I Hope You Know That This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record

The Violent Femmes played Raleigh this week-end, and of course I went. I spent countless hours as a teenager listening to their first album. On casette tape, of course, so that it subsequently started sounding like the band was playing underwater on some of the songs, and then the tape finally just broke. We would play their music on the band bus (oh yes, the band bus), and many times my own personal judge of character of somebody I had just met was whether they liked the Femmes or not. Needless to say, my husband is a fan. I don't know if he wore out his casette tape playing it or not, but he knows the lyrics to some of their more obscure songs, so he passes the test.

The concert was free, and held in downtown Raleigh at a tiny park in the middle of the bar/restaurant/art gallery/trendy junk shop district. Let me preface my review of the concert with this: I am old. I'm convinced of this fact for several reasons.

First, I don't really enjoy drinking cheap, overpriced beer. I mean, $4 per can isn't THAT bad, by concert standards, but after one can of Bud Light I'm ready to just give up on drinking for the night. Also, they used this stupid ticket system, which means you have to wait in line to buy a ticket, then wait in line to trade your ticket for a beer. This means that you buy a bunch of tickets intending to trade them in later, but then if you don't want any more to drink, the bastards running the concert get to keep your money. Yeah, we drank ALL of the beers. No unused tickets for us! Looking around, I saw that most people also used all of their tickets. Many, many, tickets.

Second, I don't like crowds. It seemed like most people around me were basically OK with standing around shoulder-to-shoulder. This could have more to do with redeeming all of their tickets than with their age, I'm not sure. All I know is that I was hot (it was 95 degrees and humid with no breeze, even at 9 at night) and people kept shoving through us. Why in God's name can't people just stand the fuck still when the band is playing?? I mean, send one person to go get beer, there is no need for all seven of you to come shoving through everybody in a bizarre, rude, conga line.

This was not helped by the lesbian couple next to us, who decided to bring their children along, ages 12 and 8. The 12-year-old seemed OK, bobbing her head along to the music, smiling, trying not to acknowledge the drunk men next to her that were perving on her something fierce by the end of the set. The 8-year-old was NOT happy, and looked like he was going to throw up at any minute. Thankfully, he held off. He was practically laying down on the ground though, which meant that his mothers had the job of making sure he didn't get stepped on. They proceeded to direct traffic around him, which made some people get a little unruly. At which point, one of them would threaten to kick his/her ass, and the unruly person would walk away. We were pretty thankful for the "walking away" part, although generally it was more like "walking around the crazy lesbian and then shoving whoever else happens to be in the way (usually me or Nikki)."

That being said, the Violent Femmes still rock my world. They are good at what they do, which is more than I can say for other artists that are currently played on Top 40 (although I listen to less and less of that, to be sure), and they are still very odd. They played Country Death Song, which is a dark and ironic choice being that they were fairly close to being in the Appalachians. We sang along and looked around, expecting outrage. All we got was drunken revelry, and somebody behind us shouting FREEBIRD about 25 times throughout the course of the set. The set was much to short, of course, but hey - the price was right.

Yum

Is it wrong that I'm so excited about the potential of Karl Rove actually getting caught doing something shady? I can barely listen to stories about it on the radio without clapping my hands with glee. Glee, I tell you. I just finished reading one of Al Franken's books (dated, I know) about Rove's push polling to knock McCain out of the primary, and various other shady shit he's done to help a President that should never have become one.

And just to cement my liberal standing, I will repeat what should be repeated, over and over again. Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet.

London Calling

Our main TV broke about three weeks ago, so the first I heard of today's bombings was on BBC news on my way to work. It made the news much more immediate hearing it on a London-based station. The immediate panic and the jammed phone lines reminded me so much of 9/11 it was eerie. In addition to the victims and wounded, they talked about the 3 million or so people who would normally take the subway or buses today, and it was hard to imagine how scared those people must be, all of them.

My other thoughts are about Iraq. I have never been there, but I have to think that getting on a bus there you would take your life in your hands every single day. Not to mention on the street, in your home, going to the store, anywhere. Are they scared all the time? Or are they just numb to it by now and take it as part of everyday life? Also, ask yourself what your reaction was the last time you heard about a suicide bomber blowing up a bus in Iraq. Was it on par with your reaction to the attacks in London?

Of course this doesn't diminish the tragedy in any way. In "free" western societies we expect to be able to walk down the street or use public transportation without being blown up. Of course, we also expect to live without things like illegal search and seizure, wiretaps without court orders, imprisonment for indefinite time without hope of trial, going to jail for not revealing a journalistic source, things like that.

Hawt.

What other word is there to describe North Carolina in July besides, "Gaaahhh." Seriously. Hot, Africa hot, and humid so it seems like you're swimming through the air rather than walking. This is interrupted only by sudden and torrential downpours, some with lightning and thunder, some with hail, some with only huge, furious drops of rain.

Sometimes, the rain parts the heat like a wave, and you go outside and forget how hot it was just an hour ago. It feels clean and you want to sit outside and drink iced tea and be Southern® for a while.

Other times, the added moisture just makes it worse. You go outside and you feel like a piece of broccoli in a steam cooker. You slow down, though, so you get evenly cooked on all sides.

Spring, Summer, and Fall

I had a whole series of things that would fit into the seasons categories, but I got so hung up on how to write the Fall one that I haven't written anything. So I'm just going to skip it. Plus, the overall blog tone has gotten a little depressing with the multiple deaths in my family and among friends of the family.

There are much happier things that have happened this year. For example, my friend Krissy got married this February and about forty of us went on a cruise to watch it happen. Now that was really something, so much so that I finally got motivated to get a free photo account. The images are BACK, baby! Well, I still have to re-upload the old ones.

Moments like the wedding seem to have a gravity of their own, leaving an imprint in your mind. Sitting at a little restaurant on the water, listening to the water and the mexican music played on the official wedding boombox, sipping a margarita and watching a good friend get married to somebody she loves with all her heart. Now that is a good one to keep with you for a while. Despite Carnival making abundant mistakes, we had a fantastic time and wouldn't have changed it for the world. A lifetime of happiness to Krissy and Ted!

Winter

While we were on vacation, my Aunt Ola Mae passed away. It seems as though our family is reaching the point where we will be gathering for funerals more often. Most of these will be for people that have reached the winter of life, and I think Aunt Ola Mae had definitely made it there. She buried two husbands, has seen a generation of children born, then a generation of grandchildren, and finally a generation of great grandchildren. She was the photographer in the family - we used to joke that we wouldn't recognize her without a flashbulb on her forehead - and she drove like a bat out of hell. Seriously. We would all leave at the same time and she always always was the first to arrive. She was always full of energy and loved to laugh. The overwhelming sense I get from her passing is that she had seen everything there was to see, and now it's time for the next adventure. I hope she takes some good pictures.

Good Things

And I say
No, no, no, don't pass me over No, no, no, don't pass me by
See I can see good things for you and I
Yeah, good things for you

The year is 1992 (or thereabouts) and the place is a basement of a rental house that is somewhere in the vicinity of campus but is just far enough away that you have to find somebody with a car to take you there. There are five of us in the basement, and we are trying to learn songs with only three chords. For a brief period we consider naming the band DAG, but then Tommy convinces us to go with Oresteia. This turns out to be an interesting choice, considering that the only gigs we ever play are in crappy hick bars in semi-rural Wisconsin. For the most part, they call us Ortega, and then are fairly hostile when we don't play salsa music. Actually, that's not true. They are VERY hostile, when we don't know Freebird. FREEBIRD!! SKYNYRD!! DAMN, this band SUCKS!

So back to the basement. We feel like rock and rolls superstars in the basement. It's smoky and poorly ventilated, which proves to be good practice for me at putting up with the aforementioned crappy hick bars. I only have a couple allergy attacks, which is amazing considering the length of time we spend in the basement. Ray, although a great guy and pretty good contact with the crappy hick bars, has some trouble with the DAG songs. As they say in the South, bless his heart. It probably didn't help that he's deaf in one ear.

I know that leaving the band was the right thing to do for my college career. My week-ends were better spent practicing piano than pounding out DAG in a smoky basement. Still, for a brief while it was fun to be a rock and roll superstar, even if it was only in my own mind. I attempted to join a smaller band later on, sort of a Hootie wannabe, but it wasn't the same. Maybe because he didn't smoke.

It's That Time of Year Again

How to make deep-fried turkey instructions can be found here and here, the last one includes a recipe for the seasoning.

Enjoy!

Eulogy

Instead of trying to do something elaborate here, I am going to stick with what I do naturally. Telling stories.

My favorite story about my grandfather:
When I was little, I remember sitting in my grandparents' kitchen and coloring in a coloring books. It is possible that the coloring book came with me on the trip, but it is possible that it came instead from the toy cupboard. The toy cupboard was a fantastic place. I don't know what was originally stored there, but it became the place to keep toys for the grandkids. My grandfather sat down next to me and watched me color for a little while. I had carefully outlined the shapes in crayon and was filling them in, moving the crayon back and forth across the surface.

"When I was your age, we didn't color like that," he said.

I didn't reply, but switched the movement of my crayon to an up-and-down motion. He watched for a second.

"When I was your age, we didn't color like that," he repeated.

Again, I switched, this time to diagonal.

"When I was your age, we didn't color like that."

I had almost exhausted my options, but switched to a round-and-round motion.

"When I was your age..."

In my best exasperated child voice, I said, "Well Grandpa? How DID you color when you were my age??"

"Well, I didn't use all different ways like that, I picked one and stuck with it!"

***

My grandfather's favorite story about me:
They had taken me to the grocery store with them, and as they went through the checkout line they gave me some money for the gumball/toy machines near the door. I don't remember how much money they gave me, but it gave me the option to get gum or a toy, and several different options of toys. At three years old, this was a monumental decision. By the time they finished paying for the groceries and got out to where I was standing, the money was still in my hand. As soon as they were in earshot I blurted out:

"These machines are driving me CRAZY!!"

***

We weren't ready for my grandfather to pass away. He had always been a central reason why it was more fun to spend time with my family than go to the movies. My uncle thought for a year or more that a-g-i-l-e was pronounced "a gill" because my grandfather thought it would be funny to see if he would believe it. This was before the phrase "Is that right mother??" was commonplace in their household.

He played baseball with his kids after dinner in the side yard, a place we probably should have been playing baseball when my brother managed to hit one right through their plate glass window.

I remember at Christmas having a song stuck in my head (as I often do) dancing in place to it in my uncle's kitchen. When I looked up, my grandfather was dancing in place to the same rhythm, just because I was. I started laughing and promptly forgot what song was in my head, but we kept on dancing anyway. Like I said, more fun than the movies. Certainly stranger.

Grandpa was always smiling, always shaking his fist in a mock-threatening manner, would always make editorial comments about things going on around us - just like I do. We all have stories that capture a part of him, and we're lucky in that respect. But we still weren't ready. He was Enright, Chuck, Charlie, and Finn. He was Grandpa.

I'm Going to Have to Call You Back

Alrighty, so I have been meaning to really write, but obviously I'm just putting too much pressure on myself. So for now, I'll just get something here so I don't look so lazy. (Oh, it's much too late for that.)

I was on my way home the other night and saw a Cyclist up ahead. You know, he's not riding a bike he's cycling. He has the spandex shorts, the spandex jersey, the funny little shoes, the helmet, the sunglasses, and as I pass him, I realize he's talking on a cell phone. What sort of a conversation is this guy having? Those numbers (huff puff) sounds good Bob (huff puff) but I'll have to (huff puff) call you back after I (huff puff) get up this hill.

Life in the Kingdom

As far as turn-based games online go, there is none finer than The Kingdom of Loathing. Where else can you become a Disco Bandit, fighting things like Baseball Bats (a creature with bat wings and a baseball for a body) and P Imps (in the Copse of the Deep Fat Friars)? My current questing takes me into the Palindrome, where every creature is (you guessed it) spelled the same forwards as it is backwards. The only problem now is that when I run out of adventures I am very very sad. So, I do the sensible thing and get my character falling down drunk.

For Your Information

In answer to my dad's question of the other night, gas in Raleigh is running about $1.68 for regular unleaded. It doesn't change the fact that I still have to put gas in my car when it runs out. And driving to Raleigh just to fill up your car would NOT save you any money.

Don't Look Now, But I'm Back

Ever feel like you've simply run out of stuff to talk about? Seriously, I have been wanting to send email to my friends for the longest time, but I didn't because they would just be so boooooring. Got up today, went to work, came home, made dinner, played a computer game. That's what I did yesterday, too. The fun just never ends, does it? But, I decided that if I don't keep writing I'll never get back in the habit.

Wednesday, I was driving to work and I was behind a Ford Econoline van. Now, this particular make and model holds special significance to me since we had one for a good portion of our family vacations. My father never called it a van, though, it was always a "truck". Pointing out to him that if it were a truck it would have a truck license plate was an exercise in futility. Pretending not to know where to go when he said, "Come on everybody, get in the truck," was equally pointless. The van I was behind the other day, however, would have gotten some cool points even from my dad. Above the back door handle were the stick-on kind of letters that you buy to put on your mailbox. They said: VANACONDA

Deep Fried Jelly Bracelets

It has come to my attention that most people (people I don't know) end up here looking for one of two things. So, in an effort to be the most helpful superjen I can, here you go:

1. How to make deep-friend turkey instructions can be found here and here, the last one includes a recipe for the seasoning.

2. The legend of the jelly bracelet, and what color means what... OK, girls, listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you. It doesn't matter what color means what, it doesn't matter what ANYONE tells you. Wear them (if your school lets you) or don't wear them (if they are banned or you don't like them). However, no boy has the power to make you do anything you don't want to do. Repeat after me the girl's ultimate defense against pressure of this type: WhatEVER. That's right, the perfectly timed "whatever" (especially accompanied by rolling eyes) ought to do the trick. Barring that, kick em in the nads. But you didn't hear that from me.

What a Way to Wake Up

I turned on the Today Show this morning to try and motivate myself to get out of bed. Yeah, it's sad, but the most trying part of my day usually happens somewhere between opening my eyes and taking a shower. So... warm... so... comfortable... can't... zzzzzz

This morning, they had a feature about teenagers that wear "jelly" bracelets to school. Apparently, the new urban legend at middle schools is that if a boy breaks off a certain color bracelet, the girl would then have to perform a corresponding ... act. Now, I'm unclear about whether it is supposedly on the boy that breaks it, or just on somebody, but regardless, schools are now banning the bracelets. Here's my question about the whole thing, who is more idiotic?

1. Girls who buy into the whole bracelet thing, which seems to me about as serious as the urban legend when I was in school: If you wear green on Thursday, it means you're horny. Seriously.

2. Schools that buy into the whole bracelet thing and decide to ban them, giving it a lot more attention than it deserves (Hello! It made it on the Today Show!) or

3. The father that they interviewed who claimed, and get this one: It is my daughter's Constitutional Right, her God-given Right, to wear jelly bracelets to school.


And Moses said unto the people, thou shalt have no other bracelets before the jelly bracelets. Or is it Life, Liberty, and the Wearing of Jelly Bracelets? I'm sure our forefathers are now pirouetting in their graves.

A Little Late, But...


I thoroughly enjoyed the bit on the hook hand urban legend story at The Morning News. Yeah, it was for Halloween, so deal. The one by Tobias Seamon was my favorite. A psychotic gleam in his eye, an itch in his armpit. Indeed.

Bicth or Bitch?

When I walked into my office this morning, these words greeted me. They were drawn on one of my tables in permanent marker, and then circled. Now, I'm pretty sure the second spelling is the correct one, but I had no idea how someone had gotten into my locked office and left me a multiple choice like this one.

As it turns out, the building hired a painting crew to paint doorframes that needed touching up. The painter assigned to the job had a death in the family, and had to bring his children with him so they could leave directly from here to go to the funeral. It is what happened next that puzzles all of us here. Apparently he unlocked every door in the building and then let his children run amok - they dumped out wastepaper baskets, dumped the hole punch into the copy machine, erased our docket board, wrote on my desk, left candy wrappers all over the place... it was basically Lord of the Office Flies in here.

So, the painting company has apologized and will be cleaning off the exercise in profanity. My suggestion was to shackle the children to the desk and have them clean it off, but then again, we don't really want them back here THAT badly.

WHAT WAS THAT???

We stayed up far too late last night, victims of a re-run of the X Files that neither one of us had seen before. We absolutely had to see how it ended. Finally, it was over and we drifted off to sleep.

In my dream, I was being chased by something that I couldn't see. Running like hell, I heard it make a loud noise, but I could tell the noise was fairly far away from me. It moved around a bit, but then got louder and louder until I knew it was right next to me. Abandoning any hope of escape, I struck out hoping to defend myself against this formless noise...

I woke up when my arm hit something, and then realized it was Ryan. Not fully awake and still pretty freaked out from my dream, I grabbed his hand. It was at this point that I realized I COULD STILL HEAR THE NOISE. I grabbed his hand tighter and shut my eyes, wondering if this was one of those dream-within-a-dream things, since the noise had stopped. Then I heard the noise go streaking up the stairs, and realized it was the stupid cat.

So, at 3:30 in the morning, I got out of bed, fully awake now, and headed up the stairs to see how the cat could be making so much noise. I crouched down at the top of the stairs, and looked for him under the futon. He came slinking out from behind it with a shopping bag attached to his head. He had somehow managed to slip his head into one of the handles on a paper shopping bag, and had been running around, trying to dislodge it. Also chasing me around in my dream, but I guess I can't really blame him for that. I got it off his head and threw it away - he sat in the middle of the floor making soft wheezing noises while I tried to tell him everything was OK. There is still some question in my mind as to who was more freaked out by the whole experience.

Battening

North Carolina is really a lovely place to live. It's an easy drive to both the beach and the mountains, there are trees and greenery all over the place, the winters are mild, there is air conditioning for the summers, etc. etc. Every so often, Mother Nature reminds us that we have to pay a toll for all this. The ice storm last winter was one such toll - people lost a bunch of trees, which led to a loss of power, water, and phone service. Now, we have a hurricane sitting off the coast. We have had so much rainfall this summer that our trees are once again turning from things of beauty into weapons against our power lines, phone lines, and roofs.

Hurricanes, for the most part, are very polite. They usually move at about 10 miles per hour, giving everybody plenty of warning. In contrast, for example, tornadoes are unbelievably rude. I like to think that's why we don't get as many tornadoes here in the South. The hurricane is much more gentile and takes its own sweet time about doing things, just like your typical native southerner. Hurricanes do tend to pit one state against another, however. Here in North Carolina we focus our telepathy at the hurricane and urge it to hit Florida, maybe, or on up into Maryland, if you please. Those bastards in Virginia haven't gotten their fair share of bad weather! Come on, give us a break.

I have only seen three hurricanes since moving here. Bonnie was the first one, and when the people at work told me there was a hurricane coming I left work and went home in a hurry, figuring that it was going to hit any minute. See, Wisconsin is the land of tornadoes, and I figured it was one of those rude-type storms. When I got home, Ryan said we had better go to the store and prepare, and I said... but there's a hurricane coming! We can't go outside! Yeah, he laughed. Anyway, Bonnie was the "good" kind of hurricane - the kind that blows like hell and you can sit inside and watch the trees turn sideways and the rain come down like somebody turned on a faucet... but nothing flooded and the trees were spared for the most part.

We managed to move away from the coast for the next two, Denis and Floyd. However, we moved in with a friend in his BASEMENT apartment. My friends, there is a very good reason why there are hardly any basements in North Carolina. I woke up one morning, swung my feet over the side of the bed and they went splash. What the... oh crap! The whole apartment flooded during Denis, and again during Floyd. Raleigh as a whole was spared, though. We are hoping that Isabel sees fit to behave and not toss too many trees around. The psychology here is to be prepared, since that will definitely make the hurricane not hit us at all. Nothing like a stockpile of expensive batteries to ward off Mother Nature, after all.

Take Them Bowling

We rented Bowling for Columbine this week-end, and I would like to personally deliver it to each of your houses and watch it with you. Barring that, I guess I will just recommend that you rent it. We will probably end up buying it - I for one would like to watch it again. To blatantly steal a thought from a fictional movie, it makes me want to be a better (wo)man. It was depressing, it was uplifting, it made me laugh, and it made me cry. Who would expect that from a documentary? To some extent, it made me mad that Michael Moore went to the lengths he did in order to try and add some spice to the film - it would have stood on its own if he didn't, for example, track down Dick Clark in Hollywood and try and make him look like an asshole. He has a very meaningful interview with Charlton Heston until he decided that he needed to try and make him look bad. But for all these shortcomings (at least in my opinion), it makes a huge impact on the viewer. I believe it is to the movie's credit that it doesn't try and answer any of the questions it asks. Why are Americans so afraid? Of different races, of crime, of strangers, of the Orange Alert, of any number of things. WHEN PETS ATTACK, tonight on Fox. Now we're supposed to be afraid of our pets?

But I digress. The message I am taking away from the movie is to be involved, and not to buy into a culture of fear that is being preached to us from the media and the government. Also, to try and get other people to watch the movie. Grassroots, people, grassroots.