Today I had a play to go to, with a ticket in the front row and everything, but I stayed home. This was not an easy decision for me. I’ve been looking forward to this one for months and months. But I’m coughing terribly and I had a front-row seat and that’s rude to people trying to act and sing. Plus even getting up and moving around the house makes me kind of exhausted. Driving half an hour each way, sitting through a three-hour show, trying really hard not to cough…nah. Can’t. Just can’t today. Sadly. So it’s a couch-day and a Dumbcat-day and a TV-day for me.
Today, let’s talk about something near and dear to my heart. And that thing is:
FINLAND!!!
I officially got my passport in the mail a week after I applied for it, so apparently I have been judged as NOT TOO DANGEROUS TO TRAVEL INTERNATIONALLY! That means my trip to Finland is on! Only 14 months to go! Get ready, Andreas and family of Andreas! It’s never too early to start planning an adventure!
There have been a number of fun Finland-related things that have come across my radar lately, so today let’s discuss some fun Finland-things.
First: Finland wins a VERY IMPORTANT HONOR!
According to this very annoying link that will start a loud obnoxious video on your computer so beware, Finland is the world’s best place to be a mother! In the whole WORLD! Well, THAT’S impressive! Apparently, expectant and new mothers are given much care in the land of the Finns, and the infant mortality rate is very low, so Finland wins the competition! Congratulations, Finland, for being impressive! On Saturday Night Live this weekend, Seth Meyers had a smart joke that said “Finland has recently been found as the world’s best place to be a mother. The world’s worst place to be a mother? High school.” Hee! I like that.
Next, we have very good graphics from the most impressive sj!
OMG YOU GUYS! POLICE REINDEER! How much do I want a police reindeer? THE MOST IS HOW MUCH! I don’t know if this is true facts or not, but I love it anyway. I mean, think about it. What would you do with a police reindeer? I don’t know that you could ride it. And it’s not like a drug-sniffing dog or anything. I mean, MAYBE it could sniff drugs, but what a mess it would make clip-clopping through your house, right? But whether it is a thing or not, I WANT ONE. Look how much it loves the Finnish policeman! It totally wants him to rub its nose. And ride with him on his Skidoo. Probably in Finland they don’t call them Skidoos. The internet says Finns call them “moottorikelkka” or if they’re speaking Swedish they call them “snöskoters.” OMG THOSE ARE BOTH MOST EXCELLENT WORDS! The Finnish word has WAY too many letters in it, and the Swedish word sounds EXACTLY like “snow scooter” which makes me smile and then smile some more.
Aw, no, poor Finland!
Finally, we have the MOST interesting thing. OK, so a couple of weeks ago, Andreas had the day off because it was Walpurgis Night. This is known as May Day in Merka. And we most certainly don’t get the day off, sigh sigh. ANYWAY, in Finland, here is what happens on Walpurgis Night:
Much mead is consumed
Many funnel cakes are consumed
There is much celebrating, some of it in the streets
Someone puts a cap on a nude statue in Helsinki
“Left-wing activists of the 1970s still party on May Day. They arrange carnivals. And radio stations play leftist songs from the 1970s.” WHAT? That makes me laugh. It would make Dad VERY ANGRY, though, and he would shout “SOCIALISTS!!!”
This all makes me happy. This is a very happy pagan celebration, dating back to Beltane. We don’t do things like that here. Sometimes children might do a Maypole (not a euphemism) in school, but only when a teacher can’t think of something better to do, and I’d be willing to bet most of the teachers don’t know the history behind what they’re doing.
You GUYS, in FINLAND, they have a day off where they drink HOMEMADE MEAD, they eat FRIED DOUGH, and they (for some reason) put HATS on NAKED STATUES. This is a most excellent country. MOST excellent. I can’t even find anything to complain about in this tradition. We don’t have another day off until Memorial Day and that’s still a couple weeks away. Europe gets a lot more excellent days off than we do, that’s for sure.
MANY HAPPY THINGS IN FINLAND!
OK, it is the middle of the day but my eyes are closing so it’s naptime even though I’m usually terrible at naps. Happy Monday to you all. May your weeks be both productive AND pleasurable. Plus, I wish you all funnel cakes. I mean, don’t we all deserve more funnel cakes in our lives? I think most definitely we do. No question.
OK, I’m super-sick, but I am determined to soldier on. I AM A BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER. I went to a play tonight and now I am home and feel like utter crap but at least I feel like crap on my couch. That’s the best place to feel like crap, probably. Or your bed. Your bed is also a good place to feel like crap. Preferably with a Dumbcat curled up purring next to you because Dumbcats make you feel better when you are coughing and feverish. Or at least they try to.
And, before I get started, happiest of all happy Mother’s Days to all the mothers who are reading. This is all-inclusive and includes everyone who does mothering, even those who haven’t birthed an actual child through their actual birth canal in an ouchy-ouchy way. So, all mothers of all things, and people who adopt, and same-sex couples, and dads who single-parent, and moms who have lost children, and anyone else I might be forgetting - you are all wished the happiest of days from me and I celebrate every one of you. All the love to all of you. Amy’s Mom received so many roses this year and was so surprised because I could never afford that before, and they are in many places in her house and I got a “YOU ARE THE BEST DAUGHTER!” so that was a total Mother’s Day win in Amy-land.
So, now we are on to our last day in Baltimore, which was Sunday. We decided to not do a billion things on the last day, mostly because we were very tired. Well, at least I was. And R. and A. were nice enough to agree they were as well, whether or not they REALLY were. We did so many things! It was time for a little calmness.
Our trip Sunday was to something MERKAN! And NATIONAL! And PATRIOTIC! Any guesses?
Fort McHenry!
Now maybe you don’t know about Fort McHenry. I didn’t know about it. Other than it was something Merkan. Here are some bullet-points about Fort McHenry if, like me, your school was sadly lacking in good American History classes (or perhaps you kind of had a little crush on your American History teacher so you spent time daydreaming about him and not paying as much attention as you should have, I don’t know your life):
It is three things: a National Park, a National monument, and a historic shrine
It was an actual fort in the war of 1812
It defended against a British attack in Baltimore harbor in 1814 (were you aware the war of 1812 was so LONG? I wasn’t)
While watching the battle, a Washington lawyer was so impressed by the fact that the men at the fort held off the British and that the American flag stayed flying the whole night through, he was inspired to write a song. What do you think the lawyer’s name was? Well, it was Mr. Francis Scott Key. And that song was the “Star Spangled Banner.” BAM, MOFOS!
Yes! This is the actual place that inspired our NATIONAL ANTHEM! MERKAN HISTORY, YOU GUYS!
Now, I feel the need to give you a disclaimer. I know I kind of bag on Merka. Mostly by calling it Merka. And shaking my head at things that happen here in Merka, like Truck Nutz and Fox News. But here’s a huge secret, that, ironically, will not be a huge secret once I tell you: I love Merka. So much. I am so jazzed by the history of my country. It makes me have goosebumps. It makes my whole heart thrill. I love the thought of my scrappy forefathers who believed so strongly in our country holding off against the British. I love the national anthem. I love history and battles and monuments and things that made our country great. I think our country could still be great. I believe a great deal in our country, and it makes me sad, what it’s become. Dad finds this fierce patriotism of mine funny. “For someone who’s part of the enemy’s team, you really do love our country,” he says. (The enemy’s team = Democrats.) “You might be the only Dumb-o-crat who actually loves America. So that means you’re not really a Dumb-o-crat and you’re just confused. Any day now you’ll come over to the right side.”
First we walked all around the fort. Guess what I stood on? NO, GUESS!
THE RAMPARTS! The ACTUAL “o’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming!” I WAS ON THE RAMPARTS!
There were many cannons. This whole place was surrounded by cannons. ALL THE CANNONS. I wanted to ride on a cannon because that seemed very Merkan, and we even found one cannon that didn’t say “Don’t climb on this, Amy” but it was kind of rusty and I was afraid I’d get my pants dirty.
This is the view when you’re walking around the Fort. It’s beautiful. The bay is right there and you can see all the boats. It was a little chilly and windy, but that’s what happens when there’s water.
I kind of forgot to take enough photos. Luckily, A. took some photos and he’s GOOD, you guys. Like, artistic-good. He said I could steal. I’m giving credit, so it’s not as much STEALING as it is kind of borrowing, I suppose.
Look, he has this awesome setting on his camera where he can take a bunch of photos and make them into ONE LONG PHOTO! Isn’t this so pretty?
So we walked all around, then we went INTO the fort, and you could go into some of the rooms. One of them had teeny-tiny cells in it where TRAITORS were kept. Traitors, you guys! Here is an interesting historical tidbit. During the Civil War, one of the traitors kept there was Francis Scott Key’s grandson. He was an editor of the Baltimore Sun, and he wrote an editorial that said although he didn’t approve of the South’s decision to secede from the Union, he didn’t think we should use military force to get them back, and he also criticized the Lincoln administration. WELL! That did not sit well with the powers that be, and they not only locked him up, they shut down the whole paper. SHUT DOWN THE WHOLE PAPER! See, civil liberties were limited during the Civil War. Anyone could be jailed if they were accused of disloyalty or treason, without a trial; martial law was put in place; censorship of journalists and papers was the norm. Doesn’t this scare the shit out of you? It does me. I had no idea about any of this.
Look, I was making history today by visiting the fort! MERKAN HISTORY!!!
There were things in the different rooms like exhibits and tableaus and various things. There was a big flag that was a recreation of the actual flag that inspired the national anthem. It was all very historic and I liked it all very much.
Then we had a picnic! With baby CeeVee!
It was her first picnic. As you can see, she enjoyed it a great deal. That’s A. in the background. I think this is the only photo of A. I got the whole time I was there. But look, he does exist!
CeeVee and I played a game called “Grass is the best!” in which she would pull up all the grass and then hand it to me, and I would say, “Oh! Thank you!” and she would laugh and laugh and give me MORE grass. Grass is her favorite. Even better than grass? Dandelions. She LOVED dandelions. R. told her not to eat the dandelions, and then she picked another one and almost ate it, and then looked at it very sternly and said, “NO” to it, which made ME laugh and laugh.
Dandelions are the BEST! (And A. is the best photographer, isn’t he?)
Seriously, she’s the best thing. Look at that smile.
Then she decided to go adventuring and did an homage to a famous painting.
Wyeth’s version…
…and the Baby CeeVee version…
I like CeeVee’s version better, but I’m biased.
Then we went to the gift shop, where you could buy things like weaponry and muskets and swords (I didn’t buy those things, I mean, would they even let me bring them on the train?) and then we went on a long long looooong tour of Baltimore and A. and R. showed me a lot of beautiful buildings that I hadn’t seen yet. Dear Baltimore, I am very much in love with you. You are just the most beautiful city full of endless wonder. I am looking forward to returning.
Oh, a thing I noticed in Baltimore that made R. laugh because I kept noticing it was very brightly colored pants. Like, RED! or GREEN! and I think they were jeans. Is that a thing? I don’t know that that’s a thing around here. Whenever I saw them I would stop what I was doing and say “MORE BRIGHTLY COLORED PANTS!” and R. would laugh. The first time I did it, R. said, “You are the most random person I know, Amy.” And yes. Yes, I sometimes am that. But in my defense, those pants were VERY brightly colored.
Then we spent the rest of the day relaxing and I did some internetting and we ate some delicious Chinese delivery and talked and laughed and R.’s friend stopped over to visit for a little while, and that was nice, and then we watched a little television and then it was bedtime, because the next morning was early early early departure for the train.
Then the next morning it was goodbye to R. and Baby CeeVee so R. could get to work and CeeVee could get to daycare! (And since I left? CeeVee is WALKING now! I knew while I was there she was so, so close! SHE IS WALKING HOORAY!) And then A. brought me to the train station, and it was time to make my way back home to my very lonely Dumbcat who thought I was dead and was SO pleased I was not.
The trip home was mostly uneventful. At one point I fell asleep and I think I might have snored, as I do, because when I woke up I had post-snore sore throat and people were looking at me like I was a crazy-person. Sheesh, calm down, it’s not like I was in the SILENT car. It was just the NORMAL car. And in the New York waiting area (which is in Penn Station, and Dad calls that “Grand Central Penn Station”, as in “Don’t go getting murdered in Grand Central Penn Station, Amy, people get murdered in that Grand Central Penn Station all the time!”) some sort of cop was hitting on me until I pretended I was furiously reading so he stopped talking to me. Explain, please, why it is that no one in the history of my whole life has ever randomly hit on me that I’ve been in the least bit attracted to?
Thank you for sticking around for Adventures in Baltimore! It was the best time and I’m so glad I got to go and see some of my most beloved people. Thank you so much, R. and A., for being the best hosts! Now it is time for this sickie sickerson to go to bed and sleep like the dead. Or at least like a person with a weird feverish sickness. Happy weekend, everyone!
Well, happy March, people of the intertubes. I think it’s supposed to be spring now? Or spring-ish? And sometimes it kind of is. But mostly it’s still cold. I want to open the windows! I want to feel spring breezes on my face! I want to sit on my porch and not freeze my buns off! Plus, Dumbcat loves the spring. He sits in the window and his little nose goes and he squints his eyes with happiness. I don’t know if Newcat will love the window. I assume they will not love the window at the same time, because then there will be all the hissery. SO MUCH HISSERY!
So! Much! Hissery!
Well, you know what time this is, right? It’s the end of the month, so that means your cable bills are due, and also your rent bills. And it’s also time to see what search terms are bringing people to the old Football this month! I know you’re probably totally anticipating this every month. I do what I can to brighten your days, my little chocolate drops.
I again tried to make this post not so insanely long this month. Mostly because I’d like to get to bed before midnight tonight. It’s tough to stay awake at my desk if I stayed up until midnight the night before blogging about tomfoolery. (SIDE NOTE: I’m very good at staying up late and not very good at getting up early. I think I have something wrong with my internal clock. That has a name, doesn’t it? Circadian rhythms, right? I like to imagine that like the Church of Scientology and their Thetans. SOMEONE FIX MY CIRCADIANS THEY’RE NOT BEHAVING!)
So, just in case you’re new, let me catch you up on this recurring post. I’m obsessed with my stats; I like to check what search terms drive people to my blog; then I feel REALLY BAD this isn’t what they were looking for. So I write them a letter of apology (this is the twenty-first one. Aw, my little posts can legally get drunk now! Be careful, little posts, or you’ll wake up on the floor next to your toilet questioning your life choices! Oh, yeah, if you’re interested, search for the others; they’re stellar.) Why do I do this? I live a very rich inner life, chickadees. As I write these, I like to imagine I’m a FANCY ROCKSTAR with a SPARKLY SEQUINED JUMPSUIT. Just roll with it.
So I’m going to break you down into categories and address you in groups. SIDE NOTE: at work, we had to break into groups today. My task was to be the person who made the chart we hung on the wall. Guess whose group had the prettiest chart? Yep, mine. I have EXCELLENT handwriting. Even the group facilitator was all, “You have lovely handwriting. My handwriting on these charts is always terrible and I’m so embarrassed.” I WIN HANDWRITING! I asked one of my group members if I could find a job where I could utilize my marker-and-large-piece-of-paper writing skills, and he said, “Yes. Pre-K teacher.” I said, “How about a job where I don’t have to deal with humans?” He shook his head sadly no.
I don’t write anything like this. I always thought these Qs were RIDICULOUS. They just look like 2s. TWOS!
Category the First: So. Many. People.
people you may know facebook (164)
That’s right. One-hundred and sixty-four people searched using some variation of the phrase “people you may know facebook.” That Facebook post I wrote a million billion years ago? Is like the second- or third-most popular post I’ve ever written. People are OBSESSED with People You May Know. And I cannot figure that out. And – check this out. I got an EMAIL the other day from someone asking how to get rid of the People You May Know. An email! From a total stranger who doesn’t even comment on the blog! Like I’m an EXPERT on Facebook! I totally answered it, too. Nicely. And said, “You can’t get rid of that. Sorry.”
Category the Second: No. No, she can’t. Also, that’s rape, chum.
“she can sleep through” cum
Did we learn nothing from Steubenville? If someone’s sleeping, they can’t give consent. And if someone can’t give consent, it’s rape. I would go more into detail about this, but that’s really all you need. Because that’s it. If she can’t say yes or no, it’s a no. And if you go ahead with it anyway, you are a rapist. End of story.
Category the Third: Also known as, everything I’ve ever written here, ever.
a very long story about high school
I also write very long stories about travel, friends, theater, books, television, cats, and sometimes NOTHING AT ALL. You are WELCOME.
Category the Fourth:Porny porn pornerson!
beastsex beast movies sybil d’28 little baby animal porn mournfull sex story of brother sister
That first one is a LOT of WORDS. You got your beastsex and your beast MOVIES and your Sybil and your “d’28″ whatever that is and your little baby animal porn. Put that all together and what do you have? I…don’t even know. Whatever it is, it’s worrisome, and also horrifying.
I think it’s kind of funny that you consider incest mournful (sorry, “mournfull”) and yet you still hit the Googles to search for it. Good job, creeper.
You should ask Jaime about the mournfulness, I think he’d have some serious insights for you.
Category the Fifth: Ha!
“my penis is gone” srs baby seal piñata cant sleep cause my friends are an fire fight on maury girl bowel movement girls that say they sleep sith zak bagans hello mr. tumnus! i haven’t seen you in a while, but i just wanted to write you a letter to let you know i am doing very well. i bet you i won’t even get one like with a puppy married to a frog oreilly most romantic high schools turpentine on ebay
This is my favorite category because it cracks me up, yo.
SRS. My penis is gone for SRS. I’m sorry, dude. You probably should SRS call the cops and put in a report or something. It might show up in someone’s lost and found box, you never know.
A baby seal piñata makes me laugh because then you could totally club a baby seal at a party so it’s like multitasky. Also, I like that you put that squiggly over the n. Tilde? I think it’s a tilde? Don’t yell at me. I took French. Oui, mes petites, c’est vrai.
It is a THING! Hooray!
OMG, that is the best misheard music lyric ever. OK, so the lyric (from one of my favorite songs, “Psycho Killer”) is “I can’t sleep ’cause my bed’s on fire.” “I can’t sleep ’cause my FRIENDS are an fire” is HYSTERICAL to me. Also, of COURSE you can’t sleep if your friends are on fire. If you’re sleeping through your friends burning to death, you have no soul. I can’t sleep if my friends are even the slightest bit UPSET about something, I mean, come on, seriously. ON FIRE? Also? PUT THEM OUT!!! THEY ARE YOUR FRIENDS!!!
WHICH fight on Maury are you referring to? Because there are a billion. A BILLION FIGHTS.
Psst, here’s a secret I need to let you in on: yes. It is true. Girls have bowel movements, too. JUST LIKE GUYS. We all poop! Everyone does! Every last person and animal and even goldfish! Try not to be too shocked. I thought it was important you knew.
OMG SITH ZAK BAGANS. I knew there was something sketchy about that ghost hunter! He’s a SITH! That makes SO MUCH SENSE!
SITH!!!
Why is someone writing a letter to Mr. Tumnus on my blog? OK, nevermind, I’ll pass it along to him next time I see him, I suppose. As we hang. We do a lot of hanging, me and Mr. Tumnus. We’re tight, yo.
I bet you won’t even GET one. Like with a PUPPY. *kicks rocks* *rues the day*
Aw, I love that you came here looking for Bill O’Reilly comparing gay marriage to marrying a frog. It was actually a turtle, but you’re close. Hi! And welcome! We often like to call out asshattery here; you’re in the right place if you like this kind of thing.
Most ROMANTIC high schools? It’s HIGH SCHOOL. It’s not ROMANTIC. It’s HELL. You’re lucky if you get out ALIVE. It’s not like there are candles in the hallway or chocolate-dipped-strawberries in the library.
Why are you buying turpentine on Ebay? Wouldn’t it be cheaper at Target or something? The shipping alone would be more expensive than just going out and buying it. Unless you’re looking to buy Brandi Carlile’s “Turpentine.” And if that’s the case, you want her whole album The Story, which is wonderful. You should buy it. Absolutely. Here, I haven’t been able to stop listening to this one lately.
Sorry, there’s no real video and this is kind of terrible. Just close your eyes and listen. “I was born when I met you/Now I’m dying to forget you/And that is what I know.”
Category the Sixth: Heads up: I’m pretty easy NOW. Plus I’m bendier than I’ll be then.
amy easy over 70
I’m easy when I’m over 70? Goodness gracious, when I’m over 70, I’ll be kind of tired. Why will I be easy? Also, why are you wasting my easy years, which I’m pretty sure are now? That’s totally wasteful of you. You’re not going to win any environmental awards for that.
Category the Seventh: ME!
crazy without drugs
I am crazy without drugs. I’m just larger-than-life and over the top ALL THE TIME. And there’s no drugs here, babycakes. Well, prescription drugs, but they don’t count. I mean, if I don’t take them, I’d probably die. They don’t take away the crazy, though. It’s good crazy. Don’t worry. I’m not stabbing anyone or wearing tinfoil hats. I don’t think.
Category the Ninth: Why you trying to gank my boyfriend, yo?
daryl dixon pregnant by daryl Dixon
You cannot have Daryl Dixon. He’s taken. BY ME. I don’t want Norman Reedus, just Daryl Dixon. So, hands off, grabby. You can have Hershel if you want. He’s free. And can’t move very fast so you can totally catch him in a footrace.
MINE.
Category the Tenth:You cannot. Better people than you have tried. And failed. Miserably.
define:lucy’s football
I reject definitions. I am MANY THINGS to MANY PEOPLE. Some days I’m all serious-face and some days I’m all jokey-face and some days I’m crying over something and some days I’m laughing so hard I’m hiccuping. I’m an enigma. Don’t you slap your definitions on me. They’ll slide right off. I’m like TEFLON, baby.
I’m not sure what’s happening here, but it’s totally for you, sj. You’re happy and you’re…um…contraccioning? Is it like a contraction? I’m not even sure, but it makes me smile. I like that you get searches here. I’m happy about that. You’re always welcome to my searches, my most favorite sj.
Category the Twelfth:YES! That’s totally what summer’s like around here!
lucy summer red hot central
It is red-hot central around here in the summer, babes. I walk around in a BIKINI, and there are a lot of SHENANIGANS, and water-throwing, and…um…sun-tanning…and…shit, I can’t even keep this up. What I do in the summer is come home, put on my coolest clothing, and flop in front of the air conditioning and pant like an overheated Newfoundland puppy. I don’t deal well with heat. It’s the worst. The. Worst. Sorry to ruin your sexytimes thoughts.
Category the Thirteenth:Yes! Wait. Who the hell’s Patricia?
sex lucy aka patricia
I was so excited I got an indecent proposal and then I think this is misdirected and you’re looking for someone named Patricia and I am most definitely not Patricia and I’m only minimally Lucy so I think this isn’t even for me at all. Dammit. WHEN’S IT GONNA BE MY TIME?
Category the Fourteenth:They ARE? Cool, send ‘em on over.
this person is in love with you
A PERSON! Is in LOVE with me! Well, good. Listen, I’m totally looking forward to this. Because it’s been a long time. I could use a pleasant diversion. And if the guy’s already in love with me, well, there’s half the battle won. But I will tell you right now: if you, person, break my heart, I WILL STAB YOU WITH A BARBECUE SKEWER. I’ve had enough of that shit to last my whole lifetime over. So get on over here. Extra points if you bring a boombox and a trenchcoat and some Peter Gabriel, darlin’.
Is the person in love with me Lloyd Dobler? I’m down with that.
There. We are finished for the month! All the search terms! All in one post! ALL FOR YOU DAMIEN! I know, it’s really very impressive. I don’t know where you people come from, but I like that you’re here. You make life so much more interesting, you know? And who wants a boring life? No one, is who.
Until next month, my poor lost lambikins. May Google be kind in your searches.
Love, Me.
(As always, thank you to Mer for the inspiration for these posts!)
I know! Three days without me. WhatEVER did you do with yourselves. Oh, what’s that, you didn’t even notice? FINE. GOOD. SEE IF I CARE NEENER NEENER.
This was a weekend of all the busy-ness. Things going on all three nights. It’s like I almost have a life. I KNOW! It’s most impressive and I wouldn’t want to start getting a big head about such a thing.
BUT, because what would all the things be if I didn’t SHARE them (like, for example, if I had a huge box of animal crackers – wouldn’t it be so much better if I shared it with others? Yes. Yes, it would) YOU, my most favorite readers, get recappy goodness of what happened over my weekend of debauchery. Except there wasn’t any debauchery, really. So, just, my weekend, then. Fun, right? Totally fun.
Let’s get crackin’! Like we have nuts! Only we do not have nuts!
NO NUTS!!!!
Friday night was “see a play and have dinner with friend K. and then run home and review the play and then go to bed super-late and wake up early Saturday for work and be all the cranky-tired” night. So that’s exciting, right? Yes.
So friend K. came over right after work and met Newcat. Newcat liked friend K. but also gave her a pissy look that I have decided is Newcat’s default face. Newcat also hissed and growled at Dumbcat, as she does, so K. knows I’m not making up the Thunderdome currently occurring in my domicile. Then we decided to go to Ruby Tuesdays. Because it was easy and fast and on the way and also sometimes I just want salad bar. Don’t you ever just want salad bar? And they have edamame on their salad bar, and I could eat my own weight in edamame.
WAAAAANT.
So we ate all the salad and talked and talked and talked and then it was off to the theater to watch the play.
I have been very lucky in that the plays I have seen over the past five months that I’ve had to review have, on the whole, been quite good. I’ve only seen two I didn’t like very much, but I didn’t hate them, so was able to write a review that wasn’t a total pan. I don’t like to write really negative reviews. Because I work in theater, so I know how hard everyone works. And I know how devastating it is to work that hard, and get just a totally negative review that makes you feel like you’re crap. I’ve been there. I know.
But then I think, if I was just a person, reading the paper, looking for guidance about whether or not I should see a show, and I read a review and it was all “good! Good times!” and I went, and it was TERRIBLE, how would I ever trust that reviewer or that paper’s theater reviews again?
In short: the play was terrible. If I wasn’t reviewing it, I would have left at intermission. And I don’t do that. I am stubborn. I stick it out. ALMOST all the time. I think I’ve only left performances four times since I moved to the area. And I’ve seen a lot of terrible plays in my time. A LOT.
So I sat there and watched this show thinking, “I can’t give this a good review. I just can’t.” Because it wasn’t just my OPINION it was bad. It was perplexing why this show was chosen; the acting was…well, there were about 8 people in the show, I think, and 4 of them were watchable. That’s how the acting was. The others were…not. Just not. And the direction was…lacking. It was nonexistent. In happier news, the set was pretty, as were the costumes. So not ONLY did I have to sit there and watch a terrible SHOW, I had all the angst about having to write a bad review of a local theater group.
But I did it. I totally was true to myself and wrote an honest review. I said nice things about the people who deserved it, and I was not the HARSHEST toward the people that didn’t. Because even if they were terrible, they still worked hard. And today I read the review from the reviewer from the other paper and his review was very similar to mine, and he’s been doing this a long time, so I’m going to assume that it WAS a terrible play and I’m not even making it up in my head.
ANYWAY, then I worked all day Saturday and the highlight of that was that on Sunday, one of our clients was doing free cabs for St. Patrick’s Day. So people wouldn’t drive drunk, you see. But the drunks thought they should ALSO be doing them on SATURDAY. Because our big St. Patrick’s Day parade was Saturday and everyone gets drunk in the streets for that. So they kept calling us all drunk and belligerent and all “YOU NEED TO PICK ME UP I AM DRUUUUUNK!” and “THIS IS ILLEGAL!” and, my personal favorite, “THIS IS *hiccup* BULLSHIT AND YOU ARE BULLSHIT! Nah, I’m just kiddin’. GOODBYE!” I’m so glad I wasn’t working on Sunday when the ACTUAL drunks were calling. These were just pre-drunks. Practicing drunks. Baby-drunks.
GET ME A CAB, LADY!
THEN I went home for an Office Space group watch with sj and crew. You can totally read our shenanigans, thanks to sj’s kickass Storify skillzzzzz. Oh, and before that, I went to Rite Aid to get…crap, I don’t even remember what I was getting, something. But they recently retooled our Rite Aid so it’s pretty and the aisles are wider and the floors are shiny-new and so as a consequence are discontinuing some things, and are having a huge sale on them. Some of those things are high-end hair-care items. Which are all now 75% off. Like, FANCY shampoo and conditioner. FOR $2!!! Which I totally bought. Then I went back today and bought the rest of it, because then I’ll have enough shampoo and conditioner for like months and it’s really good, for the same price as the cheap crap is, normally. WIN WIN WINNNNNN!
SO GOOD. And it smells like fruit punch.
WHEW! Let’s take a quick breather before the end of this, ok? I mean, it’s already really long, but I need to pee and give Dumbcat some treats and find something to watch on the teevee.
I AM BACK! I feel much better, I hope you all do as well. Relaxed? Good.
So SUNDAY, I got up all early and got ready and drove to Poughkeepsie! To see C. and C.! ADVENTURE! The drive to Poughkeepsie was fine and there were very few people on the road, which was nice. I dislike people. Also, Dad was all, “SO MANY DRUNKS WILL BE ON THE ROAD!” but I think they weren’t drinking yet at 9:30am.
Also, as somewhat of a side note, I realized just before I left that I needed to put money on my EZpass. If you don’t live in New York, that is the little plastic thingy on your windshield that lets you drive on the highway without paying at the toll in cash moneys. But I haven’t reupped it in a while. And didn’t know my password or my username. And the website was a nightmare. And kept timing me out and kicking me out. ALL I WANT TO DO IS PUT MONEY ON MY EZPASS NEW YORK STATE! Aren’t you all hard-up for money? WHY WON’T YOU TAKE MY MONEY!?!?!? But I persevered and WON and had money on my card and then found out it didn’t take effect for 48 hours. So probably all my traveling caused fees on my card. That was NOT a win. I really need to plan ahead for such things.
Damn you, EZPass!
ANYWAY, I got to C. and C.’s lovely new house and it was SO EXCITING!!! It is the prettiest house. It is the only red house on the whole street and it has a DRIVEWAY and a YARD and will have ROSES when the weather gets nicer. Listen, I kind of almost had tears. I don’t have many friends with houses. Or if I do, they live far away and I don’t get to see them. This felt very grown-uppy to me.
So I got to have a tour of their house! And the INSIDE is even better than the OUTSIDE! It was built in the 40s and it’s totally old-fashionedy. But not in a weird gramma way. In a history way. It has good history. You feel good when you walk around in it. Safe and good. It’s a house that’s been around for a long time and will BE around for a long time and it feels like it knows you and has absorbed all the good vibes of all the people who came before and it’s cozy and it’s got cool quirky things like a huge basement without even any ghosts! And a whole BATHROOM in the basement! Like, with a SHOWER in it! And a whole sunroom where you can sit and read in the sun! And the whole upstairs is like an attic but also a huge bedroom with little cupboardy closets built right into the walls! And it has the most beautiful wooden floors that just glow and shine! I walked around like I was touring the Taj Mahal. And in my mind, I was. I can’t imagine I would have liked the Taj Mahal any more than I loved C. and C.’s new house. It is the most perfect house for them.
Meh. It’s no C. & C.’s house.
I didn’t want to be a weirdo who puts photos of their new house all over the internet but I DID take SOME photos because there were some things that needed to be documented because they just tickled me so damn much.
This is C.’s cat reading Body Dump, which, if you remember, was the book I mentioned a while back about the MURDER HOUSE IN POUGHKEEPSIE! As you can see, her cat is very enthralled. C. is LESS enthralled. “That book is terrible,” she said. “You’re reading it and it’s like, there’s terrible writing, and then there’s this.” I told her that I have found many true-crime novels to be this way. It IS, however, by the person who wrote Lobster Boy. So what could go wrong, really?
This was outside the bathroom. C. (BOY C., not GIRL C.) told me that every house had one of these, but I have never seen one in my life. I like how dramatic this is. It is SO RED! It is an EMERGENCY SWITCH! LOOK OUT! EMERGENCY! Also it looks so old-fashionedy, doesn’t it? Like it’s from ago? This is kind of blurry. We were in a hurry to hit the road at this point.
This is the BEST thing. This is the control panel for an old-fashioned alarm system that is not hooked up anymore, but I think it looks like the control panel for a spaceship. I think every house should have one of these. It gives the house a lot of old-fashioned charm, right? Also, if these lights started going off in the middle of the night, it would be like the past had come back to get you. Also, I decided the basement was an old bomb shelter. Whether it was or not, who knows, but I like to imagine things. It makes every day a calvacade of wonder and mystery.
Sadly, we could not go to the murder house, because C. researched it and it had been torn down. TORN DOWN! So we could see where the murder house WAS but not the murder HOUSE. Oh, the march of progress. (Apparently, the house was…smelly. From the rotting dead people he kept in the attic. I know. I KNOW.)
UPDATE UPDATE! So it was BOY C. that said the murder house was razed, but GIRL C. emailed me this morning with the following link and said IT IS STILL THERE! She’s tenacious, right? So we’re totally going to creep it next time I visit. Also, you have to watch this video because the guy on it makes me laugh and expects us to believe that he had all the hooker-sex back in the day.
Then we went to a diner that ALSO looked like a spaceship for lunch. SPACESHIP DAY!
And of course I had waffles. I am obsessed with waffles. Also, there were little jukeboxes on all the tables. Which I find adorable. If I lived my perfect life, I think I might eat every meal in a diner. EVERY MEAL. And sometimes I wouldn’t even eat waffles. Sometimes I might eat french toast or pancakes. (I would, however, always eat bacon.)
Then it was time to go to the play! The theater was about half an hour away and my GPS didn’t take me the same way it took C. We took separate cars because it was half an hour closer to home for me to leave from there. So my GPS took me down weird country roads and I was fairly sure it was the wrong way, but it actually was NOT the wrong way, and the theater was kind of in the middle of nowhere.
(OH SIDE NOTE FOR SJ! On the way to C. and C.’s house, I drove past a very funny hotel that I THOUGHT was called TAK Hotel, and I started saying “TAK! TAK AH LAH!” at it and laughing like a moron and wondering who would stay there but then I realized it was called PAK Hotel and that was not at all as funny and kind of confusing, actually. What kind of name is Pak for a hotel, I ask you? Also, this is not going to make any sense to the rest of you unless you’ve read Stephen King’s Desperation or The Regulators.)
So I got to the theater and it was LOVELY, even though it was in the middle of nowhere. C. told me that people in Rhinebeck have mucho dinero, so I suppose that explains it.
It’s brand-new and looks like a barn and has lots of parking and when it’s summer, it must be just beautiful up there. So green and lush.
Inside, it’s even better. Huge and echoey and clean and new and shiny. I was quite enamored.
The stage is deep and the seats are at an angle so everyone has good sightlines but they also gave us plenty of room to move. I was super-pleased.
And in even BETTER news, the show was A. MAY. ZING.
The set was gorgeous. Things came out of the flyspace and up out of the floor and the choreography was BRILLIANT and almost all of the actors both sang and acted beautifully.
ALMOST, I said. Come on. I’m a little picky. Problems: the lead girl, instead of doing her own thing with the role, decided to play it like Lea Michele. And I feel that’s the lazy person’s way out. In comparison, the actor playing Melchior did his own thing with it, and he was STELLAR. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Also, a few of the actors in smaller roles were VERY flat, but they danced well, so I’m not sure what I should pay more attention to. And, in news of the WORST, the actor playing Moritz (who, when I saw the touring Broadway production, stole the show) was such a scenery-chewer that C. and I were totally distressed. He’s supposed to be SOMEWHAT over the top, but OMGGGGG you guys. He kept trying to upstage everyone else. And when no one else was onstage, he was attempting to upstage himself. HE WAS OUT OF CONTROL.
However, the rest of the show was brilliant. The set was gorgeous and the music was amazing and I totally got tears and at one point our Melchior totally came into the audience to do some leapy things and at intermission I said, “You love this, right?” to C. and she had glowy eyes of love and I was SO PLEASED because the only thing better than getting to see one of your favorite musicals is sharing it with one of your most beloved people who haven’t seen it before and having THEM love it, too!
Then it was over and it was time to go home and as always, that is sad. Goodbye to C.! Goodbye to happy theater! Goodbye to Rhinebeck!
The GPS took me ANOTHER weird way to get to the highway down ANOTHER podunk highway. Oh, I totally forgot to tell you that on the way to C. and C.’s house, I went past a road that was called “Hooker Road” and that seemed ill-advised. Who would want to live on Hooker Road? I wouldn’t even think hookers would want that, because then everyone would know what they did for a living.
Then I got home and there were NO drunks, so Dad was totally wrong about the plethora of drunks I was going to encounter. Or maybe they just weren’t driving yet since it was only 7pm, who knows.
And THERE ENDS OUR TALE of WEEKEND OF ADVENTURE! It was all very much successful, even if all these things made the weekend go by in a quick quick flash and now it’s the week again and it’s like I didn’t even HAVE a weekend. Next weekend is less busy, with only one play to see. More resty-time. And right now we’re having a super-duper-snowstorm so that’ll be fun driving tomorrow. Huzzah!
Happy…what day is this. Tuesday? HAPPY TUESDAY TO YOU ALL!
Sometimes sj sends me awesome things. Well, a LOT of times, I don’t want it to sound like it’s only once and a WHILE the things she sends me are awesome. That would be a terribly ungrateful thing to say, now wouldn’t it? (And also untrue.)
So a while ago (I TOLD you guys I had a lot of things saved up! I wasn’t even LYING!) she sent me a link to the following. It is called “the saddest map in America.”
First, I’m sure you know about Craig’s List Missed Connections, right? People see someone and think they have…I don’t know, a bond with them, or something, or they talk to them briefly, and then for whatever reason they don’t (or I guess can’t) ask them out. So they hit Craig’s List and they post a Missed Connection post, which very often read something like this:
Hot moma on the bus – m4f – 34
I was taking the bus yestrday to get to my job at the condem plant and saw you on the bus and gurl you are fine. You had long fingernailz adn also a hat. I asked you for gum because I had bad breath but you didn’t have no gum. If you want to hit this reply and tell me what body part I asked you to touch.
I wish I was kidding but I am sadly not at all kidding.
So let’s take a look at this map.
Well, obviously the saddest thing is that so many people miss their connections at Walmart. I don’t know if that says more about the type of people that go to Walmart or the type of people that use Missed Connections, to be honest. I can tell you right now I never once have seen someone that turned my crank (totally a euphemism) at Walmart. However, I have been boycotting Walmart for years, and go into one maybe…once a year? Maybe? And then only when I’m with one or the other of my parents who haven’t got many options for shopping OTHER than Walmart.
Save money; live better; regret for the rest of your life not asking out the lady buying the gallon of delousing shampoo.
Also there are many states that are missing connections in supermarkets. I think a lot of people are squeezing melons and fondling avocados out there. I also enjoy missed connections at “McDonald’s” and “parking lots,” the State Fair and, my PERSONAL favorite, “at home.” I like to think of the “at home” people missing their connections with their husbands or wives, like two ships passing in the night. And then going on Craig’s List and writing to each other. “Saw you in the living room the other day. Like what you’ve done with your hair. Text me!”
However, I take offense at New York’s. “Subway”? REALLY? Well, I get it. New York City is the most populated part of our state. True. But I do not LIVE in New York City. I live in ALBANY. And we have a Craig’s List, too, you know. We TOTALLY do. With its OWN Missed Connections section! (I cannot ensure, if you click on that, it’s safe for work. Or for those of you that like good spelling, grammar, or taste.)
“Hey, boy, liked they way you looked all disaffected and shit, if you like talking about the environment and long foreign films, I might be the one for you!”
WELL! What was I to do with that?
Ms. Gambrell, to get her results, collected each state’s 100 most recent missed connections per state (which makes sense – New York City, of course, is going to have a higher number of postings that little old Albany.)
SO, because I am SCIENCY, I went on OUR Craig’s List (and didn’t even catch an STD, I’m pretty impressed, too) and read through enough sad, scary Missed Connections to collect 100 of them with locations in them to come up with the following ALBANY statistics for you. I know. You don’t even have to thank me. YOU ARE WELCOME!
Work 13
Restaurant 10
Bar 8
Gas station 8
Grocery store 7
Gym 6
Mall 5
Home 5
Driving 4
Online dating 4
Hospital 3
Bank 3
Walmart 2
Coffee shop 2
Radio Shack 2
Drugstore 2
Massage parlor
Best Buy
Hockey game
Time Warner Cable
Home Depot
Hotel
Dollar store
Bus stop
Jiffy Lube
Auto repair shop
Game Stop
Bowling station
DMV
Porn shop
Verizon
Goodwill
WELL! What have we learned about Albany, or at least the type of people who post on Albany Craig’s List?
Apparently, we miss most of our connections at work. That makes me sad. If you work with the person (or if the person is a delivery person or whatever) you see them regularly, I’d assume? Flirt with them. Lead up to asking them out, maybe as part of a group thing, I don’t know. I know it’s awkward, because you work together, but you’re obviously hoping that something will happen, otherwise you wouldn’t have posted on Craig’s List. So DO something about it, jellybean, or you’re going to spend the rest of your life wracked with regret.
Psst, Brian, let’s go photocopy our naughty bits together.
A lot of people have missed connections at restaurants and the person they’re missing connections with are the servers. I am pleased to report that once, I had a hot waiter, and I gave him my number, and he, a friend of his, and a friend of mine went on a somewhat-successful double date. He was pretty. There was kissing. It didn’t happen again, but he also wasn’t a psycho-killer and I can say I gave a stranger my number one time, you know, in case that ever comes up in conversation or whatever.
I couldn’t say this one with a straight face. I hate raisins. SO MUCH.
There are a lot of things you would expect on here, but also some perplexing things. “Home,” for the record, are people who are secretly in love with their neighbors, not sending out missed connections to their wives or husbands. One of the “driving” people was trying to hook up with the cop that pulled her over for speeding, and I’m not even kidding about that. The “online dating” people made me so sad. They were people who had been talking to someone online, and then the person stopped talking to them or returning their calls, so they hit Craig’s List as a last-ditch effort to reconnect. Aw, honey. The person didn’t get hit by a bus, they’re no longer interested. I’m sorry to hit you with some hard truth, here, but it’s the way of the world. The “hospital” people were in love with their nurses. Which I think says something about their psyches more than anything. Those people are paid to be nice to you, sweetheart. “Radio Shack” made me confused, mostly because I wasn’t aware we even still had a Radio Shack, let alone that people were missing connections at one. Don’t people just buy their electronics online nowadays? Then we’ve got the porn store or massage parlor people, of course, as you do. Or the dollar store/Goodwill people.
So there you have it: Albany’s biggest missed connection is: WORK. So! Do yourself a favor, and if you are secretly in love with your cubicle-mate, ask him or her out for a drink or to Applebee’s or something. (Once, I was totally in love with my coworker Jim. Jim was SO HANDSOME. However, even though there was quite a bit of flirting, I realized he was just flirty, and not madly in love with me as I’d hoped, so I gave up, with a sigh of melancholy. Every now and then I think of pretty, pretty Work-Jim and smile, because even though nothing happened, it was a fun few months of flirting, and getting dressed up for work and looking forward to actually GOING to work and such. Aw, Work-Jim, I hope you are doing well wherever you ended up, you were a fun, and all-too-brief, distraction.)
Oh – Newcat update and SIDE NOTE! She is well. She still wants nothing to do with Dumbcat and he is still fascinated by her. She is very lovey with me unless I bother her when she is sleeping; then she becomes a complete ball of hisses and growls and bites and claws, which is an interesting and worrisome cat-behavior. She has a checkup on Thursday to make sure she’s healthy because she’s limping a little and I want to make sure she’s alright (plus I’m a responsible cat-mom and Dumbcat needs his annual booster shots and checkup as well.) She’s still a little skittish, but things are all very new here. I’m very happy, overall, with the progress, and the past two nights, the cats have cuddled me, one on one side, one on the other, and I’ve been very warm and loved. So all’s well!
