That's My Bix!

So yesterday was whacked…

First off, I made the grave mistake of going to the Starbucks cafe inside our very lovely new Barnes & Noble for lunch. They have exactly one thing available for lunch: paninis. So I guess I’ll have… let’s see…. a PANINI!!! Which is just a fancy schmancy term for grilled cheese. Seriously. I had a grilled cheese with ham… but in order to charge $6 for it, they call it a panini. I actually wanted the potato leek soup but that was another $4.50 so I passed. I also got some Blackberry Sage tea. I wanted iced because I’m still in denial about the cold weather, but alas, they only had Mango Ceylon icea tea premade. I don’t know what the hell Ceylon is, but apparently it makes Mangos taste like ass cheese…. I’ve been duped by the Mango Ceylon before. I just want my Blackberry Sage tea, people, can’t you just give in to my need for simplicity and be done with it? Why do you have to mess with my life? Just give me an iced tea and a grilled cheese, ok?

Where was I? Oh yes…

They declared that they could not possibly give me Blackberry Sage iced tea…. only Blackberry Sage HOT tea. Now, it is true that I am not a true connoseur of the coffee/hot beverage genre, but I just didn’t understand their crazy barista logic. I mean, iced tea is hot tea made cold… right? Or must it be cold pressed through swiss ice or something?

“How about you give me the hot tea and a big glass with ice in it?” I ask, stupified.

“Oh, yeah, we could do that.” They said as if this had never dawned upon them.

Barista girls, those trendy retro little hair kerchief things you wear should not be tied so tight that functioning in reality becomes a problem for you. Stop tighting them when you start to feel your temples throb, ok?

They give me my venti tea and a smaller, normal cup filled with ice. I looked at it dubiously. “I need a bigger cup than that,” I said, “if I want to pour the hot tea over the ice.”

“The cups are the same size. It will fit.” The blonde barista assured.

I looked rather dubious, but I know about Piaget’s whole conservation deal in human development and know that I have a problem with object displacement conservation, so I try to cover my perceived stupidity and just take the two cups and walk to my car. By the time the hot tea had finished brewing, I dumped it into the “same size” ice glass…. until the iced glass was full and I still had half a cup of hot tea in my hand.

Damned baristas!

So my day kind of went downhill from that point, despite the fact that I had my magic happy socks on. But I had karaoke to look forward to. I went home, changed my clothes, read my email/diaries/etc, slapped on some more warpaint and went to Karaoke.

Although a bunch of people were supposed to meet me for a Club Weetabix, no one was there at 8:00. Fine. Whatever. I looked cute. I am secure enough to sit alone in a bar. Finally Jason showed up and made me a non-loser.

Joel and Cheri popped in at 9:00. Scott told me later that Joel assumed that since he was always late to things that I was lying and undercutting the actual karaoke starting time so that he wouldn’t be late… therefore if I told him 8 o’clock, it wouldn’t really start until 9 o’clock. Um. Wrong. Don’t include me in your late zone dysfunction. Phhhh. I don’t know if that’s how to spell it, but that’s all I have to say about that.

Joel has this very strange karaoke curse going on. He’s very adventurous, almost to a fault. The man adores singing songs that he has no right to be singing… songs which are so high I wouldn’t even touch them. But he gives it a go. Sometimes it’s not bad. And sometimes it’s not a pretty picture. He’s also got this strange talent for picking songs which include a humongous 46 measure instrumental bit… the kind that leaves you standing up on a half-ass stage, holding a microphone, realizing what a collossal karaoke tool you really are for about two minutes.

He was going to attempt “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Freddy Mercury was an amazing voice. I am in Freddy’s range… as a mezzo soprano. Joel is seriously a tenor or baritone… he does a fabulous job at “Ring of Fire” and that “Mmm mmmm mmm mmm” song by the Crash Test Dummies. So as a pity maneuver, I offered to go up with him and sing the beginning.

Mistake.

I didn’t do too terribly. Right as I went up to sing, however, Mr. Born To Run walked in. Born To Run Guy is a guy who is ALWAYS at the Ass Splinter Karaoke Bar and he’s got an incredible voice. Apparently, he’s in a rock band on the weekends. And when he sings “Born to Run”, which is one of my favorite songs of all time, I want to leave my husband and kitties, sell all of my belongs, wrap my legs around his gorgeous rims and strap my hands across his engines.

Thankfully, there are only a few songs which make me go week in the knees and get all gushy, otherwise life would be very different indeed.

Born To Run Guy walked in and then started to look at the karaoke books. Then I got embarassed. I mean, here I was, Miss Girlie Songs and Ballads, up there doing one of the greatest rock anthems. I would forever in his eyes be thought of as a Karaoke Dork who has no talent for rock and roll…. which is true, but I didn’t want Born To Run Guy thinking it!

So the song started and thankfully, I was able to pull out a fairly good girlie Freddie Mercury. Then… when it got low and Joel started… it got ugly. First off, he was doing air guitar. There is not a single action in this wide world that make me feel more empathic embarassment than air guitar. I cringe… CRINGE I SAY!… when I see someone playing the air axe. That is an activity which is best left to Tom Cruise wearing Raybans, a white oxford shirt and a flawless pair of tighty whities.

And of course, in the middle of the song, enormous portion with no words on the screen in which the recorded voices did all of the wacked opera parts… which was the WHOLE REASON I CAME UP THERE: TO DO THE WACKED OPERA PART FOR HIM. God help me.

At the end of the song, we announced that we would never attempt that song again. The bar broke into a raucous applause. There was much rejoicing.

I think the Ass Splinter experience was less humiliating. I mean, at least I got jewelry out of that.

So the quilting’.

I believe last week, I was talking to my friend Mary, who also took the class, and said ‘What is the big deal. You’re sewing strips of material together, right? PSSST! No big wup!’

If my life were a movie, the audience would then immediately know those words would come back to haunt me. Usually at that point, the scene would cut to myself entering the quilting shop, with a cocksure step and sarcastic remarks’ to meet my quilting doom. In reality, there have been several weeks since I uttered that phrase, in between then I have taken hundreds of idiotic phone calls, ran a beta test of a major software release, took several showers, ignored my laundry and was forced to wear a thong, and cooked a turkey, so was not really paying attention to the impending irony that would be my quilting doom.

I think I know why you always see old ladies doing the quilting’. Because it takes seventy or so years to be able to do it well.

The first thing I had to do was find my sewing machine, which was stuffed into Computer Room #1 with the rest of my personal affects (which were booted from MY writing studio when Esteban needed a larger home office A YEAR AND A HALF AGO’ ahem). I found it and the cord, which was a pleasant bonus and would have sucked if I would have forgotten. Apparently, it is made out of lead or possibly whatever they make boat anchors from because it kicked my ass trying to carry it out to the car.

Then off to the quilting shop, where I lugged my boat anchor UP SEVERAL FLIGHTS OF STAIRS and into the class room. Our class consisted of three students, myself, my amiga Mary, and a lady named Lori with overly processed blonde hair. Our teacher was the proprietor of the quilt shop.

The first thing she taught us: the circle cutting thing is a weapon. You see, quilters have a special kind of scissors’ kind of a round razor blade on a wheel. I know. Quilters are some bad ass chicks, I’m telling you. I had no idea. She spent the next half an hour detailing us all the ways in which we could slice off various parts of our bodies with the radial scissors, which I like to refer to as the Circle of Death. Then she taught us how to use the Circle of Death correctly, detailing more possible ways we could possibly perform emergency surgery or face lifts and the like.

I have to brag a bit here. Apparently, I have a talent for rotary cutting that I never before appreciated. Maybe I’m destined to use it as a tool of destruction. Maybe I’m the rotary cutter Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For every generation, a Circle of Death Wielder is called.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!

Whatever. Anyway, I was freaking awesome with the Circle of Death. It was no time at all before I had cut nine strips of 3 inch fabric. The quilting lady declared ‘Perfect!’ and I have to admit that I gloated just a little bit.

Ok, who am I kidding? I gloated A LOT! I snickered at Mary when the quilting lady reprimanded her for leaving her Circle of Death unshielded. I wore a sanctimonious look when Lori couldn’t fully cut her strips. After I sewed my first seam and the quilting lady declared ‘Beautiful’, I smiled. This was going to be a breeze.

Then my thread got all knotty. Then the quilting lady sat down at my machine and basically changed every single setting on the machine. She even tightened a screw on little silver metal things. By that time, Mary and Bottle Blonde were already ironing their seams. Then my bobbin ran out of thread. By the time I had wound my bobbin with more thread, she was showing the other two girls how to do the next step.

Finally, I finished my big long strips and she had to show me how to press the seams. Apparently, I have no idea how to use an iron correctly. This had to be shown to me no less than forty two times. I was wiggling the iron and that is a big no no as one might stretch the fabric. A bead of sweat formed upon my dainty brow. My deodorant stopped working. A spontaneous black hair popped out of my chin, along with a lovely fever blister on my lip. I suddenly began to talk in colloquialisms and used double negatives and the word ‘ain’t’. I slurped my soup and wore white after Labor Day. I belched and farted in church.

I suddenly became the problem student.

My seams weren’t straight. My seam allowances were imperceptibly too big or two small. She made me do three of them over. She made me go back and press things. My material suddenly didn’t look as cool as it had the day before, certainly not as attractive as Mary’s or even Bottle Blondes. The Quilt Nazi then developed a cough only when she was helping me, forcing her to leave the little classroom while I waited for her to return and criticize me, while Mary and Bottle Blonde worked happily further and further ahead of me.

Truthfully, I’m not used to being the problem student. I have a big ego. I fully understand this. Plus, in 8th grade, I got an A in Home Economics: Textiles (which was Republican for Sewing). I made my little brother a Lion King costume one Halloween and still had the tenacity to make myself a Sarabi costume to go with it. Sure, I might have been a poor student in high school, but it was because I was bored and not trying and was absent 45 days of my senior year, NOT because I was an inept tool!

Mary finished the first night’s work first. She clapped. She wanted to go back tonight to finish the rest. Everyone stood back from her tastefully coordinated table runner-in-progress and oohed and ahhed. Bottle Blonde finished next. Hers was similiarly lovely’ very straight and precise. I finalized my stuff five minutes after class ended, at 9:33 pm, long after everyone had packed up. No one ahhed. My seams looked like Lombard Street in San Francisco, or possibly a quilt designed by Dr. Suess.

And we get to do it again next week.

Oh. Boy.

Speaking of Dr. Suess, I had a meeting today and one of the women in it was apparently having a bad hair day. There was a chunk of her hair sticking straight up in the air, defying gravity. She looked like a freaking Who in Whoville with that thing. And I’m boggled, because I don’t know how you could unintentionally end up with hair that went against Newton’s laws of physics? I mean’. Usually there’s INTENT when your hair does that. You need some sort of chemical assistance. That doesn’t just happen on its own.

I’m just saying.

True love exists on Diaryland…. congratulations to Mr Bitterness and Ganache who recently became engaged. They have the most incredibly beautiful and warm fuzzy engagement pictures that you can visit here. They simply look like the embodiment of a couple in love, don’t they? Congratulations guys!

I just realized that almost every grown girl I know really truly ruly wanted an Easy Bake Oven when they were children.

Nearly every one.

Even some boys wanted that thing.

But no one ever got one. Well, I knew one girl who had one, but she put her hamster in the oven…. she said he liked it because it kept him warm. I think she was a Nazi in a former life and I’m certain that she is now painting poignant portraits of clowns along with John Wayne Gacy. Or she’s maybe a stripper.

Disclaimer: We at Weetabix.dairyland.com do not insinuate that all strippers are serial killers or clown portrait artists. The opinions expressed by Weetabix on the subject of hamster cookers and Easy Bake Ovens are strictly her own.

Anyway, parents, if you have a child who’s been begging up and down for an Easy Bake Oven, just suck it up and buy it for them. Because if you don’t, they will grow up to be a bitter 30 year old who still likes to wear glittery barrettes and dress like Britney Spears. Even if your child is a boy.

But maybe you shouldn’t if they have a hamster.

So Saturday: I had planned to spend the entire day in my sweat pants, eschewing an invitation to see my friend Phil’s band playing and all that. Esteban left, wifeless, and I ensconced myself quite happily before my monitor, browsing the labrynth of MightyBigTv.

Suddenly, a knock on the door. It was 9:30 at night.

I peeked. It was Scott. I opened the door.

“Hi, I was in the neigborhood and thought I’d stop by.”

Thinking he was there to go to the thing with Esteban, I said, “Esteban’s already gone to Phil’s gig.”

“I see that. How come you’re not going?”

So I tried to explain about the sweat pants thing and about the dress which made me look like a poorly-upholstered sofa but it just seemed really lame as he was standing on my porch, white clouds of breath coming from his mouth.

“If you want, I could drive you there and then you would be there with your husband and stuff?” He said, smiling.

I was running out of excuses. He kept smiling. “I’d have to change.” I said feebly.

“I won’t look.” He said, still smiling.

I sighed. The world hates sweatpants. My quest for an All SweatPants All The Time weekend was not only for naught, but also really lame when I thought about it. Plus, Scott’s goofy grin was impossible to say no to.

“(sigh) Fine! Come in.” I said, then realized I had not a thing to wear.

I quickly changed, slapped on some warpaint, fluffed up the ‘do and five minutes later, was on my merry way, attired in black leggings, grey v-neck sweater, grey Ass-Splinter pearls, and a black blazer (as a jacket to keep warm), to Phil’s gig.

It turns out I was severly overdressed. I should have stayed in the sweat pants. Phil was playing in a former “Cracked Crock” Restaurant off the highway which now called itself “Sports Bar #1432”. In reality, the clientele was all 40-60 year old wizened motorcycle hooligans. Which, actually, is the perfect crowd for Phil’s band.

I guess I never realized it before, but watching live bands, particularly ones which aren’t necessarily incredible, always aggravates me because I keep sort of hoping that someone will say “Hey, Weetabix, why don’t you join us on this next song!?”

And then I would.

Yes, I need help. I am fully aware of this.

I’m working on another copywriting project for my former college roommate. This one will be an advertisement in a sports type periodical, showing a “National Enquirer” type newspaper. I had to write the headlines, but I added some articles, too. This one cracked me up.

Government Reanimates John Madden’s Corpse

It has recently been discovered that John Madden has actually been dead since 1991!!!

On November 13, 1991, during a rather spectacular Monday Night Football between the Washington Redskins and the San Francisco 49ers, John Madden asphyxiated on a large piece of kielbasa. Paramedics worked on the aged football great for several station breaks and were unable to revive him. Thanks to a quick thinking NFL Commissioner, who put in an immediate phone call to President George Bush, Madden’s body was sent to top-secret laboratories where it was reanimated using a highly advanced technique.

Scientists are able to keep Madden going and under control via a large mobile laboratory disguised as a luxury touring bus. There his corpse is injected with several top secret chemicals and shocked with electrical impulses, much like Mary Shelley’s 1817 book Frankenstein.

Madden’s body, however, is starting to deteriorate. ‘His nose fell off a few weeks ago. Thank goodness it was during a commercial break. We glued it back on though’ an unnamed source relayed.

‘I’m surprised we’ve been able to keep the secret this long,’ said a scientist when our reporter confronted him. ‘I think that Dennis Miller has started to figure it out. He keeps making necrophilia comments. Thank goodness no one really understands what he’s talking about anyway.’

Oh my lord.

That is wrong on so many levels….

I can’t even begin to imagine.

Kudos, however, to the big Poo character they have. That made me laugh.

After the thing about the soup, I checked our pantry.

We have 19 cans of Campbell’s soup. All lined up on their very own shelf.

It’s like Andy Warhol had sex in our pantry.

Don’t ask me how it’s like that. It just is.

Somehow, somewhere, I became the person at work that everyone says ‘Hi’ to in the halls. Everyone. The weird old building manager guy, the grumpy ladies who go out back to smoke every ten minutes, the various vice presidents, the mail delivery ladies. Everyone. And they all know my name. ‘Hi Weetabix!’ they say. ‘Hi!’ I try to say back, cheerily, to hide the fact that I have no clue what their name is.

Sometimes, if I see someone coming who will most certainly say ‘Hi’ to me, I’ll duck down another hallway to avoid it.

I’m going to hell. I know this already.

The thing is that being that girl whom everyone knows is great if you’re trying to get promoted or something, but if you’ve just got to sneak into the bathroom and have some ‘quiet time’, it’s not so nice. Or maybe it’s just me, for feeling guilty being seen walking into the bathroom and not emerging after a few minutes.

I was in there earlier today and someone came in and proceeded to flush no fewer than five times, presumably to disguise the noises which inevitably come with long-term bathroom visits.

Five times.

I would think a subtle thip would be less conspicuous than FLUSHHHH VROOOOM of flushing our industrial strength heavy use toilets. And the draft that they must be getting. That’s enough to inflict oneself with performance anxiety right there. I mean, the thought of having one’s tender regions hovering precariously above icy churning and possibly fetid waters. It’s enough to make you clench.

Man. This entry has really gone in the toilet. No pun intended.

I really want me a bowling shirt.

Mo called me yesterday and I started to tell her about my dentist appointment and she stopped me. ‘I know. I read it in your diary.’

‘Oh.’

‘I don’t have to talk to you any more because I can keep up with everything by reading your diary. I know that you’re giving Abby a Talking Woody for Christmas too.’

Damned Mo.