So Brian called me the other day at a time he doesn't normally call (for the record, we're weird and regularly call each other around 11 am and 3:30 pm every day) so I asked if everything was ok.
He asked me if I had hired someone to mow our lawn. This wasn't out of the question as questions go, since we had, that very week, discussed the immediate need to have our lawn mowed. We were going to try it out once to see how much it cost and how long it lasted, because although it would be much cheaper to buy a lawn mower, our lawn is REALLY BIG. And yes, I am trying to brag. Because seriously, in Westchester, especially our area of our town, you do not get a big lawn. Yet we have one. A huge one, which means mowing it would take like 4 hours (ok, maybe not that long, I've never mowed a lawn before so I don't really know).
But no, I had not yet hired anyone to mow our lawn, and told him so. "Well, somebody mowed our lawn." He told me. He was dumbfounded. The whole thing had been done, back, front, sides, plants and flowers tended to, etc. Then he looked over at our next door neighbor's lawn, which was also beautifully groomed. He started wondering if that was coincidence. Then he checked our mailbox and found a business card from a local landscapers that said "Ooops! Enjoy your lawn!"
At first I thought it was a genius marketing strategy, that they mowed our lawn once for free because they knew we'd recently moved to the area and were trying to get our business. I mean, it worked too, because I am going to call them to arrange for a new appointment. But actually, we got further details later that night when our next door neighbor came over (his last name is Fuji, and every time I say it, I think of the Fugees, like Lauryn Hill, Wyclef and Pras live next door to us). So Mr. Fuji (we are so blanking on his first name, and since we totally want to become friends with him, we are hoping we remember it soon) says that apparently the landscaping company mistook our house for his and did the special "spring cleaning" service on it. Which apparently is quite pricely.
So dude, seriously, on the same week in which we determined that our grass was way too long and needed to call a landscaper, a landscaping service ACCIDENTALLY came and groomed our entire lawn. Do you know what I call that? Awesome.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
We are so in Barbeque
So remember when I started this blog, and it was about how the bonus my office is planning on giving was going to go to a Barbeque, or at least that was my husband's plan? Well, as it turns out, the bonus is going to go to a designer purse instead, yay!
No, it's not because I am a terrible harpy of a wife and have decided against the BBQ plan. It's just that what with that last blog about unicorns and all, we decided we'd put some money from our tax refund to a new BBQ. And then my fabulous sister (and perhaps sole reader of this blog) and her husband actually chipped in for it as a house warming gift. And then gave us possibly the sweetest BBQ tool set known to man.
We've had this BBQ for like, 2 weeks maybe, and so far my husband has already cooked us hamburgers and hotdogs, bbq chicken, and even leg of lamb. And I have a feeling that's just the beginning. In a word, my husband is OBSESSED with our new acquisition.
He is so happy that it's warm enough for us to grill, although he says he'll be grilling in winter too. I am happy that he's happy, and I am happy that it's warm because now people are having garage sales! Although we have a BBQ, and are buying a fence, and hopefully getting a doggie, there isn't a vast river of money flowing around us. So I am hoping to supplement some of the empty spaces in our house with yard sale purchases.
I went on my first forage this weekend and came back with a very cool hunter green cabinet that I think will work really well in our dining room. I also got a very cute drawing of cats (its not as cheesy as it sounds) that is in a hunter green wood frame. Two different sales, and I find two hunter green things, random! But I got great prices and hopefully I will be to find more stuff that we need for the house, like a bistro set for the patio and a comfy chair for my office.
As for the designer bag, let's just say that the designery-ness of said bag will have a lot to do with whether the bonus is walmart worthy or marc jacobs-ly delicious.
No, it's not because I am a terrible harpy of a wife and have decided against the BBQ plan. It's just that what with that last blog about unicorns and all, we decided we'd put some money from our tax refund to a new BBQ. And then my fabulous sister (and perhaps sole reader of this blog) and her husband actually chipped in for it as a house warming gift. And then gave us possibly the sweetest BBQ tool set known to man.
We've had this BBQ for like, 2 weeks maybe, and so far my husband has already cooked us hamburgers and hotdogs, bbq chicken, and even leg of lamb. And I have a feeling that's just the beginning. In a word, my husband is OBSESSED with our new acquisition.
He is so happy that it's warm enough for us to grill, although he says he'll be grilling in winter too. I am happy that he's happy, and I am happy that it's warm because now people are having garage sales! Although we have a BBQ, and are buying a fence, and hopefully getting a doggie, there isn't a vast river of money flowing around us. So I am hoping to supplement some of the empty spaces in our house with yard sale purchases.
I went on my first forage this weekend and came back with a very cool hunter green cabinet that I think will work really well in our dining room. I also got a very cute drawing of cats (its not as cheesy as it sounds) that is in a hunter green wood frame. Two different sales, and I find two hunter green things, random! But I got great prices and hopefully I will be to find more stuff that we need for the house, like a bistro set for the patio and a comfy chair for my office.
As for the designer bag, let's just say that the designery-ness of said bag will have a lot to do with whether the bonus is walmart worthy or marc jacobs-ly delicious.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
No One In the Club has Swagger Like Us
Brian and I speak to each other in quotes. I don't mean that we use air quotes, like Chris Farley in his "van down by the river" speeches from SNL. I mean that we hear quotes that we just love from movies, tv shows, commercials, and songs, and then we just can't stop saying them to each other, over and over and over and over again. I suspect a lot of couple speak to each other in this kind of language. My parents had some quotes that I never even knew were from pop culture until I was an adult.
Apparently many of my parents quotes came from Monty Python, including "Not the comfy chair!" They also peppered in SNL references "Cheeburger, Cheeburger, Cheeburger" and of course the ever repeated misheard song lyrics like "Two American kids growing up, in a garbage can" (from Jack & Diane by John Cougar Mellencamp).
Brian and I have quotes that are primarily comprised of rap lyrics and Will Ferrell movies. For example, several from Anchorman: "Don't act like you're not impressed" and "Baxter, you know I don't speak Spanish" and "Go back to your home on Whore Island."
And then there are the rap quotes. I am really really cheesy and still have to tell people "So take off all your clothes" whenever they say "It's hot in here" (I know, I'm like ten years too late on that one, thanks a lot Nelly).
One of our most recent favorites comes from a T.I. song. Brian and I downloaded T.I.'s album after we realized that he was the rapper on two recent radio songs we liked "Whatever You Like" and "Live Your Life" (with Rihanna). T.I. has some pretty interesting lyrics. Not like Fugee quality intelligence, but cool none the less. I am not even going to get into the extremely naughty actual main chorus lyrics to "Whatever You Like" which give the song a FAR different meaning than the radio version does. Hint: "Treat you so special so nice" is replaced by "Late night sex so blank and so blank" (it doesn't exactly rhyme with special and nice, but it does rhyme with "bet" and "light" (come on, you can do it!).
But anyway, the oft quoted song in question is actually "Swagger Like Us." First of all, because I am like six months behind in what is hip, I didn't know until I finally downloaded awesome female rapper M.I.A.'s album today that "Swagger Like Us" is sampled from her very awesome song "Paper Planes" (which you might recognize from Pineapple Express, another movie we have started quoting).
Ok, but I digress. So the line in Swagger Like Us is not even said by T.I. The song features 3 other rappers: Kanye West (who has really creative lyrics on his albums), Lil Wayne (who I can't take seriously because he is like five feet tall and has a tear tattoo on his face) and the always loveable senior, Jay Z. Jay Z is actually the quote deliverer. He says "Can't wear skinny jeans cause my knots don't fit." When I heard this the first time, I totally thought he said "Can't wear skinny jeans cause my nuts don't fit". Which totally makes sense. If you have giant balls, it would be tough to wear skinny jeans. And then even after I realized it was knots, I still thought maybe knots was code for balls. But apparently knots refers to a large bank roll. So he's saying that he carries around too much money in a bankroll in his pants to fit into skinny jeans (which I guess, is the financial equivalent of having big balls).
For some reason though, Brian and I find this endlessly enjoyable to say to each other. We can work it into normal conversation with ease. That's the best - you've got to slip in your funny quotes so they just glide with the conversation, then they are funnier. Which means I can't slip one in now, because you'd be expecting it. Unless I said that we could play a little game called just the tip. Do you know where that one was from?
Apparently many of my parents quotes came from Monty Python, including "Not the comfy chair!" They also peppered in SNL references "Cheeburger, Cheeburger, Cheeburger" and of course the ever repeated misheard song lyrics like "Two American kids growing up, in a garbage can" (from Jack & Diane by John Cougar Mellencamp).
Brian and I have quotes that are primarily comprised of rap lyrics and Will Ferrell movies. For example, several from Anchorman: "Don't act like you're not impressed" and "Baxter, you know I don't speak Spanish" and "Go back to your home on Whore Island."
And then there are the rap quotes. I am really really cheesy and still have to tell people "So take off all your clothes" whenever they say "It's hot in here" (I know, I'm like ten years too late on that one, thanks a lot Nelly).
One of our most recent favorites comes from a T.I. song. Brian and I downloaded T.I.'s album after we realized that he was the rapper on two recent radio songs we liked "Whatever You Like" and "Live Your Life" (with Rihanna). T.I. has some pretty interesting lyrics. Not like Fugee quality intelligence, but cool none the less. I am not even going to get into the extremely naughty actual main chorus lyrics to "Whatever You Like" which give the song a FAR different meaning than the radio version does. Hint: "Treat you so special so nice" is replaced by "Late night sex so blank and so blank" (it doesn't exactly rhyme with special and nice, but it does rhyme with "bet" and "light" (come on, you can do it!).
But anyway, the oft quoted song in question is actually "Swagger Like Us." First of all, because I am like six months behind in what is hip, I didn't know until I finally downloaded awesome female rapper M.I.A.'s album today that "Swagger Like Us" is sampled from her very awesome song "Paper Planes" (which you might recognize from Pineapple Express, another movie we have started quoting).
Ok, but I digress. So the line in Swagger Like Us is not even said by T.I. The song features 3 other rappers: Kanye West (who has really creative lyrics on his albums), Lil Wayne (who I can't take seriously because he is like five feet tall and has a tear tattoo on his face) and the always loveable senior, Jay Z. Jay Z is actually the quote deliverer. He says "Can't wear skinny jeans cause my knots don't fit." When I heard this the first time, I totally thought he said "Can't wear skinny jeans cause my nuts don't fit". Which totally makes sense. If you have giant balls, it would be tough to wear skinny jeans. And then even after I realized it was knots, I still thought maybe knots was code for balls. But apparently knots refers to a large bank roll. So he's saying that he carries around too much money in a bankroll in his pants to fit into skinny jeans (which I guess, is the financial equivalent of having big balls).
For some reason though, Brian and I find this endlessly enjoyable to say to each other. We can work it into normal conversation with ease. That's the best - you've got to slip in your funny quotes so they just glide with the conversation, then they are funnier. Which means I can't slip one in now, because you'd be expecting it. Unless I said that we could play a little game called just the tip. Do you know where that one was from?
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Tax reurn=fence=dog? Unicorn taking flight!
When Brian and I were house shopping, my sister was positively insistent that we consider the school district of the house we were buying. Brian and I are not parents, and we don't plan on having kids for a couple of years. So the idea of having to find a house in a good school district didn't seem so important. Say we had a kid in three years from now. Kids don't start kindergarden until they are five, so that would be eight full years from now. Who knew if we'd even be living in the house we chose in eight years?
At first Brian and I resisted - on our first day out we'd seen some lovely houses in New Rochelle that turned out to be zoned for a terrible school, and I mean really terrible. If we had to consider school district, those houses were out along with a bunch of others on our list. The whole idea seemed so bizarre, that we had to consider these non-existent mythical future creatures (which I had now taken to calling unicorns for their mythic status) when house shopping. But the more we thought about it, the more sense it did actually make. After all, it's much harder to sell a house in a bad school district. For that reason alone it was worth it to try.
Another thing that I looked at when we were house shopping was backyards and their dog worthiness. I commented on it so much the first day that our real estate agent asked what kind of dog we had. But our dog too, was just a hypothetical. So we were looking for a house that had a good school for our unicorn children and a good backyard for our unicorn dog. And we found said house, in a school district so good they apparently teach them foreign language in elementary school! And our backyard is the biggest backyard imaginable, like, so big you could build an addition, then put in a pool, and still have room for your unicorn dog and your unicorn children to run around in.
Ok, so moving on. We just found that the government is going to be kind to us this year and we will get a bit of a refund. More than a bit really, enough so that I think we may be able to afford to fence in our beautiful enormous yard. Which is a fabulous thing, because we've really been wanting to get a doggie now for a while, and thought we might have to put up like a zip line thingy for the dog to run on from his leash, since we couldn't afford a fence. But now, if we get a fence, then our unicorn doggie can fully materialize into an actual real life doggie and run free and happy in our wonderful yard.
Needless to say, I am excited. We are going to get a pound doggie, so we're assuming it will be a mutt, but mutts are cool. If it was pure breed, some of our faves are chocolate labs and shiba inus (but how many shiba inus show up at the pound?). Some other mixes that I wouldn't mind getting into a dog are a sheltie, australian cattle dog, and many other lovely combinations of doggie. So I'll keep you updated.
At first Brian and I resisted - on our first day out we'd seen some lovely houses in New Rochelle that turned out to be zoned for a terrible school, and I mean really terrible. If we had to consider school district, those houses were out along with a bunch of others on our list. The whole idea seemed so bizarre, that we had to consider these non-existent mythical future creatures (which I had now taken to calling unicorns for their mythic status) when house shopping. But the more we thought about it, the more sense it did actually make. After all, it's much harder to sell a house in a bad school district. For that reason alone it was worth it to try.
Another thing that I looked at when we were house shopping was backyards and their dog worthiness. I commented on it so much the first day that our real estate agent asked what kind of dog we had. But our dog too, was just a hypothetical. So we were looking for a house that had a good school for our unicorn children and a good backyard for our unicorn dog. And we found said house, in a school district so good they apparently teach them foreign language in elementary school! And our backyard is the biggest backyard imaginable, like, so big you could build an addition, then put in a pool, and still have room for your unicorn dog and your unicorn children to run around in.
Ok, so moving on. We just found that the government is going to be kind to us this year and we will get a bit of a refund. More than a bit really, enough so that I think we may be able to afford to fence in our beautiful enormous yard. Which is a fabulous thing, because we've really been wanting to get a doggie now for a while, and thought we might have to put up like a zip line thingy for the dog to run on from his leash, since we couldn't afford a fence. But now, if we get a fence, then our unicorn doggie can fully materialize into an actual real life doggie and run free and happy in our wonderful yard.
Needless to say, I am excited. We are going to get a pound doggie, so we're assuming it will be a mutt, but mutts are cool. If it was pure breed, some of our faves are chocolate labs and shiba inus (but how many shiba inus show up at the pound?). Some other mixes that I wouldn't mind getting into a dog are a sheltie, australian cattle dog, and many other lovely combinations of doggie. So I'll keep you updated.
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