Friday, November 11, 2011

Remembrance Day 11/11/11

To every soldier standing tall,
on distant lands, where heroes fall
so far removed, the honored brave
lie exiled in a foreign grave,
who heard a higher call.

A spirit lost in serving all
is now a name writ on a wall
for some, a need to serve and save
in blood their names are signed.

Remains placed in a hallowed hall
each death still casts a bitter gall.
No vengeance do the fallen crave
for sacrifice they gladly gave;
but never solace from the pall
for those they left behind.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Not Just Another Pretty Face

This has been such a busy week for me and for the family. Jerry had a gallbladder attack recently and was found to have a gall stone, so had to have surgery to remove the stone and his gallbladder. The whole process was particularly difficult for us as a family. It wasn't so much that Jerry was in pain and had to have surgery, because, let's face it, he wasn't donating a kidney or anything so he healed up rather quickly. Rather, it was the fact that gallstones usually occur in women overweight and over forty, so I was rocked with feelings of both guilt and gratitude that it wasn't me. Jerry came through like a champ, and even asked the doctor to let us keep the gallstone so that we could sell it on Ebay if it resembled a religious deity or Elvis or someone else in high demand. Smart thinking since our social security money was already spent before we were born.


Jerry has been trying to rest and heal from surgery, so that has allowed me time to catch up on various activities, not the least of which is reading the news online. I enjoy perusing different news websites and learning about all of the nutty things that go on in the world. My interests are random and diverse, so I read about everything from freezing places to pleasing faces, which is how I got to this point in the first place.


With Jerry resting in a drug induced stupor, er, like a trooper, I took the opportunity to catch up on everything that I had missed in world events. A headline caught my eye, 'Here's Looking at You.' My first thought was that some idiot was going to remake Casablanca so I clicked on the link, determined to devote my life to stopping such horror from taking place, but I was confronted by a different horror altogether. There, on the screen, was an ultrasound picture of a tumorous testicle, containing what appeared to be a human face in it! An not just any face, but a face that looked like a sinister mash up of Rodney Dangerfield, Marty Feldman, and Abe Lincoln. I'll call it 'Maybe Drinkin.'


I was so creeped out that not even drinking would help me. Nothing would make me unsee Jack in the sack, the ghoul in his jewel, the SMUT IN HIS NUT!!!!!! And as upsetting as the sight was for me, I am sure that the Planter's Peanut guy is really having a hard time facing this.

This seems to have started in Canada when a patient sought medical advice for pain in his groin, specifically, in his, um, badoobies. So he agreed to an ultrasound to determine the cause of the misery, and the doctors were confronted with what they could only call 'the face of testicular pain.' One doctor was quoted as saying, " It looked like a man screaming in pain, which I thought was hilarious, considering the clinical picture of the poor guy." So, ignoring any moral implications (as I often do), Dr. Jack Kervorkian spent eight years in jail for trying to end the suffering of terminally ill patients, and this urologist is laughing at what appears to be a man screaming in pain in some poor guy's ball bag?

The urologist went on to say that he briefly considered that the face might be that of a religious figure or mythical deity, such as Min, the Egyptian god of male virility, and that name is the only thing in the doctor's whole news, er, release, that is even remotely appropriate. Let's face it, the poor patient is in pain. And I don't mean like a paper cut or stubbed toe....he has pain in his cojones, and now he finds out that he's toting around a tumorous face in his scrotum. And does he get the face of Brad Pitt or some other hottie? No, he gets the testicular equivalent of the one-eyed Jack and the medical James Bond reject, Dr. No He Dint!

After reading this gem of a story, I was actually relieved that Jerry's gallbladder surgery turned up nothing more than a gallstone. No Sly and the Family Stone, no Stone Phillips, no Kid Rock. That's good, works for us. And as for our Canadian friend, a hospital spokesperson said that he isn't terribly interested in his rad nads. Still, he could try to say that it's 'Bally Idol' and sell it on Ebay....

"Balls have got a face, he's strangely out of place, Balls have got a face...."

Nah. That's just nuts.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

It's the End of the World as We Know It, and I Feel Slightly Drunk....

"Don't blame yourself. The Apocalypse wasn't your fault. Actually, it was just as much your fault as it was anyone elses's. Come to think of it, if you're an American, it was probably about 80-90 percent more your fault than the average human. But don't let that get you down. It wasn't exclusively your fault. Unless you're the president. Then it might be your fault. But you'll have plenty of interns to tell you it wasn't, so you'll be fine." Meghann Marco

Hello, blog followers. This will be our last exchange since the world is slated to end THIS EVENING AT 6:00 PM EST!!!! I have no delusions of Heavenly grandeur, which leads me to believe that you, my dear friends and loyal readers will, for the most part, be taken up to Heaven, leaving my sorry ass behind to go through 5 months of horrible tribulation. And thats fine, because after 15 years in call center customer service, 5 months doesn't seem so bad.

I am hopeful that I will be one of those chosen to shuffle off this mortal coil, but I'm not holding my breath. The first indication that I wouldn't be chosen came to me when I heard that the END IS NEAR, so I called my mortgage company to cancel the upcoming pre-scheduled payment. Of course they asked why I was canceling my payment.

Screw you! The world is ending on May 21 at around 6pm.....that mortgage payment will buy Kendall Jackson 'communion wine' and a buttload of junk food. I'm going out fat, happy, and loaded.

Click, dial tone, Boooooooooooooooooooooop.

Hello? Hello?

Little do they know that when I get called up to my great reward, they'll have a devil of a time selling this house....no pun intended.

So I'm here waiting for the end, and I even cleaned my house today. You might be asking why but my in-laws are coming to visit, albeit briefly, and I want things to look nice. Besides, whatever sinner buys the house, well, I want it to look nice. I haven't said anything to Jenda. No use getting her upset. Besides, I can just hear how that conversation will go....

Jenda, Sweetie, the world is going to end tonight. God is calling all of his faithful home.

"Oh jeepers, Mommy, you're going to cook tonight, aren't you?"

So I am leaving her out of this. Of course earlier today, I was searching the internet to get information about the upcoming Rapture. I learned that we should feel a catclysmic earthquake at approximately 6:00 pm EST, so I added Jerry Lee Lewis's 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On' to my rapture song list. Poor Jenda is already traumatized thinking that she has to eat my cooking tonight, but while doing my research, I came across a headline on one of the news sites....CNN or MSNBC or one of those.....

"Church of the End Times Plans for the Future."

WTF?????

What possible plans could you have for the future if you just KNOW you are one of the chosen few? I mean, in my case, if I am one of the select, my plans for the future entail seeing my Mother, who, GOD rest her soul, passed away in 1995. And I also plan to ask GOD why kids get cancer, and can we stop that, and why do people still treat Gays and Lesbians so badly, and why are hot-fudge Sundaes bad for you but oat bran is good...? If I get called to Heaven, I damn sure have an agenda. That being said, I probably won't make it.

So I am here with my 'communion wine' and putting together my End Of The World (EOTW) playlist....here is what I have so far....

Europe- The Final Countdown
Skeeter Davis- End of the World
Elvis- Waiting for the End of the World
Iron Maiden- The Number of the Beast
The Doors- The End
Tom Waits- The Earth Died Screaming
Blondie- Rapture
and finally....Eric Carmen- All By Myself (sad but true!)

So I feel reasonably certain that I'll still be here when all Hell breaks loose. If you need me to look after your children or look after any of you, for that matter, just let me know. I expect that I'll be turning the lights off. Say your prayers, get right with your Higher Power, and know that I love you all verrrrrr............................

Monday, January 10, 2011

Captain Kirk is a Big Fat Liar!

For my friends who are fans of science fiction, this is in no way an attack on Star Trek or any other space themed show. Rather, it is a warning that not all things are what they seem, and sometimes our childhood heroes are full of it!
Having said that, I understand that all good things eventually come to an end. Designing Women went off the air. Crayola got rid of ‘maize’ and ‘raw umber.’ And apparently, all of the cast of ‘The Waltons’ are in some kind of witness protection program, because no one has seen any of them since 1981. But it’s nice to think back on these simpler days and the things and characters we held dear, because they represent, at least for me, a certain continuity and integrity that have stayed with me through the years. Which brings me to that ass-monkey, Captain Kirk.
Bearing in mind that everything has a beginning and an end, I can understand that James T. Kirk had to find another gig to pay the bills after he got booted off the Enterprise. I admired his stint on Rescue 911, really, not so much because of the positive impact the show had, but because he looked so uncomfortable so obviously encased in that full body girdle and I could identify with that. (Okay, I still can!) Of course, this show, too, ended, so Capt. Kirk, being a famewhore and food addict (I totally get that, too!) decided to take whatever job he could get. So he ended up with Pricelie, er, PriceliNe. And that is where the trouble really begins.
Captain Jerk now makes a living convincing Middle America that cheap hotel rooms are simply amazing. In fact, he encourages reasonably mild-mannered people to go online and show their asses anonymously to get cheap hotel rooms even more cheaply. It seems like a good thing, until you remember that you get what you pay for, and even our childhood television heroes will do what it takes to make a buck. Here is a case in point.
My father came to North Carolina recently to visit us and to take our daughter Jenda back to Florida for a visit. Since we already had a full house and he knew that Princess Jenda travels with more baggage than the Astors and Vanderbilts combined, he decided to venture into Kernersville and stay in a hotel for the night before driving back to Florida with Princess Jenda. My father can never be accused of being tech-savvy, but apparently he was feeling his oats, or he was smoking them, because he decided to book his hotel room on Priceline. The hotel that was recommended was rated five stars. Unfortunately, that must have been on a scale of 200.
Priceline suggested the 5 star rated Dudley Inn. After having seen it, I realize that the name was a misnomer, as it should actually be called Deadly Inn. I say having seen it, but that’s not entirely accurate. From the outside, it looks rather normal. It’s not the Trump Towers, but the outside is okay. So far, Captain Kirk is okay. Step inside and he moves from zeitgeist to shit list. See, when you walk into a hotel lobby and realize that all of the potted plants are fake, and THEY’RE dead, it dawns on you that there is a serious problem, and that creepy tingling up and down your spine is not the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. Which brings me back to my poor Dad.
He went to the front desk to check in and was told that they should have a room ready by now. Being that he had booked the room, he couldn’t understand why the room might not be ready, but he was still under the assumption that the hotel was a five star rated inn, so he went along with it, dead silk plants aside. What can I say, after a twelve hour drive, he was tired and decided that the lobby simply needed cleaning. So he paid for one night and got a key to a room on the third floor.
Naturally, there were no working elevators, so he schlepped upstairs with his overnight bag and opened the door. The first thing he noticed was the smell. Being a Viet Nam era veteran, he immediately recognized the smell of decomposing flesh. Now, Daddy doesn’t scare easily, but peering cautiously into the room, he saw unidentifiable stains on the carpet, so he backed out, went back downstairs, and asked for another room.
“What’s wrong with the one we gave you?”
Well, I think the last guy never checked out and rigor mortis is still setting in. What else do you have?
The night manager sent one of the desk clerks with Daddy to try another room. They went to another room that was occupied by a number of people that Daddy hoped were just here illegally. Then on to the third room. This one had a headboard that had fallen down from where it had once been nailed to the wall. They finally found a fourth room that had no towels. This wasn’t a huge problem since there was no running water and there was something growing all over the toilet that Daddy could only describe as MRSA on crack.
By this time, Daddy realized the sun was coming up and he decided that it would be better to just come on over, crash on the loveseat and deal with a house full of people rather than a motel full of as yet undiscovered dead bodies and unclassified diseases. He showed up on our doorstep at the butt-crack of dawn asking for a hot shower, a place to sleep, and massive doses of antibiotics. I was able to oblige on all counts, after putting him through a decontamination process similar to those at Chernobyl. After a few hours of sleep, he and Jenda got on the road. I loaded them up with Lysol spray and Clorox wipes, so I know they left all the public restrooms between North Carolina and Florida much cleaner than they found them, which isn’t saying much.
After a fun-filled vacation, wherein Jenda cleaned out Dad’s bank account, she came back home to us, and Dad decided to stay with us instead of taking his chances with another Bates Motel knock off. Of course my house isn’t nearly as nice as the Bates Motel, or as neat and clean, but that’s another story. The fact of the matter is that I would sooner believe Norman Bates than Captain Kirk. But Kirk gets away with it. And no wonder….
As Norman Bates once said, “I think [he] must have one of those faces you can’t help believing.”