Benji

This weekend we went to a friend's kid's birthday party. I'll be honest, when you don't have any kids it can be a bit weird being at a little kid's birthday party, because they're geared towards kids, and; to put it mildly, I don't really care for most kids...but this party was actually pretty fun, because there were more grown ups than children, and the kid was young enough that he really didn't care.

It was held at the kid's grandparents, who are a delightful Italian couple in their 60's, they live alone with their old shit tzu, Benji. The grandparents are really fun, and easy to talk to, and we've been to the house a couple of times before.

About an hour into the party Chris pipes up, across the room, to the grandpa "Hey, where's Benji?". Chris starts looking around the room for him, but what he doesn't see is the grandma's head goes down, and she starts to cry...So Chris asks louder "Where is he? I haven't seen him all day!"

At this point I elbow Chris in the rib caged, and throw him a "shut your face look"

So Chris goes "Just a minute honey! Benji? here boy!", and he starts beckoning him with a whistle

Now the Grandma bursts out in uncontrollable sobs, and the husband finally says, "We had to put him down two weeks ago"

Chris goes bright red and says "I'm so sorry, I had no idea"

The grandma tries to tell us the story, but at this point she is sobbing so hard, she can't even speak

Everyone rushes over to comfort the grandma; and now they all start reminiscing about Benji, and all of their other pets who have died, so now almost everyone at the party is crying

I pull Chris aside and say "When someone doesn't answer when you ask them where their 17 year old dogs is, let it go!"

It took a good 45 minutes before anyone felt like getting back to the kid's birthday celebration.



Okay, so I'm in Las Vegas for the next week without access to a computer, but I'm sure I'll have some good stories when I get back!!

xoxoxo,
m

Weekend Recommendations!!

Okay,

I'm going to switch things up slightly, because it's Friday, I thought I might give everyone my movie/book recommendations for the weekend. Why? Because it has recently come to my attention that there is A LOT of good stuff out there, movies and books, that don't receive the credit they deserve!

Okay, so this weekend I think you should look into renting the following movies:

The Castle - with Michael Caton
It's an Australian comedy that no one seems to have ever heard of, and it's sooo good!! If you are lucky enough to find a copy of it, it's definitely worth watching!! It's like one of my top 10 comedy movies of all time!


The Brother's Solomon - with Will Forte and Will Arnett (Amy Poehler's husband)
Okay, so this is like Dumb and Dumber if they had IQ's of 165. It's amazing!! It also is like not an overly well known movie. It came out last year, and it didn't do very well, but I don't know why, because it's really good. It also shouldn't be hard to find a copy.


Okay, so if you're looking for a good book this weekend I would recommend the following:

Can You Keep A Secret? - by Sophia Kinsella
I don't know what it is, but lately I only enjoy reading books by British women and gay men. Sophia Kinsella is the author of the "Shopaholic" series; but this book didn't seem to get as much hypes, and it's very cute! Sort of romantic comedy.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim- by David Sedaris
This book is like laugh out loud, sooooo funny! He's the brother of Amy Sedaris, and the book has stories of his childhood and adult life, and it's awesome! His childhood is basically exactly the same as my husbands (Greek family in the 70's), but he's gay; and his adult life is...well, absolutely brilliant!


Okay, one quick awkward moment:
We recently received a phone call from one of Chris' friends telling us that she and her husband were splitting up, and the news/her wounds were fresh. They would be having joint custody of their two kids, and she would like to start going out and having fun on the weekends that she didn't have her kids...

So Chris responds with "Yeah, well we want to ask you to come out with us a bunch of times, but that was back when you had a family"

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!

Promotions

I've quite the motley assortment of jobs in my time; especially since I finished school; In fact I've had 4 career jobs in the last six months alone. I have a problem with commitment.

Anyways, I think by far one of the worst would have been my job doing product promotions. Ultimately I think my main problem is that I'm quite good with people, but I absolutely loathe the general public. This may sound harsh, but I truly believe that anyone who is exposed to the general public, for an extended period of time, gradually grows to hate them with a fiery passion.
So, I was hired to do a product promotion for a rather well know cosmetics company. Essentially, the job requires you to stand at a make-up display (which you had to cart from store to store yourself), for 10 hours with no breaks, befriend moronic tweens, accost as many customers as possible, and occasionally get sexually harassed. In general, by the age of 24, I was so over the whole creepy coworker thing, but there was one store manager who particularly sticks out in my mind, an average 40ish year old man, with one exception: the man had a glass eye. He would check me out with his one good eye, then wink at me with the glass one. So it was really both hilarious and horrifying at the same time.

Anyways, product promotion has to be one of the worst jobs for self esteem! When someone sees you approaching them in a shirt with a brand on it, they automatically assume that you are trying to sell them something they don't want, so they'll just cut you off before you begin, and spare you the common courtesy of saying hello.

Numerous conversations went something like this:

Me: Hi! (big smile)
Customer: No thank you! (hand in my face)

So, in general they didn't care what was going on, or what I had to offer, it was just a big fat "no thank you" to me... really it was just an "I hate you, I don't know why, but I'm absolutely repulsed by you"

It was nice even to get the "no thank you" sometimes a customer would see you approaching, then they'd start walking away, so at this point you couldn't turn back, so you'd follow them-

I mean you didn't want to look like an idiot, because you had already started talking, and couldn't admit to yourself that someone would just walk away from you...you would convince yourself, that maybe they just hadn't heard you-

but then they'd speed up, so then you'd speed up, and you should speak up too (because you know, they hadn't heard you). So basically you'd end up race walking, chasing a customer around a cosmetic department, while shouting at them, until someone finally gave up. A girl I worked with, one time, ended up chasing a woman all over a Walmart Super store.

Totally worth the whopping $12 an hour

Oh, and you maybe asking yourself how I quit...well one day, I was about 2 hours into a particularly horrendous shift, when it occurred to me that I had no reason whatsoever to be doing this, I hated the job, I hated the people, and I was miserable. So without saying a word to anyone, I walked outside, got into my car, turned off my cell phone, and peeled out of the parking lot.

Painters

Last summer Chris and I needed to get our house painted, and being small business owners ourselves, we thought we would get estimates from some independent companies, as well as big corporations. Every spring we get a bunch of flyers in our mail box from local landscapers, painters, etc., so Chris thought he'd give one of them a shot; so he called them up and they came over for an estimate.

The appointment was made for 4:00 p.m., at 4:40 we received a phone call that went like this:

Painter: What's your address again?
Chris: It's 1726 Peach Street.
Painter: Well I'm standing here in your backyard.
Chris: No you're not, because I'm standing in my backyard.
Painter: No, I'm standing in your backyard, I'm looking right at your pool.
Chris: We don't have a pool.
Painter: Yes you do! I'm looking right at it!

-Pause-

Painter: What's your address again?
Chris: 1726 Peach Street.

- Pause-

Painter: Oh, I guess I'm on Plum Street...give me 5 minutes

5 minutes later a man showed up in cut-off acid washed denim shorts, flip flops, and a Metallica t-shirt. He was smoking a cigarette and reeked of alcohol.

Painter: My, uh, business associate will be here in a minute, she has the "portfolio"

Moments later a 1983 Chevrolet Malibu pulled into our driveway, and a woman emerged carrying a photo album, and wearing nothing but an over sized Looney Tunes t-shirt...literally nothing else, not pants, no shoes, just a Tazmanian Devil Tee

Painter: Ahh yes, my "portfolio"...Brandi, if you please...

The "portfolio" contained pictures that were clearly out of magazines, and not even remotely plausible pictures: there were parts of the White House, sections Buckingham Palace, and I believe, even, the Taj Mahal

Chris: Well this certainly is impressive...umm we'll let you know!

Moral of the story: take chances on small businesses, even if it doesn't work out, you could end up with a good story!

Old Maid

Before I begin this my posting today, I think I should make sure everyone knows that my husband is Greek. Like not born there but his parents, aunts and uncles, and some cousins were. So they're all very much into the Greek culture.

Traditionally, in Greek culture, you name your child after their grandparent; so with cousins this can be a bit confusing because you can have several cousins with the same first and last names. Fortunately (for me) this tradition seems to be waining as time goes on, but in Chris' generation pretty much everyone is named after a grandparent.

So how do you distinguish who's who when you have identical names? Well, jobs (ie. John Smith the dentist, or John Smith the teacher?), locations (ie. Susan Jones from New York, or Susan Jones from Alberta?); and in one horrible turn of events, in one family, there is the ugly and pretty (ie. the ugly Christine Stephanopoulos, or the pretty Christine Stephanopoulos?).

Now the unfortunate this about the ugly Christine and pretty Christine is that the ugly Christine really is ugly, and hairy (full side burns and moustache), about 80 lbs overweight, and most importantly a really unpleasant human being; and the pretty Christine, of course, is absolutely stunningly beautiful, gracious, and really and all round joy to be around.

I'm not saying that the ugly Christine doesn't have a reason to be such a nasty person. From what I understand she's had a pretty unfortunate existence; she's probably ten years older than Chris (late forties by now) and she still lives with her parents, the only relationships she's ever had have resulted in men stealing her money, or cars, or in one case, her cat.

So, one afternoon a few years ago, before Chris and i were married, we were at a Stephanopoulos function with the Ugly Christine. She had cornered us alone, and, as usual, she was being very prying and judgemental. Eventually she blurted out "So are you guys going to get married or what?", and I responded, in an attempted at light hearted wit "Oh well, we're not in any hurry, I mean really Chris is the old maid he's already 34!". I immediately felt a sharp jab from Chris, and I realized the woman that I was talking to, who lives with her parents, and was in her mid-forties, was looking like she was either about to cry, or kick my ass. Either way we didn't want to find out. I was screwed, there was nothing I could possibly say to make this better.

Chris cleared his throat, "excuse us", he said, and we hurried to the door, threw on our coats and slipped out into our car, and peeled out of the drive way so fast, our tires were literally smoking. As soon as we rounded the corner Chris has to pull over because we were laughing so hard he couldn't drive. I believe that was the last time we ever made it to the Stephanopoulos household.

Morris Dancers and the Angry Man Float

Chris and I were driving to work yesterday morning and some how we found ourselves in a funeral procession; and not like somewhere in the back, but right directly behind the hearse. Fortunately the procession was going close enough to where we wanted to go so we were able to sneak out; but it got me thinking, and I think this happens to us a lot more than it should. Not exclusively with funeral processions, of course, but with parades in general.

When I was 16 my friend and I were walking downtown, and we turned a corner and unwittingly ended up smack in the middle of a Morris Dancing parade. Now if you're unfamiliar with Morris Dancing, I suggest you immediately Google it. Wikipedia describes it as "a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. Implements such as sticks, bells, swords, and handkerchiefs may also be wielded by the dancers."

We became so frightened and entangled in this parade of probably 100 Morris dancers, that it was several blocks before we could escape.


Last November I desperately wanted a vegetarian sub from Subway, so I sent my husband out to get one. Now generally Chris is a very relaxed guy; however, he gets quite flustered if he's driving, and things don't go exactly according to plan.

It just so happened that this night was the night of the Santa Clause parade, so the main artery of downtown was blocked off. However, this blocking off happened during the time that Chris was in the Subway, and he needed to get to the other side to get home.

So completely enraged he drove for blocks, and he finally found and open street, but what he didn't realise is that they had just up a barricade behind him, and he had inadvertently become the Grand Marshal of the Santa Clause parade. As far as Chris could see ahead that roads were blocked off, not only with road barricades, but with laughing and waving children and families.

So for about 5 blocks Chris, fuming with frustration, had no choice but to wave back at the children, as to not ruin their parade experience. Finally he found a police officer, and he was able to plead with the officer, and finally convince him that he was not the Santa Clause Parade Grand Marshal; so the officer had to call in back up, and coral the crowd so Chris could escape.

The next day my sister, who had been babysitting her niece the night before, called me very confused, and said, "Um, this is going to sounds really weird, but was Chris in the Santa Clause Parade?"

Nature

One gorgeous Sunday morning, a few weeks ago, I had a craving for Taco Bell. It was the kind of beautiful day sunny day, where everything in nature seems in perfect balance and harmony. So, I got in the car and headed for the nearest drive thru. When I got to the window I paid the man, an patiently waited for my food. Because it was such a nice day I didn't think twice about leaving my window down while I waited.

All of a sudden, completely out of nowhere, a bird flew, at like 100 miles an hour, through the driver's side window, and smacked me right in the face! I screamed, and the frightened bird continued to whip around my car and crash into me. I kept screaming, and flailing my arms, trying to get the bird out the window, and after about 2 minutes the bird found the open window and flew away.

So the cracker jack Taco Bell guy finally shows up to the window with my food, and says (in a moronic voice that made me think he's already surpassed his lifetime career goals) "Duh, did a bird just fly in your car?"...I looked up at him, my hair completely disheveled, and my heart still racing and I snidely replied, "Why yes, I believe it did"; I grabbed my food and drove away.


I've been bugging my husband for years now to quit smoking; but every so often when he's stressed out he'll still go outside and have a cigarette. One day, a few weeks ago he was particularly frustrated, the computer wasn't working properly, and he had a ton of paper work to do; so he decided needed to take a quick cigarette break and clear his head.

He went out to the backyard, and as he smoked, he watched a neighbourhood cat chase a squirrel across the awning above his head. As the cat closed in on the squirrel, the squirrel panicked; feeling cornered he had no choice but to jump, but the ground was a bit too far; so the squirrel jumped right on Chris' head! Chris screamed a scream that sounded like an 80 year old woman, and the squirrel frantically spiralled down Chris body. The cat was still hot on the squirrel's trail, so it too had to jump on Chris' head and claw it's way down. Chris was still yelling and flailing as the two ran off.

Chris came back into the house, and I just heard him yelling and ranting, as he went, horribly shaken, right into the shower. I felt badly for him, but that's what you get for smoking.