Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Trick that Treat, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Bean town boom

What a time for Boston area sports. The Red Sox swept the World Series, the New England Patriots are undefeated, the Boston College Eagles are ranked #2 in the country and rumor has it that the Boston Celtics have already bribed enough NBA refs to make it to the playoffs.

Not kidding around
The San Diego fires must be serious. Today Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopted San Diego Charger Ladanian Tomlinson.

Not cozy with Sarkozy
In a “Sixty Minutes interview, France President Nicolas Sarkozy called his press secretary an idiot and stormed out on CBS’s Leslie Stahl; Sarkozy got really short with Stahl, but then, at 5ft 5 inches, Sarkozy gets really short with everyone.

So mean
Did you know that the-wildly-popular-with-little-girls Disney character, Hanna Montana, is Miley Cyrus, daughter of singer Billy Ray Cyrus? Do you know what Billy Ray Cyrus has in common with the Colorado Rockies? They each had one hit.

Sounds about right
The hot ticket with young girls is the Disney Channel’s “Hanna Montana”, Miley Cyrus concert tour. I believe the tour is titled; “Behold. We Are Disney And We Will Not Stop Until We Have All of Your Money” tour.

We got one questionA former Harvard quarterback designed a football helmet with 18 air-filled, thermoplastic shock absorbers. Specialists say this could end concussions that result from a really hard tackle, to which the Miami Dolphins said; “What’s a really hard tackle?”


Since you asked:
There is this woman whom we know who is very sweet and a good friend of ours but she has absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth. No inner monologue whatsoever, what she thinks comes out. By the time she dials the phone and you pick it up, her mind has completely wandered and this is what she says every single time she calls:

“Oh, hi, Alex? I is that you? Ha ha ha, I got so busy on the computer I forgot who I was calling. Imagine that? Oh my. That is so funny. Now, why did I call? Oh, yes, is
Virginia there?”

It’s like talking to Dora from “Finding Nemo.”

Once I had to work with this woman on a project who thought out loud when she was working and you had to sit there and listen to her brain function which was like chewing on tin foil. She would call and have twenty minute phone calls reading boilerplate form after form – all the while billing me for her time – that, more times than not, ended with her saying,

“Oh, wait, it says here your signature is not required. Never mind.” Click.

Bless her sweet heart, my wife calls a few times a day and she always acts like I called her. First, she acts surprised that it’s me answering- even though she knows I am in my office by the phone - and then she waits for me to say something, as if I was the one who initiated the call.

If you ever are wondering if I am on the phone with my wife, if I am making the universal sign for wrap it up, fore finger extended in a circular motion, then I am on the phone with Virg.

Maybe I need to be more patient. And maybe she has to make more concise calls.

As I have said, men like talking on the phone as much as women do, but we like to do it like we are on the huge backpack phone in a battle. Confirm their identity, confirm your identity, state the reason for the call, hang up.

“HQ? Lex. We’re under sniper fire. We need air cover at such-and-such coordinates. Out.”

Here is my sweet, lovely wife calling from the battlefield for air cover:

“Oh, heeeeey, hiiiiiiiii, it’s youuuuuuuu. How is it going? Really? That’s nice. What have you been up to lately? Oh, gooooooooood. Well, we’ve been fine, pretty much up to the same thing. Ann Caroline is getting so grown up. And how are your kids? How old are they now? Wow, really? They do, you’re absolutely right, they do grow up so fast.”

“Huh? Oh, the reason I called? Well, I was just wondering. I don’t know if you know, but we are in a rather fierce firefight with the bad guys – we call them the bad guys, they probably call us the bad guys, there are two sides to every story – but now they are being a real pest and using a, oh, what’s that guy called who has the scopy thing on his gun, oh, yeah, a sniper, so, if you’re not too busy, we don’t want to bother you, but, if you could send air cover . . . oh, you know what, since I called everyone’s been shot, so I guess we don’t need it anymore. OK, say hi to everyone for me. We have to plan to get together soon. Oh, you have to go? OK, bye.”

It would be downright mean-spirited to say that, by the time Virg says goodbye, the other end wishes they were under sniper fire, so I will not say that.

But . . .