Top Ten Clues You Are Over 40

1. You are no longer faking your inability to open a jar just to win points by making The Man feel all manly.

2. The Man actually IS a man, not just a Guy.

3. You feel like a pedophile when you receive Abercrombie's email ads with the hairless, naked boy-chest plastered across your screen. You also wonder if it's wrong to still like/wear their clothes.

4. You go to a concert and wish the kids around you would shut up and listen already.

5. You think of other concert-goers as "kids."

6. You cheat on the eye exam at DMV by casually walking up to the eye chart while waiting for your number to be called and memorizing the letters. (And think how lucky you are that you can remember that many letters!)

7. Retail clerks call you "M'am" instead of "Miss" to get your attention. You, of course, ignore them unless they walk over and get in your face because there is NO WAY "M'am" could be referring to you.

8. No one cards you anymore for anything, even if the sign says they card everyone under 80.

9. You receive a blank stare from the Starbucks barista when you make a joke about the Reagan Administration.

10. You no longer leave your clothes in piles on the floor - one for clean and one for dirty... oh wait...

(Yes, I wrote those. And no, leaving piles of clothes on the floor is not me. That would be the bf.)

California Is So Grateful!

My Jeep has always had personalized license plates. I think they make it feel special and cared for compared to cars with only a standard issue tag, and they give it bragging rights in the parking lots. (Yes, my imagination runneth over.)

In New Jersey my license plate said LEEZARD because that's what I call my trusty vehicle. (There's that whole iguana & gecko thing I have going on too.) I mean the Jeep IS green and if I ever got brave enough to take it off road, I'm sure it would love crawling up on rocks to sun itself. (I'm not scared to go off road, I'm scared to rip the transmission from the axles and be sans transportation!)

I had several possible plate combinations picked out months before I left for California. When the time came to register it, none of them felt right. I ended up going with FZY LOGC because it means a couple things to me: 1) The chinnies needed their turn to be represented on the license plate and fuzzy logic could imply chinnie logic since they're so fuzzy and all; 2) I love physics and even tho fuzzy logic is technically a math concept, it's used in physics; 3) I love irony and I thought it more than a little ironic that I would pick something math-related since I am so allergic to math.

Unfortunately the FZY LOGC plate has not thrilled me. It still doesn't feel right and being in the Home State of Silicon Valley, I've already had a couple enginerds ask me about it as if I actually UNDERSTOOD what fuzzy logic is... then I've had to hang my head and admit that I suck at math. They always look so disappointed.

I started thinking something along the lines of gratitude might be a better fit, especially since I have the Cafe Gratitude sticker on the back to ask anyone checking out my rear, "What are you grateful for?"

I went to the DMV's web site where they conveniently have a program to type in your license plate to see if it's available. These are the things I typed in:

GRATEFL
GREATFL
GR8FUL
GR8FL
GR8FAL
GR8TFAL
GR8TFUL
GR8TEFL
GR8EFUL
GR8FULL
GR8TFIL
GRATI2D
GRATY2D
IMGR8FL
AMGR8FL
GR8TFL1
GR8FL4U
RUGR8FL
THNKFUL
THANKFL

Apparently California is the most grateful state EVAR. Not one of those combinations was available. Of course, we are also the most populated state I think, so if I cared a whit about math, statistics (or perhaps fuzzy logic) would probably have saved me the wasted time and explained why I most likely wouldn't get the plate I want.

To be fair, TH4NKFL and GR4TEFL were available but considering the font Cali uses I'm just not convinced I'd get the message across. Still thinking about it. Maybe I should just go with LEEZARD again. (ACK!!! Except I just checked that and someone has my plate now! Should've grabbed it when it was available. :( )

(Incidentally, URAWSUM and IMAWSUM are both taken. How AWSUM would it be to see both of those at a stoplight together? LOL)

Victorias Secret FAIL

A few months ago I went on a mission to replace some seriously aging bras. I must've spent at least $200 on enough plain, daily-wear, no-lace-involved unmentionables to last a little more than a week without having to do laundry.

Victoria's Secret has been a good brand in the past. I have some items that have been in service for over five years. Altho I rarely buy anything that's not on sale there, it is generally expensive enough - even with a discount - to make one expect a higher quality than something you would get at say... Walmart. If the adage "you get what you pay for" is true, then I purchased lingerie that should last AT LEAST a year or two, hopefully much more since I am not particularly hard on my clothes.

Here's the big but(t) in this story...

These only-a-couple-months-old bras are actually made with an element of evil. I'm convinced somewhere along the factory line, my unassuming underwear were sent into a dark cavernous space, where they were shown a film instructing them how to unravel and tangle, stretch and deteriorate, and generally collaborate with the machine to wreak havoc on the psyche of the owner. Much like certain members of the GOP.

Every one of my "new" garments have had the underwires at least poke through the lining, if not entirely remove themselves from their sewn compartments during cleaning. In addition, the straps wrap themselves around each other in such a decadent fabric grind they could make the Playboy channel blush. They emerge from the washer wound up so tight even a sailor would be left scratching his head over the knots. Of course this watery dance stretches said straps to their limits, effectively making me shorten them more each time I wear them lest they fall all over my shoulders in their exhaustion. Further, ANY other type of material that may be in the gentle cycle with them causes the fabric to pill and the elastic to unravel at the edges, making them look more like Goodwill material than anything from an "upscale" establishment.

This is not a matter of overuse and too-frequent cleaning due to lack of volume. I'll bet I could actually go three weeks without doing laundry and still be wearing fresh booby gear every day, altho in that case they would not always match my outfit, which is one of my charming idiosyncrasies. My point is, these newcomers are not the only bras I have, nor are they the only ones I wear, so on average I'd say each one gets to surf the suds maybe once every two weeks. They enjoy a very posh life for lingerie - I'll bet the JC Penney bras would kill to be in their drawers.

If you Google "Victoria's Secret complaints" you will find I am not the only unsatisfied customer with these issues. The company's response has been that every bra's tag says "Hand Wash Only" and women do not heed this warning, so the company is resolving themselves of all responsibility. Please. This is the biggest political cop out I've ever heard. First of all, I've been buying VS products for years and never have I hand-washed any of them. The ones I have from five years ago still look new. The new ones look five years old already. Only in the last six months have I had an issue with them falling apart and tangling up, which tells me they probably changed their manufacturer to an under-18 sweatshop in a third world country. Secondly, we do not live in 1950. What modern woman with access to a washing machine actually chooses to dunk her drawers in the sink? If you are doing this, you have too much time on your hands and I will gladly provide you with a kitchen to clean right after you bake me an apple pie. You think those pouty peddling Brazilian brats have dishpan hands from cleaning the lacy scraps of cloth they model? Give me a freakin' break.

I've considered gathering up the offensive garments and taking them back from whence they came; my receipt is dated June 9. I haven't decided yet whether it's worth dealing with a snooty, black-clad 20-something trailing Dream Angels vapor that thinks she has authority along with that key to the register.

Caveat Emptor I suppose. Vicky's new secret is that she ain't what she used to be.

~*~

In other news... it occurred to me that when you are little they tell you if you are lost to stop running around and stay in one place until someone finds you. That does not work the same way with a job hunt.

A Fruity Story

Yesterday - we're talking 24 HOURS AGO - I bought a quart of strawberries and a bag of grapes at Henry's. Both are organically grown because I'm like that. Both looked equally fresh because they probably were. I used the strawberries to garnish a raw foods dessert I made to take to a massage party last night. (Chocomole, totally awesome cuz it's from a totally awesome person, and it never fails to wow every guest at the gathering. Take copies of the recipe with you. Trust me on this.) I left both the extra strawberries and the bag of grapes on my counter overnight because I'm not partial to cold fruit and I don't have problems with pests that raid my kitchen (aside from my roommate).

This morning I go to cut up the remainder of the strawberries and they are COMPLETELY grey and fuzzy. I don't mean just a little part that you can cut out, I had to THROW THEM OUT. And I despise wasting food. WTF? The grapes sitting on the counter right next to them were fine. Not even a trace of science experiment. I wonder if I had stuck a camera in front of the berries overnight if I could've watched them grow a beard like a time-lapse movie without the acceleration.

This is not the first time I've seen this here in San Diego. The trouble is, it doesn't happen every time and you never know when it will strike. Some fruit I've left out on my counter for days with no trouble. Others commit suicide overnight. I can't figure it out. I mean sure, you never know when the things you buy actually arrived at the store so perhaps they were already old, but they felt firm and didn't seem to show any signs of severe decay. It is the weirdest thing.

At least I still have grapes. (Thank you Fruity Gods.) I will pair them with peaches in the blender and add some Agave nectar and see how that dance goes. Grapes and strawberries straight up are a much tastier smoothie though. I swear I'm going to do this raw food thing eventually. I got a recipe for a fruit dip type thing from a great guy I met at the last massage party. It goes like this (in his unedited words) for anyone that wants to try it:

The recipe is simple, all is real and raw, not from a can, I get the young coconuts a the asian stores call 99 Ranch Market, a case of 9 young coconuts is about $7.00, so here we go, to make a small amount you can do it with milk and meat from one coconut, hand full of raw cashews ( keep adding till gets thick ), small dash of sea salt, blend, try it, then add 1/4tsp or a bit more of raw agave nectar ( keep adding till gets sweet enough for you, and don't forget to add some love too, and thats it.

You drizzle that over fruit - he had cut up apples at the party - and it was delish. Oh, and when he says blend it, he means with one of the Super Blenders like a VitaMix or a BlendTec. I haven't purchased one yet, but I see it in my very near future. (If you're looking to get one, check eBay. There's been some good deals on nearly-new BlendTecs there recently.)

I guess eating raw requires more than sweet desserts tho. That's the part I'm not as excited to try - veges and such. Sounds like a WHOLE lotta salads and green shakes. Salad is all fine and good, but I'm not an iguana (despite Spunky's opinion).

Well anyway, that's my story for today.

Spunky, my fruity iguana.