See you in C U B A

So I'm sitting here and the hourly CNN "Emergency! It's an Update! Drop Everything!" pups up on my screen. This, by the way, popped up a good two hours before the pop up about the last American convoy leaving Iraq. I'm not sure if that speaks more of their priorites (legal Cuban cigars) or their rather plodding news coverage which plods because they won't put up anything until they've actually verified it as being true, unlike other news outlets (koffkoffFoxNewskoffkoff).

Obama is going to loosen travel restrictions to Cuba. Oh goody, I thought. Just want I want to do. Go to Cuba. Can't wait, you betch'a.

Then I thought, well, hey, there MUST be something to do in Cuba besides look for Elian Gonzalez who, I imagine, is probably making a tidy living charging people to have their picture taken with him. I mean, what else is there to DO in Cuba? And, lest we get into this, now that the years have gone by I actually think Clinton and Janet Reno were right in sending Gonzalez back, I've rather mellowed with age. I still, however, do not think it was necessary to sent the Green Berets or the Navy Seals or the World Wrestling Federation or whoever it was in with loaded weapons to drag a six year old out of a closet. He'd have come out soon enough. And the only thing that was accomplished was the world's greatest accidental Taco Bell ad...a whole lot of servicemen with bayonets drawn terrifying a small boy and in a word balloon: "Drop the Chalupa!"

It probably cost Al Gore the 2000 election too, because maybe if all those pissed off Cubans in Miami-Dade had voted for Gore it would have made up for the votes accidentally cast for Pat Robertson, the votes cast for Gore by the poor and elderly who didn't push the little punch thingy hard enough and the 20,000 voters illegally disenfranchised by Kathleen Harris because they were black and likely to vote Democratic. And then we wouldn't have been subjected to 8 years of that addlepated twit, who freaking shot his friend in the face because he couldn't tell the difference between a flying duck and a lawyer, and his sock puppet, the Connecticut born drugstore cowboy of a President. No, that's not fair. That's an insult to drugstore cowboys everywhere, and I apologize.

And, while I'm here, can you imagine what would have happened if CLINTON had shot a lawyer? I mean, come ON. Cheney (or his distant cousin because, frankly, I think Cheney died years ago. I read The President's Plane is Missing, and I saw "Dave", I know how this crap works) shoots someone and apologizes. Clinton manages, in one fell swoop, to get half the country to stop smoking cigars, thus improving the lives of not only the smokers but those who have to smell those things and he gets impeached. Let's face it, the only thing Clinton was guilty of was bad taste, if he'd been caught with Scarlett Johansson no one would have thought much of it. And all of this because of Elian Gonzalez.

Okay, so back to Cuba. Cuba in 1956? Oh HELL yes. Nightclubs, casinos, people dancing the rumba in the streets of Havana and Desi Arnaz headlining? In a heartbeat. Well, probably not from California, Vegas is cheaper but you get my drift here, I think. Sure, it was corrupt as all get out. But it was fun and they made a TON of money. Cuba today? Uh, yeah, not so much. I googled "What to see in Havana". There are about a dozen churches, a cemetery, a furniture museum, a couple of monuments to Jose Marti and Lenin Park. Lenin Park! I don't think they have one of those in Moscow anymore. And, with the exception of Lenin Park, I can find most of the same stuff in downtown Los Angeles and I won't need a passport. Six bucks for a bus pass and I'm good to go.

I sailed past Cuba once, on one of those really nice cruise ships. It was in the 70s and the cold war had yet to start thawing. There we all were, lined up on the port side, looking at the big island off in the distance, knowing it was Cuba. It was the closest any of us had even been to a real, live Communist. Ooooo, scary stuff. I saw Cuba! Closed up tight as a drum, probably building some atomic weapon which would be aimed at the Fontainebleau, Cuba. How cool was THAT?

Now, who knows? I think Castro may be dead too. But, unlike Cheney, they didn't get a look alike, they're just propping him up and moving his hand in a half wave by means of fishing line. Periodically something pops up on video, Castro making some rambling speech but then, so does Bin Laden so that doesn't prove anything.

No, I think Havana is more like "Week-end at Bernie's" right now. Without the luxury condos. And the money. And the private docks. Okay, it's probably not THAT much like "Week-end at Bernie's."

Except for the dead guy.

On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe...

Damn! Summer's almost gone. It's been a rather mild one too, weather wise. And I'm sitting here trying to figure out something to do with the two days I have to take or lose. But, with no car, my choices are limited. I thought "I KNOW! I'm going to take a train ride to Santa Barbara and poke around there for a day trip, how NICE would that be?"

Have you PRICED the train lately? $64 bucks, round trip. I could drive it in less than an hour and a half. Even with gas at $3.25 a gallon it would take half a tank. No wonder public transportation in Los Angeles is going broke. Guys? Basic thing here...lower the prices, put MORE people on the train, and you make MORE money. I know, lower ticket prices shouldn't mean more money but it will. Trust me on this one.

So, here I am, trying to figure out what to do with my two days. Because if I can't figure out anything I'll end up sitting on my ass watching The Price is Right. This, btw, CAN be a wonderful way to spend one's vacation time, except that every member of my family will also be sitting on their asses watching "The Price is Right". Because I'm the only one with a damn JOB!

Well, I thought maybe I would splurge and take a bus (2 hours, btw) to Disneyland. Disneyland used to be fun. We used to go down there all the time, the hubster and I would take off just to eat dinner and have an ice cream sundae on Main Street. Oh man, the Carnation Cafe used to make this absolutely awesome salad, a big green salad with chicken breast in it, and they topped it with Frito's and a tangy vinaigrette. Damn, I loved it. Then everything changed.

The food got upscale. So did the clientele. People quit going to Disneyland because they loved it and started going because it was the thing to do. You got an annual pass and you went to Disneyland. Two, three, four times a week. Because the more you went, the more likely you were to be seen by people who would then count you into a secret society where people who had nothing else to do with their lives but go to Disneyland and eat at the now upscale, oh so chic and oh so expensive restaurants on the property (which is now a "resort" instead of a "theme park")all recognized each other. And then they went on line and said you had been seen there and you intimated you had seen them and the little dance you did became the 21st century equivalent of a secret handshake.

Disneyland was no longer something one loved, or took out of town relatives to, or saved up to see at Christmastime. No, Disneyland was a social obligation. And I've NEVER really been good at social obligations. Groups and groups of people formed, and they had meet-ups and you could spot them, milling around the Esplanade, slowly gathering into a huge mass of humanity, slowly lumbering towards the promised land like so many zombies, eyes glazed over, little trickles of drool running down their chins, their matching t-shirts and name tags and lanyards full of pins to trade and passes to show off to the unfortunate day visitors who HAD no annual passes to display identifying them, per group, as the ultimate in humanity, the creme de la creme...LOCALS!

Have you ever been on a scavenger hunt at Disneyland? Lord, I have. I used to sign the entire family up. And we staggered through the property, shoulder to shoulder with other hunters and nice people from Kansas while you ran after Alice in Wonderland demanding an autograph which would net you 10 points if you were lucky. They were always held on the hottest, stickiest days of the year, these people must have consulted the Farmer's Almanac (which is notoriously reliable) to find the nastiest Sunday and book the damn thing. By the time it ended, late in the afternoon, we wished we had been on Bataan, it would have been a lot more comfortable. And we wouldn't have had to count how many teeth the hippopotami on the Jungle Cruise had.

This could have been a rather fun afternoon if it hadn't cost me about two hundred bucks for the four of us. That was on top of admission. Two hundred bucks for the privilege of being jostled, pushed around and missing parades because we spend the entire freaking day working out word puzzles, climbing Tarzan's extrememly boring tree house and fighting our way through crowds to get whatever prize would prove we had actually done the task put to us.

We did this three times.

Until it dawned on us that a) it wasn't any fun and b) the money we paid for the privilege of abusing ourselves wasn't even doing anyone any good, except the people who wrote the tasks. I mean, if the proceeds were going to the Children's Hospital of Orange or the Midnight Rescue Mission or Doctors Without Borders or something, that would have been different. No, it was going into some one's pocket, where it stayed. Or maybe got turned over to Club 33, I'm not sure. I do know if they're giving it to charity they all keep that to themselves. It seems to go for expanding bandwidth.

Not too long after September 11, 2001, a bunch of porn stars got together and wanted to do something to help. They organized a fund raiser and a bunch of really big stars of that time all rented a strip club and they all "danced" (it depends on one's definition of dancing, there wasn't a LOT of choreography) and every damn dime that came in was turned over to the American Red Cross. I thought it sounded like fun and I went. I was right, it was. It was a LOT of fun and they raised several thousand dollars, I heard. There was a BIG crowd and I was squeezed into a great big crush of people. Not unlike a Disneyland scavenger hunt. But I actually had a GOOD TIME. And my 10 bucks (no, I did NOT put it into some one's g-string. I would have, but there were no male dancers. I put it into a coffee can that was being passed around, thankyouverymuch)actually went to an organization that would use it for a good purpose. Now that I think about it, maybe if a bunch of Porn Stars decided to do a scavenger hunt at Disneyland I'd go again.

Anyway, I haven't been to one of those "private events" in YEARS. When it dawned on me that my check was being cashed for the sole purpose of making money for someone else I thought, no. Two hundred bucks buys a lot of enchiladas and tequila. Two things, btw, you CAN'T get at Disneyland. Well, okay, maybe the enchiladas...

I've been told that the cool girl club, or the Six Chicks or whatever the hell it is has decided I can't come this year. Which is pretty effing funny when you realize I haven't been to one in six years I think it is. Can't you just hear it? "Oh my GOD! I SO fixed it so she just WON'T be here! So don't worry about her and her good manners, I'm just SO OVER THAT!" It'd be worth the price of park admission just to watch it from the outside. Although I've never really been into self-abuse.

Besides, I'm actually going to Disneyland in Mid-October. One of my sons loves the Trick-or-Treat Mickey gives you last year's stale fun size Snicker Bars events. The price isn't bad and it gives him a great deal of pleasure, which in and of itself makes it worth twice the price of admission. He gets to wear his costume before Halloween and we can ride Big Thunder and it will be a lovely evening.

So yeah, the Magic Kingdom is decidedly UN magical for me these last few years. Which leaves me with the same problem I started with. What the HELL do I do with my two days off? I'm actually tempted to not bother taking them. The air conditioning is a LOT better in the office building and the Internet connection is a hell of a lot faster than that steam driven wireless I use at home.

There's a big screen TV here, and cable. No HBO, but plenty of Food TV and The Learning Channel. Also, ABC, so I can watch "Wipeout!" There's a large kitchen,with a microwave, a soft drink machine and a candy bar machine. Hell, I can just show up with an armload of Lean Cuisines and a sleeping bag and hole up over the long week-end. Me, central air, microwave popcorn and the Jerry Lewis telethon.

Believe me, I've had worse ideas. Like going on a scavenger hunt at Disneyland.

The Student Prince

Well, the dust has finally settled here in the Urban Village. We had a crisis, which was even divided, 50/50 between bureaucratic ineptitude and "my son forgot".

California, cradle of the current recession, has, apparently decided to crack down and stop pouring money into the coffers of the undeserving. So, of course, their first cutbacks were in education. We sure wouldn't want anyone who could READ living here now, would we?

Well, the hubster and I are the proud parents of a college senior. All this time we've been existing on loans, grants, scholarships, spit and sealing wax. This summer, as usual, all the forms were filled out and filed, on line, as always. All the i's were dotted and t's crossed. This was, after all, just the usual renewal. Ah, but then someone in the Office of the State Controller (I'm guessing that's where he or she was) said "Holy crap! We just GIVE this grant money away! Well, yeah, that's why it's a GRANT, as opposed to a LOAN, doofus. So we get a notice. Thanks for the on line information and by the way, now we want corroborating evidence. So we spent an entire week-end looking for our tax returns and W-2s.

Now I figure it's probably because our income dropped dramatically last year, in fact, when we filled out the on-line forms we got a chatty little pop-up box saying "Hello. You're income is considerably less than it was last year, would you care to change the figure?" OH HELL, YES! I would LOVE to change the figure. Unfortunately it still won't show up in the bank account. Um dude? Read the "source of income". Can you spell U-N-E-M-P-L-O-Y-M-E-N-T C-O-M-P-E-N-S-A-T-I-O-N?

So, anyway, we gather up all the papers and Number 2 Son toddles out to the west Valley with his packet. He stopped by my office before he boarded the bus. We sat down and checked off all the paperwork, we dotted and signed and double checked and lovingly placed everything in a nice manila envelope which we sealed and wrote upon in clear, precise letters.

About two hours later I got a frantic text from the kidlet. "The line at financial aid wraps twice around the building and they have a drop box. Is it okay if I use it?" Apparently it wasn't JUST us. "Of COURSE" I reply. Put the envelope in the box and go on your merry way!

Can you spell B-I-G MISTAKE?

About six weeks later my son gets a letter. It says "You didn't enclose copies of your SIGNED Federal Tax Returns. We can't process your request until we get them."

Okay, I enclosed them myself. I signed them. We double checked them and placed them in the envelope. I have NO freaking CLUE what they DID with them, but then, neither do they.

By this time it's the middle of summer and my son is in the middle of his summer job, which involves long hours and short pay. But it ends in early August. So he gets through that and THEN he gets the missing paperwork together and hies himself out to Financial Aid. Where they say "Thanks a lot, you're good to go and, oh, btw, your aid will be in very late because of this". Okay, so what do we do while we're waiting, school starts in two weeks, will it be in by then. Not even close, is the answer. Okay, so how long can he attend classes while we wait? That would be "not one freaking second".

Last year, when the Governor refused to sign the budget and all funding for everything was stalled we got a notice saying, in essence, it's the State's fault, just come to school and when the State money comes in we'll apply it to your account.

But, as they seem to have lost half the initial paperwork it now becomes OUR fault and we need to cough up the tuition, which will then be reimbursed when the grant and loan funding comes in. Okay. When's the tuition due? August 22nd. Great, we've got a week. I start the wheels in motion, I go to the Credit Union, I start looking at those lists online that say you have money somewhere that you didn't know you have...

And then, last night, here it comes. "I checked my account with the University. It's not due the 22nd." "Oh cool. When?"

"Tomorrow. Midnight."

At 11am today I had officially decided to give the kid a check and send him out to pay. I'm thinking, well, okay, they can't deposit it until tomorrow anyway and they'll have thousands of checks to post so that'll take a day at least...and if the Credit Union comes through...and I get paid on Thursday...

Seriously. He's worked way too hard to not go back this semester. Anyway, at about 11:30 I get a text..."how can Grandpa electronically transfer the funds to the California State University system?"

God LOVE him, my son had called his grandfather who, upon ascertaining how much was needed and for WHAT these funds were needed, basically said sure. Who should he make the cashier's check out to?

I said, no. Tell him I will fax him a copy of a deposit slip to my bank account. There is a branch of that bank (a very large bank known to many as "The Evil Empire") about five minutes from Grandpa's house. If he deposits a cashier's check into my account I can then go on line and pay the tuition with my check card. Easy peasy! OR...give Grandpa your student ID and he can put it on HIS check card. Or his AmEx. Whatever.

Uh, no. Grandpa doesn't trust the Internet. He doesn't trust the very large chain of banks I have a small account with. He doesn't trust going into a bank and depositing money into an account that isn't his own. He doesn't trust giving out his credit card on line. I'm not sure he trusts my son, or me for that matter because he wants to make the check payable to the school. I SUPPOSE, when I'm in his position and I'm bailing out my grand kid, I'll feel the same. Just to make sure the money IS actually going to the University and not the closest Indian Casino.

HE then DROVE it over. He lives an hour and a half away. Hello, good-by, here's your check, have fun, see you later". We handed over a signed, undated check and said we would call and tell him "deposit it" as soon as the funds come in. And he was off again.

He actually HAS another grandfather, who lives about 15 minutes away and could well have done the same thing. But probably not in time, because there would be a lawyer involved, loan papers drawn up and notarized and a lot of disclosures to read and sign swearing that we would not file charges against them for usury when the 35.8% interest rate started accruing. My father is a grandparent. There was NO consultation scheduled, no interest will be charged, no indictments brought against his pantie waist parents who didn't have the money and just WHAT were they thinking of, it wasn't as if they didn't KNOW you were going to college and why do you have to go back anyway and why don't YOU have a proper savings account and oh, btw, have you tried welfare?

My son is currently in line at the cashier's office. It's very long, I'm guessing it wraps twice around the building. This time I strongly advised him to NOT use the drop box. If I'd been using my head the first time I would have figured out that the line to drop off paperwork wrapped twice around the building because all of these people had used the drop box previously and knew that investing two hours in line would net them a RECEIPT for all their paperwork. So when the University lost half of it some kid could wander back in the middle of summer when there was absolutely no line and say "Dude, I gave it to you, you checked it off. See?" and then head off to Taco Bell, where he or she is either lunching or working.

Ah HA! There's already an update. Someone wandered up and down the line asking if anyone was ONLY paying their tuition in full. All those who were got pulled out of the line, which was also processing payments plans, meal tickets and parking permits and taken over to a separate window where a young lady was sitting there punching in student id's and "2533" into the accounting program, over and over and over. Sort of like the person at the bank on Friday afternoon who keeps yelling "Does anyone have a straight deposit, no cash back?" His wait was cut to about 10 minutes. He's paid in full. As for me, yeah. I'm pushing retirement and I couldn't pay his damn tuition. I suppose setting the good example that we'll do anything to get them an education sort of balances out the lousy example that we can't AFFORD to pay his damn tuition and, even though I'm starting to push retirement, I still have to get money from my father.

As for my father,I won't rest until I know he's home. I've driven with him.

"Everybody cut loose..."

Wow! I have solid evidence that people are actually reading this! This is really hella cool. Although I do have it on rather reliable authority, that there are people who read the same damn entry. Over and over and over...

Now, let's get a thing or two out of the way, as you obviously have no idea just who it is, exactly, that actually walks around in my skin.

I'm not going to be tweaking it anymore, you've read it, move on. They stand as they stand. I edit, a LOT, right after I hit "Publish" because, for some reason, it doesn't matter how many times I spell check it, or how carefully I read it in the edit window, I ALWAYS find a typo, a dangling participle or something that could just be made a little tighter once it's in actual blog form. If someone tells me it's funny I leave it alone. Never mess with funny, it just ruins it. I'm not a comedian. Comedians mess with funny. I don't. It's NOT gossip either, it won't change as news breaks. I don't DO gossip. Well, okay, I used to read Joyce Haber, I admit it. But then, THAT was real gossip. Unlike Perez Hilton, who is, well, hell, I'm not really sure what he is, let's just say I wouldn't believe him if he posted England was currently being ruled by a Queen. Also the people who read stuff and then call their friends and say "OMFG, you have to READ this, she's talking about ME!" Don't flatter yourself, chances are I'm not.

Also, I'll bet real money I've written better stuff. Right here. If you don't believe it, go back to late last year, when I was doing battle with the laminate flooring and the exercise equipment. I wouldn't recommend re-reading the same damn entry six, seven, eight, forty seven times in one day though. I'm NOT that good. If I were, I would be freaking Margaret Atwood. I would have written "The Handmaid's Tale". I love that book, btw, that book is brilliant. I re-read that book. Now and then. Not daily. I'm better than Ayn Rand though. Although even SHE made money from that bilge she wrote. I do it because I like it. No one pays me jack.

Nope. I'm a fat old lady with strong opinions and writing them down every now and then keeps me off the streets and away from a vagrancy charge.

I do re-read books, and I do watch Golden Girls re-runs though. And HBO movies. I'll watch the same movie over again, and more than once. I seldom go to the theater and PAY to see it a second time but damn! Once it hits cable, I'm SO in. For some reason, lousy movies aren't quite so lousy when your sprawled out on the couch in your jammies with a remote in one hand and a glass of Mourvedre in the other. "Mamma Mia!" is really, really pretty. It also has Pierce Brosnan singing, which kind of negates the pretty part. But I consider things like, oh, his nasal head voice strangling "S.O.S." to be built-in bathroom breaks, so it's all good. But damn, even I wander to new stuff every now and then.

Well, anyway, the other night I was watching a chick flick on a non-premium cable channel. I don't remember what the movie was, maybe "Legally Blond". Anyway, my sons and I were all watching it. I'm lucky, my sons like certain chick flicks. Not much into "Steel Magnolias" but "Legally Blond"? Oh yeah, that's a winner. Also "The Princess Bride" but then I'm not sure that's really as much a chick flick as just really, really clever.

So there we are, it's around 10pm or so and there comes a commercial. And here's some young woman sitting on the edge of a bed, staring deadpan into the camera and talking about how boring her bed used to be until she discovered "warming jelly". And then she starts discussing how really great the "big moment" is now. And then they cut to fireworks. Dude, that worked when Hitchcock did it in "To Catch A Thief", it's NOT working now. You're already in for the obvious, we don't need pyrotechnics. Well, she stops talking about this titillation in a tube and we sat there, in silence. Until my son, age 20, announces "Well, THAT was uncalled for". "I'm sorry you had to see that" I apologized.

"Don't worry" he told me, "it's not like we haven't seen them before". They have? I mean, sure, I've been seeing WAY too much of them but then I tend to watch garbage on Lifetime Television. Something told me the boys weren't watching "I Was Tied To A Tree In A Remote Forest And Left There For 7 Months By A No Damn Good MAN And Now I'm Graduating From Harvard So Suck On That!" the other night. No, they ran several of them during "Tremors" last week. Kevin Bacon! Who the hell wants to look at some woman discussing "KY Kissable" when you have Kevin Bacon in your bedroom? Can't you hear it? "We now return to "Footloose," sponsored by the fine people at Trojan rubber products. Trojans: WE take our responsibility seriously. (Trojan prophylactics are not associated with the rule-bending coaching staff at the University of Southern California)." Um, no...

"Ferguson, too" my older son chimed in. Okay, Ferguson is on after midnight. While I think the commercials are stupid, I'm pretty okay with this stuff after midnight. It kind of pairs up with the "What Are YOU Wearing" phone party line ads which, I was surprised to find out, are still around. I figured cyber sex had pretty much done away with that waste of money.

But there probably isn't a kid from middle school on up who wasn't up at 10pm watching "Tremors" the other night. I'm not under the delusion that they don't know about this stuff, or the stuff being touted in the commercials for "Adam and Eve" products (which, btw, are WAY more discreet), most of them could probably teach US things. So there's the point. Okay, KY Jelly has been around since, well, at least since I was way too young. We all knew what it was. We snorted when we saw the tube tucked away on grandpa's headboard. We also knew that it was really good for slicking back your hair, in case you wanted to go trick-or- treating as Buddy Holly or Dracula, because it not only held better than spray, it was water soluble - you could wash that crap right out.

Here's what I think. I think we watch so much TV now that advertisers figure we've all gone stupid. And we watch the same thing, over and over again. Because we're too stupid to change the channel and follow a plot we've never seen before. So they have to advertise exactly what to do with the same stuff we all KNEW what to do with. The other day I found myself alone in the afternoon and I turned on a movie about a young woman who ran a flower shop and always decorated weddings and didn't have a boyfriend. Early in the movie we were AT one of these weddings and someone said they were gathering because the groom was getting ready to throw the bride's garter belt.

GARTER BELT?

Send me an email, I'll tell you the name of the movie and the channel that runs it every now and then if you don't believe me. If you're under 30 I'll also explain what a garter belt is, if you don't know. It is NOT something normally thrown at any event that doesn't involve a pole.

It all fell into place. The people who write crap for television, be it commercials or movies, have NO CLUE WHAT IN HELL THEY'RE DOING!

If I hadn't been watching the movie for the second time I wouldn't have noticed that though. Sometimes a second look at something CAN be beneficial.

BUT...if we hadn't been watching "Legally Blond" for the 87Th time we probably wouldn't have been subjected to the KY commercial either.

So branch out people. Watch a movie you've never seen before. Be daring...watch one you've never even HEARD of before. Read a new blog entry. Hit the little arrow up top and read someone ELSE'S blog for a change. But stop boring yourselves with the same old blog entry. You can probably find another one that will offend you even more than the one you're re-reading.

If you guys don't stop reading the same day's entry over and over I just may start putting KY ads on this.

"KY Intense. FEEL the burn!"

I don't understand the Parisians...

So, there I am, sitting at my desk at home waiting for my abysmally slow wireless connection to finally let me into my email. It's evident I'm going to wait a very long time and probably will have to go back to work soon so I figure to hell with it and click on a news link that's just too titillating to resist.

Something about finding the body of a famous chef.

My first thought is Holy Cow! Someone finally snapped and hit Sandra Lee over the head with the margarita pitcher from her latest "table scape".

No. Sandra is alive and well and probably making casseroles with canned anchovies, tomato soup and miniature marshmallows.

I wasn't familiar with the chef in question. And the event happened in France, about two years ago. It seems that the famous French chef's lover had her fill of the guy. I always picture French relationships in one of three ways. It's either a passionate, devoted couple that sits around and eats French food, drinks French wine and makes love a LOT (because they're French) in between strolling over Parisian bridges hand in hand, or an older couple, devoted to one another, with snow white hair and round faces with perfect complexions who sit on a porch in Provence smiling at each other, or they're Apache dancers who throw things at each other, drag each other around the floor by the hair, wear striped shirts and smoke too much.

Apparently this couple fell into the latter category.

It seems the chef disappeared about two years ago, about the same time their landlord said he'd noticed that it wasn't as noisy in their apartment as it used to be. Now I'm guessing that they've been looking for the guy but then, I'm not up on how the gendarmes conduct investigations of this sort.

Well, within the last 24 hours or so, the matter appears to have resolved itself. Apparently the chef's lover reached her secret keeping/guilt limit and confessed to her daughter that she wasn't exactly an exemplary mother anymore. Seems that the missing chef had been occupying space in her freezer.

TWO YEARS in her freezer and no one had a freaking CLUE!

According to the news, they got in a fight and she killed the guy by punching him. No, I haven't seen her, I have no idea how large she is but the mind boggles. On my best day I don't think I could have landed a lethal blow on anything bigger than a water balloon.

It gets odder.

Apparently it was a "crime of passion" or whatever phrase the French use, probably "just another Monday". Instead of calling the police, or the doctor or 911 (or whatever they call in France), she parked him in her bathroom. And, at least according to her, she kept him in there for quite some time, until she saved enough money to buy the freezer.

The obvious question here, and SOME ONE'S got to ask it, is: DIDN'T ANYONE NOTICE THE BODY IN THE BATHROOM? Even IF she never had company in, that MUST have been disturbing. Not to mention the obvious concerns. I mean, the French aren't famous for their hygiene but....

So she gets the freezer and stuffs him in it. And two years later she finally develops a conscience and confesses to her daughter that "something unfortunate" had happened. Far from me to lecture people on right and wrong, I mean, ultimately that's pretty much between you and whoever, or whatever you eventually come up against. I think it was Mark Twain who once said "France has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals". If it wasn't him it was probably Will Rogers. But "something UNFORTUNATE?" Litote. According to freetranslation.com, litote means "understatement" in French. Le GRAND litote!

But wait! It gets better!

The French prosecutor, who I'm guessing is the equivalent of a district attorney, was quoted as saying "It would have been a banal affair if there hadn't been a cadaver lying in a freezer for two years."

Quote of the year, friends.

Yet another cock-eyed optimist

Okay, there's someone actually reading me. Although I'm pretty sure he's reading me to report to other people on me, and frankly, I think that's funny as hell. I dunno, did you ever read some news story and think "OMG, that's all about me! How did they find out?" only to discover the dateline was Vladivostok?

I'm reminded about the time, years ago, when there was a serious war somewhere in Eastern Europe, if I remember right it was the mess in Bosnia. In the first place, I had discovered BBC News. It's hella cool, they cover stories that aren't about Lindsay Lohan. I sort of LIKE knowing where, in importance, issues like Bosnia rank in the rest of the world. While here is was usually the fourth story, on BBC it was #1. Well, there was the news footage, tanks grinding down streets, locals and national military lining the same streets, throwing stuff. And then...there it was!

An upraised middle finger!

First off, that's something one would NEVER see on an American news broadcast and second, I was suddenly struck with the fact: IT'S A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE! Holy crap! If they're flipping the bird in eastern Europe, I bet they're doing it in Asia too! It means the same thing, that was pretty obvious. Who needs Berlitz! We can communicate with anyone, at any time, via hand gestures. Okay, okay, I always knew I could use them in Italy but now I know...it's worldwide.

This is why you think that the news report about the woman with the batshit crazy neighbor who finally went off the deep end end and was found wandering the town square naked at high noon is actually about your aunt. Everyone does the same thing. They may do it in another place but we're all people and we all do batshit crazy things at times and if we haven't we probably will soon or know someone who already has. So if you read the Internet and decide someone else's blog is about you, well, yeah, you might want to bulldoze some land from the top of the big rock candy mountain of an ego you've been standing on because it's NOT all about you.

Although, since it IS my blog it's all about me. Perspective wise, anyway.

Now...AFTER the Walmart trip I found that, while I'm now well stocked with pudding cups, I still needed fabric. I have the world's tiniest bathroom with the world's tiniest window and no fans or overhead lights in the shower or the tub. The tiny window affords little more than a vent for, well, let's just say it's a bathroom. Use your imagination here. If you don't know what's venting out the bathroom window there's no hope for you anyway. This steamy little room grows two things. Philodendrons and mold.

I'm constantly spraying mold and mildew remover on the walls and I'm constantly replacing shower curtains. I've never been in a position where I didn't have a shower door, so this is kind of new to me. I've discovered I like a pretty shower curtain and I need two of them because when they "renovated" my bathroom they took off the shower door and lost it (and I'm sure as hell not paying to replace it, I'm not the one who lost the damn thing) and they left me one of those spring loaded rods in it's place. This means I always have to buy TWO curtains and, let me tell you, whoever came up with the idea of commercially made shower curtains has one of the greatest rackets going.

So there I am, looking at the mold spots on yet another shower curtain and suddenly it hits me. I can make my own! It's nothing but a big square of fabric with grommets and I have one of those things that put grommets in fabric (I believe it's called a hammer). But then I don't really like grommets and I figure button holes will do a fine job.

Have you priced fabric lately?

And then, yet another brilliant idea! The garment district! Dollar a yard fabric and I can change the damn things out for 10 bucks whenever I feel like it. So Saturday, I get on the subway, all my myself. I do not remember the last time I went anywhere all by myself, except to work. Well, not since I had kids, anyway.

Now I'm cooking with gas.

Home I trudge with 8 yards of fabric and a huge bouquet of sunflowers. As I chugged up the escalator at the subway station into the light of the week-end afternoon I felt like Mary Richards, coming up the escalator with that big pot of chrysanthemums. I think they were mums, anyway. Then I realized I have a lousy haircut and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and that escalator wasn't at the Mall of America so I lost that one fast.

Sunday I'm ready. I'm gonna cut and sew. The fabric I bought was white with black flowers with bright pink centers. I'm going to make a BIG square, and make 12 hot pink button holes to go over the shower hooks. I opened the closet door to get my spiffy Brother practically-makes-the-damn-quilt-by-itself sewing machine.

I closed the door just in time. Do I really need to go into detail on this? I didn't think so.

I'm hoping that, by this coming Saturday, I'll have sorted and removed and organized enough of the stuff that's been stuffed in there to actually FIND the sewing machine.

Told you. I'm an optimist.

They call it Sam's Song

Oh, the world is full of sad, sad little people. It seems the bigger they think they are, the meaner they act. It's hard to swallow someone being deliberately cruel to an autistic kid just because they think the kid's mother is a jerk, but it happened and there you have it.

Okay, that was a little, personal vent. You know who you are and you know you're pretty low down for that.

Personally? I've had a hella busy week-end. It started with my son not shaving. My older son has some difficulties that are not of his doing. One of them is a seizure disorder. When he neglects his medication he tends to have them. This pretty much makes him remember to take his pills regularly and, even though he NOW has one every four or five years it drives me to distraction and I, of course, spend pretty much every minute of my day on pins and needles because of this. I keep thinking ONE of these years I'll relax but it hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, as a precaution, he doesn't use a razor with a blade...yeah, even a safety razor which would be fine but hey, I'm a nervous Nellie about it. And he LIKES electric razors. My father always used an electric and my son adores my dad and wishes to be like Grandpa. He dresses like him and he uses an electric razor. Well, the razor he had crapped out and jeez, have you PRICED electric razors? Like I've got 80+ bucks to spend on a razor. So occasionally he would lather up and try and use one of the Bic disposable razors but, as dear as he is and as wonderful as he is, he's not real good with a razor.

So, on Friday morning my father picked the kid (okay, he's going to be 22 but he's still my kid, back off) and I up and we went to the aforementioned performance of "Seussical". And, as we were racing up to stopped traffic on the freeway and I'm yelling "brake!" to him he says "After the show I'll take you to Walmart and I'll buy you a new razor. Early birthday present, okay?"

Walmart. Ugh.

I do NOT patronize Walmart. I could get into why but you probably know why. You've heard all the stuff about Walmart. You may not believe it. I do. I don't go there.

My father, however, is in LOVE with Walmart. He belongs to Sam's Club. There was no point saying "Hey, there's a Target a LOT closer." It's just the way it is. He shops the right hand side of the menu. He uses Valero Gas, which I personally think is half water.

So off to Walmart we went. I sent him to one in a much better neighborhood than the one he had planned to visit. Better parking too. There's a Joannes fabric store there and I was hoping to duck in while he wandered the aisles of the crooked store but, well, yeah, that didn't quite work. So in to Walmart we all troop, my step mother complaining that it was hot and the store was too big, me complaining that I wanted to go to the fabric store and not Walmart and my kid happily heading off with his grandfather.

I got my step mother inside. Now to be fair, she's got a bum knee. So I was looking for someplace to park her. Try to find a seat in a Walmart. Well, she decided to go look for the boys in the razor department. As we headed into the store proper, I saw it.

Tide.

100 ounces for TEN BUCKS! This price is outstanding. You can't touch that much Tide in my neck of the valley for less than $12.99 on sale and with a coupon. I dug through and found a bottle without Downey or Febreze or Pina Colada mix in it. I don't know why, but if there's something extra in the detergent you don't get as many loads. One hundred ounces of plain, old Tide yields 64 loads. Add a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and suddenly you're down to 52 loads, don't ask me why. Seems to me 100 oz is an 100 oz. Anyway, I do a LOT of laundry so I find a 64 load bottle and grab it.

Hefting my bottle I head to the back of the store to look for the rest of the tribe. I have to go through the make-up department to do this. Well, I haven't had a tube of mascara in MONTHS and I've been realizing that I don't wear much make-up because I don't HAVE much make-up left so I wander over to look at mascara. It's pretty cheap. I pick one of those up too, after all, I'm already in for the Tide. So, with Tide and mascara in hand off I go and...oooooooo

SHINY!

I finally found the rest of my merry troop and we headed off for the registers. As I was piling the last of my pudding cups on the conveyor belt and digging for my bank card I felt the tug of remorse. Not enough of a tug to put my loot back, but I DID stop piling $1 packs of pudding cups on top of the Jergens self tanning body lotion set before I actually sank into the quicksand that is Walmart.

My step-mother, son and father were at another register and we met up at the door. They were carrying a bag with a Remington three head electric razor, I was hauling well, let's call it several bags. My father eyed me suspiciously.

"Oh, shut-up" I said.

As I hauled the bags with the big, blue Walmart logo up the stairs and into the apartment later that afternoon the hubster said nothing but eyed the bags.

"Oh, shut-up" I said.

Later that evening the hubster said it was okay. He understood. He had run into a Walmart several weeks earlier because he'd broken a shoelace and that was the nearest place. Apparently he brought home socks, breath strips, beer and Snicker bars. The beer, btw, was for me. I just didn't know about it because wasn't there when he got in.

"I feel dirty" I said.

"Don't worry Mom" said my son. "We've got plenty of Tide."