GROWLGRRL

Some Asswipe called Ian is screwing with Facebook

2010-02-13T13:54:00.002-05:00

Hello Ian, age 23, from Pasadena, whose name keeps popping up when anyone tries to log onto Facebook and it is now automatically redirecting to MySpace thanks to you. Are you a troll or just an egotistical selfish bastard who is bored and alone (big surprise!) and gets what littles kicks he can still get from anonymously screwing with thousands of people he doesn't know. It's the penultimate form of self-centered egotism.

If I knew who you were, I'd come find your ass and smack the crap out of you. It's not like I care very much about getting on Facebook right this minute. It's more like I think people like you have unmitigated gall. There is absolutely no reason or circumstance when this sort of redirect is appropriate or just. Affecting people you don't know for no damned good reason is offensive beyond belief.

If anyone reads this, please do everything possible to screw with this asswipe Ian and get him kicked off the internet forever is possible. Find this mutha and destroy him. Get out of your mother's basement, get a job, lose 4 or 500 pounds, go for extensive psychotherapy, and maybe if you work very hard at that, in 15 years or so, when you'll probably be around 50, you might even be capable of getting a girlfriend. Maybe. In the meantime, screw you.

I've come back for a bit...

2010-02-09T11:13:00.002-05:00

So I haven't posted for a really long time because I got bored and annoyed with the whole thing. But then I got a comment from someone who thought he knew who I was (he doesn't) and thought I wrote a post targeted at him. I didn't. But some feelings are pretty common, so it obviously touched a familiar chord with him, and he reached out to whoever he thought I was talking about. I hope he finds the real person.

That said, on to my new rant. I hate the Northeast Corridor in the winter. Bloody snow. It's all right if you don't have to drive in it and can look out of the window at it. It is beautiful indeed. I don't mind having the occasional snowball fight. I might even make a snowman this time. But intelligent people with any possibility of finding a weather forecast at this time of year on TV, internet, radio, newspaper, or talking to someone who has, should stay the hell home when snow is predicted at more than a foot of snow unless they perform essential public services. Most people don't. Offices should have the good sense not to penalize people who don't want to risk their lives on the road with crazy people driving badly, either too slow or too fast, in the snow and call out. Retailers should allow people to go home when the accumulation gets bad enough to make driving dangerous, especially at night when temperatures drop. Screw profits. Close the bloody store already. No one in their right mind comes in anyway. Imagine the morons who end up coming in! No, you can't possibly. What's wrong with people? Plan ahead for chrissakes! Then stay the hell home. There's a chance of one or two feet of snow in my area tonight and I'll have to go to work and I know people are going to be lined up out the door like they'll never see daylight again, buying everything in sight. Come on people! It's only one truly dreadful weather day. Take your time digging out and then off you go the next day and you can go about your business again. Luckily, in my neck of the woods, it only really snows hard a couple of times and then we're home free, so what's a couple of days worth?

Once you've been banged up enough in life, there's no thrill in shoveling a couple of feet of snow, just a backache. Some people end up worse than that- falls, sprains, etc. SO not worth it!

Here's a simple concept for those of you who seem to be incapable of thinking ahead: it's bloody wintertime, fools! There will be horrible weather, if not today, at some point in the season. So it's probably a good idea to keep the house stocked with staples and just buy fresh things to supplement. Then you don't have to go into utter panic mode and freak out, driving retailers crazy. And how could you possibly live in the area for years, and not notice that this is how people get every time the dreaded "s" word (snow) is even muttered? Do NOT come in a half hour before we close and wonder why we don't have whatever your family can't live without and getting pissy about it, because, frankly, the smarter people have been coming in all day ahead of you and BUYING it! Geez! I'll bet you think milk appears magically on the shelves every day. Some poor shmo who works here has hauled some very heavy milk crates around all day long, trying desperately to keep up with demand,while every available warm body who managed to get there in the storm is probably manning every possible register as the lines snake down the aisles and people start getting angry at the wait. And if they're on the register trying to get you out the door quickly while they toil for hours without a break, hoping the line dies down long enough to finally get a chance to pee before it's too late, they probably can't be stocking shelves at the exact same time.

The only thing worse than coming in last minute and complaining that supplies are low is the even stupider people who come after the hour we close and demand that we let them in. Look, we're all waiting for the store to close so we can go home. If you can't find the' time in the thirteen hours we're open to shop, then it's just too bloody late. Give up and go home.

And Another Thing About The Damned Election...

2008-10-13T18:16:00.006-04:00

Today, Christopher Hitchens had an article in Slate Magazine entitled "Vote for Obama. McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace." Not that he has an opinion, mind you. If you're at all familiar with Hitchens, you know that he is a product of English public schools and can't quite shake the influence of Old Blighty. He hasn't been known to be particularly happy with Democrats in recent years and took particular exception to Bill Clinton. So the man is not exactly over the moon about the Democratic party or its candidates.

I certainly have opinions and have no hesitancy in voicing them, but I would never claim to be particularly well versed in the details of current politics and there are absolutely many, many people who could claim to be more educated or more intelligent than I am. Whether you agree with Hitchens or not, the man is obviously erudite and well-educated and well acquainted with both past and present world and U.S. politics. He essentially agrees with what I've been saying, which I based solely on what I could be sure were actual facts as opposed to slander thrown by the opposite number and on what I could observe myself.

Chris Matthews showed a clip from Family Guy on his show today on MSNBC, showing Lois pandering mercilessly to the public after advice to do so, using short sentences and no details, and her horror that it actually proved to be successful in her campaign to win the crowd over. The only real difference between Lois's character and Palin is that Lois is knowingly doing this and horrified that it worked, whereas Palin seems to be doing these things simply because some handler told her to do so. She's not horrified, so much as perplexed. I would be embarrassed to be represented as a woman in the White House by a vice president like Palin. It's not even that her view of the world is diametrically opposed to mine. I could see someone like Christy Todd Whitman, who is dignified, experienced, well-informed and intelligent. I don't agree with her either but at least she wouldn't be an embarrassment.

As for McCain, Hitchens is much crueller in his description than even I have been, but we essentially agree that he is an unacceptable choice. I wouldn't make a claim or even imply that he's senile and physically unprepared for the presidency, but I definitely worry about his impulsiveness and how uninformed and out of touch he seems to be, and that's more than enough to leave no doubt in my mind that it would be a mistake of epic proportions to elect him president and that the American people would suffer the most for such a decision. I can't say that I'm blown away by Obama, and frankly I would have preferred Mrs. Clinton, but I can imagine someone in the White House with his unflappable demeanor and both he and Biden appear to be erudite and well-informed. These are the kind of minds that I would like to be making critical decisions in an uncertain economic climate, and with regard to making positive changes in our educational and health care systems.

What really blows my mind is when I talk to people who still prefer McCain & Palin, despite everything we've seen. I want to know what debates they were watching, because you wouldn't know they were the same ones I saw when they describe them. I worry about evangelicals, who are supposed to be around 25% of the voting population, gaining control of decision-making processes involving science, education, the rights of the individual as regards sexual preferences, marriage and children, and birth control. I don't have to agree with what you want to do with yourself or with others, but it is neither religion's nor government's decision about what you do behind closed doors, with whom, how much, and what way and only you should be able to decide that. And I worry that this campaign and possibly the results of the election could increase an angry and disenfranchised part of the population's fear of Other, which could reinvigorate racism, which never disappeared, especially in some areas of the country, but which at least is less virulent in most places.

Vice Presidential Debate...

2008-10-07T14:58:00.006-04:00

Hopefully, you saw it. We had a whisky and Palin night. You can probably figure out where my sympathies lie if you've ever read anything else I've written. I saw it as a bloodbath. Seemed like Palin was great at giving an impression of being folksy, spunky, and just one of us- joe six pack. And winking at the end of sentences, which I find annoying and phony personally. But she didn't answer several questions, which is what she agreed to do before the debate but found difficult to do at the event. She used generalities and faulty logic, while Biden seemed to have facts and figures and specific answers. Granted, both apparently made some mistakes when answering, but at least Biden actually answered all the questions. Palin appeared to string together key phrases from her handlers and hope they made sentences, but when you read her answers, they don't usually parse. Here's what Slate.com has to say.

Well, I can't say it any better than Kitty Burns Florey, so I'm not gonna try. Here's what I'm wondering: I know I have a definite point of view, and I know that others are equally entrenched in the opposite point of view and they're equally sure that McCain/Palin is the only vote that makes sense. That boggles my mind. I keep trying to wrap my head around that, imagining what would lead me to agree with the McCain/Palin ticket if I had different viewpoints, but I just can't seem to get there, however much I try. I'm cynical enough not to believe any politician who wants to get elected, because I'm pretty sure any of them would say or do anything to get there if they've gotten this far.

A truly honest person would get lost in the system and never get to the final two. So I automatically ignore all media ads and all campaign promises as total bullshit. Doesn't matter which party. Listening to these people speak carries a lot more weight for me. I want to know if this person is even remotely coherent, especially under pressure, if they're knowledgeable about economics, science, history, law, education, health care, etc., the things everyone cares about except the top 1-5% of the population who are so wealthy that few of these topics even touch their lives. I want to be able to imagine this person successfully representing America in international diplomatic situations which require tact, dignity, intelligence and charm to win over world leaders and encourage them to work with our government for the betterment of all.

We need someone who will lead the world with our attempts to combat global warming and other environmental issues;encourage private sector and government research programs involved in finding,using and implementing alternative fuel sources to oil; who will give incentive to residents and world citizens to develop new businesses and employment opportunities right here; and increase U.S. presence in the fields of science, industry and education and bring us and keep us in the forefront of the latest research in cutting edge fields.

Given the purported attitudes and beliefs of McCain/Palin, I cannot imagine that these things would be as likely under their leadership, given what I've seen so far. I'm not entirely convinced of it with Obama either, but at least it seems possible.

Unlike in other elections, it seems to me that the vice presidential candidates carry a little more weight than usual (usually being none). However ugly the thought, we have to consider that McCain already looks tired and irritable, is aging and has pre-existing health issues, so Palin might very well end up in charge. And for a certain Stone Age element of our population, the thought of a person of color ending up in charge of the U.S. is simply impossible. Some people don't even consciously understand or acknowledge their uneasiness with this, and others are conscious of prejudice/bigotry/racism but are equally uncomfortable with saying this directly (and well they should be!) and make up reasons to tell themselves or others why they can't vote for Obama. If Obama should get elected, there exists the very real possibility that some part of this element may actively try to harm him while he's in office, in which case Biden would be called to take his place. He, at least, knows and understands what the office of Vice President of the United States entails and the limited power it entails. Tell Palin it's a lot like being the runner-up of a beauty pageant- you don't actually do much except give some advice, support the president, and wave a lot, unless something goes wrong with the winner. Understand now?

Bailing Out The Millionaires?

2008-09-28T11:19:00.003-04:00

I just keep thinking about this... the U.S. government is, at this very moment, working on a plan to bail out Wall Street. I've got a very simple plan that would save all of us poor shmucks who pay our taxes and who will have to pay for these millionaires to keep doing what so clearly didn't work before. It's hard to have sympathy for a guy who probably takes a helicopter to work from his mansion, but there are plenty of regular joes who work in the financial industry, and they'll suffer at least as much as the rest of us while the guys at the top go on like nothing happened. It's the regular joes who will end up losing jobs and health insurance.

So here's my plan to fix the mess: fire all the executives on Wall Street and in the financial companies the government is trying to bail out who make more than a million dollars a year. You wouldn't have to get rid of many of them to make a difference. Let these guys work at a minimum wage retail job, lose their homes, cars and health insurance and then let's see how they like it.

This would save the U.S. government millions of dollars right away. Then, just like we've established a minimum wage, let's have a maximum wage for financial industry executives. I know that at my job, you can work up to a certain amount per hour and when you reach it, that's as much as you'll get. Do that for the big dogs! I don't care about any other industry, but when it comes to the people holding your life savings, your pension or retirement fund, your investment portfolio that you've scrimped and saved for, and your mortgage, they damned well better not screw up so massively in the name of greed that our economy is in danger of collapsing. So don't pay the guys who did this incredible amounts of money so they can keep screwing up at the expense of the rest of us, who are just about making ends meet if we're lucky.

Do I think this is what will actually happen? Not really.

And Now For A Bit Of Irony, OR One More Reason Concerned Vegetarians Are Annoying

2008-09-15T12:36:00.003-04:00

Remember Squeaky the piglet? I saw the image originally on this website. So I looked for the original article to refer you to, and found that plus this follow-up. Or should I call it a foul-up?

If you put lipstick on a pig...

2008-09-15T12:07:00.005-04:00

but it's a darn cute one! My apologies to Ross Parry, who took this beautiful picture of the cutest piglet ever. Just thought one more person should overuse the phrase. You just can't have enough redundancy and repetition in an election, can you? Now, if we could only teach Squeaky to do the beauty queen wave, live in a small town, finally graduate from college after trying five different ones, all mediocre unheard-of colleges, run for local town mayor, get pissed off and fire or threaten to fire anyone perceived as a threat, help then deny helping building one or two bridges to nowhere, support then accuse Ted Stevens, run for governor of a small isolated state, then feel utterly qualified to run for second in command of the United States because she can see Russia from her house, THEN we'd really have something! Now wait a minute, that sounds awfully familiar...

What's going on, America?

2008-09-04T01:22:00.006-04:00

Is this really what we want running the country if McCain blew a gasket while in office if he were president? Geez, I hope not! Hmmm, crazy Christian fundamentalist joins a guy with a lousy temper who shoots his mouth off, decides things impulsively and calls his wife the "c" word on national television? What a diplomatic core! These two could set America back about 1oo years. The whole world would be laughing at us. Oh wait, they're doing that already. Go Bush, yeah. At least Reagan had Alzheimer's as a reason to want to live in the 1950's again. What's Palin's excuse? I think I'd much prefer Michael Palin. Too bad he's not a citizen.

Another Guilty Pleasure

2008-08-21T12:29:00.005-04:00

Oveja

2008-08-07T10:04:00.003-04:00

I still love lambies. And hats off to Bob & Mary, who have a self-sustaining real working farm. I'm so jealous. And they take great pictures too. Who couldn't love a lamb as cute as this?
From Bob & Mary's Milk & Honey Farm

Pardon My Hiatus, OR My Brother-In-Law Sucks

2008-08-07T08:52:00.004-04:00

I took some time off to get over my utter disgust for the human race. Big pain in the ass, the lot of you. Snobby elitist though I may be, I only bother with people I consider to be the best and the brightest. I have now sworn off friends who make you feel like you're always walking on eggshells. There are very few people who are so amazing that you'll watch everything you say or do every moment you're with them or communicating with them. It gets very tiresome & you just want to relax after a while. Way too much work, especially when it seems like someone is just waiting for a chance to be offended.

True friends tend to be people who can take all your crazy moods and feel free to tell you to shut up when they hit the limit, and you can feel safe enough with them to know they're right and do the same with them. True friends feel free to tell each other anything without worrying about being judged. You can both be exactly who you are and love each other unconditionally, because no matter what happens or what either of you say or do, you know that you will always be friends, because once you love someone deeply and truly, whether relative, friend or love interest, that part of your heart permanently belongs to them.

True friends are the first ones you think of when something wonderful happens and you want to share it, when you need to be bailed out or life just sucks, or when you just want to have some fun. Each time one or the other of you gets a little freaky, you make a decision that it's worth it to put up with this bit because you love them so much and you both think the other one is the coolest, smartest, funniest person you could meet.

Some people may not have any friends like that. I feel very sad for people like that. If you have even one true friend, you can count yourself very lucky. I don't even know what the word is when you have several friends like that- ultra-super-duper lucky? Yep, that would be me.

My husband is also my true friend. He knows me so well that sometimes I forget whether I said something out loud or not because he usually answers me either way. A little scary, but nice.

I know someone in my family whose husband has so little compassion for her that when she ended up in hospital because she was so sick, all he wanted to know waswhen she was going back to work, never sat by her bed holding her hand, never kissed her or asked her how she was feeling, nothing. He makes me want to smack him in the mouth. I would be very surprised if this man could figure out even one particular thought my family member might be thinking at any moment, ever, after many years of being married to her.

That makes me sadder than I can even communicate. How can you be married to someone for years and still not have a single clue about what it's like to be you? It boggles my mind. It means you've learned absolutely nothing about the person who should be closest to you. I guess either you have no interest in gaining insight into that person or no capability of it. Both paint a pretty unflattering picture of him, don't you think? I couldn't possibly even consider spending the rest of my life with someone like that. I'd rather be alone.

Makes me even more grateful for all the joy in my life. Even though I whine a lot, I really do know how good I have it.

Sometimes I Don't Even Like Me

2008-04-02T11:52:00.002-04:00

Have you ever written something to someone in an e-mail or chat room or in a response to someone's blog, with intentions of being witty, or teasing them or just communicate about something you had been discussing? You go about your business, not thinking about it, then when they respond, you find, much to your horror, that what you thought was entertaining or sympathizing or enlightening, was interpreted as insulting or cocksure or too snide or too embarrassing.

I'm pretty sure I remember reading an article somewhere about just such misinterpretations arising with the advent of e-mail. Sure you can make a mistake in judgement about how far is too far, or someone you thought would read and interpret your message as teasing or ironic did not read it that way at all.

The article I read said that without hearing the tone of voice and facial expression of the speaker, the listener or reader doesn't receive the nuances that the speaker intended and so it comes out quite different from the intended message.

There is an old actor's exercise in which they pick a random phrase, like " so good to meet you" or " what's going on?" and say it as many ways as they can. The result is a cornucopia of meanings ranging from a simple greeting to irony to anger to sensuality all the way to utter confusion. Human beings have a huge range of emotions which can be expressed with subtle changes of emphasis when face to face, and these changes in meaning just don't parse in the written word as easily. That can lead to an unhappy interpretation.

You may have guessed that this particular gaffe has occurred in a communication I sent recently, and with my obviously snide and sarcastic sense of the world, you could probably see that train coming. If you're the person who received such a missive from me, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Allergy Medicines Suck

2008-03-22T17:13:00.002-04:00

So I've been fighting some kind of cold/flu/allergy thing for what seems like the millionth time this year and it's only March, and my doctor believes that I get this histamine kind of reaction- maybe a cold, then the reaction, maybe allergies that feel a lot like a cold, neither of us know for sure. He suggested, based on his own personal experience which seemed similar to him, a combination of an inhaler thingy to use once a day, which is usually prescribed for asthma; a pill used for seasonal allergy sufferers, and a capsule which is supposed to help chronic coughs. This is in addition to the other meds I take for a couple of typical middle-aged things. I hate pills. They annoy me. Seems to me that for every pill that's supposed to fix something, they create other issues from side effects, which are solved by- you guessed it- another pill.

Now, I'm sure EVERYONE knows that Claritin, for instance, has been shown to be effective for only 30% of the population, yet it's one of the most frequently prescribed allergy meds. Did you really know that only 1/3 of people are actually helped by this drug if you already take it? Do you know if it helps you at all or not? Do they mention this fact at any point during their television commercial? That seems like a pretty low chance that this would work, doesn't it? Doesn't it make you mad? I don't take Claritin, but someone once prescribed it for me a long time ago, and it did nothing for me, so I stopped. What really made me mad was that this is only one drug of many. How many others have been studied and found to be mostly ineffective, and yet get prescribed all the time?

Meanwhile, I was reading the literature that comes with one of the meds for this cold/allergy/histamine thing I've got. Keep in mind that it's for a cough, sinus inflammation in my eyes, nasal passages, laryngitis, etc. So what are the common side effects listed for one of the pills? Oh, and I've been popping antacids all week. Here's a direct quote from the manufacturer's literature: "the most common side effects include stomach pain, stomach or intestinal upset, heartburn, tiredness, fever, stuffy nose, cough, flu, upper respiratory infection, dizziness, headache..."

So how do you know if this stuff is treating the above symptoms or causing them or both? That's the symptoms we were trying to fix! Nowhere on the literature do they state what the effectiveness rate has been, and the drug companies are not required by law to do so. Why the heck not? I know why the drug companies wouldn't want to, but why are they allowed by the FDA ? If you knew that a medicine your doctor wanted to give you only had a 30% chance of helping you or less, would you think it was worth it? Would he or she prescibe it as often or tell you this before you tried it? Of course, you could be one of the few people who are actually helped by it. Personally, I'd rather know, decide if it's worth trying anyway, then decide if it seemed to help or not. What worries me is that there are actual statistics about the rate at which drugs are prescribed by doctors, and the more frequently they visit doctors with samples and giveaways, the more likely the doctor is to prescribe it. Big surprise, huh? The thing is, it's complicated, because people who can't afford to pay for the drugs because they don't have prescription drug coverage on their health insurance, or don't have insurance at all because they can't afford THAT, can only get the drugs from their docs as samples.

So here are all these drug company salesmen, getting seriously nice salaries, giving out lots of drug samples, toys and gifts, maybe even buying lunch for all the doctor's offices they visit, then there are the prime time tv commercials advertising the drugs. How much do you think the salaries, samples, and tv commercials cost? The drug companies say that we, the American public, which is being charged the most for their drugs, are absorbing the cost of research, but a lot of that research has been financed, partially or fully, by the U.S. government. And only the most profitable drugs end up on the shelves. Frequently, it's more likely that a Prilosec, for instance, gets tweaked a little and becomes Nexium, which is exactly the same thing except for one molecule which doesn't change the medicine at all. How much research did THAT take? Things that people don't have to take repeatedly over long periods of time- well, they're not that interested in developing those, are they?

So if we're being charged so much for drugs that many of us can't afford them, and if the government is funding the research that the drug companies say they're charging the American public for, why isn't our government insisting, like other countries, that we'll only pay so much for the drugs and no more, and why isn't the same government insisting on full disclosure of studies regarding those drugs which explore the efficacy and side effects of those drugs?

Just Thinking Out Loud...

2008-03-19T19:57:00.002-04:00

This is for all you bible-thumpers of all religions:

Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine letting people who sold each other their 12 year old daughters in marriage for sheep and goats and who lived in the desert in tents almost 6000 years ago govern all my daily decisions involving the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy. Even the Pope has decided once and for all to forgive Galileo (he didn't seem very sure until recently) for the outrageous sin of attempting to be objective and find some logic in the way the sun, moon and stars moved (or didn't move) about the heavens. They're even planning a statue to honor Galileo at the Vatican around the spot where he was incarcerated for this horrible plot. It only took hundreds of years to decide for sure. What could possibly take so long to figure out?

Living in a Reptilian Brain: My Lassie Sense

2008-03-09T13:31:00.003-04:00

Recently, I've been stuck for topics I care enough to write about. But yesterday, it came to me: me and my Lassie sense. See, I've always had this theory about how my own crazy brain works: I seem to live in that brain stem area, which is sometimes called the reptilian or primitive brain area. You know, the one we share with lizards. I mentioned this to my husband and he looked online for a good description of the characteristics of this part of the brain, and sure enough, it's a pretty good description of me! You can go check it out too and see if you're a lot like this . Go here.

So what does all this have to do with Lassie and who or what is Lassie anyway? You can see her/him (there were many Lassies, all trained by the fabulous Rudd Weatherwax) here. My Lassie sense, which I suppose you could also call pre-cognition, intuition, empathy, etc., has only activated a couple times. The first was when my husband's appendix burst three months before we got married (a simple no would have been sufficient!). The way it works is that something just doesn't feel right when it seems that everything is normal. I don't know what, but it's important. In this particular case, my husband thought he had a stomach ache or something. But my Lassie sense ("aroo?", Lassie would bark, and then cock her head to the side. "What is it, girl? Is Timmy in the well?" would be the people response) told me that we'd better get him to doctor and hospital soon. Turned out to be just in time.

The second time my Lassie sense radar went up, we were driving home from a wedding and my husband had to pull over because he was dizzy. He thought it was an inner ear infection. But I switched seats and drove us home, rather badly because I don't really drive a stick shift, but I did get us there. Every fiber of my being said take him right to the hospital, but he said he'd be all right. This time it turned out that he'd had a massive heart attack. He's fine now, by the way, but he ended up having open heart surgery. That's a story in itself. Next time. I've had a Lassie sense for myself too. About a month after we started dating, we ate at a Chinese restaurant, where I enjoyed some soft shell crab. As we got back to his apartment, I told him he'd better get me home right away because something wasn't right. Sure enough, you guessed it, food poisoning. Felt like a mule in stilettos was using me for target practice, in between bouts in the water closet, where I seemed to always be 50% wrong no matter what end I tried. He said that if I was in space, I'd have been doing spin art. Very funny.

So what is my Lassie sense and how does it work? I really don't know. It's a kind of dumb animal feel or hunch like a finger tapping on your shoulder and pointing to something and you have no idea why. After a couple of times when the hunch seemed to be right, we've learned to pay attention. And my stubborn husband, who I had to drag to the hospital the first time under protest, now knows that if I tell him my Lassie sense is active, he should do what I tell him without question. You have no idea how rare that is for him! Geez!

My Latest Read: Oliver Sacks

2008-02-27T22:31:00.005-05:00

I'm currently reading Oliver Sacks's book, Uncle Tungsten. I'm no scientist, but I have a definite interest, albeit short attention span, in science, psychology, technology, ethics. They are all constantly expanding the borders of our knowledge, whether in inner space, like the brain and the body, or outer space, as in the earth, the stars and the universe we call home. "Facts" can be fluid things. I once read that if you look at an ordinary wooden table and touch it, smell it, even taste it, it seems so solid. But if you look at a slice of the wood closer up, it seems more delicate, maybe even fragile. Look in a microscope and you see the layers of cells. Further still, in the electron microscope or suchlike, and what seemed fragile and delicate barely seems to hold together at all, at best tenuous. To me, what we call facts are equally tenuous when looked at closely enough for real examination. Sometimes, we all believe in some particular thing that we're absolutely sure is a fact, and then some new piece of information comes in at some later date, and everything you thought you knew was true comes into question. Think about it. What do you do, what can you think when it's something that you have based your entire existence upon, pinned all your hopes and dreams to, and then one day, you find out that the thing you were absolutely sure about is as full of holes as swiss cheese. Do you stubbornly cling to the beliefs you held previously, without further questioning or pushing the envelope? Or does it cause you to fill up with questions, seek what answers you can, contemplate all the new information you now have and then ask yourself if this has to change your beliefs irrevocably or if you can make room in them for the new information? No one but you can decide what you should do.

Personally, I think that if I'm the one going through this particular process in my belief system, I have to seek what answers I can from people or sources I respect and/or who can prove the fact scientifically. I look for as many of these sources as I can and listen carefully to all of them, and then sit with it for a while and contemplate how I feel about it. How sure can I be that these people are trustworthy? Or that they have nothing to gain by a particular viewpoint?

If I have chosen my sources well, there will be much to think about. And if I decide that my strongly held beliefs need a drastic change, it takes a certain amount of courage to change one's beliefs, but if it's something that makes it impossible to see things in the same way again, there really is only one choice, isn't there? If you don't change, you become a hypocrite who pretends to still espouse the same beliefs, both to yourself and to others. And how can you respect yourself then?

In Oliver Sacks' fondly remembered childhood, growing up in London during the Blitz, he seems to be able to recall how his mind started questioning the world around him and his family's tolerance for his passionate interest in chemistry and metals. He lets you in on his secret world of chemistry experiments and questions about how things work in nature and in new inventions during his formative years. He comes from a bright and interesting family and Sacks's tale has manages to fascinate me with things that don't usually draw my attention for very long. He speaks of his love for different metals and stones and chemicals and tells you why he loves or came to love these things and the reasons are frequently poetic and sometimes romantic in a way removed from interpersonal definitions of romance.

This is the same man who wrote "Awakenings", which was based on his research and experimentation with comatose patients. He also wrote "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat", a fascinating and loving account of the awe he feels for the patients he meets who have learned to cope with devastating brain traumas and diseases which make normal everyday cognition impossible for them. But each one he discusses finds ways to make life make sense for them. One writes in a notebook all the time so he can remember the day that just passed. Another can sing but not talk. I imagine the expression on Sacks' face to be one of fascination and admiration for the huge effort these people make to make the world make sense to them at least a little. I like that in a clinician.

So here I am reading a book filled with chemistry and the history of chemicals, lightbulbs, scientific inventions and the background of the inventors- things I wouldn't normally be interested in, but when I catch Sacks' enthusiasm, I can see the splendor of the worlds he moves in, which are the less visible realms of the natural world. And Sacks's splendid, inquisitive mind, and respect for people and for the earth make it worth the slog through the chemicals. I have found out things which make them more interesting to me now, though.

Question your beliefs on pretty much any subject, especially the ones you hold onto tightly to get through the day. Ask yourself if there is something you aren't hearing or seeing as it truly is because it would disrupt your beliefs. Then if the answer is yes, see what you think about that. People have made amazing discoveries in this century in medicine, technology, communications, philosophy, etc. and they generally find these new things by getting beyond their belief structures and asking questions of themselves, their peers, and the universe and looking for the answers themselves. Shouldn't you?

I'm Baaaaaaaack!

2008-02-10T13:27:00.001-05:00

Not only did my hard drive crash, but that horrible cold/flu thing that seems to going around my city/state/country/world. What a freaking week/2 weeks. See prior sick entries. Pretty much the same concept. But I'm finally better now, thank goodness.

And, thanks to my very handy hubby, I have a new hard drive in an old lappy. I lost a lot of info, but luckily, we had actually done a backup a season ago. Geeks that we are, we also have a wireless network, so some things were actually still in the system on another computer.

So here's my guilty confession. Want to know what info I lost that upset me most? My Sims 2 hacked objects! Yes, I'm a Sims 2 maniac. The game itself I find pretty uninteresting by itself. Maybe other people like playing god, but it bores the crap out of me. I don't care if the characters go potty or not. How tedious! What part do I really enjoy? The decorating! OK, I admit I love all those deco shows on TV, but I can't directly participate there, just watch. And I've tried several different interior design/home design software programs and they just don't cut it. Either they're too complicated to enjoy, or the walkthrough in real time is ponderously slow, or the choice of materials to use are horrendous and it's difficult to add new textures. I may try again, who knows. But in Sims 2, I can actually see in real time how the space works and how much room you need to leave around objects and structures and why. How the space flows is important. I've gotten so used to this tiny little world and so entranced, that when I'm driving around, I see houses and notice how doors and windows are situated in different ways and what choices they made for styles and types of the doors and windows. So I'm actually teaching myself the practicalities of architechture and interior design. I'm also learning how to landscape.

So when my hard drive crashed, I had amassed a collection of amazing plants, interior design objects, paint, floor, door and window designs and yes, even people, called skins. There are lots of download sites, free and for pay, where people are doing amazing things and sharing them. The original textures of the Sims2 characters and structures are pretty boring, and the faces are just plain bad. The stuff on sites like Mod The Sims 2, my favorite site for safe downloads, is so superior to the original game textures that I can't imagine why EA doesn't improve them as much as the gamers themselves have. Without the additional imported textures of skins and objects and build items, the game is really dull, at least to me.

I used to play Sims 1 and enjoyed it, but Sims 2 does have better dimensional design and you can place more things like doors and windows on an angle, so it's closer to real world designs, and the people skins had the potential to be more detailed and dimensional looking than Sims 1, so I decided to try Sims 2. Well, let me tell you, it's a lot more complicated. I find myself doing a lot more of going behind the scenes into the program itself and adjusting or adding things. OMG, I've become a gamer! Yikes! It does make the whole thing more interesting, though. I'm learning more about the programming, little by little. I'm still not all that comfortable with all the ins and outs of the program, but I have to say that my old habits have changed a bit. In Sims 1 I usually ended up putting the game on pause, adding lots of money to the game with cheats, and decorating the hell out of it till the house could have been in Architectural Digest, then throwing the Sim family out, keeping their money in the house, and re-decorating with the new money from the next poor Simslobs I threw in. I call it Sims slumlord.

Now, in Sims 2, thanks to all the downloads available from fellow gamers, the skins are so amazing for the people that I actually put the characters into play more often, to see how they move through the space. This game is not for dumb people. There are so many different goals to fulfill the needs of these sims that it seems relentless. Unless, of course, you cheat. Now in Sims 2, they actually include the list of cheats if you know where they are. They may have had the same thing in Sims 1, but I never found them if they were there.

So after much hunting, I have found most of the hacked objects I lost when my hard drive crashed. Not only is my lappy recovered, but my favorite things have come back. And now, I am definitely an expert on making regular back-ups of all the things I have lovingly amassed on my computer. Yay!

The next step will be when I feel familiar enough with the Sims2 program to start learning how to make my own obects and skins. I was an art student way longer ago than I care to think about, and my specialty was faces and figures, so we'll see if I can create new skins. I also hunger for things like George Nakashima furniture, the latest bathroom design ideas, furniture like the items from Design Within Reach, all the stuff I could never afford in real life.

Fact is, our house needs a LOT of rehab and we're waiting to be able to afford it. I'm talking bungee cord holding together a 45-year-old oven door! Meantime, I can dream and learn how to design a space in my little Sims2 world. Sigh.

Headline: Hard Drive Crashes and I'm Oh So Blue

2008-01-23T14:26:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am still here. It's funny what you get used to. I have gotten so accustomed to having easy access to internet, e-mail, blog site, graphics programs, image files. You would think that I was smart enough to back up all my important files, wouldn't you? Hubby kept telling me to do so, but never showed me how. So I never did. I've found a lot of stuff again, but some is lost forever. I had painstakingly compiled loads of images, interesting recipes, my own writing, and poof! One day everything was fine, and in the next moment, everything was gone.

I am fortunate that hubby knows how to fix sick laptops and figured out what was wrong with it. So help is on the way in the mail for lost setup programs. Lappy will probably live again soon. In the meantime, I am relying on hubby's computer in our very cold basement and our niece's computer, which is riddled with annoying pop-ups which she actually likes, so it's a real pain in the ass to use. Still, at least there ARE other computers in the house, so I should be grateful. Can't remember all the cool websites I found by accident whilst looking for something else, can't remember all the byzantine mnemonics I used to remember all my passwords, can't remember where I got all the neat images I found on Google, which were also usually found by accident. Sigh.

I solemnly swear that if Lappy lives again to perform its magic for the immediate future till it crashes again, I will regularly back up my files. For now, I'm trying very hard not to cry for my poor lost Lappy. Sniff.

Graham Norton- hooray for gay

2008-01-12T13:23:00.000-05:00

I love BBCAmerica. Like most cable TV stations, 90% of it is crap, maybe even more, depending on your point of view. But when they're on, they're spot on. Graham Norton is one of the funniest people on telly. Thank you, beeb! How many American cable TV channels would support a character like this? Not a one.

I was jumping up and down for joy when I saw that there was a new season of his show. At least new for us on this side of the Pond. It was shown there in 2007. Still...

From reading his website and not being altogether stupid and credulous, I have deduced that much of the show is pre-planned where it seems spontaneous (uh, that's why they call it "ACTING"), but I am prepared to suspend my disbelief to play along. You never know, or at least I never know, what actor or singer or comedian is going to go splat and hit that wall of utter silence known as dead air. However they contrive it, the show is f@#$ing funny. Sometimes I don't even know who the hell the guests are, but it doesn't even matter. Graham and his minions can make something out of nothing, where necessary, and I don't care how they do it. It's interesting to see what goes into making the show seem so spontaneous though.

So far, my favorite episode ever has to be Alice Cooper and Sandi Toksvig, or something similarly Viking-esque. I don't give a rats ass about Alice & never heard of Sandy before, but she's as funny as Graham, and Alice was, surprisingly for me, entertaining in a way that I find absent in his musical performances, despite some level of talent and a lot of theatrics. Stop spitting blood and screaming to song lyrics Al, and talk about golf some more!

Abbie Hoffman

2008-01-10T13:25:00.000-05:00

So what's with the sudden resurgence in interest in Abbie Hoffman? It's not just here in the U.S., but all over the world. I thought he was kind of important in the history of the U.S. in the 1960's. I did my own "Steal This Book" tour of Europe (sorry, Europe, but I was broke and wanted to see you before it all turned into one big Americaland- I like seeing the different things that make each place unique. It turned out to be my only opportunity to go and be there a while). Didn't ANYONE else do this or was I the only one? Not that I'm complaining.

What's happening now that makes Abbie Hoffman so much more interesting all of a sudden? Leave me a comment about what you think! Inquiring minds want to know.

419 Redux (See "Where's Mine" entry)

2008-01-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

So here's a new variation on an old theme. See if you can spot what clued me in that it was less than aboveboard. I have pasted it right in here so you can read it in its entirety.You just can't make up this kind of thing. Oh, wait a minute, they have made a feeble attempt to do just that! Shame, shame! I've included the actual internet header for your amusement.

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05 Jan 2008 17:55:30 +0000
Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 17:55:30 +0000
From: "Scottish Textiles.LTD."
Subject: Work As A Representaive In Our Team This 2008. Dont Miss Out!!
X-Originating-IP: [217.168.144.198]
To: info@scottishtextiles.com
Reply-to: textilesltd.scottish@yahoo.es
Message-id: <20080105175530.ip6i2o3z4g8ggk4g@webmail.meninet.co.uk>
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User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.1.1)

Scottish Textiles Company.
Dear Candidate,
We have a job offer available for you in response to your Initial request in the Job search directory.We are a very small International trading company with our corporate headquarters based in Scotland.We deal on raw materials and finished personal care products including live long products.

Due to our competent records we have been recieving orders from NORTHERN AMERICA,AUSTRALIA,and EUROPE which we have not been able to process competently since we do not have a payment recieving personel in these Areas as it is difficult to have payments sent from foreign countries processed within a short time.We have decided to recruit payment officers online hence we will be needing a representative to process our payments in these areas - due to delays in processing payments from these areas.

REMEMBER: THE MORE PAYMENTS YOU PROCESS- AT A FASTER THE RATE THEHIGHER YOU STAND TO EARN DAILY.
For Example
you've got 3000.00USD. ! You take your income: 300.00 USD Which is the 10% pay rate. Send to us: 2700.00 USD. First month you will have 15-20 transactions on 3000.00-4000.00 USD or more. So you may calculate your income.
For example 18 transactions on 3500.00 USD gives you 4410.00 USD.

What we ask:Two free hours daily not including weekends, Internet access for sending and receiving e-mails,available means of cashing payments at your bank using your existing bank account.

IMPORTANT:
You must be over 21 years of age.U.S,UK,CANADIAN OR AUSTRALIAN CITIZENSHIP.If you meet these conditions please reply us by contacting the payment officer to receive a Representative Contract agreement do give us your personal informations as stated below,

1.Full Names
2.Full Contact Address
3.Phone/fax Numbers
4.Age
5.Occupation
6.Company Name

Send Your Details To;
Mr. Malanga Amos.
Payment Officer,Scottish Textiles.
Email;textilesltd.scottish@yahoo.es

Mr. Manlanga Amos, Will send you more details and the companies contact telephone numbers as soon as you contact him,Do get back with the above informations for quick delivery of payments

Wellcome to our Team!!!
Mrs Mary Allan.
Public Realations Officer
Scottish Textiles Company.

lambie of the week

2008-01-08T10:57:00.000-05:00

Well, it's not Friday,but I'm home sick. Have the attention span of a gnat right now- haven't even looked at my computer in several days. Finally checked e-mail and found the best picture, sent to me by my good friend Freddy from Retail Hell Underground. He knows how much I love lambies and found this one for me. Cool! So I'm posting it before I forget. This will be one of the few times in my life when I'm ahead of myself. I was even born two weeks late! I can't help but think that I did that deliberately, though, because it was my mom's birthday.

The image was here.

To Dave Barry and Freddy from Retail Hell Underground with love

2008-01-02T13:01:00.000-05:00

For some inexplicable reason, I was Googling around and found Dave Barry's (un)official website/blog and was overjoyed. I remember reading his columns in my local newspaper's Sunday supplement and laughing so hard that tears were running down my face and I was even more incoherent than usual, and that's going some. Dave Barry was one of my humor gods.

I took a writing class once and my teacher told me that my humor reminded her of Dave Barry's. What better compliment is there?

So I went to Dave's site to see what was going on. Not a whole lot, but it was amusing anyway. There's not much going on in my life either, but sometimes no news is good news, so I'm just going to look at it like that. Who am I to judge Dave Barry's life anyway?

The thought suddenly occurred to me as I was writing this that most, if not all, of my humor gods are, well, gods. Not many humor goddesses that I can think of. Sure, maybe Rita Rudner, Phyllis Diller. Whoopi Goldberg certainly. But when I think of humor writers, not many women come to mind. Why is that? Are there actually less women who are that funny? Or do they have more difficulty in finding a publisher/editor/audience? I don't know the answer. Do you?

Dave's FAQ had a question and answer that was one I've asked: can Dave Barry help me get published/find an editor/critique my work/tout my product or column or pimp my ride? Well, definitely not the last thing. And as for the rest, the site recommends The Writer's Digest to find publisher and editor information for sending submissions.

You know what I'm going to do for my New Year's resolution? I don't usually bother with anything so useless and hypocritical (does ANYONE ever follow them up?), but this year is gonna be different. I'm going to get a hold of a Writer's Digest and submit something. What have I got to lose?

And do you know who got me charged up enough to get off my arse and do something? My friend Freddy at Retail Hell Underground, who has a suggestion on their website to do just that and take a positive step towards something you really like to do. I went to check this fabulous site, which has inspired me many times when retail was ripping me a new one during the holiday season, and what did I see? Bless me if Freddy hasn't put me at the top of their Friends and Faves List. Wow! Thank you so much, Freddy! Seems like every time I'm ready to throw in the towel, there's my friend Freddy, encouraging me and all the other retail whores, not to give up. I'm sending you a big hug, Freddy.

Didn't I just say this?

2007-12-27T16:04:00.000-05:00

If you've ever been to or plan to be in a non fast food restaurant,or if you are a server in a restaurant, this article is for you, especially the former category. I count my lucky stars that I'm not a server anymore, but I'm only one step removed from it, and some people certainly mistake me for a restaurant server, only there's never a tip! So go here, read, learn and respect. If you're out on a date, the best way to impress your date is to be polite to your server and tip generously while paying your full attention to the lovely person sharing your table. After all, you invited them! Believe me when I say that being cheap and/or rude is NOT a turn-on!

Almost out of the woods...retail hell

2007-12-25T23:48:00.001-05:00

It's now officially the end of Christmas season- hooray! If I ever have to hear another bloody Christmas song again, there's going to be bits and pieces of bodies left by the Muzak radio dial in my store and the mute button will be shot in the on position, so that it can never be turned off again!

Please, all you other religio-spiritual denominations, put your best people to work and come up with a crapload of really awful, syrupy full chorus songs about YOUR major freakin' holiday and let's alternate between all of them for about three months-at least it would break the monotony. Come on, Hindus, Moslems, Native Americans, Rosicrucians, Coptics, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Pagans- where are the hit holiday songs to compete with Christmas classics like "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" or "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" or "White Christmas"?

Let's bombard the airwaves with new classics like "It's Devali Time in Old Karnataka" repeated over and over every fifteen minutes starting around May, then stopping in October after the season is over. Or how about that instant hit " Casting the Circle on Samhain Again"? Let's start that one around April and continue into the end of October. Make sure you have seventeen different renditions of each song available and play all of them within any given eight hour period. Gotta have a country one, the 101 Strings version, rockabilly, bubblegum pop, polka, blues, a really slow Yanni heartfelt instrumental, the Kenny G version, etc.

But that's not enough, people. Because when I get home from a full day of listening to crappy, shmaltzy Christmas songs which repeat all day long and crazy customers who are apparently incapable of thinking ahead every freaking year when it comes to holiday meals and who panic at the last minute like a herd of startled bison at a watering hole and buy everything in sight, and who insist on telling me their goddamned life story while angry mobs gather with their hands out, waiting to be fed...when I leave this madhouse exhausted and abused, the only thing I want besides a quick meal and my bed is to find nothing but shmaltzy, crappy syrupy Christmas specials on every freaking TV series and special shmaltzy, crappy syrupy Christmas movies, so that I can't possibly escape the merest mention of the damned holiday.

Oh, and don't wish me a Merry Christmas unless you're POSITIVE that I'm a fellow Christian (I'm not)-just say Happy Holidays and don't assume I'm you, or use my favorite retort "Merry/Happy Chanu-Kwanz-a-Solsti-Mas" and at least one of them has a high chance of being right. If you practice saying it, it gets easier.

And Happy Solar New Year to my Gregorian-leaning friends. My Lunar calendar friends will have to wait a while.

Holiday Time On The Winter Solstice

2007-12-23T10:26:00.000-05:00

Well, yesterday was December 22 . This year December 22 was the shortest day but longest night of the year. That's the Winter Solstice. In pagan circles, it's the time when people draw inward and become contemplative, a time for ending things and finishing tasks. In pretty much every place where the climate drops, people draw inward into the house more and feel cozy inside while the weather blusters outside. I think of fireplaces with big overstuffed comfy chairs nearby, the warmth of candlelight, the smell of hot apple cider or hot chocolate warming on the stove, baking cookies while the snow flies around in a crazy dance. None of these things is actually happening where I live right now- it's unseasonably warm, I don't have a fireplace, there aren't any candles. I have not made cider or chocolate or baked any cookies this season. We do have an overstuffed comfy sectional near the warmth of the big screen tv.

We now have this crazy Christmas tree with that color wheel thingy my husband remembers from his childhood. His mother and I got it for him this year, because it was all he wanted when he went in for open-heart surgery several years ago and I promised him we'd get it for him. After much searching, mom found the one we were looking for at a decent price and grabbed it for us. I went all over the place finding ornaments that I thought would fit with that 1950's version of life and childhood that the tree represents for my husband. the most , Never having done all this before, it was a bit daunting deciding what to get for a silver tinsel tree, but I knew it needed to integrate with our living room decor, which is red, black and white, and the ornaments had to look retro enough but kind of postmodern. I even found some black ornaments ( those appealed to our niece's Goth aesthetics). I think I succeeded.

Initially, I had to try not to balk at the thought of a traditionally Christian symbol in my home, but after thinking about it, it was just a dopey fake tree with lots of shiny things on it which give off a soft warm light. So maybe it's a sort of fireplace replacement. Maybe for some people who were raised with this tradition, there's more to it than that, but it's not a tradition I understand or care about. So maybe for me, it's just about a cozy light and delivering on a promise I made to my husband, and perhaps giving him something that reminds him of the simpler, happy times of his childhood. And I think I did a pretty good job of decorating the tree, too, although the minimalist in me liked it better when there wasn't much on it. Apparently, minimalism is not appropriate to even silver tinsel christmas trees. Sigh. I guess that old Coco Chanel saying doesn't hold true here: pile everything on, then keep taking off stuff till it works.

Anyway, if I actually followed any tradition at all and it was a pagan one, completing the obligation of a promise fulfilled would be very appropriate to mark the Winter Solstice.

There's a guy named John Horgan who appears on Blogging Heads. He's written some interesting books, and he referred in his blog to an article he'd written for the New York Times about the Winter Solstice, which you can read here.

lambie of the week

2007-12-21T01:19:00.001-05:00

Lambs? Uh, kind of. So if the lamb twins (there are actually two of them) are baby lambs, or lamb babies, then is the picture on the left a sheep/dog or a dog/sheep? I say both. Then I laugh a lot. It's one of my favorite pictures ever. Perhaps I've just anthropomorphised the dog, but it looks pretty pleased with itself to me. The babies look a little more confused. Dare I say it, is the dog just a wolf(hound) in sheep's clothing? Can grandma be far behind or did he eat her? Perhaps we'll never know.

Now who on earth is this guy??!!

2007-12-19T11:13:00.000-05:00

This time I have no idea, but I like one of his particular posts, this being holiday time and everything, and my feelings about religion being that it should be avoided at all costs, because it will always end up costing you something, here's a guy I found kinda interesting, despite his horrible spelling and syntax errors. We'll let that slide, as I believe he's very likely not a native English speaker. Well, here he is, propounding his theory of Life, the Universe, and Everything...Srini. Take it,Srini.

Who On Earth Is Tom Baker?

2007-12-18T15:01:00.001-05:00

This is actually not my title today, it's actually Tom's. Maybe you actually DON'T know who Tom Baker is, at least the particular one I mean. One of BBC's longest running shows, which stopped for many years, and then started up again, was/is Dr. Who. Originally done in black and white (that's how old the show is!), there have been a variety of actors who play the title role, one of whom was Tom Baker. I have watched the show and its various Doctor incarnations for quite a number of years, with varying levels of amusement and boredom. BBC spared every expense, mainly because they didn't have any money, when they created the show, and sometimes that made the sets, costumes, and frequently, the scripts, rather bargain basement. OK, I'll come right out and say it: cheesy. That was the accidental humor, at least for me, of the show. The villains were the same guys a lot, dressed in a new slapped-together getup and modulating their voices a little, bless them.

Then they found Tom Baker and the thing came to life for me. With a finger laid aside the nose, he was funny, cheeky, and a little overblown in just the right way. He made it so much fun to watch that I tried never to miss one of his episodes.

I have an uncanny (and utterly useless) memory for famous people's voices and faces, and an equally useless memory for their names. If only there were a way to make these things lucrative! Sigh. Ah well. Anyway, no matter how they disguise the bloke, or the bird, there are certain geometries of face, and certain idiosyncracies of speech in pitch, timbre and stresses that tell me exactly who this is, whether I want to or not. I couldn't tell you what those geometries and speech patterns were, but I recognize them. When some actor or actress intrigues me, I can usually spot them, even if they're in the background or a voiceover, and no matter what their age. My husband has learned not to bet against me anymore.

So since I first saw Tom Baker as Doctor Who, I've spotted him in some other productions. Sometimes he's exquisitely cast, as when he played Donald MacDonald on Monarch of the Glen, another BBC show which I adored for exactly the opposite reasons as Dr. Who- beautiful sets and locations in Scotland, realistic costumes, naturalistic direction of a very talented cast, and mostly witty scripts. Brilliant! Other times, the role wasn't quite as well-suited, or the director a bit less talented, or the writing not terribly moving or funny. I still enjoyed watching Mr. Baker. He has a kind of charismatic sparkle.

All this is by way of explanation of my latest enjoyable read. I had the honor to receive an e-mail response from one of my favorite authors, Jasper Fforde, basically after I kind of begged him to do so. Still, I had't really expected a reply, but was delighted when one came. He recommended Mr. Baker's autobiography, which in my ignorance I had never heard of, called..."Who On Earth Is Tom Baker?", written by the actor himself. Fforde had told me it was witty, poignant and funny, so I found it in the UK and ordered it. My husband is annoyed whenever I read the book at bedtime, because I laugh way too much. Baker is a delightful storyteller and gives you quite a picture of the specific times and location of his upbringing and life in the wide world, from bombed-out Liverpool and abject poverty to success and adulation the world over as one of the most popular, possibly THE most popular Doctor Who, which has an immense cult following.

Mr. Baker is happily living in England with his devoted wife Sue, and has done a variety of projects which include the voiceover for Little Britain, a crazy funny variety show on the beeb, but it seems doubtful that he has any plans to come to America to visit any time soon.

Perhaps it's my own vanity, or the charm of the writing and the man himself, but I thought my only chance to let him know how much I enjoyed it was to say so on his website, which it seems he at least occasionally looks at. Baker doesn't know me from Adam, or in this case Eve, still I figure everyone likes an occasional clap on the shoulder to say "well done". I read some of the fan comments and most of them nauseated me and many were accidentally funny in a poorly written, sycophantic sort of way. Perhaps we all have issues which drive us to see a specific personal meaning in things where there isn't any, and maybe I just can't see my own, but I really can't say that Doctor Who changed my life, or saved it, or that the script resonated with the emotional issues I was currently dealing with and was rich in symbolism (pleaaase!), or that I imagined the Doctor as the father/son/lover/brother/uncle/grandad/doctor/pet goldfish/lawn ornament/blancmange I never had, I just thought it was fun to watch when it was Tom Baker.

And it's even more fun to go along for the ride with Tom Baker as he describes how he got there with wit, style, humor, and self-deprecation. If you can find yourself a copy of his book, I highly suggest you get your mitts on it and devour it whole. I'm hoping that perhaps his publisher will re-print it now that Doctor Who is back on the air and as popular as ever. Baker was also gracious enough to send a congratulatory note to David Tennant , the current Doctor, who I also enjoy watching (the first one in a long time since Baker!). Seems like a lovely bloke to me.So please send Tom Baker all of your money. Just kidding. Just buy anything you can on his site. OK, how about smile at him if you see him on the road or mowing the lawn? That'll do nicely.

There's a calendar for every taste, apparently

2007-12-16T13:40:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but I've been shopping for holiday gifts for a variety of relatives, younger and older, seemingly forever this season. It's serious for me, as I like to do careful research about each of them, find out what their taste is, and target something towards that so that their little faces light up when they see their gift. This is not an easy task, and many, oh so very many, don't know how to do this very well, but I pride myself on it. The reason it's tricky is that in order to achieve the penultimate giftitude (yes, I know that's not a word, but I've just made it up, so now it is), you must step outside yourself and put yourself in the giftee's shoes. So if you hate the color orange, for instance, and the giftee adores it, well then orange it is, however much you might naturally balk. You must place your trembling fingers upon that deeply orange object and through gritted teeth say to the poor dear who is stuck working at whatever retail establishment you've selected for your purchase: "yes, I'll have this one, please" and then go vomit somewhere before you wrap it exquisitely for your beloved giftee. If you're very lucky, you may not ever have to see the object again. Of course, if it's not absolutely hideous to you, it's much easier.

Many people don't give it a second thought at all- they just buy what they would want, but that's all wrong. They may very well think YOUR taste is hideous and hate everything you give them. There is a certain relative I am stuck with who shall remain nameless, but they're not exactly my favorite, and I despise this person's taste 99% of the time, along with pretty much everything else they do, and this person has definitely not mastered the art of gift giving, but they are loved and adored by someone whom I love and adore, so... I have received things from this relative and just looked at them as if they must have had some entirely different person in mind when they bought this thing, and somehow mixed up the packages by accident. And then thanked them profusely and graciously through gritted teeth, assuring them that this is just lovely and exactly what I wanted, because one should be gracious about these things. Then I try to think of someone who might actually like this thing and won't come into contact with the relative in question and re-gift. Yes, that's kind of horrible, but I don't lose a wink of sleep over it. Better that than have the ugly useless thing staring me in the face every day. No, not the relative, the gift.

Anyway, I've probably gotten it wrong upon occasion, but it's not for lack of research or effort if I haven't exactly hit the mark, and frequently it was for lack of dosh, cabbage, money, whatever you want to call it, so it was down to two choices: make something, or buy what I could afford. Fortunately, I'm pretty creative, so I usually make something if it's possible. Better to come with something to give everyone than to arrive empty-handed, at least to my way of thinking.

This year, we have been more fortunate than most of the last decade, but we're by no means rolling in it. And for some reason, my retail hell schedule has been even more horrible than in previous years, so my time, while not any more limited than usual, has been scattered to inopportune moments. thus making it quite a challenge to get handmade things and shopping done. So I bought way more things than I would have normally, and didn't make much of anything. I also managed to steer clear of the dreaded malls, thank my lucky stars and the internet.

I did make baskets for everyone, and gave one a variety of lovely teas and a pretty teapot set for one, another got some special coffee and tea from their favorite vacation site with an authentic coffee set from that place, a marathon runner got a gift card from his favorite electronics store and some energy bars deemed the best by marathon runner websites, etc.
Several of them got gift cards because I know they enjoy picking things out themselves and I haven't got enough specific information to do it for them well, but I like fluffing the gift out a bit. A gift card may be appropriate to their interests, but it's a lackluster gift to open with everyone else, so I thought long and hard about what else to include so it's more fun.

Hmm, a calendar suited to their individual interests would be nice, and after further research, I checked online for what was available. OMG! We all know that there are pin-up calendars, but that would be really creepy coming from an aunt, so I didn't even consider those for the boys. Not that I care if they have one, mind you. Nothing advertising anything illegal or immoral, but fattening would be OK, if appropriate to the individual. I searched and searched, and was amazed to find the variety of calendars available. Apparently, there is one for every taste, no matter how vulgar, stupid, weird or wonderful. For instance, by now if you know nothing else about me, if you have seen any of my other posts, you know I love sheep. Maybe abnormal to some, but that's me, so I bought myself one. I can justify my love of sheep. But SQUIRRELS? The little bastards seen everywhere you don't want them?! The ones who steal the birdseed from the birds, eat your favorite garden plants to oblivion, wreak havoc on grandma's window screens? Bite the occasional U.S. president? Carry rabies sometimes?Or is that raccoons? SQUIRRELS? Squirrel of the month? Who would want twelve pictures of squirrels, for gosh sakes? You don't need a picture of a squirrel when they're always right in front of you everywhere you look, do you? Never mind, I don't want to know. To me, the correct approach to squirrels is a BB gun aimed out of your window at the little pests as they ruin yet another window screen. Not that I actually have a BB gun, but I do fantasize about it occasionally. I give them dirty looks and yell at them, though. That's at least somewhat satisfying. But don't even think about getting me a squirrel calendar, unless it comes mounted to a dartboard.

lambie of the week

2007-12-13T23:29:00.001-05:00

This is a screenshot from one of my favorite shows on telly: Shaun the Sheep. I found it accidentally on the Disney Channel when I was channel surfing (yes, I AM almost 50 and watch the Disney Channel!) and we TiVo it. Everyone laughs at me for watching it, but when we make them watch it, they love it too. It's the guys who did Wallace & Gromit, and Flushed Away as well. The show has a really cool website which is obviously geared towards children and they generously allow you to download some of the images of the characters and the backgrounds, which I did. The images are chrystalline clear and the attention to detail in the lighting of the characters and the set is amazing. The sets themselves are gorgeous. It all makes you forget that the characters and sets are pretty small when you see Nick Park and his cohorts in the midst of them while they're filming. If you hadn't realized it, the characters are done in claymation. I rather like that occasionally you can still see a fingerprint on the odd eyelid or body.

Last Minute Louies:

2007-12-13T22:52:00.000-05:00

Do you know what a last minute louie is? You might even be one for all I know.

I learned quickly when I was waiting tables that the last customer of the night was usually the biggest pain in the ass and they wouldn't leave. You could turn off the music, then the lights , and beat them on the head with the ashtrays- they were completely oblivious . Well, maybe the ashtray thing was just a fantasy, but it would have speeded them up a little. They usually turned out to be the cheapest tippers too. I got cagey about it and started generously offering the poor innocent working the shift with me the last table. Sucker!

I have found the same or similar to hold true in groceryland. Inevitably, there is a $200-300 order about 15 minutes after closing. This is a last minute louie. This person also tends to be what a friend called an "arm-folder": people who just stand there at the register like a deer caught in the headlights, staring blankly into space with their arms folded across their chests. They casually shop after we close like they have all the time in the world. God only knows what time they think we close. The estimates seem to vary wildly amongst arm-folders of distinction, despite the fact that we're open at the same hours seven days a week all through the year except for three or four days a year.It's written in huge letters on our front door, and our hours are exactly the same as every other store in the whole chain. We're not allowed to throw customers out or tell them we closed a while ago and turning off the music doesn't even register for them, much like my restaurant customers. Even though they're shopping the very last possible moment of the evening, they're shocked and apalled that they can't seem to find their favorite things, and that the shelves are looking a little barren. Never mind that there are pallets full of stacked boxes all over the store which will eventually block almost every aisle so we can re-stock once we close. On top of all this, they frequently start tapping their fingers impatiently on the register while you bag their huge order without lifting a finger to help. They frequently haven't even looked for their credit card yet, and it's quite a hunt in that black hole they call a bag. If there hasn't been one of these customers yet, and it's about two minutes before closing, be assured that there's still one lurking in your aisles.

We usually assign an employee to act as bouncer at the door at exactly closing time, because if we're not ever-vigilant, a few slip through then and will wander aimlessly around the store until we herd them towards the register. We smile at them through gritted teeth and fantasize that we make them unload the pallets with us. They'd never be a last minute louie again, trust me.

" 'scuse Me While I Shoot This Guy"

2007-12-12T12:49:00.000-05:00

My apologies to Jimi Hendrix and his estate. I haven't even had a chance to read my e-mail, let alone write anything lately. Well, 'tis the Season...we're reaching the crescendo of the crazy holiday shopper season. Why, oh why, do the slavemasters I work for seem to think that it's a good thing to destroy your entire day by scheduling us too early to do anything beforehand, and too late to do much afterwards besides collapse in a heap? Or better yet, how about working until about 9:30 at night, then waking up at 5:00 a.m. to leave for work again at 5:30 a.m. ? You might as well set up a cot for me at work. There isn't even enough time to sleep, let alone calm down from the night of hell and get something to eat either that night or the next morning. What did I do?!! There are 50 of us to schedule. Do you mean to tell me that absolutely no one else could do the 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift? No one? And I'm not the only one this has happened to, apparently.

The only good things about this kind of turnaround shift is that you're so tired that you don't even remember the first three hours, and the customer contact is, thankfully, minimal, since you're there for three hours before they open, then you get a half hour break after they open, so from that standpoint, at least, it's optimal. But you're much more likely to have a cranky employee as a result, so don't blame me if I go a little postal. I promise not to shoot anybody, though. No one would be stupid enough to give me the ammo anyway.

Dealing with customers at this time of year is much like trying to train a really stupid puppy that you adore. They're sweet and lovable, some of them, but unless you stick their head right on the three different signs that state what the demo of the day is and show them the product right in front of their faces in stacks at the counter, they don't associate any of these things with the product that is being sampled with them. Maybe I've said this before, but I can't emphasize the obviousness of this enough to suit me, and I have to say what it is for 5 hours straight. It's not even a matter of literacy, because even an illiterate could look at the picture on the 50 boxes, bags and tins in front of me and notice that the demo looks just like it.

Most people don't even care what it is anyway. We always state the possible allergens in the product with a sign right in front of me and we tape an empty container with the list of ingredients right next to it at eye level. And yet, I actually had a teenager eat something called a peanut something right on the label of all the bottles stacked up on my shelves. She ate it without looking at anything or asking any questions about the product. Then her mother came up and said she was allergic to peanuts. I asked if she was the kind of allergic where people asphyxiate and turn pretty colors from ingesting peanuts and the mother said yes. And the teen ate another one! I wished them good luck that night. Personally, if I had a peanut allergy, I'd be asking some questions before I ate anything, even if I didn't see a three foot sign announcing the demo of the day behind the station, another sign stating that this product contains peanuts at eye level in front of the demo person, and an empty container on the counter with a label that says "Peanut..." next to the sample which she ate unquestioningly. Oh, and there were about 100 jars of the sauce on the shelf in front of the demo counter. Must have a death wish or maybe she likes living on the edge. Ever hear of the Darwin awards? I smell a winner.

Jasper Fforde

2007-12-08T02:42:00.000-05:00

See, he's this Oxford-educated guy in Wales who writes brilliantly in this mash-up of fiction genres: very film noir detective novels from the 1950s/names which are silly puns/farce/classic European literature references/nursery rhymes/science fiction/love story and probably a few genres I couldn't think of right this minute. It's crazy but it works.

When I started this blog lo those many months ago, it was mainly to practice writing on a regular basis- my husband's suggestion. The goal is to get better at it, as well as get in the habit, so that at some point, someone might see my blog, like my style, and offer me large sums of cash to do it some more. Or if I got brave enough to seek out publications, online or in print, which accept submissions, then I could refer them to my blog so they could see samples of my writing.

I don't know about you, but when you do things in the arts or creative fields, I think it's very hard to judge your own work subjectively. Some people overestimate their talent, and others underestimate. I always think what I do is crap, but then I figure that someone else might think otherwise. So I decided to go out on a limb and write to my favorite writers, John Hodgman and Jasper FForde, and ask them to have a look and let me know whether I was beating my head against the wall, or if it was worth pursuing.

I didn't expect much, but figured nothing ventured, nothing gained, so what the hell. To my surprise I got personal and very funny e-mails from both!

Sad to say, most people I know have barely heard of either of them, but I highly recommend both writers' work if you have a good sense of humor and at least a pretty good liberal arts education. I've got a hot tip for those of you who actually got one of these degrees: reading guys like this is one of the very few things you can do with it. Another is using the paper your degree is printed on to enhance the bonfire for about 15 seconds while you vainly try to keep warm in the abandoned tenement you're now squatting in, mainly thanks to that fine degree you squandered your hard-earned cash on and now find yourself deep in debt for.

Anyway, when Jasper Fforde kindly wrote me back, he mentioned that he was hard at work on his next novel. I've read everything he's written so far and loved it, so I can't wait for him to finish this next one. See? There WAS a point to all this rambling. Yegads, is that the time? Off to bed, me.

lambie of the week

2007-12-07T02:27:00.001-05:00

Well, technically, it's now Friday, and this particular lambie of the week is my salute to Chanu-Kwanz-Solsti-Mas-Devali, the hybrid holiday. I used nine seperate images to make this cheesy representation. There's a dog costume's reindeer bells, a menorah, a kwanzaa thingy, plastic reindeer horns, a christmas tree, two seperate pieces of artificial turf and the background. I considered adding in some images from Devali and the Solstice, and maybe some other spiritual traditions which people made up more recently or got over-marketed into infinity, but it was a real pain in the ass putting this much together so I called it quits. At least the Solstice has been celebrated since man discovered the seasons changed and couldn't figure out how they changed back every year. Scary! That was right up there with "how does the sun leave and come back?". These things still spark a hot debate between scientists and people who would believe the earth was flat if they read it in a really old book written by people who lived in caves and tents and lots of other people told them it was true. Or if they saw something about it on TV. Geez.

iPhones

2007-12-07T02:02:00.000-05:00

On a totally unrelated topic, here's the thing about iPhones: if you're kind of a computer nerd/geek and loves all your fancy gadgets and doodads, and if you have pretty large (at least to me) chunk of change burning a hole in your pocket, and if you have a ton of MP3s and/or CDs and want to be able to play them on the same thingy that you use for a phone and a datebook, if you want to be able to check your e-mail from anywhere and get GPS directions to get there from here, and if you want to be able to see good quality moving images (some would call those videos), the thing is screaming your name.

On the other hand, a guy at my store told me his wife asked for one for Christmas and she's never been able to figure out how to get on the internet, doesn't have any MP3s, doesn't know how to download anything and doesn't have e-mail. I asked him what she thought she was going to use it for besides just making calls. He said she'd probably give up, then give it to him and he got a big smile on his face. Ohhhhh...but she decided she didn't want one after all. Oh well, dude.
I have to admit, seeing a couple people's iPhones did give me a slight case of I-want-its, but not enough to shell out my barely eked-out pittance of a paycheck to buy one. And the voice quality of what's really a fancy shmancy cell phone with a crapload of doodads still leaves something to be desired. Plus you're stuck with the one carrier and they've got you by the short and curlies so far.

The decision is up to you, but that's the argument and counter-argument in a nutshell.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

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

Now is the winter of my discontent. That's probably because it's snowing. I like watching all the pretty little flakes dancing around, so long as I don't have to drive in it. The world is blanketed in white and it's like being in a fairy land.

Snowballs are fun, sledding down the street is fun (I don't think I still have a sled, but the memory is fun), making hot chocolate and baking cookies on a snowy day- all fun, cozy things to do.

Shoveling snow, scraping ice off of windshields, crazy drivers trying to pass you because they have a four-wheel drive and you've got a crappy old car with questionable braking time- not so much fun.

Risking your life with all of the above just so you can hand out free food to cranky old rich ladies and the show-offs in the four-wheel drives too stupid or bored to stay home, which is where I'd much rather be- priceless.

So here it is, the middle of that great retail crescendo approaching: Holiday Season. Full crazy mode is still in my future. We're only up to Slightly More Crazy Than Usual. But if you add in the snow factor, that shoots the Crazy Factor up dramatically. Something happens in my city every year when snow hits. We don't usually get that much of it, but it's like we forget every year what a pain in the ass it is to deal with, then when the snow hits, we remember suddenly and panic. What if we're trapped in the house with nothing to eat or drink? We may never eat or drink again! Mind you, there's only been about an inch of snow most times, if that much. Still...it could happen. Right after man-eating land sharks turn up in the center of town to devour unwary citizens in the trendiest cafes while sipping their mochachinos. I want pictures of that.

After the snow-induced onslaught, my store usually looks like a bomb went off. The shelves are mostly empty, and my co-workers are left lying in a tangled heap of bodies flopped over on the cash registers from exhaustion.

Keep in mind that retailers love this. They're thrilled to bits that, in your panic, you decided to buy 14 packages of your favorite spaghetti, so that if you are indeed stuck in your house, you'll have enough pasta to last you for the next 5 weeks. Panic-stricken shoppers are a retailers dream and a retail worker's nightmare. I saw a video from YouTube on Retail Hell Underground's site where a stag got trapped in what looked like a Target store and it was slipping and sliding around madly trying to find its way out again and not succeeding because he obviously didn't know the layout of the store. Yeah, it's a lot like that. Only the deer was better at finding the ladies' lingerie he was looking for. And it took him less time than some of our customers to find his way out again. Pretty sad. For the humans, I mean. The deer seemed be having a pretty good time.

Guilty Confession

2007-12-04T10:48:00.000-05:00

Is it wrong to love the baling machine? If you don't know what that is, it's this big monster made of steel. A couple of people would fit inside, if you were daft enough to do that. You put the flattened boxes in, or even better, an uncrushed box, push the button, and then it crushinates them. When it's full, the thing smashes them down so you can put some baling wire around the whole stack like a bale of hay, and then get it on a pallet so it can be taken away by the returns truck. I love this thing, especially when I get to watch the box being flattened. Sometimes I pretend I'm feeding an angry volcano god, other times I pretend it's people's heads who have annoyed me recently. It makes a lot of noise so you can't hear anyone ( sometimes that's fun). I'm starting to think that weird things entertain me. Doesn't bother me at all.

Lame or Lamb?

2007-12-04T10:32:00.000-05:00

So maybe you've seen our cinematic extravaganza starring my lambie? He now refers to himself only in the third person. I thought it was pretty stupid, but then I like stupid, at least a certain style of it anyway. But after watching some other random YouTube videos, I feel like Spielberg or Hitchcock or even Orson Welles (that may be because I'm a little bloated today) by comparison.

I don't understand

2007-12-04T01:15:00.000-05:00

Holidays suck. Some insane marketing veep gets a bug up his ass about increasing retail sales, and suddenly some obscure little holiday gets a new spin and it's big, big BIG. Card companies, people who make useless crap for people who go crazy for matchy-matchy anything (oh come on, you know the type: they have to have different switchplates, towels, soap, pillows, sheets, etc. for whatever stupid holiday or event comes next.), toy manufacturers, cereal companies, etc.- they all jump right on that bandwagon and peddle like there's no tomorrow. Then all the rest of us blindly swallow the guff they hand out on commercials in all the media about how necessary it is to share this lovely holiday with people who make you crazy for the most part. They show you touching commercials about the joy of_____ (fill in the stupid holiday of your choice) and before you know it, you're dabbing at your eyes with a kleenex and wishing you could celebrate with the family they show on the commercial because they're not busy screaming at each other or drinking too much, unlike your actual family. Actually, my family is pretty nice, but this doesn't seem to be the norm from what I've heard.

So we all get sucked in to this manic need to get exactly the right thing for each person on our lists, and the list keeps getting bigger as families and friends procreate their ways into geometric progression. Pretty soon, there are way too many people you're buying presents for, and people go into debt trying to afford all of them. This is crazy, people. Really. I have to admit, I really like some of the decorating bit (of course, anything involving some more shiny things and little lights is fun for me), and I enjoy getting together with everyone. But just imagine: if we didn't have to spend all that time thinking about what to get all these people, fighting the crowds at the mall trying to buy exactly the same things, we would have so much more time, money and peace of mind!

Here's what I propose: once the kids are over the age of 16 and think everything you say or do is impossibly lame anyway, skip the whole presents thing, just get together with family and friends, everyone bring a covered dish and help clean up, have a great dinner (or any other meal) together and make sure you say lots of silly things so that everyone spends a lot of time laughing, then tell everyone you love them and go home (either you or them). And put extra shiny things around with little lights on them. Just don't wait for a specific holiday. Make one up, like GOSH I'm Frustrated Monday, or Happy Mortgage Rates Just Went Down, or Look I Got A Really Pretty Shade of Lipstick Today. How about Congratulations, You're Fully Employed Now? You get the picture. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. But it was a nice moment, wasn't it?

lambie of the week

2007-11-30T11:17:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time (about a year or so ago), I got very mad at my husband. I was with a girlfriend who was mad at her boyfriend too and as we walked into a national bookstore chain dissing on the boyz, I saw the cutest stuffed lamb in the window. Had to have it! My strange little brain said something like: "oh yeah? well, I'm getting myself a lambie! hmph!" I don't understand it either. But I loved him so much that I kind of wore him out, a la The Velveteen Rabbit. So I went on a lamb replacement search and found him again. It's called the Douglas Babba Lamb, and when I found him, my husband got me two, so I'd have a back-up when this one had his fur all loved off. Do you know of ANYONE else who has a back-up lamb? Didn't think so. Now I have three of them all told. So here's what he looks like. It's our first production. Douglas Babba Lamb says he wants his SAG card now, but he doesn't have any lines, so screw him. Besides, what he really wants to do is direct.

lambie of the week

2007-11-24T12:55:00.001-05:00

I don't know about where you live, but it's a rather silly and kind of embarrassing holiday here called Thanksgiving, during which we celebrate duping the indigenous population of the time, whom we call American Indians, for some useless crap. No one does THAT anymore, do they? The American Indians have, however, gotten back at us recently, by luring us with lots of shiny things and loud noises in their casinos, where we usually give them all our money with pretty much nothing to show for it except maybe some useless shiny trinkets. Now why does that sound so familiar? I love symmetry, don't you?

lambie of the week- gay sheep

2007-11-16T11:30:00.000-05:00

So I ran out of good sheep images and went surfing on the 'net and found this! What could be better than a good sheep picture? A GAY sheep picture! Cool! And you thought they weren't interesting. Hah! This was an article in the New York Times. They actually get paid to write stuff. Ooooh. If you wanna read the article, go here. I wonder if sheep know how many times to stamp their feet in the public restroom if they want gay sex. Hmm.

Thank You, Zia

2007-11-09T20:15:00.000-05:00

Well, I had pretty much thrown in the towel for this blog thing after my recent brush with death. Oh... actually it was more of a horrible 3 week brush with respiratory trouble after a nasty cold. Dramatic license is what you call that.

So I got my first comment from someone other than my husband and it spurred me on, for good or ill, to write something new. I'd been at a loss for words, not to mention new sheep pictures, for a bit, but Zia has cured me.

I'm always curious about how, among probably zillions of very clever blogs, anyone ever finds mine. I hope you don't mind, gentle reader, all two of you, that I try to find out how you ended up here of all places. I'm well chuffed that you did, of course. It's amazing how people from all over the world wind up looking for the same bit of information that you thought only you were interested in, if you get the syntax of that.

I did get rather downhearted at the large numbers (large percentage-wise, considering I haven't had all that many total readers) of you who found me because of that Kyla Ebbert thing long after her 15 minutes of fame should have been over. It made me that much more cynical about the shallowness and stupidity of people, and quite frankly I was already pretty cynical about that.

So, I happened to google the google, so to speak, and found this fabulous site called RetailHell Underground, which was close to my blog reference about the hell of retail sales and how I survive it. If you or someone you know is a retail slave, go there! Yes, now! I bow to their superior wit. I'm not worthy.

According to their formula, I am not an insurance whore, but a retail slut. Retail whores are different because they like it. They'll explain.

Today, November 9, I foolishly substituted for another demo diva for the morning/afternoon shift, having no idea that a meeting had been called for every nutbag in my area to come to my retail establishment. I was very close to ordering a stun-gun by the end of my shift. Fortunately, I have learned to use such moments as an opportune time to take out the trash or wash something in the back, so that I don't maim the next rude maniac who stands there in my face for the next 10 minutes waiting to snarf free food only to bitch about it as soon as they get it. I considered that perhaps I was simply in a bad mood. It can happen. But when I talked to co-workers, they all confirmed my opinion and the customers were, in fact, some of the biggest nutters I've ever seen. I'm talking the type who I talk to once, let them espouse their strange beliefs, and then the next time, just back away slowly and go do something else for a while till they go away.

Remember Jim Jones in Guyana? Or who was that other guy who killed himself and all of his followers? Yeah, like that. Fa la f***ing la and happy freakin' holidays. And it's only November 9! Wise retail establishments would hand out thorazine at the timeclock from now till January 2, 2008. No, I'm not holding my breath waiting. But if a dreamy look suddenly comes onto my face while you're espousing your beliefs, remember that I work with knives for a living and my aim is excellent. It's only self-restraint...well, ok, it's that we need the health insurance, that keeps me from throwing sharp instruments at you in disgust. Fortunately, my apathy is a good balancing factor.

my latest favorite

2007-10-11T23:47:00.000-04:00

I've been sick as a dog for the last week and have spent most of it staring vacantly into space waiting to stop oozing things from various orifices. They take turns, but they've all been active. I've been doing a pretty good imitation of Mt. Vesuvius right before Pompeii took a hit, but things are starting, albeit slowly, to calm down. I still sound like an angry chihuaha when I cough, but life will go on. I know this sound because my next door neighbor, conveniently, owns one of these little beasts. There is such a thing as overbreeding, folks. I love animals, but I would be quite happy to stomp its little head in, if my neighbor wasn't such a nice lady. I will dance on its grave when it finally expires, but it will probably outlive me just to spite me. I've lived here for five years and the damned thing still barks at me and snarls every time I sit in my own damned back yard.

Anyway, to get back to the original point of all this, my new favorite site is owned by Michael J. Nelson. You may not know his name, but if you are of a certain age, you may actually remember Mystery Science Theater. He took B movies, or even worse ones, and put his own soundtracks on them. They varied in success, but the best ones were absolutely hysterical, at least to me and my college friends.

Now Mike has a website, which I just found accidentally, and it's worth looking at even if you have no idea what I'm talking about for the descriptions of recent and not so recent movies. I laughed so hard that my husband ran up to see what that horrendous noise was (ever hear a chihuaha crack up laughing? I hope not! But I think I must have been doing a good impression of what it would sound like.). You know it's funny when my eyes are tearing so badly that I can't see and can't talk intelligibly due to laughing. (As opposed to other reasons).

Check his site out and see if you think he's as funny as I do.

lambie of the week

2007-10-11T23:25:00.001-04:00

This is one of my all-time favorite cartoons, by the magnificent Mo Willems. He has written many children's books and wrote for Sesame Street, but the names alone and inside jokes make it worth it even if, heaven forfend, you don't care much about sheep. Tell me it's not so! Hey, how many people do you know who use the word "forfend"? Huh? I thought so. Especially if you're STILL looking up Kyla Ebbert references. For gosh sakes, people, she's not even interesting!

Honestly, people, there are prettier, smarter, more influential, more interesting women around to ogle. Pick one. The woman isn't even on the same planet as Sophia Loren, for instance. Or Glenda Jackson. Or even Maggie Thatcher. OK, maybe she's not what you'd call a looker, but influential? You betcha, whatever you thought of her politics. Let's try thinking with the UPstairs bits, eh what? You know what Frank Zappa said? "What is the dirtiest part of your body? It's your mind!"

lambie of the week

2007-09-28T02:06:00.001-04:00

You see? It's not just me. You don't have to be English, but it helps. Or is that crazy? I dunno.

Meantime, I'm starting my own Larry Craig campaign re-election fund. I feel flushed with pride. He's not out (of the closet) yet. Water closet, that is. Yeh, right. Now why does this video remind me of Larry Craig? Hmmmm.

lambie of the week

2007-09-21T14:05:00.001-04:00

This is a Cotswold Sheep. I've never seen one before, but it's darn cute. It wouldn't have taken me so long to put the lambie of the week up, but I found a site with literally thousands of sheep-related products. No, I don't mean you can find those boots (ick!), but there are about a billion sheep t-shirt, mug and note card designs. I just couldn't stop looking.

There are a lot of really cute ones, but I'm designing my own. I'm thinking maybe a series, with different kinds of sheep. I'm gonna draw them so that there are no copyright problems.

I'm naming this one Kyla Ebbert, just so I can make a reference to her in a blatant attempt at exploitation of an apparently endlessly fascinating topic. My sheep Kyla is always appropropriately dressed wherever she goes.

I love Glenda Jackson

2007-09-14T15:19:00.000-04:00

Not in the Biblical sense. I just love the body of work she produced while acting in films. I also admire her work as an MP in England- they're lucky to have her for that too.

If you've never seen a film with Glenda Jackson, consider yourself unfortunate. She was brilliant in "Stevie" as English poet Stevie Smith (as was Mona Washbourne alongside her). You should also try to see her in "Women In Love", "The Music Lovers," "Elizabeth R", "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Mary Queen of Scots," "A Touch of Class," "House Calls," "The Romantic Englishwoman," "The Incredible Sarah" (that's about Sarah Bernhardt, also a brilliant woman), "Hopscotch" (which was with the divine Walter Matthau, as was House Calls). Not that I have an opnion about it.

I actually checked into her voting record as an MP for the Hampstead/Highgate area, and she's just as intelligent about her voting choices and as impassioned about the issues she believes in. I doff my hat to you, madam.

lambie of the week

2007-09-14T14:46:00.000-04:00

You'll never guess what I'm making for dinner tonight- boneless leg of...no, not cat. Not very meaty. I swear, I totally forgot. I just loves my lambs, I loves them inside of me and outside of me. I loves to play with them and then I loves to eat them, as long as they're not the same one. You know what they say on farms: "never name your food." That's why they're called things like Mr.Mutton, Legg, Chop, Stewie, and Number 61.

I've got a pink phone!

2007-09-14T01:24:00.000-04:00

Yes, here I am, approaching 50 in less years than I care to think about and it was time for a cell phone upgrade. What do I get? A pink RAZR. It's an older model, but then so am I. Pink!!! Ick. I've never been a lace and pearls girl. I'm even less so these days.

What's going on here?! Actually, it's an act of pure pragmatism. Hubby has a black one and we needed a different color to be able to tell them apart. Now I have to admit, I am kind of excited to have a slimmer phone and it has all kinds of new doo-dahs that the old phone didn't have.

So to get into the spirit of the thing, I decided to immediately find myself the most godawful girly type genuine Japanese schoolgirl charms to put on the new phone. I found 2 perfect ones for surprisingly little money, even with shipping. One is a shocking pink mink ball with beads hanging off, another is a Hello Kitty with japanese noodle dish. Perfect. Am I true Otaku or what? People who know me will think I've gone off my rocker.

Well, folks, that boat sailed quite a long time ago, I'm afraid. Why, just the other day, I went to pick up some prescriptions we had filled at our local supermarket and I chanced to see squeaky toys in the shape of dangerous animals on the endcap. I HAD to have them. I resisted buying all of them and settled for a shark and a lizard with that ruff thing that pops up. Hey, for $4 I can bother the people I work with endlessly. Seems like a good investment to me.

Meanwhile, if I ever lose my phone, it'll be very easy to describe and find. I might just be laughing too hard for you to understand the description though.

Religion- Who Needs It?

2007-09-12T23:36:00.000-04:00

So far, the most popular religions these days are Christianity, Islam and Judaism. There are lots of others. Some worship one god too, others prefer a pantheon- that's many different gods, you know.

I was raised in one of the first three, but, sad to say, it never stuck. Just wasn't interested. I figured if there was actually one all-knowing, all-seeing bearded guy in a robe, maybe with some wings or something, if this mighty Guy was actually real, that's a mighty big job. There are billions of people on this miserable planet, and everyone wants a piece of him. Look at me, Guy, over here. No, no, look at ME, Guy, I'm over HERE. And all these billions of prayers and supplications. How awful must THAT get? What a job! Who'd want it? Imagine, it's like the worst customer service job ever- no one appreciates you, they're always complaining about everything, never satisfied, fighting amongst themselves all the time. It's more akin to being the parent in the front seat of a car with a bunch of unruly brats screaming and fighting in the back seat, only instead of 4, there's like 4 billion of them. Yikes! I know if I were that Guy, I'd want to opt out like nobody's business.

So the whole monotheistic thing just never worked for me, personally. I figure that if this poor shmo is stuck with the job, he doesn't need one more screaming child, begging for the latest toy in the back seat of the car of Life. So I don't want to bother the poor dear. I don't really need him particularly, so I'm just gonna live my life and do the best I can to be the best person I can. All the definitive writings in Bibles and Koran and everything else I've read seem to say pretty much the same things anyway: don't lie, cheat or steal; don't covet your neighbor's husband/wife/lawnmower, respect your elders as much as is humanly possible (sorry, but some are just jackasses), be polite, have compassion, raise your children with love, etc.

I don't worry about if I had meat with milk or ate only fish on a friday or whatever. I don't need anyone else telling me what to eat or not eat, wear or not wear, do or not do. I'm pretty good at figuring those things out for myself. It's called, somewhat wrongly, common sense.
I especially don't need some guy in one of these organizations telling me on a weekly basis what the official stance is on political figures running for office, what I can and can't do with my body, with whom, under what circumstances and how long. Again, nobody's business but mine.

So I tried paganism- the definition varies, but wicca, witchcraft, all that sort of thing. I have actually never run into the types that religious right folks seem so afraid of- oh, you know. Worshipping the devil, sacrificing babies, all that crap. I've run into more than a few crackpots, flakes of all descriptions and screw-ups, but no one who was into being evil. Most were, at worst, confused by life. At best, they've turned out to be a little left of center, but essentially good people just trying to find ways to be better people. Mostly, they seem to fall into the same traps as the monotheists, but they call them different things. They like the illusion that the pagan way is different. Meanwhile, it's pretty much the same, only with more tree-hugging, fun outfits that would work just as well at a Ren Faire, and more bonfires to stand around, usually involving a drum circle. That's pretty much it.

Sadly, paganism doesn't seem to do it for me either. Goddess knows I gave it a good try. I couldn't even manage to pick a Tradition- this means which ancient Path you Walk, which is usually in capital letters, perhaps for emphasis. The Traditions can be Norse, Celtic, Babylonian, Sumerian, Baltic, Siberian, you name it.

I decided to start my own religion. It's called None of The Above. There aren't any official gods or goddesses, but if it makes you feel better, go ahead and make some up. We don't believe in any one thing in particular, but mainly we just don't want to bother anybody, nor do we wish to be bothered. We like to keep the fuss to a minimum, there are no official prayers or supplications, no particular rituals, no standardized holidays. Our God/dess, if there actually is one at all, can be called simply To Whom It May Concern. Just in case, you understand. Meantime, we just try to be the best people we can be. If we screw up, we think you should try to fix it and own up, and if that's not possible, say you're sorry and move on. We believe in the power of good manners- saying please and thank you to everyone where appropriate, not speaking when one's mouth is full, making sure that everyone is introduced to each other at parties, and treating every human being we interact with with respect, at least until they prove themselves unworthy of it. That's my religion. I really don't care if anyone else wants to join, because frankly, it'll only increase the paperwork. Start your own branch if you want.

Ebbert Redux

2007-09-12T13:00:00.001-04:00

So what kind of world is this ? I write some personal, ahem, uh, moving pieces about those nearest and dearest to me- who cares? Nobody, that's who. I write scathing things about the failures of my local ISP- nothing.

I write about some stupid little bimbo, who works at Hooters and got thrown off a plane by an even dumber dumbass and all of a sudden, I'm all over Technorati. Oh wait, the same thing happened at NBC's Today Show- Matt Lauer had to interview the chick and her family- what bet did YOU lose, Matt? You can see the interview here.

I've never been there, but my husband went once and he described Hooters as a testosterone dream- big boobs (except in Baltimore, apparently- John Waters says there are no pretty girls in Baltimore), big screen TVs with sports on everywhere, watery, lousy beer at outrageous prices, but not as bad as strip clubs, and barely adequate typical bar food. Altogether unimaginative and overpriced. All that's missing is loud, smelly farts.

And this is where the girl works. I hope they pay a lot of money to their waitstaff. And I hope she sues the pants off of Southwest Airlines, so that they're strongly encouraged to mind their own business when it comes to what someone wears on the plane. No one would even see her skirt when she sat down. If it's like any of the airlines I've flown on, your knees are usually smashed against the seat in front of you. It's not like she was distracting the pilot so he couldn't fly the plane- most pilots are usually drunk anyway and the plane pretty much flies itself except for takeoffs and landings. So who was she bothering? Are you telling me that Keith, the flight attendant guy, was so distracted by her lack of modesty that he was afraid it would render his very important job of handing out warm Coca Colas and tiny bottles of alcohol too difficult? Next thing you know, we'll all have to wear burkas on the plane if they keep this up. Now who does that remind me of?

Airline Employees Arbiters of Family Values

2007-09-12T00:09:00.000-04:00

We were watching a movie with a friend. My friend and my husband mentioned in passing that an airline had actually refused to allow a young woman to fly on the plane. I thought they were making it up, but alas, no.

So I searched for, and found the original article about it in the Vail Daily. Sure enough, Kyla Ebbert, a 23 year old student, was asked to leave the plane by a Southwest Airlines employee. The employee told her that she was "...dressed inappropriately. This is a family airline. You’re too provocative to fly on this plane," according to Miss Ebbert, who was flying from San Diego to Tuscon for a doctor's appointment.

According to the Vail Daily article, ""Chris Mainz, a spokesman for the Dallas-based airline, said a customer service supervisor asked Ebbert to leave the plane and addressed her in the walkway leading back to the terminal, “away from the other customers.”

The employee felt the outfit “revealed too much” but was placated after Ebbert made adjustments that included covering her stomach, Mainz said."

OK, who exactly made a flight attendant, or as some of us call them, flying waiters/waitresses, arbiters of good taste/fashion/family values? Were any men with very tight pants or short shorts ever led off a Southwest Airlines plane?

Ohhh, wait a minute, it's a Dallas, TEXAS-based airline, you know- land of big hair, the christian right, gun racks, Bush Jr. NOW I get it.

So if airline employees get to decide what is all right to wear or not wear, how about an airline where no one wears anything? you pre-pay for food or drinks, because where are you going to put your credit card or your wallet? I would insist, however, that there be some sort of disposable cover for the seats, both back support and seat cushion. I mean, really! I don't mind going naked if it speeds things up, but I sure don't want the last guys sweaty balls dragging around the seat before I sit down! Not to mention skid marks. Which I won't. I know! We'd call it Bare Air! I can just see the tagline: "At Bare Air, we don't care what you wear down there. You'll come into this town, or any other, naked as the day you were born and you'll leave the same way."

And, by the way, thanks to other events which happened on this date, 9/11/07, my friend told me that she was taken out of line during the whole scan the suitcase/handbag thing at the airport one time because she had something very dangerous in her possession- a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the plane ride. I didn't know they were lethal weapons, but apparently in the wrong hands, anything is. So I guess terrorists have been watching too much MacGyver and got carried away. Now if she had had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich AND a revealing outfit on, I guess we would never have seen her again if she flew Southwest. Whew!

I want my own airline! I'm gonna have my stewards/stewardesses decide if the customers are dressed appropriately- I can just see it! "Hey, you in the flood pants! Please step aside, you're embarrassing the other customers. People will think they're tacky too if they're seen on the same plane as you." Or how about "Excuse me, madam, but that shirt and that skirt- what were you thinking? Two different patterns and completely different colors? As if that weren't enough, those shoes are the ugliest I've ever seen on a living human. Did you lose a bet or something? I'm sorry, madam. You'll have to leave the plane. The clashing colors are giving all the other passengers a headache. You may come back when you pick a color scheme that matches." Or how about the exclusive Vegas run? "Sir, I regret to inform you that there is simply not enough shiny things on you for this plane. At the very least, some Elvis shades would have helped. Don't come back without a pinky ring and lots of chains. Where do you think you're going? Maybe at the Cafe Carlyle in NYC you look all right, but for here? Feh. Get off the freakin' plane."

Lambie of the week

2007-09-07T01:22:00.001-04:00

Outrage

2007-09-01T12:45:00.000-04:00

So here's my latest rant: I actually received, not in my junk e-mail folder, but in my inbox, an e-mail from someone claiming to be "Carlene Biggs" and this person or persons claim that their e-mail address is MY PERSONAL e-mail address. Talk about the slings and arrow of outrageous fortune!

But it gets better- it's bad enough that someone used my e-mail address and possibly compromised my information, probably using my address for spamming and malware. My own father has NEVER been able to receive my e-mail and has the same provider which I will not name (rhymes with horizon). I know what you're thinking: maybe the vicious asswipes using my address for no good is/are the reason why he never receives it. But it's unlikely that the vicious asswipes had my e-mail address for the same amount of time.

On the other hand, a friend of mine can receive my e-mails, but I've never been able to receive her replies.

So what exactly am I secure from? My dad and my friend? Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work.

I've always been the...

2007-08-31T00:25:00.001-04:00

And isn't this one the cutest? For someone who grew up in the city, where in hell did I learn to love the lamb? I dunno. Only thing I can figure out is that there was a TV show in black & white (that's how freakin' old I am!) at some godawful hour of the morning when I was around two. It was broadcast by the local agricultural school, and the opening shot was of goats and sheep running down this ramp thingy. The rest, as they say, is therapy. Go figure.

And speaking of husbands...

2007-08-30T11:03:00.000-04:00

Mine didn't particularly care for being called a technogeek. Why the hell not? I bow to his technological expertise. There IS such a thing as geek chic. When I met him, he was wearing a Beavis & Butthead t-shirt, postal shorts, long white tube socks and sandals and a baseball cap over his long hair. What would you call that?!! I didn't fall in love with him for his wonderful taste in clothing. But the more I talked to him, the more I liked him.

My mom always said "don't marry for looks, because eventually everyone loses their looks and then what have you got? marry for heart and it will always be there". So I did. And he's actually kinda cute when you dress him up. He'll hate that.

Oops!

2007-08-29T14:15:00.000-04:00

If you're reading this blog, (and if you're not, I guess I'm not actually talking to you, so there's a bit of an existential crisis right there) you may have been interested in some of my favorite sites, lazily clicked the connection that was supposed to take you to the link I was talking about, and then nothing happened. Oops!

Fortunately for me, my technogeek husband is a genius at fixing this sort of thing, so I've got everything running smoothly once again.

I happen to be rather stubborn and like to learn how to do things without any help (read: interference) and find my own answers in my own way. It takes longer sometimes, but I enjoy doing it like that. When I bought my used car, the manual with the instructions for setting the radio stations was AWOL, so I monkeyed around, randomly pushing buttons, until my favorite stations had somehow achieved "pre-set" status. Yay! Of course, if I take the car to the mechanic and lose my pre-sets, I have to fumble around again in much the same manner to get them back, since I have no idea which set of fumblings led to success the first time. You may be comparing me to monkeys with shakespeare at this point, but that's OK with me.

Hubby, on the other hand, gets annoyed and jumps in to help me, in the process, destroying my fun. He doesn't mean to, he only wants to help.

I know there are other people like me, and I hope the rest of them know how ass-backward they are too. I just don't care.

Either way, the links have now been fixed, and the bruises will heal, but there's a mouse-shaped one on his arm and one of the coffee mugs will never be the same.

friendship

2007-08-26T22:14:00.000-04:00

funny thing about friends. your relatives are stuck with you, and if you're lucky, you get along with them all right. there's no doubt in my mind that i'm pretty lucky on that score. if you're really lucky, you might have one or two people you can call a close friend. for some people, that's a lot. i can't think for the life of me how i got so damned lucky, but there's a big bunch of people i can call close friends. i don't even know WHAT you'd call that. i think i'll have to invent a new term for that kind of luck. flucky? i don't know. douglas adams could probably come up with a good term for it. i'll have to think about it some more.

we used to rent this amazing house in the adirondacks on a small lake with about 14 of my friends. the house was built in the 1900's by a family from my area. their grandfather had designed and built this log house, a great camp as they call them in that neck of the woods. most of the windows were floor to ceiling and the walls were made of bark in one bedroom. it was like being inside out in a tree. the windows on one side reflected the light glinting on the lake and you could hear the loons calling sometimes. on the other side, the coolness of the woods surrounding the house cast shadows and brought a cool breeze to blow the curtains. at night, we'd all bundle up and gather on the dock to watch the stars. one year there were meteor showers. they looked so close that you could swear you could touch them.

all the furniture was real, original adirondack style furniture. even the chandelier in the living room was made out of birch bark. there was an ancient moosehead over a huge stone fireplace and squirrels ran across the rafters in the living room. all the doors looked more like barn doors and either had big latches like that or deer hooves. if you're a PETA member, you're probably cringing, but you'd never last on a real farm, so go somewhere else.

the adirondacks are beautiful to begin with, and the house is truly unique, but i could never figure out whether it was the place or the people i liked best. i had met this particular bunch of characters at a new year's party someone brought me to. turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. somehow, i had managed to get plonked down on a whole herd of bright, funny interesting people.

after i had infiltrated this bunch, i kept hearing about this magical place, spoken of in reverent whispers, usually followed by groans of ecstasy. i couldn't imagine how this place could be real. then, one day at a party, someone asked me if i wanted to go too. i looked around to see if they meant someone else. i felt like i was about to be initiated into some secret club. hell yeah, i'll be there! i was so excited.

when i got there, i saw why my friends spoke like that about the place. but there was so much more to it than that. i ended up in the bedroom right above the kitchen, so the first thing i heard in the mornings was the sound of laughter. is there any more beautiful sound? i can't think of any. i was an only child, so our house was always fairly quiet growing up.

each night two of us would cook dinner for the rest of us. they'd choose the wine or beer to accompany the dinner and decide what to make. we never had a bad meal. it was fun to be the evening's orchestrator of dinner, and you'd think the best part of being the one to make dinner was that you were exempt from doing dishes for the evening. but it was more fun to do the dishes, because everyone else crowded into the kitchen, put some kind of lively music on, and danced around the kitchen while they washed, dried, and put away. i hate doing dishes, but it was so much fun like that that i never seemed to mind.

each summer we spent the week together was different. people who were single got married, people who'd been married got divorced, people had kids, kids got too big, each time was a different permutation, but they were all good ones.

one year, we were living in an area almost as pretty, in a wooded area in the country, and i thought that it wouldn't be such a big deal to go, but we went anyway. i had lost my mom a couple of months before, and sad just doesn't seem to cover it. but when we pulled up the road to the house, there was my friend al smiling at us, and the world got just a little sunnier all of a sudden.

a long time ago, trust exercises were big in acting classes and some forms of therapy. you fall backwards and trust that someone will catch you before you land on your ass and bust yourself up. risky business, that. well, my friends and i have all been through all sorts of things, but the nice thing is that i'm pretty sure that if any of us fall, and we have from time to time, the others will be there to catch us. it's a nice feeling.

so i saw some friends from this bunch tonight where i work. they came looking for me, to tell me that they had just moved back to the area. i felt like a puppy wagging its tail. you don't have to talk to people every day to feel close to them sometimes, but it sure is nice to have them close by. people get so damned busy these days, it's a wonder you see them at all. but when you do, it's like you were holding your breath for ages, and all of a sudden you can breathe again and feel the blood pumping in your veins.

that's the wonder of friendship.

what's next, j.k.?

2007-08-24T13:11:00.000-04:00

so if you've read my husband's blog, eponym, you know we've both been reading harry potter. ok, harry potter, harry potter, harry potter. got it out of your system now? good. i read them, i liked them, they were fun, fast reads and had lots of plot holes and character mistakes. but i liked them. i'm an infuriatingly fast reader, or so my husband tells me, so when i like something i devour it in no time at all. then i'm on the hunt for my next fix. hubby says books are like crack for me. maybe so. they're brain candy when well-written. there's an unfortunate dearth of those. entertain me, enlighten me, make me laugh, make me cry, make me think and do it with clear, beautiful language, preferably with subtle nuances, and i'll read anything you've got. give it to me!

so my question for j.k. is "what's next?". she's the biggest rags-to-riches story since oprah. unless contractually obligated to do so, she need never do another bloody thing again. and, like oprah, she worked hard, found a niche and went full throttle. good on ya, mate.

it seems to me that her writing got a little better as she continued to plow through book after book. so i wonder if the potter books have been permanently laid to rest, or will a hungry public try to exhume the bodies and demand another? and if so, will she accept? i actually hope not. everyone liked "rocky", and maybe even "rocky 2". but would anyone go to see "rocky 27: the wheelchair years"? gosh, i hope not.

it will be interesting to see what j.k. rowling does next. i hope it's something completely different from harry potter, maybe even another medium altogether. bath products? cologne? who knows.

By the way, have you seen JKR's site? It's one of the neatest I've ever seen.

new list: music we like

2007-08-24T11:36:00.001-04:00

so we've got kinda weird taste in music. here are the reasons i've selected these:

butterfly: because it's one of malcolm mclaren's least remembered attempts. i bought this album when it came out way too many years ago and liked the mix of funk and opera. it's definitely dopey, but i still like it.

kew.rhone.: so old that the album is in a wheelchair on life support, but blegvad is highly intelligent and frequently funny, especially here. carla bley (who also worked with zappa), as well as other highly respected musicians like john greaves, joins blegvad for some seriously complicated music which is accompanied by lyrics so densely referenced that there's a flow chart to keep track of it all. not for the stupid.

i'm not in love: ok, so i was an 80s club bunny, but if you can get a better copy than the crappy one on amazon, this was 120 tracks of 2 guys, a piano, and a secretary they pulled out of the office for the whisper thingy at the last minute. i used to listen to this in a recording studio booth at school, where it became this wall of sound- sheer heaven, at least for me. a brilliant piece of studio engineering.

one nation: george clinton, parliament, funkadelic, bootsy collins, bernie worrell, big complicated music to groove to, musicians who were amazing, all kinds of genres brought together in a danceable mode. if you have any rhythm or joie devivre, preferably both, this is it.

space is the place: another complicated, genre-crossing group, sun ra and his arkestra- you can't really even classify it- it's closest to both jazz and classical music, but other influences can frequently be heard. a crazy guy who insisted his musicians conform to sun ra's way of living, kind of like a dojo of music. the guy was apparently hard to live with but light years ahead of his time.

it's lambie friday

2007-08-24T10:28:00.000-04:00

it's mutton, honey. in the interest of all things lambie, i give you shari lewis, who seemed to be a real lamb. that's lambchop, if you've never seen either of them. she had a tv show and lived nearby.

then again...

Hodgman approved

2007-08-20T22:14:00.001-04:00

hoboes, lobsters and sheep- need i say more?

lambie of the week

2007-08-17T10:30:00.001-04:00

black-faced sheep are my favorite. nice & fluffy. ok, kitties are fluffy too, but they can get squooshed if you accidentally step on one. sheep? harder to get under foot. and sheep won't scratch up all your nice furniture. you don't even have to let them into your house. and there's no litter box to clean. and if you're really ambitious, you can give your sheep a haircut (shearing) and knit a sweater with the wool. anyone would be glad to wear it. ever knit a kitty fur sweater? people would just look at you funny and back away slowly.

party on, dad

2007-08-15T22:01:00.000-04:00

here's the birthday song for you, dad, and anyone else born on 8/16. it's done in what can only be called a unique presentation. i'm not paying for the therapist.

it's birthday season

2007-08-14T18:46:00.000-04:00

if anyone who knows me wonders why i'm the big goofball i am, it's probably a toss-up between environment and heredity. i can't tell which is which, because both of my parents are/were goofy, but in very different ways.

there are several things you should definitely experience at least once in your lifetime. i highly recommend a hot air balloon ride, hitchhiking around a foreign country, kinky sex, a really bad hangover, the perfect romance, and bob newhart's old comedy routines. especially his " the button-down mind of bob newhart".

my dad is kind of like if you took the looks of walter matthau and the comedy stylings of bob newhart. my husband says he reminds him of alan greenspan, but i don't see it.

one of dad's bits of goofy-ness is that we have certain rituals. first of all, his mother taught him to celebrate anything & everything as much as possible, to counterbalance the crappier moments of life. great philosophy, right? sure. there's no such thing as too many parties.

in our family, you don't have a birthday, rather it's the opening of "birthday season", kind of like wabbit season/duck season.

birthday season starts officially on the first day of your birth month and extends past the actual date of your birth to the end of the month. my dad is so expert at this that he can fill the entire month and slop into the next month for those who couldn't manage an appointment to celebrate during birthday season. you get extra points for this.

lest you think it's one-sided, dad is just as exuberant for everyone else's birthdays and can't understand people who only celebrate the one day, or even worse, not at all. he just shakes his head with bewilderment.

now, dad isn't some celebrity, was never featured in lifestyles of the rich and famous or architectural digest. he spent his working life in a three-piece suit as a financial veep. he's got a great sense of humor, he's as smart as alan greenspan, gives great financial and life advice and loves chocolate eclairs and his family, not necessarily in that order.

to say dad has a lot of friends doesn't even begin to cover it. have you ever played six degrees from kevin bacon? well, we play 2 degrees from dad, because it generally doesn't take that many. chances are, if you live in my city, one of the larger metropolitan areas in the country, if you don't know my dad, you probably know someone who knows him, or vice versa. not kidding.

so when dad turned 70, ahem, not that long ago, his girlfriend and i threw him a surprise party and had to weed it down to 70 of his closest family members and friends. seriously. dad knows how to party.

so when we celebrate his actual birthday, there's another ritual: the ritual of the cards. i'm one of those crazy people you see in card stores laughing to themselves. i have to read every one until just the right balance is struck and it sounds genuinely like what i want to say. it's a painstaking process. when i was an angry adolescent and post-adolescent ( i got over it a couple of days ago), some of the cards were, well, reflective of that a little. ok, maybe a lot. but those days are long gone.

dad's about as sentimental as anyone could get. maybe that's why he saved the entire billing cycle from 1955. nah. just a really big pack rat.

anyway, these days i try to find the mushiest card possible while still remaining true to the feel of our relationship. for instance, i don't buy dad cards about guys who fix plumbing or play golf or drink too much. just not him. but the ones about dads who give great advice, always listen to what you say, help you with generosity whenever you need it, have a great laugh, those i get. buckets of them.

see, the ritual of the card goes like this: we gather together, usually at a meal, and i slip him a card. it's usually not my "A" material, might even be a throw-off card. i wait long enough to make him think that's it, then materialize another one (he's a lot smarter than that, but we all pretend). this one might be the "A" material or not. this goes on many, many times. or maybe around six. everyone in my family now does this. dad started the ritual, but we've all joined in. i highly recommend the practice. it leads to lots of giggles even though we all know the ritual. and besides, my hallmark stock is doing really well. just kidding.

dad's birthday is on thursday, august 16th, in case you want to send him a card. happy birthday, dad.

memorial service

2007-08-14T11:19:00.000-04:00

i am sad to inform you that one of my favorite websites, www.deifyme.com, is now or is about to be deceased. it was run by the divine frenchy, who i have quoted below. she has what i consider to be the proper attitude about politics, religion, and life in general- always irreverent, frequently outraged and well-informed about current events. she's also excruciatingly funny. it's a can't miss combo. frenchy had a do-it-yourself deity kit on her site where you could proclaim yourself god or goddess of anything you wanted. i was lot, god of parking. i had already had accolytes since college. if you chanted the official lot, god of parking chant (which i made up) in the area where you desired the spot, it usually worked. the reason i had accolytes in the first place was that my parkma was so good that people wanted to know how i always seemed to manage to get a parking space in an overcrowded major city right in front of wherever i needed to be. if you're interested, here's the official lot, god of parking chant. feel free to try it if your other god or gods don't mind. mine doesn't :
o mighty god of parking spots, cut us a break, have mercy on us

this is to be said, preferably all in one breath, over and over again until the perfect parking spot has been reached. don't start too early or you'll get one further away than you want.

there were some 250 or so in frenchy's pantheon, most of which were also quite funny. some were in desperate need of a spell-check option and some grammar rules. e.b. white would have been turning over in his grave. he didn't just write charlotte's web.

anyway, getting back to frenchy's website, i am going to miss that little bit of zany commentary on an equally zany planet. but there's good news: she told me that she's writing a novel and that it should be coming out within the next year. if it's anywhere near as funny as her site was, it'll definitely be worth the read. when i hear what the title is, i know i'll be running out to get it and showing my support of this wonderfully creative and insightful woman. i'll be sure to make reference to it here, too, so you can enjoy her wit as much as i do.

abbie hoffman-part 2

2007-08-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

i just realized this morning that i never told you why it was a "steal this book" tour.

after our adventures in brussels, we went to paris. in brussels, we learned that you could sneak onto the buses from a native. the ticket taker machine being in the back, you could come in the front. on the subway you could bypass the turnstile thingy, so we did it the native way. we paid our train ride to paris, but when we got there, we found that on the metro, there was a way to get through the swinging door thing to the trains- it was a two man system. then we jumped the turnstiles right in front of the gendarmes. they were unimpressed.

i ended up sneaking aboard the vaporetto in venice, the buses and subways in amsterdam...well you get the picture. pretty much everywhere in cities, we found ways to sneak onto public transportation.

if you read my brief bio, you know that i'm a middle-aged housewfe. you might be too young to remember abbie hoffman. he wrote a book called steal this book, which i stole. i had also been reading jack kerouac's satori in paris while in paris, which i found pretty amusing. i had similar experiences and went to some of the same places. it was pretty cool.

i also saw the home of colette, another writer i admire, in paris, and paid homage to the great sarah bernhardt,one of the stars of the comedie francaise, at pere lachaise cemetary, another paris landmark. she was what some people call a polymath, and a real character. she wore pants before most women, was a sculptor, a writer, an actress, etc. even after she had a leg amputated, she still continued acting. if you're looking for an image of a strong woman, this is one of them. of course, she lied so much about her past that no one really knew what her true background was, but isn't that fabulous? reinvent yourself if you don't like your life!

The Abbie Hoffman "Steal This Book" Tour of Europe, circa 1985

2007-08-12T01:02:00.000-04:00

OK, that's enough pontificating.

so when other kids were going to the new jersey shore for the summer in the 80's, i figured out that for the same price, i could go to europe for a month or so. let's see... atlantic city or paris? hmmmm, that's a toughie. uh, PARIS!!!!!

my mom had won an all-expenses-paid trip to jamaica for two and she took me with her. turned out to be the only trip we took together before she had a stroke at 53, so i can't tell you how glad i am that we got the chance. had a great time, then got home and was planning to go back to work, which i think was as an assistant manager for a video store. lots of working, making good money and no time to spend it.

i got a call from my best friend the week i got home. she wanted to know if i wanted to go to europe with her. i did a quick calculation in my head of how much i had left in the bank, and said sure. by the end of the day, if not the afternoon, after many phone calls, we had booked tickets on what turned out to be THE last flights of people's express airlines for the paltry sum of $150 USD each way from newark, nj to brussels, belgium. yes, $150! who wouldn't go?!

i have a theory, The Idiot Principle: if you have no idea how difficult or dangerous somthing is, you dive in, blissfully ignorant, and have the time of your life.

so once upon a time, when the dollar was much stronger and so was I, I took what I now fondly recall as the Abbie Hoffman Steal This book Tour. Oooh, look him up.

i gathered every cent I had in the world, which might have been about $1000, and found my way to brussels with my best friend.

What was in Belgium? I had no idea, but I knew I could get to the rest of Europe from there pretty easily, and that suited me just fine.

I had actually been on the continent before, wandering around London, Bath, Brighton, bits of Scotland and Germany with friends from home, but there were plenty of places i hadn't seen yet.

I packed one small carry-on for what turned out to be a month long tour and off we went. We got to the youth hostel in Brussels on the Chausee de Wavre.The highlights of Brussels? Well, there's a museum containing a whole wall of outfits for the famous statue, Manneken Pis. This is the statue of the little boy taking a wizz. There are many legends about why this small statue was erected, erect being the key word.

The statue has become so well known, that visiting dignitaries, and there are many, bring gifts of outfits for him when they visit, so he's amassed quite a wardrobe, and every outfit has a special hole cut out for his uh, instrument of choice. OK, that's funny right there. But my favorite one was the reproduction of one of Elvis Presley's white and gold lame jumpsuit and cape thingys from his bloated years in Vegas. That cracked me up.

Then I found out that NATO is headquartered in Brussels, and I'll be damned if I didn't see Corazon Aquino in a Ford going across the GrotMarkt one day not long after she was elected. The Grote Markt itself was pretty interesting. Imagine this ancient main square, empty, then bustling with a lovely fresh market- fruit, vegetables, etc. in booths all over the square.There's people and produce everywhere, and that can get pretty dirty pretty quickly. I was astonished to see the square immaculate no more than an hour after the market closed, like no one had ever been there.

I didn't know what else there was, but I found out some fun things about Belgians. They were always nice to Americans, as they said we saved them in the last world war and they were very grateful. In the Reagan years, that was not the case in most European countries, so it made me grateful too. I had a friend from Belgium back home, and he had clued me in as to why he had left, so it was no surprise that Brussels is not known for its many sunny, warm and dry days. Think dank. But, as a dyed in the wool chocoholic, I had no idea I had reached heaven. I'm sure many people will argue about the merits of Swiss, Dutch, French, German and other chocolates, but from that point on, the Belgians and I have always had an understanding. They reign supreme in the field of chocolate.

And then there was the bar incident. My friend and I went with some other Americans we had met on the plane into the heart of the town, which is filled with narrow stone alleys with the usual stuff in stone alleys in Europe. Next thing we know, this guy is hanging out of the doors to a bar and making "psssst" noises at us. We look at each other like the RCA Victor dog, look at him and shrug. OK, we're game.

We go into the bar. It has the usual dark wood, looks like they decorated last in 1930, and there are some people there. On the counter, there's a little suitcase phonograph and some kind of weird, vaguely French music with accordion playing. They buy us drinks, give the girls in our bunch some flowers and then everyone gets in a circle and they do this dance around the circle, which turns out to be a sort of G-rated spin the bottle game where one of us, the girl or the guy (hey, it's been a long time!), gets down on bended knee and the girls give a little kiss and someone else goes next. All very harmless. We were dazed and confused, but that could have been the free drinks too. Another thing Belgians are very good at: they make about 120 different kinds of beer and all the ones I tried were delicious.

So we had a good time and went back to the hostel. We went back a couple of days later, and it was just like the produce market at the Grote Markt- like we had never been there, no one paid for our drinks, no one remembered us. We were kind of disappointed. Years later, someone told me about a wedding in France and mentioned a traditional dance they do at weddings there and suddenly a lightbulb went on. Mars needed women! Another mystery solved.

Next, we went to Paris, which is about a six hour train ride. My French was very good after three years of high school lessons (all you poor, frustrated french teachers,take heart!) so I spent pretty much the whole ride trying to teach my dear friend, who is very bright but had more experience with Spanish, the french r.

By the end of the trip, we were laughing hysterically, or maybe we were just hysterical, but she got it. Meanwhile, I had started out with Belgian French, which is slightly different than French in France. It's actually more logical with the numbers (closer to the latin root, I believe), so you don't have to be as good at math, and belgian french is much slower than france's french , which in Paris is lightning speed, so belgians are much easier to understand.we were seated in the train next to a guy who said he was a DJ in Paris, so he was probably speaking at hyperspeed.

when we got on, i couldn't understand him. by the end of the trip, i had acclimated enough to rattle things back at him, which might or might not have made sense. i had trouble enough with that in english. some things never change...

cigarettes

2007-08-11T14:38:00.000-04:00

dear everyone i know-
i absolutely hate that many of you are young and smoke like chimneys. you are bright, funny, articulate people who i hate to see buying into the horrible sneakiness of the cigarette industry. never mind that you're wasting your money on this multimillion dollar industry which knew as early as the 1950's the harm they were causing people by denying that cigarettes were harmful.

never mind the fact that this industry found lots of nasty ingredients like concentrated tobacco juice, formaldehyde and other horrid things to make sure that you got addicted to this filthy habit.

never mind that smoking these things will make your skin age faster.

or that you may be smoking because you thought it made you look cool (you already were!), or were trying to use them as an appetite suppressant, or to take a break from the action, or thought they calmed you down when you were nervous (actually, they're a stimulant- it's an illusion).

can i tell you that i used to be able to find my husband in any store by the sound of his hacking cough? it's become a heart cough, in part, no doubt, from his long habit of smoking a pack or two a day.

i don't need to tell you about increased likelihood of emphysema, which makes it increasingly hard to breathe till you feel like you're strangling, or lung cancer or asthma. how about your immune system's natural ability to fight off disease in general. and if diabetes or heart problems run in your family, it's more likely if you smoke.

come on, people. when i see you all out there smoking, it breaks my heart. you could take the money you'd save by quitting and go on a fabulous vacation. i'm talking exotic location, money for the flight and great meals. that's how much you waste on this stuff. i calculated about 5 years ago, when it was cheaper, that 1 1/2 - 2 packs a day was about $1500 a year. it's got to be even more now. imagine where you could go with that kind of money! talk about relaxed. a week in tahiti or paris or the himalayas. wow.

i know it's hard to quit, but after about 2 weeks of misery, it gets easier. can't we put these creepy tobacco industry bastards out of business and give the poor tobacco farmers being robbed by them something else they can grow? there has to be some cash crop they could replace tobacco with. these guys laugh at you while they come to work in helicopters with the money you gave them. wipe the smile off their faces, will ya?

almost friday lambie

2007-08-11T00:52:00.000-04:00

i love sheep. not in the biblical sense. i just think they're cute. yeah, it's silly. so what?

this one is my wallpaper on my computer. it's a romney lamb. no relation to mitt romney or george romney.

if you've got a cute picture of a sheep or a lamb, let me know. maybe it will be the next lamb of the week.

they're better than kitties. who wants to milk a cat? and would you eat kitty cheese? really!!!

and i've already heard all the really perverted, disgusting shepherd jokes. must be reallllly lonely in some parts of new zealand.or yorkshire. or pittsburgh. and who would know where to get those special boots? yuk.

code monkey

2007-08-07T13:01:00.000-04:00

hey, i've got one of these at home. i married him. what about you? i think this sums up those of his ilk nicely. you could do worse than finding one for yourself. i've owned mine for over ten years, god/dess help me. he's over here.

Favorite Quote on Religion

2007-08-07T09:51:00.000-04:00

This is by the divine Frenchy, formerly of Deify Me :

"Every religion is a weird religion. I mean, think about it: whatever your worldview is, whether you believe in God or not, an afterlife or not, that's kind of weird. We have no proof whatsoever that there are any kind of benevolent deities in existence ("imaginary superfriends" as some have put it) concerned with our welfare, yet the world's religions tell us there are, and countless people have benefited from a belief in them. (So if it's all superstition, it's a pretty powerful one, huh?) What I found, after leaving the Christian Church and embarking on a search for truth, was that just about all religions have something important to teach us, and they're almost all a little bit screwed up in one way or another. Learn from them all, follow one if it really turns you on, or follow none if you feel no need for it. But never make the mistake that many make of blaming the religious originator for all the problems caused by religious belief. Jesus never said it was okay to burn witches or torture heretics, and Mohammed never said it was okay to kill Jews or harass white people. Regardless of whether you're a "true believer" or a non-believer, remember always to question everything, employ your skeptical and critical skills, and never, ever let the enemies of the intellect and self-determination keep you in bondage by invoking superstitious threats of divine punishment if you don't believe in their particular deities. God/dess or evolution gave you an incredible brain, and you're meant to use it."

my sentiments, exactly.

where' s mine?!! (419 Scam Deficit)

2007-08-06T16:50:00.000-04:00

i kept hearing about nigerian e-mail scams. everyone was getting these things. where was mine? wasn't i, too, a rich american waiting to be fleeced by much cleverer nigerians? what was wrong with my money? wasn’t i good enough for a proper nigerian fleecing?

i waited and waited. meanwhile, all my friends were complaining about receiving these e-mails over and over from all different places and with different names attached. where was my poorly spelled european lottery winner letter? or maybe they could send me one of those “i have a great investment for you and it will cost you nothing”. where was mine?

finally, i received my very own nigerian scam letter. i was so excited! now, what to do? should i send them my own scam letter in return? alert the nigerian police? i think they might have been the ones to send the letters, or they were at least getting a cut. should I alert my own beloved government? could they do anything more to thwart these crazy nigerians. maybe they’re in on the scam too. the nigerians might be offering uncle sam a cut of all this loot poor dumb americans are sending them.

there only seem to be a couple of different types of nigerian e-mail scam letters. i wonder if there is a store, like staples or office max, where, along with forms for basic wills, divorces, pre-nuptial agreements and sales contracts, there’s a special section with the 3 different scam forms you can fill in. maybe there’s a software program which will automatically convert your perfect english into a horrid mangling of barely recognizable english which assures your potential victim that you are the real deal nigerian scam artist, not some rank amateur johnny-come-lately.

419. where did they get that term anyway? is there a certification program? maybe there’s a school where you bring your scam forms, list of potential names to use, and software to mess up your english and they make you buy a list of e-mail addresses at the school. then the teacher looks over your choices and makes comments, like “clyde ndgebele, I like the dr. lawrence bariga letter you chose, but really, make sure you mangle your english better. you want these stupid americans to think you don’t need their cash? and make sure you remember to pay the school for the addresses. you’ll receive your official 419 certificate in the mail after you have sufficiently bribed the postal worker in your neighborhood.”

if you want to see the list of current scam letters being sent, i highly recommend going here

i also recommend that while you’re there, you check out their brad christensen exhibit. make sure you’ve got your handkerchief ready, because you’ll be in tears in no time at all.

disappointment

2007-08-05T22:56:00.000-04:00

we've had the TIVO thingy for a little while now, and i have to admit i'm enjoying it. the other day, i quickly checked the current list of favorite programs we recorded and did a double take.

hmm, i thought. yeah, i guess that could be a new twist on an old classic. must be jamaican: "the Postman always rings twice mon". then i realized it must have been recorded on monday. got to admit, i was a little disappointed.

stupid nephews

2007-08-05T13:47:00.000-04:00

expanding upon the stupid nephew theory...here's how it works. in any business, especially family-owned businesses, there is always a stupid nephew: restaurants, retail establishments, utility companies, pick any one of these. they aren't all nephews, of course, but they can be husbands, wives, children, brother-in-laws, etc.

the only parameters are that the stupid nephew has to be irredeemably untalented, and/or unutterably spoiled/arrogant, and they must be so integral to the owner's family's happiness that the person is completely unfireable. the stupid nephew is completely aware of this and banks on it, riding the edge of it gleefully.

the stupid nephew is the one who gets the big parties when they wait on tables in restaurants, can screw up the cash register in a retail establishment without consequence, can always be late or leave early without being yelled at, can say rude things to customers or co-workers freely. the key words here are "without consequence". a shrewd and especially evil stupid nephew will flaunt this and this is quite common. sometimes they are blissfully unaware, but don't count on it. if they happen to take a disliking to you, they can even have you fired. talk about power in the wrong hands!

there used to be a job called "elevator pointer" in my city, that was a stupid nephew job. it was always a patronage position. the job was very complicated and payed extremely well. this person's sole task was to point to the elevator coming to the lobby in city hall. no kidding.

today's special

2007-08-04T14:37:00.000-04:00

so i submitted a sample of my writing to a new comedy/satire magazine. since they weren't offering anything by way of monetary compensation, i figured neither of us had anything to lose. they asked me to answer the question "why are manholes round?" and i gave them a couple of reasons.

1.Because the guy whose stupid nephew designed the things (everyone has a stupid nephew) told him to get around to it. Now the nephew wants to know what a tuit is and how to get one.

2.Because they tried using square ones, but none of the guys going in fit right. There was a chunky gal named Peg who tried once, but as you know, you can’t fit a round Peg into a square hole.

3.There was a meeting to determine the very first design for a manhole cover many long years ago. Perhaps it was in paris, famous for its complicated sewer system, maybe ancient rome with its underground hot springs and aqueducts. Wherever it took place, city planners from all over the known world came together to discuss how best to access the areas below the streets. Should we use a dodecahedron shape for this cover? No, too complicated to manufacture. What about a triangle? Good design possibilities, but could the average worker fit through a triangular opening? Probably not. Square would be easy to manufacture, nice simple lines. Why didn’t the square ones work? No one really knows. After all the discussing, many present at that fateful meeting almost came to blows. Who was going to settle this important design issue once and for all? One very small, slightly built man held up his hand for silence. At first no one even noticed him. The little man pointed a finger in the air and within the press of bodies now arguing heatedly all around him, a very large, bull-necked man, nearly twice the little man’s size in every direction, was arguing with the man in front of him. The little man’s finger trembled as it arced downward and finally it landed on the bull-necked man’s shoulder and poked him several times. The larger man whipped around to see who could possibly be bothering him, didn’t see anyone at first, then looked down to see the little man fuming up at him. “What seems to be the problem, little man?” said the larger man angrily. The smaller man said “That’s MY sandwich you’re eating! You give that right back to me, do you hear?”

When the little man woke up several days later in a hospital with bandages everywhere and a cast on both his legs, he was very confused. “What happened? The last thing I remember is some jerk swiping my sandwich!” The nurse helped him piece together what happened from the police report: it seems that the larger man stomped down hard on one of his feet and used his other foot as the point on a rather crude protractor and used the blood issuing from the poor little man’s foot to draw a circle on the floor before beating him up some more and finishing the sandwich.

No one knows why exactly, but the circle was a big hit and the rest, as they say, is history. Not to mention a little pastrami on rye.

since then, i haven't heard a peep out of them.

How I Survive Retail Sales: confessions of a demo diva

2007-08-03T18:31:00.000-04:00

You know that motto: "you don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps"? well, welcome to my world. being a little crazy to start with definitely helps. this way, you don't have far to fall when you truly do go crazy.

personally, i see myself as a sort of margaret mead of retail. i pretend that i'm a social anthropologist studying some strange and exotic culture or sub-culture by infiltrating the system and blending in as much as possible.

that is not to say that it's my only viewpoint while i work. on the contrary! my primary motivation is usually boredom or sometimes sheer wicked sense of humor. in short, i entertain myself much like a cat entertains itself by torturing mice.

for instance, one night i entertained myself for an entire shift by trying to convince people that kerfluffle was a potentially dangerous ingredient in food products. once i had the customer convinced that kerfluffle was a bad thing, i proceeded to reassure them that our products were 100% kerfluffle free and always had been. i gave myself a points system and i won the game if i could get some customers, or at least one, to go to the customer service desk and ask concerned questions about kerfluffle.

i even announced on the PA system that our products were always kerfluffle free.

to my consternation (and semi-delight), i found the word suddenly appearing more frequently in more news articles and literature. now that game can't be repeated. damn! the few people who actually knew what kerfuffle meant laughed and i joined in.

i find that observing large numbers of people clues me in to general human behavior. generally, it's pretty disgusting. if you are ever unsure that man is descended from the apes, try giving out free food to people who may not even be hungry. you'll definitely change your tune. keep in mind that for the most part, the people in my store are highly affluent, well-educated people. some are quite intelligent but they run the gamut from an IQ roughly equivalent to a gym sock to possible nobel peace prize for physics. and, to be fair, there are some who are truly delightful, polite, sweet people whom i look forward to talking to. they are, sad to say, in the minority.

people break down into categories which i have made up, again for my own entertainment. this is not very scientific, but sheer numbers carry their own weight and i find other people in retail, both in my particular store & in other stores in general, agree with my assessment.

there are people who eat first, ask questions later, then complain that they're allergic or not allowed to eat what they just consumed. what do you call that?!

there are people who find it necessary to tell you the whole sad story about why they can't eat what i have on offer, but want to know why i'm not demonstrating something they can have. a simple "no thank you" works very well for me. your personal information about food preferences, allergies, religious convictions regarding food, philosophical ideas about food and its origins are irrelevant to me. the question to ask yourself if you are one of these is: does this afffect in any way what the demo kitchen is offering that day? the answer is : generally, no. i find this works best on a need to care basis. perhaps if i worked on commission based on sales resulting from tasting a product this would be relevant information. i don't and it isn't. sorry. "no thank you"- the perfect phrase. then keep moving.

there are people who act as if they have never seen food before. you can tell that this isn't true because they are never cadaverously thin due to a longterm fast or recent wasting illness, they are simply greedy.

other customers labor under the misconception that i am operating a cafe and try to order what they want as if they are at a restaurant. this is forgiveable if they have never been to my store before, but usually they are regulars whom i see every day or close to it.

some customers will not even say hello, ignore me standing there and proceed to take as many samples as are in front of them. i have a sneeze guard in front of me with a counter that runs along the front side of it for samples. when i first started,i foolishly put out between 5 and 20 samples. people in this category will unashamedly put out their paw and take all of the samples or nearly all. or they will return repeatedly until they achieve the same result.the repeat offender, as i call them, thinks that because they didn't take everything all at once, i don't recognize them. this move is similar to the classic donut commercial where the round man with the little hitler mustache uses obvious attempts to disguise himself to get more donuts. it's just as pathetic & desperate, only it's real life and they really think they're being clever. scary. if they can't get at more than 1 or 2 samples (i've gotten smarter), they will not hesitate to put their paws behind the sneeze guard and proceed to take my back-up units ready to replace the samples. when there is a spoon or other utensil inserted in a help-yourself sample tray(we've learned by now just how crazy we were to put a help-yourself tray out at all), they seem to be under the impression that they are there for decorative purposes only and use their fingers and touch all the samples, touch some and then put it back, or worse things you don't even want to imagine- unfortunately, i don't have to. i have seen the same behaviors from bears and raccoons when i camped out in the wilderness and forgot to put food high up in trees. the bears tend to be more polite. raccoons could go either way, depending on the raccoon.

the above types of customers have led me to the name i secretly give to my job: Rich People's Soup Kitchen, or my other favorite: Feeding time at Sea World. Well, at least otters do tricks for it. Is it any wonder i have to find ways to entertain myself?

Here's another secret i have discovered in retail: no matter how big the sign, no matter how directly you place it next to something, people rarely draw any conclusions and correlate the sign with the object. this i liken to the old adage about training dogs: if you don't punish the dog for undesirable behavior immediately, they don't associate it with the undesirable action and they can't figure out what they've done wrong. people are much harder to train. there are people who are in my store literally every day, and no matter how many times they visit my demo station, it never occurs to them that whatever we are demonstrating is ALWAYS displayed in front of my station and that there is a huge sign indicating the items and their prices. ever see the movie "40 first dates"? or how about dorie in "finding nemo"? this many people can't ALL have short-term memory loss! what are the odds that they all shop in one place?

sometimes i have experimented with visual space. after watching many people and where their eyes tend to go, as well as what seems to be ignored, which is quite a lot ( i call this blind space), i have placed things on my demo table such that people go back and forth from one end of my table to another. reminds me of caged animals at the zoo. very amusing.

the blind space is fascinating to me. a colleague at work with a divinely devilish sense of humor took glass bottles displayed at eye level in the middle of the counter and upended the top layer of bottles.the bottles were slim at the top tapering to a larger base, so they were rather delicately but expertly balanced.i found this funny to begin with, but when i watched people who came to the demo station, i noticed that not one of them noticed anything unusual. their eyes didn't even flicker over them. maybe it's just me. i dunno.

i must sound fairly cynical, but it is hard for people who do my job to remain hopeful about the future of mankind after witnessing the behaviors i have mentioned above. people have even deposited their children in front of my stand and gone on shopping. please do not confuse me with your babysitter!

...and speaking of babysitting, there are the poor lonely souls who stand at my station for hours (or maybe it just seems like hours), who seem to have confused me with either a psychotherapist or a non-alcoholic bartender without the fun of liquor, good wages and generous tips. don't get me wrong: there are many people who are delightful to talk to and i consider them good company, looking forward to their visits. then there are people who just won't leave and aren't particularly interesting. these people will ignore normal social signals when a number of people have started to gather at my station and i really need to be able to hand out samples so that people will move on without creating a bottleneck in the aisles. pubs in england handle this situation brilliantly by proclaiming shortly before the pub closes for the afternoon "time, gentleman! we've all got homes to go to!" and everyone immediately understands and goes home. aahhh, if only...dare to dream.

getting back to the subject of children, it is unwise to let your children loose upon the demo station for many reasons. young children should never be left unsupervised in a retail establishment to begin with, because they can do dangerous things and we cannot legally be held responsible if an injury occurs as a result, which i have seen happen. they may also have some food allergy and be too young to remember to ask if the sample contains an allergen. believe it or not, demo divas don't generally receive EMT or heimlich maneuver training. we understand that it's never easy to shop with a young child, so we try to give you samples with which to appease them (rather like appeasing an angry volcano god) so that they can be coralled successfully by you for their safety.

we do all we can to keep your child reasonably happy while you shop, but in the end it is up to you, and this may come as a shock to some of you, to keep them behaving reasonably well while in a public space. not an easy task at best, but consider this as an acid test of your parenting skills. the mere act of reproduction by itself does not in any way guarantee that you possess the skills, intelligence or common sense necessary to be a good parent.

if you are not up to the task, admit defeat quickly and call in an expert or three: babysitters, nannies, grandma- anyone you can either pay or can be enlisted from friends or family. this list of potential combatants should never include retail salespeople. not part of the job description, i can guarantee you. we either have our own to contend with, or kids like your little beasts have served admirably as birth control devices for us. i now know why some animals eat their young.

another reason for not leaving your children unsupervised at the demo station is that young children (and sometimes older ones!) don't always know, care or understand what allergies, religious traditions or other dietary restraints you have placed on them and we don't have any way of knowing these without you telling us. this applies to adults as well, but you are able to tell us before we give you something that will make you sick or break your diet. ask questions! the last thing we want to do is to give you a negative experience while at our store. most demo station workers will ask children if their parent or accompanying adult has given them permission to try samples before giving them anything. please explain to your child that this is just a sample and not lunch or dinner. then explain it tu yourself! it's a great way to find out if a picky eater will like what you're considering buying to make at home and if the product is prepared, we will even open something for you or them to try before you buy it, but this is up to our discretion and not required by our employers. they have been kind enough to give us special permission to do this, though.

that brings me to another point. there are some customers who think it must be very amusing to tell us that "now i won't have to eat lunch/dinner". yes, what a wonderfully amusing joke. no matter how many thousands of times i hear that during the course of each and every day, i never fail to be amused by your little joke. have you ever thought about how it reflects on you? mostly, we think "what a loser! i guess you can't afford to eat on your own dime. what a shame!" probably not the effect you were going for, i suspect. or maybe you think that i think how clever you must be to discover this new way to eat without paying for it. no, not really. you're just cheap. again, doesn't reflect well on you, especially if you're sporting a prada bag worth more than 4 of my paychecks, or a fur coat worth more than 6 months of my salary. yeah, great joke. while most of my colleagues have to live piled in like sardines in some cheap apartment because the wage we're paid isn't enough to possibly afford a place by yourself.

no one puts a gun to our heads to work here, but it pays better than other jobs we could get. Many of us are artists, musicians, students, retirees or it's a second job because the first one doesn't pay enough to keep body and soul together.

Demo is a great way to try new foods, new combinations of foods, get some cooking tips, or test drive a new food for a picky eater in the family. And sometimes, we can brighten each other's day. But that's really all you should expect.

To my dad, with love

2007-08-03T11:50:00.000-04:00

From the moment I appeared on a November afternoon, we fell in love with each other. For quite a while, you were the only man in my life, and for some time after that, you were the only sensible man in my life.

I still remember listening for your car up the driveway and waiting to throw my arms around your neck from the living room stairs. I remember falling asleep to a back scratch- I still do! I remember doing Mills Brothers imitations together in the den.

I remember more recently going together to get your colonoscopy and trying to help you get less nervous and cheering you on. You saw me through the usual coughs & colds (Nurse Daddy!), broken hearts, skinned knees ( I was always falling, wasn't I? But you always picked me up), triumphs and tragedies; hormonal hell, hard times, bailed me out when I was sick, broke, or both.

If something was wrong, if I needed a hug, if I needed cash, if I needed advice, if life had let me down, if someone else had let me down, if I let myself down, I always knew I could call you and you would do what you could to help, or just be a listening ear. I guess some people don't have that. But it's comforting to know, even when I don't need anything, that if I did, there's always a dad to come to the rescue.

And if I needed someone to go to bat for me, I knew my dad would be the first in line and no one would try harder to help me reach that goal, whether it was to avenge a wrong or get me the best deal or secure the wedding site I had my heart set on. If anyone could do it, my dad could do it.

It has to feel good to know that someone believes that you could do anything, doesn't it Dad? I know because I think we believe that about each other. Maybe in different ways, but the feeling is still the same.

Has any of that changed? Not a whit. I'm still the little girl reaching up on tippy toes, standing on the toilet seat because the only thing in the world I want right now is to shave my Daddy. She's still in there. But now she's got another guy to go to bat for her. Lucky me, I've got two!

I count myself so fortunate to have a great dad and a great husband who get along so well. You may not have thought so for a long time, but now I can finally say that I have great taste in men- I picked you to be my dad and Jeff to be my husband.

I don't think there's anyone who would fault me on my taste. My hand hasn't slipped away from yours at all, I've got one for you and one for Jeff- just the right amount, we just have to stretch a little more to make them reach. I love you, Dad. MDLM

For my mother 1933-2001

2007-08-03T11:24:00.000-04:00

A life is like a pebble thrown into a stream. It doesn’t matter if it’s small or big, they all make ripples in the water, then they gradually fade away & there is no trace of where the pebble dropped. It’s as if it was never there. Some make larger ripples and the circles last a little longer, but in the end, the memory fades & disappears, for most pebbles & most people.

My mother was a small pebble in the stream of life. She wasn’t rich or famous. You wouldn’t know her name or what she was like. Maybe the fact that I don’t have any children to pass the memories of her to drives me to want to leave something of her character and stories behind, so that when my ripples stop, someone will still remember her in the world and some measure of immortality will be her due.

I think it’s the duty of every daughter to carry the story of her mother into the world, so I guess you’re the one I tell the story to. That kind of makes you my child, at least for a little while. When I was little, my mother would rock me in this big overstuffed rocking chair that creaked, and I would sit in her lap as she read me a story. So if you were my child, I imagine sitting in that rocker with you now. I still have it, you know. On days when I miss her too much to bear, I sit on that rocker in the dark & imagine that she’s there again, waiting for me to sit on her lap so she can read me a story. Maybe she is.

I always assumed that everyone loved their mother & that they loved them as much as my mother and I did. When I grew up and started to hear people’s stories of their families, I was shocked and appalled at some of the things I heard. Stories of anger, violence, apathy, and abuse that made my blood run cold. One woman my age told me her mother had hanged herself and she was the one who found her. A young girl told me that her mother had produced a great number of children, and that when she was 13, her mother threw her out of the house for no apparent reason. And the mother was a nurse, someone who was supposed to revere and care for people! Someone else told me that his mother had never read him a bedtime story. I couldn’t imagine it. Perhaps I was naïve, but I had had the luxury of being naïve where many people weren’t so fortunate.

After hearing so many stories of what other mothers were like, I realized just how special mine was. If I could have one wish, it would be for all those unfortunate souls who grew up motherless or worse, with a mother who was like the evil stepmother in fairy tales, to share my mother, so they could feel as deeply loved and cherished as I do still, years after she left this world.

What does it take to be a good mother? Do you need to have one yourself to be one? I don’t think so, because there’s just no way my grandmother qualified. She was a selfish, nasty woman whose husband deserted her and her small children, my mother and her two older brothers, during World War II. Mom said she always wanted to be like her own grandmother, who she adored. But relatives tell me that Grandma Fanny wasn’t any great shakes either. As far as Mom was concerned, though, she was the penultimate. Maybe it doesn’t matter what her grandma was really like. My mom grew up in the Depression, when people had “bread sandwiches”, really just bread with mustard, so they wouldn’t starve. Life was hard for most then, and for a deserted wife with three small children, it was probably even worse. Perhaps that’s when my grandmother became the bitter, hostile, selfish woman that I grew up with. Perhaps she was just always that way, I don’t know.

From the beginning, my mother underestimated herself, and was helped along with this by her brothers, who told her she was ugly and stupid. She believed them, and she was actually neither. I don’t think they meant to be mean to her, they were simply being your typical older brother. But what they said to a little girl stuck in her head. Beware the seemingly innocuous remarks you make to a very young child. They take you literally, and things you have long forgotten you said stick in their heads and haunt them all their lives. There is no greater responsibility than the mind, heart and spirit of a child. each of us has been one, and I’m sure each of you remembers some small cutting remark from when you were small that broke your heart. Doesn’t everyone?

So maybe even I underestimated how powerful and strong my mother was, but she taught me to make the best of things when it seems impossible to do so, and to remember to laugh and be silly. Most of all, she taught me to love without reservation, wholeheartedly. Mom had to figure out how to do that without a role model for it in her own life, and I think she could only manage to do that with me. But she did it every waking moment of her life until her very last breath, and I carry that with me. So this is for you, mom.