Category: Real Life

Posted in Brain Dump, humor, Real Life

Jody’s Brain on Queso

Posted on by The Jody

Famous for my conversation spirals and related Wikipedia hopping, I present you with a reenactment (not verbatim) of tonight’s post-dinner conversation.

Me: I wish we had cake. Or really just frosting. Frosting is really all you really want. If you had frosting you could put it on bread and just call it cake.

Him: …

Me: I’m sorry but I’m going to be giving you your pink slip. I have to let you go. You’re just not providing the level of service I require in this relationship.

Him: [Briefly glances at me]

Me: You haven’t provided what I need. To do a podcast. This relationship is doomed. [pause] I brought you here tonight so I could let you go in person. I wanted to allow you to buy dinner for me and my son one last time.

Him: You don’t want to keep me around to provide Mexican food?

Me: No. Because I can buy my own chalupas at Taco Bell.

Him: What is a chalupa?

Me: I… don’t know. It’s just a great word for a TacoBell product. Did they make it up? [Opens Wikipedia and reads the history of the chalupa]

Me: They say the one at Taco Bell is more like a Gordita. [Clicks link to read about gorditas.]

Me: Gordita means “chubby” in Spanish. Heh heh heh. ‘Do you have a chubby?’ Heh heh heh

Him: …

Me: I need to learn more Spanish.

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Posted in Brain Dump, Real Life, writing

Hello Co-Workers

Posted on by The Jody

No-filter Jody announced her domain name to her coworkers, new boss, boss’s boss and HIS new boss at a team lunch. Because why not make them all call into question whether or not hiring the person behind The Big DumpTruck was a good idea. (I vote good idea, if anyone is asking me.)

I also promised them I’ll start posting more often, because that is actually on my to do list. Now that my Twitter and FB participation has gone down to a tenth of what it was, I’m going to need an outlet for all the thoughts currently cramping up the alpaca barn that houses my brain.

We’ve all been there before though, haven’t we?

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Posted in humor, Real Life, Shopping, stuff

Wiping

Posted on by The Jody

After the ice storm Saturday I was very aggressive about cleaning off my car. Very aggressive. Sunday, after all the stores had closed, Tom and Michael found a piece of the plastic part of the wiper blade frozen to the hood of my car. The holiday meant I couldn’t replace it and would have to bag out on my only plans for Christmas Day. Boo.

Yesterday I finally was able to get it replaced by the girl working at Auto Zone after I announced to her “I would like whatever is your very best wiper blade” like some kind of blade-needing royalty. (She put it on my car so fast wrote her into my will.)

It was so nice to leave the house! Buy floor cleaner! Have a guy explain how I can install my own replacement floor on top of my current one, which seems like more work than just using floor cleaner!

There are a few things in life that are worth paying any price to have, and both are for wiping: soft 2-ply toilet paper, and wiper blades that can handle New England winter road muck. Splurge and wipe well.

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Posted in Brain Dump, Real Life

Real Christmas

Posted on by The Jody

The thing I, and many others, forget year after year is how rarely Christmas lives up to our expectations or memories. As adults we subconsciously expect Christmas to somehow be as wondrous as it was when we were young children, but that’s pretty unreasonable.

As adults, many work tirelessly to try to hit some picture perfect Christmas experience we think we’re supposed to give our families. Until we scale back our expectations, plans changing, illnesses, or other forces kicking in and controlling the holiday can be devastating.

If the Hallmark channel made realistic Christmas movies, they would mostly be people spending December 25th eating brownies over the sink, avoiding specific family members, or napping. Our best holiday moments may actually happen with friends and family in the weeks leading up to the 25th. THOSE are the holiday moments to treasure. December 25th is just the day you can finally relax because you made it through the season for another year and the pressure is off.

Take pleasure in being off work, watching anything you want, and eating things you might normally avoid. Leave the Christmas lights up until YOU don’t need or want them any more. My tree may come down, but I have candles and twinkle lights in my living room that I’ll light for a few more weeks, because *I* want that.

If you are having a bad or mediocre Christmas: you aren’t alone. And if you had a great one, that’s worth treasuring. Maybe use this as a reminder that any year could be the one where you wonder where things went wrong. If you do some advance planning to account for the expected or unexpected, you can spend December 25th spoiling yourself. And that can make all the difference to surviving the season.

Hugs to one and all. I raise my glass of eggnog to each of you. Excuse me while I finish this brownie.

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Posted in Real Life, Shopping, stuff

Cup Wars

Posted on by The Jody

You know how you can go years without buying a new travel mug, and then then universe decides to introduce space age travel mug technology, so you find yourself buying not one but two new $25 mugs? Me too.

I didn’t set out to buy two. I could hardly justify one. We were at The Paper Store, the local Hallmark-affiliated chain of gift stores, in July because I wanted to look at their scarves. And there was a sign in the window saying it was launch day for the 2017 Hallmark ornaments but we’re going to focus on the scarves, okay?

The Christmas music playing in the store as I looked for a beach-y scarf almost drove me out, but damned if I don’t love the stuff in that store. Really, their buyer is basically my soulmate. So as I spent 15 minutes attempting to make it from the scarf section to the register, a display of travel mugs catches my eye. Keeps drinks cold for 9 hours! Keeps coffee hot for 3! What is this spaceman technology?? The Corkcicle is expensive for a travel mug and I don’t know if I need a new one. But my old one simply doesn’t give me the staying power these promise. Plus, I have a negative amount of self-control.

Later, a woman in an optometry office sold me on the lid of the Yeti travel mug, which is held by a magnet so easy to remove and clean. Done. Sign me up. I hate cleaning the slider part of travel mug lids.

So which one is better?

Interestingly, the Corkcicle kept coffee hotter longer, but the Yeti has a better lid (specifically the one with the magnetic close that you have to purchase separately.) The Yeti had better lid options – I’m not seeing replacement lids for sale for Corkcicle, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t available.

In the end, I kept the Corkcicle (and bought more) and gave the Yeti to my son. It’s still good, it just came in 2nd.

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