Assignment #3

Mrs. Linklater is so grateful for these weekend assignments. She's not sure exactly why.  She just knows she is grateful.

Worst advice I've provided to someone else: "That guy's a loser!" * The very words I told my lovesick girlfriend who had a thing for the geeky guy across the street. Of course she ignored me. They've been married 20 years, live in a beautiful house on a mountain in Malibu, CA. He turned out to be a great person -- super dad, great husband, and brilliant web designer. I'm still looking.

* OUT OF SHAPE + SPACED OUT STARE = LOSER. He was a tub o' guts and his eyes had that charming, glassy look of someone who's been doing drugs for a long time. My friend was an elite athlete who didn't smoke or drink. Apparently, she saw something nobody else did. Somehow that toady guy turned into a prince. Now he's in great shape and could be a poster boy for healthy living.  [He does say it took five years for the drugs to leave his system.]

Worst advice I've ever been given: "You'll get used to the taste." Shut up all you evil people, I'm talking about beer. From age 21 to 22 I tried to embrace drinking.  Beer mostly, because it was cheap. Every time I had a couple I kept waiting for the good taste to kick in. Headaches, a red nose, and tongue fuzzies all kicked in.  But never good taste.After a year I quit trying.

Reality Cooking

Answer: You mean demonstrating how to take the Lean Cuisine out of the package and put it into the microwave?  Question:  Why don't they have a cooking show that reflects real life?

Mrs. Linklater would like to see a reality cooking show a la the Iron Chef that captures the authentic experience of anyone trying to prepare a meal for a real family. 

In Mrs. Linklater's case this often meant watching water boil and dropping a pouch into it. For reality TV, she thinks we need more drama. This would require having toddlers interrupt the competing chefs every two minutes with whining, crying or a diaper load. 

Also needed are a couple of teenagers who stand with the refrigerator door open while talking on a cell phone and drinking milk out of the carton. In between slicing, dicing, measuring and mixing, the chefs would be required to sort a bag of clothes for the wash, after first treating the chocolate, paint, and dirt stains. 

Meanwhile the teenagers would be told by the producers where to find the bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough which the chefs thought was hidden way back in the fridge. The teens are happy to start eating the raw dough with their unwashed fingers.

The chefs don't notice that the cookie dough has been breached until they have vacuumed, set the table, arranged the flowers [Mrs. Linklater finds the flower thing very amusing] and put the clean, wet clothes from the washer into the dryer. 

Did we mention that the chefs are also expected to hold down a fulltime job while they are doing the cooking? By the time dinner is supposed to be ready the chefs won't care what anybody eats as long as they eat something.

Mrs. Linklater thinks this has all the hallmarks of a really entertaining reality cooking show. But she also thinks it won't fly until we can figure out a way to include carpooling.

Mrs. Linklater Sinks to Swimming

Answer of the evening: Sink.  Question of the evening: What will Mrs. Linklater do when she finally dives into the pool to start swimming laps?

Swimming is the only sport Mrs. Linklater has left. All the other ones she used to enjoy require more working body parts. The excellent thing about swimming is that you don't need high quality joints and cartilage to get from one end of a pool to the other.

But Mrs. Linklater already misses her other sports -- the uniforms, the spandex pants, the padded shorts, the kaleidoscope colored shirts, the high socks, the low socks, the different shoes for tennis, softball, cycling, volleyball, bowling, jogging, hiking, and cross training, along with the helmets, hats, headbands, wristbands, kneepads, ankle braces, rackets, bats, balls and the bags that carried them, 

Now she's only got swimming.  No shoes.  No socks. No wristbands. No offense to swimming, but it isn't a costume sport.  With tons of gear and your name embroidered all over the back. At least that's what Mrs. Linklater thought until she went to a store devoted to nothing but stuff for swimming. 

A store devoted to everything you need for one sport is not unusual in her town. This is hallowed ground for athletes. Gale Sayers, the great Bears running back lives here. Jim McMahon, the great Bears quarterback lives here. too. Doug Collins, the emotional Bulls, Pistons, and Wizards coach and calmer NBA commentator lived here. Most of the other Chicago pros aren't more than a suburb or two away.

Mrs. Linklater's suburb has not one, but two swimming complexes. That's not counting the high school pool, the YMCA pool, the health club pools and the pools at the private country clubs. There are three racket clubs with eight to ten courts each in this town of 35,000 and three more tennis clubs within three miles. And that's not including all the public tennis courts. There is a huge public golf course with a super driving range. The Bulls practice facility is in the next town, so there are also a boatload of indoor and outdoor basketball courts, too. 

But all those facilities are not what really sets Mrs. Linklater's town apart athletically. You know you're in a jocktown when you've got a velodrome for short track bicycle racing. And a curling facility. Does your town have a velodrome or a curling facility?  Mrs. Linklater thinks not. This place rocks for world class jocks. If there's a sport, from speedskating to platform tennis, there's a team playing it here.

So it's only right that a town like this would have a store devoted to nothing but swim stuff. And, luckily for Mrs. Linklater, it turns out that swimming has lots of stuff she can wear besides a suit. She can purchase goggles to prevent her eyes from turning green, a snorkel so she won't have to turn her head to breathe and risk inhaling green water, a cap to prevent her bleached blond hair from turning green, and fins -- bigger than any sport shoes she's ever owned. 

Mrs. Linklater chose a pair of green fins to match the two green Speedos she bought. Go with the flow, don't you know. She would have purchased nose plugs, ear plugs, a watch and a kick board, but it would have taken her all day just to put everything on.

Too bad you can't be there at the pool for her unveiling today. The first time Mrs. Linklater straps it all on and dives in, she's going to give new meaning to "heavy water."

 

 

Viggo Mortensen

Answer:  Viggo Mortensen.  Question:  Who's on the cover of this month's issue of Cowboys and Indians?

Bet you didn't know there was a magazine called Cowboys and Indians did you? Mrs. Linklater may have the only copy in Illinois. Her good friend in Bozeman, Montana sent it to her because she knows how much Mrs. Linklater likes Viggo Mortensen. He's on the cover promoting his movie, Hidalgo, which is a totally tarted up story about the adventures of a real American cowboy in Arabia. Blah blah blah. There are a number of pages with pictures of him inside. Oh, yay!! The article about him is totally lame, but who cares? 

So what's with Viggo Mortensen? Geez, only a guy would ask that question. Women know. Mrs. Linklater decided that Viggo Mortensen was way cool when she saw him for the first time in Witness. Wow -- who is that guy? He was playing Alexander Gudonov's little brother. [Alexander Gudonov -- there's a story. He was the famous Russian ballet dancer who came to the USA and hooked up with Jackie Bissett -- you go girl -- but then he went and died from too much whatever it was and totally messed up his career.]

Anyway Mrs. Linklater was so busy watching Harrison Ford being Harrison Ford in Witness [he didn't fool anybody with that Amish disguise] that she forgot about Viggo Mortensen UNTIL he began showing up in other movies.  One movie in particular forever sealed her undying devotion -- A Walk on the Moon. With Diane Lane. OMG!!  She even bought a VHS copy and watches it once a week no matter what. [Okay, once a month when she gets busy]. When the VHS wears out she'll spring for the DVD. 

In fact, the only reason Mrs. Linklater went to see any of the agonizingly long Lord of the Ring movies was to see Viggo Mortensen. She asked the guy next to her to wake her up everytime he was on screen. She noticed there were other women over forty in the theater. They were no doubt pretending they loved the story or the extraordinary special effects. Yeah, women are into special effects -- like guys are into sachet and vanilla candles.  Come on, if you saw a mom or grandma in the theater at all, she wasn't there to supervise the kids, she was there for VIGGO!!! And thanking her lucky stars she had something entertaining to watch.

In an earlier journal entry, when she must have been in a coma,  Mrs. Linklater listed Harrison Ford as her number two favorite celebrity crush. Josh Hartnett was first. And she even gave a nod to Russell Crowe in his gladiator outfit.. What was she thinking?  Viggo Mortensen is a poet, a painter, a photographer AND and great actor. Sure Harrison Ford can fly a helicopter -- that counts big time. Russell Crowe is, well, Russell Crowe. But what about their feminine sides? Exactly. As for Josh Harnett -- hurry up, Josh, it's time to step up to the plate and prove you're not just another pretty face. It seems like Mrs. Linklater getting a little worked up here. About people who don't know she exists.  

She needs to sit down for a moment and think about getting a life. Or think about the restraining order that's gonna be slapped on her.

Ocean's Eleventy-One Part Deux

Short answer:  Nope.  Long question:  Do you, Mrs. Linklater, think it was worth all the time you spent driving around looking for evidence of the movie they're shooting in the next town just so you could catch a glimpse of someone famous?

Okay, Mrs. Linklater failed to find George Clooney et al during her search today. BUT TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY. 

FYI -- that's a picture of one of Mrs. Linklater's movie star lovely daughters and her boyfriend.

Ocean's Eleventy-One

The answer is: No.  The question is:  Do you think Mrs. Linklater could get a part, nothing big, mind you, in the next George Clooney movie?

They're shooting the fabulous sequel to Ocean's Eleven not far from here and Mrs. Linklater is going to go out to see if she can find them. This is NOT stalking. This is investigative reporting.

The first sign of a location shoot is snow on the street in summer.  The second sign is a huge craft services table with several people called teamsters standing around it. That is their assigned spot, since their job is to stand around and eat.

Mrs. Linklater has always thought Craft Services was a misnomer.  It should be Kraft Services because the table is usually loaded with every snack item that Kraft, Mars, Quaker, and Kellogg's produces.

Yesterday it turns out the Ocean's Eleventy-One crew was filming around the corner from the house where Mrs. Linklater grew up. Yes, Mrs. Linklater was once a child. And nobody called to let her know they were there. The nerve. Perhaps when [not if] Mrs. Linklater can track them down, she can get George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, and the rest of the crew to pose with her for a Christmas Card photo.  Here she goes.

Dead Audi III or U Audi B U

The cosmic answer:  Drive you crazy, yes.  Drive the Audi, no. The eternal question: Are you what you drive? 

The ancient Audi is finally gone -- its metal carcass towed away with as much dignity as a dead car can muster. After several calls, Mrs. Linklater donated her venerable 5000S 4-door sedan to Easter Seals. Not that she didn't consider other worthy organizations. But only Easter Seals didn't have ridiculously high standards like some of the other places. 

Easter Seals didn't care if the tires matched. Or the engine started. Or that her brother used the trunk to paint stuff on. Some of the other places were pretty darn careful about the kinds of cars they'd accept. They wouldn't consider a car with a flat tire. Or with 175,000 miles on it. 

Well, there was nothing wrong with her olde Audi that a new engine, new transmission, new tires, and a new paint job wouldn't fix.  Picky. Picky. Picky. But Easter Seals seemed to know the value of the elderly German motor vehicle. In a lightbulb moment, they realized it wasn't a car; it was a boatload of PARTS. As a car it was toast. As parts it was priceless. Worth more separately than whole. 

So next time you need a new fender, a right headlight or a new leather back seat for your '84 Audi -- and your mechanic says they can always get a good one from the salvage yard -- remember, you saw it here first.  [Well, you will see it here first. The Audi's last known picture will be up as soon as "Add Pictures" starts working again. Mrs. Linklater thinks they're out to lunch. Ah-h, they're back.] 

Not So Huge Picture

Anwser: Retarded.  Question:  So, how do you feel after trying to follow all the directions for uploading pictures to your journal?

Mrs. Linklater is having a hard time figuring out how to move the unretouched photo of herself from up above, so it's not up there, but over there, on the left, in the "All About Me" area.

Not to mention her frustration trying to get pictures into her entries so they aren't little tiny things that you can barely see. Okay -- that SHE can barely see without her reading glasses, which she can never find because they are in the car or the pocket of a coat she sent to the cleaners.

She is especially hoping to enlarge the pictures she included in her very first journal entry way back in March because they could come back to haunt the people who are in them. She knows she can't enlarge both of the photos she included in that first entry. And she's having a hard time choosing which one will make the most impact as a larger image. Feel free to offer an opinion.

She has read all the directions for making pictures large, more than once she might add, but she's not sure she can complete said task without a brain transplant. Woe is her. Whine whine whine.

 

Second to None

Today's answer:  Nothing. Unless you're a control freak. Today's question:  What's wrong with being No. 2?

My list of second favorite things:

Second Favorite Movie: Bull Durham -- Kevin Costner's last good movie. "No Way Out" was his best. Don't talk to me about "Dances with Wolves."  "Bull Durham" was an easy going, likeable story with some good laughs, featuring a sport I love.  And it took place in a town where I spent a couple of years going to college. Harold and Maude came in a close second, I mean, third. My number one movie is any documentary by Michael Moore.

Second Favorite Book:  Out of Africa -- Isak Dinesen who was Danish, wrote it in English. Occasionally she wrote with Danish syntax so you can almost hear her speaking with an accent as she tells the story.  No wonder Merryl Streep got the starring role in the movie. My favorite book is a toss up between Good Night Moon and the Physicians' Desk Reference.

Second Favorite Album: Bonnie Raitt "Nick of Time" -- there isn't a bad tune on it.  My favorite of all time is Seal's first album, which should have won the Grammy. Quirky, original, groundbreaking music. Ever notice how albums are attached to someone you were dating? Just had a flashback myself.

Second Favorite Teacher:  Mr. Leverenz, sophomore geometry.  A great math teacher, at any level. No one in any of his classes ever scored below a "C" when we took the comprehensive exams. He eventually ran the department. Maybe even the school. But Mr. Brown, who taught typing, was the very best teacher I ever had. He was as tough as a drill sergeant. Sarcastic. Demanding. But, after a year in his class, I have a skill that I have used almost every day since then, which will soon be over 175 years. The best part is being able to type faster than any secretary I ever had.

Second Favorite Ice Cream: Homer's Pink Peppermint Ice Cream in Wilmette, IL. Usually that green mint chocolate chip is the only stuff you can find anymore. Homer's uses real red and white peppermint sticks. Not green coloring with brown specs that look like rabbit droppings. My surprise [to me] favorite is Homer's Fresh Peach. Only during peach season in the summer. And I am a certified chocolate lover.  [See down below].

Second Favorite Sports Team: Green Bay Packers as long as Favre is QB. And if my hometown Chicago Bears don't get any better this year, the Packers will become No. 1

Second Favorite Comfort Food:  Cottage Cheese and Worchestershire Sauce -- in fact just thinking about it made me go out and buy a carton last night.  My absolute favorite comfort food is anything with chocolate. Nutella is great for mainlining.

Second Favorite Cartoon Character: Wylie Coyote -- miss him at the movies. My favorite is the Ellen DeGeneres fish in Finding Nemo.

Second Favorite Way to Relax: Lying in a Hammock in Kauai -- my  favorite way to relax is a two hour massage.

Second Favorite Underwear: Anything clean that fits.  My very favorite panties are Pucci's [not Gucci] hot pink patterned hip-huggers from the sixties.  Yes, I saved them. They don't fit anymore.  I just get them out from time to time to reminisce.

Second Favorite Cereal:  Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. Screw granola. Frosted Flakes are actually my top three cereals.  There's plain with milk.  There's plain with milk and sliced banana.  And there's plain mixed with Hershey's chocolate syrup and maraschino cherries with whipped cream on top. And a glass of milk to wash it down. [I can't believe I typed that out loud.]

Second Favorite Celebrity Crush:  Harrison Ford.  He would be my first, except he doesn't look like he did in Witness anymore. And hanging around with Calista Flockhart only makes the difference more apparent. [Like he cares about my opinion]. I must say his helicopter rescue on the mountain in Jackson Hole, WY was worth mucho points. Regardless, my new Favorite Celebrity Crush is Josh Hartnett. Despite our obscene age difference. I even saved the issue of Details with him on the cover. But he better come up with a decent part in a good movie soon or he's dust. Of course, Russell Crowe will always be my Favorite Celebrity Crush in a gladiator outfit.

Second Favorite Car: BMW Z-3.  The six cylinder. With the top down. What a great car.  Drives like a dream. Instant response. Shifts like butter. Looksbetter than the new Z-4. But, it's still number two. My favorite car will always be a Jeep.  With all due respect to the Z-3, it's a fair weather car and I live in an extreme weather climate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Life versus The Universe

We have two answers today.  Answer No. 1 is: A Real Life.  Answer No. 2 is:  The Universe.  Question No 1 is: What do women think about getting for themselves in between poopie diapers and nannies that shamelessly flirt with their husbands?  Question No. 2 is:  What do men get to contemplate while they pick the lint out of their navals?

Mrs. Linklater feels there is a double standard.  If a woman says she was late for work because she was considering Feldman's annotated notes on the expansion of the universe, she will be scorned and ridiculed for probably missing carpool, too. But if a man says he was late because he had to change a poopie diaper, just listen to the ooo's and ahhhhh's as he's elevated to sainthood for stepping out of his masculine role as keeper of the remote control to assume the nurturing role of the female of the species -- even though it only takes a couple of minutes to change a diaper, including a poopie one, which really means he was late for work because it kept making him gag. 

How many lab mice does it take to change a lightbulb?

Today's answer: How do you mean affection?.  Today's question:  Do you feel affection for lab mice? 

There was something in an old issue of Science News that caught my eye. It wasn't a long article, just a summary of a recent study of brain injuries in lab mice, the animal equivalent of No. 2 pencils in the world of important scientific discovery. 

Anyway, Mrs. Linklater remembers the underlying premise was as simple as what happens in the brain of a lab mouse (which corresponds to the eraser end of a No. 2 pencil) after it has received a blow to the head. 

Mrs. Linklater feels it necessary to note that this blow to the head would not be hard enough to kill the mouse.  On the contrary, there would be just enough force to inflict severe trauma, you will be relieved to know.

No doubt, the scientists were provided with a top of the line set of stainless steel German tools to calibrate where severe trauma ends and death begins. Unlike other experiments, where mice are expendable -- that No. 2 pencil analogy comes to mind again -- the goal in this thoughtful study was for the mice to survive. Granted no details were provided to explain their quality of life afterward, but is that really the point?

Like anyone who has ever contemplated a severe blow to the head under any circumstances, scientific or not, Mrs. Linklater is grateful that there are mice who are willing to step up to the plate for us humans. She feels strongly that we ought to breathe a collective sigh of relief that the scientists were not recruiting human volunteers for this project. 

Because, frankly she's not too sure she would do the same for a mouse. 

Black Light

Answer.  Get over it.  Question:  Isn't Black Light an oxymoron?

More Things

Today's answer: I don't know.  Today's question:  What's a good question to ask?  

Mrs. Linklater forgot some things on her list of 25 things assignment: 1) She went on a horse round up for her honeymoon. Near Gallatin Gateway WY. on a huge ranch that Ted Turner bought later

2) She was one of the first to find dates via a nationwide computer dating service -- in the sixties. The pool of people was limited to students on college campuses, thank goodness. Two of the guys she met are still close friends

3)  Mrs. Linklater knew the exact moment she got pregnant each time  Trust her, it helps when you're planning the next nine months.

4) She has flown in a glider over Aspen and followed a hawk riding the thermals

5) She has ridden horses down Ruthie's Run, but not skis

6) She sang with a jazz ensemble at Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL

7)  She has driven around the track at Road America in an Acura NSX. Another time in a plain old Ford Explorer that needed new breaks when it was over 

8) A pilot friend flew his A-4 from Miramar in CA to Glenview Naval Air Station in IL to go out to dinner

9) She once had a flash that a former boyfriend was in a motorcycle accident.  She could see him falling off the bike and hitting the pavement. She found out several months later, when she ran into him, that the accident had actually happened the day she saw it in her mind's eye. Cosmic. 

10) She brought her dying cat home from the vet so he could be in familiar surroundings.  She was told he had about 24 hours to live. She stayed up and held him all night which may have helped. He lived three more years.

11) She'll remember more later.Or not.

 

Twenty Five Things

1. I used to be six feet tall. Time and gravity have reduced that by a couple of inches. 

2. I used to have dark auburn hair. I'm now a L'Oreal blond.

3. My hair used to be naturally wavy and I didn't have to do anything with it.  Now it's naturally bent and I have to beat it into submission.

4. I used to model. Yes, I am a former Miss Goosepimple for Zonolite.

5. I used to play volleyball, softball, and tennis. I still have my state champion bowling patch from eighth grade.

6. I used to play the piano. Until I had to go on stage to play a five-page scherzo by Mendelsohn or some other guy with bad hair. But suddenly, I also had to go to the bathroom. Soon. I never played those five pages so fast in my entire life. After my bow, I ran off stage toward the toilet to celebrate my Imodium moment, only to land in the arms of my ecstatic teacher, "You played it up to tempo!"  High praise from her. But I tossed her aside to get to the toilet.

7. I used to clean my house. Before children. They're gone now and I haven't resumed speed.

8. I used to volunteer  Until I realized I wasn't getting paid enough. 

9. I used to spell my name differently. I changed it for some guy I had a crush on. Geez. 

10. I used to have a lot of nicknames: Stretch, Road Runner, Long Sam, Lurch, Olive Oil, Stick, Big Bird -- see a pattern here?

11. I used to be a vice president for a large multi-national ad agency. Yeah, so?

12. I used to be in the Touring Company of Second City. This was so long ago that Harold Ramis and Brian Doyle Murray were in it.

13. I used to have cats. After the last one died, I didn't replace it because women over a certain age who live alone with cats are scary. I'm scary enough without cats.

14. I used to have children living at home.  But they were able to get the duct tape off and escape.

15. I used by buy new cars.  Now I only buy used. They are more grateful..

16. I used to wonder what my mother would think. Now I only care what my children think.

17. I used to plant hundreds of flowering annuals in my yard every spring. Now I have groundcover because it comes up every year without asking.

18. I used to be able to walk on my hands.

19. I used to have smaller feet. Hey, I didn't say"small." 

20. I used to wish I had a lava lamp. My wish came true for Xmas a couple of years ago.

21. I used to want to fly jets and race cars. Still do.You never lose your need for speed.

22. I used to bake chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies all the time. One look at me and you can tell.  What?  You thought you were going to get a look at me?

23. I used to have a 20-year old Audi in my driveway. Wait a minute, it's still there.

24. I used to be married.  What was I thinking?

25. I used to get up, get dressed in designer clothes and commute to work everyday.  Now I work from my computer in a t-shirt and flip flops.

The Apprentice Thing

The answer: Kwame.  The question:  Who was the only person in the universe with no clue that Omarosa, Miss Liar Liar Pants on Fire, would take him down?   

Mrs. Linklater watched The Apprentice last night, like everyone else who is fascinated by The Hairdo.

Early in the series, she loved watching the women's team kick butt, especially the advertising competition, her specialty. After the teams got integrated, she began rooting for Kwame and his smooth "hire good people, then get out of the way and let them do their jobs" style of leadership.

Up until Kwame picked Omarosa for his big chance to win it all.  Even worse, in a pre-emptive strike, he chose her early, ahead of Heidi, because, as he explained later, she had such a sensitive ego, she wouldn't do well being picked last.

Hello?!  This ain't Dr. Phil. It's business, not personal. Maybe it would have done her some good to be picked last. So, Kwam, ya blew it. 

Stunned by his choice of teammates, which she knew would determine the outcome, the prescient Mrs. Linklater changed the channel and started watching a re-run of Extreme Makeover, the Revenge of the Nerds show, occasionally switching over to the tape delay of the presidentially pre-empted American Idol, when things got too graphic.

Then it was back to the Nerds when LaToya, Fantasia, and Jennifer weren't singing.  Even so she'd still switch back to The Apprentice from time to time, knowing she would be watching a train wreck in progress. She was compelled to sneak a peak at Kwame's slow destruction by a woman who once thought the phrase, "calling the kettle black" was a racial slur.  

The upside was that Mrs. Linklater's Chicago homeboy, Bill, was going to take it all. But not because he won it. Because Kwame lost it before the competition even began with his fatal decision. 

Bill is an entrepreneur. He is edgy and crabby under pressure. Building that ninety story monster on the Chicago River is going to be nothing but pressure. I don't see him doing well long term with The Donald breathing down his neck. 

On the otherhand, Kwame understands corporate culture. He knows how to duck and weave through all the sniping. He's got the kind of personality that's already helped him do it successfully. He just never met anyone like Omarosa.  

Mrs. Linklater thinks that no one has ever met anyone quite like Omarosa.  And she hopes you never do.   

The Power of Makeup

Answer: Makeup  Question: What gives a woman complete power over her universe?  [Mrs. Linklater's universe isn't as large as some.  Instead of revolving planets, she is more familiar with revolving doors.]  

Mrs. Linklater -- okay, forget the third person, my name's too long. Let me start again -- Today, I had to dress up for a meeting downtown in the morning. That means pretending to be an adult. Which means dressing the part. Dressing the part means wearing clothes without college logos, shoes that don't leave treadmarks, stylin' my hair and taking a moment to draw a face on my face.  Makeup.

Actually I'm one of those people who looks so much better with makeup that I've actually had requests to put some on. I have chosen to consider this a good thing. Me in warpaint is the look preferred by my legion of fans. 

So I'm in full dress, looking damn fine for my meeting. And I'm even getting second looks when I stop at the White Hen on my way to the city. The folks there usually see me in sweats and flip flops with my hair in a scrunchy.  And no make up.  Today somebody actually held the door for me. Did I mention that I'm also on crutches? I prefer to think the door was held because of the power of makeup.

The counter lady did a doubletake, but didn't say anything. What could she say that wouldn't sound bad -- "Geez I almost didn't recognize you with make up on.  And clothes.  I mean, you know what I mean."  I could read it on all their faces. 

Same with the folks in the meeting. Some of them have only seen me in Polarfleece. And Merrills. Stares. They were mesmerized.  I could have asked for anything today.  The power of makeup. But I want to use my makeup for good, not evil. 

After the meeting, I went to my healthclub to get a manicure, still in full regalia.  Manicures are not an indulgence I've allowed myself very much in the past, but enough with the excuses. More stares.  "You look so different."  Uh-oh, hate to end this here, but I've got to meet someone for lunch -- and I'll report back on the power of my makeup.

She's baa-aaack. I'm not sure how much power my makeup generated at lunch. Probably about a six. Because, even though it had enough power to get me invited to a comedy show at Zanies and an Eagles' concert, I will be paying my own way. [This is the 21st century so get over it Mrs. Linklater.]  Maybe better concealer and less light will get me an upgrade next time. 

Subjects for Documentaries

The universal answer:  Yes.  The universal question:  Is anything possible?  Mrs. Linklater doesn't know why, but she got to thinking about documentaries she could make:  1) The sex lives of women who wear C-Pap machines.  2) The new thrillseekers: Chronic last minute tax filers. 3) Whatever happened to the high school class alcoholics, sportos, brains, nymphos, freaks, hoodlums, and closet queens followed by the sequel:  Whatever happened to the high school kids who graduated at the top of the class and the ones who graduated at the bottom?   4) Cub Scout Pedophiles -- something uplifting for spring 5) Chicago's Providence-St. Mel High School and it's guiding light -- Paul Adams 25 years after the archdiocese shut them down. 6) Webmaster Jim Evans:  From surf artist to internet guru.  Mrs. Linklater has decided she had better stop, because some of these are starting to make sense. 

Dead Audi II

Answer: You got me.  Question: Who wants a 20 year old car that doesn't run? Holy cow, somebody actually wants Mrs. Linklater's old Audi.  The battery's dead.  The transmission needs a second gear.  The wiring is iffy.  The tires ought to be replaced. The gaskets are leaking oil.  It could sure use a paint job. And it's got 175,000 miles on it. On the plus side -- the leather seats are good.  Well, all except the driver's side seat. It's a little tattered, but not awful awful. And there's a new bumper, thanks to the high school girl who backed out of the parking space next to me and took the old one with her.   Hm-m-m-m, why do I feel like that old car is a metaphor for me. Sorry I went there, but it was such a short trip. I wonder if Complete Makeover could make a dent, as it were, in my chassis. Enough with the car stuff.  Soon I'll be quoting e.e. cummings. . ."she was brand new. . " Meanwhile, gotta find my digital camera. Where did I put that thing?

 

I'll think of something

Answer:  Ivory. Question:  What color is the wedding dress my older daughter just bought? I'll get back to the dress. There's a tabby cat with white paws that sits outside my house on the ground cover in front. Like it's hers.  She belongs to the family next door.  She seems friendly.  Which means she doesn't hiss when I say, "Here kitty kitty."  She just gives me her best Robert de Niro, as if to say, "You talking to me?  My name is NOT kitty, bitch."  I suppose she won't bother to get up until I figure out what her right name is.  Like Rumpelstiltskin or something.  I hope she knows enough to stay inside at night, since we have coyotes around here who like to eat cats. There's usually a rash of "Have You Seen My Cat?" signs that go up toward the end of summer at the White Hen. Sometimes I call the number on the flyer to say that the coyotes may have had them for lunch. In a nicer way, of course. There is a forest preserve down the road a bit.  And we've been warned that cats are coyote food. I usually tell the unlucky owners that I, too, lost a kitty one night -- June 3, 1991 to be exact. My younger daughter's high school graduation night. Sweetest cat in the world. Her name was Ivory. See, I've come full circle. Ivory wedding dress. A cat named Ivory. Symmetry. Anyway, Ivory the cat never missed breakfast for eight years.  But since that night, she's missed several years' worth.  She also missed UCONN beating the poop out of Georgia Tech tonight. More about that some other time. Next year, for instance.