Birthday flowers

As you can tell from my last few posts, I'm only just now pulling photos off my phone-based CrapCam. I thought I'd share a picture of the beautiful tulips that Chris sent to my office on my birthday. Yay! They were so pretty.

Naked is the new clothed

A couple of weeks ago, Chris and I were in Ann Taylor, where I was looking at clothes that I'll be able to afford someday. Chris' attention was piqued by a naked mannequin (womannequin?).

Now, I worked clothing retail long enough to know that someone had probably just bought the dress or whatever right off the dummy. However, I was also a register jockey long enough to know that when one denudes a mannequin, one should probably grab all the accessories as well, lest the nudity look shockingly intentional.

We were back in the mall this weekend, and walking past the Ann Taylor storefront, we saw that they were up to their old tricks.

I'm not sure if it's just lazy employees at this particular store, or if there's a new look in Paris this spring that I just haven't heard about yet. I will keep you posted.

And this was a surprise?

On one of our recent trips to our favorite liquor store, we saw a hastily-scrawled notice on a box of wine that had obviously been returned. The CrapCam was there to document its unintentional hilarity:



I suppose it's possible that there are a couple of box wines out there that don't taste like ass, but overall, I think their reputation is generally deserved. If you're buying a box of wine, I hope you're not expecting much -- as a result, I wonder how bad, exactly, this wine had to be for the undiscerning buyer to return it. Yick.

Snorkeling dog

Every night, when we get ready to go to bed, our dog is inevitably laying on our bedroom floor looking like a canine corpse in the Calcutta marketplace. It's just her way. Eventually, we shoo her out where she has her choice of two dog beds and two couches to sleep on. Usually, she ambles over to her upstairs bed, takes a drink of water, and sets herself down for the night. If it's cold, I cover her with a little fleece blanket. She's a purebred, you know? She's delicate. Or something.

Last night, as I was watching her bed down for the evening, I noticed that there was a piece of dog kibble lurking at the bottom of her water dish. This probably came about when Maggie ate too fast and horked most of it back up. Tastes better the second time, I guess, because she does it all the time.

I was about to grab the bowl and refill it, when she made a move towards it and began to drink. It only took a couple seconds before she realized there was food, a precious piece of food, at the bottom of the dish, so she had better retrieve it. Now, you understand, right next to the water dish in question there was a bowl full to the brim of fresh, dry kibble. Nope, she had to rescue this one piece from its watery grave. She stuck her nose into the dish in an exploratory fashion, then plunged her entire snout a good three inches below the water. While fishing around for the food, she was constantly blowing bubbles to keep the water from going up her nose. Folks, I don't know if you've ever seen a large dog blowing bubbles in a water dish while digging around for one piece of kibble, but I assure you it's the most fun you can have in your kitchen with the curtains open.

She got it, by the way. I went to bed with a vicarious sense of accomplishment. Good girl.

Doppler conversation

You know when you walk past a couple of people who are talking, and you really only hear the middle bit, with sometimes hilarious effect? Today was one of those days, but I was standing very near the two people talking, and there was no middle bit because it was just the one woman talking.

Today was cloudy and gray, which I'm fine with because yesterday was beautiful and tomorrow will be beautiful so that's all that matters. Besides, nothing at all is wrong with cloudy and gray. I happen to like it, especially when there's a soft drizzle to go along with it. Anyway, the woman in question was attempting to engage her cube neighbor in conversation about the weather. "Look, it's breaking up a little," she said. "Look, have you seen it? It's so cool!" Now I've seen clouds break up dramatically and in a cool fashion, and this particular meteorological event didn't quite hold up to her cooing. I was about to turn away and return to my business when I heard,

"Isn't that cool, that the sky is breaking up and you can see blue sky? .....I mean, for people who like blue sky."

What went through this woman's mind in that moment that she had to tack on the last bit? Being "into" blue sky is not exactly the vaguely deviant passion of society's fringe that you'd think would require that kind of backpedaling. My coworkers are disturbing.

Funny copy of the day award

I don't really have copy any more that qualifies for the Bad Copy of the Day award, but I do have some funny things cross my desk. Here's the bestest thing to grace my inbox in a while:

"Revision 2: Can you please .pdf this and save it in the same place? When I try to .pdf it, I get all sorts of Jesus-symbols, which I'm afraid my markets may not understand. Thanks!"

Four cool things

A'ight, I've been saving up cool things since last night. Because they are all non sequiturs, I shall post them separately.

I had first titled this post "Three cool things" but then I thought of a fourth, so I changed it to "Four cool things" and wondered if anyone, back in the day, ever did expect the Spanish Inquisition.

The first cool thing actually falls under the Funundrum Recommends category. Today Funundrum would like to highly recommend an excellent new show on FX called The Riches. It stars my favorite comedian and yours, Eddie Izzard, as well as Minnie Driver, as two Travellers plus their three kids who fall into a situation wherein they impersonate rich people living in a posh Louisiana country club.

It kind of sounds retarded on paper, but if you've ever seen even five minutes of the Izzard, you'll understand what a great setup this is for him. He gets to live the American dream, which in his words has always been "to get all the money in the world, and stick it in your ears, and go TTHHHBBBBBTTTTHTTT." And that's pretty much what this is. We were captivated. Monday was the pilot -- we only saw it today because Tivo is our slave. They'll be showing it again later this week, I daresay, and then every Monday night. Please, do yourself a favor and check it out. Even if it runs opposite Smallville. Because, dude, he's never going to start flying so why bother watching?

You learn something every day.

Have you ever heard the saying that wisdom comes when you learn how much you don't know? It was brought to my attention today that my self-actualization may be a few years off yet. I didn't realize until today that there's a name for M&Ms that aren't M&Ms. Really, how would you ask for M&Ms in a store if you could only use a generic name for them? (If you answered "Smarties," congratulations. You are British. Or Australian. You are also wrong.)

Turns out they are called "chocolate lentils," which is just about the most unappealing name for a candy that I can think of. It's like calling jelly beans "sugar lima beans" or something. Anyway, chocolate lentils are the things you buy to grace your wedding reception munchie bowls when you are too poor to have M&Ms, or even Smarties, god forbid.

Here's where I'm going with this. If I show up at a wedding reception and see a bowl of chocolate lentils on the table, I am going to first be appreciative of the fact that they exactly match the color of your bridesmaids' dresses. I'm then going to be a teeny bit frightened at the fact that you micromanaged your wedding to the point where your chocolate lentils match your bridesmaids' dresses. Finally, I shall sample aforementioned lentils, and my face will take on an imperceptibly puzzled rictus of horror as I realize that I'm not eating M&Ms. I'll peer down at the remaining candies in my hand, turning them over and over in search of the trademark "M," which will of course not be there because you cheaped out on generic lentils. This will, of course, make me wonder about the quality of the other foodstuffs at your celebration, and I'll secretly wonder if I can sneak my Cuisinart toaster off the gift table and instead leave a check just big enough to pay for a lower quality generic toaster that won't toast on the first try but instead will require you, every morning, to whack the lever back down a second time. After all, second best is apparently good enough for you.

The good news is that I'll never take action on any of this, provided that you've got an acceptable open bar. Let that be a warning to you.

Thank God Almighty, I can bake at last!

Ever since I got a job in a real office with real coworkers again, I've been happily baking cookies and cakes on a regular basis. Now I can bake whatever I want to, Chris and I can have one or two servings apiece, and the rest goes to the vultures. It's brilliant.

My latest venture is due to a dream I had a couple nights ago. Seriously. I dream of baked goods. I woke up in the middle of the night from an incredibly realistic dream wherein I was eating a type of cake that my grandma probably hasn't made in 15 years. At any rate, I haven't eaten it in 15 years. I actually laid there in bed, getting hungry because I had remembered this cake. I've been a woman on a mission for two days. The recipe was nowhere to be found in Grandma's trove of recipes, so I had to go on the internet to find something close. I did, and the results should be coming out of the oven in just a few minutes.

You want to know what's in this magical dream cake? Of course you do. Okay. The bottom of the pan gets layered with mini marshmallows, then white cake batter, then a mixture of sliced fresh strawberries and strawberry jello.

Here's the magic part: as it bakes, the strawberries sink to the bottom and the marshmallows come up. It ends up being tasty as hell with strawberry juice keeping everything moist and the sugary top turning the perfect shade of GBD. That's "golden brown and delicious" for people whose priorities wrongly exclude Alton Brown's Good Eats.

Okay, so it just came out of the oven and I think I got exactly what I was looking for! Sorry to tempt all you folks with cake you can't have, but I'm really excited. I'll give you the recipe if you want it.

OW OW OW OW OW OW

I was just in the shower, minding my own business, when I got one of those temporarily disfiguring foot cramps. My right foot was completely normal, and my left foot had suddenly decided to do the Hostel Two-Step, a move that should be instantly recognizable to every international budget traveler, as well as anyone who's ever spent time in the military, at a YMCA, or other hygienically questionable showering location. It's that involuntary thing you do with the bottoms of your feet when you get into a manky shower, where you attempt to minimize your contact with the floor using as few skin cells as humanly possible. The sensible solution is, of course, to wear flip-flops or something into the shower, but if you were remotely sensible, you probably wouldn't be showering at the manky hostel/YMCA/army barracks to begin with.

Anyway, the cleanliness of my shower wasn't the problem here, it was the fact that my muscles were fighting my tendons, or that I had ingested too much sodium, or some other such foot cramp-causing situation. I couldn't very well sit down and rub my foot, and anyway rubbing a cramping foot doesn't do jack to begin with. I tried to just stand on it with equal pressure all over, which helped a bit but didn't make the cramp go away. Then I remembered something that an old coworker of mine had told me. She was the sort who would sing to your injuries and was studying under a Reiki master to learn how to better manipulate q'i. One of the fun accupressure facts she taught me is that the hands and feet are supposedly closely linked, so much so that treating one will cure the other. She would demonstrate this by instructing me to, say, scratch the palm of my right hand if the bottom of my right foot was itching. I'd say that works about half the time, which is pretty good odds if your feet are itching and driving you crazy.

Like I said, rubbing my foot would have done nothing, so I tried massaging my hand. Would you believe that the cramp went away almost immediately? I had to do it a few more times before the muscles relaxed completely, but at that moment I felt like an alternative health rock star. What an awesome trick! Don't say Funundrum never taught you anything.

Liz hate snow.

[Warning: the following post devolves into Finnegan's Wake-style stream-of-consciousness , partly because of rage and despair, and partly because of vodka.]

Okay, I don't hate the snow, but I am not a fan of driving home after it's been snowing all day in above-freezing temperatures, meaning that the roads stayed melted all day until the exact second that the temperature dipped below 0 (Celcius, of course. One never realizes the full extent of Fahrenheit's retardedness until one moves somewhere where it actually freezes regularly. 32? Whose 3-am super-high idea was that? "Dude, okay, check it out check it out check it out. Okay. Wait. Okay. What if, like, everything didn't freeze at zero? What if, like, it froze at a totally random temperature like 32? Woah. I just totally blew your mind. Who wants Del Taco?")

So anyway, I was driving home today after it had been snowing all day in above-freezing temperatures, right up until the temperature dipped below 0/32. My office is really close to the freeway. When I leave work at 6, even with Denver's "rush hour" (they are so cute), I make it to the freeway within four minutes.

Today it took me 90 minutes. An hour and a half.

An hour and a half. That's the length of most Disney movies. I could have watched "The Little Mermaid" in the time it took me to go about a mile. I could have watched three episodes of Family Guy, with commercials and everything, which is something I never do because of Tivo. I'm trying to come up with another analogy about how long an hour and a half is, without relating it to visual media, but I'm having a hard time. I guess I could take my dog on a really long walk in 90 minutes

So to pass the time, I listened to Bernard Fanning's "Tea & Sympathy," which Funundrum highly recommends. He's the lead singer of Powderfinger, an excellent Australian band that Funundrum also highly recommends. Check with me for details. Please forgive me. I've had two stiff drinks at this point in the post, and I'm starting to wander.

I also penned this rant:

I thought about spending this precioius time writing a will, but insted I'll make
a very valid point: When the cars on the other side of the intersection have not
moved for the last four light cycles, do not be the asshole who thinks that your
car belongs behind them, like maybe this is the lucky draw and you're going to
win the intersection lottery. You're not being stealthy. You're not flying
Wonder Woman's invisible jet. You're just holding up cross traffic, making the
rest of us look bad, and generally being part of the problem. Of course, never
mind that I'm listening to an iPod because my FM transmitter has gone missing
and I'm writing on a scrap of paper on top of a Frank Sinatra double album in
the dark.

At least I felt a pang of guilt. Anyway, after I passed a certain point, the traffic let up and I turned down another major street to make my way home. Unfortunately, about halfway, it was closed due to accidents and stranded cars and I had to turn off into an unfamiliar neighborhood. Now, I will turn off into just about any unfamilar neighborhood this side of Compton or perhaps northside Dublin (at least when I'm sober -- northside Dublin apparently doesn't faze me after a few pints). However, this particular neighborhood hid a menace that Dublin and Compton can't boast -- icy-ass roads. This is the kind of ice that looks like a zamboni took care of it. It's kind of creepy. I was taking the whole thing at about 5 mph, and I was still sliding into the curb from time to time.

Then I got lost.

Then I got stuck.

I was behind several other people who seemed to know where they were going, and they all came to a dead stop at the bottom of a gentle slope, seemingly to navigate their way around a couple of cars that had gotten stuck on the hill. Now, I'm talking about a 15 degree grade here. Nothing major. But imagine you weigh 1000 pounds, and you're trying to roll up a slick hill on wheels. Yeah. Pretty lame. Well, I had to do that in my Honda Civic. Needless to say, I got stuck about 3/4 of the way up. For those of you who have never lived in the less-temperate climes, let me fill you in. You're in your car. It won't go up, because it can't get enough traction to get you there. You can go down, but your only option is to back into a side street where you can a) call your friends who have weak-ass Japanese or German cars like you and can't come pick you up or b) find somewhere to pee in the snow and wait for your fiance to get out of business school for the evening so he can come pick you up.

It was at that moment that I began to cry. I cried that whiny sort of cry, where I tell myself that I'm tired, and I just want to go home, and I'm stuck and I hate everyone. Then, because I'm awesome, the most amazing thing (usually) happens: I hear the voice of Mammy, from Gone with the Wind -- it's not the exact quote, and it never has been, but I always hear "You've been strong for so long, Miss Scarlett -- you just got to keep on being strong." And I dried my tears, and kept going, and after a very nice man pushed me the rest of the way up the hill (thank you thank you!!!) I finally found my way home, two and one-half hours after leaving work. This is why I've had a couple drinks, and I'm glad to say Chris is home from school and we're going to find something to eat. This is why I'm going to enjoy the hell out of Colorado while I'm here, but I'm looking forward to moving somewhere slightly more temperate when we leave.

Thank you for listening.

Mmmm... gelatinis

So a few friends and I made the long trek downtown (read: comfortable, traffic-free 20 minute drive) to go to this place that one of them had heard about. It is primarily a gelato shop, with dozens of wonderful flavors of freshly made gelato on hand. It is also a bar, and they combine the two concepts with surprising result. Their signature cocktails are "gelatinis," which are blended concoctions of -- you guessed it, gelato and booze. I had a grapefruit gelato and vodka drink, as well as a raspberry lemonadey thing. They had chocolatey ones, and many other types of fruity ones, and it was super cool and cheap to boot, due to the "It's 30 outside right now, wouldn't you like some ice cream" promotion they had going on.

Anyway, I just wanted to share the fact that someone out there is making new cocktails and my, are they tasty. No, you can't have it -- there are only two locations and the other one's in Ft. Collins, Colorado.

... really?

This headline really jumped out at me today on CNN. Now, I don't, as a rule, use racial slurs. I'm an equal opportunity hater, meaning I am willing to hate you no matter what color you are, as long as you're stupid and hindering my existence. So if I noticed this, chances are good that someone else did too. For shame, CNN.*

Japan's Slopes Emerge as International Ski Magnet

See, the first thing I thought was, "Wait, do they mean the people or the mountains?" Which is wrong and terrible and whatever, but also funny. You're telling me, Mr. CNN Staff Writer, that you couldn't come up with a different way to say that without using a fairly widespread disparaging term for Asians? Really?

* I know, I was supposed to stop reading CNN, but old habits are hard to break and come ON! If I would have been reading BBC, you never would have gotten this post.

Number One News Story with a Bullet

I've noticed a disturbing recent trend on CNN.com. Well, two recent trends, the first of which being its inexorable descent into crappiness. The second trend, the one I'd like to talk about now, is their tendency to preface just about every one of their news stories with a "Story Highlights" box that manages to summarize the entire story in three bullet points. For example, if the Second Coming were to occur some time in the next week, the Story Highlights would probably read something like this:

• Jesus Christ returns nearly 2000 years after his abrupt departure from earth
• Christ claims he will judge the living and dead for placement in either eternal glory or damnation
• "I knew all them horsemen in the sky meant something was up," says area man.

Now, I only begrudgingly read CNN.com because it offers a pretty good overall idea of the world's news. However, I really hate feeling like I'm part of the lowest common denominator that needs three-bullet story summaries. I remember a similar tactic from my first-grade reading workbooks. It's a stupid feature aimed at stupid people.

Today, CNN reached a new low. It printed a story that had something to do with Britney Spears' new bald head, and as a result was not very long. Fine. What is not fine is that they chose to grace this story, all 195 words of it, with a freaking Story Highlights box. To give you an idea of how short a story that is, this post is currently pushing 250 words. I'm not sure how mentally challenged you have to be to need a bulleted summary for a 195 word story, but I'm pretty sure that operating the computer necessary to read it would be beyond your mortal ken.

What's this brown stuff?

Over the past several days, the weather's been nice enough that the snow has really started to melt, revealing a highly unfamiliar brown surface underneath. I think, a long time ago, that we used to call it "dirt" but I can't be certain. I felt like an archaeologist yesterday, albeit a thoroughly disgusted one, as I shoveled up dog poo that had originally been deposited before Christmas. For those of you counting, that was two full months ago, and it's only now coming to light. And let me tell you, it doesn't get any less gross as time passes, it just gets crumblier every time it freezes and re-thaws.

Now that the poo has been taken care of, the next project is the Christmas lights. Yep, it's February 19, and our lights are still up. At least we're not the only ones -- between icy driveways and drifts of snow up against the houses, it's been damn near impossible for just about everyone to dismantle the holiday cheer. While I was out walking with Maggie today, I did see that Mr. Atomic Christmas had removed about 80% of his festoonery, but his full-size wicker light-up deer were still standing tall and proud.

Another thing I noticed when we were out today -- we have big sidewalks. I haven't seen this much concrete in months. When the best you get for weeks at a time is a tiny little path big enough for one person and one dog (single file), a big 6-foot-wide sidewalk meandering through the park looks like it came out of some Imagineered vision of a bright utopian future. (Please begin chirping a cheerful mod-sounding xylophone soundtrack) "Someday, Timmy, sidewalks will be big enough for a jogging soccer mom, her behemoth all-wheel terrain stroller carrying in-vitro conceived twins named Cash and Jaxson*, AND her bored Lab. Just imagine."

Now I understand why the coming of spring seems like such an amazing thing in this part of the world. Not that we're anywhere near spring.

*Seriously, two employees at work have, within the last six months, given birth to children and given them the abominations of "Cash" and "Jaxson" as names. I weep for the future.

Not in California Any More, Part 537

I got a card in the mail yesterday from Washington Mutual. When I took it out of the envelope, it looked all generic and I figured it was a stock birthday card that thanked me for keeping all my money at Washington Mutual.



When I opened it, however, I was shocked to find that it was, in fact, a hand-written birthday card that had been signed and doodled on by several of the employees from my local branch.

It just floored me. I come from a state with a population of more than 26 million people, a good number of which surely bank at Washington Mutual. This sort of shenanigan would never work in California.

Anyway, it was a nice gesture and certainly the most thoughtful thing that a financial institution has ever done for me.

Maggie update

Yay! Maggie is going to be just fine. She's only gotten her cone off once, during which time she performed her own minor surgery and removed her 6 inch drainage tube. Fortunately, she did that on the day the tube was supposed to come out anyway, so good times. The biggest challenge now is to keep her from running for the next week or so. That's right, we have to keep our greyhound from running. *sigh* It's an uphill battle. But she's back to her old self now, so we're pretty happy.

Note to concerned readers: The dog park where this incident occurred is not the same dog park where Maggie got threatened by a pit bull a couple months back. It turns out that bad dog owners are randomly spaced throughout the universe. Stupid people.

The day after the accident (you can see part of the ouchie behind her hind leg):

and today:

Okay, I don't have a picture. I do, but I'm in it and my teeth are all purple from our belated Valentine's Day dinner of pizza and wine (an '03 California cab sav called Dog House and an '04 SE Australian merlot from Rosemount)... we couldn't really go out on account of the dog. It was still nice.

Nothing funny today, sorry.

Aside from nothing much happening over the last couple of weeks, this next week might be a little dry too. Yesterday, when I took Maggie to the dog park, she got bit by a Siberian husky and needed a lot of stitches. She's on antibiotics and pain medications now, and she'll probably be just fine in about a week. Taking care of her is challenging, as she can't use her dog door and we have to watch her all the time to make sure she doesn't run around and tear up her wound, not that she's feeling up to it yet. Chris is fortunate enough to be able to work from home for a few days to take care of her.

So anyway, we're both angry and upset and a little scared, and so I don't know how much will be up on Funundrum for a few days. Maybe, when it looks funny instead of terrifying, I'll post a picture of Maggie in her cone.

Son of wedding accessory horrors

Or daughter, I guess, to be precise. This little girl creeps the hell out of me. In all these pictures, she looks like she's focusing her death laser eyebeams, or silently communicating with her dark lord via her enormous echolocating forehead.

Optional dialogue to try whilst viewing these pictures:

1. "The sun! It burns us, my Precious!"

2. "Whoomp whoomp whoomp whoomp WHOOMP WHOOMP whoomp" (Same Flash Gordon-y type noise as HypnoDog™.)

3. "...." (Because there are no words for wishing someone's mangled, half-human form out into the corn field.) (Extra points for people who remember this, one of the creepiest Twilight Zone episodes ever. It was an excellent short story first, but no need to get technical.)

Wedding accessory horrors

Part of the fun of looking through pictures of wedding dresses and accessories is mocking the models. Often, the most mockable models are those who appear to be starring in the new hit sitcom "Tacky Jersey Wedding."



I found something the other day that surpassed anything from the Shangri-La that is New Jersey. It was modeling tiaras and headbands. Without further ado, I bring you... prom leftovers from West Sheboygan High, 1998. Okay, not really, but this is what ugly Midwesterners look like in my mind. Yes, I am aware that I'm a bad person.

This is clearly a man. There is no other explanation.

"Hi... yeah, I know. The hair's awful, the tiara's got way too much going on, and my picture is next to a man dressed up like a bride. The best I can do is scrunch up my nose knowingly and pray for your sympathy."

As you can see, this particular tiara belongs to the Waffle House Waitress collection. "Please, hon, can you decide whether you want your hash browns smothered and covered or not? These dyeable pumps are killing me and my smoke break started two minutes ago."

This photo does the best job of convincing me that this individual has two X chromosomes. However, was it really too much trouble to pop out and buy half a dozen real roses for the photo shoot? Oh, it was? Then how about getting fake roses in a color that actually appears in nature? It's like they did the shoot behind a gas station and they were limited to whatever was for sale next to the cash register. Their choices were this purple rose, an astrology scroll, or a lighter with Tweety Bird on it.

Also, does anyone else find it disconcerting that she may very well be nude in this photo? Me too.