Yucky Salad with Bones

November 28 '06

"Some people hope for a miracle cure
Some people just accept the world as it is
But I'm not willing to lay down and die
Because I am an innocent man
Oh yes I am, an innocent man"

I always liked that Billy Joel song and I couldn't help but think of it this morning on another trip to the grocery store (give me a break, I'm a single guy, we have to go to the store pretty much every time we get hungry). The specials today were guilt. Big, fat helpings of guilt.

Park my car and as soon as I get out I can hear the clang, clang, clang of the Salvation Army bell-ringer. She's an enormous, miserable looking woman and as I approach she starts shaking her bell more violently and fixes me with a disdainful gaze that screams, "I can tell you're not going to give because you think you're better than everybody, you heartless swine!"

I do my best to avoid her stare, but it seems to be everywhere, like she has five floating heads or something. (That might have more to do with the NyQuil I took before bed last night, but whatever). I start walking faster as I approach her, staring straight at the door, my body language screaming back at her, "nope, I'm not giving to you, cause I don't like your style." I mean, c'mon, whatever happened to ringing the bell joyfully, smiling at everybody and throwing out a "happy holidays" to the shoppers? I swear as I walked by this lady, she threw me a glance like I had just elbowed her in the corner and she was getting my number to remember for our next shift.

Now, I haven't been able to run very much lately because I hurt my calf, but that's no reason to starve myself, right? I mean, if the good people of Nabisco are going to make a special batch of "Winter-Holiday" Double Stuff Oreos, who am I to say no? Guilt grabs me. Can you start making New Year's resolutions in November? I won't eat Oreos in '97? What, I'm supposed to be a grinch and not accept this winter-holiday offering from Nabisco? I'm no grinch. (Well, don't ask that lady outside if I am, but she started it!)

I need a loaf of bread so I head to that section. Perfectly blocking my path to the bread is a group of 6 or 7 grade-school girls who are frantically asking shoppers for donations for the school Christmas play. Guilt loses here, because you just can't not give them something. I give this girl two dollars and she smiles up at me and says, "Thanks. Would you like to buy a ticket to our play for 10 dollars?"

"Um... no thanks"

Her facial expression changes immediately to convey, "why?... I mean, I know you hate me, giving only two dollars and all, but apparently you hate Jesus too?"

So I find myself explaining to this young girl that I work nights and we're short staffed during the holidays and it would be impossible for me to get that evening off and I'm sorry and yeah, I probably should put the Double Stuffs back on the shelf, but I promise I'll try harder in 2007.

So I head to the check-out sweating and feeling like it's not such a wonderful life.

The cashier is a nice woman who smiles at me asks me how I am. What a relief. We engage in fake but pleasant enough conversation and then she hits me with it:

"Would you like to donate a dollar to the homeless food shelf?"

I act distracted as I pull out my wallet and offer a meek, "no thanks."

I hand her my money and notice that she is now frowning at me. So is the guy bagging my groceries. I peek behind me to avoid their looks and see that the elderly woman behind me is not only frowning, but shaking her head.

I hurry out of the store and almost run smack into my buddy ringing the guilt bell. I kid you not, she says, "Not gonna give today, huh?"

What? You can't say that. Look, I'm not the one who signed you up for this gig. Am I crazy or is that person supposed to spread holiday spirit? She was flat-out bullying me. I threw her an excellent head fake left, and broke past her on the right to my car.

I made a compromise with my guilt on the ride home, promising not to eat any of the Oreos for breakfast.

I logged on, hoping to find some stupid e-mail joke or picture to lighten my mood a bit. Here's what I got:

"A little girl in Liberia has gone missing. If you don't pass on this e-mail prayer to a hundred of your friends, she'll either starve to death or get eaten by a lion."

That's it, I'd had enough. I tore open the Oreos.

Best letter to the editor of the week: "Not pompous at all of Brad Pitt to announce that he and Angelina wouldn't get married until it was okay for anyone to marry anyone else. Can they also please promise not to eat until all the starving people have been fed?"

another editor's note; don't worry, I won't do this every time, well, I might since I don't have a 'comments' section, but this story reminds me of the time I yelled (not really, what I really did was politely ask ) at the grocery bagger to please not put my strawberries under the charcoal and she glared at me, put the bags in her wheelie cart and walked out to the parking lot....with a pronounced limp. Everyone in the store was looking at me like "Way to go, jerk. Yell at a cripple, does that make you a big man?"

-k

November 25/26, '06

Editor's note: We here at the Salad are pleased to announce the arrival of guest contributor Billy. Billy is a very busy and important person who works at a giant sports network whose name I'm not really at liberty to reveal, but its initials are ESPN. He also writes a column for the Minnesota Score magazine called Hubbell's Telescope. I know, clever, right? (sidenote, his bio at said mag is woefully out of date.) That sharp wit is exactly why we're so happy he's agreed to join us, and by us I mean me. The plan is, he'll have a weekly spot on the roster appropriately titled "Tuesdays With Billy". Appropriate because it'll be Tuesday, not because he has Lou Gehrig's disease and I'm gonna sit with him and spoon feed him runny broth while he drones on about the old days.

As you well know, Katie's tired of getting yelled at for not posting enough, so she's asked me to pinch hit every so often. Now, I'm not Katie, but I do think salad with bones in it would be yucky. Except that I don't say yucky because I'm not five. (Nothing against five year-olds, I just prefer to say "crappy," or a certain word that rhymes with "titty". Oh, wait, titty probably isn't a whole lot better than the word I was thinking of. Sorry.
I'm also male, so I'll never start a musing with, "What a glorious morning to sit here in my jammies and..." Well that's not true, I might, but what would follow would be completely distasteful to everyone involved, including me.

Like Katie I have a giant fascination with all things having to do with entertainment. Sports, movies, books, music, TV (but not important TV, you know-- segments that have a clock ticking in the background as they begin-- blech.) I'll glance at the front page of the paper, if there's a snappy headline, I'll even read the first paragraph. The Metro section I'll pay a little more attention to, I mean c'mon, who doesn't want to read about weirdos from Wisconsin having sex with dead animals? The sports page I'll go cover to cover and then I'll breeze through the Variety section. (I'm not calling it whatever the Strib is calling it these days, I'm just not. I was the kid who stood up in fourth grade when they tried to tell us that an inch was now a centimeter and announced to my teacher, "This is not happening."

Now having said all that, I'm going to jump in with something straight off the front page-- the trial of this freakshow, Warren Jeffs-- the head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If you completely ignore the front page and television news, well, I respect that, but here's a little background: Jeffs was apprehended by Nevada Police in August during a routine traffic stop. He was immediately charged with evading police custody and several counts of "Accomplice to Rape" for arranging underage "marriages". There are no state records of a Marriage License being issued in the cases involving 13 and 14 year old girls.
Jeffs had been on the FBI's most wanted list for some time, they just couldn't find him. Let me say that again-- they couldn't find him. Okay, I can sort of understand not finding Bin Laden, he's bouncing around mountain caves in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a few other stans I'm not going to look up. Jeffs lives in Utah! Okay, he has pads in northern Arizona and Texas too, but he's hardly hiding in caves-- he has sprawling estates!
This religion reads like it was made up by a bunch of 7th grade delinquent boys skateboarding and smoking ciggs at the Gas 'N Sip.
"Dude, it'll be awesome, we'll have as many wives as we want and they'll have to do whatever we say!"
"Yeah, and we'll have sex with them whenever we want-- and they'll all get government money for being un-wed mothers and we'll just take their checks when they come!"
"Dude, high-five!"

How has this guy and all of his ilk not been severely dealt with by now? Is it the year 1400? They imprison young girls and rape them and marry them before they're fifteen. How have we not sent in the National Guard and a couple of Army battalions and arrested everyone involved? Just plow through Northern Arizona and Southern Utah and arrest every guy wearing a short-sleeve dress shirt, a bad tie, a creepy smile and a 1959 hairdo. Seriously.

Moving on to things that actually affect my life, I was in front of the magazine rack at the grocery store the other day-- I had just spent 10 laborious minutes choosing between a big bag of Cheetos or a big bag of Doritos-- and I needed something to read while I stuffed my face. Anyway, I couldn't help notice that George Clooney was on two covers. Not that unusual, I know, but one was People's "Sexiest Man Alive" issue and the other was Esquire's "Genius" issue. Talk about best week ever. Next they're going to tell me he's Jesus, son of God, returned to Earth to save us all and that he would have saved us sooner, but he wanted to be on "Facts of Life" and make a Batman movie first.

I hope none of you were too distressed by this month's election results. I know that one vote total still has me seething-- one of those results that just makes your blood boil and makes you want to lash out at your fellow man. Lindsey Lohan beat Julie Bowen in "Who Wore It Best?" by an 88-12 margin! What's wrong with America???

Okay, gotta run, Molly's picking Finbar's nose with a Fondue fork..... (oh, that's right, I'm not Katie).

November 24,'06

What a glorious feeling it is to sit here in my jammies and have absolutely nothing to do! It's eleven o'clock! I just got up! I ate Pumpkin Pie for breakfast!

Heh, that sounds like when somebody thinks they're a big tough guy and they're all, "I eat squirts like you for breakfast!"

"I eat pumpkin pie for breakfast" would be the opposite of that, what you say when you're trying to stress that you are absolutely not a tough guy, and it works for me on many levels: Not only am I not physically strong, I lack mental fortitude as well. Hey, we can't all be pearls, the world needs oysters, too.

So. Another Thanksgiving come and gone, and how different this day is from Hangover Friday '05. It's bright and sunny and warm, and I feel bad that I didn't plant any Mums outside. (OK, "bad" is a stretch, I feel ambivalent. Actually I don't care at all, it just seemed like something good to say. Like last night, when my sister was talking about where her daughter might go to law school and what the best law schools are, and I offered "Michigan". I have no friggin' clue if Michigan has a good law school, and I care not a wit. But it had been too long since I'd opened my mouth and aren't the Holidays really about talking out your ass with your relatives? Let the wine do its job, I say.)

Last year it was snowing and super Christmasy, and all I wanted to do was break out cookie recipes and tie pine swags to everything that wasn't nailed down. Wait a minute, that makes no sense. Swags should be tied to everything that is nailed down, right? I tell you what, folks, the many subtleties of English language colloquialisms are gonna be the death of me.

Woo..."colloquialism"! Anybody got ten bucks?

Yesterday was loverly. Once I calmed down and found a different tablecloth, the fam arrived and everyone brought stuff (Mike's sister and brother-in-law actually brought the turkey...no one has let me cook a turkey since the year I served a raw one) and we had far more food than 15 people could eat.

Mike made two enormous veggie trays in a misguided attempt to inject the tradition with some nutrition (ladies and gentlemen, Eminem!) but the fates wouldn't have it; the leaf on our center island gave out and sent both trays crashing to the kitchen floor. Lesson learned: the Pilgrims didn't set out for the new world so people could eat Brocolli. It was nice enough so the kiddies spent the bulk of the day outside, which was terrific, and Mike's sister and niece discussed the possiblity of hitting an outlet mall at midnight to kick off the shopping season.

Things I would rather do than go shopping at midnight after eating 10,000,000 calories and fifteen zillion fat grams:

Tongue kiss an alligator

I guess that's enough.

Anyway, to each their own.

Lessee..as usual, we went over to my folks' in the evening. I always look forward to whatever slurry verbal abuse will be heaped upon me by my uncle, and this year's opening barb was particularly enjoyable: I'd brought over an extra pie, and when I announced this selfless act, he bellowed "WHAT? I ALWAYS BRING THE PIE, YOU DINGBAT!"

"Dingbat" is simply not a word we hear enough anymore, and I want to bring it back. In response, I told him no worries, I could think of another use for the extra pie.

Oh my...Mike is taking Finny and his cousins to the St. Thomas Academy game. Finbar just came upstairs, and he's covered himself with blue marker. "St Thomas Rules!!" is scrawled on his face, his arms, his shirt...he's a face painter. My son is a face painter.

November 23 '06

Happy Thanksgiving!

Criminy... racing around trying to get ready to have the inlaws over today.

Spent all day yesterday cleaning, fat lot of good it did... what sadistic freak decided we should give the kids the whole darn week off from school? How in the Sam Hell am I supposed to get anything cleaned with all these kids up my you know what every second of every day??

Running through living room with 409 soaked rag...what the...what is that, carved into the top of my adorable antique side table? It looks sort of blue...must get a little closer...oh fer cryin'...'Molly'. It says 'Molly'.

Aaaargggh. Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!!!!

Gotta walk it off...no time to dwell or hand out punishment, and anyway 25 years ago, MJ painted smiley faces on the baseboards of our parents tv room with white nail polish, and when we went through the house last year (it was on the market) they were still there, much to our amusement. With that in mind, perhaps someday I will likewise find the desecration of my tabletop amusing.

Run into kitchen, someone has put toast in the toaster, blatantly ignoring my "Lunch is over the kitchen is closed" edict and it's burning...open the windows, the same windows I wiped down not thirty seconds ago are now all sporting that classic childhood adornment, "Make A Breath Mark, Press Nose And Tongue Into It".

I did manage to throw a little paint over the water marks on my hallway ceiling, (see last post) but it doesn't really cover. There is also standing water in the bathroom sink, as my creative young son decided to give his halloween wig a trim and let all the clippings go into the drain.

AGAIN, WHAT SADISTIC FREAK DECIDED THE KIDS SHOULD BE HOME ALL WEEK LONG???

"Mom!"

My eldest daughter is standing in front of me, holding a large wad of bedding. It is stained purple and reeks like a hostess fruit pie.

"Remember I hurt my ankle at karate? Well, we didn't have any frozen peas, so I used a bag of frozen blueberries and I took it to bed with me last night and I forgot and I fell asleep."

Where's my tablecloth??? Where is my beautiful Irish linen tablecloth...

Found it. Meggie had a friend sleep over the other night and they set up an air bed in the basement, and apparently thought my tablecloth was a sheet and slept on it. Do I dare? Would you like a side of eleven-year-old girl with your turkey? No one will know. Just iron it.

Ick. I'll know. Gotta find a replacement.

siiiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhhhh

This is the part of the post where I'm supposed to say, "But who cares? I love everybody and darn it, I'm thankful!" and I am, I am, I amIamIamIam.

I just can't wait to crack open that wine is all.

Happy Day!

November 15 '06

The complaints are always the same.

“You don’t post often enough.”

“You’re not funny.”

There’s not a dern thing I can do about either one of those things, folks. Blame number one on my children and number two on too much roughage.

Hey, that reminds me of another oft-bemoaned flaw: “You’re too juvenile.” Juvenile? This blog may be a lot of things, or a lack of things depending on your expectations, but ‘taint juvenile.

Ha! I said ‘taint’.

Moving on. Threw caution to the wind this weekend and took a trip to Denver…to see a band. OK, back up, no I didn’t just suddenly turn into Lindsay Lohan. (Although I, too, have given up on underwear.) See, what happened was we had tickets we had to use, my sister lives there and we hadn’t seen her sweetly renovated new house yet and J Dubs was gonna be there covering ND and we haven’t seen him in forever either, and as luck would have it, my other sisters were available for babysitting. So at 10 am Saturday morning we thought, “let’s act like silly teenagers and just go!” and three hours later we were on a plane. I was still in my pajamas. And that crack I made about not wearing underwear (no pun intended…how many bad jokes about the old undercarriage can I make in one post?) was just a joke.

I’m a nervous flyer. Every terrible scenario that can possibly happen basically plays on a continuous loop in my brain the entire flight; noises make me jumpy, turbulence makes me crazy and I kept sneaking looks over at the three dudes carting gigantic teddy bears aboard the plane and wondering if said teddy bears were stuffed with explosives. They weren’t, or if they were, they didn’t work, and we arrived at our destination safe and sound. Phew. I would hate to die in a plane crash because I wanted to see a show. I mean I’d hate to for any reason, but that particular reason would be difficult for my children to get over, no?

My kids, to grizzled old medium they’ve consulted to try and make sense of their new status as orphans: “Why, mommy? Why did you leave us?”

“I really liked that band.”

Popped in on Margy and the fam; as luck would have it my folks were also there visiting, adding to my feelings of guilt about the trip as a whole. I not only took a day trip to another state where my sister lives but wasn’t going to stay for more time than it took to sing along to The Peacemakers’ greatest hits, I was infringing on her time with my parents, whom I have the good fortune to see on a near daily basis and she sees twice a year if she's lucky. If anyone held these things against me, though, they did a good job of hiding it. And anyway, Margy is the personification of the phrase “living well is the best revenge”. Her house is fabulous, and she looks better than ever.

We chatted and laughed and visited for an hour or so, then she was off to some fancy shmancy function and we hit the showers, grubbed some Mexican food and went to our show. I think we took a little too long to get gone for my four young nephews and their numerous pals taste, though, as they kept shouting from across their cavernous house, “are you still here??” and giggling mischievously. It’s nice to not have to be the one to investigate the mischievous giggling.

Uck…I just saw an ad for comic relief 2006. Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams, the Grand Triumvirate of Irritating.

Show was great, afterward we hit the one open-at-2 am-greasy-spoon in downtown Denver where the food was almost as good as the people watching. Hookers, cops, family reunions, drunken revelers and what looked like a Charlie Daniels tribute band, all there, united by a love for some chicken fried steak. It was a beautiful thing to behold. I’ve had a stomachache ever since. John was nice enough to let us crash in his hotel room, so we didn't have te drive half an hour and stumble in on my whole family complete with sleeping children at 3 in teh morning. Three sweaty concert goers

late night diner food

some smells I didn't know existed and frankly, could do without.

Came home Sunday to a dead car battery and a toilet that decided to belch up everything it had eaten in the last week. The ceiling over my front door is ruined and the basement was soaked. I could look at it as God’s way of telling me I shouldn’t have left, but I’ve chosen to instead see it as His way of having a little fun; I mean, like I said, I’m a nervous traveler and I prayed the whole time “please God, bring us safely home and keep our kids safe until we get there,” and my prayers were answered, so who am I to complain? I never specified anything about the toilet.

That God. What a crack up.

November 9 '06

If you're looking for something to do tonight, check this out. The fabulous duo of Fran and Jen are having a trunk show of their nifty letterpress wares...cool cards! Prints! Mixpak cd sleeves! Fun things of interest that make great gifts! Seriously, the stuff rocks. My favorite is this Christmas card...

November 8 '06

Random, disjointed thoughts only today; I know, that makes it sound as if my thoughts are usually cohesive, which they quite obviously are not.

The other day I looked at my Christams decorations sitting in the basement, and I thought "Blech, I just took those stupid things down and it's practically time to put them back up. I hate them." This is not the feeling I want to have when thinking about Christmas. I blame the retailers for forcing me to think about it months in advance so by the time it rolls around, I'm about as excited as Britney Spears reading a pregnancy test. But if Brit can cut the cancer out and divorce KFed then so can I! You will not ruin my holidays, crass retail world! You are KFed and I am glue, anything you try and make me buy will bounce right off me and stick to, um, Shar Jackson. Or something.

Driving down highway 100, I saw this billboard for McDonald's: A cup of coffee, and under it are the words "We'll add the cream and sugar for you". Think about that for a second. Is this developement a good thing? It's not bad enough that no less than seven "team members" touch my burger by the time I get it, now I want them sticking their fingers in my coffee? And how hard is adding cream and sugar, anyway? We'll add the cream and sugar for you. We'll also put the ketchup on your big mac, salt your fries and feed you your entire meal, you fat, lazy f***. For dessert you can come back behind the counter and stick your mouth right on the soft serve dispenser.

Went to Half Price books tonight and bought a stack of trash, and as I approached the checkout, I got the panicky flop sweats and grabbed a 'beard' book in the hopes I'd look less jerky and pedestrian. (See previous post about thanking clerk for "My Fair Lady" rental choice... file under "Why do I feel the need to impress strangers? And other insecurities") The book I grabbed? Wait for it.......

Anna Karenina

Uuuuuuuuuuugh I can't even type that without cringing at my own pretentious ickiness! And the clerk knew, of course she knew, she knew the same way she knew back when she worked at Holiday and college kids would come in and buy condoms and gum. I couldn't have been more obvious if I'd asked for a leather bound collection of Shakespeare's sonnets. So as punishment for not having the strength of character to stand up and proudly admit all I wanted was a copy of Little Earthquakes and maybe some Janet Evanovich, I will read Anna Karenina and review it here. Stay tuned.

November 7 '06

Rented "My Fair Lady" the other night for the kiddies and I to watch, and when I brought it up to the counter to check out, the AV geek behind the counter nodded his approval and said, "Goooooooood movie."

"Thanks," I said.

Thanks?

"Thanks, I wrote it, directed it, and played all the major roles!" Why on Earth did I thank him, was it just a slip of the tongue, an unfortunate blurt-out when what I meant to say was "Yeah, it is good", or am I so desperate for approval that I care what the AV kid at Blockbuster thinks of my taste in movies? Anyway. It is a great movie, and though I had to explain to the babes what was going on half the time, they loved it, too.

Hair update: got it highlighted on Friday just in time for Roger Clyne, on the off chance that he would notice me from the stage and ask me to run away with him (he didn't). Muzz's reaction was "Did they charge you for that?" That after she had already grimmaced at my choice of dungarees and made me change.

Miguel's first show on FSN last night. He was a nervous wreck all day yesterday, and my gut started doing vicarious flips for him oh, right around dinner time. Speaking of dinner, I made his favorite black beans and rice, and it wasn't until I set it on the table that I realized maybe it wasn't the best meal for a fellow whose stomach was nervous to begin with and who had to sit in close proximity with someone under hot studio lights for a half hour. Didn't matter, since he barely ate a bite. Sooooo nervous....he was so darn nervous.

Gotta go vote.

November 4'06

November already? Cripes. Tell you what, I gotta get those humidifiers out of the basement and get those babies humming; the forced heat has only been on for a month and already my face looks like a parched desert wasteland inhabited only by tumbleweeds and the odd buzzard circling overhead, hoping to snack on whatever rotting bits of my youth it can find. My hair is even worse. It clings to my head like stink to Lindsey Lohan, and any color it may have had jumped ship weeks ago. When I was young my mom told me it was "dishwater blonde". Not a nice description. "You're hair looks like the crud left in the sink after the dishes are washed. And not after we've had scrambled eggs, either, toots; we're talking grade-A, primo greezy lamb chops that got so stuck to the pan we had to soak it for hours. Have a nice day!"

Molly's kindergarten class dressed up for the parade of Saints for the All Saints day Mass, soooo cute. I, of course, forgot she needed a costume, and when the Saints came marching in, there was St. Mary, Queen of Heaven, wearing her mom's ratty beach cover up and a batman cape on her head.

It's that time of year again, people! He's back, at the Fine Line tonight! Mmmmmmmmm, can't wait.