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Bowling for fathers
My beloved husband of lo these many years is adventurous, funny and game for anything. He’s also easy-going, low-key and is always willing to be the designated driver.

A week ago the Mondos invited us to join them for dinner and bowling – specifically candlepin bowling which is sort of a New England specialty. Mrs. Mondo’s dad was visiting from the Midwest and he’d never “experienced” small ball bowling.

I was totally ready for dinner and possibly bowling, but Deeps was anxious – he’s avoided bowling his entire life and wasn’t sure this was the time to start. The thought of putting on someone else’s shoe send him into near fits.

And yet we ate questionable Chinese food and then bowled for Mrs. Mondo’s father and he had a fantastic time. My husband clapped and cheered for everyone, and following my lead would start to spout random sports aphorisms.

Walk it off, he’d tell me after I had a particularly bad frame.

I told him he had good hustle.

He told me not to thread the needle when I had a particularly heinous split.

I told him he showed real heart out there.

The Mondos response was akin to humoring a dotty aunt.

Deeps wouldn’t cop to “having fun” but he did imply that bowling wasn’t awful (despite our tie for last place two games in a row). I told him cheap beer makes bowling more enjoyable, but he’s not interested.

Will we ever bowl again? I expect we’ll be game the next time someone’s dad comes to town.

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By: Alyssa | Friday, September 29, 2006 at Friday, September 29, 2006 | |

Pfft
I’ve been watching the new television season – more about that later – and in addition to watching shows I’ve been watching commercials.

Two new car commercials have caught my attention for their very meta approach to advertising.

First – the new VW ads feature two different sets of people talking about commercials before getting into a car accident. One pair of women is discussing the VW commercials themselves (super meta) and whether or not they are appropriate and exploitative. The other is a group of three men clearly discussing an erectile dysfunction ad they just heard on the radio they joke about that odd four hour side effect before their car is struck.

So what are we to think about this? I suppose it is cute – it’s a way to bring pop culture and relevance into your commercial. Some of these conversations are about topics I’ve discussed or read about elsewhere. Still, I find it a little too slick. Although, I suspect that the ad makers don’t expect you to spend too much time listening to what the people are discussing. The crash is the money shot and we should be waiting for it.

The other ad is for a new Nissan compact car – it apes drug advertisements showing a disease (something like cramped car syndrome) and men suffering by being stuffed into tiny cars. The commercial ends with a man spinning joyously in a field near his new Nissan while clutching a puppy.

I’m not sure what this all means – I suppose it’s a move away from the Head On. But is it a move in the right direction? Probably. Or not. I mean, I barely watch commercials anymore and even when I watch them I barely process them. My husband watched the VW ad at least four or five times before I mentioned to him the meta nature of the commercial – he hadn’t processed that part. He was just aware of the crash. Which is probably all VW wants you to think about.

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By: Alyssa | Thursday, September 28, 2006 at Thursday, September 28, 2006 | |

When big kids play rough
My blog suffers! Apparently Comcast and Google were having some kind of issue yesterday which meant I couldn’t publish my blog or find any of the links I wanted to include in my big entry about VW.

Anyway, I think things are working now. I’m going to attempt to recreate it in the next few minutes.

And for the one person who cares, I’m having trouble finding a place to record my podcast because my husband has trouble being quiet. He’s prone to loudly puttering in the kitchen and then he wants to watch TV – so I’ve got to find a place upstairs that is quiet and doesn’t smell skunky. This is tougher than you’d think. However, at this point I haven’t encountered any vampires. Of course, Halloween is just around the corner.

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By: Alyssa | Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at Wednesday, September 27, 2006 | |

Mondays Stink

Friday I overslept – it was glorious. I woke up a scant minute before Deeps’ alarm clock went off. Everyone was confused. The evil blue jay was cawing which woke up my husband who discovered the cat was sleeping on his side of the bed (a no-no) and then turned to find me still in bed. It could have been chaos.

This morning I underslept. At 5:30 a blast of stink punctured a hole in my quiet, sleepy reverie. We’re in that time of year when cool nights mean sleeping with the windows open and an extra blanket. And for some reason this is also a time of year when the skunks are extremely active.

I’m not sure what kind of skunk warfare is taking place in the back yard but I believe that the Sharks and the Jets having been having nightly encounters for more than two weeks. I’ve been roused from deep sleep to the smell of skunkly horror – then rush around to close windows. But then the skunk smell gets stuck inside.

So today, I’ll say that Mondays stink. I could have used that extra hour of sleep. Whatever is happening on skunk front is unknown to me – because as bad as it smells on the third floor of our house, I can only imagine it smells much worse next to the skunk.

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By: Alyssa | Monday, September 25, 2006 at Monday, September 25, 2006 | |

E(nough!)
I was at a lovely wedding on Saturday. Our friends Baker and Mimi got married in a huge field on a cool summer evening.

While they were swearing eternal love, I was wondering if they’d be serving any of that spinach in the salad or if any of the mosquitoes swarming about me had the Triple E.

That’s probably not what they were hoping I’d be thinking about.

Thanks to the Triple E outbreaks in the state and E coli scares in the country I’ve been more paranoid than usual. I don’t consider myself to be exceptionally paranoid but I realize that when I dream about giant mosquitoes coming for me I might have some issues.

Thanks for the nightmares, TV news.

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By: Alyssa | Thursday, September 21, 2006 at Thursday, September 21, 2006 | |

AMEX thinks I’m fancy
Sure, you can look at my blog and think – this woman is fancy. She lives in a glamorous half-a-house and enjoys the good life: cable TV, pizza on Wednesdays and trips to Whole Foods to buy one unusual produce item.

So it should come to no surprise to you that American Express thinks I’m fancy. Like I might have a personal assistant to manage my account – you know, to pay my bills.

I realize now that my life is really lacking something. I don’t have a personal assistant! If I had a personal assistant, everything would be different.

So, I am now looking for a personal assistant. The pay is poor (none), you can sleep in the guest room on the Aero bed, and you must be at my beck and call all hours of the day. If you’re interested, please send an email to: areyoucrazy@you’vegottobekiddingme.org.

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By: Alyssa | Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at Tuesday, September 19, 2006 | |

Watch the birdie

The evil blue jay of doom is pushing me to extreme actions.

A family of blue jays live in the trees behind the house. They chirp and squawk – blue jays don’t make pretty sounds. They make ugly, harsh, hideous sounds like the four birdmen of the apocalypse.

For the past couple of weeks the head of the blue jay mafia has been chirping and making a ton of noise early in the morning. This morning, he really got going. He was so loud I could hear him through the closed window and over the sound of the fan running. He woke me up at 5:30 and I’ve been awake since.

I’m cranky and I hate that bird. I’m thinking of leaving lots of cat treats on the back steps to get the neighborhood cat posse on the case.

Stupid birds.

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By: Alyssa | Monday, September 18, 2006 at Monday, September 18, 2006 | |

Dr. Giggles

I’m not feeling especially clever today – that will become obvious when you read the rest of this entry - but I thought I’d share a few encounters I had with Deeps last night.

Me: Do you know where the colander is?
Deeps: No.
Me: Maybe you should call the police.
Deeps: You think you’re so funny.
Me: (hysterical laughter)

Later
Me: Have you seen my cell phone?
Deeps: No.
Me: I’m worried. I think we should call the police.
Deeps: (grumbling)
Me: (hysterical laughter)

Even later
Me: Have you seen the cat?
Deeps: Why should I call the police?
Me: No. I thought I heard her making the barf sound.
Deeps: Oh god.
Me: I know.
Deeps: Maybe she’s in the basement.
Me: Maybe we should call the police – and tell them to bring the hazmat team.
Deeps: ….
Me: (hysterical laughter)

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By: Alyssa | Friday, September 15, 2006 at Friday, September 15, 2006 | |

Call off the dogs
Last night I got my hair cut and colored. Let’s just say the Big Red head requires some regular care and maintenance.

I’ve mentioned this haircut to my husband at least a dozen times. I explained to him that it takes at least two hours to get through the entire process because I have a lot of hair and that sometimes my hair stylist is running behind.

He opted to go to the movies and I went to the salon. He’d planned on going to a 7:30 show but for some reason ended up at the 5:30 show which meant he came home much earlier than expected and that’s when he got panicky – I wasn’t home yet!

He was calling my mobile phone but it was buried at the bottom of my commuter bag so I didn’t hear it. When I didn’t answer, he leapt in action.

First he called Peaches and the Chairman to see if I was with them.

Then he called the local cops (non-emergency number) to see if there had been any accidents.

Then he started walking to the salon. That’s where I met him – on the less-than-two-block walk from the salon to our house.

Me: Hi.
Deeps: I’m glad to see you’re okay.
Me: Yeah, it took a little bit longer than expected.
Deeps: It’s almost 9!
Me: Yeah, I told you it takes a long time.
Deeps: I called the police.
Me: You did not.
Deeps: I did. Then I was going to retrace your steps.
Me: You’ve been watching too many episodes of Without a Trace.
Deeps: Maybe.
Me: Did you call the salon?
Deeps: I figured I’d just walk up.
Me: You should have just called the salon and everything would have been resolved a while ago.

Now we’ve determined that if I’m an hour late, he’ll start to get panicky and he won’t do the logical thing. I blame this on his mother – he’s an only child and she doesn’t really have anything else to do but to focus all of her attention on him. (Seriously, the woman’s other interest is praying.)

I suppose it is nice to know he cares – that he still worries and that he’s a total freak. My freak.

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By: Alyssa | Thursday, September 14, 2006 at Thursday, September 14, 2006 | |

A(nother) Modest Proposal
Boston University has implemented a ban on swearing at sports events. I’ve heard that this is an especially big deal at hockey games where BU students are (locally) infamous for lots of screaming of obscenities and slurs.

So the school has a policy now. The local TV news covered it and here is where my modest proposal comes in – students were asked what they thought about the policy. One of them immediately invoked Nazis and the Gestapo. Another one said, “It’s stupid” but was then unable to articulate any kind of reason why it was stupid.

I don’t care about this issue, but I do care that a) college students are unable to articulate any kinds of reasons for being opposed to this measure and b) that if they do say something they go right to Gestapo. That’s just lazy and boring and predictable (also totally inappropriate).

This is a perfect time to invoke “thought police” people! Or if you want to be very hip try the “thought po po” – this is a legit literary allusion. It is apt and appropriate when talking about something that you think is a ridiculous infringement on your speech rights and something that will be hard to enforce.

That’s just step one in sounding smarter – I think sounding smarter is a 23-step process so there’s a tough road ahead. And if the BU students interviewed on the local news were any real representation of the intellectual capabilities of the student body (let’s hope not), the university has bigger fish to fry.

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By: Alyssa | Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at Wednesday, September 13, 2006 | |

Possible further technical difficulties
Since my old hosting company went belly-up while I was on vacation I’ve been working with my new hosting company to get all the bits and pieces transferred. I’m doing the official domain transfer – so there’s a chance that you may see hinky behavior from The blog without pity.

Not to worry – it should be temporary. I’m hopeful that service will be uninterrupted but I have no idea what will happen. I expect all of these issues will be resolved in the next couple of weeks. But if you check the site and find the dreaded 404 – it should be a temporary problem.

And once this gets all resolved, I think I’ll be able to start podcasting about the new fall television season! Let’s not get too excited.

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By: Alyssa | Tuesday, September 12, 2006 at Tuesday, September 12, 2006 | |

Fine for the picking
Peaches loves all kinds of fruit (he has a special place in his heart for peaches) and he’s been advocating for an apple-picking trip. He’s ready to bake apple pies, apple tarts, apple cakes, apple compote, apple jacks – whatever he can cram apples into. He’s excited.

We’ve been invited along to do some picking. Deeps could not be more ambivalent about it.

I don’t know why he hates apples – but I suspect it has little to do with apples and more to do with physical labor. The man is no fan of getting dirty or dealing with nature in any form. I mention that if we should ever take the plunge and have some kids that he’s going to be the wet-blanket dad. He’s unmoved by this assertion.

Me: Do you know how many apples I eat a week? At least one a day and often I’ll eat some extras.
Deeps: That’s great for you.
Me: We love apples. They’re good for you and we spend a good amount of money on them too.
Deeps: So this would be cheaper?
Me: I have no idea.
Deeps: If it is – I’m happy to pay the premium to get them in the store.
Me: But it is fun.
Deeps: Maybe to you.
Me: Come on!
Deeps: Meh.
Me: (sulk)
Deeps: You’re going to make me go aren’t you?
Me: I’ve just learned that Asian women in New Jersey have the longest life expectancies in the US. That means that eventually I’m going to have to live with your mother or something. I feel like you owe me a little something.
Deeps: You have to bring my mother into it.
Me: Oh yeah. I went there.

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By: Alyssa | at Tuesday, September 12, 2006 | |

Good-bye summer
There’s a chill in the air – I’d call it brisk outside; a balmy 49 degrees. September seems more like the time for new beginnings than January. Maybe it is because of school, perhaps something else.

I missed the big tomato harvest when we were on vacation. I discovered that yesterday as I cleaned up a bunch of rotten tomatoes.

Now we need to take the ACs out of the windows….

And today I guess I’m more reflective than usual. Last night I casually mentioned September 11th to a few friends. Everyone got kind of quiet and didn’t say anything. I guess that’s where we are all at right now; no one knows what to say or how to feel five years later.

I find it still hard to talk about, to face – I turn the channel any time a special comes on about the towers. I don’t think I’ve ever even really talked about this with my husband.

I’m still angry. I’m disappointed that our country has taken this bizarre course to fight terrorism. Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time, but things have gone horribly wrong.

Part of me isn’t surprised that no permanent memorials have been erected and that rebuilding of Ground Zero has not made a lot of progress. It seems very American for us to squabble about what the building will be – if it should be – and what it will look like. I guess the greatest memorial is that more people live in lower Manhattan now than did before 9/11/2001. Isn’t there a saying about living well?

What all this has to do with old tomatoes or cool mornings I can’t really say. Maybe someday I will.

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By: Alyssa | Monday, September 11, 2006 at Monday, September 11, 2006 | |

Pictures!
I posted lots of photos from our trip to Montreal on Flickr – so please feel free to check them out. I made sure to include some really cool shots from the Montreal Botanical Gardens. They’re having a big Chinese lantern festival in a few weeks so I think they’d just erected a bunch of giant floating lanterns.

In other news, I fixed the ATOM feed – so it is working again. I’m slowly rebuilding the non-blog areas of the site.

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By: Alyssa | Saturday, September 09, 2006 at Saturday, September 09, 2006 | |

Invisible Girl
My friend Mimi has an old silver Honda. She’s had it for years and she drives it to work every day.

Unfortunately, the car appears to be a magnet for trouble.

She told me that her car has been crashed into nearly a dozen times – she’s never been at fault.

“It’s like my car is invisible or something,” she said. And then she told me the story about the waving guy and I the only conclusion I could come up with is that her car is invisible.

She and her fiancé, Baker, pulled into Harvard Square to run errands. Street parking can be tough to find but she got lucky and saw that a guy in a Mini was pulling out. She waved to him, he smiled and waved back. She motioned that she wanted his space, he nodded his assent and that was the end of it. At least, that’s what Mimi thought.

Then the guy just backed into her. Like she wasn’t there. Like they hadn’t just had this whole exchange of waving and smiling. She and Baker were shocked as was the guy in the Mini. How did that happen?

They exchanged info and agreed to talk later. A few days later, Baker and Mimi came out to find the Honda had been hit again – within days of the incident with Mini. Someone had kindly left a note. Turns out that the house across the street had an open house and someone had just backed into the Honda. The new damage was worse than the damage from the Mini.

I share this story about Mimi’s invisible Honda because I’m starting to worry that our dark gray Toyota Matrix is suffering from a similar paint issue.

Just in the past couple of days we have narrowly avoided being hit on three occasions. One time a guy was waiting to make a left turn – there were no cars in front of us or behind us. He’d been waiting a bit and then he just tried to turn into us. It was like he waited for us to approach to purposely hit us. It was weird, but we shook it off.

Then the same thing happened again when we were driving on Rt. 2 – a guy in one lane tried to merge into us three times in as many minutes.

And who could forget the nose picker in the green VW? She just barreled straight towards us – I actually screamed. I’m not a screamer.

These aren’t the usual little, hey that guy cut me off deals – these incidents require drastic evasive maneuvers.

Deeps told me yesterday he’s afraid our car has been painted invisible. I asked if he’d parked the car near Mimi’s. Maybe her Honda’s invisibility is contagious.

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By: Alyssa | Friday, September 08, 2006 at Friday, September 08, 2006 | |

Welcome back!
Today is the first day of school in Boston.

I remember going back to school - usually by the end of the summer I was ready for the change of pace of going back to school. We didn’t go on vacation or anything when I was a kid. I don’t remember any camps or special programs.

One summer I learned to swim and another summer I went to the tennis camp my dad ran. Let’s just say that I quickly put an end to both my swimming and tennis careers.

When I started the seventh grade my friend called me several weeks before school and we discussed what clothes we’d wear for the coming year. She was the first to suggest that we needed to develop a specific style and that perhaps we should coordinate. I thought that sounded good.

We opted to go with some animal prints, a bit of olive drab, jeans and also a collection of cardigans, button down shirts and brooches that we’d wear pinned at the collar. Not all at once, I just recall those two specific looks very clearly – cardigan and brooch; olive drab skirt with cheetah print blouse.

Sweet fancy Moses – we had a look. It was a mix of hooker chic and retirement home.

Thankfully times have changed a bit, although I did cringe mightily when animal prints came back a few years ago. Thankfully, I have abandoned my brooch collection.

Good luck kids and remember those Rs: reading, writing and fashion.

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By: Alyssa | Thursday, September 07, 2006 at Thursday, September 07, 2006 | |

Love Frankie
We went to Montreal for the first time – at least for me – last week. It’s a gorgeous city. I liked the idea of a European-style city that I could drive to. And Montreal delivered. And the bonus: no awkward body searches or dry mouth on a long, crowded flight!

If you’ve never been to Montreal, I’d suggest adding it to your travel list. Canada is easy to visit (although I believe the documentation required to enter the country will change in 2007 and 2008), it’s just to the north and I have it on good authority that Canadians are pretty polite.

Montreal was great – we could get all the stuff we loved in Paris: delicious food, quaint old buildings, a sense of history, a walkable city, and a good time. Montreal is different: more English, people seemed a little more polite and friendly, and fewer incidents of dodging dog poo on the sidewalks.

I spoke French without problem, but I will admit that I had a slightly tougher time understanding some of my French-Canadian brethren – they truncate words and pronounce things a little differently. And since my French is more than a bit rusty I had a few moments of struggle. But we could always switch to English without incident – which is good for my husband because you don’t want to have a language barrier between him and a giant plate of chocolate croissants.

I wish I could tell you that we had a very exciting vacation and that I had a million great stories to share. I don’t really – we had a tremendously relaxing time and we walked miles and miles all around town every day. We ate like kings, slept like babies, read books, took in the city and the parks and enjoyed the great weather.

Then we drove home to be reminded that it was move-in weekend: the weekend when students return to the Boston-area for school. Moving vans, cars with out of state plates were everywhere and we spent some quality time cursing our stupidity and zigging around people who had no idea where they were going.

Just like dumb American tourists in one of Canada’s greatest cities.

Idiots.

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By: Alyssa | Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at Wednesday, September 06, 2006 | |

Vacation strikes back!
Deeps and I took an impromptu week-long vacation to Montreal. A couple of weeks ago my boss casually asked me if I’d taken any vacations this year. Aside from a quick weekend to visit the family in Indiana, I hadn’t. She suggested I might want to take a bit of time.

I think she noticed I’d developed a little eye twitch.

Rather than deal with the weirdness of flying, we opted to do a driving vacation. And with Montreal about 6 hours away by car we thought it would be the perfect destination. Now, in the past we’ve had some bad luck on vacations, but that streak had ended a few years ago. At least, it had.

We had a great time. I took the laptop in case I felt like blogging. I couldn’t get the wireless to work (probably some user error) so I didn’t bother trying to blog. Sorry, loyal readers.

When we returned late this weekend I discovered that my site was down. No big deal, it happens – I started to visit my web host’s site when I discovered their site was also gone. Then I started checking emails and logs – it looks like my site went down about the time I left for my vacation.

What happened? I can’t say – I was prepaid for another year of hosting service. And I can’t explain what happened to the small company I’d been using since 1998. Anyway, that’s what happened. I went on vacation and apparently so did my former hosting company.

Luckily, I am inclined to back up data so while it will take a while to reconstruct my site (if I choose) I have much of the content from before. The blog is intact.

My new host is bigger and more reputable and I’ve got high hopes we’ll have a good, long relationship.

Meanwhile, why don’t you read this little thread where the Internet makes fun of me and my writing! Internets, I missed you.

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By: Alyssa | Tuesday, September 05, 2006 at Tuesday, September 05, 2006 | |

Technical difficulties
See - this is what happens when you try to go on vacation. Someone eats your Web site. Thanks, Internets!

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By: Alyssa | Monday, September 04, 2006 at Monday, September 04, 2006 | |

 
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