury II
3. scary cherry
4. lady
5. honey balogna
6. rabbit ears
7. ears of corn
8. pops murphy
9. car-y
10. belle
11. carlotta
12. drivin' mcgee
13. cottage cheese head
14. squirly sue
15. the lovely maiden
16. subaruby
17. the jester
18. miss daisy (drivin')
19. sparky
    
20. starlight randibond

Friday night date with the pape

I've found that in the newspaper biz people tend to want to flog stories until they're good and dead. Every story could use a follow-up, so why not multiply the fun with three, four or 10 of the same thing?

On Friday my mission was to produce our fourth article in two weeks (and I'm not counting the many columns) about the movie "Leatherheads," a film that, if you'll remember, brought a certain George Clooney to my humble town. Though I'd already written about locals' reaction to a screening of the movie, this time it was premiering to a general audience. These folks would supposedly have a new, fresh take on the flick that I hadn't already gleaned from the previous sample set.

I got there way earlier than was necessary and was accosted by the manager of the local semi-pro football team that's hosting a "throwback" game in honor of the team on which "Leatherheads" is based. This dude has harassed me before-- he tried to get me to get the editor in chief to get George Clooney to do the coin toss for this selfsame game-- and he's relentless. On Friday he insisted I had the power to choose which photo would grace my story, and told me he would buy me two dozen roses if I ensured it would be of his three bored-looking players manning a table with a leather helmet signed by the film's stars. After I emphatically explained to him that photo selection was far from being under my jurisdiction, he tried to extract a promise that I would cover their upcoming game. I'm not in sports, I told him.

"This isn't sports news; it's front page news!" he insisted. Sadly, he's probably right.

When most everyone had trickled into the theater I purchased myself a kiddie combo and climbed solo to an empty row where I could watch George and Renee try to out-sass each other for the second time. Two of the three football players made their way toward my row and excused their "wide hips" as they thrust their crotches in my face en route to the seats to my left. They proceeded to chat and text their way through the movie, the best part of which was the "Sex and the City" trailer that preceded it.