SNAPPIN' TIME
It's bad because I started the 11:00 hour today by doing a Google search on the phrase "nervous breakdown."
I'm not there yet. I'm close.
I know I shouldn't talk about work stuff, but suffice to say this morning I came in to find out that a profile I was planning to write for an upcoming issue fell apart because the dude was let go from his company last week. This is the second profile in only two months where this exact thing has happened, and I am forced to scramble to find replacement stories and people to interview. It's NOT an easy thing to do. Also today: several of my articles are in the toilet after being reviewed by the editorial review board...I have all kinds of rewrites and "pulls" to do (gotta find even MORE replacement editorial, yay!) all the while still trying to get my normally-scheduled work done. I've had a string of stupid, terrible luck the past 6 months or so with bad articles; not ones I have written, but ones I have recruited. Every time I have to go back and pull an article at the last minute and drop everything, it pushes my on-time projects back by however much time it takes me to clean up the mess. So, in essence, everything's been backed up. I HATE being late on things! Today, it's just really freaking me out and I want to let my frustrations out by simply going to Crazyville. My self-control reserves are at capacity...not gonna hold much longer...she's gonna blow! And not in the dirty way!
It isn't just work, either. Life's a messy thing in general, and with stress comes an increase in bad headaches and a desire-to-sleep. I've only been able to sleep through the night sporadically lately, though, so it's all screwed up. I just know my new MO is to come home from work and take a nap. Lame.
And do not get me started on my book. This week I experimented with chopping up some chapters I've already written, moving things around and adding new bits where appropriate, blah blah blah. And it isn't working. In fact, I wrote a terrible scene where I made my beloved protagonist do something completely out of character and way too disturbing, thinking it would add more "drama" (yeah, it's in quotes for a reason) to the plot and take it in a direction that would be more exciting than the current expanded narrative. I wrote it two days ago and it's bothered me ever since. So I have to go back and take it out, for the good of the book AND for my own viewpoint of the character. Now, I THINK I have an idea of what I am going to do to fix things up, but I am supposed to be thinking about my JOB and the stuff I have to edit and write in order to collect a paycheck.
Here's an idea, Me: don't get a job where you have to write all day because it will suck all the energy for your FUN WRITING away. Maybe do something else in your next life besides business writing. Floral arrangement, perhaps?
I hope that anyone who's still reading this lame blog even as I go through this summer's funk is having a much better day than I am. Go run around and laugh...blow some bubbles, dance in the grass, hug your kid or your dog... just enjoy whatever you are able to do. It's important.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
SWAMPS
In my opinion, swamps suck.
They're just too wet and swampy. Deep in the swamp, there are scads of creatures waiting to kill you...or at least really creep you out. Toads, weird mud-dwelling fish, huge bugs, and possibly alligators depending on the extent and deepness of the swamp. I want to do a lot of things in my life, but I don't have any real desire to visit a swamp in the future. I'll now tell you why.
I like regular land. Regular land is pretty cool, if you think about it in terms of how much better it is than swamps. Regular land isn't filled with putrid water and mud; you won't lose your sneaker stepping into regular land. You can build things on regular land. Try doing that in a swamp. Man, you're going to be sorry...because that building will not last for longer than maybe a few hours. It would be an incredible waste of resources and time to build a house on top of swampy land.
Sure, they say some people can build houses deep in the swamps, because I guess there are patches of land where a house could theoretically stand, but it's just not a great idea. Because, OK, even if you are on the one patch of regular land in the swamp, you're still living in the middle of a swamp. You can't just send the kids outside to play on a nice day. Chances are, if you do that, the kids ain't coming back because they'll be pulled down into the muck by a hungry swamp predator. I bet toads can grow really big in the swamps. I wouldn't be surprised at all to read a headline sometime that reads like this: "Child Consumed By Colossal Swamp Toad."
Plus there's the thing with swamp people.
The stories abound in the south-- of inbred, isolated families living somewhere hidden in the swamps, growing more insane every day. These are the "folks" who wouldn't feel so bad eating one of their own when he or she dies; "it's meat, ain't it?" They have a child who has facial features disturbingly similar to a goat, because somewhere down the line there was a grandpa who got frisky with the livestock. The patriarch of this clan probably pulls on his big wadin' boots every morning, climbs in the old rowboat, and patrols the swamp waters around his home with an ancient shotgun resting on his lap. Oh, he'll shoot ya. He'll shoot ya dead if he sees ye wandering onto his "land." So git outta there fast, city boy.
The swamps will play tricks on a person's mind. You could be an accomplished Harvard Law professor, or a chess wizard, or even a real wizard...and you could go into the swamp fully aware that you might fall prey to strange imaginings given the spooky surroundings, and you'll STILL go a little batty after a few days in the swamp. Especially if you're alone, and you are in an area with a lot of bats, because being covered in bats is probably the most effective way to go batty. But I digress...
Swamp gas can appear to look like ghostly lights hovering over the water. In folklore, these are called will o'the wisps. They say many a person has drowned because they chased after the will o' the wisps, thinking they were fairies or something. Some fairies. They live in a gross SWAMP and smell like methane and phosphene. Awesome.
You might imagine hearing that "Deliverance" banjo playing somewhere, but that's just a cliche so if you have any of your wits left, try to remember that. Because, despite popular belief, you are actually less likely to be raped in a swamp than you are a corporate office building right in the middle of midtown, in broad daylight. It's true, look it up.
Forget about bringing your horse through the swamps. Horses have been known to be sucked in by the "sadness" of the swamps, and there's no saving them no matter how much you cry and beg the horse not to die.
So yeah...leave your horse home when you go on that big quest that takes you through the stupid swamps. That's just a recipe for horrible, horrible emotional scarring.
The last thing to make you crazy in the swamps would probably be the Skunk Ape. This is a mythical creature said to dwell in the swamp part of our country, and they apparently stink really bad. Unfortunate people who've been visiting the swamps have reporting seeing a large ape-man creature lumbering through the trees, and then smelling a stench not unlike decaying corpse-assholes coated with that liquid that's left at the bottom of your trash can when you haven't cleaned it in two years, and they KNOW...it's the Skunk Ape. And they get out of there. Why? It's not because the Skunk Ape is dangerous. No one wants to get that stink on them.
So, say you being CHASED by the Skunk Ape during your foray into the swamps. You're going to freak out. You're going to get utterly desperate to escape. You'll try to climb things you shouldn't climb, like old dead tree branches that will snap under your weight... you'll try to swim away in the black, smelly water and you'll get covered in horrible swamp-microbes and bugs... after running for a few days from the Skunk Ape, you might even try to fly but all you'll really do is tire your arms out from all the senseless flapping. The Skunk Ape is probably a tenacious bastard, too, and he won't give up easily. He'll just keep on chasing you, and that foul stink will chase you, too...and it's inevitable that you'll snap.
JEEBUS! This thing is gonna get you!!
Some of us would probably give in and go live with the Skunk Ape, because how can you return to civilization now that you smell like that? Others among us would fight the Skunk Ape, but that's just not a good idea because the Skunk Ape is actually just a lover, and wants to be held, that's all...if you beat him up, you're going to feel so shitty about yourself. You'll be haunted by thoughts of, "How could I be such a mean bastard? I didn't know I was capable of such cruelty. I cannot live with myself." And one thing the swamp doesn't have is a warehouse full of antidepressants.
In closing, if you decide to vacation in a swamp this coming holiday, please go into it prepared. Read up on the swamp. Get your vaccinations. Find magic shoes that will keep you from sinking into the mud. Learn self-defense and the proper way to punch a giant toad right in the sweet spot so you can kill it. I hope this post has helped begin your education into the mysteries and dangers of the swamps. Don't be drawn in by the romantic notions of what a swamp might SEEM to be. It's really just a fucking, wet, nasty swamp and that's the reality. So get used to it.
The End.
(The Swamp Monster, also known affectionately in some blogger communities as the Smut Monster)
In my opinion, swamps suck.
They're just too wet and swampy. Deep in the swamp, there are scads of creatures waiting to kill you...or at least really creep you out. Toads, weird mud-dwelling fish, huge bugs, and possibly alligators depending on the extent and deepness of the swamp. I want to do a lot of things in my life, but I don't have any real desire to visit a swamp in the future. I'll now tell you why.
I like regular land. Regular land is pretty cool, if you think about it in terms of how much better it is than swamps. Regular land isn't filled with putrid water and mud; you won't lose your sneaker stepping into regular land. You can build things on regular land. Try doing that in a swamp. Man, you're going to be sorry...because that building will not last for longer than maybe a few hours. It would be an incredible waste of resources and time to build a house on top of swampy land.
Sure, they say some people can build houses deep in the swamps, because I guess there are patches of land where a house could theoretically stand, but it's just not a great idea. Because, OK, even if you are on the one patch of regular land in the swamp, you're still living in the middle of a swamp. You can't just send the kids outside to play on a nice day. Chances are, if you do that, the kids ain't coming back because they'll be pulled down into the muck by a hungry swamp predator. I bet toads can grow really big in the swamps. I wouldn't be surprised at all to read a headline sometime that reads like this: "Child Consumed By Colossal Swamp Toad."
Plus there's the thing with swamp people.
The stories abound in the south-- of inbred, isolated families living somewhere hidden in the swamps, growing more insane every day. These are the "folks" who wouldn't feel so bad eating one of their own when he or she dies; "it's meat, ain't it?" They have a child who has facial features disturbingly similar to a goat, because somewhere down the line there was a grandpa who got frisky with the livestock. The patriarch of this clan probably pulls on his big wadin' boots every morning, climbs in the old rowboat, and patrols the swamp waters around his home with an ancient shotgun resting on his lap. Oh, he'll shoot ya. He'll shoot ya dead if he sees ye wandering onto his "land." So git outta there fast, city boy.
The swamps will play tricks on a person's mind. You could be an accomplished Harvard Law professor, or a chess wizard, or even a real wizard...and you could go into the swamp fully aware that you might fall prey to strange imaginings given the spooky surroundings, and you'll STILL go a little batty after a few days in the swamp. Especially if you're alone, and you are in an area with a lot of bats, because being covered in bats is probably the most effective way to go batty. But I digress...
Swamp gas can appear to look like ghostly lights hovering over the water. In folklore, these are called will o'the wisps. They say many a person has drowned because they chased after the will o' the wisps, thinking they were fairies or something. Some fairies. They live in a gross SWAMP and smell like methane and phosphene. Awesome.
You might imagine hearing that "Deliverance" banjo playing somewhere, but that's just a cliche so if you have any of your wits left, try to remember that. Because, despite popular belief, you are actually less likely to be raped in a swamp than you are a corporate office building right in the middle of midtown, in broad daylight. It's true, look it up.
Forget about bringing your horse through the swamps. Horses have been known to be sucked in by the "sadness" of the swamps, and there's no saving them no matter how much you cry and beg the horse not to die.
So yeah...leave your horse home when you go on that big quest that takes you through the stupid swamps. That's just a recipe for horrible, horrible emotional scarring.The last thing to make you crazy in the swamps would probably be the Skunk Ape. This is a mythical creature said to dwell in the swamp part of our country, and they apparently stink really bad. Unfortunate people who've been visiting the swamps have reporting seeing a large ape-man creature lumbering through the trees, and then smelling a stench not unlike decaying corpse-assholes coated with that liquid that's left at the bottom of your trash can when you haven't cleaned it in two years, and they KNOW...it's the Skunk Ape. And they get out of there. Why? It's not because the Skunk Ape is dangerous. No one wants to get that stink on them.
So, say you being CHASED by the Skunk Ape during your foray into the swamps. You're going to freak out. You're going to get utterly desperate to escape. You'll try to climb things you shouldn't climb, like old dead tree branches that will snap under your weight... you'll try to swim away in the black, smelly water and you'll get covered in horrible swamp-microbes and bugs... after running for a few days from the Skunk Ape, you might even try to fly but all you'll really do is tire your arms out from all the senseless flapping. The Skunk Ape is probably a tenacious bastard, too, and he won't give up easily. He'll just keep on chasing you, and that foul stink will chase you, too...and it's inevitable that you'll snap.
JEEBUS! This thing is gonna get you!!Some of us would probably give in and go live with the Skunk Ape, because how can you return to civilization now that you smell like that? Others among us would fight the Skunk Ape, but that's just not a good idea because the Skunk Ape is actually just a lover, and wants to be held, that's all...if you beat him up, you're going to feel so shitty about yourself. You'll be haunted by thoughts of, "How could I be such a mean bastard? I didn't know I was capable of such cruelty. I cannot live with myself." And one thing the swamp doesn't have is a warehouse full of antidepressants.
In closing, if you decide to vacation in a swamp this coming holiday, please go into it prepared. Read up on the swamp. Get your vaccinations. Find magic shoes that will keep you from sinking into the mud. Learn self-defense and the proper way to punch a giant toad right in the sweet spot so you can kill it. I hope this post has helped begin your education into the mysteries and dangers of the swamps. Don't be drawn in by the romantic notions of what a swamp might SEEM to be. It's really just a fucking, wet, nasty swamp and that's the reality. So get used to it.
The End.
(The Swamp Monster, also known affectionately in some blogger communities as the Smut Monster)
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
I HELPED ROB A BLOG
It's true...Vegas Princess and I took over today's WTF?! Wednesday post over at Naynay's blog. Since it appears I am too lazy to do a proper post here, go over there and check out what VP and I did! Do it! As Wilford Brimley would say, "It's the right thing to do. And I have diabeeetus, you sons a bitches."
It's true...Vegas Princess and I took over today's WTF?! Wednesday post over at Naynay's blog. Since it appears I am too lazy to do a proper post here, go over there and check out what VP and I did! Do it! As Wilford Brimley would say, "It's the right thing to do. And I have diabeeetus, you sons a bitches."
Monday, July 21, 2008
FISH PEDICURES?! UM, NO.
If there's one thing I'm sure of in my life, it's that I would never, ever get a fish pedicure. There are a lot of other things I wouldn't subject myself to as well, like working the kill floor in a slaughterhouse, swimming with sharks, elective eye surgery, or eating anything that Andrew Zimmern eats on Bizarre Foods... but fish hold a special place in my soul. They're the creatures on this planet that I am the MOST afraid of. It's called icthyphobia. I don't like fish. Period.
I was horrified when I got to work this morning, and like any other day, I turned my computer on and scanned the local news site as usual for any interesting headlines. Normally I end up clicking on whatever sensational headline they throw at me-- and lately, it's been BAD stuff too, like babies drowning and dead bodies found behind someone's house-- and after a minute or two, I'm done and I can move on to other stuff. Today, however, my eyes stopped and bugged out when I saw this headline: "Fish pedicures: Carp rid human feet of scaly skin."
Oh. My. HELL.
Here's the story.
Unbelievable! So let me get this straight: people will pay--MONEY, precious money they earned working hard for a living-- to stick their bare feet into a tank of warm water and let 100 or so tiny carp chew the dead skin off of their feet? Really? Why?! Does this seem absolutely and utterly insane to anyone else, or is it just me and my fear of fish, blowing this out of proportion? Because, EWWWW... I could not in a million years willingly do this. And I have calluses, don't get me wrong. Ironically, this morning as I was taking care of my feet after my shower I was thinking about how I have no desire to go for a professional pedicure because I've got inherited 'issues' with my feet (ingrown nails, callus problems, yuck) and can't imagine letting some stranger wielding a razor go near my sensitive toes. I can't stand manicures for the same reason, although I've got very healthy nails; I just don't want someone pushing and cutting cuticles and all of that. Leave them ALONE. They grow there for a reason, people. I get compliments on how strong and healthy my NATURAL nails are from women who subject themselves to the torture of manicures, and I just want to slap their foreheads and say, "Duh, I don't get manicures or rip off my cuticles, ya big dummy....THAT'S why they look this way!" I know I'm in the minority here since so MANY of my friends like manicures and even (shudder) pedicures, and that's fine, because different strokes for different folks, right? I think so. THAT'S what I'm talkin' bout, Willis.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Fish pedicures.
Even typing that phrase makes me actually shudder. Hairs are standing up on my arms right now!
The article says that these little carp have no teeth, and they will eat anything in the tank that they can...and that means the dead, flaking skin on FEET in this case. They say that because the fish have no teeth, they can't eat the healthy skin because they can't (ugggh) bite into it. So you have to sit there and let these wee little demons swarm around your feet and toes and nibble/suck away your dead skin...willingly sit there and LET this happen. No! No! Noooooooo fucking WAY!
I had a nightmare one time that I was shopping in a grocery store that had no real floor; it was just a big shallow tank full of huge fish. Customers had to ride on ski-lift type seats up and down the aisles, grabbing groceries off the shelves when they rode past. The thing was, everyone was REQUIRED to take their shoes and socks off, and let their feet dangle in the water amongst these disgusing fish. In the dream, no one had a problem with this because in this twisted nightmare-world, this was a completely normal way to go shopping for groceries. Why not? Makes perfect sense, right?
So in the nightmare, I am on the ski-lift-thing, riding through the store with my bare feet in the water. I am trying to lift them up and out of the water because these fish are just PACKED into the tank, and there's nowhere to put your feet except on and pushed up next to slimy fish bodies...but the water rises and I can't get my feet up high enough. That's when I look down and realize the fish have huge HUMAN LIPS. And they are making sucky faces and opening and closing their horrible mouths after my feet. Oh my God...I woke up completely freaked out.
That nightmare was at least ten, maybe even fifteen years ago. It's in my top 5 Worst Dreams Ever list. My worst nightmare is so awful and disgusting I won't even type it here because seriously...it's THAT bad. Anyway, though, having my feet trapped in a tank full of fish is QUITE high on my list of horrors.
So no fish pedicures for me. Ever. Ever.
I'm upset that I even read this. Because I bet I'll dream about it at some point, now. Or, the next time I am soaking my feet at home I will make myself freak out because I will imagine I feel little fish in there, under the bubbles, gumming my calluses. Great. Thanks SO MUCH, Associated Press, for bringing me "the news" today. I hate you. May 1,000 toothless carp suck at the dead skin around your cold, unfeeling hearts. You deserve it, you terrible bastards.
If there's one thing I'm sure of in my life, it's that I would never, ever get a fish pedicure. There are a lot of other things I wouldn't subject myself to as well, like working the kill floor in a slaughterhouse, swimming with sharks, elective eye surgery, or eating anything that Andrew Zimmern eats on Bizarre Foods... but fish hold a special place in my soul. They're the creatures on this planet that I am the MOST afraid of. It's called icthyphobia. I don't like fish. Period.
I was horrified when I got to work this morning, and like any other day, I turned my computer on and scanned the local news site as usual for any interesting headlines. Normally I end up clicking on whatever sensational headline they throw at me-- and lately, it's been BAD stuff too, like babies drowning and dead bodies found behind someone's house-- and after a minute or two, I'm done and I can move on to other stuff. Today, however, my eyes stopped and bugged out when I saw this headline: "Fish pedicures: Carp rid human feet of scaly skin."
Oh. My. HELL.
Here's the story.
Unbelievable! So let me get this straight: people will pay--MONEY, precious money they earned working hard for a living-- to stick their bare feet into a tank of warm water and let 100 or so tiny carp chew the dead skin off of their feet? Really? Why?! Does this seem absolutely and utterly insane to anyone else, or is it just me and my fear of fish, blowing this out of proportion? Because, EWWWW... I could not in a million years willingly do this. And I have calluses, don't get me wrong. Ironically, this morning as I was taking care of my feet after my shower I was thinking about how I have no desire to go for a professional pedicure because I've got inherited 'issues' with my feet (ingrown nails, callus problems, yuck) and can't imagine letting some stranger wielding a razor go near my sensitive toes. I can't stand manicures for the same reason, although I've got very healthy nails; I just don't want someone pushing and cutting cuticles and all of that. Leave them ALONE. They grow there for a reason, people. I get compliments on how strong and healthy my NATURAL nails are from women who subject themselves to the torture of manicures, and I just want to slap their foreheads and say, "Duh, I don't get manicures or rip off my cuticles, ya big dummy....THAT'S why they look this way!" I know I'm in the minority here since so MANY of my friends like manicures and even (shudder) pedicures, and that's fine, because different strokes for different folks, right? I think so. THAT'S what I'm talkin' bout, Willis.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Fish pedicures.
Even typing that phrase makes me actually shudder. Hairs are standing up on my arms right now!
The article says that these little carp have no teeth, and they will eat anything in the tank that they can...and that means the dead, flaking skin on FEET in this case. They say that because the fish have no teeth, they can't eat the healthy skin because they can't (ugggh) bite into it. So you have to sit there and let these wee little demons swarm around your feet and toes and nibble/suck away your dead skin...willingly sit there and LET this happen. No! No! Noooooooo fucking WAY!
I had a nightmare one time that I was shopping in a grocery store that had no real floor; it was just a big shallow tank full of huge fish. Customers had to ride on ski-lift type seats up and down the aisles, grabbing groceries off the shelves when they rode past. The thing was, everyone was REQUIRED to take their shoes and socks off, and let their feet dangle in the water amongst these disgusing fish. In the dream, no one had a problem with this because in this twisted nightmare-world, this was a completely normal way to go shopping for groceries. Why not? Makes perfect sense, right?
So in the nightmare, I am on the ski-lift-thing, riding through the store with my bare feet in the water. I am trying to lift them up and out of the water because these fish are just PACKED into the tank, and there's nowhere to put your feet except on and pushed up next to slimy fish bodies...but the water rises and I can't get my feet up high enough. That's when I look down and realize the fish have huge HUMAN LIPS. And they are making sucky faces and opening and closing their horrible mouths after my feet. Oh my God...I woke up completely freaked out.
That nightmare was at least ten, maybe even fifteen years ago. It's in my top 5 Worst Dreams Ever list. My worst nightmare is so awful and disgusting I won't even type it here because seriously...it's THAT bad. Anyway, though, having my feet trapped in a tank full of fish is QUITE high on my list of horrors.
So no fish pedicures for me. Ever. Ever.
I'm upset that I even read this. Because I bet I'll dream about it at some point, now. Or, the next time I am soaking my feet at home I will make myself freak out because I will imagine I feel little fish in there, under the bubbles, gumming my calluses. Great. Thanks SO MUCH, Associated Press, for bringing me "the news" today. I hate you. May 1,000 toothless carp suck at the dead skin around your cold, unfeeling hearts. You deserve it, you terrible bastards.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
TABLOID SCIENTISTS
I saw this today on Gallery of the Absurd, and had to share the goodness:
This shocking photo spread was lifted from this great post all about what it would be like if scientists were the people featured in all the tabloids. And it's funny, because it's true...scientists ARE just like us!
I feel so much cooler now!
I saw this today on Gallery of the Absurd, and had to share the goodness:
This shocking photo spread was lifted from this great post all about what it would be like if scientists were the people featured in all the tabloids. And it's funny, because it's true...scientists ARE just like us!
I feel so much cooler now!
Monday, July 14, 2008
HELL!
This shall be known as the Summer of Not Blogging. I am beginning to wonder if this is starting to fade for me; I just don't feel like writing here all that much anymore and while it's sad, since I've been doing it for over five years now...it's also just evolution, too. My interests are shifting, very subtly. It happens.
I loved Hellboy 2 this weekend. I was very excited to see it, even more than I let on. The first Hellboy movie was awesome. I remember being very shocked by my reaction to it. I was prepared to feel "ehhhh..." about it. Ron Perlman as a big devil-guy? Selma Blair? Huh? Nope, it didn't seem to be a recipe for anything out of the ordinary. But then I watched it and was roped in. Such fun characters! I adore Hellboy's attitude and general sense of goodness. I love that he loves cats and smokes cigars. Every time the movie comes on, I have the same reaction: "Why the hell haven't I bought some of those comics/ graphic novels yet, anyway?" I know I'd like to read them. I have to get around to it. I know I'll fall in love even more.
Anyway, Hellboy 2 was even better than the first one, I think. I admit I miss David Hyde Pierce's voice for Abe Sapien, but that was pretty much my only complaint. Guillermo del Toro is a fantastic director for a movie like this. Plus, the visuals and creativity splashed all over every frame were stunning. I loved the troll market scene, and keep giggling over the line: "I'm not a baby. I'm a tumor." Creatures EVERYWHERE in this movie, and lord knows I love me some creatures! (Oh, and Seth McFarland was the voice for Johann Kraus, which is pretty cool, too. For the record, I'd rather listen to Kraus than Stewie--who is really wearing on me anymore. I won't say the same about Brian the dog, though. I still love Brian.) I kind of can't wait to see this one again, and I really do plan to see it one more time in the theater (probably the second-run theater, though, with ticket prices being what they are and about 18 more movies coming out that I MUST see). I just relaxed, sat back and enjoyed this movie. It was right up my alley, as they say. I'd like to watch this with Mirrormask and Pan's Labyrinth...make it a triple-feature. OK, a quad-feature, because I want to watch the first Hellboy, too.
And now, this weekend we finally get The Dark Knight. Now, I'm not positive we will see it this weekend only because of the crowds and everything...but we're not going to be able to wait very long at all. It's just too intriguing, looks TOO awesome. Even before he died and they started leaking the first footage of Heath as the Joker, I knew that my fears about the casting were completely unfounded. A totally insane, messy Joker is the way it's SUPPOSED to be. I am of the crowd that feels the Batman/ Dark Knight story/character should be dark, brooding and filled with inner conflict. I want to be haunted by the story. Batman Begins accomplished this so well. And now, I think The Dark Knight is easily going to surpass that. I've been waiting a long time for this one. Maybe I'm not all fanboy(girl) about it, not quite-- but I have been thinking about it all year and eagering anticipating the sensory and emotional experience of watching it unfold on the screen, finally.
"People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy, and I can't do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man,I'm flesh and blood. I can be ignored, I can be destroyed. But as a symbol...as a symbol I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting."
This shall be known as the Summer of Not Blogging. I am beginning to wonder if this is starting to fade for me; I just don't feel like writing here all that much anymore and while it's sad, since I've been doing it for over five years now...it's also just evolution, too. My interests are shifting, very subtly. It happens.
I loved Hellboy 2 this weekend. I was very excited to see it, even more than I let on. The first Hellboy movie was awesome. I remember being very shocked by my reaction to it. I was prepared to feel "ehhhh..." about it. Ron Perlman as a big devil-guy? Selma Blair? Huh? Nope, it didn't seem to be a recipe for anything out of the ordinary. But then I watched it and was roped in. Such fun characters! I adore Hellboy's attitude and general sense of goodness. I love that he loves cats and smokes cigars. Every time the movie comes on, I have the same reaction: "Why the hell haven't I bought some of those comics/ graphic novels yet, anyway?" I know I'd like to read them. I have to get around to it. I know I'll fall in love even more.
Anyway, Hellboy 2 was even better than the first one, I think. I admit I miss David Hyde Pierce's voice for Abe Sapien, but that was pretty much my only complaint. Guillermo del Toro is a fantastic director for a movie like this. Plus, the visuals and creativity splashed all over every frame were stunning. I loved the troll market scene, and keep giggling over the line: "I'm not a baby. I'm a tumor." Creatures EVERYWHERE in this movie, and lord knows I love me some creatures! (Oh, and Seth McFarland was the voice for Johann Kraus, which is pretty cool, too. For the record, I'd rather listen to Kraus than Stewie--who is really wearing on me anymore. I won't say the same about Brian the dog, though. I still love Brian.) I kind of can't wait to see this one again, and I really do plan to see it one more time in the theater (probably the second-run theater, though, with ticket prices being what they are and about 18 more movies coming out that I MUST see). I just relaxed, sat back and enjoyed this movie. It was right up my alley, as they say. I'd like to watch this with Mirrormask and Pan's Labyrinth...make it a triple-feature. OK, a quad-feature, because I want to watch the first Hellboy, too.
And now, this weekend we finally get The Dark Knight. Now, I'm not positive we will see it this weekend only because of the crowds and everything...but we're not going to be able to wait very long at all. It's just too intriguing, looks TOO awesome. Even before he died and they started leaking the first footage of Heath as the Joker, I knew that my fears about the casting were completely unfounded. A totally insane, messy Joker is the way it's SUPPOSED to be. I am of the crowd that feels the Batman/ Dark Knight story/character should be dark, brooding and filled with inner conflict. I want to be haunted by the story. Batman Begins accomplished this so well. And now, I think The Dark Knight is easily going to surpass that. I've been waiting a long time for this one. Maybe I'm not all fanboy(girl) about it, not quite-- but I have been thinking about it all year and eagering anticipating the sensory and emotional experience of watching it unfold on the screen, finally.
"People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy, and I can't do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man,I'm flesh and blood. I can be ignored, I can be destroyed. But as a symbol...as a symbol I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting."
Monday, July 07, 2008
THE MURDEROUS PALMS
Since Friday, June 27, these palm trees have attacked me twice:
Sure, they look innocent enough...planted there next to the pool, providing shade and a semblance of a "tropical" feel to our desert backyard. But don't be fooled. They're very nasty. They want to kill me, and they want to do it without mercy.
Allow me to explain.
On a regular basis, I water these palms (and another one near the pool filter) by placing a hose at their bases and moving it after a couple of hours or so. We don't have an irrigation system for our trees, and this method of moving-the-hose has worked fine for at least two years now. I also weed and rake the gravel yard to keep it looking neat and spiffy. G mows the grass and does the harder work of trimming the trees back, and together we keep the backyard in good condition.
The trees are mostly harmless. A jacaranda, a purple plum, two Chilean mesquites, a Chinese tallow and a lovely eucalyptus. They can be trimmed and their amputated limbs hauled away with little chance of injury. But there are three dangerous trees in the yard...the Mexican fan palms. And their scary, long, super-sharp BARBS.
The larger the palms grow, the more fierce the barbs. They seem like razor-sharp claws anymore, and it's pretty much impossible to go near these palms without getting poked. Here's a close-up of what these terror-spikes look like:
The first time the palms attacked me, I was bending underneath the huge fronds to re-arrange the hose so the damn things could receive nourishment and grow even bigger and more ruthless. A barb or two raked across my scalp, poking in and drawing a shitload of blood. Head wounds bleed so much worse than any other type of wound. I ran in the house and called to G, so he could assess the damage and apply some alcohol to the cuts and help me mop the blood out of my hair. It was lovely, and the two puncture wounds did heal up very well with little trouble except when I accidentally scraped them with my fingernail later that evening when running my hands through my hair.
Cut to exactly one week later. This time, it was the morning of the 4th of July and we were getting the yard and house ready for visitors. G was in the house slicing and preparing the veggies and fruits, and I was in the yard, slathered in a thick layer of sunblock, popping the weeds up and out of the gravel with the hula-hoe (I don't know the proper name for it, but it's a metal loop at the end of a stick). I was moving along very well, listening to She & Him on my headphones, methodically killin' weeds and raking everything up into neat piles to be picked up at the very end.
I was wary to go near the palms now. I did every other section of the yard first and left that region for last. Finally, it was time to hit some of the weeds with the hoe and rake them away. I carefully removed weeds near the outside edge of the palm-tree-region, not caring about ducking underneath to do extensive weeding. I wasn't going to risk yet another head wound. Everything was going fine, until I reached the rake out and underneath the palm to quickly rake the weeds and gravel right near the pool edge.
Instantly, I was caught. A barb cut through my shirt and settled somewhere in the skin of my neck. I was stuck to the tree. I couldn't move because I could feel the barb under my skin, and had no way of telling which way the barb had gone in and how to pull myself off the tree without tearing anything further. Last thing I needed was a ripped-open neck.
I yelled for help ("Greg! Help!" on repeat) since I didn't have my cell phone on me, and it took a couple of minutes before G finally ran out back to free me. He couldn't really hear me out there, since the A/C was running and the TV was on as he was working in the kitchen. The dogs apparently heard me, though, and went to the back door and let him know something was wrong out in the backyard. Anyway, he got out there and managed to unattach me from the barb. I got upset, not just because I'd been stabbed in the neck by a tree and it hurt, but because what kind of SPAZZ am I to sustain two palm injuries like that? Why am I so accident-prone, anyway? What's the deal with me? Normal people don't get hooked in the neck by trees.
The good news was, the barb went in kind of sideways under the skin, so the wound wasn't deep this time. It just looked like a reddish-purple hickey with a red hole in the middle. It's still very ugly. The bad news is, the barbs on a Mexican palm tree apparently have some sort of toxin on them. I'm fine, but I did get bad headaches both days I was injured; headaches that felt nothing like a migraine but instead like a too-tight helmet around my entire skull, making me super sleepy. Greg says that when he gets poked with those barbs when he's trimming the fronds back, the joints in his hands get stiff and sore for a few hours. I tried to find information online about this mysterious toxin, but I came up empty. It's a very strange thing to have a tree that you have shown nothing but kindness suddenly turn and try to kill you. The purple plum would NEVER do a thing like this.
So, that's my story of how the palms and I became mortal enemies. I sincerely fear and loathe those palm trees now. I don't trust them for a second anymore, and I'm thinking of trading a responsibility with G so he can take over watering duties on those particular trees for awhile. Once they grow a little taller and the fronds are all trimmed off to a point where it will be easy to walk around them, maybe I'll feel a little more confident venturing into their territory again. Until then, though, I'm not ashamed to admit my intense fear. They're just evil and they clearly HATE ME. They want me dead, I know it. They are having fun toying with me and my spilled blood. Bastard palm trees.
I know it's really bad and I have no business going near them because yesterday, when I took the two photos above, I narrowly avoided being poked in the face...possibly the eye...by a wayward frond riddled with barbs. I was trying to get a close-up of the barbs and as I was checking the photo, the wind carried a long spiky frond right up to my cheek. I jumped back so fast I almost fell in the pool. And that, my friends, is the LAST TIME I risk my life around those fuckers. Hope you have enjoyed this story and the pictures that I nearly died to obtain.
Stay safe out there.
Since Friday, June 27, these palm trees have attacked me twice:
Sure, they look innocent enough...planted there next to the pool, providing shade and a semblance of a "tropical" feel to our desert backyard. But don't be fooled. They're very nasty. They want to kill me, and they want to do it without mercy.
Allow me to explain.
On a regular basis, I water these palms (and another one near the pool filter) by placing a hose at their bases and moving it after a couple of hours or so. We don't have an irrigation system for our trees, and this method of moving-the-hose has worked fine for at least two years now. I also weed and rake the gravel yard to keep it looking neat and spiffy. G mows the grass and does the harder work of trimming the trees back, and together we keep the backyard in good condition.
The trees are mostly harmless. A jacaranda, a purple plum, two Chilean mesquites, a Chinese tallow and a lovely eucalyptus. They can be trimmed and their amputated limbs hauled away with little chance of injury. But there are three dangerous trees in the yard...the Mexican fan palms. And their scary, long, super-sharp BARBS.
The larger the palms grow, the more fierce the barbs. They seem like razor-sharp claws anymore, and it's pretty much impossible to go near these palms without getting poked. Here's a close-up of what these terror-spikes look like:
The first time the palms attacked me, I was bending underneath the huge fronds to re-arrange the hose so the damn things could receive nourishment and grow even bigger and more ruthless. A barb or two raked across my scalp, poking in and drawing a shitload of blood. Head wounds bleed so much worse than any other type of wound. I ran in the house and called to G, so he could assess the damage and apply some alcohol to the cuts and help me mop the blood out of my hair. It was lovely, and the two puncture wounds did heal up very well with little trouble except when I accidentally scraped them with my fingernail later that evening when running my hands through my hair.
Cut to exactly one week later. This time, it was the morning of the 4th of July and we were getting the yard and house ready for visitors. G was in the house slicing and preparing the veggies and fruits, and I was in the yard, slathered in a thick layer of sunblock, popping the weeds up and out of the gravel with the hula-hoe (I don't know the proper name for it, but it's a metal loop at the end of a stick). I was moving along very well, listening to She & Him on my headphones, methodically killin' weeds and raking everything up into neat piles to be picked up at the very end.
I was wary to go near the palms now. I did every other section of the yard first and left that region for last. Finally, it was time to hit some of the weeds with the hoe and rake them away. I carefully removed weeds near the outside edge of the palm-tree-region, not caring about ducking underneath to do extensive weeding. I wasn't going to risk yet another head wound. Everything was going fine, until I reached the rake out and underneath the palm to quickly rake the weeds and gravel right near the pool edge.
Instantly, I was caught. A barb cut through my shirt and settled somewhere in the skin of my neck. I was stuck to the tree. I couldn't move because I could feel the barb under my skin, and had no way of telling which way the barb had gone in and how to pull myself off the tree without tearing anything further. Last thing I needed was a ripped-open neck.
I yelled for help ("Greg! Help!" on repeat) since I didn't have my cell phone on me, and it took a couple of minutes before G finally ran out back to free me. He couldn't really hear me out there, since the A/C was running and the TV was on as he was working in the kitchen. The dogs apparently heard me, though, and went to the back door and let him know something was wrong out in the backyard. Anyway, he got out there and managed to unattach me from the barb. I got upset, not just because I'd been stabbed in the neck by a tree and it hurt, but because what kind of SPAZZ am I to sustain two palm injuries like that? Why am I so accident-prone, anyway? What's the deal with me? Normal people don't get hooked in the neck by trees.
The good news was, the barb went in kind of sideways under the skin, so the wound wasn't deep this time. It just looked like a reddish-purple hickey with a red hole in the middle. It's still very ugly. The bad news is, the barbs on a Mexican palm tree apparently have some sort of toxin on them. I'm fine, but I did get bad headaches both days I was injured; headaches that felt nothing like a migraine but instead like a too-tight helmet around my entire skull, making me super sleepy. Greg says that when he gets poked with those barbs when he's trimming the fronds back, the joints in his hands get stiff and sore for a few hours. I tried to find information online about this mysterious toxin, but I came up empty. It's a very strange thing to have a tree that you have shown nothing but kindness suddenly turn and try to kill you. The purple plum would NEVER do a thing like this.
So, that's my story of how the palms and I became mortal enemies. I sincerely fear and loathe those palm trees now. I don't trust them for a second anymore, and I'm thinking of trading a responsibility with G so he can take over watering duties on those particular trees for awhile. Once they grow a little taller and the fronds are all trimmed off to a point where it will be easy to walk around them, maybe I'll feel a little more confident venturing into their territory again. Until then, though, I'm not ashamed to admit my intense fear. They're just evil and they clearly HATE ME. They want me dead, I know it. They are having fun toying with me and my spilled blood. Bastard palm trees.
I know it's really bad and I have no business going near them because yesterday, when I took the two photos above, I narrowly avoided being poked in the face...possibly the eye...by a wayward frond riddled with barbs. I was trying to get a close-up of the barbs and as I was checking the photo, the wind carried a long spiky frond right up to my cheek. I jumped back so fast I almost fell in the pool. And that, my friends, is the LAST TIME I risk my life around those fuckers. Hope you have enjoyed this story and the pictures that I nearly died to obtain.
Stay safe out there.
Friday, July 04, 2008
SLEEPY SUMBITCH
Ever stare at a blank screen with no clue what you're going to write? Well, that's been me for a couple of weeks now. I can't explain it, but I did want to just log on here and let you all know I'm still alive...I apologize for not writing or even visiting/ commenting on your blogs much...and I am OK. I've just had a sleepy brain, is all. Yaaaawwwn.
And it's still sleepy. Maybe I have that Mad Cow Disease.
"If you had a choice between bein' the top scientist in your field, or gettin' Mad Cow Disease, what would it be?"
So, here we go again...it's Independence Day. Every year, I want to recite Bill Pullman's heroic speech in the movie about it being OUR Independence Day (from the aliens). Because I really hate aliens so much, and I like to think that we, led by Bill Pullman, would go up there and git 'em all and then they couldn't come down here and ruin life as we know it.
I used to worry that when we set off fireworks on the 4th of July, we were advertising to the aliens where we could be found. ("Hey, aliens...We're down here! Just follow the colorful explosions to a planet just full of pink, fleshy morons to probe!") I'm not kidding about this, either. When I was little (OK, I think I really was in my teens... and I'm not just saying that for comedic effect, either), I truly believed we should "lay low" and not send anything up into the skies like fireworks or those searchlights. I don't care how much we need Batman, we've got to work out a system to contact him without making a spectacle of the surface of the moon. That's just a recipe for trouble. We're like the teenage girl in the short skirt and too much makeup of the universe; you know, the one who was just asking for it.
Well, it's two in the morning and I'm going to sleep now. Again. Before I go, I will leave you with a PHOTO MONTAGE featuring some bloggers, some other people, other stuff I'm just way too lazy to caption, and a hot dog. Heck, I'd have seconds!
Happy 4th!
Ever stare at a blank screen with no clue what you're going to write? Well, that's been me for a couple of weeks now. I can't explain it, but I did want to just log on here and let you all know I'm still alive...I apologize for not writing or even visiting/ commenting on your blogs much...and I am OK. I've just had a sleepy brain, is all. Yaaaawwwn.
And it's still sleepy. Maybe I have that Mad Cow Disease.
"If you had a choice between bein' the top scientist in your field, or gettin' Mad Cow Disease, what would it be?"
So, here we go again...it's Independence Day. Every year, I want to recite Bill Pullman's heroic speech in the movie about it being OUR Independence Day (from the aliens). Because I really hate aliens so much, and I like to think that we, led by Bill Pullman, would go up there and git 'em all and then they couldn't come down here and ruin life as we know it.
I used to worry that when we set off fireworks on the 4th of July, we were advertising to the aliens where we could be found. ("Hey, aliens...We're down here! Just follow the colorful explosions to a planet just full of pink, fleshy morons to probe!") I'm not kidding about this, either. When I was little (OK, I think I really was in my teens... and I'm not just saying that for comedic effect, either), I truly believed we should "lay low" and not send anything up into the skies like fireworks or those searchlights. I don't care how much we need Batman, we've got to work out a system to contact him without making a spectacle of the surface of the moon. That's just a recipe for trouble. We're like the teenage girl in the short skirt and too much makeup of the universe; you know, the one who was just asking for it.
Well, it's two in the morning and I'm going to sleep now. Again. Before I go, I will leave you with a PHOTO MONTAGE featuring some bloggers, some other people, other stuff I'm just way too lazy to caption, and a hot dog. Heck, I'd have seconds!
Happy 4th!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
TOOTHPICKS BRING ME DOWN
Hi, so I have a short attention span today. So I am starting this blog with a LOLcats-generated picture I did a few weeks ago. That site is too much fun.
I have work I need to be doing, yet I can't stay on a task long enough to get much of anything finished. I haven't even been playing on the internet much, either...which is normally my big distraction. Nope, it's just that today I am flitting about like a chubby hummingbird. Without the humming.
I love eating fresh strawberries, but I hate the seeds. I have this jacked-up molar that has the tooth equivalent of a pock-mark (not a cavity) in its worth-down enamel (from years of teeth-grinding), and 100% of the time when I eat strawberries, a seed will get wedged in that spot. And then I feel it every time I close my mouth and the top teeth hit it. I'll be obsessed with trying to push it out with my tongue, even while people are talking to me. I think I move my mouth around a lot when people are talking to me, which probably looks really strange. I keep my mouth shut, at least. So all they would see would be the muscles working around under my cheeks. When I think no one is looking, I hook a finger in there and try to pop the seed out with my fingernail. Yuck. Then I'm stuck with a spitty finger. And lately, the seed doesn't pop out quickly, like it used to. I guess the spot is getting deeper the longer it's there. It now requires a mirror and usually an implement of some sort-- if I'm home I'll just brush my teeth. In public, I use a toothpick. I've been stashing toothpicks in my desk for a couple of months now, taking them from restaurants on my lunch hour. It's helped a lot, and cut back on "spitty fingers." It occurs to me that maybe I should have been using the toothpicks all along. Well, whatever.
I still feel weird using a toothpick, though. When I stick one in my mouth, I immediately picture how I look and that to everyone else, I look like a simpleton, some kind of country hick with no class. You never see high-class ladies picking their teeth with a toothpick. There's really no delicate way to do it. I've tried to be lady-like in my picking, lightly grasping the end of the toothpick and keeping my wrist up as I discreetly work things around in there. Instead of looking classy, I think I just look even more like a spazz and probably draw more attention to the act of toothpicking than I would have had I just shoved the thing in, picked what needed to be picked, and tossed the pick away, bam bam bam, done.
But I feel like with the toothpick in my mouth, I should be wearing overalls and leaning over the open hood of some old Chevy pickup, a beer in one hand as I squint at the engine. "Yep, looks like the carb-er-rater's shot," I'd say around the toothpick dangling on my lower lip. Then I'd lean back and belch. I'd probably have an old hound dog that would lie on the porch next to the old couch we'd use as a sittin' spot, and upon hearing my unladylike belch, the dog's ears would twitch for a second and then he'd go back to sleep. That lazy ol' hound.
It might seem like I am imagining myself as a gentleman in the above scenario, but I am not. Because I have seen "ladies" like that, plenty of times. Out here in Arizona they're always leathery, too. Dried out and greasy. Way too much time out in the sun, and not enough time spent on hygiene. Sad, really.
Because I don't want to wind up like one of those dried-up broads, I think I need to cut back on my toothpick usage. What if it's just a slippery slope? First it's the toothpick, then it's the crappy old clothes, next I'll forget how to speak properly, and at that point I might as well just give up on life and go with it.
I'm wondering if Dried-Up Toothpick Broad would be a decent Halloween costume idea. A similar idea would be Dried Applehead Witch. Remember those? You take a peeled apple, carve a crude face into it, and let it dry out so you can make a doll out of it? No? Anyone?
We had a kitchen witch when I was little. A good-luck charm, apparently with German roots. She was a little witch on a broom with a shriveled-up face. I can't find a picture of what ours was like, but it was kind of like this:
So maybe this would be a fun costume to try to put together. But where in the world do I get an apple as big as my head? Maybe at one of them fancy bioengineered farms they got now. I seen a watermelon that was as big as a calf. No foolin.
Where's my toothpick? (SPIT)
Hi, so I have a short attention span today. So I am starting this blog with a LOLcats-generated picture I did a few weeks ago. That site is too much fun.
I have work I need to be doing, yet I can't stay on a task long enough to get much of anything finished. I haven't even been playing on the internet much, either...which is normally my big distraction. Nope, it's just that today I am flitting about like a chubby hummingbird. Without the humming.
I love eating fresh strawberries, but I hate the seeds. I have this jacked-up molar that has the tooth equivalent of a pock-mark (not a cavity) in its worth-down enamel (from years of teeth-grinding), and 100% of the time when I eat strawberries, a seed will get wedged in that spot. And then I feel it every time I close my mouth and the top teeth hit it. I'll be obsessed with trying to push it out with my tongue, even while people are talking to me. I think I move my mouth around a lot when people are talking to me, which probably looks really strange. I keep my mouth shut, at least. So all they would see would be the muscles working around under my cheeks. When I think no one is looking, I hook a finger in there and try to pop the seed out with my fingernail. Yuck. Then I'm stuck with a spitty finger. And lately, the seed doesn't pop out quickly, like it used to. I guess the spot is getting deeper the longer it's there. It now requires a mirror and usually an implement of some sort-- if I'm home I'll just brush my teeth. In public, I use a toothpick. I've been stashing toothpicks in my desk for a couple of months now, taking them from restaurants on my lunch hour. It's helped a lot, and cut back on "spitty fingers." It occurs to me that maybe I should have been using the toothpicks all along. Well, whatever.
I still feel weird using a toothpick, though. When I stick one in my mouth, I immediately picture how I look and that to everyone else, I look like a simpleton, some kind of country hick with no class. You never see high-class ladies picking their teeth with a toothpick. There's really no delicate way to do it. I've tried to be lady-like in my picking, lightly grasping the end of the toothpick and keeping my wrist up as I discreetly work things around in there. Instead of looking classy, I think I just look even more like a spazz and probably draw more attention to the act of toothpicking than I would have had I just shoved the thing in, picked what needed to be picked, and tossed the pick away, bam bam bam, done.
But I feel like with the toothpick in my mouth, I should be wearing overalls and leaning over the open hood of some old Chevy pickup, a beer in one hand as I squint at the engine. "Yep, looks like the carb-er-rater's shot," I'd say around the toothpick dangling on my lower lip. Then I'd lean back and belch. I'd probably have an old hound dog that would lie on the porch next to the old couch we'd use as a sittin' spot, and upon hearing my unladylike belch, the dog's ears would twitch for a second and then he'd go back to sleep. That lazy ol' hound.
It might seem like I am imagining myself as a gentleman in the above scenario, but I am not. Because I have seen "ladies" like that, plenty of times. Out here in Arizona they're always leathery, too. Dried out and greasy. Way too much time out in the sun, and not enough time spent on hygiene. Sad, really.
Because I don't want to wind up like one of those dried-up broads, I think I need to cut back on my toothpick usage. What if it's just a slippery slope? First it's the toothpick, then it's the crappy old clothes, next I'll forget how to speak properly, and at that point I might as well just give up on life and go with it.
I'm wondering if Dried-Up Toothpick Broad would be a decent Halloween costume idea. A similar idea would be Dried Applehead Witch. Remember those? You take a peeled apple, carve a crude face into it, and let it dry out so you can make a doll out of it? No? Anyone?
We had a kitchen witch when I was little. A good-luck charm, apparently with German roots. She was a little witch on a broom with a shriveled-up face. I can't find a picture of what ours was like, but it was kind of like this:
So maybe this would be a fun costume to try to put together. But where in the world do I get an apple as big as my head? Maybe at one of them fancy bioengineered farms they got now. I seen a watermelon that was as big as a calf. No foolin.
Where's my toothpick? (SPIT)
POPCORN, JOCKEYS AND GANGRENE
I am reposting this, yes. Bear with me. RRRAAWWWRR!
Hi, folks! So, the big news is we're just days away from our exciting NJ trip! I can't wait, especially since this is a very special trip-- and not like in a Very Special Episode of Blossom kinda way, either. It's the first time I'm bringing Greg there to finally see where I came from; it's my first trip back in almost 4 years; and I will meet a bunch of blogger chicks in person!! That's just going to be so cool. Some might scoff at the concept of "blog friends" but they're just jealous. We know we have a pretty sweet network going on here. Besides, it's just too damn hard to make good girlfriends in the first place, the older you get. If mine come from the blogs, so be it. Amen.
Want to hear about the weather? Hell, who wouldn't!
It's officially the monsoon season here. It's really...warm outside. I refuse to say the "H" word because it's just ALL a person hears around here this time of year. "OHHH, it's soooo H*#!" everyone whines as they either head outside of an air conditioned building or when they are coming in from the heat outdoors. At a certain point, you have to say, "Really? Wow, I never would have expected it to be H in Arizona in the summer! OMG!" If you insist on stating the obvious, then I shall insist on throwing mud in yer eye.
That phrase, "here's mud in your eye," makes me smile. I like the idea of someone running up to another person and flicking a spoonful of mud into their eyeballs. Because yes, in my mind, it's a spoonful. And for some reason, the person flicking the mud-spoon looks a lot like me, but in old-timey clothes (like Tom Sawyer-times), and the person with the flung mud in their eyes looks a lot like Orville Redenbacher. I have no idea why. Maybe because I never liked the looks of that guy. Sure, I liked his delicious popcorn, but I won't trust a guy with a corn fetish and suspenders. So don't try to make me.
Orville Redenfreaker sure loved to "pop" some "kernels" every chance he got.
By the way, here's what I came up with when I tried to find out the origin of "here's mud in your eye":
_It's a horseracing phrase: The winning horse would kick up mud at the also-rans. (OK, I don't mind thinking of horses kicking mud around, but I'd prefer the mud hit the jockeys in the face instead of the other poor horses. PS: I am also kind of creeped out by jockeys. They're just too small to be "right," and I hate when they stand really, really still for days and days outside of someone's house, holding a lantern...)
"At my signal, UNLEASH HELL!!!"
_It's a Biblical phrase: In the Gospel of John, Jesus cures a blind man by rubbing a bit of mud on his eyes. (Now I don't know 'bout you, but the Jesus I IMAGINE wouldn't play a mean trick like that on some poor, blind dude. And I don't care if it is in the Bible, I think the Son of God would just use good ol' fashioned GodMagic and not waste time smearing wet dirt on the faces of the unfortunates.)
"OWWW! What the hell are you doing?! I asked you to heal me, not make me even MORE blind!"
_It's a World War I phrase: Soldiers spent a lot of time hunkered down in muddy trenches. The horrors of that war were many: Machine guns, grenades, gangrene, mustard gas. If all that happened to you was a little mud in your eye, you were lucky. (Christ, I should say so. Imagine how terrible it would have been to be a WWI soldier? Worse, imagine getting gangrene? How about in your eye? And you're stuck way out in some trench in some foreign battlefield, and no one has any idea how to treat ocular gangrene, so you are stuck sitting there, holding your gun, waiting for your rotting eye to just, I don't know, fall out? Mmm, wait a second. That's not a nice thing to imagine. Besides, I don't really know anything about how gangrene works and I'm certainly not in the mood to look it up! What do I look like, a smart person or something?!)
"Dudes, living in this trench sucks. We've got to get out of here before someone gets gangrene in their eyes."
I am reposting this, yes. Bear with me. RRRAAWWWRR!
Hi, folks! So, the big news is we're just days away from our exciting NJ trip! I can't wait, especially since this is a very special trip-- and not like in a Very Special Episode of Blossom kinda way, either. It's the first time I'm bringing Greg there to finally see where I came from; it's my first trip back in almost 4 years; and I will meet a bunch of blogger chicks in person!! That's just going to be so cool. Some might scoff at the concept of "blog friends" but they're just jealous. We know we have a pretty sweet network going on here. Besides, it's just too damn hard to make good girlfriends in the first place, the older you get. If mine come from the blogs, so be it. Amen.
Want to hear about the weather? Hell, who wouldn't!
It's officially the monsoon season here. It's really...warm outside. I refuse to say the "H" word because it's just ALL a person hears around here this time of year. "OHHH, it's soooo H*#!" everyone whines as they either head outside of an air conditioned building or when they are coming in from the heat outdoors. At a certain point, you have to say, "Really? Wow, I never would have expected it to be H in Arizona in the summer! OMG!" If you insist on stating the obvious, then I shall insist on throwing mud in yer eye.
That phrase, "here's mud in your eye," makes me smile. I like the idea of someone running up to another person and flicking a spoonful of mud into their eyeballs. Because yes, in my mind, it's a spoonful. And for some reason, the person flicking the mud-spoon looks a lot like me, but in old-timey clothes (like Tom Sawyer-times), and the person with the flung mud in their eyes looks a lot like Orville Redenbacher. I have no idea why. Maybe because I never liked the looks of that guy. Sure, I liked his delicious popcorn, but I won't trust a guy with a corn fetish and suspenders. So don't try to make me.
Orville Redenfreaker sure loved to "pop" some "kernels" every chance he got.By the way, here's what I came up with when I tried to find out the origin of "here's mud in your eye":
_It's a horseracing phrase: The winning horse would kick up mud at the also-rans. (OK, I don't mind thinking of horses kicking mud around, but I'd prefer the mud hit the jockeys in the face instead of the other poor horses. PS: I am also kind of creeped out by jockeys. They're just too small to be "right," and I hate when they stand really, really still for days and days outside of someone's house, holding a lantern...)
"At my signal, UNLEASH HELL!!!"
_It's a Biblical phrase: In the Gospel of John, Jesus cures a blind man by rubbing a bit of mud on his eyes. (Now I don't know 'bout you, but the Jesus I IMAGINE wouldn't play a mean trick like that on some poor, blind dude. And I don't care if it is in the Bible, I think the Son of God would just use good ol' fashioned GodMagic and not waste time smearing wet dirt on the faces of the unfortunates.)
"OWWW! What the hell are you doing?! I asked you to heal me, not make me even MORE blind!"_It's a World War I phrase: Soldiers spent a lot of time hunkered down in muddy trenches. The horrors of that war were many: Machine guns, grenades, gangrene, mustard gas. If all that happened to you was a little mud in your eye, you were lucky. (Christ, I should say so. Imagine how terrible it would have been to be a WWI soldier? Worse, imagine getting gangrene? How about in your eye? And you're stuck way out in some trench in some foreign battlefield, and no one has any idea how to treat ocular gangrene, so you are stuck sitting there, holding your gun, waiting for your rotting eye to just, I don't know, fall out? Mmm, wait a second. That's not a nice thing to imagine. Besides, I don't really know anything about how gangrene works and I'm certainly not in the mood to look it up! What do I look like, a smart person or something?!)
"Dudes, living in this trench sucks. We've got to get out of here before someone gets gangrene in their eyes."
Friday, June 13, 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRISH!
Today is my sister's birthday, so I wanted to publically wish her a happy birthday. Or should I say, Schoenes Geburtstag in our secret sister-language (OK, it's just German). One year she gave me a book of matches that said "Happy Birthday, You Bitch!" in big bold letters on the cover. I still have it, still love it, and still think it's fun to say that every year on her birthday. So, Happy Birthday, You Bitch! (Giggle giggle)
I'll always love my little Schwester (more of that pesky German). We've been friends since she was born, I think. I know I pushed the friendship thing pretty hard back then...I was a sad, lonely child... but maybe inside her little infant-head she was thinking, "Oh, Christ, why is that weird girl with the bowl-cut bothering me again? What a loser!" but she didn't lack the language skills to tell me. Well, if that was true, I guess my persistence paid off because we became friends by the time she was about a year old. Good for me, otherwise I'd be totally sociopathic by now, because I really had NO FRIENDS as a child until I started kindergarten. Not a lot of kids in the neighborhood, no other kids in my family--NONE. My baby book always cracks me up, because my Mom wrote things in it for several of my first years, marking down milestones, etc., and one of the things in there is a space to write in "Best Friends" and instead of the names of some other sticky-faced toddlers I played with, she wrote in "Buffy". That was the dog.
I am digressing in a big way. Must be because it's Friday and work circumstances have mushed my brain into lumpy pudding. But yes, Trish is a great sister and I am really glad that we still get excited for our weekly get-togethers where we eat some dinner, watch something like Flight of the Conchords, Mr. Wrong, Annie or Arrested Development and free-associate and laugh for hours about pretty much nothing. It's kind of cool and I feel lucky to have that. So thanks, Trish, for being fun, giving me craft advice and ideas, being "right there" with the perfect movie or TV quote at any given moment, and mostly for the friendship. I came for the friendship and I'm stayin' for the cupcakes! There WILL be cupcakes, right? Because I mean, I love cupcakes.
Enjoy your day! We all raise a glass to you!
(OK, so this is a photo of a past drink-raising, but it illustrates my point so here it is. Actually, I stole this photo from your Flickr page. So, I guess, thanks for that.)
Today is my sister's birthday, so I wanted to publically wish her a happy birthday. Or should I say, Schoenes Geburtstag in our secret sister-language (OK, it's just German). One year she gave me a book of matches that said "Happy Birthday, You Bitch!" in big bold letters on the cover. I still have it, still love it, and still think it's fun to say that every year on her birthday. So, Happy Birthday, You Bitch! (Giggle giggle)
I'll always love my little Schwester (more of that pesky German). We've been friends since she was born, I think. I know I pushed the friendship thing pretty hard back then...I was a sad, lonely child... but maybe inside her little infant-head she was thinking, "Oh, Christ, why is that weird girl with the bowl-cut bothering me again? What a loser!" but she didn't lack the language skills to tell me. Well, if that was true, I guess my persistence paid off because we became friends by the time she was about a year old. Good for me, otherwise I'd be totally sociopathic by now, because I really had NO FRIENDS as a child until I started kindergarten. Not a lot of kids in the neighborhood, no other kids in my family--NONE. My baby book always cracks me up, because my Mom wrote things in it for several of my first years, marking down milestones, etc., and one of the things in there is a space to write in "Best Friends" and instead of the names of some other sticky-faced toddlers I played with, she wrote in "Buffy". That was the dog.
I am digressing in a big way. Must be because it's Friday and work circumstances have mushed my brain into lumpy pudding. But yes, Trish is a great sister and I am really glad that we still get excited for our weekly get-togethers where we eat some dinner, watch something like Flight of the Conchords, Mr. Wrong, Annie or Arrested Development and free-associate and laugh for hours about pretty much nothing. It's kind of cool and I feel lucky to have that. So thanks, Trish, for being fun, giving me craft advice and ideas, being "right there" with the perfect movie or TV quote at any given moment, and mostly for the friendship. I came for the friendship and I'm stayin' for the cupcakes! There WILL be cupcakes, right? Because I mean, I love cupcakes.
Enjoy your day! We all raise a glass to you!
(OK, so this is a photo of a past drink-raising, but it illustrates my point so here it is. Actually, I stole this photo from your Flickr page. So, I guess, thanks for that.)
Thursday, June 12, 2008
NOT QUITE DONE 
Hey, so check out this unicorn deer! It's some lucky deer in Italy whose genes went batshit crazy and made a horn grow out of the top of its deery head. I love it! Here's the official AP caption:
This undated photo provided by the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, Italy, Wednesday, June 11, 2008, shows a deer with a single horn in the center of its head. The one-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed 'Unicorn'' - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences, said. He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.
I haven't been very communicative these days, and I'm hoping that's going to pass with the writing of this blog. That's putting a lot of pressure on this blog, I know. So I better make it count. I have a Report coming up soon and everything.
So the other day I wanted to make some brownies. I had a walnut brownie mix in the cabinet, and thought I'd just go ahead and bake some brownies before G came home from work. In my mind, we would enjoy delicious brownies after dinner and all would be well. But of course, things didn't go as planned.
I think I made two mistakes, the primary mistake being I baked them in a long Pyrex dish. The second mistake may have been putting a pan of water in the bottom of the oven, a trick G taught me to keep baked goods from drying out. It would have been fine if I'd done the baking in a dark metal pan or something, but I think the combination of clear glass dish and the water just didn't work out so well.
Because the box said "bake 21-24 minutes." But at 21-24 minutes, the toothpick was coming out covered in batter. At 30 minutes, same thing. Finally, at 42 minutes, the toothpick was still coming out with batter on it, but by that time I'd read a sentence on the box that worried me: "Do not overbake." Surely, at 42 minutes, my brownies were overbaking! Since I don't normally bake brownies, I rationalized for some insane reason that it was actually OK for some batter to be on the toothpick when you make them-- they are thicker and you want them to be moist, right? So Genius Me took them out of the oven and cooled them off. Covered it with plastic wrap, put them in the fridge for later. Figured it was gonna be OK.
Of course not. The whole middle of the brownies were raw.
That didn't stop us from salvaging what we could of the mess, since the sides were baked. Right now there is a horseshoe-shaped brownie in our refrigerator, the middle cut out and thrown far away. I did wonder (out loud) if we could maybe take that ball of mostly-raw batter and throw it back in the oven to make a nice little Brownie Ball or something...but G wisely nixed that idea.
I love brownies, cookies, cakes, all of that. Yet why am I cursed when it comes time to create some it on my own? Not fair!!
Hey, so check out this unicorn deer! It's some lucky deer in Italy whose genes went batshit crazy and made a horn grow out of the top of its deery head. I love it! Here's the official AP caption:
This undated photo provided by the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, Italy, Wednesday, June 11, 2008, shows a deer with a single horn in the center of its head. The one-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed 'Unicorn'' - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences, said. He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.
I haven't been very communicative these days, and I'm hoping that's going to pass with the writing of this blog. That's putting a lot of pressure on this blog, I know. So I better make it count. I have a Report coming up soon and everything.
So the other day I wanted to make some brownies. I had a walnut brownie mix in the cabinet, and thought I'd just go ahead and bake some brownies before G came home from work. In my mind, we would enjoy delicious brownies after dinner and all would be well. But of course, things didn't go as planned.
I think I made two mistakes, the primary mistake being I baked them in a long Pyrex dish. The second mistake may have been putting a pan of water in the bottom of the oven, a trick G taught me to keep baked goods from drying out. It would have been fine if I'd done the baking in a dark metal pan or something, but I think the combination of clear glass dish and the water just didn't work out so well.
Because the box said "bake 21-24 minutes." But at 21-24 minutes, the toothpick was coming out covered in batter. At 30 minutes, same thing. Finally, at 42 minutes, the toothpick was still coming out with batter on it, but by that time I'd read a sentence on the box that worried me: "Do not overbake." Surely, at 42 minutes, my brownies were overbaking! Since I don't normally bake brownies, I rationalized for some insane reason that it was actually OK for some batter to be on the toothpick when you make them-- they are thicker and you want them to be moist, right? So Genius Me took them out of the oven and cooled them off. Covered it with plastic wrap, put them in the fridge for later. Figured it was gonna be OK.
Of course not. The whole middle of the brownies were raw.
That didn't stop us from salvaging what we could of the mess, since the sides were baked. Right now there is a horseshoe-shaped brownie in our refrigerator, the middle cut out and thrown far away. I did wonder (out loud) if we could maybe take that ball of mostly-raw batter and throw it back in the oven to make a nice little Brownie Ball or something...but G wisely nixed that idea.
I love brownies, cookies, cakes, all of that. Yet why am I cursed when it comes time to create some it on my own? Not fair!!
Friday, June 06, 2008
STATIC
There isn't much to write about lately for some reason. I haven't even been working on my book this week, other than starting the eighth chapter about 4 days ago. I've had a ton of work to do and it's cut into fun times. Oh well. Plus, I am having memory problems, apparently, because I know things occurred this week (like my birthday, yeah) but I'm coming up blank when it comes to what I could write about. Hopefully this big huge BLAHHHH feeling will go away and I can get back to having at least one creative thought a week again, soon.
Maybe next week I'll be back to blogging. Have a good weekend though, in the meantime!
There isn't much to write about lately for some reason. I haven't even been working on my book this week, other than starting the eighth chapter about 4 days ago. I've had a ton of work to do and it's cut into fun times. Oh well. Plus, I am having memory problems, apparently, because I know things occurred this week (like my birthday, yeah) but I'm coming up blank when it comes to what I could write about. Hopefully this big huge BLAHHHH feeling will go away and I can get back to having at least one creative thought a week again, soon.
Maybe next week I'll be back to blogging. Have a good weekend though, in the meantime!
Monday, June 02, 2008
IT'S GETTING HOT ALL UP IN THIS BITCH
Well, it's true: the heat is ON. On the streets. You know this whole city's got Glenn Frey stank all over it.
Today, I went on what may be my last hike for awhile. The 100+ degree temperatures just don't add to the desert hiking experience. Not at all. You'd think that a person could last for days out in that crap, but no. My face stayed beet red long after I got home and took a cool shower and everything. And it wasn't sunburn this time. It was HOTNESS. It was bad.
I'm sad about this forced hiatus from hiking. I've grown to love it, and crave it, over the past few months or so. Now I'll have to go to the gym. Yuck. It's not the same. I'll do it, but it's stuffy and ugly in there. I hate that all the equipment faces a bank of TVs and it's hard to not look up and see some stupid show like The Farmer Wants a Wife or The Hills. One thing I appreciate about hiking in our city's mountain parks is the lack of these shows in my peripheral vision. Also it doesn't smell like old sweat and feet. And I don't have to spray down the rocks after I touch them with disinfectant spray. At least it has air conditioning, though, and I won't end up with an exploded heart from pushing myself in the retarded summer heat.
At least we have a pool, even though I'm not real anxious to go in it this year. I've got my reasons. Maybe I think there's a water-devil in there, or maybe I just don't feel like swimming. I'm not saying. Either way, though, others are welcome to go in and splash around if they so choose. Just no hobos or transients, because they'd leave a film on the surface and we can't have that. We pay a lot to maintain our pool; we don't need hobos mucking the whole thing up. Anyway, I digress. I tend to do that when it comes to the grim spectre of hobos lurking in our pool. Here's a cute shot of chubby baby legs to illustrate my point about who IS allowed in our pool. (This is Dean, the baby who came to our house on Memorial Day. He came with his parents, by the way. He didn't just drive up in a baby Camaro and barge right in or something.)
My sister got a kitten this past week. In case you haven't been to her blog yet and read all about it, you should. This kitten is kind of awesome. It's funny because the last time any of us saw a kitten this awesome 'round these parts, it was when Fizz was a baby. Now Trish has two very sweet cats. Things are as they should be. The universe breathed a big sigh of relief when Bella came home to her soul-brother Fizzgig.
We also got a new washing machine. It's a fancy high-efficiency front-loading deal. I am going to run the first load as soon as I publish this post. I'm really excited to sit in the laundry room and watch our laundry tumble around through the little porthole. I think I'll bring our radio in there and play my old cassette of The Smiths songs as I watch the wash. Why that tape? I have no idea. It's not like The Smiths have a song about laundry. Or do they? I don't know. All I know is what my great friend Karen gave me on that tape back in 1991. Speaking of Karen, this past week she became a full-fledged Registered Nurse! Here she is:
It's hard to believe that a girl I used to get in trouble with in the back of English because we were sticking scotch tape to our faces and making fun of the stupid short stories we had to read (Truman Capote? Come on) is now allowed to poke people with sharp objects whenever she wants. I'm really proud of her because that is a dream we all have and yet so few of us ever legally accomplish it. Yay, Karen! I'll play "Frankly Mr. Shankly" tonight in YOUR honor, my good woman!
I wish I could calm down but I can't. Greg just brought me a surprise chocolate milkshake from Sonic and wow, it was delicious AND satisfying. I can hear "Futurama" playing in the next room, which also makes me happy, and I'm about to embark on LAUNDRYAGANZA 2008 in a few minutes! Life is, as the Germans say, Gut.
My final thought: I hope I don't wind up with diarrhea anytime soon.
Same goes for you, too! NO DIARRHEA FOR US!
Good night, now.
Well, it's true: the heat is ON. On the streets. You know this whole city's got Glenn Frey stank all over it.
Today, I went on what may be my last hike for awhile. The 100+ degree temperatures just don't add to the desert hiking experience. Not at all. You'd think that a person could last for days out in that crap, but no. My face stayed beet red long after I got home and took a cool shower and everything. And it wasn't sunburn this time. It was HOTNESS. It was bad.
I'm sad about this forced hiatus from hiking. I've grown to love it, and crave it, over the past few months or so. Now I'll have to go to the gym. Yuck. It's not the same. I'll do it, but it's stuffy and ugly in there. I hate that all the equipment faces a bank of TVs and it's hard to not look up and see some stupid show like The Farmer Wants a Wife or The Hills. One thing I appreciate about hiking in our city's mountain parks is the lack of these shows in my peripheral vision. Also it doesn't smell like old sweat and feet. And I don't have to spray down the rocks after I touch them with disinfectant spray. At least it has air conditioning, though, and I won't end up with an exploded heart from pushing myself in the retarded summer heat.
At least we have a pool, even though I'm not real anxious to go in it this year. I've got my reasons. Maybe I think there's a water-devil in there, or maybe I just don't feel like swimming. I'm not saying. Either way, though, others are welcome to go in and splash around if they so choose. Just no hobos or transients, because they'd leave a film on the surface and we can't have that. We pay a lot to maintain our pool; we don't need hobos mucking the whole thing up. Anyway, I digress. I tend to do that when it comes to the grim spectre of hobos lurking in our pool. Here's a cute shot of chubby baby legs to illustrate my point about who IS allowed in our pool. (This is Dean, the baby who came to our house on Memorial Day. He came with his parents, by the way. He didn't just drive up in a baby Camaro and barge right in or something.)
My sister got a kitten this past week. In case you haven't been to her blog yet and read all about it, you should. This kitten is kind of awesome. It's funny because the last time any of us saw a kitten this awesome 'round these parts, it was when Fizz was a baby. Now Trish has two very sweet cats. Things are as they should be. The universe breathed a big sigh of relief when Bella came home to her soul-brother Fizzgig.
We also got a new washing machine. It's a fancy high-efficiency front-loading deal. I am going to run the first load as soon as I publish this post. I'm really excited to sit in the laundry room and watch our laundry tumble around through the little porthole. I think I'll bring our radio in there and play my old cassette of The Smiths songs as I watch the wash. Why that tape? I have no idea. It's not like The Smiths have a song about laundry. Or do they? I don't know. All I know is what my great friend Karen gave me on that tape back in 1991. Speaking of Karen, this past week she became a full-fledged Registered Nurse! Here she is:
It's hard to believe that a girl I used to get in trouble with in the back of English because we were sticking scotch tape to our faces and making fun of the stupid short stories we had to read (Truman Capote? Come on) is now allowed to poke people with sharp objects whenever she wants. I'm really proud of her because that is a dream we all have and yet so few of us ever legally accomplish it. Yay, Karen! I'll play "Frankly Mr. Shankly" tonight in YOUR honor, my good woman!
I wish I could calm down but I can't. Greg just brought me a surprise chocolate milkshake from Sonic and wow, it was delicious AND satisfying. I can hear "Futurama" playing in the next room, which also makes me happy, and I'm about to embark on LAUNDRYAGANZA 2008 in a few minutes! Life is, as the Germans say, Gut.
My final thought: I hope I don't wind up with diarrhea anytime soon.
Same goes for you, too! NO DIARRHEA FOR US!
Good night, now.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
A POOR SECOND TO BELGIUM
Here is today's relentless earworm. This song is stuck in my head soooo badly because my copy editor added the word "Finland" to a mention of Helsinki in an article. I want you--yes, YOU!-- to enjoy it, too!
Now I want to go listen to all the old Monty Python songs. See you later.
Here is today's relentless earworm. This song is stuck in my head soooo badly because my copy editor added the word "Finland" to a mention of Helsinki in an article. I want you--yes, YOU!-- to enjoy it, too!
Now I want to go listen to all the old Monty Python songs. See you later.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
GOOD, BAD & UGLY
A nice long weekend. Ahh. Here's how it went:
The GOOD:
* Finished reading "The Host." Loved it.
* Had lunch with my Mom on Saturday, followed by a hike on Piestewa Peak under overcast skies. (It was a great hike even though it was interrupted by reports of "a rattlesnake holding its ground" not far ahead of me on the trail; after standing there for a few minutes trying to decide if I was brave or not, I decided I wasn't, and headed back the way I came.)
* Enjoyed a nice BBQ with our friends Laura and David, and got to spend quality time with their almost-1-year-old, Dean.
* The weather held up nicely and it wasn't too hot.
The BAD:
* First and foremost: Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. I was NOT amused by the mess they made of this movie. I went into it knowing it had received mixed reviews, so I admit I wasn't expecting to be blown away. But I didn't know I'd feel so bummed out when I left the theater! Indiana Jones himself seemed like he wasn't the same guy from the earlier movies; not as fun, not as interesting. Shia LeBeouf didn't work as his son...and his character was completely one-dimensional and I didn't feel like we got to know who he was at all. (Not to mention at one point he apparently communicates with monkeys and proceeds to swing through the jungle on vines-- completely and utterly ridiculous. The old IJ movies never would have done something THAT implausible and cartoonish.) Cate Blanchett's character wasn't an effective villain, plus she seemed like she was CGI herself she was that unbelievable... there were plot holes and inconsistencies all over the place, and not for a SECOND did I feel tense or think that the heroes weren't going to get out of whatever crazy situation they were in. Could it have been the CGI? Or poor writing? Or a deadly mixture of both? Who knows? I just want to forget about this particular IJ movie and convince myself that only 3 movies were ever made. Yuck.
* My own Indy can't control himself around babies, apparently. He kept wanting to play --roughly-- with our friends' baby. He wasn't being mean at all, just waaay too excited. He even leapt up and tried to grab the baby's foot at one point, and that was just too much for us to take. He was banished to the bedroom for the rest of their visit. Meanwhile, Hailie was a complete angel and she charmed the baby into the cutest thing: Dean held out a goldfish cracker to Hailie, who carefully took it from his tiny fingers as he smiled. So at least 1 out of 2 dogs isn't a total spazz.
The UGLY:
* On Sunday I made a terrible error regarding my skin: I thought I'd do some yardwork while wearing a sport camisole, and since I had a wicked farmer's tan going on, I slathered on the sunblock on the tanned spots, hoping to even things out while I was outside. Bad move.
First, I was outside for a longer period of time than it felt like: about two hours, that felt more like 45 minutes. The sun was at peak brightness, since it was around noon.
Second, I apparently don't know how to evenly apply sunblock, because you can see where it was applied thanks to the ragged, uneven edges to my horrific sunburn. One of the more humorous parts of the sunburn is the area around my tattoo, because I had wisely chosen to cover my tattoo with sunblock to prevent fading. The only problem is, you can see right where my fingers swiped the sunblock on, and I went way beyond the borders of the tattoo itself, even though I really thought I was careful to stay in the lines. It looks like I taped a piece of ripped paper over the tattoo.
Two days later, this burn is STILL bright red and still ultra painful. It's one of the worst burns I've ever had. Usually I get a mild burn that fades to a tan over the next day. Not this time. I woke up today hoping it would be faded somewhat and it's just as red as ever. This sucks. I wish I'd covered everything up.
* I forgot to do a couple of things I was supposed to do this week/weekend. So now I have to run around today and try to get them done. But I've got a ton of work to do; yet here I sit blogging because I can't seem to stay focused. Plus I have yet to hear back on some test results I am anxious to receive. So anyway, this ugliness today had better fade away as the day goes on...otherwise my bitchy side is sure to force even more ugliness onto the world and no one needs that!
A nice long weekend. Ahh. Here's how it went:
The GOOD:
* Finished reading "The Host." Loved it.
* Had lunch with my Mom on Saturday, followed by a hike on Piestewa Peak under overcast skies. (It was a great hike even though it was interrupted by reports of "a rattlesnake holding its ground" not far ahead of me on the trail; after standing there for a few minutes trying to decide if I was brave or not, I decided I wasn't, and headed back the way I came.)
* Enjoyed a nice BBQ with our friends Laura and David, and got to spend quality time with their almost-1-year-old, Dean.
* The weather held up nicely and it wasn't too hot.
The BAD:
* First and foremost: Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. I was NOT amused by the mess they made of this movie. I went into it knowing it had received mixed reviews, so I admit I wasn't expecting to be blown away. But I didn't know I'd feel so bummed out when I left the theater! Indiana Jones himself seemed like he wasn't the same guy from the earlier movies; not as fun, not as interesting. Shia LeBeouf didn't work as his son...and his character was completely one-dimensional and I didn't feel like we got to know who he was at all. (Not to mention at one point he apparently communicates with monkeys and proceeds to swing through the jungle on vines-- completely and utterly ridiculous. The old IJ movies never would have done something THAT implausible and cartoonish.) Cate Blanchett's character wasn't an effective villain, plus she seemed like she was CGI herself she was that unbelievable... there were plot holes and inconsistencies all over the place, and not for a SECOND did I feel tense or think that the heroes weren't going to get out of whatever crazy situation they were in. Could it have been the CGI? Or poor writing? Or a deadly mixture of both? Who knows? I just want to forget about this particular IJ movie and convince myself that only 3 movies were ever made. Yuck.
* My own Indy can't control himself around babies, apparently. He kept wanting to play --roughly-- with our friends' baby. He wasn't being mean at all, just waaay too excited. He even leapt up and tried to grab the baby's foot at one point, and that was just too much for us to take. He was banished to the bedroom for the rest of their visit. Meanwhile, Hailie was a complete angel and she charmed the baby into the cutest thing: Dean held out a goldfish cracker to Hailie, who carefully took it from his tiny fingers as he smiled. So at least 1 out of 2 dogs isn't a total spazz.
The UGLY:
* On Sunday I made a terrible error regarding my skin: I thought I'd do some yardwork while wearing a sport camisole, and since I had a wicked farmer's tan going on, I slathered on the sunblock on the tanned spots, hoping to even things out while I was outside. Bad move.
First, I was outside for a longer period of time than it felt like: about two hours, that felt more like 45 minutes. The sun was at peak brightness, since it was around noon.
Second, I apparently don't know how to evenly apply sunblock, because you can see where it was applied thanks to the ragged, uneven edges to my horrific sunburn. One of the more humorous parts of the sunburn is the area around my tattoo, because I had wisely chosen to cover my tattoo with sunblock to prevent fading. The only problem is, you can see right where my fingers swiped the sunblock on, and I went way beyond the borders of the tattoo itself, even though I really thought I was careful to stay in the lines. It looks like I taped a piece of ripped paper over the tattoo.
Two days later, this burn is STILL bright red and still ultra painful. It's one of the worst burns I've ever had. Usually I get a mild burn that fades to a tan over the next day. Not this time. I woke up today hoping it would be faded somewhat and it's just as red as ever. This sucks. I wish I'd covered everything up.
* I forgot to do a couple of things I was supposed to do this week/weekend. So now I have to run around today and try to get them done. But I've got a ton of work to do; yet here I sit blogging because I can't seem to stay focused. Plus I have yet to hear back on some test results I am anxious to receive. So anyway, this ugliness today had better fade away as the day goes on...otherwise my bitchy side is sure to force even more ugliness onto the world and no one needs that!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
MIDDLE MANAGEMENT
RANT ON!
I'm annoyed today because people at my husband's place of employment are screwing around with him. It's a long story, but the point is that stupid middle management is trying to make a completely ass-backwards change just for the sake of making a change, and it's going to affect my husband negatively. The best part is they are trying to sell it to him by saying things to the point of "it will be good for him to learn new applications" and stuff like that. G's been in that department for 8 years and this new manager? Only one year. And he's made buckets of asinine decisions already because it's clear he doesn't understand how things work. So now this guy is proposing taking his best guy (G) off this team and throwing him on another. Without really giving G any input as to if he even wants to do this or not.
I will never understand how certain people get to become managers. I know some people only get the job because they have, say, a Masters degree; whereas someone with years of relevant experience with only a BA would get passed over for the same job. It doesn't matter that the Masters is about 30 years old, or that the skills aren't there to do the job properly... nope, there are minimum qualifications and damned if upper management isn't going to remember that first and foremost.
Or people are brought in from outside when perfectly capable people are sitting right there in the building already, just ripe for promotions. Or you get the passive aggressive managers, or the egotistical jerks only looking out for themselves even though they are responsible for managing a group of people, or the just plain stupid managers. That just don't know seem to have a clue about what they are supposed to be doing, and regularly go to their employees for help and 'ghostwork.' Man, the list goes on and on. And everyone knows a middle manager like this, EVERYONE has had to deal with some idiot at some point in their working career.
So why is it so widespread a problem? If we all know it's there, why does it keep on freakin' happening? Can't the pattern be broken? Can't managers be trained to improve? Shouldn't there be consequences for not doing their jobs or making poor decisions? I think so. I have to admit that I work in a place that does seem to try to keep a checks-and-balance atmosphere, but this company is not the norm. I guess I'm just really aware of the sins of the past places I've worked, and the places my loved ones STILL slave away at, now that I'm somewhere that does it correctly, 95% of the time. And having to watch this crap happen, knowing that people I care about are routinely getting the shaft, well...it makes me so angry I could spit. Hell. I WILL spit. Pptt. There!
Sometimes I want to go to my husband's place of work and just FIGHT his stupid manager. Like with fists. Just because someone needs to do it. And I'm just the person annoyed enough to go for it. For that matter, I wouldn't mind pulling my mom's boss aside either and giving her a piece of my mind. ("You don't take advantage of my mother that way! What the hell is the matter with you?")
If I'm ever a Mom, I wonder if I'll be one of those psycho mothers who flips out on the parents of other kids who wrong my kid somehow. Or if I'll fight with coaches or do other asshole crap like that. It's just that my temper can flare when the people I love are involved. I don't even like people LOOKING at my family the wrong way. The primal urge to attack, maim and maybe kill just comes on. I'm mostly calm and non-confrontational in real life, but inside I am screaming I WILL END YOU, YOU STUPID FUCK. And one day...I worry that I really will. Especially if I have a kid.
Oh, joy! A whole post about ANGER!! How delightful. I'm sure anyone reading this has loved it. I hope you have enjoyed this light-hearted yarn and will come back for more in the future. Next time I am going to write about elder abuse. Get ready for the feel-good post of the year!
RANT ON!
I'm annoyed today because people at my husband's place of employment are screwing around with him. It's a long story, but the point is that stupid middle management is trying to make a completely ass-backwards change just for the sake of making a change, and it's going to affect my husband negatively. The best part is they are trying to sell it to him by saying things to the point of "it will be good for him to learn new applications" and stuff like that. G's been in that department for 8 years and this new manager? Only one year. And he's made buckets of asinine decisions already because it's clear he doesn't understand how things work. So now this guy is proposing taking his best guy (G) off this team and throwing him on another. Without really giving G any input as to if he even wants to do this or not.
I will never understand how certain people get to become managers. I know some people only get the job because they have, say, a Masters degree; whereas someone with years of relevant experience with only a BA would get passed over for the same job. It doesn't matter that the Masters is about 30 years old, or that the skills aren't there to do the job properly... nope, there are minimum qualifications and damned if upper management isn't going to remember that first and foremost.
Or people are brought in from outside when perfectly capable people are sitting right there in the building already, just ripe for promotions. Or you get the passive aggressive managers, or the egotistical jerks only looking out for themselves even though they are responsible for managing a group of people, or the just plain stupid managers. That just don't know seem to have a clue about what they are supposed to be doing, and regularly go to their employees for help and 'ghostwork.' Man, the list goes on and on. And everyone knows a middle manager like this, EVERYONE has had to deal with some idiot at some point in their working career.
So why is it so widespread a problem? If we all know it's there, why does it keep on freakin' happening? Can't the pattern be broken? Can't managers be trained to improve? Shouldn't there be consequences for not doing their jobs or making poor decisions? I think so. I have to admit that I work in a place that does seem to try to keep a checks-and-balance atmosphere, but this company is not the norm. I guess I'm just really aware of the sins of the past places I've worked, and the places my loved ones STILL slave away at, now that I'm somewhere that does it correctly, 95% of the time. And having to watch this crap happen, knowing that people I care about are routinely getting the shaft, well...it makes me so angry I could spit. Hell. I WILL spit. Pptt. There!
Sometimes I want to go to my husband's place of work and just FIGHT his stupid manager. Like with fists. Just because someone needs to do it. And I'm just the person annoyed enough to go for it. For that matter, I wouldn't mind pulling my mom's boss aside either and giving her a piece of my mind. ("You don't take advantage of my mother that way! What the hell is the matter with you?")
If I'm ever a Mom, I wonder if I'll be one of those psycho mothers who flips out on the parents of other kids who wrong my kid somehow. Or if I'll fight with coaches or do other asshole crap like that. It's just that my temper can flare when the people I love are involved. I don't even like people LOOKING at my family the wrong way. The primal urge to attack, maim and maybe kill just comes on. I'm mostly calm and non-confrontational in real life, but inside I am screaming I WILL END YOU, YOU STUPID FUCK. And one day...I worry that I really will. Especially if I have a kid.
Oh, joy! A whole post about ANGER!! How delightful. I'm sure anyone reading this has loved it. I hope you have enjoyed this light-hearted yarn and will come back for more in the future. Next time I am going to write about elder abuse. Get ready for the feel-good post of the year!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
SPINNING INWARD
I've had so much on my mind lately I'm wondering if the very force of my thinking is what is making me feel so physically exhausted these days. When I got home from the gym yesterday I made myself busy just so I wouldn't just lie down and sleep for a couple of hours (and then ruin my regular night's sleep). It could also be the heat; yesterday it broke a record by hitting 108. Whatever it is, I just know I'm not playing my best game right now.
I won't get into it, because seriously, no one wants to hear it and I don't want to share it. It's not like life is shitty right now, or anything terrible is going down; it's just that I'm spending lots of time in my own head and whether or not that's a good thing remains to be seen. Maybe I'll come out of it having figured some stuff out. Or I'll just continue to be the boring girl who just wants to sit quietly and read by herself.
Since I said that things aren't all so bad, here are some things that have made me happy in the past few days or so:
* Dogsitting Clara, our friend's dog, and having her follow our dogs' lead and sitting before going out or eating--and seeing her tail thump happily when I praised her for it
* Watching a matinee of Baby Mama on a hot day, after we'd spent the previous one working hard on our pergola to add a sunscreen-- it felt so nice to just sit in the cool darkness and laugh
* The way the pergola came out, because it looks so nice now
* Having some of the wildflowers bloom in my makeshift garden, and finding out Greg pulled some weeds out of there for me, which was really nice of him
* Getting a lot of articles recruited, edited and out for review
* Writing and re-writing Chapter 6 of my book-- this is good, of course, since it means I'm not giving up, but I do worry I am telling the story wrong and everything's going to wind up sucking-- but nope, this is a happy list, must stick with the I'm WRITING and THAT'S GOOD thing
* I painted my fingernails
* The fact that they brought Adam Carolla back to Phoenix radio a week or so ago, and how fun it is to listen to the show again!
* Listening to the dogs playing so loudly that I have to tell them to leave the room so I can concentrate
* Air conditioning and ice-cold water. And shade.
* The pesto Greg made last week is still super delicious
* Maybe braiding my hair is going to be my look for the summer
* The slightly lower number on the scale the other day
* The fact that my best friend is getting a dog today...a Chinese Crested puppy named Caesar! I can't wait to meet him in June when I go back to visit!
* Thoughts of the BlogBQ :)
* Reading The Host and not being able to put it down. Stephenie Meyer's writing makes me so happy and inspired! When I read her books (which are all incredible), all I want to do is go write my own and do my best to be even half as good as her
* Being super excited about the Twilight movie in December. Yeah, aren't we all?
* The little old man I saw helping his wife get out of the car today at Walgreens. He took her arm and before they walked across the parking lot, he kissed the top of her head. I smiled about it for a long time as I drove home. And smiling's the BEST.
I need some visuals now.
So here's the first (blurry) photo of my new nephew, Caesar:
The book I'm in the middle of:
My Dad and Trish, when they assaulted a metal bull a few years ago:
.JPG)
My sweet, unique little angel:
I've had so much on my mind lately I'm wondering if the very force of my thinking is what is making me feel so physically exhausted these days. When I got home from the gym yesterday I made myself busy just so I wouldn't just lie down and sleep for a couple of hours (and then ruin my regular night's sleep). It could also be the heat; yesterday it broke a record by hitting 108. Whatever it is, I just know I'm not playing my best game right now.
I won't get into it, because seriously, no one wants to hear it and I don't want to share it. It's not like life is shitty right now, or anything terrible is going down; it's just that I'm spending lots of time in my own head and whether or not that's a good thing remains to be seen. Maybe I'll come out of it having figured some stuff out. Or I'll just continue to be the boring girl who just wants to sit quietly and read by herself.
Since I said that things aren't all so bad, here are some things that have made me happy in the past few days or so:
* Dogsitting Clara, our friend's dog, and having her follow our dogs' lead and sitting before going out or eating--and seeing her tail thump happily when I praised her for it
* Watching a matinee of Baby Mama on a hot day, after we'd spent the previous one working hard on our pergola to add a sunscreen-- it felt so nice to just sit in the cool darkness and laugh
* The way the pergola came out, because it looks so nice now
* Having some of the wildflowers bloom in my makeshift garden, and finding out Greg pulled some weeds out of there for me, which was really nice of him
* Getting a lot of articles recruited, edited and out for review
* Writing and re-writing Chapter 6 of my book-- this is good, of course, since it means I'm not giving up, but I do worry I am telling the story wrong and everything's going to wind up sucking-- but nope, this is a happy list, must stick with the I'm WRITING and THAT'S GOOD thing
* I painted my fingernails
* The fact that they brought Adam Carolla back to Phoenix radio a week or so ago, and how fun it is to listen to the show again!
* Listening to the dogs playing so loudly that I have to tell them to leave the room so I can concentrate
* Air conditioning and ice-cold water. And shade.
* The pesto Greg made last week is still super delicious
* Maybe braiding my hair is going to be my look for the summer
* The slightly lower number on the scale the other day
* The fact that my best friend is getting a dog today...a Chinese Crested puppy named Caesar! I can't wait to meet him in June when I go back to visit!
* Thoughts of the BlogBQ :)
* Reading The Host and not being able to put it down. Stephenie Meyer's writing makes me so happy and inspired! When I read her books (which are all incredible), all I want to do is go write my own and do my best to be even half as good as her
* Being super excited about the Twilight movie in December. Yeah, aren't we all?
* The little old man I saw helping his wife get out of the car today at Walgreens. He took her arm and before they walked across the parking lot, he kissed the top of her head. I smiled about it for a long time as I drove home. And smiling's the BEST.
I need some visuals now.
So here's the first (blurry) photo of my new nephew, Caesar:
The book I'm in the middle of:
My Dad and Trish, when they assaulted a metal bull a few years ago:
.JPG)
My sweet, unique little angel:
Friday, May 16, 2008
HOW TO TELL IF THE ADULTS HATE YOU
I've had it with crappy toys. It seems like everyone's got a crappy toy story to tell. Someone once told me about the doll with no eyes her mom bought her at a yard sale. After I stopped laughing at her, I realized how traumatic getting a fabric doll with the button eyes torn off could be for an impressionable little tot. And then I felt sorry for the girl. Too little, too late...she jumped off the bridge anyway. Oh well.
No, that girl is probably still quite alive, for the record. I remember seeing her graduate from college the same day I did, so she at least made it that far. (Way to go, Rachel! That eyeless doll handicap couldn't hold ya down!)
Getting back to toys that suck:
I love this topic.
I love it because it calls to mind images of parents full of vitriol for their offspring. I think of the evil-mustached parents who secretly enjoy planting that fake monster under the bed or paying their neighbor to put pantyhose on his head and "kidnap" the kid on the way home from school. You know, as a joke. What? This sort of thing is frowned upon in our society? The hell you say!
My sister and I got bad toys from my one grandmother all the time. Actually, no... we didn't get bad toys, really, she simply stocked her HOUSE with bad toys and we got to "play" with them when we visited. Here is a quick list of some of the toys at Oma's house:
* Small decorative bottles (I'd make them talk out of boredom)
* Dried pasta
* Open bag of flour in the basement
* Picture frames
* A piece of wood with a man's face carved into it...the memory of which can make my piss run cold, I tell ya
* A blanket (I could make Trish sit on it and then pull her around on the carpet. Wheee!)
I remember bringing my record player to her house once and listening to my "The Fox and the Hound" record and having her lecture me on the volume. She made me turn down The Fox and the Effin' HOUND. Who does that?! Cripes! Not cool, Oma.
That's enough about her for today, though. Today I want to talk about my INVISIBLE DOG!
Yep, I had one of those things. A lovely wire with a dog collar attached to the end. I could spend hours walking my invisible dog if it so pleased me. Oh, the frivolity inherent in the INVISIBLE DOG toy!
What a stupid thing to give a kid. Seriously. I know they were popular in the 70s and early 80s, but why? What is so stimulating to a growing child about a wire leash with no real animal attached? Is it to train kids early on ironic comedy or something? Or perhaps learn to weather the many taunts one endures over the course of a lifetime ("you're crazy," "you're a schizo freak," "how did you get out of the locked ward past Jell-O Treat Hour?")?
But I was kind of a stupid kid, so I think I liked my idiotic invisible dog. I seem to recall walking my invisible dog through the mall. PROUDLY.
I bet I tried to feed the invisible dog. And brush it. I know I would have wanted to do those things. Food was essential in all play-games. I wonder if I fixed it a nice plate of invisible bologna, or if I took actual food from our actual dog and set it in front of my invisible dog so it could have a proper dinner. And I wonder if I was surprised when the food went uneaten. Oh no! Maybe my invisible dog is SICK! Maybe the food's gone bad! What are you trying to tell me, Boy? Huh? Is the house gonna blow up? Who threw what down what well? Talk to me, Boy!
Now, I wonder how long it was before the novelty of the invisible dog wore off. I sincerely hope it didn't last for, say, longer than a week. If I had a time machine, and could go back and find out how much time passed before I hung the invisible dog up on a hook to die, I might not do it because I am a little concerned about what I might find out. I might find out I was a Grade A Retard who brought that thing to school and everything. I might have named it, bought it a little hat. Might have introduced it to everyone I met, asked everyone to pet it. And as a result, my poor, disappointed parents might have had some long, hushed talks in their room at night, trying to figure out the best possible place along the highway to abandon me so I could be raised by street people. Or squirrels. Whichever wanted me first.
The best toys for kids? That's easy: An empty box big enough to hide inside; a stick; some string.
Those three things will serve a kid well.
I accidentally typed "sever a kid well" back there. And now I forgot what the rest of my blog was supposed to be about. This is another reason why I am going to be on medication the rest of my stupid life-- I laugh for 20 minutes at a typo involving the killing of children using a box, some string and a stick.
"Pour the gin, Lydia. I'm on my way home."
I've had it with crappy toys. It seems like everyone's got a crappy toy story to tell. Someone once told me about the doll with no eyes her mom bought her at a yard sale. After I stopped laughing at her, I realized how traumatic getting a fabric doll with the button eyes torn off could be for an impressionable little tot. And then I felt sorry for the girl. Too little, too late...she jumped off the bridge anyway. Oh well.
No, that girl is probably still quite alive, for the record. I remember seeing her graduate from college the same day I did, so she at least made it that far. (Way to go, Rachel! That eyeless doll handicap couldn't hold ya down!)
Getting back to toys that suck:
I love this topic.
I love it because it calls to mind images of parents full of vitriol for their offspring. I think of the evil-mustached parents who secretly enjoy planting that fake monster under the bed or paying their neighbor to put pantyhose on his head and "kidnap" the kid on the way home from school. You know, as a joke. What? This sort of thing is frowned upon in our society? The hell you say!
My sister and I got bad toys from my one grandmother all the time. Actually, no... we didn't get bad toys, really, she simply stocked her HOUSE with bad toys and we got to "play" with them when we visited. Here is a quick list of some of the toys at Oma's house:
* Small decorative bottles (I'd make them talk out of boredom)
* Dried pasta
* Open bag of flour in the basement
* Picture frames
* A piece of wood with a man's face carved into it...the memory of which can make my piss run cold, I tell ya
* A blanket (I could make Trish sit on it and then pull her around on the carpet. Wheee!)
I remember bringing my record player to her house once and listening to my "The Fox and the Hound" record and having her lecture me on the volume. She made me turn down The Fox and the Effin' HOUND. Who does that?! Cripes! Not cool, Oma.
That's enough about her for today, though. Today I want to talk about my INVISIBLE DOG!
Yep, I had one of those things. A lovely wire with a dog collar attached to the end. I could spend hours walking my invisible dog if it so pleased me. Oh, the frivolity inherent in the INVISIBLE DOG toy!
What a stupid thing to give a kid. Seriously. I know they were popular in the 70s and early 80s, but why? What is so stimulating to a growing child about a wire leash with no real animal attached? Is it to train kids early on ironic comedy or something? Or perhaps learn to weather the many taunts one endures over the course of a lifetime ("you're crazy," "you're a schizo freak," "how did you get out of the locked ward past Jell-O Treat Hour?")?
But I was kind of a stupid kid, so I think I liked my idiotic invisible dog. I seem to recall walking my invisible dog through the mall. PROUDLY.
I bet I tried to feed the invisible dog. And brush it. I know I would have wanted to do those things. Food was essential in all play-games. I wonder if I fixed it a nice plate of invisible bologna, or if I took actual food from our actual dog and set it in front of my invisible dog so it could have a proper dinner. And I wonder if I was surprised when the food went uneaten. Oh no! Maybe my invisible dog is SICK! Maybe the food's gone bad! What are you trying to tell me, Boy? Huh? Is the house gonna blow up? Who threw what down what well? Talk to me, Boy!
Now, I wonder how long it was before the novelty of the invisible dog wore off. I sincerely hope it didn't last for, say, longer than a week. If I had a time machine, and could go back and find out how much time passed before I hung the invisible dog up on a hook to die, I might not do it because I am a little concerned about what I might find out. I might find out I was a Grade A Retard who brought that thing to school and everything. I might have named it, bought it a little hat. Might have introduced it to everyone I met, asked everyone to pet it. And as a result, my poor, disappointed parents might have had some long, hushed talks in their room at night, trying to figure out the best possible place along the highway to abandon me so I could be raised by street people. Or squirrels. Whichever wanted me first.
The best toys for kids? That's easy: An empty box big enough to hide inside; a stick; some string.
Those three things will serve a kid well.
I accidentally typed "sever a kid well" back there. And now I forgot what the rest of my blog was supposed to be about. This is another reason why I am going to be on medication the rest of my stupid life-- I laugh for 20 minutes at a typo involving the killing of children using a box, some string and a stick.
"Pour the gin, Lydia. I'm on my way home."
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