hate

Ten Things I Hate

.....People who dont put their blinkers on.  There is nothing more infuriating than waiting at a red light behind some bozo who as soon as the light turns green puts his blinker on.  Do me a favor, dont bother with the blinker!  It does me no good to know at this point that I am stuck behind you until the oncoming traffic lightens up enough for you to turn.  There's no going around you either because god forbid anyone in the right land would allow such a thing.  Let me honk and rant and curse at you , you deserve it!

.....Traffic of any kind.  There is no reason for the Belt Parkway to be knotted up with cars mid-day mid-week.  Its not rush hour, it isnt beach traffic, there is no huge going out of business sale that my half of Brooklyn found out about, and they are certainly not all going to where I am headed.  So where are all these damn people going.  If there isn't any road work or some three lanes into two merge, then there better be a car wrapped around a tree when I get to the reason for the delay.  If I have to sit in traffic there better be something to talk about when I get to where I am going.

.....People who don't, won't or can't say what they really mean!  "She has a pretty face" basically means she has the personality of a slug and thighs the size of tree trunks.  She is fat and boring.  "She's a little quirky" means she's ok if she stays on her meds.  She's a nut case who might whack off your balls if you piss her off.  "He's such a special little kid" means he licks the windows on the short bus.  He doesn't have ADD, ADHD or any other initialed syndrome....he's just dumb.  "He's a real go-getter" means he got fired from K-Mart but is now working at Home Depot.  He's a lazy shit.

.....Sushi  I find no good reason to eat raw fish sliced, wrapped or rolled especially in stuff like seaweed.  For gods sake I pull seaweed out of the crotch of my bathing suit and skeeve it, why would I want to eat it?  Hiding it in between sticky rice is a nice trick, but it doesnt take a Houdini to know that it is in there.  And if you have to tell me it isn't 'fishy' tasting, then why the hell am I eating fish?

.....People who say "to make a long story short"  and then don't.  Guilty as charged.  I do it often.  Hate when I do it, hate it more when others do.  Get to the friggin' point after you utter those words.  You only say it because you know you are losing the attention of your audience and you think it will buy you more time.  To make a long story short....abbreviate!

.....People who brush their teeth at work.  Unless you have some gum disease or death breath I dont want to see you going into the bathroom as you pretend to hide the toothbrush.  You know you want us to be impressed at how hygienic you are when all we are really thinking is I hope he cleans the sink after he rinses. Floss at your desk if you'd like, but please dont muck up the sink with your minty spit.

.....The Ventriloquist Act  No, not the puppet, hand up the back, stick up the ass type of act.  I'm talk about the one where you ask someone a question and from across the room someone else answers.  If I didnt ask you the question give the person I did ask the opportunity to answer before you interupt in a feeble attempt to look smart.  You dont, you just look rude.  If  I'm having a one on one conversation leave it at that....ONE ON ONE, not one on TWO!

.....Customer service reps with foreign accents Nearly every technologically advanced product I own is made somewhere other than the US.  And if I paid for these items in yen, rupees or rubles I would deal with the language barrier.  But when I put down American dollars, in an American store I want to talk to an American technician when I have a problem.  I have enough trouble trying to boot, back-up, fragment, format, and surge suppress a system file without having to decipher what the technician has just told me.  I need Punjab to speak better English because by the time I get off the phone I have an unnatural desire for a cherry Slurpee.

.....Exercise equipment infomercials Show me, just once some beefy, bulky, chunky, stocky, weighty, husky, dumpy, stubby, paunchy, potbellied, flabby guy working out on any of them and I might buy one.  From Tony Little (who I am sure has his ponytail attached to his baseball cap) to Suzanne Somers and her Thighmaster thighs they all tell me the same thing.  If you arent a size 2, dont look amazing in latex or a spandex leotard, and can't run, jump or skip 15 miles don't bother to order the equipment.... it will kill you!

....Victoria Secrets Plus Size Isn't that a direct contradiction?  Plus size people, (and I am one) know the real secret to sexuality.  Keep it covered, tucked in, hidden, or disguised.  Keep it shrouded, sucked in, or compressed.  To ask a little piece of silk and lace to do all that is just asking too much. 

 

.....i wanna

.......I wanna forget that I watched a horribly depressing movie this morning and even though I am sure there was a message hidden in the sappy music and sad sad storyline it left me feeling blah all day.
......I wanna win the lottery. It doesn’t have to be the Mega Lottery, just the regular one will do. And it doesn’t have to be a record breaking one either. A few mil and I’m good! I am sick and tired of hearing about the farmer from some teeny tiny town in middle America winning and the first thing they buy is a new John Deere ride-on something or other. I hate hearing about the upstate New York 18 year old couple who had to postpone their wedding because they needed the money to feed their 8 kids. And I am usually most irate when I see a group of immigrant workers who pooled their money to buy the winning ticket and while everyone is applauding their good fortune they are out trying to get a green card so that they can stay in this country long enough to collect their winnings and move back to where ever-the-hell they came from in the first place. I am a little bitter, can you tell?

.....I wanna win tickets to Oprah’s Christmas show. I will gladly fly to Chicago to join the love fest when Oprah gives away so much stuff you hardly remember that you don’t like her very much anymore. I liked her alot, but during the Obama campaign she became an African American…no more no less….everything else was insignificant. Her career, her billions, Stedman…..all played 2nd fiddle to the fact that she was an African American woman voting for Obama. She could simply have backed him as an American. But I still desperately want tickets to her show.

.....I wanna meet Barry Manilow. Not just go to his show, not some meet and greet for a charity, I wanna sit down and chat it up with him over bagels and lox and discuss his Brooklyn roots. I want to dispel the ‘gay’ rumors any way I can. (wink, wink) I want to ask him why he had the plastic surgery that made him look like a Picasso painting. I want to know why he refused to go on The View last year. Was it really because he disagreed with Elizabeth’s political views or because he is really good friends with Rosie O’Donnell who now hates Elizabeth in the wake of their wonderfully entertaining altercation on live TV?
......I wanna win a makeover. I have entered hundreds of contests and written to countless talk shows to no avail…but I’d rather not lie and say I have 6 months to live, or just lost a loved one, survived a plane crash, rescued four people from a burning building or recently dropped 100 pounds. (ok that one I would like) I just want to drop my name in a ballot box somewhere and get a call that I was chosen. Is that asking too much? I am even willing to be nominated for that amazingly embarrassing show What Not To Wear. They can stalk me, mock me and pick through my tired old wardrobe if at the end I look like Cindy Crawford. Tall order but hell, this my fantasy.

.....I wanna pass the test for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. I usually win $250,000 when I play from my couch. But the three times that I took the actual test…..nothing. Zip Zilch Nada They don’t even tell you if you passed, they just announce who out of the group did pass. And it was never me or my friend Kathy who is like… a genius. Hell, they don’t even tell you what score you have to get to pass the damn thing. Passing the test doesn’t even guarantee that you will be on the show, you still have to get through an interview and then do a face to face interview with Meredith Viera the host…hostess. Right now I will settle for just the bragging rights that come with passing the damn test.
.....I wanna talk to the Border Patrol. I want to know exactly who they are and aren’t letting into our country. I was asked recently by some political satirist to understand that we ‘let’ immigrant people into our country to work the jobs we didn’t want, for a pay that we didn’t want, under conditions we didn’t want. If our patrol guards let them in then they aren’t illegal aliens and could have gotten any job at any pay under any conditions they wanted. If they weren’t let in they are here illegally and the fact that they have any job at any pay under any conditions is a blessing. Pick your veggies, bus your tables, mow the lawn or demo that building and just say thank you.

uh oh...

I watched a tear jerker movie this morning which left me in a funky, melancholy mood....maybe even a little sad.  It started out nice enough, two young good looking boys (chris klein and josh harnett) trying to win the heart of the same small town girl....one good, one bad......one as small town as her and one weatlthy and privledged and misunderstood.....to make  a long story short.....the girl gets cancer and dies.  See I told you!  Ok so I am not in the mood to write now...but I will find my funny bone and hopefully post tonight.

Camelot

I remember exactly where I was when John Kennedy was killed.  I was only 9 and my world revolved around my mom.  I remember her crying night after night as she watched the coverage of his funeral. I remember the newspaper clippings she kept in a little envelope especially the pictures of John John saluting his father's casket.  When my mom died some years later I found that little envelope yellowed with age and was reminded of how my mother tried her best to explain why she was crying even though she didn't know this man they called JFK.  He was a such young man she said, but I had heard he was 46 and to me that was already old.  She went on to tell me that he was the first Catholic president and since we were Catholic I guessed that was a good thing.  She also explained that he was handsome, and even for 9 I knew that that was true.  Yup that was my mom, a true politician...young, catholic and handsome...all the makings of a good president.  When the crying stopped the news footage did not.  Days turned into weeks and weeks to months especially since the assassin was assassinated himself on national TV in a parking garage as they moved him from Police Headquarters.  Mom didn't know whether to cheer or cry some more.  This was the biggest event in her life to that point, as it was for most people.  To live through the assassination not only of the President, but such a young and catholic and handsome one.  Mom and most of the country needed another Kennedy to love.  Along came Robert, another Kennedy brother just as young although debatably not as handsome.  RFK, like JFK had won over the hearts of millions of housewives. Now I was 14 and my world revolved around my friends.  From my junior high classroom I held a transistor radio to my ear so that I could report to the teacher and the class his condition after he too had been shot in the head after making a 'why i want to be president' speech.  Though brother Bobby was not yet in the White House his chances looked good.  Someone didn't like these young, handsome, catholic Kennedy boys.  At least not as presidents.  The news coverage rivaled that of the president's  assassination  with day and night coverage and talk of family curses and rumors of conspiracy that shrouded the Kennedys.  Another Kennedy brother, Teddy also in the political arena for years thought he too would make a run for the presidency.  If you ask me, with the Kennedy boys track record I would have run the other way.  I was 15 now and my world revolved around boys.  So it isn't so odd to me that the only thing I remember about Teddy at that point in his career is that he was driving home from a party, with a young girl in his car and it went off the road and into the pond on Chappaquiddick Island killing her.  It was 1969, the summer of Woodstock and the Moon Landing and now Chappaquiddick!   The fact that he didn't report the accident for 10 hours while Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in the vehicle cancelled out any plans of living in the White House.  After admitting to leaving the scene of an accident where a woman died, after waiting to report the accident til any chance of a blood alcohol level could be detected, and after denying any inappropriate relations with this now dead woman Kennedy was allowed to keep his Senate seat which he all but inherited from his brother John some years earlier.  Teddy was the likeable, approachable Kennedy they say.  Bobby too intense, John too sophisticated. Maybe the Chappaquiddick incident transformed Teddy into the person they are saying is the 'greatest senator of our time'.  Maybe the fact that his brothers before him died in their prime...young and handsome and righting the world's wrongs.  That is how we will remember them.  But he fact that Teddy lived to 77 and endured failures and indiscretions in the public eye, a drinking problem, a divorce and of course Chappaquiddick may be why I am not moved by his death the way I was when mom and I mourned JFK and RFK.  Maybe I just miss my Mom mourning with me for the last of Camelot.

getcha paper!

I have had the Daily News delivered to my house for 30 years. In fact I think the first issues were delivered via pony express. I like the Daily News because it has a symmetry that my simple mind can follow….news, news, news, editorials, local news, comics, car ads, car ads, car ads, the Mets lose, the Yankees win. (ok I know I just pissed off a whole bunch of people, but I am trying to keep this honest)

Today like most recent days reading the paper is a excursion. First let me just say that Michael Jackson is still dead even though his drug overdose is being dissected on Page one. Let me clarify something though. I liked Michael Jackson, I think he was extremely talented and extremely weird. I don’t want to hear about how his father didn’t treat him right as a child….he friggin’ dyed his skin white and had so much plastic surgery to get rid of his black nose that it collapsed. He played better with kids than adults and named one of his kids Blanket. That in of itself says it all…..weird! But whether or not Dr Death administered the lethal injection to kill him or to stay on the Jackson payroll needs no debate. Why would he want to kill the golden goose? You kill the boss, the payroll stops. Trust me, I’ve considered it more than a few times.

The Staten Island little leaguers are advancing to the semi finals is on page 2...PAGE 2! Didn’t anything more news-worthy happen than 12 year old beating some hillbilly kids from Iowa at baseball in the last 24 hours? Page 3 reiterates the cover declaring and attempting to explain how and when Jackson died. Even included a time line…Jackson wakes up cant sleep takes drug, Jackson cant sleep wakes up takes another drug, Jackson wakes up cant sleep takes the fatal injection. Me on the other hand, I wake up and cant sleep….I snack. Big glass of milk, some cookies, maybe even a half sandwich.

I must add this thought… thank god it wasn’t a white doctor that killed Jackson or Reverend Al would be marching somewhere chanting something about racial inequality. The following pages filled me in on two gunshots, the imminent swine flu epidemic, a drowned 7 year old girl and and Alec Baldwin’s quote from Playboy that he is considering running for the Senate. Who’s in charge of placement here? Who thought the Playboy quote belonged with the dead girl?

The World Trade Center site memorial is still not built in case you haven’t been looking at the skyline recently. But Page 6 has a lovely picture of hard hats saluting a beam with a flag hanging over a hole where a monument will one day be. Hopefully.

Page 7 has our blind, unshaven, gee-I’m-glad-Spitzer-screwed-up governor is jumping on the Rev Al bandwagon and proclaiming that his horrible ratings are because he is black. And that our presidents rating will go down next. So by his definition if a black politician does a good job they are heroes and if the screw up they are being picked on because of lingering racism. When Obama and Patterson are chained in the bottom of a ship I might believe their racial diatribe. Til then, do your job, do it well and no one will notice what color you are. Or arent!

Thankfully the update on the reality show killer has been degraded to page 8. They are both dead, and other than their families, who really cares? Page 10 has pictures of our president golfing and looking more like Tiger Woods than…well, Tiger Woods. Page 12 has three murders….the cleaning lady, the bouncer, and the cab driver. Page 13 has an entire page devoted to the Hero of the Month…or in this case heroes…ESU officers who saved a man’s hand. Nice story and no offense, but a hero is someone who throws themselves in the line of danger or fights in a foreign land. Using a new product QuikClot to stop the bleeding of a man’s almost sawed off hand to me, does not scream hero! I think the editors could have looked a little further to find someone for their Hero of the Month page. Page 19 tells us about a woman who is selling the crypt above Marilyn Monroe’s so that some weathly nut can get closer to her than he ever could in real life. The sad part is that there is a man already in that crypt and his widow has decided to evict his remains in order to sell the crypt. She needs the money to pay off her 1.6 million dollar mortgage. No comment.

I skipped rapidly through the next few pages and stopped to read the obituaries. I find it comforting when I don’t see my name there.

Unfortunately pages 30 and 31 disappoint me as this two page spread is about the reality show killer and his dead wife. The picture of her in fishnet stockings and a three-sizes too small police uniform was a nice touch. Movie trailers, movie reviews, movie timetable, crossword, jumble and comics. Speaking of comics, does anyone read these? Really?

The Brooklyn News (for some reason the page numbers just changed) is about people who are raising bees on their roof. Can you say Bug Spray? I have enough trouble dealing with my neighbors cat. The Sports pages begin with Wicket which I didn’t even know we played in this country and Streetball which I think is basketball on asphalt. Don’t quote me! The Streetball article is about the Sean Bell All Stars…the seemingly best streetball squad. Is that Sean Bell of the stop, police, stop, bang bang bang Sean Bell? Again, no comment! Seriously, no comment! Oh look the Mets lost…the Yankees were off!

...is there a doctor in the house?

I went to go visit my mother in law in the hospital. After navigating the horror that is Flatbush Avenue on a Saturday afternoon I was also cursed by the parking gods with a spot so far from the hospital I could have left the damn car home. The good part is that the walk was downhill all the way. OK don’t get ahead of me, I forgot I would be walking back the exact same way I came only this time it would be uphill. More on that later. It was a sweltering 142 degrees outside and as soon as I stepped out of my air conditioned car my glasses fogged up. I managed to get the glasses de-fogged and started my trek to the hospital. A group of Hassidim’s passed me dressed in long black coats and furry hats and I thought, what kind of God would want them to dress like that and sweat like a pig….ok maybe a bad animal to use as an analogy, but you get the idea. And then as I turned the corner there were four Muslim woman coming toward me dressed literally head to toe in some gauzy glittery print fabric with only a slit allowing their eyes to show….and I thought, what kind of God would want them to dress like that and sweat like a pig…..same idea! Just as I was entering the hospital the automatic doors opened and out walked three nuns in long grey woolen habits tied at the waist with rope and a hood that covered their hair and forehead and I thought to myself what kind of God…..well, you get the picture! So for today, I gave up on trying to figure out God and his couture choices.

     The lady behind the patient information counter had to be as old as God. Maybe older. She had glasses thick as the proverbial coke bottles and wore a perfume that I am sure they stopped making in 1928 because it was killing people. “I need a pass for Room 7099.” From that moment on I realized why there is a God. He was to keep me from impaling myself with the sign-in pencil as I impatiently waited for her to give me the pass. She checked the room, she checked the name, she checked my signature, she checked her watch and her calendar….now security is one thing, but if I had in fact come to harm to anyone in the hospital I would have long given up, killed this old broad and just taken the pass or simply not gotten a pass at all…duh! But for now, with God watching I waited until she wrote the room number on my pass and handed it to me with a smile. And after all that the guard at the elevator hardly even looked at the pass. He was too busy chatting it up with Nurse Malibu Barbie.

     As I navigated the hallways to find her room it dawned on me that not one of doctor’s names on the little tags outside each room was American. Some names had so many letters that they ran out of room on the tag and wrote right on the wall. No Dr. Kildare, Dr. Casey…hell not even a Dr House in the house. Finally a Dr. King….not the Reverend obviously, but an American name. Wrong! Out of a room came Dr. RamashatiKING…hence Dr. King. Where the hell are all the American doctors? Ya know, the ones born in Michigan, Connecticut, even Jersey??? Where did all the little Jewish boys go? They can’t all be the Messiah? Besides wasn’t it every little Jewish boys lot in life to be a doctor, dentist or lawyer? My doctor is a Jew, my dentist is a Jew and so is his twin brother, so I want my doctor to be a Jew as well. I want a Schwartz or Finkelstein, I’d settle for a Seuss, a Spock or even a Livingston (I presume…) I’d even like a consult with Dr. Ruth, Dr. Kissinger even Dr. Dre!

     I found my mother-in-laws room, spent an hour and a half with her thereby securing my place in the will and left for home. By the time I got out of the elevator, passed the casanova security guard, and handed in my pass I was sweating to death. It was then that I remembered how far I had parked, and then almost as an afterthought realized that it would be uphill the whole way. (I know you figured that out before) I lumbered to my car, sucking wind and dripping with sweat and as I passed perspiring nuns, sweaty Hassidims and fermenting Muslims…..I didn’t give it a thought.

Star power

I bought a copy of Star magazine today. I bought it because Sarah Palin and her hot husband Todd the salmon fisherman were on the cover. It said something about a ring being thrown into Lake Lucille and I just thought, gee this must be breaking news and laid out the $4.00 to get the scoop. The world exclusive coverage of the ring toss story began on page 45 so I had to muddle through 44 pages of hard beach bodies, not so hard beach bodies, stay off of the beach bodies and please stay off the beach bodies. My journey:

If you are pregnant, great body or not, cover up your stomach. No one wants to look at your pasty white baby bump all veiny and blotchy with your navel becoming an out-ey when it started out as an in-ey. I don’t care that you have a gazillon dollars from doing nothing but parading around world famous beaches or dating someone that has their name on a building or a boat…they sell maternity bathing suits….trust me I’m still buying them and I’m not pregnant.

I don’t believe that you need to have plastic surgery to be beautiful. But, if you are already a beautiful woman like Padma of Top Chef fame, use a damn cover stick. Hell hire a make up artist. That seven inch scar down your right arm is alarming me. If it wasn’t a shark bite then what the hell was it from? Did a losing quick-fire chef chuck a meat clever at you? I was informed (thank you, Google) that it was the result of a car accident and that she wore her scar proudly because it meant she was alive. No….breathing means you are alive, invest in some makeup!

Will someone get Victoria Beckham a cheeseburger? Does she really think that those skeletal arms are gonna be able to hold on to hubby David Beckham when he realizes what a real woman’s arms are supposed to look like? And I don’t mean Madonna’s skinny old flab to muscle biceps…just ask A-Rod.

The Kardashian girl’s asses are of no interest to me. I am sure my son would disagree, I hear he is an ass man, but slap those babies back into some kind of holsters and hoist them back up where they belong. Bikinis, thongs…just ain’t working. Even American Tourister doesn’t make a trunk that could hold all that junk.

I have figured out the problem with Jennifer Aniston and her failed romances. She must be a bitch. And the same goes for Jessica Simpson. These women are drop dead gorgeous and linked with countless men but only for like a nano-second or two. Jennifer’s failures include the hottest men on the planet while Jessica’s taste seemed to have nose dived since the Lachey marriage went south. Note to Jessica….dating an ugly man is easy, keeping an ugly man should be a walk in the park, being dumped by an ugly man is makes you look like the Jackass. (think Knoxville)

Can someone tell Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) to keep her clothes on when there are cameras around. I caught my 7 year old grandson on the computer typing in the search box ‘hudgens nakid’. This is the second set of ‘oh my I am so embarrassed’ pictures that have surfaced of the Disney queen. Walt’s frozen head must be spinning.

Paula Abdul needs to pour some of what she’s been hiding in those Coke cups on Kara DioGuardi’s head. The new, young, more articulate addition to American Idol can’t hold a candle to Abdul’s rambling and repeatedly mind-numbing critique of the performers.

I don’t give a rats ass who Kate’s Jon dates or why he has put earring back in long forgotten holes, or that he decided this would be a good time to start smoking again. I equally don’t care who paid for Kate’s award winning most-stretched-skin-imaginable tummy tuck and in fact applaud her for not parading around the sand looking like a beached whale in search of a place to die.

Oprah fat, Oprah thin, Oprah fat and attractive, Oprah fat and ugly, Oprah thin and pretty. What the hell???! How does one human being go from one extreme to the other in the time it takes to print a magazine. And I am not buying the ‘Oprah Tops the Scales at 199‘...If she is under 200 I want her scale.

Stars then and Now. Don’t show me. I don’t want to know. If they have aged then so have I and as of this writing I am the same age I was when Melrose Place was on TV.

I finally arrive at the Palin story. Not as interesting as I thought. Marital bliss turned ugly. Not surprising though. If you name your kid Trig there is a problem. If you name your handicapped son Trig, bigger problem. Didn’t they think that kid was gonna have enough to deal with in his life and that saddling him with the name of a mathematic function was just plain wrong? Family name or not, try Bob or Sam next time. Of course the ‘source’ of the specifics is the…ok get this now….pay attention….the sister of the ex boyfriend and baby daddy of Bristol Palin who recently stretched his 15 minutes of fame to get him to the Teen Choice awards with Kathy Griffin who has officially sealed her fate with that date as the D-List celebrity I always knew she was. Breath…2, 3.…. OK so in the same article another Palin daughter, Willow is shown swigging vodka and smoking pot. Same source….the girl who creepily has her brothers name tattooed on her wrist. And we won’t even mention her mothers recent drug conviction. One last tip for the Palins, if you didn’t conceive your child at Woodstock you shouldn’t have named her Willow. How about Beth or Carol?

....a blast from the past

Long before blogs there were journals and before that…diaries. They were locked books hidden under the mattress so that no one else could unearth our deepest darkest feelings….boy, we’ve come a long way baby.

This is an entry I recently came across from 2001.

The narrowness of the hallways intimidated me. They were long, stark white cinder blocks that looked more like prison walls than school hallways. The smell of disinfectant reassured me that the bathrooms were clean, but was it really good for the kids to be inhaling those chemicals? And why were the other kids so much bigger than my son? They looked older, maybe even meaner, and certainly not anything like the boys I liked my son to associate with. And what was with their parents? They seemed so calm, so matter-of-fact….going about the business of settling their child into the first day of school. They weren’t taking nearly as many pictures as I was. I was jealous of their composure. When the time had come I hugged and kissed my son goodbye and turned quickly to leave so that he would not see the tears that had welled up in my eyes. I briefly looked back to see my son embracing his father and lost any control I had maintained until then and cried all the way to the car and the entire two hour drive home. It was official, my son had just begun the Fall 2001 semester at Quinnipiac University. Yes my son went away to college. Actually he went ‘back’ to college since this year he was a returning sophomore. Does this get any easier? I went through this last year. Am I gonna have to go through this next year too? And then as a senior? God, what if he goes on to graduate school or law school as he intends? I could have four more years of this withdrawal stuff. I miss my son already.

I came home and talked to his fish. The one he bought last year at school, brought home for the holiday break and never reclaimed. He’s my fish now. I feed him, he loves me, he reminds me of my son. My daughters called to see how ‘I’ made it through ‘his’ first day. I recounted my ordeal, describing in great detail the cell my son now gets to call home…the cell he shares with two other boys, three beds, three dressers, three desks, three computers a TV and more a sneakers than Foot Locker. I drew diagrams on napkins to more clearly illustrate just how tiny and cramped my son’s life had become. I broke into a sweat just thinking of the injustice, that although for most of his life I was installing values that would keep him out of jail and the tiny horror that is now his dorm room, I now pay good money to have him incarcerated there.

I called his cell phone twice that night, got his voice mail and hung up. I also called his ‘cell’ twice that night, leaving messages that were both upbeat and a direct contradiction of how I was actually feeling. I kept everyone off the phone in anticipation of his return call. When PM turned into evening, and evening into morning I realized my son didn’t feel the need to talk to me. I took comfort in that, I think. I fed his gerbil, a summer acquisition that never made it back into his luggage, and left for work checking the answering machine only once for a possible missed message. Nothing! OK that could be a good thing…he’s busy! He’s happily rearranging his room so that the postage stamp sized floor space could now accommodate a couch. Alright that’s pushing it. Or not hearing from him could be a bad thing….he could be sad and lonely, maybe even depressed, traumatized from the uncertainty that is university life. Sitting in his cell, er…umm room staring out the window thinking of us here at home missing him. A tear welling up falls silently to the floor. Ok, ok we all know that’s not happening…I had to get a grip. I miss my son.

We were sitting down to dinner when he phone rang. Did I dare to get my hopes up? It was my son…the one my daughter’s say ‘walks on water’….an analogy that isn’t far from the truth in my mind’s eye. He was fine. He hadn’t called because he didn’t get back to his cell until the wee hours of the morning. He had been ‘getting acquainted’ with the new freshmen and re-acquainted with the returning sophomores. He and his cellmates hadn’t been able to re-arrange their cell to resemble anything but the cell it was designed to be, but he’s gotten shower privileges from the girls who lucked out in the housing lottery and all is right with his world. My dinner went down a little easier that night knowing that my son was not two states away pining for his room with the restless gerbil and oblivious fish. He can do his own laundry without shrinking anything or turning it pink. He can figure out when to buy soap and toothpaste, he can defrag his laptop and make macaroni and cheese in a microwave. Feeling totally obsolete and useless, I logged on to my computer and sat down to write my son an email. Did I mention I miss my son?

....sometimes an angry poet

I had to make a call today,
The number had escaped me,
I dialed the 4 and then two 1’s,
So someone there could help me.

But first I got that android voice
The one that talks too slow,
It asks me now, “what listing please?”
I give it all I know.

A moment pause and then a voice,
This one for sure was live,
I needed to repeat it all,
I guess the android lies.

She asked me for the spelling,
Next time I’ll use the book,
I could’ve sent a letter,
For all the time this took.

She tells me there’s no listing,
Which of course I know is wrong,
I spell it once again for her,
It’s taking way too long.

Another voice is talking,
I didn't catch his name,
He asked again to spell it,
I just can’t play this game.

I started getting nasty now,
My attitude had changed,
And then he said calm down to me,
As if I was deranged.

I felt my pressure rising,
Why’s this guy insulting me,?
I tried my best, I really did,
To not act childishly.

I cursed his mother and at him,
And wished that he was dead,
I went to slam the phone on him,
I clutched my chest instead.

I had to make a call today,
As numbness came upon me,
I dialed the 9 and then two 1’s,
So someone there could help me.
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

.....junk

It’s was a lazy Sunday after a hectic Saturday so I decided to stay home in the air conditioning and clean one of my junk rooms. Yes, I said rooms. Most people have junk drawers, and don’t get me wrong I have those as well, but I have two junk rooms. Three if you count my bedroom which has become a catch all for anything we don’t know where else to put. I have a 17 foot Spongebob blow up that I bought on Ebay a few years ago at my husband‘s request. (don’t ask…in fact if I ever mention my husband in any blog, don’t ask, because I simply wont have an answer, he is a mystery to me…kinda like explaining a black hole) Anyway he pumped it up, put it on the lawn for Easter, repaired a hole, pumped it up, repaired another hole, pumped it up, repaired a tear, pumped it up, repaired a gash and then back into the box it went and has resided in the corner of my bedroom ever since. Too big to fit in the attic (the original junk room) and too big to go under the bed. Besides even if it did fit, Spongebob would scare the hell out of my dust bunnies. So I threw a tablecloth on it, stuck a vase on top of that and there it sits hidden under $22 of JCPenney clearance items. I recently read an article in the newspaper about stolen Spongebob blow ups that had been part of a McDonald’s campaign across the country and I often wonder if it is actually contraband that I am concealing. (I can picture SWAT teams bursting through my front door yelling…hands in the air, where is Spongebob?) The room I chose to clean today was once my daughters’ bedroom. It is currently called the playroom because that is where we tell my grandchildren to go when the adults need a few minutes to talk without refereeing one issue or another. The room is crowded with stuffed animals, desks and blackboards and even a stage that I had my son build for them when I was convinced they were going to star on Broadway. But hidden amongst the colorful playthings is a lot of junk. There is the TV/VCR combo that hasn’t worked since the conversion to digital and any VCR tapes we had have long since been upgraded to DVD’s. There is a futon that has saved many a sleepless night when the snoring in Spongebob’s room just got too much for me. There is also my cow collection. Cows…dressed like people, like famous artwork, like famous landmarks, like other animals…many many cows. Birthday cows, anniversary cows, you are my best friend cows, I love you cows and my favorite cows of all….the wizard of oz cows. Lions and tigers and cows…oh my! There is a drawer with way too many picture frames that at some time adorned another part of the house and when the décor changed the frames did as well and they were banished to the island of misfit frames. In the room is a closet. It has no door. It was one of those sliding wooden doors that fell off the track one too many times, and always on my foot. So off they came, track and all in one mighty angry swoop. Instead I hung a shower curtain, rod and all. Works great and now the kids can play Psycho if they want to. The closet is full of paints and brushes and styrofoam balls, and looms and loops (like the kind you make potholders out of in the dayroom after they commit you). There are sticks and jewels and gloss and glitter. It is a drag queen’s paradise. Or a science fair project in the making. I boxed and bagged and labeled and marked everything that simply didn’t belong in that room and moved it to the hallway. There it sits all organized and homeless. I will find a place for it all, just not in the playroom.

get out of my seat

I went to see Jackie Mason for my husband. I could have gone to see Barry Manilow for myself. He owes me. Big time! We’ve seen Mason on Broadway, in Westbury, in a Connecticut casino, hell we’ve even seen him walking in Times Square, but the one place we have never seen him is at the Queens Theatre. It is in Flushing Meadow Park, smack dab in the middle of the abandoned structures that once were a showpiece of the World’s Fair of 1964. I was 9 when those structures were built and I don’t know who looked worse, me or them. Mostly everyone in the theatre was either Jewish…..Jewish and over 70.….or Jewish, over 70 and walked with some kind of assistance apparatus. Including the man sitting in our seats. The 101 year old usherette escorted us to our seats which had one of those over 70 handicaps sitting in my husband’s seat. Now how do you make a man who has not just a brace but a cane as well, get out of your assigned, hand-picked seat…easy, you tell him get the hell out of my seat you God damned cripple. Only kidding…you show your ticket to Myrtle the usherette and ask her to intervene. She does and the gimp produces a ticket with the same row and seat number. The lights are flashing and the people in the row behind us seem more incensed at us making the man move instead of irritated that he had taken our seat. After all, both myself and my husband aren’t half dead and walk basically unassisted. So far. Myrtle is amazed at the coincidence that we have the same seat, and if I hadn’t asked her to check what date he had on his ticket, we would still be debating our seating arrangement as Jackie started his shtick. The man in our seat had a ticket for two days earlier. Nice try Mr. Physically Challenged. Bye bye, Adios, Ciao! Before anyone gets all bent out of shape, keep in mind that both my husband and I have the shoulder span of a 747. If we aren’t on an aisle the entire row on either side of us would have to lean and with this group everyone of them would need a chiropractor by morning. Consider this altercation a benevolent act. He was escorted to another seat not far away until another unsuspecting patron entered the theatre and the process started again. (Myrtle was definitely earning her volunteer pay tonight.) The show began on time and Jackie did his typical Jew and Gentile jokes. The same jokes that made him the icon he is today. The same jokes that I have now heard waaaaaaay too many times. He updated the material by adding jokes about Obama’s Health Care agenda and Bill Clinton’s recent rescue mission in North Korea. Politicians 2 Mason 0 Sorry Jackie but judging by the silence in the theatre no one really found it too funny. What they did find funny, as did I, was your impersonations of Ed Sullivan, a black rapper, and a Pakistani doctor. Great stuff! Half way through the show was intermission. As soon as Jackie left the stage you could hear the clicking and clacking of canes, walkers, replacement knees and hips as they made there way to the refreshment stand and restrooms. Although my bladder could have used a dimunization I stayed put in case Tiny Tim decided to sit in our seat again. The second half of Jackie’s show was newer material and although I couldn’t quite maneuver enough to actually bring my hands together and clap, I would have. Exiting the theatre was akin to the exodus scene in the Ten Commandments. Jews who could barely walk a half hour ago were now spry and sure footed as they made there way to the parking lot. Canes and crutches were cast aside as if healed by Moses himself…ok that’s pushing it, but there definitely was an amazing transformation. It was as if when Jackie waved good bye at the end of his show he had someone cured them of their ills. Hey, maybe he had, they say laughter is the best medicine! My husband loves Jackie Mason, and I went because I love my husband, but if he ever wants to see Jackie Mason again before I am 70 he will have to take his mother.

can it core a apple?

I love reality TV. I love to see people fall on their faces and make asses out of themselves. Or fall on their asses and make faces, either way, I love the competition and all the deviate behavior that comes with it. I love to see people lie and cheat to get to the end…the winners circle…the final tribal council. I want to see who gets fired, voted off, fell off the wagon, can’t carry a tune and didn’t make it to the final two. Simply, I enjoy a good embarrassing moment…and yes I have to admit I want the biggest losers to get on that massive scale and show that they’ve packed on a few even while sweating and puking on national TV. But not everyone likes the reality shows. Some will watch anything just have the TV on. A friend of mine watches so much TV that QVC sent her a birthday card. Cablevision sent her a “we will miss you” card when she downgraded her service. Net Flix worries if they don’t get a return envelope from her in 24 hours. To say that she is a TV junkie would be an understatement. If she ever dropped dead on the couch, which is more than likely where she will inevitably meet her demise, it would be weeks before anyone would notice. Her son would come to visit and just assume, while exceptionally quiet, Mom was just watching her British soap operas and head on home to Queens. Then there is my sister in law who watches little if any TV. She hasn’t jumped on the bandwagon to watch Survivor, or American Idol or any other everyone-is-talking-about-but-wont-admit-to-enjoying shows. She watches Jeopardy. Because it is a smart show. I suspect that when no one is watching, a few good looking detectives make it to her TV screen and along with her coffee cup and her ashtray she entertains the Law & Order cast. I think she is teaching them how to knit. Then there is Kathy who records everything. She’ll watch it when she gets the time. When she’s not at work at any of her 37 jobs. She’ll watch when she thinks she won’t fall asleep two minutes after she sits down. She…..loves the cooking shows. The Top Chef, Master Chef, Iron Chef, Naked Chef (my personal favorite), Chef Tell, Miami Chef, Take Home Chef and Chef of the Future. (can it core a apple?) She has no time to cook, she has no time to even watch someone else cook but with her DVR, every diced date, minced mushroom and chopped chicken breast is recorded for a better time. Now if someone could come up with a show where the contestants are cops that can cook, eat, get fat, sell jewelry, make fire, get fired, and answer the daily double it would be a bigger hit than the Yankees sweeping the Red Sox!

Do I Love You.....?

I loved the 70’s. Everything about that decade was magic and new and exciting. When the decade began I was 15. I wasn’t a wife, a mother and certainly not a grandmother. I wore a single digit size, had perky breasts and great…good….nice abs. My life was filled with sun-kissed days, romantic starry nights, and Peter Lemongello. Peter Lemongello was the Billy Mays of album sales back then. He promoted his Mood Rock Love ‘76 album until it sold over a million copies! Go ahead Google it, I’ll wait. See told ya, and you thought I was kidding. But I am getting ahead of myself. So here I am 15, dating a 20 year old, in love with a 22 year old aspiring singer, and lusting after a 25 year old who will remain anonymous. Man was I precocious. Honestly I don’t think I even knew what lust was at that point. Each guy in his own way was noteworthy. The 20 year old had a car, long hair and my father hated him. Plus, plus, PLUS! ( I was 15 remember, your priorities are negligible.) The 23 year old had lines of pubescent girls all vying for his attention. I was never good at standing in lines, not even now at the breakfast buffet in Atlantic City. I never minded, however, being put at the front of that line by the groupie gods. The 25 year old drank Margaritas and had dinner at steak houses and bistros. He had been to places I didn’t know existed and I wanted to go with him….and take pictures. Naked. And had I, they would be on Facebook as we speak. (ok maybe not the naked ones) I was both intrigued and intimidated by him. By the time Peter’s Love ‘76 was released I had graduated high school, got married, bought a house and a dog, and had two daughters. The pregnancy had accosted my breasts and my abs and that single digit size was now doing double duty. I had married the 20 year old, followed the 23 year olds career til he all but fell off the face of the earth (more often known as moved to Florida) and I still remain friends with the 25 year old who I no longer lust after….too much. Peter is still in my life. He asks me time and time again as I play his Love ‘76 album….Do I Love You, don’t you know by now…Do I love You must I show you how?…..Does he really want me to answer that? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLqhduumlgI

just the facts

FACT: I have been married to my husband for 35 years. I met him when I was 15 and he was 20. (what the hell was he thinking?) Collectively we have known each other 39.8 years. I believe that warrants repeating….39.8 years! FACT: My husband is deaf. He has a good ear and a bad ear. Only problem his good ear hasn’t been so good in a long time and his bad ear is dead basically. So for those two reasons our weekend trip upstate began something like this:

I begin….This weekend, are we going upstate?
No, I had steak already this week. Doctor wants me to stay away from too much red meat.
No No I said UPSTATE.
Upstate?
A R E W E G O I N G U P S T A T E T H I S W E E K E N D?
Why do you talk to me like I’m a child?
I don’t talk to you like you’re a child, I talk to you like you’re deaf.
Ok, wanna leave Friday….?

The car packed and the dog in the back seat we head for our local bagel store for an on the road breakfast. I drive, I always do. FACT: My husband drives like an old jew (apologies to my Jewish friends, but honestly have you been to Miami?) and I am a horrible passenger. I make no bones about it. I am the only one who can drive in the whole world. Ask anyone who has ever driven with me, especially my kids. FACT: I get the same thing every single time we go to the bagel store…coffee just milk and a bagel with cream cheese. And every single time we get to the bagel store my husband asks me what I want. One day I am gonna surprise him and change it up a bit, maybe have sugar in my coffee or get a bialy instead. Maybe for our anniversary. FACT: We go the same way every single time we go upstate. The Van Wyck to the Grand Central to the Major Deegan to the GW Bridge, Palisades to Rte 17N….same way EVERY SINGLE time. So when he asks, taking the Deegan?… I don’t answer. He’s deaf anyway and thinks I answered and he didn’t hear me. FACT: I don’t have a patient bone in my body. For traffic jams, lights and especially for stupid people who can’t drive there monstrous SUV’s without taking up two lanes. As soon as the traffic starts backing up on the Van Wyck I have an attitude.

Want me to open your bagel for you?
Does it look like I could eat right now? (if he was smart he would have said you always look like you could eat…or smarter still, he says nothing)
Want me to vent your coffee?
Sure, knock your socks off….
Where’s there a cop???
No not a cop, I said ‘knock your socks off.’
Oh,… so vent it?

FACT: By the time we get to our house we have exchanged a total of 39.8 words. (See why paying attention at the beginning was important.) Three hours and other than the bagel exchange and the venting issue we had said nothing constructive to each other. We do however toss comments up for grabs….he like the one about the fact that water puddles near the beginning of the Grand Central. I could give a rats ass since I pass it at 65 mph and wouldn’t have noticed it had it not been pointed out to me some 43 times already. I comment on the stench coming from my dog in the back seat (he has issues) and he wants to know if the groomer who basically does foo foo dogs with polished nails and teeny tiny bows would be able to clean up my stinky 75 pound maybe-we-should-muzzle-him-for-this makeover mutt. He likes to point out the speed limit for every different roadway we take including the town of White Lake where he is especially happy to point out is a mind crushing slug’s-pace 40mph. (remember the old jew in him) I am happy to point out that I have only gotten one speeding ticket and that was because I was coming down a hill and the damn guy in front of me, who of course couldn’t drive, blocked my view of the sheriff’s car. (I ended up pleading that down to a lesser offense since Andy had to get home to Opie and dinner.) I note that there are several garage sales that I want to go to once we have unpacked. He likes to point out that I keep buying other peoples garbage. I point out that if he hadn’t cluttered the garage and shed with so much shit I would have a place to put my garage sale finds to which he points out that his shit is good shit, while my shit is someone’s else old shit. FACT: We had a wonderful weekend.

FREE OJ

OJ is innocent. I mean innocent of the murder of Nicole and Ron of course, not that debacle they called an arrest in Vegas. If even one shred of evidence against him had not been tainted in some way I may have looked at the case differently. First in a long list of foibles there was the blanket that they took from inside Nicole’s house to cover the bodies. Duh, even I would have known that there may be OJ’s DNA on it which then transferred to the bodies. And we all know that had the night not ended the way it did, Ron’s DNA would have been on that same blanket. If the crime scene had been secured there would have been no need to give those nearly decapitated corpses the decency of covering them up….dopey cops doing dopey things. Then there’s Dennis Fung the oriental forensic guy admitting to taking samples without gloves on and storing the evidence in unprotected tubes transferring one from column A to one from column B in the interim....dopey scientists practicing dopey science. Then there is the homicide detective Mark Fuhrer, I mean Fuhrman who, under oath, lies about being prejudice against black men and admits that although he lied about that, he isn’t lying about this, he was lying about something but not about nothing, he lied about some facts but not about all facts but most importantly he did not lie about planting the bloody glove. I think Mr. Fuhrman was just pissed off that other than his wife, OJ’s woman were all white. Isn’t that what happens to all extremely successful black men? Go ahead, think Tiger Woods, Seal, Taye Diggs, Kanye….but that’s for another day....dopey dick doing dopey dick shit. Senior homicide detective Vannatter kept recently collected blood samples in his pocket, even carrying them as he went to OJ’s house. Drip..drip..drip! Can you say cross contamination?....dopey senior dick doing dopey senior dick shit. And that was just the evidence portion. How about those expert witnesses paraded throughout the trial. Kato Kaelin the wannabe actor, wannabe radio show host, shouldabe thrown out on his ass the minute he mentioned the ‘thump, thump, thump’ he heard near the air conditioner. His best friend is murdered, he is living with the man that is accused of the crime….but does he move out? Nope, he went and got his hair cut and highlighted for his 15 minutes of fame....dopey freeloader saying dopey freeloader things. Alan Park, limo driver recalls that night minute by minute. His recollection of the events amazingly accurate. How many times he rang the bell, the time to the exact second it took OJ to answer, what OJ was wearing, how many bags he loaded into the car, the color and designer label….but a big white Bronco that he had to drive passed to get onto the property, and he cant remember seeing it. He’s not sure. Doesn’t think so. Pretty sure. Maybe....dopey driver remembering dopey things. Then there is the judge, Lance Ito. He was married to an LAPD super cop…so much for holding the LAPD to task when you are sleeping with the enemy. He was Hawaiian and had he shaved he was a dead ringer for Don Ho....dopey judge judging dopey charges. I could go on but I’m sure I have infuriated enough people. FREE OJ!

tick..tick...tick

I went into a Dunkin' Donuts to get a freezy, frosty, hurt-my-teeth iced coffee because it is a ‘I should be laying poolside instead of shopping” kinda day. The air conditioning wasn’t working properly (figures), but with only two people ahead of me, not bad. Four people behind the counter, even better. Twenty seven minutes later I am still waiting to pay. Do you know how long 27 minutes is when you are sweating like a pig. (nice visual, huh?) Ok go, I’ll wait….one one hundred, two one hundred, three one hundred…get the picture? Why the wait?….the girl first in line was Russian. (I’ll call her Svetlana) She spoke…..well,...Russian. The girls behind the register spoke….well,...not English. Svetlana did the next best thing, she pointed at what she wanted. Pointing has become the universal language these days. The confused girls behind the counter were becoming agitated as was the 400 pound black man behind me. Pointing wasn’t working so we all tried to translate, including my hefty friend. We figured out that she wanted a cold drink because she made a shivering motion. (I think she has done this before!) Ok cold beverage, but there are several. They pointed to all the products on the sign until Svetlana finally grew a large smile and said ‘ ya, ya’….but when the counter girl asked her what size, hefty man simply yelled out to ‘give her a large god damn it‘, which they did. She paid, she left. 14 minutes down. The girl directly in front of me was an English speaking clueless baffoon who simply forgot what she came in for. She hemmed and hawed and thought and changed her mind before I loudly interjected that just perhaps, and only a suggestion mind you….CAN SOMEONE ELSE PLEASE HELP THE REST OF US while Babette collects her wits and places her order. I am greeted by a beautiful Rihanna-esque black woman who spoke amazingly well. If I lived in the Bahamas I am sure I would have understood her, but alas I just had to assume she asked what I wanted. I ordered a large iced coffee with just milk. She said ‘yes’ and continued to stare at me. I took that as a sign that she wanted to know what else I wanted so I said ‘that’s it‘. She continued to stare for another few seconds and then rang up my order and I paid. She then turned to hefty man who at this point was babbling and sweating and cursing and trying not to kill Babette who stood before him still trying to remember who wanted what. (just a note, she left with one small coffee and a donut…taxing order!) When I pointed out that she hadn’t given me my coffee, she smiled. Yup, a big beautiful all 92 teeth showing smile. Now hefty man and I had developed a rapport of sorts….he was my back up, my posse, my homie…ok he was just the guy behind me. But he did tell Rihanna in his best ‘I could snap you like a twig’ voice to give me my coffee. She, unintimidated, smiled back and left the counter where we both stood mumbling. Rihanna had left and a man with, (I kid you not) an eye patch asked my friend what he wanted. He gave his order, then turned to me and said that he should make Rihanna walk the plank. It was the biggest laugh I have had in a long time. Between that and the best damn iced coffee in town it was worth the wait!

i hate rachel ray

I hate Rachel Ray. Ok all you foodies out there, don’t get your panties in a bunch…I don’t really hate her. I hate that she shortens every expression into some cutesy idiom….like she doesn’t have enough breath to say sandwiches, so she calls them Sammies. Two syllables instead of three. And when she repeatedly uses E-V-O-O (which stands for extra virgin olive oil) it feels like chalk on a blackboard making my skin goose up. Was it really necessary to save those three syllables? Did someone script that or did she really figure that out herself? When she started using Yum-O as her signature phrase I had no idea that too was a shortened axiom (Yummy and Oh Wow)..…she shoulda left me in the dark with that one. How freakin’ lazy can you get? But she quickly named her wonderful non-profit organization Yum-O which makes it all but impossible for people like me to denounce it. But it’s not just Rachel, it’s everyone. We are just lazy by nature and getting lazier every day. I heard someone request a mani-pedi at the nail salon and it made me want to attack her with an emery board. A woman hours away from giving birth told someone she was preggers! I would have rathered her say she was with child, had a bun in the oven, expecting, eating for two or just plain knocked up! National Geographic jumped on the bandwagon and is now calling themselves NatGeo….oh, the humanity! I had only just recently come to accept the entertainment world’s discovery of contracted names, like J-Lo, A-Rod, K-Fed, TomKat, and my personal favorite, Brangelina when a commercial for Sunny Delight, a citrus flavored beverage was being referred to as “Sunny D”. Cute, memorable.…thoroughly annoying. But then McDonald’s followed with the famous Mickey D’s. Same three syllables, just catchier I guess, but even more annoying. Who thinks this stuff up? Some guy with a leaky pen and a faulty pocket protector is making a gazillion dollars coming up with these catch phrases that we have made part of our speech. I remember when we wrote ‘ha ha ha’ when we wanted some one to know we were kidding…LOL now….laughing out loud. I wonder what “ha ha ha” stood for?
　
　
　
　
　

nails

I love my manicurist. Her name is Lynn. Well it’s actually Linh Something-Something with far too many V’s and H’s for me to pronounce it correctly. I have been going to her for about 10 years and she still calls me “lady that make me go quick-quick.” I have no patience for the whole file and buff process and I definitely have no patience to sit and watch nail polish dry. Linh, like a lot of the other manicurists wear masked to protect themselves from the dust that all that filing and buffing produces. It is a little intimidating to walk into the salon with an defenseless face as the people that know most about the products they are using are covered from chin to eyes. But unfortunately, nice nails will always prevail over a lung full of toxic residue. Linh has an extremely thick accent. I think she is Korean. Maybe Vietnamese. Could even be from Okinawa. The only thing I know about Okinawa is that Daniel-son went there with Mr. Miyagi to help defend his honor against a bigger, meaner karate man. Between the arduous accent and the life saving mask it is close to impossible to understand what Linh is saying during our brief encounters.
Me - Hello Lynn…
Her - hello quick-quick…
Me -How are you?….
Her - unintelligible answer through the mask…
Me - Good, good! (nodding and smiling) How is your son?
Her - unintelligible Okinawian accent
Me - Oh, that’s good. (bigger nod, broader smile)
Our conversation would be non-existent if it weren’t for the old nod and smile routine. She could have told me her dog was hit by a train and there I was nodding and smiling. But hey, take off the mask and speak English if you want me to be sincere. Then again she could have been saying that my double chin makes me look like a blow fish…I’d have no idea at all.

I went to get my nails done on Saturday, a particularly busy day in the nail world especially in the summertime when normally skeevy feet are exposed in sandals. Each little piglet must be primped and painted for display. I wisely called ahead for an appointment.

Me - Lynn please

Them - linh....Linh....LINH....L I N H !

Her - linh here

Me - Hi Lynn, I need an appointment for this afternoon please

Her - who?

Me- It's quick quick

Her - ahhh quick quick, no come 3

Me- ok not 3, then when

Her - no come 3 come 4

Me - Ok so 4 oclock?

Her - no come 3

Me - ok 4 it is

Her - maybe 3 come better

Me - Ok 3 then

Her - see you at 4

Having no idea what time my appointment was I arrived at 3, where upon seeing me she flew into a full blown Okinawian tirade, complete with hand gestures and I am sure the crane kick. I had come when she had not only someone's skeevy little piggies in her hands, but a ten pack of tiny toes waiting to be primped. I told her I would be back at 4 and backed out of the salon like Daniel-son limped off the mat.

...sometimes a poet

Up in front was a guy that was eating,
He held his Big Mac with both hands,
He steered with his knees I’m presuming,
At least I was hoping he can.

A muscle car flies by my window,
The right lane, the left, then the right,
He had to be going like 90,
I thought as he flew out of sight.

To the right was a girl with a puppy,
On her lap the dog started to foam,
It looked like the dog had to vomit,
She should have just left Fido home.

Behind me a mini van rumbled,
Overloaded with too many boys,
The radio rattled the windows,
Is it legal to drive with that noise?

The old lady there in the Chevy,
Who obviously no one had told,
You can’t just be driving on parkways,
When you’re 111 years old.

Young love is always romantic,
It’s charming without a doubt,
But how do they watch where their going,
When constantly their making out?

But me, I pick up my cell phone,
Where is it that they draw the line?
When out of the blue here comes sirens,
To issue a ticket and fine.

And then to add insult to injury,
I just cant describe how I felt,
When the cop started writing 2 tickets,
The other for wearing no belt.

As I sat in my car like a moron,
Recalling the cars I had passed,
I’m sure that tomorrow’ll be different,
I’ve figured it out at last.

As I speed thru the take out McDonalds,
With my radio screaming out loud,
My dog and my girlfriend caressing,

No more tickets for me I have vowed