Photo of the Day - 1.31.2008
Look, Ma! My Name’s In Lights! - Chantilly, Virginia
01.31.2008 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2008
Look, Ma! My Name’s In Lights! - Chantilly, Virginia
01.31.2008 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2008
I absolutely love the fact that two weeks before my last day on the job, they put my name on the wall beside my office door.
When Sally Field (just go with it…) plays the part of me in the movie about my life, this is the part where she’ll say, “I can’t deny the fact that you like me! You like me!”
ap·a·thy [ap-uh-thee]
–noun, plural -thies.
1. when Toyota Corollas go three-wide in front of you on the Fairfax County Parkway and you just don’t care.
2. absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.
3. lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.
[Origin: 1595–1605; (< F) < L apathīa < Gk apátheia insensibility to suffering, equiv. to apathe- (s. of apaths) unfeeling (a- a-6 + pathe-, var. s. of páthos pathos) + -ia -ia]
—Synonyms 1. coolness. 2. See indifference.
—Antonyms 1. ardor, fervor.
The Instigator of the Toilet Rebellion - Sugar Meadow Drive, Great Falls, Virginia
01.29.2008 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2008
The basement toilet is the bane of my existence. It takes this useless piece of plumbing an Act of Congress for it to decide whether or not it will pass anything larger than the smallest of nuggets and, when it finally does decide, it moves things along only after a lot of throat clearing and high drama of the please-god-don’t-let-it-overflow variety. It only gets worse during the holidays, with all the feasting going on.
I don’t know what in the name of the baby Jesus laying in His swaddling clothes in the manger on a cold December night I ever did to piss off this obstinate hunk of porcelain, but I wish it would get over itself and remember that its raison d’être is to move poop and not to ponder the dynamics of plate tectonics while putting a boa-constrictor-like lockdown on the fruits of my labor.
Because I feel like taking this rant to absurd lengths, I’ve come up with some similes for my idiotic basement toilet.
If my basement toilet were a pasta it would be a macaroni:
If my basement toilet were a sex kitten, it would be Brigitte Bardot - but only her waist:
If my basement toilet were a waterway it would be the Dardanelles:
If my basement toilet were a byway it would be the Burma Road:
If my basement toilet were a wrestler its signature move would be the chokehold:
If my basement toilet were a traffic jam it would be of the Third World variety:
Quite frankly, I’m ready to toss the damn thing out and go with a hole in the floor. A couple of wall grips and I’ll be all set.
Alexandra and the Frölunda Hockey Club - Sugar Meadow Drive, Great Falls, Virginia
01.26.2008 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2008
Chad and Anna came by for dinner last night and brought their (almost) two-year-old daughter, Alexandra. We’re surrounded lately, it seems, with the small children of our friends, all of whom are closer to our age than the typical ages of the parents of toddlers and little kids. All just part of the trend of couples becoming parents later in life, I guess. (As opposed to how kids used to be cranked out at 19, 22, 24 and so on.)
Anyway, off the top of my head I can think of Chad and Anna. Jim and Lynne. John and Elisa. Tam and Joe. Chris and Misty. Jeff ans Sue. Kym and Tom. Annette and Karla. Wendy and Rolf. Wendelin and Brian.
The Debra is arguing with me about Devon. “He’s six, he’s not a toddler.”
“Yes, but it used to be that the parent of a six-year-old was 30, not 37 or 38 or 40 or 42 or whatever.”
She shrugged, but didn’t argue back.
We are in a golden age of uncle and aunthood, LaRay and I. It’s great. We get to spoil the kids and then give them back!
An Evil Spirit in the Refrigerator - Sugar Meadow Drive, Great Falls, Virginia
01.26.2008 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2008
I’m concerned about the fact that there is a very large bottle of Budweiser in our refrigerator. We don’t drink Budweiser. In fact, I’m of the opinion that Budweiser shouldn’t be used for toiler water, that’s how low my opinion is of Budweiser’s place on the evolutionary ladder of beer.
Then LaRay wandered into the living room, chattering about her menu for our dinner with Chad and Anna tonight, and when I didn’t pay enough attention to her beef daube provençal, she asked me what I was writing. Instead of telling her the truth that it was a love note to the hot teenage checkout girl at Safeway, I lied and said I was writing about the bottle of Budweiser I found in the fridge this morning.
“It’s for cooking purposes only,” she said with great seriousness. LaRay doesn’t have a high opinion of Budweiser either.
“So it’s not for drinking,” I said.
“No,†she assured me, “it isn’t. It is for bread making.”
“Shouldn’t we use a higher-caliber beer than Budweiser? Are you sure we won’t be poisoned?”
“It’s only there for a chemical reaction with the baking powder.”
“So it’s not there for any flavor? Because Budweiser has no flavor.”
“No, it’s only there for the chemical reaction. In fact, if you use a darker beer, meaning something with actual flavor, it actually makes the bread bitter. Remember the last time I made the bread, you asked me if there was beer in the mix? That meant the beer I used was too strong - God forbid, I used Yuengling. But they can’t just come out and say ‘use a flavorless beer’ in the recipe, so they say, ‘use a light American beer’ which indicates something flavorless. Hence, Budweiser.”