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The Trigger I’m Not Warning

September 25, 2015

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, exercise & fitness, family life, Recreation, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Trigger I’m Not Warning

 

Trigger warning: image of child abuse:

 

From NY Times article re the Gucci Spring 2016 collection.

 

Could someone please alert UNICEF?

*   *   *

A Book of Oh, Barf

“It’s tough to handle this fortune and fame,
 Everybody’s so different I haven’t changed.”
(Life’s Been Good, Joe Walsh)

Trigger warning: this post contains strong opinions, vulgarities and strong language.

 

 “I have a love/hate relationship with ____________. “

That’s what I would say; that’s the standard (read: worn out) phrase I might employ, were I to describe something about which I am ambivalent. Except that when it comes to the topic of literary fame and publicity, my feelings are definitely one-sided.

My loathing for such was rekindled Monday morning, as I thumbed through The Arts section of The NY Times, looking for the crossword and KenKen puzzles. [1] A full page ad opposite the puzzles trumpeted an upcoming reception celebrating the release of a new book by what I refer to as one of those TWAB POTS (scrambled acronym for Authors Who Have Started To Believe Their Own Publicity).  Here is the ad’s description for the book of what is likely to be a slim volume, given the subject matter: [2]

“______ (TWAB POTS’ name) has inspired millions with her wisdom, courage and honesty. Now she has selected 100 of her most popular and inspirational quotes for ______ ( pretentiously terse book title), a new volume she calls a “book of yes.”

 

I keep a barf bag close at hand, because you never know.

 

“A book of yes.”

 

Really – and, dang! Yet another of my working titles stolen. So now I have to call my collection of 100 of my most obscure and disheartening quotes, “A Book of, Fuck No, What The Hell Were You Thinking?!”

Yet again, I digress.

 

 

The ad further informed me that I may “hear the NY Times best-selling author discuss the twists and trials of her remarkable life” – an offer I shall decline, given my suspicions that author’s twists and trials have been somewhat calculated so as to procure book contracts.

Okay; I could be off-base about that previous opinion. But one thing I know for sure is that it is not good for one’s sense of self to voluntarily or otherwise [3] be subject to fawning adulation – no matter what the reason and no matter what your profession.

Honestly, how truly wise and courageous is it to allow yourself to be hyped for your wisdom, courage and honesty?

Our society revels in gleefully harping on the pomposity and egomania of celebrities. I am no exception, and oft mourned in this space what I see as the celebritization of authors.  Surrounded by such public relations horse manure hyperbole, how does or can you maintain a sense of perspective and modesty re your place in the larger world?

Fortunately (and, obviously), in my case, that question has never been put to the test. Still, were I to show up at a reading of one of my books and see a larger-than-life head-shot of me [4] on a banner, accompanied by a description of how my remarkable life and writing has inspired millions, no Sharpie ®  would go uncapped in my efforts to bring the proceedings down to earth.

 

Something like this, only even less mature.

*   *   *

The Return of the Asshat

Trigger warning: this post contains opinions, language and pictures that may be offensive to people who watch reruns of Hee Haw and sigh, Now, that’s entertainment!

 

Let’s say you are a corporate CEO who employs a stable of intelligent and accomplished engineers. Do you utilize their technical experience and skills to find and/or create sources of renewable energy, or upgrade devices to remove pollutants from the air we all breathe…or maybe just design a more energy efficient window defroster?

 

VW = Veracity-Free Weasels

 

Nah. You use them to cheat : Volkswagen Emissions Scandal Widens

You pay them to find a way to break the law and thus facilitate even more spewage of toxins into the atmosphere. [5]

Volkswagen, this Asshat of the Week award is for you.

 

*   *   *

Department of Non Sequitur Segue to a Smoky Wee-wee Anecdote

Trigger warning: smoky wee-wee anecdote.

 

Dateline: First Day of Fall, out for my morning walk. Passing through a certain neighborhood, I noticed the air smells like what I can only imagine a bucket of piss would smell like if you put in under the lid of one of those BBQ smoker contraptions.

Not the autumnal aroma I was hoping for.

 

BBQ lovers, pull up a seat, urine for a treat.

 

*   *   *

Trigger warning: If you think phrases like “trigger warning” should be posted before strongly worded or controversial opinions, you shouldn’t be reading any blogs and definitely should not be browsing the internet.

 

Son K is (re) taking up fencing (he and his sister, Belle, took a fencing class many, many years ago). He has signed up for a couple of trial session with a local fencing academy, wherein one can drop in on ongoing classes. He returned home Tuesday night, after the first session, and said that although the class he attended is listed as for adults, at age twenty-two he seemed to be one of the elder class members.

When I asked if that bothered him, K smiled wryly and replied that it didn’t.  At  6 ‘3″+ he was one of the taller students in the class; thus, his reach far exceeded that of his kiddie opponents, most of whom were longtime students, obviously more experienced and skilled than he. K confessed to taking petty pleasure from sparring with the younger, shorter fencers, because at some point he’s just reach his blade over the top of their heads and, to use his sound effect, bop.

 

Here come de bop.

*   *   *

Trigger warning: I really like saying bop.

I wonder if Little Bunny Foo Foo can be adapted for the scenarioI have going through my head?

You’re singing it now, admit it.

 

Little bunny foo foo, fencing through the forest….

 

*   *   *

Trigger warning: Giddyap, boy, head for the hills while you can – that crazy ass cowboy plans to stuff you and put you in his museum!

 

*   *   *

May you enjoy more than your share of petty pleasures,
may your life be trigger-warning free,
and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

 

[1] Which the NYT oh-so-conveniently prints side-by-side on the same page, for us puzzle lovers.

[2] Insert hissing sound effects.

[3] I assume an author of her ilk has some input if not total approval of her own PR.

[4] For which you will never find me posing.

[5] Is this the fifth footnote? What a letdown.

The Funeral I’m Not Attending

September 18, 2015

Robyn Parnell extended family, family life, health & wellness, making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, Recreation, Yikes! , , , , , , 1 Comment

We are still in somewhat of a psyche-scrambling whirlwind after the events of the past has-it-not-even-been-two-weeks. One of the many side effects of such turmoil is this lite, 20 % less filling blog post. [1]

My FIL’s death was just one of the Sad Events ®  either mentioned or alluded to in last week’s post – events that have left us feeling pulled in various directions and emotionally and physically drained, to be tastefully understate the situation. None of us– us being my immediate family – will be attending tomorrow’s funeral for MH’s father. The funeral service will be held where his late father and mother  [2] lived/live, which is some 3000 miles southeast of us as the crow flies.  [3]   

We have the understanding, love and support of MH’s mother and are at peace with our decision to tend to our family’s needs and not make the grueling, cross-country trip twice in as many weeks. As wrenching as it was for MH to see his erstwhile vibrant and accomplished father so debilitated, MH was able to have ten days of “what counts,” we’re-all-in-this-together time with his mother and sister, who worked together as a family, loving and caring for their respective husband and father, setting up in-home hospice and nursing care, and staying with him until the end.

 

*   *   *

The scrimmage is “touch,”
not tackle. What, you ask, could
possibly go wrong?

The zen/sport koan
asks this: What is the sound of
one bone shattering?

*   *   *

What a way to start the season, am I right?
(Belles’s text informing me that she’d broken her finger during a rugby scrimmage)

More like, what a way to end the season before it’s started, I thought, when I saw Belle’s artistic rendering of the x-ray taken of her finger, the x-ray that made the Urgent Care clinician immediately refer Belle to an orthopedic hand surgeon:

 

 

Another one of the Events Previously Alluded To was our needing to tend to the fallout from the BFF (Belle’s Broken Finger) Caper.

Department of Long Story Short: once MH and I understood the extent of Belle’s injury, we brought her home from college to consult with an orthopedic hand specialist surgeon. Her fracture turned out to be a very complicated one, the kind of case which both challenges and tantalizes a good surgeon (and we found an excellent doc for her. It seems all those certificates on his exam room wall were legit, and not just purchased from those ads you used to find in the 1970s issues of Mother Jones magazine).

After Belle’s post-op appointment her surgeon set her up with an initial PT session with a finger therapy specialist. Dr. FingerWhiz gave Belle his permission to return to college, with the proviso that she will need frequent and regular PT sessions for the next eight weeks, and also be seen by a local (Tacoma) hand surgeon for post-op followup and eventual removal of the surgical pin.  If she is diligent in her PT she can hope to obtain what, we were told, is be the best case scenario for return of function – a 80-90º bend in the finger’s joint. She will have some permanent  loss of movement and function in the finger, which will never be able to join its other finger buddies in forming a fully clenched fist.

As my patron saint Doris Day would have said, Que sera sera. Or as one wise family friend put it, there are enough clenched fists in this world.

 

Doris bravely kept on keeping on, despite her debilitating neck-clenching injury.

 

Speaking of fingers, “Where were you when I was a toddler?” I asked the hand surgeon, when we chatted after Belle’s surgery and I held up my very own  “special needs” pinkie finger. You should have seen the gleam in his eyes.

 

My funny finger used to have its own FB page.

 

Content warning: really cool pictures, including a view of the wire left in Belle’s finger to realign and hold in place the smashed bits of her finger joint. For some reason, my darling daughter resists my suggestion to hang a tree ornament from the wire’s hook. Kids are so conservative these days.

 

 

 

 

The surgery in progress.

 

 

Before the post-surgical unveiling.

 

 

Frankenfinger.

*   *   *

Department of Cheap Thrills

And I do mean cheap: driving around the parking lot of a Fred Meyer store, verrrrrrrrrrrrry slooooooooooooowly, looking for a parking spot, while the Low Rider song is playing on my car’s radio.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee haw.

What can I say; I’m over fifty.

 

*   *   *

May your thrills be cheap but satisfying,
may your bone fractures and heartaches mend,
and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

[1]  Our tragedy is your gain, or some equally insipid slogan, might be inserted here.

[2] Mh’s mother is very much alive. Does that make her his early mother?

[3]  Except that the crow big enough to hold our family plus flight crew never flies directly from Portland to Orlando, but always wants to take you to up to Seattle and then to Los Angeles or Dallas or Chicago first.

The Revolution I’m Not Televising

September 11, 2015

Robyn Parnell family life, health & wellness, Yikes! , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

The Sad Situation I’m Not Writing About

I may mention it in a later post. For now, although I am well aware of The Circle Of Life ©  and all, there is a massive sucking sound coming from my chest. It’s my heart, sinking in the muck of anxiety arising from the fact that someone near and dear to me is helping someone near and dear to him navigate the end of life.
 (from my 9-4-15 blog post )

The someone I referred to in that post was my husband [1] watching his beloved father fade away.

MH’s father died at home in central Florida, after living with Parkinson’s disease for many years and having, in the past several weeks, been stricken with what physician Atul Gawande refers to [2] as ODTAA syndrome. [3] After bouncing between hospital and rehab facility, enduring procedures and attempts to “fix” one problem which in turn caused a cascade of other problems, MH’s father’s most recent ODTAA prompted a second opinion physician to recommend hospice care.

The day before we were to drive up to Tacoma to take our daughter Belle to her sophomore year in college, MH’s father took that proverbial turn for the worse and received the hospice recommendation. I moved Belle into her campus housing and returned to Hillsboro while MH flew to Florida to help his mother arrange for hospice care in their home. MH intended to stay at his father’s side for the duration, and would have, save for a sudden, dramatic wobble in our family planet’s Circle of Life rotation.

Excuse the El Stinko analogy.

  *   *   *

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Gil Scot-Heron, American Jazz musician-poet

The revolution, of course, has been televised. And sanitized and commercialized and commod-i-fied and turned into fodder for many an HBO series. But the afore-mentioned “wobble” will not be blog-i-fied right now, by moiself, save to say that it was a family medical crisis that caused MH to have to bid goodbye to his father [4] and get on the first available plane back to the west coast.

 

I need a baby-sloth-in-pajamas picture. Maybe you do, too.

 

*   *   *

May you and yours realize that life is good even when it seems to suck,
and hold on to the fact that the hijinks will, eventually, ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

 

[1] My husband, as loyal readers know, is oh-so-cleverly referred to in these “pages” as MH.

[2] In his amazing, compassionate book that everyone alive must read, Being Mortal.

[3] One Damn Thing After Another.

[4] Who died Monday evening, an hour after MH left for the airport.

The Blog I’m Not Following

September 4, 2015

Robyn Parnell extended family, family life, foodie, health & wellness, movies, school, The Write Stuff (literary life), Yikes! , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

What I fondly refer to as The Icky P stuff – Publicity and Promotion – is a tricky thing for writers. If you are an author who has an agent who also handles publicity and/or your publisher has promotional staff, depending on your contract stipulations you may not be in total control (or even in the loop) when it comes to the various (real time and social media) marketing decisions re your book.

I get that.

So, why did it stick in my craw to open my email, see “A Personal Message from ___ (Author’s Name Redacted),” and discover that – of course – it was nothing of the kind?  [1]  Instead, it was a mass marketing shill hype for ANR’s new book.

 

 

I’d read ANR’s first book, and was waffling on whether or not to check out the second. The “personal message” email tipped my probably not now to a definite no.

Most of ANR’s work had a decidedly humorous bent to it; thus, there’s the distinct possibility ANR’s email was meant to spoof that style of faux personal mass announcement…by doing a faux personal mass announcement. Which I also get, and also still don’t like.

I don’t recall signing up on an email list for such announcements. I follow ANR’s blog; that’s not the same thing. Perhaps I’m being picky here, but the “personal message” is a spam-worthy tactic – I don’t do stoop to this kind of publicity myself and don’t want to support it from others.

I’ve enjoyed (some of) ANR’s writing and blog posts…although I’ve increasingly been skimming/skipping the latter, as IMHO they seem to be singing-the same-tune-over-and-over. And I struggled with whether or not to post this beef of mine, because so many of ANR’s posts are related to the author’s lifelong struggle with mental illnesses, including depression. Dang those pesky, petty principles of mine, which once again got in the way of my self-censorship. [2]  And, really, how self-important of me, to think that the possibility of losing moiself as a reader/blog follower might cause any writer to spiral down into a depressive episode.

 

*   *   *

The Sad Situation I’m Not Writing About

I may mention it in a later post. For now, although I am well aware of The Circle Of Life ©  and all, there is a massive sucking sound coming from my chest. It’s my heart, sinking in the muck of anxiety arising from the fact that someone near and dear to me is helping someone near and dear to him navigate the end of life.

*   *   *

Department of Things I Love
That May Make You Say, Meh

I love the feel of cooked lima beans (that have cooled off but are still slightly warm) in my hands as I transfer them to a freezer bag. [3]

 

This exists! I’m not the only one!

 

*   *   *

Department of I Think It’s Better The Way I Heard It

Dateline: a week ago, driving up to Tacoma, taking daughter Belle to her sophomore year @ UPS. Belle hooked up her phone to the car’s sound system and was playing “her” music.  When I attempted to sing along with the chorus to the song, Everybody Talks, my daughter patiently suggested to me that,”It started with a whisper /and then it was my keister“ was probably not the correct line.  [4]

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Foo Foo

Balsamic fig glaze.

I know what it sounds like: a teaspoon-sized drizzle of something you’d find on a $49 starter plate at a pretentious Portland restaurant. Still, if you see it on a menu, order whatever it comes with. As son K said about seventeen years ago (even as a child, he was a quipster): Taste bud rodeo!

 

*   *   *

Department of Things Not To Joke About With (What Passes For) The Security Staff

“Do you mind if I look in your purse?” The adorably nebbish, adolescent male theatre employee cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple trembling only slightly less than his fingers as he fumbled with my movie ticket.

Just for a moment I considered three possible responses:

*Sure, I’ve nothing to hide…in my purse. Just stay away from my coat pockets, okay?

* No problem. When I’m packing heat I use my shoulder holster.

* Suit yourself – I switched my IED [5] to Airplane mode.

And just for another moment, I reconsidered those responses.

I smiled, murmured, “Oh, yeah, I guess that’s a thing now,” and unzipped the main compartment of my purse….which could have been hiding Nancy Reagan’s tiny little gun for all Nebbish Movie Theatre Boy would have known.  I mean, it was the most ineffective, what’s-the-point? glance/search ever.

As I made my way to theatre #6 I had a moment of wistful regret. If only I’d remembered that some theatres have instituted this new bag-checking policy, I could’ve stuffed my purse with tampons and other Lady Business Stuff ® and likely caused that whitest of white boys to do the pink cheek flambé.

Next time.

 

*   *   *

 

So, it’s September, aka Where Did The Summer Go? ®.  Belle is back in college. K has graduated from college and is living at home, tolerating a job in food service while applying for “real” jobs (i.e., related to his major), and researching grad school options. [6] If you know anyone who’s hiring worker bees who have a B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology, give us a holler.

 

*   *   *

 

 

May you enjoy the lyrics whatever way you hear them,
may your theatre bag searches be unremarkable,
may your worker bees find buzz-worthy employment,
…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

 

[1] How could it be personal? We’ve never met.

[2] Although I did decide not to use ANR’s name.

[3] If you love lima beans you must always have a bag of cooked lima beans handy in your freezer, for those must-have-lima moments.

[4] I looked it up when I got home: the lyric is “whisper…and that was when I kissed her.”

[5] An IED as in Improvised Explosive Device. Not to be confused with an IUD…which would be a most unfortunate mix-up.

[6] And hosting D & D and Settlers of Catan parties every Sunday afternoon around our dining room table.