Author: Maria Johnson

so, I’m an idiot…

Here’s how the conversation at dinner went…

John: There’s a prickly pear in the refrigerator, wanna try it?

Bego: Sure.

John: Okay, listen to me before you do anything. Don’t touch the fruit. Use a fork or something to pick it up.

Bego: Okay. [and proceeds to pick it up with her bare hand]

John: I told you not to touch the fruit!

Bego: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

*For those of you interested in home remedies, you can use a disposable razor to shave the offending spines from a prickly pear THAT YOU HAVE EMBEDDED IN YOUR HAND! They are invisible and painful. Ouch. Did I say I’m an idiot?

voyeur me…I soooo love to people watch

It is especially entertaining as I drive home in the afternoon. You know, peeking into other people’s cars, checking out the oddities at the bus stop.

I drive through several different kinds of neighborhoods — some seem to have sprung up and others seem to be the ones that are designed as developments. Can you believe there are some regulars that I see? I never thought I was that observant, but today I recognized one of the guys who works very hard at keeping his driveway and front yard neat and clean–a daunting task when you consider that he now lives in front of a high density traffic area and most of the houses are getting zoned for business. Anyway, he persists, and you gotta admire that.

That, and he has a booming Obama t-shirt business in his driveway. I wonder how long it’ll be before someone shuts him down for some violation or other. You’ve gotta love that irony.

My favorite observation was at a bar that was just renovated and the parking was repaved. An old dude in a tuxedo was blowing the leaves and pine straw away from the door and off the parking area. It was hysterical. He’d blow the leaves in a pile, and when he turned around the wind kicked up and blew them back. It was like watching Sisyphus struggling with his eternal damnation.

I hope he got his task done before they opened.

he’s messing with us

From the guy whose men’s cologne I couldn’t get enough of, we get this…

and this…

and this…

It seems like Pierre Cardin has reached that period in his life and career…

where he can do anything he pleases, and the lemmings will “ooooooh” and “aaaaaaah.”

Well why the hell not? It’s the stupid lemmings posting the pictures.  😉

Here’s what I think…

sipping chardonnay out of a juice glass

And making the gourmet beenie weenies. By gourmet, I mean that I sauteed some onions and hotdogs, added some garlic salt, and dumped a can of baked pork and beans in the pan.

Yummy!

Lest you believe that economic hard times have befallen the Johnsons, fear not. There’s a significant difference between being broke and being poor. I am in a perpetural state of broke-ness, but have not been reduced to hotdoggies as a regular feature of the dinner table. Rather, my suggestions for more conventional dinnerfare were met with shrugs and choruses of “whatever”.

So “whatever” it is, and I get to retire early to some grading and reruns of Smallville.

So much to catch up on!

I seem to be a little obsessed with the exclamation point! Sheesh!

I’ve used it in just about everything I’ve written in the past week. Time to wrap it up and put it away for a long time. Or until I feel like using it again.

Anyway, I’m behind. I’m behind in just about everything except work. How’s that for irony? Don’t worry, it won’t last for long since I collect some assignments tomorrow. For today, I’ll bask in the delusion that I am ahead there, too.

Still, I’m going to organize myself a little bit this afternoon, and come back later with a report of my progress. I figure, if I say I’m going to do it, then I’ll have to follow through with it, right? Hmm. Maybe.

my vast cultural void

I was born in the wrong decade.

I have a soft spot for the 1940’s, 50’s and very early 60’s. If I could afford it, and look like a Chanel model, I’d dress like Jackie Kennedy before she added Onassis to her name.

One of my favorite scenes from the movies of that era is the cocktail party. Who has cocktail parties? I didn’t think they existed outside the movies.  

In a related thought, meeting someone for cocktails elicits the same funny response from me. In my world, I’d meet someone for coffee, or even for drinks, but I don’t think I’d ever use the term cocktail.

So when a colleague said she was meeting her husband for cocktails at six, my ears perked up and I asked her where she was going. Silly me, I just thought she used the term to mean she was going to Happy Hour at a local bar.

No.

She said that no matter what is going on in their day, the family meets at six for cocktails. They drink things like Manhattans. That they make at home!

I am astounded. And clearly living in a cultural void.

commiserating with the Facebook newbies

The strange and happy crew that makes up my sister’s world in Miami recently migrated, en masse, to Facebook.

For a brief period of like three days, every time I logged into Facebook, I would find 2 or 3 friends requests.  And then, just as suddenly as the frenzy began, it ended. What a relief.

Anyway, shortly after that episode, it seems like every update included a public confession that Facebook is crack, and addictive, bla bla bla. You either stay overwhelmingly addicted to the monster, or you master it and check in once every day or two. I’m sorry for those of you who hate me right now for mastering it. I won’t speak of my Plurk addiction just in case your tiny little brains can’t handle the real drug. Oh yes, I am a pusher.

So in my random and often daily blog reading, I came across this blog post about the Facebook is crack addiction. Boys and girls, Bonnie speaks big truths here. It is not for the faint of heart. Read it and weep. You will see yourself in her pain. Remember that admitting the addiction is the first step towards recovery.

I owe my own recovery to the sincere and disdainful mockery and intervention of my children, who pointed out in disgust that Facebook was for college kids, and that I was gross and weird for participating. It irks them that real adults use it for business and pleasure.

To add insult to injury, they won’t even be my friends.

I don’t like other people’s children

That’s a bit of a problem when you’re asked to work with them.

After having the taser denied, I requested a bazooka to launch water balloons, but the youth minister laughed and thought I was kidding. I caught 5 kids walking away from the “main event” tonight. Most likely they weren’t going to do anything evil and immoral. Probably, they were more interested in whatever self-absorbing teenaged-angst-driven foolishness they had going on than whatever the adults had planned for them.

Nevertheless, they weren’t getting past me tonight. Because I enjoy being a psychotic old bat.

Sacurritee! ! !

That is not traffic

insanity...
insanity...

It is the long and winding road (not from the Beatles) that leads to the gas station in the distance.

This is the craziest, most panic-stricken city I’ve ever lived in. What is wrong with folks who will line up for hours for gas? Poor planning? Fear? Lack of common sense?

Look, there’s evidently not a shortage because the tankers keep coming in and refilling the stations, so it must be the anxiety that is causing people to fill up when they don’t need it, or when they’re down a quarter of a tank.

I’ve got an obnoxious commute, and pass a bunch of stations on the way to work. If one doesn’t have gas in the morning, it usually has gas in the afternoon. And that’s just inside the perimeter, and then just outside it. I’ll bet the prices would go down if people laid off the crazy behavior.