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Monday, July 29, 2002
Love filter
So my webmail client has been kerflooie for a month or more, refusing to sort and filter incoming messages according to my specifications. Several unsatisfying and unproductive communiqués with tech support later and I'm still manually deleting e-mails from my ex, who as it happens writes for a few of the same humor sites as I do. It's how we met and it was great for about 5 minutes but now that it's over I find I have the same regret that one might have when a romantic relationship with a co-worker goes sour: I want him out of my life but there he is in every &#^% staff meeting.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:41 PM
I feel so dirty
So help me, I just watched almost an entire episode of E! True Hollywood Story. Worse, it was the one about Family Feud, which is a show I have watched fewer than a handful of times in my life, usually while home sick from school or work. Oh, don't get me wrong, I am aware that kitsch and schlock have their value; my list of guilty pleasures (a future posting, maybe) is shameful enough, thank you. Still, somehow I was ashamed that I stuck with this as long as I did before realizing I was missing the PBS thingy on The Windsors. Same tawdry tidbits, but it's just classier when it's on PBS, you know?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:23 PM
Such street sorrow
The following happened well over a year ago but I still think of the incident every time I pass by the scene.
I was stopped at a light on a divided 4-lane street in North Arlington, in the right-hand southbound lane and one car behind a mid-block crosswalk. A woman pushing a baby-laden stroller and with a toddler in tow approached the crosswalk from my right. I fully expected her to look both ways before crossing the normally busy street, or at least check the left-hand southbound lane, whence cars might be approaching before she could get to the median, but she just looked straight ahead. She had pushed the stroller in front of the stopped car in front of me and still not looked into the left-hand lane so I checked my side-view mirror (the one where the spider used to live) on her behalf. My face and hands went cold as I saw a pickup truck a few car lengths away, barreling toward the crosswalk. The pickup driver was probably focusing on the now-green traffic light and in any event the small woman and her kids were probably hidden from view by the car in front of me (I was watching them through that car's windows); mama still apparently hadn't looked anywhere other than straight ahead and was continuing to move forward at a brisk pace. I had the sick realization that I was about to witness the death of the baby in the stroller, who was a second away from being pushed into the truck's path, and there was not a thing I could do to prevent it. I didn't even have time to get my hand on the horn, not that that would have accomplished anything anyway, except add to the awful noise of the impact.
Thankfully, the pickup driver saw the stroller and reacted in time, with much squealing of brakes and stopping literally inches short of the crosswalk. The woman? Barely broke stride as she continued across the street (luckily for her kids, the two northbound lanes were clear of traffic). Me, I was shaky for the rest of the day.
Pickup driver no doubt had to have his/her upholstery steam-cleaned.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:48 PM
A mystery for the ages
A few e-mail chat lists I'm on are primarily populated by men, humor writers mostly. I gather from frequent mentions of the subject that they and other members of the male persuasion in general find watching "girl-on-girl" action to be a major turn-on. Weeeelllll, ok guys. Whatever. But tell me, why then is it that "boy-on-boy" action fails to do anything for me and most other women? Hmmm? I tell ya, I'd protest this if it weren't for the multiple orgasm thing we females have going for us.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:50 PM
If I learn two new things today can I take tomorrow off?
Trivia Tuesday at a local hotel bar is where my geeky friends and I flaunt our massive amounts of useless knowledge but occasionally we learn something new there. Like last night, for instance. We were joined by a gentle giant of a hotel guest named Chaz who told us in between rounds that he was in town for a bouncers' convention. Who knew that these guys were organized? When asked why he was hanging around the hotel bar with us pencil necks instead of with his bouncer buds, Chaz replied that of course the party had gotten out of hand so they all threw each other out. It didn't occur to me to ask at the time who was looking after things at the bar back home. Dang.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:23 PM
Turnabout is fair play
It is July and yes that means it's time for the semi-annual Flipping of the Futon. The event took place yesterday mostly uneventfully, except for a slightly pulled hip muscle and the part where I forgot to cover the bottom half with a fitted sheet before spreading it flat on the frame. It was kind of like turning a very large, comatose patient and dressing him in a mulberry pink gown all by myself. Never mind; my futon is fresh and Fluffed Again. It serves as my main parking spot in the living room while watching TV, noodling around on my oft-neglected guitar or doing the Sunday crossword. It's also my guest room and as such has given a night's so-so rest to an array of friends and family, including -- separately and before they even met each other -- two friends who are now happily married to each other. Come to think of it, I introduced them to each other. They owe me. Jeff and Angie, next January you are hereby expected to report for futon flipping duty.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:14 PM
Happy Birthd'oh!
Oh, dear. I lost Friday to a migraine so it was only today that I realized I also lost the opportunity to wish friend Bob a timely happy birthday. Abject apologies, Bob. For my forgetfullness, not for your getting another year older, of course. Margaritas are on me next time around, yeah?
And while I'm at it, a happy anniversary today to Mom and Dad. You got married one year almost to the day before Bob was born. Is there something you all want to tell me?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
6:02 PM
One big web site hit
I can't watch the TV spots for Eight Legged Freaks without shuddering. Spiders, yish. Even the usual-sized ones. I know they're useful, but if they would do their job without dangling over my head in the shower I would be grateful.
Last spring I would go out to my car every morning to find a web spun between the driver-side outside mirror and door handle, which I would have to break in order to get in the car. I thought the spider would get the hint eventually and move to other quarters, but it persisted (must have been Scottish), to the point where it even started building the web lower down so my opening the door wouldn't break it, which I did anyway, to discourage it. Yet the spider persisted, impervious to car washes even. What, was it hoping it would catch me? ("If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings!")
There was usually no sign of the spider itself as I approached the car but one morning I noticed it hanging from the side view mirror after I was already in traffic. It was biggish, enough so that I could tell it had two-toned stripey legs. As the car clipped along at 35mph the spider was swinging around on its thread like Eddie Murphy on the back of that truck in the beginning of Beverly Hills Cop. Luckily I had the window closed otherwise I would have been terrified that it would swing in, land on my face, suck the eyeballs right out of my head and lay its eggs in my brain while irate drivers honked their horns behind me. When I stopped for a light the spider scrambled up into the outside mirror holder thingy, which I guess is where it had been living. I didn't like the idea of its being so near to me as I drove, but I try to avoid killing bugs outside if I can help it and had no way to get at this one just then anyway so I left it alone.
Only problem was that now that I knew this creature was lurking there (and it was open-window weather by then) I was so distracted, spending more time checking the side-view mirror for spiders than for traffic, that I was in constant danger of causing an accident. I repeatedly told the spider that it was in its best interest to vacate the premises, that I would be forced to take drastic measures if it did not, but to no avail. In the end I reluctantly sprayed Raid into the mirror holder one day and saw neither the spider nor its daily webs ever again.
For as much as spiders give me the creeping horrors, I felt bad about killing that one. It had logged a lot of miles with me.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
5:03 PM
Loose threads
A few corrections and/or updates to recent posts:
My colleague's sick daughter didn't have mono after all, which threw everyone into a panic as the alternative diagnosis (leukemia) was much more drastic. Happy ending, depending on your point of view: it was a bacterial infection that is responding nicely to heavy-duty antibiotics. Happier ending: the doctor apologized for mentioning leukemia in the first place, after having been taken to task for it by his nurse.
My White Gloves and Party Manners classes might have taken place at Rhodes' department store instead of Bon Marché. Apropos of nothing, our phone number at the time was JU8-9065. Yes, young pups, those first two characters are letters. They stood for "Juniper". Please don't call that number now; I'm not available to come to the phone, having moved away some 34 years ago.
The accordion curse has been lifted in spite of friend Dave's best efforts to keep it going by e-mailing me pictures of them.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:17 PM
An open apology to my co-workers
I stepped into Beth's office to ask a simple question, honest. I didn't know she was chatting with Steve, and I didn't know that Steve had just returned from his honeymoon. I had to stay to chat, too. You guys are all pretty new so you probably don't know what a great and uninhibited storyteller Steve is. You have been around long enough to know that Beth and I have rather bawdy senses of humor though, so when Steve lifted his shirt and lowered his waistband a tad so we could admire his heart-shaped tan line, well, it got a little loud. It's a good thing that it was suggested by one of you that we close the door to contain the hilarity, because the story that followed about the cowboy hat and boots had me laughing until my face hurt. I'm sorry we got so rowdy but you probably know that I really really needed to laugh that hard.
And Steve, congrats again, sweetie. That new wife of yours is one lucky gal. Yee-ha!
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:39 PM
Breakfast of Champollion
A nice little big city cross-cultural literacy moment happened this morning at the bagel place. I had waited until after the morning rush to get my plain toasted with cream cheese without having to navigate the crowds in the narrow shop, but found that even when not clogged with patrons the place was claustrophobic enough when filled by one delivery man and two hand trucks' worth of bottled sodas. As I paid the cashier the behind-the-counter staff, a mixture of Hispanic and Asian folks, were praising the American delivery guy, who apparently had been especially quick that day. The delivery guy laughingly declared, "Well, it's because I had my Wheaties for breakfast!" and left to make another speedy delivery elsewhere. I chuckled but the bagel people were puzzled by what the delivery guy had said. "Did he say he ate wheat for breakfast?" I heard one of them ask. I turned away to get my coffee. There I found 3 guys, from India or somewhere nearby judging by accents and complexions, also discussing the remarkable remark. One of them said "I think he means a breakfast food. I've tried it, it's not bad."
By then my bagel was ready and I had to get back to work. Somehow I think that if I had been able to stay and explain the magic of Wheaties, I would have earned the right to have my picture on the box.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:54 PM
The Accordion of Damocles
No accordions revealed themselves to me on Thursday so the curse appeared to be broken. Then on Friday I was telling friend Marty about how a few weeks ago friend Bob, Cousin Ray and I covered for the rest of our absent trivia team, who were in Columbia for the penultimate round of the tournament, by playing two controllers each. I demonstrated to Marty by putting both arms straight in front of me and wiggling my fingers. Marty says "Oh, like accordion players!" He doesn't read these pages, otherwise he would have known why I turned pale and stared at him as if lizards were coming out of his ears.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:40 PM
Migraine is your loss
Let the healing power of a good, strong ginger ale and a salt bagel never be underestimated.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:44 PM
Accordion Driftwood
It all started two days ago when I spotted a car with a bumper sticker reading "I Am Pro-Accordion and I Vote."
I promptly forgot about it.
Last night as I kinda-sorta contributed to the victory of the Applebee's Columbia (MD) team in the NTN Showdown Tournament of Champions I noticed that among the musical instruments the bar walls were festooned with, standard decor at such places, was an accordion that was hanging right over friend Dave's head. I said -- as anyone naturally would in similar circumstances -- "Hey, Dave. There's an accordion over your head," to which he responded "Is that a euphemism?" Dave thinks everything is a euphemism. I glanced at the instrument -- the accordion, Dave -- and replied "No, it's a Carmen."
So far nothing to be unduly alarmed about.
Then this evening as I relaxed after work I played my new The Last Waltz DVD and listened to the commentary track with input from various The Band members. [Side note to Robbie Robertson: if you are within the sound of this weblog please report to me immediately. I have a major metropolitan area telephone book that needs reading out loud.] Anyway, on the commentary thingy Garth Hudson starts telling accordion jokes such as "What's the difference between an onion and an accordion? People cry when they cut up an onion." and "What's the difference between an accordion and a trampoline? You take your boots off before you jump on a trampoline."
As Weird Al Yankovic is my witness, I'm now puzzled and petrified. In what form will accordions visit me tomorrow?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:13 PM
I'm a lady, dammit!
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a lady at Uno's wearing a tiara with her t-shirt and jeans. One quick double-take later I realized that it was actually just a clear plastic jaw-type hairclip fastened crosswise on the top of her head, which looked a bit odd but made more sense, dresscodewise. But the memory trigger had been pulled: as I sipped my mango iced tea and waited for my entrée to make its entrance I remembered a brush with hoity-toityness that I hadn't thought of in years.
Sometime back in 1968 I sacrificed at my mother's bidding a series of Saturday mornings (and missed the best cartoons) to attend White Gloves and Party Manners classes at the Bon Marché department store in Tacoma, Washington where I learned from Miss Margaret, who also happened to be the local Romper Room lady, how respectable young ladies should dress and act. Yes, we actually wore white cotton gloves in class, along with our very best party dresses. Miss Margaret taught us how to curtsy and do a three-point model turn, but I would probably injure myself attempting either maneuver today.
Still, the training paid off, if only once: in 1996 I was invited to a party where white gloves were required. Ok, so it was a baby shower and the white gloves were latex, part of the surgical getup that I and a few other brave souls wore as we danced the Macarena for the expectant mother, but Miss Margaret would have been proud not only that I didn't trip over my own feet (or anyone else's) during the dance but also that I demurely cast my eyes downward and said "pardon me" after shouting an expletive when powder from my surgical glove got in my eye.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
3:31 PM
The Doctor is Intolerable
Nearly two weeks ago I came down with a flu-like ailment which laid me low for a few days and is even now lingering in the form of a barking cough. I understand why the flu is known as "the grippe" -- it just doesn't want to let you go. This bug was particularly powerful; I'm came down with it after talking on the phone with a coworker whose daughter was ill with the same symptoms. Turns out it wasn't the same bug: the daughter is still sick and is now thought to have mono, although according to her distressed mom, the doctor who saw her over the weekend let slip in front of the patient that the blood test he was performing was to rule out leukemia. He also apparently was very flippant with the patient and her mom. Having been around lots of doctors growing up -- colleagues of my nurse practitioner mom -- I am extra appalled at such bad bedside manners, especially where a teenager is concerned. Someone needs to have his stethoscope thumped very hard.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:45 PM
"Hey, Blayne. It's Sandra. Rock on."
Somehow I missed the "horse crazy" phase many of my junior high friends and even my younger brother went through. It wasn't for lack of love for animals, certainly. Several times I tagged along on the bus to Red Raider camp somewhere east of Cleveland with friends Gwen, Blayne and Laura to watch them have their weekly riding lessons (was it Wednesdays or Thursdays?) and to pet the horses not being pressed into educational equestrianism at the moment. My interests at the time running more to music than dressage, my most vivid memories are of singing popular radio tunes of the day on the bus. Dark Lady by Cher and David Essex' Rock On were Red Raider bus faves. [Oh, gosh. I've got MP3s playing randomly in the background and on the current playlist are -- coincidentally, I swear -- songs from that era that I collect more out of nostalgia than out of love for the tunes themselves. After I started writing this, what began to play but The Osmonds' Crazy Horses. Somehow I missed the "Donny Osmond crazy" phase that many of my peers went through, but that song does bring back memories.]
By high school my three horse-crazy pals and I, we who had spent countless hours on the phone or at each others' houses being silly and, well, being teenagers, were reduced to a more-distant-than-friendly nod of the head in the crowded hallways basis. Not uncommon, and not even considered a tragedy in the light of the many people who come and go in one's life.
I saw Blayne's name on the masthead of The Funny Times several years ago and had a notion to e-mail her to catch up but I never did. What do you say to someone you were close to as a child but grew apart from even before you left that childhood behind?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
7:19 PM
I may not be pretty, but I'm no Ugly American
I lived in France as a student in '81 and in '85-'86. Not like we made a habit of dressing in stars and stripes or anything, but because of the situation in Libya, among other reasons, we American students were advised to not go around advertising our nationality.
Even without all that mess, my friends and I learned early on that casual conversations with French people at bus stops, libraries and the like often -- not always, but often -- ended abruptly when it was revealed that we were American. Eventually, when asked if I was English, based on my complexion and lack of a distinctly American accent when I spoke French, I just nodded. I'm not proud of that, but it's true enough ancestrally speaking and it probably resulted in less spit in my café au lait. This was in Tours, in the Loire Valley. Attitudes were different in Paris, where you were treated rudely just on general principle, as was everyone. And people in Normandy were considerably less hostile toward Americans, for obvious reasons.
But too many of the Americans that I observed abroad tended to make real asses of themselves with their arrogance, acting as if they were at Epcot Center and not in an actual different country with a different language, different customs and so forth. Some of it was probably merely a defense mechanism to cope with feeling overwhelmed in a foreign environment, to be sure, but hearing a 20-year-old American in 1985 inform a little old lady crepemaker that she had better hop to it because America got her ass out of WWII doesn't exactly make you want to start a singalong of "God Bless America" while waiting your turn.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:58 PM
It's just us, right, so I can safely confide that once a week or so I use a coal-tar shampoo to treat a minor skin condition. This of course leaves my tresses smelling as fresh as the Interstate after a rainstorm, so I was pleased to find an herbal-scented version of the stuff. I just used it for the first time and it is herbal, but in the sense of a field of wildflowers that has long since been paved over.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:37 PM
Darn the luck. Lunchtime today found me at the sub place on the corner waiting in line behind three guys in full cycling team regalia. They were tall and I am short so I was able to cast my gaze downward without tilting my head to appreciate the guys' shapely spandex-covered buns. Now, before you condemn me as a sexist ogler, there was really no place else interesting to look in the tiny little takeout joint once I had made my choice from the menu. Besides, I also read all the sponsors' names on the back of their jerseys, noting that one was rather fitting: a chiropractor. Had these guys been shorter or I taller, I certainly would have needed his services.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
1:42 PM
Another spam "From" line of note: I am being offered life insurance (for the ones I love) by one Apolonia Anderson. Now, I'm not Catholic but I do know that with a first name like hers, Ms. Anderson would be better suited to selling dental insurance. Pas vrai?
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
3:25 PM