And We Celebrate!!

Oh The Goodness Of Strangers With Candy!!

Noblet: Are you even listening to me? Look debating is not just mental agility. 95% of debating is physical appearance. It's not what you say but how you look saying it. Now you're welcome to try out for the team but I gotta tell you, at this weight your arguments are going to come off a little bit...puffy.
Jerri: I don't have a problem with my weight.
Noblet: No Jerri, I have a problem with your weight. Understand?


Jerri: Hello, I love you. Would you care for some flowers? They're free.
Woman: Sure.
Jerri: Twenty dollars please.
Woman: I thought you said they were free?
Jerri: I'm sorry I must have lied...The money goes to a good cause!
Woman: What cause?
Jerri: A drug rehabil...a mind control cult. We take your babies.

Jerri: Well, it was a big week. I gues what I learned most of all is that you should always take responsibility for your actions. Unless you don't have to. Right Mr. Noblet?
Noblet: That's right Jerri. Never let your conscience trick you into owning up to the truth when there's still some chance somebody might believe the lie. Right Geoffrey?
Jellineck: What. Ever. Chuck. It may be an ugly world, but at least I have a beautiful face.

On Free Office Lunches In Which I Cannot Partake:

hapabukbuk: omg if i get one more email about the gd pizza party i'm going to throw up
rtb: what are they, twelve?
hapabukbuk: seriously
rtb: will there be boys there?
rtb: for the love of god
hapabukbuk: they ordered 10 more pizzas if you are interested
rtb: i'm not
rtb: did they describe in detail HOW they ordered them?
hapabukbuk: almost
rtb: and their thought process during?
hapabukbuk: the latest one said: the party is still going on!
hapabukbuk: that's all. like i give a flying ef
hapabukbuk: this is going to go on ALL DAY with periodic email reminders...
hapabukbuk: please hit me with a blunt object

Real Life Beckons

June 28th Holiday postponed 'til the 30th. It pains me to do it, but alas.

I lost my umbrella today. This is excrutiating for me because I don't lose things. Except apparently umbrellas. I even found that mix jazz cd I thought I lost about four years ago. And don't think I didn't tear apart every room I thought I may have last seen it. The only thing I hate more than losing umbrellas is buying new ones because no matter how much you pay for them, they will either break or get lost. The only reason I really carry one at all is not to stay dry, but to avoid being blinded by one of the umbrella carrying people who insist on holding it at my eye level.

R.I.P. aqua blue short umbrella.
You have gone to join your navy blue brother in the lost items bin somewhere.
You were good while you lasted but you are now dead to me.
Dead to me!!

Big Red Hair Makes You Fabulous

It’s official

Anyone who has big red hair and whose name is Kate Pierson is fabulous.
It’s just a fact.
Kate! Come play NYC and save me a seat. Enough Atlantic City gigs!

Anyone who has big red hair and can wear a plaid patterned body suit with platform shoes and look fabulous deserves an award.
how do you say…dee-gorgeous?
Lady Miss Kiev, where have you gone?

And where's my Manic Panic?

Peculiar Purple Pie Man

strikes again!

-----update-----
Ahem...I stand corrected by my older and wiser brother, who had to hear strawberry shortcake ask that very question over and over again during my childhood. In the secret world of baby hapabukbuk however, it will always be colderobby.

Swimming In A Sweater

When I was a little girl my parents threw an anual pool party in their backyard, and every year I experienced something new, the least of which was witnessing the change in adult behavior as the evening wore on. Neither of my parents drank, so I just thought all their friends were naturally funny and extremely clumsy. The year I grabbed a soda from the cooler, swallowed a huge gulp and almost choked was the year I realized not everything in the coolers was soda.

A few years before my very first taste of alcohol was the year I ran to my mother dripping wet and so hysterical it took her ten minutes to calm me down enough to understand the situation.

"I was in the pool! And...and...it got in! It got in!"

"What got in?"

"The monkey! The monkey!"

She wrapped a towel around me and lead me to the sliding doors. It takes a lot to make her laugh, but upon looking out to the pool, I thought someone had told her a hilarious joke I didn't hear.

"That's Jean's husband honey! He's just got a lot of hair on his chest." Then to the others who had witnessed, "Her father doesn't have a hair on his body!"

I was horrified and scared to death of him. His entering the pool ended my time in it for the next week. I was equally horrified when my mother related the story to me years later as we looked through the photo album and I pointed out the picture of a particularly hairy man in the pool.

"Ma, who is that? He's got on a sweater!"

I felt doubly guilty for my actions as a child and as an adult.

High and Dry: Latest Dumbass Stunt

How do I get a law passed to make hanging from the suspension wires of the Brooklyn Bridge illegal? Just for him?

Better yet, making him illegal?

What Was I Thinking? Vol. 2

Dammit.

I am not a spendthrift. No great revelation there. However, lately I find that I have been purchasing things for which I cannot blame impulse consumerism for my buyer’s remorse. In fact, it only adds insult to injury to know I bought these products with the actual forethought of wearing, using or enjoying them.

Skechers Shoes – saw this really cute pair online and decided to buy them. I needed new ones for work anyway. When they arrived and I tried them on I realized they looked like clown shoes and made the effort to return them in exchange for a different pair. When those finally arrived a month later and I tried them on, I decided they also looked like clown shoes. They are now gathering dust on the floor by my closet.

Verizon Ear-Piece – when I bought my new phone, I thought I’d throw the hands free ear-piece in to boot because it’s so much nicer to not have to hold the phone when you speak into it. And yes, I’m fully aware of how lazy that makes me sound. However, the one and only time I used it, I was told I sounded like I was standing in tin can. It is now stuffed under a stack of papers on my desk.

Dove Face Wash Cloths – when I got to the store, I couldn’t remember which brand I had previously bought and none of the packaging or shapes of other brands looked familiar. I thought I’d try something new. Bad decision. I hate this product. With a vengeance. Is it wet? Is it dry? Do I scrub and wash it off? If I have to read directions to wash my face, forget it. I think I threw it in the back of the closet out of disgust.

Random White Shirt – I’m always in need of white shirts. The first sight of sweat stains iggs me out. This shirt (made of cotton) looked ok in the store dressing room, but when I tried it on this morning it almost looked like I was wearing mesh. Mesh. Let’s get a game of kickball together shall we? Currently laying crumpled on my bed.

DVDs – This could almost be considered an impulse buy if not for the fact that I debated for twenty minutes about which ones to bring home. Yes, they were 2 for $1.00 (that’s two for a dollar) which is why I couldn’t pass by without looking, and yes that means there were titles no one has ever heard of, but I sifted through until I found four I thought I’d enjoy. A Steve Mcqueen movie, a Bruce Lee movie, a Doris Day movie, and a Jody Foster movie, which is the only one I’ve watched. It took place in New Zealand during the Victorian Era and I thought it’d be good ‘cuz the description said something about her marrying a man with a strange sexual practice. Ooooo I thought. Victorian repression. Fun! Wrong. Turns out he was a peeping tom. Disappointed! Even for .50 I hoped for more. The rest are probably under the ear-piece which is under a stack of papers on my desk.

Maybe I should have gone gambling. At least there would have been a chance at coming out ahead.

WTHIWWY - Shutup Van, Letter II

A reading from the book of What The Hell Is Wrong With You?:

Dear guy who chews gum with his mouth open:

It’s great that you are able to enjoy your food with fervor, but here’s the thing. It’s not only uncouth and revealing of a greater character lack of say, hygiene, it’s profoundly irritating to someone who is forced to sit one foot in front of you, especially if she’s had a bad day at work. If your purpose in chewing like a cow in a pasture was to further my obvious frustration with my day, you achieved it. Granted it may have been a fun way to avenge yourself for having listened to me rant to two different people, a) I spoke at a respectful level, even in my enraged state and b) 25 minutes of excruciatingly loud mastication is a cruel way to repay two 5 minute phone calls. Though realistically speaking, I don’t think solely (I don’t care how wrongly) judging by your gorilla dining habits that you are cunning enough to enjoy the fruits of such a dastardly plan.

I imagined many ungodly ways the pen in my hand could be used as a weapon, making every telepathic psychopath jealous for not being as clever. However, my self-restraint, now something of which I can be proud, prevented me from causing your death and forced me to exit the Shutup van 15 blocks early.

So I’d just like to take a moment to remind you that the little tin box in which we ride is not a zoo, despite feeling like we are caged animals. If your behavior doesn’t change I will physically kick you out of the van myself and you will have to send HR a letter requesting an “open-mouthed chewing” van to come pick you up.

Have a pleasant evening,

Hapabukbuk

Hand Me The Scissors

My dad has an accent. (He is the bukbuk in the hapa + bukbuk = me equation.) I was not aware of this until I left for college and came home for the first time. Suddenly I was asking him to repeat things because I couldn’t make them out the first time around. It is not a thick accent, like some of my relatives and family friends, but it’s an accent nevertheless.

When I visit my parents now I mimic him. I can’t help it. Once he learned that I wasn’t mocking him, he became less self conscious about it. I just love the way he says things. Sometimes it bothers him, but mostly not so much. He will still occasionally claim he doesn’t have an accent, which makes it all the harder to not mimic him when something I forget he says differently comes out.

Without fail when I see him I ask him to say my favorite word.

“Dad, say this, say this: ‘Hand me the scissors.’”

“No, why?”

“C’mon just say it!”

“Hand me the see-soars.”

“See-soars! Hahahahha! I love it I love it! Say it again!”

Sometimes I wonder if he ever thinks there's something wrong with me.

I Didn't Want To Talk To Her Anyway

The news that Rudy Huxtable was going to attend our school spread like wildfire once it leaked. She would be in second grade. I was a couple years older. We were told not to approach her or ask for her autograph when she started because, “She doesn’t need to be bothered with that stuff at school.” Translation: they were afraid we’d scare the shit out of her if, in our excited state, big groups of us all rushed her at once.

Me, being the cool cat that I am, thought it was neat that someone from TV would be in our midst, but I wasn’t freaked out about meeting her. Apparently some of the older kids were, and did not heed the teachers’ advice. They attacked her the minute they saw her and did exactly what the teachers didn't want them to do. They scared the shit out of her. Of course, that’s all hearsay because I didn’t witness any of it, but I am inclined to believe it.

After a few weeks passed and things died down, I saw her waiting at the bus stop after school. As I casually walked by to get to my bus I said, “hi,” in an effort to show that some kids could be friendly without wanting anything from her. The response I received scarred me for life.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said without even looking up.

Rudy Huxtable blew...me...off.

“Fine!” I said, just short of a sulk, and walked away.

As we got older our paths only occasionally crossed, and only literally at that, but each and every time I saw her I could have sworn I saw a look of apology on her face. As if she somehow knew she’d missed out on making a friend.

Either that or she’d never seen a Hapabukbuk before. Because really, how many of us existed on television in 1987?

Or for that matter, even today?!

What Was I Thinking? Vol. 1

Cool.

Yes, this post will be a direct rip off of Grant Miller's "Worst Things That Have Ever Happened To Me" because he's funny. And I like funny. Also, bastardized plagerism is the highest form of literary flattery. I can feel the blush rising to Grant's cheeks even though he has no idea this blog exists nor that I am linked to his funny butt.

Now, where was I? Oh yes. What was I thinking?

I opened the mini fridge at the new facility I worked at today and found it lacked the one thing I desired. Water. However, their selection was quite different from the usual array of huge corporate, media saturated, unhealthy sugary carbonated beverages. Cool, I thought. Though I did see a Sunkist, they aren't trying to rule the world with their "Feel the orange inside" trademark. For that, I respect them more as a consumer. But I digress.

Aside from the Sunkist, there was a selection of unfamiliar cans, with unfamiliar logos, colors and flavors. I was momentarily disoriented and confused by the lack of red and silver and green. At first I thought they were of a generic brand, but then I grabbed one that said Jamaican Lemonade and brought it back to the room. Jamaican Lemonade? I thought as I projected a high yum factor, This is going to be great.

I broke open the seal and took a swig. I'm pretty sure if I had licked a couple stones that a penguin just peed on, the taste would have been somewhat similar. I read the label again:


"Exclusively Fruit Juice Sweetened."

Huh?

"Lemon Juice Flavored Sparkling Beverage From Concentrate."

Um...what?

Fruit flavored sweet exclusive sparkling concentrate?
R.W. Knudsen Family, I applaud your endeavor. 80% juice in an actual juice beverage is practically unheard of...unless you're listening to the Juicy Juice people but that's not the point. I am absolutely thrilled that I've discovered a new product that uses natural ingredients and isn't trying to sell me a celebrity/electronic device/car while they're at it. I cannot wait to try another one of your juices, but be warned. You only get one second chance. Who knows what I'll be thinking then...

-------UPDATE--------
He knows me! Mr. Miller found me out! I feel like the shy freshman girl who the senior quarterback just smiled at in front of all two of her friends!
I am taking this blogging thing way too seriously. Is it sad that I'm this excited? I need to get out of the apartment.

Sometimes Bad Moods Happen, OK?

On the way home from work the other day, two little boys and their mother got on the bus. From the moment they appeared, I was absolutely captivated. Not even the mother’s horrible choice of black flower flip-flop footwear could turn my attention away.

One boy was wearing a navy blue batman sweat suit with matching batman sneakers. He was carrying a small plastic cookie monster and the most adorable dimples appeared as he smiled and babbled happily to himself. A real, live cabbage patch kid.

“Cookie monster has no hair,” he said definitively.
“I don’t know about that John,” his mother said. “Isn’t Cookie monster covered with hair?”
“No.”

His moodier brother was wearing shorts, a yellow coat, a red cap and superman sneakers. He sat sullenly next to his mother who literally kept poking at him.

“Why are you in a bad mood Alex? (poke) I hate it when you’re in a bad mood.”(poke)

Maybe it’s because you won’t stop poking him woman! I could see his frustration, indefinable with words but recognizable in the tears coating his eyes.

I hear you Alex. I hear you.

June 28, A New Holiday

Can we discuss?



No you're right. I'm way too excited too discuss. I almost just peed myself thinking about June 28th, the limited release date. This guy may be the only one more obsessed than me. He's definitely got the hook up however. Maybe I should marry him and have ten thousand of his babies since, you know, Mr. Colbert is taken already.

Pastafarianism

Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster,

Please forgive me for my sins.
Please let my brother have a happy birthday.
Please end the war in Iraq.
Please let Angie and Brad stay together.

Amen.

Oh ps, please let me move up the ladder. Like today.

I love Chinese Astrology. Perhaps borderline obsessed, but it goes in phases. Lately, it’s only been an occasional check up after wasting work time on the regular sites. Suddenly it’ll hit me that I haven’t checked the stars in a while and I’ll then proceed to check every site that comes up when I type in “Chinese Astrology” in Google’s search.

I like to read and reread how I am diplomatic and popular, and gifted with deep intuitions nonchalantly breezing over the descriptions of passionately jealous and unforgiving because neither of those things really applies to me.

2006 is the year of the dog and apparently it is a “good year” for snakes. I will take that for every thing it’s worth.

Western astrology on the other hand is like a daily Chinese Fortune Cookie Fortune for me- General enough to work for just about anybody, but still specific enough to keep hope alive that it really might pertain to me:

Fun`s fun, but even you know when the party`s over. After a long and lovely swoop through orbit, you`re finally ready to come back down to Earth. Are you famous yet? Do people speak your name with a smile or a scowl? Curious as you may be, it`s not going to affect you yet. You`re still in a jovial, expansive mood, but now it`s tempered with a sense of purpose -- you probably even have a plan. With these qualifications, you could be launching one of your best phases ever. Now that, if anything, should make you famous.

AM I FAMOUS YET?

And then there is the Chinese/Western combo:

As a Sagittarius born under the sign of the Rat, the Snake or the Monkey, you are endowed with great perspicacity...The Sagittarius/Snake is often lost in his reflections.

After I looked up perspicacity, I realized no one will care about astrology that pertains only to me but me.

But so be it. It’s a really slow day at work today.

Updates:

Satan’s restroom’s toilet is still leaking. I came back from a week’s vacation to half a bucket of water under the tank.

I have finally figured out the texting feature on my phone.

I am still addicted to cookies.

Mr. Colbert has not confirmed reception of my application for yes woman.

Mr. Blaine is now not only a loser, he’s a failure too.

Mom still hasn’t owned up to the duck explanation.

I still have not consumed a cinnamon donut.

I learned a new “Your Mother” gem:

"Yo' mama so stupid, she got fired from the M&M factory for throwing out the Ws."
-Stephen Colbert

WTHIWWY - Shutup Van, Letter I

A reading from the book of What The Hell Is Wrong With You?:

Dear Chatty Ladies on the Shutup Van this morning:

It’s great that you gals are so sprightly in the morning, energized and eager to catch up on all the events that have occurred since you last saw each other 12 hours ago. But here’s the thing, if I can hear you over the high decibel Metric and Tegan & Sara tunes in my ears you are talking TOO LOUD. I don’t care how stressful your job is. I don’t care about your motion sickness. I don’t care about your frizzy hair. I just don’t. Perhaps you are unaware, but the little tin box we are all packed into for commuting purposes is quite small and voices tend to carry.

Should I happen to catch the same van as you in the future, let’s make a pact to play the quiet game since you apparently don’t have an indoor voice. It will be like we’re in a library and if you speak above a whisper, the librarian will come over and kick you out. Only this time if you get kicked out you’ll have to stand on the side of the road until the other ‘loud morning talking’ library picks you up.

Have a lovely day,

Hapabukbuk

Froo-its Of The Dev-ill

So today being what it is, everyone is going to have some kind of story about evil. Me, being one of everyone, will now share hers.

Aside from the fact that today my job consists of working with footage from a movie with Massacre in the title, I just experienced the absolute creepiest elevator trip ever. During it, I shared airspace with Damien’s mother.

I’m so not joking.

The bathroom is one floor down and I usually take the stairs. Today however, the stairs were blocked with tape, alerting me to the painting occurring in the stairwell. Forced to take the elevator one floor, I felt guilty when on the way back up someone was in the elevator.

She stood dressed in brown, hunched at the shoulders and rail-thin everywhere but her protruding pregnant belly. Brown, straw-like hair almost completely hid her face, though enough of it showed to betray a mouth that had obviously never been used to smile. Distracted by this to the point of forgetting where I was, I got in the elevator and started rambling, frantically searching the elevator buttons for the one I needed to press.

“I’m sorry, I only have to go one floor. The stairs are being painted and I had to use the bathroom…”

12. Button 12. She turned her head ever so slowly and stared at me with empty eyes for a full thirty seconds before speaking.

“There’s only one bathroom in the building?”

I thought if I didn’t have the right answer she might pull out a scythe and slit my throat with a gentle but quick swing upward.

“Uh, um, no. I don' t know. There just isn’t one on my floor, there may be another one. I don' t know. I have to use the one on this floor…”

The door opened and I propelled myself into the hallway, terrified and shaking, but alive. Evil takes many forms. I’m just saying, beware.

Testosterone & Beer

How my day was ruined by MEAT HEADS:

They made the highway a parking lot because they were all trying to get to the game during rush hour. It took me two hours to get home instead of half an hour.

They made me remember every sporting event I’ve actually attended (obviously not many) and left with beer soaking some part of my body because I stayed in my seat when some player should have thrown the ball.

They made me wrongfully judge other sport loving guys in various other cars who might have been perfectly nice and totally capable of not acting like assholes while loving the game.

*sigh*

Caught Off Guard

Things I should have prepared myself for before my trip to central Florida, but didn’t:

The child who kicked my chair fifty-seven times before the door to the airplane was even shut. Thankfully he and his family switched rows before we took off, only to be replaced by Spanish speaking tourists who took flash pictures out the window while repeatedly bumping my seat.

The man sitting next to me whose thigh was as big as my torso. He received two offerings of drinks and a bag of pretzels while I received nothing. Maybe the flight attendant couldn’t see me. However, that didn’t stop me from cursing her out internally on the way off the plane.

The Times Square size billboards on the highway quoting God as saying things like, “The real Supreme Court meets up here,” and “The world is a small place. I know, I made it.”

The small, lighted billboards by the entrance to every church (which appeared approximately every fifty yards), similar to the small, lighted billboards by the entrance to every fast food restaurant (which appeared approximately every other fifty yards). Jesus loves me and the burgers are only 99 cents!

Love bug carcass all over the car windshield as a testament of how far we drove.

The conversations that inevitably lead to, “you should meet my son/grandson/nephew/cousin’s sister-in-law’s housepainter. He’s a lawyer/doctor/stock broker/artist.”