yep, you're in traffic.

news flash heard on NPR this morning: traffic congestion in los angeles has been gradually improving over the last two years; unlike washington d.c., where traffic congestion has actually been getting worse.

awesome.

every morning i get up, get ready for work (today's get-up: flipflops, capri's and a care-bear t-shirt... of course), get in my car and wonder "so... let's see how long it's going to take me to get to work this morning." it can vary from 23 minutes to 90+ minutes. so depending on how things go and when i leave, i could be an hour early or an hour late. it's brilliant. i love it. :P not to mention the anomaly of leaving at 8:40 and arriving at work at 9:10, and so then leaving at 8:15 and STILL arriving at work at 9:10. what the... !? how?

and to top it off, NPR's traffic report = so lame, i want to punch my stereo. every morning. Art Andrews, the traffic guy, makes me crazy. this might as well be his traffic report:

"do you see cars in front of you? then you're in traffic. no cars in front of you? you're going to be just fine."

thanks Art. so helpful.

maybe it's just me, but it's not even the traffic that makes me crazy. it's the not knowing what's causing the traffic that drives me bonkers. come on Art! just tell me WHY?! at least tell me there was an accident so when i arrive to my meeting 20 minutes late i can say "well, there was an accident on 395 at Seminary Rd and so traffic was murder! sorry, i'm late." but no, instead i'm left standing at the doorway 20 minutes late to a meeting with nothing to say but "sorry i'm late... there was... more people on the freeway today..."

pass me a cigarette, this fresh air is killing me

while looking for vintage voiceover samples for a project i'm working on, we came across these wonderful examples of fine and honest 1950s advertising.





silly surgeon general... don't you know that cigarettes are as cool and as a clean as a breath of fresh air?... i mean, who needs real fresh air, when the finest leaf tobacco makes your mouth feel clean and your throat feel so refreshed? what more could a young girl swinging happily from a tree ask for?

i heart crazy people

well... it's official. i had my first real crazy person encounter worthy of a blog post since moving to the east coast. or maybe it's just the first time i've been unable to avoid the craziness, and thus could do nothing more than stare and take notes. 'cause let's be honest, when you blog... sometimes it's critical to take a few notes about the crazy people so you don't forget the really good details. :)

so, just to recap the insanity of my day up to that point. i had woken up at 4:30 AM, got myself showered and dressed, left for the airport at 5:30 AM, left on the plane at 6:30 AM, arrived in newark, nj at 8:12 AM, caught a taxi that got me to montclair, nj at 9:00 AM, met with a client all day, took a break to bring in some indian cuisine, met some more, played a computer game we built for the client with the client, got sufficiently schooled by said client on said computer game, left for the airport again at 7:30 PM, boarded the plane at 9:30 PM (i'm feeling exhausted just recapping this day)... and this is where the crazy lady enters.

it was one of those little planes. the kind with two seats on one side, and a single seat on the other. i took my place in seat 4A, with two empty seats next to me across the aisle. everyone had boarded, but this one little old hispanic woman. she had pin straight, stringy bright-white hair, pulled back in a ponytail with a little blue scrunchy. she was carrying a purse the size of a small suitcase in one hand and a grease soaked chili's to-go bag in the other as she boarded the plane, and was mumbling something in spanish as she threw herself down into a seat across the aisle from me. the male flight attendant had tried to make this slightly frazzled woman feel a little more comfortable by throwing out a few spanish phrases as she walked passed him and on to the plane, but it was clear something was bothering her. all of a sudden she turned to me and said something that i could only imagine was "do you speak spanish?" and i responded "no, i'm sorry." she suddenly jumps up out of her seat, mumbling much louder and i definitely heard her say "they think i'm crazy!" (why she knew this phrase in english and nothing else, i'm not quite sure) and frantically barrels down the aisle towards the back of the plane asking if anyone spoke spanish. apparently no one did. she runs back up to the front of the plane where the flight attendant had just closed the door and sent the walkway thing (that's a technical term) away, and she starts yelling in spanish about something that seemed to have to do with her luggage that had been checked at the gate. the flight attendant wasn't as cool with his fancy spanish phrases this time, so he calls someone to come to the plane. they bring the walkway thing back, open the plane door again, and an airport employee who speaks spanish comes on to the plane. they have a very loud discussion in spanish right next to me, and the crazy lady calms down (sorta). the flight attendant is clearly getting paranoid about having this crazy woman on the plane, and tells the airport employee to pass along the following information VERY CLEARLY: "once we are in the air, under NO circumstances can she get out of her seat, as there is a federal regulation prohibiting anyone from moving about the cabin within 30 minutes of our nations capital... if she does, we will divert the plane and she will be arrested on the spot when we touch down." she relays the information, the crazy lady shakes her hands and laughs "oh no no no!" and nods in agreement that she understands. yes. i have total confidence that this crazy woman understands.

everyone takes their seat (oh wait... just the crazy woman. the rest of us had been patiently waiting with our seatbelts securely fastened for some time now), the door closes, and the plane taxis on to the runway where we wait for an hour to take off. i love newark. blah.

so while the crazy woman sits, sprawled between the two seats, her 72-hour survival kit (aka purse) on one side and the random chili's bag on the other, i watch her. i can't help myself. she is mesmerizing. her tiny little legs dangling above the floor. her dark brown plastic flip flops, that clearly met their match with a bedazzler at some point, just hanging on her big toes. she is fussing with her 3 boarding passes. she takes them out, flips through them. examines them. flips through them again. puts them away. a few minutes pass, and she goes through it all over again. i'm not sure if she was having trouble remembering where she was. or where she was going. or what planet she had landed on. but she was definitely obsessive about the boarding passes. at one point, the flight attendant walked passed and noticed she didn't have her seatbelt on, and commented to her that she needed to wear it. she proceeded to amaze me. who knew, people!? for YEARS i have made fun of the flight attendants for showing all of us "idiots" how to use a seatbelt. i have been known to say on more than one occasion to the person sitting next to me (which is usually burton)... "seriously... who doesn't know how to put on a seatbelt... and if they don't, how in the world do they have money for a plane ticket?" well folks... we had a winner. she took the same two ends of different seat belts and like a square peg and a round hole, tried to make them fit together. at this exact moment, i smiled and suddenly loved her. throughout the duration of the 32 minute flight, she shifted between seat 4B and 4C a few times, but nothing worthy of diverting the plane. she continued to check and recheck her boarding passes. and she continued to talk to herself in spanish... i'm sure mumbling about the crazy white girl to her left who was trying to sleep with her legs curled up on the arm rest in front of her and scribbling notes in the dark every few minutes.

p.s. if you're ever flying into DC, fly in at night and fly in to reagan national, and sit on the left side of the plane. holy beautiful view, batman!

idiocy challenge: dmv vs. simply wireless

so, i'm not certain which is worse: waiting three hours to talk to an idiot... or talking to an idiot for three hours. lucky for me, i've recently become well acquainted with both. (strap yourselves in... it's a long one).

it all started with the decision to go to the dmv (dept of motor vehicles) on a saturday morning. i'll whole-heartedly refer to myself as an idiot for thinking this was a good idea. THIS was not a good idea. although, we thought the line looked long when we tacked ourselves onto the back of it just outside the front door, we could not have prepared ourselves for the image of 300+ people on the INSIDE of the building each holding a ticket to be seen at one of about 8 windows. we got to the first checkpoint where we explained that we were there to get a new VA title for our vehicle, new plates, new registration, new drivers licenses, etc. the gentleman rattled off a list of items he expected us to have in order to proceed with the transactions and we agreed we had all of them. he handed us the forms to fill out and two tickets. we moved our way into the maze of chairs and people to find a seat. we started filling out the forms and the paranoia set in. "what if we don't have what we need? what if we wait all this time and they make us come back 'cause we're missing something?" you can take your positive thinking theories and shove them... i can't help myself. my brain is wired to think of all possible scenarios. and aside from the scenario where everything works out perfectly, the remaining scenarios all consist of something not going right. so, there i sat. waiting and worrying.

i will point out that i had a good reason to worry. we had discovered that morning that the only piece of "acceptable" mail we had to prove burton's residence in virginia was a comcast bill with our neighbors address on it. (another really long and annoying story about how our apartment lease listed the wrong apartment number, so we had all our mail forwarded to our neighbors apartment, and it's been one big long nightmare to get it fixed.) so even though only an idiot wouldn't be able to see that we were clearly married, that we were clearly not living next door to one another and that we were clearly living in virginia regardless of the apartment number... i was nervous.

and so the seconds, minutes, yes... hours, ticked away and there we sat. "A093 to Window 12. B145 to Window 10. D989 to Window 2. C286 to Window 6." there is no doubt in my mind that this system makes sense to SOMEone. but mostly it just made me want to scream and punch people. our numbers were C303 and C304. although the "C" seems insignificant... trust me, it's not. "C" means that you end up in a different que than those lucky jerks who have something other than "C". which means while the A's, B's, D's, E's and F's are all filing through the windows like a happy visa card commercial, the C's are all in a que with the other idiots who thought saturday would be a good day to come to the dmv and do a long list of things like get new licenses and register their cars. the breaking point for me was when i saw the people who had been behind us in line, walk out the door with a smile on their faces... an HOUR before my number was even called.

anyway, while the frustration of waiting 2.5 hours to talk to someone was painful and driving me to the brink of total insanity, actually dealing with the dmv employees was almost worse. i'll just jump to the part where they wouldn't give burton his drivers license with the correct address on it. instead, what they were willing to do... HAPPY to do... was give him a drivers license with our neighbors address on it. sure, we were stupid for thinking we could convince dmv workers that there was no logic in this... but we tried. burton got that look on his face... the look that comes when i know he's about to go from really calm and collected to "i hate stupid people" mode. he explains in the are-you-stupid? voice, "so you're willing to knowingly give me a drivers license with the wrong address on it... issue me an official state document with the WRONG address on it... when i am telling you that it is not correct?" unfortunately for our sanity, that answer was yes. ironically, the dmv employee i was working with nearly printed a totally different apartment number on my drivers license, due to human error... perhaps if we'd switched idiots we'd have been totally fine. (is that mean? because really... honestly... someone explain to me how these people were anything but that word.)

so as i was wrapping everything up, the woman helping me asked "do you want to register your car for one year or two?" and i asked if there was any benefit in doing it for two, since there seemed to be no apparent financial benefit... she responded, "well, you don't have to come back here for two years" ... i replied, "don't take this the wrong way... but sign me up for two." and so after 45 minutes of dealing with dmv lemmings, we got to stand in another line and wait for our drivers license pictures to be snapped. then we waited another 30 minutes for burton's drivers license to get printed (after asking three different dmv employees multiple times why everyone else's was taking 30 seconds). and we finally walked out... just over three hours later.

as we were walking to the car i looked at burton's drivers license and burst out laughing. they spelled our street name incorrectly. and as we expected, according to the state of virginia, burton lives with the mexican family next door.

this is getting long, but i hope this is as entertaining for you as it is therapeutic for me.

so, last night... was the simply wireless experience. in hindsight, if only we'd known the ACTUAL sprint store was just around the corner. to make a painfully long story a little bit shorter... we were given the impression, by a sprint store employee at a different mall, that we could get a new "instinct" phone for free, with all our credits and discounts and rebates. these phones are tough to find right now, but we located two at a mall about 30 minutes away. we got there, they only had one. the girl, who was nice... but young and an (is there a nice word for idiot?), spent some time on the phone tracking down another one of the phones at a different store and said she'd be happy to go pick it up while we went to ikea for a couple hours. and so we left. a couple hours later, we returned and began the process of switching our numbers over. she estimated it would be about 20 minutes (cue hysterical laughter). after 2.5 hours of listening to this girl and her crazy haired coworker (literally, a black kid with hair that looked like my grandmas wig in the 80s) flirting and fighting about how to make this all happen, i was losing my patience. the mall had long since closed by this point and the only person left was a strange female security guard riding around on a segway with a helmet on (very intimidating, i must say).

so, they got our phones switched over, we were playing with the cool new features of the phone as they fought over how to ring everything up (they LITERALLY called their manager at least 25 times... who, although i only know through the other side of a series of phone conversations, was clearly an idiot as well), and the total came to $700 (which they assured us multiple times we would be getting back as a rebate in the mail). this was not how it was supposed to go down and the numbers just weren't adding up. as we tried to explain that this amount was AFTER our two $150 discounts... and the two $100 rebates we would be getting back in the mail still left us paying $500 out of pocket (i had to draw it out for them on a piece of paper)... it finally clicked and they said "ya... that's right... you'd still have to pay $500... you didn't think you'd be getting these phones for free, did you? 'cause that would never happen! these phones are cool." at this point, it was about an hour passed our bedtime... we were still 30 minutes from home, and we were PISSED. so... needless to say, we still have our crappy phones.

so... you decide... who wins? and you can't say us. :)

non-smoking, please

so... burton and i went out to dinner the other night to celebrate his completion of the GRE! and when we got there, there was a huge line (of course) and so we decided just to sit in the bar 'cause you don't have to wait, you just take a table.

so...

in utah, there's no smoking in restaurants, period. i think that's the same in a lot of places. but in virginia, apparently there is no such law yet. though it did seem to be confined to the bar section. ANYWAY, as much as it urkes to me that it's not totally and completely illegal to smoke next to me, i recognize that i chose to sit in that section and so there is something i can do to control the situation... but because of my lack of exposure to smoking in public places in recent years, i've had very little exposure to something else that surprisingly made me want to get up out of my chair and smack two full-grown adults... one of which could have easily beaten up burton (who is, of course, my bodyguard)... they were BOTH smoking, with their little girl sitting at the table with them. is it just me, or should they be locked away?!

i was SOOO close to saying something. i mean seriously... kill yourself. smoke away to your hearts content in the privacy of your own home. marry someone who smokes too and kill each other. i don't care. but bring a child into this world and into a home full of cigarette smoke and you might as well say "happy early birthday sally! a nice little present called lung cancer will be on its way in 40 years!"

i imagined that if i did actually say something that it would end up with a response something to the effect of "none of your effing business!" ... so that's the part that prevented me from speaking up. that and they were speaking icelandic or something. but i was surprisingly pissed off. i couldn't stop commenting to burton (in that "i'm a chicken, so i'll say it loud enough to make myself feel good but quiet enough that they probably won't hear me" voice) that i was sort of shocked how mad i was getting. fuming!

but i didn't say anything. we just finished our food and eventually left. sooo... would you have said something? am i being too judgemental for wanting to say something in the first place? have i just been in utah toooooo long? :)

holy hell!

now... i know that seems like i just cursed... but believe me, that is where i am right now. and the only thing between me and what can only be described as such, is a thin piece of cheap glass. when i think of hell, i imagine sweating bullets right through your clothes, wanting to pass out, feeling like your skin is going to burn and peel right off your bones... well, my friends... welcome to northern virginia. :) who knew i moved to the core of the earth? i'd have understood why my moving truck took two weeks, if i'd known it was THAT kind of a move. but seriously people, i'm completely unprepared for this. i'm practically hiding in my apartment. listening to my over-worked air conditioner work his little guts out to keep me from complete suffocation. i actually opened my door to the outside today and gasped. like, gasping for air at first and then gasping because i can't believe it's only JUNE!! 102 degrees... 60% humidity. i live in the amazon rainforest!

in other news, we're having fun here. :) really. honestly. despite the heat (heat = major understatement) we're almost unpacked and starting to feel a little more settled. oh! and p.s. i thought packing was the worst. it turns out, that UNpacking is actually the worst. but our place is looking cute, even if the tv and the couch don't line up perfectly (sorry burton) and everything that should be in a storage room is stacked in the corner of our "2nd bedroom". and despite the fact that we were completely spoiled in our last apartment, we'll be just fine in this place.

now, if i can just leave my apartment without an oxygen mask, i could get some good blog material. oh! speaking of leaving my apartment. burton and i locked ourselves out of our apartment the other night (apprently, automatic locks on the front door are not idiot proof). AND, you want to guess how we got back in? not the maintenance guy, 'cause apparently they don't offer that service. not a spare key. not a locksmith. nope... it was a bunch of thugs with a credit card. :) so, i told burton that i think we need to make friends with said "thugs", so instead of being slightly worried now, i can feel safe that they're watching our back or something. you know... like they're with their other thug buddies who are about to break in to our apartment and they stop them and say "hey! these are good people. move on." you know... whatever thugs say to each other when they're protecting their "good people" friends. :) .... what....?

oh... and the deadbolt is permanently locked now. so, don't get any ideas all you thugs out there who read my blog.

i'm pretty sure "thug" is a word that old people use... but it's kinda funny... unless you ARE a thug, then maybe it's offensive. i'll ask my new thug friends and let you know.

no, you shut up!

you know, i think i have just discovered the cure for blogger-block: walmart. i swear that there is not a single visit to walmart that doesn't result in something overwhelmingly blogworthy; albeit, usually it involves poking fun at people... but blogworthy, nonetheless.

i'm not going to spend much time talking about the lady who parked her car in the middle of the parking lot lane because she had clearly just had an encounter with the bumper of another car pulling out of a parking spot... even though i think most of us can agree that when in a fender-bender in a parking lot, the ideal reaction is not to leave your car in the way of everyone else who has not been in a fender-bender, but now has a slightly increased chance of it while trying to maneuver their way around a silly woman.

but i will tell you about the screaming child in the next aisle over from me. i will admit, although i know full well that some children just can't be contained and sometimes you just need groceries whether your child is the devil or not... i was a little irritated. mostly because i'm particularly sensitive to noise... i would have been equally (if not more) annoyed if i were being forced to listen to a full grown man whistle while he walked around the store... i know this because it has happened and i wanted nothing more than to yell "SHUT UP!" at him from the next aisle over. but yes, i was feeling a little irritated at the persistence of this very loud child. and then i heard someone ACTUALLY yell "SHUT UP!" wow. i wasn't sure at first if maybe this was the mother of the child. we all have our ways of copping; who am i to say that this approach isn't effective (though, i assure you it wasn't). but then i turned down the next aisle, and as my cart neared two elderly women exchanging opinions about the situation, i heard one say "does no one teach their children manners anymore?" and i smiled politely as i walked passed (oh... you are soooo blogworthy and you don't even know it!), only to hear the other one say "i know! it's appauling! i just yelled 'shut up', though it didn't seem to work!" HAHAHAHAH. i love the irony of those two phrases being included in the same cordial interchange without even so much as a flicker of awareness that some might consider yelling "shut up" falling a little outside the norm of so-called "manners" they've clearly been taught. they proceeded to go on and on (whilst i pretended i needed some soy sauce... ) about how they would never allow their children to behave like this in public and force other people to have to deal with such a miserable shopping experience. "if my children were to act like that, i would march them right back out to the car and we would go home!" yes... i see the logic in that. sure. because every mother has the time to pack her kids back in the car, after a completely unsuccessful trip to the world's worst walmart, and come back later, so that cranky women (i will wholeheartedly lump myself into that category for the 30 seconds of hatred i felt for the child) can shop in peace. peace = shopping amid thousands of utah's finest. (<-- that is my attempt at self-restraint right there. just for the record.)

so yes... of course i would prefer a walmart shopping experience minus the child mimicking the most annoying sound in the world. but i'd also prefer not to stand in line to check out for 45 minutes. and i'd love it if walmart employees were actually helpful. and i'd also love it if they carried chalkboard erasers. but THAT is the cost of saving $50 on my grocery bill.

data entry with a twist

i'll admit, i've been suffering from some serious blogger-block the last two and a half weeks (holy cow... it's really been that long... wow), and i have been at a loss for what to blog about... until i saw THIS on my facebook homepage...

WHAT THE...?!?!? besides the fact that i OBVIOUSLY wish that was my body, i was slightly amused by the actual job listing associated with this ridiculously shameless picture: "data entry worker" (funny, yes)... when i think of data entry workers, this is definitely what comes to mind. "no experience necessary" (definitely funnier now). that's right. we don't care if you've ever used a computer in your life. if you haven't a clue about typing or data entry... no need to worry. just so long as you've got rock hard abs and a killer rack... you're just the girl we're looking for. clearly, i missed the part in my advertising classes where they taught that "it really doesn't matter what you're trying to sell, just put a half-naked girl in the ad and you're good to go"... unless you're trying to sell beer or sports cars... or push-up bras... and then of course, that's really your best option.

how much you want to bet that girl didn't think her picture was going to end up next to a want ad for data entry workers? :)

oblivious

so... i realized today (actually, i've realized this before today, but it was refreshed in my mind today) that there are a lot of people out there... most people, it sometimes seems... who are completely oblivious to the weird and annoying things about them. for example:

people who interrupt
people who brag
people who have to be right ALL the time
people who have to be in charge
people who say "ummm" every other word
people who say "you know" before and/or after every sentence
people who awkwardly laugh at the wrong moments or for no reason
people who repeat themselves
people who repeat themselves
people who invite themselves to things
people who lie about little things all the time
people who talk too much
people who talk too little
people who are picky
people who complain about everything

you get my point. and even though, about 80% of the list above describes me (... ok... 90%), and i know that... i have to wonder... what annoying things about me do i not know?

and so i ask you first... what annoying things about you are you fully aware of, but can't seem to kick?

and then i hesitantly ask you (if you feel so inclined to answer)... what annoying things about me do you think i'm completely oblivious to... and you wish i wasn't? :) be nice. but seriously... i can't take the thought of being one of those people who hasn't got a clue.

i'm going to regret this huh? :)

bad client 101

ok... so last week...

i sort of don't really feel like going into all the nitty gritty details of the exact reasons last week was hell. but let's just say that i have learned over the years that when trying to get people to complete a task in a very short window of time, the key is NOT to be a jerk about it. it's definitely not asking people to do MORE work. and i guarantee you that it's not saying things like "this is unacceptable" at the beginning and end of every email correspondence just because you like hearing yourself say it.

because if you do... people like myself might be tempted on 50+ occasions throughout a week to respond to said approach with the phrase "bite me" or "shove it" or maybe even "stick it where the sun don't shine". (i guess i had better clarify that this wasn't a person i work for, whom i was tempted to say this to... this was a client. a bad client. the abusive boyfriend kind. the kind that you keep working with over and over again because "he's changed... it'll be different this time" but they keep being a jerk. but you keep taking it because... well, you're stupid. anyway... just to clarify).

so... yes... last week was hell. yes... i worked 60+ hours last week. yes... most of that was in my pajamas, so none of you should really feel that sorry for me. but it's over now. back to normal. (still in my pajamas though). but seriously... i want my weekend back please!

girls are crazy

i just discovered my new favorite quote:

"for most of history, Anonymous was a woman."
(virginia woolf)

h - e - double hockey sticks

next week, i'll tell you all about the week of hell i am in the middle of right now. until then, i miss you all, and i appreciate the little breaks of sanity you're providing when i get a chance to read your blogs. yeah for virtual friendships! :)

the metro in quotations

just when i thought i'd run out of things to blog about... i took the LAST metro home last night...

"we can take the metro. no big deal."
burton and i, as we're leaving the movie theatre and dismissing an offer for a ride home from his brother.

"you should be fine. the last metro leaves Metro Center about 12:15"
the lady working in the booth at the metro entrance. oh... and that's AM... as in we're getting ON the metro after mid-night.

"we better run"
burton, as we're standing at the door of the train waiting to get out, because if we miss the change at metro center, we're sca-rewed.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS!!!! we MADE it!!!!"
the entertainment for the evening, as he arrived on the metro car.

"she wouldn't give me the pump fist"
same kid, after he'd walked passed everyone in our metro car and given them the "rock" because they were on the train too and had made it, just like him. he was excited. and wearing a bright yellow "west virginia" jersey. and clearly VERY drunk... a really happy drunk.

"18? uh... higher... higher... uh... i'm 25..."
the drunken west virginian after an irish man on my right asked him his age... and started out at 18... i have no idea why. ;)

"i'm from west virginia. come on... give me your best west virginia joke"
the drunken west virginian, taunting some kid from pennsylvania, who turned around and mumbled some joke about his sister.

"what was the joke. i didn't hear it"
the irish-man, asking the drunken west virginian, what the penn state mumbler said.

"he said INcest... like inbreeding... like, as in brother and sister"
spoken very loudly by drunken west virginian. yes... i'm familiar with what inbreeding means... but thank you for clarifying it... in so many ways.

"everyone looks like they're going to the library"
yes... yes we do... why?! because the metro is not a bar and because it's 12:15 in the freaking morning and i am tired and you are loud and everyone is trying really hard to IGNORE you.

"you gonna be ok?"
kind-hearted football player, as he puts his hand on the shoulder of a woman (who was totally zoned-out) sitting across from us, right before exiting the metro car.

"i think i'm gonna move"
another woman sitting right across from us, immediately after zoned-out woman turned her head slightly and puked her guts out on the floor of the metro.

"this metro car is no longer in service. please exit the train."
um... what!? so everyone gets off the train and stands on the platform like idiots. like hundreds of us. does anyone come to tell us what's going on? no... of course not, it's only 1:00 AM... why would we care if another train was coming?

"blah blah blah mumble mumble mumble train blah blah. thank you"
a voice over the loud speaker... oh... did i mention LOUD? who the crap decides the volume on the metro speaker? because i would like to talk to that person and try to understand why clarity has been sacrificed for volume. but apparently it said something about the next train coming, because it showed up a few minutes later and we all got on.

"you doing ok dude?"
uh oh... don't like the sound of that. a chubby white guy, turning to his really big black buddy sitting across the aisle from us, with his head in his hands and bottom lip drooping to his knees. not good. not good at all.

"he really likes to party"
chubby white friend, directed to us... immediately after big black buddy barfed his brains out on the floor of the metro.

"at least he puked where there's already a stain"
brilliant. yet true. and very profound. chubby white friend said what i had been thinking since the first girl puked. there were stains. all over the floor. and since no one is allowed to have food or drink on the metro, one can only assume...

so... the moral of the story is four fold:

(1) we're not in provo anymore.

(2) don't take the last metro train home... even on a thursday night.

(3) "no food or drink" on the metro apparently doesn't pertain to food or drink already consumed.

(4) don't touch ANYthing on the metro. ANYTHING! ever...

lindsay lohan for president!

despite how lazy i've become about getting ready for my day... and walking no more than the 10 to 15 steps between the couch, the bathroom and my bedroom every day... i actually don't usually watch tv during the day. but this morning, i turned on the tube for a little "good morning america" which led to a little "regis and kelly" which led to a little "martha stewart" which then led to the "presidential news conference". now, i am actually working while these are going on in the background... just not to optimum efficiency.

anyway, i NEVER watch "martha stewart" because frankly she drives me crazy and i'm not crafty (at all), but this morning i happened to see a quick commercial promoting none other than lindsay lohan as her guest. i thought, "hmm, an ex-convict interviewing a strung out movie star who's had some experience with the LAPD herself... this should be interesting". so i watched. and about half way through the baking of cream puffs, i realized i was starting to like lindsay lohan. not because she was classy or well put together or putting on a good face, but because she was pretty dang real about herself. she was honest about things, she was funny, she was cute, (let's be honest... she's hot), and she was really not defensive in the least. and i started to feel guilty. was i actually thinking that this girl i've seen so much trash about on the news is a nice girl?! yes. i will admit it. yes. i like her. (i still hate martha stewart, for the record). lindsay's not winning any awards in my books for making good decisions, but she seemed pretty willing to admit her mistakes.

which is more than i can say for mr. president.

now, i'm not a bush-basher (though i have been known to poke fun at the man). i'm not a bush-fan either. i'm a canadian living in the united states with a greencard... so i'm CAREFUL! :) but frankly, i just can't listen to him talk. i think he's got a really tough job... one i would never want. and i don't have a definite opinion about a whole lot of issues out there... but i do know that he is just not someone i enjoy listening to. and the more he talks, the less i like him. and today i suddenly realized the irony of the situation. i was feeling endeared to lindsay lohan, actually LIKING her and thinking she was really sincere... and i thought the president sounded and looked like an idiot. (crap... immigration is going to have a hay-day with this one).

so, what does it say about me? ... that i don't care if people make mistakes as long as they're willing to admit it... and that i think lindsay lohan should be president.

going... up?

so... i can't help it... i have to talk about the elevators in my apartment building. this isn't one of those "i've run out of things to blog about" situations... these are definitely blog-worthy elevators.

so, i usually try to keep my "whereabouts" on the down-low online... 'cause frankly, people are creepy... but i will tell you this much: i live on the 14th floor of some building east of the mississippi (as easy as that is to spell out-loud... it just doesn't look right). my daily ritual consists of walking down the hall, arriving at these elevators, taking them down to the main floor, checking my mail-box, finding it empty (since no one has this address), and going back up. so me and the elevators have become well acquainted. HOWEVER...

whoever designed this building must have been on drugs... or was really eager to mess with people!

there are three elevators to choose from. elevator #1 goes up to the 16th floor where there is an outdoor pool on the roof (cool. except for it's about the size of my bathtub). that one also can be taken down to the parking garage. elevator #2 can also be taken to the parking garage, but not to the pool. and elevator #3 can only go as far down as the main floor (again, no pool access). so... as confusing as this is, it wouldn't be that bad if there was a specific up/down button for each elevator, right? of course you would be provided with an option such as this, if you were going to have such WACKY elevators, right? umm... well... no.

so... rather than dragging this on -- like my experience trying to get the right freaking elevator to come -- i'll just skip to the point. it's a guessing game. you don't get to choose. most of the time, my trip to the pool consists of pushing the "up" button, getting in elevator #3 on the 14th floor, going up to the 15th floor, getting off, pushing the "up" button again, NOW elevator #1 comes (because it has no choice... there's only one that can go up from this point), i get in... go up one more floor, and get out at the pool. going to the garage is a similar ordeal.

needless to say... i don't go out much.

don't drink and text... or something like that...

so, i will admit... i've sent text messages while driving. i know the idea of focusing on a few tiny buttons on a cell phone while driving down the freeway at 80 miles an hour sounds completely insane, but... i've done it. nonetheless, i think it's idiotic.

i was driving up i-15 in utah towards my in-laws last night, and noticed a car in front of me swerving in and out of the left-hand lane. in recent years, i've become a pretty paranoid driver -- not sure why exactly, but burton would be the first to tell you that i'm a FREAKY passenger to have in the car sometimes -- and so seeing cars swerving on the road makes me a little nervous. i'm never really sure what to do: pass them? stay behind them? call 9-1-1 (which they so kindly charge you a few dollars to do, fyi)? usually, i try to pass them from as far away as possible. so as i approached the car, i fully expected to see some strung out crazy man with a beer in one hand and the steering wheel loosely gripped with the other... however, what i actually saw was a 20-something year old female with her cell phone in one hand intently focused on her text messages and the other miserably failing to steer her death-trap down the freeway. HELLO PEOPLE?! this woman was LITERALLY swerving... almost hit the car right behind me who was also carefully trying to pass her. eventually she swerved over into the carpool lane (single occupancy vehicles in the carpool lane is a whole nother discussion that i could go off on) and she stayed there for as long as i could see her in my rear-view mirror.

so, that’s it… just venting about silly drivers… morale of the story is: if you’re going to text message while driving, at least do it well so no one knows. ;)

i know tim mcgraw is true...

(UPDATED: ok... so since last monday's FHE lesson was based on elder holland's talk about our tongues being "an unruly evil, full of deadly poison" AND someone who attended this meeting found this post -- although, they gave me a hearty "hear hear" -- i felt compelled to make some adjustments to this post and make my words less venomous...)

there is something inherently evil about making fun of people in church. and when i am tempted to, i suddenly find myself with my face cupped in my hands... a combination of trying not to laugh and praying "PLEEEEASE make these thoughts go away!? please please please make me a kinder, more compassionate person who recognizes the good in other people and doesn't find humor in their unfortunate inability to write a talk." but this sunday was father's day. and i LOVE father's day. i love my dad, and i love thinking of fun stories about my dad (i love mother's day equally for clarification... but this post is about father's day)... and generally speaking, i end up teary-eyed in church while someone talks about the blessings of fathers, etc etc. this father's day, i will admit, i still had a few of those moments... but it was slightly overshadowed by the overwhelming feeling i had to gouge my eyes out with a fork hug everyone around me.


now, at the risk of someone somewhere in the future finding this blog and recognizing that i'm talking about them or their daughter or their friend or whatever in the hope that everyone will find this and think i'm a really sweet person and always have nice things to say about people... umm, well... i'm still going to tell you this story.

four girls, returning home for the summer from various colleges, were asked to speak about father's day and talk a little bit about their experience at college (first mistake was allowing 20 year old girls this much flexibility in their speaking assignment... we're lucky we didn't hear about how bobby broke their heart... anyway... what a wonderful idea this was). they were each asked to speak for 8 minutes... i know this because each in turn mentioned that they had been asked to speak for 8 minutes right about the 12 or 13 minute mark and they were really good at trying hard to stay within those 8 minutes.

the first talked about byu and how byu was the best place for her, but not for everyone and how she had been raised to think byu was the only place she could go and how she never thought she would actually go, and spent just a little too much time talking about byu... and a little less time talking about... well, what do most people go to church to talk about again? ;) and i love byu, so it was great! ANYway... here's me typing away... knowing every letter i type is one letter closer to total condemnation bliss.

so... number two gets up. this is where the fork would have been handy for the eye gouging i really wanted to hug people. i'm going to skip the part where she talked about her dad... 'cause honestly, this is where i got a little misty... so i'll give her that much. but, let's go straight to the part where she held up her copy of the "Father of the Bride" DVD and quoted george banks (which she admitted to playing over and over again so she could be sure she got the quote "just right"... which was so thoughtful of her) as he talked about his little girl growing up, it was so sweet. and then let's skip to the part where she read THREE verses of a tim mcgraw song about a father losing his daughter as she grew up (i love tim mcgraw), but like she realized that like the song was like kind of hard to read 'cause like it's totally "country" and like says words like "ain't" and "ya'll" so she like decided at the last minute to like write it out in like normal words so she could totally like read it normal. AND i'm not exaggerating. AND i'm going STRAIGHT to hell for this one... BUT... it was like totally worth it. ;) which was a really good idea, and i appreciated it.

and the third speaker was actually really good and the fourth had to be postponed to next sunday... because when you're 20, apparently it's too difficult to look at the clock and realize you've been speaking for twice as long as you should have you're just so wonderful, and i love you.

and of course, the little primary kids singing "i'm so glad when daddy comes home" made me want to hug each and every one of them and thank them for being such angels. maybe i'll get bonus points for that one in heaven and it will all even itself out.

1 building, 2 fire trucks, 224 stairs

so.... about 10:30 PM last night, burton and i were getting ready for bed when we heard a faint siren -- seemingly in the distance. we sat there for a minute, trying to understand what it was saying. it would make two loud siren noises and then a loud voice was saying something almost indecernible. i opened the window in our apartment and determined it was saying, "may i have your attention please. may i have your attention please. there has been a fire reported inside the building. please make your way to the nearest exit. do NOT use the elevators." for a couple minutes we listened trying to figure out which building it could be talking about -- was it the marriott across the parking lot?... or maybe the metro station right across the street? it couldn't possibly be our building 'cause we could hardly hear it. and then slowly, we started seeing people exiting the building in their pajamas into the parking lot. so, we got dressed, grabbed a cell phone and my purse and made our way to the stairwell. we tried to push the door open, but it wouldn't budge. we kept pushing and FINALLY the door opened, but we were pushing against an intense airflow that made it seem like the door was locked (kind of scary actually, to think if people didn't think to push it harder they'd think they were stuck for sure). anyway, we got into the stairwell and suddenly the siren and the voice were intensely loud. it was definitely our building, but the only place you could hear the alarm clearly was in the stairwell. we made our way down the 224 stairs (i know that not because of the way down... but because of the way back up to the 14th floor the SECOND time the alarm went off... i'll get to that), but saw no one else in the stairwell. we got outside and saw about 25 to 30 people standing around in their pajamas, looking up at the building for some sign of a fire. nothing. don't get me wrong, no complaints about there not being a fire. thank goodness there was no fire, because out of over 200 apartments, there were only 25 to 30 people outside. no one could hear the alarm. nor were there any flashing lights or anything inside the main part of the building to indicate that there was an alarm going off in our building. however, people are so funny... because even once the two firetrucks arrived and it was clear that what we were hearing was in fact for our building, people still stood inside their apartments looking out the window at the commotion... 3, 6, even 10 and 14 floors up. the firemen came, defused the alarm and let us all back inside. we took the elevators back up and got back to our apartment. we started to get ready for bed again when we heard the alarm a second time. so... in this circumstance, what do you do? maybe there was no fire again and the alarm was just having issues... maybe they thought there was no fire the first time, but there really was. we're on the 14th floor, so the possibility of the later option was not something we were going to wait around to find out. back to the stairwell, back down 224 stairs, back outside... and nothing. less people outside this time, and only one firetruck. this time, they couldn't defuse the alarm even though there was no fire, so they silenced it while they tried to fix it and let us back inside. this time... no elevators. so... up the 28 flights of stairs we went. nothing like a good hardy work out right before you go to sleep. but, on another note... i got to go outside, which is something i haven't done in 4 days. :)

(oh... and that guy in the picture is "bruce"... i used to randomly make him the wallpaper on my male friends computer at work when he wasn't looking... just for fun and cause often he wouldn't discover it was there until he had someone else standing next to him looking at his computer with him. haha. anyway, thought i'd introduce you all to him as well.)

la police de paris

ok... so the first of the europe stories... at the request of Mrs. Dub who hasn't heard any. i guess i'll start with the paris police.

so, we flew in to london and then pretty much immediately took the chunnel to paris. we arrived in paris only to discover that all signs were in french... duh... but still sort of unnerving. i don't know what we were expecting really, but it was a little odd to suddenly realize we didn't know where we were going and couldn't read any of the signs to figure it out. lucky for me, i took 8 years of french in school (which was TOTALLY useless, since i remember nothing) and could decipher from what little i learned on milk cartons and cereal boxes in canada, that "billets de train" meant "train tickets". we spent a couple minutes in a long line to talk to someone who luckily spoke a tiny morsel of english and understood "idiot" sign language (WE were the idiots to clarify)... and we got our tickets for the paris metro. we took the metro to our stop, only to discover that we stopped a little early... but a good brisk walk in paris with all your luggage is good for you, right? so... we arrived at our hotel, really tired and really sweaty and praying that the person at the front desk would speak english. he did. we'll call him fred... so i don't have to refer to him as "the guy" throughout the story.

we handed fred our reservation. he took it, looked in a book... looked on a computer... made a couple phone calls (in french)... looked in another book... tried the computer again... and then said the word i had been dreading since we left utah: "problem". he said that they didn't have our reservation. we assured him that we had not only made a reservation (proven by the paper we handed him) but we had also paid for the reservation in full. he was very nice actually. said he would see what he could do. in the meantime, i used the hotels bathroom... as there are conveniently NO public bathrooms anywhere in paris. :) when i got back, burton told me that fred said he had a "no show" and had decided to give us a room with two twin beds for the night and would switch us in the morning. we agreed. we took our things to the room, and went out for the evening. on the way out, fred informed us that he had found our reservations and that they had mistakenly been sent by lastminute.com for the 26th rather than the 28th, but no worries... we were paid in full. no problem.

the next morning, we packed up our things and took them downstairs so they could be moved to our new room while we were out for the day. that day in paris is a whole nother story... i'll just sum it up by saying, we took the metro as far as we could, got off to get an extension, nothing was in english, no one there to help us, started raining, thunder and lightning... then a wall opened and a little man behind a window took our money and sent us on our way (it was such a weird 15 minutes)... got to chateau versailles, stood in the longest line i've seen in my life, got about 30 feet from the door and it started to sprinkle again, got 20 feet from the door and it started to rain, and 10 feet from the door the line completely stopped moving and we stood in the POURING rain and got drenched. POURING. DRENCHED. after what felt like a really long day, we arrived back at our hotel and we were met by the manager (we'll call him jerk-face, just for fun... cause he was).

so we approach jerk-face at the desk and ask him if we can get our new key. he tells us that there has been a mistake, that our reservations had actually been cancelled by lastminute.com. after a long day of standing in lines and avoiding the rain, this SUCKED! we were pleasant, but frustrated. until he said that the "no show" from the night before had arrived at the hotel 10 minutes after we took his room, and they spent the next few hours trying to locate him a hotel -- they found one, for 200 euro and sent him there in a taxi. which, if you were in the US, would not be your problem... but since we were in europe, where everything is your fault if you're american (or canadian, in my case), jerk-face expected us to pay for the "damages" we had caused. JERK FACE. so after a good 15 to 20 minutes of arguing that we would never have stayed in their hotel the night before if we had any idea that we would be paying 170 euro a night (i won't even bother explaining where that number came from) and that we were specifically assured that we had in fact paid for our room in full, we told him that we would be happy to pay the 66 euro we had anticipated paying for the room, but no more. jerk-face wouldn't budge, but he did so kindly offer us our room for the next two nights at 140 euro a night. so kind. so thoughtful. :P we decided to wait for fred to arrive (he was going to be there in 10 minutes) and then we would straighten it out with him, since he had informed us he found our reservation. fred was no help -- clearly he was in BIG trouble and protecting his own skin. anyway... long story already way too long... we decided to leave our things there and go find a new hotel. we walked up the street 3 blocks, found a best western for 85 euro a night, and said "we'll take it"... we walked back to our other hotel to get our luggage.

we walked in, and fred was sitting there. jerk-face was gone. we told him we had found a new hotel and we grabbed our luggage to leave. as we were leaving he said, "wait... you have to pay!" and we said, "you have our credit card. aren't you just going to charge it." and he said, "i can't... that's just for miscellaneous things like the phone." well, this created a whole new situation... burton said, "well, if you don't have our credit card, this is a completely different situation. there is no way i'm paying you 170 euro... i'm happy to pay you 66 euro though... but i won't pay the 170 euro." well... this caused fred to come completely unhinged. i don't loosely use the term "crazy frenchman"... but that he was. he started ranting and raving... swearing like crazy... "well, 'F' me then! 'F' me!!" (i didn't have the heart to tell him that not only was that completely uncalled for... but "oh i'm sorry... it's actually 'F' you"). and finally he says, "fine! fine! don't pay! see if i care! i'll just call the police and have them come find you! i have your ID, you can leave and they'll come find you. see if i care." so... not too excited about the idea of encountering the paris police on our second day in europe... we handed him our good ol' american express card. after which, he apologized for getting so upset, and we left.

(as a little plug for lastminute.com... although they completely screwed up by cancelling our hotel reservation in paris, they completely took care of all the extra expense. both the extra we paid at the first hotel and the extra it cost us to stay somewhere else. along with an apology for their mistake.)

so... that was our first two days in europe. needless to say, i was second guessing our decision to come at this point. but things got better... and yet... we were still in europe... so we dealt with many more scenarios almost just like that.

our vacuum sucks (haha)

so, we're subleasing an apartment in dc (well... virginia, but close enough). and it's actually a really nice place. we were looking for something fully furnished, so we wouldn't have to bring much with us for two months, so the place has everything: furniture, appliances, housewares, linens, vacuum, etc. last night, we decided we wanted to vacuum the rug, so we got out the vacuum and i started it up. it sounded fine, it was clearly "working"... but it wasn't picking anything up. now... burton has become an expert at fixing vacuums, because our vacuum at home, although new, is retarded (it's possible that my long hair strewn about is the culprit in that instance). anyway, so we messed around with it, taking hoses off and seeing if they were sucking, turning it upside down, putting my hand under the roller to see if it was sucking (don't do this when it's on... helpful hint). and finally burton noticed that the hose at the base of the vacuum was packed with dust (or something like dust). so, we got out the tweezers and started pulling. there is really no way to describe how tightly packed this dust was and the sheer volume of dust we removed. i took pictures, but even they don't do it justice. how in the world, this woman allowed her vacuum to get to that point, i haven't the floggiest. anyway, word to the wise... if it isn't sucking... or is sucking... or whatever... check it out.