Farewell and Good Riddance, 2008!

If it be now, ’tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come:

THE READINESS IS ALL

Droman Thugshot *

(* Random Thoughts)

Worked an 8-4 shift today, am feeling more and more like I know what I'm doing on the radio these days. I'm still a bit wobbly when it comes to remembering which radio frequencies to "hand off" the pilots to at the borders of our coverage area, but it's slowly sinking in. I have made marked improvements in the speed and accuracy of typing the weather and mid-weather reports as they come in, which makes me happy. Those weather reports were giving me nightmares at the start of training, it seemed like I'd never be able to get them right. Happy to know I was wrong!

***

There's a spot of bother on my left cheekbone which may likely turn out to be basal cell carcinoma. Will have to wait until Monday to call for a doc's appointment. In the meantime am looking at it every time I go in the bathroom, to see if it changed. Honestly, it wasn't there a week ago, and suddenly there was this puffy raised spot on my face - bwango! My mom's a nurse, and she has also had basal cell carcinoma (non-metastasizing skin cancer caused by sun exposure) spots removed from her face. I Googled images of it, and there are pictures of stuff on people's faces that looks exactly like what's on my face. Good news is the stuff doesn't spread through your body, bad news is it has to be removed and leaves a scar.

Just call me ScarFace.

Or Scar. Whichever.

When I am awake, I am pretty calm about the whole skin cancer on my face thing, because I know that if it does turn out to be basal cell, it's not life threatening and it's totally treatable. But my sleeping mind must not be all that cool with it. Last night I dreamed I went to the doctor's office, then to a dinner party. While at the dinner party, I stopped in front of a mirror to check my dress, and my entire face had been replaced... with an uber-creepy mega-ugly woman's face. I freaked out and woke up.

***

The Good News: People are responding to the ads I am placing for tenants for the apartment which will be vacant as of Feb. 1, 2009.

The Bad News: The people responding think maybe their girlfriend wants to live with them and their boyfriend, but they're totally not sure, and um, their call waiting is buzzing, can they, like, call me back? Jeebus.

I need some responsible adults, preferably two, preferably non-cancer-stick inhalers, preferably non-rhinoceros owners, preferably both employed. Is that really too much to ask? Is it??

***

I love old keys. I've made a necklace out of one that I got from the UK on ebay. Tied it onto a long leather thong. No, not the underwear kind of thong - what's wrong with you? Old keys keep popping up in my life, sort of like the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Wonder what they mean. In any case, they're cool looking.

Much better than inflatable dog turds.

Just when you thought it was safe...

What holiday season would be complete without yet another of those fine recipe cards from 1973? Certainly not this one, Dear Readers.

Here we have a card labeled Three Pineapple Salads. How original! How obvious! Methinks the recipe card making people from the seventies were trying a little too hard, or smoking the funny stuff. First of all, shoving three strawberries into the hollowed-out carcass of a pineapple does not a salad make. Secondly, heartlessly skewering innocent leaves to another pineapple which hath been cleft in twain does not a salad make.

The only gathering of fruit in the above picture which remotely resembles a salad is the overly yellow one at the back. This strange medley appears to involve a bunch of pieces of cut pineapple who got bored playing Twister by themselves and invited a slice of lime and a single cherry to the party. Someone also apparently invited a few peeled sheep testicles, but so far they have not 'fessed up.

Here's hoping your holidays have been more memorable than this culinary acid trip.

Some days are as strange as large inflatable turds from Switzerland

No, I'm not making that up. Some Swiss dude made an inflatable sculpture of dog turds, which is weird enough on its own, but this particular sculpture got caught in a windstorm, took down some power lines, and broke a window in an orphanage before it was... uh... scooped up.

That crap aside, this day has been one hell of a weird ride. It all started out with a nice, simple plan. As this was the second of my days off this week and the holidays are nearly upon us, I decided to make some banana bread and a double batch of Cowboy Cookies. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Especially considering that I gave Bear a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas several years ago, which means that any baking-type projects are practically in the bag, baby. Turn on the oven, throw the wet stuff in the mixing bowl, add the dry stuff, and whip it directly into the oven - VOILA!

Except that while I was waiting for the banana bread to come out of the oven, I got a phone call from a prospective tenant who was right around the corner and wanted to come right away and look at the apartment. I put the banana bread on the cooling rack and called the current tenant to notify her (I am the very soul of courtesy, dear readers!), at which point she told me that was fine but the place was a wreck. I ran across to the apartment and quickly threw the bedspreads on the beds, hid her dirty ashtray (ASHTRAY? It's a NO SMOKING HOUSE, biotch!!!), and pulled the shower curtain closed. Bingo - the prospective tenant showed up, I showed him the apartment, he went on his way and I was back in the kitchen in no time.

Here's where things started to go pear-shaped. I put the first batch of cookies in the oven for the prescribed amount of time, but when the timer beeped I peeked in the oven and saw that they weren't nearly done. I kept re-setting the timer at five minute intervals, checking at the end of each, and had to bake the cookies for nearly twice the time the recipe calls for... and they still seemed raw to me! What the...

So the next batch of cookies went into the oven, and the first batch went onto the cooling rack. To save myself the hassle, I just went ahead and set the timer for twice the amount of time, and set about cleaning up the bowls and measuring cups, etc.

While I was doing this, I found the bag of narcissus bulbs my mother sent me for my birthday/xmas. Which reminded me that I had to go get the container of shiny river rocks that I keep in the storage room for rooting narcissus.

So I went into the overstuffed, completely discombobulated storage room and began rummaging around for my river rocks. I pulled things off shelves, moved stuff out into the kitchen, and before I knew it, I'd ripped most of the junk that was cluttering the storage room out and spread it all over the first floor of the cottage.

At this point, I decided I had officially started a project here and it would be really stupid to just shove all that crap back into the storage room without putting it in some kind of order. So, while keeping an eye on the cookies, I started sorting stuff into separate areas.

There was the "get rid of this crap" pile, the "up in the attic" pile, the "front house basement" pile, and the "what the hell do I do with this" pile. Since going to the basement in the front house in sub-zero weather is the biggest pain in the ass, I decided to get that overwith first.... but the second batch of cookies was ready to come out of the oven. I threaded my way to the stove through the teetering piles of junk and got the cookies out to cool. Then I headed over to the front house with my first load of basement-ready junk.

Oh, crap.

The basement in the front house was four inches deep in water. The seventeen billion gallons of rain that had fallen in the past few days had apparently not triggered the large, rusted monster that passes for a sump pump in the basement. GREAAAAAAAAT.

Luckily, one of the bags of stuff I had dragged down there contained the rubber galoshes we'd purchased for the last flood, and so I tugged them on and went over to kick the pump. It started up right away. I headed back to the house to put the third batch of cookies in the oven, marvelling at the amount of water that was being pumped up out of the basement and rushing happily into the parking area, where it would no doubt freeze into a lovely ice rink for the tenants to enjoy.

Third batch of cookies in the oven, I still had to deal with the other piles of junk. The throw-away stuff got chucked in the back of my pickup truck, in the hopes that someone would steal it while I was out shopping at some point. The attic stuff got chucked in the attic (big surprise there).

Thing is, I still had to go to the bank and get stuff done before the business day was over. And I now had baked goods in various stages of cooling all over the kitchen, detritus from the storage room around the as-yet-unvacuumed house, and a semi-submerged basement to contend with.

It's 8pm right now, and I sit typing with a glass of delicious home-made mead within reach. The basement is (relatively) dry. The storage room is organized, has been vacuumed, and I can actually walk in there and get something off the shelves without doing advanced yoga. The KitchenAid is back in the cabinet with its assorted mixing attachments, all clean and shiny. The cookies and banana breads have all been divided up and wrapped with tin foil and holiday tissue paper and ribbons, ready to be given to various and sundry folks as gifts. The livingroom has been vacuumed, the tree skirt shaken out and put back straight, and the baking implements have all been washed. There is an aromatherapy diffuser in the storage room billowing clouds of cinnamon- and clove-scented mist.

Bear had to work late today, and is on his way home right now. Happily, I can say that I have everything under control and am ready for him to walk in the door. I even have some homemade leek-onion-spinach soup and Pumpernickel bread ready to warm him up when he gets here! Life is good.

I never did find those damn river rocks.

Holiday spirit - A gift from a friend

When Bear and I got up this morning, we were greeted with the sound of rain splashing against the windows. The sky was grey, and water was puddling in the huge footprints left in the snow from the night before. Bear was still feeling rotten from the flu, and I was not feeling so great either, truth be told.

Still, we got up and shuffled like zombies down the hallway. I got ready for my 11-7 shift while Bear made coffee and kept me company. We were conversational, but neither one of us was really in the best mood. Here it was, four days from Christmas, and we were as devoid of holiday spirit as our cottage was devoid of a tree or any gifts to put under it. The place positively reeked of bah-humbug.

Until I opened the door to go out to my truck.

There, leaning against the side of the cottage, was a beautiful green Christmas tree, all wrapped up in its plastic netting! Beside it was a box of lights.

Bear and I stood there gaping at it for a full minute, while the rain splashed our ankles. Then we looked at each other, mouths open, and quickly looked back at the tree - just to make sure it wasn't a joint figment.

I jammed my purse and keys into Bear's hands and splashed over to where the tree was leaning. I grabbed the tree and the box of lights and brought them both under cover of the arch over the front door.

There, at the top of the tree, was a plastic sandwich baggie with a piece of paper inside. It was a letter from Santa. It said:

Ho! Ho! Ho! Everyone here at the North Pole sends you their love and best wishes.

This year my elves did their best and finished all the toys and gifts earlier. They even loaded them in my flying sleigh and it looks like everything is ready for the big trip around the world. The reindeer are relaxing now and are having a good cup of tea. As for the elves, I see them having fun outside in the snow. They are making snow angels and are building snowmen.

Mrs. Claus tells me that you don't have a Christmas tree again this year... Well now ya do! Be sure to decorate it in a totally Pagan way. Dance naked under the full moon and crank up the heavy metal!

Remember to keep being good and play nicely with the other misfit toys. I look forward to visiting you and raiding your fridge again this year.

Merry Christmas!

Santa Claus

P.S. Enough with the cookies and milk! I want port and cigarettes!


Due to the sense of humor "Santa" has, we knew immediately which friend it was that had come to our rescue. Bear and I were both choked up as we read the letter together, and again tonight as we brought the tree inside and put it in the tree stand. The cats echoed our joy as they circled the tree, sniffing the piny goodness and feeling the cold air pouring down toward the floor as it opened its branches.

That one act of kindness, that one good deed, did more to bring Christmas to our house and our hearts this year than any expensive gadgets, cars, or whatever else the media says people should be getting this season.

Not only does the gift of a tree bring the very smell and feel of the holidays into the house, it's a reminder of what true friendship is - being there when someone is down, and knowing just what to do to make it better.

Thank you, "Santa"!

Need a holiday lift?

One guaranteed lift, coming up!

A tribute from TCM

I saw this on Turner Classic Movies today, and found it touching. It perfectly captures the feeling of a year, especially this year, coming to an end. It's like looking at the fallen leaves one more time before the snow.

Happy Birthday to Meeeeeeee! (A day early, but who's counting?)

Yesterday, our lovely downstairs tenants - you know, the ones who aren't leaving us high and dry for the holidays - invited us over for a birthday brunch in my honor. There was french toast made from delicious home-made challah bread, a creamy mushroom quiche, bacon, and hash- browns with onions - all washed down with home-brewed mint iced tea.

We were all groaning, full to the brim, so it was decided that the time for presents had come. They gave me a hysterically funny calendar titled "Porn for Women", which featured photographs of men doing the dishes, vacuuming the living room, doing yard work, taking out the garbage.... all paired with funny little text blurbs like "As long as I have two good legs, you will never have to take out the garbage!", and "I just wanted to make sure we have chocolate in the house" (alongside a picture of a man unpacking and putting away the groceries). Funny stuff!

THEN they gave me the "real present"... the new J.K. Rowling book (pictured above), "The Tales of Beedle the Bard"! I am so excited to get reading this one, it's a little something Harry Potterish to hold me over until the next movie comes out in July!

Afterwards, we trooped into the living room and they showed us their brand new flat screen television (their xmas present to themselves), and then proceeded to get us totally hooked on that TV series "Heroes". Bear and I had to go to the library and get the dvds for the whole first season, it's that good!

Once we'd made enough room to cram in some dessert, they brought out a homemade red velvet cake with cannoli cream filling and white chocolate icing. HOLY TUMMYBUSTERS, BATMAN!!! I needed a glass of milk just to pack it down between the cracks - but boy, was it yummy!

Those guys are so cool, really... it was sweet of them to go to such trouble for my b-day, and we had such a good time hanging out. I told them they're never allowed to move out, not ever.

MERRY F*@$%in' XMAS!!!

I just got through doing a Snoopy dance over Bear's new job on this blog, when a phone call came through from one of my tenants.

Boys and girls, my tenant gave me an early holiday gift! And can you guess what it was?

SHE'S BLOODY WELL MOVING OUT!

And so I come to you now, my neck stiff from crouching over my computer monitor for the past three hours, filling out applications on websites so that I can post free classified ads featuring glowing descriptions of the apartment I now have to find new tenants for.

Yes! Isn't it wonnnnnnnnderful? I find the arrival of this holiday season full of the echoing sounds of my futile screams against the empty walls of my bank account. The joy of wondering, each night as I lay my head down to sleep, whether I will have a house, or a pillow, or sleep, by the next pay period. The stars twinkle overhead, and I wonder if the midnight footsteps I hear will be those of Santa's reindeer on my roof, the debt collectors, or the men with the white jackets. The possibilities are endless during this magical season, dear readers.

The holidays are also a time to look back and remember. Yes, I remember fondly the good old days when disasters struck one at a time, one after the other. Back then, my little twinkies, one had at least a day or two to recover from each catastrophe before the next one hit! Ah, those days are but a fond glimmer now. In today's more modern, efficient world, shit hits the fan in multiple layers, in great globs, in huge piles! More crap in less time than anyone could possibly get out from under it! We have certainly improved the world - yes, we have.

Strangely enough, no one ever told me that moonshine mixed with Coke tastes like lipstick.

Bye-Bye Bettie Page

April 22, 1923 – December 11, 2008

I will remember Bettie as much for her joyful spirit as for her unique style. She was one of those rare people who could romp around nude in front of a camera and when you looked at her, it wasn't vulgar - it was like watching a mermaid swimming. She was a natural beauty, and lived her life the way she wanted to, bringing smiles to everyone (except perhaps the 1950's censors, who dogged her early career). I have a sneaking suspicion that even those censors had their own private photo collections of Bettie Page...

Thanks for the memories, Bettie - I'll miss you!

The cosmos appreciates a little crazy now and again

So this morning we're sitting in front of our respective computers, drinking coffee and doing whatever, and Bear starts in singing the song from that nutty "Moskau!" video I posted a couple weeks ago.

I indicated my displeasure by ignoring him, then by turning up the volume on my headphones so that I could hear the interview with Jason Statham I was TRYING to watch.

Bear kept on singing.

Finally, I did the only thing I could think of. I screamed as loudly as I could. One of our cats, who had been lazing on top of a pile of clean laundry (thus rendering it impossible to put away), puffed up like a blowfish and swallowed her own head in fear and surprise. Bear nearly fell out of his chair laughing.

Ten minutes later, Bear got a phone call from an employer, offering him a three month temporary position which starts on Tuesday.

Note to self: Never underestimate the primal scream.

I'm just gonna say this once. Unless I change my mind.

CHRISTMAS? BAH! HUMBUG!!!

I don't need to remind anyone that the economy is sucking big-time right now, and for us in particular as Bear has been laid off for lo, these past four weeks. With the holidays (and my birthday) right around the corner, I am realizing that yet another year is going to go by without any gifts given or received, without a tree, without any of that stuff that I normally look forward to with such excitement.

And on some level, I'm okay with that. We have our house, we're still (barely) making the mortgage payments, so we are not out on the street. Rejoice and be glad, I know. Christmas is basically so built up in the media that nobody's real holiday could match up to it. I realize that there are people who have it much worse than we do.

On another level, though, I cringe every time I hear people at work talking about "all the Christmas shopping" they have to do / are doing / have done, and all the family members that are coming over for dinner. I nod and "mmhmmm" and smile and try to look as though I'm not hanging on by a thread, as though my dad didn't die this year, as though it's all roasted ham, Silver Bells, and cocktail parties on my end.

I'm also feeling torn because I just got this fantastic new job that I love, and on one side I'm totally thrilled about it and extremely thankful for it, while my other side is worried sick about Bear. He's depressed and very sick with the flu right now too, on top of everything else, and sending out hundreds of resumes that get no response. It's kind of hard to go dancing around the house singing about my new job when he's trying so hard and getting nowhere.

The cesspools in our yard are backing up (again, again, again) and that means another couple hundred bucks we don't have, in order to get them pumped out (again, again, again)... the fun is just endless here lately.

Honestly, all I want for Christmas is a good job for my husband, so that maybe - just maybe - next year we can celebrate, too.

When good ideas attack

You would think that taking a list of things that you pretty much adore individually and blending them all together would make something that you really, really, reeeeeally adore.

Wouldn't you?

Well, some chick dude named Chris Dane Owens has done a music video which is basically a buffet combo montage of the following:

• Duran Duran videos from the 1980s

• The Princess Bride

• Lord of the Rings

• Dragonslayer

• Meat Loaf videos

• The Witches of Eastwick

• Pirates of the Caribbean

• Ladyhawke

And after watching the video, I have to say I feel a bit queasy. Kind of like when the movie is over and you realize you finished the entire bag of gummy bears AND a large rootbeer.

Is it the final Page?

One of my all-time faves, Bettie Page, had a heart attack on Tuesday after a three week bout of pneumonia. She's listed in critical condition, and her doctor reportedly said that he "would not deny" that she is now in a coma.

I was shocked to realize Bettie is 85 years old - I will always think of her as that young, sassy pin-up queen who launched a million copycat hair-dos.

We love you, Bettie!

Do You Know the Muffin Melt?

Of all the deeply offensive food-tography in the 1973 series we've been investigating, this one seems to be the least offensive. At first glance, anyway.

Ignoring for a moment the butt-ugly tablecloth and stained raw-edged wooden disc supporting the main dish, the food actually looks pretty straightforward. We start with a base of english muffins, add some reddish sauce (ketchup? steak sauce? dragon's blood?) and then stack on some lumpy hamburgers, then red onion and tomato slices.

The final ingredient would logically be cheese - but is it? Feast your eyes on the two candles in wicker holders in the upper right hand corner of the picture. They look to be exactly the same shade of orange... and the dish is called the "Muffin Melt"... hmmmm. And that innocuous little towel up in the other corner?

It's used to strangle anyone who suspects foul play and mentions mmmpphhh... ggnnnttt....aagggghhhh!

Did you ever?

Did you ever find yourself really looking forward to the weekend, only to realize afterward that it's just another two days gone by?

Doing the Snoopy dance!

Please join me in this celebration of:

A night without homework!
A night without books!
A night without mem-o-ro-cramaroo-schnooks!
A night all my own!
A night without pants!
A night to do the Snoopy dance!

Pushing Tin - Act III

Last week was my third week of training for my new job. I mention this only because the heeeeeyuge white notebook which contains all of my study materials specifically shows what homework to study for the next day's exam. And after week three? It just says "review".

Imagine my horror when the instructor gave us three more pages of things to memorize for today!!! If a flock of wild parakeets stole your imagination during last night's thunderstorms, just look at the above picture and you'll get a pretty good idea what the inside of my head felt like.

So today, after taking the exam and getting a perfect score (see my previous post to get a clearer picture of how getting good grades on these tests is affecting my everyday life), I figured that TODAY would finally be the day when we did not receive any new information to cram into our skulls.

And... I was right.

The instructor said that tomorrow's test will be a cumulative test! Which will cover ALL the freakin' information we've had FOR THE PAST THREE WEEKS!

See? No new information! Just a buffet, really, of random bits of information that I used to know a few weeks ago. No problem! None at all... ha, heh, hehheheehhhhhh, ha-ho-ho, hee hee hooooooohhhhahhaaaaa!