Susie Pizza And The Thing: Part Uno

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Dan and I went out for dinner last night at a romantic little hideaway called Pizzeria Uno.  Hey, it’s a step up from cereal.

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Clearly we don’t get out much, because I’d never experienced the newfangled restaurant technology.  Every table had a little touch screen unit thingie.  Have you seen these?  It’s the very latest in completely impersonal dining.  I guess the little 16 year old hostess assumed everyone knew about these, because she sat us at our table without any guidance at all on using The Thing.  We carefully studied the screen options; Food, Drink, Fun, Social.  I thought maybe it was some kind of interactive menu, but we had perfectly functional printed menus right in front of us.

I pressed on the Fun area and got a sub-menu of movies and games.  The games warned us that we were not allowed to play until we placed our drink order.  We were able to explore the movie side; it had movie listings for nearby multi-megaplexes and trailers for all the movies.  Huh.

We were just wondering if The Thing was going to be our server for the evening when our human server approached the table.  When she opened her mouth we both immediately wished we’d figured out the electronic server.  My personal belief is that it’s bearable for a person to be dumb, and it’s OK for someone to be weird, but no one should be both dumb and weird.  Too late…

Dan mentioned that we weren’t going to use The Thing and she said she was glad because soon it was going to put her out of a job.  She went on to tell us, in excruciating detail, about her experiences with self-service check outs and how much she loved them.  She said they weren’t too hard for her to figure out because she used to be a cashier but she could see that they might be a lot harder for other people.  Uh huh.

She spoke very loudly, and had a creepy habit of holding eye contact about 2 seconds longer than necessary.  She busted out an incredibly annoying cackling laugh even though there was nothing funny; must have been the little man inside her head.

As you may know, the Uno’s menu is very complicated.  It consists of appetizers, soups and salads, pizza and entrees.   I can see how it would send someone right over the edge.

I ordered a small salad, which she seemed to comprehend, and a pizza with eggplant and goat cheese.  She repeated the order back to me as an eggplant pizza.  I corrected her and reminded her about the goat cheese.  She told me she didn’t have to remember because all she had to press on the computer was eggplant.  I was wondering what kind of computer could figure out that my second topping was goat cheese, but the order was already taking 10 minutes so I let it go.

PLUS PLUS

 

I can’t possibly tell you the rest without taking a break to clear my head and finish up the leftovers.  In the next installment, Dan tries to place his order…

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The Summer Of My Not Discontent

Posted on November 17, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Where were we?  Oh yes, my summer repeating 10th grade PE.  Summer school was at Lake Braddock that year; one of the few schools at the time that went from 7th through 12th, and it had big wide halls.  In what can only be described as surreal, our first week of activity was roller skating, not in the beating sun outside, but right there in those beautiful wide hallways.  While kids were sitting in classrooms making up classes like English, Algebra and Geometry we were gliding through the hallways on our skates, whooping it up.

I know you’re thinking I would be a disaster on skates, but when I was a little girl my dad was determined to teach me.  He fabricated a doctor’s appointment and pulled me out of school in the middle of the day.  We headed straight to the roller rink, and with not another soul around to intimidate me, I learned how to skate.  Yes, I fell a lot, but I was much closer to the ground back then.

It was all worth it because when I was in junior high I spent many a Saturday night at the roller rink. There I was wearing my skin-tight Calvin Klein jeans, grooving my disco skates to the sounds of the 70s; K.C. and the Sunshine Band, the Bay City Rollers, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor and The Bee Gees.

      

When they dimmed the lights and slowed everything down for Couples Skate, they would play the Captain and Tennille singing Muskrat Love.

We moved on from roller skating to the vigorous sport of putt-putt golf.  They set up a little course on the lawn; while it was unfortunately outside, we were only required to play 9 holes, and then we could go back inside and skate.

After putt-putt, we tackled the physical and mental rigor of bowling at a nearby Bowl America.  All we had to do was show up and play two games, and then we were free to go-as in go hang out or whatever, not go back to school.  It’s not pretty, but even I can throw a ball down a bowling lane; typically without harming myself or others.  And remember, I was competing with other losers who failed 10th grade PE.

If I had known how awesome summer school PE would be, I would have thrown in the towel in 9th grade PE too.

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How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

From what you know about me, do I seem like someone who should have ever been sent to camp? I hate the great outdoors, and I’m not exactly athletic. Nonetheless, when I was 12 or so, I found myself packing up and heading off to Jew Kid Camp (JKC).

The good thing about JKC is that we were all clumsy disasters. Most physical activities took place in the pool; Marco Polo, Sharks and Minnows, and “free swim.” My people seem to be strong swimmers. We spent the rest of the time eating, doing indoor arts and crafts projects, and in religious services (tons of services).  It was there that I became a devout Jew, praying that no one was going to make me go into the woods or attempt any kind of sport.

My prayers were answered.  We were up in the Poconos, so it was nice and cool outside, and no one tried to make us hike or play soccer or anything like that. Perfect.

While I never went away to camp again, a few years later I found myself in summer school repeating (and you know I couldn’t make this up) 10th grade PE. Some of my friends and I much preferred to sneak cigarettes in the dug-out than to participate in actual activities. Yet somehow they all squeaked by, and I didn’t.

As you can guess, the group of kids who fail 10th grade PE in Fairfax County schools is a pretty sorry lot. They got us off on the right foot by letting us wear plain old shorts and t-shirts rather than those standard issue polyester jumpsuits that say “HELLO.  My name is LOSER.”   We cheered up considerably as it became clear that unlike PE in regular school, PE in summer school wasn’t intended to destroy our self-esteem. We had two teachers, both of whom quickly came to the conclusion that we probably weren’t going to be the best group to put on a court or field of any kind. I respected these women for having the wisdom to drop all thoughts of whipping us into shape.

It was quite an interesting summer of activities…so much more to tell, yet so little time.  Stay tuned for the rest of my report…

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The Day Job

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I love writing my blog, but there is the persistent matter of my day job.  I have so much to share, but so little time this week.  Please bear with me until I can post again this weekend.

Alternatively, if anyone wants to support a starving writer, I would happily give up the day job and write about nonsense and other important matters all day.

Please stay tuned!

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Career Attempt Part II: Better Just Go Back To School

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

When I graduated from college, I pictured myself in a vaguely defined job where I had a big office and an assistant and lots of meetings.  I never saw anything like that in the want ads, so I settled for the next best thing and went to work for an employment agency.  Oh boy.  Now that was the worst job of my life.  The agency was owned by an old grumpy couple who were suspicious of everyone and assumed the worst about all of their employees.  The thing is, there was a bookkeeper who was actually robbing them blind, and I kept trying to tell them about it but they decided that I was trying to avert attention from my own thieving ways.  Just using a little common sense, they might have asked themselves who had the actual cash box…in a locked office, while I sat in a big room with Mrs. Meany McCrabby.

I suppose I should be grateful to them for helping me with business school because the job was so horrible that going back to school seemed like heaven.  As a grad student I landed a lucrative job as a teaching assistant, with a whopping salary of $500 per month.  At first it wasn’t a bad gig; I proctored exams and did research when my academic schedule allowed.  But then came the scariest task ever…The Scantron Machine.  Someone had to run those cards with the carefully filled in circles through for scoring.  It looked deceptively simple—load a pack of cards and hit start.

As you know, my life has been a series of mishaps akin to the famous I Love Lucy candy factory episode, and this was no exception.  I slid the cards in the machine, pressed start, and watched as the cards crumpled, tore and flew around the room in rapid fire spurts.  I couldn’t figure out how to turn the damn thing off so I was crawling around under a table trying to unplug it when the department secretary wandered in and started laughing hysterically.

At least when she finished laughing she helped me retrieve and hand grade the cards.  By the time I brought the cards back to the Professor, not only were they crumpled and held together with scotch tape, they were also covered in coffee stains and blobs of (in-date) salad dressing.  He had a different assistant run the test cards after that, so all’s well that ends well.

After 3 years of grad school, I embarked on my “real” career.  Nah, I’m just kidding; I don’t know when I’ll kick off my real career, but admittedly time is ticking.

Does anyone know what I want to be when I grow up?  I definitely don’t.

 

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Taking Care of Business

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

You know, I didn’t start out with the glamorous and exciting job I have now.  I had to work my way up and pay my dues like everyone else.  When I was 15 years old, I landed my first job, calling families and telling them about the joys of Dutterer’s Frozen Food service, which would stock your freezer with all the nutritious and delicious foods you love to feed your family.  Once the prospect was intrigued, I was supposed to set an appointment for a sales rep to visit and review all the benefits of automatically stocked frozen foods.  It was kind of fun to pretend I was jazzed up about quality frozen foods.

Eventually I needed to spread my wings and try something more challenging, so I went to work as a telemarketer for JC Penney.  I was the friendly voice that called and reminded you to renew the maintenance contract on your refrigerator or a/c unit or television.  It was ironic to be touting the quality of JC Penney products while also convincing people that they needed a maintenance contract because the product was probably going to die immediately.  I stuck it out there until I left for college.

The summer after my freshman year of college I went to work as a messenger for a downtown law firm.  Everything was going well until I passed out one day from heat exhaustion or something.  They made a huge fuss over me and insisted that I stay in the nice air conditioned office the rest of the summer while some other poor slob had to run the streets of DC.  The rest of my summer was spent as a relief receptionist (where I dropped or got confused about countless calls), helping the secretaries send things via Telex (which I also screwed up at every turn), and fetching frozen yogurt (the latest thing) for everyone from the little deli in the building.

In the evening we went to fancy Georgetown bars where the firm bought us all expensive drinks.  This was my first taste of K Street Law Firm Living.  Despite the many things I screwed up during my first run, they invited me to come back and work over winter break, which consisted mostly of boozy office parties.

I don’t remember what happened the following summer, but I guess the firm found some other 19 year old to drop calls and pick-up frozen yogurt.  I found myself taking a rigorous arithmetic exam that landed me a job at a Fotomat booth.  Remember?  The little glass box smack in the middle of a parking lot where customers pulled up to leave film to be developed, pick up their pictures, and buy camera accessories.  If I was ever going to die of boredom, it would have been there.

After my wretched summer at Fotomat, I was relieved to go back to an office job the following year.  My brother Barry was working at Media General (now Cox Communications), and landed me a job as…well nothing specific.  Mostly I was his personal assistant/coffee fetcher.

I did have one specific responsibility.  There was a big new thing on the horizon…pay per view movies.  Each evening Media General offered 3 or 4 movies “on demand”.  Back then there was a huge console (it looked like The Bridge on Star Trek) where I had to punch in each customer’s account number, and the code for which movie they wanted.  The movies started at 8 each evening, and by 7:59 I was punching in numbers like crazy so customers wouldn’t miss the beginning of the movie.  I was right there on the brink of history.

So many more truly odd jobs.  Part II coming soon to a blog near you…

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No Need To Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Those of us who are native Washingtonians remember the days when people like cabbies and security guards had two topics of conversation: Politics and Redskins. The old school guys had the scoop on everything, and chatting with them was always a learning experience.

In my office building we had a legendary security guard named Bill, who was respected and adored by everyone. He was in his 80s when I started working there in 2007, and we became fast friends. Not only did he share with me insightful accounts of DC before, during and after the civil rights movement, he also knew everything about everyone in the building. Every morning I could look forward to 5 or 10 minutes with Bill, discussing politics, history, football, and who in our building had a boob job. He never failed to make me laugh. Mitch Albom had Tuesdays with Morrie; I had Weekdays with Bill. Sadly, we lost him a couple of years ago, but his stories and perspective on world events large and small will live with me forever.

I went to a meeting the other night and was a few minutes early so I hung out in the lobby.  In typical fashion I bonded with the evening guard in the building. He had a Redskins hat prominently displayed on his desk and I knew right away he was a DC lifer kind of guy. He got a real kick out of it when I told him the first song I ever learned as a child was Hail to the Redskins (which is 100% true).  We lamented the demise of the Redskins at the hands of Dan Snyder; talked about the good old days at RFK.

Right on the heels of bonding with the security guard, I landed a classic, much beloved DC cabby. When I got in the cab it was absolutely festooned with Obama gear, and my new friend was dressed in Obama-wear from head to toe.  He greeted me with “Praise the lord!  Obama has another 4 years!”  I said I thought things had turned out really well.  I realized I needed to be a little more enthusiastic so I said “I love Obama; he’s doing amazing things for our country!”  He was satisfied that I was a good fare.

He started running down a list of every election result in the country; Governors, Senators, Representatives, Fire Marshalls, Sheriffs, Chief Dog Catcher…you name it.  He knew it all and had an opinion on each race, who was right and who was wrong, and the moral character of each candidate.  He laid out what Obama needed to accomplish in the next 4 years.

We had a pleasant conversation about our shared disbelief that women and people of color actually vote republican.  We waxed philosophical about the Clinton years and cursed the 8 years of W we were forced to endure.  We discussed the embodiment of evil that is Karl Rove.

I say the hell with CNN and MSNBC and The Washington Post.  If I close my eyes and click my heels together 3 times, I may have a chance to chat with someone who has been there, done that, and knows a lot more than any pundit.  Only in Washington.

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Spunky Jack

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I know I promised to pace myself on the cats, but I feel really guilty that Jack, the baby of the bunch, has yet to take top billing.  He doesn’t say much, but I can tell his feelings are hurt.  Here’s Jack as a kitten-little bit of a thing with huge ears and paws to grow into-

Jack is the classic rough and tumble boy; picking fights with his sisters and then making up by grooming them; thwacking them on the head right after he cleans their face; annoying me with his craziness and then looking unbearably adorable.  He and Chrissy are bestest buds

When we first brought him home we called him Goat Boy because the meal he most enjoyed was paper.  We had to put away napkins, paper towels, tissues, mail, newspapers, books, magazines…origami birds…so he wouldn’t eat them (we didn’t really have origami birds, but it sounded good for the story).  Fortunately he outgrew that phase and we relaxed our standards a little.

Jack owns the island in the kitchen.  He paces around his domain constantly looking for intruders…but is somehow oblivious when they sneak up on him.  He likes to hang his tail over the island and flick it, and is shocked when Chrissy and Janet start swatting it.  Sometimes he dozes off a little close to the edge, goes for a stretch and rolls right off.  He’s really good with the “I meant to do that” look.

While Chrissy is my pick me up and carry me around fiend, Jack plays it cool all day.  But as soon as I get in bed he cuddles up and purrs and snuggles in my neck (my neck gets a lot of snuggling from these guys).  When he’s really purring hard he starts treading my shoulder and at least earns his keep around here by giving me awesome massages.

Jack’s favorite toy is a pink and white tennis ball kind of thing.  I think it’s great that he is secure enough in his manhood to play with pink toys.  He plays a lot of vigorous soccer games on the kitchen floor, competing against himself.  Like his sisters he’s prone to knocking his toys under the refrigerator or bookcase, but he magically flattens himself like a flounder and manages to get his toy back.  His athletic prowess is impressive, but typically leaves him exhausted.

He is for sure the cat that is the least bothered by my singing.  Jumpin’ Jack Flash is a gas, gas, gas…

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Happy, Happy, Happy!

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Today is Dan’s 49th birthday.  I think it goes without saying that we are in a May/December romance, given that I am merely 48 years and 7 days old.  I simply can’t imagine how old I will feel in 358 days when I’m his age.

The kitties remembered to give him a birthday card; it was astonishingly similar to the card they gave me last week, and the card they gave both of us last year, and the card Sophie and Mukki gave us the year before that, and so on.  It’s funny because they never remember to sign it, so it went seamlessly from our previous batch of cats to the new ones.

Dan has an identical twin, Tod, and coincidentally it’s his birthday too.  When I look at their childhood birthday pictures it is really tough to figure out who’s who—but then again every kid looks alike in a pointed birthday hat with birthday cake smeared on their face.

It seems weird to me that Dan and Tod don’t even necessarily talk to each other on their birthday, but maybe they have that twin supernatural communication going on.

What’s great about the timing of our birthdays is that I always know to what lengths Dan has gone to celebrate my birthday before I have to decide what I’m doing, or not doing, for him.  On my birthday last week, I went out to dinner with my same-birthday friend, and her friends, and had a really lovely evening.  We invited Dan along but he was more relieved than he should have been when I told him he shouldn’t feel obligated to join us.

Tonight I worked until after 9:00, so we dined separately on his birthday too.  I don’t really know how he spent the evening or what he ate, but I enjoyed a bowl of cereal when I got home.

Some people don’t really get our take on these matters, but we don’t get too worked up about planning a big celebration and exchanging gifts.  I know I pick on him all the time, but I have to go just a little mushy tonight, so please indulge me.

Dan’s birthday is a good time to tell the world that he has always been my biggest cheerleader; there for me when I need him the most, and epitomizes the “in sickness or in health” vow in ways we couldn’t have imagined just 3 years ago.

So Dan’s gone to bed, and I’m tapping away on the laptop, but in my heart I am jumping up and down with joy that 49 years ago today, the stars and planets aligned and Dan came into this world.  Happy birthday baby, and many, many more.

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Time Flies When You’re Sitting In The Fridge

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

There are some truths I hold to be self-evident.  Avoiding spoiled food, for example.  Sometimes it’s hard to say if it’s really spoiled, but if it’s well past the expiration date I’m not going to try my luck.  Dan, on the other hand, feels that most food expiration dates are more like guidelines, suggestions, opinions.

Other than when we have guests, we’re not exactly the kind of people who come home and prepare a meal.  A quick soy dog, a bowl of cereal with almond milk, or microwave frozen pizza (it’s an acquired taste).  So when I was craving a salad last February the whole bottle of dressing I bought is just sitting in my fridge.  I was absolutely going to make hummus one weekend, but time slipped away and now the tahini sauce has been in the fridge for nearly two years (or so).

Next thing you know I’m in the mood for salad again, but the blue cheese dressing is out of date by say, 8 months.  I toss the dressing.  Yes, I feel guilty about all the starving people around the world who have lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, maybe some nice shredded carrots, but no dressing.  Heck, I’m willing to send cases of Ken’s Chunky Bleu Cheese to developing nations, but I’m not going to eat questionable dressing.

If Dan is fixing a salad and finds the way out of date dressing, he’s not one to make a hasty decision.  First he triple checks the date; perhaps if he squints his eyes a certain way it will look like 2012 rather than 2002.  Next, he holds the bottle up to the light and carefully examines the contents, and reads off the ingredients.  He will note that blue cheese can’t go bad because it’s already made out of mold, and the eggs in there are pasteurized, and really the thing is so full of chemical preservatives it would survive a nuclear winter.

As I gag and look on in horror, Dan goes right ahead and takes the top off and gives it a good smell.   “I don’t think it smells bad.  I mean, it might smell a little weird but I don’t think it has gone bad.”  Seriously?  He’ll shrug his shoulders and go right ahead and eat it.  I’m concerned, so I tell him not to let the cats get too close.  I see no reason for him to take the cats down with him.

Sometimes I’ll just set a timer to check on his breathing every half hour or so…but sometimes I forget and get kind of caught up in a TV show.  The bottom line is that he has never once gotten sick from eating food 10 years after the expiration date.

A few weeks ago he pulled out some bottled water that that seemed to have been sitting in the garage for a few years.  I asked if it had been sitting around for a while, and he confirmed that the water should have been safe for consumption through 2008.

I started to fuss about the water, but ultimately it’s just water.  I don’t think water goes bad, really.  The truth is if you told me 20 years ago I would be buying water in a bottle as if it was soda, I would have said that the concept was ludicrous.  It comes right out of the tap for free!

But that was then, and this is now.  I turned my nose up at the bottle of old water he offered me and grabbed some freshly filtered water instead.

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