Random Esquire

Besos was over the other night and the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special was on television.  Confession:  I like the Peanuts.  I think I’m a mix of Linus and Snoopy.  Besos looked at the television and said something about one of the characters and it was clear…she was not familiar with the Peanuts.  I said, “WHAT?”  I looked at her, aghast and said in mock horror, “Who are you?”

She looked at me and said, “I am Mexican!”

You know what?  Not my fault there isn’t a Topo Gigio Thanksgiving Special.  Or a Speedy Gonzalez Thanksgiving Special.  But if there was?  I’d totally be into it.

Huh.  I thought Topo Gigio was Mexican but I just looked it up to make sure I was spelling his name correctly and I learned that he is, in fact, not Mexican.  Though, why a mouse with an Italian name would be so popular in Mexico is beyond me.  Anyway, I just looked up from the computer and said to Besos, “Did you know Topo Gigio is actually Italian?”  She turned around and looked at me in surprise and then her eyebrows slowly lowered and she said, “What are you doing?”

Anyway, so yesterday was Thanksgiving – what I like to call the Opening Ceremony to the Eating Games.  However, my Thanksgiving left me unfulfilled.  Here’s why.  I like to eat a little bit of everything and if I don’t get a little bit of every single standard Thanksgiving dish, it just doesn’t count.  Well, my mother forgot cranberry sauce.  So it doesn’t count.  So, I wasn’t thankful.  Cause that’s just how I roll.

Back to the Peanuts.  So, yeah, I DVR’d the Thanksgiving Special.  Besos went to bed and I stayed up, turned on the television and decided to watch it.  A few minutes later, I got a text message from Besos…in the bedroom.  It said, “Watching the Peanuts?  Don’t worry.  Your secret is safe with me.”

Heh.  She sort of cracks me up.

1.  I just caught the end of the movie Deck the Halls.  Am I imagining it or, in some jacked up faux movie world, is Danny DeVito married to Kristin Chenoweth?  WTF.

2.  I got the Blackberry Storm on Friday.  As a result, I have been in a black hole, playing with my new gadget and driving Besos relatively nuts talking about the phone.  I paused, mid-way through my phone rave and said, “Am I the most obnoxious person you’ve ever dated?”  She paused and then said, “Is this a trick question?”

3.  I like Thanksgiving but I sort of hate Christmas.  It isn’t my fault. It’s just that Christmas pretty much sucks.  I like it a lot more since my sister had kids but if it weren’t for them, I might officially ignore Christmas.  Thanksgiving, however, could be once every 6 weeks and that wouldn’t be too much for me.

4.  I gave Little Filthy some blueberries a few days ago.  He loves them.  In fact, he loves them so much, he recycles them.  ’nuff said.

5.  I would like to cock-punch Bobby Flay.  It isn’t my fault.  It’s just that he pretty much sucks.

1.  I plan on getting the Blackberry Storm tomorrow despite the ridicule I will face from the iPhone gang (Lynchseattle, Bev, Avitania).  I fully admit to being just nerdy enough to have been reading the forums at crackberry.com.  It’s a problem.

One of the strange things cell phone technology addicts do when a phone comes out is to video themselves actually opening the box. Yes, that sounds odd.  It’s like the nerd equivalent of filming the birth of a child that you’ll be fascinated with for about 6 months before you look forward to the next one so you can ditch the one you currently have.

Vodaphone released the phone a week ago and this guy from the UK filmed his “unboxing”.  The great part is that he did it in front of his wife, who refused to help as he tried to unbox the thing one handed, holding the camera in the other hand.  As he struggles, he says, “Come on, open, you bastard!”  She yells, “Start again!” to which he barks, “SHUT IT!”

People crack me up.

2.  Sitcom and I attended Food and Wine Magazine’s annual Entertaining Showcase at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art.  These events have a tendency to be over-impressed with themselves and stuffy.  This one, though, was really quite nice and put Chicago Gourmet to shame.  I dared Sitcom to throw up in the middle of the black high heals and wine glasses.  (No, I don’t know why – I just have a weird sense of humor sometimes.) She then got on a tangent about bulimic food tasters that had me practically crying from laughing.

3.  Walking to work yesterday, I disturbed myself by thinking about how well my eyes work together.  This came about when I imagined each of them as a camera lens taking pictures from two slightly different positions/angles and how well that picture merged into one.  It’s a little jacked up.

QTMama was in town this weekend.  I will let her handle that update but I will describe one little tidbit.

At one point, QT and I were discussing things to do and we were quite sure that we’d hit upon a brilliant plan to do something.  We were practically congratulating ourselves on our ingenuity.  Then I called up Besos and told her our plans.  Her reaction…well, I’m going to paraphrase again but it went something like this:

“ARE YOU INSANE?”

She then pointed out the glaring flaw in our plan.  And here is a transcript of my text messages to QT after I told her about what Besos had pointed out.

QT: Shit.

Random:  I realize that we’re like Spanky and Alfalfa.  I couldn’t stop laughing – good thing you don’t live in town or we’d always be doing dumb shit we thought was brilliant.

QT:  <laugh> Dammit she is right! And we SO are like Spanky and Alfalfa!

Random: She just said, “You two together…are trouble.” then she said some shit in Spanish and when I asked what it meant, she said, “it means I’m keeping my mouth shut.”

QT: <laugh> I’m grateful she tells us we’re stupid.

Random:  I’m watching Sponge Bob.  I’m not ashamed to say that I’m learning valuable life lessons.

QT:  I watch it all the time with [daughter]!

Random:  Why’s he live in a pineapple?

QT:  It’s his house he built. He lives under water mind you.

Random: That’s another thing…I just watched an episode in which he was a life guard at the beach but he couldn’t swim…under water?!

QT:  Now you see the genius of Sponge Bob.

Ayup.  Soak up the brilliance.  We’re idiots.

Well, this is probably going to be the most inappropriate entry I’ve ever done.  Let me set the scene.

Besos and I were at dinner last night and we were talking about our friends, Chris and Bev (LynchSeattle and Blynch).  Besos said, “When I saw Chris in bed…”

*Blink*

I said, “What?”

She said, “When I saw Chris in bed…”

I said, “What?”

She said, “When. I. Saw. Chris. And. Bev….”

I said, “Ohhh…”

I told her what I’d been hearing and she laughed and we sent a text message to Bev relaying the story.  Bev relayed the message to Chris and we all laughed and then Bev and I decided we should have an affair to even out the score.

So, Besos and I went home and made with the whoopie pancakes and then fell asleep.  I woke up around 3 in the morning and could distinctly remember having two dreams:

1)  I had a dream that I absolutely had to go get the Amazon Kindle.  In fact, in my dream, you could watch television on it as well as download books from Amazon.

2)  In my other dream…I was making out with Bev in bed.  Oy!  I decided to keep that one to myself.

I got up to take out my contacts and brush my teeth before I silently slipped back into bed.  It was then that Besos spoke:

“You talk in your sleep.”

I froze.

“What?”

She said, “You talk in your sleep.”

I said slowly, “Ohhh? Uhhhhh…what did I say?”

She sat up and turned toward me and said, “You were having a good time.  You were moaning.  And then you said something.”

I couldn’t help it.  I started to laugh out of nervous embarrassment.  “What did I say?”

“You said, ‘That feels good, baby.’”

At this point, I couldn’t stop laughing and I burst out, “I had a dream I was making out with Bev in bed!”

Besos started to laugh and said, “You were not fucking making out!”

We laughed and curled up back in bed and I began to grab at her some more and she warned me to behave and brushed my hands away a little.

I couldn’t help it.

I whispered, “Bev lets me.”

Let’s pause in the story to fully appreciate my stupidity.  In the course of a few hours, I’d suggested an affair with another woman, had a dream in which I made out with said woman, apparently gave verbal indication of said dream and then made a stupid comment about my imaginary affair with the woman.

Besos let out a “Rraaawwwwrrrr!!” at me and I was banished to the other side of the bed.

But she was giggling the entire time so I snuck back over and behaved myself.

Dude.

WTF.

Good thing Besos can laugh about my goofiness.

But seriously, Bev…how you doin’?

I spent the weekend in New Jersey with my sister.  Her daughter, my niece, is 2 1/2.  Niece said something that caught my ear and I asked my sister, “Does she have an imaginary friend?”  Turns out she has two and also two imaginary pets.  Her friends are named Katcho and Comedy.  No lie.  I wondered about the pets names.

Random: Do you have a dog?

Niece: Yes.

Random: What’s his name?

Niece: Silk.

*pause*

Random: Do you have a cat?

Niece:  Yes.

Random:  What’s her name?

Niece:  Silky Silky.

*Blink*

I looked at my sister and she rolled her eyes, “We really have no idea how this happened.”  My sister imposed a rule that I was not to encourage these imaginary friends.  I asked why not.  She said she doesn’t want her daughter to be seven years old and saving space at the lunch table for Comedy.

I told my mother that the kids were baptized.  My sister asked if she (my mother) was happy about that.  I said yes, she was relieved that my sister was no longer raising heathens.  My sister said dryly, “Oh yes…they’ve been washed of their Original Sin. I can totally tell.”

heh.

So, the baptism.  I didn’t understand a word of it.  Okay, that’s not entirely fair but this was a priest whose presence at the church on a Saturday afternoon was paid for with a generous donation to his mission in Sri Lanka.  He not only had an accent but he was pretty determined to have this thing over in 15 minutes.  I’m pretty sure I denounced or renounced Satan and all his empty promises while also promising to make sure the kids grew up Christian.  I figure I’m already in trouble on that one since the first thing I did was ask my niece if Katchoo and Comedy enjoyed the Baptism as well.

Welcome to the family.

I’m going to go visit my sister in New Jersey.  Let me draw a little distinction between me and my sister.

Sister:  Two perfect children, one girl, one boy.

Random: Little Filthy, dog that eats own poo.

Sister:  “I’ll be flying in from a quick business trip on the day you arrive but it won’t take me long to get home because I’ll be on the corporate jet.”

Random:  “Damn, where did I put my CTA (Chicago public transportation) card??”

Sister:  “The driver will pick you up from the airport.”

Random:  “Damn! Where is that freakin’ card??”

Sister:  “The nanny will be there with the children.”

Random:  “Oh, don’t try to take his toy away!  He’ll hump it.”

Sister:  Daughter currently speaks 3 languages.  She’s 2 1/2.

Random:  Dog currently knows how to not listen in one language.  He’s 4.

The kids are going to be baptized on Saturday.  You may recall, it is going to be a Black Market Baptism, with the Priest who is going all out Sarah Palin style and going rogue to do the baptism on the side.  I wonder if I’m not supposed to look him in the eye.

With that, I’m off to take Little Filthy to stay with his grandparents.  I won’t even go into the worries I have about his behavior while there.  I fully expect him to lay an egg on the dining room rug, eat everything he finds, and leave hairballs in his wake.

More news from NJ shortly!

1.  My niece saw raisins for the first time last week.  She picked up the bowl and took it to my sister and said, “These grapes are dead.”

My sister called me two nights ago.  I answered the phone and heard my niece say, “Hello!”  My sister said, in the background, “Tell Random what you did today.”  Niece said, “I got a haircut.”  I said, “Oh! That’s great. Getting a haircut is great!”  My sister said, “Tell Random who cut your hair.”

She said, “I did.”

I burst out laughing.  I said, “Ohhh, that’s just for grownups.  Only grownups cut hair.  You’re not going to do that again, are you?”

She paused and said, “I don’t know.  I might.”

God, I love how honest kids are.

2.  I had bacon in my fridge so I decided to make breakfast for dinner last night.  Except I didn’t want eggs.  Then it hit me…I had tomato and some Boston lettuce.  BLT!  I’m a dry sandwich eater.  No mayo or mustard or whatever.  But on a BLT?  You need mayo.  I found a squeeze bottle of Hellman’s that had about one tablespoon used out of the entire thing.  Anddddd it expired 8 months ago.   Then I found some Miracle Whip.  Guess what?  November 5, 2008!  TWO MORE DAYS!

And it occurs to me…BLTs are the only sandwich on which I’m not tempted to slap on a slice of cheese.  I wonder why that is?  That made me think of hamburgers and how I really don’t understand the point unless it has a slice of cheese on it.  I’ve never had cheese on a slice of apple pie.  Who the hell came up with that one?  Though, now that I think about it, I do normally have slices of apples or pears to serve along with bread and cheese when drinking wine.  Still, cheese on apple pie seems odd to me.

3.  You know who isn’t impressed with this Standard Time?  Little Filthy.  He began protesting at 3 o’clock yesterday.  By 4:30, he was still demonstrating so I gave in and fed him.  He’s in for a harsh reality today when I get home after 5.  Of course, he’s going to watch the polls all day so he may not notice.