Blogged Down At The Moment

What the Dickens?

2012-02-07T20:37:00.004-06:00

When I was a young, whenever I got slightly out of hand, my mother would say, "Oh, you little Dickens, you!" Now, I still have no inkling where that phrase originated...I'd like to think it has something to do with the unruly children in Dickens' novels...but a search on Google will probably ruin it for me...so I'll remain none the wiser and keep the mystery going.

Another mystery to me, is why, on the 30th of January, I started posting up my versions of Dickensian Facebook update statuses. Certainly it had something to do with the fact I finally got around to watching "Great Expectations" (the 1946 version) a day or two earlier. But, truth be told, I did have this film recorded for about six months, so it wasn't like it was "Dickens Week" on the TCM channel or anything.

I must say, however, that I could not have timed it any better...because today just so happens to be the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens.

The premise for most of this is self-explanatory...but, in case it's not...I basically updated my Facebook status...but with a twist (pun intended): I "penned" them in the manner of what I envisioned Dickens' characters would say...if they were thrust into today's society...and doing their own Facebook updates. Hopefully you will find some of them mildly amusing...and if not...well, a solemn egad to you, sir!

It all started late the evening of January 30th...and into the early morning of the 31st...and yes, I try to be silly on purpose on Facebook. To me, everything on Facebook is just fodder for a writing gig for a future comedy show...the key is timing it right so someone sees it and is willing to hire me. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found that key. Anyway...I was in a silly mood and it started like this. (Be forewarned, these are only my comments...I removed everyone else's...to respect their "privacy". Oh, yeah, right...they are ON Facebook...there is NO SUCH THING as privacy anymore. By the way, I left typos in...it lends an air of authenticity that way.)

Wondering about the lost works of Dickens...like "A Christmas Bob", "A Christmas Ted", and "A Christmas Alice".

I was thinking that I should start doing Dickens type books. I mean it's about time someone does that again. I have to put dandy guys in it and foppish rogues. Is that okay to do or just too old a concept?

(Removed comments here.)

"Lines in my proposed new Dickensonian novel:

"I dare say, Mr. Slipwort, your buttocks peering out like a timid doormouse owing to the fact your trousers are lower than your waistcoat...is more than mildly arousing to a young man of my demeanour."

(More removed comments here.)

"ROFL Nothing actually. I watched "Great Expectations" last nite and thought how we really should talk more like that. It would really make people just stare."

(Yep...comments...yadda yadda...)

"You come to me, lad, with the countenance of someone much more refined than yourself and with some reservation, attempt to beg my forgiveness for indiscretions heretofore dispensed...and ask for more text minutes? A solemn egad to you, sir."

(This is where someone stated they were going to use "A solemn egad to you, sir" in their conversations the next day. I was, needless to say, honoured.)

(Then it kinda morphed from Dickens to Shakespeare.)

"It is with some foreboding that an item of particular interest was shown to me under the guise of a fictitious nom de plume...and interspersed among a certain morally corrupt group gathered in society known to assist in the dissemination of such correspondence with the words "I am soooo stealing this!" attached and then, with a click, dispatched thusly."

But...I'm still wondering why the whole thing surfaced in my head right before his 200th birthday. I'd like to think it's some type of a good sign...perhaps I'm actually channeling Dickens? (And not in the TCM kind of way.)

Okay, so maybe it's not up to par with the last thing he ever wrote...but he's been out of practice, so cut him a break.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens...gone, but certainly never to be forgotten.

Driven to Tears

2012-01-22T18:32:00.007-06:00

Every time I go into Montgomery, I see Eric...every time I drive up to Maxwell Air Force Base I see Joe and "Momma". Oh, I've never spoken to any of them...but I wonder about them every single time I pass by -- and I wonder how many other people do as well.

I don't know anything about these people yet they touch me...they've even brought me to tears...in fact, I'm crying right now.

"How can some people I've never met and know nothing about bring about such emotion in me?" you might be asking yourself...in fact, it might sound like it makes no sense whatsoever; but to me...and undoubtedly to some others, it does.

You see, I "see" Eric on the median strip of Eastern Boulevard; I assume proudly displaying some type of medal he won. I've never stopped my car to go up close enough to make out what it is...and, again, I've wondered -- about it -- and him. I "see" Joe and "Momma" on the Northern Boulevard, up a couple miles on the right after I merge onto it from Route 231.

I've never really "seen" them...what I see are what many people see every day: Roadside Memorials.

You know, you've seen them (not necessarily Eric, Joe and "Momma", but countless others like them)...roadside testimonials, erected by caring individuals, to signify where their loved ones lost their lives. Sometimes they are well kept up...other times, they fall into a state of disrepair...the cross' paint eroding at the edges and the faded flowers hanging by only a fragile thread; this "fragile thread" is...really all that separates us from their fate.

I've read, years ago, about some states or counties considering banning these markers. "They're too difficult to mow around" and "They're distractions"...were only a couple of the excuses the townships made in their defense...and while I can understand a huge mowing machine trying to delicately negotiate around them, it seems they do. I sense an immense reverence for them -- and for every worker out there who has taken the extra time to meticulously mow around these, I thank you.

There is also debate as to whether these are really distractions or do they, even for a very short while, make drivers take note and slow down...realizing the precious loss of life could easily be their own. A barely audible "There but for the grace of God, go I." mumbled under some passersby's breath -- or do people blindly pass them by...just a blur...a tiny, insignificant billboard they mindlessly catch out the corner of their eye?

I'd like to think they don't. I'd like to think they pause to remember someone they never got the opportunity...to remember.

And to Eric, Joe, "Momma" and all the others I've passed by over the years, I might not ever know you or your stories, but...you are definitely not forgotten.

My Theory #1: Depression

2012-01-17T07:26:00.009-06:00

"Modern Times" (1936) with Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard...the final scene where he tells her to "smile"...this is also Charles Chaplin's last silent film.

I have been thinking and thinking about why I've been so blah and depressed and have no energy for what seems like years now. And other than the obvious reason -- long, pre-divorce situation, and my health...I've decided there are things I used to do in my past which made me happy...that I don't do anymore.

1) Cook. I used to always get Gourmet magazine and before that one, Cuisine magazine - ever since I was 16 years old. I haven't gotten any sent to me in a couple years...and now I have no desire to cook. Sure, I love Epicurious.com - but, the mouth-watering photos you see in a real, honest to goodness magazine...can't be found "paging" thru some website. So, I'm going to start up another subscription.

2) Read Vogue magazine. For years and years - probably ever since I was about 15...I had a subscription to Vogue...and I always put on make-up and was impeccably dressed. Sure, I live in crappy Alabama and it's not the same as NJ...which is next to NY...and that, being the fashion capital of the world...knew how to dress -- but, I don't put a face on anymore and I dress like a better-than-average sloburbinite...so I'm going to start up a subscription.

3) Watch funny sit-coms on television. I used to watch hilarious sit-coms...you know, back when they had this thing called "writers"...and they used to pay these things called "actors" to be funny and read the scripts. For instance, the shows "Soap", "Taxi", "Cheers", "Seinfeld" and "Frasier"...now it's just a sea of endless crap on -- and all I watch are documentaries and old films on Turner Classic Movies...which isn't bad at all...but, late at nite I find myself watching icky things like "Unsolved Nasty-ass Crimes Upon Humanity" where they go into detail of the brutal killing of innocent people - and show graphic things and display graphic warnings about the soon-to-be-shown graphic imagery. And then I read the "horror killing of the day" on the news...which always tells you about some mother or father murdering their child in a more horrible way than the one the day prior. So, all I do...is get spoon-fed misery. I want to laugh again. I find myself not even watching Letterman or Craig Ferguson...both of whom I laugh at. I just sit here and probably think horrific things in my subconscious...and get more and more depressed...because the news is constantly shelling out dismality (is that a word - if not, it should be)...and I don't laugh...and laughter, unlike Xanax, is probably really the best medicine after all.

I'll keep you up-to-date if it's working...at least it's cheaper than therapy.

Top Ten Things That Have Been Bugging Me

2012-01-04T12:31:00.007-06:00

I've not written a blog in a while. I've not even tried.

It's my fault - I start doing other things like playing this online fake Scrabble game, or I sit around the house watching television, or I sit around wasting time on Facebook, or I sit around the house making up excuses...and then I get mad for not being scooped up by a prominent publishing house or movie studio, and I whine silently to a few of my friends (not so silently).

But, hey, it's the new year...time to put my aging butt in gear, right?

So, I sat and I thought and thought...or more like laid there and thought and thought...and I am drawing blanks left and right. I've come to the conclusion that nearly everything you can bring up, I've done some form of it in a blog already. Maybe I used up all my ideas...so I came up with this one instead...so be gentle as I know it's not going to be one of my best efforts.

A few things that have been rattling around in my brain...yes, they are in no order. So, let's just think of them as my "Top Ten Things That Have Bugged Me"...they aren't meant to be witty or funny...so if you're anticipating that, you'll be let down.

10. The 2011 Christmas "Doctor Who" show. C'mon Stephen Moffat...I waited like six months to see that??? I know you are capable of much better. I'd venture to say I'm capable of much better. Give me a shot, will ya? I'm older than you - respect your elders...hire me. I'll even do it for free...give me a friggen shot, okay? Please?

9. "Saturday Night Live", David Letterman, Craig Ferguson, hell, even Jay Leno...see #10 (only vary it to fit you)...a shot? Please? For free first - THEN you can hire me or fire me. Just one tiny little shot...that's all I'm asking. Oprah? Donald Trump? Rosie?? Someone?

8. To the "Dasani" water people (aka the "Coke" people) and the "Chick-Fil-A" people on Eastern Blvd in Montgomery, Alabama: You know what you did...it's been what, three years?? At least pay up for the Emergency Room visit already. (Yeah...I should write a blog about this - it's long so I can't put it here.)

7. You "Jersey" shows on television: I'm FROM Jersey...I never knew anyone who was like that in Jersey...stop making me seem like an idiot so no one hires me. Or hire me yourself...I promise I can be the idiot you are looking for in a writer.

6. Just to let everyone know...saggy boobs are "in" this year.

5. I didn't talk to my mother enough and I talked to her every single day. I should have written things down...the memories of what she told me of her youth in Belgium are getting muddy and I can't remember her voice so much. For everyone with a loved one...pay attention. Everyone tells you to pay attention and you don't realize they are right until after it's too late. My mother knew I loved her so I don't have to worry about that...but I miss the most stupid things...like the way she pronounced "Post Office"...and no one will ever say it like her again in my life. Ever.

4. All the people on those "person specific" news shows...like on CNN: STOP SHOUTING! If I can't hear you, I'll turn up the volume. Sheesh!

3. One day all you mean people will get your comeuppance. Personally, I'd like that day to be tomorrow.

2. Human beings should live longer...and have a nice exoskeleton so we're more impervious to the elements, like car crashes, bullets and crazy people in Walmart.

1. I know people believe in reading the Bible and things...like prayers. I have no issue with that whatsoever. However, I do have an issue with two things about that: a) Don't just memorize a dinner prayer if you're going to pray twice a year (you C&E people can relate)...make it come from the heart...make one up on the spot; somehow I don't think God will get mad if you improvise. b) That child's prayer which goes: "Now I lay me down to sleep...I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake...I pray the Lord my soul to take." That single-handedly creeped me out my entire life. Seriously...just think of an innocent child who has no concept of death yet...reading this. Now think of that same child a few years later, with a vague concept of death. This isn't so much a prayer anymore as it is a warning -- a good haunting one when you're just about to drift off to sleep: An 'Ooops...guess we forgot to mention it, Jimmy...God sends his boogeyman to take your soul at night while you're sleeping sometimes." I'm sorry...but this needs to be totally rethought out. It's not at all comforting and it's very, very, very scary. In fact, it's almost as scary as that first "Doctor Who" Weeping Angels episode Stephen Moffat wrote.

And with that...I've come full circle. "Happy 2012" everyone! :)

Foreign Thoughts

2011-11-30T22:24:00.005-06:00

Okay - first off, I am not a racist, nor someone who jumps to any type of conclusions about what you eat, what you watch, which church you go to, who you sleep with, what politician you like, how attractive you are, what your weight is, etc. Basically if you are nice to me - I'll be nice back and I don't care if you are pink, purple, beige, blue, brown, yellow, or orange. I really don't mind. I never have.

But tonite, after stopping at Starbucks to get my daughter a mochachocolatte, there were two men outside the building conversing with a foreign accent...speaking a foreign language. One was younger...the other about 20 years older. I don't know what language they were speaking - coulda been Arabic, coulda been Serbian...didn't sound Swedish and it certainly wasn't French or Spanish.

The bad thing is - I got into my car and mentioned to my daughter something about "Hope they're not terrorists." It wasn't exactly that - but it was along those lines. Then I stopped myself and told her how incredibly bad it was that I was thinking that...just based on the fact they were two men of a nationality which undoubtedly gets a lot of suspicious glances nowadays, i.e., they didn't look like the blonde guys who sang that "Take On Me" song.

Ordinarily I wouldn't have thought this - I grew up in Jersey - and many people were of Polish, Italian, and whatnot descent. I just kinda disgusted myself and wanted to share. How terrible it is to automatically think terrible thoughts because I've been conditioned by the media to fear someone who looks a certain way. Granted, terrorists did some heinous crimes and I don't discount those...but, to think that of these two guys outside a Starbucks just because they are "different" from me...just annoys me.

I grew up in a time (I was born in 1960) where the 1970s saw its share of plane hijackings, bombings in airports and the horrible massacre of Olympic athletes during the 1972 Munich games. I can never remove the image (or the name) of ABC news reporter, Bill Stewart, forced to kneel on the ground after being pulled from a van and then shot in the head. Why I have that one etched into my memory is beyond me. I guess it was because it was shown over and over on television at the time...and the shock of seeing a life one second and a death the next...has stayed with me. Just like images of people jumping out of the World Trade Center buildings...it's not something you can just erase.

And now I can't erase this impulse thinking I have in my head...and what was probably a pleasant conversation outside a coffee shop makes me anxious and I hope and pray nothing bad was actually going on.

That...to me...is sad.

And to those two men -- I apologize.

The Waiting Game

2011-11-08T20:05:00.004-06:00

Another half-hour spent isolated in the "patient room" at the doctor's office again.

I don't know if you've made the observation that all the magazines are typically in the waiting room -- and, if you don't tag one along when you get called in the "patient room"...chances are you are left alone to sit and stare at your "temporary lodgings" for the next 30 minutes or so.

I don't know about you...but my mind goes like this:

Read anatomical posters first.

Depending on how in-depth they are and which doctor you are seeing - this can be most rewarding. For example, I pretty much know where all my internal organs lie and I also know that "Circle of Willis" thing in my brain...looks like a tiny alien.

But most times it's a bust. Plus some of these posters have lost their vivid colours and have been on the walls since 1982. Not that our body parts have shifted or mutated into anything remotely Darwinian-ish...just saying a new shiny poster without the frayed and/or missing edges and without the 23 thumb-tack holes...is probably long overdue.

There's only so much staring you can do at the posters of otitis media or the cutaway eye one. "Yep, that's an eye. And that's one with glaucoma. That's an eye with a stye...and that's what various stages of conjunctivitis looks like when you have no skin surrounding your eye."

Bored...bored...bored.

I then progress to reading the pamphlets (not all offices have these mind you - the eye doctor's office is the best place if you want to brush up on short stories featuring the eyeball).

From this fascinating foray into the "short story medical" genre, I have come to the conclusion I now know almost as much about Crohn's Disease and IBS as the people who wrote those things...and my ability to spot a "floater" is phenomenal. (Oh, c'mon...I was talking about the EYE...seriously...you should be ashamed of yourselves.) I also know all about Macular Degeneration ...and how to treat dry eyes.

The next stage on my journey inside the "little room" begins with the picking up of...and prerequisite dismantling of...the plastic models. Putting them back together as I found them is sometimes more challenging...but most times I just resort to childish hi-jinks.

Anyone with half a brain (and I've dismantled that model as well)...can put them back together...but it takes a really bored genius to put them back...creatively.

I'm not proud to admit that I put the "normal thyroid butterfly" in the "Grave's Disease" spot...and I've switched the normal rubber prostate "feel for yourself" exam helper with the abnormal one.

I am nearly shaking my head in abject shame as I type.

I often wonder if they change them all back around to their proper locations after I leave...or if they stay that way until someone inadvertently puts them back in correct placement because they were as bored as I was that day. I also wonder if they red flag you as a "switcher" and annotate it in your records.

Usually, by this time, the doctor comes in...but I've actually had to wait much, much longer on some occasions...and this is the part in my visit where I get downright creepy.

You know how they have the wooden tongue depressors, the little rubber hammer, the extraordinarily long Q-tips, and those drawers they keep unlocked?

Well, my imagination starts roaming around as my eyes dart from place to place and object to object...and I start wondering how many people might have skipped touching that take-apart eye "toy" and made a bee-line over to the rack of assorted eye-drop vials instead. If you pay close attention - those things are just too tempting for anyone who always wanted...but never got...a chemistry kit when they were a kid.

I've visions of rude and moronic people licking the eyedroppers -- putting a couple drops of one eye solution into the other...and switching all the stoppers around.

"Ooooh...an irrigation device...I wonder if it fits in HERE..."

I mean, unless there's a camera in that little private room of yours...how'd anyone know?

I guess it all boils down to the fact that I'd really hate to be swabbed with the giant Q-tip the guy before me used to relieve an itch. I honestly don't want them to use anything on me that doesn't walk in with the doctor or nurse...or that doesn't come out of some locked-up cabinet.

Face it, if I think these things -- someone else has undoubtedly done them...or is seriously thinking about doing them.

I just hope and pray their appointment is AFTER mine.

Volunteering the "Old-Fashioned" Way

2011-11-03T20:47:00.010-05:00

This was a proposed article for the Montgomery Advertiser which I wrote (but never used) back in August 2010. I'm not sure how current it is now...certainly his age and the original time-frame has changed. I decided to post it up as a blog for two reasons: This man met with me and spent a couple hours hoping to get some publicity for Fort Toulouse and for what all these volunteers do...and also because Fort Toulouse's "Frontier Days" is going on now until the 6th of November. Please check the website link at the end of my article for more information.

Everyone's heard the phrase "history repeats itself", but for 52 year-old Michael McCreedy, it really does.

Since 1988, McCreedy has been actively re-enacting a by-gone period, donning clothes of another era and making history come alive for countless Fort Toulouse visitors to witness. And he does all this voluntarily.

I sat down with him the other day to get an "insider-look from the outside" as I've always been fascinated about history.

First off, I was told I really shouldn't say "re-enacting". The participants prefer the term "living history" for what they do, and "historical interpreters" for who they are.

Secondly, I was not aware most of these portrayals are based on actual people; so when a historical interpreter chooses a name from the list, they are literally adopting the attitude, mannerisms and persona of a real individual who once lived at or visited Fort Toulouse in the 1700s.

"Most people who do this had a love of history early on." McCreedy stated, "For me it was the childhood trips with my family from San Diego to visit my grandparents in Montgomery and stopping at various historical sites along the way."

Of course if you have a mother who is interested in genealogy and volunteers at the Archives and History Department's "research room", as he does, history already seems to be in his blood. In fact, for the past three years, McCreedy has delved into his own Scot Clan lineage by "becoming" Lachlin MacGillivray, Highland Scot trader and interpreter to Britain's King George II. Prior to this recent change of sides, he spent 19 years as a French Colonial Marine.

McCreedy contends the reason he and countless others volunteer their time is because they have a true passion for what they do, enjoy the educational aspects of it, and also because it's fun. "Everyone dies, they come back to life, you get to do it all over again, then you get to have a beer." McCreedy quipped.

While volunteers don't get paid, they do have to outfit themselves with the proper gear. They actually have "loaner clothes" for those who want to try it out, but these clothes can only be used for a short period of time; after that, you have to buy or trade things to get your own uniform, shoes and musket.

McCreedy's initial expense, about twenty years ago, was $1000 on a musket (he points out these firearms aren't "guns", they are classified as "working antique replicas" as per the Gun Control Act of 1968), and another $800 for the uniform. So, while this is not an inexpensive hobby, fortunately most people find out relatively early on whether or not this is something they want to pursue. McCreedy remarked, "If a person sticks with it for the probationary one-year period, and they like us, and we like them, they are voted in.

But don't get any fancy ideas of showing up with a Commandant's uniform and thinking you're going to run the place. While there are promotions, typically new historical interpreters at Fort Toulouse start at the bottom.

Considering McCreedy was a cook, a French Marine and now a prosperous fur trader in his twenty-two years of interpreting living history, he definitely earned his promotions among the volunteer ranks.

In his present-day life, McCreedy is the Executive Director at "The F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum" in Montgomery and is working on getting his Master's Degree in History. He hopes one day to become a historical advisor for film or television.

Just to put this in a "sum it all up" perspective, McCreedy figures that over the course of his twenty-two years of volunteering, 13 months of his life was actually spent "living in the eighteenth century".

This is indeed quite an amazing feat which only a dedicated few can say they've accomplished. Seems historical interpreters get the best of both worlds: reliving old history while all around them new history is being made ever day.

How can you get into the "act"? Please go to http://www.forttoulouse.com/ or call 334-567-3002. They'll be more than happy to explain to you how you can get involved.

NaNoWriMo aka "No, it's not Orkan"

2011-10-30T22:11:00.004-05:00

It's no big surprise that I'd love to be a "real live writer"...you know, one that gets paid and can count up the words and divide them to see just how much money each one of them made -- kinda like the really rich sports people and how much they get paid per game...or hit...depending on which sport you're calculating.

Anyway, I am not a quilter...I'm not a cookie-baking mom...and I'm not a coffee-klatch type of person, partly because I detest the smell and taste of coffee...but mainly because I'm not going to go and hang out with perky early-risers and shoot the breeze about things like quilting or Girl Scouts.

I have no family really and certainly none around here...being that I'm a Jersey chick doesn't help in the grand scheme of things as, if you're not aware, the Montgomery area seems very cliquey...the women much more so than the men...and my seventh circle of Hell was drawn in the sand by someone with a cheerleader mom mentality. (If you are a nice cheerleader mom...disregard that previous comment...if you aren't, you know exactly what I mean and you do it all the time...and it's not nice.)

So, here I sit. I sit here. I sit here and type...hoping one day the words will miraculously string together in some sort of profitable fashion like they have done for J.K. Rowling and Stephen King...and all the others who rank in their...well, ranks.

I sit, sit, sit (like Dr. Suess might have said)...and I get discouraged for lots of reasons -- but one main one is I don't have a lot of encouragement to write. Having a loving relationship with a spouse or significant other probably helps many of these unknown writers get known...but I have neither.

While my two children prod me once in a while, saying things like "Uh, why don't you write that book already" and "Um, why don't you write that book already"...it's clearly not the motivating factor that's working for me.

Consequently, about six or so months ago I joined some Alabama Writer's Guild or Group or Gathering or some type of what I undoubtedly initially perceived as a "Mutual Admiration Society"-type of thing. Well, it turned out to be a dud. Neither are they admiring anything nor are they being very mutual. I've gotten one monthly email from them - and unless I travel to Birmingham or Fairhope to go munch on a sandwich with them at the nearly ungodly hour of noon (factor in drive time)...well, I'm back to where I've always been...

...sit, sit, sit.

Then, the other day, flipping through the virtual pages of the Montgomery Advertiser's website, I happened upon something called the "National Novel Writing Month" - and lo and behold they're having a meeting in MY town and it's not at 8:00 a.m. It's not even noon. It's going to be at 6:30 - and that's p.m. That's "Post Meridiam"...or, as I refer to it: "Prime Morning".

I'm hoping I will find an "in town writing buddy" - and we can encourage each other to write. And I'm hoping it will last more than a month.

The reason I say that is because this event challenges you to write a novel in a month...hence that "November" in the title.

While I'm sure many novels were written in a month's time...I'm sure most weren't...and that's where MY encouragement and challenge goes out to my online writer friends who have much more potential than I think they imagine. And you know who you are -- Mark, Chris, Sully, Mike, etc., etc.

I'm asking if they will consider joining in with me...or at least checking out the website at www.nanowrimo.org -- to see what it's all about. Plus one day I really, really want to read your books. I want you to sign them and send them to me...and I want you to introduce me to your editor -- but...only after I introduce you to MINE. ;)

So, with notebook and pen in hand and no laptop in sight, I will venture this Tuesday to "Books-A-Million" where this kick-off meeting will be held...and...

...even though there's going to be coffee involved...no one's going to force me to drink it.

And with that, I just brought it back full "circle". ;)

What Would You Have Done?

2011-10-03T16:26:00.009-05:00

So, I'm on Facebook tonite...and coupled with the usual silliness and celebrity games/antics (yes, I am now a "friend" of people like Justin Bateman, Paul Rudd, James Franco [altho he did "unfriend" me], Bruce Willis and George Clooney) I ran across a most disturbing post this evening.

A person, let's just call her "Sandy Chatfield", had posted up something which a friend of mine (whom I never talk to - but, you know, everyone's a friend on Facebook) had commented to - which caught my attention. My friend commented "Please someone, go over to her house. Make sure she is ok."

This, naturally, caught my eye as it was scrolling by - and I decided to "click" on what transpired for her to say such a thing. Face it, we've all heard of people killing themselves online...and/or reaching out online for some type of intervention.

I took this as a sign from God...perhaps God wants me to intervene somehow - otherwise I probably wouldn't have seen it at the exact second it was scrolling past - but now I have...and I can't turn a blind eye to it. If this woman shows up dead tomorrow and the list of comments from people such as "I tried to call her and she's not answering...does anyone know her address?" goes nowhere and I'm somehow a cog that gets the gears rolling to stop this...well, I'm going to do what I can to make sure that happens.

With me still?

Anyway, I am not allowed to comment on her Facebook page because I'm not her "friend". So, either I sit and watch as time goes by and everyone isn't taking the action they should and this lady possibly dies...or I dive right in and get involved and say "at least I tried".

I decided to go with the "at least I tried" route. I won't have someone's death on my conscience...even IF I don't know that person.

I private message'd a few of the responders to her initial post...and for the record, no one has messaged me back..even tho it's been a few hours.

Now, bear in mind I'm sitting at home doing homely duties like making dinner and looking forward to a nice glass of wine...while this "plea for help" comes ticking across my otherwise mundane and stupid Facebook page.

Her message read as follows:

"Bye my friends!!! I am done with games etc,,,, about done with everything in life. So tired of trying so hard to get nowhere. It is time for a really long nap!....A very long one!! Love you my friends and angels on your pillows"

This is followed by a couple posts by her friends and then the following exchanges by her:

"so tired of everything honey!"

"Don't think I will wake up!"

Then absolute "radio" silence for an hour or so (and about 100 posts later) while her friends frantically try to call her, scurry around trying to find an address to go with a cell phone number, call the police to no avail, and plead with her to answer, when...finally, this woman comes back online and chortles, "Hey!!!! not trying to kill myself!!! feel like it but It is not my nature!!! Why is everyone thinking this>>>" and "What did I say that makes you think I would end y life???"

Her friends then try to justify their concerns while she is in total "huh...I don't get it" mode.

Then she proceeds to cuss out the person who sent the police around to her door as, according to her, they came by to make sure she was okay. This specific post of hers is now gone as she deleted it -- so I can't quote it verbatim...but it had the words "...to the person who called the police, **** YOU!!" -- or along those same general "grateful" lines.

All I can say is...if she were my friend and played this game...she wouldn't be my friend now. Talk about someone who is appreciative that someone cares, huh? And not just one person cared - but a whole slew of them. Hell, I'd be dead now waiting for Bruce Willis to respond back.

So, I'm wondering now if this was just a silly Facebook hoax she was playing...or if it was real...and if the players in the whole episode are real or if they were just part of some stupid larger scheme to see if someone would take it all seriously. I'm not going to waste any more of my time on someone who "cries wolf" on Facebook to illicit a response.

I wasted upwards of an hour on this woman trying to save her life. I was one step away from calling the Las Vegas police department on more than one occasion in that hour. I Googled, I found an address, I mailed that address to several of her "friends" who posted there, I stopped short of contacting a child she had listed as a family member to see if they could call to make sure she was alive. She basically put me through hell for an hour. Me...someone who will never know her...someone who cared enough to try to make a difference...for her and those around her who might actually care and love her.

I know the odds of this woman ever reading this blog is pretty much nil, but if, somehow, she does...I want to leave her with this thought: If this wasn't a sick game...choose your words much more carefully next time, and if it was...remember those choice words you deleted? I've got a couple for you, "...you, too".

(This was written last nite...but not posted until today.)

Wash What You Eat!

2011-09-25T11:34:00.006-05:00

Sorry for the radio silence...I was pondering all sorts of things again, one being that I didn't exactly want to do this blog right after the last blog - but I promised this one, so here it goes.

(Bear in mind this was partially written quite some time ago and it sat around in my notebook until now. There might be some anachronisms in it...but, they weren't back when I wrote it.)

I have to admit that I'm a bit of a glutton...not for punishment - but rather for certain food shows.

I'm also a bit like Howie Mandel (more of that in another blog...eventually) when it comes to germs. (If you have no idea about Howie's germaphobia and you are old enough to remember Howard Hughes' issue with germs...well, Howie is about one step away from him...and I'm a little off to the side of Howie...but not touching him.)

Now combine the two -- as you would, say, pepper and salt, only it comes out more like vinegar and oil. Metaphorically speaking, germs and kitchens, like vinegar and oil, simply don't mix well...or at least they shouldn't.

But, if you have your pulse on the idiosyncrasies of the cooking show nation as viewed through my eyes you just might see it from my point of view.

Case in point -- tune in to any episode of "Iron Chef", "Dinner: Impossible", "Chopped", etc., and focus on one thing: Washing.

Now I don't know about you, and I've been told I'm a bit whack in the "washing department"...but I wash EVERYTHING. Let me clarify that...as I don't wash everything I ingest...I just wash everything which grows. If it was once on a vine, branch, beneath the ground or rising up from it...well, it's going to get a bath before it goes into my gullet.

I don't care if you peel it and eat the insides or if you cook it after -- I'm washing it first. And I'll be using that fruit/vegetable spray to make sure all the residue of whatever I think is on it...comes off.

Hell, I even wash cans of soda and packages of cheese. Oh, yeah...I know...but, if that packaging ever touched or is going to "retouch" my food -- you can be certain I'm gonna wash it at some point before ingestion.

So, now that you a little of where I'm coming from...you might get a feel for where I'm going. Let's tune back in to the food shows, shall we?

The gist of these shows typically center around cooking food - but cooking it as quickly and as tasty as humanly possible. This might be a great idea...but it belies the obvious fact. How can you take all that food with the little twist ties intact and in its original state (if you've ever washed leeks you'll get what I'm saying here)...dump it on your cutting board and merrily start chopping away?

Look even closer (as I do...because I'm the food equivalent of a forensic patheticologist) and you'll notice those brightly coloured stickers...you know the ones on your apples and pears that you peel off BEFORE you wash them? Well, they don't. I guess they're some yummy secret ingredient because they leave them right on. Personally, I peel them off and then cut the area where they used to stick in case they used some cheap envelope glue to adhere them (the people who've watched Seinfeld will get that...the others...won't).

So, no wonder they can make a complete three-plus course dinner in no time flat. If I didn't have to wash anything, it'd go a lot faster, too.

And, amidst comments by the judges such as, "Did you wash these clams thoroughly...I noticed some grit in the salad." -- perhaps it's time to stop blaming the poor dead sea-thing and start chiding the chef who didn't rinse their radicchio.

Truth be told...the only person I've ever seen wash anything in the kitchen is Alton Brown of "Good Eats" fame...and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the worst offender is "Dinner: Impossible" host, Robert Irvine. With culinary antics such as these it's no wonder Chef Gordon Ramsay always has his knickers in a twist.

Now I know I'm never going to be asked to be a participant in any of these shows...and that suits me just fine because the odds of me having all my food washed before that thirty minute "fully prepared entree" cut-off buzzer sounds...is pretty much nil.

As for being a judge? Sure, the food looks fabulous and cooked by the cream of the culinary crop...but the occasional semi-cooked chicken and dirt-infused mushroom would leave more than a bad taste in this paranoid person's mouth.

(As of this posting I have seen a trend toward showing more chefs...those mentioned above included...wash their food and specifically chastise others for not washing theirs thoroughly. I guess I wasn't the only one who noticed. Kudos to them - I'd love to see it in every show.)

My Self-imposed Exile aka "Did anyone miss me even a little bit?"

2011-08-10T18:09:00.007-05:00

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players..."

Shakespeare wrote that line ages ago and it has been ages ago since I've written a blog.

I first figured I'd take a little break...you know, the collective juices in the mind of a wannbe writer pooling up in that place real writers know all too well about...and then that water just sat and stagnated...waiting for enough time to pass to dry it all up.

Instead of the writer of my destiny...I became one of the players...a has-been drama queen to be precise.

I lulled about the house sitting down each time to write a blog and then harkening back on the words of a couple of my friends and my two kids (my poor kids who have to read it no matter what) who mentioned they "didn't like" or "didn't think it was funny" or thought "it's too long...so I stopped after the first couple paragraphs" -- and then I backed away from the keyboard and had a private pity party with me being the guest of honour. I probably even toasted my self-imposed obscurity once or twice...or 30 or so times. With glass raised in ceremonial fashion, I'd utter some rot like, "Je reviens...something something French-sounding blah blah..." for impact. I was, after all, drinking wine or French-made "Grey Goose" vodka -- I had to keep the drama up.

And I took those critical comments like...well, like anyone would take any critic who makes or breaks a play, film, or restaurant. And then, like a chef in that panned restaurant...I put everything on the back burner and let it stew a while.

Oh, I'd get spurts of ideas and feelings -- "things to write" simmering inside of me...but, again, I'd push it to the back burner and the critics' words would come back out to haunt me..."I didn't like this one so much...".

I found out in the past month or so that I am my worst critic.

Instead of listening to the other people who said they enjoyed it...and people I would run into around town who would say "Hey, I always read your blog at the Montgomery Advertiser and I really like it" (they are the people I always have to quiz - and sure enough, I'll be damned, they DO read it)...I listened to the harshest voice I could: My own.

I "boo-hoo'd" around the house day and night...I'd start to write and then semi-storm off in a huff saying things like "Oh, who cares?" or "Why even bother?" under my breath. I figured I'd be like that aging movie star from the "golden era" who waits for the great come-back script...who waits for the calls from Hollywood to come in...who waits...and then fades away like the heroine in that final frame of the last flickering film she starred in.

I'd wait...I'd wait until people started asking why I'm not writing anymore.

I waited a while.

Those "calls" just weren't coming in...oh, one or two did...but not the maddening frenzy I was hoping for...so, I waited some more.

Then, I did what anyone would do given enough time and gaining enough courage: I asked those friends if I really was that horrible a writer. One said he was "just busting my chops" and the other stated he never said I wrote horribly...and why would I say I welcome "all comments" at my blog if I only wanted to hear the good ones?

Touché. Point taken...point processed...back on point.

And that point being: I am now going to step out of the limelight of that stage...and get back behind the curtain, writing, where I belong.

(If you're wondering about all those "chef" references interspersed with the "stage" ones...tune in next blog to find out why. Yes...this is my first "Tune in Next Time" promo/teaser tag. Does it work? Tune in next time to find out.)

What Gives?

2011-06-21T16:25:00.007-05:00

(I wrote this "article" 25 June 2010 for possible inclusion in the Montgomery Advertiser's printed edition. It never saw the light of day...but I decided to dig it out a year later because I think the story still needs to be told -- it IS a nice story about a nice person and I've always felt the media needed more such subject matter. But crime and controversy sells, so the bad gets the coveted first pages and good things are relegated to teeny-tiny columns hidden on the last few pages, or, unfortunately, as in this case...the trash bin.

I left this piece exactly as it was submitted...so please bear in mind I didn't alter it in any way -- facts and figures have undoubtedly changed since. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire process: finding an interesting subject to report on, interviewing, writing, etc., -- hopefully you will remotely enjoy reading it.)

The old adage "You get what you pay for" doesn't hold true for anyone who has reaped the benefits of Freecycle.org. You see, Freecycle.org doesn't sell anything whatsoever, but that doesn't necessarily mean you come away empty-handed. Every single day countless people across the nation are giving away or seeking things totally free of charge; and here in the Montgomery area, one of the most prolific "give-awayers" is Raymond Tyc.

And anyone who is a member of Freecycle knows of Ray as well. Ray, how should I say, can never be confused with any other Freecycler out there. Sure, there's been some who've tried to copy him, but they can't hold a candle to the master (even IF they got that candle for nada on Freecycle).

Most people who give away things on Freecycle tend to be matter of fact about it: OFFER: Refrigerator. Doesn't work. Must pick up.

But not Ray. He might be giving away the most insignificant item in the whole universe, but the story he conjures up regarding it (many times with his wife as the foil - a fact she is totally fine with), will make it look so good you couldn't possibly pass it by. And, truth be told, you'll look forward to the next thing he’s giving away, if only for the tale that's told. This man definitely has the gift of gab, which, I'm sure, we won't ever see up for grabs on Freecycle.

When I sat down to interview Ray at his house the other day, I had visions of a door opening, just wide enough to squeeze through, and being led by the hand across a knee-high strewn jungle of junk accumulated over someone's lifetime. But it was nothing like that...everything was neat as a pin and nothing piled up from floor to ceiling as far as I could see.

The obvious question to ask right out the gate was, "Why do you do this?" Certainly with the things he's given away over the course of two years (sofas, a dining table, cd players, tape players, T-shirts, a child's ride on-jeep, etc.) he could have amassed a tidy little profit; upwards of three-thousand dollar's worth by his own account "if you had to buy everything new". Ray responded, "Part of why I do it is just because it's fun, part of it's because I have no need for objects or material goods. I was a collector of things when I was young...I've moved on."

Unless it's a high-priced item, don't expect to see it on eBay. "It's just not worth packing and shipping it off, I'd rather give it away." His face just beamed; you could tell he really enjoys what he does.

The highest priced item he’s given away? “Either the chipper/shredder or the stereo system.” And, he confessed, about one-third of the things given away, he’s picked up from curbs. He “hates stuff being trashed” so he “picks it up and Freecycles it”.

He admits the first person who responds by email rarely gets the item, “Whoever strikes my fancy the most gets it; courtesy and appreciation wins over quickness.”

As far as gratitude goes, Ray states, “Only about ten percent of people ever send a ‘thank you’ email, but a lady who once claimed my 1968 Radio Flyer wagon even sent me a photo of it after she painted it green.”

While he might not get public accolades and the adoration of millions, I somehow get the feeling the 56 year-old retired USAF engineer will continue his charitable ways while also fascinating us with his witty stories for the long haul. "I'm a terrible salesman" he confesses to me, but I don't buy it at all.

And another thing I didn't have to buy, and true to his generous nature: I left his house with a shopping bag full of tomatoes and peppers straight from his beautiful garden. Whoever said "there’s no such thing as a free lunch" certainly never met Raymond Tyc.

The Freecycle Network is a nonprofit organization founded in May 2003 to promote waste reduction in Tucson, Arizona. It currently has over 3,500 community groups and millions of individual members in over 70 countries.

Spooning It On a Little Thick

2011-06-04T21:45:00.008-05:00

Behold the wonder that is the miraculous "multi-purpose" spoon:

Sure, it might look like an ordinary spoon to the common eye...but I sensed something was a bit special about this run-of-the-mill plastic beauty which made it anything but...run-of-the-mill.

But first, a little tie-in...

We went to the Georgia Aquarium the other day, which is a very nice aquarium; altho, for some reason I keep thinking the Baltimore Aquarium was nicer. But as we were strolling around from one exhibit to the other "Tropical Waters", "River Dwellers", "Cold Water Creatures", etc., we stopped for a drink in their cafeteria. And that's where I first spotted "it".

My first clue "it" was indeed going to be nothing like I had ever laid my eyes upon before -- was the labeling of the implement holders themselves. Keep in mind this place had a Starbucks...so it was pretty swanky, ya know. I say this for you doubters out there who think I might be exaggerating a bit or making this stuff up. I'm not.

The implement bins were labeled "Forks", "Knives" and, one would probably automatically think "Spoons" or even "Sporks" given their sheltered existence and the mere fact they couldn't point out an oyster fork from a bone marrow spoon even if their measly little pathetic lives depended upon it. The Georgia Aquarium holds balls...actual formal "Cinderella"-type ones...so these people aren't in the least uncivilized or uncultured.

Nay, spoons and sporks were not to be had at a place as grand as this. This place had "multi-purpose" spoons.

I absolutely kid you not. I checked on the Internet when I got home - and sure enough, they are indeed "multi-purpose". Of course, at the time, I was just in amazement as I reached to touch the magical "push down -- receive a dining implement of your choice" machine. Typically, I've only ever seen these reserved for usage of straws alone...so again, you can tell we aren't dealing with any old "reach on in and touch all the spoons with your grimy unwashed 'sea urchin/sting ray petting' fingers before you come to the one which tweaks your fancy" open bin holder.

This was an elegant establishment...there were no plain-Jane white plastic "silverware" to be had anywhere here. Black will always be the topmost when it comes to designer kitchens and couture dresses and such...after all, they wouldn't say "Beige is the 'New Black'" if it wasn't, right? Having the wherewithal to stick to this shocking and avant garde principle at the Aquarium -- they're proclaiming that "black is not only the new black...but the ONLY black" when it comes to your fine plastic dining pleasure.

So, when I wrapped my eager fingers around my onyx beauty...I knew I was in possession of something truly novel. It had to be...and the 'black on white laminated printed sticky label' they use to differentiate the various culinary items there certainly wouldn't mislead me.

I sat down, virtually mesmerized by my new acquisition. I gazed at it from all angles like Keanu Reeves did with his spoon in "The Matrix". Only there WAS a spoon...I knew it...and I had it.

I set about trying to fathom all the wondrous things this "Swiss Army Knife of Spoons" must be capable of doing. It didn't take me long to come up with a few.

-- You can use it as an actual spoon.

-- You can use the bowl to measure liquid things which are inside it.

-- You can use the bowl to measure dry things which are inside it.

-- You can put it upright and measure how many "spoons high" something is.

-- You can use it as a knife if you have very, very soft foods you really need to cut.

-- You could poke something with the remotely pointy end of it.

-- If I would have taken two...I probably would have been able to "play spoons" with it. Oh, the wondrous magical noises they would have generated, too. I'm smacking myself in the head (of course using my "multi-purpose" spoon to do so) for not getting a second spoon to find out how sublime the harmonics on these babies woulda been.

-- You can form nice dents in soft foods and things like Pla-Doh with it.

-- You can use it as a fork if you already have a fork which you then use to transfer what you just picked up with that fork...onto the bowl of the spoon.

-- You can use it to fling things at people - like a very tiny plastic trebuchet.

-- You can stir things with it - using either side. It's remarkable really when you think of it. You can also stir things with it using either end.

The possibilities are virtually almost limitless.

Eventually I had to put my spoon away and get up to see some stupid "Garden Eels" which hovered partway outside their holes until they sensed danger and then retreated back inside them...only to pop back out...and do it all again...a never ending display reminiscent of that "Whack-a-Mole" game. Then just a few displays over were some type of fish, which, when building their nests, would suck up a bunch of sand and shell debris into their mouths and then deposit it outside their little love abodes...making everything look as inviting as they could to capture the attention of the über-choosey lady fishes.

I smirked my little smirk as I saw them continually gather and spit, gather and spit, gather and spit...knowing full well if one of them could be trained on the usage of what I now held in my purse...the "multi-purpose" spoon...it would move that whole evolutionary business up a notch or two on some type of hierarchy food pyramid. Heaven knows, if it could catch on, what those animals might possibly come up with by the time I visited again.

But for now...nature as we know and like it...is safe. I have my "multi-purpose" spoon and good things are going to be coming my way now...I can feel them. And when they get here, I'll be prepared.

Perhaps I have finally found my one true purpose in life? I might be destined for even greater purposes...as I now can handle multi-purpose things...presumably well beyond the scope of others.

Yeah...I think I'm going to like having a multi-purpose in life.

Three Time's a Charm?

2011-05-14T19:39:00.007-05:00

After watching yet another episode of Chef Gordon Ramsay get flustered and cuss his way into acceptance on some "Kitchen Nightmares" show filmed in Philadelphia, it dawned on me how nearly everyone seems to be incorporating some British slang words into their boring American lexicon thereby seeming to be extremely interesting.

In fact, some news sources speculated there were more people in the USA watching Prince William and Kate Middleton get married a couple weeks ago than there were watchers in the UK. While wedding guests in Royal attendance queued up to get inside Westminster Abbey...donning outrageous hats and dowdy clothing...Facebook was abuzz with comments. But, some posters, who fly a different red, white and blue flag, flaired it up a bit with Brit.

Oh, we've all been guilty of doing it from time to time. Don't pretend you don't. Even "BBC America" is running an ad about Brit words and what they mean and how posh it is to use them.

Like that.

"Posh." C'mon, no one even used the word before that silly "Spice Girl" (you know the one who looks like a lollipop -- big head, stick body, married to Mr. Spice aka David Beckham) came about...unless you count Michael Caine.

It seems, nowadays, everyone uses words like "wonky" and "numpty"; it's only a matter of time before we use words like "brill" and "pressies".

I also love to make up words. I always have and I always will. I've written about my penchant for coining words...and I've done at least one blog about British words. Go "here" and "here" if you don't believe me. Below are a couple I made up years and years ago and pretty much use them on a daily basis...so much so that I'm almost convinced they're real.

Scubby: (adj.) Unkempt looking. "Will you please shave...you're looking really scubby."

Slurb: (noun; verb) When a cat smooshes their face up against you and leaves that kinda wet scent they mark their territory with. (Said to my cats:) "Ewwww...stop putting your slurb on me!" "Stop getting me all slurby."

Scrolly Guide: (noun) The thing on your television which you view to see what is on television. "Let me look on the scrolly guide to see what's coming on at 8:00."

Why most of my words start with an "S" is anyone's guess.

So just for the heck of it I attempted to make up my own British-sounding words...and, it seems some actually might exist in some capacity. Case in point: Apparently adding "tw" to any word makes it instantly "Twitter-worthy" but since I don't "Tweet" I didn't know this...and I believe 99% of everything Tweeted is pretty much complete "twarbage" anyway.

This made me wonder if there are really any words out there which haven't been tried in some form already. I honestly believe there are people out there randomly syllablizing every single sound, combining it with another, and then popping it online to get some type of notoriety. So, I decided to jump on the proverbial bandwagon as well before it's too late.

And might I add..."'BBC America'...are you listening??"

Jilly-nubber: (noun) A female pleasuring device similar to a French Tickler only derisively British. "At her Hen Party, Kate Middleton received not one...but four Jilly-nubbers - two from her sister, Pippa!"

Twollocks: (noun) Insert gratuitous "bollocks" comment here...only do it twice.

Harrodsment: (noun) When the staff of a posh store constantly harass someone by following them around condescendingly asking if they need any help finding "something". "Each time we go into any bleedin' posh boutique just to have a look around, the Harrodsment always starts up."

I'm half-thinking of starting up a "British Word of the Day" blog. The gist of it would be that I watch "BBC America" and then blog about a word I haven't a clue about (existence and/or usage)...and then attempt to use it incessantly in a senseless blog.

After all, I am pretty much half-thinking senselessly most of the time anyway.

My blog was going to end with that sentence above...but, here's an update:

In fact I was so inspired by my newest endeavour that I created a THIRD blog! It is called "Brit Word of the Day"...and is found if you click that highlighted link right above.

Join and comment. Have fun. That's all I ask. Let me know what you think of the layout, the colour scheme, the positioning of things and so forth - and please comment there about it so I know where all the comments are. If you don't like something let me know...it's the only way I'll know something. I'm not the greatest technical person in the world - but I can figure out some things. But if you don't voice your likes and dislikes, I'll never know. :)

Thinking Out the Box

2011-05-09T07:59:00.027-05:00

I have been known, on more than one occasion, to have a drink or two...or suck down my Ambien and then start (or attempt) to write.

I've written emails, I've commented at news sites, I've written...and posted blogs I had no real recollection of typing in the first place. The lack of comprehension of the material I've purported to have some remote grasp on is astounding -- and my stream of consciousness when I'm barely conscious is, to me, utterly amazing.

This, of course, never stops me as I do it again and again.

What can I say...I love to write.

Once in a while I'll notice a typo AFTER the fact. That's totally logical -- as alcohol and Ambien, even with the best intention -- and relying on the "spell check" button, doesn't catch everything; especially if you use a word that exists but you put it in the wrong place. This is where re-reading something (out loud if possible) comes in handy. Usually if you re-read something...and do it sober...chances are you will catch things. Not all times. Most times.

I've written to fellow bloggers, privately, about having typos at their blogs...I've even written to big-time reporters at big-time newspapers, and they've always thanked me for doing so. One thing a writer dislikes more than someone catching their obvious (or not so obvious) typo...is making one and not seeing it...and finding out about it later after others have undoubtedly read it countless times.

The point I'm trying to make here is that we are all human and to err is human...to re-read divine.

I always get a kick out of it when someone who is trying to be "oh so knowledgeable" hits that "submit" button on a news story comment before realizing they are a complete and utter idiot. Or, a more likely scenario, having that fact pointed out, over and over again, by numerous people. While we all make silly typos once in a while - it's another thing altogether (or is it "all together") to mouth off and basically stick your foot IN your mouth...especially when you can't edit after.

And if that isn't enough fun...we have people who are placed in positions of power...even if that power is indeed transient or limited...who attempt to make a cohesive sentence and fail miserably. These people are typically referred to as "copy editors".

Okay, okay...while I admit that last statement was a true statement more times than not...it's not what I'm talking about specifically this time. What I'm talking about is an email which was sent to my friend in Texas after he complained about a food order at "Church's Chicken". I haven't changed anything other than the name, address and telephone number. This way, just in case the person somehow reads this, he/she won't go over to my friend's house and stab him to death. I'd hate to have that on my conscience...plus who would I talk to on the phone about people who can't write their way out of a paper bag...or, in this case "out the box"...to save their lives?

Keep in mind this was written by the Regional General Manager...in a state that may or may not be Texas. (Hey, I seriously don't want my friend killed.) This email has also kept both of us entertained for over three years now...

Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2008, 9:08 AM

My name is Bob Smith RGM with Churchs Chicken on Main Street. I'm so sorry to here, 12min was the wait time before you receiving your order. As well as the sauce from the wings was leaking out the box. Your comments will be address with the Restaurant team and staff. I would like to offer you a free complimentary 12 Boneless Wings reg frie and drink for your delay. Thank you for taking the time on letting us know how to better serve you. Please feel free to contact me at 555-4567

Thank You

Bob Smith

Sometimes you just gotta wonder what some people were thinking...and IF thinking was even involved at all.

What can I say...Church's Chicken...gotta love it! ;)

Remote-ly Interesting

2011-04-30T23:29:00.009-05:00

My son always wants me to play video games with him...but I cannot.

You see, my "video game expertise" ended with Space Invaders" and "Asteroids"...all played on the Atari game system...many, many, many years ago. The Atari system had a controller which consisted of a little toggle joystick and one button off to the side of it. I believe it was red.

The controller my son has for his Playstation 2 and Wii, etc., etc., have about a hundred buttons...and sometimes the controllers vibrate. I'm not too sure for whose pleasure (certainly not mine)...but...they do.

I just went into my son's room and asked to see one of his "more complicated" controllers. Of course, as is customary by him, he retorted, "You mean anything more complicated than Atari??" He knows all too well my gaming skills died about the same time Ms. Pac-Man came out. The Atari and all the games (you know, Skiing, Pong, and Breakout) I had were eventually relegated to the attic and that was that.

This controller by Sony, has four keys on the left, then...on the right, four more keys with circles, squares, and other geometric shapes I haven't seen since Geometry class in 1975. Kind of around and below this layout are a few other miscellaneous switches, and a couple toggle thingies up as well to occupy your "second set of thumbs" apparently. If that wasn't confusing enough, it has two sets of two buttons which might be controlled by your index and middle fingers...or, sadly, in my case, just pressed randomly along with all the others.

I am, for lack of a better term, a "complete dork" when it comes to trying to play anything with this. ANYTHING. I also have no clue how to play any game even IF these controllers were to be simplified (extremely simplified). It's always "Jump through hoops, spin around, put your left foot in, take your left foot out, grab the cherry...don't touch the mushrooms...fly through the air at warp speed and pick a bale of cotton. Jump up, spin around, pick a bale of hey...what the heck am I DOING???

I have no clue. A small monkey on acid would get a better score. And that's not even taking into consideration the aneurysm I'm sure to get because there are more lights flashing than at a 1970s disco.

But what does all this have to do with anything?

I'll tell you...

My TiVo died a couple months ago. My first tier TiVo (get prepared for this - I tell everyone) that I won at an AOL Dennis Miller NFL Rant Contest with my one and only entry. Week 6 to be exact. I loved that silly machine. I didn't realize how much my life changed in about ten years of owning that stupid thing. It made holding your bladder until a commercial a thing of the past. It made dinner possible. It made not hearing what someone said the first time...an archaic annoyance. In essence...the little magical box was indeed my mini Pandora. Once I opened it up...I could never get all I was now accustomed to - to go back inside. Once I tasted of the forbidden fruit of technology...I was a giddy drunk. When it died...I went into withdrawal.

I am ashamed to have become so reliant on something so incredibly unnecessary...especially when others have dealt with so much more horrific things lately than their damned TiVo dying.

But I couldn't deal with the cold chicken in the fridge and the cold chicken from my TiVo withdrawal - so I called up the cable company to inquire about adding a DVR. Two days later...just in time to watch (and pause and rewatch) the live broadcast of Prince William and Kate's heavily replayed nuptials, I had one installed. Thousands without cable all around me, but since I was in the queue before the bad weather, mine was installed without any pomp or circumstance.

It also was installed without any written or verbal instructions. I basically had a Playstation 2 installed to replace my Atari...and I was all thumbs.

The dinosaur TiVo I had...was easy. It had an easy to follow remote...with prompts and words on the screen and you couldn't do anything without it asking "Are you absolutely SURE you want to do THIS???" This was now some mutant alien replicant...and I was awoken to the 21st century after being frozen since the late 1900s.

I am able, so the literature tells me...to be able to record two shows whilst watching a recorded third. Able to switch between two shows and watch them both by swapping between them. Able to even watch things I haven't seen back in time to an hour ago...but, for the life of me, after having done it once and being amazed...I have not been able to replicate it again.

I believe I recorded a show last nite. I believe I can probably figure out how to get to it...but other than that...I am clueless.

But I wasn't as clueless as the guy who installed it as he told me my ten year old remote would "still work with it" as it was "universal". Keep in mind this is my ten year old remote which made a plasticy-tinkly noise when shaken. This exact same remote, which, when I took it up to the cable company after the wedding ceremony...was promptly and ceremoniously tossed in a drawer and replaced by something...most regal.

But prior to this "changing of the remote" , I sat, almost as wooden as the Queen's Guards, when I watched the "Royal Wedding" a few hours earlier -- afraid to click a button lest I push something I couldn't "undo" - all the while in possession of this mismatched remote.

I sat, and literally "played" Playstation 2 with an Atari controller while watching the grandeur on TV...and it made me think...

The last time I played my Atari...about 1981. The last time I watched a "Royal Wedding"...1981.

Time goes by so fast. It's almost like I'm sitting here on a sofa fast-forwarding through my...and others' lives.

I'm still baffled by it all...how so much can change from one generation to another...how fast things (and people) grow and become so outdated...and how fast things are obsolete and don't work anymore in a world you once thought you knew. A world that was once so new. And then you realize that no one should be expected to be content to live life with a wonky remote.

And with anyone's life...just like trying to navigate blindly around with a new DVR and remote, there's just so many combinations of things that can go right...and so many that can go wrong...

...but without pushing a few buttons...you'll never ever know.

(Okay...on a different note...does ANYONE out there know how to work a CLIKR-5 remote? No online instructions...nothing on-screen like a TiVo had. I'm so incredibly lost - I'm pushing buttons at random like on my son's video controller. I'm so lost. Sometimes things work...and other times...nope. And I don't remember the "combination" of things I did...to get it to do it again - or not do it again. I can't find anything online which is remotely (yeah, ha ha) helpful, either.)

Prom...iscuous?

2011-04-25T21:39:00.010-05:00

I'm sitting here watching the film "Enchanted" on The Disney Channel and there's this commercial that comes on talking about high school proms. And how people wait four years for it to happen and only three people enjoy it and blah blah (I stopped listening at this point) and then this one girl comes on and says something like, "C'mon...when do you ever get to ride in a limo...that's something you remember your entire life!"

So...I thought about my prom. I didn't go to my prom, per se...but I did go with my boyfriend at the time to his senior prom...when I was a junior.

I sat and I sat and I tried to remember if I rode in a limo or not. For the life of me I can't remember what we rode in...I don't even remember much of the prom. And it's not because I have a bad memory. Seriously, I have bowel movements which have been more memorable. How incredibly sad is that?

I remember who I went with...and I remember (sorta) who I went home with. I didn't go home with the same guy. How even more incredibly sad is that? Boy...I must have been a jerk...perhaps I just blocked the whole sordid thing out of my mind. Who knows. All I know is I went to the prom with one guy...got into an argument with my date...danced with another guy...and came home with him. Did he go to the prom alone? What happened to the guy I went with? Did he go home alone? Did he end up going home with the guy's date? Most people don't buy one ticket to the prom...and now I'm actually wondering.

All I know is that there were no "detours" on the way home. Nothing worthy of any circa 1980s "coming of age" teen movies. Nothing "Porky's-ish". Nothing "Revenge of the Nerds-ish". I've never seen "Pretty In Pink" but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was nothing like that, either.

But I do remember every single guy thinking he was "going to get lucky" after the prom. Some rode on down to the shore (the very same Jersey shore on the show) and rented hotel rooms. And I always thought "How could anyone's parents be 'okay' with that?" Furthermore, how did that conversation take place?

"Hey, Mom, Kevin asked me to the prom!"

"That's terrific, honey! Have you guys thought of a really good place to go to 'do it' afterwards?"

"What, Mom?"

"You know...it's an unwritten law...you get taken to the prom...you have to 'put out'. (Insert little knowing laugh here.) You didn't know that?? That's how we got YOU!"

"Oh, Mom...that's wayyyyy TMI."

"What's TMI, honey? 'The Mating Instinct'? Because if that's what it is...yeah...your father and I really went at it like 'bunnies in an Animal Planet documentary' when we spent the nite at this seedy little motel in Seaside..."

"Ewwwwwwwwwww...Mom...seriously...wayyyyy TMI!"

"Yeah...that's EXACTLY what I told your father after the THIRD time..."

"MOM! Seriously...that's disgusting. How can I EVER have a good time at the prom NOW?? All I'll be thinking about is...ewwwwwwwwwww...you and DAD! Ewwwwwwwwww!"

"Yeah...okay honey...you just keep remembering that...especially AFTERWARDS." (Insert evil grin here.)

Well...my daughter's not going to the prom this year...but I'm sure I'll "remember" something "really special" to pass along to her to make her enchanted event even more memorable when it rolls around. ;)

Scaling Literary Heights and Other Fairy Stories

2011-04-14T17:56:00.006-05:00

My totally elegant Soehnle scale.

I just weighed myself and I gained weight. I know I did as I have a swanky scale from one of those Norwegian, Swiss, Swedish or other such Norse-type land where they're typically renown for growing beautiful, lithe women whose skin glows with the dewy innocence of one of those ethereal fairies in that "faked fairy photographs" hoax perpetrated by two little English girls. Those sweet little "innocent" girls, along with the "prim and proper" British doctor who snapped the infamous, but equally fabricated, Loch Ness Monster photograph...admitted years afterwards they duped unsuspecting people whose only fault in life was hoping too much for magical, wondrous things.

Whilst innocence lost is a sad, sad thing...weight loss is another thing altogether.

Anyway, my nifty scale lets me know how much I weigh, how much body fat I have, how much water's in my feet (I guess - as that's the only part that goes ON the scale), and how much muscle I have. It does this all in a couple minutes...going to a doctor to ascertain all this would take hours...and then you'd have to wait for the test results they never tell you about unless they were bad...or they forgot...or they said they called but they didn't as you have caller ID and you know damned well they didn't call at all and "just didn't leave a message" because you weren't there to have it delivered personally.

So, I now weigh a whopping 110.8 pounds.

I can hear that collective sigh of contempt mixed with hatred clear across the Internet here. "One-hundred ten pounds??? Are you insane??? I WISH I weighed 110 pounds!"

But, you don't see my plight. Oh, yeah, I have one. Listen...

...I lost about 15 pounds here in the past year. Of course it comes straight off the boobs...but even without that bit of "too much info" - a person who is tiny to start with doesn't have a lot of room to lose weight. When I got down to about 107 I started to worry...when I got down to 105 I started to freak.

When you weigh a bunch, losing a pound or two or five or ten doesn't necessarily cause a sense of panic... I'm sure it's more like a feeling of elation. When you weigh 107 or 105 you wonder "Just how much more weight CAN I lose before I really have to worry about it?"

So, when I stepped on the scale just now and saw I was almost...almost 111...I felt really good.

You see I've never had to exercise. Never had to jazzercise, never had to aerobocise, yogacise or Tae-Bocise. In fact the only "cise" I do where I think I'm any good at...is criticize.

That I do extremely well. And you can lose a lot of weight doing it...especially if you "worrycise" at the same time.

Mostly I'm critical of my own self...but when I, as a wannabe writer, get a whiff of another "writer's" work, especially when I could have possibly done that work and done that work a LOT better (or at least "quite a bit" better) - I go into criticize mode.

Anyone who fancies themselves a writer knows exactly what I mean. You never read a news article as "just a news article" - you read it as a news article with an inordinate amount of grammatical mistakes. You read all comments below these articles and inwardly complain to yourself, "People who really want to be taken seriously should at LEAST know how to SPELL correctly!" You peruse the book aisles in any massive book store and continually balk and roll your eyes and say extremely naughty words under your breath. You can't conceive of anyone actually making money on something you'd have been embarrassed to show your own mother when you were in third grade...but there they all are, as bright as day. Or day to any vampire who could attest to it in any of those 20,092 books they're selling there that has a vampire as a protagonist or an antagonist or a misogynist. All I know -- is the gist of it...is nearly pure crap...as I could surely do better...

...you know, if I actually tried...or knew someone...or lowered my standards enough.

So, after all my criticism is eventually vented out and all is said and done and I finally drift off to la-la-land in my Ambien-induced coma...I'm hoping the only thing I don't lower, other than my perceived high and mighty literary standards...

...is my weight.

And, I do believe in fairies...I do believe...just like I do believe I'll be a real writer one day.

(Thanks again to my friend, Phil, for planting that "cise" seed in my brain and egging me on to write this after listening to me vent...for the umpteen-millionth time.)

Of Facebook and Other Wonky...er...Wonka Things

2011-04-03T19:55:00.013-05:00

Okay, I, against my better judgment and immense personal dislike of it...have succumbed to hanging out a bit on Facebook.

No, I haven't joined any "Mafia Wars" or "Vampire Covens" or whatever they call them. I don't grow virtual vegetables and I don't ask people to give me any sheep.

What I do is type things in my "status" line like "I'm having a chocolate truffle!" or "I wish onion rings grew on trees." - and people reply back.

Oh, sure, I reply back to their nonsensical posts as well...but it passes the time in what is a less than ordinary life...and the mere fact that people will reply back to my doing the laundry or smelling around for that "weird smell in my house I can't find" - makes me happy.

It makes me happy that people also have less than ordinary lives, too...and that we aren't all getting showed with flowers and wined and dined at the most ritzy restaurants. We aren't all jetting off for private showings at the Louvre...and I don't even know if there are such things, but I'll never get one, so I'm not that curious to Google to see if they do indeed...do such things.

But there's one thing which boggles my mind even more than people who are willing to reply back to my mundane antics...and that's the weird stuff that pops up on the right side-bar each time I go there. I copy/pasted a few below (and didn't alter anything)...and commented accordingly, not always according to what people think is correct...but c'mon, you know we're all secretly thinking them if we're totally honest here.

Here goes:

"Racheal Ray Lost 18 lbs"

rachaelrayshow.com

She cut down a significant amount of stomach fat by following these 2 old diet tips.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Rachael Ray likes to eat. She's also a little porky...and her fingers look like sausages about to burst out of their casings...but they're probably tasty, so I'm not faulting her. Rachael could probably lose 18 pounds just by skipping two meals. Oh, c'mon, it's true. Did you ever see the amount of food she puts down her gullet in that show on the Food Channel where she goes eating in restaurants all over the world? She's always saying how cheap these places are...but they're not that cheap if you order one of everything on the menu that's under $10. And those "2 old diet tips" they mention? One is "NOT EATING" and the other is "EXERCISE". There's no other magical way than those other than getting your stomach downsized or being extremely depressed.

Remember that old "Grapefruit Diet" from years ago. Why it worked is because no one can eat more than two grapefruits at any one sitting. No one in recorded history has ever bought more than two at any one time...ever -- that's why there's always a surplus of them at the store. Look around - all the plums and apples are gone and there are three oranges left, but there's like half a truckload of grapefruit all nicely stacked like there are "secret grapefruit fairies" on the ready - replacing one each time one is removed. But there aren't "secret grapefruit fairies" - plus you can't stick more than two in that plastic bag anyway -- and no one's going to expend the energy to walk back over there to grab another baggie in order to buy that third one.

Bucket List

groupon.com

365 Things to do in Montgomery before you die.

First off...I refuse ever to use the word "groupon". I won't use "staycation" and I won't use "interrobang". If you don't know what an "interrobang" is...good. You shouldn't. There's no earthly reason why anyone should. It's stupid and whoever coined the name should be taken out behind the woodshed, stripped naked, covered with honey and left for the ants to get. But only after their photo is distributed across the Internet with a "WTF?!" caption Photoshopped on it.

Secondly, there aren't 365 things to DO in Montgomery...and if there were I wouldn't want to do them all. I certainly don't want to die here...so at the very most I'd do 364 and stop. I'm not stupid.

And, if I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure I saw Rachael Ray eat what that guy's eating in that above photo on one of those shows of hers. She also washed it down with some Portuguese Kale Soup afterwards.

Faithful Women Wanted

seniorpeoplemeet.com

Single Men on Senior People Meet are complaining there are not enough women registered.They need female attention now.

Okay...so they know I'm old because I have my age listed somewhere online - but to assume I just want to meet some "senior" guy is a bit premature on their part, isn't it? I mean maybe I'm a "cougar" - and then again maybe I'm a "cougar who's NOT faithful". Again with the assuming on their part. And then that "...need female attention now" bit sounds a little too much like a horny Veruca Salt from that Willy Wonka movie if you ask me. "I want female attention from an Oompa Loompa, NOW, Daddy!"

Okay, that didn't come out right...but you get the idea.

I think.

Okay, I really have to hurry up and end this blog...so I can post this blog...so I can get back on Facebook to let everyone know. "Everyone" being my 268 friends I've never met...but who are anxiously waiting for me to say something.

I think.

Esmerelda and the Area Known as 51 (Part 1)

2011-03-24T20:18:00.004-05:00

It was just about dusk as Esmerelda sat behind the counter filing her nails at the only gas station in Goldfield, Nevada.

She had sat behind that counter every day, or near about every day, since her daddy got taken ill with a raging fever that ended up taking his breath away. Momma prayed hard that day and asked Esmerelda, "Sing with your angel voice, child, sing so the angels can hear and come straight to your daddy to 'take him home'."

Esmerelda obliged.

She was just a girl of about seven...but her voice could make grown men weep - and when the town, once a boom town for gold, started to get deserted, grown men wept for other reasons. Esmerelda didn't really understand where "home" was. She just knew when people got bit real bad by snakes or had the consumption, they always went "home" and then no one ever saw them again. They parceled you up real good, too. Put you in a big wooden box to send you there. She figured a special postman with a big wagon and two horses came to take you back "home" and your family would walk as far as they could and then came back again...crying.

But no one came back once they went home. And for a very long time Esmerelda was afraid to ever go home, but as she never lived anywhere else, she figured she was already there. Then, as all things go, time passed and she understood about "home" and then was worried her momma would go there one day. Sometimes she'd find herself doing chores 'round the house and her sweet voice would pour out like liquid sunshine and kiss the ears of everyone within earshot. Then she'd clam up and run outside as far and as fast as she could. She didn't want those angels to find her momma.

But now she was filing her nails and Curtis was in the garage of the gas station shouting obscenities each time he'd smash a finger. Curtis worked at the little grocery store and service station that was smack on the edge of town. Smack on the edge of town to nowhere really. Wasn't anything much before or after the town and certainly wasn't much there. The only thing within miles was Las Vegas and the only time people came through Goldfield anymore was because they heard it once had gold...but that was a considerable time ago, but that never stopped the passers-by who lost everything but gas money out of Vegas. Goldfield was a tank of gas away...and if they got lucky and found the stray nugget, it was a tank of gas back. And the only place to get that gas was at Esmerelda's daddy's store, "Old Bob Perkins' Place" it was called by the locals and that's what it will always be called if Esmerelda and her momma had anything to do with it.

It didn't cost much to run and Curtis got paid only when he fixed something, which wasn't very often, but then again, Curtis was never going to amount to much anyway...but that never stopped him from trying to hit on Esmerelda.

He had it all worked out in his simple head. He'd marry Esmerelda when the time was right and that time would be any day now seeing as she was starting to fill out her dresses too much and started wearing her momma's. Then he and Esmerelda would move in with his momma as she had the biggest house for miles around. Curtis never knew why she did, he only knew they didn't want for anything...but he never much wanted for anything anyway...anything but Esmerelda, that is. And that "wanting" wasn't exactly like wanting a new tire or wanting a new pair of shoes -- it was more like wanting some dinner...only sometimes this hunger seemed a lot deeper. Curtis, again, never really knew why.

But Esmerelda's hunger and desire didn't lie with Curtis...she wanted to go to Hollywood...or at least Vegas. She liked the distinct smell of ozone once when daddy took the family on a trip up there shortly before he died. Once in a while, on a warm still night, Esmerelda swore she could still catch a whiff of it if the breeze was blowing just right and if she turned her head just so.

Esmerelda knew she didn't have much time, either. The desert sun can blanch the bones of a dead thing white in a couple days...and the supple, taut skin of a young girl of 15 turns into something hard and leathery like the cowboys and Mexicans wore in those "shoot 'em up" movies she wanted to star in. Star in them right up there on the silver screen with Gary Cooper or John Wayne. Even though Esmerelda only went to a movie once, she knew that's what she wanted to do...she also knew, aside from "going home", that was her only ticket out of Goldfield.

And the best way to get there was on a tank of gas after someone found a big enough nugget.

So, each day she came to work dressed in her momma's best clothes, her hair styled as closely as she could get it to resemble the latest "starlet of the month" on the magazine cover and smelling of something called "L'amore de Parisienne". It cost a whole fifty cents...the finest her daddy's store carried. And there she would wait, filing her nails, anticipating that one day, and one day soon, a big Hollywood director would need a fill-up on his way scouting around for a new place to shoot a film...discover her in all her momma's Sunday finest...and sweep her away to the place where dreams can be made real...or at least as close to the reality she always dreamt about.

Each day, she'd walk home more disappointed than the last...and the days she spent waiting turned into weeks, then months, and finally years. Curtis had filled out enough to become interesting to her...and as he was the only boy close her age for miles, his dream was beginning to look like it would be her dream as well.

(End of Part 1)

A Totally Cheesy Story

2011-03-13T00:26:00.007-06:00

I've been challenged to write a couple blogs. One being about an incident in my youth involving a mall, a rugby player and fake English accents...and another where I take two totally unrelated words/ideas and then link them up together in a slightly amusing story...rather what I tried to do when I did my "Potato Farmers" blog located here: http://mariannsimms.blogspot.com/2009/08/potato-farmers-new-vampires.html

And while I am always up to a challenge...especially when it comes to writing...I couldn't help but post up a photo before I eat all the evidence.

Normally I am not a big Cheetos fan, but my son was running off at the mouth the other day about how gross Cheetos were...yadda yadda yadda...and before I knew it I was at the store determined to buy a bag, open it up, smash a few on my chest and literally lie back...in wait...for my son to finally stop his game long enough in his room to come out and see me. This, I figured, would really get him annoyed, and honestly, what joy does a woman of my age (with a 23-year-old son who stays locked away behind a door sitting on his butt playing video games all day) really have anymore?

Yeah, exactly...

...so there I was in the Cheetos aisle.

I wasn't too fond of the crunchy ones as they don't have that nice air-puffed, melt-in-your mouth feel to them. The white cheddar (I'm assuming...I didn't stare at the bag long enough) Cheetos just didn't seem right...plus the tell-tale orange-y powder that gets on everything would lose its impact if it were a pale yellow...and the word "NATURAL" on any bag of Cheetos...well, didn't seem...natural to me.

Then I spied them...the puffy kind, but with a twist. Literally, a twist:

So, I grabbed my bag, along with one-hundred fifteen dollars worth of other stuff you typically buy when you shop hungry, and I left the store...with visions of pissing off my son dancing in my head. Yeah, I was smiling from ear to ear.

I came home and tasked him with putting away the groceries. I mean, he sits all day and eats my food, the least he can do is put it away while I go and turn on my computer to check my mail and begin to sit on my butt the rest of the day.

And just as I envisioned it, I heard it: "Why'd you get these? Oh, these are blah blah blah..."

My purpose fulfilled, I decided to uncork my brand new bottle of Grey Goose vodka (yes, it has a cork) and make myself a yummy Martini. I hadn't had one for a few weeks and this type of elation called for a celebration. Okay, emptying the cat litter-box would have been just cause to make a Martini...but you know, for purposes of this story, it was all about the Cheetos.

So, I poured my liquid luxury into my sleek Waterford "Connoisseur Gold" Martini glass and topped it off with a nice lemon twist. My olives were banished inside the refrigerator because I didn't hear them "pop" sufficiently. (One day I will do my anal food blog, I swear. Hmmm...that didn't sound quite right.)

Then I proceeded to check my mail some more and go on Facebook (something I hadn't really done other than to promote my blog...which never worked on Facebook before but that still didn't stop me from trying). and this time actually try to come up with a witty "status" line. Undoubtedly going on Facebook when it's not 3:00 a.m. has its perks -- as people are actually ON it. I commented - and, lo and behold, people answered back. I was amused for a while until the Martini was gone.

I, being the sort who believes all beverages look better in a fancy glass (packaging is almost everything after all), decided to pop open (and I listened and it made the "thwuck" noise) one of my daughter's Gatorades - the "Cool Blue" flavour. Personally, I would think the lemon-lime or the red kind is tastier than the blue, but she likes the blue, so that's the kind we get.

The "Cool Blue" hue looks startlingly like the shade of blue that Hpnotiq (the alcoholic beverage) stuff comes in...and whenever I pour it into my Martini glass I always think of it. That's really the only time I do think of it as I'm not particularly fond of Hpnotiq...altho I had to try it once as it was a very pretty blue colour and the bottle was kinda cool looking. Yeah...again, the packaging is often times much better than the contents.

I stared at my mock alcoholic drink and saw the lifeless lemon twist at the bottom beginning to suck up the colouring like those limp, lifeless celery stalks in those 5th grade "Science Projects" with the glasses of food dye. It was turning an unhealthy shade of "blellow". It was pretty obnoxious. I sat and looked at it some more. "The only thing" I thought, "which would look more gross...would be if something orange was up against the blue."

Then I had a "Eureeka!" moment: The spiral shape of the Cheetos twisty things might actually be able to be perched upon my Martini glass like a makeshift bar garnishment.

These are the things 3:00 a.m. in my world are made of.

Yes, I know...you are all jealous you don't lead the type of life I do...the type of life you can only dream about. Yes, those dreams are usually called "nightmares"...but they are still dreams nonetheless.

So, I present to you...without further ado...with staging...without the Hpnotiq bottle (but shown separately)...my idea of the most unappealing drink known to mankind:

(Behold..."The Cheesy Martini")

Now, who's up for a refill?

A Clash of the Titans Is Brewing Like Oolong Tea

2011-03-11T06:51:00.007-06:00

Damn, there are some ugly people in this world.

Too harsh? Well, let me start again...

...sing with me...

"Radio killed the video star..."

Too obscure? Well, for those of you without one of those minds that stores up all trivia regardless of how, well, trivial...here's an explanation:

If you are old like me...and I'm, um...not only old enough to remember the days MTV played music, but the day they debuted. And the first song - sorry, correction...the first music video MTV ever played?

"Video Killed the Radio Star" by "The Buggles": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiJ9AnNz47Y

Yeah...but what's that got to do with the price of tea in China or ugly people, Mariann??

Well, let me tell you.

I was on Facebook today. Yeah, I know...I hate the place...but I was just curious as to what inane stupid comments were "Thumbed Up" today by people who I "friended" but haven't a clue who they are. I tell ya...I can single-handedly kill a thread just by posting on it. "Oh, look, Mariann posted...say no more...say no more."

While that is kinda an awesome superhuman power to behold, it certainly doesn't bode well when I'm trying to get people to comment after something I say. Consequently, people never post after I post something up as my "status". Apparently I must not mention "my cat", "Vampires", or "I'm running out for a Big Gulp and a bag of chips -- brb" much, if ever; so I don't get those comments I so desperately crave.

But, perhaps NOW I'll get them?

One of the "friends" I have, posted some stuff I would have easily otherwise overlooked...but this one caught my eye as it had the words, "brb, I have to go back on the air..." and then a phone number and then a link. It was the phone number which initially caught my eye, as I was thinking, "Who the heck is stupid enough to actually post their phone number for all the collective nimrods at Facebook to see?" But then I read the other stuff, and, untrue to my nature, I clicked a Facebook link.

Now, I ordinarily would never click a link I found on Facebook. First off I am very wary of links in general. Secondly, it's Facebook. I don't know 98% of the people I "friended"...I only "friended" them hoping they'd read my blog and comment afterwards.

Okay, the cat's outta the bag. Hmmmm...now there's a "Facebook status" line I'll have to use in the future as it does mention "cat"...hmmmm...maybe I'll get a comment!

But, while I'm digressing and I'm rather sick of using the word "digress" (or all forms of it) as an obvious segue to the next thought I just can't tie together with the first, it'll have to do.

I clicked that link and I saw.

I saw what I can only describe as the new vast wasteland laid bare before me. Picture if you will -- the wide screen version of "Lawrence of Arabia" - how the desert is encompassing the entire screen. Why there's literally sand from here to there and Peter O'Toole is just a tiny speck among them.

Yes, Peter O'Toole in his youth and at his incredibly insanely gorgeousness period. Even Noel Coward supposedly said on seeing the film's premiere, "If he'd [O'Toole] been any prettier, they'd have had to call it 'Florence of Arabia'."

But, just as the sands of time dwarfed O'Toole's cinematic majestic beauty...perhaps this new venue will dwarf another?

This "vast wasteland" I'm speaking of is http://www.blogtalkradio.com . Yes, you too, in the privacy of your own home, equipped with only a telephone and a desire to talk to and listen to a bunch of people who have even less of a life than previously thought (Hey, they managed to find YOU, didn't they?)--can be the host of your very own talk show, live, streaming across the Internet airwaves for anyone to hear and participate in. Did I mention this was in real live time? Real social interaction right there...laid bare for all to hear.

No more going over to YouTube to catch the latest imported glut of Japanese and Chinese "cute kitties", American-exploited "laughing babies bouncing around tearing up things", "restaged videos by people with less talent than a stale apple danish", and you will...NEVER...have to watch another celebrity eat a cheeseburger off the floor...ever! You may, if you're lucky, be able to totally miss the train wreck, no not in Lawrence of Arabia one -- the one which is called "Charlie Sheen's Winning Career Moves".

Plus, you don't have to be beautiful. No need to rely on a tush to rival Kim Kardashian's. No need to hold back the hourglass's sands of time. You can host it when you are super old. You can even host it in your underwear. Even yesterday's underwear. No one will notice like they would if you were on YouTube.

You don't need to have your hair coiffed and your nose hairs trimmed. No need to invest in a camera and the learn the latest film editing techniques. No need to be pretty good at anything viral at all...in fact you don't need to be pretty at all. Therein lies the beauty.

You can be butt ugly and as old as Joan Rivers' first face. No one will ever see you...you will be on the radio. You don't even have to have a nice voice.

I listened.

Trust me.

All you need are people who are willing to dial your number to call you up and talk. Where they come from is beyond me and anyone's guess...but they are probably bored and find you...or you can always seek them out on Facebook like my one "friend" was doing.

And forget all that stuff your parents told you about "being seen not heard". It's time to be heard and not seen! It's time for YouTube to be trumped by the new MeTube...it's time for everything old...to be new again.

So, break out your Little Orphan Annie decoder rings, people...and go places only "The Shadow" knows. It's time to harken back to those "Lake Wobegon" days.

See...isn't it getting nicer already?

It's high time for the MTV generation (and their spawn) to get their comeuppance...then grab yourself a comfy hair and sit right on back and watch...I mean "listen"...for radio to kill the video star.

But be prepared...it'll probably take a little while...and it's definitely going to get quite ugly.

WTF is going on with Charlie Sheen???

2011-03-08T00:43:00.007-06:00

No, seriously.

Okay, let me rephrase that or at least clarify it a bit:

I believe I might be maybe one of about 127 people on the planet who don't know.

I've heard his name mentioned lately with words like "whack", "porn", "insane", "fired", "twins", "cocaine" and "prostitutes". But other than that I couldn't tell you what's going on with him and I'll tell you why...

"I don't CARE!"

(There...there's a catchphrase for ya, ole Charlie!)

No, seriously, again...I don't.

Therefore I won't Google him nor watch any Entertainment Tonight episodes showcasing his antics nor YouTube him. If it wasn't for the fact my local news tonight read (and I use that word loosely) a statement provided by him or his camp or his publicity agent or his new reality show's (and yeah, you know there's bound to be one) producer...or whomever it was who released it - I wouldn't have known anything more than I know now, which isn't much as the statement wasn't at all lucid.

So, with what I've garnered so far about Mr. Sheen (and I use that form of address loosely as well) is that he was born into a celebrity family, probably has talent, probably has a lot of cash, and probably has a lot of people telling him what to do next...all of which he pays copious amounts of money to - to say exactly what he wants to hear.

I also know he was on a show I've never seen which is probably very funny, "Two and a Half Men". Yep, I've never watched it, but that's okay as I've never seen (prepare yourselves now) an episode of "The Simpsons". Yeah, I know...but in my defense I really, really, really love "Futurama".

He also was married to Denise Richards (or something like that) and I confess I don't know what she's at all famous for...other than for marrying Charlie Sheen and then subsequently divorcing him after what probably was a tumultuous marriage filled with even more "cocaine" and "prostitutes" - but she probably was arrested several times herself and is probably on the Internet somewhere (possibly in a police booking photo) without make-up on and probably still looks better than I do in those photos than when I am wearing make-up.

Charlie, in my opinion (which doesn't mean much and I know it), makes Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and the 1980s-2000s Robert Downey, Jr., look like rank amateurs in comparison. I don't know if that statement is at all true...I am just surmising this conclusion based solely on all the press lately which has been wasted on this Sheen guy.

He, also in my opinion (see above), is either: 1) A very disturbed man who needs psychiatric help desperately, or 2) trying to outdo Joaquin Phoenix in the now remotely legendary "Joaquin Phoenix/Casey Affleck Debacle" by staging even more outlandish outrageousness to capitalize upon.

Either way...I see his career eventually on par with Mel Gibson's, who, I'm sorry to say, had one and is now kinda stagnating around like the primordial life forms festering in my pool at this very moment. (Blatant setup to showcase one of my prior blogs - oh, go and click on it: Ah, the Sweet Smell of Spring...On Venus!)

And, also...as it again doesn't remotely mean anything to me in the grand scheme of things...but, I was told by a friend today, that he was making $1.2 million per episode on his "Two and a Half Men" show...so I'm figuring he's going to be making a heluva lot more on his next ludicrous lucrative deal...which I'm sure is in the works - also at this very moment.

Lastly...whatever happened to his brother, Emilio Estevez? Now, THAT I'd be interested in finding out about.

Okay, NOT seriously...but I had to end this blog somehow.

I Got Fired the Other Day (Part 2)

2011-03-01T00:09:00.006-06:00

I, being a creature of the investigatory sort...watch things, listen to things, hone in on things, and interrupt full-fledged conversations between two complete strangers whom nature, in her infinite beauty and wisdom, decided to sit me next to in various places (mainly doctor's offices). I take this as an invitation to chime right in, as 1) most people like talking about their ills, and, 2) most people like people taking an interest in said ills.

In all this time I've noticed that everyone, no matter how quiet, has a tale to tell. Everyone who is in a doctor's office has that little story they relate to perfect strangers who bother to show the slightest attention - everyone enjoys comparing their stories of total injustice and weighing them against your stories of total injustice.

That's just how people are...at least 99 percent of the ones I've run across in my relentless search to get well in this state. All states and their inhabitants are predictably the same...yes, "people are alike all over". (More bonus pointage if you can zone in on what that reference is from).

Common sense would dictate if you can't get an appointment with a specialist in a couple weeks, that's a good thing. One thing you don't want is a specialist who is not highly sought after.

Common sense also dictates when you get a referral from your doctor to see a specialist and you are in pain and worried about your condition rapidly deteriorating into something which would have been treatable had it "only been caught a couple months before"...and that appointment isn't until six or seven months from now...you tend to question the entire system.

Case in point, my daughter shakes. Her extremities shake...she looks like an early-onset Parkinson's patient...but I'm not a doctor and WebMD is scary ("two clicks and you're dead" I always say). When the neurology office, which has a valid referral that is only good for one year, tells you they will call you back and never does...you kinda wonder -- "Did the doctor get the memo? Did the receptionist take down the memo? Does the receptionist know what a memo is?" When you call back and they give you the same spiel "Well, the next opening he has is in six months" you wonder -- Is this what they tell you instead of sending you the "downsizing" letter? Is this just a nicer way to "fire" you? It's not like they won't SET YOU UP with an appointment...the appointment is just too far out into the future for you to wait with your issue that they know you will begrudingly go elsewhere. Case closed and no nastygrams therefore you can't say they weren't willing to work with you.

Now, I am not stupid, I know doctors are busy. But take a good long look around you - most of these offices, especially if they just relocated...are nothing short of mini-palaces. They have 15 people working for them and they start diversifying into lucrative big-money fields which don't need big-name, highly-skilled doctors to do the procedures. Things like: Botox while you wait for your eyes to get dilated, laser resurfacing of your skin as you wait to have that nasty mole looked at. Teeth brightened to nearly the magnitude of the star, Sirius. Free eyelid surgery with every lasik procedure. The list -- and the signs...go on and on.

And another thing that goes on and on...yet another "firing" of me the other day.

I have no cavities. I've never had any, and as such, I don't have any fillings. I am not versed at all in the ways of anything dental. I don't go to dentists very often...it doesn't seem to have had any negative ramifications; unlike the other doctors I go to where they keep finding things wrong with me. If they'd only stop looking, I'd be OKAY!

But, I do have this one molar that is dropping down from its perch in my upper jaw. It wouldn't be dropping if not for the fact someone removed two of my teeth from the bottom jaw in an effort for my crowded front teeth to "naturally" rearrange themselves to where they should normally be without the intervention of braces.

It didn't work. So much for that doctor...but he's probably long dead, so it's a moot point to bad-mouth him now. (Yeah, I know...the puns and word-plays in these two blogs are nearly unbearable...I challenge anyone to find them all.)

So, when I woke up with a hurting inner gum next to my dropping tooth and it being slightly red...I was a tad concerned. When I had to go to Birmingham for an all-day thyroid uptake scan and it was now a shade off from crimson and became extremely painful and throbbing...I was worried even more. I called my dentist (who I've been seeing about this tooth lately...who also referred me to an endodontist about it and a root canal) to try to get the appointment I made just a few hours ago upped a bit earlier in the morning. If there's an indicator as to how much pain I'm in...it would be my willingness to go to a doctor's appointment during my "sleep hours" of 8:00-2:00 p.m.-ish. They upped it to 10:45...again reminding me that they did indeed have one I could have gone to today if I "hadn't only gone up to Birmingham instead". Even with me telling her that I was having a thyroid scan in Birmingham...I sensed a bit of miffed-ness on her part. More than a bit...especially when I called back the third time.

Yes, I called to ask if the redness progressing to "beet red" and the area "looking like a rug burn" according to my son (I couldn't see it very clearly in the bathroom mirrors) was a bad thing? Something perhaps very bad? As I never had so much as a toothache, I didn't know what that felt like to compare anything else to.

Again she acted very annoyed that I "chose to go to Birmingham instead of the dentist" as if there was any real free-will of mine involved. I ignored her and asked if these things sometimes progress rapidly to something very bad or do they take a while. She, did not know...and I don't fault her at all for that...she's not the dentist. She mentioned something about "going to the emergency room" if I thought it was bad enough and asked if I wanted the dentist to give me a call back. I, of course, did...but told her I wouldn't be available to receive calls for about an hour and a half as they were going to take me back for the scan any minute. She said it was not a problem and he would indeed call me.

Well, he didn't. He also didn't the time before (about three months ago) - but I got better. I was hoping I'd get better again. I didn't.

On the way home it felt like someone took a cheese grater and ran it back and forth a few times over my inner gum. It felt torn up and bloody - like a rare steak after a good meat pounding by a gladiator's mace club. It really wasn't normal feeling...and I was actually scared to look at it again.

Even with a call to my very, very smart friend, who assured me that while it sounded like an abscess, it wouldn't invade my brain overnite -- I opted to call the dentist after hours. I'd feel much better with an expert opinion - plus, maybe what had been going on inside my mouth was already Emergency Room material.

It was around 7:30ish. Not too late I wouldn't think. His wife took the call. His wife was wonderful...such a lovely person. I apologized profusely for calling and begged her not to notify him directly and it could wait until he got home later. But since I had left a message on the other number she assured me he would probably call regardless.

He did. He was pretty certain I'd be just fine until the next day...but if it got much worse to go to the Emergency Room.

Whew! I was much more relieved.

As his wife suggested on the phone the night before, I showed up as soon as they opened. I was extremely pleased they took me in after a very short wait. I must say that the staff there is usually extremely friendly and nice...and this time was no exception.

Except, the dentist wasn't very nice to me. Truth be told he had been quite curt and abrupt with my daughter and myself in the past...but this time he was more so. I did not understand at what point I'd need a root canal as I never had one - and, as he did send me to the endodontist a few months back...I thought perhaps one was imminent. I also asked about just having the tooth removed and if this was an option. This did not go over very well, and he got even more annoyed with me for asking what I would think were logical questions. I'm not a dentist, but I would figure you wouldn't wait until it was past the point of no-return to get a root canal. I also didn't know the protocol for getting one done...so I asked. He again seemed very annoyed, as if talking to a small child with only a rudimentary grasp of the language...and that language being Finnish. He finally conveyed to me two things which were involved in order to get a root canal: tooth damage or unbearable pain. Apparently I didn't have tooth damage...which again made me wonder why I was sent off to the endodontist...and apparently, as I wasn't writhing around in pain in a fetal position grasping my mouth begging for painkillers or death...I didn't fall into the "pain" category, either.

I came out more perplexed and befuddled than when I went in - but at least it wasn't a deadly brain abscess...and we both didn't know why it decided to go into hyperhurt the day before...but it was MUCH, much better by the time he saw it. So much better that, if I hadn't had the appointment, I wouldn't have made one.

Anyway, I was happy I was seen so promptly and I thanked everyone involved and even booked a cleaning for my daughter and myself. But I still couldn't shake the rudeness I was shown by him.

Did I get him mad as I called him after hours? But, his office assured me he would call back...it's not my fault he didn't.

I was in pain and I didn't want it to fester into something I should have taken care of...but today it was much better. Did he think I was just blowing it all out of proportion?

Do people ever ask questions at the dentist? Maybe they don't. Maybe I shouldn't be asking questions either? Hmmmm...

...maybe I should get a new dentist?

I told a few people I was thinking of going to a different dentist as he was very mean this time...and I meant it. I would just have to ask around to see who other people liked.

But I shrugged the whole thing off and the pain was getting better...and then the following day...the very following day, I received a letter in the mail (yes, the actual postal mail). This is what it said:

"I am writing to inform you that we will no longer be able to treat you in our office. We have cancelled any appointments you have scheduled in the future.

We will see you on an emergency basis until March 15, 2011. This should allow sufficient time for you to find another dentist. We will send copies of your records to the dentist of your choice."

Exactly what you see there is what I received. I, of course, removed the heading and the signature.

I honestly don't get it.

Could someone possibly tell me what I did remotely wrong?

And I certainly want to read what that cover letter inside that folder says when he sends a copy of it to my next dentist...and, if need be, I want the opportunity to challenge it.

I feel like that poor little boy in class who drops his pencil off his desk one too many times and then the teacher keeps a stern eye on him as he surely is destined to get a call home to be recommended for ADHD medicine if he does it...just...ONE...MORE...TIME!

I've already been judged by a jury of one. I've been locked up in the pillory and the whole town is making the pilgrimage over just to point and throw old tomatoes and animal feces in my face.

I liken this to being accused of being a witch...or branded a heretic...and this Scarlet Letter of mine... my doctor's file...will accompany me from town to town. Everyone "knows" me before I meet them. I am now some medical pariah.

Oh, think that's a bit too extreme? When was the last time YOU snuck a peek into your file when the doctor left the room? Do you know what's been written about you? You should.

When was the last time you tried to get a doctor's appointment which you thought took an inordinate amount of time?

When was the last time you felt your doctor rushed a bit too much?

When was the last time you felt passed over or been told that it was "all in your head"?

When was the last time you had tests run and they came back normal? Normal? Normal for what?? What exactly WERE they looking for that they thought you had?

When was the last time you left with unanswered questions?

Isn't it about time you don't leave until you feel you were given the respect they expect to get from you?

Isn't it about time, when we do leave, that we hand the next person in the waiting room a scorecard showing how good you thought your doctor and the staff was?

I bet we'd all start being more civil to each other if we both knew it was going to go both ways.

(Okay...thanks for letting me vent. I know this was long. And to anyone who wants to know which doctors in this town I hold in extreme high esteem...feel free to ask. There are quite a few here who I simply love and I will pass their names on without hesitation. The others...eh...I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and not name names.

Lastly, it's just a shame that some people can really intimidate you, especially the people you need to go through in order to get that doctor's appointment. I've listened to more people than I can remember who've told me they'd report the receptionist or other office workers but they are afraid they'd find out about it and never be able to book another appointment.)

I Got Fired the Other Day

2011-02-27T18:50:00.009-06:00

When I was working civil service years ago at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey there was a lady who used to, like clockwork, "coincidentally by accident" manage to do something which put her out of commission for 120 days. Paid leave...workers compensation...the kind you need to have a documented injury on the job and then a documented statement from a doctor saying why you can't return to work for 120 days and why it's job-related.

She had a file, no kidding, about two inches thick. Two inches thick and she hadn't worked a summer during her 28 or so years of working there. Nice. Some actual excuses were that the crock-pot of chili she, herself, brought to work - managed to "accidentally" fall on her foot when she was scooping out some food...for herself. Another year she managed to slip on a patch of ice on the steps of the Base Commander's building although there had been no temperature at or below freezing for at least seven days prior. But, that's how her luck was...she managed to slip on imaginary ice and had a doctor substantiate her claim. Another few months off courtesy of Uncle Sam.

One day the people in the civilian admin office decided enough was enough and instead of paying out this time...they aka "we" were going to haul her butt over to the federal courthouse to testify in front of a farce known as the "people who apparently don't have their act together enough to win against a lawyer who looks like he never passed the bar (without going inside to get good and drunk)".

We all piled into a government station wagon and made the odyssey to Newark. No one voluntarily goes to Newark as much as no one voluntarily moves to Wetumpka. There has to be some pressure involved in the process somewhere...and somewhere sometime someone actually managed to fire a civil service worker for skimming off the system for years; but this wasn't going to be that time. Yes, her lawyer, who looked like he had been sleeping in his car for the better part of a month, managed to have the charges dropped against all the plausible evidence against her and she probably went on to milk the system for God knows how many more years.

To make a long story short...with all the stuff we had on her...she wasn't fired. I've always heard you can't fire anyone from civil service work...but I thought it was just all hearsay. Well, I'm here to say...that rumour is true.

But what does that have to do with me and my present day situation?

As Mr. Doolittle said in "My Fair Lady", "I'm willing to tell you. I'm wanting to tell you. I'm waiting to tell you."

And as the master said in "Kung Fu", "Patience, Grasshopper."

I consider myself a nice person. Pathetic maybe...totally lacking self-esteem and prone to reading too much medical stuff and, well, I sometimes "question authority". They tell you to write your questions down when you see your doctor...well, I do. I usually have a nice handy dandy notebook with me as sometimes doctors I've seen don't have a clue. (Ten points extra for that silly reference if you caught it.)

Notwithstanding all the medical terminology I do know, I am still nice. I sit there nicely, I'm polite to everyone, I'm overly polite to everyone actually, and when I do question authority...I do so in a gingerly manner and, as my mother always said, "You catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar."

And honey, you can bet that I shower on the compliments when deal with any doctor's office. Oh, I don't lie. I've never given anyone a false compliment...and I've told on a few people who were overly nice (I believe in telling on the exceptional workers more than telling on the bad ones)...so, typically, I get a very good reception with people.

Typically.

Then, one day it started. It started quite innocently.

I was fired by my gynecologist.

I was floored. This was a man I highly respected, had a great rapport with and whom I had seen for about 15 years. Fifteen years of out-of-pocket fees as he didn't accept my health insurance...but I trusted him implicitly and when I had to have an emergency hysterectomy back in 2007, I was forced to, quick like a bunny, find a new gynecologist who accepted my insurance to do the procedure. I didn't want to...I was forced by my HMO to do so. There was no way I could pay the cost of a hysterectomy and I reluctantly went to another gynecologist to have it done. Then, after the six week check-up, or as I like to refer to it, the "tell your problems to someone who actually gives a damn" period, I returned to my regular gynecologist.

He wasn't his usual self...and when he stepped out of the office I overheard his phone conversation to the place which did my hysterectomy..."She's YOUR patient and she's here. I didn't do her hysterectomy. Blah blah yadda yadda." Then he came back in and basically washed his hands of me. I asked if I was being "fired" and he acknowledged I was. I was dumbfounded - he was upset I didn't get my hysterectomy done by him and as such couldn't deal with the issues I had afterwards...to take it to the other doctor even if that doctor didn't want anything to do with me after the six-week "fly little birdie" release of me. I asked if I could come for non-hysterectomy issues and he stated he no longer wanted to be my doctor...period.

I was devastated. That was shock #1.

A little while after this happened, I was then "fired" by my base doctor and sent to an off-base physician who I'd rather chew my arm out of a bear trap than to ever see again in my life. A physician who asked me "Why do you even want to live?" A physician who told me that "God put HIM on this planet to be a doctor and didn't give me the knowledge to be a leader; he was the leader and I had better do everything he told me to do...without question." Yes, I'm serious...he said that and many other things. It was like a "Twilight Zone" episode gone horribly, horribly wrong.

I called up the base the following day. I cried and cried and, luckily, they let me come back. Afterwards I was diagnosed with heart issues - which would substantiate the things I was complaining about before I was fired for "coming to see them too often without any reason".

Then I was fired by a neurologist. A neurologist in town who assured me if I didn't get the answers to my questions he would gladly refer me to Birmingham, the Mayo Clinic, Atlanta, and so forth. He would get to the bottom of my issues...and I was happy.

After a couple tests and a screw up by the appointment clerk who insisted I come that day although I had just seen the doctor two days prior...they fired off a letter stating they were "downsizing their practice" and were "letting the newer patients go". This letter was supposedly written a few days before the clerk set me up with that appointment. Not only did they not tell me any of this when I phoned up to make sure I had to come in...they made me wait a good two-plus hours to tell me I had already seen the doctor earlier that week and didn't need to be seen again so quickly. Well, duh. When I brought this to their attention - they didn't bat an eye. Of course they didn't, they did the same exact appointment mix-up thing to the elderly lady who was waiting before me, so perhaps it's standard practice there to not care too much about inconveniencing other people.

After I received the letter in the mail, I called the office manager about being booked for an appointment after they supposedly "downsized" and considered me their "former patient"...and why they'd want me to come in a couple days after being seen anyway...especially since I was their former patient. I mean this would all be known to them, logically, if facts were facts were correct and dates were correct. She gasped and grasped and concocted a convoluted story about when and why I was "released". I'm sorry but when dates don't match and things are supposedly MAILED before they are TYPED...I kinda wonder about your story. Call me suspicious...but hey - if you're going to make up a story, at least make up a plausible one.

Then, after I finally found who I thought was a fabulous replacement gynecologist, I was fired yet again. I was fired for canceling two appointments due to my daughter having a science competition out of town and being sick. One was canceled two days before - the other the day of...but as soon as they opened. The appointment clerk asked if wanted to speak with him about my issue, I agreed, and then I was sternly spoken to regarding how I was just making and canceling appointments and expecting them to answer my questions without ever being seen. That was not at all the case. I didn't specifically ask to speak to him - the clerk asked and said it wasn't a problem at all - I took her up on it. Apparently it was a problem after all. And just to let him know, in case he's reading this, the office lady you have at your "East" office...is the most offensive and obnoxious person I've ever had the displeasure to talk to. She's an arrogant twit and she's ignorant to boot...and she talks about you to the office staff when you are out of earshot and it's not remotely complimentary. She also does this about patients who have just left the building. She's totally unprofessional and she's a brute and a bore.

Whew! Like I said - I don't like to report the bad people so I've never said anything about her before now.

But the reason I'm writing all this, and I know it's long, is because I was "fired" yet again the other day. But I think I'll stop now and take up where I left off tomorrow or Monday. This is getting a bit longer than I originally imagined it to be and I fear I'm going to be a whole different kind of bore if I don't stop at this point.

(End of Part 1)

(Everything in this blog is true and accurate...nothing has been blown out of proportion and I will not name names here as I still have respect for the doctors and people out there who do a fabulous job.)

Pony Up the Cash for Valentine's Day

2011-02-11T22:08:00.010-06:00

Ah, the age-old yearly dilemma is about to rear its ugly head again. No, I'm not talking about Punxsutawney Phil - he reared his ugly head earlier this month...I'm talking about something even more newsworthy and guaranteed to make most people wish they could crawl back inside and hide out for another six weeks:

It's soon going to be Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day, which according to the radio station I was listening to this morning, is the day most divorce papers are filed (or something like that)...which makes you wonder why the word "man" is even IN "romance"...but I fear I'm doing a bit of digressing, so I'll take this opportunity to digress a little further.

Valentine's Day, when I was a kid, was all about going to the store to pick out Valentine's Day cards and carefully picking out which of the nicer ones to hand address (first names only - this was grade school after all) to your best friends. The ugly ones were always relegated to the kids you didn't like much at all and had less sentiment than those "Be Mine" candy hearts the richer kids could afford to package up in their envelopes.

We weren't rich, therefore no one ever got candy from me...and we would wait until the cards were marked down and all the "neato" ones were always gone and I was left with the social embarrassment equivalent of wearing "last year's favourite cartoon character" underpants in gym class.

In a word, I learned to hate Valentine's Day early on.

Besides having the fanciest Valentine's Day cards and candy treats, the rich kids in my class always seemed to have ponies. I never had a pony and only once came remotely close to riding one - I think it was too old to do anything except stand there when I was placed on its back. So much for my exciting pony ride as a kid...the imitation "nickel ride" ones outside the Acme grocery store at least moved. But that didn't stop every single person who didn't have a real one...from wanting one.

So, I was thinking today about Valentine's Day and how I'm not going to get anything yet again - as you kinda need a "loved one" banging his head against the wall thinking what to possibly get you to get the most out of his dollar investment..."more bang for his buck" so to speak.

But that didn't stop me...

...hmmm...let me think...horses buck. So do ponies. How about giving your loved one a pony for Valentine's Day? Chances are, if they weren't a spoiled little rich kid growing up on a sprawling piece of land, they never had one, either...but I bet they always wanted one. Now...that type of romance can't be printed on any card...that, I bet, will REALLY move her.

And I know just the place to get a pony. And, I would figure by the looks of the sign, you can save a little cash if you don't want the primo ones. Yeah...why shop for cards and candy weeks before when you can get them half price the day before? Why pay top dollar for a brand spanking new pony - when you can get...a USED one???

Yeah...you heard me. A USED pony.

What they used it for is anyone's guess. I'm kinda thinking it's several years old like the one whose back I was on as a kid...and headed off to the glue factory any day now. And what better time of year to tug on those heart strings of yours? I think the discussion would go a bit like this:

You: "Uh...could you tell me a bit about the difference between a new and used pony, sir?"

Seller: "Well, the new ponies haven't been used. The used ones have."

You: "For what?"

Seller: "Well, they've kinda served their purpose in life. They're old. But since they are ponies they'll never get any bigger as they're ponies. Ponies don't grow into horses, did you know that?"

You: "Uhhh...I thought ponies were baby horses."

Seller: "Nope. Ponies are a smaller variant of horse...and as such they don't fetch as much at the glue factory...or so I've been told. Yep...these here used ponies are headin' there tomorrow if they don't get bought. Just like with aluminum cans, the glue place bases it all on poundage."

You: "You mean this pony here is going to the glue factory tomorrow???"

Seller: "Well, I don't exactly take them TO the glue factory, sir,...I just sell them to the guy who does. I'm not exactly HEARTLESS, here."...

So, just like with the guy who keeps sawing the legs off the next puppy and giving prospective pickers the sob story about how "that one's destined for the pound if no one chooses him" - the used pony man probably doesn't even have any "new" ponies. I mean, who among us with half an iota of sentiment...would choose a "fresh outta the gate" new pony over the one that's destined to make the sticky stuff you lick on that very Valentine's Day card you just bought?

I mean, seriously, could you live with yourself knowing where the glue from next year's card is going to be coming from?

So, I say...pony up the cash...get her something she'll remember - and something she's always wanted since she was a kid. Diamonds are nice...but a used pony lasts...well, however long a used pony lasts.

(Yes, that's a real sign - I've been passing it for years when I drive "the back way" to/from my house. It used to be hand-made...now it's a "proper" sign. I don't know which was funnier...I think maybe the way it is now. And, I have you know, I risked my life to take this photo nearly standing in 55 mph traffic. The things I do for three people to read and comment, I tell ya. And, yes, I blurred out the phone number but left the website name - which makes no mention of ponies, btw...a fact I found quite odd.)

Planning Your Super Bowl Party

2011-02-05T10:43:00.002-06:00

Okay, truth be told - I did indeed run this last year...but it is timely, so I thought I would dig it out and post it again.

I am a sucker for cookbooks.

I must have...oh a couple hundred; I've never counted them, but I know it has to be over 100...or close to it. I get the majority of them dirt cheap at TJ Maxx, the library here in town, or the Thrift Shop on base. I'd never pay regular price for them - these things are always outrageously priced, and to be honest with you, I use Epicurious.com for 98% of my recipes. I just must be hungry when I buy them I guess.

Take for instance my newest one: "Seriously Simple Holidays". It's a handful of recipes I'd probably never make - I don't have access to a bevy of duck legs and the odds of me getting 8-10 pounds of standing rib roast at like $8-10 a pound...is pretty nil. Plus it's just me and my two kids (if you don't count all the cats).

But, nonetheless I bought it - one recipe must have looked tasty and it was less than $4.00 and it had all these lovely photos, and did I mention I usually am hungry when I go into TJ Maxx?

Now, I've never hosted a Thanksgiving dinner - no one ever comes here and I have no friends within the driving vicinity and, even if I did, they probably have their own family. Anyway, this holiday feast preparation which they suggested seemed a bit excessive if you ask me...and I was likening it to hosting a Super Bowl party (which I've never done either). But my little gears started turning and I thought some side-by-side (or underneath-by-underneath as it were) comparisons might be fun. This is modified and condensed...as they have two pages devoted to proper hunting/gathering etiquette. And, just so there won't be any confusion, all comments in parenthesis for their "Thanksgiving" prep are mine, not theirs:

Thanksgiving: According to this book you should start preparing one MONTH prior - making pate, pie and turkey stock and then popping them all in the freezer.

Super Bowl: One month prior - still paying out bets you lost as your team didn't make it.

Thanksgiving: Two weeks before you should start planning your menu.

Super Bowl: Two weeks before you should start cleaning your house (you should; but you won't).

Thanksgiving: One week before - order turkey, plan your table settings and decorations, make grocery list, and shop for "essential holiday equipment" (whatever that means - I'm figuring a new turkey baster as you threw away the last one as there's no possible way to clean the bulb doohickey that you suck the raw turkey juices up with when you baste.)

Super Bowl: One week before - buy lots of chips and salsa. Last year there wasn't any on the shelf when you waited until the nite before.

Thanksgiving: The Saturday before - make caramel sauce for pie, choose dishes, glassware, tablecloths...blah blah Martha Stewartish crapola. Sharpen carving knife. (Seriously - it says that...heaven forbid you have to do that in front of your guests...big...BIG faux pas.)

Super Bowl: The Saturday before - You are too late to buy anything from Walmart. They already sold out seven days before to the people who knew better from last year. But for the purposes of this blog - we are going to assume the "Saturday before" really means whatever Thursday subtracted from Saturday is.

Thanksgiving: Monday - Complete shopping lists. (Apparently you need to pen in "cranberry sauce" because you forgot to add it to your list you made a few days earlier. Even if you don't like cranberry sauce...add it to your list. It's mandatory. Don't worry - you have a few days left to actually type up or hand-calligraphy your list. Perhaps you need to buy a new calligraphy set? Stupid you...it was right there NEXT to the turkey basters at Williams-Sonoma.) Begin shopping for produce, organize refrigerator - cleaning out to make extra room for turkey. Defrost turkey stock.

Super Bowl: Thursday before - buy more chips and salsa as you ate it all last nite. Eat everything in fridge to make room for beer.

Thanksgiving: Tuesday - Reheat stock, make gravy, cranberry relish (told you that you needed to add it to your list) and put it in glass jars (why? No clue - just do it - the book says so), chop all your vegetables and put them in zip-lock bags (this sentence brought to you by whoever makes zip-lock bags), clean and chop parsley (again - more kickbacks from the zip-lock people) then zip-lock it away. Remove chicken liver pate from freezer and transfer to fridge (you will later feed to cats as no one eats that pompous crap plus it already LOOKS like Fancy Feast cat food).

Super Bowl: Friday - buy lots of beer now that you have all that room in the fridge. Beer tip: Buy Budweiser, Miller Lite and Michelob...no one's going to drink those fancy beers with rabid dogs or old guys on the label (at least not in a room full of other guys)...plus they are expensive. Put stack of coasters on the table to appease your wife.

Thanksgiving Eve: Pick up turkey and then do dumb things like buy flowers, arrange flowers, chill wines and water, put more things in zip-lock bags, set the table already (unless you have cats...trust me on this one), put Post-it notes (yeah...another product placement book deal here) on each platter designating what it will hold (again, I kid you not - this book says this), organize coffee and tea, plan a schedule for the next day (typed or maybe you have time to get them embossed by a professional if you hurry).

Super Bowl Eve: Clean toilet. Pick up underwear from bathroom floor. Put out dainty hand towels no one will use anyway. Gather all the clutter lying all over the house and toss it in the back bedroom; close the door (remind people NOT to go in there). Get your football phone out of the closet ( you know...that you got free with your subscription to "Sports Illustrated" 10 years ago) and hook it up. Look at it fondly as it WILL go back into the closet tomorrow after the game because your wife will make you do it. She does every year. This year will be no exception. Buy chicken wings and hot sauce. Buy the hottest, bad-ass-est one you can find - look for words like "hotter than hell" and "butt burning" on the label. Call dog over...while wife isn't looking, toss coasters at dog, Frisbee-style, ensure dog chews up each one. When wife comes into earshot - reprimand dog loudly. Chuckle silently behind her back.

Thanksgiving Day: Unzip everything you put into zip-lock bags, cook turkey, fill water glasses, defrost pie, put out pate with crudités and water crackers, arrange the bar...yadda yadda...carve turkey with knife you sharpened the other day (thank God they reminded me). Laugh with an air of superiority at the fact you will use the word "crudités" 47 times during the course of the evening...when all they really are...are chopped raw vegetables you took out of zip-lock bags. Practice this sentence, "Help yourselves to some lovely crudités over there on our vintage Louis XVI sideboard we picked up in a quaint little shop on one of our shopping jaunts to Rouen, France."

Super Bowl Day: Put out dip in giant football platter you picked up when you bought salsa and chips. Put chips in plastic team helmet you also wasted $40 bucks on. Throw away burnt wings you forgot about. While you're in the kitchen, phone your house from your cell phone so you can pick up your football phone in front of your friends. Feign conversation, "Uh...you got the wrong number." Hang up, now use it to order pizza. Marvel at the look of awe on their collective faces...as all THEIR football phones are at home in their closets.

No Small Feet to Accomplish

2011-02-03T19:41:00.017-06:00

I want to believe.

I want to believe so badly that I spent another two hours (or was it one hour - with TiVo...the time drags out sometimes) of my life watching another bogus show talking about things like Bigfoot.

It was one about Bigfoot, in fact. It was something on "The History Channel" and seriously, I hate the shaky camera technique and I really hate, in fact I'd go as far to say I despise, Brad Meltzer.* I never knew who you were before "Decoded" on "The History Channel" - but you are more than annoying and you, as my father used to say, "Don't think your own s*** stinks". I've never before said this about a person...but I'm saying it about you: You are a pompous ass who makes the late William F. Buckley seem like "Snuggle the fabric softener bear". You and your shaky camera technique can go take a flying leap off the cornerstone off the White House...or better yet, bale out of some airplane like D.B. Cooper. That's what I think of you and your annoying program. Your annoying program wouldn't be so annoying if it wasn't for the fact that: 1) You're an annoying pompous ass; 2) The shaky camera technique makes me think I'm going to have aneurysms and seizures, and 3) I've heard this all before - if you are going to have an exposé-type of show - at least give me stuff I didn't read in the same book I am sure me and Chris Carter (of X-Files fame) both checked out of the county library in the 1970s.

Now enter any show regarding Bigfoot, UFOs, Loch Ness-type monsters, or ghosts in the past three decades.

I, like Fox Mulder in the "X-Files" want to believe. I seriously want to believe. I really do. Not in the Peter Pan fairies way...but I want to believe in these things. I want to believe anything in Erich von Däniken's book "Chariots of the Gods" - was indeed alien-inspired and alien-made. I want to believe they've found some new evidence - I want to believe in crystal skulls and Nessie and "The Jersey Devil" (no, not Snooki), Chupacabras and the scariest of them all: Spontaneous Human Combustion.

I want to believe it all exists and I want to believe they are going to show me new evidence each time I fall for one of these shows on television. I am, sadly I feel, way too naïve.

I mean, what are the odds they found some skeletal remains of some Yeti and we didn't hear about it? What are the odds Houdini made it over and is finally getting a message across because he had to wait his turn in line patiently? What are odds I'm going to watch yet another show about some secret society or pyramid builders or lake monster next week if they show one?

I'll tell you: Pretty damned good.

But they NEVER find anything new. They might add something inconsequential I never heard of before - but no one ever saves a piece of a Bigfoot or takes photos of a giant squid...or has a new photo of some floating debris which six people now sitting around a lighted table can't argue 'yea or nay' about.

I have lived through the early 70s - and everyone had a UFO and Bigfoot in their yard then. Yeah, sure, there was also a show on television called H.R. Pufnstuf - and if you puffed enough stuff you'd be hearing lights and seeing sounds, too. But still...

...where's my monster?

I want some proof.

After all these years and countless programs - I'm beginning to believe the best place to put fake Bigfoot footprints IS 20,000 feet up. If you put them 20,000 feet up...who the heck's going to argue with you. "Yep...that's a footprint of something for sure...brrrrrrrrrrrr...now get me off this God-forsaken mountain!" If I'm going to fake something I'm going to fake it where no one is going to go to in order to "unfake it" later on.

But yet...I am starting to believe I don't believe. After all these years - all these people who believe sound more like the kids we sold oregano to in high school and less like the kids we made fun of for wearing white belts and pocket protectors.

I am sorry, not to be overly judgmental, but if you are professor of something or other in some prestigious university and you have a streak of purple running through both sides of your jet-black 'straight as a bone' hair, it's harder for me (and I'm sure at least five others) to take you seriously when you talk about how conclusive the evidence is to support the "X-Woman" theory. I'm just sitting here wondering if that's really your accent or if it's just a stud in your tongue and envisioning where all your tattoos are. I'm also wondering how many times you participated in naked Druid ceremonies...and if you've ever boinked Brad Meltzer.

I do walk away from these programs more inclined to believe more people have seen a UFO or Bigfoot than have ever boinked Brad Meltzer, but then again...I really want to believe some things...and some things I just don't EVER want to see.

*As far as I know, this show didn't actually have anything to do with Brad Meltzer other than running previews of his next show during some commercial breaks...but, as he REALLY IS a pompous ass - I wanted to take the opportunity to mention it yet again.

"Eye brake for..."

2011-01-27T22:32:00.020-06:00

Inner workings of a state of the art laser weapon or brake light? You decide.

Buzz Lightyear had it wrong...it's not "To infinity and beyond!" - it's "An Infinity from behind...

...is really, really, really annoying!"

Seriously...can someone say "severe retinal damage"?

While my new saying might not be as catchy as the original, I am going to go out on a limb here and say the only man-made objects you can see from space other than "The Great Wall of China" are Infinity brake lights.

If you are behind someone, especially at night, and you feel the membrane peeling off your eye as easily as the skin on a grape, chances are that car in front of you is an Infinity.

If you've ever been patiently waiting behind the guy with 17 items in the "15 items or less" aisle in the store and caught a glimpse of that red multi-light scanner doohickey and it gave you flashbacks to the "Sandman scene in Logan's Run with Farrah Fawcett vivaciously aiding the laser-happy plastic surgeon"...you'll have a tiny understanding of what I'm trying to get across here.

If you've ever had the inclination (with or without having a buzz) to look down the working barrel of a laser pointer and then, like a total idiot, turn it on...well...I think you get the message by now.

Why these lights have to be twice the brightness of anything an arc welder deals with is beyond me.

Have the designers who okayed the 20,000,000 foot-candle luminosity of the light system ever driven BEHIND one of their cars? As with other automotive manufacturers, they might stand behind their cars...but I'm inclined to believe they do so only in the daytime.

I was driving home from Birmingham the other night when what should pull out before me during rush-hour traffic, but a car with tail lights doing more damage to my cornea than any solar eclipse ever could. Between stops I managed to glimpse the type of car: Infinity.

I tried in vain to let someone else get in front of me. I nearly came to a dead stop and signaled to the merging drivers to "go ahead of me". Certainly any car between me and the Infinity would be a welcome change. Any car that is, but another friggen Infinity!

I kid you not...there must be about 170,092 of them in Birmingham and each of them was damned determined to get in front of me on the way home that night. Each time I figured I'd get a reprieve...a traffic light...a guy weaving in and out of traffic like a bat out of hell...you got it -- another Infinity.

My eyes felt like they were bleeding razor blades by the time a late model truck with a missing taillight and a smelly exhaust got in front of me. I thanked God and prayed he was heading the same direction I was.

He wasn't. And yes...another Infinity took his place as soon as he turned off.

I'm just hoping there's some level of Hell they toss the people into who invented this "shield your eyes as if it were Medusa" brake light system. And I hope that level of Hell forces them to have their eyes yanked open wide with a "can't blink" contraption like "Alex" was strapped up to in A Clockwork Orange...combined with being subjected to a never-ending slit-lamp ophthalmologic exam...until infinity...

...and beyond.

(31 Jan 11: I hate when I make typos or other such stupidities which I find days later. This time it was a big technical one -- I meant to say "laser pointer" and had typed "laser printer"...which makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever in the context of what I was trying to get across. I have fixed it and now it reads better - but it's too late for most of you...all three people who read this blog. I had my chance and blew it. I'm going to have to read these things out loud to my kids next time...a fact I know they will JUST LOVE as they nearly feign death to get out of reading them as it is now.)

My "Beef" with Walmart

2011-01-19T19:45:00.016-06:00

Typical open-topped freezer case you find at your grocery store...not unlike the one I'm talking about at Walmart.

Yesterday my daughter and I ventured over to Walmart.

For reasons unbeknownst to anyone who has a remote inkling of how to do things, the powers that be at our local Walmart redesigned and redesignated all the aisles and moved everything from where it used to be to places that no one in their right minds would put it. It's like they took the entire store's contents, tossed them into a giant Walmart happy-face hat, and pulled aisles out at random and relocated them. Consequently I (and everyone else looking for things there) can't find anything at all. Those PUR and Brita water pitchers? Next to the toilet seats...DUH! Which, by the way, is in the same exact aisle as PAINT. Who'da thought? Well, paint USED to have lead in it - the water filters take the lead out (at least some)...so logically they'd be in the same aisle, right?

Apparently.

Anyway, that's not what my "beef" is.

My daughter says to me that cheesesteaks would be a good dinner idea...and I agree. Being from Jersey, which is a hop, skip and a jump away from Philadelphia...and being in Alabama (and I don't care what Craig Ferguson says about "Salem's Diner" in Birmingham having the best Philly cheesesteaks he ever had...anywhere) I miss my cheesesteaks. And being that I can concoct an "okay" facsimile...I agree and opt to make them for dinner last nite.

I actually think the secret to great cheesesteaks has got to be those Amaroso's rolls you never used to be able to get anywhere but the NJ/PA area (you can get them elsewhere now...go figure)...but I digress once again.

So, the Steak-Umms in Walmart are usually inside those "open air" aisle freezers - the kind without a lid on them - not the stand-up kind of freezer with the doors. And, glory glory...they didn't move them like they did everything else in the store...they are right there where they've always been.

I reach my hand down for the third pack from the top like I always do...and it's warm. I swear the Walmart air temperature was colder than the Steak-Umm package I now had my fingers wrapped around. I go and look at the temperature gauge and it's reading around 60+ degrees. The other thermometer in the same case further down is reading 50-something.

Now, I'm not stupid - I know freezer cases "cycle". But this food was the "Damn, I left this out on my counter instead of putting it away!" temperature. When the freezer cycles into the "defrost mode"...the food doesn't magically get warm and then freeze up again.

And heaven knows how long all this stuff was at this temperature - so I call a stocker lady over. She sticks her hand in there and remarks something to the effect of "Oh...this is NOT good!" and scurries off. So, naturally I assume she's going to call someone who will get to work fixing the case and promptly tossing all the bad food out.

Enter me and my daughter...into the same Walmart today. We have an hour to kill before getting her medicine from CVS, so we head on over to kill it there.

Me, again, being of the curious nature, decide to saunter over to the "Steak-Umm" case to see if they've tossed the food from yesterday out.

Big empty area inside the case exactly like yesterday: Check.

Steak-Umms piled up exactly like yesterday: Check.

Hamburger box tossed over on its side when the lady felt around the case - in the same exact position as it was yesterday: Check.

I left the aisle in disgust. "I'm going to make some calls tomorrow." I say to myself. I'm like that. I do those kinds of things. I may be little...but I am just as big as anyone over the telephone.

So, as we're still having to wander around for a while, we decide to go look at water pitchers again as I've probably contributed the equilvalent of filling up one landfill already with my empty plastic water bottles...and I feel pretty guilty as it is for doing so.

But not as guilty as to not report this Walmart infraction to someone today before someone inadvertently reaches for a nice "formerly warm/now frozen" package of tasty Steak Umms to unsuspectingly cook up for their family tonite.

As luck would have it...and no one ever asks me if I need help in Walmart (they usually run the other way like I have the plague...or ignore me totally as if I'm invisible) so it must be a sign -- a man walks up to us as we are making our way over to the "water pitcher/toilet seat/paint" aisle, and asks if "everything's okay today".

So I chirp up "No, it really isn't" and I state my case about the case. As we are walking he admits they had a freezer fixed this morning. The case I lead him to...isn't the one it was.

I then get a 10-minute spiel from him trying to convince me "it cycles" and that's why the temperature gauges were reading 60. Then another man joins him (who happens to be an assistant manager) and he further tries to convince me of the "cycling" theory.

But, you know what? I'm 50 years old. I've stuck my hands in more freezers over the years than a gynecologist specializing in frigid women has. I KNOW what room temperature feels like and I know what COLD feels like. I also know what the case looked like when I reported it to the woman last night. These two men today (while both being very nice) made no mention about anyone throwing out any food from that case, so chances are, they didn't.

All someone did was get the freezer fixed or jiggled the cord or something...and I'm not going to feel too guilty when I call up Walmart's corporate office tomorrow. I'm also not going to feel too safe the next time I buy my next frozen "nukey meal" there.

And whether corporate will care or not is anyone's guess as I've been told a lot of unbelievable stories by Walmart workers over the years. I've always dismissed them as over-exaggeration on their part...but now I'm not too sure about that.

But one thing's for certain: When I walk into Walmart to kill some time...I certainly don't expect anything I buy to KILL me later when I get home.

Candy is dandy...but sicker is quicker

2011-01-07T22:12:00.008-06:00

I've been in a writing slump lately - I think it's a combined "health issues, have no job, and I'm sick of reading more heinous ways people can kill each other" type of thing. So, if I'm not up to my usual "fun self" - well that is why.

Back when I was a child, my mother would always remind me not to take candy from strangers.

This, to a child in my era, seemed a bit strange in itself.

In my day (which was pretty much the 60s) you didn't hear of kids getting abducted - I knew of only one and it was quite a few years before my time: Charles Lindbergh's baby. And while it took place in New Jersey, it was supposedly for money and our family had none...so I was pretty much off the hook.

In Jersey where I lived, we got the Philadelphia news; and if things didn't happen in the generalized area of their broadcasting antenna, well, we never really knew about it. There were other things taking precedence anyway...mainly the Vietnam war, hippies, drugs, free love and rock and roll. There was also all this racial tension in some place called "Birmingham". But I was a kid and kids aren't too keen on watching the news religiously...so much of it was a blur to me...and so far away.

Closer to home, i.e., the Philadelphia area, we'd hear about fires engulfing homes once a week and killing a couple people and the obligatory "jack-knifed truck on the Schuylkill Expressway". I swear there was always some 18-wheeler lying on its side on that road every single day of the year. But pretty much this was the routine I was brought up with. And, if you didn't take candy from strangers, play with matches...and didn't play in traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway, you were pretty much guaranteed to lead a fairly long and uneventful life.

During my childhood years it was also typical for parents NOT to discuss such things as child molestation, sexual predators and pedophiles...and the resulting consequences of these. Heck, a couple of these terms weren't even coined yet.

I'm not stupid, I know these things went on since the dawn of mankind...and certainly were taking place in the 1960s and 1970s, but it seems so much more commonplace nowadays and it's probably due to instant information via the Information Highway. Face it, someone "goes missing" in Burlington, Vermont and people in New York City and Seattle, Washington (and all points between) hear about it roughly the same exact time. This didn't happen back in my day.

But I remember once when I was around 12 or 13, my friend and I were walking to "the beach" in my town in Jersey. It wasn't really so much a beach as it was a murky cedar lake with a set expanse of sandy shoreline...but we were walking along a dirt road shortcut as we always had every other time we went there.

Halfway through our walk, which was 3/4 of a mile at the most, a guy in some car pulled up next to us and asked if we'd like a lift. My friend and I, totally oblivious as to what type of pervert he probably was, said "No" and kept on walking.

There was no obvious overt sense of danger we felt we were in - plus he didn't offer us any candy...just a ride.

Despite these facts, he kept following at a snail's pace directly behind us as we continued walking and talking down this relatively isolated dirt road...the beach literally within our sights...and surely within walking distance. It was also within running distance, and for reasons I'll never quite understand, we both got an extreme case of the "heebee jeebies" at exactly the same time and broke out into a full on sprint to put as much distance between his car and us.

As you might have guessed, nothing happened, and we lived to go to "the beach" (and marvel at our instant cedar water tans) another day...and another...and another...

...some children don't.

And it's not just strangers - most times it's someone they know. And I think it's high time to start a much more aggressive approach for the sake of all our children.

That "candy" line we were all fed when we were kids - was plain silly - especially when Halloween rolled around.

I tell...and have told...both my children that there are people out there who torture and kill kids, dump their naked bodied in ditches on the side of the road and...very often...horrible heinous things happen before and after.

I don't Google photos to show them nor yank out a Hieronymus Bosch painting to get my point across, but a good scary dose of Stephen King-type terror isn't necessarily a bad thing in my opinion.

And, let me just address something which has been stuck in my craw for years - and I basically think this has a high basis in fact:

Not meaning to sound flip...but if you are going to get abducted - let's just hope you are a pretty blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white girl - as those are the only ones it seems get any full-out media attention.

Think about it, when was the last time a national manhunt was called for a missing homely Haitian girl? A Native American girl with a wonky eye? Someone Hispanic with an overbite? Any black girl??

Nope.

And it's so incredibly sad. I'm sure caring parents of ANY child is just as concerned about their child...and that child deserves the same treatment as that given a flaxen-haired beauty -- a missing media darling who becomes the press's eye candy.

I find that strangely disturbing.

(Orinally written, but not published, a couple years ago.)

Bulging at the Seams With That "Can-Do" Christmas Spirit

2010-12-05T22:14:00.012-06:00

'Tis the season of giving...where we open our hearts to share our good fortune...and our cupboards to share our bounty...with those less fortunate than ourselves...

...or so the old heartfelt sentiments they've instilled in us would have you believe.

Okay...back to that thought in a minute...I just wanted to say I was in a slump the last month and didn't write a blog. One could say I was tired of making the rounds to countless doctors' offices and, coupled with reading endless dismal news items centering on people killing children...or more precisely, their own children (or in their blood-line somehow) - like the one yesterday about a grandmother nonchalantly tossing their grandchild off the third floor Fairfax County, Virginia, mall's balcony to her death...well, I was figuring life itself doesn't hold enough jubilation for me to write about...lately.

That was...until today.

Today I went to yet another doctor's office and spied a ginormous sparkly wrapping-papered box sitting next to the television cabinet in the waiting room.

I, of course, went to peer inside as I am the curious sort.

Inside were a few cans. Oh, isn't that nice - a box set out for people to give to others who can't afford their deductible or health insurance to start with. Nice sentiment and all, right?

Guess again.

Out of the (maybe) nine cans inside...seven were dented. And not dented a little. Not like the ones that used to be in the mark-down aisle in any supermarket when I was a kid -- the ones we'd routinely consume because the difference between 35 cents and 29 cents was a large enough amount of money to risk your family's health because you were too strapped for cash to pony out the extra six cents. We're talking majorly mangled...bordering on seepage and explosion upon contact. I didn't look closely enough to see if the expiration dates were from the 1990's. Something held me back in the hope that human kindness wouldn't allow such a thing.

But then again...human "kindness" decided to go foraging for cans of stuff they bought ages ago (think "ghost of Christmases past" impulse buys like decadent French chestnuts or Dickensian English plum pudding)...or accidentally dropped from off the top shelf whilst looking for more "normal" things to eat. Then think of someone actually starting up their $48,000+ automobile and driving all the way to the doctor's office to gingerly insert them in a bedazzled box destined for people less fortunate than themselves to consume. Keep in mind these are the very same people who wouldn't think twice about tossing out a can of Fancy Feast cat food if it had so much as a friggen ripped label.

So, it's okay to give sub-par food to someone you don't have any ties to...it's okay...because, as they say: "It's the thought that counts."

Ugh.

(Written "the other day"...but not posted until today.)

Becoming Unglued

2010-10-18T21:25:00.008-05:00

"Mrs. Clayton, Jimmy's eating paste!" Little Suzy's tattletale shrieks broke the relative giddiness of the room and the whole class turned to see for themselves.

There he was...the telltale sign of paste hanging on the corners of his mouth like dingleberries...well, hanging on a whole other orifice; his mouth clamped tighter than that other sphincter, but smelling remarkably better.

"Let me see, James. Open your mouth." Mrs. Clayton's direct order and stern gaze (peering out from behind her black cat-eye glasses which were perched precariously on her hawk-like nose) had absolutely no effect on the kid. He wouldn't, or maybe he couldn't...but he shook his head forcefully back and forth and then a couple gulps later...he'd open wide for all to see. The evidence cleverly swallowed...his fat pink tongue wagging back and forth like an innocent puppy dog's tail. He was triumphant and, like that puppy, clearly oblivious to any wrong-doing.

With the "whiff test" administered directly after, Mrs. Clayton could do no more than to confiscate our group's paste container and we'd have to make do with passing around the industrial-sized Elmer's Glue which always needed Herculean strength to squeeze out a hair's diameter of the stuff on your paper. Even with shoving both a pin and a nail in the top part (over and over again)...the best you could hope for was an inconsistent dotted-line of semi-clotted goop to plop out and sore muscles the next day.

Now paste always had that nice minty aroma to it when I was a kid...I'm not sure if it still does nowadays...but back then it did. Perhaps that's why the paste-eaters of my era treasured it so. And you can rest assured there was always one kid in class who was an elitist gourmand when it came to all things sticky.

Elmer's Glue, although much more fun to play with (when it finally did come out) didn't have the culinary draw that nice white paste had. And don't forget, paste did have that popsickle-like stick inside the cap with which to poke and probe your way to the parts that didn't have any construction or crepe paper bits intermingled with it. Pure, unadulterated paste. Left alone with a tub of the stuff and the likes of Suzy being absent that day...Jimmy could get his fill uninterrupted. Sure, we'd laugh and point...but you have to keep in mind paste wasn't the only thing this kid was "into".

Jimmy had the unfortunate luck to be born a "Barger"..."James Barger" to be precise. Naturally, Jimmy also had reddish hair...all the more to stand out and be different from the other kids - but other than his propensity for paste...Jimmy had another proclivity: Jimmy liked to pick his nose and eat the contents therein.

In the well-oiled machinery of the mind of a five or six-year-old, it doesn't take too much gear-turning to alter "Barger" to "Booger"...and well, the name stuck. Stuck better than a nose-mining paste-oholic on a sub-zero playground in December. If you've never witnessed the sheer amount of "stuff" a nose can leak out of it in the winter in Jersey during recess...well, you haven't truly lived. Usually this is what mittens and coat sleeves were for...but little Jimmy "Booger" would be off by himself with the unbridled passion of a deer with a salt-lick. The kid was an unstoppable, unwavering gross-out spectacle. I'm not sure which he enjoyed more...the taste of paste and snot or the constant attention of his classmates pointing at him and egging him on to eat more paste and snot.

As he went through the elementary grades, Jimmy "Booger" Barger went through his fair share of paste. Paste becoming more and more a rarity with each passing year, Jimmy was eventually weaned off his habit, at least as far as we knew.

The nickname was still in use the year I moved when I was eleven, and while I was never there to know for certain, I'm pretty much inclined to believe it stuck until graduation day...when he could finally venture forth on a new life outside of the Hamilton Township School System.

Memories of youth undoubtedly fade...although some things do seem to cement themselves in our minds. It's silly what we retain in our heads years down the road - and how the simplest things can trigger those memories. You see, lately I've been wondering about poor old James...and whatever became of him -- because there's a boy in my daughter's school who looks strikingly similar.

Oh, I'm not going to blurt out any questions regarding paste ingestion to him...but...I might be inclined to get close enough to catch a whiff of his breath. You know, just for old-time curiosity's sake.

And, if it's minty fresh, eh...perhaps then I'll ask.

A Great Photo Op...or a Photo Oops?

2010-10-15T22:03:00.007-05:00

Just how much does it cost for a night on the town?

Well, not just any night on the town...a hypothetical night on the town as seen through the eyes of someone (me) who doesn't typically see things the way others do...but perhaps a few of you out there have been wondering the same as me. It IS, after all, inevitable.

A little set-up of sorts first:

1. I am old.

2. I love Monty Python.

3. I tend to think outside the box, i.e., not "normally".

4. I'm cynical and sarcastic and sometimes, with the right combination of legal substances, I also am given to flights of fancy that (at least to myself) I am somewhat witty.

Now the gist of what this is about:

Take anyone who reads the online version of their local community paper and give them...oh...a half hour or so...just perusing the site and reading things and looking around. You know -- the normal things.

Normally, this "normal" person will read a few articles, perhaps comment on a few things, perhaps agree with some content and disagree with one thing or another.

But not me.

I've been waiting and waiting for the inevitable. Some might say "Waiting for the other shoe to drop." Others might prefer "Waiting for the $#!^a to hit the fan." Me? Eh...I'm an observer. I'm just waiting around for the lawsuits.

Included in the Gannett online sites are photos of people taken around town...usually at night, and usually these people are in direct proximity to alcoholic beverages.

It has been my experience that alcohol, in small quantities, gives one a slight euphoric feeling; pleasant and a tad giddy. Alcohol in moderate quantities gives you a "devil may care" type of attitude. It's not quite cockiness but it's past the part where some innocent inhibitions start rearing their ugly heads. This is usually where ideas of "singing Karaoke" and shouting "I love you, man!" to everyone at the bar become a really good idea.

Then there is alcohol in more than moderate quantities...but before you get to the spinning, vomiting, and passing out part. Therein lies the "I am immortal" stage. Nothing can hurt you - you are immune. You don't care what you do and what others do and what others see you do.

Enter someone with a camera or cell phone.

And enter you...or more importantly, you with someone who just might not be who you've been routinely photographed with at family gatherings. Someone who you just might not want to bring over to meet Mom. And certainly not someone you'd like to introduce to your Mother-in-law.

Get what I'm saying yet?

For those of you out there who like to be forewarned...there's a naked butt in this video. Twice, I think.

The Monty Python "Blackmail" skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDAFrW_vNNQ

"Aha! Right?" Now you see what my little brain thinks when given things to think about...like how expensive a night on the town might actually be for some people.

Again, for those of you out there who like to be forewarned...ANYONE with a Gannett account can post those photos of you at the local hotspot...possibly getting all hot and heavy with someone you just might not want...in the picture...at all.

Suddenly your local community has gotten a whole lot smaller and much more intimate.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Oh...and smile! You'll look good in the online paper...and in that stack of papers your spouse's attorney has in court.

Champagne Wishes and Caveat Dreams

2010-10-10T22:59:00.010-05:00

Did I ever mention I love alcohol?

Seriously...I love this stuff. I'm tiny and as they would say back in Jersey "I'm a cheap date".

While this brings up connotations of things most untoward, I'm not even going there. I'm a little person and my alcohol tolerance, i.e., "buzz level", doesn't take much alcohol for it to kick in.

Let me be perfectly frank here...I'm not an alcoholic, a lush, or a drunkard. I don't need to be interventioned and I don't need the number to AA.

I am a responsible drinker.

That might sound like a lesson in contradiction, but I am.

I never drive after I drink and I've never have fallen face-down in front of my kids and I don't "worship the porcelain god".

I have what people back in the 1960s would refer to as "The Bewitched Syndrome". (Okay, maybe only I would refer to it as that as I'm the one who coined the phrase.)

Do you not have a clue?

Let me help you out.

Did you ever watch the television show, "Bewitched"?

Darrin always had a Martini waiting for him when he got home. Sure, Samantha and Endora might have been bar-hopping on Saturn (they liked to say "Saturn" a lot back then - I was too little to know if it was an in-joke...and I'm too old now to care) with Dr. Bombay, but by the time the "going home whistle" blew at the advertising firm of McMann & Tate - Samantha was back on Earth being the dutiful wife...and Darrin was on his way home to wet his own whistle.

Honestly, I don't think there was an episode which didn't extol the virtues of alcohol. It's a wonder anyone growing up the 60s didn't have a monkey of sorts on their back...and I'm not counting any shows where Endora actually put one ON Darrin's back. Oh, c'mon the plot was always the same: Darrin does something to piss off Endora - Endora, in turn, casts a spell on Darrin, Darrin learns a lesson, Larry and Louise come over and down copious amounts of alcohol...something "witchy" happens and Samantha always weaves her way out of it.

This was way before Christine O'Donnell came on the political scene. Plus Samantha always tried NOT to be a witch...which was always central to the plot line...and everyone knows when Samantha twitched her nose... there was nothing really political going on. Unless, of course, you count the warlock council and that coven of witches...who weren't so much coveting votes as they were just trying to have a little fun messing with mortals.

Enter again - alcohol.

Every single one of them drank like a fish. The only one I never saw drink was their nosy neighbour, Gladys. She was probably too busy taking psychotropic drugs I guess. She always saw things and no one ever believed her. She was the poster child for Xanax if there ever was one, poor lady. And then there was Mrs. Stephens (Darrin's mother), who always had a "sick headache" -- not to be confused with a "regular one", because long before WebMD was invented she was the most neurotic person on television until Howie Mandel came along.

But, I digress.

As W.C Fields (who drank a lot) always said, "All things being equal I'd rather be in Philadelphia."

And, as Jimmy Stewart said to Cary Grant in "The Philadelphia Story" (and did I mention I grew up in Jersey -- and Jersey was very close in proximity to Philadelphia)..."Champagne is a great leveleler... leveleler. It makes you my equal." If you've never seen the movie - do so...it's better than the sum total of Bewitched episodes...and has its share of other champagne moments that anyone inside and outside of Bryn Mawr can relate to.

And, boy oh boy, can I relate to alcohol -- and if I would have been around during Prohibition - I would have shed my inhibitions to imbibe the 'nectar of the gods'. Did I mention I was a "cheap date"?

Oh well.

God knows I need a drink just to follow what I just wrote.

So, Cheers! Which, by the way, was a much, much, much better show than anything on the air today. Plus, ironically, it centered around alcohol.

Did I happen to mention I love alcohol?

My Wonky Thyroid and Me

2010-10-09T17:36:00.012-05:00

(Arrows indicating approximate location of my wonky thyroid.)

Okay, usually I don't write about "me". Sure, I write about things that happen to me...but usually I hope I do it where someone can go "Oh...yeah...that's happened to ME, too!" and they relate and a fairly good time is [hopefully] had by all.

Well, today is different.

Many of you out there know I have a comedy website I haven't updated in an eon plus two. Many of you out there also know that I am in an extended "pre-divorce" situation and as such I am severely depressed as I don't have: 1) Money; 2) A job; 3) Any relative I could call up and get support from; 4) My "Mummo" (what I called my mother) anymore; and 4) No health insurance as soon as I eventually get divorced. Oh...and did I mention health issues?

I usually tend to keep those to myself and my two or three chosen friends who have to endure endless crying episodes of me on the telephone and my venting and droning on and on and on about how pathetic I am and surely I am indeed a waste of skin. I'm not even a waste of "good" skin as my skin looks pretty thin and old by now and I have a sneaky suspicious feeling that I know why:

My wonky thyroid.

I tried to discount it. I tried to reason it all out. I tried to think of other reasons I have that would make my thyroid a secondary accomplice to all the perpetrators I have in my body which feel like they've gone and burglarized, ransacked and kidnapped whoever used to be IN my body. I am left with this horrible shell of who I used to be - and I don't like the "Folger's Coffee replacement" they left in my stead.

In a few words...I don't LIKE who I've become.

I have absolutely no motivation to do anything.

My hair is really thin and it looks pathetic - it's always been thin but it's even more thin and sparse, too.

I'm losing weight at an alarming rate. I'm not a big person and if I were I'm sure I'd be ecstatic about this part, but when you weigh about 120 to start with and are now at about 108 and NOTHING seems to fit...well, it's probably as bad as having a different weight issue.

I get mad at the drop of a hat. I overreact and I throw little temper tantrums...usually directed at my two kids and I hate myself for doing it.

I'm disoriented and forget things a lot. My brain's not working and of all the things I liked about myself (which weren't many), my brain was at the top of the list. Now it doesn't work. My brain doesn't work. I am crying as I type this...do you know what it's like to have your brain NOT WORK?? I don't remember things like I used to...and you take that and couple it with my neurotic tendencies (which I didn't used to have) well, my "brain case scenarios" are dire at best. I automatically think I have brain cancer, encephalitis, meningitis, brain herpes, a cerebral spinal fluid leak, dementia, Alzheimer's, specific cancers such as "tumor on my olfactory nerve", epilepsy, seizures, and just plain everyday stress-related brain issues in general.

Migraines. I've been having one a lot, especially since I got hit upside my head on the 28th of September after leaning to get out of the "blood chair". The swing arm of it wasn't all the way back and came back down and knocked me upside my head really jarring my neck and making me think I was now going to have an aneurysm in my brain. Did I mention I was on blood thinners? My little brain would bleed at the drop of a hat - and certainly at the drop of the stupid swing arm of the "blood chair". (A CT scan at the ER last week was fine. Yes, I went there as I had the most severe headache I'd ever had.)

Anxiety. I have a whole plethora of things I am anxious about. Basically dealing with my health...and being old...and having no health insurance eventually...and having no job...and wait...I told you all those things already. When your heart skips beats or goes willy-nilly-silly for a bit...and you have been diagnosed with a few things wrong with your heart - like atrial fibrillations...well, you get anxious a lot when it happens.

I'm falling asleep for no real reason other than I've been diagnosed with Sleep Apnea recently and because I didn't do my sleep study at the converted house in Wetumpka which reeked of mold and new paint...my study has apparently been put on hold. This in itself makes me even more anxious as apparently you can have all kinds of heart problems and things like strokes when you have Sleep Apnea. I never was able to go to sleep before and have had to take Ambien just to shut my brain off...so falling asleep at 9:00 p.m. vs 9:00 a.m. (like usual) is really scary.

Energy. I have none. I don't even have enough energy to type up why. Trust me...there's no energy in this body. I am the antithesis of the Energizer Bunny. I am more the Lack-of-Energy Sloth.

But the coup de gras is my wonky thyroid. My thyroidologist (yes, I made that word up) wants to obliterate my thyroid ("...like the first Mrs. Bush" he kept saying) by radioactive iodine. The otolaryngologist (no, that word I didn't make up) whom I saw in Birmingham back in February said my thyroid was "okie dokie" (perhaps not using those specific words) and didn't see any need to have it surgically removed. Then I had six fine needle aspiration biopsies there at the Kirklin Clinic and they sent me on my merry way. So, while I was sent on my merry way...I wasn't exactly merry. And I've been getting less and less merry ever since.

I feel like crap. Pure utter crap.

So...the reason behind my blog here other than releasing pent up hormones of frustration (which is probably yet another sign my thyroid is wonky)...has anyone out there been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and dealt with it in some way? I know I can go online and read all the thyroid posts and whatnot - but it would be nicer if someone I remotely knew (even tho I don't know any of you, really) had some first-hand knowledge of it they'd like to share with me. Sharing with me via the phone...even better. Seriously, I'm getting very desperate here...I honestly would like to talk about hyperthyroidism experiences (of which there are many more than I listed here).

I really don't want to suck down some radioactive iodine...but it's looking better and better every single damn day. Especially if I can follow it with a Martini chaser.

Oh, for the days Reader's Digest would publish their "I am Joe's Spleen"...as I would rather read that (only you know..."I am Joe's Thyroid") than the wide range of scary things that come up when I type "hyperthyroidism" into that "outlined in black box" thingy known generically as the Google Search Engine.

Anyone? Please...please...please...

Shakespeare, Dickens and Me?

2010-10-08T23:41:00.009-05:00

I hit a milestone of sorts the other day: I posted my 250th blog.

Now, that might not seem that monumental in the grander schemes of accomplishments mankind has made, but my blogs aren't all about my cat, or what I made for dinner last night, and none of them ever just had the "I feel :( today" comment.

Oh, trust me on that last one, there are people out there who do only that as a blog. What's worse -- there are people out there who "FOLLOW" those people's blogs.

Since I've written about so many different things...I wonder if there's a point where I have done -- or at least touched on, everything that's out there.

This recurring thought of mine has crept into my mind many times. And it's got to have come into the minds of people who are songwriters or writers of books.

Stay with me here on this one...

Beethoven had it easy.

So did Shakespeare.

The writers for "I Love Lucy"? Sheesh...all those episodes were a walk in the park compared to what today's writers have to deal with.

Back in the "olden days" - there were like, what? Five people writing songs? ANY tune you came up with was new. NOTHING sounded like anything else because 30 songs, tops, were written. How easy did those music "geniuses" have it? ANYTHING they wrote was new and innovative.

Seriously, is there any tune left that doesn't sound remotely like something else someone came out with? You might not even know the sound sounds the same - and you might not have even heard of it...totally innocent and all...but it sounds like some obscure polka ska band from Lichtenstein - and all of a sudden someone points it out via YouTube. You are now "BUSTED". Katy Perry move over.

And writers back then. Sure, there were people writing back then - but there were only like seven famous ones. Coming up with any book idea must have been - well, a writer's dream. I know for a fact, if I would have been an author in 1884, I would have been on several dreaded Victorian "summer reading lists" in schools.

"Please, sir, can I read some more?"

While I can bask in the heady thought that I probably would have been famous back then...I'd also certainly be dead by now...so it's pretty much a moot point and does me absolutely no good pondering the prodigiousness of my proposed pious past.

Alas.

So while people like Stephen King gobble up the last remaining 17 ideas which haven't been done yet...and you are on page 221 of some 93rd remake of some re-vamped vampire book from some 24-year-old author who undoubtedly has a relative working at HarperCollins, remember that I'm continually slaving away trying to think of original blogs to entertain you people.

And all for free...dammit.

(Okay, I hit my 250th blog about 16 blogs ago...I'm just late getting around to writing this. I also never claimed I was good at alliteration.)

Time Travel and the Grandfather Paradox aka My Theory of Non-Relativity

2010-09-15T08:40:00.007-05:00

I do not claim to be the greatest thinker of all time. I also do not profess to be in the top one million. When I think lately it's more or less about how my headache is never "just a headache"...it has to be brain cancer...and that not finding the mouth ulcer thingy on my tongue this time (even with a lighted magnifying mirror and a long-handed teaspoon in one hand and a Q-tip in the other) is highly indicative of me having tongue/mouth/throat cancer (thank you - neurotic tendencies). The fact that I've been abstaining from all alcohol for absolutely no reason whatsoever this past week...is again, in my clinical opinion...probably directly related to my tongue/mouth/throat cancer.

So when I thought the other day of a thought I've frequently thought, as I talked to someone whose name I can't even remember...on the phone - for hours and hours (Jimmy Stewart's filibuster scene in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" is nothing compared to my ability to talk endlessly)...I decided I would type this out to get it out of my system.

Time travel as we know it has been the thing many movies have been built on. And I always find fault with them all - basically because I'm anal like that and I like to compare notes after the film is over with other anal people who, likewise, feel compelled to share their insight via the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).

We all know "Back to the Future", "The Time Machine" (don't bother watching the remake I didn't even know was remade until I watched it the other day), "Terminator" (and the four or seven sequels), "The Time Traveler's Wife" (horrid, simply horrid), and so on and so on...with "Twelve Monkeys" probably being the best in my opinion along with "12:01 PM.", a short film which is absolutely brilliant...but not true "time traveling of your own free will"...but I thought I'd mention it as it really is great. And then there's "Doctor Who"...who could forget him?

But I'm rambling...kinda like I do on the telephone...

Basically, when I'm not talking on the telephone, I sit and I watch television - mainly old films, very old films...or documentaries.

Some of these documentaries are about time travel...and I tend to uber-analyze them as much as I do the films of the same "genre".

Typically, if you've seen any of these shows...they are way over the average person's head, yet they get the guy with the PhD in Astro-Biological-Time-Quantum Physics to explain to us "little people" about theories we've gullibly bought in above said movies. To do this they resort to convoluted things like bending pieces of paper (marked "A" and "B") over and there's usually a ball and a trampoline employed somehow (think MacGyver as the prop man) and always a flashlight.

Well, one of these theories in time travel is the "Grandfather Paradox". In a nutshell, if you aren't familiar, it's where you theoretically can't go back in time and kill your own grandfather as you wouldn't be able to go back in time as you weren't born if you killed him. It's loads of fun to think about...especially if you've drank enough alcohol to get loaded or taken an Ambien...but never at the same time.

So, people with IQs in the tens of the power of 2 or 20 (or some other such mathematical rot) have concluded their own conclusions and summarily tossed time traveling back to commit such an act -- as impossible. Some have further theorized you can't go back in time prior to the invention of the time machine...as you'd have to wait X years after the invention and then can only go back in time as far as the invention was invented.

Eh...whatever. If I'm going to invent a time machine...it darn well better go back to point one and go in the future and sideways and longways and all the ways that Willy Wonka glass elevator can go.

Now, I've paid as much attention to these programs as one can (given the circumstances)...and they never bring up MY theory:

(clears throat) This theory, which belongs to me, is as follows... (more throat clearing) This is how it goes... (clears throat) The next thing that I am about to say is my theory. (clears throat) Ready? (Oh, lookie there...I time traveled back to Monty Python days.)

Seriously, here it is:

Okay, but first...you know that question which anyone with a child answers the same? The "If you could go back in time and change one thing in your life...would you?" And they get all "George Bailey" on you and say, "Well, I wouldn't because that would mean my child/children wouldn't have been born."

Well, I claim bull crap on that generic answer...which happens to be my theory.

IF you could go back in time...how do you know you wouldn't have the same children? Sure, you can speculate they'd be different...but you wouldn't really know it as you wouldn't know any differently as you don't have a time machine. Perhaps they were destined to be born anyway...and they aren't so much a strand of DNA as they are some cosmic entity that is yours alone...and no matter how many years or dimensions you could possibly travel through...they'd still end up getting here.

So, in principle, you could go back and kill your own grandfather as he wouldn't necessarily have to be related to you.

Or...something like that.

Hey, I'm still working on it...sheesh!

It's a theory in the making...and if Hollywood can get away with a few liberties, well, so can I, right?

(A side note: I am neurotic and always think the worst...I can't tell you how many times over the years it was brain cancer or throat cancer...so I meant absolutely no offense to Michael Douglas...and would never ever joke about something like that. Michael Douglas is doing the brave and right thing to tell people about his throat and mouth cancer...and because of his celebrity...many people will listen...and be saved by early intervention due to what he's been sharing. I applaud him and I hope he wins his battle.)

Who Says Women Are Inferior?

2010-09-10T05:46:00.011-05:00

So, the other day I was rambling on about going to the library when I went off on a tangent and talked about my girlhood days of summer ending instead. This is the bit which was the blog that wasn't...until now.

"The world's greatest cooks are men."

"While there are many women cooks who can prepare a fairly presentable bouillabaisse the dish reaches the heights only in the hands of a man."

"After suffering steam-table tastelessness or misplaced house-wifely economy, any palate will perk up at the taste of fresh fish, properly prepared -- by a man. (Women don't seem to understand fish -- and, we suppose, vice versa.)"

"Game can be cooked in a spick-and-span tiled kitchen, of course, and even exceptionally by some women (who usually are good shots as well); but a log cabin or an open grill is the logical place -- and a man's the proper cook."

Aside from those being "fighting words" for Julia Child, female chefs, and women in general -- these quotes, and countless others along the same line, can be found in a book which I found and bought at the library over the summer. Most libraries, by the way, earn a little extra income taking in donated books (or ridding their shelves of old or outdated ones) and selling them for less than the average late fee. I love going into libraries for nothing else but this...so, when my daughter had to read three books off a designated reading list during the summer, I hit the "selling alcove" to scour their designated "throw-aways".

I have, if you are not aware, a fondness, nay, a love of cooking, and as such own quite a growing, towering mass of these cookbooks and magazines. So, it wasn't much of a surprise when I ran across a pristine 1949 copy of "Esquire's Handbook for Hosts", I ripped it off the shelf as madly as those women you see parodied in movies battling it out over the "to die for" on sale sweater at the end of season sale at Neiman's.

I opened it up and delighted to see it probably had never been opened up once in its very long shelf life. Well, things were about to change...so I grabbed some change, plunked it down, and proud as a peacock (remember men, that's "peacock" not "peahen" as those are SOOOOOOOOO terribly inferior to the male of the species), exited the library with it, my daughter, and a few more books I bought, in tow.

But it wasn't until I got home and perused this uber-snob delight, because, seriously, that IS what this book is: A guidebook for the "well-appointed, well-to-do, well-dressed, and well-inherited" self-made bachelor. It's also a play-by-play guide for any self-respecting man's man who uses words like "buttle" and "canapes".

Hoity-toity men of the late 1940s apparently also had a profound affectation to banter about the word "Esky" when referring to Esquire Magazine. "Esky" undoubtedly felt the need to ram that fact along with some food and drink recipes peppered with assorted other host-related milieu of the impeccably refined...down my throat...and down my throat often.

While I found that little tidbit [I'll never use] out, I also found out this is a genuine time-traveling trip into the "very condescending to women" male-dominant society of...well, mid-1900s high-society. In a word, this is not something you are going to run across every day...nowadays.

Call me an anti-libber, but I thoroughly enjoyed the "James Bondishness" this book had. You know...the circa 1960s Bond, where women were just eye-candy ready to be unwrapped and then tossed aside like the cellophane wrapper you'd have to peel off packs of unfiltered Camels (you know, back when you could smoke in pleasant company without getting arrested) before you tapped the pack and plucked one out.

Yes, this book has everything for the dapper misogynist: Nude cartoons of women (yeah, it's a wonder it was allowed to be sold IN Alabama -- yes, I will never let this state live that 'wine label fiasco' down), hints and tips on how to get a woman...and which woman to choose who won't embarrass your family or bring you down a few notches in the social standings, and how women, themselves, know if they are indeed attractive to a man...or just a homely bore.

Seriously, it does. All that and much, much more!

So, when you are in need of knowing the proper way to shut up a tipsy vulgarian (lure him to a back bedroom and give him a "potent stiff one" to ensure he is rendered totally unconscious), what cures a morning hangover (absolutely NOTHING), or how to cook snipe...you'll find those -- plus a hefty dollop of brain teasers to impress even the most discerning of your Yale compatriots -- in this book.

And, as the writers of this prestigious bit of persnickety pomp would say, "Get out your gourmet viands and let the gay times commence!"

"My, my...how times HAVE changed, haven't they, Jeeves?"

"Jeeves?!"

Now where the devil could he have run off to? I tell you...good help is sooooooooooo hard to come by these days.

What I Dread Most About Summer Ending

2010-09-05T22:14:00.010-05:00

(My fourth grade report card. In case you are wondering what my teacher, Mrs. Zoltanski [who had to be 105 if she was a day], wrote -- see bottom of blog.)

A couple months ago I went to the library here in town because my daughter needed to do some book reports to fulfill her summer reading requirement. Personally, I always thought the summer reading list was inherently the same as "homework during the summer" and, had I been given that chore during my vacations growing up instead of the obligatory "What I Did During Summer Vacation" thematic report, I would have been an even more bitter person than I am now. Or at least a different one.

For some people, who took vacations, the "What I Did During Summer Vacation" paper probably was a nice little way for little Jimmy or Becky to show off how much money their families had. "We went to Disneyworld in our brand new car that daddy bought with his summer vacation bonus at the law firm."

Oh, well, I had to be more inventive than that because we never went anywhere and back when my father was a welder, they made pretty much minimum wage...hence the "never went anywhere" comment prior.

This is where I am 99.8 percent certain teachers only doled out this busy work for us the first day of school so that they could recover from their alcohol induced "last-day-of-my-sanity" hurrahs. Undoubtedly, years and years ago some brilliant teacher, who probably had a massive hangover, invented this task as a subterfuge while he took refuge napping at...or under...his desk for a good 40 minutes.

I am also convinced teachers don't read this drivel because, Number 1...who wants to read about some kid whose father just bought a brand new Mercedes when your 1972 Nova with the passenger door's window trashbagged over...is sitting out in your designated teacher's parking spot? And, Number 2..."inventive" kids like me never got the "Can I see you after class?" shout-out.

Having "first day jitters" is not an uncommon occurrence for kids returning to school following a three-month long hiatus/reprieve...I got my jitters for one reason and one reason only: That dreaded "What I Did During Summer Vacation" paper. I knew it was coming...it was inevitable, and inevitably I didn't have anything, yet again, to write about. Nothing...that really happened...that is.

And here's the proof of why I'm so certain not one teacher ever read those reports: I always made up things bordering on the near impossible and of the "highly improbable" genre. My vacation destinations made a trip to Oz and Wonderland seem commonplace. My head was filled with more insanity than the combined episodes of "H.R. Pufnstuf".

In a nutshell, I was a nutjob.

And, not once...not one single time did a teacher ever ask me what I had been sipping, snorting, smoking, or injecting. Not once.

All of us kids sitting there could have (and seriously, we should have) put the exact same vacation story on our papers...and I'm convinced we all would have had varying degrees of grades. I am, again, 99.8 percent certain of this because one year I wrote about taking an out of body experience to Mars during the summer and got "Excellent! -- A+ -- I wish I could have gone along!" inscribed upon it, in red ink no less.

While this all actually happened...and I credit having to resort to my imagination much, much more of a learning tool than any mouse-laden tour of Disneyland ever could have been...this wasn't the original "theme" of this blog. This was all just an elaborate set-up for my next one, which is all about my "find" at my local library a couple months ago.

So, stay tuned for Part 2 - in a day or two.

For those of you who are curious as to what the first two marking period comments shown say...here you go:

First Marking Period: I gave Mariann a B in conduct because I did not want to keep her off the honor roll with a C. However, she must refrain from talking as much as she has been doing to maintain that mark.

Second Marking Period: Mariann is a very good student but she has handed in papers carelessly written. This is probably due to the fact that she is trying to write as fast as thoughts come into her mind. It is an asset to be a speed-reader but not a speed-writer.

(Also, I don't imply all teachers get drunk on the eve of the first day of school...but I do have my suspicions about a couple of the ones I had.)