Red Nose

Philly Time

Tonight I am going to get ready -- sort of -- to go to Philadelphia for the annual STC conference. I'm not actually getting on the train until Sunday morning, but I'm picking up my great good friend Judy at the airport tomorrow. She's going to hang out with us tomorrow night. We are planning to smuggle Cosmopolitans in thermos bottles into the movie theater and see Sex and The City (Shut. Up.) and have a high old time.

So, I must change the sheets on the bed in the guest room, give the bathroom a lick an a promise (yeah, ew) and then do a preliminary packing, which I will finish up tomorrow night. We'll hop on the train Sunday morning and then, look out!

Meanwhlle, in lieu of a long Love List, I'm doing a one-item love list. I suppose, if I want to be nitpicky, that you can't really have a list with one thing in it. It simply goes against everything in the List-Making Guidebook! Okay then, it will be a Love Lone rather than a Love List.

Meet Virgil.












Virgil is the cutest stuffed Pillow Monster, handmade by Nichol Brinkman. I was monitor-shopping on Etsy and there he was, along with the other wonderful pillow monsters. He jumped out at me and said, "Hey! I know lots of jokes!" and so how could I say no to that?

Here's his bio, straight from the Pillow Monster site:

Virgil is a stand up comedian. He tells good, clean jokes and gets his audience to see the world in a new light. He has a very funny bit about "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter". He is guilty of laughing at his own jokes, but he believes ethically that he shouldn't, so his laugh comes out as suppressed, high-pitched giggle. This only adds to his comedic performance. He is a gentleman and always hold the door open for ladies.

I love Virgil.

See you in the City of Brotherly Love!

A Little Catharsis Never Hurt Anyone

Last weekend I saw quite a bit of Mom, particularly on Sunday when my older sister and I took her to lunch with my two cousins and their husbands. It was a nice lunch. My cousins were sociable and interesting, and Mom seemed to enjoy herself.

On the way home, though, she had another intestinal emergency and we made it to her room just in time. She continued to have problems for the next hour. At one point she looked so tiny and sad, sitting on her bed, that I sat down and put my arm around her shoulders. I thought she might break, but she leaned against me and sighed.

So that was that, or so I thought.

Then on Monday I went to the movies by myself. I chose Young @ Heart, a charming, poignant documentary about the Young @ Heart Chorus, a group of elders who love to sing. Their director, a precious darling boy of 53, selects the songs and leads the rehearsals. Their repertoire includes Coldplay, Sting, James Brown, Sonic Youth, The Rolling Stones... you get the idea.

And I cried and cried and cried and cried.

Oh, I laughed, too; these elders are a force to be reckoned with. I especially loved Fred Knittle, who has a rich baritone and a wicked sense of humor. He says he can sing high, too, depending on how loose his shorts are. Hah!

But I mostly cried, especially when the chorus sang at a prison and totally won over the inmates. Especially when the chorus lost two of its members one week before their show.

And I teared up, even as I laughed, when Dora and Lenny led the chorus in the Godfather of Soul's I Feel Good.

But I lost it, almost sobbed out loud, as I sat in the back row in the dark theater, when Fred sang Coldplay's Fix You.

I guess I needed that.

Oh Baby, Where Can You Bee?

The back door is open to let in the perfect late spring breeze on a cloudless Memorial Day. I am almost done cleaning the oven, a task I to which I committed myself (maybe I should have been committed) the other day when I put some meat in to broil and the kitchen filled up with greasy smoke.

Yeah. Time to clean the oven.

But that's not what I want to write about today. I want to write about a landmark institution of my summers of my childhood.

The Bee Place.

See, Memorial Day weekend in these parts means that the beach is open for business, so everyone needs to get going down 'ee ocean. Every summer my family went to Ocean City Maryland for vacation. There are two main routes to Ocean City, once you cross the Bay Bridge: Route 50, which takes you through Easton, Cambridge, and Salisbury; and Route 404, which takes you through Denton, Bridgeville, and Selbyville. My Pop always took Route 404 because it was 12 miles shorter and we'd get to the beach that much faster.

These days, that route is still 12 miles shorter, but it takes longer because it's mostly a two-lane road, whereas Route 50 is divided highway all the way.

Anyway, there was this burger and shake joint that we stopped at every time we went on this trip, just east of Denton, Maryland. It's official name was the Crossroads Drive-In, but we called it the Bee Place, because it was always awash with yellowjackets. It was one of the joints where you walk up to one window and order, then pick up your order at another window, and then find a picnic table where you could eat and swat at the dive bombing wasps. The management kept trying to keep the stingy creatures at bay by putting a little Coke in the bottoms of big glass jugs so that the bees would fly into them and get stuck, but it didn't really help, partly because people never really cleaned up after themselves. There were always leftover bits of burger, empty cups with remnants of milkshake, or pale green pickle slices shriveling in the hot sun, not to mention all the fresh food being eaten by those annoying humans. If I were a yellowjacket, I know what I'd choose, although there were always one or two or six victims drowned in the jugs of sweet, sweet cola.

Ah, Death! Where is thy sting?

We stopped there every single summer on the way to the beach, but never on the way home. On the way home, we stopped at the Howard Johnson's just west of the Bay Bridge.

Neither place remains. The HoJo is now some sort of medical building, and the Crossroads is an empty lot. But on those warm summer days on the way to the beach, it was definitely the place -- wait for it -- to bee.

Ten Things That Happened Lately

1. The women's restroom at work has completely self-contained stalls with real live doors, tiny rooms containing a toilet, paper, and a generous helping of claustrophobia. It also has motion sensor lights. This is a bad combination, as I found out when I was sitting in one of the stalls and the lights no longer detected me. So -- I found myself in a tiny compartment in the pitch dark. Fun!
2. We had some repairs done to the outside of the house to appease the Garden Police. They'll find something else to complain about, I'm sure, but for now we're once again good little Stepford neighbors.
3. Twice now I have set up the coffee in the morning -- filled up the maker with water, measured out the coffee -- and forgotten to turn on the pot. Damn.
4. I updated Quicken last night with a couple items, then checked our bank balance online. They matched exactly! Even though I always balance the checkbook, I think that's the first time that's ever happened to me, ever.
5. I got two new dresses, one from Eddie Bauer and one from Igigi, and they both fit perfectly. I think that's also the first time that's ever happened to me, ever.
6. Gas in DC is now over $4.00 a gallon -- good thing I never buy gas in DC. The last time I filled up my tank it cost over $50.00. Fifty. Godddamn. Dollars. And yes, I am going to pull out a goddamn baby boomer memory, to wit: I was running on fumes one day way out in the country many long years ago -- like 1972. I was also pretty broke. I dug around the seat cushions and scared up a grand total of 50 cents (yes, 50 cents) and was able to get enough gas to get home -- about 15 miles.
7. I have been having extremely vivid dreams lately. Last night I dreamed I was announcing the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals; I was in Pittsburgh and wondering how I was going to manage it, since I had never done it before. Luckily, I woke up before the puck dropped.
8. Joe and I spotted a raccoon loping along the grassy area near our house. In broad daylight. Out in the open. Hmm.
9. I finally weaned myself off hormone replacement pills, and I have had a couple wicked hot flashes since then. But only a couple, and I think I'm over them. About damn time, too.
10. I'm hungry. Time for some supper and the latest episode of my guilty pleasure.

I Seem To Be Married To An Insane Arms Dealer

In my last conversation with SonnyeBoy, I mentioned that Joe and I were probably going to see Ironman this weekend. SonnyeBoy said that the show was great, but I should pay particular attention to the character played by Jeff Bridges.

"He looks just like someone we know," said SonnyeBoy.

He is nothing but a big tease.

Anyway, we went to see the movie last weekend. And there he was: Jeff Bridges as the evil Obediah Stane.

My husband.

Rare Sighting

I was driving into work Friday morning, at the tale end of a rainy night turned soggy morning, when it whizzed by.

Could it be?

I chased it down the road, trying to get a better picture.

Alas! It was too quick, zipping down the road as other, bigger cars cut in front of me. I thought I'd lost it, but then it got stuck behind a bus. Before I knew it, I sped by! And I thought, "Hmm. Drive sanely, or try to take a picture and wreck the car?"

I'm way too sensible.

But I kept the camera turned on, put it on the seat next to me, kept driving and waited.

And then, at the scary circle of doom on the edge of DC and Maryland, I got my chance and took it.

My first sighting of a Smart car in the wild!

I want one. Yes, I do.

It's A Crummy Commercial!

Okay, I'm idly playing a little Solitaire Scrabulous. Why Solitaire? Because I'm a scaredy-cat and do not wish my vocabulary skills against other people.

I think I'm getting better, though. When I first starting playing, I was lucky to put down words of more than three letters; now I have actually used all seven letters at a time.

Once, anyway.

But that's not what this is about. I finished up a game -- scored 502, by the way, not quite my highest but definitely up there -- and saw the clever ad at the bottom of the page:

Free IQ Test!

What the hell, I think. I'd kind of like to know my IQ.

So I click through and take the test. It's the usual mixture of Miller Analogies and Complete the Sequence and Math Stuff and Word Scrambles. Then I click the Get Results button.

Oh holy dear sweet Jesus! I don't get the results; I get page after page after page of "offers" disguised as a "survey." Most of these offers require you to divulge your email address to get crap or to immediately sign up for some kind of service (Only $9.99 month! Starting now!).

I click "No! HELL no!" on all of them, but it seems I have to at least look at one per screen. So I do, and I click "What part of 'NO' don't you understand?" on each of them. Finally the damn IQ Thing gets tired of me and gives up.

I swear, I would have quit after the first stupid offer but I really wanted to know my IQ. As I kept clicking "NO, DAMMIT!!" I began to wonder if there was any correlation between the IQ result and the number of online "offers" that a person accepted. For example, was the IQ result automatically lowered by 5 points for each offer a person fell for? What I lowering or raising my IQ by being so obstinate? Did people with lower IQs get suckered into accepting lots of these offers, or did people with higher IQs tend to do it?

There's a master's thesis in there somewhere. Possibly a doctoral dissertation.

Also, once the IQ Thing finally gave me the results, it invited me to copy a code snippet to put on my site so everyone could take the test -- or fall for one of the many offers.

So, no snippet. No link. I live to serve.

My IQ is 152. Is that good?

Mother's Day, Mostly

I had a friend many many years ago who fell in with some sort of odd cult that believed that the increase in earth disasters was a portent of the end of the world. She'd show us charts and graphs and data that proved it.

I wonder what she's thinking now. I mean, what the hell is happening? Cyclones in southeast Asia, earthquakes in China, fires in Florida, tornadoes in the midwest, monsoons in the mid-Atlantic -- Mother Nature is really out of control. My heart goes out to everyone who's been affected. I just had to deal with torrential rain and heavy flooding; I can't imagine being left with nothing, including clean water and food.

So. The dinner on Friday night with my sisters and brother went fine. We talked over everything and decided that we'd consult an elder attorney to see if we have any options other selling Mom's house. We also decided that my brother would be the spokesman because Mom actually listens to him. (Ah, the power of the penis!)

On Saturday we all convened at a restaurant that Mom likes. After eating and chatting, my brother brought it up and told Mom what we had decided. She admitted that selling her house would break her heart, but my brother was masterful. He explained, clearly but gently, that she really couldn't be by herself anymore, she was just too frail. It was our responsibility, he said, to make sure she had good care.

And, miracle of miracles, she agreed. I have a feeling she's still hanging on to the hope that somehow she'll be able to keep the house. We'll see what the lawyer says, but I have my doubts.

Mother's Day was lovely. Joe surprised me with a dozen lovely, pale pink roses -- what a guy! -- and SonnyeBoy checked in later with further tales of fun, including sighting a vanity license plate  that read "MLFHNTR*," which I got immediately. Evidently the little old lady who approves the plates did not.

We spent most of the day with Mom, just Joe and me this time. We borrowed a wheelchair from the nursing home, loaded it (and her) into the car, and tootled off to the mall. We had a very nice lunch. Then we rolled over to LL Bean, where Mom actually shopped from the comfort of the wheelchair. She exclaimed over the high prices while I showed her every pair of white pants in the store. We finally settled on a nice pair of capris, a gorgeous sweater in deep rose, and a pretty pink striped shirt for her Mother's Day present.

We got back to her place, put the new duds away, and bid her farewell. We got home just before the monsoon hit, which brings us back to earth disasters, and my feeling that I am really very, very lucky.

---

*MLFHNTR = MILF** Hunter.

---

**MILF = Mom I'd Like to Fuck. Such a compliment!

And It's A Suede Purse, Too

Okay, I am done with work.

I have not left work yet, but I am done, and I am not going home because I am meeting my sibs for dinner, but I don't have to meet them for a couple of hours, so... there you go.

Since our beloved Caps fell in the first round and the Canadiens fell in the second, Joe and I have decided that we are rooting for the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup. We cannot bring ourselves to root for the Penguins ("Fuck a Penguin!" as Joe likes to say) or the Flyers ("Fuck a Flyer!" as Joe like to say), and it is against our religion to root for any Dallas team at all ("Fu..." oh, never mind), so it's the Red Wings by default. At least they wear red, so we can still Rock the Red.

My right arm is freezing. The heating and cooling in this building is totally wacked-out and goofy, such that we were sweating and dozy in January. We asked for coolth. Now, of course, we are regretting this request, as cold air is blasting out of the... air-blaster things... and the steady wind is aimed directly at my right arm. I keep meaning to bring in a shawl or a sweater, but I keep forgetting to do it. So I end up sticking my hand under my left armpit, which warms it up slightly, but I cannot quite fit my forearm under there.

Last Monday the building engineer came around investigating the temperature, saying that someone had called in with a complaint that it was too cold. My cubemate and I, however, happily told him that no, it was fine; in fact, it was quite comfortable for a change.

And it was. On Monday. But it has gotten progressively chillier in here as the week has progressed, and now my arm is freezing and my neck is chilly. Yes, yes -- I could call in another complaint, if I were willing to swallow my pride and look like an idiot. Or I could bring in a sweater, or even just a sleeve! No, that's ridiculous. Okay. If it's still cold on Monday, I'll call. I promise.

I'm glad it's Friday. The rain seems to have slacked off and stopped for the nonce, after a wild night of thunder, high winds, and heavy rain. A bunch of us went to lunch in a steady, misty rain, the kind of rain that defies umbrellas and gets you anyway. It was nice -- we are a convivial group and we had quite a nice time, even though we old farts had to put the smackdown on the member of the group who was not yet born when several of us were in college. We ate on the partially enclosed outdoor patio, the overhead heaters spilling out divine warmth, and I put my purse on a dry spot on the concrete.

Except it wasn't dry. At all. I hate when that happens.

And now, it is time to go.

There Goes Tokyo

Okay, by popular demand -- or at least because Steph is curious and Kitty wants to see it -- here's a picture of the Godzilla ring!

What makes this delightful piece of haute couture jewelry even better is that it's handmade from a Scrabble tile! This one is a "T", so it's only worth one point in the game. I got it here. Looks like I was just in time, too!

Yes, I was in my car when I took the shot, stopped dead in traffic. So I says to myself, "Take a picture!" So I did. And here it is! It came with a matching tie tack for Joe, so between the two of us, we can really do some damage to any unsuspecting cities that happen to be in our way.