“It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door.”
– Publilius Syrus
Those of you who remember this little fiend, will be happy to know that he has departed for grimmer and more diabolic realms. Alternatively, you will be saddened to know that he has been replaced with something far, far worse:
Our new upstairs neighbors.
Artist's rendering of the neighbor's parties.
Not only do they fight, constantly, at the top of their lungs, specifically at ridiculous hours of the the night, but they are also completely incapable of walking. No, no. They stomp. Which makes our ceiling shake. And they throw parties with loud friends in which they, as far as we can tell, practice riverdancing. Or dropping bowling balls.
The other night, when we were watching a movie, we heard the door above us slam and moments later the light fixture started rattling around.
“Ah good,” J. said, “Lord and Lady Stompington are home.”
Obviously all this PBS watching is starting to rub off on him!
“Good God, woman, where have you been?” he cried furiously.
A morbid lunacy overtook her. She smiled fiercely and held up the bag.
“Shopping. Want to see what I bought?”
– Lois McMaster Bujold
My wallet is now under permanent lock-down. Because of going to That Show, I bought this and this (the latter for my sister-in-law’s upcoming wedding), but unfortunately not this because it did not look at all good on a less-than-five-foot woman. I looked a frilly mess.
Pictured: the THAT in question.
Then, the other day, Venice called me (from two doors down in her flat) and said I had to come over right now. I obligingly threw on some basketball shorts and scampered on over only to behold this.
“Where did you get that?!” I screeched in excitement.
“From that place we hate,” she triumphed.
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. For $87.00!”
“I NEED THAT!”
The next step was to get J. to agree. I pitched it as the perfect solution to this problem, which has been exacerbated since getting married as the only time I really get to see my husband is the time I used to go to the gym. I pinky-promised my way through the usual litany of bargains (to use it everyday, not to be a little grump when he reminds me that I haven’t worked out that day, etc.) and expounded its virtues (it’s cheap, it’s nice and small – C. sized! – it’s light, and it’s portable for future moves).
If anything else, the sheer guilt that would come from having that sitting in my house (staring at me) will motivate me to use it. It’s easy to ignore the gym when it’s not sitting in your living room! So, with J.’s consent, I bought it.
I really think this could be a solution to my exercise problem. After coming home from work in the evening to feed this guy, coupled with the desire to enjoy this, and the lack of desire to drive back to campus to deal with this, the idea that I could work out in my own home sounds pretty darn good.
What do you think of this plan, darlings?
**And by the way, if I start talking about buying anything else in the near future, jump me, steal and hide my wallet, and under no circumstances return it to me.
“Darling, the legs aren’t so beautiful, I just know what to do with them.”
– Marlene Dietrich
Last week in an effort to hurry Spring along by dressing the part (which worked swimmingly, by the way!) I broke out this pretty thing I scored on Ebay:
Darling, no?
The problem? As J. and I were walking to the car for lunch, I happened to glance down and see this:
Pictured: artist's rendering of my legs.
“Why did you let me outside looking like this?!” I demanded.
“You’re a quarter Slovak, I have no idea why you have albino legs,” he retorted.
“Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about Rock’n’Roll.”
– Shigeru Miyamoto
Last Friday, J. and I headed north to the city to play with Angel and her husband Hotty. Both of the men lived/worked in Korea at some point and converted their respective wives to the cuisine so we went to Angel’s favorite restaurant, got ice cream, and retired to their basement flat to play Rock Band.
In retrospect, I think I liked him because he was (also) touchy about his height.
Growing up we didn’t have gaming systems and to this day they remain verboten at Chez Parents, so I have never developed the necessary finger-eye coordination and thumb dexterity required by video games. My gaming experience was limited to watching Peregrine playing Final Fantasy back in the day, and trying Spyro The Dragon (exactly two times) while babysitting. And since I didn’t know what the point of the game was or how to achieve it, I mostly just scampered around whatever level I was on blowing fire and falling off things into oblivion while evil signs flashed “GAME OVER,” or something of the sort.
Pictured: Angel, Hotty, C. (with mustache), and J.
So, Beatles Rock Band went about as I expected. They started me on the drums which was manageable on the easiest level, but still confusing as I couldn’t get the timing of my whacks on the drum set vs. the scrolling instructions right until J. told me to ignore it and go along with the beat instead (oOOOoohhhh. Rhythm. Right).
At some point I graduated to guitar and luckily we set it to “impossible to fail” because I proceeded to slaughter the music. Then I got really ambitious and went from “Easy” to “Medium” and discovered my lack of hand-eye coordination is not just limited to sports. And I must be mildly dyslexic because for the life of me I couldn’t manage to match my fingers with their assigned keys, much less with the dots of color that wouldn’t stop rolling towards me. And chords! Impossible!
I think I’ll be settling back into video game retirement now, thanks.
“Not for all the money in the world would I let any children of mine develop into Pendletons!”
– Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs
Dear un-named child of an extremely generous university alumni: I am very grateful for your father’s contributions and service. I am sure that the whole school thanks him for his patronage. You, on the other hand, are not your father and are not entitled to his privileges. He has given us a lifetime of service and hard work, you have give us a series of debilitating migraines because of your rude, unbelievable behavior. I do not care how much money another person has donated, you are an insufferable ass and no amount of money will make you less responsible for your actions.
Wealth doth not a gentleman make.
I got home yesterday absolutely burning with rage after dealing with this boy.
“If,” I snarled at J., “we ever become as successful as we hope, we are donating everything to PBS and cancer research. I’ll be damned before I see any of our family act like that! The things I wish I could have said!”
“You don’t have to take apart every jerk that you deal with you know.”
“But I want to. It would make the world a better place!”
If I be waspish best beware my sting!
I come from some WASP stock myself, but if I ever behaved the way this kid does, my parents would gleefully disown me!
“At least she’s eating better things than macaroni and cheese.”
– Heidi Klum
Translation of fragment: "Mac and Cheese is food fit for dogs. And Gauls. Go Rome!"
Throughout my life my mother has been in school, in some capacity or another. When I was about three or four, she had to leave Dad and I for a few weeks to finish up something or other with one of her degrees (I misremember which. Which isn’t me being a bad daughter, it’s her having one in Asian Studies, one in American History, and now another in Classical Studies from Cambridge because she decided to learn Greek and Latin. In other words, my mother is exceptionally awesome). Time has blurred the details a bit but as I recall, this was an absolute highlight of my short life because Dad and I subsisted on mainly pizza.
I didn’t realize this during the Great Pizza Blitz, but it turned out that my Dad hated cooking. Really hated it. He encouraged my Mum to go to school, continue her education throughout her life, and work if she wanted, but by golly the one thing he wanted was dinner to be on the table, because left up to him, dinner would come grudgingly from a frozen package.
So, a few years down the road when she decided to teach for a semester or two at a local university, I thought the Pizza Affair would be reborn. I was sadly, terrifyingly mistaken.
This is NOT food.
Mac and Cheese. From a box. Every night. Some days even for lunch. Sometimes we varied it up with chunks of hotdog, but mostly not. Again, I’m sure both time and horror have worked their magic on me and the vile orange sludge was not as prolific as I remember, but it sure seemed like it at the time. When my mother’s teaching finished, I refused to eat another disgusting, processed bite, and I’ve never touched it since. Once when shopping J. picked up a box for himself on days when I’d be at school late or he needed a lunch, I had to swallow escaping bile.
However, watching Food Network the other day, I saw a recipe for ‘Grown Up Mac And Cheese’ and thought suddenly to myself, “That doesn’t look so bad.” It sounded pretentious enough that I could assure myself that it would be as un-Kraft-like as possible, but looked really easy to make. So, on Sunday I girded my loins and made Mac and Cheese for the first time in years.
And you know what? It was pretty darned tasty!
**I’ll still never make the packaged stuff again. My children will not be subjected to this powdered cheese monstrosity, except to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. And even then, I might choose death.
“So Amanda stays with Darcy and Elizabeth stays in the modern world? Why does she want to do that?”
“Birth control, indoor plumbing, and women’s rights?”
– J. and C.
Whether against his will or not, J. is slowly getting dragged into my PBS obsession, and it’s been fun to watch.
Pictured: a post-modernist moment. You may close your mouth now.
For someone who dislikes Jane Austen pretty strongly, he liked Lost In Austen quite a bit (granted, we both loved Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). He laughed just as loud as me when the main character asked Mr. Darcy to take a dip in his pond so she could enjoy a Colin Firth-esque “post-modernist moment.” He found the fact that Caroline Bingley was a lesbian hilarious, liked that Wickham was a good guy after all, and that Jane and Charles run off to America together. One Sunday night he called back to where I was in the office and reminded me that Masterpiece was on in a half hour and asked if there would be another LIA installment.
She heard you, J.. Beware.
And when Dorcas Lane (of Lark Rise to Candleford fame) stated she doesn’t like to judge people, to the face of the man she’s refused to marry for having a scandalous, mistress-mongering past, and said man snaps back, “You’ve never had a problem with sitting in judgement before. Good-day,” … it was incredibly satisfying to hear my red-blooded, football/basketball loving, hamburger devouring, man’s man, all-American husband cry, “Oh no he didn’t! Burn!”
I’m sure he’d like me to reciprocate by learning to love basketball and Sports Center, but I’m not quite there yet. I’ll work on it.
“You should give up hamburgers for Lent.”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“Well, I’m giving up something bad for me, so you should too. Be supportive.”
“I’m giving up smoking.”
“You don’t bloody smoke!”
“See? I’ve improved myself already.”
– C. and J.
I’m at a loss. New Year, the time for such bursts of ardent revamping passed without so much as a guilty twinge. The number on the scale creeping upwards gave me pause, but not enough. The subtle tightening of my trousers was acknowledged, but then dismissed (though oddly enough my shirts displayed no such variance). No no, friends. What gets C. back into the gym, swearing off junk food and dedicating herself anew to salads?
Alright, I'll work out. I'LL WORK OUT!
Lent.
Of course I’m not going down by myself so J. has been bugged, hounded, and generally harassed until he agreed to give up Mountain Dew (though not all sodas, he would like it noted). He’s also being dragged to the gym with me to keep me on the straight and narrow. I got on an elliptical machine today for the first time in six months and clocked nearly three miles before doing a half hour of weights, so I forsee the traditional Lenten feelings approaching tomorrow: sorrow, remorse, and reliance on prayer to get one through.
I’m already craving sugar. Keep me strong, friends!
Small Dog Syndrome 