Mrs. SusanWong, please stop emailing my parents.

I awoke this morning to the following email, with a document attachment:


From:  One of DH's parents (frankly, they've both done this so let us not accuse)
Subject:  WORLD BANK UNITED NATIONS
To:  DH

I received the following E-mail but it was not in my Spam. I did not open it. Does it look like a virus?

--- On Mon, 3/14/11, mrs.susanwong <susan.wong288@gmail.com> wrote:

From: mrs.susanwong <susan.wong288@gmail.com>
Subject: WORLD BANK UNITED NATIONS
To:
Date: Monday, March 14, 2011, 4:09 AM

WORLD BANK UNITED NATIONS

Right.  So the thing is, unnamed parent, obviously this is SPAM, because WORLD BANK UNITED NATIONS a) doesn't exist as that entity, but two separate entities and more importantly b) would never be emailing you an attachment and c)  would never send an email that just says "WORLD BANK UNITED NATIONS." 

It is not infrequent that I receive these kinds of emails, and I've had to remind my parents that the United States Visa Lottery wouldn't contact them, let alone by email, let alone asking for wire money transfers, and that they definitely didn't win the visa lottery since they've been US Citizens for about 30 years now.

SPAMMERS, take note - you should just stop what you're doing re: pretending to be the US Government or other important sounding entities.  It's rude, and additionally, it annoys me to have to explain your stupidity to my cute ethnic parents.  STOPPIT!

Love,
DH

VIOLATION!

I slept for 9.5 hours last night, and I'm starting to feel human again after spending the last few days in, or in a daze from, PAX East!  I went with a group of my gamer friends, and while I myself do not game frequently, I did enjoy the overall atmosphere, as well as some rousing games of Ms. Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros on NES (or as I like to call it, OSN - Old School Nintendo)!  I also particularly enjoyed meeting Lesley Kinzel of Two Whole Cakes.  She's ridiculously awesome.

I'm taking this moment to b*tch, since on Saturday night I came home from PAX to discover an effing parking ticket on my car!  F**k you, City of Waltham!  YOU SUCK.  I'm going to dispute it, obviously, because nowhere are there any signs, at all, indicating that parking on the street after 2 AM results in a ticket.  Super!  Massachusetts, are we just supposed to KNOW this s*it?  For real!  

To add insult to injury, I attempted to dispute the ticket twice through the city of Waltham website, and get this - the officer hasn't even entered the information yet!  Thanks, you lazy asshole!!!  If you see Officer Piantedesi walking around Waltham, please kick him in the nuts for me. 

Ok, b*tching accomplished - thank you.

Potty Time is Private Time

I don't know about you, but while I'm using the bathroom, I prefer not to converse with anyone.  This applies to public restrooms as well, even when I enter one with a friend and we're mid-conversation.  Frankly, especially then!  It should be girl code that you just shut up while you pee.  For real.  Even when I'm home alone, I close the bathroom door lest the cat decide that she's interested in what's going on in there.  Bottom line is, in Desperate Housedaughter's world, potty time is private time.

My mom, either disrespectful of boundaries or generally oblivious, somehow has fine-tuned NASA level radar for when I'm on the toilet.  She may not speak to me for hours, but the second I use the bathroom, she has something pressing to say to me.  I've had, embarassingly, more than one talk with her about the fact that I'd prefer that she wait until I've exited the bathroom before speaking to me about anything.  She obliges for a few days, then one day she knocks on the door to chat because she really needs to know right away how to spell the word "omelette."

Here's a list of fun questions my mom has asked me during my potty time:

1)  Where is my purse?
2)  Why don't you brush your hair?  I don't understand why curly haired people can't use hairbrushes!
3)  Are you thinking about grad school?  Or a job? 
4)  Do you want to be a dentist like me?  I know some great post-bac programs.
5)  Are you serious that curly haired people don't brush their hair??  That's disgusting!
6)  PHONE!  PHONE!  Please pick up the phone!!!
7)  Do you think our kitchen needs more cabinets?
8)  Can you come help me change the sheets on the bed now?
9)  Do you have a spare shower curtain?

Mom!  I love you!  Let me pee in peace!  It'll make me less grouchy, trust.  You know what I think is at play ultimately here?  I think she knows that while I'm in the WC, she has me cornered, and when I'm cornered, she can ask me life's important or mundane questions and I have NO ESCAPE.  Dang it all.  In the matter of bathroom chatty time, the score is:  Mom 1, D.H. 0. 

I just told my mom about this post, and she goes, "I know what this is going to say!  Every time I go to piss, my mom wants to talk to me."  See where I get it from?

You're Only as Sick as Your Secrets!

Confession time.  Deep breath in and out.............ready?  My name is Desperate Housedaughter, and I'm afraid of airplanes.  Yeah.  Like, terrified of them.  Like, just the sight of them makes me gag a little and then want to cry.  The worst part of having this fear is of course that generally speaking, I have to get on an airplane now and then, although I'm getting creepily better at avoiding that wholeheartedly, but the next worst thing is when my family members get on one.  EEEEEEKKKKK let the crazy ensue!

My father and sister are going to Iran to pay a visit to the homeland today, and frankly, I'm all unhappily aflutter.  For you English majors (or English lovers) out there, please note that this is an inappropriate use of the word "aflutter," but suffice it to say that DEAL WITH IT IT'S HOW I FEEL.  I'm tingly from my fingertips to the ends of my mop of hair, and not in a good way.

What makes this particular fear quite horrible is that I didn't used to be afraid of flying!  I used to see and touch and sit in airplanes with ease and even delight!!  Aren't they so cool??  They take you places quickly and you can see pretty mountains and valleys from above!  Super!  Take me to Paris!! 

Oh airplanes, if only you and I still had these lovely feelings between us.  Instead, I now have panic attacks in you, fear your tiny seats with no room to move or breathe, cower in terror at your TSA agents poking and prodding everyone like we're about to be startin' something, get testy and spazzy with any weird noise or bump you make, and let's just face it, hate your atrocious entertainment programming (except for one time when they showed Ugly Betty reruns.  That show rocked the s*it.). 

Today I have to drive my dad (and all of his clean underwear) to the airport, and basically once I get near there, I'll stick my fingers in my eyeballs and say "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA" which I realize doesn't exactly assist in driving safely or otherwise making me feel good, but I'll wait to do it once I've come to a complete stop.   

Universe, please help me get over my fear of airplanes.  I'd like to go to Paris again sometime, and I'd also like to not choke on my swelling throat when I drop off my loved ones at the airport.  Take care of my Dad and Sister on their journey to the homeland!

Love,
D.H.

Rare Victory! Dad Emails, Part 2

He learned!!!  The following is an email I just received from my dad regarding while he is on vacation, the things I should do.  Please note his appropriate use of a newly learned idiom!:

From: Dad
Subject: While I am out
To: DH

Hi,
    You already have the roofer's phone number just in case.

Please ignore the bills (but keep them somewhere).  I have already
scheduled the payments.  Make sure you pay any bill you may get from places you hold a credit card (like department stores,....). 

Xoxo :-)

MD

The Fat Cat Diet

Fatty is my weight-challenged cat who is also unemployed and living with my parents.  Unless you consider napping to be full-time employment, in which case, give this kid a raise!!

She's adorable, kind, gentle, and quite...large.  Like in November at the vet, she was 18 lbs of large.  BUT NO LONGER!  Thanks to, of course, The Fat Cat Diet. 

The Fat Cat Diet (henceforth to be mentioned as TFCD) is a complex system of English and Persian dialogue and can opening that can only be described as an abysmal daily debate that sometimes comes to shouting.  Seriously.  To feed a cat.

Granted, I'll take the blame for the crazy levels to which TFCD has risen and continues to rise.  After all, it was my desire to avoid my babycake getting diabetes that forced one and all to participate in TFCD.  But I know this!  And I'm anal!  So I made charts, graphs, and even put out a food scale to assist in the feeding of the cat.  A typical day is as follows:

6 AM:  Dad wakes up.  Fatty becomes terribly alert at the possibility of being fed any second now.  Poor thing still hasn't figured out that she won't eat for another hour, even though this happens daily.  Sometimes she meows her displeasure, but usually she keeps it together until...

7 AM:  Dad feeds Fatty her breakfast - 2 oz. of wet food.  Oh the joy Fatty feels coursing through her somewhat whittled down kitty body - "YES!  I get to eat chicken and herring first thing in the morning!!!!!" she muses.

9:30 AM:  I wake up.  Fatty gets out of her cat bed that is shaped like a pink convertible (complete with wheels and a windshield.  all plush.  i'm not kidding.) and jumps on the floor to roll around at my feet in greeting.  What a muffin!

2:30 PM:  Fatty looks at me from her convertible with laser eyes of rage.  "I'M HUNGRY, B*TCH!" she thinks at me with furry thoughts and just a twinge of crazy in her eyeballs.  I think, hmmmm.  To feed the cat now, or wait until after 3.  Can I risk it?

3 PM:  Rendered incapable of thought or sense other than food and hunger, Fatty plops over on the floor and stares into space, in that creepy way where her eyes are open, but she's not seeing anything.  It might be time to feed her now.

3:30 PM:  Fatty shakes awake as if roused by some unseen source, runs over to me, and gives a hearty, "MEOW!"  She knows I'm an idiot and need to be reminded that she's hungry.  After all, I'm watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reruns, and let's just say I'm engrossed.

3:34 PM:  Fatty gets 1 oz. of food.  "WTF????" she thinks to herself.  "All of that work and only 1 oz of food!!!!!!!  In the morning I get 2 oz and all I have to do is wake up!"

4 PM:  "MEOW.  MEEEEOW," she says heartily.  Yeah, you're not getting more food, cat.

6:30 PM:  "MEOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she screams, the second she opens her eyes from her late afternoon nap (not to be confused with her morning nap or early afternoon nap).  Ok fine, I feed her 1 oz of food.

9 PM:  Fatty circles my feet like a shark attack while I'm using the computer.  Cat, I have emails to write.  And by that I mean twitter to check.  I don't have time for this cute nonsense. 

9:30-10 PM:  Fatty gets her 2 oz. of dinner, which oddly she never eats in full right away.  She prefers the eating in shifts method.  Maybe she's having a dinner party over there all alone - appetizers, main course, dessert.  I have no idea.

Though this is a typical day of cat feeding that doesn't warrant much discussion in the family circle, suffice it to say that if I have band rehearsal one night that starts at 7, or I won't be home until after 10 (OH NO!!!  THE AUDACITY!!!), I am pummeled with slanty eyes and the guilty consciouses of both parents and a cat, their heads shaking at me in unison.

Hey, Fatty lost 1 lb since November!  It's working!!!!

The Cleaning Lady Pre-Show

So, like good upper middle class "Americans" (in quotes since I'm the only one in this house actually born in America), we have a cleaning lady.  Yes, it's slightly shameful, and admitting it makes me cringe for a second.  But then I remember that that glorious woman keeps me from having to vacuum or clean my bathroom, and then all I can feel is intense thankfulness that she's willing to do it for me.

I realize having a cleaning person come by is a privelege, so let's get that nicety out of the way.  My mother, however, likes to make us feel the burden of this particular privelege to the point where I sometimes wish we'd just move to a tiny apartment just to avoid having more than a couple of rooms to clean!

The Cleaning Lady Pre-Show is a longstanding tradition in our house.  It goes something like this - one hour prior to the scheduled arrival time of said cleaning lady, my mom turns into a tornado of OCD crazy and picks up literally every item off the floor of the house, depositing it on either a bed surface or haphazardly throwing it into a closet.  Sometimes, she'll even vacuum the floor or scour the sink (her argument - we don't want to embarass ourselves with this filth!)!!!

Then there's the pre-show lecture.  My mom wants to be certain that I don't forget that the cleaning lady shouldn't open closet doors, should pick any furniture she can up so that she can clean under it, and shouldn't spend too much time vacuuming the guest room.  These sound like simple concepts, for sure, but please note that my mother cannot tell me any of these things without detailed visual demonstration.  Because otherwise I don't know what "opening a closet door" means.

In true HouseDaughter style, though, I remind myself that since I'm unemployed and living with my parents, the least I should do is stay home and help supervise the cleaning lady while my parents goes to their real jobs and make real bank so that I can continue living here!

The cleaning lady has just arrived!  HURRAY!  Well, I'm off to do the laundry then.  At least I have something to look forward to!