J. Crew

Dear J. Crew,
I love you. I love your colors. My favorite look this season is your bright pink hoodie over a poplin shirt patterned with skiers. So cute, and so deliciously cozy-preppy. But if our relationship is ever going to flourish like it should, a couple things need to change.
1 - your sizing. Your stores tell me that I'm too fat, that you don't stock clothes in my size, and if you do, they are way too long because you don't have short-length pants. But I have a feeling that you've changed your sizes, that a real 10 is a J. Crew 8, a 12 a J. Crew 10, and so on. But I'll never really know, because I see that you don't have "my size" in your store, and I would never try on something that appears to be two sizes too small.
2 - your prices. That pink hoodie I love so much? Seventy-four dollars. For a hooded sweatshirt. The cute little poplin button-down shirt? Eighty-four dollars. That is way too much, J. Crew. When I wandered over to the sale rack the other day, you had a super cute navy-and-lavender cotton button-down, but marked down it was still about eighty bucks - because it had originally been $120. I'm sorry, dear, but that is just too much for what it was. I know some people will pay it, but not me. I won't even buy your $28 headbands.

I'm sorry.

J. Crew - C

Euphemisms

On Saturday, I took Nate and his two friends out to dinner as part of Nate's Good Times Birthday Weekend. We had delicious Indian food and a righteous time was had by all, and since I was feeling generous, I decided to pay for all the boys. Now, you should know that all these guys fancy themselves to be ninjas. There was much sparring and wrestling and purchasing of training tools earlier in the day, and I like to show that I can hang, at least as far as the witty repartee is concerned, so when they all started thanking me (because they are ninjas with manners) I said "You're welcome... no problem... but I'll be taking it out of your ass later on."
At which point Nate choked a little on his water and the other two ninjas said "WHOA! Didn't know it was going to be that kind of weekend! Har har har!" And then I realized: the euphemism "take it out of your ass" implies nothing more than a beatdown to me (i.e. "I'm going to take this out of your ass by tanning your hide"), but means something much... naughtier to most other people. How did I miss this? Was I absent the day the teacher explained this? And more importantly, am I really the only person who thought a different meaning was THE meaning?

Cast your votes in my comments section. "Take it out of your ass:" regular ol' spanking or something dirtier?

euphemism misinterpretation - C+

Dog Sitting

Nate and I have been dog sitting for the past few days. I sort of viewed it as a trial run for when we get our own dog, whenever that fateful day may be.
Sloane is, I believe, half terrier, half gazelle. She has the slimmest body and longest legs of any tine dog I've ever seen. And she can jump very high. One of my favorite things that she did is, when I was getting ready to take her for a walk and got her leash out, she would walk behind me and jump and use her front paws as a lever to springboard off my butt. It was hilarious. I wish there was a video of it. Sloane is also very cuddly. She liked to sit right next to me on the couch while I was watching TV, and sometimes she would rest her little face on my leg... so sweet!
But it wasn't all candy and roses. Sloane is a bit of a barker. By the end of her stay in our apartment, she was pretty good about giving one small bark when someone would come into the building, but on day one, she went nutso anytime the outer door opened or closed. Much time was spent saying "No barking!" Also, one day I got her poo on my hand. I'm not sure how this happened, but it was less than awesome.
We really enjoyed having Sloane stay at our house, and we miss her already. Come back, little lady!

Sloane - B+

Mr. Impatient

Allow me to set the scene: I arrived in the elevator vestibule of the parking structure where I park every day, after a long and productive day - meetings, paperwork, numerous phone calls, etc. Ready to go home, yes, but not in a huge yank or anything. I had already pushed the 'down' button for my elevator, and the light had gone out, meaning the elevator was on the ground floor, just getting situated and the doors hadn't opened yet.
Cut to: impatient guy. He speed-walks into the vestibule, comes to a halt in front of the elevator doors, sees the light on the down button not lit up, and pushes the button in rapid-fire succession about eight times. Whoa, buddy! It's on its way! The doors open, he gets in first, pushes the '6' button, asks me my floor (7- I was a little late), then pushes the 'close doors' button. Nothing happens - I think elevators are programmed to wait a minute before taking off, in case someone else comes tearing around the corner - so they guy pushes the 'close doors' button four or five more times. I'm starting to get the picture here. The doors close and we head up. We reach six, and the elevator does what it is supposed to do: stop and settle. The doors never open immediately when the elevator stops, right? Because that could be potentially bad, if there had been a malfunction or something. But Mr. Impatient can't stand it, and he drums his fingernails on the elevator door. Yes, the sign of impatient people everywhere, but in an enclosed space with one other person! It was so bizarre.
As soon as the doors open, he bolted out of the elevator to his car. I hope he didn't get hung up at a bunch of red lights on his way home.

Mr. Impatient - D+

Bikes

I think that bikes are a great alternative to cars for the health-conscious consumer without a lot of money. Let's face it - you don't have to buy gas, or pay car insurance, or take care of those pesky parking tickets, and all the while you stay fit. But last night, on my way home from work in the dark, I saw some bad bikers.
1 - the girl without the helmet, the least of the offenses. She had a flashing white headlight and a flashing red-and-yellow backlight, so she was doing her part to stay visible, but I think she needed a helmet.
2 - the guy without the helmet or headlight wearing a dark shirt. I feel that if bikers are going to observe the rules of the road at night, they should be wearing reflective gear, or one of those cool lights.
3a - the guy without the helmet or headlight who rode across the road against the signal - meaning that even though oncoming traffic had the green light, he rode across anyway. This is colossally dumb.
3b - the same guy was wearing headphones. This pisses me off. Maybe he was enjoying some tunes, but I tell you what, when he doesn't hear somebody honking at him and gets clobbered, he won't be enjoying those tunes when he's learning how to feed himself again.

I also saw, much to my horror, a good biker - helmet, headlight, light-colored shirt - fall off her bike into traffic and nearly get straight up runned over. It was awful. And all this happened in one short drive home. I had to eat cheese and crackers to soothe myself.

bikers - B-

Ella Minnow Pea

I read Ella Minnow Pea last week. This is one of those books that I see every time I go to the bookstore and think, Wow, I should really get that. So I did. And it was AWESOME. I loved it.
Ella Minnow Pea is a story about a girl named, naturally, Ella Minnow Pea. She lives on the island of Nollop, named after Nevin Nollop, the man who coined the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." It is a tiny independent nation in love with language, but all hell breaks loose when letters start falling off the statue of Nevin Nollop - and the town elders take this as a sign that those letters should be removed from language altogether... and to the delight of gimmicks everywhere, author Mark Dunn drops those letters from the novel. It's pretty incredible. The first letter to fall (don't worry, I'm not ruining anything for you) is Z - not incredibly dramatic, given its minimal usage - but then falls Q, then D, then J... and soon all manner of bad things happen. Can Ella save her town, her nation, and the English language?

Also noteworthy is this is an epistolary novel. Wow, look at the new word I know! This means that the whole novel is written in letter form - letter as in "Dear Cousin Ella." It's very fun, and I like it.

Ella Minnow Pea - A-

Try It, You Might Like It

At a recent work gathering, when fancy drinks and snacks were so generously purchased by my place of business, I decided to branch out from the things I usually would order and try something new. First up: the Pimm's Cup. I've been reading about the Pimm's Cup for years - they're mentioned all the time in one of my favorite book series. I did a little research on Pimm's this morning, so that you too can know what I'm talking about: Pimm's is its own kind of liquor, sort of like Southern Comfort, but Pimm's is gin-based (had I known that in advance, I wouldn't have ordered it - I'm not into gin). Pimm's Cups are traditionally made with Pimm's No. 1 and lemon soda or sometimes ginger ale, and always garnished with a cucumber. That's fun. I'd never seen one on a menu before, so I retracted my offer for a Cosmopolitan and tried the Pimm's instead. And... it was OK. I didn't love it. It was too much like champagne, or ginger ale, and I don't really like those, either, and it also didn't have a lot of flavor. I would have been better served getting that Cosmo, or just a beer.

Next up: mussels. Yes, I had never had a mussel before last night. I tend to not be into shellfish, and I think that it's a waste to try (read: pay for) something that I probably won't like - but this was one of those "get an order and pass it around and share" sort of things, so I tried one. And... I didn't like it, and this was not a surprise. It was the texture, sure, but I also didn't like the flavor.

I wonder why I don't like this fancy stuff. If we had gone to Buffalo Wild Wings for nachos and beer, I would have been all over it.

trying something new - A
not liking something new - C