There’s a She Wolf In The Closet

 So goes the new song by Shakira. (And if you haven’t seen the video, I have included it below because it is  hotter than a  hootchie’s cootchie–the girl  can move, dayum!)

Anyhoo, this isn’t going to be a missive on how we all have a she wolf in the closet (and who among us doesn’t have an inner freak that needs to be let loose sometimes??). It’s a vocabulary lesson, and you will feel so much smarter having learned this, I am certain of it.

As I do whenever a song catches my fancy (or, as those who ride often in the car with me will attest, when a song comes along that I will PLAY TO DEATH) I look up the lyrics. And I was surprised by a word in the lyrics to She Wolf.

“A domesticated girl that’s all you ask of me

Darling it’s no joke, this is LYCANTHROPY…”

What on Earth is lycanthropy and why is such a multi-syllabic word in a Shakira song? This is the question that raced through my mind, and is no doubt racing through yours as well.

Well…I always strive to give everyone their click worth, so I found out.

lycanthropy:

1. In folklore, the magical ability to assume the form and characteristics of a wolf.
2. A delusion that one has become or assumed the characteristics of a wolf or other animal.

Now there, don’t you feel smarter?

Monday Morning Mish Mash

1. A few weeks ago, I remarked to someone that I had never been called for jury duty. Well, I jinxed myself, because the summons came a few weeks ago. I’ve always thought it would be neat to serve on a jury, but I had in mind the sort where I might be sequestered in at least a three star hotel during a trial that garnered enough attention that I could at least appear on Regis and Kelly if not Oprah once it was all said and done. But, this was county magistrate court, so my expectations were low.

So this morning I drove the nearly one hour to the county seat. Circled the block aimlessly for ten minutes trying to find 107 South Main (which, naturally, was actually a block OFF Main Street, behind 101 South Main, because that is how streets are done here), sat in a waiting area that had not seen updating since Three’s Company went off the air, and was hustled into a court room where juries were to be selected for five different trials. Now, they didn’t tell us what KIND of trials these were, but I suspect most of them were car accidents and small offenses. Several litigants were representing themselves, one didn’t bother to show up, and one theatrically braced at her neck as if to convince us all that she was truly suffering. After a dozen or so folks plead that serving might be some sort of hardship, the rest of us had to stand and introduce ourselves, giving our line of work, and where applicable, our spouse’s occupation as well. Twice I was called as a potential, and twice the plaintiffs asked the judge to seat me. And twice the defense attorneys asked him to excuse me. When the fifth trial was called (The Case of Ms. Neck Brace), the two attorneys present asked to approach the bench and informed His Honor that they had settled. I was free to go!

2. I had a very lazy weekend. Slept in every day, which I have not done in a long time. I can’t shake this feeling of constant fatigue the past few weeks,  but a couple nights of double-digit hours of sleep sure helped.

3. Last week was my birthday, and it kinda sucked this year. Honey was on a boat. Most of my friends who I could normally count on to show me a good time were predisposed. So I worked. Then I came home and made myself a filet mignon and a big salad and defrosted a cheesecake over which I sang myself “Happy Birthday.” Then I took a Tylenol PM and went to bed before the news was even over. But I did get some loot in the mail (and flowers from Honey) so I went shopping on Saturday, bought two pairs of pants and a new sweater at a “Buy Two Sale Items, get The Third One Free” sale. Now, anyone who has been shopping with me knows that I only purchase on sale, so it was a bargain meant for me.

4. I indulged in some of my only can’t miss shows last night—Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters both had their season premieres! Does anyone else watch those? Brothers and Sisters in particular works my nerves–for a family that talks and shares and ushes and gushes as much as they do, they sure have a lot of dysfunction and get their feelings hurt awfully easily. Though I did love the cameo of Nora’s mother played by the lady who we know best as Miriam Cunningham from Happy Days. Hysterical when she went on about Nora’s late husband’s bottle blond bimbo when she was sitting right in front of her. As for Desperate Housewives, I’m already wondering what the new family on the block’s big secret is, and who attempted to murder Julie could be any number of people at this point…I guess Ill have to tune in next week.

Dream House, Take 48

You all might recall that a few months ago I shared that I am constantly working on my own dream house. I think I have drawn about one a year since I was 12. These have ranged from 20,000 square foot mansions with indoor bowling alleys and swimming pools to what I am going to show you today, the most modest dream house yet. And the only one that I ever have a chance of being able to afford.

I used to design these dream houses with reckless abandon…no thought to affordability or practicality. But then a few years ago, I attempted to make them somewhat attainable. Tried to make each room just as large as it needed to be, and only include the rooms that we might really use. The theme has been constant for these past several “Dream House” versions–a house designed to look old, fit into an older, established neighborhood, and all have something of an English Country or Tudor influence.

Here’s the front elevation:

The exterior is a mix of stone and brick (I imagine using reclaimed brick to make the house look older) with some diamond-paned accent windows, and half timbering in the gables. The scale of the house is purposefully smaller and cottage-like.

The Main Floor Plan:

A small foyer is flanked by a library with built in bookshelves and the great room. The great room ceiling is vaulted with wooden beams and a cast stone fireplace. While the kitchen and dining room are open to the great room, the different ceiling treatments in each room allow each of them to have it’s own identity. The dining room is anchored by built in china cabinets. A small screened porch opens off of the spaces, and the kitchen opens to the rear yard. (Which I envision as being a walled courtyard with a small pool).

Connecting back to the garage are a hallway lined with built ins, stairs to the second level, and laundry and powder rooms. The remainder of the first floor is home to the master suite–a comfortably sized bedroom with vaulted ceiling, a pair of walk in closets, and a bathroom with walk in multi-head shower. The bedroom accesses a private patio with an outdoor shower–a feature I LOVED at a beach house we spent several summers at.

The Upper Floor:

Upstairs, there is a small den with office space at one end and a home theatre for two at the other. (Home to som big ole recliners, a piece of furniture that I do not believe belongs ANYWHERE in a respectable house, but I suppose a couple could find a home in this room).

Over the garage, a small but functional guest suite, and on the other end of the den, another bedroom and bath. The remainder of the second floor is given over for attic storage or future expansion, bringing the whole house to a comfortable 2700 square feet.

Monday Morning Mish Mash

1. I called in sick today. I woke up feeling awful. (And, no, it is not residual damage from Saturday night, because I felt fine yesterday afternoon.) I got up, took a shower, had a cup of coffee and decided I just was not going to be able to go to the office today. So I laid back down to watch the Today show, and before I knew it I was asleep. And I woke up at NOON. A total of 15 hours of sleep last night. I hope it’s not the pig flu.

2. As I type this, Honey is on a boat floating around the Caribbean. At the beginning of the year, a friend who lives in Florida and who cruises frequently, invited us along on a six night cruise that was one helluva deal. I waxed and waned on whether to go, and finally told Honey to go without me. Now I am green with envy because as I sit at home, sick, in the rain, Honey is at port in Key West sipping Bloody Marys.

3. My little brother thinks he is hilarious. You call him, and the phone will ring a few times, and then you hear “Hey”, of course you respond, and then you hear him say “what’s going on?” or “how ya doing?” or something. Of course, you respond again. Finally, you hear “Just kidding, you’ve got my voicemail.” BEEP. And my stupid ass falls for it everytime.

4. I’ve managed, somehow, to drop a few pounds the past few months. The scale confirms this, but looking in the mirror, I can’t tell so much. But, apparently, I should have turned around because all the pounds have fallen off of my ass. How do I know this? I stepped up to the toilet the other day to answer nature’s call. Unzip, unbutton, and start the stream. And BAM my pants fall completely to the floor. So my workout routine has got to include some glute exercises (for all you ipod and iphone folks, there’s a great cheap app called “ifitness” that has record keeping logs, suggested workouts, etc. that I recommend)

A Night of Debauchery

As I sit here, eating the sort of greasy food that is only acceptable when you have a hangover, I’m trying to piece together what exactly I did last night. I had plans to go have dinner with a friend, and we decided to stop off and have a drink on the way back to the car. We ran into more friends there, and badda bing badda boom, it’s 5:30 AM and I’m stumbling into the house. Such nights usually come back to me in embarassing fragments such as these later on: (names omitted to protect the guilty, and because, frankly, I can’t recall who said what)

Person One: “I don’t think I should leave my car here.”

Person Two: (to the man checking IDs at the club) “It’s safe to leave a car here overnight isnt it?”

ID Checker: “Honestly, no. We’ve had a break in every night.”

Person Two: (to person one) “Oh just leave it, it’s less hassle than a DUI.”

 “Oh my God, see that guy in the black shirt? I hooked up with him the last time I went out!”

“Um, you went out last night.”

“I know! Can you believe he is with another girl tonight?? I mean, we were having breakfast this morning.”

“Did we just pay a cover to come in here? I’ve had more people over for dinner…”

“The FIDDLER?? OH! I thought we were at the PEDDLER and could just not imagine coming here for a steak.”

“Do you really think I care about seeing some vagina??”

“Is that a real woman?”

“I just threw up in the bathroom.”

To the cab driver: “Would you like an omelette?”

“I just saw his penis. Not worth mentioning.”

 

Six Phone Calls and Counting

That’s how many time my crazy mama has dialed my phone this week and had the same conversation with me.

“I gotta come up with $79.11 by Wednesday (Winz-dee) or they’re gonna cut my power off.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What had happened was I went crazy with the life insurance. But I figure you’re my only child and I don’t ever want you to have to worry like I do. I’m worth more to you dead than alive now. You’d never have to work again.”

“Stop saying that.”

“But all I need is $70 some dollars, and I’ve called everybody I know, and ain’t nobody got a dime! These people up here are only out for themselves.”

“Well, we all have to take care of ourselves Mom.”

“But I got that policy for you so you could be comfortable. That shows I’m a caring person.”

“I know you are.”

“They’d let me pay it on the computer with my account number. They’ll take a credit card or an online check.”

“I pay most of my bills online now, it’s convenient.”

“But I gotta have $79.11 to do it!”

“I know the feeling.”

“You got any extra money?”

“Sure don’t.”

“Well, when I’m dead and gone you will.”

“I gotta get back to work, talk to you later.”

Monday Morning Mish-Mash

1. So I didn’t watch the VMAs last night but I have seen the clips of Kanye West’s  outburst during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech, and just have to wonder what in hell he was thinking? Was it all some planned publicity stunt? Or is he really that classless?? When Beyonce invited Taylor onstage, there was something that seemed a bit planned about the whole thing, but who knows? What a shit show…

2. And speaking of shit shows, we spent Saturday night at a birthday bar crawl. At the last stop, our group was accosted by the very definition of a drunk, obnoxious bitch. She stopped by our booth to drop off her shoes and handbag so she could dance. None of us had ever seen this woman in our lives. Then she was back a few moments later, having been told by management that she couldn’t be on the dancefloor barefoot. She then slobbered all over every guy at the table, begging for drinks to be purchased for her while she produced her ID to prove her age (38) and that she was in fact a military spouse (her husband, bless him, is serving in Iraq). She regaled us with a tale of how she was in town for her 20th high school reunion and had apparently drank away any vestiges of self respect she had, since she would prod “Just how married are you?” when some the guys at my table tried to tell her “thanks but no thanks”. One by one, we all took our leave of her, and a half hour later she had some guy pinned against the wall near the bar (Keep in mind, this is NOT that kinda nightclub) making out with him. Right by the bar, right by the hallway to the restrooms, and right by the passage to the dance floor. She could NOT have been in a more visible place as she removed her breasts from her dress and he was sitting there chewing on them. People were jaws-dropped staring, pulling out camera phones and blackberries. This poor dumb tramp was no doubt all over facebook and the interwebs before she even sobered up. I just kept thinking, her poor husband.

3. The past couple weeks we have been cleaning out the study, shredding and filing–a task LOOOOOONG overdue. But what a little trip down memory lane going through old statements can be. Found the check for the closing costs on the house, a car I bought ten years ago, receipts for the surprise party I threw for Honey’s 30th birthday(which is a tale worth telling sometime), etc. etc.

4. Mama called this morning. “Aren’t you starting a job today?” I asked. “No, that’s next week.” she said. Which means, as I suspected, NEVER. She has a habit of fabricating jobs, dates, and  the like. “I got rid of Doug.” she reported. She gets rid of  him as often as I get rid of the trash, but just like the bags I set by the curb, he’s back again the next week. “And I went a little crazy with the insurance and now I don’t know how I’ll pay the power bill, but I’m worth more to ya dead than alive now.” I don’t know what that means, I can’t imagine anyone giving her a life insurance policy.

5. Yesterday was the end of pool season. Right now, the pool guy is probably putting in the winter chemicals and dragging the cover out of storage. So ends another summer, and I have to ask, “Where the heck did it go?” This whole  year seems to have sped by way too fast.

6. I got my car back from the shop late Friday. The rental they gave me was nice, as rentals go, but HUGE. It barely fit in my garage, and I had to perform some advanced yoga techniques to squeeze between it’s hood and the shelves to get in the house. The body shop called on Thursday to say they found some “damage that looks like someone ran her over a curb” while they were repairing the peeling paint. I don’t recall ever hitting a curb, but whatever. Apparently fixing the tiny little peeling spot required the removal of half the front end of the car, which explains why it took three days.

Conversations With Mother

The title is misleading, of course, because “conversation” indicates some back and forth, and usually when my crazy mama calls it’s an awful lot of her yacking while I uncomfortably mumble “mmm hmmm” and look for an excuse to hang up.

“I just got the biggest kiss of my life from Dr. Portero” Dr. Portero, I recall, was my sister’s pediatrician.

“Oh?”

“Yes! I’d gone to the gynecologist and he left a note there for me to come over and see him. He’s in that same complex.”

“He said he was so sorry to hear we had lost your sister and he had tried to call me and came down the street he thought I lived on.”

“Strange…” I said, and thought to myself, “probably untrue”

“Anyway, I’ve got a job now! Part time working with him, half days starting Monday!”

“That’s great!” I said, placing an internal bet with myself that she would never even start this imaginary job.

“And I’m gonna fuck his brains out!”

“Jesus!”

“He said he would take me wherever I wanted to go! Even to Armenia!” (I’m hoping that Armenia is Dr. Portero’s home country and not Mom’s idea of a trip abroad)

“Lovely…”

“And his dick was so hard you could break bricks with it! I felt it when he kissed…”

“Ugh..I’ve gotta go.”

“Ok honey, mama loves you!”

A Little Mid-Week Mish-Mash

1. Yeah, yeah. I know. 20 lashes with the bad blogger belt for me. It’s been one of those months…but things are looking up.

2. Honey and I got away this weekend for some much-needed “us” time in the North Carolina mountains. We did some hiking, toured the NC Arboretum, and tried out a few new restaurants. It was a great way to end the summer! Asheville, NC was having a street festival on Sunday that we had the opportunity to walk through. Strange and wonderful place, Asheville–as the picture above from the street fair demonstrates. We had an incredible dinner in an old art-deco building that  had once been an S and W cafeteria.  The service left a little to be desired (think SLOW), but they made up for it by giving us a free ahi tuna appetizer. The steaks we had were cooked and seasoned to perfection and may have been the best I’ve ever had. If you are ever in Asheville, check that place out.

3. I’m driving a rental car this week. As my own car neared the end of its warranty, I had the dealership take note of a teensy tiny place just south of the headlight where the paint was beginning to peel. I just wanted to make sure that they knew it had started IN warranty so if it got worse they would fix it. Well, they insisted on going ahead and repainting the bumper (fine by me, as I’ve accumulated a couple of rock chips over the past two years). Now, in the past, I’ve gotten awful rental cars–giant minivans and miniature Chevrolets. But this time they gave me a 2009 Honda Accord, which isn’t half bad. For some reason, it will take three days to repair what amounts to a peeling area the size of a toothpick. My family jokes (or maybe it’s not a joke) that the dealership must celebrate when my warranty runs out because I am up in there for every little thing. Well, sorry, but I am not going to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a car only to have it rattle, malfunction, and peel.

4. My office complex is getting a new sprinkler system. We’re not a large complex–I think six small buildings. But somehow they have been working on this sprinkler system for three weeks now, which reduces the grounds to a dusty mess. But the installation crew had the bright idea of leaf blowing all of the dirt off the sidewalks and parking areas yesterday. I walked out of the office and felt like I was in the midst of the Dust Bowl. I’m not kidding, I thought I was going to  have to yank out my contacts and drive home blind.

5. Can someone explain the ballyhoo over the speech the Prez gave to school kids? I’ve read the synopsis and there hardly seems to be anything in there that anyone would object to. Just more of the usual partisan panties in a wad?

6. Now, I know everyone has been on pins and needles wondering what my crazy mother has been up to. Not much other than repeating herself (if I have to hear one more time how she has gotten herself down to just one valium a day, I will scream!). But she has apparently discovered the joys of a good wine cooler/box of wine/Boone’s Farm because she called and left two “tipsy” messages over the weekend, including one in which she sang a good bit of an old Mac Davis song to me. (the sentiment would be sweet, I suppose, if she weren’t tanked):

There he sits with a pen and a yellow pad
What a handsome lad
That’s my boy
BRLFQ spells mom and dad
But that ain’t too bad
That’s my boy
You can have your TV and you nightclubs
And you can have your drive in picture show
I’ll stay here with my little man near
We’ll listen to the radio
Biding my time and
Watching Scotty grow
Making a castle out of building blocks
And a cardboard box
That’s my boy
Mickey Mouse says it’s thirteen o’clock
Well that’s quite a shock!
That’s my boy
In four short years
I’ve gone from rags to riches
And what I did before that I don’t know
So let it rain on my windowpane
I got my own rainbow
And we’re sitting here shining
Watching Scotty grow
Riding on daddy’s shoulders off to bed
Old sleepy head
That’s my boy
Got to have a drink of water and a story read
A teddy bear named Fred
That’s my boy
What’s that you say momma
Come on and keep you feet warm
Well save me a place
I’ll be there in a minute or so
I’ll think I’ll stay right here and
Say a little prayer before I go
Me and God
Watching Scotty grow
Me and God
Watching Scotty grow…

For Your Viewing Pleasure

While I take off a little more time…I give you the following site which I am certain you can relate to:

THE PEOPLE OF WAL MART.