Meanderings 21-Thoughts on the eve of 2007

Happy New Year's Eve. Currently, we're getting pounded with our third storm in what seems like as many days. And there's more coming. My Dad would say "good . . .you can have it." And I know Amanda and I are glad to have it; we love the snow. We're having such a winter, its almost like we live in Maine! Here are some things that have recently crossed my mind . . .

1. New Year's Eve is a big night for Chinese food consumption. This is besides the point, but one could ask how this tradition started. How did Chinese food become so enmeshed in New Year's Eve? I digress. With my degree in English and my passion for Chinese food, I think a perfect job for me would be a "menu consultant" for area Chinese food restaurants. Chinese food menus are infested with hilarious grammatical, spelling, and syntactic errors like "substitution to add dollars" to mean "each substitution is a dollar extra" or "birthday person to take 10lb off order in here for eating" which, I think, means that if it is your birthday, you can take 10 "%" off your order if you eat in. I should start collecting these menus. I would travel to local restaurants, sit down with the owners, and consult them on their menu styles. I think this is a job in which I would thrive.

2. In my school, we have two kids named "Dallas." They arent related to each other. Isnt that weird?

3. When you eat out of a box of chocolates, are you the type of person who leaves that ruffly brown paper in the box? Or do you throw it away? I leave the paper in the box. I am sure that, psychologically, this says something about me.

4. We terribly overuse the word "crazy," and the word itself has so many connotations. I personally think its one of the more overused words in our language, and I am guilty of the crime too. Consider:

Look at this snow we're getting . . its crazy!"

Did you see how much weight she lost? Its crazy

I've been so busy . . .things have been crazy

Theo and Irma broke up?? That's crazy

We also use the phrase "I know . . its crazy" to respond to statements when we're in a conversation in which we dont want to be any longer. Its a good, empty, saltine answer that leaves the other conversationalist at a loss for what to say next. Or, I think, it sends a message that the other person is bored.

5. Did you ever notice how "mayonnaise" has this intrinsic power to turn everything into a "salad?" Think about it: as soon as we add mayo to ANYTHING, that something loses its own identity and becomes "a salad." Tuna, chicken, seafood, egg, potato, macaroni: it all becomes salad when you add mayo to it. How amazing mayonnaise is . . .it truly is the superhero of condiments. I think about this at night.

6. Dont you hate it when you are driving to a place and you're in a certain mood and you loudly play a song that fits this certain mood . . .and then, you get to your destination, shut the car off as is, do your thing, and return to the driver's seat of your car an hour or so later. . .only now you're in a much different mood, but the particular radio station or CD is still on just as loud, and this situation doesnt fit your CURRENT mood, and you can't believe you had the radio on that loud before, and its a total buzzkill? Huh? Its like jumping from a jacuzzi into a cold pool.

7. Here's a slogan I would have used if I was an advertising executive for a beverage company:

Fresca: Because you're too rich and cool to drink regular soda

They call marijuana a "gateway drug," but I call Fresca a "gateway soda," because it paved the way for tennis players and soccer moms (which I was both of) to "sample" with Clearly Canadian, Boku, Life Water, Fiji Water, and "Jones" sodas. . . .

8. The snow today reminds me of when I was younger, my mom would always frequent Shaws when a storm was coming. What did she need? Bread and Milk. As simple as that. We didnt have four wheel drive or cell phones or GPS . . .but as long as we had bread and milk we would be okay. How did these two unrelated items become the mantra for pre storm grocery shopping? I wonder if anyone ever got snowed in so bad that they just sat in their basement and ate cold dry pieces of wonder bread and dixie cups of non-chocolified milk. . . kinds of sad . .

9. The worst Christmas song of all time, without a doubt, is "All I want for Christmas is you" by Mariah Carey. When I hear this song, I want to drown my head in feces. A long time ago, it seemed like music stars made fantastic Christmas albums . . .and then kept right on being popular. Is it just me? Or does it seem like, today, the making of a Christmas album is, by and large, a harbinger of doom or a "swan song" for that particular artists? Consider who makes Christmas albums these days . . .its like a last ditch effort by the artist to NOT slip into invisibility . . .