Why is it, when I'm destined to get into an airplane and fly in less than a month, that everything is about plane crashes??
My great-uncle just sent me an email filled with wild airplane photos. Oh look! One's underwater! One has an engine on fire! One landed on its left side! How cool!
TV shows are going episodes on planes. Bones and Leverage have both done mid-air shockers lately. Leverage's plane landed on a BRIDGE. Surrounded by miles of WATER. Because otherwise it was gonna BLOW UP.
My coworker, who likes to sign your birthday cards from famous people, made sure Sully Sullenberger signed mine. He's the guy who safely landed that plane in the Hudson River. Now, if I am in a plane crash, I want Sully in the cockpit. I just don't want to have to think about that beforehand.
*sigh*
Well, guess I'm boarding anyway. In the meantime, I'll keep the immortal words of comedian Robert Schimmel in mind. "'In the event of a water landing, your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device.' Yeah. It's a bobber. For sharks."
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Stacey and Clinton's Winter Nightmare
Here's the scenario:
The temperature is 14 degrees, but the windchill puts it below zero. When I get ready to leave work at the end of the day, I start by taking off my stylish pointy-toed high-heeled boots. I put on a pair of old warmup pants that are essentially plastic to keep the snow and salt off my good pants, since, if we've gotten several inches of snow, I may have to dig out my car just to get home. I then pull on a pair of dark brown Wal-Mart work-style lug sole boots to keep my footing in the ice and snow, since Michigan's financial crisis means things like parking lots and sidewalks may be quickly plowed down to the ice or not plowed at all, and almost certainly not salted every day.
Over my nice suit jacket and shirt I wrap a fuzzy pink scarf, then I pull on a faded black hooded zip up sweatshirt (it has paint on one elbow) because my very cute and stylish black wool peacoat does not keep me warm enough to get from my car to the office and back again. When the wind blows I pull up the hood, so that I look a bit like a very short mugger.
After I pull on the peacoat (which needs its buttons sewn back on and will need replacement next year because it's fraying at the cuffs and the pockets are starting to tear) I tug on a black fitted knit cap that I call my cat burglar hat; it's the warmest hat I own. (Or maybe it's an oversized cream colored knit monstrosity that goes well over a ponytail or hair clip. My noodle is too round for many hats, I've learned.) Then I pull on a pair of battered black leather gloves that need replacing but I just haven't gotten around to doing it.
Mom and I were shopping recently and she looked at some gauzy top and said, "This wasn't made for people in Michigan." And she's right. A lot of the clothes that keep you warm aren't pretty, and a lot of the clothes that are cute simply are not practical for a Michigan winter. If I could park closer to work, great, but that's more money than I can afford. So I smiled at one episode of What Not to Wear when a Chicago lawyer defended her humongous coat and turtlenecks by saying, "It's cold." It is. Kitten heels are swell, but once you're up to your calf in snow, you've ruined them anyway and put yourself at risk for frostbite. Might as well toss them in your bag and save the leather - and your toes.
So until I win the lottery I'm going to look like I just might be homeless. But at least I'll be warm.
The temperature is 14 degrees, but the windchill puts it below zero. When I get ready to leave work at the end of the day, I start by taking off my stylish pointy-toed high-heeled boots. I put on a pair of old warmup pants that are essentially plastic to keep the snow and salt off my good pants, since, if we've gotten several inches of snow, I may have to dig out my car just to get home. I then pull on a pair of dark brown Wal-Mart work-style lug sole boots to keep my footing in the ice and snow, since Michigan's financial crisis means things like parking lots and sidewalks may be quickly plowed down to the ice or not plowed at all, and almost certainly not salted every day.
Over my nice suit jacket and shirt I wrap a fuzzy pink scarf, then I pull on a faded black hooded zip up sweatshirt (it has paint on one elbow) because my very cute and stylish black wool peacoat does not keep me warm enough to get from my car to the office and back again. When the wind blows I pull up the hood, so that I look a bit like a very short mugger.
After I pull on the peacoat (which needs its buttons sewn back on and will need replacement next year because it's fraying at the cuffs and the pockets are starting to tear) I tug on a black fitted knit cap that I call my cat burglar hat; it's the warmest hat I own. (Or maybe it's an oversized cream colored knit monstrosity that goes well over a ponytail or hair clip. My noodle is too round for many hats, I've learned.) Then I pull on a pair of battered black leather gloves that need replacing but I just haven't gotten around to doing it.
Mom and I were shopping recently and she looked at some gauzy top and said, "This wasn't made for people in Michigan." And she's right. A lot of the clothes that keep you warm aren't pretty, and a lot of the clothes that are cute simply are not practical for a Michigan winter. If I could park closer to work, great, but that's more money than I can afford. So I smiled at one episode of What Not to Wear when a Chicago lawyer defended her humongous coat and turtlenecks by saying, "It's cold." It is. Kitten heels are swell, but once you're up to your calf in snow, you've ruined them anyway and put yourself at risk for frostbite. Might as well toss them in your bag and save the leather - and your toes.
So until I win the lottery I'm going to look like I just might be homeless. But at least I'll be warm.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Regifting
In reading a CNN article today, I wondered, just how many people actually regift things?
I ask because I never do it. Sure, I have parted with things people have given me. But I've always been up front about it, and it's never in lieu of another gift - one I either bought or made. I've done it in the sense of, "I can't use this, or it doesn't fit, or I no longer use this - can you get some use out of it?"
I'm not counting white elephant gift exchanges in this, because by it's very definition white elephant is regifting. I'm talking about passing off a gift someone gave you as new for someone else. Maybe I carry too much guilt, but I just couldn't do it.
I ask because I never do it. Sure, I have parted with things people have given me. But I've always been up front about it, and it's never in lieu of another gift - one I either bought or made. I've done it in the sense of, "I can't use this, or it doesn't fit, or I no longer use this - can you get some use out of it?"
I'm not counting white elephant gift exchanges in this, because by it's very definition white elephant is regifting. I'm talking about passing off a gift someone gave you as new for someone else. Maybe I carry too much guilt, but I just couldn't do it.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Invention
Someone needs to be enterprising and solve one of my winter health problems.
I bundle up in layers of cotton and wool and something vaguely plasticky - in the form of a pair of old warmup pants that double as snowpants when I have to dig my car out in the office parking lot. I wind a scarf around my neck and jam a hat on my hair, flattening it for the rest of the day. What I cannot seem to stop is my nose from running.
It doesn't do you any good to blow it. It's not that kind of 'run'. Just a drip, drip, drip, so that you're either sniffling repeatedly and obnoxiously, or you're digging in your pocket (with gloves on so you can't feel a damn thing) to find a Kleenex.
Somebody ought to invent the nose tampon.
Why not? You ever had a cold so bad that you actually rolled up two pieces of tissue and rammed one up each nostril to catch the drips? Come on, you know you have. I know I have. If you have a cold, after a while each nostril is so sore from blowing that you don't want to touch it anymore, but medication doesn't stop your eyes from watering and thus the tears from heading into your nasal passages. Then you end up looking like poor Steve in that episode of 'Sex and the City' where he had half a tampon jammed up each nostril to stop his nose from bleeding. The string hung out one side. He looked mortified. Might have been because he caught his ex sleeping with the hot doctor and then walked into a wall and banged up his sniffer, but I'm guessing it was the Tampax decorating his schnozz.
Look, I know it wouldn't be pretty. But it might be safer than trying to dig out a tissue while driving along a snowy Michigan road, right? And you wouldn't have to sniff, annoying your cubicle mates the entire day.
Think I'd get a patent on this one?
I bundle up in layers of cotton and wool and something vaguely plasticky - in the form of a pair of old warmup pants that double as snowpants when I have to dig my car out in the office parking lot. I wind a scarf around my neck and jam a hat on my hair, flattening it for the rest of the day. What I cannot seem to stop is my nose from running.
It doesn't do you any good to blow it. It's not that kind of 'run'. Just a drip, drip, drip, so that you're either sniffling repeatedly and obnoxiously, or you're digging in your pocket (with gloves on so you can't feel a damn thing) to find a Kleenex.
Somebody ought to invent the nose tampon.
Why not? You ever had a cold so bad that you actually rolled up two pieces of tissue and rammed one up each nostril to catch the drips? Come on, you know you have. I know I have. If you have a cold, after a while each nostril is so sore from blowing that you don't want to touch it anymore, but medication doesn't stop your eyes from watering and thus the tears from heading into your nasal passages. Then you end up looking like poor Steve in that episode of 'Sex and the City' where he had half a tampon jammed up each nostril to stop his nose from bleeding. The string hung out one side. He looked mortified. Might have been because he caught his ex sleeping with the hot doctor and then walked into a wall and banged up his sniffer, but I'm guessing it was the Tampax decorating his schnozz.
Look, I know it wouldn't be pretty. But it might be safer than trying to dig out a tissue while driving along a snowy Michigan road, right? And you wouldn't have to sniff, annoying your cubicle mates the entire day.
Think I'd get a patent on this one?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
