Nothing Says Here Comes Christmas…
…quite like decorating the tree while watching an American International Pictures movie, starring Annette Funicello–Frankie Avalon . Muscle Beach Party , y’all. Fa la la la la, la la la la!
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Department Of Now I Get It
Content warning: Ted “too-busy-tithing-to-pay-his-brain-bill” Cruz quote.
During the National Religious Liberties Conference last month, Rethuglican Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, when asked by conference sponsor Batshit Frothing Fanatic Foghorn Pastor Kevin Swanson [1] how important it is for the President of the USA to “fear god,” replied (my emphases) [2] :
“Any president who doesn’t begin every day on his knees
isn’t fit to be commander-in-chief of this nation.”
Gotcha, Massa Cruz. Christian cocksuckers are presidential material, but Atheists, Agnostics, Brights, Freethinkers and Humanists need not apply.
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Department Of Laugh So Hard You Crap You Pants, Just Don’t Inhale
Dateline: last Sunday evening, 6 pm. Tears of joy welled in my eyes as, standing in front of my computer in my office, I overheard yet another, they-don’t-realize-how-loud-they-are-talking-and-that-we-can-hear-them discussion among The Stinky Boys ® [3] in the dining room. Topic: a story about a friend who left a gathering after he’d emitted what might be described genteelly [4] as a moist flatulent emission…but, before excusing himself, he put his hand down the back of his pants, removed his hand, and sniffed it.
TSB were taking sides on whether the sniff was necessary (“If you crapped your pants, you know what you did – you don’t need to smell it to confirm…”). Believe it or not, there was quite a bit of back and forth about this. I had not imagined there could be pros and cons – or any opinions other than EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW – on the subject.
* * *
MH is feeling crafty this Christmas. Funny how much more stately a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck cabernet seems when you dress it up as Obi Wine Kenobi.
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Department Of Sometimes All You Can Do Is Laugh
I needed a pitcher of martinis last Saturday afternoon. Or, as I explained to friend SCM, perhaps just a picture of James Bond and a martini would suffice.
The martini mood was induced by an odder-than-usual conversation with my mother, who had phoned me, or rather, had her “lady” [5] dial me up. My mother initiating a phone call is highly unusual (I’m the one who calls her); she wanted my reassurances on some pressing/disturbing issues for her. After speaking with Mom I called my older sister for a tête-à-tête re the situation, then lumbered downstairs.
MH met me at the bottom of the stairway and gestured toward the family room, where our son K and The Stinky Boys ® [6] were gathered around our TV. “You might not want to go in there,” he said. “They’re watching ‘Reservoir Dogs’.” [7]
“That’s nothing,” I said. “I just had to kill my father. Again.”
My mother had called to ask me why I had taken the family car. She’d been obsessing about the so-called missing car for days, according to her lady/caretaker, who is usually able to handle such matters. But Mom was convinced I’d taken the car and had been gone – and when was I coming back, and would I also bring back my younger sister? – and her caretaker, CCC, thought that I might be able to calm her down.
I was able to (eventually) get my mother off the missing car path, but her erratic thought train jumped another, more problematic track:
Where is your dad? Why won’t he come home – do you know what happened?
Oh….shit.
Apropos of nothing, except that I need a cute picture right about now.
She’ll be fine for days, even weeks, then forgets that Chet Parnell died six years ago. The pain, fear and confusion in her voice is evident, and it is heartbreaking to realize she’s thinking her beloved husband abandoned her or is missing and no one knows what has happened – or, worse yet, we all know what’s going on but are keeping it from her….
This forgetting of her husband’s death, this most painful of her many memory lapses, has happened before, and will almost certainly happen again. I know this. Still, it catches me off guard. Such conversations are painful for me, to understate the situation to the nth degree. But imagine how distressing it is for her, a confused, frail, frightened, elderly woman, who essentially has to relive the death of her husband, over and over again….
At least I was able to reassure her that I had not run off with the car (nor kidnapped my younger sister). Evidently stuck in yesteryear, my mother thought I was a teenager; also, she didn’t trust that it was me, at first, on the phone. (“That’s not Robyn,” I heard her say to her caretaker). I was able to prove that I was her second born daughter by reciting my birth date, after which I heard CCC say in the background, “See, that’s Robyn. She knows her birth date…yeah, and that would make her about fifty, which is correct.”
I later told CCC that I like the way she does math. Now, my own mother thinks I’m only 50!
Some memory lapses have fringe benefits.
* * *
Department of Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah
I’m seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens this afternoon, and you’re (probably) not.
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Department Of It’s A Wonderful Life
Dateline: Wednesday, December 16. The birthday of moiself. The official family B-day dinner will be on Saturday, when Belle is home from college. On the actual day of The Blessed event © MH and son K took me out to a favorite eatery – a brew pub up in the hills. I enjoyed a relaxing evening: dinner and listening to live music with my boys at the Rock Creek Tavern.
Most of all, I enjoyed our conversation, the free range topics of which were inspired by K’s new job as a lab research at a local biomedical startup. We started with what defines terms commonly used by both scientist and laypersons that are also commonly misunderstood or under-understood: basic and acidic and the ph scale . We all use the terms, but what do they actually measure?…which led to the more general concept of scientific classifications, which, as many scientists point out, are necessary for research but are also, sometimes, somewhat arbitrary…which segued to the political psychological and sociological ramifications of that most errant of classifications, “race” as per human beings…which led MH to point out that “breed” might be a better term to classify distinctive physiological differences among a group of animals that are still able to reproduce within the same group…which led to moiself approving the logic in MH’s suggestion, because after all, humans are animals…which prompted MH to share the fact that the German language has different terms – essen and fressen – to distinguish the same function – eating—between humans and other animals…and [8] then K for some reason found it necessary to impart what he thought was a distinguishing feature that proved he was no mere animal – I do not lick my balls!…a proclamation which, of course, had to be countered by moiself:
That’s only because you can’t. If you could, you would.
K wisely decided not to contradict his mother on her birthday.
As my father, the late great “Chet the Jet,” was fond of saying, These are the good times.
* * *
Department Of If You Have To Ask…
I bought two of those clapper things – you know, the As Seen on TV devices. I’ve been having soooooooooooooo much fun using it to turn on the Christmas tree lights (clap clap clap), and also the lights I have in the fireplace (clap clap). Not only does the clapper do what it does, the festive device has provided me with opportunities for blissful marital repartee – all this for only $19.95, such a deal.
Moiself: Look at this! (clap clap; clap clap clap).
MH: Uh oh.
Moiself: Isn’t this fun! (clap clap clap). I actually bought two of them. Where shall we put the other one?
MH: You don’t want me to answer that.
* * *
May the Ted Cruz-es of our world deem you unfit for their world;
may you be a credit to your race breed;
may you clap your way to happiness;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
[1] Who, BTW, thinks gay people should be killed.
[2] watch the tape of Cruz’s remarks here
[3] As mentioned in previous posts, The Stinky Boys is MH’s and my affectionate nickname for the group of friends who gather with K every Sunday (and sometimes Saturday) night to play D & D and other games and watch movies and raise their risk of developing adult onset diabetes and heart disease eat pizza and junk food.
[4] But of course, was not.
[5] Her live-in caretaker. My mother is elderly, in poor mental and physical health and suffers from memory problems.
[6] A group of roughly 4-7 of K’s friends (membership varies), who are not in fact stinky (and sometimes not all boys), who gather here regularly to play D & D and other games and watch movies.
[7] A violent Quentin Tarentino movie…which I think is a redundancy.
[8] Pretend there is yet another smooth as silk segue here.
