Confessions of an Automobile Elitist

You know you're a European car owner when . . .

. . . $750 in repairs sounds reasonable, if not relieving.


*I promise to give the run down once this whole mess is over (or on its way to being over), but Tad and I are about to do what should have been done ages ago... and I'll say this: I'm not a quitter. I'm a fighter. But there are times when its best for both parties to just call it quits.

A Nightly Hallucination

I awaken, startled, in the night. There is a stenciled portrait of carousel horses on the ceiling above our bed. I bolt upright, staring at it.

"What, what is it?" Tad asks, equally startled.

"There's a pattern on the ceiling that needs to be colored in," I reply, my eyes focused on what now appear to be partially colored ponies.

"Oh, it's okay, I already colored it in," Tad assures me.

"You did?!" The portrait looked far from colored in, but I could have been mistaken.

"No," Tad says. I sense the amusement in his voice. "There's nothing up there."

"Oh," I say, watching the ponies disappear into thin air.

And I iey back down and go to sleep.

The Curious City of Fort Wayne

Things I find strange about Fort Wayne and Fort Waynians:

1) The streets flood within seconds. I am not even joking here. Seconds. I have oftentimes thought that Fort Wayne would be better off as a paddy field.
2) It is not safe to drive in the outermost lanes, because at any given moment they WILL turn into turn-only lanes. I will never forget when an old lady in church said that she wasn't afraid of anything...except for when the lanes become turn-only lanes and you don't have enough time to correct the problem.
3) Give the people of Fort Wayne a reason to bust out their lawn chairs, and they'll come in droves. DROVES. It could be the hottest day ever recorded on the face of the planet, and there they'll be, dragging their super-sleek chair-in-a-bag out to the middle of a grassy knoll to watch some old guys play Beach Boys covers.
4) They named their baseball team the Tin Caps, seemingly oblivious to the obvious nickname of the Pot Heads.
5) There is a Mexican restaurant on every block.
6) During the summer, there is a festival every week. I kid you not. Greek Fest, Latin Fest, Rib Fest, German Fest, Three Rivers Festival, etc.
7) The people of Fort Wayne rallied against spending millions of taxpayer dollars to fix up dilapidated schools and instead decided to build the ultimate minor league baseball stadium.
8) From the baseball stadium, the city looks unAmerican. Maybe Balkan. Or Russian. And there is a particular apartment building by the Anthony St. Wal-Mart that looks like it was hauled over here from Somalia.
9) There is only one true housing project that I know of. Only one. I am used to three or more.
10) Everyone blows red lights. A cop could be right there, waiting for his light to turn green and I guarantee someone will blow through the red without getting pulled over.

. . . And to think I got my license suspended for being rear-ended.

Desperate Housewife - Part 3 (of infinite) - Toilet Paper FAIL

The toilet paper I recently purchased is neither soft nor plentiful. What is this? I thought toilet paper was to be one or the other (with only a privileged few able to afford rolls with both attributes).

Gah! Even the Wal-mart stuff I used to buy in my waitressing days was better than this stuff. And to think, we now have to suffer through 24 rolls because I was trying to be all economical and frugal and middle-aged housewife.

Silly, silly me.

Saturday's Run

Chicken Pizza

Here's what we had for dinner:

Homemade chicken pizza

Chicken, green pepper, onion, mozzarella cheese--what more could you ask for? For sauce, we used some spaghetti sauce we had lying around. For crust, we used Jiffy's boxed crust. It's like 84 cents.

According to Tad, he's the Cheese Master and I'm the Crust Master. He's really good at shredding cheese and I'm really good at making the dough a perfect circle.


The best thing about homemade pizza is you can pile on as much of your toppings as you want. The worst thing is the dough is really really sticky which makes kneading it not as fun as it should be. Lots of flour is required--and it will most likely get on your shirt.

One of these days I'll make my own crust from scratch. But you just can't beat 84 cents.

Unicorn! Thus sayeth my boss.

With the proliferation of social media commentary within the market place, specifically within the blogosphere, there is great opportunity to extract data and do so in a meaningful way. I'm just looking for a way to expedite the process and multiply our efforts within the space, and with the integration of our social media compass and other tools, there is great opportunity for that process to provide meaning to the client.


My boss is the most jargon-y person I have ever known. He's like a walking social marketing textbook. It isn't uncommon for him to bust out stuff like the above snippet in casual conversation. It took awhile for me to get used to it and catch up with his ridiculous vocabulary, but I'm finding it easier to follow his train of thought . . . and, in turn, provide actual answers to his questions.

But every once in awhile, he throws a curve ball. A sentence so syllabic and Webster-ed that I sit there with my mouth hanging open and drool gathering on my chin.

The worst part is when he follows it up with a one-word question. Except it's not a question. It's a statement that is looking for an answer...a question, posed as a statement.

Today was no exception. Only I wasn't the recipient of his craziness.

"Means," he said, eyes focused on my co-worker, his expression indicative of an expected answer.

*crickets*

He may as well have said "Unicorn" or "beach ball" or "armpit".

"Means," my co-worker repeated after a moment, clearing his throat.

My boss nodded smugly.

I laughed aloud. It was nice to know I wasn't the only oblivious person in the room.