Um, really? Hubby Call Out #2

As I mentioned in my Pavlov's Toothbrush post I intend to post funny, slightly embarassing things about my husband until he reads my blog. I have even told him that the first one was out there, and yet, AND YET he still hasn't read it. Rawr. That's my mildly annoyed noise.

So for topic 2, I thought I should cover some of Hubby's quirks. Oh, and I think I am going to finally say his name, because it's not like it's a state secret, since anyone who reads this does probably already know me. I love living with Brian (that's hubster's name) and I love love love being married to him. He rocks, let me just say that. And let me also say that if he were to make a list of my quirks, they might perhaps be twice as long. So please don't think my husband is a wacky tyrant when you read the following paragraphs.

Living with someone is really interesting, because you learn things about them you'd never really know if you weren't privy to the full life they live, not just the part where they take you on dates or go on vacation or you have sleepovers at their apartments. Being with someone every day makes you utterly aware of all their peculiarities.

Here are a few of Brian's endearing quirks:

1) Brian cooks us gourmet dinners every night (yes, I know, I am the luckiest girl ever). But apparently, it is heresy if we don't have a vegetable with our meal. There is always a meat, a starch, and a veggie. And if he doesn't make a seperate veg, he either apologizes or confirms that this is ok. What, no brocolli? I divorce you!

2)He folds his t-shirts in the strangest way I've ever seen, so that they are stood up at the fold. I can't even explain it. It looks like something out of a magazine, but it's cute.

3)He washes his face and entire body with his shampoo. It makes no sense. I have laughed hysterically many a time when I have seen this. He does also use soap, by the way, so I am not sure why he likes transferring the extra shampoo from his head to his body. But I'll turn around in the shower and he'll be covered in it.

OK, now on to the quirks I could live without:

1) It is a crime if I do not close the door to my closet. Yes, he built the closet in our new house (I know, awesome). And I get that the cat might get in the closet and shed even more on our clothes (Murray is a long haired white cat) if I left it open. But honestly - in those ten minutes between when I put my clothes on and then went into the bathroom to dry my hair, what is so horrible about leaving the closet open?

2) He asks, in some degree of seriousness, if I am trying to waste money when I have more than two lights on in the house at one time. I grew up in a house where we kept whatever lights on that we wanted. It's not like we did it to waste money, I think we just liked having a house that was illuminated. Now I have to fight with the man in the dark cave to keep some damn lights on.

3) Every morning he is convinced we are going to be late for the train. This one is definitely getting better the longer we've lived here in the house, but I think at least 20 seperate times he has been convinced we are going to be late for the train. I've got the whole thing down to a science - I know exactly how much time I've got (not much, really, we want as much sleep as we can get, so we get up at 6:30 and have to be out of the door at 7:00) and I even know that I should have the hairdryer on by 6:55 to make sure things all go according to plan. 2 minutes before I am ready, he'll start freaking that we're going to miss the train. At first I tried to rush for him, actually believing we might be late. But then I noticed that every single day, every time I got in the car, it was 7:00. Maybe 6:59, maybe 7:01. But honestly. Chill out. And guess what - there is another train less than 10 minutes after the one we take. Oh the horror!

I've got a thousand more things to tell you, about him, about me, about life, but I am tired so I am going to go turn off the light, make sure my closet door is closed, and tease him about the fact that we had steak and eggs tonight with no veggie.

Everyone needs a monkey lamp

I love monkeys. I'm not sure I've mentioned that before on this blog. I LOVE MONKEYS. I don't know why I like them so much, but man, I do. I don't want to own one or anything, though I wouldn't mind holding a monkey (assuming said monkey was cuddly). I think they are really funny, and I love their little people like quirks - like have you ever seen a monkey that had to walk through water and didn't want to? I did once, on this amazing Planet Earth special on Discovery channel. And the monkey was totally high stepping it, with it's hands all up in the air, like, oh, I can't believe I have to walk across this water - like a lady caught in the rain in high heels.

So, don't you think I should find a reason to own these lamps:



These are the "Simian Glow Monkey Table Lamps", which are sold across a whole bunch of sites, including the one I linked you too, which is Touch of Class I think. Hubby and I actually considered buying these as bedside table lamps until we realized how tall the monkey tails were (a little too tall for bedside lamps). I just love how quirky it is, that you can actually buy lamps shaped like Monkeys. I do wonder if people buy these without understanding the comedic value of them. Like, "oh honey, these lamps will complete our jungle themed rec room!" Either way, I totally heart them.

Pavlov's Toothbrush, aka Hubby Call out #1

So my hubby is fantastic. I mean, fan-fucking-tastic, I thank my lucky stars every day that I nabbed him. But that doesn't mean he doesn't drive me crazy - although I believe it's a contractual obligation in a marriage that your partner can and will make you kooky over their habits and pecularities.

And I've decided to start a series of on and off blog posts documenting my husband's kookiness. Why might I do this, you ask? Well, hubs and I were discussing my blog (a frequent topic, as I like to talk about it) and he admitted he still HAS NOT READ IT. Not one little entry. Admittedly, hubby is not much of a reader (I know - weird, right, I get woozy in bookstores from the love and I married someone who doesn't recreationally read!). But still - no fair. I told him I'd like him to read it and he said he doesn't need to read it because he lives it (a cute statement, cuter if it's not a line I told him from another author I read who's husband told her the same thing).

So I proposed this: I would write revealing stories about him on my blog until he read it. And as soon as he read it and told me what I wrote, I'd delete it if he'd like. But then he said there is nothing I could say about him that would be embarassing. Which he took back one minute later when I listed at least 3 things that he'd die if I revealed (and I of course promised him I had never intended to reveal those things anyway).

But know this, hubs. You're call out on more minor embarassments is coming. In fact, here is item 1: The Pavlovian Toothbrush.

When we lived in our apartment, it was pretty small and we could hear each other from the other rooms - on the phone, watching tv, etc. And I observed a strange phenomenon. No matter what he was doing at the time, if hubs heard the sound of me brushing my teeth before bed, he seemed to drop whatever he was doing to come and brush his teeth with me. I mean, literally, if I went to brush my teeth without telling him I was doing it, I could seriously count the seconds while I was brushing until he showed up in the bathroom. He could keep playing his video game, or watching tv or whatever. But no - the call of the toothbrush was too strong to resist - like Pavlov's dogs and the bell. But now that we've moved into the house, he can't always hear me when I go to brush my teeth. And so, sometimes, I brush alone. It's a strange feeling, like I am hiding something. But then I remember - brushing your teeth is not a partner activity. And so I brush, alone, even if I do, on rare occasions, miss the sound of him padding down the hall to brush with me.

The Soundtrack of My Life

Looking at someone's Itunes or Ipod is like looking inside their brain. I think it is SO interesting to see what kind of music people have in their collections. To a lesser extent, I used to do this with friends in college, when we'd compare and share CDs. But what has made it more interesting is that with music downloading, many people will buy (or borrow or steal) an individual song versus an album. This can reveal some funny music preferences. For example, if back in the CD days, you absolutely loved that Right Said Fred song "I'm too Sexy", you probably didn't buy the whole album (did anybody?). Itunes has made songs, as opposed to albums, more meaningful.

I thought I'd share with you some of my secrets from my Itunes:

10 songs I'd never have if I had to buy the album (and am mostly slightly embarassed to even tell you I have):
Because I got High - Afroman
I feel Pretty - West Side Story Soundtrack
Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
Round and Round - Tevin Campbell
Right Here - SWV
Tonto, Jump On It - Sugar Hill Gang
It Takes 2 - Rob Base
Stars are Blind - Paris Hilton
Two of Out 3 Aint Bad - Meatloaf
Ice Box - Omarion

5 Songs that Make Me Think of My Childhood:
Pipes of Peace - Paul McCartney (1st cassette tape I ever owned)
Still Crazy After All These Years - Paul Simon (one my parents' "songs")
Lydia, the Tattooed Lady - Muppets (from Muppet Silly Songs, my favorite tape to listen to before bed when I was little)
Take On Me - A-ha (Makes me think of my sister, as she lived for A-ha, and this songs kicks all sorts of 80's ass)
Anything by Billy Joel - (seriously, we listened to it him so much as a kid, I feel like he is my uncle or something)

5 Funny Funny Songs/Audio Clips from TV or Movies:
Fat Guy in a Little Coat - Chris Farley bit from Tommy Boy
Doodoo Pie - SNL duet from skit with Britney Spears & Tracey Morgan
Jay's Rap - From Jay & Silent Strike Back
Red Hooded Sweatshirt - Adam Sandler from SNL
Chocolate Salty Balls - Chef from South Park

5 Songs from the Soundtrack of My Life:
All I Gave - World Party (this song always needed to be on my life soundtrack, so I chose it for the music we walked to in our wedding recessional)
Michelle - The Beatles (Kissed a cute boy in college to this one)
Yer So Bad - Tommy Petty (the song of me and my sister, forever and always)
Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might be Giants (In particular because my parents were cool enough that they took me and my sister to see them perform in Greenwich Village when I was 12 because they were one of our favorite bands. I will never forget that. Who's parents would do that? Mine! Awesome.)
Push - Sara McLachlan (the song we did our first dance to at our wedding)

5 Songs that I think give me Street Cred for Knowing because they are mildly obscure and I don't ever want to completely lose touch with what's cool (so go download them if you haven't heard of them):
You Are the One - Shiny Toy Guns
Someone Like You - Safetysuit
It Makes My Heart Break - Your Vegas
Medicine - The Animators (a band that has sadly broken up, but is wonderful. And my hubby had them help propose to me at one of their shows - so this is also a "Soundtrack of My Life" song I suppose)
Seventeen Years - Ratatat

I'd love if people commented on this one with some of their Itunes picks too, please!

Food Porn

I've written before about my food allergy (well, it's technically a disease, but it sounds more normal to call it an allergy) which doesn't allow me to eat anything with flour in it. Well today, one of our vendors brought in cupcakes from a place called Eleni's, which I know about for their famously cute (and expensive) cookies. These cupcakes were divine looking. They even rivaled the look of the notoriously terrific Crumbs bakery cupcakes, which is located down the street from our office.

These were delicious looking, tantilizing, mouth watering, glittering goodies of yum yum tastic proportions. The kind of cupcakes people could get in fist fights over. There was a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting, an oreo cupcake with crushed oreos mixed in the frosting, vanilla cake with strawberry whipped frosting and sprinkles, and a chocolate cupcake with white frosting on it that you know just rivaled birthday cake quality frosting. And there were at least 15 of them, sitting mere feet from my desk.

AND I COULDN'T EAT THEM. Not even lick the frosting (god forbid there might be flour transfer) or nibble a tiny bite (unless I want to curl up in the fetal position in pain and/or vomit). So I did the next best thing. I pimped out those cupcakes. First I delivered one to my boss. He chose the oreo one, which also appeared to have little marshmellows in it. Then I brought two to the office of sarcasm (so nicknamed by me because the two people who sit in there are hilarious and uber sarcastic) and finally I brought two upstairs to a couple of the guys in research (to thank them for their awesome job working on our office ping pong tournament).

And you know what's kind of messed up - with all five of those cupcake deliveries, I made them all eat at least a bit of the cupcake in front of me, and tell me what it tasted like. I was engaging in vicarious cupcake eating - like food porn. I don't know why cupcakes get me so bad. Like I said in my earlier post, I am pretty much accepting of my gluten free lifestyle. But cupcakes are not only delicious, but so pretty. Sooooooo pretty. And unlike cake, where frosting is a mere garnish - in cupcakes, frosting is almost in equal part to the cake.

But you want to know the funny part? When I brought the cupcakes upstairs to research, and I explained that I wanted to watch them enjoy the cupcakes, one of the guys was like "Oh yeah, I make my friends tell me all about whatever they're eating. I always want to see the inside of their sandwiches and stuff." Really? I've at least got my allergy to fall back in as an excuse for my weird actions. He, apparently, is just weird. Or loves food. Or both.

These things make no sense

I am still feeling fairly disgruntled. Although there are a few things that have made me feel gruntled (I know, it's not a word, but I like it) today. One of those things is the gluten free almond cookies a client baked for me, which I will be finishing while watching the Biggest Loser (and before you judge me for eating cookies while watching a weight loss show, admit it, you'd do the same thing). And while I am at it, watching the Biggest Loser will make feel gruntled. And my giant furry Norwegian forest cat Murray will probably sit on my lap during at least a part of the show, and purr a lot, and that will similarly make me feel gruntled. So there, something nice to start this post off before I bitch again.

On to the bitchery! Why does everybody not have EZ-Pass? Honestly. I want to know. Because here is the difference between E-Z Pass vs. No E-Z Pass: heating up a mug of hot chocolate in the microwave, versus making a fire in your backyard out of sticks you must gather up first, and then boiling a pot of water over the fire, pulling it out of the fire without burning yourself, and then pouring the water into a mug. Oh and if you are in the dark ages, this is what E-Z pass does

Seriously. If you've ever seen a line of 67 cars waiting for a toll, and then sped by them like me on your way to the "you don't even have to stop, just slow down a little" EZ Pass line, you will be stymied by this. My guess is that maybe these people have just not figured out what it would take to apply for said EZ Pass? Or maybe they don't have a credit card, so they can't get one? But my guess is that there a ton of people out there who are aggravating themselves (and me, when their super long toll line actually blocks the EZ Pass people, from, well, passing) for no good reason!

This brings me to pointless waiting on line item number 2: Why do people wait on the ticket line at movie theaters anymore? Hubby and I used to go this movie theater sort of where we lived in Brooklyn, on Atlantic Avenue, and you'd get close to it and there would be a line outside stretched halfway down the block - sometimes over a hundred people long, waiting to buy tickets. This theater also had about 10 electronic ticket machines, where you could purchase tickets with a credit card. Know how many people were usually on line there? 2. Again, this goes back to my credit card thought, that maybe some people don't have credit cards, or don't want to use them to buy tickets? But you can even use a debit card on those machines! Who doesn't have a debit card? It's the same damn thing as cash, pretty much. I think all you need to have one is a bank account and am I wrong for assuming most people have one of those? In which case, I think maybe you shouldn't be going to the movies, you should be saving your money, so you can get a bank account. Because damn.

Silence of the Hot Dog

I was having a particularly bad week last week, and then my co-worker showed me a poem that her daughter wrote, and all was better. I wanted to publish it for you here because I am sure you will live for it as much I do. Also keep in mind that the author is a mere seven years old!!!!

SILENCE OF THE HOT DOG

Hot Dog
Hot Dog
Quiet As Can Be
TEMPTING
TEMPTING
TEMPTING ME
Juicy Little Hot Dog
Made From Lamb
Am I Hungry?
YES I AM

Is that not just brilliant? Read it out loud too, because the cuteness of it is really accentuated when you say it.

This Coyote Hat is no Joke

I saw the most insane thing today, and I had to share it. This guy in our research department at work had cut this product image out of a catalog. See, part of the job of research is to go through tons of catalogs, mail, etc. I can only assume that Nate (the guy from research) came across this image and found it so fabuously insane that he tore it out and hung it up in his cubicle. Which is where I happened to see it, and he mentioned that they sell this thing on the web too. This product is from a site called Cabela's. It is so unbelievably insane, I must show it to you now:



I made the picture a link so you could go check it out for yourself. This C-R-A-Z-Y thing is an actual hat. The "Bridger Mountain Man Coyote Hat". And you could get one for yourself for the sale price of $199. It's originally $249, but maybe enough people don't want to wear a coyote on their heads that look like it's fucking their back.

I mean, let's discuss the insanity:
1)This is an actual coyote. As in, a real dead animal
2)This coyote has been made into a fucking hat
3)The coyote's head drapes over your head and according to the site "it drapes down the back for added warmth and protection of your neck and shoulders". Because you know, if you're cold, there's nothing quite like wearing a dead coyote on your head to keep you warm and toasty
4)The rest of the coyote hangs from your head, on your back. And it really looks like the coyote is trying to have its way with you from behind.
5)The tail is still freakin attached, giving you the look of having a freaky coyote tail
6)The front paws hang down on your shoulders
7)The man wearing this coyote as a hat is also cleaning his shot gun (of course)

Can you believe that even one person in this whole wide world would want to wear this hat? I for one am baffled.

BLARGH

It's only Tuesday, and yet, already, I have to say, blargh. I love this word, blargh. I use it all the time when I IM people. To me, blargh is sort of like "argh" or "rawr" or any other number of words that mean, essentially ugh.

I wasn't sure if blargh was actually a word, or a word I made up, as I am a big fan of making up words. I googled it and there is a definition for it on UrbanDictionary.com. They define blargh as: "an exclamation indicating that one has absorbed or is emitting a quantum of unhappiness". I'd say that's pretty much right.

Other words I love (some that I made up, some I didn't):

Hangry - When you are so hungry that it starts making you hostile (hence the H). People love this one whenever I tell them about it. It's pretty much what happens when you have low blood sugar.

Poopsicle - Strangely enough, I call people this as an affectionate name

Right meow - My hubby just showed me this scene from the movie Super Troopers, where this cop messes with a guy he pulled over on a speeding violation by throwing the word meow into all his sentences. So instead of saying "right now", I will be saying "right meow" whenever humanly possible.

This is a short one, so I will end this post right meow.