And Eat Your G'Damn Veggies Too!

I absolutely LOVE this book titled "go the f**k to sleep" by Adam Mansbach. It's meant to be a parents-only book, and it pokes fun at our hidden frustrations. It's absolutely crazy that some people are outraged by it; but I'm convinced that those are the moms who after years of pent up anger, send their kids off to college and end up in a trench coat and/or post office with a gun. It can't end well.

Here's the video of the book narrated by Samuel L. Jackson. Oh, but obviously make sure your kids are a-fu*!king-sleep before playing this. Go ahead...I'll wait.



I'm thinking of writing the sequel myself. Possibly titled "And Eat Your G'damn Veggies Too." Here's what I've got so far:

It's dinner time here in our castle. Serving our princess a home-cooked meal. After hours of slaving, you're really complaining? Just eat it my love. For real.

We're gathered in love 'round the table. Dished up some chicken and peas. Who cares if your food is touching each other? Doesn't taste any different...please?

The bonding is flowing and natural. The family time's just such a blessing. I've separated it all and scraped off the sauce, now what the hell is wrong with the dressing?

Looking around at our beautiful table. So thankful to have everyone here. We said TWO BIG bites of the healthy stuff. Forget it. Can you grab me a beer?

Onto dessert for the night now. Your sundae is topped with a cherry. Mom's drunk, dad's asleep and you had nothing healthy. Typical night for us though? Very.

Now obviously, I am joking. I would never cook.

Man's World, Shmans World

So I work in an industry which is about 85% male. If you exclude the staff/non-sales component, it's about 95% male, and if you then narrow it down to my specific product type, it's about 99.3% male (give or take a basis-point or two). I'm talking about commercial real estate, and industrial real estate as it relates to me.

I work in theee absolute hottest industrial submarket in the country, home to the largest distribution centers of the biggest companies in the world. Case in point, our market accounted for 52% of the nation's entire net absorption last year. That's right, half of the country's activity was here. Considering there are 350+ ports in the great U.S., that's downright obnoxious.

If you haven't fallen asleep yet, I only say this so you can understand how competitive it is. There are obviously huge barriers to entry, with only 6 teams dominating 90% of the prime market share. I, Summer, am the junior partner on one of the teams. Oh, and when I say junior, I mean peon, of course. My two senior partners are (shockingly) men, and I'm the only junior broker in the market without a penis (provided there are no secrets I'm not privy to), but I'm definitely not the most girly. For some reason I was born with an outrageous need to compete- professionally or in sports only, no attention issues here. Admittedly, I'm nutso when it comes to trying to keep up with the boys. "/

Additionally, part of being the peon is being razzed by the senior guys in the industry, so I try to avoid reasons to make my target bigger if you know what I'm sayin'. They just loooove to remind me that I'm "just a 25 year old girl."

But anyway, because I'm the peon, I get to go to each of these monster buildings when there is a tour, and open it up, turn on the lights, and open some (freakin' 22) of the dock-high doors. You know, the roll up ones with the chains? See for pic below...


Ok, that's taken care of, now fast forward to this afternoon. I arrive at the half mile long building, ready to close up, and I remember that I have ugg boots in my trunk. I look down at my 4" heels and decide it would be a good idea to just throw those on real quick despite the fact that I'm wearing a suit. While looking in my trunk, I see my snow jacket, and think "yesss, I won't get dirty if I put that on!" But there's absolutely no way I'm looking like that much of an ass; it's 80 degrees in southern California!

So I enter the building in the snow jacket, uggs, and slacks. Shoot I paid 70 bucks for that shirt, and I wasn't about to have it all industrialized 'n stuff. All goes well with the closing of the doors, with the exception of this ONE door. The door that satan created. It was the door that represented everything evil, like murderers, and robbers, and Paris Hilton. I opened the damn door this morning, what is wrong with it now! I yank the chain (in a literal sense) and the door will not budge. This thing is not coming back down. I see the jokes flash before my eyes. "hey Summer, you know, this business just isn't for girls sometimes," and many more to the same affect. I decide I will not be defeated.

So here I am, racking my brain for ideas as to how I can get this thing to close. You can understand my desperation, I mean, there's humiliation on the brink! I glance the 10 feet up to the top of the door, and have the harsh realization that I'm four and a half feet too short to reach anything. I come to the conclusion that I'm just not tugging hard enough, and decide to use ALL of my might. I wrap one boot in the chain, and hoist all one-hundred-twenty-three pounds of me on to it, so I'm dangling at this point. Here I am, swinging back and forth from a roll-up door chain in an industrial building, in 80 degree weather, while wearing a snow jacket, slacks, and ugg boots. One of my proudest moments, naturally.

Nothing happens. This thing is jammed. You know, at least in the movies there's some random, ultra-convenient chair lying around. but noooo. I have the worst luck.

I must admit, my crazed, competitive side got the best of me, and I lost touch with reality there for a second. While tapping into my inner Macgyver, I conceptualized in an instant how to make a slingshot using only my underwear and mascara tube. Realizing that I didn't want to add "commando" to the list of my already atrocious wardrobe choice, I gave up. I made the call to the general contractor, who immediately sent out a repairman.

Repair man arrives. "Hey honey, you need me to shut a door for ya?" I immediately tell him how beyond broken it is. After all, my ego's at stake. So he goes and does the whole "man thing" with the door, and I just wait around and pray that something is really wrong with it.

20 more wasted-minutes-of-my-life later, I'm on my way out of the building, and in my peripherals, I see a head poke out from behind one of the walls. I screamed. Pretty loud. It was the door repair guy. "oh, haha, sorry...I just didn't think you'd be in here," I said. I was really hoping he wouldn't ask me why the hell I wouldn't expect someone whom I let in, to be in there. He was kind. Just gave me the good news I had been waiting for and went on his way.

The door was completely bent and lodged! AND they had advised against repairing it before. *beaming*

What a sick, sick thing to be happy about, huh?

Oh, and a lot of people would've screamed, by the way. Doesn't mean just because I'm a girl, I screamed.

Conclusion: Man's world, schman's world. What was seemingly a horrible day, turned out to be juuuust fine. :)

Somebody's got a case of the Mondays. a la "Office Space"

I overlslept...AGAIN. Normally I don't allow myself to believe my own excuses, but in this case...I genuinely was not at fault.

So my work phone also serves as my alarm clock, and unfortunately, it was deader (is that seriously a word?) than a door nail this morning. It was more dead (that just sounds better) than Tupac...according to white people, of course. So I set the alarm on my other phone.

Fast forward to morning, and the freaking sun beating on my window is actually what woke me up. I immediately grabbed my personal, very much alive, phone to check the time. Much to my surprise, my personal "alarm" was still going off. I'm not that heavy of a sleeper, but I think I figured out why I didn't hear it.

This is my alarm, sound and all...



Did you hear it? Yeah, I didn't think so. That's because there's NO SOUND. I'm not kidding, that's why the word "alarm" is in quotes. All that's missing is another pair over the word "sounding."

Apparently I was supposed to leave it "running" in the background rather than closing the app. When you close the app it goes into "back-up" mode and only attempts to wake you up with the above gesture. Ummm....WTF kind of back up is that??? I mean why even have one?

Happy news. I charged my Blackberry. Tomorrow I'll be woken up like every other normal human being, with a series of loud, annoying, blissful beeps.

Unsolicited advice. And bad advice at that.

I was having a conversation recently with someone near and dear to me regarding some unsolicited advice she received. While doing so I realized that I too have had the same bit of knowledge bestowed upon me. Several times in fact. I began to wonder why some certain life choices just elicit advice, and why this is so universally true. Do share your experiences or additions, because I haven't figured out the answer.

1. Black cars. Black cars are freakin' sweet. There is something about a black car that just makes it look nicer than the same vehicle in any other color. But has anyone ever noticed that if you mention your intention of purchasing a black automobile, you will immediately be warned of its exaggerated, pretentious display of dirt? I mean, I think this goes without saying. We learned this through osmosis probably somewhere in the first grade. Along with that, we observed that white clothing- 9 times out of 10- gets dirty within the first hour of our day. And furthermore, the damage to that same white piece of clothing is often irreparable. Many times, it gets bleached, dried, and thrown into the pajama drawer after only being used once.

It seems to me that white clothing is so clearly the poorer investment. I haven't seen a pile of bird feces yet that rendered a black vehicle trash. If you're a 30 year old person, who has ruined 5 white shirts a year at $20 a pop, you've poorly invested $3,000 in the wrong color clothing. Conversely, if you drive a black vehicle and had to wash it twice a month as opposed to once a month for another color vehicle, you've invested a total of $600 in car washes (assuming each wash cost you $5 in supplies). This is only $300 more than you would have spent for buying the car in periwinkle. I would make the contention that you would have then spent that same $300 you thought you were saving on continuing dating website premiums, or therapy. No girl is going to date you if you show up in a baby blue car.

The truth is, you're more of a humanitarian for walking up to that prospective clothing buyer in your local Macy's and saying "oooh...umm...I hate to tell you, but you might not want to buy that shirt in white. You'd really be better off buying something that shows less dirt."

2. Two story houses. How many of us have been advised against buying a house with stairs? "You're going to hate walking up and down those stairs everyday, you know." Well yeah, but I also hate paying bills, paying taxes, going to work, and being woken up on a Sunday morning by evangelists knocking on my door. TRUST ME, I will hate the stairs less. Whether I have them or not, there will be something much bigger to complain about. At least I'll have my big/tall monster of a house to make me feel better about writing those checks, right? Or maybe I am being financially smarter, not having to purchase a pair of "Skechers Easy Tones" and all.

I've also heard "stairs are so inconvenient, you'll end up leaving things at the bottom of the stairs until you are ready to go up, and then you'll grab it all at once." Well then pat me on the back, because dammit that is efficient. May I streamline all processes in my life with that same innovation and focus on productivity. The fact that the body is designed to have to pee is higher on my inconvenient-things-we-humans-have-to-do list. Especially living in California where heavy traffic and coffee go hand-in-hand.

3. Breastfeeding. What is the deal with this??? I mean, with all of the bad parenting going on around the world, we chastise great mothers who for one reason or another do not breastfeed their children? You would be surprised at how vicious some of these breast milk vigilantes will get. They'll call names, slash tires, and even strap themselves to breast milk bombs that explode in public places.

With regard to the health implications of the breast milk vs. formula choice- aren't we Americans unhealthier than we've ever been? I'm no expert but I'm assuming that the formula (which was designed for infant nutrition) is much healthier for my baby than that big mac, Pepsi, and Marlboro Red you consumed before you organically fed yours. How do we put ourselves on pedestals when a great percentage of our babies are surviving on nicotine McFlurry's and liquid french fries?


[End rant]


I have no idea why we do these things, but I vow to never ever give anyone any of these pieces of advice...EVER...

Gladys and the Fast Guidettes

First of all I would just like to apologize to my plethora of followers (and by that I mean the seven of you) who probably thought I fell off the blogger bandwagon. The good news- or bad if you didn't like my blogs- is that I didn't. Inconsistency is kind of how I roll. It's not that I couldn't be consistent, but the truth is, blogging is like 42nd on my priority list each day. And I'm only one human so I typically make it through #12 or so on average.

What's inspiring tonight's rant is the ever so popular show Jersey Shore, and how it's helped me realize that I've become an old woman. This is disturbing to me because I'm not yet into my late 20's. I have no idea whether that is a negative or positive thing, but for me it just is.

So last night before bed I clicked "play" on my tivo, ready to indulge in the guilty pleasure that is Jersey shore. I have NO idea why I expected to react like a typical 25 year old, but my guess is it's because I'm 25. I laughed like everyone does while watching the show, but of course the 76 year old woman inside me starts nagging at me for contributing to the exploitation of America's trashy youth. It's actually a miserable existence to have this constant internal battle. Imagine Jiminy Cricket, but female, human, and old enough to qualify for a senior citizen discount at your local Denny's. Sometimes I'm so grateful for the old hag, but other times I really resent the fact that someone's pessimistic and super conservative granny decided to die and reincarnate in my brain. Let's just call this alter-ego, Gladys.

So back to my story, Gladys starts in on me as Snooki (the hairy one who is more spherical in body type than a bowling ball) sleeps with yet ANOTHER guy on national television. These guidos and guidettes, as they're called, are more promiscuous than what I imagine the 60's to have been like. And let me tell you, I've always imagined the 60's to have been pretty damn crazy.

So thanks to Gladys, in addition to "where's my ben-gay," I start thinking "oh no. These poor kids (who are almost my age) are never going to have a future. Who is ever going to hire them now that they've aired their dirty laundry on national television?" And if you haven't seen the show, I'm not talking got-too-drunk-and-threw-up dirty laundry. I'm talking about the kind of dirty laundry you would see at a retirement home where they had run out of Depends and served chili for dinner. It's HORRID laundry to be quite frank.

I'm wondering how this is affecting our impressionable youth. I'm all for women's lib but I don't think you can maintain a classy image after sleeping with every d-bag in Seaside Heights. Who's gonna want to marry you later? We women have to think about these things. Double standard or not, it's just reality. And we can't just rebel in hopes of overturning it. It's not going to change. I liken it to the whole push for green living and reducing your carbon footprint thing. Everyone says " just do your part" right? Even a little bit counts. I'd contend that all of us women should just do our part, with regard to maintaining a little class for our gender.

I do want to make it VERY clear that I think men should do their part too, but I'm not a man. I'm a woman, I can only change how I think about this issue. The guys on Jersey Shore definitely disgust me, and I think sleeping with one of them is more high risk than smoking five packs of marlboro's a day for eighty years while praying for cancer.

On that note, I don't think old Gladys is going anywhere, so I'm kinda SOL.

Cynic's Day Off

Short and sweet today. I'm actually quite happy and can't tap into my inner cynic! This isn't to say that while writing every other blog post I'm not happy; because I'm always happy. It's just sometimes my faith in my fellow man is, well, depleted.

I even had to go into downtown LA yesterday, as I sometimes do. Generally this evokes 42 blog topics, and I run them through the brain, having trouble choosing one. After days like that the inner city traffic, my stress because I'm always running late, and the exposure to the idiots who slow down the seminars, are more than enough to elicit my satirical prose.

Nope.

Today is all relaxation (and bliss) for me.

Relaxation, part 1: So I caught up on Jersey Shore this morning. I know, I know. No self respecting person actually watches that show, say the sophisticated souls who have never watched it! In defense of those of us who do tune in, it's more that we (and by "we" I mean "I") can't turn away. It's a mess.

Relaxation, part 2: Finish reading "The 48 Laws of Power." I've been hooked on this book for so long, and I took a break to read a few other books. I think I'm ready to jump back into my take-no-prisoners mentality. The book is flat out amazing, and maybe I wouldn't find anything to relate it to if I didn't work in the corporate jungle. But one has to know how to kill and defend themselves in such an environment. I love the candid and apathetic manner in which it was written. This always gets me pumped for the following week...

Relaxation, part 3: Hello wine. Ooh, I'm getting excited just thinking about it. Nothing is more relaxing than a clean house, my favorite candles lit (sugar cookie, and baked apple pie), good music, wine and my family. Times like these remind me of what I work so hard for.

I know, I'm not very interesting today. Is anyone else relaxing today? If so, what do you do?

Note: I reserve the right to blog later if I happen to be outraged by something. The cynic's day of rest is completely revocable.

Don't you wish your boyfriend was hot crazy like mine?

One of the most amazing women I've ever known, my great grandmother, passed away this Christmas. Yesterday while cleaning her house out, I was reminded of so many great memories with her.

I even came across some vintage newspapers, and I realized that we have the same struggles/worries/trends, that they did back then. There were "miracle med" ads for turning ugly legs into sexy ones. There were innovative experts proclaiming that the way your child scribbles indicates his future personality. And of course, there were outraged citizens protesting the direction their society had taken, and condemning the future. Life today may be different, but we humans don't change much.

However, it does seem as if dating has changed. I often think of how sorry I feel for the single ladies in today's world. It seems like there are more crazy men in 2011, than there ever were. I hear horror story after horror story from my single girlfriends. Please note- I'm not implying ALL men are defected, I have an amazing husband, so I know good guys exist. I'm just wondering if maybe girls like me snatched them all up.

Is it just me, or were men expected to be more gentleman-like back in the day? Now, it's "cool" to be a 40 year old self proclaimed playboy, who hasn't paid a dollar of child support for kids he never sees, but conveniently has tons of cash to drop on drinks for the washed up lady regulars at the bar every weekend.

Ok, back to my point....Women of today are wasting time with guys they think have it all together, only to find out years later that they have been sleeping with the enemy (or the delusional or the cheater) so to speak. I've heard many a comedienne joke about this issue over the years. They have suggested that maybe men should wear signs around their necks and/or on their foreheads. In the perfect world, you could walk into a club and within minutes, spot the "angry," "lazy," "jealous" and "deranged."

That would be great, but I think we can assume no guy is going to offer that information up willingly. And furthermore, he may not even know it. How common is denial now days?

How does this tie into my Grandma's story, and the retro publications I came across, you ask?

Well, I think greeting card makers in the 1960's had it down. They would plant disturbing cards in with all the rest of them, and the sociopath who stopped in before a first date to grab you a card, would immediately be drawn to them. Of course, not realizing that this card may be the biggest red flag and that it may make his girl (or guy) of interest privy to his mental issues.

I came across this 1962 Valentine's Day card yesterday while at Grandma's house, and I had to get a pic:

I immediately thought, how creepy!!! The person who picked this card out of all of them, was obviously controlling, to say the least. It could be argued that he was also confused about his sexuality...but that's not the point of my post.

I think they had it right back then...and I kind of want them to start doing this again. It may help the women of today avoid years of having the wool pulled over their eyes (or duct tape over their mouth). Upon receipt of a card like this you can make like Julia Roberts in "Sleeping with the Enemy" and get your big hair and big teeth outta there.

A tip of the hat to you card makers of the '60's.