Wednesday, August 31, 2005

cluless in k.c.

This has been a VERY busy week in our household with very little time to spare due to an intense varsity soccer tournament schedule, concession stand duties and other soccer stuff on the "off" nights; then a football game Friday night that we'll attend because Julian's also in marching band. Add buying a new car, trying to sell an old one, insomnia for the last two nights, a very bothersome summer cold, and that little nuisance of having to work a full-time job and I'm about to run screaming into the night.

So now you can see why I had NO IDEA that the entire city of New Orleans was underwater. When did that happen?

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

jesus & mary sitting in a tree...

A news report last night highlighted the controversy surrounding the filming of The DaVinci Code.

Has anyone told them that The DaVinci code is a novel (i.e. a work of fiction)???????

Just wondering.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

woodstock revisited

Sunday afternoon, waking up from a nap, half awake and half asleep. I'm trying to make out the woman's voice I hear coming from the downstairs TV. "Hmmm, sounds like Joan Baez at Woodstock. No, couldn't be." After a couple of minutes, I just HAD to find out, so I stumbled down the stairs and find the teenaged boy watching, what else, Woodstock on VH1 Clasic.

We sat there and watched together for the next 2 1/2 hours, with Julian asking "who's that" and commenting that Joan Baez "wasn't that good," and correctly identifying Joe Cocker's version of With A Little Help From My Friends as a Beatles song. I told him he HAD to see John Belushi's parody of Joe Cocker, and that when I saw Joe Cocker he was stinking drunk. We rocked out to Santana and Sly & the Family Stone and Ten Years After and Country Joe and the Fish. Being VH1, the very well-known Fish Cheer was cut from this TV version of the movie, so I felt compelled to fill him in on what he was missing: "Give me an F, Give Me a U... What's that spell? What's that spell?..." Finally, when it appeared to be almost over, Julian asked a little sadly, "but where's Hendrix?" And just then, you could see the white finged shirt and hear the notes of The Star Spangled Banner (simply the finest version of our country's anthem EVER recorded) wail out of Jimi's Fender Stratocaster. A great ending to a great documentary.

It was probably the longest period of time we've spent together, just Julian and myself, in several months. Thank you Woodstock.

I was talking to Tracy during the movie and mentioned that I can remember listening to the radio during those 3 days in August of 1969, thinking to myself "but I'm SUPPOSED to be there. It's not fair!" And Tracy said "Me TOO." There were probably a lot of 12 year old kids out there wishing they could be at Woodstock. Somehow, we just KNEW it was an important moment in our lives, and how right we were. If you had asked us at that very moment what we wanted to be when we grew up, our answer would no doubt have been "hippies."

Now I see my 18 year old wearing tye dye T shirts and driving around with a Bob Marley sticker and a Darwin Fish on his car and I KNOW he's channeling his mother, circa 1969. And so I've made a vow: If and when our current president visits our fair city, we will be there at the anti-Bush protest, shaking our fists and shouting "No More War." What else is a hippie mother to do?

This post is dedicted to Cindy Sheehan.

Friday, August 19, 2005

bad language postscript

Just heard here at my fine upstanding place of work:

"Hey, they just found stem cells in umbilical cords so they don't gotta chop up little babies no more."

cool

bad language

I have to work around people who routinely slaughter the English language with poor grammar, extreme overuse of the word F*** and the phrase "ain't got no". The two are often combined, as in "ain't got no f***in'..." or f***in' ain't got no". Either I'm getting old or people are just plain f***in' ignorant these days. In other words, they act like they ain't go no f***in' education.

Yesterday I heard a news reporter use the phrase "3am in the morning". I do not like redundancy. I thought the reason you use "a.m" is to indicate that it's IN THE MORNING. You wouldn't say 3am in the afternoon, would you? This is not the first time I've heard something like that recently. I hope it's not a developing trend.

The term "24/7" is also starting to grate on my nerves. I especially dislike it when people say 24/7/365. If you use this phrase around me, I won't be your friend.

But the most annoying thing I've seen lately is people turning a plural into a possessive. When people turn plural's into possessive's it really piss's me off. I recently saw something in print that said Support the Troop's.

So to summarize: We've developed into a nation of idiot's who ain't got no f***ing clue how to spell worth a shit. But, by God, we support the troop's 24/7/365, no matter if it's 3am in the morning or 2pm in the afternoon's.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

INXS excess

My latest guilty pleasure: Rockstar INXS. It both entertains and repulses me. Entertaining when someone actually sings a song on-key. Repulsed by Dave Navarro's complicated facial hair and femme-bot Brooke Burke's "Ain't I just a cool rock chick" act. Also can't believe they actually refer to the contestants as "The Rockers". Dur.

No, I do not watch all 3 shows each week - I only watch the hour-long performance show. And no, I do not care who the hell wins except I don't want that stupid Deanna to get it cause her voice reminds me of an affected nighclub singer with an overabundance of testosterone. And last night she wore a Jennifer Lopez-like dress that quite liberally showed us exactly how saggy her breasts are. Yucky-poo.

Last night Dave Navarro's Stupid Comment of the Night came after Mig's performance of Peter Frampton's Baby I Love Your Way - "Dude, while you were singing I was just sittin' here thinking about how much I love my wife." What kind of stupid shit is that? Oh, did I mention that his wife is CARMEN ELECTRA. Wasn't she married to Dennis Rodman? Apparently she likes men with complicated facial hair and a multiude of tatoos.

And what does the winner of Rock Star INXS get? They get to be lead singer of a has-been 80s discoesqe pop band whose lead singer, Michael Hutchence died in 1997. I guess the remaining members of the band want to go back out on tour and be rock stars again so they're choosing their lead singer from a REALITY TV SHOW. Can you say Sell-Out Losers?

Let's just say this is a show so bad it's good.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

now a word from our sponsors

I know famous people:

My cousin Venus VanHorn and her band The Cass County Lamentors will be performing on August 27th from 2-4pm at Tiblow Days in Bonner Springs. Come out and hear Venus croon your favorite, old-timey country music favorites. Bring tissue cause baby, you're gonna cry in your beer. Admission is free.

Old, old, old friend and classmate Mark Pender and his band will be performing on Sept 10th at Jazz at the Corners in Grandview starting at 8:45pm. Mark's a fantastic jazz/funk trumpet player and he's bringing his band all the way from NYC to play in our old hometown. Admission is also free. Can't beat that.

Friday, August 12, 2005

jurassic ark

Last night ABC World News Tonight aired a report about a guy who's opened a "museum" that attempts to reconcile a literal interpretation of the Bible with the fossil record. In one exhibit, he shows Noah bringing dinosaurs on board the ark. Wow, I never saw that coming!! This explains everything!!

But seriously, I have a couple of little questions, like if Noah had dinosaurs on the ark, how did he keep the velociraptors from killing all the other animals? Everybody who's seen Jurassic Park knows that the velociraptor is one crazy 'mofo, right? Did he have like a special seclusion cage for them? And what about the T Rex? T Rex was a fairly hefty dude, so was the ark even big enough for them? And what about feeding the T Rex?? How did Noah get that much meat on board to feed the T Rex? Did he bring a shitload of beef jerky?

Wow, it was hard enough for me get my little 'ol brain around the sheer logistics of Noah bringing two of every species on board his ark, but now I have to think about the dinosaurs too??? I'll have to get back to you on this one.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

It's hot and you need a pool!

The teenage boy will be a senior this year, and this week soccer practice started. High school athletics always starts their fall sports practices during the hottest week of the year, it seems, and the boy has been sweating it out for two practices a day every day this week. As a show of solidarity, I also decided to start exercising again. This is a real sacrafice for me because I have previously made it a policy to not work out during the summer months. My delicate physical makeup does not tolerate the heat well, and the fact that I'm a fat menopausal lady means that I sweat quite readily and profusely. Purposely making myself hotter than I already feel doesn't really seem logical, therefore I usualy spend my summers moving from one air conditioned venue to the next. But I really felt sorry for the poor boy, even though he's young and fit and male and could care less about the sacrafices I make for him.

Now, if we were to hold a contest in our house for the Most Enthusiastic Athlelete, Coco the Wonder Dog would win every time. He is a creature who is ALWAYS ready to hit the trails rain, shine, hot or cold. Whenever he sees me putting on the ratty Hanes Sports Bra, his little stump of a tail just starts a'waggin'. We've been out twice so far this week (yes I know, the teenage boy is working out twice a DAY but give me a break), and Coco's endurance is truly amazing. While I'm huffing and puffing in the 95 degree sweatbath that is our Midwest climate, Coco is trotting along in what can only be described as a black fur coat THAT HE CANNOT TAKE OFF. Plus he's basically barefoot and actually chooses to walk on the asphalt pavement instead of the cooler grass. And while I've practically sweated out every ounce of moisture in my body, Coco manages to continuously manufacture enough urine to pee on every bush and tombstone in the cemetary where we walk. What a stud.

You know, they say that sweating is supposed to make you feel cooler but I know that's a load of bullshit. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, so allow me to explain my conclusions: If the sweat coming out of your body is approximately 100 degrees, and the outside temperature is approximately 100 degrees, and the humidity is approximately 50%, then the water glistening on your body is just hot water that won't go away. It's like sitting in a hot tub on a hot day, and that wouldn't make much sense would it? OK, so what about the breeze factor? Doesn't a wind, even a slight one blowing over your sweat-soaked whale body make you FEEL cooler? HELL NO. Does a 1000 degree solar wind FEEL cooler than a normal 50 degree fall-like breeze? I personally cannot wait for the 50-degree fall breezes to blow softly over MY body while I exercise.

Julian's soccer games start in 3 weeks and I am comforted by the knowledge that even though we will start the season wearing shorts, sweating on the bleachers, and shielding our eyes against the sun, we will wind up the season in November ensconced in blankets, shivering on the bleachers, in the dark. His senior year is about to begin and the first of many last-times is beginning. Let the melancholy begin.

Monday, August 08, 2005

party time

Hello happy readers. I've gotten myself pumped up to actually make a written blog entry today, instead of the lame-ass pics-only stuff I've been filching off of other blogger's sites lately. Blame the antidepressant for the loss of my edginess and sardonic wit.

Last weekend was the celebration of my folk's 50th wedding anniversary, hosted by their fine progeny - myself and my two brothers, with help from The Spouses, grandchildren, etc. Being the Head Party Planner, I got to boss everybody around and assign tasks. I'm glad to report that everyone immediately fell to their knees, pledged their loyalty to me and vowed to carry out my every command. It was quite the exhilarating, head-inflating experience and I'm a little disappointed that it's all over and I've gone back to just being plain old me again.

Perhaps the most entertaining point of the day was trying to explain to my brother's friend - who was on his way to a major alcohol haze - what makes my mother and some of her cousins double cousins. The poor guy could not be convinced that there wasn't something inherently illegal about double cousins. "You can try to explain it all you want, but you'll never convince me that y'all aren't from Arkansas." "Well, our aunt WAS from Oklahoma," piped up my mom, trying to be helpful. "See, what did I tell you?" he replied.

It was a really nice party and now I have some great "before" pictures of myself to inspire me to finally lose weight. God, there's nothing as humiliating as looking at pictures of your fat self. So today I'm back on the diet wagon and Coco gets to take walks again even though it's about a million degrees outside. I hate working out in the summer. I'd much rather sit inside and eat ice cream. Perhaps I will post weight loss results here on Papercut. Perhaps not. Stay tuned, folks.