laughing pundit

I have a couple of friends who are big-time punsters. One in particular will throw in a pun in every conversation you have with him. So, I started emailing him puns every couple of days, and he loves it! He will comment about each pun with another pun. He’s using my pun fodder at meetings and at the dinner table. Did I mention that he is a vice president at my place of employment and that he could be using my puns to seal multi-million dollar deals...or simply to get an extra helping of dessert at home? I tried to sell him a subscription to my list of puns for only $19.95 a week, but he didn’t go for it. So, I decided to share some puns with the rest of you free of charge:

The student who got an “A” grade in driver's ed, was known as a Roads Scholar.

Did you hear about the compulsive fisherman? He was really hooked on it.

Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

A prisoner's favorite punctuation mark is the period. It marks the end of his sentence.

The roundest knight at king Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.

If you don't pay your exorcist you get repossessed.

Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

Police were called to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

Prison walls are never built to scale.

A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two-tired.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

There was once a cross-eyed teacher who couldn't control his pupils.

She was only a whisky maker but he loved her still.

It was an emotional wedding. Even the cake was in tiers.

heavy petting

An acquaintance at work had to put her dog (her baby!) to sleep, and she was depressed for a couple of weeks. She now lives alone, after having lost her husband years ago and now their sweet dog (and she never had children). A colleague commented on how she didn't understand how someone could be so upset about losing a stupid dog. "I mean really! I'd be sad for a day, but come on," were her exact words. I could actually see why she would think that way. She didn't grow up with pets, and neither did I.

I never knew about the immense attachment that people shared with their pets. My mom is allergic to anything with hair, which is why Dad is bald and my brother and I always had to wear hats. Okay, not all of that is true. She really is quite allergic to cats and dogs though, and I'm allergic to most dogs. So, we only had a few small pet fish when I was little (the 10 cent Wal-Mart fish that lived for 3 months), and I had a little duckling for a couple of weeks. I'll explain that another time...no, we didn't eat it, you sick, sick blog reader.

I didn't have a pet until Clay and I got married and inherited our cat, Mr. B, from our friends, and I instantly learned about that special owner/pet bond. Now, Mr. B is not the friendliest cat to visitors, but he is completely different with Clay and me. It's kind of like how your boy/girlfriend or spouse is different when your friends aren't around. You have your own language and idiosyncrasies that no one else knows about, but they make you love that person even more. Well, Mr. B doesn't cuddle with our visitors, and his meows seem more demanding - almost like he's showing off in front of our friends. "Watch this humanoids...I can make you all pet me in five seconds just by yelling 'MEEEEE-NOW'...imbeciles!" (In my head, Mr. B's voice and accent is that of Stewie from Family Guy.) For those of you who have never met Mr. B, he has the loudest meow I've ever heard, and he loves to talk. When it's just us at home, Mr. B is oftentimes super cuddly or at least has to be in the same room with us. One Saturday, Clay was off somewhere, probably buying secret geek stuff I don't know about. I was cleaning up around the house, and Mr. B followed me from room to room for hours...and I mean from our bedroom upstairs to the downstairs laundry room and back upstairs...over and over.

He just really has such character. We can tell his moods and distinguish between the different sounds he vocalizes. We literally laugh at something he does or "says" every single day - really. I could write a million stories about his crazy antics or even the conversations we've had with each other. He's sooo repetitive!

Anyway, several years ago, it hit me that one day in the near future Mr. B will move on to kitty heaven...he is a teenager after all. I started crying as I thought about it, and I mean bawling and doing the ugly cry where you have tears running down your face to mix with the snot running down your face and your eyes and nose are all scrunched up and your mouth is wide open and well, it just ain't pretty. I have never dealt with death well...who does, really? I'm mostly calm, cool and collected at funerals, but when I'm at home alone I will grieve like you wouldn't believe. I'm crying right now as I write this, because I am a big, fat crier. If you came up to me and asked me to start crying, I could probably do it. I should be an actor on Lifetime television.

So, I dedicate this blog entry to that special acquaintance (who doesn't know about my blog or know what a blog is). But, I can't imagine losing a husband whose dying words were, "Take care of our baby."...And then losing her canine baby, which made her grieve for her husband all over again. My heart goes out to her, and I'll have an ugly cry in her honor.

lack of entries

Sorry! Work has been quite crazy – I’m like a graphic design factory, pumping out publications incessantly. To keep you from doing work, I’m posting a few fun websites:

A portfolio that makes me embarrassed to even consider myself a graphic designer. I wish I had an ounce of his talent! (warning: has sound, but you can turn it off)

A cappella singing horses – really! (Click on each horse.)

Great photos of big puppies, Oliver and Hugo

Trailer for 30 Rock starring Tina Fey

Old school postcards for design inspiration

For animal lovers

Our fun friends Hannah and Tim chronicled their journey with Slowly, their Grand Banks Classic boat, up and down the East coast

A great grammar reference guide for writers

Neat poster design

Click on “Free Silverware” at the bottom for some free fonts

garam masala

This may come as a shock to many of you (well, maybe just to four of my Indian friends - out of five total friends - who actually check out my blog), but I just started really liking Indian food.

WHAT?!?

It's true...well, mostly. I've always liked it okay throughout my childhood, but when you grow up eating Indian food almost every night for dinner for 18 years you lose the love of the flavor. Back then, it was just the same rice/lentils/chicken/veggies or rice/lentils/fish/different veggies or curry/curry/curry/curry and maybe spaghetti once a month.

But even more shocking, I disliked YOUR mom's Indian cooking. Now, I had nothing against your mom's cooking...except it wasn't EXACTLY like MY mom's cooking, because I was THAT picky. Really! Stupid, prepubescent-phase girl I was! I couldn't handle spicy food, and my mom cooked fairly mild to moderately spicy food. I was the most non-Indian Indian I ever knew. I'm deathly allergic to nuts, and moms who are not my own often cooked with nuts, so I couldn't eat certain dishes. AND, I hated (and let me emphasize that I still ABHOR) cilantro. Nasty, stinky, pungent, gag-inducing cilantro. The taste of it literally makes me gag, and I have uprooted my dinner because of it on more than one occasion. I can't even handle the best Mexican salsa if it has cilantro leaves deflowering it. Clay can't even taste it in food. I think my caucasian husband is just trying to be more Indian than me by being all cool about cilantro. "I don't even taste it, Nan...you're crazy. May I have some more please, and by the way, let me teach you some new Bengali words. In fact, let me tell you how to say "cilantro" in Bengali AND Hindi."

(SIDENOTE: Tina (she's the fifth friend I mentioned at the top), I'm typing this while listening to Prince..."You don't have to watch Dynasty to have an attitude." I sooooo wanted to go to that concert with you guys, but I didn't want to attend with certain people in that group. I was jealous you all went!)

Anyway, it took me about 10 years of eating college food, fast food, and a lot of American/European food to gain a true appreciation of the amazing flavors of Indian food. Now, don't get me wrong. During those 10+ years, I cooked very healthy foods and loved experimenting with culinary flavors from around the globe, but it was just recently that I've been craving Indian food. And, I knew how to cook most of the "family" dishes, but I didn't really cook them often enough and tweak it all to taste as fabulous as mom's food. I always watched her cook and helped her in the kitchen, but I didn't completely pay attention to the fine details. So, not too long ago I started asking Mom about certain spices and why she added them at particular times in the dish...or even point-blank, "How do you make rice?" Okay, I'm not THAT stupid, honestly! You have to boil water for the rice? That's way too much work...I do work full-time and write blog entries for FIVE people, you know.

And the cool thing was that I wasn't ashamed to not know how to perfectly emulate mom's cooking. I'm soooo enjoying learning everything all over again, down to the non-cilantro, nutless details.

(SIDENOTE 2: Tina, my favorite Prince song is on...I still have the cassette single somewhere. I don't think I feel comfortable writing the name of the song, because parents have the power to find out you have a blog and then read all of your secrets like how much you didn't like Indian food during your childhood or that you nibble on babies because they smell good and have expired meat in the fridge in addition to listening to Prince songs with inappropriate titles. So, the five of you can just ask me later. Yes, I'm still scared of my parents punishing me...I'm not ashamed. I still squirm while watching rated R movies with them - what ARE those naked people doing? Is there a name for that, because I wouldn't know what it is...)

Oh yeah, back to food. I DO like your mom's food now, because I'm not a whiny, picky Indian food eater anymore...unless there's cilantro or nuts involved. And, in that case, your mom BETTER have something chocolate for dessert to make up for it.

P.S. Tina had a beautiful, precious, nearly 10 lb. baby boy just a few weeks ago. Congratulations, Tina!!! He did smell good enough to gobble up, but I'll behave...I promise.

law & order + sesame street

There is something very exciting happening with Sesame Street. On August 14, a segment called "Law and Order Special Letters Unit" will premiere, starting with "The Missing M." Hal Boedeker at the Orlando Sentinel reports that the actual cast voices will be used, and Dick Wolf himself said, "I feel like a tobacco company executive, because hopefully we will hook 4- and 5- and 6-year-olds on the brand now." A Sesame Street press release says that there's definitely a Richard Belzer muppet and that the plot includes detectives finding "things that start with the letter 'M' such as a cow named Murray that makes mmooo sounds."

Also, check out Sesame India.