I even miss d.c. cabs

in the back of an orlando cab right now. I miss d.c. cabs. I miss cranky drivers muttering in indecipherable languages into cell phones. I miss the zone system. I miss their musk. I think when all this is over me and d.c. cabs ought to get an apartment together.

It's Not the Heat, It's the 100% Humidity

Before I left for Orlando, I posted the following message on our co-op's listserv:

I'm heading out of town for about two weeks. If it doesn't
rain while I'm gone and the plants out front and on the side are
looking a little dry please give them some water.

In hindsight, it's a good thing I had recently unleashed locusts and wrought famine so I didn't have to worry about anyone handling that while I was gone.

OMG it's O-Town!

I'm on the road. In Orlando. Here's a little peak behind the curtain: There's some massive food trade convention here right now (not, I repeat, not why I'm here.) I've had guys attempt to make conversation with me by opening with:

"I'm in high-volume flavor sales. If you've eaten ramen noodles lately, you've eaten my chicken boullion."

and

"You're the Applebee's rep, right? We met last year!"
(Not sure why he thought that. Must have been my suit with the 37 pieces of flair. Incidentally, if you're reading this and you are the Applebee's rep he met last year, you apparently made quite an impression. You Spicy Jalepeno Puffy Popper temptress.)

So this is how it goes in other parts of the country, huh? People chitchat about chicken extracts and Applebees. I take back what I said in my previous post, I'm never stepping outside the Beltway again.

Levi's Mom, Also a Hot Chick, Faces Similar Saint-Ex Stupidity

So Sunday morning Crazy Levi chats with his mother about our ridiculous experience at Cafe Saint-Ex the previous evening. (It's two posts down. Bear with me kids, I'm still trying to figure out how to link to previous posts.) Anyhoo, Levi's mom shares the following chestnut, which he passed on to me in an email last night:

You've got to hear this-
My mom was at Saint-Ex the other day- it was a nice night. She calls dad and they agree to meet there. Nobody is there. Mom asks for a table for two. They won't give it to her.
"Sorry we need both people there." She says dad is on the way. No dice. So my mom says "Can I have a table for one?" And they agree to seat her. A table for two is of course exactly the same as a table for one.

Hard to Believe She's Only the "Deputy" Director

It's Tuesday morning, and you know what that means. A tipster was kind enough to pass on this week's blast email from our favorite deputy director of communications for a Congressional committee. You fashion gurus, be sure to note the spelling of "Manalo Blahnik." Hell, after Sex and the City, I think even my father could spell Mr. Blahnik's name correctly by now. You politicos be sure to note that Manolo Blahnik was mentioned in an email that is supposed to be illuminating the activities of our government.

(And if one isn't enough, skip down a couple posts to last week's email from her. In her defense, the tipster says she's "early 30s and very attractive." I think "I'd do 'er," was implied and a few "heh hehs" would have been sprinkled in there too, if he'd felt inclined to write more.)
Does anyone else get these chestnuts?


From: "REDACTED"
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:30:43 -0400
Subject: Update: Hi - Congressman REDACTED (R-VA)

How was your weekend? I hope this email finds you well. Perhaps you were either a 'giver' or a 'receiver' of the annual, really bad necktie this weekend. If on the 'receiving' end, where will you decide to wear your new fashion statement? I wish there was a holiday in June that honored single women for surviving on our own. Substitute 'annual necktie' for 'yearly Manalo Blahnik' and I would proudly show off my gift at work, just like the rest of you.

Just a quick note to let you know that the business meeting scheduled for Thursday has been postponed until further notice.

Would you mind doing me a favor? J Would you let me know if you will be visiting us...
...
Thanks as usual! I really appreciate it!

REDACTED

First Rule for Bar Proprietors: Piss Off Hot Girls Who Want to Come In

The plan: Meet friend Levi, of Crazy Levi pinball fame, at Cafe Saint-Ex at 10:30 Saturday night. I live in Adams Morgan, he was in town visiting the 'rents who live around the corner off U Street. Saint-Ex is the perfect meeting spot.
How it went down: There's handful of people waiting at the door, in front of an employee. So I pull out my i.d., notice Levi standing inside (and this is crucial: I notice him because the place is 1/2 empty inside). After a minute with the girls in front of me not engaging in the usual show-i.d.-be-granted-entrance-to-bar routine, I start wondering what's going on. I assume they're waiting on a table and say "Oh, sorry, I'm actually just going into the bar, I don't need a table."

The following exchange ensues:
Scrawny door guy: "Yeahhhh, we're actually going to need people to wait."
Girls in front of me: "But there's plenty of room in there."
Door guy: "Yeahhhh, sorry, but the manager's making us."
Girls who've come up behind me: "We're not waiting on a table, we just want to go into the bar." Like the rest of us, they have their i.d.s out and kind of barrel up expecting to be let right through, only to be bounced off the scrawny hipster door guy and left scratching their noodles as to WTF is going on.
Scrawny door guy: Repeats his orders, and starts to look a little uncomfortable.
Girls behind me: "What?"
Me, talking to Levi who is standing about three feet away inside the door finding this quite amusing: "Are you almost finished with your drink because I'm not waiting to get in here when it's half-empty."
At this point, a manager-looking type comes and stands in the doorway and surveys the scene of about eight or nine highly pissed off girls who are being made to wait. He tries to look authoritarian. And I must underscore a point: IT WAS HALF-EMPTY INSIDE. Another point that begs to be made: neither I nor any of the other girls standing around were exactly plain Janes. I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.

So Levi slugs back his whiskey, walks out the door and we head down to the Black Cat, which is where we should have just started in the first place. It was packed. And fun, as always. And not masquerading as a blase, we're too-cool-to-care joint that has now become so pathetic as to resort to making cute girls wait outside the door.

"Will you all play with me at recess? Are we all still BFF?"

This was just forwarded to me by a reporter included on this girl's blast email list. I suppose I shouldn't say girl, what with her being the deputy communications director for a Congressional committee. Important stuff, that. But then, I suppose she shouldn't be opening her emails to the press with a paragraph that sounds like she's writing her pen pals from summer camp. I would imagine that the original email had a file attached called "unicornsunset.jpg"
The tipster's only fear about passing me the email: "that she'll stop sending these gems."


------ Forwarded Message
From: "REDACTED"
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006
To: REDACTED
Subject: Hi

How are you? I hope you are well. Has your favorite old 70's or 80's band come back for a reunion yet? Who would you pick? My friend just bought Journey tickets. Love to hear if you have a good or bad story about your old favorites making a trip back to 'spandex.' Attached & below our schedule for COMMITTEE NAME REDACTED.

How are you (DATE REDACTED) to visit our full committee hearing...

How are you (DATE REDACTED) to visit our full committee business meeting...

As I will probably be running around, please come up and say 'hi' if I do not see you first,


NAME REDACTED
Deputy Director of Communications

Dear Diary, I Heart Dr. Mohammed Al-Sabah. Love, J.B.A.

We get Cosmopolitan at the office. (Oh how I love the odd world of D.C. publishing.) I never read it. Scout's honor. But I recently had to leave the office and wait for about 20 minutes outside my Significant Other's office. Faced with either a Newsweek that I'd already read or Cosmo, I opted for the latter. In it there's a piece by Julia Allison called "What It's Like to Date a Hotshot," about dating an unnamed Congressman while she was at Georgetown. (Discretely unnamed, but Roll Call is pretty confident that it's Harold Ford, D-Tenn.) While the initial ink spilling about this piece is being devoted to Allison's shocking revelation that the rep (gasp) couldn't ski, I actually find it a more staggering assertion that she supposedly knew the name of the Kuwaiti ambassador and had to correct him when he got it wrong one night. Way to go Possibly Harold Ford. Way to go. At least she didn't use your initials and spill that you liked being spanked or anything. That's more her gal pal's style.

A Half-Million and You Don't Even Get a Gardener

I have poison ivy. Honest to god-haven't gotten it since I was 10-pull out the Calamine Lotion-poison ivy. My co-op had a building clean-up day this past weekend that seemed like a nice idea in theory. Until I volunteered to clean out a neglected part of the side yard. That was full of poison ivy. That I got in up to my elbows. Helpfully, after the fact, several people pointed out that there was an article in the WaPo (that I'd obviously missed) about how awful the poison ivy is getting to be thanks to global warming.

My only consolation: as dusk fell I made s'mores. Here's the no-campfire-necessary recipe:

2 graham crackers
2 marshmallows
Half of Hershey bar

Put two cracker halves on a cookie sheet. Cut each marshmallow in half and place flat sides down on each cracker. (cutting it so there's a flat side keeps it from rolling off as it puffs up.) Put in a 400 degree oven for about 3 minutes, or until golden. Pull out and slap a three-bar section of Hershey bar on it and top with the other half of the graham cracker.
Scratch #$%@ poison ivy bumps.

My Cup Runeth Over

So the World Cup is upon us. Huzzah. Everyone going on and on about how exciting futbol is: You make some really salient points and I zzzzzzzz.....what?! Network?!

Here's my beef with futbol. It's not the game. A bazillion people like it. I get that. I don't mind that. What really frosts my cupcakes are the people insistent on converting me. This assumption that there's something wrong with America for not welcoming futbol closest to her ample bosom. So the rest of the world thinks it's great. Bully for them! Why are we doing something wrong by not deeming it our favorite sport? The American people (and by that I mean, the folks watchign televised sports and attending games) have said time and time again with our viewership and attendance that we like baseball and football and basketball and, shudder, NASCAR, more than futbol. If we waged this jihad on other countries for not liking baseball we'd be tarred and feathered on the world's stage. I don't like steak. I realize that 42 billion other people in the world enjoy steak. Would I get annoyed if the Jehova's Witnesses of the steak-eating circles felt the need to pound on my door every four years and condescend that I need to hop on the beef bandwagon because the rest of the world likes it? Yes, I most certainly would.