One
Despite having “KC Masterpiece” carefully written down on my Costco shopping list, and despite having repeated “KC Masterpiece, KC Masterpiece” in my head as I searched for it in the sauce aisle, I looked at Mr. Yoshida’s Original Gourmet Sauce and my brain immediately said, “Yes! This is the KC Masterpiece sauce I am looking for!” and so I purchased it. It wasn’t until I got home and went to put it in the refrigerator that my brain caught up to reality and realized that KC Masterpiece is not spelled Y-O-S-H-I-D-A.
Two
My car went in for an ordinary service check this past week, and I found out that its turbo boost was broken and quite possibly had been broken for some time.
“You didn’t notice you weren’t accelerating as quickly?” asked the mechanic.
“Not really,” I said. “I mean, I noticed cars were honking at me more when I merged onto the highway, but I just figured that I was getting older and driving slower.”
I. The In-Laws
We received a voicemail from Chris’s parents not long ago. Chris had left his cell phone charger at work so during his vacation, he kept his cell phone off and called into it daily to check messages.
On New Year’s Day, I got a message on my cell phone from Chris’s father, which consisted of, “Hi, we’ve been trying to reach Chris all night but his phone keeps going straight to voicemail so I hope everything’s okay and nothing’s happened. Give us a call. Just wanted to wish you a happy new year’s day. We’re going to bed soon, so we’ll talk to you later.”
Translation:
- We are worried. Call us immediately.
- Nothing important, just saying Happy New Year’s.
- We are going to bed now. Don’t call us.
II. My parents
An email received from my father while he was on vacation:
hi JANE, wE stay one night in Taihiti; three nights in Moorea and now in Bora Bora. Weather does not complete coorporated. But still can survive. We see lots of fish? The famous so call bunglerow water house. We sleep over the glass window if we like see fish or snorking in back to se them. That is new. We are safe and will be back Taihiti tommorrow tostay couple more night before back to LA? We did see Santa last night in here ( party); To dark. I am going qick talk to you. Hope you have fun time. Please say hello to Chris. Dad
Translation:
- Hey, I think my caps lock is on.
- Man, I thought this weather was going to be better.
- Our bungalow has a glass bottomed floor, through which we can see many fish, or we can snorkel out back. This is pretty cool.
- I am not quite clear on where all the keyboard keys are located; thus I will sometimes end sentences with a question mark, giving my email an unintended uncertain tone.
- There was a Christmas party here last night. Someone dressed up as Santa.
- It’s too dark to see now, so I have to go. Please translate this message to Chris.
you want to switch grocery stores because the plastic bags they use to bag the groceries fit your trash cans better.
My memories of the holiday season, 2007-2008:
- Chris playing video games. Not the one where he has to yell, “Spawn on me!” but the one where he yells, “This server sucks! Switch to a new one!”
- Our front hallway gradually filling up with empty Amazon boxes, eventually spilling over into the living room so that we were unable to reach the front door.
- Miss de Mina searching her beds and all the other usual places, rejecting toys she encountered until she located the chickie, thus showing she knows what she wants, if we ever doubted it.
- Stanley (we suspect) dragging his stinky bunny into the pink snuggle sack and leaving it carefully tucked in for us to discover the next day.
- Paco attempting to trick me into treating him by hiding in his bedroom until I came upstairs, and then doing his “I made a poo on the paper” dance, regardless of whether there was actual poo on the paper or not.
- John Pinette hilariously performing at the Comedy Connection on New Year’s Eve, leading me to, on the one hand, fear that he’s going to die early from his weight, and on the other hand, hope he doesn’t lose weight because most of his humor is based on that.
- Christmas at the in-laws, including celebrating my brother-in-law’s birthday and Chris’s birthday. Guess which one they forgot to invite me to.
- Knitting for limited amounts of time, due to hands that were in pain from shoveling too much snow, thus resulting in a lovely sweater perfect for a small baby with half an arm.
- Playing Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii in coooperative mode, which meant that Chris did all the actual work and kindly let me believe that I was assisting by capturing falling gems, even though most of the time my Wii remote was off the TV screen.
- My mother and father, having successfully flown to California and Bora Bora, returning home to Boston only to get lost trying to get from the baggage claim area to the outside of the building where we were waiting to pick them up.
- Zingermans. More to follow on that later.
- Work. Work. Work. More work.