Match Report

I'm quite proud to say I've only ever watched REAL football in Cleveland Browns Stadium. I will now pause while you make snarky comments.....

I had the pleasure of watching the US Men's National Soccer Team (currently ranked 5th in the World) play Venezuela (currently ranked 71st in a tie with the UAE and Slovenia) last Friday night. Good crowd, nice weather, refreshing beer. Many Venezuelans in face and body paint. I think most of them were seated in our section.

Many of you know I've been making a very half-assed attempt to learn Spanish over the last two years. I wish I would have studied harder. Then I could have fluently repeated a phrase that translated to English allegedly meant, "I'm going to stick my thumb up your ass and make you play like a real man." This is what the Venezuelan's were shouting gleefully at our US Team for much of the match.

It was all in good fun though and no hooliganism erupted. Thankfully, the US won 2-0. No thumbs were needed.

(Patriotic Americans can start cheering the US on in the World Cup June 9th. Get your schedule here. Remember, if you're not with us, you're against us -although personally I will also be cheering on England.)

Can't we just all say what we mean?

OK, so now that I serve as an editor, I'm really peeved with people's writing. What makes people think that if they use big, jargon words they'll sound smarter.

To facilitate the process, our experienced team will engage a dynamic acquisition process to acquire tools that further the efforts of our technical experts to coordinate and collate data sources in adjustable packets that can be transformed as required.
-We'll buy some paper clips.

Friday Question and Haiku

Dead bunnies in yard
Mystery monster in car
CCS Drama

I just finished watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations on the US/Mexican border. Which got me to thinking about what it would be like to have a wall between the US and Mexico. Then I thought about food (because he eats a lot - in between drinking and smoking). Then I thought about what it would be like if the wall was built of food. Like the Corn Palace. So the question this week is....

If you could build a structure entirely out of an edibile material, what would the structure be and what would you use to build it?

Dead bunnies aren't much fun

There's a dead bunny in my yard. It's not just like sleeping dead, it's like fucked up dead. I don't think I mowed it, I think it was already like that. If you have never read Stephen King's Pet Cemetery, don't. I have locked myself inside my house for fear that the dead bunny will come to life later tonight. I'm pretty sure it will, in fact. And I'm not sure the harm a bunny is capable of, but it can't be good. Something involving teeth. Or flinging its little pellets of poo at me until one of the nuggets gets lodged in my eye.

My mail lady is gay. She leaves little notes in my mailbox telling me that I'll "get the gay" if I touch the mail she has delivered. She said, unlike powders or poisons, the Federal Government cannot detect "the gay" therefore she can spread it all over town like a homosexual crop duster. I wish she had told me that after my federal tax refund came in the mail.

Friday Question and Haiku

Raining eight days straight
I am over-hydrated
Too bad it's not beer

Here is the Friday Question. You may answer in the comments.

If you could live your life as the character of a TV show, who would you be and why?

First Friday Haiku

This used to be a tradition amongst some friends. I think I will start it up again. In fact, the blog may be a good place to reinstate the Friday Question as well. I will confer with Chinese Chicken Salad and release a statement later this week.

Ginormous Raccoon
Dead on the side of the road.
You can't hurt me now.

I think Chinese Chicken Salad has a raccon in the WWII trunk.

Paranoid

Of course it was raining. It's always raining when creepy things happen. Cinematography didn't make that up; it's fact. So as I'm driving home today, singing along to my "Girls Girls Girls" CD compilation - no, not a mix of Motley Crue ballads, which would be okay really, but this is a collection of songs about girls or by girls or with "girls" in the title. It's a pretty random but enjoyable mix covering ground from (can you name that tune?) "Girlfriend, I'm gonna tell your boyfriend, YEA, tell him (woo-hoo) tell what we're do-in, YEA..." to "oh yea, all right, take it easy baby, make it last... (make it last all night!)" to "I've got a secret or two about Goo, she likes to wear green underwear." So I'm driving home, in the rain, and I hear a noise coming from the trunk in the back. It's a dusty old trunk, and it's filled with WWII memoribilia. Uniforms, photographs, gas mask, you know? But it's not a noise like I just turned the corner too fast and the trunk bumped up against the inside of the car. And it's not a noise like something is rattling around and bumping into the trunk. It's the kind of noise like from someone banging on the inside of the trunk. Like the noise you would make if you were inside the trunk and knocking to get out.

I parked my car at the Dairy Queen and just walked away.

Political Blogging

I got a little hooked on political blogs a while back. They made me stressed, anxious and angry. It was not a happy time. Turns out they are a very mean group of people (at least in Ohio) and I watched them attack someone like a pack of hyenas. I'm pretty sure you have to some sort of personality disorder to be a political blogger. Of course, not all of them are bad (Pho's Akron Pages, for example) but I have to severely limit myself to prevent a relapse.

There is a strict "No Politics" rule on my blog because that experience was so traumatic for me.

That being said, I've been wanting to confess for some time now that whenever I hear a song by Gilbert O'Sullivan (such as Alone Again, Naturally, Claire or Ooh Wakka Doo Wakka Day - the only three songs I know), I think of Dennis Kucinich.

Dennis doesn't look like Gilbert, probably doesn't sound like Gilbert and I've never seen him photographed with Gilbert. He was Mayor of Cleveland a good number of years after Alone Again Naturally was a hit so I have no idea how I made this connection.

Does the confession make this a political blog?

Monkey Business

My work has a Caribbean-themed benefit next weekend. The dress is "Caribbean Casual" and I wanted to be festive. I got it in my head that I wanted a monkey dress for the party. Preferably one with monkeys wearing hats. (I like it when monkeys wear hats but I do not like Monkey Hats.)

By the way, while searching for a picture of a monkey in a hat to share with you, I came upon this lovely tale about a lion, a monkey and a rabbit. You may want to check it out.

Adult clothing with monkeys is hard to come by. I've searched high and low and only came up with a dressy-dress that was white with light taupe monkey silouettes. Not the least bit festive. I didn't buy it. I want real colorful monkeys, in hats, playing bongos and hanging out in palm trees. Who the hell wants to buy a "serious" monkey dress? Puh-lease.

If you don't believe me, you will find that an e-Bay search will give you a large number of monkey-related clothing items and they are all for children. A friend at work says her daughter has a lovely pair of jeans with a sequined monkey on them. This is not fair. As an adult I think I'm entitled to more monkey-wear than just Paul Frank pajamas and some silly t-shirts.

I want a pair of jeans with a sequin monkey. It's too late for the party dress but does anyone want to BeDazzle me some monkey pants?

Diminishing Returns

Six months ago I had my first conversation ever with a man who spent the entire time staring at my tits. Most of my life I've been a small-breasted woman and somewhat of a tom-boy so the experience was a landmark. I have to admit, I kinda liked it.

Of course then I was about 60 pounds heavier and had some tremendous tits. I was wearing tighter shirts and spent a good bit of my days staring down at them. I now understand why men in the movies always make the joke that if they had boobs they'd just play with them all day long. At times I was very tempted.

Well, those days are gone. Over the last six months I've gone down four bra sizes and one cup size. Disheartening to be sure. I've also gone down five clothing sizes. I look good, I feel great. All is well with the world. However, the transition has not been without its difficulties.

Since I've been losing weight steadily, I've been hesitant to buy clothing until things stabilize. So, I have a lot of pants that are a size or two (or three) too big. They are very comfy. Like wearing pajamas to work every day. However, I can never tell if my zipper is up or down because my pants are so baggy. I've developed OCD in that I check my zipper constantly.

I've always been vehemently opposed to belly shirts but now I find myself wanting one. I'm uncomfortable with that.

On the upside, I've been able to squeeze into the car when my husband parks it too close to the garage wall (which he does daily). This used to be a real problem for me. I had a little scare this morning when it seemed a little tight. Then I realized he's just probably trying to inspire me to reach my Weight Watchers goal, which is why he parked about 6 inches from the wall last night. I think he figures the closer he parks, the more I'll lose (which is odd because he's particularly fond of breasts).

My Friend Mogen David

The Wikipedia entry for MD 20/20 completely blew my mind. It not only specifically mentions Kiwi (which, along with Banana Red was one of my favorites) but it also has Boone's Farm listed under the See Also.

To clarify, I was not a Wino or a teenager during the summer of Bricks and Sticks (as the Wikipedia entry implies drinkers of Mad Dog are). I was just a very, very broke college student who was attracted to any alcohol that came in a variety of colors. For $1.99 a bottle. A little loose change.......

"What a wonderful, wonderful time I had!"

Liar Liar

About 15 years ago my best friend and I went through a phase where we'd make up ridiculous stories to try to start rumors amongst our friends. One involved LaToya Jackson and some snakes. Details are fuzzy but I assure you it was good.

One involved our friend Walter. He was living in Kansas and since he was so far away and somewhat notorious we considered him fair game. Plus, we knew he'd back us up if anyone asked.

The story was that Walter had gotten thrown in jail for starting a bar fight over some issue that, at the time, was quite hilarious. Unfortunately, I can no longer remember what it was that Walter had said or done to get himself in such trouble. My forgetfulness is courtesy of Mogen David 20/20 (then, not now) so please excuse me.The content of the story is not relevant at this point anyway. What is important is that the story was very successful and we had a lot of believers (elevating Walter to celebrity status in some cases).

A couple of months ago my friend and I were reminiscing about the success of this project and how funny it was. How many people believed us! How ridiculous was the story! We were so crazy!

Then my husband (who I met in college says), "You mean that wasn't true? Walter was never in jail?"

Apparently we graduated without revealing the truth. As we now only see Walter every couple years, he was not able to set the story straight either.

I almost felt bad. Almost.

Should We Talk About the Weather?

Writing regularly is much more difficult than I thought. Part of the challenge is that I don't want anything to do with a computer once the work day ends. Sigh. I hate my job.

This weekend we watched "The Weatherman" starring Nicolas Cage. Very depressing moving. Anyone who knows me knows I don't deal well with depressing movies. It put me in a funk the rest of the weekend.

At the end of the film, Nicolas Cage's character has a little monologue in which he talks about how when you're young, you spend a lot of time thinking about all of your possibilities - everything you could be, everything you could do. As you get older, those possibilities are slowly eliminated until one day, all you're left with is who you are. The true you. In this case, a weatherman.

The concept was quite mind-blowing and this is where my head spent the weekend.

As I approach the big 4-0, I think that is what is happening to me. I'm realizing that I'm not going to be a DJ or supermodel, hip bass guitar chick, famous actress, world traveling businesswoman or any of the million other things I occasionally fantasize about.

I need to find out who I am and accept that. I need to own it and be at peace with it.