This will make you giggle, chortle, and guffaw

Rest In Peace, Marcheline Bertrand

Angelina Jolie's mom and the namesake of this blog, Marcheline Bertrand, died Saturday from cancer. As a person with a parent who has cancer, I can especially sympathize with Angelina and her brother today. It seems that Angie made the best of the time that she had with her mom, and always stayed close to her in spirit, no matter where in the world her work took her.

Lately I'd been noticing that Angie seemed a lot thinner and very anxious-looking in her public appearances, and now I know why. She's a very private person, but her heart shows through. I am glad that she has a loving family around her at this time, to help her cope with the loss and the grief she is feeling.

My blog name, Marcheline, was chosen in honor of Angelina's mom - and now it is in memoriam.

Journey well to the next adventure, Marcheline!

Stretched thin

I'm tired. I don't want to go to work tonight. I spent twelve hours at work on Friday, eight hours at work yesterday, and I have to go back in tonight, and get up at 6am tomorrow to drive an hour to work at my other job. I am so, so tired. And I am bored, because only having small snippets of "free" time between work does not leave me enough room to get involved in projects, or complete projects I've already started, so I wander around the house doing chores and watching the clock to make sure I don't miss the all-important Time To Get Ready For Work. I am too weary to have any interest in playing my piano, and can't seem to read for more than ten minutes at a time, because there is the ever-approaching TTGRFW. I still have the remnants of that cough/cold/flu/whatever it was in my lungs, and it doesn't show signs of leaving any time soon. It's not getting worse, but it's not getting better. The doctor says "rest". Yeah, right. I wonder, somewhere in the corner at the back of my mind, what would happen if I just quit. I suppose I know the answer, and that's why I am leaving now, because it's Time To Get Ready For Work.

Marcheline's Helpful Household Hints #543: ESCAPE

Okay, so technically this issue of helpful hints is not "household", as it relates to a circumstance definitely outside the home - unless you have a very very large swimming pool in your garage.

My kind readers will surely forgive me, since I was awakened in the middle of the night recently after having a very detailed dream about this very subject.

I did a little research online, and have compiled the various instructions from what I found.

HOW TO ESCAPE A VEHICLE THAT IS SUBMERGED IN WATER

1. Try not to panic. Remember, you've already read the instructions on how to get out of this situation on Marcheline's blog, so you're already one step ahead of the game.

2. Get out before the car goes under. If your car door is above water, open it. If not, open a window as quickly as possible. The main goal is to get the pressure inside the car equal to the pressure outside the car. Water exerts greater pressure than air, so if you are underwater in a car full of air, the doors won't open.

3. Break the glass if you can't open the window. If you're a super-smartie, you will purchase a Life Hammer (google it) and keep it in an easily accessible area of your vehicle. If you don't have a heavy, sharp metal object to use, then haul off and kick out a window with both heels. As for me, I think I'm looking into the Life Hammer option. I like my heels and ankles just the way they are. Also, a Life Hammer will work on windshields and rear windows as well as regular windows, where using your feet is pretty much limited to windows, unless you're a WWF wrestler.

4. Realize that whichever end of the car the engine is in will sink faster. The depth and current of the water may cause the car to flip over on its roof. Knowing this ahead of time will help you overcome the surprise that might delay your attempt to escape. Acknowledge, and move on.

5. Leave your pocketbook, your CD player, and anything else that you consider valuable. All of that stuff is not nearly as valuable as your life, and will probably still be there when your car is recovered in any case. If your stuff gets damaged or ruined, it can be replaced. You can't.


Thanks for tuning in! Here's to sweeter dreams for Marcheline in the future, eh?

When the little guy wins, it makes me GRIN

I heard a story on the news this morning on my way to work that has had me grinning all day, so I'm going to share it with you.

There's a trailer park in Florida by the name of "Briny Breezes". How cute is that, I ask you? It's one of the few waterfront trailer parks left in the good ole US of A. Seems it's located right between some bazillion dollar mansions and hotels over on the "gold coast", between West Palm Beach and Boca Raton. A land developer offered to buy the place for a LOT of money - over 500 million, I think it was.

So far, the story isn't so very unusual. However, in this particular trailer park, the residents actually own their parcel of land, not just the trailers they live in. The community got together and voted to sell the trailer park, and as a result each resident is going to receive over one million dollars!

This, to me, is even better than a story about someone winning the lottery. These folks were just going along, living their lives, and most likely were planning to stay where they were for the duration. Rumor has it that most of the residents have been there for more than 20 years. The reporter on the radio show this morning spoke to a few in person, and one of them said he even voted against the sale, because he enjoyed his life, his trailer, and living on the water.



But let's face it - none of these people were doing all that well financially. They probably couldn't afford decent health care, and some were raising kids in a cramped little trailer. Now they can all retire comfortably, spend time with their families, take care of their relatives, send their kids to a decent school, and put financial worries behind them. If they want to, they can even buy a little villa on the ocean. I am so happy for all of them!

Hearing about this good luck being sprinkled on the little neighborhood of Briny Breezes gave me a lift today, and I hope it does the same for you. It's nice to know it can happen - good stuff can plop right down on people out of the blue.

And hey, if it happened to them, who knows...

Round and Round: Round 2

Well, after a week of coughing, a doctor's visit, a round of antibiotics, one and a half bottles of crack cocaine cough syrup (I had some left over from last year), and another week of diminished coughing, I'm back to the ubiquitious Square One.

Yesterday I coughed so much and so hard that I threw my lower back out. Even now, it continues to spasm. Ouch. And I've also learned the hard way that if one has to pee - even a little bit - one should make haste to the bathroom, for extended coughing fits and needing to pee (even a little bit) do not mix. And nobody is good enough at making up stories to explain why two pairs of sweatpants have been handwashed in one day, and are hanging in the shower to drip dry. You can only blame so much on the cats, you know.

I'm almost at my last drop of precious crack cough syrup, which means I only have one more good night's sleep ahead of me, unless I get to the doctor again. And I have the sneaking suspicion that you're not really supposed to take this stuff ad infinitum... it's probably addictive. If I start seeing bugs crawling out of my skin, I'll know I was right.

Was supposed to work at the restaurant tonight, but now that my sinuses have decided to join the Body Parts Revolution, I'm not only coughing like a foghorn, I'm reduced to mouth-breathing in order to stay functional. So very attractive. So sexy. So NOT.

I called in sick, and the manager actually sympathized with me! (That's nearly unheard of in the food service industry.) She said that so far everyone who has called in sick has had a relapse and has called in sick again within a week. Well, at least I'm with the "in crowd" for once in my life. Figures it has to be in the illness category - ha!

Decided to grease the works by going ahead and calling my boss at home (left a message on the machine) to let her know that I was sick again/still, and was going to be going to the doc's first thing tomorrow morning. I said I would let her know the doc's advice as soon as I got it. Now I have to call the manager and let him know, and then it's time to curl up in front of the tube with my collection of "Dark Crimes" movies from the 40's and a box of tissues, a glass of juice (or maybe scotch?) and let the afternoon dwindle away to night.

I have a dream - a dream of a world in which I am not coughing.

Someday...

Good Stuff!

Bear passed his first realtor's test with flying colors! YAY BEAR!!!

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I had a great job interview on Friday morning. Am waiting for second interview to be scheduled... toes crossed.

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Showed the apartment to someone today. She liked it and is going to have her roommate come and see it next.

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My internet server was down for 2 days, but (obviously) is back up now. YAY!

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Worked 12 hours at the restaurant yesterday. Back is killing me, but made some good buckage.

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I have updated my header pictures for Valentine's Day - deleted some oldies, added some new stuff, and changed the format, for your (okay, for MY) viewing enjoyment... ENJOY!

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I am going downstairs now to watch an Angelina Jolie movie.

and by "sexy" I mean "weepy"

There's a photographer named Sam Taylor-Wood that has done an entire art show made up of photographs of famous men.

This in itself is not so original, but her idea was to get the men to actually cry real tears for the shoot. I have no idea whether she left them to their own devices to come up with the waterworks, or whether she called them names, insulted their mothers, or beat them with a tire iron to get the shots. I'd be interested to know.

I'm not going to reproduce the whole set of pics here - you can go see those on TooMuchSexy.blog - but here are two I just couldn't resist...

First off, I don't think Sean Penn is crying at all in this picture. I think he's inspecting his boner. And I think that's a small smirk of satisfaction hovering at the corner of his lips. It's like he's thinking about his own private joke. "Hey, what's veiny and bulging and not my biceps?"



Here, Laurence Fishburne shows us how one man can simultaneously be extremely sad, extremely sexy, and extremely, extremely scary. This is the man who just realized he has nothing left to lose, and he's the only person in the bus station bathroom when you run in to take a whiz.

Paula Apedul

Marcheline's Favorite Gifts: Episode 9

This year, one of my favorite gifts was from Bear - the entire collection of "Thin Man" movies. For those of you who have never seen them, let me 'splain. No, there's no time. Let me sum up.

William Powell and Myrna Loy play Nick and Nora Charles, a married couple with a dog named Asta. Nick is a "retired" detective, and Nora keeps on getting him involved in murder cases, and trying to go along for the ride, digging up clues and getting her nose into everything.


Between cocktails, Nick manages to simultaneously get Nora into tons of mischief while trying to put her off the trail (hailing a cab and then sending it away after she gets in, giving her away as a dance partner in a jitterbug club, etc.), and solve the murder cases he didn't want to get involved with in the first place.

One of the real treats are the special guest stars that show up unexpectedly in the different movies. My favorite actor of all time, Jimmy Stewart, was in the second film, "After the Thin Man".

Besides the impossible good cheer of Nora - a wife who never nags her husband, no matter how many cocktails he has, no matter if he shoots out their windows with a pellet gun for fun - these movies are a trip because of the constant rapid-fire one-liners that the couple trade as the plot unwinds. The double entendres fly and off-color jokes (just barely concealed in witty dialogue) abound.

If you haven't yet, you oughta try a Thin Man! They go great with a bowl of popcorn - and a cocktail, of course!

Geico was right - they're still here!

My first day back at the restaurant, still in recovery from the flu and on prescription meds though I was, was not without its memorable customers.

Customers, like all other people, come in "types". There are the Metropolitans, the Country Bumpkins, the Getting Away From the Kids, the Couldn't Get Away So We Brought the Kids, the Business Expense Meals, and.... the rare but dreaded Neanderthals.

According to the History Channel and A&E, the Neanderthal man is extinct. But we in the restaurant industry know better. On Friday, during lunch, a couple came in. It was my turn to take the next table, and as I approached them, I observed with horror the first warning signs of the Neanderthal customers.

The female of the pair was wearing a black satin jacket that announced her mate's construction business in bright yellow machine embroidered letters. She was upright, very talkative, and used her hands to gesticulate a lot, in order to draw attention away from the male. With good reason.

The male sat hunched over his place setting, his head drooping towards the table. His arms were extended, resting along the top of each side of the table, as if guarding his plate from prowling jackals, or perhaps placing his hamfists as close to the female as possible in case it became necessary to grab her by the throat on short notice.

The male grunted out their orders without looking up from the table. They were each getting an appetizer to start - she the antipasto, he the mussels. A few minutes after the appetizers had been delivered to the table, I glanced their way to see if everything was all right. I did a double take.

For a moment, I thought I saw a six-inch high pile of mussel shells on the male's small bread plate. I shook my head, closed my eyes, and looked again. Yup, a mini-skyscraper of interlaced mussel shells was on his bread plate, teetering at the edge of the table. I approached cautiously, wondering if this was some prehistoric signal to the gods. I slid my service towel slowly out from under the waistband of my apron as I neared the table, not taking my eyes off of the mussel shell cairn.

The female turned to me and smiled brightly when she saw the direction of my gaze. She informed me loudly, "He's a builder!!" and laughed uproariously. I carefully shrouded the improbable pile of shells with my towel and swept it off the table, bread plate and all, muttering, "Yeah, and I'm a mover - ha!". I suppose it never would have occurred to the knuckle-dragger to just put the shells back in the huge dish they were served in. They don't become poisonous once the meat is removed.

The male finished his meal first - probably because of his lack of any ability to hold a conversation - and although the female was still eating, he threw his linen napkin into his plate, which contained a deep puddle of tomato sauce. Very classy.

I took the plate back to the kitchen. Very carefully pinching the napkin by the corner, I removed it from the soupy mess and dropped it hurriedly into the dirty linens bag. Just then, the other waitress came bursting in and grabbed my arm.

"Oh, my god - did you take his plate already?"

I frowned. Certainly he was done...

"Yes, why?"

"The people at my table just told me to tell you that guy blew his nose in his napkin in a MAJOR WAY, and they wanted me to tell you not to touch it!"

Ye gods.

Is it any wonder I'm sick?

BEAR ROCKS

Though it may be hard to believe, in the midst of the hacking and coughing travesty that is my recent life, everyone else's life has gone on, and the world has kept on turning. Bear is in the throes of finding a new job, training for a new career, and working weekend bartending gigs, and yet...

On Tuesday, when I went back to work in a vain attempt to force the flu out of my system by sheer will, Bear sent me a text message asking what I wanted to do for dinner. All my energy had been sapped by about nine thirty that morning, and the thought of trying to cook or even think anything up was just too much. I replied, "as far as I'm concerned, a burger from Wendy's would be fine". I received a noncomittal "mmhmm" from Bear, and didn't think more about it.

That evening, I returned home, dragging my pocket book (and my lungs) on the floor, to find Bear in the kitchen.

He had his apron tied on, a dish towel thrown over one shoulder a-la-Emeril, and there were tantalizing smells wafting forth that sent my nose straight to heaven. Mixing bowls of various sizes were perched on counter tops and table, containing meats and vegetables marinating in Asian spices. A swirling cloud was drifting skyward from the rice steamer.

He told me not to lift a finger (although I will admit I sneaked over to the wok and gave it a stir when he wasn't looking). Sipping some Asian rice wine cough medicine from one of my favorite Yule gifts (a Lara Croft: Tomb Raider shot glass), I sat on a kitchen chair and watched him work, and we talked over the activities of the day.

When all was ready, I was ensconced on the couch. Plates and chop sticks and bowls of sauces and a plattered mound of fresh Romaine lettuce leaves appeared on the table before me. Ribs and sauteed vegetables, spicy eggplant, chilled and marinated chopped cucumber, rice and beans... a real Korean dinner, prepared especially for me. To make me feel better.

Yeah, Bear rocks. In a big way.

Hack hack hack, I was there but now I'm back

Called in sick on Monday, but thought I could soldier through at work yesterday. By two in the afternoon, I was coughing about every three minutes - dry, polite coughs, but not optional. By the time I got home, I was doubled up with wracking, hacking coughs that threatened to show me exactly what my lungs really look like. The top of my head felt like it was ready to disconnect and sail off into orbit. My eyes felt more bugged-out than Peter Lorre's.

Went to bed around 10:30 last night, and was woken bolt upright at 1:00AM with a cough that would scare the bejeebers out of Stephen King. Tried to get back to sleep, but by 4:00 I realized it was fruitless. Got up, went downstairs and made a cup of tea, and curled up on the couch with some of Mr. King's best work - hell, I was awake anyway, might as well get some reading in.

At this point, I'm just waiting for my doctor's office to open up. If they can't give me a definite appointment for today, I'm just going to take my new trilogy (Carrie, Salem's Lot, and The Shining - a Yule gift from Bear!) to the doc's office and sit there coughing on everyone until they let me in.

I CAN'T AFFORD TO BE SICK ANOTHER WEEKEND!!!!!!! My table-waiting bucks are crucial to making the bills!!!

HAaaaaAAAack.

moving forward into..... winterspring?

Here it is, January 6 - and the temperature reached 67 degrees this afternoon. There are little green shoots sticking up out of the ground all over my garden. The tips of the daffodil leaves are two inches high. The leaves of the star of Bethlehem are four inches high. The snowdrops have pushed their leaves up through the ground, and my hydrangeas have green buds showing at their bases. I fear that when spring actually arrives for real, we are going to be sadly short of flowers.

I am riding on the coattails of the flu - was out sick Thursday and Friday. I'm still having pretty spectacular coughing fits every time I try to talk for more than a minute at a time (and sometimes even when I'm not talking at all). My eyes tear, and the coughs sound like bricks dragged across a washboard. You don't really need to hear it to understand how very attractive it is.

I'm wondering if I am going to be able to work at the restaurant tomorrow evening. There's nothing like hacking all over someone's plate of calamari to insure a good tip. Perhaps if I mainline some of that crack-laced cherry cough medicine it will see me through. Unfortunately, the main side effect of the aforementioned cough medicine is what's fondly referred to by some federal inmates as "the shits".

For the past three days, I've woken bolt upright between 4:30 and 5:00AM, had a gut-wrenching coughing fit, gotten out of bed and staggered to the bathroom to chug a mouthful of cough syrup, found my way back to bed by braille, and spent the rest of the morning going between bathroom and bed. So relaxing! So restful! So disgusting!

This morning was the big test for that job I'm hoping to get. Bear was nice enough to get up with me this morning and drive me to the test site. Even though I had two coughing fits during the two hours it took me to finish the test, I managed to do a good job on it. It was actually a really enjoyable test. No math, lots of grammar and content questions. Since this is a government job, I know I probably will not hear the results of the test for some time. But I have it to savor, to get me through the rough times at my current job - the thought of something better on the horizon...

Bear also has some new horizons to look forward to. He's going to be taking classes and getting his real estate license, and inducted into the business by a very capable and sharp businessman whose acquaintance I made at my restaurant. He was taking his office staff to lunch, and I heard his Scottish accent. As Scotland is my idea of heaven on earth, I went over and began to talk to him. One thing led to another, and he came over to take a look at my apartments and offer constructive criticism on what I can do to increase rentability. He met Bear, and once they each found out they had been in some of the same places in their respective military careers, they were off and running. Their conversation ended with his offering Bear a leg up in the real estate world. As he put it, "It's your bicycle, you pedal it as fast or as slow as you want."

I feel these new (ad)ventures are a good thing to start the year off with, and I am hoping they are successful and satisfying, and give us some much needed stability.

Bear just went to work a bartending gig, and so I turn to face the drooping, dried out, folded up Yule tree. Most of the ornaments are now trapped in the prison-like branches that have closed down over them. Some of those hung on the outer branches have slipped off onto the floor, and the strings of lights are falling off the lower branches. Bits of branch ends and thousands of pine needles litter the floor, and I just can't face the livingroom like this any more.

I'm not going to set any land speed records here, I'm just going to listen to NPR, perhaps brew myself a hot cup of tea, and begin putting the ornaments back in the box. We'll see how far I get.

While taking the tree down is kinda sad, I do look forward to clipping it up into pieces and having a Yule Tree Fire in the fire pit out on the patio! There's something about the crackling, sweet-smelling flames that honor the sacrifice of the tree for our holiday celebrations.

You think it's boogers, but it's snot.

I don't know why, but boogers - even dried up crunchy ones - are pretty well recognizable to most people. Maybe it's because we were all kids once, and remember the fun of digging to China for a good one. Maybe it's because we either have kids or friends with kids, and anyone who knows can tell you you can't spend very long around a kid without being exposed to snot in one form or another. But basically, we don't need a sign pointing to the dried up green glob that says, "This is a bona fide booger". We just don't. At least, most of us don't.

Last week, at the hell hole that is my office, I received a piece of paper from an employee that had - well, it had a booger on it. I tried to scrape it off with a piece of cardboard, but it actually ripped the paper. I started to get really angry, thinking that this was on purpose, but then I thought again. Perhaps this person had a violent sneeze just before putting the paper in the envelope. No need to raise an alarm, could have happened to anybody. So I said nothing, held the paper only by the corner, and waited until this week. When this employee's paperwork came in, I gave it a good eyeball before processing it.

And.

There were boogers. On every page. Some on the front, some on the back. Two pages were stuck together with snot. Mind you, not enormous or extremely obvious ones, but since I'd seen the boulder on last week's paperwork, I was looking for it this week. And IT WAS THERE.

In disgust, I crammed the papers into an envelope and walked out into the lunch room, where my boss, my manager, and a visiting rep from an accreditation company were just sitting down to lunch. They were having salad. Perfect.

I waved the envelope and explained the problem. Needless to say, I was hustled away quickly and told to write up a grievance report. Which I did. And it sat on the manager's desk. And sat there. And sat there. Until finally there was no putting it off any longer. After reviewing my report, I was called in for a private meeting, where it was suggested that:

1) I could not use the words "snot" and "booger" on my report, since there were no laboratory tests to prove the identity of the "foreign substance".

2) I was lax in not reporting last week's incident. (They don't want to admit there are boogers on my paperwork this week, but they would have believed me LAST WEEK? Riiiiiiiiight.)

When I firmly refused to change the wording on my report, because I KNOW BOOGERS WHEN I SEE THEM, thank you very much, and furthermore told the manager that I was not going to handle paperwork from this employee any more, it was then suggested that:

3) I could wear protective gloves while handling the incoming paperwork.

GLOVES?!?!?!?!?!

At this point I was so angry that I got up and went back to my desk. The boss called me in and gave me the same runaround about "no proof" as to what it was, then denied that she could even SEE the boogers on the paper (she didn't really want to look)...

So I suggested that we wait and see - wait for the next batch of paperwork to come in. See what happens then.

Honestly, I have been a police officer and a flight attendant - two of the jobs that expose you to the grossest of the gross. It's not that the boogers gross me out so much that I can't work. Let's just for one minute imagine a world in which I am not required to handle booger-infested paperwork.... ahhh, there, isn't that nice? But that's not the real issue here.

The real issue is this. If this employee is disgruntled enough to wipe boogers on her paperwork before sending them into the main office, what is she doing when no one is watching her? There's obviously some mental problem going on here, and how they can keep someone on staff who is wiping bodily fluids on paperwork that we have to handle is so very beyond my comprehension.

Needing money really sucks.