Hey - I'm Not An Idiot!

This morning, I picked my car up from the dealership. I have gotten to know the waiting area there quite well - once spent 3 1/2 hours pacing around waiting for them to fix the alignment. It was a quick visit this time, but I figured I would take advantage of the free mediocre coffee. Since I now know my way around, I proceeded directly to the fancy single cup machine, picked out a styrofoam cup, and placed it on the serving ledge. I went for the "regular coffee" button only to be rebuffed by a handwritten Post-It sign that read "Out of Order." And instead of just thinking "Bummer, looks like there's no coffee," my first internal reaction was to wonder who had witnessed me go through the whole ordeal of selecting a coffee cup and putting it on the little ledge before realizing it was out of order. I imagined the guy with his Wall Street Journal saying under his breath, "It's out of order, you idiot." When I saw that there was a make-shift coffee carafe to fulfill the free coffee duties until the fancy machine recovered, I had a little under my breath conversation, "Oh, okay, that's where the coffee is today," as if I had to provide evidence to the third party observers that I was not an idiot but could figure out all on my own that there was a substitute coffee source.

It’s ridiculous the number of times I worry about looking like an idiot. I also have these moments when I realize I am going the wrong way and have to turn around. I could be looking for a particular store in the mall, for example, and suddenly realize it’s not in the Macy’s corridor (the direction in which I am headed) but instead near Nordstrom’s. Rather than just do a simple about face, I have to pretend I am going into some other store (and do a little lap in there, perhaps) and then head out in the right direction. It’s the “I meant to do that” phenomenon. I don’t know why I worry so much. It’s not like anyone has ever called me on it.

Except for one time – unjustified. For the second week in a row at 7-Eleven after my dance class, the Crystal Light slurpee flavor flashed the red, “not ready” light. But dammit, that can’t be an exact science. So I pulled out a cup and thought I would check the consistency. Sure enough, it was pure liquid. And some other customer was kind enough to advise, “It’s not ready – the red light is on.” Gee thanks, Mister! In the end, I did wait it out. And even with the red light still on, I managed to walk out with a half frozen slurpee. Shows you what he knows. Idiot.

At Last....I Found It!!!

I took a little trip to London and Ireland in May - it was my first visit to the UK and Ireland and it was fun!
In London, there was this bar/restaurant that I really liked - the Living Room - near Piccadilly. It has a really cool lounge-y atmosphere with a big bar and LOTS of people in suits. We went there for both dinner and drinks and it was great. While eating dinner there one night, they had some guy playing the guitar and singing. This guy was impressive. He had me at 'Take Your Mama' by the Scissor Sisters. And then when he played Franz Ferdinand's 'Take Me Out' (all acoustic), I became an instant fan. I never even got his name - I think I found it on the internet when I got back but I have since forgotten it and could probably just look it up again. BUT this is not the point. The point is, he played this other song and during the chorus, people in the bar started singing along...and it was a catchy little tune....all I got out of it was 'hey hey hey' and 'America.' Then, when we were driving in Ireland, I had heard the song on the radio and was like 'HEY, this is the song that guy sang!' So the song played out and the station DJ never said who sang the song. After hearing the song in it's entirety, without the chorus of drunk people, I decided that it was a good song. If only I knew who sang it!
The search begins....
I got back to the States and started doing searches on the Internet and iTunes. Nothing. I started singing the little bit I knew to friends, in hopes that someone might have heard of it. Nothing...mostly blank stares, but mainly nothing. I thought perhaps I should just let it go...let the song slowly fall back into the recesses of my mind. But it wouldn't fall because I actually had a dream about it a couple of weeks ago where the band's name was written down on a piece of paper - I remember maneuvering my head to get a better look...I thought I had it but by the time I woke up, I had forgotten (my darn Adult A.D.D. kicking in again). So a couple of days later, while browsing through iTunes, I noticed a 'country' selection filter at the bottom.
A light goes on....
I thought to myself, 'Hmmm...just maybe.' So I flipped the flag to the old Union Jack and started my search. I immediately went to the 'Top 100 Songs' section because I figured it couldn't be a very old song and maybe people in the UK were still downloading it. I started looking down the list and playing the 30 second snippets (I also played a lot of dance snippets, which was fun) and as I went down the list...HELLO, #80...
Song Title: America
Artist: Razorlight
Song Snippet: MATCH
Oh My GOD! I found it! I can't believe it. I rush back over to US iTunes and download immediately. I'm so excited, my hands are shaking. I send it over to Becky immediately, since she's the only other person that can know what I'm talking about since she was my travel buddy. I proceed to play the song about five times in an hour to make up for lost time.
So with some good old fashion MacGuyver thinking and my love of work procrastination, I was finally able to lay this mystery to rest and stop the replay in my head.

Another thought that occurred to me while in Europe: I DO like Amy Winehouse. I had heard her sporadically on the radio in the US and saw stories about her online and on MTV but never really got into her music. But because we were in her home country, I heard 'Rehab' and 'You Know I'm No Good' a few times and it grew on me. I downloaded her album from iTunes upon my return. If you haven't heard of her or heard her music, she's got a great old-school, R&B feel to her...and she's got drinking problems...but whatever.

Drivers, Beware

I do enjoy a nice drive, sans traffic. In my relationship, I do the most driving. I don't mind. I only mind when we're driving after a long day at work and the passenger becomes a corpse and I'm left to my own devices to keep alert and get us to Point 'B' safely. But I digress.
Aside from going to and from work, I do most of my driving to and from New Jersey to put in face time with the family. I'm not going to lie. These drives are a little trying because the main road is I-95 which is the main interstate to get to just about any East Coast state. So I'm sharing road time with truckers, college kids, family vacation people, etc.
For the most part, people are OK on the interstate. The majority know that if you're not going over 70, to stay out of the left lane and if you're going to pass, pass quickly in the left and get back to your snail-like pace in the right. On occasion, there have been those snails that decide to camp out in the leftest most lane for no particular reason at all except that they think they should be there. They don't - but I am not a flasher to alert them otherwise...I tend to just ride up on their tail and wave my arms about like a madwoman and make pointing gestures to the right lane, yelling, 'You belong there!'
Snails aren't the point of this post. The crux of my issue lies upon arrival at the toll booth. EZ-Pass...it's a wonderful thing. For those that are unfamiliar, EZ-Pass is this little, white box that goes on your dash or windshield and it's computer-monitored to let you pay your toll via credit card and gets you through the toll booth without having to deal with toll collectors. It's great. Even the detectives on Law & Order use it when they want to find someone that has fled the city.
I look forward to breezing through the tolls and yelling 'See ya suckers!' to the long line of cars that are waiting to go through a toll collector. This excitement is short-lived, however, when you get drivers that camp out in front of the EZ-Pass lanes trying to figure out if they should go through or not. Word of advice - if you don't know what EZ-Pass is, chances are you don't have it. And as it dawns on them that they actually don't have EZ-Pass, I have to watch them cut their car to the right and wait for a kind soul to let them into a 'cash' lane before the rest of us EZ-Pass holders can proceed...just painful.
I know that everyone cannot get EZ-Pass but if you are able, I highly recommend it. And the next time someone stops short in front of an EZ-Pass lane when they really don't have EZ-Pass, you can be sure that I will be laying on my horn like that dead corpse I drive around sometimes. (I have road rage.)

Croc Me (Amadeus)

The newest warm weather fad out there seems to be these new croc shoes. In case you've been living under a rock, the crocs are colorful, rubber, clog-ish type shoes with holes on the top. You can find them just about anywhere....Nordstrom, Hallmark, Whole Foods, mall kiosks. That's a pretty wide range of sellers right there.
Moms and kids seem to be the biggest target market of the crocs, but I have seen men and their whole family decked out in the crocs. Purdue even has 'Purdue-colored' crocs available! But not only do you wear these crocs out to just about anywhere (although my Mom swears that they're only pool shoes, much to my nephew's chagrin), you can also customize and decorate your crocs with beading and charms via the holes that are on top of the crocs....amazing!
It's a fad - just like the jelly shoes before it. I think that crocs were made for women that are hiding their need for a pedicure. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that the crocs go away. Unfortunately, I think I am doomed to see them through the rest of the summer and fall of 2007...sigh.
On my most recent visit to New Jersey, I saw that my sister and one of my nephews have fallen victim to the croc rage. Unfortunately, I could not keep my distaste of the croc to myself. I told my sister that I didn't think I could allow her in my car with her crocs on. Of course blood is thicker than rubber, I think, so I let her in the car anyways. She swears that they're comfortable.
So I decided to educate myself a little more. I tried on a pair at my local Whole Foods store, while waiting for my husband to buy something. First of all, the way they have them all bunched up together and on double 'shoe hangers', it took awhile to find a pair in my size and in a color of my liking. Once I settled on moss green, I tried them on and thought they felt kind of 'prickly.' There are apparently little prickly things on the inside that I guess are there to massage your feet and/or perhaps exfoliate at the same time? I did not walk around the store in them as I had no peds on me (and no peds in recycled materials were available at the Whole Foods) but I slipped it on, wiggled my toes, and took them off.
Are they comfortable? Perhaps.
Would I wear them? If someone else bought them for me and probably just while gardening.
Will you now find me traipsing around DC in crocs? Not at all.

Call Me Irresponsible

Nothing makes me feel more irresponsible as an adult than losing something. I once dated a guy who lost practically everything, and I found that trait unbelievably annoying. And yet, I have also been guilty. As a child, I lost things quite often, of course. I remember one year, I lost both pairs of navy blue gloves I got for the winter (the original and the replacement pair). I kept looking for them on the door handle of the school bus (commonplace in Michigan - that stainless steel handle could get chilly - so the bus driver often put a lost mitten on it as a little cozy). But those gloves were never heard from again. Just one of many unsolved mysteries. During one summer when I was on the country club swim team, I impressively lost a beach towel, a great pair of goggles, and a SWIMSUIT! I mean, how do you lose a swimsuit? It was even the team swimsuit and everything, so when I had to compete after that, I had to be the ragamuffin kid in my generic speedo. I think of all the time I wasted looking for that stuff.

The thing about my losses as an adult is that they are lost but not forgotten. I try to tell myself to forget about it and move on, but I can't. Because the mystery is still alive. If I don't have it, where is it? I've been fortunate enough not to have a lot of things stolen from me, but I'm quite sure that is the explanation for a few of my missing items (gold bracelets, camera, a radio in the back of my car in high school - I hope to God no one stole that swimsuit, because that's just gross). And yet, I still can't accept the fact that those stolen items are gone. I think I would almost feel better if I SAW the thief take them, you know? Then at least I would know.

Anyway, what brings up this tangent is my search for the 1996 Purdue University Debris Yearbook. I classify this one as lost, but not stolen. During senior week at Purdue, there was a big debacle involving my sorority sisters and me getting prematurely kicked out of our house. So we ended up having to move out early and find somewhere else to shack for a few days before graduation. And that is when my Debris was lost. It has always bothered me. Not just because I was in the "front page" enlarged picture on the two pages covering my sorority but because it was my senior year. And that was something I just wanted to have for posterity. Today - 11 years later, I shot an e-mail to the yearbook staff at the Debris. Needle in a haystack, I know, but maybe somewhere there is a box of old yearbooks sitting in a corner, and they need to do a little spring cleaning. Surprisingly, there are quite a few Debris yearbooks on eBay, but I don't really need the 1949 edition.

A Night at the Ball Park - Take 2

Another imperfect poem about another baseball game I attended this past Saturday....

(to the tune of 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame')

Went to another ball game

Not too bad with the crowd

I got no peanuts or crackerjacks

The sellers were sparse cause we were up in the back

I didn't root, root, root for the home team

I really didn't care, all the same

I saw one boob, two boobs and a nipple ring

At the old, ball game.

So yes, we went to another Nats game and we were sitting in the upper decks this time around.

We had tailgated with the Wisconsin State Society hashers (runners that drink beer) and one of the hashers was kind enough to flash us her size A, unimpressive, bra-less (and probably dirty-sweaty) boobs towards the end of the game. She got paid $5 to do it. It was about $4.50 too much, if you ask me.

Why would anyone flash their (unimpressive) boobs in the first place? Granted, it was a small crowd that got to see it, since we were in the upper echelons of the stadium and no one was behind us...I would say that maybe 15 people, at most, witnessed it. But still...ick. And it wasn't just that her boobs were unimpressive...it was really the whole package. If any of you have ever seen 'Family Guy,' the girl was Meg, in the flesh, minus the pink beanie. So no, she can't even claim 'butter face' (but-her face) status.

I've been thinking...why? Maybe she did it because she needed some kind of affirmation that her boobs were okay? Maybe guys yelling at her to lift her top would make her feel good about herself? Perhaps this was the moment she had been waiting for in her whole life - to have guys pay enough attention to her to want to see her boobs? I don't know - I was too busy relieving the burning in my eyes to hazard a guess.

All I know is that you couldn't pay me enough to flash my boobs...and hopefully, no amount of beer will convince me otherwise!

Clay Aiken Is Not Attractive

You know, I feel like I am at the point in my life where I can confess to my "guilty pleasures." There was a time when I may not have admitted my weakness for Air Supply (I was a full on fan in 1983 with their "Greatest Hits" cassette as well as the lesser known "Now and Forever" only to closet my love for them during the junior high/high school era). But now (perhaps inspired by movies like Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Wedding Date), I feel free to openly enjoy the Aussie duo. And while it may not be as unpopular to be a Bee Gees fan as it was at the end of disco, the Bee Gees are hardly U2-solid. Yet, I proudly turn up "Night Fever" and "I Started A Joke" when I hear them in the car (even with passengers).

But good God. Clay Aiken. I NEVER understood the appeal of this one. I am as much of an American Idol sucker as the next person. But, while technically passable, you cannot convince me that Clay's rendition of "Open Arms" can even come close to touching Steve Perry's. Yes, Clay Aiken has that "musical theater" quality, but in the campy campy way - not in the way that Colm Wilkinson gives people chills. There is nothing enjoyable to me about Clay's singing. So I was beyond surprised that he attracted that crazy "Claymates" following - even considering the different demographic of said Claymates.

But what really gets me is his ickiness COMBINED with the diva-like behavior. First, it was the whole Kelly Ripa incident, who, as I understand, was justifiably making a quick quip in response to Clay's diva behavior of covering her mouth with his hand on Regis and Kelly. And NOW I read about Mr. Aiken getting involved in an airplane spat about his resting his feet on some woman's arm rest. Ew. Just ew. As if the thought of Clay himself weren't enough, the thought of him committing one of my biggest pet peeves ever (someone else's feet on my chair) and on the part of the chair that is meant for the arms, no less, just completely gives me the creeps.

Clay Aiken - you are not attractive. Just sayin'.