Welcome 2010!

Happy New Year! This year I resolve to blog more. Amongst a growing list of resolutions. And while there are a seemingly infinite number of issues and stories I could report on at the moment (really, things are happening for me lately, it's kind of wild), I'd like to begin 2010 with the first really good story of the year. And for my grand entrance back here at saltychelle, I can stay true to the strange oddities and encounters in life that have been the lifeblood of the stories that made this blog famous.

Or, well, not. But those four loyal readers knowwhahmsayn.

Ok, so this story actually takes place on New Year's Eve, 2009. I'm feeling pretty excited - despite a looming sinus thing coming on - for the evening ahead. I get off work early, run a few errands, and am still home by 3:00. Get the dog out to the park, deal with some chores. A beautiful, sunny, productive day.

6:00-something rolls around which is about when I needed to start getting ready. I'm kinda loose about such things as time. But, I realized I had forgotten to get a couple of things for my much-anticipated New Year's Day slow-cooker meatballs. As I'm putting my shoes on to head to the store, my dear friend Nora calls me. I mentioned I'm leaving for the store. She also needs to get some things from the store. "Oh, well maybe I'll see you there," I say, pretending to be an interested potential suitor. "Maybe," she coyly plays back. We laugh, hang up.

I got held up when I had another phone call leaving the house. I figured she'd get there before me, and might even be gone by the time I got there. No big deal, though I do have a good time when I shop with Nora. (Yes, we tend to shop together a lot for some reason.) But, I digress. I am happy to see that she is still there when I enter the parking lot. There's no mistaking the giant silver skull on the rear window of her Xterra. As I walk in the sliding doors, I see her right there at the U-Scan, her back to me.

Ok, so probably an aside worth mentioning here - in addition to the Skullterra (as it's known to it's friends and admirers), there are a LOT of things about Nora that are unmistakable. She is a beautiful, buxom, 6" tall former child-model. She has a veritable mane of luxurious, currently jet-black, impeccably coiffed, long, wavy hair. She dresses kind of, shall we say, noticeably. Other words that come to mind are: loud, sexy, outlandish, Victorian, and always playing up her best feature - curves. She is pretty extraordinary. And wonderful.

So there she is, scanning her box of crackers (which she told me she had forgotten for her NYE party), in her black, mid-calf, heeled boots which I recognize, bright magenta tights, and super-cute, very Victorian, lacy black skirt. She is also wearing her workday standard black, wool, double-breasted coat. I realize this is way more detail than is necessary, but the point - if it wasn't obvious - is that this woman is UNMISTAKABLE. And I spend a LOT of time with her. I recognized her boots and coat. The other stuff maybe I haven't seen before, but this is a woman with a Narnia-wardrobe for a closet; she is constantly bringing out something I've never seen before that she has either made, improved upon, found for $5 at a resale shop, or maybe just forgot she ever owned. Yes, I don't remember seeing those tights or skirt before, but they were exactly the style she whips out at any given moment.

In my NYE excitement, I decide to give her a little surprise. I do this to her a lot. It's fun for me. She's relatively easy to startle and/or frighten, and she's pretty good-natured about it when I fuck with her. So, I quietly walk up behind her and she never spots me, even in her peripheral vision. My chest is nearly touching her back, I get on my tiptoes, place my hand on her left shoulder while simultaneously putting my mouth up to her left ear and saying, louder than a whisper and quite authoritatively, in my deepest, throatiest man-voice, "Ah, excuse me, Ma'am."

She whips her face around so that our noses are about an inch apart and gasps so loudly it kind of finishes with a scream. At which point I emit an equally loud gasp-scream as I realize this woman is NOT Nora.

Yep.

"Oh my god!" I kind of yell.
"Oh my god, I am SO sorry!"

Luckily, Nora's doppelganger is the kind of woman who can laugh about such situations. And she did. Hysterically, actually. We laughed so hard the tears came, and we each had a palm on the other's arm, supporting one another and connecting in this very weird, hilarious moment. Through the gasping laughter I attempted to explain that she looks just like my best friend, whom I was trying to scare.

"For fun," I sputter, in explanation.

She laughs even harder, which I then do too.

"You're really GOOD at it!" she says.

And as I stood there laughing with this cool lady who looks just like my best friend, I felt oddly proud of myself.

And that maybe it's going to be a great new decade.

My Neighbor is a Douchebag (v.1: The Ego Speaks)

Yes readers, get ready - this is the first installment in what I anticipate will be the highly-entertaining, oft-recurring segment here on saltychelle entitled My Neighbor is a Douchebag. Perhaps we'll throw an adjective in there from time to time (i.e., My Neighbor is a GIANT Douchebag) when the situation mandates.

By way of introduction to this new and exciting addition, I offer the following, culled from http://www.topdouchebag.com/ (worth a look-see when you're dying to waste a few moments):

what's a douchebag? A person almost completely lacking in social awareness, yet believes they are Casanova defined. Extreme inflated sense of self worth. Commonly seen with popped collars, pink dress shirts or overly tight jeans. [EMPHASIS ADDED]

Now, just because this is the first post in the My Neighbor is a Douchebag segment, by no means is it the first instance of his douchebaggery. It is, however, a lovely representation, and fits quite perfectly with the definition above.

Ok.

So the neighbor - let's call him Dick (perfect in so many ways), and his common-law wife Jane, live in the other large unit in our 4-plex. It was originally one of those old double-homes, basically a main house (mine), with a townhome attached (theirs) that share a vertical wall. These days both of our basements have been renovated into little garden apartments, making the whole building a 4-plex. Anyway, background really at this point - though the set-up comes into play into many of the other myriad tales I could spin in here. But we'll stick to last Friday.

I'm standing outside, and notice Dick walking down the street with his laptop and some books and papers. (They are both PhD English professors at the University here.) I've noticed him doing this regularly as of late, and supposed he was going to a coffee shop or something. Until I walked down the street myself recently and saw him working on his laptop in the nearby church parking lot. Sitting on the asphalt. No blanket or chair. Just sitting there working away. Curious. So Friday he's walking toward the church and I ask if he goes down there for wireless or something.

"Oh no," he says. "It's just so LOUD in our apartment during rush hour that I can't get any work done."

Now, I would like to point out that while we do live less than a mile from the capitol and downtown, this is a quiet, residential neighborhood. In Salt Lake City. Not the most bustling, cosmopolitan metropolis you've ever visited, by far. And Dick and Jane keep their windows shut and the swamp cooler pumping 24/7, even on the nicest days. So I'm not really sure how the minuscule amount of traffic on 3rd Ave. during "rush hour" can keep his well-oiled PhD brain machine from concentrating. But apparently it is an issue for Dick. (One of many.)

Whatever. That's not even the best part.

I ask how he's faring without his lady around, as Jane is in Chicago for a few weeks working on her book.

"Oh, alright I guess. The cat's depressed. I'm just not enough for him, he misses Jane, and he makes that pretty clear to me."

"Well, at least school's starting up next week," I offer. "What do you teach again?"

Melodramatic groan from Dick. "Renaissance Lit. Shakespeare."

"You're not looking forward to going back?"

"God no."

"Oh. You don't enjoy teaching?" I ask. I love Renaissance lit, I nearly offer. But don't.

(I continue conversation with a proven douchebag because I am an idiot. But that's a whole other segment.)

"You know," he begins, in his most whiny, lamenting, let-me-attempt-to-explain-something-to-you-pleb tone, and then trails off, formulating either his thoughts or a dumbed-down way to explain said thoughts to me, his degree-less single-mother of a neighbor.

Sigh.

He begins again. Incredibly thoughtful. "You know, it's a lot like being an astrophysicist. You get three months out of the year to work on your groundbreaking theories on the time-space continuum or an analysis of string theory, and then the rest of the year you have to go back to teaching kindergartners how to tell time."

Exactly what "groundbreaking theories" on Renaissance literature he's been working on this summer I didn't dare ask. Because I was sure that if I opened my mouth I'd laugh in his eerily ass-resembling face.