Ssshhhhhhh!

Last week a group of us had dinner at Pomodoro, a tiny Italian restaurant in Westwood to celebrate my friend Beth's birthday. Beth, Kari and I had been to this restaurant once before and to our shocking surprise we were 'Ssshhh-ed' even though our voices were normal restaurant speaking voices. Well, Beth does have a naturally loud voice but I'm not pointing any fingers. Nonetheless, we loved the food so we thought it was safe to return with a group of nine on a Thursday evening, about three years after the infamous 'Ssshhhh-ing' incident. Boy were we wrong!

There was a table in the corner consisting of a young boy wearing headphones (apparently he was whistling really loudly when they first sat down mind you) and maybe 4-5 older men and women. As we all sat down and began chatting we did notice that since the restaurant was tiny (no bigger than your average living room) everyone who was dining was talking over each other to try to hear themselves. So naturally, our voices increased a bit- and Beth's got a bit louder too. We were having a grand old time when all of a sudden the table in the corner 'Ssshhhh-ed' us! Oh Lord, here we go again! I hate confrontation so I usually shrivel up like a shrimp and hide anytime something like this happens (I get this from my crustacean mother) but the group I was with was not afraid to voice their opinion. First of all, how rude!!! (In Michelle Tanner's voice) Beth's husband, Kris and her friend, Laura 'Ssshhh-ed' them back and told them how rude they were. We tried to continued on with our dinner but were 'Ssshh-ed another 4-5 times throughout our meal. Not without Kris and Laura giving them a piece of their minds though and me shriveling into my shrimp shell and retracting under the table. I'm still not sure why they were singling us out because every table in the restaurant was as loud as we were...maybe it was because we were directly in the center? It was funny though when another table next to us started laughing loudly and my friend Kari 'Ssshhh-ed' them as a joke but they didn't seem to notice. Really? Were we the only ones who even noticed the corner table and their 'Ssshhh-ing?' Just as our check came (along with a few more 'Sssshhhhs') I was ready to take my shrimp-ish self back home to my fish tank. But as we stood up and left, that dumb table started to clap and hoot and holler! Again, how rude!! Kris told them to turn down their hearing aids and not leave their house next time if they couldn't handle an evening out. He then went outside to the window that was directly next to their table and pressed his face up against it for ten minutes. I peed. Us 1, Table in the corner 0.

Talk To Me Goose

Sometimes I think I have a sign on my forehead that reads, "you can tell me anything." Seriously! People love to talk to me about everything and nothing at all. Like last night when I got into the elevator of my building (I was wearing heels) and the guy who was already inside said, "Wow, you are really tall! You must have trouble meeting guys!" Then today at lunch, I was happily and quietly eating my salad from Trader Joe's when an old lady asked me for the time. Apparently when I told her it was 12:27, it opened the 'talking up a storm' flood gates. At first I wasn't sure if she was talking to me because I had no part in the conversation at all (I'm a really good listener), but the fact that she was standing directly in front of me and staring into my eyes was a big clue. She said she was waiting for her cab to come so she apparently had some time to spare to enlighten me on a few topics.

At first she starting talking about salads because I was eating one and how she can't eat them anymore because of some sort of colon issue she had. Then she went into a rant about her Doctor's appointment and how physicians don't know shit. She advised me to tell my Doctor everything because if you go in and say that you are doing okay, then your appointment is over. She then told me that she saved her own life last week because she knew there was something wrong with her so she marched (with her walker) right into the Doctor's office and told him. Next, she got onto the subject of children and told me when I had kids I need to talk to them daily even if they were too little to understand because that is how they learn. She said that her three tall and handsome boys are smart and healthy men because all she did was talk to them when they were babies (doesn't surprise me). She said most parent's now-a-days don't do shit when it comes to parenting. She loved the word shit, by the way. When her cab finally did come, it wasn't a United Cab, Beverly Hills Cab or Yellow Cab but a generic orange and yellow 'Taxi.' She let out a huff and said, "of course they can't send a good cab when I call- they have to send me a Gypsy!" Then she asked me if I had ever been to New York City (I couldn't even utter an answer) because all of there cab drivers there are Gypsy's. She then crinkled her nose and said 'Gypsy' one more time. When the driver got out and tried to help her with her grocery bags, she pretty much hit his hand and told him that she would do it because her walker folds in a special way. Then she looked at me and said, "he doesn't listen!" As she was climbing into the front seat, she reminded me to talk to my babies and told me it was nice talking to me. Again, I didn't get one word in during her entire conversation. At that moment, a car with really squeaky brakes came up behind the cab and the old woman yelled, "what do you think you are doing?" Then she turned to me and said the most powerful closing line, "80% of the population is stupid!" I just couldn't make this up.....

Big Baby Bunting

About 6 years ago, when Grace, my friend Alicia, her boyfriend Ryan and I lived in Boston, we rented a two story house near the Museum of Science. We loved the house but we weren't very fond of the landlord. When she alerted us that she was going to sell the house and start showing it to potential buyers, we were annoyed because even though we were moving out anyways, it was a nuisance on our part. What made it even move of a nuisance was the fact that our landlord didn't know that Grace was a tenant in the third bedroom, that I had a cat, or that's Alicia's dog Sampson was that large. (He was an English Mastiff but we told her initially that he was a Mastiff/Lab mix). So every time she would tell us when a showing would be, we would have to load Sampson, Stella (my cat) and Grace in the car, make it look like the third bedroom was a guest room and drive around the neighborhood for hours. Everyone was miserable- especially Grace!

We were convinced it was going to be on the market for a long time which would give us ample time to move out because the house wasn't a real gem. It was nice and all but there was no closet space (mine was in the hall upstairs) and Alicia and Ryan's bathroom (in their bedroom) was the only bathroom in the house with a shower. The upstairs bathroom had a severe ceiling slant and only had a tub. For the first year we lived there I would take a bath every morning before work (what was this, the 1800's?) until I got fed up and had to walk in Alicia and Ryan's bedroom while they was sleeping in the morning to shower. Awkward! The stairs leading up to the second floor were as steep as Mt. Everest and Sampson would frequently climb them, get stuck because he was terrified to come down and howl until we assisted him on the descent. And the basement was a whole different story- it looked like it was straight out of a horror movie and I used to hate it when Stella would sneak down there and cry to be rescued. Then who was going to rescue me when I got scared? But when the house surprisingly did sell and we had to move out sooner than we had expected (refer to my post titled "Living in a Frat House") we were sort of in a panic.

And then I became convinced that our landlord was trying to get us out faster by doing weird things...like the time I came home from work to find a giant baby bunting/dead body wrapped in plastic wrap in our driveway. Was she trying to frame us for a murder? Was she trying to bomb us out? This mysterious package was addressed to 'Eric Hammer' at 13 5th Street. We were 15 5th Street and our neighbor was 11 5th Street, so unless this Eric guy lived in the trash can in the alley between our houses, he did not exist. Alicia, Grace and Ryan also had no clue who this package could belong to and after we asked all of our neighbors and called the sender (I am pretty sure it was a disconnected number) we had no clue what to do with it. It's not like it was a small box that we could write 'return to sender' on and hand it to the mailman- it was literally taking up the entire driveway. What the hell was this? A giant plastic cigar? After about a week of this giant monstrosity sitting in our driveway, it was magically gone. Nice try landlord, nice try!

Sears Models Club

Besides your typical girly girl hobbies like Barbies, boy bands and biking, I loved anything to do with modeling growing up. In my 'School Days' book, it asked every year what I wanted to be when I grew up and every year I said 'model.' Well, in Kindergarten through 2nd grade I think I actually wrote 'modle' but that's besides the point. I was always filming Miss America pageants on the video camera with my friends when they came over (it was tough when there were only two of us and we each had to be 25 states) and I would always show off my new school clothes to my parents by doing a fashion show. But I needed to feed my passion more. When I was about 12, my mom and I discovered that the Sears in Brunswick had a Sears Models Club and if you signed up (I'm pretty sure they accepted anyone into this club) you could attend meetings every Saturday and you could even do live modeling in the store! So I proudly marched my lanky legs into the Sears one Saturday and signed up. I was officially a model! (Or 'modle') It was probably my most favorite thing in the world. Each Saturday we would meet in the back room at Sears in our Sears Models Club T-shirts (I still have the T-shirt

today thanks to my mom), talk about skin care and how to pose for the perfect picture and then we would venture out into the store. If we going to be live modeling in the store that day, we had to pick out an outfit to wear on the 'runway' that would compliment our partner's outfit. Once we were dressed, we stood in different sections of the store for hours modeling the clothes. (It was probably only about 10 minutes but it sure felt like hours). My cheeks would get so red trying not to laugh, especially when old men would stand in our faces trying to get us to smile. My older sister Amber even joined the club after she heard how much fun it was! We were known as 'the blonde sisters.' I even got to be in a parade to boot.  Oh, those were the good old days...
               

Baby Bye Bye Bye

When I was in college, I was obsessed with 'NSYNC, like obsessed. I bought every CD that was put out, dreamed about marrying Justin Timberlake and still hung posters on my bedroom wall. It was like I was living my New Kids on the Block days all over again but this time I wasn't 10 years old. To my defense, my little sister Grace was also obsessed with 'NSYNC so I felt that I had to support her and her love for them by loving them myself. She needed a good boy band influence in her life. (I still feel bad forcing her to like Danny Woods back in the New Kids on the Block days and then obsessively teasing her for liking Danny Woods).

If being a good big sister and boy band supporter wasn't enough, I had to join the fan club to show them my love, right? So here I was, in college, and signing up for the 'NSYNC fan club. Can you say loser? To put the icing on the cake, Grace and I would learn all their dances and make our mom video tape our performances and submit them to the fan club. (Did I already say I was a big loser?) My summers home from college (when I wasn't working at the hot dog stand) would consist of learning 'NSYNC dances by watching all of their performances with Grace and then performing them for our video camera. Last Christmas when I was home, my mom thought it would be funny to dig out that old video and show it to my family and my brother-in-law's entire family. During this specific video (which I will never reveal to you or my future husband thank you very much) Grace (JC) and I (Justin) danced to 'Bye Bye Bye' alongside three cardboard cutouts of Lance, Joey and Chris. Yup, we pasted their faces on cardboard and dressed them up......again, did I mention the word Loser??