Towels, wineglasses, and... a hacksaw?

My cousin is getting married. I received an invitation, and it was nice of her to invite me, considering we don't know each other. (We have met probably two times, most recently when she was eight years old or so, and I was a teenager.) I don't think I can go to the wedding (and I've been absolved by my dad, who says I needn't go), but I did peruse the "bridal registry" at the three stores the engaged young couple is registered at in the hopes of finding an appropriate gift in my price range. (My price range = $100.) The bridal registry information was conveniently tucked in the invitation. It seems more and more people are doing this now. Some people think it's tacky, but I think it can be helpful to know what china pattern, flatware and stemware they are collecting.

I was soon startled and baffled by this bridal registry, which included 1) a utility knife 2) a 12 inch hacksaw 3) a 14 inch pipe wrench 4) a 50 foot orange extension cord 5) a 100 foot orange extension cord, and the piece de resistance-- a 1000 watt tripod light with portable stand! These are just a few of the many electrical/tool-ish items listed. Well, perhaps the groom-to-be is planning to build the bride-to-be a cottage in the woods for them to live in! That has to be the explanation.

I don't understand how any of these items are even remotely related to a wedding. Needless to say, I will be sending a Visa gift card so that the young couple can pick out their own power tools!

The Banana Container vs. Sex Toy game

This afternoon, our part-time receptionist at work came upstairs to say goodbye to me. She only works on Fridays. Most of the rest of the time she goes to school (she's 19) or church (she's Christian and very active in her church) or she's studying or helping care for her nephew, who is a toddler. She's very busy. She's adorable, unaffected, and impossible not to like.

Today she matter of factly told me she wants a banana container and has been shopping for them online. "WHAT?" I said, trying to wrap my slow-moving, late-afternoon mind around the concept of a banana container. She then explained that her banana got smushed in her schoolbag and she had a spiral notebook, and--. At this part of the story she shuddered, letting me imagine the mess. (I haven't thought about carrying food around for a really long time-- it's been a long time since I've made a lunch and carried it to some all-day thing where the food offerings suck and there's no refrigerator or my own desk where I might park my lunch.)

As soon as I got it I caught the fever and got very excited and happy for her (as for me, I don't need a banana container, because we have bananas at my work and there are usually some available to eat), so she started telling me which websites to look at. There are some options, it's not like just one company makes a banana container. The first one we looked at was pretty cool. Then we looked at one that looked like colored condoms or cheapie jelly rubber vibrators, the kind that are less than $20. Suddenly, the banana container became sort of embarrassing to me, but not to her, because I really don't think she saw what I saw. So then it got even worse when she showed me some that looked like double-ended dildos or like toys designed to stimulate the G-spot, curved like a boomerang. It's really not like I think about sex toys anytime I'm at work and having a perfectly nice conversation with a co-worker, but I worked at a sex toy company for two years, and sex toys are just part of my regular frame of reference now.

Uglies, Pretties and Specials by Scott Westerfeld

I recently finished reading this trilogy of novels by author Scott Westerfeld. It starts with Uglies, next is Pretties, and finally Specials, all featuring teenage heroine Tally Youngblood, who lives in the future, in a self-contained city where everyone is linked into the city interface, people travel on hoverboards, and everyone has massive cosmetic surgery on their sixteenth birthday. Everyone is beautiful, and there's a commission who defines the parameters of acceptable beauty.

(God, I really am terrible at summarizing novels. I start getting very confused and scattered, like when you wake from a dream and start trying to explain it to someone and then you just peter out because you realize what you are saying makes no sense.)

Anyhow, it's a very exciting trilogy, and the novels raise interesting issues: what defines "cosmetic" surgery, socialized medicine, technology and society, cultural concepts of beauty, genetics, etc.

Personally, I would love to have Lasik eye surgery and I would love for it to be paid for by my health insurance, but it's considered an elective procedure. My vision is -4 and something in one eye and -5 in the other, which my eye doctor says is very common and right at the top of "the bell curve", but to me it means I can't see a friggin' thing without contact lenses or glasses! It would be amazing to be able to swim, run, etc. without needing lenses. I really think orthodontia should be covered by insurance, too. Universal health care... socialized medicine... okay, another discussion for another day and for people who are much more knowledgeable about the issues than I am.

The novels are fantastic; if you get one, get all three, because each one is such a quick read. There's a fourth novel, Extras, which is somehow related yet doesn't involve the same characters. I haven't read it yet, but I will soon!

The picture is the cover of the UK version of Pretties. Visit the author's site to learn more.

Little Lipgloss cell phone thing

I was browsing my local Sephora today, needing a new mascara since I dropped mine on the floor, and strangely enough, the impact of falling from my towering height of four foot eleven inches broke the plastic tube off at the neck, resulting in a waterproof black blobby mess every time I pull the wand out of the tube and the neck of the tube kind of gapes like a loose tooth. Anyhow, I decapitated my Diorshow waterproof black mascara and needed a new one, and was in Sephora walking around and waiting for my lips to plump up after having applied a ton of Lipfusion XL night treatment stuff. The stuff is $49 a tube so I wanted to see if it really works. Anyhow, I saw these little tiny lipgloss cell phone charms by Bourjois and thought they were very cute! It doesn't have to be all pink and femme-y either; they have clear (mint) that looks blue in the tube and could go on your black cell phone. It's $9.

I haven't reached a verdict on the Lipfusion XL night treatment. It definitely tingles and feels pretty weird...

Monthly. Bimonthly. NOT THE SAME THING!

Last year at around this same time, I went to a new eye doctor. I went to someone new because I moved (not far, but across a high-traffic bridge; it's not terrible to cross it, just inconvenient.) My old eye doctor was okay. She was neither warm nor friendly nor personable. She was just... fine.
The new eye doctor wowed me with a higher level of attention and a more comfortable contact lens. I didn't like her staff, who called me about four times to confirm my appointment or the person who examined my eyes, not the correction part, but the peripheral vision thing and the glaucoma thing. He had a very flat personality and seemed kind of snotty and bored. Snotty and Bored is not the sort of person I want shooting a puff of air at my eyeball as I trustingly "hold still" and "look riiiight at the hot air balloon". But after all was said and done, I was happy with my new contacts, which the doctor told me are to be changed bimonthly.

This year, a few days ago, she changed my contact lenses yet again. "These are monthly, like your old ones," she said, casually. "My old ones are once every two weeks," I replied. "They're once a month," she said. "You only have to change them once a month. These are the same."

She told me last year that I was supposed to throw the lenses away once every two weeks, so I did. Contact lenses = money. Contact lenses thrown away two weeks too early for an entire year = SHOES, HANDBAGS, MAKEUP, hell, quite possibly even mini vacations. I hate her. Sure, it's nothing to her. She's a doctor, this is the United States, what's a difference of three hundred dollars to her?

As I was leaving the office, one of the oh-so-delightful staff tells me, "That'll be... $165 blah blah and how would you like to pay for that blah blah?"
"I would like my insurance to pay for it, except for my $25 deductible, which I will pay with my credit card," I replied cheerfully.

She corrects me. Apparently my insurance covers the EXAM. But not the "contact lens fitting assessment". Which I assume was the part where the doctor said, "How do they feel?" and I replied, "Fine."

I love it! I will be looking for a new optometrist, or return to the un-exciting optometrist across the Bay who includes "How do they feel?" in the price of the exam!

The Great Table Search Begynneth

Ha ha. I just wanted to try some creative spelling there... applying some Gwyneth-esque y-th stuff.

I decided in December to sell my dining table and chairs and get different stuff.
It was a beautiful, solid table that felt warm and comfortable. The problem was never the way it felt, or its quality, but that it was round and had curvy legs and curvy chairs and was kind of traditional. My taste is currently very modern.

I wonder how many times or how frequently in life, on average, one's taste changes radically. I haven't really lived long enough to have seen many people age significantly; only my parents. My Dad has always been the exact same! I don't really know what his taste in art is like; he owns one piece of art; it's a Salvador Dali lithograph called Lincoln in Dalivision and he likes Japanese design and has worn the same style of clothing my entire life (hates jeans, wears flat-front khakis, comfortable walking/hik-ey shoes and solid colored shirts and a practical jacket, and when I was young he had longish hair and a full beard but as his hair thinned and went gray he kept it shorter and shorter, so he's not a hairstylin' kind of person. My mom went through one major shift, as far as I can tell. She used to wear a lot of colors, like teal, purple and red, and had flowy long hair and red lip gloss, and then she got a bob hairstyle and started only wearing very tailored clothes in only brown, black, gray and navy. This happened gradually.
Also, she used to like modern art and mid-century modern furniture, and she shifted to contemporary art (but she doesn't actually buy art; she's the kind of person who will decorate with pre-framed art you buy from the Crate and Barrel catalog) and traditional furniture. Now that I think about it, it's possible modern was never really her thing, but what she happened to fall into because her parents were modern, and then as she got older she started to be her real design self. I benefitted from this change heart; she decided that a mid-century modern sculpture that belonged to my grandparents didn't "fit her house", and I ecstatically took it.

As for me, my tastes in my early 20's were shaped by my love of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, my love of Betsey Johnson, and probably the fact that I was an English major. English majors always fall in love with Queen Elizabeth and Christopher Marlowe and the Victorian era before they go into their more specific area of concentration (which, in my case, was American lit). I liked everything curly and ornate and leopard print and white lilies in a wrought iron vase... I loved the paintings Pinky and the Blue Boy. Well, I still do. And I still have that love of frills and lace and old-fashioned things but it's more in the realm of clothing, paper and objects than decor. I started to like things more and more modern in the past three years.

A family bought the dining table in January, but I stored it for them till yesterday. They were having their home remodeled and didn't have anywhere to put it while the contractors lagged behind schedule. It's finally gone, and now I can evaluate the empty dining nook and think about what kind of table I really want!

Mrs. Meyer's Rhubarb

MRS. MEYER'S RHUBARB? Hey, hey, Mrs. Meyer's Rhubarb indeed!

I have to smell this stuff right away! I loved Mrs. Meyer's Gingerbread cleaning products from Christmas. The dishwashing liquid actually makes me like washing my dishes. I can't wait to see if I like the Rhubarb!

Fuck you; I hate you, Downstairs Neighbor

When we first moved into our apartment, couple A lived downstairs. They had a little yippy dog and the woman was unemployed and never left the house and the dog never went out, it would just bark to be let out. They had a massive TV and would watch it all the time. We have hardwood floors and that appears to be all that separates our apartment from theirs-- these thin plankettes of wood. The TV noise was crazy. The vibrations shook the walls. Their walking and running through the apartment more than once made my heart freeze in fear, thinking we were having an earthquake. But I didn't really hate them till they hit the door of my then-new car with their SUV door, tried to wipe the scratch away, and didn't bother to tell me. I went apoplectic; they apologized; we exchanged bottles of wine; they eventually moved out.

#2 moved in and she was a little better because she was single. Of course, she moved in with a whole crew of movers at midnight one lovely mid-week worknight and I was forced to go downstairs and scream at her smug white SUV driving pink-faced father about being inconsiderate while she kept peeping around him and trying to look at me as he basically kept telling me it wasn't their fault that the movers were late. I don't remember much else. I know I was in a blind fury and their startled faces just made me want to kick in teeth, so DD had to take me out for a two hour walk. That was a bad start. She wasn't too bad, though, but she had an equally enormous television, which was always on, and she never left the apartment either, and she would go to Costco at the same time every week, but the same cases of the same stuff (bottled water, Marie Callender's potpies, microwaveable popcorn) and eat at the same time every day, slamming every cabinet in the kitchen. "Jamie's hungry," DD and I would remark.

She moved out. Neighbor #3 moved in. Her name is Trish. She is a friend of Neighbor #2. Again, the massive television...a dinky little couch facing it... no other furniture. Unlike the first two sets of downstairs neighbors, she was small and non-white (a Pacific Islander. Yes, I was initially happy to see an API person move in. Why should I be the only API person in the building?). I was just glad a single gal was moving in, instead of, say, a gaggle of late-twenties ex-frat boys. She then got a roommate, who moved in with a giant teddy bear. The bear was something like six feet tall and its head was about four feet in diameter. He lived in the living room and I called him "Wendy's boyfriend". Wendy has since moved out, and Trish's boyfriend or some other person has moved in, and someone down there gets hungry at the same time every evening and slams every kitchen cabinet over and over, presumably hunting for food. Once I tried to count the number of ingredients she was using in her meal by counting the slams, but I gave up at sixteen. I really hope she gets pregnant (perhaps by Wendy's boyfriend) and has to put little baby locks on all the cabinets, which would preclude her from slamming. I would rather hear the cries of an infant child/teddy bear than all that slamming. Sometimes I fantasize about cutting her cable, or just calling Comcast to turn it off. Sometimes I fantasize about shooting a gun through the floor, but don't worry, I don't have a gun. Anyone who fantasizes about shooting guns should definitely not own them! Sometimes I agonize about the different crossroads of my life; the paths I chose that led me to where I am now; earning a rather pitiful (in my opinion) salary and having nothing near a down payment on a house of my very own, where there would not be a hungry TV blasting mofo whom I hate living underneath my floor.

If you f*ck off, you can eat more ice cream

I have written before about this woman at my work; her name rhymes with Leggy, so let's just call her Leggy. She is indeed leggy as well as being fond of high-waisted jeans. She's a tall, very slim woman with long arms, fingers, legs, toes (oh, yes I've seen her toes... she wears some ergonomic sandals that have separators between each toe!), and a very long nose, figuratively speaking. She's always in others'
business and believes herself to be the patron saint of healthy eating, riding a bicycle, buying a house on the cheap, Lasik eye surgery, the benefits of metal braces over Invisalign, why people should never buy bottles of water (the bottles pollute the environment), and how to not be fat. This is probably her favorite topic. She brings her food from home and heats it up in the microwave and I don't ever know what exactly it is, but it fits in one tiny plastic container the size of a man's wallet and it smells like wet cat food.

Upon returning from her lunch break today, which she enjoyed out in the sunshine (to be fair, she actually ate out of a round container today, the diameter of which was about the same as that of a teacup SAUCER) she cheerfully informed me that it is almost bicycling season. She thinks I ought to ride my bike to work. I actually don't have a bike, but I did tell her once that I have one, just to avoid the painful conversation about WHY I DON'T HAVE A BIKE. For authenticity's sake, I simply described Dear Daniel's bike to her, down to the color, brand, shifting mechanism, pros and cons. I added some strategic whining about not wanting to ride in the dark of early morning or early evening. That got her off my back about riding to work for a few months.

Now it is getting lighter out and I apparently no longer have an excuse for not riding my non-existent bike to work. She told me this today, and her parting shot was a cheerful, "You can eat more ice cream!"

God! It's just so dated to me, the way she maintains her weight, by a careful balancing of calories expended and calories taken in each day; her little tiny cat food casseroles, her weird obsession with ultra premium ice cream. I rarely eat that kind of ice cream anyway, just because it's milky and rich and I can taste the eggs, not because I'm afraid of being FAT. Who gives a fuck? In reality, don't most people, most kind-of-not-wealthy American women my age, have days when they eat nothing but carbs and cheese and other days when they eat nothing but diet soda and cigarettes and probably semen? Half the people are obese and the other half are anorexic, and we're all screwed up about food and our bodies because of our stupid baby boomer parents, like her! I'm lucky to be in the middle of the whole stupid fat-skinny continuum and I really feel like it's as much genetic luck as the careful balance of my macaroni and cheese with my hikes through the forest.

That said, I really do want to spring for a huge 5 gallon of ice cream from Costco or some other equally horrible food source (oh yes, there's the food-related class snobbery coming out) and put it in the freezer at work, unmarked, to see who gets into it.

The Beautiful Orchid Urinals

I made a brief and stealthy trip to the 56th Annual Pacific Orchid Exposition yesterday; brief because I'm recovering from a cold and stealthy, well, I just felt like saying that.

There were so many incredible plants, many of them so strange as to seem otherworldly. There was an orchid called Dracula Exasperata! There were many orchids bearing signs that said "FRAGRANT!" and "SMELL ME!", because most orchids aren't fragrant, unlike, say, roses, which don't really need signs inviting you to smell them; everyone knows they're fragrant. Let me just tell you-- Did you read that novel The Lovely Bones, in which heaven smells different for every one, and smells like each dead person's favorite smell when they were alive?-- I've often thought about what my heaven would smell like-- cinnamon buns? Chocolate bread pudding baking? Now I KNOW-- heaven smells like fragrant orchids. Seriously. There was never a softer, greener, more delicate fragrance in all the world.

And now we shall segue coarsely to the orchid urinals by artist Clark Sorensen.
This strange mix of art and bodily function had many show-goers gaping in surprise and delight. Some people disapproved, but I saw more than one perfectly nice older lady giggling, and it was mostly women who approached the sculptures pelvis forward as if they were going to pee in them.

The fifth photo is one of the SMELL ME orchids. The next is the plant I took home. You would have to have an iron will not to buy a plant at the Orchid Expo! Phalaenopsis are pretty common but I've never had one with spots that look just like ink before!

Last photo is my favorite orchid of the show, presented by White Oak Orchids in a display called "A Spidery Wild Side".

I may never brush my teeth again

Maybe that's a little overly dramatic. I will brush my teeth again, but I am coming to the end of my last tube of Lush's White Toothpaste; an apparently discontinued item.

Because Lush Cosmetics has a cult following, and because they frequently roll out new items and discontinue other items, Lush devotees usually pass information about what's going to be discontinued in these chat forums on the Lush website. Fortunately, I also live in a city with two Lush stores, and the people who work there usually share information about discontinued items as well, so you can stock up on the stuff you like before it goes away.

I didn't read or hear anything about the toothpaste. They had a black one and a white one, both came in these small tubes, less than 1 ounce each, like your standard trial size toothpaste. At $6 each, they were pretty expensive, but I love the White Toothpaste because it tastes like vanilla and makes your teeth feel really squeaky clean. Some people say it also seemed to have a whitening effect (I'm not sure about that. I had my teeth professionally whitened with the Zoom! process so personally, it's hard to tell). It also didn't bubble up or lather up the way most toothpaste does, and you could drink orange juice or champagne right after brushing your teeth, unlike with mint toothpaste.

I had two tubes of this stuff at home when I went to Lush and noticed they had no more. Fighting panic, I asked the person working at the store if they were getting more. "I think so, " she said. Some investigation revealed that this item is actually discontinued! ACK! Had I known, I would have bought at least a dozen; that's how much I love this toothpaste!

I hear they have fancy flavored toothpaste in Japan; Japanese toothpaste is apparently what inspired Lush to make the White Toothpaste and Black Toothpaste in the first place. Despite having a cold, I will be heading over to Japan town today after dragging myself to the once-a-year Orchid Society show. I can't miss the orchid show; even if I had been put in a full body cast yesterday I would still be going to the orchid show today!