sharing is caring, and i care about you (in that non-threatening, semi-anonymous internet way)

it has arrived, today marks the beginning of a celebration.

as we now find ourselves in the month of september, nine months after the holidays, there are many glorious events about to take place worthy of at least an obligatory nod on these here pages. it's not only my birthday season, but this month will also mark my six month blogoversary as well as my 100th post.

now, i usually don't make a big deal about my own birthday, but this year i'm turning thirty, and i think that's reason enough to party. oh, yeah, and this will also be the first year for family birthday week. that's right, myself, the fuss, and b all have our birthdays in the same week at the end of september. and there's also the big get-together for my nana's eightieth birthday. yes, the same nana responsible for my header pic.

while us yankee/mets loving folk will descend upon the land of the green monster to visit the fam in the cape cod area, there may be some things going on here at my pearl hiding spot.

i still can't believe i haven't quit blogging yet. there have been so many times that i questioned my ability to tell an entertaining story, or doubted that i would ever reach an audience that understood my point of view, yet i still kept going. and mostly to show my appreciation for that momentum from you dear readers, i want to do a little something special.

and also because i never win any bloggy contests so it feels a lot better to give things away than to be sad about being a loser.

so you guessed it, there's a giveaway coming up here soon! unfortunately i don't have the pics ready yet to get you really, officially amped up for it. so this is more of a teaser post about a giveaway than the real thing. but trust me, it will not be crap from my closet or chewed up dog toys, despite the fact that monster's headless blue dino cracks me the fuck up and i can't see how anyone else wouldn't laugh at it:


oh, and i'm not done yet kiddies. i'm working on arranging my all-star lineup of guest bloggers to thrill you with amazingly hilarious and well crafted masterpieces while i'm off getting drunk. i have no idea what they intend to write about, but i do know that they are probably going to be at the very least slightly more fun than me talking to inanimate objects or inventing different personas to talk shit to.

if that isn't enough to entertain you, then you're shit out of luck, because that's the best i could come up with for my fantastic birthday/blogoversary/100th post extravaganza. and if you are intrigued, or even shivering with anticipation about what exactly my fabulous 'thank you for reading my words' gifty gifts are going to be, then i can tell you to relax. take a deep breath. details will be coming soon, with pics to prove i'm not entirely full of it.

tell me have you seen her?

i don't have my funny.

and i don't mean that i lost her forever like a permanent break-up. i'm talking more about a game of cat and mouse that funny is playing with me.

lately i've had a rather full plate, even though i'm not really hungry, and i think funny is feeling a bit left out. 'act like a grown-up' has been crashing at my house a lot, eating some of funny's favorite snacks, using all the hot water, basically being the kind of guest you know might be moving in but you'd rather see on a one way train to 'get the fuck out of here-ville'.

so in retaliation for the rude replacement persona, funny has decided to be a little bitch and storm off. i think this is the part where i put my life on hold and chase after her, because in all honesty, i need funny to get through life. i need funny in good times and bad, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do us part.

i need to have a nice long talk with funny and hopefully i will be persuasive enough to not have to return home alone. i can reassure her with kind words, a big hug, and a friendly pat on the ass. i refuse to believe that this is the end.

funny, if you're out there, hiding in the shadows of the internet, you mean the world to me, i can't blog without you. i'm coming to get you!!



i'll be back in a few days. in the meantime, i'm open to suggestions for how to maintain a long-distance relationship with act like a grown-up. or perhaps i should just ditch act like a grown-up altogether and get a really good disguise so everyone will think we're still going strong when i'm fucking around with funny all day.

wow, i really need to find funny....

things are not always what they seem

this is the view from the park down the street from my house, it's right on the river:


this morning we went early and there was not much of a breeze to speak of and very few boats out. with the exception of the brownish tinge to the water, the river looked so peaceful, so serene. the soft lapping sounds made me think of the rhythm of an old rocking chair, subtle yet constant.


the water rippled just enough to produce a broken reflection of the sun.


there were even some guys fishing and crabbing and enjoying the view.


i hope their view included this:


can you read that part there at the top? no? ok, i'll write out the boldface part:

women of childbearing age and children under 15 should not consume any fish from the hudson river.

now, i've lived by this river my whole life and it pretty much goes without saying that you never, ever even want to swim in that water, let alone eat anything that comes out of it. but for those of you who might be assuming that rivers are freshwater and it can't be that bad, i offer the following:

-for decades new york city garbage has been barged and dumped upriver because of the lack of landfill space in the five boroughs.
-indian point is a nuclear power plant that is situated right on the banks of the river
and lastly,
-for over thirty years general electric dumped over a million pounds of pcbs into the river from it's plants. those pcbs are still found in the sediment and algae.

growing up with this knowledge has made me wary of fish and shellfish in general. i can fillet a three foot striped bass in about ten minutes, which is not fast and not slow, but you will rarely find me eating the day's catch.

i could never seem to get my mind past the part about thinking where the fish came from, what it ate to survive, and what kind of water filled its gills. paranoid much? maybe, but it's too late for me to change now. i will forever be leery of neptune's minions.

i should have been born by the ocean.

i know a guy who actually says 'make that paper' when he means 'go to work'

sometimes it seems that having a potty mouth can bite you in the ass.

there are many times at work that i find myself fantasizing about how nice it would feel to tell the customers what i really think. for example, come on people, you're not allergic to parsley, just say you don't like it. the chef will be slightly less annoyed with you if you're honest and don't try to make up a bullshit allergy.

but our customers never see the inside of the kitchen or get to look the chef in the face. perhaps that enables them to be more demanding. and we never see them so maybe it's easier for us to assume they're being difficult because they have nothing better to do. i can't say for sure, but i do know that not one night at work goes by without at least a few customers submitting some absurd requests, followed by a healthy bitch-fest by a chef.

then i heard about the wiener circle in chicago. their unique flavor of customer service, while amusing to many, was actually developed out of need. the customer base is largely drunk white people leaving the bars. the mostly black employees shout gems like 'how many motherfucking cheese fries do you want?!'

for many at this particular food establishment, it's how they support their families, even if that means taking insults from drunks calling them all kinds of degrading racial slurs.

i found this video of the trash talkers in action, it's taken from a tv program so it's a bit long. right around the 2:25 minute mark you meet poochie, the manager, who seems to be great at what she does. around the 5:00 minute mark, she talks about some of the customers who get a little too carried away with the shit talking.



i'm not exactly sure how long i'd be able to put up with that kind of talk at my job. or maybe i just don't like drunk people. or then again, maybe it'd be different because even the jew slurs don't bother me, and i can't imagine anything someone could say that's not specific to me personally that would upset me.

what do you think? would you last at the wiener circle, or would you prefer to do your shit talking behind closed doors?

i'm here (and there) to help

today is a paradox. i'm here, but i'm also here. i don't quite understand the physics of it all, but for one day only i've managed to be in two places at once.

today my very first ever guest post is up at becky's place, i'll go eat worms. in case you missed that link, it's here. while she's away on vacation, she asked a whole slew of great writers to help keep her readers entertained. i only hope they don't shake their heads and go 'what the...???' when they read my contribution.

i've been told my sense of humor works best with an acquired taste.

anywhoooooo, you can read my post here. happy friday!!

golden brown looks good on me

these are my favorite flip flops.


now i know that i'm in between pedicures, so you'll have to excuse the nudie toes. b is a big supporter of my bi-monthly pedicures, mostly because he hates toes in general. he was shocked to learn that in no way is toe-hair removal a part of the process. i could share the story about the time he tweezed my toe hair out because they bother him that much, but he made me promise not to ever, ever tell anyone about it.

me, i'm not worried about it so much. i've had a lifetime to look at my toe hair and i'm ok with it.

back to my flip flops. so i wear these brown babies pretty much every day in the summer. sure i have others, but these always manage to find their way to my feet without me even thinking about it. there is one major downside, however.


every night, as i'm lounged out on the couch, limbs all a-splayed in every direction, b will inevitably burn me up for my ridiculous flip flop tan lines. but that's ok, i can take the heat, i love the sun.

b, on the other hand, for those of you who don't know him, is so white that if you were to put him on a beach he'd glow like a brilliant beacon amongst the pale sand and bright wash of sunlight. his skin may or may not be translucent. he gets sunburn through his clothes and shoes. although, when i'm sixty and wrinkly he'll probably be sixty with soft, supple skin, fresh as a baby's behind.

right, so you know what i have to say about all this mocking of my tan lines?


if you'll pretend you don't see the gigantic big toe on the right side there, you can proceed to be impressed with how i can give you the finger with my toe.

i know, i'm so talented.

oh, and also, because he's currently not annoying the shit out of me, here's monster looking all cute:



finis.

i'm even furiouser and more furiouser, updated

i'll put a brief disclaimer here that this post will contain a raw display of my anger at a shitty real-life, personal situation that i usually avoid talking about on this blog like the plague.

but sometimes it just needs to come out.

so, ok, here it is. (deeeeeeeeep breath) i pretty much don't like my dad. except that he's almost dying and i'm the closest (geographically) family member that can take care of all his shit.

it's a burden that i've been struggling with on and off for a while, but in the last month things have gotten bad. and by bad i mean, imagine the worst possible scenario and then add attorney's fees and cockroaches. yes, literally.

when i spend eight to ten hours a day, a full tank of gas, and exhaust every babysitter i know, driving my ass all over the hudson valley to sort through my father's lifetime of fuck-ups, and he doesn't once acknowledge my efforts, it makes me want to beat him with his prosthetic leg.

not that i'm looking for a thank you, but more that he's acting as if he expected me to come along sooner or later and just clean up his mess for him.

i don't even like the guy. we have no relationship to speak of other than the basic, biological connection. yet to let him rot away in his filthy apartment is not only cruel, but also a decision made based on emotion.

my brother is the lucky one. he escaped while he could, now living family-free on the beaches of south carolina. if only i could have run away too.

but i only avoid, i don't run permanently. i don't think i'd ever have it in me to up and leave my life and ask my husband and child to do the same. and that makes me so fucking pissed.

my dad spent his life being an asshole and isolating himself from society and now i have to listen to him complain about all of the doctors and nurses 'getting in his business' i.e., trying to help him live.

after my meeting this morning, i hope i will be at least one step closer to wiping my hands clean of this foul process. but at the same time, i'm afraid to hope for anything. my father is the black hole of negativity, and the more i wish for good things, or even a little piece of mind, the worse it gets. infinitely compounding until the pressure is enough to crush me to dust.

wish me luck today!

-------------------

alright, so maybe i can be a little overdramatic. but that's just it, i have to deal. the routine will always be the same: get all worked up and tense about something and then afterwards realize exactly how much i was over reacting.

and really, even if my dad is a jerk, it doesn't mean i wish him ill will.

sometimes when i want to call b at work and ask him for the love of god to make the baby stop crying, i have to remind myself that i'm a big girl now and i can handle a little unpleasant household issue. i think the same rationale can be applied to this dad situation.

just because it's not fun or easy or exciting or in any way pleasant, that doesn't mean that i have the right to stomp my feet and bitch about dealing with it. that's not going to accomplish anything anyway.

what i am going to do is get on with the rest of my daily life and not let all this mess drag me down. little miss and i are going to the park and then to the gym for a nice long run. i shall return in a better mood, that i am sure of.

(i would really like to unpublish this post, but since so many of you out there have already read it and were kind enough to leave such supportive words i'll leave it. thanks everyone for your kind thoughts!!)