Customer Service

Dear Dollar Store Employee;

It was raining and so I thought I'd check out the store. See if any of your poorly manufactured items caught my eye. When I reached my favorite aisle (drinkware and plates- oh how I love to stare at all the goblets) you where there desperately tipping your 'We Are Happy to Serve You' coffee cup dregs into your mouth. When I appeared in the corner of your vision I noticed how quickly you fled the aisle. Oh...so quickly. Guiltily.

My instincts were awakened. Having lived for the past five years with a male I recognized the glint of fear in your eyes. But alas, I pressed onward. Two or three steps into the aisle I was stopped by a wall of noxious fumes that had- seconds before- passed through your rectum and out of your ass cheeks. Oh how horrid these fumes where! How disgusted I was! How angry I was that you had ruined what was to be my bliss. Part of me believed, believes still, that you should have owned up to your actions. Waved me away. Warned me 'Don't Enter, Move away!' But no- instead you ran.

I left the aisle. I walked down the significantly less exciting gift bag, non-sticky saran wrap, tissue-thin aluminum foil aisle. I vowed that somehow I would let you know that I knew your crime. You hadn't fooled me with your running away. As I returned to the front of the store, having no choice but to walk through the residual ass cloud you had surely trailed you appeared at my left exiting your brief hiding spot. You looked up. We caught each other's stares. I squinted and raised my eyebrows oh-so-slightly. You seemed embarrassed and looked away. I felt better. Spent $2.53 and went on with my day.

And then...?

Have you read The Piano Teacher? It's one of those books that is obviously created for women. You know, pretty woman, sad posture, romantic, tortured, all splayed on the cover. Anyway, while I can revel in the fact that I didn't purchase the book myself I cannot deny the fact that I was happy my Mother-in-law (I have a mother-in-law!) passed it forward. I find it funny and frightening that we have pretty much the same taste in books (except crime/mystery, I cannot abide by those).

So I read it. It's not a complicated book but there is still a vagueness to some of the story that drives me mad! MAD! I can't figure it out. Am I suppose to figure it out or is there supposed to be the question mark? Well, I don't like that. I'm not as bright as people like to think so I like my stories to resolve neatly. I mean, not like "the bad guy gets his due" or "they lived happily ever after" but more like "Oh, I know where everyone stands at the end". I think. Unless I'm contradicting myself then I don't know how else to explain.

Instead I get: Victor has Will drive up the hill and they exchange some cryptic sentences and then Victor, in a bit of a panic, says he's changed his mind. He doesn't have to go wherever it is they are going. Take me back home! And for some reason they never discuss it again and Will starts getting paid double for no reason. The End. What is this?! What does it mean! Where were they going? What was going to happen?

I'm embarrassed that I don't know. I am. But I'm shouting it across the rooftops in the hopes that someone out there will give me their thoughts. A book club moment if you will.

Don't Call it a Comeback

I disappeared. I shut down. People use blogs to discuss things that are happening with them. The only thing that was happening to me was the planning and celebrating of a wedding. I didn't want to talk about it on a blog. Many people seize the opportunity and then it miraculously turns into a money maker for them and they live happily ever after. That shit doesn't happen to me.
Honestly, I didn't want to discuss it over guilt that I wasn't inviting everyone I'd ever met and so I didn't want to dangle all these stories and thoughts in front of everyone and then be like "It was fun! You didn't get to enjoy it!" Even though, in a small way, I'm doing that now.

Basically it was crazy stressful and the last thing I wanted to do was blog.

Mark and I like to think we're low key so we went for low-keyish with some traditionalism in there. We're not giant ballroom, tacky chandelier, printed carpet to hide vomit stains, servers in fake butler-wear type people. We wanted a place that allowed us to do whatever we wanted and not some cookie cutter package. I think we did well. The weather, while hot, was rainless. The caterer (after a very dreadful and painful search) was great. We have guests who are still telling us the food was awesome & her servers were crazy nice and hard working. The florist totally wowed me since my directions were pretty vague. I loved my dress and I am so depressed that I can't wear it over and over again.

In an attempt to get my blogging legs back (if I ever had them) I'll probably get a little nostalgic and add a post here and there about how it all came to be. But I'm going to try my best to be better. Now I have free time on weekends again! I hope you'll check in.

Much Love,
Me

Double the C, Double the S

The stuff I usually think would be good to write is just too risky. So I've been silent for what has turned into months. Basically my days are spent pretending I don't hear parents arguing. The dad who was dropping the F bomb more than there were regular words in his phone conversation only to realize he was talking to his wife. The wife who disagrees with her husband only to have him stop her and say "really? can I just finish telling her so we can go?" (enjoy that date night); the kid who listens to my "funny" story about how I gouged Mark's car door back in Tahoe and when she asks me if Mark was angry with me she says "When he's angry does he not go to sleep with you in your bed that night?" Hmmmm....

Anyway. That's my great f'ing life. I gotta say all those years when mommy told me I was so smart and daddy said I'd be something great I bet you they didn't foresee an almost 30-yr-old with a useless Bachelors, no job aspirations, and no hidden talents to make me worth hiring (unless it's to take care of other, more successful people's children).

So now it's super hot-as-hell here and I get to pretend like I enjoy the small children I see on a daily basis. So it's just that much harder.

The good news is I finally got new glasses and I dig the different color and slightly different shape. I didn't get Transitions lenses this time so after 5 years it's a bit rough getting use to sun glare again. But alas, these rust colored spectacles look great against my finally-reaching-my-shoulders hair. Yippee!

Ayuda me!

Watching a two year old eat is pretty entertaining. Yesterday as part of his lunch I gave little man some sliced apple and peanut butter. He would scoop up the peanut butter on the apple and then eat the pb using the apple only as a spoon. It was pretty funny considering the whole reason for giving him apples and peanut butter is that the two flavors go good together. He also spears his pesto-covered tortellini with his little fork and then grabs the nugget with his other hand and shoves it in his mouth. It's pretty adorable except you have to wipe his pesto and oil covered hand for like twenty minutes after he's done.
******

Most people will feel rejuvenated by spring's arrival but I feel a big case of the blahs approaching. I'm starting to burn out on some of my babysitting and I'm sleeping a lot less because I lay there and just think about how my work future is looking more and more bleak. There's nothing special about me. I'm not a lawyer taking time off. I'm not some math genius who can go into accounting. I'm not getting anywhere taking care of these kids and I'm not feeling inspired by anything. Nothing makes me want to really go out and fight for it. Let's face it, the only job I can do can be done even better by 21 year olds getting out of college with loads of internships under their belts.
******

I'm sitting around hoping that my super will show up today to examine what the heck is going on with our toilet. We've always had a pretty strong flush. So strong you had to flush with the lid down for fear of your deposit flying across the bathroom on a giant rush of water. But a few weeks ago it became harder to push the plunger down and when you release it the pipe makes a crazy clang noise. It sounds like something is going to burst through the wall. You could hear it in all the other bathrooms on our line too. But recently I feel it's gotten even harder, I've noticed the other bathrooms aren't so audible anymore, and the clang is so hard it's waking me up in the morning when Mark is getting ready for work. So I mentioned it to the super who is very nice but pretty busy and the language barrier is pretty strong so I always feel embarrassed speaking to him because I should know how to tell him in Spanish but we all know the bitter story behind that...

I Walk These Rubber Streets

Ah, spring is here and love must be in the air because everywhere I go used condoms litter the ground. Oh, Inwood. How you continue to do me proud.
Anyway, I suppose that if you're the type of person who throws a used condom on the ground then I should be happy that you're using a condom and not creating a smaller version of you to join our society. Of course this leads to me thinking of reasons why there might be used condoms on the sidewalks.

*You live with your parents and don't want them to discover this item in the garbage and then you'll never be able to have what's-her-name over to the house again.

*If the Honda is a rockin' don't come a knockin'. And if you throw your soda bottles out of your car door then why not a condom?

*School kids are just playing with them to see what one looks like and then just tossing them aside after they are done giggling about how gooey it is. If this is the case that means I have to look closer to see if it really is used. But I'm not going to do that. Isn't it enough that I've thought about it this much?

So this obsession started when I was doing my babysitting. I got the girls dressed for school, gave them breakfast, bundled them up, and headed out the door with them. And as soon as we stepped out of the apartment building there was a bright pink condom right in our path.
I panicked. Why?
Because even though I was able to non-verbally and gently move the older one out of the way so she wouldn't step on it I cringed to think that any minute she was going to ask what it was...why was it there...who put it there...why is it pink...what do you use it for, can I touch it...etc.
Not only was I totally stumped at what I would say (if it was my kid I would probably just answer "It's a condom." and then just not elaborate) But with this kid there is never just one question. She is QUEEN of the Thousand Questions. I mean...she just goes on and on and on and on and on to where you just want to shake her. Plus, I feel it's not my place to give her a 5 year old version of a sex talk. And it was only 8 o'clock in the morning, I hadn't had breakfast and I wasn't ready to deal with it.

So since then the fluorescent condoms have been a no-show which I'm grateful for. The standard issue ones are still around but those are harder for her to spot. I'm all for people having safe sex. I'd just rather they keep everyone else out of it. Between the condoms and all the people who aren't picking up after their dogs we're running out of space to walk.

Mini-Escape

Happy March!
People across New York City mourned the end of mid-winter recess as children went back to school. Well by people I mean teachers and students. Parents on the other hand are probably thrilled to get the kids out of the house.
This means I'm back to work shuttling two sisters to and from school and other various babysitting gigs. Oh gee golly!

Some of my charges did not need me last week due to the lack of school and so Mark and I decided to take that opportunity to hightail it out of the city. We considered Savannah, GA, I dreamed of Florida, and even for one second of madness I imagined an island easily hopped to from JFK. So we booked our trip and headed off last Thursday to...Philadelphia, PA! WoooHooo.
It got to the point where we realized everything was either too far by train or too expensive by faster airplane. I discovered that Megabus was giving away free tickets, which when full price aren't very expensive anyway, and so I booked a round trip to Philly, found a hotel room in the Center City area and away we went. Mind you, a semi-warm beach would have been great but when it came down to it we just wanted to wake up and not be in our own apartment with a parrot screaming in the living room.

Hmmm. Philadelphia. What can I say? Strangely sketch and quaint all at the same time. Of course there is beautiful, colonial architecture everywhere. That's always fun if you like that sort of stuff (not total sarcasm, I do find enjoyment in lovely structures). In Center City, where we stayed, there are restaurant options aplenty. We had vegetarian Chinese, food court Indian, trendy Mexican, convenience store 'hoagies' (aka best sandwich EVER), amazing soft pretzels, artful chocolate, nice wine bars. Etc. Etc. Even the breakfast at the hotel was a shade better than breakfasts I've had at other hotels.
However, wander around the tiny sidewalks or hop aboard a bus or subway and if you're not blind and have any sort of social conscience at all you'll realize there is a serious problem with race and poverty. I'm not claiming to know anything about Philadelphia but it was quite clear that people of color do not have it easy there. And that's coming from someone who grew up and lives in a neighborhood where the majority is considered a minority and public services help make ends meet for most of the households.

But anyway-it was nice to get away. So now we're back. We're busy. We're already exhausted.