Doing Hard Time in Shaker Heights

CAPTCHA Madness: OH MY FREAKING GOD!

2012-01-31T23:59:00.001-05:00

WHO WRITES THESE????

Geneviève Bujold?

Dispatch from Wellesley...Learn how to flipping park.

2012-01-31T21:44:00.001-05:00

Dear reader,

What happens when you take people who have too much money, have too many SUV's per capita and have a sense of entitlement?

An entire community that can't park.

Now I love driving in Boston because I love the bumper car driving, but this parking thing here is maddening.

People here love parking sideways, at angles and they don't give two rats asses if they take out two, three or four spaces.

And it's men and women who do this. They are completely unaware of anyone around them. And their cars look it! BMW's missing headlights. A Lexus with a broken tail light. Everywhere.

Tonight on Charles River Road a Maybach made a Left hand turn into traffic, and then the driver flipped off the people who came to a screeching stop.

Where do these people come from?

According to my sister in law, they come from Weston.

Tomorrow we take my mother in law to the bank. We fly how many miles and we're spending our time at Bank of America. Woo hoo!

Well guess where I woke up today!

2012-01-30T17:34:00.000-05:00

Generic Picture of the Town Hall

...Wellesley. Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Worse yet, we flew stand-by to save a few kopecks. I loathe flying stand by. But I have Xanax, so I shouldn't care.

Why Wellesley? It's time for a safari to the in-laws, and we never know what fun we will find, or angst we'll discover. And it's going to be a long - a very long visit. Thankfully, I adore my in-laws.

Still, one never knows what we'll find since two large (100 foot tall) White Pines fell on their house last month and tried to cleave it in two.

The house is all repaired, but the views will most certainly be different.

My husband has promised me good meals. And I might need to escape to Newton, Natick or even Needham if things get really bad. And we may have to take a side trip or two to shrines of the family and other ancient locations.

Ugh.

On the plus side, we will get an audience with King Jed and Queen Nettie. King Jed and I went to college together 30 (has it really been that long ago?) years ago. I would have married King Jed if he were gay. Lucky Queen Nettie.

Our house sitter will be watching movies and eating us out of house and home she's half boll weavel.

All I can say is thank God for Yodels and our iPad. Makes the whole thing bearable.

More to come as things develop.

I'm so stressed right now, I really don't care!

2012-01-27T17:52:00.000-05:00

Things are happening people behind the scenes. There is BIG change for the Cookie household in the future.

I'm hoping I can tell you soon. Unless Kabuki Zero dreams about it and spills the beans!

CallistaWatch: I'm ashamed to say I didn't see it first

2012-01-26T11:12:00.000-05:00

Oh, Bitch. Please.

2012-01-24T19:28:00.002-05:00

Oy! Such tsoris!

OK. So let me get this straight. Tim "Make It Work" Gunn admitted on TV that he hasn't had sexual relations with anyone in 29 years because of one bad experience in which his performance was ridiculed by his partner. Really?

Really.

So let me get another thing clear, OK? Were talking about project Runway Tim Gunn, the man who coldly pushes people and constantly judges them, demanding that they be better and Better and BETTER and still NOT BE GOOD ENOUGH THAT THEY PAY FOR THEIR WAYS BY BEING KICKED OFF THE SHOW WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A HUG?

And he made this confession on an ABC daytime talk show - with no Barbara Walters prompting or probing (stop thinking that I am using this in the transitive sense) questions, and in front of Ty Pennington?

Oh bitch. Please.

According to Gunn, a man that he was very in love with criticized his sexual performance and later said that he wasn't that great in bed. So what does Gunn do? He curls up and becomes a celibate? Oh, bitch, please. Someone needs to get a life or get a therapist.

Tim, darling (if you are out there, and I know you aren't) take it from me - someone who was raped as a child and learned not to internalize it or make me feel like less than a human - you need to build a bridge and get over it. If I can do it, You need to get out and take you own fucking advice and make that ass pussy of yours work, Princess.

Personally, I think the bitch needs some sex with a big black man to realign his chi.

I'm stealing this from Jason...

2012-01-22T22:43:00.001-05:00

Something disco, somewhat harsh. Taken, given a simple piano hook, and made beautiful in a different way. It's all in the interpretation. And I love it.

Thanks Jason!

The world I was born into...

2012-01-21T09:42:00.000-05:00

Callista Gingrich: Take Me to Your Leader

2012-01-19T13:02:00.000-05:00

I am fascinated with Callista Gingrich. The more I find out about her, the weirder she becomes.

1) She's a homewrecker.

2) She not only slept with her boss who was a leader of the family values movement that ran roughshod over Washington in the 1990s, but she married him.

3) She's only 45! You heard me - FORTY-FIVE bitches, but she looks like she's going on SIXTY. And she did it on PURPOSE!

4) She looks like a Vampiress, aka, Queen of the Damned.

5) She choose to sleep with Newt Gingrich and let him put his teeny dick in her secret woman place. Doesn't that just make your skin crawl.

6) She could be our next First Lady, unless we wake up and use our votes to make sure her husband never becomes President.

And my favorite fact (or not) about her:

She has top secret laser beams implanted in her eyes!*

*It could happen

Shindig

2012-01-17T16:21:00.000-05:00

An interesting clip. I love it because it's the best clip out there for Nino and April singing Swing Me. But I also love The Blossoms. But there is entirly too much Donna Loren.

Santorum = Assclown

2012-01-16T04:16:00.003-05:00

I can't stand Rick Santorum.

Curtains, plaster and floors, oh my.

2012-01-15T13:15:00.000-05:00

So the husband and I are putting in some work here at Cookie Manor because winter is when you get your best rates with contractors.

We even brought a real estate agent into walk through the house and tell us what she spied that needed done. Why? Because yours truly bought Cookie Manor in 1993 and frankly, after you have lived in a place for so long you become blind to its faults, especially when the house is 96 years old. So fresh eyes are a good thing. And fresh eyes will also ensure that we fix the things we need to fix, and not waste our money doing something stupid.

So the plasterer is coming in to redo the bathroom ceiling and the second floor hallways ceiling and fix other little things.

THEN the carpenter is coming in to replace the sub-floor floor in the bathroom, and then I lay a new floor down that I bought at Carmello's Flooring and Carpets.

Then I have to get new curtains for the dining room. The agent did suggest that, that's my thing. The agent said if she were to list our house that she would have us remove all the window coverings a la HGTV. Yeah, right. Like I want to live my life in front of my neighbors, many of which are already living their lives in front of bare windows at this moment.

Don't believe me?

Well, "Cash Position Gary" (who is always predicating his spending habits on cars and European appliances by saying "I'm in a cash position to ...") is, at this moment banging his boyfriend in their bed which sits in front of a double window over looking the street. And he's really pounding it to him. I can't see it. How do I know this? Because Hairy Sandy is banging on the door of his house screaming at the top her lungs. That I can see, and she only does it when Gary is banging his boyfriend, which Sandy can see from her house. And as a "womyn" who eschews contact with men, it takes something mighty big to get her womynself to cross the street and have anything to do with a man.

Oh, wait, Gary's opening his door. I wonder if she knew he was coming?

Now Sandy is doing her version of the Chicken dance by flapping her arms while she's screaming at him.

He must have closed the door because she's stomping across the street and going home. Now she's throwing a snowball at the house, now she's going home.

Well, then. Unless she goes for her gun, I'm going curtain shopping.

Have a great day darlings!

Thombeau has a NEW blog!

2012-01-11T09:40:00.000-05:00

The ever handsome, entertaining and creative Thombeau has tapped in the collective television zeitgeist and launched a new blog, The Redundent Variety Hour, an homage to those hour long talent showcases that have gone extinct in this age of more channels and less variety.

I note that he features Columbus, Ohio's own Nancy Wilson covering Etta Jones classic Don't Go to Strangers:

And for your consideration, Her's Etta's version, which is one of my all time favorite songs:

The right eye has met the enemy and it is the left eye.

2012-01-08T20:54:00.002-05:00

Never trust shifty eyes.

So, now I can see out of both eyes. This is creating a problem.

My right eye, the eye I had been relying on, is my dominant eye. I've used it almost exclusively for the past five or so years while the cataract in the left eye rendered it useless. The surgery last week took care of the left eye.

So my left eye is pretty much healed and it has discovered that it very much enjoys seeing the world, and I enjoy seeing out of it because it is CLEAR.

The right eye - old reliable - has a cataract as well as it's vision (near sighted and astigmatism) issues. It resents the interloper.

The left eye, now wants to do everything, but the right eye is in cahoots with my brain and my brain liked the old set up because it is familiar.

The icing on this cake is that my glasses are only good for driving.

Then there is the issue of color.

When I look at something white through left eye, it's white. When I look at something white through the right eye, its, well, beige, which is a sign of a cataract. When I look through both, they fight for dominance.

Now, take this picture of a man that I found on my porch roof outside my home office this afternoon:

The man is my husband, and trust me when I say this - I love looking at him no matter what. Still, the image on the left is what I see in my left eye, the image on the right is very close to what I see through the right eye.

The eye's also fight when it comes to how far away I hold things when I read. My right eye wants the paper (or screen) right in front - like three inches from the tip of my nose, a la Mr. Magoo. My left eye would like things a leisurely foot or so up to about two feet away, thank you very much. The brain, which is behaving like a child in a divorce custody battle is trying to make both sides happy. And me, I'm getting a headache.

The eye doctor said it would take a couple weeks for my brain to figure this out. I'm good with that. Still, it's an interesting process or "unlearning".

Tomorrow is my third doctor appointment in the past week, and one of the things we are talking about is getting my right eye done in February so both eyes are in balance.

If that comes to fruition, then this battle royal will continue until about the third week of March - when both eyes are healed enough to get a good pair of progressive lenses so I don't have to do battle with outmoded glasses

And that means a trip to see Missy, my optometrist's wife. And Missy understands that me looking for glasses is a lot like when women shop for the perfect paif of red shoes.

So if you see a man putting on and taking off his glasses, squinting and trying to read at various levels in the next six weeks or so, that would be yours truly. Do say "Hello".

If it is not me, well then you have a perfectly good excuse for getting out of a delicate situation.

If you think about it, they're right.

2012-01-07T18:04:00.002-05:00

Headline writing is an art

2012-01-04T16:48:00.000-05:00

Is that what he is calling it? Some of us call it "shit".

Where did Romney lead Paul? I hate to think about anything surging from Santorum.

Catholic Online finally comes to an agreement with Dan Savage on the real meaning of "Santorium".

I can see clearly now, the cataract is gone, now.

2012-01-04T16:20:00.000-05:00

Well, had my surgery at 8AM - a climate issue in the OR slowed down everything. My left eye is now functioning and I can see out of it for the first time in several years.

Spent more time in prep than anything. They make you wash your face. They ask you several times what eye they are doing the procedure on, even though that have marked your face. They make you wear those unfashionable head OP caps.

To be honest, it felt like a couple minutes and *POOF*, done. Husband got to watch the whole thing on a giant TV.

The worst part of the thing is the clamps that they crank you eye open with. They pinched.

After the procedure they inject some type of anti-biotic into your eye that is a milky white color, so I was one eyed Dick for about eight hours, but everything has worn off and I am seeing through the eye great.

Because that left eye was out of commission for so long, and it was such a slow process, I now have to get used to seeing something clearly from BOTH eyes at the same moment, so I have to mentally tell my right eye to kinda relax a bit and left the left eye do its fair share.

You never realize what you are missing in life until someone or something opens your eyes.

Guess what's happening to me right at this moment?

2012-01-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

If you guessed cataract surgery, you guess right. After this procedure, I will no longer be dead eye Dick, so to speak. The left eye was getting so bad that I was just pretty miserable all of the time and on foggy days, I couldn't leave the house because the weather made the vision in the left eye completely stinko.

Because I can't get both eyes done, I couldn't get the flexi-lenses that would correct my eyes to better than new condition. I had to go with a fixed lens that will take my eye from -4.00 (with a bad astigmatism) to
-2.00 and no astigmatism. We had to go this route so when I take my glasses off I can still function. (Evidently people's sense of balance is affected one on eye is off by more than 3 diopters.

The doctor says that after the surgery I will be seeing clearly from both eyes in about two weeks. That's the good news. The bad news is that that until the left eye settles in, I can't order a new lens for my glasses, so I'll look a bit odd with one lens in and one lens out.

Until then, I'll be doing a lot of winking.

Seldom heard round the seashore these days...

2012-01-01T20:42:00.000-05:00

(Special thanks to William Dimitroff for the prosaic dialog)

The winds of change are a blowing, or My Resolutions

2012-01-01T15:01:00.001-05:00

Well, after yesterday's shocking news, Mother nature and the gods, and God for that matter are sending us a clear message today - the winds of change are a BLOWING!

Some of the gusts that came in with this weather front have been so harsh that Cookie Manor has shuttered from their brutality, and the fierce desire to sweep out the old and bring in the new.

We're hoping that its a metaphore for the year to come.

That said, I am sharing with you my Resolutions for 2012, because if you aren't growing, you are dying.

1) In 2012 I will become a Certified Genealogist. Its what I love doing, and I could get paid for it, so why not?
2) Change my outlook in life.
3) Try and suffer fools with a bit more compassion.
4) Bite my tongue and count to ten before I go all Julia Sugarbacker on someone.
5) See things more clearly - step one of which I will undertake this week.
6) Travel more.
7) Make plans for the future. None of this living in the moment crap. It gets me nothing and I have nothing to show for it.
8) By fewer lottery tickets.
9) Find someone else in the family to take over this family farm accounting that I do.
10) Get out of the credit union industry once, and for all.
11) Go to California for a certain wedding, and then have dinner with Felix and Donna.
and the most difficult one of all...
12) Try to see that my cousin Ellen's husband is good because he makes her happy, and the not as consumate asshole that he behaves like.

What resolutions do you care to share?

We have news, and it could spell the end of this blog.

2011-12-31T00:20:00.007-05:00

I know that all of you have read the headline and have ~clutched the pearls~ and then gasped.

I thought we'd finish off the year with some fairly big news in our lives that could spell the end ~gasp~ of DHTISH.

This cannot be, you say to yourself.

But life is like that, no?

And I really, really want to let you in the secret.

Really I do.

I can't tell you how much this is tearing me up.

And it is!

Except I have been sworn to secrecy.

I can tell this - 2012, hopefully, looks to be bringing some sweeping changes to life - all of them really, and I mean really, good for the people and dogs living in the Cookie household. And if it does, it will simply be divine. A caprice - an escapade!

And if it does, this blog will be retired. Don't worry. Something else will appear.

So here is to you, and to us! May 2012 gives us - each and everyones us - our hearts desire. May the new year, bring new vistas, travel and new friends.

More importantly, may you all have health, wealth and money in the bank!

Well, I think we'll let the dust settle.

2011-12-30T17:20:00.001-05:00

I know that you have been wondering where I have been.

Well, I am here to tell you that this past week has been my private roller coaster ride through Hell, compliments to Dell Computing.

I understand that one needs to suffer for their art, but really, I'm paying them, so why am I the one suffering?

It started out with the "FakeRean" trojan, which launched a horrible worm virus. Let me say this that if get my hands on the developer of this horrible pc virius that I will single handedly wring the life, and after life, out of them.

So I called Dell, because when I bought my latest PC fom them they had this deal that gave me three years of US Based Tecnological Support for $50. And I hate talking to "These eze J I M M Y, howl may I help you," from Banaglore.

Well the paid support didn't work. They had a ten minute maximum wait time and each call into them had a wait time of 30 to 60 minutes. Hell! I could get the folks in Bangalore faster than the service I was paying!

Not only was I on wait - which just pisses people off - but was I was forced to listen to Dell's hold recording that reminded me that "most issues can be solved by rebooting your computer" or "Visit http://www.dell.com/ for technical support!" these two messages rotated every 30 seconds.

Do the ass clowns at Dell not understand that if someone is calling, it may not a be as simple as shutting down and rebooting it? What kind of fucking asshole leaves that on the hold message.

I'll tell you: the assholes who sell you a premium service package and then don't give a rats ass if you call, but if you, they want you to hang up the phone, that's who.

Reader, I was steaming.

After 30 minutes on hold (for guarenteed 10 minute service) one too many times, I - you will be hard pressed to imagine this, but - I lost it.

What did I do?

I went postal on their asses, and let's say that I expelled all of the terrible pent up ions in my soul from this whole God damned year.

I acknowledge that it sounds crazy, but everyday for the past week they have been guarenteeing me that everything was back to normal, despite things not working correctly.

Evidently something I said (could have been "lawyer" or "fraud") put the fear of God into their lives and they got on the ball today.

So we are now at a point where where the PC should work flawlessly.

We'll see.

I'm not holding my breath.

But next machine is a MAC.

Well?

2011-12-25T18:22:00.002-05:00

Did you get what you want? Or...

...did you get what what you need?

What are you doing Christmas Day?

2011-12-25T10:01:00.000-05:00

Delivering Toys and Cigarettes to good little boys and girls?

Merry Christmas to all, an announcement and a warning of sorts

2011-12-24T11:18:00.000-05:00

This tree has 75,000 lights on it. I think it looks a bit bare, you?

I wish to thank all of you who stop, lookand comment at this hodge podge that I call Doing Hard Time in Shaker Heights. You guys light up my life, but not in a Debbie Boone kinda way.

My announcement is that next week I'll be off line for a couple days. My computer is infected with the "FakeRean" virius/trojan and its been a real motherfucker to deal with. The only way to be rid of it is to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows 7. And loading and reloading EVERYTHING will take a day or two.

My warning is, while I ALWAYS practice safe computing (Keep the AV up to date and running, use SpyBot, keep away from "suspect sites, et. al.) "FakeRean" (Link to trojan definition) got into this computer. So run your AV program, be careful and I hope you never encounter it. Those wishing to gloat about their MAC machines, kindly keep your gloating to yourself. I'll come over to the darkside soon enough.

Rocky and Kevin send their "Howl-i-day" wishes, too!

Report of the Middle of The Street Committee, Christmas Week Edition

2011-12-23T17:11:00.001-05:00

At the last meeting of the Committee of the Middle of the Street has conducted on December 18, 2011, we stood in the middle of our street and watched the Christina (aka the Filipina Dominatrix) chain smoke clove cigarettes while moving men carted her possessions into a moving van parked on the street.

Just Call Me Judy kicked off the meeting with holiday wishes to all “the puppies” on the block (Our Kevin and Rocky were trying to braid their leashes around my legs) and a “Merry Hanukah” to yours truly, even though the front of house has a HUGE plywood sign that reads N O E L - in the dark, the lights on the letters light up N, O, E, L one at a time and then flash NOEL NOEL NOEL in quick succession like an old ZAYRE sign.

The holiday wishes were accepted, and returned by all.

“Do you think she knows that we are watching her?” asked 60 Something Hippy Connie who was holding the leash to her dog “Spirit”.

“Let’s see; there are ten of us standing in the middle of the street looking and then looking away really quick when she looks this way,” remarked Helicopter Sandy, “so I would say the answer is a big fat ‘YES’.”

“Well, I for one am disappointed that I didn’t see anything perverted come out of that house,” said I Don't Have a Sphincter Audra. “The only thing odd that I saw was something that looked like a lion cage and a two 2X4’s nailed in the middle like a giant “X”.

“That,” said Helicopter Sandy, “was probably her cage for her slaves and a whipping rack.”

That caused Don't Have a Sphincter Audra to snap out of her mopey state. “How do you know that Sandy?”

“I was on the vice detail for ten years. I’ve seen it all.”

We were joined by the Bob Wolf(e)’s and their two Newfoundland’s who were slobbery all over the place.

“Are we talked about…” said Bob Wolf, “…about what we think you’re talking about.” said Bob Wolfe.

“They haven’t sold the house,” said Just Call Me Judy. “The real estate agent said that they have to make” (she arched her eyebrows) “significant repairs.”

“This is what we don’t get,” said Bob Wolf (or was it Wolfe) “She had those two submissives living in there – why wasn’t she putting them to work fixing the place up,” asked Bob Wolf or Wolfe.

Pot Smoking Phil ambled over and with his dog Fester and Phil introduced himself with a loudly announced “HOLA!”

“Mooey, Mooey” added in Just Call Me Judy, proud as punch with herself that she had just added something of worth to the conversation.

“CAR!” called out the Bob Wolf(e)’s and the group parted like the red sea to accommodate a vehicle cutting through the neighborhood. Then we resumed our confab in the middle of the street.

"Hey Audra,” said Phil, “did you see the dog crate come out? Bet one of these boxes here (nodding in the direction of the movers) is full of the whips and chain mail.”

“Phil, you have a filthy, filthy mind. What would make you think that I would want to see anything like that,” said Audra with an air of urgency.

“But a minute ago,” I started to point out…

“You never mind,” she said to me just as Helicopter Sandy started to laugh. “Haha Audra – got caught with your pants down!”

“Now you never mind. Phil did you ever see anything going on in there?” Audra asked.

“Audra, if you are looking for pointers, you better ask her before they fill up that van and drive away,” I pointed out. "CAR!" ontly this time the car swerved to the side of the street and stopped.

That was when our group was approached by Ulla, of Ulla and Marte, a lesbian couple from Finland that bought a house down the street when they moved to Columbus to continue their studies at Ohio State.

They are not friendly, and they don’t mix well. Ulla was parking their Smart car and walked to where we were standing in the center of the street.

“So what are we doing?” Ulla asked us. “Are we making noises to keep up the people who have to work in the morning? Well?”

“Just talking” we all said in one manner or another.

“About what? What is so special that you must hold this meeting in the mitten (I think she meant ‘middle’) of the street? “

Just Call Me Judy piped up “We were talking about Audra’s CANCER SURGERY, weren’t we Audra.”

“You have this cancer surgery?” asked Ulla somewhat incredulously.

We all know what was coming…

“Oh, yes, I don’t have a sphincter, or a rectum. Had to cut it all away. So now I’m in a new study on colostomy bags…”

“Yes, well, Happy Christmas to you all.” And off she stomped like a German storm trooper. She marched up her steps, into her home and then watched us from a window.

“Good work, Audra,” said Phil.

We all agreed to meet at Phil’s in January for the annual neighborhood White Elephant Christmas Party.

But the Bob Wolf(e)s want to know if Phil was going to invite over Ulla and Marte.

“Yah, Yah!” he said and then start to laugh at how funny he was.

Merry Christmas to all – even Ulla and Marte – and to all a good night.

Making up for not planting flowers every year.

2011-12-22T13:08:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I went back home to Marion, Ohio, to visit Mom at the cemetery and also to check up on something that I did up that way that would have her spinning in her grave had I not had her cremated. So I guess this would have had whirling in a cloud of dust. You get the idea.

Our family plot at the cemetery back home holds about twenty graves - ours is a small family. None of my great grandfather's sisters had children that lived to adulthood, and my grandfather's only sibling died of TB before she could start a family of her own.

The earliest grave in that plot belongs to my grandfather's aunt Lottie who died at 18 months of typhoid fever. Over the years, the small simple marble stone has eroded away to a crumbly placard that toppled over in high winds. The other two children in the plot are our Aunt Eva's children, a son who died at two and his sister who died at nine, again, both from typhoid fever in the late 1800s. Their markers, like Lottie's were worn down, but they also carried their surname of "Brown" and this left people confused. Unless you knew that Uncle William was her second husband, it's like these two children just wandered over from a different section.

And there is just something that speaks to me that says that no children brought into this world should disappear into oblivion, and the dust of history, without there being something left behind to mark that they were here. No child should be forgotten to the ages.

So to fix this, I took $700 of Mom's legacy and bought all three new tombstones, in granite. The wording on each marker is exactly as it was on the old markers, but I added the Cookie family surname to each of Aunt Ev's children's markers so the ignorant would know that they belonged to someone in the plot as well.

My mother would, of course think that this was a terrible waste of money, until someone other than me said that it was a touching and loving thing to do. Mom wasn't one for emotions. Should would have preferred that the money had been invested at the current rate (practically nonexistent), and then she would have sat in a dark room to save even more money. But the sad state of those sad markers bothered me, so I did it.

I also gave the cemetery the authority to destroy the old stones. They were plain markers and none of them had any art work on them. From my genealogy and history work, I know what happens when people move them - it creates confusion ("Is great great great grandmother Clotilda buried here or in Aunt Betty's back yard back by the Quince bush?")

Can you imagine what would happen had I taken them - like they suggested and used them in a landscape setting? Oh, Jeezy Pete! Every nut job in a one mile radius would start talking about Cookie's Cemetery! And I didn't want someone to steal the stones either.

It was a hard decision, but the right one to make.

My other reason for doing this is that Aunt Ev left everything to my grandfather on the condition that he plant flowers on her grave every year. We haven't always followed through on that because the squirrels just dig them up. But I think that tending to these graves has gone long way to right that wrong.

The Kessler Sisters

2011-12-20T20:41:00.001-05:00

But what song are they singing? Seriously.

Stella and Ella send their Zombie Christmas Cheer

2011-12-19T20:11:00.000-05:00

Thought for the day

2011-12-07T22:05:00.000-05:00

Where is Donna Lethal when you need her?

2011-12-02T16:53:00.002-05:00

So my friend ron posts this link to a video on Facebook to a video of a girl and a girl - both wearing hot pink unitards, dancing and frolicking to a Mariah Carey song. Because I have a lot of time on my hand, I follow the link - stranger things have been to entertain me.

So I click on the link, up pops YouTube and the video begins. Unfortunatly, the climax for me was too soon. The play bar gets to the yellow marker (YouTube's was of telling you WE HAVE PLACED AN AD HERE) and while I normally just close it out, this one catches my eye because of the topic, and the bad grammar:

Yes, your eyes are seeing correctly, but for the myopic:

So I went to that site and, in fact, they have (wink, wink) THOUSANDS of Chinese Lady for dating. It not one - many, many Chinese lady want to date you! They miss you long time!

What's more - 10,000 Chinese are, according to this ad can be found violating the premise (9th grade English, thank you Barbara Smith, rest in peace) that if you "lay" on the beach you should be arrested. Whats worse is that they "lay" without love - in fact they are WAITING FOR LOVE while they lay, but you must REGISTER.

It FREE.

And that is where I stopped. Unless a Chinese lady is bringing me my order of Mongolian Beef, I don't need her.

Here's the video - I'm not sure how long YouTube cycles its ads through, but at least for now, "it showing that ad!"

And always remember that I love each and ever one of you, long time now!

UPDATE: DRAT! They have removed the Chinese Lady Ad. I HATE that when it happens! (Or maybe they realized it was probably a prositution racket or some such thing.)

If you removed one letter from the title of this movie...

2011-12-02T09:59:00.001-05:00

...how would it change the movie?

A death in the Hollywood Royal Family: Judy Lewis

2011-12-01T12:16:00.003-05:00

In Secret Cinema, the great Paul Bartel did a black and white short about a woman named Jane who felt like she was the last to know what was going on around her. She felt that people were talking about her behind her back - laughing her mistakes, laughing louder that she had no idea what was really going on.

For the first 20 years of her life, this is what Judy Lewis felt about her life.

I just read this online...

Judy Lewis has died.

Mom and Dad

See the resemblance?

Lewis was the daughter conceived between Clark Gable and Loretta Young during the filming of the Call of The Wild.

When the annoyingly Catholic Young (who would gain a reputation of being a real pill on numerous Hollywood sets over her hatred of swear words) discovered that she was pregnant with Gable's child, she did what any good Catholic girl would do - she went into hiding. Off to Europe she went, only to return in time to have her "love child" born in the U.S.

As to keep her career going, she then had friends and orphanages care for her little bouncing reminder of her coitus with Clark Gable until enough time had passed that it was "safe", then magnanimously adopted the orphaned girl as "Judy Young".

Unfortunately, little Judy inherited her father's ears and heavy brow. While nothing could be done about the brow, Loretta sent the child in for surgery to have her ears pinned back.

As mother and child (or, more accurately, Sinner and Product of the Sin), Young and the child never really bonded, and Young eventually confirmed that she was Judy's mother. Explaining her decision to give birth, Young reported said: “Wouldn’t you be if you were a movie star and the father of your child was a movie star and you couldn’t have an abortion because it was a mortal sin?”

Sweet, isn't it?

Despite having a Bitch like that for a mother, and by all accounts, Lewis did move on with her life, pursuing acting a continuing on in life with her education.

The thing about family lies is that they have a tendency to come up for air, as Loretta Young discovered.

Safe journey Judy; heaven awaits you, but I wouldn't expect to see your Mum around if I were you.

Royals that should have been

2011-12-01T10:15:00.000-05:00

Baroness Rowena D'Smirk

Away in a manger...

2011-11-30T16:22:00.000-05:00

Found this through linkification and its BRILLIANT. 27 Really Horrible Manger Scenes at whyismarko.com

Another connection

2011-11-27T19:11:00.000-05:00

This has been an exhausting day.

I've spent the better part of the sitting in shock, and greiving.

But I have also been wondering about the probility that the connections between those that are here amongst us, and those that have left us may cross over into each others realms. And today we have another instance where I think it has.

At the time that my father died in Florida, I had this incredible feeling of power and rage wash over myself while driving. I immediatly wanted to beat someone up, which is not something I would think of, or do. I found out her died an hour later when I got the call from my brother.

When Mom died, I was with her, but the drive back to the house took about an hour. Two hours after her death, at 2Am when I was getting something to eat and being comforted by our dog, the phone rang once, twice and then nothing. Her signal to me that that I hadn't called her to let her know I was home after leaving her place was to ring the phone twice. I was suppossed to ring her back twice - why waste the expense of a phone call, right? I always thought that phone ring was her way of letting me know that she got to where she was going and that she was OK.

Last week I installed new smoke alarms in our house as the old one were 18 years old this past October. The new alarms are pretty slick, and more substantial than the ones they built in 1993. They also use two AA batteries instead of the old 9 volt batteries.

So last night I went to bed, then the husband came to bed afterward after locking down the house. After 3AM the new smoke alarm in the livingroom ran a test cycle - two series of three ear piercing electronic chirps. Of course it woke us up, but it stopped and we went back to sleep. At 3:20 it did the same thing - this time we woke up and wandered around the house trying to find what was making that noise. At 3:25 while standing under it, the thing went off again. So we pulled it and disconnected the batteries. We had inspected the house and found nothing wrong.

This morning was the news that Lucille had died.

This evening at 6PM a mutual cousin called to say that they think that based on the condition of the body, the acid levels in the body and the amount of rigor mortis in the body that Lucille had been dead 7 to 8 hours, which tied to estimated time of death to the 2:30 to 3:30AM time period.

Now my task is trying to track down Pam's errant husband who's been missing for eight years.

It's going to be a hard week.

An after shock.

2011-11-27T11:45:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I wrote about the passing of my cousin Pam and how her mother had seen everyone in her family before her eyes either witness tragedy, or their deaths.

Now more shocking news - they found Pam's mother's body this morning. She died in her sleep in the middle of the night.

Incredibly sad for myself - I have lost another connector to my past. I wanted to spend time with her. But also incredibly relieved. She didn't have to suffer on earth any longer.

While we were at the hospital, waiting for the moment to be right to make the decision to discontinue Pam's life support, her mother said that on Monday night, at about 3AM she woke up and looked out the bedroom window to see a girl about ten, with light brown hair "standing there in one of those white dresses like we used to wear when I was young."

She called out to the girl, thinking it was Pam in her dazed state, but the girl drifted into the fog.

She got up and "put my robe on and then went and check on Pam and she was sound asleep, so I went back to bed. I don't know who that was because Pam always had darker hair." She seemed to ponder the moment - half afraid to said who it was that she saw.

So I asked, "was it Mary that you saw?"

"Yes, it was her." She started to cry. Mary was the sister who died in the car accident back in 1937.

She went onto say that Mary came to her in her dreams, every night after she died until Pam was born. And then it stopped.

Pam's episode was Tuesday afternoon - now this.

I'm glad that I spent those hours with Lucille at the hospital - it's her legacy to me.

She's now with Pam, and in Mary's company as well.

Tsoris.

2011-11-26T16:26:00.000-05:00

Well - my Thanksgiving didn't work out as planned Darling's - did yours?

Everything was going grate guns a fire. The meal was good. So was the company. And the dogs were on their best behavior.

Then I got an email from a distant cousin from back home that sent me directly to the ICU unit of Riverside Methodist Hospital. No joke.

Apparently, the daughter of another mutual relative/neighbor from my mother's childhood had what the doctors called an "episode" back home and collapsed. Her heart stopped pumping for 11 minutes before they got it going against, and by that time, it was pretty hopeless.

So we did what people from back home do - we stood by the family, because you never leave your friends in a time of need.

It was a very long two days and nights, but Pam was removed from the ventilator yesterday and died this morning.

Now I stand by with Pam's mother - a woman of amazing misfortune and strength. She lost a sister in a tragic car accident that left her other sister paralyzed from the neck down. Then both of her parents lost their battles with the infirmities of old age after tending to their paralyzed daughter for the remainder of their lives. Then that sister died. Then her son - born profoundly retarded after his mother was exposed to measles in the first tri-mester. He husband passed, and now this - losing your last living child who was only 54. My cousin has seen everything and everyone wiped from the earth.

I don't understand sometimes why God does these things. Why weigh a person down with all of this?

And now I'm giving the eulogy. Pam's mother seems grateful that I have accepted the job, which I undertake with love and gratitude. To say kind things about Pam is an honor, because she was a kind person with a gentle heart and a gentle soul.

Gives new meaning to Thanksgiving; I am thankful I was able to support their family in their time of need.

The Evils of Communism

2011-11-24T20:33:00.002-05:00

This officially kicks off the Christmas Shopping Season!

My gift to you: the Butternut Squash recipe

2011-11-23T19:56:00.001-05:00

Well my darlings, I know it's late, but I also know that the markets are still open this evening for most of you, and will be open in the morning for last minute needs, so I am gifting to you my family's butternut squash recipe, which is to die for, and a nice alternative to mashed potatoes.

1 Large Butternut squash, halved and the seeds removed
2-4 cloves of garlic, peeled
4oz Parmesan cheese, grated
4oz of Gorgonzola (or other blue) cheese, crumbled.
1 large onion
some sage
salt and pepper.
some room temperature butter

1. Halve the butternut squash lengthwise with a sharp knife. Place the squash on a jelly roll pan (like a cookie sheet, but it has and 1" lip all the way around) face down and hide a clove or two of garlic under the squash in the cove where the seeds used to be.
2. slather the outside "skin" of the squash with some butter.
3. Pop that in a 400 degree oven for 60-70 minutes.

4. Dice the onion. Heat up a skillet with a blob of butter in it and when the butter starts to turn brown, throw the diced onion in and sauté. When the onion begins to wilt, throw in a pinch of sage, and some salt and pepper and continue to sauté until you think they cooked through.

5. Remove the squash from the oven and allow to cool for five minutes or so. Then scoop the cooked squash into a big bowl. Discard the skins. Seriously, throw them out because you don't want to eat them - yucky!
6. In the bowl mash up the squash and the garlic, add the cooked onions, and the two cheese together. You can either mash it all together or blend it, however you want the texture to be.
7. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with a little sprinkle of the Parmesan cheese.

BONUS!

You can make this ahead and substitute an oven ready dish. Just stick it in the fridge and then reheat for an hour at 350 before you serve. (I don't recommend using a microwave because it can blob and splatter all over.)

OR

You can buy frozen puff pastry - following their instructions for thawing and filling and use this recipe in the filling. Great for cocktail parties.

Simple and TASTY! And I guarantee you that no one else will bring this like they will that green-bean casserole.

Thanksgivingish

2011-11-23T14:55:00.000-05:00

Whatever your tradition, hope your holiday is a good one!

Memories, of my father: the red light bulb

2011-11-18T20:42:00.007-05:00

As long time readers of this blog know, I had a real love hate relationship with my father, that was mostly hate. He was a deeply troubled man, with a life spinning out of control. In the process of trying to make sense of it, he made us all miserable.

In another forum I moderate for people from my adopted hometown, the subject came up about the town madam. A woman named Gracie who ran a "house"; not a brothel, or a house of prostitution, just a "house". Its what we called it, what my mother's generation call it, and what my grandfather's generation called.

One of the group participants remembered that when she was in high school, the kids would drive by the "house" and if the shade went up, and then the shade went down, Gracie's girls were accepting callers. Another woman added in that a woman on her street would put out the "red light bulb" whenever her husband left for work.

And the story about the red light bulb reminded me of my dad.

Every Saturday morning, I had to go with my father, an attorney in Cleveland, when he went to visit his "clients".   I went kicking and screaming because I hated spending time with the old man and because I wanted to watch cartoons - my parents were still married so I was younger than ten.

Dad's clients were a miserable lot. Some of the men answered the doors with faces that looked like raw meat - bruised and swollen. Other clients tried to give me candy, but their overall hygiene and look in their eyes told me not to touch their candy. One woman, who worked at a produce stand in the West Side Market, would give me a pumpkin every Halloween while my father would try and talk some sense to her son - black Irish brawler with a taste for booze and cheap women.

Of course all of this freaked me out because 1) we didn't have people like this in Shaker Heights, and 2) I was dealing with personal issues of my own and 3) I was like eight or nine and these people threatened my fragile sense of security.

What I didn't know was then was the reason why we visited those clients was because he had either bailed them out the week before or they were on probation and he checked up on them to make sure they weren't doing something stupid that would hurt themselves and end up back in jail.

On one of the trips we drove about five minutes from our house to a street west of Lee Road, into Cleveland proper, down in what my father called "browntown". Dad grew up in this neighborhood when it was predominately white and eastern European in the 1920s, but by this point in the 1960s it was referred to as the place that grandparents were lucky to have "Gotten Out Of" when they sold their house and moved into Shaker proper.

For those of you wondering what kind of neighborhood it was, the commercial district on Kinsman Road was rough and boarded up. When the blacks rioted in the 1960s all over this country, they were rioting against this level of poverty. Most of the houses looked rough as well, but we pulled up in front of a duplex house that by this neighborhood's standard was respectable and tidy, and there wasn't a broken down car in the driveway.

And it had a red light bulb glowing in the coach light next to the front door, and it wasn't Christmas.

And when my father saw that, he was steamed.

"What the HELL?" he said.

In Yiddish terms, he was having a conniption fit before the car even stopped moving.

Since he was convinced that I would break something on the Cadillac, and God forbid anything should anything happen to the CADILLAC, I had to go in with him. I don't think the thought ever crossed his mind "God forbid anything should happen to my son"; it was all about the Cadillac.

So we go up and ring the bell and this black woman wearing a short nighty answers the door. We got in there, Dad started yelling at this woman to get the "God damned" light bulb turned off and replaced with a normal one.   While that was going on, I looked around noticed that the house smelled of cheap cigarettes - and badly at that. It was so strong it had a sickeningly sweet smell, and it made me queasy. The shades were pulled, and stained with cigarette tar, so the light filtering in made everything golden and hazy. The furinture was old, the fireplace was drapped in old crepe paper like their had been a party there once.

My father and the woman were screaming at other and my Dad was telling her that she was headed back to the tank if the county saw that bulb. "Jesus KEY-rice!" Dad was screaming.  "If Judkins sees this you are going back to jail even before you answer the door!"

Boy, was Dad mad, but I kinda thought the red light was cool and I wanted one for our house.

Finally some man came from down the hall and wanted to what the problem was and Dad calmed down some and told him. He looked like he had just gotten out of bed.

The man told the woman "go and put some pants on." When she was gone, dad and the man talked. The guy smiled at me - he was black as night and had yellow teeth - one was missing - and said I could sit down "while me and your daddy talk some stuff over."

No fucking way was I sitting down in this place.

We were there for all of five minutes and the woman finally came down the hall in a pair of shorts and a top, she waddled into the kitchen and came back with a regular light bulb. Dad and the man finished their business and dad took the light bulb, and on our way out changed the bulb with is handkerchief and gave me that red light bulb to hold.

"Hey, Mr. K - THAT MY LIGHT BULB!" the woman screamed before the man pulled her back in the house.

Afterward in the car he explained that she wasn't at all to have a red light bulb on the light because it "upset the neighbors." Why?

"It's like when our neighbors don't pick up their leaves in the fall," he said.  "It imposes on people - makes them feel uncomfortible because they don't have a red light bulb, too." That made sense me.

He gave me the bulb, but made me promise never to use it on an outside light. When my mom saw it, it was her time for the conniption fit because she was furious that he gave it to me.

"I don't want him bringing that in here," she screamed.

"What?" he said, "it's just a light bulb that happens to be red!"

All this over a red light bulb?

"Dad said I can't show it to anyone because they might not have a red light bulb of their own," I voiced.

My mother looked at my father and said "You told him that? That people would be jealous of that thing? Did you all tell him that a hooker was a person who liked to fish, too?"

One of their fights ensued. I took the lightbulb in seach of someplace to screw it in and turn it on.

Over the years of my childhood I would periodically pull the red light bulb out of it's various hiding places and then screw it into a lamp where it glowed for five minutes and then I would unscrew it and stick it in a drawer until I was bored again. Such is the mind of a child - things in small doses bring great appreciation, but lose their draw after the wonderment wears off.

I eventually found out what a "red light" bulb meant while watching a movie one weekend. This was after my parents were divorced and I asked my Mom it it was true. She confirmed that it was. Wow. I got a great souvenir. But if I had known that in second grade I could have really made a hit at Show and Tell.

Such is my life - a day late and a penny short.

Have you met my stepmother?

2011-11-15T21:46:00.000-05:00

She's freshed herself up, just for you.

Time to shift gears. Cunt Cupcakes

2011-11-11T16:53:00.000-05:00

I read someplace on another linkified blog that the blogger was going on hiatus, but said Blogger left a number of links to other blogs that his faithful should follow.

Mine was described as "Conservative, touching and mostly safe for work." All I can say is that I was at once touched, and shamed. You will never see total nudity on DHTISH, because that would be very unlike me.

So instead, today - two days after my life hurdle was cleared - I'm serving up Cunt Cupcakes for all!

At 11:45PM, it'll have been a whole year

2011-11-09T23:45:00.003-05:00

Cookie's Mom

10/1/1924 - 11/9/2010

A year ago, Mom died. I miss her more than words can say.

It seems like forever ago. It seems like yesterday.

Being with Mom when she died was one of the greatest gifts ever given to me while on this earth. Between us there was nothing left unspoken. No anger. No regrets. Just a big hole in my heart. Nothing left to the imagination. She brought me forth into the world, and held her hand as she left it.

As she said about a month before she died, when we knew the end was coming, "We sure did have a lot of fun, didn't we." And how we did, indeed.

But this is the one year mark, and it marks the end of mourning. Her headstone is in place, the estate is closed. The year has come to a close.

I could not have gotten through this past year without all of you. Whether I read you blogs and laughed, or you commented on mine, thank you for being there when I needed it.

Life has to go on, and now so do I.

Strangest episode of Hollywood Squares I ever watched

2011-11-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar announce baby 21 is on the way.

2011-11-08T08:28:00.000-05:00

I am not stretching the truth. Apparently Jim Bob labored over his wife and the result of his efforts was announced on the Today Show today. These people need a hobby.

We become more like our parents every day

2011-11-07T11:41:00.001-05:00

Over at Infomaniac, MJ asked the question: What is the Gayest Thing in your house. Having been out of the closet since the time before Mondale challenged Reagan for the White House I am way past decorating our house with things that the Pupate Homosexual is drawn to.

Truth be told I think we have a pride flag that we fly in June during Pride, and we have a deck of cards with the pride rainbow on it. Oh, I forget with DVD's of every Doris Day-Rock Hudson flick made, and we have a copy of The Ritz. But other than that, we lead a tasteful life. But if you are even thinking of coming to our house in hopes of seeing a collage of handcuffs, or either of us lilting about in an evening gown, you are going to be disappointed.

But back to MJ, who by the way was inspired by my mother's glitter sunglasses, she asked us to dig even deeper to find the the gayest thing on our homes.

So I went deep, deep into a closet in our guest room and pulled out this:

Doesn't get more gay that this in our house, folks. So how did Ken come to live in a closet in our house?

You know, when I was eight or nine - 1970/1 or so, it wasn't OK for boys to play with dolls but God I loved Barbie. You could dress her up and she could do things. I was obsessed with Barbie, and I wanted my own.

But that was in 1968-69 and boys didn't dolls back then. You got action figures: cowboys, soldiers and spacemen. The problem is, I didn't want any of them. I wanted BARBIE.

My mother begrudingly finally gave in and bought me a Ken Doll provided that I hid it from everyone. Since I was mostly alone because I had no interest in being around football or baseball or anything else like that, playing with "Ken" was no issue. But then one of our family friends gave me their son's entire G.I. Joe (the old kind) and it had a mechanical Jeep and all the military clothes. I also ended up with a BIG JIM Sports Camper, which was exactly like Barbie's camper but made for Mattel's "Big Jim" doll.

So for years I would play with Ken and G.I. Joe, as they were the same scale. G.I. Joe would go out in the jeep and kill dinner and Ken would stay back at the camper and make the beds and get the fire going, etc. G.I. Joe and Ken would kiss and sleep in the same bedding, which I made myself from old dress handkerchiefs. Ken and G.I. Joe had it pretty good, but like all happy endings, this was not to be.

No one showed me this in the media, no one influenced me by taking advatage of me, The mind that dreamt this up at age nine in 1971 was a mind that was who I was at my essence. And that mind couldn't comprehend that I was the one with a problem, and that they felt that problem reflected badly on them.

One day I came home and found that my father had had enough and threw it all away.

It's was so hard being a kid whose parents were ashamed of you. It's even harder to hear people who say that this is how you choose to be, when it is so impossible to be anything but who you are.

There is the part of me that still twinges with real pain because we came just a bit too late to be young enough to imagine that we could be parents. I mean back in the late seventies and early 1980s that was a remarkable thing for gay person to want enough to climb those barriers. I would have loved having a child that I could embrace and provided the type of parenting that would have allowed them to grow up to become what their essence directed them towards. It would have been nice to be able to pass on a sense of perspective, and hope that when they became parents they too would do the right thing.

So instead of buying my son or daughter a Ken doll, or giving them this one - mint in the box, I just keep this one tucked away.

Maybe one day he'll be worth something. The irony is that is what my parents probably thought of me - something better left behind by itself, away from thought.

But on another level, it's a reminder that the older we get, the more we start morphing into the parents who we promised we'd never become.

Report of the Middle of the Street Committee

2011-11-04T12:57:00.003-04:00

A dark cloud has descended over our bucolic neighborhood and that same dark cloud was the topic at the most recent meeting of the Middle of the Street Committee.

Because the weather was cold that night, the meeting was conducted in conjunction with our two sister groups, the evening Walking of The Dog’s group and the Personal Evening Constitutional Speed Walkers.

So the group was larger, and the wind much more “Blowier”, according to “Storms A Brewing Corliss” who chairs our ad hoc “Neighborhood Weather Watchers” sub-committee, and a bit more chaotic with our dogs getting all tangled.

The group was abuzz because one of the newest households, The Non-Acknowledgement Family (you can wave at them, you can say good morning you can even ask how they are doing and get little to no response in return), on the street was unhappy because a car of theirs was ticketed because it hadn’t moved in a week, and she used the neighborhood Facebook group to express her frustration with her neighbors.

“I don’t want to point fingers, but…” began her missive to the neighbors on the Facebook group.

“The minute I read that I thought, oh, God, here we go: she pointing fingers,” I remarked.

And point fingers she did. She feels like everyone is out to get her. She's mad that the police showed up at her door (they did? when?), that code has been on her and her Lavender House like shit on a pig and that people are subscribing her to magazines that she would never consider buying.

“Has either of them ever talked with you?” asked Just Call Me Judy of the group. "I haven’t been able to introduce myself to them - you know, so they know that they can just call me Judy – because everyone does, but these two duck in and out so quick, I never get the chance.”

“What’s going on?” asked Helicopter Sandy who was late to the party.

Pot Smoking Phil took it upon himself to update Helicopter Sandy. “One of the women living over there,” he pointed, and we all turned around and looked at their house, “feels that…”

“GUYS!” said Just Call Me Judy, “What are you doing? Turn around. Remember, one of her beefs is that she feel like she’s being watched. Go on Phil.”

“One of the women who lives in that house that we’re all not supposed to look at like we did, feels that the neighborhood isn’t welcoming, and that we aren’t supportive, and that someone narc’d on her and called in that car.”

“What car?” asked Helicopter Sandy.

“That heap that was parked down the street that no one knew anything about,” I said. The one with the fender ripped off of and had two different sets of doors – one was green and one was silver.”

“And she thinks that getting a ticket on that piece of junk is a problem,” said I Don't Have a Sphincter Audra. “I’ll tell you I don’t have a sphincter and that is a real problem to go through life with.”

“She doesn’t think we’re a neighborhood,” stated my husband. “She feels that in a supportive neighborhood whoever had the issue with the car would have gone door to door instead of calling the cops to write the ticket.”

The Bob Wolf(e)s jumped all over that.

“Oh, bitch, PLEASE! I read that message from her and it certainly shit all over my day. Go door to door?” commented Bob Wolfe. “Who has that much time? And if Bitch is suggesting that, did anyone suggest to her that maybe she should have gone to her neighbors and told them that was her car?” pointed out Bob Wolf.

“Has either of them ever talked with any of us?” asked Just Call Me Judy of the group.
At this point the committee broke out into a general babble as various members commented at the same time on their various interactions, none of which seemed to indicate that that couple received any overture from any of us with any pleasure on their part.

Bob Wolf asked if they could be Separatist Dykes. “They hate anyone with a penis.” Bob Wolfe read the face of confusion on Just Call Me Judy’s face and added in “they feel that the Penis is the ultimate symbol of the male dominated patriarchal society in which they are damned to live. “

“So, they eschew anyone male because they are a symbol of domination, and prefer instead to associate themselves only with women,” said Bob Wolfe wrapping it up for us.

“Maybe they have a light sensitive disease that causes an allergic reaction to the sun,” Apologetic Abbey added, in hopes of trying to find some medical reason behind their behavior.

The group was joined by One Tooth Bit who, being into all things Facebook, and female, found the whole thing stupid.

“So I got the message and went over to her and asked what this was all about, and she says that she feels like we should have gone out and tried find out who owned this car. But I asked her: 'did you tell anyone on the street that this heap of shit belonged to you?' And you know what her response was? 'I was too busy with a personal issue. And going to the next door neighbors never crossed my mind. I shouldn't have to go do to door and tell people that the car belongs to someone I know.' And then she adds, 'If this were a supportive neighborhood ...blah, blah, blah and I'm like thinking 'Christ on crack,'” she said. Then, with her blood pressure rising, Bit added a “What the fuck,” for good measure.

“Potty mouth!” said Storms A Brewing Corliss to Bit. Oh, what a cathartic release that must have been to get that off her chest, but truth be told who knows what brewing in that diseased mouth of her’s. Makes my blood run cold.

"Don't start on me Corliss. Look this broad thinks that someone on this block has been calling code on her. So I tell her that all that remodeling they were doing - did they have a permit and she says no, that they shouldn't have to pull a permit. And I say 'but you ripped out the sidewalk - the city notices things like that when you rip out a fucking sidewalk - especially when they own the flipping thing.' Jeez - my blood pressure sky high."

"I sense some inter-Lesbian conflict," said Jamaican Betty. Betty was holding her toothless Yorkie, Manny.

"Just because we both like women doesn't mean we like all women," said Bit.

The group was then joined by the couple that lived on the other said of these neighbors, Itchy Herb and Facilitator Mary, both professors of psychology at the local community college, and the self appointed leaders of any group meeting.

“Well when I read that message I knew it was a cry for help, so I went next door and asked what I could do. The blond one said ‘Nothing’ and the other one said that she wanted the neighborhood get behind her and form a community, as if we've been living in a desloute vaccum.”

“And that fat bitch down the street who hosts ‘Home Church’ in her house three nights a week,” said One Tooth Bit, “is riding their shirttails and claiming that she is in on forming a community with these two because she feels marginalized.”

“The fat bitch who hates gay people…” asked Bob Wolfe, “…is getting behind the Lesbians?” said Bob Wolf.

“No good can come of …” Pot Head Phil took a hit, “this. It’s like matter and anti-matter.”

"Hold on there people - do you not see what this woman is trying to do?" said Helicopter Sandy. "Look, she wants to be the center of everything.'

"Helicopter Sandy is right," said Itchy Herb. "I think we're dealing with some who wants to be the sun, and she wants all us planets to revolve around her."

"No dear, I think what you meant is that this woman is the earth and she wants everyone including the sun to revolve around her. That would be a more illogical analogy." Score 1 for Facillitator Mary, Itchy Herb, 0.

The group decided to lay low and watch what happened. Fortunately, with winter around the corner, things tended to cool down a bit, figuratively and literally.

Middle of the Street Committee also noted that the Cruel Filipina Dominatrix, who also didn’t associate with anyone on the street, has pulled her self-listed house off the market and instead listed it with a real realtor.
“Thank God she is out of the loop or we could be looking at a triumvirate of evil involving whips,” said Pot Head Phil as we were breaking up the meeting.

“Somehow, said my husband, “I think that idea excites Phil. And that scares me.”

Anyhow, now when we walk our dogs, or talk our post dinner walks, we're always looking up at the windows on their Lavender house. And every now and then, we see a lace curtain twitch in a dark window, or the orange glow of a cigarette as well walk by...

Ah, the French.

2011-11-04T00:00:00.002-04:00

Brilliance

2011-11-03T09:32:00.000-04:00

Because she has a need to be heard as well.

2011-11-02T08:27:00.000-04:00

What the doctor found when he examined me...

2011-10-27T15:27:00.000-04:00

So as part of my Med re-balancing for the SADD treatment I had to go to my internist and have him check my levels and my heart and blah, blah, blah out.

Now, I love my doctor. He's ten years older than and so fucking cute it's unnerving. And he's gay. And I have desired him since I first saw him in 1983. He's a just a total doll.

So I'm taking my shirt off and he was looking at the screen and typing things into the computer and he asked if the stress level from work had gone down (no) and if the meds were working (kinda) and says whats wrong (Damn computer) and I said that Tuesday, I had some odd chest pains and my left arm went numb.

So he looks at me and says "shortness of breath? No. "Dizzy?" No. "We'll do an EKG you could have had a minor episode."

And I asked "Angina?"

And he turned and looked at me, dead serious and said "Who has a mangina?"

There was dead silence. "Did you take up fisting? What have I told you about that?"

"Huh?"

"Your mangina. With your history of diverticulosis you are the last person who should have your mangina stretched."

Then he thought about it.

"Did you say "Angina"?"

Yes.

"No fisting?"

Never - it's an outtie, not an innie.

"You thought it was Angina? I don't think it was Angina. Probably stress - your blood pressure is high. I'll write a script for some Xanax."

But what about the mangina?

"Where did I get that word?" He shrugged his shoulders and said "I know some guys who love to fist. They would have manginas." We smiled, and I went off for the EKG.

Everything is fine. I have my Xanax. I prefer meditation. But I have to stop this visual image of my head with manginas.

Dan Savage is living proof, it does get better

2011-10-23T11:09:00.000-04:00

Late 1980s

2010

Double the Pleasure: The Ring A Ding Wine

2011-10-21T00:14:00.000-04:00

Report of the Middle of The Street Committee

2011-10-20T17:18:00.005-04:00

There is still a buzz in the air surrounding the activity at the House of the Cruel Mistress and Sub Trevor. Our block's Middle of the Street Committee - which meets whenever we see each outside  and we stand in the middle of our rarely traveled street to discuss and hopefully solve the problems of the world (and maybe our own neighborhood) had an impromptu gathering in which tongues wagged and a gaggle of gossip and speculation was shared amongst the loyal and settled residents of our street.

High on every one's list was the activity going on over at the Cruel Misstress' house as one shill contractor after another came and went. A dumpster arrived, only to be carted away empty a couple days later because it didn't have a permit to be on the street according to "Just Call Me Judy" a neighborhood activist and all around pill who always introduces herself with the line "Just call me Judy!"

"You can't put that on the street without a permit!" Just Call Me Judy stated to the cruel mistress of the house. And when the Cruel Mistress failed to comply, Just Call Me Judy made good on her threat and called the city and guess who got cited.

Two weeks ago, Just Call Me Judy first told us what she had done. "That'll teach her," she said wrapping up her pyhrric victory tale. All it did was piss off the Cruel Mistress.

Two weeks ago she was happy as a clam. But this day, she was less happy. The Cruel Mistress ran an end run around Judy, and Judy was fuming.

"Look who thought she was just the top of the shit heap," whispered Pot Smoking Bob.

Topic 2 Involved the Creul Mistress' attack plan "B". Unable to get the dumpster in (and too lazy to get the permit from the city for $25) she started emptying the junk in house to the front yard with a sign that read "FREE". She did this in the middle of the night when no one could see her doing it.

In our neighborhood there is a long standing tradition of placing such unwanted items next to the dumpsters in the alleys. Dumpster Divers (those who make their living at finer flea markets) drive up and down our alleys looking for other people's cast offs, which they clean up stock their perpetual yard sales with -OR- if they are cunning enough and middle-class, they pick this stuff up, clean it up and then donate it to the Salvation Army and take a tax write off. It's recycling at its best. Just don't expect someone to take your old water tank.   Broken Toilets are desirable, your old water heater isn't. Evidently, there is a limit to greed in this world.

However this "Free" thing in her front yard got into our collective craws.

What happens in the alley happens in the alley, but when you start putting things into the front yard, that starts inviting trouble and things start turning up missing on the front porches of our houses. We also noted that the number of car windows smashed in our neighborhood has risen since the Cruel Mistress has started her free-to-good-home yard sales.

"Does she honestly think that we would covet this junk? Who want's her stuff," asked Helicopter Sandy. Helicopter Sandy is a police officer in our neighborhood and flies one of those "eye in the sky units".

Pot Smoking Phil nodded, and then he tried to pass his joint to me. No, not my thing. God knows what is in Phil's oral cavity. Makes my blood run cold just thing about it.

"It's just crappy furniture, old plastic bowls, hangers - who the hell has that many hangers?" asked Sandy. In fact, Cruel Mistress had thrown out for the "Free" crowd about 50 plastic grocery bags filled with plastic clothes hangers.

I pointed out that I save cardboard and chipboard. "You never know when you are going to have to ship something. May be it's the same with her and 'she never knows' when she is going to have to hang something up."

The Bob Wolf(e)s agreed. "With him..." said Bob Wolfe as they pointed to each other. "...it's plastic bags," said Bob Wolf.

One Tooth Bit - a large lesbian with terrible oral care habits said "It's not even good stuff. When she gonna throw out some handcuffs?" You never want to stand too close to One Tooth Bit. When she speaks, she sprays.

"Bit" who was once Betsy in her youth is disgusting. If anyone else had said that it would have received a roll of the eye's, but that it was Bit who said that and made an illusion to S/M sex just made the rest of queasy.

"GROSS!" said the Bob Wolf(e)s in unison.

There was general chatter from the group, and then Boob Job Carla (who used to be Realtor Denise until her husband bought her "the bestest gift a girl can get" a breast augmentation) spoke out over all:

"The bottom line is that this could lead to increased crime, and that can hurt property values." (And her commissions.)

"You think that's a problem," added in I Don't Have a Sphincter Audra, "I don't have a sphincter." (She brings this up in any situation and that she will interject it is a foregone conclusion) "Now that'll cause you real problems."

And with that lovely image fresh in our gray matter, The Middle of the Street Committee ajorned

That evening when the husband was out walking Rocky the Wonder Dog and Buzz Saw Kevin (who though small is mighty with his teeth and can rip just about anything to shreds in 10 seconds flat) and who should come out of her house, her arms loaded down with more crap, but the Cruel Mistress.

The husband who is not prone to confronting people, even when they step on his toes ("maybe they misjudged their steps.") did exactly that when he came face to face with the neighbor whose name I dare not put in print. When he returned from the walk he seemed angry (very unusal for him) and annoyed.   He told me that he just couldn't keep from saying something.

"You said something to her? So what did you say?" I asked.

"I told to stop putting her crappy crap out in the front yard, and that no one wanted her crappy crap," he said, a bit disappointed in himself.

"Did you really call it crappy crap? Twice? Maybe you really said that she needed to take her 'fucking crap" and shove it in the dumpster," I said.

"No, I said crappy crap."

Oh, what a cathartic release that must have been.

You know those WASPish New England types. They just keep pushing it down - deep down - those negative feelings, those feelings that the rest of midwesterners see our therapists about. And one day all those feelings that have been pushed down, compacted and locked away in that place deep down come roaring forth with a good old fashioned "crappy crap" and the rage is vented.

Whatever my husband said it seems to have worked; there hasn't been any crap - crappy crap or fucking crap inclusive - left out in the past five days. It seems she got the message.

The next thing I need to do is find someone to call her phone number and find out how much she wants for that Palace of Pain of hers...

I begin to enter the rough season

2011-10-20T00:43:00.001-04:00

When I was a child, I dreaded fall. The start of school was traumatic enough, but my learning disability and the invisable sign on my forehead that read BULLY ME AROUND all made school even more daunting than it would have been for your average student.

But fall seemed to kindle something deeper in me that I couldn't put into words.

While other kids saw the beauty in the colored leaves that fell from the trees, I saw death in the forms of the harsh branches, twigs and sticks. The cold winds seemed to reach down into my bones and not leave until summer warmth and the sun reached deep down and into me.

Winter I was fine with. Snow brightened the world and a warm house made everything cozy. And winter yeilded to spring with its promise of an end to the school year, the flowers and the leaves on the trees that softened their stark look. And in my mind spring started on Groundhog Day - the promise that whether it was early or late, we had more good days in front of than bad.

But fall, with its process of dying-off and slumber, somehow hit me harder than anything.

As I got older, Fall became more and more my enemy. By the time I was 20, the middle of October became suffocating with the feeling that life offered no hope to go on. And that when the crying started - hours of sobbing for no real reason other than the rage that I felt that life was leaving me behind.

As I got older, each fall became more more enshrined in depression and in dread. It finally got to the point where I almost considered offing myself. But then about 20 years ago I got very, very lucky when I got myself into treatment with a shrink who listened to me instead of the others wanted to blame my parents for my unhappiness.

The first step was the diagnosis of clinical depression and getting me onto an SSRI - in my case, Zoloft. The fisrt lesson that I learned was that not all SSRI's work the same with the same people. I was lucky, the Zoloft worked for me. The idea was that my brain was processing (not producing) serotonin too fast. The pills regulated that function making the uptake more efficient. The second step was fine tuning the dosage, and then balancing it with a second medication - wellbutrin. With that under control, there was hope.

But come the next couple fall seasons, the sense of dread started creeping in getting worse. This is when the shrink and my doctor both agreed taht I was suffering from Seasonal Affective Depression - SAD. SAD (sometimes SADD) is a photo chemical disease based on the premise that daylight affects the production of brain chemicals like serotonin. In my case, the brain was making enough in the fall, thus the feelings of dread and hopelessness. To treat that we using full spectrum light each day, and I double up on the SSRI that I am on now (Zoloft stopped working for me about ten years ago).

On the upside, I know whats going on in my head. The downside is that for the past 20 years I have been gaining weight, which is a side effect of the pills. So I can be morose and skinny, or plump and content.

It reminds me of the old saying: It never rains, but it pours. But at least I know that the sun is going to shine again.

The Gayest Thing in My House

2011-10-17T21:12:00.000-04:00

Mistress MJ asked her loyal readership what is the gayest thing in your house. So I went spelunking through some boxes of stuff and came up with this item: My mother's sunglasses from the 1950s.

Your eyes are not deceiving you. These are two tone clear plastic with GLITTER suspended in the plastic cat glasses. And they are still kept in their original 1950s leather carrying case.

These are so gay that they are GAY.

Look for me to be driving the Oldsmobile this coming summer in these glasses. That won't be gay so much as it is campy, but you get the idea.

Famous Hollywood Cat Fights: Shelley Winters v. Lauren Bacall

2011-10-16T19:31:00.002-04:00

Shelley Winters was married to Tony Fanciosa from ca. 1956 to 1960.

They look happy, don't they. Shelley said that the nail in the coffin for her marriage to the hard bodied Franciosa was her Oscar win for The Diary of Anne Frank. "Tony took one look at that Oscar and I knew my marriage was over."

As the end of their union was drawing to a close, Franciosa took up with this woman:

Mrs. Betty Bogart, widow of Humphrey Bogart (you know her as actress Lauren Bacall), and she had the hots for the hot headed Italian, so the two started an affair. You know what they say - even though you loved and lost, they nights just keep getting lonelier when there no one to cuddle with. One night Tony failed to show up for a rendezvous with Betty. So, Betty being Betty picked up the phone and called the Franciosa house:

I have never found anything to say that these two women ever spoke to one and other again.

Cookie, Cookie, can you find Cookie?

2011-10-14T09:02:00.000-04:00

Watch and report - where do I first appear, and what is the last thing I say in a voice over?

I'm still out here...

2011-10-13T22:31:00.000-04:00

...buried under massive amounts of client coding at my job at Soul Crushing Client Support, Inc.

Looking forward to full weekend of nothing to do. So stay tuned!

And now a public service announcement on Breast Health

2011-10-11T20:45:00.002-04:00

Kathy: get it, got it, good.

2011-10-09T20:50:00.000-04:00

From the Hair Hall of Fame and Donna Lethal:

Young woman at party for singles at South Bay Club apartment complex.

Location: Los Angeles, CA, US

Date taken: March 1967

Photographer: Arthur Schatz

So what happened?

She probably got there and didn't know what to do, and then she got a little stoned, and then she met a guy, they got together, they broke up, got back together, got married, got pregnant and had a baby, got pregnant and had a baby, got a house, got pregnant and had a baby, got him through medical school, grew apart, then got divorced and then she got angry because he got another woman, so she got into booze and got some valium, and then she had to get the kids ready for school and get them to the bus, then she had to get a job, and got invited to drinks at a bar with a work friend, who got Kathy a name tag and the whole damn thing just got repeated all over again.

Meet Kevin

2011-10-08T15:43:00.000-04:00

The newest member of the Cookie family, Kevin, a two year old terrier mix and seven pounds, stinking wet. Found him at the county pound this morning. Big brother Rocky is doing well. We're all adjusting. I'm bushed.

I'm on TV tonight!

2011-10-06T16:10:00.000-04:00

Oh, yeah - thats me flapping my lips...

Something's coming....

2011-10-05T09:09:00.002-04:00

But is it something good?

Converting people is harder than you would think!

2011-10-04T15:04:00.001-04:00

The soul crushing career that I find myself trapped in to put food on the table, a roof over my head and dollars that will morph into pennies by the time I am 65 is grinding me into mush this week. I work for a boutique data processing company with a selective group of clients. We allowed another client in, and we are happy and grateful, but the phone calls from all of clients will not cease this week in the midst of the conversion!

I'm too pretty for this! This was not part of the growing up in Shaker Heights contract that I was promised!

And while I'm at, FUCK THE CHINESE and their currancy manipulation!

Anyway I found a few moments to myself this afternoon while I am engourging myself on a fast food lunch (Barf) and I was so down until I visited my friends on other blogs.

You guys crack me up!

But the following image so fully cracked me up that I almost chocked to death on the fast food:

My thanks to Jason for brightening my day with something so out there that I thought it couldn't be real - it was.

To my hat is also off to TJB, Jason, MJ, Norma Desmond, Mr. Peenee, Donna Lethal, Pirate, Felix, Thombeau, Mr. Bluehaunt and everyone else; thank you for making me smile and think, and bless you for giving me a safe harbor away from it all!

From "That Girl" to that ghoul

2011-10-01T21:03:00.002-04:00

You have to hand it to Norma Desmond. Leaves the door open for others.

Late 1950s, all original.

So I should note that someone got it right.

1960, The nose is planed, and the bridge smoothed.

But I have to wonder how he got it right so fast?

The hair gets a grown-up redo (ca. 1963) in the Italian sytle.

Hagia Sophia is the name of the massive Catholic Church in Istanbul. But that was a red herring for Drewbie.

1964: That Girl is born with a flip and bangs.

and Jason is our winner!

But this storry is a cautionary one as well as a contest.

"Gypsies Tramps and Theives" style becomes That Woman, 1970.

We have to stay fashionable, right? Longer hair and now good girl Ann Marie starts reaching for a look.

Notice her exposed zipper on the boot?

That's fashion for you. And those boots, probably plastic.

We all age, and when your looks are your career, well, a girl's gotta do what a girl has to do:

1980-2000

The "soft" focus era begins followed by some more nose surgery focusing on making

her nostrils less noticeable, which means they are now more noticeable.

But our face still has a twinkle on it because who would think thta botox would smooth out lines and keep one from having a natural face?

And then it happens...

But our nose starts to look pinched. That happens when we have more work done.
Little slits for nostrils. One day we have a little Botox, and then one day you get a lot:

Unable to find the muscle control that even Helen Hayes had in her 80s, our That Girl is

unable to smile with her face, now devoid of those "laugh lines" that give character and show wisdom.

Her nostrils have been flattened within an inch of her life and the line of her nostrils is now crooked.

So lets look at the progression again, shall we?

In summary...

There you have it, Marlo Thomas, from That Girl to that ghoul.

Thanks to all you played!

Happy Birthday Mom

2011-10-01T00:01:00.004-04:00

Cookie's Mom

(October 1, 1924-November 9, 2010)

A year ago today we had one of those surreal moments with our parents as they approach the end of their lives. Mom's drivers license expired on her Birthday last year and the one thing she wanted for her birthday more than anything was to get it renewed. I had committed to giving a presentation to the local genealogical society that Saturday, so the husband dropped me off the Historical Center complex and then went to get Mom and take her to get her license, but she started to get crotchety - am outcome of the radiation treatment and her Oxycodone, and he needed help dealing with her.

She wouldn't leave the license bureau, so he left and got me. When we got back there, there she sat right where he left her.

So I walked up to the counter with her and the woman looked at me, her eyes full of trepidation. We walked through the eye exam, which Mom nailed, except she couldn't understand the part about the peripheral vision - that there were lights flashing along the sides of the eye cones and that she needed to tell us when she saw it and wave her hands to indicate left or right.

When she was trying to figure out what to look for, the woman behind the counter mouthed to me "You aren't going to let her drive, are you?"

I mouthed back "No - we have her car with us, but this license means a lot to her."

So the woman behind the counter played along as long as she could, then we had to go to the Highway Patrol Office to see if their lower light helped her. We waited for our turn and while we waited she turned to me and said "Do you remember when we used to go looking for things at junk stores and we tried to bring home that big thing from that one store, but it wouldn't fit in my Riviera?"

Oddly, I did. It was a large store display that had been chucked in the back and Mom thought it would make a display for my car collection in our basement. I must have been ten (and she would have been 48), so neither of us could move the damned thing. We struggled with it for a about a half hour before we gave up.

"We sure had fun, didn't we." she said. It wasn't a question, but a statement, because did have fun when it was us against the world.

They called us up, and again, she nailed the eye exam. The trooper behind the counter and I had the same discussion in silence that I had had with the woman next door. FINALLY Mom caught on and saw the blinking lights from the corner of her eyes.

God love that trooper; he told her that she passed and could get a new drivers license, but he also told her that she was not to drive until she had been off the pain pills for a month. She agreed (but she had no intention of listening to him) and we left with her new license. We, of course, kept the car because keeping that car 40 miles away was the only way we were going to keep her from driving.

That was one long afternoon, but I so glad that we were together for it. And I can look back and laugh to myself. Yes, we did have fun that afternoon, and all those other days before.

I miss her an awful lot.

And I miss being able to do things for her, like making sure she got what was the most important thing for her for her birthday.

Guess who!

2011-09-29T10:40:00.000-04:00

You guys know the drill - do you know who this is?

As with all of these, if you know who it is (Norma), let the others have a chance to guess.

Listen to the lady!

2011-09-28T16:49:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday to a real beauty

2011-09-28T10:43:00.000-04:00

The picture above is of Brigette Bardot as she looks today. Unlike other fading stars who are obessed with their own looks, Bardot took up the cause of animal rights.

Look carefully at Bardot's face and bask in her real beauty. Not a botox injection, nor a facelift, or a cheeck implant spoils the view. Her eyes are expressive and her lips are still the shape of lips. She knows that she has no need to hide behind Sunglasses as Dyan Cannon does, lest the sun touch her face and cause it, and the chemicals used to remove the wrinkles, smooth the skin to melt from the heat.

Bardot's beauty is that she knows who she is and plays to her strengths instead of obsessing about her weaknesses. And her face is recognizable, expressive and more alive that Cannon's, Bruce Jenner's or Dolly Parton's. (Parton's face is so botoxed that she no longer smiles, but grimmaces for the camera.)

So to Brigette, I say happy birthday, and thank you for showing us that a real face is beautiful, no matter the age.

Neighborhood gossip!

2011-09-27T09:45:00.003-04:00

Reader, Cookie's neighborhood is buzzing - simply BUZZING about the big news: The Cruel Filipina Dominatrix is trying to sell her house!

We are all on the edge of our collective seats with all the hubbub and mid street chat sessions.

Tina, the Cruel Filipina Dominatrix, bought the home across the street from our next door neighbors about seven years ago. It was a charming house that had been owned, loved and cared for by an OCD closeted gay boy so everything having to do with the property was pristine and immaculate. So we were concerned when he put it up for sale saying that "I've done everything I can do."

When we saw who bought the house once it sold we were excited. Racial diversity is one of our points of pride, so to speak.

When she moved in, we became confused, because in addition to herself, she also moved in a cute red headed young man and blond young lady. We figured roommates.

We were wrong.

We knew something was up when she shunned our invitations to neighborhood parties, back yard parties and just to converse about the weather. And we never heard a peep from her "roommates". They just looked at us when we would say "Hi" and scurry into the house.

One night while out on the town, another neighbor saw "Tina" out on the town with the red headed young man in handcuffs and a dog collar and "Tina" holding the leash in one hand, and the blond girl in a dog collar and leash being held by the other hand.

Then Della (the neighbor who constantly reminds everyone that she no longer has an anus by saying "You think you have problems? I don't have a sphincter!") tells us that she though she's say "Hello" to the red head young man on his way from his new Jaguar to the front door of his house. "He acted liked like a 'scaret' child and no sooner than he started to say 'Hello,' that the Cruel Filipina Dominatrix pops here head out of the door and yells at him to get in the house then at me for talking to him."

And thus, Cruel Filipina Dominatrix, became the buzz of the neighborhood. From that point, the house got shabby and then shabbier. The curtains were never open, the lawn got weedy and overgrown.

Then the blond girl moved out, in tears. Here parents brought their truck and there were words in the street between them and Cruel Filipina Dominatrix. The police showed up.

It wasn't long before Cruel Filipina Dominatrix began to "groom" her next female "sub" laughing with her, arm around her and then the sub starting showing up on Friday afternoons and leaving on Sunday evening.

City code enforcement shut down her home porn business, courtesy of Anarchist Drew, who was torqued off on how Cruel Filipina Dominatrix and her subs were bringing down the property values in the neighborhood because they wouldn't keep up their yard. You know it's bad when the Anarchist in the neighborhood worries about property values.

Attorney Couple down the street from us had words because they could her whipping someone one summer's eve while on a stroll. "Bill got this look on his face and I was like 'never in a million years'; but seriously, can't she do that in the basement?"

Pot Smoking Phil weighed in on her saying "She said I could find more happiness in submission to another than I could in smoking a joint, and I was like 'Dude!'"

Jamaican Betty went so far as to call Cruel Filipina Dominatrix malevolent enough that "I want to make a voodoo doll of her and drop it in hot fat."

And the Bob Wolf(e)s (a gay couple whose names are Bob Wolf and Bob Wolfe) are annoyed with the Cruel Filipina Dominatrix' cats which roam the neighborhood and crap in the flowers and spray urine on the bushes. "I just want to slap her," says Bob Wolf while his husband, Bob Wolfe adds in "But she would like it too much."

So when she put her house on the market, it surprised no one when Jamaican Betty proudly announced (in a low whisper) that she had snuck on to the the property and buried St. Joseph upside down to facilitate a fast sale on the house.

All this makes us wonder, are the slings included in the purchase price, like the drapes? And what of the dog cage where the blond girl slept - and prompted the call to the police?

Once this plays out, we'll let you know. And if there is an open house, I'll be sure to take pictures.

Stealing a trick from Norma Desmond

2011-09-26T09:36:00.001-04:00

I figured that since Norma Desmond could post cute puppy pictures, so could I, except this isn't my dog and it isn't my picture, either. So I have lured you under false pretenses.

Truth be told, I'm dealing with a lot of stuff:

1) I'm tired and I am cranky, partly because of the season change and mostly because I have Seasonal Affective Depression, as diagnosed by my doctor and my shrink. This means I have to adjust my meds every fall, and that disrupts my sleep patterns, and this makes me tired and cranky.

2) I work a two week cycle in a job that isn't a career. Two weeks each month I work early, and two weeks I work late and get home later than the husband. I'm not complaining, but I'm also not satisfied.

3) My midlife crisis is entering into the "Acceptance" stage. Actually it's more resignation than acceptence, but I'm getting there.

4) The cataract in my left eye is beginning to get to the point where I am losing what is left of my depth perception. I'm thinking that if I make it to November without surgery, I'll be doing well.

5) Did I mention that I want to be someplace other than work? Yeah, I don't want to be seated at my desk today. Do you?

50 years ago, it was the BIG reveal

2011-09-23T21:24:00.001-04:00

I'm old enough to remember that when a company like GM, Ford, Chrysler or AMC rolled out the new model year cars, there was some excitment. Now, when a new car comes out its more like "Meh..."

Anyway, I found this little gem with a collector who was cleaning out a life of posessions and they sent it to me while I was opining that it's really hard finding ANYTHING related to the 1962 Olds 88. Imapla's, yes. Catalina's and Bonneville's? You betcha. Starfire's and 98's yes siree, bub. Then you start running into to issues with the Star Chief's, Super 88's , LeSabre and Electra 225. Cadillac's, too, oddly.

Anyway, have a WONDERFUL weekend.

I'm doning kimono tomorrow as we're have over some friends for MahJong.

Ciao!

Surrey on down

2011-09-23T00:17:00.000-04:00

Come on, sing-a-long

Can you dig it?

2011-09-20T18:14:00.003-04:00

Well, can you?

It's a happy, happy day for this soldier, and for us all.

2011-09-20T18:01:00.000-04:00

As an American, and as a gay man, I cannot express how happy I am to see Don't Ask Don't Tell - a law that is based on ignorance, bias and discrimination - cease to exist. But that happiness pales to the joy that I experienced at watching this service man be able to come out to his family, military and himself and find acceptance.

I have a bit more hope for our nation to today - I am seeing something that I never expected to see in my lifetime, and that is a breathtaking moment for anyone who has experienced such a point in time.

Kitten Star Wars

2011-09-20T13:02:00.000-04:00

Well this explains an awful lot

2011-09-15T11:04:00.001-04:00

Hell's Bell's! You mean this is the cure for the Republican Party?

Joana Lisa

2011-09-13T14:00:00.003-04:00

And you'll never see it hanging in the Louvre because of their "no wire picture hangers, EVER!" policy.

Finally, the BGO

2011-09-11T17:35:00.002-04:00

Here she be, in all her glory. The mechanic, true to his word made her run beautifully. Took her out on the freeway and the car did miss a beat - a great cruiser.

100% original, right down to the rubber floor mats.

The Husband even thinks it sweet.

Oldsmobile Update

2011-09-04T16:31:00.003-04:00

Here's your update on the new toy...

1. I finally found a factory publicity image of the car.

2) And it came with honest to gosh GM scripted copy.

3) We opted to have some preventitive work done on the old girl. She is with Mechanic Jeff having her Rochester 4bbl carburetor rebuilt - probably for the first time since it rolled down the production line. We're also having the fuel line replaced and the gas tank pulled and relined. Mechanic Jeff found a lot of rust plugging up the works, so we're also going to have the gas tank pulled, clean and relined and cured.

4) Last night at the reunion I cornered Herb Graham who owns a body shop back home and Herb will get her either in 2012, or 2013 for a repaint.

Well, doesn't this suck?

2011-09-02T09:19:00.000-04:00

So yesterday afternoon I'm eating some NECCO waffers when I bite down and I feel something go "crack". And I mean I felt the cracking like it was part of me.

And I broke a fucking tooth!

Damnit!

I hate going to the dentist.

Instincts told me that it was bad and and that was confirmed when the tooth particals came out of my mouth.

Fuck!

So I called the dentist, and since he doesn't work on Friday, I have to go to an oral surgeon today and have the remenants of said tooth removed through an extraction.

FUCK!!

And this is a busy weekend. I have a birthday party later tonight, I have my 30th High School Reunion on Saturday and picnics and the like.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Now I have to pay for an implant! FUCK!!!!!

And I hate going to the dentist because the receptionist doesn't understand that I just don't have $3,000 dollars, or a credit card to put it on. When I tell her I have been credit card free for five years she looks at me like all she can hear are crickets chirping.

So, here I sit in waiting to get whats left of the tooth removed.

The good news is that I can afford this. The bad news is parting with the cash. BAH!

Hope your weekend goes better than my today!

Good news, and bad news: We have a winner!

2011-09-01T16:00:00.008-04:00

Model wearing glasses designed as an homage to the fins on a 1959 Chevrolet Impala

The GOOD NEWS is we have a winner....DREWBE! Drewbe successfully guessed that I bought myself an Oldsmobile. Now for the bad news....

Because Drewbe cheated (his own words, not mine) we can't award him the cash prize of $50,000 that became available last night after the decision was handed down in the Case of the Wrong Twin Making the Winning Shot. Shucks. Learning life lessons is a bitch. But better to learn it now among friends than to learn it in front of a TV camera crew, right? America loves a winner, but it loves seeing disappointment and a healthy does of comeuppance in the face of a contestant even more.

As a consolation prize Drewbe wins a ride in the car the next time he comes to Columbus*.

In fact we didn't go out and fall in love with a Cutlass, or a Toronado, or even a convertible. No, we fell in love with the forgotten Oldsmobile, a 1962 Super 88 Celebrity Sedan. That's right, the ultimate old lady car. I say forgotten because pictures of these babies are rarer than hens teeth. When GM promoted these cars they used an artist sketch series instead of lushly photographed studio images. I can't even find an image of the car on the GM web site. But I also say forgotten because out of the 24,000 plus that were built, I doubt a thousand of these puppies are on the road. Most were driven until they broke about. I don't even remember seeing a lot of these in the 1970s when they would have hit ten years old.

We couldn't even find a good graphic image of the Oldsmobile logo that debuted for the 1962 models and then retired at the end of the 1964 model year. How crazy is that? So I had to create one just for the image on the web page.

So pictures of her will be forthcoming once she is back and in a nice location, because we all want to feel pretty when we have our picture taken, right?

We got the car on Monday evening and drove her about. As I type this she is at my trusty mechanic having her carburetor rebuilt, a new fuel line and fuel filter installed and having the gas tank pulled and lined. Hey, when you're fifty years old your can will have dropped and you're vacuum powers will be beginning to wane. They don't call us old farts for a reason.

I can tell you that she is in original condition. Her chrome is excellent. No rot through on the body and her original two tone paint has a nice luster - but it's fifty years old. The inside is a different story - a 99% out of 100% perfect. If it were any more immaculate, it's name would be Mary and when the door opened up out would pop Jesus. Needs a little cleaning. But flawless.

And we have named her: BGO for Big Gay Olds in honor of Big Gay Al from Southpark. Why? Well she is almost 18 feet in length, she looks like a grandmother car AND she's SUPER (88) to see you!

Here's a teaser picture:

*All prizes subject to availability. Winner will forfeit their prize in the event that said method of delivering the prize is sold, out of gas or just not around. Winners must make their reservations at least a year in advance. You must be this high to ride. No pimply people will be allowed in the vehicle. Offer void in Canada or anyplace else that isn't the continental United States; come to think of it, this offer is void if you are outside the greater Central Ohio area. The Grantor of the prize will decide what constitutes Central Ohio. If we meet you and decide that you in the car could hurt the cars feelings you are out of luck. Prize has a cash value of 1/100,000,000,000 of a cent.

Guess what we bought!

2011-08-31T10:12:00.000-04:00

Proper Opossum Massage

2011-08-28T22:10:00.000-04:00

It is important that you don't just take up all that negative energy, but that you convert it as a healer, and the return it to the Opossum.

Crafty crafters! Oh my GOSH! Oh my GOSH!

2011-08-28T17:21:00.003-04:00

She's having craftgasms!

A year of change

2011-08-27T06:32:00.063-04:00

My cousin has her great great grandmother's day book - a ledger that she wrote in each day between 1889 and 1909 when she died. This woman was married to my great great grandfather's younger brother who died of typhoid leaving his widow and two small children for her to raise.

The journal is an eye opening look into a person's grief. Without her husband, then her father, and then each of the boys as they married, she sees a bit of her life chip away. Most poignant are two rituals that she goes through on two different nights each year. Each New Years she states her name and her age and she asks for God to take her; she cannot bear another year. And on the date that is the anniversary of her wedding day, she sets a dinner place for her husband who died thirty years before. It's the same routine on these days. This was her life - a day to day enduring of the stuff of life.

I was thinking about her when I was last sitting down with my crazy doctor, who tells me that I am far less crazy than I was a year ago. We discussed how the world changed for me a year ago today.

It was the day I learned that Mom was sick - real sick and it wasn't going to end well.

Anyhow, the doctor said that today would be a difficult day for me and I am prepared, but I think I'm going to be OK.

In the nine and a half months that Mom has been gone I have had more good days than bad, more good memories than bad.

I still miss her, but I am at peace. I still reach for the phone when I want to tell her something, but the shock of not being to reach her has passed.

The worst part of any of this is the feeling that you get when both parents are gone. You are now alone at the front of the line, there is no one blocking your view. Life takes on a whole new clarity as mortality stares you in the face.

If I have to find something to take away from this day is that she went quick, her dementia help to shield her from the inevitable, and that I am lucky man to have had her as my mother because was an original, not a pale copy of anyone else.

Grief strikes us all differently and its unpredictability is its sharpest edge. We never know how or when it will hit, we only can predict how we feel at a moment and expect that in the future. I always thought that when this day came I would be a wreck. But talking about it and writing about it and seeing your support for me in this transition has helped me a great deal. And that, I am grateful.

From here I'll keep taking one day at a time, but as I get closer to the year anniversary passing of her death - the traditional end of mourning in Jewish life, I will be more careful about wishing away time, I will work more on serving the living instead of mourning the dead and I will enter a new phase of life - that of simply being in the moment in hopes of keeping that moment alive in my life longer than it was before.

The chosen car of the Chosen People

2011-08-24T21:55:00.001-04:00

In Cleveland's east side Jewish community in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the car of choice (if you couldn't afford a Cadillac) for the chosen people was an Oldsmobile.

And not just any Oldsmobile, but an Oldsmobile from Abe "A.D." Pelunis. (The A.D. stands for always dependable!")

My father owned two of them - a 1966 four door Delta 88 Holiday hardtop, and then a 1967 Delta 88 Hardtop four door. The story on the 1966 was dad bought and brought it home. Six weeks later it was stolen. When they found what was left of 1966 Delta, the 1967's had been delivered so he bought the same model in the same color. The car lasted forever. When Dad made the jump to a used 1969 Cadillac in 1970, the Olds went to my brother, then to the next brother. When it was last seen it was junked in Pheonix sometime in the 1970s.

In the 1970s, the midsize Olds Cutlass became synonymous with Bubbies living in University Heights. Thousands of Jewish grandmothers (and grandfathers) bought Cutlass sedans and coupes from Mr. Pelunis. The parking lot at May's on the Heights looked like an Oldsmobile lot on sale days. So were the temple lots.

And why were they so popular? They were dependable, affordable, and they were nicer than Chevrolet's or Ford's or Plymouths, but not as ostenatious as a Buick or Chrysler. And Oldsmobile said that you had arrived and could have nice things, but you didn't overpay.

From 1959 to 1968 Old's full-size cars had a forward edge as they tried to appeal to younger buyers. By 1969, they pretty much threw in the towel - the full size cars grew to resemble larger and more dour interpretations of what the aging client base wanted.

And to me, this is why the brand died. At some point everyone's grandmother or grandfather bought an Oldsmobile. Nice but not too showy. And when GM striped the car of dependability, what was the point of even owning one?

Oldsmobiles are not common like they used to be. Finding a good one is like finding a needle in a haystack.

I like a good challenge.

Gut check

2011-08-24T17:12:00.000-04:00

I have a gut, this is not it - but its a nice one - and I checked. Details to follow...

"The Good Chair"

2011-08-20T20:04:00.000-04:00

We just got it back from the upholsterers!

I found this chair - one chair of a three piece Edwardian parlor set (the other pieces are a rocker, and then a two set settee) - at one of the local resale stores just after the floors in the house were finished.  While it had great lines, and great wood tones, the old upholstery was so awful (dull YELLOW material with dirty looking white flocking, with diamond tufting on the back) that I couldn't even take a picture of it. And even though it's missing its casters, which lowered the chair about two inches, the fit on the chair was very comfy - especially the arms - your just fall into it.

Good used furniture in Central Ohio is really pricey, and I paid more than I should, but I loved the lines. It's not really girly looking; it has some weight to it while not being over bearing.

So while we had it in its original state, we named it "The Good Chair" after the one in the Addams Family and people simply couldn't wait to sit in it because it is throne-like.

So when it came to changing the fabric the husband said "I don't care - just stay away from anything that would make it look like you bought it from Belle Watling's Sporting House.

I love deep reds - deep crimson, or a deep claret makes me lose control - but the husband is right. Too much red and it looks like you went to the garage sale at the local whore house.

I had been gone to Fabric Farms for our club chair and the ottoman redo, and loved the work, but I wasn't finding a fabric I loved. I thought about leopard, and that would have been fun for five minutes. And I thought about a gray green with deep brown and dark gold accents (it was stunning) but it was too modern. Then Bernie - the man who owns the store said "Don't forget to look through our sale materials - $4-6 dollars a yard" and I thought "Yeah, right."

And then I found the fabric - $4 a yard! Bernie never lets you down.

It has every jewel tone imaginable. So I bought it and planned to do it myself, until I got into the chair and found it had been rebuilt once before and incorrectly. The springs needed retied and the burlap webbing (both sets) was bad.   And then I found that horsehair had turned to powder, etc.  So I took it back to Bernie, who is a doll, and said "Fix it."

And he did.

When we went to get it today we got ten feet inside the store and walked right past it. I did a double take. We didn't even recognize it!  I was stunned. It's gorgeous. Drop dead stunning. And I had one of the smiles on my face that just wouldn't quit.

I have good taste. I have even better color sense.

The husband too was amazed.

So now we are searching for a set of four antique casters that will work with this chair. We found sets of three, but no fours.

But with as good as this chair came out, I'm feeling lucky!

There are plans, and there is reality

2011-08-18T14:57:00.001-04:00

Because today is a late schedule day, and I didn't have be in the office until 10AM, the way I had planned things was that I would sleep in to 7:30, enjoy a cup of coffee on the front porch wild reading the Columbus Dispatch, then I do some vacuuming, red up the place, and the go to work. Simple, right?

Instead, at 7:30 AM the painter is knocking at the back door because the husband forgot to unlock the garage that the painter is painting. This of course ate into my TODAY Show time. I gathered up the paper and went outside to enjoy my front porch and within 20 seconds the next door neighbor was over dropping off the food for Russell (Rocky the Wonder Dog's best friend) since Russell is spend the evening at our house. We chatted because I really like our neighbors. But by the time the chatting came to and, there went my newspaper time and it had eaten significantly into the housekeeping portion of the morning. So I tossed that idea and went upstairs to do my morning routine.

No sooner than I was undressed than the doorbell rang. It was the painter and he forgot his wallet and we were out of paint. Well I had no money for more paint, and I wasn't about to give him my debit card so off I went in my car to Lowe's at 9AM. I called the office and spoke with the boss and said I would be a few minutes late. He said fine. But no sooner than I got to the end of the driveway that I noticed that the whole street was bumper to bumper and stopped because an American Van Lines truck was unloading the possessions of a renter at the double at the end of the block. Fabulous.

Fifteen minutes later the police showed up and forced the van liner to move. That placed me at Lowe's at 9:20. I grabbed the cans took them in and got a match on the paint, paid for the cans and was home by 9:35. Into the house, grabbed a quick shower, dressed and made it to work at 10:01:00.

And then my boss says: "You didn't need to call in if you are a minute late."

So that has been how my day is progressing. How is yours?

One Cortisone Shot and I Feel Like Flipping Superman!

2011-08-16T16:12:00.000-04:00

The saga of cripple me and the shouldfer from Hell continues. I know about a month ago I said that there was surgery in my future, but we had an issue with torthopediciac surgeon's staff and that plan was defenestrated when they lost the doctors notes and the wouldn't return phone calls for THREE FLIPPING WEEKS!

Needless to say that my pain was great, and it almost drove my husband insane as he listened to my moaning - and it wasn't good moaning either.

So I went to the Ortho guy who sewed the Husband up after he detached his bicept tendon and this guy says that my rotator cuff isn't the issue, but that the bone spur in my should is. Then he shows me the X-Ray and says "It says so - right here."

Son of a bitch!

So we came up with a two fold plan. First he shot me with Cortisone, and two I'm doing physical therapy.

Normally the shots don't effect me and make me crazy. but this one did. I didn't sleep a wink last night and this morning I was up with the chickens and had the whole down stairs vaccumed before you say Anna Maria Alberghetti.

And oh my dear GOD! But I just feel like I just want to go out and beat my chest like Tarzan! FUCK YEAH! This is how it must have felt to be Wally Cox! No wonder those weight lifters get a rush out of this shit!

This afternoon I had my first physical therapy session on my shoulder. Luckily there was PT place of sound repute around the corner. And that is where we come to "Jamie" the manual therapist. Beautifully handsome Jamie. He has the face of a porn star and the body to match. And through his shirt, I am happy to report, nipples like gum drops. (Just for you, Peenee) Sigh.

Today was all about range of motion, and going over the excercises that I have to do with girly weights to strengthen the muscles in the left shoulder. Then he put the ice jacket on my shoulder. Heaven!

As I was leaving, Jamie pointed out that I could schedule my appointment him or one of his staff. I chose him, snatch.

Since I don't have a picture of Jamie, he's one of Ben Cohen who is even more beautiful and sticks up for whimps like me, and is against bullying.

In these hard times...

2011-08-13T21:24:00.000-04:00

Diversification is the first word in surviving the worst possible outcome.

Serenity? Not quite yet...

2011-08-11T14:22:00.000-04:00

...I have noticed that since attending the Shaker Heights Class of 1981 reunion that my overall mood keeps improving with each day. Not that I'm manic, but overall things seem less dire in life - the financial crisis excepted. It was so great being able to release all those years feelings. I've also discovered that my Mom left me one thing not in her will - my dysfunction level is dropping faster than the stock market.

What I've also discovered is that since Mom's death, the auction, the sale of her house, our remodeling projects and now the reunion I have been really, and seriously tired. Physically and mentally just worn out and exhausted, but for the right reasons.

Along those same lines we're coming up on the one year anniversary of Mom's diagnosis, which will mark the beginning of about 70 days of reflection leading up to the one year anniversary of her death. I bring this up because people tell me that missing her begins to become a bit easier after crossing that milestone. I hope, we'll see.

In other news, the husband is at home today - the first day of summer with perfect temps and humidity waiting on yet another contractor. Once "Ron" is done with his projects then we have just one more job for the fall which is the laying down of new gravel on the drive way before winter.

Today at work a major manufacturer of safe's and banking equipment sent two employees to our office to take back the machinery that "brain trust" in programming were designing a platform interface for our clients. Normally when this type of equipment comes in, they send a couple bears in to do the job.

NOT TODAY.

Today we had Daddy Bear and His Big Hot Dumb Son. Both of them were pure meat, and the three of us gay guys in the office took great pleasure at seeing them HEAVE and WALK and NUDGE the two-ton vault and computer onto their great big fork lift and load it on the truck. And this is but one reason why I love men: because they look good working and working it. This is not one of the guys, but you get the idea:

Please note: This image has been edited to avoid showing genitals and violating Blogger's rules on such . Anyhow, use your imagination - its always more fun!

The saddest record album cover in the world.

2011-08-09T15:40:00.000-04:00

This is from my adopted hometown of Marion Ohio. I wonder if Baikenage has this mournful album in her collections...

Saturday Night on Sunday Morning

2011-08-07T11:46:00.000-04:00

We were guests of a lovely woman last night for her annual Kahiki party in her AMAZING backyard. Seredipity reigned supreme: my husband works with the daughter of our hostess; and our next door neighbor knows her through the Fraternity of the Moai, of which he is the Grand and Exalted Pooba. We regret that we didn't bring our bathing suits as the pool was wonderful. The owners parrots were dancing in their cages to the sounds of Tiny Bubbles, sung by an enchanting strolling musician and his Hawaian guitar. The yard is a little bit-o-Polynesia and our evening was enchanted.

And yet another reason to distrust the French

2011-08-06T04:48:00.004-04:00

I found this disturbing record album cover on another site, and normally I just laugh it off and go on, as such things generally amuse me.

Not this one.

It fucking freaked me out. Like Mickey Rooney freaks out Donna Lethal. Like the idea of being trapped in an elevator during a black out with Leon Andre Talley freaks out TJB (or any of us for that matter). Look at that woman's figure? Christ on a cracker - that is an interesting shape!

Still, I thought, I should not judge these people on their side show appearances - no, I should seek a more enlightened approach.

So I found this:

And I listened and I found that in fact the picture on the album lies about this avant guard trio; they are really an atonal DUO! That's right. Evidently they are a blind family. But the mother on the cover is just trickery to get you to buy the album. Or maybe she was just wandering about the studio during the photo set. She is nowhere to be found singing!

So once again, the French have led us to the cultural trough only to spit in our eyes and laugh at our passion for truth in advertising. To hell with you frog bastards! Have you no shame?

Neighborhood Gossip: America's most hated woman...

2011-08-05T12:34:00.000-04:00

... is rumored to be staying with relatives on the street behind our house.

'Tis true, my chickens! We've been wondering why there have been news crews and satellite trucks cruising our pocket neighborhood. One of the neighbors finally got fed up and asked them "what Hell are you doing here?" Well, evidently, the news crews received a tip off from what they called a credible source that the "Tot Mom" is staying with family on the street behind us.

Really? And why our pocket neighborhood?

The camera crew answered that "Because this is the last type of place where anyone would think to look for her."

"Well," says our neighbor, "if you're here and looking for her, it can't be that far fetched that she would be here, right?"

Like buzzards circling a fresh kill sight, they're still out there. And seriously, if you were her, would you stay in the last place on earth if there were camera crews looking for you? I think not.

Still, Cookie thinks we need a block party so we can search our neighbor's homes for the Tot Mom. Either we'll put this rumor to bed, or we'll drive her out. Either is a win for the neighborhood and a loss for the neighborhood gossips.