Some Silly Scary Stuff

Alas, my jack-o'-lanterns always turn out happy.

I am mildly relieved to learn that Boston has just been named the city most likely to find a cure for a zombie virus and thus stave off a related apocalypse. Thus, the residents of surrounding areas such as New Hampshire and Maine have a strong likelihood of surviving such an event. I say am only mildly relieved because I seriously doubt the zombies will get me, at least before so many rather commonplace things might. In no special order, I worry I will die sooner from one of the following:

1. A plane crash (duh)
2. Food poisoning contracted from that contaminated crap they sell in supermarkets that is always being recalled
3. A bite from a poisonous spider
4. ISIS gets here (since apparently nobody is stopping them)
5. Dropping dead if Hillary Clinton gets elected president (but then why live)
6. Soaring blood pressure causes my body to boil over
7. Some maniac crashes into me on the highway
8. Choking on food
9. A rabid pit bull eats me alive (I know they are really sweet dogs it's all in how you raise them)

So let the zombies come. At least it will be interesting.

Imagine There's No Hillary

Go ahead: bask in the glory of that thought for a while.  

In fact, while you're at it, imagine Bill's gone too. 

Nice, isn't it?

 But then what? 

What would the Democrats do? 

Who else do they have? 

Nobody? 

Better imagine Chelsea gone too.

Farewell to A Friend

Today was the first morning in the last two decades, barring vacations, that I did not awaken and find my best friend and most fastidious housemate waiting patiently for us to start the day together. She always greeted me joyfully, partly because she couldn't figure out how to make her own breakfast but also because she really, really loved me. She never thought I was "too loud" or "too cynical" or "too sharp-tongued" like some of my other housemates have. (I won't mention any names but they are humans and that's all I'll say.)

Anyway, the one who liked me the absolute most was a cat, surely one of her best qualities. Her name was Daisy and she entered my life when I lived in Salt Lake City. She liked it there but willingly pulled up stakes and moved with me to Washington, D. C. and then again to Maine, with nary a complaint about having to leave her good friends and favorite hiding places behind. She was happy just to be with me.

Now she's gone and I feel like shit. I guess I will just have to feel this way until I don't feel this way anymore.

Who Really Knows Anything?

Don't you have those days when you're just sick and tired of hearing that other people know for sure the absolute best way to do something and you're doing it wrong? Often it turns out that they're wrong but never in doubt, which adds to the frustration and embarrassment of it all. Almost as bad is listening to legitimate experts drone on about the one topic they have mastered. Sometimes I wish everyone would just shut up and go about their business, like woods animals foraging for food. You don't see large groups of them clustered together on a smoke break, spreading misinformation and outright nonsense. Usually they work alone, and silently, like Picasso or Mark Rothko or Hemingway or Jame Joyce.....

I'm thinking all this because of a little book I stumbled upon last weekend in a quaint "5-and-10-cent" store selling nostalgia in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As my husband accurately observed, the place was more like a five and ten dollar store, but alas, times have changed. Anyway, I bought a book, the kind you might leave in a guest bathroom as entertainment. Mother Knows Best: The Truth About Mom's Well-Meaning (but not always accurate) Advice shattered the few intact remains of my youth in just 140 pages.

I certainly hope the author, Sue Castle, knows what she's talking about since she pulled the rug out from under me on many fronts. For an investment of just $12.95, I now know that everything I was taught growing up is wrong. And although I already had a vague feeling and some concrete knowledge that much of my mother's "teachings" were a load of well-meaning crap, still I held onto some of it like a favorite childhood teddy bear missing half his stuffing. Surely there was some truth somewhere? Come to find out: no.

Following are some of the delusions I have been living under all my life, and I'm pretty old already. You may still have time to smarten up:
1. Don't read in dim light, you'll ruin your eyes.
2. If you get stung by a bee once, the next time will be worse.
3. Black coffee sobers you up.
4. Put butter on a burn right away.
5. Yams and sweet potatoes are the same vegetables.
6. Feed a cold, starve a fever.
7. Don't go out with wet hair, you'll catch cold.
8. Don't put plants in a sick room, they use up oxygen.
9. Don't store food in open cans in the fridge, it will spoil.
10. If you don't move, you won't get stung by a bee.
11. Shaving makes your hair or beard grow back thicker.
12. Eating too much sugar gives you diabetes.
13. Brown eggs are more nutritious than white eggs.
14. If a dog's nose is hot and dry, he's sick.
15. Don't have sex before a competition, it saps your energy.
16. The best way to stop a nosebleed is to tip your head back.
17. Don't go swimming right after eating, you'll get cramps and drown.
18. Milk is good for an ulcer.
19. You have to suck the poison out of a snake bite.
20. Brown sugar and honey are healthier than refined white sugar.
21. Fish is brain food.

I am sticking with #7, I don't care what anyone says.

Getting Your Lard On

So my Jewish Granny had it right all along: Bacon really is bad for me.

According to an announcement released yesterday by the twenty-two scientists at the World Health Organization, bacon, hot dogs and other processed meats greatly increase your risk of cancer, just as much as smoking and breathing diesel-engine exhaust. Naturally the news has been met with dismay by all those who earn their living from hawking dead pig meat and other sorts of red meat as well. But they needn't fear since America loves its bacon, and I'm betting the possibility of contracting cancer would be considered a small price to pay for continued enjoyment of the following foods:

BLT sandwich

bacon pizza

bacon and eggs

bacon wrapped fried Oreos

bacon burgers

PB and bacon sandwich

bacon pancakes

bacon chocolate-chip cookies

bacon jam

bacon quiche

Besides the obvious and ordinary foods listed above, lately clever chefs have been sneaking bacon into all sorts of things disguised as "lardons." The formerly healthy Brussels sprout is typically served laden with these little fried devils. And my favorite salad at a local restaurant, an iceberg lettuce chopped wedge with tomatoes, radishes, onions, cukes and a hard-boiled egg, which seems healthy enough at first glance, is now loaded with lardons. Just what are these, I wondered, scarfing them down as fast as I could without choking. Turns out it's the French term for small, matchstick-cut pieces of bacon.  

Mon dieu and oy vey!

The No-Vagina Monologues

Many average Americans find it odd that Donald Trump -- real estate developer, big businessman and TV celebrity -- is running for president. Not only running, but leading the polls on the Republican side. Many more of them find it despicable, laughable, shameful and pathetic. They call him a clown, a joke, a disgusting person. To those people I say: Wake up and smell the latter days of 2015.

Oh please.

The Trumpster running for president (and hopefully getting elected--what a laugh riot that would be) pales in comparison to another recent development of our nutty popular culture: Glamour magazine, that bastion of fashion, hair and makeup devoured monthly by teeny-boppers and perhaps even some dim-witted young adults has just named Caitlyn (Bruce) Jenner as its "Woman of the Year." Yes, that's right ladies, you no longer need to have a vagina to qualify as female. All you need is a couple of boobs -- fake ones are fine -- manicured fingernails, long hair and a bathing suit.

This all makes perfect sense, since many women who actually have vaginas inside their undies could surely be named "Man of the Year." In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if one day soon we see Hillary Clinton and Rachel Maddow duke it out for that title.

Putting Things in Perspective

Today I am thrilled to not have two fractured ribs, or even one. I am not feeling dizzy or faint. I do not have plantar fasciitis in either foot and can walk freely about. I didn't just have cataract surgery so don't need to put three kinds of drops in my eyes three times a day, and I can basically "see," albeit not as well as before the surgery but that's a different blog post. I am not scheduled for a colonsocopy and so am drinking a delicious cup of coffee instead of that rat poison they make you take to prepare for that dreaded examination.

I'm thankful for all of this, since each of the preceding conditions have lain me low in the recent past. But I survived, and my only affliction today is the aftermath of a silly little tick bite on my scalp. Ticks are quite common around these parts, and thus getting a bite is considered no big deal.

Only it is a big deal. I got the bite two days ago. Dutifully, I swallowed the magic bullet prescribed by the doctor to avoid developing Lyme disease, and yet.... And yet my life has been derailed. My thoughts are now consumed by the toxins released into my body by a creature the size of an uncooked buckwheat groat. My regular head now has another, smaller head on it. It is swollen. It itches. I put ice on it. I apply cortisone cream. I try not to think about it but fail miserably. I hate it.

I tell myself I should be happy I don't live in Mexico where they had a powerful hurricane yesterday, so powerful it was described by the folks over at the Weather Channel as literally THE MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE EVER RECORDED IN THE HISTORY OF THE PLANET, with sustained winds of 200 miles per hour. Scary stuff! And yet, despite the downed trees and power lines and smashed houses, the storm caused not one death. That's good news for sure, but still odd, making me wonder how so many people have died in much lesser storms in the past.

I must conclude that not everything with grave potential will have grave results. On the other hand, sometimes little things can cause big problems. (Like a tick bite.) You just never know.

Fall Photo Album

 

Some days are too special to stay inside. Today was one of them. With October nearing a close and the trees aflame in New England, leaf-peeping was definitely in order.  Besides the autumn colors and the stunning vistas, we saw many covered bridges once we ventured into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We even saw a house inside of a covered bridge, which must have taken some doing. It was all quite a cliche, but worth seeing in person. Hard to believe this was all made by the same God that made ticks.

What Was God Thinking?

My first husband, also known as ex-husband which sounds better and less like I am planning on a third, was a student in his second year of law school during our first year of marriage. His work load was ridiculous, and pretty much our only date was going out for ice cream on a Saturday night. To help him out, I did much of the reading for one of his courses, called Torts I believe but maybe not. (That was years ago and what are torts anyway?) The only thing I remember was a famous case wherein a consumer discovered a tiny mouse head floating in his Coke bottle. Of course he sued and won a huge settlement on the grounds that he was now "permanently disgusted," becoming nauseated anytime he saw the ubiquitous Coca-Cola logo. I feel that way today, but I have nobody to sue.

Last night I discovered a tick in my head. Actually, it was in my scalp, or trying to get in, but I stopped it just in time. This being my first tick experience, and freaking out as I do over any member of the insect world, I became somewhat hysterical. Nevertheless I managed to extract the disgusting creature (see photo) and save him for further inspection by my husband (a tick expert who enjoys tramping through our woods and cutting down trees) by slapping a piece of Scotch tape on top of him (the tick, not my husband), a trick I learned from my friend Louise who is the World's Greatest Veterinarian and thus wise in these matters.

I then called my son who is even more of an expert on these matters since he lived with them in the Maine woods for two years. He said I wouldn't get Lyme disease since the ticks that carry it are so tiny they are all but invisible, and since I could see it clearly I had nothing to worry about.

Still, being me, I worried. I took a shower and washed my hair. I applied ice to the site. I went to bed miserable and dreamed about ticks all night. This morning I'm still grossed out. The thought of eating is appalling. My head still hurts. I took another shower. (My hair is really clean today.)

Such a tiny thing, yet so destructive to such a huge thing as myself. I wondered why they even exist, and so did some research and found out they exist almost exclusively as food for other disgusting insects. Here's what I really want to know: Were there two ticks included on Noah's Ark? If so, wouldn't that have led to an Ark-wide infestation? Why would God make a tick anyway? Once again we see evidence of His sick sense of humor.

The Donald vs. The Barry

The Political Establishment thinks it's so smart. It thinks it knows everything. It conducts daily, sometimes hourly, polls and then proclaims "reality" based on that particular poppycock. But it doesn't really know everything. For example, it doesn't know what I think since I have never been included in any poll. So here's what I think.

Stupid (I'm betting fat) nobodies sit at home on their sagging butts on their sagging couches in front of their computers and mouth off online about Donald Trump being an asshole. Being stupid. Being a jerk. Being a hideous person. And those are the compliments.

I have never met the man so I can't speak from personal experience, but what I do know from reading about him is that he has been extremely successful at Life. He is exactly my age (actually ten days younger) but far more accomplished. He is fabulously wealthy, has a beautiful wife and raised five great children who all seem to adore him. He has seven grandchildren. He doesn't smoke or drink or do drugs, and claims to love the Bible, as if that matters but I guess it does to some people. (I've never read it.)

He has written and had seventeen books published. He had his own TV show which was quite popular I've been told. He has a great sense of humor. He hates Rosie O'Donnell, and for that he gets extra points.

I wish those nobodies sitting at home with their bags of Fritos and their Bud Lites would critique the current occupant of the White House and tell me why he's any better. I'd love to know.

Film Review: THE WALK

Phillipe sets out on his famous 140-foot walk.

Unless you live in a Third World country, which you probably don't since you are reading this which means you have a digital device and some kind of power source, and are not busy fleeing a brutal dictator or escaping the clutches of ISIS, you would surely agree that ordinary life here in America is often mundane. This would explain things like pizza with bacon crust and the rise of Donald Trump. So, what to do? For one little Frenchman, walking on a wire strung between two opposite points is his antidote to crushing boredom. Seeing this movie about how he does it just might be yours.

Director Robert Zemeckis, the magical maker of Forrest Gump, Cast Away, The Polar Express, Romancing the Stone, and Back to the Future, has done it again: He grabs your brain and messes with it for a couple of hours, and when he gives it back it is somehow changed. In his latest, The Walk, a fictionalized version of a true occurrence that made world headlines, he offers a rare opportunity to experience what it's like to straddle a thin cable strung between the Twin Towers, 1,362 feet above the streets of New York City.

Philippe Petit, a Parisian sprite of a man who spent his early life as a street performer, juggler, and eventually freelance wire-walker, had a burning desire to walk between the towers, then nearing completion in 1974. He set about assembling a team of helpers to get the job done. Since the planned caper (called "the coup") was most assuredly illegal, suddenly it's like we're in on a bank heist and rooting for the bad guys. We see it all come together, privy to months of intricate logistical planning and the solving of technical requirements. By the time the big day rolls around we're on the edge of our seats. And even though we know the coup was a success and that our little hero did not plummet 110 stories to his death, still we hold our breath and wonder: Will he make it? The movie is that good.

It's also funny and charming, with endearing performances by all of the actors, none of whom I recognized except for Ben Kingsley who has a small part in which he shines, as always. Throughout it all the glittering musical score enhances the stunning and often perplexing visuals: Just how did they recreate the towers so perfectly? It's simply a great film, and leaves you with two thoughts: First, now what? Your old life simply will not do. And second, gee I miss those Twin Towers. They sure were beautiful.