Worthy Causes

Everybody has a favorite cause they like to support.  Usually it's to help prevent something from killing people. That's why terminal diseases are so popular. But PETA and the Sierra Club are still going strong, too.

Needless to say, some causes are more popular than others. I discovered that when I was a trained crisis line worker for a battered women's group. Nobody likes to admit they've been a victim of any kind of abuse. Even though it's right up there with alcohol in wrecking families. I ran into someone I knew at a fundraiser and the first thing she said was, I'm not abused, you know, I'm just here because I was invited.

We tried to get Tina Turner to sing for the cause. She made movie about her abuse for crying out loud. She said sure. For money. But we were hoping you'd help us raise money, not spend it. Bitch. We had to go out of the country and settle for Canada's Top Country Singer who wouldn't even discuss what she went through.

Breast cancer is very popular these days, probably because so many celebrities get it. There was a time when women didn't say anything about having a breast removed. Now it's like a rite of passage. And a career builder. Not that I'm cynical, but becoming a breast cancer spokesperson is one way for B list celebrities to get some much needed face time with the media. Jaclyn Smith had surgery and the next thing you know she's at the National Susan G. Komen race in Washington, D.C.. Now she's got a new TV show. Coincidence? I think not.

On the other hand you don't see male celebrities signing up to march for prostate cancer. Or volunteering to raise money for vasectomies. Or anything below the belt for that matter. In fact, except for Lance Armstrong, guys don't go public with that stuff.  Even he doesn't shill for testicular cancer. He's more "big picture."

Now that my days working with battered women are over. And pretty much every cause has a celebrity to speak for it, I can turn my attention to other problems I'd like to see eradicated.

Dr. Phil's moustache, for instance. Creepy. And Donald Trump's hair. Unfathomable. For awhile, Rudy Giuliani's combover was on my radar, but there's nothing like regular sex with a new wife to fix a problem that that.

Not that I'm alone in wanting Dr. Phil's moustache gone. He actually devoted part of a show to all the requests he gets to shave it off. The answer is NO. I used to think it was because he must look even weirder without it. But, from time to time he has shown pictures of himself as a young man with no moustache. He looks only about a hundred times better.

He needs the Fab Five [are they still on?] to take him in hand. I'm thinking they could hold him down and wax it off.

I sent an email to the show's web site and suggested that he looked like a pedophile. I'm sure that was well received.

Why Donald Trump doesn't do something with his hair is beyond me. But the guy is such a megalomaniacal control freak that the more the comedians, i.e., Rosie O, make fun of it, the more he's going to keep it.

He was on Letterman last night and I didn't hear a word he said because I was transfixed by his hair thing's color and shape, as well as the strange wet look he was sporting on the sides. 

Unless someone comes up with a way for him to save face -- oh, screw that -- a wad of chewing gum would do the trick. Maybe someone on his staff could cough some Double Bubble into it.

Wait a minute. I may have a solultion.

We can get Dr. Phil to shave off his 'stache for a worthy cause. The highest bidder gets to name the cause. Even better, set a goal of raising $100,000 for a charity. Send your $5 donation to a website address. As soon as the goal is reached he shaves his moustache off.

I hate it when I think of something that makes sense.

On the other hand, I still like the gum in the hair idea for The Donald.

Ancient History

While I was tearing my house apart trying to find some software I'd lost, I found an old issue of People magazine that I'd never read. Well, at least I don't remember reading it. So without checking what the date was on it, I started browsing through all the celebrity news I'd missed. The first thing I noticed was a snapshot of Nick and Jessica "We are absolutely NOT breaking up" -- really that's what the headline said -- so I knew I hadn't missed too much.

The next picture that caught my attention was one of Barack Obama. The caption said something about him being a rising star for the upcoming 2004 elections. Wow. He's been running for president for a long time. Oh, wait, he was running for senator back then.

There's a shot of Britney with hair. Not that hair. The hair on her head. And Kenny Chesny's ex -- remember that one day marriage -- is sporting very dark hair instead of blond.

Demi Moore is shooting a thriller called Half Light. I don't remember that one. Was it so half baked that it never got out of the editing room? Gwyneth Paltrow was at a press conference for her sci-fi action thriller, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Did that flick even make it to DVD?

Tony Danza was doing a trapeze thing for his talk show. Someone should have told him not to bother. Uma Thurman was still dating that hotel guy. Was he just a PR thing after her hubby, what's his name, Mr. Can't Grow A Mustache, hooked up with his co-star? Can't remember her name either.

Lindsay Lohan just got out of the hospital. Deja vue all over again.

Jay Z fired R Kelly from their rap tour, citing R Kelly's weird behavior. And this was AFTER all that other stuff.  Have we heard anything about Mr. Kelly lately? Isn't that nice.

The cast of Huff screened a clip of Kirstie Alley in her new show Fat Actress. "If the show is half as good as that little preview was, then they have a winner," said Huff star Hank Azaria.

Awww.  Too bad.

Reuben Studdard went off his diet. Gee, I wonder if he'll gain it all back?

Did anybody watch The Rebel Billionaire with Richard Branson?  Or the reunion of the cast of Dallas?

Who the hell is Vanessa Carlton?  Her sophomore album didn't get such a hot review from the people at People. Has anybody seen her since?

I didn't want to miss what Trista and Ryan Sutter are reading these days, or, rather, those days -- remember The Second Journey of a Powerful Warrior? Me neither. Ryan has read it several times for some reason. Trista will be happy to get through it once, I'm sure.

Shannon Doherty is pictured with a catch me fork me expression on her face, wearing, what would you call it, a black skirt, I suppose. It's hanging way below her belly button and just above her babymaker, with a sleazy slit that reveals both her outer and inner thigh. Her demure white pique top is strapless and sits about an inch above her navel. The caption says she's now "mellow."

Ri-i-i-i-ight.

Remember the bones and skulls of those three foot tall people they found somewhere in a mysterious island cave east of Bali? They were calling them Hobbits. Everybody's all excited about them in that old issue of People. But here it is three years later. Was it a hoax?

Paris Hilton is in the magazine not once, but twice. Never has  someone lacked so much for so long in everything except money.

And she still looks good. The bitch. 

The HPV Vaccine

There's been a big push for sixth grade girls to get this new HPV vaccine. Gee, I wonder who's behind that initiative?  Oh, wait, it's Merck, the giant drug company that invented the vaccine. Quelle surprise!

I wonder how that marketing meeting went? 

Herb, why don't you share your thinking with us. Thanks Al. Okay, everybody, you know that HPV vaccine we've been working on -- well, it has already cost us an arm and a leg to produce. We're into our fourth cost overrun. Melba in accounting made a slight miscalculation in the number of viruses we had to kill. Do you have any idea how many of those pesky bugs can cause cervical cancer? Sheesh, there's what? Eleven, twelve, eighteen? Polio and smallpox were nothing compared to this bunch.

The problem is our R and D guys couldn't get all the viruses into the loop. We got two of those bad boys, though. Bottomline, that means the vaccine only works about seventy percent of the time. There's a thirty per cent chance it won't do any good. However, no need to dwell on the negative.

The thing is how are we going to get grown women to pony up the big dough on this thing with those kinds of percentages. We're looking at a couple of hundred dollars at least for each of the shots.

Not to mention, when they find out that the damn stuff may not work a third of the time, those bitches will have us by the short hairs.

Know what I mean?

So, I'm proposing that we get the feds to make the vaccine mandatory for all virgins. For the good of the country. I know I know, there aren't that many left and it wouldn't be cost effective to track down those three or four women. So whaddya say we try sixth grade girls? Some of them still haven't had sex.

It shouldn't take much, all we have to do is make moms and dads think their precious little princesses are going to die of a terminal sexually transmitted disease unless they get the shots. Remember what a success we had with AIDS. Maybe we can even get Sanjaya to be our spokesperon.

You figure a couple of hundred bucks times every sixth grade girl in the country, and we're talking IPOsize moolah. Trust me, it's a slam dunk.

Thanks, Herb. I think you've made some persuasive arguments, so let's put it to a vote.  All in favor. . .

The most absurd arguments against the HPV vaccine are being propagated by the people who think it'll give little girls carte blanche to start having sex promiscuously. Mommy, now that I got the vaccine, can Billy and I engage in sexual intercourse after school today? 

An eleven year old girl's normal reaction to sex is EEEEEEWWW.  If you find one who's giving blowjobs and turning tricks at that age, it ain't because she got some vaccine.

The real problem is that a drug company is trying to foist a half baked, very expensive idea on the entire country, using the government to back them up.

Worldwide, cervical cancer is a major problem. Not here. Thanks to Pap tests. In fact, the vaccine still won't eliminate the need for regular Pap tests, which remain the best defense a woman has against cervical cancer.

Unless you want to be a nun. For years they couldn't figure out why nuns didn't get cervical cancer.

Hellooooo.

The Mike Rowe Thing

Anna, over at La Vida Mommy [see Other Journals for a link] just wrote an entire entry about Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs guy. It was as close to porn as you can get without having your entire journal removed.

With all due respect to her obsession, I wish she hadn't let the cat out of the bag. Or the kielbasa out of his jeans. Now everybody's going to check him out. And she and I won't have him to ourselves anymore.

Okay there are a couple of other women who have discovered Mike Rowe, too. All you have to do is google his name to read blog entry after embarrassing blog entry of women confessing to their crushes on the guy. He's also managed to capture the hearts and minds of the male population. He has that kind of ecumenical appeal.

The men like him because they are all into the dirty stuff he's cleaning up. For them it's a job thing. The good feeling of getting dirt under your nails when you work hard.

The women, on the other hand, are all into the hard abs lurking under his soon to be filthy t-shirt. The hard, uh, muscles in his jeans. The hard job of cleaning him up afterward. [You're not the only one, Anna.] 

And how easy it is to listen to his voice and look at that Marlboro Man face.

For me, his voice may be his best asset. It's as important as his self-deprecating sense of humor. And way ahead of anything else.

There was a time when I would have listed the sound of a guy's voice at the bottom of my favorite man things. It's just something I took for granted.

Until one fateful day.

I was flying back from St. Louis one afternoon when I noticed a tall, handsome guy checking out the departure screens at the same gate. Boy is he goodlooking I thought. At least 6'3" and slim and trim in his striped suit. Nice, shiny black hair. Hmmmm, de-lish. Wait a minute, he might be on my flight. Who do I have to kill to sit next to him?

The plane was going to be crowded. It was the end of the day, and everybody wanted to get home for dinner. When they called the flight I got to get on early because I was in first class for some reason. I noted the row I was in and took my seat on the aisle, since that is where I usually sit on a plane.

After settling in, I started reading, oblivious to the other passengers who were boarding. Then someone stopped at my row. I looked up and it was that tall dark and handsome man. Oh, be still my beating heart. He smiled, revealing bright white perfect tetth. Then he said something that took by breath away, "I think you're in my seat." 

I was stunned. Shocked even. No, not by what he said, but by the sound of his high pitched squeaky voice. ACK. It didn't match the rest of him. It belonged on Arnold Stang or Don Knotts. I mumbled something and moved over to the window seat.

He sat down next to me and settled in. I could feel him looking at me, but I couldn't look back. I looked out the window instead. I was so worried he might say something else to me. And I might laugh. So I didn't want to encourage him.

I should have been thrilled. What are the chances of the only goodlooking guy on the plane sitting next to me?  But I had been struck dumb by the sound of his weird, cartoony voice. It erased all of his attractiveness. I didn't say another word to him for the entire ride.

I never realized how much a person's voice can affect you. Since then, I've had men friends tell me that the first thing they noticed and liked about their wives was the sound of their voices.

I remember noticing Mike Rowe's voice before anything else. That's because I wasn't even in the room the first time I heard him speak. But I had to see what that rich, mellodious sound was attached to. 

And I was hooked.                                                                      

Tara Connor, Miss Re-Hab USA

Tara Connor, the reigning MISS USA that THE DONALD sent to rehab, did an interview the other day where she revealed that she had been sexually abused. Not that her drunken, druggie, and indiscreet behaviors weren't already an indication of an unfortunate past. And don't get me started on her tattoos.

Strippers, prostitutes, beauty queens and lesbians I have known seem to include more than their share of sexual abuse survivors among them. But Mrs. Linklater is not about to launch into one of her usual rants about any of that. She's still shaking her head about something Tara said.

During the interview that Mrs. L watched, Tara was asked what this last year has been like for her, considering that she almost lost her crown, had to go into re-hab, and told the world about the feeling of shame she carried from childhood.

Luckily THE DONALD has a heart of gold lame. And gave her a second chance. It couldn't possibly be because he has a soft spot or a hard-on for goodlooking women. Tara is very pretty, in a pornographic pet kind of way.

To refresh your memory about how lucky Tara is, another bad girl in the Miss USA contest did not fare nearly as well. Miss Nevada was dumped without so much as a pat on the ass when they found her "naughty" pictures on the internet. The ones I saw were pretty tame as nasty pictures go. Girls kissing girls. Thong shots. Stuff you see in high school yearbooks these days.

The poor girl claims that she and her friends were just having fun when they took the photos. But apparently Miss Nevada didn't have Tara's special charisma. Or other charms that only THE DONALD may be aware of. After her fall from grace, the future, um, Las Vegas professional did get fifteen minutes to whine about her unjust treatment with Dr. Phil on national TV. In an outfit that barely covered the mole on her inner thigh.

Anyway, after Tara was asked how to sum up her year, she took a deep breath and said she could sum it up in ONE WORD:"

"Life altering."

Ooops, wait a sec, Tara, isn't that TWO WORDS?

Even if you hyphenate them, you've still got two words. And, by the way, the only way LIFE and ALTERING appear the dictionaries I checked is separately. Not together. Not hyphenated.

Not like the one word you could use to describe THE DONALD:

Combover. Okay, comb-over.

Rain Rain Don't Go Away

This morning I didn't wake up to jackhammers at 7:00 AM.  Yes, construction companies have permission to make noise from 7 AM to 7 PM during the week.  I checked.  The silence woke me up.  Haaaaa.  I looked out the window to see if the earth had opened up and swallowed their machines.  Nope.  It was raining.

In my favor, the workers are usually gone by 5:30 PM, although sometimes they stand around and chat. Nice hole you dug, Al. Couldn'ta done it better myself. Think we ought to fill it up one a these days? Nah. They won't notice. 

I did watch a young twenty something guy light up a cigarette and proceed to stare at my neighbors' two little girls as they rode their bikes up and down the sidewalk. It wasn't one of those idle looks; it was long and hard.  Nothing else seemed to divert his attention for a long time. He couldn't see me, but I was getting a bad feeling about the way he sat on the trunk of his car and watched them, even turning his head to follow them down the block. I also noticed that when another guy came towards him, he would look in a different direction quickly or start brushing something off his clothes. But when he was left alone, he'd watch those girls. Creepy.

The only good news is that he hasn't been back and it's been cold enough to keep the girls indoors. If he shows up again and starts in with the staring, I'll call my neighbors. Get out my long lens and take his picture, too.

Or, I could pull a Mrs. Linklater.

I could come walking out of my house as the girls ride down up and down the sidewalk. I could saunter down my driveway, okay, hobble, and make a beeline for him. At first he would think I'm getting in my car, but I would pass up my car and cross the street to where he's standing. He'd look behind himself to see if there was somebody else I might be walking toward. The expression on my face would say, "No, asshead, I'm coming to YOU."  He would drop his cigarette and put it out with his boot. I would stop about five feet away from him. Then I'd do a Robert DiNiro move from the first Fokkers movie -- point two fingers at my eyes and then turn those two fingers toward him, with a look on my face that says, "Yo, pervert boy, I'm watching you."

Haaaaaaaa. It would be worth it.

Anyway, the other good news is getting a day off from the construction noise because of the rain.  My house is pretty quiet, but jackhammers can wake the dead. I'm also not a big fan of rain unless I'm in a cabin with a fire in the fireplace and something warm to cuddle up to, like say, a dog. But if the rain keeps the water, sewer, dry wall, brick and gas pipe guys away, I'm loving it.

Boomers Brains Are Turning to Oatmeal

I guess the incidence of Alzheimer's has jumped ten percent in the last few years.  And they're expecting it to leap exponentially as Boomers get older.

Personally, I think all the drugs people did back in their twenties are not helping.  A few years ago, okay, more than a few years ago, a friend of mine said that the biggest druggie in his group had brain fade. He was pretty much turning into a vegetable in his forties.

The guys had begun to notice a difference at their annual Turkey Bowl flag football game. Now he couldn't even play anymore, But he would show up with his wife and stand on the sidelines.  He knew he wanted to be there but he wasn't sure why. 

I had a bunch of friends who played a lot of beach volleyball in LA back in the seventies and eighties. I used to fly in from Chicago with my suit on under my slacks and jacket and we'd drive straight to a tournament at one of the Santa Monica beaches.

Lots of times I would see a guy standing against a beach wall, wearing a dirty flannel shirt and jeans in the ninety degree heat.  He had long hair and a beard, but underneath it all, you could see he was still young and handsome in a blond, California way. Only now his eyes were strange and he kind of swayed back and forth as he watched the players.

I finally asked who he was and I was told he used to be somebody, a bigtime player. But he'd been on one too many drug trips and never came back from the last one. All he could do now was stand on the sidelines.

So even though Alzheimer's may have a host of DNA issues and retro virus issues, and maybe even aluminum in our deodorant issues, let's not forget that there's a whole generation of people who not only inhaled, but they sniffed, shot up, and swallowed enough mind altering chemicals to rewire all the synapses of a small country.

I haven't known many people diagnosed with Alzheimer's, maybe four. But the one common denominator they all shared, from where I sit, was that they smoked like chimneys.

Not that my abstinence guarantees any immunity -- I've eaten so much canned tuna I can give you the temperature in three time zones. 

[If anyone wants to know the other, not ready for primetime punchline I wrote, just email your request.]

Mrs. Linklater's NCAA Prognostications

People wonder how I do what I do during March Madness. Mrs. Linklater, how do you decide you're going to fill out your brackets?  Do you know something no one else knows? The world is waiting for an answer. 

Mrs. Linklater looks for the intangibles. Those mystical cosmic signs that tell her who is going to win. Even when she's already picked a different team.

For instance, Southern Illinois was ranked fourth in the Midwest bracket. Mrs. L picked SI in the first round. Like most citizens of this great state, she was hoping for a match up with Illinois, their cross state rivals, in the second round. Especially since they would be playing each other in Chicago. Mrs. L feels a digression coming on. Bear with her please.

Hope was high, even though Illinois was ranked 12th and barely got into the tournament thanks to illness, injury and police matters. But anything is possible during MARCH MADNESS [cue the fanfare].

However, while they were comfortably ahead during their first round game, Illinois decided to stop playing during the final four minutes for some reason. Maybe because they led by ten points. So they figured why bother. Too bad. They ended up losing by two.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Linklater didn't have time to work her good vibes on the Illinois players during the game because she was driving around doing errands and people might stare.

However, when the Southern Illinois Salukis played their first round game, she was able to determine who would win before halftime. In case you don't know a Saluki is a dog that the Bedouin tribesmen use for hunting in the desert.  You don't see them very much in this country.  But while the Salukis were in the middle of a dogfight, as it were, during the first half, Mrs. Linklater saw a man out walking his dog. Not an unusual sight for the most part, but this man was walking a -- yes you guessed it -- Saluki.

A SIGN!!! [Cue Cosmic SFX]. Naturally, Southern Illinois won the game. But Mrs. Linklater was just getting warmed up.

In the second round over the weekend, Tennessee was in a close game while Mrs.L was out and about.  [Unfortunately, Mrs. Linklater left her brackets in the other room and she doesn't feel like getting up to see who they played, because, frankly, it doesn't matter.]

Anywho, Mrs. L got a glance at the license plate holder on the car ahead of her just as Tennessee went up three points with very little time left.  The license plate holder said, TENNESSEE VOLS.  Do you have any idea how RARE a Tennessee Vol is in this parts?  Northwestern, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Purdue, Indiana, and almost any other school in the midwest, but NOT Tennessee.

Cosmic.  Mrs. L just smiled.  She had seen yet another sign during a game.  So she knew TENNESSEE would win. Of course they did. 

She's still neck and neck with her March Madness opponent. Only ten points separate them going into the third round.  But two of his final four teams have already been knocked out.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

By the way, Mrs. Linklater's final four picks are all doing well, thank you. 

WHO GIVES A RIP?

Some guy was on the radio the other day having a hissy fit about people calling our semi annual changing of the clocks DAYLIGHT SAVINGS.  He felt it was his duty to point out that the correct designation is DAYLIGHT SAVING.  No "S".  I, for one, was shocked and appalled that anyone would be shocked and appalled over something so completely unimportant.

Not content to give it a rest and move on, he spent another five minutes criticizing some TV anchor who continually said SAVINGS, even though the graphic said SAVING. Oh, the humanity. You woulda thought the guy's fly was open and his willie was hanging out.

Bite me.

Every so often, somebody around here gets their knickers in a knot over SOLDIER FIELD. For years people who don't know any better have mistakenly called it SOLIDER'S FIELD. Or maybe they meant SOLDIERS', since it was built to honor ALL the soldiers, not just one. But the fact remains, somebody named it SOLDIER FIELD, which means that adding the "S" is a travesty or something. Thank goodness there are people who consider it their personal duty to make sure you know these things.  Of course, since they added a multi-gazillion dollar addition to the field, most of us just call it the Flying Saucer. 

Bite me again.

Same for Canada geese, which the uninitiated call CANADIAN geese. The damn birds are from Canada, which makes them CANADIAN in my book, even though they never seem to go back there anymore because it's easier to leave their poop on our lawns down here. But for some reason you're a rube if you don't call them CANADA geese.

Following that logic, AMERICAN IDOL should be AMERICA IDOL.

Bite me bite me bite me bite me.

Which gets me to thinking about other names of things. The ones that backfire. Comiskey Park, which some people insisted on calling CoMINsky Park was torn down a few years ago. In its place we now have a concrete and steel monstrosity which, for 20 million hardearned corporate marketing dollars, was renamed US Cellular Field. Of course, for awhile a lot of us diehard White Sox fans continued to call the new place Comiskey. Until everybody started calling it THE CELL. I get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about how annoyed the corporate peeps gotta be over that one.

Nyquil's daytime counterpart used to be called DayCare. But everybody called it DAYQUIL for so long they just gave up and changed the name. 

Power to the people!

IT'S BEEN THREE YEARS ON ST. PADDY'S DAY

Yep, three years ago on St. Patrick's Day I wrote my first entry in this journal.  I know, BFD.

Natal Day Alert!!!

Dictionary.com defines a GENIE as "a spirit, often appearing in human form, that when summoned by a person carries out the wishes of the summoner."

Aunt Genie is our family's very own genie, the most accommodating one you could ask for. She has granted way more than three wishes and she lives in a much bigger place than a bottle. Her real name is Imogene, but she's been Genie for as long as I can remember.

For me she has always been a kind of magical presence since I was little. She appeared on our doorstep to celebrate birthdays, share our holidays, and add her special brand of kind and gentle goodness to every occasion. Somehow she always knew what I wished for and she would arrive bearing clever gifts, lovingly wrapped, with a thoughtful card written in her beautiful handwriting.  

This weekend three generations of nieces and nephews are gathering to wish her a happy 85th birthday. 85!!! She looks mahr-velous!!! I wish I could be there to join in the laughter and fun.  My cousins have offered to print out this page of my journal for her. 

It seems like just last year I was taking pictures of her on her 80th birthday, when we shocked her with a surprise celebration at one of her favorite restaurants.  The flowered straw hat she's wearing in the photo was one of her gifts -- in her favorite color, purple.  I don't think she took it off the whole time. Except when the rest of us were trying it on.

If I have one memory of Aunt Genie that stands out, besides her love of purple, it's that she is always smiling, and her eyes have a sparkle like they were lit by some special light from within.

On the one hand, she is a blithe spirit, ready to laugh and full of fun.But throughout my life, she has also been a quiet, loving presence not only for me, but all of us, through thick and thin.

She was by my side on the sad day when I found out her oldest sister, my mother, had cancer. She was there to take my mother's place after my first daughter was born. We all have stories we can tell about her unwavering support whenever it was needed. These days she's always just a phone call, plane ride, or road trip away with a word of wisdom to share, a kind thought to impart, a wonderful story to tell, or just a good ear to listen.

Thanks, Genie, for giving me reason to celebrate your life every day. And twice as much today.

Happy Birthday.  And much love.

WHAT NEXT?

So today I go out and there's a truck blocking my driveway. And a huge hole in my parkway [again].

I get into my car and one of the guys comes over to ask if they can park a huge piece of machinery on my lawn. He promised that they would fix any damage if there was any. Sure, park a plane there. Sounds like a great idea to me. Meanwhile, could you move the truck blocking my driveway so I can get out? I have my priorities straight.

I came back and there is a long, deep treadmark where they drove the machine off the protective wood plank it was parked on. And there were also some small depressions in the grass.

But nothing like the depression I'm sinking into now.

Quality of Life

You know, I didn't think I'd be spending my retirement years in a construction zone. Not that I'm retired, but I could be, if my lottery ticket hits.

There are three McMansions being built across the street from me. Two are directly across from me and next to one that was built last year  The third is across the street and a couple of houses down. If that weren't enough, there is also a fourth being built on the corner on my side of the road. The neighbors on my left and right have already doubled the size of their houses with additions. Same with two more neighbors across the street  At this point, with all the dump truck and heavy equipment traffic, the asphalt is looking more like road rash. And in the midst of all the Trump Towers, my house looks like a Jack in the Box.

Each morning around 7:00 AM, the block turns into a parking lot for Dodge Hemis and men with mullets. Ah the smell of insulation and the sound of jackhammers in the morning.

Backing my Jeep out of the driveway is like giving birth to an aircraft carrier. There's only enough room for one car at a time to squeeze through what's left of the road, so several times a day the backed up cars play chicken to see who gets first dibs on the right of way.

For some reason my parkway recently became covered in blue and yellow flags about a foot off the ground. It looks like a golf course for very short people. Since almost all the construction is across the street, why is it that MY parkway, and only MY parkway, is filled with all these colorful markers that tell people where the gas and water lines are? MY gas and water lines. I better check my utility bills.

For some reason, along with posting all those flags, the builders have also had to dig huge holes on both sides of MY parkway and tear up the end of MY driveway. I now have an attractive black patch where part of my driveway was replaced. And two huge mounds of mud where my lawn used to be. I may have to put my foot down if they start removing my trees.

Granted, next to the three story monstrosities they're building in my neighborhood, turning it into a wealthy enclave from the middle class place it used to be, my little one story hut looks like an outhouse. Because size is everything, the contractors and workmen may think they have carte blanche to use my property as a porta potty,but women over sixty who live alone are people too.

Well, we used to be people. I'm reminded of a Shel Silverstein poem from his book of the same name: Where the Sidewalk Ends. I think I'm there.

Since they started tearing down the charming little cottages that made moving here an easy decision when I got divorced, I've felt like a prey animal separated from the herd. People who want to move into the neighborhood leave notes in my mailbox. Companies that purchase teardowns send me letters. My doorbell rings and two real estate types ask when I'm planning to move. It's like being stalked by menacing predators.  Or looking up to see vultures sitting in the trees.

I now know why old ladies who live down the street get a reputation for being cranky.

SNAFU

I just spent a couple of hours writing somethng that disappeared when I hit SAVE. Ever notice how the SUBJECT never gets lost during one of those episodes?  I will now try to remember what I wrote. Unfortunately this will be the Cliff Notes version.


I am amused that the Army somehow thinks that the appearance of change among their top brass will divert our attention from the depth, breadth and longevity of their incompetent bureaucracy.

This little tempest is just another Army SNAFU. For those of you who missed boot camp, SNAFU is a military acronym for Situation Normal -- All F**ked Up. Never have so many tried so hard to cover so many asses. And this is on one of their regular days.

Except for battlefield surgery, which may be the best in the world, Army medicine has always been a crap shoot. Just ask non combatants what it's like getting medical care on this side of the war. Years ago, a nurse friend of mine went apeshit when she discovered that her husband, an officer, might die because of an idiotic military dentist. The military threatened him with demotion if she didn't shut up. That's how they like to handle their problems. for the most part.

Even battlefield medicine has its troubles. Watch re-runs of  M*A*S*H sometime. Beneath all the joking around there's a river of truth.  The show is based on life among doctors on the front lines in Korea -- on the slim chance you've never seen an episode.

The Major Burns character was a total screw up. The other docs had to watch out to make sure he didn't accidentally kill any wounded before, during or after surgery. Since the show was a success, he was around for eleven years. If this were real life, a few days of screwing up the lives of freshly wounded soldiers and he would have been promoted to a desk job. Surgery on the battlefield may be the only place where the hope for meritocracy exists in the Army.

But you can forget about any place else in the system. If the shit's not rising, status quo is the order of the day. What's happening now may seem like change, but it will just be more of the same.

In Viet Nam the troops had their own ways of dealing with incompetent leadership.  Too often a new second lieutenant, usually a white college grad fresh from OCS, was brought in to lead a group of war weary veterans, for the most part minorities, who had no patience with inexperience accompanied by arrogance.

After the complaints of the grunts were ignored by upper management time after time, they invented the sport of fragging.  Basically a live grenade would be thrown into the second lieutenant's tent while he was sleeping and you can pretty much imagine the outcome.

Too bad we have never taken a lesson from the Israelis who let their troops choose their own leaders.

If it weren't for the fact that most Americans are fed up with sending our young people to be wounded and killed in a war we shouldn't be fighting in the first place, all these revelations about rats and mildew in building eighteen at Walter Reed would have been met with a collective yawn.

This isn't the first revelation of incompetence in the Army medical system you know. It's just been a long time since people were running for office in the midst of a very unpopular war.

So when all is said and done, after a flurry of high profile firings, there will be a lot of televised hand-wringing and finger-pointing. Congressional committees will appear like mushrooms on a dead tree stump. Lunch will be served. And Ted Koppel will comment.

Mostly there will just be a lot of noise. And an outcry full of sound and fury.

Signifying nothing.

Lie Like a Rug

When it comes to lying I'm generally a pretty forgiving person. If I call you on it and you fess up, no harm, no foul.

If instead of a lie I discover that you just embellish or exaggerate as part of your 24/7 lifestyle, I'll just ignore everything factual that you say. We can have dinner, go to a movie, even hang out, but I won't be using you as my phone-a-friend lifeline when I'm on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

And then there are the people who lie and insist they're telling the truth even when faced with the facts. People who have invented who they are, from their age to their education, to where they grew up, went to school, number of times they've been married, or hooked up with your best friend. I even know a guy who had an All-America football trophy made up for himself, even though he was never an All-America. I don't think there's even a trophy for it. The one he got made looks just like a gold version of the Super Bowl trophy. And it's proudly displayed in his family rec room.

Those people are dead to me. Or near death.

I had a friend who had the same last name as a famous movie star. He said they were cousins. I found out that the movie star had been born with a different name. Liar. But, instead of just confronting my friend about the lie, I got creative. I set up an elaborate ruse to convince him that my mother was unexpectedly pregnant with twins and I was going to have to leave school to come home and help her take care of the new babies. I even threw in a whole thing about getting back with an old boyfriend on the sly, which was problematic since I was dating one of my friend's fraternity brothers.

He was so flipped out that he called me and said we needed to talk. He even offered to take me to lunch at the fancy restaurant usually only frequented by the faculty.

After enjoying a great meal, which, in retrospect, made all my fabrications worth it, he finally confronted me with what he'd heard about my mother and my old boyfriend. I listened to him go on and on about how important it was for me to stay in school, followed by what did I think I was doing to his fraternity brother by dating my old boyfriend behind his back? 

Finally, I just said, "I figured if you could be cousins with a famous movie star, my mother could be pregnant and I could be getting back with my ex."   It took him a minute to process that, By the time he realized what I'd done the lunch bill had been paid.

As paybacks go, not very nasty, but it still felt good, especially getting a chance to escape from the usual college cafeteria food.

Then there was the guy who used to tell me to call him when I was out in LA. Everytime I called, he claimed to be out of town.  After the fourth time, a lightbulb went on and I realized he was lying. 

So I had a girlfriend call him and pretend to be an editor wanting to interview him for a job. She invited him to dinner at a nice hotel. That meant he had to drive about forty five minutes, find some clean clothes to wear, and shave his constant three day growth.

Did I mention he was always late to everything? Well, the interview was no exception. We were all there ready to confront him. But, he was so late, we ate dinner and decided just to leave. We instructed the maitre d' tell him the editor couldn't wait any longer and she was gone. He finally showed up and went crazy trying to track the her down.

That one got nasty when, a month later, I told him what we'd done.

A couple of years ago a guy contacted me online, after seeing my picture plastered all over the People Connection page.  He was one of a jillion IM's I got because of that photo, mostly from guys who started out, "Hiya sexy."  He, on the other hand, was polite, intelligent, said he was a college graduate and, after I asked, claimed to be in his twenties. I should have known something was wrong because he didn't gag when I said I was in my sixties.

To make this long story short -- after a few things he said triggered my LIAR LIAR alarm, I used one of the many trusty search engines available to internet users and discovered that he was married and in his sixties. Na na na na na.

Here's one tiny example of how he outed himself -- he said his mother told him he looked like Audie Murphy. Audie Murphy? Is there any guy in his twenties who has a clue who Audie Murphy is, or was? First of all, wouldn't a mother with a twenty something son tell him he looks like someone LIVING? Audie Murphy, sheesh. Heck, even most people my age haven't got a clue what Audie Murphy looked like.

A couple of years ago I wrote an entry about a reality game I want to do -- one contestant against ten people on the internet. If the contestant can figure out who the only real person in ten is, he will win a lot of money.

Each week, the contestant chooses one internet contact to be eliminated. If he eliminates everyone except the real person, he gets a huge pot of money. The people on the internet get money for fooIing the contestant into thinking they're real as long as they can.

I thought it would be fun to have men impersonating women, old guys pretending to be young guys, gay pretending to be straight, fat pretending to be thin. Everybody but the real person has license to lie, lie, lie.

My internal lie detector just got a recent tune up. I think I am ready to be the first contestant.

My Penny Jar Is Full

I used to have a huge glass penny jar. I threw all my change in there at night when I got home from work. When it got filled up I would take it to the bank and get the coins changed into real money. Usually there was several hundred dollars.

Then one day I had a cleaning lady who tried to move the jar for some reason and she dropped it and broke it. Since then, I have used a different penny jar for my change. It is larger so all the pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters took longer to collect and get to the top.

Yesterday I discovered that I have a problem. I can't lift this larger penny jar. At all. It's too heavy. So I did one of those things that people who live alone and have nothing else to do will do when confronted by a dilemma such as this.

But first, you should know that I did NOT call someone strong, say a MAN, to help me lift the jar into my car and go with me to the bank so he could take it inside for me and get the change converted to something lighter. That would have been way too easy.

No, I did what people left to their own devices do. I decided to take out the change a little at a time and spend it. Until the jar gets light enough to lift.

I put the change I took out into three plastic cups. This seemed like a good idea. First I sorted the quarters because they're the easiest. And the most useful. Then I culled the dimes and nickels. Finally, I put the pennies into their own glass jar because I'm not going to use them for anything except to take them to the bank eventually.

By the way, did you know that you can hold more than twenty dollars worth of quarters in your hand?

At this point, I had a couple of choices. I could take the plastic cups of change to the bank and get it converted into smaller increments. Or I could try using the change to buy things. Since I had the cups with me in the car and I was hungry, I decided to try spending the change instead of converting it.

Haaaaaaaaaaa.

For the most part, in case you ever decide to do something like this, nickels and dimes are just as useless as pennies. Except if you're buying papers and Slim Jims.

Quarters are better, but they're heavy. However, they make a large bulge in your clothing, not an attractive silhouette unless you're a guy wearing tight pants in a disco.

With no one to stop me, I carried around aboatload of quarters to see if I could get rid of them. This is what happens when you don't have a spouse making fun of you for doing stuff like this. I can only imagine what my grown [groan?] children might say. Oh, wait, I'm sure I'm going to hear.

My first clue of what this would be like was when I held up the line at the Wendy's drive through counting out four something in quarters, along with some of the nickels and dimes for a salad. I got a bunch of pennies back in change. Great, more pennies.

Then I held up the line again at the gas station when I decided to go inside to pay for my gas with EIGHTY quarters. No, really. Plus I was carrying them in one of the plastic cups. Amazingly, I still had a whole bunch left afterward.

Yes, people were staring, in the way that people stare at someone who forgot to take their medication.

After the uncomfortable silence caused when the people standing behind me in the line started giving each other looks, good sense has finally set in.

I've decided that the smartest thing to do is to load up a cup of change or two each day, then go to the bank and get dollars back.  Until the jar gets light enough to put it in the car and carry it in and be counted.

But that's such an easy solution.

Kill the Messenger

If my memory serves, the first person to run 26.2 miles was some ancient Greek type guy bringing news from a place called Marathon about a battle that was being fought.  Or he was running TO a place called Marathon. Anyway, he arrived with the news, way out of breath, and promptly died.

I don't know whether that particular event was the one that started a trend, but if you were the messenger of bad news, you could pretty much count on having your life ended after delivering it. Saved on tips.

Which, in a very round about way, brings me to Newt Gingrich and today's headline about Newt the Juke having a secret affair, when he was going after Bill Clinton for messing with Monica Lewinsky. The Newtster sure had some raging doublespeak for why his screwing around wasn't the same as Clinton's screwing around.

Newt the Two-faced also calls to mind Mark Foley [gay or pedophile, you be the judge] being on some congressional committee to help stamp out child sexual abuse [some day I will fact check], while he was also sending salacious IM's to underage male White House pages at night.

The point is, and it's about time I got to it  -- maybe we should think about bringing back that whole KILL THE MESSENGER idea, since a lot of the people [okay, two] who are throwing stones or, to use 21st century vernacular, outing somebody for bad behavior are doing the same thing themselves.

Like what's his name, the anti-gay preacher, Reverend Hubbard, who had to go to heterosexual reh-hab for riding bareback with his massage therapist.

Parish priests, anyone? 

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS

I live for Daylight Savings Time. Some women live for chocolate or shopping. Me, I'm into daylight.

Around Halloween, when the clocks snatch the last vestiges of light while we're sleeping, that long lonely road leading to the shortest, darkest day of the year in December is like sliding down a black hole for me.

The only thing that gets me through the cold, depressing bleakness of January and February is watching the afternoon sun start to hang higher in the sky for longer and longer periods until finally, at the end of March or beginning of April, we have ignition.

Except for this year. This year, THIS WEEKEND, the eleventh of March, there will be LIGHT. Two whole weeks ahead of time. I am as excited as a kid with a new puppy. And we get another week tacked on to the back end. Three more weeks of light a year. Three less weeks of darkness.

It doesn't get better than this. For me anyway. Maybe some day I'll get a life, but until then, I've been to the mountaintop. 

At 2:00 AM this Sunday.

Iditarod

Back in 1984 I was writing dog food commercials. Dry food was where all the big marketing money went. The budget for canned or "wet" dog food was nearly extinct.

Mr. and Mrs. Dog Owner preferred the smaller poop created by the dry food, among other things. After watching the manufacturing process for both, I'd go with making dry food over the wet stuff because it's less disgusting to package pellets than watch boiling beef parts dropping like vomit into the cans. Gross.

However, part of me was still a purist. I was raised with big hairy dogs. They lived outside year round, only coming indoors when it got so cold in the winter their food would freeze. Each dog got a huge can of "wet" dog food once a day, plus table scraps. Believe it or not, leftover salad was one of their favorites. The canned food was most likely horse meat mixed with beef lips and lungs. I tried not to think about that. Dry dog food didn't seem substantial enough for animals that needed something extra because of their size, activity, or living conditions.

Around the time I started working on dog food in the eighties, National Geographic had an article about some absurdly long 1100 mile dog sled race called the Iditarod and a woman named Susan Butcher who had a chance to become the first female winner.

The article talked about how much food the dogs needed in order to keep their energy up during the long run and described some of the concoctions the mushers came up with including stews made with raccoon and moose. 

What a perfect way to ignite some interest in a dying brand I thought.  Sponsor one of the mushers, Susan Butcher, for instance, by providing her with all the wet dog food she needed for training as well as the race itself. Everybody thinks their dog is a champ and the Iditarod is the Olympics for dog endurance and speed. Plus this Susan Butcher woman could add some additional luster by being the first woman to mush cross the finish line.

My boss was very lukewarm. He'd never heard of the Iditarod, not many people had, so he was very skeptical. He also had his own pet project -- dry food -- where most of the money would be spent anyway. He could care less about what I was interested in.

He let me write a commercial that I wanted shot documentary style to follow Susan during the race, capturing her dogs scarfingup the client's wet dog food like it was steak. Or raccoon and moose. And, of course, winning the race. What a great way to breathe new life into a tired old dog food, I thought.

I didn't get the money to pursue the idea. A woman won the race for the first time. Ironically, it wasn't Susan Butcher. She and her team were attacked by a moose along the way. Some of her dogs were killed and I can't recall whether she was even able to finish.

My boss felt so vindicated by his lack of support. He was almost gleeful. "See, I told you."  Of course, Susan Butcher went on to win the race the next four out of five years. Effectively putting the Iditarod on the map. 

Unfortunately, she recently passed away, too early, from cancer.  But the Iditarod continues with lots of coverage these days. And, if I'm not mistaken I think Purina is one of the sponsors now.

It could have been Ken-l Ration. 

Funny as a Dead Body

I guess there's an open call today in dowtown Chicago for the next funny woman in America. The Shelarious competition.

A friend of mine said he thought I should go to the audition.  He came up with this brilliant idea two days ago.  He thought it would be easy enough for me to come up with two minutes of material that would wow the judges and start me on my new career in stand up. As what? The new Phyllis Diller. I don't think so.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm immensely flattered that someone thinks I'm funny enough at this age to consider going to the audition -- however misguided, drunk, or insane my friend is.

He even offered to come with me, probably to keep me from chickening out, assuming I actually got into my car and drove in the direction of the club where everything is happening.

There was a time when making people laugh was something I tried to do every day. Ever since I got laughs in eighth grade at a summer camp talent show. It became my surefire way of getting attention in high school, since I wasn't short, blond or a cheerleader.

But chasing after a show biz career at this late date isn't going to happen. At 62, wait, I'm 63, I don't feel like having hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at me in disbelief as I toddle out on stage. Or worse, only one or two pairs of eyes staring at me from somewhere in a darkened auditorium while I stand up like a dufus mumbling jokes about what?  The hair growing on top of my big toes? Eating dinner at four in the afternoon to avoid acid reflux. Trying to convince your doctor that you remember sex.

Unfortunately, I'm at the age where I can only make you laugh at me, not with me. In fact, I think my friend is suffering from "I knew you when" syndrome. People who knew you back in the day have a knack for remembering you as you were, not as what you've become. There's an expectation of continuity. Once you were funny, you're always funny.

I once ran into a guy I had dated in college when I was in my thirties. I was also pregnant at the time and my sense of humor was  seriously impaired. His only comment was a clearly disappointed, "I knew you when you were zany."

I think something like that is happening this time. My friend remembers all those times I made him laugh. A lot of that was by making faces and doing physical schtick. I used to take a drink of water and let it dribble all over me. Big yucks. Or trip on my way out of a room. Huge. And boy could I stumble on the stairs. Killer.  Some of it was funny because I looked like a model and no one expects Tyra Banks to do sight gags. Not that I ever looked like Tyra Banks, but you get the idea. If I did any of that stuff now people would just call the paramedics.

I did allow myself a moment or two to contemplate what I might say, if I decided I would say something, even though I had no intention of saying anything. 

I'd drive out in one of those HoverRound things and say, "I'm here for the free Tampax." 

See what I mean.

Flying First Class Without A Fork

On my first attempt to leave LA, my flight got cancelled. Luckily I discovered this during the curbside check in process, so I just called my ride back on my cell with the news. She turned around and returned to get me. But not before getting pulled over by two LA cops who wondered why she didn't come to a full and complete stop before making a right turn on red. Since they didn't give her a ticket, I said they were just trolling for blonds in Range Rovers.

There were no flights to Chicago any more that day or the next, because of bad weather throughout the midwest. So I had to spend a few extra days in the blue skies and seventy degree weather of Los Angeles before returning to the freezing rain and cold. Luckily I was up to the sacrifice.

As it turns out, they had to fly me home first class, because according to the rules of cancelling your flight with no warning, they had to put me in the first available seat.

I usually fly American. For a long time they made a big deal about having leg room for everyone throughout coach. And I need the leg room. But before I flew out the week before, I hadn't been on a plane in five months. 

On the way to LA, I noticed pretty quickly that there had been a change in seating arrangements and nobody had sent me the memo. Legroom in coach on American Airlines is gone. Except for the escape rows. And I don't want to be in charge of removing the windows over the wings when they're on fire.

So I got to ride to LA with my knees pressed against the seat in front of me. At least on United the first fourteen rows in coach have extra room.

But on American, no more. After four hours of being rolled up like a sardine, I was toast for the next two days.

Now I was flying first class on American's dime on the way back. Not bad for a $250 round trip ticket. I somehow adjusted to the extra space, leather seats, heated cashews, unlimited beverages, hot towel, and obsequious flight attendants without too much trouble.

On the other hand, the food was a joke. I had listened to a flight attendant announce there was food for purchase back in coach. They had wraps and snacks plus cookies and candy for sale. Hah, I thought, I'm in first class, my food will be fancier and, best of all, it will be free.

At least it was free. We had a choice of breaded chicken fingers or a vegetable pizza. The food was hot, not fancy. I chose the pizza. It came with a salad. But no fork came with the knife and spoon that were rolled up in the clothlike napkin. This must be a mistake I thought, so I pressed the button to call the flight attendant. "Fork, please." I said. "We didn't get any forks for the meal," she said. I stared at her for a moment. She stared back. "Is there toilet paper in the bathrooms?" I asked, concerned. She just kept staring.

So I ate the salad with the knife and spoon.

On the flight out to LA there had been an announcement while we were taxiing to the runway that no snacks had been loaded on the plane for coach. No food in the back of the plane for four hours. Just beverages. Luckily, I had purchased my own salad with grilled chicken beforehand in case of emergency. I then proceeded to eat it with mucho gusto once we were in the air, while others around me made do with apple juice and diet Cokes.

I had simply followed my first rule of food in coach:  bring your own.

I should have done the same thing even though I was flying in first class on the return flight. But I was naive. First class used to mean something. Gourmet food. Silverware. Linens. Non stop service. Unlimited alcohol for those in need. Now it's just coach with bigger seats. However, after the forkfree meal, they did serve fresh hot chocolate chip cookies on real plates. I asked for milk and never got any. The guy next to me didn't take his cookie and I almost told him to take one anyway and give it to me. But I didn't. I did consider asking what happened to all the leftovers that I saw on the tray heading back to the kitchen.

I noticed something else about both LA flights. The one out and the one back. They don't start the movie until they've made you watch Katie Couric anchoring a bunch of CBS news stories, a full half hour of Wheel of Fortune, and an episode of How or Why I Married Your Mother or Two and a Half Men. As a result, both movies were still playing as we touched down. It was hard to watch them though since the screens retracted into the ceilings.

I have no idea what happened at the end of either movie, although people were storming the Bastille during Marie Antoinette when they turned it off, so I can probably imagine. But I really wanted to see what she was wearing when they chopped off her head.