Category: make it work

When being thrifty throws you into the wayback machine

So I was at Target the other day, picking up many items on my household list.

You know, toilet paper, dish soap, etc.

On my list was a need for some new razors. You know, the weather is warming up a bit, might need to take a weed whacker to the ol’ winter legs…

TMI, I know.

So anyhow…razors are expensive! Dang expensive. So being a child of depression era parents, I did what any overly fiscally conservative girl would do.

I grabbed a pack of razors from the clearance bin.

Hey, they are Schick Xtreme 3! That’s a good brand!

So tonight, I decided to take a long soak in a bath after a chilly rainy day, and I broke out one of my new razors to get some smooth skin happenin’.

Suddenly, my bathroom smells like Louie’s Backyard on South Padre Island at the high tide of Spring Break.

You know, that odd chemically tropical combination of Malibu spiced rum and way too much Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil?

Yeah.

That’s weird.

Why does my bathroom smell like that?

Turns out the clearance rack razors come with “Scented Handles by Hawaiian Tropic”.

Ew.

Apparently I’m not the only one that thinks a scented handle on my razor is weird. Hence the very deep discount in the clearance bin. Schick’s weird marketing idea is my gain!

With three, count them, three blades, my legs are super smooth.

Spotty memories are but a small down payment on the steep price of beauty.

Saturday is rantacular!

An open letter to the Bay Area’s NBC-11 (KNTV) television station

Dear programming directors at my local television station, NBC-11:

I’d like to begin our conversation by thanking you for televising Friday night’s San Francisco Giants baseball game on your regular ol’ not-cable television station.

For people like me who have gone back to days of yore by using rabbit ears to tune in my television, it’s fun to actually get a chance to watch my home team instead of only being able to listen on the radio.

The Good Man and I celebrated by eating bratwurst for dinner to get in the mood.

Very cool.

That said…

I’d like to kindly remind you that your whole reason for being in Los Angeles Friday night was to video and broadcast the game on behalf of your home viewers.

You know, the residents of the Bay Area? The SAN FRANCISCO Bay Area?

See, here’s the funny thing, by and large, on Friday, your viewers in the San Francisco Bay Area were all actively watching your fine station in order to see the Giants play baseball.

You know, the SAN FRANCISCO Giants?

So when you spend large portions of the game focused solely on Matt Kemp, giddy about Matt Kemp, how wonderful is Matt Kemp, showing us Matt Kemp in the dugout, Matt Kemp in the on deck circle, Matt Kemp picking his nose, you might fail to understand why I might be rather upset?

Why would I be this upset? Because %$!&ing Matt Kemp is a sonova$%#@ing player for the Dodgers!

How do I know this? Well, you see, I was able to take a gander at the front of his jersey. You might try this trick. Focus your freaking camera on him in every idle second, and you might get a close up look at the letters on his chest. Can you see it? Can you see it says D…O…D…G….

….ARE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION!?!?!?!?!?

You are broadcasting a Giants game to Giants fans! Screw the Dodgers fans in the Bay Area! Who cares about them? They are not your core demographic!

I do not want to see Manny Ramirez unless he’s batting. I do not want to see Casey Blake unless he’s fielding a ball. I do not give one miniscule rat’s ASS about Matt Kemp unless he is batting or actively making a play.

And I give even less than a miniscule rat’s ass about all of the repeated views of Matt’s Kemp’s adorable little girlfriend Rhianna sitting in the stands.

Yes, we’re all very excited that Matt Kemp is dating Rhianna. Yes, she’s very cute. Yes, I know all you big sport broadcasting boys are squeeing with glee about the chance to film Rhianna sitting there with a hoodie over her head looking all cool. I know she’s like, oh my god, whoa, isn’t that the coolest thing ever, double squee!

But for f*ck’s sakes! Let’s just let the LA station broadcast the gratuitous lingering camera shots of their own players and their own players girlfriends.

Hey, here’s a cost saving idea! Why don’t *you* just use LA’s KCAL television feed for the next Giants-Dodgers game? That way I can, at the very least, listen to the dulcet tones of Vin Scully call the game.

At least that would be something interesting!

Now.

That said.

Saturday’s game is nationally televised on Fox. You know that that means? That means Joe Buck.

I guran-frapping-tee you that your crappy Friday night television coverage will hold up well by comparison to Joe freakin’ Buck’s uninspired and wooden-like call. I plan on feeling nauseated. Buck’s voice usually inspires that in me..

Because, NBC-11, you suck, but Joe Buck sucks worse.

And that’s something to build on.

Baseballically yours,

Karen

P.S. These are my pants. They are cranky. That is all.






Image found here.




The poor, downtrodden, much ignored lunchmeat

Liverwurst.

Poor lonely liverwurst sitting there in the corner of the deli case, wishing for somebody to love it with a slice of swiss and generous helping of mustard on a nice marble rye.

I think it’s that word “liver” in the name that puts people off, despite there being only being maybe 10%-20% of actual liver in the product.

I suppose if McDonalds served a McLiver and fries, it might be hip and people would eat it without thinking.

But sadly, no.

Liverwurst and its lonely brother braunschweiger get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

I, myself, am a HUGE fan of braunschweiger (owing to the partial German heritage of both my parents), but when I eat it, my loving, studiously liver-avoiding husband refuses to give me a smooch for quite some time after consumption.

This is obviously a big point of consideration.

So if it comes down to smooches or sandwiches, I’ll take the smooches and leave the braunschweiger to the “only very rarely” category.

However…that being said, we have a well understood agreement that whenever we manage to find ourselves in a real deli (like Molinari or Carnegie) I will order a chicken liver salad, no questions asked.

These sorts of negotiations keep our marriage humming along, I think.

Anyhow…..

By the by, in case you are wondering why I am opining about liverwurst? It’s because it was the word of the day on my WordBook Dictionary iPhone app.

I had open that app today so I could look up a ten cent college-level word that my friend NewMexiKen threw out there on Twitter. It was a doozy!

And then I got lost in thoughts of lunch.

To you, that may look like a brown lump, but to me, that’s a lump of tasty goodness!!

My diphenhydramine reality

Whoa, man.

I mean, really.

Whoa.

So I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Don’t know why. I got stuff on my mind, but no more than the usual suspects.

It’s not waking up and worrying or thinking or whatever.

It’s just waking up. And then not going back to sleep.

Exhausted, looking for some help, I decided I’d try some of that over the counter Tylenol PM.

Well, The Good Man astutely pointed out that Tylenol PM is just a mix of Tylenol and diphenhydramine, you know…Benedryl?

I already have Tylenol, so I bought a generic bottle of Benedryl.

Hoping for some quality rest, I followed the exact same doses from the Tylenol PM bottle, mixed up the recipe, swallowed it, then lay down in my bed.

It didn’t take long before my head felt kind of thick and my eyes got heavy.

Awesome! Sleep is on the way!

Did I sleep? Yes, actually pretty well.

But the dreams. Oh the dreams!

Wild, vivid, lucid, long involved dreams.

In one dream, a carload of my friends and I drove over the Golden Gate Bride, but on the OUTSIDE of the asphalt roadway. We sort of floated alongside the bridge, over the water, as we cruised. I was in the passenger seat and I could see the bridge up close. It was the most amazing way to see the entire bridge.

In another I shook hands with Jesse Jackson because he saw me across the room and rushed over to meet me. Said he was a big fan. (not sure what corner of my psyche that came from. I’m not much of a Jesse Jackson person, but ok.)

In several I could run really fast and it felt so good.

In the best dream, turns out The Good Man could fly. If I held tight to his hand, I could fly too. He flew *fast*, we zipped all over, and the wind tugged at my shoes! It was awesome!

Wowowowowow maaaaaaahn. That is some freaky sh–! I had good sleep! Fabulous dreams! And clear sinuses!

Diphenhydramine! You can’t beat this stuff!

So you know what I did, right?

I took it again the next night.

More wild, fabulous and fun dreams. Vivid, happy, trippy stuff.

Once again, I woke up feeling great. No residual antihistamine hangover, just calm and happy and best of all, rested.

So then, of course, owing to my Catholic upbringing or something, I realized that anything that feels that good can’t possibly be good for me, right?

So I put the happy dreams away and tried to sleep on my own last night.

It worked. I actually slept pretty well.

You know, I had a few dreams. Nothing special. Very dull. No flying or anything.

*sigh*

Literal girl takes things literally

Ok, so there we were on a day of running errands, The Good Man and me.

We pull into a crowded parking lot behind the store where we’ve taken our bicycles to get tuned up.

Fabulous. All good.

TGM parks the car and heads inside while I get out change to go see about the meter.

Muliti-tasking couple, that’s us. Efficiency!

Ok, so we parked in one of those lots where you have to “note your space number and pay at the machine.”

Sure. Ok. I’m in!

So I note “space number 6” and then I swivel my head around to find the pay’er machine.

I see a sign that says, “pay here” and I go toward it like a moth after a 60-watt bulb on a hot summer’s night.

I literally walk right to the “pay here” sign. Seeing ONLY the “pay here sign.”

I arrive at the “pay here” sign to find that there is ONLY a “pay here” sign and no sort of payin’ machine.

What. The. Heck?

Ok. A photo will probably explain this better.

It actually took me several moments to turn around and actually figure out how to get my parking fare paid.

The sign says, “pay here.” It DOES NOT say, “pay over there, like eight feet away.”

Pay here with an arrow means pay there! At the end of the arrow.

Very, very literal girl was really perturbed by this whole setup.

So perturbed I took a dang photo of it!

I totally need to take up yoga.

Or meditation.

Or something with plinky-plunky music that will help lower my blood pressure.

Literal girl is *tense* sometimes…..