Recent phone call with Gabi. Because if you can't call your friends crying about how old they are getting, then they're not really your friends.
A: Hello?
G: Hi.
A: Who is this?
G: What do you mean who is this? It's Gabi. You've had caller ID for like 20 years.
A:You don't call me though, it's usually only texting. How do I know this is really Gabi?
G:You want me to prove it?
A:Gabi doesn't call me!
G: Fine. In High School you were once in Gige's Dad's house and right before your Mom came over you were-
A:-OK! Stop right there. I believe you.
G: Are you sure? Cause I just remembered something else about that day.
A: I'm sure. What if your man secretary hears you?
G: He'll probably want to meet you.
A: With the amount of snot that was involved he probably won't.
G: What?
A: What?
G: We're not talking about the same thing.
A: I think we are.
G: Ew.
A: This is why we only text.
G: Are you at work?
A: Yes. Are you?
G: Yes. I hate it here. It makes me . . . (**muffled sobs**) ... my life is like... and everything is speeding up. My boyfriend's getting older. And you. . . I mean you're gonna be thirty!
A: What?
G: Thirty. You're gonna be thirty, my boyfriend's gonna be older. . .
A: Oh, I heard you. How come you're not getting older?
G: I'm always gonna be younger than you.
A: Ok. (**shaking it off. she's upset.**) So, I'm gonna be thirty - I'm still your friend. We still have fun right?
G: We cry and eat.
A: Well, half of that is fun.
G: We don't even eat as much as we used to.
A: Speak for yourself. Plus, we don't cry as like a thing we do together for fun. It only happens when you're at work and you start conversations like this.
G: It's sucking out my soul.
A: Yeah, that's the fluorescent lighting.
G: I'm serious.
A: So am I! Those pipe lights are like that scary octopus lady from The Little Mermaid who sucks out the voice of Ariel; except they suck souls and make you look like you just threw up a few times and then washed your face with gifilte fish.
G: Pipe lights?
A: That's what you chose to focus on in that sentence?
G: Hang on. . . (**to her fancy walkie talkie**)Yeah whatever, arrest him, don't arrest him, I don't care.
A: Do you need to go arrest someone?
G: Nah, whatever he stole probably wasn't that big.
A: At least you take pride in what you do.
G: I can't arrest everyone who steals! I'd have to fire 90% of everyone who steps into the store, employees included.
A: Well, that might be a good way to get out of working there now wouldn't it? You can't come to work if everyone is in jail.
G: . . .
A: Gabi?
G: Interesting. . .
A: Better than my second idea. That one involves a small fire in the children's section, and a goat.
G: I could just arrest everyone . . .
A: And then your job would be finished.
G: Oh my gosh I'm so happy. How come I never thought of that?
A: Well, I am always older than you.
G: Thank god for that.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Happy Christmas Eve!
My favorite Christmas present so far:
The best part about this was that right after I got it I had to call my sister and say, "When did Chanukah start? Is it over? Do you spell it with a 'c' and one 'n'? Or a 'h' and three hundred 'k's?"
"It ended already, it started on the 11th."
"Wow super-jew, way to keep up with things."
"I do have a hebrew tattoo remember?"
"So does Posh Spice."
"Ok, it's pre-printed on my work calendar."
"Awesome."
"I am gonna make fried matzo on Christmas eve when Dad comes over to celebrate."
"There see, we've fulfilled out duty then. Maybe I'll see if he wants to play dreidel with us."
"Do you remember the rules?"
"No, but I figure if I just start shouting out all the Yiddish words I remember and throwing gelt at everyone it'll seem like we're doing it right."
"I'm in."
"L'chaim."
"Uh. . . that's a toast."
"Goyim."
"Amy. . ."
"Shiksa."
"Oh, Jesus. . ."
"Anne Frank."
"Too far."
So, we might not get to the dreidel or even be able to talk my Dad into putting on his yarmulke for the spirit of things, but there will be lots of fried crackers soaked in eggs (oh my gosh, don't judge it's surprisingly amazing) and my Dad will be playing every Christmas song on the planet for us on his guitar while we get drunk on non-kosher wine, and watch Babes in Toyland - the Annette Funicello version - and have to listen to my Dad tell us again how he used to have such a big crush on her. It's not Christmas until your Jewish father is singing Jingle Bells and blushing about a Mouseketeer, while your brother is making the bells strung on the tree play Silent Night at an insanely high decibel as some sort of horrible back-up to your dad's acoustic guitar, and you and your equally tone deaf sister get just tipsy enough to join in for the "harmony" but end up stopping your dad dead in his tracks to cover his ears in mock pain, and even your brother focuses on you long enough to sign, "Stop please", which you do because I mean c'mon - you've just offended the boy who thinks New Kids On The Block still kicks ass - that's gotta be some bad singing.
The best part about this was that right after I got it I had to call my sister and say, "When did Chanukah start? Is it over? Do you spell it with a 'c' and one 'n'? Or a 'h' and three hundred 'k's?"
"It ended already, it started on the 11th."
"Wow super-jew, way to keep up with things."
"I do have a hebrew tattoo remember?"
"So does Posh Spice."
"Ok, it's pre-printed on my work calendar."
"Awesome."
"I am gonna make fried matzo on Christmas eve when Dad comes over to celebrate."
"There see, we've fulfilled out duty then. Maybe I'll see if he wants to play dreidel with us."
"Do you remember the rules?"
"No, but I figure if I just start shouting out all the Yiddish words I remember and throwing gelt at everyone it'll seem like we're doing it right."
"I'm in."
"L'chaim."
"Uh. . . that's a toast."
"Goyim."
"Amy. . ."
"Shiksa."
"Oh, Jesus. . ."
"Anne Frank."
"Too far."
So, we might not get to the dreidel or even be able to talk my Dad into putting on his yarmulke for the spirit of things, but there will be lots of fried crackers soaked in eggs (oh my gosh, don't judge it's surprisingly amazing) and my Dad will be playing every Christmas song on the planet for us on his guitar while we get drunk on non-kosher wine, and watch Babes in Toyland - the Annette Funicello version - and have to listen to my Dad tell us again how he used to have such a big crush on her. It's not Christmas until your Jewish father is singing Jingle Bells and blushing about a Mouseketeer, while your brother is making the bells strung on the tree play Silent Night at an insanely high decibel as some sort of horrible back-up to your dad's acoustic guitar, and you and your equally tone deaf sister get just tipsy enough to join in for the "harmony" but end up stopping your dad dead in his tracks to cover his ears in mock pain, and even your brother focuses on you long enough to sign, "Stop please", which you do because I mean c'mon - you've just offended the boy who thinks New Kids On The Block still kicks ass - that's gotta be some bad singing.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
It Does A Body Good
I just found a note stuck in the middle of my important work papers that just says:
"is awesome form of nutrition. is breastmilk!"
I cannot for the life of me remember writing this, but I'm almost 100% sure I wrote it yesterday. (You know, due to the date written in the corner.) I'm pretty sure it was a basis for a discussion I was having in my head with Gige about breast feeding. I like to have discussions with her with myself first, playing both sides, because now that she's a mom she's super busy we don't have a lot of time to talk, so when we actually get voice contact I like to bring something up that I don't have to get a ten minute rambling start to*, I want to be prepared for all her logic and well thought-out-ness. It's sort of like how I get pumped up to get into an argument with my Mom but on a much lesser scale. My mom goes into an argument knowing she's right and never, NEVER, loses. Even if she's wrong she somehow spins it so she's right. She's like a politician trying to avoid a sex scandal, only most of the time she's avoiding acknowledging that it IS embarrassing that she wears a pillow case over one of her arms when she drives. A pillow case. Over her arm. WHAT. Who does that?
"I don't want to get a sunburn."
"You're in the car."
"The sun is still shining isn't it?"
"But you're just going to the grocery store, what is that - like a three minute drive?"
"I have very delicate skin."
"Mom, couldn't you just use sunscreen?"
"I don't want to be sticky just to go to the store."
"What about long sleeves?"
"I'm hot, and what about my hands? You want them to get skin cancer?"
"No, I-"
"Are you saying you'd rather I get melanoma than wear the pillow case to spare you some embarrassment?"
"Well, no, that's not what I mean-"
"I love you Amy. I would give you my pillow case if you needed it."
"You would?"
And then suddenly I'm deeply touched my Mom would give up her protection, I feel four and like she's just picked me up from Kindergarten and carried me all the way to the car because she knew I needed an extra long hug after the whole running out of milk money, and peeing a little bit on my shoes thing because the Kindergarten bathrooms are different from our home bathrooms and I got nervous and missed. And somehow I'm tearing up and telling her I love the pillow case idea, I really love it, and end up wearing the matching one to hers as we head to 7-11 for some Chocodiles and Dr. Peppers. She's sneaky. Very, very sneaky.
(*This is good in theory, but it never works. When we actually do talk I tend to hit sonic levels only dogs can hear because I'm so excited to hear from her, and by the time we're both calmed down from our giggling and best friend love pouring, it's time for her to pump or for me to eat so we have to hang up.)(Because me and four-month-old are on the same schedule.)
Anyway, what I meant to discuss with Gige yesterday before we got all caught up talking about firecracker pork, was the fact that she and her husband seem very set on denying the fact that they have ever, maybe even just on accident, tried her breast milk. Like not even a little drop that spilled out. I think I would totally lick that up. I mean, I eat food I drop in the street, that's gotta be worse for me right? Last time I asked the husband he looked at me like I'd just asked him if he tried his own poop. I did not ask that - poop eating is gross - milk though, milk is perfectly normal. Babies live off it for goodness sake! Like my note says, "is awesome form of nutrition. is breastmilk!"
I started to get all worried and embarrassed though (with myself, because Gige wasn't actually saying anything back to me - and even if she was, she would never make me feel bad about wanting to try her breast milk) (I mean. . .)(no she probably wouldn't make me feel bad about that either - but let the record show, I don't want to try her breast milk, I want her to try her breast milk.)
There's a whole world of people out there who are so relieved right now that she got stuck with the job of being one of my best friends and they didn't.
So, I'm feeling really weird about this, because it is weird a little bit, but I've never had a baby so I don't know. So, I do the logical thing and text my mom who's working her a off ten feet from me.
TXT: thanx 4 getting the irs to fax me that stuff ur the best. also, did you ever try your own breastmilk, like even just on accident?
And then I watch her from behind a potted plant while she reads it and I see her face go from amusement to slight disgust, and then she began rubbing her temples, which is a reaction to me she does a lot lately. But then she looked up and saw me peeking out from behind a fern where I was starting to giggle, because breaking my Mom's concentration is hard to do and making her giggle at the office is even harder, but she kept looking at me and her face started to break, and reluctantly, against her will, a huge smile broke out and she started shaking in silent giggles, and the fern started shaking wildly because I was laughing and holding on to it, and she calmed herself down enough to look up at me, nod slowly and mouth:
"Of course I have."
Of course she has. She wears pillow cases for goodness sake. And apparently now so do I.
"is awesome form of nutrition. is breastmilk!"
I cannot for the life of me remember writing this, but I'm almost 100% sure I wrote it yesterday. (You know, due to the date written in the corner.) I'm pretty sure it was a basis for a discussion I was having in my head with Gige about breast feeding. I like to have discussions with her with myself first, playing both sides, because now that she's a mom she's super busy we don't have a lot of time to talk, so when we actually get voice contact I like to bring something up that I don't have to get a ten minute rambling start to*, I want to be prepared for all her logic and well thought-out-ness. It's sort of like how I get pumped up to get into an argument with my Mom but on a much lesser scale. My mom goes into an argument knowing she's right and never, NEVER, loses. Even if she's wrong she somehow spins it so she's right. She's like a politician trying to avoid a sex scandal, only most of the time she's avoiding acknowledging that it IS embarrassing that she wears a pillow case over one of her arms when she drives. A pillow case. Over her arm. WHAT. Who does that?
"I don't want to get a sunburn."
"You're in the car."
"The sun is still shining isn't it?"
"But you're just going to the grocery store, what is that - like a three minute drive?"
"I have very delicate skin."
"Mom, couldn't you just use sunscreen?"
"I don't want to be sticky just to go to the store."
"What about long sleeves?"
"I'm hot, and what about my hands? You want them to get skin cancer?"
"No, I-"
"Are you saying you'd rather I get melanoma than wear the pillow case to spare you some embarrassment?"
"Well, no, that's not what I mean-"
"I love you Amy. I would give you my pillow case if you needed it."
"You would?"
And then suddenly I'm deeply touched my Mom would give up her protection, I feel four and like she's just picked me up from Kindergarten and carried me all the way to the car because she knew I needed an extra long hug after the whole running out of milk money, and peeing a little bit on my shoes thing because the Kindergarten bathrooms are different from our home bathrooms and I got nervous and missed. And somehow I'm tearing up and telling her I love the pillow case idea, I really love it, and end up wearing the matching one to hers as we head to 7-11 for some Chocodiles and Dr. Peppers. She's sneaky. Very, very sneaky.
(*This is good in theory, but it never works. When we actually do talk I tend to hit sonic levels only dogs can hear because I'm so excited to hear from her, and by the time we're both calmed down from our giggling and best friend love pouring, it's time for her to pump or for me to eat so we have to hang up.)(Because me and four-month-old are on the same schedule.)
Anyway, what I meant to discuss with Gige yesterday before we got all caught up talking about firecracker pork, was the fact that she and her husband seem very set on denying the fact that they have ever, maybe even just on accident, tried her breast milk. Like not even a little drop that spilled out. I think I would totally lick that up. I mean, I eat food I drop in the street, that's gotta be worse for me right? Last time I asked the husband he looked at me like I'd just asked him if he tried his own poop. I did not ask that - poop eating is gross - milk though, milk is perfectly normal. Babies live off it for goodness sake! Like my note says, "is awesome form of nutrition. is breastmilk!"
I started to get all worried and embarrassed though (with myself, because Gige wasn't actually saying anything back to me - and even if she was, she would never make me feel bad about wanting to try her breast milk) (I mean. . .)(no she probably wouldn't make me feel bad about that either - but let the record show, I don't want to try her breast milk, I want her to try her breast milk.)
There's a whole world of people out there who are so relieved right now that she got stuck with the job of being one of my best friends and they didn't.
So, I'm feeling really weird about this, because it is weird a little bit, but I've never had a baby so I don't know. So, I do the logical thing and text my mom who's working her a off ten feet from me.
TXT: thanx 4 getting the irs to fax me that stuff ur the best. also, did you ever try your own breastmilk, like even just on accident?
And then I watch her from behind a potted plant while she reads it and I see her face go from amusement to slight disgust, and then she began rubbing her temples, which is a reaction to me she does a lot lately. But then she looked up and saw me peeking out from behind a fern where I was starting to giggle, because breaking my Mom's concentration is hard to do and making her giggle at the office is even harder, but she kept looking at me and her face started to break, and reluctantly, against her will, a huge smile broke out and she started shaking in silent giggles, and the fern started shaking wildly because I was laughing and holding on to it, and she calmed herself down enough to look up at me, nod slowly and mouth:
"Of course I have."
Of course she has. She wears pillow cases for goodness sake. And apparently now so do I.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
I Also Once Had Nightmares After An Episode Of The Facts Of Life
So on Saturday I decided to go to a party with one of my teacher friends and was pretty sure I'd be home and in bed by nine because the thing started at 4:30. Becky went out of town for the night but before she did she said, "You are not gonna be in bed by 9, when you hang out with her its for like four days straight, and you come back eventually all hung over and talking about this zoo you broke into and that it's quite possible one or both of you is pregnant."
"That's totally not true."
"What happened last time you guys hung out?"
"Fun happened."
"Exactly."
And despite my best efforts to keep it normal, at the end of the night (which to be fair was only like 11pm) my teacher friend and I were sitting on the floor, having a tea party with the host's four year old son, and were pissed when we were told it was his bedtime because we knew that meant tea party was over. Apparently we were together enough to know if we continued to have the tea party with just the two of us, things would get weird.
Anyway, the whole point of this is to say that Sunday I was a little out of it. I'm too old to drink til 11 apparently and then try to be functional the next day. (My 21 year-old self is shaking her head in disgrace at my now-self, but that's ok, because my 21 year-old self also thought Justin Timberlake was the un-cutest of the boy band boys . . . oh my gosh if only she knew what Chris Kirkpatrick would end up like.)
He's not terrible. But he's not this either.
(Hi Justin. Just kidding about when I was 21. Here, let me make it up to you. By that I mean with sexy stuff, you know that right? Ok, just so we're clear.)
Anyway, I was couch-bound on Sunday and spent the entire day reading this book In The Woods, and it was so (dork alert) nice to be reading! Like actually wanting to spend hours reading because I liked the book so much, I haven't had that since. . . well, probably since the last Harry Potter came out. (Gabi, I swear to god if you finish the Twilights and don't read any of the Harry Potters we're gonna have to rethink our friendship.)(Ok, not really, but I am gonna start making more fun of Britney.)(Consider yourself warned!)
So, I was totally thrilled with this book, and it's a mystery so I was trying to figure out what happened, and I'm always wrong - always - because I usually end up thinking it's the best friend, or the supporting character, even though there's been nothing but awesome from them, because in my head that's the scariest thing that can happen. Your best friend turns on you and stabs you in the woods and then leaves your body in some hollow somewhere even though you have no idea what a hollow is, and you're all, 'Oh this is neat, thanks for showing me this hollow' and secretly your best friend is pulling out a serrated hunting knife, and you just keep blabbering, 'I wonder if this would be considered a sleepy hollow', and your bff rolls her eyes because she knows she's about to stab you and leave you there, probably for reasons not far off from the fact that you just wondered about the identity of this hollow, and then you're all 'It's sorta dark in here, I'm hungry' and then she says, 'Not for long' and then bam! you're stabbed to death. But since it was a stabbing and not something fast like a gun shot to the eye, you have time to process everything that's happening, and that's the scary part - not the actual stabbing, that just hurts, the scary part is when you see the murder creep into the eyes of the person you just told that you had a burrito for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday and watched fourteen episodes of Say Yes To The Dress and thought she understood, and suddenly that all vanishes because she's not, she's not the person you thought she was. She's the one who kills you in a hollow, sleepy or otherwise.
So, yeah, I guess wrong, and mysteries scare the living daylights out of me. I was reading this book for hours on end, and it was REALLY captivating, but it started to get really twisted and really creepy, and before I knew it, it was dark and I was so scared and skittish that not only could I not move from the couch, but then the dog sneezed and I screamed so loud my neighbor came over and asked if I was ok.
"Oh yeah, the dog scared me."
She looked down at my deaf, fourteen year old, snoring dog.
"Well she didn't scare me now. Now she's harmless, but earlier she sneezed."
The walking away without saying goodbye was probably totally deserved.
I could not shake the freaked-out-ness though, and when Becky got home, I heard her jangling her keys in the door, I heard her open it, and saw her face through the crack, in all real-life senses I knew it was her, but I still screamed (in a freakishly mannish voice) when she came in (sisters are the 2nd on my list of scary secret murderers). My only solution to such terror was to finish the book immediately so I would know what happened and could return to a normal life.
Once I finished I breathed a sigh of relief, and Becky breathed a sigh of relief because she was sick of me shrieking at her in terror at inappropriate moments.
But then yesterday, this happened:
"Becky guess what?"
"What?"
"I just found the sequel to my scary book."
"Oh Jesus, Amy no."
"But I have to-"
"No."
"But I want to know what hap-"
"No."
"What if it's not as ba-"
"No."
"I already bought it."
"Shit."
"I'm gonna start reading it right now."
"Thanks for warning me. I'm gonna call you as I'm walking up to the house so you don't throw something at me when I walk in."
"Don't call me! Have you heard my ringtone? It's like Satan's siren."
"Goodbye."
"Don't call me!"
I'm so excited.
"That's totally not true."
"What happened last time you guys hung out?"
"Fun happened."
"Exactly."
And despite my best efforts to keep it normal, at the end of the night (which to be fair was only like 11pm) my teacher friend and I were sitting on the floor, having a tea party with the host's four year old son, and were pissed when we were told it was his bedtime because we knew that meant tea party was over. Apparently we were together enough to know if we continued to have the tea party with just the two of us, things would get weird.
Anyway, the whole point of this is to say that Sunday I was a little out of it. I'm too old to drink til 11 apparently and then try to be functional the next day. (My 21 year-old self is shaking her head in disgrace at my now-self, but that's ok, because my 21 year-old self also thought Justin Timberlake was the un-cutest of the boy band boys . . . oh my gosh if only she knew what Chris Kirkpatrick would end up like.)
He's not terrible. But he's not this either.
(Hi Justin. Just kidding about when I was 21. Here, let me make it up to you. By that I mean with sexy stuff, you know that right? Ok, just so we're clear.)
Anyway, I was couch-bound on Sunday and spent the entire day reading this book In The Woods, and it was so (dork alert) nice to be reading! Like actually wanting to spend hours reading because I liked the book so much, I haven't had that since. . . well, probably since the last Harry Potter came out. (Gabi, I swear to god if you finish the Twilights and don't read any of the Harry Potters we're gonna have to rethink our friendship.)(Ok, not really, but I am gonna start making more fun of Britney.)(Consider yourself warned!)
So, I was totally thrilled with this book, and it's a mystery so I was trying to figure out what happened, and I'm always wrong - always - because I usually end up thinking it's the best friend, or the supporting character, even though there's been nothing but awesome from them, because in my head that's the scariest thing that can happen. Your best friend turns on you and stabs you in the woods and then leaves your body in some hollow somewhere even though you have no idea what a hollow is, and you're all, 'Oh this is neat, thanks for showing me this hollow' and secretly your best friend is pulling out a serrated hunting knife, and you just keep blabbering, 'I wonder if this would be considered a sleepy hollow', and your bff rolls her eyes because she knows she's about to stab you and leave you there, probably for reasons not far off from the fact that you just wondered about the identity of this hollow, and then you're all 'It's sorta dark in here, I'm hungry' and then she says, 'Not for long' and then bam! you're stabbed to death. But since it was a stabbing and not something fast like a gun shot to the eye, you have time to process everything that's happening, and that's the scary part - not the actual stabbing, that just hurts, the scary part is when you see the murder creep into the eyes of the person you just told that you had a burrito for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday and watched fourteen episodes of Say Yes To The Dress and thought she understood, and suddenly that all vanishes because she's not, she's not the person you thought she was. She's the one who kills you in a hollow, sleepy or otherwise.
So, yeah, I guess wrong, and mysteries scare the living daylights out of me. I was reading this book for hours on end, and it was REALLY captivating, but it started to get really twisted and really creepy, and before I knew it, it was dark and I was so scared and skittish that not only could I not move from the couch, but then the dog sneezed and I screamed so loud my neighbor came over and asked if I was ok.
"Oh yeah, the dog scared me."
She looked down at my deaf, fourteen year old, snoring dog.
"Well she didn't scare me now. Now she's harmless, but earlier she sneezed."
The walking away without saying goodbye was probably totally deserved.
I could not shake the freaked-out-ness though, and when Becky got home, I heard her jangling her keys in the door, I heard her open it, and saw her face through the crack, in all real-life senses I knew it was her, but I still screamed (in a freakishly mannish voice) when she came in (sisters are the 2nd on my list of scary secret murderers). My only solution to such terror was to finish the book immediately so I would know what happened and could return to a normal life.
Once I finished I breathed a sigh of relief, and Becky breathed a sigh of relief because she was sick of me shrieking at her in terror at inappropriate moments.
But then yesterday, this happened:
"Becky guess what?"
"What?"
"I just found the sequel to my scary book."
"Oh Jesus, Amy no."
"But I have to-"
"No."
"But I want to know what hap-"
"No."
"What if it's not as ba-"
"No."
"I already bought it."
"Shit."
"I'm gonna start reading it right now."
"Thanks for warning me. I'm gonna call you as I'm walking up to the house so you don't throw something at me when I walk in."
"Don't call me! Have you heard my ringtone? It's like Satan's siren."
"Goodbye."
"Don't call me!"
I'm so excited.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Ten Reasons Why My Sister Deserves A Really Great Brithday Today
1. Because yesterday when I couldn't find my ice cream and vehemently decided to blame it on the cleaning lady, Becky backed me up - even when a half an hour later I found it in the oven where I'd left it to defrost like, four days before.
2. She's not ashamed to wear her Paramore concert shirt out in public.
3. She's not ashamed when I wear my high school P.E. shorts out in public.
4. If I quote her yelling at me from a home video circa 1984, she will, without fail, roll her eyes at me and yell, "You can't quote a home movie weirdo!" and will then quote a different one to me. Because as children, we spent a ridiculous amount of time documenting ourselves. My mom wouldn't even know how to turn the thing on, and my dad was too busy filming the scenery around us and announcing it all, "And here's the tree in our front yard . . . it used to be smaller . . . but now it's a little bigger . . . and look. . . it's right next to our honeysuckle bush . . . which is about the same size as it was last year." Someone had to capture our youth, and it sure as hell wasn't gonna be our parents.
5. She once broke her toe from too much dancing.
6. Up until she was about eight years old she refused to wear a shirt if it was hot out on the grounds that 'the boys didn't have to wear shirts, why should she'.
7. She's stopped getting mad when she notices I'm wearing her underwear.
8. This is probably because one day we both realized we were wearing our mom's underwear.
9. Our mom has not stopped getting mad about us wearing her clothes.
10. When she was five she finished building a Construx house the size of a recliner and turned around and proclaimed, "I'm going to be an architect," and then she went ahead and did it. She has more dedication and talent than she ever gives herself credit for. And now she puts these in her clients houses.
11. She always shows me her toe cramps because they don't hurt her (alien) and her feet get so out of whack it looks like she has rubber bones, and this never fails to freak me out.
12. Anytime she's going out-out she'll ask me what she should wear and lets me do her hair, but always, always refuses the jewelry. It's the one girly moment we have together a year, in between her teaching me how to do a beer bong, and me showing her how half my toe turned black from running.
13. She has every episode of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman on VHS.
14. She never cries at movies, not even if a little baby dies, or if that underprivileged black kid makes it as a pro football player because a sassy southern lady decides to raise him as her own - but if it even looks like a puppy, or some sort of animal is maybe going to get hurt, or just taunted, she'll bawl for four days.
15. She's really funny.
16. I don't even need to add this one, because it's totally obvious, but look at this - she's totally grown up into this ridiculously beautiful person.
Oops, wrong picture. That was the first time I did her makeup, she was very grimace-y about it.
And that was more than 10 reasons but I wasted some with all that embarrassing underwear talk.
Happy Birthday Becky!
(*And Michael! I didn't forget him people, he's getting Do You Know The Muffin Man sung to him 10,000 times tonight, and that's way more than equivalent than a blog post about him to him, trust me*)
2. She's not ashamed to wear her Paramore concert shirt out in public.
3. She's not ashamed when I wear my high school P.E. shorts out in public.
4. If I quote her yelling at me from a home video circa 1984, she will, without fail, roll her eyes at me and yell, "You can't quote a home movie weirdo!" and will then quote a different one to me. Because as children, we spent a ridiculous amount of time documenting ourselves. My mom wouldn't even know how to turn the thing on, and my dad was too busy filming the scenery around us and announcing it all, "And here's the tree in our front yard . . . it used to be smaller . . . but now it's a little bigger . . . and look. . . it's right next to our honeysuckle bush . . . which is about the same size as it was last year." Someone had to capture our youth, and it sure as hell wasn't gonna be our parents.
5. She once broke her toe from too much dancing.
6. Up until she was about eight years old she refused to wear a shirt if it was hot out on the grounds that 'the boys didn't have to wear shirts, why should she'.
7. She's stopped getting mad when she notices I'm wearing her underwear.
8. This is probably because one day we both realized we were wearing our mom's underwear.
9. Our mom has not stopped getting mad about us wearing her clothes.
10. When she was five she finished building a Construx house the size of a recliner and turned around and proclaimed, "I'm going to be an architect," and then she went ahead and did it. She has more dedication and talent than she ever gives herself credit for. And now she puts these in her clients houses.
11. She always shows me her toe cramps because they don't hurt her (alien) and her feet get so out of whack it looks like she has rubber bones, and this never fails to freak me out.
12. Anytime she's going out-out she'll ask me what she should wear and lets me do her hair, but always, always refuses the jewelry. It's the one girly moment we have together a year, in between her teaching me how to do a beer bong, and me showing her how half my toe turned black from running.
13. She has every episode of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman on VHS.
14. She never cries at movies, not even if a little baby dies, or if that underprivileged black kid makes it as a pro football player because a sassy southern lady decides to raise him as her own - but if it even looks like a puppy, or some sort of animal is maybe going to get hurt, or just taunted, she'll bawl for four days.
15. She's really funny.
16. I don't even need to add this one, because it's totally obvious, but look at this - she's totally grown up into this ridiculously beautiful person.
Oops, wrong picture. That was the first time I did her makeup, she was very grimace-y about it.
And that was more than 10 reasons but I wasted some with all that embarrassing underwear talk.
Happy Birthday Becky!
(*And Michael! I didn't forget him people, he's getting Do You Know The Muffin Man sung to him 10,000 times tonight, and that's way more than equivalent than a blog post about him to him, trust me*)
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Not Contagious
So a month or so ago, I got in the car to go to Costco because suddenly my sister and I were out of anything paper, and I had been holding it for two days. Ok, that's not true, because I did go out at midnight (read: 9pm) one night to get some tp and Becky pitched such a fit that it was only 1 ply that I was pretty sure her tiara started to slip off. The only solution: go buy a package of 14 million rolls.
Anyway, so we get in the car and I'm feeling a little feverish, which I chalk up to the fact I was just wearing full sweats even though it's like 80 out (because I like to dress as if I still live in Chicago), and I look in the mirror and notice I look wrong. I look wrong because I am covered in red spots. Like, not just a little bit covered, it's all over my neck, chest, face, torso - but not my arms or legs - which causes me to turn to my sister and yell, "It's not on my limbs, it's just on my body!" (because logic and me part ways when I'm fairly certain I've just inherited a latent strain of SARS) (because even in my freak-outs I'm not cool enough to get a disease when it's popular)
I pulled down the visor-mirror thing to check the rash from different angles while Becky just keeps repeating something about how I need electrolytes. That's her solution to my SARS - just have some Gatorade, you'll be fine. This was not that shocking to me though - when we were kids if Becky had a stomachache my Mom used to hand her the bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, tell her they were her medicine, and Becky would have to lie on the floor while she ate them. For headaches I was given my choice of See's dark chocolates; for colds we got a combo of butter-peanut butter toast and jars of baby food; and for the flu - Taco Bell. The flu was the best.
It seemed to always work somehow, we survived childhood without any major illness anyway, but right then in the car, with my rapidly spreading rash, I did not think a lime-flavored beverage was going to cure me. I took several pictures with my cell phone to send to Gige's husband so he could diagnose me via a grainy picture the size of a Triscuit, and then went back to examining myself in the visor-mirror when I noticed the SARS was not just on my body, it was also on my eyeballs.
Cut to immediate panic and thoughts of having to have my eyeballs removed and robot ones put in - if I even made it that long, because pretty much, I only had minutes to live.
I couldn't even cry because I was afraid the tears would somehow cause a reaction with the rash on my eyeballs and things would start to explode. I made Becky double check for me, which she refused to do until we were at a stop light because she "didn't want both of us to die today" or something safe like that, but once we stopped she looked at the whites of my eyes and then gave me a look I've only seen on Grey's Anatomy right before they tell the patient he's got a baby bird stuck in his gallbladder.
"You do have a rash on your eyeballs. Holy shit."
"Oh my god I do?!"
"You're the one who made me check!"
"I was hoping I was just feverish and hallucinating!"
And so on. Becky was still convinced all I needed were some electrolytes, and after several minutes of wondering who I could have caught this from, Gige texted me back and said:
"Did you run today?"
"Yes."
"How far?"
"Eighteen miles."
"Then did you shower and put sweats on?"
"Can you see me?"
"You have a heat rash. Stop freaking out and tell Becky to turn the air-conditioning on."
I was fairly certain it was not a heat rash, that would be silly, but I rolled down the windows, Becky cranked the air while muttering about how of course it was the heat and hadn't she been saying that all along? And then magically, ten minutes later of fresh air, the rash on my body and on my eyeballs was totally gone. Heat rash, not SARS. Weirdest side effect of running ever.
Then yesterday night (a month later and forty degrees colder) I got home and sat down next to Becky who looked at me and said, "What the heck? You have that rash thing again!"
"Is it on my eye?"
"Not yet!"
"Quick open a window so it doesn't spread!"
"How much did you run today?"
"Just five!"
"Your exercise is causing problems!"
"The fact that I just came in from 40 degree weather to 80 is causing problems!"
And so on until the season finale of Glee came on and we were both distracted from my temperature change problem by dancing singing adults pretending to be teenagers - and by the time it was over and I'd stopped crying (I love that show a little too much, and I'm a little too emotional these days if I'm crying just because the Cheerleaders are on the Glee Club kid's side) my redness was gone, and no eyeballs had been harmed.
So now if it ever happens again I'll know I can either get somewhere cold real fast, or turn on a musical. Both can fix me - and that's exactly what I'm going to explain to my kids when I'm holding them out the window of a speeding car to help cure their diaper rash.
Anyway, so we get in the car and I'm feeling a little feverish, which I chalk up to the fact I was just wearing full sweats even though it's like 80 out (because I like to dress as if I still live in Chicago), and I look in the mirror and notice I look wrong. I look wrong because I am covered in red spots. Like, not just a little bit covered, it's all over my neck, chest, face, torso - but not my arms or legs - which causes me to turn to my sister and yell, "It's not on my limbs, it's just on my body!" (because logic and me part ways when I'm fairly certain I've just inherited a latent strain of SARS) (because even in my freak-outs I'm not cool enough to get a disease when it's popular)
I pulled down the visor-mirror thing to check the rash from different angles while Becky just keeps repeating something about how I need electrolytes. That's her solution to my SARS - just have some Gatorade, you'll be fine. This was not that shocking to me though - when we were kids if Becky had a stomachache my Mom used to hand her the bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, tell her they were her medicine, and Becky would have to lie on the floor while she ate them. For headaches I was given my choice of See's dark chocolates; for colds we got a combo of butter-peanut butter toast and jars of baby food; and for the flu - Taco Bell. The flu was the best.
It seemed to always work somehow, we survived childhood without any major illness anyway, but right then in the car, with my rapidly spreading rash, I did not think a lime-flavored beverage was going to cure me. I took several pictures with my cell phone to send to Gige's husband so he could diagnose me via a grainy picture the size of a Triscuit, and then went back to examining myself in the visor-mirror when I noticed the SARS was not just on my body, it was also on my eyeballs.
Cut to immediate panic and thoughts of having to have my eyeballs removed and robot ones put in - if I even made it that long, because pretty much, I only had minutes to live.
I couldn't even cry because I was afraid the tears would somehow cause a reaction with the rash on my eyeballs and things would start to explode. I made Becky double check for me, which she refused to do until we were at a stop light because she "didn't want both of us to die today" or something safe like that, but once we stopped she looked at the whites of my eyes and then gave me a look I've only seen on Grey's Anatomy right before they tell the patient he's got a baby bird stuck in his gallbladder.
"You do have a rash on your eyeballs. Holy shit."
"Oh my god I do?!"
"You're the one who made me check!"
"I was hoping I was just feverish and hallucinating!"
And so on. Becky was still convinced all I needed were some electrolytes, and after several minutes of wondering who I could have caught this from, Gige texted me back and said:
"Did you run today?"
"Yes."
"How far?"
"Eighteen miles."
"Then did you shower and put sweats on?"
"Can you see me?"
"You have a heat rash. Stop freaking out and tell Becky to turn the air-conditioning on."
I was fairly certain it was not a heat rash, that would be silly, but I rolled down the windows, Becky cranked the air while muttering about how of course it was the heat and hadn't she been saying that all along? And then magically, ten minutes later of fresh air, the rash on my body and on my eyeballs was totally gone. Heat rash, not SARS. Weirdest side effect of running ever.
Then yesterday night (a month later and forty degrees colder) I got home and sat down next to Becky who looked at me and said, "What the heck? You have that rash thing again!"
"Is it on my eye?"
"Not yet!"
"Quick open a window so it doesn't spread!"
"How much did you run today?"
"Just five!"
"Your exercise is causing problems!"
"The fact that I just came in from 40 degree weather to 80 is causing problems!"
And so on until the season finale of Glee came on and we were both distracted from my temperature change problem by dancing singing adults pretending to be teenagers - and by the time it was over and I'd stopped crying (I love that show a little too much, and I'm a little too emotional these days if I'm crying just because the Cheerleaders are on the Glee Club kid's side) my redness was gone, and no eyeballs had been harmed.
So now if it ever happens again I'll know I can either get somewhere cold real fast, or turn on a musical. Both can fix me - and that's exactly what I'm going to explain to my kids when I'm holding them out the window of a speeding car to help cure their diaper rash.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)