Something Shiny! » LOL

Tolerance and intolerance

emily — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:30:45 +0000

Without going into too much detail (read: not any, no, not at all), I think it’s time to admit that I’m lactose intolerant. Naturally, as with anything having to do with me, it’s a fickle problem. Skim milk and yogurt? Yes. Ice cream and anything made with buttermilk, including baked goods? No. Solidly no. Which: how unfair is that? I can’t eat ice cream?!? Who’d I piss off in my previous life? Still there’s hope on the horizon. John, for example, is convinced that a product called Lactaid might help. That said, he’s not sure if a) he made the product up or b) if the product is real but, instead, is intended to help women breastfeed. Ahem.

Swell

emily — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:09:18 +0000

I bought a new bra from Victoria’s Secret the other day. It was, from the catalog description, exactly what I was looking for. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated (if you’ve seen some of the bras they’re offering, you know what I mean). Plus, it was on sale. Bonus! Then I noticed something else in the description: swell, it said. “Swell: lightly lined.” Great, I thought! I don’t want anything padded or pushed or even pumped. It seemed like the right, er, fit for me. And then it arrived. Swell: lightly lined? More like, swell: implants. I looked in the mirror and, what the hell? Suddenly I looked more like Dolly Parton than myself. I sent it back. Swell indeed!

ESL

emily — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:04:12 +0000

Talking to John the other day about someone who’s having a hard time finding a decent house to buy, I mentioned that all of the houses they’d looked at so far were real melons. “Melons?” “Yeah, melons. You know– the houses so far have been real duds.” “You mean lemons, then?” “Oh. Yeah.” What can I say? All of the letters were there, I just had them in the wrong order. AM SMART.

Self portrait by the artist

emily — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:15:06 +0000

I should mention that before I took that personality test, I thought it was basically crap. I figured the results would be well wide of the mark and wouldn’t really reflect who I am. Ahem. ::shuffles feet, looks at shoes:: As it turns out? Those personality tests are, ah, eerily accurate. Apparently I’m the way I am because I’m an ISTJ: Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging. Or, put another way, a Guardian Inspector. I’m dependable and organized. I have a keen sense of duty and tradition. I don’t like rule-breaking. I’m a perfectionist. And when things start to go wrong? I fall into a cycle of doom wherein everything is bad and nothing will ever be good again, no not ever, no not even then. John has forever joked that I’m the human version of Eeyore. Turns out? Yeah (scroll to the bottom). What’s more amusing to me is that I had John take the personality test also. He’s a Rational Inventor, meaning that he’s exactly the opposite of me. I’m supposed to “get comfortable with his ‘need’ to question authority,” while he needs to understand my adherence to rules, procedures, and tradition. We had a good laugh about this, from John’s personality description: “You will cause your partner great discomfort when you flagrantly ‘disobey the rules’ or ‘flaunt authority,’ even though that intent hadn’t even crossed your mind.” And then this, regarding gifts from from him to me: “It needs to be enough to show that they are valued highly but not so much that they feel resources are being wasted.” So, I guess opposites really do attract?

Penne preponderance

emily — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:32:58 +0000

One thing that I saw on menus across England was penne all’arrabbiata. If you’re even remotely a fan of Eddie Izzard, you’re already laughing. If you’re not, by all means, acquaint yourself with his Death Star Canteen bit (and then you must also watch the Lego version). In an interview I heard, Izzard talks about how he came to think that Darth Vader would be able to order penne all’arrabbiata on the Death Star in the first place. Apparently in the ’80s, in the doldrums of British cuisine, restaurants and pubs across the country started to offer penne all’arrabbiata on their menus. It was everywhere, apparently, and you couldn’t get away from the stuff. Nor could the purveyors be prevented from trying to serve their penne all’arrabbiata with all manner of things, like gravy (hence the reference to peas in Death Star Canteen). All of which is to say, I was sorely tempted to order penne all’arrabbiata each time I saw it on an English menu while we were over there, but I honestly didn’t think I could make it through the ordering process without giggling unabashedly. “Oh, alright, put some peas on there.”

The softening of the game!

emily — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:31:28 +0000

John and I were watching Hockey Night In Canada the other night (what, like you weren’t?) as the Hockey Night guys debated a rule the NHL is considering regarding head shots. The argument in favor of such a rule is that players should be penalized for intentionally hitting another player’s head (like this). Sounds fair, right? I mean, considering that head shots can lead to, well, concussions. But not everyone is behind it. (One can only imagine that these folks are the same who would’ve been against the requirement that hockey players wear helmets and pads.) We watched in stunned amazement as the back-and-forth between the Hockey Night guys heated up to the point where Mike Milbury shouted that such a rule contributed to “the softening of the game, the softening of the game!” I couldn’t help but laugh. Needless to say, we’ve appropriated it as our new catch phrase. This morning, as I described the minor penalties my students have to endure for turning in late papers, John lamented that he’s not a college student these days. Nowadays, he said, college students have it so easy– “the softening of the game!” Hockey as a metaphor for life: The More You Know!

Happy dance

emily — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:58:13 +0000

Did you hear that sigh of relief just now? That was me, having finally gotten our taxes pulled together to a point where our accountant can work her magic and then file them. We’ve got complicated taxes, what with John’s home office and my never-ending education and expenses related to the cult we run on the side. There’s a certain part of me that enjoys that kind of work. Getting all the information together, organizing it into a coherent format… I even have my own printing calculator (I can feel your envy from here, ya’ll, and it’s making me blush). I bought one in a former life when I worked as an accountant (which makes it sound way more fancy than it was– maybe assistant accountant? helper accountant? I’ll work on that) and it’s part of the gear that goes along with that occupation. A lot like pieces of flair, only less… blingy. … ….. Anyway! So, yes, there are certain aspects of tax time that I really enjoy. But then there are certain other aspects that make me feel like a moron. I find myself looking at receipts for widgets and invoices for weebles, wondering, “can I write that off?” And then, after hemming and hawing for a couple months, I finally send the whole lot off to the accountant so that she can sort it all out. Win! One of these days, I might go back to filing our taxes myself. I’ve got the calculator, after all. But I sense that would really cut into my American Idol time. (Kidding; I only watch Dancing with the Stars.)

A turn of phrase

emily — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:56:26 +0000

Do you ever think about the sheer wonderfulness of idioms in the English language? They’re so diverse, so eccentric, so… bizarre! Take the idea, for example, of falling “ass over teakettle” in love. What on earth? Or being so hungry you could “eat a horse.” In the interest of full disclosure, though, I should note that in John’s house, growing up, if you were truly hungry you could “eat the ass out of a dead horse.” Mmm. Thanks, but I’ll pass. Keeping with the horse theme, what about “wild horses couldn’t keep me away”? Are wild horses better at this than tame horses? In my family, there’s the classic “Bob’s your uncle,” which is utterly nonsensical, but none the worse for it. And let’s not forget that something that’s easy “is like taking candy from a baby,” that “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” and that if you’re really happy, you’re “happier than a pig in sh*t,” which may or may not be as “happy as Larry.” Which, what? Really, what?!? Who comes up with these things? Can anyone, just anyone? And, more importantly, who’s Larry and why is he so happy?

Occupational therapist

emily — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:30:55 +0000

When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be an occupational therapist. I’d heard the word somewhere and, without knowing what it really meant, decided that being an occupational therapist meant helping people find their dream jobs. We’d sit in a big swanky office, my clients and I, and we’d talk about their innermost hopes and dreams. I’d scribble notes on a legal pad, stopping every now and again to ask a pointed question like, “how do you feel about filing?” or, “do you feel comfortable in an astronaut suit?” And then, after several sessions, I’d rip a piece of paper off of my prescription pad and exclaim, “I think we’ve got it!” And I’d send them off into the world, armed and ready to become a teacher, a court reporter, a veterinarian, or what have you. That’d be an awesome job.

Spa day

emily — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:21:26 +0000

About twice a year, we take our cat Amos to the vet to get groomed. It’s one of those things I never thought I’d pay someone else to do (see also: car detailing), but I’d never go back to doing myself. Amos hated being brushed. Hated it with a fire-y passion that consumed his soul. I’d break out the brush and he’d turn into Satan cat, hissing and clawing and spitting fire. Five minutes later I’d put the brush away, bleeding and defeated, and his hair would continue to get more and more matted. When I first took him to the vet to get groomed, I thought for sure they’d have to sedate him (many cats need to be sedated before grooming, what with all the hissing and clawing and spitting fire). But when I picked him up, he was serene and zen-like. They didn’t have to sedate him because he loved it. Loved every minute of it, including when they made him look all silly. Maybe especially when they made him look all silly:

What can I say? It’s one of the unexpected perks of paying for grooming.