not me, no way, no how, not ever

last night b and i went to a reception dinner to welcome the new regional managing co-operative district chief financial directing big boss. so what i made up that title, not like anyone ever really knows what those guys do anyway. the guy seems nice enough though, despite what i initially thought of him based purely on a picture.

the funny part was that the dinner was held at the estate where i work. so there we were, all dressed up in a room of 200 plus white collar, conservative, finance people, and i was busy bullshitting with the waitstaff. although i have to say that many of them didn't recognize me with my hair down and no chef whites on, so i had to have that awkward 'oh yeah it's me, i showered' conversation a few times.

but more importantly, i have to say that last night taught me a very, very valuable lesson. i learned exactly what type of old lady i do not want to become.

to be fair, this lesson actually started on tuesday morning when i was in traffic court. the sweet little old gal sitting next to me, someone's grandmother, seemed so helpless and scared about how to talk to the officer about her ticket. she kept leaning in to ask me what to do next, because i look like the kind of criminal who's seen the inside of a courtroom a few times yet is still reasonably approachable.

maybe she's psychic, but i was happy to answer her questions, hoping to make her experience a little less intimidating.

that is, until she began her relentless onslaught of fart bombs. i think she may have been having flashbacks to the first world war, and her subconscious released her own version of lethal gas to protect herself from any possible attackers.

she shrouded me with her clouds of stink, and still looked me in the eye to ask about when to stand up and talk to the cop.

devious as a black widow, masterful in her craft of luring you in just to poison you while you innocently offer advice, she was a rattlesnake in the grass, coiled and ready to strike. no granny, i do not want to be like you when i get old. it seems you have cornered the market on sweet and deadly, i could never dream of following in your footsteps.

she wasn't even the worst of the old lady gang.

last night i had the pleasure of sitting next to old secretary lady, who's biggest offense was the pearl-sized orange ball of ear wax perilously nestled inside her ear, ready to make its escape at the very slightest of head turns.

i tried not to stare.

it was incredibly hard to make small talk with b's other co-workers while at the same time keeping one eye on the crystallized ball of nasty just waiting to roll out onto my miso glazed chilean sea bass and blend right in with the papaya chutney. it was a cruel game. i knew if i wasn't vigilant i would end up eating the wax and be none the wiser.

so naturally i shoveled my food into my gaping mouth as fast as i possibly could so that i could retreat to the ladies room and wrestle with my spanx for about twenty minutes. i figured in that time old secretary lady would have finished her dinner and maybe gotten up to mingle.

i didn't know what i had inadvertently set myself up for.

in the bathroom stall next to me, as i struggled to get my spandexy undies back in place, i had to listen to oversharing old lady making vag farts and ugghhhhh noises. as i barely managed to keep my dinner in my stomach, she proclaimed 'that's how you know the food was goooood!!'

i tried to wash up and exit the restroom before she emerged from the stall, but alas, that was not my fate. no, oversharing lady had to reach right in front of my face to grab a hand towel while i retched silently.

'even these towels are nice here!!' she said with a grin.

i hung my head and ran out the door, never looking back.

and so, with these fine examples laid before my feet, i now know that i will make the effort to become a very different type of old lady. i will smell perpetually of fresh mint leaves and sit in a rocking chair knitting ceaselessly, even in the summers. i will not threaten innocent people with my bodily excretions in any state of matter.

i hereby do declare that i will be a truly harmless old lady. unless of course you try to talk shit about my driving, then i'll be forced to beat you with my cane.

bambi doesn't want to see your junk, and neither do i

i love to go hiking, whether by myself, with monster by my side, or just with some friends. i have been to many local parks and mountains nearby over the course of my years and have almost always enjoyed the feeling of being close to nature.

there was that one incident at weird mountain, but that's not where i'm going with this today.

no, today i'd like to talk about how hiking can be a pleasant experience, with your clothes on.

this morning, the one article that jumped out of my monitor and slapped me in the face was the one in which i read 'hikers who prefer clothes are not happy.'

now, i'm all about letting people decide whatever lame annual events they want to participate in, but just because there's a naked hiking day, doesn't mean that you can hate on me for wanting to walk through the woods with my clothes on.

i love natural crap as much as the next person, but you'll never find me using the summer solstice as an excuse to pretend i'm chilling with pan or diana, traipsing around in the buff.

and don't even try to pull that whole 'but it's easier to spot deer ticks' argument with me either. i can check for ticks just fine by pulling up my pant leg.

no, you silly nude hikers, you have no grounds to label me. in fact, it is i who can call you names. how about pedophile? do you like that one? because that's what you're going to be known as if someone spies your junk swinging in the breeze if they happen to be out hiking with their children.

if communing with nature was something that made you feel strongly enough to free yourself of your material shell on one specific day, than perhaps you should look into one of those off-the-grid habitats where your blatant disregard for social norms will be more accepted. that way you can go all out, literally i guess, if you wanted to.

and now, because i can, i will show you some pics of hiking + clothes + happiness.






even monster is smiling in these pics. you can't argue with that happiness.

a message to the kid walking alone who thought it was cool to verbally assault me

ok kid, enough with this bullshit. i know you're only about eight years old and all, but that doesn't give you free reign to be a punk-ass.

i'm not even going to waste my breath talking to you about respecting your elders, nay respecting people in general, but i will say that you're damn lucky you're not my kid.

and when did you learn that that oh-so-irritating teeth sucking sound is an appropriate response to hearing something you don't want to hear? that's almost worse than when you called me a 'lying bitch.'

i think it's high time you took your little tush home and begged for your mother's forgiveness and professed your undying love and support for her and all the things she does for you. maybe give listening to her a chance, there could be some valuable information there.

then again maybe not, i did find you wandering dubois st. at nearly ten pm on a thursday night.

anywhoooooo, at the very least, if you're going to ask a stranger for money, try using the 'my family has no money for food so they send me out to the streets to beg' routine. it will get you worlds farther than the 'hey lady, you got fitty cent i can hold?' bit. even though i know you're only going to use that fifty cents to buy a *gasp* sugary soda at the corner store.

that is all.


ps. tell your mother i said happy mother's day for me.

a post in which i will not use the word 'green' to mean environmentally conscious

i may not be the most active environmentalist out there, or active at all, but i do care about rational and real ways that people can bring about change. although sometimes i can't help myself from seeing the stupid in someone's attempt at being smart.

my most recent pet peeve is this:



this vehicle, known as the 'smart for two' car, has already begun infiltrating our streets. this little fella here, while he tries to look all cute and small, is actually going to bring about the demise of our roadways as we know them today.

i do agree that fuel efficient models and less wasteful factories are a good thing for our society, but this car can guarantee only one thing: getting hit hard = certain death. just look at what happened to this one when a stray butterfly accidentally flew into the driver's side door:



this rolling harbinger of death is a clear example of when you can really say 'what the fuck are reinforced steel beams going to do for me here?' don't even get me started on the assclowns who need to ask about putting a car seat in this piece. and to make matters worse, it's still kind of expensive. the base model starts at over $11,000. a car with wheels smaller than my baby's radio flyer shouldn't cost more than 2-3k, in my opinion.

how about i take my $11,000, buy a pre-owned vehicle of a slightly more solid build, and keep one less manufacturing plant from opening up. at least my 4-runner will protect tax payers from all the civil suits associated with the smartshitcar. i can see it now, the endless pile-ups blocking traffic, increasing road rage, and then riots and fires will take over. all those trees they say they're going to plant for the purchase of a new vehicle will be burned to cinders and we'll be left with nothing but tanks and ashes and devastation.

so if you want to help destroy our planet, feel free to roll in one of these bad boys. i promise i won't make faces at you and get distracted by your retardedness while driving.


note: if you try to tell me good things about this car i will stick my fingers in my ears singing 'lalalalala-i can't hear you!'

a message to the man riding his motorcycle over the mountain by west point

dear sir, you are obese.

i hope that this is not news to you, but if it is, i truly am sorry to be the one who had to clue you in.

i address you today, sir, because yesterday when i was driving behind you, just past bear mountain, your massive body weight tilting dangerously close to the surface of the road was enough to give me severe anxiety for the next 12 hours.

every time you negotiated one of the many curves in the road, i had to brace for the inevitable event of your massive self no longer defying gravity and wiping out right in front of my eyes, at 60 miles per hour. you must have developed the balance of a ballerina, because according to the laws of physics, as i understand them, you should no longer have any legs left to wrap around your hog. in which case, i must praise you for such an accomplishment.

that feat, however astounding, does not negate the sensation that overcomes me when i see you whipping around curves on the side of a mountain that i'm about to witness a real live death. aren't there laws and weight limits about this very situation? didn't they invent that harley trike just for this kind of thing?

just some food for thought sir, the next time you put on your tiny helmet and climb aboard your toy-sized motorcycle. maybe it's not such a great idea to push your luck so far.

a message to the woman enjoying her cig on 34th street

tights are not the same as pants.

now, i may not be all up in the fashion industry, or even into new current trends, but i'm pretty sure that no one, anywhere, can pull off pretending that a pair of opaque tights are a sufficient replacement for wearing actual pants.

dear woman standing outside of macy's, even if you had that slamming body that i imagine i used to have 10 years ago (which, i hate to break it to you, you don't), i would still be obligated to tell you that it's just not polite to show all of your crevices to the general public. your over sized, off-the-shoulder tunic was not nearly long enough to conceal your bits, in the front or back.

i can be fairly certain that this ensemble was put together deliberately attempting to achieve that skinny-jean look without actually having to find a pair of skinny jeans to button around your enormous middle. while slightly more uncomfortable, the jeans would have at least hidden your cracks from my field of vision and i would have been able to better enjoy my day, nay, my life, without their image burned forever on my retinas.

so please, please, for all of us who have eyes, wear a skirt or dress over those tights, or just retire them altogether. they've had a hard life so far, it's time to cut them some slack.

keep it short

my 5-month-old daughter hates it when i trim her nails. but that's to be expected, she's a warm ball of wiggle these days and the five minutes it takes for a proper trim is way too long for her to spend still.

but grown men have no excuse. none.

you know who i'm talking about, those men that you see with long nails that get so thick from lack of constant care. it makes me shudder to even picture it in my head. why do men have such a hard time recognizing when it's time to cut their fingernails before they get that gross nosferatu-esque look to them?

a man in a committed relationship should not only want to stay appealing to his spouse, but may also have the added bonus of a particularly compassionate mate who would remind him, 'honey, time to file your claws.'

a single man should be especially conscious of his grooming habits. now, those that go to extremes with facials and waxes, great. but there are many who neglect the basics. for instance, the 40-something guy my husband just hired to work in his office.

this guy wears no wedding band, and has not mentioned any current romantic interest. he's one of those that speaks in sentences structured purely for the purpose of showing off his immense vocabulary. clearly the type who should be concerned with making himself presentable. yet no matter how well-spoken he is, i have to hear my husband repeatedly describing how this guy's overly long fingernails get in the way of his just being a regular guy, 'you don't understand, they're SO long.'

there's that shudder again.

how can this issue be so prevalent? is it laziness? or perhaps it goes back to a person's upbringing, and the parents who didn't stress the connection between social acceptance and neatness of appearance? regardless of who's to blame, it's not too late. we can all reach out to someone. for the greater good, buy a pair of clippers and anonymously leave them on your co-worker's desk.

if that doesn't work, then he's a lost cause and should be ignored henceforth, as if he is no longer a part of the human race.

UPDATE: 'nails' (as he is now called by my husband) is responsible for drawing a new client bringing in loads of business. i guess something's working for him after all.

we're all targets

as i sit here munching my delicious soy crisps (creamy ranch flavor) i find myself contemplating what even made me decide to buy soy crisps in the first place.

they are quite tasty, but the very first time i bought them, i had no previous experience with soy in a snack-chip form and really had no idea what to expect. so how did they make that monstrous leap from grocery store shelf to my shopping cart, and ultimately into that tender spot in my heart reserved for my favorite snacky treats?

the obvious answer is the right one in this case, marketing.

the white bag with fresh-looking green leaves and branches flowing beneath the title 'nature's promise', the organic brand stocked at my local food market, was designed with just that very purpose in mind. and it worked.

i looked the bag over, compared price and ingredients to the brand name rice cakes tempting me from the next shelf. the soy crisps were less than half the price and lower in sodium, and after all, nature DID promise that they were 'all natural' and 'cholesterol free.' but this investigative shopping would never had occurred had i not been attracted to the outside of the bag.

this train of thought prompts me to think about the people who earn a living conceptualizing and creating the many advertisements we are all exposed to in our daily lives. how much money must have been invested for such firms to specifically target buyers for their products? how much time is spent making each item appear unique, and do so in a way convincing enough to make the average consumer part with his hard-earned cash for something new compared to something predictable?

it may be safe to say that as long as the marketing works, it pays for itself. everyone makes a profit and i enjoy my soy crisps guilt free.

but what about when advertising backfires? who looses out? is the public deprived of a great product because of poor marketing? or it is a form of capitalist natural selection, only the strong survive?

i'd like to believe that our population of consumers would, on average, as a whole, support businesses/companies worthy of our dollar. but then i find things like this. did you read the product description? only about two sentences in and it has already become completely elitist and exclusive to most americans. someone, somewhere, got paid to write that, and people are buying into it.

the more i ponder why someone would actually buy anything that so unabashedly targets a certain lifestyle, thus perpetuating classist notions and ideals, the more it becomes clear to me that this advertising tactic is enormously successful.

this company will not only make their product appealing to those overtly aimed for, but also for the many who strive to be thought of as existing in that category.

and so i give up. i cannot win a battle of etiquette with advertisers. they exist solely to make us take notice. often it's the more outlandish messages, subtle or not, that we talk about the most.

did i just see that?

i should preface this post by saying that as a new mother, i have learned quickly to refrain from giving unsolicited parenting advice. i don't like hearing it, and i'm sure no one else likes hearing it.

but i think i just saw the most atrocious display of exactly what NOT to do with your child.

the back story is brief, but somewhat relevant. i live in an apartment complex of some 400 or so apartments in several different buildings along a dead-end street. my particular building is at the bottom of the road, right off the cul-de-sac. my neighbor, a friendly spanish woman, mother to three children, watches other neighborhood kids during the day. we are not talking about licensed day care here, more of an informal, yet paid, babysitter.

one of her regulars is a small boy, about two years old. the parents seem nice enough, routinely dropping the boy off around 8:30 am and picking him up around 5:15 pm. what first made me take note of them was when i observed both parents, individually and on multiple occasions, put the boy in the front seat of their car, with no car seat, and often no seat belt.

i do know that they live in the building across the street, their parking lot directly opposite from mine. from door to door, it's maybe a 75-ft drive.

but is there any excuse for taking such liberties with your child's safety? the last time i checked, there were car seat laws, for a reason.

the ultimate in careless behavior was exhibited today, when the boy's father placed his son on his lap, and then drove away. no seat belt, and a toddler sitting in his lap, tiny fingers clutching the steering wheel. who does this guy think he is, britney spears? there are no paparazzi here on kensington circle.

i'm not ready to interfere and tell these parents what i think about their dangerous practice of driving their son. it seems obvious to me that any parent who thinks that such behavior is acceptable would clearly be defensive when approached about the subject. the last thing i need is the frustration of picking a fight about child safety only to have the parents continue with their actions.

instead, i'll just write about it and hope everyone who reads this agrees with me.