…you clean up the house to get ready to sell it, and it is so clean that not only can’t you find any of your stuff, but the dog trots around the house with the chickie in her mouth and has to stop every few feet to look up at you like, “Where the fuck have all my beds gone?”
Posted by: ssjane | November 27, 2007 | 10:58 am
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If this isn’t a clear signal for us to move to Chicago, I don’t know what is:
Complaints in Four-Part Harmony
Posted by: ssjane | November 5, 2007 | 4:28 pm
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We only got 160 kids. This is a LOW number for our neighborhood and now we have a bag and a half of cheap candy left! I guess the church is doing its job of keeping kids away from trick or treating. That’s God: 1, Satan: 0.
Posted by: ssjane | November 1, 2007 | 8:20 pm
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We are now one hour and 15 minutes into the hellhole known as Halloween, and I’m beginning to wonder if we over-prepared this year.
As a birthday gift to me, Chris offered to man the door. I am afraid of children, so I accepted happily.
Chris bought three giant bags of candy from Target earlier today (marked down, because last year we spent about $30 on candy purchased prior to Halloween, and this year we said let them eat el cheapo gum), and was under strict orders to not let the children choose their own piece (or pieces, depending on how greedy they were) of candy. So far he’s only distributed one bag’s worth. However, the church at the end of our street, which last year was the source of the extra 200 kids we received, is once again holding a “Harvest Festival” which ends at 8:30, so we’ll see if business picks up then.
The dogs do not care for Halloween either.
So far the only exciting costume was a young lad dressed as the squire from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Chris said, “He even had the coconuts!” and “His costume was so good I gave him TWO pieces of candy!” to which I said, “He came last year!! The kid with the coconuts!” and, deflated, Chris said, “Oh. I didn’t see him last year” and I said, “He might have come when you were out buying the emergency candy after the kids threatened to burn down the house when we ran out and I started passing out our own stock of crackers.”
Now that I think of it, I didn’t say all that out loud. But it was certainly what I was thinking.
Posted by: ssjane | October 31, 2007 | 8:01 pm
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Today I have had a most hideous day, in which I learned that justice in this country means that a realtor who embezzled your deposit money (for a house that you did not buy because she forged your initials on a purchase and sales agreement) can declare bankruptcy, never has to pay you back, and gets to return to her work-free, rent-free existence (courtesy of her mother who supports her) after having spent your hard-earned money on things that were far more important than a house we’d been saving for; namely, her Victoria’s Secret bills.
But I digress. Today’s post is about spam mail, not sociopathic ex-realtors.
I don’t have an employer-specific email address because I’m a contractor, so I use a free Gmail account. Sure, Gmail’s occasionally tardy with emails, but the spam filter works great and I haven’t had any major issues, especially since I never use this email address for anything but work.
Apparently, though, the spam filter doesn’t work so great on people who deliberately send you email, even though it’s a version of you that you don’t know.
Today’s spam was addressed to a total of three people, including me. All three people were named by first and last name. Rather surprisingly, my first and last name were spelled correctly. I’ll be honest; there are people I’ve known for years and see regularly, and just last week I got an email from one of them and my last name was spelled wrong. This email was from a stranger and read as follows:
Please join us for a BFW post partum brunch potluck, held at Center Space, 420 SE 6th Ave between Stark and Oak, from 9:30 -11:30am on Sunday, November 11th.
Bring your lovely little one(s), a yummy treat to share, and your stories of life as a new parent in Portland!We look forward to seeing you on the 11th.
Bright Blessings,
Nicole Sanson-Frey & the Moving Through Team–
Nicole Sanson-Frey
Birth Doula, Prenatal Yoga Instructor, Birthing From Within Childbirth Mentor
movingthrough@gmail.com
www.movingthrough.com
I was a bit surprised to receive this, given that:
Perhaps the saddest part was that this was not my first email from Nicole Sanson-Frey. About a year ago I got a message from her, and I remember this because how many post partum brunches do YOU get invited to by name? Imagine if you got a penis enlargement solicitation that ended with, “…and we mean you, [your name here].”
Anyway, when I received her first email, I wrote back politely and said I did not know her and that I was not pregnant nor had I given birth recently. And also, I did not live anywhere near her facility. She apologized and said she would remove me from the list.
After today’s email, I was more irritated. I mean, it’s not like she had a huge email list and had forgotten to remove my name — there were only TWO others on the list.
I still had no idea how she’d gotten my name, and so I came to the only conclusion possible: clearly, I had a doppelganger who was intent on using my email address for evil. And post partum potluck brunches.
I thought about a Magnetic Fields song I’d listened to recently, I Wish I Had An Evil Twin*, in which Stephin Merrit sings wistfully, “All my life there should have been an evil twin.”
I had one, and she came with…children.
*For the more computer-illiterate among you, wait until the screen completely loads and then click on the arrow to the right of “I Wish I Had An Evil Twin.”
Posted by: ssjane | October 24, 2007 | 11:34 pm
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Posted by: ssjane | September 29, 2007 | 9:43 pm
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Yesterday Chris came up to me while I was working on the computer and told me his friend’s wife had their baby on Saturday. He said, “23 hours of labor.”
I said, “That’s about what my boss had, I think.”
“TWENTY-THREE HOURS OF LABOR!” he shouted. “I do not want to see you go through that!”
“I wouldn’t!” I said. “I’d get a c-section. If Britney Spears got through a c-section fine, I can, too!”
“I DON’T WANT TO SEE MY WIFE SUFFER!!!” and then he went downstairs, moaning and randomly shouting NO and NOT MY WIFE and TWENTY-THREE HOURS.
Posted by: ssjane | September 18, 2007 | 9:02 pm
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Spotted today on the Mass Pike, a handwritten sign covering the entire back windshield of a van:
Real Americans Don’t Protest.
We support our troops.
I guess the guy driving the van is still pretty pissed about how we don’t have slaves anymore, women can vote, and we’re not still in Vietnam.
Posted by: ssjane | September 15, 2007 | 1:58 pm
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Yesterday about 12 flies were killed during the day. The breakdown:
Today I have killed only 2 flies so far. The first one was smashed against the French doors in our dining room, which seems to be a popular spot for the flies to congregate. The dogs like to sit on pillows on the floor just inside the French doors where they can get a lot of sunshine. Now, as soon as the dogs see me coming with the flyswatter, they get up and stand underneath the dining room table and eye me nervously. They have not yet figured out whether I am just very mad at the flyswatter or whether the doors are the ones who have displeased me.
The other fly died when it landed on the outside of the potato chip bag. I was so incensed at the sight of my beloved potato chips becoming possibly contaminated that I whacked the fly very hard with the flyswatter; so hard that I couldn’t figure out where the fly, dead or alive, had gone afterwards.
I later found the head of the fly stuck to the outside of the toaster oven door and its body in the sink.
Posted by: ssjane | August 27, 2007 | 12:05 pm
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From CNN:
At age 30, the human body’s major organs begin to decline
I don’t even know how my feeble skin is keeping my major organs contained.
Posted by: ssjane | August 23, 2007 | 10:54 am
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