Dan Savage is right, now we have to come up with another definition for 'Rick', too, because re-defining 'Santorum' to mean "The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex" was clearly not enough. Here is Dan Savage's video appeal to Santorum to stop attacking gays.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/602a41c3d7/dan-savage-s-new-threat-to-rick-santorum
Santorum also needs to stop attacking science...
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/26/7490109-santorum-gop-not-anti-science
Um, Rick, you just tried to prove you are not anti-science by saying you can believe in certain theories like 'evolution' and 'global warming' or you can believe in God. Like 'evolution' is not really substantiated in the fossil record. Oh yeah, some heathen with an overactive imagination just made that shit up. And Global warming? What are you thinking? 'Naw, that's just God fucking with our weather patterns. It's a mystery!' I don't know, is it just me or does that sound like the complete opposite of your 'loving God'?
How can you seriously be anti-science? That's like saying you are anti-air, or anti-truth, or anti-logic, or...oh, rrrright, you are all those things. Science, people, the thing that gave us the cure for the Bubonic Plague. That figured out what radioactive isotopes were and the rate of their decay. That invented the Atomic Bomb that enabled us to defeat EVERYFUCKINGBODY in the world back in the '40's. That stopped Polio and Measles and Syphillis...that discovered combustion and flight and computers.
SANTORUM: SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY. I just posted on Facebook: "This dude is apparently pathologically incapable of not having idiotic statements flow out of his gaping maw every. single. time. he opens it." This is quite possibly the nicest thing anyone with functioning gray matter can say about this self-righteous and colossally moronic fuck-tard. Wait. That was harsh. I apologize, fuck-tards.
But wait, there's more!
Here's another G.O.P. genius named Rick: Rick Perry. Another reason to redefine that name, too.
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/135250/rick-perrys-gay-alcoholism-comparison-is-anti-science/
Alcoholism and addiction are a disease. Homosexuality is not. If he's going to now try to alienate both gays AND alcoholics, I'm afraid there might not be anyone left to vote for him. What's next Rick? I'm all ears!
8.28.2011
8.25.2011
A Few of My Favorite Things...
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/08/17/exp.piers.christine.odonnell.cnn?hpt=hp_mid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcYitwFsQGI
I love making fun of stupid deluded fundamentalist Christian (Motto: "We put the 'mental' in fundamentalism!") republicans (That was just one giant oxy-moron, wasn't it?), but I can't mock them any better than they mock themselves. Christine O'Donnell: Really?? A Candidate? For what? Involuntary mandatory sterilization? ('Cause I don't want her breeding, or is it too late? Has she already spawned? Fuck, I shudder at the thought.) Drug testing? 'Cause she must be high! The bitch is just stone cold fuck nuts as Lewis Black would say. Or as my muse/friend Daniel(from now on referred to as MFD) says she is a "superstitious-magical-thinking-fairy-tale ignorant dumb ass predator fascist". I hope she falls on hard times and has to do hard-core porn to support her huffing habit. What??? A girl can dream...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcYitwFsQGI
I love making fun of stupid deluded fundamentalist Christian (Motto: "We put the 'mental' in fundamentalism!") republicans (That was just one giant oxy-moron, wasn't it?), but I can't mock them any better than they mock themselves. Christine O'Donnell: Really?? A Candidate? For what? Involuntary mandatory sterilization? ('Cause I don't want her breeding, or is it too late? Has she already spawned? Fuck, I shudder at the thought.) Drug testing? 'Cause she must be high! The bitch is just stone cold fuck nuts as Lewis Black would say. Or as my muse/friend Daniel(from now on referred to as MFD) says she is a "superstitious-magical-thinking-fairy-tale ignorant dumb ass predator fascist". I hope she falls on hard times and has to do hard-core porn to support her huffing habit. What??? A girl can dream...
8.24.2011
Happy Birthday, Dad...And We're Proud of You Uncle Joe!
Today is my dad’s birthday. He is 79 years old. He still rides his bike hundreds of miles per month. He’s on no medication and is not obese. His heart, lung and brains work just fine. He is the baby of his family. All his older sibs who have passed on, passed 90 years of age first. I hope I have his genes. I hope he passes 90 years of age at least. He’s a cool cat, my dad. My dad says the doctor on the rez when he was a kid always said, “If anyone survives childhood here, they got a pretty good chance of living to a very old age.”
Alfred Leroy ________ was born in a tiny house, more like a shack I’m told, on the Spokane Indian Reservation in 1932. They did not have running water or electricity. His mom was 40 and he was a surprise. His dad was around 60, and boy was HE surprised! My dad was one of the few reservation indians who made it to and through college at that time. He got his undergraduate degree from Eastern Washington University and his Masters from OSU. His oldest sister also graduated from EWU. (The women in my family have always been uppity. Now you can't swing a dead cat at my family reunions on that side of the family without hitting a college graduate.) He had 2 older sisters and 4 older brothers. Now he has 3 older brothers and no older sisters. One of the brothers, uncle Joe, is one of the most funny fuckers you will ever meet. ("How do you take your coffee uncle Joe?" "I take it in a cup." I wonder where my sarcasm comes from?) He used to be pretty racist and homophobic, (which has always made me scratch my head and go "Hmmm???" when I see oppressed ethnic minority hating other oppressed ethnic minorites...) but when his grandson Aaron came along; half black (Oops!), half Indian, smart as hell, funny, charming, handsome, athletic, talented and loved by virtually everyone he ever met, well, uncle Joe had to change his tune. And he did. It wasn’t easy, I’m sure, but he loved his grandson. And when Aaron came out of the closet 15 years ago, he dealt with that, too. When Aaron died from cancer last year, uncle Joe could not have been sadder, nor more proud of his daughter Kaye for raising such a fine young man. Uncle Joe is a WWII war hero. He was a bombardier and flew 84(!!!) missions. His unit has been at rest since WWII ended, but it is being reactivated and they are having uncle Joe hand over the wings to the new command (not sure what handing over wings entails…) So tomorrow my uncle, a Spokane Tribal Elder, will be in Sacramento with my cousins Mick and Bob fulfilling this last duty to a new generation of warriors. I usually like to write funny sarcastic things, but there’s nothing funny about it. We are all very proud of his service to our country.
Anyway, let's get back to the uppity women in my family, shall we? Aunt Winnie and Aunt Mary Jane got it from their mom, and we all got it in our bloodstreams I guess. The Truly Unpleasant Mr. K______ (my ex-husband) used to say, and I am quoting verbatim, "The women in your family scare the shit outta me. They're too strong." I took it as a compliment. He didn't mean it as one. As if there is such a thing as "too strong"! Maybe for coffee. Ha! What am I saying??? Coffee too strong! Hahahahahaha! Cousin Betty was a woman who spoke her mind and did what she wanted to do. She would invite me & whatever fortunate young fella I was currently banging to her house for dinner (but only if she liked his shoes) and if she couldn't open a jar she'd shove it at said lucky fella and say, "White man open." Really, where's the problem? Once when she was in Las Vegas for a trunk show (she made and sold extremely high-end one of a kind Icelandic shearling coats with Native designs hand-painted on them. They started at like a gazillion dollars), the front desk wouldn't help her get her racks of extremely heavy coats downstairs and into a van, so she said, "If I have to stand here and set myself on fire to get your attention, I will!" They paid attention after that. Once when I was freshly divorced and wanted a nice drama-free, intimate, grown-up Thanksgiving ('bout time-I was 42 years old and still had never had one of those) for me and a guy and a couple of relatives, I thought, "I know, I'll invite Betty and Aaron over for dinner and we'll have a nice, tasteful, calm little Thanksgiving, instead of a chaotic free-for-all, like it usually is in my family."(I have 5 siblings. We all have our own special brand of crazy.) Now, follow my logic. And try to forget for a second (as did I) that these people share my DNA. Betty-21 years my senior, a paragon of excellent taste, an expert on art and antiques. Extremely well educated, well-read and well-travelled. Then there was Aaron-ten years my junior, handsome, smart, funny & charming, educated, well-read and worldly, without being a bore about it. Oh, and gay, so of course he's well groomed and has nice shoes. So I bring these 3 people together, hoping to impress this guy with the grace and easy worldliness of my amazing family, and Aaron starts needling Betty over desert, about how she looks a lot like uncle Dan. Now, no disrespect, I loved my uncle Dan as much as a gal can love her favorite uncle, but no woman, I mean NO WOMAN, wants to be told she looks like a guy who was then 81 years old, especially one who rode himself hard and put himself away wet as much as uncle Dan had until the prior 10 years. He literally finally sort of settled down when he was about 70:-) So Aaron keeps after her, enjoying the rise he's getting out of her, and Betty snapped, and next thing I knew she is launching her then 63 year old body at my then 32 year old cousin with a war whoop, and pummeling him about the face. It was all carnage and pandemonium and curse words and, Jesus, who does that? Seriously, that was like sticking your head in a hungry, untrained, undomesticated lion's head and daring it to bite down. Me and the guy (yeah, that didn't last. Can't imagine why...) had to pull them apart. I gave Aaron a ride home, the guy took Betty home. I was mortified. But ya know, as my friend Alan says, "If it's going to be funny later, it's funny now." I was laughing about it by the time I got home. I've never tried to have anything resembling what someone would consider a "normal" holiday since then. Like my AA sponsor Anita says, "Normal is a setting on a washing machine."
Alfred Leroy ________ was born in a tiny house, more like a shack I’m told, on the Spokane Indian Reservation in 1932. They did not have running water or electricity. His mom was 40 and he was a surprise. His dad was around 60, and boy was HE surprised! My dad was one of the few reservation indians who made it to and through college at that time. He got his undergraduate degree from Eastern Washington University and his Masters from OSU. His oldest sister also graduated from EWU. (The women in my family have always been uppity. Now you can't swing a dead cat at my family reunions on that side of the family without hitting a college graduate.) He had 2 older sisters and 4 older brothers. Now he has 3 older brothers and no older sisters. One of the brothers, uncle Joe, is one of the most funny fuckers you will ever meet. ("How do you take your coffee uncle Joe?" "I take it in a cup." I wonder where my sarcasm comes from?) He used to be pretty racist and homophobic, (which has always made me scratch my head and go "Hmmm???" when I see oppressed ethnic minority hating other oppressed ethnic minorites...) but when his grandson Aaron came along; half black (Oops!), half Indian, smart as hell, funny, charming, handsome, athletic, talented and loved by virtually everyone he ever met, well, uncle Joe had to change his tune. And he did. It wasn’t easy, I’m sure, but he loved his grandson. And when Aaron came out of the closet 15 years ago, he dealt with that, too. When Aaron died from cancer last year, uncle Joe could not have been sadder, nor more proud of his daughter Kaye for raising such a fine young man. Uncle Joe is a WWII war hero. He was a bombardier and flew 84(!!!) missions. His unit has been at rest since WWII ended, but it is being reactivated and they are having uncle Joe hand over the wings to the new command (not sure what handing over wings entails…) So tomorrow my uncle, a Spokane Tribal Elder, will be in Sacramento with my cousins Mick and Bob fulfilling this last duty to a new generation of warriors. I usually like to write funny sarcastic things, but there’s nothing funny about it. We are all very proud of his service to our country.
Anyway, let's get back to the uppity women in my family, shall we? Aunt Winnie and Aunt Mary Jane got it from their mom, and we all got it in our bloodstreams I guess. The Truly Unpleasant Mr. K______ (my ex-husband) used to say, and I am quoting verbatim, "The women in your family scare the shit outta me. They're too strong." I took it as a compliment. He didn't mean it as one. As if there is such a thing as "too strong"! Maybe for coffee. Ha! What am I saying??? Coffee too strong! Hahahahahaha! Cousin Betty was a woman who spoke her mind and did what she wanted to do. She would invite me & whatever fortunate young fella I was currently banging to her house for dinner (but only if she liked his shoes) and if she couldn't open a jar she'd shove it at said lucky fella and say, "White man open." Really, where's the problem? Once when she was in Las Vegas for a trunk show (she made and sold extremely high-end one of a kind Icelandic shearling coats with Native designs hand-painted on them. They started at like a gazillion dollars), the front desk wouldn't help her get her racks of extremely heavy coats downstairs and into a van, so she said, "If I have to stand here and set myself on fire to get your attention, I will!" They paid attention after that. Once when I was freshly divorced and wanted a nice drama-free, intimate, grown-up Thanksgiving ('bout time-I was 42 years old and still had never had one of those) for me and a guy and a couple of relatives, I thought, "I know, I'll invite Betty and Aaron over for dinner and we'll have a nice, tasteful, calm little Thanksgiving, instead of a chaotic free-for-all, like it usually is in my family."(I have 5 siblings. We all have our own special brand of crazy.) Now, follow my logic. And try to forget for a second (as did I) that these people share my DNA. Betty-21 years my senior, a paragon of excellent taste, an expert on art and antiques. Extremely well educated, well-read and well-travelled. Then there was Aaron-ten years my junior, handsome, smart, funny & charming, educated, well-read and worldly, without being a bore about it. Oh, and gay, so of course he's well groomed and has nice shoes. So I bring these 3 people together, hoping to impress this guy with the grace and easy worldliness of my amazing family, and Aaron starts needling Betty over desert, about how she looks a lot like uncle Dan. Now, no disrespect, I loved my uncle Dan as much as a gal can love her favorite uncle, but no woman, I mean NO WOMAN, wants to be told she looks like a guy who was then 81 years old, especially one who rode himself hard and put himself away wet as much as uncle Dan had until the prior 10 years. He literally finally sort of settled down when he was about 70:-) So Aaron keeps after her, enjoying the rise he's getting out of her, and Betty snapped, and next thing I knew she is launching her then 63 year old body at my then 32 year old cousin with a war whoop, and pummeling him about the face. It was all carnage and pandemonium and curse words and, Jesus, who does that? Seriously, that was like sticking your head in a hungry, untrained, undomesticated lion's head and daring it to bite down. Me and the guy (yeah, that didn't last. Can't imagine why...) had to pull them apart. I gave Aaron a ride home, the guy took Betty home. I was mortified. But ya know, as my friend Alan says, "If it's going to be funny later, it's funny now." I was laughing about it by the time I got home. I've never tried to have anything resembling what someone would consider a "normal" holiday since then. Like my AA sponsor Anita says, "Normal is a setting on a washing machine."
8.23.2011
Books. You Remember Books, don't you?
I just finished a really good one. Paul Constant wrote a good review in The Stranger. In fact, it was the review that made me buy the book.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/alien-tongue/Content?oid=8308355
The book is called 'Embassytown', and it's by a guy named Chine Mielville, which sounds like a good Old French Whore name. I may adopt it at some point in my checkered future! It's science-fiction, and if you pooh-pooh the genre and say you only read 'serious lit-rature, da-ling!' then I feel sorry for your lame ass. I mean, c'mon! 'Mona Lisa Overdrive'? 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'? 'The Secret'? Haha, just kidding about 'The Secret'. It's just plain fiction. Anyway, I was trying to find a decent review of this book to post here, which I purchased with actual cash and paid hard-cover price because it sounded so AWESOME!!!!!!! I went to the Guardian UK, and read this famous author's review on that sight, thinking that posting that one might impart some much-needed intellectual cache upon yours truly, but it felt to me more like she was waxing her own dolphin, and just well, trying too hard. What she doesn't tell you is that this book, besides being pretty fucking smart, is actually also quite hilarious in parts, and just a plain old good read. There were a few times when I came to the end of a sentence that made me furrow my brow and scratch my head while making my 'Scooby-Doo' questioning noises and dig out the fucking dictionary for the 16th time that night, and I then I would burst out laughing. If you are smarter than I is, and you probably are, (or maybe not, you ARE reading this blog) it might not be as much of a stretch. It was a little challenging at times, but I likes me a challenge! (As in..."I'm approaching middle age and life isn't hard enough as it is for a half-breed Indian from Tacoma married to an asshole of epic proportions. Hmmm, let's see...I know! Architecture! All the pain of medical school without any of the monetary reward at the end! OK, I need to exercise. Should I take up tennis or maybe ride a bike? Oh hell no, let's do Ballet! My monkey mind won't settle down, I should try to meditate. Meditation book or cd, perhaps? No, let's start out with a Silent Meditation Retreat in the middle of nowhere! Where you have to sit and meditate for 10 1/2 hours a day! And not watch tv, or read, or write, or listen to music or anything, or look another person in the eye! And eat vegan food! For 10 Whole Days!!" You see how I am wired? I am constantly trying to grab things just out of my reach...it's exhausting.) So what I am trying to say in my very wordy way is this book is not for the mentally indigent Debbie Macomber fan, but is well worth the effort. Whew! I know now you're wondering, "How does she even know who Debbie Macomber is?" Well, that's another story and since I like my job (I mean as far as jobs go, which are things that they have to PAY you to do) I'll keep my mouth shut about that. OK, now I gotta get my lazy backside up off the couch (thanks, laptops!) and make something to eat, because I don't live in a bio-house that will manufacture my dinner for me. Read the fucking book.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/alien-tongue/Content?oid=8308355
The book is called 'Embassytown', and it's by a guy named Chine Mielville, which sounds like a good Old French Whore name. I may adopt it at some point in my checkered future! It's science-fiction, and if you pooh-pooh the genre and say you only read 'serious lit-rature, da-ling!' then I feel sorry for your lame ass. I mean, c'mon! 'Mona Lisa Overdrive'? 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'? 'The Secret'? Haha, just kidding about 'The Secret'. It's just plain fiction. Anyway, I was trying to find a decent review of this book to post here, which I purchased with actual cash and paid hard-cover price because it sounded so AWESOME!!!!!!! I went to the Guardian UK, and read this famous author's review on that sight, thinking that posting that one might impart some much-needed intellectual cache upon yours truly, but it felt to me more like she was waxing her own dolphin, and just well, trying too hard. What she doesn't tell you is that this book, besides being pretty fucking smart, is actually also quite hilarious in parts, and just a plain old good read. There were a few times when I came to the end of a sentence that made me furrow my brow and scratch my head while making my 'Scooby-Doo' questioning noises and dig out the fucking dictionary for the 16th time that night, and I then I would burst out laughing. If you are smarter than I is, and you probably are, (or maybe not, you ARE reading this blog) it might not be as much of a stretch. It was a little challenging at times, but I likes me a challenge! (As in..."I'm approaching middle age and life isn't hard enough as it is for a half-breed Indian from Tacoma married to an asshole of epic proportions. Hmmm, let's see...I know! Architecture! All the pain of medical school without any of the monetary reward at the end! OK, I need to exercise. Should I take up tennis or maybe ride a bike? Oh hell no, let's do Ballet! My monkey mind won't settle down, I should try to meditate. Meditation book or cd, perhaps? No, let's start out with a Silent Meditation Retreat in the middle of nowhere! Where you have to sit and meditate for 10 1/2 hours a day! And not watch tv, or read, or write, or listen to music or anything, or look another person in the eye! And eat vegan food! For 10 Whole Days!!" You see how I am wired? I am constantly trying to grab things just out of my reach...it's exhausting.) So what I am trying to say in my very wordy way is this book is not for the mentally indigent Debbie Macomber fan, but is well worth the effort. Whew! I know now you're wondering, "How does she even know who Debbie Macomber is?" Well, that's another story and since I like my job (I mean as far as jobs go, which are things that they have to PAY you to do) I'll keep my mouth shut about that. OK, now I gotta get my lazy backside up off the couch (thanks, laptops!) and make something to eat, because I don't live in a bio-house that will manufacture my dinner for me. Read the fucking book.
And Now For Soemthing Completely Different...
...I just think this is funny. Got it from OFW Sharol (The Original).
You're welcome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO-QqRJOi9U&feature=share
You're welcome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO-QqRJOi9U&feature=share
8.22.2011
Ya Think Ya Know Somebody...
.. then they go and post one of those stupid and pathetic cries for attention (not that this blog isn't a stupid and pathetic cry for attention...damn. Self-awareness blows) on Facebook. Helllooooo? Have you met me, oldest friend? (literally-since, like, birth!) So of course if you post, "Who actually reads my posts? Let's see who reads this fully, leave me a one word comment that best describes me. Also make sure to copy this to your wall so I can leave a word about you. Don't just post a word and not copy, that's no fun!!!", I am contractually obligated to write something snarky. Plus I come from a long line of snark-mongers; it's in my DNA. So, I wrote "Annoying". Is that so wrong? Lucky for me Julie has a sense of humor. I guess if you are a gay woman of color in this effed up world you kinda gotta have one. Or have a good left hook. I sure hope she doesn't have the left hook, too. I like my face the way it is, Jules! Well sort of. If your left hook could add a little collagen to my lips and lift a sagging jawline, and maybe do something about these crow's feet, that'd be cool. (I am the Rodney Dangerfield of half-breed Native women. My old roommates Beth and Niceto (bitchez!) used to call me 'Kate, Chief of the Crow's Feet Nation'. No respect.)
Julie and I don't remember not knowing each other. Her dad Don and my mom's bro also named Don...were BEST FRIENDS in high school. Then her darling daddy went and married the most wonderful, beautiful woman on the planet (besides my mom) and married her, and low and behold, Julie was born. So my mom and dad and Julie's mom (also named Julie) and dad hung out together a lot in the old days in Tacoma. Julie and I had the prettiest and youngest and hippest and nicest moms at Lowell School, and all the other kids wanted to sit on their laps during field trips. And they would let them! Julie and I were left to sit together, seething and finding cold comfort in our schemes of vengence. We were dark little kids, very dark. Aaaanywayyyy, our families spent every 4th of July together growing up. Tacoma is: The. Best. Place. Ever. For the 4th of July. I mean, Fort Lewis? McChord Air Force Base? Unlimited ordnance? Blue collar citizens? Beer? Air shows up the wazoo? What more can a red-blooded, workin' class American ask for? (I mean besides Universal Healthcare, a fair tax structure, presidential candidates that aren't straight-up, bat-shit crazy lunatics...) I went to grade school and high school with Julie. Her handsome and uber cool uncle Julien (I'm sensing a theme here in that families' naming protocol) was my very first crush! My mom died on the 4th of July, 2010, right when the fireworks started. I was holding her hand, and the music for the fireworks began on the radio in her room and she slipped away to watch them. That's how I picture it, anyway. She was unconscious. Then she died. Those are the facts. I make it sweet and angelic in my head, to soften the blow. A girl's gotta cope, right? Julie's mom and dad came to my mom's funeral, of course. That's the last time I saw her dad. He died a few days after that. Now we imagine them having 4th of July keggers up in heaven together:-) Julie is family. I guess that's what I'm sayin'.
Speaking of family, just talked to my sister Sheila, who called me up to laugh about my "annoying" post and another post I made about our niece falling down. Our adorable and talented 12 year old niece Deven is on crutches because she fell down a hill. Sheila, ever the sensitive one, wrote that she was going to watch 'Legends of the Fall' and go to bed. I thought that was hilarious!!! I posted, "Good one, Sheila! 'Legends of the Fall'!!! Hahahaha!" She called to tell me that she wasn't trying to be funny, she really was watching that movie. Oops. My bad. I guess one lame-ass comedian in the family is enough...
Sheila needs to write a blog hereself. She has been "writing a story" in installments with her husband, Scott, for years. It's the ongoing saga of "Fawnrunningdeeralloneword". (She came up with that as a response to wanna-be indians who irritate the shit out of us.) Right now Fawnrunningdeeralloneword is going thru menopause. Yeah, the laughs never stop in my family. Like the time I wrote in a big group email (this was in 1999, before Social Networking. We had to communicate the old-fashioned way: Email.) about my mom's fall over in Italy. I was living there and 'working' as a TA for an architecture professor in Rome, and we were on a field trip to Tuscany. My mom, aunt Sally and cousins Katie and Betsy all flew over to traipse around the countryside taste-testing beer and wine and ogling handsome Italian men (we are a classy bunch) and they met up with me and the marauding band of thugs I euphemistically referred to as "students" in a little hill town, and mom did one of her famous, patented 'Chicane Jane Face Plants', SPLAT! right on the sidewalk, which was littered with, I shit you not, rusty nails. So, I had to let the friends and family know of mom's latest escapade, and of course I gave it a slightly humorous slant. My sister Sheila was safely at home in her palatial estate in Spokane, and was reading my account of 'The Fall' and laughing so hard she was crying. Her son Nick came into the room, saw her cracking up and asked her what she was reading. She replied, "Aunt Kate's email. Your grandma fell down again! In Italy!!!" and then continued laughing hysterically, to which her son, who apparently DOESN'T share our DNA, said, "You two are horrible" and walked away. Well, if you put it like that...
Oh my, what a friend we have in Cheeses! Look at the time! I gotta get ready for bed. That eye cream isn't going to apply itself!
Julie and I don't remember not knowing each other. Her dad Don and my mom's bro also named Don...were BEST FRIENDS in high school. Then her darling daddy went and married the most wonderful, beautiful woman on the planet (besides my mom) and married her, and low and behold, Julie was born. So my mom and dad and Julie's mom (also named Julie) and dad hung out together a lot in the old days in Tacoma. Julie and I had the prettiest and youngest and hippest and nicest moms at Lowell School, and all the other kids wanted to sit on their laps during field trips. And they would let them! Julie and I were left to sit together, seething and finding cold comfort in our schemes of vengence. We were dark little kids, very dark. Aaaanywayyyy, our families spent every 4th of July together growing up. Tacoma is: The. Best. Place. Ever. For the 4th of July. I mean, Fort Lewis? McChord Air Force Base? Unlimited ordnance? Blue collar citizens? Beer? Air shows up the wazoo? What more can a red-blooded, workin' class American ask for? (I mean besides Universal Healthcare, a fair tax structure, presidential candidates that aren't straight-up, bat-shit crazy lunatics...) I went to grade school and high school with Julie. Her handsome and uber cool uncle Julien (I'm sensing a theme here in that families' naming protocol) was my very first crush! My mom died on the 4th of July, 2010, right when the fireworks started. I was holding her hand, and the music for the fireworks began on the radio in her room and she slipped away to watch them. That's how I picture it, anyway. She was unconscious. Then she died. Those are the facts. I make it sweet and angelic in my head, to soften the blow. A girl's gotta cope, right? Julie's mom and dad came to my mom's funeral, of course. That's the last time I saw her dad. He died a few days after that. Now we imagine them having 4th of July keggers up in heaven together:-) Julie is family. I guess that's what I'm sayin'.
Speaking of family, just talked to my sister Sheila, who called me up to laugh about my "annoying" post and another post I made about our niece falling down. Our adorable and talented 12 year old niece Deven is on crutches because she fell down a hill. Sheila, ever the sensitive one, wrote that she was going to watch 'Legends of the Fall' and go to bed. I thought that was hilarious!!! I posted, "Good one, Sheila! 'Legends of the Fall'!!! Hahahaha!" She called to tell me that she wasn't trying to be funny, she really was watching that movie. Oops. My bad. I guess one lame-ass comedian in the family is enough...
Sheila needs to write a blog hereself. She has been "writing a story" in installments with her husband, Scott, for years. It's the ongoing saga of "Fawnrunningdeeralloneword". (She came up with that as a response to wanna-be indians who irritate the shit out of us.) Right now Fawnrunningdeeralloneword is going thru menopause. Yeah, the laughs never stop in my family. Like the time I wrote in a big group email (this was in 1999, before Social Networking. We had to communicate the old-fashioned way: Email.) about my mom's fall over in Italy. I was living there and 'working' as a TA for an architecture professor in Rome, and we were on a field trip to Tuscany. My mom, aunt Sally and cousins Katie and Betsy all flew over to traipse around the countryside taste-testing beer and wine and ogling handsome Italian men (we are a classy bunch) and they met up with me and the marauding band of thugs I euphemistically referred to as "students" in a little hill town, and mom did one of her famous, patented 'Chicane Jane Face Plants', SPLAT! right on the sidewalk, which was littered with, I shit you not, rusty nails. So, I had to let the friends and family know of mom's latest escapade, and of course I gave it a slightly humorous slant. My sister Sheila was safely at home in her palatial estate in Spokane, and was reading my account of 'The Fall' and laughing so hard she was crying. Her son Nick came into the room, saw her cracking up and asked her what she was reading. She replied, "Aunt Kate's email. Your grandma fell down again! In Italy!!!" and then continued laughing hysterically, to which her son, who apparently DOESN'T share our DNA, said, "You two are horrible" and walked away. Well, if you put it like that...
Oh my, what a friend we have in Cheeses! Look at the time! I gotta get ready for bed. That eye cream isn't going to apply itself!
8.09.2011
blahblahblah
Wow, I had no idea having a new job where I would have to learn all kinds of new stuff and not use hardly any of my old stuff (which was hard to learn and for which I had to go to school and get a degree and all that crap, then start at the very bottom-or wait...what's below the bottom? start there and now here I am again...) but which is still taking up a lot of space in my haid, (yes I mis-spelled it on purpose. Sound it out.) crowding out space that should rightfully be devoted to shoes, would take so much out of an Old French Whore for so many months, but that's exactly what happened. I had NOTHING left for writing in my blog. I had to make a hard choice...put the time and energy into the thing that they pay me to do, thereby keeping a door over my head and the roofies from the wolf, or whatever that melodramatic saying is about not being homeless and having food is ***OR*** writing in my blog, which to paraphrase (actually completely butcher, cannibalize and otherwise misappropriate) a Marlo Thomas after school special title, is free, and doesn't contribute to my bank account AT ALL. Well, don't act surprised. Look at the title of my blog. It's called Old French Whore, not Old French Starving Artist. Anyway, I'm finally getting caught up on sleep and play, not in that order, and I feel refreshed enough to pound out a thing or two.
Soooo, I went on a vacation. Just got back 2 days ago. A real vacation. The kind where you have tons of fun, laugh your ass off, meet new people, eat buckets of delicious fattening food (mostly lobster and cookies-go figure), watch two impossibly beautiful people get married on the seashore in Maine and then let the maid clean up after you. THAT kinda va-ca-SHONE. I told my boss when he hired me I had to have this week off for my friend Lara's destination wedding (who thinks this shit up? 'Destination Wedding', like that's really a thing. Like 'Fascinators'. Like people have been wearing them for YEARS, dahling...that's not a fucking THING. They made that up. And those poor gnarled spawn of Fergie & her inbred royal ex-husband bought it hook, line and sinker and made complete fools of themselves on international TV when their cousin got married and they attended in those ghastly things that looked like i.u.d.s. God, don't get me started). So, the royal wedding that some of us may or may not have gotten up at 2:50 a.m. on April 26th to watch probably cost less than the wedding I attended in Maine, and was not half as tasteful. My friend Lara has better taste than Martha Stewart and Jackie Onassis combined. She also has money. But money cannot buy the kind of impeccable eye my friend has. One of these days I might learn how to post photos and get one or two of the wedding of the century up here...but for now you'll have to listen to me prattle on about. Well, listen in your head, because you're actually reading this.
First, I flew into New York to see my Favorite Cousin Lily. I'm contractually obligated to always call her Favorite Cousin Lily. Don't hate me, other cousins. It's in our contract. I can't break it. I love you all very much. Admittedly, some more than others...but that's another story. Maybe later in the week I'll write about the B_______ Family Reunion I attended last month...damn, now that's a story. Damn, I'm tired and I am getting sidetracked. Damn.
Lily, much like her town, never sleeps. No, she's not a crack whore. She's just energetic. As am I, most of the time. My friend/muse Daniel says he has to take a nap after he hears about what I've done in a day, it makes him so tired. Got in at 11:30pm, bed by 3am (we had to catch up!) up at 8, into the city in the afternoon to shop all day long,(oh, did I mention Favorite Cousin Lily lives in the Bronx? Well, she does) then back to the Bronx for dinner with Lily's Wonderful Husband Don (Don is a lawyer. I'm contractually obligated to always call him Wonderful Husband Don) and then home to tart ourselves up and totter on 'shoulder shoes' (think about it. Visualize it. Got it?) 10 doors down to Brian's gorgeous house for his FABULOUS birthday party (gay men throw the best parties!), then up at the fucking buttcrack of dawn for breakfast with literally everyone in the neighborhood at a Mexican place (I just wanted a waffle!!!), then a 20 mile bike ride from the Bronx, thru Harlem into Manahattan and around The Cloisters, down to 70th street on the other side and back again. I was dying. When we got home I said I couldn't believe I rode 20 miles. Wonderful Husband Don said, "How long have you been riding?" I looked at my watch and said, "About 4 hours." (We stopped for food and drink somewhere along the line. It's all a blur.) He said, "No, not today, silly." I said, "Yeah well, I rode a bike one other time in the last 30 years or so, so yeah, 4 hours about covers it." He was somewhat impressed, I think:-) I wasn't even sore afterwards. Well, my ass was. And my neck was, because the bike was built for a shorter person. But other than that, no pain! I'm gettin' me a bike! I must take after my dad, who took up bike riding at about this same age after having abandoned it as a teenager, and in his 70's rode to San Francisco (twice!) and Montana (once!).
Next day I was off to Maine to participate in The Most Beautiful Wedding The World Has Ever Known (hereinafter referred to as TMBWTWHEK). I knew I was in trouble when I received the 4 page wedding invitation. "Uh oh", thought I, "I'm gonna need a new pair of shoes. And Charm School. And some class." I did manage to get the shoes. Oh well.
Day one: arrived and carpooled with the photographers. Plural. Two of them. (she hired 2 from Seattle-Alante Photography I believe they are called - but we just called them Loren and Kim. Wonderful people. Incredible photographers. Check them out. I'm not getting paid to say this. If they knew I posted their names in my blog they would probably be mortified. Come to think of it, they don't even know I have a blog...) Then there was a local assistant hired for days 3 & 4. Anyway, we meet up and drive 2 hours to 'The Destination'. We dump our crap in our rooms and race down to town to catch the gaff rigged schooner (as if I frikken know what the hell a gaff rigged schooner is! It's a pretty boat with pretty square sails, and it was helmed by a real live salty Maine dog (well, he wasn't an actual dog, just what sailors call a 'salty dog'. I was married to a sailor - most OFW's were married to or had relations with sailors at one point in their checkered pasts, FYI) The Mate was his wife. She was BAD-ASS!!!! That woman put up and brought down the sails and brought the boom about and she had guns on her like you wouldn't believe and I am sure that woman could 'lower the boom' any time she wanted! She was very nice and freindly, but I tell you what, I would think twice about crossin' the bitch. The Sunset Sail was beautiful, the weather cooperated, the sandwiches were tasty and no one got seasick, so it was a good trip.
Day 2: The Welcome Dinner. One word. Lobsterbake. 'Nuff said. Word.
Day 3: TMBWTWHEK. Perfect weather, perfect bride, perfect groom, perfect Maid of Honor (Contance, an appallingly sexy and beautiful Amazon Woman from the frikken MOON!) and perfect Best Man. The outdoor ceremony was short and sweet. The bride in her Vera Wang gown honestly glowed. So did the groom, no lie. Afterwards, hors d'oeuvre and cocktails on the patio and in the gazebo, homey! Then the sit down steak and lobster dinner, the cake cutting, then back to the patio & gazebo for the dance and lounging and eating cake and drinking refreshing beverages.
Day 4: Brunch at the groom's mother's cottage. Just a beautiful day with beautiful people in a beautiful place. The coast of Maine is like a Fairy Tale. It's the Enchanted Kingdom. Everyone was so nice and welcoming and fun. I hated to leave, but leave it I did...
On Friday (the wedding was on Wednesday) back to NYC to see Favorite Cousin Lily and Wonderful Husband Don one more time. It was serious culture shock to get off the plane from the enchanted kingdom and walk out into the hot dirty muggy NYC air and catch the M60 bus to the N Train to get my ass downtown to Favorite Cousin Lily's office. But it was fun, too, and I feel equally comfortable on the coast of Maine surrounded by rich white people for whom the word 'summer' is a verb (we summer in Maine) as I do on the N Train surrounded by all different colors of people of many different and varying financial strata. That's one of the things I love about myself. I took Favorite Cousin Lily and Wonderful Husband Don to dinner at a great Italian place in the Bronx called Umbertos. If you are in the Bronx, you should go there. The food was great; authentic Italian, and since this Old French Whore lived in Italy for almost a year back in the day, you can take my word for it. Or not. I really don't care.
Next day, my last full day before heading home, was perfect!!! Lily and I got dolled up and met my friend from high school, Betsy and 2 of her very cool friends, Amanda and Janice, at Bergdorfs for lunch. What a treat. Honest to god, I had Cucumber mint lemonade. I'm not making this up. It was to-die-for! I'm gonna try it here at home and see if I can approximate the deliciosity. Then we went straight to the shoe department where Betsy and I petted the shoes and purred and cooed at them, too. (We both pet shoes. We were surprised to find that our friends/family do not share this predilection. I thought EVERYONE petted the shoes! How else will they know how much you love them, especially if you can't afford to take them home?). Then we went to The Plaza and had coffee and pastry there and then walked and 'subwayed' (I now declare in NYC 'subway' is a verb. So let it be written, so let it be done. It is good to be king.) to a discount designer place Favorite Cousin Lily knows called Gabbays. Finally made it back to the Bronx, dead tired and starving by 8pm. We got Mexican take-out down the street and called it a day. That's the story of my excellent adventure in the polar-opposite worlds of Maine and NYC/the Bronx. Time for bed.
Soooo, I went on a vacation. Just got back 2 days ago. A real vacation. The kind where you have tons of fun, laugh your ass off, meet new people, eat buckets of delicious fattening food (mostly lobster and cookies-go figure), watch two impossibly beautiful people get married on the seashore in Maine and then let the maid clean up after you. THAT kinda va-ca-SHONE. I told my boss when he hired me I had to have this week off for my friend Lara's destination wedding (who thinks this shit up? 'Destination Wedding', like that's really a thing. Like 'Fascinators'. Like people have been wearing them for YEARS, dahling...that's not a fucking THING. They made that up. And those poor gnarled spawn of Fergie & her inbred royal ex-husband bought it hook, line and sinker and made complete fools of themselves on international TV when their cousin got married and they attended in those ghastly things that looked like i.u.d.s. God, don't get me started). So, the royal wedding that some of us may or may not have gotten up at 2:50 a.m. on April 26th to watch probably cost less than the wedding I attended in Maine, and was not half as tasteful. My friend Lara has better taste than Martha Stewart and Jackie Onassis combined. She also has money. But money cannot buy the kind of impeccable eye my friend has. One of these days I might learn how to post photos and get one or two of the wedding of the century up here...but for now you'll have to listen to me prattle on about. Well, listen in your head, because you're actually reading this.
First, I flew into New York to see my Favorite Cousin Lily. I'm contractually obligated to always call her Favorite Cousin Lily. Don't hate me, other cousins. It's in our contract. I can't break it. I love you all very much. Admittedly, some more than others...but that's another story. Maybe later in the week I'll write about the B_______ Family Reunion I attended last month...damn, now that's a story. Damn, I'm tired and I am getting sidetracked. Damn.
Lily, much like her town, never sleeps. No, she's not a crack whore. She's just energetic. As am I, most of the time. My friend/muse Daniel says he has to take a nap after he hears about what I've done in a day, it makes him so tired. Got in at 11:30pm, bed by 3am (we had to catch up!) up at 8, into the city in the afternoon to shop all day long,(oh, did I mention Favorite Cousin Lily lives in the Bronx? Well, she does) then back to the Bronx for dinner with Lily's Wonderful Husband Don (Don is a lawyer. I'm contractually obligated to always call him Wonderful Husband Don) and then home to tart ourselves up and totter on 'shoulder shoes' (think about it. Visualize it. Got it?) 10 doors down to Brian's gorgeous house for his FABULOUS birthday party (gay men throw the best parties!), then up at the fucking buttcrack of dawn for breakfast with literally everyone in the neighborhood at a Mexican place (I just wanted a waffle!!!), then a 20 mile bike ride from the Bronx, thru Harlem into Manahattan and around The Cloisters, down to 70th street on the other side and back again. I was dying. When we got home I said I couldn't believe I rode 20 miles. Wonderful Husband Don said, "How long have you been riding?" I looked at my watch and said, "About 4 hours." (We stopped for food and drink somewhere along the line. It's all a blur.) He said, "No, not today, silly." I said, "Yeah well, I rode a bike one other time in the last 30 years or so, so yeah, 4 hours about covers it." He was somewhat impressed, I think:-) I wasn't even sore afterwards. Well, my ass was. And my neck was, because the bike was built for a shorter person. But other than that, no pain! I'm gettin' me a bike! I must take after my dad, who took up bike riding at about this same age after having abandoned it as a teenager, and in his 70's rode to San Francisco (twice!) and Montana (once!).
Next day I was off to Maine to participate in The Most Beautiful Wedding The World Has Ever Known (hereinafter referred to as TMBWTWHEK). I knew I was in trouble when I received the 4 page wedding invitation. "Uh oh", thought I, "I'm gonna need a new pair of shoes. And Charm School. And some class." I did manage to get the shoes. Oh well.
Day one: arrived and carpooled with the photographers. Plural. Two of them. (she hired 2 from Seattle-Alante Photography I believe they are called - but we just called them Loren and Kim. Wonderful people. Incredible photographers. Check them out. I'm not getting paid to say this. If they knew I posted their names in my blog they would probably be mortified. Come to think of it, they don't even know I have a blog...) Then there was a local assistant hired for days 3 & 4. Anyway, we meet up and drive 2 hours to 'The Destination'. We dump our crap in our rooms and race down to town to catch the gaff rigged schooner (as if I frikken know what the hell a gaff rigged schooner is! It's a pretty boat with pretty square sails, and it was helmed by a real live salty Maine dog (well, he wasn't an actual dog, just what sailors call a 'salty dog'. I was married to a sailor - most OFW's were married to or had relations with sailors at one point in their checkered pasts, FYI) The Mate was his wife. She was BAD-ASS!!!! That woman put up and brought down the sails and brought the boom about and she had guns on her like you wouldn't believe and I am sure that woman could 'lower the boom' any time she wanted! She was very nice and freindly, but I tell you what, I would think twice about crossin' the bitch. The Sunset Sail was beautiful, the weather cooperated, the sandwiches were tasty and no one got seasick, so it was a good trip.
Day 2: The Welcome Dinner. One word. Lobsterbake. 'Nuff said. Word.
Day 3: TMBWTWHEK. Perfect weather, perfect bride, perfect groom, perfect Maid of Honor (Contance, an appallingly sexy and beautiful Amazon Woman from the frikken MOON!) and perfect Best Man. The outdoor ceremony was short and sweet. The bride in her Vera Wang gown honestly glowed. So did the groom, no lie. Afterwards, hors d'oeuvre and cocktails on the patio and in the gazebo, homey! Then the sit down steak and lobster dinner, the cake cutting, then back to the patio & gazebo for the dance and lounging and eating cake and drinking refreshing beverages.
Day 4: Brunch at the groom's mother's cottage. Just a beautiful day with beautiful people in a beautiful place. The coast of Maine is like a Fairy Tale. It's the Enchanted Kingdom. Everyone was so nice and welcoming and fun. I hated to leave, but leave it I did...
On Friday (the wedding was on Wednesday) back to NYC to see Favorite Cousin Lily and Wonderful Husband Don one more time. It was serious culture shock to get off the plane from the enchanted kingdom and walk out into the hot dirty muggy NYC air and catch the M60 bus to the N Train to get my ass downtown to Favorite Cousin Lily's office. But it was fun, too, and I feel equally comfortable on the coast of Maine surrounded by rich white people for whom the word 'summer' is a verb (we summer in Maine) as I do on the N Train surrounded by all different colors of people of many different and varying financial strata. That's one of the things I love about myself. I took Favorite Cousin Lily and Wonderful Husband Don to dinner at a great Italian place in the Bronx called Umbertos. If you are in the Bronx, you should go there. The food was great; authentic Italian, and since this Old French Whore lived in Italy for almost a year back in the day, you can take my word for it. Or not. I really don't care.
Next day, my last full day before heading home, was perfect!!! Lily and I got dolled up and met my friend from high school, Betsy and 2 of her very cool friends, Amanda and Janice, at Bergdorfs for lunch. What a treat. Honest to god, I had Cucumber mint lemonade. I'm not making this up. It was to-die-for! I'm gonna try it here at home and see if I can approximate the deliciosity. Then we went straight to the shoe department where Betsy and I petted the shoes and purred and cooed at them, too. (We both pet shoes. We were surprised to find that our friends/family do not share this predilection. I thought EVERYONE petted the shoes! How else will they know how much you love them, especially if you can't afford to take them home?). Then we went to The Plaza and had coffee and pastry there and then walked and 'subwayed' (I now declare in NYC 'subway' is a verb. So let it be written, so let it be done. It is good to be king.) to a discount designer place Favorite Cousin Lily knows called Gabbays. Finally made it back to the Bronx, dead tired and starving by 8pm. We got Mexican take-out down the street and called it a day. That's the story of my excellent adventure in the polar-opposite worlds of Maine and NYC/the Bronx. Time for bed.
4.05.2011
"I Left My Favorite Pen in San Francisco..."
Well, dear reader, I survived "The Attack of the Jackals" in San Francisco, which can more aptly be described as "The Purring of the Kittens" with "The Occasional Bark of the One Bull Dog". The barks were not directed at moi. Bull dogs have a very highly developed sense of self-preservation, I hear.
The ride from SFO to the hospital was harrowing. Our driver was a very chatty Chinese immigrant, who could not stop talking about his love for scalpals, once he found out we were outfitting a hospital. What was more discomfiting however, was he drove literally like a fucking bat out of hell, and I am not faint of heart when it comes to driving. My ex-husband (most Old French Whores are divorced, FYI) put a license plate holder on my car that read "Caution: Stunt Driver" and threatened to put large numbers on the doors and hood if I didn't learn to slow down and stick with one lane.
Aaaanyway, the meeting was productive & civil, and the attendees ran the gamut from somewhat curt (the bull dog) to downright enchanting. The weather cooperated nicely by being warm (70 degrees!) and sunny (thanks, weather!) One couldn't have asked for more, and yet...the one truly enchanting, old-school, (old school, not old) gentleman-like meeting attendee (who will henceforth always be referred as The Truly Enchanting Mr. J.) then made the world stand still by asking my snarky & witty co-worker (just the way I like my co-workers!) and I to lunch at a delightfully relaxing and tasty restaurant in The Galleria (naturally) of the Design Center (of course). I highly recommend the place: great food, great service, truly enchanting company. What more can a gal ask for? Alas, ladies, (and homosexual gentlemen) he is spoken for. Sigh.
The Truly Enchanting Mr. J. then dropped us off at City Hall in order to admire the architecture of that grand and stately edifice, and lounge (and possibly score some meth or git us a ho? WTF, SF City Hall???) in the park area across the street, since we had some time to kill before hailing a cab to take us to SFO.
Now I will take the time to wax poetic and wistful about the wisdom of a man's being handsome, charming and extremely well-groomed, if he possibly can be. It takes remarkably little effort fellas, to not be the bald-headed bull dog at the meeting. The bald-headed bull dog is not awful or ugly or terrible, but he is a bald-headed bull dog. (Disclaimer: Some of my favorite people are bald, I am not slighting bald people in any way. Don't leave comments about my not liking bald people. I have dated bald people for fuck's sake!) The bull dog's aim is to let everyone know a.) he is the alpha-dog at this meeting and b.) he does not suffer fools. Good to know. Nevertheless, when one sees the exact opposite in every aspect, save competence (for both of the men I am alluding to are indeed extremely capable indiviuals), sitting literally across the table from each other, the head swivels to and fro and one thinks to oneself, "Hmmm...'Bull dog -or- Truly Enchanting Mr. J.? Bull dog -or- Truly Enchanting Mr. J.? Bull dog -or- Truly Enchanting Mr. J.?' It's kind of a no-brainer. I choose you, Truly Ennchanting Mr. J. I mean, really? Who would you rather go to lunch with. AND the guy wouldn't even let us pay!
Then the beautiful dream of a day had to come to an end and the plane had to land in 46 degrees and raining Seattle. Shit sandwiches. And this morning I arrived at work only to find that the power is out (again!) in our office building (Not my fault! I swear! It happened BEFORE I got to work!) The Seattle City Light people say they expect the power to be restored to our building at 3:57p.m. I am not making this shit up. Not 3:54. Not 3:59. Not 4:06. At 3:57p.m. (Those people are completely full of shit. They cannot explain why only our building ever loses power. How can the entire rest of the city of Seattle be up and running and we are down?) The main reason why this sucks so hard is that I told the bull dog at the hospital that I would have some serious deliverables to him by Wednesday afternoon. And I don't want to experience the bull dog's bark. So I'll be at the office at 6a.m., and will work straight through until the promised documents are indeed deliverable, and not a moment before, which come to think of it is not very Old French Whore-like. At all. But a girl's gotta eat. And buy shoes...So maybe there's something to this bull dog thing after all...I can't imagine The Truly Enchanting Mr. J. biting anyone's head off for any reason.
The ride from SFO to the hospital was harrowing. Our driver was a very chatty Chinese immigrant, who could not stop talking about his love for scalpals, once he found out we were outfitting a hospital. What was more discomfiting however, was he drove literally like a fucking bat out of hell, and I am not faint of heart when it comes to driving. My ex-husband (most Old French Whores are divorced, FYI) put a license plate holder on my car that read "Caution: Stunt Driver" and threatened to put large numbers on the doors and hood if I didn't learn to slow down and stick with one lane.
Aaaanyway, the meeting was productive & civil, and the attendees ran the gamut from somewhat curt (the bull dog) to downright enchanting. The weather cooperated nicely by being warm (70 degrees!) and sunny (thanks, weather!) One couldn't have asked for more, and yet...the one truly enchanting, old-school, (old school, not old) gentleman-like meeting attendee (who will henceforth always be referred as The Truly Enchanting Mr. J.) then made the world stand still by asking my snarky & witty co-worker (just the way I like my co-workers!) and I to lunch at a delightfully relaxing and tasty restaurant in The Galleria (naturally) of the Design Center (of course). I highly recommend the place: great food, great service, truly enchanting company. What more can a gal ask for? Alas, ladies, (and homosexual gentlemen) he is spoken for. Sigh.
The Truly Enchanting Mr. J. then dropped us off at City Hall in order to admire the architecture of that grand and stately edifice, and lounge (and possibly score some meth or git us a ho? WTF, SF City Hall???) in the park area across the street, since we had some time to kill before hailing a cab to take us to SFO.
Now I will take the time to wax poetic and wistful about the wisdom of a man's being handsome, charming and extremely well-groomed, if he possibly can be. It takes remarkably little effort fellas, to not be the bald-headed bull dog at the meeting. The bald-headed bull dog is not awful or ugly or terrible, but he is a bald-headed bull dog. (Disclaimer: Some of my favorite people are bald, I am not slighting bald people in any way. Don't leave comments about my not liking bald people. I have dated bald people for fuck's sake!) The bull dog's aim is to let everyone know a.) he is the alpha-dog at this meeting and b.) he does not suffer fools. Good to know. Nevertheless, when one sees the exact opposite in every aspect, save competence (for both of the men I am alluding to are indeed extremely capable indiviuals), sitting literally across the table from each other, the head swivels to and fro and one thinks to oneself, "Hmmm...'Bull dog -or- Truly Enchanting Mr. J.? Bull dog -or- Truly Enchanting Mr. J.? Bull dog -or- Truly Enchanting Mr. J.?' It's kind of a no-brainer. I choose you, Truly Ennchanting Mr. J. I mean, really? Who would you rather go to lunch with. AND the guy wouldn't even let us pay!
Then the beautiful dream of a day had to come to an end and the plane had to land in 46 degrees and raining Seattle. Shit sandwiches. And this morning I arrived at work only to find that the power is out (again!) in our office building (Not my fault! I swear! It happened BEFORE I got to work!) The Seattle City Light people say they expect the power to be restored to our building at 3:57p.m. I am not making this shit up. Not 3:54. Not 3:59. Not 4:06. At 3:57p.m. (Those people are completely full of shit. They cannot explain why only our building ever loses power. How can the entire rest of the city of Seattle be up and running and we are down?) The main reason why this sucks so hard is that I told the bull dog at the hospital that I would have some serious deliverables to him by Wednesday afternoon. And I don't want to experience the bull dog's bark. So I'll be at the office at 6a.m., and will work straight through until the promised documents are indeed deliverable, and not a moment before, which come to think of it is not very Old French Whore-like. At all. But a girl's gotta eat. And buy shoes...So maybe there's something to this bull dog thing after all...I can't imagine The Truly Enchanting Mr. J. biting anyone's head off for any reason.
4.03.2011
My How Time Flies...
...when you have a job. The last time I wrote I think some of my country cousins had just left. Since then another batch came and went, but these were city cousins. Well, 1 cousin. My sister housed the other city cousin and we spent the weekend shopping and eating and listening to great music. We saw the band "The Clumsy Lovers" (yes, yes, I know they finally named a band after moi...)
There occurred during the weekend shopping foray a particularly OFW split down the middle of the party...my sister had called me and my cousin and my sister-in-law (we were all 3 already in downtown Seattle fully engaged in the Nordstrom Mothership Experience) from the bus where she and her entourage (daughter, cousin, friend from Spokane) where fast approaching our exact coordinates. She asked where we were and I told her. I then said we were getting peckish and would be requiring sustenance in short order & suggested the cafe on the top floor of The Mothership, since it was right handy. Their party arrived forthwith and the darling 22 year old offspring of my charming sister piped up with a, "We're not really down with your choice for a place to eat lunch, aunt Katois." "Well, I'm not married to the choice, pick a better one and I'll gladly follow." She then informed me her comestible milieu of choice was a Vietnamese place 6 blocks away that sold pastries filled with meats of dubious origin for $2.00 at the Pike Place Market. I informed her that 1.) It's raining and 2.) My hair looks cute (it did) and the moisture will destroy it, and 3. I have no desire to stand outside in the rain eating a greasy pastry filled with god-knows-what when I still had shopping to do at or near The Mothership. So the party split up as we had met up, my gals agreeing that Nordstrom Cafe was a more pleasant alternative and the intrepid four scampering about the city-scape gobbling down hum-bow.
To keep you abreast of the goings on in my pretty little head: I am still very nervous about the state of Godzilla country and the effect her radiation poisoning will have on yours truly and those she loves. I wonder why Muammar Gaddafi's female bodyguards don't try to dissuade him from the hair and moustache dye-it's not fooling anyone. I place bets with myself on when Charlie Sheen will come to in Tijuana with no front teeth and no recollection of how he got there. Just some of my musings...
Well, I'm going to get ready for work tomorrow-I have to be at SeaTac at the barbaric hour of 5:30a.m. in order to catch a plane and be at my meeting in San Francisco by 10:00a.m. Wish me luck and pray the jackals don't flay me alive. I am the new kid on the block and apparently rendering the flesh of the newbies is one of the favorite pastimes of the group I'm to meet with. Oh well, it's nothing an Old French Whore hasn't faced before. And usually those attempting to assault me end up in the I.C.U. with their bodily fluids and gasses entering and leaving their carcasses via tubes and bags with round-the-clock teams of highly skilled medical personnel hovering nearby. Figuratively speaking, of course. Good thing the meeting is at the new hospital trauma center, though. I'm just sayin'...
There occurred during the weekend shopping foray a particularly OFW split down the middle of the party...my sister had called me and my cousin and my sister-in-law (we were all 3 already in downtown Seattle fully engaged in the Nordstrom Mothership Experience) from the bus where she and her entourage (daughter, cousin, friend from Spokane) where fast approaching our exact coordinates. She asked where we were and I told her. I then said we were getting peckish and would be requiring sustenance in short order & suggested the cafe on the top floor of The Mothership, since it was right handy. Their party arrived forthwith and the darling 22 year old offspring of my charming sister piped up with a, "We're not really down with your choice for a place to eat lunch, aunt Katois." "Well, I'm not married to the choice, pick a better one and I'll gladly follow." She then informed me her comestible milieu of choice was a Vietnamese place 6 blocks away that sold pastries filled with meats of dubious origin for $2.00 at the Pike Place Market. I informed her that 1.) It's raining and 2.) My hair looks cute (it did) and the moisture will destroy it, and 3. I have no desire to stand outside in the rain eating a greasy pastry filled with god-knows-what when I still had shopping to do at or near The Mothership. So the party split up as we had met up, my gals agreeing that Nordstrom Cafe was a more pleasant alternative and the intrepid four scampering about the city-scape gobbling down hum-bow.
To keep you abreast of the goings on in my pretty little head: I am still very nervous about the state of Godzilla country and the effect her radiation poisoning will have on yours truly and those she loves. I wonder why Muammar Gaddafi's female bodyguards don't try to dissuade him from the hair and moustache dye-it's not fooling anyone. I place bets with myself on when Charlie Sheen will come to in Tijuana with no front teeth and no recollection of how he got there. Just some of my musings...
Well, I'm going to get ready for work tomorrow-I have to be at SeaTac at the barbaric hour of 5:30a.m. in order to catch a plane and be at my meeting in San Francisco by 10:00a.m. Wish me luck and pray the jackals don't flay me alive. I am the new kid on the block and apparently rendering the flesh of the newbies is one of the favorite pastimes of the group I'm to meet with. Oh well, it's nothing an Old French Whore hasn't faced before. And usually those attempting to assault me end up in the I.C.U. with their bodily fluids and gasses entering and leaving their carcasses via tubes and bags with round-the-clock teams of highly skilled medical personnel hovering nearby. Figuratively speaking, of course. Good thing the meeting is at the new hospital trauma center, though. I'm just sayin'...
3.21.2011
Knee Deep in Bitches, Birthdays, Basketball and Beer...
Wow, long time no write. This working 40 hours a week thang (so not Old French Whore, oui?) is seriously cramping my writing style. Oh well, c'est la vie. Bitchez gotta buy shoes and lotto tickets, non?
The first full week of my new J-O-B was very exhausting and exhilarating, believe it or not. First I was thrown into the shallow end of the pool, and of course I emerged with nary a wet hair (on my head anyway) and then I was thrown into the deep end of the pool, and I emerged from that a little short of breath and completely soaked, but successful none-the-less. In any case, I didn't fucking drown, catch my drift? So then on Friday, my new boss (who thinks his truck-driver-style cussin' is all that. Wait 'til I get comfortable and go all reservation on his ass and start spewing some 'Shit My Uncle Joe and Uncle Dan Say' all over the place. He'll tremble, I'm quite certain.) throws me into the ocean. Without a life-vest. Just off the coast of Japan. I'm dog-paddling, pretty sure I'll survive, but I will probably require medical attention when it's all over.
Last Friday I had 23 years clean and sober. That was one hell of a St. Patrick's Day in 1988, let me tell you! No need to go strolling down that particular memory lane, but I drank my entire life's quota, and yours, well before I ever quit. Slow learner. I celebrated with a bunch of my sober friends at a local restaurant where they serve desserts as big as your head, and I had deux (2). Well, it was my 'birthday'.
Then on Saturday I and several other intrepid family members ventured over to my brother's house - the brother with 5 kids! No not Mormons. Just careless. Kidding!!! I kid. A lot. Aaaanyway, their youngest turned quatre (4) Saturday and she finally realized recently what that means. It means PRESENTS!!!! And CAKE!!!! And MORE PRESENTS!!!! This would not have been a problem but for their 6 year old. That child came out into the world kicking, screaming, biting, scratching, hitting, tasering, exploding, selling crack, dealing arms, smoking a cigarette and swearing. I SWEAR. She came out of her mom and yelled, "FUCK ALL A YOU MUTHER_FUCKERS!!!" I was there. As you might well imagine, a child like that has issues with other, smaller children getting gifts and attention one day a year. Well, on a good day over there it is pandemonium. This was not a good day. For the 6 year old. But there was good cake (thanks Polly!!!) and good weather and good food and good fun. Really. My 4 year old niece (Children are completely insane. All children. No exceptions) looked up at me after opening all her fabulous presents and said, "Aunt Kate, are we in heaven?" I said, "If this was heaven I'd be shoe shopping with Javier Bardem, kid." As usual, children look at me like I have trois (3) heads ( I only have deux (2)) and then walk away. Like I'm the crazy one.
The rest of that day/evening was a blur of NCAA basketball viewing, beer drinking (not by me, just some of, ok most of, the siblings, their spouses and our visiting cousins), and guitar jamming (there are some musical types in my clan). Of course I'm the designated driver. And of course the hard-drinkin' cousins all want to stay at my house. Why? Because I don't drink and my house is clean and tidy and sweet and comfortable, and they know I'll have to drive back to it eventually, and that way they won't get DUI's. It's good to be needed.
By the way...anyone else out there a little concerned about the sudden seeming silence of the media with regards to the impending complete and total nuclear meltdown happening in Japan??? Now it's all, Libya! Basketball! Charlie Sheen! Lindsay Lohan! Why aren't they talking that shit up? What are they hiding NOW??? I'm very concerned, not just because I live on the west coast and could conceivably be as irradiated as the produce at Safeway one day soon, but because, to paraphrase my fiend, er, friend D, Japan + Earthquake + Nuclear Core Meltdown = Godzilla. Every fucking time.
By the way, the 'Bitches' in the title refers to moi.
The first full week of my new J-O-B was very exhausting and exhilarating, believe it or not. First I was thrown into the shallow end of the pool, and of course I emerged with nary a wet hair (on my head anyway) and then I was thrown into the deep end of the pool, and I emerged from that a little short of breath and completely soaked, but successful none-the-less. In any case, I didn't fucking drown, catch my drift? So then on Friday, my new boss (who thinks his truck-driver-style cussin' is all that. Wait 'til I get comfortable and go all reservation on his ass and start spewing some 'Shit My Uncle Joe and Uncle Dan Say' all over the place. He'll tremble, I'm quite certain.) throws me into the ocean. Without a life-vest. Just off the coast of Japan. I'm dog-paddling, pretty sure I'll survive, but I will probably require medical attention when it's all over.
Last Friday I had 23 years clean and sober. That was one hell of a St. Patrick's Day in 1988, let me tell you! No need to go strolling down that particular memory lane, but I drank my entire life's quota, and yours, well before I ever quit. Slow learner. I celebrated with a bunch of my sober friends at a local restaurant where they serve desserts as big as your head, and I had deux (2). Well, it was my 'birthday'.
Then on Saturday I and several other intrepid family members ventured over to my brother's house - the brother with 5 kids! No not Mormons. Just careless. Kidding!!! I kid. A lot. Aaaanyway, their youngest turned quatre (4) Saturday and she finally realized recently what that means. It means PRESENTS!!!! And CAKE!!!! And MORE PRESENTS!!!! This would not have been a problem but for their 6 year old. That child came out into the world kicking, screaming, biting, scratching, hitting, tasering, exploding, selling crack, dealing arms, smoking a cigarette and swearing. I SWEAR. She came out of her mom and yelled, "FUCK ALL A YOU MUTHER_FUCKERS!!!" I was there. As you might well imagine, a child like that has issues with other, smaller children getting gifts and attention one day a year. Well, on a good day over there it is pandemonium. This was not a good day. For the 6 year old. But there was good cake (thanks Polly!!!) and good weather and good food and good fun. Really. My 4 year old niece (Children are completely insane. All children. No exceptions) looked up at me after opening all her fabulous presents and said, "Aunt Kate, are we in heaven?" I said, "If this was heaven I'd be shoe shopping with Javier Bardem, kid." As usual, children look at me like I have trois (3) heads ( I only have deux (2)) and then walk away. Like I'm the crazy one.
The rest of that day/evening was a blur of NCAA basketball viewing, beer drinking (not by me, just some of, ok most of, the siblings, their spouses and our visiting cousins), and guitar jamming (there are some musical types in my clan). Of course I'm the designated driver. And of course the hard-drinkin' cousins all want to stay at my house. Why? Because I don't drink and my house is clean and tidy and sweet and comfortable, and they know I'll have to drive back to it eventually, and that way they won't get DUI's. It's good to be needed.
By the way...anyone else out there a little concerned about the sudden seeming silence of the media with regards to the impending complete and total nuclear meltdown happening in Japan??? Now it's all, Libya! Basketball! Charlie Sheen! Lindsay Lohan! Why aren't they talking that shit up? What are they hiding NOW??? I'm very concerned, not just because I live on the west coast and could conceivably be as irradiated as the produce at Safeway one day soon, but because, to paraphrase my fiend, er, friend D, Japan + Earthquake + Nuclear Core Meltdown = Godzilla. Every fucking time.
By the way, the 'Bitches' in the title refers to moi.
3.10.2011
The NIght the Lights Went Out in Tukwila...
First day of work and already the curse has found me...an ex-boyfriend once said of me,"The U.S. government should just hang you underneath a plane and fly you over North Korea if they are really serious about dismantling Jim Jong Il's nuclear program, because whatever it is about you and your electrical field, it wreaks havoc on electronics!" This after the umpteenth time of me causing the TV & DVD player to just stop running merely by looking at them. So I go in, they say go talk to the I.T. guy and give him your name & how you want your email to look. I go in there & he starts futzing around with his program and BAM! He's locked out of his own mail server. Then I go meet with the boss to have a computer aided run-down of the company's work plan for the project I'm going to be working on, and their data base structure, and BAM! that computer went T.U. He finally got it up and running, then BAM! all the power went out to the whole building and I'm thinking, "Holy fuck, did I do that?" But no, even I am not that powerful, it was a mudslide that took out a transformer or something. Unless my superpowers now include "Cause mudslides with her mind". I stuck around long enough for my new boss to buy me lunch (I'm crafty like that) and then we came back to the office at 2:30, everyone else had left, and he said, "OK, go home, see ya tomorrow."
So far I love my new place of employment, except they DON'T HAVE A COFFEE MAKER!!!!!!!!! What the fuck is that??? I'm bringing my french press tomorrow, they do have hot water. They also have a decidedly less formal mode of attire than yours truly. I mean the (gorgeous!!! young!!! sweet!!! smart!!! I hate her already) receptionist was in jeans, and it isn't even Friday! In fact almost everyone was in jeans. They had me sign a "Confidentiality Agreement" which is a good sign from a business standpoint, but really, I'll only ever divulge their secrets if my life is on the line & my only option for survival is to try and bore someone to death.
One reason (besides the unmitigated greed of the Wall Street bankers who ground this country into the economic dust) that a lot of architecture firms failed in the last couple of years is that architects are notoriously bad business people, which doesn't make sense to me since they are also the most anal-retentive (like me!) of all the design professionals. Plus we're good at math. Architecture school is brutal and abusive. And the people (like me!) who actually made it in and then through it seem hell bent on perpetuating that particular brand of brutally abusive madness within the profession. These assholes (like me!) actually brag about how hard they work and how little they sleep and they (like me!) are always poor. I think it might have to do with the massive egos needed to make it to and through school and then cling desperately to the illusion that they are making a difference in the built environment. When the earthquake struck Haiti, I was joking with the receptionist/marketing/graphics genius at the firm where I was employed about starting an "Architects Without Borders" group, but that it would have to be made up of architects without egos, so it would never work...He laughed and said, "Yeah, architects without egos. I'll file that right next to 'Unicorn'." Sad, but true.
Hopefully tomorrow my superpowers will keep total destruction at bay, and I'll be able to work a full 8 hours. Wish me luck.
So far I love my new place of employment, except they DON'T HAVE A COFFEE MAKER!!!!!!!!! What the fuck is that??? I'm bringing my french press tomorrow, they do have hot water. They also have a decidedly less formal mode of attire than yours truly. I mean the (gorgeous!!! young!!! sweet!!! smart!!! I hate her already) receptionist was in jeans, and it isn't even Friday! In fact almost everyone was in jeans. They had me sign a "Confidentiality Agreement" which is a good sign from a business standpoint, but really, I'll only ever divulge their secrets if my life is on the line & my only option for survival is to try and bore someone to death.
One reason (besides the unmitigated greed of the Wall Street bankers who ground this country into the economic dust) that a lot of architecture firms failed in the last couple of years is that architects are notoriously bad business people, which doesn't make sense to me since they are also the most anal-retentive (like me!) of all the design professionals. Plus we're good at math. Architecture school is brutal and abusive. And the people (like me!) who actually made it in and then through it seem hell bent on perpetuating that particular brand of brutally abusive madness within the profession. These assholes (like me!) actually brag about how hard they work and how little they sleep and they (like me!) are always poor. I think it might have to do with the massive egos needed to make it to and through school and then cling desperately to the illusion that they are making a difference in the built environment. When the earthquake struck Haiti, I was joking with the receptionist/marketing/graphics genius at the firm where I was employed about starting an "Architects Without Borders" group, but that it would have to be made up of architects without egos, so it would never work...He laughed and said, "Yeah, architects without egos. I'll file that right next to 'Unicorn'." Sad, but true.
Hopefully tomorrow my superpowers will keep total destruction at bay, and I'll be able to work a full 8 hours. Wish me luck.
3.09.2011
JEEZUS! Already What A Day...
OK, so I had therapy this morning. I gits my mental health (and medical/dental!) needs covered at the Muckleshoot Reservation (I LOVE those guys) because of this whole Native Reciprocity thing, (if a member of a tribe lives in another tribe's county, that tribe covers you, which doesn't suck. In this case only on Wednesdays, but still). Normally I pretty much cry through the whole hour, but today I only cried through half of it! Progress. And this was AFTER my car wreck!!! I was going to drop something off at my friend Liz's house before going to therapy and I was driving along on an arterial, or a thoroughfare or whatever the hell street it is that DOESN'T have stop signs, bounded by cross streets that DO have stop signs, and I get the "There's a spider crawling up my leg!!!!" feeling, glance down for literally 1 second, and boom! There's a guy in the intersection who didn't see me (I didn't even have my cloaking device turned on) and I T-Bone him!!!! SHIT! FUCK! CRAP! Now normally this would have just pissed me off. But last March I was a passenger in a car that was rear-ended by some young hot-head, and me and the driver of the car are still being treated for our injuries. So I'm painfully aware of how much damage a vehicle can inflict on a human being. My car (The Dark Angel. Yes I name my cars. Don't you?) is much bigger and stronger than his (well it IS American!) and even though I had the right-of-way all I could think was "Oh my God, I hurt someone with my car!!!" I have a little bit of extra soreness in my left side of my neck and left shoulder, but nothing too much more than the usual chronic pain I've been dealing with for the last year. What really really really pisses me off, besides the fact that this poor dude didn't look where he was going, is that I get the "There's a spider crawling up my leg!!!" feeling periodically ever since last year's wreck. I am unreasonably afraid of spiders (well if being afraid of something that skitters and crawls and creeps and bites and is ugly & has 8 legs isn't reasonable, I don't know what is) and they all know it-I remind them periodically so they will stay out of my sight so I don't have to kill them. But my reptile brain takes over for just a second before my rational mind can say, "You're in your car and there's no spider crawling up your leg." I doubt if I could have stopped completely before hitting that poor fella, but maybe I could have. Maybe 1 second is all it would have taken for me to avoid the accident. The guy said he wasn't hurt but you never know. My car has a bent license plate and some paint transfer. His looked totaled. But if I was never hit last year I wouldn't have these damn phantom spiders periodically crawling up my leg and spewing mayhem all over the place.
So I start my new job tomorrow. Just a little stressful, but nothing an OFW hasn't handled before. I sent an email out to all my friends to inform them I got a job so they can stop taking up collections for me (just kidding. I didn't tell them to stop) and one of my gentlemen friends said, "Pole dancing, I hope." Honey, that ship has sailed. Besides, OFW's don't pole dance, that sounds a little too much like exercise. Everyone else posted something like, "Details please!" Really? How boring is another person's job? I mean if I was going to work for the C.I.A., or going to be George Clooney's right-hand gal-Friday in Darfur, or host E News Daily or something, I could see the interest. It's just a job, people. Something they have to pay people to do, like most jobs. I'm grateful to have it and it sounds like it's right up my alley, but honestly I don't know how to make it sound even remotely interesting to another carbon-based life form. If something funny or interesting happens, I'll blog about it. Promise. 'K?
Well, I'm feeling hungry and uninspired so I'm gonna go eat something and maybe even take a nap! I never nap, but it seems like a good idea today...
So I start my new job tomorrow. Just a little stressful, but nothing an OFW hasn't handled before. I sent an email out to all my friends to inform them I got a job so they can stop taking up collections for me (just kidding. I didn't tell them to stop) and one of my gentlemen friends said, "Pole dancing, I hope." Honey, that ship has sailed. Besides, OFW's don't pole dance, that sounds a little too much like exercise. Everyone else posted something like, "Details please!" Really? How boring is another person's job? I mean if I was going to work for the C.I.A., or going to be George Clooney's right-hand gal-Friday in Darfur, or host E News Daily or something, I could see the interest. It's just a job, people. Something they have to pay people to do, like most jobs. I'm grateful to have it and it sounds like it's right up my alley, but honestly I don't know how to make it sound even remotely interesting to another carbon-based life form. If something funny or interesting happens, I'll blog about it. Promise. 'K?
Well, I'm feeling hungry and uninspired so I'm gonna go eat something and maybe even take a nap! I never nap, but it seems like a good idea today...
3.08.2011
I'd Like To Thank The Academy...
...and my dear, sweet, capable, clever, handsome and hee-larious *IT* guy "D McG". Take a bow, D! He's the one who got me started and has tweaked the site to make it so much more purdy than I could do on my own, what with all his html black magic and computer source(code)ry. Somebody bring me my smellin' salts...
Just When I Start Blogging, I Get a Job!
That's right, Whore-mongers. I got an email from someone I emailed on the advice of a friend this morning about a job, and had an interview and got hired. I start work on Thursday! I'm thrilled about this, but I wonder, is the Universe trying to tell me I suck at blogging and trying to get me off the ether ASAP? I choose to think, "Mais non, mon cheri, l'univers loves moi! It wants me to do both!" I am like a fundamentalist Christian republican that way, in that I ignore the obvious and plow blindly ahead. I, however, can do no real harm here and it's not costing good people their jobs or their lives or their pensions or their unions or their health, so wtf, right? And if you are a fundamentalist Christian republican knucklehead Tea-Bagger, oops, Party-er, and you are offended, I have 3 things to say to you: 1. I don't give a flying fuck about you, and 2. Why are you reading something with "Whore" in the title, fundamentalist Christian? and 3. Why are you reading something with "French" in the title, republican knucklehead? I'm just sayin'...
Broccoli for Breakfast - YUM!
That's right, I like my fiber in cruciforous plant form, not in a pill dissolved in water. I heart Trader Joe's Organic Broccoli Florets. Already cut up like an OFW likes 'em! Sadly, this does not mean I am a vegetarian. No true OFW really is, in her heart. I am a carnivore through and through. I loves me some little animals and big animals and fishes and birds, but I love to eat them more, I guess. I tried going vegetarian when I was in my 20's (doesn't everyone?), but my hair started falling out, my skin lost its luster way earlier than it should, I started wearing Birkenstocks with socks and bathing a patchouli oil and smoking clove cigarettes and...my dad (mostly Native American and partly French-Canadian - hence the rockin' French surname. It is rockin' - you'll just have to take my word on that) said, "Honey, we can't NOT eat meat-we're Indins!". (He was born and raised on a reservation, so he gets to say 'Indin'. You, paleface blog reader, do not. Sorry, I don't make the rules, I just enforce them.) Alas he was right. And yes, vegans, I ate plenty of legumes and shit, no lack of protein. It just wasn't animal-based and even my guru who is an Indian from India said my people need animal-based protein, so there. At least that's what I heard. It could be a crock of shit but I'm still hangin' my hat on it. And yes, of course OFW's have gurus! You can't BE a guru and not HAVE your own guru. That's like recovering alcoholics in AA sponsoring people and NOT having a sponsor themselves. It's done, but it's WRONG. But that's another topic altogether.
So what, you may ask, do I need a guru for? Thanks for asking. I need one for my mental/creative/spiritual health. I practice Transcendental Meditation and I couldn't have learned it in a vacuum. Well, technically, I could have learned it in a vacuum* (if you want to get all quantum physics technical-which I don't) if I could navigate my way there and back succesfully and sit around and figure shit out for myself. I cannot. I am not Guru Dev** and I don't have time to sit around in caves in India for years on end figuring this all out, and the Universe finally figured THAT out ('bout time, Universe!) so it created this guy who DID have the time and the desire to sit around in caves coming up with a technique that even a simple human like moi can use to find profound rest, bliss, even transcendance. And if the OFW can do it, anyone can.
OK well, gotta go. I'm telling ya, nothing works like raw broccoili!
*not a Hoover, like a Zero Point Field kind of vacuum.
**Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, who passed it on to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who passed it to my teacher, who passed it on to me. Jai Guru Dev.
So what, you may ask, do I need a guru for? Thanks for asking. I need one for my mental/creative/spiritual health. I practice Transcendental Meditation and I couldn't have learned it in a vacuum. Well, technically, I could have learned it in a vacuum* (if you want to get all quantum physics technical-which I don't) if I could navigate my way there and back succesfully and sit around and figure shit out for myself. I cannot. I am not Guru Dev** and I don't have time to sit around in caves in India for years on end figuring this all out, and the Universe finally figured THAT out ('bout time, Universe!) so it created this guy who DID have the time and the desire to sit around in caves coming up with a technique that even a simple human like moi can use to find profound rest, bliss, even transcendance. And if the OFW can do it, anyone can.
OK well, gotta go. I'm telling ya, nothing works like raw broccoili!
*not a Hoover, like a Zero Point Field kind of vacuum.
**Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, who passed it on to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who passed it to my teacher, who passed it on to me. Jai Guru Dev.
3.07.2011
In the beginning...
... there was a young French whore. Probably. Somewhere. But that wasn't me. I'm American, although I do sport a French surname with a certain jaunty insouciance. But as I grew older in this world which is at once stupendous & stupid, insane & oddly logical, unpredictable & sometimes predictably cruel, I developed a sensibility that seemed to be summed up perfectly in "Old French Whore". I did not invent the term. There have been Old French Whores for as long as there have been French Whores of any stripe, but my dear friend "S" came up with the term as it applies to women of a certain age, namely "S" & I. Many of our friends qualify as OFW's, but alas, many do not.
What this blog is not about, (sorry freaks!) is pornography. I'm not anti-pornography, what kind of OFW would I be if I was? I just don't care about it. I don't want to write about it. And the pornographers of the world don't need my help making a buck, so they can write about that if they want to.
About moi: I am an unemployed woman of said certain age with a little time on her hands and I thought, well, if Charlie Sheen can do it, (via twitter) why can't I? Admittedly, tiger blood does not course through my veins, but I have been accused of being part wolverine on more than one occasion. And us Old French Whores usually hail from Venus, not Mars, but well, you get the gratuitous topical reference.
"Us Old French Whores", you say? Oui, I am not the only one. I may be the only one currently blogging, but I am not alone. My philosophy and criteria for Old French Whoredom will eventually spill out onto the virtual page as my ramblings begin to flow, but since no one is paying me to do this, I'll take my sweet time, which, by the way, is a characteristic of Old French Whores.
So every day, or whenever I feel like it, I'll write about whatever in the hell I want.
What this blog is not about, (sorry freaks!) is pornography. I'm not anti-pornography, what kind of OFW would I be if I was? I just don't care about it. I don't want to write about it. And the pornographers of the world don't need my help making a buck, so they can write about that if they want to.
About moi: I am an unemployed woman of said certain age with a little time on her hands and I thought, well, if Charlie Sheen can do it, (via twitter) why can't I? Admittedly, tiger blood does not course through my veins, but I have been accused of being part wolverine on more than one occasion. And us Old French Whores usually hail from Venus, not Mars, but well, you get the gratuitous topical reference.
"Us Old French Whores", you say? Oui, I am not the only one. I may be the only one currently blogging, but I am not alone. My philosophy and criteria for Old French Whoredom will eventually spill out onto the virtual page as my ramblings begin to flow, but since no one is paying me to do this, I'll take my sweet time, which, by the way, is a characteristic of Old French Whores.
So every day, or whenever I feel like it, I'll write about whatever in the hell I want.
Debut of Old French Whore
Bon jour, mes amis & oooh la la! This is the maiden voyage of the good ship Old French Whore! This is your Captain AND Cruise Director speaking.
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