Someone somewhere else in the cube farm just let loose with this total wicked laugh. Like “Mua ha hahahahaHA!” Only, it was their real laugh. Regardless, I almost peed my pants. I had no idea that I worked with Snively Whiplash, who is apparently a woman in peri menopause.
Also, yesterday I was called into a group of coworkers to settle a dispute, as I am apparently the Hand Maiden of Pop Culture (the title of Pop Culture Princess, of course, already having been claimed) or perhaps the Grand Vizier of Foolish Knowledge.
The question: Which movie made famous the phrase “Are you talkin’ to me? Are YOU talkin’ ta ME?”
Did you hear that sound? That was the sound of tens of readers shouting “Taxi Driver, you fools!” in unison.
Taxi Driver. Of course it’s mofo Taxi Driver. Everyone in the world knows that it’s the sentence that made Bobby DiNiro a cultural icon. I haven’t ever even seen the movie and I still know that the answer is Taxi Driver.
The movie in contention?
The Lion King.
I am not making that up. There were two coworkers absolutely certain that it was famous only from The Lion King. And they were getting riled up, because they had been forced to sit through countless viewings with their children. The Lion King. Of course. Because when in doubt, go Disney. The poor guy who had been disagreeing with the others simply looked up at me with sad eyes and said “Do you see what I have to work with here, Weetabix?” Of course, this is the same company who writes code using the word “cum” and then is surprised when our clients’ email checkers block our attachments for sending porn.
Although, my own head isn’t necessarily the most brilliant place in the world either. I lost it a few days when I was talking to someone on the phone and they did an off-handed impression of the Microsoft Office Help Paper-clip. It went like this:
‘Oh, look at me’ I’m the paperclip! Oooh!’
And at that, I was unable to speak for roughly five minutes. In fact, I believe the act of breathing was touch and go for several minutes as well.
I hate that smug little paperclip bastard, thus I am very pro-mocking of the paperclip.
A lovely languid weekend it was. Esteban had his Dorkathalon on Friday night, and I had to work until insane hours on Friday night anyway, so I went home, put on my jammies (and yes, I’m 32 years old and they are called jammies, even though they don’t have feet on them, but seriously, how damned cool would footy pajamas in plus size be? You know that sound that the non-skid parts of the feet make on linoleum? That skitch skitch skitch skitch that always derailed late night cookie stealing? That’s better than the smell of Play-doh for making the years roll backwards. I’m just saying.) and my big grey manly lumberjack socks and sat on the recliner with some microwave popcorn (that is salty sweet! Honey Something Something by Orville Redenbacher in like three minutes. Never let the time we live in go unappreciated, people. It’s a wonderful wonderful world.) and watched A Mighty Wind and then sacked out watching one of my vintage Two Fat Ladies that I’ve had saved on Ricky Fitts for a year while outside a pitt pitt trickle patt of rain hitting the big elm behind my bedroom. So, a lovely night.
On Saturday morning, we both woke up relatively early, jumped in the shower. Our vague plan was Pottering. We love Potter Weekends, because there’s no place that we have to be and all the time in the world to do whatever. We had a vague plan to tidy up the house, but instead, we began our day by going to the farmer’s market, which was dark and rainy and a balmy 51 degrees. Once Esteban’s seat warmed up, he didn’t want to leave it, so he opted to stay in the car while I did a power walk through the market in search of baking apples. The market was crowded because it was mid-morning already but it was lovely weather, even with the rain, my favorite time of year at the farmer’s market. And the bells at the Cathedral sounded for 10 am mass, and then they were answered by the bells at St. Paul’s a block away and then the big hand on the courthouse clock ricketed to point straight up and I fell in love with autumn in my city again. I scored a lovely bag of Cortlands, some banana bread sans nuts, three white peaches, some honey, a kolache which I ate while I was walking around and a bag of divinity candy for Esteban, as it is one of his very favorite things in the world. They had some incredible pumpkins but I wasn’t really interested in carting them to my car by myself, and I also worry about pumpkin smashers, given that we live so close to a high school. We then endeavored to the opposite side of the county to the good meat shop, the one that doesn’t squick me out. Once again, Esteban preferred the warm snuggly Republican interior of the 300M, so I went forth and was all cave grrl, getting meat for our table. I ended up scoring the best looking tenderloin fillets that I’ve ever seen that weren’t in a refrigerated case at Morton’s. They were perfectly marbled and a deep red which means that they had only recently been cut. They were every reason I ever stopped being a vegetarian, right there in the counter. I actually had a slight panic attack, as the shop was very busy that day and my boy was taking his sweet time wrapping my round steaks and someone looked as though they had just realized what a spectacular cut of meat was available, but finally the gods of Carnivora smiled upon me and the meat boy was soon weighing my fillets and wrapping them up nicely, and then all was well.
Then, as we had not yet eaten anything, Esteban grudgingly agreed to go to IHOP (or, as he has declared it, the WalMart of Restaurants) but then we freestyled when we realized that the Texas restaurant that just opened a month ago was open for lunch. New restaurants in Green Bay are big deals, and usually you must wait for months or endure hours of waiting in crammed vestibules to check them out, so this was all very exciting for us. And inside, we found that they had peanuts! Peanuts with shells we were encouraged to throw on the floor! Oh, you have no idea how happy that makes me. Because I am four. It was all very reminisicent of my long gone beloved LoneStar, which also made leftover packets into aluminum foil steer heads and I would specifically ask for a doggie bag so that I could get the little cow heads and then have elaborate puppet shows during the ride home. Of which Esteban simply did not appreciate the brilliance near enough. Aside from the peanuts, lunch was really good. I might have a new favorite restaurant, at least until they do something to piss Esteban off and then it goes on the dreaded blacklist. As it was, they were on Esteban’s ‘Wary Eye’ list because they had a stuffed armadillo who was drinking a Budweiser, but luckily he tried some of their addictive butter and the AArmadillo was quickly forgotten.
(Just a side note, but I thought that Triple A and AA were interchangeable until I was 12 years old. Imagine my surprise that we had so many alcoholics going to our church and that they were so proud of it that they advertised it on their bumpers.)
After lunch, I went over to Mo’s house for a bit, traded stomach zerberts with my niece Abigail, and then discussed potential new houses with Mo, whose living room was carpeted with spec sheets. She is very excited about the prospect of buying her first home. Quite honestly, I went through the process seven years ago and while it is exciting, most of the process is somewhat disappointing and miserable. However, I’m way excited for her, because I know that she’s wanted to own a home for quite some time, and when she and Abby’s dad got divorced, she didn’t think that she’d be able to swing it on her own for several years, but after speaking with her financial advisor, she’s sitting pretty good to take the plunge. My little sister is all grown up. Insert awwww here.
In other family news, my mother has decided to quit her restaurant job at the Italian place (which involved a twenty minute discourse on how unfair it was that she has given her last five years to the owner and slaved countless hours and then there was some babbling about salad and throwing away salad and I really couldn’t hear her as I was listening to the minutes of my life ebb away) and concentrate on her painting business full time. Or as full time as my mother ever manages to be. She actually does a fabulous job with the painting and home interiors’ case in point my kitchen. She recreated a corner from crumbled plaster and managed to seamlessly join two different ceilings, even though one was at least two inches higher than the other one.
She called me at work on Friday to tell me about the plan, and about how she’s going to need me to do her marketing for her. And make her business cards on my computer. And pamphlets. And signs. And a portfolio. I asked her why she didn’t just go and buy some business cards at a print shop, since they only cost $20 or something and she corrected me, stating that they cost $38 and also my brother broke his glasses on purpose. Which then turned into another ten minute litany about how everything in life is unfair and the teachers would give my brother a hard time without his glasses, including a ridiculous story that either one of them must have invented or else the teacher at his school seriously needs to be reprimanded by someone. And by the end of all of it, the government was out to get her and her neighbors all look at her in ways that she knows they want to have sex with her.
I’m just going to give her the $38. If only so that I don’t have to listen to that story again.
Luckily, not once in the forty-five minute conversation did my mother ever ask how I was or ask anything about my life, so I can’t be accused of withholding information from her about the new car. Not that I would have volunteered the information anyway. Not only is she an insanely jealous creature, there are some reptiles that have more maternal instinct than my mother. When Esteban and I were 20, we bought our first ‘nice’ car, or rather, one that was nicer than the one she was currently driving. It wasn’t that big of a deal, really, but we were exceptionally proud of our little 1987 Pontiac 6000. It was such a big step, such an adult car. It had no rust! No bumper stickers! It didn’t have a mysterious stain on the seat! We brought it over to show his parents and they oooohed and aahhhhed and told us that we made a good choice and it was a lovely car. They even looked in the trunk.
Then we brought it over to my mom’s house. We pulled up into the driveway and I went inside to get her, explaining that I wanted to show her the car we just bought. Perhaps she was expecting to see another Nissan Sentra with rust on it, like the one Esteban had given me for my birthday several months before, but she opened the door, stopped on the porch, took a breath and said ‘Huh’ it’s nice.’ And then turned around and went back into the house.
Apparently she has acted in similar ways to other members of the family. Thus, there will be no mention made of the new 300M. When she sees it next, I will simply cull forth my incredible acting ability and say in a very bland voice ‘Yeah, it was time we replaced the Monte.’ And leave it at that.
So that was the plan, but now Mo is going to buy a house. Luckily, Mo hasn’t yet told Mom that she is looking. Mom apparently talked to her for about a half hour on Friday also. She expounded about the salad and about the PLAN and about how she’s planning to use me as her marketing guru. At the end of the conversation, she kvetched that she should just move away because we never call her to see how her life is anymore.
Gah.
I went back home and barricaded myself in the kitchen and lost myself in cooking dinner, which is proof right there that the autumn is here. I made a cheesy potato gratin which entailed not only the peeling and slicing of about a million potatoes (six pounds, actually), but also the grating of three different types of cheeses and also flour, which slipped through my hands and crashed to the floor in a rather dramatic cloud of white. But I was not to be deterred. I also made brownies (in which I doubled the recipe with the exception of the oil and water, because I am a moron), sweet corn, and garlic bread (from a tube, however, I’m not insane). I had planned to also make butternut squash, but my enthusiasm was damped by cleaning up four pounds of flour off the floor. Then while Esteban heated up the grill, I ran to the store to get some ice cream, and impressed him with my l33t shopping skilz when I returned not more than seven minutes later with four bags of groceries and a case of Diet Coke (If you’re not out of breath after getting groceries, then you’re not doing it right). He was confounded by the time/space/grocery continuum, but his disbelief was soon quelled once he tasted the incredible dinner. And I have to say, it was rather incredible. Thus, we slacked around in the living room for the rest of the evening, watching Six Feet Under and wishing that I had grown up in a funeral home. Because seriously, they all are so damned normal.
