Month: November 2005 (Page 4 of 4)

I just thought I should point out that it’s NOVEMBER. November the Seventh. As in, the month before Christmas. NO-VEM-BER. Let’s focus on the last syllable, “BER” or, as it often is around this time of year, “BRRRR”.

It is 70 degrees outside. I had to put the air conditioning on IN MY CAR after our big presentation today. WTF?!?!

Now, understand this, what with the “natural gas crisis” and the fact I spent $200 on electric blankets this weekend, I’m not in any big hurry to crank up the furnace. BUT. Seriously. The a/c? Someone’s snoozing on the job. Or, as my crazy brain would think as a young girl, “Ceres is able to keep Persephone with her longer right now” and only the Greek Mythology nerds out there will nod their heads.

And? The presentation went well. Even if we don’t get the business, I am reminded of two Very Important Things: I like the people I work with immensely, and I am respected for what I think and do. And my big boss bought me a margarita at lunch and I need to go to sleep now.

I’ve learned about the howler monkeys from watching Survivor. {Let us pause for one minute to SCREAM about how disappointed we are in the “good” people on the winning tribe and the fact they kept Jamie and voted off Brandon. BITCHES! RAFE! I am so disappointed in you, you would cry if I told you. :BITCHSLAPS:}

So, I realize I don’t do a very good imitation of le Howler Mihnkeys, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I only do it once, not on repeat command, so you better have your video recorders ready if I decide to start hooting. (I was describing them to my brother-in-law on Friday night since we were forcing him to watch the DVR’d show. Descriptions are better with sound, I think.)

Today I feel like a Howler Monkey, because I have 800 things to do, have been going at a pretty good clip all weekend, and I have to go in to the office today to prepare for a new business pitch, which is tomorrow morning! I just wanna sit on the couch, knit, watch a movie, and drink hot tea. SUCKAH! HOOO HOOOO HOOOO HOOOOOOOOO you don’t get to! So it makes me want to hoot really loudly for no reason other than to be loud and annoying, because I am annoyed and therefore everyone else around me should be, too. And Howler Monkeys are the loudest animals in the world. I would give them a run for their bananas today! Honestly, I think it’s less about the sound they make but the facial expression & bared teeth when they make their howling. It’s a good look on me, and perhaps I’ll use it in the new business pitch. Weeeell….. maybe not.

So, you remember Wednesday? A Day of Great Wound-Uppedness? A Day of Biting Off the Heads of Bats?

I had to call a company to get some rate information to advertise with them. I knew, per Kristin, these people didn’t have email. Because they work out of a cave with a card table and a phone line, I guess. So I’m chattin’ it up & telling him what I want to do (oh, hang on, he made me SPEAK SLOWER, never a good sign.) And at the end, I chirp, “Do you want my email address, do you want to just email that to me?”
Him: “We don’t have email. We’re not in the 21st century yet.”

And me, I get this flash of a zinger, and because I’m having a helluva day, I SAY IT. This rarely happens, because I try to keep all my Polite Filters in place, but something had jostled loose.

Me: “Oh! So. Are you calculating my rates with an abacus, too?”
(I hear Kristin start laaaaaaughing and saying something like ‘JENNIFER! YOU DIDNOT JUSTSAYTHAT!’)

And here’s the gem, because immediately, I felt contrite, even though yes, it was funny, but before I could even apologize for being a bitch, HERE’S HOW HE WON MY HEART:
He said, “Yeah! Can’t you hear the beads sliding in the background?”

And then we had a big laugh & I thanked him for being a good sport & said he was really funny, and I’d wait for the carrier pigeons to bring me the information (ok, I didn’t, I had already pushed my luck once.)

OH, and how I was talking on Wednesday about how to set my hair on fire? How fitting is this?

Your Hair Should Be Orange

Expressive, deep, and one of a kind. You pull off “weird” well – hardly anyone notices.

Today, Miss Pretty Polly is TWO. Two years old. Every squirming ounce of her is filled with joy at the world around her, and our lives are better because she is in it!

(Suzy says Happy Burfday, Polly, too! See? She even got her a PRESENT. Unfortunately, all we had was Xmas wrapping paper.)

1. Answer my “This is Jennifer” with “Hello, Jennifer, how are you?” when we’ve never spoken before & you haven’t introduced yourself yet. Category 4: Singe.
2. Tell me you understand I handle the advertising for a CLIENT I DON’T REPRESENT. And then? ARGUE WITH ME about that fact, that you understood I DID. Category 7: We Have Flammage.
3. THEN? THEN? Turn your fuck-up into a COLD CALL and start probing for what business I DO HANDLE. You know what that gets you? Category 12: Flames Licking The Ceiling, coupled with the tart, brittle response from me: “I’m not going to do your cold-calling research for you, GOODBYE.”

Time is money, motherfucker. (I would have enjoyed adding that. But I’m still polite. JUST NOT ON MY BLOG.)

Ohhhhh, good golly. Just typing her name makes me duck a little. For a two-year period of time, I could set my father off like a powderkeg by just the mere mention of her name. Tina Brown. Former editor of Vanity Fair, and at the explosive times I am referencing, editor of the New Yorker magazine. Holy Fuckin’ Toledo. You would have thought the AntiChrist himself had ridden up from the Bowels of Hell, in a black carriage drawn by devil dragons and deposited my father’s subscription in his mailbox.

“FUCKINGTINABROWN*THATROUNDHEELED BITCH” would explode through my phone, which, if you know my father, “round-heeled bitch” is one of his favorite gender-degrading remarks. I had to have him explain it to me when I was a youngster, learning the Art of Cussing at his knee.(“Because her heels are round, Jennifer, she’s always falling over backwards into bed with men. A whore.” Gotcha! Thanks, Pop!) He also taught me to deliver lines like, “You scum sucking pig” or, “You big gob of snot” with such evil seeping through my voice, he finally forbade me from saying it anymore. Why did he teach me this? I have no idea. But it sure would have given me a leg up as a merchant marine, had I chosen that field instead of advertising.

In any event, GoddamnTina Brown, every time Dad’s inner eye flared up over her, I’m sure she felt it, walking down the street in NYC, hailing a cab, a flush of heat blazing up through her upraised arm, a slight buckling of a knee. She probably thought nothing of it, not realizing half a country away, a middle-aged hippie was seething and roiling with rage at her incompetence & directing a white-hot fury in her very specific direction. (This is the same man who had no restraint in his equal, if not greater, white-hot rage for that one and only big gob of snot Newt Gingrich. Maybe Arlen Specter. I love my dad.) And, perhaps, I tell this nugget of a story to illustrate the origins of my OWN wound-uppedness, when I get so pissed, small flecks of spit form in the corners of my mouth and I blink rapidly to cool my brain.

Well, finally, GoddamnTina Brown went away, on to ruin other shit, and the shambles she left in her wake was still the New Yorker, the pinnacle of literary goodness and essay excellence. I had a sales rep in from the magazine a couple months ago, and he had just started his rep job for the pub. I gave him a half-wry smile as I looked at his business card, his name printed in that distinctive-font the masthead is typed in every week. “That’s something to be proud of, that right there,” as I pointed at it. “That’s the cache you represent.”

Sure beats being a scum-sucking pig. Or a round-heeled bitch.

I have spent the past two days mashing up meat with my hands. Yes, yes, I have. On Sunday, I decided that enough time had passed since the Great Swedish Meatball Debacle of 1988, and I would attempt, once more, to make meatballs. JWo had been pining for a meatball sub for a couple of days, and I thought, Well, WhattheHell? I surely could make a homemade one that would tantalize his palate…

Brimming with confidence, I bought burger & spicy italian sausage, mixed it up with parsley, italian breadcrumbs, minced garlic, egg, and black pepper. Made mounded balls (heh), baked them in the oven at 400 degrees until done, simmered them in some Cascone’s marinara (hey, I wasn’t up for EVERYthing from scratch), slathered them into toasted buns (heh heh), topped with provolone & back in the oven until toasty-melty-goodness was achieved.
YUMMEH!

While I was grocery shopping, I picked up ingredients for one of my favorite meals, one I haven’t made since I left home, I think. Stuffed cabbage rolls. Ohhhh, goody gumdrops, I must have some Polish blood in me somewhere, I LOVE those things. Beef + rice, plus more egg, onion, seasonings, and a couple tablespoons of tomato soup. Packed into par-cooked cabbage leaves, toothpick-secured, topped with more tomato soup & cooked to completion in a dutch oven on the stove. MORE YUMMEH!

As I was mashing and mushing and massaging and blending all of the meat & other ingredients tonight, I thought about how I’d now done this two nights in a row, and how I’m NOT making a habit of it. The payoff is great, but the manhandling of the meat is – well – kinda icky.

YOU just go ahead and read ALLLLLL the double entendres into this as you will. Because I know you will. In the meantime, I will explain the Great Swedish Meatball Debacle of 1988: our Swedish exchange student, Maria & I decided to MAKE this dish, since she was, after all, Swedish. So we made the meatballs as instructed, but these were small balls, sauteed in a frypan. Apparently we were not the experienced chefs, for we did not know we were supposed to DRAIN the pan or pat the balls & degrease them. (OK, I see you out there TITTERING.) So we made the creamy white sauce, and it became two-toned, cream and ORANGE from all the grease, and my father gave it the hairy eyeball & made himself a peanut butter sandwich, and we were mortified. After all that work, we’d done-gone & destroyed her Swedish heritage in one evening. Up until Sunday, I hadn’t made meatballs since. Hey, it only took me 17 years to get past that failure. Should have a field day with my therapist over THAT one, hm?