My Husband

Have you seen the current Dockers commercial? He is SO my type. There is a portion of it on their website (www.dockers.com click USA click What's New). Yummy yummy yummy. And a nice bounce in the package! (I can't help it, almost the entire commercial is close-ups of his crotch...)

Weigh-in

Due to another weekend of broadband outage (thanks, Charter!) I was not able to check email or post updates to things online. I would have included a brief update on my Celebrity Fit-club progress. After a month of (weak) effort, I have lost a pound!! Yes, one whole entire pound! That may not sound like much, but I still celebrated with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Just kidding! I know it is pathetic progress. My sole consolation is that it is actually two pounds, since two weeks ago when I weighed myself, I was up one. You can imagine why I didn’t post that announcement. Factoring in the up-coming holidays, I figure about a year and a half to go, at the current rate! Ughhh. I need to find a motivator.

Our #1 Holiday

I read an article about Halloween spending today. This year, estimates are at $1.3billion for the holiday, up from $850million, most of the increase in high-end decorations, costumes, and food/alcohol. It’s not the trick-or-treaters, it’s the parents. There were the predictable comments from the one woman they found who spends more on Halloween than on Christmas. The worn out statistics on college kids who use the holiday as a reason to party. The author was trying to imply that Halloween will overtake Christmas as the biggest holiday here. Of course, the article also included the comment from the above-mentioned woman that she goes all out on Halloween because her mother already rules the Christmas celebration. This afternoon one of the guys at work was whistling “Deck the Halls”. I asked him why he was whistling Christmas music. He said it’s almost Christmas. I replied that it isn’t “almost” Christmas. His response was “Well, I don’t know any Halloween songs.” Other than the theme riff from the movie "Halloween" and the spooky first bar from Bach's D-minor toccata, what music can you associate with this holiday? Seems to me that Christmas is going to be safe for quite some time, yet!
(Incidentally, the Toccata and Fugue in D-minor is a beautiful piece of music. The fugue especially is graceful and elegant, sounds amazing on a good pipe organ, and really has nothing to do with Halloween but a minor key.)

Spooky

The remote for my stereo can control the basic functions of my TV, as well. Power, volume, channel, and input selection are all available on the stereo remote, so I keep the TV remote stashed behind the TV. I only need that one for more complex tasks, including menus. One such task is turning on or off the captions. Ronny could understand the dialog better with the captions on, so for the past year I have gotten used to having the captions on the TV. Last night I was playing a little game at my computer, and had Project Runway reruns playing in the background. Around 7pm, the thought crossed my mind that I still had the captions on, but didn’t need to anymore. I had the stereo remote with me, but didn’t feel like going over to the TV to grab the other remote, and went back to playing the game. At 8pm, I wanted to switch to Daily Show, so grabbed the remote. When I look down, it is the TV remote in my hand, not the stereo remote. I just stared at it for like 20 seconds. How in the World did that remote end up in front of me???

PR3

Olympus fashion week in New York was a couple weeks ago. I read an article about it that included a quote from Jay McCarroll (spelling?) predicting this season’s Project Runway winner would be Jeffrey. That was kind of a spoiler… On the episode last Wednesday, Uli and Laura were the top two, leaving Michael and Jeffrey on the runway. Of those four, my pick is Michael, so knowing Jeffrey showed meant Michael was out. Then they pulled out the biggest surprise of the show; all four are going to fashion week! Season one was won by a flaming homo. Season two was an Asian woman. Michael is my favorite, but as far as I can tell both he and Jeffrey are straight. Jeffrey has a girlfriend and a son, so that’s easy to tell, but Michael has not let on any personal info besides growing up in the ghetto in NYC. Last season was crawling with ‘mos. This one was a lot tamer. Kayne was a big queen (makes pageant gowns for a living), and Robert was obvious before his recycling ex-boyfriends comment. Bradley was obviously straight (didn’t know anything about Cher). Keith was the cutest, but not around long enough to find out much info on. I’d guess gay, but could be wrong. Malan was creepy Euro-trash, and Vincent was just cuckoo for coco-puffs. So, I’m not sure about either of those two. But there’s a chance this season will be won by that rarity in high fashion, a straight man!

My Big News

The other fun and excitement this past weekend was that I broke up with Ronny. It started Friday evening, and finished Sunday afternoon. Several cycles of “I don’t understand” and “You will never find happiness” and “I am strong, I’ll be fine” and “How could you do this to me” and now we are just friends. I still need to get a bit more of my privacy back. We did discuss it, and he agreed to come over under invitation like other friends, instead of unannounced like a significant other. Well, he usually wasn’t completely unannounced, it was either “I’ll be there in 30 minutes” and then some time in the next 4 hours he would randomly show up, or it was “I’m at the stoplight, I’ll be there in a couple minutes” (literally two minutes). He will gradually move his clothes back to his house, but he still wants to go to IHOP together, or have me help him study English. I don’t mind, really. This way I have somewhere to dump excess belongings when I move, and in a couple years a willing host for a lengthy visit to Brazil. I joked that if we went to Carnival in Salvador we might bump into Sergio. He looked at me quizzically and said there’s no way we would see him in a crowd that size. Then he said I’d find lots of other Baianos there to be interested in! (Probably true. Cris is also a Baiano. The super super-hot guy from the gym is half Baiano.) He did suggest I learn better Portuguese before going. Considering that about none of the Brazilians in Massachusetts spoke English when they got here (and most of them still don’t), I doubt “Voce fala Ingles?” (“Do you speak English?”) will get me very far.

Joe's Progress

St. Joseph has been buried head-first in my philodendron for over three weeks now, and I still have not had an offer submitted. So much for that hyped superstition. I had a showing this past weekend, though through a miscommunication on the part of the showing agent, I was at home at the time. (She was unsure how to use the lockbox, so asked that I stay home to let them in, then used the lockbox and was Surprised I was at home. Those realtor licenses must be Very difficult to obtain.)

It was an old couple; I knew immediately they would not be interested. They harped on not having in-unit laundry hook-ups, because “you know” women don’t do their unmentionables in public laundry areas. (She must not have attended college.) Then they pooh-poohed my wood floors, because they could just buy a cheap unit and put floors in themselves. Then the old grouch started complaining about Elgin toilets. She had her husband check what brand the toilet is because Elgins “don’t flush.” The agent was even saying that being on the sixth floor, it probably wouldn’t be a problem.

To my horror, I had forgotten to clean the little space between the seat and the tank, which is usually where the name is stamped. It was nothing tragic, but a few stray hairs. I did get a sinking feeling in my stomach, as I pictured them studying my toilet. I had cleaned the bowl, the seat, and the tank, but somehow missed that part. This was the only tour I had been included in, and it gave me NO reassurance.

And to answer your burning question; it does not say what brand it is.