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Sometimes I forget I live in a building with other people.

23 May

I’ll admit, I was spoiled by my last place. I had one of only two condos on the top floor of a building, so foot traffic past my door was almost non-existent. Especially because the first four years I lived there, my only neighbor was stationed in Spain. It was awesome.

I’ve since done an absolute reversal, moving onto the middle floor of a much larger (and much noisier) building. All because my condo fee was creeping up too high for my taste. Dumb Alison. I’d gladly pay twice the condo fee if I didn’t hear my neighbor stomping above me at all hours. (And by all hours, I specifically mean between 3:30-5:00am. And by neighbor, I mean you, Michael.)

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I didn’t know “amusé bouche” meant “loud mouth.”

14 May

Alan’s birthday is coming up, so we decided to celebrate it properly while we were in London. As a foodie (and Food Network addict), he gets a semi-chubb for Chef Gordon Ramsay, so it was on his bucket list to eat at one of Ramsay’s restaurants. Thus, Alan made a reservation for us to have lunch at Claridge’s, and I picked up the tab. That’s how birthdays work.

We both did the five-course tasting menu, paired with wine flights for 55 pounds each. I’ll leave the nuanced food descriptions to Alan since he took copious notes (more on that shortly), and instead just share a couple quick observations.

But first, in case you don’t know who Gordon Ramsay is, this flowchart of his show (Hell’s Kitchen) created by Cracked.com should help serve as a primer:

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I guess I might need some tips on hosting.

30 Apr

As I get older, I find I’m less spontaneous than I used to be. Mainly because I’m generally exhausted, but also because I no longer have spontaneous friends who call and propose something fun, last-minute.

So I’m pretty proud that this week I seized on two different opportunities — one was a last-minute dinner at Indique with my friend Betsy, who texted me on her bus ride home, proposing dinner. Awesome. The other was last night… as I was leaving yoga at 7pm my friend Seth texted. I called him and we agreed to meet up an hour later for dinner at my place. Double awesome.

Since I’d just exited yoga, it was a bit of a whirlwind — I walked to Homemade Pizza to pick up a pizza and salad, getting home all of 20 minutes before Seth and Johnny were slated to arrive. I did a quick clean-up of my place, tossed a bottle of bubbles in the fridge, then changed clothes and put on a touch of make-up so I wouldn’t frighten them.

Up until this point, you’re probably pretty impressed with my ability to host on a moment’s notice. I know I was. Where I think I need some help is what to do when my guests arrive. Because while we had a great time catching up, I’m going to guess there are a few parts of the evening that the boys would rather not repeat.

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911: Tales from Dispatch

21 Mar

If the callers decorated cakes, they might look like this.

One of my dear friends works as a 911 dispatcher in a major US city. I never want to be the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf, so I tend not to call 911 – even when it’s probably warranted.

(To wit: after going over the top of that Prius last month, the witnesses had to convince me to call 911, and when I finally did, I asked the dispatcher to send a police officer but not an ambulance.)

Apparently other Americans don’t have this qualm, because I get a text or email from my friend about once a week highlighting the latest bullshit she’s been subjected to. For your amusement, here are a few of her anecdotes.

 

Please let this woman edit the dictionary:

Wow. I asked a caller for her telephone number and she says – like I’m the stupid one, “Telephone number?! I don’t have a telephone number. I have a cellophone number.” I tried to explain (don’t ask me why I bothered) that her telephone number was indeed her cell phone when she once again insisted she didn’t have a telephone number and I gave up.

Nice. A Cellephone number. Do you think she covers her left-overs with Telephane?

Stop wiggling your tail at me:

Just had a report of a car driving erotically.

I’m still not clear on why 9-1-1 was called for this:

Oh my. This young man was saying he was at his friend’s crib and his baby mam came over and there’s a no trash passing sign in the front. I asked him if he thought it was funny to call his child’s mother trash. He said his apartment entrance had a no trash passing zone posted. He sounded young, so I pictured one of those fake parking signs you can buy in a gag store. Turns out it was actually a no trespassing sign. He just couldn’t read it.

Get your mind out of the gutter:

Early during the job, she received a call from a woman reporting a man who was asleep on a bench.

“His pants are kind of pulled down. And all his junk is all over,” she said.

My friend replied, “So he is exposing himself?”

The woman paused for a fairly long time, then responded, “No. His STUFF is scattered all around him. What do you mean, is he exposing himself?”

A big THANK YOU to the 9-1-1 workers out there. Thanks for tolerating our general stupidity.

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Doing our best to give HR job security.

16 Mar

Yesterday morning I was showing a colleague a piece of corporate swag I had received at an event. It was a rubber watch made in the style of those “Silly Bandz” or “Slapz” things that are popular with kids these days.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? First, thanks for making me feel better for actually knowing what these things are. I feel much less grandma-esque now. Second, for your edification: they are rubber watches that are straight and rigid until you hit them on something – then they curve and wrap around it.

Hence this watch looks kind of like a ruler until you smack it on your wrist – then it curves and becomes a bracelet around your wrist. Get it?

Anyway, as I showed it to my colleague, she said, “Awesome! I love this.”

And then, seeing it go from curled to straight, about a beat later she exclaimed, “It’s like a little orange penis!”

At this point, she happened to realize she had SPOKEN OUT LOUD and that we were not the only people in the office. In fact, the person closest to us was a guy, separated only by a cubicle wall, left to his own imagination to figure out what we were talking about. She collapsed into a puddle of embarrassment on her desk.

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