Random Esquire

My sister likes to ring me on her way home from work some days. She’s usually pretty entertaining because she’s very prim and proper but says off the wall things.  For instance, she said that she’s going to show her kids the movie Mystic River so that they never run away.   And arranged a Black Market Baptism for her kids (which involved cutting a check).  And she once said that getting my niece off of diapers was like pulling someone from a line of coke.  She just says stuff like this and I find it really off the wall.

That brings me to the other day.  First, some background:  My niece has a very old fashioned name.  For our purposes here, I will use the name Bonnie for my niece because it is sufficiently old and rare enough to make the point.

My sister called me and informed me that Bonnie had just attended a birthday party.  She said, “All the other kids were running around the yard, playing.  Bonnie just wanted to sit and watch and eat cookies.  She just wants to eat cookies!”

I laughed.  My sister cried out, “A  fat kid named Bonnie isn’t gonna have any friends!”

I protested through my laughs and said, “Don’t say that! What’s wrong with you?”  I could practically hear her shrug.  She said, “I’m just honest.  You know how kids are.”

I suppose, like me, my sister is not here to gloss over the truth.

That brings me to my next story.

Today she called on her way home and announced that there was a warrant out for her nanny’s arrest.

*Blink*

See, that’s not the sort of thing you begin with.  You’ve got to ease your way into that kind of bomb.

It turns out that her nanny received a ticket and it was mailed to an old address, never paid, fail to appear, blah blah, boom!  Warrant.

I think we would both be more alarmed if it weren’t for the fact that my sister and I are sort of fascinated by being so close to someone so on the edge of the law.

We’re a very straight and narrow bunch.  We gotta take our excitement where we can get it.

I am learning Latina.  I have to.  Because I am living la vida latina and it is very difficult if you do not speak or understand the language.

Here is Latina Language Lesson #1.

I called Ms. Thang this morning and woke her up.  First, let me defend myself.  I like to wake her up.  Okay, so it isn’t much of a defense but there you have it.  I woke her up and asked what she was doing today and suggested she come over and why not bring her laundry and get it done over here?  She said no, she was feelin’ like she was in a funk.

A couple of hours later, I suggested (via text) she get out (fresh air and what not) and that that might help her feel more chipper.  She said no, she couldn’t, she was stuck there doing laundry.  Then she said she woke up groggy and was not quite sure of her day plans when we spoke.   She then called me and said she missed me.  We chatted and then hung up.

About 20 minutes later, I translated her phone call and called her back.  I said, “I’ve translated your phone call.”  She asked what the heck I was talking about.  I said, “You said you missed me and and that you were stuck doing laundry and that you were groggy this morning.  That all translated into: I changed my mind, can I come over?”

She paused for a moment and then said, “That’s an accurate translation.”

She’s on her way over now.

I told a friend about this.  He said, “That’s not Latina.  That’s Woman.  You’re learning to speak Woman.  Good job!”

RANDOM FTW!

Is this supposed to still be funny to me?  Because it is.

I joined Facebook last year.  Then I did nothing with it for 6 months.  Who cares?  Finally, I started to use it.  Six months from then and this is what I have to say:

Facebook is stupid.

It takes all the social grace out of pretending to be someone’s friend.  What the hell, people.  I like to politely ignore people.  Not flat out tell them no or act like I didn’t hear them when they point blank ask me to be their friend.

It just seems like adding all these friends in Facebook is like…unlubricated, bad sex.

It’s just mechanical and doesn’t anything and you only do it to up your numbers and not because it means a damn thing.

Here are some things I’ve noticed about Facebook:

1)  Facebook enables you to skip your high school reunion. Because, let’s face it,…we all just want to see what people look like.  So if you’re from my high school and you add me as a friend (because I won’t bother adding you because chances are I don’t even remember your name), then I’m going to add you back with a filter in which you will learn nothing about my life, I will see if you’ve gone fat or bald and then I will unfriend.

Oh yes.  I will unfriend.

2)  Facebook is the Passive Aggressive’s wet dream.

No one in their right mind would step into a room of their friends and say, “Some people haven’t learned how to say thank you for dinner.”  Like, what the hell?   Just tell the person you’re mad at and don’t post some lame ass status.  Sheesh.

3)  Facebook enables you to entangle your life and friends with someone you’re dating without ever buying furniture or a pet together. That shit used to be sacred.

4)  You can tag pictures of just about anything with the names of your friends!  Ha ha!  And then their friends may see it and wonder wtf!  For instance, how about these pictures to the left that I tagged at QTMama.  Except, of course, these aren’t pictures of QTMama.  They are just pictures of a perfectly innocent woman simply trying to get an even tan.

5)  Sometimes, sometimes….Facebook is awesome. I reconnected with someone I’d wondered about for years and could not be happier to now have them as a true friend.

I’m fired up.  What should I rant about next?

When my niece and nephew were in town a few weeks ago, my sister and I discussed movies for kids.  I asked my mother what was the first movie I saw in a theatre.

She said, “Grease.”

I said, “Grease??  You took me to a musical?!”

She said, “They didn’t really have many movies for kids like they do now.”

I had forgotten about the conversation until I was flipping channels this weekend and saw one black leather, high heel clad Sandy twisting out a cigarette in the dirt a few inches from Travolta’s crossed eyes.

And that movie right there set the stage for a lifetime of chasing after nice girls with filthy minds.

1.  Besos informed me that she used to have a dog as a child.

Named Cindy.

She said it had been kidnapped.  (I think she meant dognapped.)  I asked what happened.

She said they opened the door, it went out and never returned.

*Blink*

I informed her that her dog had run away.

I’m not here to gloss over the truth, people.

2.  Her story reminded me of something that a former co-worker told me.  I mentioned something about the ‘turn and cough’ routine that guys go through at the doctor’s office and she said something about being checked for hernias, too.  I paused and said, “What are you talking about?”  And then she mentioned how her entire volleyball team would, one by one, go behind a curtain and their coach would check them for a hernia.   She made a hand motion and mimicked coughing.

*Blink*

I informed her that she had, in fact, been molested.

3.  And that reminds me of my college days.  I went into Chicago with a bunch of friends (none of whom were familiar with Chicago).  We were drunk and they all wanted their picture taken in front of the Sears tower.  It was 2 a.m. and I was tired.  But I said I’d take them.  They all stood by the building and  I snapped pictures with their cameras.  They drunkenly thanked me.

Until they got their pictures developed and learned that I’d taken them to the John Hancock building instead.

Dude.  It was cold outside.