PET CHOW (rat poison)

Our house has been invaded by the dreaded Man Cold. For details on the Man Cold, check out S's blog: http://www.appliedluck.com/.

To help alleviate said Man Cold, I went to Safeway the other day to purchase Theraflu and Halls. Last night, while making a nice warm mug of Theraflu to help my husband go to sleep, I noticed something was amiss. I'll get back to this in a second, but first would like to discuss the Petchow Rat Poising commercial parody Will Ferrel did on SNL a few years ago.

Do you remember this? Will was Hank Petchow, advertising the Petchow brand of rat poison. Scenes showed him in a fuzzy, earthy sweater talking about how to use Petchow rat poison while feeding his dogs. The whole transcript is here: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/95/95mpetchow.phtml ( I could only find crappy versions of the footage itself.)

In any case, this is the box of Theraflu I purchased:



Looks like Theraflu, right? It says Theraflu on it and was sold in the pharmacy aisle. But, no- I was fooled! It's some useless blend of herbs that you add to hot water. In dire situations such as the dreaded Man Cold, only strong drugs will help. In this case, since I'd purchased the Petchow brand of Theraflu (herbs), I had to resort to adding large amounts of brandy to S's drink to relax him and aid the sleeping process. What a bummer!

Dangerous Package?

On a recent trip to Sedona, S and I acquired a slightly used Cuisinart. To get it home to CA, we packaged it in an old Sam Adams Winter Classics beer box and checked it in on our flight. When we arrived to San Jose, we noticed that the package had been "inspected" by the Transportation Security Administration. We started cracking up, thinking about how this went down.

Baggage Handler #1: "Hey, this box of beer looks slightly suspicious, don't you think?"
Baggage Handler #2: "Yes, indeed it does. I think we'd better inspect it to ensure it's not anything harmful"
BH #1: "It could be beer"
BH #2: "Well, I think we owe it to the American citizens to find out. Plus, I like the Cranberry Lambic Ale."
BH #1: "You do?! I hate that stuff. It's too sweet. It's like Sam had some extra cranberries lying around and thought 'These are about to go bad. I'm going to add them to this Lambic and see what happens.'
BH #2: (Opening box) "Dang! It's just an old Cuisinart. From like the 70's!"
BH #1: "Oh well- we tried. Want to grab a beer after work?"
BH #2: "Sure. Hey, you'd better put that official looking 'Inspected by the TSA tape all over the box so it looks official."
BH #1: "Done and done."

Season of White!

I'm currently getting in to full Christmas spirit. We have our teensy Christmas tree all set up and decorated in our apartment, things are being made, baked etc etc. While browsing online for Christmas cards, I came across a cute card at Target (yes, I like to shop at Target, what?). The front of the card looked like this:

I was thinking, hmm..... cute card, cost-effective, non-denominational. All set. However, I luckily looked at the details of the card and noticed the below information:


Features

• Christmas Card Set
• Features Horizontal-Fold Design
• 10 Cards , 10 Envelopes
• Inside Text Reads " Season of White! "


Uhhhh.. "Season of White!" How can I possibly send this card out to our friends. I can just imagine our friends opening up a cheery, Holiday card only to find the White Power reference inside. Then the confusion would set in. Friends would begin to wonder why in the hell we'd sent this card out. Are we secretly affiliated with some sort of White Power sect?

Oy vey! I'm glad I didn't end up buying these...I'm cracking up that Target would even put these on their site.

Travel

S and I went to Sedona to see my Mom's side of the family for a belated Thanksgiving. We flew out of San Jose since it's easy to pick S up at work and head 15 minutes south to San Jose rather than return to San Francisco.

Sedona was beautiful- lots of lovely fall colors, striking red rocks, green forest, and plenty of time for us to reconnect with my family and just relax.

One night, we went to go see No Country For Old Men. S and I had already seen it at home and loved it. In San Francisco, at the end of the movie, the entire audience just sat in stunned silence. It was incredible. Not so in Arizona...

At the end of the movie (which is not your nice, tidy packaged ending), the Arizona audience became angry. Angry and verbal. A guy muttered behind us "I'm not leavin' until they give me a proper ending!" To him we say good luck since there's another showing in 20 minutes in the same theatre. Another woman yells "That was crap!" (simple and direct). There were guffaws and laughter, sighs of exasperation. It was a unique experience being able to see the same movie in two locations and experience the audience reaction. I wanted to turn around to everyone and say "No! It's a great ending, see....." But instead I just took it as an experience and tried to remain non-judgemental about it.

On the way home, in Phoenix airport, a middle-aged woman sat next to us flipping through a newspaper and drinking a coffee. She got a phone call from what I presumed was her husband and they began discussing how a recent conversation with their daughter had gone. It sounded like they were at odds about how to discipline her. After a few minutes, she began arguing with her husband in earnest, throwing out zingers like "NO, NO, NO! Stop the conversation in your head, I'm just telling you what I saw. Remember, we talked about this!". It became rather personal and I was uncomfortable, pretending to thumb through Rolling Stone, while eavesdropping.


On the plane, we encountered some rather strong turbulence. We were seated in the row behind the exit row, and I'd been watching the gentleman in front of us in the exit row consume two vodka screwdrivers. In the midst of the turbulence, I begin thinking "OK if this plane crashes, I've got to figure out a way to get that exit door by Mr. Screwdriver open. Maybe I'll push past him...mMmmmm...or maybe I'll just go to the right and use that exit row." Obviously, we didn't crash, but I still found my mind in overdrive.

That's what I love about travel: It's an opportunity to experience different reactions of crowds watching the same movie. It's an opportunity to hear a fight in a crowded airport and notice your mind in overdrive.

Back home in San Francisco, it's cold and sprinkling. I miss the gorgeous red rocks and my family in Sedona, but I'm happy to be back in this city I irrationally love.