Randomonday.

• Old Navy. Your commercials. With the talking mannequins. Just stop. For the love of Mike. Stop.
• This. Makes me more angry than it possibly should, more angry than I have ever been about this situation. It’s about Roman Polanski’s arrest, if you don’t want to click on that link. I mean, I’m glad he’s been arrested, but the fact that it’s taken this long and he’s been living the happy life, working, earning awards, yada yada…What a jerk. JERK. (Yeah, I have a way with words.) The part of that article that fired me up the most was: In Paris, Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said that he was “dumbfounded” by Polanski’s arrest, adding that he “strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them.” Okay. It is terrible that his mother died at Auschwitz. And of course what happened to Sharon Tate was horrific. I have no words for it, and if just one of those things happened to me, I don’t know what I would do. HOWEVER. Drugging and raping a 13-year-old? That didn’t happen TO HIM. It’s ALL ON HIM. HE did that. For crying out loud.
• I wonder when, or if, I will ever get it up to do more than the bare minimum around the house. I mean, yeah, I do the laundry regularly. I cook dinners most of the time, but they’re nothing exciting or that interesting compared to how I used to cook. I leave crap piled around. I put off cleaning the bathrooms and bathing the dogs. I wonder if it’s because we’ve traveled so much this year rather than family coming to us (and therefore not giving my pre-emptive guilt a chance to kick in and clean up like crazy). Probably it’s just that I’m lazy.
• If you’re a framer, even at a second-rate framing place, the first words out of your mouth to customers should NOT be “There is no way I am going to sell you that frame to go with that picture.”
• We went to Los Angeles the weekend before last for our niece’s baptism. I hadn’t been to LA since I was maybe 8 years old? On that trip my biggest issue was whether or not to get the Mickey Mouse ears or Gilligan cap monogrammed with my name (I went with the sailor cap). This trip, besides the obvious awesome time with a cute baby and all the in-laws, two things stuck with me: the fact that I paid almost $60 for a 15-mile cab ride, a cab ride that was so breakneck I almost started to cry; and the fact that ALL OVER Hollywood there are HUGE billboards advertising TV shows. As my sister-in-law-once-removed said, “I don’t get it. It’s like preaching to the converted.”

In case you were wondering.

Today? My first chance to sleep in since, oh, mid-August and until mid-October? EPIC FAIL. Thank you, Insomnia with a side of Boris.

How I Met a Producer for How I Met Your Mother.

I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this, but when I was younger, I wanted Brandon Tartikoff‘s job when I grew up. Now, if you don’t know who Brandon Tartikoff was, then you were likely a way more normal kid than I was. (If you’re too lazy to click on that link, for which I wouldn’t blame you, in 1981 he became the youngest president of NBC’s entertainment division at age 31.) What can I say, I was and continue to be fascinated with the behind the scenes of the television world. So when I learned that my sister-in-law’s [now former] tenant was a producer for How I Met Your Mother, one of my favorite shows OF ALL TIME, my head pretty much exploded, and then once we got that cleaned up, I was left anxiously anticipating our trip to Los Angeles for two reasons: meeting our adorable new baby niece and getting to meet this producer. Of course, by the time we got there, I realized if I talked to this guy, I would be at risk of winning some kind of Dork of All Time Award, so I just figured nothing would come of it.

Until.

Until my sister-in-law beckoned me over after our niece’s baptism and introduced me to two gentleman and said “She’s the huge fan!” OMG. Then I might have passed out. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during this conversation, because while we were talking I just kept hearing a rushing sound in my ears. I remember enough to know that I pretty much demonstrated my total geekitude for television.

Producer: So what’s your favorite episode?

Zoo, thinking oh shit oh shit oh shit I know I’ve mentioned out my all-time favorite episode to people and now I can’t frickin remember what it was, just say something ANYTHING OMG SPEAK: Oh! Um. It’s so hard to pick. I liked finally finding out what the goat was all about!

Producer: Oh, the goat! Yeah.

Zoo, mentally kicking herself because THE GOAT? Really? God.

Producer’s husband: I think my favorite is the Pineapple episode.

Zoo: That one’s great! “Dammit, Trudy, what about the pineapple?!”* Jason Segel is hilarious. I loved one of the commentaries he did where he narrated himself undressing during the commentary and was hitting on the guy doing the commentary with him.

Producer: That really happened!

At some point the subject of their dog was brought up.

Producer: I was able to put our dog in some of the episodes, do you remember Murder Train?

Zoo: YES! The Foreskins!* “Because there’s four of us and we play with our shirts off, sheesh.”

Producer: Yup! Our dog was one of those during the news cast.

Zoo, trying to think of something to say: Well, I can’t think of any that I haven’t liked, I own all three seasons.

Producer: Great! Our last season is coming out at the end of the month.

Zoo: I KNOW! I already have it on my Amazon wish list.

Producer and his husband laughs.

Producer: Oh and don’t forget our season premiere is this Monday!

Zoo: Oh I already have my DVR set, don’t worry!

Producer’s husband: Wow, she’s a fan all right! You’re all over it!

Zoo, willing herself to stop being a dork: I do really love the show, it’s just so innovative and original! Like nothing else out there! (Which, if you’re paying attention, original = like nothing else out there. Awesome.)

Producer’s husband: Yeah, it’s the only show he’s worked on that I can stand watching.

Zoo: Oh, what else have you worked on?

Producer: Oh, nothing you’ve probably heard of. There was a show on a long time ago on HBO called Dream On.

Zoo: I totally remember that show!

Producer: There was also one called Veronica’s Closet.

Zoo: Oh yeah! Kirstie Alley!

Producer: Yup, and then there was also Ellen Degeneres’s second sitcom that went nowhere.

Zoo: Oh, the one with Chloris Leachman?

Producer and his husband: WOW. You’re good.

Zoo: Uh. Yeah. I like TV.

And then so on kind of like that and oh.meh.garsh. I am a dork of epic proportions.

Not five minutes after we said our goodbyes, I had Facebooked a status update about meeting him.

Two hours later, I remembered that my favorite all-time episode of HIMYM is The Bracket. For about ten seconds I considered getting the producer’s email from my sister-in-law so I could give him my real answer to the favorite episode question.

* It should be noticed I quoted these lines in the church. A CHURCH.