"And Though I Like to act the part of being Tough"

Nine days until the SmartyPants and FribsinCharge wedding and this is my last weekend for running around. Goals for this weekend: have my final fitting and pick up my dress, wrap and bag at Kimera in Brooklyn. Probably stop by the Downtown Atlantic next door for giant cupcakes with the MuppetLover and my college roommate, but that is neither here nor there. Purchase a new lipstick, and color my hair. Schedule an eyebrow wax here. Purchase a card to go with the gift. Contemplate writing toast? Nah, that's what the water taxi is for. Extra panty hose! Extra drugs! Can anyone think of anything else I should be doing? Help, please.

I have been looking for a handkerchief to keep in my bouquet at the wedding, because I thought it would be slightly more classy to dab at my eyes with something embroidered with flowers than some soggy paper tissues, but let's face it, when you're standing on an altar and you have boogers running down your face and into into your cleavage, even a silk hankie can't help you play that one off as "classy". Suddenly, I remembered Etsy.com, the place where crafters sell their goods online, so I bought a vintage handkerchief here that has been embroidered with the lyrics of a Yo La Tengo song. And it's pink. Perfect. This woman buys vintage hankies and hand embroiders them with lyrics from rock songs, so if that's something you're in to, check out her shop.

Call me Heike

Josh and LeBrookski have already covered this, so by now you may have heard the story that resumes of applicants with "black-sounding" names are less likely to to produce job interviews that identical resumes with "white-sounding" names. Says who? Says studies. Which studies? Just "studies", okay. (Top notch journalism there, ABC online). Having working for a short time in an independent personnel firm in New York City, I 100% believe this hypothesis, however in our office the code my boss used was that the name was "too ethnic." This routinely led to me telling my boss off, which led to me being fired after four months. Good riddance.

I guess the folks at "20/20" performed their own little experiment and put together a list of the Top 20 Most Black and White Sounding Names (whatever that means) for men and women. The names were taken from the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. See the ABC Article here for the lists.

So, what's in a name, that by which a rose by any other, blah blah blah? I'll tell you what: your whole professional future. Seeing as how I am trying to advance within my compay, I thought I might take a look at our internal phone directory and consider changing my name to smooth my way to the top. Here are the results of Cupcake's informal survery.

Top 10 names for Women to Get Ahead at my Job:

Cornelia
Elke
Birgit
Gisela
Sandra
Petra
Michaela
Sabine
Anna
Susanne

Top 10 Names for Men:

Christian
Martin
Jürgen
Claus
Michael
Andreas
Thomas
Stefan
Gerhard
Jörg

Of course, the ones with the best names only make the list once, like Jöachim, Elvira, Wolfgang, Guido, Hayo, Tasilo, Volker, Seigfried, and so on. But the names in between are pure gold. Trust me. Okay, so pick out a new name for Cupcake and let's get crackin'. Career advancement is calling.

It's also time for my friends to hit you up for money.

These are the Oompa Loompa Extras from the German remake of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In the German version, instead of having a fat child named Augustus who gets stuck in a vacuum tube, an American anorexic girl falls into the river and jams the rudder during that creepy paddle boat scene. Her father is an American corporal searching the chocolate factory for WMDs because he misheard Willie Wonka describing the Everlasting Gobstopper as a "weapon of mass-deliciousness."
This is the traditional dress from the Black Forest region of Germany. The women are wearing their ball hats. You can distinguish the woman's marital status by observing her hat. I believe each ball stands for one sexual partner.
When the Bochum coal miners play each other in a handball scrimmage, instead of rolling with shirts and skins, these guys play white feathers vs. red feathers. It's better for everyone that way.

Also, KateBklyn is walking against against Breast Cancer. She needs your support and your dollars. Click here to give.

It's Tuesday and that means Lederhosen

Here are some photos taken two weeks ago at the 49th Steuben Day Parade, a German-American Festival in New York that attracts folk groups from Germany as well as the Tri-State area and beyond. I suppose I could cook up some captions, but I think these photos alone quite nicely.

Underwire Non Grata

It's everyday of my life, with one exception. It's officially Fall and that means that the Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back at Starbucks. All last week I had only one simple goal, to be running on time to work so that I could stop into the green straw oasis and pick up one of these caffeinated hot pumpkin pies in a Java Jacket. But this is my life we're talking about, not some fairy tale. So I get to the office 5 to 20 minutes late, depending on your point of view, and pour myself a cup of the office joe which it's my job to brew in the first place. I raise the mug with the company logo to my lips, but it is not meant to be. The phone is ringing. The copier is jammed. The printer is out of toner and due the the UN-related blockade of Midtown none of my office suppy deliveries can get through. Someone can't find her Blackberry and she thinks it was stolen but she doesn't want to report it because she's afraid suspicion will fall on the cleaning woman. Someones spell-check is not working in his email application and he's upset because as a result he's sent out some rather embarrassing emails to the Board.

So I do a few laps around the office in my wireless headset, wave my magic wand and perform the bizarre ballet that has become my professional life. By the time I get back to my desk, it is a stone cold cup of coffee I am facing and I swear the non-dairy creamer has floated to the top and is swirling into the shape of a vise. And then, just then, I feel a stab in my side. I shift positions, raise my shoulders up and down. Still, there is an uncomfortable jabbing.

Is there any more cruel betrayal than removing yourself to the stall in the ladies' room, stretching out the neck band of your shirt, peering into the abyss and finding that the underwire has worked its way out of the lining in your favorite bra (the black one with the cherries) and is now, poke-poke-poking you like a little brother on a long car trip? I try to pop the underwire back in, a move that I will be discreetly attempting every five minutes for the rest of the day, wherever she takes me, which that night includes Koreatown and Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. Then I return to the office, dump out the coffee and try to start all over again.

Cherry Bra, you are dead to me.

Why don't you take accountability for me replacing the cream in your coffee with White-Out?

A colleague was standing at my desk today and we were discussing a retail project that had come across his desk. The project had one of those names, which I won't repeat here for fear that some overeager paralegal with nothing better to do than hit "next blog" on blogspot will bitchslap me with a lawsuit, the project had one of those names that you could tell had been market-researched and focus-grouped within an inch of its life to convey a fun, family shopping environment.

"Doesn't this sound like a fun place to shop?" asked my co-worker insincerely.

"Yeah," I said. "What happened? Happy Sexy Fun Mall was already trademarked?"

"Actually," he said, "this is a really nice place. I think you'd like it."

"I don't know," I said skeptically. "We're talking about a shopping mall in Florida and you think I'd really like it?"

"Well, it's really geared to your demographic. There's a skate park and..."

I spluttered and nearly choked on my Poland Spring Sparkling Water. "What? What? A skate boarding park??"

"Yeah."

"That is not my demographic!!"

"Sure it is. Those guys on Jackass are your age."

"What? Jackass? That is not my demographic!!"

"Come on. Take some accountability for your generation."

I was trying not to scream. My colleague was struggling to get a jumbo binder clip around a 300 page appraisal. "Why don't you take some accountability for that!" I yelled, pointing at his piss-poor job of document collation. As he turned and walked away from me I shook my fist, "I read books," I whimpered. "I read books..."

An Homage

The Shirt Tales 1982 - 1983
The only television series I can think of that was based on a line of Hallmark Greeting Cards. I have thought about this series often over the years, no one seems to remember it.

Why did I love this show besides the fact that Ethan Ball once came to one of our Halloween Parties dressed up as Rick Raccoon? Do I even need to count the ways? First of all, before Kip Kangaroo was added in season two, Pammy Panda lived alone with all those dudes in the Oak Tree. And that's hot. Second of all, they solved mysteries from their Batman-style lair hidden in the tree. Thirdly, they had a flying car that could also turn into a submarine or helicopter. Number four, the blinking pink mushroom that signaled an incoming message was rather phallic (children pick up on these things, oh yes they do). Number five, the Bogart-esqe Orangutan who called everyone "Sweetheart" and planted fat, wet kisses on them. Number six, Digger the Mole, the screw-up. Number seven, their internal thoughts and emotions were externalized on their shirts! Number eight, they were kind to each other and lived a kind of communal, family like existence within their clearly defined roles/stereotypes not unlike my current circle of friends in Brooklyn on any given Saturday night, which makes me wonder why we don't tackle more crime fighting ourselves. .

Read All About It

Today my Boss was standing at my desk discussing a request for information that he asked me to return to the sender because no one in my office could identify the transaction. Then he tossed it at me with a little too much force and it landed rather condescendingly in my lap.

"I'm sorry,' he said.

"That's okay," I said. "I'm going to write all about it in my tell-all book. 'And then the boss threw it back at me and told me to send it back...'"

"I have a witness!" he said, pointing to Der Man who likes to permanently install himself on the left hand corner of my desk for his morning coffee break. "It slid across the highly polished surface of the desk!"

"It's all about spin."

"Wait a minute, is this the book about how to knit and crochet?"

"The real dirt is going to be in the footnotes. Footnotes are very big right now."

"That sounds like a very mean craft book."

Hummerparty*

I just recently learned that the German word for 'lobster' is "der Hummer". That means that insofar as you can explain the concept of a lobster bake to a bunch of Germans, the word for that is "Hummerparty". I'll pause here so you can insert your own joke. Okay, ready?

I didn't grow up eating lobster, because that was too bougeois for my Guido family. In fact, I don't know if my mother ever ate lobster. I would guess not. I was in college the first time I ate lobster, despite how prevalent this ugly crustacean bastard is in the Ocean State. I found the experience to be rather ... emotionally draining. Typically you first encounter the lobster when he is still alive. Then the next time you see him, he is a healthy red color, but he is dead and on your plate. And his head is still on, including his eyes. This is something I could really do without, God help me, Michael Pollan, who, if there is any justice in this world, would take me out behind the woodshed and put a bullet between my eyes. But being at the top of the food chain has its perks and I give thanks for that every morning.

In addition to staring into the lifeless eyes of your dinner, you've got to work it girl, if you want to get at that sweet, sweet, meat. Grab your nut crackers, pincers, forceps, etc..., crack the exoskeleton, poke around the gonads, put thinks in your mouth, suck on them and spit them out again. Why do we do this? Because lobster is delicious. But you know what else is delicious? Lobster ravioli, lobster tacos, fancy lobster fusion amuse-bouches when the company credit card is picking up the tab, and these items don't require me to take a Valium before hand to get through the ordeal. But on our big "Rhode Trip" the Germans wanted some good Rhode Island seafood, and specifically Der Man wanted to try lobster, which he'd never tasted before. I was in such a festive mood I ordered Baked Stuffed Lobster which arrived plus bread crumbs and minus the the head, so it suited me well.

German attacks lobster. Later opened up second front on corn on the cob and potato salad. Surrender followed soon after.

Der Man confessed to me that he was afraid he'd go to a business lunch where they served lobster and he wouldn't know how to eat it and he'd make a fool of himself. I told him that probably would not happen in New York since observant Jews do not eat shellfish and in a business luncheon setting, they would probably serve something that everyone can eat. The Germans looked at me like I was making this up. And now, for some frosting to celebrate these Rhode Island posts: Rhode Island is Famous for You. (Thanks Beta, for reminding me this mp3 is online)


*Language lesson or shameless ploy to improve traffic? You decide.

Das Biberende

My home state is very beautiful. Sometimes I forget this, because these days when I go home, I usually end up sitting on my father's couch watching HiDef TV.

High definition real life is better.

Here the Germans are contemplating the breath-taking majesty of the ocean. They agreed that the only thing that could make the sight more awesome is that if the ocean were actually made of beer. Later that night they patiently explained to my father over dinner that Belgian beer is shit and the only beer worth drinking is German beer. My father turned to me and asked where I found these guys. "They just showed up at my office one day and followed me home," I said. "And the amazing thing is that there is a whole nation more where they came from."

Don't Harsh My Buzz, Wiki

The Daily How-To on my Google Homepage today was "How to Dissuade Yourself From Becoming a Blogger" published by WikiHow. Here are some excerpts from the article:

Find five completely random blogs, and read them daily for a month. After thirty
days, you will absolutely dread your self-imposed requirement to read all that
dreck. Any blog you create will most likely be on par with what you've been
reading. Don't put anyone through that.

Consider that your voice, even if it is truly a good one, is a tiny peep
against the massive wave of tripe out there. The odds of anyone you don't
already know finding your blog are low.

Instead of writing about pretty much nothing, or whining about all the
things you wish you were doing instead, start doing something that'd actually be
worth writing about. And if it's really worth writing about, you'll be having
too much fun doing it to tear yourself away from it.

If attention and validation are what you're looking for, know that you will
get neither from blogging. As above, very few people will ever know that
your blog (or you, by proxy) exists. The remainder of comments posted to
your blog will be sappy treacle, which you won't trust as being sincere
anyway.

Nothing further to add except this quote from Dan Tobin, "and yet..."

Back When Julia Roberts Was Portugese

So, for the Labor Day weekend I had planned on going home to Rhode Island to see my pop and I invited this dynamic duo of my German colleagues to come with, because sometimes living in the city gets us all down and organizing their own road trip was not gonna happen for these guys. We rented a car and with me behind the wheel of a fawn beige Chevy Impala (and sitting about three inches away so I could actually reach the gas and brake pedals) we set out for the Ocean State. I had to explain twice that Chevy was my abbreviation for Chevrolet. Mercifully no one asked me what an "impala" is. It's a deer, right? Am I right? Der Man was bummed that I had printed directions from Mapquest, so he didn't get to navigate using the Road Atlas the Jaegermeister had brought along. All through the drive they passed the Atlas back and forth. Germans love to look at maps.

Anticipating lots of holiday weekend traffic, our plan was to stop in Mystic, CT for lunch. I had spent some time looking up good restaurants in town on Chowhound. I would have been game for a trip to Mystic Pizza if the guys would have had any idea what I was talking about. However, once we got to town, the guys were interested in actually visiting the historic seaport despite the $17.50 entrance price. I had taken a school field trip to Mystic Seaport in the 7th grade and so figured that had fulfilled my lifetime obligation on that front, but in we went.

The weather was very overcast, and the historical park was largely quiet and peaceful leaving us to climb around on big old ships and for me to explain clamming and the anatomy of lobster traps. As we were standing on the deck of an old whaling ship, Der Man said to me, "Oh, so America really does have history." It's kinda cute once you get beyond the impulse to punch him in the face. Europeans think that everything in this country is 200 years old or younger, sometimes you have to set them straight.

The photo above is an ingenious set-up framed to give you an example of German irony. See, we all work at a bank in New York. And there we are standing in front of the old Mystic Bank. Hold for laughs. I just said Germans had a sense of humor, I didn't say it was a very good one. We ended up eating at the snack bar to get out of the drizzle, but I promised to take them out for a real sea food dinner when we got to Rhode Island.

These Shoes Were Made for Hitchin'

This post is dedicated to PatriotDave who waited until he was nice and soused to send me an email telling me exactly what he thought about the new direction of this blog and to specifically ask for more posts about Germans and weddings.

No, this post is dedicated to PatriotDave because I bought the above shoes at the Labor Day weekend sale at Macy's on 34th Street and have glimpsed into the abyss of what it might be like to work in retail on a busy holiday weekend. On the fifth floor in ladie's shoes, shoes were everywhere, like an improvised explosive had recently been detonated to strike terror into the hearts of civilians. There were. Shoes. Everywhere. And ladies clutching shoes and harumping spilling into every aisle and onto every flat surface. And yet, there was only one shoe assistant in circulation it seemed. This beleagured young man was sashaying back and forth to fetch boots for a pretty young white woman who was putting him through his paces while the rest of us practically climbed over each other to try to get his attention, including, most notably, by sticking a leg out to trip him.

Finally I got his attention and he agreed to bring me shoes in two sizes but I had to move to the Nine West section, where I took a seat in a chair that had been ripped up and the stuffing was coming out of it. In Macy's for Godssakes! Whether the assault on the furniture happened prior to the holiday weekend, I could not say, but clearly I had left the green zone. The woman sitting across from me starting talking to me, as is my luck despite the fact that I rarely want to talk with anyone. She asked me to watch her bag while she paraded around in some end of season rhinestone bedecked wedges because a woman had told her that someone had stolen her teenage daughter's sneakers while the girl was trying on shoes. Thomas Hobbes was right about man in the natural state and the department store shoe sale is as close to conditions in the natural state as modern man has been able to simulate. That is a pretty freaking low trick, if only because it then forces you to buy something at the Macy's shoe sale because at that point, your other option is to limp out of the store bareboot, and if you've ever seen the non-Thanksgiving Day Parade version of Herald Square you know that is not an savory choice.

Actually, this post is dedicated to SmartyPants because these are the shoes I bought to wear in her wedding and I wanted to show them to her. After about 10 minutes in the conditions mentioned above I was starting to lose my mind, but rather than pull an about face, I stuck it out because I saw these lovlies which looked like they would match my dress and naturally I had a fabric swatch in my purse, because that is how the Ultimate Maid of Honor rolls. The color is perfect, the style is something that can be worn again, and the heel is a comfortable height for me, so although the toe is rather comically pointy, I felt the coupon buring a hole in my pocket and saw in my mind that I could cross one more thing off my wedding to-do list. And it was all worth it, because I got a killer discount on the shoes, right? Well, this pair was not on sale, of course. But I did have my 15% off store wide coupon (10% on shoes) so I was surprised when I ended up sliding my Macy's card through and paying full price. "What about my coupon?" I asked the girl.

"Oh," she said, pointing out the fine print. "The coupon is not valid on designer shoes."

Well bend me over, Anne Klein, I didn't realize I was being limited to undesigned shoes. Of course, I don't know how you make a pair of shoes without designing them. I guess you squirt a big puddle of Elmer's glue out, and then close your eyes and drop cut-out shapes of leather into the glue and whatever sticks together, there's your shoe! Nicely played, Macy's! Whatever, I've got shoes and that means I'm one step closed to getting the happy couple hitched.

Next up: photos of Germans in Rhode Island. It's your lucky day, Dave!

Cupcake Implores You

Dear cupcakes,

If you see a tinted zit cream and think, 'my what a convienient product, this will shoot my skin full of zit poison while camoflauging the manoeuver under a subtle cosmetic!" I implore you not to make this purchase unless your natural skin tone happens to be "fake tan orange" or you are starring in an upcoming remake of Planet of the Apes. Trust me on this one.

Friday evening I got back Brooklyn and I didn't have much time to shower and change up before I had to go back to Manhattan and meet friends for drinks. First of all, this is a bad set up. If you've managed to leave Manhattan on a Friday night and make it to the sane confines of Brooklyn where all the cool kids life, it takes every fiber of your being to turn around and get back on the train. It's like in Field of Dreams when the doctor steps of the baseball diamond to save the little girl choking on a hot dog, even though he knows he can't return. So I was in a frazzled and emotionally taut state of mind when I saw the zit cream in Duane Reade that looked like it had the answer to all of my problems. I ran home and jumped in the shower being careful not to sit down because then all momentum would have truly been lost.

Stepping out freshly scrubbed and renewed I opened the little tube and with zero thought smeared it all over my "affected areas" which this week is the entire lower third of my face (what you might call my snout, Dr. Zaius). In ten seconds I was orange. Damn dirty ape orange. So instead of having a few hormone swollen red spots on my face I looked a 16-year old before Prom night who had gone a little crazy with the self-tanner. With the clock ticking and my will buckling, there was only one thing to do: powder, powder, powder and pray that I wouldn't like like a drag queen in the low lighting.

Remember, "one size fits most" might work for baseball caps, but probably not for anything that's suposed to match your skin tone. Learn from my mistakes.

Wurstkoffer

Please click on this post just to see the picture of the "Sausage Case". Another totally incoherent masterpiece, Brooks.

Try This for Fun

Here's something to do for fun if you have a lot of spare time on your hands:

Move to New York City. Wait a couple of years. Turn on the television. Watch an episode of Friends. Hilarious! If you're not nodding your head with a knowing smirk, I can guarantee you are not a person in your 20s living in the city. Of course, even before I moved to the Big Apple (or Satan's Playground, to use my father's charming nickname for it), this show seemed a bit unrealistic, and I don't care how many times you mention the lease on the apartment is in Nana's name. However, watching a few episodes of the show last night while I was babysitting and keeping in mind that I was supposed to be seeing a depiction of life in contemporary New York City was downright laughable.

Obviously, every sitcom is a fairy tale in some way, that's where the entertainment factor comes in and I'm not going to sit here and deconstruct Friends because I've got better things to do like sit here and bite the heads off my Animal Crackers- you're next, llama! But this puts me in mind of something that happened this weekend. I took the Germans to Rhode Island for a visit and we were touring one of the turn of the century mansions that served as summer cottages to the robber barons of yore that Newport is famous for. We were visiting The Breakers, home of the Vanderbilt's of railroad and shipping fortune. We were standing in Mr. Vanderbilt's bathroom, which is probably puny by today's McMansion standards and I turned to Thomas and said, "This bathroom is larger than my apartment back in Brooklyn." He laughed. "I'm serious," I said.

"I know," he said, "that's why I'm laughing." I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour...

So then I thought of something else that might be good for a laugh: download the instrumental music they use to underscore every episode of Friends and play it in the background of your everyday New York life and see if it makes things more wacky and entertaining. Here's a scene that is a composite from my yesterday morning and evening commute. Let's throw in a few Friends characters and see if it is nonthreatenly funny enough to warrant a MasterCard sponsorship:

You are wedged into an overcrowded subway car with a giant unwashed man speaking in a little voice. It takes about about 30 seconds for him to switch to grunting like a pig and you realize you are basically nose to armpit with a raving schizophrenic. For no reason, the train stops for 10 long minutes between 7th Avenue and Atlantic Avenue. The only announcement from the MTA is that there is a train up ahead of you. No shit, Sherlock, this is the New York City subway. There is always a train up ahead of you. All of the passengers are trying desperately not to make eye contact with the one who is having a major break from reality, yet they can't force themselves to turn away. Suddenly, Phoebe begins channeling the voice of her dead grandmother who tells the poor bastard to sit down and be quiet and clip his toenails when he has a minute. Joey turns to a fourteen year old girl whose breasts are enlarged because she is five months pregnant. Looking her up and down he says, "How you doin'?" A Silly-Putty faced Ross yells out of nowhere "WE WERE ON A BREAK!" leading the train to conclude that this effete man with Tourette's Syndrome is probably a friend of the guy who touched of all this chaos in the first place. cue music: do-do-do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do slow dissolve

The Long Dump Goodbye

First of all, when did I change the colors on this blog? Was I high? This looks awful. I want the pink back. I guess when I have a moment, I should figure out how to do that.

Secondly, a most excellent blog called it quits yesterday, The Daily Dump. Now, I don't want to be held responsible for this in any way but I have noticed that ever since I went on "hiatus" a lot of bloggers have been throwing the towel in. I understand that the temptation is great. The blog giveth and the blog taketh away until one day the blog has taken over your life. However I am truly sad to see this one go. My one note to Dan is that if you are abandoning the blog to try to clamp down on your focus and get some "real" work done, forget it pal. You might as well download Snood and set up a MySpace account now. Real work ain't gonna happen.

But let us now pay hommage to this most excellent blog with a sampling of some posts that are truly fit to bear the name "dump". Try it. You will laugh until you cry.

My Standard Three Day Late Take on Important News

Know What's Really Jerky? Being an Old Jerk.

McDonald's Has Trouble Expressing Itself

Now I Can Never Return to Century 21

Cool Runnings and other puns for another post about my Refridgerator

Top Five Game Shows of my Youth: #2 (All are worth Reading)