Tag Archives: Alan

Shuck ’em if you got ’em!

9 Nov

This is just a random photo of someone in an oyster costume, not in Urbanna. Which means there are MULTIPLE people in the world dressing as oysters. Wouldn't have seen that coming.

When we originally decided to take vacation in November, Alan and I had our sights set on Argentina.

Then I looked at a map. 

For someone who is a pretty good (and relatively seasoned) traveler, I have a horrific grasp of geography for places I’ve never visited. Hence why I expected Argentina to be a) Due South of Washington DC, and b) About a five hour flight from DC. When I realized the time commitment needed to arrive in Buenos Aires, it made me shudder.

I’ve traveled a lot for work this year – Boston, Chicago, LA, New York, London, Sydney and Melbourne – so the idea of flying somewhere didn’t actually sound like vacation to me. Fortunately, Alan’s easy going, so we agreed to scrap a longer haul and explore by car within a three hour radius of DC.

Which is how we found ourselves rolling out of bed at 5am Saturday to hit the road and aim for Urbanna, where the annual Oyster Festival was underway. (And where, apparently, the roads into town close at 9am on festival day, necessitating our ass-early departure.)

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , ,

Things I witnessed while peering between my fingers.

7 Oct

Have you ever seen someone’s eye get sliced open? I have!

Alan got LASIK yesterday, and I went along out of morbid curiosity  for moral support. I’m here to tell you: it is not for the feint of heart.

I met him at the office just before his procedure. By that time he’d had about an hour to process some anti-anxiety pills they fed him, so when I greeted him in the waiting room, he was running a one-man comedy show for the benefit of his fellow patients and insisting that the drugs were doing nothing for him.

Since he was only minutes away from having parts of his eye destroyed by a laser, I’m thinking the drugs were definitely working.

When it was his time, I watched the procedure through a glass wall, seeing both Alan in real life and a magnified image broadcast on a monitor. And I kind of wanted to barf.

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , ,

I love bacon, but PETA might recruit me.

12 Sep

More my speed.

Alan has decided he will never fish with me again.

It seems extreme, but I can’t really say I blame him. Not after how I behaved last week.

We were in Michigan, visiting my family. My parents have a cottage on a small lake, and – in accordance with some unwritten Michigan Lake law – a pontoon boat. One night at sunset we decided to grab some fishing poles, some bait, and putter out into the lake to see if we could catch anything.

As a kid, I loved fishing and was generally pretty lucky with what I’d catch. Before our annual trek to visit my grandparents in Alabama, I’d be out in our back garden, digging up worms so I could take down some Real Michigan Nightcrawlers for Papa. He always swore they were bigger than Alabama worms, and I believed him.

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , ,

What’s not to like about a road trip? Other than me.

6 Sep

It’s 10pm on Labor Day, and after 10.5 hours in the car (for what should’ve been an 8 hour trip), I’m simultaneously exhausted and and too charged up to turn my light off. So in an attempt to tire myself, I’ll subject you to random snippets and observations inspired by today’s roadtrip.

First, Ohio. Can anyone give me a reason to not despise northern Ohio other than Cedar Point? That stretch of the toll road from Youngstown to Toledo is about as flat and boring as the Olson twins’ chests. To add injury to insult, the police in Ohio set up speed traps the entire length of the toll road. I think they should COMMEND you for speeding, because it means you’re somehow managing to stay awake.

Second, damn you, restaurants that decided to close for Labor Day. It’s a holiday celebrating WORK, people. Keep those establishments open!

And as for those restaurants that were open (I’m talking to YOU, Arby’s in Somerset)… if your menu advertises loaded baked potatoes, I urge you to keep potatoes in stock. Or was there an unexpected holiday run on potatoes before we got there?

Actually, I’ll answer that question. I think the answer is NO. I think you don’t ever stock potatoes, or the teen cashier would’ve been able to answer my question (Do you use cheese SAUCE or shredded cheddar on your potatoes?) if he had ever seen one actually cross the counter.

Yes, it does matter if it’s sauce or shredded cheddar. I refused to eat cheese sauce. (Yes, that means I won’t eat movie theatre nachos either.) Or cheese whiz. Vomit. Moving on…

Hey Ohio! I’m not done picking on you yet. Is your unemployment rate miraculously low? I ask because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen DC homeless people with more hustle and mental acuity than the woman working the register at the service plaza just before the PA border.

Not only was she slow, but after waiting an eternity behind someone buying lotto tickets to get one soda rung up, just as we got to the register, she held up her finger and told us to “Hold, please.” She then proceeded to make a phone call. A long phone call.

Actually, for all I know, she’s still on that call. And our soda is still sitting on the counter, right where we left it when we walked away and completed the transaction at a vending machine, while watching her. And you wonder why you’re being replaced by machines?

Enough about her. Back to me. I am convinced that I have it in me to write an awesome musical. Not only can I create a song for any occasion (Greatest hits include, “There better be a bathroom in the next five miles!” and “I can’t see jack because of this rain.”), but I’m really skilled at rewriting pop songs with improved lyrics. Alan claims I just got lucky with some of my rhyme schemes, but I recognize jealousy when I see it. Sorry Alan, not everyone has The Gift.

Another gift I have? Word games. And I don’t even need a partner. I can play Solitaire with words, as Alan realized today when he refused to humor my version of a game I call, “Can You Smell What the Rock Is Cooking?” It starts when I’m looking for agreement on something, and this is a sample:

Me: How about we stop here? Can you smell what the Rock is cooking?
Alan: Nods.
Me: Huh? Are you buying what I’m selling?
Alan: Uh huh. 
Me: Are you composting what I’m discarding?
Alan starts to ignore me. 
Me: Are you fertilizing what I’m planting?
Me: Are you smelling what I’m wafting? 
Alan: That’s gross.
Me: Huh?
Alan: I don’t like it when you say wafting. 
Me: Fine. Are you snorting what I’m milking? 
Alan: OK! I will stop here. Will you please stop this game? 
Me: Only if you admit that you’re smelling what I’m wafting. 
Alan: No.
Me: OK. Then I hope that you’re at least shucking what I’m picking? 
 

Speaking of entertainment, I love NPR, but would like to know how they manage to coordinate it so that the only show airing at any given time is Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The first time we heard the interview with the retired Hollywood stunt man, it was amusing. The sixth time? Not so much.

And finally, after about eight hours in a car, I noticed that I smelled like peanuts. That was especially odd, because we didn’t have any nuts in the car. [Insert immature joke here. And cue up the song “Roxanne,” but substitute, “NOOOO Nuts! We don’t got no nuts in here…” for the lyrics.]

Are you shelling what I’m smelling?

And now we’ve got ourselves a roadtrip! 

Get it? This IS a rock cooking. And I bet you CAN smell it. I mean, it's fish.

Tags: , , , , ,

Guess it’s time to dye my roots.

30 Aug

Alan and I have been living on different continents for much of the past four months. As a result, he’s viewing me with fresh eyes. At least, I’d like to think that’s what prompted him – completely unprompted – to ask this weekend,”Wow. How dark is your hair naturally?”

I looked at him steadily, and in the pause that allowed me to formulate my thoughts, he continued, “I mean. I’m confused. I’m not seeing the amount of silvers that I usually do, so you must’ve dyed it recently, but the roots are still really dark. Almost brown. How do you do that?”

Admittedly, I find it endearing that he doesn’t realize how most women would take this. (Flashback to when he compared me to a calico cat because I had swirls of blond, brown and gray hair.) And I’m under no illusion that I have great hair or even well-colored hair.

The truth is, I don’t know what my natural color is. I was blond as a child and started swimming in middle school, so my hair has had some degree of chemical treatment since I was 11. Since I now have a ridiculous number of grays on my head (random guess would point to 25%), I color my hair to help them blend in, rather than to chase some fantasy of being blond.

In any case, Alan’s fascination with my hair led me to explain that I couldn’t exactly define “natural,” but I was pretty sure it wasn’t actually blond. He seemed satisfied with that explanation, so we hopped a bus to meet friends in Georgetown for a mid-hurricane brunch.

Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →