Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Happy Belated Birthday, America!
Like most Americans, I honored our great land by gorging myself on cheap, preservative-laden snack foods, drinking watery keg beer, and burning my skin to a lobstery crisp. It was a pretty memorable weekend, frankly, at least those parts of it that I remember. I watched the fireworks from my friend Meghan's sailboat, which gave me ample opportunity to ask what a mizzen mast is and which side is starboard. I tried pre-mixed mojitos, which tasted like Scope and made me believe I could see through time. And I urinated in public on more than one occasion, helping me to appreciate the great American ingenuity behind ample indoor plumbing. Fairly spectacular stuff.
Of course, there were also a couple of days of truly crappy weather, one of which I spent trapped in my condo with my cleaning lady, who turns out to be rather delightful and wee despite her excessive love of Windex. She cleans barefoot and hums what sounds a little bit like The Girl from Ipanema (though she herself is from Poland) while she meticulously irons each and every one of my shirts, including the undershirts. I felt a little awkward watching DVDs and reviewing documents on my couch while she labored away, but she did in fact resist my offers to help. She may have thought I was trying to kill her with the toilet brush, I'm not sure.
But the real news is that I took five consecutive days off from work, making this the longest break I've had since December. This morning I briefly considered changing my name and running away to Mexico, but I don't think I could live anywhere where they don't have Taco Bell.
Like most Americans, I honored our great land by gorging myself on cheap, preservative-laden snack foods, drinking watery keg beer, and burning my skin to a lobstery crisp. It was a pretty memorable weekend, frankly, at least those parts of it that I remember. I watched the fireworks from my friend Meghan's sailboat, which gave me ample opportunity to ask what a mizzen mast is and which side is starboard. I tried pre-mixed mojitos, which tasted like Scope and made me believe I could see through time. And I urinated in public on more than one occasion, helping me to appreciate the great American ingenuity behind ample indoor plumbing. Fairly spectacular stuff.
Of course, there were also a couple of days of truly crappy weather, one of which I spent trapped in my condo with my cleaning lady, who turns out to be rather delightful and wee despite her excessive love of Windex. She cleans barefoot and hums what sounds a little bit like The Girl from Ipanema (though she herself is from Poland) while she meticulously irons each and every one of my shirts, including the undershirts. I felt a little awkward watching DVDs and reviewing documents on my couch while she labored away, but she did in fact resist my offers to help. She may have thought I was trying to kill her with the toilet brush, I'm not sure.
But the real news is that I took five consecutive days off from work, making this the longest break I've had since December. This morning I briefly considered changing my name and running away to Mexico, but I don't think I could live anywhere where they don't have Taco Bell.
