December 22, 2004
Sometimes a meatball sub is just a meatball sub
Last night, I decided to trick you into having lunch with me, so I bought you a meatball sub. I know you could never turn down a meatball sub. I went to your office (mysteriously located on the College Park campus) but you were out, so there I was stuck with a meatball sub leaking in my purse. I sat down on a bench to consider my options--it seemed wasteful to throw it away; on the other hand, I had a perfectly good vegetarian sandwich for myself and didn't want to eat yours. A teenager walked up and asked me whether I was looking for you and I realized that this was your son. Luckily, he had inherited your love of the meatball sub. We had lunch and you showed up late, as usual, but by that time your son and I were the best of friends and your sandwich was just a grease-stained wrapper on the picnic table between us.
Posted by didofoot at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2004
Sara plain and banal
"Do you know what I'm thinking right now?" I say.
"Nope," says the Lad.
"I'm thinking, 'This is our first Christmas tree together,'" I say.
"Oh," he says, "yeah. I did know that. I can feel it seeping from your every pore."
Moment of silence while we hang paper stars.
"I took the bus to Kaiser today," I offer.
"Good for you," he says.
"Know what I think while I'm on the bus?" I ask.
"No."
"I'm on the bus! I'm on the bus! I'm on the bus!"
Posted by didofoot at 10:01 AM | Comments (4)
December 18, 2004
Retardosity
Today, from retardosity, I spent way too much money on ingredients for candy-making and learned some important lessons about cookery. It turns out that some kinds of chocolate mixtures will come out of a candy mold nicely, while other kinds will stick to the mold stubbornly and refuse to come loose and eventually you have to abort, with scraping and sadness and unpleasant goo. So I have a lovely pile of mint chocolate Christmas trees and three bowls of other variously-flavored chocolate mixtures glowering at me balefully in the refrigerator and refusing to conform. If they bust out their long chocolate trench coats I am expelling them to the trash. We also got a (real) Christmas tree today, for which I have made several ornaments, none of which came out looking like the pictures on the DIY websites, but more like sad, lumpy balls of ribbon and paper.
I have that feeling you get when you're a little kid trying to do a craft and your hands are too pudgy and uncoordinated and everything is frustrating and ugly and you just have to burst into tears and be comforted by your Girl Scout leader. Except my hands aren't pudgy. But with these holiday failures I feel like I'm in a realm somewhere between handicrafts and handicapped. I think possibly I am handicrapped.
Posted by didofoot at 03:42 PM | Comments (2)
December 13, 2004
Leavin'
As of January 18, I will be a free and unemployed woman. Please enjoy this small tribute to my past two years of employment at the good old U of C at B.
(To the tune of "Leaving's not leaving," by Leann Rimes, a song I have never actually heard):
Sometimes the time comes along
When it's time
Time to move on
Wasn't all bad
We watched Peterson burn
Bureaucratic delays ain't all that I learned
Leaving's not leaving
'Cause I'm not leaving you behind
You'll always be Berkeley
And you're not hard to find
A massive Goliath
Stolen two good years of my time
Taken my eyesight
I can't run off when I'm blind
There was debt and despair
And coworkers who don't really care
Let's not go there
When Chinese myths are gone
My cowboy boss through
Despair lingers on
Leaving's not leaving
'Cause I'm not leaving you behind
I've left a paper trail
(A paper trail)
I know the feds will find
Wherever I'm goin'
I'll be dragged back and fined
Leaving's not leaving
When it's fraud that you've co-signed.
I'll hold on to the memory
Of the days when I was so carefree
A filing clerk downstairs
Now I just wish I could be there
Leaving's not leaving
'Cause I'm not leaving you behind
I might never be free
(might never be free)
I might have to serve time
Wherever I'm goin'
You ain't no good friend of mine
Leaving's not leaving
When I've left my youth behind
Leaving's not leaving
When I've left my youth behind
Posted by didofoot at 04:26 PM | Comments (13)
December 03, 2004
Disneyland
Disneyland was, as it should be, a highly surreal experience. The peak of this is Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, in which you, as Toad, take a threatening journey culminating when you die in an explosion of dynamite. The ride then moves into a Hell room complete with small furious demons and a leering cartoon Satan. Then, without resuscitation or redemption, the ride is over. I can't think how parents are explaining this one to their young. I wish I had thought to listen in on a post-ride conversation, but I assume it would go something like this:
Toddler: Mommy, why we have to go to hell?
Mom: Well, honey...uh...
Toddler: Look, Mommy, Wee the Pooh!
Mom: Thank God.
Michele and I made up a song about it, as follows:
"Mr. Toad's Wild Ride:
You know it's over, 'cause you've died."
Terse, yes, but I think it gets the important point across.
Apart from surrealism, the other important thing to notice about Disneyland is its overwhelming, unapologetic WASPishness. They've got the park all dolled up for Christmas, with almost every surface covered in lights, ornaments, and greenery. Even the rides are Christmas'd-out: A Small World alternates its theme song with "Jingle Bells," and the Haunted Mansion has been combined with A Nightmare Before Christmas to effectively suck the last vestiges of scariness out of the park. Now, being commercialian, I love Christmas, so this was all very exciting for me, but I kept wondering what happens to the Jewish smallfry who visit in the winter months.
The rides are just more of the same. I don't think I need to go into the spear-chucking headhunters on the Jungle Cruise, or the unilateral national snobbery of A Small World. And we all know where Splash Mountain's Brer Rabbit comes from. If this were not enough, the entrance to the park is decorated with large signs declaring "Chinese and dogs not allowed." Ok, that one I made up.
I'm certain that California Land more than makes up for this stuff by its clear, honest look at California history. My favorite ride is the Internment Fun Coaster. You start off owning several acres of fertile Californian farmland, and by the end of the ride you are just one among thousands of imprisoned, disenfranchised Japanese living in horrible conditions outside the state. I hear that Big Recall Mountain is also very good. And let's not overlook the '89 Earthquake Squeeze, where the upper span of the Bay Bridge collapses on your head, crushing you to death!
Pictures here, thanks to Michele
Posted by didofoot at 03:17 PM | Comments (1)
