A Very Special Holiday Wish

My mom’s favorite holiday has always been Halloween. Every October the house was overrun with decorations – robotic ravens that scream, Frankenstein balloons, giant spiders and dangling ghosts. In the morning we would eat breakfast on bat-shaped plates while the soundtrack from Beetle Juice played in the background. And the whole family spent hours in the evening putting on face paint and our handmade costumes.
For this reason, I was not surprised by the announcement over this Thanksgiving weekend that Mom would prefer my sister and I decorate her grave on Halloween rather than on Christmas or Memorial Day.
Can you picture that!? Maybe some pumpkins, a draping of cobwebs, and one of those motion activated decorations that plays recorded witch cackling.
Just imagine, you are innocently dragging your kids to the cemetery to take Great-Aunt Matilda some flowers for her grave, and the plot across the way has a pair of skeleton hands coming out of the ground and a recorded voice calling for help – how bad ass! (see also: dark, disturbing, and demented).

Then we decided, if she could possibly fit it into her very busy schedule, we could have her actual funeral on Halloween. Dead people tend to look a bit creepy anyway – so rather than painting on the makeup to try and make them look alive or normal, run with the creepiness. Slap on some green face paint and a few bandages and I'd say you have a pretty convincing costume.

If you're ever on Jeopardy:
Current top ten songs requested for funerals in the UK:

10. Unchained Melody - Righteous Brothers

9. Every Breath You Take - The Police

8. Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton

7. With or Without You - U2

6. Candle in the Wind - Elton John

5. Pie Jesu - Requiem

4. Wind Beneath My Wings - Bette Midler

3. I've Had the Time of My Life - Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley

2. Angels - Robbie Williams

1. Goodbye My Lover - James Blunt

- plant lada in fertile, well-drained soil with partial shade

Under Pressure

Work gave me this nifty new equipment. It maps pressure - look, this is me laying on my back:



and this is me laying on my side:



and this is Asia (right) and Harley:



and this is Russ (trying to make a dirty picture):



If you're ever on Jeopardy: An aircraft carrier travels about 6 inches on one gallon of fuel.

- when lada gets all steamed up, hear her shout

The Fifth Beatle?

Every once in a while this album I bought years ago comes up in the iPod. And every time it does I find myself asking, “Who is Mr. Drake?” I have never found the answer, so I thought I would put the question to you, my knowledgeable readers. . .

Hit the town, still dressing down
Looking for some action
Mr. Jagger said it best
He knows you never get...no satisfaction
But Mr. Dylan knows
That everyone is more or less a rolling stone
And Mr. Lennon, so quiet, knows better or so I've been told

That says it all, doesn't it?
We always want what we never get
Well listen hear, my friend
I can't continue to pretend that it's alright'
Cause that ain't right...That ain't right

I hear you're gonna make it big, rake it in
With your master plan,Mr. Hendrix understood
Those are only castles made of sand
Mr. Wilson took some pills...and I don't blame him
It's hard to be alive...Mr. Page, how he played
Mr. Drake stayed up late and made me cry

They've said it all haven't they?
But what I want, what I want to say
Is listen hear my friend
I can't continue to pretend that it's alright

No matter what we get
We never find our happiness
Ain't that a crime? Maybe that's why I've been told
Since I was six years old to compromise
But that ain't right...That ain't right

Duncan Sheik - That Says It All - Humming

. . . WHO IS MR. DRAKE?

If you’re ever on Jeopardy: The emergency telephone number in Australia is 000

- lada wants to be your alibi

W.I.S.M.I.M. (Part II)

I feel dirty. And although I had my hands in three different dumpsters today, that is not why.

After the move we had a lot of boxes we never unpacked and an abundance of broken down cardboard boxes that all found their way into the garage where I swear they multiplied and then never left (much to the Corolla's chagrin). We decided, with the weather starting to cool and everyone coming here for Thanksgiving, that it was time to tackle the nightmare that had become the garage.

First we needed storage, so we went to Lowe's and while I was there I stole a workbench. Not on purpose mind you. We had multiple big pieces on the cart and I swore the girl hadn't scanned all of them. I pointed this out ("I don't think you got this one") but she assured me she had. I didn't check the receipt until we were gone and I was right. Six items instead of seven. $88 undercharged. Do I go back to Lowe's tomorrow and tell them or will they just laugh at me?

Strike one against my karma.

Then we faced our biggest problem - how to get rid of the 5000 moving boxes; you can't just leave them on the curb because 5000 is an ungodly number of boxes (4999 = perfectly holy, 5000 = ungodly). So we decide to take them to a dumpster, which I was not thrilled about because of my past experiences. I don't think I ever told you my shameful dumpster dumping story. I'll sidebar it, if I already told you just skip over it.

-- SIDEBAR -- When we first moved to SoCa, it took the city two months to start picking up our trash. Let me paint this gruesome picture - two flippin months worth of garbage, in the South, in July. At first the garage starts to smell, so you put it outside. Then the neighbor's cat starts shredding the bags so you have to bring it back inside, but as you are moving them you notice each bag is now swarming with all sorts of nasty bug things. You get the idea. We really had no choice but to get rid of it - trailer park style - sneaking to a dumpster and throwing a whole car full of trash bags away as fast as possible, preferably in dark clothing to avoid detection/stains. This worked very well until lada got caught - at the new outdoor mall - by a guy who rides around in a golf cart all day. I leaned against the car to wait while he called for backup. Backup lady comes up and whips out her very official looking notepad to write down my information.
Fine, write me a citation or whatever and I will be on my way. But the security guard freaked out when she found out I didn't have my license on me. She started making up laws, telling me it was against the law to drive without identification and she couldn't legally even let me get back into the car. I tried to explain that I did in fact have a license; I just didn't have it on me (who brings their handbag to illegally dump trash?) She was muttering about her duty to call the police but decided to call for MORE security back up first. This time I was lucky enough to get someone who had a bit more perspective on the situation. He told the ticket-happy lady that I looked over sixteen, so I was probably fine to drive home. Good times -- --

With that debacle in my history, I was not thrilled about having to abuse dumpsters again, but we had no choice if we were to be rid of this plague of cardboard. So, Russ and I drove around trying to find ideal dumpsters: dark area, empty parking lot, trash bin with a lot of room.
We had to make five trips to get rid of everything - two behind Piggly Wiggly, two in a Baptist church parking lot, and one at a new home building site on the other side of the neighborhood. We pull up, cut the lights, unload as fast as possible while keeping watch for approaching authority figures, jump back into the car and then speed away. Yes. Oh Yes. I am shady-mcshade.

Strike two. My soul is black. I am a bad, law-breaking person. What goes around comes back around.

My bad vibe balancing solution: On our last dumpster run, we drove past a McDonald's bag someone had tossed in the middle of the road. I made Russ slow down and scoop it up so we could throw it away - we were already heading toward a giant garbage can. We were doing our part to keep Columbia beautiful. Take that bad karma.

If you're ever on Jeopardy: If you have a tape worm, and you put your head over a pot of coffee with your mouth open the tape worm will crawl out of your mouth and extend toward the coffee, therefore you can just grab it and pull it out.

- lada killed Colonel Mustard, in the ballroom, with the lead pipe

The More You Know

This is a Public Service Announcement
Did you know there is a drug that may prevent HIV infection? How did I not know this? It is called nPEP (nonoccupational postexposure prophylaxis). It is a 28-day regimen of two or three antiretroviral drugs that should be started within 72 hours of exposure. So, if you are raped or the condom breaks, if you can't seem to stop sharing dirty needles with your unsavory neighbor or you think you may have been exposed in any (non hypochondriac) way to HIV - freak the fuck out - then head to the emergency room. The cost is around $1,000 and in some cases insurance will cover it.
There are not many well-organized studies about how well it works, but one positive example is from San Francisco. They have been consistently giving HIV-positive women nPEP. In the past TEN YEARS, only 181 of those mothers passed the virus unto her baby.

(as my mother would say) "The whole fam-dam-ly"
I have recently learned that a whole pilgrimage of family members are making the long journey to South Carolina for Thanksgiving. Around the table will be Me, Russ, Mom, Dad, Kare-bear, Grandma and Grandpa (and dog Tengo). Oh my! Seven people and three dogs may not be a lot to those who grew up in Catholic families, but it is a crap load for me. Don't get me wrong, I am super-stoked, it will just be a crazy German Grandma with a temper, dogs fighting, Karen crying, Daddy teasing, Grandpa wants to go bowling, no hot showers, mounds of dishes, "when are you going to start having babies?" kind of a weekend. Here everyone, have another plate of (tryptophantasic) turkey and take a very long, quite nap!

In a hand basket
Here in the South, people have this habit of heaping blessings you on. The waitress will scrawl "Thanks, God bless!" on the receipt and our subdivision news letter signs off with "Many blessings." Today as I was leaving a store, the salesmen called to my back "Have a blessed day!" Now normally I take these in the spirit they were intended, but earlier this super-sales-kid had gotten under my skin, so when he shouted out his blessing, I stopped and turned around and went back to the counter.
I was confident picking this fight because this guy had dropped the f-bomb three times in the twenty minutes I was in his store and I happened to know he was currently living in sin with his girlfriend. How dare he bless me with his filthy tongue! For some reason I was just itching to point out his hypocritical statement.

"Have a blessed day?" I asked.

"No, have a blessed day," he drawled, correcting my two syllable pronunciation, "bless-ed" with his single syllable, "blessed."

This bless-ed-er-than-thou guy corrected me! I was so stunned, I actually didn't know what to say back. I just left in a huff.
Look, Mr. Smartypants salesman, I'm pretty sure that's not how Jesus would have responded. Jesus would have said something more along the lines of "Yes my child, have a blessed, bless-ed, rocking good day and a merry Christmas, a happy Chanukah and a bangin' Kwanza to boot," and then he would have offered me a free hug.

Gesundheit
On the subject of the word bless: when someone sneezes, it is "bless you" not "bleh-shoe." I have calculated that 94.6% of the US population says this (though they all adamantly deny it). Stop the insanity.

If you're ever on Jeopardy: The first barcode, invented by IBM, appeared on a packet of Wrigley's chewing gum in 1974 in a supermarket in Troy, Ohio.

- you're the party, lada's just the guest list

I Don't Have Much Else

Damn
Bob Barker is retiring from the Price is Right. The man is 82 years old and has only missed three episodes since the show first aired in 1972. You can admire sports superstars, genius inventors, philanthropists, creative artists or beautiful models, but my hero: Bob Barker. And now he is leaving. First Bob Ross, now Bob Barker. There will be no quality television left.

Double Damn
I don't drink coffee but sometimes I wish I did. It tastes bitter and nasty and turns your teeth yellow and, um hello, diuretic - but when Mountain Dew just doesn't cut the mustard (ha, see if you can use that phrase in conversation today), that caffeine I'm missing out on by not drinking coffee could be very useful. So, when I heard about the caffeine inhaler Starbucks is working on - a shot of caffeine PLUS minty fresh breath - I was definitely intrigued.

Unfortunately it appears it is not true. Pass the Jolt Cola, please.

Scat Cat or Cat Scat
The Miami zoo has a new exhibit called "The Scoop on Poop." The exhibit features such classics as: stool samples, microscopes to view slides of parasites found in dung, a scale designed to tell children how long it takes an elephant to poop their weight, a person sitting in an outhouse with the cutout face for amusing snap shots, and pictures of various animals actually caught in the act. (As if seeing the Bears in the Super Bowl wasn't enough reason to make the trip to Miami.)

If you're ever on Jeopardy: Coffee was introduced to Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks. Turkish law made it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he failed to provide her with her daily quota of coffee.

- lada makes the grass grow greener - kill, kill, kill!