This past weekend I went up to Long Island for Olivia's (my niece and goddaughter) 2nd birthday party. Some of the highlights of the weekend, in no particular order, were:
1. My brother's friend Cliff's wife trying to set me up with "Cousin Gabe" who lives in DC. "He 24, I think, and unemployed, that's not a problem, is it? Oh and he's Jewish too" [to which I responded, that's ok, last week I went out with a red sox fan - it's not any worse than that].
2. My cousin Mark telling me he doesn't have anyone to set me up with because "all the single people I know are losers - oh wait, that came out wrong - you're not a loser - oh crap, I realize how bad that sounded now."
3. My brother Mike looking over Olivia's shoulder at the card I got her and saying "Who's that on the card? [pause] Looks like poo - I mean, Winnie the Pooh."
4. So I took the bus up to Penn Station and met up with Mike and Katie to take the LIRR out to LI so we could all get picked up together. I was there about 20 minutes before them, so I went to the LIRR bar, Tracks, and had a beer [very depressing bar]. Then Mike called to say they were leaving the concert, but had to run down to Katie's office before they head to LIRR. He then phones back and says why don't I come with them to Katie's office. I head upstairs to meet them and Mike runs over to me and says, "We couldn't get a cab, but you're gonna love this." To my surprise, they had hired a pedi cab to bike us to Katie's office and back. Pedi-cabs are apparently only meant for 2 people in nice weather. We had 3 people, plus my 2 bags and a bag full of toys.. . . in the rain.
5. Convincing my parents that it wasn't time to set the clocks back. My proof was threefold: 1) my planner says it's next week [dad's calendar said this week - so that failed]; 2) people have been talking about it and they said it was next weekend; 3) cousin Jen didn't send out her daylight savings time reminder [what more do you need?]. My mom's proof was a "headline" in the paper that to her indicated we should set the clocks back. To me, and probably everyone else reading the paper, it was an advertisement for the Bahamas. They finally conceded when the Today show said it was 9:01 [not 8:01 am].
6. My mom asking me how much money it would take to get me to go to work not wrinkled [to which I responded, "A flat screen tv"].
7. Literally two minutes after commenting on the wrinkles in my clothes, my mom telling me how nice I look lately (!).
[As an aside, without fail, my mom will always comment on three things: 1) wrinkles in my clothes - it's the weekend mom, and i just drove/bussed/flew/trained 300 miles to be here, they're supposed to be wrinkled; 2) my hair - it looks good/bad or i like it long/straight/short/wavy/up/down or simply "that way"; 3) my lack of makeup - "you need more color on your cheeks" - to this day my mom is the only person that would tell me I look good with some color on my cheeks after I've gotten 2nd degree sunburn.]
8. The drunk guy in Penn Station who was fascinated with Katie's bag of toys - "how much you want for those," "I've got a nephew," "That's a lot of toys, you don't have that many kids."
9. Katie opening up her iced tea and the drunk guy saying, with his eyes at half mast, "datlookslikepeeee...."
Thank you! Good night! Remember to tip your waitresses!
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The Cat's Meow
I should start by saying that I got a cat; then I should immediately follow with, I got rid of the cat 5 days later. And this brief relationship between me and the cat has set into action a chain of events.
For starters, if I hadn't gotten the cat, I wouldn't have been bringing the cat back last Thursday night. And I wouldn't have driven my car 30 miles out to Prince William, VA and I wouldn't have parked it where it was parked when it was the victim of a hit and run on Friday morning and lost its driver's side mirror. I also wouldn't have had to call the cops on Sunday night when I realized it had been hit.
Last Thursday night was also the source of a significant amount of stress, which caused, what I am now calling, my stress elbow. On the way to Prince William, VA, I noticed that my left elbow was very warm - much warmer than the rest of my body - and swollen. The following day it was still quite warm and now painful to the touch. I lived with the elbow like this until today when I went to the doctor - even he was disgusted.
Here's how the doctor's appointment went:
Him: So you have a cough or something?
Me: No, something's wrong with my elbow [I take it out and show him].
Him: [crumples his face in disgust] Wow, look at that.
He went on to tell me in a very salesman-esque fashion why he suspected it was just an inflammation. He ended up giving me some anti-inflammatories and antibiotics. Afterwhich, here's the good part, he took his pen and pointed to a portion of my elbow and said, "If it goes beyond here, call me immediately." He then proceeded to draw a circle on my elbow with his ball point pen. Who gave him the right to start doodling on my body?
Now I know that the cat didn't cause this condition in my arm, but I like to think that it was triggered by stress and thus a direct result of the cat and since the doctor wasn't exactly sure what it was either (thanks doc!), I'm taking it upon myself to say what caused it.
Now let me back up to the cat. He was a great cat. Really - if there were ever a cat for me, this one would be it, but maybe I'm just not a cat person, or an animal person at all. This cat was hindering my ability to eat (because he'd stick his nose into whatever I had) and sleep (he cried all night and jumped on me all through the night). Two of my major life functions!
In Cats For Dummies, it said that to train a cat not to jump on the bed you could take a can of pennies and shake it at the cat. I settled for a coffee travel mug full of assorted change, which I in turn slept with and shook it every time the cat woke me up. I am sure it was an amusing sight. Once he stopped jumping on the bed, he started crying. So since I still wasn't getting any sleep with the cat, I locked him in the closet. But not a regular closet. It was a full walk-in closet, with food and water and access to his litter and of course access to my freshly washed towels which he liked to sleep on. Now we were both happy.
This brings me to the next problem with the cat - the litter. If he wasn't crapping down the side wall of the litter (and just barely missing the box), he was kicking up litter all over the bathroom. Who knew cats crapped so much? It was a mess. I had to wear shoes to the bathroom and I was constantly cleaning up litter from everywhere.
I think the cat is in a better place now - with another owner. The good news is that Petco has a fantastic return policy and I was able to return all of the cat supplies I had bought! And finally get some sleep.
For starters, if I hadn't gotten the cat, I wouldn't have been bringing the cat back last Thursday night. And I wouldn't have driven my car 30 miles out to Prince William, VA and I wouldn't have parked it where it was parked when it was the victim of a hit and run on Friday morning and lost its driver's side mirror. I also wouldn't have had to call the cops on Sunday night when I realized it had been hit.
Last Thursday night was also the source of a significant amount of stress, which caused, what I am now calling, my stress elbow. On the way to Prince William, VA, I noticed that my left elbow was very warm - much warmer than the rest of my body - and swollen. The following day it was still quite warm and now painful to the touch. I lived with the elbow like this until today when I went to the doctor - even he was disgusted.
Here's how the doctor's appointment went:
Him: So you have a cough or something?
Me: No, something's wrong with my elbow [I take it out and show him].
Him: [crumples his face in disgust] Wow, look at that.
He went on to tell me in a very salesman-esque fashion why he suspected it was just an inflammation. He ended up giving me some anti-inflammatories and antibiotics. Afterwhich, here's the good part, he took his pen and pointed to a portion of my elbow and said, "If it goes beyond here, call me immediately." He then proceeded to draw a circle on my elbow with his ball point pen. Who gave him the right to start doodling on my body?
Now I know that the cat didn't cause this condition in my arm, but I like to think that it was triggered by stress and thus a direct result of the cat and since the doctor wasn't exactly sure what it was either (thanks doc!), I'm taking it upon myself to say what caused it.
Now let me back up to the cat. He was a great cat. Really - if there were ever a cat for me, this one would be it, but maybe I'm just not a cat person, or an animal person at all. This cat was hindering my ability to eat (because he'd stick his nose into whatever I had) and sleep (he cried all night and jumped on me all through the night). Two of my major life functions!
In Cats For Dummies, it said that to train a cat not to jump on the bed you could take a can of pennies and shake it at the cat. I settled for a coffee travel mug full of assorted change, which I in turn slept with and shook it every time the cat woke me up. I am sure it was an amusing sight. Once he stopped jumping on the bed, he started crying. So since I still wasn't getting any sleep with the cat, I locked him in the closet. But not a regular closet. It was a full walk-in closet, with food and water and access to his litter and of course access to my freshly washed towels which he liked to sleep on. Now we were both happy.
This brings me to the next problem with the cat - the litter. If he wasn't crapping down the side wall of the litter (and just barely missing the box), he was kicking up litter all over the bathroom. Who knew cats crapped so much? It was a mess. I had to wear shoes to the bathroom and I was constantly cleaning up litter from everywhere.
I think the cat is in a better place now - with another owner. The good news is that Petco has a fantastic return policy and I was able to return all of the cat supplies I had bought! And finally get some sleep.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Welcome
This is my very first blog post! I'm not quite sure where this blog will take us or what it will entail, but I think it'll be better this way - no theme, just me! I think you'll find that every night and day brings new events and embarassing situations, which I hope to share and hope you'll enjoy.
Welcome!
Welcome!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)