Restaurant Workers in Latex Gloves. Discuss.

Does anyone else question the latex gloves (or sometimes the cheap, oversized sandwich baggy looking things) that the 15 year old making your Subway sandwich is wearing? Or, let’s not be restaurant chain-ist; the waitress I had today at a very nice Italian spot near my work.

Here’s my question: are you wearing those to protect me? Or just your hands?

She has them on, my six inch wheat in her hands, “what kind of cheese”? American, I answer.  “Hot or cold”? Hot, I say. She then takes those gloved hands and opens up the microwave, then puts  my six inch turkey on wheat in there.

“What do you ladies want to drink”? She says as she carries the water carafe in her plastic baggied hands. The same carafe the non-gloved barista just filled behind the counter.

I don’t get it. What is the point of putting the gloves on if you’re going to touch every stinking surface of the eatery AND my food?

Can someone shed some light? Please?

Colon Cleanse. Bear with me.

Again, MIA, I know. It’s been a rough several weeks with finals, our beloved dog passing, and the addition of our new pup, Sadie.  Molly deserves a post of her own (which I will likely get to sometime next fall) so I won’t go into the sad (yet heartwarming) details right now.

This post is about a colon cleanse! I’ve been reading The Bloggess’ new book: Let’s Pretend this Never Happened, and I just read a hilarious chapter about how she overdosed on laxatives. Seriously, people, go get that book! I started it three weeks ago and am purposely only reading a few chapters a week to savor every single word. She is a great writer, who is also plagued with anxiety disorders which  makes her as brave as she is hilarious.

Anyway, the chapter started with her wanting to try a colon cleanse since a friend of hers did one and lost a few pounds. Although she thinks that makes her sound crazy, I think it is a brilliant idea! I Googled the shit out of colon cleanses and which ones are the right ones and voila, I should expect my order for Colopril early next week.

Side note: The title of this post originally said, “Bare with me” and so I Googled that and found this hilarious gem:

“Bear with me,” the standard expression, is a request for forbearance or patience. “Bare with me” would be an invitation to undress.

So, this is awkward…

I know I’ve been MIA, and for the 2.5 of you that actually read my blog, I apologize.

There is SO much in my drafts file, and SO much I need to talk about! Like my AWE-mazing 30th birthday party that my AWE-mazing Emily put on for me, or the fact that my 15 year old friend Annie is studying the exact same algebra concepts in her high school math class as I am in my college math class, or about the j-off who nearly ran me over in the parking garage prompting me to chew out the valet desk manager at the Marriott.  I also went to Miami and came back with a more distorted body image than I arrived with.

Which brings me to the point of this, brief, post. Yesterday I went to my (fantastic) doctor because my allergies had me looking like a swollen mess.  She’s really great because even though I book an appointment with her to discuss one thing, she always wants to discuss my health and how I am feeling as a whole. So as we neared the conclusion of our visit, the following exchange occurred:

Dr. Bell: Ok, there’s one more issue, that I am sure your aware of.

Me: Uh huh (in my head I am thinking, I have no idea what she is talking about)

Dr. Bell: Your weight.

Me: (in my head, crap, I was aware of that)

Dr. Bell: Now, you’re not a fat girl, so 6 pounds gained in one year is not really ideal.

Me: Uh huh (in my head, JC, I KNOW! I just got married, my dog has cancer, work is crazy, I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THE GYM!)

Then I said, well Jim and I are getting really into biking so…

And that was that.

Jim made me feel better by pointing out that the last time I saw her I had literally just gotten married and was in the best shape of my life.  But we’d both like to know, if I were a “fat girl” would 6 pounds be fine? If so, I’d like to convert…

Happy Valentine’s Day! Hello?

So I don’t know how your Valentine’s Day (or Singles Awareness Day as the Facebooks are reporting), started, but mine started out rough.

Jim and I basically screamed at each other all the way into work because we were both annoyed with the clusterf*ck that was the discount hysterectomy office err, The Humane Society, where he took Lula this AM. We pulled up to my office, I got out, he looked the other direction, I slammed the door and stormed up to the tenth floor, late, because of said clusterf*ck.

As I tried, desperately to move from relationship suicide to Legal Secretary mode, the following ideas of things to passive aggressively email to Jim ran through my mind (per usual, they go from irrational to, less irrational):

1. why don’t you f*ck off, pissy pants

2. yeah, I’m going to have to bail on dinner, I have math homework

3. there’s a card on the counter for you, it describes how I felt about you yesterday

4. (assuming/hoping I received flowers today) are these ‘I’m sorry’ flowers? No? Click.

But before any of that actually came to fruition, Jim contacted me, called a truce, and I remembered how desperately in love with this man I am. That’s the beauty of love and commitment. You can hate someone's guts and know you’d die without them all at the same time! And it’s completely normal and sane! 

Right?

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Since it is the holiday season, I see a lot of little ones. They have a lot to say. A lot of funny stuff to say:

1. Charlie (my BFF’s 2 year old) at 6 am: Where’s daddy?

Momma Steph: Daddy’s in bed.

C: Daddy in bed?

MS: Yes.

C: Daddy in bed with Dawn ma rie?

Daddy from the bed: Daddy wishes!

She did this the next morning as well, BTW.

2. Jim’s department is hiring, and he is on the hiring committee. The other day they were discussing candidates in a meeting when it became clear that a candidate’s letters of recommendation were missing, or, gasp, not sent! That night, Jim’s colleague Matt went home and had dinner with his wife and 4 year old son, Isaac. He retold the story about how they at first thought that the candidate didn’t have any letters of rec. Isaac was very saddened by the thought that someone would have no letters.

Isaac: NO letters today? How can he have NO letters today??

He then took out paper and crayons and proceeded to write letters of recommendation for the poor sap. The funny thing is, he thought he needed actual letters; just random letters of the alphabet.

3. Our niece, Lilly talking about her old dog (and my new-ish dog), Molly:

When I was a baby, I tried to ride Molly. She jerked me off like a bull!

4. Our niece, Eva pooping on the potty (such a big girl!): I pooping babies!

My brother, Vince: Babies, huh? You all done now?

Eva: No! I got more babies in there!

5. Our nephew, Vinny losing his shit because he got books for Christmas, much like this kid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv4Hpz-GI3g

Ocean Beach, ghettofabulous

Oh man I love Ocean Beach, CA. Not the one near San Francisco (too cold), the one in San Diego. The affectionately dubbed, “Berkley at the Beach”, Ocean Beach.

Yeah it’s a beach town with several of its streets ending at stair cases/maneuverable cliffs that lead down to little pockets of paradise. There is a dog beach, a great surf break, a pier for fishing, and numerous bars and restaurants. All of this is super cool, obviously. But what makes OB my favorite little beach town is the attitude. It’s lazy, happy, easy going and perhaps not the cleanest of beach towns. It’s main street hostel and laid back environment make it a hot spot for homeless youth. There is a lot of curious smoking action going on along its famous Sunset Cliffs. I’m not really selling it, am I?

Good.

Ocean Beach is not nearly as crowded with tourists, drunk ass spring breakers, or many inland San Diegans because of its “hippy” feel…and the fact that there is really only one way in and out. Sure, there are multi-million dollar homes, some gentrification and yuppie presence, but there are way more happy,  content, surf babies of all ages.

In my tenure in San Diego, OB is where I ended my stay, and also where I wish I had spent more of my time. This past weekend I went back to OB to (finally) witness its annual Christmas Parade. It was glorious.

The “floats” were flatbed trucks or gardener trucks jam packed with very happy folks.  There were clear winners such as the Big Lebowski float or the decked out fire engines. 

 
But there were way more OB style floats that just made me so happy I could cry (and that may have been Adrienne’s sherbet punch at work). There was a brigade of old VW bugs all lit up, a tween band playing Bob Marley in the back of some dad’s truck, a double decker bus that simply said, “we just wanted to be in the parade”, and a samba dance line all decked out in sexy Santa costumes. 

Kids in their pajamas, dogs with antlers, parents with red cups. It was just so stinking joyous.

Are you going to brog about this, honey?

Let me begin with a short disclaimer:

Everything that seems racist and/or derogatory toward Asian Americans in this post was inserted by a real live Asian American. Er, maybe not actually inserted but definitely inspired by…and not in that way, SHE MAKES THIS SHIT UP HERSELF, DAMNIT!

My friend Emily had her bachelorette party last weekend and it totally rocked. Literally, it effing, rocked! We went to the Bridge School Benefit in California http://bridgeschool.org/concert/index.php and jammed to the likes of Norah Jones, Santana, Dave Matthews Band, Arcade Fire, Eddie Vedder, Neil Young, Mumford and Sons and Beck. I highly recommend you go next year.

This is a concert that benefits The Bridge School for disabled children. The musicians who play are presumably not paid and since they only play about 5 songs each, they are so casual and goofy and seem to be incredibly comfortable. It was absolutely magical.

And on that note, aren’t old friends just magical? It’s been a rough couple of months emotionally for me and falling into the arms of old friends may have given me a new lease on life. I’ve met some amazing friends here in SLC that I know will become “old friends”  but for now, there’s nothing like a trip to good old California to feel loved…

Awesome funniness that went on:

Emily is a chemist who loves boba tea. She loves all tea actually. She’s also Taiwanese and finds the fact that she fits all Asian stereotypes absolutely hilarious. We all wore t-shirts that said something about love for Chemistry or boba. 

Numerous times throughout the weekend we would find that we had segregated ourselves: Asians in the kitchen, white folk in the living room,  Asians on one picnic blanket, white folk on another. Personally, I think the Asians found us white folk a bit bland…

Emily revealing that her betrothed has an alter ego, a black man named Devin…for whom he has an email address…

Sarah making Emily an awesome cropped t-shirt from BJU, and then Emily creating it’s tagline, “Here at BJU, we have short attention spans”.

The Starbucks barista who drew a picture of a beaker on Megan’s cup in honor of her "I heart chemistry shirt".

Dave Matthews telling us that we all look “Deeeeelicious tonight” and that “it’s not just the wine”.

The fact that we are so old we all fell asleep watching Bridesmaids, of all films, on the night before the concert.

Here we are in all our boba’d glory.

This Was All I Needed To Remind Me That I DON’T Want To Teach Adults

Last night I had to give a presentation in my English Language Learner Assessment class. I knew my lines, was passionate about the subject matter and was ready to blow my classmates minds!

Then I got up there and looked at the practically scowling faces staring back at me and completely choked.

Seriously, they were all looking at me with scowls on their faces. If they weren’t looking at me, they were texting, or looking at their watches or, and I just can’t believe this, they were actually talking in their small groups, talking OVER me!

It took everything I had not to walk right over to the prime talking-while-I’m-talking suspect and say, “HEY! REMEMBER WHEN I GAVE YOU MY UNDIVIDED ATTENTION DURING YOUR PRESENTATION?”

As I instructed them to work in small groups on my (super well thought out and awesome) planned activity I turned to our professor and said, “I don’t know how you do this”. She laughed and told me I’d get used to it and that it was the end of the day and so I should expect people to be tired.

As I wrapped up I asked if there was any burning questions. Blank stares. Then I asked if they all just had a burning desire to get the hell out of here and I FINALLY saw some life in their eyes as they shuffled out of the room.