Attic Expeditions

We live in a house with two roofs. An artifact from the 1970’s, it was custom designed by an ambitious local businessman to emulate a southwestern pueblo.

Unfortunately, his design was flawed--resulting in a perpetually leaky roof. After the house changed hands several times, a rancher solved the problem by building an immense tri-hipped roof over the existing flat one. So, we have a spacious attic that could pass for a second floor with some loving care.

This weekend, Tennisfiend decided to tackle the attic project with gusto. He dumped out the accumulation of spare boxes, mysterious wood scraps and inexplicable objects left behind by the previous owners. Finding a naughty VHS tape of animated fairytales wrapped in a moldering apron and numerous ancient (but not collectable) radios highlighted the afternoon.

Tennisfiend spent the latter part of Christmas Day lugging buckets of lava gravel and roof tar down our rickety ladder. Last night he decided to replace the buckets with our monster shop-vac. Wrenching the shop-vac up the ladder produced the loudest ten minutes of metallic clanking and Russian cursing I have ever heard.

An hour later, another dreadful racket commenced, it sounded like God was using our roof as an Emory board. Mildly startled, I snuck up the ladder to witness Tennisfiend peeling up inconsequential strips of roof tar with the aid of a flat bladed shovel. What a thankless job. I silently retreated.

At 9:00 p.m., a burning smell permeated the house. Tennisfiend explained that some roof tar had caught fire but would not elaborate further. At 10:00 p.m. a dusty and preoccupied Tennisfiend wrapped up his work. As we turned in for bed, he asked me where we could find a soldering torch. I had no idea what a soldering torch was, but I finally understood that he meant “blow torch”. When I asked, “What for?” he hesitantly explained that he planned to use it to heat up the roof tar, facilitating its removal. Heh. So when they find my singed corpse with a smug “I told you so” smirk charred on my lips, you know exactly what happened.

Recovery!

I never made it to the store with Ewbliette on Friday. Neverthless, she arrived wearing her festive Cossack Santa cap, cheerful as ever. After twenty minutes of gossip, she snatched my shopping list and left me and my greasy hair to watch (heaven help me) Ben Stiller comedies on TV. Bless her for doing my shopping!

Egor came home early from work after a riotous afternoon office party. He cuddled with me on the couch as we watched more mindless comedy. Saturday I felt a bit sorry for myself. I missed out on a fair amount of holiday fun, including movie marathons, parties, Christmas light excursions and most importantly, caroling with , and company. I hadn’t even set up our New Year’s tree. Sigh. A perfect remedy for the blues always includes chocolate (stomach be damned) and sunshine.

So I took advantage of the 75 degree weather and prostrated myself in the backyard to watch Tennisfiend work on his tan. :) In the evening we finally put up our squat but ample tree. Being sick had one advantage, Tennisfiend indulged my tree-decorating preferences. Every year we squabble over the ratio of decorations to tree-space. I fancy a tree that strains under the weight of its ornaments, while he prefers a tree so austere that it looks forest-bound.

This year we used all six strings of lights and eight colossal boxes of bulbs. When we finished, our shiny sparkly tree could be confidently exhibited on the Las Vegas strip. I felt quite proud. Sunday, we had a Christmas miracle! I woke up before noon and I made waffles. I even fixed an abbreviated Holiday dinner of roasted rabbit. We fed Misty treats all day long unfortunately making her ill by evening. I totally sympathized and brought her up on the couch to finish watching the Christmas marathon of evolution related programming on the Science Channel. Yay cephalapsis and homo erectus!

Sick Week

• Saturday evening, I began to feel unwell.
• Monday my mommy took me to the doctor.
• Tuesday I graduated from feeling ill in bed to feeling ill on the couch. Mom brought over meals for tennisfiend. Ewbliette visited and polished our kitchen to a shine I could never aspire to.
• Wednesday I was still couch bound, but bored. I did some crossword puzzles in the late afternoon. Devoted and still in a mood to clean, Ewbliette visited again to spread good cheer and to help around the house (I love her, very, very much).
• Today I made feeble attempts to return to my usual routine. I checked my email, paid some bills. Under a warm sun, I wheezed around the backyard and drew a primitive but recognizable picture of Misty.
• Tomorrow Ewbliette will take me shopping, even if I have to ride in a go-cart. I plan on wearing my fuzzy brown sweater, reindeer antlers and bright red lipstick.

 

I hope Santa will be generous to all of you celebrating Christmas this weekend. Our big celebration and gift exchange is on New Years Eve (Russian tradition). For recovery and holiday madness, I will take a brief hiatus from journaling. Happy Holidays!

Christmas Card Happiness!

Thank you goregalx for your super-sweet card! Between the hot buttered fun and the rum balls, I'm bound to have a very happy holiday season! Yay! Hope my modest greetings arrive soon! *hugs* Lori

Not Much Happening Here

So, aside from neglecting my lj, what have I been up to?

• Meeting work deadlines
• Shoving html into my brain as quickly as I can to facilitate the creation of my humble website
• Staring with stomach sinking dread at our empty and cracking pool, which needs repainting this weekend
• Pulling out my hair over the BIG leak in the koi pond
• Scanning multiple Hienrich Kley images just crooked enough to make straightening them infuriatingly impossible
• Running every fan in the house to eliminate the infernal smell of burned rice from the kitchen
• Rejoicing over being pregnant
• Panicking over every twinge, ache and secretion

Construction Worker Surprise

A few days ago I was torn away from work by the sound of Misty’s “Intruder!!!” bark. Stomping around importantly behind our property, two workmen measured and marked with stakes and flags. The attractive tall blond one noticed me and shouted incomprehensibly, waving. This drove Misty into a saliva-spaying apoplectic fit. While I held her back, the blond fellow continued to talk. Distracted by Misty’s writhing and snarling, I had to ask him to repeat himself, twice.

I finally realized that the poor fellow had a dreadful stammer. I did not want to embarrass him further, so I only half understood what was said. Someone was going to do something to our telephone pole this Saturday.

Saturday morning after Tennis Fiend left to conquer the scoundrels from Silver City in a charity tennis match, I put my hair up in hot rollers and made tea. At 9:20 the doorbell rang. Expecting a generic construction worker I nonchalantly answered the door. Apparently, El Paso Electric hires workmen based entirely on physical beauty. “Manny,” as his name tag read, was a dead ringer for Christian Bale.

He smiled warmly and said, “Miss, we need access to your back yard to…..” I don’t even remember what he said, except he called me “Miss.” It was my turn to stammer, “Uhnhh, sure. I-I-I’ll go unlock the, uhhhh, back gate.” Immediately I went to the bathroom and wiped off the three white dots of Oxy-10 speckling my face and tossed a towel over my rollers. Sheesh.

Our back yard was then invaded by the handsomest work crew I have ever seen. Tall, athletic, and graced with perfect teeth, Manny’s three co-workers smiled and smiled. They smiled at me, they smiled at my astonished neighbor Sioux and they even smiled at Misty, barking at the window. Aware of their effect on womankind, the quartet enjoyed their moment with panache. As they strutted about their business, I almost expected them to take off their shirts and do a little dance for us.

Twenty minutes later as I washed dishes, I heard Sioux laughing girlishly--she had made coffee for everyone and was chatting up Michael Vartan. The downside of the Electric Company visit was a day without power. I should lament our culture’s dependence on electricity and fossil fuel, or even my own unhealthy addiction to the internet and Comcast cable, but I haven’t the heart. Instead I reflect on how delightful and silly it is to be human.

Have Some Lemonade

The past five days have been difficult. I didn’t want to write, I didn’t want to think, I didn’t even want to sing. Yet as always, good things happen amidst the bad. Last week I acquired a scanner and I've been rabidly scanning images since it makes me feel like a great artist. I’m sharing a few scans selected from one of ’s favorite but dilapidated childhood books. The illustrator seems to be Russia’s answer to Sergio Aragones . They made me smile, perhaps you'll smile too.

Spotting

I went to the doctor today because I had some brown spotting. This was just like the spotting that I had when I miscarried last year. I am so scared.  It's too soon for an ultrasound, so the doctor put me on micronized progesterone to stop the spotting. Very, very scared.

Meme, Compliments of Goreygalx

Meme from goreygalx: Name 5 simple pleasures that you like most, then pick 5 people to do the same. Try to be creative and not to use things that someone else has already used.


1. Watching an orange and pink sunset from the roof of our pool house.

2. ewbliette’s Nachos.

3. Balancing one-legged on the tall wall in the backyard.

4. Driving on a cold night with the windows rolled down.

5. Reading in bed while sharing a bowl of pretzels with Misty and .

Holiday Cards, Anyone?

Every year I joyfully ship handfuls of holiday cards across the nation. I usually select cards illustrated by local artists benefiting the charity Jardin de los Niños. Alas, this year they really amped up the religion on their greetings. As an agnostic, I prefer secular greetings. Still, I’ll buy Merry Christma/Feliz Navidad cards, but no God’s Blessings upon You This Holiday Season cards.  

Anyway, I hunted down alternate cards and I am in a card sending frenzy. If you’d like a card, email me to swap addresses.  I won’t stalk you if you won’t stalk me! :D

Happy Birthday Clarke-mas!!!

Yay! Have a happy birthday or I'll menace the toad with strobe lights! Oh, wait--have a happy birthday, while I menace the toad with strobe lights! Yay!

Love and Hooeyness!

Positive

Two faint lines on the internet order super-ept test. I am so happy and so scared. And so totally broke out!  I will be testing for quite some time.

SURPRISE!!!

Click on a photo for a larger view 
Rodoyo enhances Ewbliette's dignity with bunny ears.
Rodoyo stifles a laugh while enjoying his homemade desert pizza.
A fellow Werner Herzog fan, Klaus traditionally follows his Thanksgiving dinner with "Aguirre, Wrath of God."
Brad Dourif's long lost younger brother showed up for pizza, Kalua and a roll of flying paper towels.
Our Den Mother and reality check matron, Razzy.
Yours truly.Last night we threw a surprise birthday party for Ewbliette. Her sweetie, brotherkurt began party planning two weeks ago, delighting Rodoyo and I immeasurably. Shopping with him this Tuesday was a riot, I laughed so much my bladder is still weak. Big Lots will never be the same again.

After buying last minute decorations, I realized that mylar balloon manufacturers must have a perverted sense of humor. Strategically placed on the balloon’s abdomen, the air valve resembled a perky pastel penis. If the religious right finds out, my amateur photos might gain notoriety on Fox News as an example of the debauchery and godlessness amongst New Mexican partygoers.
Anyway, never underestimate the decorating powers of duct tape, wrapping paper, rocks and shiny ribbons. Guided by Rodoyo, our decorating squad transformed Brother Kurt’s home into a purple and silver paradise (sadly, my decoration pics never turn out.

We were so efficient that we finished decorating twenty minutes early. Then we theorized how to maximize the surprise factor for Ewbliette. But before we had a chance to take our shirts off and paint letters on our bellies, their car pulled up in the driveway, so we hid instead. I am pleased to report that we did more than surprise her; we managed to startle her into an involuntary terrified shriek.

I’ll leave the remaining exciting details for Ewbliette to recount (she will probably be incommunicado till Tuesday). So here’s a few snap shots, feel free to stir up trouble by alerting your local relgious fanatics.

Ewbliette is the Birthday Queen

Happy Birthday Ewbliette!!!

Initially I wrote a birthday song to the tune of Abba's "Dancing Queen," but it was embarassingly corny. Imagine how teeth-gratingly awful it must have been for me to consider this my superior verse: 

(sung to the tune of that "Mother" song)

E is for the “Eeeeeee!” you scream at scary spiders.

W is for the Wine coolers we drank behind A mountain.

B is for the “Bitch” in Sexy Bitches.

L is for the Laughter we will share forever.

I is for the “I” in “I love you, man.”

E is for the Enquirer we read aloud while eating nachos.

T is for the Tomato sauce you order on the side.

T is for the Taro Chips on your bathroom floor.

E is for the Evil deeds we carry out together.

Lah, lah , lah, something something, something else.....You Rock!

(Check your email!)

Dinner Will Be Served at 11:54 p.m.

To Do List:

1. Bake Marie Calander’s Dutch Apple Pie (my own resemble pre-school art projects).
2. Call Mom in a panic and ask her to pick up vanilla ice cream at Walgreens.
3. Make stuffing for turkey.
4. Stuff and truss turkey.
5. Finish orange yam dish.
6. Fret over turkey while roasting, once every 30 minutes.
7. Put extra leaf in table.
8. Wash dishes or put in garage with a towel over them.
9. Set table.
10. Make gravy, lumps be damned.
11. Call Ewbliette for a reality check (she’s also doing her family’s dinner, and she will have three times the guests).
12. Be very grateful that Tennis Fiend does not mind vacuuming or mopping the floors.

A Little Less Vexed...

Here's the rest of yesterday's rant.

My mother’s approach to holidays is militaristic—they are something to conquer and subdue. Although she’s not one to decorate the house, her meals are impeccable--created with precision, pride and perfection. I remember my shock when I first began to spend holidays with other families--if a meal was not perfect, so what? The holiday was not “ruined” because of a burnt pie/steak/turkey.

I confess that I have inherited a certain amount of holiday fastidiousness, but I’ve learned that even though a delicious meal is appreciated, it is not requisite. So when Mom showed up yesterday afternoon with two boxes of cooking supplies, I should have been prepared for the clash of the cooks.

Box one contained two quarts of her crystal clear turkey broth for gravy (my own broth was murky, since I boiled the crap out of it). Also present was her vast personal spice assortment, which I’m certain she hand-picked and blended herself.

Box two was the shocker—she brought her eclectic cutlery collection, her favorite chopping block, five mismatched measuring cups, plus a hodgepodge of bowls, plates and dishes. Mom’s collection of six knives was clearly selected to optimize the chopping, dicing and cubing of specific ingredients for tomorrow’s meal. A knife for onions, a knife for celery, a knife for me to stab myself in the ear with, etc…

As I helped equip her cooking station, I was horrified to see her chopping block. It looked like Satan’s missing front tooth. Once white, it was now a hideous moldy yellow with dark brown stains etching an overabundance of knife marks. How could this be my mother’s chopping block?  Then I remembered. Mom always microwaves her chopping block since bleaching ruins the food cut on it. Heh.

Mom launched her chopping ceremony with a knife sharpening ritual (she also brought her own kit) while I washed veggies and used the food processor to dice Vidalia onions for my famous green chile cranberry sauce. This utterly scandalized my mom, who proceeded to talk to our dog Misty about my barbaric cooking techniques (I kid you not). Later I joined her at my cooking station, defiant with my super-ultra-bleached white chopping block.

Eventually we made peace with each other and the afternoon proceeded smoothly. I offered her my special nut chopping knife and she asked me about my beloved cranberry sauce. Later, she surfed the web while I sautéed her meticulously diced vegetables destined for stuffing. To save time, I decided to wash dishes while sautéing. So naturally, I over- browned the precious veggies. Sigh. I immediately mixed them with some wild rice for camouflage. I wonder if anyone will notice.

ETA: Sheesh. Rant over, I promise! Happy Turkey Day Everybody!

A Bit of Vexation

Thanksgiving is Tennis Fiend’s favorite holiday so we will celebrate with the traditional meal, substituting apple pie for pumpkin (he hates pumpkin pie). Since I was planning on fixing the big dinner anyway, I invited my folks to join us. Sigh.

After shopping Monday afternoon, Mom and I had an unpleasant heart-to-heart about aging. In essence, she was distressed because she could not host this year’s dinner due to hip pain. (Two years ago, she injured her hip and she has refused to see a doctor. After a profusion of frustrating and futile conversations, I am exhausted by her never-ending rationalizations and excuses for not getting help.)  To cheer her up, I made plans with her to come over Wednesday afternoon to prep for Thursday’s feast. Sigh.

I’ll post the pleasant and funny side of our afternoon later, it wasn’t really that bad. But now, I’m aggravated. Anyway, I believe that her entire reason for coming over was to make me feel like I was six years old. I understood that she was irritable and her hip hurt her, but I hate to be bossed around, especially in my own home. Nevertheless, I held my tongue for the first hour while she told me exactly how she did everything to prepare her Thanksgiving dinner, vaguely implying that I was a total idiot who couldn’t boil water.

In forty minutes, I ran out of “Uh-huhs,” “Oh, reallys” and “I sees.” I turned on the oven fan and worked nearby to make my silence less noticeable (I am way too nice). Then she said the thing that really pissed me off. I mentioned that I might need to go to the store to pick up more cranberries. Indignant that I should go to the store the day before a holiday, she sternly said, “You are not going out. The stores will be too crowded.”

I flipped (well, for me). I told her that it was not her place to tell me whether or not I should go to the store. It wasn’t so much what I said, it was the way I said it. For an instant, I was the biggest, bitchiest demon in hell right down to the flaming eyeballs and crimson skin. Lordy, I was angry. Mom responded immediately, she apologized and explained that she meant that she would not go to the store on such a day. She went out of her way to be sweet to me for the rest of the afternoon.  

Revenge

Most of Sunday afternoon we played “find the stench.” We emptied the trash and rid the refrigerator of suspicious leftovers. When we still could not locate the source of the evil smell, the horrid possibility of septic system trouble occurred to us.

Mid-septic tank panic, we realized that Misty had avenged herself for being excluded from Saturday’s rock hunt. She had rolled in something indescribably foul. As best as I can figure, she came across the excrement of a cat whose sole diet was rotten eggs and month-old cadavers.

The worse part of the ordeal was giving her a bath. Misty is a sweetheart when it comes to baths. She may look miserable and put upon, but she is well-behaved. Sacrificing my pristine bathtub to putrid cat-scat Misty was a nightmare that required copious amounts of bleach and scalding water (post-dog wash, of course).

After her thorough shampooing, Misty endured a half an hour of blow-drying and brushing. She was playful and enjoyed the attention. Next rock hunt, we’re dropping her off at Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Rockfiends

Tennis Fiend taking a break from rock hunting.

One of my favorite pursuits is rock hunting. Whenever I can recruit a companion, I journey to Rockhound State Park where anyone can cart away rocks for a nominal fee.

I also love to visit a stretch of desert owned by family friends that boasts colorful rocks and boulders. Saturday I enlisted Tennis Fiend for a boulder hunt. As I gathered supplies for our expedition, our dog Misty became extraordinarily excited. As soon as she hears the jingling of my army surplus backpack, she knows an outing is forthcoming. Usually included in our hikes and outings, she howled dismally when we left her behind.

Driving took over an hour—twenty minutes of freeway followed by forty minutes of increasingly rugged road plus the eternity it took me to locate the landmarks of our destination. Our hunting ground was adjacent to a stretch of power lines connecting our city to the El Paso, TX power grid. The whistling of wind through the power lines made the sizzling pops and hisses of the transformers even more ominous. Reaching to open the back door of our SUV, I recoiled from a sharp static shock. Suddenly, the palpable sensation of electricity in the air amplified.

Weighing the consequences of imminent electrocution against potential rock hauling exhaustion, I moved our vehicle forty feet away from the power lines. The next two hours we enjoyed rock hunting bliss. The first hour was punctuated by cheerfully shouted Russian phrases: “Vot On!” (Here’s one), “Dai mne Molotok!” (Bring me the hammer) and “Oy! Slishcom Agromnye!” (Oh, it’s too big). The second hour was punctuated by cries of “Euuugh,” “Oof,” “Ow, ow, ow” and “Pochimoo tak dalyeko?” (why did you park so far away?).

Afraid to burden my truck with too much weight, we collected six mini-boulders and twelve smaller stones. Returning home happily, we banged our way across the rough dirt road, grateful that we left Misty at home as the rocks shifted and rearranged themselves behind us. Cranking up our velocity to traverse a treacherous expanse of arroyo, I almost struck a man in green camouflage. The wide-eyed fellow gave us a jerky wave as we covered him in dust. At a slower speed we passed an ancient truck where a camouflaged woman guarded several buckets of gravel with a shovel held menacingly in her left hand. I smiled and waved hoping that she did not sport a Lugar in her hidden right hand.

Stomps and Goths

This is Friday’s entry. I’ve been having trouble posting on lj since then.

In November, some of my favorite people celebrate birthdays. Ewbliette birthday is next Friday and Clark-mas observes his birthday four days later. Today, I took my friend Jimmi(named after her father since her parents so wanted a boy) to lunch for her birthday. Our last get-together was this summer when she retold our story to a barnyard full of incredulous friends gathered to celebrate her Master’s Degree matriculation.

We first encountered each other when she began dating my unofficial brother, Louie, the boy next door. A nod and a handshake at his folk’s Saint Patrick’s Day Green Beer Party was the extent of our acquaintance. Back at high school we favored totally different cliques.
Jimmi was a “Stomp” (cowboy/cowgirl) whereas I was a “Goth.” We never socialized. In fact, our peers regarded each other with a mixture of distrust and disdain.

The only people our tiny Goth crowd scorned as much as the Jocks were the Stomps. Stomps were easier targets, so we mocked them whenever we could. A favorite activity included a synchronized and aptly timed humming of the Deliverance battling banjos theme. Our outrageous costumes and equally outrageous antics were a great source of hilarity for the Stomps, although we considered their humor to be lowbrow and uninspired.

Louie announced his engagement to Jimmi at a block party the summer after graduation. I attended sans make up and fishnets because it was HOT. I nodded and shook hands with her again.

Louie and Jimmi married that December, scandalizing everyone. Entire families prognosticated failure, despair and poverty since they married without attending college. I felt sorry for the couple, and hoped they would prove everyone wrong.

A year and a half later, I spotted Jimmi in my Chemistry Class. She sat in the very back row with a few Stomp buddies, and amiably joked with them about my paleness, wondering aloud if I was vitamin D deficient (I was flattered by her observation). I impassively stalked by her cowboy posse to the distant front row, where I sat with my two scruffy but exceptionally intelligent biker buddies, smirking since I blew the curve on our recent chemistry test.

That Saturday, Louie contacted me—Jimmi was failing Algebra for the third time in a row, and none of the tutors at the University Learning Center had been able to help her. Would I spend an hour tutoring her this Sunday? Sure. One hour turned into five as I realized that Timmy was dyslexic.

Since I am also dyslexic, I shared my problem solving strategies with her. It worked. Ecstatic, she called later that week to report that she received her first 80% on a math exam ever

For the next several Sundays I tutored her and her grades improved so dramatically that she was able to convince her instructor to let her retake her failed tests. Then one Thursday as I descended the stretch of steps to the front row in Chemistry class I heard a familiar voice wise-cracking, “She’s the last person who should be drinking a Diet Coke, get this woman a REAL Coke!” (I was then Kate Moss thin).

I turned around, and beamed a smile as white as my face, “Jimmi! Hey!” I waved and hesitated briefly before walking over. It took a moment for her to connect the voice of the Friendly Neighborhood Tutor to the features of the Spooky Goth Chick. As unbelievable as it seems, she had not realized that we were the same person. At our lessons I was fresh scrubbed with glasses and pigtails, at school I was painted black with stilettos and glam hair. I introduced myself to her stupefied buddies and shared a laugh with Jimmi, who was absolutely mortified over teasing me. Although amused by the situation, I didn’t gloat. Part of looking different means enduring taunts with dignity and a bit of pride.

Test

Last Fall, Egor and I tried to conceive. I was so thrilled when I became PG after our first try. And so sad when I miscarried almost three months later.

We are trying again, after two more ealy miscarriages this summer. I am doing it without meds, since they didn't really seem to help over the summer and the first time it didn't make a difference. We've had the big expensive genetic work up and we are fine. Tonight is one of my fertile nights. We shall see. Waiting for the early pregnancy test is agonizing. I've got 10 days to go...

Achooey

That lingering feeling of malaise that muddled my brain over the weekend finally turned into a series of forceful sneezes yesterday morning. By late afternoon my head was swimming; it was time to quit working and watch movies. As usual, feeling unwell=horror movies. Fortunately, two unwatched horror movies remained from our weekend trip to Hollywood Video. (No spoilers)

Amityville 2005. I should know better than to rent popular horror. Seriously. Tedious and trite, its only redeeming factor was the uncanny resemblance that the lead, Ryan Reynolds, bore to .

Blood Dolls. I chose this offering from Full Moon Pictures over Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain believing it would be more Tennis Fiend friendly. He watched the entire movie stone-faced and serious, as if Blood Dolls was an arthouse film that required personal interpretation and reflection. At the end, his single comment: “How strange.” I laughed my butt off throughout, and considered how fun it would be to watch with a group of like-minded friends.

Veteran's Day

My initial plans for Veteran’s Day included hiking with and Mukor, but when Tennis Fiend decided to take off a half a day to go shopping with me, I cancelled in a flash. Tennis Fiend hates shopping, but agreed to spend a half day inspecting televisions. At long last, we hoped to replace our tiny multi-system TV with a ten foot projection-LCD-DLP-plasma-HDTV behemoth.

After hours of lingering over the unattainable devices at Sam’s Club, Best Buy and Pat Goff’s, we left defeated. Big ole TVs cost big ole bucks. However, if we win the lottery, we know exactly which 60 inch Sony DLP rear projection TV to buy. To console ourselves, we took a late lunch at a restaurant recommended by Ewbliette.

A special circle in hell needs to exist for people who loudly discuss gastro-intestinal surgical procedures at restaurants. If Dante were alive he would share my vision: the offender stands waist deep in a dense pond of raw warm oysters. A legion of fiends circle the pond, variously afflicted with emphysema, tuberculosis, bronchitis, and bad manners. For all eternity, the offender must swallow raw oysters from his pond while listening to the fiends cough up colossal loogies. Blah.

Phone Service Down!

This week I’ve been very busy with work, so when the phone lines went down yesterday, I took a self –imposed break. Not that the internet is 100% of my work, but my current project involves research, which is more conveniently pursued online.

Regrettably, my brain remained in work mode so my favorite diversions seemed unappealing. Thus began the cleaning frenzy. I vacuumed every room. I vacuumed the window ledges, baseboards, corners and all the secret places where dust bunnies collect. I vacuumed ceiling fan blades, refrigerator coils and kitchen drawers. I was just about to drag my vacuum across the street to thoroughly clean Green Peace Lady’s house when the telephone repairman arrived.

I answered the door with a cheerful flourish. About twenty-two, with reddish hair and clear pale skin, the telephone repairman was a twin of the actor who played in Napoleon Dynamite (out of character). I was surprised by the similarity, and on the verge of saying something foolish, when I noticed he was blushing. Immediately, I assumed that I opened the door in my underwear and did a quick check (at times I am too unselfconscious for my own good). My tee shirt and shorts were intact, unstained and right-side out.

Still blushing and avoiding eye contact, the repairman left to spend the next two hours tracking down and repairing the problem--a broken line caused by construction behind us. Before I settled down to watch a taped marathon of Mummy Detectives, I checked myself in the bathroom mirror. No crusty dangling boogers or unnoticed enormous pimples. I certainly discounted the notion that the repairman was overcome by my stunning beauty, but I left the bathroom feeling slightly flattered.

Russian Karaoke

I love presents in the mail. This Thursday, we welcomed packages from Seattle and Russia. The Seattle package was mailed by my good buddy ; he sent me two DVD-Rs of splendid screen caps. Whee! I hope to reply in kind with some unusual screen-savers, non-blurry icons, or even a few screen-caps of my own. If I find a movie featuring toads, I will dispatch a DVD-R full of toad-caps, plus my most elegant toad inspired poetry and prose. Yay!

DVD title: Drunken Fun

The Russian package which arrived for contained three DVDs of Russian Karaoke hand picked by his mom. Tennis Fiend was as thrilled as a ten year old boy, complete with jumping and hand waving. He tore the wrapping off the most colorful DVD, popped it in the player and ratcheted up the volume. Immediately, I recalled the difference between American karaoke and Russian karaoke: accordions. DVD one was folk music, which primarily consisted of accordion music, with a balalaika (lap harp) and a synthesizer.

 Happily and heartily, E sang along. Misty accompanied him with her squeaky toy since accordions put her in a crazy killer-dog frenzy. Thirty minutes later, the dog exhausted herself and Tennis Fiend frowned at the television.

He paused the DVD and called me over, “Watch this.” The sad melody of a classic Russian song about a deadly winter quivered through the speakers. Lyrics describing endless despair and suffering flickered across the bottom of a screen featuring… a sandy beach and frolicking sunbathers! My jaw dropped. We spent the next twenty minutes searching for tragic songs and watching their cheerful accompanying video.

It was as if the video tech had a perverse sense of humor, deliberately showing couples as the lyrics expressed heartbreak and loneliness and pairing themes of wartime suffering with splendid Mediterranean villas. Eventually Tennis Fiend concluded that no such conspiracy existed, since the video was uniformly merry throughout all 120 karaoke songs. He theorized that the karaoke audience must be drunken middle-class Russians who frequent Mediterranean cruise ships while on vacation. Thus, tipsy revelers could enjoy their karaoke even more by shouting out, “I’ve been there!” when they identify a Greek island or “Hey, that’s me!” when they recognize their sunburned self at St. Tropez. Personally, I prefer believing that some wry, sardonic person is out there, poking a bit of fun at us all.

A Draining Weekend

Wheeee! 
For the past two days, Egor and I have been emptying our swimming pool for repairs and repainting. The process started two weeks ago when I removed the chlorine feeder to make the water environmentally friendly for disposal. Since the water has become increasingly green, we had to empty the pool this weekend.
Our biggest task was removing the water without flooding our backyard and sunroom. We bought 100 feet of vinyl hose, connectors, and hose clamps. After attaching the hose to our backwash/drain outlet, we extended the hose to our driveway and began the eight hour process of pool draining.

Ten minutes later, I gasped when I saw the puddle of water collecting across the street in our neighbor’s recessed gravel driveway. If this was the damage in ten minutes, in eight hours we would have washed their entire house down to I-25. Time for Plan B. We rerouted the hose into the empty lot north of us. Seems simple, but the new route meant a perilous trip through my cactus garden for the flimsy blue hose. Despite our cautious efforts, we managed to puncture the hose repeatedly. Thank heavens for water-proof duct tape and Tennis Fiend’s eternal patience.

The next hour and a half went swimmingly. The vacant lot gratefully drank up the water, and the neighbors did not need to break out their canoes. Then the pool pump lost pressure. To fix it, we added running water from a garden hose to the skimmer. Three hours later, we turned off the pump and went to bed, intending to finish Sunday. At 4:am I woke up remembering that I forgot to turn off the water to the skimmer. D’Oh!

In the morning, the next several hours of draining were routine. Our only problem was me.  I wanted to drain the last portion of water into a grassy area by the pool house. When we shut off the pump to disconnect and reposition a hose segment, we could not re-prime the pump.  An hour  of tinkering yeilded only a piddlely little stream. Bailing a hundred slimy buckets of pool water by hand seemed like a real possibility. Fortunately, the pump mysteriously gurgled back into life and I got to play fireman and water the plants. Yay!

AUUUUGGHHH!!! Or, My Butt and the Black Widow

The first and third Thursday of every month my mom and I embark on the Big Shopping Trip.  Early in the morning, we leave in her one-and-a-three-quarters ton van furnished with two monstrous coolers, a couple of  blankets and plenty of Purel hand sanitizer (my mom has a Purel bottle velcro-ed to the base of each front seat so hand sanitation is more convenient—I am not making this up!).  Touring our favorite stores in order of refrigeration needs, we spend the balance of the day shopping, gabbing and buying too much food.

However, this month’s schedule was disrupted by the arrival of our respective new computers. We were all too happy to forgo fresh fruit and milk for the pleasure of uploading programs and customizing our desktops. Tragedy struck at 9:am yesterday morning. Our ISP crashed. After an hour of phone calls to our ISP and each other, we gave up on connecting to the internet and decided upon an impromptu Big Shopping Trip.

So, I drove over to her place, where she was fixing a lunch tray for Dad and prepping the van for our adventure. Anyway, before leaving, I made a pit stop since peeing at Wal-Mart is loathsome.  Flushing the toilet, I noticed a black wriggling thing fighting the water vortex. Horrified, I peered into the bowl. Was that the Evil Queen Mother of all Spiders struggling for her life? Was that tiny tickle on my bum moments ago her wicked spider legs searching for purchase to escape her porcelain prison? Yikes!

Not wanting to be in the same room as a flushed spider, I bolted to the kitchen, crying out, “MOM!!! Sweet Jesus, was that a black widow spider in your toilet?!”

Mom blinked and frowned, “Ah yes. She was on the front porch this morning so I stepped on her and tossed her in the crapper.” (Note, Mom believes in bleach, soap and Purel, but not pesticides. She cinnamons the ants, garlics the aphids and squashes the rest.)

I went on a semi-hysterical rant about spiders and toilets and making sure that you really squash them, instead of stunning them, because they will want revenge. Contrite, yet amused, Mom apologized and promised to more vigorously stomp future black widows spiders before gathering their remains for toilet disposal. She also reminded me to wash my hands.

Yay! New Computer! Yay!

My wonderful new desktop arrived!!! Hooray! Just in time, my poor laptop was fading fast. I shall now embark on an installation and file transfer frenzy. Gosh, I sure hope my bookmarks can be imported without any problems. I guess I collect gazillions of 'em since the word "book" half of "bookmark." I can't live without a single one! Yay!!!

Nukestock Shots

I am pleasantly surprised that a few photos from Nukestock turned out. Unfortunately, I was unable to do justice to the spectacular decorations created by Robert, Delphine, Mukor and company. Enjoy!

Mukor (L), our host as Baby Cthulu and as the Dead C.

Lizard and Countessa Light.

's lovely fiancee, . What great hair! has requested her to be my future wig consultant.

with sparkler. I was so entranced by folks playing with sparklers that I took a dozen photos, but this is the only one that turned out. Despite the number of red wigs at the party, Nirik's locks are all natural (envy, envy!). BTW, he makes excellent mead.

Pastafarians unite! The Flying Spaghetti Monster has finally arrived!!

Chris, forlorn without his Romanian sweetheart.

Rrrraaawr! The Dead C is mighty pissed that I drank her Mimosa!

Yours truly as the Red C. I should actually call this the the Traveling Costume. The top traveled north, the skirt cruised towards the equator and the cape voyaged into the back of my red fishnet tights! Thank heavens for Ewbliette's sharp eyes!!!

Whoa.....

'Nuff said.

Thanks Mukor, Ewbliette, Lizard Light, Robert, Delphine, et. al. for a fantastic party! Yay!

Red Sea and Dead Sea

I imagine several people are feeling rather hung-over from last night’s revelry at Nukestock. Nukestock, the annual Halloween gala hosted by Mukor ( 's sweetie) is a four day affair that brings college and RPG buddies together from several states. Each year Mukor selects a theme and his posse pulls together a small festival featuring a costume contest, scavenger hunt, trivia game, cookout, good-natured hilarity and other delightful activities. In college, a hundred people would show up for his famous parties, which once were accompanied by impressive pyrotechnics and exploding televisions.

Ewbliette will be supplying the majority of exciting details after she recovers from her duty as this year’s festival hostess. Anyway, I will gladly supply a few details concerning our plans for this evening (I should mention that the theme of this year’s bash is a Cthulu Mythos inspired "Year of the Cephalopod," which involves all things oceanic. Mukor has transformed his home into an unbelievable undersea domain, I hope to capture some pics to share. Forgive me, I digress.).

For tonight, Ewbliette and I selected matching theme costumes. Wearing two red-toned wigs from my collection, we will be The Double Cs. Ewbliette will be The Dead C ("Dead Sea") and I will be The Red C ("Red Sea"). We have homemade superhero costumes, with giant "C’s" on the front.  Ewbliette is in goth black and I am in hooker red. We plan to drink Mimosa's, eat delicious cookout, dance frenziedly and laugh until we wet ourselves. What fun!


Red Sea and Dead Sea.

Vacation: Avoiding the Crowd

Day One, After Dinner*
I love the intimacy of a bed and breakfast. The monstrous sameness and corporate efficiency of major hotels is depersonalizing and often the only choice for travel. When available, I prefer someone’s quaint residence to a decorated industrial cubicle, especially when prices are comparable.
However, drawbacks exist. I noticed that many people use bed and breakfasts as social vehicles. When I entered the living room to connect my laptop to the only available phone line, a wall of eyes greeted me. Glistening with anticipation, eight eyes followed me across the room. No one spoke, but I could feel that a few pairs of eyes were ready to have their owners re-arrange furniture so I could sit in on the "Hello, where are you from?" conversation.
On occasion, I love to hang out, be chatty, goofy and sociable with like-minded folk. Nevertheless, my internal introvert clock eventually sounds and I must escape and do about twelve crossword puzzles. I don’t dislike people; I just prefer them in limited doses. After a six-hour drive, I sought the comforting remoteness of the Internet, not in-your-face pleasantries. I imagine I will avoid the living room for the rest of our stay.
* Since we had no Internet hook up, and my entries are backlogged on paper I’ll post my trip entries in a screwed up chronology until I get caught up.

Autism

I'm posting privately to discuss autism because this conversation includes my friend "Jules," who is exceptionally private. Everyone has their boundaries, and I dearly respect Jules' and his privacy. Anyway, this post is currently open to G and D. If either of you feel that someone else should be included, I'll add them to this group.

Forgive my bluntness and lack of grace, but I might not get this out otherwise:I suspect very strongly that Jules' brother, "Freddie," is autistic. Freddie lives overseas in a country with minimal social programs and even less tolerance towards people who are different. His family is perplexed by his behavior and battles with him frequently, especially about personal hygiene and reclusiveness.

For two months, Freddie lived with us and we got along splendidly. Essentially, he liked to keep his own hours, watch his six favorite movies repeatedly, and work on the computer. That seemed like a pretty cool life to me, so long as he washed up his dishes and didn't burn anything down. Although he would rarely look me in the eye and seemed to avoid me (especially physical contact), I could feel that he was happy here.

I never thought that his desire to be alone or away from others hurt him, and encouraged the family to respect his privacy. Freddie has had intense difficulties at school and at work. He does quite well on the tasks he likes, but he can't be bothered with those he does not care for. I realize that these few sentences are not enough to diagnose anyone, but it's a bit of background so you can see why I am wondering about autism.

Any ideas or experiences you could share would be helpful. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I am learning that the world is bigger than I imagined. If he does have autism, maybe Jules and I can help the family understand and accept Freddie--he really needs some quality of life assistance. I feel I must also add that I am not an advocate of "curing" autism, it seems to be a part of who a peron is, and why change that? Thanks.

ETA: It turns out Freddie had been diagnosed with autism in his late childhood. The family was resistant to this diagnosis then, and is still now.

A little Vacation

Great Scott! I’ve gotten a life, complete with deadlines and surprise extra work due first thing tomorrow morning! Fortunately, I should be able to finish up everything by Thursday afternoon and take a much-desired long weekend vacation with Tennis Fiend. We will probably travel to northern New Mexico and stay at our favorite bed and breakfast.

The Hidden House near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

My folks received their new computer yesterday. I am glad that Mom finally selected and ordered something. I was afraid that the family would have to stage an intervention. She was becoming dangerously addicted to reading Dell forums and comparison-shopping. With wide-eyed glee, she'd corner family members and neighbors to discuss her latest discoveries and buying strategies. Bless her enthusiasm, it’s something we share. Heaven help everyone if I buy a new CD player for my truck.

Eye of the Beholder

Whew!
After writing/editing most of the day, my brain quivers at the idea of stringing together another intelligible sentence. So, how 'bout a list? The following books are in my bedside reading stash:
M.S. Freeman.

1. A Treasury for Word Lovers,
2. Stalin
3. One Dimentional Man,
4. The Street of Crocodiles,
5. Nightmare Factory,
6. The Lazarus Syndrome
7. TheWord Museum,
8. Million Word Crossword Dictionary,
9. Five word-puzzle books in various stages of completion, my electronic dictionary and our digital camera handbook.
S. Newman & D. Stark.J. Kacirk., R. DaviesThomas Ligotti.Bruno Schulz.Herbert Marcuse, Edvard Radzinsky.

What we’re having for dinner:

1. Slow cooked country style ribs.
2. Coleslaw.
3. Fancy bread from Albertons’, heated in the oven as if it was mine.
4. Roasted Garlic (I did nine heads so I don’t need to screw around with this for a while).
5. Sapporo beer, left over from my sushi date with Ewbliette.

Tah-dah!

The Moustache Incident

Once a year, without fail, I haul out the magnifying mirror and meticulously examine my face. After recovering from the shock of viewing my pores at 12X, I decide that my imperceptible blonde moustache must go. I pull  out my dusty  container of Strip Free Honee Wax and liberally slather it on my upper lip. With a brutally yank, the offending hair is captured in an amber-like goop, and I rejoice at my smooth-skinned self. 

Clearly, I must temporarily suffer from a combination of body dismorphic disorder and amnesia to repeat this foolishness. Consider that all women have a faint moustache. No one would ever notice,  unless they inspected all passersby with a 12X magnifying glass. And, more importantly, how could I forget that every time I wax  my face, I break out hideously?

Thursday night, I plodded through my described  annual ritual--Inspect, yikes, yank, d’oh. Friday morning, I monitored my upper lip puffiness with increasing concern. Friday night, it’s time to alert the Acne Hall of Fame that I broke the record for The Greatest Number of Angry Little Pimples in   a Two-square Inch Area. 

Take a gander at your upper lip and imagine three quarters of those hair follicles erupting into swollen, painful whiteheads. Yee-ouch. And D’oh, since I recall this happened last time I waxed my face. Sigh. So should I toss out the wax, the mirror or my ideas of beauty?

Movie Marathon

Blah. Still sick today. Sadly, I haven’t the mental energy to read, but I did I burn through my Netflix cue and even a few TV movies. I’m pleased to report that Ravenous was quite an agreeable cannibalism movie, and it put me in the mood for a horror movie marathon. For the hundredth time I scrutinized my movie collection and recalled that I never buy anything that I can find at Hollywood video (exceptions being Willard, Dead Man and any Tim Burton film). To satisfy my horror craving, I would have to haul my feverish achy self to the video store.

Anyway, at Hollywood Video, I picked out a classic double feature, Village of the Damned and Children of the Damned. Conceding to the new release aisle, I added The Ring Two to my selections. For a foreign movie, I chose Takashi Miike’s Gozu. Regretfully, opted to leave Frankenfish and The Jackhammer Murderer behind, instead preferring Asylum of the Damned (I love mental institution horror movies). Finally, my crowning movie choice: the Re-Animator. I’ve been seeing too much of Dr. West lately to resist another viewing.

I was surprised to be checked out by a genuine Stepford wife; complete with a white ribbon tied sweetly around her blonde bouffant-pony tail. She was all eyes and fingernails. When I asked her to please check my DVDs for scratches, she fumbled anxiously with each disc and then scrutinized them carefully. She vigilantly cleaned two discs, much to the annoyance of the man behind me. I was charmed. Although she won’t replace Henry Rollins’ younger brother as my favorite Hollywood employee, she will definitely be favorite employee number two.

Uncle Leopold

Everyone has a clinically insane family member. I've had five. Today is the birthday of my favorite schizophrenic relative, Uncle Leopold. Ever seen Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory? Add guns, flying saucers and forty pounds and you have Uncle Leo.

Since he lived in New Mexico, he would visit us occasionally. Arriving unannounced to see mother while father was at work, he would be dressed in army fatigues and armed to the teeth. Mom always insisted he unload his guns during a visit. One time he refused. She quietly hustled me out the back door and sent me to a neighbor. Daddy came home early that day and had a quiet, brief talk with Uncle Leo. When I was summoned home, a weeping Uncle Leo apologized to me for making our home "a scary place."

I felt very sorry for him--a quiet talk with my Dad was much scarier to me than Uncle Leo and a boatload of guns. From then on, Uncle Leo usually called before visiting and never brought guns into the house. Despite my parent’s concerns, I unabashedly adored Uncle Leo. He always brought me strange gifts, like pretty polished stones with supernatural properties or odd homemade stuffed toys with intricately embroidered faces.

Nevertheless, the best part of an Uncle Leo visit was his stories. Amazing, bizarre and a little incomprehensible, his tales of adventure and persecution entranced me. My mother issued a disclaimer with every visit, stating that Uncle Leo’s stories were as fictional as Grandmam’s ghost stories. In my mind, his sincerity outweighed Grandmam's theatrics. My beloved Uncle Leo definitely laid the foundations for my own enduring love of eccentrics and peculiar characters.

When I was a teenager, Uncle Leo shot himself dead. He believed that the CIA had covertly broken into his home and infected him with cancer. By his bedside was a yellow legal pad, which logged his temperature and bodily functions. Other inscriptions related his final paranoid theories and resoluteness. His last despondent words were printed in black felt ink: "Cleansers not working. Will not suffer."

Sadly, the medical examiner said the vast quantities of "cleansers," (i.e. bone meal/vitamins) he took greatly contributed to the sickness he believed to be cancer. If only we knew. The first several weeks after Uncle Leo died, my parents spent their weekends sorting through the vast accumulation of junk in his home. They found an impressive variety of knives, firearms and ammunition.

It took three gun shows at bargain basement prices to sell off his stash. Uncle Leo's home had been intricately booby-trapped, resulting in a minimal clean-up effort after his suicide. My folks experienced many harrowing moments during their excavation of his property, including the disposal of a locked and chained refrigerator, which appeared to be wired for explosives.

Because the wires dead-ended in a closet, they used a mattress to protect themselves as they pried it open. Inside was a large steel firebox containing a single head of cabbage. The aftermath of Uncle Leo’s suicide reverberated through out house for almost a year.

My mother blamed herself for not recognizing his mental decline or foreseeing his suicide. My father, who had met my mother by being Uncle Leo’s roommate, sympathized with her greatly and carried his own burden of guilt.

I was numb for a month, and then I started demolishing things. My telephone was the first casualty, followed by old electronic stuff in the garage that my parents would never miss. I found peace the weekend my parents brought home the final truckload of his salvageable possessions. Tired and hassled, my mother instructed to me remove boxes of Uncle Leo’s vinyl collection from the U-Haul; I could either keep them or put them on the curb for the garbage-man.

Of course, I kept them. He had a comprehensive collection of baroque music and an assortment of authentic Tiki Lounge, including most of Yma Sumac’s albums. As I sorted through the records, I was amused and saddened by his printed commentary on the albums. He believed that Baroque music was curative and that Yma Sumac was a benevolent alien goddess (Oddly enough, I have reached similar conclusions). Playing a crackled version of Gluck’s Orpheo, some little mechanism turned inside me. I had reached the famous final stage of grief.

Beautiful Things

Last night we watched Greenaway’s The Pillow Book (again). What a sensuous and evocative film! It inspired me to create my own list of Beautiful Things:

• Rain falling on a tin roof.
• Bright orange fish in a lucid green pond.
• Roosters crowing at dusk.
• Finding something unexpected in a pocket.
• Sleeping in a very cold room.
• Walking barefoot on damp moss.
• Being awake while others sleep.
• Ice cold water in the searing heat.
• Boxes, in all shapes and sizes.
• Seeing a penny, face-side up.
• Strolling an ancient city after midnight.
• Wind whistling through a window on a stormy day.
• Dark bitter chocolate with sweet red fruit.

Rainy Day

Today I celebrated my recovery from the tummy flu by fixing bacon and whole grain waffles for breakfast. The bacon smelled wonderful and tasted even better. Yum. Three days of soup and crackers and I feel like an inmate at Sing-Sing! What a life.

When I left for my job appointment, it started to rain. And then it started to hail. Hard. I feared for my recently replaced windshield. I feared for my fading windshield wipers. I even feared for my poor, failing car stereo. I arrived safely; my stereo did not. Sigh.

Anyway, no work for me. Columbus Day. D’oh! Since I already spent the gas money driving into town, I stopped at the nearby Wal-Mart. Waiting in the car for the rain/hail to subside, I was jolted by a tremendous thunk. A stray shopping cart had collided forcefully into the passenger side door. Minimal damage, except for rattled nerves.

Wal-Mart was overcrowded. I wondered if everyone else had forgotten the holiday and decided to make the most of being in this part of town as well. The lines were incredibly long and strangely silent; everyone seemed tense and preoccupied. As I wheeled groceries to my truck, the rain resumed with vigor. After unloading, I irritably hauled my cart to the closest corral, as if to make a point to the person whose stray cart startled me earlier. The rain fell in sheets as I drove home. It continued to pour as I pulled into the driveway, but it seemed friendlier than the Wal-Mart rain. Getting soaked was rather pleasant.

Black Widow Nursey

I haven't finished this entry yet, but it's all about how 500 baby black widow spiders hatched in our sunroom.

Blah

I woke up before twilight today, feeling unexpectedly ill. I didn’t bother to ritualistically search through my health books to self-diagnose. The symptoms of nausea and aches are too mundane to elicit an interesting health drama.

My day got off to a late, but somewhat productive start. I gathered the information I needed for my technical writing assignment and asked a friend to shop for me. My Thomas Ligotti book arrived a day early. So, I’ll spend the balance of my day either reading The Nightmare Factory or watching a stack of Netflix movies. Yucky, pukey tummy aside, lucky me!

Dr. Twinkie and The Corpse Bride

(This is last night's post. An electrical storm prevented me from completing my update.)
I went to my annual physical exam today. Despite my tendency towards hypochondriac speculation, I loathe an actual doctor appointment. I guess I prefer my fanciful but dreadful illnesses to the reality of a legitimate diagnosis. Naturally, I arrived fifteen minutes early, ostensibly to soothe myself with crossword puzzles. Actually, I intended to reassure myself by observing other apprehensive patients.

Only one seat remained in the crowded waiting room. I crammed myself between an anxious looking grandmother and a nondescript magazine table. I smiled at the grandmother and she immediately averted her eyes. Across the room from me sat a trio of sorority sisters. Two girls flanked their sister, who was obviously very unwell. I was touched by their concern, especially since I noticed that each girl held one of their sick friend’s hands. Everyone else seemed to be nervously shifting in their seats and sighing. As I began to study people more closely, my name was called.

How fortunate we are to live in a society that allows both men and women to become doctors. Physical contact seems less invasive when performed by a sister (or brother). Dr. Twinkie performed her annual squeezing, probing, thumping, listening and measuring. She responded to my catalogue of neurotic questions with compassion and gentleness. I felt healthier and a bit embarrassed each time she responded, "That’s perfectly normal, Bestfiend." I was grateful to have culled half my list of questions the night before. When my appointment was over, I felt relieved to the point of joviality.

**Potential Spoilers**

In the late afternoon, I went to see The Corpse Bride with two friends. Princess Jeanne made me snort water out my nose when she whispered that the Corpse Bride looked just like LaToya Jackson (the boobs, the make-up and the tiny nose). Wonder Warthog was delighted by the song "Remains of the Day," and did an improvised song and dance as we left the theater. He continued to serenade us as I drove them home. He is probably still singing to Princess Jeanne as I write. I am still recovering from the dancing black widow scene--there is no such thing as a "cute" black widow.

The movie was so incredibly beautiful you could easily overlook the cliched plot. It was bittersweet, just as the critics from Rotten Tomatoes promised. Every scene was painstakingly crafted to entertain on multiple levels. Yet it left me feeling strangely unfulfilled. I scratched my head all evening, trying to understand exactly what was troubling me. It finally occurred to me: the movie was too hurried. Victor and Victoria rush towards marriage, but then the Corpse Bride abruptly takes him as her husband. Frightened, Victor dashes away, the Corpse Bride flits after him. Suddenly, Victor decides to marry the Corpse Bride afterall, etc., etc. It was as if all the characters were in a frantic race to end the movie as quickly as possible.

The Corspe Bride seemed to be a Reader’s Digest treatment of a more substantial work. Fifteen minutes of footage was clearly missing. The charm of a good Tim Burton film lies in his poignant characters and their gradual development. Thus, the progression of even a simple plot is given depth and verisimilitude. This aspect far outweighs the slickness and visual wizardry of the usual big budget films. The Corpse Bride seemed to put more emphasis on the gee-whiz graphics and clever sight gags, than the actual characters. It looked like a Tim Burton film, but it did not feel like a Tim Burton film. Nevertheless, I would have been outrageously thrilled with this movie as a kid. It’s the adult in me that is disaffected. Am I missing something? Well, after I have bought the DVD and watched it ten more times, I’ll let you know.

Hickory House

Monday, I accomplished an incredible feat. In less than five minutes, I transformed our entire house into a rustic ski lodge. How did I manage this? Claude’s Brisket Marinade. I slow-cooked a Claude’s-marinated brisket sealed in aluminum foil. When I opened the foil package, a gust of super-concentrated hickory smoke essence belched out. The smell of wood smoke permeated the entire house in an instant. Initially, this was quite appetizing. However, two hours after dinner, not so much. Our Solaris-esque home was redolent of every ski lodge and log cabin in New Mexico.

This morning most of the odor had fortunately dissipated. It will be at least a year before I make brisket again. At noon I received some pleasant news, I might have a position as a technical writer for a local research and development company. Since I am on hiatus from my work as a psychiatric rehabilitation specialist, I welcomed the opportunity. Maybe all those years at science fairs finally paid off! To celebrate, tomorrow I will  finally see The Corpse Bride with mom and dad.

People Watching

Sunday I was gripped by malaise. At noon I realized I needed to force some activity upon myself or I was going to spend the entire day staring at the dog. A trip to Barnes and Noble at the mall was just what I needed.

I was surprised to find big glossy paperbacks on Katrina already on bookshelves. After everything I have read online, these slick publications seemed especially mercenary. It took ten minutes in the puzzle section to restore my good humor. I found a delightful book to add to my library, The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time , by John Shanaham. I love quote books!

After the bookstore, I decided to stroll the mall and people-watch. Since it was Sunday, the inevitable church  population was on parade. I am not a religious person who values evidence of one’s piety, but the clusters of well-dressed hand-holding senior citizens charmed me completely. I also noticed that parents had brought four entire soccer teams to the mall to frolic. Shrieking ten-year-olds overran the Halloween Bootique. Although the pandemonium cut short my visit to the Bootique, I realized that if I were there with one other person, I too would be dashing about, shrieking, "Look at this, look at this!"

An hour of walking and watching cheered me immensely. I eavesdropped on two goth girls at Hot Topic--I do not lament tinyness of Topic tee-shirts alone. An elderly gentleman surreptitiously tickled his serious white haired companion at J.C. Penney’s. I joined the spectators at the Aquasagge, and shared a laugh over a soccer mom’s squeals of delight and surprise. I left the mall feeling happier, and in the perfect mood to peruse my new book of quotes.

No E for Me

Forgive me while I catch up a bit.

A few disappointments on Friday left me feeling a bit depleted. First, E was indefinitely delayed in Casper. He would not be home until after the weekend. I was dejected, especially since I had officially began to Really Miss Him the night before. Then my car stereo began to act up. Driving without a soundtrack is simply not as much fun. To add to my woes, the digital cable installed on Thursday worked for only one channel. My frantic four-fifteen phonecall was fortunately acknowledged and a cable guy brought me a new box before they closed for the weekend.

I wrestled with the new cable system briefly, but the sheer number of stations overwhelmed me, so I put on a DVD. This feeling was reminiscent of my first visit to a Super Wal-Mart. The lights were bright enough to be dazzling, and the rows of goods seemed to never end. I was so stunned by the possibility of what I could buy that I could not actually put anything in my cart. These days I am quite friendly with our local Superstore. Hence, I’m optimistic about digital cable, especially since I discovered that Willard is in heavy rotation on the Encore Mystery channel.

Saturday I visited with the folks. Dad chatted jovially with me about our shared enthusiasm for graphic artists from the seventies. He sent me home with the graphic novel Pigeons from Hell, beautifully adapted by Scott Hampton and with an introduction by Ramsey Campbell. Lucky me! Mom eagerly related her adventures in computer shopping, inundating me with technical jargon and complex buying strategies. Despite her Dell Computer Mania, I was grateful that she was still Mom enough to send me home with some food--I had been subsisting on Cheerios and rice milk for most of the week.

In the evening, I fiddled some more with the digital cable, exclaiming “Wow!” and "Gee!" at irregular intervals. Despite the nifty selection of movies, I wound up glued to the computer until it was time for Saturday Night Live. Since last season was rather poor, I was morbidly curious about this season’s premiere. My already low expectations prevented disappointment. After fifteen minutes of watching, I was astonished to find myself strangely attracted to the host, Steve Corell. His elegant suit and well-groomed appearance certainly reminded me of E. I was so disconcerted that I popped off the TV and spent the next few hours back on the internet (not googling Corell once, mind you).

Pool Party

Yesterday’s pool party was great fun, but the day leading up to it was hectic. First, our ancient swamp cooler began to dump water onto the roof. I hauled out the ladder and trotted up to adjust a cooling panel dislocated by the wind. Twenty minutes later, more water. Apparently when I re-positioned the panel, I knocked the water-regulating float out of alignment. Few things are more hateful than adjusting that damn float. During the lunch hour, our digital cable was installed. At last, will be able to watch real matches on the Tennis Channel instead of observing flickering numbers on an Internet scoreboard. Later in the afternoon, I returned home to discover water festively sprinkling Misty’s digging compound. A hose to the swamp cooler had sprung a multitude of tiny leaks. Good thing I left the ladder up. Anyway, it was delightful to have company. The weather was mercifully cool and pleasant. Baked appetizers worked better than a cookout. Our swamp cooler did not plunge off the roof and squash anyone. Whew. My only regret was that our extemporaneous guest of honor, Mukor, was too ill to attend. We consoled ourselves by sailing Misty around the pool in a Spring Float Recliner In a post-swim discussion about The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ewbliette mentioned that Jack Skellington seemed very spider-like to her. Since we are both arachnophobes, I wondered why this resemblance did not disturb us more. My theory--dark spiders are scary and evil, pastel spiders are benevolent and sweet. Would I hunt down pink widow spiders with the same zeal as their ebon sisters? I wonder. This theory clearly deserves meaningful expansion, alas I am too tired.

Mr. D. and Oxygen Tank Man

As I was frightening the koi with the leaf blower, the phone rang in the distance (I have the phone volume set on "startle" since I blast the stereo when E is not home). It was Ewbliette, who explained that she wasn’t feeling her best and a convenient scheduling change allowed her to get off work early--so I should come over now! We scrapped our movie plans and I stopped by the local gourmet store to purchase goodies. I picked up sushi, chocolate and two bottles of chocolate beer. Yep. Chocolate Beer--or "Stout," to be more accurate.

If you’ve never had Chocolate Stout, I warn you, it’s an acquired taste. Ewbliette took a sip, raised her eyebrows, and said, "Olives. It tastes like black olives." Have you ever realized how much enjoyment comes from the texture of a food? We love black olives. But fizzy, liquid black olives? Not so much.

The sushi was one step above the supermarket variety, very tasty but not delectable. We filled our little bowls with soy sauce and squeezed in generous helpings of vivid green wasabi paste. Yow. The two of us are natives of New Mexico--the "Chile Capitol of the World." We smirk at the hot on hot sauce bottles. We will not smirk at those who consume sushi with murky green soy sauce puddles. It was hot--so hot that the capillaries in my face burst and evaporated the tears streaming from my eyes. Yow.

Our only recourse was to dump massive quantities of Kikkoman into our wasabi bowls. After the third dousing, our bowls were brimming with liquid. Ewbliette laughed, and exclaimed, "Look, Wasabi Kool-Aid!" This cracked me up so completely, I’m still giggling.

We chased the sushi with real chocolate and fed the VCR The Nightmare Before Christmas. Since we’ve both seen it a thousand times, we can sing along with gusto, but I guess the wasabi ordeal exhausted us, so the singing was only half-hearted. After the movie, we parted, agreeing that tomorrow’s swimming party would be the most outrageous, energetic spectacle we’d enjoyed since we absconded overnight to Deming to view the August meteor showers.

Waiting For The Phone To Ring...

Well, he’s off. has left for a five day field trip in Casper, Wyoming. Sigh.

He flew into Denver and drove the  four hours to Casper since the only other air transport is a glorified crop duster that can’t fly on windy days. As I wait for the "I’ve arrived safely" call, I have two morbid fates to neurotically contemplate--the usual airplane crash inferno and the improbable (but deadly) freeway flip-over accident. Needless to say, I avoid watching Fox News when he travels.

****

Yay! He called! His voice is like hearing a beloved, but long forgotten song. Yay! His trip went well except for the urinal-cake-mobile that Hertz rented him. The rental car was apparently infused with an unsavory combination of air freshener and sanitizer. To compensate, fate created an unexpected room shortage at the hotel, thus E received an upgrade to a super-mega-ultra-suite. Yay!

Well, I’m off to ruminate over the expectant horde of rapists, burglars and dog abusers who have been waiting for his departure to perpetrate their foul crimes. Sigh.

An "Axe" to Grind

After watching countless hours of U.S. Open coverage, E craved the much-ballyhooed Axe Body Spray for Men. I’ll give E mad props for wearing cologne like a gentleman--subtle.

I  was raised with the Vanderbilt’s Standing Distance Rule. If someone can smell your fragrance at more than three feet away, you are wearing too much. The optimal amount of fragrance should be perceptible when someone leans toward you, not propelled at your nostrils when you enter a room.

Needless to say, E’s request horrified me. Axe is not a product you dab on delicately like a rare perfume--you blast it on like spray paint. We agreed to compromise and pick up a deodorant stick.

I must have spent forty-five minutes sniffing men’s deodorant sticks. Two were selected. I reached a few conclusions in the process. If you disagree, print this out, take it with you and start smelling. You will be amazed. Please note that:

1. All popular men’s products smell a little bit like Gillette.
2. When they say a man’s fragrance is "fresh," they mean it smells like Windex.
3. If you see a selection of more than three men’s fragrances, the rest smell like the previous three fragrances, but with either fruit, flowers or pine scent added.
4. "Bold" always equals "Cloying."

I decided to review the Axe brand of deodorant sticks. You can find company propaganda here.

**** Essence: The most popular fragrance judging by variety of products represented. I believe its charm lies in its inoffensiveness, a subtle blend of familiar but unnameable scents. I bought this for E.

* Touch: Yow! They should have named this one "Ants." It has the faint odor of squashed ants (and Gillette). This will be at Big Lots for $0.89 in no time.

*** Kilo: Windex, Gillette and insect repellent.

*****Phoenix: Smelled like Dillard’s. Agreeable. I purchased this as well. This was E’s favorite.

** Apollo: Windex, Gillette and flowers.

** Voodoo: Gillette, Old Spice and flowers.

 

I won’t even dignify the women’s fragrances with a review, however I will give them credit for not obfuscating their fragrances with silly names. "Honeysuckle," "Lavender" and "Fresh Rose" are straightforward and accurate descriptions. If you want to wear 1,000 flowers under your armpits, knock yourself out, girl.

The Big Trip

Yours truly, on her first dive.

This weekend my folks are planning to update their website with photographs from their latest expedition. When I was a kid, they took three or four major photographic expeditions every year.  Usually one trip was The Big Trip-- an international journey to Mexico, South America, the West Indies, Australia or the South Pacific.

At twelve, it was my turn for a Big Trip. I joined my folks on the ship The Cayman Diver, chartered for diving around the Caribbean Islands. I had snorkeled since I was a tot, but I had to be twelve for scuba certification. My first ocean dive was beyond belief.

With Mom as my partner, my first dive destination was the shipwreck Balboa. Slipping into the cool, swaying water my breath dragged through the regulator like Darth Vader. Water enclosed me, isolated me. Sounds resonated strangely. Every breath I pulled seemed extraordinary. I was an astronaut, remote and alien from anything I ever imagined. A hundred years ago, could a twelve-year-old girl do this?

We swam to the wreck and explored. Strangely,  many specifics have been obliterated from my memory. Vivid pictures still remain, but unconnected to the chronology of our dive. I do recall returning to the Cayman Diver. I snatched up an odd looking fist-sized greenish glob. I displayed it to Mom. Curious, I gave it a few good squeezes. Mom replied with harsh hand signals. Instantly, I understood that the blob was a living sea creature and that I had thoughtlessly harmed it. I was deeply remorseful.

Other memories from my Big Trip  include being afraid of the well-meaning second mate who told me that nail polish was unbecoming on someone my age. Even at twelve, this seemed unsavory to me, since I wore it in such innocence.

The first mate caught me reading his dirty housewife book, which was endlessly fascinating to me. He wound up taking it from me three times.

I drank coffee for the first time. Dosing it liberally with cream and sugar, I had four generous cups before my alarmed mother rescued me. I recall protesting because it was so delicious and energizing.

When I went shopping for souvenirs, a portion of my money was spent on a small cosmetic kit, resulting in a lecture. I remember the lesson: don’t buy meaningless crap here that you can buy at home.

A small stubborn part of myself still defends my little purchase. I bought it because I felt I was becoming a young woman--it was symbolic. After all, a collection of Mother’s frosty eyeshadows captivated me as a child--I wanted to be just like her. Today, the make-up buyer in me is alive and well with a flourishing collection of plumping lip-glosses. Nevertheless, if I were in the Caribbean today, I’d spend my money on music, not makeup.

BT Returns!

BT returned home today! His haunted wipers were exorcised and the smoking steering column is no more. I found that you can become so accustomed to driving your own car that driving another is an almost hostile experience. Consider my experiences with E’s Taurus. It's cab forward design creates a volcanic interior when left even briefly in the sun, it's like driving on Mercury. The air conditioner mysteriously exhales a maple syrup scent. One turn signal has tachycardia and the all the controls have been fiendishly re-arranged to maximize confusion and inconvenience. It also tried to kill my big toe. Nevertheless, the stereo system is superb.