Tag Archives: townie

Is this a parade or an actual emergency?

Today A. Ybab and Mr. H and I went for a walk. I strapped her to my front and pulled my coat around her so only her foolishly be-hatted head stuck out. This deflects some of the alcoholics who live under the streets downtown, but not all of them. She continues to test well with that demographic, ideally with cross-over to chainsmokers. A few days ago, the lady with a nose ring and three teeth gave her the loving moniker “Sugar Booger.” I am familiar with the booger sugar, but I think that lady probably specializes in methamphetamines in the off-season.

Anyhoo, we ended up walking past lots of people with glow sticks, and then we realized it was time for the city’s annual Salute to Municipal Vehicles, a.k.a. the festival of lights or something like that. We shoved through the crowd and got our lattes, coming out just in time to hear “Ready to roll.” So we had to Frogger our way through a flotilla of police motorcycles, the bookmobile, a taxi cab, every single fire engine in town, a marching band, some Shriners, children dropping batons, the haz-mat team, and the local Rastafarians’ float.

A. Ybab became enraged by the time the cut-suspension Honda Civics and the public works sand truck glided by. We had to bust our way through the parade route to get home, which meant tangling with a postal worker wearing shorts (“Shorts every day. I’m a bachelor. We don’t iron!”) until we remembered we could just float down the canal on an abandoned shopping cart. Level-headed thinking saves the day again!

What happens when you Google failure?

Content Challenge, I hardly knew ye.

Today is the fourth time I’ve turned twenty-five. It was OK. I had a burrito! But then I noticed the otherwise fine establishment spelled it “Talapia.” Did you mean tilapia? Google says I am right, and that’s what you meant. I knew I was right. Duh. On principle, I should stop ordering the “Talapia,” but it is so darn tasty. This is like the time I had to stop eating at the restaurant with the inconsistent apostrophe, except I’m still going to eat the burrito sometimes. I have a whole card to fill up before I get a free one.

Today was probably the least celebrated and eventful birthday I’ve ever had, but what are you gonna do? If you’re a baby, you get THISCLOSE to rolling over, and you make a cute face. You are also good at the post office. You clearly test well with the latin market since that guy said “Que linda!” to you.

ZOMG

Yesterday was Mr. H’s birthday. He is now Old. How sad for him! To celebrate, we tried sneaking away for dinner after a baby was asleep. Of course a baby opted to wake up and vomit all over his sister. Still, that was the best glass of wine and speed-eaten entree I’ve had in months. We returned to find a baby fully alert and talking to a stuffed bear.

Yahoo! Groups: tool of the devil? I read through 50-odd messages from the bitches who are vying to be condo board president for our complex. People are complaining that as the temperature drops, the windows are drafty. Someone was spotted pulling a door open by holding the key in the lock. Someone’s parking spot has a pot hole that collects rainwater. People want parking stickers for our DEEDED, NUMBERED parking spots. Now, we don’t even have an association yet. The complex is under control of the management company until December, when we can technically form an association. This sticker decision was made by some sort of pre-association cabal, drunk with the power of reply-all. Unless I get to go to a meeting and vote/complain about it (I will make a baby raise her hand too), it seems slightly premature to be pricing out the printing of stickers. When someone is in my spot, I don’t really care if that person has a sticker or not. I know that person is not me, and hence I am justified in calling the towing company. So simple and elegant. I guess some people really enjoy a rousing game of “one of these things is not like the other one!”

No, the actual logic is that people are fiercely protective of the single visitor spot. OK, then, with the aid of stickers, we’ll be able to see if the person in that spot is a resident using it for selfish purposes, like leaving a second car there for twenty minutes while he drops something off. Then I suppose we must take down the license number, go look it up in the office, and nail a dead woodchuck to his door. Or perhaps we can arrange a time to stand around with torches and pitchforks. This time will be arranged using the Yahoo! Group. No, it can’t be Sunday night, because Shelly is going to be out of town! This is too bad. Shelly loves a good public whipping. Hey guys, if you need me, I’ll be boiling some oil!

Creatures of love

Producing all this content is hard, dog. It’s hard out here for a boring lady. Today I sprawled in the bed while a baby napped. I read a book. The cat slept on my legs. She tolerates me. My book was acceptable. Maybe I will write about what was in the book at another time. It was nice to read with a cat and a baby. When I did catch Asperger’s, anyway? It must be going around. Spread by mosquitos.

Later, we went to a local event related to food. It was tremendously unsatisfying in its execution. We returned to our home with cold food that somehow cost us $30. A baby was displeased and would not relent until she was allowed to roll around on a blanket without pants. A huge thunderstorm moved in, and she would not believe that I was not causing it. This is the Lord’s way of telling us to move out of this town. Do not mess with what I eat.

Alcoholics totally love babies

This morning I went to the post office because I did something bad in my last five or six lives. I continued down to the village, and I had to detour to kill time because the hippie lunch hole wasn’t open yet. This took me past the bus station alcoholics who patrol the payphones for returned change. “Oh, shweet bundle of love,” they slurred, lurching towards me as if to paw the baby passed out in the sack I hang around my neck. The baby woke up, displeased, and we pepper sprayed the living hell out of the alcoholics. A passing police officer smiled and chucked the baby under the chin. “Saved me the trouble,” he said. Then I had an avocado wrap.

Easy like sunday morning

It’s that special time of the week when a baby likes to read the real estate section of the Times and laugh at the articles about people hunting for apartments. Can you imagine that people really have to do that? Wow. It must only happen to people in New York. Quelle terrible, New York. Some of the apartments are apparently undesirable, forcing people to look at more than one. A baby does not look forward to such loathsome prospects as living in a building without a doorman.

This morning, a baby, who recently celebrated six weeks of breathing, was feeling pretty proud of herself, what with SLEEPING FOR EIGHT AND ONE HALF HOURS LAST NIGHT. In a row. This is better than I did since I kept waking up in disbelief. I think we wore her out by walking down to the folk festival. She enjoys reggae and public drunkenness as much as the next baby, although she is far more attractive than the next baby. People kept stopping us to see her, as it is apparently a novelty to tote a baby around in a sling. Mr. H was wearing it, which caused even more strange looks. She would smile beatifically as she lured in a victim, then seize her moment and casually regurgitate. That’s style.

Accomplishment Friday

One week after Bastille Day (ce n’est pas Bastille Day), a baby achieved five weeks of breathing. A baby had seen better weeks, what with having the little thing that holds her tongue in her mouth removed and all. Long story, but she did really well, and the people at Children’s Hospital were very nice and simultaneously achieved the desired results while not accidentally killing her. I almost handled the dying for her, because my heart broke wide open from seeing her little head bobbing over the nurse’s shoulder when they took her into the OR. Oh shit, you have no idea.

Clearly her mouth developed improperly because of Something I Did While Pregnant. Did I take a Sudafed? Was it because I came within a few feet of the litterbox? Was it the sushi? See, I am pre-emptively guilt tripping myself. She’s going to have so much more free time as a teenager. Whenever she’ll start with “It’s all your—” I’ll be like “Gotcha covered, kid. See: July 2006, where I walked around with rocks in my shoes as penance.” And she’ll shrug, steal some of my Valium, and leave to go buy a slutty outfit.

We all needed a break on Friday night, so we tempted fate by walking downtown to get ice cream. A baby obligingly fell asleep in the sling, which is great because going somewhere in public with a baby is a bit like handling dynamite. Handling dynamite was covered in a episode of Lost, if you need a refresher. Results were mixed. We made it within a few doors of the ice cream place when a man scurried up to us and said “The guy from Lost in Space is at Gary’s Ice Cream!” We said “Oh,” and he helpfully offered “Not the old guy, the other guy.” Well, whoopee.

So we get in there, and Major Don West is signing photos for a bunch of obese older people in sci-fi themed t-shirts! Wow! He even had a seven-foot-tall replica of The Robot. Why did we leave the house without a camera?

Thus distracted, I made a fatal error when ordering my ice cream. I ordered a scoop of one flavor in a cup, and a scoop of a second flavor, intended to share the cup. But because I didn’t yell “PUT THEM IN THE SAME CUP,” each scoop arrived nestled in its own cup. Mr. H asked them to put the two scoops in the same cup, and panic ensued. The counter person couldn’t process this request, so he brought in the seventeen-year-old manager. “What’s the problem?”

“Um, we want both of these scoops in one cup.”

“What?”

Finally, after we employed hand gestures, switching to two other languages, drawing a crude image on a napkin, and holding Major Don West at knife point, TeenMgr squeezed both single cups into…another cup, single sized. At that point, I ran out screaming and threw the whole dripping mess in the trash.

At least a baby slept all the way home.

Step away from the internet

“Any impute would be great.”

It would, wouldn’t it?

The condo management reminds us “owner’s” not to have any “boistarous” parties. Also, they approved that I live with a cat. The cat has lived in the building for almost three months now, as an illegal immigrant. To get approved, we initially had to submit a photo of the cat “clearly showing facial area,” a copy of her shot records, and a list of her turn ons and turn offs. Then a month or two later, they decided they would also like a copy of our personal property insurance policy. Never ye mind that this only covers OUR SHIT. The master policy for the building covers everything else. But it’s OK, and now I have permission to harbor a cat, and the cat has permission to mess up our shit as much as she sees fit.

I told her she was approved. She still doesn’t care to come out from behind the washing machine, because the upholsterer was here for about thirty seconds to attend to a blight upon the ottoman. This is traumatic for a cat, apparently. I think she’s stuck back there. It was traumatic for me in that he also told me the story of the Great Fire that occurred on this property some years back. Lo, the townspeople came and watched. I knew all about this because Mr. H was townspeople who watched. Maybe Mr. H stood somewhere near the upholsterer. Barrrrring. Move along.

Now someone outside is yelling “YEAH BABY,” Austin-Powers-style. I am totally liveblogging. I hate you too.

Eloise

This week, we’re living in a hotel. I could get into that, what with the room cleaning itself and lackluster food just appearing by magic. I just wish it were a nicer hotel. Maybe the kind with $15 nuts in the mini bar. That would be great. Instead, we have a view of all the old bicycles and shopping carts in the partially drained canal that runs by the community college.

The cat is being traumatized at Casa de la Carpeted Kitchen, Mr. H’s ancestral abode. She tolerates the toddler who gets so excited that he wrings his hands and sighs “Kitty!” everytime he sees her. He’s pretty funny these days. He runs around with his arms bent and his fists clenched, kind of like Foghorn Leghorn. He has a real sense of purpose for someone with nothing to do.

Anyway, I think we can go home tomorrow if the fumes dissipate. That’s good since I’m all caught up on my USAToday. I learned that Wal-Mart is trying to lure upscale shoppers. Mkay. I would just love to buy my sushi from Wal-Mart. I really hope it’s made with dirt cheap Chilean salmon farmed in an environmentally predatory manner and processed by workers who don’t get bathroom breaks. But then again, when Wal-Mart thinks of a “well-heeled customer,” perhaps they are thinking of the person with the largest SUV. That person probably also enjoys shopping for fine jewelry from a case stocked by a polo-shirted worker with no health insurance. Not me, no sir. I prefer choosing my blood diamonds with the help of a man wearing a natty suit. It helps if he looks a bit like Hector Elizondo.

I hope the workmen did not eat all of my snacks, or the painkillers I’ve been saving. Remind me never to try to improve my surroundings again.