not a fan
Unfortunately (since without it running at night we'd be about melting these days) Rascal is not in love with the window fan. In fact, he is deeply suspicious of it, and refuses to spend more than a couple seconds on the bed when it's running. Now, I can't say I really mind his absence at night, since he's a hot little thing to be lying on your feet--appreciated in the winter, sure, but less so now--but he just looks so sad down there on the floor!
Not that the fan is the only thing he's nervous about. He's also scared of bags and trash cans and umbrellas and also, we discovered today, sirens. While we were playing outside a couple rescue vehicles drove by--not even on our street, but the main road--and he ran right up onto the porch and waited by the door. All in all we don't really mind this skitishness, except those few times when he runs away. When he's so afraid of us we can't catch him for, oh, half an hour it can get a little irritating.
Bee careful / the truth is out there
Last night a 13-year-old White girl won the national spelling bee. Take that India!!! And that boys!!! And that..... the dictionary.
I was going to insert here some hot facts about how all the winners of the national spelling bee for the past five years have been Indian boys. Unfortunately, after some ACTUAL RESEARCH, it turns out that this assumption has nothing to do with THE TRUTH. Having watched the three finalists of last year's bee (two indian boys and one indian girl with eerily masculine features) i had assumed the sport had a certain, shall we say, affirmatively active tendency, reflected in the above "not-racist-because-i'm-being-hip-and-ironic" joke. I guess living in the suburbs really does turn you into a Republican! However, looks like i actually CHECKED MY FACTS before publishing, proving that i'm still a Democrat at heart.
Having worked with several Indian people through yoga, grad school, and the Landmark forum, i have a bit of a skewed view of Indians, namely that they're REALLY IRRITATING! But then, that just might be yoga, grad school, and the Landmark forum, three very irritating settings in which a bouncing accent teeters on the border of unbearable.
Still, kudos to Katharine Close, who won the national spelling bee, despite the Indian-leaning judges trying to f---- her up in the 19th round with the word "kundalini." (This is also true! I looked at her word list!) Katharine still prevailed despite the OBVIOUS HINDU FAVORITISM to ursprache all their butts in the end! (Note: i did not do my homework on this one, and i have no idea what ursprache means. However, i do know that kundalini is the sacred energy coiled like a serpent three times at the base of a spine, and also that it's origin is Sanskrit. Katharine also got "Galilean" in the third round, are you starting to smell a Templar-esque conspiracy? I'm not going to recrementitious myself any further.)
All day i've been repeating "Can't beat our underprices!"
Dan: "I have the phrase Herman Miller Aeron Chair" stuck in my head.
Bye Bye Jake!!! Or should i say..... Konichiwa?
My brother leaves tomorrow for a monistary in China, despite warnings of it potentially being "FAR AWAY" and "BOORING." He just wants to get away he says, which i can certainly understand, although i've never wanted to get so far away that i can't understand the alphabet.
I would be a bigger fan of traveling if it didn't cost so much money and involve so many situations in which i am liable to throw up. Oh wait, i'm sorry about that mistake; here go's again: "Up in which i am liable to throw." Even just going to California, i've had the priviledge of making use of the air sickness bag, and let me tell you, that's one bag well designed to hold barf. They had some real engineers working on that one. No spills there. Some MIT grad must be very proud.
We told Jake that he'd better bring back some Zen for us. I tend to like my Zen in the form of soba noodles, but Dan prefers Zen maki with salmon and cream cheese.
itching to play outside
We've been stuck inside the last few days. It hasn't really been the rain that's the problem--we're so used to rain now that we don't even bother to put on kackets to go outside, unless it's coming down at better than an inch an hour--but the mosquitos which have, apparently, bred wildly in the copious puddles (ponds) which now dot the landscape. When I took Rascal out the other day he stuck his nose into a bush and disturbed about 100 of the little bloodsuckers. It was pretty disturbing, like something out of a horror movie. Moderately horrible, anyways. I've gotten about ten bits so far, in the past three or four days. Luckily I seem to have a resistance to the mosquito venom or whatever it is, because the bites don't bother me for more than a couple of minutes. Still, it's awful annoying to be constantly waving the wee beasties away from your face.
Rascal is suffering most from the situation: we're lazy and, in the rain at least, could happily stay inside for days, but he needs his exercise. He is also, sadly, unable to take any joy from the internet or tv. Poor dumb beast. For relief we sent him over to have a playdate with Loki and Pip, while we went furniture shopping at the great theme part for grown-ups that is Ikea. But I'm sure Leah will want to tell the story of that adventure and our new furniture, so I'll leave it to her.
Cheap Thrills
There is a reason that Ikea is cheap. Actually, there are several reasons: their IT system of just-in-time stocking, massive economies of scale, and the most sketchy tax evasion scheme i've ever heard of in which a for-profit merchandise company masquerades as a non-profit. But for the non MBAs in the audience, there is only one reason you care about for which Ikea is cheap: you have to put the g.d. s--- together yourself!
This is not so much of a problem for a resourceful former girlscout and former Lego enthusiast. It is a problem, however, when they GIVE YOU THE WRONG F---ING PIECES!!! But i'm getting ahead of myself; let me tell the whole story.
We left Rascal with my mom yesterday afternoon to venture to the city-on-a-hill which is the Ikea theme park. We who have lived in California had already tasted the sweet particle-board seduction that is Ikea, but this being the first store in Massachusetts, some East-coast uninitiated were skeptical.
"Are you sure you have enough money to buy a dresser?" My mother asked. Little did she know.
45 minutes later, we got off the exit to Ikea, which conveniently is signaged like the airport. This way to Jordan's furniture; this way to Costco; stay in this lane for Ikea. And to think, just last year all this was unproductive flood plane! Don't you feel better served, Stoughton? I mean the parts of the town that aren't underwater this week?
Anyway, we walked into Ikea and the first thing we saw on SALE display was a wood armoire perfect for storing coats and keeping Rascal from eating our shoes. 79 bucks. I wrote it on the list with the golf pencil. An hour later, we had chosen a dresser for $79, a coffee table for $25, and a matching end table for $16.99. Those good at math will realize that this adds up to exactly $200 minus a penny, for a dresser, a coffee table, an end table, and an armoire. See mom? lots of my unemployment check left to spend on the crack cocaine.
Ikea is set up so that you get your furniture yourself, in lots of long flat boxes that you can stack on top of your car. Then you take it home and follow the very simple pictorial directions. Easy peasy! Voila new closet!
Unfortunately, sometimes even Sweden makes mistakes, and halfway through the armoire set-up, Dan realized that the left side wall and the right side wall were actually the right side wall and the right side wall, and Holy S---, you can't put together with something with two rights, unless you want to make an airplane. (HAHAHAHAHA! i repeated that joke for a full two years before i actually realized what it meant!) Incensed, i called Ikea.
"Thank you for calling Ikea customer service, this is Lisa, how may I help you?"
"Hi Lisa, this is Leah. I purchased a KIRKENES armoire yesterday, and setting it up this morning it seems that i was given two right side walls and no left side wall, so that i cannot finish assembly."
"Okay, just bring back the incorrect piece and we'll give you the correct one."
"I have to bring it back? But the store's an hour away! Can't you sent it to me?"
"We don't send individual pieces, i'm sorry."
"Well, this is really a pain in the ass. I have an armoire half set up in my living room, and now i have to drive an hour back to the store to get a different wall?"
"You can return it if you want to."
"I don't want to return it, i want it assembled in my living room. Is there anything else you can do?"
"You can just bring back to one wrong piece and we'll give you a new one."
"S---. This is really a pain in the ass!"
Don't you love my negotiation tactics? What does someone gotta do around here for an offer of conciliatory sexual favors? Or a freakin gift certificate?
The KIRKENES half installed on our living room carpet, Dan bit the bullet and offered to drive back to Ikea with the incorrect piece. I called back to see if there was someone else to yell at.
"Thank you for calling Ikea customer service, this is Derek, how may I help you?"
"Hi Derek, this is Leah. I purchased a KIRKENES armoire yesterday, and setting it up this morning it seems that i was given two right side walls and no left side wall, so that i cannot finish assembly."
"That's fine Leah, you just bring the incorrect piece back and we'll give you a new one."
(Derek sounded nice and also Black, and for these two reasons i didn't want to piss him off."
"Thank you Derek. Do i bring it to the returns department?"
"Yup, just bring your receipt with you."
"Thanks Derek, you have a nice day."
"Thank you for calling Ikea"
So Dan is on his way right now to Ikea, and either Lisa or Derek BETTER offer him a gift certificate or sexual favor for all his time and trouble for a g.d. armoire. Or at least some free meatballs. Or lignin-berry cheesecake.
Wake up call
This morning Rascal jumped on my head at 7am.
"He's waking you up," said Dan who had already been awake since 6, "to tell you that Ashley's calling."
It was true. Ashley, my work-out buddy and weight-lifting soul-mate who most irritatingly up and moved to Arizona last January, is back in Bedford for the week. At 7am, she was ready to get sweaty.
When i met her at the gym, it turned out that Ashley had not actually SLEPT in 24 hours, because of the late night plane flight and then eating gobs and gobs of sugary foods when she'd arrived home.
"I'm ready to go i'm ready to work out let's do a lot of cardio today because i didn't work out yesterday because i was on the plane," said Ashley.
The good news, other than Ashley finally getting some sleep at 1pm this afternoon, is that she's decided to move back to Massachusetts!!!!! Those of you familiar with my general level of loneliness know what a boon this is for me. (Irony: if more people were familiar with my general level of loneliness, i wouldn't be so lonely.) Ashley moving back will solve the two major problems in my life: being fat and not having any friends. Seriously though, having someone who casually says, "Want to do the Monster triathalon in September?" this makes me feel like a real person again.
Now back to being fat: i have a midterm on Monday and i'm making cookies for a study group on Sunday, but all that thinking about making cookies made me need to MAKE COOKIES, BEFORE the Sunday cookies. Pre-cookies-cookies taste like cookies. Am i gross yet?
just like legos
Leah's right, assembling Ikea furniture holds no terrors to those of us who grew up playing with the Legos. (I do, hwoever, quible with one part of her desctiption: I'm not a former Lego enthusiast at all. On temporary hiatus, maybe.) I put together the tables on Thursday, and the armoir and dresser today. If you don't count the 75 miles round-trip I had to drive to finish the armoir, it was the dresser that took the longest, mainly because each drawer was more complicated than the entirety of all three other pieces. And there were three drawers to build. It was just like legos in that I was shuffling through bags of little pieces, and trying to figure out which piece was which based on the wordless instructions designed by Scandinavians to be comprehensible by speakers of any of the world's languages. Also similar was the terrible pain I had in my back by the time I finally got everything together. Good fun though, and a way to feel productive; balancing out the seven hours in front of the tv watching the World Cup, I suppose.
feel the burn
No, I didn't go to the gym with Leah again. The only burn I ever feel is the kind that leads to permantent scarring.
Since it finally stopped raining, I thought to mow the lawn, to keep the grass from obscuring our second-story windows. Unfortunately, the lawnmower that I stole out of my neighbor's garage (I was going to put it back, honest) wasn't in the best working order, and in attempting to effect repairs I touched the exhaust manifold or the radiator or whatever it is (you can tell we're very mechanically oriented around here); in any case, it was the portion of the machine decorated with an image of a throbbing, super-heated hand by way of a cautionary message. And boy, they were't kidding! Luckily, it was my left hand, and only three fingers at that, but still I don't think I could have howled any louder. Leah was very kind to put up with me. After I had recovered slightly, she comforted me by pointing out that at least I didn't chop off part of my finger in the machine. I was touched. "That would have cost us so much money at the hospital!" she continued.
ditto
Yesterday was a toughy. As Dan mentioned, he burned himself very badly on the lawnmower, and the only consolation was that we didn't need to pay a visit to the hospital and blow the rest of our "life savings" on something silly like a finger reattachment. Long ago, when he was a boy, my dad cut off the tip of his finger in a mower. And that was before the days when HMOs made you PAY for shit like that.
Also yesterday, i had a statistics midterm. It wicked sucked. This weekend, hopefully more fun.
mow money, mow problems
So after I got burned by the mower, a burning which happened because it stalled and I was trying to adjust it and because I wasn't used to the machine and didn't know where the hot parts were, I decided the time had come to buy a engine-powered mower of my own. I already have the push reel one, as I believe I mentioned in these pages, but it doesn't suit perfectly well. The problem isn't that it needs to be pushed; I could handle that, if that's all there was. After all, you have to push the power mowers too, I believe! The difficulty lay in the fact that when it cuts the grass, the cut grass pieces just lie there on the lawn, blocking the light to the live grasses and also getting tracked into the house. After I've spent all that time mowing--back and forth more times than with the power mower because of the narrower cutting area, and over the same spot more then once when the grass is thick--the last thing I want to do is go over the whole area again with the rake. So we went powered.
Also, you can't be a fully qualifed suburban homeowner if you don't have a power mower.
The principal 'problem' of the title come (aside from the price of the machine, which I will not disclose here) from the fact that we don't, on our property, posess such a thing as a shed. My plan is to keep the machine under the porch, as there is a covering panel conveniently missing at the side of the house. That it is somewhat difficult to maneuver the mower into the opening is only a minor issue, which may be resolved in time by the installation of a few well-placed pieces of wood. And down there it should be safe and dry. Sadly, the first time I used this storage space for the brand-new machine, we had the most torrential downpour I have ever seen in my life. I swear, 30 seconds after it started raining the water was running an inch deep down our street. So the mower got a little damp from the splashes. But it wasn't too bad, and aside from hundred-year storms like that it shouldn't even suffer from a drop. So really there aren't problems at all, I just couldn't resist that title.
(Now that I think about it, I wonder if I've ever been able to resist it before. Did I post an entry with that title already, last year?)
BBQ F-U
Yesterday, it being father's day, we thought it would be a nice gesture to invite both our sets of parents over for a BBQ. Unfortunately, Dan's dad was down in Virginia seeing HIS dad, and my mom was off in California for work, so it turned out to be a party of Five: Dan's mom, my dad, and my grandother who was up visiting from Florida for the weekend, and us. Do you remember that show Party of Five? The one with all the brunette kids walking around sad because their parents died in a car crash? Well, that sort of scenario might have been preferable to last night.
But i can't say it was for lack of effort. Yesterday morning i raced home from church to hop on a conference call for summer-school. Since we were mostly planning things that did not involve looking at a computer, i managed to clean both bathrooms, wash the tablecloth and napkins, unload the dishwasher, and brush Rascal, all while discussing our Statistics presentation. As soon as that was over, i ramped into high gear, putting away the groceries, slicing half a watermelon for sorbet, and trying to figure out the ice-cream maker we had borrowed from Judy. Unfortunately, we hadn't read the directions carefully enough, and the part that was supposed to be chilled overnight could only get about four hours cold before the mix went in. This would prove to be an issue later.
Dan prepared homemade black-bean burgers, hamburgers, french potato salad, and fresh corn, while i finished vacuming and disinfecting the entire house. My grandmother is notoriously judgemental about mess, and i didn't want to put her off. Since it was about 90 degrees inside of the house and out, and since Dan also mowed the lawn, trimmed the edges, and finished the rock wall in preparation for our company, we were both dripping sweat like sumo wrestlers. Dan had grass pieces stuck all over his skin, and my dress was sticking to me all over, aided by the quarter-cup of watermelon sorbet mix that i had spilled on me earlier.
An hour from party time, it was clear that the sorbet mix was not about to gel in our lifetime. Thinking quickly, Dan cooked up a batch of oatmeal-rasin cookies and i laid them out to go in the oven. Dan also swept both the front and back porches while i washed the outdoor table, chairs, and railings. Then we both showered, and i made margaritas with frozen lemon wedges, and cold mint tea made with fresh mint from our garden. The grill was fired up, and we were ready to go!
First came Judy, who was cheery despite the 100% humidity, and was happy to sip a beer on the patio. (I forgot to mention that i had spent over $60 on alcohol on Saturday, with excellent forethought that the stores would be closed on Sunday.) As we were firing up the grill, in came my dad and grandmother. "What did you get me for father's day?" asked my dad. "I made you dinner," I said. "Not yet you didn't," he said.
Then we gave them a tour of the garden.
"What's that big pile of rocks doing there?" my dad asked. Also, "Where are you going to put a fence? That'll cost you a hundred thousand dollars!" And also, "Are you going to extend the porch any farther?" And also, "The paint is really pealing off your back deck!"
As for dinner, i thought Dan had prepared a wonderful feast, but the hamburgers were "so small!" and nothing else beared commenting, except for the ice bowl that i had made myself and decorated with fresh lavander, which merited the reponse, "What the hell is that?"
After dinner, it was apparent that the homemade sorbet was not going to make it to this dinner party. I drew on my Martha Stwart training and served the sugary watermelon slush with slices of stawberry, banana, and blueberries, as cold fruit soup. However, the soup it was too sugary for my dad, and the cookies were too melty for my grandmother. We tried to put some in the toaster oven to firm them up, but the second attempt caught fire, and while the first attempt was sitting in the fridge, my grandmother yelled, "How's it coming with the cookies?" My father was also upset that there was no more ice, because despite the fact that i had been making ice all day, half had gone to a pitcher full on the iced tea, we don't have an automatic ice maker, and after two full pitchers of frozen margaritas ("How's it coming with the margaritas?") there was no more. As a last resort, i took the pestle and hacked apart my beautiful lavander ice bowl. I put the pieces in three large glasses to make lavander ice water. I guess it was okay, because no one said anything bad about it.
Of course, it's hard for people who live with central air conditioning to visit us poor folks on a hot summer eve. They're liable to get cranky. I should have bought an air conditioner instead of all that beer, should have frozen the ice-cream maker for 12 hours, should have not put out a full place setting of silverware (because "Who's going to use all these things?"), should have bought ice and put it in a cooler, should have owned a cooler, should have made the hamburgers bigger, should have made a not-sweet desert, and generally should not have been such a f-ing failure at everything i do in life. But what can i do, i tried my best. And that still counts right? In horse shoes and target practice? Crap.
And the pap-smear was fun too!
I had a Dr's appointment today, and i came out with a clean bill of health! The first thing my doctor asked me about was whether i was planning for conceiving any children soon, you know, now that i'm married, and she told me all about how to prepare my body, you know, just incase i start to think about it. All in all the conversation was kind of nice, since i do often worry about my aging fertility, and having someone confidently speak to me about my reproductive future is reassuring, as opposed to my mother whose head explodes every time she catches me look in the direction of a baby. "YOU CAN'T GET PREGNANT YET!!!!!"
Right now, pregnancy is something i worry about a lot, but not in the same way i did when i was in college! I worry that my MBA will take anouther three years, that i'll need to start a job straight out of grad-school, that i'll want to work on my career for a while, and that i'll put off having children until i'm well past 30. Even though this seems to be the norm these days, i cringe at the idea that i'll be 45 with a teenager. Obviously i don't want to have a baby tomorrow, but the next five years loom with lack of precision like a cyclone over Kansas.
This morning at the gym i watched a Buffy episode in which Anya, suddenly faced with her own mortality, said, "I'm dying Xander! I may have only 50 more years to live!" When i think of the span of my entire life, it certainly seems like long enough to do anything. It's the time before 30 that i worry about. What if i can't fit it all in? What if our baby needs help from Dr. Expensive Implantation? True, many of my friends don't have husbands and houses, but they're already in grad-school full time or finished with it or way farther along in their careers than serial shop girl. How come all the time i spent in school getting straight A's never actually prepared me for actual living?
fan-tastic
The solstice day was cooler, but we've been having some hot weather around here lately. We blame the poor reception for our Fathers Day barbecue to that very factor: perhaps our guests, who spend much of their time in air-conditioning, were unaccustomed to bearing the full brunt of the climate's power. Not us though; no a-c here. Instead we rely on fans, on closing up the house tight in the heat of the day, and it just sucking it up. Come on people, it's 115 in Iraq and they manage to survive without air-conditioning (it's the bombs that they have to worry about). And wasn't it just a month ago when everyone was complaining about the cold and the price of heating oil or gas these days?! Now we read in the paper that at the rate we're going we're going to have to endure rolling blackouts at periods of peak demand for power, so much electricity do the window units and central airs demand. If they blackout my computer here, an afternoon while I'm working through the heat up here, wiping the sweat from my forehead as I slave over whatever it is I do, just to pander to their need to at all times maintain their homes in the comfort zone between 68 and 76 degrees, I won't be pleased.
Also, Rascal has had a change of heart re fans. He quite enjoyed lying in from of the one we had going downstairs, yesterday.
I tried to post this entry yesterday, but the blog was busted. Apparently the mysql table was corrupted. After a little panic and a little research, I discovered the solution, which was, apparently, to give mysql the command, 'repair table blog'. If only everything were as easy! Trouble with your girlfriend? 'Repair relationship Susie'. Dog won't come when called? 'Repair obedience Rascal'. Yup, that would be nice.
Stat head
"This is soooooooooo booring."
Writing on the blog while we're going over examples in stats class? I feel like i'm in high school. Interms of the booring quotient. Except here i am with an active computer. Which is way cooler. So in a way, it's like high school, but cooler.
But also way more expensive. So, perhaps, less cool.
Oh no she di'int
Yesterday afternoon Dan and i set out in the hazy heat to give poor Rascal a good long sniffing expidition. We made a loop up the street and back through a street of set-back farm-like houses, which really make you feel like you're in the middle of the country only six minutes from Starbucks. Anyway, as we were walking and chatting, we allowed Rascal to plunge his nose into many bushes and piles of leaves by the sidewalk. We were unaware that this type of behavior is included in Homeland Security's new definition of domestic terrorism. Good thing some old bitch pointed it out to us!
We were walking past a house where Rascal had stopped to smell a bush. The door of the house opened, and an old woman holding a phone to year ear yelled from about 50 ft away:
"Could you move along please?"
Imagine the most condescending, screeching in the back of your throat, bossy tone. Now multiply that by a thousand decibals and that's what she sounded like.
"I beg your pardon?" Dan said in amazement.
"I'd rather your dog not USE my bushes."
"It's okay," Dan said kindly, "You can settle down."
Later that evening, Dan and i discusses, perplexed, how anyone could be so absolutely filled with bile that hate for nice people and nice animals makes them scream at people who WEREN'T EVEN ON HER PROPERTY. I guess it's not her fault that she's suck a dried up bitter old c---, we reasoned. (OMG, can you guess what word we were using to 'dis' her? You didn't think we talked so dirty!) Seriously, what the f--- is the problem, old people? If you're so unhappy with the world, why don't you just die already?
Dan gets more angry than i do at people who display ridiculously a--h---ish behavior. This is because he believes that all people are inhearantly good, whereas i believe all people are inhearantly irritating and it's on rare occasions that you meet someone who wouldn't step on your face to get to a cheaper iPod first. Still, when someone displays so much garrish outright rudeness, not a small part of me envisions leaving a steaming pile of dog s--- on their front steps.
Crafty
Dan came home from babysitting Lily and Cyrus around 10pm. "What's this?" he said.
"It's a friendship bracelet. I made it for you."
"You made this? That's so nice!"
"I saw a show about a friendship bracelet, and it made me want to make one."
"Yeah, i know, i saw that show too."
"What do you mean you saw that show too? I didn't even tell you what show it was!"
"It was That's So Raven, i watched it with the kids."
"That's crazy! How do you know i watched that show!"
"You think there would be TWO shows on TV in the span of three hours prominantly featuring friendship bracelets?"
"You just assume that i, a grown woman, watch That's So Raven on the Disney chanel when you're not home?"
"I had to watch two of them. Wasn't it cute when the friendship bracelet reminded them to overcome their petty differences?"
"Yes... It was very touching."
the hunting dog
Either Rascal has better night vision than I or an even keener sense of smell than we give him credit for, because his new favorite pastime when I take him out at night is catching moths. I'm not wholly pleased, since him jumping around at the end of the leash is not what I'm looking for when I take him out just before bed, but I have to admire the skill he exhibits; if not his good sense, because I'm obliged to report he seems a little taken aback each time he manages to chomp down on one of the things.
TERROR AT THE MALL!!!!!
Yesterday i went to the good ol' Burlington Mall to make some VERY IMPORTANT purchases of underwear and eye-shadow. About an hour into my trip, VS underwear underarm, i proceeded to Sephora to GET HIGH ON THE FUMES, i mean try on eye colors. As soon as i'd gotten to the shadow display, however, the overhead lights flickered then went out. A new strobe effect? Am i on Girls Behaving Badly? No, the music stopped too. And the cash-registers froze. Yes, it was day we had feared since the beginning of the War On Terror: The power to shopping had been cut!
Other than imagining a few lines of "That's the night that the lights went out in Sephora," there's not a lot to be done in a make-up store with no visibility. So i exited, only to find that power had been cut to the ENTIRE right side of the mall. If the mall was a wide-screen flat-screen TV, imagine it split down the long way and bottom half dimmed. Our shopping experience was cut off at the knees! That's when everyone started panicking.
With no working registers, no credit card swipers, and no security sensors, the shops immedietly began shutting their doors. The jewelry store dropped its metal grates like a top-heavy guillitine. The clothing stores followed suit. The only people out of luck were the stores whose security doors are not manually operated. The staff of Sephora brought up stools and made a human line across the front of their store. Walking down the long hallway, you could see every store manager pacing behind her gate, cell-phone to ear, trying to figure out what was going on. Should we send staff home? Will we re-open the store? Will we EVER open AGAIN?
More confused were people who had entered the mall after the outage incident. "Why are all these stowahs closed?" a woman asked her boyfriend. "Only on one side? That's so weeeyhad."
At the center of the mall, the real drama was unfolding. A crowd of security guards was gathered in a circle around the main elevator. The chief had his hands cupped to his mouth, and was shouting throught the crack in the elevator shaft:
"THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IS ON ITS WAY! THEY ARE GOING TO GET YOU OUT!"
"Jesus" i muttered, "i hope there isn't a pregnant lady in there. Or a couple who were otherwise not forced to resolve their issues."
With no eyeshadow, no food court, and no Crate and Barrel, there was nothing to do but watch the elevator drama unfold. after a few minutes of standing around, however, i realized there wad really no great drama in four people stuck in a frosted-glass box on the ground floor, waiting ten minutes for Burlington's fire squad. Sure, i could have waited to get a load of some big doods with axes, but Barnes and Noble accross the street had Starbucks frappachinos, and there you could still exchange money for goods and services. I'm sure the shoppers got freed eventually, probobly with a better appreciation of the fragile balance of our modern existence.
Stress and mess
Today we spent busily getting ready for ASHLEE!!!!!, the ace personal trainer and my-ass-kicker who is moving in with us in less than a week. Her room is currently occupied by our cold-weather clothes, school books, x-mas ornaments, and various other junk. To sort out all the mess, we bought a second dresser from IKEA, and now not only does our bedroom look WAY matchy matchy with the MALM furniture, but my clothing storage has increased by over 50%. I spent the entire afternoon overhauling our habile organizational system. All exercize clothes are now together in one dresser, while casual clothes are folded in the second dresser and fancy things hung up in the closet. Yes envious Canadians, i have an ENTIRE dresser filled with Lululemon. Eat it up, yoga teachers! All together, it looks a bit like Santa Monica's backstock room. I am caught between feeling embarassed and proud.
Also next week i have a Statistics final, so i'm feeling a bit stressed at the moment. Tomorrow i'm taking Rascal to the vet for his tail-biting that's getting worse and worse. Have i created a neurotic dog? Is he mimicing my nail biting? Or more accurately, my tick is nail "clicking," which anyone who knows me will describe as infinitely annoying. I hope the vet will tell me that he's just snapping at an itch, and not seriously obsessive compulsive. Poor little thing can't even lie down without turning around three times. Shoot, maybe i'm seeing a pattern.
More like Dooce every day.
This morning i took Rascal to the vet because he's been biting his tail so much that he'd ripped a red sore. I was hoping they would tape it up or something, give us some cream, you know, the under two-hundred dollars kind. Unfortunately, the doctor said, this kind of biting can be due to multiple afflictions. He could have mange, or ringworm, or an inflamation in his anal sacks. What now? Well, whatever you say. Why don't we go ahead and check for all of them!
Rascal was not a big fan of the nurse holding him still while the doctor scrapped his tail for a skin sample. He also wasn't enthusiastic about the black light which tested for ringworm. Little did he know what was coming. As the nurse held him tight, his ears pinned back to his head like a terrified skier, the doctor stuck a gloved hand up his butt.
"Those are some big, juicy anal sacks," she said.
Big. Juicy. Anal. Sacks. Yes, that's what she said.
Infact the anal sacks were culprit of his biting. Poor thing. I know how it is with the itchiness due to the anal sacks. And the soreness due to the anal sacks. And the irritation from the anal sacks.
Anyway, after his anal sacks had been squeezed of their juicyness Rascal felt a lot better, although he was somewhat warry of the doctor from that point on. We will have to take him back in two weeks to have his anal sacks checked again. When i was making the appointment, the nurse said, "What is this for again?"
"Anal sacks," i said. "Anal sacks."