SexBomb, Kiss, and Tom Jones I Miss you!!!

A little shenanigans at work today reminded me of Tom Jones's version of "Kiss" by Prince. Nothing makes me feel 16 again faster than that voice. If you knew me at 16you'd never imagine that smoldering inside that dumpy kid with the bad bangs, long hair and home sewn (by me, naturally) clothing, lived a...well...a sexbomb. At sixteen I didn't know what it was exactly, but I sure recognized it when I saw it. The boys at Prattville High School just never looked beyond the surface. Too bad!

Unfortunately I can't find a good YouTube of Kiss, but I did find this.

Niiiiiiice...

What fresh hell is this?

My biorhythms must be off. Or the world's tilting funny on its axis. Maybe both. Our washer broke. The truck died (ok, I helped a little by leaving the door ajar). My neighbor called me about her television being all in Spanish. The dog's got a bad tooth and howls all the time. There's a woodpecker pecking on our house.

Yes, you read that right. Each morning at 5:30 am a bird begins hammering on the front of my house. At first, I thought it was a bird trapped in the attic but upon further investigation the sound was coming from the outside. As I exited the front door, the varmit flew off into a tree, thus ending his morning repartee. Not witty, mind you, at least not to me.

The dog has just come off her 5:30 am rotation of whining loudly at the backdoor and has been replaced by this new hell on wings.

If you think you're in control of anything, guess again. The universe is out to get you.

I've had it for today.

So I'm turning on my multipurpose, automated response system. If you don't find a response suited to your particular situation, please hang up and try again.

Gone Fishing! If you'd like to leave a message please hang up. For obsessive compulsive disorder press one repeatedly. The check is in the mail. I'll respect you in the morning. I didn't mean/say/do/inhale that. It just needs some oil. It looks fine in Firefox. That's one pixel off. Go to the Post Office and get that letter back. Just scrape the burned part off. I'm finished except for a few things. They're half your kids too. It was ok yesterday. It stopped making that noise now. She's got a bladder infection again. I'll put the mail on my back porch. I don't want any Amish Friendship Bread starter. I *swear* that door was locked. No, you can't have the car. I don't care if he/she's engaged to a loser/a bitch/sassing you/stupid/moody/uncooperative/having unnecessary surgery/living with the opposite sex without benefit of marriage/eating all the ice cream/peeing on the rug/coughing like a TB patient/shedding hair in the bathroom/leaving ice to melt on the floor after it shoots out of the ice maker/unable to find a ride. My cell phone is dead. This cell phone number is not a fax number. Maybe next payday. I don't do business with telemarketers/participate in surveys/want to save money. Yes it's very hot today. Yes this is a bad time. We're eating dinner right now. It will be done in 15 minutes.

Two Friends, that's not so bad.

Leave it to Garrison Keillor to stay current.

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2008/05/10/scripts/mom.shtml

Ten Things I Learned From My Mother

My mother died in 2001, and my mother-in-law in 1998.

Mother's Day is next month, but there are no cards to buy or presents to choose for the mothers in my life. No fretful shopping for yet another nightgown, necklace, bauble or trinket. No coffee cup emblazoned "World's Best Mom", no corsage to wear to church, no FTD bouquet to send. The time for that has passed.

Yet,ever mindful of the commandment "Honor your father and mother", I try to find a way to each year to honor my mom...who left bits and pieces of herself embedded in my psyche, both good and bad. Some of it is pure heartbreak, some is warm and fuzzy, some plain funny. There's some stuff I can never hope to understand.

We never seemed to speak the same language. But just as you would be tolerant of someone from another culture whose language you do not speak, just as you would invent ways to communicate and make yourself understood, just as you would not criticize them for their difference, I honor her best qualities and recognize the efforts she went to to relate to me. She was somebody before she became my mother. It wasn't all about me.

That being said, here are Ten Things I Learned from My Mother.

1) Always UNPLUG the iron (don't just turn it off).
2) Just because YOU dislike it, doesn't mean it's bad for your kids.
3) Old dogs are worth caring for.
4) You can do more than you think, with less than you want.
5) Getting out of the house is important.
6) Staying home sometimes is important too.
7) The best decoration for your wall is pictures of the people you love.
8) Sometimes the truth is simply what two people agree upon.
9) Don't spend the whole week's lunch money in one day.
10) Don't try to make the whole trip in one day.

Elliott Yamin sang on American Idol tonight and in the palm of his hand was written "We Miss You Mom."

So true.

Sloopy lives in very bad part of town.

Did you know that "Hang on Sloopy"...the world's coolest song...is the state ROCK song of Ohio?

Last Sunday night I gleaned this bit of information from the PBS presentation of music from the 60's. (Sorry I don't remember the real title...just the graphic of swirly 6's and daisy-petal flowers.) It was actually a house resolution that was passed.

"Whereas, Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town..."

Enjoy this article.

And, doin'my part for YouTube to appear on every blog out there...here's a video.

Startled Dinosaur

Crunch, Crunch. I love the unicorn, who appears to be poking the dinosaur in the thigh. My daughter drew me a unicorn in 3rd grade, and misspelled it "Unicron". Which is ironic, yes? Unicron = One Time.

Heh heh. We dinosaurs love our irony. Crunch, Crunch.

Hey Teapot: SHUT UP ALREADY

NPR landed an email in my inbox today that I read with great interest, though little surprise.

If you know me, you know I have a great, big, honking soapbox about overscheduled children, the overcommercialization of children, Disney-fying everything from dalmations to candlesticks, and ruining young girls hope for happiness with the prince-on-a-white-horse syndrome.

There's too much shouting at children, and they can't hear themselves think nor talk to themselves. Too many toys clamoring for attention. Too many fantasies whirling about in TV land asking to be acted on. Add to that the fact that kids seldom get told "no" and therefore never learn how to say it for themselves or divide fact from fiction and you've got a ton of trouble. When was the last time you looked a kid in the eye, and said "Hey. Look at me when I'm talking to you."

Now, I read that I was right all along. Disney's Mickey Mouse Club, albeit a fun, happy thing, launched a landslide toward the mind control of children that has resulted in kids who don't know who they are. Because they don't talk to themselves, they can't hear themselves and they can't control themselves. They have no executive function.

NPR says it better than me, but what I've always believed is that there is nothing wrong with talking to yourself.

If you believe "To thine own self be true", you've got to know who that self is. And if you can't hear yourself think; indeed if you can't think for yourself at all, you'll never find truth in your life.

Get an old stick. Go play in the backyard before it's too late.

There's no such thing as a talking candlestick.

Retro Sighting

Those of us in the corporate world have had all the soul cast out of us by The Legal Department, or HR, or some other PC police department. It's very much like an exorcism. If you're caught speaking ANYTHING that was ok in the seventies (Watch "That Seventies Show" if you need a refresher course in what not to say) you can rest assured that local HR priests will appear, place their hands on your head and shout "DID YOU WATCH THE HARRASSMENT VIDEO?" Thereupon you will have earned your rep and it's a hard one to shake.

Yesterday, I couldn't help but smile when I visited the local hospital's oupatient surgery dept. Although they too have had large chunks of soul removed, their rules are mostly about forms and paperwork and HIPPA, which it seems a poor sick individual must face at least once a year for any possible professional medical service on the planet.

There were lots of dinosaurs in the OR. They now wear funny caps made out of real cloth with stuff like lizards and snowmen printed on them. But you can tell that scrub jacket...a wildly colored patchwork with a denim background...is straight out of 1979. I know this because my aunts and my mother wore this busy material.

So I smiled and thought "There's somebody not trying to keep up with corporate culture, but who will most likely listen sympathetically when I moan "Can I have another pain pill please?" and pat my hand as she says "no."

Although I don't wish to revisit the Women's Pavilion on Forest Avenue, it really did underscore the remaining differences between hospitals and corporations. I heard hospitals are getting more corporate everyday, and doctors are fleeing like their pants are on fire.

But I sure hope they don't implement a dress code. The lady in the patchwork smock was retro and not kewl. She's the one I hope took care of me, patted my hand and called me "Sweetie".

Any of which would bring out the HR priests for an exorcism.