Word of Mouf

Lily and I have a little deal going with one of our neighbors where we alternate babysitting each others kids so the other couple can go out and have some fun. Nice family. The mom is British, the dad is from Atlanta. And their three-year old boy Cy wisely decided at an early age that he'd be more popular with the ladies if he sported a British accent.

Last weekend it was our turn to babysit, so we had Cy hang out at our house so he could play with our kids and get all tired and stuff and go to sleep early. But first we had to get past the dinner hurdle. Cy's parents had brought his meal over in some tupperware, therefore his dinner was ready first. He pulled up a chair at the kiddie table and started to eat like a champion. Our kids watched an episode of Backyardigans while their dinner was prepared by mom. Cy glanced over at the TV between bites.

Cy is a big Lakers fan, so I asked him who his favorite player was. Thankfully he didn't say Kobe, but chose Shannon Brown instead. I asked him what he was eating, and he looked down and said "latkes and okra".

"Is that your favorite vegetable? Okra?" I asked. Cy looked me dead in the eye, and replied in his little British accent "I don't feel like talking right now" and moved his gaze toward the TV. I probably would have told me to shut the hell up too, but it sounded so much more proper when he said it.

Boys Don't Cry

At the risk of having this space turn into a cemetery of inadvertent e-mails, here is another:

On Apr 7, 2011, at 10:18 AM, susan wrote:

Have to laugh at this. One of my claim reps and I were working late last nite and got to talking about our day. She had a really bad one and we got to talking about bible verses. Our favorites.

Told her mine: I can do all things thru christ who strengthens me.
Then she said hers was: Jesus Wept.
She said if he can cry so can I. Just hit me funny.

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®


Hilarious.

Hey Ladies

Recently I received yet another inadvertent e-mail to my inbox. The subject line was "Girls Night Out". The thread is below:

From: Debbie
Sent: Tue, March 29, 2011 12:02:17 PM
Subject: Girls Night Out

Hey Girls....we should try to do another girls night out. Jane has a new idea or we could go back to Broken Spoke . What do you think? Thursday??? Deb

On Mar 29, 2011, at 12:43 PM, Arline wrote:

I can’t go this Thursday, but I miss seeing everyone and want to get together later.

Arline


On Mar 29, 2011, at 12:49 PM, Lee Lee the Musical Bee wrote:

I'd love to go to girls night out, but I'm not a girl and I'm not Linda.
Please to update your address book por favor. Thanks!



And I thought that was the end of it. But it wasn't. The person who the mails were intended for then chimed in:




On Mar 29, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Linda wrote:

Shoot! I'll be out if town. Thanks for thinking if me.
Linda


On Mar 29, 2011, at 4:58 PM, Amalia wrote:

Debbie,

So nice to hear from you. I would love to go, just let me know where.
Look forward to seeing you all.

Amalia



Now fully aware that the ladies hadn't heard my request to take me off the thread, I tried a different angle:


On Mar 29, 2011, at 5:06 PM, Lee Lee the Musical Bee wrote:

Can we go here (*LLMB note: Hooters home page link) for Girls Night Out?



On Mar 29, 2011, at 5:47 PM, Linda wrote:

Ha, ha! That's good.

Girls. We need to remove that poor guy from this thread, ASAP.

Although, he sounds like fun!


And they proceeded to take me off the list, but Linda was kind enough to let me know that the link didn't offend anyone:


From: Linda
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 5:52 PM
To: Elizabeth; Laura, Katie
Subject: Fwd: Girls Night Out


Here it is. Click on the "click" below. Funny as Hell.


From: Elizabeth
Date: March 29, 2011 5:55:29 PM
Subject: RE: Girls Night Out

That is hilarious. This is the only thing I've laughed about today -- this guy is the shit. I am going to start copying him on my emails.


And there it is. My attempt at averting inadvertent e-mails is averted.

King of the Beach

Lily needed some time to work on her taxes, so I took the kids to the beach in beautiful Santa Monica, California. Got them all sunscreened up, grabbed the beach bag full of sand toys, and threw on my beach shoes - some ratty old Puma slip-ons that could pass for homeless person shoes but are perfect for the beach. Juggled the kiddies out the door and into the Passat and away we went.

Funny thing about a two year old kid is that she's old enough to walk, and she's small enough to carry, but she's getting too heavy to carry. And the little girl was not about to walk the length of the beach to get to the water. So I gather her up in my left arm while carrying the beach bag of sand toys and our lunch in the other. Luckily the boy is old enough now to carry some of the gear.

We lounged around a bit digging with the shovels and buckets. We played a little frisbee and threw the football around. We went down to the water and played the "run away from the water" game, and in doing so we managed to scoop up a live hermit crab. After all the excitement, we ate some lunch and by then it was almost nap time. Time to pack everything up and get back into the car.

Nobody wants to wear shoes once their feet have been in the water. And that included all three of us. So I threw our shoes on top of the sand toys in the beach bag. As we plodded our way through the sand toward the car, a chicken wing bone flew threw the air and landed on the sand in front of us near a garbage barrel. I looked to my right and saw a sporty guy standing amongst his reclining friends, and he was holding a chicken wing. He said "I didn't do it". I said "Busted. You're holding a chicken wing." We kept on walking, and I heard him yell in our direction "I put it in the trash!" I turned and yelled "I'm not the beach police."

After making it to the car in our allotted two hours parking I loaded the kids into their seats, and the gear into the trunk of the wagon. A car pulled up and waited for our spot. I dug through the bag and found only one of my shoes. I dug around some more. I looked in the front and rear seats. But I knew the shoe was on the beach. I yelled "I lost my shoe" to the lady waiting for our spot. She gave me a smile and moved on in her parking search. I sprinted back toward the beach.

I scanned our path as I ran along the beach. I spotted the shoe up ahead in the middle of a group of guys throwing a football around. And one of the guys was the chicken wing guy. One of them overthrew the football, and as one went to get it, another picked up the shoe and threw it at somebody else. It landed on the ground. I probably wouldn't want to catch that shoe either. I yelled "That's my shoe!" The guy who threw it said "sorry dude" as I picked it up and ran back toward the car. I turned and yelled "But that was a solid throw." Better than the chicken wing throw for sure.

Repeater

Trader Joe's on a Monday morning. It's the best time to go. Nobody's there. Well, except for the staff and a few underemployed (a.k.a. freelance) folk like myself. Shelves are stocked, aisles are clear, it's time to get shoppin'!

I'm perusing the peaches when a Trader Joe's employee guy in Hawaiian shirt greets me by cheerily asking "Is there anything I can help you find today?" I smile back and say "Nope, I'm all good."

I make my way toward the bread past two moms with strollers speaking in French and I grab a loaf of white bread. As I pass the French moms, I grab some tortillas for my burgeoning quesadilla habit and I notice the jam. Which makes me remember that I don't need any jam. See I've got a subscription to this jam called INNA jam that's super tasty and it keeps coming in the mail, which is a very good thing. But the boy Judah tends to eat it all up if I don't have any substitute jam for his PB&J sandwiches. And the foodie in me doesn't believe that a four year old has the taste buds to appreciate such a culinary treat.

So I reached up and grabbed a jar of Trader Joe's raspberry jam - which is stacked on top of each other - in the process knocking about four other jars sideways and toppling off the shelf. I propped my burly-ass forearms sideways and prevented what could have been one of the biggest Monday morning Trader Joe's fruit jar disasters in the history of California. Maybe in the entire United States for that matter. The French moms gasped and stopped talking in French for a second, stopped talking altogether. Disaster averted, the TJ's employee who greeted me earlier came by and asked "Are you allright?" I replied with the calmness of Don Draper: "Nothing broken. It's my lucky day." To which the employee replied "Let's keep it that way". Which was said it in a friendly tone, not a snarky one as I've come to expect in my jaded little Los Angeles existence.

Moving down the grocery list, I meandered toward the cereal section and picked up some maple & brown sugar oatmeal for Judah. The same employee walked up to me and asked "Is there anything I can help you find today?" I smiled back and said "Nope, I'm all good." I wasn't sure if he was messing with me or not, because he had a perfectly straight face on. But I couldn't see how he could possibly mistake one of the maybe five customers in the store he'd asked that question already. Especially one who almost sent the entire jam section tumbling to the floor.

As I headed toward the meats, I could hear the employee in the next aisle asking the same question over and over. "Is there anything I can help you find today?" The voice came closer. I thought for sure he would pass me by this time. I mean, hell, I was wearing a somewhat distinctive hat and I was the jam disaster guy in his eyes. But here he came again, right up to me with a straight face asking "Is there anything I can help you find today?" I smiled back and said "Nope, I'm good."

I figured I'd change my reply next time to see if that jolted him out of his little loop, but I think by entering the frozen section I finally made it out of his sector. Can't wait for next Monday morning.

Piece of Mind

For our recent vacation to New York, we had planned a visit to Mystic, CT. And because everyone from the East coast is always raving about how you can take a train here or there, take a train down to Philly, to DC, up to Boston, I looked into the cost of taking Amtrak. Soon thereafter I found myself reserving a rental car online. The price for the train was going to be a wash, but when it came down to the nitty-gritty of schlepping luggage and two kids and a stroller, we opted for the car.

I shopped around for the best rental price, and Hertz was it. Plus it was the closest walking distance to where we were staying in Park Slope in Brooklyn. So I hoofed it over there, and it was a fairly no-nonsense experience. Those New Yorkers know how to take care of business. The guy was talking so fast that he talked me into buying the infamous "Loss Damage Waiver" (aka LDW) which I NEVER opt in on.

If you're unfamiliar with renting cars from the major players, the LDW is basically coverage so that if anything happens to the vehicle - car stolen, wrecked, whatever - you don't worry about it. Your insurance doesn't even come into play. The Hertz man said (in New Yorker accent) "It's an extra 9 bucks a day, so it's like uh... 36 bucks for the rental. You want it?" Hmm. 36 bucks so I don't have to worry about anything that happens to this car and I don't have to deal with my insurance company? Done. Bye bye 36 bucks.

And soon I was driving out of their garage with a brand new Chevy HHR (or whatever it's called) which looks like a PT Cruiser but less flashy. 19 miles on the odometer. New car smell. All I cared about was getting the hell out of the city before traffic started piling up on the Friday before Labor Day weekend.

After pulling into a miracle of a parking spot right next to our friend's brownstone, I loaded up the car with luggage and family and away we went. A few hours later we were well on our way and driving directly into the remnants of Hurricane Earl, which had morphed into some nasty rain that made it difficult to see 50 feet ahead even with the wipers on full blast. Glad I bought that LDW.

The rain didn't last long, and we were able to enjoy plenty of sun and warm weather in Mystic. We even drove the HHR onto the ferry from Bridgeport to Port Jefferson in Long Island to see a friend from my high school days. And when that leg of the journey was done, yet another miracle of a parking spot appeared right next to our friend's brownstone, and I unloaded up the car with luggage and family and left it for the night.

Street cleaning was scheduled for the next morning, so I had to get the HHR on the road earlier than my rental return time. Lily was meeting a friend for breakfast, so she took Blaise with her and I took Judah with me to return the car. We were making great time, but as we were literally driving the last block to the Hertz rental location, traffic stopped. Gridlock like none I've seen even in Los Angeles. Nothing was moving. People were laying on their horns. Lights changed from green to red to green and back again. And we didn't move an inch.

I watched the minutes tick by, and I wondered if I was going to miss my return time. I couldn't really put the car in park and walk up to the place. And I sure as hell wasn't going to try my luck by driving around from the opposite direction. But if I was late on the return would they charge for an extra day on the car? And then I remembered the LDW. I already paid the 36 bucks, so why should I pay for another day of rental? I briefly considered parking the car nearby and telling Hertz it was stolen. I'd be in their office pointing at the LDW on my paperwork and walking out of there backwards saying "LDW, yo. Nahmean?"

Then traffic started moving again. And I discovered what the cause of the gridlock was: All the weekenders returning their Labor Day rental rides back to the motherland: The very same Hertz location I was trying to return the HHR to. The car in front of me was stopped in the driveway behind the last car that could fit into their crammed garage. A Hertz employee rushed out to greet me and told me to parallel park my car in front of the driveway. "You're the last car we're accepting right now" he said as he helped guide me into the spot.

I went in and finished up my paperwork and got the hell out of there. Cars lined up down the street. As I left, a renter was asking a Hertz employee "Where should I park the car?" and the Hertz employee replied "We're not accepting any cars right now". The renter shook his head then said "What exactly does that mean?" his voice turning to anger toward the end of his sentence. I wasn't about to stick around to find how that one turned out. It was hot. And humid. And I needed an iced coffee. I lifted Judah onto my shoulders and away we went.

Parental Discretion Iz Advised

"What the fuck." Can't say that anymore. Not in front of the kids. I find myself saying "What the fffff" a lot these days. Catching my indiscretion before it has a chance to be completely enunciated. Or "That's bullshhhhhh" which enables me to express myself a little more but doesn't open the door to hearing a two year old repeat the word "bullshit" over and over.

I often wonder what other parents do to combat the uttering of swear words. But what I'm finding is that they don't try at all. Like recently we were at a brunch spot in Hollywood. Quiet little rustic joint tucked away off the busy streets. And like most parents, we arrived earlier than the sleepy hipster crowd because the kids rarely let us sleep in past 8 am on weekends.

We ask for a table at the far end of the restaurant, next to another family, maybe to help keep the kid noise contained to one side of their establishment. The family next to us has three kids ranging in age from around 4 to 9 years old. Their table is more lively than ours for that very reason. Our kids looked like silent little angels in comparison.

Lily and I were perusing the menu trying to figure out what Judah and Blaise would eat, when one of the younger kids at the table next to us fell over in her chair and started wailing. I quickly turned to see if the kid was pinned under the chair or something (she wasn't), and her mom snapped out of her very animated conversation, and after what seemed like slow-motion eternity, she turned toward the kid and shouted "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!!!" Yeah. Yelled that before making any semblance of a move to pick up the child.

Eventually she did lift her child from the floor and give her a big hug, scolding the girl for playing around in the chair, but in a soft tone without any phrases like "Honey, why the fuck did you do that shit?" And later the mom apologized to Lily for swearing in front of the kids. Only to open up the four-letter vocabulary once again in her animated conversation with her adult friend.

Luckily I haven't heard Blase or Judah repeat the F-word since that day. But I have to wonder why I bother trying to clean up my language if the rest of the world isn't doing the same. What the fuck.

Losing My Religion

Sur La Table was calling my name. Not to buy new kitchen gear, but because Lily had taken possession of a mandoline purchased a year ago as a birthday present for a friend of mine. Last year I gave the mandoline to this friend (who shall remain unnamed), but in the drunken stupor that ensued that night, I wound up with the unwrapped mandoline at my house for the next 12 months. And Lily, seeing that the mandoline wasn't moving from its hiding place in the closet, decided to put it to good use, slicing all sorts of vegetables perfectly.

I wasn't about to call her out on it, especially with a mouth full of perfectly sliced vegetables. But I knew the mandoline had to be replaced and given to its rightful owner. Which is where the trip to Sur La Table comes in.

I walked into the store carrying the same shopping bag which held the same shredded birthday wrapping paper and a few spices we gave last year. I quickly found the mandoline section, and the identical make and model. I walked over to the cash register, where I was next in line. I waited.

As is the case with most every Sur La Table, the registers sit in an island in the middle of the store. On the other side of the island from where I was standing, I noticed a white woman wearing a white turban following her toddler around the island, probably to keep the child from breaking everything in sight.

Something metal fell and made a crashing sound. But it wasn't the child who caused the crash, it was a man who I assumed was her husband: A white male wearing a white turban. He sported a huge red beard that would put the ZZ Top guitarists to shame. And the guy was NFL lineman size, as in freakishly humongous.

The man slowly made his way around the island clumsily knocking things over. A can of spatulas here, a wooden bowl there. As he made his way toward me, he reached for a green plastic cutting board and knocked that to the floor. Seeing's how I'm closer to the ground than he was, I decided to pick it up for him. He said "thanks" and proceeded to stand in line as impossibly close to me without knocking me over.

As he turned and joked about something to his lady friend, I felt myself leaning away from him at what felt like a 45 degree angle. I thought "Why the hell am I leaning over like this" so I straightened myself up, holding my ground and waiting to be smacked in the head with the next thing he knocked over.

Finally it was my turn at the register, so I stepped up and handed over the mandoline and my credit card. "I don't need a bag" I told the cashier, hoping to get out of there possibly three seconds sooner. As I was being rung up, NFL lineman guy asked if he could put his stuff on the counter, and I said yes. He put a tiny cutting board and a whisk on the counter in front of me. I couldn't help but wonder why such a large person would need to set a couple tiny things down. Too heavy for him?

The cashier handed over the new mandoline and the receipt. As I walked out of the store, I heard the crash of yet another kitchen item being knocked over. Clumsy.

Time

Running mundane errands like going into the bank makes me feel all old-timey and stuff. No direct or ATM deposits for this guy. Just walking up to the teller, handing over a check and getting a robotic human response and a receipt. That way I can rest assured my money isn't getting lost in some electronic garbage can.

But Chase Bank (my new bank that bought Washington Mutual which took over from Great Western which was the bank I went to when I closed my Washington Mutual account after I left the state of Washington) wanted to take this human interaction one step further.

I walked into a Santa Monica branch which is usually busy but was currently a ghost town. As in five tellers standing behind bulletproof glass with zero customers. I shoulda used my stopwatch to see how quickly I'd get out of there, because it might have broken a world record.

As I stood at the little island with the deposit slips, filling out a deposit slip, a man in a suit adorned with a piece of flair that read "Chase Bank" came up to me, said hello and asked if I was making a deposit. I looked up from my deposit slip and was about to say "uh, duh..." but instead told him that yeah I was about to make a deposit with these checks right here next to my deposit slip. Or something like that. He said "I'd be happy to help you with that, please come with me."

I have no recollection of why I didn't just say "No thanks" and walk up to the bulletproof glass and the tellers with nothing to do. Something about his spaced out gaze and his metered uneasy delivery was overriding my usually uncooperative nature.

This trip to his desk obviously wasn't going to put me in the Guinness Book of Fastest Checking Deposit World Records, but I went anyway. I sat down and handed him my deposit slip, check, and ID. Of course he didn't have any cash at his desk, so he had to have another employee fetch some. In the meantime, he asked me what I did for a living, which conveniently led us into a discussion of why I needed a business checking account.

Employee #2 came back and said "Here's your cash, sir" and set an envelope down on the desk. I continued telling employee #1 about why I didn't want or need a business checking account, but he interrupted me and asked "Aren't you going to count it? You should count it." His insistence made me nervous that there would be zero cash in there, so I opened it, and yes there was indeed the correct amount of money inside. But in 50s, not 20s like they do at the teller window. I knew it was a bad idea not to go to the teller. I told him "I really have to be getting back to work, so if you have any literature...."

A few more questions along the lines of "How much do you spend on groceries per month, how much on gas, how much on dining out, etc" and I knew the only way out was to politely leave. I told the employee "I have a meeting I have to get to, so if you have some literature, that would be great." He replied, "We can just do the application right now". He obviously had lost his mind somewhere, so I stood up from my seat and said "I really do have to get going now."

He pulled out a business checking pamphlet and his business card, which left a trail of white powder on his desk as he slid them across. We said our niceties, and as I left the bank, I deposited the pamphlet and his business card in the recycling bin. I saw a hand sanitizer dispenser and slathered some on. I pushed my way through the exit, leaving the tellers standing behind bulletproof glass still waiting for a customer. Perhaps I should reconsider depositing at the ATM.

Extra Width

The day had arrived. The day that would be mixed with unbelievable giddiness and unfathomable oldness. The giddiness was heading out to Palm Springs for my birthday. The oldness would be traveling there driving a minivan. When you get old, you drive a minivan. Fortunately it was only a rental.

My oldest friend in the world (not old meaning age, but old meaning how long we've known each other - since we were 10), Rob, had arrived from New York a few days earlier. Now it was time to pick up a car that could fit the two kids, Lily, Rob, myself, plus the luggage. That's where the minivan comes in.

We had decided just the night before to rent a minivan. Lily wanted to skip the added expense of a rental car, but all of us couldn't fit in our Passat wagon with the child safety seats. So we made a plan to drive both the Passat and my Golf to the desert. It sounded like it could work. But there was also the possibility that one or both cars could break down in the desert, in weather forecast to be above 100 degrees. So I made a car rental reservation online, and we were all set.

At around 10 am, Rob, Judah and I drove the Golf to the car rental site to pick up our minivan. We didn't see any minivans in the lot. Only a few cargo vans. We went inside and I started the rental process with Brandé, handing over my driver's license and credit card. I started having visions of jumping into the swimming pool in Palm Springs. Brandé told me they didn't have any minivans.

This is the part of the story where, if I were Bruce Banner I'd be turning into The Hulk and smashing the crap out of the car rental place. Instead, I opted for questioning why they didn't call me, why they couldn't find a minivan by late morning, etc. Brandé asked if I could wait a few hours until they found one, and I told her to cancel the reservation.

She handed me back my cards, and then asked if I wanted the Escalade instead. Rob and I turned to look out the window and saw a huge black Cadillac Escalade being washed in the carport. "It's being washed now, but it'll be ready in a few minutes" Brandé told us. Rob and I chuckled. "Big Pimpin" said Rob. "It's the perfect birthday mobile, so what the hell, we'll take it" I said to Brandé.

Moments later we were standing around the Escalade going over every inch of the monstrosity looking for scratches and dings. Brandé changed from facilitator to hardened businesswoman in an instant. We knew that she wasn't going to let any scratches through when we got back, so we had to find as many as we could. If there were a magnifying glass there to scan the car, we'd use it. The scratches we did find turned out to be just smudges that would wipe off easily. And soon I was signing the papers to be responsible for the Escalade and driving off the lot.

As I turned onto my street, I noticed stares from the neighbors and got a few jabs about the ridiculous factor. We loaded up the rig and got onto the freeway. It was fun figuring out all the bells and whistles: the navigation system, the USB hookup for music, and the seats with air conditioning inside. It was a comfy ride, albeit a tad unwieldy.

When we arrived at the Viceroy Hotel in Palm Springs, handing keys over to a valet seemed a lot more dicey than usual. The act made me regret not paying for the loss/damage protection at the rental place. But each time we needed the car, the Escalade came back unblemished. I made sure to tip the valet well.

And after the birthday shenanigans were over and we arrived home safely from Palm Springs, we drove the Escalade and the Golf back to the car rental place. As I attempted to make the corner to enter the lot, another renter was driving out. The driver saw me and my huge car and drove very slowly and very closely to make it around the Escalade. "This is where the car gets dinged, right outside the rental joint" I thought. But the other car made it around. I carefully steered around the other cars and found a clearing for the behemoth. I put it in park and breathed a sigh of relief.

Brandé helped us again, and she thoroughly scanned the car for any new damage, but there was none. She asked if the trip was fun. She handed over the completed rental agreement and told me "Happy Birthday".