Imagine what they'd do with the real thing

I had to post one more blog because I just got a call from my good friend Robby who is stuck at the George W. Airport in Houston. He told me that there is a statue of W. there and that people are actually hugging it and getting their photo taken. One little girl went up and hugged W, but she was too short and she hugged him face-in-the-crotch. Amazingly, Mom snapped the shot. Not to be outdone by an imp, Robby hugged W, face in crotch, too, while his boyfriend Sean snapped the shot! Robby, when you get the picture back, email it to me and I'll try to post it on this site. That should be priceless. And if you manage to get a wireless connection at the W. airport, Robby, please know that my thoughts are with you today as you wait an amazing seven hours in a place named after the man you campaigned so hard to send back to Texas. Try not to end up on the local news.

Happy Birthday A.C.

Today is my pal A.C.’s birthday. I think it’s worth blogging about because A.C. has had an extraordinary life, or rather, what he’s done with his life is extraordinary.

We grew up together in a small town in Mississippi where the biggest excitement was driving across the Mississippi River bridge into Louisiana and going to this dive bar called PJ’s Last Chance. PJ’s sold to minors, and our circle of friends kept them in business.

A.C. worked at McDonalds and was an honor student. He went on to college, as did I. I went to a private liberal arts school to study dead white guys like Milton and Chaucer (so relevant to any career, yes?) while A.C. studied computers at a state university. This was the early eighties, and I just thought Andy was, like, you, know, soooo terribly geeky to study something so gross like that. What was he going to do? Repair the things? Andy always used to tell us (me and our other friend who is now a fabulous fashion designer), “Computers. They’re cutting edge, man.” Uh-huh. So were leg warmers and shoulder pads.

Turns out, he was right, and while me and our fashion designer friend spent our twenties working meaningless jobs and having way too much fun at night, Andy got on the fast track early. I’m still not sure what the hell the boy did with computers, but I know he wasn’t repairing them. Then the nineties came along and he got involved with the Internet. I had to ask him six or seven times exactly what he did, and I still can’t tell you other than that it was niche market stuff (I think). Anyway, long story short, he sold the company a few years back and retired in his mid-thirties.

But wait, the story doesn’t end there. A.C. and his lovely wife (who should be nominated for Sainthood, when she was working, she taught disabled children who were mentally challenged. Compare that to me; I’ve spent my career working with socially challenged execs.) have devoted their post retirement career to saving the environment. And they are serious about it. They have started an organization which buys up large ranches or chunks of property and divides them into small cooperatives to save the land from over-development. Or something like that. It’s real altruistic stuff, but business savvy, because there is the potential to make money, as it is land after all, a good investment no matter how you look at it.

I remember when this guy worked at McDonald’s and lived in a trailer. He’s made his own fortune, and now he’s giving back. He doesn’t own planes or boats (though I wish he did, that would be fun for me). It does my heart good to know that I ran around with someone who has not only good intentions, but good follow-through.

Whenever anyone asks me what I’d do if I were suddenly rich, I think of A.C., and what he’s done. Then I give them a truthful answer: I’d buy lots of Prada and stay in five star hotels where I’d pay people to rub my feet and shit like that. Plus I’d hire a cabana boy. Just for the fun of having one on my payroll.

Happy b-day, old pal.

Get out of my sandbox

Democrats hate republicans and republicans hate Democrats. We all know that. We also know (at least the Dems) that ever since Clinton ended the republican's 12 year regime in the White House, the grand old party has had a "get out of my sandbox mentality." Granted, Democrats do some pretty absurd stuff, and they don't know how to market there own party (hint: some of you limo liberals out there need to fund a GOP marketing guru to come over to our side - those guys know how to build brand loyalty.)

I lack certain qualities when it comes to making a point. I'm not really much of a writer (I just enjoy doing it), and my attention span is too short to do proper research. So it makes me happy when I can point out a web posting that says exactly what I would like to say. To that end, here is Michael Moore's post on abusive republicans. If it offends you, you're probably republican and you may not want to read this blog.

http://michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=174

Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do

Lufkindailynews.com, reports a quote from W. “I'm the commander — see, I don't need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

Okay, he got reelected why? Because he’s a good Christian? Because Jesus comes to his house for dinner and they knock back a few non-alcoholic beers? Maybe I’m not worthy of an explanation because I’m not the President, but can someone explain to me why the people who voted for him really think we are better off with him as our president? His kind of arrogance is the reason so many woman get divorced. His kind of arrogance is enough to make his own dogs hate him. His kind of arrogance will force us into a senseless war. Scratch that, it happened already. Explain how that happened again?

Tourists Stress Local Las Vegans

This town thrives on tourism. After 9/11, the whole darn city nearly went bankrupt. But they came back, those gambling happy tourists, driving in from Southern California, which constitutes 25% of our annual tourism. The road from LA to Vegas is jammed on Friday nights, and from a plane as you fly in, it looks like a long string of Christmas tree lights, white and red, BMWs braking all the way from Burbank.

Not too long ago, the Las Vegas Review Journal ran a story that claimed our town was the 4th most stressed out city in the country. We beat LA and New York.

After driving down the Strip today on my way to lunch at Commander's Palace, it hit me why this town is so stressed out. Tourists. We have to please them so they keep coming back. So the service in the casinos needs to be top notch. We have to keep serving great food, so restaurants come and go up and down Las Vegas Blvd., failing to keep up with the diverse and fickle people who come to our city. But that's only part of the reason why it's so stressful here. Ask any local and they will tell you the thing that gets them the most about this town is the drivers. And who do they blame? People from Southern California.

I had a minor nervous breakdown stalled on the Strip because the cars in the far right lane, (and I kid you not) all with California plates, had no intention of turning right, despite the fact that four different signs, strategically posted about 30 feet apart at each entrance to a parking lot or side street, read plainly: RIGHT LANE MUST TURN RIGHT.

The reason for this is that the right lane ends just before Harmon and LVB. Ignoring the "Turn Right" signs, the Californians stayed put where they were, crawling along, not wondering why the vehicle three cars ahead was forcing itself into the lane just to its left, or why this pattern continued with the car behind that one, and the one behind that one and so on.

One person from California, in an oversized SUV -- they were all oversized SUVs, except for the token BMW now and then -- decided that the way to get in front of our little car was to simply come on over. My husband broke fast and on she came, a petite lady with California plates who didn't so much as wave, nod, or even give us the finger. The road belonged to her. She's very important, probably. Maybe an agent -- oh wait, if she was that important she might have flown. No, she was just rude.

I didn't plan on having any wine at lunch, but both Roger and I sat down took one look at the waiter and said, "Cabernet, now please." We added the please because after all, we didn't want to be rude.

Happy Holiday, and by the way, Jesus was a liberal!

He wore Birkenstock knock-offs and a dress. He had long hair and a beard. His main gal pal was a hooker. Face it: Jesus was a liberal. What would Jesus do? He wouldn't have voted for George W, that's for sure.

Evidently, members of the Christian Right are a bit peeved that Merry Christmas is the politically incorrect greeting this time of the year, and must be replaced with the more neutral Happy Holiday. By the way, etymology of holiday is, um, HOLY DAY, so therefore, anyone who thinks that it's offensive to Christians to have to say Happy Holiday is wrong. It gets the same point across. Here's a great article from alternet.org that covers the whole Merry Christmas/Happy Holiday Jews versus Christian Right thing. Unfortunately, I'm so new to blogging that I haven't figured out how to link without copy and pasting the entire web address yet. Sorry. http://www.alternet.org/story/20844/

Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday and sleep tight.

Flash Fiction: A Chip off the Old Block

My father left my mother on Christmas day when I was ten, creating a real childhood memory of Mom chain smoking for two weeks, not bathing, and sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee non-stop, as if she was trying to stay awake for when he finally came home. That first week, I played outside as much as I could stand given the snow and cold. I’d come in and walk past her, sitting at the table, and I’d make myself some hot chocolate. We were having a new experience for our house, but instinct told me to leave her alone. It’s like walking in the wild and suddenly coming upon a rattlesnake. You may want to poke at it but you just know better.

When school started back up, I came home everyday finding her at the table, which is where I left her in the mornings. I made all my meals, did my homework, even showered, with no prodding from her about any of it.

“Thank God you’re nothing like your father,” she’d say sometimes, and not much more. Then, just like a bad storm that moves out after a thundering night, one day she got up from the table, poured the coffee down the drain, threw her carton of cigarettes in the trash and took a long hot bath. That night she made me my favorite dinner. Meat loaf and mashed potatoes.

I met Sarah two years into my career. We both worked at a San Francisco investment management firm. I was a portfolio analyst, she was a client relationship associate. We sat across from each other in large cubes of blonde oak, Management’s concession to making our work-space nice. Our relationship started off like any office romance, some small talk, progressing to lunch one day, then shortly after progressing to drinks after work which ended with us getting drunk and going back to my place for sex.

We married a year later. She found a new job in a rival company. She thought it was better for our marriage if we didn’t work together. I agreed. I tended to agree with every thing she did. I was so grateful to be in love and to have someone who loved me. I knew I’d never leave her, I’d never break her heart the way my father broke Mom’s. She’d never sit at a kitchen table, a modern day Lady McBeth trying to wring out the spot on her brain that was the ruins of our love.

On our sixth Christmas together, she gave me something I didn’t expect. She left. That morning I worked at a soup kitchen while she stayed home and put away presents. At least that’s what she said she would do. When I returned, she was gone along with all of her stuff. Her favorite CDs, her books. Her laptop. Photos of her family and of our friends, of Christmases we shared, of parties and vacations. All gone. My first thought was that someone had broken in and stolen her things. Then I saw the note on the table. “I just can’t,” she wrote. That was it. No apologies, no I’ll-always-love-you.

I sat at the table. I sat there all night, staring at the note, staring at the wall, putting my head on the table and crying. I got up and made some coffee, thinking I’d stay awake so that when she came to her senses and returned home, I’d be waiting for her, alert, ready to forgive.

The next morning, I called work, and told them I had the flu. The second week I called to say the flu had turned into pneumonia. I couldn’t tell the truth. It was too awful. I drank a lot of coffee. I didn’t shower. I lived in a Nike t-shirt and my sweat pants. Things stayed this way for two weeks. Then, on that final day, I got up, showered, and called Mom.

copyright DJ D'Ono

But officer, it's for a good cause. Me.

In Fridley, Minn. a woman accused of putting fake charity donation boxes around the Twin Cities got arrested again for the same crime shortly after being released from jail.

The woman was released on Wednesday after being arrested in Eagan, where liquor store employees had discovered The Salvation Army had not received donations from the boxes in the store.

The woman decided to ply her trade again, this time in Fridley, just hours after her release by trying to replace an old donation box in a liquor store. However, the clerk recognized her from the news and called the police.

Officers arrested the woman and her 18-year-old son. A local TV station reported that police found 20 donation boxes in her car — some with money still in them.

Hmmm, maybe she was trying to spend some quality time with her kid. As far as repeating her crime so soon after her release, maybe she was attempting to hone her craft. Okay, fine, it wasn't that.

If it's Christmas, you must be rude

It only stands to reason that a town that proudly calls itself Sin City would have an abundant supply of people behaving badly. I'm not talking about call girls making a living or gamblers trying to hit Megabucks. Las Vegas is a town of transplants, and we get the cream of the crop of rude people from all over the country. Whether it's red light runners who scream past your headlights as your trying to cross an intersection, parents who think that it's okay to bring the kids to a restaurant even if little Lindsey is smelly and screaming at the top of her lungs, or the chick on the cell phone in the bathroom stall next to you, Vegas has hit the jackpot when it comes to bad behavior.

And let's not forget the tourists who flock in from America and around the world to indulge in the pleasures and debauchery of this little desert town. On any given night around midnight, you can stroll the strip and see pregnant women sipping yard long margaritas, moms pushing baby strollers, couples breaking up, couples making out, and most recently, someone defecating in front of Caesars Palace.

Have we always been such a society of misbehaved people? You could argue that this is the town's reason for being. But just read the news (particularly the Odd News section on places like Yahoo!) and it is apparent that the world is running amuck. Oh well, and least it's fun to write about this stuff.

Thanks rude people, for giving La Blogda something to blog about.