Fash-Backwards #3: Working girl…it ain’t working for you.

I am down with the working girl way of walking. I need to put that out there right now. Most of the women in my office wear 4 inch heels to work and let’s face facts, if I had to take the subway in those, I would be all over the Asics and skirt look. But there are certain areas where that trend gets a little dicey. Certain New Yorkers have taken to spreading that comfort concept to pants as well. And hey, you won’t hear any complaints from me about comfortable pants (sucking in my gut or wearing spanx are 2 things I like to avoid whenever possible), but I have to draw the line somewhere and that somewhere just so happens to be spandex capri dress pants with zippers on the legs.

Now I realize that most of my fashion complaints come in the form of the stretchy material, but you have to admit it’s a material that really lends itself to mockery when done improperly. Much in the way that this woman from Queens chose to wear it. Sneakers, as I mentioned above, I will gladly allow (I try to incorporate Chucks into my wardrobe whenever possible simply for that reason). But this woman took her commuter outfit a bit too far. Her comfy kicks were paired with blue pinstripe zipper leg capri “dress” pants. And a zip hoodie.

Honestly, I could continue to comment but I really have no other words. There is just no explaining things like that.

What’s your name? Who’s your daddy? Is he rich like me?

I’ll be honest. I don’t expect this post to have anything at all to do with those Zombies lyrics. Okay, that’s a lie. I love the song and my friend Rebecca and I have been singing it pretty much non-stop for the last week. In the office. In Duane Reade. In my apartment. On the streets. Pretty much anywhere that we happen to be. And we’re getting good. Just don’t ask our boyfriends. So this post will basically be vignettes that may, or may not, relate to the Zombies.

~ Wakeup Call (as told to me by Rebecca)~
So last night Karl calls me at 2 in the morning. And I’m asleep. And I answer and he goes “I hate you.” And I’m like, “what have I done between midnight when I said ‘goodnight’ and hung up the phone and now? I’ve been asleep for the past 2 hours.” And he goes “what’s your name? Ahhh!”

~Pretend I’m not an asshole (also told to me by Rebecca)~
When I get a song stuck in my head, I tend to sing it. Karl knows this–he lived with me for 2 years. So we got off the train yesterday (note: this is after meeting Boo and I for brunch on the UWS and then gallavanting around the city) and I was muttering the song under my breath. When I do this, he tries to pretend that I’m not being an asshole and tries to have a regular conversation with me. He’ll answer me or respond but it doesn’t make sense because I’m singing the next line. I got to the part of the song that goes “tell it to me slowly” and he was like “why?!” We had to take a sit-down break on the sidewalk.

NOTE: This post could alternatively been titled “I should not be allowed to exist near liquids, or, how Rebecca saves my life.”

~Sausage King of Chicago~
I venture down the hallway to Rebecca’s (or Abe’s, as her door would lead you to believe) office for a quick hello this afternoon. Hilarity ensues:

R: do you want some chocolate?
L: of course.
R pours chocolate into my hand.
L: what are these?
R: they’re milk chocolate pearls. they’re from Godiva. or GahDiva (phonetics here kiddos) if you prefer.
L (through immediate onset of laughter): what?
R: well the ads all say to unleash your inner diva, so…
L: *laughing to the point of tears*
R: besides, i think i like that better.

You know what? So do I. Abs in shape (from the laughing, duh) I can return to my desk to ponder (or Google, cuz hell, I’ve got time) the possibility of your daddy being rich like me.

Another wee annoyance

Pardon my lack of witty intro here but there are some things that I just need to come right out and say.

I hate bathroom limericks.

There, I said it.

I understand that bathroom cleanliness is important. Public restrooms are breeding grounds for disgusting behavior (you won’t piss all over your bathroom floor, why? WHY? would you do it in public?). People do everything in their power to try and avoid the filth, including posting signs with requests to flush, rules for what can and cannot be flushed, and reminders to wash your hands.

Understand, my qualm is not with those signs. My issue is when signs like this are posted:

If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be sweet and wipe the seat.

Really? I needed a cutesy rhyme to remind me not to urinate all over the place? As if that’s not bad enough, I recently encountered a sign that pissed (oh THAT’S right) me off even more:

If you spray when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat.

Again, really?? The entire purpose behind the stupid rhyme is, well, to rhyme. Otherwise signs would just say “hey slobs, pee in the bowl, okay?” If you’re going to insist on cheery bathroom reminders, at least get them right.

Things that Gmail thinks I am interested in

Most people I know have a Gmail account. I’ve become ridiculously dependent on said account since Gmail tends to be my only link to the outside world while I sit at my desk, waiting for work.

One “helpful” feature of Gmail is that it, much in the vein of Amazon.com or TiVo, tries to figure out what it is that I’m interested in and then provide me with links to those sites. This is one of the most interesting facets of the e-mail server that I’ve encountered. Here are some of the things, based on (apparently) the content of my e-mails, that Gmail thinks I am interested in*:

No more falling straps: www.thestrapper.com
…and keep Bra straps from being seen also Lifts and Supports

The Tucker Sling: www.tuckersling.com
Could your baby have acid reflux? Find relief with the Tucker Sling.

Little Monkey Inc.: www.littlemonkeyinc.com
Cute Monkey clothes for babies Low flat rate shipping.

Uh Oh – I’m Emo: TheEmoQuiz.com
Are You Emo? Take the Quiz!

Npr Ringtone: RingRingMobile.com
Send this complimentary ringtone to your phone right now!

Backcountry Betty: www.skipstonebooks.org
Betties can have fun in the backcountry, too. Get your glam on!

Giant Scallops & Prawns: www.great-alaska-seafood.com
Free FedEx Shipping! Giant Prawns Gourmet seafood. Colossal Scallops.

5 Star Resorts Ireland: www.ashford.ie
Enjoy a stay at the 5 Star Ashford Lowest Rates Available online

Parenting Personality: www.AreYouASlackerMom.com
Find out what Type of Parent you are with this Fun and Simple Quiz!

Beat Your Ohio Ticket: Fight-The-Speeding-Ticket.com
Ex-Traffic Cop Shows You How To Beat Your Ohio Speeding Ticket.

NY Eyelid Surgery: www.AsianSurgery.com
Preserving Ethnic Identity Through Cosmetic Surgery. 2 NYC Locations!

Metal Detectors – On Sale: www.tamiamiarmor.com
Garrett’s Super Scanner, other hand held & walk thru metal detectors

Why Mommy is a Democrat: littledemocrats.net
The book George Bush doesn’t want your kids to read!

Iceland Snowmobile Tours: www.icelandair.com
Snowmobile Vacation in Iceland Catch the Viking Spirit!

chic mommy blog: melissathemouth.com
A stylish mommy writes about life & things to help keep it chic.

Adam and Eve, Oh Really?: www.EveryStudent.com
Ten good reasons to believe they’re the real deal.

Oh My Goth: www.hauntedhousecollectibles.com
Shoes, Purses, Pillows, Jewelry Gothic Boots, Spooky Collectibles

Speciality Greek Products: www.GreekVillageCommack.com
Order Greek Specialties online Dressings, Baklava, Tiropites, more

*Note, part of me feels like I should attribute each link to a specific e-mail (for example, the bra strap link was from an e-mail about how I’m having a slow work day) but then I realized that it may just be more fun if I don’t.**

**Okay, another note: I do feel like I should explain that some of these links (NPR and the Bra Straps) are things that I’ve simply never mentioned in e-mails. Gmail boggles my mind sometimes.***

***I swear this will be my last note, but it was sort of an afterthought so bear with me. I have not clicked on any of these links so if they happen to be to pornography sites or anything else of a salacious nature or if they happen to lack any and all sense of morality, dignity, and work decorum (translation anything that’s generally considered NSFW), I apologize.

How to take a bubble bath

Okay, I wasn’t going to post anything else today but this was just too good to ignore. So I’ve been craving a bubble bath for the longest time. Unfortunately, after the age of 9, bubbles are hard to come by. I haven’t been able to find them in ages, most likely due to the fact that I have no idea where to look, since, as I mentioned (or at least implied) earlier, I am not 9.

The obvious next step is to Google “bubble bath.” Not a bad plan in my opinion. The very top of the Google results page is product search results, which was exactly what I was hoping for. Then my eye caught something I couldn’t ignore.

How to take a bubble bath

Really? There is a Web site devoted to that? How? I mean, how is it possible that someone needs that Web site?

Of course, I was left with no other option than to click on the link.

The page, as you’ll notice, has attached links to words like “water” (which initially concerned me as I immediately assumed it was because people were too stupid to know what water was). It also has step-by-step instructions on how to enter the tub and a helpful “tips” section, reminding readers to keep electronic devices away from the tub and to use warm, not hot, water if pregnant.

I’m not even sure what to do with that. My whole world was just turned upside down by the thought of bubble bath instructions on the internet.

Hey Verizon, can you hear me now? Good, then listen up: I hate you.

Dear Verizon,

I hate you.

You sold me a MotoRazr last February(ish) and since then I’ve had nothing but trouble with you/the phone. In November my phone ceased working after I attended a Penn State football game. (We played Temple. I watched from the sidelines. We won.) I couldn’t call out. I couldn’t pick up calls. All functionality basically vanished. But I went to visit you and you “fixed” the problem.

Then in May (if readers will recall) my phone again met with peril and my “9″ was lost forever. You replaced the phone with another “working” phone, except that you didn’t.

My battery stopped working (2 months later) so I came in and asked for a replacement (which you do). You asked me where I got the battery because it wasn’t your battery. Except that it was because it came in the phone that you sold me…2 months ago. So you replaced the battery and then, brace yourself for the shock, my razr stopped working again.

The outer screen goes black, the inner screen goes white and sometimes, just for fun, the outer screen actually inverts the images. Super. So again I can’t make calls. I can’t answer calls. And best of all, the phone freezes. At inopportune moments. Like at 7:01 a.m. when my alarm (at full volume) goes off.

So I visited your store. And I talked to (smarmy at best) salesman who told me that he could replace my phone. Except that he couldn’t actually replace my phone until I was added to the account. The account that I was already on. So my father called customer service. Then customer service called me. And connected me with tech support. Who hung up on me, but did (to their credit) call me back. They offered to ship me a new phone. Nearly 2 weeks ago. It never showed up.

I called you, Verizon, and after 25 minutes on hold, you told me that FedEx had my phone. I called FedEx and guess what they said? They told me you had my phone. Daddy Dearest called you back, Verizon, and you promised to deliver. Literally. But you know what? You didn’t. Customer service called me and connected me to tech support. Who hung up on me. And didn’t call me back. And then, finally, after yet another order is placed to replace a phone that, quite frankly, blows, FedEx sends me an e-mail to tell me that they were unable to deliver my package. Because it had been delivered to the West Side. Not the East Side. Which, you know, is where I live.

So, Verizon, can you hear me now? Good, then listen up: I hate you.

Yours forever and ever (or until my family switches to AT&T so we can all use mobile-to-mobile in-calling),
Lauren

Call me Scrooge but I get Grinchy when Christmas comes too soon

I love Christmas. In fact, it’s probably my favorite holiday ever (with the very obvious and very biased exception of New Year’s Eve, which just so happens to be my birthday). But I simply cannot tolerate Christmas coming too early (with again, the exception of Christmas in July, which I’ve never celebrated but always kind of wish I did).

This is a (borrowed) image of what I saw last night on my way home from work (forgive the borrowing (and the excessive use of parentheses) but my camera is still packed somewhere).

That’s right. A Christmas tree. And it was lit. And I realize it’s there to advertise the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular (which I fully intend to see, don’t get me wrong). But I have one small problem with this:

IT’S NOT EVEN HALLOWEEN YET!!!!!!!!

I just can’t get on board with Christmas while I’m still trying to decide what my Halloween costume should be (for the record, I’m thinking I should be Troy Polamalu…we’ve got the same hair, all I’d need is a jersey). I’m starting to worry that Christmas really will start coming in July.

*UPDATE:

While being totally voyeuristic (aka creepy and “Rear Window”ish) and looking into other people’s apartments (which will make more sense once I finally post a picture of my view) I saw the most obnoxious thing ever. That’s right, it was a CHRISTMAS TREE. And it was fully freakin’ lit. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!?!? Do people not understand that it is not yet Halloween? That there are still 2 months until Christmas?! I just don’t understand this. I was so angry that I actually pulled (well not literally) my roommate out of the shower to make her look at the tree. She (oh, and “she” is coincidentally the Rachel of my celebrity shot on the DQ commercials) had already seen said tree and was less than okay with my excessive yelling about the pre-pre-pre-Christmas decor.

But seriously…one more piece of preemptive green and red and I’m going Bah Humbug on your ass.

Adventures in moving and other signs IKEA just might suck your soul.

Well, it finally happened. I moved into my own apartment. And you know what that means: IKEA trip! Yes, that’s right. The parents, the roommate and I piled into the (rented) mini-van and hit the road for Long Island and the joys of furniture shopping that awaited us.

Joys. Right. Well, truth be told, I had spent the past few weeks poring over the IKEA catalog (yeah, I actually brought it to work with me the night that it came in the mail). And I may have perused IKEA.com a few times to get some decorating ideas. Little did I know that the in-store experience would actually suck my soul.

If you’ve never been to IKEA allow me to explain the layout to you, as it’s crucial(ish) to this post. IKEA does this pseudo-helpful thing where they set the store up like a maze. They post arrows on the floor and instrut their visitors to follow them, much like the yellow brick road leading to Oz. Oz, of course, being the self-service section of the warehouse where you locate the aisle and bin number of your selected piece of furniture and then attempt to lift the 134lb. dresser boxes off of the shelf and place them onto (yes onto, not into) your cart without breaking them (which seems unlikely but is, I assure you, not).

So your furnitureney (yeah, I just combined “furniture” and “journey,” what are you going to do about it?) begins in the living room section, where inevitably someone is sitting on the exact couch that you came there to buy. Even though there are 17 other couches near that area they are just so tired after walking up the stairs that they have to take a load off in the living room that you are trying to recreate for your own. So you shoo them away from your Ektorp sofa (colors: beige, white, multicolor, white/black, black, red, dark blue and light beige (??) ) and you sit and wiggle until you are sure this is the sofa for you. You write down your bin number and move on.

But you don’t really move on. You move on through 13 more living room sets, a third of which feature the couch you just selected. Are there really only 3 couch options? What about the sofa beds? And the futons? Where is the rest of the catalog selection? Oh yes, it’s stored in the middle of the living room section, just placed randomly and you can sit on whatever you can access. Hm, well that’s interesting. The next stop on your trip to Oz is the kitchen area. Which, if you’ve ever seen a kitchen in a New York apartment, you know is a useless section. There is no room for a kitchen table, silly IKEA. So what do you do?

Well, the logical step would be to skip that section. But the store wraps and twists and there’s no way of telling where you’re actually going. As my mother pointed out, if there were ever a fire, everyone would be screwed. By the time you followed the rat race arrows out of there, the LACK side tables would have proven to be such excellent kindling that you’d be (all puns intended) toast.

So you follow the arrows. And you keep following them through in-home offices (aka desks, filing cabinets) to bedrooms (aka none of the quilts you saw online and closets that you could only ever have in your dreams) until you finally reach the stairs. Mecca. You’ve entered the plateware/lighting/decor section! Next stop: self-service baby!

97 hours later, you make your way to the checkout line where your cashier will make angry noises under her breath when she realizes that you have exactly 7 carts filled to varying degrees. What did you expect? You are in the suburbs, we come from the city. This is what we do. We invade. And then we use our city attitudes on you when you try to act as though you are a disgruntled suburbanite employee. And then we roll our 7 carts over to the home delivery line. Because let’s just face facts: no mini-van on earth can hold 2 Billy bookshelves, 2 desks (1 Mikael and 1 Jonas) plus 2 Malm 6-drawer dressers and a Hemnes bedside table. It’s just not possible. So you’re left with delivery. And an epic battle to coordinate your delivery time with the alloted move-in time that your rental company forces you to schedule knowing that you have no idea when your items will actually arrive. God bless move-in day.

Fash-Backwards #2: What’s my age again? What’s my age again?

These days it’s pretty easy to look younger. Botox, collagen injections and the like all bring chemically altering your way to youthfulness a shot away. Unfortunately, just because you can look the part, some are believing they should dress the part. And that was where today’s fash-backwards encounter came from.

The old lady in leggings.

Yikes. If you’re young, chic, and in shape, I have no problem with you donning a pair of leggings, a long shirt, and cute shoes. In fact, that’s what I wear to work most days. I do however have a problem with you wearing that outfit when your hair (and makeup) makes you look like you’ve taken styling lessons from everyone’s favorite Italian grandmother, Lidia Bastianich. I love Lidia, but let’s face facts, that is not a body type that should be rocking the spandex trend. So please, if you’re feeling a mid-life crisis coming on (or menopause) skip the leggings.

May I update your Internet: THE UPDATE

I should have known better on this one. My technologically inclined/Internet savvy boyfriend just totally admonished me for flagrant, well, wrongness, in my slow internet post. Apparently my use of the word “Internet” was incorrect. And to avoid an online spanking from any other nerds who happen to read this I would like to amend my post. What I should have said was “network” upgrades were seriously lacking in our office. And “network” upgrades would drastically improve any tasks that require the use of the Internet and would help it to not suck so badly.

To my computer nerd followers (b/c lets face it, I’m just a word nerd…I don’t know computers yet), I’m sorry man! I’ll get it right next time. And if I don’t, you can expect that my sweet Baboo will correct me.