Category: weirdity

Use your words.

Something is wrong with the fuzzy one.

No, not The Good Man. The one that’s more fuzzy.

The Feline.

Something’s amiss and we can’t seem to figure out what, exactly it is.

It’s not from lack of The Feline *trying* to communicate. Oh no, she’s communicatin’

A lot.

Our normally fairly quiet cat is now taken to meowing. Insistently. Incessantly. Bowl is empty, the hailstorm of meows is ceaseless. Fill the bowl, the meows stop for a while, replaced by crunch, crunch sounds. Then, when sated, the meows begin again.

They don’t sound like pain meows. Her ears aren’t hot and she’s not acting sickly.

Just the opposite, actually. She seems in fine health. She’s dropped a couple pounds and her nose has healed up nicely. She seems in great spirits.

So what’s with all the meowing?

I have heard about these devices made in Japan that will “interpret” your cat’s vocalizations.

I can’t help but think if we got one, the translations would be something like, “You people are boring. Get off the couch and hunt something! And what’s with this food? Could I *get* some of that stuff out of that can with the picture of the mermaid on the side? And while we’re at it, I need bottled water in this bowl. And this collar makes me look fat!”

Maybe sometimes it’s better not to reach out and paw someone…

I’ve got concerns.

First, read this brief article from the ABQjournal:

(edited for length)

“Someone stole a Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department patrol car early Wednesday and apparently took it for a joy ride.

But the fun may not have stopped there for the bandit who took the patrol car from a county storage yard. Police are looking into the possibility the thief impersonated a sheriff’s deputy while using the stolen car to make traffic stops— while drunk.

The New Mexico State Police— which has taken over the investigation— is looking into a report the driver then used the car to make at least one traffic stop in Chimayó. A woman called State Police and told them that a man in a sheriff’s vehicle had stopped her and that he also seemed drunk.”

Ok so…questions and observations:

1) What size cajones does it take to steal a Sherffi’s car from the county lot? Or maybe not cajones, perhaps this is better measured in liters, or pints or….whatever measurement Mad Dog comes in.

2) Who hasn’t had, if even for a brief moment, the odd dream of making a stop in a patrol car. Blue and whites flashing. Sauntering up to the driver’s window, double knit beige polyester pants whiffing as you walk, mirrored aviator glasses in place. You utter something like, “Do you know how fast you were going?”

Someone was actually drunk enough to pull it off…and get away with it (so far).

3) How freaked out must the woman have been when she was stopped? WTF must THAT encounter have been like?

4) “(Santa Fe County sheriff’s Capt. Robert) Riggs said that in his 20 years as a cop, he hasn’t seen anything like this before.” You gotta work REAL hard to show a cop something he hasn’t seen before. Even in Santa Fe.

5) Is it wrong that I’m rooting, just a little, for the guy to not get caught? I know, I know, just because a crime is dadgum funny doesn’t make it any less a crime.

6) Once again, I’m ever so proud of where I come from. Go on Oh Fair New Mexico. Most other states take themselves WAY too seriously. We’ve still got the comedic edge. And that makes us special.

(Yes, yes, theft and drunken driving aren’t funny. But ya gotta admit, this guy had some flair.)

Just missing the ways of where I come from, for better and for worse.

Good news is I get to visit pretty soon.

Countin’ the days…

Observations

Subtitled: The World According to Karen

On the CalTrain this morning coming in to work (commuting always the best place for random observations of human behavior):

A very mild mannered looking Asian man in tweed coat with elbow patches was seen white-knuckled-clutching a thick stack of bright red paper slips. I wondered what they were.

As I passed the racks holding maps and schedules, I saw the red slips. “Customer Complaints” they said at the top and featured several inky black lines down the page.

I wondered. What did that quiet well-dressed man have to complain about? In quantity.

I envisioned him at home angrily scratching out all his perceived failures of the CalTrain system, feeling better as each slip is completed, shaky hand taking a drink of a whiskey neat as he does so.

At the Semi-Well-Known sorta Italian chain restaurant on Sunday:

A schlumpy dressed man escorts a *gorgeous* leggy woman dressed to the nines through the front door. His eyes dart around the room. When the hostess asks how he may be helped, he says, “It’s busy here…we’re going next door, they have a bar!” To her credit, the hostess just smiles and says, “Have one for me…”

As The Good Man and I had our dinner, we observe the place next door is having a special night and is *packed*. More so than the place we’re at. So schlumpy man and hot chick (clearly dressed for a date) wouldn’t have stayed there either.

I envision them darting from place to place, schlumpy man never satisfied with the situation. This one too bright. That one too loud. That one over there has a funny smell. An evening long quest.

Woman’s feet are now tired in her four-inch platforms. She thought she’d be sitting more, sipping a nice Cabernet. Schlumpy man finally settles on International House of Pancakes and calls it a night. Beautiful and usually well-kept woman calls it an early night.

I envision that Schlumpy man’s phone doesn’t ring, no email in the inbox. And he wonders why.

At the local chain drug store:

A large man of what appears to be the Italian persuasion walks through the store, talking to himself. At first I think he’s on a mobile phone. He is not.

He’s got all the stereotypical accoutrements of a Guido from Joisey. He’s wearing dark sweatpants with rounded boiler belly pushing at a stained button down shirt worn under a nice looking navy blue blazer. With gold buttons. I can’t tell, but I think little anchors are imprinted into those buttons.

Hair is slicked well back. Tarnished gold-rimmed dark-lensed sunglasses in place over his eyes. It is early evening.

He toddles off to collect his requirements. I forget about him.

We find him again on line behind us. I have to return an item. When I got in line, there was no one else. Now there is a long line. Clerk is confuzzled about the return process. So everyone waits. On me.

Guido has set down his purchases on the rolling belt. It consists solely of a large bag of potato chips and two fo’ties (fourty ouncers of Coors. I’d have placed him as a Miller or Bud man. Maybe Coors was on sale.)

I’m currently reading a novel about a guy who is a hit man for a “made man”. This colors my outlook. I’m thinking, “I’m gonna get popped for making this guy wait.” My eyes go shifty.

Guido cracks a joke. About the cake mix on my pile of purchases waiting on the cashier. He says, “That takes too much work, you can just buy that already made!” and laughs a too-loud belly guffaw. I laugh nervously. My Brooklyn-born fiancée kibitzes with Guido. They laugh together. Guido isn’t mad, just impatient.

I discover Guido is probably just another lonely guy in suburban California. Happy to have had a few moments interaction with some other people.

I envision him driving off in a battered black Lincoln or Caddy, body in the trunk thumping as he whips around the corner on his way home to watch Sopranos reruns.

I remind myself not to take the fiction I read so literally.

At the well-known trendy natural and organic foods market:

The muzac is playing over the PA system. On this day they’ve chosen 80’s hits. Clearly appealing to the Gen X crowd that makes up much of their clientele.

Loverboy is in the air. “Only the Lucky Ones”

Soon to be middle-aged Girl remembers how her sister used to LOVE that band. She had the album on vinyl. The cover replete with the buttocks of Mike Reno clad in red leather pants with crossed fingers. Album titled “Get Lucky“.

Girl used to borrow her sister’s album and play it over and over and over. All those burgeoning teenage giggly thoughts about gazing at Mike Reno’s arse come bubbling up in her soon to be middle-aged mind. She remembers.

And she begins to sing along. In public.

She finds her mate. And decides to entertain him by doing a full air guitar solo while singing along.

And people walk by…unnoticing. Intent on finding their steel cut oats or their Kombuchi drinks.

I envision the Girl and her mate having a long happy life together.

Mainly because The Good Man is tolerant of my antics.

I love making character studies from the world.

You can’t make this sh*t up.

Group Therapy

A personal blog really is just a form of confessional, right? No priest or therapist but a forum to air your issues.

With that in mind, I need to talk about a *painful* recent incident. It’s taken me these many days to be able to discuss it without wincing.

You see, as you know, I’m soon to get hitched to The Good (nay WONDERFUL) Man.

And as such, I need to wear what they call a “gown.”

I’ve worked for nine years at a company in which our multi-billionaire CEO wears old jeans with large visible holes. And we’re a company full of engineers. You can never set the dress standard terribly high with engineers.

So the standard of dress in my world has dropped considerably.

Once upon a time, I wore dresses and panty hose to work almost every day.

Now, it’s real, real hard to get my heiny into a pair of hose. I mean, why?

(Which begs for a slight aside…on the night that my love and I were engaged, I knew we were going to a REALLY nice place for dinner. Wanting him to think I’m a class act, I got out a dress from the back of my closet and bought a new pair of hose. My love observed the shimmy/shake/jumping dance it takes to get into those things and through hysterical laughter said, and this is a direct quote: “Never do that in front of me again.”)

Obviously with all this in mind, the thought of actually purchasing a wedding dress scared me sh–less. It took my best friend flying in from Las Cruces for the weekend to get me to do it. God bless her.

Once the dress was procured, the dress-making people told me, emphatically, that I had to go to Nordstrom to get measured and fitted for a “foundation garment”. (For those not paying attention, that’s a bra in street speak).

Well. If I was traumatized by going to buy a dress, can you imagine what this bit of news did to me?

I was immediately taken back to my youth. Twelve maybe? My mom took me to the Mervyn’s at Coronado Center in Albuquerque where a severe, middle aged woman roughly measured my burgeoning assets, and picked out the ugliest sturdy white device she could sell. No flowers. No lace. A utilitarian boob holding device.

To be fair, my mom did nothing wrong. She was being a good mom. No one could have known how traumatizing that would be for me. But it was. Traumatic.

So, needless to say, I’ve been avoiding the “get measured for a bra” task on my list of “to do’s” for the wedding.

With the day of my first dress fitting well nigh, this last weekend I had to “do the deed”.

I reluctantly trudged into Nordies and waited in line for one of the nice women working there to help me.

As I waited, it seemed the sturdy middle-aged woman with the Eastern Bloc accent was going to be the first finished with her customers, and would be the one assisting me.

FLASHBACKS FROM ‘NAM! Or Mervyn’s. Anyhow.

Much to my pleasant surprise, a young lady hidden behind Helga or Gilda or Gerta hung up the phone she was on, stepped forward and said to me, kindly, “how can I help you?”

I quiveringly told her I was getting married soon and was, to my own utter disbelief, going to be wearing a strapless bra and needed a garment to wear under.

She smiled kindly and said, “do you need to be measured?”

I woefully nodded.

Together we went to the dressing room where she quickly measured my assets (less burgeoning now, more succumbing to gravity).

She left the room to pick out items to try on. I stood there, shivering like a Chihuahua, waiting.

She brought in a few choices. Said cheerily, “ok, let’s try these on!”

She took one off the hanger, opened it up and held it out to me.

I complied.

She said, “Bend over and shake into it.”

What?

“Go ahead,” she urged.

I complied.

She fastened it up behind me.

Oh dear god. I am now wearing this contraption. I. Can’t. Look.

“Oh, now that’s not bad,” my new intimate friend Lilly, chirped.

I looked. Really, it wasn’t that bad. But it made my generous assets, uh…how to say this…made them burble up over the top. Many women like this. I do not. I prefer the “keep ’em stable” approach.

So we moved on to the next one. Shake, shake, fasten.

Hmm. I looked. This one not so very bad at all. I raised my arms up (the litmus test of a strapless device). Everybody stayed where they should.

Lilly pointed out that I was “getting good separation” which sent me reeling back to those old Platex bra commercials, “lifts and separates!”

So ok. We shook, shook into a couple more and decided that device number two was a winner!

Ok, so bra is done. That wasn’t so bad.

Now we needed a garment for the rest of the stuff that has to look good in a nice dress.

Out came the Spanx. You’ll recall the “Spanx and a sash” advice previously discussed.

So I was cool with the Spanx idea.

Until my little friend Lilly suggested I should get a “heavy duty” pair in a size smaller “to really hold you in”.

Uh. Well. Ok.

So she brought in this wrestler’s suit. Which is appropriate, because that’s what we had to do to try it on.

Lilly actually chose to HELP ME with this task.

This was more than a shake, shake, folks.

As we grunted like overworked longshoremen to get the device installed, about halfway through the job, I started laughing.

I remembered, “never do that in front of me again” and wondered what The Good Man would have to say about all this. Two women wrestling a recalcitrant pair of Spanx. Hot? Yeah, probably not.

Not to be deterred, Lilly demanded that I focus.

Give it up for Lilly’s tenacity. She got that damn thing on me.

There I stood in all my pre-matrimonial glory. Highly steel belted Spanx lashed to a sturdy strapless bra, all my bits and pieces sucked in to within an inch of my life.

And I looked at me in the mirror and said, “yeah, ok, that will work”.

Blessedly, on the removal, the Spanx shot off of me like Evil Knievel out of a cannon, and I was free to breathe once more.

The rest of the day I walked around like a chastened dog, tail between my legs, terribly embarrassed but glad I got the “framework” for my new pretty dress.

It didn’t erase the “incident” at Mervyn’s in the early years, but it helped. Turns out “getting measured” isn’t all that terrible. I also bought a couple of pretty, nicely fitting bras for everyday wear.

With lace! Man, has bra technology improved.

Wonder if my best good friend and Matron of Honor will be as kind to me as Lilly was when it comes to getting those Spanx back on…

She has until August to think about it.

Forbidden love.

I have lust in my heart.

It’s a new lust, a fresh start.

This fascinating new thing caught my eye just less than two weeks ago when we moved into our new building. Ever since, I can’t stop thinking about our encounters.

They leave me giddy. Happy. Jittery.

I’m lovestruck baby, I must confess.

And the object of my adoration is this strong, powerful, steely beast.

What’s that, you ask?

Why, it’s a coffee machine. But not just ANY coffee machine. Not the typical office industrial device that pushes brown water out of tired dried up grounds. No.

Gaze toward the top of that lovely thing. You’ll see two plastic hoppers that contain WHOLE beans.

You select size, leaded or no, and push start and it takes beans, grinds them RIGHT THERE, and brews one delicious cup of coffee.

Now see, I’m not actually supposed to drink coffee.

For one, I can’t handle the caffeine. High blood pressure and tired adrenals and just, I can’t take the buzz.

So ok. Decaf.

I also have terrible reflux. And coffee, even decaf, is terribly acidy.
Problem is that I *love* coffee. And giving it up is difficult.

I usually limit it to on the weekends. Some decaf with breakfast or maybe an iced decaf from the local purveyor of deliciousness on a Saturday afternoon.

Last week we moved into the new office building and everyone was raving about this new coffee maker. I was like “feh!” Office coffee? No.

But when I arrived my new cubicle was not configured correctly and also my network didn’t work, so for the first hour of my day, I stood around while people fixed the problems in my workspace.

So while waiting, I toddled down the hall to try out this new thing.

When I sipped the fresh ground, fresh brewed concoction, even with the crappy dried up powder creamer they have, I was like “hey…that’s tasty!”

Tuesday, I brought in a real mug and a carton of half-n-half. Added a splash to my fresh ground love and siiiighed. So. Tasty.

I tried to keep it to a cup a day habit.

But this week slipped away from me. Suddenly I was having two in the morning. And another mid afternoon for a little “lift”. Then I was drinking a cup on my way out the door to go home.

The Good Man commented on my coffee breath, so unusual for me!

It’s probably time for rehab.

But I just…can’t. All day long I hear the distinctive clicking of my new crush. It calls to me. Beckons me to the sea of warm half-n-half sweetened love.

If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Did I mention my crush also brews hot chocolate?

A nod to my oldest niece for the imagery of forbidden caffeinated romance. Thanks! How you drink a chai with espresso is beyond me. I’m scared to try, I might further my addiction…..:)