Only Nola

The People We Love to Hate

I have issues. There, I said it. Nyah. My most recent problem is my rabid interest in a television show. Not just ANY television show... a 'reality' *and I use the term loosely* television show. I resisted the trend as long as I could, and finally, much to my shame, I caved. God deliver me from 'Blow Out'.

Yeah, that's right, I said 'Blow Out'. The show that Bravo decided, in it's infinite wisdom, to put on right before Queer Eye for the Publically Humiliated Guy. It's a show, for those of you who don't know, about a salon that is in it's first year of operation in Beverly Hills. It's owned and managed *again... using the term LOOSELY* by Jonathan Antin. This guy is the poster child for narcissism, and no, that's not a good thing *passes out dictionaries for the vocabulary challenged*. His management personality is somewhere between Charles Manson and Al Bundy. It's a tough call.

It's great to sit and just hate this guy. Cathartic. Gives me somewhere to direct the vitriol in my system that otherwise was going to be aimed at my cats. Or the neighbor's cats... Anyway. What amazes me is how many people at the Bravo 'Blow Out' message board *yes, I go there... I'm deeply ashamed, should be beaten with a stick, mea culpa, mea culpa... oh, bite me, everyone has a vice* think this guy is GOD. He screams at his employees in front of customers and OTHER employees, he degrades his assistants on a regular basis, he bitches and moans about the whole world 'wanting a piece' of him *poor fucking filthy rich baby*, he constantly hits on women other than his alleged girlfriend *we won't even go into the fact that there's a LARGE group of people who are convinced he's gay and the girlfriend is a beard... who gives a shit, the man looks like a bobblehead*, he keeps his clients waiting for hours then has the nerve to dress THEM down for making HIM wait five minutes... the man's certifiable. Needless to say, I couldn't work for him. Not and both of us make it out alive. 'Gee, officer, I really don't think that's MY rat poison.'

As I was saying. The guy is a prick of epic proportions, BUT... what would I do without him? I think it's part of the human psyche, that sometimes our favorite people aren't the ones we'd actually want to sit and have cocktails with, they're the ones we'd want to set on FIRE. There are some perfectly nice people on the show. They're fine, we like them, I'm sure they're great, blah blah blah. But it's Satan's minion, Jonathan, that really gets the hair to stand up on the backs of our necks. He's the one we want to see, being as much of an ass as possible, so that we can revel in the carnage and happily sit on our asses in front of the television, criticizing from the safety of our own home. You can keep your 'Cinderella Man'... this is where the REAL drama is...

From the Mouths of Babes

One thing about living with children... you never know what's going to pop out of their mouths next.

I'm in bed, happily sleeping, yesterday and my six year old wanders in to wake me up. He does double duty as an alarm clock, since he's much more effective than my *real* alarm clock... no snooze button. Anyway. I'm waking up, he's sitting on the edge of the bed, yapping away. He leans down for a hug, and as he's sitting back up, one of my watermelon-shaped cats jumps up... landing smack in the middle of my abdomen. The air kind of woofs out of me, and I make that groaning noise that anyone who's ever had the breath knocked out of them would recognize. My son looks at me, looks at the cat, and says...

'Did he get you in the nuts?'

I started laughing so hard I almost wet the bed. I looked at him and said, wheezing, 'Connor, I don't HAVE nuts!', to which he responds 'Oh, that's right, I forgot that. Did he get you in the girl parts where your nuts should be?'

Kids, I tell ya. Funny little boogers. And it really never stops, either.

Sitting down at lunch, same day, and I look down to where my fat assed cat is trying to suck in his gut and do an Ethiopian impression, all in the hopes of scoring some of my turkey sandwich. I tell him 'Give it up, Puff, you're not getting my turkey' and continue eating. My six year old, again, is in the spotlight. He reaches over and pats my right arm, and says to me...

'He doesn't understand. You have to *and here he puts his hand on his temple and gets this terrifyingly intent look on his face* think the words in your head real hard, and look at him, then say 'meow'. '

Yeah, I was snorting around my mouthful of turkey, trying not to choke. Laughing, I ask him 'I have to do WHAT?', and he says 'You know, so he'll understand... you have to have the thoughts and look at him and say 'meow' at the same time.' At this point I was having a hard time breathing. I asked him 'Who told you that?', to which he replied 'Nobody. I was just figuring it out... the cat language.' Who knew?

Absolutely priceless. I wish I had a camcorder to get some of this recorded for posterity... or blackmail.

Animal Nature

ANTHROPOMORPHIZE- intransitive senses : to attribute human form or personality to things not human

Yeah, I do that. I do it with my computer... damned thing is out to get me, and I *know* it's personal. I don't care what the damned manufacturer says. I do it with appliances... moody sons of bitches. They just WAIT until your warranty is shit before they lock up and refuse to work. And don't even get me started on cars... but the big one?

Animals.

Don't EVEN try and tell me that they don't do what they do on purpose. I see it all the time, their plots and plans and passive aggressive bullshit. Manipulative? I should say SO. The behavior itself is baffling and often infuriating, but it's my reaction to it that is just priceless. Take today, for example...

I take the boys to the local park. Nice park, little man made lake in the middle where people with way too much money gather and use these little custom made remote controlled sail boats. It's like a yacht club for people who can't quite reach the ocean and don't want to actually have to get wet. The park has a playground, picnic tables... all the goodies. What else does it have? Ducks. I think there's something in duck DNA that works like a homing device, sensing people with loaves of bread with unfailing accuracy. I love to feed the ducks. The pretty ones, the ugly ones, the loud ones or the shy ones... love it. The pigeons show up, too, and that's okay. They're rather entertaining.

So there we are. One loaf of bread was all we had on hand due to the fact I wasn't sure how big the duck population was at this particular park. I'd just opened the bag and started flinging a few bits to some pigeons, waiting for the ducks to make their way from the other side, when I see... BABIES! There was a little mama duck *I think a mallard? The brown speckled mama duck... yeah, think it's a mallard* and six or seven itty bitty tiny babies. God, they were so CUTE! Being the sucker for baby animals that I am, I ditched the pigeons immediately and started giving mama duck and babies all the bread. They'd just started to eat when... here came the local bullies.

About eight or so of these big assed geese *Canadian snow geese, I think... light brown and white? Meh.* came swimming over, honking loudly and zooming right along. Mama duck and babies were, unfortunately, their apparent target. Selfish bastards had seen the Mama duck and babies getting food, and were NOT willing to let that continue. A couple of the largest geese took off after her, chasing her and the babies across the water, until she was far enough away that I couldn't get any bread to her. I was pissed. Here's where the anthropomorphization comes in...

There I am, standing on the concrete ledge around this little pond, cursing out the goddamned geese. No, I'm not kidding. Little assbags had it coming. And don't tell me they didn't understand or whatever. Like fuck they didn't. They knew what they were doing. Big bullies. Ran that poor mama duck off. Like soup nazi's... NO BREAD FOR YOU! Well, two can play at that game... I proceed to yell at these geese... yes, GEESE... telling them exactly what I'm going to do with the bread. 'So, can't share, eh? Gotta be ASSHOLES, eh? Well, FINE! See these pigeons? They're getting ALL YOUR FUCKING FOOD! That's right, ALL of it! How ya like me NOW? Happy you ran off the poor mama duck NOW? Feeling a little HUNGRY? You should be ashamed of yourselves, acting like that! How would you like it if...'. You get the picture. This was me actually giving GEESE a guilt trip. And a lecture. And an ass chewing. Geese.

So the geese decide I'm not kidding and wander off a little ways. I walk a little further down the sidewalk, and see ANOTHER mama duck with just one baby. Not much cuter than a baby duck, I'm here to tell you. So I toss her a couple of pieces of bread. You know what's coming, don't you? Yeah. Here come the goddamned geese. This time there's no intimidating of the mama duck, they flat attack her, driving her off across the water making just pitiful noises. So picture this... me, standing on the ledge, snapping my mostly empty bag of bread at the geese *it made a loud popping noise every time I'd do it, see?*, yelling at them to STOP IT! I'm giving them holy hell, damned near about to burst a vein and go into the water on the duck's behalf. I figure, sure, I'm outnumbered, but I've got the opposable thumbs, so my chances are pretty good. I was SCREAMING at these geese. Didn't make a bit of fucking difference. They ran her off then had the absolute NERVE to come begging and honking at ME for BREAD! AS IF! Cussing at them and waving the bread in their faces, I fed the rest to the pigeons. Ha. So there! Fucking ingrates. That'll teach 'em.

You know, the best part of all this was realizing two things... a)sound carries well over water, and b)the other side of this little man made pond/lake was a golf course. Guess who was providing boundless entertainment for men in ugly pants this morning?

Yeah, that would be me.

I’m Surrounded by Eskimos

I'm just under five feet four inches. I weigh, usually, about a hundred and three pounds. I'm assuming this is why I spend most of my time freezing my ass off. I live in the fucking DESERT, and even here I'm not safe. Why? Because I'm married to a man who thinks he's going to die if there aren't icicles hanging off his nose while he sleeps, and my son breaks out in a sweat if it's over seventy degrees in the house at any given moment. Meanwhile I'm bundled up in three layers of clothing and carrying a portable heat lamp just to maintain a livable body temperature. I go to bed at night curled into the fetal position, every spare inch of covers I can find tucked around me and covered by my three cats, just so I can get by. Meanwhile, the husband is sleeping soundly with half his naked ass sticking out in what is, to me, an attempt to recreate the arctic using central air conditioning. I'm quite comfortable with the thermostat set on seventy eight or eighty... the mere thought of which has him bug eyed, making accusations to the effect that I'm trying to kill him. I tell him I shouldn't have to bundle up in my own home in the middle of ARIZONA, but he doesn't listen. He says he's hot. I say he can shed some clothes as easy as I can add them. I don't mind if he walks around in his birthday suit, if it means I can get out of this damned parka. Okay, so there's a six year old in the house... they can BOTH run around naked. That'll even things up.

I've lived with this shit all my life. My mother was another freaking eskimo. Woman's happiest when you can set your ice trays out on the counter... TO MAKE ICE. I'm wandering around with my teeth chattering and my lips turning blue, she's sitting on the couch happy as a clam. I always wondered about that... just how happy IS a clam? And how do we KNOW he's happy? Did we ask? Could he be faking? Maybe he's just in denial...

Then there's the restaurants. Take The Awful Waffle... oh, I'm sorry. If you're not from the south, you might not recognize that name. Waffle House. Home to drunks and derelicts the world over. That place sets the thermostat at a comfortable temperature... if you're a PENGUIN. But there's a method to their madness. They're all about getting people to eat and LEAVE as quickly as possible. Make it cold enough and you'll be amazed at how fast someone can scarf down a waffle and head back to the bar.

Then, on the other hand, there's Red Lobster. Sure, not exactly Cordon Bleu, but still not a cheap place to eat. You'd think you're paying for a modicum of comfort in which to eat your fried cheese and heavily breaded deep fried shrimp, wouldn't you? Yeaaaaaah. Cold. No shit cold. What the fuck? I'm paying fair amount of cash to sit down and NOT be able to take my coat off? Drag it through the ranch dressing a time or two, just for kicks? If they're going to charge what they charge for their pseudo seafood, the LEAST they could do is act like they give a shit that their customers are going to require a quick thaw just get into their cars and leave the parking lot. Hard to drive when your arm is locked into an eating position. I'd say we should all riot in protest, but knowing the clientelle of Waffle House, I'd say no one would even notice, and Red Lobster's safe because you can't riot if you can't move your legs.

My mother swears that I'm cold all the time because of the skinny factor, which I mentioned earlier. She, and every other person I know who thinks it's should be sub-zero in the house, says I should get a little more 'insulation', fatten up a little. Then she says I won't be so cold. I have a better plan. Anyone with 'insulation' can go on a goddamned diet.

Everybody always picks on the skinny people. We'd have an uprising, but given our odds of survival, we'll just sit and glare.