You Bring the Bullet, I'll Bring the Wine

When we woke up on the first day, we could tell right away that we had cleared the canal and were officially on the Gulf of Mexico. The boat was rocking gently back and forth, and Scarlett and I were happy we took Miracle Product Bonine for motion sickness. I have been motion sick exactly one time, which was on an extremely rocky passage to Block Island on the teensiest ferry in the fleet. Since more or less every person on the ferry - literally - tossed their cookies on that trip, what with it being a trip through a freaking storm, I feel like I get a pass for that one. Seriously, it was gross. My brother actually puked all down the side of a Sysco transport truck, which added a certain level of hilarity to all future trips to the Block, since about 97% of "stuff that gets to Block Island," i.e. groceries, etc., gets brought over on Sysco trucks, so there was uncontrollable snickering every time we saw one thereafter, what with my family having a metal age of about five. Still, having never been on a cruise (or really a boat of any size on that kind of open water like the Gulf), I decided to be better safe than sorry and took the Bonine.


In any case, we got up all feeling fine, and headed up to the pool deck, where it was still kind of crappy, windy and cranky looking, weatherwise. Undeterred, we staked out some chairs and then after a short time figured out that the only reason to be up on the pool deck would be to be in the hot tubs, what with the wind and the slight chill still in the air, so we got in there and began a day of lounging. After we'd been in there for a while, I happened to look up at the Viking Lounge, which overlooks the pool area, and saw some odd individual sort of waving his hat around. Clearly I deemed him insane and assumed he was waving at someone else, so I ignored him, much as one would with your garden variety city dwelling homeless schizophrenic. I did look up one more time, and AGAIN this nutbar was waving, so again we had the ignoring, along with a dash of wondering why his arm wasn't getting tired.


Well, about half an hour and a trip to the conveniently located Windjammer lunch buffet later, this dude appeared by the hot tub all "didn't you see me waving?" Oh good, the schizophrenic KNOWS US. It was none other than UnShy, the tall bar guy from the Viking Crown the night before. Why he was able to spot us from the Viking when we were in the hot tub, I have no idea, but it did make me vaguely concerned as to whether any of us had engaged in un-spotted disreputable behavior, especially considering that after a certain number of drinks Scarlett goes into Auto-Flirt Mode where you yell at her for fully getting all Skin-emax biting the tip of her finger and grinning with the bedroom eyes at some CREEPY ASS MAN and she's all "what?" and you tell her she was having cheersex with some dude and she's like "no I wasn't!" and it's a little difficult, is my point. So UnShy chatted with us for a while, although the convo didn't go much longer than establishing that we had in fact met before, since we'd basically just established names and nothing else at the Viking.


After that, clearly, there was nothing else to do but have a Battle of the Dueling Trays between UnShy and The DR, who had emerged on the pool deck. All the bar staff roam around spinning their trays on their fingers like you would with a basketball. It's actually kind of cool and requires (I imagine) the kind of coordination I can only dream of. They played dueling trays and at one point even tried tossing the trays to each other and catching them still spinning, which halfway worked - UnShy managed to catch his, but The DR missed. UnShy seemed to do a lot of practicing with throwing his tray in the air and catching it still spinning, so I suspect that's why he was able to catch it. To break up the Tray Show, we got a round of drinks bought for us by the weirdest man in the world, "Bob." This really nice bar guy brought them over and we fully had to call him back at least twice to figure out who the hell had bought us the drinks, since the guy didn't acknowledge us in any way. It was so odd. I mean, you buy a drink for someone who you're not talking with at the bar or something, you watch to see them receive it and give the head bob/drink raise of acknowledgement, maybe come over to chat, no? Did I hallucinate this CODE OF NORMAL BEHAVIOR? Because "Bob," IF THAT IS HIS REAL NAME, which it totally isn't, because come on, continued to sit at the bar, not looking at us, with his sunglasses on. What a weirdo. Oh, and by the way he was in his 40s, easily. The guy who brought over the drinks just laughed when we asked how old he thought "Bob" was.

"Bob." Lord, if there was ever an alias. I bet if we talked to him he would have told us he worked for the CIA.


Eventually, we called it a day and headed for the cabin to get dressed to go to the SuperBowl Party, which was in the theatre. Let me tell you about the theatre on board...it's really comfy, with almost lounge chairs and nice big armrests so you don't need to play Elbow Wars like you usually do in public seating. They showed the game on a giant projection screen that took up pretty much the whole stage, and had lots of Bears and Colts colored decorations, plus some good, solid tailgating food - chips and dip, lots of beer, hot dogs, etc. Unfortunately they were only able to get a satellite feed from Mexico so it was a Spanish-language broadcast and there were also NO COMMERCIALS which was a total bummer. It was still a fun atmosphere though, and that's what YouTube is for. We were seated behind a row of people who at best...no. Let me finish telling you a few more things about the game, then we'll talk about the people in front of us. One cool thing is that there was football trivia running on two side screens, and AS the Bears returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown (which was really exciting even though I could give a crap about the Bears outside of "please beat Peyton Manning"), the trivia was giving the answer to the question "How many times has an opening kickoff been returned for a touchdown in SuperBowl history," which up until that very moment had been "This has never been done in SuperBowl history." Sort of a neat History As It Happens moment...I wished I had a camera.

Okay, let's talk about the people in front of us. First, UnShy was working the party, so he took us to some seats behind these people, and one of them got REALLY AGGRESSIVELY PISSY about it. Not to us, but when their womenfolk arrived, he was all "well you COULD have sat there but I GUESS NOT." Secondly, every single one of these people was wearing some article of clothing that was camoflauge patterned. They also felt it necessary to bring their beer coolies from home, which was utterly inexplicable...can you imagine packing for a week in bags sufficient for you to get through your flights with minimal hassle and deciding "no, I really need to bring my blue foam beer coolie that says 'Joe's Place, Shitkicker, MO'," as you packed? My god. So at one point they turned around to apologize if they were "cussin" despite the fact that a.) I work bluer in my sleep, and b.) we were all "cussin" way more than they were in the first place, unless "crap" has been deemed incredibly offensive while I wasn't paying attention. They got completely fixated on The Weege being from Norway, but not in an "hey that's cool, do they wear socks in Norway" inquisitive kind of way, just more like asking her OVER AND OVER if she was from Norway.


Soon, UnShy came by with our bucket o' beers and promptly asked Scarlett to go off the boat with him in Costa Maya. She said she would think about it and then asked if UnShy had asked The DR if it was all right, which he said he did, and that The DR said it was okay. About three seconds after UnShy left, The DR came over all "what did he say to you" and then stalked off, presumably to find his dueling glove to slap UnShy with. A few minutes later UnShy came back over and Scarlett told him The DR had said that UnShy hadn't asked him about anything, and apparently ALL the male staff members of the ship's bar staff are socially retarded, because instead of saying something he just went away. Not a word, not a sound, just walked away. Because he's a goddamn weirdo. LEST you think that Scarlett does not resemble her alias-sake and that she is just a poor innocent woman being fought over by these bizarre men, I would like to present you with her comments as we were reviewing this day of the cruise so I could blog it today:


[Scarlett]: then we went and got dressed and went to the super bowl party where we were accosted by [UnShy] AGAIN
and he sat us behind the angry rednecks
then he came over with a bucket of beers and asked me out in costa maya
to which i said i'll think about it
excited about the prospects of this drama
when [The DR] came over and was like what did he say to you?
which i clearly explained hoping they would get into a PUBLIC brawl
but alas it was private haha


So there's that.


And god forbid we think that the rednecks we sat behind were only odd in APPEARANCE, they also had this mysterious chart, which I later learned from Speed was, as Scarlett and I had hypothesized, a betting grid. I guess what you do is make a bunch of squares which correspond to the score, teams, divisions, quarters, etc. and people buy specific squares, and it pays out according to all the factors on the chart. Fine. Except we didn't know that at the time, and we asked these people several times. And each time we asked what it was, they just stared at us and turned back around. Good. God. Where Royal Caribbean picked these people up I have no idea but if you told me they were stowaways I would have believed you.


I'd say about half the theatre cleared out after the halftime show, most of the departees murmuring about not being able to take it anymore - the theatre is at the front of the ship, where you can really feel the movement, and in fact that screen was swinging around a little. About midway through the fourth quarter, The Weege announced she was going to the bathroom, and then disappeared for about 20 minutes. Needless to say I assumed she had either fallen off the boat or that "Bob" had kidnapped her for some nefarious purpose. I went to look for her, having a series of heart attacks as new theories of misfortune popped into my head with every step. I started with our cabin, where I found her...asleep in her bunk. After informing her that I would prefer if she NOT make me lose my mind and figure out how to tell my mother I lost her Norwegian exchange student, I went back to the game and shortly thereafter Scarlett and I decided to boogie since the goddamn Colts looked like they were going to win and my hatred of Peyton Manning was starting to set nearby objects on fire.


We headed across the way to the Schooner Bar, which is a smoke-and-mirrors type bar presided over by an extremely odd pianist who wants to be Barbara Streisand in the worst way. We sat in the bar area, where we were out of range of the pianist's lounge singer patter and in close proximity to the booze. Scarlett's phone rang, which alerted the attention of none other than Neil Diamond and the Missourienne, who were sitting at the bar! Suddenly, the entire air of serial killer-itude dropped off of Neil as he chatted with us about how Scarlett could have service out on the Gulf, et cetera, and we wound up finding out about Neil Diamond's secret karaoke skills and that he was going to sing in that night's competition. We promised to be his cheering section. We went back to our own pairings of conversation, and then something awesome happened. Another bar staffer stopped by and said hi to Scarlett, who he recognized but didn't...well I was going to say he didn't remember from where, but I think the reality is that he was trying to figure out if it was possible that she had actually been on the same cruise ship twice in the short period he'd been working there. He then presented the line of the century, that being "I been here three months...I seen you twice!" Which...fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. He followed it up with the still great but not quite as spectacular, "she is well known on this ship. She is very...kind." Awesome.


So after the joy of that exchange, we headed to the South Pacific for the karaoke, which did NOT feature Neil Diamond...he signed up but they didn't get far enough down the list before the session was over. It was fun, and AGAIN the singers were pretty damn good. Karaoke was over around 11, at which time Scarlett wanted to go to the show, mainly in order to flirt with the DR, but I was zonked so I went to bed while she headed for the theatre.


You would think this would be the end of the day's story for me.


Clearly you do not know Scarlett if you are of this opinion.


Around 1 am, she came bombing into the room babbling about how she had a date with The DR, which I couldn't figure out the logistics of since by all accounts the punishment for staff-guest fratenization is death by firing squad. I am not kidding you when I tell you that the entire announcement went like this: "I HAVE A DATE!" The plan was apparently to go to the Solarium and then...do something, I guess. I wasn't clear on the details, but having had the Scarlett Experience of this variety (i.e. the crashing in with a burst of information/insanity at odd and definitely normal sleeping hours times) a couple times in college, I kind of went "okay then" and tuned back out. The Weege, on the other hand, who had never met Scarlett before we all reconnoitered at BWI and was as a result completely fascinated by her in the way you normally find kids being amazed the first time they see the baking soda and vinegar volcano at the school science fair, was leaning over her bunk watching this unfold with rapt attention. Shortly thereafter, Scarlett got a phone call from The DR and then vanished out the door.








...........only to return about 3 minutes later, having been foiled by none other than Horrifying Towel Lady from the previous night's Solarium adventure. Apparently she had been evilly patrolling her turf, rendering Operation Inappropriate Solarium Tryst impossible. Scarlett whirled around in her usual drunken flailing mode (don't ask me why, but after a certain point, Scarlett's limbs develop like...extra joints, and she kind of just whings them around with little regard to animate OR inanimate objects) for a while, then tapped out to rest up for another day.


I realize that it may LOOK like we're all drunk here, but in fact we were not. Yet. Actually I think Scarlett might have been a little. But The Weege's face did that all by itself.

Jumped Out The Window With A Guit-ar In His Hand And Said "Shoot Me Daddy, I'm Superman, I'm Superman, I'm Superman..."

So, I went on a cruise with Scarlett and the Weege to Georgetown, Grand Cayman and Cozumel and Costa Maya, Mexico. It was Royal Caribbean cruise on their lovely ship The Grandeur of the Seas, and it was truly a week of legend. Let me just explain the explosive mixture that was going to be dumped onto this boat even before we all met up in Baltimore.

Things I Have Done With Scarlett:
1. Danced/leaped/careened around our dorm room bellowing to the tunes of, amongst many others, "Muskrat Love," Elvis' "Blue Christmas," and "All I Want For Christmas Is You." This is how I met Other Former Roommate, The Pharmacist - he came up to investigate the giant crashing sounds.
2. Chased ducks through the United States Capitol Reflecting Pool in full-on going-out-wear. At one a.m.
3. Peed in the United States Capitol Random Stand of Trees, most likely while being surveilled by Capitol Police. Of course, in DC there is always the chance that we were being eyed by the FBI, CIA, DCPD, and any other variety of law enforcement officials. At one thirty a.m.
4. Met and hung out with White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in the West Wing of the White House.
5. Roamed the AU campus hugging and babbling about the Party Animals. At midnight.
6. Watched Gone With The Wind roughly nine hundred forty seven thousand times.
7. Spent the rest of the time watching CNN, the Discovery Channel, or the History Channel.
8. Assorted political/academic/public misdeeds, many of which we probably SHOULD have been arrested for but were not.
9. Developed an entirely new shorthand for language, so as to facilitiate easier covert mocking of people.

What you need to know about the Weege is basically that she'd never met Scarlett before, but that I had made her watch GWTW with me and explained her as "like Scarlett O'Hara, but without the...you know, evil." And also that she rocks extra super hard.

And thus the trip began.

Southwest was kind enough to fly us from Manchester, NH to New Orleans, LA for 137 bucks, so at 5:30 I picked the Weege up at my parents' house in the snow (naturally - 60 degrees through the ENTIRE DAMN WINTER and then it snows when I need to fly AND check bags AND transfer flights. THANKS, NATURE.) and we headed up north. Leg #1 went well, and we met Scarlett at BWI, to much screeching, Norweigan roaming and getting to knowing. We had used Miracle Product Board First, so we all had A boarding passes, which let us sit pretty far up. We gabbed all the way there, and good times were had by all, until we realized we were running almost an HOUR LATE thanks to a charming 200 knot headwind. THANKS, NATURE. Needless to say, we were informed of this by a completely annoying stewardess (N.b. - I usually LOVE Southwest employees, in general, because they tend to be infalliably cheerful and helpful. This goober was the exception, not the rule.), who couldn't just say "yes, we're running an hour late. We'll get you there," but instead felt that a good game plan would be to lecture us about how we should have come down a day early and gotten a hotel, and went on about this at SUCH A GREAT LENGTH that Scarlett and the Weege should be counting their blessings that I did not leap over them to slap her. Lady, I see your point. It's not a bad point. However, maybe instead of antagonizing people you should understand that people book flights with the expectation that they will be transported in a time frame SIMILAR TO THE ONE THEY BOOK THEIR FLIGHT FOR and just freaking say "I'm sorry, but we are delayed. We'll get you there." Needless to say, we were a little edgy by the time we got on the ground in N.O., and I muttered most of the way to bag claim about "god help the first Southwest employee I see if my bag does not come off that bleepety-bleep carousel." Luckily, there was no need for violence, and we jammed out to the taxi line and met Awesome Couple Number One, who said "oh come on, just cut the line. We'll back you up if people whine" as we started heading for the back of the (extensive) line. We ran into them again in the Royal Caribbean check in line and then never saw them again. We got in a nice truck with a Honduran driver who had TEN sisters and TWELVE brothers, for a total of a lot of goddamn birthdays to remember. He got us right over to the pier, and I overtipped him extravagantly because my fight-or-flight response was still tweaking out all over the place because of the delay.

Got to the stateroom unscathed, although we needed to fill out our check-in paperwork AGAIN despite checking in online. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Royal Caribbean, although it says NOTHING ABOUT THIS on its online check-in web page or anywhere else on the site, doesn't let you print your SetSail Pass less than 24 hours before you sail. Yes, this is demented. It does tell you you can't do the actual checking in less than 48 hours before your cruise, but if you are like me and do the check in, then print your assorted passes right before you leave so as not to spill liquids on them, lose them, have them get eaten by your pets, etc., make a note to do it in advance if you are going on an RC cruise. THANKS FOR THE STRESS, Y'ALL. And also for the scary, pissy woman who gave us the forms to fill out.

Now, when we got to the room, we saw only two beds, and couldn't figure out where the third person would sleep. We found Super Steward Alex in the hallway, and he showed us where the bed was (It awesomely folds up into the ceiling and needs to be unlocked to come down - supercool) and unlocked it for us. This marked the last time that Super Steward Alex did not live in stark terror of all three of us. We went up to the Windjammer, which is the buffet restaurant up at the top of the ship, and it was there was we ran into the reason Scarlett had wanted to come on the cruise - the Dominican bartender, The DR, who she had developed a life-threatening crush on during her LAST cruise, which was in..........December. (Her next cruise, for those keeping track, is in May. I don't know.) Needless to say, this was already an event of iniquity, but he then proceeded to QUIZ HER ON HIS NAME while covering up his little name tag like a complete weirdo. Also? Nappy hair. Un. Ack. Cepatable. Luckily the muster drill sounded, so we had to leave the bizarre scene to go stand out on the deck while wearing our stylish life vests and bounce off of people for a while. In a way, the muster drill was kind of fun because everyone's in the same "heh heh, sorry I keep whomping into you, but this stupid thing is messing up my groove" mode, and you can feel the excitement of being about to leave.

So we started off, heading down the canal and out to the Gulf of Mexico, and the three of us went back to the cabin to change for dinner. The dining room was gorgeous, all decked out in an Art Deco style...it was called the Great Gatsby dining room, and I have to take a side trip for a second here for a public service announcement - people, PLEASE STOP NAMING THINGS AFTER THE GREAT GATSBY. The Great Gatsby is a wonderful book and I really enjoy it, but it is a SAD, UGLY BOOK about the folly of decadence and excessive cash. It is NOT a celebration of the flapper era. STOP IT. Thank you. Our table mates included one nice older couple who had been cruising since 1976 and came to exactly one dinner before spending the rest of the week going up to the buffet, three mystery people who never came to a meal, and Neil Diamond and the Missourienne. We LOVED Neil and the Missourienne - they were this really fun couple who were celebrating their 10 sorta-anniversary. They weren't married but had been dating for 10 years, living together, etc...as Neil put it, "we'd rather spend money on doing cool travel and stuff than a wedding right now," which I think is a pretty good idea, actually. But Neil did not tell us this on the first night, oh no. We thought he was probably a serial killer on the first night, because the only thing he said the entire meal was "Bears" in reference to who he wanted to win the SuperBowl. Good times.

We had some time to kill between dinner and the next thing we wanted to do, and decided to go spend some time in the Solarium, a very cool area with a sort of Roman bath feel and a retractable roof, as we discovered later in the week. There's a pool and two hot tubs in there, and all the chairs have awesome cushy pads on them for maximum relaxing. We hopped in the hot tub, hoping we'd be able to find a member of the bar staff to bring us a bottle of champagne. Not only were there exactly zero members of the bar staff around, but there were no PEOPLE around except for the occasional passer-by. Eventually it got to be time for us to go get dressed for the next round of activities, so we started looking for towels. Scarlett lost the nose-touching/not-it round, so she got out to look for them, only to be told by the scariest, pissiest woman ever that towels were on the other side of the Solarium. She had been sweeping up the floor when she noticed Scarlett looking around, and got all "Looking for TOWELS? They're over THERE." It was just that...she was REALLY PISSED! We didn't understand it but we knew enough to fear for our lives so we got towels and jammed.

We then went and hung out in the South Pacific Lounge for a while, had a bottle of champagne. This was when we first discovered The Problem With The Weege, that being that every time someone tried to serve her, she would get this utterly panicked look and stare at us for approval and instruction. Now, bear in mind, we weren't planning on ordering her up seventeen shots of grain alcohol or anything, we just wanted her to have a beer. Furthermore, in this particular case, I had gone to go get the champagne and three glasses, so the waiters already assumed she was legal to drink since she HAD a drink already. But no, she did the freak out thing and they asked her for ID so that was more or less the end of that....now, I didn't have MY license with me either, since it didn't seem relevant, but the point remains that she never would have been given a second thought if she hadn't gotten all deer in the headlights about it. So we watched some suprisingly GOOD karaoke, including performances from both halves of a newlywed couple, both of whom were great.

Now, midway through our time in the South Pacific, we switched location in the room so Scarlett could better flirt with The DR. We also wanted to see if there was something on the Weege's SeaPass that identified her as underage...Scarlett remembered from the last cruise that most kids had their SeaPasses punched with a hole to indicate their underage status, which did NOT happen on the Weege's card, but we were assuming there was some other way to tell, and had noticed an "M1" on her card that ours didn't have. We sort of thought that told the staff she was underage, but it also could have been something connected to her being Norwegian and thus not a US-citizen. We decided that the safest way to find this out would be to ask Scarlett Crush and Skilled Communicator The DR about it, at which point we embarked on Stilted Conversation Number Two, to wit:

The DR: "Are you 18?"
The Weege, finally making a stab at bullshitting: "Yeah!"
DR: "No you're not."
Weege: "Yeah I am!"
DR: "You're seventeen."
Weege: *silence* *nervous laughter*

So we figured that out pretty easily, and then the note passing ensued. Now, the last cruise Scarlett had been on, the grand romance had been kicked into high gear with a note passed to her asking her to meet The DR somewhere off the ship in one of the port cities. She accepted, and fierce making out happened. They exchanged emails at the end of the trip, and she emailed him but never heard back. So this was Note, Part Deux, which asked which cabin number she was staying in, and why she didn't reply to HIS email. She wrote back, now several Diet & Cokes to the wind, "honey, I emailed YOU, and you never got back to me." So then he went over to snigger with his odd friends, and returned to say that he would call the cabin later. Clearly, despite the fact that she TOOK ANOTHER CRUISE TO SEE HIM, Scarlett apparently did not want to seem to codependent so she was all "yeah yeah whatever, I'll be at the club, call me in the morning." I'll let you digest all that.

After the karaoke, we roamed aimlessly a little bit, popped in briefly to the show that was going on, found the comedy show marginally entertaining (although the comic was roaming the audience doing some kind of interact with the audience business at the time so for all we know his actual standup was hilarious), and then headed up to the Viking Crown Lounge at the top of the ship, where we got the Weege's underage ass in the door by lecturing her all the way up the stairs to not get all freaked out looking and then inaugurating the "we were all college roommates" lie which proved to be successful throughout the trip. The very first thing - and I do mean very first thing - that happened was for this insane woman to throw a fit on us because her drink had been spilled. Now, as far as I know, I may have spilled it, since people were jostling around and stuff, but there is a basic rule of bars, that being - leave your drink undefended and be prepared for it to be spilled, swiped, rufied, whatever. This isn't a glass of wine in your kitchen...there are other people around, and if you leave your drink laying around....shit happens, is my point. So anyway this woman starts pitching a complete hissy fit and asking who DRANK her drink, which was straight up insanity since whatever was missing from her drink was ON THE BAR, and insisting that Ash buy her a new one, which, also insane. The bartender happily gave her a new one, but needless to say, the kind of Dirty Jersey chick she was, she continued giving us the stink eye for the remainder of the week. Because she's a crazy bitch. (NB - Don't start with me on the "Jersey isn't that bad" crap because I know. We have established that I have family in Jersey, and that there are beautiful, idyllic parts of the Jerz, but I think we can all be realistic and admit that there are some heinous parts of Jersey, too, and that those heinous parts produce some heinous people. Who cut their bangs with weedwhackers. I'm just saying is all.)

Once that got settled, by which I mean "we got our drinks and got the hell away from Jersey," we found some comfy chairs to hang in, and proceeded to get going on the drinking. At one point, a very tall dude named Elroy showed up to serve us drinks, and he will become important in later escapades. We drank, we danced, we had a blast, we finally got ready to leave because the Viking was closing, and we went back down to crash. Good times had by all, and we weren't even 24 hours into the cruise. FAB!

Thus concludes day sorta-one. Tune in tomorrow for the first days of at-sea troublemaking!



Here's our ship, the Grandeur of the Seas! I did not take this picture, but merely pilfered it from someone else. Thanks, Anonymous Internet Person!

Dear Boston Bruins Fans, I Am Wearing This Canadiens Jersey To Piss You Off. PS - Your Team Sucks. Don't Thank Me, Thank Sinden.

I am going straight from work to my therapist to the Sharks game tonight. Thus, I have my Canadiens jersey hung over the back of my chair, since I'll be changing in my office before I leave and it's a game worn jersey so I don't want to throw it in a heap. And of course - of COURSE - someone in a Bruins hat comes by and has to make the big freaking deal about how it's "black and gold in these parts, baby."

Okay, it can be black and gold. No prob. Meanwhile, I'll wear the red, white and blue of a team that has won TWENTY THREE Stanley Cup Championships versus the "black and gold's" four. Oh, and in case we're keeping track? Seven of the twenty three have been won since the Bruins' last one in 1972, so I think we can cut the shit and all run out to Home Depot and buy ourselves ladders so we can GET THE HELL OVER OURSELVES because the Bruins SUCK, guys, okay? The kids are exempted, because they don't know any better, but everyone who is old enough to vote really needs to take a look at the game of hockey and understand that Harry Sinden has spent the past however many years slowly screwing the franchise into the ground and more or less being the John Madden of hockey...formerly brilliant-to-at-least-tuned-in, currently a complete idiot and master of the obvious.

You know what my favorite team is? It's not the Canadiens. I admire the Canadiens very much because of the above statistics and the awesomeness that is was the Forum and possibly most of all their fans who understand both nostalgia and the importance of bashing someone's teeth backwards every now and then. My favorite NHL team is the Detroit Red Wings, not that I even bother that much with the NHL since the Powers That Be are determined to pussify the game by overofficiating it and instituting the most ridiculous new rules, like the goddamn overtime shootouts...great concept guys, play the whole game and one overtime period as a team, then scrap the whole concept and place the outcome of the game on individual effort - HOCKEY IS A TEAM SPORT, YOU MORONS! "It's exciting!" No it's NOT, because no one seems to know that your best chance is to get all barnstormer on the goalie's ass and go in there like you AND the puck are headed for the backbar - it takes away the tender's ability to read you, and since you are the ONLY person he has to read, you see why this is crucial, right? Right?

Anyway, my favorite team is the Red Wings, first because I am oddly nostaligic for eras before my time and thus am in love now and forever with Gordie Howe and the Production Line, and second because the franchise caught on quick and really mastered the trendy European style of play and I enjoy adaptivity (and the European style) very much. I wear the Canadiens jersey because a guy named Patrick Traverse is playing for the Sharks now, who used to play for the Icecats and also holds a permanent spot on my list of top 20 players I could watch skate for the rest of eternity without tiring of it. Even better, he's now developed what Speed correctly described as "the Ray Bourque thing" where there's zero wasted movement, just tiny adjustments and smooth swiveling turns. It's unbelievable. The Canadiens jersey I own is a number 54 game worn Patrick Traverse jersey and the HELL if you think I'm not going to wear it just because all of you black and gold mongoloids can't figure out your team sucks and will continue to suck for at the very minimum a three year redevelopment period AFTER Sinden has been ALL THE WAY removed from the organization.

So please do us all a favor and shut the hell up before I have to beat you down with my hockey knowledge.

The Battle of Home Depot

I went to Home Depot last night for a few items...some curtain rod equipment, an extention cord (okay...we don't have an outdoor outlet to plug our Christmas lights in to. How does this happen?), and I also found a metal hangar item to hang my bike in the garage. On my way in, I decided to take a look at thermostats, since the ones we have are original to the house (1954ish) and the whole heating system has been a little tetchy lately, which we think the thermostats are in on. I wanted to scope it out because I know that programmable thermostats can really help regulate your oil use and lower your bills. Let me point out that the reason I know about this is in large part because I process thermostat rebates at work, and therefore not only know the benefits, but also know stuff like model numbers and ranges. Remember that, it's important.

So I am standing in front of the thermostats, and the Home Depot dude asks if I need help. No problem, I tell him I'm all set, and go back to looking at the thermostats, because as we know,
"no, I'm all set thanks" indicates to English speakers that a person is...all set.

"So, looking at thermostats, huh?"

Oh, this is the game. Okay. "Yes." And of course that isn't enough to signal him to leave, either, because he then begins taking them off the shelf and explaining them to me, at which point I say "Yeah, I know. I work at an energy conservation company, and I process the thermostat rebates. I look at this stuff all day." I also touched the pad of rebate forms hanging right on the shelf to demonstrate that these, in fact, were the ones I processed, which they were.

What would you do?

Because I, personally, would go find someone else to pester, like the guy toting around a weedwhacker examining the oil line, or the guys with backwards baseball caps on at the end of the aisle. However, the Home Depot guy is clearly nothing like you or I, and instead begins explaining that you need thermostats specific to your heating fuel.

At this point I'd really had it. Just because I'm wearing a pink shirt and pointy shoes does not mean I'm a home improvement/heating/whatever moron, and I have just told you I'm fine SEVERAL TIMES and explained that I DEAL WITH THERMOSTATS AT MY JOB. So I turned around to him, and said "You know what, I KNOW that you need different ones for different fuels. I probably know more about it than you do, so if you could just fuck. Off. And let me look at the goddamn thermostats, that would be great." Maybe it was an overreaction, but I am pretty sure it was the only way I was going to get rid of him, so I was okay with the drastic action. He kind of shuffled away to go pester the baseball cap guys. I hope they did better with him than I did.

I don't get this whole thing of girls not being able to do stuff. I was flipping out the other day at a TV show where the insinuation was that girls don't like sports. I love sports. LOTS of girls I know love sports. My most frequent rival is the Sony Bravia TV, the makers of which believe that the gender line divides all, thus women like shoes and never, ever action movies, and men like action movies and never, ever shoes. They have this goddamn commercial where it's basically a long shot of the Bravia TV, and then there's a flash of something that you need to pause with your DVR to see. It's something where you have two options that you theoretically go to their website to vote for...one is one a blue background saying "would you rather watch some kind of action movie blah blah blah explosions blah blah blah" and the other is on a pink background saying "would you rather watch some movie about a woman marrying her prince blah blah blah shoes blah blah blah." What the hell? Maybe I want to watch BOTH. Maybe it's okay for me to simultaneously wear 4 inch heels while screaming at the rooted tree of a defenseman to move his ass and hit someone at a hockey game. Maybe you shouldn't assume that because I have tits I want to watch some boring ass romcom with Jennifer Aniston. Maybe the Transporter is one of my favorite movies. Maybe I have over 50 pairs of shoes.

Meanwhile, we also went out last night to buy $1000 of toys for Friendly House at Walmart, and one of the things I knew the girls would love but hated to buy were these stupid Bratz dolls...they are miniature hookers, guys. Seriously. Where is the one wearing soccer pants and a hoodie? Where's the one NOT DRESSED LIKE A HOOKER? Where is the Congress Barbie and the rock climbing Barbie? Where's the kick ass without feeling like your skirts need to be an inch below your vagina to make an impact doll?

Where are the real live versions of these dolls?

Eulogy

It's force of habit that makes us think immediately of how much we have lost when someone close to us passes away. You can't call or write any more, you can't stop by, you don't need to set out their place setting at holidays. And these are all sad things. But so often we forget that we also gain so much what a person leaves us...the opportunity to review their glorious life while writing an obituary, the renewed reminder to cherish family and friends, the new knowledge that someone you love will always be keeping an eye on you from above.

My mind sprang immediately to how much I would miss Grandad when someone won the World Series. He was the one who sparked my interest in the game. I remember his being at our house one time and insisting on watching the game on TV. All around him, people were buzzing around, getting ready for dinner. No. He was watching the baseball. Eventually, Mom sent me in to collect Grandad, and I found him sitting on the couch, head back, mouth open, snoring. I figured then that there had to be something special about a game that led people to insist on watching it and then put them to sleep.

Now, Grandad had the sense to be a Phillies fan, whereas I took a wrong turn somewhere and sentenced myself to being a Red Sox fan. Grandad was the first person I thought to call when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004...luckily, I couldn't get good reception in the place I was calling from, since I'm not sure I was calm enough to use actual english words, but the next day I called, and got the classic Walter Brown "well how 'bout that?" which I hear in my head after most great plays and surprising wins. I loved Grandad's baseball...full of memories and stories. And I will be sad when someone winds the Series, because I won't be able to discuss it with him and hear what he thinks, but I know he's watching the hames and that at least part of what he would say is "well, how about that."

I've been lucky to be able to talk baseball with my grandparents. I discovered how unsusual it was to have so many living grandparents in college, where people were astounded to hear that I not only had the basic four pack of grandparents, even a six pack from a divorce and two remarriages on my mother's side. I do remember not feeling so lucky when I was younger and thought Grandad was about the most intimidating person alive. Try and remember when you were small...lower elementary school perhaps, when adults didn't exist and there were only Grownups. Now imagine a grown up almost double your height, with a bald head and big grownup glasses. And by the way, this super-grown-up has a great booming voice, smokes a pipe, which you've never seen anyone else do, and has a certain fondness for giving indian burns. Terrifying, right? He also didn't dumb down his jokes too much, but rather expected kids to be smart enough to figure it out. Thankfully, I finally put on some height and was able to understand how funny and warm Grandad was...I would have really missed out on a phenomenal man had I not come to understand these things about him. Unfortunately, he never really gave up on the indian burns.

It's so wonderful to see you all here today. I encourage all of you to find someone from a completely different part of Grandad's life and find out about their Walter Brown. Part of what made him so wonderful was how much he did...I passed his obituary around to one of my friends who had met him, and all I can say is that when you have lived for 88 years and people still wonder how you had time to do everything you accomplished, you have lived a good life, an exemplary life. Today, talk with each other about Walter. Talk about this good man and his good life, and gain from today, as we have all gained an eternal watchdog and spirit on our side. Let go of the feelings of loss and regret, and know that we all have gained by knowing him, and that he loved us all. Today, celebrate his life.

Do The Right Thing

As you may have heard, I work on a loan program that helps people put in new furnaces, boilers, hot water systems, windows and insulation. It is an awesome program, with the one drawback being that you get to see how jerky some contractors get. Customers get cranky too, but it's generally the kind of cranky that only hurts their own case, whereas a lot of these contractors completely screw up the process for these folks and delay their work.

On the other hand, sometimes you get to see people being completely awesome, upstanding folks.

I got a call a couple days ago from one of my favorite customers (I am a sucker for senior citizens who refer to me as "honey," etc.) that sounded like it was headed for a disaster story. The old boiler had been removed, and as the contractor went to put in the new one, they managed to crack the cast iron casing of the unit. Uh oh. The contractor immediately apologized, and told the customer that he would be able to get a new unit from Rhode Island if the customer would be willing to accept an upgrade. Obviously, the question was what "accepting an upgrade" meant. The contractor answered that the replacement unit would be a new, super-awesome System 2000 EK-1, which was more efficient, but would cost the contractor about a thousand bucks more. What would be the cost to the customer? "Nothing, since it was our mistake." Obviously, the customer could hardly believe it. He pressed the contractor a little more, and they continued to say, no no, it was our mistake, there won't be any cost to you. The system was in the next day.

Needless to say, the customer said that the oil company would be HIS oil company until he croaked. (Which is what he actually said, which is awesome.)

Isn't it awesome to hear about a company doing the right thing? Especially on that kind of scale? I wanted to run out and hug the contractor, but instead I'll tell the story here and tell you that the company was Albert Culver Oil, and they are based out of Rockland, MA. Their number is 781-878-5050 and if you live in the Rockland area, I highly, highly recommend them. They have had a couple other customers go through the loan program and they are always courteous and professional, and get the paperwork we ask them for in almost instantaneously.

CNN Is Now Projecting Tony the Tiger as the Winner in Columbus, GA Mayoral Race...

Okay, one more thing to add to the Things I Like List...the random crap that people put in the "write in" box on ballots. Have you ever checked this out? Fantastic. Here is a sampling.

Tony the Tiger
Happiness
Anyone but her
I vote Democrat
Mickey Mouse
Protest
Happiness
from the Columbus, GA Ledger-Enquirer

Batman
Snoop Doggy Dogg
Porky the Pig
Bozo
Bonzi Wells
Barney Fife
Yoko Ono
Jesus
Voltaire
Pooh Bear
Fidel Castro
GI Joe
from the SacBee

Ted Bundy
Jane Fonda
Elmo
Santa Claus
Batman
Jesus
Lorde Mayor
Joy the Bear
Chuck Norris
Pedro
from the Baylor Information Network