Massive Failure
I dropped Spanky off at her driving school only to be called back to pick her up because they had over scheduled drive times. Now if she had cancelled, I would have had to pay a $25 cancellation fee. I know this because I had to pay once when Kara went to that same school and had to miss an appointment due to illness.
So I drove back over there, walked in with my big sunglasses on and told the reception that they owe me twenty five bucks. The lady laughed. I didn’t. There were a bunch in people in there and I could hear a little snickering.
Finally someone said, “She’s right.”
Hell yeah I’m right.
Twenty five dollars is not really what I wanted. I only needed to make a point that if I had to pay up for missing, they did too. So I made a deal with her to schedule two drive times (you have to fight for those, believe it or not, and can only make one at a time and they have to be two weeks apart).
I got two for next week. Yay!
After that we took off for Ross, a store that reminds me of a garage sale of never used items of clothing, shoes, and various housewares. Bargains on crap we don’t need.
One of the reasons they sell name brand things at bargain prices is because the product was a massive failure. Spank and I like to look at items in there and come up the reasons these products failed. Most of the time, the item is just fuck ugly.
Like a white shirt with three gigantic buttons on the front.
The suitcase that rolled in every direction but had skulls and crossbones all over it (I almost wanted that).
Funny screw ups are fun to spot. Look at the animal texture baby book:
Didn’t even bother to match the hair color.
Check out the scribbling on this doggie tee:
Gangsta dog?
What’s coming next is such a massive failure of catastrophic proportions, I don’t know why they didn’t take this out to the trash and burn it.
Fire the people who worked on this shit too.
Seriously, it’s the worst thing I have ever seen and I swear I did not move this product to another area to make it “display better.” This is exactly how i found it.
(I almost didn’t post this, it is sooooooooooooooo bad)
But here goes. The Product Failure of the Year. Of ever, maybe.
That. Is. A. Lunchbox.
mini wheats star trek shirt
One of Spanky’s friends was over the other day and while we were all playing Scrabble, she mentioned how she was a big fan of Captain Kirk.
I told her about the Kellogg’s Mini Wheats offer. You collect these tokens off the box, send them in, and get a free Starfleet tee shirt (or just one token and $9.99). Oh boy. We happened to have a box of the cereal in the pantry as Blane loves the stuff.
She reminded me of a friend I had in grade school who was bananas about Star Trek and had made her own geeky Captain Kirk costume one halloween. I really felt for that kid as her costume was quite shabby. I wished I could reach back in time and give that kid one of these shirts. I really wish I could. But I don’t know her anymore.
I do know this other kid who is just as passionate about Star Trek and equally deserving. And since Blane’s been sending me to the store for more, more, more Frosted Mini Wheats, I told the kid if she went to the store and got eight more boxes of it, she could have all the tokens.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and we are sick of these damn Mini Wheats. Don’t ever want to see them again. Ever.
So I saved the day by getting some Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Spanky’s looking over the box and says, “Look how thick this guy’s glasses are, I don’t think I’d let him cook anything for me.”
Looking at him closely, I realize he looks like someone else.
This guy!
If you are interested in the Star Trek shirt offer which ends 6/30/10, check out Kellogg’s Star Trek promotions website.
RIP MJ
I get CNN breaking news from my Twitter account in the form of text messages. When I got the one about Michael Jackson being brought to the hospital in cardiac arrest I was sure that was the end. Not too many people live through that if their heart stops at the hospital.
If it stops at home? Really almost no chance. I guess this is why some radio stations were announcing his death before the cable news networks were calling it.
So Kara calls all upset about what she’d just heard on the radio. Eighteen years old, and she’s a fan.
Spanky had a house full of friends here at the time, all sixteen year olds, and when I told them, they were upset. Really upset.
When Blane Jr. was a toddler and I’d take him in the stores, he’d point at the magazine covers and say, “Michael Jackson” and start dancing. He couldn’t say much else, but he could say that.
When I first heard Jackson’s Off the Wall album, I was just a kid, but absolutely mesmerized. How could one person come out with such a perfect set of tunes. One after the other?
Then there was Thriller.
And that moonwalk.
You know the rest.
Here’s an cool video I swiped from TPGoddess. I’ve never seen this before, it’s a Pepsi commercial (I think) that was edited to show Jackson singing a duet of “I’ll Be There” with a child version of himself.
I never could listen to his stuff and not dance.
Spanky’s Facebook status says: “He’s totally choreographing the angels through Thriller, right?”
I can see it.
How’d you like to own a town?
So you wanna be a cowboy/cowgirl?
I find this fascinating, an entire town in Texas is for sale.
That’s right, folks, it comes with an ice house (what is that?), dance hall, peach orchard, a creek, a three bedroom ranch style home (what other style could it be?). They’ve just knocked $288,000 off the price to a grand total of $595,000.
Now hold your horses. This place is in wine country. One hour from Austin. Which means it’s also hill country.
Okay. Let’s just assume you inherited this town. What would you do with it?
Here’s the website if you want more details: Albert, Texas
I’d start by changing the name.
Speaking of wine country…
If you haven’t cast you vote for Max yet, there is still time to help her make the first cut. She only needs 25 more votes. 25!
Hit this link and vote to send her to wine country. Don’t forget to reply to the confirmation email or it won’t count.
Max is a published writer and produced screenwriter. She is also my writing teacher. Yay for teachers! If you have more than one email address, you can vote again. They won’t spam you, I voted last week with four different email addresses and haven’t gotten anything from them other than the confirmation email. They also promise not to spam you.
Just think. Your vote could be THE ONE that helps her make the first cut. That is power.
Just a house
I hardly ever mention this, but I do have a day job pimping houses. I’m a Realtor. I’m not a bigshot, I just do a little business here and there so I can have a job to quit when I get that big writing break. Yeah.
Reason I mention this is I was out showing houses yesterday and saw something amazing. I’ve seen all sorts of collections, but this one was the best. Ever. There was a room full of model trains. Spotless. Rows and rows of shelves on the wall with boxcars, engines, tankers, etc, each car about a foot long, all uniform in size. Some were even in glass cases.
They weren’t ordinary model trains you see in stores, I have never seen any like this before with so much detail. I’m thinking these might have been used in movies.
The rest of the house was unbelievably spotless. And there was not a micron of ugly in there. I looked for it. One little mistake in cleanliness or tastelessness, something to make me believe the people in this house were not perfect.
I passed by the oven and noticed these foiled potatoes baking in there. The foil was folded so beautifully, I have never seen a potato wrapped that way and I couldn’t help but laugh myself silly. I looked on every wall for a family portrait, I mean, what do people who live like this look like?
There were none.
It was the most perfectly staged home I have ever seen, and I’ve seen thousands.
If those potatoes weren’t in the oven I’d have guessed no one lived there. People do that, fill an empty house with furniture because an empty home is extremely difficult to sell. You wouldn’t think, but that is how it is in this area. Buyers get the impression something is wrong with it if it didn’t sell while the homeowner still lived there.
So figuring out if a house is really vacant is something I like to do if I’m working with a buyer. I have one test to figure it out. I open the fridge and look for milk.
Funny isn’t it?
So many houses tell a family’s story. The ones who leave the framed photos of the family all over tell the most. There was one today with the children’s photos through the years from birth to graduation. The bedrooms didn’t have that “personalized” look to them, they all looked like guest rooms but were worn as if some child had grown up there.
It was also missing girly things. Mom things. Something about this place told me one man lived there, a father, and this house was just too big for him now. I opened the door to the garage and there he was working away with his wood shop tools. He didn’t talk much and he looked so damned lonely it made me want to burst out crying. I hate it when the homeowner is there because I get to put a real face to that story and sometimes, like this time, it is too much for me.
Anyway. I hope all of you kids are doing all you can do for your dads today.
And all you dads out there, have a happy Father’s Day.
Help Needed
That’s Her!
It looked more like a college than a high school graduation. The floor of the arena had over 1400 chairs lined up for the graduates who poured in from four different entrances.
From way up there in the nose bleed section, they all looked like marching ants, identically dressed in maroon caps and gowns. There was a Jumbotron showing random angles, but we really didn’t think we’d know which one was Kara until they called her name right before handing her the diploma.
I was determined to know where she was amongst this sea of newborn adults for the entire ceremony, not just at the end. I wanted to hang on to every single moment of her childhood, young adulthood, to her.
I quickly developed a method to find her. First, I placed an imaginary alphabetically ordered grid over the seats and predicted the section she would sit.
Next, I kept an eye on the entrance that fed kids into that area. I ruled out the tall kids, or any of them who didn’t have long, straight blonde hair. That might seem easy enough, but they all looked the same height from my perspective, and almost all the girls have long blonde hair. This is Texas.
I had to yank out the secret weapon.
I ran those kids’ “walk” though my “mamma-knows-her-kid” filter.
Kara has always had this walk like a ballerina. She tip toes with these light, brisk steps while her upper body tilts a little forward. Like she can’t wait to get somewhere (she can’t). Her head glides smoothly with each step. Reminds me also of a hummingbird.
When she’s nervous, throw in a dramatic arm swing.
That swing is what I noticed first.
“That’s her!” I yelped, and finished to myself, That’s my girl.
It was. And she will always be my Sweetpea, my girl.
Yay Kara!!!
Still Here
Lately I’ve almost forgotten I’ve got a blog. I’ve been doing a lot of writing elsewhere, rewriting my spec script for contests, a visual writing class, and then other busy things.
It’s been rough as I haven’t had the energy left over to do much blogging or take photos or get out in the sunshine. Now that my submission is in and the writing class is winding down, I should have more time to get back to The Show.
I’m still exercising like a maniac, that’s six months of good solid habit. I feel great and continue to push a little harder with each workout.
Got some exciting news, my son Blane and his wife are expecting their first baby at the end of October! Of course you know I will completely take over and spoil that to the bone. I haven’t thought of a grandmother name yet. I really don’t care for those names and would actually like to be called by my real name, “Kitty.”
I know this is odd. I don’t care. When I talked to my mom about it, she kept saying “ahahhaaha you are going to be a granny.”
I know twenty-five year olds who are “grannies.” I will never be one of them. I cuss and go to rock concerts and don’t even own a rocking chair. I need to get one of those.
I was at Blane Jr.’s house a couple of nights ago helping him paint a room. We were up at 2AM and I asked him if this was usual for him to be up so late on a work night. He said he was both a night owl and an early bird.
Now I’m not much of an advice giver unless someone asks, but I told him he might want to use the upcoming months to get ahead on his sleep. Once the kids come in the picture, there’s not a good night’s sleep coming for at least the next 21 years.
Then I told him about the first morning I woke up with him after we got out of the hospital. Kids, even when adults never outgrow hearing baby stories about themselves.
I was worried I wouldn’t hear him cry during the night because he sounded like a newborn kitten when he cried. I was just a teenager and had never been around babies. I was clueless and I knew it.
So that first morning I woke up after a full night’s sleep. And my baby was gone. I went into my parent’s room and found my mom wiping him down with a washrag.
Me: What ya doin’?
Mom: Giving him a sponge bath.
Me: Where is the sponge and why don’t we put him in the tub instead?
Mom: You can’t get their belly buttons wet!
There were tons of people around me for the following weeks giving out massive amounts of advice. That got old pretty quickly and you know, you look at these people and look at their kids and think, I really don’t want this person’s advice.
So I went to the library and checked out every parenting book I could get my hands on. When people would dish out advice, my mom would say (with sarcasm), “She won’t do it, that’s not what the books says.”
She and the old hens would cackle about this, but you know me, I’m fine with people getting a good laugh on me. In the end, I’ve raised (am still raising) a good batch of kids.
Portable Brain
See this thing right here?
That is what I call my portable brain. It’s my hard drive from my MacBook Pro that I took out last week.
It’s still good, it didn’t crash or anything, it just got filled up with thoughts, photos, videos… my life. Maxed out 100 gig. So I ordered a 320 gig and cloned the old drive with Super Duper (free software, yay) and dropped the new one in my machine and I’m good to go.
I wish I’d thought of this sooner. I had this massive photo scanning project going since last summer, about 10,000 photos in the dining room. I got about half way through and ran out of hard disk.
So there I was stuck in the middle of that. I didn’t think to get a bigger hard drive, the plan was to get the scanned photos sorted (decades of them which began before my dad was even born), move those over to an external HD and then finish the job of scanning.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the dining room has been a massive mess that I tried to pretend didn’t exist. Although I don’t usually roll that way, I managed for almost a year and surprisingly, Blane did as well.
So when Kara’s hard drive failed and we had to take her computer apart to replace it, I got the idea to do the same with my computer. Ah, the ideas that flow when backed into a corner with a gun to the head.
Okay, so I’m all sorted out with the computer things and the photo project is back on, piles are getting smaller, and the dining room is getting back into shape as the useless room that it is.
Here is a photo I scanned from my dad’s old box of negatives. I’d never seen this photo before, my parents must have sent the paper copy to family.
I just think it’s amazing to find something like this. It’s like going back in a time machine.
The boy with the big head is my brother Jim, the other is Shane, and the baby trying to break free is me. Funny thing about any baby photo of me, I’m always trying to get back into my dad’s arms. They used to tell me that I didn’t walk until I was three because my dad carried me all the time.
Back then it was considered a bad thing to hold your kids all the time, but my dad didn’t play by the rules. He did what he wanted to do and I’m glad he did.
This Line Intentionally Left Blank
I love this graphic so much I stole it from Ruth.
I got the headphones and opened them.
Now I feel like this:
Life is short.
Just Writing
I’ve been so busy rewriting my script I haven’t had much time to comment on blogs or write posts. It’s screenwriting contest season.
Great news, I’ve entered my screenplay in the Nicholl. That is officially the very first time I’ve submitted any of my writing in a competition. This is a huge step for me as I’m actually a timid writer.
Austin is next and they’ve extended the deadline to June 8th. This is fantastic as I’ve lost a week rebuilding my daughter’s computer (hard drive failure, had to take it apart and replace it. This is an iMac and I think an appendectomy is easier to perform).
Anyway, one of the things that helped me do the rewrite was to have a goal. I told myself if I won Nicholl I would buy myself those Dr. Dre headphones I’ve been coveting.
After walking around with dark circles under my eyes from severe sleep depravation, I decided if I’d just make the first cut, I’d buy myself the headphones. I even went to Fry’s yesterday and tried them on again. To make sure.
I’m pretty damned sure. So it’s still on, right. And hey, I can up my chances if I enter Austin’s competition. If I place in that one, I get the Dre’s.
Wish me luck.
Maniac running loose in my dreams
I rarely have nightmares or night terrors. Most of my dreams are about singing and dancing and fun things. Blane has nightmares almost every night and he gets to fly in his dreams.
I’d never flown in my dreams until this past week. In my dream I was aware it was a dream and there was a huge puddle of water. I floated up like David Blaine, slowly flipped horizontal and just hovered over the water said something like, “Well, I can fly in my dreams, apparently, but not fast like a jet plane or higher than four feet, so this is pretty much a useless skill.”
That was last week. Last night i had a rare, violent one.
It starts out as a family vacation to some US city with an amusement park. The girls are about 10 and 12 (funny how dreams do that, de-age people) and we are in a minivan. Blane’s driving. There are two parallel roads, one with heavy traffic, the other we are on alone. I ask Blane why it is this way, a road to a fun place and there are no other people.
We get to the amusement park and there are no lines. We have the place to ourselves and this place is brand spanking new. No rickety rides, all zoom, zoom, zoom. As we are leaving, we notice some park workers following us out and they try to kill us.
But we make it out of there and we know why they were trying to kill us. They want our organs. (I swear to God I did not make this shit up)
Next thing, we are in our hotel room which happens to be stocked with knives, pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles. Next morning we load up the minvan with all that junk and go back to the parallel roads. This time I say, “No wonder there’s nobody in this line,” then, “Why didn’t those cowards tell us?”
We get to the amusement park and all I can remember is a bunch of dead bodies and Kara stabbing the lady at the ticket booth.
Go back to the parallel road and yell out of our minvan that it is okay now to go to the amusement park.
And that’s it. That was the dream.
A few days ago Blane told me about a dream he had.
We were sacking out on the floor at someone’s house on some nasty, matted up carpet. I flipped over the coffee table and there was a spot of brand new carpet, about four inches of plushness. Then I took that spot.
He was laughing when he told me about that dream as if this was so typical of me to do something like that. I shook my head but couldn’t really shake it from my thoughts.
I am sort of like that, if there is a better spot somewhere, I will uncover it and go there. But I do share, jeez.
When she was born in her birth suit…
Every time Spanky’s birthday rolls around I think of this Cajun song by Rockin’ Sidney, “Don’t Mess with My Toot Toot.”
The reason I think of that song is because of the lyrics, “When she was born in her birth suit, the doctor slapped her behind, he said ‘You’re gonna be special.’”
See, when Spanky was born and the doctor slapped her feet to get her breathing going, Spanky just looked up at the world as if to say, “Ah, so this is it what’s going on where that noise was coming from.”
She didn’t cry.
That worried me to no end. I’d seen a lot of births working in the hospitals and this was the first one I saw where the baby didn’t cry. They kept telling me she was okay, but I didn’t believe them, I thought the worst. I was right in the middle of a c-section and trying to lift my shoulders and head to see the baby to make sure. Probably drove them all crazy in there.
She was just chill for a little baby. When they brought her to my room, I didn’t think she looked like us. I secretly worried that someone had switched the babies. Then I found out she was the only baby girl in the nursery, there were ten boys and Spanky.
So she’s ours. For sure.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPANKY!
Spanky’s Star Struck
Spanky and I were on our way to the Fall Out Boy concert Friday night when I said if I was a psych major I’d do research on why people like certain songs over others. Those things fascinate me.
She popped in a Led Zeppelin CD and when it got to “Stairway to Heaven” I asked her what I always ask when that song plays, “Why do you think so many people say this is the best rock song ever created? Is it the lyrics, or is it the music? Or both?
I tell her one thing I’ve noticed about people and that song. When somebody dies, a surviving friend will wear that song out. I’ve see grown men cry to it.
Then we just listen and allow each other to point and say, “This is my favorite part” several times.
“Wait, no, this part.”
“That one too.”
We both agree the section when the drums come in is also our favorite part.
I tell Spanky it’s as if someone took the favorite parts of a bunch of songs and put them all in Stairway to Heaven. She agrees. She also knows we will talk about this again next time we hear the song. We’ve been on a Zeppelin tear for a good two weeks running.
The concert, yeah…
We had some fantastic pit tickets and got there to see Fifty Cent open. Spanky said it was surreal being fifteen feet from him. She never thought she would ever end up in the same room with Fitty. I, too, found it absurd.
But hey, you gotta respect a guy who got shot in the face and lived to sing about it.
I had seen Fall Out Boy perform live on tv before and wasn’t expecting much. Some bands just can’t cut it live. They were great and we were blown away by their performance. Stumps vocals were in tune and it’s early in the tour so everyone’s fresh.
Hanging to the back of the pit works well for us, we can see everything and are still close. At one point a huge mosh pit opened up and I teased Spanky, told her if she could run straight through “the hole” without getting slammed she’d end up right next to center stage. It wasn’t the usual mosh pit, not rough at all, so we did actually make a run for it and got about 5 people deep from the stage. In the sweet middle, right in front of Patrick Stump.
It was great for a few songs and then the moshers decided to make another pit behind us. I didn’t want to get shoved around, so I took off toward the back of the crowd. Spanky didn’t follow. I couldn’t see where she was, but I knew she would be okay and find me soon.
I kept scanning the crowd for her, walking around the pit edges and then finally parking myself to the front and side of the stage where I could see faces. Where was Spank?
I had just grabbed the barricade and was pretty much by myself because it was such an extreme distance from where the action on the stage was. Then Pete Wentz (the one all the fan girls scream over) jumped on a speaker directly in front of me. He smiled at me then made this flapping motion with his arms. Like a bird. Dude, it was freaky. I think he wanted his picture taken.
So I took pictures!
It really sucked that I didn’t have my good camera.
A little later Wentz jumped off the stage and hung over the barracade to sing. Half his body was directly over the people in center front. Where was Spanky?
No wonder she didn’t come looking for me. He was singing right in her face.
After the show, on the drive home, we resumed Zeppelin analysis. Spanky told me she couldn’t think straight. I told her she was star struck.
As we drove into the garage, Zeppelin’s “Misty Mountain Hop” was playing. We got out of the car and Spank said, “That song’s funny, I think it’s about how they’re hanging in the park, the cops come to make arrests but end up smoking pot with them.”
I say, “Hang on, did I miss something? I never heard that part.”
So we listen to the song again once we get into the house. There’s something about a policeman and tea. Spanky says, “Oh, not pot, mushroom tea.”
I crack up. Tell her Zeppelin’s British and they drink tea like we drink coffee. She giggles like the school girl she is and turns red, red, red.
The Best Part
This happens every Easter. Before I can even get a good look at my chocolate bunny, the ears are gone.
Now that’s just wrong.
Of course absolutely no one admits to the crime, so after ears and years of this, I decided to set up a hidden camera to put this mystery to rest.
Warning: The images you are about to see are real and could severely damage perceptions of your childhood superhero. Dude.
First they snuck up on my poor-innocent-extra-long-eared chocolate rabbit.
Then they attacked with their precision tools.
Bastards!
My poor bunny looks on in horror as these smug mutant ninja thieves haul off with the best part.
I will get these ninja turtles if it is the last thing I do. Stay tuned for the car chase scene… Explosions are kept to a minimum in hopes for a safe return of the bunny ears.
For now, have a happy Easter.
Ruined
Fry’s is a gigantic electronics store in town that is a supergeek hangout. They have crazy weekly specials that get all the nerd boys and girls out their cubicles on Fridays.
Both my Blanes are Fry babys. Their faces light up at just the mention of the place. When Blane Jr. was still in school, I remember him waking at 5AM to go get the newspaper for their ad page. It was the craziest thing because he’s like me, he likes to stay up all night and sleep late.
The only time I go there is when we stop by on the way home from our favorite BBQ hole. Once in Fry’s, we’ll divide up and hit the aisles that interest us. I’m not sure where the others go, but I usually start by watching people’s faces as they play video games. Some stick their tongues out, some jump up and down when they win or lose, and some just sit there lifeless.
Another thing that interests me is the Apple aisle. I’m prepared by the time I get to it by repeating to myself, I’m not buying anything, I’m not buying, not buying… Not while Blane’s around, at least. He lets me splurge on things, but like he says, he doesn’t want to know about it. It’s just the way things are and I don’t abuse it too much.
Back to the Apple aisle. This is where I got my ears all jacked up. Ruined for life. Where I casually slipped on a pair of Dr. Dre’s headphones.
Now I have some great earphones, a pair of wireless Sennheiser’s I got some years back for my birthday. Top of the line stuff, you know, gift from Blane.
But those Dr. Dre headphones? It was a moment like in Wizard of Oz when the wicked witch gets smashed by the house and everything turns to color. Also a little bit like touching an electric fence and not being able to let go. I have never in my life heard music like that before and now I’m all messed up because I’m listening to craptastic sound without them.
I wish I’d never tried them. I’d rather not know what my ears are missing.
“You’ve had your fun, now pay for it!”
Remember the post about the time we went to Turkey, The Real Rulers of Istanbul...[are cats]?
In nearby Greece, it is The Dog.
They are everywhere. Some, very few, have collars. They are all friendly and healthy looking and very much a part of Athens as well as the one island we went to, Santorini.
They don’t bark or beg, we tried to feed one of them some leftover gyro, but he refused. I guess they get just as tired of them as we do.
We’d be walking around touring the place and a few would tag along, then they’d inch their way ahead of us as if to say, “Follow us, we’ll show you all the good stuff.
And we’d end up in a place like this…
…their favorite restaurant.
That’s pretty much how relaxed this trip was, just wander around and discover.
Going to the Greek Isle of Santorini (Thira) was like jumping into a post card rack. This was the first time I’d taken my digital SLR on a trip so I was pretty much smiling the entire time. Just about every minute on that island was a photo op. We were all smiling. Blane was happy because the dollar to euro was better than it’s been in years, Kara found a bunch of caves to discover, and Spanky got to see many of the things she learned about in her humanities class (but that was more in Athens).
Our hotel offered a free boat ride and volcano tour, something we thought for sure would be a let down. It being free, you know.
So when we got to the port (800 steps down a cliff, thank you treadmill) and we were sure this was our boat:
But it was this one.
Out on the water, I saw blues like I’d never seen before. Suck the breath out of you blue.
The beaches there are black sand from the volcano,
and I’m thinking that might be what gives the water that deep blue color.
On the way back from the port, we rode the donkeys back up the cliff.
Notice I’m wearing my coat. It was a little chilly, but not too bad.
At the top of the cliff we watched the sunset every evening.
Other days we drove around in our rental car.
Discovered all sorts of things.
Seaside villages…
And timeless looking things, such as this old donkey…
Notice the lack of tourists? The season didn’t start for about a month so we had the place to ourselves.
So. Perfect landscape, gorgeous blue waters, tourist free, no rain, no dogcatchers…
I told the girls it was all too good to be true, that any minute some guy would crack a whip at us and say, “You’ve had your fun, now pay for it!” and turn us into donkeys like in this scene in Pinnochio.
Then we got to talking about all the stray dogs and how they won’t eat gyros… and Spanky asked, “What kind of meat won’t a dog eat?”
DOG!
We were a little drunk that night. I had this little bottle of ouzo (a Greek liquor) in my backpack and Spanky had this hacking cough. It was late and all the drugstores were closed, so I thought, grampa’s cough syrup.
We all had a little of that.
After this part of the trip was over, we flew back to Athens where Sophia met us at the airport and escorted us to our hotel which was not too far from her house. Unfortunately one of her twins was ill, so we didn’t get to go out that night. The next day, Sophia met us at our hotel and escorted us back to the airport where we had some coffee and a long visit before catching our plane. What an amazing girl, that Sophia.
We didn’t turn to donkeys, but Blane, Spanky, and I ended up sick like dogs after we got home. Probably picked up some bug in the airport. We’re all better now and our fun has been paid in full.
Greece is the word
I’m sitting here looking over the photos from this trip and I don’t even have a clue as to which ones to put up here because I have never taken such a stunning set like this before.
I still can’t believe we’ve gone there and come back. It doesn’t even seem real. The entire thing was like a dreamscape.
Where to begin…
First, we went to Athens to see my friend Sophia whom I know from an online writer’s workshop. Sophia is a brilliant writer who never fails to make me laugh until I cry. It’s the strangest thing, I always knew I would end up meeting her. I’d only seen one or two photos of her, so I wasn’t sure if I would be able to spot her out from a crowd.
When we did meet, it was pouring down raining, a little chilly, and we’d just gotten off the train to her suburb. We’d forgotten our umbrellas at the hotel, but I had a cowboy hat over my head (I’d brought it as a gift for her husband) and Sophia spotted it, ran straight to me and engulfed me in one gigantic hug.
We all went to her house for the evening and her mom cooked us a big fat Greek dinner that was outrageously delicious. Her mother didn’t speak English, but she spoke French, so we were able to communicate just fine. It was the strangest thing, I felt as if I’d already met her mother a long time ago. I felt as if I’d met Sopia as well, but I’d “known” her for three years via the workshop.
Sophia’s husband speaks a lot more English than we expected and is a kind, hilarious, and amazing father. The twins were a riot, seven month-old little giggle babies! You just look at them and they explode in laughter. They are also the prettiest little girls in Greece.
One other thing we had to do in Athens was visit the Acropolis. It is beautiful at night with all the spotlights and is amazing up close during the daytime. Here are some architecture students from Germany studying the angles of one of the temples.
There are no straight lines in the columns of the Parthenon. It amazes me that the Greek architects of 2600 years ago knew that the human eye tends to warp straight lines, so they tapered the columns so that the eye would see them as straight.
Hell, I’m tired. I’ll do a Big Fat Greek post tomorrow with some pretty pictures, I swear. Blane has the flu or something and I feel as if I’m off my game as far as writing a blog post that is remotely entertaining and since Greece is so amazing, it deserves better than what I can deliver today.
Just want to let you all know I’m alive and well and back home.
I’ve got a couple of photos over on my Flickr page. Keep checking back there, I’ll try to put up a new one every day.
Dr. Lecter? Dr. Lecter?
I had a toothache that came on gradually then suddenly and had to have an emergency root canal today. My general dentist referred me out to this endodontist, an Irish guy who looks and sounds exactly like Anthony Hopkins.
Wait, no, hang on.
Anthony Hopkins.
That’s him!
Dude has to know it too. I do realize Hopkins has a beautiful Welsh accent, and Irish and Welsh are not the same, but to a scared Cajun?
I was laying there being all still for the xrays when he snuck in silently behind me. Out of nowhere his face is right there beside mine and his voice a few inches from my ear, “Hello.”
Just like Dr. Lector says it, but without the “Clarice.”
I am not exaggerating when I tell you I jumped six inches out of that chair.
Cause see, last night I tossed and turned all night trying not to think about how that guy would remind me of this once he put on his surgical mask:
Before he did that, I got them to run me a truck driver dose of Nitrous, which in the end made him seem more like a leprechaun than a liver/fava bean kinda guy (that shit is the The Shit, that laughing gas).
As I was leaving he asked me send him a post card. I asked him if he preferred Athens or Santorini and he said, “You’re not really going to send me a post card, everyone says they’re going to send me one and I never get any.”
I hardly ever send out postcards, but I will this time for one main reason. While he was working on my tooth he said, “I can see what’s causing your pain, I’m removing it right now.”
That’s magical to me.
Spring Break Neck
My kids are going to kill me for what I’ve done to their spring break.
A week from tomorrow we will be heading to Greece. A few days ago I scoured the internet looking for tickets that would get us to the Galapagos Islands and somehow ended up with tickets to Athens. Sorry, giant tortoise, maybe next time…
We wanted to go someplace warm but not a place where the spring break crowd would be (I speak for everyone but Kara who wants to be a part of that pack, but I have power over her for now). Someplace far, far, away. I was supposed to look for tickets a long time ago, but I don’t know, I don’t like planning things too far in advance. Or maybe I just don’t like committing to anything. I hope I never figure out the whys to that and remain flexible and open to stuff at the last minute until they lay my body into the ground. I thrive on that shit, new things coming at me really fast.
So hell yeah, Greece, let’s go.
I’ve got a buddy who lives there who I’ve been dying to meet, Sophia, a girl I met in Max’s online screenwriter’s group. It’s strange, I feel as if we’ve already actually met in person. It also seems as if she lives over in the next city, not on the other side of an ocean.
It’s a short trip, just one week (that is short for visiting Greece), but I am sort of looking at this thing as an intro. We’ll be in Athens for a couple of days, then head out to one of the islands. Funny thing, I didn’t book the Galapagos thing because it involved too many flights, but ended up with the same situation, too many flights. There are no straight flights to Athens from here, so we stop over in Amsterdam on the way there and back. Another flight to the islands. By the time this trip is done, we will have taken seven flights.
My kids are going to kill me.
Before that, though, we get to see this:
Man o man.
See, if I’d booked this three months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night waiting for this trip.
I love my life. Even if my kids are gonna kill me.
