Shoot the Messenger

I’m not sure when the tide turned for messengers – maybe someone once had a lot of bad news to deliver, was running a little low and had to call a moratorium, “hey, please stop shooting my guys, I’ve still got some more bad news to come and I’m sure as hell not going to deliver it myself considering your poor attitude about messengers.” Personally, I think we should rethink this whole “messenger gets off scot-free” philosophy we’ve adopted and declare it open season on messengers again.

How many times have you received news from someone where they’ve said something like, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to be able to go *insert whatever it was you had your heart set on* because Fluffy the cat is insisting we lay around and pet him all day. It’s not my fault, you see. It’s Fluffy!” It’s never, “Hey look, I’m not going because I’d rather develop eye cancer than go out for drinks with you.” The break down of the excuse is always someone is preventing you from doing whatever; otherwise you’d be all over the proposed invitation.

It’s one of the privileges you get from being in a relationship. You no longer have to be the bad guy, you just use someone from your household as the reason you’re being held back. “Sorry, we can’t make it. Beth has been stricken by the dry heaves every time I mention visiting for Christmas.” In fact, I know I’ve encouraged it at home. “Jay, just tell them it’s my fault.” (And today’s word will be “hypocrite”, but that’s ok because I’m not only aware of it, I’m comfortable with it, too.)

What I propose then is that we all shed the messenger mantle and use that brazen word “I”. “We’re not coming, because I think that sounds really lame and have a date with picking at my toes. Jay would like to go, but I’m personally holding him back with my bad attitude. Sorry. Well, I’m not even sorry. I’m going to enjoy the freedom of not being tied down doing something I hate. I may even do a little happy dance.” Let’s try to use “I” more and leave our unsuspecting friends & family (typically cast as the bad guys in the excuse) out of the mix when we offer up our excuses. Otherwise, I think we get to go back to shooting the messenger. “Oh, Michelle didn’t want to come because the bubonic plague unexpectedly broke out at your house and a hazmat team is currently setting up quarantine? Well, bummer for you since you’re delivering the news.”

Disclaimer: I didn’t really want to express this opinion. Jay put me up to it. He’s never been a fan of messengers. True story. Honest. I have no reason to lie.

Vacation Music

Just a little more on the helicopter tour - I completely forgot to mention the music that was piped through our noise reducing headphones. As we taxied (as much as a helicopter can taxi) down the runway the first song scampered into our headsets – the theme to Top Gun. I shot Jay the “YAY! It’s Top Gun! I’m simple!” look (and I may have even clapped – I’m like that when I get stupidly giddy) and got in return the “OMG, how LAME. Cheeeeezey. I’m bemused” look in response. Sheryl Crow’s “Leaving Las Vegas” came on as we were… yes, leaving Las Vegas. I shot the “Brilliant” look to Jay and got the “WEAK!” look back. I’m not sure about the songs to the Grand Canyon because I then became worried about the gal next to me as I tried to count the number of bags she went through, but on the way home we got Waggoner’s “Flight of the Valkyrie’s”, the theme music from “Mission Impossible” and of course “Viva, Las Vegas!” as we swooped back down the strip. The only two songs I would have added, “Paint it Black” and the theme from the James Bond movies.

As I mentioned before, it was the song from Boney M’s “Rasputin” that is still stuck in my head. I’m still amazed that you can in fact rhyme Rasputin with both the words “queen” and love “machine”.

I’m sure more pseudo stories will occur to me as time passes and as I now quietly listen to the music from “O”.

What I Did…

…on my Spring Vacation by Beth.

Jay and I have been in Vegas the past few days, visiting with friends, seeing Cirque du Soleil’s “O”, taking a helicopter tour of the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon, oh yeah, and after 7 ½ years of dating we got married or more precisely “hitched” in keeping with the name of our wedding package “Let’s Get Hitched!” We are nothing, if not tasteful. I’m sad to say that Elvis did not sing to us nor did we get married on the bridge of the Enterprise (I was really pushing for the Enterprise, but there’s always hope for vow renewal and we did get to have lunch at Quark’s and got chatted up by a Klingon so it wasn’t a complete wash). I even came away with one of my souvenir prizes – a t-shirt (that I can never wear out of the house) that reads “I’m with illogical” complete with arrow. How can you not love the nerdiness of it?

I’ll just make my way down the list:
Cirque du Soleil’s “O” – it was both beautiful and surreal. I can’t really add much else to it other than to say that if you get a chance to see a Cirque du Soleil performance, you should take advantage of it. Of course, my favorite part of the Cirque du Soleil story was the shop dedicated to the show and the over eager clerk, Roger. Roger was chatty, gregarious and quite simply outrageous – the kind of guy who can pull off a pompadour. He filled us with all sorts of factoids (the pool in “O” is 26 ft. deep and the high dive was 63 feet above the water). He told us about the other shows, his friends who perform, his family in Austin and then made calls to get times and costs for other shows. Roger then took me aside to show me a few of the other Cirque du Soleil shows that are currently being worked on for other cities. The one opening in New York this winter is called “Wintuk”.

The wedding – well, the day of the wedding, we had to pick up our license in downtown Vegas. Graceful me fell into the cab – I won’t even try to explain what I thought I was doing, but in I fell dragging my leg along the step. Let’s just say I’m still sporting a purple leg shiner and much ice was involved to get the swelling down before the wedding. (Since I’m not someone who bruises easily, I’ve managed to turn my whining about it into quite a show. I know Jay can’t get enough of me pointing it out. I may have to wake him shortly to show him that yes, it’s still there winking at him.) As you make your way to the courthouse, you run the gauntlet of pamphlet handlers and street carnies (for lack of a better description) – they yell at you, get in your path and try to get you to stop and use whatever service they’re hocking. They’re adorable and if I ever need to rent a motel by the hour, they’ll be my first stop.

Vin, the limo driver, picked us up in a white stretch limo. (Hey, we travel in style.) We get there and leap on the marriage conveyer belt only this one was moving a bit slow. According to Vin we were his first pick-up of the day. In about 10 minutes we got thrown in, marched down the aisle, married and had pictures taken before Vin ran out the door to take us back to the hotel. I think we spent more time in the limo than in the “chapel”.

The next day was the helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon with a champagne lunch. Off we head to our little helicopter with the least chatty of all the pilots as six helicopters prepare to take off. I was seated next to a nice gal from Illinois, Pukey McBarfsalot who immediately reached over and grabbed one of the two barf bags she used along the trip. I spent 45 minutes worried about when she was going to blow and couldn’t get lost in the terrain. Then finally, around the Hoover Dam it happened and I spent the next few minutes wondering if that particular smell was going to start a chain reaction while watching her out of the corner of my eye take gentle swipes at her mouth. Trust me, the air in the helicopter can’t blow on you hard enough.

Thank GOD we landed. I went the opposite way of Pukey to enjoy the sites I’d missed on the descent. We had our light lunch, but I didn’t eat that much since I was worried about Pukey’s powers of persuasion. Of course, Pukey ate a lot of her lunch which made me grumble – good idea there, go back up on a full stomach Princess Motion Sickness. At least she took the peppermint. Then back to the helicopter we went… and she reached for her second bag. Jay and I had switched seats so I had my face plastered against the glass with the air blowing directly on me. Jay later pointed out that she didn’t need the 3rd bag her friend provided – may small wonders never cease. Overall though, the tour was amazing and beautiful – something I wouldn’t mind repeating on say a private helicopter.

Yesterday morning we headed to the airport to the tunes of Boney M’s “Rasputin” – I never heard of this Australian sensation and they’re now hands down my new cheesy favorite “Ra ra Rasputin Russia’s greatest love machine” – I mean, how could you go wrong with lyrics like that? I should have given the cabby a larger tip for introducing us to this fine band. Forget Dylan, Guthrie, Marley – just sit back and enjoy.

…and that was our Spring vacation.

For Mother's Day

Pam, the talented author of the Writing, Work and Weasels blog, had a nice idea for Mother’s Day – write some of your favorite mom memories for Mother’s Day.

Here are a couple of mine that I haven’t previously shared.

A trait I inherited from my Mom is the ability to take a common word and suddenly, without warning, treat it like it's an alien word. (For me, back in the late 80's, I was completely against a movie called Plato On - I still blame the dog tags for that beautiful mix-up. I even remember saying out loud when I saw the slide come up on the screen, “Who would want to see Plato On?” … just another reason I’m known as the token blonde among some of my friends.) So, off Mom goes to McDonald’s. She glances over the menu and sees something new - a ham burger. Oh, this looked good – something new to try so she moseys up to the cashier and says, “I would like a HAM burger”. When she opened the wrapper, she discovered they'd given her an ordinary "hamburger" and nearly went up to the register to complain before the synapses started firing.

My Mom was also a huge autograph hound back in the day and could typically be found on the runways of Dallas' Love Field airport chasing down people like Judy Garland, Jane Mansfield, Jimmy Stewart, etc. The news crews began shooting around Mom, because she was a fixture out there. She and a friend convinced a young Shirley Jones that they were forming a Shirley Jones fan club and gained entry into her hotel room, "interviewed" her and took her picture. That picture is in our family album. However, Mom, fearless when it came to the famous became completely overwhelmed by Jane Goodall. After standing in line and nearly reaching Ms. Goodall, Mom became embarrassed and too shy to even be near her. Mom then ducked out of the line and basically hid. My aunts gave her a hard time for a long time on that one.

I’ll end this with another photo from Mom’s album – another of her memories from Love Field when she was 13.

Pam, thank you for sharing your memories about your mom and encouraging us to share our own.

The Estate Sale

Last week we all got together at 6am to hock Mom’s things. My aunt and cousin had put in hundreds of hours to have what one dealer later called “one of the best estate sales I’ve ever been to” – with everything displayed and priced. The estate sale started at 7am, but by 6:30 cars were lining the cul-de-sac literally 3 cars deep. There’s nothing quite like peeking out the window to see that many cars aimed menacingly at your house.

We all agreed that we couldn’t make any last minute runs to our cars to put away those things we decided not to sell. At 7 we opened the garage, which threw off a bunch of the dealers who were stationed at the door. As soon as the crowd started moving to the garage, my aunt came through the front door thinking the path was clear to make it to her car. People stopped mid-step once they heard that front door and literally ran into the house shouting, “I was here FIRST!”

Being "first" may matter at a blue light special, but you’re shopping at a house. I warily applaud your first-ness. Kendra, bless her naïve heart, agreed to be the cashier and was immediately swarmed as a line formed through the living room and into the kitchen. People were shoving each other and grabbing items from other people’s hands. Early on, Kendra tried to ask my aunt a question about a price only to be told by an irritated “customer”, “she was helping ME first!” Right, go on with your bad first-ness. One of the dealers made sure Kendra knew that he strongly disapproved of the way Mom’s jewelry was displayed, “this should be laid out under good lighting so we can see it all better.” Yes, when we open up our estate store we’ll gladly design it to YOUR specifications. We live to make sure you’re having a more pleasant garage sale shopping experience. Please fill out our survey. Call this 1-800 number and you could win a rousing round of golf clapping.

I guess posting “estate sale” in the classifieds causes the dealers jerkosterone levels to rise, thankfully they slowly congo-ed away with their finds to hit the next sale. Around 9 the sane people appeared – those people just casually poking around, sharing stories and picking up their finds as if they were treasures. Our best shoppers of the day were the little girls who got into Mom’s collection of crane game toys and loved and squeezed on them until their parents handed over a quarter. (My Mom was AMAZING at the crane game and always had tons of little stuffed animals lying around.)

We closed up shop around 5 when one last nut finally found the exit. There’s going to be a repeat of the sale soon to hopefully get a little more out, but we did really well – all thanks to a lot of hard work put in by my aunt and cousin. I can’t possibly thank them enough. Also, big thanks to Kendra for being the eye of the shopping storm.

Hitting People is Illegal and Other Issues

I have an issue, one of many, about my looks and my age. See, from I don’t know when people have always thought I was older. From that time in 8th grade when someone mistook me for a substitute teacher, to the battles in high school to convince the cafeteria staff that I did not pay the teacher rate (I finally just brought my lunch, it was easier), to sneaking into R movies (oh how risqué), ordering drinks as a teen and later explaining to a guy from work (who was older) why I would be offended by getting an AARP invitation (he genuinely didn’t get it). I've frequently been mistaken as my friend Kendra's mother (she's 4 years younger) and I’ve never been legitimately carded - ever. For my 21st birthday, when Mom and my Aunt Jen took me out for margaritas my Mom had to tell the staff to card me, which they did just to make her happy. Back in the day, I’d go into a club with a nod at the doorman and a “you don’t need to see my ID do you?” and they’d always shake their heads. It wasn’t a Jedi mind trick, it’s that I suffer from some mild form of that disease where you look elderly when you’re really only 3 (apparently, it’s not Crohn’s Disease, but I now consider myself a subject matter expert after an unsuccessful visit to WebMD) – I’m convinced! Don’t listen to my friends or family – they’re just trying to be kind. Ask any stranger on the street, they’ll give you an honest opinion. Needless to say, I’m hypersensitive about the subject.

So, in comes Saturday and we’re sitting at Mom’s estate sale watching people pick through her things and make comments while I quietly recite my mantra “hitting adults could land you in jail”. A “customer” comes up and says “I heard the lady that lived here died.” I nodded and thought “hitting adults could land you in jail” but instead said “that was my mother.” “Oh! Was she in a nursing home?” Most people recognize this as a yes or no type of question. Not me. What I heard was, “Oh! YOUR mom? She must have been ancient and spent her dying moments wrapped in a blanket after her eyes failed and her arthritis prevented her from knitting, but you’ve got to love that octogenarian spirit!”

Yes or no. That’s all I had to say, but crazy was going off in my head. She just accused me of being what? 60? I think she’s being flip about Mom’s death! I wonder if I tighten my face and stare at her hard enough she’ll just fall over and die in front of me – that’s not like hitting an adult – that’s like destiny – it was meant to happen – no forensic teams could possibly find proof of a death glare. Since she wasn’t combusting, I realized I was obligated to answer her yes or no question. “Was your mother in a nursing home when she died?” And crazy forced out of me a bitter, “no, she died of a heart attack.” This gave the woman pause as she tried to remember if she asked if the nursing home killed my Mom, so she blinked at me a few seconds. She finally recovered and offered, “I work in a nursing home – we have lots of heart attacks.” …and still she didn’t combust. I finally resigned myself to sitting quietly and feeling insulted.

For the record, my Mom wasn’t old enough to be in a nursing home. I know you were all thinking that. And that reunion I went to last year, it wasn’t my 40th. I know you were all wondering that, too. Oh, and one more thing, I’m still not old enough to join AARP – if you think I am, keep that to yourself.

Meet Sam!

Last week, you got to meet April so this week meet our new girl Sam!


Sam is a blue beagle we adopted from Hound Rescue. The cats want us to pass along that they're not amused and should she ever get brave enough to sniff one (she's all beagle) they have a surprise for her. They also want me to spread the word not to ruin the surprise as they've gone to a lot of trouble working out the details - Sage from underneath the bed and Hodi from the top of the couch. They're already drawing up their "Catz ONLY!! No Dogz allowed!" clubhouse sign for the bed (the way you know a cat wrote that is the heavy use of the letter "z" - cats are notorious for it - haven't gotten the hang of "s".)

Meet April

World, meet my good friend April and be sure to check out April's Googly Eyed Car Project while you're at it.

I love my friends!

(Sometimes a picture is worth 1000 blogs.)