Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy 10th Anniversary Of Guy Who Flipped Over The Banister Day

The title of this post is a text message I received over the weekend from my friend, Meredith. It took me a few moments to decipher and then I remembered -- the Milennium New Year's Eve that we spent in New York City...

(wavy lines and "DO..do.do.do" music here signifying the trip in the wayback machine)

Meredith had some sweet deal when she first moved to NYC. She lived rent-free with a couple that had a sick apartment in exchange for cleaning the house wearing nothing but fishing waders and nipple clamps helping out when they entertained, which was often. Over the years, this couple had purchased four adjacent apartments and combined them...which made for a huge, two-story, roof balcony-wrapping-around-the-entire-apartment place on the Upper West Side. They were out of town for the holidays that year, so Meredith decided she would take that opportunity to throw a major party.

She did act responsibly as she was holding this party in someone else's gorgeous home. And by that, I mean she went to the Meatloaf concert at Madison Square Garden for the first half of the evening, while about a hundred people descended upon the apartment. (Including the drunken, jackass cousin of one of our friends.)

(Great aside: On the way into the Meatloaf concert, someone who worked for the show was assessing the crowd in search of someone who would go on stage with Meatloaf during the song, "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and who wouldn't mind kissing someone while they were up there. Because Meredith's life is a series of bizarro incidents that sound made up but are not, she was selected from the crowd of thousands. While she was on stage, her now-husband John saw her, and never having met her before, turned to a friend he was with and said, "I'm going to marry that woman." The friend also knew Meredith, so John ended up being invited back to the party later that night.

By the time Mer and John made it back to the apartment, the evening had already gotten a little out of hand. One friend of theirs (a comedian) spent a good part of the night screaming suggestive ideas to the guys on the roof of the drug rehab place across the street, and the aforementioned drunken jackass cousin was at one point sitting on the upstairs banister when he lost his balance and fell backwards down to the first floor, landing on his (thankfully, fairly soft) head. The following conversation actually took place during this incident:

Drunken onlooker (in a panic): "Is anyone here a doctor?"
Our friend Sanjay (stepping forward, helpfully): "I am"
Drunken onlooker (quizzically): "A medical doctor?"
Our friend Sanjay (patiently, yet sarcastically): "No. A doctor of poetry."

Fortunately, the kid was okay. It took just a few stanzas of Walt Whitman to make him feel better.

Hope you all had Happy 10th Anniversaries of Guy who flipped over the banister days, too.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Notes To Self (Holiday Edition)

Thanks to the recent blizzard and lazy holidays there has been a lot more movie and television watching in our house than normal. In addition to killing off the brain cells that the egg nog missed, it bumped us up to the top of the CPS list gave us some insight into just how influential the media is on little minds.  

To wit:

1. I should not let my child watch 'A Christmas Story' as it prompted the following:
  • her to turn to me and ask, "That's crap. Right, mom?" when the dad in the movie opened up the crate and pulled out the leg lamp (perceptive little potty mouth, isn't she?)
  • her playing "mommy's little piggy" during lunch at the local Thai place recently (how does one say "Yes, she *was* raised in a barn" in Thai?)
2. I should not let my child watch 'Best of SNL Christmas skits' as it prompted the following:
  • her to exclaim, "my vagina's in a box" in the middle of a crowded restaurant (rendered speechless here)
3. In an attempt to steer my daughter clear of references to genitalia in boxes, I should not then let my child watch the food network. The seemingly innocuous segment featuring a donut maker dipping a donut into a big bowl of gloppy white glaze prompted the following:
  • "Mom, that looks like throw up" (so much for visions of sugarplums)
Hey, it's cheaper than a babysitter,
Brutalism

    Monday, December 28, 2009

    Publicity Whore

    Jeff Cockey stopped by while in town for the holidays.

    My kid, who takes forever to warm up to anyone and has only met this guy a couple of times, led him up to see her bedroom within moments of his arrival with the promise of showing him her "pink tree." As she walked through the kitchen, she attempted to grab the bottle of Ketel One he brought us as a gift along the way. Ignoring all of the "apple does not fall far" comparisons, it was actually kind of cute how quickly she took to him until I realized that at four, she is about three years away from the dateable range in his world. (Not okay, Jeff Polanski Cockey...not okay at all.)

    We also learned that Canetto and Cockey have a mutual friend in a relatively successful actor out in la la land...Canetto from his GMU days, Cockey from his actor days. They live near each other in Brentwood and have become friends. (Interesting aside: Cockey is partially responsible for this guy's first foray into sex in the no-no place.) (Though not with Cockey.) (Or so he says.)

    While he was visiting, Cockey was telling us about another couple with whom he is friends. The husband is a doctor at Stanford and the wife is a biochemist. They have a daughter the same age as ours who is currently studying Mandarin. As he was saying this, our child walked by with a conical party hat pressed against her forehead, repeatedly grunting "UNICORN". Too bad they live in California, or we'd totally be besties.

    Another year, another unannounced visit from Jeff. Nothing like a little Cockey to make the holiday complete.

    That's what she said,
    Brutalism

    Friday, December 18, 2009

    Different Day

    Often, when I read the daily report from Avery’s preschool listing all of the fun activities, nap time and snacks, I think, “I want to go there.”

    And then there are the days when it feels like I do.

    Like earlier this week, when the phantom pooper in our office struck again.

    We are all (chronologically) adults here and I feel that there really is no reason to leave bodily yuck anywhere in the shared bathroom at work. Apparently, I am alone in this radical thought in the world of female government consulting professionals.

    Unsuspectingly, as I walked into the restroom a few mornings ago, I pushed open a stall door and was greeted by the sight of a huge smear of poop on the toilet seat. (To frame this properly, please envision your favorite horror movie…the ominous music that begins to play as the hapless victim is about to come upon something horrific. Then, the music leads to a crescendo as the door slowly opens and the victim begins to process the nightmare that they are seeing.)

    I ran out of there so fast, you’d have thought someone told me that Leonardo DiCaprio had finally tired of twenty-something supermodels and was waiting for me in my office.

    I spent the rest of the day suppressing my gag reflex and going down three floors when I needed to use the restroom. Until late in the day, when I had put it out of my mind and thoughtlessly walked back into the restroom on our floor. Where I was again greeted by something I did not expect: an angry (all caps! exclamation points!) sign on the offending stall door that read, “CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF! THIS IS DISGUSTING AND NOT ACCEPTABLE!”

    It’s not that I don’t completely agree with the message (I do.). It’s just that the furious sign writer had taken the time to add the flourish of a clip-art toilet on their sign. In my opinion, this is not only redundant but also takes some of the “zing” out of the strong wording.

    Such a waste,
    Brutalism



    Thursday, December 17, 2009

    In The Spirits

    Some good friends of ours have THE BEST holiday party every year. They hire a bartender who makes specialty holiday cocktails, and a pianist (tee hee) who plays Christmas songs on their baby grand piano and invite about a zillion fun people, which makes for a great evening to which we look forward all year. And because we are such good friends, we and another couple take care of updating the hosts’ calendar while we are there.

    This began a few years back after one thousand too many elf martinis. As the hosts had thoughtfully left a white board marker right next to the calendar with their schedules, we thought we'd make a few of their appointments a little more colorful…and add in some of the ones they’d carelessly forgotten.

    For instance, "Kelly's party" was easily transformed into "Sniff Kelly's panties", and "Father's Day" was celebrated by a NAMBLA Father/"Son" dinner dance. They were very busy one year, what with all the KKK rallies, Swingers parties and various medical appointments (lets just say that one year saw more than its fair share of boil lancings). Also, for liberal Democrats, they have an astounding number of Mitt Romney fundraisers and NRA Life Member events to attend.

    Last year, we had even more fun by re-arranging their Christmas décor, which found many of the reindeer and (backdoor) Santa figurines in compromising positions.

    The hosts love to wake up the day after their party and read about all of the fun events they have to look forward to in the following year. (Hiking the Appalachian Trail with Governor Sanford!) Or so we tell ourselves, anyway. Thus far, we continue to be invited back.

    So you can probably understand why we felt completely comfortable wearing the following to their party a couple of weeks ago:

    We were totally on the list,
    Brutalism

    Tuesday, December 08, 2009

    Leave The Gun. Take The Cannolis.

    My daughter has a large stuffed horse that was given to her by her grandmother last Christmas. She loves this thing, and was "riding" it all over the house last night.

    As Canetto was over at a neighbor's watching football, I let her climb into bed with me to try and get her to fall asleep. (The child requires NO sleep. None. I usually tuck her in by saying, "I love you and you exhaust me.") So, she climbed up into my bed with the large stuffed horse and we all fell asleep there. When Canetto came home a couple of hours later, he moved her into her own room, then could not sleep himself, so he went to the guest room so as not to disturb me.

    Which means that when I woke up this morning at 5:00am, I looked over and saw a horse head on the pillow next to me.

    Definitely better than sleeping with the fishes,
    Brutalism

    Friday, December 04, 2009

    It's A Gift, Really

    Once again, I find myself in the holiday spirit, just like I was last year and in other years past. The spirit that takes me back to simpler times, times when I spread joy so effortlessly to everyone around me...

    Like the one Christmas several years ago when my mother and I were visiting my sister in South Florida and we went to the mall so my sister's young son could sit on Santa's lap. It was only a few days before Christmas, so the line to visit with Santa was about as long as Tiger Woods' texting bill. (Oooh, snap!)

    We figured it would be better if Grandma ran around the mall with my sister's son while my sister and I held a place in line. So, we stood and waited and chatted as we slowly moved closer to Santa, surrounded by legions of small children who were so excited by the promise of a small candy cane handed to them by a cranky alcoholic (Santa, not me) they could almost not contain themselves.

    As my sister and I talked, we reminisced about Christmases past. Like the one where I walked on the linoleum kitchen floor in my new ice skates (yelled at), the one where I used my brand new hair yarn to create pom-pom animals (smacked), and the one where I received the roller skates I wanted so desperately, yet instead of the beautiful bright-white skates of my dreams, they were blue with racing stripes (disillusioned).

    I believe it was at that moment that I asked her (loudly), "...and do you remember when we found out that Santa Claus wasn't real?"

    And I believe it was in the excruciating moments that followed that dozens of sets of weepy toddler and glaring parent eyes all turned toward me in unison to see who it was that was ruining the magc of Christmas.

    Happy Holidays, Everyone!
    Brutalism

    Wednesday, December 02, 2009

    Muy Caliente

    This morning, I came across a headline indicating that a former Miss Argentina had died during a cosmetic procedure. Which cosmetic procedure, you ask? Well, she was undergoing plastic surgery to get a butt implant. [Note to Brutalism readers: If you read my obituary one day and it names the manner of my death as "natural causes", rest assured that it was a butt implant gone awry and my PR people are protecting my (sadly, flat-assed) memory.]

    It gets better. I did a google search to find the story and the web site I landed on installed some spyware on my (work) computer. The IT Department tried many things to remove this, and ultimately took my computer into their parents' basement special IT diagnostic lab, which is when they discovered that in addition to the spyware, my processor had overheated, which warped the laptop.

    Looking forward to my annual review,
    Brutalism