moist and creamy

Happy endings

2011-04-24T09:28:00.003-05:00

Wow, I just noticed I've been posting in a larger font. So old people can read, I guess.

So for those watching at home, the colonoscopy wasn't so bad...but the splitting headache that resulted from not eating and caffeine withdrawal for 2 days was horrible. I was pretty goddamn hungry by the end of it! But the actual...elimination process was not nearly as bad as I'd read...probably given that it was stretched out over 2 days. In any event, the actual procedure and recovery was a walk in the park and an excuse to lie there and do nothing for a little while.

---

I took Jeremy to the Friendly's the other day, kind of a date night thing. He noticed on the back of the menu that Seniors over age 60 could get a free happy ending sundae with their meal.

"Heh heh," he says.

"What?"

"It says here that old people get a happy ending sundae. Get it? Happy ending?"

I DID get it, but I wasn't sure what he was driving at. To Friendly's, it's a 2-scoop sundae. To me and the rest of the world, a happy ending is what happens at the end of a massage, for an extra fee, of course.

"Uh, what do you mean, 'happy ending'? What's so funny about that?"

"A HAPPY ENDING, Mom. Get it????"

Oh, my boy, do you already know what a happy ending is? You're 13! How could you know this?! I didn't know what this was until about a decade ago! Clearly I haven't shielded you from the seedy side of human sexuality!

"What are you talking about, Jeremy?"

"A HAPPY ENDING! Like, they're over 60. They're old. They could die after eating ice cream! So it'd be like their 'happy ending' sundae," he says, and gives me that eye roll that suggests I know absolutely nothing about anything.

So. A happy ending is like when old people die after eating ice cream. Ok then.

hope everything comes out all right

2011-03-11T21:11:00.004-05:00

I said earlier, I no longer really give a shit about turning 50, it's old news now. It's still a milestone; I know women who have thrown themselves parties, or have had parties thrown in their honor, or have thrown themselves into pools to celebrate.

I imagine other women might use the event to get their girly on: get a mani/pedi, some botox injections, a makeover, a new man, maybe some fat sucked out of their thighs.

Sadly, I'm a little too pragmatic and stingy to indulge in many of those things. So instead, this week, I did what perhaps most of us should do at this age: ordered new bifocals, and had a colonoscopy consultation.

The word "colonoscopy" can induce fits of helpless giggles in otherwise mature grownups. I mean, the idea of someone snaking a camera and a polyps-snipper through your bowels and who knows where else is truly riotous. You have to have a sense of humor about it. So I'm pretty sure when I spent the half hour or so talking to Lisa, the nurse practitioner, she had already heard a million times before all the nervous lame jokes I made, ending with a cheerful encore of "well, I hope everything comes out all right!"

Groan.

My concern is not the procedure itself, scheduled for the end of the month, but the prep. It helps to do your homework before the consultation so you can ask appropriate questions, such as "exactly how much crap can I expect to expel during the prep?" You are warned that it may be "uncomfortable." As in, for 24 hours before the procedure, don't go anywhere not within 5 feet of a toilet, and prepare for perhaps the first time in your adult life to wear a diaper to bed. And tell the kids to spend the night elsewhere, or sit them down and have a serious talk about how all those times you said you didn't fart or poop because you're a lady and ladies don't do that...you were lying.

(Of course, my boys already know I was lying, but up to now, I've worked hard to keep the illusion alive.)

After this is done, there really won't be too much left to be shy about. With my first birth, the ob/gyn made a joke about a dull knife while he's giving me an episiotomy. My tits have been squeezed, prodded and smashed through 15 years of annual mammograms and ultrasounds. And soon I will have a snake up my ass. There's not many more ways I can be physically humiliated. In a weird way, it's kind of liberating.

more kissing for dummies

2011-02-16T21:50:00.005-05:00

Generalization #4: The Pecker. This man—or woman, so I’m told—cannot commit to a real, long, open mouth, soul-stirring kiss. He pecks here and there like a chicken. Maybe he’s not emotionally invested in the other person. Maybe he thinks saliva is icky. Maybe he’s got a plane to catch. Maybe he’s new at this. If he does manage to pry his stingy lips apart and go in for an open-mouther, chances are he will keep his tongue to himself. Which is probably just as well.

Generalization #5: The St. Bernard. We all know one. It’s like kissing your dog after he’s had a long drink from his bowl. There is way too much wetness going on; a little drip out the side of your mouth, that bridge of spit connecting your tongues together when you part lips… when you’re done, your face looks like it’s been bobbing for apples. This is in contrast to Generalization #6: The Deserter, whose kiss is as arid as the Sahara. You know how your mouth gets dry after you smoke weed? That’s this guy: you feel his every taste bud for lack of lubrication, his tongue flipping around like a finger in your mouth, sweeping away seaweed before you are the unfortunate recipient of his mouth-to-mouth.

Generalization #7: The Hard Rock. If you had to kiss a cardboard cutout of a real person, this guy would be that. Every angle in his face is hard. His mouth is hard. He presses it against you at one speed and pressure: hard. His lips are like pencils. Pencils with teeth behind them, which you can also feel, because they, too, are hard. Hard, hard, hard.

No, I'm not done.

kissing for dummies

2011-02-13T20:33:00.004-05:00

In honor of the Saint of Chocolatey Goodness, I could only think about one thing to write about.

Kissing.

I hadn’t really thought much about it, because up until fairly recently, kissing was something I used to do, long ago, with a husband I no longer have, and before that, with a collection of mostly ill-suited boyfriends with wildly divergent techniques. In that pantheon of past boyfriends, one-night stands, two-night stands, and other close encounters, there are a few—just a scant few—that I would honestly rank up there as good kissers.

Great kissers are even harder to find. I have found one, and I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit, and naturally it becomes a big fucking science project for me to analyze and theorize about. He tells me kissing isn’t complicated. He is right, of course. We have an understanding, I think, that we are both doing it very, very well, to a mutual melty, trancelike satisfaction. This is some of the best kissing I have ever experienced. I had forgotten how wonderful it can be.

Here’s the thing: everybody goes about it differently, of course, and great kissing is subjective. Some folks might really enjoy someone else’s bloated, fat tongue in their mouth, grazing the uvula. That’s not for me.

Let’s start with the initial encounter. A little awkwardness can be overlooked. But ya can’t both just be standing there one minute, and then zip! the guy swoops in like some unexpected fighter jet to plant one on you. This works in the movies, but in real life, one of you will invariably be knocked off balance, there will be an uncomfortable repositioning of feet and legs as you regain your footing, your teeth will crash together, and your handbag will fall off your shoulder.

Sitting next to each other, say, at the movies, presents its own perils, as you may have to twist your back in one direction while your head tilts in another, or “kisstwisting,” which can result in serious muscle spasms and cramps later on.

I think that a finger or two along the jaw, gently turning your mouth toward his, accompanied by a deep gaze into the eyes, is a rather nice way to start. Or stroking back even a few imaginary strands of hair first. Some innocuous physical touch that indicates that the kissing is about to begin.

If you really have to passionately eat each other up immediately, you miss out on all the gentle exploration that should rightly occur before, and I will bet that that wild, frenzied kissing will not be nearly as satisfying as a slow journey to get to that point.

I think there are a few generalizations that can be made about men who do bad kissing.

Generalization #1: The Man with the Swollen Tongue. This dashing gentleman somehow is able to inflate his tongue to double its normal size. I’m not talking about length here, so much as breadth. It can fill up your mouth and make breathing difficult. He can’t even really move it around in your mouth so much as he needs a tugboat to guide it. There is no room in your mouth for BOTH your tongues, so you can only attempt to keep yours out of the way while he goes on an exploratory mission. There’s a certain panic that sets in and you feel sure you will, in fact, drown in the night air.

Generalization #2: The Darter. This gentleman consistently leads with his tongue, even before your lips have met. This is totally unacceptable, unless it’s in a porno with lesbians. Imagine: your eyes are closed and your lips are slightly parted, you’re ready for that light brush of the lips (that’s where all the good nerve endings are). Instead, here’s this tongue, flipping and darting around like a garter snake. The worst of these is the man who hasn’t grasped the concept of clockwise or even counter-clockwise, but whose tongue is instead stuck in a pattern of rapid, horizontal, back and forth.

That might work on another area of the body, but the inside of the mouth is not the place.

Generalization #3: Mr. Timid. Where an overzealous man can make you wish you had a handy can of mace, Mr. Timid just…isn’t quite sure what’s going on. His lips are flaccid and unconvincing, neither too taut nor too squishy, just…non-committal. He pokes his tongue out like he’s testing the temperature with a vague, skittish, licking motion. There is no sense of urgency or desire, no heavy breathing, no sense that he is really enjoying the experience.

There’s more, but I’ve got a tomorrow to prepare for tonight. To be continued….

lavender and sawdust

2010-12-28T20:51:00.004-05:00

It didn't take too long for me to stop giving a shit about being 50. Less than 6 months. Nobody else cares, why should I?

I only care to the degree that every day, the only thing that is guaranteed anymore is that I will get a little bit uglier. Now, before you say, "oh, stop, beauty is on the INSIDE, blah blah," that's not the point. The point is, folks DO just simply look uglier as they age. It's just a fact, and I'm ok with that. Mostly. Sometimes.

I will not be a cute little old woman with a delightful pouf of white hair and porcelain, unlined skin, smelling of lavender. No, I expect I will fall into the Bea Arthur camp of loud, lumbering old women who smell a little like sawdust and indeterminable vaginal secretions. She was nearly 50 when she starred in Maude. Lest we forget, this is what 50 used to look like:

Ok, I guess I'm not ready for camp just yet.

ham chunk

2010-12-13T17:18:00.002-05:00

Ok, ok. I'm going to give this another shot. Another kick in the ass. Goddammit. Ok, what inane thing can I blather on about?

The fact that I hate the word luncheon? How it's just a snooty word that implies it's something more special and festive than a simple "lunch"? When in fact, all it means is that somebody will probably get up and say something demoralizing or stupid followed, maybe, by tepid, bored applause?

I recently hosted such an event for my editorial board, comprising all rich old white doctors.

You can imagine the hilarity as they shared a joke about combination therapy for multiple myeloma. Ha!

..no. There were no jokes about multiple myeloma. There were no jokes at all. Just a couple of tables of rich old white doctors telling me how I could do my job better.

The good news is, I didn't embarrass myself, and I was taller than 95% of them, which kind of gave me the gravitas I needed, as a lowly English major in a room full of rich old white doctors. Being taller also placed my cleavage a little closer to eye level, which drew attention away from the fact that part of my chocolate peanut butter tart had made a home in my lap. Ah, yes, what a delicate, well-mannered flower I am.

Anyway, it went ok; nobody got hurt or offended, or choked on a ham chunk--the missing part of the definition of a successful luncheon.

start of the second half

2010-06-16T09:20:00.003-05:00

Day 1: If I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone say 50 is the new 30, I'd take all those goddamn nickels and hurl them violently at the person who coined the phrase.

Lots of folks have taken time out of their busy days to wish me a happy bday on Facebook, which is nice.

I took the day off from work, which is also nice, because work just sucks it.

I'm celebrating today by dropping my van off at the shop, so they can investigate this jerky phenomenon in what I believe is the transmission. But I know about as much about cars as I do about quantum physics, so it's probably just a dead cat stuck in the engine.

Later, the ladies and I are lunching. Somewhere. We don't know when or where. That's how we roll.

Then Jeremy might have a game, depending on the weather. The most important game of the season! So I won't be needing that birthday manicure, for I will have chewed all my nails off.

I'm off to bathe and have the birthday. I'll be back.

minutes after 50

2010-06-15T23:47:00.002-05:00

Ok, wow. It's 47 minutes after 12 a.m, June 16. And I am now officially 50 years old.

Yeah. Doesn't quite roll off the tongue, does it?

Fifty. The other f-word.

Your tongue is barely involved with that word, it's all teeth and lips, sharp consonant edges and harsh air. Lends itself well to cursing.

Because I am now officially 50, I am suddenly old and sleepy and I'm not going to drone on here, now at 12:55, about the angst, the regret, and the aches and pains of middle age. No, I'll save that for a book. A funny book. A darkly funny book that chronicles the year after 50. Maybe with cartoons. And I'll use some of this blog stuff. I can do that, right?

So folks will know that 50 sucks, but it's manageable. Perhaps, if I say it here, on my very little-read little public blog...maybe I'll be compelled to really do it.

OK?

the future is a pink jacket

2010-02-07T10:50:00.004-05:00

I saw my future in a Kohl's dressing room last week.

I have a bit of a small, inconsequential habit of talking to myself. Not loudly, not so folks can clearly hear but...I might let a couple words slip out if I'm thinking. It's not a crime, yet. I do tend to complain out loud a bit more, if I can't find something in my size. For instance, I might say,

"Oh, sure, size 2. Who the FUCK wears size 2? Seriously? Nobody. So why even stock them? Why is it always on the very infrequent times that I actually buy clothes in a store, that my size is always gone? And look. THESE are supposed to be longs? Really? REALLY? Christ, these don't even reach my fucking ankles. 'Longs.' Hah. What a joke. Nothing fits me, ever. I don't know why I bother trying. There's never clothes long enough for me and my monkey limbs. Ohhhh, but there's always plenty of size fucking 2s to go around. Plenty! Look at 'em all! What the hell is WRONG with these people?"*

On this particular day, however, I was mumbling stuff like, "Uh, that color. Not for me." And "Sleeves are too short." I want that on my tombstone: "Her sleeves were too short."

All in all, pretty benign stuff.

But then, on the other side of the rack, there's this woman. She's got frizzy, salt and pepper hair and a slouchy hat and a pink jacket. I can't really see her face. She's carrying on a conversation, full of sentences and pauses, as if she's talking to someone on the phone. I glance at her briefly, she looks a little disheveled, and figure she's on her cell. Except, I don't see one. She doesn't SOUND particularly crazy, but I think she just might be.

So I gather up some ill-fitting stuff and go into the dressing room.

Presently, someone comes into the dressing room and takes the stall next to me, even though all the other stalls are empty, which irritates me enormously. And this person starts talking. Like she's having a conversation. She describes each thing as she tries it on. She talks about wearing it at a party, and how it will look once on. Each item of clothing, described in painstaking detail. With pauses in between sentences.

Again, these folks with cell phones in the store are hijacking my mellow shopping vibe! I'm listening closely, listening for some sign that she's actually on a phone. Maybe a distant voice on the other end, maybe some muttering about not being able to hear...something? And then she just continues on, rambling about what she's going to prepare for dinner, and this and that...at this point, I look beneath the stall, and notice a pink jacket on the floor.

It's the woman from the clearance rack. She isn't talking to anyone on any phone. It's now clear that she's in the Kohl's, just trying on stuff to pass the time, having a very real conversation with an imaginary friend on an imaginary cell phone. She's chosen the stall next to me, above all the other empty ones. And she's droning on and on to nobody in particular, and I recall all the times my kids have asked me "who are you talking to?"

She's a harbinger of my future. And my future wears a pink jacket.

*actual recorded conversation

today's pet peeve

2010-01-13T13:42:00.010-05:00

"Enjoy!"

"Wow. Enjoy!"

"You are invited to view my online photos at the Gallery. Enjoy!"

"They created this amazing stunt with just two rehearsals. Enjoy!"

"I love the sentence about our arms..."flying squirrels in drag!"... LOL! READ ON. ENJOY!"

"I didn't think this was funny but I knew you would.......so enjoy!"

"Enjoy!"

These are just a few things from my inbox. Do you see what's going on here?

It's clearly a conspiracy to get me to enjoy!

Not just enjoy, but there's an unspoken GODDAMMIT after it.

ENJOY, GODDAMMIT!

If I wanted to enjoy! I think I'd know how to do it. I don't really need someone telling me I have to do it. Let the hilarity of yet another round of "people of Wal-Mart" or the alleged latest words of wit and wisdom from still dead Erma Bombeck and George Carlin and Andy Rooney..what's that you say? He's not dead? Really?...let that wild and wacky humor unfold and blossom like a flower in my inbox, revealing itself in such a way that I have NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE but to ENJOY! and LOL!

BAHAHAHA, because certainly, whatever you sent, especially if it's a FWD, is so absurdly comical that I need that reminder. I might forget to enjoy! So thanks for that, goddammit.

i'm only doing this once

2010-01-03T19:47:00.003-05:00

Well, I know I'm in trouble when my mother admonishes me for not keeping this up. She's right of course, as (mostly) always.

I suppose if there were something new and wonderful and different to report...I'd do that.

Or perhaps a calamity. A disaster. A tragedy.

Or something sincerely and deeply meaningful. An epiphany.

Maybe all these things have happened and have passed me by and I didn't notice. Maybe that's the tragedy. I didn't notice.

Instead of really taking the time to enjoy the hush and quiet of nearly 2 feet of snow, I snarled about having to go out in it. When the snow weighed heavily on my front bushes, bending them low to the ground, disheveling the lights...I made no attempt to fix them. They're just out there now, hanging with no thought and no attempt to delight.

On Christmas I missed taking a picture of Jeremy when he opened his present from Evan, a "Young and Reckless" t-shirt, some skateboard lingo I have no idea, nor do I care, what it means. But when he unwrapped it, this crooked grin--he refused to outright smile, showing teeth--crossed his face, betraying his cool demeanor and his resolve NOT to let on how much he'd wanted it.

I missed that picture.

Stuffing the stockings with a golden dollar came easier this year because of our trip to NYC, which I'll try posting about later. I had some left over. But the dollars were just a prop, just one more tradition that I had to think about, and DO something about...rather than just enjoy.

I'm glad to see 2009 go, frankly. It got off to a very shaky start and settled into a yearlong ennui that accompanied a general low nagging level of discontent...and also brought about separation and guilt. Sometimes timing is everything. It brought to light the fact that I am not perfect and that I cannot please everyone all the time, and this was a difficult pill for me to swallow.

Even in 2009. The last of my 5th decade. You'd think I'd have that figured out by now. Wait. Is that right? Do I have to do the math?

Anyway. The end of the year was unusual in a lot of ways...new old friends reappeared, some surprises, good and bad. As my family grows smaller, my friends--close and far-flung--are there to fill the gaps and I am very grateful to have them in my little sphere of life.

Sometimes it just takes too much energy to be cynical. So for 2010...well, I don't know how it'll go. I don't want to go into it with any preconceived idea of what I want, what it should be, setting it up already to disappoint as it goes on. This year, I just want it to unfold and enjoy it for what it is.

More time.

big cheeks

2009-11-18T20:26:00.007-05:00

Ok, just write, just write, just write.

No politics. That's making me crazy.

My boys think nothing about making fun of the way I look. They especially seem to enjoy poking fun at me and whatever added fat I might have accumulated in the last few decades. They will poke at my belly and make "boing boing" noises; they will howl if I run, pointing and laughing at my rather generous, middle-age bosom; they will flap my batwings with glee.

I go along with this, this ritual of being poked and prodded, because it seems to give them obvious, if not rather sadistic pleasure. It makes them laugh. And moms, you know, we're always self-sacrificing.

The latest round of physical humiliation at the hands of my children came the other night, when I was just sitting there, minding my own business, when Jeremy asks me to hold my breath, with "big cheeks."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"No."

"Please?"

"Why?"

"Just because, c'mon, just do it. C'mon."

Hard to argue with that kind of persuasion. So I did what I was told.

Jeremy comes up and slaps both hands against my cheeks, forcefully expelling the air inside with a farty-sounding "thwat."

He howls. Evan laughs in a way I haven't heard him laugh for a long time. Hilarity ensues as each child repeats this with my cheeks at least a half dozen times. Doing the math, quickly inside my head, that means I just sat there and allowed my boys to whack my inflated cheeks more than a dozen times, accompanied by cries of "Again!" "Again!" and followed by doubled-over laughter. I mean, they're 12 and 15, for pete's sake.

What other bodily noises will I be expected to make for their amusement as they grow older? I mean, I already taught them how to belch long ago. What more do they want?

head for the hills

2009-08-26T17:56:00.002-05:00

Wow, I had no idea I could offend so many people with so...little. It's easy to lob those criticisms anonymously.

So I'll move on.

I'm getting ready to pile 2 big kids and 1 big dog into my big honking, gas-guzzling momvan and head to the Shenendo'h valley for some...well, I'd like to think it was R and R, ...if "R and "R" stands for "arrrrgh" and "arrrrrrrgue".

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be an excursion that is full of adventure and happy surprises. The boys will be nice and helpful, the dog won't puke in the van, the van will behave and get us to our destinations without incident.

Happy trails.

crotchtastic

2009-08-16T18:53:00.010-05:00

ok, godammit, I'm posting.

This week, Jeremy took a spill off his new BMX bike. A driveway took a couple chunks of flesh and sinew and connective tissue out of his knee. I took him to the ER on Wednesday, where they sewed him up with a few stitches. He can't really bend his leg yet, to protect his stitches.

While we were waiting in an ER cubbie, a dad and a little kid entered the cubbie next to us. It sounded like they'd been in a car accident. They seemed ok, but the longer they sat in there, the more excitable and impatient the kid became.

"I'm going to be ok, Dad, right? I'm going to be ok. I don't need no doctor."

mumblemumble, said Dad.

"My heart will make me better. So will my memories."

"Yeah, yeah." Some talk about mom being pregnant.

"And mom...when she has the new baby they'll have to put her crotch back together!" the kid said, loudly and knowingly.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," sighed dad. Jeremy and I looked at each other and stifled a giggle.

That's pretty much how it works when you give birth naturally. Your crotch stretches and contorts to make way for this watermelon-sized being and then, if you're lucky and you do your kegels, it snaps back into shape, ready for adventure.

It has been recently suggested to me that what I had previously posted here would make a teenage boy's blood curdle, to suggest that his mother was somehow injured during childbirth.

While I really, really don't like the idea that I need to edit myself because someone complains about the content here (oddly, since it's pretty clear that nobody reads the damn thing) I have done just that because I admit perhaps I don't fully understand how a teenage boy's brain works regarding his mother. And in the very off-chance that Boo would actually read this entry, I have deleted most of it to shield him from imagery that, I'm told by more than one grown man, might offend him.

I wonder if Madonna has these issues.

Anyway, ER kid, if you're reading this, don't worry about your mom's crotch. It can take care of itself.

ackkkk

2009-08-10T20:35:00.002-05:00

Good GOD, I need to post something. But what? WHATTTTT??

I am completely tapped out. Utterly useless. Totally benign. My head is like an empty plastic milk jug.

animeNext!

2009-06-13T13:37:00.014-05:00

I'm sitting in the bar at the Double Tree hotel and conference center in New Brunswick, host of the AnimeNext! convention.

Brief explanation: Anime is Japanese cartoons. Like Speed Racer and Astro Boy, but apparently more hip, although, truly, to a 12-year-old girl, Speed Racer was kind of hot, even if the thin lines of his animated lips only moved up and down to accommodate the English language, rather than form themselves around every vowel and consonant.

Manga is the graphic novel version of anime. Both platforms boast many of the same characters, one of the most recognizable being those from the Naruto series or Avatar. Avatar: The Last Airbender, is in live action production, directed by M. Night Shyamalan for release in 2010.

I am here in the bar because it's hot outside and there are a zillion kids moving about, up to maybe age mid-20s, here for this convention, and the lobby is crowded and stifling.

Last year when I brought Evan here for the MangaNext! convention, I was a tad hungover from Halloweening at the Nutty Professor's; consequently I forgot to bring things to keep me amused, like books or the puter or my phone or my driver’s license. So I spent a couple of hours in the parking lot, napping. I am a model of exemplary parenting.

But this time I came prepared and not hungover: I've got the Mac, snacks, 2 books, my filing cabinet so I could file a bagful of bills, and I even cleaned the trash out of the van. I mean, we're here for a good, what, 8-10 hours, anyway, and for the price, it ought to include a hotel room and room service and complimentary massage.

These conventions are extremely well-run and well-staffed. For the fringe element I imagine this thing attracts, I'm amazed at the amount of things they have for these kids to do/see/hear. Most attendees dress as their favorite anime character, or perhaps whatever character's costume is currently on sale, because most of these come from Japan or China and they ain't cheap.

Some of them wear their own elaborate creations; others are bought by parents who are too lazy or uninspired to help their kids make their own. Guilty as charged.

Attendees have these "cosplays," in which they perform skits; they have fighting demonstrations using foam and plastic weapons, and they all go around hugging each other.

This year, Evan is Haku, who was a villager from the land of Water from the Avatar series. His character is rather androgynous and has long black hair. He later became a Ninja after meeting Zabuza Momochi. Haku has the kekkei genkai ability of Ice Release, which allows him to control two types of nature chakra. He can control both Water and Wind chakra; this gives Haku the ability to use Ice chakra, a mixture of the two.

I have no idea what I just wrote.

In any event, this is Evan's character:

He dies early on in the series, so girls yell “Haku!” and come up to him and give him sorrowful hugs. Girls here seem to be especially empathetic to characters that die.

Here's the thing: this is about as geeky a convention as you’ll find. But fortunately you won't find any fat balding Yodas or middle age Sith-types here. It's all kids. White kids, black kids, all nationalities. All oddly dressed, all geeky and probably pretty smart, happily sharing character stories and adventures.

There is no hint of self-consciousness in these kids. They mill about in their pink platform boots and swirling robes, colorful masks and wings and orange spiky hair and, for some, tails, among the regular hotel guests. It's a chance for me to see kids who are, at least for today, a little like Evan, and share his interest in this world I don't understand. I love Evan a little more because of this.

shout out

2009-06-04T21:09:00.002-05:00

I'd like to give a shout out to Helen Mae, always and forever first lady of Wenonah, for coming to my defense at a funeral of someone I didn't know.

This will make sense to no one but H, and surely Helen Mae probably doesn't have a blog, much less a facebook or a twitter account, and she will never see this, but, just in case: thank you, Helen Mae. You're a classy lady.

the perfect trip to wawa

2009-06-03T21:56:00.003-05:00

I stopped into Wawa tonight after Remy's game. They won 6-4, and he wanted what he calls a wet pretzel--a pretzel with that kind of slimy coating on it from the humidity or whatever. And I needed half and half for my morning coffee.

So I parked and went in, and went to the atm because I had to get money out.

I'm standing at the machine and this familiar clangy guitar comes on, rather loudly, for the Wawa...and it goes

der der der der dederdederdederdeder

der der der der dederdederdederdeder

and then the happy drums and tambourine..

The Las: There She Goes.

A modern classic, in my mind, and you don't hear it much anymore. Any song that makes you move your head right and left like that one dancing girl from the dance scene during the play rehearsal in A Charlie Brown Christmas, when Schroeder's playing the piano...she just goes right to left, while Sherman shrugs his shoulders up and down, and Snoopy, well, he's got happy feet.

Anyway, I stand there, making my transaction, grinning from ear to ear, head bobbing back and forth at the atm. Singing. Just a little.

So I get my half and half, searching for one with a late date (they call women like me "milk maids") and then go up to the counter, grinning, to the pretzel thing, get Remy's wet pretzel and place the items on the counter. For once, I am FIRST and ONLY in the Wawa line, there is no one ahead of me, with their hot dogs and Gatorade and too-sweet, machine-made cappufrappuchinos, asking for smokes and a money order and digging through their pockets for change. I am alone at the counter.

The checker says something to me, but I am totally not paying attention. It's the Las, for crissakes, don't talk to me now!

I finish paying, and the song is ending: There She Goes....there she goes...there she goes....

and I left. Perfect timing.

iced

2009-05-06T21:17:00.004-05:00

Why is it that a regular coffee can cost, say, $1.00?

Add a few ice cubes, and it's $1.69.

I went to the WaWa recently for an iced coffee. They have a machine that dispenses pre-made cappuccino and "iced coffee." Or something like it. It's all too sweet for me. So I got a cold cup, put some ice in, poured in some extra double mighty strong hot coffee, added some milk and a whisper of Splenda, stirred it up, put a lid on it, stuck a straw in the "x", and headed to the counter.

The counter gal charged me for an "iced coffee."

"Uh, this is just coffee-coffee," I explained.

"An iced coffee," she offered.

"Well, it started out as a hot coffee. Then I put my own ice and milk and Splenda and stirred it up. It LOOKS like an iced coffee, but it's really a hot coffee with ice."

She considered that for a moment.

"Really. I made it myself. It's not from the machine." I looked hopefully at her, sending thought beams into her head that said, "hot coffee with ice, hot coffee with ice...must...charge...hot coffee price."

"Ok." She charged me for hot coffee, no ice.

Sheesh. I don't know when or why iced coffee became so popular. It's like nobody ever drank it, nobody ever thought to put ice into hot coffee, and now you can buy it anywhere. It's like the prostitute of beverages. Overpriced, sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, and you can buy them at the corner.

clown vomit

2009-05-03T16:46:00.004-05:00

I've been MIA for awhile.

Here's what's happened in the last, say, 3 months:

Son: hospitalized twice. Hold your phone calls, he's ok.

Ok. I said 2008 had been the worst year ever, but then, here's 2009, threatening to TOP it.

Now that I have these rather life-changing events in my rear-view mirror, I can try to devote a little more time to caustic comments about my colleagues, shopping, and cultural and political mores.

It's like waking up with a hangover, but I'll give it a try.

It's no secret I hate shopping. I hardly ever shop, and when I do, I generally hate it. But here's one more reason to hate it:

Every shirt out there for women looks like a big, poofy airbag that a clown threw up on.

Honest to frigging GOD, WHO designs this shit? A bunch of anorexic designers huddle around the table like witches. They take these giant, gauzy potato sacks, wrap the sleeves in elastic, creating these poufy michelin man sleeves, and then perhaps a string of elastic at the bottom, so the effect is rather like wearing a psychedelic trash bag ...oh for the love of GOD, I can't even DESCRIBE what these things look like because they're so ugly.

And you can SEE through a lot of these things. If you can get past the blinding colors and patterned rainbow vomit patterns, you'll notice that you can see bras and skin and everything underneath. So what do you do, wear a camisole? What's the point of wearing something light and gauzy if you have to layer it with a camisole beneath? Kind of eliminates the cooling effect of the cottony-poly-nylon whatever blend of the shirt, yeah?

BTW. Will SOMEBODY please make a short sleeve shirt that actually covers my bat wings? Thank you.

Jeebus, I hate clothes today. Nothing looks good on me. I'm too tall. And not skinny enough.

Anyway. Clearly I am way out of the fashion loop this year. And every year. And I suppose that's where I will stay.

here's your link, Mike!

2009-03-21T21:26:00.008-05:00

I'm a bad blogger.

Mike has had a terrible time losing money while trying to obtain a hypoallergenic cat. I've linked to his blog detailing how he and many others have been ripped off by this thieving, conniving outfit. Please see the link at right to avoid his plight.

I can sympathize. When I looked for a dog, all I knew was that I wanted to adopt one, but I had no idea what I wanted. A labradoodle seemed like a good choice, tempermentally, and it was a bonus that they allegedly don't shed. I had a poodle growing up, so I knew they don't shed.

Well.

The adoption organization was on the up and up, fortunately. But what started out as a modestly sized puppy grew up into a beast about 5 times bigger than I'd imagined, like Clifford the Big Red Dog, and sheds like...sheds like...a, oh I don't know. A giant, hairy, sheddy cat. All year, all the time, all over the house.

He's a great dog, and I don't care that he sheds. I like the way his feet smell.

In the meantime, this is what I saw today in the WaWa parking lot at, like, 8 am:

That's right. It's the Green Hornet car, or at least a version of it. It was playing the TV theme song from under the hood.

That was kind of weird to see that early in the morning.

guyz 2 men

2009-02-20T22:51:00.007-05:00

A couple of things have been bothering me. I'll start with this one:

The Cialis ads and their ilk bug me just because they seem to be disguised as promos for bad soft core porn movies. But now we have the ads for Flomax. Men together at the ball game, playing golf, kayaking..they're like women wearing tampons. (And how does one "wear" a tampon, anyway? On one's head?) Next thing you know, they'll be riding horses and doing gymnastic splits, to emphasize that SOMETHING SINISTER is going on with their crotch area.

That something, of course, is that they have a weak stream.

A mere dribble of a stream.

I don't know much about urology, but I'm guessing, given all the fun these gentlemen miss out on--like the foul ball catch or having their picture taken with a Hooters girl--because they're always running to the bathroom, that this is a problem. They feel like they have to go all the time, but then don't get the relief of a piss with the velocity of a power washer. They dribble. So I guess I can understand why a man wouldn't want to mount the pommel horse or ride a Harley, if that's how he felt.

But the bigger problem with this is that they're "guys."

These old men are referred to as "guys" in the commercial. Not "men." To me, the word "guys" evokes a certain playful youthfulness and free spirit perhaps belonging to males younger than, say, 50, with adequately functioning water works. Guys are dreamy, they wear baggy jeans and tees and they're in love with love and metal and music. Men have baggage and history and wrinkles and grey and experience.

Sometimes men are wonderful. I'll use the Phillies as an example: Chase Utley: guy. Jamie Moyer: man.

I just don't like the advertising industry taking this fun, happy word and turning it into something that applies to old men who can't piss right. I understand why, of course. It's us damn baby boomers. We don't act our age. Admittedly, the guys I used to hang out with back in the day...I can't bear to call them anything but guys, and they're all in their 50s . They should be men by now.

By rights, then, I am close to being a "woman." But until I hit that mark, I think I'll stay a gal.

embarrassing your kids, part 57

2009-01-25T20:34:00.002-05:00

My kids are officially at the point now in their development that they're embarrassed by me even if I do something as simple as look in their direction.

Of course, part of the problem lies with me.

I happen to talk to people in stores. Salespeople, the old lady in the supermarket aisle, the pimply cashier in the Heritages, the kids playing hide and seek around a carousel of women's bras. Not just hi, but, "hi, hey, you look familiar." "Where'd you get that nose ring?" "You smell good." "Did your mom say you could do that?" "I'm sorry; I took your cart by mistake." I genuinely enjoy these brief interactions.

So if the boys are with me when I launch into some inane conversation with total strangers, they cringe and look at me as if to say, oh GOD, no, not AGAIN, she's talking to the cashier, god, we'll never get out of here, why does she have to do that, can't she just buy her shit and go? Why does she have to turn a simple transaction into a tea party?

I don't know if they really think that, but they look it.

But the latest thing, this little...thing I do now that I don't recall doing before, is dancing in public. In stores. While shopping.

It goes something like this: so we're in PetSmart, Jeremy and I...I'm lamenting--out loud, to no one in particular--that they are out of Kitty Wonder Boxes. In between whines, I notice that the Police are on the speaker: Every Little Thing She Does is Magic. Well, that's a happy little tune. And if you remember the video, toward the end, the guys are at the control panel in the studio, and they start to dance, and you see Stewart Copeland, in his tennies, dancing in the background (yum, Steward Copeland.) He's tall and blonde and cute and doing this funny dancing thing in the background, this kind of loosey-goosey jumping that passed for dancing back in the day.

So when they get into the chorus, I mildly start doing the Steward Copeland dance. There's plenty of room in the aisle, so I dance a little more animatedly.

There's nobody around, but Jeremy's horrified nonetheless.

"MOM. Stop dancing! What are you doing?!" he hisses.

"It's the Stewart Copeland dance. You wouldn't know it," I say.

"But MOM. Stop!"

"What? What? Am I embarrassing you?"

"YES."

"Oh, c'mon. Where's your sense of humor? C'mon, lighten up!"

He walks off.

Another time we're in the Hot Topic store, and Jeremy is with me; he's looking for some stupid punk thing. There's a song that comes on...as soon as it starts, I start nodding my head, you know, in that way people do. I've never heard the song before, but I really like the beat. In moments, I'm shaking my shoulders a little, then there go the hips and the feet and I've got the hands going around in front of me and I'm doing this little shimmy in a very small space between carousels.

Jeremy, of course, is mortified; this time there are people nearby, who seem oblivious to my ugly and perverse gyrations. Then it hits him how ridiculous I look and he starts to smile.

"You like that song?" He's amazed I might like a song playing in Hot Topic.

"Yeah. I like the beat. In fact, I'm going to ask a salesperson who does it."

"Oh, no, Mom, don't do that..."

Too late.

He slinks off to look at hats while I ask the pimply sales dude with the nose ring to find out what song it is. I'm pretty certain he doesn't get requests like this often.

He politely takes me to an album in their selection: It's NERD. The song is Laugh About It. Never heard of them, never heard of the song.

Jeremy and I return home. I immediately download the song before I forget it. I start to play it.

"Hey, is this that song you were dancing to in the store?" Jeremy asks.

"Yeah. It's ok, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I like it." He smiles, and considers his mother. She might be nuts, but maybe nuts in a good way.

So long 2008, you worthless piece of shit

2009-01-01T18:56:00.003-05:00

Hah! Ok, THAT was a little harsh, but seriously, 2008 was absolutely THE worst year of my life. Ever. I mean, there's a backhistory to all of this that I'm not laying out here, but truth to tell, the tumor didn't help. It completely changed the family dynamic. This is the "new normal" as they like to say, but I'll just add that the new normal sucks. But it's probably no suckier than the old normal, which sucked too.

Anyway, I do get out from time to time, and recently I attended an art opening at this...well, for lack of a better word, hip..gallery in Philly. A coworker was showing some pieces, so I wanted to show my support for his pieces.

It was a First Friday, kind of an art crawl through the city, and stuff is free. So the place was mobbed with snotty art students and posers and actual artists and me, this middle age freak from NJ. I was pretty clearly out of place, but it didn't matter, really: I was completely invisible.

(Used to be I would walk into a bar or somewhere, and I'd turn a head or two. Now, I'm just a cypher. I walk into a place and the sea doesn't part, the talking doesn't stop, the earth doesn't shake anymore. Nothing. Nada.)

But acompanying this middle age anonymity is the knowledge that a growing part of me just doesn't give a shit what people think. So that's kind of cool. I left the show and headed over to National Mechanics, a bar that Mr. Master told me about. He was going there later with his friends, and I wanted to hang out in the city for awhile.

I haven't gone to a bar with the knowledge that I may actually end up sitting there alone for...well, decades. But I walked in, noboy noticed, and I sat at the bar and ordered something girly.

Pretty soon the guy next to me started making conversation. His name was Steve and he was some kind of accountant. He looked eerily similar to Dane Cook. He was chatty enough, so what the hell, I talked to him, right? I don't care. I'm always very civil to men in bars.

Well, first he pegged me for 32--at which I laughed uproariously-- and explained his choice of age: he always figures a woman's age and then subtracts 10 in the hope of getting lucky. Steve, for the record, was 24. Technically old enough to be my son.

But something told me Steve just wanted someone to talk to, not a romp in the hay. So I continued to talk to him. Then Mr. Master came in with his friends. Yay, Mr. Master. He bought me a shot, and I went and talked to him.

Then, Steve came over with a shot...for Mr. Master. And I could now see that Steve is really short. Mr. Master was puzzled by this. I don't know what bar protocol is about buying shots, but this smelled sinister to me. Was it poisoned? Was Steve feeling jealous? Mr. Master thanked Steve, and Steve returned to his seat. I asked Mr. Master what THAT was about.

"He's trying to impress you."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. I bought you a shot, and he's trying to impress you by buying me a shot."

"But...maybe if he wanted to impress me, he should buy ME a shot." Clearly, I don't know protocol.

This went on for a while: I would get up and talk to Mr. Master, and go back to my seat at the bar next to Steve, who henceforth will be called Dane Cook. I did this several times and the last time I returned to my seat, my leather jacket--and Dane Cook--were gone.

I looked around the immediate area--it was jam-packed by now--and didn't see it. I stood on my tiptoes, making me, essentially, taller than most everyone in the bar--and didn't see it. Several minutes went by, and I determined that Dane Cook must've made off with my jacket, that fucking weirdo.

"Sonofabitch made off with my jacket!" I exclaimed to Mr. Master.

"What? Really?"

"Well, I don't know. It's gone. He's gone. Somebody took my jacket."

And then...through the crowd, little Dane Cook pushed through, looked up at me like a puppy and with a hopeful grin, held my jacket up for me.

"I went to the bathroom and took it with me, because I didn't want you to lose it."

Now, I couldn't decide which was the icky part: him taking my jacket into the bathroom with him, and if so, where did he put it and what did he do with it in there? Or him taking my jacket into the bathroom and then bringing it back to me in, perhaps, the hope that this little ploy might get him laid by someone old enough to be his mother?

Could it be that he was just...being nice? This gave me pause. I considered him and those hopeful doggie eyes. I just wanted to pat him on the head. But instead, I said thank you, very politely, and ignored the urge to crack wise about it and instead, forced myself to view Dane Cook's motivation as pure and his action as genuine, if icky. I then headed out, well into the next morning, to catch the train back to NJ.

I liked that bar.

halloween treats

2008-11-02T21:42:00.005-05:00

This year for Halloween, we again went to the Nutty Professor's to eat and drink and hand out candy. Rather, the menfolk sat out front and handed out candy, while the women, who have collectively had it about up to HERE with their respective husbands, sat hiding on the back patio bitching and drinking and chowing down on chili, meatballs, etc. Basically the opposite of what usually happens at coed parties.

Well, the Nutty Professor and I pretty much split a rather large bottle of wine. By that time it was curfew, and we moved all the food and booze over to the Norton's, kids in tow, and were joined by various other neighbors who weren't quite ready to call it quits on a Friday Halloween night.

I continued drinking fizzy drinks and downed a few of Ann's loaded jello shots. After a few of those, the talk among women turns to men and sex and penis size. Even a bunch of droopy 40-odd something year old women feel a little naughty talking about that, especially when their respective husbands are in the same room. Their ears perk up when they hear women boisterously yelling "penis!" across the room.

But sometimes the conversation needs a starter, which I'm pretty good at. So my first question to the assembled group of ladies was the Phillie they'd most like to boink. This, of course being the world champion Phillies..world FUCKING champions, according to Chase's most eloquent and loudly cheered speech.

Chase won the vote, of course, by cursing at his parade speech, which made him seem a little less stoic and a little more dirty. Cole Hamels came in second, largely due to the fact that he's cute and he won major points for marrying an older woman. Jayson Werth came in next because he's like a big huge mischevious puppy who might enjoy slamming you up against a wall. And rounding out the list was the old man, Jamie Moyer, who has the benefit of experience, and sometimes experience and knowledge outperform youth and stamina.

Well, we all had a nice time thinking of boinking our favorite Phillies. Then I posed another question: If you had to pick someone else's husband here to boink, who would it be? The crowd hushed. As if they'd never thought of it before.

Nutty Professor took a sad look around the large kitchen, where the men were assembled in various pockets of manly conversation and said, "I'd rather die. I'd rather die than have sex with anybody here." I didn't buy this at all.

"Surely, there must be SOMEONE else's husband you'd consider?" I pursued.

"No. No. I think I'd rather just die."

And so I followed up with the other ladies in the group, and nobody would admit to ever ever considering sleeping with someone else's husband. At least, not one of those in the kitchen.

Was this because that's not something you would admit in front of your neighbors? Or are the husbands such a motley, horrific group of men that one would rather die than sleep with them?

Yeah, pretty much.

smile and say hi

2008-10-10T20:05:00.008-05:00

There's a certain code of etiquette that we use to move about in the maze and hallways of the cube farm.

First, before you leave the cube and attempt to enter the hall, you must look quickly right and left, much like you would if you were driving before turning onto a road. Because there are actually quite a few people who are shorter than the cube walls who you can't see if you just go barreling out into the hall. And then you'll mow them down when they've just returned from the coffee room with a cup of hot coffee.

I am not one of these shorter folks, rather unfortunately; you can always tell where I am in the maze because my blond heads bobs and weaves and sticks up over the walls. There's really nowhere for me to hide. Unless I slump down, which I sometimes do so I won't be seen coming in from lunch 2 hours late.

Then there's hallway etiquette. You have to decide: Will you say hi to people you pass in the hallway or not? Here's a test:

Ok, here's Joe walking down the hall toward you. You like Joe, you're friends. Do you
a)say hi, chat, complain about the man, do the Wild and Crazy guy walk toward each other, high five, terrorist fist jab
b)ignore him

The correct answer is a.

Here's Linda walking down the hall toward you. You don't really work much with Linda; you kind of know who she is but have no personal connection with her. Do you
a)smile and say hi
b)ignore her and look far off into the distant horizon, pretending to be in so much of a hurry to get to your destination that you can't take the time to smile and say hi
c)pretend you're examining your nails or you're rustling papers about and couldn't look up in time, thus avoiding her gaze without the guilt that might have come from simply ignoring her. But if you feel guilty immediately after passing her, you make an insincere attempt, after you've walked past her, to acknowledge her presence by turning halfway around and lamely saying "oh, hey, Linda. Hey. Sorry, I didn't see you there."

The correct answer is a.

Here's someone who works in the same building somewhere; you have absolutely no idea who it is. Do you
a) smile and say hi
b) grimace and say hi
c) head nod with or without saying "hey" (this is mostly reserved for men)
d) see how long the hallway is and panic, thinking that there's still time enough to act like you've forgotten something and turn around and go back to your cube and then return to the hallway after the person has passed, thus avoiding that uncomfortable situation where neither of you knows each other and forces out an insincere smile and mumbles "hey."
e) completely and totally look directly past the person at a point far off on the horizon, thereby eliminating that person's presence within your personal space and thus diminshing their self-esteem by just enough for them to go home and return to work with a loaded rifle
f) stare them down as they walk down the hall, forcing them to acknowledge you with an insincere smile and a mumbling "hey."
g) stare them down as they walk down the hall, and then, as they pass, realize that they are NOT meeting your stare and are ignoring your presence within their personal space, and then get pissed off because they're so rude.

The correct answer: all of the above.

It gets complicated, making this quick thinking-on-your-feet type of decision who to say hi to and who not. You don't want people to think you're some kind of friendly, perky freak who may actually be trying to create a positive presence in the workplace.

qtip

2008-09-24T20:07:00.002-05:00

Ok, so if they don't want you to put Qtips in your ears, why did they make them so long? And with a cushy cotton tip on both ends?

a man in a bowler hat part 2

2008-09-21T20:36:00.004-05:00

Ok, this is a little spooky. I saw the same man, with the same bowler hat, walking down the same street today.

In other news, Remy happily gave me his latest armpit hair update this evening. He discovered one hair in the other armpit, and a growing army of them in the first. He's up to about 1/2 dozen.

He reported no new growth in the pubic region.

Jeebus, my kids are fucking weird.

a man in a bowler hat

2008-09-20T17:04:00.002-05:00

Today I saw a gentleman in a white bowler hat and what appeared to be spats. He was just walking down the street. Wedding? I don't know. It's just not every day you see a man in a bowler, much less a white one. It was like seeing an ostrich downtown.

dress code

2008-09-11T19:34:00.007-05:00

The department managers had to meet this afternoon to discuss clarification of the office dress code. You see, last week, the president gathered us all outside and announced big news! Men no longer had to wear ties! We're going "business casual!" Yay!

Well, apparently people started showing up to work this week in coffee-stained pajamas and flip flops, hence the meeting.

The meeting started with the obligatory passing around of a 3-page ultrasupersecret memo designed to provide more clarification of the "new" company dress policy. The memo included 2 pages of what to wear, what not to wear, and what season to wear or not wear it, delineated neatly by gender.

In effect, it's pretty much the same as the old dress policy that people apparently ignored, except: men don't have to wear ties. Still no jeans. Casual Friday means "pressed"--I mean, who the hell says that?--dockers and polo shirts for men. Women...well, women can get away with more things. But no halters! No crocs! No tight or revealing clothing! No sneakers! No sandals after summer!

This "new" dress code was designed with our comfort in mind, so we're told, to create a more positive and fun work environment. I mean, I can't even say that with a straight face.

So we all look over the memo and Pat, from marketing, and Kathy, one of the VPs, discuss some of the less interesting points about inappropriate wardrobe choices. Like, no outdoor scarves allowed as part of the work wardrobe. Indoor scarves used to be fine for men and women, but Pat explained he deleted "men" from the official scarf sub-policy. Indoor scarves were too much like ties, he explained.

I looked around. Eyes glazed over. Jaws slightly open. A collective thought balloon hung over the long conference table, containing the word, "WTF."

"We really want the managers to get on board with this policy and don't badmouth it," Kathy said, as if the first thing we would do is go running out to our staff and telling them how stupid this was. We can do that tomorrow.

"Please wait until the official announcement goes out at 10 am tomorrow before discussing this with your staff. You may want to call a meeting in case people have questions. And please don't share the contents of this memo with them."

"Wait," Mary said. "So you have a list of things to wear and not to wear, and you don't want to share that with the employees? Why can't they see this memo? How will they know if they're breaking the policy?"

Pat hemmed and hawed. He explained it took 10 meetings to come up with the policy contained within the 3-page memo. I don't think he was kidding.

"Well, use your best judgement. I mean, you don't have to bust them on the first infraction. But if it continues, well, you should talk to the employee."

We looked at the memo and after a series of long, painful silences following Pat's repeated question "does anyone have any questions?" someone piped up:

"What about sandals at this time of year? It's still warm."

"Well, it depends on the sandal," said Kathy. "Not flip flops."

"No. A sandal. Like, I'm wearing sandals now. Would this adhere to policy?" The gal took off her sandal and ceremoniously slapped it on the conference table. There was a moment of nearly deferential silence.

"Well, it's dressier than a regular sandal," someone said.

"It's a dress sandal!" I piped up.

Kathy shook her head a little. I don't think she was actually expecting any of us to make such inane comments. "I think that would be ok."

"And we want to discourage tattooing and body piercings," she added. "But, heh heh, I'm sure you probably wouldn't hire someone who came in here with a nose ring," she added.

"I probably would," Evan, my old pal in rebelliousness, said happily.

"What about short-sleeved, button down shirts for men during the transition seasons?" I asked.

"No. They can wear polos on Friday, but the rest of the week they have to wear long sleeve shirts."

"Even now, when it's still hot?"

Pat looked at me and shook his head.

"Ok," I continued. "What about tight, thigh-high skirts? I see women wearing them. What about skirt lengths in general?" This was not outlined in the memo, a rather glaring oversight, in my opinion. But, face it, men who run companies like women in their short skirts, so presto: no short skirt policy. Capris? Out, unless it's summer. Business shorts? Ugly, and also out. Tight, short skirts? Absolutely, and encouraged--every day!

Pat stuttered, clearly taken aback by a rather feminist challenge to the dress policy.

"Uh, nothing, no...not too tight, no revealing clothes."

As it happens, there's one gal in sales who's nice as can be, from what I hear, but her body is of Barbie doll proportions, and she adorns it with the tightest clothes imaginable, matched only by 5-inch spike heels that make her feet turn outward as she struggles to maintain her balance while attempting to make tiny baby steps in her thigh-high, too-tight skirt.

What will become of her and her wardrobe? My point being, if they're going to make stupid rules, they should apply to everyone. But if one person gets to break them, we all do.

After a few more dumb questions about pantyhose and Dockers and winter coats, the meeting was adjourned.

I followed up later with Evan, who has since partaken of the corporate koolaid, and has become an executive editor. I helped hire him, initially, more than 10 years ago, and at that time we seemed to share a certain delight in rebelling against the man, of vowing not to get sucked into the corporate vortex of despair.

"Well, THAT was fun," I wrote in an email.

After some snark, he wrote: "it comes down to the sad truth that this place is run like a burgeoning 1950's Michigan accounting firm, plopped out of time in 21st-century South Jersey. You either work here or don't. You know?"

And with that, Evan spit out a little of the koolaid on his too-baggy, unpressed pants and his untucked polo shirt. There's still hope for him. For all of us. Maybe one day I'll come in braless. That was NOT mentioned in the dress policy.

Thanks for keeping the spirit alive, dude.

spanish inquisition

2008-09-08T19:49:00.003-05:00

Well, one new thing I'm participating in is a fantasy football league. Is that pathetic or what? I mean, I may as well attend a Star Wars convention.

My pal Conni suggested I join up and play along with my boss (Dave) and the A/V dude (Mcponytail) from my current job.

I had to think carefully about this. Is it good business sense to join your colleagues at sports bars for the purpose of drinking and relentlessly taunting each other? That's the kind of action I was promised if I joined up. I mean, never mind the actual games. So after thinking carefully for about a minute, I joined up.

First thing, of course, was the draft, which took place at an appropriately seedy bar, nestled within the reeds and cattails on a nearby Jersey swamp.

Dave and I wasted way too much time and paper at work the day before, printing rosters and draft info. He started it. So armed with our paperwork and folders and looking all important, we cut out on time (!) and headed to the bar.

The tables were set up to accommodate 10 managers, 5 women and 5 men. We drank some beer and drafted away.

My first pick was immediately greeted with catcalls and comments like "yeah, great pick for 3rd string," and "loser." Sassy talk like that. I think it was Alex Smith (who's got some shoulder problem; I dropped him yesterday.)

My next pick was a little more impressive: Plaxico Burress. Greeted with admiring grunts.

Aha, maybe I do know what I'm doing.

Or, maybe I couldn't deny myself the pleasure of drafting someone named "Plaxico." Yes, that's it.

Drafting continued, accompanied by more beer. Drafting ended, followed by more beer. In all, I probably drank more beer that night than I have...even since 4th of July. And I'm not a beer drinker. But the combination seemed to work, the beer and football, to prevent a hangover the next day. Because if there's something worse than having to face your kids when you're hungover, it's your desk at work.

On Thursday night, my team was in first place. By Monday night, my team--the Spanish Inquisition, with the Iggles defense--was next to last.

But it's not about the football. It's about the snarky repartee, the casually sarcastic aside, the playful sexual banter, the overtly hostile verbal abuse from friends and coworkers. I hope they're prepared. Because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

2008-09-08T19:41:00.003-05:00

Help! My...life...is...boring!

Must.......fight........back....

sea of cubbies

2008-07-21T21:40:00.003-05:00

Not to riff on Mike's post about his new job, but I have a new job too. A new job at my old job.

I've worked at this company, off and on, in various capacities and departments, since 1995. I was a Quark guru. An editor. An artist. A copywriter. A faux marketing director. A freelance writer. Fulltime. Parttime. Always the one actually doing the work.

And I was fine with that. I liked being left alone to do the work. I needed no accolades, no pats on the back, just a copy of the latest whatever magazine/brochure/program my work appeared in. I don't ask for much.

Years ago I suggested they ought to have a nice little place where a lactating mother could pump breast milk. The wave of the future! I said. They thought I was nuts. It was just a little creepy hauling the electric milk sucker into the vice-president's office to pump when he was out of town. But I did it, and I was the only one. It beat the bathroom.

They scoffed at my idea of a 4-day workweek when my kids were little. So I quit. Taught for a couple years. Kids. They're funny.

Soon after I quit, they created a room for breast pumping. And they grudgingly started offering parttime and flextime. To appease the militants.

It's convenient. It's familiar. People like me there. I'm like the crazy aunt who never leaves the party.

It's a black hole, eager to suck your life away. The cleaning people think there are ghosts in the building.

It's a job. It comes with a cubby. I will oversee the company's flagship publication. My ed board gets generous honorariums. Meetings worldwide. I get a credit card. And a staff of young things half my age, who I will alternately nurture and desperately attempt to convince that they need to get out NOW while they still can.

Sure, I'm grateful, and honestly, a little surprised, that they've chosen me to do this job. A square peg in a round hole. In my current situation, it's a lot easier to rationalize selling my soul to pay the bills. I have no choice.

During my orientation today, the HR gal handed me my temporary nameplate.

"I still have my other permanent one."

"You do?"

"Yeah. I took it when I left."

"Oh. You weren't supposed to do that. You were supposed to give it to me. I put it in your file, so if you come back, we'd have it." They actually have a policy for ex-employee nameplates.

Rule broken. Mission accomplished.

dragon scrotum

2008-07-04T13:32:00.008-05:00

The annual 4th of July celebration in Wenonah passed by much like it always does, with a few notable differences.

The boys and I arrived late; the parade had already double backed by the time we got there. That's never happened to me before.

I missed the battle of the bands, the battle royale between the Pitman Hobo Band and the Bonsal Blues Band. The parade stops when the bands pass each other, and they together play one or two rousing patriotic songs. It's the true highlight of the parade, and it makes that 9:15 am beer that much more refreshing.

Remy didn't run out in the street to fetch the thrown candy. Boo did, but only under duress. He probably felt a little ridiculous, this 6-foot 13-year-old, running down the street for Smarties and Sweetarts and Bit 'O Honeys and Bottle Caps, and, if he was lucky, the occasional and widely prized Tootsie Roll. Why did someone think it was a good idea to package the world's most detested candy in huge BJ-size bags? Does anyone really like Smarties?

Then I went to O'Connor's (Oak's) for more morning beer. I finally got to talk to Jack Wiler, who's a hoot with tremendous recall of his life growing up in Wenonah. Also Jim Maddox, who blogs about nearby Woodbury Heights...great to read their blogs about local history and shared baby boomer experiences, regardless of locale. Thanks, Jack.

(Because I am so much younger than Jack, I can only place myself on the tail end of the baby boom, and I can't remember shit anyway, and that's why I like his blog.)

The usual crowd of over-the-hill hippie guys were at Oak's and, as I was unaccompanied by kids and dh, I was able to talk to some of them at length. These were some of the guys I spent my teenage years hanging out with, guys like Ron, Jim, Victor, Richie, Larry, Steve...mostly blue collar guys with Peter Pan syndrome who used to punctuate every other word with "fucking" and "man" back in the 70s, so a conversation with any of them might go something like this:

"Hey, Victor."

"Hey, Carey. Hey, have you seen Paul? He was fucking here a minute ago, man, and now he's fucking disappeared."

"Sorry, I haven't seen him."

"Fuck. He has my fucking CAR, man."

Victor and Jack shared a story about one evening when they had driven to the Pine Barrens. Jack's brother Mick was there, and somebody else, I don't remember. They had all dropped acid, and they remembered the exact dosage. Apparently Victor had received some extra-strength blotter, but wasn't aware of its exaggerated potency. So he took 2 tabs, which was something like the equivalent of 4 regular-strength tabs. Jack took one, Mick took 1/2. How the HELL these guys remember this, I don't know.

So they're out driving in the Pine Barrens and swear to GOD there's a car that's following them, right on the bumper, along the scary, dark, winding roads through the woods. Then, suddenly, as if it were an alien spacecraft, if disappears. Like that! Then they recounted how the tree branches turned into arms reaching out at them, these blue alien arms. A trip to remember, evidently, but how one can remember anything on that much blotter astounds me.

Victor told me he studies Tibetan Buddhism, and then shared with me information about his various tattoos. Apparently there's a dragon around his scrotum. Thanks, Victor!

I see these guys once a year, and they never cease to amuse me.

The mug was really lame this year. They've apparently run out of historical buildings to highlight, so they threw some clip art on it. Even my friend Lisa gave up on the mug this year. She's been an avid collector, and to my knowledge has never missed a 4th. But she didn't come to Wenonah this year, she and her festive 4th of July socks, and I missed her.

I'd been dreading this day for awhile, given the tension between the inlaws and me and probably all their friends...long story, but I wasn't exactly feeling the love upon my arrival in my old hometown. But then after a couple of beers and compliments at Oaks before heading down to the firehouse for more, the day became a nostalgic trip back to the 70s, when drugs were cool, everybody was your best friend, and older guys who could have easily taken advantage of teenage jailbait--even guys with tattoos and fast cars and motorcycles who said "fuck" all the time--were gentlemen.

my sprout

2008-06-18T20:24:00.005-05:00

The other night I was putting Jeremy to bed and he says, "hey, you want to know something?"

"What?" I ask.

"I got hair down there."

"Where?!"

"Down there. You know."

"No!"

"Yeah! You want to see?"

I thought about this for a moment. First, is it appropriate for a 10-year-old boy to ask his mother if she'd like to see his pubes?

In some households, maybe not. But I have never beaten around the bush, so to speak, regarding the birds and the bees. I get right to the point. No cutesy names, like "peach" and "fuzz" and "sprout." Ok, I think I used sprout once.

13-year-old Boo can't stand me seeing him shirtless, let alone show me his pubes. Or even his armpits.

Remy has happily showed me the one hair in his armpit--the one, I guess, that's on an exploratory mission to determine if it's safe for the others to grow there.

But even I was a little taken aback by his question. I'd like to think that most parents harbor a natural curiosity about their children's sexual maturity, and, if they're parents of boys...how amply endowed they are.

Or maybe that's just me.

I remember when I was a nursery school volunteer, I had to change this one kid's diaper. The kid had a button penis. I mean, it literally looked like a button and virtually no shaft. It was very odd. I've always thought Remy seemed pretty healthy in that department, and he's not shy about flaunting it.

So I guess he figured that I'd want to know. Just keeping me informed. As a pubic service. Hardy har.

So I thought about it and it seemed natural to say, "Why, sure." So he pulls his underwear down to display his equipment, and sure enough: a faint little field of dark hair had sprouted around his sprout.

He waited for a comment.

"Why, so you do, Remy," I said. "How about that? You're growing up!"

"Yeah. Here, check out my armpit. That hair is still there!" He seemed genuinely pleased with himself, not only for growing up, but in doing what I think he felt was his duty to keep me informed of his progress.

He's going to 6th grade in September. My little sprout is leaving the garden.

bathroom follies

2008-05-16T18:55:00.004-05:00

My cube at my current gig is conveniently located between 2 bathrooms. Niiiice. The one on my left is a ladies' room, with 2 stalls and the necessary wicker loveseat upon which to drape oneself when one has an attack of the vapors.

It's pretty average as bathrooms go, but the design of the toilet bowl is such that half the time you drop toilet paper in there, it doesn't go down with the water. It clings, screaming, to the side. This is kind of gross, especially when you go to use the thing and someone else's toilet paper is still stuck to the side. People don't want reminders that other people may have used the bathroom before them. The solution for those who don't wish to offend, perhaps, is to reach down into the toilet and give the stubborn toilet paper a shove, and then wash one's hands thoroughly afterward. Or try to sneak out before anyone knows you've been in there.

And stop spraying that Airwick! We know what you're doing in there, and yeah, it's as gross for us as it is for you. But the Airwick just adds insult to injury, if you ask me.

The bathrooms on the right are for whoever gets in there first.

About 10 most mornings, the smell of extinguished matches wafts around the corner and into my cube. I discussed it with one of the writers yesterday.

"Yo. What is UP with the matches? I mean, who does that at work? What's the point? Like that smell is any more pleasant than what he left behind? Why not just open up a can of tuna or crack open some hard-boiled eggs while you're in there? Or just bring some stinky cheese in with you?"

"I think it's some guy from accounting."

"Big guy? Glasses? Slovenly?"

"Yeah."

Hmmmm. Is this the same guy who I've heard coughing up a lung in those bathrooms on several occasions, late in the afternoon, when perhaps he thinks everyone has left?

I mean, it's like he's being exorcised in there, coughing up hairballs or choking on big chunks of bad meat or something. Like he was going to fucking die. So much so that the first time I heard it, I very nearly called 911.

The cleaning woman was on the other side of my cube. She heard it too one day. She peeked around my cubbie.

"Did you HEAR that?" I asked.

"Yeah. Guy sounds like he's dying."

I mean, hacking and coughing and choking and ...well, I think of Kane, in Alien, when the thing pops out of his stomach. That's what I imagine is going on in the bathroom when this guy is in there.

This has happened a few times, so I finally popped my head up out of my cubbie like a whack-a-mole to see him. That's the dude, breathing heavily. The slovenly fat dude from accounting.

Every company has one.

Thankfully, he kept his matches to himself.

panic at the friendly's

2008-05-05T20:43:00.003-05:00

Boo and I went on a date this weekend, which mostly consisted of me buying him stuff. We started at the Asian market, because he's going through this phase. Japanese and Chinese people are so much cooler than we are because they make anime. Something like that.

We continued to Barnes and Noble, then Target, the bike store and finally to Friendly's. He's finally at the age where he feels a little stupid going to Friendly's, but he forgets all about that when the ice cream comes.

So we're finishing up our lunch...he's enjoying his mint chocolate chip and Reese's cup sundae (yech) and I'm having a modest dish of chocolate ice cream (oooh, don't tempt me.) (That's a shout-out to all you MST3k fans out there.) (And that's the first and last time I'll say "shout-out.")

All of a sudden, we notice raised voices next to us, and this rather...well, ugly, yes, I'll call her ugly, woman said, "DON'T CALL ME A TRAMP!" And we turn and watch this altercation going on right next to us: apparently, this ugly woman had changed a kid's diaper in the booth. And I missed it!

But apparently that's what happened, because here's soccer mom and dad and the kids sitting in the booth across from us, which is one up from the diaper booth, and soccer mom is saying, "But you don't DO that! People are EATING!"

"I DO!" yelled the ugly woman, with some authority.

"You're a TRAMP!" said soccer dad.

"Don't call my sister a TRAMP!" the tramp's sister yelled.

Friendly's grew very quiet as the four of them went back and forth like that for a minute. It looked like soccer mom and dad and the Tramp and her sister would come to blows in the Friendly's, ironically.

But then the Tramp family gathered up their stuff and left, leaving soccer mom and the kids visibly shaken by the conflict. Soccer dad didn't even look up. Just sat there and said "Tramp" several times, leaving his wife to do the dirty work: trying to reason with them.

Me, I don't like conflict. If I saw this woman changing a diaper in the booth at Friendly's, I'd figure, you know...this is not the kind of person who would listen to reason anyway, so why bother bringing it to her attention that a BOOTH IN WHICH PEOPLE SIT TO EAT DELICIOUS FRIENDLY'S ICE CREAM is NO PLACE TO CHANGE A DIAPER.

That's why they have parking lots outside, in which to dump said diaper after you've changed it in the van. I'm pretty certain these people leave a trail of dirty diapers lying around wherever they go. Balled up wads of plastic and shit and industrial strength absorbent material that goops up into a gelatinous mess when wet.

Tramps. You've gone and put me off my Friendly's.

unexpected items

2008-04-28T20:09:00.003-05:00

This whole brain tumor thing has really thrown me off my game. It's hard to go through a day and not be conscious that its presence--and now, its absence and accompanying mental and physical deficits--will always be there. You don't want to be defined by it, but it shapes everything.

And it didn't even belong to me.

Anyway, it's been difficult to recapture my sense of humor, which I depend on to get through the day. I certainly don't want to blog about how things suck right now and sound all woe-is-me and shit, so instead, this is what happened at the Ack-a-me the other day.

I go through the self-scanner lane because I like to create more work for myself. I only have a few things and normally I can speed through. This time, however, was different.

I scanned a couple of things. The holding area was full, so I moved some of the stuff into the cart.

"Unexpected item removed from bagging area. Please return item to bagging area," said the scanner lady with a voice that suggested that a SWAT team was about ready to swoop down on me any minute. I dutifully put the stuff back.

"Unexpected item in bagging area. Please remove item from bagging area."

Confused, I removed the bag and put it back in the cart.

"Unexpected item removed from bagging area. Please return item to bagging area."

I take the bag and wave it around the scanner, trying to convince it that it's paid for.

"See? It's in a BAG. Because it's PAID FOR," I patiently explain to the machine. "Now I'm going to put it back in the sacred 'bagging area', and then I'm going to REMOVE it to make room for more stuff." I put the bag in the cart.

"Unexpected item removed from bagging area. Please re..." the scanner stops speaking abruptly as I take the bag from the cart and slam it back down in the holding area.

"Unexpected item in bagging area. Please remove item from bagging area." The scanner is clearly teasing me now and I begin to wonder if I'm being punk'd, but quickly realize that this is NJ and we don't fool around with that stupid crap here.

"LOOK! SEE??? IT'S PAID FOR! IT'S IN A BAG. I'M TAKING MY PAID MERCHANDISE AND PUTTING IT IN THE CART!" I shout, loudly enough for the cashier to note that I'm not actually stealing a box of Cheerios, some half-and-half, plastic wrap and tampons. "LOOK! SEE? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU ANYWAY?! SEE?"

I frantically moved the bag back and forth several times from the cart to the holding area, just to confuse it. "What! WHAT! Which way did it go? HUH? Where's the bag NOW??? Oh, WHAT, cat got your tongue?"

By this time a line has started to form, and I turn exasperatedly to the guy behind me. "Is it ME?" He smiles, shakes his head knowingly. He's been through this hell before.

The thing is yelling at me to return the bag, but I toss the bag in the cart in the hope it doesn't notice, and start quickly scanning more stuff, trying to confuse it. It seems to work.

"Two. Ninety-nine." she says pleasantly.

"Three. Forty-nine." she says, again pleasantly.

She remains calm and collected throughout the transaction, certainly more than I was. I hope the Ack-a-me security cameras got my good side. If I only had one.

cheap sunglasses

2008-03-03T21:19:00.007-05:00

For the record, I'm now a managing editor of an unimportant in the grand scheme of things medical magazine, all the while continuing to freelance write (in my spare time!) dry, clinical articles about...advanced gastric cancer and why docetaxel is a beast (www.hemonctoday.com/...it's the cover story!)

I'll be there for a few months until, well, I don't know. Recent events have necessitated a giant rethink about life in general, and what the hell I'm going do with it now.

Deep thinking isn't one of my strong points.

So the other day I went to Target to get Target stuff. I needed sunglasses. I refuse to pay a lot for sunglasses because they invariably get lost or broken.

Sunglasses always look a little askew on my head, I think because my ears must be crooked. They never seem to sit straight across my face.

And what's the deal with those huge 60s-style sunglasses? Who felt the need to resurrect that look? It's frigging stupid. There are some ugly-ass sunglasses out there.

Generally, when you go to buy sunglasses, it's not because you have a bunch of new, previously purchased sunglasses waiting around in a pile at home. When you buy sunglasses, you need them NOW because you don't have any. You drive around squinting for a week until you finally decide, yeah, I need sunglasses. I think I'll get some now.

So you get back in the car and eagerly grab the sunglasses from the bag because you don't want to go another day without them. But because of advanced adhesive technology, getting the damn sticker off the sunglasses that you want to wear RIGHT NOW is impossible. The sticky tag folds onto itself, creating an impenetrable bond that clenched teeth cannot chew through. And even if you manage to get the sticky tag off, the super adhesive stays on the frame, encouraging whatever hair or lint or whatever is flying around the air to stick to it.

Or, with the other pair...the tag is attached with the dreaded loopy-plastic tag holder thing. Sure, maybe you could cut it with scissors or a knife, if you kept those things in the car. But you don't. The paper tag detaches easily enough from the plastic loopy thing, leaving the plastic thing firmly looped around the frame, conveniently located right around the nosepiece, where everyone can see it because you don't give a shit anymore, you just put them on anyway because all you needed was a pair of DAMN SUNGLASSES. NOW.

Fortunately, you remembered to peel off the UV protection label from the lens. Didn't you?

note to the MSM...

2008-02-06T15:21:00.000-05:00

For the love of CHRIST, STOP saying "change agent." That's the person who gives you a roll of quarters in the casino. It does not refer to EVERY CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, not even if they call themselves that. Just stop it now. Stop.

my house... is a very very very clean house

2008-02-06T09:12:00.000-05:00

My rich friends gave me a gift yesterday, arguably one of the greatest gifts ever given to a busy woman:

Two cleaning ladies from Poland.

The joy of having the whole house clean at once is immeasurable. It's almost impossible to get it all done in one day, so I clean a room here, a room there, but they're never all clean at the same time. I'm constantly in a state of mess.

Yesterday, Yolanda and her friend fixed all that for me. Armed with cleaning supplies and knee pads, they went to work upstairs while I went out and got stuff done.

When I came home...oh! The glorious smell of bleach and lysol and method cleaning products greeted me at the door! The carpet so vacuumed, I lay down and created a carpet angel on it. The sparkling floors! The made beds! And the bathrooms almost made me cry. Or maybe that was the bleach. I don't know, and it doesn't matter.

I'd never had my house professionally cleaned before. It's a beautiful thing.

And then stuff will start to pile up again, and the boys and their stinky friends will come and mess everything up. The cat will shed, the dog will slobber, the dirt will find its way back. It always does.

But for now, I'll try not to spill anything. And everybody takes off their shoes before entering the house.

Thanks, ladies. Thanks, friends.

steaming piles of crap

2008-01-30T21:25:00.000-05:00

Wow, I haven't posted in a month!

A lot has happened. Truth to tell, the end of the year mostly sucked, and so far, 2008 sucks too.

But I won't dwell on it, because it's pretty tiresome to write (and read) about despair and woe and..well, things that suck.

Unless it's something like this:

We got this puppy, see, and he's called Hooch. He's going to be 7 feet tall. He's about 3 1/2 months old, and his feet are as big as hockey pucks. He's great, but he's a puppy, albeit a huge puppy, and puppies are a big pain in the ass. I'd forgotten that. No, I didn't forget it; I never really knew that, because when I first had a puppy I was 11 years old, so I mostly forget about its care and feeding, except I suppose my mother mostly took over those duties.

I do remember that when you took the dog out, he crapped wherever he felt like, and that was that. There was no fussy scooping, no tricky turning the plastic bag inside out to pick up the crap. The steaming crap in winter. No, you just left it, and it hardened eventually, and disintegrated. Maybe someone would step in it and drag it into the house, but that didn't happen often.

You never heard of anyone getting a disease from stepping in a pile of dogcrap.

That's all changed now. It's a federal offense to let your dog crap freely around the neighborhood. People give you the hairy eyeball if you don't pick up the crap. Little children blithely pick up and throw dogcrap at each other, sometimes even sampling a morsel because they think it's chocolate. And they now DIE from that, evidently.

And yet, there are still piles of crap on the ground. Someone's not following instructions.

Me, I always pick up the crap because I don't want some neighborhood Mrs. Kravitz giving me shit about not picking up crap. It's a distasteful chore. And the idea of picking up dogcrap in a plastic grocery bag is totally ludicrous, essentially giving the crap a half-life of a thousand years in a landfill, rather than, what, a couple of weeks out on the lawn? It's stupid. I'd really prefer to just let it sit and become one with nature.

Now they have compostable and recyclable poop bags made from corn, which I suppose is a slightly better alternative. Someone's making money making compostable bags for the rest of us to pick up and dispose of our dogs' crap. The idea is just a little insane.

Hooch can be quite prolific. It's unbelievable what a dog's bowels can hold.

So that's my first post of the new year, a post about picking up steaming piles of dogcrap. Surely a harbinger of the year ahead.

puppy!

2007-12-30T20:33:00.000-05:00

In support of the dh, I've taken a complete leave of my senses and rescued a labradoodle puppy. Here he is, as yet unnamed. His foster family called him Houdini, because he liked to escape. That's pretty good but we're looking for other options. Any suggestions?

if i only had a brain...tumor

2007-12-29T10:11:00.000-05:00

Ok, the dh got through surgery. Over 5 1/2 hours. Now I can make jokes about the hole in his head.

He can't see or speak well. His eye-hand coordination is askew (a forkful of mashed potato is just as likely to land on his cheek as in his mouth). Hasn't started walking yet. He's in a safety bed for now, like a big play pen for adults. He can do somersaults and cartwheels in it, but he can't escape from it. It's kinda funny.

He'll start intensive rehab today: physical, occupational, speech...they promise to work him hard and not let him get in any trouble. He'll be in rehab for weeks.

His recovery will take awhile, but the surgeon keeps telling me that he'll recover most, if not all, of what he's lost. So then I can't make jokes about him losing his marbles.

I have to make the jokes. There's no other way of getting through it.

an ependymowhat?

2007-12-15T13:53:00.000-05:00

Well, in an unusual turn of events, it appears as though the dh has a rather rare brain tumor called an ependymoma. When he found out I started combing the net, researching and digging up the worst possible information. When someone has a dangerous brain tumor, this is probably the last thing you should do. But to me, I'd rather know than not know. It's a strategy that doesn't work for everyone.

I've been telling him for years he should have his head examined, and he finally did. The MRI shows a tumor the size of...a tangerine? A small orange? Something bigger than a clementine, but smaller than a grapefruit. Something in the citrus family.

Maybe a sports ball comparison would be better. Maybe a baseball? A hockey puck?

It's hard to tell, really, but the thing is big, and it's right there in the back of the head, close to the brain stem.

It needs to come out.

So he has surgery on Friday, before Christmas. The outcome is uncertain. He could be up and about in a couple of weeks. He could end up in rehab. He could lapse into a coma.

Of course, the best way to deal with this, as with all other catastrophes and misfortunes that befall us from time to time, is with seriously dark humor, which hides a cautious optimism.

Consequently, there is an upside to this: I've successfully bailed out of making Christmas dinner for 12. Yay!

pee-wee returns? dare i hope?

2007-12-12T15:50:00.000-05:00

I hear that Paul Reubens may be coming out with a new Pee-Wee movie. "The time is ripe," he said. The public is ready for his triumphant return to the screen.

I know I am. I loved Pee-Wee's Playhouse back in the day. When I left Florida, my co-workers pitched in for my farewell presents: A pullstring Pee-Wee Herman doll and Chairry, to keep me company on my return to NJ.

Chairry has a mouth-slot between its cushions that you can move using a knobby thing in the back. In the show, Chairry was a rather uninspired and bland character, almost the moral center of the show. Playing with the moral center of a kids' show isn't much fun. I mean, it's a chair for pete's sake.

Pee-Wee, on the other hand, was fun to play with. He's stuffed, not bendable. Maybe 16 inches tall. At one point, he said "I know you are but what am I?" among other famous expressions.

Now, however, he sits in my lonely attic with Chairry, and when I pull his string he says "beeedeeebeedeeebeeddeeeee" in a very high-pitched whine. I should have taken better care of him so I could unload him on ebay, but the truth is: I could never part with him.

Sexual symbolism runs amok throughout the commercial, featuring a too-smiley 12-year-old kid, his banana-eating dad (or perhaps his "funny" uncle) and a bunch of monkeys in propeller hats. Honestly, though, I think Reubens got a bum rap in the movie theater. If getting caught masturbating in a porn theater is enough to get you thrown in jail (and isn't that the whole point of the porn theater, to provide a safe, secure and nurturing environment in which to "shoot one's wad"), surely that makes Pee-Wee the perfect presidential candidate.

love via currency

2007-12-06T12:22:00.000-05:00

I got this in change the other day. A stamp like this would've come in handy back in my bar-hopping days. At the bar, enjoying a few cocktails...a guy buys you a drink and thinks that's a contractual obligation for sex later. You're not interested, so you make a bet:

"Ten bucks says you won't get lucky with me tonight."

But how can I possibly spend this? I mean, I thought this was funny, but I don't want to offend anyone. And I surely don't want people to think I'm sitting in my basement maniacally stamping away on all my currency. Perhaps I'll put it in the household emergency fund box, which I've just now invented.

I got this on the same day:

See there at the top? It says "I love you, cary 11-26-07" Maybe it says "cory." I can't tell for sure. In any event, that's almost me. Surely this is God's mysterious, cosmic way of telling me he loves me, even if he can't spell my name right. Although if he really wants to express his love for me via currency, if he really felt that way, he'd have showered me with a million of these. Hmmm.

yeah, i got your wintry mix right here, pal

2007-12-03T12:03:00.000-05:00

I can't seem to concentrate, so this is just stuff that occurred to me, like, just now, or that pisses me off.

Whose idea was it to make rice crispy, and then put it in chocolate? I mean, rice and chocolate. That's like sliced bananas on a saltine.

Weathercasters here in the Northeast use this term "wintry mix" to describe a windy, rainy, snowy, sleety, icy, crappy weather condition that up until recently had not had a suitable adjective to describe it. Now they say it all the time, because it's a "wintry mix" time of year. Every channel. All the time.

"This morning, look out for a 'wintry mix,' and don't forget your umbrella. You'll need it for that 'wintry mix'! Hahahaha! Back to you, Juanita."

I frigging hate that expression now. "Wintry mix." Sounds like it should be something happy and sparkly, with little sugar snowflakes and peppermint, bits of silver and blue, maybe a festive pudding or a bowl of candy or something. But no. It's not something to look forward to. It's something to fear, encouraging people to run to the Ack-a-me RIGHT NOW to load up on milk and salt and a shovel that will only fall apart the moment you use it on the "wintry mix" left behind.

Speaking of pudding, I hate it when you're at the cashier, at, say, the CVS, say, this morning, and the person behind you just can't manage to hold onto their stuff, and stands very, very, too close to you to facilitate placing it all on the counter while you're still standing there continuing your transaction. Or even in the Ack-a-me, when people just can't wait to put their stuff on the belt after you. You barely have begun to put the divider thingy on, and they're already piling up their shit on the 1/2 inch of belt left.

Ah, yes. It's that grouchy, ho-frigging-Mchoho time of year.

sorry-ass cake

2007-11-28T08:35:00.000-05:00

See? Even without the green food coloring, which I conveniently forgot when I went to the Ack-a-me to buy it, this is one sorry-ass cake.

It's not too badly misshapen, but what's with the bits and pieces of cake and crumbs in the frosting/icing? What's a gal gotta do?

To prevent her from donning her "martyr-mom" cape, I ought to mention here that yesterday was also my mother's birthday. Happy birthday, Mom.

boo! happy birthday!

2007-11-27T08:43:00.000-05:00

Boo turns 13 today. 13. That mystical age where a child absorbs all the knowledge in the world, becoming both genius and sage...while said child's parents turn into complete babbling idiots who know nothing, never knew anything, and will never learn or know anything, ever. Because we just don't understand!

Birthdays require cake, so I made a layer cake this morning. Usually, if the boys have a birthday party I wuss out and make a rectangle cake, only requiring frosting on the top. Or icing. Frosting. Icing. Is there a regional difference? My past attempts at layer cakes usually result in a sadly misshapen, leaning lump of cooked cake, with the outside frosting infiltrated with bumps and crumbs and small bits of cake. Not a very appetizing presentation.

For Boo's birthday, I'm expecting an even more unappetizing presentation, as his cake will have a mint buttercream frosting. And of course, nothing screams MINT!!!!! like green food coloring, which, of course, requires a special trip to the Ack-a-me, because the concept of "food coloring"--whereby a normal-colored food is transformed into an even more delicious NEON color--is lost on me.

The cake is done and cooling now, the devil's food.

My mother used to make a flour icing, with flour, sugar, butter and frigging Crisco. Crisco! A half a cup of white grease! This is a frosting made famous during World War II, when people ate Crisco by the spoonfuls to support the war effort. It sounds horrible, but it's really good on the devil's food. Not too sweet.

That's why I don't like canned frosting, unless I'm eating it directly out of the can like Crisco. Canned frosting is too sweet for cake. It's designed for direct can-to-mouth consumption.

Kids don't care, though; they don't know about the hardship and painstaking effort that's required to make the perfect frosting/icing. They can't tell the difference between canned and homemade. They don't care about the effort you put into the misshapen cake, or how many times you had to make the icing before it was just the right consistency. No matter how many times you tell them that homemade is and always will be superior to "store-bought" or "canned" or "BJs brand"...they don't care. They can't tell.

They just don't understand.

no more beating my brains

2007-11-21T07:56:00.000-05:00

Thankfully, it seems that Obama's recent admission to a bunch of high school kids that he "experimented" with drinking and drugs in his youth--something he wrote about in his book--has not generated much media frenzy.

(I have a love/hate relationship with the media anyway. I hate the way they swoop down on some stupid, irrelevant crumb of information (Britney ran over a photog's foot! How could she not when they're surrounding her car all the time?!) and turn it into an earth-shattering event. Yet, they're now telling us (well, maybe Fox isn't) that Scott McClellan is throwing Bush under the bus. That Bush and his evil gang of criminals actually--gasp!--told him to lie to the American public about their role in exposing Valerie Plame. So, I like that. I just wish they'd impeach this fucking guy and be done with it. We should be storming the frigging White House to physically remove this corrupt, cowardly sack of shit. And I rarely use the term "sack of shit" because it's kind of stupid, so it really means something coming from me.)

Anyway.

You kind of have to expect a younger candidate might have a history of some drinking and drug use. And I'm not sure I'd trust him/her if they didn't. I don't trust most of the "holier than thou" crowd, who surely have some skeletons in their closet somewhere, along with the leather bondage gear.

What irks me is the word "experimented."

You "experiment" with a childhood chemistry set. You "experiment" with your mother's makeup, your dad's razor. You "experiment" with kitchen ingredients, concocting this ghastly, delicious meal of Captain Crunch, Fluff and avacado.

What's it mean to "experiment" with drinking? Is that the same as creating a Long Island ice tea, just throwing a bunch of different liquors in a glass with ice, maybe mixing in a little soda or juice? How does one "experiment" with drugs? You either "take" them or "smoke" or "snort" them. I mean, there's no explanation for "experimenting." It's disingenuous, much like saying you didn't inhale.

It's supposed to make us think that, while you may have tried drinking and drugs back in the day, and even enjoyed doing those things for a while, you no longer indulge, at least to the extent you might have when you were younger. You grew out of it.

If you're a serious presidential candidate from Harvard Law School, we figured that out already. So you can just skip the "experimenting" part. We get it. We did it too.

stfu

2007-11-15T09:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's holding area for the movie had been moved from the high school gym to the "Green Barn," an unheated shrine to some kind of Indian mysticism. Indian artifacts, prayer altars, neatly stacked piles of stones, drums and what looked to be didgeridoos lined the room. A finely carved canoe hung from the ceiling.

None of this really served to chill the general bad vibe coming from some parents who still don't quite understand that moviemaking isn't an exact science.

The boys were called at 9 am. (To get there by then, we had to leave at 7 am to account for rush hour traffic.) They sat and didn't start shooting until about 3 pm. We got home well after dark.

Now, I have no problem with this. I brought a book, my laptop, my ipod. But there were a few parents who just bitched the whole time about having to wait. Why was lunch so late? It's so cold in here! We should've been called in later. Aren't they DONE yet?

To those parents, I offer these immortal words from Julianne Moore, as Linda Partridge, in Magnolia:

"Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Now, you must really shut the fuck up now, please - shut the fuck up."

You wanted your kids to be in the movie. You knew, going into it, that it would be a huge inconvenience to you to drive them to the set, to wait, to miss work...you knew all this going into it.

And yet, you're sitting there bitching about the inconvenience, the waiting, the missed work.

Parents love to bitch. I get it. But you're sitting here in the Green Barn, which has just been infiltrated by a bat, and there's nothing you can do about it now. It's cold. It's dark. You missed work. Look at the bright side: Your kid is filming a movie by a disheveled Academy Award-winning director. And the port-o-pots have a sink.

So shut the fuck up.

the lovely leftovers

2007-11-13T11:44:00.000-05:00

Boo had more filming yesterday. A few of us moms snuck out onto the set, behind a high school somewhere near Chadds Ford. At one point, we stood maybe 12 feet away from Peter Jackson.

Which was kinda cool, except he's a short, rumply, disheveled sort of guy. He looked like he'd been out all night drinking sometime during 1976, fell asleep in his clothes, and woke up from a time warp to direct the movie.

Moviemaking is very slowgoing and tedious. At one point, one of the PAs tried to corral us back into the holding area, but we ducked inside a classroom, where we could view the filming outside. Which mostly consisted of the boys running around in their short shorts and tight t-shirts and kicking a soccer ball. Hell, we could do that during a Sunday soccer game and have a cocktail to go with.

But the food! The food has been delicious.

As parents, we are the last in line for lunch, and if there's nothing left by then, we miss out. We've hovered and paced the hallway like hungry cougers. We've had to wait for for the cast and crew to get their second and third helpings before we've been allowed to eat.

And damn! They've served many different kinds of salads, cold salads, fresh mozzarella (yum), lamb chops, turkey, ribs, chicken, pasta, salmon...and it's been good! Not like the buffet at your cousin's wedding. We try to restrain ourselves so as not to appear greedy, but I suppose we look like hungry moms, eagerly wolfing down anything that's not nailed down.

Food always tastes better when someone else makes it for you.

mechanical bull-riding mini pads

2007-11-08T23:23:00.000-05:00

Ok, this is probably the most absurd commercial I've seen.

You know the one: where the mini pad is riding the mechanical bull? Maybe it's a panty liner. It hardly matters.

And why not? I know the first thing I want to do after I've stuck the thing to the crotch of my underwear is ride a mechanical bull. My crotch really craves that rough stuff at the peak of its flow!

Sanitary pads (or "napkins" as they were so graphically named way back when, when sensitive mothers explained this mysterious find to their children after finding them prying in the cabinet beneath the sink: "Yes, Billy, it's called a napkin, but not the kind you wipe your chin with." "And Billy, by the way, that's "chocolated" Ex-Lax, it's not real chocolate. Well, heh, heh, you'll find out soon enough.") have really evolved so much over the years. When I started menstruating, I needed a damn contractor's toolbelt and an instruction manual to strap this brick-like thing on. Now they can go swimming and ride horseback and mechanical bulls all by themselves!

And, really, why should I have all the fun? Hey, mini pad, get on the bull and ride! It's fun! Yee-haw!

I'm a tampon gal myself. But sometimes a gal likes that extra layer of protection. And when I go supermarket shopping for mini pads, I think, "hmmm. What brand of mini pad would be a better mechanical bull rider? So many choices. Do I go with the extra-longs? The extra absorbent? That would make sense. The ultra-breathable? The freshly-scented?"

And then, of course, the choice becomes obvious. The winged mini pad. Of course! The wings keep the mini-pad from flying off the mechanical bull! It's genius! The wings must have spurs built in!

But wait. Unless...the wings help the mini pad..go flying off the mechanical bull! Because, well, they're wings, after all.

Geez, it could go either way. I don't think I'd be having this debate about tampons. Have you ever seen a tampon trying to balance itself on a mechanical bull? They fly off, they climb back on, they go flying off...it's pathetic. They shouldn't even try.

At the end of the commercial, I was told to "have a happy period." Is there any other kind? God, I'm ecstatic when I'm on the rag. I can't think of anything I'd rather do than down a few shots, strap on my winged mini pad and go hump a mechanical bull.

And that's just on a Monday night. Imagine what me and my mini pad would be capable of on the weekend! Just me and my high-flyin' bull-ridin' mini pad! Yee haw!

making no scents

2007-11-06T15:55:00.000-05:00

I went to Kohl's today to spend my free $10 in "Kohl's cash." What a subversive, manipulative trick that is: we'll give you $10 for every $50 you spend. I'm a sucker.

Anyway, Yankee candles were on sale. The sign said a 12-ounce Yankee "Simply Home" candle was $14.99. Next to that was a sign declaring that said candle, in the "autumn foliage" fragrance--so it smells like dying leaves--was 25% off.

I took the candle and a couple of other items to the cashier. She rung me up. It seemed to add up to more than I thought it should. I was on my way out the door, and I looked at the receipt and sonofaBITCH! They charged me $20.99 for this stinking tinyass candle.

Hey, I'm a mighty consumer! I'm confident! I can stand up for my right not to be overcharged!

So I go to customer service and meekly, politely, explain the dilemma. She rescanned it. It came up $20.99.

"I'm sorry. It scans $20.99."

Oh, even the the all-knowing, omnipotent ouija-scanner makes mistakes, my stuck-in-the-back-room-dealing-with-dissatisfied-customers customer service lady friend.

"Well, it might scan that, but the sign says '14.99' for the 12-ounce candle," I politely informed her. "Plus the 25% off." I stood there in a daze as my lightning fast head calculations put the final cost at about, what...11, 12 dollars. Give or take.

She was unimpressed. "You'll have to show me the sign."

The burden of proof now rested on my shoulders. She probably expected me to back down at this point, so I wouldn't embarrass myself marching around the labyrinth of aisles with the customer service gal in tow, my arms flailing wildly as I explained my point.

She was wrong.

We marched down the aisles, my arms flailing wildly as I explained my point. We arrived at the candle display, where--very clearly, it seemed to me--the prices of the various sizes of candles were listed, next to a sign that promised 25% off of 3 different fragrances, the smell of dead leaves and rotting foliage among them. As it happens, there was a candle for sale that was $20.99, but it was a much larger candle.

"Here. It says $14.99 for the 12-ounce candle. And 25% off of that." It was CLEAR AS A FRIGGING BELL THIS GODDAMN CANDLE WAS $14.99.

"Well, no. The $14.99 is the sale price, including the 25% off."

"Well, when you have sales, you post the sale price next to the regular price. That's how I, as a consumer, know that an item's on sale." I pointed to another sign that in fact did this very thing. "That's not the case with this sign. As a consumer, I look at this sign, and it says $14.99."

"But that's with the 25% off."

"No. That's not how you do it here at Kohls. Do you understand how I would interpret this sign to mean that this particular candle is actually $14.99?"

"Well, no. You know, that's probably an old sign. I'll take it down." She removed the 25% off sign.

"Um...I'm not sure you're getting my drift. The sign that's still here says the candle is $14.99. Taking away the 25% off sign doesn't matter. The problem is, the sign says one thing, but it's scanning $20.99. Taking the 25% off sign won't change the scanned price. Which, according to the current sign should amount to...(again, using my zippity math skills)...about 11 dollars. Or twelve."

By this time she had crisply removed the 25% off sign that magically added 6 dollars to the advertised price and we marched back to customer service.

"You have to understand. I don't normally do this. I'm not a nag, I'm not usually a very assertive consumer. But I'm just trying to save you from yourselves." By this time, a line had formed at the counter.

I continued. "You keep that sign up, and you'll have more people like me demanding the price be changed."

"Oh, I don't think that will happen." She smiled insincerely.

"Whatever." By this time, I wasn't angry, but...a little agitated that she wasn't agreeing that Kohls was, in fact, wrong. I was right, she was wrong, dammit. The price couldn't have been interpreted any other way. It was like trying to explain the miserable failure of the Bush presidency to...oh, never mind.

I glanced behind me to see the line had grown. "If the price on the sign is wrong, you need to change it. If it's right, then you need to change it in the scanner. Whatever. The point is, the sign very clearly says $14.99, regardless of the 25% discount. I don't even care so much about the discount. But this candle is not $20.99," I said triumphantly, brandishing the candle about for emphasis. The people in line gave me the hairy eyeball and seemed to take a small step backward.

She just wasn't getting it. But at this point, perhaps sensing that I might be armed and crazy, she gave in. The price ended up being about $12. Which was great, but I was disappointed that I had not been persuasive enough for her to just say, "you know, you're right. And I'm a moron."

I'm tempted to go back today and look at the candles again. Just to see if they caved. In the meantime, "Autumn Foliage" actually smells pretty good.

candy asses

2007-11-01T08:10:00.000-05:00

I've figured out why celebration of Halloween has grown exponentially over the years.

It's just another excuse for a grown-up cocktail party.

Some neighborhood parents assembled at the Slus house last evening for food and drinks. They're on a high-traffic corner so they get a lot of trick-or-treaters. All our kids are officially old enough to go out on their own, so we can relax outside for a couple of hours and eat and drink and shove the bowls of candy toward the kids and snarl, "Here, help yourself. NO, just one. Now say thank you. Say THANK YOU, you little bastards!"

There's no way I could outdo last year's Chef Boyardee costume, so I didn't even bother this year. Boo went out as Chris Angell, or however pretentious way he spells his name, and Remy was Elwood. One Blues Brother. They returned home with 10.6 pounds of candy, slightly short of the record 11 pounds.

And what's up with Dum Dum pops? And Smarties? Kids HATE them. Back in the day, you got regular size candy bars, maybe some Good N Plenty or JuJubes or something, but mostly it was chocolate, and lots of it.

These days you get prissy, diminutive Dum Dum pops and Smarties and those horrible Nerds, and maybe an individually wrapped Lifesaver. What's the frigging point of THAT? Might as well just open the door and throw sugar packets at the kids.

And those...little jelly things shaped like hamburgers and hot dogs from the dollar store. WTF?! What moron thought these were a good idea? Kids are savvy these days, they know the dollar store candy from the good stuff, and they'll just toss that cheap shit. Don't waste your money. Well, it's only a dollar, but still.

tucci, tucci too

2007-10-29T06:27:00.001-05:00

Parenting is hard. You try to set a good example, and Christ, that's hard enough. You want your kids to grow up to be good, smart people.

I'm not driven to greatness, but I want my kids to be.

My definition of parenting includes exposing my kids to extraordinary, out-of-the-box stuff. And that doesn't mean visiting Disneyworld for vacation every year, or driving a minivan with TVs.

So last week, Boo had a couple of days off of school to film The Lovely Bones, directed by Peter "No-longer-a-huge-tub-of-lard-so-don't-confuse-me-with-Michael-Moore" Jackson. I thought it might be fun for him to see how tedious and dreary moviemaking can be, even if it's a movie made by an Oscar-winning director.

I read the book a year or two ago, and remember none of it. None. I hear it's a good book.

Apparently there's a boys' soccer team in the story, and the dead gal's sister plays on the team. In the scenes they filmed last week, the team is running through a 70s-era neighborhood. Boo has a prime spot within the group, running right behind the gal, so hopefully he'll stay in the scene.

A van transported them to the set. Their driver happily cursed at them, which the boys thought was hilarious. "Hey, don't get fingerprints on my windows, you little bastards!" he hollered. "Someone get these fuckers off my bus!" The boys howled with laughter. Ha! Ha!

Between filming scenes, Boo had a conversation with Stanley Tucci, who plays the murderer (oops, did I give it away?) He said he was very nice. Stanley--may I call him Stanley?--has appeared in, like, everything. Mr. Tucci. Stanley. Stanleys' a funny name if you look at it long enough.

For authenticity, the boys had to wear 70s-era workout-wear. This meant tight, banded t-shirts and short shorts, with tube socks and Converse sneakers. All the boys were clearly uncomfortable in these outfits, since they're all used to wearing big baggy everything. They came out of wardrobe holding their limbs tightly to their bodies. They tugged their shorts down, trying to hide their white thighs. Their thighs are never exposed to the sun!

I shared with Boo the horror of 70s-era gym suits, those blue one-piece monstrosities girls were forced to wear, with the poofy, elasticized leg openings.

By the end of the shoot, they had all loosened up a little, united in their disdain for one of the boys, who kept waving to the camera and acting like an idiot. Otherwise, they became fast friends and are hoping to return in November to shoot some scenes in which they're actually playing soccer.

And the moms? We got to sit. And sit. And sit...

cocktail games

2007-10-23T06:36:00.000-05:00

I've finally figured out the reason why kids' soccer has grown exponentially over the last couple of decades.

It's just another excuse for a grown-up cocktail party.

When the weather's nice--as it has been for every socccer game the boys have played--we bring coolers to the games filled with snacks and beer and wine coolers. More intrepid parents bring a thermos filled with a preferred cocktail, like gin and tonic. Hardcore drinkers...er, parents, bring bottles of hard liquor and stealthily prepare more elaborate cocktails from the back of the minivan.

We bring plastic cups--red for Republican, blue for Democrat--in which to disguise the beer and cocktails. We surreptitiously crack open a beer and quickly pour it in the cup, looking around to make sure no one's watching, which we all invariably do, so we can ask if there's more to share.

We behave like naughty 12-year-olds, sneaking a beer behind the barn, giggling and filled with our own cleverness, eagerly drinking up this forbidden fruit.

It's probably a violation of some rule or another. But hey. We're grownups! We revel in our own smug rebelliousness. We're weary 40-somethings who, back in the day, happily accepted the challenge of dropping acid and then drinking and driving. Hah! That'll teach those rule-makers!

The weather's been mostly warm and sunny, but it should turn by the weekend. When the crisp November air sweeps around the soccer fields, we'll bundle up in sweaters and hoodies and our Chase Utley fleece blankets, and moan about how cold it is. And then, when we get to that point of reason, say, after about 2 beers, 2 cocktails...we'll stop. We have kids to drive home, after all.

college kids

2007-10-22T07:27:00.000-05:00

Yeah, college kids these days! Harummph!

There’s a diverse mix of students in my V&D class. James is from Nigeria, blahblah is from Columbia, Sister Pepita is from the Phillipines and Occasional (named because of his attendance) is from Somalia. It’s always hilarious when the instructor hauls out the F-bomb and starts talking about venereal diseases in class while watching Sister squirm.

The other students are mostly college-age kids, mostly unkempt and apparently unbathed. Even the girls. They're sweet and dumb and self-absorbed; they know nothing about the world. When they presented their autobiographies, all they could talk about was elementary school and high school, ending with “and well, here I am in county college, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”

I don't remember being that boring and misinformed at that age, but perhaps I was.

They wear slippers and sweatpants to class. Some are still wearing their pants at crotch level. Isn't that look over yet? They still forget to bring #2 pencils on test days.

And then there’s Bambi, a little haggard with a whiskey grin and a smoker’s cough, and a couple of kids of her own. Her daughter is a a drug addict, unable to care for her own 2-year-old daughter, so that job has fallen to Bambi. Which pretty much has to suck, so I will try to refrain from making snarky comments about her in the margins.

And nearly 2 months into class, the only interesting thing we've done in class is breathing and tongue exercises. And not with each other.

voith and dickshun

2007-10-08T20:43:00.000-05:00

I've been taking a voice and diction class at the local county college. I'm not sure why I'm doing this, exactly, except perhaps I'm harboring some pointless dream of doing some voiceover work in the future. You know: adding a spoke to my "career wheel."

Given my acting background and the heady mix of praise and adulation I've received the last few summers as baseball/swim meet/bingo announcer (example: "Gee. You're funny. You make swim meets sound not so boring."), wellll, it's enough to make me plunk down some dough and attend classes twice a week where I can flaunt my life experiences in a classroom full of young, boneheaded college students who don't know the difference between JFK and RFK.

Class started in September, and this is about all I've learned: the "th" sound is rare outside of American English. And, oh yeah: James Earl Jones was a stutterer, and then was mute until high school.

And: I've listened intently to my instructor's hilarious stories not once but twice, even, and it's only the beginning of October.

I've started once again, just like in high school and college after that, cartooning and editorializing in the margins of my notebook when I'm not fully paying attention. Comments include:

"OH, this woman's going to drive me INSANE. We have to go over really simple things, like old movie plots, like SINGING IN THE FUCKING RAIN, just to bring her up to speed on popular culture." (This is referring to my classmate "Bambi,"--no kidding, Bambi--who is the class suckup, which isn't an attractive feature for a 40-something woman.)

Followed by a cartoon of a starlet with big boobs.

And here, look, Bambi asks this question of the instructor, which I've duly noted in the margin: "This is a nosy question, but...why did you get divorced after 28 years of marriage?" OMGAAHH. The instructor politely brushes her question off. Bambi is not the brightest color in the crayon box.

And here are some more margin cartoons, mostly of heads...I'm relearning to draw mouths.

"OK, when does the learning take place?" I ask plaintively in the margin. "I didn't pay to hear stories."

That's the class. We gave autobiographical speeches last class, which was rather fun, but I'm afraid the kids didn't get most of my jokes. Maybe they were too esoteric. Or maybe I wasn't speaking clearly!

I'm going to say more about the kids next time.

rigged erections

2007-09-28T10:26:00.000-05:00

I need to totally change gears before I blow a gasket.

The Cialis commercials are really creeping me out. I guess now with football season upon us, so, too, will be more and more Cialis commercials.

The generic name for Cialis is tadalafil. As in, "Hey, honey, I have an erection. Ta-da!"

According to its website, Cialis improves the chance that a man will at least have one successful intercourse attempt. Multiple attempts per dose have not been studied.

Now, how would they study that? Wouldn't that be like watching porn? How would the conversation in the study lab go?

"OK, Steve, you've made a successful attempt at intercourse. Congratulations. You didn't....quite...get there, but you tried. Ok, now, I want you to keep trying."

"But I'm tired. I don't want to."

"Keep trying! You can do it, big guy! Millions of women worldwide are depending on you! C'mon, Steve, women love this stuff. C'mon, give it another shot. That's good. A little more to the left."

According to the website, Cialis has many benefits:

Works for up to 36 hours.
And, it also works fast.

How do you control that?

"Well, I don't want to have sex now for crissakes, but look: here's an erection. I wanted an erection 36 hours from now. What the HELL am I going to do with this? I'm in the frigging beer line at the ball game!"

It also

Works effectively. As opposed to working ineffectively.
No need to plan around meals. Great! You won't have to buy her dinner first!
Lets you choose when the moment's right (for both you and your partner)

Believe me, your partner wants nothing to do with it.

I think the commercials creep me out because the guys all seem like these lecherous, horny old men. And their women are all fawning over this magic, mammoth hard-on. Then there's the porn movie music playing in the background.

And then, in one commercial, the spent, happy, post-coital couple is inexplicably lounging around in his-n-her matching claw-foot bathtubs on the rocky shore.

Him: "Ahhh, wasn't that a fabulous ROMP, dear?"

Her: "Whatever." Rolls eyes, heaves big sigh.

Him: "Let's try making multiple attempts, shall we?"

Her: "Hmmmm. I don't think so. That hasn't been studied. I wouldn't want you to break anything."

I feel like I need a bath after watching these commercials. I'm not sure who they're designed for: guys don't pay attention to this crap on TV. As for me, well, the only horny, middle-age guy I want to see running around naked with a hard-on is Viggo. (And he does in Eastern Promises, but he gets beat up in a Russian bath house knife fight. What a waste of full frontal nudity.)

more yelling

2007-09-26T08:12:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how the discussion came around to dead jews and slavery...according to one lady, we have a choice. Yay!

Yup. "Nobody likes war, but sometimes it's necessary." I'd like this gentleman to explain why, exactly, this particular war in Iraq is "necessary."

And then Bush has the nerve to say we still--still--need to be patient, and he needs $200 billion to fund more "necessary" war...yet there's not enough money for the SCHIP program? He's a fucking lunatic! Can't we just...coup, or something?

Ok, I've effectively raised my blood pressure for the day.

hi. i'm a friend of osama's...

2007-09-24T13:28:00.000-05:00

...he said to say "hi," and to please return his jock strap when you're done with it. He only has the one and winter's coming.

What's that about Bush being a "uniter, not a divider?" Delusional neocon twits.

The only Osama picture I saw was one that said: "Osama's free. Are we?"

Still working on the video; may repost ..

this is what democracy looks like

2007-09-19T08:12:00.000-05:00

Boo and I took the train to DC; his first trip on a “real” train. We hoofed it to the Capitol and then to the Mall. I didn’t think to look online to find out exactly where the anti-war protest march would be. I thought, hey, it’s DC. There’s the Mall. Where else would it be?

So we saw some folks gathered around a stage, flags flying…but there were only maybe 200 or so. THIS didn’t look like some grand protest march! My heart sank. Then I looked closer and saw the Harley jackets, the gnarly, mostly middle age white men milling about, and heard a faint whiff of country music, then I knew: it was a protest to protest the protest march!

We hightailed it from there to Lafayette Park, in front of the White House, where many more people had assembled, somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 altogether. I felt tingly—no kidding, I got goose bumps—when I saw the signs. It was electric. People of all ages, colors, religions, political leanings, galaxies, genders (two, possibly three), and species (dogs and children) had gathered to protest the war and the Bush administration. Spontaneous chants of “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Bush and Cheney have got to go!” and “Impeach!” and “Shame!” filled the air.

If you can't read it, the Hitler button quote is: What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.

This is what it felt like when I was in DC for the Million Mom March several years ago. That electricity you feel when you’re part of a large group with a common bond. And you're all pissed.

We listened to Ralph Nader (who was actually quite good), Cindy Sheehan, and some Iraq war vets, who were, to me anyway, the most moving. These guys are not only courageous, but are taking a risk by speaking out. They’ve frigging been there; they KNOW what it’s like, unlike our Chimp-in-Chief. They led the way as we moved along Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol.

…to be continued. Maybe with video!

dubya's got company

2007-09-14T22:22:00.000-05:00

Boo and I are headed to DC Saturday to participate in the "big" protest march against...well, everything Bush has ever said or done. Perhaps it might not be quite appropriate to bring a nearly 13-year-old to a protest march, but he's willing and I think it's important for kids to know what's going on in their world. In 5 years, if there's a draft, I'll be damned if my boys will participate in Bush's war. We'll leave the country, like Alec Baldwin threatened to do.

Oh, wait. He's still here.

yay, more bloodletting

2007-09-12T10:16:00.001-05:00

After finally getting off the coumadin and wolfing down a bunch of meat, I was able to give blood again recently.

My bloodletter was a guy named Josh (or Justin, or Jesse, or Jake, or some other J-name that many 20-something boys seem to have). He was nerdy but cute enough. And chatty.

We talked of many things. The air circulator thing in the church was howling and making all this racket, and at one point it settled down. At which time he said, "Yay, it stopped."

"You said 'yay'," I said.

"Yeah. I say it a lot."

"I do TOO!" I exclaimed, my blood filling the bag at a record pace. "Just yesterday, I called about some x-rays, and they told me they were done, and I said, 'YAY' they're done!'"

"Yeah, but do you say it sincerely, or sarcastically?"

"Hmm. Good question. I'd say about 80% sincerely. I say it a lot."

"I'd say I say it about 70% sincerely. But my friends seem to say it more often sarcastically."

We talked about "yay" for awhile. And I do say it a lot. But it's not just me; more and more people are saying "Yay" for various reasons. "Yay, I'm going shopping, yay!" "Yay, I just put on 5 pounds." "Yay, the stupid trash men left the cans in the street again!" "Yay, we'll be in Iraq forever!" "Yay, I found a $5 dollar bill in my pocket!"

Listen, and you'll hear it.

I filled the bag in less than 5 minutes (Josh told me they like an average of 5 to 7 minutes), because I constantly squeeze on the squeezy thing to keep the flow going. He seemed impressed.

"Wow, NICE," he said. "You can lay down for me anytime."

At this point, after talking about "yay" and music and the Titanic, I wondered if he was just flirting with me. I overlooked the common grammatical error(lie/lay) and I took the bait.

"Only if you buy me dinner first."

falling trees

2007-09-11T11:05:00.000-05:00

Another 9/11, reminding me that I can never hang my laundry outside without looking up at the sky, remembering how clear and blue it was that day six years ago; a kiss of autumn in the air.

I think God's probably pissed at us humans because we're mostly such horribly idiotic stewards of the earth and each other. For some reason, he decided to take a little terrorist action on my laundry line.

Yup. Nothing like a huge limb inexplicably dropping off an even more enormous oak tree to make you wake up and smell the fabric softener.

I think the national psyche will always be a little on edge on 9/11. But I don't waste a lot of time worrying about terrorists "following" us here. We've got quite enough local terrorists to go around.

The psycho neighbors, for example, and these mysterious late night prank phone calls we've been getting.

Or, today, some misanthrope decides to call in a few bombscares to the local county courthouse, thus putting one's children in "lockdown" mode at school.

Or, today, a homicidal escapee from the nearby mental hospital is reportedly roaming the local streets.

See? I don't need to look for terrorists abroad. They're literally in my backyard.

no surprises here

2007-09-05T17:37:00.000-05:00

Another one of those dorky tests, but according to the results, taking it does not make me an uncool nerd.

what's a colorado bulldog?

2007-09-04T11:32:00.000-05:00

The rest of the Viagra Falls trip was mostly uneventful, except:

1: We didn't fall from the gorge-spanning, 100-year-old aero car and plunge into the swirling rapids below us, as I expected.

2: We didn't pay for a second day of transportation aboard the people mover, which was, well, illegal to do. We spent the day nonchalantly sneaking on and off, wearing hats or taking them off to confuse the drivers.

3: We saw aliens.

4: A hotel fire alarm awakened us at about 2:30 am Saturday; this ear-splitting, beeping warning coming from the ceiling speaker, with the rather vague announcement that, well, the alarm had been sounded, and they're "investigating." Just in case, you know, we might have been SLEEPING and couldn't fully understand what this horrifying sound was. They were "investigating." Well, what the hell does THAT mean? A FIRE? Should we EVACUATE? A terrorist attack? What the HELL is happening?

After some discussion, I decided we ought to evacuate, at least give the boys a chance to see responsible adults in action. Fortunately, many other people chose to do the responsible adult thing and we all stood around the hotel grounds...looking up at the other suckers still in their rooms with the smug certainty they were going to be overcome by some poisonous gas or something.

And we stood. And stood. Finally, after no official word from anyone, we collectively shrugged and went back in. Those still in their rooms pointed at us, laughed, and promptly went back to sleep.

5. My purse was stolen. I swear, it was in the desk drawer, cleverly hidden from the maid, but then we saw a strange guy hovering around the cleaning cart as we were leaving for the day, and when we returned, my purse was GONE!

I immediately reported it to the hotel manager, who was patient and kind and worked with me on it. He brought up a guy who collects data from the key cards, showing when the door was opened. He patiently asked me to go over my morning activities and if there was any other possible explanation. There was none, as far as I was concerned.

Clearly, he recognized me for what I was: a dumb American middle-age blonde caught in a perimenopausal fog. They found the purse later that evening. I had left it in the dining room at breakfast.

Other than that, just the usual stuff:

hooters!

2007-09-01T09:56:00.000-05:00

While in Niagara Falls, the boys hounded us about going to Hooters.

“We’re on vacation. Puh-leeze?”

“I’m not sure Hooters is…uh, appropriate for boys your age.”

What was I thinking? Of COURSE it’s appropriate. Hooters is appropriate for boys of any age!

So we trudged off to Hooters. It was nearly empty. A very pretty blonde Hooter greeted us warmly and showed us to a table. She was wearing the Hooters uniform of a tight white top and tight orange short shorts, made of some unforgiving space age latex/nylon/polyester material. And then the heavy, camouflaging pantyhose under the shorts—a timeless look since 1983. She took our drink orders.

A minute later, another Hooter--this one brunette with a schnozz like Jimmy Durante—asked us for our drink orders. She was rather buxom, but we were hoping for the blonde.

“We just told the blonde,” I said.

She looked puzzled. I’d confused her.

“Uh, well, ok then.” She then left for a good long while, and eventually, after we started twisting our heads around the room looking for her, she returned.

The kids ordered. The dh and I weren’t hungry, but in the spirit of Hooters, ordered 10 wings.

She looked concerned. “Are you sure? That’s not a lot of food.” Judging from her muffin top, I could understand her thinking that.

“Well, we just ate not too long ago,” I said.

“But that’s not enough for two people.”

“It’s ok. Really.” She looked at us like we were insane. Then she changed gears. “What can I get you to drink?”

Again with the drink order. I'd had a bad raspberry daquiri before, and now I wanted a Pepsi. I asked for a Pepsi.

“What?”

“A Coke. A Pepsi. Whatever you have.”

“Ok.” She walked away. She returned 10 seconds later.

“I’m sorry. What did you say you wanted to drink?”

“Coke. Pepsi. Whatever.”

Five minutes later, she returned with our drinks. I got water.

An eternity after that, during which time people who had arrived well after we did were halfway through their own meals, our food arrived.

Boo’s hot dog was twisted and brown. Remy’s fries were cold. The plate of 10 wings looked like they had been sitting under a heat lamp for the last week or two. We didn’t want them fried, but that’s how they arrived. Fried under a big hot sun, so very, very fried. Arguably the worst wings I’ve ever had anywhere. In fact, the entire dining experience was probably the worst I’ve had in a long time.

We ate them anyway. We picked at the crispy fried skin and fat. In the spirit of Hooters.

The boys begged me for Hooters shirts, and I reluctantly bought them so they could get them autographed.

“Can you ask them?” Remy asked me.

“Nope. You wanted the shirts, you ask for the autographs.” Remy got all giggly and awkward, but joined his older brother to get autographs from these lamely famous Hooters.

“Breast wishes!” wrote Miranda.

“What’s up, hot stuff?” wrote Nicole.

“These Hooters girls think you’re a cutie!” wrote Jasmine, to Boo.

Yeah. Guess now the boys are big Hooters fans.

slowly I turn...

2007-08-24T10:32:00.000-05:00

Just returned from Niagara Falls. Endlessly tacky, drawing in the tourist equivalent of the U.N.: every conceivable race, nationality and religion was here, buying needless souvenir shot glasses.

The natives were nice enough, if not a little humorless. For example: At the check-in at the end of Rainbow Bridge, the border patrol guy looked over our paperwork. He almost said hello.

"How do I get to the Sheraton Fallsview?" I asked, summoning up as much charm as I could, given that I had been driving for, what, maybe 7, 8 hours and looked like hell.

"Just go straight ahead."

I looked ahead. There were 3 different paths one could consider "straight ahead."

"Well, there are 3 roads that are straight ahead," I said, charmingly.

"Take the straight one."

"Uh, but the one on the right says "To the falls."

"That's on the right."

"Yeah?"

"So it's not straight ahead."

"Okayyyy...but there are 3 roads that are straight ahead."

"Take the straight one."

I peered at him intently now, to see if he was just being playful.

"So I take the middle one."

He looked at me disdainfully, convinced that I was yet another idiot American tourist, and explained how to get to where I needed to be. Never cracked a smile. I still think he was playing.

The Falls are truly breathtaking, but the town is kinda hung up on their tightrope walkers and wax. Wax everywhere: wax movie stars, wax rock stars, wax famous criminals...celebrities in wax everywhere, not always rendered flatteringly.

At the entrance of the Movieland wax place, Remy asked, "Who's THAT?"

"That's Brendan Fraser. From the Mummy."

"Oh. His hair looks like a toupee."

"Well, it is, because he's made of wax."

"Yeah, but it's all falling off. I mean, he doesn't even look real."

"Yes. That's because he's made of WAX. That's why I won't pay to go through these wax places, because what's the point of seeing celebrities made of wax? It's stupid. Think about it."

Score one for mom, sucking the fun out of a childhood vacation.

remy almost drops his drawers

2007-08-22T10:54:00.000-05:00

Remy was just in a live back-to-school fashion show on the local morning show 10!

That's the name of the show, 10! I guess because it's on the air at 10! and it's on Channel 10! And 10! is exciting!

As it happens, Remy is 10! Wow, spooky!

Anyway, it was his first modeling gig. We arrived at the studio way too early, as I usually make the mistake of being late, or, more frequently, allotting way too much time for unforeseen disasters, like traffic jams, flat tires, car crashes, bridge collapses, etc. Anything can happen, but it usually doesn't, so I ended up arriving about, oh, 35 minutes too early.

They didn't have much in the way of refreshments, so they brought the kids some soda and candy. Just like breakfast at home.

Remy was outfitted in a rather ugly orange striped polo shirt, and jeans about 2 sizes too big. He's an odd size: very tall, but skinny, so for pants to fit him in the waist, they end as long as his knees. To get them long enough, they're 2 sizes too big in the waist. Which is usually ok, given that the baggy, sloppy, look-at-my-underwear look is apparently still in. Which would still be ok, provided the pants actually could find a home on his hips. Which are virtually nonexistent.

But they didn't. They fell right to the floor. Which would've made for great live TV.

Nobody seemed to think that was a great idea, so there was a mad rush around the studio for something to hold them up. The PA found a big black clip thing and we clipped about 3 inches in the back. That's a good look.

The gal announced his name, and he strode up on stage (LIVE! Before a STUDIO AUDIENCE!) And he stood there, kinda swaying as if listening to some silent rap music in his head, put his hands at his pockets, eyes on the camera but couldn't resist checking his look on the studio monitor..and smiled. He smiled and smiled, and kinda giggled at one point, but he looked pretty comfortable out there on stage. Then they brought the other 3 kids up, these adorable 1st and 2nd graders..and there he is, towering over them. They did ok.

We discovered the unglamorous reality of live TV: lots of people running around with walkie talkies attached to them. And the host of the show? Always shorter than you think.

Women In Art

2007-08-15T14:20:00.001-05:00

mystify me, mitt

2007-08-13T22:28:00.000-05:00

I feel like riffing on Mitt Romney.

Why? I dunno. I'm mystified by this guy. Where the heck did he come from?

First of all, he's pretty hot for a 60-something guy. I'd do him, if Mick Jagger weren't around. Well, to be honest, the idea of doing Mick Jagger sets my teeth on edge. Ok, no Mick Jagger. Ok, still, for a friggin' 64-year-old, he's pretty fit. Ok, ok.

(Unfortunately, I'm at that awkward age where it's totally unrealistic to entertain the possibility of getting busy with a kid half my age; yet, the idea of doing some 60-year-old guy seems totally preposterous, because he's so OLD.)

So here's Mitt, a successful businessman (who has yet to divest himself of holdings in a company in Sudan, which promotes genocide) who happens to be a one-term governor, has this annoying tendency to "misspeak," and can't seem to make up his mind about important issues.

Who's very attractive. And articulate. Which, of course, makes him the antichrist.

And what's with the name, anyway? I just went along wth "Mitt" because I was too lazy to question it. "Mitt." Ok, the guy's named after a baseball glove. Mitt. It seemed odd that the MSM didn't pay more attention to his first name.

Mitt. Mitt. Mitt Romney. Nope, says CNN, nothing unusual about that, nosiree. I mean, they've got Wolf Blitzer on staff.

This started to bug me last night, after I'd been out with the girls and had a few blue hawaiians. Turns out--and I had to look it up because I truly had never heard the MSM use his real first name--Mitt's real first name is "Willard."

Rats.

So, Willard conjures up a pretty negative image. Say it: President Willard Mitt Romney. Absolutely not.

In baseball, there are good baseball names, like "Jose," "Chipper," "Chase," "Wily Mo," "Crash," "Dizzy," "Catfish," "Rocco Baldelli."

"Mitt" is simply not a good presidential name. (Think "Grover Cleveland.") President Oven Mitt. President Baseball Mitt. President Mitten. It just doesn't work. And for that reason alone, the man should not be elected president.

little weirdnesses

2007-08-13T07:11:00.000-05:00

You know how you have one of those days--maybe more than one in a row--where weird stuff happens? Not earth-shattering, devastating weird stuff, but maybe...you find a turtle in your bathroom, or when the printer gets jammed at work, all you have to do is stare at it to get it working again, or you have an hilarious conversation with the previously anonymous postman...just something a little out of the ordinary?

After dropping the kids off at camp, the truck broke down in the middle of an intersection in Mt. Holly. Just quit. About a month ago the same thing happened, and we installed a new fuel filter and pump. At a cost of several hundred dollars.

So the guy tows us back to Mr. B's, (who is no longer my favorite mechanic) unloads the truck off the lift, crawls underneath, bangs on the bottom, and starts it up again.

Of course he didn't think to do this before towing it. Frankly, neither did we. It's like that printer at work. How would you know something will work if it never occurs to you to try it? He surmised it was some clog or another. I wonder if it will cost us another several hundred dollars for Mr. B to come to the same conclusion?

Later, I watched as 2 wandering Jehovah's Witnesses took a picture of my bumper magnets. I'm not sure if they thought they were amusing or are planning to report me to FBI.

The weird thing is, they didn't come up and knock on the door.

kid spying

2007-08-10T20:38:00.000-05:00

I’ve just spent the last 10 minutes or so surreptitiously watching my youngest son, Remy, acting out the complete plot of Weird Al’s “Stuck in the Drive-Thru.”

When Boo was younger, he used to wear pajama bottoms on his head and dance around his room. I’d watch him, reflected in the glass of the attic door, so he wouldn’t see me.

They don’t do this kind of stuff if they know you’re watching.

parents ruin everything

2007-08-06T16:01:00.000-05:00

Oh, my, lots of life just zoomed by.

I got a MacBook. YAY! I love Apple!

Slide show was a success, thank you. Yay Keynote! Frigging suckass powerpoint is officially history.

Just finished up Tri-County weekend, in which the boys swam respectably and the adults, most notably those from Pheasant Run, acted like chimpanzees in the stands, hooting and hollering and going "oooo ooooo oooo" each time one of their swimmers finished an event. But I overheard an account of their team cheating during a meet, in which the other team's relay won on the touch, and proven on film, but by the time the cards made their way to the announcer, the outcome had been changed to reflect a Pheasant Run win. And with that event win, they won the meet. Oh, did I mention Pheasant Run cheated? Wow, sorry.

It's just like baseball. Parents ruin everything. They get into fisticuffs with other parents. They take over kids sports with their scheming and conniving and let's try this fancy play in which we fake it to the third baseman, and then the first baseman acts like he has the ball but doesn't, in an attempt to draw the runner and catch him off base. I frigging HATE that. It's not baseball by subterfuge. It's not baseball by illusion. It's just baseball. You pitch it, you hit it, you field it, you run the bases, you're out, you score a run. That's it. That's all it should be.

But these coaches huddle around with their trick plays, in effect making kids on the other team feel foolish and, well, tricked...what does that prove to their own team? That the game can't be won unless you humiliate the other team. Football has a couple of tricky plays, but everyone knows them. In baseball, these guys have secret meetings, devising these schemes, spending hours training their kids how to run them. And yeah, they often work. But at what cost? So these ego-driven, doughy middle age guys playing baseball vicariously through their own children get to play a little one-upsmanship against a bunch of 10-year-olds?

That's it, that's the driving force in kids' sports these days: coaches want bigger dicks.

powerpoint sucks

2007-08-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

I'm in the middle of creating this massive, Powerpoint-crashing presentation for the swim team banquet. I'll return when it's done. That is, if I can get it to run without frigging CRASHING. Friggin' Power-frigging-crashing-point.

swimming with the masters

2007-07-24T10:36:00.000-05:00

I swam in the Masters Meet this weekend: 25 breast and free, and 50 back and free in relays. Swimming fast is hard! The best I wanted to do was finish my races without sinking to the pool floor first, and I accomplished that. "Masters" is just code for "middle-age, doughy white people," which actually encompasses swimmers from about 20 to 85. The 85-year-old was a woman who did the 100 IM. God bless her; it took her about 10 minutes but she did it.

The women mostly wore figure-flaw-hiding black, which only works--and then only marginally--on the areas the suit actually covers, which, of course, doesn't include back fat rolls. With few exceptions, batwings and cottage cheese thighs were the norm. (Incidentally, nobody, but nobody, looks good in a swim cap and goggles, both of which stretch and contort your face into Phyllis Diller-like proportions).

Meanwhile, the men wore...well, it didn't really matter what the men wore. When they're in Speedos, there's no hiding anything, and as far as I could tell--and I researched this intently--most had nothing to brag about.

It was a fun day; we all cheered each other on and gave each other high fives, even if we lost our individual events miserably. Afterward, we enjoyed a BBQ and beer and fruity girly pineapple and coconut concoctions, and by the end of the day, we were vowing to embarrass ourselves, er, do it again next year.

i'm all ears

2007-07-15T12:25:00.001-05:00

I went to the dermatologist last week for my annual check-up. A couple of years ago it hit me that, hey, what the hell are all these freckles and spots and moles and what the hell is THIS thing? and that I ought to start seeing a dermatologist.

The dermatologist makes me nervous because it's really the only doctor that needs to see mostly all of your skin, which requires being mostly naked under harsh, unflattering fluorescent lighting. The paper cover-up thing they give you never seems to be big enough and I'm never quite sure how to wear it. Over my shoulders, like a cape? Over the front, but held together by a hand in the back? Around the back and open in the front, like a bath towel? It's all so confusing, and becomes moreso when it inevitably rips when you're trying to pull it just a little bit to cover that one exposed last inch of thigh skin.

This was a new Chinese doctor, so I had to listen carefully because of his accent. He looked around, checked out between my toes, commented on a birthmark on my back, and informed me I have mild rosacea on my face.

"The Irish tend to have rosacea. People think it's because they drink, but it's because they're Irish. Are you Irish?"

"Somewhat."

"Ah. Well, that's it, then." Eliminating the possibility that it's really from excessive drinking. Which it isn't. Really.

He starts examining my scalp. Then, a revelation:

"You have really big ears."

Now, nobody's ever told me this, and it has never before occurred to me that I have big ears.

"Yeah? Really? Gee, nobody's ever told me that before."

"Oh, yes." Then, sensing my concern that having big ears may be detrimental to my health--or at the very least, to my sense of self-esteem because now I think I look like fucking Dumbo--he adds, "People with big ears live longer." He smiles. He's making a joke. About my big ears! Ha! Ha!

"Ha! Well, you're pulling my leg now, doctor." At that time, he really was pulling my leg, looking for moles.

Now, some people might have been offended if their doctor made this observation. But because he was obviously amused by his discovery, I played along. I mean, so what? I have big ears. I can't change them. My hair covers them. But unfortunately, now that this has been brought to my attention, I'll forever notice the size of other people's ears, and compare them to my own. In fact, I looked at his. They seemed normal enough.

When I got home, I rushed to the mirror to look at my ears. He was right! They're huge! When the hell did THAT happen? Oh, NO! It's happening! My head is shrinking, and now my ears are getting bigger! Good grief, in 40 years, I'll look like this:

where's the luck in laundry?

2007-07-07T23:37:00.000-05:00

Today was supposed to be the luckiest day of the millennium.

But it was the unluckiest day in my laundry.

So I’m at the sink, picking off the shit that always seems to remain at the bottom of my glasses after they’ve run through the dishwasher, when I hear this horrible BANGBANGBANG in the basement. Not the jaunty BOOMBOOMBOOM the washer makes when it’s unbalanced; this was more sinister.

BANGBANGBANG. Really loud, like there’s an evil troll with a hammer, trying to get out.

I hustle downstairs, open the lid, and see that the machine has stopped spinning during the rinse cycle. That BANGBANGBANG is apparently the sound of the transmission whining that there are too many towels in there.

I fiddle with the knob, try different things, but it won’t spin. It’s done spinning. It’s spent.

Then I heave the soaking, sopping wet towels into the laundry basket to hang outside to dry. The damn thing’s heavy, so the handles break on my laundry basket. But I manage to get it outside, water dripping up and down steps and through the house.

I hang up a towel. The line creaks. I hang up another one at the other end. More creaking. I hang up a third. The line breaks and the towels fall to the ground.

But that’s ok. I have another, stronger one. I hang up all 6 towels. The line breaks. The towels fall to the ground.

Now the towels are dirty and I have to wash them again. I think if I were a neighbor and I watched all this, it’d be funny.

socks

2007-07-07T13:34:00.000-05:00

Because you demanded it, here are pictures of L's feet from the 4th. The top picture is from 2007; the bottom from 2006. She took a fashion risk by wearing different sandals. L often takes very colorful fashion risks, and you know how that tendency becomes exaggerated as women grow older, so we're really looking forward to what she'll be wearing in 20 years.

She has promised to stay away from pink cocktails, however.

with degenerates like these, who needs friends?

2007-07-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

This 4th of July in Wenonah was pretty much like all the rest of them have been, except it wasn't the hottest day of the year like it usually is. A little morning rain kept the heat away, and the lingering cloud cover and low humidity helped me stay fresh and dry throughout the festivities.

Usually by the time the firehouse opens, people are sweating and glistening like pigs.

What struck me this year is that people looked old. Classmates. Friends. Of course we all look older, but I've been able to kinda gloss over that and see people as they looked 20, 30 years ago.

I couldn't do that this year. I noticed balding heads, wrinkled faces, yellowed teeth, tummy bulges, broken capillaries...and while some of us have aged better than others...we're our parents now. Our parents look the same as they used to, but now we look like them. We're the people the kids look at now and call "old."

And yet...we can stand there and trade stories about youthful adventures and drink beer (though not as much as we used to) and still not feel any older than when we drank Bud and Annie Green Springs and smoked pot and piled into Tom Hoover's beat-up van, speeding down Breakneck road, Zeppelin on the 8-track, not knowing or caring what curveballs we would be faced with the next day.

Yup. It was 4th of July in Wenonah. Same as it ever was.

the end of softball season

2007-06-26T14:19:00.000-05:00

Softball season is finally over, for both my girls and the ladies.

My girls team basically sucked, and I mean that with the utmost affection. Eleven and twelve-year-old girls are just simply whacked. Some are tomboys, some are girly girls, some would love to be anywhere but on the softball field, some are all enthusiasm and effort but still suck, and some are the divas who think they play well but don't. They actually improved as the season went on, however.

I managed them this year because none of their parents would. One player's dad helped me out sometimes, but really: these girls wouldn't have played if I hadn't coached them. And I said at the beginning, if one gal got through the season wanting to play next year, then I did my job.

So I keep it together during the last game. They play ok, but we lose. No biggie.

I give them each a silver softball angel charm and some Dubble Bubble. They gather in the dugout for my final words.

"Ok," I say. "Let me just say that it has been..."

Choke. Splutter.

"...an honor and a privilege..."

Sniff. Snort.

"...to have coached you this year."

Turn around, walk to the pitcher's mound, collect my thoughts, hold my head back so whatever tears are there will suck back into my eyeballs. Return to dugout.

"Ok, as I was saying. You gals have been the best..."

Splutter.

Anyway, I choke out whatever stupid final last parting thoughts I wanted to say, which I'm pretty sure the girls had already tuned out by that time.

But wait. Here's the team diva, getting up to give me a hug, looking teary-eyed. Here's one of the tomboys, a big galoot of a gal; she comes up, sniffling, gives me a hug, and says "I'm never letting you go."

Here's Taylor--who had never played before, who beamed each time she had the weakest of hits--who clinches it:

"I want to play again next year. Are you going to coach?" Follows with hug.

"Maybe," I say. "If you'll play on my team."

NJ State Champs, 1978

sex education

2007-06-21T06:58:00.000-05:00

I depend on the show Rescue Me to keep me informed of current sexual practices and mores, since I'm apparently woefully behind the curve. It's completely sexist to the point of misogyny, but I love it anyway. Denis Leary wrote himself about 1000 sex scenes in the first season, but has thankfully eased up some. C'mon, he's nearly 50. Do we really want to see him having all that sex?

Last night's episode referred to one's "spank bank." I understood what it meant, but I'd never heard the term before. Am I really that out of it? Or perhaps I just don't spank it enough to warrant having an entire bank to store the necessary visual cues. Maybe I just need a "spank jar."

A couple of seasons ago, the gang was talking about the Venus butterfly technique. This was in fact referenced from L.A. Law years before (yes, I looked it up), but I'd never heard of it before. This technique is pretty involved, and I'll assume the gentle reader knows what it entails. There's so much going on at the major orifices and hot spots that it's almost like working on a car engine, or performing major surgery.

And while I appreciate the detailed attention that a woman's genitalia--and other regions--receives during the technique, how the HELL can you relax with all that going on? It's almost too focused and detached, intended only to elicit orgasm without all the other fun stuff that goes with it. I can imagine a car mechanic, fiddling with wires and knobs and bolts and hollering into the engine, "COME already, for crissakes! What the hell else do I have to DO?"

Not that there's anything wrong with that. As long as the guy doesn't insist on cuddling afterward.

separated at birth

2007-06-12T19:46:00.001-05:00

I just had a thought today--hey, it happens--and forgive me if someone else has already noticed this similarity. If you remember Max Headroom, you'll realize even their voices are similar.

whack job

2007-06-11T11:20:00.000-05:00

I heard the Sopranos series finale was last night.

Here's what I know about the Sopranos: the main mob guy was Tony. Little Steven was also in it, which doesn't sound like a very intimidating mob-type name. Not like Philip "Chicken Man" Testa (who inspired Bruce Springsteen’s song Atlantic City, which opens with the lines “Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night/Now they blew up his house too”) or Harry "the Hump" Riccobene, two real-life mobsters in Philadelphia. Apparently, one did not address Harry by his nickname, or his other nickname, "the Hunchback," without fear of some gruesome reprisal.

One other thing I know about the Sopranos: there's a Tony Sopranos pizza joint in nearby Deptford. There's gotta be some copyright infringement going on there.

Evidently, I'm the only person in the country who never saw one fuckin' groundbreaking episosde of the Sopranos. Not a one. The only reason I know it's over is because of this ridiculous hue and cry about how lame the last episode was. Waaaaah. Cancel HBO and get on with your lives, nitwits.

Nevertheless, I do feel a little out of the loop, and yearned--just a little--to get in on some of this hip mob action. How to do that now? Hmmmm. I know! I want a name! A mob name!

I was happy to see that anyone can get a cool mob name, and you don't even need membership. Mine's "The Butcher." What's yours?

offend me

2007-05-31T07:40:00.000-05:00

Ok, Mike, I'll play. Mike has tagged me with this offensive meme, and up until recently I didn't even know how to pronounce meme, so.

Religions other than my own are wrong because ______
they don't rely on extraterrestrial transport to reach the next dimension.

Although it's not politically correct, I like to make fun of _____
people I envy. Yeah, you and your snotty kids in private school and your stinking McMansion and your goddamn SUV with the stupid OBX sticker on the window...I'm talking to you.

Ways that George Bush is not like the Anti-Christ include ______
um.....uh...other than the Anti-Christ being smart and articulate, I can't think of any. See

http://www.bushisantichrist.com/

The celebrity rumor that I wish to start is _____
Tom Cruise has a button penis.

Kids suck because _____
They can eat Cocoa Puffs and Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter cereal together and not feel totally guilty when they wash it down with a mimosa.

Mike, are you checking my answers? Are they right?

bitching and sniping

2007-05-30T08:01:00.000-05:00

This is kinda what my angry neighbor looks like:

I'm sure she's really a lovely woman, and was just having a bad day.

Meanwhile, I caught part of my game last night, the first time in a decade, anyway. I like it; my hips don't, though. You're always in motion, backing up throws, up and down. I'm a fairly intimidating presence on the field, although I don't mean to be. I'm really downright easygoing! However, one gal tripped over me as I was blocking the plate, and she gave me a dirty look and some comment about how she was hurt, wahhhh; I could hear her sniping on the bench. How about a left-field triple over your head, bitch? Glad to oblige. Ha! Ha! (It might have been a home run if it didn't take me a month just to get out of the box. Like cartoon characters--maybe Fred Flinstone--when they're trying to go somewhere fast but their legs just whirl and spin and they don't go anywhere? That's me.)

As a rule, I do not get drawn into the sniping and bitching, not even when my own team does it. I'm a lover; a peacemaker. I'm there to play, and I play hard, and that's the best defense against bitching and sniping.

But I see there's a theme going on here: I really have a problem with conflict.

more neighborly love

2007-05-29T07:28:00.000-05:00

My neighborhood is rather old and, some might say, charming. Realtors call it "desirable," but to me, that's a word best and only used in romance novels. Our houses share an alley with the houses behind us.

A couple years ago, new neighbors moved in behind us, about 2 houses down. They tore down the nice little one-car garage, which meshed with the relative quaintness of the block, and built this massive 2-story structure, big enough to block all available sunlight, conduct a probably illegal car-repair business and house the occasional ne'r-do-well relative from Gloucester, one of whom gave Remy a black eye. Other neighbors have called the cops on them because of "excessive trash" and having too many cars on their property.

Now, we don't really know these people well, and we don't care to. Their kids are creepy--if it's ok to call kids creepy, and I think it is; they have this vacant, children-of-the-corn quality.

So we don't talk to them, and we're not talking to psycho-daughter's family anymore.

A new family moved in next door several months ago: a woman, a man and a little boy. (We say hello, but that's about where our communication with them ends.) It was our understanding that this was not a nuclear family. A boyfriend? The kid's dad? The boy's not there all the time. But the boy and the guy have the same name? What gives? We don't know. I was tempted to find out as I started out on a walk one evening a little while ago, when I heard this:

"NO, Billy, you're a fucking asshole! Fuck YOU!"

Followed by sounds of male mumbling.

"I was in my FUCKING OFFICE, BILLY. You're an IDIOT! FUCK YOU!"

More male mumbling, followed by more very loud cursing. Their windows were open, of course.

This kind of arguing really makes me nervous and uncomfortable. I don't argue like this, but I know people do, and I envy them for it: they can REALLY let their feelings out! That's healthy!

I stopped on the porch, and could see them in the kitchen window. Then I did what any good neighbor would do: I crouched down, tiptoed off the porch and snuck closer to the fence to listen in. Then I continued walking, and could hear them a block away.

This was to be the first of an ongoing series of shrieking, obscenity-laced arguments I've heard coming from their house. I don't know these people, except she works (in a fucking office somewhere) and he, apparently, does not. He comes outside to mow the lawn, sand the random dresser, smoke cigarettes and cough and spit in the yard.

Oh, and they also have two pit bulls.

I guess I should try to love my neighbors, but here's how I see it: they're all frigging crazy.

can I see the future or what?

2007-05-21T13:41:00.000-05:00

Ok, this'll be the last Chase Utley thing I post for awhile, now that the restraining order is in effect. ;)

That's right: my own 5-speed Vibrating Chase Utley Bobblehead (see previous post).

This little gem was up for a silent auction Friday at our elementary school's annual Mayfair. I split my tickets between the Cole Hamels signed baseball (an investment) and the bobblehead (a dust collector). It was the last prize to be auctioned off. I was working the putting green ("No! Don't wave the clubs around like they're light sabres!" "No, YOU go get the ball, I told you not to hit it so hard." "No, I'm sorry, we're out of Ring-Pops.") when I heard my name announced...

...and literally squealed and skipped all the way to the table to collect my prize. "I won! I won!" I hollered. (I don't usually win stuff, so you can imagine my delight.) Boo was nearby, hiding his face in embarrassment, while I could hear Remy somewhere on the grounds going "woo-woo-woo!"

It doesn't much look like Chase, but I do like his little soul patch. Now the question is: do I save it forever in the attic and have it buried with me? Or do I take it out of the box and play with it?

ball games

2007-05-16T11:15:00.001-05:00

I think I’ve mentioned several times to anyone within earshot that perhaps the best way to celebrate Mother’s day is to just give the woman some time to herself and buy her food. Anything above that is gravy: gifts, a day at the spa, flowers, a puppy…all extra, welcome displays of appreciation, but not necessary.

So of course, my family decides it’s a great idea to take me out to a Phillies game, where I have to referee squabbling between the boys.

But at least I didn’t have to get up and buy my own Schmitter (a sandwich--named after the legendary yet reviled 3rd baseman Mike Schmidt--featuring unidentifiable meats and gloppy dressing. In retrospect, it was pretty gross, but I enjoyed it at the time. It’s one of those foods that tastes better at the ballpark.) And I had a beer to go with my Schmitter. One can’t devote themselves to the game more than wolfing down a sloppy Schmitter and drinking a $6.50 cup of beer.

The real reason they took me to the game was because it was Chase Utley Fleece Blanket day--the only way I’ll ever get Chase Utley to lay on top of me. I wouldn’t call myself a soccer mom, but I do cart around the obligatory fleece blanket or two in the van.

Next promotion, maybe the Phillies will come up with something a little edgier: The Chase Utley Warming Massage Lotion. The Chase Utley Deluxe 5-Speed Vibrating Bobblehead. A Role-Playing Adventure with Chase Utley, In Which You’re the Umpire and He’s Been Very, Very Bad. I’d pay for that giveaway.

Unfortunately, the Phillies could only muster up 3 hits and lost this very uninspiring, lazy game on Mother’s day. Still. It was a beautiful, sunny day; I got my blanket; and later we went out for Chinese. All in all, a pretty good Mother’s day.

psycho girl AND her mom are looney

2007-05-09T20:54:00.001-05:00

My stomach churned last night as I thought about how I was finally going to approach the psycho girl’s mother.

After being told by the guidance counselor and the vice principal a couple of months ago to leave my son alone, she’s still at it, with the taunting and the teasing. Last night before their school concert, she was saying things to Boo, and he told her to just leave him alone. She said, “No.” No, she won’t leave him alone.

Before I went to school officials again--and believe me, I didn’t want to--I thought it might be best to at least say something to the mom. Maybe I wouldn’t have to say anything to school officials. Maybe she’d hear me out—as I think I would if someone came to ME and said, yeah, we’re having a problem with your son. I’d want to know what that problem was, and find out his role in it. Seems reasonable, right?

Problem is, I head for the hills when confrontation’s nearby. So last night, my heart was racing, my stomach churned, and hesitantly I planned a strategy, like I was about to invade a frigging hostile country.

I would be nice. I would not yell. I would not blame or point fingers. I would listen.

This morning I decide to run over there for just a few minutes before work.

Knock on the door. Mom opens the door, giving me dagger eyes.

Immediately I’m shaken. Wait, I’M the one with the beef. WTF. Don’t you give me dagger eyes, bitch.

“Uh, yeah, uh…(looking out into the street, trying desperately to be nice)…I, uh, know there’s some tension between our families.”

“Yeah. It’s more than that.”

“Well, yeah, I guess that’s why I’m here. Boo tells me that psycho-daughter said……”

Well, I didn’t get a chance to finish. She just laid into me with the same crazy delusional wave of shit that her daughter says to Boo: Being friends with us was “the biggest mistake of our lives,” she informed me. Her daughter has done nothing. My family is the tormentor of their lives. The dh is the town psychopath. Boo is close behind. We all need counseling. I’m delusional. The entire town thinks there’s something wrong with us. WE NEED TO STOP FOCUSING ON THEM!

In reality, we hardly ever even see these people; we’re not even around half the time with games and little league stuff. We don’t sit down and have discussions about them, which apparently they must do, because they’re all on the same script.

I really just couldn’t get a word in, so now, of course, she still doesn’t understand that her daughter is quite simply a bully. I was incredulous; I mean, I couldn’t even respond to most of what she said. She didn’t listen; she didn’t even hear me. It was one of the most bizarre, surreal experiences I’ve ever had with another human being.

So what’s that they say about fences being good neighbors? I’d say we need a walled fortress.

cosmic softball diva

2007-04-30T21:07:00.000-05:00

You'd think something interesting could have happened in the last two weeks while I was gone, something profound or wonderful that was worth blogging about. Maybe some life-altering decision, some mind-bending realization, or perhaps...the greatest epiphany ever experienced.

Instead, I'm coaching a girls softball team, 11-12-year-olds. I don't even have girls. Now I know why.

Don't get me wrong. I like girls. They're amusing, they're cute...but they're bonkers.

Ya can't get them to sit still in the dugout, which isn't much different from the boys. But instead of kind of hanging on the fence, cheering on their teammates...they do these dopey choreographed cheers, shaking their asses and doing the frigging Macarena in the dugout.

In response, the girls from the other team dance and cheer louder. And it goes back and forth.

There's no choreographed cheering in softball! When the hell did THAT happen? I didn't do that when I played at that age. Ya went in, ya played, ya cheered your teammates on, and that was it. Now it's now a big frigging Broadway musical?!

And there's this pitcher. She plays on two teams, but our lowly Little League team is her second choice. She shows up one game and expects to pitch, because that is what Madmoiselle does. So she pitches some, and jams her finger on a throw back from the catcher.

OMG, EAR-PIERCING SCREAM, followed by LOUD wailing, and then she crumples--literally crumples, almost like the Wicked Witch of the West but a little faster--onto the mound. Wailing.

The other team's coach goes running out. The one dad who's helping me goes running out. I stand there. I don't quite know what to do. I mean, it's a girl, for starters, and how the hell do I deal with that noise out there? She just wasn't pushing my empathy button. I may not have girls, but I am one, so I figure she's probably overreacting a tad. So I wait a moment, and stroll out there.

"You ok?"

Sniffle. "I dunnnnno....I jjj--jjj---jjjammed my fff--ffff-ffinger." Sniffle.

"All right. Get up and pitch some. See if it still works."

She tries and she can't, so I pull her out, put some ice on her finger, which--miraculously--looks ok. She goes back in and plays 1st base next inning.

A week later, she gets hit in the face with a ball while playing first. Got a big shiner. Still has it.

Must be cosmic softball diva punishment.

blowin' in the wind

2007-04-16T08:52:00.000-05:00

We’re in the midst of what some quaintly call a Nor’easter. As in, “Look out, Ethel, there’s a Nor’easter a-blowin!” Before it got here, it was blowing around Texas and parts of the Midwest. Do they call it a “Mid’wester” there?

These storms are nasty, violent evidence of the power of nature. The Nor’easter doesn’t just rain. It:

“lashes the East Coast” (Toronto Star)
“pounds the eastern seaboard” (The Age, Australia)
“pummels” (Mail & Guardian Online)
“slams” (Disaster News Network)
“kicks East Coast in the shins and then runs away” (Weekly World News)

And then, because all the good action verbs have been taken, it always eventually resorts to the weary cliché, “wreaks havoc.”

It “brings” things with it, like it was coming to your house for a party: things like “heavy rain” “flooding” “high winds” “evacuations” “deviled eggs” and “wine-in-a-box.”

The Nor’easter doesn’t just represent nature’s wrath. As Pat Robertson likes to remind us from time to time, God’s wrath often steers the weather.

"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," he said last May. Gee, ya think? "There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest," he said.

Robertson has a rather abysmal record of weather forecasting. He predicted that God would punish Orlando with “earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor” because the city voted to fly rainbow flags during Disneyworld’s annual Gay Day. Ok, a meteor isn’t exactly a weather event, but it would be a pretty cool way to let us know He’s pissed.

Robertson asked God to alter the course of Hurricane Gloria, which ended up causing billions in damage in many states along the coast. Oops! And he later beseeched God to prevent Hurricane Isabel from hitting Virginia Beach, where his headquarters are located. It ended up being the costliest and deadliest hurricane of the 2003 season. Ruh-roh!

So let’s see if I have this correctly: God controls the weather. Pat talks to God. Then Pat controls the weather. God realizes Pat’s a looney, suggests that Nature takes over, tells Satan that Pat will be visiting very, very soon. And he’s bringing the deviled eggs.

more horrors at the Ack-a-me

2007-04-11T07:44:00.000-05:00

Maybe it’s because I have a history of paranoia involving supermarkets, or maybe it’s because I seem to spend so much time in them—another lifelong dream fulfilled—but I find them endlessly fascinating.

For instance, I had previously blathered on about stray carts in the parking lot and the stupidheads who leave them there. Here’s a perfect example. Here are four carts, perhaps suicide carts, planning their next mission: rolling into adjacent parked cars as if pushed by an unseen hand. Maybe that’s why they seem to congregate: to plan revenge on the morons who leave them there.

“Yeah. Joey, you get the red Ford pickup; aim for the Bush/Cheney bumper sticker. Myrna, you hit the Escalade. REALLY HARD! LEAVE A MARK! You, Bongo: See that one stopped in the fire lane? It’s been there for 10 minutes. Aim for the driver’s side. Plan for injury.”

If you look closely, you can see the cart corral at the entrance of the supermarket JUST STEPS AWAY.

Inside, the horrors abound.

Look at this box:

Ack! A flying giant ravioli saucer has landed on planet Earth! The biggest ravioli the world has ever seen!

I mean, I understand the statement “enlarged to show texture.” But there is no texture. It’s a perfectly formed, uniformly smooth …pasta breast implant. And it looks so tasty pictured there frozen on the conveyor belt!

To avoid confusion—or perhaps add to it—the box prominently says it’s large (not small!) round (not square!) cheese (not meat!) ravioli (not tortellini!)…just in case you couldn’t tell from the picture. How they fit a dozen bowler hat-sized raviolis into that box escapes me.

I laugh at this box every time I go in the supermarket, which perhaps says more about me than it should.

wow, now THIS is a bummer

2007-04-07T16:26:00.000-05:00

"Sue me if I play too long."

--Steely Dan

From everywhere:

"The UN report on global warning, in a sense, is a more focused indictment of the world's biggest polluters -- the industrialized nations -- and a more specific identification of the victims. Last-minute negotiations led to deleting timelines for future events and scaling back the degree of confidence in some projections. Both actions will ease the pressure on industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are gradually warming the planet.

"Several scientists vowed afterward that they would never participate in the process again because of the political interference."Once is enough," said John Walsh, a climate expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who helped draft parts of the report. "The science got hijacked by the political bureaucrats at the late stage of the game." The report paints a bleak picture of the future.

In light of this report--which basically says we're just like caged animals, shitting up our own home because we have nowhere else to go and we're too stupid and lazy to figure that out--I had to post this. I read this piece by Carl Sagan a few times a year, because it's so lovely and so sad.

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

"The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

boy nuts

2007-04-01T12:53:00.000-05:00

I've not been very good at this since I started this job. That kinda blows.

The boys have a swim meet this weekend in Delaware, the Eastern Regionals. So far they've dropped all their times; Remy dropped 10 seconds off one time, and they're up there in the top 10 in all their events. So they're having a great meet.

As a reward of sorts, we took them to Cracker Barrel on the way home last night. Mmmmm, good eatin'.

As we walked in, Remy asked why so many old people go there. I said, well, the food's all mushy and goopy, easy for old people to eat. We decided that should be the new slogan.

Cracker Barrel. Food so mushy, even old people can eat it.

So we go in; it's packed. We have to mill about in the gift shop along with a busload of tourists (tourists?! in NJ?!). Boo finds one of those stress-relieving heads, the one that you squeeze and its eyes and ears pop out, and HAS to have it.

We're seated, eat our delicious dinner of country-fried steak, chicken and dumplins, biscuits, etc, watch as our blood pressure and cholesterol levels skyrocket...and then the boys have hot fudge sundae desserts.

Ooops. There are nuts in the sundaes. Nuts don't belong in sundaes, according to the boys. I forget exactly how the conversation started, but it went something like this:

Me, earnestly: "Did you eat your nuts?"

Peals of giggles from both boys.

Me, playing along now: "What, you don't like your nuts?"

More giggles.

"Here, give it to me. I'll eat your nuts."

Loud guffaws, soda squirting out of nose.

"I like nuts. They taste good. I could eat nuts all day. What, you guys don't like your nuts?"

More howling.

"They're not very big, are they?"

BAHAHAHHAA.

Then, Remy says, earnestly: "What happens if they go bad?"

"Well, nuts can get all black and shriveled up when they go bad."

BAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

That continued for a little while until they finally figured out--and it took them awhile--that I was on to them. There's nothing that brings the family together quite like sharing a little sex joke with your kids.

driving me mad

2007-03-26T16:34:00.000-05:00

omigahhh, work at the cube farm is mind-numbing! An hour highway commute, rushing alongside others like me, at speeds well above 70 mph, applying makeup, drinking coffee, yammering on the cell, texting...I'm amazed that more people aren't constantly crashing their cars or shooting each other and dying on the highway. It's like a mad dance, people moving in and out...I always trying to leave a nice cushion of space in front of me and some moron ALWAYS gets in front of me and takes away my cushion. And the gas! It's just environmentally irresponsible to use all that gas. And then I get to the farm and I sit and read and write at the computer all day. I only get up to go the the bathroom. And to leave. And then back on the highway, this time the commute can be closer to an hour and a quarter, depending on how long the inevitable backup is leading to the N/S freeway, and I'm getting sleepy..so this is what I've been missing. }:(

katie couric's pissy juicy gym smell

2007-03-21T18:49:00.000-05:00

I went to the gym Monday night and decided to take an elliptical facing the bank of TVs. I usually avoid this row of machines because I'm getting so I hate TV. All TV does is shoot stupid beams at you. American Idol? Who cares. Survivor? Lost? Nope. Can't commit. Deal or no Deal? BFD.

But I took the last machine on the row anyway, and the closest TVs were tuned to the news. I don't watch Katie Couric--no, I couldn't give a crap about Katie Couric--so it was surprising to see her shot up full of Botox. She looked like some really angry evil pixie, her eyebrows menacingly arched downward. Compare to this older clip.

Was this really necessary, Katie? Really? Does this really affect your newsreading skills? I guess so, if you speak with your eyebrows.

Other things piss me off at the gym. First, well, Monday nights suck. Too crowded. I hate the gal who wears the sweat pants that say "juicy" on the ass. How about "lactating" across the chest? A guy in sweats that say "engorged" on the crotch? No. Keep your narcissistic mottos to yourself.

Later I'm on the bike. Other people surround me on various machines. There's this...smell. It smells like dogshit. Everybody's moving, and I avoid making eye contact or acknowledging that there's a smell at all. Ladeedadeeda. We're all huffing and puffing and ignoring this smell. I want to check my shoes because I'm praying as hard as I can that it's not ME making this smell. But I play it cool. I finally get off the bike, turn a corner, check my shoes, and it's not me. At least, it's not my shoes.

I go to the chest press machine...and there's the smell again. WTF! It IS me! What IS IT????

In a near panic I run to the bathroom, enter a stall, and begin a sniff check.

It's my shirt. It's new (and black; I always wear black to the gym) and I hadn't washed it yet. It smells like someone took the shirt and picked up a wad of dogshit with it, then hung it back up in the store. And I bought it.

And now I'm wearing this shit-shirt. I'm completely embarrassed, but I'm not quite done my workout. Do I continue? Am I so self-involved that I'm the only one who notices the stench? I decide to try to do only things that won't create a breeze; walking and upper body work is out of the question. I stretch for a minute or 2, curse under my breath then sigh loudly--creating a breeze--and give up.

People who know me know that I value my sense of smell. I'm always smelling things. Is the sense of smell one of the first things to go?