Tuesday, January 1, 2008

In case you're wondering what I gave my true love

OK, I gave the guy a present. It took me a while to get around to it, but at some point on the fifth or sixth day of Christmas, I went over to BestBuy and bought him this:

It's a Garmin Nuvi 660 GPS doohickey.

And he loves it. Which is good, because I don't want to go back to that store any time soon.

See, I don't know anything about GPSes, except that I was willing to bet my husband would love one. After all, he loves maps. He loves gadgets. Well, what could be more mappy and gadgety, right?

I didn't know the best model to buy, because actually waste time researching this? As if I could be bothered.

So I had to throw myself on the mercy of the BestBuy guy, the guy in the blue polo shirt who earns minimum wage and might have no superior knowledge of the product line whatsoever. So I buttonholed a salesman, and shoved a couple of guys out of the way ("Out of my way, looky-lous. I'm here to BUY SOMETHING," I think I remember saying.) I told the BestBuyGuy my price range and told him that I wanted the biggest screen with the most (and I quote) "mapping crap."

"Mapping crap?" he asked, while a couple of guys nearby turned their heads away to hide their grins. (Hey guys, so I don't know the correct terminology, so what? At least I'm not spending my life hanging around in front of a GPS display on a lovely Saturday afternoon, drooling over all the cool new features available in the most recently released model.

I mean, it was beginning to remind me of Hogwarts students checking out the latest brooms in that shop in Diagon Alley.)

Poppy: Yes, mapping crap. You know--I want to get the model with the most mapping data.

BestBuyGuy: OK. Do you want (unintelligible)?

Poppy: I'm sorry. I didn't hear that.

BBG: Do you want (unintelligible?)

Poppy: Excuse me? Could you repeat that?

BBG: (Unintelligible)? You want it to have boys wreck cognition?"

Poppy: Oh ... 'voice recognition.' You know what ... I don't know if that would be such a good idea. I mean, does the one you bought have voice recognition, and if so, does it have a hard time understanding you? Because I sure do.

OK, so this was probably the single wittiest remark I ever made in my life. Seriously, all these guys were laughing--and laughing with me, you know, not at me, which is probably a lot more likely to happen in a BestBuy store.

I mean, when I went to pay, I heard this guy repeating what I had said to the salesman, and the guy repeating it had a cleft palette or something that kept him from a career in broadcasting--and even he thought I was so funny that he forgot that maybe I should be more sensitive to people who might have a little trouble e-nun-ci-a-ting.

So the good news is that That Stud Muffin I Married loves his GPS very much. He went out the next day and deliberately got lost so it could get him home again.

Also, the guys at BestBuy think I am the funniest technophobic middle-aged woman they've ever met.

And I didn't have to pop for five golden rings.

100 Things for a new year

1. I didn't know how to drive until I was 35.
2. My family drives me crazy.
3. But that's OK; my in-laws drive me crazy, too.
4. It's nice to share things like that in a marriage.
5. One thing people never tell you about marriage is that being married is the only way you can get laid once you're no longer young and cute.
6. I'm not as cute as I used to be.
7. But I'm married.
8. I like being married.
9. I like getting laid.
10. I like my kids, too.
11. I hope their presence in the world gives them as much pleasure as it gives me and their father.
12. I had them under duress.
13. I also got married under duress.
14. I was convinced that being married and having children would be no fun.
15. I was wrong.
16. The world would be a better place if fewer people were wrong about that.
17. Especially celebrities who keep having children first, then getting married.
18. I disapprove of having children out of wedlock.
19. I'm extremely judgmental.
20. For example, there are a lot of things I enjoy, but don't talk about much.
21. Like sex.
22. Or food.
23. I am embarrassed and bored when people talk about their sex lives.
24. I am also embarrassed and bored when people talk about food.
25. I take the Seven Deadly Sins seriously.
26. I'm very religious.
27. I'm an Episcopalian.
28. This means I'm something of a fence-sitter.
29. I find most Protestant churches weird.
30. I am creeped out by some Catholic things, though.
31. Judaism makes all kinds of sense to me. But it's like a hereditary society, and I picked the wrong ancestors, so forget it.
32. I'm a snob.
33. I don't watch television.
34. I do watch t.v. shows on DVD.
35. I can't stand commercials.
36. I also don't like being told when and where to watch programs.
37. I'm fat.
38. Sometimes I think if I lost the weight, I wouldn't have anything left to do with my life. I mean, honestly, what challenge is greater than losing 40 pounds and leaving them off?
39. I have only had one husband.
40. I have two children.
41. I had a couple of miscarriages before I had my first child.
42. For some reason, that never really bothered me that much.
43. I think, at some very deep level, I believe that some things are not meant to be.
44. The only death I have ever truly mourned is my father's.
45. I still miss him.
46. I used to read all the time.
47. I think all the degrees I got in English Literature did something to wreck that for me.
48. It took me way too long to get back into reading for pleasure.
49. I'm still not interested in best-sellers, though.
50. I'm also not interested in current movies.
51. What I really hate, though, is the theater.
52. I hate theater so much that I've never talked about it on my blog.
53. I only like PG-13-rated movies.
54. I read the same books many times.
55. I watch the same movies many times.
56. I'm addicted to audiobooks.
57. I find most people fairly dull.
58. Actually, I hate theater, but I like to watch Shakespeare.
59. I also saw the Comedie Francaise perform a play by Moliere, and I enjoyed that, too.
60. The real problem is modernism.
61. I think most modernists are pretentious and full of themselves.
62. They also lack a sense of humor.
63. A sense of humor is the most important thing a person can have.
64. That and reverence.
65. Just don't be reverent about Eugene O'Neil when I'm around.
66. Or Tennessee Williams. Or August Wilson.
67. I could spend the rest of my life catching up with the past, and it would never be enough.
68. For example, I have a burning desire to learn Latin, a language I spent seventh and eighth grade ignoring.
69. I sometimes think if I could take the time to do the things right that I shirked or avoided--like my seventh and eighth grade Latin homework--I'd have a much better life.
70. Does anyone out there remember that dorky little fake computer thing Clinique used to have at their counters that supposedly tells you your skin type? I'm a burns-doesn't-tan kind of gal.
71. This means my skin is so white people have been known to scream loudly at the sight of it.
72. I hate going to the dentist.
73. I also hate going to the doctor.
74. I feel that I exhausted an entire life's worth of doctor's visits by having two babies and dealing with the number of examinations that involved.
75. So now I don't go.
76. The problems with being in your forties is realizing that a lot of people are seriously screwed up.
77. I mean, it's not just you. Or me. Or my family.
78. The older I get the more tactful I get.
79. This isn't saying much, since I'm pretty outspoken. Sagittarians always are.
80. I don't believe in astrology.
81. I can't understand how anyone can live in the country.
82. I'm Francophilic. When people started pouring French wine into the gutter because the French weren't supporting the United States' invastion of Iraq, I flew the French flag in front of my house. And wore an Hermes scarf every day. And bought two.
83. Ann Coulter makes me sick.
84. So do the other opportunists out there.
85. I have no idea for whom I'll vote in the next Presidential election.
86. I don't find myself getting significantly more conservative as I get older.
87. It's really amazing to me how little people know about etiquette, considering the fact that Emily Post's Blue Book of Social Usage is in the public domain.
88. The word verification thing on Blogger drives me nuts.
89. I've never waxed my bikini line.
90. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to get breast implants. Can the Victoria's Secret Models sleep on their chests? I can't, and mine are real. I'll bet the fake ones are even more uncomfortable when squashed.
91. My interest in breast implants means I find women like Victoria Beckham, Anna Nicole Smith, and Pamela Anderson sort of fascinating.
92. I have nice legs.
93. And a short torso.
94. I'm a nice person.
95. I've never been quite sure what "snarky" is. Even when I'm being snarky.
96. I'm amazingly unselfconscious.
97. I have no fear whatsoever of public speaking.
98. My clothes have this really bad habit of falling off in public.
99. I own a scary amount of Hermes scarves. (See #82)
100. Blogging is a great way to talk endlessly about myself without boring people in real life. If you've read this far, you know what I've spared them.

Monday, December 31, 2007

On the Eighth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me



Seven,


Six

Five

Four,

Three,

Two,

and a.

p.s. Happy New Year to my readers, old and new. More of you show up every day, which just goes to show you that the Republicans are right about one thing; everything that happens can be viewed as a business opportunity. Television writers go on strike, and my blog numbers go up. Coincidence? I think not.

I promise I'll have something interesting to say any day now, once I finish entertaining people, but honestly ... since Christmas I've had two days where I haven't been hosting some gathering or other. This Martha Stewart routine is fun, but fattening ... and I'd like to get back to normal soon.

Tomorrow is New Year's Lunch with my brother and his family. We'll have a Yankee version of Hopping John, sauteed greens, and fried chicken. A lot of food will be eaten, booze will be drunk, jokes will be told, and then I hope everyone will go away and leave me in peace so that I can commune with the Internet in my usual anti-social maladjusted fashion. Because this real-life, in-your-face, "We Are Family" stuff is kind of overwhelming. I need some quality time with my laptop.

And now, a sorbet

Because all the other kids are posting best-of 2007 entries, I will do the same.

Naturally, I'm not egotistical enough to judge the so-called "quality" of my posts myself. So I went with the ones that got the most comments.

In January, 2007, I contemplated arson.

In February, I outed myself as a would-be ass-whupper of vegan, Generation-Z, animal-rights protesters, except where are those wimps when it's cold out? Nowhere to be found.

March found me giving the internet the virtual finger by declaring my hatred for baby lettuce, lattes, and chatty hair stylists, wondering why nobody likes me, saying I'll go eat worms, and mentioning--just in passing, mind you--that my blog numbers are way down. Gee, I wonder why?

In April, I found myself making fun of hippy-ish sentiments AGAIN, this time in the form of bumper stickers that annoy the crap out of me.

In May, I revealed myself as an anti-foot-fetishist.

In June, I decided to tell people that I am my husband's trophy wife. (And as long as he's not around, looking cute and adorable and much younger than I am, they'll have to believe me.)

In July, me and a lot of other female bloggers congregated on Navy Pier for BlogHer07, and when I mentioned that the panels sucked? One of the organizers blessed my blog with a comment.

In August, I was sincere.

I made up for it in September, when I live-blogged Britney Spear's "comeback" performance at the MTV Video Awards, thus insuring that my sarcastic remarks made it onto the internet before Perez Hilton knew what was happening.

Because of this, in October, I almost lost custody of my laptop.

In November, I partook in the madness that is NaBloPoMo. My theme for the month was weight loss, and I actually posted my weight, which left my readers riveted, if somewhat perturbed by the mental image I wouldn't stop conjuring up.

In December we moved back into our house after a three month period of kitchen-and-bathroom remodeling. I also performed very much music, both pop and Classical, to great acclaim. But did the Internet care? No, it did not. What the Internet liked was the Uncredited Google Images meme thingie.

And that explains why the internet has been stuck with enjoying Uncredited Google Images for what feels like weeks, but in fact, has only been seven days (of Christmas).

Saturday, December 29, 2007

On the sixth day of Blogmas, my true love gave to me





Five

Four,

Three,

Two,

and a.

p.s. Woot! The Patriots finished a perfect 16-0 season! OK, I'm not a football fan. Never have been. Still ... we so totally rock! And New York can kiss my Bostonian ass. FTR, so can each and every member of the Miami Dolphins.