Don't say Haman.

Is it a full moon?  It's got to be.  Because people are friggin' crazy today.  Last week at work I obsessively flipped between People.com and Lifehacker.com to pass away the time.  I was just bored to tears.  And all of a sudden it's like I have no time to breathe.  People in Edinburgh are yelling at me in emails, people in Luxembourg are laughing so hard on conference calls that they are snorting, and people in Boston are so stressed they're reclining in their chairs and splaying their limbs everywhere.  It's all very distracting.

Chris Wyman is convinced that when Patrick Swayze dies, they will play a marathon of his movies.  ALL his movies....not just the one good one.  Which means that I will have to suffer through Point Break.  Again.  I, on the other hand, am pretty sure that TNT will only play Dirty Dancing.  There's no denying it; it was a strange conversation to have.

Yesterday I went over to Theresa's house around 2:30 and left around 10:30.  It's weird, but I think we paid the most attention to each other in the car to and from her house.  When we went grocery shopping, we were concerned with why Stop & Shop doesn't carry Peter Pan peanut butter and whether or not to buy fat free mozzarella cheese or 2%.  Then, when we got to her apartment, I was concerned with uploading my video to youtube (not successful) and she was preoccupied with taking a shower.  And then we watched some tv while both playing on our own computers.  So, not really paying attention to the tv or each other then either.  We kinda glanced up as we ate our pizza, but not really.  It's amazing how 8 hours can feel like only 2 when you're not paying attention to anything.  This is why I feel like my weekend hasn't started yet.  I want a do-over.

Now it's 8:08.  I should be out listening to the Megillah and twirling my noisemaker while eating hamantashen.  But I'm pretty sure sitting here drinking decaf coffee while checking blogs counts the same.  Right?  Right, God?  

We’re slowly falling out of reach

So there I am sitting on the sofa watching Men In Black II with my parents when a commercial for a dog and cat nail groomer comes on. The product advertises as a less painful way to trim your pet’s nails and, to prove their point, shows a cartoon clip of a regular nail clipper snipping off part of a dog’s toe in addition to the nail. It is at this point that both my parents scream at the top of their lungs (much like you’d hear during the Achilles tendon part of the movie Hostel) and my dad yells above my mother’s shrieking, “Change the channel! Change the channel!”

I’m back in Boston. And all is right with the world. I’ve been back for two weeks and haven’t had time to breathe let alone write down some of the fun things that have happened. For example, I was walking home one night and saw a middle-aged man coming out from behind a secluded building fiddling with his pants. I then saw a middle-aged woman, who I presumed to be his wife, coming from an altogether different direction saying, “Honey, don’t be a weirdo.” Or that time that I was walking to play tennis on Boston Commons at 8am on a Sunday morning and saw a man (who didn’t appear homeless and/or crazy) spinning around in circles with his arms out. He then tried to walk in a straight line and obviously couldn’t. What kind of grown man does this?

By far the most awesome thing that has happened since I got home, other than finally being able to watch the Food Network with my new cable, was acquiring my two new kittens, Walter and Harvey (pronounced Wahltah and Hahvey like a true Bostonian). They’re 5-month-old tabby cat brothers who I adopted from the Animal Rescue League through some help of my friend Courtney who, as the shelter manager, has the greatest job in the world. Sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart since their markings are very similar, but the one distinguishing feature is that Walter isn’t exactly weaned yet and likes to pretend that Harvey is his mom and suckles all over him - his shoulder, his neck, his back, and his non-milk producing belly. This was cute at first, but when combined with a tiny sucking sound and a mat of wet fur, it’s become just disturbing. While acquiring two cats is a much bigger step on the way to becoming a cat lady than merely adopting one, you need not worry just yet because I will never take them for a walk on leashes or in a stroller. The day I do that is the day you find 34 frozen cat bodies in my freezer. Or the day someone pays me $200 to do it…whichever comes first.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand it’s raining again

The short story: Don’t go see the movie Heartbeat Detector.

The long story: Time Out London magazine sent me a free pass to go see a French flick that sounded somewhat interesting. And by that I clearly mean that I manipulated a past email they sent me and changed the date to May 13 and the movie title to Heartbeat Detector and voila! Instant movie pass! (I’m okay with this since these movie screenings are never at capacity.) I show up at 6:20 to the 6:30 showing and the theatre is sparse. I know it’s not going to get much more populated either. Here is a picture of what the seating looked like. “Other People” are blue squares, “Yours Truly” is the pink square.

Enter a man and his girlfriend. They stop and scan the theatre, assessing the seating situation. Guess where they decide to sit. Take a look back at that seating plan. Look at all the empty seats. LOOK AT THEM!!! Now, I will ask you again. Where do you think this wanker and his cow of a girlfriend decided to sit? Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaat’s correct. Right. Next. To. Me. (Wanker and cow are green squares.)
So fine. They’re sitting next to me. I can deal with that. I just won’t be able to drape my legs over the armrest (which may or may not be a rude thing to do anyway) and if it’s a tearjerker of a film, I’ll just have to be discreet about wiping my tears. But then. Then, my friends. He takes out a sandwich and begins to attack it with his face. It sounded like like the sound effects from Jurassic Park. I prayed that he would take big bites and just get it over with already. I didn’t care that I was staring at him and making judgemental faces; I was just hoping he would catch me glaring at him and realize that wild boars have more etiquette than he does. So finally(!) he finishes the sandwich. And I breathe a sigh of relief. But no sooner do I finish thinking, “What an arsehole,” that he takes out a Fosters tall boy. For the love of all that is holy!!! And so the loud beer sipping begins, followed by the silent, yet pungent, beer burping. At this point the movie hasn’t even started yet and I am contemplating walking out. Between sips he leans over to French kiss his girlfriend and all I can do is wonder, “Who is this woman that she not only tolerates this disgusting behaviour, but she is still physically attracted to him enough that she wants to kiss that mouth?”

The movie begins. It is dreadful. It is the slowest movie I have ever seen and there’s a scene that is just literally one man singing for 10 minutes. He trails off at some points and you think he’s done but just like Austin Powers peeing for the first time after the cryogenic freezing process is complete, he starts right back up again. Everyone in the theatre laughed when this happened because they too couldn’t believe that there is a filmmaker out there that sadistic. But I continue watching. Because I like to boost my culture levels and watching an awful French movie seems like a good way to do that.

But that man. Oh, that man. He starts to do this nose breathing/throat clearing thing. At first I think he’s laughing…you know, one of those big-burst-of-air-through-your-nose types of laughs. But nothing funny was happening in the movie. And then he did it again, a little more abrasively this time, and I cringed thinking, “Oh heavens to Murgatroyd! He has a nervous coughing tic! Will the horror never end?!” And so it continued. For the next two and a half hours! One time it was so loud that I thought for sure someone would say something like, “Hey buddy, if you’re gonna do that, take it outside will ya?” It was terrible. It was soul-wrenching. It was homicide-inducing.

I went home and took 6 hot showers trying to wash the bad away.