Table Scraps

Column as I see 'em:

--Once at an English Language camp in the Czech Republic, I woke up the campers to my own rendition of "One Foot In The Grave" (the harmonica part in that Beck performance) over the PA system. Yes, I play harmonica. No, quite badly, but I appreciate the interest.

--With all the work I did this month it's fantastic that I have a 3-day weekend coming up. By 3-day weekend I mean that I will wake up at 6 AM on Friday, teach and go to meetings, and then spend the rest of the weekend grading, writing tests, researching and writing lessons for the next week. That should only take 20 hours or so. Good thing I worked 40 hours by Thursday so I can enjoy this "break."

--Cover charges kind of suck, especially if you don't drink. That said, you miss out on some great conversation if you skip out.

--Blogger now says there's a "Scheduled outage at 8PM." This waste-of-precious-free-time post may well be a real waste of precious free time.

--When buying lunch at Wegmans today, the girl exclaimed "You must eat here every day!" and then, "I see you more than you see my brother!" Then I find out I work with her brother. I should start eating somewhere else before I get adopted.

--Speaking of adopted, my professor/boss is adopting a newborn at the end of December. Congrats! Since you hear horror stories about adoption and red tape, I asked her how she got a match so quickly (only two weeks to be assigned a domestic-born child). Her reply was that it's easy if you don't list "white" as a preference. Think about that for a second.

--Speaking of white people, a couple was Christmas shopping in my store and wanted to get a doll for their daughter. They requested I check the back for other dolls because the ones on the shelf were too "ethnic." At first I thought they wanted a doll that resembled their daughter, but when they waited 10 minutes for me to find a blonde doll but settled for a brunette instead (the ones on the shelf were hispanic and asian) I got pretty disgusted.

--Speaking of that store, my supervisor's wife just got pregnant. There must be something about knowing me that produces children.

--Speaking of giving birth, it doesn't really show but I lost 10 pounds this year. Thanks, stress & fatigue! Lose 10 more and I'll buy you some new pants.

--"Eventually, everyone's going to lie, everyone's going to cry, and everyone's going to take a painful sh*t." --the Bill Cosby of our generation

--Living at home is such a drag . . . but when you're living with just your father in a 3-bedroom apartment and it's only to sleep and shower, what's the use of moving out? I should keep saving my money and milk this for a few more months.

--Finally, something awesome for local history nerds straight from the Preservation Coalition: "The downtown cell phone tour will rollout this coming spring. Visitors and Buffalonians will be able to call a number and listen to explanations of over 50 sites around downtown. All it will cost will be air time minutes, and it will be available 24 hours a day, year round. This tour will have been two years in the making." Now you can take a tour of Buffalo's East Side all by yourself at 3 in the morning.