Pottiquette

***WARNING - THIS POST CONTAINS DISCUSSION OF BODILY FUNCTIONS. IF THIS MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE, PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR SOMETHING FAR LESS OFFENSIVE***

So, I work in a building that houses several production companies. There is a ladies room on the first floor that has something like 10 stalls in it. Now, I tend to be a creature of habit. I go for the large handicap stall at the far end. It's not really about the size of the stall. It just so happens that the first time I ever ventured into that lavatory, that was the particular stall I chose. From then on, I tend to gravitate toward that one. Of course, it is in use, I'll pick another, smaller stall. I mean, I'm not so crazy as to WAIT till someone comes out. And it's not like a bathroom at some concert stadium where there is a line of squirmy legged girls waiting for their turn to empty their bladders of overpriced beer. This lavatory is almost never occupied by more than 3 people at any given time.

There was this one day a few weeks back, when I walked in to find three anorexic, fake tanned, supermodel type girls primping in front of the mirror. Unlike in high school when "pretty girls" stood in front of the mirror applying lip gloss or baby blue eye-shadow while gossiping about the quarterback or the pregnant cheerleader, these girls did not speak to each other. In fact, it was if they didn't know each other, or didn't like each other. I immediately assumed that these girls must be in the building auditioning to be a brief case toting Deal Or No Deal lady. I admit I felt short, and stumpy next to them and was a bit hesitant to walk to the end of the room to get to my favorite stall. The moment passed though as soon as one of them spoke. Clearly it wasn't just the empty stalls that were vacant in that bathroom that day.

But I digress. What I wanted to write about was not game show bimbos. I wanted to talk about (IN CASE YOU IGNORED THE WARNING, HERE COMES THE PART YOU MAY NOT LIKE, SO DON'T BLAME ME IF YOU CAN'T TAKE IT)

pooping.

I went into the bathroom just a few minutes ago to relieve the pressure. My stall was empty and waiting for me. However, the stall right next to it was occupied. I hesitated for a moment. Of all the stalls I could choose, did I HAVE to squat down right next to the only other person in the room? Is there some sort of rule for this? I chose to follow my own comfort and went to the end stall. I sat, I did my business. Nothing special. However, the person in the neighboring stall was conspicuously quiet. It was if she was holding something in until I left. It was if I had interrupted something. But here's what I don't get. She's in the bathroom. She's either peeing or pooping. It's something we all do. It's what the room is for. It's not a secret. Why are people scared to poop in a public bathroom? Who among us has never moved a bowel? Who has never released gas into the echoing bowl? Who among us are so pristine as to only silently urinate?

For a moment, I felt bad. I thought perhaps I should rush out of there so this girl could do her business in peace. But then, I thought better of it. Get over yourself. Take a crap for goodness sakes. It's natural. So, I took my time washing my hands. I let the water run till it was nice and warm before I stuck my hands under the stream. I pumped too much pink soap onto my hands and rubbed them together into a bubbly lather. I rinsed, and, as I am sure it would have said on the original soap label, I repeated the entire process in order to ensure proper cleanliness. One towel would not be enough, so I pulled several sheets from the dispenser and carefully blotted my hands till they were perfectly dry. I took a moment to glance back at the nervous feet in the stall behind me - still frozen in some sort of unnatural holding pattern. Shall I give in and get out? Hell no. I decided to take the time to finger through my hair which of course dislodged my hair clip. So I had to fuss with my locks a bit to get it back into place. Then I pulled my chapstick from my pocket and applied some remedy to my dry mouth. It was then I heard a defeated exhale from inside the stall. The frozen feet finally moved. The toilet flushed. One would expect that the occupant would emerge from the stall at that point. Instead, she sat back down in an attempt to do her business while the industrial flushing mechanism masked the sounds of her release. Too bad for her, though, the flush was much faster than her and just as I turned to walk out of the room, I heard the distinct plunking sound of terds hitting porcelain.

Nuttin Really

I was just feeling like I hadn't posted in such a long time so I thought I would jump on here during "lunch" and blabber.

Yep.

Lunch was a bean and cheese burito from the border. Mmm. LA-B will be disgusted when he reads this as he would prefer I (a) pack my own lunch (b) eat healthier food. But, I don't a or b most days and that makes me (c) happy (d) fat.

Dream Brothers

OK, so, is it just me or has anyone else noticed that American Idol Chris Daughtry looks freakishly like my first love, teen sensation gone bad Leif Garrett?

It's uncanny, really.

Tweety Has Risen - an Easter Story

Last night I dreamed about my childhood house on Elm Street. I dreamed that I was walking down the street with a group of co-workers (not my real co-workers, just dream co-workers) and my boss (again, not real boss) made a disparaging comment about the neighborhood. I said something like, "it's not really that bad. It used to be really nice - like Mayberry or something. In fact, I used to live right there." I pointed to a tiny mint green house. Now, back in the day the house was neither tiny nor mint green, but this is the stuff of dreams. Just then, a kid is standing in the yard and I tell him that I used to live in this very house and I ask if he might let me go in and see it. I assume he said yes because the next thing I knew, I was standing in a kitchen that looked not a whole heck of a lot like the kitchen of my youth. I also remember being in the attic and my parents bedroom. Again, looking nothing like the actual rooms I last saw in the summer of 1979.

That's it, that's all I remember of that dream. So, why bother to blahg about it? Well, patients my little chicks.

So, this morning, I am sitting in the createry listening to Alex Anderson's quilting podcast and doing research on hybrid vs traditional SUV's when LA-B comes in with a question.

LA-B "hey, you know all those cartoon glasses you have up on the top shelf? Those things are all gonna smash in an earthquake. So, maybe we should take them down and wrap them up so they will be safe."

He was referring to a set of glasses embossed with Warner Brothers cartoon characters that we had collected as kids. They were a promotional item from Carolls' fast food restaurant. It was just around the corner from our house on Elm street. We would walk down to Main street, cross over, pass Pontillo's Pizza and walk a few blocks to get to Carolls where we would buy a fish sandwhich or a cheeseburger and get a glass. They released a new one each week and we looked forward to that day when we could get the next in the series. I don't recall having a particular favorite at the time, although I do remember my dad using Tweety a lot. He'd fill it with milk at dinner, and pour some of that milk into his bowl of vegetables (I know - it always seemed weird to me too).

Those glasses, which were equivelant to a crappy toy one might get in a Happy Meal today, were part of my family's "everyday wear." When we moved from Batavie to Tucson in 1979, they were carefully wrapped in newspaper and packed in a box. They found their place in the cupboards of our apartment in the Barcelona complex, our Townhouse across from the 7-11 and our house out in Carona De Tucson. When my mom accepted a job with Magnavox, those glasses were again wrapped in newspaper, packed in a box, and made the trip from Arizona to Tennesee. We unwrapped them in Jefferson City before moving them to Talbott. It was there, in a cupboard next to the sink, that they would live for more than a decade.

I honestly don't remember when, but at some point my mom decided that it was time to wrap those glasses up again and ship them to me in California. Somewhere in that span of time between 1973 when we first collected them, and the time they arrived in LA, I determined these vessles valuable. So, rather than incorporating them into my "everyday wear." I stored them on the top shelf of my kithchen cupboard rendering them unusable as they were surely a collector's item. We've been in this house for almost 4 years and those glasses proved the old addage "out of sight, out of mind." I am pretty sure they have not been touched in that entire time. Not touched, that is, until today when LA-B proposed that we wrap them up for safe keeping.

Now, here's the thing you should know about me. I am a borderline hoarder, and chronically nostalgic. I assign meaning to some of the most random things. I surgically implant a heart and soul to inanimate objects rendering them invaluable and, therefore, find it impossible to throw them away. I have a rubbermaid tub full of stuffed animals that haven't seen the light of day in 10 years. Their fur is chewed off, their stuffing is so matted that theirs once puffy bodies seem to be filled with hard, cancerous tumors. Many are missing eyes, noses and mouths. I don't know why I am saving them. It's not as if I can pass them on to another child. Frankly, these misfit toys would frighten a kid. Yet, throwing them away would feel akin to tossing my baby in dumpster. While I never cuddled with those cartoon glasses, they are vessels filled with memories of my life.

So, when LA-B proposed wrapping them up for safe keeping, my instinct was to grab a stack of newspapers and get to work. But something stopped me. Perhaps it was divine intervention. Just a few minutes before, I had been watching Easter Mass on cable. A friar was telling the story of Mary Magdelene going to the tomb where she discovered the rock had been moved and the body of Jesus gone. The story goes that Mary Magdelene stood there weeping when a man that at first she thought was a gardener, approached and asked why she was crying. She told him she was sad because Jesus' body was gone. He called her by name and told her not to cry and that is when she looked and saw that this man was not a gardener, but the risen Jesus! The TV friar was saying how important this encounter was to the world, because, had Mary Magdelene not stuck around to weep for the missing Jesus, she may never have seen him risen, and well, who knows what would have happened.

Now, regardless of your religious beliefes, stick with me for a minute. You see, it's Easter, a day that for my entire life I've associated with chocolate and eggs AND, in maybe a lesser way, that story of rebirth. So, on this Easter morning LA-B opened that cupboard and pulled those glasses out from their top shelf tomb and posed the question - "should we burry these?" In the spirit of the day a little voice inside my head said, "take those glasses out of their tomb and ressurect them. For they are not meant to be wrapped in newspaper. They were meant to be vessles and thou shall use them as such."

And it shall be done. Next time any of you come by, you will have your choice of enjoying a cool refreshing beverage from one of 8 colorful characters.

Road Runner Porky Pig Bugs Bunny

Daffy Duck Yosemite Sam Cool Cat

Sylvester
And of course...

TWEETY!

That's Not Writing, That's Typing

I don't know...it's just how I feel sometimes.

Hey, YOUR honey's in MY peanut butter!

Remember those old Reeses Peanut Butter Cup commercials where one dude is eating a chocolate bar and he bumps into a guy who is eating from a jar of peanut butter*? The chocolate dude says, "you got peanut butter on my chocolate!" And the peanut butter dude says, "No, you got chocolate in my peanut butter!"

Well, I think a very similar altercation has occurred somewhere in the world and word of this collision somehow made it to the Peter Pan Peanut Butter test kitchens of the Peter Pan Peanut Butter. It seems someone came up with the BRILLIANT idea of mixing peanut butter with honey and the results are too good not to try.

It's as if someone took a can of honey roasted peanuts, put them in a blender and whipped them into a fluffy cloud. I can't get enough of it. Really. I've been eating it on toast every morning and, while the bread is toasting, I've found myself sneaking licks from the knife.

I think I may have a problem. But with problems like this, who needs solutions?

*I was going to put a note down here saying "who walks around eating from a jar of peanut butter?" However, in light of my current addiction, who am I to judge?

Excuses Excuses

I want to post more often. I really do. Not that it seems that anyone is complaining about my absence, but I like to think at least a few people have been annoyed that my blog has been stuck on a picture of a half eaten wedding cake for almost a month. So, for those few, if they exist, I offer the following VERY VAGUE excuse.

I can't blog because what I WANT to write about I CAN'T write about. While it seems to have worked out ok for her, I really don't want to follow in the unemployed footsteps of Dooce. She's the blogger that got fired after her employer read her blog.

Rest assured, though, soon, very soon, I should be able to spill at least some junk.

In the meantime, LA-B, who is not a lawyer but who certainly watches enough Law & Order and People's Court to dispense legal advice with at least a modicum of validity, has advised me to write about stuff I do that might seem boring to me, but who knows, might just titillate the heck out of you.

So, here goes...

We drove over to Lake Balboa today to take a little walk around the lake. It was a lovely afternoon - finally sunny after rainy days all week - and my doc tells me I should be getting at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. Babysteps, I say - so I will start with a leisurely stroll around the lake. As we parked the car, a floppy eared puppy leapt out of a beat up old car that was parked across the road from us. He desperately wanted to wrap his still growing jaws around the ass of one of the gaggle of geese that were crossing the road. As sadistic as it sounds, it was a sight I am certain I would have enjoyed if for no other reason than it would have made for a much more interesting post here. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for the geese, his owner managed to scoop him up before any feathers were ruffled.

Well, there you go. That's all I got for today.