Weighty issue

I learned something yesterday. Two tablespoons of mercury weighs one pound.

Stop for a second and get your mind around that. Two measly tablespoons of mercury weighs one pound. Fourteen tablespoons of mercury weighs roughly the same as a newborn baby. Not a premie either, but a normal, run-of-the-mill baby.

It made me wonder what other stuff weighs. What tablespoon ingredient weighs more than mercury? How much does two tablespoons of cement weigh? Or elephants – are they heavy by the spoonful?

Then I started thinking that my turtle Wilson would probably fit nicely in a tablespoon, and I’m sure he doesn’t weigh more than an ounce or two.

Anyway, I don’t really have a point, I was just surprised that mercury was such a hefty little poisonous element.

Take my card

Someone at my work decided that I should have a business card, so I got business cards. Lots of ‘em. Know what that means? I’m a professional. I made it. I’m legit. I have a job in which people might be interested enough after meeting me to want to contact me at work. I can rub elbows at business events. I can say, “Yes, give me a call. Here’s my card.” I’m a business woman.

Know what this really means?

I can win free lunches by dropping my business card into fishbowls at my favorite restaurants. Now that I am the master of winning radio contests, I’m going to move on. My new mission is to innundate the fishbowls around Gainesville with my business card.

I always thought it would be cool to have business cards. Very have-your-people-call-my-people. I’m there now. I will no longer be speaking to my friends via phone. But your people can call my people, and my people will pass along the message.

Maybe I should have gotten people before I got the cards.

You know what is uncool? Making your own business cards – especially the ones with the perforated edges. They always have an I-printed-these-at-home quality and a shoddy piece of clip art in the corner. The font size usually looks a little wrong, and the print has the streaky look. I don’t know what is sadder…having a business card with perforated edges, or having a business card for the sole purpose of winning free lunches.

Who cares. Here, take my card. Have your people call my people. We’ll do lunch.

My lova'

I fell in love this weekend. I can hardly believe it myself. I’ve heard the stories; I’ve seen the movies, but I never knew that a love affair could start like this.

I’m in love with Savannah, Georgia.

People told me that Savannah was beautiful, but that simple word couldn’t describe it. It is the most beautiful. It is so rich and gorgeous and full of history. People there talk about things that happened a hundred years ago in the first person. “We built that building in 18-such and such.” The people who live there are a part of the city.

We walked down an aisle of rose petals in Forsyth Park. On Saturday, we saw four separate brides getting ready for their weddings on the squares. It is the kind of city that makes you want to take pictures of every corner. Of little apartments. Of amazing trees. Of the people who live there. The entire city is a warm, inviting postcard.

If you haven't been, I would highly recommend a visit. If you have been, then I bet you, me and Savannah are going to have a little love triangle going on. I can't imagine going there and not falling in love.

Birthday Girl

I started a new birthday tradition this year. Instead of celebrating my birthday, on my birthday (which is tomorrow, by the way), I decided to celebrate slowly, elaborately, painstakingly over three weeks.

I started two weekends ago with a houseful of guests to watch the Florida v LSU game (remember that I live in a shoebox, so it doesn’t take much to constitute a “houseful”). I went to dinner at this swanky Greek place down the street with a table-ful of friends – my nearest and dearest even down to my very first friend in Florida, who drove two hours to eat with me. I drank some enormous, vertigo-inducing shot from the server and shouted “Opa!” as waiters around the place lit things on fire.

Last weekend, I went to dinner then a play with a friend and his parents (you know I love parents). We saw Dracula which is very appropriate for my Halloween birthday. (Did I mention that my birthday is tomorrow?) I spent the morning shopping for discount books at the Friends of the Library Book Sale. You can’t ask for more than that – books and the theater – all in one day.

This weekend, Mom and I went to Savannah (aka – my new love). We had fantastic weather and an amazing time. I can see myself going back there again and again. I want to know that city like the back of my hand. I want to name the squares and have a favorite. I want to sit on park benches there reading a book or sketching (poorly, since I’m not an artist) on a pad. I want that to be my place.

Tomorrow, I’m going to the Melting Pot with another handful of friends. We’ll eat some cheese and chocolate and have a grand time. It’ll wrap up a nice three-week birthday celebration. Thank you to everyone that has made this birthday really wonderful.

I may have to organize some post-birthday events just so that I can let myself down easy after all this merry making.

Wilson

**This picture is a wanna-be Wilson, not the actual Wilson, but very similar.

I got a pet. Shocked, aren’t you? I have to admit that I’m a little shocked too. Those who know me well know that, while I don’t hate animals, I’m not animals’ biggest fan either.

When I went skiing a few years ago, we had such a long drive that we amused ourselves with car games for the entire ride. While I don’t remember all the rules for one specific game (Not the butt game – I remember ALL the rules for the butt game), I do know that it involved listing your favorites. Someone asked what my favorite animal was, and I had to say, “I don’t have a favorite animal. I’m not really all that into animals.”

Do you know what people do when you tell them that you aren’t that into animals? They go silent and look at you as if you just admitted you eat babies.

Like I said, I don’t hate animals. I am allergic to most of the fuzzy ones, and I’m a little scared of all the others.

But now I have a pet.

He is better than a lizard living under my couch or a possum in my laundry room. I actually claimed and feed him (instead of just naming him like I did the lizard, Stanley, and the possum, Oliver).

I am now the proud owner (or “momma,” as you pet owners like to say) of the cutest, tiniest, most adorable little turtle you’ve ever seen. Juleanne found the little guy hanging out in her parking lot at work, and she scooped him up to be mine forever. He is smaller than a quarter (amazing that Jules spotted him at all) and feisty. He’s grown stronger (if not bigger) since I got him last week. When I pick him up, he pushes against my fingers with his little claw-paws.

I was a little worried that I would kill him, but now that I’ve seen him eat, I am much more confident in my turtle rearing skills. I think we may have bonded over mealtime. When I open the top of his tank, he gazes expectantly up at me, waiting for his ReptoMin Baby floating food sticks.

Wilson Tyrone lives on the sunny corner of my desk at work. Attention is showered upon him by all the ladies at work (who, while they think he is adorable are too squeamish to hold him). I think I’ll take him home over the weekend, and back to work on Mondays. I get better light at work, and I’m here more than at home. I don’t want him to get lonely. Have you ever seen a lonely turtle? Not pretty.

I wanted to name him Tyrone, but my friends told me that he’d never be able to live up to the name of a large black man. I thought that was what made the name funny. Juleanne told me that I should call him Wilson. Since I live alone, he could be my reptilian version of Tom Hanks’ volleyball in Castaway. So Wilson Tyrone was christened.

When we’re joking around, he is Willie T. When he gets in trouble, I bust out both names and chastise him with a stern, motherly “Wilson Tyrone.” When we’re at work in the Tech Comm building, he is Tech Comm Willie. One of the girls downstairs calls him Turty.

So now I am responsible for another living thing. I’m a pet owner, a turtle caretaker, and reptile Momma…and a proud one at that.

Make you say "huh?"

I saw something this weekend that I didn’t understand. I went to Chop Stix for dinner with Scott and Juleanne. The place was packed, and our table was next to the bar where a lot of people were waiting to be seated.

There was one group there that has me confused nearly a week later. There were five people in the group, two men and three women. All five were in their late 20s or early 30s. The girls were all strapped into extremely tiny skirts. One wore a bustier. At least one wore a thong (I’m only sure about the one because she flashed our table while readjusting on the barstool in her tiny skirt).

All three girls had cute little bodies and less than cute faces (butter faces, as Scott calls them, as in “She’s got a great body, but her face…”). Each man was obviously with one of the three women. The third (the confirmed thong girl) wasn’t with a date. Her dateless-ness didn’t stop both men in the group from touching her repeatedly throughout the night.

In fact, both men touched all three women while they waited for a table. Not just a handshake, a kiss on the cheek, or a friendly punch on the shoulder, these men were caressing each of the women. There were back rubs, stroking of the hair, playful tugging on the tiny skirts, hugs, hip caressing, neck rubs. It was all very odd. One guy was kissing his girl with his hand resting in the small of another girl’s back.

I spent most of the evening ignoring the conversation at my own table while trying to figure out the relationship between the five people next to us at the bar. We finally came to the conclusion that either there was some ménage five action or the men were pimps.

It reminded me of a game that I like to play in Gainesville. It is called “Girlfriend or Daughter?” The best time to play is while walking down University Avenue on a Friday night or anytime during a game weekend. You play like this – observe a couple comprised of a young girl and an older man. Guess, in competition with your friends, whether you are seeing a “Daddy’s Little Girl” or a “Girl with Sugar Daddy.” Trust me, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. The only surefire way to determine the truth is waiting for the couple to start making out.

…but then, we do live in Alachua County, so you never know.

New look

I haven’t gotten my hair cut since January. I’ve been a little wary about the salon since I spent two days crying over bleach blonde hair after my last visit. My mom had an equally harrowing trip to the salon where the stylist insulted her intelligence and the shape of her neck before hacking off a chunk of hair from the back of her head and sending her home with a super short cut.

It is no wonder that we are both uneasy making appointments at the salon. That, of course, is why it took me eight months to get a trim. My mom ventured out first and found a stylist that she really liked. She got a great cut and left feeling confident. She made me an appointment with her new-found stylist.

I drove from Gainesville straight to the salon for my appointment. I wore an apple green polo shirt and a white skirt. I met Mom in the parking lot. She wore an apple green sweater and white pants. Yes, I showed up at my appointment as my mother’s twin.

The stylist started my shampoo and asked why I had drive all the way from Gainesville for a haircut. I told her that my mom had gotten a good haircut and suggested I come here too.

I think my stylist stopped listening after, “My mom got a good haircut.”

I gave her the full run-down of what I was looking for in my cut. Long layers. Final cut just brushing my shoulders. Long layers. I liked the cut I had last time, it just needed to be shaped up since it was getting long. Long layers.

I wasted my breath. I think that our matching apple green and white outfits were too much for the stylist to ignore, and she proceeded to give me my mother’s haircut. Mom was perched in the chair next to mine, acting as the perfect model.

I didn’t realize how much she was cutting until she started the final layer. The stylist finished up my butchering and left to check someone’s perm. I told Mom we had to leave before she dried my hair. I was scared I might cry when I saw how short it was. I pressed payment into the stylist’s hand and ran out of the door (my now even-more-twin-like mother following behind me).

At this point I should note that Mom has a nice haircut, just not a haircut that I wanted to get myself. I don’t think I’ve had hair this short since birth.

Mom and Katie were nice, telling me over and over again that it was cute. The cut wasn’t necessarily me, but it was cute. They were reassuring, but with the longest of my hair barely grazing the nape of my neck, I felt naked. Dad said that it makes me look young and hip.

I showed up at work on Monday to choruses of “It’s cute!” which is girl-language for “Wow, did you do that on purpose?” A guy at work told me that old women got short haircuts. Scott told me that it looked good…from the front. The people I worked with at Shands were more straightforward. One asked if I had stabbed the person who did this to me. Another asked if my haircut was intentional.

I’m still optimistic, even after what appears to be another hair mishap. The high points of the haircut:

1. This massacre has nearly removed all evidence of the hair color mishap from January.
2. I can wake up and be at work in 45 minutes.
3. A vigorous rub with a towel and a few toasty blasts from the hair dryer can dry my hair.
4. I will save fortunes in rubber bands since my hair can’t even imagine a ponytail at this length.

I’ll let you know how my next haircut goes. Ask me next September.