witnessed:

Washing off a spoonful of ice cream that had fallen on the floor. And cheers ensued!

Thank you to the Wednesday game night regulars specifically and to frugality more generally.

we live up the street

That story has gotten some good mileage recently. Apparently, I’ve been misremembering it for quite a while now, thinking that it was the Ethiopian woman at Axum to whom I had said, “we live up the street,” thereby mistakenly indicating that neighbor #1 and I were a lesbian couple. According to neighbor #1, it was a dude to whom I made this comment. For the life of me, I can’t remember who I could have run into but I’ll go ahead and trust it. 

What a glass of red wine, some overpriced dessert, and upcoming maternal visits will do! I so appreciated laughing about that memory last night.

just another sunday night

Take 1.25 bottles of red wine, a mediocre Oscars ceremony, one neighbor, one additional friend. Add scorekeeping. Three lovely dogs also help the situation.

My condolences to Mickey Rourke. But I wasn’t laughing then anyway, fine performance though it was.

mistooken

Why must it be the rare occasions on which I slip up and use words like “boughten” or, better yet, “storeboughten” my father is somehow there to witness (and mock)?

Tumbledown Dick Road

When I question my career choices, I tend to forget some of the fringe benefits. A major one: teaching teenagers makes it slightly less inappropriate (or maybe just more funny) that mildly dirty language cracks me up. Apparently they like it in England too.

 

Here’s more unfortunate place names from the New York Times article (which could have had a much funnier title):

These include Crotch Crescent, Oxford; Titty Ho, Northamptonshire; Wetwang, East Yorkshire; Slutshole Lane, Norfolk; and Thong, Kent. And, in a country that delights in lavatory humor, particularly if the word “bottom” is involved, there is Pratts Bottom, in Kent, doubly cursed because “prat” is slang for buffoon.

How do you mention a place called called Titty Ho and not use that in the title of the article?

in ben’s bed

Any fortune cookie fortune is funnier when you add “in bed” to the end. Even funnier is when everyone specifies Ben’s bed. Don’t ask me why. It’s something I learned from a camp counselor when I was thirteen.

 

All of this because here’s the fortune my female dining companion received this evening: “You and your wife will enjoy a long life together.” 

 

Hilarity ensued, especially at the idea that there’s a special wife-fortune bin into which the waitress had deliberately dipped.

 

Yay Burmese food.

cable tv in tahoe

First of all, here’s something i’ve been meaning to get to for a while:

Jeremiah introduced the etrade baby to me.

But on to the real stuff: there were two main television-related highlights of this past weekend in Tahoe. While I’m at it, it’s worth mentioning that I derive endless pleasure from how French people pronounce our beloved lake to the east: “tah-ohhhhhhh” is the best spelling i can manage. 

I digress. Thank you to GoGo for her devotion to all things MTV. Without her appreciation of The Hills we never would have found ourselves watching the spin-off set-up of The City wherein one girl (LC, I believe) gets to say to the other girl (Whitney?): “dreamboydreamjob!” and clap her hands in glee.

Also, remind yourself of David Silver from the wayback 90210. I don’t quite remember how he found himself working at a carwash one Christmas season but he did. Must have had something to do with Donna refusing to put out. Anyway, some young dude comes out to him and David is cool while the kid’s father flips out. Despite a complex lie about an aunt and uncle, David knows something ain’t right and returns to the carwash supply closet to find gayboy concealing…wait for it…”a blade!?!” Yes, he was going to suicide himself. But David saved the day. With melodrama.

reminder of Rube Goldberg

Not so much a laugh as a chuckle: when people pronounce any “wh” word with an aspirated h.

Here are some facts from wikipedia to round this out.

thai, maybe?

I have it on authority from a lawyer at the State Department that these are real names. Though, upon some googlerific research, the spellings are way off (see last entry). Even so, whether real or not, I laughed out loud, both on a bus in Nantucket this summer and just now when I read them again.

Pornbitchincorn Thongthong

Suckadong Wannatittie

Dunit Limpikunt

and, of course, the great Sukdith Punjasthitkul (though the lawyer offered an alternate spelling: Suckdith Pjesticle)

“My Absolute Favorite Stop”

It’s the day before Thanksgiving, maybe 5pm. The N-Judah has not made an appearance at Church and Duboce for at least a half hour. I know this not because I’ve been waiting that long but because I hear at least two people tell their cellphones that such is the case. It comes two minutes later, packed to the gills (how else do those things breathe when they go into the tunnels?). My nose is too close to someone’s armpit. Thanks, Heaven, for the generous helping of Old Spice that he had applied (recently, I think). I’m holding on to a pole with my right hand and there’s no way to stand without fully leaning on the guy standing next to me. Unavoidable.

We stop at Duboce Park and no one gets off.

We’re making our way through the tunnel to Cole Valley. The muni driver, who has been graciously announcing each stop’s possible transfer choices, names the 37 and the 43. And then she goes on to say, “Cole and Carl, my absolute favorite stop.” And with such feeling! I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Especially because I knew, as well as she did, how much the train was about to empty. I wondered if that’s why it was her absolute favorite spot or it’s because she really likes the sandwiches at Say Cheese.

I was the only one laughing.