Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Yes! Yes! So like the Monkeys

I was speaking with Gary today about his job. He said something about how managers so often repeat the same foolish mistakes, and then it trickles down to their underlings who repeat the same foolish mistakes. I replied, "Oh, it's just like the monkeys."

Ok. Skip this paragraph unless you are curious about the monkeys. Otherwise, go to *Paragraph C below.

(Just so you know, there is a tale told in Company of monkeys who are all given a shock when any one monkey touches a banana. Soon the experimenters put in a new monkey, and the old monkeys slap the new monkey silly when it goes for a banana, because they don't want a shock. They keep switching monkeys until all the old monkeys who actually got shocked are gone, and find all the new monkeys fear bananas for no good reason. Still here? Hello? Hello?)

*Paragraph C: Don't worry if you missed the monkey story, because it's not really germane. What is germane is that I said, "Oh, it's just like the monkeys" and Gary replied, "Yeah, just like that!" and kept talking. I wondered, Huh, does he know the monkey story? A few hours later he was taking about his family and on a whim I said again:

"Just like the monkeys."
"Uh huh. And then SANDY went to California and - " etc.

So now it's an experiment. Well, not a full on scientific method experiment with a control, like the Split Face Redness Cream experiment (Day 19: no progress). More like a social experiment. I'm going to see how often I can chime in "Just like the monkeys!" before he shuts up and says, "And who are these monkeys of which you speak?"

( - later that same day- )

How many times did I bring up the monkeys? Five times. Eventually I got bored and got a response when I interrupted the Lemony Snicket movie to say, "You know, THAT'S JUST LIKE THE MONKEYS" in a pointed tone.

But, just so you know, in reverse order:
Snakes in the Lemony Snicket movie? pointedly like the monkeys.
Project Runway? Also, much like the monkeys.
Bacon sandwiches at the pastry shop? So like the monkeys it's uncanny.
Gary's family? Bear a strange similarity to (wait for it) ... monkeys.
Gary's bosses? Monkeys.

Gary? Just a little like a monkey.

Succinct Emmy Wrap-Up

So, I watched the Emmys on TiVo. Just not the same. Surprisingly, Gary did not pause on any boobage, as he has with the Academy Awards.

Glad: I was glad to see The Girl in the Cafe won three awards. That is a fabulous, meaningful movie. Especially if you wait until the credits. They did the chilling finger-snapping thing, and then at the end pointed me to www.makepovertyhistory.org, which in the U.S. is the One Campaign.

Sad: Candice Bergen made me sad. I was looking to her from some big girl stylin' fashion secrets and she did so disappoint.

And speaking of fashion, did I or did I not see John Mark Karr wear the same shirt two days in a row? The red shirt with the tie? In LA and in Boulder? That is not done. It's...what's the word? Criminal!

Baked Applebee's

Friday night Gary and I decided (at the unGodly hour of 9 pm) to go out to dinner and, of course, Starbucks. We got to the Saint Louis Bread Company (aka Panera) and found it closed at 9. (Because who eats at 9 on a Friday?) We decided to tool across the street to the Applebee's.

We noticed the Applebee's sign was dark. Huh? we said. What the - Applebee's closes at 9 too? Is this some type of chain restaraunt holiday?

Gary said, "Maybe the sign's just broken. Look and see if there are lights on."

And lo, there were not. Because My Friendly Neighborhood Applebee's had burned to the ground. Cooked, toasted, flambe-ed, char-broiled to the ground.

I was back there today (as I said, right across from Starbucks), and there was light, so I took some photos:

Just like Friday night, it smelled acrid. Like Friday night, there was a helpful sign:

There was one thing missing since Friday (or possibly more): looters. Or scavengers. As we clambered around the rubble Friday, we came upon a family rooting through the ruins and toting crap away to put in their truck. A family! An entire family. Of course, it is a family restaraunt. And I imagine now that their basement, newly decorated in the Early Applebee's period, smells acrid. Not dead-corpse acrid, though. Happily, no one died in the fire, and the only injury came from a police car on the scene backing into a policeman.

Finally, here was one thing we found today that hadn't been there Friday:

Poor GM of the store. Man, what a way to lose your material attachments. I bet those bastard looters got his Buddha.

I Couldn't Have Tried Any More

Bwahahahaaha! Victory!

I just played Maggie May, and:

I kept up with the recording
I strummed in time
I changed to all the chords
All the chords sounded good except the freaking F, and that has more than a little influenced my decision to incorporate a lack of barre chords into my own distinctive sound.

So, I rawk.  I can go to bed now. Or, find myself a rock and roll band, that needs a helping hand.

Queen Mom Falls for It

After refusing to allow a link from my blog to hers, Queen Mother has given in.

She claims she refused me a link because she thought I might be embarrassed. I didn't tell her, but when the waitresses at Ozzie's Sports Bar and Restaurant tried to embarrass me on me birthday I got up on the chair and yelled to the diners, "HEY! EVERYBODY! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY AND THESE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO EMBARRASS ME!"

So, check out my mom's blog! Queen Mum's Blog on the links on the left, or http://royaldynasty.blogspot.com/

And You Thought You Were Good at Trivia

My guess is that Gary couldn't pass this quiz. Who knows? Only if he had read this whole blog, for all answers lie buried here in the blog. A perfect score is 60.

Create your own quiz here

So we need something new, I guess

The HELL? No more Pluto? He always did seem out-of-place and out-of-scale. Plus, as Chuck at work explained, there's no point in telling Pluto he's dissed because by the time the news gets out there we'll all be dead anyway.

So, last time this happened they had to change the mnemonic from "Mary's Violet Eyes Make Jack Stay Up Nights" to "Mary's Violet Eyes Make Jack Stay Up Nights, Perhaps." (Evidently there's another version that ends with "Pining" but they didn't want to sully our childlike minds with that.

But now? I say it again: The HELL? Xena? There's a new planet named Xena?

So instead of a "P" word we need to tack on an "X" word? Our choices are X-ray, Xenophobe, and Xylophone. And don't make me learn a completely new mnemonic; I'm not doing it.

"Mary's Violet Eyes Make Jack Stay Up Nights Xylophoning." That's our only option. Memorable, no?

Popovers

On special days, the Queen Mother would make Popovers for breakfast.

I particularly enjoyed introducing my friends to Popovers. I loved having a special food that no one else's Mom could make. (The closest any of them came was Andrea T________, whose mother could make Beer Biscuits.) One Christmas Mom and I gave each other special Popover pans.

I think of popovers today because my new Gap low-rise boot-cut jeans give me a popovertop.

At This Moment

At this moment, I am lounging in bed reading Say What You Mean. I have already looked up all my linguistic pet peeves.

You ask, "Did you find alot of them?" I slap you upside the head for joining those two words into one. It makes me alittle annoyed.

Oddly, I couldn't find any mention of valuable vs. invaluable, but I did discover the origin of inflammable vs. flammable.  And yes, I just looked up vs. to see if versus should have a period when abbreviated.  Soon I will shall be frozen with paranoia and writing entirely in words of one syll-a-ble.

I'm still slapping myself for punctuating "its" incorrectly (the shame!) in a comment on someone else's blog. If it was yours, correct it for me, okay?

On the other hand, Gary has just finished watching a TiVo'ed (oh, I don't know if that's right) episode of The Girls Next Door (I'm not even going to work out if that needs an underline, italics, or quotes).  Now he's watching Caribbean Workout. He isn't working out to it. He's just watching it. I find this very, very pervy.

Queen Mother Again Cheats Death!

Last time I was at the Queen Mother's residence, I wanted to turn off her printer. I no longer mess with finding the on/off switch for any appliance (she waved dismissively); I just yank the plug out of the socket. In this case, the plug was on a power strip, so that threw me. Next time I shall just yank the entire strip out of the wall, because what I found was terrifying. I truly haven't been able to speak of it till now.

In trying to find the right plug I touched them all. One of the plugs was the type that looks more like a box than a plug. It was an adapter. And it was melted, people, melted! Melted like a block of butter in a microwave. Luckily I didn't touch the part that was completely liquefied. Luckily, I did not curse. (Mom was right there. Can't.) So I yanked the entire scorched surge protector out of the wall and dropped it into the brass trash can. Mom reports the adapter continued to melt and then adhered to the can.

(Actually, I find this an example of quick thinking on my part, unlike the last time I touched a plug. I began pulling my blow dryer plug out of the wall with wet hands and thought (this is word for word): "Huh. That's a funny sensation. Weird, it stops when I take my hand away from the plug. Huh. You know what it feels like? It feels just like when I was in Jr. High Science and the teacher gave us an electric shock in our module on Electricity. Maybe it's an MS thing, like Lhermitte's sign. No, that's in the spine. Hey, this is an electrical plug, MAYBE SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH IT...AAAAAGGH!")

So, as is our wont, Mom and I dealt with the scary situation by fantasizing how much worse it could have been. Mom pointed out that since she'd had me take down all the smoke detectors because they were making tiresome shrieking noises and she couldn't turn them off that she would not have been awakened if there had been an electrical fire. (She got away with this by telling me the respirator she sleeps with would have drowned out the sound of a smoke detector.)

Then she was a little let down because she remembered electrical fires don't cause flames, but lots of acrid smoke. And then I pointed out that since she sleeps with a respirator maybe she wouldn't experience even the acrid smoke. This was untenable. The goal of the fantasizing is to comfort ourselves that Death, it was cheated.

Then I pointed out that the respirator pulls in air from the room, and it was possible the filter might even take out all the acrid from the smoke. Completely the wrong move. Mom looked at me as if to say "Did I not teach you how to play this game?"

I cheered her up by telling her that the last time I spent the night (after her fall) I found the noise of her respirator to be immensely comforting, because it was proof she was still alive. Of course, sometime that night I realized the sound of the respirator meant nothing, she could have died in her sleep from kidney failure and how would I know? I was listening to the respirator breathe, not listening to Mom breathe. I could have let her sleep till noon the next day, all cold and dead and blowing up like a bellows. I told Mom that. She loved it.

I Love You 5.333333

The niece had her boyfriend say, "I love you" just before he left for an extended vacation in Egypt. She stumbled through some inadequate reply. We all know there is only one correct response to "I love you," and she didn‘t give it.

This isn’t the first time she’s been in this spot, but it is the first time she’s had a three-week break to collect her thoughts. She’s composed the typical reply: "I care deeply for you, but I want to take it slow, I can’t speak to what the future may hold," etc.

I suggested "I love you" is another one of those dangerous phrases that divides reality into black and white. Phrases like "Life begins at conception" and "virgin" and now, "I love you."

So here’s my plan. Anytime I say I love you from now on I’m giving it a numeric qualifier. "Graquel, you brought me gooey butter Danish? I love you! 2.5!" "Gary, you’re still with me after 21 years? 8.85!" That way, when Arzaana-fay hears "I love you" she won’t have to think she’s all in for marriage (7.25 minimum).

And, if Gary yells at me, I can just respond by saying "8.23, 8.19, 8.00, 7.50…"

Gary's Theory

Here is Gary's theory:

John Mark Karr: expatriate
Lee Harvey Oswald: expatriate

John Mark Karr: three part name
Lee Harvey Oswald: three part name

John Mark Karr: high pantsed weasel
Lee Harvey Oswald: high pantsed weasel

Gary's theory is that FOX, CNN et al have noticed this parallel and that's why they've been following the plane flight from Thailand so closely. They don't want to miss the big scene when he's shot by a guy with mob connections.

My Dog Has Fleas

So last week I pulled a flea off of Mac. And you know, for every flea you see there are ten fleas you don't see. It's just like mice (and we counted the mouse corpses and this ratio is not approximate).

Of course, I doused Mac with the prescription flea stuff. Fleas dead in twelve hours. Flea fallout is still going on.

1) Gary did not sleep for two nights. I did not sleep until I vacated to the guest room. Gary has been dancing the Dance of The Fantasy Flea. He is "bitten" constantly by the  imaginary creatures.  As if he's having what I think I will call a "Flea-zure." (Yeah, that was mean.) Next time I'm getting some gin and putting it in a bottle marked "Flea Protectant and Exterminator." That's how you treat hypochondriacs, right?

2) On a happier note, we no longer have pillows. Gary can not throw out a pillow (or anything else he's slept with, lucky for me) so he has hoarded every feather pillow since he left his parent's. Pillows as flat as padded manila envelopes. I convinced Gary they were full of fleas. (Give me fleas, I make Flea-monade.)

3) The dog may not necessarily be toted along next time we visit his parents. Wilma and Ken stated proudly that their Nazi dachshund never has fleas. Gary expressed disbelief, and Wilma explained helpfully, "We just give our dogs garlic every meal. It's a miracle."

Gary expressed more disbelief.

"Really!" she said "It's a miracle. I really believe the Lord is protecting our dogs. "

Before Gary asked for some miraculous healing garlic for himself he wanted to make sure. "That's it? Just prayer and garlic?"

Wilma nodded "Yes. Prayer. And garlic. They never have fleas. We only have to give them a flea dip once a month."

Really, given that this woman wraps leftovers in Saran Wrap and then puts them in Tupperware the miracle is that the dogs are not always soaking in a flea bath / garlic / holy water marinade.

In Which We Are A Muse

My recent review of old letters sent me to Google to find old boyfriends. I've done this before without result. Now the Internet is littered with the lovers I have left in my wake.

I only had to search about half an hour to find the blog of Michael D____, former college boyfriend: http://blogs.salon.com/0003364/stories/2005/01/23/biographicalNotes.html. He hasn't updated since November. Hope Ace is well.

This, plus the dozens of hits I get on another ex-boyfriend's name, Virgil M_____the artist, certainly qualifies me as the Alma Mahler of the blogosphere. (Or, alternatively, as the Blogoslut.) Interesting that both Michael and Virgil's bios touch on their reactions to the suburbs, my personal domain.

It appears I did not inspire Dave B_____ to follow his dream of being a playwright. In fact, I recall the day at the dorm he came back from the bathroom and announced he had decided to become a Lawyer instead. And so he is, and so might Joey S_____ be. Hmpf. Those boys, such a disappointment to me.

So now I find myself up at 2:43 am tickled beyond measure.  It delights me that from Freshman year of college until now Michael's literary voice has remained the same, just as much as it bothered me last night that my writing doesn't seem to have progressed since I was in high school.  Perhaps that's what has me too happy to sleep.  Perhaps it's that I heard another familiar voice tonight, Arzaana-fay, planning out what she'll say to the boyfriend who announced he loved her. Maybe it's that coupled with the delightful permanent itch of my mid-life crisis. And that I finally mastered power chords with Hole's Celebrity Skin.

Letters, I Save Letters

I think I was in sixth grade when the book "How to Eat Fried Worms" by Thomas Rockwell came out. Each of us had to write the author and say how much we liked the book. I wrote about how I had been giggling about his book in Math class with Jane Hoffman, and she and I started talking about Navel Worms, and Pickled Worms, and I was asked to spend the rest of Math class in the library.

We were very thrilled when he wrote back. The teacher passed out his reply, which had the line: "I enjoyed all your letters, but I especially enjoyed Mary's letter about accidentally eating a worm and Ellen's letter about being thrown out of Math class." I kept that letter ALL MY LIFE. I really wanted to see it again, especially when I saw the trailer for the movie.

I sorted through my box of letters, and while I couldn't find his letter (OR the letter to M&M/Mars proving that Christmas M&Ms, Easter M&Ms et al were all MY idea), I found many other eye-opening old letters. In reverse chronological order:

Gary's letters: Awwwww. Made me cry, so sweet. And quite witty and urbane. He also wrote me a pretty good poem that I did not appreciate at the time. I had some complaint; it didn't use my name, some stupid twenty-year old whine. I was a blind idiot.

Dave Bassett's letters: Started to read them (just for a little private mock-fest) and it hurt.  It hurt, I tell you, to read his sappy letters. He was such an eager little puppy. I was a blind idiot. I should have had the balls to break up with him.

Michael's letters: This is where it got strange. I remember Michael's (never Mike's) letters, or I thought I did. I re-read what I thought of as "The Letter in Which Michael's Insecurity Really Comes to the Fore." Reading it with a forty-year old's eyes I now see it as "The Letter In Which Michael Justifiably Complains When His Girlfriend Has Her Other Boyfriend Dave (see above) Come For a Weekend Visit." I was a blind idiot. The "Oh, So You're Engaged? Well, I'm Going to Yale, Bitch" letter is actually very sweet and if I got a Mellon Fellowship to Yale I'd mention it too.

Paul's letters: I had no recall whatsoever that my friend Carol's brother wrote me letters in college! After I sorted them by date, I realized Carol's brother sent me letters from college every single day. They were very funny and charming. I was a blind idiot. At the time I only read them for any scrap aside mention of his roommate, my ex-boyfriend Joe.

Joe's letters: Yeeeaaaahhh...my high-school sweetheart wrote great letters until he started exhorting me to have faith in the Lord. Then he promised me he would pray for me. I was a blind idiot.

The Convict's letters: What was I doing writing a convict? I was a blind idiot! I asked Mom and she said she wrote convicts too.

Jessica Chappell's letters: Finally, I have two letters from a girl named Jessica Chappell. I have no idea who she is. I have her picture. She looks kind of familiar. She seems to know me. At this point I was thinking "Did I have a sister I don't remember? I missed that whole Paul thing."

So. if you know this child:

...well, let me know. Evidently we corresponded. The postmark said she was in Santa Barbara California.  I never appreciated Jess when she was in my life, I guess. I am a blind idiot.

In Which My Portrait is Turned to the Wall

I was cleaning out my home files a few weeks ago and found my paternal grandmother's Last Will and Testament, which reads in part:

"I remember my granddaughter, Ellen L______, but I make no provision for her to receive anything under this will."

Given that my brother and half-siblings each got a mere two thousand dollars, I wasn't too crushed to be disinherited. I think I might even pay two thousand just to hold the title of Disinherited.  And it was darn easy to get disinherited. I didn't have to do anything at all. I think I was in good standing, actually, until I was seven. Then I began my fall from grace.

When I was seven, we went for a summer custody visit with the Technical Father, and evidently he didn't want to return us when his time was up. Instead he told us kids that Mom and her new husband didn't want us anymore, so we wouldn't be going back home. Instead we'd be going to Galveston and "staying there for a while." (I probably would have always thought that his plan was that we "stay there for a while," except I sorted Mom's files when I was 18 and saw the letter to the authorities using the alternative term "abducted." )

It never got to milk-carton status because later that month the authorities found us. Suddenly Technical Father was  driving us to the airport and explaining to us that he loved us more than he could say, but he was paying two hundred dollars a month in child support and if he couldn't see us when he wanted it "just wasn't worth it."  We never heard from him after that. As the English would say, children are just too dear. Years later I would fantasize he would come to school and I would refuse to go meet him in the Principal's office until he ponied up the Child Support. Evidently putting money before love is an inherited gene.

However, we did get a card every year from his mother. It always came exactly one month after my brother's birthday, and it contained two fifteen dollar checks: one for each of us for our respective birthdays. No word on TF. No words at all other than "Love, Grandma Faye." We would dutifully write thank you notes updating her on our interests, but after five years or so we asked Mom if we could just stop, because it feels a little creepy having a purely fiscal relationship with your grandmother in which she pays you for a thank-you note. Especially since you know the price tag around your neck has been marked down from $1,2000 a year to $15 a year.

I was quite content with my stepdad, but Dave sought out the TF when we were in our mid twenties and found him living at Grandma Faye's. They bonded. Dave called and asked if I'd like to bond too. No, I said. Got a Dad right there, thanks. Then the TF died at fifty, then Grandma Faye died, and then she took that last opportunity in her will to say "No cards? No letters? I'm not paying for this! You are OUT of the will!"

Of course, now that I'm older I can see their side. I mean, why pay for a child if you aren't getting value for your money? Really, I can see that in a completely rational way. In a completely rational, heartless, inhuman way.

Hoverers

In the bathroom stall next to me I heard a mother admonishing her child, "Don't touch that. Stop! Don't touch anything. No!" She sounded as panicky, as if the fixtures were going to brand her child's bottom.

I thought "That child is going to grow up to be a hoverer." You know, one of those people who don't actually let the backs of their thighs make contact with the toilet seat. You may be one of those people yourself, and if you are, I apologize to you and want to know what the hell made you that way.

We share the bathroom at work with an office of nurses. The nurses hover. They hover and hence there is urine on the seat after they leave. After they stand up they flush the toilets with their feet, wrap up in a mitten of toilet paper to get out of the stall, wash their hands (and I'm fine with that), then they do this huge production of using many paper towels to guard against the germs on the sink handles, trash can, and door handle.

Oddly, they all also make prolonged phone calls in the bathroom. (I never see them scrubbing down their cell phones afterward.) And I am sorry, but how much more pristine than everyone else do they think they are? Are they under the impression the programming staff in our office sits there and says, "I've always wondered what that round spool of cottony tissue is on the wall next to me. Hmm. Here, let me use my hand to wipe my ass." And then evidently we finger-paint invisible patterns on the porcelain, mixing the e-coli with the urine the hovering angels have left there as they float about all the scat coming out of their bowels.

Hoverers, aren't you over-compensating just a little?

You are human. Act human. Teach your children to eliminate like a human. Of course, this all may be influenced by the tale I heard growing up, that a doctor blamed my mother's polio on my grandmother's practice of washing the grapes. The doctor seemed to feel people need a few germs, otherwise you'll get epidemics because the kid's immune systems aren't strong enough. I wouldn't go that far, but I welcome any microbes that may want to hop a ride on the backs of my thighs.

Shut Up, Pretty Radio Shack Boy.

You know how you get when you are at Radio Shack and some bright witty twenty-year salesboy is chatting you up? You know it's his job, but it's been so long since you spoke with a bright yet charmingly scruffy boy. You didn't when you were in college, did you, because you were too shy and modest. And now you know how to talk to the pretty clever boys, and you have confidence, especially now that you are the eighth hit on http://msxml.excite.com/info.xcite/ for "Rate My Pudenda," and you flirt because it is his job and you wouldn't want to get him in trouble.

So you say hey, pretty boy, well you don't say that but you think it don't you, you would know what's going on with my iPod earbuds. You show him the earbuds and explain earnestly they started out symmetrical and they are getting increasingly asymmetrical. Every time you use them you wrap them around the Nano and the next time you unwrap them they are a little shorter on one side. Now there's only about one inch of cable on one side and eight on the other. Weird! you pout, and Weird! he agrees, let's see if they're adjustable. Nope, they are not. He says those are really short on that one side. Let's see how much shorter they've gotten. He opens up a new pair of the same earbuds to use as a control.  Can he be any hotter? Cute and young and of a scientific bent.

Who is that standing by me? Oh, that's Gary. Yeah, forgot about him. Can't breathe looking at Radio Wonderboy. Captain Earbuds. Whose flirty expressive face has suddenly flattened into the "Do not LAUGH at the customer" mask you have used yourself  so often.

Well, you laugh, it looks like the old shrinking earbuds and the brand spanking new ones are exactly the same. Really? Ha! Well, silly me. But really, every time I looked at them they got shorter. I was sure they started out symmetrical, or almost symmetrical.

Laugh at yourself, that's good, that's what your smart-ass husband is doing, and if you do you might get to see pretty Shackman laugh too.

An aside: I blame Catherine the Red for this most recent humiliation. I sat with her drinking amusing wine and Lobster Mac and Cheese and I even brought out my iPod and showed her my increasingly asymmetrical earbuds . Yes! She said! The same thing happened to MY earbuds! They just got shorter and shorter. I suppose she and Gary could be conspiring in some Gaslight plot to convince me I am growing increasingly lopsided.

Not Quite Like Brian Wilson Did

I've been back at the guitar now that my thumb began to heal (push through the pain, must stay strong) and last night I practiced all 14 songs in my "set list" twice. I was patting myself on the back for making it through "Brian Wilson" with nary a mistake, not even the A7 I flub on that song routinely. Sounded great. Really great, I tell you. I segued from "half-time ballad feel" into "full rock groove" seamlessly.  I could have swung that guitar around and jumped over the headstock, except I believe that has been trademarked.

Then I moved on to the next song, which required me to adjust the capo (a cunning device that changes the pitch of your guitar). And of course I found then that during my great showstopping performance I had placed the capo a fret too low, so I had just played Brian Wilson perfectly off-pitch.   

I put the capo where it should have been, got back on the horse and tried again, and naturally flubbed the A7 every. single. time.

Too Late

Aha - I finally discovered the cranny of Typepad where comment listing is hidden. Too late, of course, to document that my blog was commented on by God.

It's the Blog Version of a Clip Show

My life, in a nutshell:

Today, we were driving and Gary pointed out how dirty the cup holder on the Mini Cooper is.

I said, "It's all the Starbucks sloshing around when we go over bumps."

He pondered, "Wouldn't it be cool if there was some device we could hang from the rear-view mirror and we could press a button and it would hose the car down with cleaning solution?"

The only theme missing is my guitar. Perhaps I'll write a little ditty 'bout Ellen and Gary, who bought a lot of stuff since they got married.

Better F*cials Through Chemistry

Unreal - I am researching on the Internet which chemical in Clean & Clear Warming Face Scrub causes the endothermic water reaction that makes it "warm."

I am further following my scientific bent by using the left half of my face as the control while the right half tests the claims of Eucerin Anti-reddening Cream. In four weeks I'd better have a Peaches and Cream face on the right next to my Strawberry Slushface on the left, or I'll have wasted 24 dollars. (Okay. I know it's just like the guy in Lady In The Water who only works out half his body.)

Big Summer House

Big House Returns! Gary had another installment in the series of Big House Dreams.

Gary dreamed that we had a house: a house so big you could play golf in the hallways. There were plants and water features in the hallways, which made them particularly conducive to golf.

Evidently there was a big airport shutdown. Many many wealthy people were stranded at the airport and Gary invited them over to play golf in our hallways. I thought this was great and I encouraged Gary to turn our home into a vacation spot. Gary did not agree.

Finally, we had a big tractor. I don't know the significance of this. 

The Queen Mom's Birthday

A few notable things happened on the Queen Mother's birthday:

1) She got a card from a friend showing an old lady in a crown and caftan with a caption something like "Queen for a Day", which the friend amended to ready "Queen Mother for a day  ever."

2) She got another card which presented one woman saying to another: "Bitch. She only has two chins." I found this particularly amusing since I have always had a second chin. I think when they "corrected" my double thumb my body compensated by growing a double chin.

3) She did not understand the present I gave her for a full two minutes. It was a set of all the Michael Apted Up Documentaries - in which he follows a group of British kids and re-visits them every seven years.

"The Up Series." (Blank look.)
"Yeah, Mom. You know...Seven Up?"
"7-Up?"
"21 Up ... the last one we saw was 35 Up..."
"Oooooohhhhh." Polite but still baffled.
"The little boy who wanted to be a jockey, but then [SPOILER ALERT!] he was too big to be a jockey, and that one guy who became homeless - "

Finally she got it. I was a little worried. When you see something every SEVEN YEARS SINCE 1977 you would think a person would remember it. I've always heard it was the short-term memory that is the first to go, but evidently not.

Well then, just in case, Mom - don't forget today's my birthday!

Birthday Week

When we were first married, one of the many (Many. MA-NY.) things Gary and I had to work through was the birthday issue. My family celebrates one's birthday, remarkably, on the day one was born.  The in-laws like to play around with which day shall be the Feast of the Birthday. The date is not particularly relevant. It doesn't bother me, but it seems that sometimes an entire birthday goes by unacknowledged because the Birthday Observed happened last month.

Back to when we were first married -- I asked Gary to do something. He looked puzzled and said:

"But it's my birthday week."
"Pardon?" I asked, in complete and total disbelief, because I'd been married long enough to guess what was coming.
"It's my birthday week.  I don't have to do anything during my birthday week."

Well, young and foolish, I let him get away with it. Possibly I thought it was another Catholic thing with which I was unfamiliar. At any rate, the next March I again asked Gary to do something. He looked puzzled and said:

"But it's my birthday month."
"Oh, that's a load of crap. Last year it was a week."
"No, really, it's my birthday month. I don't have to do anything during my birthday month."
"Fine, then in August you'd better watch out."

Of course, I forgot until mid-August, but then I played the birthday month tradition as if I were born to it. "No, I can't cook / clean / drive / answer the phone because it is my birthday month."

The S_______s deny any knowledge of this tradition. "Birthday WEEK? Birthday MONTH?" they laugh. It is lucky we didn't have this tradition in my family, since Mom and I generally have our birthdays in the same week.

And speaking of the Queen Mother --  here she is on the Throne:

Nuns! Nuns! Nuns!

First: a geography lesson.

Let's start you in East Saint Louis, Illinois. You are standing on the bank of the Mississippi River and looking West. You are looking at the Arch. You are in great danger because you are in East Saint Louis. (Well you are.) Go west. Swim west, that is. Hurry! Swim faster!

So, now you are under the Arch. Start walking. If you walk west for five miles you are technically no longer in Saint Louis City, because for some odd reason there's a law that Saint Louis City will never get bigger than five miles wide.

Walk west through Saint Louis County for another ten miles and you will see another river, the Missouri River. Cross that river, walk another half mile west and you will be at my house. (Hi. Rest a bit.)

Keep walking for another ten miles and you will leave the suburbs and find yourself in the small town of O'F_____ Missouri. I used to think of it as a suburb, but now that I have attended the 150th anniversary celebration of the birth of O'F______, I know it is a small town. A small Music Man Seventy-Six Trombones We Got Trouble Right Here, Right Here in O'F______ kind of town.

Mr. Wonderful and the other denizens staged a fine theatrical production celebrating O'F_____s 150 years. There was some fine amateur acting during the dramatization of the founding of their fine town including some scary non-apologies on the topics of  Native Americans and slavery ("Who else would have cleared the land?" You, you lazy ass. You and your buddy Dan'l Boone). There was a truly lovely hammer dulcimer solo.

And then, my favorite part:

NUNS SINGING IN GERMAN! They started with "The Happy Wanderer!" Val-de-ri! Val-der-ra! I don't know if this song was originally in German, but they sang it that way. And you know what? It was great. And you know what else? It had nothing to do with O'F________ and its history. But nuns, they gotta sing.

Happy Almost Birthday

The night before I turned twenty-one, I was sleeping over at my Aunt Carleen's apartment. She took the opportunity to tell me the best years of my life were now officially over and everything would be going downhill from here.

I was horrified. I am glad to report Aunt Carleen was completely wrong.

I really haven't had any birthday crisis since then. On my 40th birthday I was prepared for a big crisis, of course. In fact, I was up at 11:55, counting down until my birthday, the big Four-Oh, preparing to be slapped with a major emotional epiphany. Luckily I was also scrolling through the cable at the same time, so my thoughts were:

"Okay, here we go. Almost forty. Age gracefully. Forty is the new twenty. You sill have your health. It's just a numbe -- What's this? Thunderbirds is on! Cool! I haven't seen that since I was five! It's on at midnight! And I can stay up to watch it because I'm FORTY now and I DO WHAT I WANT, bitches!"

(And I'm talking Classic Thunderbirds here, not the crap monstrosity of the live-action movie. Think Team America without the sex. And the vomiting. Still, little puppets driving little racecars and smoking eentsy cigarettes and drinking teeny-tiny cocktails. For the Kids!)

So, twenty-first birthday: Bad. Fortieth birthday: Good.

I haven't quite hit the eve of my forty-fourth birthday (it's in a few days), but I did spend eighty dollars today on scrubs and toners and anti-aging creams. 

South Asian Non-Terrorist

Well, the visit of the niece and nephew was punctuated by some War Fallout.

Arhan-fay and Arzaana-fay were walking with us in the mall, and a family walked past us in the other direction, led by a pot-bellied man. As he passed, I saw my niece's head whip around and her jaw dropped open, and my nephew snorted and shook his head. I heard nothing, probably since the man's comment of :

"F*cking raghead"

... was directed at my nephew. I was pretty surprised Arhan-fay didn't go after the guy. Since 9/11 he's gotten used to people yelling "Go back to where you came from," which of course is North Saint Louis County. After I heard, my hackles got all raised and I stared down anyone that even glanced at the kids for the rest of the night.

What I also find remarkable is that we are re-living the December 1941 issue of Life Magazine, the one with "How to tell Japs From the Chinese." My nephew and niece's father is from Pakistan (our ally), which they explain is in South Asia, not the Middle East. I confess, if I hadn't spent a day at their Muslim school in which they pointed out students by nationality ("She's from Egypt...He's Saudi...She's Iranian") I wouldn't have been able to tell much difference.  Now it seems obvious, though.

That distinction didn't do Arhan-fay much good when he was waiting at the train station to head back to Kansas City. A woman buying a ticket didn't have the requisite driver's license, and the volunteer behind the desk was stupid enough to say, "Oh, you don't need that. We only ask for that if you look like an Iraqi terrorist."

I wasn't there. Aunt Karen was there. She reported loud and repetitive use of the f-bomb by our nephew. She was so Shocked and Awed she had to wait in the car. I really wanted to get details, but she refuses to discuss it further.

In Which I Do Not Have Cancer

I have been so wiped out for the last day and a half. Of course, I assumed it was some MS-related fatigue related to the heat. Then I started thinking...cancer?

I just now diagnosed it. Mom's doctor visit Friday morning threw off my schedule, and it was just too hot later to walk across the street and visit...Starbucks.

Auntie Dearest

Gary and I differ on the role of the Aunt. Technically, I'm an Aunt-in-Law, because my brother has no kids, but Gary's sister Sandy has the two kids, Arhan-fay and Arzaana-fay.

Gary and I have had many conversations about the kids. They all boil down to this:

Step One: Gary asks for information about the kids. This is usually after he has heard the exaggerated version that has gone through the Sandy filter and the Wilma filter, their mother and grandmother respectively. Both are inclined to exaggerate,  so he generally checks with me to get the other side. So:

Gary: I hear Arhan-Fay is having unprotected sex with multiple partners!
Me: Uh..well, I know that his sister refers to his new girlfriend as "sloppy seconds" because she dated one of his best friends first. Is that what you mean?
Gary: Yes, like I said! Unprotected sex! Multiple partners!

Step Two: Gary asks me what I've said to the kids about this recent crisis.

Gary: So, what have you told the kids about having sex?
Me: Uh...keep the sperm away from the eggs.
Gary: No! NO! Tell them just not to have SEX.
Me: You know he's twenty-one, right?
Gary: I don't care how old he is! No SEX.
Me: You know I'm not his Mom, right?
Gary: Just tell him to never have sex! It's simple! Why don't you get this?
Me: You know, taking that view is what makes people not pack protection and then they get pregnant and -
Gary (shouting): No SEX! NO SEX!

There is no Step Three any more. I used to argue, but now I just say "Okay, hon, I'll tell them. No sex. You betcha."

Now, I know in Gary's family all the Aunts view themselves as Backup Moms. And I know it was effective because the twenty-one year old Gary wasn't having sex (NO SEX!). The ostrich coping technique was evidently successful in his case.  Plus, I know Gary's family thinks Arzanna-fay listens to me. I think that's why it maddens Gary that I tell her "Don't drink" - but only until she drinks. Then I say, "Don't drink and drive." Whereas Gary would have me say "Don't drink! NO DRINKING! And no more wire hangers! EVEEEERRRRR!" 

Meme Du Week

Because none of the photos of my thumb came out clearly (the smiley scar with the ink eyes and nose makes me so happy) I am piling on along with Mister Zero (with whom We Shall Not F*ck, which is what I think every time I visit her page) and with the Evil Genius, now in glorious technicolor.

The rules:
Go to Google Image Search and type in the city and state/province of the town where you grew up, no quotation marks. Then select the picture you like best from the first page of results and post it on your blog. My result:

The town where you currently reside:

(Oh, and you can't see it but there's an Arch down there.)

Your name, first and last, but no quotes. My result:

(This is someone walking through my memorial garden.)

Your grandmother’s name. On my mom’s side:

On your father's side:

Your favorite food:

favorite drink:

Favorite smell:

Lastly, favorite song:

Gotta go - have to buy some St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake for a friend in the hospital.

In Which a Beauty Procedure I Shall Not Name is Done to My Face

When we went out for our spa day, Arzaana-fay and I had a Therapeutic Procedure done to our faces.

(I would call it by its common name, "f*c**l," but I already have enough hits on this blog by people looking for invasive things to do to their husband's lower gastrointestinal tracts. Actually, the international fans of FHR don't bother me. You know what else doesn't bother me? My bare toes are right there for the gratification of those inclined to look up "toes.jpg" on Google Images. Have at it, toe fetishists from France and Germany. Knock yourselves out.)

So, I've never had a Face Procedure before. I was surprised. I was expecting the mask, and the massage, and steam. I was relaxed. However, at one point the woman squeezed at my nose.

"What the hell?" I thought. Then she went after my cheek! I realized she was ... hmmm ... extruding blemishes out of my face. This was ironic since I had scrutinized my face that morning and felt it was blemish-free. Then she went for my ear.

She said, "Looks like there's a blackhead inside your ear."
"I am surprised." I said. "I was not expecting this."
"Really?" she asked, "That's the point of a [Therapeutic Face Procedure]. We prepare your skin, we open your pores, then we clean them out."

Is this really what I should have been expecting? Arzaana-fay got the same treatment. I want confirmation that this is the drill. My face looks worse after my faci -- procedure. My pores are open and clean, but also twice their usual size. And my face is blotchy. I can't imagine Angelina Jolie having this done on Oscar afternoon.

Let me know.

(Oh, and a parting gift for my toe fans out there: Here are my toes (naked!) and Arzaana-fay 's toes after our pedicures.)

Curses! They're on to Me!

Today I was talking to my nephew and he said, "Did you post that on your blog?"

My head whipped around. "Did Gary tell you about the blog?"

"Yeah. It's like an anonymous blog, right?"

"It's supposed to be," I said pointedly, as I swiftly reviewed everything I had ever posted about my in-laws and how much fall-out there would be when my nephew finds the blog. (He might have found it last night at 3:14.  Still, there's a chance other readers are up at 3:14, not just my nephew. What time is it in France when it's 3:14 here? It might have been the Catamites.)

I've been careful about covering my trail, with one exception: the niece and nephew have pretty distinctive first names. So, in case they try to track me down by googling themselves, I have carefully gone through and substituted their real names with their Pig-Farsi names. They are now Arhan-fay and Arzaana-fay.

Pig-Farsi Muslim names. That's just wrong.

What a Difference Six Months Makes

Is Six Months Like 10 years in Teenage Years?
The niece before:

The Niece After: