name games, part two

so here's my secret (which isn't really a secret because i'll tell anyone who'll listen): i want to have another baby, like right now. little miss is seven months old, and i always knew i wanted to pop out the kiddies really closely together for several reasons. not the least of which being that i can finally get the boob job i've always wanted when my body is done incubating my offspring, and by boob job i mean reduction. i want those bad boys downsized, lifted, and tightened so that no matter what i'm doing they always stay in the same place, and also so that i can wear a regular shirt/bathing suit/dress without looking like a porn star/hooker on her way to work.

right, so b's all for this plan (and what husband wouldn't be) except for one thing, we still live in a one bedroom apartment. yes, me, b, little miss, and monster all in one little tiny apartment. adding a new fetus to the mix might make b's head explode. and since i'm not ready to be a single mother i have to just give it some time. although i make it a point to talk to b about babies at least once a day so he doesn't think it was all a phase and i got over it.

moving along, since i can't really talk about baby name stories with b unless i'm currently knocked up, i talk with my cousin who happens to be equally as babybrained as i am. since i'm so intrigued by the fine line between an unusual name and a ridiculous name, i thought i'd share some of the more, um, unique ones we've heard. not to be a hypocrite, because i know i've said before that it's really hard to judge parents for what they name their kids, but sometimes i think that pointing out some of these examples is really just a motivator to help keep myself in check. but i want to say, in all fairness, that i sincerely do feel bad for these kids, and some of the parents.

1. this one came to me courtesy of my mother, a first grade teacher. it's the story of a young, immigrant couple who had a baby girl. the hospital promptly labeled the plastic crib with a pink card that said 'female.' the naive parents thought that in america, the hospitals name your baby for you. so female (pronounced fe-Mal-ay) became the child's legal name.

2. then there's the poor kid who's mom has an awful sense of humor. his real name is something like benjamin mark but she's only taught him that his name is 'beema.' yes, beema, as in short for beemer, as in BMW. so apparently the kid is five years old and doesn't know his real name, and mom insists on using beema. in my opinion, she should have just named him that from the jump and it might not be so bad if there weren't an ordinary name to fall back on.

3. oh yes, my list would not be complete without little 'trezir', as in 'mom doesn't know how/doesn't care how to spell treasure correctly.' trezir seems to be the only one in his (yes, HIS) family who lost the name game, he has two older sisters, nicole and annette.

with all that fresh in my mind, i asked my cousin what she thought about the name barnaby, not barny, just barnaby, for a boy. sure it's not the most common, but it's not like a total joke either, right? i guess i have plenty of time before i really have to go there. my point is that i hope my attraction to different sounding names isn't going to be scarring my kids forever and ever. or at least that they end up in a school where only the adults talk about their weird names and that the other kids don't beat them up because they all have weird names too.

a message to the creepy maintenance man wearing a blue wool sweater in 85 degree weather who has treats in his pants

dear lone english speaking tor view village maintenance man, please stop using your whisper voice to try to lure my dog over to you for treats.

sir, not only does my dog has severe sensitive stomach issues that you cannot possibly be aware of, producing mass amounts of doggie vomit and diarrhea from one single milkbone, but your approach is unsettlingly similar to a child molester hunting for prey.

if you were normal and not in any way scary, i might be nice and bring one of monster's special dietary treats outside and give it to you to give to him. but you'd have to really, really convince me that you're not having sick and unnatural fantasies about my dog, which you are clearly not capable of.

oh sir, i see the gleam in you eye, and the corner of your mouth turn in a sly smile when you see my furry friend walking by. even when we're over a hundred yards away, across the street, you follow him with your eyes, one hand shading them from the sun to get a better view, and slowly start walking in our direction. your false attempts to be disarming 'can i give the doggie a trrreeeeaaaaattt?' send chills up my spine. what's worse is that monster knows you as the 'treat guy' and so gets excited, irregardless of his imminent bowel discomfort. poor little guy has no notion of what you'd really do to him if you could get your hands on him, bribing him with dry, crumbly cookies.

no, my monster is way too innocent to be corrupted by your unbridled desire for doggie rape, and i'd like to keep it that way. so from now on, sir, please keep your treats in your pants for another victim and allow us to enjoy our morning walk without your sinister motives clouding the air.

help, i could use somebody...(a real person, that is)

this afternoon, i realized that there a few questions i have that, if answered, i would be able to rest much easier. so i call to you, blogland, to hopefully supply me with some piece of mind:

1. if a bathroom/tub cleaner makes my eyes water and the back of my throat burn, is it unsafe to give my baby a bath in a tub that was just cleaned with said cleaner, or does it just mean that it works really, really well?

2. is it possible that the non-english-speaking maintenance workers at my apartment complex have some kind of special caller id that flashes 'angry psycho' in their native tongue when i call (six times) to get my air conditioner fixed and that's the real reason why they never pick up?

3. is it possible for a computer tard like me to find help on blogger about that stupid word verification that's fucking with comments being posted on my blog? i've gotten several (exactly four) reports of it preventing comments from being accepted, so naturally i spent a solid eight minutes browsing the blogger help links only to become convinced that blogger is totally self-aware and has no real live people involved in any of it's decision making processes. which prompts me to ask, what can i bribe an electronic entity with to allow me to collect comments like the comment whore that i am?

if anyone out there can help with any of the above and at the same time share how you made it past the demon blogger regulator on the comments link, please, please spread your knowledge.

disclaimer: i can only offer payment of one randomly selected, slightly chewed baby/dog toy for any useful information.

any given sunday

for lack of anything legitimately interesting to write about today, i'd like to share the conversation b and i had last night, mostly because i think that anything he says is hilarious so it's nice to let him make the funny for me. the following discussion takes part sunday evening, as we were watching the third game in the yankees/red sox series:

b: OH SHIT! did you just see that?

me: what?

b: what'shisname just fucking STOLE home!

me: (looking up from making grocery list) all i see is pettitte's mouth hanging open like he's trying to catch a fly or something.

b: pettitte's so old he needs a cane to get out to the mound. his slow ass was asking for someone to show him up like that.

me: when is youkilis going to give that poor rat he drapes over his chin a break? i mean, i know he shaved it for his kids charity a few years ago, but unless he plans to do that every few months, why is it back? if he's good enough to bat over .600 (even if it is still april) he should know that not one woman alive actually wants to snuggle up to that thing.

b: i know, i need a goatee like i need a second butthole, which is not at all.

____

b: so do you think it's wrong that i hate on twitter even though i might be the only one?

me: no, you should feel free to hate on anything you want. i mean, i tried twitter and within 24 hours realized that it was way too depressing to sit and type about things that i'm doing for no one to read.

b: yeah, sometimes i feel like 'fuck it, there always has to be at least one voice of dissent, right?'

me: i think twitter is like that restaurant where the servers are all mean to you on purpose because you're supposed to think it's witty and original, when that concept is really only entertaining to a specific crowd.

b: what the...? there's a place where the waiters talk shit to you?

me: yeah, not around here, i think it's in like chicago or something. whatever, i just heard about it somewhere.

b: if a waiter ever pulled that shit with me i'd be all 'who the fuck are you calling me fat for eating greasy burgers and cheese fries and twenty gallons of coke? oh, and do you have cheesecake here too?'

____

me: can the guy from the optimum commercials get with the chick from the progressive commercials and go somewhere to annoy each other to death already?

b: i hope they go to the same place that the douchebags who make car and cell phone commercials will end up. those bastards promise you buckets of happiness and bags of gold and then have 300 teeny tiny words and the bottom of the screen explaining how they can legally lie to you.

____

me: monster, barking at nothing will not distract me from the fact that you just dropped a horrendous stink bomb on me.

b: but what about him compulsively licking his junk and then coming up to give you lots of kisses?

finis.

to pop or not to pop

b and i were recently musing about how annoying the pop performers of today are. and we know all about them of course because we are thirty and still occasionally will tune in for an ep of mtv's real world/road rules challenge. i mean, come on, these people are so trashtastic and narcissistic that it makes for great trainwreck tv. needless to say, the commercials for the new hannah montana movie/soundtrack/concert and other such acts that air during these programs have been subjected to our cries of 'does anyone listen to good music anymore?'

then we realized that they were perfect for their target audience, which no longer includes us. and i'm fine with that. i'd rather clean my house while blasting some mgmt or muse. but i'd sweat the shit out of hannah montana for little miss when she's 12 because that's still better than her smoking up with the rebellious 17 year old boy down the street.

another notable mention here is this kid asher roth. every time i hear his retarded voice claiming 'i'm the champ-I-ON of beer PONG' it makes me want to kill myself. but after i quickly change the channel and my anger subsides, i see that he's just talking about those silly college days that we've all had. except that he's still allowed to talk about them because he's living them. if he actually were my age and singing this crap, then he'd deserve the severe beating i so badly want him to get (just not from me, i'm kind of weak).

this in turn brings me to a conversation i had with b's sister bridget, who was born way after the new kids on the block phenomenon (the original movement, not this lame reunion bullshit). i was explaining to her how when i was in fifth grade, you had to have those over sized buttons of your favorite new kid, the ones that had the little eisel on the back so you could stand it up like a picture frame. and you would bring these buttons into school each day and arrange them on your desk to show your undying devotion to joey or jordan or whoever it was.

my point with this is that if i can evolve from a time where i practiced the oh-oh-AHH-o-oh dance to a song called 'the right stuff' in my backyard to my more refined musical taste of today, then maybe the pop was a necessary right of passage. although, i did also smoke weed out of a dented foster's keg can (my mom actually drank that shit) out my bedroom window when i was 15, with my 13 year old brother, so who am i to judge.

blog, we have to talk...

i'm sure you've gotten a little suspicious the past few days, blog. and as it turns out, you have good reason to suspect something afoot. i wanted you to hear it from me first, i've been cheating on you blog.

i have a new blog that i've been spending a lot of time with lately. it's younger, has a fresh new color scheme, and we have different things to talk about together. i mean, i don't want to lose what you and i have, because i really do enjoy your company. but there are some needs that you can't fill for me.

don't even play like you're jealous, because that will just force me to run off with new blog and leave you behind. we might even have a threesome with my possessed computer. hopefully we'll all get taken over by skynet and christian bale will have to come and save us (me) from the machines.

but in all seriousness, blog, i think this can be the beginning of a very diplomatic open relationship. who knows, with some of the pressure taken off of you, you could really blossom into a funnier, wittier version of yourself.

all i ask is that you give it a try.

thanks, blog, for understanding. you'll always have a special place in my heart.

safety first

the moon has moved about half-way through it's cycle, so that must mean it's time for me to prepare myself for the task before me. yes, i'm talking about going into to work today, that strange place where i move in slow motion (slower than usual) and it takes every ounce of my being concentrating on not getting hurt every second that i'm there.

professional kitchens are set up for disasters. add one hapless klutz like me to the big, scary equipment, knives a-plenty, and the fire balls that the older-than-dirt gas stove makes whenever you try to turn a burner on, and you've got a psa for what not to do while attempting to cook.

so today i thought i'd remind myself of some of my past mistakes in hopes of not repeating them. since i barely ever work any more, i have to be extra vigilant about keeping my clumsiness in check.

let's see, i definitely fell head first into one of those mega-sized garbage cans and did the whole cartoon-esque legs wiggling above the rim for help move. of course this happened in the summer so that the bruise on my arm that looked like a hand print was visible and forced me to say 'no, my boyfriend is not the violent type, i just fell in a garbage can' eliciting that sideways head-tilt from people who aren't sure if i need a domestic abuse hotline number. but since i figure that can only happen to a person once in their life, i'm probably in the clear with that.

i should also try to avoid burning myself. a friend once wrote my name out in bacardi 151 and then lit it on fire and i leaned in with my long ass hair to blow it out like a candle. well, that didn't really happen at work, but it happened, so whatever, i own the story and can use it anywhere. same goes for the time i was driving and a lit cigarette butt (um, i don't smoke) managed to get tangled in my hair and smolder away for a good ten minutes because i thought i had a bad tire that was making that gross rubbery smell. so maybe i don't have to worry about people throwing their discarded butts at my hair while i'm at work, or do i? i know they passed that law and all, but it still surprises me how many chefs smoke in professional kitchens. and no, i don't want to tell you where because some of the places i know this to occur in happen to make delicious food and no one's perfect right?

further in the vein of 'not burning myself' falls grabbing the handle of a pot that just came out an oven, or stirring hot rice so aggressively that a few angry clumps weld to my hand skin.

there have also been many, many knife slips in my culinary career so far, but i have since learned that the sharper i keep my knife the less likely it is to slip, or the more likely it is to cut really deeply when i do slip. which means my awesome knife sharpening skills i learned from the knife master at korin in tribeca are most often put to use when caring for my knife after cutting off a chunk of fingernail.

so if i avoid fire and knives, and garbage cans that look extra dangerous (just to be safe), what does that leave for me to actually do at work? sitting by the espresso machine mainlining lattes sounds about right, until i find a way to make that menacing too.