The return of Mrs. Davila

Mrs. Davila is one popular lady. I--or rather, she--got another call the other day:

fundraiser woman: Hello, this is so-and-so from such-and-such charity. May I speak to Mrs. Davila, please?

me: I'm sorry, there's no one here by that name.

FW: Oh, my apologies, she must have had your number previously.

me: That's okay. Have a nice--

FW: Wait, while I have you on the phone, are you the lady of the house?

me: I am.

FW: As I said, I'm so-and-so from such-and-such charity, and we're asking for your support--

me: I'm sorry, I don't make donations over the phone. Please take my number, and Mrs. Davila, off your list. Bye.

Smooooth.

2009 Report on My Balls

Okay, I admit: I totally neglected this blog for five months. I kept thinking how I really ought to post things, and then I never did, and I really have no excuse for leaving you, dear reader, high and dry for so long--

--except that in the meantime I've been running after a 1-year-old (who is newly walking!), getting dressed up three times a week like a therapist again and being paid nicely for it besides, and finding myself trapped in the time-sucking vortex that is Facebook. Yes, despite my insistence that it would be bad for me professionally to be on any social networking sites, I signed up for Facebook. (And I play a mean game of Scramble, if I do say so myself.)

But this evening I decided it really was time to rejuvenate this blog. And what better subject than my balls?

As previously reported, my balls continue to be quite the awesome delicacy. This year, my balls are more dense than fluffy, although they are by no means cannon shot. The broth is half vegetable, half chicken, and is accented with slices of carrot. I'm proud to report that Tovah is a big fan of my balls.

On that note, Mrs. Gerbil and I realized that this is really the last year that we can talk about my balls. We fear that Tovah (who is already frighteningly intelligent and possessed of a weird sense of humor) will tell her preschool teachers that her favorite food is Mommy's balls. So, starting next year, we will be having plain old matzo balls on Passover. But this year I shall feel free to wax especially rhapsodic about my balls--at least until the leftovers are gone.

Other things Toni Braxton wishes could be reversed, but hasn't immortalized in song

- Unrip My Jeans

- Unburn My Toast

- Untrip My Fuse

- Unsteal My PIN

- Unspill My Drink

- Unlose My Phone

- Unbounce My Check

- Unshave My Head

- Uncrash My Car

Not a dirty word

Every time I hear or read about some Republican's beef with Obama's reference to "spread[ing] the wealth around," I wonder all over again what is wrong with this idea.

"What's wrong with a little socialism every now and then?" I ask myself.

"Oh, right," I answer myself. "I'm a socialist!"

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (8% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid.com: Free Online Dating Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

A matter of opinion

I present a pair of guide words from our phone book:



I suppose it's all in the ear of the beholder.

Proctered and Gambled

I have fierce brand loyalty where toiletries are concerned. Though Mrs. Gerbil thinks I am unnecessarily finicky about such things, I simply will not settle for store-brand skin care, dental care, or feminine hygiene products. But for all my desire to cut costs wherever and whenever possible, I am a creature of habit, and a lot of times the store brand just isn't the same.

A lot of my favorite toiletries are made by Procter and Gamble, and I've been using the same P&G products since high school (i.e., half my life). Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but for me it's a source of warmth and fuzziness. So if my beloved products aren't up to snuff, you bet your bippy I'll be upset. And what do I do when I'm upset? I rectify stuff.

Many moons ago, I called P&G about cat food cans that wouldn't open, and for my troubles I (or rather, the cat) was rewarded with eighteen vouchers, each good for one free case of cat food. That is a whole freaking lot of cat food.

Several weeks ago I restocked our supply of nice, lotiony Puffs tissues. Tissues with lotion in them aren't good for wiping up spills or cleaning one's glasses, but they sure are good for protecting my sensitive little schnozz. Imagine my unpleasant surprise when I discovered that one of the boxes was full of coarse tissues! The P&G representative asked whether the tissues contained the proper amount of lotion, "because sometimes the lotion doesn't get on them." Oh, they were lotiony, all right. And mysteriously scratchy. For my troubles, P&G sent me a voucher for three replacement boxes of Puffs.

Recently I bought some more of my favorite unscented Secret deodorant. At about the same time, I noticed the smell of tropical fruit every time I went to nurse Tovah. None of us uses any products that smell like tropical fruit, so I was completely at a loss for whence this smell was coming. Then one morning I figured it out: it was my supposedly unscented Secret. WTF? (At least it wasn't phantom chai.) My sensitive little schnozz did not appreciate the bait and switch, but I feared I might get myself blacklisted with P&G's customer service. I know I'm in their computer system, because despite my careful spelling-out of my name each time I call, they always address mail to me with the same misspelling.

Not surprisingly, my need to rectify things won out, and I called P&G about my disturbingly fruity unscented deodorant. The representative was all apologetic, especially when I alluded to my sensitive little schnozz.

Well, today I received my replacement vouchers, with a predictably misspelled address label. I'm pretty certain I've been blacklisted. P&G thanked me for being a valued customer by enclosing a sample of heavily scented laundry detergent.

Mel Gibson is stalking me

...and he's not doing it very effectively.

Cases in point:

1) In 2002, M. Night Shyamalan's rather disappointing Mel-Gibson-vs.-aliens flick Signs was filmed in and around my charming old historical hometown. But I'd moved from my parents' house to Cleveland a little more than a year prior. Sorry you missed me, Mel.

2) Last week, scenes from the new movie Edge of Darkness were filmed at the book depository of my alma mater, a location also known as the Bunker because it is, well, an old military bunker. I've never actually been to the Bunker, but it's about five miles from our house and I drive past it several times a week. Sorry you missed me again, Mel.

3) Tomorrow, more scenes from Edge of Darkness will be filmed at the old county courthouse, in downtown Northampton. I go to Northampton frequently. In fact, Tovah and I drove through Northampton yesterday and today, and we saw all sorts of cinematic equipment being hung on the courthouse. We also saw throngs of people standing around and watching said equipment-hanging, and police standing around and watching said throngs of people. Partly on account of the filming (and the concomitant traffic delays and even more pronounced lack of parking), and partly on account of lack of need to go to Northampton, I won't be going by the courthouse tomorrow. Mel! Your timing sucks.

It's what's inside that counts

As part of my policy of getting out of the house at least once a day, Tovah and I make regular trips to Big Y. By "regular," I mean "at least six times a week." Sometimes we go more than once a day, but this is because we live across the street (translation: no wasting of gas) and Tovah goes in the stroller (translation: I can't fit that much in a basket).

The parking lot is not very pedestrian-friendly. The crosswalks are in weird places, drivers don't look where they're going, and there aren't a lot of curb cuts. (Side note: the more we've gone out with the stroller, the more aware I've become of accessibility issues. Like wheelchairs, strollers aren't designed to hop curbs.) We try to use the sidewalk in front of some of the stores, but we can't always get around the bags of Quik-Krete in front of the hardware store or the cigarette-smoking men in fatigues in front of the military recruitment office. Thus, we frequently end up walking amongst the parked cars.

Every weekday afternoon, the parking lot is chock-full of junior high students. Most kids around here walk or ride their bikes to school, and on their way home they all converge at Friendly's for ice cream and french fries. Let me tell you, I feel really old when I'm pushing a stroller through a pubescent crowd.

The other day we walked by a young fellow on a bike. "Casey, my little African-American friend!" he called to a friend of his who was several yards away.

Both Casey and his buddy were decidedly Nordic in appearance.

I will never understand the early adolescent male.

Attention to detail not required

Rule #1 of classified advertising:

Do not misspell the name of your company.

Guilty as charged

Yesterday I saw an interesting car. It wasn't a hybrid, bio-diesel, natural gas, or electric vehicle. In fact, it was a rather ordinary late-model wagon, festooned all over with various bumper stickers proclaiming its owner's position on various social issues. For a car parked in Northampton, Mass., this is not so unusual.

What made this otherwise unremarkable car so interesting was that one of its stickers read as follows:

DRIVE & POLLUTE.

I'm always intrigued by this sort of thing. I only hope the irony wasn't lost on the driver.

Go with the flow

Asthma medications and nasal sprays, many types of which I've had the (mis)fortune of sampling over the years, seem to be named by the Chinese-menu method--one from column A, one from column B. With the limited variety of prefixes and suffixes, I tend to get confused when I'm asked to identify which medications I've tried over the past quarter of a century. Was it Rhinocort that made my nose bleed, or was it Nasocort? Have I tried Nasonex, or am I thinking of Nasocort again? Was it Azmacort that made my cough worse, or was it Pulmicort? Have I ever tried Maxair, or am I thinking of Advair? I've taken cromolyn, but what about Nasalcrom? And have I ever actually tried Flonase?

These questions really only come up when I have to get a new pre-authorization for my current prescription regimen. This is one of the many reasons I do not like managed care. Why should my doctor have to remind my insurer every year that nothing cheaper than the maximum US dose of Allegra will touch my allergies, and yes, that expensive Singulair really is necessary to keep me from coughing, and no, maintenance corticosteroids (while cheap and easy, like a bad date) are not appropriate because I can't tolerate the side effects, which include feeling like I could make the Guinness Book of World Records for Worst PMS All Day, Every Day?

ANYWAY.

Every time I see a commercial for Flomax, I think it's an asthma medication. I mean, can you blame me? Not only are its commercials full of people doing various high-impact activities like whitewater rafting, but its name sure does sound like it would help you move a lot of air through your lungs. But then I realize that the whitewater rafters are all middle-aged men. Because Flomax helps you move a lot of pee through your benignly enlarged prostate.

The Spam Files 6: Paris Hilton

According to my spam folder, Paris Hilton has been very busy. Not only has she been getting it on with SpongeBob, but she's entertained various other luminaries:

from: First Gerendasne
subject: Corzine visits Paris Hilton

from: Corbin adfasfwe
subject: Scooter Libby heads for Twin Towers' Paris Hilton Suite

from: Garrison Lucaj
subject: Epidemic Breaks Out in Prisons After Paris Hilton's Release

from: Mason Pietrzak
subject: Paris Hilton Sold Her Soul to the Devil, admits it on Larry King

from: Mae aviles
subject: Paris Hilton Loses Vagina, Blames Dr Phil

and my personal favorite:

from: Mehrdad vulgamore
subject: Paris Hilton sells her special taco!

Satan and Dr. Phil can have their spoils. I want tacos, dammit.

The Spam Files 5: The simple life

from: wlock Skeie
subject: SpongeBob named in Paris Hilton paternity lawsuit

And here James Dobson et al. had me convinced that SpongeBob is gay.

Poor aim

Periodically I have anxiety dreams about being in high school. In these dreams, I'm my current age, but for some reason I have to retake one of my high school classes (usually calculus) and attempt to blend in with kids at least a decade my junior. What makes these anxiety dreams is that invariably I've forgotten something important--such as an assignment, a test, or the location of the classroom. And then my dream-self feels really stupid because I graduated high school in 1997 and yet I can't get my act together to do the same stuff all over again as an adult.

(I must be growing up, though, because I had a dream the other night about having to go back to my doctoral program in order to retake statistics. In my dream, the class was taught by a computer science professor I had as an undergrad, and she'd assigned some gigantic research paper that I'd completely forgotten to do. Most of the rest of the dream was me dropping the F-bomb left and right about having neglected to write this paper.)

In my parents' mail yesterday was a piece for me. Every so often I get mail at their address, where I haven't lived since 2001, and it's usually a Mathcounts alumni newsletter. This piece of mail, however, left me speechless. I have no idea how I became targeted for this mailing, let alone why it went to my parents' address; but anyway, here it is for your amusement:



To the direct-mail genius who thought I might be interested in attending an alternative high school: That's Dr. G to you.

Dutch treat

The English language has the reputation of being notoriously hard to learn, as it's chock full of words whose pronunciation doesn't match their spelling, bizarrely irregular verbs and plurals, and a subjunctive tense that not even native speakers understand.

Dutch, however, is just plain funny. At least, the English-speaking Mrs. Gerbil and I think so.

For example: did you know that "Monsterhouder" is Dutch for "specimen container"?

Support single-payer healthcare!

A cute video from my aunt's colleague's family:

Growing up

Although I'm only 17 months and two days away from turning 30 (ZOMGWTF!), I occasionally still have difficulty remembering, and accepting, that I am an adult. Perhaps it is my baby face. Perhaps it's a lingering effect of having been at least a year younger than my classmates in school. Or perhaps it's a function of just how long adolescence lasts in US culture--some theories of development hold that adolescence lasts until age 26!

But there are some things in my daily life that remind me that yes, indeed, I have achieved adult status. I'm not talking about things like approaching my third wedding anniversary, having a baby, having bought a car, or even having moved out of my parents' house seven years ago.

No, I'm talking about much more quotidian things. Things like...


boiling water for tea...


having a fully stocked medicine cabinet...


and knowing how to make (and ice) cupcakes completely from scratch.

Tea, baked goods, and healthcare--these, I think, are the really important things in adult life.

Fight the future

1998:
"ZOMG, the X-Files movie comes out tomorrow! We've got to go see it--tomorrow!"

2008:
"ZOMG, the X-Files movie comes out tomorrow! Oy, we'd need a babysitter... but Tovah's not taking a bottle regularly, and what if she doesn't behave herself, and what if we can't concentrate on the movie because we're worried about her, and... Oh well, guess we'll just wait till it comes out on DVD."

Wait... what?

I enjoyed a lovely grape Popsicle this evening, and I was rewarded for my brain-freezing efforts with the following oxymoron-masquerading-as-a-joke:



Uh...

The Spam Files, Episode 4: Wrong spouse

I got this great spam the other day:

from: Christ
subject: Memo to all employees

If you know Mrs. Gerbil, 'nuff said.