Why I was a shitty babysitter

Why do I find this funny? I am one sick bastard.

That's, Like, All We Did in Bio Lab Last Year
Girl #1: Did you know babies have natural reflexes? Like, if you stick your finger in their hand, they'll grab it, and if you try to pull it away, they'll hold on to it for like a minute.

Girl #2: Did you know if you punch a baby in the face, it'll cry?

You're spineless, and I hate you.

On July 20, I competed in the NYC Triathlon. Now I have been quite lazy training for the event because having a boyfriend means I can’t spend all my free time at the gym. Actually I thought it was a much much much shorter distance (a standard sprint length taking about 90 minutes to complete), so I figured I could crank it out easily. Well once I found out it was an Olympic length, I decided not to go for competitive finish and just shoot for not finishing last. To make matters even more pathetic, I looked up the results from the previous year to make sure I would be able to beat the last few people. Yep, I am a sad sorry specimen.

Well I finished the race, and in decent time (2hrs, 55min, 53 sec, or 86 out of 260 people = top 33%) which totally shocked me because of all the hurdles I encountered in the race. Firstly, I was totally out of shape and not prepared for the race, so lets just get that out there (seriously, I had women in the 40-44 age group flying by me in the run).
Secondly, the heat index for the morning was 100+. At 8:30am (when I started the run), the temperature was already 92 deg F and hovering around 85% humidity with absolutely clear skies. I saw so many people crumpled up along the sidelines, and I felt so sorry for competitors who started the race 90 minutes AFTER me (putting them on the run course at 10am and some even more ungodly weather conditions).
The bike was SUPER hilly which made it amusing to see my speed dip to 5mph on the uphill after a 40mph downhill (yes, I got it up to 40pmh, it was AWESOME but I think most people were braking because it was too scary or didn’t practice descending).
Normally I look forward to the swim because I loooooovvvve the water. Well swimming in the Hudson River was a bit intimidating because it has the reputation of being so disgustingly dirty (you can only eat a few fish a year taken out of the Hudson without getting poisoned) and it is SALT WATER! Yeah, strange that you can taste the salt in a freshwater river (oh God please let that be salt). The river is so murky that you cannot see an arm’s length. Well I had swum 2/3 of the swim course when all of the sudden my face, arms and legs (I don’t swim in a wetsuit) started tingling. It was like I was smacked all over with a branch. When I emerged from the water I reached down and started frantically scratching my legs because they were burning the most. A girl next to me started jumping up and down while fishing a JELLYFISH out of her swimsuit strap (it got caught under her armpit swim suit strap and now her whole under arm was red and irritated. JELLYFISH, what the fuck!!!! In a river! My whole wave of girls swam right through it. I guess the race officials realized that it was starting to become quite the problem (we were wave 12, so that means approximately 600 people had swam through the jellyfish swarm before us) because they had staff set out to hose us down to wash off the chemicals.

Needless to say, the race went well enough, and I even got a good chuckle out of all the “obstacles” that emerged during the race. On a more serious note, here is an article from the NY Times, about a race-day tragedy. Note they didn’t get all the facts right because the Jellyfish sure stuck around a lot longer than they say (I was stung at about 6:45am).

‘A 32-year-old man competing in the New York City Triathlon died Sunday after being pulled unconscious from the Hudson River on a day when competitors battled heat, humidity and stinging jellyfish along the course.
Late Sunday, the police identified the man as Estaban Neiva from Buenos Aires. Organizers had withheld his name because his family members, who live in Argentina, had not been notified.
Bill Burke, the race director, said rescuers pulled Neiva from the river about three-quarters of the way through the 1,500-meter swim portion, which ended near the 79th Street Boat Basin. The swim is the first of the event’s three phases and is followed by a 40-kilometer bicycle ride and a 10K run that finishes in Central Park.
“Other swimmers noticed the gentleman in the water, and they were actually waving and signaling for the nearby jet boats to come assist them,” Burke said.
He added: “We did have life support on the boats that were monitoring the swim course. There’s medical staff on those boats, so if the guy had a situation in the water, he’s getting the best medical care.”
About 15 minutes elapsed between the time rescuers brought Neiva to the dock and his placement in an ambulance. He was one of nearly 3,000 competitors in the nonprofessional divisions; the race also included about 40 professional triathletes.
It was not known how long Neiva was in the water before rescuers found him, but he was pulled from the river around 8 a.m., about a half-hour after the final wave of 30- to 34-year-olds left the dock at 98th Street.
Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner, said an autopsy would be performed Monday.
At least three other people have died during the swim portion of United States triathlons since early May: a 38-year-old man in the Gulf Coast Triathlon in Florida, a 46-year-old man at the Hy-Vee Triathlon in Iowa and a 45-year-old man at the Pacific Crest Triathlon in Oregon.
The death Sunday was the first in the eight-year history of the New York event. Burke said that at least four competitors were taken to local hospitals with heat-related illnesses, and that two others sustained broken bones.
By 8 a.m., when most of the 3,000 competitors had begun the event, temperatures had reached 80 degrees, with high humidity in Central Park, according to the National Weather Service.
By that time, the top competitors had just completed the race. Greg Bennett of Australia won his fourth consecutive New York City Triathlon, with a time of 1 hour 46 minutes 30.9 seconds. He finished 63 seconds ahead of Stuart Hayes of Iowa.
An Australian also won the women’s race, with Liz Blatchford finishing in 1:58:34.9, nearly two minutes ahead of Becky Lavelle of California.
Brent McMahon, a member of Canada’s 2004 Olympic triathlon team, was among those affected by the heat. He was in second place in the men’s professional category when he collapsed a few feet from the finish line. He was attended to by medical personnel, then crawled across the finish line, placing fifth, and fainted. Burke said he had since recovered.
Burke said that competitors were required to attend a 30-minute safety briefing and must sign a waiver stating that they know how to swim, but they do not have to prove that they are physically fit in order to participate. Heat exhaustion or dehydration is always a risk for competitors on such a muggy day.
“Was the medical team taxed today? Of course they were,” Burke said. “Athletes in this event push themselves, but athletes also have to understand that they need to be prudent and understand that on a day like this, they’re probably not going to get a personal record today.”
Dozens of swimmers reported being stung by jellyfish. Swimmers said they were taken by surprise because they had not been warned about the jellyfish, which had not been a problem in past races.
“I was in the middle of a stroke, and whammo, it bit me right in the face; the pain spread across the side of my face and down my neck,” said Charlie Redmond, 59, from Demarest, N.J. “Everyone was talking about the jellyfish after the race.”
Jellyfish stings often result in minor allergic reactions; in rare cases, they can cause difficulty breathing, coma or death, according to the health Web site WebMD. Burke said he knew of no serious reactions and said the jellyfish appeared to be dissipating when the first wave of pro athletes entered the water at 5:50 a.m. He said the majority of the athletes were wearing wet suits.
Still, Jennifer Shipley said she was so unnerved by the jellyfish that she picked up her pace to get out of the water quicker.
“I totally panicked,” said Shipley, 39, from Washington, who was stung on the shoulder. “I think I had my total fastest time ever.”
Other swimmers, she said, floated on their backs for a few minutes to calm down, and one woman called race organizers to pull her out of the water.
Most people said that the pain went away after a few minutes, and that they showed no marks from the stings.’

Ferocious Puppy Attacks

This past week, I have the opportunity to puppy-sit for some friends. I convinced them to let me take care of their precious puppy for 6 days in lieu of locking him up in a kennel. I mean I have been practicing keeping things alive, like my plants, for years now. Why would a puppy be any different?

Anyway, the puppy Trot was so young that he had just started to venture outside the week immediately beforehand. Therefore, the whole doing his business outside was completely unknown. He supposedly knew how to use the pee-pads, but he actually hit the pad 1 in 3 times at bat (for pooping, not even close every time). Yeah, you get a little tired of constantly cleaning up puppy piss and poop on your hardwood floors, but the fucker is just so damn cute! Seriously, look at that face. Absolutely adorable!

He has a companion dog personality (with a touch of cat), so he always had to be within 2 feet of me. If I rounded the corner or was not within sight, he would start whimpering. I even had to crack the door open in the bathroom so he could poke his nose in to make sure I didn’t disappear. It was interesting having a shadow, I mean it was like “I’ve got to take out the trash, lets go”. At night, he would whimper so much when I put him in his crate (like for an hour straight), that I just decided to encourage a bad habit and let him sleep in my bed. For an 8-pound dog, he sure hogs the bed. He would nuzzle his snout into my leg, back, neck, butt and go to sleep. I would scoot over because I didn’t want to crush the little guy, and he would creep over and nuzzle again. By 4am, I would wake up to find that I had exactly 2 feet of the bed and the dog had conquered the rest. One night, I just took the covers he was sleeping on, and pulled them back to the other side of the bed to reset the positions.

Luckily, I live close to two dog parks and central park, so the little guy was treated to some good walks every day. Since he just started to brave the great outdoors, things like plants and other dogs were exciting and new to him. He played with blowing leaves for 10 minutes. Also, he didn’t know what to do with other dogs. He would approach them and try a sniff or two before looking at me to ask “this is what I do right, sniff…now what”. At the dog park, I tried to get him to burn all that puppy energy off by throwing his ball around, but his cat personal took over and he just liked to sit next to me on the bench. For a puppy, he sure wasn’t all that active really. He spent most of the time at the apartment either sitting on the couch watching me or sleeping.

People often have a dog/cat/animal as a test run to see how they would handle having a baby. Not me, I want a dog because a dog would rock. Plus, if how I treated the dog is any indication how I would treat a child, then social services would have me on speed dial. Let me see, I once belched loudly in front of the dog and scared it back to the other side of the room. I also purposely farted on it when he was trying to snuggle into my ass. That sent him into a wild fit of snorts and pawing at his nose. Oh and I had conversations with him while we watched TV that went like this “you see her, she is such a bitch, I don’t know why she is on TV anyway, I mean look at those boobs, their totally fake, and this guy…you can’t tell me he isn’t a total man-whore, no one can be that hairless”. You know, I actually would be proud if my 4 year old is the trouble-maker at school that teaches all the other kids words like “dildo, cum-dumpster, muppet faced whore”. Parents would call me to ask where little Suzie is learning that foul language, and I would reply “well, at home of course”.

Wanted, dead or alive...preferably alive though

The baseball all-star game was held over the weekend in NYC, and although I am not a baseball fan, I used the opportunity to take in some of the unique activities. Marathon Man and I scored tickets to the Fan Fest at the convention center. Basically it is a traveling exposition with all sorts of activities like batting cages, grounding practice, pitching cages, baseball memorabilia, and autograph signing with some all stars or hall-of-famers. My friend Rob described it best as “everything a 12 year old boy would love to do” (well minus the ‘alone time with the Victoria’s secret catalog’). They even had an entire baseball diamond set up and you could time yourself stealing home.

We found this image in the Negro Leagues portion of the expo. Yeah, I find the ‘black crackers’ team name hilarious (I mean socially inappropriate), but then again I am a horrible openly non-PC person.

Saturday night was a free Bon Jovi concert in central park. Did I mention it was free? Yeah, that is the magic words in my book. People were camped out two days beforehand to get the best possible seats, and M-Man and I showed up an hour before the concert started and still could see alright. Suckers! They had six giant jumbo-tron screens up for those too far away or too short to see the action on the stage. I don’t know what I enjoyed more, the awesome music of Bon Jovi (super huge 80’s music fan) or the onslaught of Jersey white trash folk. Awesome.

The all you can eat buffet t-shirt

I recently read the annual sorority newsletter, and I realized that EVERYONE is having babies. Well practically everyone. My sister, cousin, college friend, and high school friend are all due at the end of August/beginning of September. Was it something in the water? Here is a picture of my sister 7 months pregnant. I know what you are thinking, she is smuggling a watermelon. Basically she is 5’10’ and 130 pounds (size 4 - yeah we have fantastic genes) so being pregnant makes her a bit lopsided. I wonder if her husband follows her around to make sure she doesn’t suddenly tip over.

One side effect is the increase in boob size. Seriously, she called me a few months into the pregnancy and exclaimed “I have boobs!”. I’ve always wanted boobs, but I would rather get a severely padded bra than get knocked up. I wonder if they will stay after the birth? If they do, I would turn into such a total whore. Yeah, I would flaunt those puppies around town in v-neck sweaters. Heck, I may even just sport bikini tops to the grocery store.

Not yet, maybe later…....like years later. In the meantime, I’ll just wear around this cute maternity shirt that I bought by accident. Yeah, it is a really cute black shirt with a high waist, gathering at the bust, and black satin ribbon that ties in the back. It makes my boobs look bigger and hides any pizza belly bulges, so I figured why not buy it. Too bad I wore it to work the other day and half the office stopped me to ask if I was “with child”. What, no, it is just comfy. Then again I could start using ‘the puffy shirt’ for seats on the subway and excuses to get out of meetings.

Authors Note: Speaking of children here is a line out of Overheard in New York. I swear if I did have a child, this kid would be it.

Six-year-old boy to parents: Oohh! Zombie strippers! Let's see that!

Dan & Emily's wonderful wild wedding

On June 28th, two of my favorite Chicago friends got married. Their wedding was held at the Crystal Gardens in Navy Pier. It was spectacular, but I missed most of the ceremony. Here is my saga.

I gave myself an hour travel time to get from my condo (on the North side) down to Navy Pier. Well I guess due to construction, the “L” was running super sssslllllloooooowwww. It took me 50 minutes to go only 8 stops and a total of 6 miles! I kept impatiently scolding the train to “GO FASTER”. When I emerged downtown, I hoped into a Cab to drive me to Navy Pier about ¾ a mile away. The balls deep traffic didn’t ease my mind as I watched the minutes ticking down. Now since Navy Pier extends a full mile out to sea, I didn’t want to be dropped off at one end and have to run a long distance in high heels. I had the driver ask a Navy Pier uniformed employee where the “Crystal Gardens” were, and she said it was at the far end. Once I was dropped off at the very tip, I ran around looking for the right signage. Frustrated, I practically tackled a uniformed employee and asked him to point me in the right direction. He said “crystal gardens, honey, that is at the very front of the pier….yeah, about a mile that-a-way”. I think he felt sorry for me because I was sweating all over my dress and completely beaten down, because he ran me over to a tourist trolley and told the driver to “take this young lady to the Crystal Gardens NOW”. The driver immediately took off with a few very befuddled tourists from England in tow. While the trolley driver is speeding down the access road, I am trying to fix the wedding gift. I bought a pair of oil paintings of Paris to celebrate their engagement there. Well during all the commotion, I put my elbow through the wrapping paper creating a giant hole. I ended up taking the card and re-taping it over the gaping hole. The trolley screeched to a halt and the driver shouted out “crystal gardens up those stairs, GO GO GO!” while all the tourists were confused because it wasn’t a scheduled stop. I burst through the doors just in time to see the couple exchange vows.

The reception was a blast. Basically any party involving booze and my Chicago friends is a good time. Aside from a Nazi bartender and some random tourists rambling into the party, the entire night was filled with merriment and stories. Some highlights were when the DJ played BOB and all the guys got back to their chair humping routine. Actually one of them humped four chairs in a leap-frog succession move. Later the whole gang moved on to the hotel bar / after party where a bridesmaid had to run interference with the bride’s mom because she was cock blocking a guy from hitting on a very attractive guest.

Tea-bagged

I got to spend an extra day with my Mom with her flight was outright cancelled. The only hiccup in the schedule was that I had a kickball game that night. So instead of having her amuse herself in my 200sf apartment or roam the wild and crack filled streets of New York, I decided to bring her along. Granted I did lure her to it by promising that she could have delicious delicious delicious Thai food afterwards.

Our kickball league is “just for fun” but I don’t think the other teams got that memo. Our team consists of 15 girls and 3 guys (on a good day, otherwise it is just one or two guys). The remainder of the teams are 15 guys and 3 girls. Besides the gender stacking, the main difference between our team and all the others is that when we do something (anything) good, it is rewarded with tons of clapping, cheering, and all around girly noises. Come to think of it, everything is celebrated, even our mistakes. The other teams like to shout at each other and act generally pissed off that the opposing team doesn’t just hand them the ball and quit. Yeah, our record reflects our laid back, clap and sing sorority-like team.

I had my Mom sit on the team bench and observe us as we attempted to keep the game close. Because we were playing at a NYC schoolyard, there was not much space between the field and sideline. I would say only five feet separated home base and the end of the team bench. The first few innings, I kept looking over and waving at my Mom (like a proud and happy child) and I couldn’t help think that she was sitting awfully close to the action. The opposing team’s pitcher was universally dubbed an “asshole” by our team (and a few other teams that we talked to afterwards) because he liked to speed roll the ball with a bowling ball like spin on it. Yeah, hard to describe, but it was fast pitch speed and acted all wacky after it contacted your foot. Well in the 6th inning, a guy from our team was up to bat, and once he kicked the ball, it bee-lined right to my Mother’s face!!! Yeah, the ball was going at an alarming speed, and all of the five feet it had to travel to reach where she was sitting didn’t give it much time to slow down. Bam! Right smack in the middle of the face! Her glasses flew off her face and she clutched her nose. I ran in from 2nd base (I had batted two people before the guy) and grabbed her in the biggest bear hug as if it would protect her from other foul balls. She kept saying “I’m okay, I’m just startled…..no I’m fine, go back to your game…yes I am okay, Lindsay let go…seriously, Lindsay let go of me”. I put her down on the far side of the bench and had the other players stand around and shield her for the rest of the game. Luckily, there was no blood (and therefore no broken nose or loose teeth etc to worry about) and her glasses were not bent or broken. I don’t know if anyone has seen a parent/loved one injured due to your gross negligence, but it is the worst feeling in the world. I just wanted to say “I’m sorry Mommy, I would never hurt you” and burst out crying for forgiveness. Thankfully, my Mom is the coolest person in the world, and laughed about it later over chicken pad thai.

Racial humor

Okay I find this "overheard in New York" conversation funny.......and I'm white. Burn, burn, burn, worst person ever!

Everybody Hates Being Outvictimized
(Native American cop is arresting a black man)
Black man: Fuckin' discrimination, man! Leave me the fuck alone! I ain't done nothin wrong!
Native American Cop: Fuck you! We were oppressed first!
Black man: Apache motherfucker!

Mother knows best - part one

My mother visited me for one last chance to snatch up cheap designer knock-offs before I move. She has visited the city a total of four times in the last two years, so we had to come up with some pretty original tourist activities since she has SEEN EVERYTHING! Granted, I am sure she would be perfectly content spending the days shopping on Canal Street and evenings at various Broadway Musicals.

I whisked her down to the famed Coney Island on the first vacation day. I made her eat a famous Nathan’s hotdog while we laid out on the beach. The great thing about the beach is that the open container law is flat out ignored. Men in floppy hats and backpacks wander around peddling “water, soda, corona!” We took a ride on the Wonder Wheel (Ferris wheel on crack) and she was embarrassed to admit I was related to her when I started freaking out at the top. Yeah, my fear of heights is just getting worse with age. The other couple in the cage with us was all of 15 years old and couldn’t stop laughing at the “girl who couldn’t stop screaming for her life”.

For next to nothing admission, we caught the Coney Island freak/side show. Like the last time I saw the show, most acts are sub par except the fantastic (and probably hairless) fire eating woman and the one guy who stuck a moving drill with a 8” long masonry bit up his nose.

While down there, we took advantage of the free admission to the Brooklyn Aquarium. I’m a bit spoiled being raised near one of the greatest aquariums in the states, so I found it lackluster. They did do a live feeding in one of the tanks, so even the reclusive eels came out to chow down. Creepy. Other highlights were the jellyfish exhibit and the lumbering (and surprisingly hypnotic) walrus who seriously needed to call Jenny Craig. Oh and did I mention the sharks? I was a little disappointed they were all cooped up in a small tank filled with other sea life like stingrays and turtles.

We finished the day at the famous Totonos Pizzeria. I’ve tried to get into this pizza place twice before only to be turned off by the hours long line snaked around the block. It was totally worth the wait and anticipation.

During the nights we caught the musicals ‘Jersey Boys’ and ‘A Chorus Line’. Go see ‘Jersey Boys’. It is worth the ticket price and anyone over the age of 50 will have the absolute best time ever. Also ‘A Chorus Line’ currently is starring Mario Lopez. He doesn’t do much acting at all, but his dancing is on par with the other professional dancers. Plus the irony is that his character is named aptly “Zach”. Ah ha ha.

Random Pictures

I apologize for the lapse in blogging, but I have been quite busy. Actually I am in the process of writing up a mammoth entry about my Mom visiting NYC and a Chicago Wedding. In the meantime, amuse yourself with these random pictures I have taken in NYC lately.

A particularly inspiring church in the West Village. I've probably visited more churches as a tourist than a parishioner.


The rooftop sculpture exhibt at the MET. I personally like the balloon animal one. It reminds me that I too can create art in balloon form. Then again I am so immmature that I only like to make balloon penises.





The view of Central Park and Midtown Manhattan from the roof of the MET.

Billy Ray Cyrus called.....

Here is some Mullet-tastic hair I saw on the subway the other day. Sorry for the quality of the pictures, but I was trying to be discreetly rude.

Marathon Man

I guess this is what "Happy" looks like. It will be 8 months together this Friday. Wait....is that....oh great, a double chin. Damn it!