The new neighbors are nice-ish. They don’t talk to us, we don’t talk to them, it’s all good. And even though there seems to be a lot of them (teenage girl has about 6 friends over often, 20-something guy has a handful of friends over, and older couple- assuming parents- 20-something guy seems to have a wife and a baby and a toddler), we’re not really sure who all actually lives there, and who just visits a lot. Thankfully, someone in that house seems to be 3rd shift so we hardly ever hear them after whoever leaves soon after we come home.

This story is not about them, however. I’m just happy to have neighbors that we can live with. No, this isn’t about the Jamaican family that used to live across from us either, who would have loud wailing chants at midnight during full moons (and once on Friday the 13th). This is a story about a relatively normal neighbor across the way.

There was a bird. An insomniac bird. Possibly an insomniac bird with turrets. This bird, for God-only-knows-why would wake up about 9 pm and sing incessantly until about 4am, at which point all the other birds would wake up. Oddly, however, all the other birds combined managed to not be as loud as this one bird. Seriously, we hear big rigs and trains going by our house that this bird drowned out.

Several times we considered killing it. Sometimes we considered asking the landlord to rip out its favorite tree. One night, our sort-of-normal neighbor was out having a smoke just as we came home. We did the fake half-smile-just-in-case-he-notices-us-and-we-have-to-be-polite thing. But he didn’t notice us. Instead, he sauntered over to the tree and stared at it for a moment. And then suddenly shook the hell out of that tree! We, of course, started laughing and got out of the van.

Not-so-normal-neighbor sees us, shakes his head, and says “Bloody bird. I shut him up before and he’s already back at it! I may have to shoot him.” (sounded a lot funnier with his accent and body language).

Well, I don’t sit at a desk to work or play on my laptop, it’s either the bed or the couch. If it’s the couch, I sit sideways, not normally, and the stupid couch arms dig into my back. Hubs complains if I use the bed because I steal all of his pillows to prop my back up. So, I told him that I want a Husband, and if I get one that I’ll stop stealing his pillows (for that purpose, anyway).

So this weekend we split off. He went to his parents, I went to mine (we always do this for holidays). He remembered that he used to have a Husband at his parents house, and they’ve kept most of his stuff for him since we don’t have proper storage where we live. Apparently they don’t actually know where any of it is, though.

So he approached his brother. He says to his very straight brother, “I’m looking for a husband”. This earns him a rather suspicious look because his brother knows hubs is straight and thus this can not mean what it sounds like it means. Hubs explains, brother in law relaxes, but no one knows where it is.

So, they head out to K-mart to the pillow section where they find a man that works there. Hubs approaches and states “I’m looking for a husband”. That poor man. According to hubs, the man was very quick to point out that he’s already married (which when he related the story to me just made me respond that then he IS a husband!) and apparently became very nervous until hubs explained to him that it’s a pillow with arms.

And while I desperately wish that I could put this story down in writing the way hubs told it to me verbally (and the fact that without knowing my husband you can’t possibly know just how very funny this is) I’m just very happy that eventually my husband found a husband and I now can have two husbands in bed any time I want.

The end.

All of a sudden, hubs starts sniffing the air (sounded more like snorting, but, whatever) and then says “do you smell something?”. I do. “Smells like steak” I said. “Smells like steak on the grill” he said. I shrugged and went back to reading my book. After all, if we’re weird enough to be up at 3:30 am, why wouldn’t someone else be weird enough to grill a steak at 3:30 am? I would, if I had a grill.

But this is not enough for hubs, he heads downstairs. I head to the upstairs window to see if I can find said griller so I can invite myself over for a late night snack. I can’t see them, so I assume they must be on our side of the building, and therefore hidden from my view.

But hubs is still downstairs.

So I head on down, and as I hit the ground floor, the smell of steak just slaps me in the face. Weirdly- the smell of steak grilling in the rain (our family did this often). I walk towards hubs, who’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, sniffing in circles and we converge right next to the dishwasher, which is halfway through the cycle.

“Did you forget to wash off the plates before you loaded the dishwasher?” he demands asks. “No” say I. “Well it’s coming from the dishwasher” says he. He then promptly opens the dishwasher, mid-cycle.

Out wooshes the smell of steak on the grill, and what we took to be smoke at first, but surely was just steam?

Well, after several opening and shuttings and hearing the hiss of water dripping on the heating elements, and finally noticing that the white mineral build up on same elements had turned brown… we shut it down for the night. Also, apparently, I’ve kept the washing cyle on high heat for the past four years. Who knew that would be an issue?

In either case, we don’t seem to be having a problem with the dishwasher as long as I turn off the high heat setting, and with every load  the steak smell fades away.

To be honest, I kinda miss it.

hysteria
A mythical emotional disorder ascribed only to women for about 2,500 years. In ancient Greece, it was ascribed to not being pregnant often enough. In Roman times, it was ascribed to not having enough sex.  In Medieval times, and colonial times in North America, it was ascribed to not having enough or sufficient orgasms. In Victorian times and during the early 20^th century, it was also ascribed to too much intellectual stimulation and became an excuse for denying education and voting rights to women. At the beginning of the 20^th century, U.S. doctors invented the vibrator to treat hysteria. They brought women to orgasm with vibrators, which would supposedly calm them down and keep them from becoming hysterical. See “wandering uterus.”

Wow. That’s the last time I tell someone they’re being hysterical or referring to something as hysterical. Seriously.  Though you girls can use this to give your men hints. And it was developed by doctors? For medical treatment? Yeesh. Ya learn new things every day!

wandering uterus
A mythical emotional disorder first described in ancient Athens by Hippocrates, who is considered the “father of medicine.” Hippocrates taught that, unless a woman was pregnant often enough, her uterus would wander around inside her body looking for a fetus to inhabit it. As the uterus rose inside her, she would become hysterical. If she did not have sex with a man and become pregnant, the uterus would rise into her throat and strangle her. See “hysteria.”

Bwahahahahaha! I’m sorry, I just think this is hilarious. Granted, this is me with all our modern medical knowledge and all, but… seriously! And notice how it was always men that came up with these theories?

merkin
A wig for the genitals, used from the 16^th to the 18^th centuries by people who had lost their pubic hair due to small pox or scarlet fever. Now used to describe decorative patches worn over the genitals.

I so, so, so badly want to write a historical now, just so that I can use this! I also need to find a searchable database of Shakespeare’s works because I’m certain I’ve seen him use the term “merkin” in an insult before.

normophilia ­
Sexual preferences that are considered common or “normal” according to social norms.

Really? Really? Apparently because every possible deviant sexual behavior and preference is so widely accepted now, we actually have to define and name non-deviant behavior. Uhhhhh….

Dear Agent,

Sorry, I’d address you personally but I don’t actually know your name. But that’s ok, because once you hear my idea for a book, I’m sure you’ll forget about absolutely everything else!

I’m currently researching a book about SkyDiving Elephants and the Pineapples Who Love Them. The working title is “You Forgot To Pack My Trunk!”. My 10 year old is a really good drawer, and I thought she could do the illustrations. I think that would be really good for promotion too, because then kids will want to buy the book as much as adults, because someone their own age did the drawings!

I know that platform is everything, and so I’ve started a hugely successful blog. I have a lot of people coming to visit it, sometimes as many as 50 in a day. I know that 5 of them are foaming at the mouth just waiting for me to get published. I know this, because one is my mother, two of them are my best friends, one’s my brother’s girlfriend (we get along really, really well), and the other one is a stalker. I think if I tell him I’ll give him my phone number if he buys 5000 copies, we’ll have a really good start on sales.

And don’t worry, I’m totally not a noob. I’ve already found a publisher that wants me, and it’ll only cost $5000 for the first run of 250 books.

So, email me right back and we’ll get started!

Sincerely,
XOXO

P.S. Don’t try to steal my idea because I’ve copyrighted it.

(To anyone who isn’t familiar with me or my blog, please don’t flame me. This is a joke. Everyone knows that pineapples don’t love elephants, and if they did, they wouldn’t go on record about it.)

Yeah, I thought you’d like that….

Anyway. While browsing for Christmas gifts for hubs, I came across an incredible pair of cotton novelty boxer shorts with the DC Comic version of the Joker emblazoned across the cro… front. And it says “The Joker” across the butt, which I thought was cute but hubs merely puts up with.

However, they only had one size in the store, and it wasn’t my husband’s size, so I did a search online and found only one place with them actually in stock. I ordered them, they sent the wrong pair, I emailed them, they sent me the correct set of boxers and a return label, I wrapped ‘em up and gave ‘em to hubby who now only complains when they’re in the wash instead of on him.

Turns out that I like boxers on him too, so I trucked on back to the website to do a little birthday shopping for him. I remembered seeing a set of The Grinch boxers there, among a few others. Thing is, while I was browsing, I came across these:

And I just had to share. (Btw, this is an affiliate link, but I really do use this company, really do love their product, and they do have some hilarious boxers if you have even a slightly dirty mind).

Now, any time that I can ship out during normal post office hours is a good thing, since the local multi-shipping place charges a hefty surcharge for the convenience of staying open past normal work hours. *gasp* Open when real people aren’t at work? Who’da thunk?

Anyway. The closest post office is a small counter in the back of a gift shop in the shopping center of a “rich people” golf course rental community. It’s mostly retirees, and so even when there’s a line, there’s generally plenty of patience and often even friendliness, which is a pleasant change from other post offices.

So imagine my shock when I arrived to find myself 7th in line! At first I thought I had merely stumbled into the only rush hour of the month, until I heard the conversation up at the counter.

“But she no need the stamp. She just need envelope and stamp. Give me refund!”

“I can’t do that, we don’t refund postage. Besides, it’s two months old.”

This was repeated for about 10 minutes, while I, and one other woman stifled our giggles, and the rest waited patiently. This was occasionally interspersed with “I can’t argue with you all day, there are customers waiting to be served.” and “I am customer too! She no need this stamp…”

After that, two people got out of line, and several minutes later than that, one woman from the line finally went up, tapped the woman on the shoulder and said “She’s not going to change her mind- you might as well just go to the downtown post office and ask for your refund there”. Then she asked how much the stamp was for- you could tell that she was intending to just give the woman the money until the complainer told her it was over $16.

It took 15-20 minutes until the combination of the woman from the line, and a guy from the pharmacy finally convinced her that the refund could not be given there, and that if she wanted a refund she’d have to take it up with the main PO in the area.

Perhaps you just had to be there, but I wanted to document this so that I can use it in one of my novels.

more animals

That right there just explains so much about me, doesn’t it? I like squirrels so much that I own the domain NuttySquirrelBottom.com. Disturbed yet?

Btw- I’m going to be doing a series of posts with my affiliate links in them for easy reference for my mother and friends who want to give me a kick back with their purchases. So, if you see posts with normal titles like “Food and Drink”- go ahead and read through, but don’t feel pressured.

So this time, I’m checking out her new piccy and thinking to myself “Wow. She looks amazing. So average and normal most of the time, but you stick her in a GoDaddy.com shirt and blow some wind through her hair and she’s freaking gorgeous! Oooh, that’s a shiny shirt!”

Yes, I have the attention span of a three year old, and an attraction to “sparklies” that would rival a magpie’s.