…feel like a day at the auto mechanics?

Seriously, I spent ten minutes in my vet’s office and walked out 250 bucks poorer.

Yeah, boo-hoo, I know, you couldn’t care less.

The doctors there are wonderful, but they charged me 175 dollars for “Senior Wellness” tests.  Blood tests for God sakes.  You can get a kit at Walgreens to sever your gangreenous toe for ten dollars, but a vial of blood, a few petri dishes, and a set of eyes looking at the stuff for three seconds runs me $250???  Please, baby.  Let’s get real.

I sound like a terrible pet owner.  An unenthusiastic animal lover.  Well, I love my car too (I couldn’t live without it), but I still feel as though I’ve been run through the car wash with the car when I leave the dealers.  And a visit to the vet leaves me ass-bitten and feeling as though I’d undergone the poor-man’s version of liposuction.  Without any of the benefits.  None.  Zippo.

To top things off, and really this is what put me in the bitchy mood, the office staff was incredibly grumpy, trollish and downright rude to the customers.  This was a deal breaker for me at my first pediatrician’s office.  I had to leave due to the lack of humanity receiving the patients at the glass window. Any place serving babies and animals should have crazy smiling people meeting and greeting at the door.

An office staff must be the best part of any outfit in my opinion. 

But apparently, like the whole emptying of one’s pockets at the vet being a problem for me that no one cares about, wanting an almost manic office staff isn’t much of a concern to the vets either. 

And while I’m on a bitch roll, let me say that simply being at the vets must raise the average owner’s blood pressure to the dangerous level–they ought to outfit the place with a doctors office to handle the ensuing heart-attacks upon the sight of one’s cat leaping onto the back of another schlepp’s German Shepard–and well, you get the picture. 

But that would double up on grumpy office staffs so forget that action. 

Having various animals of numerous temperments and levels of sickliness is a poor idea.  There should be shutes you enter outside the office and shuffle you into private rooms where ruggedly handsome men serve fruity drinks. 

Oh, well, okay that’s a little unreasonable, but still.  There could be improvements made and so far nothing’s changing. 

It’s as though no one cares what I think.

Oh, and to finish things off, the receptionist hands me a urine capturing container the size of a human one and requests I gather up some pee and bring it back for that portion of the test I already paid for.

Sister, please.  Are you freaking nuts?

She didn’t think that was funny.

Oh well, not the first time.  Won’t be the last.

Okay, now don’t get too excited, Pitt’s been here before, but again, they’re in the NCAA heading-to-the-finals mix! 

What a wonderful week in sports. 

The week when your team makes it to the next round and you have several days of sports-talk to entertain the fantasies associated with being the next Champion. Like the two weeks before your team plays in the superbowl.  Okay, well, Pitt’s not quite there, yet.  But they can get there  And they will, because I said so. 

Very interesting matchup with Ben Howland, UCLA, and Jamie Dixon (Howland’s former assistant at Pitt).  Here’s hoping Jamie has some sort of daddy complex he’s got to put out to pasture with this game.  But from all accounts he had a normal family life….crap, it figures.  Okay, let’s hope Howland’s overconfident.  Nothing like a little hubris to make things go the other guy’s way.

I attended two other “Big Dances” this weekend.   

One was a beautiful preview party for an antique show that benefits a local house museum.  Everything was stunning and taking all the antiques together the owners might be able to put a dent in the national debt. 

Someone there told me that he and his wife bought a $2500 painting and they loved it and so on and so on.  I’m nodding along, thinking that sounds nice.  Wow, 2500 dollars down the tubes for something on your wall.  Yeah, I could do that if I had the cash.

Well, turns out the woman (the owner’s mother!) who sold them the painting mis-read the tag and it was $25,000!!!!!  Well, I choked on my brie and wheat crackers waiting for the couple to turn white and return the painting before someone accidentally kicked a hole through it. 

The wife nodded, whipped out her checkbook and paid the difference.  The husband feigned discontent and upset with the development while giving her a loving squeeze, basking in his wife’s happiness.  You’d think he might have smacked me on the back to dislodge the cheese or something, but no, they were busy. 

I backed slowly away from the painting (I’m clumsy, you know) and finished my brie in the corner imagining that money filling my children’s college funds….

The second event was a St. Patrick’s Day wedding for my cousin.  It was the polar opposite of the antique show party.  But just as fun and, also as beautiful.  The bride beamed at her million dollar husband and the guests lit up the room with more line dancing prowess than you’ll ever see in any one place. 

The bar–only feet from the dance floor boasted an enormous TV so no one would have to miss the Pitt game. Now, tell me that’s not a wedding any man would kill to be invited to?  A TV in-house.

Seriously, this branch of my family tree is hands down the sweetest, most fun of the giant oak.  Wherever they are, fun is right behind and in a more simple way, the reception was beautiful and left me just as awed as the antique show. 

So, there, three Big Dances in one weekend.  How many people can say that? 

How was your weekend?

Well, my beloved “Friday Night Lights” is garnering some serious critical acclaim.  And not just here at Housewifecafe.  A critic with the New York Times couldn’t say in enough ways all the facets of the show that make it top-notch–the characters, the premise, the writing–it has yet to disappoint.

Well, I already told you folks that.  So, get on it people.  Watch the show, fall in love.  Couldn’t you use a little good tv in your life? Don’t answer that.

Okay, on an even lighter and less important note, I’ve selected a few quotes from Us magazine’s “Loose Talk” section to hold up for ridicule.  Yes, I realize these quotes are out of context and so on and so on, but still, they’re fun to work with:

“The only difference between me and other people is that I travel a lot more.”            Gisele Bundchen

You know, I said that exact thing the other day when I called Sports Illustrated to inquire how I might go about being featured in next year’s swimsuit issue–that holding my “tethered to the home status” against my modeling career was just wrong.  They said they’ll get back to me. Fingers crossed, baby.

“I won’t do nudity unless it’s for an Oscar.  Well, for “Fingerprints,” I showed the “side” of my boob.  Kristin Cavallari

Oh my, where do I start?  Dear Kristin.  Jennifer Hudson is one in a million.  Not that I’d discourage you to dream and do what it takes to get there, but holy shit, tuck that boob back inside until Meryl Streep is standing under the hot lights playing your mother.  Or your boss.

“When I find a bag I like, I tend to wear it to death until I become obsessed with another one.  This probably happens three to five times a year.”  Mary-Kate Olsen

Well, let me say Mary Kate and I aren’t that different.  Sort of like Gisele and I.  My methods for eating quite closely mirror the fashion/purse use habits of little MK.  That’s right.  At least four times a year I switch my chocolate obsession–first quarter of the year it might be Hershey’s kisses, then next maybe fudge.  It’s really very complex, yet spontaneous, so I can’t go into the “zen” aspects of it, but I feel very close to MK. Very, very connected.

Have fun this weekend!

Yes, apparently that’s one fine fellow’s nickname for Oakmont.

And while, it maybe so, that Oakmont has it’s jackass side, his biting bitterness was a little odd to me.

At my favorite writing spot, I really do write, I don’t do a lot of chit chatting.  Anyway, this guy hopped into a conversation I was having with the woman who works there and took that in as his chance to ask me what I was doing.

“What’re you doing over there with that computer?”

“Writing.”

“Writing Whaaaaaat?”

“A novel.”

At this he looks down his nose at me and saunters over as though approaching a bandit in the old West.  “Issssss it about JOKEMONT?”

“No.  It’s not.” Chuckle, chuckle.   Trying to be very polite.

“Well it could be.  I could tell you stories, boy I could tell you.”

“Okay, tell me.”

“Ohhhhhh, noooooo.   I can’t tell you.”

chuckle chuckle.  I smile showing him that I am fine with him hoarding the Jokemont stories like chocolate in the depression.

He stands beside me, trying to read my monitor.

“That’s right.  Power.  Money is power.”

“Information is power, too,” I said.

“But not like money.  NO sireee.”

Wendy tells him his coffee is ready and he saunters back to the counter.

“Boy, I’d curl your toes.”

Wendy says.  “Why don’t you write a book?”

He braces himself in one of those wide based male stances where his legs are just this side of forcing him into a split. 

“I could.  But I’m not gonna do it.  No sirreeee.  I like to keep my secrets close.  In my pocket.”

Yeah, okay.  “Don’t tease me like this, baby.”  I wanted to say.  Or “get the hell out with that crap.  You know nothing.  Now leave me to my imaginery world, why don’t you?”

 

We went skating for the second time.  It was mostly good, but Jake and Bill blew out leaving Jake with a cut and bruised cheek bone.

Bill says he thinks he broke his back in the fall. 

Luckily I didn’t see the incident, but in the thirty seconds it took Bill and Jake to fall and then skate to Beth and I, Jake’s cheek was flaming red and bleeding.

So, Jake sat on my lap in the penalty box and cried a bit and then went back out as agressive as ever.  Which made me happy to see, though I’m a little more leery of the skating thing now.  Just the wimpy Gen-X mother in me, I suppose.

It’s funny though, before we got to the rink, Jake presented every possible way he might get hurt (it would make an eavesdropper how the kid ever actually got out on the ice) wanting reassurance that there’s no way he’ll get hurt.  And I was more than happy to say he’ll never get hurt, because if I’m honest and explore the shady areas of “Well, most likely you’ll never get hurt, but…” then he’d never even get out of the car.

But, as soon as he’s on the ice his eyes lit up and he started running across the ice, he couldn’t go fast enough, pass enough people and joyfully smack me on the butt enough times when he passed Beth and I.

Beth on the other hand has visions of triple axles and triple sow cows while in the car.  Then she’s so much more tentative once we’re there.  Part of her problem is she can’t forgive me for not letting her wear a skirt and tights while skating and spends half her time watching the figure skating, happy skirt wearing, girls in the center of the rink while we circle it at a snail’s pace.

But about half-way through the session she stoped, made me back away and on both feet, she spun herself around.  A triple axel as far as she and I were concerned.

All of this boring family garbage just to say, it makes wonder if this is a reflection of how they’ll approach their lives.  Jake, obsessing about all the negatives until in the midst of some project, then he can’t take enough risks, smiling all the way?

Beth, more cautious, but probablly reaching the same heights as Jake in the end?

I think I’m more like Jake, worrying about things until I reach the edge of the mountain and have no choice but to leap and then its fun.  But I’m also like Beth with the big dreams, imagining myself doing grand things. 

For me, this whole writing thing is a risk.   A quiet little whisper of a risk to most people.  No matter what, I’d be compelled to write, that part’s easy.  What’s hard, what worries me, is the amount of time I take getting this writing to the point of near publication (and publication in the near future, I say). 

I won’t be satisfied with a bunch of binders of unpublished novels in the attic, I know that.  So I don’t have a choice but to pursue this.  But when I think of my house–it could be neater.  My “real career”–I’m getting to the point I might be able to do more (the kids are getting older) How much am I willing to just plow ahead with this writing thing?

I don’t see any choice but to push ahead with it.  The only thing standing between me and publication (beyond essays and articles, I mean) is a little luck.  I’m doing the work and I do think it’s good.  But waiting for the planets to allign, for the moving parts to lock in place.  There’s the risk because I can’t make any of that happen.  So, I’ll risk it. 

How about you.  How would you rate your risk taking life?

 

This will be a bits and pieces post, but I’ll start with two things that my son has recently misunderstood about the world.

First, driving to school there was a commercial on the radio for–or against, really–drinking and driving.  The last sentence said something like “Don’t drink and drive, it might be your friends life you take.”

Jake pipes up with this “You drink and drive all the time, Mom.  It could lead to trouble.”

Well, yes I do drink and drive all the time, I admitted and then I attempted to explain the way some adult drinks make people loopy and unable to function appropriately and those are def. not the drinks I drive with.

Well, how long before I get some odd phone call asking about my drinking problem?

The other thing, was just funny.  In the car after soccer Jake says:  “You know red’s the new black.”

Huh?  I still can’t narrow down where he got that one or what he really thinks it means, but it could make school interesting the next few days.

Now on to sophisticated adult stuff–

Music Videos.

At my gym, there are tv’s on each individual cardio piece of equipment.  There’s a “club video station” that plays various videos plus I can get MTV and VH1 so I get my fill of up to date vids.

And a few oldies.

On the club station, they have a variety everyday.  Today I saw Blondie’s Heart of Glass.  It wasn’t bad, but funny to see what is by today’s standards, almost no production at all.  Just the band singing away.  But the bass player looks seriously bored.  Not an affected bored expression, but truly as though he wasn’t so sure waking up that day and being taped playing Heart of Glass 40 times was what he really wanted to do.

Then the Beatles “I wanna hold your hand” came on.  Good song, holds up.  But the broads in the audience were simply too funny.  They sat nicely in their chairs, bouncing along, a little less lively than your average bobble head, but from their expressions you have to wonder how they managed to contain themselves, managing to exude manners amidst their fervor.  Makes me wonder if it was just copious amounts of drugs that changed the concert scene so fast or did everyone just build up so much seltzer bouncing around, but not really letting it out that the next step was to climb over top of fellow concert goers so to aim one’s bra at the stage from a better angle?   A question for the ages, I must say.

Then.  Then, I really got excited (after a great Train video about a girl who I think died, but is comforting the lead singer from above) when Run DMC’s Walk this WAy featuring Aerosmith came on.  There’s not a better video or song on the market today.  Really, whomever put those two groups together really had his thinking cap on that month.  God, that’s a good one.

And finally.  The song O.P.P.  That song holds up over time, too.  The whole song.  It doesn’t flatten out after a strong beginning and make me yawn like Funky Cold Medina, for instance.  Not that I wouldn’t hop on a bar and do a nice dance to it if I heard it tomorrow.  If I were to drink a glass or two.   

Anyway, I don’t know about your gym, but you ought to request some tvs and club video service. 

And don’t drink and drive. Or wear read thinking it’s the new black.  Black will always be black. 

Get it?

That’s right I’m still stuck for material, so I’ve stolen from The Lipstick Chronicles.  Sara Strohmeyer over there posted about Nancy Martin’s new book called “A Crazy Little Thing Called Death” and the way her total immersion in it caused a few minor, but embarrassing mishaps. 

I went to Nancy’s launch party last night and I can’t wait to dive into the book tonight.  I adore this series, each of the Blackbird sisters and all their troubles.  They are so fun and never fail to make time pass, fast. 

Okay, so I’ve committed to a life of crime and it feels okay. 

So, carry on.

Okay, I know I’m prone to these sudden, bizarre disappearances and I have no good excuse.

Except for my stint in the CIA taking up all my time.  But all that’s behind me and I’m vowing–bound and determined–to put something on my blog even when I can’t think of anything.  LIke now.

Even if I have to steal from other blogsites, I’ll be here.

If I have to slay my relatives with scathing prose, I’ll be here.

You can count on me.

And now for a little sanity and some great writing guidance, visit Judy Schneider’s website called Judy Schneider’s Writing Lab.

She is published widely in non-fiction, including her great selling Frantic Woman’s Guide to Life, and is currently putting the finishing touches on one of her novels.

She’s a great support to me and I credit her highly for helping me get my manuscript (the one that didn’t sell) to the point where I got an agent.  She’s that good, people. 
Stop over there.

Just don’t tell her I’ll be stealing her blog-work for the next few weeks…hehehehehe…

And watch out, the rest of you, too.  Nothing is safe anymore.

I feel as though every post I write is grounded in silly cultural stuff.  Some might even say terrible, rancid, crap unworthy of watching, listening to, and thinking about. 

Yet, still, my mind is there.

So, here’s the latest swirling around my head:

Friday Night Lights:  Matt Saracen is the cutest guy ever…you must watch this show just long enough to see him stumble through a conversation with his girlfriend–his coach’s daughter.  My God, it’s priceless.  I can’t watch him and not smile.

I also love the coach himself, his wife, his daughter.  And the more flamboyant characters that I’m sure make other people ill–Smash, Riggins, and Tyra or whatever her name is–love them, too.  The king and queen of the school are the only two who annoy me…and the queen’s slimeball father never fails to make my skin crawl–an acting successs in my book.  Seriously, watch this show, even if you hated highschool and football even more.  It’ll be worth it.

American Idol:

Well, the guys, for the most part, stunk yesterday.  I’m never totally happy with the guys anyway.  I loved last year’s and the year before’s more rocker guys, but the pop, R&B stuff doesn’t make my heart sing when people like LL Cool J. do it so some amateur from Newark isn’t going to set my pants on fire.

Now the girls, I’m counting on them being better.

For those of you who think TV doesn’t influence a person’s psyche, think again.  I have hard evidence.  Well, okay, anecdotal, but still this is just a little old blog not an arm of a hardcore research outfit.

The evidence is me.  Scooby Doo, I’m convinced, is at the root of my fascination with old homes, buried treasure and secret rooms in old homes.  Like bad TV is inclined to do, it infiltrates your mind and then lies dormant for years, maybe forever before you realize what you watched as a kid means something in your later years.

Yes, this is crazy dramatic–but I’m hurting for material, here.  Anyway, since my kids started watching Scooby, it occurs to me that other than that show and some Abbot and Costello episode when they were revolutionary war ghosts in an old mansion, I was never in an old house until an adult. Yet, my fascination has been around forever.

So blame it on Scooby and the gang.  Or reincarnation.  I swear I was on the Titanic…no really…stay with me…

Okay, I love this show.

But there are aspects of it that are exceedingly disappointing this season.

Anything with Izzy is tedious and makes me want to send her back down a catwalk instead of into surgery.  I couldn’t stomach the story line last year that her falling in love with a dying patient.  I didn’t buy it for a heartbeat.

And now, she’s falling apart while at a disaster site…for the love of God, do your job.  She’s starting to resemble the bimbo the writers set out to make her different from.  And I can’t take it.

And freaking Meredith.  Get out of the water already.

I still love every other person (George is frustrating, though making a speedy exit from pity city, thank the lord) and every story line. and for the most part the show is great.  But these massive tragedy episodes are just too much.