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October 18, 2004 12:13 PM- of mice and flies
Below are 11 reasons why no one should ever, EVER be jealous of me or have any need to damn me to hell. (As if you needed 11 reasons. The most obvious reason to never envy me is that I spend the most vibrant, exciting part of my day in corporate America-- my soul befouled by the sticky soot of capitalist greed and terrible interior design.
((Oh, FYI, the neck is much, much better after I thought I was going to die Saturday night . . . thanks for all your kind wishes))
1. Saturday morning I pulled open a kitchen drawer in this rental house where we will be until late May and found an empty plastic bag. Well, it wasn't entirely empty. There was a tablespoon or so of salt in the bottom of the bag. And, a small hole in the corner. I lifted it up to examine more closely and saw the telltale tiny mice turds on the white surface of the drawer bottom. Meanwhile, my lovely bag of roasted, salted almonds was gone. We have MICE.
2. Upstairs in this house there are 6 skylights. Buzzing in thick hordes in the skylights are FLIES. And when I say hordes, I mean thousands upon thousands of fat, slow end-of-summer flies that you only see in cabins or camps or, as it happens, rental houses. T has brought the shop vacuum upstairs and sucks them up regularly and yet, MORE STILL ARRIVE. For my part, I have gone to "the" Wal-Mart (love you Sam and Otter) and purchased clear fly strips that attach to the windows. Great invention, right? Well, it is. Except for the take them down part when they are LOADED with dead flies . . . . .
3. My hair is coming in silver and has since I was 30. I SO SO SO want to stop coloring it. But I am going to color it again tonight after weeks of growing it in convinced this time that I was really gonna let it go silver (notice the adjective word choice . . most people would say gray, ah, but not I). My mother had dark hair well into her late fifties and only started a lovely salt and pepper into her sixties. My father, on the other hand, was straight up silver since he was 27. Guess whose hair gene I inherited?
4. We have no high speed internet and no TV. Who cares about TV, you might ask. And you would be right. I don't care. Except for my boyfriend, Jon Stewart----- no comedy channel, no Daily Show, no Jon . . and I am in withdrawl people. It is PAIN. (Thank you violet is my colorfor the hit of methadone in your last post).
5. Did I mention I work in corporate America?
6. The closest place to get Indian food is 65 miles away! Thai food is 35 miles away! Sushi is 35 miles away! To eat in a real French restaurant I would have to drive 2 hours to Boston. This is the angst Sartre was talking about, people.
7. And let's not even TALK about the films I never get to see. Playing at our theater right now? Shark Tale, Sky Captain, Team America. And they will be there for weeeeeeeeeeeeeks.
8. I am geographically challenged. Don't tell me to "go east" or anything remotely like that when giving me directions. First, you must write the directions down for me and they must be absolutely clear like, "go past the green house and before you see the pink flamingo in that ugly house's yard, take a left on the road with the big stump that looks like a bullfrog . ." Trust me. You do not want to be me. I have found myself FLYING up I-91 at 85 miles an hour and thinking, "that's so weird there's snow on the ground in Massachusetts" when I am HEADED TO THE CANADIAN BORDER. Just missed that exit for 91 SOUTH . . .. but didn't realize it for 2 hours!!
9. Really? You still need more reasons?
10. I cannot tell a joke. Not ever. Not if my life depended on it. I can tell you the punchline, I might even remember how it starts, but I will never, ever be able to tell you the whole thing. And we're not even going to talk about delivery style. (There is a side benefit, of course. YOU can tell me the same joke every day of the week and I will laugh as hard every time because I don't remember how it ends!!--- Yes, just call me RAINMAN).
11. I am allergic to fennel and anise. This can really blow sometimes like when you are at a gorgeous restaurant and you have ordered the vegetarian tasting menu and out comes plate number gazillion of heavenly treat and you take a bite and immediately vomit onto the table. Kind of takes the whole ambiance down a notch.
got 2 cents?
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lizardek says:
It didn't work. Try again. I'm still envious :) Okay, not about 2. EW. And not about 3 because I have that same hair gene (except from my mom). 7 made me laugh out loud, so no envy there. Oh, and not about 11 either. The photos in the last few posts though? ENVY. Quitcherbitchen. Hee!
posted on: October 18
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JennB says:
Let me know if you want the directions to the BEST MOUSETRAP EVER. It will kill them, it's not a humane trap. But those buggers are persistant, and it's you or them, sista. Also, the cluster flies? Are everywhere in the NE. They'll go away in a couple of weeks, when it's way cold. And I feel your pain about the restaurant situation. There is no good Thai anywhere around us - I have to get my fix when I'm in Boston. There's a great Franco-American (and I don't mean Chef Boyardee) restaurant that just opened in our town... it's humble but good. The only thing I don't get - they don't serve French bread. They serve corn bread. ???
posted on: October 18
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flygirl says:
Corn bread? Dans un resto francais?! Ca alors. Au moins, tu peux bien bouffer, n'est-ce pas?
posted on: October 18
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stephanie says:
you don't get off that easily, little lady... we all have mice and flies and deadly allergies to, wait... what the heck are you allergic to? I don't even think that counts. I'm allergic to avacados. There's some injustice for you.
Do your neighbors get upset because your two overly excited, musical beagles like to entertain the whole block at 7am with their version of Cock-a-doodle-do?
Still got 50 acres, still 50. Sush now.
posted on: October 18
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wee says:
o...next time you are flying towards the Canadian border, keep flying!!! cuz I'll greet you with open arms. Just turn left at the canadian tire and then go all the way past the townhouses on the curve that look like brownstones and past the catholic elementary sschool and turn left again at the not catholic school and go down three houses to the white one with the mini pumpkin on the porch that is being slowly consumed by a fat black squirrel with a dangerous attitude and an edless capacity to drive my dog insane with the endless and flagrant pumpkin chomping.
posted on: October 18
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wee says:
and please forgive all those grievous spelling errors up there. I have been afflicted with the plague and cannot be sit upright let alone check for spelling errors.
posted on: October 18
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Margaret says:
I am so with you on the directions;my dad always gives me those east-north ones and I prefer left/right and turn at the whatever landmark happens to be there. I am thankfully closer to Indian, Thai and French food, but don't get to go that much because my husband is a STEAK and potato man. I would certainly hate having mice or flies; i would be nervous all the time, especially at night.
posted on: October 18
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violetismycolor says:
We had cockroaches once and it was a major gross-out AND a pain in the heinie to get rid of them. You have my condolences on the flies and the mice...
posted on: October 18
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Marilyn says:
Sorry, my darling, but I've got you topped on the rodent front (check my last post). The flies? Okay, that's disgusting AND gross. But the rest? At least you have Thai, Indian and vegetarian restaurants somewhere on your LAND MASS! And the films? If we do get a 'cool' film, it almost always has Spanish subtitles. No problem, you think...except I can't stop myself from READING them...and I don't speak Spanish. And don't get me started on the gray...er, silver. I got my first gray hair at 24. If I wasn't coloring it, I'd bear an eerie resemblance to Lily Munster...and that's on a GOOD day. :)
posted on: October 19
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samantha says:
I hear ya on the directions thing! Even though my mother claims I have a remarkable sense of direction ever since I got her out of Stuttgart at the age of 12, no one has ever listened to me regarding directions since! And it's more interesting to note the landmarks instead of street names anyway. OH Bluepoppy, you are still the coolest, no matter how hard you try to tell us you're NOT!
posted on: October 19
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Kat says:
I got one word for ya, sweetcheeks: felines. I know the butterscotch boys might be a bit peeved to share their space with "the weaselly enemy" but girl, I gotta tell you - cats freakin hose up everything. In my 20 years of traveling around and living in hovel after hovel - I don't see squat - not flies, wasps, multi-legged thingies, mice puppy-sized rats, nada - my guys have been crowned Slayer of All Things Small and I'd like to think they are unique but indoor cats are so hungry for hunting anything that they will hunt EVERYTHING . . . (and in leiu of actually aquiring felines, would you like me to fedex The Hoon to you for a couple of weeks??? :) PS - sending you many hugs as you navigate the ridiculous waters of corporate . . . :)
posted on: October 19
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kim says:
oh thank goodness. Really, just this morning I was sitting outside in my backyard and was admiring the view of a cyclone fence. A fence! And I thought to myself.......I wish I was bluepoppy. And thank goodness you had this post! I feel oh so much better....but still wish I could at least gaze upon the beauty that you do on a daily basis. I guess I will just look up at the CLOUDS! Silver clouds of Oregon. I should just stop now or I will send myself over the ....... edge.
posted on: October 19
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nina says:
Oh yes, the hair is always always referred to as silver. Salt and pepper is OK, too, but if referring to the salt portion, it must always be called silver.
posted on: October 19
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frecklegirl says:
Oh my goodness! No Jon Stewart and no indian food- I would just die. I love that man.
posted on: October 20
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pastamasta says:
Well, if it makes you feel any better about your geographical eptitude (what IS the opposite of "inept", anyway??), I was once driving from Bristol up to Stafford - straight up the M5 motorway, more or less - and after a couple of hours I couldn't figure out why the mileage signs for the Plymouth ferries just kept getting closer and closer. You wouldn't think you could go the wrong way down a motorway for 110 miles, would you, but hey, with me anything is possible.
I'm catastrophically allergic to avocado, and have only become thus recently, which is both bizarre and extremely annoying, since I used to eat whole avocados with gusto. Hence, most Mexican food is a no-no, as the slightest soupçon of guacamole causes a Projectile Hurling Incident. Yeah, that does go down well at restaurants, doesn't it.
posted on: October 20
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Suzy says:
Well, you got me beat, girl! I only have one, mostly invisible, mouse, and Indian food is just a few blocks away!
posted on: October 20
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Croila says:
Oh god. I thought it couldn't get much worse when I read about the mice turds. And then I read about the flies ...
I can't even think about this any more without wanting to be sick :-(
Poor, poor, you!
posted on: October 20
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