Welcome to My Life…

This made me laugh so hard, because it is so true…  Welcome to my life…

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

Oh, Tiger…

Why am I not surprised at anything anymore?  Tiger, Tiger – et tu?

(Tiger’s mea culpa from this morning reminds me of this famous scene from the Blues Brothers:)

Sorry for the bad quality – it was the only copy I could find…

A Quick Lesson

I couldn’t help but notice all the new Hand Sanitizer Stations while shopping at my local outdoor mall over the weekend.  I am assuming that these are supposed to help us sanitize ourselves so that we don’t spread the H1N1 Swine Flu virus over the crowded holiday season.  Except for one problem:

H1N1 is a VIRUS.  Hand sanitizer is anti-BACTERIAL.  Helloooooo!

Thanksgiving (and a little Norman Rockwell)

How many times have you thought of Thanksgiving and also thought of this ubiquitous painting by American artist Norman Rockwell?  (Not that anyone in the history of time ever had a Thanksgiving that looked like this, but we like to think that we do…)  Anyway, seeing this picture again reminded me of a a fascinating article I read last month in Vanity Fair about the interesting process that Norman Rockwell actually used to create his paintings.  Rockwell used staged photographs (and plenty of them) to create the look and feel he wanted for his finished portraits.

The article is based from information from a newly published book on Rockwell called Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera by Ron Schick.  The article and the book are both really a really interesting look into the creative process of one of our most overlooked artists.

Check it out – and happy Thanksgiving!

Vanity Fair: Norman Rockwell’s American Dream
Amazon.com: Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera by Ron Schick

Caribbean Dreams

I know… I have been off for quite awhile as I was down in the Virgin Islands and kind of lost track of anything resembling a real life.  That’s what happens when you invite 11 different people down to visit where they all come in and leave on different days.  (At one point I wasn’t even sure what week it was, let alone what day.)  This video kind of sums it up a bit.

I should have posted this video before I left so as to give you all something to look at while I was away – so sorry about that.  I will be back in the groove soon.  Just in time for the holidays!

Piano Man Part II

Read Part I Here.

So we left off with me in the garage in my car waiting for Piano Dork to leave.  After a few minutes in the car with the garage door down I start to feel a little claustrophobic/suicidal and get out of the car to wait.  As soon as I get out of the car, I hear him finish tuning the piano with his trademark sweeping finale.  Hooray!  He’s leaving!

Now, our back door is actually a side service entrance that actually faces the same side of the driveway as our main, front door – which we never use, by the way.  So, when I hear his footsteps coming towards me while in the garage, I was not as alarmed as one might think as it was the right direction to get out through the service entrance.  I am still not alarmed when I hear him go into the bathroom right next to the garage door, as this would also be the normal thing to do on your way out.  I do become alarmed, however, when I hear the door to the garage open and realize that Piano Man was coming in!

I am trapped!  There is nowhere to go!  Lucky for me, I am on the opposite side of the garage when he comes in, which gives me the .5 seconds to crouch down behind the workbench, next to the only other door in the garage which goes to our back porch.  This door is closed and swings towards the inside, so I can’t get out fast enough.  I freeze.

Yes, I was now hiding – crouching down and hiding, actually – behind a workbench from a piano tuner in my own garage.  The idiocy of the moment did not escape me.

I hear more steps.  He is coming right towards me! I’m trapped!  What do I do???

“Oh, hi.”

I look up.  He is standing right over me, looking at me  scrunched up against the doorway to the patio. He’s staring at me with a weird look on his face.  I notice his giant briefcase because it’s kind of eye-level with me.  What the fuck is in there, anyway?

So, what exactly do you say when someone catches you this way?  I mean, think about it!  It is kind of a strange situation to find yourself in on a Wednesday afternoon for no apparent reason.   There is a few seconds of awkward silence, and finally I get up out of the silly crouch and say, “Ummm. Hi.”

Now at this point I was literally out of ideas of what to do or what else to say.  It’s one of those moments in life when you just have no fucking idea what is going to happen next.  But, Lady Luck shines her head and Piano Man speaks the sentence that saves the day: “Didn’t your husband tell you I was coming?”

“Hey!  Wow!  No he didn’t!  What a dumbass, that husband of mine!  Having you come over and everything and letting you in the house when no one was home and then totally not mentioning it! Wow – I was wondering who was in the house and was a little freaked out! That’s why I was hiding here in the corner next to the workbench! Well, you know how forgetful those husbands can be, I mean, if his head wasn’t screwed on he’d lose his hat, right?  What?  Oh, this isn’t the back door!  What? You came in this way, though the garden, up the patio, through the messy garage and then into the house?  Well, that’s darn funny because here is the service entrance you were supposed to use! Right over here!  Ha!  I can’t believe you didn’t see it when you used the bathroom!  What?  No, I wasn’t standing here in the garage waiting for you to get the fuck out of my house because I THINK YOU ARE A WEIRDO and by the way, MY CATS DON’T SLEEP IN THE PIANO!”

Well, it kind of happened like that, anyway.  To tell you the truth I don’t even remember because I was so traumatized by the sheer embarrassment of it all.

And now, we can never, ever have our piano tuned again.

A Different Kind of Piano Man

File this one under: It Could Only Happen to Me.

So we have this cool piano that is basically a “player” piano, but hooked to a server.  This means you can not only have it play cds or play along with songs from a Yamaha internet station,  but it can even play along with certain concerts live, like Elton John, etc.  It’s a pretty cool piece of technology that we have since my husband plays nothing on the piano and I play about four songs, two of which are Chopsticks and Heart and Soul – so you see our limited repertoire requires a computer to play the thing.

So, along with said piano comes appointments from the creepy piano tuner.  I’m sure he is a nice guy and all, but he is way too into the piano and loves to talk to me about it for way too long.  To the point that it starts to freak me out.  (Usually he’s lecturing me about not doing something correctly, like letting our cat sleep inside on the strings.*)  He reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld where the Saab Mechanic steals Jerry’s car because he feels Jerry is not taking proper care of it.

Anyway, it gets to the point that this guy kind of creeps me out so much that I decide I don’t want to be home when he comes to tune the piano, which takes about an hour and is the most excruciating hour of your life. Perhaps this will give you an idea of what I am talking about:

Plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink
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So I began to just make myself scarce when we had an appointment and my husband would deal with him.  (For some reason, he has a better Annoyance Tolerance than I do… go figure.)  This works well for awhile, until one day it turns out that we schedule an appointment for when neither of us are going to be here.  We come up with the brilliant plan to let him come into the house while neither of us are home.  We call and tell him that we will leave the back door open for him and he can come and tune the piano for an hour.  I go shopping while he is supposed to be at the house.

When I come by an hour later, I spot his car in the driveway and go to the grocery store.  I come back again and he is still in there.  I decide that he must at least be close to being done, so I figure I’ll wait him out in the garage in my car.

Click here for Part II

* For the record – my cats do not sleep in the piano. They know this, and I know this, but Piano Dork insists that they are not only sleeping in the piano, they are doing it on a regular basis.  Um, no.

Seinfeld: Bubble Boy (Not Balloon Boy)

For some reason, whenever I have been talking about the Balloon Boy or his idiotic father, I keep saying ‘Bubble Boy”.  It must be a side effect of watching too much Seinfeld. So, I figured maybe it was a good time to post this little clip for the real Bubble Boy.

MOOPS!

PS: Speaking of Balloon Boy, chalk it up to my old home state to be home to yet another nutball.  And, they live in Ft. Collins no less – home to my hapless Rams.  (And, a hapless Sheriff’s Dept, apparently.)

Inside the Mind of a Woman

Okay, I know this went around a few months ago, but I ran across it again and felt the need to post.  If you haven’t seen it, the gist is this:  A guy goes on vacation to Europe for two weeks, and his girlfriend either forgot, or didn’t understand he was leaving.  The story is told through the emails he received while he was away.

Yes, this is what goes through our minds as women, I am sorry to say.  Oh, and the video is 8 minutes long, but worth it. Welcome to our world.

Enjoy!

A few days off…

I haven’t been around because it’s my birthday this week and I am taking a few days off to celebrate.  Well, perhaps celebrate isn’t the right word, as I am still in denial over last year’s birthday – but, I digress…

FYI – People who share my birthday: (not a very stellar group)

Keyshia Cole (28)
Ginuwine (34)
Dominic West (40)
Paige Davis (40)
Vanessa Marcil (41)
Eric Benet (43)
Todd Solondz (50)
Emeril Lagasse (50)
Sarah Ferguson (50)
Mia Nair (52)
Tanya Roberts (54)
Tito Jackson (56)
Richard Carpenter (63)
Penny Marshall (66)
Linda Lavin (72)