I don't like to bullshit people

2003-11-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

I was so tired this morning and angry (about being tired) that I just splatter-painted the mirrors in my bathroom with toothpaste from my toothbrush. I also splatter-painted Raphael with toothpaste, and then I started laughing. Then I was in a good mood, and ready for work.

2003-11-13T11:04:00.000-08:00

No wonder you guys couldn't get the riddle - I screwed it up! OK, here's the real one:

rich people need it,
poor people have it,
and if you eat it,
you will surely die.

2003-11-12T15:09:00.000-08:00

There's a fast-food chain in California called In-N-Out, where there are like four things on the menu:

Cheeseburger
Hamburger
Fries
Shake

Anyway, you can order burger "styles" that aren't on the menu, such as

Protein-style: A beef patty wrapped in lettuce, with no bun
Animal-style: Extra sauce, sauteed onions, and pickles
3x3, 4x4, etc = number of patties & number of pieces of cheese between two buns

I always order a cheeseburger, protein-style, animal-style, and I smother it with catsup. Can you IMAGINE how messy that is? But it SO good.

I'm hungry.

2003-11-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

Here's a riddle - try to figure out what "it" is:

rich people have it,
poor people need it,
and if you eat it,
you will surely die.

2003-10-31T14:53:00.000-08:00

It's getting hot in here: the view from hell.

In case anyone was wondering, I'm fine, the fingers of the fire haven't touched my neck of the county, and even if they had, I'm two blocks from the ocean, which I figure is a fire-safe zone. Yeah, the only thing that burned near me is the chili I tried to make a few nights ago, which really just added a hickory flavor to the smoke that filled my apartment this week.

...
On Sunday morning, I woke up to an orange-colored sky. It was very bizarre, like having sunset at 8am. I tried to take a picture off the balcony, but I was too sleepy to change the white balance of my digital camera, so it corrected for the orange light and made the picture look blue against the actual, orange daylight. So, I went back to sleep, something I used to do in college when the dorm fire alarm went off and I felt like I would rather burn than stay awake. A few hours later, the sky was still a bit orange, and when I opened the door to the balcony, I smelled the smoke and saw that the swimming pool outside was covered in black ash. Only then did I realize that something might be wrong.

On Monday, my office was closed, and people were advised to stay off the roads in general. I stared at scenes of burnt/burning neighborhoods on the news and finally left the apartment to get some lunch and check out the scene outside. My car was covered in ashes, and there were large particles flying all around; it was like being at a sunset campfire all-day. But those weren't marshmallows roasting, and there was no escape for the smoke, some of which still hovers not too far overhead.

Tuesday morning, I drove to work early when Raphael drove in, before 9am! We drove through the smoke separately, and since his car doesn't have an air filter, he wore his sweater over his face for most of the drive and looked like a terrorist (is that racist?). The sides of the highways were blackened from the back fires, or whatever they're called (the fires that are created to prevent the real fires from spreading). I went to Costco that same day, and they were handing out air filter masks...

Ok, I'm bored with writing about this. It's a horrible mess, and many people's dreams went up in smoke. I hope everyone can recover from this at some point.
...

On a lighter note, Raphael and I are escaping for the weekend, for a sort-of family reunion. Actually, one of the members of my extended family is having a Bar Mitzvah in Palm Springs. My Mom assured Raphael that he doesn't have to be Jewish to go to a Bar Mitzvah (he was worried, being Cheyenne and all) but that they'll check at the door to make sure he's circumsized. My Mom is sick.

I'm thinking about buying a mountain bike at REI. I love chocoate. I had a meeting this morning at work, so I put on a nice shirt this morning. My boss told me I looked nice. She wears t-shirts and jeans to work. She wants me. (She's married). I'm usually the one who dresses up as a slut for halloween. I normally wear pretty unflattering clothes because I don't want to attract too much attention to myself, so Halloween is like my one time of year to show off. But this year I'm not dressing up for halloween and I'm not asking fo' any candy cuz I'm sweet enough baby! Dont: go trick-or-treating after the age of 12. Do: buy candy on sale starting November 1st.

2003-10-13T15:02:00.000-07:00

It's inevitable that you'll learn more about a person while camping with him/her, just from being exposed to new conditions and circumstances. For example, after being out in the woods for one night, I now know that my boyfriend is a Cheyenne, and that his ancestors were bears.

2003-10-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

I admit that I haven't exactly been following the baseball playoffs - at all. In fact, it was recently called to my attention (like a week ago) that the playoffs were happening at all, and that they always happen at this time of year. Maybe it's because I grew up in Boston that the idea of championships just didn't seem to apply to "our kind" after 1986, when we tragically lost to the Mets in the World Series.

But i started to follow the playoff stats since last night, when my brother informed me of the recent success of our home team. So, I looked up the stats for this week, and also noticed that Clemens will be pitching on Saturday - there was a little link with his name, like this: Clemens. You can actually follow that link to see what I was horrified to see... Clemens is no longer playing for the Red Sox! And on top of that, he's pitching against them in the playoffs - how rude. If anything stands out in my mind from growing up three blocks from Fenway Park, it's that Roger Clemens threw like 90 miles an hour or something, and he was a one-man team. Now that I realize he's playing for the Yankees, it just doesn't seem fair. I hope they both lose.

2003-10-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

More French Fun Facts:

A common term used when speaking about sex or sexual intercourse in the French language is "to introduce" someone. That's why, whenever someone says "it gives me great pleasure to introduce [so and so]," French people, at the least the ones that I respect, usually find it hilarious.

2003-10-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

About the 14,000 people who died in France due to the heat wave this summer:

According to CNN.com from August 12, 2003, "...doctors say the heat wave is worse than that endured by Chicago in 1995, when 700 people died from heat-related illnesses in the U.S. city. 'In Chicago, for three days temperatures were reaching 37 degrees Celcius (98.6 Fahrenheit). Here we have had temperatures reaching 40 C (104 F) and above in Paris for almost 10 days,' [someone in France] said."

And according to USA Today from August 15, 2003, "The population of France... is 20 times greater than Chicago's. There are 61 million people in France..."

Thus, it seems that if Chicago were as big as France (scary thought), approximately 14,000 would have died in a heat wave in an American city - that's about as many as in France, and it was hotter there by over 5 degrees!! So could the French really be no more weak than Americans, or could there just be a large number of French people inhabiting Chicago?

Now as a side note, my French boyfriend and I do "hot yoga," during which the room is heated up to 90-ish degrees F while a 90-minute yoga class is conducted. I've noticed that he appears to sweat more than the typical male yoga student, so I'm keeping a watchful eye on him in case he looks like he's about to drop dead during class. After all, heat sensitivity could be in his blood... but for now I suppose I'll conitnue to treat him as an equal.

2003-10-02T15:08:00.000-07:00

Nana's Beef Brisket Recipe

Ingredients:
1 lean end-cut brisket
2 Onions
Cracked pepper
1 C. BBQ sauce
1/3 C. Soy sauce
1 1/2 C. Water
1 Oven
Optional: Potatoes, carrots

Directions:
Trim as much fat off the brisket as possible. Place in a roasting pan and cover with onion slices, cracked pepper, BBQ sauce, soy sauce, and water. Cover with a lid or tin foil, bake at 500 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Then bake at 350 degrees for 3 - 3 1/2 hours. G*D DAMN, THAT'S A LONG TIME TO WAIT FOR BRISKET! But trust me, it's *really* good. Don't forget to baste it every hour. Oh yeah, and add the veggies during the final 45 minutes.

2003-10-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have a lot to do at work. On those days, I show up at work at around 10am. But then there are always days like today, on which I wake up at the regularly scheduled hour of 8 o'clock, but then just sort-of "take the morning off." When I do eventually turn up at work, people think I'm just coming back from my lunch break.

My mom tells me I keep a banker's hours...

As the man who works next to me whistles tunes from Disney's Cinderella, I suddenly realize the meaning of the 40-hour work week. [This is sort-of in response to Ethan's rantings on the subject]. So I think that being away from home all day actually works for people who have kids. I guess when you're at home and not working, you have to take care of the kids - that's a lot of work. And when you're at work and not working, you can just talk about your kids - that's (blank) a lot of work... anyone? That's "NOT" a lot of work. So then it seems to me that the obvious choice is to be in a quiet place, maybe talking about the kids occacionally to fill in the gaps of time, rather than at home facing the everyday challenges of parenthood.

In conclusion, the 40-hour work week "does not apply" or "makes no sense" (whichever you prefer) to the *INK (single- or double- income-no-kid) types, and therefore, the best thing to do is just to extend your breakfast for two hours if possible, or sit back and listen to stories about other people's kids. AND, for the record, in case anyone has any doubts about it, your life as you know it is officially over when you "get" kids (that's how Raphael says it).