« August 2003 | Main | October 2003 »
September 29, 2003
WEEKEND WANDERINGS
Well, another weekend bites the dust, my fellow webheads. Of course, when you’re employment-challenged like moi, all the live-long days seem to just run together. The question is not what DAY it is, but more like what MONTH it is….is it June or early August....is there a full moon or a solar eclipse? Actually, I don’t even think I could tell you the difference at this point. There could be a raging thunderstorm outside, while our overgrown pine tree crashes through the roof, and I’d probably just stare at it blankly wondering what’s for dinner. That’s how brain dead I am these days. I don’t think I could feel any more “blah” about this whole job-search gig. It sucks, and I am sooooo over it. Things better pick up soon, or I’ll have to return to my patch of sidewalk on the corner of Blackstone and Shields, working those clear slides for a bit of loose change. No, it’s not a pretty thought, so get it right out of your head before it makes you completely nauseous.
I don't know, I seem to find myself frowning a lot, feeling cranky, and looking suspiciously like the miserable Harvey Pekar character in “American Splendor”. http://www.americansplendormovie.com/main.html And by the by, if you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. It’s such a quirky little picture, with all kinds of interesting things thrown in the mix; live action combined with cartoons, and the real-life Pekar and friends being interviewed. And yes, he does frown a lot. Speaking of cinematherapy, I spent the night at my sister Jill’s house on Saturday, and it was quite the movie marathon. Between Bud Lites and cheap vino, we managed to cram in 3 movies, giving all a very enthusiastic Ebert & Roeper Thumbs Up. First DVD on the list was “Identity”, http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/identity/
which is sort of like “The Bourne Identity” meets “Memento”, and basically means that John Cusak’s character needs to be taking massive doses of Prozac. It’s a great mystery/thriller/you’ll-never-do-laundry-alone-again movie, with Ray Liotta playing, once again, a psychotic, freaky cop with an itchy trigger finger. Next, we succumbed to the lunatic idiocy of “Old School”, where Will Ferrell takes an animal tranquilizer in the neck, and gives new meaning to the phrase “baring it all”. Leave your brain at the door, and rent this update on the classic “Animal House”.
http://www.oldschool-themovie.com/ And last, we have “Phone Booth”, where Colin Farrell spends 99.9% of the movie with a telephone glued to his ear, while some whack job whispers lots of nasty things on the other end. And let’s just say that Keifer Sutherland plays a pretty good whack job. As all the reviews have purported, it IS very Hitchcock and I was hunched forward on the edge of the couch, perched on my toes with my nails in my teeth, almost looking like a whack job myself. The director uses a wonderful little toy like the picture-in-picture feature on your television, which makes the story even more suspenseful. http://www.phoneboothmovie.com/index2.html Now go forth, and rent.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I also managed to fit in a flick yesterday with Margaret, and we thoroughly enjoyed “Under the Tuscan Sun”. http://tuscansun.movies.go.com/main.html
Yes, the scenery is about as yummy as Fettuccine Alfredo, Diane Lane is unbelievably gorgeous, and the story makes you feel warm and snuggly, prompting you to board the first plane to Tuscany. But let’s face it, if the whole picture was just eye-candy-love-interest Raoul Bova reading the Bible, it would have been okay with us. In my next life, I want to come back as Diane Lane, so I could relive her experience in “Unfaithful” with Oliver “oui-oui” Martinez, and then move onto Mr. Bova in Italy. Geez, this guy was just way more than two single gals could take. All I wanted to do was take him home, roll him around in a big bowl of marinara sauce, and make like I was a meatball. Bellissimo!
Unfortunately, my whole weekend was not all about bronze-god-like Italian hunks….maybe next time. On Friday afternoon, the parental unit and I attended the funeral of my father’s Aunt Annie, who passed away at the grand old age of 87. If I recall correctly, there were a total of 13 children in her family, though several died as infants. My grandmother is one of four remaining, having just turned 90 a few months ago; it’s comforting to know I have such good genes floating around the ol’ bloodstream. There are quite a few relatives on dad’s side of the family that I don’t know much about, basically because there are so many of them. It seems like every time we had a reunion, there were a dozen new faces I’d never met. I always remembered Annie though, as she seemed to get shorter and smaller every time we saw her, which was once every few years. The service itself was a new experience, because they opened the casket for viewing at the gravesite, which was a bit unusual. But it was undoubtedly easier to take than it would have been in some dreary funeral home. The coffin was a pearlescent silver, pink inside, with small white ovals of pink roses around the sides. In Annie’s left hand, they had draped a black rosary, which intertwined itself in her fingers. I was amazed to see how long her fingernails were, and how the small bible in her right hand looked as though she had owned it since childhood. I had to smile, when some immediate family members in front of me whispered how glad they were that she was still wearing her big round glasses; “she looked better with her glasses on”.
After the service, we adjourned to another relative’s house, Aunt Julia, and spent the rest of the afternoon consuming fried chicken, potato salad, pasta, etc., along with Gram’s peach cobbler, and Julia’s chocolate sheet cake. It was actually great fun, considering the circumstances, and I was quite pleased to share stories with a real salt-of-the-earth bunch I don’t get to see very often. Just before the memorial, I found out that Aunt Annie broke her back when she was about 17 in a car accident, and was in a semi-body cast for 6 months. Apparently, the injury was never completely righted, and she suffered quite a bit throughout her life. Probably much like the painter Frida Kahlo, who survived a horrific trolleycar accident, and time in a body cast, only to spend most of her short years undergoing surgery and visiting doctors. http://members.aol.com/fridanet/kahlo.htm She did manage to squeeze in marriage, infidelity, divorce, re-marriage, and one helluva a career, which just goes to show what the human spirit is capable of. “Frida” died at the age of 47, and her last diary entry read, “I hope the leaving is joyful, and I hope never to return”. Here’s to the strong women, though enduring agonizing physical pain, can carry on and live life to the fullest.
Posted by Wendy at 7:17 PM | Comments (2)
September 22, 2003
Valley Vignettes
Well, now that I’m on my second Manhattan and ma and pa are on their next round of Martinis, it seems like a good time to play catch up. My dad is manning the BBQ and attempting to grill some sort of Amazon steaks; I think they’re as thick as my thigh, and those of you who know me…well, let’s just say it’s kind of frightening. I know all of you are thinking that I’ve abandoned you, and you’re life is completely “dullsville” without a new blog, so I’m attempting to be creative this evening. Of course, HOW creative is the question – if I have one more of these homemade Molotov cocktails, the sky’s the limit. Let’s see, what HOT news do I have from the valley? Hmmm, well Possums, it’s HOT ....STILL…..MIND-NUMBINGLY HOT. Now I know I promised my sister Kelly that I wouldn’t rant and rave about the heat anymore, but come on! Tomorrow is the first day of Fall, and it’s still in the 3 digits here…at 7:52 p.m! Sheesh. Is there no end? Will we never feel the crispness of a colorful fall morning? Will we never hear the crunching of falling leaves under our feet? Will we EVER be able to turn off the air conditioning?! Ugh…thank goodness it’s time to strap on the ol’ feedbag.
Okay, I’m back. The steakage was quite good, and the baked potatoes were ENORMOUS, which is just the way we like them around here. I’m stuffed, completely stuffed. Well, I might have an inch or two in my gut that’s calling out for Cookie Dough ice cream, but I’ll wait until later. Uh oh, my mother has made the first of 47 different announcements that she’s “going to bed”. This is a huge production around the Hunter Household; we’ll get an announcement about every 20 minutes or so, before she actually hits the hay. She has to first verbally acknowledge she’s off to slumberland, but then there are several other stages: Stage #1) “Okay, I’m going to bed now” Stage #2) “I have to put my keys out” Stage # 3) “I have to fill my water bottle” Stage #4) “I have to take my fish pills”(don’t ask) Stage #5) “Okay-I’m-going-to-bed-but-I-have-to-read-my-book-for-awhile” Stage #6) “I have to get an IRONED T-shirt for the gym” Stage #7) “Are you going to lock up everything?” Stage #8) “Well, I guess I’ll have some ice cream before I go to bed” Stage #9) “Hey, did I leave my water bottle in here?” Stage #10) Wendy and dad roll their eyes and have another smart beverage…
What else, what else….oh, I took my Aunt Fran to the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra http://www.fresnophil.org/
this past Saturday night. It’s their 50 year anniversary season, so we have season tickets to check out all the fantastic concerts coming up this year. Now, my aunt has Alzheimer’s, which always makes for an interesting evening. It’s a kind of weird situation, where at times you laugh and other times you think it’s so pathetic….what a horrible disease it truly is. And really frustrating for those who have it; Aunt Fran finds it quite unbearable to form sentences and remember her children and grandchildren’s names. On the other hand, she can be quite funny – especially when she realizes the person who just said “hello” to her, is someone she has NO memory of at all. She just giggles about it, which is such a great way to look at life. http://www.alz.org/ The one good thing about the situation, is that it’s brought me a lot closer to a member of my family that I used to be afraid of and actually avoid. There was one Christmas a million years ago, where my cousins and I had to get a hotel room, because we weren’t allowed to sleep on her Chinese carpet. And her Sunnyvale house was so cold and uninviting – I hated going there. Now, I think she’s just excited to have people pay attention to her, and take her places; and I also enjoy hanging out with one person who I never thought I’d want to spend time with alone. As our beloved Martha would say, “it’s a good thing”.
Well, I think that’s enough babbling for one evening. Although I do just want to mention that Susan and I went to a wonderful event last week, which was the Chef’s Association of the San Joaquin Valley annual pasta/wine tasting. Susan, along with co-worker, Willliam “Cookie” Luke of the Elkhorn Correctional Facility, had recipes included in the cookbook. Geez, for $10 you could get all the pasta, bread, salad and cheap swill your body could absorb. Which in our case, was about 3 plastic glasses of generic vino each, a whole plate of fab carbs with sauces, and some to-die-for Bananas Foster. There was bow-tie pasta, spaghetti, ravioli, corkscrew, fettucine, accompanied by marina sauce, carbonarra, creamy pesto, etc….yes, we both gained about 12 pounds apiece. I’m telling you, I could have just chowed down on that Bananas Foster all night……truly orgasmic…….mmmmm.. Not to mention there were some lovely raffle/door prizes, and one of the guys at our table had NINE (count 'em) winning tickets....I didn't even know him, and I was getting embarrassed! And before I forget, here are some mini-movie reviews for you: “Whale Rider” http://www.whaleriderthemovie.com/ is WONDERFUL…go see it right now…..don’t wait…it’s better on the big screen. Also, “Matchstick Men” is FABULOUS…….get your tired ass into the theatre NOW. Nicholas Cage is definitely going to get an Academy Award nomination for this one. However, being a huge fan of Sam Rockwell, I hope he gets a nod for Best Supporting Actor….great stuff, incredible “lounge lizard” soundtrack….Frank Sinatra, and all the boys http://matchstickmenmovie.warnerbros.com/
Posted by Wendy at 11:00 PM | Comments (2)
September 15, 2003
A BOY NAMED SUE
Before there were “Men in Black”, there was the “Man in Black”. Of course I’m talking about Johnny Cash, who just caught the last locomotive to the Big House in the sky last Friday. http://www.johnnycash.com/ If for some bizarre reason you don’t know who Johnny Cash was, or anything about him, or own any of his some 500 recordings, than shame on you. Get thee to the nearest record store and snag yourself something for that growing audio collection. His voice was instantly recognizable, a great freight train wreck of a baritone; occasionally wavering, and at other times, blowing the roof clean off with its rumbling. As I write this, a small CD player is filling the room with live performances of “Orange Blossom Special”, “I Walk the Line”, and “Jackson”; the latter featuring the raw, “singin’-with-my-mama-on-the-porch” song-styling of June Carter Cash. Recorded live at Folsom Prison and San Quentin, the lyrics are about home, family, drink, women, freedom, and just about anything else an inmate desires. You can feel the sweaty electricity in the air, smell the Marlboros burning low, and hear the flapping of the jailbirds’ wings as they applaud their hero. A man on stage with a guitar, wearing his signature color, telling the story of a man dreaming about “The Green, Green Grass of Home”.
But, I digress. I think most country music produced today really sucks. But hey, that’s just my opinion. I grew up on Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and the aforementioned Johnny Cash. They were storytellers, and had something to say to the ordinary blue collar workers of America. The hard working, hard drinking, hard living everyday Joe; the man on the run, the Okie, the truck driver, the farmer, and the broken man serving time. They had, as my dad says, “twang”. The message from the latest crop of new artists these days seems to be about fluff and Bud Lite; “I can’t live without you or my six-pack”. Whatever. The only other country singer with enough guts to inhabit my CD case is Dwight Yoakam, who has obviously been influenced by Buck “Streets of Bakersfield” Owens. http://www.dwightyoakam.com/main.html He’s tall, lanky, bowlegged, and wears a huge cowboy hat pulled way down low over his squinting eyes. I believe this serves two purposes; to cut the glare of concert stage lighting, and to cover up his balding pate. I don’t care, because both my sisters and I adore his tight jeans, coal miner holler, and the fact that he’s turned in some mighty fine performances on film. Who can forget his sinister character in “Sling Blade”, and his equally distasteful criminal in “Panic Room”? Our Dwight gets his comeuppance in both; by losing his head to a scythe-wielding Billy Bob Thornton, then losing several fingers before taking a bullet to the skull, courtesy of Forrest Whittaker. His film roles would definitely have been good fodder for a Johnny Cash tune.
And so back to the good ol’ boys. I suppose my affinity for the performers listed above, is that they remind me of the days when I was younger, and the worst thing on my brain was homework. I hadn’t settled into the life of working for a living (uh, no remarks from the peanut gallery), paying bills, and worrying about health insurance. I fondly remember my dad playing Johnny Cash at home on the stereo full blast; this was a TURNTABLE, mind you, and usually after a couple martinis. And on that one particularly quirky, funny, disturbing song, we’d yell at the top of our lungs, “MY NAME IS SUE, HOW DO YOU DO???!!!” Always a crowd pleaser.
I also have a soft spot for Willie and Waylon’s ode to a dusty Southwestern town, which became a favorite of my younger sister (Jill) and me. When dad played softball a million years ago, we’d hop into Jill’s hotrod of a Toyota Corona, and scream over to watch the games. And I DO mean scream, usually by yours truly. Driving with Jill usually meant taking my life into my hands, as she has always seen herself as the Mario Andretti of the female type species. Let’s just say my knuckles were white from gripping the dashboard, and I was always relieved to find we actually made it to the field in one piece. The track we had cranked up until the speakers exploded was “Luckenbach, Texas”, which we couldn’t possibly have sung any louder….”let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas, with Waylon and Willie and the boys…this successful life we’re livin’s got us feudin’ like the Hatfields and McCoys…” Fine songwriting, that.
I guess my point is (geez, I hope I have one) that everyone has songs that take them back to different times in their life. Maybe you really enjoy the likes of bad 80’s rock ballads (think Whitesnake), or 70’s Disco, or the teeth-clenching warbling of Celine Dion. Perhaps you clean your bathroom sinks with Ajax while humming along to the big production of a show tune (think “Hello Dolly”), or that you just can’t get enough of the sound-alike boys bands (ugh) or Britney Spears. It’s okay, we all make mistakes. Just because you actually LIKE Britney Spears doesn’t make you a bad person, it just makes you, well, YOU. And even people who listen to the likes of Vince Gill, Clint Black, and Alabama probably all have some sort of warm, fuzzy feeling when they pop on their headphones, strut around the living room, and pretend their hairbrush is really a microphone. But if you really want to know what it felt like to BE a country/rock & roll/songwriting star on stage, (albeit, a humble one), and to give the common man his own plain and simple words, and to make the entire audience want to buy you a beer, now THAT takes more than some lip-synching in the mirror. It’s the effortless ability to be an ordinary man, dressed in the color of mourning, without sparkling shirts and sequined ties, to truly shine the brightest.
Posted by Wendy at 10:06 PM | Comments (4)
September 8, 2003
I'd Rather Be Sleeping
I’ve recently discovered there are 2 basic kinds of people in this wacky world of ours. Those who think that getting up at 5:00 a.m. to greet the glorious rays of the rising sun is the only way to start their day. And then there’s me, and thank goodness, others just like me. Those of us who think that getting up any earlier than 9:00 a.m. is absolute madness and those early birds deserve all the mealy worms they can find. My mother is the perfect, albeit crazy, definition of the disgustingly happy morning person. First of all, she never sleeps. Ever. I don’t think she’s slept more than 6 hours in my lifetime, and I’m 42. She’s like a vampire, and I don’t know why we don’t just hang the woman from her toes in the bedroom, with a big cloak wrapped around her shoulders. She’ll probably come in pretty handy this Halloween.
My mom arises in the (according to MY clock) middle of the night, oh say, about 4:45 a.m. That’s right – IN THE A.M. She MUST get to the gym for sweating, socializing, and generally spending quality nocturnal hours with the other Bela Lugosi types. You’d think they had nothing better to do, like….hmmm, SLEEP, maybe? You know, that action where you close your tired worn out eyes, and drift off to slumberland for some ethereal dream time? Where you plant a wrinkled face into the nice, fluffy center of that favorite pillow, awakening to the familiar feeling of your own slobber. Where scary monsters chase you over perilous mountaintops, and just as you slip on the loose gravel, your flinching leg snaps you back into reality. No, they’d rather awaken to the obnoxious blaring of an alarm clock, when the sky is still black, throw on some togs and schlep to an aerobics class. Now c’mon, you can’t tell me they really ENJOY it, can you? Their bodies must go into complete bitten-by-an-electric-eel shock. It can’t be good for you. And it certainly can’t be any fun.
I prefer to EASE my lethargic limbs into the day slowly, smoothly, sedately…..like a big sloth. I prefer my small bedside lamp, with it’s warm honey glow, to the SCREAMING LIGHTHOUSE BEACON that’s my parent’s kitchen light. Geez, you need a pair of Ray Bans just to find the table. I stumble in there like Steve McQueen in “Papillion”, after he’s been in solitary confinement for 3 years, gnarled hands grasping my face, sheltering my squinting eyes. Therein, I become the cave-dwelling, winged, mammal…...the light..…..the light…….it’s hideous…..must…….not……..look……………..could it BE any BRIGHTER in here?! And the headlines read: "Dracula finally succumbs to the fiery flames of a GE 1500 Watt light bulb". Of course, morning people are always under the badly preconceived notion that they can somehow convert those of us who wish to remain under the covers as long as humanly possible. They think that attempting to lure us into some inane conversation at 6:37 a.m. is going to help us overcome our general cranky nature. I have to give my mother snaps for trying. She comes tripping into the family room, singing or whistling, spouting off little cheery thoughts about how “nice it is outside”, or “how much cooler it’s going to be today”, or “what a great workout that was!” Pullleeezzzz. Just let me stare sullenly into my coffee cup, and contemplate how much more content I’d be with the blanket pulled up to my chin, and my room as black as….well….as black as a bat cave. Speaking in complete sentences before the caffeine has kicked in, is not something I do well, nor do I care to. Just leave me alone, and nobody gets hurt.
Of course, the weekends are even worse. It’s true I lay in bed until my bladder won’t hold out anymore, or the smell of bacon and eggs somehow just proves too tempting. I give it my all. I give it the old college try. I give myself to the Land of Nod. But once I have arisen from my hibernation, rested and somewhat refreshed, do you think there’s the slightest possibility I could be allowed to actually ENJOY this earthly pleasure? No. Not. No way, no how. My parental unit derives some sort of bizarre thrill by accosting me with one or more tasty quips to really get my day going: “Oh my god, she’s up!” “How DO you sleep in so late?” “It’s almost 11:00! The better part of the day is gone!” “I ALREADY fed your dog” “Geez, it’s about time for lunch”. On and on it goes, until I just have to wander down the hall, muttering to myself incoherently and wishing I’d left those earplugs in a few minutes longer. In any event, it’s a moot point. Morning people will always be eager beavers, go-getters, and generally annoying pains-in-the asses, to those of us who wouldn’t trade an extra 42 seconds of shut-eye for a free Starbucks vanilla latte.
As for those sunrises, you can give me a cinnamon streaked, amethyst sunset any old day……at least I’d be awake for it.
Posted by Wendy at 4:50 PM | Comments (2)
September 2, 2003
SICK OF MYSELF
So I spent the better part of last week holed up in the parent-free casa, but I wasn’t killing time eating Bon-Bons and polishing my toenails a fluorescent pink. Actually, my feet truly could use a major overhaul, and I’m thinking of purchasing a very large Black & Decker sander to whittle down the really nasty areas. Nope, I was homebound, perched on the sofa under the scary spell of a very nasty cold. Did you know it’s physically possible to go through an entire box of lotion-laced Kleenex within a few short days? Did you know if your head pounds hard enough, it feels like your watering eyeballs are going to pop right out of your skull like marbles and bounce across the hardwood floor? Did you know the surest way to bring on a nosebleed is to stuff about 47 gallons of Afrin up your schnoz? Did you know that blood stains actually come out of handkerchiefs without any pre-soaking? Did you know if you sleep with a vaporizer on all night, fans running, and the door closed, that your room feels like a sticky sauna in the middle of the tropics? Yeesh.
But you know what the worst part was? Not the snotty nose, not the leaky faucet eyes, not the excruciating-pressure-like-a-water-buffalo-standing-on-my-forehead, and no, not even the massive amounts of Sudafed, Benedryl, and Advil I ingested. Which, if my calculations and body mass index are correct, was enough to kill a water buffalo. No, the most heart-wrenching detail of this whole Cinemascope production was the fact that my parental unit was thousands of miles and several states away. They were happily cavorting through the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, touring the Jack Daniels plant, visiting Miss Bobo’s Boarding House, watching the Fresno State Bulldogs drown under the waves of the big Orange Crush, and learning the politically correct way to speak the native tongue – Y’All! So not only was I sucking Whole Fruit Juice Bars and consuming many steamy bowls of chicken noodle soup all by myself, but I had an entirely empty house at my disposal. But instead of enjoying the solitude and self-awareness that can only be achieved by being alone with your thoughts, I turned against the only person I could; myself. I was so OVER my own miserable existence by the second day, it was getting sort of frightening. I couldn’t STAND myself anymore. I was literally, sick of myself. I was sick of the sneezing, the coughing, the piles of ratty tissues, the smell of Vicks Vapo Rub, the taste of Hall’s Honey-Lemon cough drops, and the disgusting fact that I hadn’t showered for 48 hours. Bleah. I couldn’t take one more second of my own whining, complaining, and general drugged out situation. Who WAS this hideous wretch staring back at me in the bathroom mirror? The unwashed hair, the no-trace-of-makeup face, the grimy shorts, the sweaty tank top, the reddened nostrils and haggard slouch. It was enough to make ANYONE sick. It was time to pull the emergency brake. It was time to sound the alarms. It was time bring in the big guns. And so, I did the only sensible thing an exhausted mess of a blonde like me could do in a time of crisis. I pulled my scraggly mop on top of my pointed head, changed my underwear, turned up the air conditioner to “North Pole”, poured myself a big ol’ glass of apple juice, and gave myself permission to be the despondent, dismal, disastrous heap of a human being that was me. And then, like any other person on the planet who’s been stuck on the couch blowing their brains out, I turned to the only cure for whatever ails you; DVD’s, DVD’s, and more DVD’s. Something I could NEVER get sick of.
Posted by Wendy at 4:50 PM