Mad Merry Maudlin

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Apparently in Göteborg this week there is some sort of massive tween soccer tournament with people from aaall over the world.
Believe it or not, there are apparently thousands of kid soccer players right here in the US -- and all of them were on my flight to Sweden.
It wasn't too bad at first; I did have to keep dodging flying soccer balls and listening to shrill shrieks of laughter, but I could deal with that.
What I found harder to put up with was the scene in the Stockholm airport when a good two dozen of said tweens ran into a group of their Finnish competitors, also on their way to the tournament.
"So, are you guys, like, Finnish?"
The Finnish kids just stared.
"ARE. YOU. FINNISH?" Because obviously, asking louder and slower helps, in situtations where the person you're talking to doesn't speak your language.
It progressed to the girls getting right up in the faces of the other team and, gesturing wildly, asking questions like "Do you speak Finiac? You know? Like Finnish people? FINIAC?"
Oh, girls.
This is why other countries hate you.
(I, of course, hate you because you hit me in the head with a soccer ball -- that's an entirely different matter.)

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OMFG SWEDEN HERE I COME!!!!!1

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My road opens out onto a fairly large, fast-moving street, where cars tend to say, "Speed limit? Ha! I laugh in the face of speed limits!" and then proceed to run over old ladies walking home from the grocery store.
As such, there are almost always cops lurking at least *somewhere* in the vicinity of my house.
So there I was, stopped at the stop sign before turning onto said large, fast-moving street, when I thought to myself, Self, what's that green thing?
The Green Thing turned out to be a Mountain Dew bottle, and when I craned my neck I could see the Mountain Dew bottle was sitting next to a police officer, who had wedged himself behind a tree and was pointing a radar gun out through the branches towards the street.
Well that's silly, because it's hard to chase people if you're stuck in a tree... oh wait...
Because *behind* the trees, seriously thirty feet off the road and completely hidden if you weren't parked for ten minutes at a stop sign gazing fixedly across the street (the way some of us may have been) were three cops on motorcycles, obviously poised to LEAP out onto the street and pull over anyone their tree-climbing buddy clocked speeding.
Doesn't that seem a little... elaborate?
I mean, most of the time I don't see speed traps until I'm right on top of them anyway, even if the cop is in a car.
The only thing I can think is that they were bored, so they set up this sort of crazed speed trap subterfuge.
It sort of made me want to peel out onto the street just to see what would happen.
But only sort of.

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Mom and Dad - well, Mom especially - have been a little worried about taking care of my pets while I'm gone.
No, not my pets. My goldfish.
Apparently they think, for some reason, that I have high-maintenance fish?
Silly parents.
I told them it’s totally not that hard.
They just have to be careful not to suck up any of my shrimp or accidentally siphon out any of the fishes’ eyes or let any of the non-native plants escape into the city water system when they’re cleaning, and that Bette Davis can’t find her food most days because she’s not really genetically equipped to hunt, so they’ll have to probably pick up and drop her gel food (which I've sliced and left in the freezer) a couple of times on her head so she can get some bites of it, while also being sure to keep her gigantic shrimp at bay, because they've got arms like steam shovels and will scavenge everything up before she even gets a nibble, and that if Angst gets weird white bumps on his head they just need to gently pick him up out of the water and dab hydrogen peroxide on the bumps with a dry Q-tip, and that Sirius always has blood in his eyes but if it looks like it’s really pooling they might want to adjust the temperature in the tank by taking out a couple gallons and adding a few new cold ones, and that if Chester starts leaking pus from his cyst again they just need to add the pre-dosed sulfa medicine I’ll leave out for them, and that the tank is salted to 0.3% right now so if they could be sure to add three teaspoons aquarium salt per gallon that they remove when they're changing the water, that would be perfect, unless they decide to drop to 0.1% instead, and and and and and....
Like I said.
Total breeze.

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Bee called my mother the other day to let her know that, while out doing obligatory Fourth of July Celebratory Stuff, she... went canoeing.
This won't seem like a big thing to most of you, I imagine, but you have to understand -- Bee has never (never) even volunteered to go canoeing, let along actually had fun. It inevitably ends in disaster.
The last time we managed to coerce her out onto the water, for example, she and I were paddling along inefficiently and with great difficulty, when we noticed that the bottom of the canoe was filled with leeches, forcing us to flail and shriek wildly, meaning that we lost control of the boat and ran aground, unfortunately directly into a giant bush that contained a spider nest the size of a microwave which, when the front of the canoe bumped up against it, burst, sending thousands of tiny baby spiders surging in all directions, including directly on top of Bee, who coincidentally enough suffers from the worst case of arachnophobia I have ever known, and as such became hysterical and threw herself overboard, which was unfortunate because as soon as she hit the water she remembered the leeches....
Anyway, suffice to say canoeing is always a nightmare in our family.
So we should all applaud her courage.

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I went with the Girls downtown yesterday to participate in a massive water balloon fight, which is obviously the way one should celebrate our nation's independence. It was an only slightly bizarre experience -- like Hamburger Hill meets MTV Spring Break.
I was ducking and weaving like a pro, and trying to absorb the balloons with my chest and then fling them back, unbroken, towards the other side, and basically rocking out.
And then I got hit directly in the eye.
I suppose it was with a balloon, but it felt more like a grenade.
A grenade of pain.
So I fell back to the rear of the battlefield, which is where the rest of the Girls were hiding out (cowards!), and had to casually request assistance in bandaging my cornea.
Sigh.
But don't worry! My sacrifice was not in vain! We totally won!!

---

Oh my word, Faithful!Readers.
Cath just send me this clip of Buffy slaying Edward, and it is so full of gloriousness I can hardly tear my eyes away.
Plus, it really brings home how utterly creepy Edward is.
And no, sorry tweens. It's not creepy is an omg super romantic brooding!!!1 way.
It's creepy like evil.

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I went to the bookstore this afternoon with Roomie!Ann, Lizzie and LB, both because I do love me some bookstores, and also because I'm desperately in need of some books to take with me on my flight to Sweden.
I hate taking my own, because then the covers might get bent. But if I buy used ones specifically for the purpose of traveling, then I don't cry so hard when they get injured.
It was harder than expected, though, shopping for exactly the right ones to bring. My biggest problem is that the majority of books I read are trashy fantasy/sci-fi novels. And lord, but do they know how to have embarrassing covers.
I mean, seriously?
I cannot be seen reading this.
Or this one, or this, or, you know, this.
Erik the Swede's parents will think I'm insane.
I understand your reasoning, sci-fi cover artists. It's probably way easier to copy the Bat out of Hell album cover and throw in some half-naked women and a wizard, than to actually come up with your own designs. But please! Have some pity on your readers! Especially your female ones! Some of us like to read in public without people edging nervously away from us!!

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Cath and Holly and I decided to be super cultured people this evening, and go to the opera.
Ahaha, no, just kidding, we decided to go see Wolverine, which epitomizes classiness like nothing else.
Why, between watching Hugh Jackman crash naked out of an ooze-filled chamber, watching Hugh Jackman leap naked off a waterfall, and watching Hugh Jackman bound naked over a fence and then hide naked in a barn, there was so much class we could hardly stand it.
Having Taylor Kitsch, Ryan Reynolds, and Liev Schreiber running around looking hot didn't hurt, either.
The prevalent mutant power of the film was quite obviously Being Sexy.
The movie itself, obviously, sucked, but not nearly as much as anticipated.
It helped to not think too hard about any given plot point (Really? You can use hydrochlorothiazide to make it look like you're dead?), and instead to dwell on the aforementioned Sexy.

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We were so busy at work, friends, it was sort of ludicrous.
*Everybody* was having a crisis, none of our clients were happy, none of our contractors were available, etc etc etc.
I was about an inch away from losing my mind the entire day.
Finally my boss wandered over and showered both LB and myself with Dove chocolates.
Mmmm, chocolate.
So I open it up, and there on the inside of the wrapper it says "Give of yourself to someone who needs you."
You know what, stupid chocolate?
No. No I don't think I will.
And you can't make me.

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Aah! Michael Jackson can't be dead! Someone other than TMZ, confirm this for me!!

--- Edit 9:55pm ---

Aw. Well, damn. Poor Jacko.
I mean, yes, his face terrified me and he named his children regrettable things and slept in a hyperbaric chamber and I'm still not completely convinced he was "just friends" with all those kids who visited Neverland Ranch, but... it's Michael Jackson!
On the upside, he's now free to return from the dead and rock the hell out the way he used to.

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I spent the majority of today proofreading endless pages of a new study that just came in to the Paper Printing Place.
So there I am, skimming along, noting absent commas and misuse of hyphens, when a phrase pops out at me:
"Individual must not have known allergies to mammalian cell-derived medication (ie Syrian hamster ovaries)."
Um.
I beg your pardon!?
I have to say, if I'm ever suffering from something relatively minor and the only cure is to pop hamster ovaries like they're delicious hors d'oeuvres (presumably served on a toothpick along with a tiny pickled onion), I think I'd rather suffer.
Now if they were gerbil ovaries....
Also, OMG Jon and Kate Plus 8 whyyy?! You can't go on hiatus! Or off the air!
Don't you know you're supposed to stay together for the kids!?
And for me!?
As I'm ranting, Mom has wandered over to mention that she heard Kate announced they've been living apart for two years.
Why, you lying *cow*! I can't believe I bought your ridiculous book....

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I was emailing back and forth with one of my Egyptian translators at work today, sending documents and POs and that sort of thing, and he adds at the end of one message "Congrats on the football game!"
Football game... fooootball game....
Luckily I have enough knowledge of sports and whatnot to know that the rest of the world calls "soccer" "football," which is obviously incorrect, but whatever. Silly rest of the world.
"Oh yeah!" I type, frantically Googling July 21st Soccer Match US. "Wasn't that game a shocker!? To be fair, both of Egypt’s best strikers were missing, so that probably helped us out...."
He writes back, super excited, "Really it was such a big shock! You analyzed the situation very well. Our coach was planning to win the match with his minimum team force to rest the better strikers... bad strategy."
I commiserate: "Well what can you do!? Plus, Egypt was out celebrating after the match with Italy, which I imagine also slowed the team down. ;)"
LB, looking across at my computer, cannot believe I am making up soccer knowledge.
Blahaha. Am so awesome.
Fear my powers of bluffing.

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Baby!Bro was doing gopher work this afternoon for the university department where he works, signing tiny children up for a swim class.
A woman approached him, clutching a handful of papers and dragging a little nine-year-old by the hand.
Baby!Bro goes through the forms she hands him, and notices that she's missing the physical form that is required before kids can participate in the program.
So being the polite young man he is, he says "Ma'am, you've got all the right forms here except for the one about the physical."
She leans forward, a crazy gleam in her eye. "No, no, these were all the forms I was given."
Baby!Bro remains calm. "That's fine, we are going to have a doctor here tomorrow and we can do the physical right here at the pool. Not having the form today won't keep her from being in the program."
The gleam turns from crazy to crazy and angry. "But I never received that form!!"
At this point, Baby!Bro makes a tactical error, considering who he's dealing with. He gestures towards her fist full o' papers. "Maybe I could look through all those papers you have there? It's a pretty generic form so you might just have missed it in the midst of everything."
"You stupid C*NT!" shrieks the woman, directly in Baby!Bro's face, and then she turns around and drags her child out of the building, throwing over her shoulder that "If my daughter gets hurt while she's here I don't want you touching her."
As he's standing there, blinking, the next woman in line leans forward and tells him that "It's maybe too late to say this, but if my son gets hurt while he's here this week, you can definitely help him."
The next next woman in line nods, and adds, "Don't feel bad. She's a real b!tch."
Poor Baby!Bro. The drama never ends.

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I was visited at the Paper Printing Place today by a federal agent, who was conducting a background check on Miguel.
I don't know if I'm a good or a bad person, friends, to be a character witness, because while I am all gung-ho and talking about how awesome you are, I also have trouble remembering important names and dates and places and timelines that are related to you, at least without prompting.
It's not that I *forget* stuff. If something cues a memory, I can immediately be like, "Oh, yeah! He worked at [insert name of restaurant here] for [this year] and [that year] and this one time, [insert humorous anecdote here]."
But without prompting, I'm stuck with, "Um... he was a waiter... I think?"
Fail, Monica. Fail.
I also appeared to have trouble grasping the point of his questions.
It was very

Agent Man: So, is Miguel involved in any clubs?
Me: Well, I know he did a lot of martial arts stuff! Tai chi, that sort of thing! He was really good at it and --
Agent Man: Ma'am, I'm wondering more if he's a member of any subversive groups. Is he a participant in the Ku Klux Klan, part of any anarchist organizations...?
Me: What? Oh, God no! Definitely no!

and

Agent Man: When Miguel was studying overseas, did he ever tell you of any contacts he was making there?
Me: Oh, sure, he'd write all the time about cool Australian tourists he'd meet in bars, and --
Agent Man: Ma'am, I'm wondering more if he could have come in contact with individuals who might coerce him into breaking his oath to the United States Marine Corps and to his country?
Me: No! How could -- no! Really, no!

So at least I got those ones right eventually.
Probably because there were no dates or places involved!
Huzzah!

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I went and hung out with my Grandma today, to gossip and discuss my cousin's fiancee's upcoming bridal shower, and that sort of thing.
We also ended up reading a couple of poems out of a very 1950s-era-illustrated poetry book, where all the women had waists the size of a can of soup -- my favorite was one about a king who wanted butter on his toast, but the cow was all, "Dude, it's four in the morning. Eat something else." So the milkmaid and the queen kept telling the king that
Marmalade is tasty when it's very thickly spread!
The king immediately burst into hysterical tears and pitches a huge fit, causing all the womenfolk to go "There, there" and the cow, guiltily, gives him both butter and milk (for his "porriger"), and he ends up sliding down the banister cheering at his own awesomeness and proclaiming that
Nobody, my darling, could call me a fussy man, but I do like a little bit of butter for my bread!
The king sounds like a jerk.
I'm not sure these are the kids of anti-aristocracy poems we ought to be implanting in our children's heads....
Grandma also, before I left, gave me a very large sum of money to spend on something fun when I'm in Sweden.
Under the condition that I didn't have sex while I was over there.
Sorry, Erik the Swede.
"GRANDMA!" I gasped, horrified.
Because... it's my grandma! She can't say the "s"-word!!
Mom and Cath both think it would be hysterical to come back from my trip and write her a check for the amount, plus a little extra. Very much "Here, Grandma. I feel like I owe you money now, too..."
But no! I'd be out of the will for sure!
In other news, I've decided to apply for grad school.
Applications are due July 1st.
Ten bucks to whomever wants to write my personal statement....

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I was driving over to Romance!Reader's house today when I suddenly realized I was ridiculously in need of a beverage.
Cath's suggestion: "Stop at a gas station. Seriously? You called to ask me what to do?"
But pshaw, Cath! Stopping at gas stations is for people who aren't on the move. So I, being all full of moving and whatnot, decided to pull into Wendys and get a sweet tea.
Ick.
Sweet tea from drive-through restaurants, in my opinion, should taste like sugar and cold.
Whereas this tasted like cold and sorrow.
Probably I should have just been safe and gotten a Diet Coke, but I gave up soda! For ever and always! Except when I have a migraine and need caffeine!
There are some upsides to it, really. My dentist today said my teeth were a miracle, a positive testament to perfect dental hygiene. In fact, he announced that he was going to rename "perfect dental hygiene," and call it "Monica" instead. Thus, from now on, patients at the office will be "Demonstrating just fantastic Monica" or perhaps "Not paying nearly enough attention to fostering Monica."
Don't be jealous.
Maybe someday you can have a medically-related somethingerother named after you!
I just hope it's as cool as mine, instead of you being stuck with an eponymous disease.
Those are inevitably both depressing and stilted.
Yes, I'm talking to you, Abderhalden-Kaufmann-Lignac Syndrome.

---

Little!Brother had a baseball game today, and since I was babysitting I got to be both the designated driver and the designated cheering section.
I was, however, given some very strict guidelines involving the amount of participation I was allowed to get involved in whilst on the bleachers.

Me: "So... can I cheer?"
Little!Brother: "As long as you don't say my name too much."
Me: "Can I wave?"
Little!Brother: "Not unless everyone else is."
Me: "Can I leap up and down shrieking, 'That's Little!Brother!! I used to change his diapers!!'?"
Little!Brother: "Monica. You are not going to do that."

Sigh. They get so serious when they're big tough baseball players....
So anyway, I was left, abandoned, amongst a horde of equally serious Little League Parents.
They all knew each other by name.
They all knew all the children by name.
And they all were cheering far in excess of what I felt Little!Brother would approve of.
It was through listening to the cheering that I managed to get some of the lingo down, during the course of the hour and a half game.
Apparently whenever anyone bats, regardless of whether or not they hit the ball or not, we shout "Good eye!"
When the ref does something we agree with, we all nod wisely and say "Way to call it, ref!"
When the opposite team scores, or hits the ball successfully, or does anything that might lead to them winning the game, we begin clapping wildly and shouting phrases that include the word "rally." As in, "Let's start a rally here!" and "I feel a rally coming!" and "Yes! Rally time, guys!"
And finally, when our team has players on base, formerly normal-looking individuals stare out at the field, look back at one another, and remark that "We've got ducks on the pond!"
Ahahaha yes.
However, they all seemed mostly loving and not-crazy-parents-on-YouTube-ish, although one father in particular would pace up and down next to the fence talking to whomever was up to bat next, saying "We're up by four. We'll see if we can get the job done." Or, "We're down by two. We'll see if we can get the job done." And every time he said "we," he'd look meaningfully at the tiny bat-clutching child, clearly suggesting that if "we" did not get the aforementioned job done, "we" would not be getting ice cream at the concession stand afterwards. (He was also the same father who, at a certain point during the second inning, threw up his arms and shouted "One run isn't going to do squat, kids! Keep them coming!" Yeeks.)
Don't worry, though.
I kept my own cheering to a minimum, didn't mention diapers, and we won 14-3.
WHOO BASEBALL!

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We've had construction workers uselessly stomping away on our roof at the Paper Printing Place for the past two weeks, and today was especially bad.
You know what that means, friends. Yes!
It's time to play "Match that sound up with its corresponding action"!!!!
(I'll work on the title....)

Ten points to whomever matches them all correctly!

1. whoorshawhoorsha whoorsha whoorshawhoorshawhoorsha whoorsha

2. Blip. Blip blip drip. Blip drip.

3. BUHDAHRTHTHTHTH chk THTHTHTHTHTHTH chk THTHTHTHTHTHTHTH chkchk THTHTHTHHTHTCHK

4. ......

5. KaTHUMPumpumpumpump bwooooooosh CRASH

6. VhreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeehrv

_______

A. Members of our completely competent construction crew (ooooh alliteration) losing their grip on huge chunks of roofing material, sending them clattering down the side of the roof, whizzing past our windows, and smashing on the ground below.

B. The gentle and almost unnoticeable sound of pieces of ceiling tile, tiny fragments of metal, and dirt snowing at a steady pace onto my desk, computer, head, etc.

C. Some sort of power saw sander noisemaker thing getting gradually closer, and closer, and CLOSER OMG RIGHT OVER MY HEAD and farther, and farther.....

D. Seven or eight workers sawing at the same time, at different paces, with hand saws. At least, I assume they were hand saws. It was like we were in a lumberyard. In 1832.

E. Any one of the numerous leaks which sprung up over our workstations. It wouldn't have been so bad, except the water was rust-colored and smelled a little like death.

F. God, I have no idea. But whatever it was, I really wanted it to stop.

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I just got done watching MTV's new "16 and Pregnant" show, which promised to delve into the Real Secret Life Of The American Teenager.
Thus far, the surprising revealed secrets -- Apparently sixteen is really, really young to have the responsibility of caring for a child. Also, it's a bad idea to be impregnated by another sixteen year old who doesn't actually like you or have any interest in caring for your child.
Am surprisingly unsurprised, really.
Anyway, friends, let me just take a moment here to express how glad I am that I will never be the titular 16 and Pregnant, especially given the fact that I can hardly keep my own self fed and dressed, even with the help of my parents.
To be fair, I can still be many things.
A librarian!
An astronaut!
The Pope!
A unicorn wrangler!
But I will never, bar some sort of ridiculously unfortunate alternate dimension slash time traveling accident, be 16 and Pregnant.