jennsylvania

Worst Intervention Ever - UPDATED

Yesterday emails bounced back and forth between my group of close girlfriends.  In the course of coordinating lunches and general catching up, my pal Gina mentioned that she just spotted the Thundercats' mom.  (Gina's the one who originally rescued the Thundercats.  Apparently Chuck Norris, Gus, and Odin's mother is the epitome of alley cat and gets pregnant around this time every year.)  Gina described how she's been trying to catch her so she can take her to the vet and be spayed before moving on to other business in her portion of the email chain.

My friend Stacey is part of this group.  Her email response?

Okay, first of all…Jen….NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  You may not.  Don’t even think about it. 
 
I’m not saying, I’m just saying. 

Weekend in NYC with Bill was amazing, so much fun.  And I am delighted to have my month of crazy over and done with.  
 
(Um, Jen, I can hear you thinking from here, and just NO.)
 
Of course, this week have Passover tonight, Saturday Bill and I are…Jen..N-Freaking-O…hosting our first dinner party for his friends, so that should be fun.  I am looking forward to next week and getting back to normal.  Including lunch with my posse!

Then yesterday while I was out, I got the following voicemail from my friend Angie:

"Hey, it's Ang.  Where are you?  Are you out buying pansies?  Do not buy pansies yet!  They will die!  We're still due for one more big freeze and you're going to lose them all.  Don't buy them.  I mean it.  (long pause)  You're buying pansies right now, aren't you?  Stop!  Put the pansies back!  No pansies!"

I'd say something disparaging here about how my friends naturally assume I'm going to go for the stupidest possible outcome, except yesterday I spent a good deal of time A) debating the merits of finding/rescuing the Thundercats' potential siblings, and B) driving past the outdoor part of Home Depot reaaallll slooooow.

So if you hear of them staging a kitten-and-container-garden-based intervention soon, you'll know they were right.

UPDATE:

What can I say?  I'm weak.

Please note how there's no caption here saying "Suck it, Angie," despite having received a text stating "Step away from the potting soil, everything will die a frosty death, you annual assassin."

Anyway, I decided to split the difference.  I got a few flowers, but they'll go in containers I can move into the garage if need be.  Which they won't because IT'S SEVENTY-FIVE DEGREES OUT, DAMN IT, IT'S NOT GOING TO FREEZE.

On a related note, I couldn't BUY tons and tons of flats of pansies because Home Depot hasn't set them out yet.  I'm not sure how she managed to swing it, but I suspect this has Angie's hand-print all over it.

And no, I didn't go looking for the pregnant cat.


(Yet.)

In Case There Was Any Doubt...

... this is why we're jerks.

jen @ home:  Just read on the crime blotter that two guys in the neighborhood were arguing and a third guy came up and stabbed one of them in the thigh.  And I couldn't help but wonder, 'Hey, what's Agent Jack Bauer doing in Logan Square?'

fletch @ work:  What about this part?  'One man is in critical condition after being stabbed in the chest at Illinois Masonic.'  I knew it wasn't a great hospital, but now they stab people there?

jen @ home:  Sometimes stabbing is funny.

fletch @ work:  Yeah.

I suspect the bad karma we generate is exactly why we haven't found house to buy outside of this stabby neighborhood.

(But it's still a little bit funny.)

Alert The Presses! Oh, Wait...

Yay!  My Chicago Tribune column has been posted!

Am not yet sure when or how it gets to other papers, but I know it's right here right now:

Don't Blame Mii, Japan

Hope you dig it!

Today's Dose Of Shame Is Brought To You By Fox

Dear Self,

The reason that news story made no sense to you is because Haeley Vaughn and Haley Barbour are two entirely different people. 

One is the cute little girl who got kicked off of American Idol during the semi-final round and one is the Governor of Mississippi.  That explains why you were so surprised when you heard about the young singer - previously only seen hot-gluing silk flowers to headbands - questioning the constitutionality of the heath care bill.

Perhaps you should invest in one of those "I'm with Stupid" t-shirts, only you'll need to find one with the arrow pointing up.

Best,

Jen

P.S.  This is why I don't let you talk about politics on your website.

P.P.S.  You realize Haley Barbour isn't even a chick, yes?

And I Thought I Was Mad Last Night - UPDATED WITH 100% MORE JUSTICE

First, I'll post the link to my column as soon as I get it.  I guess I misunderstood how the whole syndication thing works - the column hits the AP wire today and then gets distributed to papers so the earliest it will go to print is tomorrow.  Some papers will have the electronic version up today and as soon as I get one of those links, consider it posted.  (I'll get this right eventually, promise.)

Anyway, I'm particularly cranky today because I was up most of the night due to a car alarm.  For more than three hours beginning at midnight, a minivan's alarm went off in front of my house.  Let's just say I called 911 more than once.  Considering the car was parking in a tow zone, I understand this isn't priority, but come on, illegally parked and incessantly bleating?  Shit, I've gotten tickets for legally parking in this city.  I figured a car alarm in a tow zone would merit a SWAT Team.

Now, I realize the police department isn't my own personal cabana boy at the Four Seasons, which is precisely why I ordered a squad car and not a pina colada.  My main goal in asking for police assistance was that I wasn't sure I had the self control not to beat the minivan with a shovel.  Fortunately, my exhaustion was slightly more powerful than my aggravation and I fell asleep instead of heading to the garage to grab a spade.

So, given my mood, today was not the best day to learn that there's a blogger out there passing off my content as her own.  Okay, not to be all arrogant here, but if you're going to steal writing, maybe you should target someone who hasn't been on the New York Times best selling list.  An alert reader tipped me off to the plagiarism and I went to her site where I found pages and pages of my own words.

In an Alanis Morrisette-level of irony, this asshole's tag line is "I Can Write It Better Than You Ever Felt It."

No, you can't write it better, bitch. 

You can only copy it better.

And by the way, some of the shit she swiped is in the next book.  I'm willing to wager my publisher has even less of a sense of humor about plagiarism than I do.

Last night I kept myself from administering street justice.  I'm not feeling quite so magnanimous today.

Here's her URL:

Peace, Love and Kelsey

Shovels welcome.

UPDATE:  Kelsey's entire blog has been taken down.  I imagine it took too much work to remove all those individual entries. 

An apology has been received and I'm pretty sure a lesson has been learned.

Well played, shovels.  Well played.

How Do You Say "Jackass" in Polish?

I'm holed up in my office when I hear their rising voices. 

Now I don't speak Polish, but I do speak panic, and from the tone of what they're saying, I suspect there's trouble afoot. 

As I hear the slap of flip-flops barreling down the hallway, I think to myself, "Whatever this is can't be good."

To backtrack, I spend every Friday from 11-2 hiding in my office when our cleaning ladies come.  Mind you, this is the newer service, as we fired the old team due to theft.  Also, I realize in an economy like this, weekly maid service is an extravagance, but Fletch and I made a deal.  As long as I'm working on a project, I'm allowed to outsource our housekeeping.  I'm currently knee-deep in two books, getting ahead on my monthly Tribune column, contributing to an anthology for the Humane Society, and preparing a speech for an event next month, so I'd say my dance card is full in regard to work. 

(The fact that I was less "writing" in my office and more "watching The Real Housewives of New York" is really beside the point.) 

(Seriously?  This season?  OMG!) 

Anyway, one of the ladies is calling "Excuse!  Excuse!" to which my Pavlovian response is to fork over a check and a generous tip, which is really kind of a pain in the ass when trying to navigate a crowd.  Common sense kicks in and I realize they've only been here fifteen minutes and can't possibly be done. 

At this point it occurs to me that neither of the ladies has ever actually said anything to me except for "excuse."  (Fletch told me once when he was here and I wasn't, one of the gals held a cell phone to his head and said, "Ask boss," when he inquired if they could fold a couple of baskets of laundry.  I hate that I missed it.) 

Before I continue, I must note that I'm absolutely enamored with any Eastern European accent having been raised on a steady diet of Bullwinkle.  (I think that's why I'm such a fan of spa services.  Every hotel esthetician I ever met was ex-Soviet bloc and sounded just like Natasha Fatale.)   So, since this cleaning team started, I've been plotting to find a way to get one of them to say "moose and squirrel" but have yet to find a way to work it into conversation, particularly as conversation at this point has been fairly one-note. 

(Yes, I understand exactly why this makes me a jackass.  No need to email me.)

I open my door and find one of the ladies in what can best be described as a state.  "Do you want me?" I ask.  "Is something wrong?  Can I help?"  I figure whatever the problem is, I can fix it.  If someone hurt herself, I can grab our first aid kit, call 911, or do an ER run.  If something broke, I can glue it back together.  If they're simply appalled at how dirty the floors got while I was at SXSW and Fletch was in charge of the house, I can give them more money.

She replies to my line of questioning by saying the one thing that doesn't have a readily apparent solution.

"The shit is small."

"I'm sorry?" I ask.  "The shit is small?"  I repeat myself a couple of times while I try to work it all out.

She nods emphatically and points in the direction of the master bedroom at the opposite end of the hallway.  "The shit is small."

As we both rush back down the hallway, my head races with grim possibilities. 

Where did the small shit come from? 

And where is the small shit now? 

Is the small shit on my duvet?  That's not such a big deal because I can wash it.

Is the small shit on my linen chair?  Um, more problematic, because I'm not sure how to clean that fabric.  Scrub brush?

Oh, God, please tell me there's no small shit on my prized Persian rug with the delicate swirls of celery and cerulean blue woven throughout the magenta wool.

Wait, is this like the time one of our cats barfed in the cleaning lady's shoe, only a million times more gross? 

Or did Loki deposit another "I got nervous" bomb somewhere terribly inopportune? 

Did something go horribly awry in Fletch's bathroom due to my cavalier attitude toward using an antique banana in his smoothie yesterday?

I get to the master bedroom expecting chaos... carnage... destruction... or at the very least, a diminutive pile of something steaming.

Instead I find that I've laid out the wrong bedding, accidentally setting out a Queen set instead of King and for the better part of five minutes, they've been attempting to wrestle them on to the bed.

Oh... I get it. 

The sheet is small.

I start to laugh, then I apologize profusely, swapping out Queens for Kings.  I head back to my office, where I spend the next two hours and forty five minutes giggling, as I'm unable to stop delighting in the phraseology of the shit being small.

And then it occurs to me... this probably why our old cleaning ladies stole from us.

Sheet.

Balance Is Bullshit Core Conversation Details

For those of you at SXSW this week, here are the details for my core conversation tomorrow with bestselling author/blogger Stephanie Klein:

Blogging is a constant balancing act of creating new content, networking, marketing, monetizing and keeping up on the latest social media trends. It also leaves little room to have an offline social life. Popular bloggers will share their secrets on why balance is bullshit and how they really get it all...

The session begins at 12:30 PM in Room 8A at the Austin Convention Center. 

 

Book signing for SXSW attendees following at 1:50 PM in the South By Bookstore on the 4th floor of the Convention Center and continues for half an hour.

 

Hope to see you tomorrow!

You Realize I'm Not Actually Going To Live Outside, Yes?

Okay first, I have links to a couple of interviews I just did...

Here's the article on Suite 101

and here's the link for Pajamas and Coffee 

In other old business, your emails to Living editors are working and the response to the Humor Hotel columns has been great!  (I suspect emails from subscribers hold more weight than non-subscribers, just FYI.)  My first column comes out on March 23 and if you think I won't mention that a million more times between now and then, well, you'd be wrong.

In keeping with old business, we do net yet have a purchase or a rental home secured.  Ha, ha!  No panic here!  But it's getting warm out and Fletch and talked about finding a place with more outdoor living space.  And what has more outdoor living space that the actual outdoors?

In new business, it would appear that I've given myself pink eye.  Double barrel.  Because apparently I am both twelve years old and dirty.  My eyes started to get irritated a few weeks ago due to a combination of house stress and allergies.  Because I couldn't keep my filthy fingers out of them, hello conjunctivitis!

I made a relatively mortifying call to my physician to get eye drops.  My doctor sounded distressed, employing a shotgun line of questioning on exactly what had been going on with me lately.  I thought her concern was odd and a bit intrusive until I remembered the reason for my last visit. 

Earlier this winter, one of the kittens horked up a small worm.  If you recall when we rescued the guys this summer, they were about a day away from dying due to massive dehydration and infestation.  (Luckily, their problems were nothing three surgeries, seven thousand dollars, and a canceled Hawaiian vacation couldn't fix.)  My vet told me that no matter how thoroughly the kittens were treated, there's always the possibility of a straggler.  Also, if one kitten has worms, they all have worms.  And if the kittens have worms, the dogs probably have worms, so I took them to the vet, too.  After treatment, my dogs' vet mentioned if my pets have worms, then there's the slightest possibility I might have worms.

Awesome.

So I went to see my doctor.  In order for her to diagnose me, she needed a sample.  I sat there in my drafty paper gown, waiting for her to get out a needle and draw my blood.  Instead, she came back with what looked like an enormous white plastic top hat and instructed me to place it on my toilet seat and "go to town."  Then she gave me some little spatulas so that I could divide up said sample for various tests.

When I got home, I stared long and hard at my white plastic top hat and spatula collection.

And I decided I'd rather have worms.

And then I spent two weeks dodging my doctor's follow up calls.

So it makes sense that when I've presented twice with symptoms more commonly seen in the homeless, it stands to reason that she was worried.  I assured her that all was well, she didn't need to call Adult Protective Services, and that I wasn't living outside.

Yet.

The 40 Year Old Property Virgin

Remember that scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin with Catherine Keener and Jonah Hill?  Jonah Hill's character goes into Keener's eBay store and wants to buy a pair of spangly silver platform boots with goldfish in the lucite heels.  It goes down like this:

"Yeah, these are wonderful.  I'll take these."

"Thanks, they are.  They're great.  The goldfish just crack me up."

"Funny."

"Yeah, they are.  Yeah."

"Yeah.  They're cute."

"I don't actually sell anything here.  I just sell them on eBay."

"I don't get it."

"Okay."

"So I guess I'll just give you some money and you can give me these shoes and..."

"You know, I know it seems so strange..."

"Yes.  I'd just rather buy them from you straight up."

"Yeah, I know.  I wish it could be that easy, but..."

"I wish, too, but you're making it extremely difficult for me.  I'm just trying to get these shoes back to my house so I can wear them."

And then the scene ends and Jonah Hill does not get the shoes that Catherine Keener is specifically tasked with selling even though A) that's her whole business and B) he's right there, ready, willing and able to purchase them. 

This is pretty much my life right now, if you substitute "spangly silver platform boots with goldfish in the lucite heels" with "a house" and "Catherine Keener's eBay store" with "every fucking bank in Lake County."

Seriously, I thought we were in a buyer's market right now.  I'm a buyer!  I have money!  I have financing!  I have a very official-looking letter from my bank stating specifically that I am not a chump.  I would like to exchange the aforementioned for your house, even with its mauve paint and gold faucets.  (Seriously, who was your decorator?  Prince?)  Let's make a deal before my current lease ends and I have to live outside! 

And yet every home that's right for us (despite the hideous wallpaper and Liberace-esque bathrooms and MAUVE! MAUVE! MAUVE!) is a short sale and even when we offer full asking price (in this market!), we can't get what we want because we aren't paying cash (who are these people in Lake County?) or our close date is later than other bidders.

I guess the one bright spot is that my car's finally back from its three and a half week vacation in the dealership's service department.  The car feels all refreshed and happy and relaxed with its new starter, suspension system, and differential, which will make it nice for when I have to move into it.

At least it's not mauve. 

Galley Copy Winners!

Thanks to all of you who wrote in to your local papers to request they carry Humor Hotel!  The Trib's gotten a great response so far, which means hopefully I'll be coming soon to a town near you.  (In print.)  (But you probably already figured that out.)

Anyway, I used a random number generator to pick the winners and they are as follows:

Sarah B. - 552

Stephanie S. - 196

Jennifer J. - 555

Rebecca M. - 199

Sarah E. - 332

(Somehow I felt like you guys wouldn't want your whole name spelled out here.  I've already emailed each of the winners, so you should know who you are.  If I don't hear back from you in a few days, I'll try again.  If I don't hear back in a week, I'll pick a different winner.)

Anyway, you're welcome, no, scratch that, encouraged to continue to contact your local Living editor about carrying the Humor Hotel package.  With talents like Mark Bazer, Michael Showalter, and Diane Farr, you kind of can't go wrong.

Thanks again for your help and I hope to have other My Fair Lazy give-aways closer to the release date!