The Be Weetabix For A Day entries have been posted and this is the real schlameal (as opposed to the very artificial schlamozzle) once more. I think each of the four Faux Weet’s did a fabulous job and all of them made me laugh. You can vote (by saying ‘I vote for this one’ and if you want you can explain why) for your favorite in the appropriate comments section on each entry (and if you try to vote twice, believe me, I can so tell). I’m like that guy at the Miss America pageant saying ‘you’re all winners’ to me.’ I applaud each of them for putting themselves on the block while I stood back and said in a British accent while sipping Taster’s Choice ‘We’ve switched the diary these readers normally peruse at the prestigious Diaryland with entries from other writers. Let’s see if they notice, shall we?’
I still don’t know what I should give away as a prize though. Suggestions are welcome in the this here comments section.
So the weekend.
It is expected that on one’s birthday, one bring a treat to work, and since I was working half a day on Friday, I was thus obliged to feed the masses.
I was thinking about my childhood. I never got to do the birthday thing at school since my birthday was always during summer vacation. I’m still bitter that I never got to wear the white birthday Minnie Mouse ears in Kindergarten. On the last day of school, the teacher allowed the six kids who had summer birthdays to take turns wearing the black Mickey or white Minnie ears. There were more girls than boys, so when it was just me and this other girl who had been a poseur and had told the teacher that it was her birthday in JANUARY so that she was birthday girl for a day, but then it was later discovered that her birthday was actually in June and she had simply orchestrated this evil plot to gain all of the grandeur of being the Birthday Kid for a day (extra graham cracker, getting to hold the book during story time, and the much coveted Disney head gear). It was quite the scandal. I loathed her. But she was having a fit, demanding that she get to wear the white Minnie ears and thus I was expected to wear the Mickey ears. Instead of pointing out that this would be the second time she got to wear the white ears, I simply boycotted the entire fa’ade. Yes, I was a diva even then. Also I didn’t want to discover that the black ears carried with them the unexpected side effect of getting a surprise penis.
My, my, sometimes I don’t even intend to go places and suddenly, boom, I’m telling you about the white Minnie Mouse ear incident. You just never know what’s going to happen on Dumber Than A Box of Rocks. I obviously don’t.
Anyway, the point of that is that I never got to bring in the requisite treat for my birthday and on the very few occasions when I did get to bring in a treat, I always had the same answer whenever my mother asked what I wanted to bring.
‘Peanut butter and banana sandwiches!!!!’
My mother would sigh and do that little mom half-head-shake thing that moms do and I knew that it meant no, much like the words ‘we’ll see’ mean ‘I’m hoping you’ll forget’ and ‘maybe’ means ‘ummm’.no.’ She was nice about it, usually saying ‘You know, Weetabix Marieetabix, not everyone has as unique tastes as you do. Most people don’t understand peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Let’s think of something else.’ And then we’d go with whatever thing she suggested, something like carob brownies or trail mix or pineapple bran cupcakes (which were just bran muffins with pineapple tidbits and raisins in them, frosted with cream cheese frosting but they were very yummy.)
So I decided that since I didn’t have to clear it with my mom, it would be the makings for peanut butter and banana sandwiches, with the addition of some cherry jam in case she was right and the world simply does not appreciate the perfect symbiotic marriage of banana and peanut butter on European style fresh bread from the snooty bakery. My birthday treat was voted ‘Best Treat Ever’ by my department. Go Weetabix. It’s your birthday.
After a delightful lunch with Penny and Carissa at Red Lobster (in which we made the rather disturbing discovery that they have changed their delightful creamy ceasar dressing for something that is distinctly mayonnaisey, which is a food that I loathe with the fire of a thousand suns and I have redubbed their ceasar salad the Et Tu Brute salad. Or Shitzer, depending upon my mood.) I scurried off to the spa where I treated myself to a massage. This time, I opted for a different masseuse, a frail little flower of a girl who subsists on three saltine crackers per day. She insisted upon talking to me the entire time as she made fragile poking motions on my back, doing absolutely zero for my stress. At times, I suspect that her hands were hovering a fraction of an inch above my skin, making massage motions or perhaps interpretive dance. Apparently there are simply two schools of massage, the one where the body is treated as though it were fine china and the school of Pain Thumbs. As hard as it may be, next time I will make an appointment with Jayme and simply grit my teeth against the onslaught of torture, because after she was finished, I was as rigid as a bowl of Jell-o.
After the unmassage, I hooked up with Esteban and we made plans to run to Appleton to have dinner at my favorite barbeque place. But first, we opted to take a dip in the parent’s pool, as it was on our way. This would be the tragic flaw in logic. Once we were in the pool, Ward and June invited themselves along. Normally, this is not a big deal. I get along famously with my inlaws. They are delightful people. But then they didn’t want to go to Appleton. I explained that I really wanted to see Finding Nemo too, and they were up for that, but then they were upset. ‘It’s six thirty already! We don’t have time for the incredible journey of 20 minutes to go ALLTHEWAY to Appleton.’
People have a crazy mindset in Wisconsin. For instance, Green Bay is split in half by a river. There are people who live their entire lives never having gone across the river. There are people for whom the East Side is like a trip to France. I suspect that they worry about time changes and currency conversions. And even if you traverse the river a fair amount, there is a mindset that Across The River is far, while anything on This Side is near. It’s ridiculous, as Green Bay and the outlying areas is quite sprawling. It is possible to take twenty minutes to drive from one thing to another thing, even if it is on This Side Of The River. For instance, I had dropped off our dry cleaning near work on the West Side. When I explained that I needed to run Across Town to pick up our cleaning before I left for my trip next week, Esteban made a grimace as though we were on the Oregon Trail and I had just announced that I had forgot my loom in Boston. I mean, it was ten minutes on the freeway. Likewise, Appleton is about 30 miles away, about 20 from the suburb where Ward and June live, but because we go through farmland and see cows, this twenty minutes is monumental in their minds. 20 minutes. It takes 20 minutes for us to drive to their house. But there are no cows, which is apparently all the difference in the world.
So they balked on the Appleton thing and then they balked on the time. I hinted that they could just do dinner with us another time, but when they realized that they would simply not sway my decision, they grudgingly agreed to come along with us on The Great Journey. Then they balked because there were too many people at the barbecue place and it would mean that we’d have to see the 9:00 movie and THAT would mean we wouldn’t get home for two weeks or something. So I suggested we go to the 7:30 movie and then eat after that. They whined and then inhaled two vats of popcorn at the theatre. Then they didn’t want to go to dinner. Mickey fickey parents. Like I wanted to spend my birthday riding in the back of a minivan with my inlaws kvetching that they were going to need to get up early. Because I don’t remember insisting that they come along. Of course, now in my head, if it had just been Esteban and me by ourselves, we would have partied like rockstars and been heliported to a private party where we would dine upon salads made from stamens of rare orchids and then entertained by a midget reenactment of Boogie Nights. Instead, the high point was when June announced that Gen had come along to dinner with us because her ashes were in the back of the van. Because the evening wasn’t pleasant enough. Thank you. Happy Birthday to me.
You know, after I reread that story, I have obviously learned nothing in 27 years and the evening was really just a pair of white Minnie Mouse ears. Look at how that all worked out. Sometimes, it’s just a mystery.
However, one cool thing: when I got home, there was a package waiting for me from Groupie94, containing neato beauty products, including fun manicure stuff AND two of my beloved OPI nail polishes, one pretty gold one and a lovely red shade called something like ‘I’m Not Really A Waitress’. She knows me too well. Fun fun fun! Cannot wait to play with them! Thank you! Heeee!
