choose wisely

today i have a little story to share that's funny, gross, and sad all at the same time. i can't say it's inspired by my dad, because that's not really accurate. but suffice it to say that there is a connection to him, even though it only began with a name.

when i was a little girl, about nine or ten years old, i was taught that rodents would make perfect pets. my mother was strictly against dogs or cats for a few years, and during that time she educated myself and my brother about the wonderful joys that small furry creatures can bring into one's life. i still don't know if she immediately regretted doing so, or if that feeling of making a horrible mistake overcame her slowly, like a chill creeping up her spine and finally piercing her brain in a way that only a ghastly revelation can.

we had a gerbil named fluffy. maybe she didn't like her name so much, or maybe she just didn't like when my brother would force her to run in his greyskull castle like a maze. either way, she definitely did love to claw the shit out of our delicate children's hands.

after my mom decided that she was allergic to fluffy, spontaneously, then came the hamsters. they were ok, i guess. until they started breeding. i'm not prepared to relive that nightmare just yet. i can still smell the cedar chips if i close my eyes and think long enough about it, and not in a good way. besides, the real story comes after the evil sex-addict hamsters, so i'm just going to keep moving here.

next was a mouse. somehow i managed to convince my mom that mice make outstanding pets. we brought home a little grey fellow with a white spot on his head. i named him louis, which is my father's middle name. i can't explain why i was compelled to give the innocent mouse this name. even today, it makes me wonder if i knew he was doomed from the moment he entered out house, paralleling my father's life in so many ways.

in the beginning, things went great. louis was as happy as a mouse could be. he was fed and cleaned and loved. he was doing so well, in fact, that he was getting noticeably stronger. it wasn't long before he escaped his little cage and ventured forth into our house on his own.

i absolutely forbade my mother from trapping him. i wanted louis to be able to enjoy his freedom and flourish among us, rather than be captured and set outside where who knows what could harm him. i think my mom set traps for him anyway. but we went almost two months with louis scurrying around throughout the house, our shy little roommate.

he grew to the size of a small rat, the white patch on his head the only identifying mark of his former semblance.

then one day my mom decided to bake some cupcakes.

do you remember as a child, smelling the chocolaty cakey goodness of cupcakes warming in the oven, the scent wafting through your home as if on a mission to distract you?

i've lost that memory. for on that fateful day, as the cupcake batter rose and thickened in the little paper cups, the odor coming from our oven was nothing short of nauseating. a foul stench clouded our kitchen and grew more intense by the minute. my young mind had no imagery yet disturbing enough to associate with the mystery smell.

it was bad enough for my mom to call the appliance repair man. as he disassembled the oven, he discovered louis' nest. the clever guy had built his home inside the wall of our oven. it kept him warm and cozy for the few winter months he had spent there. unfortunately, it was his bad luck to wake up from a nap and venture out at the exact time that my mother had turned on the oven.

at first, i was so angry at my mother for cooking my beloved pet. although, with time, i eventually accepted that louis' life was somehow destined to meet a volatile end. what good could possibly come of overindulging and living in an environment that is in no way natural to your species? no, louis probably would have been much better off out in the wilderness of our backyard, using his innate instincts to guide him through the perils of a normal mouse's existence.

for that i am sorry louis.

i can only hope my father doesn't end up cooked, figuratively, as a result of his poor choices. but only time will tell what his fate is destined to be.

i have an endless supply of bullshit in my catalog

i usually despise lying. the whole moral objection part is one reason, but also because i'm a horrible liar. i get all sweaty and flushed in the face. this ridiculous nervous giggle erupts from me in spasms, like a bad twitch that i have no control over, accompanied by the cheesedick grin that only looks more awkward as i try to straighten my uncooperative lips out.

once in a while, under extreme circumstances, i can pull off a lie. but usually only if it's for a really good reason, like for example, a dumbass practical joke.

now, i'm by no means what you'd call a prankster. i generally think that stuff is pretty annoying. the whole 'salt in your coffee' thing needs to stop, it's not funny people!

that was for my co-workers. i got it off my chest and now i feel better.

right, back to my point. i was about to tell you the story of my most successful prank/joke of all time. which, you might find slightly immature, but i was thoroughly impressed with myself about.

it was about 2002ish, and i was out of college but still young enough to go to college bars and not be the creepy old-er lady getting her drink on. i was living at my mom's house with her and her lame bf and three motherfuckingdisgusting cats. one was named ass. he had a leaky pooper.

one day my little eye spied a catalog lying amidst the mail for mom's bf. it was international male. i think they've change the name since then, but they sell things like this:


and this:


oh, and also this:


because you don't have the pleasure of reading the lovely captions for these pics i'll tell you that the middle one is called mansilk and the last one is called pistol pete.

as you can imagine, the first idea that came into my head was 'how can i share this comedy genius with other people?'

naturally, myself and my friend amanda, who looked incredibly mature and not at all like a skanky 22-year old, brought it out to the bar with us that night. you know the place, you've been there. two hundred people squished into an old house-come-bar, spilling out onto the patio. the floor permanently sticky from who knows how many years of spilled alcohol seeping into the hardwood, and every frat boy in town wearing his white hat with some logo on it to match his uniform of khaki cargo shorts and fitted t-shirt.

i folded the international male and stuck it in the back pocket of my calvins, waiting for someone to take the bait.

it wasn't long. a chipper fellow approached me with a twisted grin, 'so what's that in your back pocket?'

my first victim.

i casually informed him that i worked as an intern for the company. the less i talked the more intriguied he became. finally, i gave him what he was waiting for.

'well, to be honest, it's really stressful right now. the underwear model that we wanted to use just cancelled for another job and now we're stuck with this massive photo shoot for the new season and no model. my boss wanted me to find someone who would be willing to drop everything and go to the bahamas for four days on less than 24 hour's notice. she just doesn't get it, people have lives. they can't just up and leave to prance around in a thong for four days, even if it is all paid for.'

his eyes lit up like the griswold's house at christmas.

playing right into my game, he offered to be the model for me. he'd probably be able to talk to his teachers and get out of class for a few days...

i told him we'd (me and my colleague) have to talk about it for a minute.

(cut to half an hour later)

almost every guy in the bar is now standing in a line next to our table, some holding offerings of beer and shots of every variety. they are, in turn, pulling up their shirts to show us their abs, hoping that we might choose them to work as the international male underwear model.

we were professional, no touching or flirting. simply taking fake notes next to bad nicknames written on a bar napkin.

by the end of the night, we had had our fill of drinks and amusement. we left the bar, having stayed in charater the whole time.

i guess maybe it's only a real practical joke when you clue the victim in on the fact that it's a joke. but i'm not claiming to be the joke master over here, so we bailed and left a few dozen frat boys with false hopes of making it big in thong modeling.

or maybe the joke was on me after all. did the drunken boys really buy my load of crap? or were they just trying to talk to two chicks in a bar who weren't in their art history class?

who cares, i had fun. and it was also fun to reminisce about this story with kristine last night at her house. as she perused the website, i walked out of the room to talk to b. he was calling to make sure we weren't getting into any trouble, and i had to get away from the junk pics to be able to have a conversation. 'talk' might not be the best word. i probably should say snorted/laughed hysterically when i heard kristine scream 'ewwww, i see penis!!' from the other room.

nearly a decade later, and i still crack up at junk holders. and that, unfortunately, is not a lie.

there's no segue good enough for this mess

i'm back blog, did you miss me?! whatever, not like i have anything earth shattering to talk about, just a few random stories of weirdness. but before i get started, i have to send a huge thanks to kristine for hooking me up with a funny and nostalgic post and reminding me that my shoulders used to be real bony. and also a hello and thanks for stopping by(!) to the new readers that she may have lured over here with promises of who knows what.

after my much needed mini vaca to cape cod, i returned home to jump right back into my routine of work and more work. saturday night i was catering a wedding for about 300 people. the decor looked strikingly similar to the wedding scene in beetleguese, but the blood red calla lilies and black lamps on the tables wasn't the weird part. what struck me as being a little over the top, not to mention an unnecessary mixing of genres, was the troupe of midgets dressed up as oompa loompas.

those little guys were lingering in the kitchen, watching us plate up 300 pain-in-the-ass tiny little plates of a dessert sampler, in full costume. when i first saw them i almost giggled and clapped, but then i realized just how out of place they were. they didn't talk much. in fact, they all looked extremely bored and put out. maybe that was their defense against the question we were all dying to ask, 'what exactly are you guys going to be doing here?'

i never found out. by the time my boss said 'aqui, chula, take some chickens for your husband' their act had yet to start.

maybe that's for the better anyway, those fuckers always scared the shit out of me in the movie.



as i related the story of my night to b, he reminded me about another uncomfortable food-related situation. it must have been last summer, because i was in that 'i'm so pregnant my baby might come out if i fart too loudly' condition, and also because we were at the hospital for the baby classes. being unable to waddle too far, we ate lunch at the hospital cafeteria. b ordered two hot dogs, thinking that that was a reasonable request.

what he got looked like this:



i know that's a piss poor job of photoshopping two hot dogs into one bun, but it really was the best i could find. no, what b got was actually worse. it was two sorry looking naked dogs nestled into one bun, but they gave him two. so on his plate were two buns and four dogs. the chick behind the counter looked at him like he had three heads when he asked for two more buns.

the real humor was the fact that he ate the weird dogs out of desperate hunger.

he felt so dirty afterwards, like as if someone had made him watch a bad porn or something else comparably naughty.

he made me promise not to tell anyone that he really ate the weird dogs.

sorry b.

even more bizarre than the double dog incident was the first time i met bill murray.



bill is a good friend of the restaurateur i used to work for. he was in and out of the different kitchens of the restaurants my former boss owned, and he even showed up to our summer picnic one year and played on our softball team.

as you can imagine, he's a total wacko in person. not only does he look about thirty years older than he really is, but he dresses in those old polyester blazers and shirts that look like the stereotypical garb an old, bumbling geezer would wear. i don't know if it's a deliberate effort or not, but it only adds to his oddball persona that he's developed over the years.

so the first time i met him i was working at my station, getting ready for dinner service. i was so intent on chopping scallions or whatever the fuck it was that i didn't even see him until he was about four inches from my face on the other side of the pass line (the shelf where you put plates for pick up). my boss introduced me to him and he mumbled something indiscernible and stuck two fingers at me through the pass, at about chin height.

two fingers for me to shake in some weird alternate version of a handshake.

i didn't even want to touch him, i almost yelled out loud 'what the fuck?!'

but i saw my boss nod subtly at the fingers and i just took a deep breath and did it. i shook his fingers and said some 'nice to meet you' crap, all the while wondering if this was something he did with everyone, or did he think that i couldn't handle exposure to all five digits on his right hand.

not that i dislike the man, but come on. two fingers?!

i still feel like scowling and shifting my weight uncomfortably when i think about it.

and now, some cuteness for a little balance:



little miss was way too annoyed about not being able to crawl after the dead jellyfish washed up on the beach to co-operate for a nice photo shoot. but these two in their tankinis was worth me stepping on a little dirty jelly and slimey seaweed.


of course, getting trapped by a rapidly rising tide with a stroller laden like a packing mule might have been a little too much. thanks miss, for at least not protesting to being carted over an acre of beach rocks while mommy scrambled for saftey.

my baseball post

you may not know this about me, but i grew up in a family of baseball fanatics. there was no other sport that we even paid attention to. when i was about eight years old, and my brother about six, no one could top ol' donnie baseball in our minds. darryl strawberry on the mets and jose canseco on the a's were up there too. we don't need to tarnish that childhood memory with where they ended up, so i'm just going to move along here.

now, with b being a mets fan, we enjoy a mutual love for our ny baseball teams. we still have to make it out to visit the new stadiums sometime this summer, although i have to say that i'm a little superstitious because every single time i've been to the old yankee stadium the guys lose. i might be a hex.

my point with all this is that i was super annoyed to read this crap in my local paper this morning about how they're auctioning off the fucking clumps of dirt from the old stadium.

i mean, i always kind of looked the other way when ticket prices kept going up and up and up. it's entertainment, and if that's the price you have to pay to enjoy it, so be it. but selling clumps of grass and pieces of a busted wall that that douche kevin brown punched a hole in, just to make a buck?

i can't decided who's the biggest tool, the yanks for looking at $$, the assclowns who pay for this stuff, or me for getting annoyed about it all when i really should have seen it coming a mile away.

speech therapy

this morning, as i sent my congratulatory 'YAY!' to kristine, via our perpetual scrabble game, for finally being able to present her 50-page MASTERpiece, i began to reminisce about all the many times i've had to present some work of mine in front of a class. now, nothing i have done can even come close to her intense MASTER research, but is more along the lines of trying not to get beat up or thrown in detention in high school.

the scariest assignment was when i had to work with the girl who was goth ahead of her time, back when everyone else was still rocking the lumberjack flannels and kurt cobain was alive. not only did she wear a plastic barbie doll leg with red sharpie on it to look like blood around her neck as a decorative accessory, but she also hated me. i was too scared of her to talk shit about her then, she just hated me because she could, i guess.

after two awkward afternoons at the local library where i spent the time reading the collected works and countless biographies of william blake, while she spent the time drawing pictures of me hanging from a noose (i'm assuming it was me, she got the bangs just right), i pretty much wrote my presentation and figured she could say whatever she wanted to after i talked. well, as it turned out, what she ended up saying was that i stole her speech and that she had nothing left to say. consequently she failed, and spent the rest of our time in high school giving me death looks and kicking my shins from under her desk.

there was also the time that and i got drunk on my free period from the convenient stash of my mom's foster's keg cans and then 40 minutes later was swinging my legs from my history teacher's desk babbling something about jacksonian democracy. kristine sat there burning me up and laughing the whole time because she knew how wasted i was. she got yelled at and i got an A+.

considering that my oratory skills seem to have been somewhat successful in the past, i find myself now wondering if there's a way that i can exploit my natural talent to work for me.

well, maybe there's no need for me to go that far, but at the very least i can spend ten years making this fabulous picture in paint instead of showering like i should be doing.

ps. i had to look up how to spell 'speech' in my scrabble game, just to make sure.

this is for you, punk!

in our house, punk is a term of endearment. just like the phrase 'do you need a beating?' which translates to 'stop being so cute or i'll have to beat you up'. angry fist shaking is never, EVER angry, it's always about 'how can you be SO CUTE?! i don't understand!!'

with that setting the tone, today is the two year anniversary of b and i getting married (even though it wasn't 100% legal the first time, we like to use this date because it's nicer) so i thought i'd share some of the highlights of our years together. i know i've alluded to that awesome pick-up line that started it all, and i think it's only fitting to begin there.

i'm 24, bartending at a local sports bar, annoyed that i have to make small talk to earn money, although flaunting my enormous tatas helped to reduce the amount of necessary small talk with certain customers. i've heard every line you could ever imagine, and was pretty proficient at the old 'fake smile, that's so funny! i'm rolling my eyes on the inside' move. and then b came in one night, gave me a few smiles for about an hour, and by the time he was sufficiently wasted, he blew my mind with 'hey, so, um, what do think about the property taxes over in sullivan county?'

this was pretty earth shattering because he was absolutely serious. he actually wanted to have a conversation. it was an instant connection, i answered him and then asked how long it took him to come up with a gem like that (which i already knew the answer to because it was on the front cover of the local paper sitting on the bar right next to him). we talked the whole rest of the night, and before he left he drew two stick figures on a scrap of paper, one with a word bubble that had his phone number in it, and gave it to me saying 'we should talk some more.'

i think it was maybe about ten days later, after spending every spare minute with him, that i knew i wanted to talk to him for the rest of my life. without getting all sappy, as i can easily do, i will say that we both feel lucky to have found someone we each love a little bit more every day.

we enjoyed ourselves, we went out partying a lot, and we made some wonderful friends.

we dressed up in costumes.



(b just looked over my shoulder and proclaimed, 'you're lucky it's our anniversary because there's no other way i would let you put that mess online.')

it wasn't long before we got an apartment together and i convinced b that we needed a dog. at first he wasn't so sure. but we went anyway and picked up our little monster at a shelter, putting him in a cardboard box in the back of my car. when he took a massive dump in the box, stepped all in the dump, and then put his shit paws all over b's shoulder, we knew we made the right choice.



then not long after monster showed up, we looked at each other one morning and decided to get married. a few months later we were in antigua, just us. no friends or family, it was perfect. we've never been the most romantic people, and this just felt so right to both of us.



i think it may have been the second that our plane landed back in new york that i became obsessed with having a baby. b was too, he was much more easily persuaded than with the whole 'let's get a dog' issue, as if he only had to fake putting up a fight this time because he thought that's how it was supposed to happen.



i'm so hardcore that i walked myself into the operating room for my c-section. no wheelchairs or gurneys here, thank you very much.



allow me to introduce little miss, also known as 'the fuss'.



she's been known to smile sometimes.

and here we are today, just two people being secretly mushy and in love on the inside, bitter and sarcastic on the outside just so that people don't think we're freaks because who could ever really be that happy, right?

happy anniversary babysnakes!!

*note: for those of you who may not already know, this is my b. that means don't get any ideas ladies, i once punched a chick in the throat... but do feel free to check it out and comment on how hilarious he is.

fun times

i haven't been skiing in over five years.

i love(d) skiing.

b never got into it, and that's probably why i stopped. i feel bad for my twice-used, practically still gleaming, kickass skiis that i bought the winter before i met b. i've been thinking about selling them, but i can't bring myself to do it. although i can't imagine when i'll be able to get away and really enjoy skiing again either.

i wonder if i'll still be any good. not that i was any good before. i did break a woman's nose once when i caught a nasty patch of ice. but whatever, i yelled 'oh shit watch out!' like fifty times before i hit her, she could have moved instead of standing there staring at me.

maybe i miss the independence of it all. or not because i never went skiing alone and didn't even like riding the chair lift alone.

what is it that i miss about it?

i think it's the whole being outside part and seeing snow covered mountains and all the fresh air. i was always the type to just eat a granola bar on the slope rather than go into the lodge and have lunch by the fireplace. but that's also because i'm lazy and hated removing and then replacing all the layers.

maybe i miss all the fun times i had with my friends when we went skiing. sure, kristine had a slow start, as we all did at some point, but it was a great way for us to bond. our friend teresa used to have the best songs for us to sing to distract us from the cold. there was also all the drinking involved in proper skiing, i.e. the 40 of old english (i can't believe i just typed that) in the car on the way to the mountain.

and now i just realized that we were those annoying jackasses on the slopes that everyone hates. so if anyone's in the market for some sweet atomics, 165's i think, let me know.

photo credit--kristine took this one on our last ski trip, forever ago

deep thoughts, way too deep

i love to try new things, and generally, the more spontaneous the notion, the better. i find the excitement and anticipation of experiencing something for the first time is addicting. this however, will usually dissipate entirely after i try whatever it is that i have lined up for myself.

i was probably about ten years old when i was really into horseback riding. and by 'really into' i mean that i begged my mom to take me because it looked like a lot of fun. so we went, once. not only did the mean old nag refuse to walk faster than the rate of the grass growing, but it bit me on my little pencil-sized arm after the ride. i had horse tooth imprints for two weeks. i quickly realized that the horse smell and perpetual fog of flies was not something i'd be willing to put up with if i pursued horseback riding.

next was water skiing. i guess my first mistake here was that it was in the hudson river. big foul. not only have mutant three-eyed fish been caught here, but it has long been used as a through-way to haul excess new york city garbage upstate for dumping. regardless of starting out with such a handicap, i gave it my all, for about an hour. after managing to get vertical maybe twice, and swallowing way more of the hudson than i was comfortable with, i gave up. only i chose the worst place in america to give up, the swampy side of the river with algae so thick that i was instantly enveloped in slime. as i sat there in the menacing goo, waiting for the boat to bring the rope around, my mind filled with images of all the little bugs and critters that called the algae home swarming all over my body. i was near hysterics by the time i was pulled from the water.

move along to sky diving. now this was one that i was really super excited about. it just sounded so brazen and yet whimsical at the same time. i was maybe 25 and for a very dear friend's birthday, myself and our third dear friend decided to jump out of a plane together. oh yeah, and we actually paid an additional $85 to have an extra person jump with each of us to record us on dvd. i don't even need to talk about what it felt like watching my friend disappear into the clouds, becoming infinitely smaller. but i will say that those instructors need to tell beginners that if you open your mouth really wide going 120 miles per hour, it makes it really hard to breath. so hard, in fact, that you can feel as if you're suffocating and convince yourself that you will arrive on the ground in a tragic heap of dead flesh and bones. that information would have been much more helpful than the jokes about my straps being loose. having made it to the ground safely, i vowed to never watch the dvd of my horrifying experience, although i can't bring myself to throw it away.

now i'm at a crossroads.

i am thoroughly intrigued by my cousin's practice of fire walking. it seems to be a challenge to purify your thoughts in such a focused way as to be able to walk across fire and emerge stronger rather than weakened by the flames.

as much as i want to conquer the fire, i don't want it to conquer me.

am i better off leaving this one alone, to let the idea live on only as a fantasy in my head? my track record speaks for itself, but have i come far enough in my life that i can overcome my own self?

this is the point at which my head explodes and i become the universe, as theodor learns in 'the mysterious stranger,' "nothing exists save empty space--and you."

i don't expect you to remember

'hey b, guess what today is?'

'uhhh, can you just tell me?'

'sure! today is the five year anniversary of the night we met.'

'awwww, really, five years already? i feel like i was in high school last week.'

'oh honey, those days are LONG gone. but i just realized myself what the date was and since my mind is full of useless details, i thought i'd share that one.'

'well i know our wedding anniversary, and all our birthdays because they're all in the same week, but are there any other dates that i need to keep track of?'

'may 19th was the day we brought monster home, if you want to count that because we never knew when his real birthday was. or don't because we could just as easily say he was born here on his gross chair.'

so here's to you b, and your amazing pick up line that has since led to the happiest five years of my life.

don't let the pineapple talk you into anything

today i'm going to be sharing my deep philosophical thoughts about the vast abyss that exists in my kitchen. it's a wasteland filled with forgotten food items, so depressing that when you gaze into its lonely world you are almost compelled to shed a tear. yes friends, i'm talking about my pantry.

in restaurant lingo, it's known as dry storage, or more commonly, that place to go when you want to raid the pastry department's stash of jellybeans and imported chocolates. in kitchens near and far, large and small, this is the dead zone of food. this is where you will actually find dust bunnies gathering on top of canned goods and bags of rice that seem to sigh if you touch them, exhausted by the effort of attempting to look appealing.

i have ventured forth into this dismal realm in hopes of either a) using some of the miscellaneous crap i have accumulated or b) throwing out (i mean, donating) those innocuous food items i must have purchased while delirious in my immediately post-partum phase.

this mission has brought to mind a certain anecdote about canned pineapple. my husband's sister, bridget, was telling us about the time she was at their parents' house and heard a loud sudden, banging noise. after careful inspection, she discovered that a can of pineapple chunks had mysteriously exploded in the pantry, spraying everything within a five foot radius with it's sticky syrupy bits. at which point in the telling of this anecdote my husband's brother, conor, jumps in with 'it was so tired of living there it killed itself!'

while i laughed so hard i cried a little at this story, i found myself wondering if i too, was driving any of my neglected consumables to suicide. when my eyes landed on the bag of barley, long passed it's expiration date (um, wtf is there an expiration on barley for anyway? it's just a grain, and if you keep it in an airtight container, or in the original bag with a paper clip holding it shut, it should be good for a long, long time, right?), i cooked it up for dinner, mostly to ease my guilt. it helped a little, but i needed to go further.

so far it hasn't been as bad as i thought it would be. i actually made black bean soup * the other night using canned beans. not only did it look exactly like the picture, but it tasted pretty good too. score one for the wasteland.

this small step in the right direction is what i needed to revitalize my pantry. i will make the commitment to keep things current if you, pantry, will promise to take your prozac and not let any 'accidents' happen on your watch. working together i know we can build a solid relationship based on mutual respect. no more will i stuff you with soups i never intend to eat, or 9 out of the 10 ingredients needed to make a recipe, doomed to perpetually being 'almost' used.

pantry, i'm here for you. we'll get through this rough time. and then, just when you're starting to show vibrant signs of life, i'll revert back to my old ways until the next passing moment of introspection strikes.

*note: i did modify the recipe slightly. i added an extra can of beans to the pureed part to make the soup a little thinker, and i think it was for the better. the soup needed it, and i got to use one more can from the pantry, everybody wins.

memories...

making the most of my daughter's nap time on this rainy afternoon, i am compulsively sorting and re-organizing my photos on my computer's hard drive for back-up before the wretched thing finally dies. this has naturally led me to rediscover some random memories i had long ago filed away in that 'did that really happen?' category.

the real stand out being this gem:


behold, the passenger-side mirror of my husband's late acura 3.0 cl.

yes friends, that is a muti-colored chenile yarn connecting the mirror to the door frame. it's accentuated with some lovely scotch tape holding the glass into the mirror frame. oh, and a big thanks to that very special valet parking attendant who so dillegently applied the scotch tape while all the other folks in their benzes looked on in disgust.

my husband loved that car.

he called it his tank. he could recount every story for all it's battle scars with vivid detail. i remeber the day he come home from work carrying that side mirror, asking me if i had any dark colored yarn in my knitting stash. i showed him various hues of blues and greens, and he said 'no, i need something to match my car.'

that yarn held up for almost a full year. but then one day, the very soul of the car seemed to sigh in defeat, and it never stirred again. it was ultimately towed away, making a huge spectacle at my husband's office, with the yarn still supporting it's burden.

i can only hope the new owner of that 1998 acura, with only 227,000 miles on it, can appreciate the love that was showered on it, and the joy it gave in return.

so if my piece-o-crap computer is good for anything these days, it can at least supply a chuckle on a dreay day. (although i can't wait for this thing to kick the bucket so i can go all office space on it's ass.)

i LOVE that song!

how many times does the miraculous connection between music and memory stop you in your tracks, dumbfounded at the resurgance of imagery long forgotten?

for me it's usually about once a week.

most recently i was driving, alone, singing along to a favorite tune from those awkward transition years between junior high and high school. mid-riff, i was instantly watching my life at 14 flash past me: the thrift store clothes shopping (because that was the cool thing to do), the trips to the mall where you ditch the responsible parent to hunt for boys with your very bestest friend, playing dress up in a mature way (i.e. wearing your mother's old hippie clothes to school just to be a little bit different).

every once in a while, a real gem emerges from these foggy bits and comes together at just the right time to create a moment more endearing in it's recollection than it ever could have been when it occured.

for me, this time, the moment was chris cornell's spellbinding voice leading into billy longfingers approaching his 'girlfriend' of the week at the bottom of the big hill, clutching spring dandelions in his unfortunate hands. the weeds, desperate to pass for real flowers, sagging despondently as he crushed their stems, forcing the yellow petals to look sullenly downward. it was tragic, humorous, and captivating all at the same time.

how memory actually works is a topic i have no desire to touch, but i will say that the fact that i can remember every word to a song i haven't heard in years yet can't leave my house without forgetting at least one essential item, speaks to the astounding way which we define our very selves with a musical soundtrack. to me, this is truly a remarkable form of theraputic release, aligning your current state of mind with someone else's words put to song, or perhaps i just want to justify playing 90's rock at a deafeningly loud volume. after all, who wouldn't?