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I’m pretty sure the real gift he’s trying to give me is religion.

27 Dec

Not safe for communion.

Last week while I was in Michigan I got a phone call from a stranger informing me that she had erroneously received a holiday package intended for me. My suite number at work is 630-E; apparently FedEx delivered my package to a church at 630 E Street SW.

From her voice, I gathered that Mrs. Marshall was an older African-American woman. I thanked her for letting me know she had received my package, but then went on to explain I was out of town and couldn’t retrieve it immediately.

“I’ll be back in DC on Monday. Could I come by for it then?” I asked.

“Monday, you say? That could work.” She paused. “But, uh, it says ‘alcohol’ on the box.”

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Sleeping with the fishes and a spelling lesson in the Big D.

22 Dec

This week I’ve been working in our Detroit office so I can spend time with my family leading up to the holiday. The office is in a large office park in a place called “Bingham Farm” which I think is actually a fancy name (ironically) for Southfield.

Everyone had to work from home for a week last month because the suite next to ours caught on fire. I never heard many details, so on this visit I was poking around being nosy. Turns out, the fire was caused by a massive fish tank.

Really? Something filled with water almost burns the building down? What are the odds?

Or – as I would like to think – maybe it was the fish themselves. When I was a kid, I had a goldfish that had a death wish and routinely flung himself out of his bowl. Maybe these fish were part of a larger sleeper cell and were willing to sacrifice themselves to wipe out some humans. Maybe the head goldfish promised them 72 virgin fish would be waiting for them in heaven.

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My dinner is less interesting than your panties. Probably.

13 Dec

One of the interesting acoustic features of my condo is that the wall separating my kitchen from my neighbor’s kitchen is strictly a privacy shield. It does nothing to block the noise.

Fortunately, of all the rooms in my place, that’s the one in which I’m most comfortable with eavesdropping (or being overheard). A few months ago I posted on Facebook something along the lines of, “It sounds like my neighbors have a pet goat.” This weekend I got to the bottom of that mystery. It is my neighbor, singing.

Apparently the guy is tone deaf. Saturday night we was in the kitchen loading the dryer and I heard him trying to belt out some hiphop. And it sounded like a goat bleating. Bless his heart.

He interrupted the song to tell someone that it was a good thing he was doing laundry because he was out of clean underwear. He went on to inform us that he had considered turning his underwear inside-out to get a few more days out of them, but had ultimately decided that would just make his pants dirty.

Whew.

I thought about pulling up a chair and just sitting there to see what else I could learn, since the guy was cracking me up, but it was about that time my fire turned all kinds of ape-shit crazy in the living room, forcing me to run out and get my fire extinguisher.

Fast forward to Sunday night. I’m in the kitchen alone, frying up bacon, onion and mushrooms in a skillet. And I find myself saying – to absolutely no one other than myself – “Oh hells yeah. This is some awesomeness right here. A skillet of bacon, onions and mushrooms for dinner? Who’s jealous? Who’s jealous?”

Except, I wasn’t exactly SAYING it. I was kind of shrieking it because I was excited. And that’s when I heard the distinct sound of my neighbor’s dryer starting. Which means he was probably over there pointing at the wall so his girlfriend could hear me going bananas for a non-nutritional dinner.

At least he’s clear: I’m not a goat. Hells no.

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I’m supposed to be making Christmas cookies…

11 Dec

But instead, I’m pacing around my house, trying to figure out what I should eat for lunch, and if it’s too late to eat lunch.

Why am I devoting so many brain cells to such a simple thing? Because I’m getting a massage in 90 minutes and don’t want to feel like a beached whale on the massage table. I’ve definitely done that before: eaten too close to rub time and then, when they say, “Roll over on your stomach,” I’m like, “Really? Are you sure you want me to do this??? OK, fine, it IS your table.”

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The best thing since sliced bread…

4 Dec

…would be a toaster that toasts sliced bread. Without burning it.

I just bought a toaster oven two weeks ago, making it the first toaster I’ve owned as an adult. You would think that if I managed without one for the 11 years I’ve lived alone, there would be no need to suddenly break down and join the toasting party.

You would be wrong.

There were two main drivers behind this purchase: 1) I feel guilty when I heat my entire oven to heat something for all of 8 minutes (like a frozen pizza), and 2) I have been craving cinnamon toast a lot lately. Because I have the palette of a ten year old.

I bought the smallest toaster oven I could find, hoping for something that didn’t chew up too much counter space. While I’m thrilled with the size of my model, I’m less thrilled with its temperament. It seems to have two settings: OFF and BURN.

In the two weeks I’ve owned it, I have ruined two frozen belgian waffles and a tray of spinach puff pastry hors d’ouvres. That might not sound like much, but it’s 50% of what I’ve attempted to heat.

And my place is permeated with a burning/charred smell to such and extent that it’s becoming my personal fragrance. I’m pretty sure that at yoga last weekend, shortly after I walked into the studio I heard someone say, “What’s that burning smell?”

If that happens today, I’m prepared: I’ll hand her a lifesaver and say, “I think it’s your breath.”

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