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!!!