proof that money can't buy you smarts

in the midst of millions of americans losing their jobs last year, and the constant news stream about the stock market, housing foreclosures, and hard times – hell, i hear even ol’ hugh heffner has ixnayed the playboy mansion super bowl party this year due to poor sales this quarter – i was totally delighted that one couple from florida recently decided to give the flailing economy the middle finger by coughing up $155,000 to have their beloved family dog cloned. the fact that these people can turn on the news and see a father kill his entire family and then himself because he and his wife were both laid off, or that an additional 20,000 people lost their jobs today, and be so completely unscathed by all of this that they would decide to spend that kind of money on cloning a dog…i mean, what is that about? no doubt a person is totally entitled to spend their hard earned money in whatever way they choose, but i guess it just rubs me the wrong way when people are losing their homes, their jobs and their dignity left and right, and some a-holes decide that fluffy was just the best pet ever and must be reproduced, to the tune of 155 large. really? if you need to piss your money away, i mean, crap, i’ll take it. i could do something a lot more useful with that money than clone a freakin dog. don’t get me wrong, i love my dog. i mean, i LOVE that dog. probably more than is healthy. like i lay in bed and stare into his eyes on a regular basis. if i could call him while i’m at work, i totally would. i follow him from room to room. but there is not a chance that i would drop that kind of money to have him cloned when he’s getting up there. shit, i have a hard time coughing up $100 for his heartworm medicine!!! i’m thinking perhaps someone should write these people a letter and tell them to pull their heads out of their rear ends and take a look around at what the rest of us are calling a RECESSION. i mean, 155k is a lot of money. some schools operate on budgets smaller than that. some people don’t make that much in years, some nonprofits could feed and house homeless people on that amount for quite some time. hell, sarah palin didn’t even spend that much on all her fancy campaigning clothes. but these people are opening up their wallets to have the cloned embryo of their precious pooch implanted in another dog so they will be able to have the EXACT SAME DOG they had before. i mean, what’s wrong with another dog? there are millions in the shelters all over the country. most of them get “laid off” too, because they don’t find homes in time. if they have all this money stashed away that they can clone their dog in times like these, maybe president obama should be knocking on their door to see if there’s anything they can contribute to the stimulus package. seriously, why should the taxpayers pick up the tab when these clowns clearly have money to burn?? only in america would you find a couple like this - hey, honey, what should we do with all this money? give some to charity, maybe? or a local foundation? help support after school programs for at risk kids or donate to a food bank? oh! oh! oh! i know! let’s have the dog cloned. brilliant. just brilliant.

On frozen precipitation

Ok, I am from the south. I grew up in a place where it snowed one time in EIGHTEEN YEARS, and we were all running around thinking we were going to die, because oh my god there was a WHOLE INCH of snow on the ground. White Christmas? Try 75 and sunny Christmas. Needless to say, I will never, EVER get used to this whole “snow” thing. And I want all ya’ll yankee types to know, that they DO NOT TEACH PEOPLE LIKE ME HOW TO DRIVE IN THE SNOW. So, let me loose when it’s been snowing for about an hour or two and may god have mercy on your souls. And mine. For real. As a southerner, there is no freakier feeling on this earth than when the back end of your car starts going in a direction other than where the front end is pointing. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT??? And since there is no snow down south, my driver’s ed course did not include a chapter on “steering into the spinout” or whatever the heck you want to call it. (steering into the arms of the devil if you ask me!!) Telling a person from the south not to panic and slam on the brakes when their car starts fishtailing in the snow is like telling a fish not to live in the water! IT’S WHAT WE DO. So OF COURSE today I have a doctor’s appointment that requires me taking the car and OF COURSE it’s snowing cause nothing can ever be easy for me. And listen up, ya’ll might have won that stupid war, but that does not give you the right to fly by me on the interstate going 95 miles an hour in the snow and honking your horn at me – if I want to drive 35 flippin miles an hour, dammit, no one is going to stop me. I’M BEING CAUTIOUS. This may be something you want to look into, JACKASSES. Cause every year, without fail, there are like ten million pileups on the road every single snow day because all ya’ll think you can drive in the snow, like you do not need snow tires or windshield wipers or the fact that there is 4 inches of icy slush on the ground will not impede YOUR driving…and what do you know, you start sliding around like Disney on ice and you want to know WHY. I will tell you why, crazy northern people. CAUSE IT’S SNOWING. And don’t give me the “oh, you people drive slow and tap your brakes and you cause accidents too” crap, because this stuff falling out of the sky is not normal and NO ONE should know how to maneuver around in all this treachosity. I am not driving slow. I am taking my time. I am not tapping my brakes. I want to make sure they still work and are not frozen like everything else around me. So. Maybe if you all would just acknowledge that the sky if falling and you should maybe slow down and proceed with caution, we wouldn’t all be in this big fat mess to begin with.

literally, one in a million

i’ve made no secret of the fact that i am not all that in to politics. i mean, i got out and i waited in line for over an hour and a half to vote, and i watched the debates and all that, but i generally don’t know all that much about what is going on in the world, so i tend to zip my lips whenever conversations turn political (and knowing my girlfriends, that doesn’t happen all that often, since most of our chatting is dominated by whatever stupid celebrity is doing whatever stupid thing at the moment). but since i live less than 2 miles from the national mall, i decided to be a part of history and hoof it down to the inaugural concert at the lincoln memorial, and then again to the swearing in on the 20th. a few weeks back, there was a lot of talk about how 5 million plus people would descend on dc and take over the metro systems and the roads and we would all be helpless to do anything or go anywhere, but in reality…it was not all that bad. don’t get me wrong, there were A LOT of people there. maybe it was the mood in the air, though, that made it seem like not all that big of a deal to be shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of strange people…because even the newspapers are reporting not one single arrest yesterday, in a crowd of 1.5 million people. we started the weekend off by attending the “other” green ball at the mellon auditorium, which was my second inaugural ball (hey, i didn’t vote for bush, but i will sure as hell take a free ticket to any event that advertises an open bar!!!), but the first one i went to with my husband. going with the renewable theme of the evening, erik donned a tie he made himself out of recycled paper (and of course, it was green!), and i called my momma up and she let me borrow the gorgeous gown she wore back in 1981 to ronald raegan’s inaugural ball. we had such a great time, it was a really fun party, my sister was there, my cousin hillary (not bad for only her second week in dc – we have to keep reminding her that dc is not like this all the time!), and a handful of my girlfriends and their dates, so even after a full day of moving from one apartment to another, it was for sure, a memorable night. sunday we managed to get up and get to the mall for the inaugural concert, even though we briefly entertained the idea of watching in on tv, after having been out until 3 in the morning (woohoooo i am NOT OLD, cause old people don’t stay out that late!!!) the night before. i’m so glad we trekked down to the mall, though, it was an amazing event and to be a part of that crowd that was so full of energy and excitement was really incredible. even watching it again on tv the next day, i was still amazed that i had been a part of that crowd. if you didn’t go, and if you couldn’t tell on tv, every time obama was shown on the jumbotron screens, the entire crowd went nuts. from where we were, i couldn’t even see the lincoln memorial, and i could only see the jumbotron by standing on my toes (man were my calves aching on monday!), but i didn’t need to see it – you could totally feel the buzz just by being there. and i could hear it, so that was enough. seeing the crowds on tv, though, when garth brooks had everyone jumping up and down to “shout” – that was nuts. 750,000 people dancing and singing in unison. kind of makes you feel just a teensy bit better about mankind.

tuesday was a mad house down on the mall – but not the same way that something like mardi gras or the superbowl are madhouses. the streets were swarming with people, we were practically pushed down the street at one point just on the movement of the crowd, but there was no one complaining, no one being aggressive or yelling, everyone just happy to be there and excited about what was happening. we finally got a place just underneath the washington monument and of course, people who are only 5’3” cannot see over 500,000 people that happen to be in front of them, so again, i couldn’t see a damn thing, but i could hear the swearing in and i could hear the inauguration address, and i could hear what people on tv couldn’t hear, which was people around me crying, laughing, chanting obama’s name (even booing bush, which i thought was unnecessary and mean spirited), and just celebrating. there i was, underneath the monument to the father or our country, celebrating with literally a million other people, and i stopped just long enough to think, damn…this is pretty cool. erik even put me up on his shoulders (briefly…i don’t exactly weigh 98 pounds) so i could get a glimpse of obama on the big screen. what a truly amazing day. i didn’t even mind the cold, or the walk home, or not being able to see. i am so glad i didn’t miss out on any of that. i doubt i will ever witness anything like that again. so. for all the times i complain about living in dc or how much tourists annoy me, or the traffic, or the expense...there are times like this that balance it all out and make me think that living in our nation’s capital is pretty effing cool.

screw you, walter raleigh

ok, so one thing about living in virginia that really REALLY blows is that you can still smoke in most of the bars and restaurants. you would think that as a former smoker, this would not bother me all that much, but i'm finding that the older i get, the less tolerant i am of the person next to me blowing smoke in my direction. well, i say former smoker, but seriously, it took me all of 2 minutes to quit and i think i really only started it up in the first place as a means to have an excuse to "go out back" for 5 minutes when i was waiting tables. i was never a pack a day kind of smoker, i rarely smoked before noon, and once i started dating my husband, i was pretty much just done with the whole thing (meaning he smokes SO MUCH that i figured one of us had to stop). i'm really looking forward to moving back into dc anyway, but it is just icing on my cake (and since i really only like cake for the icing, i'll just say it's icing on my icing) that dc has a ban on smoking inside, which means i can go out for drinks and not come home smelling like i've been rolling around in an ashtray. what i'm getting at here is that i was out in virginia last night, to a bar that i HATE because it is FULL of people smoking in my face, and despite the fact that i only had three drinks, i woke up with a splitting headache, feeling like i'd smoked an entire pack of cigarettes. i mean...it's 2009. we KNOW that smoking kills you. we KNOW second hand smoke is just as bad. now i'm reading that there is such a thing as THIRD HAND smoke. great, so now it's like the freakin residue from the cigarette you smoked in a room 2 hours ago is infiltrating my otherwise squeaky clean lungs and will slowly kill me. excellent. it seemed to me that just about every single person in that bar last night was smoking. do they not know? did they not get the memo?? perhaps the surgeon general's warning is not clear enough?? in europe, the warning label on the side is simple and to the point: SMOKERS DIE. that's what it says. in bold letters. maybe the letters on american smokes are too small?? i do not get it. i'm not seeing it. i know about addiction and nicotine and blah blah blah, but i guess i was never really addicted so i just don't understand why people are still smoking or why they can't quit. hello, YOU STINK!!! and seriously, i choose not to smoke and i do not see how people who do choose to smoke are allowed to do it right next to me, because THAT IS GROSS. as someone who is married to a full time, professional, record-holding, award-winning smoker, one would think that i would be more slack about this. but i HATE the fact that my husband smokes. I HATE IT. it grosses me out and if he would only wise up and drop that FILTHY habit, he might be surprised at how much more making out would occur. i do not, for one second, give a rat's rear end about a "smoker's rights" to light up wherever they want. you want to kill yourself? fine. DO IT OUTSIDE. i'll be inside with all the other people who want to live.

phobic much?

i will admit to having my fair share of phobias. i am unjustifiably afraid of mannequins (which also carries over into those crazy automated people – like in the hall of president’s at disney world) and mimes, i cannot stand the sight of jellyfish, and hell, i’m even a little creeped out by the dark. i am petrified of flying and have recently started this awesome thing where i cry pretty much any time i am on a plane. as i mentioned in a previous blog, i am also deathly afraid of anything that i can fall off of – ladders, fire escapes, rooftops –although i’m not afraid of enclosed heights. go figure. but that one i think may come from a lifetime of falling off of/out of stuff, like treehouses and cheerleading pyramids (they were supposed to catch me!!). so i mean sometimes it’s even hard for me to keep track of all of my numerous phobias. what i don’t get is the obvious ones. like germ phobia. i’ve made it this long without contracting any nasty gas station disease or growing like an extra toe or something from overexposure to germs in the showers at the gym, so in all honesty, i’m really not worried about it. i wash my hands when i need to. and it’s not like i’m going to shake someone’s hand right after i watch them sneeze into it. but i don’t get people who flip out and feel the need to disinfect every possible germ breeding surface area, carry hand sanitizer in their pockets so they can “wash” them 97 times a day, and refuse to come in contact with any person who is even thinking about carrying some illness causing germ around. getting sick is not a big deal. being killed by some creepy ass fake person in a department store is. those things have EYES, people, they can probably see into our SOULS!! i guess i shouldn’t scoff at some people’s fears when i list among my own things like “michael jackson is hiding under my bed” or “captain crunch is laying in wait to turn me into a soggy” but i can’t help it. i work with germaphobes and it’s especially hard during flu season to deal with being banned from the office for a simple sneeze (i kid you not, i was sent home for sneezing), or being instructed to disinfect the doorknobs in my office 3 times a day. WE ALL HAVE GERMS. get over it. don’t lick the pole on the metro and i think you’ll be just fine. you should seriously spend more time fearing those monster aliens that have come to earth in the form of mannequins to wipe out mankind and take over the planet.

a pointless list of my very own!

so, it’s monday. and monday is always a great time to start over, wipe the slate clean, and organize your life. all those self-help books say you have to visualize what you want and then make it happen, so i figure that making a list is a good way to do that. and since my sister does not get to own making up pointless lists that serve no real purposes inside the realm of what i like to call “reality,” i figured it’s about time for me to make up a stupid list of my own. but instead of naming all 97 of my children (and by the way, niki, i think it’s creepy that you even want that many children or that you would even aspire to come up with that many ridiculous names), i decided i want to make a list of all the things that i want to come back as in my next life. because maybe if the karma gods are listening, i can visualize my way into becoming everything i’ve ever wanted to be. so here i go:
1. an architect – cause i’m not smart enough for that in this life
2. a race car driver
3. not that i condone the captivity of them, but it would be so awesome to be one of those people at sea world who gets to swim with the killer whales
4. an archeologist – cause i got a huge kick out of digging around in my backyard as a kid and i think i would make a really great indiana jones
5. an aerial acrobat in cirque du solieil (or basically anyone who wasn’t afraid of anything they could fall off of, which is the state of my current life)
6. a dog – cause my dog has a pretty cushy life. but i wouldn’t want to be one of those small lap dogs that yip all the time. i want to be a big ol lazy ass dog that lies in the sun all day and drools up a storm. and snores. i’d want to snore really loud.
7. an art restorer. apparently you have to know a lot about science and chemistry and i just don’t have the brain for that in this life, but when i was in italy a few summers back i saw all these girls in overalls up on scaffolding (see list item#5) chatting in italian while they worked on frescos that were like 500 years old and i thought, damn, what an awesome job. i always have a hard time keeping my hands to myself in museums, so i think it would really satisfy a serious craving for me to be able to put my hands on all that stuff
a. if this should ever actually happen, i will also need to come back as someone who can speak italian. or maybe just be bilingual in general.
b. also, it takes a certain body type to pull off overalls and still look cute, so i’ll need to come back as a very teeny (but still bosomy) lady
8. someone with any kind of musical talent. if i could play the cello, or maybe the piano, i think that would make me a whole lot cooler in one of my next lives. also, if i could ever get to the point where i could play magic man by heart on the guitar, i just might rock my way into nirvana
9. a celebrity – but one of the cool ones who is very rarely in the tabloids, but is constantly going to places like bora bora or dubai because they have boatloads of money. if i were celebrity rich, i’d keep one house (with a normal amount of bedrooms, like 3), i would finally get my fully restored 1979 pontiac firebird transam, i would travel a whole lot, and i would give the rest to charity. cause nobody needs 5 cars, $1500 purses, or a $750,000 movie theatre in their house that no one ever uses
10. and finally, in one of my next lives, I think it would be pretty sweet to come back as one of those badass roller derby chicks with all the tattoos and a really awesome haircut. My mom made me promise never to get a tattoo (although I’m seriously considering revoking that promise cause I think I might really want one), so maybe in my next life I should be covered with them. But maybe not the whole roller derby thing. I don’t like being bruised. I am a big wimp. So maybe I’ll just go with the tats and the hair and leave it at that.

random friday thoughts

dear adam sandler- i finally forgive you for that jackhole zohan movie. i had sworn you off (if you will recall in a previous blog that i believe is buried somewhere on myspace), but i saw bedtime stories not long ago and decided to come around, and turn the other cheek. so. you're off the hook. make another shiteous movie, though...and we will be done for good. enjoy my good graces while you have them.

dear inconsiderate asshole with a driver's liscense- i am still mad that you plowed through that puddle on wednesday morning, doing at least 45 miles an hour, and sending a shower of disgusting, stagnant rainwater all over me and my sister on our way to work. i dont' know, maybe you were busy talking on the phone or shaving or trying to figure out why your friends don't return your calls, but it is beyond me how you could spray water that high into the air (and that much onto innocent pedestrians who do not have the luxury of sitting in their nice warm, dry suvs on the way to work) and not even tap the brakes, indicating that your head is so far up your ass, that you clearly did not even notice that you had just soaked 2 people. so thank you. thanks for reminding me that humanity is on its way out. i hope YOUR day was pleasant. jerk.

dear craigslist furniture buying crazy people - yes, it's true, i'm trying to sell some furniture before i move. i posted a few things and if you ask me, buying furniture that's less than a year old for half of the MRP sounds like a damn good deal to me. but to all of you with your insane and nit picky questions about what brand my bed frame is or what exact shade of brown the wood is, let me tell you a little something: this is not amazon.com, or a department store where you can come in, look around, and decide not to buy. you are knowingly looking to purchase USED furniture. i'm sorry that shade of brown is not EXACTLY what you're looking for. i would advice you to get thyself to some overpriced furniture warehouse and scope out some new shit if you're going to be all that particular about mine. and do not insult me by offering me less than half of what i'm asking. i know there's a recession, but that doesn't mean i'm giving my shit away for free.

dear diet coke- i know i am a married woman and all, but i think i'm in love with you. i just wanted to throw that out there.

dear me - i think we are getting old because the other night i had a great idea for a really funny blog and now i cannot for the life of me remember what it was about. perhaps it's time for a multi-vitamin?

on the death of civility

If there was a word for being a semi-feminist, I would suppose that is how I would describe myself. I am all for equal pay for equal work, I believe a woman can do anything a man can do (and probably do it smarter, more efficiently, and for less money), and the whole notion of “barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen” sends chills up and down my spine. On the flip side, there are times when I want to pull my hair out and scream to the high heavens, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO CHIVALRY AND COMMON COURTESY??? It was not that long ago, that a man would give up his seat on the bus to a woman who had to stand. NOT SO MUCH ANYMORE. There are times that I have given up my seat to an elderly woman or even an elderly man because not ONE of the self-absorbed mannerless grunts around me even thought to themselves, hey, maybe I should get up and let this person have my seat. No, no, this idea is old hat it would seem. And speaking of hats, how come men don’t wear those anymore? I mean a real hat, like a derby or a fedora, not one of those stupid knit skull caps that make you look like you’re about to rob a convenience store or a baseball hat. I mean, I would like to have a man tip his hat to me. Is that so wrong?? While I’m on my rampage, I would also like to know what happened to holding the door open for a lady. I can’t tell you how many times some schmuck has breezed through the door in front of me and let it slam back in my face because he can’t be bothered to see if there’s another human being exiting behind him. I do not get these women who say opening the door for a woman is sexist. Yes, I know I can do it myself. The idea is that I’M A LADY, see, so maybe I DON’T WANT TO DO IT MYSELF. My hands are delicate, you know? Men with manners. This is a rare species, a dying breed. There is actually a guy who works on my floor, and don’t you know that every time I walk into his office, HE STANDS UP. For real. He stands up. REMEMBER WHEN MEN USED TO DO THAT? No? I don’t either. Those were the days when women wore gloves and dressing gowns and men had those nifty pocket watches. But just the idea of it makes me buckle a little at the knees. Even my own husband has blown past me numerous times to get in a cab before me or he’ll walk through the door without thinking and let it close behind him. I keep threatening to send him to finishing school. I mean, can’t I demand equal rights except that you have to hold the door open for me? Can’t I say I could be president too, but you must pull my chair out for me at every chance? Is this asking for too much? Is it a generational thing, that manners are just going to be nonexistent by the time my children have children? Listening to kids talk to adults now just makes me want to slap their little smug faces, with their “yeah” and “uh huh” and “no” and I have to bite my tounge to keep from saying “YOU MEAN YES MA’AM??” cause that is the way I was raised. Yes ma’am, no ma’am, thank you, ma’am, please. Seriously, this was a song my grandma made up that my sister and I have engrained into our subconscious. My momma would’ve slapped me to Sunday if she ever heard me say “yeah” to a grownup. It’s just sad. I miss manners. Come on, guys. Would it kill you to give up your seat for a LADY? Of course, most women in my age bracket are not so much behaving like ladies anymore, but we won’t go into that…