Slow on the uptake

The current play that I'm in (which is going splendidly and is making people laugh, yay), is chock full of jokes. So many that there are still lines that I hear seemingly for the first time every night. After opening weekend, one of my cast mates posted on his Facebook status that he just now got one of the jokes in the show. After 6 weeks of hearing it over and over again. Sadly this joke is one of the more obvious ones, so none of us could let that go without ridicule. He's been mocked relentlessly for a) not getting it in the first place, and b) admitting it in a public forum. And I've been casting my stones of mockery his way (it is rather fun), until today when I realized 6 weeks doesn't even compare to the length of time it took me to get one of the first jokes of my life.

My parents both have (or had) very dark black and brown hair, so imagine their surprise when precious little me popped out with a head covered with bright orange hair. People would take one look at them, and one look at me and ask them, "Where on Earth did she get her red hair?"

Once I could start stringing words together, they taught me to respond, "From the milkman." And people would laugh. Oh, it was a lovely party trick. What a witty little kid, a witty little kid who was unknowingly indicting her mother as being unfaithful to her father with a delivery man.

But we always had our milk delivered. So I just assumed that it was something that he had left for us. Like my mom had taken in the order form and thought, "Hmmmm, what do we need this week? Yep, two gallons of 2% and hair for the kid. That oughta do it." And to a little kid, the absurdity of the milkman leaving may hair in the box was funny. Funny enough to keep answering the question.

One day, when I was twenty and in college, I was just sitting around not doing or thinking much, when out of nowhere a light bulb came on. The milkman? If I got my hair from the milkman, it wasn't because he left it with the milk on the porch. No. He had definitely gone farther than the porch, like all the way around the bases with Mom. I get it now.

So, Kowalski, I will try hard to no longer ridicule you because 20 years is an awfully long time to be in the dark.

The drooling on myself has commenced

I have joined the 21st-century. Actually, I've probably joined the late 20th-century. A little over a week ago, I buckled and ordered DirecTV. After four plus years of receiving 3-5 channels, rabbit years, snow, and scrolling squiggles, I've upgraded to 200 channels (did you know there's a channel that just shows scary movies 24/7?), high-definition, and DVR. Oh DVR, how did I ever live without you?

Note to self: becoming a couch potato, while tempting, is not the newest addition on the to do list of life.

I admit, I was a hater. I was quite righteous about my decision to not have cable. In the beginning, it was because I was on a strict budget. Then it was because I didn't feel like I needed to fill my time with mind-numbing "entertainment." Really there were only one or two shows that I regularly watched and I could get those with my rabbit ears and after awhile you (or I) wouldn't even notice the snow.

With the impending doom, otherwise known as the switch from analog to digital broadcasting coupled with the fact that I didn't get one of those certificates the government was handing out, I decided to bite the bullet. And I ended up with a mouthful.

And I know--and in the past have even uttered--the old adage that "there's nothing on TV." And that maybe true, but I'm loving nothing. And am recording all of it with the DVR to be watched at my leisure, whenever, you know, there's nothing on.

False alarm

Saturday morning, I had an early morning appointment across town. When I got there, I checked in with the receptionist and then realized that my phone had been on silent and I had a missed call.

I was early, so I decided to listen to the message. It was my home security company, there was an alarm event in progress at my house. Lovely. I quickly rescheduled my appointment and called the company back. Because they weren't able to reach me on the first call, they contacted my emergency contact who told them to send the police to the house. The emergency contact? My ex, the marinara jar. Lovelier.

Fortunately, there wasn't a break-in. I think after the kitchen remodel, the man who reinstalled the system put it on the most sensitive setting, which apparently picks up the movements of small animals in the motion detector (this happened two more times over the weekend, and all the previous times I've watched Hayden, it's never happened). This has definitely been the most eventful dog-sitting episode I've ever had.

Shortly after I returned home and found everything to be okay, I gave the jar a call, apologizing for the early morning disruption. As if that wasn't awkward enough, he was at his new girlfriend's house when he got the call. That had to be a fun one to explain. We had a good laugh about it--and it reminded him to change his contacts as he thinks that he may still have me listed. Time to update that.

And it got me thinking, that I need to carefully consider who I draft as emergency contacts. Not having any family around, or a significant other, makes emergency contacting hard. And putting a boyfriend on there, is almost like an advanced level commitment. Like when you go to a family wedding and an all-family picture is taken, and your aunt says that your boyfriend should be in the picture, because he's essentially family, and then he breaks up with you three weeks later, and your grandma has that family picture displayed, and it turns out he has more prominent exposure than you do because some tall uncle has stood in front of you and blocked your face.

I'm not going to take any more chances. Note to self: No ring? No family photos. No emergency contact status.

Where to begin?

Internets, as you know, I've been a bit of a laggard when it's come to posting these days. And apparently, when you neglect your blog, and seemingly have a dearth of "notes," the universe thinks its fitting to send you multiple notes simultaneously.

But because I have been a laggard, I won't throw all of the notes out at once, but spread them out over the next few posts. Welcome to the first in a series, note to self: remember to empty your bathroom trash bin before leaving the house.

I'm dog sitting for the Commish and Monster, something I have done many a time before. I think my house is pretty dog-proof and it helps that the pooch, Hayden, is really old and doesn't get into things. Or so I thought. When I came back to her last night, I walked into a bathroom full of shredded tissues. Blarg.

I figured she was just acting out, I mean she is a teenager and all, and I felt bad that I left her alone without anything to do. Maybe she was bored and this was how she was trying to tell me about it. And when I spoke with Monster this morning, she was thinking the same thing, because the dog doesn't eat tissues, she just likes to tear them up.

Ah, but she does like to eat other things.

(Internets, if you are of weak constitution, or don't like gross things, stop reading right now and come back tomorrow. Seriously, there's going to be too much information shared below. You've been warned.)

I was sitting in the TV room this morning and could hear Hayden making weird noises in the dining room. She does have a tendency of throwing up, or at least making gagging noises, so I ran out to see what was happening.

It bears noting that I never had pets growing up (save a couple of goldfish that we won at neighborhood carnivals), so I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to having a "dog-ready" house. But, my BFF growing up, did have a little Sheltie named Spice, and as I stood there over Hayden, I flashed back to a lesson I learned from Spice back in junior high. I remember walking into her house and into a scene not unlike the one from last night--shredded tissues everywhere. And Spice wasn't after the tissues, no. You see, my friend was one of three girls, so chances are on any given day "the sun could be out" in the house, meaning there was more than just tissues in the trash. And it was that more than just item that Spice was after.

Close up on me. Dread is striking me as I am standing over Hayden dry heaving. After much writhing and coughing, she finally produced something more than just a tissue. Yes, it was a tampon. Oh. My. God.

Yes, Virginia. He really does exist.

As I was driving into work yesterday, I noticed a hubcap propped ever-so-nicely up against a light pole about a block away from my house. And it made me smile as I thought about the special place in my heart I reserve for those hubcap humanitarians.

Then I thought I'd play a little game with myself and count all of the stray hubcaps that I might spy with my little eye. Not two minutes later, I was driving through the Arboretum, and noticed a parks and rec employee cleaning up the park and honest to goodness, he had a hubcap in his hand.

Was I not in such a hurry to get to work, I would have pulled over and thanked him on behalf of drivers and lost and lonely hubcaps everywhere. But instead I just smiled and counted it as number two.

Distracted

Remember when I was in Into the Woods and I took this note? Or this note? Apparently I don't.

We are just over a week from opening night for the new play and my life feels like one giant rehearsal. I'm exhausted. And haven't had the energy for blogging; sorry, Internets. But I will share this gem of a life lesson for you.

Note to self: Don't practice being English whilst driving. Don't you worry, I wasn't practicing my English driving, that would be just plain silly. But I was practicing my accent.

For awhile now I've been formulating a post about how the longer I live alone, the crazier I get. I regularly talk to myself--and honestly, always have. But since rehearsals for the new show have started, I've been talking to myself in received pronunciation. Oh, it's brilliant, darling. Last night, I was driving home rather late from rehearsal and as I was heading up the road, reciting my lines and emphasizing my enunciation, I ran a red light and narrowly missed a head-on collision.

The good news is, the other driver was paying attention and must have known that I was not going to stop. The better news is, I think I have my character down pat--she is quite vacuous and that instance was just so her.

A sort of magical place, I guess

Last weekend I visited the Cheerleader in St. Louis. She and I have been friends for ten years and have seen each other through a couple of graduate degrees, several job changes, multiple relationships, a wedding, and two kids; the wedding and kids, obviously hers.

Our weekend was filled with lots of laughter and plenty of catching up on long-lost girlfriend time--I really miss the Cheerleader. And even though our lives are drastically different than they were a decade ago, the friendship, the accountability, the sarcasm, the everything hasn't faded one bit.

But let's go back to that drastically different part.

Even though I'm still living the dream as a single girl, I am nowhere near as crazy as I once was--yet another sign of aging. Exhibit A: Saturday night, she and her husband get a babysitter and we head out for a night on the town. After a few rounds of drinks, crashing a local's 50th birthday party, and a few requests at a dueling piano bar, I could barely hold my eyes open and was ready to call it a night. It was 9:45 PM.

So I may have lost some of that vivacious energy that used to get me through last call, or at least midnight, but my exhaustion isn't solely because I'm getting older. No. I'm not the only one who has changed. You see, more so than age, the reason I was exhausted before 10:00 on a Saturday was because of a little thing we did that day called, "occupying the time of an almost three and a one-year-old." Otherwise known as, "The Magic House."

Picture a Children's Museum (with a few interactive displays), and then picture the Extreme Home Makeover crew coming in, bulldozing that place down and in it's place building a behemoth mansion with floors upon floors, and wings upon wings, of bells, and whistles, and lights. That's the Magic House. And I know that kids love it; if I were a kid, I would love it; and the seventeen million kids that were there when we were were loving it, the Cheerleader's kids included. And parents probably love it, because it's an educational time suck for the kids. But single people--okay, namely this single person--might not share that love. I was overloaded on stimulation, and was ready for a nap the moment we set foot in the place.

I know I've said this before, I really do want kids someday. And I know that someday, I'll have to take them to the Magic House (or its equivalent). I just need to start mentally preparing for that someday trip today.