Why I'm not bothering with a flu shot this year.

I'm staying home sick today.  While I am, in fact, sick, this also allows me to prepare a bit for the arrival of my sister-in-law Michelle, who is visiting us for the weekend.  For the occasion, I went out and bought some toilet bowl cleaner.  I hope she understands what a rare privilege she will be enjoying.

Anyway, since this particular toilet bowl cleaner is made by the good people at Clorox, its main selling point is its germ-fighting abilities.  Frankly, (please pardon this coarse pun) I could give two shits about its germ-fighting abilities -- I just want our toilets to be clean enough that they don't look like they belong in the Kingdom of the Swamp People.  But this toilet bowl cleaner wants to kill germs anyway.  Fine.

In big, bold letters, the bottle proclaims, "DISINFECTS -- KILLS 99.9% OF GERMS."  Unbelievably, in even larger bold letters, right above it, it says, "KILLS FLU VIRUS."

My dog will be overjoyed to know that I have made her secondary source of drinking water flu-free.  I'm not sure how long the flu virus can survive inside a toilet bowl, but if you're coming into direct and regular contact with the surface of the inside of your toilet, you deserve to catch the flu anyway.

Holliday of the Damned

Our friends Sarah Marie and Stuart were kind enough to bring us along to a Rockies game last night that they had tickets for.   Chris and I loaded up on Subway, sushi, and cookies and readied ourselves for a good old ballgame.  When we got there, we sat behind two women who were... okay, remember the creepy twins from The Shining?  Sure you do, but since I'm trying to up the creep-out factor of Funundrum, here they are again:

Ew.  Now put these girls in matching Matt Holliday jerseys, make them look like the vaguely disapprove of everything around them at all times, and make one of them 55 and one 35.  There.  They were also radiating displeasure, not smiling like the joyful tots pictured above.

As soon as I pulled out my sandwich, a stiff breeze came up and blew away the bag.  Not one to suffer littering gladly, I jumped up to retrieve it.  Unfortunately, this caused a bit of tomato and lettuce to fall onto the younger of the Holliday Zombies just in front of me.  She recoiled and made a face like I had just taken a crap on her head.  I apologized profusely, but didn't feel too bad because her precious jersey looked like it was fairly unscathed.  This did not stop Cryptkeeper Mom from repeatedly and obsessively wiping the seat back with her hand before asking me in a nasty tone, "Do you have any extra napkins?  This stuff is NOT coming off."

The four of us were all wearing the thinnest, tightest possible veneers of concern, but I assure you we were all about to lose it.  Ladies, you are at a baseball game.  You are in the middle of a seething mass of humanity* and chances are very, very good that some of that humanity is going to come into contact with you in a less than optimal fashion.  How many times have my readers had nearly-full beers poured on their heads at a sporting event?  Raise your hand.  Right now you should be raising your hand.  And we all lived to tell the tale, holy crap.

So after this monstrously entertaining scene, we all went back to watching the game.  At some point I found my extra napkins -- I had been sitting on them.  Oh well.  The Holliday twins continued to elicit snorts and snickers from the peanut gallery, because every time Matt Holliday came up to bat, they would each raise identical Canon cameras in front of them and they would both take pictures of the Jumbotron showing his name and face. I'll let that sink in.  Can you imagine?  "How was the ballgame?"  "It was FANTASTIC.  Here's 8 pictures of a sign that says Matt Holliday's NAME on it."  Because this wasn't just once.  It was every time that he was up to bat.  I'm overly happy to report that this former MVP completely failed to achieve any level of greatness the whole night.  A strike-out, a pop-out, and then he died of embarrassment that these two women were so fixated on his Jumbotron visage.  "Hey!" he was heard to shout sometime during the sixth inning.  "You, up there in section 330!  I'm down HERE, you wacky uppity bitches!"  I heard him; I was there, don't question me.

I will leave our reaction to his performance up to your imagination.  As long as you imagine me yelling, "SUCK IT HOLLIDAY!" each time he forlornly trotted off the field, you will be imagining correctly.  

We spent the rest of the evening offering each other wads of extra napkins.  Second best baseball game ever.

*Slightly less seething and cramped than usual, considering the Olympics were on (and the Rockies suck).  I did experience a little withdrawal by not getting my nightly swimming fix.

Bad Copy of the Day Award

My friend Shannon was asking me about the terrible pictures from this infertility site I wrote back in the day (related:  I came up with the world's best infertility tagline for this guy -- "Turning Wishes Into Miracles") and I wanted to show her the rest of the site.

I remembered that he had not only the fancy new website that we built for him, but a bunch of crappy old sites too, where the old pictures might still live.  I went to my old employer's website to try to find this doctor's site, and was completely sidetracked by this sentence.  Please keep in mind that at least 40% of what this company sells is really well-written copy.  

"You are also invited to explore this website, as well as the websites of ABC Co.'s five major subsidiaries:  ABC Co. Medical, ABC Co. Dental, and ABC Co. Law."

Go ahead.  Explore all five of those.  I can't imagine why I left that place.

White person confession.

Our local NPR station just switched over from AM to FM, and I have made a disturbing discovery:  you know Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition?  He sounds way more attractive on AM.  They switched over and suddenly the full, rich, friendly voice that breaks the new day's bad news to me sounded thin and tinny.  They were simulcasting on AM and FM for a few days, so I was able to switch back and forth to make sure I was hearing him properly.   Sure enough, the Steve I knew and loved was gone.  Stupid switchover.  Stop messing with my reality.

Update:  I am pleased to report that NPR still broadcasts on its old AM station.  Sometimes I switch back during Steve's bits.

Overheard in Target

This was one of the funniest and saddest exchanges between a married couple that I've heard in a while.  I was browsing the women's clothes when I passed a couple who were looking at the clothes on clearance.  The man pointed out a bright orange blouse and the following conversation ensued:

"Hey, hon, you should get this."

"......Why?"

"The bears are coming."

(confused silence) "....What?"

"The bears are coming."

"................What are you talking about?"

(as though speaking to a child) "Football is coming. The Bears are coming..... you know, you gotta wear orange every Sunday."

"Oh."

And then they walked on.  I can't even imagine this woman's life, though I know conversations like this happen all over America, and all around the world (but usually for soccer).   I just loved his simple conviction, and her masterful ability to completely sidestep that conviction.  Well done, the both of you.  And go Bears.  

The Yogurtinator -- available at a commune near you

Yesterday, Chris and I came one step closer to achieving off-grid sustainability, when we successfully* made yogurt on our own, right after baking a couple of loaves of bread.  The idea came from our good friends the Kilzers, who showed us their version of a box that cooks milk and a small starter amount of yogurt into... well, a bigger amount of yogurt in just a few hours.

Here you see us assembling the Yogurtinator (Stu calls his the "Yogurnator," which is a more clever name, but I like the irritating quality caused by the extra syllables in "Yogurtinator"), which consists of nothing more than a cheap styrofoam cooler from the grocery store, a lamp kit, a dimmer switch, and a thermometer thrust unceremoniously through the top of the lid.

I'll spare you the steps (hint:  they're here) but suffice it to say, we got some mighty yogurt-looking stuff out at the end of the process.  I'm waiting for Chris to come home from school so we can try it at the same time.  After all, the family who experiences paralyzing stomach cramps together stays together.

*This remains to be seen.

It's... HUGE!!! RUN!!!

I thought about filing this under Bad Copy of the Day, but it doesn't quite fit, and rather does much better as a platform for my usual misplaced-yet-no-less-incandescent rage. I recently received this email at work (names changed, as usual, to assist in keeping my job):

"Congratulations to Producer Adam Farfegnugen and wife Krystal on the birth of their first child. Daughter Mairzy Doats Farfegnugen was born yesterday Sunday the 22nd of June 2008. This dainty little gem weighed in at 6 pounds and 12 ounces. Don't have a length yet but stay tuned for another bulletin. Everyone is doing well."

STAY TUNED. We're still waiting on that bulletin, by the way. I've lost countless hours of sleep, just lying there at night, wondering, "BUT HOW LONG WAS SHE?" Here's where I'm going with this. I know that it's been the tradition for ages to report the length and weight of newborns. It's the only achievement they've made thus far, after all. But ask yourself -- why do people always want to know the length and weight of the baby? Answer: because just asking the weight is a nearly transparent substitution for "how grisly and difficult was the birth?" Search your heart, you know it to be true. So instead, people throw in the length thing to legitimize their nosiness.

Unfortunately, there are no other questions that one can ask about a newborn or new mother that aren't rude or insensitive ("Does it have all its parts?" and "Will you be eating the placenta?" are two that I would consider acceptable if I was in charge of the world). So I guess I'll be stuck with having a brazillion people ask me these same time-worn, retarded questions when I have a child. I'll simply have to keep them on their toes, I guess. "Yeah, he's 7 pounds, 64 inches. He came out like a roll of Fruit by the Foot."

Best cake ever!*

I've finished my second Wilton cake decorating course, and here's my final cake.  It features pansies, mums, roses, primroses, daffodils, violets, apple blossoms, and daisies, which are all made out of royal icing (they're made ahead of time and placed on the cake when hard).  I also learned the super awesome-looking basketweave maneuver.  I'm really damn impressed with myself.  Next up is the class that teaches me how to work with fondant and make tiered cakes.  I'm not sure when that will be, but I'm thinking I'll wait a couple months to let the rage subside.  

This is a fun thing to learn, but it's a real bitch to prepare all the different kinds and colors of icing for each class -- especially considering that royal icing falls apart into a sobbing, useless heap if it comes into contact with the slightest bit of grease.  My kitchen has to be medical-grade clean before I can make this stuff.  Seriously, I spray everything down -- tablespoon, mixer bowl and beater, tupperware containers -- with 401 before I start.  It's outrageous.

* Yeah I know "Best cake ever!" is hardly modest.  But holy crap, LOOK AT IT!!

I'm not sure why...

but I've crocheted an egg.  I think it started when I saw some knitting patterns for pretend food on etsy.com, and got a sneaking suspicion that I could make some of it without any pattern at all, and some of it I could even do better.  I don't know.  I think it looks like an egg.

It's cake time again!

After being thwarted repeatedly by my own schedule and the apathy of others, I've finally managed to get into another Wilton cake decorating class.  This time, the focus is on lots of different kinds of flowers, including chrysanthemums, violets, apple blossoms, and a rose that is somehow slightly different than the rose I learned to do last time.

I'm weeping with joy that these flowers are all done with royal icing (mostly powdered sugar), and not buttercream made of Crisco.  This isn't a health thing, either.  Crisco is just evil to work with -- it sticks to everything, won't rinse off, and even if you wipe it off with a paper towel, you're still left with a sheen of gross.  Crisco is proudly trans-fat-free, though, so there's that.

Anyway, the only thing I really learned in the first class was how to do this chrysanthemum.  I'm pretty happy with it.  Everything else was just slapped on there at the last minute so it wouldn't look like my cake was covered in yellow dustballs.  

First hike of the season!

Even though I go to a trainer once a week, and even though we just got back from a fantastic adventure-packed honeymoon, the first mountain of the season kicked both our asses.  Our choice was Bison Peak, a 12,000 foot beauty that features a summit made of rolling grassy tundra and giant granite boulders stacked atop each other.  Because Bison Peak is at a lower elevation than the 14ers we've climbed before, it was warmer at the top and we were able to spend some time up there.  Don't worry that it wasn't just as hard of a climb, though -- the trailhead was also much lower than a 14er, so the climb was about the same.  Here's some of the highlights.

Best Copy of the Day

Among other things I do at work, I sometimes have to do stuff with loss reports. These are pretty much lists of injuries that happen in the workplace that are covered by workers' compensation insurance policies. Depending on the workplace (mental institutions are always a good bet), the short injury descriptions are always good.

Today I was looking over a loss report for a sporting goods store. Imagine the guy who received a "lump on the head -- cause: struck by stuffed elk head."

He probably won't live that one down for a while. Poor guy probably got hurt pretty bad, too -- the claim was for more than $15,000.

Now what?

So now that both Chris and I have a bit more free time, we've been able to discuss what it is we'll be doing with it.  I know I've got plenty of pent-up knitting that I'm going to be getting back to, but I'll save that for when Chris is at school.  

Thanks to our friends, Shannon and Stu, we've discovered the wonderful world of homebrewing.  See, it combines all of my favorite stuff -- beer, following instructions, and having a smug sense of superiority over other people who don't make things with their two hands.  YAY!  

We won't go out and buy the necessary equipment until we have a closet cleaned out to put everything in.  Until then, the first step is to collect enough empty beer bottles to accommodate a whole batch of beer -- that's about 50 bottles.  Rough work, but someone's got to do it.

Happy third birthday, Funundrum.

 The big day was back on May 12, but whatever.  And to both of you still reading, thank you.  (This number may increase, now that my dad plugged Funundrum during his toast at my wedding.  No joke.)

Remind me to get y'all pictures of the socks and bikini that I've knit recently (not intended to be worn at the same time, mind you).

What does a girl have to do to get a cold Fat Tire around here?

I found this when clearing out the CrapCam -- and I had completely forgotten about it.  One of the perks of my job is Beer Friday.  Every Friday at 3pm we all gather in the lunchroom for a beer, some popcorn, and gossip.  It's a great way to celebrate the anguished death of another work week, especially because whoever orders the beer knows what time it is and always makes sure there's a great selection of brews.  I usually reach for local favorite Fat Tire (if you're lucky, it's distributed to a liquor store near you -- if not, God does not love you).  Oftentimes, though, the Fat Tire is mysteriously less than cold.  I can't call it warm, as it's below room temperature, but it's never as cold as the Corona and Michelob Ultra that it shares a shelf with.  This makes for a gut-wrenching decision most Fridays -- do I sacrifice flavor and personal pride in favor of cold beer, or do I suck down warmer-than-optimal Fat Tire so I can still look like I have standards?  (Hint:  microbreweries are #23 on the list of Stuff White People Like) 
This was my ingenious solution on that particular day that I couldn't bear to part with my need to support a wind-powered, employee-owned Colorado microbrewery.  My coworkers all thought I was 1) a genius or 2) retarded.  You can tell which group contains fellow beer drinkers.  

Our IT guys are not getting beaten down hard enough.

One afternoon at work, about a week ago, I walked through the IT department and saw... this.  It's an honest-to-goodness stuffed gazelle head, which quickly became adorned with plastic nerd glasses.  Since I took this picture, it has acquired two or three different neckties, which get changed frequently and mysteriously.  The best part is that it's still up.  I hope it stays that way, because it's a little visual reminder that I work at an insurance brokerage that's a little less uptight than others.

I also love that it reminds me of my dog.

Funundrum recommends

Today Funundrum would like to recommend two websites that have been creating boundless joy for me and my friends.  The first is Stuff White People Like, which is essentially a list of stuff that white people like.  Other types of people may like this stuff, but this stuff, when considered as a group, seems to define white people and everything they stand for.  When I say white people, by the way, I mean (generally) young, upwardly mobile, slightly-left-leaning hipsters.  Like you and me, and millions of others in this great country of ours.  What kind of stuff, you ask?  Well, stuff like sushi, having bilingual children, Barack Obama, traveling, high-performance clothes, 80's night, and breakfast places.  If you do not intensely identify with at least four things off of that seven-item list, you are either not white or you're lying to yourself.  Even if you don't fall into the demographic of white hipster, it's a very entertaining read.  They're up to 100 things that white people like, with no signs of stopping.

The second is a fantastic little site called Graph Jam, which offers up crappy Excel-based charts, graphs, and diagrams illustrating concepts that really don't need illustration, but are 100% more amusing for having been so illustrated.  Here, just look at these examples.

The first one, if you need a hint, is a graphical representation of whether or not we will let him go, as sung by Queen in "Bohemian Rhapsody."  The second one?  I just gave you that so you'd have the Jeffersons theme song stuck in your head for the rest of the day.  My point is this:  Graph Jam is full of teh win.

Bad Copy of the Day -- Best of 2008 Award

Yes, it's only May, but I doubt I'll see copy this bad for the remainder of the year.

Chris and I were mulling over the thoroughly terrible neighborhood newspaper this morning, and I was half-heartedly scanning a story about some beekeepers here in the area  ("I wanna KEEP BEES...").  I had already had a small seizure over the use of the word "anti-venom" (hint:  not a word.  Try "antivenin") when I came across the small but brightly-shining gem below:

In March, their products graced the shelves of only three stores; that number has already grown to 20, and most shop owners are selling out of Busy Bee honey.  The Lechners' tireless efforts could easily be compared to the honeybees themselves, which work for 45 days straight before succumbing to exhaustion and dying.

WHAT??? That's the worst comparison I've ever HEARD!  Needless to say, I'll be making a concerted effort to send this to Jay Leno.  I have to go lie down now.

Wellness makes the difference.

For the last month or so, my company has focused on employee wellness and health. They put together a really compelling little program that has weekly fitness goals and prizes, and they've handed out a few goodies like pedometers. Normally this is something I would participate in and kick ass at, but it came right in the middle of Hurricane Wedding. So I've been watching the festivities bemusedly while I shake my pedometer so it looks like I've been racking up the miles. Not really. That would take effort.

One of the things they gave everyone was a bright orange Nalgene-type water bottle, emblazoned with the company logo and the enigmatic phrase "Wellness makes the difference." Since I drink out of a much bigger Nalgene-type bottle that was given to me when I failed to give blood*, I didn't use this new one.

We got an email yesterday saying, "Please discard the orange water bottle that was placed on your desk last week. We have identified a flaw in the process used to manufacture the water bottles. We have contacted our supplier to discuss the issue and as expected, they are correcting the problem and will be supplying different bottles in the near future. " I guess the orange dye was leaking into the water. Super awesome!

So these Wellness makes the Difference water bottles will kill you. It's just another example of "healthy stuff isn't all that great, actually," stories, which alternate with "sometimes crappy food is good for you" items.

The moral of the story is I'm going to keep eating red meat and drinking booze. Really not related to the water bottle thing at all, but one has to take a stand on these things, doesn't one?

HOLY CRAP I'M BACK!!!

Really, now. The wedding was wonderful, the honeymoon even better, but boy am I glad that's over. I'm no longer a bride, just me. Yay! Now I can get back to my complicated and somewhat exotic world of knitting, blogging, and baking. And mocking. Let's not forget mocking. I have a couple of stories in that arena, so I'll go ahead and make them separate posts.