Lead Vase of Death...

Perfect Bludgeoning Instrument

So he found it.  He found the note that said "crystal vase for bludgeoning."  He gave me an odd look.  It made perfect sense when I wrote it down.  I was putting away the vase after having washed the residue from Rissa's dance recital flowers from its sides.  This vase had some great heft.  Like the  "you have to use two hands to carry the sucker"  heft.  It immediately struck me (HAH!) that this vase was made for bludgeoning.  (Add your own Nancy Sinatra in the background here.)

The only problem is, that it sits in our butler's pantry and would be a hard go-to item if, say, an intruder came into your home and you were looking for something with which to whack them.  You'd have to run to the small butler's pantry hall, (way too small a space to be trapped with an intruder), you'd have to open the cupboard, reach to the back of the top shelf for it.


Same thing with kitchen knives.  We don't keep ours out in the open with a knife block - they're in a drawer - all the way back in the kitchen.  Sure, lots of space around you, but it's a straight run from the living/family rooms - the intruder might well catch you before you get to the knives.

That's why most people go for the fireplace pokers.

Old Standby

You don't have to open a cupboard - you're in the living room which is a more open space.  Lots of room to swing a weapon.  Much better all-around choice, but frankly, without the panache of a beautiful crystal vase.

Plus?  Bludgeoning gives you a certain 80s nighttime soap grandness to the event.  Ideally, you'd want to run upstairs and throw on a Nolan Miller gown, but expediency is probably best in a home-invasion situation.

Chawing on one's neck...

Yesterday, before heading into the backyard to weed everything that had the sheer mendacity to raise its head beyond the mulch, I sprayed my entire body with citronella.  Every inch.  And then, as a mosquito sexually assaulted me - sticking its nasty proboscis INTO my jaw - I realized - FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY!  I DIDN'T DO MY FACE!!!!  My hair, my neck, arms, torso, ass, thighs, calves and ankles - especially the ankles.  Wouldn't you figure that the fog from that amount of citronella would dissuade those frickin' vampires?

And how is it possible that the same word used to describe the feeding mechanism for ethereal butterflies...

is the same word used for the stabbing, blood-sucking noses of these scourge of the outdoors - mosquitoes. 

How about this?  WE KILL THEM ALL!   And yes, I am aware that mosquitoes feed bats and spiders and any other number of animals up the food chain.  But now, as I must use every ounce of will within me NOT to scratch deep to the very bone of my jaw,  I DON'T care.  KILL THEM ALL!  Yes, I am ready to willfully cause an eco-disaster of epic proportions - that will have ramifications for our entire planet - perhaps our very solar system, but you know what, right now, I DON'T care.  By the time that happens, I'll probably be dead, Rissa and maybe my grandchildren will be dead, so it'll be someone else's problem.  The food chain adapts all the time.  I'm going to start carrying a placard: "MURDER MOSQUITOES - PROTECT PEOPLE"

I can't scratch it.  If I scratch it I will end up looking like a scabby small pox survivor.   Maybe if I just scratch around it...

It's possible I might be tired. Up early so that I could braid Rissa's hair for her track meet.   I staggered into the bathroom to help her and then crashed back into my bed, but had six notes of a song in my head.   And you know why?  Because in the bathroom, while braiding her hair, this happened:

Rissa; I really didn't like the bit they did for the Tony Awards from Jesus Christ Superstar (yes our daughter is a huge musical theatre geek- just like her parents)

Me: No?

Rissa:  The Judas guy was all wrong.  I needed to get the right song in my head.  So I went to You Tube looking for the Original Cast Album of the song, but couldn't find it.  It just kept giving me clips from the movie and that Judas was wrong too.

Me: That's because Carl Anderson is good, but he's not Murray Head.

Rissa:   No!  Not that guy either.  The guy from the Australian recording.

Me:  You and I will have to agree to disagree on that one Riss.

Rissa:  I know!! I know!!  But I went to our music collection and listened to Superstar on the computer and then because I was there I had to listen to the key change at the beginning of Chess - you know the one?  "Ba ba bum bum, ba ba bum... ba ba bum bum bum... SRO...  S...R...O...!"

She then goes blithely off, and I'm lying in bed with "SRO... S...R...O....!!!" careening through my head.  ARGH!!!  You might wonder what SRO even means.  It means Standing Room Only.  I only knew that's what they were singing, having listened to the original album of Chess for 2 decades, after seeing the recent concert version with Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal and that dude... oh God - I hate when I have those moments of early-onset Alzheimer's.  You know the guy...  curly hair, bit of a...   HAH!  Josh Grobin!  HAH!  And DOUBLE HAH!  I didn't have to Google it.

That's why!  It's freakin' Google that is giving me early onset Alzheimer's.  No one has to remember ANYHING because you can just Google it.  I used to be able to remember all sorts of useless trivia.  Names, lyrics, dates when things were published.  I don't have to anymore because of Google.  Google is encouraging generations upon generations to lose the trivial parts of their brain.  Fight the power people!  Work through the pain and remember shit on your own!

Waking up to Tom Sawyer

Most mornings, after the radio sounds - my mind remains muzzy.  It is warm and comfortable, clinging to precious unconsciousness.  Today... playing at approximately 6:45 a.m. on Jazz 91.1... today I discovered The Lost Fingers' cover of Tom Sawyer.  Yes THAT Tom Sawyer.  The one by Rush.  As a 1930's style gypsy jazz tune.

http:/www.thelostfingers.com/disco/

I'm not saying that my life will be forever altered, but my day certainly has been.  I will be going to ITunes and purchasing at least one of their albums - Lost in the 80s is looking to be top of my list, although Gypsy Kameleon is pulling  a close 2nd.  Usually David whacks the snooze button immediately - or maybe I've been sleeping more soundly lately, but this morning had me leaping from the bed on a veritable quest to discover who had done this mind-blowing cover.

And you know something?  You can't get through to Jazz 91.1 until 9:00 a.m.  WHAT THE WHAT??  I KNOW there are people in that building - I was LISTENING to them on the radio - but I can't ask the producer who did the song.  There are those of you who are shaking their heads - why didn't she look at the playlist?  I DID!  I looked at the stupid playlist and it made no mention of ANY band playing a fabulous version of Tom Sawyer.  It goes from 6:34:56 Benny Green - Opus de Funk to 6:48:52 Scott Hamilton - Swingin' Till the Girls Come Home.  A blank spot where I NEEDED to know the band.  So I went to YouTube searching for "Tom Sawyer Jazz Version."  That led me to a cool jazz trio, The Bad Plus, that played an instrumental of it.  But NOT the version I had heard mere minutes before.  I had to hunt for a good 7-9 minutes before I found the Lost Fingers' cover.  Then I did a little happy dance in my rolly desk chair.

I love, I mean, ABSOLUTELY FREAKING ADORE, finding new cool music.  I admit, my tastes run from the sublime to the ridiculous - this being sublimely ridiculous in the tastiest way possible.  I love bad lounge music - swing - torch songs... I know that part of me must have been from an earlier era.  But I also love alternative and prog rock and classic rock and classical and Philip Glass, the Violent Femmes and Nina Simone.  I like tasty things.  Music with bite or humour or that extra kick to the gut when you listen to it.  Affecting Art.  Inventive Theatre.  Film that surprises.  This morning - waking to this song was surprising in the best possible way.  Thank you The Lost Fingers - you really made my day!

Listen to your body...

Last night we went over to our fabulous neighbours' place for dinner.  Kaye holds the title for  BEST COOK I KNOW.  For the longest time my Mom held the title hands down, but Kaye is a beast when it comes to cooking.  We had this appetizer that was 1/2 an avocado with crab salad inside it. I am a cooking neophyte in comparison to her. 

Way prettier than any appetizer I will ever serve.

Food was great, company was great, conversation was great, 1st glass of wine was great. The other THREE glasses of wine is where it begins to go wrong.  No one else was drinking white.  When Kaye had asked if we liked seafood, I thought the main course was seafood - not the incredible sirloin that we ate - so I got a nice bottle of Soave for everyone.  But then I was really the only one to drink it - because I felt kind of obligated - they're not really white wine drinkers.  I was being a good guest.  Over the course of 4 hours drinking several glasses of wine isn't really a problem.  I wasn't drunk - I was pleasantly toddled.  But unfortunately when that happens, my taste buds think it's time to eat again.  So those BBQ chips that were on the counter?  Somehow managed to end up in my tummy.  Before going to bed the sodium and booze in my system convinced me to drink lots and lots of water.  I took a couple of prophylactic Tylenols - cause I thought to myself "You might be thinker than you drunk you are."  Crashed and slept straight through to 7:00 a.m.  

Whereupon I awoke with a blinding headache and hot flashes.  Weather system shift, plus too much alcohol in my system = BAD.  Jet engine through my torso and ocular migraine.  Alcohol and caffeine are bad for peri-menopausal women.  I KNOW THAT!  I should have brought over a bottle  of sparkling water or at least held onto my wine glass so that they couldn't keep filling it up.  

It's just that wine tastes so good with good food.  Doesn't it?  And sparkling water is for pussies.  But I made David promise this morning that FROM NOW ON I should only have one drink.  ONLY ONE... ONLY ONE... and not for any hangover stupidity, but rather the frickin' hot flashes.  Dumb, dumb bunny.

That's the good thing about being older.  I'll remember this shit now.  I want to avoid aftermath.  I can learn from my mistakes.  Can't I?

The Perils of Florence...

I slept in this morning.  All the way to 6:00 a.m. before bodily urges had me rising.  Still warm and sleepy, I attempted to crawl back into my toasty bed, snuggled next to my husband but was foiled by  Florence.

No, I thought.  No!  You're going back to sleep!  You still have half an hour!  You can do this!   Don't let her in!  You're sleepy.  You haven't had caffeine yet!

Too late!  There she was - singing gleefully - my first coherent thought of the day.

You hit me once

I hit you back

You gave a kick

I gave a slap

You smashed a plate over my head

Then I set fire to our bed

Oh, this song.  This mind-worm of a song.  With its 2:04 of power and fury - signifying...   what?  Rissa and I sing this in the car.  At the top of our lungs (HAH!) as David generally looks on in horror.  Not at our singing, but rather, the lyrics we are so joyfully sharing, windows down, with passers by.  Every time I belt the words, my subtext - beyond the initial layer of - THIS SONG FREAKING ROCKS!!! - is - "It's sung ironically.  Please God, let her have recorded this song in an utter state of irony."  'Cause when this song grabs hold of you - of your very ovaries - it won't let go.  It's girl pop thrash at its best - a great hook  that you can't help growl out with Florence.  A song that demands you sing along, smiling and cackling at its fantasticness.

Yet it was only this morning that I actually researched the song - released in 2008 - but new to me since I had given it to Rissa in 2010 to encourage the female rock empowerment phase that all young girls need to go through.  Imagine my relief when I read that, no it wasn't, in fact, about a physically abusive relationship.

"Kiss with a Fist" is NOT a song about domestic violence. It is about two people pushing each other to psychological extremes because they are fighting but they still love each other. The song is not about one person being attacked, or any actual physical violence, there are no victims in this song. Sometimes the love two people have for each other is a destructive force. But they can't have it any other way, because it's what holds them together, they enjoy the drama and pushing each other's buttons. The only way to express these extreme emotions is with extreme imagery, all of which is fantasism and nothing in the song is based on reality. Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love isn't actually about her bleeding and this song isn't actually about punching someone in the mouth." (Florence's My Space Blog)

Oh thank God!  I don't even have to sing it with irony!  I can sing it embracing its expression of all-consuming passionate love!!  Nay, reveling in that!  I'll be able to explain when my 12 year old daughter shares it with friends.  I can point the horrified parents to the quotation and not be turned into a feminist pariah.  Phew!  That's a load off my mind.

Now that that's settled, I can I work out my burlesque cabaret number to Florence's cover of the Ludes' Girl with One Eye - such a tasty bit of Kill Bill-esque imagery - blatantly encouraging me to raise the eyebrows of our small town theatre-goers.  Oh there's a thought to bring a smile to a girl's face!