Random Esquire

1. Spanish is not my second language. Or my third. Or, really, a fourth. In fact, I’m fairly ignorant when it comes to Spanish. However, I have been seeing a woman whose first language is Spanish and I have steadfastly refused to ask her to speak Spanish to me. You get what I mean, no? I figure this is common and I refuse to do it. The topic has not arisen much but today *cough* we actually discussed it when she asked me if I would care that if she did speak Spanish to me in bed, I would not understand it.I said, “No.”

She said, “NO? Wouldn’t you want to know what I was saying?!”

I said, “It doesn’t matter what you’re saying. In my head, I’m just going to imagine that it’s the filthiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

She said, “WHAT?!”

I responded, “Which, by the way, is what everyone who doesn’t speak Spanish has been doing.”

We’re still seeing each other. I figure we’ve survived a hurdle. Namely, my personality.

2. I am off to D.C. on business this week. I’m often wont to hear advice from Instigator and promptly ignore it, to my own detriment. It has inspired me to refer to a ‘What would Instigator Do’ bracelet. I need one. For instance, despite the fact that I could leave the meetings I am attending at an earlier time, I conservatively chose to leave D.C. at a later time, taking the same flight at the boss. Instigator would not do this. Instigator does not have difficultly deciding if she’d rather fish or cut bait. When I told her when I was leaving, she said, “Are you kidding? Are you crazy? Random, Random, Random – were you not wearing your ‘WWID’ bracelet when you made these plans? *sigh*”

I make Instigator nuts.

3. Lynchseattle and Bev, his wife, are with their kids at Disney World. His Twitter update: “Never has such a variety of Croc-laden people been in such a close proximity. It looks like a clown convention.”

I had an odd sensation this past week.  Very odd.  I had a date last week which went well.  I then discussed said date with my Work Wife.  Work Wife is very excited because both Work Wife and said date are Latinas.  Work Wife said, “Ohhh, you are in trrouubblleee, she is going to blow your mind!”  My first hell and brimstones love was a Puerto Rican girl years and years ago. But yeah, I’m attracted to many of the characteristics that are stereotypically associated with Latin women.   Anyway, suffice to say that I was describing my date to Work Wife and then moved on to describe things I find very attractive in a woman, both physically and in personality, and then it hit me.

I was very perfectly…. describing her.

My Work Wife.

I think I got very quiet and then I said, “I can’t talk to you about this because I think I just describe you!”

We both burst out laughing at the same time.

Yeah.  That’s messed up.

1. Anyone listen to NPR’s Sunday Puzzle with Will Shortz? Yeah. I’m a dork like that. Anyway! Every time I listen, I am distracted by the sound of Will Shortz’s obvious breathing in the phone.  It’s like…the New York Times Crossword Puzzle with a pervert.

2.  I saw my grandparents this past weekend.  I do not know them well.  My grandfather does not speak much and never has.  At dinner, I said to him, “Are you staying out of trouble, grandpa?”  He responded with a small smile, very softly and very slowly, “Oh, I wouldn’t know where to find it.”   I said, “It normally finds me.”  He smiled and said softly, “Then I guess that gives you some options.”

3.   In the past two weeks, two different people have said to me, “I love you…but you’re retarded.”

4.  I asked a certain young woman about her pet peeves and she said instantly, “Not being picked up at the airport.”  Huh.  I hadn’t heard that one before but yes, that is rather annoying.

5.  My quest to compliment a stranger was not working quite so well.  I decided to take a different approach and go with the random acts of kindness.  So today, while in line for a bagel, I decided that I’d pay for the person behind me in line.  When I got up to the counter, I turned behind me and said to a young lady, “I’d like to buy your bagel for you..um, as a random act of kindness sort of thing.”  She said, “Ohhhhh, that’s so nice! Thank you!  Do you do that every day?”

You know, the answer to that question is, “No, this is the first time.”  But that sounds a bit odd.  So instead, I said to her, “Yes.  But not always at the bagel place.  So…you know, don’t start hanging out here hoping to get a free bagel.”  She snorted her laugh at me.

6.   Today, someone said to me, “I’ve only eaten six bananas in my whole life.”  And I honestly wanted to reply, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Which is odd.  Because I don’t usually swear in my blog.

I know what I said here about accents and languages.

I take it back.

I take it all back.

I was wrong.

Jesus, was I wrong.

Instigator and I had an interesting conversation about Tim Russert yesterday.  Instigator was saddened by his death and lamented the fact that someone else less meaningful to her hadn’t died, instead.

In fact, what she said was, “Why wasn’t it…I don’t know,…Ann Curry, for example.”

I barked, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Whoa.  Whoa.”

I like Ann Curry.

I said, “Why didn’t you say someone like Rush Limbaugh?  Or Ann Coulter?”

But her point was that those were such obvious choices and she was trying to name someone she didn’t wish death upon, but simply someone whose death would not have saddened her quite so much.   I offered up Katie Couric in lieu of Ann Curry.  No one is watching CBS evening news.  It might be a week before anyone even noticed.

You may recall that I like to try on other people’s faces.  When I see someone with an odd expression, I like to try to make the same expression.  I don’t think it’s that unusual, is it?  I want to see how it feels on my face.

Well, I had a new reaction the other day.  I saw this picture of Bill Cosby playing the drums.  (On MSNBC’s entertainment picture slideshow.)  And my first reaction was that I sort of wanted to slug him.

And then I realized that I want to slug John Mayer, as well.

I am forced to conclude that while I have a natural tendency to want to mimic an odd facial expression, if pushed too far, my next reaction is to want to slug it off their mug.

I’m not alone here, am I?  Whose mug do you want to slug?

Hrm.  So, the word is that the RSS feed isn’t working. I’ll look into it to see what’s going on.   Hang tight, all!

Anyone not using bloglines noticing this, as well?

Today, when I got to my El stop, I saw the same “pregnant girl” hitting up some guy for money.  He gave her a few bucks and she walked away.  I grinned at the guy and said, “She’s been pregnant now going on two years.”  He laughed and said, “She got angry at me because I made her show me her arms.”  I laughed.  We were sitting next to each other on a bench.
A friend noticed him and they had a mini reunion.  He was wearing a baseball cap and his hair was short – she greeted him and said, “Did you get your hair cut??”  She told him she was studying for the bar and I gathered that he was an attorney as well after he expressed his relief at not having to go through that again.  They talked for a while and she asked how he’d been.  I had politely turned away and was looking down the tracks, waiting for the train.

He said, “Well, actually, I should tell you never to work for (some dude) because we all end up getting cancer! See?”  And then he must have taken off his hat because she said, “Ohhh my gosh, I thought you’d just had a hair cut.”

The train arrived and the guy and I got on.  He sat across from me and we started to talk. I told him I was an attorney, too.  Turns out he does solo practice and has represented some really rough people.  He said, grinning, “That’s why I made the girl show me her arms.”

He got off the train and handed me his business card and said, “You know…if you get into trouble!”  I laughed.

Dude, sometimes you meet some great people on the train.

1.  I almost killed myself with sugar snap peas tonight.  I made some for dinner, bit off the ends and tried to suck the peas out.  You know what?  Don’t try this.  You’ll choke on a flying pea.

2.  My phone rang this evening and I saw that it was my sister calling.  I said, “Hello, [sister!].”  She said, “Hello…” and I could tell instantly that she sounded funny.  She said, “Is this Dr. Jones office?”  I didn’t know what to say.  I mean, not unless she and her doctor are closer than I would have guessed.  Then she said, “Hi, I’m calling you because we were just in there and you gave little [her daughter/my niece] some great mittens from the thumb fairy.”

Oh.

Ohhhh.

I said, “Yes, this is Dr. Jones.”

I got on the phone with my niece and said, “It was so nice to see you today.  I hope you use those mittens from the thumb fairy so you do not suck your thumb.  Are you going to wear your special mittens?”

My little niece says in a tiny cartoon voice, “  no.  ”

I heard my sister say, “yyeeessss.”

Little niece says,   ”    yes.    ”

heh.
3.  I’m an organizational nut.  I use a Circa planner for work notes and google’s calendar app, which syncs with my Outlook for work.  And still, I’m not sure if I love it.  Dammit.  How the hell are the rest of you staying organized? Hipster PDAs?  Smart Phone?  Scraps of paper?

Let’s eat our way through Europe. Here are some pictures I took of my meals during my travels. Tuck in and hang on. This is a killer post of food.

Paris, France: Escargot with garlic and parsley butter.

From Rue Cler in Paris: Nutella and banana crepe.

Paris Street Food: Gyro…on a baguette.

More food after the jump.

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