Archive | January, 2011

For the record: I was NOT an alarmist.

31 Jan

Courteney Cox: this should've been your first clue that you were marrying down.

About a month ago I posted about a firelog from hell trying to kill me. I’m sure you thought I was over-reacting, that my toting a fire extinguisher around was overkill.

Well, I’m here to tell you that Google says otherwise.

Since writing that post, every week I’ve had a few blog hits because people googled the following search terms:

  • how to kill fire log
  • how to extinguish pine mountain logs
  • what the hell is a fire log
  • fire log ashes
  • 12 hour fire log

Don’t judge the first guy, the one who asked “how to kill fire log?” in his best caveman voice. I know EXACTLY how he feels. Because when your log is shooting 3-foot flames up your chimney, it has become a living thing that must be killed, not just extinguished.

Along those lines, I’m guessing the second person was still in the “curious” phase and not yet terrified, because there’s no way I could’ve spelled “extinguish” when worried that I was going to burn my entire building to the ground.

I’m curious about the guy who googled, “what the hell is a fire log.” Why so angry, sir? And where were you that the topic of a fire log arose without also having someone on hand to define it? Or were you curious about a fire log’s chemical components? Actually, if that’s what you were driving at – if your tone is more of awe than anger – I can completely relate.

And last, for the 12-hour searcher: wishful thinking. A 12 hour fire ? That’s called a furnace.

Judgement: vindicated. Thank you very much.

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Kind of like dueling banjos… but a bit less melodic.

30 Jan

My friend Krista was in town this weekend, so last night a group of us headed to an Indian restaurant for dinner together. Because I have a bladder the approximate size of a golf ball, as soon as we arrived, I cruised to the bathroom.

There were two (one for the men, one for the ladies) but they were of the single room variety, where you lock the door behind you rather than seal yourself into a stall.

So imagine my surprise when – after locking the door – I found myself facing THIS arrangement:

I’ve seen some crazy bathrooms in my day (one word: Italy) but this was by far the most thought provoking.

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Open mouth (write Christmas card), insert foot.

29 Jan

Look - there's a book about me!

I’m a bit old fashioned when it comes to letters – I like to write them, I like to receive them, and I tend to believe email is a poor substitute for any sentiment that isn’t really urgent.

So it’s probably no surprise that I take Christmas cards fairly seriously, carving out hours before the holiday to write them. (And yes, I actually write in my Christmas cards, following the example my mom set when we were growing up. It seems to be a disappearing practice.)

Except this year I made a mistake. I sent a card to one of my cousins and FORGOT to include one of her children in the greeting. I addressed the salutation to her, her husband and their son. No mention of the daughter. OOPS.

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Not so funny, but true: A watched pot doesn’t boil – my blood does.

27 Jan

This is what comes up when you google "Snowy Thundercat." In case you were curious.

The East Coast got pummeled with ThunderSnow yesterday. Upon hearing the forecast, my head immediately jumped to ThunderCats, so I was like, “COOL. BRING IT!”

And then I realized it was a snowstorm with lightning, and my revised thought was, “Um. I hope this doesn’t mess up my flight!”

Alas, it did. My 4:30pm flight to Detroit was cancelled at noon yesterday. At the time of the cancellation, the ground was completely dry and there was nary flake in the sky, so I thought USAirways was annoyingly cautious. I called to book another flight, and they attempted to put me on a 6pm flight to Philly that would connect to Detroit with a midnight arrival.

Um, thanks, but if you can’t get ONE plane off the ground when it’s not even snowing, I don’t have much confidence that you’ll be able to swing a two-leg flight that leaves later AND routes through a city that is forecast to receive even more snow than DC. So I asked what else they had that was direct, and got booked for 8:35 am today.

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Warning: Men might want to skip this one.

25 Jan
WARNING: Today’s post is brought to you by the Flashback Machine and True Stories of Teenage Girls. If you are a man, hate embarrassing stories, or don’t care to take a trip down memory lane, then you might want to skip this one.

Wow. That didn’t throw you? Good. Because I’m pretty sure my third paragraph will.

I swam a mile before work yesterday at one of DC’s public pools. A local high school swim team was there practicing as well, which always brings back fond memories of my own high school days… even though I was a diver an couldn’t be PAID to swim laps at that point in life. (Probably because of my preternaturally high metabolism.) I digress.

So what is memorable about yesterday’s swim is this: the bloody footprints leading into (and around) the locker room.

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