You Just Can’t Hire Anyone Anymore

December 29th, 2009

I’m beginning to think the web developer I hired must have registered the domain name incorrectly.  I’ve only just now taken notice.  I am certain that what I told him was that the web address should be “Year Without [as much] Shopping”.  Because “Year of At Least Think About Where Things Come From When You Buy Them and End Up When You Throw Them Out ” was too clumsy.

Oh, did you think I said “Year Without Shopping”? You must’ve heard me wrong.  I didn’t do that anyway, that was the web development department.  That guy smokes too much pot.

Anyway,  I looked back over my Confessions post, and I realized that I have really caved on the original purpose.  I bought two shirts at Mal-Wart for four and seven dollars.  I feel guilty now, because I know that means somebody is suffering so I can have a cheap shirt.

I’m actually suffering a little bit my own self.  I find that I am deeply sorrowful most of the time.  I probably shouldn’t be; what do I have to complain about?  I found myself wanting to go shopping this afternoon, and I think I am beginning to realize that it doesn’t really fill a void at all.  If anything, it creates one, because then I’m all dressed up with no place to go.

On that note, I am going to try to live up to that impossible standard that stupid web guy set when he named this blog.  Obviously it won’t be a year, since I’ve already done it, but I’d like to try to get back on the horse.  I am trying to free up some money so I can go back to school and make something of myself, I mean besides a mess and a laughingstock, so not shopping for clothes I don’t need would probably be a good thing.  I have stuff in my closet with the tags still on it as it is.

The hard part, though, as I said at the very beginning, is that I dress to reflect how I feel:  sexy, confident, shy, or belligerent.  It’s hard when I see an outfit in a magazine that I could put my own spin on if only I had some slouchy jeans or whatever.  It’s hard when I have somewhere special to go and I want to feel special and new to go there, and I can’t let myself go buy a new outfit.  It’s hard when my son is away and I have nothing to do and no one to do it with, and going to the mall to pick out clothes sounds fun.  I guess I have no business complaining that it’s hard, since I didn’t actually do it.  But in honor of you, dear reader, I am returning a belt and a studded tunic, and I will try to sin no more.

(Ok, I was actually going to return that stuff anyway, but still.  And I need a pair of yoga pants, but that’s it.  After that I’m off the mall.)

Comment ( 1 )

,

Extra Tiny House, or, Watch Your Adjectives

December 27th, 2009

Babykin and I had a boss morning, baking cookings and listening to indie rock and just generally kickin’ it.  Then it was time for lunch, and we went to back to the kitchen to make  a natural peanut butter and low sugar fruit chunky jam on double fiber whole wheat bread sandwich, with a side of carrots and pineapple.  Three pineapple chunks and two carrots, to be exact.   He’s five years old, so it makes sense.

When the toaster oven went off, he commented on how loud it was, and I told him that it’s loud because they don’t want you to forget your food is in there and burn your house down.

–I went one day to visit a bachelor friend of mine on a Sunday afternoon.  From the doorstep, the house smelled like burned oven.  He’d passed out and left a pizza in the oven at 400 degrees overnight.  I commented a little later that he really needed to learn how to cook.  He replied, “I do know how to cook!  I almost cooked the house down!”

I digress.   The Little Man and I then went on to have some first rate fire behavior conversations, how to check the door handle for heat, crack the door and peek out down near the floor, then if that way is blocked, how to use the blinds, push the screen out, and try to land on the first roof below rather than the second one five feet further down.

When I finished his sandwich, he asked me to cut it into five pieces.  I said okay, but I asked him if the sandwich was more food when it was cut into five pieces.  He gave a hesitant “no.”  I went through an explanation.  We looked at the whole sandwich, called it one, then I guess I messed up.  I let him call the two pieces resulting from the first cut two, when I should have tried to explain division and fractions at that point, but I didn’t.  Anyway, we get to five pieces, just as I’m making the second cut, and I say again, “so is there any more food when you have four pieces than when you have just two?”

“No, but can you cut it into five anyway?”

I do, and I say, “Is that so it will match your five pineapples and carrots?”

“Uh…no.  It’s because I’m hungry!”

It makes me laugh just to read that over again.  Later he and I were talking about how we need to make sure that when we get new stuff, we get rid of some of the old stuff, because we have an “Extra tiny house.”

He looked confused.  ”We have an extra house?”

“No.  We have an ‘extra-tiny’ house.  We have a small house.”

“But where is it?”

“Here.  You’re standing in it.”

“But you said–you said we have an extra tiny house.”

I explained that our house is smaller than normal.

In my own mind, the next thing he said was, “But wait, who’s on first?”


Comments ( 0 )

,

The Hard Questions

December 25th, 2009

It’s Christmas Eve.  Babykin goes to his dad’s family’s shindig and comes home whenever the party is over, then we put out cookies an’ alla that and he goes to bed.

Of course, it’s getting to be more fun as he gets a little older.  Tonight he was putting out cookies and he decided to put out one of each (giant blondie, lemon bar, snowball) and three of the midnight crackles we made this morning (Dorie Greenspan’s Baking).  All the while I’m saying, “Santa’s having cookies at everyone’s house, he just needs a taste…”   Because Santa’s watching his empty carbs, you know?

To no avail.  I told him that sometimes people like to leave a carrot out for the reindeer.  He knows just where they are!  Ooh!  And did I mention celery?  Me and my big mouth!  Then I asked him how many carrots he thought we should leave.

“Well, how many reindeer, um, does he have?”

“Uh, well, there’s eight, pal.”

“Okay.  One, two, three…”

With that, the contents of my crisper was transferred onto the kitchen table, where it will sit until I can figure out where to hide it or I get to tired to care, whichever comes first.  I had a minor fit of hysteria a moment ago when I considered what it would be like to eat eight full size carrots and four stalks of celery, plus cookies.  It makes my stomach hurt just to type that!

I do love carrots though.  I drink carrot juice by the half gallon and I eat raw carrots also.  I’ve never liked them cooked.  They taste like dirt.  I mean, plants are made out of dirt, just like we are made out of doughnuts and pizza and, to a lesser extent, dirt, and the truth is, some of them really taste like it.  They’re also made out of sunshine.  Why can’t they taste like sunshine?  I refuse to believe that sunshine tastes like cooked Brussel’s sprouts smell.

By the way, that was quite a difficult phrase to type, “ Brussel’s sprouts smell” because my S is missing.  The button is on my desk, next to a bit of lego and a used tissue, which isn’t far, but it most certainly isn’t attached to my laptop anymore.  Makes typing any of the myriad words with S in them a little bit of a hindrance.  Which in turn, makes me thing of Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.

From amazon, which doesn’t credit the particular reviewer, so this may be the publisher’s blurb: “Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram,* “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” …Encroaching totalitarianism [has resulted in banning certain letters] as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel.”

My holiday writing will obey that particular rule, and we will note the level of difficulty in following it.  I can already tell it will limit my ability to accurately tell what exactly I am thinking.

Happy Holiday to all my people!

Comments ( 2 )

Damage Control

December 20th, 2009

My mom and I went to a certain makeup megastore to reup on beauty supplies.  I needed blush, translucent duster, an eyeshadow, and a couple of nail polishes.  Now let’s find out if you do what I do when you buy nail polish, because I think it’s normal but maybe it’s not.

I paint a little stripe of the color on my nail to see if I like it.  There, I said it.

On this certain Sunday, I probably had 10 different colors dabbed on my digits.  An embarrassing scene ensued when the manager asked me what I was doing.  I stated the obvious.  She made a cartoonishly disdainful face; she scooped up her lip until it was just under her eyebrow.

“Well, those aren’t testers. Now I have to damage that out.“

I felt like she’d just caught me letting my dog take a shit in her sandbox.  I mean, she made it seem like I was trying out q-tips and putting them back or something.  These are my fingernails.  They’re dead and clean.  And the brush goes back into paint.  What can live in paint?  I mean, salons use the same nail polish on everyone, and that doesn’t spread disease.

I don’t know, am I in the wrong?  I’ve been doing that for 15 years, and no one has ever said word one about it.  And if I consider that other people have maybe tried the nail polish I buy, it doesn’t bother me, in all honesty.  I mean this is an upper middle class, suburban crowd in the first place, but even if it wasn’t, I’m pretty sure I’m not that fragile.  I think I can fairly easily survive having the same nylon brush coated in formaldehyde and ethyl acetate touch me as touched a potentially dirty stranger.  It’s not like tweaked out truckers and trailer park hookers are coming in there and trying out toothbrushes or something.

On another subject, I’m looking forward to the annual ornament exchange tomorrow.  I haven’t done any holiday baking, but I think I’m going to take a short cut and make boxed cupcakes.  Do you think that makes a good gift?  A box of cake mix and a can of frosting?

Anyway, I’m going to make some red velvet cupcakes.  It calls for white chocolate frosting, but I might be lazy and just use the canned chocolate frosting.  I can still put the peppermint extract and the crushed candy canes.  We’ll see.

Comments ( 0 )

, ,

Can I try this on?

July 6th, 2009

Today I was walking to the grocery store and saw that the signs were out for “Antique Sale Today” at the best little antique mall in town, according to some people who make lists like that. Those signs mean 20% off everything, so I decided to duck in. I have money, time, and no mirror in my bathroom for the past year and a half. I also need a lamp for my living room and a plant, but the plant is a different store, and story, for another day. I saw the perfect lamp about two months ago at Tuesday Morning, but I couldn’t afford it at the time, so I didn’t buy it. I kind of regret that, because even if I had charged it, if it’s in my living room for the next ten years (since it matched perfectly all of my most important furniture), it wouldn’t derail my plan to be out of credit card debt by the deadline I’ve set for myself. Then I’m going to start paying all my bills with one of those cards that gives you money back. I love the amazon.com Visa—you get points that you can spend on anything listed on amazon. That’s all my Christmas shopping for paying my bills. Instead of carrying a checkcard in the front pouch of my purse or the back pocket of my pants, I’ll carry this credit card. Use it the exact same way I would use my checkcard: with a fairly specific running tally in my head and a frugal and careful outlook on the household affairs. Carry a completely different credit card for credit card emergencies, and the same minimal cash as always from the checking account as needed.

But anyway so I was walking to the grocery store and I stopped at the antique mall. You might be thinking that this site is called the year without shopping, and what am I doing shopping? Well the answer to that is on page one, my very first entry ever, where I outline the prohibited items: Clothing, shoes, and handbags. I couldn’t call the site “year without clothes,” because that would bring the wrong audience and they would probably throw rotten vegetables. I hope you don’t feel cheated; I hardly ever go to stores anymore, aside from the grocery, where I go about every two days. As I said, mirror and lamp…

I went for the mirror, sincerely I did, but I didn’t find one and my favorite booth in the place is one that has lots of table linens. I’ve decided to try switching to cloth napkins. Maybe it will be less waste? But there is also the washing of the cloth ones to consider, in that thirsty, shivering machine and it’s blistering counterpart, so I’m going to try it out and see how much extra laundry we make. Obviously I am suggesting that I would reuse the same napkin through several meals, provided it wasn’t heavily soiled. I went through each piece of linen in the booth, and I waffled as I browsed, since I’m going to Ecuador in a week and I can probably buy cool textiles there. But these things were less than eight dollars apiece. Cheap thrill, as it were. One particular booth has beautiful, clean, handmade linens from the, I’d say, ‘40’s on up. I chose two tablecloths that ended up being too small and some cocktail napkins embroidered with martinis. They weren’t expensive and they will make a great little gift for a friend or a hostess gesture. I have someone in mind, so I won’t say more.

Then I glanced my way somewhat hurriedly through the rest, until the next linen booth, and the jewelry, though only very briefly there, since I’d already collected about twenty dollars worth of stuff, two tablecloths and the cocktail napkins. I made for the home stretch; the short path along the back of the store to the long main aisle that leads to the register. Before me, I spied a rack of clothes, and I would normally never look at clothes in an antique mall anyway, but something caught my eye. What’s this? A Nicole Miller dress in a snazzy jacquard fabric? It looks small, too, and I like the colors on all three of them! I look at the price tag. It reads “Nicole Miller Laundry Bag: $12.” “That’s a crazy name for a design,” I think. “It’s hippy though. Tina could fix it. Hm…”

I thought of you, dear readers. I did. And then I looked at the other two, just to see, hypothetically, which one I liked the best. And I thought of where I might try one on. I peeked inside the neck of the dress. It was unlined. At first I thought, okay, maybe this is a design sample or something, and it’s unfinished. I looked at the tag again. It still said laundry bag. I held the dress up and discovered that it was most certainly exactly as stated on the tag. The bottom was sewn together and the sleeves were also. But look at this and tell me you wouldn’t be fooled!

2009-summer-0432009-summer-045

Then there’s this question: Why the hell would you want a laundry bag that looks like a dress? Can you imagine the questioning glances, the disapproving eyebrow smirks that you will get carrying your laundry in what looks like a second rate cocktail dress?

P.S. The tablecloths were too small, so I gave one to a friend whose birthday it is today and I will take back the other. I may or may not seek a replacement. I also bought 12 simple, matching napkins for 25% off $6, which I feel is an excellent deal. No more paper napkins, which are what, a few bucks each time, so in the amount of time it takes to go through two bags of napkins, these have paid for themselves.

Comments ( 3 )

, ,

Insult + Injury = Comedy

June 1st, 2009

Okay, so this weekend I socialized a good bit with my neighbors.  One of them is a 20 year old German, shiny shirt-wearing, Kewpie doll hair-rocking club kid.  So we’re chatting and playing music on the computer and hanging out drinking beers at my house after everyone else has gone to bed.  Nothing going on really, since my head is still spinning from my last relationship, wherein I was conviced that in openly wanting a long term relationship I am essentially offering a man a basket of moldy, worm-infested peaches sprayed with DDT.  At one point, I made the remark that I’m almost 30 years old.  I believe this notion may have been pooh-poohed by said neighbor, but it is possible that I did eventually convince him that 30 is, in fact, old.

Apparently so.  The following night I was hanging out with some other neighbors so that I could watch the Magic game.  Since I’d basically crashed someone’s Saturday night without warning or invitation, I felt it would be courteous to leave at half-time, at least for the duration of the intermission.  I took one of the neighbor’s friends with me for company, he’s the same funny guy who said that his girlfriend is really cool when she’s not being a bitch.  So yeah, we’ve had a few conversations but from what I can tell he wears boardshorts at all times, including at night when he’s a hundred miles from the nearest beach.  I have also not ever seen him engage in any board sports, nor heard tell of him doing so, so it’s kind of odd to be consistently garbed in bathing attire for no discernable reason.

We’re sitting in my living room, just talking and stuff, and Other Dude from the previous night comes by.  He’d set me up on his network so that I could use his internet, even though I didn’t ask him to, and apparently there was a conflict and it disrupted his own internet usage.  So fine, he comes by and wants to fix it so he can use the internet.  In the small talk that ensued, there was some good-natured ribbing about my having been so sleepy that I’d started to pass out the night before.  My response:

“Yeah, well, it was five in the morning.  Maybe that was my body’s way of saying I’m supposed to be sleeping at that hour.”

“No,” he replied, his rhinestone encrusted shirt glittering festively, “it’s because you’re old.”

Flabberghasted and heading out the door anyway, I said nothing.  As Boardshorts and I walked back to the neighbor’s house to finish watching the game, I said, “That was really fucked up that he said that.  I’m offended.  He said I was old!”

To which he replied…”Yeah, it’s really not nice to bring that up.”

I think I need some friends my own age.

Comments ( 2 )

, ,

River Rescue and Minor Revelations

May 27th, 2009

As I mentioned in my last post, I was outside of Saint Augustine visiting a friend this past weekend.  He’s living on a quasi-ranch on a little tract of land that sits between Faver Dykes State Park (I prefer fags myself, if we are going to be crude and offensive…) and some other undeveloped bit, so it’s all woodsy and quiet and the best part, aside from my friend and his family, is the creek.   The creek, I imagine, is related in some small way to the Saint John’s river, and flows out to the Atlantic (like virtually every other piece of water on this half of the divide, but in this case more directly so).

We decided to go for a brief canoe trip before the party on Sunday.  We put in and I got in the front.  My friend was busy texting and returning calls for part of this bit of the trip, perfectly reasonable since he was about to host friends at an off the beaten path type locale.  So I paddled a good bit, took us under…Is it Highway 1?  Hm…It can’t be, since it’s west of 95, but nonetheless, I paddled us under a bridge and back, a few hundred yards.  I haven’t been hitting the gym much (but I am going to have to because my pants are getting tight and what other options do I have??) and I had really bad cramps and the sun was hot, so after that I wanted to sit back and relax a little.

That was nice for awhile.  Then we got the bright idea to go past the homestead and downstream a little in search of a paddle boat they’d had that had been carried away by the deluge of the previous week.  Ahoy!  We spotted it–upside down, past the natural shoreline, in the Cypress.   We were feeling ambitious, so we went in after it.   We were wary of potential critters; alligators and snakes and the like, but we both got out, squishing around in eight inches of water covering ankle twisting Cypress knees, and we righted the paddle boat.

That was where the fun began.  It was at this point that my friend informed me that there was a “small leak” in the hull of the paddle boat, and in addition to that, try as we might we couldn’t tilt the water out of the foot wells (where you paddle) without more coming back in.  Bailing was not an option, as we had nothing but a pair of soda cans (ours) and a bottle from cheap whiskey (not ours).  We decide that we would attempt to drive the paddle boat back to the homestead; I am chosen as pilot.

The paddle boat proved unnavigable due to an excess of water not just in the foot wells, but in the hull as well.  It was basically sunk, and yet because I didn’t know that at the time, here I am paddling furiously while trying to remember how the rudder works.  It seemed at the time that it was broken or something, since it would only demonstrate any efficacy when turned completely to one side or the other.  That means I couldn’t go straight at all, since we were in a river and there’s a current, it was impossible to simply point the boat in one straight direction and go.  My friend later described how I, in the paddle boat, began “pirouetting down the river.”

He, alone in the back of the canoe, could do nothing.  He was unable to paddle over to me because of the wind and the current and the fact that the front end of the canoe was out of the water.  In retrospect, it seems it would have been a better choice for him to be alone in the front of the canoe. 

So now I’m alone in a boat that can’t be steered, which I later realized was due to the fact that the hull was full of water, therefore making any power in the foreward direction impossible.  Any boater will tell you that without forward (or backward) powered motion, the rudder is useless.  And I’m heading downriver.  The situation was getting out of hand–what to do?

If we abandon the paddle boat, it will be lost:  at best somewhere along the shore, and at worst, under the surface of the water, where it would be a hazard for other boaters.  Thus, we persisted.

When we finally got the two craft within arm’s reach of each other, we tried various configurations for towing the paddle boat (without rope, mind you).  First, I was in the front, being the muscles while my friend held onto the paddle boat in the back.  Due to my previous exertions, already described, I was inept at this and began to get bitchy. 

“Why am I doing this part when you’re the man?  You’re the one with the greater muscle mass, you’re the one with more upper body strength, wah, wah, wha!”

So we switch places, and continue, this time with my friend paddling and the crippled paddle boat pulling us into the weeds with all its weight on the port side.

Next, I abandon any pretense at attempting to help paddle here and there, and I lay down, belly first, on my seat, and maneuver the paddle boat so that it is directly behind the canoe.  I grip the cleat in the center of the bow.  My friend paddles like a madman, towing my 100-odd pounds of dead weight, plus the paddle boat, plus all the water that’s in it, plus, now we’re going upstream.  I am stifling my laughter now as I write!  We moved about six inches for every pair of strokes! 

200 yards later, we were back where we started.  We were tired from our labors, but felt gratified.  When we returned to the house, we excitedly related our adventure to the owner of the paddle boat.  We expected to be met with effusive enthusiasm, praise, and wonder at how we could have accomplished such a feat…

But alas, I guess you had to be there.

Comments ( 0 )

,