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.

Unknowingly being funny, Alex complained, "The Queen looks like a royal bitch."

A bench on Brighton Beach. Do you think they made it that way or do you think some...big-boned...people left, shall we say, a lasting impression on England?

If I were 3, I certainly know which automobile I'd choose on this merry-go-round.
Last night I went to see Freddie Mercury's house in Kensington. And by house, I mean a lone door in the middle of a brick wall topped with 6 layers of barbed wire. I must say that it was somewhat anti-climatic.
On the green door are tributes to The Man In The Spandex Unitard. This was my favorite one...mainly because it says "I still love you." Do you think that this person went through a phase where they loved him, didn't love him, loved him again and now still loves him? Or do you think they were offended by his buck teeth and still loved him despite them? Oh Vicky....
My parents are quite cute. Yesterday I received this card in the mail. I didn't even notice until this morning my dad's signature on the card. But the bear with the beard is priceless.

Enormously tight

Sometimes on my way to work I’ll play the Peter Gunn theme on my mp3 player and pretend like I work as a secret agent or some other kind of job that’s really important and sinisterly cool. It makes my day a little more awesome.

I’m not sure if he’s still trying to make his way onto my blog since he’s no longer in London, but in any case, here’s what my dad had to say on the phone the other day (I told you he was obsessed with hippos):
“There’s all types of poo, but hippo poo is not the kind you wanna deal with.”

It’s helpful to know that few food items exist in nature that are naturally blue. That way, if just before you bite into a chicken salad sandwich you see something small and blue, you know that it shouldn’t be there and it’s okay to go ahead and pick that shit out.

Overheard at work:
“Motorcycles are more expensive than children.”
“Yeah, but they’re more fun.”

This weekend around the city of London I saw references to Lendlease, Old Mutual, and F&C (which was actually advertised on the side of a cab), inducing BBH mutual fund flashbacks to memories I thought I had sufficiently blocked from my mind. Then I later saw the Blackrock office and it took all my strength not to go inside and give them a piece of my mind for leaving a million voicemails on my work phone telling me “the transmission didn’t go through last night.” Right. Because I’m responsible for that.

I carry a little CVS notebook around with me wherever I go to write down the funny things people say about children and motorcycles, music I want to download, and the things Graham does. Apparently Susan got a hold of my notebook while we were in Ireland and left me a nice little note that I actually found while she was still here, but decided not to write about until I got to the actual page in the notebook:
“You are short and an idiot. I love you! Susan (your best friend)”
It just warms your heart, doesn’t it?

*music – I love the way she bites her lip, I love the way she shakes them hips, I love the way she makes me drool, I think that she is beautiful

It's either pictures of family or flowers. Let me know if you prefer the latter.

Everyone's family is bizarre. There is no denying it. Mine just might be a little more bizarre.

This is me 'styling' my niece's hair. Notice my sister in the background reading a Cooking Light magazine and not caring.
This is my Nana Ruth. She's 96 years old and can probably kick your ass. Don't tell her I told you her age because as you can see from this picture where I told her to flex, she's got some guns on her. (I'm pretty sure whatever kind of soup is in those cans on the table, I was sent home with them.)

This is what happened when I left my brother-in-law alone with my camera. He's actually one of the funniest guys I've ever met. And not just because he feeds his 1 year old babies beer.

As you can see, my sister and her husband were made for each other. Also, people tell me we don't look alike, but personally I think think our resemblance is staggering.

My thoughts EXACTLY. It's about time someone needle-pointed them onto a pillow.

Sweating in my underpants

I sure do love the opportunity to say 'I told you so.' Not that I have this chance right now, but I could have had I told you that Leona Lewis' 'Bleeding Love' song was good when I first heard it, not after Oprah got to her and tooted her horn like no horn has been tooted before. And thus, to eliminate future cases of "Lisa could have told you that they were good," I shall enlighten you to two future Ryan Seacrest hits. (If they aren't hits already…I don't know because I'M IN LONDON.)
Artist: Duffy Song: Mercy Why it'll be a hit: She's got that sultry voice that everyone loves; kinda like Amy Winehouse only a little more Aretha and a little less cocaine.
Artist: Adele Song: Chasing Pavements Why it'll be a hit: She genuinely has a good voice as opposed to other successful female singers (think Christina versus Britney) and she's only 19.

I forgot to mention that my dad wanted me to post this picture on YouTube. I gave him 20 bonus points for simply knowing of YouTube, but had to deduct 15 for his recommendation to post a photo onto it (and no, he didn't mean a photo montage with like, Green Day's 'Good Riddance' in the background).

And speaking of that photo, here are the runners up for best caption:
- This Just In: Former Nudist Colony Leader Tries to Tip Over College Sorority House
- Bearded 'Danger' Powers
- They thought that disguising the mosque as a brightly painted eyesore would fool the masses, but they forgot about Heeb-cules! Heeb-cules! Heeb-cules! Heeb-cules!
- I schooled David Blaine
- (postcard) Dear Lisa, So sorry about the mix-up in London. To make up for it, we've bought you this lovely nunnery. Love, Dad
- Rejected by Harvard? Turned down by Brown? Wait-listed at Yale? Try the NEW University of Otis!! All the charm of a legendary Ivy League institution at half the cost! Enroll today! Classes start September, 2009
- Dad: "Northwestern?! But that's so far away! Can't you go to a local school? Like…here?" Mom: "Honey, that's a nursing home."

And the winner, submitted by a wizard-like man himself Chris Wyman, is:
- Yea, verily, as Gandalf the Grey and Radaghast the Brown set out to rid the world of evil, Peter the Black remained in the Shire to bring the gift of secondary education to the wee folk.

The trees and flowers are blossoming here and this past weekend we changed the clocks (we're apparently too cool to do it at the same time as America); spring is almost here!!! What does this mean for me? It means that I will feel even more guilty for coming home and watching a movie instead of walking around outside. It also means that it's time to switch to short sleeved running shirts.

Just to clear up any confusion…horse shit? Yeah, it doesn't smell like hay. It smells like shit.

*music – I don't care for walking downtown, crazy autocar gonna mow me down Look at all the people like cows in a herd, well I like birds

Sleeping in on my day off

Feel lucky that I am writing today since I’m not at work. You feel lucky and I’ll feel self-righteous.

Yesterday the LondonPaper had a photo of George Bush throwing a baseball and making an “I’m taking a crap that is too big for me” face. The caption was “George W Bush was booed by the 40,000-strong crowd as he threw the opening pitch in Washington Nationals baseball team’s first match at their new stadium.” I made sure to show this to my parents immediately upon meeting them for dinner last night. My dad’s comment? “Poor guy…can’t catch a break.”

My dad is not one to let an opportunity to make public jokes pass him by and so he has started saying random things in hopes of making it to “the blog.” My mom is annoyed by this and calls him out every time he does it. I will admit that the number of terrible jokes has increased 500% in the past two days, but for every 30 lame comments he makes, there’s one keeper. This was yesterday’s keeper (in addition to the George Bush quip which I think was a legitimate funny comment): “I’m gonna cornrow my beard.”

This is a short entry. Deal with it. I have to go.

*music: hit me on my beeper, hit me on my beeper, beepah beepah beepah

My family has an unhealthy amount of nicknames for each other

Mom: “Tim the Toolman Taylor has kids.”
Lisa: “Yeah but he…”
Mom: (cutting her off) “Is a jerk.”

I think when my mother goes home, she will report back to friends and family that her least favorite part of London was when a 20-something girl on the Tube offered up her seat so my mom could sit down. She declined the nice offer but probably moreso because she wanted to keep SOME pride rather than rest her weary, ancient feet.

Here’s another funny thing about my mother…and please let me know if this is common to all moms out there or if it’s just Janet. She dictates options. Going to a restaurant? She’ll be sure to read the menu out loud for you even though you’re holding one in your very own hands. (“Peter! They have hamburgers! Oh and look, baked haddock!”) Browsing in a store? There’s no way you’ll leave without knowing their entire inventory. (“Lisa! Look at these toasters! Oooh, garden tools! Hairbrushes!”) Yes, all three of those things were in the same store.

I’ve realized what my favorite thing about London is. And while I think I knew it already, it just didn’t materialize into an actual thought until last night as I was riding the Tube home and saw a woman who was CLEARLY a man; I wouldn’t have given him a second glance since he was very convincing as a woman except for the well-groomed goatee. In London, you can be whoever the hell you want to be and people will accept you and not even THINK to question or judge. (This observation does not apply to the masses of tourists. Tourists will stare at anyone and everyone and judge like they’ve never judged before. But you will find this in any city.) The goth kids we saw on Saturday who had more skin showing with black make-up than not were just going about being themselves free from ridicule from the Brits. And I think that’s great. London is full of such different (read as ‘freakish’ to some) people, but they fit in and are appreciated for who they are. This is something you would never find in Boston, and thus, one thing I think makes it the worse for it.

*music – you’ll never know how slow the moments go, ‘til i’m near to you

How did I live before without a zoom lens?

I really love cellos.
I also love trumpety type things.

You know what they say about a man with big hands.

This is my mother looking at glass knick knacks and thinking they're beautiful.

I know what you're thinking, but he actually DID shave that morning. It's just a very fierce 5 o'clock shadow.

I have a new best friend and his name is Camera

Question proposed by my mother at lunch: “You know who’s a real bigot?”
(Unfortunately, due to the rules of pinky swearing, I am not at liberty to tell you who the answer is.)

My dad walks a lot slower than he used to. Every time I start walking somewhere he always says, “Slow down a little bit” or “Do you have to walk so fast?” He reasons that it’s okay to walk slowly and what’s my hurry anyway? Personally, I think it has to do with a little something called He’s 59 Years Old.

My parents are having a great time in London. They are going through what I went through my first month here and so I have a soft spot for them in these new and exciting times. For example, my mom is terrified of crossing the street because she never knows which way to look; therefore, they never cross unless the little green man is lit…just in case. My dad is commenting on how unattractive British people are (and yet, when I met him for dinner two nights ago, he proceeded to tell me I looked very British). They are both enthralled by the Tube - my dad with the wind it creates underground and my mom with the speed at which it zooms by (which, I agree, is enough to kill 1800 Andre the Giants). It’s fun to watch them explore the city and become just as frustrated with stupid tourists who stand in the middle of the sidewalk, drool at the smell of those damn Belgian waffles, and try to figure out if that’s a South African accent we’re hearing or a British one (sorry, Michelle). I told my mom she should write up something about her visit and then she could be my first guest blogger. She didn’t seem too excited about that, but maybe she was just still worried from when I told her I was going to quote her on the bigot comment.

As for my love affair with Camera, he is wonderful. I am taking good pictures not because I’m a good photographer, but because it’s pretty hard to take bad ones with him. We are in love and it’s getting serious.

Your Awesomeness Knows No Bounds

Overheard at work: (in a hushed whisper) “This system scares the living shit out of me.”
*And just for the record, none of our computer systems are THAT scary. Obsolete? Yes. Scary? No.

This morning on my run the coolest thing ever happened. The street cleaning go-cart dude that I pass by every day honked at me and waved. He knows me! Okay, maybe to you it won’t seem so cool, but I feel loved.

I tried making brownies using my microwave oven/oven. I’m not sure who the geniuses behind this contraption are, but they should seriously be shot in the groin. It worked about as well as you would think a microwave would work as an oven. I had no idea what temperature it was set at, nor how long to bake it. When the chocolate pretty much started boiling on top I decided maybe it was done. So I took it out, let it cool, and then tried to cut into it. Other than perhaps shrimp, chopped liver, and pork chops, I’ll eat anything…but my friends, I could NOT. Eat. THIS. It was deceivingly delicious looking, as the top remained the color of “normal looking brownies.” However, the inside was “none more black” and tasted like a pair of pants (the trouser kind, not the underpants kind). I tried so hard to get past the gagging, but alas, in the end I just had to do the right thing and throw them away. I’m writing a letter to management demanding a real oven and a tray of brownies.

Last night we had to take the Tube to get to the kosher restaurant in Marylebone. So we’re walking up Oxford Street around 5:45 (prime rush hour of both business people and heinous tourists), it’s raining, my parents are hungry, and we’re not ENTIRELY sure where we’re going (and by ‘we,’ I mean ‘I’). We finally make it to the Oxford Circus Tube, but there is a huge throng of people trying to get in. We’re at the front of the pack shuffling our way to the entrance when they close the doors and say that we have to wait awhile due to overcrowding. And so there we are squished in amongst everyone – a little girl holding a map in her hand, a tiny woman holding a duck umbrella clutching both her bags to her chest so that grabby hands don’t grab, and an Orthodox Jew who decides that NOW is the best time to make a joke, loudly saying for everyone to hear, “Lisa, tell them you have to get home to feed your cat.”

Here’s what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid that while I mock my dad’s sense of humor, that I have actually inherited it and am turning into the same person. (Minus the beard. So far.)

Winky Face ;)

This weekend I was told I remind people of Sarah Silverman, Ellen Degeneres, and a penguin (not in the same sentence). I don’t mind the first two (although I’m not fucking Matt Damon), but a penguin?! Ted has been telling me that I look like a penguin since the 7th grade. Have I really not changed so much that after 24 years I still resemble the same arctic creature? And why, for the love of God, do people say penguin? Is it the combination of white/gray and black hair? The small stature? The propensity to waddle instead of walk? Or perhaps it’s my habit of laying eggs and then finding men to sit on them? Well in any case, I suppose it’s better than when my “friends” told me I looked like Filbert, the turtle from Rocko’s Modern Life.

Jews are not people to pass up a sale. This includes my mother who will call London from the Houston airport to ask me, nay TELL me, that I need a Swatch watch because they are 40% off.

I went to a barbecue/barbie/braai on Sunday (you know, to celebrate Jesus H.) and HOLY FUCK was it cold. This weekend was crazy for London weather – I saw lightning/thunderstorms, snow, hail, and sunshine all in the same day. But Sunday was mainly just cold. So I chose to warm up by standing near the grill. The only problem with this strategy (other than when some goofs drunkenly threw a phonebook on the coals) is that my peacoat now smells like burnt sausages. I forgot to wash it last night and so today I’m sure my co-workers and the people on the Tube are wondering what that disgusting, yet savory, smell is.

(Speaking of co-workers, G loved his hug this morning. He lingered a bit too long, but he’s helping me run reports today so I let him.)

After the craziness of the barbecue had died down, about 5 of us were left sitting on beanbags watching awesome YouTube music videos like Travis’ cover of Britney’s “…Baby One More Time,” Tegan and Sara’s “Umbrella” rendition, and Damien Rice doing his version of Radiohead’s “Creep.” But, and here is where you need to get ready to run to your computer, I was introduced to two videos that give “Oh My God Shoes” and “What What in the Butt” a run for their money. The first (search for ‘woman punch’) is a 9 second clip of a woman getting sucker-punched right in the face (oh MAN is it hilarious), and the second is a series of this crazy cartoon called Happy Tree Friends. A word of warning about these so-called Happy Tree Friends…even though it’s a cartoon, it was disturbing enough that I almost ralphed. I still recommend you check them out for yourself, though. Just maybe refrain from showing your children. (And yes, I’m going to hell.)

Sidenote – has anyone ever watched, I mean REALLY watched, old Betty Boop cartoons? I’m pretty confident in saying that the people who made those cartoons were on some serious drugs.

Snippet of a conversation between my mom and dad at dinner last night:
Mom: You know that woman in our condo building who loves you?
Dad: Which one?

P.S. JK about G.
P.P.S. It’s funny to type JK and mock the rest of the world. LOL.

Using this for selfish family reasons

I'm gonna go ahead and use this forum to show the world that I officially have the cutest nephew and nieces in the world. It is not possible for you to prove me wrong on this. It is just a fact of nature and there can be no denying it. Seriously. They should give them a medal or something for just how cute they are.