Pet sounds

Good morning, and I hope you're having a lovely Thursday so far. Wanna hear a random and forced play on words that isn't really funny at all? As I was writing 'Thursday,' the thought occurred to me that maybe when whoever created the calendar registered for both This- and Thurs-days like towels. Alas, s/he only received half of the set.

I apologize for that, gentle readers. It doesn't even make sense to me. However, this morning is one of those mornings in which I'm virtually ignoring the backspace key. So look out, yo.

Did I mention that my lovely wife and I went to Mexico last week? Well we did, and it was fantabulous. We spent a whole bunch of time laying (lying? Who the hell knows?) on the comfy chairs right on the sand outside the condo. We'd talk, stare at the ocean, watch iguanas, drink beer, and most of all, we'd read. There was one slight obstacle to the reading: birds. Obviously they weren't too much of an obstacle since we both finished books we brought and read two more each. (We also managed to complete - and completely screw up - some Sudoku puzzles.)

The birds looked to be your garden variety black ones, sitting on trees and making noises. In truth though, they were more like flying synthesizers. They were laying down the dopest beats imaginable. Yes, they were also sick and off the chizain. One beat in particular I swear could make a hit song with some rapping over it. I kept doing it over and over again, and it wasn't long before Amber was nodding her head to it and adding additional drum beats. She's not prone to that either; the beat was just that good. Ludacris and 50 Cent should be calling me any minute.

At one point, a bird put together a combination of notes that sounded just like the USC fight song. If you know it, then you know it. I believe it's the same tune that accompanied Arthur and his coconut-clapping followers in "The Holy Grail." It was pretty impressive; right up there with the time I passed gas and it sounded just like the opening guitar riff of "Layla."

This was not the first time that birds have attempted to interrupt me in important activities. When I staying with my friends Dave and Twilight, there was one that would do everything in its power to keep me from sleeping past daybreak. It was bad enough at one point that I even tried my friend Jon's method of sleeping with the pillow over my head to drown out the sound. Didn't work.

I know I'm not alone in wishing bad things on a bird. An aunt of mine who will remain nameless used to fire a slingshot at crows outside her house because of the problem. I'm pretty sure it wasn't to get near them and shoo them away, but rather to hit and kill them.

Don't get me wrong, animals are wonderful. In fact, you'll scarcely find a bigger dog lover in the entire world than yours truly. But that love is at its nadir when a dog is barking at 4 in the morning. I talked about Bon Bon before, the little Maltese that our neighbors in Santa Barbara had. If you know what a Maltese's bark sounds like, then you'll know why I wished very bad things upon that dog in the wee hours of weekend mornings.

When my lovely wife and I moved into our house last year, we were very happy about all of it. At 4 in the morning after sleeping there for the first time, our neighbor's dog started barking his head off. And he didn't stop. Remember, I love dogs more than a lot of people probably think I should. However, I found myself wondering how old the dog was so I could estimate the number of years before he died. This didn't happen every night, but it was disruptive enough that I had to suck up my self confidence and ask our neighbor if he could try to stop the dog from doing that. No one likes asking their neighbors things of that nature, but it's especially challenging when he looks like he is/was in ZZ Top and named his dog Harley. Our neighbor was very nice about it and said that he didn't know why Harley was barking so much, but that he'd try to keep him inside the house during that time of day.

It got a lot better. He still barked from time to time, but we at least heard our neighbor calling him to come in, which was a vast improvement. We went to thank him a little while later for his efforts, and he told us that he figured out why Harley had been barking so much. Apparently the pup had been going blind and barking more often at things he perceived that he heard. Poor little fella. Granted, I like him a lot more when he's not barking at nothing in the wee-est hours of the morning (most wee?), but it's still sad to hear that he's just trying to adapt to his new health status. He's a good boy, and I hope he adapts quickly and effectively so I don't have more ill thoughts toward him.

So, that's it for now. I hardly have anything at all to write for tomorrow's Follow Up Friday, so please email me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything you've got. I'll appreciate it greatly. Have a great Thisday, friends, and I'll look for you in my inbox.

*Update* I'm an idiot. What I was thinking of isn't USC's fight song but rather a song that they (and probably a hundred other college bands) play during football games. Their real fight song can be found here: http://fightmusic.com/pac10.html. The one I was talking about it in "The Holy Grail" though, and I'm sticking by that...until I see the movie again and realize it's not there.

Puntificating

Well well well, welcome weary web wanderers to a Wacky Wordy Wednesday. (Yeah, I know I slipped “to a” in there and they don’t start with W, but cut me just a little bit of slack for once, ok? Gosh.) Since I still have a bunch of Spanish flying around in my head, I figured I’d try to stretch the topic of our Mexican vacation out to one more post.

On Monday’s early-morning post, I wrote about my uncanny ability to make puns regardless of where I’m geographically located. I know you’re probably all still very impressed by that skill, so I want to make sure you’re sitting down for what I’m about to reveal. Ready? I also have the impressive power to make puns that are not bound by the barrier of of the English language. Are you ok? Do I need to have CTU upload the schematics of the nearest former military hospital to my PDA? Whew, that was a close one.

Since puns are a key component of the life cocktail that makes up Peter, this may not surprise too many of you. Back in high school, Dusty and I would make puns in Spanish all the time. My favorite of his was when the teacher asked, “Que mas?” meaning “What else?” Dusty responded, “Si, quemo,” which means, “Yes, I burn” since her question could’ve been misinterpreted that way. I don’t know if I came even remotely close to explaining that one, but I know it was very funny at the time. You'll have to trust me on this.

Another time, I was shooting baskets by myself in front of my parents' house. In my head, I thought, "Come on, Peter. Do it. Hazlo. Like the capital or Norway." I laughed to and at myself, causing me to miss the shot I was so focused on. Oh vell. Sudden translations with references to Scandinavia have been known to ruin many a jumpshot.

Anyway, puns of this and a different nature abounded on our trip. On our last full day in Mexico, my lovely wife and I were drinking Sol brand beer and swimming in the condo complex's pool. She reached over and accidentally grabbed my can instead of hers. "Ah!" I said in a fake scream, "You stole my Sol!" Yes, this is how I've amused myself for many years now.

So we've got English and Spanish covered. In Akumal, Mexico and the surrounding areas though, a lot of places are named in the Mayan language. Por ejemplo, there's a beautiful lagoon area near where we stayed called Yal Ku. Naturally, that turned into "Yal Ku wit dat?" every single time we saw a sign. Similarly, we frequently passed a place called Yul Caanal, as in "Yul Caanal kiss my ass!" I said it so many times that when I didn't one time, my wife just shook her head. "You're thinking it, aren't you?" she asked. Of course I was!

Another place we visited in Akumal was called Aktun Chen. It was a fascinating place with all of these underground caves and rivers, complete with bats, stalagmites, and stalactites. There was also a real life ROUS from "The Princess Bride," which would've been scary if it weren't so frickin' cool. (For those of you out of the loop, that stands for Rodent Of Unusual Size, and the Dread Pirate Wesley personally didn't think they existed in the Fire Swamp.) For some reason, while it was written "Aktun Chen" almost everywhere, one sign visible while driving north on the main road had it listed as "AK TUNCHEN." The first time we saw that sign, I reached over and poked my wife's leg with my non-driving hand. She looked over at me, and knew after only a fraction of a second that I had been "tunching" her because her initials are "A.K." As luck would have it, we passed that sign quite a few more times and the joke never ever got old.

Puns sure are so much fun, aren't they? Aren't they? Well, I enjoy them quite a bit, even though I know that some people think that puns have to be bad by definition. I'm almost tempted to learn new languages just to help me expand my pun territory. Right now I'm stuck with the extremely limited vocabulary I have in other tongues to make funnies. For example, I rubbed my left eye after the first leg of our plane ride home and said, "Eye's dry, and no I'm not counting in German." Ba-dum ching! It makes me want to barbecue with people who speak Hebrew just so I can say it was "hot coal beseder" and bring the house down.

Alas, I'm stuck with languages I actually know at this point (and the occasional road sign). Gentle readers, I imagine some of you are multi-lingual. Got anything for me here? Sacky Kevin, bust out some German. BKS, I know you have some French or German puns dying to get out. Candice, enlighten us with some Russian. Dusty, did you bring some Cantonese to share with the class? Brother Kevin, got any sign language puns? Lt. Worf, how about something in Klingon?

Have a great day, my friends. Yul Caanal meet me back here tomorrow; Yal Ku wit dat?

Play ditzy for me

Hello Tuesday! Here I am, ready to embark on the marvelous thing that is the four-day work week. Obviously I'm a big fan of those, but they still pose a little problem for me. You see, I keep thinking that they make a bigger difference than they do. I just know that by tomorrow I'll feel like it should already be Friday. Losing 20% of the work week is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but it's not as big of a deal as I always first think it is. Or something like that.

In any case, it's Tuesday and I'm here to write a little more about our vacation. Today I'm going to focus on one part in particular: getting there. No matter what kind of trip one takes, getting there plays a roll. Man, I'm so deep sometimes.

While waiting to board our plane, my lovely wife and I both noticed things about the woman sitting in the seat behind us in the terminal. My wife noticed that her ticket showed that she'd be the third person in our row of three. I noticed that she sounded very stupid.

When the time came for us to get on the plane, the young lady and a male friend that she had run into were already aboard. More precisely, she was in the window seat and he was sitting in my wife's seat in the middle. Here's how the first of several fun conversations went:

Amber: Excuse me, but that's my seat.
Young Lady: (slightly pouting) Oh, can he have your seat and trade you?
Amber: No, I'm sorry.
Young Lady: (perking up a little) But he has a window seat!
Amber: But I'd like to sit with my husband.

The guy got up, knowing that if pulling the "window seat card" didn't work, nothing would. We sat down and half-heartedly apologized for turning down the request. Well, more like quarter-heartedly or even one-eighth-heartedly. Half is too much, but we're not given too many options on those things...until now.

We chatted a little with the young lady. We helped her get the flight attendant's attention for something to drink before take off because she was feeling a little ill. She thanked us and said that she didn't want to get sick and die on the plane. I told her that our goals were very similar. She asked if we were staying in Cancun, because she was actually going to Playa del Carmen. We told her that we were going a little further south to Akumal. That led to this conversation:

Young Lady: (naturally bewildered) Wow, Mexico has a lot of places I've never heard of. The place you're staying, one that my friend went to, and I hadn't heard of Playa del Carmen before this either.

Me: Well, it's a big country. There are all of the cities in Baja and then it extends all the way to its east coast.
Young Lady: (with more than normal levels of bewilderment) Mexico has an east coast?
Me: Well yeah, that's where we're flying to right now.

Yes, I was able to say that with a straight face. I don't know how, since mocking people is one of my favorite things. That and brown paper packages tied up with string. The conversation progressed the way one might expect it to. I asked how long she was staying, but that wasn't as easy a question as I would've guessed. Her friends booked the hotels but didn't get one for the last night yet. She didn't have much faith in them finding something while they were there, but her friends didnt think it would be a problem. She also didn't know how she was getting from the Cancun airport to their hotel in Playa del Carmen or when and where to meet her friends. So basically, the exact opposite of us.

As we got close to our stop in Mexico city, the following (glorious) conversation took place:

Young Lady: Wow, that looks like a big city.
Amber: Well it's one of the most populated in the world.
Young Lady: Really? Most popular?
Amber: No, most populated; highest pop-u-lat-ion.
Young Lady: Oh, I thought you said popular.
Me: (deadpan) Yeah, that too, they took a vote and everything.
Amber: (ignoring my comment) No, there are almost 9 million people here.
Young Lady: Oh, that's probably because it's so big.

I nodded. To her, it looked like I was agreeing with her statement. In actuality though, I was nodding that she really was as stupid as I had first guessed.

She talked a little more, and Amber and I refrained from making eye contact so that we would be able to keep our laughter in until later. Although at one point she did lean over to me and ask, "Are you going to remember all of this for a blog entry?" "I may need a little help, but I think I'll remember this one." The young lady continued a conversation she'd been having with herself: "And there are all of these airlines I'd never heard of. Like this one we're on, Air-ee-o Mexico. Didn't know about that one!"

And then something happened that sealed the deal on the whole experience. She started fumbling through her bag until she pulled out a business card. As she mumbled something about travelling, I noticed two things on the card. First, her name was Misty. That was perfect. Second...how can I put this? Um, SHE'S A FUCKING TRAVEL AGENT! In a scene much like the end of "The Usual Suspects," all of the pertinent scenes flashed before my eyes. "Mexico has an east coast?" "Most popular?" "All of these airlines I've never heard of." I used a super-human amount of restraint and didn't ask the question screaming to be released: "Are you shitting me?" No, gentle readers, I held it in and made more mental notes to share with you instead. Oh, lest I forget: Misty's card told us that she's also a model and a spokesmodel too, of course.

Overall, Misty was the most interesting part of the trip there. After all, we mocked her consistently throughout the trip, and that's always enjoyable. A close second was the flight attendant asking Amber how old she was when she ordered a drink on the flight. I'm pretty sure the Mexican drinking age is 18, and she's going to be 30 in a week. Therefore, she's much closer to 17 x 2 than she is to 17. I didn't order alcohol so I'll never know if she thought I was young too or if I was her dad.

Sorry for the lateness of the post, but I'm having major computer issues. Have a good one and hopefully everything will be easier tomorrow. At least it's already Tuesday.

Soak up the pun

Buenos dias, lectores dulces. We returned from our Mexican vacation last night, and we had a wonderful time. Actually, everything but the part of my brain that understands the concept of time returned last night. I say that because I'm sitting here typing at five in the frickin' morning when I should still be sleeping. Silly brain.

Before I get into anything else, I have to wholeheartedly thank my Bratty Kid Sister for filling in for me this past week. I had a chance to read the posts before all of you (because I'm special), and I was glad to see by the comments that you all enjoyed her posts as much as I did. Stacy, you kick ass, and I hope I have more vacations in the future that require your services.

Hold on for a second please, I need to go pour my coffee. It's Don Francisco brand, so hopefully that will ease the transition from Mexico to the U.S. a little better. Ok, I'm back. I missed you all tremendously. You're now witnessing Pre-Coffee-Peter, who rarely makes any kind of appearance, let alone in print. PCP is just a touch grumpier and more easily confused than Caffeinated Peter, but we should be ok here.

So, onto a little bit about the vacation. We had a fantastic time, and it was exactly what we were looking for. "Fantastic" was my lovely wife's word of the week. Whether it was the ocean view from the place, my red snapper served with chili arbol sauce, or the mojito during happy hour at the place nearby, "fantastic" was her word of choice. I can't argue with that selection, although I liked mixing in a "fabulous" here and there.

Guess what I learned on this trip? Yes, iguanas can jump, but that's not what I'm going for right now. Good guess though. I learned that my habit of making bad puns is not restricted to the United States. Amazing, I know. (Ah, first sip of coffee. Hello, old friend.) On the first full day of our vacation, there were four that I remembered to jot down at the end of the day to share with you all.

First off, we were snorkeling in the bay right outside the condo (and I mean right outside). Whenever I snorkel, I tend to lose my inner monologue and speak aloud to the fish and other things beneath the surface. I also tend to sing "Yellow Submarine" out loud through the tube, but that's neither here nor there. So I was snorkeling, and I suddenly noticed that there was a school of fish. Dozens of little fellers were right near me in a perfect sheet of a pattern, but I got too close and they broke their form to avoid the danger they believed I posed. Aloud but muffled, I said through my tube, "Sorry guys, didn't mean to disturb your lesson. Hee hee hee. Get it, because you're a school." I don't know why I speak such things, but they are spoken nonetheless.

A little while later, I swam over to my lovely wife. "Hey, did you see those things that look like flowers on the bottom of the ocean?" I asked. "You mean a sea anemone?" "Si, anemone," I replied, smiling as she gave me the "yes I know I walked right into that one but it's still pretty silly so don't be too proud of yourself" look that I know so well. (By the way, I had said and typed 'anenome' but my references say I've been wrong about that for a long time. It's really 'anemone' and not 'anenome?' Great, now they both sound made up.)

For the third thing, I can't even appropriately set it up because I don't remember the circumstances in which I said it. All you need to know that is that I said, "Great Mayans think alike."

Lastly, we were sitting under a big hut-like structure in a restaurant the first evening. I looked up and said, "Hmmm, I wonder if Margaret made this." My wife looked at me, and the confusion turned to the "ok, hold on, I'll try to figure out where you're going with this one" look. After a few seconds, I could see she was about to give up, so I encouraged her by saying, "You'll get there, you'll get there." A few more seconds went by, and then she looked at me with another patented move. It's the "I'm shaking my head disapprovingly at your bad pun but I can't completely suppress my smile" one that lets me know that she actually enjoys my oddness. "Because she's a Thatcher?" she asked. Oh yeah. How could I not love that woman?

So, gentle readers. I'm back, even though I originally said I wouldn't be writing again until Tuesday. I was lying in bed though, unable to fall asleep, and I decided to be productive instead of having more of those frustrating ten-second dreams. I hope you all had a great week, and I'll be back with some more tomorrow. I'm not inviting Pre-Coffee-Peter though; that guy's weird.

Don't forget to write to ptklein@gmail.com with thoughts, stories, Car Watch items, questions, or random observations.

FUF You

Yay for Fridays! Boo for it being my last day as Peter’s guest blogger. Hee hee, I almost typed “guest booger.” It’s been one heck of a week, folks, I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.

So it being F and all, I am going to FU on my Wednesday post about the funny things that happen when people who do not share a mother tongue try to communicate. Having lived a whole stinking year in another country, I had this stuff happen to me all the time.

I don’t think I am stretching the truth here when I say that the most famous mix-up involving an American trying to speak German is President John F. Kennedy declaring, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” On the slightest off-chance that someone reading this does not know this story, here it is: In a lovely, no-hard-feelings-losers type gesture toward the Communist occupied, post-WWII Berliners, President Kennedy made a very nice speech in the German capital declaring that every citizen of the free world is a citizen of Berlin and that he would like to say to them, “ich bin ein Berliner.” Beautiful, right? Most Germans at the time thought so.

The small problem here is that Germans don’t actually put articles in front of nouns claiming nationality or profession. Whereas Americans would say “I am a Berliner” or “I am a teacher,” Germans say the equivalent of “I am Berliner/I am teacher.” So while “ich bin ein Berliner” does translate directly into “I am a Berliner” in American English, including the article “ein” in his sentence indicated that President Kennedy was not actually referring to the good people of Berlin, but in fact a jelly doughnut product in Germany called a Berliner.

A lot of people (including my favorite British transvestite comedian, Eddie Izzard) claim that “ich bin ein Berliner” actually means “I am a doughnut.” This is not technically the case. There are a couple different words for “doughnut” in German, but the Germans I met most commonly just say “doughnut.” Doughnuts as we know them do not exist in Germany, save the few imported Dunkin Donuts that have made their way across the Atlantic into the larger cities (including Berlin). Most German backereis are eerily similar and always contain the following items: the most delicious bread you have ever eaten (yeah, you heard me, France); less impressive but still quite tasty croissants (France wins there); weird gummy, stale-looking fruity pastries that you can never, ever force me to eat; and the Berliner. The Berliner is equivalent to an American jelly doughnut in just about every way, including the fact that I don’t like it. So Kennedy wasn’t really referring to a kind of breakfast food, but in fact a very specific product. I guess it’s sort of equivalent to claiming that he said “I am coffee” when he in fact said “I am a Frapuccino.” If “Frappucino”were a less ridiculous word. And a synonym for a citizen of a country’s capital city.

“Ich bin ein Berliner” is actually used in a lot of bakery advertisements in Germany. It is not uncommon for a backerei window to display a picture of a Berliner with a little cartoon dialogue bubble saying, essentially, “No, I am a Berliner! And I taste delicious! Come inside and find out for yourself!” So even though it appears that the Germans still enjoy getting a one-up on us Yanks whenever they can, I’ve been told by many sources that the German audience was more moved by JFK’s sentiment than put-off by his incorrect indefinite article usage. As well they should have been. And if, for some reason, some punk ass Deutschie did try to make fun of Kennedy for his little faux-pas, I would defy him to speak American English for more than two sentences without making some sort of mistake. Or to produce a Chancellor half as dishy as JFK.

Anyhoo, I was well aware of this story, and the existence of the Berliner, when I moved to Germany in 2004. What I was UN-aware of was the ever-present existence of a black and white, custard-filled cookie--essentially the only cookie available anywhere in Germany, why the Europeans resist the deliciousness of cookies so fervently is beyond me-- called the Amerikaner. So presumably, had I not learned from JFK’s mistake, I could have definitely said to somebody on a train, “ich bin ein Amerikaner” and would have been mistaking identifying myself as a rather disgusting cookie-type product. Incidentally, I also would have been saying I was a dude. “Amerikaner” is male American, “Amerikanerin” is the feminine. I freaking hate all languages that assign genders to words unnecessarily.

And on that beautiful, intolerant note, I conclude my tenure at UOPTA. So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.

Oh okay just one more thing. English seems to be one of the few languages that actually has a word for “good-bye.” Many languages’ equivalents for goodbye (au revoir, arrivederci, Auf Wiedersehen) mean something more like “until we meet again,” a much happier sentiment. I guess “adios” and "adieu" would be “to God” which actually seems even more final than goodbye if I think about it.

Okay. That’s it. I’m done. I swear. Goodbye.

The Little Merman

I spend a lot of time with children. Really, Stacy, we’re fascinated! Tell us more. Calm the hell down, I will. All I wanted growing up was for my mom to have another kid and bitch just wouldn’t cooperate. (Actually, she couldn’t cooperate but that’s something you can’t really explain to a 4-year-old who just wants a little sister to torture.) So I had to pursue kids on my own time. I started volunteering as a camp counselor when was 13. I was a Counselor-in-Training for a day camp in my town called Camp Wa-Tam. We sang a lot of songs, including an amazing little ditty to the tune of Friends in Low Places:

Blame it all on Hawkeye (our camp director; we all had camp names, mine was Scooby)
He’s not a clean guy
And showers are not his forte
We have not a hope
That he’ll ever find soap
But maybe he’ll spare us someday….

Oh, we’ve got friends at Camp Wa-Tam
Where the punch is strong (and by strong they meant revolting)
But Dad and Mom
Will stay and play
Cause it tastes okay

Well we’re not big on dirty faces
But we’ll sacrifice
In cer-tain cases
Oh, we’ve got friends
In grroooossss places!

Oh the memories. The summer after my first year of college, I moved back home and worked at a summer camp called “Splash Camp,” so named because it was owned by a local water park. I got the best tan of my life that summer. For some reason, the powers that be at the water park, and the campers' parents, deemed it suitable for three 18-19 year-olds to mind anywhere from 10-35 children from 11:00am-5:00pm every day. We didn’t have a supervisor. We didn’t have any life-saving skills of any kind. It was really kind of ridiculous and seriously fun. And the kids were amazing.

One such child, whose name I forget, was your classic precocious first born. He loved to talk about the fact that his mom was a lawyer and would settle disputes between other campers: “Stacy, in the case of my client vs. Kelly, I believe that really is my client’s towel and that Kelly likely has an identical Lilo and Stitch towel in her backpack. Your verdict?” So one day I said to him:

“You seem very interested in the law, do you want to be a lawyer when you grow up?”

“No, I want to be an OB/GYN.” Said the 7-year-old. Well, first you could have knocked me over with a Lilo and Stitch beach towel. Never in my life had I been so surprised by something a kid had said to me. Then of course came the questions.


“Stacy, what’s that? Stacy, what’s that? Stacy, what’s that?”

“Um….it’s a doctor that delivers babies.” I felt pretty satisfied with that answer, and hoped the kids would too. But, no, Smarty Pants McGee chimed in again.

“Well actually it’s a lot more than that…they have to do pre-natal exams and check for infections and cervical cancer and all sorts of stuff. I went to my mom’s appointments with her while she was pregnant with my baby brother." Um, ew!



"Stacy, what's he talking about?"

"Who wants Cheez-Its?”

Another time, we preparing the kids for pool time and getting ready to do the swim test. Kids who passed the swim test could swim anywhere in the pool, kids who did not had to stay in the shallow end. Kids who had serious problems with swimming were deemed "one-on-ones" meaning that one of us teenaged counselors with no lifeguard certification of any kind had to stay with them in the pool for the entire afternoon. Ashland (as in Oregon, as in the Shakespeare festival, as in his mom was a hippie), aged 5, was once such child. As I was getting into the pool with him, he said, “You don’t need to come with me, I can swim.”

“I know you can, I just want to play with you.”

“No you want to make sure I don’t drown. And I won’t. I can breathe under water.”

“Do you mean you can hold your breath?”

“No, I can breathe under water. Like a fish.”

Now I’m all for letting kids imagine and pretend, but I was a little worried that indulging this particular fantasy could end with someone drowning, so I tried to talk to him about the difference between holding one’s breath and actually breathing under water. I wasn’t getting through to him, so when his hippie mom came to get him that afternoon, I took her aside.

“I’m a little concerned about Ashland. He seems to believe that he can breathe underwater.”

“Oh, there's no reason to be concerned. He can.”

Hand to God, people. Who the hell teaches their kid stuff like that? If it was up to my parents, I’d still be wearing floaties in the pool, so afraid are they of my drowning. They forced me to take swim lessons until I was like 12, just to ensure that I would not meet my maker in some sort of aquatic emergency. But this woman apparently believed her son came equipped with gills.



I really could fill an entire book with all the funny stuff that has happened since I started working with kids, but I'm just way too lazy. I hope you enjoyed my penultimate post, and by all means, if you have a funny story involving kids and those darn things they say, send it my way: thessredd@gmail.com.

Like a Jungfrau

In true UOPTA fashion, I am going to dedicate this post to the glory of language. Foreign language to be exact. Like any good California high school student, I took my obligatory 3 years of high school Spanish, avoiding a fourth year because the AP Spanish teacher was one perra loca. Anyway, my three years of high school Spanish did not render me nearly as proficient as mi hermano, but I learned enough to get by in Spanish-speaking countries, which is really all I wanted. After my freshman year college, I visited France for the first time and became obsessed with the idea of learning French, so I took a year’s worth at UCSB. Finally, after graduation, I spent a year in Germany, where I also picked up decent amount of Deustch. I am nowhere near fluent in any of these languages, but have learned enough of each to be able to notice some fun things about the way our and other languages work and am going to share those things with you.

One of the first things you are taught when learning almost any new language are the days of the week. In Spanish all the days of the work week end in “es.” In French, every day but dimanche, Sunday, ends is “di.” German is similar to English in that all of its days of the week (except for Wednesday) end in “tag,” the German word for “day.” Montag, Dienstag, Mittwoch, Donnerstag, Freitag, Samstag, Sonntag. One of these things just doesn’t belong here. What the hell did Wednesday do to anybody? As I’m sure you noticed, a lot of the German days of the week are very similar to English, in fact, “Sonn tag” literally translated is Sun day. It makes sense to me that the weekends or just Sunday might be different from the others. They’re special. If you’re religious, those are the days you set aside to worship your diety of choice. If you’re not, those are the days you sleep late and make waffles. But Wednesday? Wednesday hasn’t meant anything to me since “Dawson’s Creek” went off the air. Crazy Germans.

Living in a foreign country often results in funny misunderstandings regarding language. During my first three months in Deutschland, I took regular German classes so I could at least function in my new country without resorting to excessive pointing. I thought I was catching on pretty quickly and was feeling very confident about my language-learning abilities when our teacher, Herr Linder, gave us a passage to read silently. It was about a little girl who got a “puppe” for her birthday. Because so many German and English words look and sound very similar, I assumed that “puppe” meant “puppy.” The story continued that she loved her new puppe, she would brush her puppe’s hair and take her puppe with her wherever she went. It all made sense to me; I would do the same if I had a puppy. Then it talked about how she dressed the puppe up in a hat and a dress and put it in a baby carriage to take the store, which seemed kind of weird, but I remember trying to lay a towel on my dog’s back and ride him like a pony, so I was really in no place to judge. Had he been smaller, I probably would have tried to stick him in a stroller. Then it talked about how she grew too old for her puppe and put it in a box under her bed. It was at this point that I figured that “puppe” must not mean what I thought it meant, unless Herr Linder was having his beginning German students read a cautionary tale about cruelty to animals.

“Entschuldigung, Herr Linder? Ich habe eine Frage. Wie Sie Puppe auf Englisch sagen?”

“Hmmm…puppe, auf Englisch...” He hemmed and hawed for a second and then mimed like he was rocking a baby. “Puppe ist “toy baby?”

“Oh, okay! I know, I mean, ich weiss!”

“Was ist die wort?”

“Doll.”

“Ja, doll, genau!”

Almost every foreign language class will warn you to beware “false friends,” words that look like English words but have entirely different meanings. Another great example is the Spanish word “embarazado.” It looks, and sounds, like it means “embarrassed,” but it actually means pregnant. You can just imagine the funny misunderstandings that could result from that one.

Speaking of misunderstandings and pregnancy (sort of), I will conclude with my favorite story about language misunderstandings. This one is about the context in which a person learns a word in a foreign language. I was watching the German version of MTV with my host sister, who was 15 at the time. The VJ was talking about Katie Holmes’ recent engagement to Tom Cruise, and added in a bratty, incredulous tone that Ms. Holmes was purportedly a “Jungfrau.” Now “Jung frau” translated into English is just “young woman,” so I couldn’t imagine that the VJ would be snottily declaring that a 26 year old female “claims to be a young woman,” because that’s not really a stretch. So I asked my host sister what “Jungfrau” meant. She looked a little embarrassed (not embarazado).

“Oh, um, I don’t know the English word, but it means a girl who has never had sex before.”

That explained the VJ’s skepticism. Chris Klein isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but he and Joey Potter dated for like 4 years. In the words of my cousin Scott, “nobody’s that interesting.”

“Oh okay, that makes sense. And the English word is 'virgin'.”

Now it was her time to look confused. “I thought 'virgin' meant no alcohol in your drink.”

That resulted in conversation about how virgin just implies untouched and almost resulted in a conversation about how I hope she never feels pressured to do anything she doesn’t want to do and a boy who really likes her won’t make her do anything she isn’t ready for, but she is a very smart girl and apparently saw it coming and nipped it in the bud with, “Don’t worry, I don’t have alcohol in my drink yet.”

Bon Mittwoch to you good people, I will see you all mañana.

Partner in Crime

A good Tuesday morning to all of you. I hope it is treating you well. When I was growing up, my mom would try to make Tuesday a more exciting day of the week, by declaring “It’s already Tuesday!” at the breakfast table, like it being Tuesday was some kind of accomplishment, but I was never fooled. Tuesday just means you’re embedded in the school/work week with no real end in sight.

On that happy note, I would like to talk about Amber today. I do not know Amber very well, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot to say about her. Us O-staffers heard a lot about Amber long before we ever met her and she became sort of a mythical creature in our heads. Even though I have since met her on several occasions, she still sort of exists more in my imagination than in my memory.

When I first learned about Amber’s existence I thought she was dude. I will elaborate. Orientation folk are taught to use “inclusive language,” so as not to alienate people whose lifestyles and/or backgrounds might be different from ours. For instance, if you did not know the sexuality of the person with whom you were speaking, you were supposed to use the word “partner” instead of “boyfriend” or “girlfriend.”

The thinking behind this was, if you ask a gay man “do you have a girlfriend?” he might be uncomfortable saying, “no, I’m gay,” because you have already made the assumption that he’s straight. “Do you have a partner?” implies no heterosexist assumption and therefore can make a homosexual person feel more comfortable talking about his/her relationship. O-staffers were instructed to use inclusive language not only when questioning other people, but in reference to ourselves. I had trouble with this, not because of the implied ambiguity about my sexual orientation, but because of the implied level of commitment. I just couldn’t refer to the guy I had been seeing for two months as my “partner.” Luckily, it didn’t last much longer than two months, so then I got to refer to him as “that bastard.”

The first time I heard Peter say something about his partner, I was not aware of inclusive language and just assumed he was gay. Then when he mentioned his partner was named Amber, I thought “wow, harsh name to give a dude, no wonder he’s gay.” Finally, he referred to Amber as “she” and I understood what was going on. Both Amber and our Director’s fiancé, Scott, were the subjects of great speculation on the part of many O-staffers. What could the people our bosses were dating be like? What were our bosses like in their regular lives? It was all very fascinating.

When I finally met Amber and Scott at an Orientation function, I found them both to be nice and lovely, if far less intrigued by me than I was by them. One day, I ran into Amber at the Goleta Borders and totally felt like I had spotted a celebrity. I stalked her around the store for awhile to make sure it was her and tried to get up the nerve to talk to her, like a teenage boy asking a girl to prom.

“Hi, Amber. You probably don’t know who I am, but I’m one of the Orientation staff members.”

“Hi, Stacy. I remember you.” Oh my god she knows my name!

It was then I realized I had no idea what to say to her and when I really began to feel like a teenage boy. “So….looking for books, huh?”

“Yes, Peter and I are going to Canada this month, so I’m grabbing some travel books about the areas we’re visiting.”

“Wow that’s great! Canada’s great!”

“Oh, have you been?”

“No.”

It was incredibly awkward and I felt so stupid and kicked myself for not having anything interesting to say. I was sure Amber was going to go home and ask Peter why he had hired such an idiot. Now I realize she probably forgot about the interaction right after it happened.

Once Amber became a real person that I knew, there couldn’t be an imaginary Amber anymore. However, a few months after I met her, I met “Fake Amber.” Fake Amber was this woman who worked in Cheadle Hall (the home of the Orientation office and many other student services/administrative offices), who from a distance looked a good deal like Amber, at least to someone who didn’t know her very well. I was walking back to the Orientation office from the Coral Tree Café with my favorite treat, Canadian cheese soup, when I spotted Fake Amber for the first time. I waved and smiled and she stared at me blankly. “Shit, she doesn’t remember me and now I look even dorkier than before.” As I got closer, I realized that this woman was not Amber at all and felt stupid for a different reason.

I told Peter about “Fake Amber” but he did not know who I was referring to, because he was of course very familiar with the Amber’s appearance and would not mistake anyone else for her. When I was finally able to point her out to Peter, he said that her name was Laurel, and he couldn’t really see how I could mistake her for Amber, but was nonetheless happy to know who Fake Amber was. After I had abandoned UCSB for a quarter in Washington, DC, Peter would still see Laurel around and was occasionally tempted to tell her about her similarities to his then-fiancée, but realized that by doing so he might seem like he was hitting on her.

“You know who you look like? The woman I’m going to marry.”

I agreed that that would seem pretty cheesy, but came up with a contingency plan (like a good O-staffer should) just in case she responded to his comments in a negative way. I envisioned it a little something like this.

“You look like a lot like my fiancée.”

“Go away weirdo.”

“On second thought, your hair is greasier, your eyes don’t really sparkle, and you’re not as radiant.”

I don’t think Peter ever informed Laurel of her Fake Amber status, which was probably for the best. From what we could tell, she seemed like a perfectly nice woman who probably didn’t deserve that kind of talk. And she may have already been sensitive about her greasy hair.

For those of you who hate my blogging and can’t wait for Peter to return next week, I say to you: it’s already Tuesday.

There's a New Sheriff In Town

Hello devoted UOPTA readers! As you are by now well aware, Peter is out for the week, and has asked me to guest blog during his absence. This is just about the most illustrious honor a man can bestow upon his fake sister, and I will do my utmost to uphold the quality and consistency that I know you UOPTA readers have come to expect.

So who the hell am I, you might ask? As I would have said when I was a UCSB Orientation Staff member, “My name is Stacy Redd and I’m a 3rd year Literature major from Santa Rosa, California.” Peter was my boss for two years when I was an Orientation staff member in the early 00s. I’m pretty sure most of you knew PK during his O-staff days, but in case you didn’t, I will tell you that Orientation is a very time-consuming undertaking, requiring its participants to spend copious amounts of time in each other’s presence. I quickly realized what a wealth of information and hilarity Herr Klein can be and would often seek his advice for non work-related topics. I would sit in the yellow chair in his cube, raid his stash of Cheez-Its, and benefit from his wit and wisdom. An only child, I quickly realized that Peter was the big brother I never had. A younger brother, Peter simultaneously realized that I am the little sister he never wanted. Et voila, the nickname Bratty Kid Sister (BKS) was born.

For my inaugural post, I would like to share one of my favorite Peter memories. After about 3 weeks working for Peter, it became apparent to all of us that he is a man who likes things a certain way. When it came to grammar, I completely agreed with his stance. When it came to punctuality, I thought he was a little more exacting than I would be, but I respected his position. When it came to bowling, I thought he was out of his ever-loving mind.

While I was working for Peter, Student Affairs (the division that houses Orientation) organized a bowling league. Each department in the division had a team of professional staff and student workers that met weekly to bowl and trash talk. Now, I am a lousy bowler, but had also recently turned 21 when this league was organized and still found drinking legally in public establishments quite novel and exciting. “Come for the booze, stay for the bowling,” was my motto in regards to the league.

Little did I know that “Come for the bowling, stay for the triumph,” was what Peter had mind. Homeboy was in it to win it. Word had it that there was a trophy in store for the winning department, and Peter wanted it bad(ly). He was not going to tolerate a lackluster effort from anyone on his team. He himself is an incredible bowler. Fellow student-worker-bowlers Tricia (the ex-wife of Booyah Johnson), Jenn, and I nicknamed him “Moses” because he could split the pins. And he’s Jewish. But that’s neither here nor there. The man was good, he wanted to win, and he was incredibly disappointed by our performances.

To that end, he taught us some handy bowling tips, like “Shake hands with the headpin.” (Which I continue to refer to as the “kingpin” much to Peter’s dismay. I blame that Woody Harrelson movie.)” When he noticed that my ball almost always veers to the right, he had me stand on the far left-hand side of the lane when bowling, and lo and behold, I actually started scoring in the triple-digits once in awhile. We were steadily improving, and it seemed like Team Moses had a real shot at that trophy.

Then came the day when one of us decided to order some chicken fingers.

The league met on Sunday nights, right around dinner time. Normally, I would steer clear of bowling alley fare, but this particular establishment, Zodo’s of Goleta, had recently been upgraded from “janky college town bowling alley” (RIP Orchid Bowl) to “swingin’ hot spot with full-service bar,” and thus, its food offerings were considerably more edible. As I was happily munching on said fingers while waiting for my turn to bowl, Peter turned to me with look that was half horror, half fury.

“Are you eating with your bowling hand?”

“What?”

“Are you eating those chicken fingers with your bowling hand?”

“You mean, my left hand?” (Because I, much like my brother, am a southpaw. Kill righty.)

“DO NOT EAT WITH YOUR BOWLING HAND!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Peter went on to explain that eating food while bowling was a sure-fire way to mess up one’s game. Touching greasy chicken fingers (or French fries or pizza or basically anything else served at a bowling alley) would surely have a negative effect on one’s bowling. The other student-worker-bowlers and I chalked this up as yet another Peterosyncracy and continued on our merry eating ways.

Turns out the bastard was right. All of us who had been eating with our respective bowling hands noticed a significant difference in the way we bowled that night. Whether this was psychosomatic or a direct result of eating with our bowling hands, I’ll never know. What I do know is that all of us now eat with our non-bowling hands only, or avoid eating and bowling completely. Additionally, none of us ever bowl without thinking of Peter, and we’re all better bowlers for it.

We ended up coming in 2nd in the league and the reason we didn’t get first place will always be a spot of contention (a Student Affairs Bowling League team should be comprised ENTIRELY of Student Affairs Division employees, don’t you think? If SOME departments played by the rules, we would have won), but Peter did end up with a trophy for being the best individual bowler, probably because he always took his own advice.

If anyone else has any stories about Peter being both irritating and right at the same time, I would enjoy hearing them. My email is thessredd@gmail.com. The BKS Reign of Terror continues tomorrow.

FUF #14

If you're just browsing through pages of the internet willy-nilly and have stumbled across this one, I command you to "Stop in the Name of FUF." That's right, children of all ages, it's another Follow Up Friday. Come on over and pull up a chair, because we're going to have some fun together today!

For some reason, the tone I just took makes me want to launch into the voiceover for a commercial my brother and I saw a million times growing up for Santa's Village. "Visit the petting zoo! See Santa's reindeer! There's food and treats at The Pixie Pantry, The Good Witch's Bakery, and more!" It was a funny commercial, because they originally ran it in the summer months with the first line of, "You can visit Santa in the summertime!" You see, he normally comes in winter. Therein lies the coolness. However, at some point they realized that they were essentially telling people to ignore their business at all other times. Instead of creating a new commercial for the winter months, they kept the same exact one with the exception of the first line: "You can visit Santa in the winter time!" I think they kinda mailed that one in. But here I am talking about it and I remember that it's in "the cool and clear San Bernadino mountains," so I guess their ad campaign worked.

As is customary with our weeks-long tradition of FUFfing, I shall tell tales loosely related to this week's post, some others not related at all, and then the all-important Car Watch. Strap in, because this will be as disjointed as Joe Theismann's leg. Non-sports fans, just trust me on this.

First off - I wrote a post about how bad my handwriting is. In it, I mentioned that my lovely wife also has poor penmanship and the attempted gender socializing that occurred in our respective youths. She commented that our writing is similarly bad and sometimes looks like each other's. That reminded me of something. After our glorious wedding, we wrote thank you cards for the thoughtful gifts we received. We decided that we'd divide it up; I'd write to my side of the family, and she'd write to hers. A few days later, I was talking to my mom on the phone. She said that her sisters were so touched by the thank you cards they received that they called my mom to tell her. They said, "It's so sweet that Amber already calls us her family and said it was important to have us there on the most special day of her life." "Actually Mom," I said, "I wrote that." They had expected that the woman would be the one writing the thank you notes, and upon seeing writing that looked similar to my wife's, never questioned that assumption. Upon learning the truth, the card was still very sweet but not gush-worthy.

I was thinking a little more about "Pablo the Reindeer," and I'm a little surprised that I never sat and realized how very stupid a play that was. By the same reasoning that Mr. Claus used to employ this Spanish-speaking reindeer, shouldn't he need one for all other languages he doesn't speak as well? Or does he speak every language but Spanish for some reason? If so, I'm wondering what that's all about. "All the muchachos shout Ole!/Pablo please hurry back, they say!" Indeed, hurry back where you belong and away from the latinophobe.

I wrote a bunch this week about my memory and it helping me in school. As luck would have it, there was an absolutely perfect class for me in college. Professor John Ridland taught a class called "The Craft of Verse." We learned about meter and form in poetry, but the main component of the class was memorizing and reciting poetry. Some people stuck to the shorter ones in our textbooks, but I had fun with it. I memorized Browning's "My Last Duchess" which had about 60 lines, as well as other poems of some length like "To His Coy Mistress," "Charge of the Light Brigade," and "Annabel Lee." I loved it, and I took great delight in watching my group follow along as I recited, occasionally shaking their heads a little at my accuracy. It was always my favorite assignment of any given week, and I'd spend days walking around campus spewing poetry aloud and worrying onlookers. Great class, and it seemed almost designed for me.

Speaking of UCSB, I found out this week that my cousin Michael got accepted there and is going in the fall. I'm super excited for him, because it's such a fantastic place for learning and having the time of one's life. My biggest challenge now is refraining from going online and telling him the classes he should sign up for. If I did that, I would be exactly like the relatives I hated when working for Orientation, so I'm going to step back and let him get the information from the correct channels. I might check the schedule out for my own curiosity though.

So, I'm going out of town all next week. Not only will I miss all 8-10 of you, but I'm also going to miss the season finales of almost every show I watch. This is difficult for me. I don't imagine that Mexican newspapers are going to put recaps of "Lost" on their front pages, but I'm still going to try to avoid everything I can and watch them all on Memorial Day. So just in case it crossed your mind, don't email me with anything that happened please.

Car Watch time!

Rockabye sent me a fantastic text message with something he saw on a car: "Earth First...We'll Destroy the Other Planets Later." As you know by now, I enjoy pointed commentary on either side of the aisle as long as it's creative. "Stop Global Warming" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

I saw a bumper sticker and took a picture of it for sharing purposes. Here it is:

I think those are sunglasses by the way. That's just strange, don't you think? First of all, I think this person might not actually have a kid. If so though, then I'm guessing it's a boy because I don't see anyone saying, "My daughter bones your kid!" Just weird all around.

Wow, this is becoming lengthy. I have other Car Watch items but I'm going to save them now and finish this up instead. I mentioned it before, but my good friend Bratty Kid Sister has agreed to take over UOPTA for the next week to keep the lot of you entertained. She's great, so be nice to her. I've already read some of what she'll be posting for you, and I think you'll all be very pleased. Everyone, have a great weekend, week, and weekend. I think my next post will be on the Tuesday after Memorial Day because of the necessities of sleep and television. Take care, try not to weep too much in my absence, and write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything you think about during that time.

Memory bank withdrawals

When I wrote earlier this week about doing well in elementary school, I credited my memory for doing well in things like history and spelling. Thinking back on it, it actually served me well in other aspects of school as well that didn't come to mind at first. That, my friends, is irony. I forgot about times when I had a good memory. By the way, I'm now doing everything in my power to refrain from turning this post into one long critique of "Ironic" by Alannis Morissette. Trust me, I've already thought about every line of that song and why they're almost all stupid. I'll save that for a time when I can't think of anything else to write. But damn it's a stupid song.

Back to my memory! Outside of the classroom but still within the walls of the school (that is, extracurricular but intramural), my memory proved to be a great tool for excelling. For example, it helped me land kick-ass roles in our school plays. Oh sure, my rugged good looks and innate ability to convey an inner monologue to adoring crowds with even the smallest of gestures helped as well, but my memory got my foot in the door. In third grade, we did a play filled with the poems of Shel Silverstein. When the time came to choose someone could handle the awesome responsibility of reciting the 25-lined "Kidnapped" poem, the teacher knew who to turn to. She knew I would be able to memorize the poem/monologue, and I didn't disappoint. Naturally, I still know it and I bet my mom still does too.

A couple of years later, I was rewarded again for being able to memorize lines. The play was called "Pablo the Reindeer," and I see by searching online that its genius is known by many. There were only three or four actual parts in the play with the others playing the blob-like "chorus." My friend Adam and I each snagged prime roles as Pablo's homies. As such, we sang such family hits as "Christmas on the Beach at Waikiki." I realize how stupid that play sounds, and you're right. Chances are you don't know the half of it though. The premise is that Santa needs a translator when he goes to Mexico, so he employs one special reindeer named Pablo. Since Pablo obviously speaks Spanish, he's invaluable to Mr. Claus. "Without him, Santa would not know where he's going/Ay yay yay yay/Without him, he wouldn't know if it was snowing/South of the border?" See what I mean?

Actually, I just thought of something that I never questioned before. Why were we singing a song about Christmas in Hawaii when the play was about a reindeer-of-color needed for trips to Mexico? Maybe the play just needed an extra song to lengthen it and our teacher conveniently threw in a classic set-up line like, "Before we do that, let's stop by our favorite vacation spot of Hawaii!" I don't know, and while I could do some research on it, I just don't feel like it. If it didn't bother me the 17 or 18 years since I was in the play, I shouldn't let it bother me now.

When I wasn't basking in the glorious limelight of the cafeteria/playhouse, my memory was helping me climb the ladder in other extracurricular activities. Namely, I speak of the world of sports. If you were standing in front of me right now, you might ask something like, "But Peter, how would having a good memory help you in sports?" I would say, "Good question, my friend," and you would beam with the satisfaction of knowing you had just earned my respect. We're quite a team, you and me.

Here's the answer: In his infinite wisdom, the 6th grade basketball coach announced to the team that I would be our starting point guard. Having watched the same practices that I did, I knew he wasn't bestowing that honor on me because of my ability. Rather, it was simply because I was able to memorize all of the plays in the booklet of photocopies he gave us. There were two important problems with that assignment. First, I didn't dribble well enough to be the point guard. In fact, I clearly recall dribbling the ball off my leg and out of bounds at least twice without a defender within five feet of me. If you're not a fan of basketball, I'd like to point out that that's not what the player is supposed to do.

Second, and perhaps most important, if I was the only one who knew the plays, that meant by definition that no one else knew the plays. I would be dribbling up the court (concentrating hard not to dribble the ball off my leg again), and hold up two fingers to indicate a play. None of my teammates would move a muscle. Yep, that's an efficient offense right there; I was virtually the Steve Nash of the Van Nuys private school circuit.

So there you have it, folks. Additional tales of Peter's memory that he had forgotten. Way, way more ironic than a black fly in someone's chardonnay. That's just sucky and possibly symbolic, but not irony. If the winery was called Flyless Wines and then a fly flew into your glass, then we might be in business. I'll stop there. Have a great Thursday, gentle readers. Please write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything. I have a Follow Up Friday tomorrow before taking off for a week, and I'd love to come back with an inbox full of tales, Car Watch items, and ideas for future posts. See you tomorrow.

Fuzzy math

First, before anything else, I must wish my dear friend Lisa a happy birthday. Yes, the same Lisa who earlier this week in my blog had assless jeans. She's a rebel.

As time moves forward and my vacation to Mexico draws ever-nearer, my attention to work-related details is unfortunately growing less and less potent. That's ok though, because when I come back, I'll be all recharged and ready to kick names and take ass. Or something like that. Maybe it’s just an old wives’ tale, but I’ve heard that nothing cures a workplace rut like Coronas and tacos. How come old wives are so smart with these things? Young husbands totally get the shaft in the home remedy/superstition subsection of knowledge, and I’m a little offended by that. And with that random gripe, let’s head over to today's topic:

Yesterday I wrote a little immodestly about how I kicked ass in every subject but penmanship throughout elementary school. Let me assure you, I can't make that same claim for the years of schooling that followed that. I did fine in the end, but there were many more ups and downs. I guess “elementary school” is more than just a catchy name.

I had been good in history classes because of my ability to memorize things. Names, dates, and facts in general just stuck in my brain (and still tend to, actually). After leaving the cozy confines of Pinecrest Elementary School though, things changed a bit. Suddenly in high school and college, mere recitation was not enough. I needed to spit out the memorized stuff and then be able to say why it was significant. Uh oh. That led to one of Dusty's favorite stories of mine: We were in a history class and the teacher gave us a pop quiz on stuff we were supposed to have read by then. One topic I had to write about was the Know Nothing Party. I needed to say who they were and the significant role they played in history. I hadn't studied that at all, so I made stuff up. "The Know Nothing Party rebelled against all previously established notions of intelligence, thereby paving the way for more open-minded avenues of thought. This method was significant because it enabled them to say that they - like me - know nothing." I think I actually got partial credit for that somehow. Dusty loves the “like me” and cites it as frequently as he can remember. By the way, here's what that party really is (and it's way more interesting than my bullshit): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_nothing_party

Math went from being easy and fun to difficult and stupid very quickly. Where there had been cute little formulas to find the value of X, now I needed the "f of X," or some shit like that. Not my bag, baby. I had no problem memorizing the stuff, but applying it was a whole different story. Therefore, I stopped taking math the minute I was allowed to. That posed a problem with the fields of science though. I really enjoyed the biological sciences (especially physiology), but there were three obstacles in my way of majoring in that: calculus, physics, and chemistry. Aside from those, I would've been golden.

I'm still good at simple math. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, fractions, and simple formulas are right in my wheelhouse. I actually use all of those fairly frequently still, and I like calling on those skills. I even occasionally wow people with the simple math that I can do in my head, and I’m proud of that. However, there are occasions that my attempts to use math make me look and sound incredibly stupid. Here are two examples:

1. I was on the phone with a client and the conversation turned to traffic. I told him that although I work in Santa Monica, we recently bought a house in the valley so the commute was sometimes horrendous. He asked how long it took me to get home, and I said, "It sometimes takes me an hour to go the 16 miles from my office to home. That means I'm averaging..." I pulled my calculator over and started punching numbers. "Let's see," I said, still aloud. "That's 16 miles divided by...oh my God I am such a moron." I realized a little too late that 16 miles in an hour is 16 miles per hour. Not one of my finer moments, and I immediately blamed it on a lack of coffee and majoring in English, hoping those things would make up for the idiotic error.

2. When my lovely wife and I were in Canada on vacation, we had to do math fairly often. At the time, the exchange rate was very similar to the calculation needed to go from kilometers to miles. If something was $60 Canadian, it would be about $40 American. Likewise, if something was 60 kilometers away, we knew it would be about 40 miles. It was a pretty simple formula, and I got decent at calculating 2/3 in my head after a short while. One day on our trip though, I made an error. We were driving to our next stop, and I commented that we should be arriving any minute now. My wife was confused by this and said, “No, it’s a three-hour drive so we still have about an hour left before we get there.” “But,” I started to say, then stopped immediately. I tried playing it off, but she figured out what I had done. Yes, I converted the Canadian time of 3 hours into 2 hours American. I know, I know, you’re in the presence of sheer brilliance.

So, that’s how grown-up Peter does math. I guess everyone’s knowledge gets less well-rounded as they grow up, but it still surprises me to see what boneheaded errors I can make from time to time. Have any of you ever done anything like either of those examples? Come on, don’t be shy, share your stupidity with me. Strength in numbers, gentle readers.

Have a great Wednesday, everyone. I’ll be writing more tomorrow and Friday, then my Bratty Kid Sister will take over for a week while I’m out of town. So that’s only 5 more posts from me until then. Or maybe 3 more. I’m confused.

Writin' wrong

Good morning, folks. I had a dream last night that I was playing a card game on my computer and made a mistake. In order to undo the last move, I had to sneeze. I felt one coming and then woke up to sneeze in real life. I think this is my subconscious's way of telling me that I like playing card games and I have a tiny cold. The mind is an amazing thing.

There's no way to say this modestly, so I'm just going to launch right into it. Growing up, I excelled in pretty much every school subject in elementary school. I was good at memorizing things put before me, so spelling and history were pretty easy. I understood the basic concepts of mathematics and had no problem applying them to my assignments. I enjoyed reading, writing, Spanish, P.E., and science, so those all came pretty naturally as well. Even though I couldn't sing well, I even did fine in music class because I participated enough. I'd say that throughout my elementary school career, there was only one subject that consistently gave me trouble: penmanship.

My handwriting was simply awful. Let me rephrase that: My handwriting is and always has been simply awful. I know that studies show that men have messier handwriting than women and that lefties have messier handwriting than righties, so I was already starting in the lowest 25%. Teachers never found that excuse acceptable though. I remember once in sixth grade I was writing something in class. For some reason, one word was perfectly written. I don't know how I did it, but it stood out amongst the others as proof that I really could write neatly if I put my mind to it. Being proud of myself, I drew an arrow to in from the margin and wrote "Look how neat!" When I got the piece of paper back, my teacher hadn't written anything next to my commentary. At recess, I stopped by her desk and pointed the next word out, ya know, in case she missed it. "Yes, I saw that," she said. "It's only one word though. Write like that for the whole thing and then we'll talk." In other words, my moment of penmanship supremacy was wasted on her.

As I've mentioned before in this space, Dusty and I used to write notes to each other in 5th period of 9th grade then pass them to each other on the way to 6th. He'd always have the hardest time reading mine. He told me that he and his then-girlfriend spent ten minutes trying to read one of my words before realizing that it actually said "handwriting." Interesting. On several occasions since I've known him, he's said to me, "Seriously Pete, learn how to fucking write." Isn't it sweet to see how much he cares and wants me to grow as a person?

Re-reading my notes through college proved to be a difficult task as well. Part of the problem was that I'd make little jokes along the way, so sometimes I'd spend a lot of time deciphering my words only to end up with a horrible pun about "a cup and Chaucer." If someone missed a day of lecture and asked me if they could copy my notes, my most common response was, "You should probably ask somebody else first. You wouldn't get too much out of mine."

Deciphering my own writing is somewhat fun, I must say. It's almost like detective work. "Well, if that's definitely an R over there, then this one is probably an R too. Either that or a C." Sometimes I'd spend a bunch of time on a word only to finally realize that I had an extra loop in there or accidentally crossed an L. Yes, it's that bad.

As luck would have it, my lovely wife doesn't have neat handwriting either. Her experience was similar to mine on some levels but very different on others. For example, I distinctly remember a teacher once saying to me that since I had such messy writing, maybe I'd be a doctor someday (because that's apparently more important than the silly stuff they teach in medical school). My wife, on the other hand, had a teacher tell her that she needed to fix her handwriting because "it wasn't ladylike." Ah, societal-imposed gender roles and norms start so early nowadays. (By the way, she now has her PhD and I'm quite ladylike, so they obviously didn't know what they were talking about.)

In any case, I've been thrilled ever since computers became all the rage. I swear that I had lower grades on things because I wrote messily. "Well, the essay is technically sound, but now I have a headache and it took me three times as long to read as everyone else's. B+." They never told me that, but I know it happened. With typing, no one can tell how shittily I write and think less of me for it. It's marvelous. Still, I do write a fair amount on a day to day basis and need a special decoder ring to read it later. Since the computer revolution though, it's a much less frequent occurrence. Thank you, Bill Gates and Al Gore.

With that, I need to get to my real work. As soon as I decide whether the phone number in front of me ends with a 6 or 0, I'll be in business. Have a great day, friends, and we'll meet back here again tomorrow. Deal? Sweet.

Remember to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything to keep the blog alive.

Assault from battery

Although Sacky Kevin and Sacky Christi only make up 20-25% of my readership, they are amongst my most frequent emailers. They write with possible topics for posts, funny stories, or made up words (see "frumptable") and leave me to use or not use them as I please. Recently, Sacky Kevin wrote in with a possible topic. He wrote, "Every group had that one friend that had 'the car.' Usually it was older, had a funny smell, but it was the car that you and your gang took everywhere - concerts, beach, parties - pretty much everywhere." While no car that I can remember completely fits that description, it reminded me of a car that I should totally write about.

Late in our senior year of high school, Dusty bought an older Jeep Wrangler. This thing was very cool because in a summer full of beach trips and hanging out, we could have the top off, the windows off, and the whole doors off. It only had one problem: starting. I can't count the number of times Dusty and I would start pushing the car before he'd run and jump in to turn the key. Still, it felt very cool to ride in. I once wrote a poem in college about the feeling of riding in it with my close friend and not feeling quote as cool or confident as I potentially looked.

We took that car almost everywhere that summer, and we were out and about a hell of a lot. It was also the summer before college for many of us, so those preparations were simultaneously going on. I knew I was going to UCSB and rooming with my friend Rockabye. We were close in high school but didn't really hang out much outside of it, so we were doing some of that during this same time. He and I once rode our bikes for miles around town in the Valley heat before going back to his parents' house and watching old NBA highlights. Drained from all of the activity, I fell asleep for a little while.

When I woke up, I realized that I should've been on my way home already, so I called my parents. My mom answered, and after I said hello, she asked where I was. I told her, but she seemed very suspicious that I randomly fell asleep at Rockabye's. I explained, but then I became the confused one when she asked, "What the hell happened to your pants?" "Excuse me?" "Your pants. They have a bunch of holes in the butt area like you poked them with scissors," she replied. "I have no idea what you're talking about," I said. "Peter, you have no idea how there are holes in your pants?" "No!" I said, "but I'm coming home right now so you can show me what you're talking about."

When I got home, my mom held up my pants. As she explained, there were numerous little holes in the butt region. And as I had explained, I had no idea how that happened. She was getting more and more incredulous (and I really can't blame her in hindsight) until my dad came in and said, "That looks like you sat in battery acid." Aha! The night before, I had been in the back seat of Dusty's Jeep as we went to Planet Hollywood for our friend Pam's birthday dinner. He had a battery back there the day before and it must've been leaking. It was all starting to make sense.

I talked to my friend Lisa the next day, and she had a similar story to tell. One pair of underwear had disintegrated in the wash, and her favorite pair of jeans was now unwearable. That is, if you consider no ass left and just the seam down the middle unwearable. I do. The closest she had come to a reason was when her mom said it looked like she sat in acid. I told her about Dusty's car battery and cleared things up. "I bet that's what happened to Pam too," she said. "What do you mean?" I asked. As it turns out, Pam had taken the dress she wore out for her birthday back to the Gap because "it suddenly got holes in it." They actually let her exchange it, which gives me new respect for the way they treat their customers.

After weighing all the facts, Lisa's conclusion is that she went somewhere with Dusty shortly after he changed the battery. Her ass sopped up the majority of the acid, thereby causing the most damage. The rest of us got in later and sustained comparatively minor damage. Still, when assless jeans are all the rage, she'll have Dusty to thank.

When I woke up this morning, I didn't foresee myself writing the sentence, "Her ass sopped up the majority of the acid," but then again, the road to blogdom has many twists and turns. Have a great day, gentle readers, and make sure your pants are intact if you're out in public. It could get chilly otherwise.

Got any bizarre clothing mishaps? Send 'em to ptklein@gmail.com and let's have some fun with them.

FUF #13

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes. FUF is all around me, and so my blogging grows. Hello once again, gentle readers, and welcome to the lucky 13th Follow Up Friday. Ooh, almost spoooooky. As always, I'm going to ramble a bit about things I wrote about earlier, things I just feel like telling you, and the newest installment of Mega Live Car Watch 7000 HD.

"Whistle" has a silent T, by the way. I know I already had two words for that letter in my quest for silence, but I feel like I should've thought of that one at the time.

Exciting news - I'm joining a bowling league. I'm as thrilled as thrilled can be, and please don't read any sarcasm into that. I enjoy bowling, did a lot of it growing up and then again in college, and I'm looking forward to regularly getting together with good friends and making some pins fly. We're still working on a team name, and I just suggested "Hip Hop Anonymous" to the group. So far, only one of the other three has replied.

Today I may be getting a new ball. I've had the same one since I was about 14, and it's time for something heavier and something that actually fits my hand. My name is on my current one, and while that's pretty nerdy, I think I want to do that again. Finding a league was tough. I called one place and asked about their leagues, and he directed me to a website. While still on the phone, I typed it in and was immediately struck by the heading at the top of the page: "One of America's Largest Gay Bowling Leagues." I was a little surprised that he directed me there, and had to ask the uncomfortable question: "Uh, do you have any leagues that are...not geared toward the gay population?" "Oh sure," he said, and told me about the other days and times available. What was I putting out there that made him jump to that conclusion? I don't mind people making incorrect assumptions about me, but I would like to know what causes them. In any case, none of the dates and times worked so I had to try another alley.

The next place had one that worked with our schedules, but I was concerned because it was called "Party Animals." Here's why I was concerned: 1. I'm not really a party animal so I don't want this to be a league in which you do body shots off the scorecard girl after every strike. 2. I take bowling seriously, so if others don't, I don't want to be distracted. The gentleman replied that it's just typically a little louder than the other leagues. So we're gonna do it, and I'm excited. I'll let you know more about my new ball when I get it, because I know you're dying to hear about it.

I wrote about my brother and little things he'd do to torment me in yesterday's post. I remembered one other funny thing to share. When "Come Together" by the Beatles came on, Kevin proceeded to sing it as "Dorky Brother...is what...Peter is." One time it was on, and he held a tape recorder to my mouth and grabbed me by the neck. He wanted me to sing it and he wanted it recorded. So I sang but slightly modified it. On the tape, you would now hear: "Dorky Brother...is what...Peter has. Ow, ow! Is, I meant is! Ow, stop it!" He couldn't help but admire my ingenuity under duress, and I could see him trying not to smile as he punished me for my insubordination.

(In all honesty, Kevin and I had way more fun together than turmoil as youths, and we have a great friendship as adults now. The poor guy still apologizes for his behavior almost every time we talk, even though I've told him repeatedly that it's ok. Kevin, it's ok, you can't hurt me anymore. Ok, well you probably can, but that's not the point.)

SUPER HAPPY CAR WATCH ULTRA 9 BILLION!

I was behind a car that had some frame about having triplets. The plate itself read "3AT1NCE." I like it.

I've seen plate frames in the past that say, "I'm not spoiled, just well taken care of." I think those are stupid, and that's what I thought the one in front of me was going to say earlier this week. Instead, it read, "I'm not spoiled, my family just loved me." I have two things to say about this. First, the past tense is a little strange and potentially sad. Second, the subtext I get from the frame is, "If your family doesn't shower you with gifts including a car, they obviously never loved you." I have a tendency to read too much into things, but I don't think I am here.

On the 405 in traffic, I spied a nice little BMW with the plate "SLF M8D." I'm guessing he wanted that to be like "Self Made," but I thought it was suspiciously close to "Self Mated." Sounds like someone took "Go fuck yourself" too literally.

Rockabye wrote in and said that he saw a plate that read "IM BALD." I asked the all-important question, and yes, the driver was bald. Uh, yay? I don't even know what to say here.

Also this week, I saw a bumper sticker that had the name of a winery on it, then below read, "Wine Fit for My Dogs." Help me out here. Unless it's a winery that makes canine wine (which is catchy but probably not the case), it sounds like an insult to me. If so, who advertises their dislike for winery in that fashion? I'm hoping someone else has a thought about this one.

Lastly, Kevin was behind a car that took things a little past a line I'm comfortable with. First, it had a sticker that read, "Missing your cat? Look under my tires!" Then, as if that weren't enough, it had, "Be Kind to Animals. Chew Slowly." Come on now. I can understand vegetarians having stickers about not killing animals because they've made a big choice in their daily lives and feel strongly about it. But who hates all animals and animal lovers enough to put not one but two things like that on his car? The answer: this guy I guess. Maybe he just wants to get a rise out of people, and animal lovers are easy targets.

Ok, that's it for now. Have a wonderful weekend, gentle readers. If you're a mother, enjoy your special day on Sunday. My mom's on the other side of the planet right now, but she'll have a lovely card awaiting her when she gets back. And by "lovely" I mean "Happy Birthday, dude, let's drink some beer." Nothing says Mothers' Day like that. Remember folks, write to ptklein@gmail.com with thoughts, ideas, and observations.

Oddly similar

My friends and I have a lot of nicknames for each other. There's one whole class of names that deserves its own post, but the others usually happen organically. Someone will say something, it'll stick a little, then someone else will use it, and bam - new name. One that never caught on though is when I would call my friend Greg, "Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics." I think it was just a smidge on the wrong side of the catchiness hill.

In any case, that's my lead-in to talking about genetics. A few times throughout my posts and comments, I've referred to the power of genetics. Usually it's been after one or both of my parents posted something strange, leading me to thank/blame them for my oddities. But it doesn't stop there. Even though I've been the "wacky brother" for a while, the purpose of this post is to prove that my brother Kevin is not only in the same tree, but comfortable residing on the same strange branch as me.

Back when we were kids, Kevin and I were typical brothers. We played a lot together, had tons of fun, made up silly games, etc. Naturally, we also fought from time to time. More accurately, he fought with me. I was an angel. He didn't physically hurt me on more than a few occasions, but it was the psychological warfare that helped him achieve his position of power in the siblinghood. Holding a basketball like he was going to throw it at me had the same (or greater) effect as actually throwing it at me, but without any bruises I could show our parents as evidence of his deeds. He was very smart about how he tormented me, and I have a story that perfectly illustrates that.

Kevin started calling me "Dork Boy," most likely because I protested too much the first time he said it. My parents eventually heard him calling me that and told him to stop. So he did; instead he started calling me "D.B." which I disliked just as much. It took them a while to catch on to that one, but they finally did and told him to stop. Here's where the genius lies: Kevin then started mentioning things with the initials "D.B." The four of us would be in the car, and he'd say, "So, the DENVER BRONCOS should be good this year. They have a new DEFENSIVE BACK. I like their DARK BLUE uniforms." They never caught on to this, so he kept going until he tired of it.

I have a feeling that that's exactly how I would've tormented a younger sibling, so I can't help but admire his efforts in retrospect. Now that we're older, I have further proof of our mental similarities. For example, he told me yesterday that he spent the previous night online looking up words with silent letters, hoping to also find one for each letter as I had tried earlier that day. How many others of you did that? Exactly.

But here lies the real proof. Kevin and I had an IM conversation a month ago that I saved, knowing that I might use it for something. Here's what happened: Kevin had posted something in the comments section saying that his favorite letter was E. I responded to that:

Me: Hey, I like your favorite letter. I have to think about what mine is. E is a little too common though for me. I like c's versatility, but it feels odd to me and I like even more. Can't explain that. Maybe it's because it's the 3rd letter. Probably. Weird that that makes a difference to me.

Kevin: E is probably the King of Letters.

Me: A might dispute that

Kevin: No. This is E-Mail, E-Z E, Etc. "A" has what? A-Frame, Grade-A? Weak if you ask me. Of course, Fonzie did say "AAAAAAA" and not "EEEEEE" kind of hard to go against the Fonz.

Me: A is the best grade of everything. Not just school, it's the top of the line. You go eat your Grade E meat and tell me what you think tomorrow

Kevin: A was just grandfathered into the top spot. A Number 1, Grade A, etc. He never had to earn it. E batteries are like 10X the size of an A and much more powerful. In cardboard boxes, E-Flute is the strongest test. Try moving your valuables around in an A-Flute Corrugate box and your shit'll break.

Me: A fought tooth and nail to get to the top. You think it was born there? Oh no, my friend. The lingual scholars of the world decided it should be at the top, and I support their decision. Sure, E batteries are bigger, but A, AA, and AAA are versatile and way more prominent in the average household. What the hell is an E battery anyway? I can picture a D in a flashlight.

Kevin: A is at the top, but not powerful. Kind of like a leadoff hitter or a public face of the alphabet. Clearly the heavy hitters are up next. Class A Baseball is the lowest of the leagues. When Canadians talk about "A?" it is because they are confused. Where did I put my keys A?

Me: When I accidentally call a fax number, it screams "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" at me. No king would do that. E! Network....the king? Right. Ooh, I have a good argument for you: Elvis went by E and he was The King. But the Fonz did say Aaaaaa, so they cancel each other out. Nick from Family Ties said "A E", so maybe he was onto something

Kevin: Then why on Wheel of Fortune do they choose RSTLN & "E". Where the hell is "A"? You are right about The King. Also Burger King is the KING and last time I checked, Burger has an "E" in it and no "A". Words like Title, President, Ruler, Best, Unprecedented, etc. have E and no A. If I said "The Best Ever", that has like 4 E's. Wow, that's imprEssivE. Crap, Fail, Sad, Ass, Barf, Frail, Awful, Ignorant are card carrying members if the A fan club. However Hannibal and B.A. Baracas (?) were in the A-Team.

Me: People choose RSTLN and E because they're common. A king, a ruler must stand out above the crowd. If it were solely based on how popular something is, then American Idol would be the best show on television, Isaac Asimov would be the greatest writer of all time, and Now That's What I Call Music would be better than the Beatles. Go ahead and join your E Team, but Face, Murdoch and I are going to be sitting pretty, chomping on cigars, saving people in need, and counting our money.

And scene. So there you have it folks. Death, taxes, and genetics. There's no use in fighting. Kevin, your days of being the "normal brother" are over, now that 8-10 other people have witnessed the power of your same-strangeness. Gentle readers, have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow for Follow Up Friday. Right now, I'm gonna go dye my hair DIRTY BLONDE and play with DUNG BEETLES inside a DIAPER BAG.