Saturday, August 28, 2010

Taming the Yeasty Beasty

Here is Freckles, sporting her 'poker face.' For those of you wondering (and I know a WHOLE bunch of you are wondering--cough, cough), Lady Gaga is this week. Makes shoveling all that mulch worth it.....oooh la la! Yum!

Speaking of yum, I took Freckles Warrior Princess, aka the Yeasty Beasty, to the vet this morning. It didn't take a rocket scientist or a trained vet to tell she had a skin infection-- the crusties, loss of hair, red skin and stench were dead give-a-ways. Oh, the stench! Suffice it to say, she was indeed diagnosed (by a 12 year old, I swear my dog is older than the vet) with a bacterial and yeast infection of the skin. Hello! It cost me $150 to learn this non-news. The yeasty beasty will be getting daily baths with oh-so-special shampoo, steroids to pump her up and antibiotics to tame the bugs.

Although I did not like dropping that kind of money, I know we will all be the better for it, especially when she is not licking & scratching all night or spreading her delicious stench all over the house (and car--oh dear, there is nothing like the interior of a car after a yeast-infected dog has been riding in it). I like to think she'll feel better, too.

Lucy Bark of Poteidaia almost got in the act, too--she always goes along when we go to to the vet (they love going there--go figure) and as we were walking out of the exam room, the vet took one look at her hind legs and asked about her lick-stained parts. I basically steered the vet away from that nonsense--no more spending money today--assuring the vet that Lucy's licking is obsessive naughtiness, not allergies (which I do believe is true). I promised we would take her to the groomer more often (more business for Linda!) as part of our effort to keep her looking fresh and less rusty/tangle-y.

As I've said before & most certainly will say again, we know it's fall in the Addiverse when I am miserable from ragweed and FWP is covered with yeast. We are quite the pair.

As long as I don't become a yeasty beasty for the Gaga concert, it's all good........!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Something New to Chew On


I did not intend on writing about our little yeasty beasty, Freckles Warrior Princess, but the smell emanating from her body and the scratching sound of her little nails prompted me to tell you that it is that time of year again: I wallow through ragweed and Freckles wallows through skin infections. It must be fall! I'll be calling the vet tomorrow to score some anti biotics for the poor thing. She is one smelly mess. (Warning to the parental units: she's not contagious but she is smelly. She doesn't look so hot, either so be kind and empathetic.) If you look back at the past few years, you'd see that this is now an annual event for our beloved canine. She looks miserable--I don't think it's as bad as previous years but it certainly is bothering the wife, which means it is bothering me. At least medication seems to take care of the issue. 

I did not intend on writing about the Packers, but there is a pre-season Packer game on, so that means the wife is very engrossed and verbal and focused on one thing.....well, two things: (1) green; and, (2) Gold. She often sputters words of hate toward a certain purple number four, followed by praise for a green-clad number 12. I love, love, love football season. I'm not sure if the wife loves or hates it. Gaybor Garden Grrrl wanted to help me surprise the wife with Packer tickets for the wife's birthday--Garden Grrrl has worldly connections and obviously knows the wife well--so, she found and purchased tickets for a home game on the wife's birthday....we planned to keep it a surprise. Well, imagine how surprised I was when the wife announced she had asked for--and had been given--tickets via her brother Tommy Hilfiger. I wanted to poke my eyes out. The wife asked me why I had such a yucky look on my face while she was telling me how she got the tickets via her brother. I told her about the surprise. Sigh. She pooped on my Packer Parade. I hope the Gaybors have an interest in the game, cuz I'll be taking them along!

What I had planned on writing about was the Universe. It's been toying with me, for what reason I do not know. I need to figure this out as the Universe tends to send me louder and louder messages until I grasp the concept presented before me.


I consider myself to be a champion of the underdog, crusader for equity, fighter for the forsaken, a person who seeks fairness & justice for all, especially those with disadvantage. Just ask the wife--she'll confirm my passion for ensuring everyone has a fair shake--she still remembers my tirade during an intramural volleyball game in college because I thought it was unfair the volleyball team was crushing (and, I do mean crushing) a poor, unskilled, "thought-intramurals-were-for-fun" dorm team....and, that was 25 or 30 years ago. I am a royal pain in the ass when it comes to this. In the Addiverse, everyone deserves a fair shake.....call me intolerant of intolerance. (That's pretty funny, don't you think??)

I have loudly and emotionally and proudly fought to make sure we're all equal in all corners of the Addiverse. I fight the good fight!

You should probably call me naive.

Imagine my surprise when I was tagged for racial discrimination at the place of which I do not speak.

This was such a foreign concert to me that I was beyond incredulous--at first, it didn't even register on my scale--it was like someone was speaking a foreign language when they told me about the issue. Once it did register, I was beside myself. This was the last thing I would ever want to do or be part of.....I was sick. I have been fighting this very thing as long as I can remember and it turns around and bites me right in the big patooty. My heart hurt. Heck, my soul hurt.

It's funny how you don't really know what to do when something like this surfaces. I took a big look at the Universe and once again exclaimed out loud: "ARE YOU FRIGGIN' KIDDING ME?!" What does one do or say? How does one react? Me.....I stood there with my mouth hanging wide open. Call me naive, call me whatever you want....but, please don't call me a racist.

Turns out the issue at hand that led to the accusation had literally nothing to do with race or ethnicity. (That is good and bad, depending how you look at it. I'm just glad it ended up all good for the moment.) I thank god that it ended up better than not....the potential for it to get ugly was certainly there....but, it still left me stunned and hurt and confused. I'm not sure what to "do" with this event. As it is a completely new, foreign experience, I am not sure what I might learn from it. I don't know how to digest it, to categorize it, to file it.

I guess I am going to have to chew on it.

Until I get my answer(s) from the Universe why this event was presented to me, I am going to focus on the smelly dog, the Packer tickets and bikini-clad beauty queens. The rest, I'll chalk it up as something new to chew on.

I gotta get me some new gum.
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Saturday, August 21, 2010

The REAL Real L Word

The wife, being the reality TV junkie that she is, suddenly, deliciously and completely accidentally figured out earlier this week that we have access to Time de la Sho's new series, The Real L Word. Mind you, we don't pay for that premium channel, so it was a surprise to both of us that such a series would be ours to watch for free through the next few weeks. (It's all about sucking you in--they get you watching so you just HAVE to have the channel to watch your new favorite series.) So, we settle in and view two or three of the hour-long episodes, all the time marveling that it is ours for the taking.

I suppose I should have been marveling about the show itself, but I was much more intrigued by the fact that we could actually view the show than I was about the content of the show. Sigh. I am SO ashamed of myself.

I am even more ashamed to tell you that during a very brief "hot" scene, I yelled out, "Hey! There's that white watch I've been looking for!" instead of looking at anything else that might have been going on in the five second shot. Although you would think she would've been happy I was looking at a watch instead of some 29 year old's body part, the poor wife was mortified.

For those of you not in the know and/or for you who are not reality-TV-whores like you-know-who, this show is reality TV's answer to the L Word. I believe the tag line for the show is "Follow a group of six real life lebetians as they work and play in L.A." or something like that.

BTW, when I googled for a photo of the show (for your viewing pleasure--NOT this photo, so no worries there), I believe I gained a virus. I clicked on the photo and all of a sudden things started happening from a sight called sleezy-something something. I slammed my computer shut and didn't click on anything further. A reboot suggested either (a) everything is okay; (b) I've got a sleeping Trojan; or, (C) all my personal information is being transmitted to China as I type.

Here's the thing: my REAL real L word world is NOTHING like this reality show. Maybe for beautiful-looking, richer-than-sin, toy-breed-dog-owning 20-something's in L.A., but here in the middle-aged, middle-incomed Midwest, it ain't happening like on TV. In my REAL real L word, the dog has a skin yeast infection, we go to bed at 9 PM, the toilet is leaking to the point the ceiling tile is caving in, no one is sitting in a restaurant holding hands across the table. The non-tattooed teachers are freaking out because they are returning to school and the middle-management non-dread locked hard-working friends are driving their gas-guzzling cars, watching their cholesterol and watching reality TV. No one is having a makeover from a Hollywood make-up artist, no one is talking in sound bites and no one is planning a fifty gazillion dollar wedding.

Well, not that I know of....maybe some of my friends are holding out on me. I hope I get invited to the wedding if they are indeed doing such things.

Of course, it is totally comparing apples to wrinkly oranges when comparing my current life to the lives of today's 30 year old glamor girls living on the west coast. What I really need to do is compare my life of old to their life of now. If WE had had a reality TV show when we were their age, you would have enjoyed stories about corn-fed, beer-drinking, non-tattooed softball-playing teachers and office geeks who were always found hanging out at softball tournaments and gross bars, listening to those new artists Melissa Etheridge and Madonna, marching in pride parades and eating fast food because it was what we could afford....most featuring weird hairdos of the 1980s, some with dreadlocks but definitely no one with foo foo dogs. (For the record: Pablo was NOT a foo foo dog--Pablo was a brute. Don't confuse small with foo foo.) Scenes from the local bowling-alley-bar-social club would be plentiful. The show would not feature texting another girl during a date, surfing the web to cyber stalk a potential gal pal or breast implants, as those things didn't exist. Instead, you would get a camping trip in Wisconsin, a night at a local bar (dancing in your softball cleats), a weekend on a softball field (still wearing your softball cleats), an afternoon at the local hair salon (hopefully, not in your softball cleats but possibly in them, as they sponsored the team). Trust me, there would have been enough drama to keep you entertained: we had the home wrecker who slept with everyone except me and the wife (thank the baby jesus for that), the drunken messes, the drama queens, the avant garde hairdresser, the athletes, the non-athletes, the plain and the punk, the Beautiful Janes and the tenderonies.

Our real real L word show's ratings would have sky-rocketed during the episode featuring the spontaneous "wedding" held for teammates in a midwestern hotel room (Indiana? Kentucky? Ohio? Hell if I know--it's all a blur), complete with toilet-paper veil and flowers-stolen-out-of the-hotel-garden bouquets. The break ups and the hook ups would keep you guessing; the jogging shorts would keep you howling. In other words, you would have gotten a real life mix of real life people who just happened to fit into a real life category. Not another glitzy, glossy production in the reality-not-very-reality-based TV genre. Yum!

Back to the show. Quite to the wife's horror, I'm not sure I actually like the show--like all reality TV shows these days, it seems too contrived. (Oh, how I pine for the first season of "Survivor," and the first season of M-TV's "The Real World," as those were REAL reality TV shows). I'm not looking this gift horse in the mouth--if cable TV wants to give me a free month of this show for free, I am going to watch it. It's no better or worse than the original cable series, "The L Word." It's the same, only supposedly different. It's not. It is second verse, same as the first....only this time without known stars playing the parts. This is real people playing themselves, saying things they probably wouldn't be saying if they weren't on a sound stage. It's kinda weird.

No offense to the beautiful LA women of the show, but I'm going to watch my month's free worth of episodes, stop watching it when it's no longer free and continue to enjoy my own Real real L word life. After all, I have to go bathe the yeasty-smelling dog and go buy that white watch I've been wanting......

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Way Too Good to Be True

I think I saw her blood pressure raise about 75 points right in front of my eyes when the sports channel announed Brett Favre's return to Minnesota today. Man, that guy just gets her goat. Ol' Number Four has returned to torture her for yet another year. "Selfish! Diva! Prima Donna!" she laments. He is truly a disloyal asswipe in her world, to be sure.

Some of you may remember I fell prey to "Toner Pirates" many a month ago, so there is absolutely no judgment here. I purchased a $500 canister of toner, so I know how good the scammers really are at their game.

The wife has been looking for Packer tickets. She has been searching all corners of the world, including popular web sites. Being the frugal consumer that she is, much time has been spent comparison shopping. Last night, she started to tell me about one particular opportunity, of which I did not listen to. It was via List de la Craig. Ignoring my indifference (what do I care about Packer tickets?), she sent an inquiry email to the seller in hopes of learning more about the too-good-to-be-true Packer ticket prices offered.

People! Whenever you think it's too good to be true, trust your gut. It IS too good to be true.

So, the wife gets a reply from some guy...who reportedly just moved to London. That's why he's selling the tickets. Since the name of the guy is a famous soccer player, that sure seemed suspect....but, she kept reading. She readily admits that she started to get sucked in--great prices, flexibility in purchasing of tickets, promise of buyer protection.....

I get home and she hands me an email regarding the tickets. I couldn't even get through the first two sentences. I kept saying, "this doesn't make sense," and she kept demanding, "keep reading!" I tried to get through it but couldn't follow the message--there was something in the grammar department that wasn't registering. Every time I would try to quit reading, she would direct me back to the email.

I put the email down and gave up. "I don't know, this sounds funny." Inside, I was thinking, "Please tell me you didn't buy these tickets!"

The wife then proudly announced it is indeed a scam. I was then educated on all the "red flags" included in the email: poor grammar, fake names, use of a third party, guaranteed buyer protection plans, ridiculous offers, stories of being out of the country for this or that reason, use of an escrow service....all signs that you should run quickly away. The wife, being the professor that she is, did a complete and thorough googling and learned that she almost became the next victim of on-line shenanigans. No out-of-the-country naughty tidbit is going to toner pirate her. She thankfully identified the situation for what it was and kept her money safely tucked in the bank.

As I love all of you beloved Addiverse participants, I want YOU to be educated, too. If you are buying things like tickets on-line, let the buyer beware. (You know, I was really miffed at the lady who was buying my billion-dollar Madonna tickets I was selling on eBay--she kept asking questions, didn't seem to believe me, wanted to see the tickets, was quite the nervous Nelly....now, I totally understand why.) It's a huge, huge, huge business to screw people out of their money. Fake web sites, fake third party arrangements, fake tickets, fake everything......

....the only thing that is real is your money.

Buyer do be aware! Trust your gut. Check the Better Business Bureau. Read about scams. List de la Craig does a nice job of explaining potential scams. Don't assume you think you are on a particular website--always look up into the address bar! Don't assume that if they aren't talking about Nigeria, it's not a scam. Don't get sucked into the moment.....if it is too good to be true, it most certainly is too good to be true. Run, don't walk, away from these offers. Adoringly, I say to you:

The money you save will be your own.

(Which, by the way, leaves you with lots more money to take the wife to a Packer game.)
*******************************************************

Monday, August 09, 2010

Kiddies All Right or Not?

The wife, the gaybors and I went to see a movie over the weekend. You can guess which movie we went to see by looking at the title of this blog entry. The film writer happened to write/make one of my all time favorite movies ("High Art," which is really dark and depressing, so don't watch it if you are taking anti depressants or Quaaludes or if you are working a 12 step program), so I had high hopes. Being the big gaywad that I am, I had even higher hopes--how can you go wrong with Annette & Julianne as a long-term couple in suburban-eque America?

Imagine my surprise when I only kinda/sorta liked the movie.

I really, really like this Pablo Lobato illustration of the movie, as displayed on the New Yorker web page. Love it. In fact, I like this illustration a lot more than I liked the movie.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ALERT!

If you don't want to hear any more about the movie, you should stop reading, go rent "High Art" and wonder what the hell is wrong with me.

I have "High Art" on video if you'd like to borrow it. If you don't mind hearing more about the kids (all right or not), you may proceed.

Don't get me wrong--there were things about the movie I liked/appreciated. For instance:

  • There were several "strong performances" by the actors involved.
  • The movie was not in 3-D, so that was a huge bonus (it does indeed seem the summer of 3-D, don't you think?).
  • I like both actresses in general, so having both of them star in the same movie was fabulous.
  • I loved their costumes--the clothes & jewelry were perfect.
  • I loved Annette's hair. What a queer!
  • I loved that they made the characters/couple "normal," per se--normal problems, normal struggles.
  • I liked the sound track, although I'm not a big Joni Mitchell fan (no offense to all you Joni fans).
  • I like that it was about relationships, a bigger picture of what could have been very sterotypical.
Before I babble on, I have to say this: I want all of you to go out and see this movie so we can then talk about it. We'll have a lot to talk about. Maybe it will be like Madonna's last album--first few listens, I wasn't impressed....a few weeks later, it was my favorite Madonna album of all time. (It's almost Madonna's birthday. Gotta get her in the blog in honor of her upcoming day.) I believe this movie will win awards when Oscar comes to town, so I think that will give us even more to talk about. Is this a lame movie or a great movie or just-another-movie or what?

Now Kiddies, answer me this: please tell me why these two characters are watching male N.R.O.P (spelled backwards with punctuation to prevent you from having problem with spam and/or setting off alarms at work). I cannot for the life of me fathom this...am I missing something here? Do I need to update our DVD collection? Am I an old and crusty prude? Am I really just a heterosexual male in wolf's clothing? Are the wife and I going to be "fired" from our community? Is this what my friends are doing at home and not telling me?

Sorry to say, I am unaware of any of my friends sitting around watching yag. norp.

That's pretty funny--yag norp. I think I am going to start saying that. "Oh, my yag norp is killing me!" "Has anyone seen my yag norp? I thought it was next to the soy sauce." "Have you heard that new band Yag Norp's new album?"

Secondly....why is Julianne having you-know-what with a man?
(Again, not using the "S" word so you don't have to worry about Internet woes, not because I am a prude. I'd say something like doing. the. nasty. but I'm afraid that might cause trouble for you, too.) Is this activity a means of catering to the straight males that got dragged to the movie by their wives, is it a nod to the fluidity of orientation or a commentary on the merits of a gay woman having relations with a male and still calling herself whatever she wants? I applaud the writer for being open minded and illustrating that an affair is an affair is an affair no matter who you are affair-ing with...male or female. In the big picture, it doesn't really matter with whom you are doing the nasty, as you are still doing the nasty.

I have to wonder: is it plausible a gay woman would want to have relations with the man who provided the "needed material" for making a baby? I am SO going to have to ask my friends who have used the service. Why not get what you need the old fashioned way if you want to know the donor? Save a lot of money, you know. Turkey basters are cheap. ha ha!

Let's face it: I thought this was going to be a "man-banging-free" lesbanese relationship movie. I am a wee-bit ashamed. I'm having a sad, shallow case of heterophobia.

We as members of the Addiverse should worry much more about what my Tea-party-peeps are saying about the president than pondering some Hollywood movie. These very politically active people (I do indeed celebrate their passion for our country) are posting stuff all over the internet indicating that....

.....the president is a gay, bath- frequenting Marxist Muslim who was not born in America.

A Chicago bath house, no less! I love Chicago. That Chi-town bath house should be uber-excited about all the free press it is getting due to the Conservatives frothing at the mouth about all this.

It's not enough to be just one of these things--he is the whole package! I knew I liked him. Of course, this is all news to me. I thought he was playing pick up games of basketball, not pick up games of....well, pick up games.

Why worry about summer movies or the economy when we can focus on such "news?"

Here's the real question I pose as I end this posting: why didn't someone think to make a lebanese movie with the lead female character doing the wild thang with a gay president? THAT'S a movie I'd like to see.....

Saturday, August 07, 2010

Time Flies....and, So Do Planes

When I was younger, I heard it said many a time that the older you get, the faster time goes by. I gotta say this is true, true, true. This week blew by so quickly that I woke up and couldn't believe it was the weekend again.....and, that a blog had yet to spew from my bowels during the week. (That, and I get confused by my Book de la Face status updates--I feel like I've written a blog but in reality have just been posting strange/silly/ridiculous status updates and wasting time scanning everyone else's FB stuff. I gotta start limiting my time there.)

The airshow was fabulous. (If you don't care about the air show, keep reading--I have other things to babble about. Hopefully, I won't write about how I think I'm sprouting a wart. I might write about how I was on a web radio show this week, which is an interesting, self-centered topic, but I'm not sure I'll get around to that. Perhaps I can tell you about today's alumni picnic....) Talking about the airshow this late in the game (a week later) seems rather pointless, but I enjoyed it enough that it merits mention. It was so "long" ago that I literally had to check my own blog to see if I had written about it. (I have not.) I wanted to share a few photos from the event, anyways. Suffice it to say a good time was had by all, I'd gladly go again and the price was extremely reasonable. The planes inspire and awe. Well, they do until they start blowing up things--then, you remember why such planes exist.

Talk about your variety of air vehicles. There were big planes, little planes, propeller planes, fighter jets, cargo jets, helicopters, hover crafts, passenger planes, a blimp and even some Tebala Shriner planes. This photo nicely illustrates the variety of planes to chose from. Cargo plane, passenger plane, fighter jet....all parked next to each other. Yum! That, by the way, is the American Eagle plane we could have taken to Connecticut in June. I am SOOOOO glad we didn't take that little puppy to New England. Is there even a bathroom on that thing? Give me the lap of luxury and six across seating any day.

One of the highlights of the airshow was the Harrier. I was excited to see they had a few of these on site--after all, I had a glossy color photo of a Harrier in my high school locker (which, in hinds sight is really weird. But, I digress.) The Harrier is a plane that can hover. It is a mystery to me how this can happen but I'm guessing that one should not stand under a hovering Harrier. Imagine my giddiness when I learned that the aircraft would be part of the flying acts. It was delicious. That puppy hovered this way and that way, a real crowd pleaser. Thankfully, it didn't start bombing things, so I was able to keep my Harrier image unsoiled.

Here's a photo of the Harrier hangin' around, entertaining the masses. I took video of it, too, but it just didn't do the sacred event justice. Pretty amazing to see something like that hanging over your head. Shock and awe, indeed.

Another thing that intrigued me is that all the aircraft have these little red tags hanging all over them that say "remove before flight." Um, does anyone else find it humorous that professional airmen--trained fighter pilots and the like--need little reminder tags to do things like remove before flight? I loved it. Another highlight of the event was spotting a guy wearing a red shirt with the same saying on it. Clever.

Here I am, removing before flight. I wasn't flying anywhere, so I suppose removing before flight was probably a bad idea. Notice I am wearing (once again) my reunion T-shirt. Side note: guess what I am wearing again today, this time to the alumni picnic? Yes, that's right--this exact same shirt. I do believe the wife is going to burn it upon our arrival home. It seems to be my outfit choice of this summer.


Three Hawk and Argo Warrior Princess were the perfect Air show companions. Actually, they are perfect doing-anything companions. A good time truly is assured when hanging out with them. Argo and I are thinking about doing a little ultra light flight this summer, but I'm not sure if I'd rather spend the money on flying, new glasses or another tattoo....time will tell.
Since time flies, I will know much sooner than later what the decision will be.

Yes, today is the high school alumni picnic. Funny how it took me thirty years to really think about high school. I'm not sure what I think about it, but I do think about it now. This summer has been the summer of high school. The picnic is being held in the Chicago suburbs. Since the mosquitoes will probably be bigger than most airplanes seen at the air show and since there will be an entire squadron of mosquitoes dive bombing us throughout the event, I'm not sure how long we will last. We haven't purchased any food for the picnic yet; in fact, the wife and I haven't even decided what we are actually going to take to the event. My goal is to take something pre-made (i.e. sub sandwich) and call it a day. I'm simple folk. I really have no need to grill giant slabs of beef....but, the wife seems to think this is what she would like to do. I have a feeling the car will be stopping at the local butcher on the way out of town. She can befriend someone with a grill because I know we don't have a grill and we are certainly not going to stop and buy grilling products.


And, so I must go primp for the picnic. Stories of warts and web babbling will have to wait......