Category Archives: The Funny SIde

Do You Hear Me Now?

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She starts with the hand open,
Near her mouth, palm toward,
But not touching her face,
Veins appearing on the back of her hand
Forming a claw
That moves downward past the mouth
Oh hell

I try not to smile

I watch the bend and flex
Of her wrists and joints
Her delicate bones
Making fierce gestures
As she tells me off

I try not to smile

She yells at me something fierce
Manicured fingers
Form intricate patterns
Punctuating the strong words
Silently speaking volumes

I try not to smile

I know she’s caught me
Her tightly fisted hands at chest level
Fly up and then open in exasperation
I gently grasp her soft hands
Holding her attention

“Darling you’ve just yelled at me solely in ASL again.”

The hand signal
She uses next
Needed no translation

I smile

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At dVerse “Mish” leaves in in our hands to conjure up a write about those most hard-working appendages – our hands.  My muse took me to one pissed off woman “yelling” at her not yet fluent in ASL spouse.

dverse

dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics – Poetics – Can You Give Me a Hand?

Verbal Diarrhea Diaries:I Said Duck!

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If you’ve read my About Raivenne page then you know of my proclivity to drop a salty word or two. If not let me say it in plain language, it’s my blog and every now and then I will fucking cuss if I feel like it.  That being said, if you have followed this blog for a while then you also know, I really don’t curse all that much. At least not here. Everyplace else however is a different story. Suffice it to say my auto-correct, whether on my computer, my tablet or my phone gets quite the work out in changing all the french I speak, which has nothing to do with the lovely language spoken in France.  (Why do we call that -cursing-  speaking french anyway?) Thus when a friend posted the following on Facebook I was highly amused:

duck it

 

My comment and true story:

Oh my autocorrect must have become annoyed at my always correcting its tendency to offer a more feathered suggestion when I am demanding a more carnal one. I swear the one time I was actually texting duck confit, it switched it to the cuss word in revenge.

I probably should make more of an effort to curtail the fowl language – then again, duck it.

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We are officially at the halfway point! Whoo-hooo! Let’s see how others are slicing through this Tuesday and 15th day of the challenge:

sol

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 15 – Two Writing Teachers

 

Chick Please

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I wear pantsuits for work, or at least dress slacks and a nice top. I dress womanly, feminine, but not necessarily girlie. That’s just not my everyday style. Generally, I’m a jeans and tee-shirt kind of gal.

But every now this thankfully only for a day-maybe two-phase comes over me where I want to wear a dress, curl my hair, put on make-up, yeah all the accoutrements involved.

It’s extra work and ninety percent of the time I think the only people who get it are those who know me well enough to appreciate the phenomena for what it is.  I refer to that as The Girl Won. Where the feminine aspect of me decidedly takes over my psyche and I’m going to dress like a girl today whether I like it or not. This morning was one of those mornings.

I had laid out my clothes for work last night. Jeans, because it will be casual Friday at work, (where even my boss will come in jeans and a sweatshirt now and then), my nice white and black blouse, my cropped black jacket… You know, lighter than professional casual but not I’m going to a picnic after work casual. I mean everything down to my lingerie was planned out for this morning. So why is it when I woke and looked at it hanging on the door my thought was uh no! ?

Aw crap The Girl woke up, noooo!

Sometimes I can fake her out, put on the clothes I initially chose anyway, just bling it out more than usual and she’s consoled enough to take it. I knew within fifteen minutes of clothing changes, there was no consoling her. Nothing I put on looked good to me until I pulled on the sweater dress.

Yup it was going to be a girl day. I could feel it – the whole kit and kaboodle was happening this morning. Hell the dress even has minute lines of pink in it! I conceded to defeat.

To add the true annoyance factor I stepped outside to snow.

Are you kidding me chick? You couldn’t have kicked in yesterday when the sun was out so bright, I needed sunglasses? No you show up today when there’s snow on the ground.

Yeah, that was my inner dialogue with my feminine side who pretty much shushed me with the reminder that it’s only snowing this morning. It will stop later and I will be looking great.

Ugh, Chick please, shut up!

I hate her, but she’s right, I do look great.  Happy Friday!

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Let’s see how others are slicing it up this Friday…

sol

Slice of Life Challenge – Day 4 | Two Writing Teachers

I Cannot Tech This Anymore

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I cannot tech today.

I who work in a technology based industry have been in relative fail mode for anything that has a power button today.

The overhead projector and instructor PC in the training room are in an apparent lover’s snit and do not want to talk each other. I check the wires, display format etc. nothing.  Of course I discover this minutes before a class is set to start.

Fine ain’t got time for dat as the saying goes. We’ll do this the ol’ fashioned way and use the still active portable projector like I used to do not too long ago. It’s not as pretty or as high-tech as the overhead, but it will get the job done right? Right. Wrong. Keystone. Horizontal and Vertical settings. Zoom, only showing one monitor. It’s not happening. Oh come the freak on already! All this futzing around is still happening at 10:15 for a class that was supposed to start at 9:30. I look at my students admit tech failure and start to talk talk them through the training.  I speak a lot as it takes longer to describe a concept where a simple click of the mouse to show them all at once would have worked miracles, but we get through it.

I come back to my desk and accidentally kick something, that hits something, that pulls the plug on one of my monitors.  Greeeeeeaaat! Follow the affected line down through the spaghetti of cords under my desk and get it all plugged up, only to realize I have now pulled out my mouse in the process and back into the spaghetti I go.

A run to Starbucks struck me as a right fine idea, by then.  Well, that my colleague leaving me a note, putting the bug in my ear (a really creepy crawly action if taken literally I must say). So I grab my phone with my Starbucks app, insure I have my cardkey to get back in the building, take my sunglasses and head out for some much needed refreshment.

So, do you want to guess who got in line at Starbucks, got all the way to the front of the line, was one measly person away from placing an order when she pulled out her phone and realized the damned thing was as dead as a door nail? No really, guess who! Hint: It’s the same person who did not have a dime on her otherwise. The same person who could not use her Starbucks card instead because it was in her wallet. The same person who left her wallet at her desk, because why would I need my wallet when I have my Starbucks app on my trustee phone? Uh huh.

Technology: 4 – Raivenne: zilch

Silver lining? Yes, there is one. I made it back into the office building Starbucks-less, but just before it started to to pour outside (good thing I had my shades with me, huh?).  Also, this computer has not done anything else untoward since I started typing. Yay, the tides are turning…

But I’m not touching any light switches with my bare hands for the rest of the day, just in case…

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Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

I’m Done!

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The last vestiges of cabin fever or seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or the winter doldrums or whatever one wants to call it have exerted themselves in my psyche. My soul is clearly done with this tiny bit that is left of Winter 2014 and has officially balked.  I’m done.

I should have known this was coming – last week it was  snowing, still I bought iced drinks from Starbucks – twice.  I’m done.

I decided I am done with anything and everything down. My oh god it’s freezing long down coat, my shorter heavy wool coat, my heavier hats, all sent to the cleaners or the laundry. That final step before being put away for the season.  I’m done.

Yesterday, I went without a hat. I did not even have one stuffed in my pocket just in case. I’m done.

Today has an expected high of 50 degrees and I am planning on doing something that has not happened in months – wear a dress. Do you hear me? I’m done.

I have five living plants on my desk at work – that is not enough. I am buying a bouquet of flowers because I need the sight of flora near me, I need it now.  I’m done.

I normally do not get into such a tizzy like this until mid-April and if it snows again, which is still quite possible, I am going to be mightily ticked-off, mightily, but right now I don’t care. I feel the longer I keep holding on to my winter gear the longer Ol’ Man Winter keeps his grips in my mental space and he just needs to GO! I’m done.

So you hear me Persephone? We’re sick of your mama Demeter taking her yearly seasonal affective disorder out on us poor mortals. Dionysus must have had her seriously lapping up the vino this season. Have you seen what she did to Boston?!  Girlfriend, I know Hades is your boo and all, but it’s just time honey. Time for you to get off the man’s hot pocket and bring your hot seat back surface side so your mama can can start warming some stuff up around here, like now. We’re done.

Oh yeah, when I start kvetching with the Olympians you know what’s up? Yeah, you guessed it – I’m done!

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Elevate Your Shenenigans

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A few months ago in the early fall, I get on the elevator at my office one morning and press the button for my floor. A colleague who works on a different floor presses the button for his floor and we nod at each other in greeting. Others enter the elevator and press the buttons for their respective floors. I noticed a pattern emerging on the panel as buttons were pushed and smiled to myself at the coincidence. At this point it needed only one more button pushed to complete the array. The doors were slowly closing and I had mentally brushed off the disappointment of the pattern being left undone, when a hand thrusts in to bounce the doors open. One more person gets in the elevator.  Silly bird that I am, my thoughts quickly race.

Is it going to happen? Is it going to happen?!

My eyes widen in anticipation as his finger reaches towards the panel.

Yes, he’s really going to do it!

I start to smile as the finger draws nearer to the goal only to suddenly shift and press a different button than hoped for.

Noooooooooooooo!

“Aw man! You messed it all up!” Yes, I said that out loud.

“What?” The gentleman quickly withdrew his finger nervously laughing, and totally confused.

“Look! Look at what you’ve done! You’ve ruined it! You’ve ruined it all! Even you can see the tragedy of this now! Even you! Even!” I mock cry dramatically, putting heavy emphasis on the word even while gesturing to the button panel where numbers 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 were lit in an orderly line waiting for 12 to join them.  Had he pressed the button for the twelfth floor it would have worked out that all the of even floors and only the even floors would have been lit by pure chance, but noooooooooo! What could have been a moment of pure serendipitous perfection is now trashed by the glaring light of 11.  There are tiny titters of laughter as the other riders start to get it.  Two of them know me well and quickly become a Greek chorus bemoaning the poor man’s fate.

“Oh no, not the odd floor!”
“Oh, you done done it now man.”
“It was nice knowing you.”

“Oh, no! Oh my! Egads! Such an undignified transgression! I shall remove myself from here immediately!” He played right into the scene.

“Oh why bother, the damage is done, you unthinking cad!” I wailed, while quickly fanning my eyes with my fingers to deter the tears that would never fall. “You sir are a scoundrel! A scoundrel I say!”

All of this to the bemusement of the captive audience of the other riders forced to endure this elevated melodrama. The lucky worker on the second floor already escaping before the bloodshed.

“Oh dear lady, however can one so lowly as I make this right!”

The next floor is mine and as the doors begin to open there was only one thing that could be said in the face of such an onslaught.

“How you ask?! By having a nice day, sir! That is what I wholly wish for the likes of you! A nice day!” I say this with all the teeming passion of a Fake-sperian actor casting a pox upon one’s house. Turning with a dramatic huff, I fling my non-existent fur stole over my shoulder as I exit all Norma Desmond style to full-out laughter as the doors close behind me.

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Now let’s fast-forward to today as I get on the elevator this morning  and a gentlemen follows immediately after. I press the button for my floor and step aside so he can press the button for his. He reaches out an extended finger almost about to push the button, but withdraws it quickly.

“Is it okay if I push it this time?” He inquires of me.

I presume my expression spoke volumes along the fortunately un-uttered lines of why the fuck are you asking me?  for he quickly added “The last time we rode an elevator together you called me unthinking cad so I’m just checking first.” His smile makes me actually look at him this time and I take a moment to scan through the various elevator shenanigans of which I’ve always only been a mere bystander to – as you can tell by the encounter above – until recognition dawns and I press the button for the eleventh floor for him.

“Thanks! You remember!” He laughs.

“Why yes I do, you scoundrel!” and then proceed to press every button between his floor and mine, finishing just as the doors to my floor open.

“No, you did not just do that!” If he was even mildly irked, it is totally swallowed by his hoot of laughter at my antics as I exit.

“Have a nice day!” I grin and wave my fingers as the doors close on his continued laughter.

Yes, I have many issues, and clearly no damn sense, and still no idea who he is.

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The Teeth The Whole Teeth And I Got Nothing…

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Because I had a yen for mediocre barbecue, a friend and I were dining at the epitome of NYC eatery, Dallas BBQ (metro NYC dwellers familiar with the chain are giggling at that statement right now, if that’s any hint). A woman, who looked to be my physical age, but may have been older given allowance for the “crack factor” was sitting at nearby table with her dining companion. As he went to go feed the meter, she had a sudden outburst of several panicked “Oh no!”s, while frantically searching her purse, her coat pockets and the table for something clearly important. After a few moments she points at a busboy with an accusatory “He took it! I know he took it!”.

Was it a ring, her wallet, credit/debit cards or even cash? No, it was her teeth.

Yes, you read that correctly. Her teeth.

As her decibel and tear levels increase, it is learned that it was her birthday and she had removed her teeth while she dined, placing them on the table beside her plate, wrapped up in paper napkins. Personally, I never quite understood the point of removing one’s dentures, bridgework et cetera in order to eat. I mean, isn’t the point of most dentistry is to provide the wearer the ability to masticate one’s food, but I digress. According to her, while waiting for “doggie bags” (and as my dinner companion asked “Who says that anymore?”), the busboy cleared the remaining refuse on the table, thereby trashing the at first valued at $500, but by event’s end increased to $700 in orthodontics.

Clearly when being taught Table Clean-Up 101, the busboys missed the section that states they must carefully inspect every single piece of balled-up tissue or napkin discarded at a dinner table for possible teeth, because the owners of said teeth are not responsible for their belongings. Essentially, she accused the man of doing his job – that bastard! She was in turns having a pouting, table pounding, smack condiments to the floor in frustration, foot stomping, with intermittent outcries of “My teeth!” hissy fit.

Her dinner companion addressed her as “Ma”, as in a poignant, earnest, but definitely loud request to “Chill the fuck out Ma!” as her wailing increased. Attempting to gauge his age in comparison to hers, in order to determine whether “Ma” was a title or a term of endearment was never established. The woman was just short of keening for her lost teeth, much to the amusement of a table of four twenty-mid-twenty-somethings, all of whom pulled out their respective cell phones to record the proceedings as managers and other wait staff were pulled into the melodrama.

All this time I was facing the events, doing my best to not start outright laughing in the woman’s presence, even if I could barely keep a straight face of my own. Some forty-five minutes later, the birthday girl and her dinner companion leave the restaurant, still distraught over the loss, but with their meal comped for their troubles. It was the general consensus of my dining companion that the point of the entire production was getting the meal comped. While I not necessarily agree to that in regard to the lost teeth, it was clearly the intent of a woman who sat a table over from the going-ons, claiming the event upset her so, she suffered loss of appetite and she and her dinner companion should be compensated for such. The beleaguered manager, understandably flustered from the craziness, was not hearing it.

My friend looked me dead in the eye and proclaimed she did not care how desperate I wanted ribs, we were never stepping foot in that place again. Can’t say that I blamed her. After all, if hjbvl c this was a simple rainy Wednesday evening, early dinner crowd can you imagine the shenanigans on a Friday? During Happy Hour?

On the second thought, don’t.

Wash. Sip. Repeat.

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Enter Subway Pet Peeve Number One: Eating or drinking on the subway when you are standing above someone.

I am seated reading a book on my Tab when I smell coffee. A woman is standing in front of me sipping from a paper cup. Not a thermos, a paper cup; a large paper cup. I can clearly see the torn tab opening when moves the cup from her lips. I can tell by the angle in which she holds it while sipping, it is still a relatively full cup.

“Good Morning.” I smile, garnering her attention and she returns my greeting.

“I’m asking, could you not do that please?” I ask pointing to the cup.

“Not do what? Drink my coffee?”

“Yes. Could you not do that please?”

“Why?”

“This is a crowded train during rush hour. You could be jostled at any moment that results in spillage and I do not want me or my electronics to get wet.”

“There’s no law that says I can’t drink coffee on the train.”

“You are correct, there is no explicit law denying anyone the right to eat and drink on the subway. However, it is considered common courtesy to refrain from doing so when seated, it is especially so if you are standing above someone.”

“I’m not going to spill anything.”

“Not intentionally, I hope, but the word accident exists for a reason. However profusely stated and honestly felt, “I’m sorry” does not negate any potential damage done. It especially does negate the callousness of your actions when I am asking you nicely, not to. If you don’t want to stop, can I then ask you to stand elsewhere? Maybe other passengers are not as bothered by it as I.”

From the looks of my fellow passengers seated on either side of me, it was clear they would not be indifferent to her rudeness either and she knew it.

“Oh please. Fuck you.”

I look up to the through the subway car roof to the heavens above and mentally ask the Powers-that-Be why they chose a day when I am in a dress and heels, in other words in no way dressed for a potential fight, to test me so.

“Not a problem.”

I do not say anything else to her knowing she will be off the train before I will. I simply hoped she does not spill anything on me in the interim. The best I can do is put my Tab and cellphone out of harm’s way. Seeing my house keys in a side pocket, I take them out and hold them in my fist. I think better of it and put them away, carefully placing my bag on the floor between my feet. I know she saw what I did and moved the cup from her face. There is slight mumbling around us by those witnessing the exchange, none of it in her favor, but nothing else. All the while she is standing there holding the coffee in her hand, not sipping it, but with the open notch it’s still a potential for spillage.

The train reaches her stop and she turns to leave, giving me the side eye over her shoulder as she does. Bitch is stated in her eyes, if not spoken with her mouth. A guy seated across, but closer to the door, from me wakes up with a start. He looks around dazed for a split second and must have realized he either missed his stop or was about to when he stood up quickly. He stood right into the hand holding the coffee that was on its way to her lips again for a defiant sip as she glared at me.

Want to guess what happened next?

Yup, the guy accidentally knocks the coffee into her, causing it to spill on her blouse and his elbow that made contact before she can right it. The man apologizes profusely, but he is also intent on getting off the train. She has moved enough away that none of it drips on me. A woman sitting to my left, who witnessed the exchange between the woman and I snorts a heartfelt “Good for her!”. Because this is morning rush hour there is confusion at the door as people are rushing to get in and out while avoiding the coffee spill on the floor. Another woman somehow stepped right in it and nearly slipped, grabbing the handhold just in time. Ms. Coffee immediately turns around, clearly about to apologize, when the woman, cuts her off.

“”The word accident exists for a reason.” Next time, don’t drink the damn coffee. Now get out of the way!” The woman who nearly fell snarls at Ms. Coffee, pushing past her evidently pissed.

I know it is coming, so I wait for it. Sure enough Ms. Coffee shoots me one last look. I salute her with the bird as she hustles to get off the train before the door closes. Two men in suits who entered from a different door and witnessed only  the last minute or so of the events, look around as they make their way in.

I am reaching for my bag to get my iPod when the woman next to me bursts out laughing, making me look up.

“What was that all commotion at the other door about?” One suit asks his friend while sipping a cup of coffee. In a paper cup.

I groan as the woman laughs harder and the two suits look on confused.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

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Update: Guess who I saw on the train this morning? Yup, Ms. Coffee herself, sans coffee this time. She was not standing near me, but we saw each other.

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Slice of Life Writing Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

You Better Be Glad I Like You

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Yawning before she can open to the first page of Glass Houses, the new book she downloaded the night before, Sabrina gives up and closes her Tab. Already familiar with the author’s mesmerizing writing style, she knows the successive yawns that have overtaken her are hardly portent to the reading material. Sparing the fellow commuter sitting directly across from being able to count her fillings even from that distance should she allow free rein to pandiculation, she presses her lips tightly together stifling yet another yawn. Dear sweet Insomnia, the sonavabitch, in its perverse sense of humor, takes the sleep she was denied in the dead of night when it was needed and uses the rhythmic movements of the subway train to bring it to her in the morning light of her commute to work.

Glancing at the time piece on her wrist as an afterthought, she muses why she even bothers wearing a watch anymore as she checks the time on her cell phone anyway, 06:47am. There is still a solid forty-five minutes or so of her ride to work, barring the expected unexpected delays inherit to morning rush hour. Knowing a losing battle when she feels it, she stores the Tab in her handbag, and like the true City commuter she is, she then zips it and wraps the straps around her wrists for safe keeping before pulling her sunglasses over her eyes and gives in to slumber.

Taking a late breakfast break nearly four hours later, she sits at her desk, her second extra-large coffee of the morning well in hand, curious antici-pation, not letting her wait until the evening commute to begin reading the book. She opens the reader on her PC figuring she can get at least the first chapter in as she takes a bite of the bacon, eggs and cheese on a toasted bialy. The cheese oh so perfectly warm and gooey as she likes it suddenly feeling repulsively mucoid as she reads the opening sentence:

NED POWELL AWOKE FRIDAY morning at eight and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, rolling a viscous, snot-like clump between his fingers like it was putty.

Damn you Andrew Wilmot, you better be glad I like you!

(PS: I finished eating the sandwich anyway.)

Glass Houses by Andrew Wilmot

Verbal Diarrhea Diaries: Look That Up

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I went out to dinner with a few folks the weekend before last. As normal among us as there were ribald shenanigans aplenty. It was all fun and games, a fantastic get together to catch up. Somewhere in the midst of the silliness I noted Crisp (don’t ask/can’t tell), had stopped short for a moment to look at me queerly, but then he continued on with the conversation and I promptly dismissed whatever it was I thought I saw.

We ran into each other on the train this morning. After a moment of general salutations he looks at me saying there’s something he wanted to ask that’s been on his mind since dinner the weekend before. Aha I thought, I did see something, it was not my imagination after all.

“Sure Crisp what’s on your mind” I ask mentally preparing for a serious conversation.

“I know this is stupid,” He starts “but when we were joking around you called me a C.A.D.”

“A C.A.D.?”

“Yeah, usually I can figure out how your convoluted mind jumps and follow your sense of humor, but for the life of me I cannot fathom how you jumped from the archaic to computer-aided design.” He laughs self deprecatingly.

Now, I am mentally scratching my head trying to fathom where we were in the midst of the various topics of conversation that included computer aided design and drew a complete blank.  I am literally thinking to myself who the hell, but Crisp would call it computer-aided design when everyone else who even knows the term calls it by its acro… And that’s when the light bulb lit.

“I called you a cad?” It took everything I had to look in his face and not snort in laughter.

“Yes, a CAD.” He nodded, becoming somewhat perturbed by my barely suppressed mirth.

“By god for a man presumed reasonably adroit, betimes your mind is naught but fandangle. I called you a cad, you dimwit!” I snickered.

The conversation he referred to was a hodgepodge of history that segued into archaic or near archaic words.  I adore Crisp, but at that moment in the conversation clearly his comprehension of archaic  fared not much past the immediate computer age. What was also clear was that he proving the point why such words were near archaic as he still did not get it.  We were nearing his stop and he stood.

“Since you sat for over a week and did not bother ascertain for yourself whether there were possible alternate meanings, especially given the conversation at the time, I shant make it easy and do the work by simply telling you.” I shook my head smiling as he edged towards the door. “Go look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls.“

“My fucking what?” Crisp turned at the door completely confused

A gentleman sitting across from me, who clearly got the reference, started laughing as I put my head down groaned.

It’s been a while since I actually felt my age, thanks Crisp.

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