No one cares what you had for lunch

For Christmas my friend Nikki got a book about blogging. I think she said it was called "No one cares what you had for lunch." The point of the book is that no one wants to know the stupid details of your life, like what you had for lunch. I agree, no one wants to know that for the 100th day in a row I had a plain cheeseburger, a plain taco, or a plain slice of pizza for lunch.

However, I think the activities that surround my lunch might be interesting.

A few weeks ago, as I was driving back to the office after lunch, and I noticed a car in the parking lot had a word written on the windshield in the snow. That word was TURD. This is one of the most hilarious things ever for several reasons.

1. Imagine if it was your car. You go out to it and see that the word Turd is written on it. So many thoughts would run through your head. Is the person saying that I am a turd? Is it an ironic message that I have "turd" on my windshield in the winter when all the birds have flown south? How did they manage to write it so neatly all the way across the windshield? Who was it?
2. Why the word turd? They didn't want to use profanity? Again, was it being ironic?
3. Who took the time to do this? It was in a professional building parking lot.
4. Is it ok if I steal this idea and do it to others? I think this would be good for anyone who parks in two spaces, props up their windshield wipers, or looks at me funny.

During another lunch, my friend Nikki and I scarfed our food so we could make a Target run at lunch. During the Target run she had to pick up some laundry detergent. We walked through the cleaning supply section, and as we got to each new type of cleaner, Nikki stopped, opened the container, and sniffed them.

I looked at her and yelled, "What is wrong with you? Stop this huffing! I cannot support this dangerous habit of yours!"

She looked at me and accused me of sounding just like Mary Margaret (my mom). She reminded me that she had never met my mom, but she was pretty sure that is what she sounds like.

Nikki claims that she was not huffing. She claims she is just very particular about the scent of her cleaning products.

I have seen more than my share of crime dramas. I know huffing when I see it.

What do you think? Is it normal to smell all the cleaning products as you walk through the store? Or do I have to start planning an Intervention and try to find a local rehab clinic?

no autographs...please.

It started months and months ago, but I didn't know it. Kim at work nominated her friend for a makeover on the Dr. Oz show. She didn't hear anything for a while and figured she didn't get selected. Finally she did get contacted. Her and her friend were selected to be on a segment about "housewives of Dr. OZ." However, the show wanted a group of girlfriends that would all try to lose weight together. Kim and her friend needed at least one more friend to be a group.

Kim asked her friend Renza to join them and she said yes. but she still sent out an email to a bunch of us at the office. They were going to try to do a karaoke group thing. Kim and Renza are members of a group at the office who I sometimes go to karaoke with. At first it sounded exciting. I was sure to get a great haircut at least. So I sent Kim my information and told her I was game even thought I didn't know what the Dr. Oz show was.

After I said I was interested, I started to think realistically about how the logistics would work. I reread the email and realized it was a weight loss thing. I figure this meant that they would drag me onto TV, in a sports bra, weigh me in front of everyone and then point out how stupid it is for me to eat fast food everyday. oops, I mean they would try to educate me about healthy ways to eat. The thing is, I am plenty educated about what foods are healthy...I just choose not to eat those things. Anyway, I realized that I didn't want my 15 minutes of fame to be wasted on showing the world how fat I am. I emailed Kim back and told her I wasn't interested.

There was lots of joking about how I should be offended that anyone would suggest I need to lose weight or need a makeover.

About a week later Kim called me. It was late Monday and I was at work. Renza had backed out, and Kim and her friend needed a third. We tried to think of other people who could step in...but the third person needed to be filmed the next day. Kim and her friend had already been filmed that day. I agreed to do it. A producer from the show called me a few minutes later. I was still at work and he asked me all kinds of weight questions. It was already embarrassing enough that I was answering the questions at work where everyone could hear me. The also asked me questions about my life. I think they were looking for my story. I think this is where I let them down. I have a great life. I don't have a tragic story that caused me to suddenly get fat. It just happened gradually as I got older. The only thing the producer found interesting was when I told him my favorite song to sing at karaoke was "Wonderboy" by Tenacious D. After we talked he told me he would call me later that evening. They would film me at home and in Detroit the next day (he seemed a little disappointed that I didn't live in Detroit). The plan was to film the whole group walking out of the Ren Cen, to get the lovely Detroit skyline, and then film us toasting eachother into weightloss. Then, they would fly us out to New York City the next week.

I got no call that evening.

I was a little disappointed because I had hyped myself up for it, but I was also relieved. I couldn't afford to take 2 days off of work this month. I also didn't want to be fat on TV. I also didn't want to work my butt off so I could impress TV land.

I would like to think that they didn't pick me because I was too pretty as a before and there wouldn't be a drastic enough change after my makeover. Or perhaps they thought I was too thin and you wouldn't be able to see my weightloss on TV. OR maybe they thought I was too well adjusted and that they wouldn't be able to make me cry on TV.

It would be very complimentary if they didn't choose me for any of those reasons. Turns out they just thought they didn't have enough time. Oh well, I think I will go on thinking it was because I am too beautiful.

I've been thinkin about my doorbell, when you gonna ring it...

VERY early this morning, just about 4:30 am, I swear I heard our doorbell ring and it woke me up. I kind of freaked out. I don't think you ever experience good things ringing your doorbell at that time in the morning. At least you don't when you are all settled in and established.

I got out of bed and peeked out the bedroom window. I saw nothing. I listened very carefully. I heard nothing. I woke up poor Nathan to see if he heard it. He heard nothing. I refused to go downstairs to look out the peep hole. (by the way, we have two peep holes in the front door. Nathan and I differ in height by about a foot, so we installed 2 peep holes so he could see out of one and I could see out of the other.)

I figured only the following bad things could be ringing our doorbell:

• A drunk person at the wrong house.
• A murderer
• A burglar
• A vampire (Once you invite them into your home, they can come and go as they please. At least that is how it worked with old school vampires. These new sparkly vampires might work differently)
• Zombies
• Mummies
• The Gestapo ("knock knock", "Who's there?", "The Gestapo", "The Gestapo who?" SLAP, "The Gestapo will be asking the questions.")
• Police or Firemen with bad news about the death of my family.

I was nervous but I tried to convince myself that it was all in my dream and I went back to sleep. About two hours later I woke up in a panic. What if someone had orphaned a new born baby in a basket on my stoop and I didn't answer that door? That poor baby would have been freezing out there for hours. So, finally I mustered up the courage to check the front door.

There was nothing there. So, it was either a dream, or the monsters got tired of waiting and ran off to another house.

Don't copy me

When I was a kid, and I thought it was funny to copy what people said, my dad would say, "copy me....don't copy me...copy me..." Well, now that I am an adult, I don't have many people copying me, except on TV. Pam on the office is trying to copy me. First I worked in an office, then she worked in an office. Then, I had a pink double breasted wool coat and then she had THE EXACT SAME COAT one season.

Well I just watched the wedding episode and was not at all surprised that she copied me again. There is the obvious thing...I married a handsome tall drink of water and then she did. But what I did not expect her to wear my dress. It looks just a little different, but I think it was because of her preggo boobs. That is the one place she did not copy me. I was not preggo on my wedding day.

A Play Date at The Club

Charles had his first play date this weekend. We got together with my friend Nikki and her son Carter. Carter is 4, so he is a little bit older than Charles, but Charles loves older kids, so it worked out great.

It is very mom of me to set up a play date for my child. It is also very posh of me, because the playdate itself was at The Club. It would have been more posh, if I was a member at The Club myself...but it was close enough that Nikki is a member at The Club and she let us join her as her guests. I was trying to think of some posh names for Charles and I to go by when we went to The Club. I was going to go by Buffy, but when I was trying to think of a name for Charles...I realized that his name is already Charles and it doesn't get much more posh than that.

Everyone involved had a WONDERFUL time. There is a little indoor waterpark at The Club and I even think I will have Charles's birthday there. (here is a link in case you are curious). We rebelliously took the kids into the hot tub. Carter can barely touch in the hot tub and was showing off his height. We tortured Charles through the lazy river. He hated the whole thing, but was brave enough to not cry the whole time. He merely pouted. Charles's favorite part was the kiddy pool. it had a 2 feet high slide and Charles would have played on that all day. He also loved that he could run around in the water on his own. However, it wouldn't be a family adventure if there weren't a few mishaps. These mishaps were hilarious.

• Charles loves to take off his socks and shoes in the car. We were already running late for our play date and I wasn't happy that I had to redo the socks and shoes. Somehow, Charles made one of his socks dissappear. I drive a small car. I don't know how he could make the sock dissappear. Finally I gave up, and put on one sock and two shoes. What a great first impression we made on The Club.
• The Club has an amazing family locker room. It is a hall way of lockers, and there are individual rooms that you go into to change. These rooms have their own shower, toilet, sink, and bench. It is a good thing we had this private room. I am sure that if I let Charles walk around in a regular locker room, he would go around grabbing strange butts. However, even in this private room we had some hilarity. First Charles flushed the toilet and it scared him. Poor little guy. It scared him so bad that when I took off his diaper to put on his swimmy diaper, he peed all over the floor. As I was getting paper towel and wipes to clean up the pee, he started stepping in the urine with his one good sock. I had to take it off and throw it away.
• We were going to eat lunch at The Club. We were even going to call it Brunch to make it more posh. We thought that maybe we would go back in the water afterwards. The Club doesn't serve lunch that early, so we were forced to go to McDonalds. It was ok, because as Carter nicely put it, "I love McDonalds too!" Because I was expecting to possibly go back in the pool, I had just put on my clothes over my bathing suit. With that particular outfit, it was a bad idea. The pants I had on that day were thin, and the water soaked into them like crazy and it looked like I really peed my pants. It was so bad that I left a butt mark on my car's driver seat and the seat at McDonalds. Oh well, so be it. Charles did eat his McNuggets like a mad man, LOVED his car he got in his happy meal, and loved running around following carter.

Even with our funny little hiccups, the playdate worked out great and I think maybe I need to plan some more.

Brandon - the new guy

Brandon is the new guy at work. He is great. Today he was hilarious.

Brandon, myself, our project manager, and our boss went to a meeting today to see a prospective client to get some new business. Towards the end of the meeting the following took place:

Prospective Customer: Where did my pen go? I know I had a pen, what happened to it.
Brandon: I have a pen if you want to use it to jot something down:
PC (taking the pen and looking at it intently): This looks like my pen.
Brandon: Nope, this is my pen, it is the only thing I brought with me.
PC: I don't know, it looks just like my pen.
Brandon: Wow, I guess we have matching pens.
(Boss looks around on the floor for the missing pen)
Brandon: Well you can have the pen if you want, I have more at my desk.
PC: That's ok.

We all went back to our desks and then the people on my team got an email from Brandon. He admitted that when he got back in his car, he found his pen on the passenger side seat. He did indeed steal the pen from the prospective customer. I guess we will all know who to blame if the deal doesn't go through.

Dry - Wet - Dry

I have two cousins named Joel. One is on my Mom's side of the family and one is on my Dad's. Recently I discovered that they have something very odd in common. Both of them (at least at one time in their lives) have regularly used wet wipes to wipe after going to the bathroom. I know that one of the Joels does it now. I am not sure if the other one still does, but I know he did when he was a teen. I was recently talking to the Joel who uses wet wipes now, and he has quite a system. He buys the special wet wipes that are flushable and when he wipes he uses dry toilet paper, then the wet wipe, and then dry toilet paper again.

I scoffed when I heard this detailed process. I couldn't imagine the expense and toilet clogging that must take place to make this process work. I was sure that some of the wiping could be eliminated.

I talked to Joel about this during a recent vacation. I was reminded of the conversation when I was in the 50's style hotel room alone with Charles. He took our lone roll of toilet paper and threw it into the toilet. He was so proud of himself when he did it. I had to fish it out of the toilet. It was super gross. I should have called the front desk and requested more toilet paper, but it was late and I was in my jammies. I didn't want to have to deal with all that. I looked around the room to find my alternatives. It just so happens that I had a full container of baby wipes. Not the flushable kind of course, but they were definitely made for wiping butts.

I won't go into detail, but I don't think I will be making the switch any time soon. However, in Joel's defense, I didn't give the dry-wet-dry system a chance. I only experienced the -wet- wipe system.

It did get me thinking though, I have a cousin that is also named Catherine. Do her and I have odd things in common?

Do you have any cousins with the same name as you? Do you have odd things in common? Do you use the dry-wet-dry method of wiping?