Give me a chance to wash it before you call me PigPen.

29 Dec

Uh oh. Just as I’m getting ready to sit down and craft my resolutions for 2011, I’m on the road to developing a new vice.

Yesterday I stopped by Bed Bath & Beyond to pick up drapes and a curtain rod for my bedroom in an attempt to add a layer of insulation to my double windows. Of course, no trip to BB&B is complete without a ridiculous impulse buy, so upon arriving home I somehow found myself in possession of this item:

Note: one side is fleece, the other is like a little lamb.

I am already in possession of two afghans, so I’m not sure why I needed another throw blanket. At least, I wasn’t sure until I sat under it. Holy shit. I now know what babies feel like when given their first Blanky Boo Boo. It was warm… it was soft… it even seemed to snuggle back, if that’s possible. At times I found myself reaching down and petting it, as if it were a kitten.

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Where did I end Christmas day? In Cabot Cove. With Jessica Fletcher.

28 Dec

Look closely: this is a towel wrapped around her neck inside a warm-up jacket. Yes, that's what Jessica wears jogging.

And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve clearly never been a “Murder She Wrote” fan. You should probably stop reading now, before this post makes you dumb.

Oh Lord, this is a shameful admission. Christmas evening, trying to wind down from a fun and full day, Alan and I tapped into one of our favorite guilty pleasures: crawling into bed to watch a streaming movie or TV show. We were both fidgeting and exceptionally tired, so that’s the only way I can explain our <my> choice for viewing: the pilot episode of “Murder She Wrote.”

If you enjoy bad television, then let me tempt you: the pilot episode of Murder She Wrote is nothing short of a train wreck, including an absurdly long title sequence that features Angela Lansbury (aka “Jessica Fletcher”) jogging or riding a bike all over Cabot Cove, a small fictional town in Maine.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but generally the only seniors I see running are the ones who have made it a lifetime habit and aren’t packing any extra pounds. I’m willing to suspend disbelief and pretend this woman got a book published by a lark, but ask me to believe she’s a runner and you lost me at hello.

As for the show itself: how it ever got picked up as a series is beyond me. Must’ve been different viewing standards then (or the aging Boomer population at play), because these days I think you’d be hard-pressed to center a show around an overweight senior citizen.

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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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Vocabulary that sizzles. Fo’ shizzle.

26 Dec

To pass time on Christmas day, we started a three-generation game of Tripoli at my parents’ house. (Tripoli is a card game with three stages that includes Michigan Rummy, poker and money cards.)

Near the end of the game, my attention waned, so I got a bit squirrelly. When playing the poker stage, I announced that my hand contained a “fizzle hizzle” instead of saying “full house.”

When it was time to count off, I led with a “tizzle” (two), followed by a “thrizzle” and so on.

My 12 year old nephew got a kick out of my counting style, so when it was his turn to lay down a Jack, he announced it with “JIZZLE!”

And immediately made a swallowed noise of embarrassment that was combination laugh/cough/gasp that let us know he realized he had just said a word that might be a synonym for “ejaculation” at his grandparents’ dining table. On Christmas Day.

Because nothing says “Merry Christmas, Grandma!” like announcing that your pre-teen slang vocabulary now includes fornication. (Fortunately, I’m pretty sure “jiz” is not a word my parents know, because when I later tried to explain the humor to them, they gave me a blank look. Though actually, that might have been because I didn’t do the SNL skit justice when I explained it.)

Next year, by way of a sequel, we’ll have to take home a bag of chestnuts and see what that does for the conversation.

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I didn’t need medicating until I went to your pharmacy.

23 Dec

Fifty cents per can? It's like they're paying us to drink it. (Wait: they kind of have to.)

I remember learning in seventh grade that ambrosia is “food of the gods.” I’m wondering if there’s another succinct term that means “white trash provisions.” Because that’s what Alan I were clearly holding as we stood in line at Walgreens Monday night: frozen buffalo wings, frozen pizza rolls, frozen taquitos, two Gatorades, a Diet Mt. Dew and a six pack of Big Flats, a beer that Walgreens sells for $3/six pack.

Alan seemed embarrassed by our selections, but – I pointed out – it’s not like they had any salads for sale.

We were on our way to my friend Shannon’s house for the night, and we’d told her we would eat dinner before heading over. Neither of us was really hungry though, so we ended up just grabbing some munchies to pop in the oven later in the evening. Which is how we ended up in line at a Walgreens.

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