Inappropriate Bar Comments

Sometimes the people at my husband's office go to the bar on Friday nights.

Sometimes I come up and join them.

Last night, I did.

Dylan has been talking with a lot of people about his new Harley (due date February 2009). As I was walking up, we noticed a friend getting ready to head home. Dylan started in on his Harley.

Dylan: "Did I tell you that I'm getting a Harley?"

Friend: "No, wow! What happened to the old bike?"

Dylan: "The engine died. It was very sad. But did you hear me talking about the Harley?"

Friend: "How does your wife feel about that?" (Hi, I'm standing right here. Unless you think that maybe I'm just his hot girlfriend, which is okay too.)

Dylan: "Well, I had one picked out, but she looked at it and said that I couldn't get that one."

Friend rolls eyes.

Dylan: "Because it didn't have place for her to sit."

Friend: "CAN I BORROW HER?"

Did he just say he wanted to 'borrow me'? What does that mean exactly? I mean, he's cute and all. And he looks good in tight pants, but I'm kind of married (and so is he). And he just asked my husband for permission. We all stood in an uncomfortable silence for a half a minute. While I kind of wondered how my husband would respond.

Dylan: "Um, just for decision making purposes."

Then the subject rapidly changed.

But I feel good. My husband would NOT be willing to trade me, or rent me out.

Gated Community

I live in a gated community. We have guards at the gate and an internal phone system that we can use to call between houses and that the guards use to contact us when someone comes to visit.

Yesterday, the guards called me. Most of my guards speak only Polish (which is actually kind of stupid, since most of the people who live in my community are expats) and as you all know, my Polish is limited.

The conversation (translated) went like this:

Guard: For you ma’am, (name of some company that I never could understand)

Me: I no to expect. No.

Guard: From embassy.

Me: No, embassy no to call. No. I don't want. I don’t know.

Guard (to guys in truck): Do you speak English?

Apparently he was tired of my 2 year old Polish.

Guy in truck: Yes.

Guard: I’m giving the phone to this gentleman who can speak English.

Guy in truck: Hello?

Me: Hello?

Guy in truck: We have…thing. I was to bring…I don’t speak English.

Me: Okay. Great.

Guard: They have something from embassy.

Me: Embassy no to call! NO! I don't want!

Guard: I’m sending them in anyway.

Me: WHAT THE HELL DO WE HAVE GUARDS FOR? AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO PROTECT ME? WHY DID YOU EVEN BOTHER TO CALL ME????

That last part was all in English. The ramblings of a crazy woman.

Guys in truck show up at my door. Guy who speaks English only when someone asks him in Polish is standing there.

Me: Hello?

Guy in truck who doesn’t speak English, but thinks he does: We have. From Embassy. (And that part was actually in Polish...it was Mamy z ambasady – so I’m thinking that his Polish – not so good either.)

Me: The embassy did not call. What do you have? CO TO JEST?

Guy in truck no English: Hm…from embassy.

Me: Right, I get that it’s from the embassy. WHAT THE HELL IS IT?

Guy in truck: From embassy.

Finally I get a clue and call my husband.

Me: Are they supposed to be delivering something to the house today that no one informed me of and when I saw you 30 minutes ago you did not mention?

Him: Um, yeah. My bad.

So I finally let the guys in. And they delivered a bunch of parts to fix my furnace (and extra parts that I don’t think were meant for my house). The whole time they giggled like teenage girls. I’m not entirely sure what was so funny.

At the same time, Toby had tied a red napkin around the cat (Shiraz) and declared him to be “Supercat!” It could have been that. Yeah, it was probably that. I'm sure they weren't laughing at me. Right? They weren't laughing at me?

I SO need my anti anxiety meds back.

And for your entertainment Veggie Tales (except the video is not) “Gated Community”:

Crafty Wednesday!

Just got a Cuttlebug and I am just spending all the time I'm not blogging cutting out letters. Anyway, still don't know where my stitching software is, so this is a really crappy stitching job.

Gym Mice?

I just wanted to apologize for the writing in this post. I wrote it last night after I returned from teaching and I didn't tweak it at all. So, sorry.

I used to be an obsessive gym rat.

Actually let me start at the beginning.

I used to be a non gym going, non athletic person. When I was a teenager. I was relatively thin (actually, I was probably quite thin, but my best friend was a stick, so next to her I looked chubby). Then my mom died.

And I ate to kill the pain.

And over years I gained weight. Getting up to over 260 lbs (118 kilos) after Pamela was born.

And then I became an obsessive gym rat. And I got back down to 130, which was slightly more than I weighed as a 9^th grader. And I stayed there.

Until I got pregnant with Seth.

Actually, I still ran when I was pregnant with Seth. But we had tried so hard to get pregnant with Seth and then I was surprised that we got pregnant.

And then I started spotting.

So I stopped running. And we moved to Poland.

And I gained weight again. Not as much as before, but definitely too much.

Then I got pregnant with Toby. Then we moved to Houston.

And I went to the gym (YMCA!) and I kept going. And I lost some weight. Not all of it, but some.

Then we moved to Ghana. And I got pregnant with Blaise.

And there were no gyms in Ghana. And I couldn’t lose weight no matter what.

So we moved back to Poland. And my kids all started school.

On my way to one of the schools I saw this sign.

It WAS A SIGN!

I was convinced, and very excited. It’s right on my way to the kid’s school. I checked the website. It’s awesome. It has a pool and cardio equipment and everything I need in a gym.

Except, it turned out, that’s all it was. A sign.

But, come November, you'll see the old gym rat me.

Wait! I Teach Religion?

So in class the other day we played a getting to know you game called 2 truths and a lie. My kids are a weird range of ages, the youngest is 12 and the oldest is almost 17. The 17 year old is great fun because he's almost an adult and he's got the whole abstract thought thing down. This works well for my sense of humor. I'm sure he's the only one who even cracked a smile when I told them "When your parents brought you to church and had you baptised, they called you Josh. Well, only you, Josh. I'm pretty sure the rest of your parents called you by the names they gave you. But maybe they didn't. Maybe your names are all really Josh."

Yeah, I got nothin'. (Of course, I'm actually not funny in real life. Something you'll see if you follow me on Twitter. 'Cause in my world, Twitter is real life.)

Oh, and I told them a few things that I'll soon hear about from the parents. Things like: "Just because you're an adult in the church doesn't mean that you can drink and smoke. You'll have to wait until you're 18 like everyone else. Except you Americans, you'll have to wait until you're 21."

Yeah, I actually said that. And still got no laughs. (Hello? Is this thing on?)

Anyway, I told them that I really like to write. And because of that a big part of our lessons would involve them writing. Ha! So there!

At the end of class, one of my "troublemakers" (they're all really good kids, the worst I have is the group that talks constantly) asked if they could read what I write. I said, "Um, no." Which in hindsight seems unfair, since I make them write so that I can read it.

But then I really started looking at my blog. And I was like, yeah, it's not entirely appropriate for children. Particularly those to whom I am teaching religion.

Then it kind of hit me. I'm teaching religion.

Yeah, and I write about midgets (so not PC) and how 5 year olds are good with ladies and how my son peed in a strip club.

And I don't even know how I feel about God in general.

The last teacher viewed everything as black and white. He followed the "gay people go to hell" way of thinking. Which, because my daughter was in his class, I took issue with (especially because this is not ACTUALLY what our church teaches). But he was teaching, not me, and she learned a lot from me and very little from him.

It was at that point I realized that the religious education coordinator should really do background checks. An agnostic teaching the highest class...hmm...not necessarily the best of choices now, is it?

Why I Don’t Use Google Analytics

Caveat: I do realize now that my husband was using the correct MySpaceage when talking about his blog.

Last week I told you that my husband has a blog. He writes for a very specific audience, but he’s amusing. He also asked me to pimp his blog and then after I did he said “I apparently don’t know the correct terminology. I didn’t want you to tell people about my blog. I wanted you to make my blog look pretty.”

Right, number one rule of blogging – learn the language. You want me to BLING your blog. (He also rejected my first 2 headers, and went with the really boring one without flames one that actually matched what he writes about. I should really get paid for dealing with his crap blog.)

Anyway, he was curious about who was going to be visiting his blog. He asked me for help. I said, “I really don’t know anything about this stuff because I don’t use it. I don’t want to know what freaks lovely people are out there stalking me reading what I write each day, yet never leaving a comment.”

But I learned. And I set him up with Google Analytics.

And the first day he had one visitor. And they were in Poland.

Who is this? Who’s reading his blog?

I spent about 30 minutes learning more about who was reading his blog.

They spent 30 seconds on his blog.

They live in Warsaw. They have the same Internet Service Provider as me.

Because I have a very specific internet service provider, I knew they had to live in my neighborhood.

Then, it was like that urban legend. You know, the one with the babysitter and the caller.

“The call is coming from inside the house!”

Then (yes, it actually took me that long), I realized that it was me.

And that, my friends, is why I don’t use it for my own blog.

Crafty Wednesday!

Know that this isn't as bad as it looks. My stitching software was deleted and I don't know where my husband put the copy to install it, so I had to "stitch" this together using Photoshop. Not quite as good as the stitching software.