Who says that?: June 2010

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Goodbye my friend...

...I know you're gone, you said you're gone, but I can still feel you here.

Spice Girls, anyone?

A sad thing happened last night. Actually, a sad thing happened MONDAY (possibly Sunday) and I didn't find out about it until last night. Let me explain...

I had a pet crab, you might recall, named Padma.

Jamie and I purchased him after an inexplicable drunken lunch (The thing is...we each had a beer at lunch, right? But we were ACTING like we were drunk...even though neither one of us had had enough to make that happen. We were giggling. We were talking about random things. We were making irresponsible decisions...), brought him home with us, decorated his bowl, and watched him like a hawk (there's not much else you can do with a pet crab besides watch it).

He scuttled around his bowl a fair amount. He freaked me out by trying to climb the plant we had put in the middle of the bowl. I wondered if he'd fling himself out of the bowl and then crawl into bed with me.

I wondered if he was happy.

Fast forward a few months, and Padma is doing OK. He no longer crawls on the flower in the middle of the bowl which makes mean mommy (read: me) happy and nice mommy (read: Jamie) displeased. We started feeding Padma less because when we dropped a pellet into his bowl it'd sit there and then get all mixed up in the water and...gross.

Daddy Shane took the initiative, and started to clean Padma's bowl, and feed him. I don't know what Jamie and I were doing...

Actually, I don't know if I should be throwing Jamie into the mix here. Fine. I don't know what I was doing. I mean I'm home a fair ammount (read: I'm a recluse a la The Count of Monte Cristo)...and I walked by Padma's bowl at LEAST every minute or two. AT LEAST.

Why didn't I feed Padma?

THEN, Padma molted. UGH. Jamie and I had sort of read about this...you know...6 or 7 months AFTER we bought him. We're nothing if we're not responsible pet owners. UM.

And then...there was last night.

Jamie and I went to ZUMBA class at LUCILLE ROBERTS. WOW. Have you guys done zumba or heard of it? I will most likely be blogging about it at a later time so I don't want to say too much but...WOW. Working out + Shakira + Old Queens' ladies + Me = a lot of fun.

I was feeling good...and sweaty. We came home...made dinner...and then prepared to watch 'Top Chef' (has anyone been watching here? I am 'eh' about this season so far). I was sitting on the ground eating some ice cream (out of the container---what about it?!) when I thought to look around and give Padma a quick once over.

I was not prepared for what I found.

Padma was DEAD. I GASPED.
'YOU GUYS! PADMA IS DEAD'.

I looked at Jamie and Shane who were smiling devishly.

'Yeah we know Padma's dead'

'What? You know Padma's dead? What?' I put down my ice cream.

'Yeah, when did we find out he was dead? I think on Monday. We wnated to see how long it would take you to notice and to see what your reaction would be'

'What? You know Padma's dead?'

'Yeah. We had a feeling you would find out when you sat down in front of his bowl like that'

'What? You know Padma's dead?'

Now I'm not sure if I should be more upset that: Padma's dead or that my roommates are obviously crazy.

In conclusion, Padma...it was a fun 8/9 months we had you (I never was really good at dates...that's what she said?). I enjoyed the idea of having you. You were small and ridiculous. You were cute (until you molted...gross!). But most of all, you were ours. I'm sorry that I didn't feed you or clean your water. I'm sorry that I didn't even notice for two days that you were dead. I'm sorry that you're dead. Though, to be fair, you're DEFINITELY going to a better place now.

We will remember you forever and ever and ever...or at least until something else occupies our time.

Maybe I'm not ready for a cat after all. yikes.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Things that are hard that shouldn't be

I think the title 'Things that are unnecessarily hard' would work better here, but I think 'Things that are hard but shouldn't be' is funnier…so here we are.

Actually, it’s more like ‘here I am’ because you’re not here with me. Well, maybe you are and I just can’t see you? That’s creepy. I hope you’re not here. I don’t want creepers reading my blog.

Lately, I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about things that are hard. Yes, that’s what she said. Say for example, you take the GMATs (like Jason. This is really a test to see if Jason’s reading…)…You know that’s going to be hard. No one breezes through the GMATs and is like ‘oh god, that was so easy…I could have aced that biatch with my eyes closed’. Yes, that’s what she also said. You have a realistic expectation of some upcoming challenges, but you embrace that truth, dig your heels in and get through it.

But what about things that are hard that shouldn’t be hard? You don’t anticipate the difficulty…so how do you deal with it? HOW?! Isn’t it enough that some things are inherently hard? Some things should just be easy, G.D.-it!

Things that are hard that shouldn’t be

1) Opening jars. If they sealed the lids on jars a LITTLE less tightly would someone be injured? Would diseases breed? I don’t think so. It shouldn’t take three people, a rubber thing, hot water and lots of energy to open a jar of tomato sauce.

2) Putting on duvet covers. SERIOUSLY. Anyone done this…ever or recently? I washed my duvet cover over the weekend and it was an adventure trying to get it back on. I had to line up the 4 corners of my quilt, make sure they were firmly in their places, shake duvet cover out…and then…practically CRAWL INSIDE THE DUVET to make sure that the quilt was resting soundly inside. I thought I might never come out.

3) Turning on the light. Well, in reality this isn’t a hard task…what with the invention of the electrical outlet cover and switch. However, in my apartment, we have one of those fancy dimmer switches. However, in my apartment, that dimmer switch fell off and now there’s a screw that needs to be manually turned if you want the light to go on and off. This is hard. This shouldn’t be.

4) Carrying groceries and opening the door. We all multitask don’t we? Right now I’m ‘working’ and also ‘not working’ at the same time. Right now I’m sitting but also looking at the computer screen. With this in mind, you’d THINK that multitasking in any arena is a good, easy, thing to do. FALSE. Just try carrying 10 bags of groceries to your place of residence (I would say ‘apartment’ but I know some of you live in houses and I don’t want to alienate you over a choice-of-noun. I’d rather alienate you with bigotry…anyway…) and then taking out your keys and opening the door. You’ve already figured out the perfect bag/hand ratio and now you risk losing it all. I always have to put one hand’s worth of bags down and then…everything falls apart.

5) Opening a bottle of soda for the second time. What exactly happens there? Why does the cap become impossible to turn? And why is the soda always flat?

6) Whispering. God, I am the worst whisperer ever. WORST. WHISPERER. EVER.

7) Saying no. I just want everyone to be happy all the time. Is that too much to ask? IS this too deep of a topic for this entry? Yes. Yes it is.

Things that make me look like a girl

A few weeks ago, Rebecca (who doesn't read this blog...feel free to throw things at her or, if you see her in person, boo and hiss in her direction) and I (who writes this blog...feel free to hug me and give me money if you see me in person) were talking about a person I had seen in a picture on facebook. To me, this person looked sexually ambiguous. So, the person had a 'girl's' name, and was wearing traditional female clothing, and, upon clicking on its profile (someone hasn't changeed their privacy settings...hooray! It makes me happy that some people are still slow on facebook and therefore allow me, indirectly, without they're knowing, to stalk them), saw that the person had listed its gender as 'female'.

Something just seemed fishy to me. She didn't look like a girl to me. She didn't have a particularly masculine/square jaw line, or bushy eyebrows, or an Adam's apple, or anything else that screams 'DUDE' to me. But something was awry.

I showed Rebecca the picture (which I won't put up here cuz I'm a bitch, but I'm not a horrible person) and she didn't agree. I think she said something along the lines of 'How does that look like a guy?'

I couldn't put my finger on it. Rebecca continued 'I mean, if I had a moustache I'd probably look like a guy'.

HMMM interesting. What makes me look like a girl and that ambigious person look ambiguous? If we took away facial hair and social constructs...do we all look ambigious?

I tested Rebecca's moustache hypothesis by creating the following picture:

(If you're curious about the bow, Rebecca really likes bright colors and random color combinations so...need I say more?). Yeah. We don't look like dudes here. We do look crazy though, so that's something.

HMM... So what makes me look like a girl then?

1) Lack of facial hair. If my moustache doesn't make me look like a guy, my lack of a moustache certainly doesn't make me look like a guy.

2) Facial structure. I do have a square face...but my jawline is not masculine. My lips, nose, eyebrows are also small and 'delicate'...

vs.

This guy's nose is more pronounced, his eyes are further set apart, he has a stronger brow line, bigger ears and a more defined jaw line. I guess those are the most noticeable differences between our faces.

3) Longer hair. I know this is stereotypical, but I also don't care. The fact that my hair is longer, in our society, makes me look more 'feminine'.

4) Boobs. Sure, some guys have moobs, but traditionally, some bumps on top = lack of a penis and therefore a feminine gender assignment.

5) Hips for childbearing. One day babies are gonna be flying out of those things like no one's business. One day.

6) Small hands. Small hands are good for holding babies, baking, and keeping your mouth shut. Last time I checked, guys had bigger hands than girls. And if they don't have bigger hands well their...you know...is probably...anyway

Can you guys think of anything else? I'm losing it. BYE!

Friday, June 11, 2010

What do you think of THIS new layout?

I know no one's really going to comment on this (reverse psychology anyone? I mean...reverse psychology is the worst...uh) but...

Check out my new blog layout!

I know I just changed my blog layout...but when I logged in to write an actual entry (we'll see if I actually get around to this now...) something popped up that told me blogger had a new template designer. Say what?! That's awesome! I fiddled around with different templates and font colors and background pictures but finally settled on this...which...I think is very 'me' (read: awesome and amazing).

If you guys don't have blogs I would recommend getting one, through blogger, just so you can play around with the template settings! Hours and hours of fun! Actually more like minutes and minutes of fun but who's counting?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

An update: already?

YES! And be quiet because I have 10 minutes to do this before I have to sit in on a conference call!

AH! 9 minutes!

8. OK. FOCUS, BECKY, FOCUS.

One of my readers...a certain 'Reb Kessel' (that's my sister, Kate...god you are a quick one, eh? It's funny that I put 'god' in there because she's a Rabbi! *hits a drum* Thank You Thank You. I'll be here all night! *slips on banana peel*) pointed out that something was missing from my last entry.

No she wasn't asking me to blog about HER (which a lot of you do, btw. 'You blogged about so and so? Why don't you blog about ME!!! YO!! MOI!!!'). Kate's not THAT self centered. She simply pointed out to me that I left out a very important part of my office view:

DHURATA!! True, I may not have a window, but I do get to look at AND talk to Dhurata all day. This is an obvious PERK of my desk location. Last time I checked, Michelle didn't have a Dhurata at her desk or hanging out one of her windows.

HOORAY!

Another thing I need to update you on is the fact that it's Kristyn's Birthday today! Don't get me wrong, I don't really care that it's her birthday, but I DO care about the presents that I bought both of us (yes you read that correctly 'us') for her birthday. We had talked about getting friendship bracelets for a while and today, at etsy.com (<3 <3 <3) we found the perfect ones:

HOW FIERCE IS THIS CRAZY BRACELET (note: this isn't the actual bracelet either one of us is getting. Kristyn's is greenish, mine is blue and redish)? A feather? Gold? Leather? Colorful string? YES PLEASE!

bye!

What Michelle and I talk about

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Reginald Boddy and I own this mansion.

Just kidding.

Those are how those 'Clue' books that I used to read started. I was talking about them with...basically everyone I talked to this weekend. Did any of YOU read them?

My friend Michelle probably didn't read them because she grew up in Ecuador and as far as I can tell they don't have literacy there. Who's this 'Michelle' character? you might be asking yourself or even me. Wait, are you talking to me? GOD (isn't this funny Michelle, because you're 'god' in my phone...jajaja). I can see your mouth moving but I'm really not hearing you say anything. It looks like 'BLA BLA BLA'...but you wouldn't really be saying that, right?

Michelle and I went to college together.

(here we are in Alexandria, VA senior year sharing my shawl)

We lived on the same floor freshman year. We found a card when we were at CVS together one day that said 'On the sea of love we are soulmateys' (I read it to her, obviously)...and since then we've been soulmates. I visited her in her hometown of Quito, Ecuador turning our fling into a full-blown romance. My life, and hers, has never been the same.

(I definitely didn't draw that big CORAZON in there. The camera sensed our relationship and happily obliged us)

Michelle chatted me from her office in Ecuador a few weeks ago (ugh! I was in Israel for work for the past two weeks and didn't get around to finishing this before I left!!) and in her Spanglish (look, I'm sorry...but it's true) asked me why I don't blog about the things that we talk about. I couldn't understand her broken English words so I asked her what she meant. She said 'Becky, MI AMERICAN amiga...plees blog about yo!! y blog about our conversations. POR FA! GRAssy ASS'

I asked Michelle what we talked about and she said the following:

1. boys

2. outfits

3. stupid girls

4. advice

5. awkward situations

6. ur mom

7 gaidness

8. plans (mostly evil)

9. share views from office

10. midgets

HMM...I don't know if I agree with this list...
And also, YES...I just copied and pasted what she said (See what I mean about the Spanglish?? UGH...no I'm not talking about that bad movie with Adam Sandler. That would be 'Spanglish' and how would Michelle type to me in 'Spanglish'? wrap your head around that)

I responded to Michelle's list and strongly assured her that I do, actually, talk about a lot of those things in my blog.

I have mentioned boys in here, and outfits (in fact, 'outfits' as a theme probably comprises about 20% of this blog's content) and stupid girls. You all have left comments, giving me advice on what I should or shouldn't write about (I really, really appreciate that by the way. I'm also really, really lying. SNAP!). Everything I say or do is awkward, so that's covered. I don't know whose mom Michelle is referencing in particular...but I've definitely talked about my mom in here.

I haven't talked about gaidness because even though it's funny, it's offensive and I don't want to offend my readers. I don't care about boring them or inciting anger in them...but to offend them? That would be crossing a line! Johnny Cash might walk the line...but I don't. Not me. Nope Nope Nope.

I don't think Michelle and I even have evil plans...so that confuses me. But, let's take a minute to consider my office view vs. Michelle's office view. Michelle works at the UNDP in Quito, Ecuador. Quito, Ecuador is a beautiful city located in the heart of the Andes mountains. It barely rains there...it's usually in the 70's. It's not enough that Michelle gets to live in Quito...but apparently she gets to look at it while she works to.

Check out her view:

I WAS SHOCKED and UPSET when this picture was e-mailed to me. Michelle, being the nice person that she is, laughed and told me that that wasn't even the GOOD window. Wait a second...she has more than ONE window? UGH!

Now let's consider the fact that I live in New York City---a place full of views.

Now let's see what I look at all day.

View 1:

View 2:

View 3:

This shiz sucks! T.S.S.!!! In conclusion, I don't know what this entry is about or if anyone is still reading.

GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM...

COMMENCING COUNTDOWN ENGINES ON.

Michelle, te amo y something else en el spanish. ciao!