Overheard

After winning Jagermeister T-shirts for my entire table at a bar over the weekend (leave it to the only sober person in the room to successfully translate the word "meister") it came out that I was Mormon.

Him: Wait, you're Mormon?

Me: Yup.

Him: You don't look white enough to be Mormon.

Uh, whaaaaat? I consider myself to be pretty good at handling the "you're Mormon?" comments, but besides the look of bewilderment on my face, I had no response to that.

Why Exaggerate When Stuff Like This Happens?

I opened my front door this morning and found that someone had left me a Valentine treat on my doorstep! Getting presents, in whatever fashion they arrive, is my favorite. But getting them mysteriously dropped on the doorstep is even MORE my favorite.

Except, perhaps, when that present is a partially used 20lb bag of cat litter.

At first I thought it was a gift from the Ghost of Valentine's Day Future come to give me a wake up call. But the note attached explained that one of my neighbors (the one that stole my iron, incidentally) is moving out and thought that I might be able to make use of the litter.

This is a nice thought, except for that I don't have a cat. And I'm not really keen on pets in general. And it's VALENTINE'S DAY. And presents given on Valentine's Day should be of the chocolate or candy heart or diamond variety. Not of the turd receivership variety.

Take it from me, if you're a single girl in your 30s and let's just say you're a librarian and maybe you have a slight phobia about being destined to become a crazy cat lady, the last thing - and I do mean the VERY LAST THING - you want to see on your front step on Valentine's morning is a 20 lb bag of cat litter. That's just cruel. Ironic and cruel.

Available for Adoption

For a while now I've been getting email from a Hanson family that isn't MY Hanson family. At first I was mildly concerned that Gmail was sending another Gretchen Hanson's mail to me accidentally. But then I saw this little note next to my address on the message:


And since everyone knows that Google doesn't make mistakes, I stopped worrying about it.

For the most part, they seem like a pretty normal family, sending notes about Halloween and Christmas visits and whatnot. I kept thinking I should let them know that Google thinks that I'm their Gretchen Hanson, but the messages are infrequent and devoid of any real personal information. It hardly seemed worth the effort. And honestly part of me wanted to see if anything interesting like Halloween pictures showed up. Then yesterday this exchange came through, and I can't say how happy I am that my inner voyeur won out.

First Ashleigh sent this message to the whole family about her boyfriend Jason not coming home with her for Christmas:

Hey family!

Not sure if or what you all were planning on getting Jason for Christmas this year, but just an FYI that he won’t be coming to Seattle this year (Please, hold back the tears ) so if you happen to get something that’s bigger than a gift card and don’t want to make me lug it on the plan back to LA (Please don’t!) feel free to ship it to our place via my attention. Just shoot me an email telling me its coming so I know to keep an eye out for it. I’ll wrap it and tell him who it’s from when we do our own Christmas the weekend of New Years. Sound good?

Next message from Ashleigh. (This one just to the siblings, which apparently includes moi):

Hey siblings-

Omigosh. I just got the BIGGEST email from dad regarding the email I just sent to everyone saying that Jason wasn’t coming to Seattle for Christmas. Apparently he thought my comment about “Holding back the tears” was my way of telling you all that Jason feels like an outsider…not quite sure how he got that, but it’s hard to interpret emails…so I just wanted to clarify with you all that that was NOT what I was trying to say. I was just trying to be funny. Jason’s not coming to Seattle for Christmas; it’s really not a big deal so I’m not expecting anyone to be upset. Dad seriously just sent me a HUGE email talking about all of the significant others of his generation in the family and how people have treated them like outsiders…goodness gracious! Can’t a girl be funny anymore!

So hopefully none of you guys interpreted my email as Dad did
See you all in a little more than a month!
Peace Out.

Brother Dave replies:

Ashleigh,

I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell you so you can tell Jason...that he is an outsider. We're all very happy that he is not coming to Seattle. The city is happy that he is not coming back. It's just better that way. We all feel that outsiders should remain outside. Mom even told me she'd rather spend seven Christmas' in a row at her place with Dad than have Jason back in Seattle.

And no. A girl can't be funny anymore. Not now, not ever. Girls aren't funny. They're not good at it. Nor are they good at sports, politics or thinking. That's man's work.

With Love,

Your brother

Brother Nate chimes in with:

Amen. I am not concerned with Jason's feelings at all...if in fact he even has feelings. I know a guy who loves to say, "Stop it...you're hurting my feeling." Because he says he only has one.

Anyway, Dad's a tender flower sometimes. Let's all get him tissues for Christmas in case he gets misty-eyed over Jason not being here this year.

Low five,
Nate

From Brother Dave:

I'm getting Dad tissues, a sweater with Jason's face stitched in the front made from 100% pure emotion and a years supply of dance studio passes

No disrespect to my biological family, but will this family PLEASE PLEASE adopt me? I know they already have one Gretchen Hanson but surely there is room for another! They like witty banter, I like witty banter! Think of the happy funny times we can have together!

Please. Adopt me.

Still Scratching My Head

Waiting patiently for the bus this morning, the oddest thing happened.

A homeless guy strutted up to the trash can on the corner, and very deliberately placed a baby's bottle full of what I could only assume was pee on the top of the trash can.

Not in it. On top of it. As if he were placing it on the mantle next to his Emmys.

Brimming with pride he turned on a dime, and without a word strutted right back across the street. It was obvious he'd just one-upped someone, somewhere. I could almost hear him thinking, "Awwww YEAH! Take that you summana bitches! I'll SEE your bag of poo, and raise you a baby bottle full of pee. That's right. A baby bottle. FULL. of. PEE! Yeaaaaaah- Boyeeeee!"

Incidents like this remind me how much I love my neighborhood. What? Move and leave all this? Not in a million.