Trick-or-treat equal opportunity

It's almost Halloween, and that means many parents are going to be frantically searching last-minute for the perfect costume for their kids, or at least a costume, or at the very least a trash bag, which can be many things with just a little imagination, including a bag of trash.


A co-worker said the kids in her childhood neighborhood started trick-or-treating a whole week early, and went every night through Halloween. This probably came about as a result of the parents realizing they had spent a collective 2,374 hours making their kids' costumes, and by golly the kids were gonna wear those costumes more than one night! This must have seemed like a good idea to everyone except the parent whose kid needed 17 hours to put on the costume.


Another co-worker's daughter wants to be a princess every year, and being equal-opportunity parents who want to free their daughter from demeaning stereotypical roles, last year they encouraged her to be a chicken. (Hey, both boys AND girls can be chickens.) As a result of their encouragement to break out of the princess mold, she has been a princess only one Halloween, although she has also been a cupcake fairy, which the parents consider a close relative to the princess.  


Other parents interested in equal opportunity costumes might choose, say, Bat Girl, or the Grim Reaper. If you have a little girl who just doesn't want to give up her dream of wearing a tiara, maybe you can compromise, and have her be the Chicken Princess. Or -- this just might catch on -- a Trash Bag With Tiara.

Hands off the rubber ducks

This month at work has been a busy one, with new lesson manuals to edit, planning meetings to attend, birthday parties to organize, birthday cake to eat, pink rubber ducks to fight over, etc. Okay, so we didn't actually fight over the pink rubber ducks. But the new management policy regarding pink ducks remains somewhat of a sore spot with employees. We editors feel it most keenly.


Every October the company celebrates Breast Cancer Awareness month with various "pink" fundraising activities, one of which involves several pink rubber ducks floating in a tub of water. You pay a dollar per duck, and each duck has a number on the bottom corresponding to a bag of goodies that you win. Most of the bags have things like candy and Lotto tickets, but some have bigger prizes, except not the bags that I pick.


In the past we were able to keep the pink ducks in our cubicles for the entire day of the fundraiser, which we editors got excited about, because we are all women and the pink ducks are cute and we are highly susceptible to cute. We lined them up on the top edges of our adjoining cubes, arranging them in various cute postures, as much as a stiff rubber animal can be made to assume various cute postures. The ducks made us extremely and ridiculously happy, and of course they did not interfere with our concentration on our work in ANY way ("Do you think my duck would look better facing this way?" "Maybe we should alternate the light and dark pinks").


But for the past couple of years, since some departments including our own moved to a different building, we are no longer able to take the pink ducks with us and keep them in our cubes. "Ducks must remain in the building at all times" is the new motto, lest they not come back and the company must spend approximately 66 cents per duck to replace them. So now we must surrender them immediately, and they are dropped unceremoniously, and unloved, into a bucket to be put into storage until the next fundraiser. Appeals for custody, even temporary, have been denied.


Someday, we vow, we are going to liberate those pink ducks and give them a proper, loving home, which would of course be in our cubes. Until then, we wait and dream of having our pink ducks back, and maybe even dressing them up... 

Cakes 'R Not Us

So the cake decorating class is over, the class that I was hoping would launch me into a new hobby. Mostly it has launched me into debt from having to buy 907 decorating tips and other absolutely necessary, non-food accessories, such as Crisco. 

The class was held in a community college and attracted some attention from passing students, who expressed their amazement that they could be taking cake decorating instead of snoozing through Algebra II, and who enthusiastically volunteered themselves for any task that might involve tasting something we were making.

But although the class has not exactly turned me into Ace of Cakes, I learned a great deal from taking it, such as that I should have taken some other class. It is difficult to know which of us is more relieved that the class is over, me or the instructor, who, if she had been required to evaluate me on my cake decorating skills, would have been forced by circumstances to write I am recommending this student for remedial cake class (but with some other instructor).

Take the rose. To make an icing rose you pipe a base and then, starting at the top, you pipe a series of what looks to me like stand-up collars, and somehow when they all overlap they become a rose. That is, if you are the other students they become a rose. Even the students who had missed half the classes could make a rose. My roses more resembled a joining of Baby Bop's head with the Abominable Lettuce Head Creature.

But for some reason I could make a passable pansy, and to bolster my self-esteem after failing spectacularly at roses I became a pansy-making machine, filling my practice space with pansy after pansy while my classmates created The Eiffel Tower of Roses. The instructor did not encourage me to move on to anything else, obviously relieved that I could at least do something that did not involve stencils and spray icing.

So now I am left with this collection of cake decorating paraphernalia, and no talent. And a half jar of Crisco. At least the Crisco might come in handy this winter should we need an emergency source of fuel.

A decorating challenge

At work are always up for a challenge, as long as it doesn't tax our brains too much, and this month we geared up for one of our most difficult tasks to date: how to simultaneously decorate the office for fall, Halloween, and Breast Cancer Awareness month. The result, we believe, is something the Bride of Frankenstein would be proud of. Of course we strove to maintain the utmost taste in our decorations, which would explain the giant paper eyeball pinned to one of the cubicles.


The entryway is a tasteful blend of a large pink tulle bow, pink plastic jack-o'-lanterns, and hairy paper spiders. Numerous cobwebs are pinned to the cubicle walls, which I personally am not overly fond of because they remind me too much of the state of our house right now, which we had been blaming on the renovation process but which has not improved since that ended.


A few plastic spiders inhabit the fake cobwebs, although our heart really wasn't in the spiders, considering the number of actual spiders and bugs we deal with in our office. If we really wanted to be ghoulish, we could pick up any of the easily available specimens of actual, dead bugs in our office and pin them to the cube walls. But of course we are too tasteful for that. 


We have a library stocked with our educational materials, which mysteriously disappear on a regular basis, and we used the opportunity of decorating to make tasteful reminders for anyone who borrows our materials. A picture of a skull, resting on several books, declares ominously that "This could be you if you do not return what you borrow." The Hero has suggested that, given the number of materials that do not get returned, we keep the skull year-round.


One thing we do not have in our office is a flying monkey. The Hero's office is lucky enough to have a flying monkey, which is catapulted sling-shot style across the room and even makes threatening monkey noises while doing so.


I guess there are always things we can aspire to.

We are definitely DONE with renovations

Our renovations have finally come to an end, which we did not think we would witness in our lifetime, and now we are patiently waiting for the floor to dry so we can put some furniture in the room and actually use it. We are somewhat reluctant to do this, however, as the room has never been so clean and devoid of clutter, and we know that once we allow even one teeny, tiny item to enter the room, it will attract thousands of other items, until soon we will no longer be able to find the room itself. 

To help the floor dry more quickly, we have, at the advice of our contractor, kept the temperature in the house at a steady 800 degrees. It is unclear how much this is helping, as this measure is probably being offset by the buckets of sweat we are producing.

Thankfully the unique chemical smell we have been living with is gradually receding, and we scarcely notice it now until we go out in public, and complete strangers wrinkle their nose in distaste and ask why we smell like lighter fluid. 

But overall we are pleased with the changes, and thankful that everything is done. We also have vowed never to embark on such an endeavor again, but plan to simply sit back, relax, and enjoy our new room...wait...now the freshly painted stairs make the kitchen floor look drab...and the walls, haven't they turned slightly more greenish...?

Note: The Princess is diligently working on posting photos of the new room, which will serve as evidence for posterity that yes, once upon a time the room WAS clean. As this task is a strain on her technical abilities, and as the Hero is currently engaged in studying for a midterm and is unable to offer assistance (defined by the Princess as "do it for me, please"), we appreciate your patience. 

News alert!

T! The longest remodeling in history for a single room has finally come to completion in the Princess and Hero's home. In a cruel twist of fate, they are not allowed to descend the freshly painted staircase to gaze at the new room, and they are too lazy to walk completely around their row of homes to look in through the back door. The unveiling will have to wait.


We apologize for the short post today. The Princess is somewhat under the weather and has a sudden longing to go to Spain, which has NOTHING to do with this recent report about the traditional Spanish siesta. Enjoy.

The smell of character

Our still-being-renovated-but-almost-finished family room finally has a floor. The floor is faintly reminiscent of an old barn, mainly because it IS an old barn, or at least wood from one. It has what is known as "character," consisting of numerous knots, saw marks, stains, cow hoof imprints, etc. Okay, no cow hooves. 


Whenever we inquire about some perceived imperfection in the floor, the contractor informs us that this is part of its "character." Occasionally he asks if we want him to add even more character, such as intentionally missing an occasional nail and hitting the wood instead. We have declined such offers of intentional character, figuring that in the course of future regular usage by two people who are not all that careful, the floor will continue to acquire all the character it needs.


Joe's mom remarked that if it were her floor, she would constantly be going downstairs to look at it and admire it. 


"Did you tell her that's pretty much what we do?" I said.


Since the first night after the floor was laid we stand gazing lovingly at it, like new parents, only we have waited a lot longer than nine months for all this to be done.  


We make up excuses to go downstairs so we can look at the floor: "Uh, I better check on the laundry."


"There's nothing in the laundry."

"Well, I still better check."


Or: "I think I left something downstairs. I'd better go look."


"There is nothing downstairs. The room is bare."


"Well, you never know. It might be there somewhere."


"If it is, it's under the floor."


We have stopped short of actually sleeping on the new floor, but only because it is not yet fully dry.


The new floor unfortunately makes the whole house smell like some sort of toxic dump. A neighbor remarked that she could smell lighter fluid outside.


"That's our house," I said, sighing.


But the Hero refuses to be put out of the house and seek refuge in a place that smells better, such as a garbage heap. From past experience we know that the smell will eventually go away, like in a year, and in the meantime we continue to gaze at our beloved new floor, even if we have to wear masks to do so.


Come to think of it, it really is like being new parents, smell and all.

I am the wrong number

If you are like thousands of Americans, you get at least some phone calls from numbers you do not recognize, such as collection agencies, random requests for money, family members wanting to know why you haven't called them lately, etc.


If you are plagued by such calls, there are several websites that can help identify the number for you ("This was your manager"), and you can read comments from other people who have received calls from that particular number. It can be comforting to know that you are not the only one receiving these unwanted calls. And as the following actual comments from one such site reveal, it is not a person calling you, or even an agency, but a number:


"The number called on 10/8. I did not answer."

"I DID NOT ANSWER WHEN IT CALLED ME. I CALLED IT BACK AND IT SAID WRONG NUMBER."


"Why is this number calling me?"
Maybe because no one else will answer?


"I don't know who is calling. NO ONE HAS THIS CELL PHONE NUMBER, I'VE NEVER USED THIS PHONE BEFORE."
They invented a whole new phone number just for YOU?


"There was an automated speaker in SPANISH! I don't even speak Spanish, what the heck??"
Maybe it was asking if you wanted to take Spanish lessons so you could understand these automated messages.


"It bothers me on weekends."
Mmm hmmm.


So, you who are called and bothered by unwanted numbers, take heart. You're in good company. And if you are not being called and bothered by unwanted numbers, please give me your phone number.

Time for bugs to go

Recently we have noticed the appearing of several mounds between the spaces in our brick patio. We happened to notice them because, while they are not quite as high as Mt. Everest, they're pretty close (we have keen eyes). The mounds appear to consist of the stone dust that is between the bricks, and upon further inspection turned out to be anthills. Ants apparently are not picky about the material they use to build their little anthill cities, fortresses, vacation resorts, etc. We're pretty sure we saw some casinos in there.


The anthills are merely the latest in a series of insect encroachment on our dwelling, and while the ants at least have the courtesy to be outside the house rather than inside it, we are frankly getting tired of sharing our property with things that have multiple sets of legs. 


It is time to implement new measures against the invaders, and we think we have the solution: We will invite them all to a free food buffet, where in exchange for the free food they will listen to a three-hour talk on exciting timeshare opportunities. In particular, we will be sure to discuss the fine lodgings a few houses away at a certain neighbor's. And then the ants, and all the other creatures who have encroached upon us, will get up, stagger around a bit with all their extra weight from the free food, and head down the street.


Of course the participants may not fall for it. And there is the danger that we will feed them so much that they won't be able to get up on all their legs and trot off down the street. And there is a slight chance that if they do make it to the timeshare property, they won't exactly receive a warm welcome.


So if all else fails, I guess we'll just wait until the renovations on our family room are done, our new sofa comes, and then we can invite them all over for popcorn and a movie. And maybe another timeshare talk, this one about the attractions of Florida.

A case for the indecisive

I could not be more happy with my new phone, which gives me an actual keyboard on which to text instead of having to use the number pad, requiring about 15 minutes per letter. Now, with the keyboard, I spend only 11 minutes per letter, due to my extremely elementary typing skills. But I have definitely put them to use in the short time I have owned my phone. I have, for instance, texted Joe several times, and he, in turn, has promptly ignored most of my texts.


But my phone lacks a cool case, and if I am going to spend my time sending texts that no one reads, I might as well do it on a phone that looks cool. In my vast research on phone cases I came across some must-haves, including one that has "tire tracks" on it, presumably to give your phone that sought-after effect of having been run over by a motorcycle without suffering the more negative effects of that actually happening. Difficult as it was, I passed up the tire track case.


I was, however, strongly attracted to the "dot" case, which not only comes in several colors but includes several large, interchangeable plastic dots for the back of the case. These dots offer endless possibilities for decorating your phone case and for plunging individuals like me, for whom choosing even a pair of socks uses up all available mental energy, to face an almost infinite amount of soul-wrenching decisions every day. 


Unfortunately -- or maybe fortunately for me -- the dot case is not available yet for my phone, so I reluctantly kept looking. I did consider sending off several texts to Apple to express my dismay about the lack of a dot case for my phone, and strongly suggest that they make it available soon. But they would just ignore my texts, of course.


I finally settled on a simple case in a "goldenrod" color, which as far as I could tell is simply a bright yellow, and whose chief attraction is that it is bright enough to find in my purse. (For years I have wished for a yellow car, for the simple reason that I could find it more easily in a parking lot.) 


The term "goldenrod" has a special significance at my office, where it is the name given to corrections that must be made to lesson manuals published with a mistake in them, and where it has become synonymous with "gigantic headache." Goldenrods are hated on a par with slimy reptiles, and some of us would prefer the slimy reptiles.


I told a co-worker I was getting a goldenrod case for my phone. "No, you're not," she stated. "You're getting a yellow case."


So yellow it is. But I can't help thinking about all the yellow dots I could have, if only I had the dot case...

Pink? Purple? Pink? Purple? Aaaaackkk

We are now a two-iPhone household, despite the fact that our house is encased in some sort of cell phone shield that will allow no cell phone to work with any regularity inside the house, and despite the fact that my personal texting skills are roughly on par with a hedgehog's. Probably worse.


When Joe got his iPhone he graciously allowed me to investigate it, which I eagerly did, marveling at how easy it was to find stuff and how the screen moved so fluidly --


"So, how's the phone?" he interrupted at some point.


"Phone?" I said blankly, looking at it. "Uh, I didn't get to that part yet."


Then my phone began exhibiting classic symptoms of Greatly Advanced Age, including needing copious amounts of naps when it was time to be working, and soon it was replaced by a new iPhone.


Of course we did not make such a decision lightly. Purchasing such a device involves many serious considerations, the most important being: What color case to get for it?


Joe did not have to wrestle with this issue, as his phone came with its own case, which expanded the size of the phone to roughly 25 times its original size. This ensures the phone's safety, and also ensures that it does not fit comfortably in one's back pocket.


But I preferred something a little less menacing looking, so I was left to sift through a large assortment of color choices for my case. Being very aware of the gravity of this decision, I spent several hours cross-legged on the floor at Radio Shack debating the respective merits of purple versus pink. The sales clerk had very helpfully shown us where the cases were, although I thoroughly checked every other nearby product in case there was an option he had missed, as if I needed any more options to consider.


Eventually the clerk became concerned about the amount of time I was taking to choose a case. "Can I help with anything?" he said to Joe, nodding in my direction.


"Oh, no thanks," Joe said. "She's just, you know, wanting to make sure she gets the RIGHT color."


The man thought about this. "So...is it a gift or something?"


"Uh, nope," Joe said. "It's for herself."


The man looked slightly confused. Clearly he did not have a spouse, or even a serious girlfriend, if he did not recognize the importance of choosing the right color for all one's accessories.


Eventually, so they wouldn't kick us out of the store, I chose the pink, although my heart really wasn't in it. I took it home, attempted to put it on my phone, and realized that after all the time I'd spend looking at this case in the store, I had neglected to notice the large lettering proclaiming that the product was for the iPod4. Not the iPhone4.


Secretly I was relieved. I didn't really want the pink. I didn't really want the purple. I would have to go online to look for more choices! 


We're sure you'll want to stay tuned for Part II, in which Person Who Cannot Make Simple Decisions About What to Have for Breakfast meets The Unlimited Display of Color Choices.

Back to school

This week my friend and I set out for the campus where our cake decorating class was going to be held, and wishing to be prompt, nerdy students, we left home approximately 24 hours before the class started. That time was broken down in this way:

Drive to campus: 14 minutes

Drive around looking for parking spot: 19 hours, 36 minutes

Walk around looking for building: 3 hours, 8 minutes

Walk around in building looking for classroom: 1 hour, 2 minutes 

Find restroom: .005 seconds

Although the parking lots were very full, fortunately there were helpful signs directing us to acceptable parking areas, such as Red spaces for faculty only, Green spaces for preferred faculty, Yellow spaces for pregnant faculty, Blue spaces for day students (Sunday only), White spaces for nonsmokers, Purple-and-orange polka dot spaces for those experiencing a mental parking lot breakdown, etc. 

We finally parked in another time zone. Of course we took reasonable precautions that one should take when parking in a deserted area, such as parking the car under a light even in the middle of the day. That way, when you come back to your car in the dark -- which it will be by the time you remember where you parked -- you will discover that your car is sitting in pitch blackness because you neglected to make sure the light was actually working. At least this is what happened to us.

We had also neglected to look at a campus map ahead of time, figuring there would be signs showing us where Building G was. We wouldn't have been surprised, however, to find that Building G did not exist, and that we would find signs that said 

Buildings A-F       

Buildings H-ZZ    

The buildings seemed to be in no particular order. We wandered past Building B, H, R, U, etc., wondering if maybe they spelled something ("BEYOND THIS POINT -- BEWARE! HAHAHAHAHA") until finally we came upon a sign that stood directly in front of a group of pine trees. It displayed a large , as if someone was confused about what letter should go there.

The sign, of course, did have a listing of the buildings and a map, and as we had suspected there was no Building G listed, although the map showed a Building G. We chose to believe the map. When you are desperate, you will choose to believe anything.

Building G, when we finally found it, seemed to have been designed by someone with a firm belief that students in general do not get enough exercise, because no matter where on a floor we entered, the room or staircase we wanted was always on the opposite side of the building.  We descended into the basement with some misgivings, and passed a room with a door prominently labeled Mortuary Science, which we fervently hoped was not our room.

The restroom was much easier to find. We followed the time-honored female way of finding it, by following another woman who was a complete stranger to us through a door. We did this even though there was a room number on the outside of the door, and the room could just as easily have been a back way into Mortuary Science for all we knew, but to our relief it really was a restroom. We fervently hoped that this, too, would not turn out to be our classroom.

The effort of getting to our classroom pretty much wiped out any memory I have of the actual class, although I remember that instead of the cardboard practice cakes I had expected, there was a Styrofoam cake to practice on, and that out of a two-hour class we had about four minutes to practice some techniques that we hadn't yet actually learned. 

For the next class we have to make our own icing and bring it in, and I'm not sure it will survive the 24-hour pre-class drive. But we know where we are going now, at least until the college sends us a message that We apologize for the inconvenience, but your class has been moved to Building HQX...