Beer is Good

So my Dad has been the subject of previous blogs entries and it goes without saying how hilarious our family finds him. Over the years, my brother Ross and I have had countless conversations about both his oral and written communication skills. While my Dad has numerous wonderful qualities, his handwriting/shorthand leave a little something to be desired. Case in point, the fact that he still continues to type emails in all capital letters, even though it been brought to his attention that the reader will perceive this as SHOUTING at them. His specific response (via email) to this critique was: "I KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". So last week, it was no surprise when I received a small package that contained the following note:

Inside the envelope was, of course, a beer bottle opener from one our favorite restaurants in Tampa, Florida. My grandparents live in Tampa and Crabby Bill's has been a long standing family tradition every time we visit. It is the best seafood joint in town AND you are able to purchase a T-shirts saying "I Got Crabs From Bill" or "Don't Worry Be Crabby". Really killing two birds with one stone, if you ask me. Aside from being hysterically funny that my Dad still sees me as an underage drinker who might raid this liquor cabinet while home on Christmas break, this note cracked me up. Number one, it's a BOTTLE opener and you don't need one for cans. Those things pretty much open themselves up. I did attended college for six years, I know this sort of thing, trust me. And number two, do you know what LH stands for? Neither did I, until a few years ago, when it was explained that LH is really LD which then translates Love, Dad. In the end, it doesn't matter how my Dad expresses his love for me, I feel it everyday and for that I am grateful. And everytime I crack open a frosty one with my new bottle opener, I will think of my Dad and smile. LJ

Sharing is Caring

I am about to give out too much information, so consider yourselves warned. Sometimes when I get to work, I gotta take care of personal business. And by personal business, I mean that I'm going to be in the handicapped stall. We all know that the handicapped stall is for serious personal business only, and if you see feet in there, you need to KEEP MOVING because you don't want to experience what's about to go down. Apparently 8:30 AM trumps the handicapped stall, because about twelve women came into the bathroom while I was trying to take care of business this morning, and FOUR OF THEM TRIED TO COME INTO THE STALL WITH ME. How rude.

Heat Wave

I frequently find myself in a more contemplative state, in search of a hidden nugget in my psyche that can be molded into a reasonably comprehendible story. Then, yesterday, as I was sweltering in this relentless heat, a memory jumped me.
There are summers in Illinois that are searing. The sky opens wide to enveloping cerulean, exposing a sun that feels unforgiving. The effect is made even more intense given the gloomy dimness of the six month winter. When I was young, I fantasized about those days.
The kids in my neighborhood were like family. I will always hold a belief that it was the winters that brought us together, as if we were an army fighting together in a war against hoary depression. So, when summers came, it was triumph. We were free from the beast for a whole summer!
There was such a summer when I was ten. I never wanted to be inside. There were bicycles to be ridden or tag to be played. I needed, as a matter of principle, to have grass stained knees and sweat-messed hair. I could run perpetually. And fast.
At the beginning of the summer, one of my friends brought a new participant to the family. He was a cousin of a much younger neighbor. I decided quickly that he looked about my age as I saw him curiously standing there smiling and saying nothing when I walked up and introduced myself.
"Hey" I half-waved, half-smiled.
"Hey" he intoned. There was an odd modulation in it. "My name is Jaime."
"Hey" I said again, feeling a ten-year-old's awkwardness.
Jaime was a tall and athletic looking kid. Seemed ready for running. Didn't ever stop smiling, that I noticed. And Jaime was deaf. Or, as least, he was getting there fast. He couldn't really hear anything we said and he couldn't quite talk correctly. And as soon as I got past that, I noticed one other thing: he didn't care. I loved that. There was a relief on my young consciousness that I didn't have to acknowledge it. I didn't have to feel uncomfortable. Didn't have to treat him differently. He would make a great addition in our family. He was so happy.
And so, our group continued the summer rave. We were spies, with hidden messages. We were superheroes, spending more time debating whose superpowers were best than actually doing superheroly-type things. We were hell-fire on a bike. We were gangsters with cap guns.
He wasn't limited in any way that I could see. He was just a kid, tagging people, trying to outrun the sunset, screaming for the sake of screaming. He could feel the heat. He could see the sky. And that was always good enough. It is a gift, when you are ten, to have someone teach you that life is about appreciating the perfect moments when they come.
In one of our gangster days, we were cap-gunning our way to a big heist and every time that someone would snap-pop-pop their way to a big getaway, Jaime would laugh. And he had an infectious, unencumbered laugh. After our crew had executed a few major bank robberies, I finally asked Jaime (in my own way) what was so funny. He grabbed my hand with the cap gun in it and pulled it next to his ear and pulled the trigger finger. SNAP! Laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh. He could hear that. A few of the others came over and joined in. Jaime wanted one on each side of his head. Snap-POP! The guns were pointed straight up in the air, as if we were celebrating something in the old west. Pretty soon, we were all laughing hysterically. It felt like I was doing something wonderful for Jaime. He was so happy.
Then our parents saw us. And it seemed like all of them were around us in an instant, with looks of horror and admonishment on their faces. They grabbed the guns and pulled us away to begin punishment. We were all confused. See, the adults cared. They saw it as something that it could never, never be to us. Cruel. But they didn't understand...we didn't treat family that way. We wanted to give him a gift. We wanted to share in his enthusiasm. But as adults, they would hear none of it. We raged over the injustice. We were forced to say we were sorry. And the worst part is that Jaime was forced to accept our apologies. And in doing so, I could see he felt deaf. Possibly for the first time in his life.

Savannah Marie

So now onto the important stuff. Some of our favorite people went and birthed themselves a baby girl a couple days ago and we couldn't be more excited for them. She is the third child in their family under the age of three! She is just itty-bitty, but appears (thus far) to be filled with sugar and spice and marshmallow fluff. This gorgeous wad of love is named Savannah Marie. Everyone say hi to Savannah!!

Though technically we are not related, little Savannah has nonetheless inherited my fantastic looks and suspicious outlook on life. I love her already and have only met her once. Which is awesome.

Why I Drink

While at work yesterday, I had the following conversation:
Co-Worker: I need you to call Jane.
Me: Why?
Co-Worker: I need you to distract her while I steal her pretzels. I need those pretzels.
Me: Um...like does this make me some kind of accomplice or something?
Co-Worker: Are you going to do it or not? Those pretzels are not going to eat themselves.
Me: Um...OK....Sure.
Later, I overheard this while standing at the fax machine:
Old Co-Worker: You don't know anything about the Beatles.
Young Co-Worker: Sure I do. They were influenced by the Monkees.
I think that pretty much sums up my week so far.....

Tax Free-For-All

This past weekend, the great state of North Carolina was tax free. Unfortunately for me, it coincided with a long overdue trip to Target which left me with no choice but to brave the throngs of the school supply buying masses. These are the times when people who have obviously never heard the word "NO" in their lives simply lose their minds when they encounter that expression in Target.
In their version of their entitled existence, desiring to shop at the Target means that it's employees should be grateful for the shekels they throw at them as they parade in and out the automatic sliding doors wearing the trappings of upper-middle-class suburbia-namely khakis, Liz Claiborne for her, Ralph Lauren for him, knockoff designer handbags & sunglasses, and a major attitude.
I believe Target wants to attract more "upscale" shoppers, but fails to realize that people with money are accustomed to paying for service-and expect it in a retail environment. But these shoppers simply cannot be naive enough to expect that the service isn't going to be a little "limited" on a tax free weekend. Or that they might have to exercise a smidgen of patience in order to buy all their school supply needs sans taxes. Please. And guess what? If you don't have an ID, you're probably not going to be able to write a check at Target. No matter who you are or who you know.
I actually overheard a woman scream this phrase at a manager: "I don't know why I need ID. I own a business. You can come outside and see my name on the side of the car." She hollered, yelled, screamed, and kicked up a fuss for at least the entire time I was in line for my purchases (Approximately 25 minutes). She called her husband, her daughter, and probably 1-800-TARGET before pulling out a credit card and paying for her household items.
Maybe I should put "Bill Gates" on the side of my car and start writing checks for a couple million. It's the same logic......

Bless You

I am at work this morning, surfing the web and hoping my boss would think I was just fervently working on a nine-page Excel spreadsheet of our mid-year inventory when the woman in the office next to mine started sneezing and couldn't stop. I have an obsession with sneezes; I have to say "Bless you" every single time. It has little to do with God or any actual blessing, it's more of an obsessive tic. When Jason sneezes he really does it up right, he sneezes like seven or eight times in a row. He sneezes so much at one time you can smell his brain. And I bless each individual sneeze.
So this woman starts sneezing, and I start blessing, and then I hear her trying to muffle her sneezes--trying to keep them inside her head--but hi, she's obviously still sneezing, so I keep blessing. You can't hide a sneeze from me. You didn't suddenly stop sneezing and start spitting. Please. But then it dawns on me that my bless yous are making her uncomfortable for some reason. Maybe because I'm screaming down the hall like a four-year-old and it's distracting? Something. So I made a forced decision to quit. But then like ten minutes later she cleared her throat and I yelled "BLESS YOU!" again like an OCD psychopath. I guess I had that one stored up.
After that she didn't make any noise whatsoever at all. I heard her barley whispering into the phone like she was curled up in a fetal ball under desk. It occurred to me to go into her office and tell her "Hey, I heard you drop a paperclip a minute ago, can I help you find it?" Like a funny icebreaker, you know? Ha Ha, I know how it looks, but I'm really not listening to every little thing you do! But then I thought: what if she's actually just dropped a paperclip? I'm afraid that's an awkward hole of social weirdness from whose depths I could never hoist myself. Even I know my limitations.

Wallowing

Just as an FYI, today's piece isn't a pick-me-up, peppy-funny piece. So read at your own risk. Normal broadcasting will return soon.
There is a quote in Say Anything...where Lloyd Dobler asks his sister in exasperation, "How hard is it to decide to be in a good mood, and then just just be in a good mood?" It's always been my belief that Lloyd (or Cameron Crowe) was right on point there. I think that people tend to wallow bit too much in their own self-pity. Long ago, I adopted Lloyd's statement as a personal philosophy.
This week, I've been guilty of a little wallowing. And it pisses me off, frankly. I have come across some kind of apt analogy of what it means to be an adult. Simply put, adulthood means you get to pay for a lot of things you can never afford. No matter how much you struggle, scrimp, or save, it will never be enough, every time you think you are getting ahead there will always be something, and the best you can really hope for is to stay afloat.
Two current specific cases in point:
1.) Approximately one and a half feet from our bed is our bathroom. It is the only one in the house. It consists of one toilet, one sink, and one shower. All of those components are within an arm's reach of one another. For the past four months, the shower has been covered with a plastic sheet because there is significant water damage to the wall board behind it. So the bathroom must be gutted and repaired.
We had someone come out and give us an estimate to fix the wallboard, put in a new shower/tub, change out the sink, and put down new laminate flooring.
$2,500.
Two.
Thousand.
Five hundred.
American.
Dollars.
2.) One of our cats, Wrigley has been limping/hobbling around for the past six weeks or so. Initially, we thought maybe he had taken a fall but after a few weeks observation, we decided he needed to be checked out. Our first visit to the vet took place a few weeks ago, wherein they confirmed that something was amiss (duh!) and that he would need to have an X-ray. Two weeks and two hundred dollars later, our vet has told us that he suspects a torn patella (the X-ray showed no bone damage but he was able to feel his kneecap move from side to side). In layman's terms, his kneecap is shredded and the only way to repair it is surgery. Yesterday, I called the orthopedic vet (who knew there such a profession?) to set-up a consultation (another hundred dollars) and get an estimate on approximately how much this type of corrective surgery costs.
$2000.
Two.
Thousand.
American.
Dollars.
So when anyone is over at my house and asks me what I did this year, I'm going to point to the shower and my cat and I'll say, "Well, I paid $4500 dollars for that."
"For what?" they'll ask.
"My cat. And a shower."
That's all you can hope for in this life. Your cat and a shower.