Friday, August 31, 2007

update.

since my last posting elicited such a response about pennies - pennies! what will happen if i write about nickels? - on the comments page, i wanted to follow-up and let everyone know that after 3 days of lurking at the base of the porcelain bowl, my toilet penny is now gone.

so either pennies require about 95 flushes before they make it down the pipe, or someone was in desperate need of change.




Tuesday, August 28, 2007

bathroom talk.

when missy and i were going over our criteria for a new apt, one of my top priorities was the quality of the bathroom - more specifically, i preferred for the tub to have shower doors. why would i care? well, since the age of 10, with the exception of the college years (and i blocked those gross showers out of my memory, so they really don't count) and various stays at friend's places and hotels, i've always lived in a place with shower doors. and once you get used to shower doors - the plethora of light they allow in to the tub, the fact that they don't billow about and ensnare you in their plastic grip like curtains do - its hard to downgrade back to a curtain.

as we could barely find a apartment that had a bathroom that looked like it had been remodeled anytime in the past 50 years, "shower doors" was quickly crossed off my wish list. and although in the end we wound up in a brand spanking new place, the tub was still doorless and required a curtain.

i quickly saw the good in the situation as i spent an entire workday perusing for curtains - who knew there were so many fun ones out there?! - and when missy and i hung up our awesomely clever new one and it totally made the room, i couldn't help but think that i might actually be swayed out of the door camp.

but i haven't been.

although my adjustment to showering with a curtain is going pretty smoothly thus far, there's still one major, major bother - what i refer to as the "psycho factor". i never had to worry about someone sneaking into the bathroom and attacking me when i had clear doors to look out of. now, its all i can think about. i actually obsess over it the entire time i'm in the shower, tacking on a good minute or two to my bath time as i constantly need to peep my head around the curtain, to make sure the door is still closed and no intruder is lurking near the toilet with a machete.

i know this sounds nuts, but its not just me -- missy is having this issue as well. we discussed our dilemma the other day, and it seems like our next curtain might have to be a see-thru one.

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in further bathroom news, there has been a penny in one of our work toilets for the past two days. this doesn't necessarily bother me, as i kind of like the wishing well effect it lends to our otherwise disgusting women's bathroom, but my question is - why won't it flush down the toilet? is it a chemical thing? or did some creep glue it there?



Friday, August 24, 2007

full circle.

forgive me for being a slacker this week, its been an exceptionally busy one. its ironic that i manage to find an awesome new apartment that i just want to sit in, all the time, and then fall into an especially busy social period, so i wind up spending no time in it at all.

so, in a rather amazing coincidence, not one, but THREE things i've mentioned in recent months came back to haunt me today (and its only the early afternoon) :

1. as i walked to the train this morning, there idled a small commercial van. outside the back of the van was a cardboard box containing ice...and fish heads.

really. i couldn't make this stuff up. while wondering about the usage of cardboard and, again, conditions that i believe the USDA would not consider sanitary, i also prayed that maybe a horror movie is filming in a nearby building and that would explain all the miscellaneous early morning animal parts. if not, i might rethink all the dinnering we do in our local establishments.

2. my office mate, the mutant fly, has returned. and this time he's brought an equally monstrous friend.

i've resorted to playing music to drown out the racket they are making as they buzz through my blinds. i will also be adding "purchase massive fly swatter" to my weekend to-do list, as i just had to use Kleenex as weaponry when throwing my tissue box at the blinds. which made an even louder racket. i really am thankful for the fact that no one was passing by my office to witness my (slight) freak-out. but the flies are actually making me nuts - another hour and i see myself tearing the blinds off the windows, wildly waving files, and flinging office supplies in attempted insect murder.

3. the kicker - about an hour ago, the back of my chair fell off. the comedy gods must be off today, as i happened to be leaning forward when it happened and thereby escaped a tumble to the floor.

on a positive note, i finally figured out where that "extra" knob goes.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

i'm just the yin to you noisy, nosy, yangs.

"you're so quiet"

i can't tell you how many times i've heard that line throughout my life. why, i just heard it again about 2 minutes ago, making it the catalyst for this rant.

is this an insult? i've never understood what someone is trying to insinuate when they come upon me, standing there/sitting there minding my own business, and make that comment. yes, i am pretty quiet - some people are. does my peacefulness bother you? does the fact that you can't hear my voice reverberate around the office annoy you? what exactly is the problem? if you're just trying to begin a conversation, i can think of 100 better starters than that one.

under certain circumstances i can understand being told this, but those are mainly all personal situations, where the person telling me "you're so quiet" is saying it because they want to know whats on my mind. totally acceptable, especially when the other party knows me well enough to know that only 70% of what goes on in my mind comes out of my mouth.

but i just do not at all understand being randomly told that i'm quiet by someone who doesn't really know me. it would be rude of me to comment to another "you're so noisy", wouldn't it? this is technically the same thing.

oh this irks me to no end.



Tuesday, August 14, 2007

i believe this model came with some spare parts...

while twirling around in my office chair earlier today, there was a clang and a knob and some washers (father is handy, or else i'd have no idea what those things are called) appeared on the floor. fearing i was about to find myself in a similar position, i got up, flipped the chair over, and attempted to reattach them.

no dice. having examined every single little inch of the base, back, and sides of this chair, it doesn't appear that this knob can be screwed back in anywhere. which is strange as it had to fall from somewhere... so i'm going to pretend that it was just an extra knob that had been taped to the bottom of the chair in case of emergencies.

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speaking of emergencies, an incident occurred yesterday morning that had me briefly considering vegetarianism. (i know...i didn't think it was possible either)

as i did my short little walk to the train i passed by some men unloading items from a truck. as i approached the truck, i noticed one man passing what appeared to be a whole, skinned, duck down to another man on the ground, who then placed it in a shopping cart. thinking i was hallucinating - wouldn't that be unsanitary? - i shifted my gaze onto the cart, and found that i was unfortunately correct. it was filled almost to the brim with duck carcasses. and, atop the ducks, a giant cow head. the cow gazed accusingly at me while i climbed the subway steps, wondering if the burger i had saturday night might be my last.

it won't be. i somehow managed to bounce back from the traumatizing 'shopping cart of horrors' experience within a few hours, and found myself cheerfully helping missy cook steaks later that evening.

but i did have a nightmare last night.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

a new level of multitasking.

having already expressed our love for supermarkets many - some may say too many - times here, you are well aware of our support of the industry.

that said, i'm not quite sure how i feel about this:

check out.

a singles event at a supermarket. in one respect, i think this is sort of clever - a shopping cart full of goodies makes for an easy conversation starter. oh hey, you prefer rice pasta too?

on the other hand, i think its sort of creepy (and not just because i think all forced singles events seem sort of creepy). and really, what are they going to do about the harsh supermarket lighting?

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

we haven't done an animal post in awhile.

since the death of our beloved cat tigger two months ago there's been a dearth of all things cute and fuzzy in our lives. thankfully, a new season of meerkat manor (or meeeeeerkat manor, as i so like to whiningly say) is starting up this week, so cute/fuzziness will be restored.

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so at our rather raucous family gathering this weekend we were treated to two very different, yet equally ridiculous, animal stories from family members.

first up was the tale of the seagull - "the little bastard", as my mother called him - who menaced my parents for their funnel cake on their recent weekend down the shore. inching closer and closer as they ate on a bench, the "brazen" seagull infuriated my mother so much that she threw her napkin at him in an attempt to distract him from his cakey target. unfortunately, the tossing of the napkin prompted a seagull swarm, and my parents were chased from their bench by about 20 seagulls diving down to see what had been thrown at their leader. and my dad wonders why missy and i prefer to vacation without them.

never one to be topped, my aunt launched into her recent encounter with a garden snake - an encounter that included screaming, a 10-minute weed killer shower for said snake, the apparent death of snake, joyous celebration by aunt, and then the subsequent discovery that snake had disappeared, meaning she either vaporized it with the weed killer, or, most likely, simply maced the thing into a temporary stupor.

its really no wonder i can't handle killing a giant fly when i see how poorly my relatives react when put in man-vs-beast situations.


Friday, August 03, 2007

mr. met might have a harder time stalking me now that i've changed my address.

well, mr. met isn't personally stalking me (i wish! i would love to see that giant baseball head ducking into bushes and behind cars as he followed me home), but his organization is.

for the past few weeks i've received a 'courtesy call' on my cell about every 3 days from the mets. why?? i think i've purchased mets tickets maybe once in my life, and i know that i didn't give them my cell phone number. whenever missy and i have to give out numbers, we offer up our parent's. hee.

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so besides the MLB harassing me, all has been going excellently - most especially, the move, and the new apartment. i know we were complaining, and everyone complains, about how hard it is to move - but we were never informed about how glorious it is to actually use movers. to stand around idly while your stuff magically gets from one place to another. in our valid attempts to help them - having grown up with our mother, its impossible for us to feel anything but guilty as we stand by and watch others do things without pitching in - the guys actually took items from our hands and carried them out themselves. of course this could've been because the moment i picked up our decorative metal wheel i managed to knock it on the floor, where it made a deafening clang in the near-empty room, but nevertheless, it was absolutely amazing how efficient these guys were.

missy even commented that she intends to hire movers to get her kids to and fro college. which, if they have even half the amount of crap she and i managed to cram into our dorm rooms, isn't really as outlandish as it may sound.