You know, I don't know much, but last night, I came to a conclusion, a possible Great Universal Truth, and I defy you to prove me wrong:
There is no joke with the opening line, "so this woman goes to the gynecologist" that is funny. I'm sorry, but no. Just no.
posted by Kate at 4:32 PM link/comments
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
OK it's been a long time. Lots of stuff going on (Amanda got a job in cleveland, Crestwood, out near Hatties, we are planning on moving back in august, I have finished my course work blah blah blah) that the reason that I feel I have to share something is the goddam weather in winnipeg at the moment. They are calling for 40 (frikin') cm of snow today and tonight. We already have three inches or so. I thought about calling a snow day for my class.
Man . . . I gotta get out of here.
posted by Nat at 3:30 PM link/comments
Monday, May 10, 2004
Waiting for the light to change on my way to work this morning, I noticed that the minivan in front of me had a sign in its rear window:
Tadpoles
5 cents each
Call 440-xxx-xxxx.
I wonder whether Melinda and Will would let me have some pet tadpoles, because I really want to call just to see how this works. Why this bountiful supply of tadpoles? Can I buy three? O Great Purveyor of Tadpoles, are you truly willing to go through the bother of phone calls and tadpole transport and a face-to-face meeting with a total stranger, all for the paltry sum of 15 cents? More importantly, will you take a check?
posted by Kate at 4:42 PM link/comments
Thursday, May 06, 2004
I just had my daily 3 p.m. sugar craving, and it was with great delight that I found a forgotten fortune cookie from last week's Chinese take-out in my desk drawer.
What The Fortune Said: You will discover your hidden talents.
What I Wish The Fortune Would Have Said: You will discover your hidden fortune cookie.
posted by Kate at 3:19 PM link/comments
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
I've survived the move and am once again in relatively good spirits. So good, in fact, that I'm willing to start using prepositions again.
Highlights from the move included me picking up a 26-foot U-Haul and realizing as I settled into the driver's seat that, wait, is that a clutch? Um, hey, U-haul guy, I don't know how to drive stick. All of your 26-foot trucks have manual transmissions?
This actually turned out to be a blessing because it meant that I didn't have to drive a giant truck all over hell, but it did mean that Marc and Will had to drive a giant truck all over hell, and that when Will tried to back the truck into the driveway of the new house, he managed to remove a substantial portion of grass and earth from the treelawn. All in all, it could have been worse.
Other highlights included the part when we thought it would be a good idea to sequester the cats in one of the basement rooms, whereupon the cats promptly figured out how to scale the wall and crawl into the ceiling rafters, and Jen and I had to remove a great number of panels from the dropped-ceiling in order to find the little bastards, who had by this point crammed themselves into the far corners of the ceiling. Following the necessary cat extraction, I swiftly achieved new heights in clumsiness when I managed to fall out of the house while trying to move a box, spraining the hell out of my ankle and bruising the shit out of the entire left side of my body.
But the move is over, and while we're still in that aggravating furniture-rearranging and where-the-hell-did-i-pack-my-raincoat stage, we have a place to come home to that doesn't cost 40% of my monthly salary.
We live in a nice neighborhood now, and this is really fucking weird for me because I haven't lived in a nice neighborhood since 1994, when I lived with my parents. It's not like I've been living in ghettos or anything -- wait, i take that back; my first apartment in akron was totally in the ghetto -- but I've spent the past six years moving in and out of Rental Neighborhoods, and those Rental Neighborhoods have always come equipped with the following: crappy lawns; drunk passers-by who pitch all manner of detritus onto our front yard (empty 40-ounce malt liquor bottles, dirty diapers, and used condoms are some of my personal favorites); unfriendly neighbors; and the occasional police raid on That One House Down The Street.
So it stands to reason why I very nearly had an aneurism when, on Sunday afternoon, as Melinda and I were sitting on the kitchen floor amidst a sea of cardboard realizing that between us we own approximately 637 coffee mugs, there was a knock on the back door, and on the other side of that door stood Bob and Marlene.
Bob and Marlene are our new next-door neighbors. Folks in their early 60s who stopped by just to say howdy, and welcome to the neighborhood, and let us know if you need anything at all, and here's our phone number, and oh -- here you go -- have a basket of fresh-baked apple cinnamon muffins.
Muffins. Fucking muffins, people! Muffins in little paper cups all wrapped up in a cloth napkin and tucked inside a wicker basket. Muffins that when we bit into them, we wanted to get down on our knees and thank god for inventing flour and sugar. Muffins!
And if that wasn't amazing enough, the next day, Jean -- the OTHER next-door neighbor -- appeared at the door bearing a platter of freshly-baked chocolate-chip cookies. Our 637 cups runneth over!
It was around then that Melinda looked at me and asked, what the hell are we supposed to do with the empty basket and platter? What is the protocol here? We were so flummoxed that we had to call our mothers for advice. Apparently, neighbor etiquette dictates that before returning the basket and platter, we must first fill them with reciprocal baked goods of equal or greater value, which is making us hope to hell that no one shows up with a cheesecake or something, because at that point, we will have no choice but to spend the next three weeks of our lives in a baking frenzy.
posted by Kate at 5:10 PM link/comments