heaven, with a side of french fries and a dill pickle

From homemade grilled cheeses to gourmet veggie wraps, I love sandwiches like a fat kid loves cake.

I probably should have sprung for a different metaphor, because now that I look at that, I guess that makes me a fat - or, as my grandmother called me during my shman years, "husky" - kid that loves sandwiches AND cake. What can I say... I'm just another carb-lovin' American.

Okay but seriously. Along with fireworks, puppies and batting cages, there are few things that please me more than a well constructed sandwich. Just ask my coworkers at the restaurant I used to work at. In the three years that I worked there, I ordered the same exact sandwich every single day for my free lunch: a #5 (chicken salad) on wheat, side of french fries and a pickle. Seriously, how mouth-watering does this sound (taken from the website menu): Grilled Chicken Salad Muenster cheese, Romaine lettuce, beefsteak tomatoes & fresh tarragon mayonnaise ...$7.25.

Drool.

So, as I try to ward off the rumbly in my tumbly, three cheers for open-faced tuna melts, falafels and chicken wraps. Warm paninis, pb&j's and ice cream sandwiches. Subs, hoagies and grinders. Chicken clubs, grilled cheeses and blt's. Egg mcmuffins, cheeseburgers and pitas. Gyros, shawarmas and kebabs... and all the rest.

how bad a wife would i really be

Susan read this lil blog entry from jezebel and subsequently sent it to me, after which we both agreed that domestic goddesses we are not. In fact, we should probably come with a disclaimer.

Here's the original 1939 marital ranking scale for wives: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/13/1939-marital-rating.html

And here's the blogger's score and commentary. It's pretty fantastic:
http://jezebel.com/5015057/how-bad-a-wife-would-i-really-be

a pretty tell-tale sign that Alfonso needs to work less...

... is when he unwittingly goes out in public like this:

Todd's Story Corner

During college, my friend Todd would habitually send us all short stories that he wrote as a way to both procrastinate and foment his creativity. Not only was he a procrastinator himself, but he was also a world class enabler who provided all of us with just what we were desperate for: a reason to put off productivity for as long as humanly possible.

The Todd's Story Corner fan club (otherwise known as the recipients of his stories) grew and grew over the course of the four years we spent at our respective schools. As Todd himself describes, Todd's Story Corner was "like a secret society, but slightly funnier than the KKK and with more of a "can do" attitude than Heaven's Gate."

Anyways, now that he's a hot shot in LA, he's taken on the digital age by writing and directing skits. Take a look- they're pretty fantastic.

www.ToddsStoryCorner.com

supermarket olympics

So this week in Spain there's a trucker strike to protest the rising costs of fuel. Essentially, this means that the transport of goods, be they eggs, lumber or socks, has ceased until some sort of agreement is reached.

Aside from the congested highways due to hundreds of stopped trucks that are blocking the majority of the lanes and causing massive traffic jams, what's on the news most is the gas situation. Because trucks aren't transporting fuel to fill gas station reserves, gas stations are literally running out of gas. Yesterday, I think I heard that 15% of Madrid's gas stations had already run out of fuel, not to mention the gas stations throughout the rest of the country... and that was just day 1. The gas stations that still have fuel have lines of cars waiting to refill, the drivers not even knowing if there will still be gas left by the time they get their turn. Being the semi-illegal immigrant that I am and having no car to my name, I luckily don't have to worry about getting stuck in traffic or running out of gas- something at which I have proven to be exceptionally talented.

For many people, namely those who commute to work, this is most certainly a problem. I, on the other hand, can focus my worries on not getting deported- HA!

My experience with the strike involved the supermarket, where it seemed like the entire population of Madrid was stocking up for some impending nuclear event. I, like my family, have never been one to worry about running out of the essentials. Whenever there were hurricanes - which, by the way, were usually pretty wimpy - closing in on the shores of southeastern Connecticut, we'd watch flabbergasted as people we knew scrambled to the supermarket to stock their minivans with enough bottled water to fill up the pool in their backyard, enough canned foods to feed a small to medium-sized country and enough batteries to keep their flashlights lit for the next 6 to 8 electricity-less years. We'd buy a box of cereal, a carton of milk and a jug of OJ, never thinking beyond the next day's breakfast. Miraculously, we're still alive and kickin'.

Upon entering the store last night, I was naturally thrown off by the check-out lines that extended down into the aisles. Having just come out of a four - count that FOUR - hour meeting that went two hours past quittin' time and my only desire involving a couch and a tv, I was already grumbling. What really threw me off, however, was the fact that my grocery shopping venture ended being contact sport. I swear to jeebus it was like the videos of people Christmas-shopping during the Cabbage Patch and Tickle Me Elmo fads. Never in my life have I been rammed into so many times by shopping carts and elbows, seen customers climb over each other in the name of yogurt or watched as people unabashedly cut off a handicapped person's path. I think I even saw one old lady use her cane to catapult her way over a shopping cart.

Screw hurricanes and food shortages. I'm just lucky to have made it out of the supermarket alive.

grammar hell

Once, in a high school English class and in relation to a book we had read, we were assigned a writing exercise in which we had to conceive and describe our personal versions of Hell. Had I known then what I know now about the depths of human stupidity, I think my version would have involved constant interaction with bad grammar.

Let me explain. For certain projects at work, my boss - who has since departed thanks to what's being passed off as a "mutual decision" - would hire freelance writers. Being French, however, and no whiz at speaking/writing/listening in any language including his own, his standards for hiring freelance English writers are what I would describe as appalling at best. For example, I don't understand how people, in this case a supposedly native English-speaker from Canada, can get paid for writing like this:

Having a white Martini is common here, a glass of wine or a small beer. Accompanied by yet another little snack. Like; a few mussels, berberechos (cockle in English) or somekind of Tapa.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there IS, believe it or not, a difference between independent and dependent phrases. A semicolon does NOT have the same functions as a colon, and for the love of God, why is tapa capitalized??? Is it a country? A person? A higher power worshiped by the masses? Since when is somekind one word? Ahhh, my brain is crying.

Imagine having to revise roughly 100 pages full of this shit. This is when it crosses the line between revising and rewriting.

My job today = awesome.

the (insert witty name summing up person described)

One thing that never fails to baffle me is a character for whom I can't seem to come up with a catchy yet symbolic name, but whose definition would be something along the lines of the elusive, suddenly busy im-er.

A conversation with said character goes a little something like this:

Friend: hey!!!
Me (responding immediately): hey, what's up??? how's everything going?
Friend: (no response)
Me: (rolls eyes after 15 minutes, growls, exits chat box)

I can understand the occasional and unforeseen emergency that may prevent "Friend" from responding. Your IBS is acting up again and you had to sprint to the bathroom. The boss has appeared out of nowhere and is looking over your shoulder. The fire alarm has started beeping and you had to stop, drop and roll before crawling beneath the smoke to put out the fire in the kitchen. Carbon monoxide has invaded your home and you have passed out, possibly to never wake again.

I can understand it happening once in awhile; I take offense, however, at the repeat offenders. My question for you: why bother going through the hassle of clicking on my name, opening a message box and messaging me if you have no real intentions of actually maintaining a conversation involving more than just you? Are you trying to come across as popular or important? Were you hoping I wasn't there are were just saying hi as a courtesy? It's like calling someone on the phone, waiting til they pick up... and then hanging up without saying anything. Pointless!

an open letter to... Mother Nature

Yo, Mama N... what the frijoles?

In times when parts of the world are being ravaged by earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, I understand that - in comparison - you're going pretty easy on me. After all, the floor has not collapsed beneath me, I don't have to paddle around town in a rowboat and the apartment roof remains firmly in place above my head. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate this greatly.

That said, and with the utmost respect, we have GOT to come to some sort of agreement here.

What's the deal with the overcast skies, constant rainfall and frigid temperatures? Are you pissed? PMS-ing? Vengeful? Depressed? Well it's time to snap out of it Eeyore. It's JUNE (well, in two days) and I'm still donning my winter attire. It's been weeks... I repeat WEEKS!... since I've seen the sun and felt its warmth upon my face. NOT ACCEPTABLE.

"June" and "hold on, let me grab my coat" are two concepts that should not, under any circumstances, go hand-in-hand. So please, pop some pills - be they Midol or Xanax - and bring that fiery yet beloved ball of gas out of hiding so I can put away my umbrella, store my sweaters and sip on cool beverages outdoors while enjoying its rays.

Mkay? Great, thanks.

huh?

So I just spent an exorbitant amount of time choosing a new font for instant messenger when I should have been - cough, cough - working. Because it's borderline embarrassing, I will not reveal how long this selection process took, so let's just settle with "too long". Why did I do this? Because I am bored out of my mind at work right now and it was the only thing within my control to change. You im-ers won't know what hit you when you meet the new and improved Bitstream Vera Sans size 10 font Betsey in a kickin' shade of... navy blue. Can you feel the energy?

So then I got to thinking (again, instead of - cough, cough - working) that, as silly as something like a font change may be, it's only natural to want to tweak the things that we can so as not to be perpetually stuck in a monotonous wake-work-eat-sleep-repeat cycle. Now don't interpret this badly... I don't at feel stuck in a mundane routine and I am FAR from bored. In fact, I'm pretty damn happy. I'm just bored at work right now and feeling a tad over-caffeinated!

Anyways, unless you're a nomadic hippie - which believe me would be appealing if not for the inevitability of b.o. and offspring with names like Rainbow and Ocean - it's natural for life to become a little less up to you and a little more up to others (government, bosses, etc.). After all, society tells us it's a sign of maturity to wake up and be a productive member of society instead of living in a perpetual college mindset of "eh, I'll skip life today because I'm hungover". Blurry flashbacks of rocking out on the air guitar to "Summer of '69" on top of a beer pong table are funny when you're 22 but, when you're a balding 45-year old with no steady job but with a steadily expanding beer gut, that same scenario loses its comical edge and lands you a spot in pathetic creepster territory.

I think this need to exert control over the little things is also why so many women end up with shorter and shorter haircuts as they get older. Sure, they'll say it's for purposes of easier maintenance given that they don't have enough time to primp their mane as much as they once did. This is, of course, valid. I, however, think it has more to do with them feeling that - between working, grocery shopping, driving the kidlets to soccer practice, paying bills, packing school lunches, walking the dog, etc. - the hair is one of those few precious things that you can do whatever the frijoles you want with and it won't complain, cry, bark or grow mold. And, since you can't grow your hair in the snap of a finger and the snip-snip of a pair of scissors, shorter is the only way to go. Once the kids have moved out and the hair can't go any shorter, it means it's time to retire, sell the house and dedicate your days to bingo and grandkids.

Where am I going with this? I have no effing clue, although now that I think about it, I think this sporadic urge to "change things up" is also at the core of why I get deliriously giddy about buying new socks.

I'm sick of long sleeved shirts

Why the frijoles isn't it summer yet?

ode to coworkers

When people ask me, in a natural response to my constant complaints about certain "aspects" at work, about why I don't aggressively look for a new place of employment, I usually don't have a legitimate response. Trust me, it's sometime in the foreseeable future, as I certainly don't plan to be here when I'm 40. Or 30, for that matter. I know I have to move out and up. After all, I WOULD at some point in my life like to get myself out of debt to the US government sometime before i hit menopause... and hey, while we're at it maybe even save a few pennies!

However, right now I'm not in a rush and I'm trying to concentrate more on the positive aspects than the negative. So, there are a few key reasons that keep me here.

1) I'm in it partially for the papers, and a dim light is slowly coming into focus at the end of the tunnel otherwise known as Spanish bureaucracy.

2) Relaxed atmosphere. We take 1/2-hour coffee breaks. We drink too much wine at lunch on "social Fridays". We can just about go to work in our pj's if it strikes our fancy, and nobody will care. In fact, if someone were to show up wearing what others in the workforce know to be "work attire", we'd either laugh or assume he/she has an interview.

3) When it comes down to it, I DO like what I do. Sure there are a lot boring parts, but I write, I translate, I plan entire websites, I pretend I'm an internet guru and learn more each day about html and SEO. Nerdy, yes... but if my career path shapes up to be the path I think I'm starting out on, all of this stuff helps beef up my resume.

4 and most important) I have fantastic coworkers. While there's a constant flow of people coming and going, we somehow always have a great group of people. We laugh non-stop. We get drinks after work every Friday. We have inside jokes. We spend more time with each other during the week than we do with our significant others, and yet we still voluntarily choose to hang out with each other after work and on weekends.

Being from abroad, it's hard to form your own group of friends. Our childhood and college friends don't live in this city, in this country and, in many cases, even on this continent. There's no circumstance that forces you into befriending your dorm roommate, the strangers down the hall or the people sitting next to you in philosophy class. Instead, the tendency for us outsiders is to try to infiltrate the group of friends of some "link", whether it's a classmate, a roommate or a significant other.

At work we're from all around the world - USA, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Italy... - and yet here we are, each with their own reasons, in Madrid. Luckily for us, we're not just coworkers but we're legitimate friends beyond the workplace... and that's pretty special thing to leave behind.

city living thought of the day

How much dog poo do you think blind people unwittingly step in?

yikesabee

I found quite possibly the least aesthetically pleasing dog breed ever. It's called a "saluki". How the frijoles do you cuddle up on the couch with that??

Unfortunate.

As I scurried to work this morning, I saw a woman (or maybe not..) who looked exactly like Adam Sandler's androgynous assistant in 50 First Dates. Remember? The one who dove headfirst into a barrel of fish and later got covered in walrus vomit? Yeah that one.

My list of day-to-day grievances

That squeaky feel/sound of fabric rubbing against fabric.

Yorkshire terriers

Pistachios that won't open

When the metro leaves just as you get to it

Alarm clocks

When the daily puppy isn't cute

The Electric Slide

Facebook application invitations

When people can't keep their their/they're/there and effect/affect straight

The tangle-prone Ipod earphones

Bad coffee

Kids sitting behind you on flights

Bread bag twisties

Pigeons. May they all perish.

Slow drivers cruising in the left-hand lane

Tuesdays

Looking at the clock and getting excited to see that it's 6:00pm. Then you realize that no, it's actually 16:00 and you still have 2 and a half hours of work left. Damn you military time.

Overzealous patriotism

The size of the towels at the gym

Subjunctive mode

Clementines with seeds

Mushy strawberries

The effect of gas prices on international flight fares

When your ipod keeps going back to the same songs even when it's supposed to be shuffling through your whole play list.

Incorrect weather forecasts

Music from Grease. Especially the Grease medley.

Traffic

Pennies and their international 1-cent equivalents

Bad grammar

When every single crosswalk you get to is a red light.

Reality shows

Any word in Spanish that has the combination of r followed by d in it.

Stupidity

Forgetting to buy something at the supermarket

B.O. in the metro

Cheap alcohol in plastic bottles

Ham-flavored chips.

When nobody posts new photos on Facebook

The dubbed voice in Spanish for Stewie in Family Guy. Just doesn't compare.

Slow news days

cat fanatics

From one of my favorite comics, this is pretty funny:



www.nataliedee.com

what a novel idea

On occasion, I have mentioned half-jokingly the idea of some day writing a book. Unfortunately, I've got a few speed bumps in my way, not the least of which is my attention span and patience, or lack thereof. This unfortunate combination barely allows me to maintain a blog with any degree of regularity, let alone create a 300-page work of literary genius. Plus, nothing has ever come to mind to which I could imagine dedicating myself for weeks, months or even years.

Anyway, this morning we went to the bar for our coffee break, which is really the daily opportunity to release our collective workplace anger so as not to explode and/or resort to violence. In a sudden moment of clarity, the skies opened up, the birds chirped, heaven's angels sang, and I realized the it had been right there in front of me all along- my working experience in Spain! Well, more specifically about my time in the company I work for. Believe me, there's more than enough material.

My nearly two years here have been laden with unusual anecdotes and bizarre characters: the Slovakian intern constantly and unabashedly perusing x-rated websites; the owner's bat shit crazy mother who flies through the office in a whirl of hairspray and Burbury plaid, with her ridiculously small Yorkie tucked under her arm a la Jacobim Mugatu; and, of course, the ridiculous boss, quite possibly afflicted with multiple mental disabilities, that blows Michael Scott outta the water. Seriously.

Really, the only thing left - aside from actually writing it and getting my multi-million dollar book deal - is deciding upon the genre: comedy, drama or tragedy.

my new set of wheels

I bought rollerblades - woop woop!

That's right, I'm just a Ninja Turtle t-shirt, a pair of stirrup leggings and a few heinous scrunchies away from 1990.

kids vs dogs, round 2

The second installment of the children vs dogs series.

Kids:
http://www.news4jax.com/news/15761895/detail.html

Here's a little excerpt:
Three of the nine Ware County third-grade students suspended after accusations that they were involved in a plot to harm their teacher will face some serious charges in juvenile court, according police. Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner on Tuesday released pictures of the evidence, which includes a steak knife, a paperweight, handcuffs, gloves and several rolls of tape.


Dogs:
http://dailypuppy.com/index.php?itemid=1798

And the accompanying excerpt:
Nissa loves to eat our garden, and we will quite often spot her with a few flowers or some grass hanging out of her mouth. Nissa is also a sucker for a good belly rub, and will happily sit for ages if she scores one. She loves to run and jump - it was hard work getting these photos, because so often she'd move so fast that we'd end up with a photo of the ground!

an open letter

Dear Jelly Belly Candy Company,

Ye pioneers of the palate and gods of glucose delight my senses and speak to my soul with your potpourri of mouth-watering Jelly Belly jelly beans. Even the random and decidedly strange flavors (see: "buttered popcorn" and "toasted marshmallow") have grown on me. Well, all but the jalapeño ones, which are, to be frank, quite horrid.

My relationship with your beans began circa 1994 on a venture to Washington, D.C. with my dad and siblings, when a good friend of his bet me 1000 jelly beans that I couldn't name the statue on top of the capitol building. He quickly learned never to underestimate the knowledge of an 11 year old.

A couple months later, when he traveled up to the good ole nutmeg state, he paid in full with three giant boxed assortments of Jelly Bellies. I was eating jelly beans for months. In fact, it's probably what added the chub factor to my already awkward teenage years (see: school photos, grades 6 through 12).

I was also quite fond of my tour of your factory back in the summer of 2002. I felt like Charlie entering Willy Wonka's humble headquarters; let's disregard the fact that Charlie was like 8 and I was 19. Regardless, for several weeks following the visit, I fantasized of practicing my backstroke in a vat of bubblegum-flavored Jelly Beans, which happened to be the flavor your employees were making on the day of my tour. I can only liken my fantasy to cartoon scenes in which Uncle Scrooge splashes about in golden coins, except I wouldn't emerge smelling like dirty metal.

So, as I sit here at work munching on handfuls of my "Christmas Mix" (yes, I am aware that Christmas was some time ago), I can't help but be moved to express to you my undying gratitude.

Sincerely,

long-time Jelly Belly consumer/current green-tongued enthusiast,
Betsey