sweet potato candy
SMELLS LIKE OFFICE SPIRIT
Why oh why did I have to return to work? I took all of Thanksgiving week off and got rather used to the bralessness, laziness, and all-day snacking. Then I went back to the office, about 10,000 passive-aggressive emails, and a whole world of suck. Nora went to school happily enough, as usual, but even she had a bit of the culture shock, asking me first thing in the morning if I would “huggle”* in her bed for a while, even though that is a weekends-only routine.
(*Our word for a combination of hugging and snuggling. I know it’s sickeningly cute but SHUT UP I’M STILL BAD-ASS DEATH METAL RRRRAAWWWRRR)
THE GIVING OF THANKS
So we didn’t poison the family with the turkey (LT was kind of food-safety nervous, since we don’t cook meat all that often), and all the carnivores seemed to think the organic free-range blah blahness of its roasted carcass was tasty, except for maybe my mother-in-law who remarked that she’ll just make a Butterball next year (when it’s her turn to host). WELL OKAY THEN. Later (and I swear it was an accident, not turkey-dissing payback of any kind) I dropped the pie she brought on the floor. It was in a little pie carrying case that I did not realize wasn’t fully latched shut, and the whole bottom dropped out, pie included. It landed right-side up and in the container, so although the filling got shoved around and the pie was not pretty, it was still edible and still a pie. I said “sorry” about nine hundred times but she never once made any conciliatory “it’s all right” or “these things happen” type of noises. So I guess I am still on PIE PROBABTION, me and my FANCY-ASS HIGH-FALUTIN’ TURKEY, and there will be only rocks in my stocking at Christmas time.
The next day Nora and LT went to Medieval Times, which if you don’t already know is sort of a permanent Renaissance Fair(e) thing out in the suburbs. There is live jousting and roast chicken, it is unbearably cheesy, and, predictably, Nora loved it. Now it is all knights all the time. She runs around the house in her dollar-store breastplate, brandishing a sword and shield, and it is very ridiculous.
Instead of subjecting myself to Ye Olde Light Show, I went and had a delightful lunch with Sally McGraw. Sadly, although she is a fashion blogger, I was unable to come up with anything truly weird to wear to our meeting. I did not mention this at lunch because I didn’t want her to think that I was waiting around forever or anything (I wasn’t), but for the few minutes I did wait, I got harassed by the pigs! In a very minor way. A cop was walking back to his car after getting coffee and asked, “Waiting for someone?” No dipshit, I’m turning tricks! Out here in front of the Lebanese restaurant, the day after Thanksgiving, in my vintage Jackie Kennedy coat and sensible low-heeled Merrell boots! Ah, I mean yes. I’m waiting for someone.
SPEAKING OF HARRASSMENT AND CRAZY AND CRAZY HARRASSMENT
1. Old Russian lady on the bus—the muttering, rosary-praying type. She can mutter all she wants but it crossed a line when she started pointing at people and mumbling unintelligible things. It went even further past the line when the mumblings became intelligible, and she progressed to pointing at people and saying, “You’re a whore.” She was like a crazy-old-Russian-lady game show host. You’re a whore, you’re a whore, you and you and you are a whore! Vanna, show these whores what they’ve won! Everyone rightfully ignored this, but when she pointed at me I could not resist giving her my own Crazy Eyes and saying, “No I am NOT.” It seemed to shut her up for a while, but the muttering was back by the time the train got to my stop.
2. Is there some special age at which a tired child will act…tired? Because here is a sampling of some of the things that Nora tends to do when she is absolutely exhausted:
a. Push-ups.
b. Make owl-like hooting noises.
c. Purposely fall off the couch over and over, stuntwoman-style.
d. Math workbook pages.
e. Wind sprints in the hallway, taking her pulse after every 10 laps.
3. If I typed up a note for the office bathroom that said:
FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST QUIT PEEING ON THE TOILET SEAT THE NEXT TIME I FIND PEE ON THIS SEAT I WILL HAVE DNA EXTRACTED FROM IT AND I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND PEE ON YOUR HEAD
Would that be a firing offense? If I got caught? Is threatening sadistic nonconsensual watersports “violence in the workplace”?
CHARGE IT LIKE A PUZZLE
My normally lengthy haircut was made even lengthier by the fact that my stylist got promoted. Now she has students, who periodically have Monty-Python-style crises of confidence where they get scared to cut hair, so they come and stand around shyly until she excuses herself to talk them through it. It never took all that long (in the scheme of things), so I didn’t mind, but lord, after two hours in the damn salon I will agree to anything. Which is why I now have bangs or a “fringe,” in the UK parlance that the stylist uses despite being just as American as me, and also why LT teased me about getting Nora’s haircut. In response, I stabbed him in the scrotum. Just kidding! But honestly, we do NOT have mother-daughter haircuts, I swear it.
The bathroom stalls in Water Tower Place have thick, to-the-floor walls, like a little private room that just happens to have a toilet in it, but way in the corner of each stall there is an opening, about six inches long and maybe four inches high, that communicates with the next stall. It is too low and too awkwardly placed to be any sort of built-in glory hole (and what would women do with such a feature, anyway? Wait, don’t answer that.) It is probably just some way to more efficiently clean everything at once, dump a bucket of water on one side and let it flow through to mop all the stalls, but I harbored brief fantasies of releasing a remote-control robot mouse to greet my next-door peeing buddy.
—mimi smartypants apologizes for all the urine in this entry.