My computer hates me.

It's not that I hate my computer-- I would really like to have a good relationship with my computer. But every time I think we're doing ok, Orion (that's my computer's name) decides to let me know that things really aren't ok at all. First of all, I would like to preface this by saying that all of my gadgets, be it my phone, computer, or printer are in cahoots with each other. It is running joke in my family that any time I buy anything, I should immediately return it because it will inevitably be defective in some way. Every purchase I make actually requires at least two visits to the store- without exception. My computer was one of these items. And now that the computer, phone and printer all sit on the desk together, they think it's funny to mess with my head. My printer currently is not working and I haven't had the patience to attempt to figure out why, so for months now it has been collecting dust. My computer refuses to let me connect to my wifi connection. This is particularly annoying when I want to use my computer to watch t.v. shows and I have to sit at my desk. Who can really relax watching a show whilst sitting at a desk? no one. I tried yet again to fix this issue today to no avail. I'll admit that some of these issues are human error. However, I know for a fact that some of the problem is that my computer hates me. It does inexplicable things that don't make sense (even to the mac geniuses) and this is how I know that it is possessed and it likes to make things difficult. I wish that we could find some way to work this out... but I fear that the frustration is taking hold of me, and I daydream about taking my printer, computer, modem, and phone, heaving them onto the train tracks, and setting them on fire. Or doing this:

Another great SNL skit

The scariest part of this is that some parts of this skit were repeated by Tina Fey word for word out of the actual interview with Sarah Palin...

I truly admire the blind.

I was driving down a friend's street today and there was a blind woman with her seeing eye dog walking down the side of the road. I was immediately struck by how gutsy you would have to be/become to live as a blind person. Living downtown, I used to always see people walking through the city with their canes and every time I am in their presence I feel an urge to congratulate them on how brave they are. I don't-- because I don't want them to feel like I'm gawking at them, although they may enjoy the praise. They would be standing next to me at a crosswalk and I would think, would I have the guts to walk into the street if I couldn't see anything? I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, but it just seems like such an impossible feat to me. The obstacles that they tackle every day just trying to make it from one place to another makes me want to give every blind person I see a giant pat on the back. Again, I don't because what blind person wants some stranger on the street touching them... but still. I think that they are just super awesome, and I want to throw them a party and tell them all how cool I think they are. Maybe I shall.

Holy Hell, Have You Seen Mary Tyler Moore's Face?

I was at a friend's house tonight and she was watching the show, "Lipstick Jungle" which I had never seen before but apparently Mary Tyler Moore has a small role on it. I was shocked and appalled to see what she has done to herself. Her skin is stretched so tightly on her face that I think it would be impossible for her to have more than 1 or 2 expressions- her eyes are practically on the side of her head. I am especially disappointed because I always thought of her as being one of those strong women in acting that would age gracefully- instead, she has mutilated herself for primetime tv. And what would Dick Van Dyke think?

The GRE Makes Me VERY Angry.

For those of you that don't know, the GRE is the "Graduate Record Exam". If you have never heard of it, you are one of the fortunate people who don't have to face the ridiculousness that is this test. Anyone who wants to go to grad school has to take this test. Just like the LSAT for law school or the GMAT for business school. These tests are all based upon fictional skills that somehow qualify you to pay A TON of money to get yet another piece of paper. Don't get me started. I have always complained of the irrelevance of all of these things, but like a good circus monkey, I jump through the hoop.
Having decided to jump through the hoop with as much grace (and success) as possible, I signed up for a study course (which is also ridiculously expensive, but if you are jumping through a flaming hoop anyway, why not guarantee that you're not going to light your ass on fire, right?). Last week I was sitting in this class which is two and a half hours on one of my only days off, and I was pissed. They make you learn this crap that you feel like you should already know, and then you feel stupid because you can't figure it out, and the kicker is that you are well aware of the fact that this stuff should be really easy, because it's simple. You don't even need a calculator. Yet, we're all just too STUPID to be able to figure out if the quantity of A or B is bigger. I have been in school for 16 years, and yep, I'm a dumbass. Hurray.

So anyway, the stuff on this test is so irrelevant that I am 100% certain that I will NEVER come across it again for as long as I live-- even if medical advances extend my lifetime by 500 YEARS I will never need to know what the antonym of ameliorate is--- which by the way, I don't. On the back of the word card it says, "similar meanings" for instance, "better" or "improve". Now those are words I've used. Why aren't those f-ing words on the test? how in the hell do you even say ameliorate and not sound like you are speaking a language you only hear on STAR TREK?

So as I was sitting in this class feeling angry and stupid, it came to me. They make you take this test TO BREAK YOU. They figure if you can make it through the sheer agony that is studying for this test, that you have what it takes to go through 2-4 years of grad school. I get it. Now, if it is really that, I say that they have the exam on more whimsical topics- like Smurf Geneology and Pig Latin fluency. Lets call it like it is.

Even now, I have just spent 45 minutes doing homework for this course, taking careful time to work out the math problems, and frankly, feeling like I am finally getting this thing down. Submit the practice test....And I got a 47% people! It even had the nerve to give me statistics on questions that I had chosen the right answer and then switched it back to the wrong answer. I'm ready to throw my GRE study book into a vat of hot oil. I want to fry it, cover it in some hot sauce and EAT IT because it would do me more good to injest it than to read it.

The GRE makes me VERY angry.

Dumb and Dumber

I was watching this the other day and it just so funny. I've seen this movie more times than I can count, but it still cracks me up. Jim Carrey is hilarious!

Your Hands are Freezing!

I Love Saturday Night Live....

Tina Fey really looks like Sarah Palin!

Miniature Mecca

My Mom and I were in Bed Bath and Beyond the other day and as we were walking in, my Mom gasped, grabbed my arm and said, "LOOK!"
I turned around, and low and behold there was a giant wall of baskets holding miniature things! This was like the most exciting thing to happen to us all day. We both stood there, in awe, staring at the baskets. Finally, my Mom spoke...She said, "This is going to take a while...I have to look at everything". There were the typical travel size things like soap, shampoo, etc. But there were also miniature shaving creams, miniature roles of toilet paper, and miniature packs of laundry detergent!
I know it seems silly, but I have always had a secret obsession with all things miniature. I've always said it was because I like things that make you feel like you're really big or small. Like, when I am holding a miniature bar of Dove soap, I am kind of Gulliver right? and if I am sitting in a giant chair and my legs can't touch the ground, it's kind of a regression to childhood and you feel like a light, little thing again.

Plus, they really come in handy. So, if you are in need of miniature, travel sized things, I definitely recommend you go to BB and B and behold the breathtaking wall of all things miniature.

My Tap Water Terrifies Me

To shoot a dead horse, I don't have cable. So I find myself reading the newspaper in the morning, because unlike my cable, the cranky bastard that I bought my apartment from didn't cancel his subscription when he moved. It's really a blessing and a curse because those things pile up like weeds and now I have pieces of newspapers all over my house-- which is certainly not helping me with my clutter problem. But that is a whole other blog.

I was reading my free newspaper on Friday morning, and I stumbled upon a very troubling article. It was entitled, "Drugs Found In More Cities' Water Systems". The article explained that after extensive testing of water in many, many cities, Denver and Colorado Springs' water tested positive for things like methadone, testosterone, doxycycline, and erythromycin (to only name a few). It explained that trace amounts of antibiotics, hormones, anti-depressants, and other drugs are slipping through the waste water purification process.

The reasons that this article ruined my water for me was two-fold. First of all, I don't care what anyone says-- it doesn't seem logical that constantly drinking hormones and antibiotics in trace amounts is harmless. It must have a long term effect...Like maybe the ineffectiveness of antibiotics? I don't know. All I know is that I am not a heroin addict, and I don't really want a steady treatment of methodone.

Secondly, it reminded me that there is poop in the water. I mean, not literally, but I was sitting there staring at my untouched glass of water thinking, "this used to be sewage." MY G-D, EW. EW, EW, EW. I understand that this has always been the case. I am aware that it is all filtered out and all, but if anything makes it through (like trace amounts of drugs), then what else is making it through? I get that it isn't harmful. But benign poop water is still not really ok with me. And now, I can't drink it. I am walking around all dehydrated- definitely not getting my 8 glasses that's for sure. Even as I write this I am thirsty. I can't even go to bottled water because most of the time, it is just bottled from some other cities' water. You know what it is? It's like the toilet. I don't want to know what happens after I flush it. I want to be blissfully ignorant. Damn the newspaper. Damn it.

G n' R

My friend, the financial advisor.

My friend just started working for Prudential, and he called me a couple of weeks ago asking if I would come into his office and let him talk to me for 30 mins about what he was doing, and to maybe discuss my goals. I explained to him that I had no goals, but that I would come meet with him. I was going in expecting for us to sit in his office and chit chat for a half an hour so that his boss would think he was building his client base. In fact, I had been trying to get cable yesterday and it was too expensive, so I had plans of discussing ways of getting illegal cable with him-- because if anyone I know has illegal cable, it would be him.
But I was mistaken. We were in a conference room with his boss going over his plan of action for analyzing my future. This is where I got deeply depressed. We talked about investment options, savings plans, insurance policies, etc. Each time I had to explain to him that none of these things were feasible for me right now. I have no money to invest. I have no family to plan for. In fact, it made me want to punch him in the face for making me meet with him. Also, I come from a Jewish family, and Jews do not like talking about death. We just don't. We are conditioned from little children that if you speak of it, it could happen, and therefore if the subject comes up, we must spit or knock or something because you must do something to counteract the talking about it. It is very uncomfortable. So as I am sitting there listening to him discuss the burden of funeral costs, I am fighting the urge to knock on that table or spit three times under my breath. But I didn't because I didn't want to freak his boss out. On top of that, there were water color paintings of the Daniel's and Fisher tower all over the room. This is a landmark building in Denver, and one of those things that is constantly reminding me about something I am trying not to be constantly reminded about...vague, I know. This is when it occurred to me that there are some times in my life that seem like scenes from a movie. This was definitely one of those times. So, I left his office feeling completely behind, old, reminded, unprepared, and cursed (from all of the death talk). I went straight to Best Buy, bought season 4 of Grey's Anatomy, and sat in an almost catatonic state for the remainder of the day. Moral of the story- don't do your friends any favors....

Isabelle Has A Super Stalker.

As you can see, my dog is adorable. There's no denying that. She's kind of funny looking, sometimes she has a look on her face like a really old, crabby lady- but then she makes little faces like this and you forget that she threw-up in the threshold of the door last night as you were leaving for a walk- where you couldn't let the door close and had nothing to prop it open. She helps me with my problem solving skills...

Anyway, as you all know, I moved about 6 months ago. As I was walking Isabelle in those first few weeks, I ran into a very strange lady. Apparently, she is my neighbor in the building across the street- but I know her as the weirdo who is driving by in her car and slams on the brakes to come accost my dog. She stopped her car and ran out, simultaneously asking if she could pet my dog. I'm like, OK, because it rocks Isabelle's world when some random lady on the street wants to pet her. As this woman is swooning over my dog, she begins to tell me that she works from home and that she would love to watch Isabelle any time that I need her to because she just loves her that much. Then it got weird. She was like, "If I weren't going somewhere, I'd take her right now"...Mind you, I hadn't said anything about needing her services, and I was thinking to myself, "Well, I'm with her right now... so I think we're ok...." So the lady finally unhanded my dog and insisted I take her business card in case the situation were to arise that I would want to call her.

Fast forward like 6 months....

Yesterday I am walking Isabelle (kind of in a hurry, mind you, because I was late for work), and here she comes again. Again she is in her car, slowly driving down the street with her window down. She spots us, yells out her window, "THAT'S THE DOG!" and comes running out of her car again. She was like, "I have missed this dog so much!!! what's the dog's name?!" and as she's petting Isabelle she was like, "I gave you my card. You still have it right? Oh I just love this dog, and I've only seen her twice" (I'm thinking, when was the second time? were you hiding in the bushes or something? weirdo. Then she said something like,"I live right up there (pointing to the penthouse across the street) and I'd just love to watch her. You own the dog, right?" That's when I really started to get the heebi Jeebies. I told her yes, and quickly dragged Isabelle away so this attachment disorder lady would get back in her car and leave us alone.

It was weird. That lady freaks me out. Isabelle doesn't seem at all freaked out. In fact, she would probably happily go live with crazy lady. I just thought it was funny that Isabelle has a #1 fan.....

As a side note... I was on my way to a friend's house the other day and I got lost (as usual). I was at a light and I looked over to see this dog grooming store... I thought it was pretty funny.

I am like, the best gardener ever...

Before

After



Do you see those tomato plants? and the jungle of basil?
Today is a cold, dreary day (which I LOVE), but I can't help but think that the first frost is on its way, and my victorious plants are going to die. I really don't want them to die. They have grown so much since I got them, it just seems like such a waste... I thought about trying to see if I could get them to survive the winter in my house, but that doesn't seem likely....plus, my adversion to creepy crawly things makes me think that they should definitely stay outside with whatever little buggy things are in their soil. Ew. Like that sand scorpion that terrorized me a while ago.