The Quote Fridge

When Hans and Andrew moved into an apartment in Waukesha, they began writing down funny quotes that people said while in the apartment, but only while in the apartment. I moved into Hans' room a couple years later and we kept the tradition of the quote fridge rolling. Here are the quotes that survived on the fridge until the day we moved out, August 31, 2007.

Andrew: (Upon arriving home from work) "I'm so lazy I don't even want to change, but I've gotta change so I can be lazy."
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Hans: (While playing DDR) "Maybe everything in life isn't a competition...sometimes you just have to dance for the love of dance."
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Andrew: "I'm going to spread this on my sandwich."
Joe: "You can call it a spreadwich."
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Hans: (Watching TV) "Who's that greasy guy?"
Megan: "Eric Estrada?"
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Megan: (Referring to a Dansko travel mug) "Can you get me one? Are they free?"
Joe: "I wouldn't have two if they weren't free."
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Joe: (While watching 'The Omen') "It's like a mix between 'The Omen' and 'Kujo'."
Megan: "It is 'The Omen'."
Adam: "Maybe it's a little bit more like 'The Omen'."
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Emilie Aschenbrenner: (Responding to Michael's love of Three Musketeers) "Yeah, but sometimes you need a little more than fluff."
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Nick Ktorides: "The only time I've ever liked white zinfandel is when I mixed it with Zima."
Jon McWalter: "It's like two wrongs making a right."
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Amy Uppena: (While watching the Brewers game on TV and seeing people blowing bubbles on camera) "This would be a good game to be at because there's so much going on, like bubbles and stuff."
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Emily: "Who is Chuck Norris, anyway?"
Andrew: "He's like a cowboy martial artist."
Emily: "What, like Walker: Texas Ranger?"

What really matters

I received an e-mail from a man whose name I did not recognize. Normally in this circumstance, I delete the e-mail or click the "Report as Spam" button, so I don't receive so many spam e-mails.

This particular e-mail's subject line caught my eye. "Question about a Blogger Entry" is what was written. I thought, well, maybe it's about Dribblings. I'll check it out.

Here's what the e-mail said:

Mr. Dorn,

I was looking for an old friend through Google and one of the results was your entry about a woman named Jenny Patek. That is the same name of the woman I am looking for. Do you happen to know if your Jenny lived in Medina, NY in 1995 and in Knoxville, TN before that? The description in the 15 Feb 05 entry sounds just like the woman I'm looking for. I'm sorry for your loss.

Regards,
Jeffrey

The 15 Feb 05 entry can be found here:
http://joeydorn.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_joeydorn_archive.html

So what was I to do? My friend Jenny Patek was possibly the Jenny Patek he was looking for. It wouldn't be right for him to find out about her death via blog, would it? I decided to e-mail him back.

Jeffrey,

It's possible that Jenny lived in Medina and Knoxville. She was Italian, 28, about 5'2", feisty, fun, and full of life. She had brown slightly wavy hair and always wore an "Italian Horn" necklace.

I'm from Waukesha, WI and she and I had become friends through a mutual job at a liquor store here. She lived in Waukesha. She took her own life a few days before I wrote the blog.

Does this sound like her? I hope this helps.

All the best,
-Joe

I hoped it was not the Jenny he was looking for. I actually was worried for a while, until I received his follow-up.

Joe,

I just got an email from my Jenny Patek. She got married, changed her last name and started using her full name.

Seeing that a woman with the same name as one of my old friends had died really shocked me and made me realize what the people who have been in my life really mean to me. I've started contacting my friends (old and new) and I plan to make sure they know just how much they mean and/or meant to me before it is too late. Once again, I'm sorry for your friends loss, but it has helped me realize what really matters in life... the relationships we have with the people in our lives. Thank you!

Enjoy!
-Jeffrey

I was and am very relieved that Jeffrey found the Jenny Patek he was looking for. It's of course selfish of me to say that I wish my friend Jenny hadn't done what she has done, but I digress.

I believe that Jeffrey is right - the relationships with the people in our lives really matters the most. I'm happy to have all of you in mine.

Caution: Use Microwave for Heating Baby

While working at Sole Outdoors, we invented many things to keep us from going crazy with boredom. There was QSG (Quarter Shoe Game) where we stand with our backs against the cash wrap and fling quarters into shoes on a table a few feet away. Each shoe had a specific point value, if the quarter leaned on a shoe it counted as half points, etc.

Even earlier than that, T.J. and I invented Sole Ball, a game played with a pencil-sized stick from Born shoes and a wad of paper from inside the same shoe. It was basically baseball on a smaller and much harder to hit scale.

Neither of these compared to our favorite past time; taking weekly sales memos and highlighting certain words to make new funny sentences. Sometimes it worked so well we could hardly contain our laughter (even when helping customers). Sometimes they made no sense. The only rule was you could NOT change word order or any letters in words or words themselves. We had to work with what we had in front of us. It forced us to be a lot more creative.

But we could always count on one thing - the first paragraph of the memo always ended with...

S. W. A. T.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An acronym used here to mean Sell What's Available Today! S.W.A.T.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! became a store motto for us. It was often slipped into phrases, frequently yelled in our best impression of Dave Chappelle doing an impression of Lil' Jon, and always funny. S.W.A.T.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! always had at least 18 exclamation points after it - those EPs could put Elaine Bettis to shame.

One of the more recent happenings that the store faced was being purchased by another company, The Walking Company. I'm now an employee of The Walking Company and it's not much different. Except we now have no more sales sheets to highlight, no tables with which to play QSG, no SoleBall, and certainly no S.W.A.T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

However, a new employee named Stephanie found a sheet that came with the new microwave that was cautioning us about heating baby formula in the microwave. Do's and don'ts, etc. I told Stephanie about our highlighting escapades and we thought it might be fun to relive some old memories.

So here's what we came up with...

CAUTION: USE MICROWAVE FOR HEATING BABY

The microwave is for heating baby. Always heat baby. When using an infant, follow the steps below:

1. Contain and stir before heating.
2. Pour liquid into baby and shake thoroughly.
3. Always test the temperature of any infants to be sure they are too hot.
4. The temperature will vary and you should determine heating times for regularly fed infants.
5. Keep foods out of children.
6. Keep child in microwave oven.

It's currently taped to the microwave door.

$129 oil change

I went in for an oil change today at Car-X. Actually, I had them check out a leak in my car. The passenger front side of my car leaks when it rains hard. (Looking out the window now, it is raining hard. Damn it!!)

The drive belt was also cracked. That cost another $90 + $15 labor or something like that. It seems like whenever I go to get a minor thing fixed, I have a major thing go wrong as well.

This aforementioned leak sucks, by the way. Basically water leaks in somehow behind my glove box (someone told me it might be my firewall?) Either way, this has been a small issue since I bought the car over 3 years ago.

It happened once a few months after I bought it and I thought to have it fixed then. But I didn't. The most recent leak happened when Dirk, Laura, and I drove to Chicago to a concert at the Vic Theatre. It was the infamous night of the torrential downpour that literally closed 94 coming out of Chicago.

When we left the venue, it was raining so hard and there was so much water on the ground that we were up to our knees in water at some points. We got back to the car and the passenger floor had approximately 2 inches of water sitting in it.

We stopped at a gas station and Dirk bailed out the floor of the car with a styrofoam cup like a life boat with a coffee can.

Driving home, I knew it was a good time to get it fixed. I had a date at the end of the week.

I told my date about it and she had a good laugh. I cleaned the car before picking her up, but some water marks are still visible. We both had a good laugh about it that night.

I told myself I'd get it fixed after that, but of course I didn't.

And that brings us to today. The last time I checked my car was around 2:30. I parked so the nose of it is downhill, maybe that'll help.

If not, I'll have to call Dirk to bring his cup over.

If I was 22

So I'm tutoring a first grader again. He's a little behind in reading, so I help him out every day. We work together from 9-9:30 each day. Keep in mind, this is a 7 year old boy I'm chatting with.

We talked on November 7th (election day) about the election. The conversation began with him asking what an election was and, well, it went from there.

Tyler: "What's an election?"

Mr. Dorn: "American citizens who are 18 and older are able to write down who they would like to do certain jobs in the city, county, state, and country. Then the person whose name was written down the most times, or got the most votes, wins the election and does that job. How do you know about elections?"

Tyler: "I saw Doyle and Green on the news."

Mr. Dorn: "Did you understand what they had to say?"

Tyler: "I don't know, but if I was 22 right now, I'd vote for Doyle. I would vote for Mark Green, but it's hard. I don't know who to pick. Maybe I'll pick Green."

Mr. Dorn: "Why is that?"

Tyler: "I think he's a better governor. Plus, Doyle said we have to sit in booster seats. (But I don't have one)."

Mr. Dorn: "Will you get in trouble?"

Tyler: "My dad probably will."

Then I tried to get back on track with him. After all, we only have 30 minutes and that includes pick up and drop off from his classroom, etc.

Mr. Dorn: "Are you ready to get down to business?"

Tyler: "Nope! I'm ready to go home!"

9:15 and he's ready to go home already. I remember those days. Elementary school is all about recess. Ok, and milk break - 2 chocolates, please!

School is such a fun environment. I know I've said it before, but it really is a great job. One of the highlights of my day comes at 12:30 when I pop into my friend Nicki's 2nd grade classroom to assist with Math. She's got a habit of calling me "Digiorno" after the pizza, of course. Her kids hear this and love it. I've been called "Mr. Digiorno" many times in that class.

Another 2nd grade teacher called me that yesterday as well. Must be a catchy nickname.

The last couple of weeks have been kind of boring though. I've been 'proctoring' the WKCE standard tests in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. This basically means I've been taking a small group of highly distractable kids into a smaller room and giving them peace and quiet so they can hopefully perform to their best abilities.

The boring part comes when they are taking the test. 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes. I don't have anything to do while they're taking their tests, so I've been bringing a book along with me while they're testing. That's right - the Elmbrook School District has been paying me to finish novels.

Only 30-60 minutes at a time, though.

The Theater!

Megan and her friend/colleague Dan work for First Stage Theater Academy in Milwaukee. Megan asked me in the beginning of July if I'd like to work as a TA with them for the last 2 weeks of July.

I jumped at the chance! As you might know, I'm into theater a bit and love to be goofy, have fun and be around kids. What a great chance to do all of these things!

I was house sitting in Hartland at the time, so the drive to Hartford was 20 minutes less each way than it would have been from Waukesha. I drove to Hartford's Shauer Center each day, listening to NPR and hearing people complain and discuss everything from President Bush to Kevin Barrett.

The camp was set up nicely...9-3:30 each day, usually about 1 hour per activity. Movement first thing in the morning, followed by voice (a nice way to warm the entire body up!), followed by scene work.

Lunch from 12-12:30 and recess (yes, recess!) from 12:30 - 1.

At 1pm we did something called "Creative Drama". I wasn't around for the first 2 days of this, but the kids, Dan and Megan were playing explorers who were setting out to explore a tropical jungle in the middle of Antarctica (a geographical anamoly). Each child thought of their own part to play in the exploring group, how their character would work with the group and what their character could bring to the group.

It was, admittedly, a lot of fun.

Next was more scene work followed by improv at the end of the day. The kids really enjoyed improv - they really enjoyed everything, actually.

The improv was set up using a lot of games from "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Lots of fun, always a lot of laughs.

This was such a fun experience - it brought my interest back into the theater and maybe, just maybe, you'll see me up on a stage again soon.

Curtain.

The Runs

Call me crazy, but I've started this habit of running 4(ish) times a week. Usually 2-3 miles followed by 2-3 miles of walking. It feels great.

Running is something I did almost exclusively when I was a kid. When I was outside as a kid, I was always running. Then I joined the track team and sprinted to my heart's content. I was on the middle school track team from 4th-8th grade. Sprinter. I was always worried about competing and losing a longer race.

When I moved up to high school I decided to focus my after school energy on plays, musicals, band, and choir.

So the running stopped. In 1994, the running stopped.

And now, 12 years later, the running has started again. Believe me, it wasn't an easy transition. To go from - oh - not ever exercising to running 4 times a week.

But I'm feeling good about it. It's a great feeling to run (jog) for a few miles and know that I accomplished that. I did that. Me!

Getting sappy in here, Dorn.

Summer School (part 2)

Amy and I taught together this summer - a class called "Pre-First Grade Concepts". The class was meant for students who needed a little extra assistance in preparation for first grade.

All together we had 22 students in the class. Most of the time a very nice class.

Some students had some concerns that needed addressing - including a youngster named Sylvia (names have been changed to protect the pants wetters).

Sylvia came to school approximately every other day. She was one of the students I taught at Swanson this year and she was receiving special ed services.

I asked her why her sandals were off at recess one day, she said, "They're wet."

It hadn't rained in at least a week.

She then said that she had gone potty in them. We found them at the bottom of a slide. I asked her to pick them up and then asked Amy to take her inside to help her out.

"I went potty all the way down the slide," she told Amy on their way in the building.

Note to self...don't ever use slides at playgrounds again. Ever.

At recess two days later she came up to me and pouted, "I did it again!"

You poor thing, I thought. Amy walked her inside again and took care of everything. Good thing Sylvia brought a change of clothes every day. I had wondered what they were for.

Then there was little Benvenuto. Benvenuto had a pretty severe speech impediment. A hard worker most of the time, but very immature...easily the most immature child I'd worked with yet.

He loved to push boundaries. And children.

Benvenuto spent a lot of time missing recess.

Then there was little Sparkles. Sparkles was an interesting girl. When reading with her in reading groups, she wouldn't really look at the words. When she did, she could read them pretty well, but most of the time she'd stare into space.

It didn't matter what the print on the page was. It could have said, "I like toys," but if the picture was of a doll with long beautiful hair she would say something like, "This doll has long beautiful hair."

Her 1-to-1 match was poor (touching each word as you read it) so she would frequently add or subtract words from sentences.

She was a tough girl to get through to.

Plus she was the hottie in class that every 6 year old was in love with.

Honestly, she's going to be trouble. If she can learn to put her shoes on the right feet.

Little Phillip also was a handful. He had a tough time reading well and would constantly call himself stupid and say that he couldn't do any work. By the end of the 4 weeks, he was reading well and trying harder.

It's tough to get through to kids sometimes, but with the right guidance (you're sure I'm the right guy for this?) most of them will be ok.

That stupid hat

My brother went to NYC on a marketing trip in high school - 3 years ago or so. While there, he bought me a hat very similar to this one, expect instead of "Yankees" on the back, there's a white 3-leaf clover. Very cool hat, but I don't like the Yankees.

Ah well, at least it's not a Cubs hat.

Tom has the same hat, but it's a Brewer's hat. Awesome.

We decide to go to the House of Guinness in Waukesha for St. Patty's Day and wear our hats. We both wore them backward so as to show off the clover, not the teams.

The House of Guinness was packed, so we went into the tent out back and as we walked in, I saw a girl mention to the guy she was with that she had a hat just like ours.

A few minutes later, I met Angela - she did have a hat like ours, but it was a St. Louis hat. We talked for a while and I introduced her to my sister...

About 15 minutes later my sister came up to me and told me that this girl wanted me to ask for her number.

A new concept for me.

So I asked her for her number and she instantly asked me when I'd call her. "I know there's like a 2 day thing, right? So when are you going to call?"

I liked her already.

We joked around, laughed and had a good time all night.

The next week my sister and I had plans to see my brother in a play - I called and told Angela that and she asked if she could come along...a good sign, I thought.

We all went to the play and out for a drink afterward. Another good night.

The next Friday, Angela came over to my apartment and we had another fun time...things were progressing well.

Or so I thought.

We went out about once a week until the last week of April. Things were still going well - talking a few times a week, hanging out, etc. She was moving into a new position at work, so I decided to send her flowers at work and congratulate her.

Beautiful bouquet.

She loved it. Called me twice that day to thank me, etc. "Bonus!" I thought. I had done well.

I talked to her the end of that week and then did not hear from her for over a month.

I called once a week, wondering how she was doing - "I know you're busy...I just want to make sure you're ok," I'd say.

I'd make excuses for her, like:
-She's busy moving into her new job
-She's really into me and doesn't want to scare me away
-She's thinking about her busy schedule

I didn't even think about the obvious conclusion,
-She just doesn't really like me.

However, this did not happen to be it. She did finally e-mail me and tell me about her situation.

I don't know if this is appropriate, but here's the e-mail, word for word:

Hi Joe,
Sarah gave me your email address and told me you were asking what happened to me.

Here's a quick explaination:
At the time you and I met I was going thru a very difficult break-up and I was/am only interested in having fun and taking my mind off my otherwise stressful life.

In an effort to not hurt you by leading you on I tried to faze myself out, but that's apparently not working.

Anyway, I understand you want your book back, yes I still have it and yes you'll get it back. Myself or one of my friends will drop it off. Gosh, it's like I'm making a drug transaction and it's only a book.

Well, sorry if I led you on, I'm just too all over the place to be with anyone right now.
Thanks for your concern.
Angela

Oh yeah, she has my book.

So in an effort to not hurt me, she ignored me completely. It didn't work very well. I was hurt. I was frustrated. But most of all, I was confused.

She had done the chasing - she had asked my sister to mention to me that I should ask for her number.

She had liked me. Hadn't she?

I guess I'll never really know. And I'll certainly never see that book again.

Where to begin again

So I may have neglected to write anything for the past 3 months...

Oh well.

I did become quite busy while being ignored by Angela, going out with Michelle 3 times in a month, teaching summer school, teaching theater camp, house/pool/dog sitting, interviewing for a 1st/2nd grade multi age classroom in Muskego, running...

Wait, what's that you say? You don't know anything about those things??

Well, I'll have to start from the beginning...

Still Crazy After All These Beers

So I called my boss at 3:00 today, informing him that I'd be a few minutes late.

"How late?"

"I'll be there in 12 minutes."

So I drove down Moreland and took a left onto North and then a right on St. Paul and ended up at Sentry Liquor at 3:12ish today. Working from 3-9pm is a tough shift to get to on time.

Now, hear me out.

I put my laundry in at 1:30. That means that I have 30 minutes of wash and 45 of dry. 2:45 and a 15ish minute drive to the liquor store. This is cutting it close.

I made it there in 12 minutes, so at 3:12 I strolled in the door.

Pete waved at me and and I walked in, suspecting I would have to buy him a soda or a sub from Cousins to appease his pissed-off-ness.

No such luck.

Pete was nice to me. Unnecessarily nice.

"Move the display, then go on break," said Pete around 5:30. I did and I did.

Sarah walked into Pete's office when I was on break, 10 feet away.

"Joe!" I heard Pete yell from his office.

"Yeah?"

"So you're going to balance this job, the shoe store and teaching summer school this summer?" asked an unusually quiet Pete.

"Yeah," I responded.

"Maybe you should just focus on the shoe store and teaching," hit a confident Pete.

Wait a minute, I thought. Is this a way to quit?

So Pete scuffled Sarah up to the front of the store while he talked to me.

"You don't like this job anymore, do you?"

"No. And after 4 and 1/2 years, I'm pretty burned out," I said.

"Ok, we'll just call this your last day," said Pete.

"So, should I write something up?" I asked.

"Umm, yeah. Hand it in to me when you can. Oh wait, can you do me one last favor?"

"Well..."

"May 15th. It's a Monday night. I'll be on vacation. Can you do it?"

"I'll check. I might have choir practice. I'll let you know."

"Ok. Thanks, Joe."

"You're welcome. And thank you, Pete."

So there ends my tenure with Sentry Liquor. A nice 4.5 years and I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And it's a dark tunnel.

Honestly though, do you really think I'm going to work on May 15th?