Google

Here are some of the most amusing Google searches that have brought some of you to my blog:

1. "jewfro"
2. "english bulldog life vests"
3. "mardi gras 2005 soulard flash"
4. "weird dairy queen shrimp commercial"

I think they're all pretty funny.

I Wish Your Wish

There’s an episode of Sex and the City (Season 5, #1) where Carrie turns to New York for romance because she’s not in a relationship. Don’t worry, I’m not equating myself in any way to Sarah Jessica Parker but that’s the kind of day I had on Saturday. I slept in (8:45 am!) on Saturday and then spent the morning in my Hello Kitty pajamas watching everything that was on Tivo that I had been saving for over a week.
It was Saturday afternoon that turned out to be really nice though. I went to the Art Museum and made sure to walk around the entire museum which I had not done in a very long time. They redid the Asian art galleries which just opened this month and you can really see where they expanded the collection and put a great deal of thought into the presentation. I strolled through each of the galleries and took extra time in Decorative Arts and Design because it has always been one of my favorite areas of the museum. To me furniture is one of the most personal expressions and to stand and stare at a piece of authentic arts & crafts mission furniture or a chair from the 1920s that looks modern and hi-tech in 2005 is an amazing and beautiful thing. What really made my day was going upstairs to the modern art galleries. I always spend a lot of time in the Max Beckman room and looking at the Matisse paintings and Fragonard etchings when I go up there. Something else caught my eye on Saturday though. I was walking through one of the large rooms in the middle and the guard stopped me and said that someone with such a beautiful smile shouldn’t miss out on making a wish and gestured toward the wall where there were all kinds of people. All at once I was startled that someone was actually talking to me, bothered and skeptical about the smile compliment as I always am when people compliment me, and curious about what all the people were gawking at. Turns out it was an installation called “I Wish Your Wish” by a Brazilian artist and I have to say that even I, the eternal overly critical skeptical pessimist, found it very beautiful and uplifting. There were literally thousands of brightly colored ribbons hanging from the wall with wishes printed on them. You are supposed to choose a ribbon, tie three knots in it, and tie it on your wrist and wear it until it falls off and then your wish will come true. I’m not telling you what my wish was but I really do hope it comes true. As I walked out of the Art Museum I started thinking about how lucky I am to live in St. Louis. No, it’s not New York, or even Chicago, but it does have things that a lot of other cities don’t have. It has a world class Art Museum that anyone can walk into any day of the week for free. Isn’t that amazing? Anyone can stand 2 feet from a Picasso and look at it. Needless to say, if you haven’t been to the Art Museum lately I highly recommend a visit.
One of my favorite casual family owned city eateries is Adrianna’s on the Hill. They’re only open for lunch and I just don’t find myself in that area in the middle of the day anymore so I rarely get to go. When I left the Art Museum I headed to the Hill for a late lunch. It took me half an hour to get a sandwich and I had to get it to go because they were so busy. The weird weather on Saturday obviously wasn’t keeping anyone at home. The line wrapped around the entire room from the counter to the front door and it was mass confusion. I wasn’t the least bit disappointed and I was actually happy to see a city establishment so busy on a weekend in the middle of the day. There really wasn’t anything that could have made my Saturday more perfect than my trip to the Art Museum and the Sicilian Dip from Adrianna’s for lunch. I’m not Carrie Bradshaw and I left my Fendi bag at home Saturday but I can attest that St. Louis does hold a little bit of romance for a single girl every now and then.

Waiting for the bell to ring

It’s Friday and everything should be smooth sailing but instead I’m having the day from Hell at work. I had one meeting this morning where one guy attempted to teach 7 people how to use the company’s new handheld PDA system. You’ve never seen confusion until you’ve seen 5 grown men over the age of 50 trying to grasp this concept. Why would grown men turn into babbling third graders when forced to, dare I say it, learn something new. It’s just not that difficult guys… I think they’d rather have been given a ballpoint pen and an order form with carbon paper. Now I’m sitting here trying to design a label for pink shower gel that smells horrible, of all things, and I can’t make myself focus. I should have it finished by Monday but it’s not looking like its going to happen. I’m dying to cut out of here early but I have another meeting this afternoon to discuss “strategy” for our upcoming sales trip. Who has a meeting on a Friday afternoon? Me, I do! I feel like I’m in a really boring science class in junior high and my eyes are intently focused on the minute and second hand of the clock waiting for the bell to ring. If the meeting runs past 5 I’m not sure that I’ll be able to hang on…

Pay no attention to that [blogger] behind the curtain or computer as the case may be

I have a little blog here that’s still fairly new according to blog standards. I have a few loyal readers and a lot of ultra religious Jews in New York and New Jersey who end up here because they’re intrigued by my cute name and probably don’t stay very long, or so I suspect. You never know, I could end up meeting both of them one day….. Oh, and my overbearing mother found the site by accident but that’s another post entirely.

Last night was the February edition of the St. Louis Weblogger Meetup. Unfortunately there was no improvement in attendance since the January edition. I think this could be such a cool thing and I’m not sure why others don’t agree. I will never have the opportunity to have a live conversation with the authors of the majority of the blogs I read everyday because of geography but why shouldn’t local bloggers convene every once in a while? I’m beginning to think the answer is because they must like to hide behind the comfortable façade of their blogs. People join the meetup group, they RSVP yes and/or maybe, and then they don’t show up (You know who you are). You had to at least be intrigued by the idea from the beginning or else you wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of joining and RSVPing. Let’s face it; we’re all smarter, wittier, funnier, etc. when we have an unlimited amount of time to choose our words in prose than we are face to face but I still would have liked to have the opportunity to find out.

I have a theory lately that having your own blog is a bit like having your own show. Some shows are comedies, some are dramas, some are political commentaries, some are reality shows, and some are at all ends of the spectrum. You control the content of your show, you check your ratings, and you compare your show with the others. I, for one, am just a little bit disappointed that I didn’t get to see what’s behind some of the “shows” I frequent.

I did have a very nice time last night though regardless of the lame no shows. The conversation was good and so was the Sticky Toffee Pudding. Its funny how you make choices in your life, you socialize with different people at different times in your life, you educate yourself, you try different career paths, you move in different directions than you ever thought you would, you travel, you put yourself out there, you get burned, you retreat, whatever….. All of the sudden you’re an adult even though you don’t feel like one and, oddly enough, you’re sitting across the table from someone you knew earlier in your life but didn’t know very well at all and what led you there doesn’t even have anything to do with where you knew the person from. I guess you never know where the next path will lead or where dropping the façade or revealing who is behind the “show” will take you which is why it’s really important to force yourself to do it sometimes.

BreakupNews.Com

Please note the new link on the right, BreakupNews.com. I only wish I could have given you this link in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s a lovely reminder of the benefits of putting yourself out there:

“Hate married people? Tired of engagement news? Still want to sleep with your ex but don't know if he/she is in a new relationship? Breakup News is the place to get the announcements that really matter. Get the skinny on recently ruptured romances. Announce to the world that you're back, and looking for nub in all the wrong places. Spend a few minutes away from porn sites. For consideration, please submit your break up news (click on the heart above). It needn't be witty, as long as it's true, and really, really painful. Thank you, and may all your relationships end badly. --The Male and Female Breakup Bloggers”

Hah!

Progress

"99 Luftballoons"

Nena
German Release 1983, US Release 1984

You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got
Set them free at the break of dawn
Til one by one they were gone
Back at base, bugs in the software
Flash the message, something's out there
Floating in the summer sky
99 red balloons go by

99 red balloons
Floating in the summer sky
Panic bells, it's red alert
There's something here from somewhere else
The war machine springs to life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing it on the sky
Where 99 red balloons go by

99 Decision Street
99 ministers meet
To worry, worry, super scurry
Call the troops out in a hurry
This is what we've waited for
This is it, boys, this is war
The president is on the line
As 99 red balloons go by

99 knights of the air
Ride super-high-tech jet fighters
Everyone's a superhero
Everyone's a Captain Kirk
With orders to identity
To clarify and classify
Scramble in the summer sky
As 99 red balloons go by

99 dreams I have had
And every one a red balloon
It's all over, and I'm standing pretty
In this dust that was a city
I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
And here is a red balloon
I think of you and let it go

A searing vision of World War II? A cool German language pop song in the mid 1980s? A nuclear protest song? A commentary on the cold war? A random pop song with a catchy melody and a driving beat? If you told me this song was any of these things I’d agree with you and/or respect your opinion. If you told me I’d be watching TV on a Sunday night and recognize a cheezy muzak version of it in a JC Penney commercial I would have asked you what you were smoking, (and then probably asked you if I could have some too but that’s not really the point of this), because the idea is that insane to me.

It’s like hearing The Weight* in wireless commercials or the infamous sale of Sting’s soul to Jaguar. It just doesn’t belong there. I guess if something is truly great then the temptation to bastardize it and sell it out at some point always wins out over just allowing it to stand on its own.

*1968, The Band, Music From Big Pink

One Day To Come Together

This week is a barrage of holidays; Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Lent, Chinese New Year, and Valentine’s Day. I’m sure I missed a few in that list.

Did you know that Valentine’s Day originated as a pagan tradition in the third century? It was a day of feasting to honor a God who guarded shepherds’ flocks and also on that day the names of young women were put into a box and names were drawn by lot. The boys and girls who were matched would be considered partners for the year, which began in March. Later it was “Christianized,” like so very many other things, and the priests substituted the drawing of Saints names for the names of the girls. Why am I telling you this? To further illustrate what a ruse the modern day celebration of Valentine’s Day is. How did it go from that to Hallmark, obscene amounts of cheap bourgeois milk chocolate, flowers whose price is inflated the week before the holiday, and large engagement rings that send the happy couple into a debt that ends up breaking up their marriage? No, this attitude does not stem from the prospect of not being coupled on Valentine’s Day. It’s just one more fun holiday to get through. If anyone at work leaves those chalky candy hearts on my desk Monday I will stage a protest.

In what may or may not be related news, did you know it’s the year of the cock? Does anyone else find that funny in a 13 year old boy dick and fart joke kind of way? Maybe I shouldn’t be quite so bleak about what’s on the horizon for 2005 if that’s the case. Happy Chinese New Year! I’ll keep you posted.

What Age Do You Act?

So, what age do you act? Is it close to your actual age? Should I be concerned about mine? It's not that much of surprise but it kind of hurts when even an automated survey knows I'm emotionally immatue!

You Are 19 Years Old

19 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Just Another Monday Morning

I don’t feel like working so I’m reading blogs this morning. Why do Monday mornings always suck? I found this High School Senior Year questionaire on several blogs this morning. I found numerous people’s answers to be funny and easy to relate to.

High School Senior Year

What year was it?
1993-1994

What were your three favorite bands or musical artists?
The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, and The Indigo Girls.

What was your favorite outfit?
Jeans, tye-dyed t-shirt, button down over it, and Birkenstocks.

What was up with your hair?
I was rockin’ a very large Jewfro. I’d still be there without chemical straightening and flat irons. Let’s all give thanks for technology right now.

Who were your best friends?
J, S, and E.

Where did you work?
I did some gift wrapping at Neiman Marcus.

What did you do after school?
I have to say I watched a lot of Oprah Winfrey.

Did you take the bus?
No. 1987 navy blue Toyota Camry.

Who did you have a crush on?
A male friend who came out of the closet about 3 or 4 years later and a guy in one of my art classes who’s name I couldn’t remember for the life of me right now.

Did you fight with your parents?
Who didn’t?

Who did you have a CELEBRITY crush on?
Randall 'Pink' Floyd from Dazed and Confused, John Cusack in Say Anything, Andrew McCarthy in Pretty in Pink, and the classic Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club.

Did you smoke cigarettes?
No. I had tried a Marlboro Red once and didn’t inhale.

Did you lug all of your books around in your backpack because you were too nervous to find your locker?
I did lug all of my books around in my backpack but it had nothing to do with being nervous about my locker. I think I just really didn’t have enough time to get to my locker in between classes.

Did you have a ‘clique’?
No. I really never fit in with anyone in high school.

Did you have “The Max” like Zach Kelly and Slater?
Not really but I do remember stopping at the Baskin Robbins in Ladue quite frequently. I dig the Saved By the Bell reference though.

Admit it, were you popular?
Not at all.

Who did you want to be just like?
If this question is asking if I wanted to be just like someone who I went to high school with then my answer is no one. If it’s asking in a broader sense then I probably wanted to be either Molly Ringwald or a cross between Winona Ryder in Heathers and Winona Ryder in Reality Bites.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
I thought I would be a political lobbyist, some kind of professor, or go to law school. Shows you what I knew.

Where did you think you’d be at the age you are now?
I don’t think that I thought I would have been a mother by this point but I’m sure I thought I would have been married by now. I definitely wouldn’t have thought at 18 that I’d ever even consider living in St. Louis as an adult.

I think this was a thought provoking little exercise. I hope other people will publish their answers to it. While it’s amusing to spend some time thinking of your 18 year old self, It’s gratifying to wake up from that daydream and be very thankful that your 18 year old self is safely tucked away in that dusty yearbook where she belongs.

Those Poor Kids

Dear Dairy Queen Customer Relations,

I just saw the most disturbing television commercial. Two animated shrimp are in the bottom of the ocean. The male shrimp asks the female shrimp if she’d like some popcorn. Both shrimp partake. One says this isn’t popcorn; it’s popcorn shrimp. The other says I thought it tasted familiar. The shrimp look at each other and say wait a minute, where are the kids? Thus implying that they possibly just ate their children in the new popcorn shrimp basket at Dairy Queen.

May I say that this is sooooo wrong on so many levels. Who eats anything at Dairy Queen besides ice cream much less shrimp? Why did someone, or even a team of people, make the decision that cannibalistic shrimp would be a good way to push a new menu item? Please don’t feature cows eating hamburgers in your next campaign. Maybe it’s best to stick to Blizzards next time? Who doesn’t like candy with their ice cream?

Not Your Average Sunday

Do you ever take a step back and think about how bizarre your life looks? Sometimes I think that fiction would be less odd.

My parents have been divorced for less than two years and I’m 29. They still talk to each other several times a week, work together, and occasionally attend social functions with their new significant others that the other is at. Of course I’d rather it be that way than the opposite but you still have to admit that it’s a little unusual. Sunday I planned to spend the day with my father and his fiancé for some quality family time. Over pancakes one of them comes up with the idea that we should go to the Beggin’ Strips Barkus Pet Parade in Soulard with their 16-week-old French bulldog puppy, Isaac. To further complicate the matter, my father decides it would be even more fun if we swing by my mother’s house first and pick up the two English bulldogs, Butch and Petey, which she kept after the divorce. After all, he’s never enforced his right to visitation, right? My mother who is scared that her precious and fragile boys, 75 and 80 pounds of solid dog, will be lost forever by me and my father reluctantly agrees and we’re on our way to Soulard.

I have never been anywhere near Soulard during any Mardi Gras festivities before. The news estimated 79,000 people in Soulard on Sunday and 8,000 dogs. I have to say I believe it. It was wall to wall people and dogs. Isaac, the little French bulldog, was sporting a fluorescent orange vest and a blue baseball cap with the bill turned up. Butch, the old man of the group, wore his brown leather and sheep skin hunting cap and Petey kept the sun out of his eyes with his multi-colored, dog print sun visor and accessorized with several strands of sparkly Mardi Gras beads around his neck. So we each had a dog and we trotted through the parade route with the onlookers cheering us on. The outfits on our dogs paled in comparison to some of the dog ensembles we saw. Some people even dressed like their dogs. One guy had two wiener dogs in a red Radio Flyer wagon and was wearing a matching ringer t-shirt and trucker hat that said I ♥ My Wiener. There was a white standard Poodle that had all of her hair dyed hot pink for the day and her human dyed her hair to match! Lots of dogs dressed up as super heroes and cartoon characters too. Butch was particularly enamored with a female bulldog dressed in a pink ballet outfit complete with tutu and ballet slippers. You may ask how I know this. Let’s just say he made it very obvious several times and showed her a little K-9 love. Proceeds went to a local animal shelter and a good time was had by all. You should check it out next year.

I thought it was going to be a chill Sunday at the movie theater or something. I had no idea what I was getting into.