More from the old blog: Getting Old

My boyfriend (now husband) dragged me to a frat party a few years ago because he wanted to stir up trouble undergrad style. A little boy tried to hit on me. The end of the conversation went like this:

Boy: So, uh, what year are you?

Stacy: (laughs) Class of 2004

Boy: Oh, that's cool. I graduated in 2003!

Some guy named Kyle: No, dude, she means college.

Boy: Oh.

Nice, huh? I asked him if he was allowed to be out that late.

A Comedy of Errors

This is also from my old blog, but totally hilarious and worth passing on:

At the end of work today, I happily shut down my computer and trotted off to my car, looking forward to an exciting, action-packed evening of laundry. I reached into my purse for my keys to find that, alas! I had locked them in my car.

I called my mother to ask her is she would bring me my spare key. Sure, no problem... but she called me back five minutes later to tell me...

Her keys were locked in her car, too... After some time, we finally got hold of my father, who was working. Could he bring my mom her spare key so she could bring me my key? No problem...

Not so fast! When my dad walked out to his car, he saw...

He had a flat tire.

I Used to Believe in the Theory of Evolution

This was written my first year of grad school when by some freak accident of the universe I, at age 24, was housed with five 18-year-olds. My roommates would try to use their hairdryers every day in the same, which EVERY day would cause the power to go out. For a whole year, they never thought to plug their hairdryers into a different outlet. Not once. Even when I suggested it. Arrrrghhh!

I have been a Darwin supporter my whole life. I used to think evolution worked. Survival of the fittest makes sense, right? Well, not always. Some people are destined to do the same stupid thing, several times a day, every single day, with the same stupid results, and not learn their lesson. And these people with procreate and have stupid children.

For example, let's say that every day when you stepped out your front door, you fell down and got hurt and everyone else in your house fell down and got hurt too. Eventually, don't you think you'd catch on and start using a different door? That's classical conditioning, people.

That's not the actual situation, but really... people should learn faster. B.F. Skinner, I'm sorry, all of your research on conditioning has been rendered useless because there is a subspecies of humans to whom basic behavioral theories just don't apply.

Stupid people annoy me. Don't be stupid. Yay, evolution!

Rant: Ed Hardy

I despise Ed Hardy products. It looks like a tattoo shop on acid threw up and spray-painted graffiti on clothes. I just don't get it. He uses traditional tattoo designs, all with specific meanings and history... for what? Profit? To mae my eyes bleed? I particularly dislike it when people without any tattoos and who have no idea what the tattoos they are wearing on their shirts mean wear his products. They are so ugly!

Today, a short, hostile New Yorkian came into my work to argue about how his sweet, precious child could not havepossibly broken the rules, etc. He was enraged, the girl was crying, and all I could do was look at his ugly shirt. It was white, a size 300XXL, and also stained. I could not stop staring at his ugly shirt with some other guy's name on it. (Giant logos are a whole different rant!) At least it wasn't glittery.

If you love Ed Hardy, by all means, express your style, but I just can't get into it.

We've adopted!

Our family has adopted a new baby! She is approximately 9 weeks old, very energetic, happy, vibrant, has green eyes, and is black. Our new kitten, jinx, was found in a CVS parking lot by a high school classmate of mine. She (Jennifer) couldn't keep her because she has 4 dogs and 7 cats of her own.

When we got her one week ago, both my husband and 9-year-old cat Piper were very cranky, and I was in the doghouse for sure. (pun! ha!) Since Jinx was so little, she has no social skills and doesn't speak English. (Ideally, kittens should be 12-14 weeks old when separated from their mother to ensure proper kitty social skills). She is a tiny thing, and I suspect Jenn dosed her with caffeine before giving her to us, because I have only seen Jinx sleep 3 times in the last week. She is a biter, but she is teething and we are teaching her not to bite. It seems to be working (A puff of air blown in the face is a good, "No, no!" to a kitten.) She was litter trained and able to bathe herself when she was found, so that is excellent. She chases and tries to play with Piper relentlessly. at first, Piper was growling and hissing (as is appropriate to set boundaries), but was more submissive than I would have liked her to be. A good swat creeps in occasionally Now, Piper even shares her favorite toys and her food with the kitten without protesting. I'm not sure if this is maternal instinct or learned helplessness, but I hope to see kitty canoodling soon.

We originally tried to do the proper introduction by isolating the kitten for two weeks and allowing Piper to get used to Jinx's scents and sounds before a direct introduction. This lasted about three minutes with our ADHD kitten. We did try to keep her isolated in the bathroom when we were at work or when she kept Jeff awake, with plenty of toys, food, and a litter box, until she grew out of it 4 days after we got her. How, do you ask? I arrived homw from work to hear more baby screaming than usual. Typically, I would play with Piper alone for 15 minutes or so before letting Jinx out. This night, I let her out right away because she seemed so agitated. I opened the bathroom door to find the toilet paper all unrolled. Hilarious and adorable, but for the fact that the end of it was in her water bowl and had soaked up all her fluid, and she had made herself sick from being so upset. She's free-range now, and doing fine.

Pics to follow when Jeff uploads them. Baby Jinx has her first dr.'s appointment next week.