Life in the Slow Lane

What follows is the transcript of an evening in my apartment in a bygone year. Which year and which apartment and who are the participants? Alas, for the sake of the dignity of all involved, I am forced to withhold that information. A person other than me: "You know... those nails around the kitchen look like the perfect place to hang underwear." "Hm... you're right." "We could make it festive, you know, decorate for Christmas." "Do you want to? We could, you know." "Let's" Later... Also a person other than me: "I've realized something else that I don't want to be when I grow up." "What's that?" "A food processor" (hand scrunching rice-crispies the whole while.) "You could have used the blender." "Oh." Later still... "Adding Hershey kisses in between the underwear makes it look so festive." "Yes, they are very sparkly and fun. Too ba...

It's official. It's that special time of year... The time of year when everyone pretends they are living in the slow lane and edges towards insanity trying to prove themselves right. Is this characteristic of you? I have made a simple quiz that you can take to determine whether you believe this of yourself or not. 1) Do you realize that Christmas is less than a month away? 2) Do you intend to celebrate Christmas? 3) Do you have things that you need to do before Christmas arrives that have nothing to do with Christmas? 4) Do you still need to find gifts to give at Christmas? 5) Do you intend to give gifts consisting of something other than your dirty laundry? 6) Do you intend to sleep between now and Christmas? 7) Do you intend to have a conversation of any sort with any human, animal, plant, car, and/or computer before Christmas? 8) Do you intend to wear clothes other than what you have on now between now and Christmas? If you answered yes to *0-2 q...

Today is a holiday that you won't hear much about. However, it is an important day to celebrate for many people through out these United States. What holiday is this? you ask. Today (or tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on your local trash day) is Clean Out Your Refrigerator in Preparation for Thanksgiving Leftovers Day. I have been in households where refridgerators are mere formalities. They have one item on the top shelf, three or four items in the middle, and a chunk of cheese and mustard, and then drinks on the door. The main reason they have refridgerators is for the freezer, which is packed with TV dinners and other frozen instant foods. If you live in one of those houses, then you are just out of luck in regards to this holiday. My recommendation for you is that you rent out the empty space in your fridge to others. For the rest of you, more normal, people, I have collected a small list of guidelines for cleaning out your fridge. 1. Don't do it aroun...

Today I baby sat an 18 year old. I've done something similar for a 42 year old child before, so I thought there would be no surprises. And there weren't, except for the cheese ball and chocolate covered raisins for lunch and the near strangling of a passer'sby child. I'm not sure if my heart has quite gotten back to its normal two step yet. The two of us had been out on the town for two hours and nothing alarming had happened. We wandered through a book store where she pulled out lots of kid's books, flipped through them and put them back on the shelf and because there had been so little cause to worry, I figured going to Walmart would be an okay stop to make. And it would have been, if it hadn't been for this mother and child who passed us on our way in. "Baby!" said my charge. "Yes, there's a baby. Come on, let's go inside..." I looked over my shoulder to make sure she was right behind me and she had her hands wrap...

...dragging a half dead mouse in its teeth. This post has nothing to do with mice or cats. As a matter of fact this post has nothing to do with creeping or death, either. This post is about FOG And how this particular fog doesn't seem to have anything in common with cats or creeping. What happens is this: Scene: A little valley in the middle of nowhere. It is autumn. The leaves that have dared to change color have, and those that were too timid to do so are thinking about making their journey to the ground where leaf blowers can blast at them and dogs can p**p on them. Act one: The people of the little valley come out of their houses and offices. The people: Isn't it fabulous and beautiful outside? The sky is so blue and the air is so crisp and clean and clear. Oh, I just hate to be inside on a day like today. Act two: The people of the little valley look out their windows and squint to see if they can see their neighbor's house. They then open th...

Here is a comic. I want to know how the little girl stole my idea.

Today I had opportunity to be some what pleased with my progress in learning how to use chopsticks. With two flimsy little wood skewers, I was able to get ahold of one dead fish at the bottom of the tank and bring it out. I only lost a grip on it once. However, I find it nearly impossible to pull the other dead fish from the tank with said skewers. For one, I am speaking of the many, many grape seed fish. I am incapable of picking up single grains of rice on chopsticks when they are on a plate in front of me, so trying to get rice kernals at the bottom of five gallons of water would be quite a task. Secondly, these little sweet hearts of grape seeds decided to burrow into the rocks at the bottom of the acquarium before they decided to die. So I can see four smushed up against the glass, and that leaves about ten in random crevices throughout the rock garden. Anybody have a rock vaccuum cleaner I could borrow? Or is anybody especially proficient with chopsticks?

I thought I had outsmarted the fishy math, but I guess I didn't. This morning there were at least ten little grape seed-sized fish in addition to the four that I bought. (I guess when they say "gives live birth" they weren't kidding.) But now, I only see three little grape seeds, and I'm not sure that they are alive at all. Cleaning up tiny dead fish was not in my plan.

Today, with my trash, I bought four fish. Hopefully, the fish will not soon wind up in the trash. If they make it to day 2, I will name them. When I originally planned on using money from turning in recycleable things to buy fish, I thought that I would buy myself one beta fish, for aproximately $3.50. When I received $7, I was excited because I figured I could get two betas. But then I remembered that beta mathematics is not like traditional mathematics. One beta plus one beta does NOT equal two betas. If you are lucky, it equals one beta. If you are unlucky it equals zero betas. I might still end up with zero fish, but at least this way everyone involved has a better chance.

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I am amazed by the power of referrals. In theory, I always knew they worked well, but never before have I seen them work with such fervor. Let me illustrate. Mom A recommends me to Moms B-H. Mom I recommends me to Mom J Mom J recommends me to Mom K and L. Mom M recommends me to Mom N. Then Mom H recommends me to Mom O over at the country club and Mom O asks me if I would like to be a full time nanny for her daughter. It takes me aproximately .23 seconds to decline, as I have just made an arrangement to babysit regularly for Mom L. Later, Mom A calls and says "I recommended you to Mom O through Mom H, but I really didn't want to because I wanted you to stay available for me." And so dear friends, it has come to this: Which house are the kids allowed to play in Mom and Dad's room and which one is to be doubled or triple locked? And what are the names of the dogs and cats that I need to yell at if they bark too loud or barf too often? And which kid needs ...

Height does make a difference. The change in altitude from sitting in a car to sitting in a bus changes a city from something familiar to a foreign country. Granted, the fact that the languages spoken on Greyhound frequently are not English and the skin colors displayed from the old bus seats are not what I see when I look in my rear view mirror might also affect this general sensation of a foreign country. But also, Greyhound travel is foreign in the various interactions that I don't believe ever would have happened on a plane or in an airport. Can you imagine a strange man offering to help a young mother with her four month old son and then later she leaves her son with him for a few minutes? Can you imagine the rioting if another man asked a teenaged girl to watch his bag and then took off on an extended walk through the neighborhood? I have discovered that there is a very miniscule line between friendly and creepy, and Greyhound culture seems to straddle it. So while l...

Those of you who are faithful fans of my blog, may have noticed that I have not posted as much as I have been wont to do. Well, I am pleased to announce that the reason for my less frequent postings was born this morning at 5:17, as beautiful as can be. Perhaps I am biased, but I am the best sort of biased. That is, if my point of view is correct.