Andrea and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Laundry Night - a true yet pointless story

 I miss my old laundry nights; waiting out the wash and dry cycles on a barstool with a beer in front of me and Cash Cab on closed caption above me, and the occasional conversation from people next to me, perhaps even the friendly dog under the barstool below me. 

Alas, that life is gone. Even when things get back to normal, it'll never be the same. 

Laundry Night may be no more, but I still have laundry to wash. 

I went to the laundromat yesterday. When I got there, I was stoked because there was a parking right in front, the bonus spot where the wifi from the laundromat reaches the car. I'll be able to watch Shark Tank on Hulu during the wash cycles. Good sign, I thought. But I thought wrong. When I went in, all of the machines that use credit cards were taken, leaving only the smaller, coin operated ones. All the good ones, the ones that have a bigger capacity were taken by one person, one person who only filled up her washers half way, one person who hadn't even started her loads yet and was nowhere to be seen. Total dick move and really awful laundromat etiquette.  Earlier in the day I found a $20 in the pocket of a jacket I hadn't worn in a while. Luckily I was wearing that jacket and it still had the $20 inside the pocket. I feared, however, the coin machine would be out of coins because of the coin shortage I keep hearing about. Luckily the machine did have enough coins, but the tray the coins collect into is curved and shallow so I had to pick up the quarters off the floor that spilled out. I had all my clothes in machines and washing before the person who had taken all the good washers arrived. I did a mean thing, One of my washers ended before hers so I quickly distributed all my clothes into 5 dryers so when the rest of my wash was complete, I had access to dryers. What? Sure it was petty, but she was washing area rugs and quilts. There was no freaking way I was going to wait for her to finish before my clothes got to go into the dryer. While my clothes were drying, I went to order dinner on my phone from the burger place right next door to the laundromat, thinking I could order so the food would be ready for pick up in 45 minutes. I ran into some disappointment, however when I realized this burger place doesn't have shakes on its GrubHub menu. I went into the burger place and asked the cashier if I could place an order to pick up in 45 minutes. She said the only way I could do that is to use Grub Hub. I told her that the Grub Hub menu didn't have a shake option, only a soda option. She said that was my only option. To shake or not to shake, that was my option. I ended up ordering burgers via Grub Hub and going to the market a few doors down to buy a pint of ice cream instead of getting a shake. I was bummed, though. One shake is just the right amount of shake split into three servings, the number of people I was feeding. When I went to retrieve my laundry, everything was too hot, because I was all haughty and secured the dryers for myself, I'm guessing. Serves me right, probably. I went home, brought the laundry, the dinner and the ice cream inside. We ate dinner. I dug the sheets out of the laundry bag, made the beds and saved the rest of the laundry to fold the next day. After, we all had a scoop or two of ice cream, watched some Ink Master, brushed our teeth and went to bed.

I guess it could have been worse. 

Lychees - A True Yet Pointless Story

I saw this article yesterday that there are now seedless lychees. I would like to give them a try. I have a feeling though, that they are going to be just as yummy as a seedless watermelon, in that they will still be good, but something will be missing. Although the seeds do get in the way, they seem to encourage the production of better flavor within the fruit, a necessary evil perhaps.

Anyhooozle, when I think of Lychees I think of this woman I used to work with many moons ago at a company that specialized in selling 6' tall wooden giraffes and had a wall of sample sized foreign snacks. She grew up in China. She said she and her brother would pick bags and bags full of lychees and then their mom would throw them in the freezer and they would have lychees all year round. She had lychees every day. Lychees eaten plain. Frozen lychees. Lychees fresh from the tree. Lychees thawed out. Lychee in bread. Lychee in stir fry. Lychee in dessert. Lychee sherbet. Lychee jello (now *that* sounds really freaking refreshing). OOOH! Lychee Agua Fresca sounds delicious.

If given the opportunity to taste a seedless lychee, I totally would. Until that time comes, however, I will stick to the regular kind with little to no complaint.

48.50? - A True Yet Pointless Story

Some weeks are so unexpectedly busy. Last week I went to Back-to-School night at Pua's school. I always like Back-to-School night. I love sitting in my kids' desks, leaving them a little note in their desk (You rock! I'm proud of you!). I liked listening to the teacher present the curriculum and watch their style and demeanor. It gives me a bit of insight into the person who is spending a good part of their day with my kid. I like Pua's teacher this year. In fact, I've liked all her teachers thus far.  School events I absolutely dread are General Parent Meetings. At my kids' old school they were mandatory. They were long. They were amusingly boring. I usually sat in the back and listened to music.

Anyhow, when Back-to-School night was over, Pua very sweetly convinced me to spend a bit of time at the nearby playground. Half hour later we were driving home. We had hit that point in my head where I decided it was too late, I didn't have time to make dinner; I'd have to buy it.
We stopped at Lucky on the way home I picked up some fried chicken from the deli counter and a bag of salad. I also took a stroll through the whiskey aisle. I saw that my favorite hooch was on sale, and on close-out. I grabbed a bottle (should have grabbed 2, it was a great price). I had my fried chicken, I had my bag of salad, and I had my deli ham for the kids' sandwiches today (sorry I forgot to mention the ham before).

Checker scans my stuff. Scans the whiskey and it doesn't register.
Checker: It isn't scanning, do you know how much this was?
Me: $28.98
Checker nods and starts pressing buttons. No dice. Checker presses more buttons, shrugs and grunts.
Checker (to himself): $48.50, that sounds about right.
Me: Um, no, it was $28.98
Checker: ugh, OK. $28.50

I bought my fried chicken, bag of salad, whiskey (for $28.50), my deli ham, an oh yeah, a box of store-brand pop-tarts and went home.

We didn't get home until after our regular dinner time, We ate our chicken and salad. I had a glass of whiskey, and I didn't accomplish anything I had planned to do.

The Snoopy Wallet - A true yet pointless story about a Christmas Gift

I was probably about 10 years old. My mom took me to the Hallmark store at what was once Los Altos shopping Center in Long Beach. She stayed outside the store while I went inside and looked around. I found the perfect gift for my mom. It was a yellow Snoopy wallet. I remember overhearing how she needed a new wallet and for some reason I had it in my head that she really loved Peanuts. I ran outside the store very excited about the wallet, told my mom how much her Christmas present would cost. She gave me the money and I went inside and paid for it.

Later when I was at home I showed my sister the wallet. I was so proud of myself for getting my mom such a fantastic gift. How could she love the gift? It was a bright yellow wallet with Snoopy on it. My sister and her friend laughed and told me it was a kid's wallet an my mom would never like it. My excitement suddenly turned went all pear shaped.

On Christmas morning I woke up dreading when my mom would open her present. Sure, I was excited to open presents and such, but I was really concerned my mom wasn't going to like the gift. I hid it under the Christmas Tree skirt, then when there were no more gifts to open save for the boxes of candy my mom would get from her patients and clients at work, that she would never ever open because she knew what was inside, so they just sat there, wrapped, uneaten until after Christmas, I took the wallet, unwrapped it and showed it to my mom. She saw it and said "That's cute, who gave you that?" I burst into tears and told her that I bought it for her, but my sister and her friend (who my dad always called Samantha, but it wasn't her real name) told me she wouldn't like it. My mom hugged me, told me she liked it and then used the wallet until the wallet died, which was probably only a few months; it was really small and made of plastic.

Still, she used it until it could no longer be used.

Merry Christmas.

Trickle Down Economics - A Pointless Rant about Water Walter

I have never been the kind of mom who enjoys going to playgrounds. I don't really like going to the playground. Now that my kids are older and I don't need to be with them the whole time, and I can sit on a bench and read, the playground is OK, but for the most part, the playground has never been my jam. One of the things that bother me at playgrounds is the other adults; not all of them, just some of them. Like the ones who think it's OK to sit on the play structures and play on their phones, blocking the kids' path and thwarting every single game of "the sand is lava."

One thing I do like about the playgrounds in my neighborhood is the unspoken rule of sand-toy sharing. If a kid leaves their toys in the sand and then say, goes to play on the swings, their toys are fair game for other kids to play with so long as they don't take the toys out of the sandbox and they stop playing with the toys when it's time to pack them up and go home. I don't know if this is common in other neighborhoods, but it is in mine. It is a good practice.

Anywhoozle, I had me an incident a few weeks ago.

Pua and I were at the playground. There were a lot of kids there that day and a good number of them were playing in the sand, making trips to and from the water fountain filling their buckets and cups in the dispenser for water bottles.

Pua started playing with some boys, 2nd or 3rd grade looking. She going back and forth to the fountain and sandbox filling their bucket. Pua was happy to stand in line with all the other kids at the fountain waiting to fill her bucket. On one particular trip to the fountain, she and a grown-up, a grown ass man, were walking to the fountain. He beat her to the fountain with his gallon sized bucket and started filling his, before letting her fill her pint sized bucket. I walked over to them. I asked him why he didn't let her go first. Her pint sized bucket would take only 30 seconds to fill, his gallon sized bucket was going to take a 4 minutes (I know, I did the math). He said "we're working together." I looked at what he thought "working together" was. Her bucket was at the bottom of the fountain picking up all of the water that came out of the leaky pipes. I looked at the man and said "Ah, Trickle Down Economics, nice." The man got a weird look on his face, then gave me a really dirty look; (Ok so to him 10 out of 10 getting the reference, but negative several million points for actually thinking that method is fair.)

With her trickles from the leaky water dispenser, Pua and I then walked back to the sandbox. He followed me and asked me if I was upset with him. I told him that he should have let her go first since her bucket was so tiny and he was a grown-ass man with a gallon-sized bucket, 8 times bigger than her little bucket. He said he was filling water for his daughters sandbox. I told him that's all well and good, but they were the only two at the fountain at the time, and the decent and grown up thing to do would have been to let the little girl take 30 seconds to fill her bucket and not make her wait 4 minutes for him to fill his.

He got in my face and with weird bits of spit in the corners of his mouth, asked me loudly if I was accusing him of depriving my daughter of water. I told him I wasn't accusing him of depriving her of water, I was accusing him of establishing dominance over her and making her pick up his scraps by telling her to collect the water from the leaky pipes. He stared at me in disbelief. I stared at him until he broke the gaze, then I got up and walked over to another seat at the other side of the sandbox.

Turns out the boys Pua was playing with were his sons. They scolded him for not letting her go first and then followed it up with "Dad, just let it go. We're playing nicely," they said.
For the rest of our time at the playground we sat at opposite ends of the sandbox, glaring at each other and watching our respective kids play together nicely.

Me and Hyla-O Down by the Schoolyard - a true yet pointless story

My car, my music.

In general, I don't listen to regular radio much. Most of my music is enjoyed in a form such that I don't hear a lot of current songs or new artists. I listen to Sirius, Pandora and my ipod. All three of those musical avenues are all pretty targeted and mostly tailored to me. I listen to First Wave with Richard Blade, Deep Tracks with Jim Ladd, Classic Vinyl on Sirius, whatever strikes my mood on Pandora (I've been listening to a lot of Phyllis Dillon or Adrian Belew lately) and my ipod, filled with guilty pleasures, hula stuff and the one-off songs my kids ask me to add.

I'm always excited when my kids sing the music I like. It's like I'm passing along to them not only a snapshot of music and history they wouldn't otherwise be exposed to, but also I'm sharing with them a piece of myself I wouldn't know how to otherwise share; an intangible understanding of my inner-self. I stood up a little taller the day my boy was annoyed he couldn't get "Thela Hun Ginjeet" out of his head and the time my little one busted out with L'Trimm (we're Tigre and Bunny and we like the boom) while she was coloring quietly on the living room floor.

It's one thing to actively expose my kids to my music in the car, but something happened yesterday that just turned my love of sharing music with my kids to 11. My love of sharing music with my kids just created its own intelligent life.

My daughter came home from work today and said "Mom, I heard this song today and I can't get it out of my head."

I asked her what it was (hoping it wasn't Caribbean Queen by Billy Ocean) and she told me it was "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" by Paul Simon. Paul Simon? She likes Paul Simon? She got a Paul Simon song stuck in her head?

She heard a song that I have loved all my life an she liked it too, all on her own! Yay. It made me happy.

In the early 80's, Saturday Night Live reruns played at 11pm weeknights. During the summer it was my goal, my duty even, to stay up until 11 and watch SNL. One night, I must have been about 10 or 11, a rerun with Paul Simon came on. During Weekend Update, we saw Paul Simon play a game of basketball with Connie Hawkins, while "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" played. That song instantly became my favorite song of the moment. We had a Paul Simon album at home. I was so stoked to see that "Me and Julio..." was on it. I played it over and over and over again, practicing the whistling part until I got it down perfectly.

I looked for the clip on youtube but couldn't find it. I did find a recording of the song. I also found the transcripts for the SNL bit. Bummer I couldn't find what I was looking for.

47 - A True Yet Pointless Story w/ a Little TMI

When I was a kid, getting tickets to a musical or play was a pretty popular present in my house. We would get two tickets and we would get to choose who went with us to the show. One year I got tickets to go see Cats. I took my dad. We were sitting outside the theater waiting until it was time to go in. My dad stood up and looked around. I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was looking for someone he knew. I asked him if he was expecting to see anyone he knew and he said, humbly and matter-of-fact-ly, "no, but I know a lot of people."
One year my sister got tickets to see Evita staring Patty LuPone. Another sister got tickets to Sunset Blvd. One year all of us got tickets to the ballet Don Quixote. I think I was about 10. I remember being really excited to watch a ballet, but falling asleep quickly once the show started.
The VERY BEST show I went to was Peter Pan staring Sandy Duncan at The Pantages.  Oh my gosh you guys. Peter Pan flew right above me. right. above. me. So cool.
That show I took one of my sisters. She drove a light blue Camaro. On our way home she got off the freeway early because she wanted to drive by The Pike. She got lost and super turned around. I had to pee really really badly. When she finally righted herself and figured out her way home, she told me that the longer I held my pee, the longer peeing time I would have. Then she told me some tall tale about her friend Gretchen who once held her pee from Big Bear to Long Beach and peed for two whole minutes.  As soon as I got home, I ran to the bathroom and peed, and counted. I made it to 27.
So, tonight I went out. I considered peeing before I left my house, but stupidly decided against it. When I got to my destination I had to pee like a racehorse tinkle quite urgently. I went into the bathroom and ....... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ...... I got up to 47.

Math and Blasphemy - true, yet pointless story

So my boy is starting to learn his times tables.

I have a bit of a hard time helping him with math because the methods he's being taught to solve his math problems differ from how I was taught to solve them. I can show him how I get to the answer but I have a hard time showing him how he's supposed to get to the answer the common core way. We get through it, but sometimes it takes a bit longer than other times.

I remember my first introduction to times tables.

 I was in the 3rd grade. My teacher drew a grid on the chalkboard and started telling a story about how Lot and his wife were looking to build a house and they needed to figure out how many bricks they needed. I, of course, got my Bible out during math class (remember, I went to a parochial school) and searched for the story of Lot and his wife building a house. I couldn't find it. I searched and searched. Once his wife turned into a pillar of salt, I figured I'd gone a chapter or two too far. I would go back to the beginning of Genesis 11 (where Lot and his wife make their first appearance) and start my search again.

 When I couldn't find any reference to L and his wife building a house and not being able to figure out their brick needs I raised my hand. I questioned the teacher about her story. She said it wasn't actually in the Bible. She was making it up to illustrate how to do times tables.

I was so mad at her. I scolded her for being a blasphemer in front of the class.

Lot and his wife and their housing problems never came up again.

In Which I Watched the News and Talked About Tigger

NOTE- I found this blog post in my drafts file. Thought I'd clean it up and post it.


So it was a Sunday in October 1991.

I had lived in San Francisco for about 6 weeks. I had just moved into a flat with 2 of my friends and a guy I'd met a few times but didn't really know very well, who would very shortly become my friend, and a friend I'd have to this day. Two of my roommates were in Long Beach for the weekend, the other was at work.

I was in my bedroom, unpacking, making my very first room in my very first new apartment my very own. I was a little worried because it was getting late and my roommates hadn't made it back from Long Beach yet.

I turned on my TV. It was the only TV in the house. My 3rd roommate hadn't quite moved all his stuff from his old apartment yet. He had the "good" tv. My TV was a 13" black and white TV where the volume liked to fluctuate at random.

I turned on the news, learned of the Oakland Hills Fire, and like it is with most disaster-type things on TV and me, I couldn't tear myself away. I knew Oakland was on the other side of the Bay Bridge, but I didn't know my geography well enough to know where the affected area was. I was really mad at the news for not showing a map of the area with a pinpoint of where the fire was.

When I was really engrossed in the TV, the doorbell rang. I ran downstairs and answered it. It was this guy I knew from Elementary school and Junior High. I recognized him right away. I had no idea why he was at my house. I had no idea he was friends with one of my new roommates. I don't even know if he knew I lived there.

I let him in. I knew him, after all. We sat in front of my 13" black and white TV and watched the fire spread on the news. We also talked about Tigger, and whether the area under his chin was orange or white. I had a poster on my wall were Tigger's area under his chin was white. He had a tattoo on his ankle? arm? of Tigger where the are under his chin was orange. Al Gore hadn't yet made the internet ubiquitous yet, at least to the extent where we could log on to Prodigy or AOL and look it up. We talked about it for a good hour.



He hung out for a few hours, then left. He never saw our friend / my new roommate. And come to think of it, although I'm friends with this guy on Facebook, I don't think I've seen him since that day.

In summary:
My roommates got home later that night all safe and sound, totally oblivious to the fire that was happening.
I had a pretty pleasant afternoon setting up my first new home, watching the news, talking about Tigger and getting to know someone that I'd known since at least 2nd grade.

My Personal Beef with Rod Carew

OK, not really, but he did disappoint me.

 I'm sure he's a lovely person and if I ever met him I would shake his hand and tell him how awesome it was to meet him. Rod Carew had an awesome career. I would be incredibly honored to meet him.

I played softball from when I was about 8 and I played on my first team The Foxy Sox until I got to high school and decided boys were more fun. I was never very good, but I had a good time and got the job done. When I first started, they stuck me out in right field, but then when they could see that I had a good arm, I was moved to catcher and left field. I had no bat, but I had an arm.

Growing up my folks took my sister and me to a lot, and I mean a lot of baseball games. Sometimes we would go to Dodger Stadium but most of the time we would usually go to Anaheim Stadium to see the California Angels. My mom was a bigger Angel fan and Anaheim was closer to us than going all the way to LA. I loved watching Rod Carew play first base. He was my 2nd favorite Angel.

We never bought programs at games. My mom would very rarely buy us one. One time she actually caved and bought us a program. There was a page in the program with a profile on Rod Carew. It listed his birthday; same as mine. I was so freaking stoked when I found out Rod Carew and I had the same birthday. I used my own money to buy him a birthday card and with it, I sent him a picture of me from my softball team, a 5x7 picture, and even autographed it. I must have been about 10 or 11 years old.

I had it all played out in my head. He would receive my card, chuckle that a 10 year old girl sent him an autographed picture of herself and then race off to the post office with a complementary package to send to me.

It never happened. So bummed.

DJ; Then and Now

Recently Hubby's cousin went on a mission to convert her videos to digital. Lucky me because a few months ago she sent us a DVD of the video she shot at Hubby's and my wedding reception. It was a lot of fun to look at. There was a lot of "Wow she looks so young," and "Oh, I was so skinny there," and "Who is that?"

Fast forward 17 years.

In December I organized my company's holiday party. It was super fun. One of the things I did was hire a DJ. I hired DJ Tom Thump. I have to admit, I picked his name off of yelp solely based on his name; Tom Thump. Of course I read all of his ratings on Yelp. Of course I googled him to find out more about him. Of course I talked to him to see if he would be the right fit. Of course I looked online for some samples of his stuff. (I found this by the way. I listen to it when I am working on expenses or when I'm knee-deep in excel files).

So it's a week or so after the holiday party. I'm sitting on my couch watching the wedding DVD that Hubby's cousin had just sent me and I stopped in my tracks. This is what I saw.
Tom Thump was the DJ at my wedding reception.

How strange is that?




Anyway, my wedding reception was 17 years ago and I don't remember every detail about Mr. Thump's performance, but at my company's holiday party, he totally rocked it. You should hire him for your next event where you need a DJ.