Top Ten Blogs I Wouldn't Follow

(Though this week's Top Ten Tuesday post wasn't a reader's idea, I do appreciate all of your awesome ideas and hope to see 'em up on here pretty soon. I continue to seek Top Ten Lists, so please let me know if you have any ideas!)

10) I Date Too Much: the chronicles of a girl who dates The Best Boy every night

9) Ewww Gross: fascinating lessons culled from fifth grade science class, changing diapers and the dumpster

8) Ten Million Sheep: a peek into the mind of an insomniac

7) Hair Conditioner World: a blog dedicated to conditioners of all sorts, Including formulas and folklore!

6) Just Me and Myselves: a blog about schizophrenia, mental health, and why we don't want to get treated

5) Why People Call Me Boring: a journey of self discovery

4) Lessons From a Lamp Post: how an inanimate object provides me with daily inspiration

3) A Day In The Life of a JAP: I mean it when I say I've got nothing to wear!

2) My Kid Is So Cute: Adorable episodes from the life of my month-old baby

1) Adventures of a Nosy Shadchan: ruining girl's self-esteem for fun and profit

Introducing: A New Species

I started discussing senior moments in my last post, but, surprisingly enough, I feel about a hundred years older now than I did then.

Firstly, I have to say that I find first time mommies adorable. Especially when they are your friends. I mean, we have already discussed the sequence of events that leads to a slow deterioration of the brain cells when a friend of yours undergoes that species change from homo-sapien to brido-sapien. Yesterday, I bore witness to an astonishing fact. The brido-sapien is nothing compared to the mama-sapien. I mean nothing.

Here sits a friend, who in recent months has shown signs of her complete re-entry into the human race, cooing at a little shriveled up Bundle of blankets as if the blanket actually knows what they are saying. Then she introduces me to the Bundle. I mean, this is a great friend, so by default I like her kid, but seriously. Do I need to be introduced to a one-week old baby?

Being introduced to my friend's five-month-old baby was weird enough. "Say hi, Yitzy!" But at least little Yitzy had the good grace to look up from the sock he was chewing and give me an adorable smile. The Bundle, on the other hand, went right on sleeping.

And then there was this whole method of introducing me. My friend cooed at her baby, "this is Mommy's friend!" I looked behind me, expecting to see my mother there. Mommy's friend? Me?How can it be? I'm just a kid!

Or am I?

Am I the only one who feels like the world is growing up too fast?

Senior Moments

When my mother and her contemporaries discuss senior moments, they are usually referring to incidents when they forget where their eldest son lives, or moments when they can't remember their grandchildren's names. This lady I work with, she's constantly having senior moments.

"Er, I can't remember why I came in here. Do you know.... what'syournameagain... oh, SD!"

Each time this happens, I smile smugly to myself and feel happy that I've got a good thirty years or so before these things happen to me. Turns out, I had a senior moment of my own yesterday.

I was at a friend's house, and her younger sister had a bunch of friends over. I always thought of myself as a really fun and friendly kid. Age gaps never really bothered me much, as I shmooze with my older sister's friends and my younger sister's friends as if they're all my age.

So I sat down to shmooze with them. One of the girls is a teacher, and they were working on something for her class. As we talked, I offered my help. Miss Teacher, whom, I might mention, was a frighteningly perfect specimen of a person, gladly gave me a chore.

I sat there cutting and sorting and mostly listening to these girls. Suddenly, as they giggled about something not-all-that-funny, I realized that you don't have to be fifty to have a senior moment.

As I looked at these girls acting so little, I felt so old.

And then I realized... I am old - to them! These girls are recent high school graduates. I might feel like we're "basically" the same age, but as hard as I try to pretend, I'm getting older, and these girls are quite a number of years my junior...


Excuse me, I must go soak my dentures...

Top Ten Things You Didn't Need To Know About Me (aka I'm a Kreativ Blogger!)

Ages ago, G6 nominated me to be a creative blogger. I really shouldn't have waited this long to thank her, cuz it's not very often that I find myself being compared to a box of chocolate. :-D Not to mention, it's not every day that I find myself getting such Kreativ-ly spelled awards. Since it's Tuesday, I figured we could combine the seven items required to accept this award with a Top Ten Tuesday post.

Anyone who wanted to know more about me is lucky, cuz today you get not seven, but ten absolutely useless factoids about the great blogger SD!

Here goes:

10) I could probably be called Houdini II. In school, I never did a stitch of work, never showed up to class, and yet all of my teachers loved me and I never got into any trouble. o:-)

9) My first speeding ticket "happened" less than six months after I got my license. I was sure it would be suspended, but it wasn't, thanks to a clear and open miracle on the part of G-d.

8) I am considered a gadget freak, and I wear the badge with honor. Anything with a screen and buttons makes me drool. In fact, though I shouldn't be admitting this to the world wide web, the real reason I wanted an insulin pump (the first time I saw one, at the age of 12) was because it was another electronic gadget. Plus that meter they gave me in the hospital when I was diagnosed made me pretty sure that diabetes is so cool.

7) I love to cook, but I hate to follow recipes. Measuring cups and spoons are my archenemies. That's probably why I hate to bake, now that I think of it.

6) Most people don't find me very funny in real life. Those who do really get on my nerves.

5) My bedroom has two general states: oh-my-gosh-what-happened-to-this-place-its-a-disaster-zone-was-there-a-tornado-watch-recently or oh-man-you-are-a-sick-neat-freak. But, regardless of the cleanliness of my room - or lack thereof - I am insanely organized. I always know exactly where everything is. I also know if anyone ever touches a thing. In fact, I would probably be able to tell if someone just walked in, even if they touch nothing.

4) On the topic of my bedroom, my family calls it my cave. They say I spend way too much time in it.

3) My boss once read a report I did and told me I am in the wrong field. "You should be a writer." ;-) A friend (who obviously doesn't know that I have a blog) once told me that I should publish a book of shidduch jokes and stories. :-P

2) I want to marry a guy just like my little brother, LT, just a slightly more cultured version. Oh, and he doesn't need to fix things so much.

1) I have a pet beetle named Freddy. He is dead. :-(

Now tell me something interesting about you!

By the way, in case you can't tell, I am kinda low on Top Ten ideas. If you have any, please email me! Or you can post a comment and request that I don't publish it. Thanks!

The Miracle Called Baseball

SD and MP sat together in the car, laughing, cheering, and acting like the very best of friends.

No, that's not a dream I had. Nor is it a line for the BOSD fiction blog. That actually happened. Here's the underlying story:

It was the fifth game of the ALCS. The Yankees has a 3-1 series lead, and a win would mean they had clinched their spot in the world series. Top of the ninth, Yankees down by a run. Two outs. Bases loaded. 2-2 pitch to Nick Swisher. And the pitch is called...a ball! It's a 3-2 pitch! Both of us, sitting in the car, screamed from excitement. One more bad pitch and the Angel's pitcher would walk in the tying run. The fans in Angel's Stadium are all going wild. And so are we.

This, I thought to myself, is the miracle of baseball. It's the reason we've converted driving to the store to pick something up for our mother, late one thursday night, into a cheering fest. It's the reason we are laughing together like old friends. Differences aside, we are simply laughing like two little kids.

When asked my father why he likes baseball, he always says: "Its nice to get all worked up over something but suffer no loss if it doesn't work out."

And it's so true. In the end, a few pitches after the one I just described the guy hit a fly ball to the out field and prolonged the Angel's season by at least one more game. But the moment was still there. MP and myself were still sitting excitedly in the car, talking about great plays we remember as kids. Talking about how Nick Swisher could have done an Aron Boone and hit a grand slam, securing his place in every NY paper's sports section. Talking about how good it is that our father was a White Sox fan when he lived in Chicago, because had he been a cubs fan we would have wound up fans of the Mets. Talking about...everything.

So while people complain that baseball is the most boring sport, about how there is waaaay too long between pitches, about how it's just a couple of minutes of excitement spread out over a couple of hours, I am realizing that those empty minutes where the sports broadcasters are trying desperately to fill the gaps between pitches are times when differences can be forgotten and bonds can be formed.

(I apologize to my readers who found this post gobledegook. I can lend you the official copy of the Baseball Rule Book that my father got me when he got tired of my questions.)

Blogger Meet-Up of the Year

I discovered something interesting tonight. Blogger's weddings aren't all that different from the weddings of ordinary people. There were some signs. For starters, when I first got to the hall, I went into the bathroom to fix my hair. There, on the ledge, was a bag with a laptop protruding. Yes, it belonged to a blogger.

Then, there was the whole identity crisis thing. Ordinary people go to weddings and introduce themselves as Sarah or Ruchi or Kreindy. Bloggers get this whole identity crisis situation going on:

"What's your name?"

"Which name do you want?"

"What do you mean which name?"

"Oh, sorry, I thought you were one of us...."

Most of us did provide both names, though I got a little bit of a pin prick in my inflated ego when I discovered that my blogger name wasn't even familiar to a couple of the people there.

The next sign that we weren't simple ordinary folks was probably between first and second dance when Bad4 went on a frantic search for a pen. (Who would ever think that a table full of bloggers would be praising the mini pen that MP bought me when she went to Israel?) The remainder of the meal was spent with Bad4 bent over her return card, scribbling notes in code - just in case there were any competing bloggers peering over her shoulder. (To that I simply say hmph.) That was followed by a lively discussion on what to post, and when to post, and who to post, after which we got up to dance again.

Then came the most comical blogging clue of the evening. Normally, at a wedding, if you see a group of girl going to dance with the Kallah, you leave 'em alone, not wanting to get into the "seminary circle" or the "college circle" or the "12 grade chessed head circle". But a group of bloggers doesn't quite look as homogeneous, and people didn't seem to realize that we were all together. On the second try, we managed to form a circle with the kallah, put her finger to her lips. This was our secret. I was waiting for the NS to come and ask us how we all know each other, but in true spirit of us incognito cyber-folks, we disbanded the circle and disappeared into the crowd.

It occurred to me though, that there were so many bloggers under that roof, if someone had (chas v'shalom) bombed the place, the whole Internet would empty out!

Top Ten Ways To End A Bad Date

This top ten list was actually something I've been meaning to write since I started this blog.

My mother knows a girl who came home from a date and told her that the guy she was out with actually did what I wrote in number ten. Although I think ten is the least plausible item on this list, bear in mind that it actually happened.

Please also bear in mind that this list, as usual, is satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. And please bear in mind that BOSD and all affiliated parties (me;) are not responsible for the outcomes of any of the methods listed below:

A note from our sponsors: This list has been brought to you by Bas~Melech, who obviously knows the difference between a bad date and a good date. Thanks for your help my 'lil B-O-S!

10) Every time the car goes around a corner, say "vroooom vroooom vroooooooom!" You can lean in the direction of the turn.

9) Tell him/her "This is so much fun, it's almost like having real friends! Y'know, I don't have any friends and I'm enjoying this so much. Can we stay out another few hours?

8) Create a diversion. Vandalism works best. (Make sure to have your escape route planned beforehand.)

7) Burst into tears. If that doesn't work by itself, add an embarrassing explanation for your tears. ("Oh, I'm so sorry to be crying like this, but that last thing you said just made me realize how much I missed in my childhood...all because of my narcissist parents...[sob]")

6) Develop a serious and uncontrollable twitch.

5) Ask his opinion. Are nashim daitam kalos?

4) Partway through the date, switch over to another language. Yinglish is my personal preference. ("Yoish, did I tell you the story about when I cut up my brother a salad?")

3) "Can you repeat that again? I'm really only dating to gather data for my sociology paper and I want to include that last comment in my report."

2) Talk back to the voices you keep hearing deep inside your head.

1) If all else fails, simply say, "Ok, I think I've seen enough. Let's make like a banana and split."

Simple Gimple Says "Turn Left"

My parents came home with a new friend the other day. Naturally, when shabbos came, the discussion at our table turned to the name for our friend. MP suggested we name it "the GPS" but I accused her of having no sense of humor, and so she backed off.

My mother wanted to stick with something simple, like Gavriel Pinchas, but after a little coaxing we came to a "unanimous" decision. Our new friend's name is Gimple Paysach Silverberg. (No, it's not that I couldn't come up with a more creative last name, but my father awarded the last name naming rights to my mother as a consolation for calling him Gimple.)

As we started to get to know Gimple, we learned a lot. Firstly, I still can't get over how different he is than Goldy. While this blog seems to have an overload of posts highlighting the differences between men and women, I can't resist sharing some observations with you.

Firstly, as is typical, Goldy, being a female has a much better sense of direction than Gimple does. Gimple gets confused a lot, but really, who can blame him? After all, he's just a man.

On the other hand, when you make a mistake while Goldy is in the car, she starts nagging. "Off route, recalculating." I've been known to shout back at her sometimes... "So I made a wrong turn, so shoot me." Gimple, on the other hand, is more good natured about mistakes like wrong turns. He is more of the silent brooder type, as he quietly calculates a new route.

I haven't really conducted an exhaustive study yet, but I'd venture a guess that Gimple, a male, eats a lot more than Goldy does. In fact, Goldy sometimes eats so little I sometimes think she might be in shidduchim. (And for all those amateur shadchanim out there that wanted to suggest our new pal Gimple, sorry, but that shidduch has been redt already.)

Also, in typical male fashion, Gimple is astonishingly self assured. He will steer you into the most trafficky block of the city with more self assurance than an NS chosing me a diet. (The glossary is there for a reason. Ahem.) Goldy is pretty self assured too, but at least she doesn't repeat herself as often, know what I mean?

Anyhow, as indicated by the title, my family has a new game to play when they travel distances. Anyone wanna guess if MP finds it funny?

My Stint as a Tour Guide

From the security guard checking photo IDs outside the building, to the FOUR security guards manning the metal detector, the the marble floors and wood carvings, the entire building reeked of governemnt.

Thus began my tour of the US Mint, in Philadelphia PA. After a long treck through the visitors gallery, which had enough wasted coins in it to make my inner tight-wad want to scream, we arrived at the huge glass windows overlooking the coin production.

Wait, did I say coin production? Scratch that, the windows were overlooking...nothing. Plain and simple- nothing. All of the machines were still. There were no employees on the floor. There were no coins visible whatsoever. As we stood there, we were wondering why production was non-existant at three pm. "Perhaps it's their lunch break." My mother looked unconvinced, so I went on. "Listen, the walmart pain mixer guy was once on lunch break at 9 pm, so this is early." She didn't think that made sense either, so I figured it out. "Mommy, it's a recession! They cancelled coin production due to lack of demand! Nobody had any money so they don't bother minting it!"

The old couple nearby looked over, trying to figure out if I was serious or not. I managed to keep my face straight until they turned the corner. That's when my brother pointed out a metal grating, which seemed to have hundreds of stray coins in it. "Look at all the coins that feel through there!" I quickly corrected him. "No, the coins didn't fall through! Water is bad for the copper, they can't have a wishing fountain in the mint, so instead that's where the employees throw their pennies when they want to make a wish."

It was around then that my mother suddenly lost interest in reading all the signs, and she hustled us down to the lower level, where my brother photographed my finger touching the "do not touch" sign. Obviously, no photography is allowed in the building, so we killed two rules with one click. (Can I get arrested for writing about this on my blog?)

The most fun part of the mint was in the gift shop. My mother had to drag me out by my hair, as two employees tried unsuccessfully to keep straight faces when I asked if they give out free samples.

Here's something interesting though: someone overheard my recession theory on why coin production wasn't happening, and he told us that he had read an article about it and I am right. Apparently, people are desperate for money, and they are pulling out their coin jars and their penny collections, and so lots of old coins are back in circulation, lowering the need for new coins. Hey, I make a great tour guide!


The highlight of my day was, of course, on the way home. I was in the middle of merging onto the highway when I suddenly felt a huge load of pity for my friend BigChamor. Yep, you guessed it. My nose started pouring blood like a faucet. So if you were driving somewhere in Philadelphia yesterday, and you saw this girl swerving onto the highway, clutching a huge wad of tissues to her face, now you understand what happened.

Cereal Boxes and Advertising Slogans

Remember as a kid, sitting at the breakfast table, bowls of increasingly-soggy cereal in front of you, fighting with your siblings over who gets which box?

I remember the cereal boxes with the maze, that was pretty easy, but if you examined each detail very carefully you could stretch it to take up the amount of time it takes to consume an entire bowl of sickly-sweet soggy cereal. There was one particular box that I loved, and despite our enjoyment of the particular cereal inside, my siblings and I continuously begged my mother to buy it.

There are a number of gimmick on boxes, such as Resses Puffs, which has a list of seventeen things you should do before you are seventeen. Sadly, I think I did about two of them.

One of the most intelligent boxes are those with recipes printed on them. Take Chex for example. Nobody in my family knows which kind of chex they like best. We just like the one with the recipe for "muddy buddies" on the box.

Some cereal boxes have gimmicks such as their own characters (i.e. snap, crackle and pop). Others have contests or even little prizes. But nothing beats the one I saw today.

I am sure that slogans are important to advertising. Surely a clever looking cereal box that also has a great slogan on it is a real winner. I hope nobody gets fired over this, but has anyone else noticed that the fiber one box has the world's most ridiculous slogan?

Cardboard, no.

Delicious, yes.TM

How come a pie of pizza doesn't need that slogan printed on the box? Imagine going to your local bakery and ordering a danish, only to find that it's been wrapped in a bag printed to say "this is delicious, not cardboard." Or what if you would buy a bag of chips with a "not cardboard" warning. Isn't that kind of ridiculous? If something is really delicious, they don't need to tell you that it's not cardboard, do they?