Tag Archives: humor

My ass – it’s killing me.

20 Oct

Oh hey! I’ve been a bit quiet lately, haven’t I? Sorry about that. For the most part, I’ve been busy with work, and –

What? How am I doing? Really? Sure you want to ask?

OK. Fine. I’ll tell you: I’m starting to get excited. On Tuesday I’ll be getting my second colonoscopy in six months. 

Admit it: you’re jealous.

As if two in a year weren’t thrilling enough, the real joy of this one is that it’s exactly a week before my birthday. Some people regain that youthful feeling with a spa day. Me, I prefer a more hard-core route. From my experience, nothing transports you right back to infancy like needing a diaper.

To each her own, I suppose. Whatever keeps you young.

Actually, I’m just happy I will be able to do the “prep” at home, in the comfort of my own bathroom, rather than in the hospital with a roommate. If you’ve never had a colonoscopy, I’ll spare you the details but this should help you get the gist: the prep (ironically branded “GoLYTEly”) ensures you will go to the bathroom over three dozen times in 12 hours – or until your stool is clear.

Let me repeat that: CLEAR.

Also: apologies for using the word stool outside of a kitchen or bar. Wholly inappropriate and kind of makes you puke in your mouth. So sorry about that.

Right. So I’m skipping the details, but I think we can all agree that when the preparation for a procedure defies nature – much like reversing the flow of a river – it can’t come without some, um, effort.

I don’t care how close I am with my parents – I’m glad they didn’t heed this advice.

By the way: If I ever have the option of inviting a dead or living celebrity to dinner, I think my money is on Katie Couric. Mainly because I want to ask the following: Katie, when you claim you had a colonoscopy on television, did you actually mean you PRETENDED to have one? Because I didn’t see any evidence of a) broken blood vessels from your face cramping up, b) shaky legs from running on zero nutrients for 48 hours, and c) terror in your eyes from the noise in your stomach.

My sister recently chatted me to tell the story of her friend’s son, who was given GoLYTEly in the ER, without the benefit of a semi-private bathroom. The poor kid had to STAND IN LINE after essentially detonating a bomb in his stomach. Again, I’ll spare you the details, but it’s safe to assume: that did not end well. Also, (just a hunch!) there may be a lawsuit related to human dignity at play.

So. I haven’t written for a while, but I think we’re pretty much caught up now. You might want to file this one under “Careful What You Ask For.”

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Yes, there are binders full of women. Most men don’t brag about them.

17 Oct

Hell yes, Mitt Romney supports women. If you doubt him, just ask to see his binder. It’s FULL of women. Women who not only are qualified to fill key jobs, but ALSO get to leave work a bit early so they can go home and cook dinner. If that doesn’t scream equality, I don’t know what does.

I mean, we want women integrated into the workforce, but it’s important that we don’t take them out of the kitchen – because that’s their first responsibility.  Kitchens without women would lead to a nutritional crisis more damaging than single parents and semi-automatic assault rifles combined.

Also – and here’s where Mitten’s corporate genius kicks in – if a woman needs to leave early to make dinner, then we can justify paying her a portion of men’s wages. Because she’s not working as much. Simply math, dummies.

So now that we know Mitt is totally pro-woman, I can’t wait for him to shatter the myth that he’s part of the Old White Boys’ Network. I mean, surely he has a black friend he can’t wait to tell us about.

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Tourism is cheesy, so you’ll have to indulge me.

7 Oct

Want to know why I haven’t written recently? Because I’ve been busy entertaining. I know, hard to believe, but it happens.

For the record, I’ve had visitors the last two weekends – first my sister,  then two childhood friends – Steph and Kelly. And although my OCD-self was running the washing machine twice as much as usual to stay on top of the bedding situation (and my environmental-self was stressing about the excessive energy consumption), it was really great to have such a slice of my history under this roof for a few days.

Yeah, Ben Franklin cautioned that visitors and fish stink after three days. Apparently everyone who visited me must have known that rule, because no one was with me more than 72 hours, so they left before they stunk. My washing machine and I salute them. And wish the rest of you would make a note right now. [Seriously, write that down – I’ll wait.]

Here’s a quick run-down of the highlights of their visits:

Between the two sets of guests, I walked 37 miles. I love that DC is such a walkable city. Also? My sister and I turned in a 17 mile bike ride. She’s five years older than me, but she smoked me on the final uphill climb. [I’d like to point out that she weighs approximately fifty pounds, whereas I am shaped like Jessica Rabbit and need to rest my breasts on the handlebars so my back won’t give out. Or something like that. Let’s just agree: she was better equipped for the ride than I.]

Bummed we didn’t think of this.

Speaking of rides, Steph, Kelly and I rode the bus to Eastern Market to give our feet a rest. The bus, as always, was *quite* the experience. One man who got on smelled so strongly of urine that all the passengers started clawing for windows, trying to get some fresh air circulating. It was so bad that I saw Kelly discreetly breathing through her hair (like a mustache) to help filter the oxygen through the calming scent of hair products.

Eastern Market was fantastic, as always. Steph and Kelly bought jewelry, and we all had pretzel dogs for lunch. [Who doesn’t love an all-beef frank wrapped in a pretzel? I think even vegetarians would go for it, since we all know hot dogs are just, like, toenails and nipples and stuff.]

The weekend before, when my sister, Alan and I had walked up to Eastern Market, we managed to stumble upon a nearby street fair – the Barracks Row festival, hosted by the Navy Barracks, as well as the DC State Fair, which – as best I could tell – primarily involved a donkey walking down the street on a leash. But then again, DC really isn’t a state, so we can’t really be offended that they don’t take something like a state fair seriously.

My sister, Alan and I logged a few hours at the Library of Congress Book Festival. As always, I was inspired to hear authors such as John Green, Jeffrey Eugenides and Tayari Jones speak. The tents were packed, so we were spread out in different rows. I’d catch my sister’s eye periodically and she’d give me an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

“Did you like it?” I asked as we walked home.

She nodded emphatically. “The sign language interpreter for Jeffrey Eugenides was AWESOME,” she gushed. “I wish we could invite him to dinner!”

Leave it to my sister to attend a book festival and be impressed by the signers rather than the authors.

Although really, I’ve given up  trying to give up what will make a mark on people. During Steph and Kelly’s visit, we saw a cyclist almost slice a squirrel in half with his tires. I’m pretty sure that factored into Kell’s Top Ten List of the weekend.

And as for me – what was my over-arching impression from these visits? It wasn’t an animated ASL interpreter or an almost-disembodied squirrel – as memorable as those would be. It was a feeling of gratitude. Grateful to have a sister who has become a friend, and grateful to still be friends with people who knew me before I had breasts to heft onto the handlebars of my bike.

Because, as they say: you can’t make old friends.

Pretty sure *I* am that friend.

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Advice for Amy and George: Be on your best behavior.

26 Sep

During our recent trip to Canada, we established (through the wonders of Facebook) that we had friends who planned to visit Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island about a month after us. Midway through our  vacation, I asked Alan, “Any advice for Amy and George based on our experience thus far?”

I thought he’d offer up a highlight, like “They MUST go whale watching with Captain Mark,” or “Dinner at the Red Shoe Pub.”

But after some quiet consideration, he said, “Tell them that this is one place they won’t want to have the attitude that their behavior doesn’t matter because they’ll never see these people again. Because they will.”

So true. Perhaps it’s because Cape Breton has done such a great job creating and marking scenic driving trails that all travelers tend to share the same itinerary?

For example, we drove the full Cabot Trail (primarily scenic, weaving around the highlands national park), the full Ceildih Trail (packed with Celtic heritage and music), and part of the Bras d’Or Trail (along the coast of the huge inland saltwater lake). We didn’t venture to the eastern part of the island, so we missed the Fleur-de-lis Trail, which traces more of the island’s French heritage.

And along those routes? We repeatedly crossed paths with people we’d seen earlier on our trip. The couple from the whisky tour at Glenora? Seated next to us in the restaurant forty kilometers down the road for lunch. The couple who loudly made love (and I’m being generous with that term) in the motel room sharing the wall with our headboard? Sipping coffee across from us at breakfast the next morning – and again outside a restaurant on the other side of the island two days later.

A quick note on that: Cape Breton has limited lodging options. There were no real hotels, so we generally found ourselves choosing between a B&B or a motel that looked like it was plunked from the 1950s – still cute rather than creepy. When we checked into our first motel, Alan looked skeptical. “I’m pretty sure these places rent by the hour,” he commented.

I rolled my eyes. “Did you see any other options? Do you think someone’s going to buy a national park permit so they can drive up here to have motel sex?”

But then, two hours later, we started to hear an odd knock along our wall and our headboard shook. We looked at each other: Seriously?

Of course we muted the television for a minute so we could confirm that a moose wasn’t head-butting the building. If we’d had any question, it was quickly resolved. So we turned the volume back up, trying to ignore our neighbors. But they kept going. And going. If it had been a vibrating bed that took quarters (remember those?), they would’ve needed two rolls.

In the morning, as I stepped out to head to breakfast, their door opened at the same time. I couldn’t help but pause to retie my shoe so I could see what they looked like – I was picturing fake boobs, bleached hair and guy wearing multiple gold necklaces. Out stepped a seemingly conservative couple in their late 50s, looking like they’d just dropped their kids off at college.

All righty then.

So that’s the advice we have for George & Amy when it comes to Nova Scotia: Stalk or be stalked, but always be polite. And also? You can probably save a bunch of money if you negotiate your lodging by the hour. Apparently that’s acceptable.

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An SNL skit in my bathtub.

13 Sep

So now that my leak is fixed (knock wood), I’ve realized: Hiring a plumber is like paying someone $600 to throw a party in your place and barf on the carpet.

Don’t get me wrong – the guy did a great job. But…

So he shows up with his son, who is approximately 20 and is trying to become a plumber by apprenticing with his dad. I’m pretty sure the main reason his dad drags him along is so he can bill out “two men” instead of one, but ostensibly he’s learning something. The main thing I saw him learn was how to retrieve tools from the van.

Every ten minutes, the plumber would yell, “Jim! I need you to go to the van and get…” Fill in the blank.

But the first time he needed more than one item he also said, “Jim – stop. I think you’ll forget. You best get a piece of paper and write this down.” To which his son rolled his eyes and left. And within five minutes was calling his dad’s cell phone to ask what he needed from the van.

After about half an hour at my place (which, I’d like to point out is SMACK in the middle of the city), his son said, “Hey Dad! Do you think I need to lock the van?”

And his dad paused, looked at me like his son had just spoken Chinese, then said, “What the hell? YES you should lock the van, you dumbass!” with a big headshake.

I got to do my own headshake minutes later, when Jim Junior reappeared and said, “I need to use your bathroom.”

“We’ve turned the water main off,” I told him, thinking how long it had been since I had been able to use a toilet myself. “So you won’t be able to flush.”

He shrugged and said, “That’s ok. I’m not going to poop.”

All right then. Thanks for that. Go for it.

About this time, Jim Senior pinpointed the source of the leak. But it was in a difficult place to fix, so he outlined his strategy – which was surprisingly complex and – if all were to go well – would prevent him from tearing out an entire wall of stone tiles in my bathroom. I gave him a mental fist bump and wished him well, feeling confident until he asked, “Do you have any fire alarms we should disable?”

Um… why? Oh, because apparently he needed to use a blow torch for an extended period of time next to a wood panel in my wall. No worries, nothing to see here folks.

Rather than disable my smoke detectors, I retrieved my fire extinguisher and put it next to him. “You know how to work one of these?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Not my first rodeo.”

Oddly, his confidence did nothing to inspire MY confidence in him.

Miraculously, all went well and he didn’t start a fire in my building (to my knowledge). But while he was in there, he spotted another leak of the flip side of the wall, originating from my bathtub diverter. The next thing I knew, he was standing in my bathtub, blackening the bottom with his dirty boots, getting sprayed in the face with water while he used a chisel to remove pieces of the tile.

“Is it ok if this rug gets dirty?” he asked, pointing to my plush bathroom rug, which was already wadded up under him in the tub, wet with blobs of caulk. Um… a little late to ask, no?

About this time, using a pocket knife to whittle a fitting, his grip slipped and the knife sliced into his finger. Blood started spraying everywhere in my bathtub and he calmly said, “Well now, this isn’t good.”

UNDERSTATEMENT. I watched my poor rug absorb blood for a while before suggesting he might need stitches. “Naw,” he offered. “But if you have a BandAid, that might help.” I got him one, which he tried to apply, but it slid off because his finger was too wet. With blood. We tried that six more times before he ended up just sucking his finger and using the bed of his elbow to hold a flashlight. I’ll give him points for resourcefulness.

Since I have the double curse of being OCD *and* polite, rather than confront his messiness, I started chasing around the house, trying to discreetly clean up after him. The first time I bent to retrieve a wad of wet muddy grass that had fallen off his boot, I felt like Sherlock Holmes. “He lives in rural Maryland and mowed the lawn last night,” I said to myself, feeling clever.

But by the time I picked up the thirtieth clump of wet grass I was like, “This guy is a slob. If he killed someone, I’ll soon find organs in the pile of my carpet. No mystery here, folks.”

When he finished the work, he sidled up to my dining room table and pulled out a chair to write up the invoice. I’d like to point out that the chair he pulled out was a high-back chair upholstered with mushroom colored fabric, and he pulled it out with a hand that resembled a good steak: charred and bloody. I watched in horror, but mentally resigned myself to buying a new chair. After all, the dude had just ended a major leak.

I’d like to say I stayed calm and kept things in perspective, but the minute he left, I turned my place on end, scrubbing the floors by hand, bleaching my tub, and loading up the washer with throw rugs.

Perhaps it would’ve been less scarring to just order a demo company to knock out all my walls. Next time, I suppose. Because in a building that’s 100 years old, unfortunately there will ALWAYS be a next time.

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