I'm much smarter now (stop laughing)

I've been having flashbacks to weird childhood thoughts and actions of mine. Is it just me, or were we all this dumb as children? Observe.

1. I had a very specific idea of how cartoons were made, and this was it: Cartoons were people dressed up in animal costumes that were smeared with butter. Yeah, I don't know either.

2. After reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I asked my dad if you needed to pay money to get a good job. I couldn't figure out why anyone would take a job that kept you in the poorhouse when you could just get a better-paying job. Duh.

3. Once, when I was about 7(?) 8(?) my mom was having the carpets cleaned. She told me to stay outside and play while they dried. I took this so literally that when nature called, I decided to squat in the (front!) yard rather than go inside and disobey. The next day, my dad, exasperated with what he thought was a rude neighbor, came into the house and said, "Sheesh, some dog took the biggest shit in the front yard!"

4. I once wrote a diary entry about how it was the worst day of my life because my parents had put salt on my watermelon.

5. I had a grand idea to get a pen pal in another state (or country!) by writing a letter with my name and address in it and attaching it to a kite. I got the thing flying and somehow shook it till the letter fell off. It ended up two houses down the block.

6. In fourth grade, I decided I wanted to be the girl everyone came to when they needed to know the name of a song or band that sang it. I was determined to keep a three-ring binder full of this information. I think I wrote down three or four songs in one of those blue canvas folders before abandoning the whole operation.

7. I thought that color wasn't invented until the 60s. Not color photographs, mind you, but color in general. Hey, there were no pictures of color before then, right?

8. I wanted to be a waitress when I grew up, so I could taste the food I was serving all day long (yes, my food issues rooted themselves early!).

I wish...

-I were not at work bored off my ass
-Work could be more fulfilling
-I were sure that "were" not "was" is right in that first wish (and this one) without having to look it up (cuz I'm not gonna)
-My (our) apartment would spontaneously decorate and furnish itself
-That the apartment could also self-clean
-I always knew what I wanted for dinner
-I always knew what I wanted to watch on TV
-I could make a decision, any decision, without much deliberation
-I weren't so damn lazy all the time
-I needed less sleep
-I wanted to work out
-My brain would remember things better (or at all)
-All the things I wanted to buy suddenly went on sale
-I had a tropical vacation planned
-That the vacation started tomorrow
-That I had a perfect-fitting, great-body-making bathing suit for said vacation
-There were no negative consequences for eating what you wanted
-There were no negative consequences for doing what you wanted
-Everyone on the planet had the option to eat and do what they wanted
-I knew the meaning of life
-I knew the meaning of "epipelagic" (first word I flipped to in the dictionary. Oh, wait, the meaning is right there: "of, relating to, or constituting the part of the oceanic zone into which enough light penetrates for photosynthesis." Duh.)
-I had a good conclusion for this list

Just pretend you never saw that last thing you think you saw

What post? I don't know what you're talking about.

Someone please tell me why I should keep watching Nip/Tuck. There was just one "WTF" after another on last night's finale. I can't even get into it now, but I'll be happy to talk to you about it Saturday night at the thing I'll probably see you at (let's face it, my reading audience doesn't spread very wide).

So, I didn't win the Mega Millions draw from last night (I apologize to those who live with me for having to learn it this way--stop that XBOX 360 order, now!), but I didn't even remember to check on that till just now, which made the anticipation of it, well, not very exciting. Remind me to remember better when I buy lotto tickets. (If you remember.)

Anyway, I'm at work and I just did some last-minute shopping at lunch (including the purchase of what I'm sure will be the White Elephant/Yankee Swap hit of the night at that thing you might see me at on Saturday). I ended up buying my dad a white dress shirt, because that's what he hinted at, even though a) I wasn't sure of his size, so it's probably all wrong (do you know how many numbers there are on men's dress shirts??), and b) my original thought was to take him to a basketball game. It was just easier (even if it doesn't come close to fitting). Do you know they have a whole line of Donald Trump clothing at Macy's? Don't worry, I didn't buy my dad one of those shirts.

I also, once again, failed to understand what a homeless/mentally unstable man in a wheelchair said to me outside the Starbucks, so I just smiled. He said, "Merry Christmas anyway," which made me feel bad, because that probably meant he'd asked me a yes-or-no question, not a nod-and-smile question. This also happened last week, when I realized too late that the (entirely different and not-wheelchaired) guy was asking if I wanted my windshield cleaned. I did the nod-and-smile then, too. I felt so guilty about it that I spent the bulk of my trip into the drugstore trying to figure out what food item I could buy and offer him. Cookies? Something more nutritious? Trail mix? Energy drink? Candy bar? Peanuts? Anyway, I ended up with nothing for him, but happily, some much-nicer-than-me girl was letting him wash her window and taking care of him while I was on my way out. At least I had the thought to be nice, right? Damn, I should've gotten today's guy a coffee. Or a Frappuchino. Or a Mocha.

Step away from the chocolate!

So, it's been a while, and I intended my next post to be about how excited I was that N was home (where was he, you ask? In Vegas with boys, leaving me alone in the big-ass apartment scared to go to sleep by myself in the new neighborhood. Except that I ended up not being as scared as I had anticipated I would be, and I did just fine alone in the place. And the cat was a fantastic bed companion, if not a little furrier than I'm used to in there.). And while, yes, it was still very exciting to have him back, the momentum of that feeling has sort of passed so the post wouldn’t seem as genuine or necessary now, five days later. Plus, he's got a nasty cold and I prefer my Ns healthy. (Sorry, honey.)

Meanwhile, I've had all these random ideas to post about, which I now present to you, in no particular order:

-Someone knocked over the fire hydrant at Sunset and Highland Monday morning. The water was almost as high as the building it behind it! It was kind of exciting, like a snapshot of a hot summer day in 1950s Brooklyn, but then I saw the backup of traffic (luckily on the opposite of the street) and my little fantasy world was broken (for the other people. I just sailed on by in my lane).

-It's that time of year where I'm constantly confronted with finding a good answer to "Are you done with your Christmas shopping?" or "Are you going anywhere for Christmas?" I never know what to do with those because inevitably, the other person ends up apologizing for the question, which isn't my intention, but really, what else am I supposed to do except say, "Well, I don’t celebrate Christmas. My Hanukkah shopping is done, though."?

-Speaking of this time of year, I've been extra generous for some reason. I bought a Starbucks gift card for the mail carrier because he always manages to get our mail in the right place, even when the pesky "1/2" is left off (oh, how I hate that "1/2"!). I also bought toys for four kids I don't know, but who, according to our adopt-a-family list here at work, live with their mom and grandmother in a two-bedroom apartment along with another four-kid family. I bought small gifts (is that inappropriate? I mean, but really, how much room can there be for toys with 12 people in two bedrooms?? Damn, I think I ruined all my good intentions.).

-It's also the time of year when there's all manner of crap to eat in the office. Now, I have no problem avoiding it, but my boss thinks that she's being kind by getting me tons of sugar-free chocolate so I "won't be left out." I appreciate it, but I don't know if you've ever had sugar-free chocolate. They don't put that "excessive consumption" warning on there for nothing. Despite what you think about my self-control, I can't control myself around stuff that's "okay" to eat (I know, my brain is whack), so I keep eating it. Needless to say, my belly has been a mess for weeks. Weeks! bleh.

-N's mom and my mom met up for lunch today in Chicago. Their first meeting alone. That surge in the temperature today? That was the collective burning of my and N's ears.

I have ball issues

So all this talk about Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen's pending divorce (didn't this happen a long time ago?) has given me a flashback to the only time anyone has ever said I looked like celebrity. It was just the one time, and I was about 17. This lady at a doctor's office told me I looked like Valerie Bertinelli. I can kind of see it in pictures from her "One Day at a Time" days (especially if you knew me in my younger days). I think it's the round face and the hair. Anyway, I bring this up as a point of discussion. Who have you been told you look like?

I just got back from my office's holiday party, which was a day of silly bowling. I'm (not so) proud to say that, for the second year in a row, I earned the Lowest Individual Score, aka, Find Another Sport Award. It'll go on my cube wall next to the other one. I really suck at bowling. I just do NOT have the hang of it at all. At some point, the guy who worked there even told me I'd "be better off using both hands like a five-year-old." Yes, that's an exact quote. I have ball issues. I don't like sticking my fingers in the holes, and I don't think hurling a heavy ball off your fingers is the greatest idea. It was still a fun day, though. I'm just glad we didn't have the usual potluck in conference room 6A.

I've been thinking about my doorbell

Holy crap, I totally have Mad Cow Disease! (Based on rigorous medical research, i.e., last week's Boston Legal.) Apparently some of the symptoms mimic symptoms of Alzheimer's and I totally have that. You know how my brain is always screwy! I told you that, right? And, I spent all that time in England in the '90s (the height of Mad Cow madness!) and I ate a TON of British beef. A TON! Well, at least I know my brain wasting has a cause.

Speaking of meat, five days later and we still have mu shu (moo shu? mu shoo?) pork in the fridge. Four orders is a lot, let me tell you.

I wish I had more to report, but I was so excited about finding out the cause of my memory loss, I jumped right on the computer without any other planning.

Oh! A guy just rang our doorbell (and our cowbell. Yep, we've got one of those outside the door, too. Jealous?) and started giving N a schpeal (schpeel?) about something or other and N just said, "Yeah, no thanks," and shut the door. Then we saw the guy walking around our little apartment area talking to passersby (not that we have a lot of passersby). We kept peeking out the window at him and I think he saw us looking. Especially when we turned out the light for a better view. He was wearing a nice shirt and tie, so it wasn't like he was homeless, but it's weird to have someone ring your bell(s) at 8 p.m. and try to sell you something, even if it's a religion, which is what we ended up suspecting when we saw him jump into a van of other well-dressed men and drove away.

Speaking of religion, for the record, don't call it a "holiday tree" for me. Those of us who don't celebrate Christmas don't have trees with ornaments on them. There's no such thing as a holiday tree! It's a Christmas tree no matter how you look at it. Stupid asses.

Mu shoo, anyone?

Chaos!

That's what the last three days have felt like. It all started Wednesday morning mere minutes after arriving at work. The office ladies were all aflutter about something while I was putting my things away and turning on my computer. Turns out there was a gas leak somewhere either in our building or the neighboring building, so we took it upon ourselves to evacuate. What's slightly disturbing is that there was no official evacuation order, even though you could clearly smell the problem, six fire trucks surrounded the building, and the street was blocked off at both ends. We spent the morning at Starbucks, which left only two hours of office time to empty my deadline-riddled inbox before leaving for an overnight work conference in Anaheim.

The conference, to make a long story short, was hectic and poorly organized. I was working at our department's book sale table, which was located out in a hallway that might as well been the North Pole, what with the continual blast of air conditioning and the Christmas music set on an hour-long loop. We were out there for about 10 hours, so please forgive me if Feliz Navidad is not my favorite song of the season anymore. Plus, the not-redecorated-since-1983 hotel was kind of icky, so I didn't sleep too well (I don’t like finding someone else’s hair on my pillow) and had to be up at 5:30 a.m. to set up.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to get home last night. There was a ton of traffic, and I was starving, so I called in a request for Chinese delivery to N, who promptly fulfilled my wish. Per my request, he asked for a full order of mu shoo pork. Now, I don't want to stereotype or place the blame on anyone in particular, but when our food arrived, it contained four orders of mu shoo pork. Mmmm, accidental pork.

Now I'm back at work and can't get excited about proofreading the fast food nutrition guide we're publishing. Luckily, someone's 3-year-old grandson was visiting, so we had a nice little chat. He told me about his black and white cat and asked me if I had one. I said, no, mine was striped with white feet. The kid's jaw literally dropped as if that was the most amazing thing he'd ever heard. Ah, preschoolers. If only the rest of the population was so easy to impress.