It’s the last day of the Parental Occupation, and just to prove that these visits are noxious for my well being, everything that can hurt on my body today is making itself known. Actually, may I place you on hold for a second? It’s a little hard to rip this bowl while typing………..
Ahh, better. Right, well the one positive to come from this hell week is that I have managed to educate my parents (especially my mother) regarding the dis-information and propaganda surrounding marijuana. Not even “medical marijuana” but over the last 6 months I have been trying to break down all the lies and bullshit and scare tactics that (some of) the mainstream media continually report. As someone who knows nothing about cannabis except what she is told by the local 5pm newscast, my mother was not an easy convert. Example; She called me one morning, in a frenzy over something she had seen on a morning talk show about a woman who may/may not have smoked up, then some shit happened, then she was diagnosed with depression and then she killed herself. Yeah. One can SO CLEARLY see that her smoking a joint lead to her ending her life, uh-huh. But, after showcasing a couple of very well written articles, a documentary and an impressive visual presentation (by yours truly) at the dining room table, she is now properly educated as to history, effects, cultural impact, genetics, benefits, risks and economical impact of the plant. In fact, she has been crowing about the total hypocrisy of the United States government, to accept income tax payments from California dispensaries and marijuana businesses, yet not legalize the very commodity from which they readily accept money.
So when I saw this report of a patient with full body paralysis, being denied his wheelchair and forced to lie immobile, festering bed sores – my heart sank below the floor. Video is below, click here for the post.
I don’t know what kind of close minded, spiteful, IGNORANT asshole you have to be to deny someone who is suffering so much and hurting absolutely no one. But even my close minded, judgmental, cranky mother can see that the criminalization of marijuana is insanity.
For many months now, I have been playing online Scrabble with an agent of Satan. Around here, she’s known as M. In my world, she’s known as M is for Motherfucker.
The woman is a Scrabble demon. We have probably played 500 games over the past several months; I have won about 10 of them (including one six-game winning streak that briefly plunged M into a depression which only served to make her stronger and meaner). For the vast majority of our games, I have been ahead until the last turn or two. Then she calmly puts down a Q or a Z on a triple-letter score with some word I’d never heard of and I am left sputtering and cursing at the computer.
She is quiet and stealthy in her play, except when it comes time to gloat, but that’s mostly because I’ve been swearing at her for the previous 10 plays, knowing full well every game that she is plotting, scheming, lying in wait to kick my ass once again in the 11th hour. My common names for her are as follows: Whore. Bitch. Hosebeast. Ho. Fuckhead. Hookerface. Miserable fuckface. Satan. Evil!!! Evil!!!
Occassionally, she speaks, like towards the end of the game last night. The exchange went something like this:
M: Do something! You’ve screwed up the board again!
Me: I screwed up the board? You screwed up the board with your stupid MULE and your stupid LANE! And SUQ? What the hell is that?
M: How about your ISM? What the hell was that???
Me: ISM opened up a triple-word for you, you ungrateful hag. What did SUQ do for me?
M: You wasted an S! You could have had SUQ too!
Me: Hey, lady, how about for once you open the board up, huh? What, you need to BEAT MY ASS A FEW MORE TIMES? Thousands of wins haven’t been enough for you?
That was met with dead silence. I knew it was a terrible sign. Although I had 10 points on her in my final play, once again the wily Scrabble demon beat my ass down.
M haunts my dreams with her stealthy Scrabble ways. Because of the time difference, I often go to bed thinking I’ve got the game in the bag, only to wake up the next morning, while she’s still sleeping peacefully on the West Coast, to find she’s fucked me yet again.
I have threatened to fly there and rough her up, but she only giggles. In short, this Dark Scrabble Queen cannot be defeated. You have been warned.
p.s. The above photo was posted for no other reason except that it’s hilarious.
1. When did you completely lose all your table manners and disregard the practice of keeping food IN your mouth while eating? You do realize the reason you choke and cough all the time is because you insist on talking while your mouth is trying to chew, yes?
2. When did you lose your sense of smell and start the daily habit of pouring half a bottle of perfume/after shave on your head? Additionally, while I appreciate your spraying of air freshener after you drop a bomb in the terlet, it is not necessary to deploy the contents of the entire can. You wanted to know why the flowers in the hallway died? It’s because you replaced all the air with Renuzit and the only choices it had were mutate or die.
3. When did you decide it would be appropriate to dig a tunnel to China, starting in your nose? I seem to recall having my hands swatted away from my face when I did this as a child, yet every time I look over at you I am greeted with the sight of your finger buried to the knuckle up your fucking nose. Followed by a complete and thorough sweep of the nostril cavity, accomplished by you rotating your finger 180 degrees in each direction. The visual is rather alarming you know, and YES, that child was staring at you and I suspect it was because it looked like you were bowling with marbles up there.
4. Why must you stand right next to me in front of a restaurant hostess and loudly fart, several times, in gas powered engine fashion? Just because you have perfected the Innocent Look when engaged in such molecular assault, does not mean the rest of the immediate vicinity did not just hear your ass make sounds akin to the ripping of bedsheets. Oh, and your remarks of, “It doesn’t stink” does not make it so.
5. Why is it necessary to click and suck on your teeth 23 hours of every day? One of you carries toothpicks everywhere and the other has removable teeth, so I am truly puzzled as to why you constantly make sounds like giant crickets. Bonus: watching you pick your molars with a steak knife!
6. Why did you bring a separate suitcase full of shoes yet refuse to walk further than the driveway? I know what you’re up to, you plan on leaving your shit at my house after you leave just to irritate me. I see you.
7. Why do you continually fall asleep in front of the TV yet refuse to take a nap or go to bed? And why do you instantly start making hissing sounds if you catch someone else napping? WHY IS NAPPING SUCH A CRIME?? Related: when you fall asleep sitting at the dinner table because you refuse to take a nap, THAT is why your fucking neck hurts. (stop blaming my pillows, kthx).
In closing, do you have a copy of my birth certificate to prove we are actually biologically related? Just curious….
I have noticed a weird thing about this city — men always run with their shirts off. In the summer, I noticed it a lot, more than I have ever noticed it in any other place in the world. Along the Mall, on the leafy trails of Rock Creek Park, along the tidal basin — men running shirtless.
You would think a pent-up old cougar like me wouldn’t mind such a thing. But in fact, it annoys me. Firstly, not all runners are built like Calvin Klein underwear models and should be showing it off — some have pasty, jiggly, hairy man boobs. Secondly, it’s autumn now, not that warm anymore, so put a bloody shirt on. It is 62 degrees here today and some guy just ran past my house shirtless and I almost heckled him: “Nobody wants to see that!!!”
But mostly it’s the inequality that burns me. If women manage to run during a heatwave wearing a shirt, then men should do it as well.
This Friday, I am going on a trip to Turkey for a week. I am looking forward to Turkish baths, the market, some culture and history, and most of all, some sun. The Boy Person and I booked an all-inclusive resort for what I can say was a seductive price, and we are primed and ready for a week off of work and some serious B&B time (Booze & Beaches).
The only fly in the sunscreen, which is not really a snag but sort of an inconvenience, is my little “anxiety attack.” In more clinical terms, I mean my “spells,” those wee dashes of the vapors I get when it comes to packing. While I am somewhat prone to spells in general, and have a glass pill bottle of modern remedy in urgent hand, I don’t understand exactly why the act of packing for a trip – any trip – sends me into a swoon.
I understand that when other people have a weekend away (I’ve witnessed this), they gaily toss two pairs of socks, a toothbrush, some fresh undies, and a travel guide into their bag, and declare themselves ready for action (I have found this sort is typically male, and they will readily borrow your deodorant and clean tee-shirt when they have none, which your nostrils usually regard as worth the sacrifice). There are also people, like my friend Kadinsky, who have packing down to an art form, and are miraculously prepared for any situation - be it dinner at the Ritz or mountain rescue - by the virtue of one smartly-packed bag,
I think of these two types as the Nonchalant (the former), and the Superhero (the latter), and however much I might wish to emulate either, it is a psychological impossibility for me. I have read articles on packing; I make pre-trip lists that document exactly how many band-aids I will need for my blisters and AA batteries I will need for my camera; I attempt to pack a week in advance, for a trial run: And yet, none of this helps. (more…)
I write to you this morning, with trepidation and dread occupying the space where heavily creamed coffee should go – someone was heinous enough to use all the cream and so I suffer — for in a few hours my parents will be here and are staying for a week. I don’t enjoy my parents’ visits, last year they came at Christmas and (over)stayed for 2 weeks and it damn near killed me. I managed to come up with enough lies and excuses this time and have limited the stay to 7 days. Still, I may find myself eyeing up the car keys, sure that I will be able to enact an Escape TO L.A. scenario if only to stock up at this handy new KFC. No, no, no Colonel’s chicken found here, this KFC stands for Kind for Cures, a medical marijuana dispensary newly opened in an old KFC restaurant in L.A. Mmmm, Finger lickin’.
Here is my fun new game. It’s called: Let’s compare healthcare costs! It’s very simple. In the comments, write down what you have to pay for healthcare. Why? Because we all need to compare what the average person is paying, and the more answers we get, the more we learn (and if you live outside the United States, please do weigh in). Here’s an example! I was talking to my parents last night, both of whom are self-employed (this makes it extra fun) and it turns out that their price per month, which has been $2,000 (and that’s just for the two of them!), is being increased to $2,500 a month. As Wayne and Garth would say, “Whoooaaaaa!”
And as my Mom said, since I caught her and Dad in the midst of reconfiguring their finances, “It would be really nice if we could put that money towards something else like, say, retirement.” I agree, Mom! After, all, this is my inheritance we’re talking about (cue laughter).
I’m not linking to anything, because I don’t have to. I’m just angry. The UK may take 30-some% of my wages in taxes, and I may bitch about the NHS all the livelong day, but I am absolutely shocked that my parents are being extorted like this. Also, my dad is a doctor, and do you know how often doctors go in for medical treatment? If you have one in your family, you’ll know that the correct answer is never.
I don’t know about you, but my blood is simmering to a nice boil. Fortunately, I live in the UK, so I can see someone for that. If you live in the States and your own blood is boiling, let’s hope it’s not a pre-existing condition because, well, you’re shit out of luck, aren’t you?
So despite my gentle protestations, the Trimbles insisted on having a “welcome to the hood” party for me and my poor frightened son this weekend. After Vern’s attempts to recruit the boy into his evangelical cult, we were both kind of weirded out and pissed off as the day of the party dawned. Because of the party, I couldn’t work up the nerve to phone up the Trimbles the night before and tell Vern to back off on his recruitment efforts.
But we went anyway, and thankfully, the party was filled with normal people who seemed well aware that the Trimbles were freaks. There were many raised eyebrows and as one women left, she took me aside, told me she wanted to have us over for dinner and whispered: “We’re not church people!”
There were liberals who worked for non-profit anti-poverty organizations!!! A former NPR journalist who now works for a sustainable energy lobby group! A guy who works revising tax policy for low-income Americans at the Commerce Department! A huge extended family of Orthodox Jews who were pro-health-care reform! A 91-year-old African-American man and his wife who were born in Mississippi, survived segregation and talked about how much it meant to them to see Obama win the presidency as Vern twitched visibly. There was someone whose family lives in Alaska — a real Sarah Palin-despiser who had actually met her and reported she was even dumber and crazier in person than she was in public. Again with the Vern Twitch!
But the best part was this huge gaggle of Jewish little girls who were ooohing and aaaahing over my red open-toe pumps. Could they try them on, they wanted to know as their mothers chuckled? Did I have other shoes like that, they asked? What about stilettoes, they asked? Could they come over and look at all my shoes, they pleaded??
I agreed, and we marched across the street, me with about 15 girls ranging in age from four to 13, and they went nuts when they saw my shoes. I ended up giving away about six pairs because they were so cute, I couldn’t resist, and told them they could come over any time and play dress up with my shoes and outfits and jewellery.
All in all, a successful party. Now I just have to muster up the nerve to tell Vern to back off next time he asks my son to go to church again.
AMC’s hit drama Mad Men won at the Emmy’s last night, and I’m going to take a moment to pay tribute not only to an incredibly rich and enthralling show (it’s the only show where I immediately watch the episodes twice so as to absorb everything) but to finally seeing a curvy and gorgeous woman front and center. Not Beth Ditto curvy, not Camryn Manheim curvy (which she dieted away as soon as possible), not Scarlett Johansson “curvy” – I mean an actual hourglass figure with HIPS and BREASTS and the slight, softly rounded-and-ever-so-sexy-because-it-means-she-is-not-made-of-plastic tummy and an actual ASS. I present to you, the gorgeous Christina Hendricks.
Tomorrow the Trimbles are holding a neighbourhood party for me and my son. So what great timing! Today Vern went too far.
I knew they were aiming to recruit us. The guy who owns the place called last week and warned me they were evangelicals. Nice people, he said, and good neighbors for purely practical reasons, but they do indeed want to bring people into the fold.
So today my son was out playing basketball and as Vern does every time, he came over to talk to the boy. He told him he watches him play basketball all the time — that’s not a weird thing to say to a 15-year-old boy, no, not at all. And then he asked him to come to church with him tomorrow morning. This is two weeks after he tried to get him to come to some other church event involving teenaged boys.
This bugs the shit out of me. I really find it intrusive and offensive. They haven’t asked me to come to church yet, and it bugs me that they’re approaching my son without discussing it with me. My son is totally weirded out by Vern in particular and I don’t blame him. But I actually don’t know how to handle it.
My son didn’t know what to say and so told Vern he would ask me about church. And so I am now going to have to phone over, on the eve of a party they’re having for us, to say no, my son will not be coming to church with them tomorrow. These people are hard core, so there will be questions. And I need advice on what to say.
I thought of this: “Canadians aren’t big church-goers. We practise our religion privately and personally, and we’re not even really comfortable discussing it. We appreciate the offer, but it’s not something either one of us are interested in.” Anyone have anything better to say? I have managed not to mention here that I am an atheist. They’d probably burn the house down.
I was saying to my son that I wish, when Minnie asked me when I first moved in here if I was Jewish, that I’d said yes. But the other night one of the Orthodox Jews who lives down the street knocked on my door, told me he saw on the invitation that I was Jewish (Jewish last name, I guess, but we’re not Jewish), and asked if I wanted to come to the synagogue with them this week. I politely declined, explaining I was not Jewish, and thanked him.
Never in 44 years living in Canada did anyone try to get me to worship with them. This is a strangely American phenomenon that I don’t really understand. Isn’t religion, or even believing or not believing, a really personal thing? It seems to me something you don’t push upon people. If I was religious and wanted to tag along or know more about their places of worship, I would have asked.
It also burns my ass that you cannot be considered a person of ethics and integrity and responsibility unless you believe. I know extremely kind, ethical and charitable atheists (there’s lots of us in Canada), and I know some nasty, hateful, sleazy believers.
This Friday, I am going on a trip to Turkey for a week. I am looking forward to Turkish baths, the market, some culture and history, and most of all, some sun. The Boy Person and I booked an all-inclusive resort for what I can say was a seductive price, and we are primed and ready for a week off of work and some serious B&B time (Booze & Beaches). 
Here is my fun new game. It’s called: Let’s compare healthcare costs! It’s very simple. In the comments, write down what you have to pay for healthcare. Why? Because we all need to compare what the average person is paying, and the more answers we get, the more we learn (and if you live outside the United States, please do weigh in). Here’s an example! I was talking to my parents last night, both of whom are self-employed (this makes it extra fun) and it turns out that their price per month, which has been $2,000 (and that’s just for the two of them!), is being increased to $2,500 a month. As Wayne and Garth would say, “Whoooaaaaa!”
