blaugra

Camp!

"Camp" to me means either spending the night watching Showgirls with the commentary track, again, or going to a big house on a lake in the Adirondacks.  So why I was so excited to go camping this weekend, I don't know.  I think it was the promise of relaxing fun in the wilderness along the river, .5 miles away from civilization, with a big group of friends. In other words, a party in the woods.

For this adventure, D. and I bought a dome tent, a sleeping bag for me, a lantern...we packed crappy clothes and towels and tarps and food and plastic forks and beer and...dang, you need to pack a lot of shit into your car in order to get back to nature. The weekend would include marinating ourselves in DEET, paddling a canoe until our shoulders are sore, using a flashlight to find the bathroom, and of course s'mores.

White people love to camp.  Read this, it's hilarious.

Then we realized that we wouldn't arrive at the campsite until about 9 PM tonight when it would be dark and thunderstorming. We would rise early in the rain and go canoeing or hang out in our soggy tents. Nope. Not going.

At least 5 people have ridiculed me so far.  "You're not tough enough for a little rain?"  "Camping is about the camaraderie - you and your friends against the elements!"  "That's what nature is all about, chicken!" 

To those people I say: SUCK IT. 

This camping trip is supposed to be about sunning ourselves on the river, drinking beers, hanging out with 25 other people, laughing at everyone's kids, eating s'mores - not fighting with nature and being afraid of flash floods and lightning.

Salty D. and I have decided to set up camp on our porch.  Good times.

Cyclone Warning

I rode the Cyclone so you don't have to.

That sentence is a direct tribute to the chick at I Do Things So You Don't Have To, who I saw at BlogHer.  Check her.

D. asked me what I wanted to do on my birthday. I said, I want to go to Coney Island, see the freaks, eat a hot dog, and ride the Cyclone!

So he was my sugar daddy for the day, tolerating me and my moth-like fluttering from place to place. 

I hadn't ridden the Cyclone in 15 years, so, I forgot what it was like. I imagined myself like the lovely Angie, here, on whom I have a slight girl crush.  I will tell you later how it really was, though.  And why Coney Island.  It's a long ride to the end of the D train line to get there, so just wait.

You make my dreams

It's so weird what oozes out of the foundation of your parents' house when they move after 30 years. All the detritus they've gathered through time, all these things that once had meaning but now are total headscratchers.

These are some of the items that I've either wanted to absorb into my own house or was guilted into carrying out.  Keep in mind that almost each and every one of them was also accompanied by a phone call from mom saying, "I found.... would you come over and look at it, maybe you want it?  And this is just from the past week.  The cleanout has been going on for months.

• Needlepointed pillow with floral design of poppies on it. "It's a NICE pillow. Grandma made it.  She did some NICE work on this...you'd be crazy not to want it..."  fine.  I like poppies.  Poppies...
• Slab of marble that my mom found in her father's garage and had buffed and polished, intending to make it into a table.  Um, yes please!  When am I going to have it made into a table top?  Who knows?!
• Children's books.  "These were yours."  "I thought you already gave me all my kids' books?"  "No, I was hanging on to these..."  "Why?"  "I DON'T KNOW JUST TAKE THEM!"  OK.  "But you can't take these in this pile because they're really good quality illustrated children's books. I just love them.  I don't know what I'm going to do."   "Ma, just take them with you."   "Yeah, I guess."
• Little silver bowl that we think belonged to my great grandmother.  "Do you want this thing?  I think it's silver..."  "Um YES it's silver and yes I'll take it."   The other offerings included random silver-plated pieces, wooden fruit bowls, a pressed-glass cordial set, more demi-tasse spoons that I would ever need, a few dozen Christmas gift boxes, and so much more.  "Sell them, sell them, donate them."  Whenever I'd refuse a hand-me-down I'd get the, "You don't WANT that? It's so cute/useful/nice/old?"  "No Mom, I CAN'T."

• Bright green Tupperware bowl.  "It's a reallly nice bowl"  "then why don't you keep it?"  "BECAUSE WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF I CAN'T KEEP EVERYTHING!"  Ok, fine.

• Sheet music.   Holy sheet!

The piano that I played for 15 years is staying attached to the house. I've already experienced the guilt trip through time.

"Remember when we first got it?  In case you didn't, here's the original brochure from 1974!" 

"Remember when a piano was really well made?  Now these are all made in Korea and they're nowhere near as nice."  

"I can't believe you didn't want this piano. I sure hope the new owners play it."    "What do you care, mom?" I asked. "Nobody has played this piano in twenty years."

"Go through the sheet music in the bench, see if you want anything." 

All the memories of my various piano teachers, good and bad, came back.  The nice old lady to whose house I'd run a mile each week after elementary school, the scary lesbian in her dark little living room who insisted I'd be an excellent concert pianist and made me play lots of Mussorgsky, and the weirdo guy who pounded Beethoven into my head and insisted I perform in recitals, which I hated.  Hmm. I wonder why I didn't continue playing the piano.

There were some other gems in the bench, including the requisite "Stairway to Heaven," the classic from what must have been my synthesizer years "Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo, and this treasure:

Actually, a really good song.  I think Oates should have kept his moustache.

Sunday is sunny day

Today I am thankful that...

1. I got a good night's sleep.
2. I have time to put laundry away so I don't have frustrating mornings of running around looking for "that black skirt" [which defines my whole wardrobe.]

3. It's the last day of soggy disgusting Musikfest.  All you drunk people, fried food vendors and gangs of robbers can leave now - you're starting to smell, it's been 10 days.

4. I have a new person on staff at work at the job I never blog about, and that is re-energizing me.

5. The sweet corn I ate for brunch was really, really good

6. My dad's aneurysm is not going to explode anytime soon.

7. All my friends seem happy and healthy (as happy as some of them can be, that is.)

8. My misshapen bangs have finally grown back.

9. I may actually have time this week to work on me blog.

10. It's my birthday again, soon, and I'm alive.  That's enough celebration for a birthday for me!

11. This volunteer thing with the non-profit I talked about, it started to annoy me again but I figured out how to let it roll off me.  And I'll say whatever I think without agenda or ego, and if that doesn't work, I have given myself permission to escape.  This is a B I G development that I know nobody cares about but me, but, believe you me it's major evolution happening.

And I think I have a semi-annual psychiatrist's appointment coming up soon, but I have conveniently lost the appointment card.  Hmmmm.  Does the fact that I saw him at the bar in the casino last week count as "seeing him?"

Do you wanna touch me? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I saw this photo in the news today and was, like, wow, THAT'S what Joan Jett looked like last night?  Because what I saw was like a little gray insect with a whiter-than-white dot of a head. 

The horrible seats are not the worst part of Musikfest shows.  Or the fact that we bought our $50 tickets at 10AM on the day they went on sale to the general public, because we were too "cheap" to join the special club that costs an extra $200 for the privilege of buying tickets earlier to get better seats.  Or because the high-priced VIP section in the front was half empty, populated only with people who were related to corporate sponsors and not really into seeing Joan Jett.  Or because it was so bright and sunny at 7:15 when Joan's show started that the jumbo video screens weren't visible. Or the two big freight trains that rolled by on the tracks next to the field.  Or the bugs swarming from the stagnant canal next to the tracks, demonstrating why the venue is nicknamed "Mosquito-Platz" and making me all scratchy today.  Or the two-mile walk to the damn place. Or the port-a-potties that smell like urinal-cake and drunken piss and guys who don't lock the door lock so innocent women with active bladders like me open the door to see one of them peeing. 

No, none of those things are the worst.  Not when I was unabashedly shaking my rump, as it turned

Tangerine Pants.

I purchased a pair of tangerine pants.

They looked cute and fit well and were a nice fabric.  I must be of that age where shopping at Chico's no longer turns me off.  Hmm. And they were on sale.  

However....tangerine??  Discuss. 

I was going to wear them with a solid color shirt, a bright, like fuschia, but I looked ridiculous.  If I wear them with black, it looks halloweenie.  I could wear them with white, but I don't wear white shirts because of my clumsy spills issue.

Also puzzling though not as serious as whether or not to return a pair of tangerine cropped pants - my health care plan, which is quite good in comparison to others, is now up to a $3,000 deductible per person.  That's not health care. That's up to $6,000 for our household to pay out of pocket for going to traditional doctors who overcharge for prescribing a pain reliever.  How is it that working, middle-class people keep getting screwed?  I don't blame our employers at all. I don't know who to blame.  Doctors pay a shitload to get their degrees, then to establish a practice and run an office.  Do we blame them?  Free enterprise has spawned drug companies that can control us if we let them.

I resolved that I will no longer go to my regular "family doctor" if I can help it.  I know what my health problems are, and aren't, now (thanks to many expensive tests) and I'm going to complementary medicine practioners and therapists to treat them. 

Yes, I'll be paying cash for all those services but I'm paying, either way.  I feel much better after acupuncture than I ever did walking out of my doctors' office.  I have answers and individualized attention, and a professional who honors our appointment time.

Are you making any changes to your health care?  How do you do this with kids?  And should I keep those tangerine pants?

 

Sesame Balls

I was hanging out at my friend Nittany's place.  Nittany's wife, the Lioness, had brought Chinese buffet food home for Nittany and their cub.  I was about to leave for my own Friday night dinner date when Nittany ran to one of the containers and grabbed a sesame ball.  "Oh my GOD, I love these!!!" He graciously, enthusiastically offered me one.

This other time a few months ago, I tried a sesame ball. It had the texture of one of those foamy squeezy stress balls, and a taste that sickened me.  I had expected like a savory fritter or something but I can't even describe the taste.  I liked sesame cookies, and sesame bagels, and sesame tahini, and I had heard so many wonderful reviews of the sesame ball that I popped it in my mouth whole. I instantly regretted it, doing the scrunch-up-the-face, try-not-to-gag thing that I also did when I tried to eat Gigantor, the raw oyster as big as my hand.

So when Nittany offered me the sesame ball, I politely declined.  No, wait, I wasn't polite.  I scrunched up my face and said, "Bleecch! No thank you!"

"WHAT is your problem?!  These things are DELICIOUS!"

"No, no, no they're not."

"How can you not like sesame balls?"

"Look," I said, "stop pushing them on me.  I like sesame, I like balls, but I don't like the two together."

We were both speechless for a minute.  "I gotta go.  Bye!"  I left.

street scenes, part 2

A perfect photo for those of us having a shitty Monday.

Your attitude is in the garbage.

Thank you to Hoboken, NJ.

An actual conversation that just took place

Me, to theatre friend Elise:  "What are you doing with that showcase?"

Elise:  "I'm directing one of the plays, called The Girl Who Saved Bunnytown."

Me:  "Really?"

Elise:  "Yeah, it's about a girl, who saves a town of bunnies."

Bacon Grease

After my consternation and babbling about Earth Hour, where I went so far as to put two badges on the post below to make it look all cool and like I was really committed to the cause, I totally forgot about it on Saturday night.  I even wrote to city hall in my town last week to ask them to turn off this giant  attraction with like 16000 incandescent light bulbs burning all year 'round, on top of our "mountain" (actually, really big hill.)   Totally and completely forgot. 

In my defense, I was doped up on Nyquil which seems to take about 24 hours to leave my system.  The best cure for sickness along with Nyquil and soup is to watch at least two Law & Order episodes while covered with a Hello Kitty fleece blankie.  It worked.

Yesterday at the coffee shop I was talking about movies with my doppelganger (we both showed up at work wearing black CBGB t-shirts - dork alert!  It wasn't even my t-shirt, just one I grabbed from Salty D's clean laundry basket) we were swooning over Tommy Lee Jones and how we think he's a hot older man. 

The shop owner heard our conversation and said something like, "Ew! Are you kidding me?" 

"No, I'm not kidding," I said, "I also totally dig Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken..." 

"Is it a bad complexion thing?" he asked.

 "Ummm...NO!   - oh!  Ray Liotta too.  Yeah, you're right, it must be a bad complexion thing."

The skies turned that creepy green color they get when there are tornadoes and hailstorms happening around us and we watched ping-pong (oh sorry, I mean, table tennis) balls drop from the sky.

I watched Jim Gaffigan's new King Baby and even though I didn't laugh-until-I-cried like when he does the Hot Pockets bit, it was a solid hour of giggles.  And, he's brilliantly using Twitter and Facebook to ramp up his fans - that was actually the first place I heard about the new material.  Now I'll never think about bacon or bowling the same way again - not that my opinions of bowling differed at all from his, I just won't be able to get him out of my head next time I bowl, whenever that will be.

A couple of girl-friends wanted to start up a bowling league of their own.  One of the girls' husbands is on this exclusive gay all-guy league so in retaliation she wants to start her own.  So far we have three girls and a guy who are going to bowl.   First the girls said "every Tuesday night." and I was like ARE YOU CRAZY?  Let's shoot for once or twice a month. 

That was two months ago and we haven't bowled yet, mostly because we can't come up with a name for our league and nobody has the time to coordinate which lanes to visit.  If you can help with that I'd sure appreciate it.