Random Esquire

1. I woke up with a bit of a sore back two days ago. This is odd for me because a) I never have a sore back and b) I have one of those foam mattresses that is supposed to make you feel like you slept on a bosom. (I might add that nothing quite replicates a bosom and so women need not fear replacement by temperpedic.) I went to bed last night and hoped I wouldn’t wake again with the same problem. At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up from a deep sleep. I was sleeping on my stomach. And you know what? Little Filthy was sleeping on my back.

What the hell?

2. Today, Fresh Express stuck her head in Instigator’s office and proclaimed, “SWEET DREAMS!” Instigator was, naturally, confused by this. Turns out she was talking about an upcoming business trip for all of the attorneys. What this has to do, specifically, with the trip is still a mystery. Everything she says is related not to the thing itself but more to its …penumbra or shadow. Quite vague. Instigator leaned over the table at lunch a few times and blurted out, “Sweet dreams! What the hell does that mean?!”

3. I had dinner tonight with a beautiful woman. While there is much to say about heated moments that make your skin go tight, there is also something to be said about holding a woman’s fingers like the stems of flowers and finding her just as beautiful.

Boss did N words this week in class.

“Kids, what words begin with N?”

*deep breath*

It’s really a shame to waste that kind of anticipation and anxiety. Her kids do not disappoint.

A girl yelled out, “Nipples. NIPPLES.”

Boss paused to contemplate her reaction. Another young girl mistook her stunned look for an unknowing look and helpfully pointed her forefingers to her chest and said, “Nipples.”

Kids are so helpful at that age.

1. It’s official. The first lice outbreak of the year. The parent of said louse-infested kid said that the kid must have gotten it from another kid at school. The reason this is interesting/funny is because the kid is white…in a sea of black kids. Black kids don’t get lice. Did you know that? White people don’t normally know that. But now you do. So,…sort of comical. Unless you’re offended now. Because you’re white and you did know that. In which case….sorry.

Okay, now I sincerely mean that sorry above. Just did a web search. Apparently, black kids can get lice. So, you know…nevermind.

2. I have a Treo 755 and a Blackberry and use Outlook to schedule my meetings. And I sort of hate them all. I use my Treo (my personal phone) for tons of applications so it is a phone worth keeping for me. My difficulty is that I still have not found a really good method for tracking tasks and who has the next action item on a project, etc. I found this website where a guy made a datebook out of a moleskine notebook. But I don’t really need a calendar/agenda notebook – I just need something for tasks/projects. I think I might try this method – the GSD method (getting shit done). This means that I am on a mission to find a Miquelrius notebook. Anyone know where to find one of these?

3. I bought this last weekend. So, I guess I’ll try to figure out how to make banana ice cream (Boss’s favorite) this weekend. I just thought about making a lactose free peanut butter ice cream for Little Filthy but I’m pretty sure Boss would kill me if she caught me putting crumbled up dog biscuits in the ice cream maker.

1.  Boss and I watched The Bridge this weekend.  I think that may be the quietest we’ve been during a movie.   It was…troublesome.  Difficult to watch those people stand on the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge and then climb over and simply jump.  The singlemindedness of it…it was…sort of miserable.  But the film was good and worth watching, in my opinion, for the simple reality of it all.

2.  The Chicago Marathon was today.  We live along the course and heard many, many ambulances go by.  One person died in the heat.  I recall last year as I watched, a woman asked me to tie her shoes for her because her fingers were stiff from the cold.  Welcome to Chicago.

3.   Boss has her first cold of the season.  I casually mentioned making her chicken noodle soup and she responded, optimistically, “with homemade noodles?!”  I’ve never made a noodle before but hell, at 7 this morning, I made some noodles before heading to the grocery store and picked up a baguette.  She’s still sick.  What the hell?  Those were homemade noodles.

Boss has a new room full of three foot monsters. One little girl told Boss in a frank, no-nonsense way that she had peed the bed last night. There was no shame in it. Just, there you go, I pee the bed. She went on to say that as a result, she would have to sleep on the couch that evening.

Later that day, Boss overheard her speaking to another kid who told the little girl, “I peed my bed last night” to which the little girl responded, in 100% sincere delight, “You pee the bed?! I do, too!!” It was like two people discovering that they had an obscure interest in common. The little girl then said, “So, do you have to sleep on the couch, too?”

Oh, to have no shame once more.

Boss has a classroom full of new kindergarten kids.

One of them has a grill. A grill.

In his teeth. On his teeth? In his teeth. You know what I mean.

The mind boggles.

Boss and I went to CostCo in search of a large vat of hand sanitizer for her classroom. Unable to find it and having heard that it may be behind the pharmacy counter, we went to ask. We were shown a 12 oz container of Purel. I felt like asking, “This is CostCo, right? Bring on the bulk.” The employee began a discussion on how hand washing was just as effective. I didn’t really know how to stop him and tell him that he was wasting his breath because Boss was not going to trust the stunting of bacterial growth in her room to the hand-washing skills of a bunch of kindergarteners. Boss casually mentioned teaching in between his ramblings. I decided to step in.

I smiled and said, “We like to dip the children in it.”

He laughed and turned toward me and opened his mouth. I said, “And then we set them on fire.”

He said, “Well, that would work…”

You’d think he would have piped down at this point but no, we ended up just backing away from the counter, nodding and smiling until we both turned to each other and said, “too friendly.” We don’t like people enough to engage in random CostCoConversation. Just enough to try a CostCo sample. That’s our limit.

I told Boss I was excited to go to the Oprah show because it will be the closest I come to meeting Jesus. Boss doesn’t find me as funny as I’d like, sometimes.

Admittedly, I am a bit curious about what happens once we get into the studio. The polite woman who called me said that no cell phones or cameras were allowed and that there would be a “search” prior to entering the studios. I also have no idea what the show topic will be and I am hoping that I don’t have to spend an hour seated next to my mother while Oprah and her guests discuss sex. While I’m tempted to smuggle in a camera of some sort, I am pretty sure that, like Jesus, Oprah has x-ray vision and will promptly evacuate me from the premises.

Boss has asked that I relay to Oprah her sincere desire to meet Madonna and impress upon Oprah how this is her life’s dream and this would then be the happiest day of Boss’s life.

What am I, chopped liver over here?

You may recall that I went to see Diana Ross with my father. Mind you, this was not so much my choice as it was a result of my mother deciding she found my father unbearable a few hours before the concert. The tickets were a gift from me to them for their anniversary. Life loves irony, right?

Well, I think I can top that. Boss sent an e-mail to Oprah’s show, requesting tickets and, for some reason, she put my name down like I had sent the e-mail – complete with my mobile number. I vaguely recall her mentioning it and I really recalled it when I got a call today from Oprah’s show saying that I had two tickets.

I called Boss and guess what? She can’t go. Not only might she have jury duty, she has training for her new job. She asked her mother if she could make it in town to go and she (a teacher as well) could not make it, either.

You know what that means?

It means I am taking my mother to Oprah’s show.

Last week, Boss said to me, “You can’t write about me any more.”

I said, “Why not?”

She said, “Because! Go find a girlfriend and write about her.”

So I considered it. But I can’t do it. It’s just too much to re-learn. I can’t keep track of how two women like their coffee. Or whose turn it is to change the roll of toilet paper. Or mow the lawn. Besides, it’s only a queen size bed. Where would she sleep? Plus, we don’t have a lawn and I don’t want to get one and I’m pretty sure that if I had two women in my life, one of them would be wanting a house. A house with a lawn.