Tag Archives: travel

Well…

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Just because.

We could all use some PANTS in our life. Operation emaciation continues around here, as Mr. H bravely staves off Snapple, and I retain no interest in eating most foods, especially if they require opening or preparing. Except last night, Mr. H made pizza, and I had to make an exception.

I am hoping the rest of this existentialism shoves off soon enough, and then my pants won’t be so saggy. I could just buy smaller pants, but that costs money, and we also need to hoard that, because we have a loft worth 75k less than we paid for it. Surely we can make this amount up in no time by making pizza at home instead of ordering out. I would like to discuss this with Barack Obama and maybe Yoda.

But by the end of this month, sunset will be pushed back all the way until 4:56 PM, and surely that will be cause for frolic in the streets. I’m holding out for March 13, when sunset careens ahead to 6:47 PM! I won’t be able to handle myself. If only Lambchop and I could schedule another relaxing weekend to dunk ourselves in Key West right after that. I’ll always fondly remember The Weekend Without Rage: 2009. Also known as The Only Weekend of My Life Without Rage.

I am going to Florida in a few weeks, but my whole family is also going, minus my dad, who is 2 kool 2 grope. Hey, when they grope you, do they bother to look in your mouth like prison? Just wondering.  At any rate, I predict not necessarily rage, but chaos, and possibly the renting of a mini van. I’m going back to bed now.

I write Andy Rooney’s best stuff

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OMG! Target double-charged me for something, and I did not notice. This is what I get for being so super rich that I do not care what things cost. Er, this is what I get for shopping with a Tasmanian devil and blindly clawing at the “AMT OK” button. So I was all bitches, give me back my $40, and we played a round of “Well, where’s the item you are returning?” Not returning, there is nothing to return (how EXISTENTIAL). I am keeping the one thing I did want. It is at my house kthx. “Well, why didn’t you bring it in?” Why, indeed, when I am keeping it. So they were all “Oh we do not believe you. This is clearly an elaborate ruse to defraud us out of $39.99 so you can go buy crack.” At last the sullen millenial or whatever we call college students now allowed that the security guy was back from lunch and could review the tape of the transaction. That $39.99 went right back on my titanium card. You better believe it. YOU KIDS TODAY.

Then I got my new glasses prescription filled, and everyone in the world got 22% less attractive now that I can actually see. Oh no!

I also bought a turtleneck.

I had a surprisingly good experience with Verizon Wireless the other day. I called, someone answered, and changed the thing I wanted changed. How pleasant! And unlike the rest of Verizon. I didn’t even have to shout “HUMAN! HUMAN!” at the automated system.

I lost a sippy cup at airport security because it contained water instead of the allowed juice. Oh, the ethical dilemma! I “declared” my cup as suggested, but then when asked what was in it, I forgot to could not tell a lie and admitted it was water. I asked if they could dump the water for me, and they said they could not open containers because a container might contain something hazardous to a screener. Fair enough, but then how on earth can you enforce the juice rule if you never see what’s in the cup? If I said “This kerosene jug is juice for my ybab,” they would take me at my word? They gave me the option to take my bags, ybab, and the friendly sky cap sherpaing the carseat back through security to empty the cup myself, and I said “Oh no, you keep it! I insist. Look, it has a ladybug on it!” And then they dumped the potentially hazardous material in a trash can six inches away from the screener. Oh well, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and there are nothing but big thinkers at the Department of Homeland Security. Also: no one asked to see i.d. for my ybab. Note to evildoers: free pass if you are under 36 inches tall!

MarthaStewart.com ruined my dinner by not seamlessly porting over all my recipe bookmarks after their redesign. I tried making “This page no longer exists. You will be redirected to the home page in ten seconds,” and it totally sucked. Mr. H felt I used to maybe put in milk before I put in the oven, but neither of us could really remember. I’d complain about this, but they still provide no discernible way to reach a human. What really gets me is that I bet the Web staff sit around in meetings patting each other on the back about how they have a 100% decrease in Web site complaints. I am going to disconnect my phone and email addresses to achieve the same goal!

I am sure many other taxing things have recently happened to me, and I will be sure to return and recount them in detail as painful as the initial experience. Caring is sharing! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go invest in gold and trip a skateboarder.

That the night come

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Take that, NO!vember. I am going to get on a plane and go somewhere…five to ten degrees warmer than here. Yes, well played, me. Well played! The only catch is that I am going with a ybab, and I have to decide whether to strap her to my back and carry the carseat while carrying the bag on my head, or strap the carseat to my back while dragging her on a leash attached to a cute animal backpack, or perhaps check her at the curb and pay someone to push me along in a Smarte Carte (“we’re the carts at the airport and a whole lot more…” More! I like that. OMINOUS).

Anyway, since No!vember is the Soup Nazi of months (recently held over in regular runs of “NO SLEEP FOR YOU!”), I am sure something will deviate from plans in an interesting manner. My ybab is currently starring in public as “That Kid,” you know, the one you said you’d never have back when you did not have children. If you never have children, well, you win! Please send me a card from sleeping in and reading an entire newspaper.

In a recent deviation from scheduled living, a local university has announced plans to build a giant dorm in my front yard. I am faxing a note simply reading “THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE” every hour on the hour. If all goes well, I will bankrupt them in toner costs. It is my right as a citizen. Man, the only thing worse than children is grown children.

921: Fine, the official word of defensiveness

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Internet, I was going to write you a postcard, but I was all oh hey is that a rash, what is that, poison ivy? No, it’s got to be chiggers. They have those up here, right? OK, well, let’s get an ice cream. And then we rubbed two twigs together to fashion a rough internet connection, but it only worked when all the barnacles lined up to face the setting sun just right. I read some books and fondly remembered what it was like having a vacation without a ybab.

Please choose your own highlights from our vacation trip. We took (a boat, a Ferrari, a large winged medieval bird). We ate (mediocre lobster rolls, cupcakes, sand). Ybab became afflicted by (a rash, walking, multiple heads). I offset my (carbon, rear end size, existentialism). Our rental house was (sort of haunted, moderately haunted, hell of haunted).

OK, that last one was not really where we stayed, but surely you can hear the scraping of ghostly chains. Stephen King appeared to warn us of the future. And that photo brings me to another problem: I suggested that Mr. H get a new tripod and shoot some HDRs, and I suppose I should have thought of this years ago, because I did not see him for the rest of the trip. I think he might have caught the same ferry back as relddot (ybab no more!) and I did, as someone is leaving socks around the house. Ghostly socks.

920: Begin again

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Oh, hi! I didn’t see you come in. That’s because I can’t turn my head to the right. You don’t want to know. Soon, you may find yourself entertained by a famous guest columnist. Do not be alarmed! I can scarcely form a thought, and that was even before I ate frozen blueberries soaked in booze last night. I’ll be on a holiday as well, and Mr. H and I have specifically picked a place with no internet access. That’s right! Such places exist. If we cave mid-way through our vacances, we will have to swim over to a giant floating Starbucks and pay $8 a second. But I doubt we will, because that water is motherloving cold.

915: Add your voice to the sound of the crowd

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I am thinking of switching this site over to Whereisyournose.com. Where is it??? Where’s your nose? Oh, not sure? Well, let’s find my nose first. No? Still no nose? We may need to consult Science on this one. Science holds the cure for fun. Write your own Michael Jackson joke at this point.

Oh, where was I? I am not an animal! Stop poking me. Stop it. What is wrong with you? Why are you pinching me? If you want this piece of pasta, you will stop pinching me. I mean it. Pasta! Look, a bird. That is a bird. Where is the picture of a cat?

I have to go drop off a check for my life insurance tomorrow. What are the odds that I will be hit by a large truck on the way to do this? I have never been more scared in my life. This is more terrifying than being three blocks from home after an exotic vacation. What do you mean, a window a/c fell and crushed her? You sure it wasn’t some rare fever? Leeches? No? Stop pinching me.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

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Today ybab celebrates eleven months of mostly breathing. She made a valiant attempt to chew up my British Airways Illuminati Perks membership card. That sucks! Without it, I can’t go up to the cockpit and sit on the captain’s lap while being misted with water extracted from volcanic springs with a crystal eyedropper. Did you know the co-pilot is actually a donkey? Little known fact about BA. That card also ensures that I receive an i.v. drip of caviar and crissy. Makes any flight more tolerable.

In other news, we have decided to move back to civilization a-sap. I am preparing to lose a squillion dollars on the ol’ IBG. That assumes that someone wants to buy it at all. Perhaps no one wants to buy it. This would be a reasonable decision on no one’s part. I eagerly await throwing out the rest of everything I own that I haven’t managed to sell on eBay and beating a path back to Brookline or even thickly settled Somerville. Maybe we will nest in the rafters of the Ted Williams tunnel, dropping down on unsuspecting motorists and gleefully exsanguinating them. This is how legends are born.

Three thumbs up to this natural disaster

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I just phoned Zagat’s and yelled “Fifteen stars!” because I am so impressed with this flood. We are now back home, after only two days of vacation in scenic Chelmsford. We stayed right next to the Hong & Kong, and I had a mai tai with a plastic sword in it. If that’s not nice, then I don’t know what is.

My highly sensitive spirited high needs sprog has learned to throw her arms in the air like the Village People. I have to fight, er, caucus and build consensus, with someone about the depiction of grapes on a plate. For real.

Apocalypse: soon

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I am feeling so left out of the recent Bimbo Summit! Two nights ago, I had a dream that I was back in highschool with Lindsay Lohan. I bought her beer with my fake ID, and that’s how all the trouble started. I woke up knowing the subsequent downward spiral of la Lohan was all my fault. “Be adequite” indeed!

Then last night I woke up in a panic after a dream that I was hanging out with Britney Spears in Vegas. In the dream, she informed me that Kevin wanted to get back together, and she considered it because it was nearly their “Humpin’ anniversary.” This stuff writes itself, and the end must be nigh. If I dream about Paris Hilton tonight, start burying gold in the yard and set up a home water distillery.

Up Next: More on My Problems! For starters, I miss flying first class with live minks nestled around my feet for warmth. Did I mention those minks sipped Perrier?

And in our hearts we fly. Standby.

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It started with other people drinking before the sun was over the yardarm. Or maybe it started when Mr. H and I almost threw up on the plane. Turbulence. I don’t know.

At some point, I was asked if “THEY” were “satisfied” with the “progress” that the parasite has made. “No, of course not,” I replied. “I am having a weak and reedy child, sunken of chest. THEY feel I will have to heave a sturdy rock at its hideous visage shortly after birth.” Then there was a discussion of a custom closet system, not my first choice for conversation. “Did you MEASURE?” “No, of course not,” I replied. “Why would I measure to ensure custom results?”

Then there was the problem of more drinking and gross sexual harassment of a waitress and food covered in sauerkraut. I think that was supposed to be delicious. But again with the almost throwing up business. My primary tormentor wolfed down a plate of German potato salad and told a tale of meddling, which stemmed from describing a problem with her inability to gain satisfaction from the help file in Excel. “You have to know how to look things up!” Yes, yes you do. “I was in the checkout the other day, and there was this young kid doing the ringing, and he didn’t know what a Belgian Endive was. So I said ‘Look under witloof.'”

“Witloof?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s the Dutch word.”

“And this would help a checker in an American supermarket?”

“Well, I’ve seen it called that before. At Kroger!”

“Were you at Kroger?”

“No.”

“What were you doing with an endive, anyway?” I was suspicious, as it took this person nearly fifty years to try asparagus.

“It wasn’t mine, the lady in front of me had it.”

“So you injected yourself into someone else’s transaction and offered a bizarre foreign word to be helpful?”

“Well, she thought it was some kind of celery. So I said to try looking under Belgian Endive. And he still couldn’t find it, so I said he should try Endive Comma Belgian.”

“If you had been quiet, he would have entered it under either celery or general merchandise, and you would been able to leave two minutes sooner.”

“But that would screw up their inventory!”

***

It has taken me days to get over this trip. You really can’t go home again. Not without getting bombed back to one’s emotional stone age. There’s the judgment, the paranoia, the incoherent ranting about Big Pharma and how money will be worthless, the revisionist history of wrongs committed in childhood, and the great sucking need for connection that I don’t know how to answer. What does anyone want from me? What do I want from anyone? If someone likes me, is that enough reason to give my time to that person? What if you also owe that person $10,000 that you aren’t really good for? What if you are having a child, and someone assumes he or she will be a part of that child’s life, and all you can think of is how much you hope you don’t do to that child what was done to you? And the very prospect of repeating history keeps you up nights, in a soppy swamp.