"Because you're having a Renaissance? No one cares."

As I have pointed out, upon occasion, winter in New England is not a riveting time to be alive. Mostly it's just staying indoors, trying to avoid hypothermia, eating inappropriate snacks, drinking inappropriate drinks, and occasionally emerging to go to work and/or shovel snow. Except we haven't had much snow in these parts this year. I can't speculate whether this is the result of global warming or my decision to buy a snowblower near the end of last season.

And we engage in activities designed to alleviate the boredom. Playing Angry Birds. Having a Sports Night renaissance. Playing Rock Band. Catching up on TiVo time. And then there's the reading. The reading never stops. It reminds me of better days. Days spent on the deck with a cold beverage and something deliciously trashy on the Kindle.

Once again, the serial fiction has sucked me in, and the result is a sink still full of dishes, laundry not done, papers not graded, and an article not yet edited. That last one is okay, because it's not part of a bundle not technically due anywhere until September, but I'm going to need clean underpants and socks before September.

In the Salad Days of August 2011 Amazon sent me a Kindle Daily Deal offering me a book by Arnaldur Indridason for the low, low price of $1.99. Indridason is Icelandic and writes a series of mysteries about an Inspector Erlander who works in Reykjavik. Iceland is on my short list of places I want to go. (What can I say? I really liked The Sugarcubes' first album.) So I took the bait, and by the end of September I had polished off all of the Erlander books available in English. Not my usual rate, to be sure, but my reading was rudely interrupted by the end of summer vacation and, you know, my job.

There are two more Erlander books, but they haven't been translated, and Rosetta Stone doesn't offer Icelandic. And, yes, I checked.

This Daily Deal is Amazon's little scheme, though. They're like crack dealers over there, with the cheap samples and the intriguing recommendations. Sometime in November Amazon suggested to me that I might like Steig Larsson. I'd resisted The Girl With The Tattoo Who Set The Hornet's Nest on Fire books, because the last time I read fiction that was so wildly popular, it ended with the Twilight debacle.

But the recommendation was made, no doubt, based on my obsession with the Icelandic mysteries, or perhaps my obsession with Swedish Fish-- I don't know how Amazon calculates these things, and I don't want to know. Then the movie came out, and I wanted to see that because, you know, Daniel Craig, but I have this aversion to seeing movies based on books if I haven't read the book... and that brings us to today with the dirty dishes and the laundry and the neglected work.

And I still haven't seen the movie. I'd planned to go Saturday. Then I planned to go yesterday. But it was more important to me to stay at home and read the second and third books in the series. That's right. The masses aren't always wrong; turns out they were just wrong about Twilight.  Compelling plot and well-developed characterization trump even Daniel Craig. Sorry, Mr. Bond.

Heh... Ball Drop

Yesterday, before commencing the 15-hour (if I'm lucky) drive back from North Carolina, I had lunch with My Mandy and her two boys. This was a pleasant experience and my last chance to get a decent taco before returning to New England, where the opportunities for a good taco are surprisingly thin on the ground.

We ordered flan at the end of the meal, because opportunities for good flan in New England just don't exist at all. Mandy insisted the boys share her flan, but I got one of my own, which prompted the older son to remark, "I wish I could order my own flan."

"Well, kiddo," I said, "someday you will be older and you'll have a job and then you can order all the flan you want. That's the tradeoff. Your memory will turn to slush, and your face will sag down to your knees, but you'll be able to order whatever you want whenever you want."

Another advantage is that you don't have to worry about New Year's Eve. I mean, you CAN go out and play if you want to, but you no longer feel like you have to do anything. You can sit on the couch, and the hardest decision you'll have to make is whether to watch the marathon of The Walking Dead, or True Blood, or The Big Bang Theory.

You won't feel that you need to explain how you drove seven hours yesterday and eight more today, and now you are, as they say, knackered. You won't feel the need to try to remember any fun you ever had on previous New Year's Eves in order to prove that it is as overrated as the haters say it is.

You might have hazy memories of a party that didn't suck that might have happened in high school-- but that also could have been after graduation. You're just not sure, on account of your memory has turned to slush. You might also remember a frat party in college at which some douchebag launched a Roman candle indoors and how said Roman candle barely missed your head. You might remember a random array of bartenders over the years with whom you may or may not have made out. (Hey, you try writing that sentence and not ending it with a preposition.) But you can't be sure of the details.

So, yes, it's been amply stated that New Year's Eve is an overrated night that is almost certain to end in disappointment. The crowds. The sloppy drunks. The desperation. The Greek calls it Amateur Night for a reason.

But more than that, today I did battle with the Northeast Corridor. Usually, the Northeast Corridor, and specifically the New Jersey Turnpike, wins in a manner designed to humiliate me into crying like a little girl. However today, on New Year's Eve, just a few miles from where The Ball Will Drop, it looked like this:

Either I have some really excellent karma stored up from all the other times the New Jersey Turnpike beat me up and stole my toll money, or the Magic of the Hair Band is a real thing. I know I didn't turn the channel from Hair Nation (sattelite radio and I have made up and are trying to make it work this time) from the time I crossed the New Jersey state line until I arrived in my driveway. The Van Halen and Bon Jovi seemed to created a protective coating that allowed me to breeze through like it was 2 in the morning on a Wednesday, not the middle of the afternoon on New Year's Eve.

But five hours is a LOT of rocking out. I can only be expected to sing "Don't Stop Believin'" so many times in one day. Six times. Six is my limit.

So I'm staying at home. I've got some eggnog that my mom packed in my travel cooler. But I don't have any rum... maybe I can add tequila and call it huevo nog.

But no. That sounds gross. And when you're all grown up and have a job, you can buy the top-shelf drinks and learn that shooting it or mixing it with inappropriate liquids is a waste that nears the scale of a crime against humanity.

Crazy Bat Lady

I still don't especially want bats in my home, but would you get a load of this little guy?



I think bats have gotten a bad rap in our culture. We have this idea that they're scary and they bite people and drink blood and spread disease.

Generally speaking, they don't. What they DO do is eat things that are scary and bite people and drink blood and spread disease, as I discovered last summer. So I'm not just being swayed by a cute little animal video that The Canadian posted on my Facebook feed.

But the cute little animal video helps, and it's a good thing because bats are in a lot of trouble. They're losing habitat-- hence they end up in my living room. But they don't want to be in my living room any more than I want them there. They're losing zoo space. They're getting exposed to pollution.

And there are still a lot of people out there who want to bash them with shovels because they are kind of scary looking. But in our defense, neither The Suz nor I ever killed one on purpose, because we're not the kind of people who go around killing any animals on purpose. Except mosquitoes.

But it looks like the little guy above is changing a lot of minds today. And if he can move someone like me from tolerance to enthusiasm, then perhaps this species has hope after all. The video has gone viral, and the batworld site has gotten so many hits today that the main page has crashed. But you can still make a donation, so I think I'm going to give them the money I had earmarked for this really hot pair of shoes.

They wouldn't have fit my giant ass feet anyway.

Bork! Bork! Bork!

I think I've established that I am a simple creature. And with the release of The Muppets, we've firmly established that the things that brought me joy when I was five years old still make me happy.

And that's pretty much the basis of the new film. It appeals to the inner five-year-olds in the audience who remember watching The Muppet Show every Saturday night without fail. Who still proudly display their lunchboxes from kindergarten on a bookshelf in their home offices. Who can't remember to buy more milk but still know every song from the soundtracks from The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper.

K-Rock and I are of one mind on the Muppet obsession, but we're also grown up and intellectual now:

Because we are grown up and intellectual, we don't let our inner five-year-olds call all the shots. We grapple with the Big Questions about the Muppets.

Is the Swedish Chef a racist stereotype?

We conducted some intensive research on this topic and concluded, yes, possibly, but there is evidence on the interwebs that the Swedes actually find the Swedish Chef funny. So it probably doesn't matter.  Wikipedia tells us that at least one real live Swedish Chef, a guy named Lars Backman (there's an umlaut over the a in that name, but I'm not sure how to add an umlaut on this platform... plus I like to say umlaut) claimed that his appearance on Good Morning America inspired the Swedish Chef, but Muppet writer Jerry Juhl has denied this claim. The same Wikipedia entry cites Brian Henson's story that his father, Jim, had a tape called "How to Speak Mock Swedish" that he listened to in the car, and that became the basis for the character.

While we have been unable to locate where one might obtain a copy of said tape, there are a number of sites on the interwebs that enable users to translate text into Chef Swedish, including an add-on for Firefox which can translate web pages.

What does The Count feed on?

He's a vampire, so the obvious answer would be blood, right? Except, a) he's a character on a children's show, and having a character who lives by draining living humans of blood would be pretty dark and b) he's made out of felt. Does this mean he sucks the stuffing out of rag dolls and teddy bears? Also pretty damn dark.

But for the trivially minded, his full name is Count von Count.

Is Beaker a representation of the silenced cultures victimized by post-colonial European Imperialism?
Since K-Rock threw me this question, I've been able to think of little else. I haven't run my answer past her yet, but I'm going to have to go with a big yes on this one. Beaker doesn't speak English, but rather a series of squeaking "meep" sounds, which clearly represents the Eurocentric misunderstanding of native languages the world over. Furthermore, Beaker is subjected to humiliating and dangerous experiments at the hands of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. That's a very English-sounding name, and he does speak with a slight accent. Or the reference to honeydew melons could be symbolic of the Dutch propensity for agriculture. Also, he looks kind of Belgian.*


In the clip below, we can see the Swedish Chef teaming up with Honeydew to try to evade/ suppress a Beaker rebellion, which reflects the cooperation between European powers to subjugate native peoples.


Finally, Beaker is pale and has red hair, which physically identifies him with the Irish, who lived for hundreds of years under the violent oppression of British rule. He's obviously so skinny because his English landlord hasn't been allowing him adequate food supplies.

Is Animal an indictment of the faulty American educational system?

Some accounts indicate that Animal was inspired by Keith Moon of The Who, except without the dying in a pool of sick part. Under this interpretation, Animal would be, if anything, an indictment of a faulty British educational system.

Except he isn't. Because Animal is fucking awesome.

*I do not hate Belgians.

Like Mini Golf, But Aggressive

Last week I took part in the school's Faculty/ Student Field Hockey Game, which is an annual event that doesn't benefit anything of which I am aware. It's just an excuse to try to see if any of the male teachers can be convinced to wear the traditional field hockey kilt.

Nobody wore a kilt this year, because the afternoon turned cold and dark. And then it started to rain. Then it started to rain harder. But we powered through and the ref called the game with only two minutes of play left-- after the faculty managed to tie up the score at 1-1. 

But I'm sure the ref was totally objective.

The fact that I was playing in this game shocks me for several reasons. First, I barely know what field hockey is. I don't know if it's just not popular in the South or if my school just didn't have a team because they thought it was a bad idea to have more sports for girls than mandated by law. Or maybe they just didn't want to encourage Good Southern Ladies to learn to run around with sticks and whack the crap out of stuff.

Second, I was never good at any sports. I ran track because I thought I needed to have a sport on my resume for college applications, and track required me to remember minimal rules: run that way, very fast; if something gets in your way, turn. Even the field activities, shotput and discus, demanded a minimal amount of coordination: throw this heavy object as hard as you can, that way; if something gets in your way, wait until it's out of the way because, for the love of God, you could kill someone.

I was mediocre at best.

Because that was my attitude toward sports when I was still young and energetic, I was surprised to find myself running around on a field in the cold and rain, wielding a wooden stick, chasing a little yellow ball. Not just hanging around and taking up space, either. I was running back and forth. I fought for possession of the little yellow ball. I didn't even think to whine about how cold I was or stop to collapse to the ground in a panting heap.

Which is what I used to do after finishing last in the 800 meter.

This is what happens when you teach a grown-ass woman to fight. I figure if I can spend three hours a week kicking and punching the crap out of a heavy bag, in between sit-ups and inverted push ups (with gloves, and no, it's not a superpower) and thirty jumping jacks in thirty seconds and whatever other sadism sensei comes up with, then an hour running around in the rain with a stick should be no sweat.

I never would have thought I could do this-- and like it. Need it, even. I'm still not great at it (especially the inverted push ups with gloves... but that doesn't mean I don't have superpowers) but I'm also not a spaz anymore. And I can hit a ball with a stick in the rain. Toward the goal net. Just like miniature golf. But aggressive.

So here I am staring down the short dark tunnel to 40, looking at my Inner Athlete. This is probably not a big deal to anyone besides me, but at least I'm excited about it. A year ago I started taking steps to radically change the course of my life. Some of those changes-- the boat, learning to operate the boat, freelancing regularly-- are still works in progress. Being able to do multiple push-ups wasn't on the to-do list, but it's a change. It's progress. Instead of getting twisted up about reaching some imaginary destination, I'm enjoying the detours.

It also can't hurt to know how to kill a man with my elbow. Never know when that might come in handy.

"Candlesticks Always Make A Nice Gift..."

My Mandy is coming to visit tomorrow. My Mandy and I became friends on a seventh grade field trip to Discovery Place, when we discovered that the mutual dislike we had been harboring for the previous year was the product of a rumor fabricated by some Mean Girl whose motives have been lost to the history of middle school.

And that was it. She's my Person. We were band geeks together in high school. Drinking buddies in college. I wore a purple bridesmaid's dress at her wedding-- also the last documented instance of my wearing heels. I was at the hospital the night her first son was born. Neither of her children seem to know I'm not actually a blood relative.

My will (Yes, I have one. That was a fun Saturday night activity.) stipulates that she will be the one to obtain and dispose of my journals. So, yes, that means this is the person I trust, in the event of my death, to take care of all the stuff too profane for me to write about here.

This woman knows where twenty-five years worth of bodies are buried.*

This visit is kind of a big deal because it will be My Mandy's first visit to Little Blue. So this means cleaning. Not just day-to-day get-the-dishes-out-of-the-sink, vacuum-up-the-cat hair cleaning. This is full-scale dust-the-ceiling-fans, scrub-the-bathtub cleaning.

You know it's serious when I get down on hands and knees and scrub the bathtub.

And it has to be done because I am possibly the world's worst housekeeper. I shouldn't be. My mother is the second most fastidious person I've ever known, and she was raised by the first. I own the entire collection of Swiffer products. I have a range of sprays and powders which, although green, are pretty powerful. I have a Shark, and a Dyson DC-14 "Animal". I am equipped to keep this place in a condition rivaled only by the best operating rooms in the country.

Furthermore, Southern women are supposed to keep a clean house,but I am an affront to all they hold sacred because I have balls of dust under my bed that can no longer reasonably be called "dust bunnies". They're more on the scale of mid-sized farm animals.

Or they were until I vacuumed them up this weekend.

Despite what I've said about The Great Purge and my fear of reality television, though, I'm not a hoarder. I just don't get all in a twist if the laundry doesn't get done today. I don't really worry about vacuuming until the cat starts sneezing because she is allergic to herself. I don't think about the dishes until I run out of forks.

I figure it doesn't bother anyone but me, and there are just other more interesting things to do. There are books to read, yarn to weave, friends to meet, passport stamps to collect, heavy bags to kick, money to lose at craps tables, inane blogs to be written. In the words of Crash Davis, "We're dealing with a lot of shit."


* The bodies are metaphorical. I may know how to kill a man; doesn't mean I've actually done it.

Crazy Cat Lady= Lady With Crazy Cats

I know I'm not supposed to, but I always liked Ernest Hemingway. Sure, on the one hand, there's a lot of evidence to support that he was a raving misogynist, but I figure if he was able to get a woman like Martha Gellhorn to buy into his nonsense and marry him, there's nothing wrong with me enjoying his clean, sparse prose and structurally sound short fiction.

And he liked drinking and boxing and cats.

He liked cats a lot. If you go to his old house in Key West you can see the descendants of his cats still roaming around the place, cared for and protected by a loyal museum staff.

You might also visit the marina and get to scratch a manatee's tummy and feed it lettuce, but that's another story for another time.

The direct descendants of Hemingway's cats are all easy to spot, because they're polydactyl. That means they all have extra toes, so they look like they're wearing catchers' mitts... or boxing gloves. The legend goes that Hemingway got his first cat from a sea captain, and it was polydactyl, etc. There was a time when sea captains prized the cats with extra toes because they're allegedly superior at mousing, which comes in handy on a ship.

This is also why They say polydactyl cats are more common in New England and maritime Canada.

It was the Hemingway thing that created the tipping point when I was at the shelter looking for a companion for Laurel (code name: Mayhem) when we moved to the now not-so-new house. Separated from The Suz's cats after we left The Old Apartment, she was getting isolated and weird, so I adopted Minerva (code name: Chaos).*

Minerva has seven toes on either of her front feet. We don't have any mice here, so I have no idea if they provide her with a strategic advantage over rodents. But two of the toes are essentially non-functional, so the claws never wear down. This means Minerva gets more frequent pedicures than I do.

While a pedicure is a bit of a treat for me, it takes on the tenor of a minor military operation for Minerva. I have to do a bit of reconnaissance to determine the best location to trap her, then I have to use treats and guile to lure her into that location. From there it's a matter of brute force-- balanced with some delicacy so I get to keep all my fingers-- to get her into the crate for transport.

She hurls herself around the crate during the short drive to the vet, yelling the whole time

Once in the waiting room, she continues to make a fuss, alarming dogs, other cats, and small children while we wait for a technician.

"Is this Minerva? Did I pronounce it right?" asks the technician.

"Yes and yes. Um, I don't know if it says so in her chart, but she's... difficult."

"Yes, I see that here. We'll be fine." The technician picks up the crate and carries her off to the back.

The animal hospital is a reasonably large facility, but Minerva's yowls and screams are clearly audible in the waiting room. I suspect they're clearly audible in Fresno.

I don't have pictures, because I'm not allowed in the back, but the techs tell me they have to wrap Minerva in a towel, put on the Cone of Shame, and call in backup to pin her down and clip her toenails.

The tech returns with an even angrier cat in the crate. "She tried to kill three of us."

"Yeah. She does that. She'll try to kill me later tonight." And now that the toenails have been cut, she'll have stealth capacity. She's a baby ninja.

When I get her home she will go upstairs to sulk for the next four days. She's entered her adolescent years now, so that's what she does anyway. Sits up in her room alone. Wears only black. Complains that nobody understands her. She'd listen to Coldplay, I'm sure, if she could figure out how to use the Ipod.

I'm not sure where I went wrong in raising Minerva. The Kiwi was her primary influence in her first year, and the Kiwi is a calm, Zen sort of person. Not all senseless violence like me. But The Kiwi, like me, has a very low tolerance for bullshit, so I guess that was what Minerva absorbed.

As we're waiting to check out, a little girl in the waiting area peeks into Minerva's crate and tells her she's pretty. "Look, Daddy," the kid says to her father, "she looks like a Halloween kitty."

I hear a low growl from the cage.

Insult to injury. And now I know I'll be sleeping with one eye open tonight.


*Laurel and Minerva both got their names from the staff at the shelters where I adopted them. I was too lazy to think of anything better. They got their code names from Special K during a particularly harrowing weekend of pet-sitting.