It's like you're dancing

Everyone Pees.

2009-04-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

I've had a cold/flu/misery for a few days now. This always leads to weird sleeping patterns and restless body-ness, especially as I start to recover. Last night I couldn't sleep, no matter what I tried.

I was lying in bed, listening to Mr. Zoom snore. Suddenly I remembered a happy hour I attended in 2001, where I managed to chase a grown man from our table using the word Pee. And it hadn't been on purpose. But it was damn funny - now.

Back then I was about a year away from meeting Mr. Zoom. I was spending a lot of time with various friends, and I lived on my own. We were all in our 30s at the time. One of my closest friends happens to work with many of her very own closest friends at the same company. They were all meeting for a happy hour one Thursday night, and she had asked me to meet them there. This would not be the first time I'd met up with this particular group of people, but I didn't know them all that well yet.

I always worked late, so I drove myself over. Because I was driving, I didn't have any alcohol. I was and still am a Half Can Sam and knew I'd never be able to drive even on one drink. I routinely ordered a diet coke or pepsi, and was happy with that. I got a lot of grief about this. Mostly from people who were just trying to make small talk or didn't know that I really couldn't handle my booze at all.

At this particular happy hour was a guy who knew my close friend and her friends very well. We had met once before at a previous happy hour. We'll call him Mr. Fitful Disguised as Mr. Sense of Humor. Mr. Fitful for short.

I finished my harmless beverage and Mr. Fitful offered to buy me a beer. I politely declined, and told him I was driving, so no booze for me. Then he offered to get me another soda. Again, I politely declined because I was honestly not going to have any more. The caffeine would have kept me up all night and of course I said to him "besides, if I have too many of those, I'll have to keep getting up to pee."

Because when I feel like I'm being cornered, I start to talk. And it's never good. This, by comparison to other situations, felt like a 1 on the awkwardness Richter scale. Mr. Fitful looks me dead in the eyes and says "Please, do not ever speak of pee in front of me again."

I mistook this for a very dry sense of humor and a bit of a gauntlet at my feet. So I spent the next 10 minutes referencing pee as often as I could. Not just to him, but the whole table. Like most groups of fairly close friends, there's not a lot you can't say in front of them. And while I didn't know everyone - by the standards of my pal that was there and previous outings, we were all being VERY mild.

Mr. Fitful pounded his fists on the table, looked at me and said "I TOLD YOU never to say that word in front of me!!" With that, he got up and walked away from the table. Leaving his jacket behind.

Being the spectacular judge of character that I am, I STILL thought this was a joke - although at this point I felt it had gone into uncomfortable territory. The table was quiet for about 3 seconds before laughing and talking resumed. About a half hour later, Mr. Fitful had not returned to the table. His friends and co-workers started asking questions and they started searching for him in the bar. Finally, someone reached him on his cell phone. They reported that he had LEFT left, and gone home. Angry. At me.

Because I said Pee. Too many times.

I was dumbfounded. And then I was embarrassed. I had just chased a grown man from a happy hour table in a bar, who worked with and spent time with a close friend of mine. What was WRONG with me?? People kept trying to tell me not to worry about Mr. Fitful, that he was a little "odd" and they had all become accustomed to it.

I had read Mr. Fitful so well, I was sure that these people were simply doing what I was incapable of doing - being polite. I made up a very flimsy excuse to leave and drove home immediately. I'm pretty sure I ate an entire quart of ice cream that night. Even though I'm lactose intolerant.

Months and months later, my pal eventually convinced me that Mr. Fitful was known for erratic behavior like that, and nobody at that table thought I'd been rude or done anything wrong. In fact, I think I recall my friend reporting that he left the company they all worked at under less than gentle circumstances.

Years later, those people at that table are probably as close to me as my own family. I can say pee in front of them as many times as I want, and nobody will go home angry. That's not to say I won't say the wrong thing most of the time, but the difference now is that they all know me well enough to know that I'm just a harmless nervous talker.

And that I shouldn't be taken out to important corporate events.

I'm Employed and Slow To Respond

2009-03-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

To those who follow me on Twitter. And even to those who may read this blog.

Hi. I can't believe people follow me on purpose.

You'll need to know that during the work week, I sometimes just pop in long enough to run my text hole a few times and then I have to pop back out. I've got one of those jobs where I'm out in the open, in a cubicle with low barriers. Even before being employed was not something you took for granted, I could not always spend a lot of time reading twitter. I'm lucky, I love my job. Not saying I wouldn't welcome being able to cease working, but as long as I have to work, I'd like to keep the job that I love.

The result is that I sometimes have to put off catching up with your posts until the weekends. Some week nights I'm able to do a little catching up too - but mostly it is the weekends. Replies, Follow Friday, stuff like that? I end up missing it/them and I feel terrible when someone has taken the time to say something to me and it looks like I'm ignoring them.

Comments on this blog are the same way, although to be completely honest, Twitter has stolen my attention because it fits so well into the short burst of consciousness I thrive on. And pancakes. Twitter is very pancakes. I appreciate anyone commenting, replying, DMing, etc. and apologize for not getting back to you.

I don't keep track of who follows/unfollows/throws spit-balls at me. I'm on Twitter for fun and that's it. I don't have anything to sell. I used to add as a return follow every person who followed me. I can't really do that anymore, because as the numbers increase, I find that I can't do anyone justice by following so many. I've found some very talented and just plain awesome people to read. I know there are probably thousands more out there and it saddens me that I'll have to miss out on them for now.

So if you are a relatively new follower, and I haven't return followed you - please know it is nothing personal. It's just that I don't have the time to give you the proper attention you deserve. As people drop off/out of my stream, I'm going to try and add new people. I am currently trying to figure out a "good" number of people to do this with.

That is all. Carry on.

Time Machine Needed. Unironically.

2009-02-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

I can't thank the inventors of DVR enough. When your husband has this ability to recognize faces he's seen for merely a second, even 20 + years ago (famous and civilian), watching anything becomes more of a test of patience than a free flowing experience.

The fact that I can pause everything while he blurts out "Do you know who that is?" has saved us both. It's like knock knock jokes between us. "Do you know who that is?" "No, who is it. What T.V., Movie, commercial, street corner did you see that person on?" And then he answers.

We were watching Scrubs a few weeks ago and the familiar rumblings began. Apparently some kid in a movie called Little Giants is now grown up and acting on Scrubs. Which triggered my husban's OCD. He even rememberd one of the lines. I haven't looked the movie up on IMDB, but we think it was about 20 years ago that it came out.

I paused the show, let him do his thing and then sat there with my mouth haninging open when he knew an actual line from the movie THAT HE SAID HE NEVER EVEN SAW THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH. Because I sometimes feel competitive, I squealed "Nanerpuss!"

"Would you stop it with the Nanerpuss?" "Oh, I see. You can quote a random line from a film from 20 years ago, but I can't sing a song from a Superbowl Commercial. From LAST WEEK?"

He does this with the Cosby show too. I'll skim past Nickelodeon or something and Cosby will be running. He'll start saying the lines before the t.v. does and I start trying to figure out how I can sell him to a reality show.

So here's what I need. I need someone to create a time machine and go back to the 80s. I need them to incorporate a message to Mr. Zoom that I love him, so very much. And that I'm allergic to dairy products. And please, if I provide a list of movies we have seen together, maybe he will stop confusing me with his ex girlfriends and/or telling me about films/events we saw together?

I'd settle for just the I Love Him part. Because he might not be able to tell when I'm rolling my eyes and screaming "You are Monkey Throwing Shit Crazy" at him here in the 2000s.

Please Don't Eat My Face Off

2009-02-10T19:31:00.000-08:00

It's a butt cold Tuesday morning. Mr. Zoom and I are going through our morning routines trying to get ready for work. I'm in the bathroom and casually glance out of the teeny vent window that now has a perfect view of our neighbor's second story. They just added it in the last year or so, and as you will see, the house is still under a bit of construction.

So I look out and expect to see the usual. Plaster, wood, a tree branch or two, and sometimes a construction crew that we've been dodging for a lot of the time since now anyone on the neighbor's roof has a perfect line of sight into our bathroom. The room known as Where the Bad Naked Happens.

This is what I see:

DUDE. The Mothman just landed on our neighbor's roof and he brought his entire family.

That right there is a flock of Turkey Vultures, and they have this charming Horror Movie dance they do - where they stand up with their wings fully spread for many many minutes - absorbing the sun. I am convinced that this is also their satellite dish for collecting the souls of the naked and innocent people TRYING TO GET READY FOR WORK ON TIME FOR ONCE.

These pictures aren't going to give you any idea just how huge these things are. About the only scale for size you will have is the fact that the window seen on the house they are sitting on, that's a full size window. It's not a little bathroom one.

I saw one do this only one other time. And he was far on top of a telephone pole. When I saw him standing up there with his wings spread and holding it - I nearly drove off the road because all I knew of huge creepy birds with giant claws is what I've seen in scary movies.

I can't even begin to tell you how very creepy this scene is, especially when their bubbly red turkey heads are turning toward you and then angling with their giant eyeballs with every scream you make. I am positive they could carry off a poodle or wandering kitty cat. Probably both at the same time.

I ran for the camera after demanding that Mr. Zoom drop everything and "come here and look at this we are going down it's the apocalypse they are going to fly in here and eat my face off."

In my defense, the birds at the coffee shop attack me so often that I have to carry a stick with me when I go in there. If I don't have the stick, they fly at my head, sometimes land, and actually peck at my poor little helmet-less head while I scream and flail like a cartoon character. Those are just magpies. At most the size of a foot long subway sammich wing span.

Turkey Vultures are novelty 100 foot long party sandwiches with giant claws and wings that block out the sun when they fly at your head.

So then I did the only thing I could do. I went outside to try and get some better shots.

I came back inside and kept telling Mr. Zoom he should save himself. I could throw myself out there and while they attacked my head, he could get to the garage, his car, and drive away safely to work. He was watching the Nanerpuss Denny's commercial so he didn't hear anything I said.

About 5 minutes later the Mothman and his family flew back to West Virginia and we Zooms were able to get to the car.

Mr. Zoom, Magician. Almost.

2009-02-01T21:08:00.000-08:00

Normally I would not watch the Superbowl. I'm not a football fan, even a little bit. But watching Mr. Zoom scream like a little girl is fantastic. So I parked on the couch to watch him watch the game.

You know, for a sport that is by all definitions "tackle", there's a hell of a lot of game stoppage for touching. But whatever.

At one point Mr. Zoom parked himself directly in front of me and I couldn't see the t.v. He sat right on the 3 inches of couch I wasn't occupying with his back to me. He has never done this. Ever. And it made no sense to me. I asked him "What in the frigging world are you doing?" He said "Just came over to tell you I love you." I replied "I thought you were coming over to fart on me." Because I'm the best wife in the world, I repay kindness like that.

He jumped up and said "WHAT?? I'd never do that to you. When was the last time I farted on you?" He seemed so genuinely hurt, I didn't have the heart to say "Oh, ok. So we have to count the times you were actually awake - which would be zero. But asleep...well, that's a whole different number system."

We decided that at half time he'd run out and grab some dinner for us. Because I didn't want him to lug drinks back with food, I looked over at my diet coke and decided to re-cap it and put it back in the fridge for later. And that's when I noticed something odd.

My diet coke was even more full after I had taken a few tugs on it than it would have been had I opened a brand new one. I got up and went to the fridge to compare to an unopened bottle just to be sure. AHA. Someone in the house was up to something, and it was Mr. Zoom. Caught diet cola handed.

I have a thing. Well, several things. One of them is that once I've abandoned a drink, I can't finish it. I don't have a strict rule or timeline or anything I can point to that lets even me know that I will be abandoning a drink, but it happens quite a bit. I'm not proud of it, but I figure there are worse habits out there. Mr. Zoom is the complete opposite. He can finish a soda he started days ago, simply re-capping it and storing it in the fridge.

Apparently Mr. Zoom had taken one of my abandoned drinks and kept it in the fridge. I had seen it, and giggled to myself because I think it's so cute that he thinks I'll ever finish an abandoned drink. Generally after 3 days or so I empty and toss it.

What he'd done was pour the abandoned diet coke into my new diet coke so that after I'd finished it, he could say "AHA! See? You didn't know the difference." And it might have worked, if I hadn't bothered to try and save that very drink for consumption later.

"Did you pour that old diet coke into the one on the table?" He raised his eyebrows and looked away. Guilty! "When did you do that? When? I didn't even notice!" He said he'd done it when he sat in front of me so that I couldn't see what he was doing. And it had worked. I laughed. I laughed some more and then said "SO, you wouldn't fart on me (consciously), but you'll try to trick me into drinking an abandoned diet coke?" "Yes" he said. What could I do but laugh some more.

And this is how I know I've married the right person. I already knew it, but things like this remind me again. I love that he won't let me have my crazy without a playful fight. I love that when I get him back, he will laugh at that too.

I Am Where MeMes Go To Die

2009-01-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

Seven Things You May Not Know About Me.

I got the tagging by @EntropyAS, who also has a blog http://entropyas.blogspot.com/ My life lately has been such that anything I could write here would have to do with work and I'm not comfortable throwing things going on in that area out in the public at the moment.

We Zooms are fine for now. It's not really our lives being directly affected. But we're feeling it, all the same.

Way to turn something fun into a downer, eh?

1. In elementary school, I signed up for and played both the violin and trumpet. First it was violin, then it was trumpet. Not entirely sure how either of those happened, but they did. They both lasted approximately one year. Both instruments were rented. Sure, I loved and still love music - but I do not have the urge to play any musical instrument, besides my husband.

2. I was a "death rocker" in the 80s. Today it may still be called "goth". I fell in love with dark, moody, punky gothy music in high school. I desperately wanted a mohawk, but my parents wouldn't let me do it. And I was actually afraid of authority, so I sucked at both punk and death rock life. I did manage to shave the sides of my head one summer and dodged my parents for about a week before they finally saw it and grounded me for the rest of that summer. Through college I wanted pink and purple hair so bad. But I had a job and couldn't get away with it. All that remains now of this time of my life is a huge iTunes collection that makes my husband laugh and a bunch of vinyl records I can't bear to part with. Even though I own no turntable. Oh, and my Doc Martins with skeleton laces. LOVE THOSE. Still wear them.

3. I dread the day the printed book no longer gets made. I love technology, but I love actual books even more. I suppose I collect books, but that is only because I purchase them, read them, and want to keep all of them. But I don't keep them all pristine. I drag books with me everywhere, so they get a tad beat up in the process. So my "collection" isn't what I'd consider a collector's collection. I dog ear pages with quotes I love. References to other books or movies I might want to follow up on. Recently, I discovered post-it flags and now my books have rainbows of colored post it flags waving from their pages. Seriously, if anything happened to our home, [and as long as people I love were alive and safe], I'd probably miss my books the most. Mr. Zoom would immediately dance in all the extra space.

4. I am unreasonably defiant in the face of white chocolate. I don't understand it, I don't like it, and I can't shut up about that when in the presence of it.

5. I can't keep from giving gifts early. This is a serious impulse control problem. I can't buy things before birthdays or Christmas without giving them to the person right away. It honestly makes me squeak if I have to hold it for more than 5 minutes after I next see the intended gift recipient. My friends and family think this is hilarious.

6. I love scary movies, but if a particularly disturbing one gets to me, I have to sleep with a light on that night, sometimes more. Mr. Zoom will wake up and find me in the guest room zonked out with the hall light on. I've found the best way to watch them is at home on a very sunny day. And even then I have to have a blanket to cover my head and create a peep hole. No watching those suckers at night or in a movie theater.

7. I have this weird reverence for expiration dates. I know that a thing does not have a tiny little clock inside of it that ticks down and goes boom when the expiration date arrives. I know that. But I can't seem to use certain things after that date. I can use certain medications a few months after the date, but it gets really hinky after that. With food I can't even let it go for like a week. I just can't. This drives Mr. Zoom crazy. er. He can use an item that expired in 1987. I point, shriek and run away.

Those are my things. I believe I'm supposed to tag people. 7 of them. I'm going to do that annoying "tag yourself if you'd like to participate" thing. Think of it like a hidden track on a cd. The 8th thing you may not know about me is that I can't bring myself to tag people.

Glitter Isn't Always the Answer

2008-12-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

We got our tree late this year. We always get a small, lonely tree - a Charlie Brown tree. It is Mr. Zoom's favorite thing about Christmas. We were so late this year that we had only one tree to choose from in our size and price range. Only problem was, it was flocked. I hate flocking. Why would you cover a real tree in fake snow?

And it was flocked with gray sparklie stuff. GRAY. It looked like this tree had been rolled around in some one's attic, and then they threw glitter on it for laughs.

We asked if they could hose it off. They laughed at us. We asked if there was any way to de-flock it. There was. But we'd have to pull it off ourselves.

And that's exactly what we did. We pulled up a trash can and went to work on the little insulation strangled tree. Mr. Zoom had negotiated a price reduction and the guy working the counter was apparently so amused at our de-flocking ritual that he gave us a stand for free. We didn't get all of it off, but enough that you wouldn't know it was previously flocked unless you got real close to it.

As is customary, Mr. Zoom did all of the setting up, decorating and placement of the tree. I worked hard at watching t.v. and napping.

By the way, everyone who gave us candy/cookies/toffe/nom nom nom for Christmas totally owes me new pants 2 sizes bigger than before Christmas. Thanks.

That Time I Thought I Was Helping.

2008-12-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

These last few weeks at work have been the kind that serve as plot lines for dramatic movies and books. I've been self medicating with sugar, no gym, and a very understanding husband.

Yesterday at work I got a call from one of my coworkers. She said "please come here." and that was all. When I arrived at her desk, she was in full tears and uncontrollable sobs. Turns out that working in our department is enough to bring someone new to tears within 2 weeks. I did what I could to assure her that she's doing great, and like a trooper she fought through it.

Later that same afternoon she came to my desk. From the other direction came yet another coworker who knows both of us. He is a notorious Frat Boy Party Party Party type guy. He usually emits so much booze vapor, that we all get a contact hangover just by walking by his office. So Crying Coworker and Frat Guy Coworker begin discussing drinking after work. Crying Coworker is starting to cry again, so I immediately look for a way to lighten the mood. Frat Guy Coworker says "Oh, I'm sorry. I can't go drinking for at least a few more weeks. I am still pretty messed up. I mean REALLY messed up."

AHA! A moment to seize! I looked at him and confidently asked "Oh, what in the world did you do to yourself this time?" Nothing like a frat boy story resulting in drinking abstinence to lighten a mood, am I right?

He turned to me and said "Well, I sat vigil at my father's bedside for 4 days and slept in a folding chair next to his bed as he lay dying and finally passed away on Saturday."

He didn't stop there. He proceeds to deliver a gut wrenching story about his vigil, almost as a pastor would to a congregation. Hand flourishes, *magical* moments and I kid you not, this brought at least one other person listening in to full tears.

Fighting my own tears I apologized. Offered condolences. Of course he said "Oh, it's ok. Don't be sorry. I'm ok."

Sure. I felt even worse, as if that were even possible at that moment.

It's times like these when I can confidently say that life doesn't just happen to me. It throws me down, has its way with me and then kicks sand in my face as it zips up and walks out the door.

Proverbial Poo Has Been Distributed by Fan

2008-11-22T12:30:00.000-08:00

This past week, our firm conducted a huge cut in staff. For the time being, I am still employed. I am not taking this for granted though. And the flip flops my stomach is doing are fantastic for dieting.

I've never been this close to people loosing their employment in such numbers before. And I've never been this worried about my own and Mr. Zoom's job security. The hardest part of this situation is that there appears to be no obvious reason(s) for many of the choices in who gets cut. Anyone could go at any time.

Mr. Zoom and I are trying to realize there's not a lot we can do that we aren't already doing to make this any easier on our nerves. We both still have jobs. He's doing better than I am. Probably because he knows he's a much better prostitute and pole dancer than I am. I hope he makes enough money for me to continue my On Demand movie habit.

Coinage.

2008-11-09T11:36:00.000-08:00

I went to my Mom's house to pick up all of her left over Halloween candy. She called me to say "Your dad and I are about to burst our britches." The older she gets, the more often she lets gems like this fly out into the open.

She said she also had something for me that should have gone in my baby book. Well, that's always a good time.

When I got there, she handed me this envelope of crazy.

I don't know if it was just something you did in the 70s, but for some reason my mom has a collection of coins that were given to me as a kid from people. Random people. These aren't relatives or close family friends.

In fact, the one from "Mr. Crow"? Yeah. Mom doesn't know who that is. Neither do I.

The non restrained coins are: 1971 Silver dollar; bicentennial 1976 half dollar; and two bicentennial quarters. You know what childhood memory the bicentennial coins brings up for me? The fact that the family was sitting at a diner and someone at the table said "I am SO sick of this bicentennial crap. When will it be over?" I don't know who it was that said it, but I know that memory is a perfect snapshot of our overall joy to be with-ness.

The coins taped down and annotated: 1967 half dollar and a 1970 nickel. Awesome.

Best Day Ever.

2008-10-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

Around our house, there's an understanding. If I'm hungry and the food item is in any kind of packaging, said box/bag will end up looking like wolves drug it into the house. I just don't have the patience or talent to open things so that they can be re-closed. I'm hungry, dammit.

Mr. Zoom will often sprint towards anything I've indicated an interest in so that he can open it like a civilized person would. I'm not allowed to open chip bags when we are having people over.

That's why when I opened our trash bin and saw this:

I took it out and photographed the evidence. I don't eat ice cream (not because I don't want to), so that left only one other person in our house.

I ran into the room where Mr. Zoom was. "PLEASE tell me that the cut in two strawberry ice cream container in the trash is your work, that you did that so you could get to it faster?"

"Yes."

I ran away squealing with what he now calls "happy feet."

In other news, we Zooms have now discovered that is it actually possible to be locked inside one's car without the ability to override the auto-locks.

Every night when we leave the office, Mr. Zoom and I put our work stuff in the trunk of the car. I usually put my purse back there too. The ride home is usually about 10 minutes at the most, and it saves me stepping all over it because I've put it on the car floor.

This particular evening we stopped at the store on the way home. I didn't need anything and decided to wait in the car. He got out, got his wallet out of the trunk, walked away and clicked his fob to lock the car. I didn't thin a thing about it.

About 10 minutes later I wanted a little air. Since there was no key, I knew the window would not work. So I tried the door. Nothing. Tried to unlock the door. Nothing. Tried to unlock the driver's side door. Nothing. Looked for a kid safe lock master override or ANYTHING. Nothing.

No cell phone, no purse, no nothing. Holy shit, I'm LOCKED IN A CAR AND CAN'T GET OUT. I'm claustrophobic and unreasonable, too.

I began hitting the horn, trying to get any one's attention. Sure, I got plenty of attention but not one person would approach the car. You know the term window licker? Yeah, I had hands and face pressed up against the window in what I can only imagine was an Oscar winning performance of lunatic face. I wanted to see if I could get someone to go find Mr. Zoom and let him know I was trapped. Turns out I looked more like I wanted to eat brains.

I spent a while with the window, feeling the panic. Shortly after that, Mr. Zoom did emerge from the store. We were both just kind of standing there wondering what just happened.

All is well and now I laugh at it. And hey, now I know how NOT to obtain help in the future, right?

Life. I guess I'll Never Ride Bareback Again.

2008-09-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

What's that you say?

I'm medicated. I take pills every day in order to function. They say it's depression. My body either doesn't create enough serotonin or dopamine or fruit loops on it's own - or it makes too much, so I have to give it some encouragement to settle the hell down.

I'll be taking this stuff for the rest of my life. And while I knew that going in, I was never ready to fully accept the fact that I need help. For without the meds, I see and hear things. Things that aren't there.

I've managed my meds in excess of 10 years. I've only ever missed a med on accident one time. The withdrawal symptoms that followed were terrifying and confusing until I remembered "Oh, yeah. Forgot to take my pill." My senses had gone mad hatter on me, but it was easily fixed.

Right about now, you should be backing away from me with your eyebrows raised and your hands in a defensive position. It's ok. I would too, if I didn't know me like I do.

I know that my life is good and I pass for normal. At least as long as you don't look too closely, or expect particularly lady-like actions from me. I work hard at the office, I play hard whenever I can, sometimes when I'm at the office. My husband is my best friend and ALWAYS he's so good to me that there are times I think I've accidentally skipped a med and he's merely an illusion.

But there are bad times too. Little surprises that reinforce the fact that control is never to be taken for granted. Without getting too graphic, I recently missed a med without missing it. My body, uh.... evacuated some food I ate. And along with it was apparently a sizeable chunk of my time release med.

A night or so later, I awoke in the familiar cold sweat with my heart racing. Wild thoughts and the rubbery feelings all over. I knew this was a symptom of a missed med, but couldn't figure out how that was possible. I also knew I had a little time until things got real bad. The electrical zaps in my head hadn't arrived yet. And this wasn't a run of the mill panic attack.

I went through my days and concluded finally that I must have unwillingly given up too much of my med to the City's sewers. It made sense. I had taken it right before the snack of FAIL.

I took half a dose of my regular med as a replacement and within 24 hours I was right as rain.

And as I'm wont to do, I became a little introspective about my mental health. Why me? Why do I need to go through this? How can I fight something that throws me a curve every once in a while? What if I can't handle the next one? How can Mr. Zoom possibly stand so solidly beside me and accept everything that is me? If I'm crazy, and these meds are the only thing keeping me sane - holy shit.

I am literally, figuratively, clinically - mad.

And for about 3 minutes, I was actually happy being insane. I know it sounds strange, or at least I would think it does, but there was a weird kind of freedom that came with finally accepting that I am a full tilt nut-bar. Because for 3 minutes I didn't care that I need help, that I can't do this on my own, that I have to take medicine to participate in this world. I was what I am and I have a way to deal with it.

I haven't been able to maintain that acceptance, but it was a start. And I'm pretty sure I owe it to that half a cheesecake that I ate.

Just When I Thought I Hated Hollywood....

2008-09-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

ZOMFG! Did I just use internet slang?

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People + Simon Pegg = Zoom Girl Boner.

Read the book by Toby Young a couple of years ago and loved it. I also read another of Young's books where he laid out the uphill battle of getting Lose & Alienate made into a movie. It didn't go well. And honestly, I had thought the project was dead.

...until I just saw a trailer for it on my t.v. in the middle of my Family Guy re-run. ALMOST needed a change of undies.

I suppose this is what I get for not keeping up on IMDB and, you know, the information that can be had in less than a second these days. As long as one isn't a complete knob. I feel a little shame, but mostly I'm looking for a cigarette after my massive moviegasm.

Exiting the Passenger Side, Even Though You Drove

2008-09-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

I went to the grocery store on Sunday. That was dumb. Apparently everyone else in California needed to go to the store at exactly the same time. I had never been gridlocked in the bread aisle before, and it was quite a strange sensation. I had to override my claustrophobic driven urge to ram everyone with my cart.

Screaming children were EVERYWHERE. I heard, well, we all heard one parent yelling "Is it because you don't want to go to the birthday party? IS THAT IT? IS THAT WHY YOU ARE DOING THIS TO ME??" It was like watching synchronized swimming as we all decided whether we would be the people to act like the ruckus wasn't there, or we would be the people to stare directly into it.

At one point I found myself in an aisle alone. I was grateful for the space. And then the world decided to punch me in the face with a situation that happened far too fast for photo documentation. My own photos. As I'm positive security cameras caught it.

I was about to wheel my cart further down the aisle when an elderly man carrying something began walking towards me. My head began to calculate where he would be going, as we all do when there's another person in a space we need to navigate. I hadn't started moving yet because I felt like he was heading right for me. I remember thinking that was not possible, but then he came up to my cart and dropped the item he was carrying in it. He then looked up at me and I know all he saw was a strange lady staring back at him with her jaw riding in that built in kid seat shopping carts have. I wasn't sure WHAT to do. But then he literally clicked into the realization that my cart was not the cart he was looking for. He grabbed his items, practically yelled "I'm sorry" at me and then literally RAN AWAY.

I didn't see him the rest of the time I was in the store. I really wanted to. I wanted to see that he was with someone that perhaps looked like me and he just mistook my cart/me as that person. That maybe he had left her there while he retrieved something and that is why he thought I was her. What gave me the punched in the face sensation was that I was afraid he was having elderly dementia issues and I had witnessed an episode. And acted oh so gracefully as to stand there with a look of shock on my face. I really really wanted that not to be the case.

Just like I really really wanted the spider that was on my truck to be gone by the time I got out of the grocery store. Mr. Spider had built a web on my side view mirror, driver's side. I had driven on the freeway in order to blow him and his web off the truck, but it didn't work. And when I got off the freeway, Mr. Spider would come out of the center of the web to crawl up the driver's side window at stop lights. It's really not safe to drive a vehicle around while fighting the wibblies and saying "ew ew ew ew ew ew ew". When I arrived at the grocery store I exited my truck through the passenger side. I made some guy who parked 2 spaces away from me raise his eyebrows when he saw me climb over the center console to get out on the passenger side. I had to do all my business that day out of the passenger side. For all I know, the spider and his web are still there. Mr. Zoom drove us to work today.

I really hope the elderly man from the store had a spider like reason for placing his item in my cart.

Insecurity Needs a Workout Too

2008-08-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

Usually the rule around the house is that once I go outside alone, Mr. Zoom knows to expect a story when I come back. To lessen the chances that I get myself beat up, arrested, or made to cry - Mr. Zoom will actually accompany me many places. This seems to keep the weirdness away.

And this is one of the main reasons I carry a camera with me at all times. If I didn't have actual proof of some of the things that happen to me, I'd think I'd gone "Beautiful Mind", without the brilliant part. Just the seeing things part.

Monday Mr. Zoom went with me to the gym. It was less of a protection thing for me and more of a want to get exercise for him. I was elated to have him with me. For all kinds of reasons, the most obvious being that I would be story free for the evening.

After I kicked the ass of a treadmill*, I went to the little lobby area to wait for Mr. Zoom. This area is directly in line with the "Kidz Klub" and often parents are streaming in and out with their minis. I was checking my e-mail with my phone and I looked up to see a little red headed kid, probably no more than 5 years old standing right in front of me. I exaggerate not, her face was inches away from my face. She asked me very loud and VERY directly, "Are you someone's mom?"

I went immobile in the head and body for a moment before I squeaked "No...no, I'm not." Her Mom raced back towards us to grab her, said "I'm so sorry!" to me and then drug the little depression machine off and out the door. I felt worse than I do when I'm forced to take a treadmill in front of the t.v. playing Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. SMART. What is FAIL? THIN? fail. And now, YOUNG? fail.

It was already feeling a little unhip girl logic that told me this stranger's little girl thought I was a mom because I was old. It could have been because I was in the lobby area. It could have been because I had a cell phone and was using it. It could have been ANYTHING, but Mr. Zoom got to ride out the wave of self critical jibber jabber that followed. And I am quite surprised that he didn't sit me on the couch and tell me to shut my hole, life is pretty damn good - what some strange kid innocently asks me should not bring my whole world to a halt. Especially since I didn't know where the question was coming from.

But he didn't. He let river jump to conclusion run itself dry.

I like to think I don't have any illusions about being 39, and looking 39 - whatever that means. But you know that idea you have in your head of what an age looks like to you? But I suppose the truth is, that just like I believe the dryer shrinks my jeans, I love to believe that maybe I look pretty good for 39. And that nobody would ever mistake me as someone's mom. But just like the phrase "looks 39" is ambiguous, so is "looking like someone's mom". Because there are a lot of moms out there who are fantastic looking, as well as genuinely wonderful people I'd be honored to be compared to/mistaken for.

So what have I learned? That the dryer really DOES shrink my jeans. That's what.

*Not really, as everyone knows only Chuck Norris can kick treadmill ass.

Underrated Creepiness: The Ice Cream Truck

2008-08-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

Mr. Zoom and I came round the corner on our way home from work and stopped mid-smack talk to gawk at the ice cream truck parked in the middle of our street. I began to flail, because my camera wasn't handy and my cell phone couldn't boot up in time to get a shot of it. And the weird thing, it wasn't parked because there were kids there. It was just parked. With the ill-tuned music gushing from it.

Mr. Zoom - funny enough - zoomed into our garage and got his camera out so he could video the rarely seen ice cream truck as it passed our house.

I had previously used the last of my phone battery to amuse myself at the office while waiting for Mr. Zoom to meet me in the lobby to drive home. I spotted a large fly on the window, booted up my phone and giggled to myself as I internally repeated "super fly!" to myself. I took some pictures which I intended to upload to TwitPic. Then I realized that nobody was going to be able to see the fly and the moment vanished.

But not before Mr. Zoom came down and saw me giggling to myself and chasing a fly around with my cell phone camera. The work week hadn't ended fast enough.

Just that morning I had gotten in the shower and all too late noticed a cricket in there. I had the wibblies, but figured I was already soaked in water so as long as he stayed in the corner I could finish my shower. With one eye open at all times. At that very moment, clown cricket took massive leaps into the water on the shower floor and began hop swimming towards me. I yelped and flew out of the shower, squealing for Mr. Zoom in the patented bug-in-my-space-come-fix-it-noise.

"BIG CRICKET IN THE SHOWER!!" I pointed while I struggled with a towel. "I was going to be fine, but then he came out of his corner and started chasing me across the shower! Apparently it was ON."

Mr. Zoom, barely hiding his amused disbelief "Came after you. Right." Then he opened the door. "Oh. He's a big boy." Mr. Zoom had to go find some cardboard so that he could air lift clown cricket out of the shower while I hid under a towel. That is not an exaggeration. I can't stand watching Mr. Zoom deal with the bugs.

You know how getting back in the shower after you've pre-completion exited just doesn't feel the same as getting your whole shower done in one session? Threw off my whole day.

Proving that I'm Always the Last to Discover Anything

2008-08-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

It was last weekend that I entered the Bed Bath and Beyond for what seemed like the first time ever. I've been to that store before, but just like I didn't appreciate San Francisco when I was 9, I didn't understand the love capacity I had for Bed Bath and Beyond until this past weekend.

I can't stop thinking about the magical aisles with bric-a-brac that nobody needs but desperately wants. The "as seen on t.v." items are my favorite. And I bought some of them, too. The jury's still out on the actual effectiveness of those products as compared to their claimed effectiveness. But no matter. I was high on potential and I LIKED IT.

Do all BB&B's have just that one teeny little door to enter and exit through? Is it a theft deterrent kind of thing? I'm not sure how they get away with that as far as fire safety codes, but maybe they are so awesome that they are exempt. I am claustrophobic, but for some reason the super high ceilings and walls, covered with absolutely anything you could ever imagine isn't a threat to that part of me. Like, if there was a fire, I'd probably just run to the travel section, lie down and say "yeah, this is as good a place as any to have it all end."

HAVE YOU SEEN THEIR TRAVEL SECTION? Everything you've ever needed is in miniature travel size and in stock in that store. Most stores have that sissy one side of the aisle filled with a few bins of marginally exciting travel sizes. Not BB&B. They dedicate an entire SECTION to that. Their sections are about the size of a room in a house, with extra high ceilings. And all the wall space plus shelving aisles in between is stocked full.

Let's put it this way. Mr. Zoom used to shudder when I told him I'd be going to Target. I can still spend way too much time and money there - but there's a brand new (to me) whore in town and she gives me exactly what I want and exactly what I didn't even know I wanted. In several sizes, colors and brands. It makes me feel like I could have a clean, organized, hip home without the enormous energy I waste already if I could just fugue out the magical combination of items to buy and use. It's like they have some secret gas in there that induces domestic euphoria.

Awesome.

All the World's My Helmet

2008-08-03T16:54:00.001-07:00

Mr. Zoom came home from the store with salsa. And thank goodness he got the non-poisonous one.

I suppose in the wake of the tomato scare, I get it. But here's an example of caution gone too far:

Really?

Because if you come back from the fair with anything less than 3 layers of dust, straw, beer, animal hairs, drool, chocolate, sweat, a set of ShamWows and a sense of having sold your soul for something deep fried, well - ur doin it wrong.

Tweet. Chirp. Caw.

2008-07-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

Blame twitter. Not that I think anyone is checking here for new content - but due to twitter and it's amazing ability to let me drain my noggin's chatter-pan more regularly, I find myself posting "big posts, official ones" to the blog much less often.

And even if it didn't exist or I weren't using it? There wouldn't be much here lately anyway. Bout all I have is a new found hatred for the sound a plastic spoon makes when it scrapes the bottom of a yogurt cup. For some reason this JUST started bothering me. One of my co-workers eats yogurt daily at her desk, has been for as long as I can remember. Yet, this audio event has just started to bother me.

We Zooms recently got to play a game called Apples to Apples with some friends of ours. Despite the fact that it isn't a drinking or eating game, I liked it!! The brief description of the game is that you have to pick a word you are given and match it to a word the "judge" gives you. Something you think will be seen by the judge as a match. As someone who can create a link between two or more events/things/etc., this game felt like it was made for me. Although I didn't come close to winning but once, and only then after I started shutting down my special kind of logic.

Zoom: "What do you mean toasters aren't shocking?"

Judge: "Well I'm not taking it into the bath with me!"

Zoom: *pout*

The after effect on Mr. Zoom is that when he says things to me now, I like to latch onto a word and fling "matching" words at it. Only nobody really knows what word will trigger me, or what I'm even talking about until deep resentment has set in.

Mr. Zoom: "I'm going to the market today."

Zoom: "ORANGES! glassware. MITTENS! Cake. Nooooo. Cash. WHY?!"

Mr. Zoom: *sigh*

Awesome.

Wax On... Why Are You Crying?

2008-07-21T17:14:00.001-07:00

Recently I discovered the certificate I was issued when I obtained a yellow belt in some flim flammy karate class. When I was 10, the year 1979. YIKES!

I can totally remember when my Dad and two older brothers decided to take karate classes for the exact same reason that everyone else at the time wanted them. They all wanted to be Bruce Lee. And I wanted to be and do whatever my brothers were doing - the fact that I was a girl and they were boys didn't mean a thing to me. I should have known from the lack of hesitation [upon my joining the class] on their part that it was an incredibly bad idea. For me.

We were 3 latch key kids. When my brothers weren't spending time locking me out of the house, they were using me as a target for home made darts or just beating me up in the way that only brothers can do. Enrolling all of us in a class where they were not only allowed, but encouraged to beat on their sister was the ultimate get out of jail free card.

When the teacher informed us that karate was only to be used to protect oneself, and that it was downright improper to use it solely to show off or whack your sister in the head, I had hope. Hope that my brothers wouldn't roundhouse my ass just for fun. It is one of the clearest memories I have of complete and utter dismay at the difference of life "on paper" and "in reality". It was the down payment on my helmet for life. Because what do 12 and 14 year old boys care about improper? Only that the forbidden nature of it was the exact fuel they needed to put operation pummel-your-sister into action.

My Dad was in the class with us. That slightly cut down on the number of "sparring" sessions I had to endure. That - and the fact that I learned to cry sooner rather than later, which I believe got on their nerves more than anything.

Memories of those individual lessons are lost to me at this point. A blurry image here and there, mostly of my trying to remember my Forms. Or Form. Or whatever that maniacal dance routine was that they assigned to us at each level and that we were expected to memorize and perform on demand. One particular lesson I remember the class being introduced to a room - not unlike one of those super bounce things at kid parties - but it was an actual room in the building where the lights were turned out, we were placed inside, and the idea was for us to use our spidey senses to spar with our classmates. That might have been considered a great teaching technique if I didn't immediately curl up in a ball in the corner and just hope that nobody tripped over me. Much more turtle than spider.

I remember testing for the yellow belt, and quitting the classes the very night I got it. I was NOT going to stick around for nunchucks and throwing stars. Those items might not have been on the teacher's agenda, but that wouldn't have mattered to my brothers. There was already a pond in our courtyard filled with plastic army men who had been tied to bottle rockets and shot into the pond from the roof of our two story home - and cleaned out again before our parents got home. I didn't need much encouragement to believe that I would soon be forced to "hold this for a second, I want to see if I can make a throwing star stick in the wood while I run through the yard like a ninja."

I'll tell you what though. I was the best crier in the class.

No Really. It Wasn't From the Circus.

2008-07-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

So what's the last thing you expect to see on the sidewalk as you drive home from YOUR work day? No really. Think of all the things you would never expect to see.

Is one of them a unicycle being ridden down the road? Because it should be.

When Mr. Zoom and I drive home, this is what we normally see, and what we expect to see. Sure, throw a random person walking their dog in there. We can handle that.

I am a clown, I am here for Earth's amusement. I have to be. How else can you explain that several times now, Mr. Zoom and I have been driving down that road and seen an honest to goodness UNICYCLE WITH A RIDER ON IT just toolin down the street like it's perfectly normal?

And the worst part? I can NEVER get a picture. NEVER. Even if I drove home with the camera on and pointed out the window, the speed at which both we are driving and the unicycle is going the other way makes it impossible for me to capture proof on ... digital camera.

And this keeps me up at night. Because who believes you when you say you've spotted an actual unicycle with rider just going down the street as if that's perfectly ok? And there's no circus around. The fair hasn't even been in town when the thing shows up every summer.

So guess what you all get. You get a really crappy artist's rendering of what Mr. Zoom and I have to see once in a while. Just like court cases where media can't come in. Only I'm spectacularly inept at drawing in general and I have not the slightest clue how to work the photoshop on our computers.

See that? Do you think you could keep your collective sh*t together if YOU were driving down the street and saw that?

I didn't think so.

FINALLY, after like 2 years of fretting over the fact that that I'm never going to get photographic proof of the existence of this thing, I can let.it.go.

Defending My Nit-Wit Title

2008-07-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

Poor Mr. Zoom. Anytime now he will wake up in our house, and once more, wonder how I can possibly claim I wasn't raised/trained by lunatic hippies. With a straight face.

Mr. Zoom has come down with a horrible cold. The way he deals with ill is nearly identical to how he deals with the realization he's married to a woman who will do and say just about anything if it makes sense to her - and only her, the rest of the world is welcome to get on board but if not - oh well that's what insurance is for. Only the trained eye of the wife can tell the difference between "you've got to be kidding me" and "sick". When sick, he takes some cold relief medicine, and then curls up in a ball for a 4 day sleep in the guest bedroom. One doesn't wake him. One doesn't try to feed him. One only checks to be sure he's still breathing throughout the day.

I leave sick friendly food offerings in the fridge. I leave little notes around for him to call me if he needs something (but he never ever would).

Today though, here's what he's going to find when he wakes up and makes his way to the kitchen. A fresh loaf of bread I bought for him last night (for toast. He loves toast when he's not feeling great), a note that I love him, and oh yeah, a note that there's A WASP IN THE BATHROOM. Be careful.

What he'll see when he goes to the loo to check it out is another huge note on the bathroom mirror "WASP!! on the floor!! CAREFUL". He will then look down to see a brown paper lunch size sack taped over an upside down high-ball glass, which is covering a wasp I found in our loo last night. The sack says "stoopid Wasp".

I think I carried the bee into the house on my clothes. For some reason bees literally try to stick themselves to me. One time I went to lunch at work, came back to my desk and couldn't figure out why my hair was buzzing. I'd brought a bee all the way from outside and up 14 floors to my desk and didn't even know it. Just a month or so ago, a huge bumble bee followed me from our yard and all the way out to my truck. I was positive it was going to kill me and then drag me back to its house for the family to feed on. It finally flew away, but not until after much whimpering and adrenaline leaked out of my body.

So last night after I get out of the shower (had gone to the gym), I see the wasp on the floor. He's barely alive. Normal people would take care of it by vacuum or broom and dustpan. But I can't. I can't I can't I can't. Normally Mr. Zoom can recognize a spider squeal out of me and will be there within seconds to deal with it. But this time he was already down in the sick sleep and I wasn't going to wake him up.

The solution was for me to grab a glass and turn it over on the bee. And even that gave me the worst case of the willies. The glass landed over it's target and I shot backwards going "woeeididd eee ooo eeeiiieeee". I was afraid later that Mr. Zoom would wander in there and not see the glass or bee, and might kick it. So I took the lunch sack I found in a drawer and some packaging tape, and I taped the bag over the glass and onto the floor (cement acid washed floors, no carpet).

I'm pretty sure a giant spider will show up in the shower tomorrow morning. That's usually how this works. Worst time possible for critter interaction? Great. Everybody swarm.

Fire Safety by Tag-Team

2008-07-04T16:32:00.001-07:00

P Touch labelers are the best invention ever.

There are times when I hate living in a neighborhood full of college kids. Then there are the times they make me laugh and they make me thankful that our house isn't at the end of the block.

Managed to get a better picture of one of our office falcons this week.

What's so Funny?

2008-06-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

Our house was built a long time ago. It is the fact I bring up every single time I blow the fuses in the house with my hair dryer or the vacuum cleaner. Mr. Zoom has never managed to do this, no matter how much electric stuff he has running in the house at one time. Apparently only I have the power.

One of our lights was set up on this antique timer that was built into the wall:

To fully appreciate it, you have to see the combination lock type set up one has to work with in order to get it to do anything resembling "useful". Or, working at all. Ever.

So one day on the way home from work Mr. Zoom throws this comment out:

"Yeah, I'm going to replace that thing. Because it's not working right and I'm always afraid I'm going to open the stargate whenever I mess with it."

I laughed so hard the rest of the way home, I think I snorted. And he really didn't think it was all that funny. He married me, so his point of views are obvioulsy invalid anyway.

While walking to our car through the parking lot last week, I saw this:

Which I also thought was hilarious. And I haven't even seen the movie, nor do I know who's car that is.

Yesterday, one of the baby falcons that lives on our office building landed on my boss' window ledge and proceeded to squawk his little head off. He had brought a round...lunch with him. I couldn't really get good pictures because the camera didn't want to focus on the bird, and I didn't want to scare him off.

The only reason I know it is a falcon is because when we all first noticed the birds we called them hawks. A co-worker wrinkled his nose in disgust and informed us all that it was a FALCON, not a hawk. And how silly of us to make such a pedestrian mistake, but, you know, not many people bother to learn the difference.

I still don't know how to tell the difference, because I tuned out as soon as our lack of intelligence was thrown on the floor and danced upon by some guy who apparently became a real estate attorney so he could wow a bunch of unsuspecting people with his amazing bird knowledge?

FAIL.

You Need Proper Supervision

2008-06-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

There's just not a lot going on in my world these days.

I did witness our self proclaimed cougar hunter stalking one of our very cougar, single employees. He scored a dollar to buy some chips out of the vending machine, for himself AND another friend of his. I felt like I needed to boil myself for having been in the office kitchen when the deal went down. I did add a round of eye rolling to the general ambiance, but silently endured the willies the rest of the time.

Oh, and there was a company potluck, but there was a fight about who would get to bring the fruit bowl. Yes. Yes there was.

Mr. Zoom has had to chase me off of the science channel a couple of times, since there are many specials about black holes and theories of planet creation. I'm fascinated, but after watching those I can't sleep. I get that ticklie bottomless pit anxiety that comes from learning you might be sucked into a massive, mostly invisible, space quick sand AT ANY TIME - and I'll probably turn inside out in the process. Or that our universe is basically an accident residing on the inside of something even larger than can be comprehended. It's the Nova String Theory special all over again. I don't need a reason for life to be what it is - I try and enjoy it as much as I can while I'm here - HOWEVER I got here. And I know that these happenings are not very likely - just possible. Nevertheless, it yanks the carpet out from under me, which causes my yap to flap at Mr. Zoom when he's trying to go to sleep.

Oh, and then I also start throwing words at Mr. Zoom (like Singularity) as if they are a perfectly natural and long time member of my vocabulary. Sometimes he just takes it in stride, other times he has to stop what he's doing so he can rub his face in that defeated way that husbands do.

When Mr. Zoom and I are around the house and I need his attention, I flip on the Lifetime Channel. He's afraid of it (and to tell you the truth, so am I). I've even threatened him "If you don't _______ now, I'm going to sit down and watch Lifetime." Usually what is at stake is that I'm hungry and ready to get something to eat, and he's not quite there yet. Instead of being an adult and going on my own way, I use terrorist tactics to bring him around to my point of view. There's a Lifetime in the HD channels now, I wonder how fast I can get lunch with that thing!

What do you know, it's dinnertime!

Tourette's Marketing. Ur Doing it Wrong.

2008-06-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

Last night Mr. Zoom had finally gotten me to pick a place for dinner. Since he was going out to buy some milk he wanted to make things simple. I'm a gigantic pain in the ass when it comes to picking a place to eat. I don't want to be, but I am. I was going over what I wanted to order with him - well, to be honest I was changing what I wanted every .5 seconds - when he finally said "look, just tell me what you want and I'll go from there." Sensing that he was interested in getting a move on - I said "Awww, come on. We've had sex! And in a post sex high, aren't you supposed to find everything I say riveting and fabulous?"

And without skipping a beat, he said "No no no nooooo. That's BEFORE we have sex. Not after." I almost high fived him for that one.

He went on his way and I settled onto the couch for some T.V. and Nintendo DS lite while I waited for him. I was surprised when about 15 minutes later my doorbell rang. I thought for sure it was Mr. Zoom, who likely had his hands full and needed me to unlock and open the door for him. I looked out the peep hole to be sure it was him, and it wasn't. There were two people I didn't recognize out there, and I could hear one saying through the door - and what he thought was under his breath - "please don't freak out - please don't freak out - please don't freak out" Which of course, made me freak out. Silently, but still.

They had heard me thud my way to the door, and when I hadn't responded one of them said "HELLLOOOOO." I kept the door closed and shouted back "UH, my husband isn't home at the moment."

What's wrong with me? If these are bad people, why don't I let them know I'm home alone! That's a fantastic idea! Not only that, but apparently I'm a 1950s housewife who can't take care of anything without the Husband? It would have been even better if I was dragging a vacuum around the house with me and I called it a sweeper or something.

Team Marketing wasn't giving up, and I was told (as I was still watching through the peep hole), "Aww, come on lady. He's got tourettes [pointing at his pal]. He needs to practice. Will you just let him do the presentation?"

Whether or not I fit the definition of LADY on paper, it still makes me uncomfortable when people say it at me. Although I really couldn't blame him since I pulled the I'm-Incapable-without-A-Husband thing. But I also couldn't figure out what the other guy's tourettes had to do with anything. And was positive that he probably didn't appreciate having those facts yelled through a door.

"No thank you." I said. I watched them through the door, their shoulders dropped in the realization that I had indeed, freaked out and refused to open the door. They said "Do you want a free paper?" I declined. They left.

Mr. Zoom got home. We ate dinner. I didn't want to share the story of Team Marketing with him just yet. And, I do believe he'd already told me earlier that very day that "Just because people talk to you, it doesn't mean you have to respond."

What he's really saying is "One of these days, someone is probably going to punch ME for something YOU said."

"Giant White Noise Machine"

2008-06-08T12:46:00.001-07:00

You'll have to click it to actually read it.

Make your own at:
http://www.text2mindmap.com/

Mr. Zoom Shoots Nature's Peen

2008-05-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

There's a river-ish thing that runs along some of the road we take to get to the office. I was always confused as to how California could justify calling these sometimes filled water ways "rivers" when in New Mexico they called them Arroyos.

Because, see, I thought as a kid that arroyo was THE name for nature's man-made cement sewer system for rain water. Not bothering to realize it was another word for small river. Just one of the many ways I've stumbled ever so gracefully into the concept of regional dialect.

Anyway, one morning over trying not to spill my coffee, I spied a giant rock phallus in the river bed. It is not unusual for there to be some kind of shape there, as the frats and sorrorities of the college right next to this place have been placing a rock version of their Greek pride on that very spot for years.

But this was the very first Greek symbol I understood immediately and without so much as a stutter. Mr. Zoom went back one evening to record this creature in its native environment before civilization could cover it up. It has since gone back into hiding.

This is my Boom Stick

2008-05-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

While the rest of my idol bloggers are out there becoming grand parents, dealing with real world issues, writing inspiring posts - I'm over here inventing a way to keep birds out of my hair.

Yes, birds. out of. my hair.

Spring brought some particularly aggressive birds to the Zoom Yard. Aside from just being annoyingly loud and consistent with the loud, they have taken to flying at our heads when we walk outside. This is not unlike the situation I have dealt with at the coffee shop every year at this time - for the past 4 years or so.

But if you can't be safe in your own yard, then it's time to find a weapon. At least that's my view on it.

Behold the Bird Booty Boom Stick. Never before has there been a better use for the cardboard part of a dryclean hanger. My own pythagorean theorem: The as the length of the cardboardus - tubus of the hangarus increses, so increases the number of failed avian landings on the Zoomus Headus.

I find that my particular hairstyle - lazius maximus - is particularly threatening to birds. I roll it all up and clip it on the back of my head, and the fringe apparently looks so much like another bird that even if they didn't want to attack me - the obligation by nature is so strong that they do it anyway. I'm not waking up earlier to avoid bird bombings when I can simply wield my new weapon AND have my lazy too.

Mr. Zoom christened the stick with phrases I can't recall the exact wording of. One side says Bird Booty Boom Stick (I think) and the other says "Behold Zoom Beater of Bird Ass" or something similar. These are obviously nods to both the Evil Dead and Sealab. And before I get hate mail, please know I'd never actually hit any bird. I just twirl the thing up over my head as I walk to and from my vehicle. Mr. Zoom actually called this one for what it was: "Oh, that's fantastic. Wait until you actually hit one and it falls in front of you. You are going to be devastated."

I had read on the internet that the birds wait until you turn around, they figure if they can't see your eyes, you can't see them and that's when they attack. The solution, prescribed by the net, was to make a giant set of eyes out of paper and stick them to the top of one's head. This won't be happening. For one thing, I'd have to keep track of both fake eyes, and that is a recipe for disaster. What if I can only find one eye? I'm fairly certain that a cycloptic bird looking hair style is going to get me in more bird trouble than walking around with my stick. And if they hit me, they will steal my paper for their nests.

Or we can look at it this way - I am one to two paper eyeballs away from being reported to the police as it is - I know for a fact that the patrons of the coffee shop are very much on edge when I come in holding my stick. They can not figure out what I plan on doing with it, until they see me walking away and dodging birds. Sticking paper eyes on myself is pretty much asking for a dog pile of citizens' arrests.

So that's what I've been up to lately. Staying out of jail and clinging to my laziness, no matter what the cost.

For My Mom

2008-05-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

Dear Formerly Amish Mom,

First of all, let me just say thank you for getting the hell off the farm and fleeing to evil civilization when you did. Because even though I wasn't even in utero pre-production yet, had I been born into that world I know I'd have become the kind of eccentric loon that I adore researching today. However, Mom, you managed to bring some of that Amish charm with you and nail it into my subconscious with the kind of zeal you Ams reserved for barn raisings. All well intentioned love, I know.

You were always so worried that I'd end up looking like a trollop. Not an unrealistic fear, considering the women in our family have all been granted size D or larger racks. And apparently nothing screams whore like an oversized rack. Even after I grew up and out of the house, you let me know every single time I saw you just how disappointed you were in my cleavage to clothing ratio.

I spent so much time focusing on the TOP of the girls that I completely overlooked the other side of the mountains. I still don't understand how cracker crumbs can adhere up under there so stubbornly and in such great numbers. Doesn't gravity work anymore? Any surface that contains anything transferable, food, dust, colorforms - I merely have to think about walking by and an hour later I find those items attached to the upunder side of my girls.

You tried so hard. You really did. What you didn't know was that no matter what we women do, we look like a 2$ whore to somebody. I just look like one that's a tad more expensive - one that can be bought for an all you can eat buffet or admission to a very dusty place.

And even though that's exactly what you tried to avoid, I need you to know that it could have been worse. So much worse. I'm not easy to work with by any standards, and somehow you raised me well enough to find and land the Best Husband in the World. I only wish I knew exactly what cloaking device you activated for that to happen.

I love you Mom. Happy Mother's Day.

Too Long for Twitter

2008-05-06T14:04:00.000-07:00

Actual conversation I (Zoom) had with ... let's just say ... someone who should know better (SNB).

SNB: "I haven't received any e-mail on my blackberry since 10 am. I think the office e-mail is down. Would you check?"

Zoom: "Ok."

Call to help desk reveals e-mail is functioning properly.

Zoom: "I called help desk and they say the e-mail systems are working fine. You need to call them so they can walk you through a couple of trouble shoots with your blackberry."

SNB: "Ok, I'll call them after I'm out of Best Buy. My battery in my blackberry is dead so I'm getting a new one."

Zoom: "How are we talking if your blackberry battery is dead?"

SNB: "It's not."

Zoom: "..."

SNB: "It was, but I have a new one."

Zoom: "You do realize that in order to receive e-mail, you need a functioning battery, right? It doesn't just fly through the air cloaked in invisibility and then embed itself into your device. The device still needs battery power to refresh your in-box."

SNB: "Yeah."

Zoom: "Are you going to walk in here with Ashton Kutcher?"

SNB: "Who?"

Zoom: "Nevermind. Check your e-mail now that you have a new battery. I think you'll find them in there now."

SNB: "Yup. There they are."

Define "Adventure"...

2008-05-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

Our local phone book arrived on our doorstep a few weeks ago. I swooped in and got it before Mr. Zoom could huck it into the recycle bin. Why? Because if you've ever read a phone book (I played with bricks as a child - what do you expect), you know there's all kinds of information in the front of it about local attractions.

I've been passive aggressively touring my local cities with my camera long enough now that I'm out of places to go that are obvious. And safe. Enough for me to go on my own and let Mr. Zoom have the t.v. for a few hours, anyway.

So I cracked the phone book and ran down the section that targets people visiting. To my surprise I found a listing for something I'd never heard of or seen before called "Adventure City." In Anaheim. So I grabbed the address, my camera and the Garmin and I set off.

And my Garmin sent me into STANTON. There was an adult book store and a strip club on my right, and 3 blocks later I saw Adventure City. I got into the parking lot and realized I was going to turn around and go home. Immediately. Why?

There were gang tags on most of the fences of AC, which doesn't really bother me very much on it's own. But combined with the hookers on the street and the man talking to the tires of cars while searching the trash bins, I thought this might be asking for a tad of trouble. Add to that the fact that this AC is indeed a teeny, tiny, ghetto fair designed specifically for children - and a very popular one from the packed parking lot - I wasn't going to tempt an ass kicking by being an adult with a camera and no child in tow. And for the record, I wouldn't really blame someone for doing so if they honestly believed me to be a threat to their child - or any child.

Because people have no way of knowing that I am harmless. That I specifically leave all children out of any photos I take. I specifically avoid adults, too. If I accidentally get an adult or child, it either gets deleted or if it is post worthy, gets modified so no identities are revealed. I would only ever take pictures of a person in public if they were practically wearing a sign that said "look at me." Otherwise, I leave people alone and out of it.

I gathered up a willing Mr. Zoom and we hit Adventure City.

Upon paying our entrance fee, a grandma working the turn style sized us up and said "Uh huh. Are you meeting someone inside?" Most of their business, I think, comes from the giant kid birthday parties they organize at this place. We had cameras akimbo and no child escort. "YES" I lied. And then I felt better for dragging Mr. Zoom on this surreal outing with me.

Inside it feels like miniature golf, only with roller coasters and fair-like rides instead of golf holes. And there are probably less than 18 "attractions" in the place. And it covers less land than your average mini golf course.

But it's big on crazy. And we love crazy. Unfortunately, most of that crazy was provided by the guests in the park so I don't have a lot of photographic evidence for you.

The Merry Go Round though, this will perhaps give you an idea what we were dealing with. It had the usual kitch on it, but...

And I don't know how well you can see it here, as when I saw them I was a little taken aback ... but painting a set of the angel's faces black? Isn't that supposed to be an insult? TO the very people who are attending this place?

We were through AC and back at our car in about an hour. And there was a crazy homeless guy circling the car. We didn't think he was after anything having to do with the car, we just parked too close to one of the trash cans. We let him do his thing in peace and then got in the car and went home.

It's funny, because every once in a while one of us Zooms will say "I don't know how that place still exists." And we always know without asking that we are talking about Adventure City.

Neurotic Consumerism

2008-04-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

Mr. Zoom began reading dooce dot com waaay back before we were even dating. He was, and still is, in love with Heather Armstrong. I love me a good dose of dooce too, but for some reason I don't check in there daily. I seem compelled to click on defective yeti before I do most anything else.

Mr. Zoom had told me about dooce's book "Things I Learned About My Dad" a while ago. I knew we'd be buying one when it came out.

So imagine my surprise today when checking into defective yeti, and seeing dooce's book on 4-29-08's entry. Turns out that yeti has an essay in her book. And of course I didn't see this post until today, 4-30.

I shot an e-mail off to Mr. Zoom with the subject line: "What you WILL be buying at lunch today." He made some snarky comment that he might be willing to share his Dooce book with me, since Yeti contributed and all. But I had to be nice.

And I was proud of him for holding something I wanted out of arm's reach like that. I ramped up the bitch hackles and proceeded to outline every reason he was not only going to buy the book, but he would be buying two copies.

Yes. Two copies, one household.

First of all, Mr. Zoom has a rain dance he does with books. It consists of him purchasing hard cover books only, taking the dust jackets off, and then throwing the dust jackets away. When I found out about this before we were married, I made him swear he would never ever ever do that to any of "my" books. Trust me, if you knew Mr. Zoom in person - you would know just how counter-Mr. Zoom this action OUGHT TO BE. He buys and applies protective covers and stickers for his phones. He buys and applies them to MY phone and Nintendo DS, when I wouldn't bother to do so for myself.

I'd rather share my lunch and dinner with strangers for a week than bin a book's dust cover.

Second of all, Mr. Zoom loves his things and takes very very very very very good care of them. I could never and would never borrow something from him that he loves, much less a book by one of his favorite bloggers. I know me. I'd accidentally bend a page or drop a pretzel in there - and Mr. Zoom would never sleep again. I know this sounds weird, considering he's willing to throw away the covers, but it's just part of the retardation dance we do. And everyone should know that while Mr. Zoom admits he's a bit of a perfectionist freak - he has never ever ever made me feel bad about damage to a thing of his. It's always an accident and I believe it's me who makes me feel bad, not him. He's always super gracious about things like that.

All the same, I'd rather let the coffee shop birds fly in my hair and make a nest than borrow anything from Mr. Zoom I know I could not return in better than perfect condition.

For those two reasons, I told him he had a choice. He could either buy me a copy at the same time he bought "his", or I'd go out on my own and get one. But I would not, under any circumstances, borrow his.

You would have thought he asked for a french fry from my plate.

He came back from lunch and personally brought me my very own copy of the book. And how lucky were we? We got the very last two copies from the store near our office. He said they had to go in the back just to find them, and their computer says they were the only store in that chain that even showed they had any left in Orange County.

Awesome. While I realize that my uber crazy might might have deprived another customer from getting their own copy of the book, I'm too happy that I won't have to worry about accidentally dropping Mr. Zoom's copy off a freeway overpass. Because as unlikely as that may sound to the rest of you out there - it is always a possibility in my world. And this is a book I really really really want to read.

Formerly Amish Mom Reviews Harold and Kumar

2008-04-28T12:19:00.001-07:00

I paid my parents a visit this weekend. They were very excited about a movie they saw and are positive that Mr. Zoom and I will love it.

I should have known something was wrong when the giggling started. "I picked the movie" my mom said. This is usually followed by things like "It was C Movie, and it was fantastic." "....you mean B Movie? The cartoon?" "YEAH, that one."

So here we go. She tried her best to get the title right "you know, Escape from GTO". Giggle Giggle Giggle.

My mind raced to match the attempted title to an actual one. OMG. "...do you mean Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay?" "YEAH" both parents said, "THAT ONE!"

"You saw and liked Harold and Kumar?.....wait. Did you guys even see H&K go to White Castle?"

"Yes." they said. "We thought it was kinda cute for a stoner movie."

My parents just said stoner movie. LOOK AT MY PARENTS. My mom wears sweaters with kittens and horses on them. Look at her hat. That's nearly a bushel of fake blue flowers on top of a straw hat she's wearing. My dad prefers hats that I can only refer to as "newsie" and scary. They both got really upset once when I made a joke about not being able to bring Mr. Zoom to a dinner party with family and how I was bringing my friend A instead, and was going to tell everyone that I had switched teams and she was my new lesbian lover. THAT got an "over the line" head tilt with a disapproving "ZOOM! Not funny." But Harold and Kumar? Apparently that's all kinds of good family fun.

"So wait. Battleshits? You guys are ok with Battleshits?"

"Oh, yeah. That's funny."

And then they went on.

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW*

"We were the only gray hairs in the theater with a ton of kids. You know, there's a part where instead of a topless club, it's bottomless. Get it? Bottomless?? So when one girl goes to take off her top, they say 'hey, what kind of establishment do you think we are running here?"

They thought this was the best joke ever.

"Then when they questioned the guy as to why he didn't have his bottoms off, he said 'but I do' and he stood up."

My mom takes over the story and continues "So here's this guy, he stands up and his penis is hanging out of this GIANT, and I mean HUGE bush. Just the biggest, most humungous bush. He's standing there at the table like that."

My dad contributes "You know how the guy who played Doogie Howser? He's in it, eating mushrooms and seeing unicorns. It's hilarious."

*SPOILERS OVER*

And that's when the screaming in my head started. It's still there.

...Have I Said Too Much?

2008-04-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

like my gym because most of the time I can dodge the promotions with ease. Hands full of towel and gym bag make it nearly impossible for them to hand me anything, and the way they are generally set up, I can gauge when they are working with a victim and scoot past before they notice me. Timing is everything.

Unless they change their attack. One evening I scanned my card and the counter person said "Can I ask you a question?" Thinking perhaps there was an issue with my membership, I said "Will it hurt?"

He said "When was the last time you had your body fat ratio taken?" I looked to the side at that moment and saw a sign-up sheet. DRAT. I had been sneak promotioned!

Because I'm socially incapable, this is how I responded: "OH GOD NO." Just like that. I drew the attention of two more employees. "Look" I said, "I come here, I do the treadmill and I scurry home. That's it. That's all." I pointed at the treadmills on the second floor, as if he couldn't see them for himself.

The undeterred tried again "But, what are your goals?"

"I don't have any."

"None?"

"NONE. Treadmill. Home. That's it. I do realize this is your job and all. But I don't want any. Please, just tell me the magic words to say, or whatever I have to do so that I can not have to do whatever it is you are trying to make me do."

"Well, YOU COULD JUST KEEP WALKING."

I wish I could have seen my own face, because I bet it was a fantastical display of realization (why yes, yes I could just keep walking away - why do I not think of these things?), shock (I'm out? Already?), confusion (should I be offended?) and glee (he just told me to tell my story walkin! That's hilarious! That's the kind of response Mr. Zoom is really going to be sad he missed out on!)

When I reported the experience to Mr. Zoom, he said "The next time why don't you just shriek and run away instead of trying to talk. Because the results certainly can't be any worse than what happens when you do talk to people."

And he's so very right. But I know me. I have verbal hairballs. When they need to come out, they need to come out.

Flinging Poo

2008-04-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

The Zooms have a long standing debate about crap film. Ok, not really long standing - because I literally just last month remembered that my most favorite guilty pleasure is the movie "Major Payne", but I have been giving Mr. Zoom a truckfull of crap for owning the DVD entitled "Aliens v. Predator" or "AVP" ever since I saw it in the Amazon box - what, it has to have been a couple of years ago now.

So while he has an entire DVD library full of craptacular film that I've purchased, he has only recently been able to fight back and defend his "AVP" because he caught me laughing like a wine-o on a roller coaster when I stumbled across "Major Payne" for free on TV last month. I watch most of the other bad choices I make when he's doing other stuff around the house and that way I'm able to quietly bury them in the DVD collection without drawing any attention to myself.

"I forgot how much I love this movie" I gushed when he came out from his office to find out what I was guffawing at. He watched for a few minutes and then ran out of the room while pinching his nose shut with his fingers. "That's your guilty pleasure!!" he yelled back as he fled. I was convinced he couldn't appreciate the hi-lar-ity of the movie because he didn't hear any of the fabulous lines. So the next day I found all my favorite quotes on imdb dot com and e-mailed them to Mr. Zoom. He wasn't impressed.

Today at the office, this debate flared anew. Except it was via e-mail, so I actually have a transcript of it. You will note that several times I attempt mathmatics - and fail, and that I end the debate by stating a fact not even in argument. This is what it is like to talk to us. You will thank us now for remaining childless:

____________________________________________________

From: Mr. Zoom
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 11:20 AMTo: Zoom
Subject: I may put in a Amazon movie order today
Any wants?

I have these so far;

xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
Aliens Vs. Predator 2
_________________________________________

From: Zoom
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 11:35 AM
To: Mr. Zoom
Subject: RE: I may put in a Amazon movie order today

ALIENS V. PREDATOR 2? Do movies I pick have to ride in the same box?
________________________________________

From: Mr. Zoom
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 11:37 AM
To: Zoom
Subject: RE: I may put in a Amazon movie order today

I don't want to hear a peep out of you Sgt. Pooh or whatever the heck that Wayans brother movie is.
______________________________________

From: Zoom
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 11:38 AM
To: Mr. Zoom
Subject: RE: I may put in a Amazon movie order today

yes but I DON'T OWN IT ON DVD. It's Major Payne. And again, DON'T OWN IT ON DVD.
_________________________________________________

From: Mr. Zoom
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 11:40 AM
To: Zoom
Subject: RE: I may put in a Amazon movie order today

The fact that you watched Colonel Turd even once is SO MUCH WORSE.

SO
MUCH
WORSE
_______________________________________________
From: Zoom
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 11:46 AM
To: Mr. Zoom
Subject: RE: I may put in a Amazon movie order today

I DEFY YOU TO DEFEND THAT. How can watching something bad whenever it is on t.v. FOR FREE be worse than paying 10+ or - dollars for a steamy STEAMY pile of doo doo franchise like AVP? AND SHIPPING. YOU PAY SHIPPING.

Your purchasing of that smelly title(s) and bringing them into our beloved DVD collection is so much worse a violation than my watching and laughing at Major Payne for free. SOOOOOOO MUCH WORSE.

You are giving them a reason to make more. I am merely enjoying some bad film for free. Already out there. AND NOT IN OUR DVD COLLECTION.

TAKE THAT.
________________________________

From: Mr. Zoom
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 12:05 PM
To: ZoomSubject: RE: I may put in a Amazon movie order today

It's simple math really.

Major Payne - very very high level of dookie - hence watched at all in any circumstance, travesty.

AVP - high turd level - watched or owned bad, but not worst

Here's the equation
(poohocity) + (interaction with movie) = (resultant LOSER score)

For Major Payne

1000000000000000000000000000000 X 10 = 10000000000000000000000000000000

For AVP
1000000000000000 X 10000000 = 10000000000000000000000

The winner, clearly, is Mr. Zoom. In order for you to refute this you'd have to do math. We both know that's not going to happen. So after even further review, the winner is Mr. Zoom.
_______________________________________________

From: Zoom
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 12:05 PM
To: Mr. Zoom
Subject: RE: I may put in a Amazon movie order today

Oh, no you are NOT pulling the math card on me.

Major Payne - high level of dookie - watched for free but not purchased on DVD (therefore not encouraging the pooh NOR WAS IT SEEN IN A THEATER BY ME) - so using your own very clever equation:

For Major Payne

100 X 10 (I'M BEING GENEROUS TO YOU on the interaction score, because I'm right and once you realize that, you will sting with the slap of my rightness and I want to look like the angel that I am) = 100

Lets look a little closer at AVP.

YOU DROVE ME TO A THEATER AND PAID FOR US BOTH TO SIT THROUGH AVP, dookiefest of the highest dookie order - winner of the steamer in summer award - AFTER which I had to remind myself that Aliens is one of your favorite franchises and you couldn't be blamed for giving this film (used as in "slime") a chance. And that I still love you.

THEN YOU BOUGHT IT ON DVD. You have now essentially paid for POOH 3 TIMES, plus shipping.

THEN YOU TRIED TO SNEAK THE FACT YOU WERE BUYING THE SECOND ONE by adding it to the bottom of the "oh, here are the titles I'm thinking of ordering today" e-mail. That gets you an elevated interaction score, which I notice you flat out mis-calculated. Let me correct it for you.

For AVP

1000000000000000 X 10000000 to the 2nd power = 10000000000000000000000 to the power that would be there if I knew how to do math with powers.

I WIN, I AM RIGHT, I BRING LESS STINK TO OUR FILM EXPERIENCE THAN YOU DO. Wear it with your I Heart AVP t-shirt down to the Wife Is Right store and buy me a CAKE!

My Monday Morning Ascent to Hell. Yes, I Said Ascent.

2008-04-14T15:57:00.000-07:00

This morning. Boarding the elevator at the office with Mr. Zoom and two other co-workers. One co-worker is old enough to remember when there was no such thing as television broadcasts in color. She is matronly. The other one is so young that he couldn't possibly know what life might have been like with cell phones that were just phones and bigger than a lipstick . He's the young and hip. There are a few others that do not work with our company sharing this ride.

Mr. Zoom has carried my bag o' lunch, books and bric-a-brack from the car for me. Just before we reach the floor he and young hipster depart on - he swings my bag towards me. I am convinced that his swinging of the bag is his playful attempt flip my compulsion switch. We have a this thing between us - everytime he swings a bag, I playfully nag him not to do it. I don't expect anyone to understand why we do this, we just do. I jokingly bristle at him "NOOOO. Don't swing it!"

Matronly notices and says "What's the matter? Is he tossing your salad?"

...

The Earth slowed its rotation (I felt it) and my eyebrows shot up and over my hair, landing on the back of my head. I had to think fast. Everyone knows I'd have better luck wearing a jacket made out of striker board, pants made out of match sticks - and running through a car wash of lighter fluid.

Young hiptser starts to giggle.

I fight the urge to stomp on his toes. I do not look at him OR Mr. Zoom. I know better than to think any rescue will come from that direction. And of course we have to stay in this box until the very last stop.

"No. uh. no. NO no no. He's shaking up my cola." DO NOT LAUGH. NO EYE CONTACT. DO NOT LAUGH. Yup. That's the best I could do.

As Mr. Zoom and Young hipster depart on their floor, I hiss "STOPPIT." Which only serves to fan the flames of giggle into full blown laughter. The doors close and I'm left with Matronly, who THANKFULLY has no idea that she's just added a porn element to the Monday morning of 3 co-workers and 2 complete strangers.

The aftermath. I sat at my desk and had a debate with myself. Which was worse? That ride I just took or the time I exited a loo with the back of my skirt tucked into my hose? And I didn't figure it out for like, 5 minutes.

With that, my brain leaked out of my ear and I've been quietly working at my desk ever since.

Hidey Hole.

2008-04-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Mr. Zoom and I were outside. Playing in the street. Well, not exactly like that, but sorta.

I sat on the curb and noticed a fur ball inside a pipe/hole in the curb:

At first I was scared. If the animal was dead, I was going to be really really sad. Look. I know about the circle of life and all of that. But I can't handle kids or animals in pain. It wonks up my whole day.

I realized it was breathing, whatever it was. I shrieked at Mr. Zoom to "come over here right now. You have to see this." He did. We looked closer. "It's breathing" I said. "Well Zoom...I don't know how you are going to play that one." he said.

I took a picture. We tried to figure out what it was based on the fur. I said "oooo. It looks like bunny fur! It's a baby bunny!" Because I know what bunny fur looks like? Up close? No. Because I want things to be what I want them to be.

I waited around - with astonishing focus, since I'm generally bored within 30 seconds - and my newfound bunny turned around in his pipe and revealed a RAT face.

OOOOOOOO. A rat. Curiosity satisfied, I let the little guy be. After I took his picture.

And then I came home and exploited the image for some cheap giggles (my own giggles - Mr. Zoom's head shaking) via the LOL cat builder:

I Was Conflicted. Now I'm Just a Side Bar Whore.

2008-04-06T10:52:00.001-07:00

I decided to yank my (blogger provided) links section and throw in the widget that shows you my delicious links instead. Or del.iciou.us - as the proper format is. You get a better variety while still getting the ones I really hope you find as entertaining as I do. And I don't miss anyone. It got a little confusing as to what links I had where.

Not sure how it happened, but apparently I can't stop linking my life to the sidebar. I like having everything in one place, clickable, and on the web where I can access it regardless of which-what-where computer I'm sitting at.

Apparently side bar love is more for me and my convenience than it is for you. I am THAT easy.

Wonder Why.

2008-04-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

I don't understand why almost every, no wait...yes, every Japanese restaurant I've ever eaten at - why the owners/employees/waiters/waitresses/hostesses seem to despise their customers so much.

Am I the only person that feels this? It could just be me, because I have an incredibly bad habit of creating some kind of theory - a pattern - in my head and then "seeing" the results all over the place.

But it just seems like every time Mr. Zoom and I go for Sushi or other general Japanese food, the staff would really rather be punched in the face than deal with customers. You try and order things, and you get the look. The one that says "oh seriously, sad excuse for a customer - why WHY do you eat that? I know it is on the menu, but we don't expect people to order it and it literally hurts us to make it and bring it out to you."

Or you just get the belligerent shift. "NO. You can not order two appetizers AND an entree. That is not how it is done." "NO. You can not order TWO of the same entree. You must have better variety." Once I was with friends and we were at our favorite sushi place. We had noticed that sometimes the "appetizers" came out after the entrees, or after we were basically done eating and had almost forgotten they had been ordered. Other times they would arrive "first". When we asked about this phenomenon (politely, because if we were a bunch of jackasses - I'd totally understand ALL of this), we were given the curt response of "that's how it goes."

And when you leave, they practically scream "THANK YOU" as you walk out the door. Causing me to worry that it is a thank you loaded with sarcasm and potential boobie traps. Will the door hit me on the ass on the way out?

We aren't noisey. We aren't unkind, in fact we are very appreciative of service. We tip well. You wouldn't notice us sitting next to you even if you knew us in person.

I'm always so conflicted. I never know if I should assert myself the least little bit or continue to try and find the magic words to keep the wait staff from making that face at me/us. And it's exhausting looking out for potential boobie traps all the time. Especially after some Sapporo.

Foolio

2008-04-01T16:20:00.001-07:00

Normally I'm so very fond of practical jokes I don't know what it is about April Fool's Day that winds me up so bad every year. I always wake up and tell myself "remember, it's April 1. Shenanigans are going to happen, DON'T FALL FOR IT. And is it really so bad when I do fall for it? No. I just feel incredibly exposed and embarrassed, like when the birds at the coffee shop fly down and peg me in the back of the head.

It's merely 9:30 a.m. and I've already fallen for a joke. A co-worker said "oh, that's weird. Did you see the e-mail where they are sending us home at 3?" It's so typical for me to miss any kind of news before it is weeks or years old, so I said "No, why? What's going on?" "APRIL FOOL" she said. My response was my left middle finger and another gulp of my coffee.

And in the time I was writing this? Found out I fell for a second april fool e-mail by Mr. Zoom's father. I won't go into detail on it, but there was enough specific detail in it to completely suck me in. AND, he had sent the e-mail last night so I'm thinking that's an April Fool Foul, and it can't be claimed as a success.

My fool points are already at 2. When I got off the elevator this morning, the regular maintenance guy was in the lobby with his tools. Our lobby is surrounded by closed doors with keypads to enter. And I thought to myself "I wonder if he's waiting for someone to let him in." The important thing here is that I thought that to myself, I did not say anything out loud. He actually approached me and said "Do you know someone named XXXX?" "No, I'm sorry. I don't. Nobody by that name works on my floor." I was all guarded, I had just reminded myself that it's April Fool's Day. And honestly, I don't know anyone named XXXX on my floor. I offered to him "It could be someone new, but I just don't know." He pulled out his pager, and showed me where it actually said "Company Name, contact: XXXX". "Sorry" I said, "I don't know who that is."

Turns out that I DO know who it is. And if I'd thought about it for a second longer I would have realized that person was on another floor. Instead, I left someone in the lobby thinking there was a slight chance I was being April Fooled. For no reason. When you play april fool on yourself, I'm thinking there should be an extra point for retardation. My fool points are now at 4. At this rate I might want to consider just running down the street with a sandwich board that says "UNMANAGEABLE".

Cruising the Icebergs of Family Crazy

2008-03-26T11:51:00.001-07:00

My brother and his girlfriend came around for dinner with my parents. Mr. Zoom and I were invited, but Mr. Zoom couldn't go. I ended up agreeing to face the House of Retired Crazy on my own. And you know what? Some magical things happened.

As it is with every family, the same stories came out in almost identical order to every other family gathering. But this time there was a change. My Dad began to tell the story of how Mr. Zoom had asked for his blessing before proposing to me. I knew 90% of the story already, but there was a backside that I did not know.

My Dad was enrolled in cooking classes - he always is - and Mr. Zoom had arranged a dinner for the parents on one of his class nights. Dad gathered the class and let them know why he couldn't be at the next meeting. Upon returning to the class the next week, he told the story of why he had to miss the previous class. He was so relieved that his daughter finally got a marriage proposal at all, AND that it was from someone who obviously cared about doing something respectful. He wanted to share it with his class. He further added that two rather "rough and tattooed" gentlemen in his class later came up to him and said "We are happy for you, because that is absolutely the way it SHOULD be done. The ONLY way." Dare I say Dad felt like a hommie after that.

The most fantastic part about watching Dad tell the story and learning the new information was seeing how very much he honestly adored the fact that Mr. Zoom did that.

I also learned that my brother's girlfriend's dog literally threw up dog food the very first time he came over to her house. He said he's actually shocked that Miss K went on a second date, knowing that most women will heed the warning of a pet over almost anything else. Especially one who has yacked dog food all over the living room upon the initial meeting. The Dog is now attached to my brother's side whenever he can be. No more yacking.

This next discovered fact might give us all a glimpse into why Miss K gave him another chance. Apparently when she was a kid and was served fried chicken, she would try and put the chicken back together on her plate. She was raised on a farm and I guess this activity freaked out her brothers and sisters.

The not so magical also happened. My Mom got a ticket for blocking the sidewalk with vehicles from their driveway. She concluded that "someone from the street called the police and tattled on her." Because everyone knows that police don't patrol randomly on their own or anything. *SIGH*. Mom now has another "warning" to add to her daisy chain of paranoid like disclaimers for visitors: "Watch out for the children". "Don't park there on street cleaning day." "Do you have $150 spare dollars? Because that's how much a ticket is going to cost you if you have blocked the sidewalk."

She had everyone doing the car shuffle even further into the driveway, even though we were all very much clear of the sidewalk in the first place. I swear I saw her wave her hands in restrained victory after the car engines were silenced.

And my parents got dinner on the table the typical 2 hours later than projected. But it was still good.

"When I Was Six I Had a Full Time Job"

2008-03-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Ah, technology. There can't be many people left who don't use the Internet in some way. Because my Mom recently received some photographs from the woman who used to babysit for me when I was a kid in the 70s. By e-mail. And those pictures are of me FROM the 70s. There was some scanning involved. No USB or card to computer digital dump, attach and send.

And my Mom received them, opened them and there was no 911 involved.

Aside from the typical 70s clothing, something hit me about one particular picture:

That's me, on the left - no hat. Babysitter Lady had a son who was one year older. We were watched at their house. Do you see it yet?

I AM PLAYING WITH A BRICK. I am not sure if I'm frosting it like cake, or if I'm actually playing "build a fence/driveway/house." I'd go with cake since most of my childhood was spent eating dirt in various forms after having been convinced by others to do so.

Can my parents actually claim to be surprised that I am not the delicate flower they seem to expect knowing I played with bricks? I think not. And I will now be throwing that around when I've got nothing else to say. Which means every time.

Why did you/How could you/Why would you/ What were you thinking? "I'm sorry. I played with bricks when I was a child"

Like my own personal pictographic Wikipedia of abnormal child development.

But I Don't Want the Version for the Flibbity Flam 490 Platform. Thingie.

2008-03-22T09:40:00.000-07:00

Mr. Zoom has been super busy at the office. They have been working on a huge tech project, so by the 3rd day of not sharing a car to work with him to and from the office, I became a little determined to bring his attentions back around to me. Plus, I knew he wanted a particular video game and would not have had a chance to purchase it on his own yet.

I left the office last night and went to Best Buy. Mr. Zoom wants Rainbow Six Vegas, 2. It was supposed to have come out this week. So I thought I had this little chore totally locked up as a simple stop on my way to the grocery store for more instant oatmeal. I went in and knowing I have no clue where to obtain a video game for the PC (except at Target. I totally know where they are in there), I went to a clerk to ask for help. He said "Oh, I don't think that's out yet. Let's go see the computer."

He clickity clicked around and said "No, that won't be out about a week from now. March 26." I said "Oh, ok. Thanks anyway." But he kept going: "The street date for the PC got pushed back for a month, so it's not coming out until April sometime. But the version for the 340/690/playstation/my grandma's turntable is here. Do you want that one?"

Street date? What? Who? All I know is the words that were fed to me by Mr. Zoom. "RAINBOW SIX, VEGAS, 2 FOR P.C." Going outside the lines in this instance would not be a good idea. And isn't April a lot later than what he had just told me? Because this whole spiel sounded suspiciously like a mathtacular word problem, I just said "no thanks" and slinked away to the DVD section. Totally defeated. NOW what was I going to buy for Mr. Zoom? I knew there were at least two more games on the list he had given the family for ideas from his last birthday, but like a typical Zoom I left that in the car.

Then I saw a copy of "Eagle v. Shark". One copy. I've been looking to buy this movie since I caught it on On Demand. They've always been out of it, and now here's a copy with my name practically written on it - begging me to buy it. So I did. Oh, and I also happened to attract a copy of "Into the Wild", which I haven't seen but did read the book. I'm such a fantastic wife. I go to the store to buy a present for Mr. Zoom and come out with none for him - TWO for me!!

I got into the truck and realized I had Mr. Zoom's list of other games wanted. BUT, I couldn't go back in the Best Buy, because I had just been in there and the language they spoke I did not understand. So I needed another store. Luckily there's a Circuit City just across the street from this particular Best Buy. So I drove like a typical girl over there (I took out a curb on my way) and readied myself for a second attack on Operation Gift for Mr. Zoom.

I went inside and tried to find a clerk. There were two of them having a rather heated debate about cinnamon breath mints and a slammin party for the evening. I asked the one who decided to break from the discussion first to help me out. He couldn't find any of the games I needed on the list, so we went to the computer for more information. "Jibber Jabber...no, I don't have those two games you need for PC. OH, wait, I have a Hit Man Trilogy, which has the two games you want, plus another one." I said "OH, great. I'll take that then."

His response? "OH, no wait. We don't have it here." Of course they didn't.

This clerk tried to uber sell me some other versions and some other games, and I just kept backing away from him saying "nothankyou, nothankyou ...thanks for looking it all up, but really, nothankyou." I backed into the Nintendo DS games, and when I turned around to browse, I found the pictograph game I've been jonesing for - for like a month. My brother-in-law had told me about it and offered to let me borrow his wife's pictograph chip. I declined, because look at my life. Does anyone think I could borrow something from someone and not have it accidentally go down the toilet or something? And these days, things are discontinued about 10 minutes after they hits the store for the first time. So it's not easy to replace stuff. So when I saw pictograph, I made an actual little jump for joy and took it to the register. And bought it.

If anyone is keeping count, that's 3 PRESENTS for me, and 0 for MR. ZOOM.

Next I drove to an alternative Best Buy. Because dammit, I was going to buy Mr. Zoom a game he wanted no matter what. Inside the alternative Best Buy I had the exact same luck. Zilch. I avoided speaking to any clerks - because in my mind - I might have to come back here AGAIN tonight, and I didn't want to burn another electronics store option. I searched the games until I found something that I hoped Mr. Zoom would like. Even if it wasn't on his list. Which is the biggest, fattest chance you ever saw. I chose something that looked like it might work. I then browsed the DVD racks, because I thought I had heard him mention that he wanted "I am Legend" on DVD.

There was a huge display of that movie, right in front of me. I skipped over to it, figuring I had finally won a nod from the luck department. Not so fast, apparently. Can anyone tell me why a DVD now has to come out in 8 thousand flavors? Why there has to be the one with a t-shirt wrapped around it, one with a metal cover, one with a cardboard cover, one with "never before scenes", one with "alternative ending", the "collectors version special edition", one in wide screen, one in sucker buy non-wide screen, one for dvd players owned by ferrets; and then don't even get me started on the versions for game consoles. Of which there are another 600 versions. All this does is guarantee I will buy the entirely wrong version for Mr. Zoom.

Knowing this, I decided to buy the most elaborate and ridiculous version of the dvd I could find. I bought the one that comes in a metal container. And I think it has the alternative ending. Or something. Hell, I don't even know if we own the proper player to play it at this point.

FINALLY, I had gift(s) for Mr. Zoom. Although I knew they were merely representations of my efforts, and possibly things he was going to have to return. So I went home and told Mr. Zoom about my day.

And then I realized I totally forgot to stop at the grocery store for the Oatmeal. HOORAY!!

Don't Underestimate The Comfort of Dry Pants

2008-03-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

Last night as we drove home from work, Mr. Zoom practiced his routine of scolding all the drivers on the road. It is one of those things that I've learned to expect from him. "Hey, that stick on the wheel? yeah, that's a TURN SIGNAL. USE IT." And his complaints are legitimate complaints.

If it weren't for his routine, poor Mr. Zoom would be forced to listen to my yammering all the way to and from wherever we are going. I'd yell at stuff too.

One of his favorite lines is "What?? Are you just learning to drive TODAY?" He pulled it out as we got stuck in an alleyway by a car that was sideways in the road. Right as Mr. Zoom got the last word out of his mouth, the offending car pulled around and on the back was a huge red sticker "STUDENT DRIVER".

I laughed so hard I thought I'd actually vomit.

I didn't know it at the time, but Mr. Zoom would soon have multiple chances to laugh at me just as hard.

This morning as we were driving to work, I was juggling my large coffee. I've done this a thousand times, and I've spilled a little of the coffee on myself a thousand and 45 times. Mr. Zoom took a corner - and not at any unreasonable speed or angle - and my coffee cup exploded. At least it felt that way. Neither one of us knows exactly what happened, but I was wearing the contents of an entire 16 oz coffee. And it hurt.

Mr. Zoom kept asking if I was ok. All I could say was "pull over. please. pull over. please. stop the car. please." I got out of the car and fought the urge to yank off all of my clothes. STEAM was coming off of both me and out of the car. As soon as I stood up, the burn let up and the cold set in. And the dripping from my jacket, shirt and pants began. I was not only hurting physically, but ego-y - too. I just stood there trying to figure out if I should just cry or try to hold it together.

I felt so bad for having accidentally spilled all that coffee in Mr. Zoom's car. I managed to get some on him too, but it was just his jacket. And if you'd seen the scale of this coffelanche, you'd realize that "just his jacket" is a miracle. I also coated the inside of the car he loves. Because he's the best husband in the world, he assured me that he didn't care about the spill in the car, only my well-being. And he didn't laugh at me out loud.

Mr. Zoom gathered me up and took me home to change. He cleaned up the car and let the office know we'd be late this morning. I spent the time soaking my pants and shirt in cold water. My jacket has to wait for the cleaners - so I laid it out on some plastic. Oh, did I mention that the shirt I was wearing during the wave of coffee was purchased LAST NIGHT? Yeah. Last night I had finally found the perfect shirt to wear with a stubborn color of brown pants I owned - pants I've been dying to find something to wear with for a long time.

After I finally got myself together, we were off to work again. Mr. Zoom handed me a coffee mug thing with a lid on it. I protested "but I don't want to use the retard cup!" You see, when I feel like I've done something stupid - I tend to say things that really are stupid. Mr. Zoom told me to shut it (in a very nice way) and drove me back to the coffee shop. The ladies filled my retard coffee cup for free after hearing my story. I wouldn't have even told them about it, except the shop is small enough and I'm in there every day that they wanted to know why I was back after having already been in that morning. And in different clothes.

As we drove to work, I realized that the money I had intended to use to buy my lunch at the office today was still inside the coffee soaked jacket at home. Start crying. Mr. Zoom gave me another $20 and tried to talk me away from the crying ledge. Then I realized that since we were going to the office late, I'd miss the lunch service that came in the morning to sell lunch to us. Start crying.

By 9:42 when we finally pulled into the office parking structure, I was feeling ok about it all. I had Mr. Zoom, I had alternative plans for obtaining lunch, I had lunch money with me, I had coffee in a cup, and my pants were warm and dry.

You Can Only Push Me So Far, Quirky Genius Man

2008-03-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

I've finally found a book I hate. Ok, wait. Let me be honest. The book is far too smart for me, so I hate it.

Mark Z. Danielewski's "Only Revolutions"

Here's what I believe to be the official site for this...this mind scramble of a book. http://www.onlyrevolutions.com/

And I was really looking forward to this book, too. I read and really enjoyed Danielewski's "House of Leaves". Now, I didn't get A LOT of that one, either. But it at least started out with easy to follow text...and then got all weird. It sucked me in and I was invested and interested when the footnotes got out of control and the strange little puzzle pieces started making their way onto the pages.

When I first picked it up Revolutions to read it, I opened it and my heart dropped. It appeared that much of it was poetry. I really don't like poetry at all. Wait, I actually hate it. I wouldn't have purchased this book had I realized there was poetry-like verse through much of it. I had merely picked it up knowing that Danielewski wrote it and a glance at the pages proved that the same strange footnote/text/color/random blocks of text floating about were used in this book as his other one.

I decided that despite the poetry, I'd give it a try. And what I got was an authoritative flick in the brain before I'd even gotten through one sentence. "Why would you try and read me? You should probably go find some form of chick lit."

This is the "Hailey" side. Starts with a big "H". Then you flip the book, and it becomes the "Sam" side. Starting with the big "S". (unless, of course, one should start with the Sam side...but who effing knows.)

Which was fine, I was ready for that.

kinda.

I was, however, NOT ready for the upside down and all over the place shenanigans to be there from the very first page.

Not sure if you can tell, but half of the page is upside down. PAGE ONE! On both sides!

I went to the all-knowing internet to see if perhaps instead of a story, this was merely a piece of art. Like, a collage. And maybe I wasn't meant to get it. No. Turns out I'm just incapable of following instructions on how to read this book. INSTRUCTIONS. The only HINT of instruction, I found later, is on the inside jacket in the second paragraph, on the "Hailey" side.

If I know I want to read a book, if I've already purchased it, I'm not going to read the jacket. AND, it's more of a friendly hint than instructions: "If you turn the book upside down and swing it around every eight pages, you can alternate the monologues of its two narrators, Sam and Haley, so as to spin them together..."

THANKS A PANTLOAD for that oh so helpful information you buried in the jacket. On only one side.

So let me make sure you understand what has to be done. YOU HAVE TO TURN THE BOOK UPSIDE DOWN AND AROUND EVERY 8 PAGES. Really? Yes. And you know what? If that were all that it took, I'd try to read it. But the combination of having to keep track of every 8 pages, as well as the footnotes and strange ... things on those pages ... AND having to flip it like a flapjack? Fraid not. I'm out.

There is something I really liked about it though. The dedication page reads "you were there." (on both sides) which I thought was fantastic. Without even really knowing why - as most of my life goes.

Another thing I learned about it from the net - because I would have never gotten it on my own - hooray - the page numbers are on the right side, middle of the page in a circle. When you flip the pages like a flip book, the page numbers "revolve" inside the circle. I took a video of it to try and show you. Apparently my white hot anger at this book makes my focus and video skills non-exestent - but you can kinda see it.

Is it a Yo-Yo? Or is it a book? I do not know.

This book can bite my giant ignorant hiney right after the creators of daylight savings time do.

Chuckey. Coming to a Table Near Me.

2008-03-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

Why is it that my parents can pull the term Turducken out of the air and talk about it as if it is a ubiquitous main dish...

...yet I can't get them to research snopes about those ridiculous internet forwards they keep reading. And forwarding. And talking about in mixed company.

__________________________________
Definition of Turducken from Wikipedia:

A Turducken is a dish consisting of a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The name is a portmanteau of those ingredients: turkey, duck, and chicken. The cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are filled with, at the very least, a highly seasoned breadcrumb mixture or sausage meat, although some versions have a different stuffing for each bird. Some recipes call for the turkey to be stuffed with a chicken which is then stuffed with a duckling. It is also called a chuckey.
__________________________________

I had never heard of a Turducken or Chuckey [I'll be calling it a Chuckey] before speaking to my very own mother today on the telephone. I had to look it up on the internet. Seeing as it is cooking, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But when she said Turducken, I honestly thought her tremor was preventing her from speaking clearly.

I'm not sure how I feel about this particular food item. I will be facing it in the future at a family gathering. I think I was ok until I read "...stuffed with a chicken which is then stuffed with a duckling." I am the first to admit that squeam inducing food is more psychological for me than anything else. I once couldn't finish a stew I found out was made out of bunny. And only because I found out it was made out of bunny. So ... duckling? I really don't think I'll be able to get that down either. Although it's not certain that the one I'll be facing is going to have duckling rather than duck.

I can't help it. Bunnies and baby ducks are critters I just can't eat. If I were starving, yes. I'm sure I'd eat them at the speed I reserve for chocolate cake - but for just regular eats? No. It doesn't make any sense. I'm fine with eating cow, full grown chicken or even chicken eggs! But you say duckling and I'm out. I'd rather eat one of Dad's other experiments - even if it has peas in it.

Maybe it is the fact that I don't cook, but I really don't see the appeal of making my dinner into a set of Russian nesting dolls.

Also, this thing has got to be one dense mo fo for the purposes of cooking all the way through. Traditionally, my parents can't get a dinner on the table within 2 hours of the projected time because something went wrong. Doesn't a regular turkey take like 12 hours to cook as it is? I'm going to have to sneak in bags of chips to keep this dinner party from becoming the Donner party. I'll have to make up reasons to have people meet me outside for a handful so Mom doesn't think we are ruining our appetites for dinner.

Sometimes I really wish they would just order one of those 300 foot party sandwiches from some shop and call it a day.

How I Watched All The T.V. To The End. Ow.

2008-03-01T09:51:00.001-08:00

It started last Saturday when I woke up. I felt a little wonky, and I had a cough. I went back to bed and didn't get out until, well, I've been out of it but not for long even a week later.

It is the flu and it has kicked my sorry ass so hard that flu's boot is still nowhere to be found. I always thought the flu was really just a super bad cold. I've had it before, but I have never found myself crying when I woke up covered in sweat the way I was this time. I also had body ache. And I demand a new word for the pain that I had. Ache is far too sissy a word to adequately describe what it felt like. Juggernaut comes to mind....

By Wednesday when I had no relief from the fever and ache, I begged Mr. Zoom to take me to the Dr. He had been asking me daily if I wanted to go, but because I already suspected they couldn't give me anything to help me, I had decided to fight it off myself. When the Dr. told me exactly what I already knew, I burst into tears. The last thing I wanted was for someone with authority to tell me that I had to suck it up, because I was in for at least two more days of misery before it was going to get slightly better. I'm pretty sure the Dr. thought I was a drug seeking fiend at that point and was merely disappointed that I wasn't getting anything out of the visit. It had been so long since I had slept a real sleep that I guess I just lost it.

She did advise a combination of over the counter drugs to help with symptoms. She and Mr. Zoom kept trying to assure me that sleep would help. I kept snapping back that sleep wasn't going to show up anymore. I'd already used a lifetime of sleep. And even if it did show up, I'd wake up and feel exactly the same or worse that I did right then. Start crying.

I'm a gem when I'm sick. But you know what? You haven't experienced marital bliss until you and your spouse, both strong willed people, are sick with the same ass kicking sick at the same time, in the same house, arguing over who should take what over the counter elixir is on the table covered with false promises. At one point he was just begging me to try a cough drop. "I WILL" I said, "but you won't see it." "Why?" "Because. If you see me take it, you will have won." He unwrapped it and gave it to me anyway. And two days later while taking out the garbage I heard him say "hmmm. I see some one's cough drop in the trash. Nice honey."

Mr. Zoom does sick a lot different than I. He curls up into a ball and sleeps the entire time. Days, weeks, it doesn't matter. That's just how he does it. I try so hard to get things for him, but he does all of that on his own when he's awake. He just really wants to be left alone.

I sleep a lot, but when I'm not sleeping I'm watching t.v. And coughing, and sweating, and forcing myself to eat. Which is a strange strange thing, let me tell you. When I feel full from 4 forkfulls of steamed rice - something is really wrong.

By Wednesday night Mr. Zoom had contracted the same flu and we were both zombie-ing around the house. Still are, actually. I'm 5 days ahead of him, so I do feel better. Not great, but better. I hope Mr. Zoom feels better soon. I miss having him tell me what to do.

The Opposite of Helping

2008-02-22T12:45:00.001-08:00

Our office has an e-mail notification thingie so that when someone needs assistance, has something to sell, or just wants to say something but remove it from the context of the official office business - they use it. Here is one of them:

___________________________________________________

From: Zoom Co-Worker
Sent: Monday, XXXXX XX, 2008

To: EVERYONE
Cc: person who's life I will inadvertently ruin
Subject: Family Law Attorney

Good morning all.....hope everyone had a great weekend.....

Can anyone recommend a family law attorney who would like to help out a person I know - to help her fill out some paper work as her ex-husband is taking her back to court for custody of their XX year old - she thinks it should be pretty cut and dry - but she needs an attorney to look over her paper work...

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

***You can email this person directly at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

________________________________________________

As luck would have it, I know a very very good family law attorney. So I responded:

_______________________________________________________

From: Zoom
Sent: Monday, XXXX XX, 2008
To: person who's life I will inadvertently ruin
Cc: zoom co-worker who sent out original request
Subject: FW: Family Law Attorney

My friend xxxxxxxxxxx is an outstanding family law attorney.

here is the website: xxxxxxx

_________________________________________________________

And this was the response:

__________________________________________________________

From: person who's life I will inadvertently ruin
To: Zoom
Date: Mon, xxxxxxx 2008
Subject: Re: FW: Family Law Attorney

Thanks so much for this referral....but this is the fantastic attorney that represented my ex 5 years ago! She reamed me good...XXXXXXXX.....I had to file BK, had a nervous break down, and lost custody of XXXXXXXX! She doesn't represent him now.....but I highly doubt she would want to help me now!

__________________________________________________________________

WHO ELSE BUT ME ENDS UP AN E-MAIL URBAN LEGEND? All I needed was for this person to have a second break down thanks to me. I did quickly respond with all kinds of "I'm so sorry, I obviously had no idea..." And even though that's probably enough - it doesn't quite feel like enough.

There are many things I've had to apologize for in my life. Some apologies never made it to the person's ears, but among them are gems like:

* I'm sorry I yelled at your retarded kid, but he started it by pushing me.
* I'm sorry I just called your special kid retarded.
* I'm sorry I only hear what I want to hear (Mr. Zoom gets this one more than he should).
* I'm sorry I ate the dinner you made for me so fast that I got some of it caught in my lungs and spent most of the night on your lawn coughing like an asthma victim.
* I'm sorry I threw rice at you and it got stuck on your arm like that. I swear it was an accident.
* I'm sorry I asked you when you were due, but you weren't even pregnant (I did this when I was pretty young, and it STILL haunts me.)
* I'm sorry I distributed a picture of you with your pants on your head, to your co-workers, with an LOL caption on it.
* I'm sorry I cussed in front of your kid(s).
* I'm sorry I laughed at your child's bad behavior and now it is "a game" YOU are forced to play.

I bet my mom could really make this list sing.

"The Politically Active 5 Year Old"

2008-02-21T11:38:00.000-08:00

Mr. Zoom spied this crayon propaganda scotch taped to the back window of a Volvo in our work parking garage. Awesome.

And because I'm paranoid, and I always think something is legit when it is a mass produced, hoax/urban legend - even when seen with my own eyes - I googled "president stink head" and there were NO RESULTS!!

Double Awesome!!

Prudish Swinger?

2008-02-13T16:50:00.000-08:00

"I thought you a prude when I first started working here. You are actually funny. It is always the quiet ones."

This was an e-mail response to me from one of my younger co-workers. And by younger I mean decades. He forwarded an e-mail joke and I just happened to respond to it. As often occurs with e-mail and me - a false sense of comfort with my audience led me to pepper my response with words such as "rack" "hoot" "your momma" and "boomshakalakka". Not necessarily in that order, either.

And what do I care that I give off the prude vibe to people I don't know? Because according to my own mother, the girls are usually bursting out of my shirts so much that I can only be considered a trollop by strangers. Although I have to consider that Mom's POV is shot through Formerly Amish Lenses. While she's lightened up a bit over the years, women's boobs, especially mine, seem to remain as classified in 1950s as an unspeakable evil while the toaster oven and microwave are now perfectly ok to use and have out in the open.

And then I remembered that at our last law firm, Mr. Zoom and I were actually accused of being swingers due to our no holds barred ability to give each other a heaping pile of sh*t and/or laugh at things most immature. Swingers we are not. Easily amused, we are.

I'll take prude over swinger, I guess.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to ditch my acrylic nails. I have had them for almost 10 years, and I'm totally over it. I don't like getting up every other Saturday and having an appointment I have to keep. I hate working around weekend travel/parties/weddings, etc. And quite honestly, the pink and white French manicure thing I had going on was starting to look a lot more bad porny than I thought they should. There's good porny - cheesy and fun, and bad porny - outdated and sad.

Everyone's heard of butt dialing, right? Cell phones have a lock now to prevent that. You know who else needs to make a protective lock? T.V. remote control companies. Mr. Zoom tries to watch t.v. and innocently sets the remote down. Predictably, I sit on the remote, roll onto it, or it magically attaches to my bum and then the channel surfing really begins. It is such a regular occurrence that last night when the hockey game flickered out I jumped up and shouted "WHAT?? AM I SITTING ON THE REMOTE AGAIN??!!" Then my eyes searched out and rested on the remote. Safely stored on the arm of the couch next to Mr. Zoom. Far away from my butt. The cable had hiccupped. And Mr. Zoom was now wearing the wide eyed terror face that he breaks out whenever I've launched an accusatory question/statement/rhetorical gem at him without warning. Sort of like having someone run into the room behind you, crashing cymbals over your head and then running away.

This is a day early, but - HAPPY VDAY MR. ZOOM! I'll try and keep my ass-cheeks off the remote for like, a whole day. Starting tomorrow.

I Haven't Wanted A Diet Cherry Coke for Probably a Decade

2008-02-10T11:28:00.000-08:00

Life is very much back to normal for me. As much as normal can be applied here, anyway.

Back in January Mr. Zoom and I took a trip with my parents to an outlet mall. This meant getting up before dawn - as my parents insist that getting there early is key. The place is a few hours drive away. And if you don't get there early, a chasm opens and swallows the entire mall. Or something.

Actually, it's the parking they are after. They have a nifty theory about where they park. It borders on Feng Shui and urban legend - and I've given up fighting it.

There is only one thing that makes this trip worth while, and it is the restaurant in Banning that we always stop at for breakfast. Grammas.

This place will kick your ass. It's got the best French Toast I've ever had. I would have taken more pictures to show you how it feels like the Republican Party and the Bible Belt, Dress and Handbag of America vomited in a room after a hard night of partying and subsequently abandoned the mess out in the California desert - but I was literally afraid that someone would have gotten up and forced me out of the place at double barrelled shotgunpoint. Yee Haw.

Apparently during this trip with my parents I made the mistake of discussing t-shirts. My mother was wondering what to do with a lot of t-shirts she had that were so beat up, she couldn't have even given them away. I told her that I use things like that as rags around the house - or when I'm putting something breakable in storage, I'll wrap it in an old t-shirt.

In typical Mom fashion, she took this to mean that I was in need of household rags. To her credit, she didn't buy a bunch at the outlet mall. Instead, she silently waited until a future visit and handed Mr. Zoom a full grocery bag full of "tea" towels she didn't need anymore. And my parents never do anything in moderation. She handed the bag to Mr. Zoom saying "HERE, Zoom said she needed - ney - wanted these. Here you go." Mr. Zoom, having been schooled in the ways of Mom took the bag and didn't even look inside until he got home.

The bag was too heavy to have just old towels in it. Inside, under the explosion of towels that escaped the bag, was a Costco size, giant tub of Shout. That stain remover add on for laundry. which we don't have a need for. And won't in the next 100 years. The amount of time it would take to use this size of Shout.

Typical.

Just last visit I got, without warning, a half of box of hershey dark chocolate bars, a half of box of individual packets of nuts, a bag of peanut butter filled pretzles and two 12 packs of diet Cherry Coke. Anyone else remember those "grab bags" from Farrell's Ice Cream Parlors? Because it feels like every visit I have with my parents is sponsored by Tim Burton and the parting gift is a grab bag of the most random crap EVER.

I think I drank diet cherry coke for about a day once in 1997, and my Mom hasn't forgotten it since. But she has forgotten the fact that I am allergic to nuts.

Don't get me wrong. I love my parents and very much appreciate what they are trying to do. And so do the people at my office who find these treasures in the office kitchen.

Struggle.

2008-02-07T05:43:00.000-08:00

"I'm sorry to do this honey, but I'm having an attack."

I got those words out before the light I had slammed on even illuminated the room. It was about 5 am on a Wednesday morning a few weeks back, and I was having a panick attack. I haven't struggled with these on a regular basis for YEARS. I've had one or two in those years, but this one was different.

Mr. Zoom, dead asleep and shaken awake by sudden bright light and a sweaty, crazed wife was understandably barely realizing what was going on before I sternly ordered him to "OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AT ME." As we discussed the situation later, a lot later, I was marveling at how I had gotten so insistent and issued him an order like that. He said next time he's going to respond with "SIR YES SIR!" which made us both giggle.

It is so hard to describe what happens when an attack strikes. Mr. Zoom, for not ever having had one himself, is amazingly patient and will do anything to help bring my raving ass back down to Earth. Even when I've Bam Margera'd him in the wee hours of the morning. And without a lot of practice. The man is a saint.

He finally talked me down and then the humiliation of the situation sent me the other direction with a lump in my gut for good measure. Mr. Zoom contends that "falling apart" [my words] in front of him is not a cry worthy event. I completely disagree. He says he understands, that he knows what I'm dealing with, and he's not going anywhere. That these things are not a chore to him, that "we are a team". I can't get beyond the fact that physical things happen to me that I can't control, and that I sometimes need the help of someone else at a time I perceive as incredibly inconvenient for that person.

Oh, and lets not forget that at the time I'm asking for help? I'm pretty much ignoring everything offered to me AS help. I am a cartoon character when I'm having an attack.

To me, these panic attacks are and have been the only real threat to my being able to exist as a "normal" person. If I were to make a post secret card, it would say "I live in constant fear that my meds will stop working some day." One half would have a perfectly together image with friends and family facing me. The other half would have a disheveled lunatic with friends and family facing away from me. A line right down the middle with a tablet in the center. And the friends and family as turned away from me is not a statement about the people in my life. What it is - it is the fact that I know that if it ever got to that point that I'd likely chase everyone away from me because I know what this condition can do to the people around the affected.

Just ask my parents. They pretty much had to babysit their 19-22 year old daughter through some very rough times. Though they love me, they did not hide the fact that I was very much a constant, unfortunate consideration they had to work around in their daily lives.

So that is why I fear more than almost anythig, falling apart in front of Mr. Zoom. Losing him or inadvertently chasing him away from me would be something I could not bear.

And this recent attack and general feeling of - weirdness - was different because instead of a generic panic attack, it came with a bunch of hallucinatory elements. The kinds of things that happen when people like me miss a dose of medication. Which I had not, which caused even more alarm on my part, which in turn sent me raving at my husband. Telling your husband that you aren't only panicking, but that your head is providing an unwanted podcast from lunatic.com is probably one of the scariest things I will ever have to do. Events like those tend to lead to mental hospitals, not a heretofore happy existence as a normal person doing normal things and facing normal ups and downs.

High levels of sadness, anger, humiliation and doubt accompanied me to the gym, to the office, at home and finally to the Dr. yesterday. I've been seeing this Dr. since 1997 or 1998. He is the one who brought me out of the fog the first time. We went over the attacks, the fact that I'm having withdrawal symptoms without missing any meds or without any significant changes in life/food/existence otherwise. Then he asked me "are any of your prescriptons filled with generic tablets?" As a matter of fact, yes. One was.

He said [and I'm paraphrasing although it is in quotes] "That might be the answer. The makers of generic medicines are legally permitted to dial down their products - well, at least it's not worded that way. In other words, generics are permitted a range of between 80 and 120% of the actual active ingredient - when tested, the dose just has to have a result within 80 and 120% of the name brand. So sometimes, to save money, some generic brands will dial down a batch. They often hit the market at 100%, but slowly bring it down while no one notices. Plus, there are things thant can be done, additives that can cause the sample to metabolize at a good rate in a test, but not so effectively in a human body."

So now I have prescriptions for name brand only meds. If this fixes things, I will be very grateful. Because having an attack from withdrawals - but not knowing that is/was the isue, was very much enough for me to start arranging for my last days of sanity. It's hard for me to write that and realize it sounds very very drama queenish. All I can tell you is that these recent attacks were that strong, that disturbing, and that unusual. And unlike regular panic attacks, even after I came down I was plagued by a sense of vertigo, disconnection, racing head, teeny audio disturbances, and the fun kind of stomach issues that withdrawal will give you. And the SWEATING! I can rival any menopausal co-worker with my hotflashes. These are not good times.

I have no idea if what he says is true. I did a quickie search on google, but didn't find anything directly laying out the 80/120% rule. However, if it IS true I'd like to offer a heartfelt Fuck You to the genetic drug industry.

The Bizarro Effect

2008-01-15T14:10:00.001-08:00

There just isn't much going on lately that is write-about-able.

There's the recurring dream I've been having lately. Which showcases my broken being so very well. You know how most people have that recurring dream about being back in high school/college, and they've missed a final, or can't get their locker open? Pretty typical stuff, right?

Well here's what I've got going on. Whenever I have that dream? I'm back in high school/college FOR A SECOND TIME, AND JUST FOR THE HECK OF IT. I literally keep telling people that I've graduated already, but I'm back on campus taking classes again... just because. And sure, I still can't find my locker, I've missed a final and I can't remember what order my classes are in or what days they are. But I console myself by saying "I've already graduated, and they know I'm here because I want to be, so it should be ok." I can only presume that "they" is the administration of the school. I've had this dream no less than 60 times in the last 5 years.

And my hopes of growing up and out of any childhood traumas that cause this dream to keep happening have been shoved in a grave and buried alive.

We need look no further back than this past Christmas Eve. My parents had people over for a traditional Christmas Eve dinner. They do it every year. Sometimes friends and family with no other obligations come to this event. This year I was especially excited because pal Ka and his super fantastic girlfriend were going to be there. Ka had been before, but she had not. And the parents have missed Ka very much.

So just imagine my abject horror when my Dad was seen running around the house and preparing Christmas Eve dinner, WITH A RUBBER GLOVE ON ONE OF HIS HANDS. Yes, just one hand. And yes, it never came off. No, it was not something like an oven mitt. It was just plain creepy and psycho doctor-y.

See the orb in the photo? That's my soul, trying to escape the pull of my obviously nut-bar father. I was half waiting for him to throw some sequins on his mitt, moon walk and squeal "heee heeeeeeee" while dancing in front of the flames on the gas stove.

Hookers, Mimes, Sweaters and Beer. And a Really Good Book.

2008-01-05T14:09:00.000-08:00

How was your new year? Too bad I can't really answer that question honestly to the people who ask. Because if I did, I'd say "It was fun. You know the saying 'hookers and blow'? Well ours [Me and Mr. Zoom] was kind of like that. Only it was strippers and booze. And pictionary." But you can't really say that to the people you work with.

All I can tell you, even with the relative anononimity provided by nicknames and throw away e-mail accounts, is that a party we were at had some very random circumstances/guests. And I will admit that it sounds a lot more fascinating than it really was, but to explain it all would reveal things that I don't have permission to reveal publicly.

Prior to pictionary with strippers, we met some friends for a low key - dangerously close to senior citizen dinner time - dinner. These friends have a 3 year old (none of these people would be attending the later party) which was part of the reason for eating so early. The restaurant was a new one and the food was surprisingly SOO GOOD that I forgave the fact that it was a place where you order something and then.....gasp.....share?! Yes, that good.

When we got ready to leave, Friend Mom got her child's sweater out for him to wear outside. Mr. Zoom saw this and began chanting "that's the exact same sweater my wife is wearing RIGHT NOW!" And it was. Of course it was. Because who else but me can end up at a dinner, wearing the exact same sweater as a three year old LITTLE BOY. Those around the table and on the way outside got to picking up the child and holding him up next to me while everyone confirmed that yes, indeed, we had on the identical sweater. Giggles all around.

Speaking of really good food, I've had to make extra effort to get myself to the gym regularly. I needed to go last night in order to stay on track. And truly, I like Friday nights for the gym because of the non-crowd factor. And because Southern California was actually seeing some rain from the doomsday storm watch we'd been absorbing for the last week - there were literally about 5 people in the entire gym.

3 of us on treadmills, and 2 no-necks down working the free weights. And here's what I hate most about the gym experience: no matter how few people there are, it seems that no gym visit can be completed without SOMEONE killing a mime*.

* Killing a Clown - Zoom slang for loud boom farts.
* Killing a Mime - Zoom slang for silent, and unfortunately still detectable farts.

It's not just the horrible smell factor - but I always feel compelled to look around at people accusingly, as if the person who did it will hold up a sign or wave - accepting my silent scorn.

And finally, I need to thank Mr. Kevin Smith, film maker - producer - author. I picked up his book My Boring Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith. Through this witty, heartfelt and most definitely candid work - I have now been provided with the answer to a question I have had since meeting Mr. Zoom in 2002.

Mr. Zoom will disappear into the loo for very long periods of time. Not quite an hour, but there have been times when I guarantee it has been 30 minutes or more. I've always wondered what the hell he's doing in there. I've asked, too. And there's just no real response. Or at least I didn't think there was.

Some said porn - but I didn't see that being an issue. Because I have nothing against porn and he could wallpaper our home office with it if he wanted. Some said masturbation - but I didn't think that was it either - and if it was he'd have told me so. Some said drugs - and I can't tell you how I know that's not an option - but it isn't.

Turns out that within the fabulous book that Kevin Smith wrote, he answered the question of what Mr. Zoom does in there - in one simple paragraph. I intended to bring the book home from work so I could cite the exact page and quote proper, but of course I left it in my desk at work. So I'll have to paraphrase. It turns out that some guys just like to take care of business and then linger in the loo for a really REALLY long time. He wrote something about the whirring of the exhaust fan drowning out the outside world for a little while. And a loud click could be heard as I realized that Mr. Zoom just likes his solitude sometimes. And our loo fan is definitely going to drown out the outside world for as long as any occupant wishes.

So now when he is gone for 20 minutes or more, I fall back on "oh, he's just blocking out the outside world for a bit." And as psychotic as that might sound, having that explanation literally quiets me and my mind so I can focus on something else.

Like, finding some clothing options that aren't sold in Baby Gap.

Restraining the Unrestrainable

2007-12-21T08:58:00.000-08:00

Last night I found myself gathering some last minute holiday gifts. Mr. Zoom wasn't with me, as 75% of my reason for purposely placing myself in the middle of sticky retail holiday ooze was to get an item for him I had just that day thought of as a really good gift idea.

The particular store(s) I had to share personal space with strangers with was one that potentially carried a video game for Mr. Zoom's Wii that I knew he'd been looking for and it was not on his Christmas list. It is the Tiger Woods Golf that came out, and apparently has sold out just about everywhere. The only reason I knew Mr. Zoom wanted it was that he mentioned he couldn't find it. Let me tell you something. If he can't find it, it can't be found.

Knowing this, I checked each store and of course, they too were sold out. Until I got to Target. My beloved Target. But here's the thing. Wii games are locked in a glass case. And there was only 1 Tiger Woods game left in the case. It was shouting "I'M THE POPULAR GAME EVERYONE WANTS, I'M THE LAST ONE, YOU'LL NEVER GET ME." I've never purchased a game behind glass before, so I had no idea what to do, really. There were a lot of other people peering into the same case that I was looking in. I fought the urge to throw my body against the case and yell "BACK OFF."

Instead, I ran (literally, I ran) to the register where the only employee of Target in my eyesight was ringing up a customer's purchase. I stood in line behind the customer and kept searching out the visible floor for any other red shirts who I could pounce on and demand they unlock my game for me. I wasn't too wound up, because I was next in line - but then customer guy started writing a check for his purchase. A CHECK. Not only that, but his check was rejected and he then tried to pay for his item with credit cards, business cards, oolongs and probably some orange peels.

About that time an employee of Target crossed my path. And I did notice he had on a black shirt, but he still had a name tag on. I stopped him and blurted "Excusemecanyougetanitemoutofthecaseforme?????!!!" He put up his hands in that woah woah woah manner and said "Sorry, I work in the portrait studio. I can't help you out." Then he ran away, which was wise.

I was beginning to feel exactly like one of those crazed holiday shoppers I swore I'd never ever be - one of those shoppers I've been run over by in the past - only a LOT worse. I tried to gather myself, but the potential that I could be the person to bring home a game for Mr. Zoom that I knew he wanted and he could not find was far too much for me to handle. I started to twitch while waiting in line. TWITCHING!

Around that time, something somewhere magically cleared for the customer and he was free to go. And at that exact moment a second Target employee entered the area and I lept at him. "CANYOUGETAGAMEOUTOFTHECASEFORME???". Employee #2 looked just as rattled as portrait studio guy - but grabbed his keys and motioned to me. He said "I'm on my way over there now, so I can get all of them at the same time." Which freaked me out because now I was convinced someone else had claimed the game I needed before I could do so. I tried to corner him into telling me the rules for calling dibs on ... say ... the very last Tiger Woods Wii game that might be in the case. "Ok, say I've been in line - I SAW the game first, but couldn't find anyone to get it for me. Then someone else finds a wandering employee and asks for the game. WHO GETS IT??" He actually giggled at me - seeing my attempt to badger him into agreeing that I should get whatever I was asking for, and asked which one I needed. "TIGER WOODS!" "Oh, yeah. We have just one of those left. I'll get it for you." Ahhh. The promise of victory.

I finally got it paid for and into my purse. I had 3 more stops to make before I could go home, because I still wanted to get him the item I started out for.

Normal people can wait to give a Christmas or birthday gift on the actual day of the event. I.CAN.NOT. It physically drains me to have a gift for someone and not be able to give it to them. Mr. Zoom is very familiar with this. Now I had to decide if I was going to attempt to hold this item for Christmas, or if I was just going to give it to him right away.

I got home and when I got through the door I threw my arms up in the air (like a ref signaling a field goal) and ran a circle through the entire house. Then I stopped at a very very confused Mr. Zoom and said "I'm sorry, but this has to happen right now." Or at least that's what I was trying to say. What he probably heard was "huuunnn yieeee wehehhheeeee neeeee!" I handed him the bag and jumped up and down like a mental patient trying to catch invisible hoops with her head.

Yes, I had TOTALLY decided to hold it until Christmas.

I Am Jesus' Pinata.

2007-12-16T18:53:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I was driving down the street gently embracing a nugget of nonsense my parents had handed to me over lunch. They had seen I Am Legend over the weekend and were not happy about it. Which is odd, because my parents love all film, craptacular and brilliant alike. So my senses perked up and I asked them what they disliked about IAL. Their answer?

And I'm not making this up ...."it was scary."

My FAM was adamant that Alvin and the Chipmunks would have been a much better choice.

I was simply struck silent. There was nothing I could or can (even now, 6 hours later) say that would make that conversation up there more beautiful than it already is.

As I rounded the corner to arrive home and convey this story to Mr. Zoom - I was greeted by something magical hanging off of a neighborhood mail box.

I think I know how the Wise Men felt when they saw the Star in the sky. I slammed on the brakes and maneuvered my truck to the side of the road. I grabbed my camera from my bag and recorded my very first, ever in my lifetime, never even knew they existed - Santa Pinata sighting. A SANTATA!

I simply cannot believe my parents did not find and purchase at least 4 of these before anyone else in California did. They are totally slipping.

No Eye Contact. Ever. Again.

2007-12-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

Technology is such a wonderful thing. I can say I love it more than I hate it. BUT, when I do hate it - it's a burning, not healthy and totally unreasonable hate. Mostly because it is my fault it has bitten me in the britches and I could have prevented it.

Mr. Zoom embraces technology so fast and so flexibly - that he often can not understand what is wrong with the rest of us. If you are a retailer or utility that requires payments from the Zooms, you BETTER have an on line and preferably an automatic payment interface or Mr. Zoom might actually find your offices and demand you do so - in person.

Naturally then, at Holiday time we Zooms are going to coordinate gift purchases via e-mail. This week a rapid fire informational session was happening when it was brought to our attention that Mr. Zoom had accidentally sent an e-mail containing information about a gift already purchased - including the person who the gift was for. OOPS! He made repairs quickly, and all is forgiven.

When that happened, I thought to myself "Wow. That mistake was totally mine. I know for a fact I should have been the one to have done that. After all, I've totally shot my e-mail yapper off to the wrong parties in the past, and he's so careful and better at this kind of thing than I am."

Later in the week I shot off a customary at work - I'm thinking about you and love you - e-mail to Mr. Zoom. We work at the same company, but you'd be surprised how little we actually see of each other during the work day. I like to send afternoon reminders that we are married now, and regardless of any smartening up he's done since agreeing to marry me, he can't get away from me. I knew he'd been super busy this week with a tech roll out, but was still a little perplexed at having received no return e-mail almost an hour later.

About that time, I saw an e-mail arrive from my Boss. The preview box showed me the contents of his e-mail to me: "??" That's when I realized I had sent the following e-mail TO MY MALE, MARRIED BOSS - Subject: gosh I love you - Contents of e-mail: so very much.

At that moment, all of the oxygen on our green and blue planet was then sucked out of the atmosphere and transported directly into my head. And it hurt. A lot. Because apparently my brain no longer resides in there and nature hates a vacuum. I immediately shot off an explanatory e-mail to the Boss: OMG. I AM SOOOO SORRY. THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO TO MY HUSBAND!! And then I fought the urge to faint at my desk while sitting in my chair.

My Boss came out of his office and mercifully, had a good long laugh with me and the few other people around us who were let in on what happened. I was so terribly embarrassed by my error that others started to blush FOR ME. Then we all started laughing so hard we all cried. I continued to laugh cry while I deleted all the evidence of my brain taking leave of my head.

Later that evening Mr. Zoom and I were running errands. I began my story this way: "I'm going to tell you a story. It is horribly embarrassing for me. Literally. painfully. embarrassing. But I'm going to tell you anyway." I got my story out, and as expected he shook his head in that "only my wife" way. He said "And how come I'm only hearing about this now?" I replied "Because I literally just this second got over it enough to tell you without crying."

And we laughed. Because that's what we do. Although between fits of laughter I had pangs of tears - and in an attempt to justify the see/saw emotions I blubbered "Ok, so let's review. You ruin a teeny part of someone's Christmas by accidentally revealing one of their gifts to them. I wind up nearly breaking up two marriages and embarrassing myself beyond all .... all... get-it-backedness (was searching for the word redemption)!!"

It's time for me to set the e-mail program to "delay all sent messages for 5 minutes". Even if it wouldn't have saved me this time. Maybe it will manage to keep me married for just that much longer.

Touched in the Head by PDR

2007-12-12T11:27:00.001-08:00

I was in the copy room one day and something caught my eye. The recycle bin had a HUGE, red, hardcover book resting on the top of the pile. Because I adore books, I ran over to it and yoinked it out of the recycle bin. It was a Pysicians Desk Reference, for the year 2004. I snuk the treasure home, where Mr. Zoom promptly caught me and called me out on my skulking through the house with it. "IT WAS ON THE TOP, IN THE RECYCLE BIN!! I HAD to bring it home. You know I did. It's a book, it's about drugs and it has color pictures of drugs in it. SCORE!!"

The fact is, I will probably never ever use it for anything other than pressing a flower (which I haven't done since high school) or as a doorstop. Even worse, it will probably end up in our bookshelf and it will collect dust. But I love it just the same. If I have to start calling it Vintage just to keep it in the house, I will.

But I don't have to do that. Because Mr. Zoom lets me - be me. No matter what. Even if our co-workers start calling me dumpster dive .

Do You KNow Who That Is? Is it Ethyl Merman?

2007-11-29T13:06:00.000-08:00

Mr. Zoom is the most patient and understanding husband ever built. I was lucky to get him. Much like my Chevy Silverado 2001 - he's one of the best things to ever happen to me.

Mr. Zoom also comes with a very scary feature. Mr. Zoom can see a generic, no name person in a commercial just once, and he will recognize that person in everything from more commercials, to t.v. to movies if they get that far. While watching t.v. or, really anything, I get "OH LOOK! It's that guy/girl/ DOG who was in that ad for NAME BRAND WHATEVER that ran a while ago."

He tells me that people in ads often have a group of ads air all in a relatively short period of time. Somewhat like a commercial "it" person.

Sometimes he says "Do you know who that is?", which inevitably leads to me going "who? that person or the person who they just showed?" and then we have to wait until the "target" comes back on screen before continuing... "THAT person!" And I always say "no", just like responding to a knock knock joke with "who's there?" - which allows him to continue with the listing of ALL appearances the target has made in the past, and a list of their ingredients! - he is my personal IMDB. THANK GOD FOR DVR. Because while we are doing this retarded dance, we can pause the show, rewind or just plain go over it multiple times when I have to cranially catch up with what he's just told me.

I'm pretty sure that's the worst paragraph, structurally and informationally, that I've ever created. Oh well.

So far I have resisted trying to out recognize someone before he does. In other words, I continue to not pay attention as closely - because that requires concentration. If I can't remember to pout about something for more than 10 seconds, how am I going to learn to concentrate on commercials for more than the sparklie distractions that they are.

Until.

Until my Mr. Zoom pointed something out about a specific series of commercials that are running now. You know the ones with the people talking about how they need a phone service that works everywhere they do? How they show them in about 4 different places with each commercial? And they end with a name of a place like Phillawareapragakahn? Well, Mr. Zoom told me that each of the main "actors" in each of those commercials plays a different part in the other "actors" commercials.

AND IT'S DRIVING ME MAD(der than normal).

I was fine being the inattentive commercial drone. But now every time I see one of these commercials, even if I hear one going on somewhere, I have to stop what I'm doing and compare faces in the foreground AND BACKGROUND. HAVE TO. This is exhausting for someone who can't even stay focused long enough to fill her gas tank all the way to full.

In case any of you were like me, and are now cursed to seek out the similarities in those ads like one of those "spot the changes" games - all I can say is I'm sorry that you don't have a Mr. Zoom with you to make the madness hurt a little less.

Take this example. We were on the way to work this morning when a Serge Tankian song came on the radio. He's the singer from System of a Down. He has a very distinctive voice. Mr. Zoom said "OH, it's alternative music's own Ethyl Merman!" Which will make me laugh all day...until one of those stupid cell phone commercials comes on the t.v.

15 Minutes of ... Wait, Don't Tell Me... Is it Cheese?

2007-11-26T15:04:00.000-08:00

Saturday was really quiet at the salon. I had to go get my bi-monthly fingernail tune up and was prepared to practically sleep through my appointment, as usual.

There was a woman there who I had never seen before. She was conversing with my manicurist, so I was able to hear that she was in on her "off" Saturday due to scheduling conflicts. And who cares, right? Least of all me, who as stated above, wants nothing more than to doze through the process and be shot back out into the world so I can go home and watch t.v. on my couch.

However, this particular Saturday having been the Thanksgiving Weekend, made it really really quiet in the salon. There was only one other manicurist in there, with her own sleepy client. My manicurist started up a conversation with the off Saturday lady ("OSL"). Before long, OSL offered that she had to go out of town next week to do some training in New Mexico. And that she was cooking a huge meal "tonight" and had to find an Italian supply shop to buy some key ingredients.

Because I'm as bright as the moon on a moonless night, I opened up my yap and offered that I knew of a local Italian supply store that might help her with what she needed. She responded to my nugget of advice by affixing the site of her Unwanted Verbal Fact Cannon on my heart. I was annoyed at myself, until OSL began to share with the entire room - her claim to fame. Although she does not call it fame.

What? I know. It doesn't quite make sense yet. Stay with me.

OSL is from Roswell, NM. She was born in April 1947. Without any of us asking, she informed us that was the site of the alien crash landing, and that it happened in 1947. And that the aliens came to her parents' house and switched out her mom's human baby for her. Which I thought was kinda decent for aliens, since they could have just taken the human baby and left nothing. Right? OSL, her friends and family have and do know all of the key people in the Roswell Crash Story, Myth, Parable - whatever. At this point my love of the Lunatic Fringe began to show and I was unable to keep my body from physically jerking when she'd proceed to another thread of the story. Baby coffins and secret this and that - she personally knows people. But until 20 years ago, she says she was never permitted to discuss the events outside of her home. When asked why (and not by me, because I was paralyzed with fear and glee while these things were being said), she said "Because they kept disappearing. All the nurses involved in the event, they all disappeared."

I've always felt like this conversation would be had in front of me or by me, but I always imagined it would involve a homeless person or an institution in the background.

OSL began to wind down her story by saying "I had my 15 minutes of ..." and she was searching for the word. She motioned to us in the room in that universal "help me fill in the blank" way that people do. When I offered up "fame", she said "NO!..that's not it" and waved the universal hand gesture for "idiot" at me. She decided to finish her sentence all on her own: "I had my 15 minutes of ...... but I was too young to enjoy it."

She didn't fill in the missing word. I MUST KNOW WHAT WORD SHE WANTED, but I cannot and will not ever know. Apparently it wasn't fame. Maybe alien babies are immune to our human fame. Perhaps she said the word, but like only dogs can hear certain pitches, we humans aren't equipped to know what her 15 minutes is called.

Like Caligula Unable to Conduct an Orgy

2007-11-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

I've noticed a disturbing trend in broadcast television lately. It's that highly distracting, godawful blur out of people's faces and products. I HATE IT! Does anyone consider what happens to a mind like mine when blurr out shows up unexpectedly? My thoughts are sent spinning out of control like Darth Vader's stylie Tie Fighter at the end of Star Wars. Angry, evil and tons of time to sulk about it.

"Gee, I wonder why that person's face is blurred out. Did someone use a name, a face, an eyebrow that belongs to someone else? Who could possibly be upset about being on t.v. in some background, where I wouldn't even be looking EXCEPT FOR THAT BLURRING OUT THING THEY DO? Isn't this shot on a public street? Don't the people making this show realize that they are making their show look like my brother's prom picture from 1982? Back when people thought that fuzzy blur effect was kinda neat? Back when we all didn't know any better? Now I'm just annoyed and angry...and need to pick a fight with my husband."

WHY must I participate in this ocular rodeo?

AND, they are now blurring BACKGROUND ART. I could have sworn I was watching a re-run of Seinfeld the other night and a painting or picture in the background was blurred. WHO.IS.COMPLAINING? WHO? Because I demand the right to poke that person - all those people - right in the eye with my remote - left eye first, then the right if they don't agree to balls up and stop ruining one of the things I love most in life. TV shows.

THIS IS COMPLETE BLURRSHIT!

Where does the madness stop? Because apparently shows that were created and broadcast long before someone wadded up their undies, put them on and ran to their attorney with dollar sign pasties are not left alone. It's as bad an idea as Ted Turner colorizing classic films. BAD.

Let's just go ahead and castrate the entertainment industry using our court system. Who isn't excited to live in a world where all we are left with is memories of better times? That'd be neat.

Tagged by Pie

2007-11-13T12:04:00.000-08:00

So Coconut Cream Pie (CCP) gave me a tag and the only prescription is more cowbell. Or, answers from me?

Four Jobs I Have Had In My Life:

1. Restaurant Research - telephone and in store surveys of fast food restaurants. This was before the internet changed marketing completely. I think they still have "mystery" shoppers though. I had NO life and I was in high school. I was a star employee, or so they said. As soon as I got a boyfriend I was outta there.

2. Mail Boxes Etc. - Pre-UPS/FEDEX/Kinko's mail merger store blobination. MBE was one of the only places licensed by the post office to sell stamps AND be a "post office box" location. We did HUGE business with UPS shipping. Christmas was fantastic for picking up more hours. I liked the job because I was on my feet a lot of the day and packing up packages for people. I was in college when I worked there.

3. Target. Cashier, planogram and for .5 seconds....receptionist. The sat me down at this huge board with blinkie lights and said "answer phones." There was no denying I sucked at that. So they sent me to planogram and part time cashier. I sucked at cashier too. Also, because of the employee discount - I never left with more than half of my paycheck. It wasn't a huge discount, but hey, anything off already low prices on crap you just don't need is reason enough to buy.

4. Secretary/Paralegal at a law firm. It's what I do now. I love what I do.

Four movies I can watch over and over and over:

This always changes around for me. But for now it is -

1. Billy Madison
2. Wizards
3. Dream with the Fishes
4. Monsters, Inc.

Four tv shows I like to watch:

1. The Soup on E
2. Scrubs
3. Family Guy - which I JUST found in syndication. Talk about missing the biggest funny boat ever!
4. The Office

Four places I have vacationed:

1. Ireland
2. Vegas
3. Thailand
4. Chicago

Four Of My Favorite Dishes:

1. Filet Mignon from Turner New Zealand
2. Flat iron steak from what used to be Rouge and is now French 75
3. Fish and Chips from The Olde Ship
4. Gringo Burrito from Rutabegoraz

and an illegal 5. Store bought chocolate cake directly out of the tin foil pan it came in.

Four websites I visit Daily:

1. Google
2. Court webpage with all the homepages of all CA courts linked
3. Dictionary/Thesaurus dot com
4. OMGkitty dot com [over in my links as "Pimphand!"]

Four Places I would rather be:

1. In a bookstore with unlimited, disposable income.
2. At home on the couch with Mr. Zoom and a Tivo full of new shows.
3. Photographing anything and everything.
4. Looking through my family's photo slides from the 60s and 70s.

Four bloggers I am tagging:

I'm still thinking about the cake. So tag yourself if you like.

"I don't even need to be here for this conversation, do I."

2007-11-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

The time change. Oh, how I love falling back. Or what I consider returning to the REAL time. I don't know who thought robbing me of an hour of sleep for 6 months was a good idea. And then extending it? I continue to be bitter about that. My epitaph will probably read: "Here lies Zoom. Maybe now she will shut her yap about the injustices of Daylight Savings Time."

Mr. Zoom sometimes tries to go to bed before I'm good and ready for him to go to sleep. It is, quite literally where the "zoom" came from. My ability to verbally poke him when he's trying to start his slumber is not legendary yet. Although it will be when our story shows up on 48 hours because he decided to reclaim his God given right to go to bed whenever he feels like it - by taking me on a "camping" trip that goes tragically awry.

Last night was one of those nights. We were in bed and I kept filling the night air with my own voice. At times playful - others, trying and combative - and at ALL times annoying for poor Mr. Zoom.

In the middle of my one way rant, I felt Mr. Zoom's hands on my back. I said "Oh no you don't. Don't go trying to calm me with your kind, understanding, gentle hands." And that is when he ever so gracefully put me in my place. He replied "Oh, I'm just trying to make sure you stay over there [your side of the bed] ...

I like to call it ...

Crazytown."

And with that I laughed until little tears of joy sprang from my eyes. And he finally got to fall asleep.

Wrong Place Wrong Time Wrong Pen

2007-11-06T21:42:00.000-08:00

I was trying to get a document served. I was working at the copy station, and I reached for a pen that was among probably 150 other pens - living in the Giant Bucket of Pens. These seem to be the community pens, the orphans, the abandoned and chewed upon. Normally I bring a pen with me from my desk. Not because I thought about it - it's just one of those habits.

Like when Mr. Zoom is driving us somewhere and I've got my own car keys in my hand. Even after I've gotten in the passenger side of his car.

I was busy putting together labels for the service when I noticed big blue fingerprints all over the proofs. The pen didn't even have the decency to stop gushing ink when I began looking for the source of the blue. I had grabbed the one pen in the Giant Bucket that had hemo-inka-philia .

I threw it away and then realized I should probably try and wash the ink off before it set in. All I could hear was my mother's voice scolding me for drawing on myself. Sure, not the same as taking a pen to your arms and legs when you are bored and 11 years old, but no matter. The same impulse that makes me hold my car keys even when I don't need them is the same one that is tuned into my mother's lecture frequency. Like satellite radio. She's in between the stations.

I went for the small kitchen on our floor that is close to the copy center. There's a sink and always soap in there.

Unfortunately there's also coffee in there. One of our Big Deal Partners was in there getting some coffee when I came barging in with my hands in the air like I'd been scrubbed up for surgery. I turned on the hot water and went right for the soap. I used lots of soap. I scrubbed long and hard. So much so that the hot water got very very hot and I hadn't been paying attention.

I mindlessly stuck my hands in the water to rinse. Before I knew what happened I realized I'd jerked them out of the water and shot HOT, SOAPY, INKY WATER all over one of our Big Deal Partners - and the room.

OMG.

I apologized and flailed. I Chevy Chase'd my way through the rinsing process and started handing out paper towels. Luckily whatever suit he was wearing was dark. He got away annoyed, but as far as I can tell, un-inked.

And it didn't budge the ink at all. It took two days of showering for it to finally disappear.

The Wise One; Ninja G

2007-11-06T15:03:00.000-08:00

Upon learning of a blog by a mutual friend - He who is known as Ninja G authored the best one line e-mail responses I've ever seen:

_____________________________

From: Ninja G [mailto:xxx@xxxx.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 1:37 PM
To: All The Monkeys

"How do you people have time for blogs? I barely have time to fart out-loud for all to enjoy."

What Just Happened?

2007-11-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

Southern California decided to become a Giant Ring of Fire the week before I was to be in an outdoor wedding. Friends, family - people I didn't know but was feeling extreme sadness for were displaced and scared - everywhere.

I couldn't concentrate on anything but the news for nearly a week.

I'm relieved to say everyone I personally know and all family got through the fires very well. Damages were limited to stress over the situation, but physical and structural damage was nil. Except for the ash and smoke which we are ALL still dealing with.

I hope everyone who lays eyes here got through it safely - family and friends of yours as well.

The Friday before the fires broke I was at work when an e-mail flashed on my screen with the title: "Monday is Jesus' birthday." Because I'm a nitwit, I said "What? Monday isn't Christmas."

And since we are discussing Zoom Christmas retardation - it is time to reveal that when I was a kid I could never understand how it was OK for us ... people... to give Christmas gifts to each other. I knew the story went that three wise men gave gifts to Jesus when he showed up all those years ago. So when people started exchanging gifts all these years later because of that - I thought it would be seen as the gift giver saying to the recipient "You are now Jesus and I am a wise person. I am giving you a gift because of that."

And I knew enough to know that wasn't an ok thing to think, much less act on.

And I couldn't understand why we did it year after year after year. Further, when someone said "She/He is playing God", I thought they meant someone got caught accepting gifts as if they were "Jesus".

Apparently I had a little trouble separating God from Jesus - as well as symbolic gestures of gift giving. And thinking a little too much while not thinking enough.

I wish I could say I've grown out of that.

"Make Sure You Watch Out for the Children!"

2007-10-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

I was on the phone with my mom yesterday. She suddenly halted the conversation "oooh hold on a minute. THE STREET CLEANER IS HERE!"

Back in the day, I can remember my mother taking glee that can't be classified any less than seismic when she would remind every single member of our family that "Tomorrow is street cleaner day. You will want to get your car out of the circle before they come or you get a ticket!!"

It wasn't just our family that she lectured. Visitors, even if they were not staying for very long would be treated to this warning as well. I know her heart was in the right place, but unfortunately that jabbed me in the wrong place every time. It was like a commercial you can't stand - and the show you are watching is live. Even going for a sandwich, you can still hear it and it still makes the hair on your neck stand on end.

There's a companion "warning" that is issued to everyone who dares park anywhere near their home on NON street cleaner day too. It's the "Make sure you don't back over any children when you leave, we have a lot of kids play in the circle and you can't see them in your mirror!" speech. This one really gets me going, so much that when I hear it now, I say "Yes mom, but I was really looking forward to getting me some street urchin this time."

Not having lived there for over 10 years, I was shocked at how fast my muscles contracted in defense of an anticipated street cleaner warning. After all, how could she warn me if I didn't live there anymore? And by the way, when I moved into a house with Mr. Zoom, she did ask me if we had street cleaner day. TRUE STORY!! Alas, we do. But we don't get tickets for parking there on those days. WHOOO AAAAH!

Mom continued "...I have to get to the window to see who got a ticket this week." .... pause... ...pause.... "Oh well, nobody's in the street this time. No tickets. What were we talking about?"

I wish I could have seen the look on my own face. Even more than 24 hours later, I'm still dumbfounded that my very independent, stubborn, never bored mom has taken to looking out the window for victims of parking tickets - as entertainment. She's got hobbies. She's got movies to see. Friends to hang out with. It just feels so ... odd.

Maybe my dad installed something in the house all by himself again and the electrical/radio/microwaves are silently turning them both into stereotypical retired folks with passive aggressive parking ticket vindictiveness? Now I'm going to have to ask Mr. Zoom to check things out. Make sure there's no oven in the closet now or something.

It Was Only a Matter of Time

2007-10-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

Lessee. I've been on medication* since at least 1994. I take at least 3 pills a day to maintain the thin THIN veil of normalcy I wear.

After lunch today I collected my afternoon tablets and grabbed a diet coke. One of my pills began to fizz on it's way down the hatch - and that's when I realized what I'd done. I just took a tranquilizer. On accident.

Months ago my Dr. had given me a new form of Xanax that could be taken without water. It dissolves in your mouth. Very handy, since weirdo's like me are often taken by anxiety in situations non-conducive to obtaining a glass of water.

Handy, unless of course you didn't mean to take a TRANQUILIZER at this moment and time. The dissolveable pills are nearly identical in color, shape and even have a score in the middle of them just like my afternoon antidepressant.

FRICK.

Not only that, but I only take half a Xanax when I DO need one. I suppose that considering the span of time that I've been juggling daily medications, this was bound to happen sooner rather than later.

FRICKITY FRICK.

At least Mr. Zoom is guaranteed a peaceful evening tonight. If you are reading this honey, you might want to scope out a t.v. schedule of things YOU want to watch without your wife's incessant commentary. When this thing kicks in, I'll be willing to watch GOLF and Soccer (oh, excuse me....football) without complaining.

*antidepressants and one antihistamine daily, heavily monitored by prescribing physicians and not taken lightly, I assure you. I abhor relying on medication in order to function normally.

Update: I just sent an e-mail to our office copier, and couldn't understand why I kept getting a bounce back. Undeliverable?! Puuullleeeeeze. Not possible.

I spent 5 minutes trying to get a quote within a quote to show up on the screen properly when someone saw me struggling and told me to stop using the comma key.

Squirrel Elvis Collecting Ur Nutz

2007-09-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

Our regular squirrel Elvis has finally been caught on tape.

WTF with the Licorice Flavor?

2007-09-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else noticed that all brands of generic ibuprofen seem to have added a ghastly black licorice taste to the tablets?

Not only that, but it has a hint of mintyness to it.

QUIT IT WITH THE MINTY BLACK LICORICE TASTE! It's awful and I'm taking these tablets because I'm already miserable!!

I feel like I'm ingesting hardened dollops of some failed licorice flavored kid toothpaste.

Why I fear Wedding/Baby Shower Games

2007-09-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

I was at a shower for a bride whom I will be a part of the wedding party. The announcement was made that there is a game called "Guess the Bride's Age".

I immediately think "Whoa. I totally should not play that one. I mean, I'm in the wedding party and she was in my own wedding. I totally know how old she is. Besides, how retarded is that for a game? Don't people get upset if you guess way too old? And come to think of it, most of these people are close friends and family. So ... how is this even a game?"

So I leaned over to another bridesmaid and I said "Are you playing this game? I mean...wouldn't it be totally unfair to everyone else?" She said "Oh, I'm totally playing. Besides, I didn't know her when she was 4."

...and that last statement SHOULD HAVE been the clue that I had the entire concept of the game WRONG. But sadly, it did not.

When it came time to go over the answer, I was shocked to learn there were actually several answers. I had completely missed the gigantic board with all of the bride's kid through young adulthood pictures WITH NUMBERS on them. And the answer sheet with the numbers and a space for one to guess the age of the bride AT THE TIME THE PICTURES WERE TAKEN.

Yeah. That is EXACTLY why I fear shower games.

One Minute Project: The Mr. Zoom What's Wrong With You

2007-09-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

There is a site I love to visit, even though I have never performed any of their projects for myself, nor do I understand some of their techy talk. But it is tons of fun anyway:

www.evilmadscientist.com (I still can't link properly)

They often have a segment they call "One Minute Project".

Here is my own One Minute Project: The Mr. Zoom What's Wrong With You Silent Head Tilt Retort.

Scenario 1: Mr. Zoom realizes I've removed my shoes on the short ride home from work. While I struggle to put them back on, he asks "Why did you take off your shoes? Do they hurt you?"

Response: "No. I needed to be free."

Scenario 2: Start referring to the yard, house, home as "land". i.e., "ARRRRRGH, stupid skunks! They've just sniffed up our land with their skunk smell. CAN'T YOU SMELL THAT?? Stoopid skunks."

Scenario 3: Offer completely random, baseless theories to questions not even asked. i.e., upon noticing smoke from what might be a forrest fire, say "...hmmm, maybe all the rich people got tired of all the heat from the sun so they are trying to make their own clouds."

Scenario 4: Watch Soilent Green on TCM and then proclaim "RAISINS ARE REALLY SKUNK SPHINCTERS!"

Those Who Live in Stone Houses...

2007-09-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

Mr. Zoom and I met up with his Mom for dinner last night. Not just his Mom, but my Mom-In-Law.

Because I'm really comfortable around her, I didn't let up on the sass attack I had started on Mr. Zoom earlier that day. The recent heat wave has given me a new obsession: convincing Mr. Zoom that we need to build a stone house. Apparently stone remains cooler so much longer than regular houses. And that, I have decided, I WANT.

On the way to dinner I sprang the news on Mr. Zoom: "I heard or read somewhere that some guy had a stone house, and he said he didn't suffer during the heat wave because stone is so great at staying cooler longer! We need a stone house."

His reply was quite honest: "I don't even know what to say to you right now. Are you asking me to raze the house and re-build it in stone?"

"no?.......yes?....... I.WANT.STONE.HOUSE." I continued to talk like a crazy person while he tried not to laugh directly in my face. "You'll see. I'll find all the great information on the internet and I'll show you how we should have a stone house."

Shortly thereafter I was distracted by.... probably air.

When we got to the restaurant, magically the stone house situation came up again. Mr. Zoom rolled his eyes and tried to explain to his Mom. "Welcome to my wife. Mrs. 'I have no idea how a house is built, but I want one in stone.'"

Ooooh. I totally sniffed a challenge there. "OH YEAH? WHO'S FAULT IS THAT? Mr. Spoil Me Completely Rotten!! Never lets me do anything for myself, always being all good to me. That's the problem here."

"Oh, sure" he said. "That's the problem. I've totally shielded you from the world of construction and how it works."

His Mom, being familiar with our sass talk said "OH, don't worry. I'll take you over to Home Depot after dinner and we can tour the construction aisles."

"GREAT!" I said. "I can totally pick the stone for my new house!!"

And then I flung sticky rice directly at my Mom in Law. OH YES I DID. Accidentally, of course. It flew from my chop sticks as I was literally pointing out Mr. Zoom's guilt in my lack of home construction knowledge. A single grain of rice Cirque de Soleid through the air and locked itself RIGHT ON HER BARE ARM.

Mr. Zoom immediately spat out so much laughter that the tables around us were trying to figure out what happened, what was so darn funny. We all got the giggles and I kept trying to apologize through my clenched jaws. I still had some rice in there and was afraid of making an already borderline bad, bad situation that much worse.

And I still want a stone house. Easy to clean meals off of the walls!

Lonely Cart Cum Foliage - It's For the Fish

2007-09-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

That title alone ought to show up in many porn searches. Sorry pornseekers.

THE LONELY CART IS BACK!! Well, it's not the same cart, but it was left in the exact same location as the previous cart.

And, like a negligent mom trying to figure out which twin child on the floor is which, I immediately noticed something different about this cart. It had an empty pack of cigarettes in it! Again, not unlike a neglected child.

Mr. Zoom was not with me to witness my glee this time. He had to do something after work and we had driven separate cars to the office. There was no one to stop me! I rolled the cart into our courtyard.

AND PUT PLANTS IN IT!! Just like I had threatened I would if the other cart didn't go away.

Then I sat on the couch and waited for Mr. Zoom to come home. He didn't even say hello when he came in, just "Is there a story behind the cart in the yard?" When I told him what happened, he asked if I called the return if found number. I laughed, and said no, why would I? "Of course not" he sighed.

The next day I spent a good chunk of his valuable time trying to convince him that the fish in the pond had recruited me to tell Mr. Zoom that they [the fish] liked the cart. And didn't want it to leave. "OH.COME.ON. Mobile yard foilage*. How can you resist that?" *foliage, yes - I know.

His response was swift, although mostly ignored by me: "Duly noted. VETO. Next."

I tried various tactics. None of which were effective in releasing Mr. Zoom's grip on good taste. I might have to give up my new planter, but something tells me I won't have to wait long for another one.

Lonely Cart Club Meeting In My Yard

2007-08-28T21:56:00.000-07:00

Mr. Zoom loves his yard. It's not finished yet, but he still loves it. He gets very annoyed when people mess with his yard.

Last week we drove up and I heard him groan "oh that's just terrific." Being the ever observant person I am, I said "WHAT??!!...OH. oh. OMG!" and I literally clapped my hands in glee when I saw what had him so upset:

"IT'S A LONELY CART, AND IT'S IN OUR YARD!!"

I've got this rather annoying habit of spying single, lost/abandoned carts and squealing "Lonely Cart!" at Mr. Zoom. And when he tries to play along - showing me a cart before I spot it, I usually shoot him down: "Oh, that one doesn't qualify. In order to be a lonely cart, the cart has to be a certain distance away from any store it might belong to. Otherwise it's just a CART. Not a Lonely Cart."

And the distance, although certain, is not ever known to anyone but me and changes all the time. Apparently.

I've actually intended to collect pictures of lonely carts. I have a few, but as with most of my grand ideas, they rarely materialize in any way other than my shrieking nonsense while in the car with Mr. Zoom. He makes the "I'm tired" noise when I do that.

I leaped out of the car and started taking pictures. Mr. Zoom just went to the mail box like he does every day and probably prayed that none of the neighbors were watching this scene.

That's when I saw:

Drat. My idea of loading up the neighborhood shorties and sending them down the road in my new pet cart was denied before I even had it!

Amusingly, this cart had an "if found, please call ____" sticker on it.

And I actually called the number. The first person I got a hold of had no idea what I was talking about. "Um, yes. See, someone left a shopping cart in our yard and it belongs to your store. There is a sticker on it that says "if found, please call _____. And so I did and here we are!" As if I just handed her the meaning of life on a platter.

I was transferred. To a manager. Who at first was just as mystified as to what I was trying to tell him. But then a switch was flipped and he seemed very grateful that I called. He took my address and thanked me at least 3 times.

When we went to work the next morning? Cart still there and still lonely.

When we got home that night? Yup. Still there. Still very lonely. I told Mr. Zoom that if it stayed one more day I was going to wheel it into our yard and use it as a planter.

The very next morning it was gone. Stolen? Returned? Rolled away on it's own? Who knows. Mr. Zoom is really glad it's gone. I kindof miss it.

Boil Boil, Toil and Trouble

2007-08-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

Mr. Zoom asked me one day "How do you know how much water to add?" [to my bowl of instant oatmeal.]

I told him "I don't know, really. I pretty much just guess. There's a formula (directions) on the box, but I don't like being told what to do. Even if it's by a box of oatmeal."

Honk If You Heart Your Pimp

2007-08-15T14:07:00.000-07:00

Last night on the way home from work, we zooms encountered a traffic jam. Not the same kind that is expected at 6pm rush hour, but real honest to goodness - there's a reason - traffic has been halted type thing.

I kept yapping at Mr. Zoom to "go around". Despite not knowing where the road leading away would go, I convinced him to take it. As usual, this was a fantastically stupid idea. We went up a hill, around a bunch of buildings, and landed exactly IN THE MIDDLE of the situation that was blocking traffic. Not only that, but I now had us on a road that wasn't considered a main artery so when traffic was finally being waved through again, we had to wait extra long.

HOORAY!

The police were busy trying to clear things up. Our road, though not a main artery, had about four lanes. We were about the third car back in our lane. We knew we weren't going anywhere for a while, so he patiently let me do that jibber jabber thing I do when I'm unwinding after work.

Then it started. The honking. People behind us were honking their horns. Annoyed that they weren't moving. I kept saying to Mr. Zoom "But don't they see the police man? We can't just run him over? Want me to get out and go talk to them?" There was a large suv behind us who was particularly busy with her horn. I should have, at this time, taken out my camera and recorded the situation. But of course I did not. Yet another stellar decision by me.

I turned around when the car behind us kept going on and on with the horn. It was a lady, with what I assume was her daughter in the seat next to her. Mom was having arm flailing sessions in between honks. I also saw her encourage her daughter to lean on the horn too.

I don't know anything about parenting. But teaching a kid to join in on futile displays of aggravation due to perceived entitlements not being instantly fulfilled just seems like you are buying her a condo in the adult town of BEATENBYMYPIMP - which she will eventually sell at far below market value for all the chemical life lessons and self esteem she can find to fill her empty soul. Ok, that's probably a bit dramatic, but honestly - look at the kind of world we live in these days. If the police are out there coordinating a situation that spans 5 blocks - something serious is probably going on. I think we can wait 5 minutes longer than normal.

The honking continued, and cars behind those previous cars joined in the racket. Eventually the police man at our intersection stopped traffic to allow our street to go through.

Only....

he let us though and HALTED all the cars behind us! He was going to make them wait some more, to which Mr. Zoom and I immediately started high-fiving each other.

It almost felt as good as the day I married Mr. Zoom. Almost.

Oatmeal. Lowers Cholesterol but Raises Chest Awarness

2007-08-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

I am not graceful. I never will be. This goes double for eating. Mr. Zoom is painfully familiar with the flying shards of food I produce when I'm busy trying to consume something AND be sure nobody steals any part of it. Because he's so damn good to me and only gently teases me "OMG, this might be a record! Only 3 Cheerios under the coffee table", I've forgotten how horrifying this spectacle can be for the uninitiated.

This morning I was at my desk when a co-worker came by asking for my boss. The boss wasn't in yet, so I dutifly took down the person's name and told them I'd send them an e-mail alert when the boss got in. This person suddenly grew very uncomfortable and nearly ran away from my cube.

This is not unusal. Not at all. Although this time I knew for a fact I couldn't have said something to cause this person to flee. What's even more disturbing, is that I'm notorious for NOT noticing when someone is uncomfortable. This time I noticed, and I noticed big.

I continued to work.

Until I noticed something on my sweater. On my sweater, right in the center of my left girl! It was was a little blob of instant otameal. Part of my breakfast. Let me bring the picture further into focus for you all. I'm wearing a pink sweater today. And the oatmeal that had apparently been flung from my morning feeding had landed so perfectly and was of a color that it honest to goodness looked like an exposed BOOBIE!

No wonder my male co-worker ran away from me! At that moment I wanted to run away from me. When panicked, my brain chants unhelpful, shorthand thoughts at me ""GIANT KNOB!! GIANT KNOB!!" [you are a]."

I removed the breakfast from my sweater. Whatever forces have been sassing me lately must have decided to give me a break. Because the oatmeal came off and left no trace of where it had been. As I tossed it away, I kept looking around. Almost as if I wanted every single person who had noticed my breakfast boobie to come by again so they could see that I had removed it - and that I really don't live that way.

At least not AFTER I notice.

Life Lesson Category: Loo

2007-08-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

I have acrylic fingernails. It's one of the few girly type things that I consistently miss when I have given them up in the past. So I am forced to go to a salon at least every other week for maintenance on them.

I went yesterday. During these appointments I generally consume 1 diet coke (in the summer) and/or one coffee (in the winter.) Predictably, I must pee after the appointment. Most of the time, I wait until I've gotten home. Yesterday, I coldn't wait.

This particular loo is more like one in your own home. It is a single occupancy type deal. No stalls - just one door between toilet and outside world. I entered, closed the door, flipped the lock and went about my business.

I know from observation that this particular loo is a busy one. When I heard a voice outside the door and saw the jiggle of the knob - I did not think anything of it. After all, I had locked the door. But as it turns out, taking a pee in public was about to become a lot more public than anyone ever intended.

I sat, with my pants and undies completely at rest around my ankles and watched in horror as the door appeared to be opening despite my knowledge of having fully locked it. Slow motion panic cam was activated, and all I could say was "whoa whoa WHOA wait a minute JUST A MINUTE" as the door came open even more. Before long the door was completely open and the sunlight was pouring in. There were shrieks from both the door lady and me.

I had instinctively taken the hand with a wad of yet unused toilet paper and placed it over my coolie area. Which wasn't even viewable because my legs were so firmly clamped together that it probably looked worse than it would have if I had just sat there nice and relaxed. I also took my other hand/arm and covered my girls. As if my shirt was going to magically fly off at any second. It need not be pointed out that I might have been able to reach down with both hands and at least partially retrieve my britches from the floor. I might not have been in a position to fully cover things, but by trying I would have had the added benefit of possibly obscuring my face from all who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time that day. Looking down for even a moment probably would have been enough.

Normally this kind of situation is tempered by things like "Oh, who cares. You will probably never see any of these people ever again." Not even close to true in this situation. I see the exact same people every other Saurday at this exact time - for months, if not years at a time.

There was a lot of squeaking and apologizing - both by myself and the woman who had unintentionally exposed me. When I finally got it together and came out of the loo, she was still standing there. I told her to be really careful, as the lock on the door doesn't seem to work very well.

Really?!

Turns out that indeed, I had locked the door. But, I had not been able to fully SHUT the door. It, I was now told, has a habit of not fully engaging in the frame. The little latchy thing doesn't always come to rest inside the hole that would have kept it shut. At least that's what I was told by my nail lady as I tried to flee the scene.

There are ladies in there that will now forever recognize me as that person who was seen by the whole room when someone opened the door on her while she was taking a pee. Those that didn't witness the event will be able to recognize me by the extensive testing I am now forced to give to any loo door that doesn't lead into the redundant fail safe that is a bathroom with stalls.

Notes on a Tan White Guy and a Dead Clown

2007-08-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

I am over at my parents' house fairly regularly. Whenever I'm going over there, Mr. Zoom knows a story will be returning with me. That, and a few or more bags of ... stuff ... my FAM has decided to donate to me.

My parents shop at Costco. Only they don't just shop there, they practice XTREME shopping all in the name of getting a bargain on things they use anyway. Which is fine, great, wonderful. Unless they change brands/can't use it/forgot they already had 47 of them at home. Because when there's a shift in the shopping list of the parents of Zoom, there is a Mr. Zoom trying to figure out "What are we supposed/going to do with 10 bottles of soap? And 5 synthetic loofas?"

See for yourself:

I do not know what caused the soapy falling out of favor at the parents of Zoom household. I was too busy trying to figure out the contents of the other bag:

Yes, that's a lot of microwave popcorn, a box with a pair of shoes in it - and a bag of Trader Joes Sesamie Crackers. And a bundle of Avon lipsticks.

And you just don't say things like "Aw gee, that's neat and all, but we can't possibly use that. Do you have someone else you could give it to?" Because while it was intended to be a polite decline, it will be regarded as complete and utter thanklessness. The retribution will be hearing the story of how Zoom didn't want to take the 4 boxes of instant jello pudding, 5 bags of dried snow peas and a loaf of bread home with her. And by the way, the bread looked more like a bunch of pine nuts, gravel and some branches held together by nothing more than the sheer ridiculousness of the combination - God's laughter is a fantastic fusing agent. They will tell this story until it morphs into 3 or more stories. And so on, and so on.

But all of that is simply a side note to the events that prompted this post.

I walked into their house on this last visit and barely recognized my own Dad. Sitting in his chair reading a book was a very tan human. Who kinda looked like the Dad I remember from last week. My dad is currently so tan, that when the skin on his arms and hands gathers in creases, he looks just like the burned parts on burnt toast. Burnt toast made of white bread, mind you.

This man was so white that I think tooth whitening companies used his image as an example of "white" that could be reached by using their product. "After 3 weeks of using our product, your teeth will be *this* white - or your money back."

After asking a few times (he's hard of hearing - or hard of nagging - jury's still out on which), I discovered that he's taken up bike riding. Which was a relief. Because if I had to put down money before I asked - it would have been on him finding out about spray on tanning. Thankfully, that was not the case.

"How did you get so tan?"

"Oh, riding my bike. It doesn't bother my back and do you know that today I did 12 miles on it?"

"You know it's hot out there, right?"

"Yes, but only when you stop."

"Stopped is what I'd be most, if not ALL of the time. And I'd be hotter than when I just went about my day without biking. So biking seems rather silly to me. But you go ahead and tell me more. Are you using ANY sunscreen?"

"No, but I am wearing a hat!"

But I already knew that. His head is pre-bike riding white, and he's only got about a Homer Simpson head of hair left. It's pretty obvious that something is on his head when he's riding. He showed me the hat he has been wearing. And it wasn't a ball cap or a biking hat, but a newsie hat. How he gets that to stay on his head, I didn't ask.

After that, Dad did shift the subject from tan/bike/hat to his new grandfather clock. He wanted to show me how it should be shut off - say, if a pallate were to crush the two of them at Costco and someone needed to wind down the household for them.

Playing along, I dutifully followed Dad into the living room while he explained everything ever said or written in regards to grandfather clocks. He sprinted to the hall closet and came out with a brass key. A brass key with a gold rope dongle on it! You know those curtain decor thingies that hung on the tie backs? All I could think was "ELTON JOHN! ELTON JOHN!".

Dad was working on getting the key to work in the clock, which is apparently quite a feat. By this time my FAM had come into see what we were up to.

"NEVER EVER touch the brass workings inside. The oil from your hands will smear up the pieces."

"Doesn't appear to be a problem since the key doesn't even open the almighty door giving one access to the brass workings - unless you are about to pull some magic out of that curtain decoration you've hitched onto the key?"

While Dad struggled with the key, we all got the giggles. This is not uncommon for us. What is uncommon is that at that moment, my FAM killed one of the loudest, WHOOSHIEST clowns I've ever heard! Serious clown murder, and by my own mother. She instantly squealed "OH MY! WHOOPS!" as she fanned away the clown corpse. My Dad, having endured many years of her chastising him whenever he audibly killed a clown - whether it was just them or anyone else in the room - immediately began to give her a bit of good natured grief. She bantered with him for a while - but I knew better than to join in the teasing.

You think declining a parental household donation is bad...just try teasing my mother about killing a clown.

With that I was forced to withhold the laughter that was clawing it's way through my body - and resume trying to open a grandfather clock. And all I could think of was "DEBACLE! DEBACLE!"

I really hope they aren't teaching me about that clock because they plan on sending it home with me some week. But if they do, at least they'll never have to worry about me touching the inner workings of it. I'll never be able to get that key in the hole - I'll be laughing way too hard.

Totally UnFair

2007-07-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

I got a funnel cake at the fair. They put two forks in it when they handed it to me.

As if I am expectd to share? How presumptuous. And chances are, I'll use the second fork to fight off anyone coming near my deep fried treasure.

Granted, the thing was larger than the full size paper plate it came on, but Zoom doesn't share food. Unless I'm full. I didn't even take a picture of it, because I was too busy stuffing it in my face. Afraid someone would see the extra fork and help themselves.

I didn't finish it. I couldn't. But Mr. Zoom didn't want any after all. Turns out the Balboa bar he scored right before my funnell cake purchase was enough to keep him busy. But all the same, I didn't offer until I was done.

Poor Mr. Zoom gets the unhappy face whenever he tries to get a slice/bite/drink of whatever I've brought back to the cave. And I reallly wish I didn't have this particular quirk. Consciously, I know it's silly. I know that I'm not 5 years old anymore and my brothers aren't stealing my "share" of anything. But I just can't help it.

It turns out that I'm even more possessive of my liquid refreshments than I am my food. Actually, it's more situational. The more difficult the drink is to obtain in the first place - the more of a 5 year old I become. If we are at a restaurant, I don't care. But if we are walking around say - the Fair - and I've got a bottle of water, you best go get your own before asking for some of mine. I've been known to encourage people as in "Would you like me to pick one up for you?" to avoid sharing. It's not the money. I'm happy to pay anyone's way to keeping the hell away from my prize.

And here's the other thing. If I were out and saw someone in desparate need of food or water - if I had any I'd give it. All without the eye roll and growl that accompanies my handing over of my food/water at any other time.

I'm like some kind of retarded food ninja. And Mr. Zoom gets to deal with it for the rest of his life.

I don't even know who this girl is. I just liked her "look" through the camera. I finally broke out the telephoto lens. I don't know why it took me so long to do that - except that I'm the last person to figure out ANYTHING.

It took me nearly 2 years of going to the gym before I realized having an ipod of some sort might make the experience a little more enjoyable. 2 years!!

The Writing's on the Palm

2007-07-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

I had a rare, slow day at the office today. I can still hardly believe it. I even got to eat lunch with Mr. Zoom. This never happens here. To me.

At our old firm, we ate together way more often than we didn't. When the check would come, Mr. Zoom would hand over his debit card so that we could get out and get back to the office on time. I regularly tried to thwart [yes, I said thwart] his writing in of the tip and the signing of the debit slip. That only meant we were going back to the office and I didn't want that.

Frustrated, he would sit opposite me and try to figure out if feigning disinterest was best or if threatening me with no cookies would get me to behave. "Zoom, come on. It's 2:15. We need to get back to work." "Zoom, give me the pen." "Zoom, stop jiggling the pen so I can't write." "Knock it off, monkey/knucklehead/wife."

Today when the bill came, I snatched the pen away. He went through the faces and noises. I started to get full of myself and would put the pen where he could grab it and then I'd yank it back. Laughing. Then I got the idea to try and mark him a little on his hand with the pen.

I knew he'd hate it, but I didn't know it was a fuse leading directly to an OCD bomb. I got him good on the palm of his hand. When he realized it, he used my full name. "ZOOMITY ZOOM ZOOM! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

He should totally know the answer to that already. But he keeps asking.

"Why?" he said as he tried to get the ink off of his palm. "WHY?" I was shocked by his reaction - as I anticipated something more along the lines of "That's it, I'll just go get another pen and deal with you later." I was sensitive though, and I started to laugh. A lot. And every time he'd grab his soda glass to use the condensation to get more ink off of his hand, I'd laugh even harder.

"you KNOW about me and the washing of the hands and such!"

"Yes, I do. But honest, I didn't know it would get you THAT bad. Wish I had. I'd have used that one earlier." More laughing.

Lucky for me, he started laughing too. And when I thought we were over it, he'd start going after the palm tattoo I'd given him again. Which would make me laugh even harder, and that would make him get the giggles.

There were tables stuffed with children that had to be more than half our age, and none of them caused the kind of scene we did.

As we walked back to the office, I said "I haven't been out of the office for lunch in so long, I don't know what to do with myself!"

He replied "Well, you can cross sketch book husband off the list."

Deconstructing Your Cookies

2007-07-18T19:57:00.001-07:00

Look here at what kept me busy at work for a good solid minute before I realized why it wasn't "working"

I was assembling a motion with 10 copies. I had a system down where I would just reach in my bin of binder clips and grab one, apply, and move on to the next copy.

This clip kept spinning around in my hands. I kept muttering "FRICK". I couldn't find the other handle to make it open. I had to stop everything, just like that commercial where a customer pays with cash or a check, and reset myself because of this one sided binder clip.

Look at what I do to Mr. Zoom's Oreos

This is one of my favorite things, because it drives Mr. Zoom mad and I don't have to work at it. Mr. Zoom loves double stuft Oreos. I like them too, but I can only eat one to two of them before I decide there is too much sugary white filling inside.

I must break them apart, and usually one side is free of almost all filling. For the side with filling attached, I remove the white stuf by using my teeth to chip it off. Then I deposit it onto the paper plate. Mr. Zoom finds this to be an abomination. "What's wrong, why do you do that?" "Too much filling." "You need the regular Oreos?" "No, even with those I do this."

One day he came home with a tub of graham like chocolate crackery type cookies. It was so cute when he handed it to me he said "And now you don't have to deconstruct Oreos." which is code for please stop using the cookies in a way they were not intended.

It didn't work. It's just not the same unless the chocolate cookie has been carelessly excavated from the Oreo package and its insides have been removed.

Another food habit we don't share is his ability to eat lunch really late in the day. Mr. Zoom and I were talking about how he can eat lunch as late as 2 and 3 pm on one of our drives around town. He defended his acts by saying he woke up at 11 (this was while he was on vacation), and maybe he wasn't ready for lunch as early as 12, 12:30 or even 1. Before I knew what I was thinking, I gave in one sentence, evidence to the world that PMS does indeed exist. "How can you NOT be ready for food when you first wake up? I AM."

Theories Begin in my Pants.

2007-07-14T12:22:00.000-07:00

So many times I hear myself speak, and I can't understand why I can't keep my crazy to myself. I was able to do this just fine, save for a few unguarded moments, before Mr. Zoom came into my life.

He convinced me that he might actually like being around, that I can't scare him with mere words; nonsensical gems that I manufacture spontaneously.

That might have changed the other day. For some reason, I can NOT simply observe life silently. And it's not that I have to describe what I'm seeing. No, I apparently have to find a cause and effect - I must create a theory and declare it as fact. Or at least a fact to be later proven or refuted.

And it's not possible to know what item will be captured in my theory net.

As we drove about the city the other day, Mr. Zoom said "Did you notice that the grass in the common areas is like a foot tall? Is the gardening staff on strike or something? We have enough old grumpy nothing better to do residents that I've got to believe they're all over the association about that."

"Oh, I DID notice that on my way to work the other day. But you know what I thought? You know how when grass gets really long it gets those shoots with seed looking things on the top? Well, I thought that ... maybe... maybe they were letting the grass get to that point so that it would re-seed itself."

And then I laughed like I was reading Defective Yeti, for a good five minutes.

"How far into that story were you when you realized how silly it sounds?"

"Actually, I carried it with me for about a day and it wasn't until I told it to you just now that it hit me as odd."

Some time ago I convinced myself that rain in Southern California is almost always followed by a round of Santa Ana winds.

Mr. Zoom commented one day on something, something probably not even close to weather, wind or rain related. But, I had to share my theory: "You know, I've noticed that after a rain, there always wind. Like big wind."

"WHAT? So you are saying that every time it rains, there's wind afterward? How could that possibly be?"

Sarcasm is the glue that keeps our marriage together.

"...well, no..yes? I mean, it's like always a day later after it rains. Sometimes a couple of days. Not so far out as a month, that would be silly." [yes, indeed THAT would be silly.]

"So are you saying that after it rains, any time there's wind after that - they are connected?"

I decided to pull out my closing argument:

"Rain brings wind, but wind can happen without rain happening first!"

"youuuuuuuuuuuuuu betcha. Here, have a cookie."

I will sometimes ask Mr. Zoom to provide a missing element to my story. We drove down a street that has been under construction since what feels like 1985. Mr. Zoom noticed that some of the cones had been removed and he was getting excited at the possibility of being able to drive to work without a sea of Cal Trans Orange. The cones that were left were the kind that - to me - look fairly solid in the ground. I asked Mr. Zoom how they get the cones to stick to the road.

"They have a glue that they come by and use to stick them into the road."

"Oh yeah? How do they get them removed later? Wait, I know. They wait for a really hot day and then they send prison labor out to pull on them when the ground is the most pliable!"

"Yes Zoom, that's it. It is prison labor." He sounded kindof tired.

Elvis Lives. In My Yard.

2007-06-28T18:49:00.001-07:00

There is this squirrel who has been visiting our yard quite a bit. I've been hoping to capture him on video or even just a picture - but no luck.

We've named him Elvis - after I had thrown some squirrel friendly food out into the yard:

"Look honey, the squirrel!"

"Yeah, he doesn't appear to be too afraid of us. I think he's like Elvis. I bet he plays all the yards . . . for all the nuts he can get."

This morning as we Zooms were getting ready for work, our telephone rang. Our neighbors, who have started a huge construction project, wanted to talk to us about the common wall. Although they wanted to talk NOW.

When we didn't call back within 60 seconds, they called AGAIN and even knocked on our door.

Mr. Zoom was not pleased. I tried to create a solution:

"Tell them we've adopted Elvis. That we've converted to his nut church and are donating all of our money to trees."

I Didn't Really Want You To Do What I Asked You To Do. Everyone Knows That.

2007-06-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

When I started here, I didn't find the Rosetta Stone to my fellow co-workers' e-mails among my welcome package contents. Know why? THERE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO BE ONE.

I have failed to properly de-code just about every e-mail sent to me in the last 6 months. Silly me. When my name is in the "TO" spot, I usually think I am supposed to respond/act. Not the case, it turns out.

Several times I've responded to be notified that "I wasn't talking to you, that was so that ______ would do it..that..whatever."

I am now paralyzed with indecision when any one of the 150 daily e-mails arrives. I bet you can actually see me freeze when the notify screen shoots out that teeny, almost transparent preview of the message in the corner.

I've actually had telephone and face to face conversations like this:

Person: "Did you get my e-mail?"

Zoom: "Yes. But I'm not sure who needs to do what."

Person: "But it's right there in the e-mail"

Zoom: "Is it.?. Because I never know what is straight forward instruction and what is heavily veiled attempts to do...what ....I'm not really sure - hence the hesitation."

Person: "OH, you are so funny. Yeah, I can see your eyes moving back and forth, trying to connect the dots when I tell you stuff.

Zoom: "So that's what it looks like on the outside. Ok. But still... I'm not any clearer on what I'm supposed to do..."

Person: "I know. Ok bye!"

FANTASTIC!!

I am just not cut out for, nor am I willing to learn, art of subtle hint reading. If you want something out of me, I need in-your-face straightforward notification. If you want to be mysterious, just re-name something in the sentence like my mom does.

My FAM called last night to say she needed help with her digital pictures. I was short on time, so I specifically told her "Look, what I'm about to do? Don't try and follow it. Don't try and learn it. I'm going to apply a quick fix to this situation and we can go over it some time next week when we both have some time."

So what's the first thing to shoot out of her mouth after I start working? "WAIT! Don't you have to hit the CURTELL key for that?"

CURTELL?!? What the? - my entire body seized when just a second later I knew she was talking about the CONTROL key [CTRL]. I had to keep from outright laughing - she uses this term with such determination, as if Bill Gates himself whispered it in her ear. She's got a good sense of humor, but not when she's so frustrated at the computer that she's called me for help. My life depended on holding on to this little re-naming gem she's got going until a later date.

She might be formerly Amish, but that doesn't prevent her from handing out the pain when one "wrongs" her.

I waved her off, saying something about that key not working in the program I was currently using. So I fibbed a little to get her off my back? I was running out of time and she won't remember that "instruction" at a later date anymore than she'll figure out that the Curtell key is actually Control.

If only my co-workers were so easy to figure out.

Fear and Loathing in my Frankenstein Uterus

2007-06-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

My uterus has the ability to cramp with alarming strength. Like, it is Frankenstein and I am a much larger little girl he(it) squeezes to death.

I take medicine for that so I can get through my work days and fun days with minimal down time. Lately though, I've needed more drugs than usual. My doctor decided to give me a new medicine to try - something stronger and unfortunately, something that would knock my sh*t out.

I'll try anything, and I figure that once I know how I respond to medicine, I just work around the instantaneous sleep side effect. That's terrific...unless the medicine is making me see and hear things that cause me to run around the room .... AS IF I AM ON FIRE.

Mr. Zoom was sleeping soundly at 2 am when I came charging into the room, snapped on the light and shook him awake. "heeeeelp meeee. I'm having an attack." He shook the sleep off and tried so hard to calm me down. "HEEEEELP MEEEEE THE MEDICINE IS MIXING!!!" "CALL 911! I need crackers!!"

Now, what he DIDN'T know was that I was freaking out because I was seeing and hearing things that weren't really what they seemed. All he knew is that I was flipping out, randomly eating Ritz crackers and begging him to call 911. In my head, if I ate crackers I could get the medicine to stop "attacking" my senses - soaking it up I suppose.

This hallucination thing happened to me once before when I was in my 20s and I had some Nyquil to help me sleep during a bad flu. I woke up to purple spiders, dinosaurs and other random stuff. And all of it was purple for some reason. I haven't had Nyquil since.

This most recent event started out just like any other middle of the night wake up and have to pee experience. The problem though? When I pulled a new tampon out of the cupboard and saw the wrapper, the texture in the wrapper attacked my head. You read that right. The teeny little dimples in the plastic around the tampon suddenly grew huge - I'd guess about 20x their original size, and appeared to float up around my head. The texture literally undulated as it kept growing and seemed to be drawn to my head like a bird from the coffee shop protecting it's nest!

ALTHOUGH, the yellow swirls that are the decor on the plastic - and the ones that you'd think would be the trigger - stayed right where they were supposed to be. Sober examination of the box a day later revealed this text: Discreet purse resistant [their bold, not mine] wrapper with easy-to-open tabs. I think if Tampax interviewed Mr. Zoom, there'd be a whole new paragraph on the box.

To make the situation worse, I also had a line to a song running in my head. We've all had that, and generally no big deal. Only, it wasn't my voice or even the singer's voice saying/singing the line. And I couldn't get it to shut off no matter what I did - and for some reason the fact that I couldn't identify the "voice" was upsetting me. Ok wait, it wasn't running in my head while I was being attacked by my tampon wrapper...but the minutes (felt like hours) before that event it was.

And this is the weirder part. I'll try and explain it... the line of the song running in my head was from "Bleed it Out" by Linkin Park. Truly appropriate, yes. BUT, I only knew the second half of the line until just now when I googled it to get the first part:

"I bleed it out, digging deeper just to throw it away."

THIS IS WHAT I HEARD: "La la la la la la ...just to throw it away." over and over and over and over again. I know we had heard the song on the morning radio show we listen to on our ride to work Friday morning. I did NOT know it would half stick in my consciousness and come out later as a sanity repellent.

Mr. Zoom did everything he could to keep me from calling 911. He is supposed to do this. I don't know for sure, but I think at one point we had somewhat of a stand off where he stood between me and the bedroom phone - trying to get me to calm down before I made a call I was going to regret. I think I might have had crackers in one hand while making a few attempts at the telephone. It had to have been like fighting off a giant toddler holding soggy finger foods.

Horribly embarrassing. Although in the days that followed, I've been able to laugh at it. I realize, again, how lucky I am to have Mr. Zoom. I don't know of many people who would allow themselves to be jolted awake at 2am by unreasonable - ney - lunatic behavior - and through everything thrown at them, hold on to both their wits and their spouse without one single condescending, judgmental or patronizing word. All without a 911 dispatcher on their side.

But I Don't Want To Share My Entree!

2007-06-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

I am the biggest sucker in the whole world. No, really. I know better than to watch a Linklater film, yet in the last year I've done it twice.

In fact, I truly need to IMDB that guy. In addition to Slackers, A Scanner Darkly and Fast Food Nation, I bet he's also linked (bah!) with other films I hate. FFN was the last steaming meanderfest I picked from our cable provider's Movies-to-Rent-from-Couch service. I know he's trying to say something poignant by overstating the blasé. I get that. Or at least that's the best explanation I can come up with on my own, without googling him and his movies. BUT OH MY GAWD there has to be a better way. I've seen it with my own eyeballs in other films, I know it can be done.

Linklater film is like a road trip where you drive for 90 minutes to 3 hours, and nothing happens. Literally nothing. The road is straight and free of everything - even scenery. There are no fellow vehicles to look at. There is nothing on the left, right or behind you to look at. Only you can't speed. You are forced to drive the same speed the entire trip - and it's old people speed. Like 50mph. you reach your destination and the car quietly and almost imperceptibly dies. And that's the ONLY way you know you've reached "your destination."

What just happened? Is that the end? Did I just spend money on that experience? Did I even care about any of the characters? Because if I did, I missed both the story and the being interested part. Yes - yes you did, my friend. You just watched a Linklater film.

There is only one thing more disturbing to me than Linklater. That would be television specials on String Theory or M Theory. It's not that I'm annoyed that I got nothing out of the experience. Quite the opposite. I was very happy to have 3 dimensions. Unfortunately, there are these people that say there are actually 11.

I recently tivod and stupidly watched a special on parallel universes. I came away from that show with the following knowledge: M Theory means that our universe is nothing more than a zit on the ass of membranes that collided. And we aren't sure, but it just might be prom night. It's only a matter of time before we get squeezed out of existence.

AND, there are possibly worlds just like ours (in the membranes or out, I don't know), but physics might be totally different there. Like when eating at a Chinese restaurant I won't be expected to share my entrée? Do you know how annoyed I'd be if there was a world like that and I couldn't live in it? Because a feature of these parallel places is that "you" might not exist there. Or something.

That's a Knowledge Wedgie - right there...is what that is.

And Mr. Zoom is always gone when I cue up this kind of show. Or he'd (rightly) block me from doing this to myself.

"What's wrong? You look wonky."

"I watched a show about String Theory."

"Why do you do that?"

"...I thought it would be interesting...."

"Are you ever going to sleep again?"

"Apparently not in this universe, I'm not."

You did .... whatnow?

2007-05-31T22:15:00.001-07:00

I made myself laugh. Again.

I made an LOL Husband.

Got no idea why super horrific English might be considered funny? Even by the low standards you've come to expect from a simpleton like me?

Check out the pros at: http://icanhascheezburger.com/

More Like Me Than I Want to Admit

2007-05-25T17:53:00.001-07:00

I had to go to the Dr.'s office this week. I always carve out a 4 hour chunk of time for this. Appointment Smappointment. You will sit in the cold room for 2.5 hours - that way we can be sure you really REALLY want to see the Dr.

And then we will just tease you by asking questions, and telling you the Dr. will be in soon. 30 minutes to an hour later.

That's just the way the medical office, funded by insurance dollars works these days.

I've noticed that in the 4 or something years I've been seeing this Dr. that the office nursing assistants are never the same ones every time I go. This time, there was yet another new lady who, when calling for me, magled my very VERY simple white girl name. For example, let's say my last name is Jones. She pronounced it like this: "Jayyyyeeeoooonnneeeesssss?"

This woman was very kind. For some strange reason I felt very at ease with her. It would soon become apparent that - this was/is because she's a whack-a-doo. (I got that term from a blog I can't remember, or I'd credit it. I adore that word, and really wish I knew who to give the credit to.)

She sat me down for the blood pressure test and said in very broken English "OOOO, I Leeeooooveeeee you sweater! The coooolaaair is mine favorite!" I said "thank you" in the teeniest of voices. The one most strangers get when I am forced to say something back.

She put the BP cuff on my arm and struggled with the stethascope. After a minute of this, she looked me directly in the crazy eye and said "Eeeef shoo ever gheeeet tire of that sweeeter, insteead of gooo will (good will), you keeen seeend it to me!"

Look, just insert LOL cat language wherever she's talking and you will get the idea.

And for a second I actually thought to myself "Gee, she seems to love it. I could probably send it to her if she wanted it?! WAIT, what's wrong with me? She's not even going to be here in 3 months when you have to come back. Stop being retarded and focus on where you will go for lunch today."

She took my BP and declared "Shoo know wha? I tell soooo many people to seeend me their sheeerts, that in 20 year I'm gonna has sooo many sheeerts I won't know what to do!!" She started to laugh at herself - just like I always do. I politely giggled along and secretly wished I'd have asked Mr. Zoom to come to this appointment with me. He HAD to see and hear this for himself.

And then she turned to me and said "DO YOU WANT YOUR TEMPERATURE TAKEN?" in nearly perfect English! NO LOLcat. I said "erm...no? I don't have a fever? Did my blood pressure result indicate I should take my temperature?" She said "No, it's totally up to you".

And then she tore one of those disposable thermometers out of its little package. Before I could go back to thinking about what I'd be having for lunch, she had it in my mouth. Didn't she just say I could decide and I had decided NO??

My temperature was 97.8. Right where it always is. She stuck me in a room to wait.

About 2 hours later, another nurse came by and asked me all of the same questions that the thermometer wizard had asked.

I'm actually kindof sad that whack-a-doo nurse probably won't be there the next time I go in.

From the BS Food Group

2007-05-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

"Why what do you have there?"

"....veg....etables."

Response to Mr. Zoom after he found me hunched over half a sleeve of Chips A Hoy cookies. Looking a lot like Gollum after stealing the Ring from Frodo.

Bread of Shame. I Make Toast.

2007-05-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

Mr. Zoom is my bread of shame.

Now, I don't know that I'm even using that phrase correctly. I recently read a terrific book and the author, I thought, had learned that the Bread of Shame was when someone gave you something you didn't earn. But it wasn't a gift. More of a ... well, shameful possessing of a gift one never should have gotten?

And because I love lobbing crazy phrases at Mr. Zoom when we are talking, I immediately took a hold of Bread of Shame and made it my shorthand for "I don't deserve you." For at least a day, everything he said - I high volume said "BREAD OF SHAME!!" back.

"That can't be you're get out of jail free card, you know."

"BREAD OF SHAME."

To prove just how pathetic my attention span is, I failed to find out the true and correct meaning of bread of shame...because I didn't immediately find a hotlink to it in Wikipedia. It was in there as regular text, but who has time to read all of that?

One day last week after getting home from work, I heard Mr. Zoom saying hello to me from the computer room. I got very happy and ran in to greet him. We had conflicting working hours that day, so we didn't carpool. We then decided we were starving, so we were going to get dinner.

I went to get my keys and....could not figure out where they were. This is not abnormal for me. I lose my keys on average of 619 times a month. I generally find them within 30 seconds of realizing they are lost. Generally. This time even Mr. Zoom had to get in on the search, because I was becoming frantic.

We retraced my paths/steps over and over. We went through my purse individually, and a couple of times together. It got so bad I was checking in the refrigerator and cabinets, just in case I had put the keys in there. I then heard "Zoom, come here." I went to the doorway out of the bedroom and poked my head around the corner. Mr. Zoom said "Come over here and pick up your purse." I thought he found the keys inside, so I went over and looked inside. "No...PICK UP YOUR PURSE." I then figured he was tired of looking and we'd use his car instead.

I picked up my purse and my keys were UNDER it, where they had been when I put them on the table and put my purse on top of them not more than a half hour before. I laughed so hard I snorted. I said "BREAD OF SHAME!!"

And now every time something is lost, Mr. Zoom says "Have you checked under your purse? No, I'm serious."

The very next day I was at the office and went to buy my lunch from the lunch lady. I had left my wallet in the car. The reason my wallet isn't always in my purse in the mornings is because I take it out to buy coffee before we leave the house. And I'm constantly forgetting to put it back in my purse.

I e-mailed Mr. Zoom "BREAD OF SHAME! Your wife needs money for lunch. Why? Because she left her wallet in the car again." He kindly brought me a $20 and didn't even give me a lecture about how if I'd put my wallet where it belongs, it'd be with me when I needed it.

Mr. Zoom surprised me with some books he had bought me on his lunch hour one day. I screamed "BREAD OF SHAME!! You know that once I open these books and look at the pages inside they can't go back, right? Are you sure you want to give these to me? BREAD OF SHAME!!"

He's sooooo bread of shame that he should wear a cellophane wrapper, a best by date and a twisty tie thingie to protect his freshness.

With Apologies to Spider Girl...

2007-05-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

Mr. Zoom is at work, I am not. Mr. Zoom might want to stop by the hardware store on the way home for a shield, a long reaching broom, a tranquilizer gun and a bag of Trader Joes Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Covered Pretzles.

I'm not at the office for typical illness reasons. Those reasons usually require rest, do they not? Well we can totally forget that ever happening again. As I was fighting consciousness with my last gulp of medicine, I noticed a spot on the wall by the t.v. It came from behind a picture on the wall that I used to love.

I've never quite experienced this before. This limp noodle injected with adrenaline feeling. It's not fun. I feel like I chased a bottle of my "calm plane ride" pills with a case of red bull.

You can't tell here, but I've named that picture youvegottobekiddingme.jpg That spider is effing HUGE. I sure hope Mr. Spider and his friends like dvds and what we've done with the place. And his hairy, giant claws in the front can work the remote. Of that, I am sure.

He is not a black widow. He's got a large white spot on his butt. And his legs have red bands on them, although you can't see that here. And way too much fuzz on his GIGANTIC CLAWS. Everything on the web says he's some kind of jumping Philiieeejeebleeedoodah. Doesn't have a web, but prefers to hunt his prey, and he's got FANTASTIC eyesight.

I will now blame Mr. Zoom for earning a living while I had to run away from this thing in our living room. I got pictures by hiding behind our giant t.v. Which is now really Mr. Spider's t.v.

Mr. Zoom will need the shield because I will make him find the spider. Even if it's moved on to another house, I'll make him hunt it down. Did I mention that IT JUMPS! And don't tell me it won't jump on, near or at me. We've all seen the recent story of the little boy with a spider living IN HIS EAR. I might be unreasonable, but even I won't send Mr. Zoom out after a jumping, colorful, hairy christmas tree of a spider without a shield.

The broom he's going to need, because as we've seen before, I will be running in circles an screaming the whole time. I won't keep more than one foot on the ground the entire time, as if that's a guarantee of non-spider interraction. I won't be able to hand him anything. And I'll want to burn the broom after the deed.

The tranq gun can be used on both Me and the Spider. Although I do ask that I get my dart before Mr. Spider gets his. Mr. Zoom can lure me back into range with the Peanut Butter Chocolate Covered Pretzels. He can dart me, the spider and then enjoy his house and t.v. in peace for the first time EVER.

If I Wore a SubTitle

2007-05-03T15:01:00.000-07:00

I know how to cook only two things:

1. Oreos
2. Drive Thru

Hairbrain. Band in a Van and Wife with a Cam.

2007-04-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

A little while back, Mr. Zoom and I headed out to Vegas for some ice hockey. On the way there, I spied out of my passenger window:

Turns out that The Hairbrain! is a band and they were on their way to tour in Vegas. You can see their myspace page -

http://www.myspace.com/thehairbrain

which is how I figured out what the heck this was all about. I'm not their target audience, but because I grew up on a heaping dose of Dead Kennedys, GBH, Social D, Crass and the Vandals - I can appreciate their tunes a bit.

At first I was sad that it wasn't some family of gypsies that had some strange need to give their inner voices outer voices via masking tape. But I got over it. With the price of gas these days, it should have been simple math - even for a zoom: Anyone with a legit crazy van probably can't afford gas AND several rolls of masking tape. That combination definititely needs record company backing.

Speaking of getting in a car ...

Mr. Zoom does this thing every time he gets in a car. I can't really explain it well. He wiggles his pants, shirt and jacket just so. Then he reaches for the seatbelt, belts in, and re-adjusts everything. And it's not to make comfortable his unit, either. IT IS TO MINIMIZE WRINKLES!

This kills me every stinking time. To me, this is a hell of a lot of energy to put into getting the least amount of wrinkle out of my ride to ....wherever. I figure that if people can't imagine my outfit without the wrinkles I obtained by riding in the car, then to heck with em.

For a while now, I've been thinking about how I can sneak the camera in the car on video so that I could show the world this car seat dance he does. And tonight, I succeeded.

Sortof.

The first part of video I took, I was holding the camera so that he couldn't see I had it out and activated. The video therefore only caught his "...how long has that been running?" and an extreme close up of his jacket.

I turned it off, and then I thought "No, he's going to have to do his dance, and if the camera is on...he'll still do it. You know he can't NOT do it, so turn it back on!"

And I did. Although we ended up giggling more than we did show you his crazy. And the more I try to not talk on video (because I hate my voice), the worse it sounds when I squeak something out.

Oh, and you are going to hear Mr. Zoom reference the boob hurt a few times. Turns out that when ramping up for girlie time, I am a non-stop too much information giver when it comes to the status of my girls and their hormonal side effect symptoms. I think I've unintentionally de-sensitized him to the words/phrase "OH MY GAWD MY BOOBIES HURT...stupid uterus."

He knows this means careful time.

Captain And Passenger of the Ship of Fool

2007-04-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

Apparently pumping my own gas and minimal skills of observation mutually exclusive activities. For me.

I went to our friendly neighborhood gas station. It was on the way home. I've been there before. For doughnuts.

Normal, right?

First of all, there are these screens that jibber jabber news and weather at you. I failed to capture this screen in the picture, but I'm sure you all know what I am referring to. I was watching the weather guy and I became fascinated with the way his voice would go before his lips moved. The audio was outrunning the video. This caused me to mistakenly punch my work zip code on the key pad. I was rewarded with the notification "PUMP LOCKED." Ah crap. So I had to do the debit card route and put in my pin.

After getting a screen telling me I managed to release funds from my account, I grabbed the big green nozzle. I tried to get it into my gas tank. It did not fit. I kept trying. Because in my world, if it doesn't fit - I probably did it incorrectly and need to keep trying. After a few more failed attempts and a close inspection of the nozzle - I decided that I'd push the little button on the machine where you pick the grade of gas you want.

Because by doing that, the nozzle would magically fit in my gas tank. Seriously. I half believed that.

I saw that the big GIANT green button indicating DEISEL was lit up and BLINKING at me. And I thought "hm. That's odd. Don't want that." So I spent a good twenty seconds trying all three buttons to the right of the green one, color coded grey, white and red. And could NOT figure out why I could not get any of them to realease the go-go liquid. "What's the problem? YOU HAVE ACCESS TO MY MONEY, GIVE ME GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSS!"

After giving up on the buttons, I then turned my attention back to the nozzle tried to AGAIN put it into my gas tank. If there was an award for retardation marinated in determination, I would have won it. Probaly two of them. Like, they would have had to give me next year's too - so I could walk home with one in each hand to avoid falling over.

I finally turned around and realized "Oh, I get it. Diesel Fuel Only." I was annoyed that this pump was not labled better. "Why wouldn't they let us know this is a Diesel Only pump? How annoying."

So I replaced the green nozzle, got in my truck, drove around the island and parked in front of a pump on the other side. And do you know what I saw?

Yesirreee. It was the exact same set pump set up. Know why? Because normal people realize there's also a big black nozzle on the right that dispenses non diesel fuel!!

And I'd be lying if I said that upon seeing the exact same pump set up I had just rejected, I didn't think "Woah, did this station become only diesel fuel at some point and I just didn't notice?"

Quit It With the Food Poisoning

2007-04-20T11:34:00.000-07:00

Look, you don't have food poisoning. What you have, if you MUST tell me about it, is THE FOOD FLU.

I get it. You are uncomfortable, you feel like crap and you don't have control of bodily functions. I've been there too. BUT, if you aren't at work for only one day because of this - or you are feeling somehow obligated to give an excuse - don't use the word poisoning.

Poisoning, to me, implies someone purposely tried to get you. Intentionally and with clever planning. Not the kind of discomfort you got when YOU chose to eat food from some hinky place that serves a combo plate of tummy rumbler and clown agitator. This meal which you adore because sometimes, piss poor quality food just tastes good.

Just like rain is not a storm. Don't be the evening news. Don't go on storm watch just because someone here in California was reported to have used their windshield wipers. For a full sweep and a half.

Granted, you might not always knowingly eat dodgy entrees, but unless you are now in communication with the CDC, realize you are the victim of the FOOD FLU.

Not poisoning.

I Don't See Why Not

2007-04-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

On the way to the office today, Mr. Zoom and I were in a rare moment of silence. We were stopped at a light with one car ahead of us. Mr. Zoom began to speak for the driver of the car "Oh yay, I bought a car in Hawaii....oh darn, I'm moving to California."

This amazed me. Because I could not figure out how he knew this particular car was purchased in Hawaii. There was a little "Hawaiian" flower type decal on the rear window, but I've seen those on lots of cars. If he had said to me "I know because I'm magic", I probably would have believed him.

"How in the world do you know that car came from Hawaii?"

Apparently the plate frame covered up the word Hawaii on the plate, and all that was visible was a rainbow background and the text of the plate itself. I did not know this was a standard Hawaii plate.

"...the licence plate? It's a Hawaii plate."

"Oh. Oh? Really? It's not a customizable plate for gay?"

"You are a miracle. NO Zoom, that is not a customized gay plate. California has come a long way with the acceptance of gay, but there is no rainbow gay pride plate you can buy from the DMV."

"Oh."

I did check, by the way. And there is no gay pride plate available from the DMV. But I do think there should be. They could make them with rainbow triangles.

Turn off the Camera, Monkey.

2007-04-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

Mr. Zoom is not impressed with slightly open drawers and cabinets. I am indifferent to them - at least I was. Now that I know how much it pushes Mr. Zoom's impulsive correction activity button, well, you know I must play with that.

So one night while he was out at an early hockey game, I set up the kitchen in total slightly open drawer/cabinet.ness.

He's totally on to me though. I had set this up so I'd be on the couch with the camera and could get a little video of him fixing everything. Instead, he walked in and said "Turn off the camera, monkey. No, really. Turn it off."

He knew right away that I was filming. My camera's batteries have been failing lately, and I had mistakenly adjusted the volume to be non-existent, so the video I did get isn't even a good souvinier.

We've been super busy lately. I know that word gets thrown around a lot. I used to use it every day. "I'm so busy." I now need a new word. Because what I've been up to in the last two months blows "busy" right out the window of my car and throws it under a couple of semi-trucks passing by.

Yesterday we got invited to a Kings Hockey game. It's the end of the season, and the game meant absolutely nothing as far as games go. I think the person who had the tickets had them given to her by the season ticket holder. The seats were amazing. The game may have meant nothing as far as the season goes, but I sure had a fantastic time watching at least 3 fights that broke out (on the ice). Helmets flew off, so did gloves.

Anyone out there listen to Tom Leykis? He showed up at the game. I had heard him say he had season tickets to the Kings, and goes to every game. He came in about the second period of the game and was sitting at the end of the row. Or at least I believe it was him. I tried to get a few shots of him to compare later at home with his website, but I super suck at it. I would make the suckiest paparratzi ever. All the shots I attempted came out blurry, or someone moved at the last second and blocked him.

The best I could do was upon returning from the loo, taking this shot from above where we were all sitting. All you can see is the back of his head.

Mr. Zoom said to me at one point in my photo evidence quest "He totally knows you are trying to take a picture of him." I, with 1/2 a beer in me said "AH so? He's in public. He can totally wear it."

As if I run into the famous every day or something. I like to think I would just let them be, unless it was someone from Scrubs. I'd have to tell any cast member from Scrubs that I LOVE the show. I know it's cliche and lame and they are so sick of it - but I can't control myself in regular life. Faced with a scentient being from a show I adore? Yeah, I'd gush.

For example, on our way to dinner after the game, we got lost on the streets of LA. As we were turning around in one very nice neighborhood (proof that we were so in the wrong place), Mr. Zoom said "HEY, THERE'S JASON STATHAM!". And we looked to our right and I'll be damned if it wasn't him on the sidewalk talking to someone. As much as we love Statham and his movies, we didn't leap out of the car and run up to him. I didn't even attempt to get the camera out. He didn't even have "people" around him.

And the KOPITAR jerseys were everywhere! We always sing the Der Kommisar song when we see the name. Ok, only I do that. Mr. Zoom has more class than I do.