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Monday, June 30, 2003
Welcome to the working week
Monday morning is bad enough without being subjected to the nasty surprise of a big fat cockroach sitting inside the dishwasher when you open it in search of the coffee maker carafe. Heavy sigh. I've lived in this condo for 11 years and for the first 8 I had the rare luxury of nary a cucaracha sighting. Spiders, ants and the occasional june bug, yes, but even then in limited quantities. In the late summer of 2000 things changed, possibly due to a new neighbor who brought a starter set along with them. Ever since I've endured periodic infestations and resorted to chemical warfare (spot spraying and occasional fogging) and technical weapons (those thingies you plug into electric outlets). The last assault in early January, led by the property's resident exterminator, was very sucessful as I didn't see any more of the nasty buggies until this morning. When I called the office to schedule another visit from the Orkin wannabe, the condo manager informed me that my immediate downstairs neighbors are to blame for my insectual problems. "They just don't want to comply" he says. Ye gods, what does he tell other residents about *me*? And more importantly, why can't they live under my high-strung next door neighbor instead of under me? That would really give him something to scream about.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:51 PM
Maybe this is what killed Katharine Hepburn?
Another improv workshop show has happened. If you didn't hear about it from me beforehand, it's because I was out of commission most of last week with a bacterial infection and subsequent side effects of the prescribed antibiotic, so I wasn't sure if I'd actually be up and about in time to make the show. The good news is that I was and I did. Good show all around, smooth sailing, many laughs. I was better prepared for the heat this time with a kerchief and a cup of ice, but still I sweated a lot. I wasn't the only one, though. We all worked hard in class and harder on stage. My most memorable moment was in a scene based on the suggestion of "guacamole" when I hoochie-coochied onstage à la Charro, to apparent audience delight. Later in the same scene my line of "Oh, you killed the esquirrel!" was lost in the fracas but cracked me up.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:37 PM
Another Haiku
No need to panic
Sandra's been taking a break
Be back tomorow
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:35 PM
A Haiku
Sidelined by a bug
Addled by medication
Blog will resume soon
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:47 PM
Say it with downers
"Pharmacy, how may I help you?"
"Hi, I'd like to send a sampler tranqulizer bouquet to my neighbor. The works: Prozac, Xanax, Valium, whatever. I'm not up on the latest downers. All I know is he's having yet another meltdown."
"What a good friend you are to care enough to do this for him."
"Actually, I don't know him at all."
"Er, I see. Ok. One Chill-Me-Out Gift Bouquet™, home delivery. Recipient's name?"
"I don't know that either."
"We won't be able to deliver your bouquet without a name."
"Oh, I know the address, that should be enough. He lives in the unit next door to mine. Every few weeks he has a screaming fight over the phone with someone he claims he hates but whom he must really love very much because of the way he falls apart for hours afterwards: screaming, wailing, sobbing, banging on furniture, the whole nine yards. Since I'm only a few yards away on the other side of the wall I hear everything, whether I want to or not. It's impossible to tune out. You need a name, just address it to 'Drama Queen'."
"If I may suggest, ma'am, you might just want to leave the house during those times."
"Well, this often happens after midnight so that's not a viable option. I make do with earplugs and judicious pillow placement. When he does it during waking hours and I'm home I use headphones to block him out with the TV or music. (laughs) I should get my cats some little kitty earplugs; they look upset sometimes when he's really screaming over there."
"Have you ever considered calling the police?"
"Um, yeah, but for what? He's violating the county noise ordinance with his late-night noise, but it's not like he's doing it on purpose to be a pain in the ass. I mean not like my other neighbors did, the ones from Texas who had parties every weekend apparently for the sole purpose of gathering their friends together to shout "Whoo-Hoo!" and "Yee-Ha!" every 5 seconds until around 2am, when they'd just concentrate on slamming the doors and hooting in the hallway. So I really couldn't do that. Besides, while I am disturbed by his noise, what I hear through the wall sounds so unbalanced and vengeful that I'd be afraid of how he would retaliate."
"Wow. I'm sorry, ma'am. Hopefully your gift bouquet will help set things right. Now, can we add a little something soothing for you to your order?"
"Thanks, but no. I'm good. Things aren't always rosy in my life either but I believe I've got the internal resources to deal with them. I'm thankful for that, really."
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
2:26 PM
Pas de leur on que nous
It's been the rainiest spring in memory. ADD-addled memory, anyway. Something about the perpetually cloudy skies clouds my perception so it just now occurs to me that the canoes I've seen strapped to the roofs of several cars spotted on the streets of late might be meant for some function other than recreation.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:53 PM
No, no, no: a little more humanity, please!
Look, it's not like I'm in the drugstore for very long at a time, unless I'm being daredevil-y and shopping without a list which necessitates careful browsing of every aisle, but even on those longer visits I can just about tolerate the canned, sugary-sweet piped-in pop muzak that must come from soulless corporate HQ. I know that once I get in the car I can listen to what I want. Then today right about the time I hit the Cold/Allergy/Flu section I hear the beginning of a tune I actually know and like, Todd Rundgren's Hello It's Me. Could it be? My reward for cumulative hours of ear-grating? But why has it stopped suddenly? Don't tell me they're interrupting Todd for an announcement about discounted hemorrhoid creme! No... they're REMOVING THE TAPE! And putting in another, chockablock with soulless saccharine songs! Noooooooo!
On the other hand, that reminds me: I need to buy earplugs.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
7:49 PM
Eyesight to the Blind
Co-worker Kitti just left for her LASIK surgery appointment. Her parting words were "Well, I hope I'll see you Monday!" to which I could not help but reply "Hey, if things go wrong at least you'll get a free dog!"
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
3:20 PM
Double Vision
Amusement on a recent drive home from work: Sightings of 3 separate pairs of men in matching outfits, all within the same mile-long stretch of George Mason Blvd. First, two young, clean-cut men in white shirts, black slacks, wearing matching ties, matching backpacks and matching crewcuts. Mormons! Run! Next up: two young black dudes in similarly matching attire except for 1) their black t-shirts each had a different slogan and 2) overall, they were way less scary than the first pair. Third pair: two fatigue-clad military guys chatting next to a parked car across the street from Arlington Hall, now the regional National Guard Readiness Center (I think. I mean, give me a break I've only driven past the place twice a day every weekday for the past 6 years.) Same dorky haircuts as the first pair but otherwise as cool looking and acting as the second.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:36 PM
Badges? We don't need no...
At the office there are electronic security posts in certain locations that you have to swipe your ID badge across to pass through without setting off a buzzing alarm. They are about waist high, which means that those of us who wear our badges around our necks must bend over to make the electronic connection. One time as I passed through one of them with my former (and much missed) boss, the one with a sense of humor, she watched me lean into the post then remarked as she remained upright and extended her own badge which was attached to a retracting string attached to her keychain, "I don't go for that bowing to the post thing." I think about that remark whenever I realize that I am indeed practically genuflecting to the electronic eye. Then a few days ago as I sat through a particularly boring meeting I got fed up with having my badge sit just below my bosom and obscuring my view of the notepad on my lap. I unknotted the string on the leather badge-holder pouch thingy and lowered it a few inches so it now hangs in the area between my navel and bikini region. Much less annoying when I sit and type and no more bowing to the post!
Except that now if my hands are full the only way I can get the badge in the critical electronic eye area is to either grind my hips right up next to the post or else make it swing by virtue of a little pelvic thrust.
On the plus side, the security guards smile at me more often these days.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
4:01 PM
Accentuate the plausible
One of the tragedies of my life is that I love music yet am cursed with a flat singing voice. My ear knows how things should sound, but my mouth and vocal chords have no clue how to make it happen. This liability has followed me into my improv studies, where singing games aside I find myself unable to slip effortlessly into foreign accents. Last week at our Monday night practice session a chance mention of Sean Connery prompted most of the group to break into their Sean Connery voices. Not me, obviously, but by chance I made a discovery with my eyes and not my ears: everyone looked as if they were suddenly stricken with lockjaw. Aha! It's not so much making your voice sound a certain way but how you hold your mouth and roll the words around in it. Connery can be approximated by speaking out of the side of the mouth with jaw clenched. I'm a feminine female, but since we've been working on adopting physical attributes of the opposite gender as part of our character work I have begun practicing my newfound -- and almost recognizable -- Connery accent in the car and even at the office. If nothing else, it provides amusement for my co-workers.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:01 PM
Truckulence
There's so much I don't know about the world and the way things are supposed to work within it. So grabbing the parking spot in front of the truck trailer only gave me a moment's pause. I could tell I was on the end where it would connect to the absent truck cab but reasoned that if the trailer was due for hookup anytime soon the space in front would be cordonned off somehow. There wasn't another spot within reasonable walking distance to my building and I had my always-weighty briefcase and a 14lb jug of kitty litter to haul. Imagine then my predicament when someone hailed me from a third-floor terrace after I had already put some distance between my car and me, saying that the trailer was due to be moved within the hour so would I mind moving my car? Sigh. I mumbled something about putting cones out if they needed the space saved, especially during peak coming-home from work hours, and trudged back to the car, flung my fardels onto the passenger seat and went off in search of another spot. After I got to my own third-floor walkup unit I found I had a wonderful view of the trailer outside my living room window. Oh, and of the car that pulled in my abandoned spot right after I left.
Cones, people. Cones.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:04 PM
Lauren Bacall? Lovely human being.
An e-mail from improv alum Andrew leads me to clarify my feelings toward whistlers. I have absolutely nothing against them personally, honest. It's just that god in his infinite sense of humor has placed the part of my brain that processes incoming whistling in the same region as that which generates spinal shivers (not the good kind), goosebumps and teeth clenching at annoying sounds such as fingernails scraping a chalkboard. There's some migraine overlap there as well; even a whistled happy tune will repeatedly poke my brain as if a pitchfork-wielding demon in a particularly nasty pit of hell. Same with the sound of a slamming door. I wish I could help it, but I don't seem to be able to. For what it's worth, I do recognize that the whistlers (and the slammers) aren't necessarily doing it deliberately to hurt me.
Oddly, short whistle blasts such as those at sporting events or during our improv games don't bother me a-tall.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:08 PM
What a maroon
I dropped the motorcar off at the garage last Friday morning for some maintenance work. When I went to pick it up at the end of my work day, the phone-booth-sized area around the cash register was packed. By that I mean there were a half-dozen people waiting to pick up, drop off or just pay for a fill-up. The guy behind the counter was taking his time processing everyone and whatever progress there was was further hampered by a yuppie-ish woman who periodically interrupted her pacing outside to step inside, displacing whoever was standing by the door, and hector the guy about calling the tow truck or Triple A or whoever again because she had been waiting an hour already with her kids. Her hyperactive kids.
(Note to the lady: that great big building across the street from the station is a shopping mall. You could have left your cell phone number with the attendant and taken the kids to wait for your tow at the mall, where they could dart around without being in danger of being hit by a car. There's a game arcade and everything.)
Seeing her angst made my comparatively short wait for my own car all the more tolerable. I may not have gotten home as quickly as I would have wanted, but at least I wasn't stranded like she was. Perhaps whatever sympathy I mustered for her plight was evident when my turn came and I described my wine-colored car to the attendant not as "burgundy" but as "maroon."
(Another note to the lady: you named your son "Ashton"? Good lord, woman, why?)
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
5:07 PM
Skills I Never Learned, Useless and Otherwise
Coming soon: skills I DO have.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:45 PM