Overheard at the gas station/mini-mart owned by a very nice family who recently moved here from Pakistan….
Customer Lady (in full New Yawk mode, complete with Fuhgeddaboutit accent, wearing a garish pink t-shirt that says, “I am not listening to YOU!” in pink and silver glitter) says to Kindly, Middle-Aged Pakistani Mini-Mart Owner:
CL: Oh, GAWD! Did you have a good week-eeeehnd?
KiMaMMO: Ah, yes, yes very good.
CL: Oh, reeeally? What did you do?
KiMaMMO: Oh, it was so good, I got to see all my family Saturday.
CL: How many?
KiMaMMO: So sorry?
CL: How many people? Did you have a bahr-be-que?
KiMaMMO: We had (visibily counting and translating numbers)… 20, yes, 20 people.
CL: OH, gawwwd, good!
KiMaMMO: Yes, yes! I had to- um- barbeque, yes?
CL: Ohhh… (Nodding)
KiKaMMO: Yes, it was so good, so many people, I had to barbeque the whole lamb!
He was so happy. In about 8 days, I get to see so many of my favorite people. We’re going to have to barbeque the WHOLE LAMB! Can’t wait!
Oh, and H.? Are we gonna call you HEK now? :)
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Sunday, July 27, 2003
"Old Friends... They sat on their park bench like bookends..."
-Simon and Garfunkel
So the other day I was standing in a pile of trash, trying to get an unobstructed shot of this intermodal transportation la de da train station they are building here. As I finished shooting and began to walk away, a piece of trash was stuck to my foot. It was a Blue Pop Top Pop label. A certain old friend of many people who read this site used to be obsessed with Top Pop Blue Pop, this scary soda that comes in "Blue" flavor. Not "Blue Berry" or "Berry Blast." Just blue. As I recall, it had a label saying "All Natural Flavors" or something.
Anyway, I walked back to the car and called this Old Friend at the only number I had for him in the middle of a work day. He answered on the first ring, and was in the process of moving out, literally movers carrying boxes around him while he was talking on the phone. (I hope he didn't let them use his bathroom. I forgot to warn him.)
He's doing well, by the way. He's an uncle now, and he's good.
-Simon and Garfunkel
So the other day I was standing in a pile of trash, trying to get an unobstructed shot of this intermodal transportation la de da train station they are building here. As I finished shooting and began to walk away, a piece of trash was stuck to my foot. It was a Blue Pop Top Pop label. A certain old friend of many people who read this site used to be obsessed with Top Pop Blue Pop, this scary soda that comes in "Blue" flavor. Not "Blue Berry" or "Berry Blast." Just blue. As I recall, it had a label saying "All Natural Flavors" or something.
Anyway, I walked back to the car and called this Old Friend at the only number I had for him in the middle of a work day. He answered on the first ring, and was in the process of moving out, literally movers carrying boxes around him while he was talking on the phone. (I hope he didn't let them use his bathroom. I forgot to warn him.)
He's doing well, by the way. He's an uncle now, and he's good.
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
The Great Pumpkin…
My first grade teacher Mrs. McM!nn used to have a gray tabby cat named Critter. Critter came to Show-and-Tell. On occasion, I used to visit Critter (as Mrs. McM!nn lived first up the cul-de-sac and then down the street), and my mom would accompany me for the visit, as her favorite childhood pet was a grey tabby cat named, um, Tabby, actually- who very, very, very unfortunately met the same end as the cat featured in the Very Horrible Car Story. (See below.)
Sigh…. ANYWAY, in the summer I was 7, Mrs. McM!nn asked me if I would like to take care of Critter when she was on vacation. I couldn’t believe my luck. For something like $3 a day, I got to feed her cat and bring in the newspaper and have unlimited petting time.
I was never allowed to get a cat when I was a kid. Some trivial little thing about my dad’s eyes swelling shut. Oh, and my sister would have had to be hooked up to an oxygen tank because of her allergies, ya know…. The closest I ever got was having one of the strays I used to feed brought into the house to catch a mouse. Never mind that the gerbils we had got loose every other day, and my mom would have to close us all in the playroom and tell us not to scream as she tried to scoop up the escapees up with a Maxwell House coffee can. Of course, the gerbil would eventually make a break for it, and my mom would be the one screaming as she leapt over a hobby horse while trying to catch a the runaway rodent, who almost always ended up cowering behind an Easy-Bake Oven and a Barbie Townhouse that leaned more than the Tower of Pisa until my dad got home from school. Anyway, the stray cat never did catch that mouse because he freaked out and got stuck behind the piano and therefore had to go back outside. He hung around until the neighbors with the Demonic Poodle hauled him away. I really, really hope they took him to a nice farm, like they said they did. Allow me this illusion, people.
But I digress. So I was trying to feed Critter, but he was purring and weaving in and around my ankles as I put the mail and keys on the table. But all the weaving and purring made it hard to walk, and I was trying desperately to get to the can opener- when WHAM! Critter jumped onto my leg and bit me! He broke the skin, which scared the crap out of me, watching the trickle of blood roll down from a few inches below the hemline of my flourescent “Jams” into my shiny pink jellies (isn’t this story so much better now that you know this was the summer of jams and jellies? Pebbles used to get stuck in the diamond-shaped spaces that made up the heel of those things. Damn, they hurt your feet, didn’t they?)
So I ran out of Mrs. McM!nn’s house, leaving the keys inside, but making sure the door was unlocked. I left my pink scooter, (chosen mode of transportation for those of us in the Easter Seal “balance problem”classes; I swear modern bike helmet laws were passed for kids like me), in her driveway and ran home screeching and bleeding.
My mom, bless her, took care of Critter for rest of the week, after mistakenly believing I had accidentally locked the keys in the neighbor’s house, and drove pell-mell down the street, and as I recall, driving over the scooter in the driveway. (I needed to learn to ride a bike at some point anyway.) I think Critter tried to take a chunk out of her, too, and that was the last time I looked after a neighbor’s cat.
Until Pumpkin. (Dunt, dunt duuuuuh). My Downstairs Neighbor (DN) has a big orange tiger cat named Pumpkin. Pumpkin gets left alone in her apartment a lot, with only her collection of Fancy Collector’s Edition Barbies (kept in illuminated curio cabinets) for company. He seems perfectly nice, although sometimes a little grouchy, when you meet him on the stairs. When my other neighbors, who are in the process of moving out, took care of Pumpkin, he was always perfectly sweet to me, though they always said he gets “a little violent on occasion.” Huh. But Alissa met Pumpkin on the stairs, and he was an angel. Stephen met him when he was roaming around the Other Neighbors’ apartment when DN was on vacation in June, and he was okay.
But then, I tried to go in and feed him. It was like Critter 2: Revenge of the Hell-Cat. Hissing. Yowling. Then flopping on his stomach for a tummy rub and purring, and on the fifth stroke swiping and spitting like you tried to light him on fire. At one point when Stephen was here last weekend, I almost grabbed DN’s broom and tapped SOS on her ceiling (my floor) so he would come down and create a diversion so I could run for it.
But I guess I can’t blame Pumpkin. DN’s six Ballerina Barbies are illuminated in their display case 24 hours a day, and that just can’t be a good thing for any living thing. If only they had a Townhouse I could cower behind.
My first grade teacher Mrs. McM!nn used to have a gray tabby cat named Critter. Critter came to Show-and-Tell. On occasion, I used to visit Critter (as Mrs. McM!nn lived first up the cul-de-sac and then down the street), and my mom would accompany me for the visit, as her favorite childhood pet was a grey tabby cat named, um, Tabby, actually- who very, very, very unfortunately met the same end as the cat featured in the Very Horrible Car Story. (See below.)
Sigh…. ANYWAY, in the summer I was 7, Mrs. McM!nn asked me if I would like to take care of Critter when she was on vacation. I couldn’t believe my luck. For something like $3 a day, I got to feed her cat and bring in the newspaper and have unlimited petting time.
I was never allowed to get a cat when I was a kid. Some trivial little thing about my dad’s eyes swelling shut. Oh, and my sister would have had to be hooked up to an oxygen tank because of her allergies, ya know…. The closest I ever got was having one of the strays I used to feed brought into the house to catch a mouse. Never mind that the gerbils we had got loose every other day, and my mom would have to close us all in the playroom and tell us not to scream as she tried to scoop up the escapees up with a Maxwell House coffee can. Of course, the gerbil would eventually make a break for it, and my mom would be the one screaming as she leapt over a hobby horse while trying to catch a the runaway rodent, who almost always ended up cowering behind an Easy-Bake Oven and a Barbie Townhouse that leaned more than the Tower of Pisa until my dad got home from school. Anyway, the stray cat never did catch that mouse because he freaked out and got stuck behind the piano and therefore had to go back outside. He hung around until the neighbors with the Demonic Poodle hauled him away. I really, really hope they took him to a nice farm, like they said they did. Allow me this illusion, people.
But I digress. So I was trying to feed Critter, but he was purring and weaving in and around my ankles as I put the mail and keys on the table. But all the weaving and purring made it hard to walk, and I was trying desperately to get to the can opener- when WHAM! Critter jumped onto my leg and bit me! He broke the skin, which scared the crap out of me, watching the trickle of blood roll down from a few inches below the hemline of my flourescent “Jams” into my shiny pink jellies (isn’t this story so much better now that you know this was the summer of jams and jellies? Pebbles used to get stuck in the diamond-shaped spaces that made up the heel of those things. Damn, they hurt your feet, didn’t they?)
So I ran out of Mrs. McM!nn’s house, leaving the keys inside, but making sure the door was unlocked. I left my pink scooter, (chosen mode of transportation for those of us in the Easter Seal “balance problem”classes; I swear modern bike helmet laws were passed for kids like me), in her driveway and ran home screeching and bleeding.
My mom, bless her, took care of Critter for rest of the week, after mistakenly believing I had accidentally locked the keys in the neighbor’s house, and drove pell-mell down the street, and as I recall, driving over the scooter in the driveway. (I needed to learn to ride a bike at some point anyway.) I think Critter tried to take a chunk out of her, too, and that was the last time I looked after a neighbor’s cat.
Until Pumpkin. (Dunt, dunt duuuuuh). My Downstairs Neighbor (DN) has a big orange tiger cat named Pumpkin. Pumpkin gets left alone in her apartment a lot, with only her collection of Fancy Collector’s Edition Barbies (kept in illuminated curio cabinets) for company. He seems perfectly nice, although sometimes a little grouchy, when you meet him on the stairs. When my other neighbors, who are in the process of moving out, took care of Pumpkin, he was always perfectly sweet to me, though they always said he gets “a little violent on occasion.” Huh. But Alissa met Pumpkin on the stairs, and he was an angel. Stephen met him when he was roaming around the Other Neighbors’ apartment when DN was on vacation in June, and he was okay.
But then, I tried to go in and feed him. It was like Critter 2: Revenge of the Hell-Cat. Hissing. Yowling. Then flopping on his stomach for a tummy rub and purring, and on the fifth stroke swiping and spitting like you tried to light him on fire. At one point when Stephen was here last weekend, I almost grabbed DN’s broom and tapped SOS on her ceiling (my floor) so he would come down and create a diversion so I could run for it.
But I guess I can’t blame Pumpkin. DN’s six Ballerina Barbies are illuminated in their display case 24 hours a day, and that just can’t be a good thing for any living thing. If only they had a Townhouse I could cower behind.
Friday, July 18, 2003
Hey La, Hey La...
So Stephen is on his way to DC to visit his brother's family, and I have the place to myself again. Now my dog can stop making her most pitiful Sad Face at me when I get out of bed every morning, since as she resumed her rightful sleeping place (hogging the best part of the bed between the body pillow and the air-conditioner) and since "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" is not running on the TV with anywhere near the frequency it has been these last six days, she will have to find something to do besides barking gleefully every time Ryan Stiles rings that doorbell for the "Party Quirks" improv game thingy. (We've never had a working doorbell here. It is ALWAYS the TV doorbell. It's never anything Bella needs to bark at. Ever.)
What else? I took the scenic route to Norwalk CT today. It was fun. Connecticut is such an odd state. It's so small that nearly everything is about 45 minutes away from anything else, but everywhere I've been in the state is pretty different from anywhere else. Stephen's hometown was smallish and WASP-y and quaint, and Wesleyan (Middletown) was also very pretty in a "visiting Gwen at radical liberal college" way, and the Danbury/Trumbull area, where Steve's friends were married/relatives buried, is pretty run of the mill HomeDepotBigMallTargetAmerica, but Old Greenwich, where Steve and I spent some time driving around yesterday, is so. different. from any of that. They actually have sections of white picket fences with flower boxes staggered in the MIDDLE OF STREETS that lead to the private beaches that keep poor people out. You have to go all slow to navigate around them, so rich people can stop you if you try to get out of your car and walk on Yacht Club beach territory with your impoverished feet.
This is true!
We pulled over to the side of the road by a vacant lot, and we were about to go down this little path to walk on the beach, which we knew was not open to the public, (but it was a Thursday evening! Who would care, right? We weren't going to litter or use metal detectors to find and plunder their gold or anything. Besides, the "no trespassing" signs are so tasteful, they're easy to miss, you know?) and this man came out of his castle to ask if we were having "car trouble." Apparently, this is "Connecticut" for "You people are not in the right tax bracket to walk over that sand dune." Luckily, I pretended to be rummaging in the trunk of my car for anything but that picnic blanket, no sir, no sir, and Stephen instantly produced an ear bulb syringe (it's mine, don't ask) and told him we were looking for "my medicine."
We went to the park instead.
So Stephen is on his way to DC to visit his brother's family, and I have the place to myself again. Now my dog can stop making her most pitiful Sad Face at me when I get out of bed every morning, since as she resumed her rightful sleeping place (hogging the best part of the bed between the body pillow and the air-conditioner) and since "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" is not running on the TV with anywhere near the frequency it has been these last six days, she will have to find something to do besides barking gleefully every time Ryan Stiles rings that doorbell for the "Party Quirks" improv game thingy. (We've never had a working doorbell here. It is ALWAYS the TV doorbell. It's never anything Bella needs to bark at. Ever.)
What else? I took the scenic route to Norwalk CT today. It was fun. Connecticut is such an odd state. It's so small that nearly everything is about 45 minutes away from anything else, but everywhere I've been in the state is pretty different from anywhere else. Stephen's hometown was smallish and WASP-y and quaint, and Wesleyan (Middletown) was also very pretty in a "visiting Gwen at radical liberal college" way, and the Danbury/Trumbull area, where Steve's friends were married/relatives buried, is pretty run of the mill HomeDepotBigMallTargetAmerica, but Old Greenwich, where Steve and I spent some time driving around yesterday, is so. different. from any of that. They actually have sections of white picket fences with flower boxes staggered in the MIDDLE OF STREETS that lead to the private beaches that keep poor people out. You have to go all slow to navigate around them, so rich people can stop you if you try to get out of your car and walk on Yacht Club beach territory with your impoverished feet.
This is true!
We pulled over to the side of the road by a vacant lot, and we were about to go down this little path to walk on the beach, which we knew was not open to the public, (but it was a Thursday evening! Who would care, right? We weren't going to litter or use metal detectors to find and plunder their gold or anything. Besides, the "no trespassing" signs are so tasteful, they're easy to miss, you know?) and this man came out of his castle to ask if we were having "car trouble." Apparently, this is "Connecticut" for "You people are not in the right tax bracket to walk over that sand dune." Luckily, I pretended to be rummaging in the trunk of my car for anything but that picnic blanket, no sir, no sir, and Stephen instantly produced an ear bulb syringe (it's mine, don't ask) and told him we were looking for "my medicine."
We went to the park instead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
