Holiday Specials of the Damned

So this week I saw a headline on the People Magazine feed that Miley Cyrus is planning to release a cover of Poison's classic "Every Rose Has It's Thorn." I expressed my belief that this crossover between Hannah Montana and a late 80's power ballad performed by Bret Michaels might represent the nadir of American civilization as we know it. Friends cautioned me that it could always get worse, and indeed, Ms. Cyrus may be an improvement on Michaels' musical stylings.

So in the grand spirit of the holidays and embracing the philosophy of "it's going to get worse," I've been speculating on holiday fare that might fall into that category.
In no particular order:

A Very Gosselin Christmas

Glenn Beck's Hannukah Spectacular-- featuring Rush Limbaugh as Santa

The Hoarders Boxing Day Extravaganza

Rock of Love Bus: New Year's Eve Date Special Edition

Real Housewives of Thunderdome: Fight to the Death for the Last Zhu Zhu Pet


There's probably more. I'll turn it over to The Suz and NayNay to pick it up from here.

The Manda Chaperones a High School Dance and Liveblogs it on Facebook

Note: At the start of each school year, our administration admonishes teachers that we should not write anything online, including email, that we wouldn't want published on the front page of The Boston Globe. Should that happen to the following, I would be thrilled, but not as thrilled as if it were to get picked up by something with a wide readership. And I would, of course, expect a byline for myself and K-Rock.

And now to the post:

Dances at the school where I work have been historically painful for us poor slobs who fall prey to the overeager student who shows up during a free period with the words, "Ms./Mr. _____, we need a chaperone for the dance on Saturday. Will you...?" This job offers no sort of concrete compensation other than the possibility of saying to a class sponsor, "Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. Until that day, accept my chaperoning as a gift on this year's Homecoming Day."

Or something like that.

But, as I said, school dances have been painful to watch. I won't go into details about the things that I've seen at these events, though anyone who has ever watched the movie Caligula should have a pretty decent picture.

So last night K Rock and I, among others, were on duty for Homecoming 2009. The class sponsor is a friend of ours and called in a favor of her own. In order to make the time pass-- it's pretty boring out there if you're over the age of 18-- we decided to take notes on the proceedings, in the tradition of such pioneers in the field as Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall.

Add into that mix the new technologies of the iPhone with Facebook application, and we found that the time passed a little more quickly. Liveblogging a school dance still isn't one of the best ways I've found to spend a Saturday night. It ranks well below lying on my sofa eating Doritos with hot sauce and watching reruns of Dexter but well above the time I went out on a date with a guy who still lived with his parents and talked way too much about "adult entertainment."

The following is a mix of highlights from KRock's notes and my live feed on Facebook, edited for television and-- luck permitting-- The Boston Globe. All times listed are PM, Eastern Daylight Time.

7:28- Chaperones arrive. Begin testing batteries of breathalyzers. Volunteers to conduct said testing in short supply. Possibly attributed to pre-dance professional development seminar conducted off school premises.
7:45- Chaperones assume positions. K Rock settles near lighted area on fringe of cafeteria to facilitate grading papers. Manda wields knitting needles, a ball of superwash merino and a half-completed sock. We really want to be here. Really.
7:58- First two attendees arrive in cafeteria. Look of horror settles on their faces as they realize their faux pas.
8:07- Unnecessary screaming= 2; Boy/ Girl ratio= 2:18
8:15- Surge of dancers enter, still tentative. One kid in the corner getting his groove on.
-Chaperones decide liveblogging the dance will make the evening much more interesting,
and potentially career damaging.
8:17- DJ taking pictures. Should we be concerned? Has he passed a CORI check?
- Swarm of boys enter, avoiding eye contact with females.
- First Britney Spears song of the night. Sadly, it is not "Womanizer."
8:18- Group of "woo" girls enters.
8:22- KRock estimates ratio of boy prep/ grooming time to girls' at 1:37. Girls parade a variety of prints, fabrics and necklines. Boys arrive in rumpled khaki cargo shorts paired with blue and white button down shirts. Perhaps ironing should be offered as a graduation requirement.
8:24- Third group of running girls spotted. Large influx of seniors arriving "fashionably late."
8:28- Stylish dress spotting.
8:29- Girls dancing. Boys not so much. In my day, this would have led the DJ to break out Nirvana, leading to pseudo-mosh pit and tragic injuries which seem far less tragic now than they did at the time.
8:30- Instead we get some old school hip hop. First boy-dancing spotted; no injuries to report.
- KRock reports her internal organs are vibrating to the bass.
- DJ takes picture of KRock and me. But he seems nice enough, and I regret my earlier
implication about his possible criminal background.
8:31- Conga line. I don't think that word means what they think it means.
8:32- There's not a girl in the cafeteria wearing shoes. This strikes me as only marginally more sanitary than being barefoot in a frat lounge at Dear Old Wake Forest.
8:42- Epiphany. Low male to female ratio means less probability that the cafeteria will look like a scene from Caligula.
8:43- Chaperones consider listing the pile of abandoned shoes on eBay.
8:44- Chaperones start a pool guessing when the first girl will start crying.
8:45- Mass hysteria when DJ plays Miley Cyrus song. First beginnings of collective chaperone headache.
8:51- The crowd goes wild for "YMCA" causing chaperones' hearts to warm.
8:54- Line dancing. Flashback to M doing electric slide at every dance we ever went to in high school. Miss her.
8:56- A strain of impossibly small freshman boys is hitting it off with some senior girls. Confirms my long-term suspicion that I actually work in a John Hughes movie.
9:03- One girl spotted wearing socks. I predict she will be her class valedictorian.
9:05- Run DMC song causes unpleasant middle school flashback. The horror.
9:06- Mob becoming more condensed. Estimate core temperature at 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
9:12- I wish a girl would talk to the little awkward dude on the edge of the crowd.
- I also wish I'd brought my iPhone charger.
9:14- First crying girl spotted. Nobody wins the pool, and we probably deserve that.
9:15- Someone is wearing Uggs with a semi formal dress. Really?
9:16- Group of girls run off terribly upset because "he just broke up with me."
9:20- Same group of girls emerges from bathroom upon hearing "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. They seem to be rebounding nicely.
9:24- New theory. High school dances create a wrinkle in the space time continuum that causes each minute to last approximately 180 seconds.
9: 30- Girls have taken to wearing spandex shorts under dresses, leading to a trend of reaching under skirts to adjust said spandex. This is preferable to previous dances in which London and France were sometimes visible- causing very real and profound disgust.
9:31- A boy who could be an extra from Freaks and Geeks looks dumbfounded at interaction with a girl.
9:35- Seniors begin mass exodus.
- iPhone battery dies, ending live feed.
9:45- Girl passes by wearing a dress that looks exactly like the Manda's swimsuit. Not sure if this means swimsuit is very frumpy or dress is too revealing. Possibly both.
9:51- Observation: no slow songs tonight. Fewer awkward moments between genders.
9:55- Exiting senior girl thanks chaperones for being there. Shock and awe follow.
9:56- A pair of suspicious freshman girls ask us to turn off the lights near the bathroom. 1) Why? 2) No. 3) Why?
10:00- Spice Girls? Really?
-Crowd has lost siginficant density. Can see far wall between bodies. The end is in sight.
10:02- Structural integrity of dance is seriously compromised. Cool factor has plummeted by 93%
10:05- "Thriller." Yup. "Thriller."
10:06- Little awkward dude from the edge of the crowd has made contact with a female. Promising development.
10:08- DJ takes request from last couple standing.
10:14- One couple left on the dance floor. They're having a ball-- isn't that what it's all about?
10:15- Official time of death.

The dance was supposed to last until 11:00, so while we experienced some disappointment that our research was cut short, this was mitigated by the fact that we still had a little time to salvage the evening for ourselves. This meant treturning to the class sponsor's house to watch this week's episode of Glee and forget the pain.

The Manda Gets Scared by Late Night Television

Headache last night. Couldn't sleep and couldn't find the bottle of Aleve that I just KNEW was hiding somewhere in the kitchen. Ended up on the sofa watching an episode of the new A&E series "Hoarders" and it scared the hell out of me.

Last night's episode featured a family in danger of losing their children to social services because of their hoarding behavior and a woman who hoarded so much food that her landlord was threatening to evict her. The rotting pumpkin in the living room, I think, was what did it for me.

See, I'm not a neat person by nature. And I have a lot of stuff. I'm not especially attached to most of this stuff, except for my books and my growing yarn stash. I have a lot of other crap, especially clothes, that I just can't seem to be bothered to sort through and send to the proper donation locations. So a show like this looks to me like an edge I could easily topple over.

I'd like to think that I'd draw the line at a rotting pumpkin in the living room, but I also know there's yogurt in my fridge that's been there since June.

Correction, WAS yogurt.

Because this morning I got up, grabbed a trash bag and started pulling stuff out of the fridge willy-nilly.

Earlier this summer my mom sent a crew of contractors she knows to replace my kitchen cabinets. I felt guilty about this, because I'm a grown ass woman and can, in time, replace my own kitchen cabinets. I got over the guilt because, a) it's pointless to argue with my mother once she decides something needs to be done and b) it's unlikely that I'll ever ask her to pay for a wedding.

So anyway, reassembling the kitchen after the work was done has been a lengthy process because I am a lazy grown-ass woman. I'd gotten to everything except the countertop, which was cluttered with detritus that included a box of magic eraser which has never been opened, garden seeds that never got planted, a wine opening gadget that scared me, a pill cutter, a cat collar... well, you get the idea.

After I finished with the fridge, I got to work on the countertop. And tomorrow, my office. Next day, maybe, my bedroom. The result:



I do NOT want to end up on a reality show on A&E unless I'm asked to do a guest appearance on "Gene Simmons Family Jewels."

Better still, I found the bottle of Aleve.

The Manda Celebrates July 4th

I love minor league baseball. LOVE.

There is nothing more entertaining than going to a minor league game at the local hometown stadium, which is what my dad and I did this evening to celebrate the 4th of July.

There was a dude there in a cow costume, promoting a local country music station, and that was the least weird thing I saw all evening. Not sure what it would take to get me in a cow costume on a humid Carolina night, but hey, times is hard.

The cow also got in on the post- 4th inning "tradition" that allows all the children in the stadium to chase the team mascot across the outfield. You have not lived until you've seen about 300 toddlers chasing a man in a crawdad suit across a baseball diamond.

Other between-inning fun included a race in pedal cars, a "dance-off" on top of a dugout, and a race in which pairs of people dressed as hamburger buns scrambled to assemble a faux giant burger.

And at minor league games, at least around here, there also seems to be a disproportionate number of women who evoke one of my favorite quotes from Bull Durham: "Who dresses you? Don't you think this is a little much for the Carolina League?"

Think really big hair and too many sequins.

Best patriotic moment: while Lee Greenwood's recording of "God Bless the USA" played over the PA system, a dude in a giant foam cowboy hat (and his assistants) launched hot dogs into the crowd with a slingshot.

Much as I love the Red Sox, they just don't offer that kind of entertainment value at Fenway Park.

The Manda Looks Forward to the Burn Notice Season Premiere

Some people will tell you that drinking games are passe, and they may be right. At the same time, a good drinking game can create camraderie among members of your team and allow them to show off what they know in a relaxed setting, and they're a good way to celebrate the season premiere of a show you really enjoy.

When you're developing a drinking game, it's important to work within the ouevre of the show itself, capitalizing on the in-jokes and recurring plot points as much as possible. It's also important to choose the right beverage. In this case, the game's creators (K-Rock, NayNay and The Manda) suggest a nice mojito. Bottled beer will do in a pinch. And if you don't drink alcohol, we recommend a yogurt-based smoothie-- perhaps mango.

When you see one of these things happen in the show, you drink once:

-- voiceover explaining a trick of the spy trade (twice if the voiceover begins, "When you're a spy...")
-- montage of sexy beach people in Miami
-- Sam refers to a "special lady" (twice if it's a buddy who turns out to be female)
-- Fiona makes reference to buying shoes
-- Sam orders a mojito
-- An actual U.S. government employee appears on camera
-- Michael eats yogurt (twice if someone else eats Michael's yogurt; three times if the yogurt in question was Michael's last)
-- Madeline complains about Michael not calling or coming to visit
-- Caption appears at the bottom of the screen (twice if the caption then changes to accomodate a comment from one of the characters)
-- Reference to Eastern Europe or Afghanistan
-- Shirtless Michael

Other mandatory double drinks include:
-- Michael actually kills someone himself
-- Someone uses or modifies a cellphone for a non-calling purpose
-- Michael and Fiona kiss

And the triple drink:
-- Michael and Fiona have sex

Author's Note: This game is intended for entertainment purposes only. K Rock and I tried it out and got about halfway through a single episode before one of us-- I'm not saying it was me, but it was probably me-- had to go away for some alone time with the toilet bowl. Proceed with caution.

The Manda Attempts to Improve Her Home (Update)

So literally minutes after giving up on The Other Local Home Improvement Warehouse, I got a callback from an HVAC (heating, venting and air conditioning) dude a friend from work had recommended. "Hi Amanda, are you home? I can come out and have a look this afternoon."

And NOW I have an estimate for new furnace and central air that I believe to be reasonable, based on my research and a contractor who seems like a nice enough fellow (who kinda resembles the guy who plays Owen on "Grey's Anatomy"). I can have this system installed next week and relax in cool, pollen-free comfort.

Yay! I'm getting air conditioning! Yay!

The Manda Attempts to Improve Her Home

The Other Local Home Improvement Warehouse has me on hold. I've been on hold for about 15 minutes, and my cellphone is running out of battery power, but I'm getting desperate here. This is about the fifth call I've made today in an attempt to get estimates on what it will cost to install central air here at Little Blue.

"No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater-- than central air," or so Kevin Smith told us in Dogma.

I can buy that.

But getting a contractor to return a phone call seems to require an act of God hisownself. And while I like to think we're on speaking terms, I'm not sure my karma is good enough to call in that kind of favor. (I have an eclectic theology.)

So anyway, I'm calling all these people, and hoping they'll call me back and we can pencil something in. It's like dating, but at least I have hope that I'll end up with something useful when it's all over.

And don't even get me started on the landscaping. Really, don't. Conversations about landscaping have led me to nearly decapitate reasonably nice people (this is metaphorical decapitation, though, so don't call the cops or anything, either). My "green" mower is fine, but for the space I'm dealing with, I need to call in a pro to get this all under control. And I'm thinking of getting a mower that is decidedly less green because it's all just beyond me; I assume this is how parents of infants feel when they realize that Huggies are so much easier than cloth diapers.

Yes, I know I'm part of the problem.

I'm taking some solace in knowing that at least my yard is currently friendly to my local wildlife, or as the Humane Scoiety calls them, my "wild neighbors." So if anyone asks, I can claim I'm humane, not just lazy.

Wild neighbors means something different here in the 'burbs than it did in the city. I've traded the crazy girl (in the next building over) who woke up my deaf cat with the sound of her slamming doors and shrieking at her boyfriend in the alleyway for bunnies and the resident skunk.

The garageless garage band has been replaced by a groundhog whom I mistook for an otter on first sighting. And the thing is, if my "meadow" in the backyard is appealing enough, then maybe the groundhog will stay in my yard, near his home under the shed. Maybe he won't wander over to my next door neighbor's garden and get himself shot.

I guess a retired dude on his deck with a shotgun and a beer qualifies as a wild neighbor as well.

The Manda Reflects on Chaos Theory

Some signs your life has gone off the rails:

You find yourself on the New Jersey Turnpike at 2:00 in the morning. This alone is a pretty good indicator. If you find yourself on the New Jersey Turnpike at 2:00 in the morning with a mostly-drunk companion, that's another good indicator.

If you find yourself on the New Jersey Turnpike at 2:00 in the morning trying to dissuade your mostly drunk companion not to eat a hamburger that she herownself has characterized as "bogus," then you can expect to find yourself fleeing the scene of a broken toilet in a BP station somewhere on I-95 at around 7:30 that same morning. While life has indeed gone off the rails, it will be fun to watch your companion totter hurriedly across the parking lot on 4 inch red heels as she escapes from the scene of what may very well be a crime in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Not that that ever happened.

Another good indicator that something has gone horribly wrong might be, say, operating power tools in your kitchen at some small hour of the morning. Perhaps the scene involves a misguided attempt to assemble that cabinet that has sat dormant in its box since you brought it home from the Christmas Tree Shop three months ago.

Of course, the instructions didn't make any damn sense, so genius here put the doors and sides on before the countertop. Now I can't get the countertop on the thing because the screwdriver is too long, and the drill is too large. These are not dirty euphemisms-- my life isn't that interesting-- this is the actual state of my kitchen at this moment, which appears to be about 3:15 a.m.

So now it's 3:17 in the morning and I'm wide awake, trying to figure out if its worthwhile to disassemble the cabinet to get this top on it, or if I should wait until morning and go see if the Local Home Improvement Warehouse has a shorter screwdriver. Or perhaps I go off the map and drill holes in the upper surface, bolt the top down as best I can and trust that I'll have the surface covered with an assortment of mail, wine bottles and other crap within a matter of days.

It's not like anyone has seen the top of the kitchen table since last August.

The Manda Starts a Garden

So this is me mowing the grass in my backyard for the very first time. I've gotten some flack for the hat. Apparently once a Southern woman reaches a certain age she's supposed to wear funny hats and grow vegetables in the dirt. At least that's what The Suz tells me, no doubt inispired by multiple viewings of Steel Magnolias. As I tend to prefer movies where gangsters are seeking revenge for one thing or another to films about lovely young women who die tragically shortly after marrying the man of their dreams, I have no evidence to indicate that I should be living my life according to the tenets of a "chick flick."

This should come as a surprise to nobody, but it may offer some explanation as to why I have to mow my own damn grass.

In truth, though, I do seem to be getting more Southern the longer I live up North. Tonight I made dinner for NayNay (I enjoy this nickname because it's also the word my pseudo-godson uses to describe nudity) and that included fried squash, black eyed peas, turnip greens and pork chops. I stopped short of cornbread on account of extreme laziness. This exotic selection went over well with my friend who responded with the obligatory, "I don't know why..." But, again, I think we've narrowed down at least one reason above.

Turnip greens from a can suck, though, and I'm now preparing the ground for my first vegetable garden in 32 years. I don't think the first one counted so much, though, since my dad was doing all the heavy lifting, and I was just wandering around in the rows eating cherry tomatoes-- or tommy toes in the local parlance.

It's addictive, though. I've got eggplants and peppers sprouting in the living room as we speak. The UPS dude delivered my blueberry bushes this afternoon, and it's all I can do not to go out and dig a hole for them right now. I won't though, because it's dark. Gotta be some bad juju in planting a garden at night. At the very least, it seems unwholesome.

I have a selection of herbs in the front window. Cilantro for salsa once the tomatoes come in. Chives if they'll ever actually grow. Basil for pretty much anything I can think of. Mint for mojitos of course. Although the way things are going, I might end up learning what the crap a julep actually is.

So far, I've managed not to kill anything. Can't get the lavender to sprout, though. Yesterday I discovered why:

Rejected Yankee Candle Fragrances

An ongoing list of possible choices:

French Onion Soup-- onions, garlic, with a hint of beefy goodness

Easter Egg-- vinegar and sulphur in a pink decorative container

'79 Camaro-- ass, grass, and cash. Nobody rides for free.

Wet Dog-- soap and fur

High School Hallway- Axe, ass, chalk dust

Barbecue

Sour Cream and Onion

Xtreme Nacho Cheese

The Manda Goes to Harvard- Part Two

One of my favorite pleasures-- there's very little guilt in my life-- is reading the missed connections section on Craigslist. It feeds my overdeveloped sense of schadenfreude.

To the woman sitting at the table next to mine at Pinocchio's pizza in Harvard Square. You were talking to a friend about how this fall was a really difficult time for you personally and emotionally. I felt bad for you, assuming that you'd faced a hefty loss of some kind. A breakup. Death of a loved one. Job loss.

And then you said this: "Well, I didn't get to vote in the election. I moved here and started the new job on November 3. And New York lost my absentee ballot. So I didn't get to vote in the election and that was really hard for me."

It took every ounce of self control I had not to leap across two tables and attempt to wrap my hands around your neck.

I didn't get to vote in the election either. I spent election day sitting in a waiting room in a hospital 900 miles away from my precinct praying for a miracle that didn't happen. THAT is a difficult time personally and emotionally. THAT is existential crisis and soul-crushing grief.

And honey, it's not like New York or Massachusetts are swing states anyway.

The Manda Goes to Harvard

Intellectually, I'm no slouch. I ran the rat race of academic competition for a long time. In high school I scrambled for grades and activities alongside the best of them in my quest for admission to The College of My Choice. I spent the first three years at The College of My Choice working like crazy, playing that sick little game that was so popular with us in those days, "My Life is Busier Than Your Life." That was, of course, just code for "I Am More Important Than You Are and Will Achieve Success in Life That You Can Only Dream About."

I don't think I had as much fun in college as you're supposed to have. But then some events took place that pretty much obliterated the plans I had made for myself. Once the crushing disappointment passed, I realized that I no longer had anything to prove to anyone. It was liberating.

I found some new friends and developed an appreciation for microbrews-- this was the mid 90's after tall. I pulled all nighters to crank out papers because we just had to go see some band play at some bar. My last semester, I took a class with some grad students and found them pointless and boring with their giant volumes of Roland Barthes tucked into their backpacks.

It's not that I don't love learning. I do. I did the grad school thing twice. The first time I went to "a top five program" according to the disbelieving grad students clutching their Roland Barthes anthologies for support. But I chose both of the programs I attended because they placed more than a little value on practical application, because what I don't love is learning for the sake of lording it over other people to make them feel small.

Not that I'm suggesting that most people do this intentionally. But I went to a seminar at Harvard today-- it's a two week course on comedy and film-- and it brought these ideas back to me. It was like being in class with those grad students again, vying for the professor's attention and approval, hearing them stretch their vocabularies to use words like "postmodern" and "meta-analysis."

That's all great, but how's about you give me something I can use to get 28 bored teenagers to forget about who's going to hook up at the big party this weekend and how blotto they're going to get?

In all fairness, I think I got a little bit of that from the day's lesson as well, but in an environment that is so purely academic, you have to look for the useful stuff a little bit harder.

I had to hike across the campus back to the parking garage. I felt out of place among the students in their skinny jeans and emo hair, carrying overloaded backpacks and trying to impress one another by whatever means necessary.

And here's me. Red Dooney handbag. Sprigs of gray appearing near my partline. Wool peacoat. I am too old for this.