Thursday, October 29, 2009

Moving in the Rain SUCKS!!

Let's just say that the title just SAYS IT ALL.

More will come, I promise, including part 2 of the Surprise! party...

Monday, October 26, 2009

Moving...Again

Here I am packing up boxes in the middle of the night.

Fun.

Let's see, how many moves does this make?

2001 (right after 9/11 into our first 1-bedroom coop--that was fun with the cops pulling over our U-Haul truck and breaking my beloved orange lamp).

2004 (into our new house right after we got married)

2006 (flipped the coop and moved into Mt. Kisco, where Peter wanted to live, then didn't want to live one day after we moved....URRRGGGHHHH.)

2008 (into our 2 bedroom coop after we flipped the condo)

2009 (back to our house!!)

That's right, count'em 5 moves in 8 years!!!!!

Peter says that he GUARANTEES me that we're staying put for a while---but he said that last year. All I've learned in this process is that I HATE MOVING and that I HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

And I'm The Jerk?

So today, I caught this lady letting her dog take a wizz right outside my living room window--people in the building are not supposed to let their dogs pee in the courtyard, unfortunately, most of the owners of little dogs seem not to care. I've seen her do this a zillion times and today I was IN NO MOOD FOR IT.

I opened the door and said to her, "You know you're not supposed to let your dog do that. It's a $100 fine."

She turns around and tells me he doesn't pee--as she's saying this, he lifts his leg and pees and I point this out.

"Well," she said. "He's sick and blind. What else am I supposed to do?"

"Why don't you take him across the street?"

"He's BLIND!!!"

I was all, huh? What the hell difference does it make that he's blind? You carry him down the stairs from your apartment. You can walk him a few feet across the street to the park where we all go. And then to add insult to injury, she says:

"Well, I hope your dogs never get sick!"

Okay...what do my dogs have anything to do with your lazy ass being too lazy to walk across the street?

She acted like she was helpless to this whole situation when she's healthy enough to carry her dog and let him pee somewhere that is NOT OUR COURTYARD.

And yet, when I told Peter this story, he said, "Why were you acting like an asshole?"

"Wait a minute, she lets her dog pee right outside our apartment and I'M THE ASSHOLE?"

I do admit that I was in a bad mood, but she was CLEARLY in the wrong. And yes, everybody around here does it, so why am I bringing it up?

Because ONCE IN A WHILE I feel that people need to be CALLED OUT ON THEIR SHIT.

Y'know, because I'm a big'ole JERK.

Monday, October 19, 2009

She Looks Like My Mother

I sent my sister this link to an article about graduation rates and I titled it "Did You Know You Were In the NY Times?"

I found it when I was doing some research about graduation rates. The college Peter works for has a graduation rate of 60%--which is really bad. Peter's alma mater has an 80.5% graduation rate and mine is 87%. Although, I do have to point out that we had a lot of Orthodox Jewish girls who attended my school for the single purpose of finding a husband. Two girls who lived on my floor freshman year were married and had kids by the time I was a senior. So if it weren't for these teenage brides, I'm sure our graduation rate would have been higher.

I found this article and saw that the picture was taken at Amherst--then I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be funny if Jenny were in the photo?" And then I saw that she was! It was pretty surreal. She's the girl who is staring at the camera in the right side of the photo.

After I sent her the photo, Peter told me to follow up with her so I gave her a call and said, "Did you get my email?"

"Yeah," she said. "I sent that to you months ago."

"Oh, so you knew you were in the photo?"

"Months ago."

"Don't you think you look like Mommy in that picture?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your picture in the article."

Apparently, when I said, "You Were in the NY Times," she took that to mean that HER SCHOOL was in the NY Times and not that she, Jenny, was actually photographed in the article. So she opens her web browser and FREAKS OUT because she looks EXACTLY LIKE MY MOTHER in that photo. In fact, I have a photograph of my mother at her high school graduation and she looks EXACTLY like that.

She looks so much like my mother in that photo that Peter said, "Was your mother wearing Jenny's graduation gown at the graduation?"

So Jenny sends this link to all her friends and in her subject note, she wrote, "Don't I Look Exactly Like My Mom in this Photo?"

Her friends wrote back:

You buried the lead! This isn't a PHOTO, it's a photo from the NY Times. Your subject note made it seem like you looked like your mother from a snapshot you took recently.

And her friend Tranny wrote back:

I emailed you this article MONTHS AGO! BECAUSE YOUR PICTURE WAS IN IT!

Yes, Jenny is just that ditzy that she read the article without noticing her own face staring back at her in the photo.

After I told Peter about that, he said, "Well, THAT'S why you have to follow up with people. Tranny should know better...I mean, it IS Jenny."

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Cat

The day before we took her to Peter's mother's house, I had taken away her bed and she had peed on her scratching pad, so she didn't have a place to sleep on. Apparently, she looked at the dog bed and said to herself, "Well, I guess I'm sleeping here now."



I still can't believe that she did that.

I haven't been to see her since we gave her away, but Peter went to visit his mom the other day and she's been sleeping with his mom on her bed!!

They're like best buds now, which makes me feel good. The Meow Meow really wasn't working out for us, but she's keeping Peter's mom company. In fact, she wasn't allowed in certain rooms of the house at first, but since she's so well-trained, his mom has let her have the run of the house.

And my mother-in-law even said that I did a great job raising her because she's been a great cat.

Isn't that awesome?

In 12 years, I've finally done something right in her eyes!

Friday, October 16, 2009

Don't We Count? We're HAPPY!

I'm gearing up for part 2 of the Surprise! party, but I wanted to write a little side-note. Apparently, Peter's sister said during the party that no one in their family is ever happy because they're not happy people.

"Wait," I said. "But you're happy. WE'RE happy! What does she mean by that?"

"I think she said that because she doesn't consider me a part of the family," Peter said.

"But after Jenny's graduation, my grandmother kept going on and on about how happy we are. (And then my mom said, 'Of course they're still happy! They don't have kids yet!' Yeah, that makes us want to have kids, right?)"

"It just goes to show you who's paying attention."

Monday, October 12, 2009

I Never Knew: The Surprise Party Story Part I

Before the Surprise! party, my sister said, "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if the party went without a hitch and after all the anticipation of this stupid thing, you just wrote: It was fine. I mean, your followers would get SO MAD."

Yup, I can practically hear them clicking me off their blog rolls.

The night before, I was frantically trying to make these Martha Stewart tissue-paper flowers and it was SOOOO not working out.

They were supposed to look like this:



Instead, after two hours of accordion-folding and fluffing (Oh, the endless night of fluffing that didn't fluff the fluffstuff!) I only got these crappy pieces of tissue-paper GARBAGE.



I am a crafty person and I don't know what was going on--on the website, the pompoms looked like adorableness--maybe I'm just not crafty, but I AM!! All over her website, dozens of people said they made them and it made their bridal shower/birthday party/baby shower look absolutely GORGEOUS. I think that either their version of GORGEOUS differs greatly from mine--or I'm just a Martha craft failure.

I looked up at Peter after two hours and said, "I just don't think that this is an effective use of my time."

He looked at me and said, "I know. I wanted to say something to you earlier, but I didn't want to upset you."

In my mind, I had visions of how I wanted to decorate the space. I wanted to do such an AWESOME decorating job that people were going to have their minds BLOWN AWAY.

Unfortunately, I waited until the last minute and the tissue paper pom poms that were supposed to be just that thing turned into a pile of tissue-colored doo doo.

Instead, I wrapped up issues of the literary magazine I work for as an editor in gorgeous cardstock and folded a band of ribbon around them. They looked lovely. But Peter had his apprehensions about giving them out.

"They're philistines. They don't read literary magazines. They're just going to throw them in the garbage or leave them at the restaurant and you're going to get really mad."

I do know that about them and I did think about not giving them copies of the magazine, but then I figured the gift will be given from my heart and I can't control how they are received. I can only give what I have to give. I think Mother Teresa would have been proud, because you know how she's all giving out literary magazines to the philistines...and oh yeah, feeding the hungry and healing the sick.

The next morning, there was still a lot to do--my sister came over early to help. While she was here, Peter checked his email and found one from the Wicked Witch of the East--apparently, her daughter was sick and so they weren't coming. I was ECSTATIC to hear this news, although a bit surprised that the morning of the party, she's expecting us to be checking our email to get this information. Luckily, there was time to call the restaurant and get the tables rearranged.

The funniest thing was when Jenny texted her friend Emily to tell her that Wicked Witch of the East wasn't coming, Emily said, "What a BITCH! After WE'VE BEEN STRESSING all week about this, she didn't have the DECENCY to show up!"

I thought it was so cute and funny that people who have never even met Peter's sister are all, "What a BITCH!"

I wanted to get to the party an hour beforehand to set up and get things ready, but my sister and I are what we call "Vortexes of Time Suck." We inherited that from our mother. It's recessive and we both got the genes for it. For some reason, no matter how much time we are given to complete a task, the time is just sucked right out of the space-time continuum and it will take us an hour to do a simple task like pick up the cake from a bakery in the next town.

This is the reason why we will never become winners of Project Runway. Heidi will take a look at something we tried to make and say, "This looks like you threw it together in two minutes. AND it looks CHEAP."

So we get to the restaurant only about ten minutes before people are supposed to arrive and of course, people are already there. Fortunately, the restaurant threw up some cute balloons and decorations (Thank GOD) and so everything looked festive and cute already.

I forgot the candles and commissioned one of Peter's nephews to get them. I put out all the favors/place cards--I know it's a little strange since it's all family, but Peter DID NOT want to sit near his sister who hadn't been speaking to him the last seven years so I wanted to ensure that everyone knew where they belonged. We were SHOCKED that she emailed me to tell me she was coming and that night, she thanked me for inviting her twice.

I was all, "Uhm, I didn't actually invite you. I told your son that if he wanted to, he could invite you because I DIDN'T WANT TO BE RUDE and invite the entire family except for you and now we have regretted it since the minute you emailed us that you were coming. I mean, you didn't come to our wedding, you wrote in ALL CAPS on our response card WILL NOT BE ATTENDING. You didn't even send us a gift. I mean, I didn't send you an actual invitation. Can't you read between the lines?!?"

Okay, I didn't say that, I said, "Well, thanks for coming!"

To be continued....

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Picky Eater

I don't like beans. Yes, it's strange, but I've hated beans since I was 1 years old--according to my mom, I would pick each individual bean out of my azuki and rice she would make for me. I also don't like Feta cheese. My version of hell would be to have to eat a large brick of Feta.

I dated a few Greek guys and the thought of introducing me to their mothers always stirred up a bit of fear because of the Feta-hating. And oh yeah, the grape-leaves-hating.

Today we went to Tomatillo again and fortunately, we did not get my most unfavorite waiter. My unfavorite waiter messes up my order 80 percent of the time. He's this skinny hipster-ish guy who is the only white guy who works the tables. And every time I ask for a tofu burrito WITH NO BEANS, he can't seem to keep it straight and there they are, the dreaded pinto beans in my freaking burrito.

Since my parents own a restaurant and I'm with a guy who hates it when I return food to the kitchen, I always sit there and eat the messed up food, not enjoying it one bit.

Last time we went to Tomatillo, I said to Peter pretty loudly, "Oh good, that AWFUL waiter isn't here today." I didn't see him when we walked in, but the people at the table next to us seemed startled and a few minutes later, the awful waiter sat down next to them for a little bit of chit-chat.

Peter said, "They totally knew that you were talking about their friend."

So? He's a crappy waiter. I'm sure if they are his friends, they know this by now.

Today, when I ordered my meal, I made it a point to say no beans and the waiter, who is Mexican, seemed really confused. My anti-beanness confuses a lot of Mexicans. And he asked me, "You want the rice, right? And do you want the lettuce? And do you want the tomatoes?"

Every time he asked me a question, I said, "Yes, I want everything EXCEPT the beans."

"So, you want the tortilla?"

And after I ordered, Peter looked at me and he looked like he had a revelation.

"Is THIS why you're hesitant to go to Mexican restaurants? Because of this bean thing?"

"YES!!" I said. "And it's really tough for me, because I LOVE Mexican food."

When I was little, everyone used to tell me that I would grow out of the bean hating business, but I never have. People always ask me what it is about beans I don't like and it's the texture of the beans when I'm chewing it and it gets all clumped up in my mouth.

"But mashed potatoes are like that and you LOVE mashed potatoes!" My mother would say.

Yeah, that's because it doesn't taste like anything but tons of butter and gravy.

You also can't travel through Asia not liking beans because Chinese people LOVE to serve mooncakes to their guests and I would always turn them down. And my uncles would get all indignant and mad and say, "They're DELICIOUS! You HAVE TO EAT ONE!"

And of course, I would say, "No, thank you." Which is apparently a REALLY RUDE thing to say to an elder. When an elder tells you to do something, you're supposed to do it, especially in Taiwan.

So I would put it on my plate and leave it untouched.

I am still known in some parts of Taiwan as: "The only girl I've ever met who hates mooncakes."

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Open Letter to SNL

Can't you write some funny skits? I mean, you only do ONE show a week, AND you have a musical guest who comes on twice.

I mean, seriously.

SERIOUSLY.

Hey Lorne Michaels! Stop appearing in those stupid skits and whip those writers into shape!

Friday, October 02, 2009

My IM Chat With Andrew

andrew: how you doing? when's the surprise "party"?

Me: the 10th! Guess what? EVERYBODY is coming!

andrew: wow. the Wicked Witch of Long Island too?

Me: yes, wicked witch is coming with her wickedlings

andrew: u know what would be the BEST SURPRISE EVER?

Me: if we didn't show up and didn't tell them?

andrew: if you and Peter weren't HOME! "like this, like this!"

Me: actually, now that there's so many people, we're not all going to fit! my suggestion was to disinvite people-- we're going to have to go to a restaurant and spend endless amounts of money!

andrew: wow!

Me: well, that's fine--although I'm glad that everyone's coming since it's for her, I'm not looking forward to dealing with these people--what WHAT WHAT was I THINKING!!!!!

andrew: wow, so generous!

Me: Although my parents ARE SO PROUD OF ME and I feel a little guilty because they think I'm a better person than I am--I ONLY invited these people thinking they weren't going to come! Some of these people didn't even go to their own father's funeral!
Suffice it to say, the SURPRISE! Is on US!

andrew: haha
THE BIG FUNNY!
u said u have a sizeable backyard? why not rent a tent and hold a circus with these freaks?

Me: I'm a little stressed out that everyone is coming! JERKS! And Peter's nephew--the one who DID NOT GIVE US A GIFT for our wedding EVEN THOUGH HE WAS A GROOMSMAN and we bought HIM a groomsman gift is bringing his girlfriend--and I'm sure, showing up empty-handed.

andrew: to be mentally prepared for thsi u really have to be prepared for the WORST absolute WORST that can happen
just imagine everyone screaming and fighting, and crying and storming out

Me: Them BEING there is already the worst (peter said that)

andrew: and being majorly ungrateful - then u'll be ready for anything!

Me: I'm a little worried that they're going to order up a storm knowing that it's on our dime

andrew: you could set a prix fix menu
tater tots for all!

Me: I know, but the local restaurant here is being a bit unflexible about that...I'm looking around
Peter wants it to be nice--I was thinking PIZZA PARTY!

andrew: MMMM PIZZAAAAAA

Me: my parents think they raised a wonderful daughter and now I'm a bit ashamed of how annoyed I am that they are all coming--- Can you come? I NEED THE SUPPORT!! Plus, it may be the only time you'll get to meet them.
There are going to be more of his family members there than at our wedding...

andrew: is that an incentive?

Me: and definitely more than my bridal shower because...no one came to that.

andrew: I'll be in Boston that weekend

Me: my sister is going to be there--and my mom might also.

andrew: u want more support than Peter and Jenny?

Me: I need the ROCK OF GIBRALTAR-sized support

andrew:well, i'll think about it

Me: My friend Marisol was going to come, but she can't because she's taking stupid weekend classes at YALE

andrew: watch it rain and nobody show

Me: YES!! If only!!

Thursday, October 01, 2009

How Did 12 Years Slip By Us?

Yesterday Peter and I were sitting on the sofa and I realized that our 12th year anniversary of the day we met passed by us...on September 5th. Yup, about a month ago.

I asked him if our wedding anniversary were not on Halloween if we would have both forgotten it already. He said no, but I don't know....

Anyway, it was 12 years and a month ago when I went to a venue with my friend Paul to go see his coworker play in a band. Paul said, to me, "That's the guy who knows Beck," and of course Odelay was my favorite album at the time, the album I was listening to on my long, and I mean looooong, train rides back and forth from Ann Arbor, Michigan. So to hear someone actually KNOWS this guy?

So I sat down next to Peter and said, "I like your glasses."

And the rest, as they say, is history.