Nerd Alert!

Last Thursday night MDH and I left the cave for a couple of hours to attend a very special and NPR-nerdy event. This American Life did a live show which they simulcast to movie theaters around the country. The particular cineplex we went to in Grand Rapids sold out two huge theaters for the show and let me tell you ladies and germs it amounted to one very large group of nerdy hipster types assembled together all at once.

The nerd factor was so high that before the show started the woman sitting next to me whiled away the time by knitting and a young man sitting behind us, wearing a newsboy cap, knit scarf tied French style around his neck and Che Guevara t-shirt, was engaged in deep discussion with his female companion about game theory. Also observed: Every other car in the parking lot was either a hybrid or a VW of one model or another.

Now having made these observations I have to say that I totally qualify. Guilty as charged. VW? Check. Plastic tortoise-shell framed square-ish glasses? Check. Olive green cotton military style jacket? Check. Simple bob haircut with layering for modern flair? Check. Paperback of Eudora Welty short stories in my purse/backpack? Check. (Note: I don't know if Eurora Welty officially qualifies me as nerdy, but it sure feels that way.) Hemp sneakers? Check.

Have I become a cliche? I had no idea. I don't have many opportunities to compare myself to other people in public as I'm usually very busy with indoor activities that involve being pale and friendless, playing video games and listening to NPR.

I draw the line at knitting in public I guess.

In other news...


MDH and I left the cave yet again on Friday night and walked to the beautiful park near our house where we seemed to be in the minority as we had or were none of the following:


Hugely pregnant - our neighbors have been busy this winter apparently. (Parent? Get it?)

Dog owners - You know, I would take our cat Turtle out on a harness or something if I thought it was at all possible. I once tried leash training my old cat Olly, but it was like I had hooked a Marlin.


Small children - There was an endless steam of only vaguely attended tots wandering alone past us to play dangerously close to the water.


Sandwiches - It was like the whole town simultaneously decided to dig out and dust off that picnic basket thing we all registered for when we got married and finally put the thing to good use. I don't know where ours is actually, but it would have been a perfect.


Small Water Craft - The park is connected to a small "Yacht Club", which sounds all hoity-toity, but most of the boats I see there are pontoons and little two person sail boats. MDH and I like to sit next to the boat launch and watch and make quiet commentary to each other about the various boats and boaters.

Friday night I watched two very attractive young men in straw pork-pie hats and cut off madras pants launch a sailboat so small that they had it hitched to a convertible Karmen Ghia.

They looked like an ad for Mentos and I began to fantasize about learning to sail.

It looked so fun and carefree and that tiny sailboat - so cute! Then about 15 minutes after they set sail they capsized out in the middle of the lake and the whole park gasped. It was extremely windy and they didn't seem to be able to control the boat at all. And that water was freakin' cold. It took them about 20 minutes to get the boat back upright. My fantasy was smashed. Capsizing is not cute and sailing is at it's most attractive when you know what the fuck you are doing.

Impolite and Evil

Yesterday after my cheap shoe and personal care item shopping spree I finally had a chance to catch up with my best friend Amy - it was heaven. What with her busy schedule wrestling 2nd graders to the ground and my back pain and job related depression we haven't had much of a chance or been in much of a mood for our weekly standard (and trust me - necessary) 2 hour long, cackling sea hag phone conversations. In fact it had been weeks.

We had a lot of catching up to do - mainly her to me, because most of my activity lately involves being horizontal and moaning and not in a good way. Amy had not only been on spring break with her entire family, including her evil mother, at their family beach house in Charleston last week, but also had ended her trip early because her daughter Lil' Baby Lion (LBL) had to be back in town in time to officially become a Catholic.

Yes. Amy's ex-husband Assface had decided several months ago, from out of seemingly nowhere, that suddenly it was extremely important to him that LBL become Catholic and start going to church with him at the ripe old age of 13. Amy was surprised by this revelation, as during her entire 15 year relationship with Assface he had never once been to church or shown any interest in it. She consented however after discussing it with LBL who said she didn't give a crap one way or the other as long it would get her crazy-ass father off of her back about it. Lovely. I'm sure that's just how Jesus would want it.

Anyhoo... last weekend LBL was baptised, confirmed, and took her first communion, or as MDH put it, dunked, fed and slapped.

That's all well and good, but the real dirt was that LBL had begged poor Amy to please not leave her alone with Assface's entire family, who had come all the way from Vermont to witness the occasion.

So at the request of her daughter Amy went.

Amy took great pains to make sure that she looked like a million bucks. Blown out hair, impeccable makeup, fantastic ass-hugging outfit, high heels. The works. (You should know that normally Amy, although she is very cute, dresses like she just got out of bed; too big jeans, t-shirts that she caught from out of a cannon at a sporting event, sneakers, etc.) She said that nobody in Assface's entire family would even look at her, let alone talk to her, but it was fine because it gave her the opportunity to get her eyes full and report back to me about how crazy and horribly behaved they all are.

Best of all (to me) was that one of my more serious ex-boyfriends was there with his ugly ass wife so I got to hear all about how ugly she is and how fat and disgusting my ex-boyfriend has gotten. Just knowing that this ex-boyfriend is a good friend of Assface should tell you that he is an economy sized douche bag who was particularly cruel to me.

My favorite highlight of the event, as reported by Amy was a conversation that she had with the priest, Father Funk (no joke). At the end of the evening as she was saying her farewells (to those that would speak to her) she asked Father Funk if he was going back to Assfaces's place for a small gathering to which everyone but she had been invited.

His answer was surreal, as though he was some foppish-femme character in a movie from 1937, "No. I'm just going to go home and have a nice hot toddy", he pipped. To which Amy used every ounce of strength left in her body not to reply "Oh, you've got a boyfriend?"

Less Is Bore

I've been very busy wallowing lately for the following 2 reasons:

1. My back has been out and I've been writhing in pain and braying like a donkey every time I make too sudden a move. It scares the hell out of our cat and it's no fun for me either. MDH has been very sweet to me, fetching and carrying and tolerant of my disturbing uncontrollable pain noises.

2. I got a call from HR on Monday that I will not be considered for the position I have been campaigning for like a madwoman. Not even an interview - which, until late Wednesday afternoon caused the words "no chance, no chance, no chance" to spin thru my head like the worlds most depressing mantra.

I'm humiliated. The fact that many big-wig people with fancy titles and upper management type of clout were helping me (which is why I was referring to it as "the campaign", and came by to tell me I was robbed, is about the only thing that held me together all week. I would have been excellent at that job and their policy of always hiring internal candidates is their sucky loss. The person they hired is a jack ass.

At least a real live human being was nice enough to call me with the bad news, rather than the dreaded robo-email that I despise so much. Anyhoo... I'm done with these assholes. I can't take it anymore. They don't deserve me so I'm not going to apply for any more positions there, unless the one that I'm already in becomes available as a permanent post. It's just too heartbreaking.

So it's Saturday and I've recovered a bit from my pain and humiliation and decided to celebrate with a little retail therapy. Here are some photos from today's haul:

When recovering from this kind of slump one pair of cheap shoes just won't do. Back pain and job related humiliation definitely call for 2 pair.

Beauty and personal care products must be purchased in abundance to get oneself fully onto the road to recovery.

Opening the windows to fresh spring air is one of the better ways I can think of to dry my tears.

Here are some pictures of our cat Turtle enjoying the weather:

In the breakfast nook:

Waiting at the front door for his pal the mailman.

Very cute. Now where's my real doughnut?

One of the department managers brought in doughnuts this morning - something about helping to cheer on a certain West Michigan college sports club. Apparently a local team of a sport I'm totally frickin' sick of (and have complained about enough lately), has done quite well for themselves in their milieu.

I don't really give 2 shits. I heard doughnuts. I showed up.

Typically doughnuts are not my thing. Not that I don't like them. They are delightful, but I'm more of a salty snack kind of gal, give me some olives or cheese crackers, that's more to my taste. Besides people bring doughnuts in the morning after I've usually already eaten breakfast and combined with the fact that my sweet tooth is not that interested I just don't bother. Bagels are another matter, you'd best get out of my way when I hear there are bagels.

But today - a doughnut sounded fine. In fact it, I perked right up in my chair when I heard there were doughnuts in the break room. A doughnut sounded more than fine. I was experiencing a full fledged craving.

I was busy at the moment so I had to finish my work before I could run down there. Meanwhile I fantasized about where the doughnuts were from, Dunkin' Donuts or some nice bakery. What kind would I like? Maybe there would be those glazed sour cream cake-y kind or maybe if I was able to get down there soon enough there would still be some cream filled eclairs left. I hurried up, finished my work and hied my ass to the break room at an electrifying pace.

The first thing I noticed was a big bundle of green and white balloons and then the Krispy Kreme boxes. I overheard someone say they're all glazed. OK. No big deal, my decision has been made for me, that's all. Glazed it is.

Now imagine my shock and disappointment when what was actually served was a tiny little 2 bite mini-doughnut, which is not a doughnut at all. It's many things, including adorable and cute as a god damn button, but it is not a doughnut. It is a sample, a taste, a tease, but not a doughnut.

I had to hide my disappointment as it is pretty rude to act like a big douchebag and complain when someone has gone out of their way to give us treats. Instead I was gracious and took one. I even went so far as to nod in agreement when some of the other folks expressed a positive attitude toward the tiny treats, saying things like "oh, now I don't have to feel so guilty" and the far fetched "you know a normal sized doughnut is too filling anyway". Whatever people.

Anyhoo, that's the great thing about a blog, eh? Smile now. Bitch privately later.

Thanks for listening to me bitch about getting free food.

Update 9:18pm - To any of you who happened to catch it - I am deeply sorry for the mortifying grammatical error that was in the title of this post. In my defense - I had a tuna noodle casserole in the oven and perhaps hit the publish button a bit too hastily.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for continuing to come here and read my stupid blog and somehow hold back from making fun of me despite my hillbilly writing style and other mortifying spelling and grammatical errors that have slipped my notice. You are too kind.

Elle aime le jazz

It's going to take every ounce of strength in my being to make this post into something other than a year long rant about how fucking sick I am of college basketball right now. And there you go. I've done it again and dropped the f-bomb in the first sentence, but I suppose it can only demonstrate how I really very sick I am of college basketball.

sickofit - you might say in a tight lipped whisper yell like the kind your mom or aunts used to give you when/if you farted really loud in church (Who? Me?). Let's face it, it's not possible to fart quietly in church, all church farts are loud, but it is possible for your mother or aunts to beat you and scream at you in church or other public spaces without anyone noticing. It's a gift they have.

Anyhoo... that's all I'm going to say about college basketball today.

Instead, while my darling husband hogs the TV on yet another Saturday night, I'm going to busy myself writing a post about things that I want and before I get started I suppose I should explain the title of my post.

You see, sometimes when I tell my husband that I want something it is his little joke to say back at me "Je vousdrais, Je vousdrais, Je vousdrais", which all this time I thought meant "I want" in French. I have even heard him say this to waiters while pointing at menus in French restaurants - in France, so I thought it would make a cute title for my post about things that I want.

Never one to take this blog thing lightly (or at least that's how I feel about it today) I decided before I make a total ass of myself I should probably do a little research and find out the exact translation of "Je vousdrais" and have come to discover that there isn't one. Apparently it doesn't mean a damn thing, except maybe, "Hello snooty Parisian wait person. I am a boorish American asshole. Please smirk at me and drop ashes from your cigarette into my food before you bring it out from the kitchen. Merci!"

So I had to scrap using "Je vousdrais" for my title as I have been unable to prove that it means anything at all, but the desire for a title in French remained. Sadly I remember very little of high school French, (hence my gullibility with believing the whole "Je vousdrais" thing) except for one little phrase that has stuck with me after all these years.

It is a phrase that I remember listening to and trying to replicate while wearing headphones and sitting in a carrel in the foreign languages lab at my high school. It always seemed, especially after hundreds of hours of repetition, profoundly silly. Elle aime le jazz. What? Who talks like that and who gives a merde?

So what was I talking about? Oh yes. Things I want. Just for today, for the sake of my sanity and to reduce the number of scathing comments that I might receive from those more socially conscious readers (if there are any out there), that although they do not appear on this purely selfish list of things that I want, please assume that I truly do want world peace and the end of hunger and poverty.

1. I want living room furniture. New living room furniture. Furniture that hasn't been owned by other people before coming to live with me.

2. I want my neighbors dog to be struck suddenly with larangytis and stop barking all the time (and yet see want #6 - I'm a woman filled with contradictions).

3. I want warm cherry pie with a dollop of vanilla ice cream to magically appear before me, as opposed to me just sitting here craving warm cherry pie a la mode and not wanting to put on pants and leave the house and go to the store to get it, heat up the pie myself etc.. and end up settling for eating an apple (although they are delish) and being dissatisfied which is what will most likely happen.

4. I want our hot tub to go away and be replaced with a covered patio paved with red bricks in a herringbone pattern.

5. I want to get out of going to my Uncle Dan and Aunt P's for Easter next weekend.

6. I want a dog. Specifically this dog - her name is Dollie and she's available for adoption from the West Michigan SPCA. Damn. I should know better than to ever look at Petfinder.com. Isn't she cute? She's a dachshund, chihuahua mix. I'm not getting a dog. MDH and I travel too much and we think it would be too traumatic for our cat, who really doesn't like other animals. Maybe someday.

7. I already mentioned the pie.

Well, I guess that's it. That's all I want for now. Other than for a certain sport that rhymes with tasketwall to be over - forever - or just for this year.

Here's a fun pretend French song by Flight of the Conchords. It sounds like Jemaine says "Je voudrais un croissant", but it's hard to be sure: