I'll have what she's having

At first glance, I thought she was drinking out of a wine glass.

I was in the elevator at work at the end of the day, sharing a ride down to the lobby with a woman who looked to be about my age, maybe a few years older.  Turns out she was drinking water our of a clear water bottle, but for whatever reason - the way the light hit the water, who knows? - my eyes had played tricks on me at first.

Making conversation, I told her about my initial confusion. She laughed uproariously, and we had good chuckle as we walked out into the lobby together.

"Now, if it were Friday, you might be on to something!" she exclaimed.

"I hear you," I said. "Keep a flask in your bag to start the weekend early."

"Exactly. If it were Friday I'd be getting drunk."

I am not one to either "start the weekend early" in such a manner, nor do I generally drink on Friday nights, but again, I was making conversation.

"You know who has a great happy hour around here?" she continued. "That Lime place."

"Oh, you mean that Mexican place up by the movie theater? Yeah, I've been there. They have good margaritas," I recalled.

We headed out of the building and down the escalator to the street.

"Their drinks are strong!" she said.

"You know, I've only been there once, but I remember thinking that. You definitely get some bang for your buck."

"Yeah, that's not something I'm going to complain about, but I definitely noticed it."

I nodded in agreement.

She went on, "I was there last weekend with some folks after work. I got totally fucked up. Fell down and hurt my hip."

Why do complete strangers tell me things like this?

"Oh, that's terrible! Sounds paintful!" I responded.

"Yeah, I threw up. Pissed on myself and everything."

At this point I didn't have anything to say but "oooooh..."

"Yeah, but the guy still wanted to go home with me.  Well, bye! Have a good night!"

Indeed.

I remember, I remember when I lost my mind, there was something so pleasant about that place

I seem to have a knack for bizarre encounters with folks I meet around town.

This past weekend, one of my childhood friends was in town with her husband, so I thought I'd take them to Vail on Saturday to see a little bit of the mountains, see the view from the top, and get out of the Denver heat.  There are great activities for kids, so it was sure to be fun for everyone.

Before we left, I took the car to get it washed and to fill up with gas.

After the car was cleaned, we stopped to get gas at a 7 Eleven.  I pulled up to the pumps, set the nozzle in the tank, and went inside to buy a case of water to keep in the car.

I picked up a big case of water and went to get in line.

This is where the layout of the store becomes important (see my most excellent diagram, below).

From my vantage point, I saw a guy at the checkout counter, so I stood behind him and slightly to his left. I didn't see anyone else behind him.

As he moved away after finishing his transaction, I saw an African-American woman, who I will call Crazy Lady, walk up behind him as I started to move closer as well.  (The only reason I mention her race is because of what happened next.)  She was shorter than the top of the shelves, so I hadn't seen her until she stepped out from the aisle she had been standing in.

She snapped at me, "the line is back this way."

I hadn't seen her in line behind him, so I responded, "I think I was actually next." I said this matter-of-factly - I was not spoiling for any kind of confrontation.

She said, "oh no, I've been back here.  Haven't I been back here the whole time waiting??"  She said this to the guy who had just finished paying.  He looked back, a little bit confused, and seemed to nod.

I was about to say, "ok, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there," but before I could say anything, she started yelling at me.

"Why would you automatically assume I'm lying? Where do you get off calling me a liar?  Huh, Trump?"

What the fuck?  "Trump"?  Is she suggesting that I'm a Trump supporter (and therefore a racist) because I'm white??

"What are you talking about? When did I ever call you a liar? I didn't call you anything!" I said.  I was a confused and a little flustered.

"Oh, you just assume that I'm lying, didn't you Trump?  Yeah, that's right, you heard me."

"I don't know what you're going on about.  I never said you or anyone else is a liar.  I didn't see you standing there, that's all."

"BARACK OBAMA! THAT'S ALL I'M SAYIN'!"

I actually laughed at this.  "You haven't said anything! And just to be clear, I voted for Barack Obama twice!"

Ugh, why am I engaging? I know full well that there's no point in engaging with the crazy.

"I seriously doubt that!" she yelled.

"I don't give a shit what you doubt. What the hell is wrong with you?"

As I said this, I noticed that Zeke had come in (he and Josie had been waiting in the car) and was standing next to me.

"Truth hurts, don't it, Trump?" she spat.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," I sighed.

"Don't you curse in front of your child!!"

This got my hackles up.  "You don't need to worry about my child," I said. "And I didn't curse."

Now another woman decided to butt in.

"You took the name of the lord.  Oh, so you don't believe in God??"

"Well, not really, no," I said.  "And why is any of this your business?"

Crazy Lady said, "you piece of shit parent, talking in front of your child like that, TRUMP!"

Zeke's eyes widened and he scooted a little closer to me.

I finally snapped.  "You know what? You can shut your goddamn mouth, you crazy bitch. Leave my child out of this. Stop talking and take your stupid ass out of here!"

She kept yelling at me, but made her way out the door and into the parking lot. Zeke was eating it all up.

I finished paying for the water and was signing the credit card slip when the cashier laughed and said, "what was up with her?"

"She's a fucking lunatic, that's what's up with her," I said.

The second lady (the one who asked me if I believed in God) said, "don't you say that about her! She's my cousin!"

I rolled my eyes.  "Of course she is."

And I walked out, paid for my gas, buckled the kids back in the car (Josie had stayed out there, oblivious, reading a book), and left.

Zeke, to his credit, was unruffled.

Later, when we were driving, he said, "are you upset, Mama? Did that lady ruin your day?"

"No, she didn't. I don't care enough about her for her to ruin my day."

"What was she yelling about?"

"Honestly, I'm still not sure."

But at least she provided me with some ammunition for the next time I get in an argument with someone.  If I want to make a point without having to actually make a point, all I need to say is, "BARACK OBAMA! THAT'S ALL I'M SAYIN'!"

I've already used it twice.

Livin' just enough, just enough for the city

Sometimes I feel like I live in a weird parallel universe in which I'm the only sane one, while craziness swirls around me.

I was walking to work and I passed a cake shop that specializes in wedding cakes.  I've walked by it a hundred times but for some reason, only yesterday did I really notice the side window display.

Do you take this man? Nope! #weddingcakebakerywindowdisplay #wut #dailydenver #walktowork #mulberriescakeshop

A photo posted by Wendy Jacobs (@wendyalisonjacobs) on Sep 16, 2015 at 4:04pm PDT

I kind of love it.  Total incongruity.  Nothing about it makes sense.

Further up the street, in a sketchier part of the block, I passed a 7-Eleven.  There was a woman walking out the door, obviously irate, yelling and swearing at some dude inside.  It seemed like par for the course, and she wasn't yelling at me, so I kept walking, listening over my headphones to Alec Baldwin talk to Edie Falco about her life and career.

On the next corner was a woman with a ripped backpack at her feet.  She was wearing dirty tube socks but no shoes.  As I walked toward her, she made the "talking on the phone" sign, holding her hand to her ear with thumb and pinky finger outstretched, and mouthed to me, "call the police."  

At first I wasn't sure she was talking to me, so I ignored it.  She continued to gesture towards me and mouthed "call 911" while punching imaginary telephone buttons with her finger in the air.

I took my headphones off.

"Call the police.  Call 911," she said,

"Why?" I asked.

"There's a crazy crackhead lady in the 7-Eleven, attacking people, ripping doors off cars, she's going nuts and abusing people."

I didn't want to ask how the lady was ripping the doors off cars while inside the 7-Eleven.  It seemed beside the point.

"Call the police," she said again.

"Ok, listen," I said. "I'll dial 911 and place the call, and you can talk to the dispatcher.  I don't have any information to give them."

I dialed 911 on my phone, activated the call, and handed her the phone.

After a second, she says, "Yeah, hey hon.  It's me.  Mmm-hmm.  Yeah, I'm here on Colfax, near the intersection with Pennsylvania.  There's some crazy lady in the 7-Eleven attacking people."

At this point, I'm utterly confused.  I know that the call was placed to 911, and the woman did not hang up or redial or anything like that.  Does she know the 911 lady?  Are they buddies?

"Yeah, you know it,"  she continued, still talking to the 911 operator.  "Always somethin' around here.  Alright, baby.  Bye."

This is the greatest thing ever, I thought to myself.  It was kind of exhilarating.  How amazing would it be to be able to call 911 and be all, "yeah, boo, how're mom'n'ems, maybe I'll see you later..."

She handed me back my phone.

I started to walk away, and said, "OK, well, good luck."

"I don't need luck," she responded.  "Luck is the devil's work."

Okay, then.

Always somethin' indeed.

'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Last week I was having a lot of achy muscle pain in my upper back, between my shoulder blades, and in my hips.  Achy achy achy.  Even when I would lie down in bed, it hurt.  I tried stretching, I took advil, but nothing seemed to be helping.

A, uh, friend of mine has had a bunch of surgeries, illnesses and injuries over the years for which he was prescribed pain meds, but he often doesn't take them.  So I asked my friend last Thursday night if he had any leftover pain medication that I could take for my back.

"No, but I've got a lollipop you can have."

A medicinal lollipop, if you catch my drift.

"Meh.  Nah, I'll just deal."

As the evening went on, however, I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

"So that lollipop thing.  Will it help me?"

"I don't know.  It'll help you sleep and probably make you forget the pain."

"OK, what the hell."

Now, let us step back to examine the sheer idiocy of this move.

I am barely a drinker (most of the time, if I have a beer or a glass of wine, I don't finish it) and I am definitely not a pot smoker or a user of any other drugs.  So my body is not at all accustomed to stuff that could make me loopy.  I've smoked pot a few times in my life, but I never really enjoyed it - rather than make me mellow, it just made me exhausted and often queasy.  Whatever it is that kills nausea in cancer patients so they can get some food down, it has the opposite effect on me.  Plus, I have no doubt that whatever I had a few puffs of over the years did not approach the strength or purity of what my friend gets at the dispensary, particularly the strength and purity of stuff designed to be ingested rather than smoked.

But there I was, blithely consuming this lollipop, which, as I have now learned from the University of Google, was strong even by the standards of regular THC consumers.  I ate it, then I went to bed.

I really do question my own sanity sometimes.

I went to sleep and felt fine for a while.  Then I half-woke up and just felt kind of buzzy.  Not unpleasant.  Then the buzziness got stronger, and my head and my limbs felt inordinately heavy, like I was lying in molassas, and I started to feel queasy. 

By 5 in the morning, I managed to lurch to the bathroom to puke up whatever I had in my stomach.  I lay on the bathroom floor for a while because it was too much effort to get up.  After 20 minutes, I got up and went downstairs to try to drink some water.  I wasn't able to hold it down, and then went to lie down on the couch because the stairs were too daunting.

J came downstairs to get ready for work at around 5:30.  He was surprised to see me up, and also a bit alarmed by the fact that I was grey in the face and had broken out into a cold sweat. 

"Duuuude,"  I moaned.

"What's going on?"

"That lollipop killed me.  I am so unbelievably fucked up and sick."

"Really?"

"I'm OK if I lie here with my eyes closed, but when I open my eyes, I want to throw up.  Sitting up is unthinkable."

"Jesus."

"Yeah."

He continued puttering about getting ready, and then started walking toward the door.

"NOOO!  You can't leave me!"  I wailed.

"What are you talking about?  I have to go to work."

"I cannot take care of the children in this condition.  I can't drive them to school.  If I showed up like this with them at school, the teachers would have me arrested.  Please."

He sort of huffed around for a few minutes, but texted his boss and got the OK to come in late.  He got the kids up and fed and dressed.

Poor Zeke was horrified by my condition.

"Mama!  What's wrong?  Are you sick?  Why are you throwing up?"  His eyes were wide and he kept coming over to rub my face. 

"I'm OK, honey.  I've got a bad tummy-ache, but I'll get better, don't worry.  Daddy's going to take you to school today.  Be a good boy and I'll see you later."

Luckily, that Friday was a flex day for me, so I didn't have to go to work.  I lay back down on the couch when J took the kids to school.

Then the window guy showed up.  He, too, was horrified by my condition, but I waved him off when he suggested that he could come back to install the windows on a day when I was feeling better.  So I dozed all day, with intermittent bouts of vomiting, while our new windows were installed.

It was 2 in the afternoon before I could sit up without puking.  It was Sunday afternoon before all traces of the queasiness left my stomach.  Seriously - I'm that much of a light-weight.

J called me Friday afternoon to check on me.

"Hey, baby.  How ya doing?"

"I'll live.  Not feeling great, but I'm not throwing up any more, so there's that."

"Hey!  Guess what?"

"What?"

"High Times magazine called.  They want to put you on the cover and nominate you for Stoner of the Year."

"Hmph."

No way, man.  I'm scared straight for sure.

Everybody's got a random

Sometimes in maintaining a blog, I get too into the notion of themes -- of telling stories that have some overriding point, or of depicting life in a way that betrays some grand plan. Because it makes for more interesting writing (and reading).

But truthfully, I think that's all bullshit.  Most of life is totally random.

Like the other day I was on the bus coming home from work.  Sitting across the aisle from me was this huge guy that looked a bit vagrant-ish.  Not quite homeless, but certainly someone who has seen brighter days.  I got the sense that he spent a lot of time riding the bus and striking up conversation with people, just to pass the time.

Which, whatever, ya know?  More power to him, I guess.

Except that I am not one for idle conversation with strangers.

Every once in a while the planets will align and I will enter into a conversation on a plane or whereever with a seatmate, and it will be genuinely interesting.  But this is an exceedingly rare occurrence, and not something that I actively seek out.

So this guy across from me on the bus has been bothering some poor guy who was in a Navy uniform, so Almost Homeless Dude starts in with the, "oh, you're a Navy man, eh?  Did you know [some obscure fact about the Navy that may or may not have been true, but was a way to ingratiate himself with the dude in the uniform] blah blah blah." Navy Guy humored him for a while, but finally reached his stop and practically flung himself off the bus, he was so overtly happy to be free of Almost Homeless Dude's conversational stylings.

I could practically feel Almost Homeless Dude searching around for some new shlub to talk to.  And eventually he settled on me.

I stared straight ahead, and then was stunned to be smacked across the face with a scarf, which Almost Homeless Dude had flicked at me, like a 10th grade boy smacking ass in the communal shower after gym class, in an effort to get my attention.

I whipped my head around and glared at him.  He sort of chuckled and said, "oh, I'm so sorry," as if it had been an accident.  I frowned.  He tried to talk to me, saying things like, "oh, I see your ID badge, where do you work?" but I grunted one-word answers until I reached my stop and got off the bus.

And there isn't any grand point to this story. It's just an example of a random encounter that is a part of commuting on public transportation.  One that I would never remember, if I didn't record it for posterity here  on the internet.

And the day had been sort of random like that.  I spent the day going from meeting to meeting, never quite getting my bearings with a big project -- just small encounters and questions that were unrelated.  I felt kind of disjointed and off-kilter all day.

The day ended randomly as well.

I was lying in bed with Zeke, snuggling with him to help him get to sleep.  He had been quiet for awhile, so I thought he was settling down and falling asleep.  But I should have known better.  My mother once remarked that when she thinks about Zeke she's reminded of those machines that measure brain activity -- the red areas show areas of heightened cerebral activity.  She envisions Zeke's brain as all red, firing on all cylinders at all times.

I don't disagree.

We were lying there in the dark, quiet and cozy.  Suddenly, he lifted his head and exclaimed, "Mama!"  He sounded very excited.

"What is it, honey?" I asked.

"Mama!  Have you ever heard of the number 139?"

I chuckled.  "Yes, I have heard of that number."

"You have??"  He seemed incredulous.

"Yes.  I've pretty much heard of all the numbers."

"Oh."  He sounded skeptical.

He put his head back down on the pillow, his little brain continuing to fire away.  I put an arm over him and pulled him close.

Eventually we both fell asleep.

What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away...

As I said, I'm generally not creative enough to come up with worthy April Fool's gags.  Nor do I usually even remember it is April Fool's Day until it's too late to do anything about it.

So it's nice to be included in someone else's gag.

In this case, my high school friend Mark emailed me and asked if I would be willing to participate in a blogging gag flowing from last year's awesome punking of the New York Times.

But of course, I said.

So this time the gag was not on the Times, but rather on readers eager to see the Times taken again.  Eric Turkewitz,* a New York lawyer who writes a law blog, conceived of and executed the prank, involving a series of links promising a great punking story, but never delivering.  Click here for his deconstruction of the gag.  (For reals, this time.)

Happy April, all!

* Part of the gag was that I know Eric at all -- the story about meeting him in India way back when was made up.

Punk me once, shame on you. Punk me twice...

I've always been one to admire April Fool's Day from afar.  I was never able to come up with anything clever enough to make a worthy prank, plus usually by the time I actually remember it's April Fool's Day, I'm driving home from work and it's pretty much done.

An old friend of mine pulled a great one last year, however.  He's kind of the adventurous type - I met him when my parents were still living in India and he ended up there as part of a big round-the-world trip he took on a bit of a lark. 

Anyway, last year he planted this story on his law blog that he had been hired as the official White House Law Blogger. I have no idea if that position actually exists, but it would be kind of awesome if it did.  Anyway, he got a bunch of his blogger friends in on the gag -- they chipped in with their comments about how they confirmed it with anonymous sources in various places. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both got taken, but the NYT ran the story without checking. The WSJ got a denial from the White House before posting. The NYT, after pulling down the post, then went on to  include it in an editorial about new media.

So it was kind of a big deal.  And also very funny, and embarrassing for the NYT.

But I guess some people never learn.

Because a year to the day after being totally punked in an April Fool's prank, the NYT has once again fallen victim to their own sloppy practices.

Eric tells it better than I could:  http://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com/2011/04/nyt-gets-punked-again.html

Who knew the Gray Lady was run by such a bunch of punks?

Can't I just give her my dog-eared copy of Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? and be done with it?

I'm on all these email lists from baby/parenting websites, leftover from when I was naive enough to believe that message boards populated by equally clueless first-time parents would be of any value.  I'm too lazy to click on "unsubscribe," so I'm bombarded daily with 80 bazillion emails about my toddler's developmental milestones and "5 ways your baby's crib can kill her!"  Plus I get lots of product offers for diapers and whatever.

Then today I got this from Mamapedia, which is kind of like Groupon for parents:

First of all, my daughter isn't even 18 months old, so thanks, Dot Girl, but I'm good for a while.

Second of all, What. The. Fuck.

When I got my first period, my mom and I weren't even on the same continent (we were living in Israel and I was in the States for the summer, so my friend's mom had the pleasure of dealing with me when it happened).  And it wasn't a big deal.  I had read my Judy Blume books so I knew what was going on, and it was fine and not even remotely emotionally charged or traumatic or anything.  My "practical kit" was a box of sanitary pads.  No "facilitation of healthy communication" was required.  I called my mom and told her the news, and she said something about growing up, and that was that.

Seriously, is this a thing?  Is this what people do now?  Is every single event in life now the subject of a marketing strategy?

Mommas, now don't let your babies grow up to be unbelievable assholes

The following is based on a true story. I've changed the details not out of concern for the perpetrator, who is a wretched hag and is entitled to no discretion from me, but out of concern for others whose feelings I don't want to hurt.

Imagine, if you will, that you've been going to charm school, and that you're sitting for your final exam in Etiquette 201: How To Act Like A Human Being When Someone Does Something Nice For You. When the teacher says, "you may open your test booklets," this is one of the questions you must answer:

You have a relative who is a bit frenetic and crazy, but she's a warm, caring, lovely human being. She contacts a clothing designer and commissions a scarf for you. She does this for purely altruistic motives, i.e., she wants to do something nice for you. The designer makes the piece and sends it to you. When you receive the package, you open it and you hate it. You hate everything about it, it's something you would never wear, and you think it's awful. Which of the following actions would you take?

A. Thank the relative graciously and then put the scarf away and never wear it except for when the relative is in town

B. Thank the relative for her generosity, but let her know that the scarf isn't really your style, so that next time she wants to buy you something, she'll know what you like

C. Call the designer and rant and rave on the phone about how you much you HATE the scarf, you would not and could not EVER wear something like this because it's the UGLIEST thing you've ever seen, and bitch and complain to the designer about how your relative is an idiot who obviously pays no attention to what you wear or like because if she did, she would never have bought you such an ugly piece of shit. Then send the scarf back.

Now, if I were the teacher, the only acceptable response would be "A." I can't tell you how many ugly pairs of earrings, matching shirt and pants sets in bizarre prints with sharks on them, etc. I have received and have had to wear, gritting my teeth while smiling the whole time, because some beloved family member bought them for me as a gift. Someone with an incredibly deft and gentle touch might be able to get away with "B," but quite frankly, I'm not sure that person exists, and I still think it represents crass behavior. But a student answering "B" wouldn't fail the class -- they just wouldn't have made the dean's list. At least they said "thank you" and tried to be somewhat nice about it.

But "Bridget", if she were a student in our imaginary charm school class, would have failed -- in fact, I would have made her sit in the corner with a giant dunce cap on her head -- because apparently, she is of the mindset that "C" represents acceptable behavior.

Now, let's delve into this a little bit, because as outright shocking as her behavior is when you first hear or read about it (I think my brain got a bit of whiplash when my mother told me the story), it's like an onion -- there are layers and layers of pathology represented in this one incident. It's not just Emily Post rolling over in her grave, it's Sigmund Freud leaning forward with interest, saying, "tell me about your mother...."

First, there's the utter lack of grace in Bridget's entire reaction. Would it have been so hard, so awful, to simply say "thank you, you're so thoughtful," and then put the scarf in a drawer and not worry about it? I mean, really, how taxing would that have been? What is she going to tell her relative when she sees her? How will she explain that she no longer has the scarf because she was so offended by its existence that she not only won't wear it, she had to banish it from her presence by returning it. Bridget clearly is one of those people who pumps herself up by letting others know that they don't measure up to her levels of taste or sophistication. Unfortunately for her, she doesn't seem to recognize that she possesses neither.

Then there's the utter lack of discretion demonstrated. She was indiscreet in ranting and raving about her relative to the designer, who might very well have let the relative know that the scarf had been returned. I know for a fact that this won't happen, but why would she take that risk? Because she secretly wants it to get back to the relative, but she doesn't want to be the one to actually deliver the news? So she's cruel and a pussy?

Incidentally, this is not the first time Bridget has exhibited a remarkable lack of discretion. At a wedding a few months ago, Bridget complained to my mother -- MY MOTHER -- about me and Jason because when we were in her home town last year, we went to dinner with Bridget and her husband, and she bitched that we split the bill even though Jason ate more than anyone else. Which is true, except that we split the bill because Jason and I had water with dinner, whereas she had 2 mixed drinks, so it evened everything out, price-wise. And why would she say something like that to my mother, in any event? Fucking bitch.

Anyway, in addition to being graceless and classless and indiscreet, she's also just flat out mean. She called the designer who made the scarf to tell her how much she hated it. Setting aside the fact that this was a custom design based upon the relative's specifications, and not something the designer came up with, what possible reason would you have to berate someone over something they created? It's not like she ever has to order or wear the designer's clothes if she doesn't like them.

I've only met Bridget that one time we went to dinner, and I have to say that at the time, I thought she was OK. A bit flinty, but not the fiend she's revealed herself to be. And if I see her again, I'm not going to get in her face or yell or anything like that. But I will ask her about her behavior, both to see her squirm and also because I'm genuinely curious to hear what she has to say in her defense.