Hurricane I

Plug it into the website, and it will tell you what rejected crayon color you are.

If you are wearing raspberry underwear, you are



All Spirit of Gold members should feel particuarly bonded to this particular color.

Realistically, that's what I would say if I were allowed to speak to President Bush for 15 minutes.

If you wondered what other people would say, Gallop can tell you.

(From the White House Briefing)

The esteemed Senator from Texas (who's name begins with a "C" and ends with an "ornyn") wears leather cowboy boots.

With a white imprint of the Congressional seal on both of them.

That's hard core. I was massively impressed.

We have sunk so low that we can't even leave the entertaining parts of Seasame Street alone. Witnesseth:

"That sounds perfectly reasonable," says Margo Wooten of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "You can't build a whole diet around cookies!"

You can if you are a blue fuzzy monster Muppet.

To Recap:

Muppets do not actually eat.
Muppets do not have a sexuality.
Muppets are not puppets.

These are not difficult concepts, though we as a country seem to have problems with this. Seriously folks, we're not even putting up a fight against the Chinese anymore.

(Although I'll admitt, comments like this:

Somehow, though, that doesn't seem to make it easier to accept that Cookie Monster is now tossing salads on the Sesame Workshop Web site.

don't exactly help.)

For those of you who do not know, Mr. Picky is one of my roommates. He's a 50 year old union worker from West Virginia, West Virginia being analogous to East Tennessee. He watches mascara, and he's had a the Bill Clinton quadruple heart-attack special. He is also as picky and as fastidious as an old biddy, which is an obvious source of conflict. If food falls on the floor, I pick it up and eat it. If food falls on the floor, he throws it away and Lysol's the floor. (I'm not being melodramatic, I've seen him do it.) He also does this weird falsetto voice sometimes when he's requiring something that he knows is weird, like he's kind of kidding, but he really isn't. He referred to himself as Mr. Picky once in that voice, and I will continue to call him that because he is.

Mr. Picky does not cook, he just heats up frozen food or gets take-out (quadruple bypass what?). I do cook, but it's difficult. Not only is the kitchen smaller than a dorm kitchen (the oven door cannot open all the way because there's a wall in the way), but I don't always have time to scour the kitchen after I use it, and apparently, anything less than a full on Lysol scour is bad.

Both Wednesday morning and today, I made eggs and bacon on this enormous frying pan that if far too large for this kitchen and I have no idea why we own it. I was in a crazy hurry both days so as I ate, I cleaned the pan et al even though it hadn't had time to cool yet. I didn't have time to wait, and I was trying to be a good roommate and not leave the pan in my room to clean later in case someone else needed to use it. Apparently, I did a bad job because after I left the kitchen, I heard him investigating it. A couple minutes later, as I'm putting my contacts in, Mr. Picky comes and stands in the hall by the bathroom and says, "You got a minute?"

"No," I said, "I'm running horribly late for a meeting at 11."

"Well, then I'll say it right here," he said, and says that I didn't clean the pan well enough, there's a previous pan I didn't clean, there's splatters all over the stove and, "I'm an old fucker with heart problems and I can't afford to get sick."

Right. Is that the reason we don't own a vegetable peeler, but we do own two toaster ovens, a rice cooker and a George Foreman? Anyway, I seriously didn't have time, so I just left.

When I came home, I locked myself in my room, changed clothes and checked my email. I haven't gotten good sleep in about two weeks, and my limbs just feel heavy. I just wanted to fall into bed. I hear Mr. Picky in the hallway, stalking me to pin me down to harass me further about the kitchen. I didn't turn the light on, and I just tiptoe around because I'm not in a mood to deal with him. I would definitely say something that could get me kicked out, and I don't want to deal with that either.

I crawl into bed and I'm about to pass out when I hear him come down the hallway and pause by my door. I thought for a minute he was going to go away, but no, he banged on the door and yells, "INDIA? WE STILL NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE KITCHEN!!"

"I'm sleeping!" I yell back, trying not to be cranky, but I know I sounded irritated. He says sorry and shuffles off again. I am so not in the mood for a 15 minute lecture on how I suck. See, if any one of you delivered that lecture, it would take two, maybe three minutes. Mr. Picky. talks. so. damn. slowly. and. then. in. case. I. missed. something. the. first. time. he. repeats. himself. a. couple. of. times. So I'm not getting up for that.

I think he's gone now, and in his absence, I've cleaned the kitchen again. Maybe I need new contacts, but I can't see what he's all upset about. If there had been a big blob, that's one thing, but mostly the issue is that the house smelled like bacon, I think. Like, I'm not allowed to have popcorn because he doesn't like the smell (and oh, I miss it so) so maybe that's the issue. I'm not sure, because he cooks bacon, but then he also leaves dishes in the sink as he eats, but I get in trouble for that too. So I wiped everything down, cleaned everyting again and OD'd on the Lysol so that he'd smell it whenever he came home. And I'm hungry, but I don't want to cook before he comes home and smells the Lysol so I'm eating crackers and peanut butter.

Post nap, I'm still a little sleepy, but I'm not as cranky anymore. Also, I may have a drink. This is a fabulous location, and the apartment is pretty and I can get through this. I just need to be very calm.

I have two bus stories, one I've been meaning to tell for a while, the other more recent.

To Begin:
The day after the most recent tour of Virginia, I began my temp work at the British School of Washington. Sunday night after I got home, I got a call from my temp agency to tell me how to get to the job. The told me to check wmata.com, but they were fairly sure I had to take a bus. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. The Temp Woman kept talking about how she was sure I wouldn't have any problems, everyone else had found it, blah blah. I wanted to say, "Lady, do you know who I am? I just made it home from a THREE HOUR bus ride, and you want me to get on a bus tomorrow to make it to work by 8am? You realize I'm going to have to leave at 5am, right?" But I didn't.

I did my homework - four times, including at 7am the morning of, just to make sure I was still okay. I was supposed to take the train to McPhearson Square and then take the S4 or the S2 bus to Silver Spring at 14th and Eye. I was freaking out.

Now, most intersections have four corners (except the ones that have five and three, and those confuse me greatly), and this one did too. That meant that there were four places on 14th and Eye that I could pick up this train, and my task was to find the correct side before the bus showed up while I was on the wrong side of the street. I check the corner the Metro lets me out on. That sign says 54 and 52. Okay, moving on. Cross the street. That sign also says 52 and 54. Did I read the website wrong? Did I see "S" when I should have seen "5"? Why didn't I go to Kinko's to print out the directions? Check the other corner! X4? Who the hell wants to go there! Where am I going? What should I do?!? One more corner! What if it's not there? I'm going to be late! It's 2.37 miles, I can't walk that, what am I going to do?

Oh. S2 and S4. And there's the bus with the working sign that says "To Silver Springs." Well. I suppose I should get on board now.

But how will I know when to exit the bus? I can't see the street signs until after we pass them. I hate the bus, and it hates me. It's stupid to refuse a job because you have to take the bus, but...

Oh. There's a working sign in the bus, and there's a Voice that tells me what stop we're at in case I can't read. Oh, and here's my stop. That was ... easy.

Getting home was equally easy. And what's more, when I went to go visit my friend after work who lives on 18th and P, rather than take the bus back to where I normally exit, I got off the bus at 16th and P. And I was actually exactly where I thought I was. Holy Crap. This bus is my bitch.

BUS: 5, India: 4

-----------------------------------------------------------
But I have bad bus ju-ju, so the bus always has its revenge, the monster.

I traveled back from the wedding with Jay, and it didn't occur to me to be concerned with the bus journey that takes us from the airport back to the Metro. Not only have I done this bus many times before, I had Jay with me to help fight the good fight.

Due to the slowness of our luggage arriving, we missed the bus at 3pm even though we arrived at 20 till. The next bus didn't leave until 3:40, so we just waited. There was quite a crowd when we finally did get on the bus, and we had to go all the way to the back to find two seats together. The way this bus was designed, there were four seats at the back of the bus facing front, and then a row of seats on either side perpendicular to the back, making a little rectangle in the back of the bus. Jay and I were sitting on the left side of the bus in the two seats closest to the back. I should have known there would be issues when the man sitting in those two seats started yelling before the bus even started moving.

"Move FORWARD! Hurry Up! .... Stand behind the white line when the bus is in FORWARD MOTION! Pete! Sit Down! Hurry Up! Forward Motion! White Line! MOVE FORWARD!!!!!"

As there were people still getting on teh bus, the bus driver did not respond to the hollered instructions from the back of the bus, and he continued yelling off and on until we did finally move forward.

The next fifteen or so minutes were fairly peaceful, as we sort of dozed on the bus. Apparently, our friend used this time to count the change in his pockets for the next leg of his trip. Abruptly, he sits up and flings out his hand with something in it at me.

"A dime?!" (Everything he said was in exclamations.) Confused and sleepy, I shook my head, so he made the same motion to the other passengers on the back of the bus. Eventually, the Perky Brunette Co-ed in the seat across the aisle said okay, she'd take a dime, and he gave her what appeared to be a handful of pennies that she put in her pocket.

What he actually wanted, it seems, is for someone to give him a dime for his 10 pennies, but Perky Brunette Co-ed didn't know this. So he started yelling at her, "A Dime! A Dime! A Dime for the train! No Pennies, A Dime! A Dime for the Fare!" And so forth. She frantically starts searching in her pockets, as does her friend, so he calms down momentarily. Unfortunately, she did not have a dime. So she gives him back his pennies and the nickle she did find.

"A NICKLE!" He proclaims, and then it hits him that he's still five cents short. "A Dime!" He demands again, but she says that she doesn't have a time. She offers him a fare card that has 60 cents on it, but that doesn't compute, so he rejects that option in favor of seeking out another nickle.

"A Nickle, A Nickle, a Lickle Nickle! N-I-C-K-L-E! A Lickle Nickle! A Nickle for the Fare! A Lickle Nickle!" He leaps up out of his seat and starts going up the aisle, thrusting his face at the other passengers, demanding a "LICKLE NICKLE." The guy on the other side of Jay starts rooting around in his backpack, trying to find a nickle. We're all hoping someone has a nickle lest things get violent. Our friend finally comes back down the aisle, notices this activity and cheers on the Backpack Guy.

"A LICKLE NICKLE A LICKLE NICKLE I NEED A LICKLE NICKLE!!!" (I wish there were a way I could properly communicate the volume at which this was delivered.)

"Here!" Perky Brunette Co-ed has finally found a nickle. (Why couldn't she have just found it in the first place? Bitch.) Our friend sits back in his seat and starts humming to himself, very softly.

The rest of the trip passed without incident.

Before we leave the bus, Jay leans over and says, "I'm never riding buses with you again."

The Long Awaited Bus Story
Further India vs. The Bus Background

I love reading the free paper on the train in the morning. Apparently, someone has decided that if the news is free, it should be more random. And maybe I found these funny because I'm exhaused from the weekend still, but I really think they are worth sharing.

Just Say Gnome
A woman stopped an intruder from entering her home by lobbing a garden gnome at him, police said Friday. Jean Callop was awakened early Tuesday morning by the sound of an intruder on the roof of her home in Wadebridge, England. "I grabbed the first thing that came to hand - one of my garden gnomes - and hurled it at him and hit him," she recalled. "I went back into the kitchen and found a rolling pin in case he came down. I didn't want to break another gnome."

U.S. Breeds World's Cutest Animal
The only whale-dolphin mix in captivity has given birth to a playful female calf, officials at Honolulu's Sea Life Park Hawaii said Thursday. The calf was born on Dec. 23 to Kekaimalu, a mix of a false killer whate and an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. The as-yet unnamed wholphin is one-fourth false killer whale and three-fourths Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. Her slick skin in an even blend of a dolphin's light grey and the black coloring of a false killer whale, and she's jumbo-sized compared to purebred dolphins.

Winging It
A Colorado man reports he saved the life of one of his chickens by giving it mouth-to-beak resuscitation after it wandered into a tub of water. Uegene Safken said he also started yelling, "'You're too young to die!' Every time I'd yell at him, he'd chirp."

Nats' 'Screech' Comes Out Of His Shell
The Washington Nationals hatched their new mascot about 25 minutes before their victory over Arizona on Sunday: Screech, an oversized baby eagle.
The team dubbed Sunday "Kids Opening Day," and for the pregame unveiling, dozens of children gathered in the outfield alongwith several mascots from area college and pro teams - plus, for some reason, a giant Smurf.
Then out came a walking, cracked egg with yellow feet. Eventually the shell came apart to reveal Screech, with a yellow beak and a huge white head topped by a red Nationals cap. He also wears a white Nationals home jersey.

It occurs to me that it's funnier when these little blurbs are mixed in with real news about the Pope and the Senate in actual newsprint. I have a hard time believing that some editor doesn't know exactly what she's doing when she sticks these stories in the paper.

Unrelated: The head of the British School of Washington actually said "Cheerio" as he ended a phone call with me this morning. I never though anyone actually said that...

I just got back from the wedding, and I'm exhausted. It was so pretty, and I managed not to "openly weep" during the ceremony (though I came awfully close watching the groom say his vows). My dress stayed up, my hair stayed put, my escort stepped on my dress in the hallway when only the Wedding Party was around, I didn't spill anything on myself or catch the bouquet. I'd say it was a successful wedding.

On the agenda for the evening: after having removed 41 bobby pins from my head, it is time to wash out the hairspray. The hair lady said that if it doesn't want to come out, I can make a paste with baking soda, and that should do the trick. Oh dear.

I will say this about my hair - I didn't take out the pins et al. until 34 hours after they were first put in. During that time, I slept on it (briefly - why sleep when you can have fun?), took it line dancing, to two bars, on a plane ride, a bus trip (Ass Comment: there is another bus story), a Metro ride, and while it definitely looked better before all of those things, I was impressed that it was both all still there and not hurting me. But I'm not going to work looking like that tomorrow (did I think about that? Yes.) so now I have to summon the energy to stand up long enough to shower. So... sleepy...

Much as I love DC, it's always hard to leave Vandy. I made some really spectacular friends there, and while some of them made the trip up here with me, too many of them are far away. Saying goodbye is difficult.

I'm in Nashville this weekend because I'm a bridesmaid in yet another wedding of friends from college. I suppose it would be better to say that I love Vanderbilt, because every time I come back here, I feel all warm and fuzzy.

I walked into Morgan this morning to go to the Munchi, and it smells like home. I needed to go to Garland to check my email, and my feet automatically took me here. Some things are new and different, like the nail salon in Branscomb, but the places that I knew and loved are still unchanged.

Oh, and a word to all the alumni - the band alumni have been talking about raising money among ourselves to bring the band building up to code - the amount of mold in the building is truly disgusting - since if a health inspector ever decided to inspect it, the building would be condemned and we'd have no home. The Alumni Band President sat down with some administration people to talk about this, and the administration people said that all donations from now on are going to the Residential Housing projects until they are completed. No more earmarking your donations. I personally am against that idea, so I will not be giving money back to the University at large until I get to say where it goes. I will be writing my checks directly to University Bands or Vandy Debate or whatever. (Because NOT donating doesn't seem to be an option in my head.)

But I love it here still. So pretty. I'm going to go sit on the lawn and do the crossword in my flip-flops.

As originally performed in MS Word so as to prevent the eating of Posts.

For the Lovely Emma’s Bachelorette Party, we the bridesmaids decided that we needed to dress her. We divided things by areas of expertise - her Maid of Honor was in charge of pants, her other childhood friend was in charge of shirt and shoes, The Whitley was in charge of bling, and I was in charge of the hat. Based on the theme “Cowgirls in the City”, I decided that Emma needed a cowboy hat with hot pink tulle adorned with things. (Ass Side Comment: Emma knew I was in charge of the hat and was absolutely paranoid that she’d end up with horns and bells, a la Tau Beta Sigma. Sadly, horns didn’t even occur to me.)

I looked up a Michaels craft store and a JoAnne’s Fabric store on line, and miracle of miracles, the two stores were located in the same shopping center. Not having a car, I look up the address on wmata.com. It looked easy enough – I take the Metro and then a bus. I downloaded the time schedule, and I was geared up and ready to go.

I get there without any problems. The tulle is even on sale, I beat my budget, it was awesome. For you DC people, the shopping center I went to is one with the Home Depot near the Ikea in Baltimore.

I decided to go to the nearby Wendy’s to sit down and check the schedule I had picked up from the trip there so I could get home. There are two buses that run on the bus line, 1C and 1F. I had taken the 1F there, but it looked on the map like the routes are the same. It’s about quarter of 6, and it looks like there is a 1C bus going Eastward back to the Metro at 6:11. Knowing how the bus hates me, I checked to see what happens if I go the other direction. The map says I should be golden, there’s another Metro station. So no matter which way I go, according to my interpretation of the map, I make it back to the Metro and I can get home. (Insert foreboding music.) I’d like to get back to the same Metro, so I can claim a victory over the bus, but if I don’t, that’s okay. I can still find home.

I get back to the bus stop about five minutes early, and right on time, the bus pulls into the station. C1 at 6:11pm, just like the schedule says. I wave my transfer sheet at the driver and settle down, all proud of myself.

Need I mention that this is the point where I went wrong? I started off in Baltimore, which is in Maryland. Before too long, I started seeing signs for things in Fairfax, which is in Virginia. Okay okay, I thought. Metro #2 is the backup plan, I’m still okay.

Well, apparently not. The driver told me – an hour and a half later, as we were parked on the side of the road for him to take his 30 minute break that he was using to mock me about getting on the wrong bus – that the C1 doesn’t go to Metro #2 on the weekends. Or something. I was trying not to lose my temper, so I stopped listening to him. The bus eventually did go back to Metro #1, so I did in fact make it back to the same Metro I started from, three malls, two hospitals, and two and a half hours later (Ass Comment #2 – why would anyone take the bus to the Emergency Room? Seems like that’s going in cross purposes, but then I have bad luck with the bus).

There’s an ad in my schedule for something called “The RideGuide.” They show two people getting on a bus, a man and a woman. The arrow on the man says,

He Knows:-Where The Bus Is Going

The arrow on the woman says,

She Knows: -Where the Bus Is Going
-When It Will Arrive
-Which Metro Station To Transfer To
-How Much It Will Cost
-Walking Directions To Her Final Destination

Shit. I’d be doing well to know where my bus is going, apparently.

BUS: 5, INDIA: 3

For those unfamiliar with my bus issues, some background.

As found in this morning's Washington Post Express, the free paper that they give you as you hop on the Metro in the wee hours:

Slurp
To Get Wasted, Don't Waste It
A man was arrested in Buffalo, N.Y., on Friday after dropping and shattering a case of liquor he had just stolen, then returning with a straw to suck up the pool of booze, the Buffalo News reported. Thomas L. Hunter, 55, took the $270 case of brandy while a distributor was making a delivery to a liquor store, police said, then took off running down the street. He tripped and fell, but soon came back with a straw. He dropped to his knees and began drinking up whatever brandy was still on the ground. When a police officer showed up, Hunter tried to escape, but was caught and arrested.

As it is Tuesday, I would like to petition the Most Supreme Leader that Mr. Hunter be made an honorary member of TNDC. This is truly a man dedicated to lifting his spirits.

My birthday is coming up soon, and someone needs to buy me this book.

Which is more dangerous: a gun or a swimming pool? How much does campaign spending really matter? What truly made crime fall in the 1990s? These are the sort of questions raised—and answered—in the new book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.

That is my kind of econ.

The bus story is getting postponed. Blogger ate my post, and I'm tired and getting up in 6 hours.

Blogger can suck on these.

For those of you that noticed a lack of substantive entries latley, I appologize. I thought I could trick you with more less-substantive posts. (And I'm fairly sure that I'm within the bounds of good grammar with that last sentence, though if I'm wrong, I'm not giving you a dollar). It's really not that I'm terribly busy, but that all the activity happens in short spurts... During recess, I have more bump notes to write, and then the phone starts ringing... The job is not hard or stressful, but I have to be ready to drop the goofing off to do the job that I'm being paid to do. Already, in the course of this post, I've been interrupted 6 times. It's hard to get a good cohesive post. And I have such a good bus story that I've been holding...

What about the weekend, you ask? Well, I'm glad you did. I had a Bachelorette Party to facilitate, and it kicked ass. And yes, the bride is still a Bachelorette until July, but I seriously doubt she'll be signing asses with a purple sharpie again. I, on the other hand, will definitely wear my hot pink cowboy hat again.

I had something else to say, but I got interrupted again, so I forgot. I need to go put the kettle on, find a plaster for my blister, have a biscuit, xerox some more bump notes and read the Washington Post.

But I promise the bus story by the end of the calendar day.

Let's take a vote. Who thinks this douchbag actually has the balls to do this in person? Asswipe.

My favorite part of politics is often that it resembles the same kind of taunting I remember on the playground at elementary school, just more elegant. An example, from the Washington Post:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales got many kudos on the Hill this week for his performance in testifying before the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

For example, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) thanked Gonzales "for being here and for at least conveying the impression that you sometimes hear and even understand the questions we ask. That's already an improvement over your predecessor."

In other words, "We like you more than Ashcroft. Would you like to join our club, JUSTICE - Judiciary of the United States Trying to Intake Congressional Evidence. No girls allowed."

Country Who Most Resembles The Hair Club For Men: Lithuania

Lithuania: not only a consumer, but also a contributor

As I transcribe 27 pages of sentences written by 10 yr olds:

Misspelled Word of the Day:

atterchoud

Runner Up:

cinde

Runner Up Number Two:

rosbonseball

Best Sentence of the Day:

Lika is special because she likes boys.

Runner Up:

He has a great sense of humour and talent and is very good at watching TV.

Wow.

I am so naming a cat General Tao.

(Belated Hat Tip: The Whitley.)

I have a temp job this week as the receptionist with the British School of Washington. This means that among other things, I have to get up when it is still dark and then figure out how to ride the bus. But that's a different post.

The most fun part about this job is that the teachers actually are British, as are most of the students. (Well, one teacher is Scottish, but she's not the one named McIntyre, which confuses me greatly.) That means that there is the good tea in the staff lounge - no coffee - and they definitely speak differently. Some of it I can figure out, I know where the boot of the car is from reading Agatha Cristie books. But when they all get together and start talking, they might as well be speaking another language, I can't get any of it. I have trouble understanding parents on the phone too, between the accents and the slang. One parent said to tell her children not to take the bus, as she would be there to catch them after school. Right. The following exchange happened during recess after lunch with one of the older kids. I image she's about 9 or 10:

GIRL: I need a bump note.

ME: A what?

GIRL: I need a bump note. Like, for bumps...(pause, looks to gauge comprehension. I still have no idea.) Are you new?

ME: Yes. I'm not sure what that is, tell me more about it.

GIRL: Like if we fall down or get hurt, we take a note home.

ME: Like an Incident Report?

GIRL: Yeah...(pause, as I fill out the note) Are you American?

One of the things that this school does that I don't remember from my education is that whenever the kids get bumped, bruised or bled, we write up a little thing titled an Incident Report to send home to the parents, keeping a copy for the Incident book (which is quite large and growing, I've done three of these today). The book says Incident, as does the paper itself, and yet, I've clearly marked myself as American by not knowing what a "bump note" is. It's also funny that she had no idea if I was new or not... on the other hand, I can't remember new people in the front offices of my schools, but then I went to public school where there was a serious "Front Office", not the closet with the quasi-computer that I've got now.

But the cookies are good. Er, "biscuits."

Tonight I met Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I rock.