You're a good man, Charlie Brown.

Bezerkeley is a very lucky place. My best to you, Double OO! *waves at screen*

The day I became a stalker.

My obsession reached an all time high (or low depending on how you look at it) today when Hunglish called.
"Super, get your shoes on and walk up to Calvert! Quick there's a lady with two weenie puppies."
Struggling to get my flops on the right feet and straighten my cape, "I'm on my way! Which direction?"
And I was out the door. Ten minutes later, I still had not seen the Little Guys, but had definitely hauled ass all over the possible radius of the puppies. As Hunglish said, they were only four months old and walking them probably is a quick little jaunt. Baby Little Guys tucker out quickly.
That won't stop me, though, I've got a new pair of shoes and I'll keep the pavement hot with my bionic eyes scoping the 'hood for the newest addition of Little Guys.

Super to the Rescue.

Awhile ago I wrote a post titled: Mouth Noise Homicide. A response from DoubleOO got my full attention as he asked -somewhat desperately- for advice.

DoubleOO said...

It's been a while since I've read the superpages. A few comments:
Finally: I CAN NOT STAND PEOPLE CHEWING WITH THEIR MOUTH OPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It makes me fill with fire and rage. It is not helping the fact that the person I am currently seeing does this seemingly all the time. I think it wasn't until a few meals together into the whole thing that I noticed it, and now (like Brunch Bird), I can not focus on anything else when dining. I think "chewing with the mouth half-open is OK, right?" or "maybe I was just hearing things" and then crunchslopchewslurp.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
So after you posted that, besides the other two responses, do you have any suggestions for how to deal with this, when I have kept a "closed-mouth" about this with this person for waaaaay too long?????

DoubleOO, I feel your pain and as a fellow sufferer of all that is mouth noise, this is the best I can offer: Do not set the table with knives; forks and spoons are all that is necessary. Otherwise, homicide is surely in the future of your relationship with this person.
Actually, I do have some real advice.
1. If this person is mannerly in most other situations, then s/he would possibly like to know of the offending behaviour. In order to prevent public embarrassment, it would need to be handled delicately and certainly when it was just the two of you. It really is a matter of how comfortable you are with this person and I have just the test!
If you can float a biscuit, ie toot, in front of this person, then by all means, you should not hold back with this bit of information, "I'm not sure how to say this, but I have this strange aversion. I'm sorry to ask, but could you possibly chew with your mouth closed?" (You may not need to, but personally, I qualify just about everything and by qualify I mean I mitigate what I say.)
2. My second piece of advice is to always have dinner music. My mother had the rule of no noise at the dinner table. By "noise" she meant radio or television and as soon as I was out of her house, every meal had accompaniment. This has become my source of sanity.

Good luck, DoubleOO. May the force be with you.

Announcement Wednesday.

Yesterday evening The Mister and I went to the home of Really Good People for dinner with our friends.
The evening was filled with smiles, laughter and big announcements. I even held a couple of babies, a newborn and a one-year-old. Both are great little girls and it made me miss Drinky, Red and Baby Sip -aka Grumperina.
It seems the Double OO will be leaving the District for greener pastures. OO has believed in all that is Green for a long time now and has landed himself a job with such a company he has confidence in. Like he said, "I'll be doing the same thing, just now I'll be doing it for a place I can stand behind." Props to you, Double OO, for making a difference and doing what you believe in. We're all very proud. And we are sooo coming to visit you in your little Berkeley cottage!
On top of that big news, our host and hostess dropped it down that baby number two is on the way! Wowie! What's funny is, I wondered if Hostess was preggers a couple of weeks ago when we were there for another get-together. Not because she looked like it, but because of a funny feeling I had. Of course I didn't say anything -I don't know her THAT well and good grief that is not a mistake I want to make (again).
It was an amazing night full of wonderful people with exciting news.

Someday, I want to have all of these people to our place for a big dinner. Alas, I don't think our apartment affords us the space. But...if I can get The Mister to bring THIS home, perhaps I'll be two seats closer! The next step after that is a full size oven that actually works. Oh, yeah... our landlady sucks and the chance of that is about as good as the Republicans keeping the House.

From the mouths of babes.

A friend of mine said, "Super, we can always count on you to say something inappropriate but not offensive enough to do anything but make us laugh."

Uhm. Thanks. And don't you think that you may have taken my place with that statement?

Every time I have gathered with The Boys and Girls for an evening meal, I've said something seriously stupid. The first time, we all sat at the table and I innocuously said, "This scene makes me feel like we're supposed to say grace or something."
I was not suggesting as I'm not big on prayer; I was just making an observation. Then I was told, "We're Jewish." and THEN I had to have it explained to me, because I am ignorant.
Second dinner, upon which somebody says something awful about a bar that "smelled like AIDS, what does AIDS smell like anyway?" I have no clue why I responded but I definitely said, "It makes me think of bandaids." For a moment, everybody looked at ME as if I was the one who had said the original horrific statement. I was trying to say the statement made me think of 'sterile' smells. Perhaps "hospital" would have been a better choice.
And the third dinner when I kept calling everybody the wrong name (similar to last Friday), but a few of these people don't know me well enough to know how terrible I am with names.
Tomorrow is another of these gatherings and even I am curious as to what moronic thing might squeeze past my lips. Mostly, I get excited about these, but a little part of me is dreading this. Maybe I'll try to stay 100% sober... then again, that would leave me with no excuse.