As if endemic Civil War, Exotic Diseases, Unwashed Scrotums, Biblical starvation, Communism, Islamic Hit Squads, Squalor and those annoying Vuvuzelas weren't enough, there's this:
The Great Frozen Chicken Horror.
And these are the people the United States spent Stimulus Funds on to teach basic hygiene?
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Screw UNICEF...
...because Africa is apparently lousy with wealthy orphans!
I get 7 or 8 of these Nigerian Scams a week, and they get progressively better with the advance of time. They all follow the same predictable pattern, though. The first clue is that it seems all these poor-little-rich-girls have masculine first names.
A young woman in (insert Third-world shithole here) has just finished her prayers. This, I find amazing because to guess from all the outcry about African overpopulation, you get the idea that any girl who has the time to pray is probably even too ugly for an African man to do the nasty with. This, after all, is how one usually achieves the sort of overpopulation common to the poorest nations of Africa. Why, the problems attendant to all that uninterrupted fucking going on over there are so serious that American Stimulus dollars had to be spent to deal with the horrific consequences.
Anyway, the point is that we apparently have the only praying virgin on the African continent writing us e-mails, and this new one happens to be in an extremely acute emotional state, as we shall soon see.
Anyways, you'll find that this chaste and pious young thing is the recently-orphaned daughter of Minister X of the Ministry of XY&Z. It doesn't even matter which Ministry Daddy worked for; the Ministries and Names and Countries in these scams are interchangeable. Daddy is always killed in a plane crash (of which there seem to be an awful lot in Africa), and just so you understand that a) yes, they do have airplanes in Africa, and b) yes, they sometimes do, indeed crash, a hyperlink is included to a news story on the crash in question, or at least to a crash.
Being an African Minister for Anything is a job as dangerous as New York City Gypsy Cab driver, 'twould seem. If I were ever appointed (because they don't have real elections in Africa, no matter what Jimmy Carter says, it would have to be an appointment from this week's tin pot dictator) to, say, Minister for Lint Collection in Ivory Coast, I would positively demand that the first condition under which I would take this job is no fucking flying.
Because all African Government ministers die in plane crashes, these days. Not like the good old days when they used to get shot to pieces in front of the Ministry of Juicy Yellow Fruits building, or catch Ebola touring the rain forest, or get the "bad" oyster while overindulging in the midst of their starving citizens. But I digress...
So now this orphaned waif, all alone in the world, always makes an incredible discovery; it's usually "I looked in my father's briefcase and found...", which leads one to ask "must have been some damned good luck that Dad didn't have his briefcase with him when the plane crashed, huh?". Always, serendipity takes a hand in the course of a young orphan's life, and she finds out that she's fabulously wealthy.
Because Daddy provided for her, probably by siphoning off Western Aid meant to feed hungry AIDS victims (you find one every seven feet or so over there), and bring some solace to the victims of Civil War and religious persecution, drought, and whatever fifteen-thousand plagues strike Africa this month because heaven forbid anyone ever takes a fucking vitamin over there, washes properly, or learns what soap is, or the proper rules of basic sanitation -- you'd have to stop fucking long enough to do that -- and depositing his gains in that Cayman Islands of Africa, Burkina Faso.
Upon discovering her new-found bounty, the young girl travels to Burkina Faso to speak personally with the bank manager, who tells her that, unfortunately, her father has left instructions that the money he left for her not be released because of bureaucratic mix ups, improper documentation, a requirement for marriage, etc. I gather that Holocaust victims were given similar, heart-wrenching treatment by Swiss Banks, post-war. Whereupon our damsel-in-distress does what any young girl who can't get access to her multi-million-dollar inheritance does.
Write anonymous e-mails to complete strangers on the internet, seeking their help usually with the hint of a marriage of convenience. Once the intended victim is caught on this hook, the predictable happens: she'll need a secure bank account in the States to transfer the funds to; can she use yours? If so, what is the account number? She'll need a valid address; what is yours? Phone number? A few weeks later: The Bank in Burkina Faso cannot transfer the funds without your Social Secuity number. What is it? And then when she's, amazingly, been granted a visa to come fulfill her pledge to you, she can't afford a plane ticket. What is your credit card number, so that she may purchase one?
Oh, and they all have evil uncles out to kill them, too.
Classic.
What's really amazing is;
a) there's someone in Africa who has enough time between starving to death, or dying of a preventable disease, to write these things, and
b)Someone always falls for this scam. Someone must, or it would have stopped a very long time ago.
Wrote about it last week, here. This week's is almost the same exact letter (hyperlinks removed for security):
Hello Dearest,
I am writing this mail to you with tears and sorrow from my heart. With due respect trust and humanity, I appeal to you to exercise a little patience and read through my letter I feel quite safe dealing with you in this important business having gone through your remarkable profile, honestly I am writing this email to you with pains, tears and sorrow from my heart, I will really like to have a good relationship with you and I have a special reason why I decided to contact you, I decided to contact you due to the urgency of my situation, My name is Miss. Nathaniel Kipkalya Kones, 24yrs old female and I held from Kenya in West Africa.
My father was the former Kenyan road Minister. He and Assistant Minister of Home Affairs Lorna Laboso had been on board the Cessna 210, which was headed to Kericho and crashed in a remote area called Kajong'a, in western Kenya . The plane crashed on the Tuesday 10th, June, 2008. You can read more about the crash through the below (hyperlink removed for safety).
After the burial of my father, my stepmother and uncle conspired and sold my father's property to an Italian Expert rate which the shared the money among themselves and live nothing for me. One faithful morning, I opened my father's briefcase and found out the documents which he have deposited huge amount of money in one of the banks in Burkina Faso with my name as the next of kin. I travelled to Burkina Faso to withdraw the money for a better life so that I can take care of myself and start a new life, on my arrival, the Bank Director whom I met in person told me that my father's instructions to the bank is that the money would only be release to me when I am married or present a trustee who will help me and invest the money overseas. I am in search of an honest and reliable person who will help me and stand as my trustee so that I will present him to the Bank for transfer of the money to his bank account overseas. I have chosen to contact you after my prayers and I believe that you will not betray my trust.
But rather take me as your own sister or daughter. Though you may wonder why I am so soon revealing myself to you without knowing you, well I will say that my mind convinced ed me that you may be the true person to help me. More so, I will like to disclose much to you if you can help me to relocate to your country because my stepmother has threatened to assonate me. The amount is ($12.8 USD) Million United State Dollars and I have confirmed from the bank in Burkina Faso on my arrival.
You will also help me to place the money in a more profitable business venture in your Country. However, you will help by recommending a nice University in your country so that I can complete my studies. It is my intention to compensate you with 30% of the total money for your services and the balance shall be my capital in your establishment. As soon as I receive your positive response showing your interest I will put things into action immediately. In the light of the above, I shall appreciate an urgent message indicating your ability and willingness to handle this transaction sincerely.
Awaiting your urgent and positive response. Please do keep this only to your self for now until the bank has transferred the fund. I beg you not to disclose it till I come over because I am afraid of my wicked stepmother who has threatened to kill me and have the money alone, I thank God Today that am out from my country (KENYA) but now In (Burkina Faso) where my father deposited these money with my name as the next of Kin. I have the documents for the claims.
Yours Sincerely,
Miss Nathaniel Kipkalya Kones
I get 7 or 8 of these Nigerian Scams a week, and they get progressively better with the advance of time. They all follow the same predictable pattern, though. The first clue is that it seems all these poor-little-rich-girls have masculine first names.
A young woman in (insert Third-world shithole here) has just finished her prayers. This, I find amazing because to guess from all the outcry about African overpopulation, you get the idea that any girl who has the time to pray is probably even too ugly for an African man to do the nasty with. This, after all, is how one usually achieves the sort of overpopulation common to the poorest nations of Africa. Why, the problems attendant to all that uninterrupted fucking going on over there are so serious that American Stimulus dollars had to be spent to deal with the horrific consequences.
Anyway, the point is that we apparently have the only praying virgin on the African continent writing us e-mails, and this new one happens to be in an extremely acute emotional state, as we shall soon see.
Anyways, you'll find that this chaste and pious young thing is the recently-orphaned daughter of Minister X of the Ministry of XY&Z. It doesn't even matter which Ministry Daddy worked for; the Ministries and Names and Countries in these scams are interchangeable. Daddy is always killed in a plane crash (of which there seem to be an awful lot in Africa), and just so you understand that a) yes, they do have airplanes in Africa, and b) yes, they sometimes do, indeed crash, a hyperlink is included to a news story on the crash in question, or at least to a crash.
Being an African Minister for Anything is a job as dangerous as New York City Gypsy Cab driver, 'twould seem. If I were ever appointed (because they don't have real elections in Africa, no matter what Jimmy Carter says, it would have to be an appointment from this week's tin pot dictator) to, say, Minister for Lint Collection in Ivory Coast, I would positively demand that the first condition under which I would take this job is no fucking flying.
Because all African Government ministers die in plane crashes, these days. Not like the good old days when they used to get shot to pieces in front of the Ministry of Juicy Yellow Fruits building, or catch Ebola touring the rain forest, or get the "bad" oyster while overindulging in the midst of their starving citizens. But I digress...
So now this orphaned waif, all alone in the world, always makes an incredible discovery; it's usually "I looked in my father's briefcase and found...", which leads one to ask "must have been some damned good luck that Dad didn't have his briefcase with him when the plane crashed, huh?". Always, serendipity takes a hand in the course of a young orphan's life, and she finds out that she's fabulously wealthy.
Because Daddy provided for her, probably by siphoning off Western Aid meant to feed hungry AIDS victims (you find one every seven feet or so over there), and bring some solace to the victims of Civil War and religious persecution, drought, and whatever fifteen-thousand plagues strike Africa this month because heaven forbid anyone ever takes a fucking vitamin over there, washes properly, or learns what soap is, or the proper rules of basic sanitation -- you'd have to stop fucking long enough to do that -- and depositing his gains in that Cayman Islands of Africa, Burkina Faso.
Upon discovering her new-found bounty, the young girl travels to Burkina Faso to speak personally with the bank manager, who tells her that, unfortunately, her father has left instructions that the money he left for her not be released because of bureaucratic mix ups, improper documentation, a requirement for marriage, etc. I gather that Holocaust victims were given similar, heart-wrenching treatment by Swiss Banks, post-war. Whereupon our damsel-in-distress does what any young girl who can't get access to her multi-million-dollar inheritance does.
Write anonymous e-mails to complete strangers on the internet, seeking their help usually with the hint of a marriage of convenience. Once the intended victim is caught on this hook, the predictable happens: she'll need a secure bank account in the States to transfer the funds to; can she use yours? If so, what is the account number? She'll need a valid address; what is yours? Phone number? A few weeks later: The Bank in Burkina Faso cannot transfer the funds without your Social Secuity number. What is it? And then when she's, amazingly, been granted a visa to come fulfill her pledge to you, she can't afford a plane ticket. What is your credit card number, so that she may purchase one?
Oh, and they all have evil uncles out to kill them, too.
Classic.
What's really amazing is;
a) there's someone in Africa who has enough time between starving to death, or dying of a preventable disease, to write these things, and
b)Someone always falls for this scam. Someone must, or it would have stopped a very long time ago.
Wrote about it last week, here. This week's is almost the same exact letter (hyperlinks removed for security):
Hello Dearest,
I am writing this mail to you with tears and sorrow from my heart. With due respect trust and humanity, I appeal to you to exercise a little patience and read through my letter I feel quite safe dealing with you in this important business having gone through your remarkable profile, honestly I am writing this email to you with pains, tears and sorrow from my heart, I will really like to have a good relationship with you and I have a special reason why I decided to contact you, I decided to contact you due to the urgency of my situation, My name is Miss. Nathaniel Kipkalya Kones, 24yrs old female and I held from Kenya in West Africa.
My father was the former Kenyan road Minister. He and Assistant Minister of Home Affairs Lorna Laboso had been on board the Cessna 210, which was headed to Kericho and crashed in a remote area called Kajong'a, in western Kenya . The plane crashed on the Tuesday 10th, June, 2008. You can read more about the crash through the below (hyperlink removed for safety).
After the burial of my father, my stepmother and uncle conspired and sold my father's property to an Italian Expert rate which the shared the money among themselves and live nothing for me. One faithful morning, I opened my father's briefcase and found out the documents which he have deposited huge amount of money in one of the banks in Burkina Faso with my name as the next of kin. I travelled to Burkina Faso to withdraw the money for a better life so that I can take care of myself and start a new life, on my arrival, the Bank Director whom I met in person told me that my father's instructions to the bank is that the money would only be release to me when I am married or present a trustee who will help me and invest the money overseas. I am in search of an honest and reliable person who will help me and stand as my trustee so that I will present him to the Bank for transfer of the money to his bank account overseas. I have chosen to contact you after my prayers and I believe that you will not betray my trust.
But rather take me as your own sister or daughter. Though you may wonder why I am so soon revealing myself to you without knowing you, well I will say that my mind convinced ed me that you may be the true person to help me. More so, I will like to disclose much to you if you can help me to relocate to your country because my stepmother has threatened to assonate me. The amount is ($12.8 USD) Million United State Dollars and I have confirmed from the bank in Burkina Faso on my arrival.
You will also help me to place the money in a more profitable business venture in your Country. However, you will help by recommending a nice University in your country so that I can complete my studies. It is my intention to compensate you with 30% of the total money for your services and the balance shall be my capital in your establishment. As soon as I receive your positive response showing your interest I will put things into action immediately. In the light of the above, I shall appreciate an urgent message indicating your ability and willingness to handle this transaction sincerely.
Awaiting your urgent and positive response. Please do keep this only to your self for now until the bank has transferred the fund. I beg you not to disclose it till I come over because I am afraid of my wicked stepmother who has threatened to kill me and have the money alone, I thank God Today that am out from my country (KENYA) but now In (Burkina Faso) where my father deposited these money with my name as the next of Kin. I have the documents for the claims.
Yours Sincerely,
Miss Nathaniel Kipkalya Kones
Monday, December 20, 2010
"Unfair, Ungrateful and Uncouth..."
That's what the New York Times had to say about this blog.
Uncouth? I'll have you know, Ms. New York Times Health blogger, I have more fucking couth in my little finger than Marueen Dowd has had botox, and infinitely more than Thomas Friedman has in his entire ridiculous-looking toupee!
You're not fooling anyone, Tommy!
Actually, I'm rather happy that the Times saw fit to point people to this diseased-dialogue-with-myself; as of this posting, my traffic has increased by a factor of 400%. Unfortunately, this does not translate into Instant Dead Presidents for Yours Truly, but it did result in two (and counting) job offers to write for other blogs. For pay. Apparently, I'm funny.
The only problem is that they want me to work "clean". How fucked up is that? I must be the Lenny Bruce of the internet..at least for today (Ha! As if!)
I just find it rather peculiar that the New York Times would characterize me as uncouth, while ignoring some of the most Unfair, Ungrateful and Uncouth people that wander it's formerly-hallowed halls.
You know, Unfair, Ungrateful and Uncouth people like the aforementioned Thomas Friedman, who's never met a terrorist he wouldn't perform fellatio upon, and who is absolutely besotted with the Red Chinese Kleptocracy. Only don't ever expect Tom to leave his palatial mansion for the greener pastures of Western Sichuan province, where he could send his kids to those wonderful Chinese private schools, built of the finest papier mache and situated in only the toniest of notorious earthquake zones, easily the equal of the Suburban Old Money Academies he probably sends his children to now (assuming someone could stand him long enough to make the Beast With Two Backs and then bear his offspring without eating them in infancy).
It so wonderful to hear the Ungrateful American Wealthy Who Didn't Earn Their Fortune By Working For It sing the praises of iron-fisted Communism for the rest of us, but never for themselves.
And when Friedman isn't succeeding in making an ass out of himself, there's the Times Raging-Menstrual-Cycle-In-Residence, Maureen Dowd, who wrote this just a few weeks ago:
"These women — Jan, Meg, Carly, Sharron, Linda, Michele, Queen Bee Sarah and sweet wannabe Christine — have co-opted and ratcheted up the disgust with the status quo that originally buoyed Barack Obama. Whether they’re mistreating the help or belittling the president’s manhood, making snide comments about a rival’s hair or ripping an opponent for spending money on a men’s fashion show, the Mean Girls have replaced Hope with Spite and Cool with Cold. They are the ideal nihilistic cheerleaders for an angry electorate…"
Somehow, MoDo gets paid a shitload of bucks to be Unfair, Ungrateful and Uncouth...as well as a bitch... and I don't?
Actually, both of them were named to the Top Ten Hack Journalists in America List by their fellow libtards at Salon. Friedman came in at Number 3, and Dowd at Number 8. She probably would have come in first, but she probably wouldn't put out.
You know your paper is full of talentless hacks if the other talentless hacks at Salon (except for Camille Paglia...I love that woman!) devoted 20% of their Biggest Assholes with a Word-Processor list to the Old Gray Lady. Or maybe it's just that Salon, as MoDo would say (with a girlish giggle that hides the succubus within) "has penis envy".
My complaint...well, it's not really a complaint, just an observation... is that a Times writer would call me"unfair, ungrateful and uncouth" (Completely agree! But that's why it's funny as hell! And it's besides the point!), ignoring the fact that she writes for an alleged newspaper that employs, at huge salaries, two of the most unfair, ungrateful and uncouth alleged-newspaper-columnists in the Solar System.
And as for that other overpaid mental midget employed at the Times, that Paul Krugman fellow? I'll bet that if you put Paul Krugman's brain in a bird, it would fly backwards, and then up it's own ass.
But, in the end, I must thank Ms. Span and the (probably-) drunken editor who made the decision to post my venom this week, and now I'm really pissed off that I took Google AdWords off this thing! I could have made at least $3.00 today!
I harbor no ill-will towards Ms. Span. She seemed like a lovely person on the phone. So, I don't want anyone to think that this is an attack upon her, because it ain't.
I'm actually rather grateful, and the outrage is totally feigned for dramatic effect. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to take a crack as Krugman, Friedman and Maureen-the-Aging-Life-Support-System-for-A-Vagina-That-No-Man-In-His-Right-Mind-Wants-Anymore. Then again, I often do come across on the page as the worst person on Planet Earth; I have to remember that what works for me in communicating with others in person (sarcasm and directness) doesn't always carry as well when it comes to the written word.
Uncouth? I'll have you know, Ms. New York Times Health blogger, I have more fucking couth in my little finger than Marueen Dowd has had botox, and infinitely more than Thomas Friedman has in his entire ridiculous-looking toupee!
You're not fooling anyone, Tommy!
Actually, I'm rather happy that the Times saw fit to point people to this diseased-dialogue-with-myself; as of this posting, my traffic has increased by a factor of 400%. Unfortunately, this does not translate into Instant Dead Presidents for Yours Truly, but it did result in two (and counting) job offers to write for other blogs. For pay. Apparently, I'm funny.
The only problem is that they want me to work "clean". How fucked up is that? I must be the Lenny Bruce of the internet..at least for today (Ha! As if!)
I just find it rather peculiar that the New York Times would characterize me as uncouth, while ignoring some of the most Unfair, Ungrateful and Uncouth people that wander it's formerly-hallowed halls.
You know, Unfair, Ungrateful and Uncouth people like the aforementioned Thomas Friedman, who's never met a terrorist he wouldn't perform fellatio upon, and who is absolutely besotted with the Red Chinese Kleptocracy. Only don't ever expect Tom to leave his palatial mansion for the greener pastures of Western Sichuan province, where he could send his kids to those wonderful Chinese private schools, built of the finest papier mache and situated in only the toniest of notorious earthquake zones, easily the equal of the Suburban Old Money Academies he probably sends his children to now (assuming someone could stand him long enough to make the Beast With Two Backs and then bear his offspring without eating them in infancy).
It so wonderful to hear the Ungrateful American Wealthy Who Didn't Earn Their Fortune By Working For It sing the praises of iron-fisted Communism for the rest of us, but never for themselves.
And when Friedman isn't succeeding in making an ass out of himself, there's the Times Raging-Menstrual-Cycle-In-Residence, Maureen Dowd, who wrote this just a few weeks ago:
"These women — Jan, Meg, Carly, Sharron, Linda, Michele, Queen Bee Sarah and sweet wannabe Christine — have co-opted and ratcheted up the disgust with the status quo that originally buoyed Barack Obama. Whether they’re mistreating the help or belittling the president’s manhood, making snide comments about a rival’s hair or ripping an opponent for spending money on a men’s fashion show, the Mean Girls have replaced Hope with Spite and Cool with Cold. They are the ideal nihilistic cheerleaders for an angry electorate…"
Somehow, MoDo gets paid a shitload of bucks to be Unfair, Ungrateful and Uncouth...as well as a bitch... and I don't?
Actually, both of them were named to the Top Ten Hack Journalists in America List by their fellow libtards at Salon. Friedman came in at Number 3, and Dowd at Number 8. She probably would have come in first, but she probably wouldn't put out.
You know your paper is full of talentless hacks if the other talentless hacks at Salon (except for Camille Paglia...I love that woman!) devoted 20% of their Biggest Assholes with a Word-Processor list to the Old Gray Lady. Or maybe it's just that Salon, as MoDo would say (with a girlish giggle that hides the succubus within) "has penis envy".
My complaint...well, it's not really a complaint, just an observation... is that a Times writer would call me"unfair, ungrateful and uncouth" (Completely agree! But that's why it's funny as hell! And it's besides the point!), ignoring the fact that she writes for an alleged newspaper that employs, at huge salaries, two of the most unfair, ungrateful and uncouth alleged-newspaper-columnists in the Solar System.
And as for that other overpaid mental midget employed at the Times, that Paul Krugman fellow? I'll bet that if you put Paul Krugman's brain in a bird, it would fly backwards, and then up it's own ass.
But, in the end, I must thank Ms. Span and the (probably-) drunken editor who made the decision to post my venom this week, and now I'm really pissed off that I took Google AdWords off this thing! I could have made at least $3.00 today!
I harbor no ill-will towards Ms. Span. She seemed like a lovely person on the phone. So, I don't want anyone to think that this is an attack upon her, because it ain't.
I'm actually rather grateful, and the outrage is totally feigned for dramatic effect. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to take a crack as Krugman, Friedman and Maureen-the-Aging-Life-Support-System-for-A-Vagina-That-No-Man-In-His-Right-Mind-Wants-Anymore. Then again, I often do come across on the page as the worst person on Planet Earth; I have to remember that what works for me in communicating with others in person (sarcasm and directness) doesn't always carry as well when it comes to the written word.
At The Movies With Mark...
One of the duties of being an uncle is to take your young charges to places their parents haven't the time or patience to bring them to. I have, for the last 14 years, faithfully and cheerfully, carried out this serious responsibility; I have lost a small fortune in the local Chuck E. Cheese. I have been to more kiddie amusement parks than I can remember tossing my lunch in. Had I stock in McDonald's, Burger King or Wendy's, I'd be a very poor man, for my dividends would consist largely of the return of my own money.
But the one child-appropriate activity I have always enjoyed is taking the wee ones to the local theatres to sample the child-appropriate movies. I have spent literally weeks over the course of my four nephew's lives inside over-air-conditioned or hot-enough-to-grow-orchids movie theatres, stuffing them with enough sugar to ensure that when I return them to their home they have the energy to drive my sister and brother-in-law to drink with their frenetic activity.
It's one of the joys of being an uncle; you get to spoil the child rotten, and then let someone else deal with the aftermath. While you go home.
I have four nephews, the youngest being five now, and just old enough to sit still for a 75-90 minute CGI feature and enjoy it. In the last six weeks or so, we've been to the movies three times to see the latest offerings of this age of movies (mostly-) without actors, and often, a story worth a bucket of warm spit. Here's a quick review of them, just in case you have little ones you want some"us" time with;
1. Megamind: we saw this one first, the very day it hit the theatres. Mark enjoyed it, but then again, anything that allows him unlimited popcorn (the boy could live on the stuff) and soda is already bound to be a big hit. I must admit it did have it's moments, but I have two minor complaints about it;
a. When was Will Ferrell ever funny? If I recall, the biggest moments of his career came when Christopher Walken said "I need more cowbell!", and when when George W. Bush said "strategery". He's made a living off Bush, and with any luck he'll be making another living off Bushes...like when he has to pick nuts and berries off them before he returns to the refrigerator box he'll soon be living in.
For the Saturday Night Alum, his Belushi-like suicide will probably be funnier than anything he ever did in life.
b. Tina Fey is going to be very, very sorry when Sarah Palin finally wears her welcome with the American public out from sheer over-exposure, and that impression is no longer current or relevant. She might actually have to work for a living when that happens.
I find her decidedly unfunny (then again, I laugh like a ten-year-old when someone farts, so really, what do I know?), and after a while, annoying.
2. Tangled: This one was not such a big hit with Mark. First of all, it's kind of a musical, which hearkens back to the days when Disney made movies like Snow White and Cinderella, but which doesn't go all the way and present a memorable score that even adults would be happy to whistle while they worked,and would remember 50 years later.
It's a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale, which makes it boring for a five-year old boy, I guess, and while it had it's funny moments (funny in a kindergarten motif that a child would recognize as humor), it had just enough adult jokes and subject matter (not inappropriate, just serious) in it to cause a serious loss of attention span. Mark almost never asks to go home when we're out doing something...unless it's a story about a teen aged girl with really long hair.
I have to say, though, I kind of liked it.
3. Yogi Bear: Where to start? I actually had two of my nephews along for this one this past weekend; the 12 year-old one fell asleep, and Mark was asking to go home 20 minutes before the movie ended; he'd seen the one part that appealed to him (from the previews and television commercials) and then just wanted out.
The problem with Yogi Bear was the cast, I think. While Yogi and Boo-Boo were done rather well(Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake...sheesh, how does that guy keep getting jobs?) the "human" actors, Tom Cavanaugh and Anna Feris, acted as if the whole thing might have been a community theatre production.
Cavanaugh is goofy-looking, and while I used to think Feris was really cute, it's becoming clear that she's maybe the one actress you call to make really bad movies that other actresses won't touch with a ten-foot pole. The rest of the"human" cast is a who's-who of people who probably took this gig because there wasn't a really cool jock itch medication commercial in the offing.
I grew up on Yogi and Boo-Boo, and I was rather disappointed, too.
But the one child-appropriate activity I have always enjoyed is taking the wee ones to the local theatres to sample the child-appropriate movies. I have spent literally weeks over the course of my four nephew's lives inside over-air-conditioned or hot-enough-to-grow-orchids movie theatres, stuffing them with enough sugar to ensure that when I return them to their home they have the energy to drive my sister and brother-in-law to drink with their frenetic activity.
It's one of the joys of being an uncle; you get to spoil the child rotten, and then let someone else deal with the aftermath. While you go home.
I have four nephews, the youngest being five now, and just old enough to sit still for a 75-90 minute CGI feature and enjoy it. In the last six weeks or so, we've been to the movies three times to see the latest offerings of this age of movies (mostly-) without actors, and often, a story worth a bucket of warm spit. Here's a quick review of them, just in case you have little ones you want some"us" time with;
1. Megamind: we saw this one first, the very day it hit the theatres. Mark enjoyed it, but then again, anything that allows him unlimited popcorn (the boy could live on the stuff) and soda is already bound to be a big hit. I must admit it did have it's moments, but I have two minor complaints about it;
a. When was Will Ferrell ever funny? If I recall, the biggest moments of his career came when Christopher Walken said "I need more cowbell!", and when when George W. Bush said "strategery". He's made a living off Bush, and with any luck he'll be making another living off Bushes...like when he has to pick nuts and berries off them before he returns to the refrigerator box he'll soon be living in.
For the Saturday Night Alum, his Belushi-like suicide will probably be funnier than anything he ever did in life.
b. Tina Fey is going to be very, very sorry when Sarah Palin finally wears her welcome with the American public out from sheer over-exposure, and that impression is no longer current or relevant. She might actually have to work for a living when that happens.
I find her decidedly unfunny (then again, I laugh like a ten-year-old when someone farts, so really, what do I know?), and after a while, annoying.
2. Tangled: This one was not such a big hit with Mark. First of all, it's kind of a musical, which hearkens back to the days when Disney made movies like Snow White and Cinderella, but which doesn't go all the way and present a memorable score that even adults would be happy to whistle while they worked,and would remember 50 years later.
It's a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale, which makes it boring for a five-year old boy, I guess, and while it had it's funny moments (funny in a kindergarten motif that a child would recognize as humor), it had just enough adult jokes and subject matter (not inappropriate, just serious) in it to cause a serious loss of attention span. Mark almost never asks to go home when we're out doing something...unless it's a story about a teen aged girl with really long hair.
I have to say, though, I kind of liked it.
3. Yogi Bear: Where to start? I actually had two of my nephews along for this one this past weekend; the 12 year-old one fell asleep, and Mark was asking to go home 20 minutes before the movie ended; he'd seen the one part that appealed to him (from the previews and television commercials) and then just wanted out.
The problem with Yogi Bear was the cast, I think. While Yogi and Boo-Boo were done rather well(Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake...sheesh, how does that guy keep getting jobs?) the "human" actors, Tom Cavanaugh and Anna Feris, acted as if the whole thing might have been a community theatre production.
Cavanaugh is goofy-looking, and while I used to think Feris was really cute, it's becoming clear that she's maybe the one actress you call to make really bad movies that other actresses won't touch with a ten-foot pole. The rest of the"human" cast is a who's-who of people who probably took this gig because there wasn't a really cool jock itch medication commercial in the offing.
I grew up on Yogi and Boo-Boo, and I was rather disappointed, too.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Don't Ask, Don't Tell Gets Through the Senate...
Via Althouse.
Expect to see this headline very soon:
"Army Medic Court Martialled: Refused to Treat Fallen Comrade He Believed Had AIDS."
Should happen any day now.
It all reminds me of these classic Monty Python Sketches:
The Recruitment Office.
Court Martial/Trivializing the War.
Ooops! I forgot this one!
Expect to see this headline very soon:
"Army Medic Court Martialled: Refused to Treat Fallen Comrade He Believed Had AIDS."
Should happen any day now.
It all reminds me of these classic Monty Python Sketches:
The Recruitment Office.
Court Martial/Trivializing the War.
Ooops! I forgot this one!
Friday, December 17, 2010
...And Since We're Talking About Diversity Training...
A few readers want to know just what kind of vile human being I must be in real life to have had so many experiences with Diversity Training (see: passing mention in previous post). They figure I must be the worst sort of racist/sexist beast, and openly wonder how it is that I've ever kept a job if how I write is how I behave in real life.
To begin with, I have been "sent" to Diversity Training four (4) times.
The first time, it was "required" by management as part of a company-wide policy, itself the result of a series of lawsuits. One of those lawsuits was brought about by members of my own staff, who contended that working in our department subjected them to a "hostile working environment" in which minorities were denied access to higher-skilled (and thus higher-paying) jobs, subjected to racist/sexist humor, and otherwise made to feel "uncomfortable". These complaints were directed mostly at higher management, not me, personally, and were presented as a form of "institutional racism" that direct supervisors (like me) were powerless to overcome, even by direct action. Never mind that the plaintiffs were all, almost to a man, routinely late for work, unprofessional, and on the lower end of the competency scale.
The argument was that it was the COMPANY itself that was racist, not the individuals who worked for it (it's difficult to pin anything on an individual in a court of law without evidence, and only hearsay on your side, you see, so you have to attack The Institution), and that the "racist" policies and tendencies of this inanimate, unconscious, ambiguous, amorphous entity have become part of the overall "culture". So, I was sentenced -- along with the 16,000 or so other people who worked there -- to mandatory Diversity Training. It was a 16-hours-over-two-days tour-de-force of absolute bullshit, where the overriding theme was that "You White-Christian-Male-Straight-Guys are the absolute worst excuses for human beings ever documented...but you don't mean to be, really."
If you've never disliked people before, listen to that kind of crap for two days and then you most certainly will be disgusted by just about everyone.
The Second Time, was when I made the mistake of responding to a vile tirade of a female co-worker by getting just as obnoxious as she did. This particular person was infamous for her foul language and off-color humor and peculiarly-sexual comments, especially about how nice my ass looked to her, and what she'd like to do with me if she ever got me alone. She didn't even make any of that a secret; she would often yell it across several rows of cubicles to me, and everyone got a chuckle out of it (especially the gay guys). It was never a problem between us to trade in these heated-one-day/good-natured-the-next/naughty-all-the-time exchanges, but there was always a healthy respect; a recognition that there were, indeed, boundaries that should not be crossed.
Until she came at me one day like a menstrual banshee for some piece of work important to one of her projects that I was going to be, unavoidably, late with. Then the good-natured-foul-mouthed ribbing became a dressing down of my inadequacies as a human being. To which I replied:
"Take it easy, Jean...Don't get your tits in a knot."
Now the woman who openly remarked about my bodily features and sexual desirability was suddenly mortally offended by my reference to hers. In my defense, though, she did have an awesome rack. Anyways, off to an 8-hour "refresher" course in Diversity for me. I only stayed employed because Jean was known to use the foulest, coarsest language, and to comment frequently and loudly on the looks of the men in the office. That cost me a bonus that year, too.
The third experience was another "mandatory" situation; I would have to complete the Diversity Course as a requirement of employment. It didn't matter that I had two previous "Training" sessions; they didn't count so far as XYZ Corp was concerned because it wasn't their Diversity Course. I spent more time in that classroom than I did working there, because it wasn't long after that my contract was cancelled when the project I was hired to work on was no longer considered necessary. That particular session was a laugh riot, because there were several Hispanic employees in the room complaining that they couldn't get promotions because they weren't native English-speakers.
The "instructor" in that cluster-fuck, herself Hispanic, would sometimes have to switch to Spanish in order to explain a concept to someone who couldn't understand it in English. You can't make this shit up.
My final experience with Diversity Training came when I had a black male employee complain to me that he was not considered for a job (I had hired another person, a black woman, no less), and that he felt that in not giving him the job, I was a racist, showing a definite bias against black men (who made up about half of my staff, at that time. None of them got the job, nor complained about it, either). He called me a racist about 17 times during this exchange, and my temper had finally gotten the best of me, so that I blurted out:
"You didn't not get that job because you're black; I didn't give it to you because you're a fucking retard!"
Well, you can't make that kind of remark, even if it happens to be true, so off to Diversity Training for me once again. Once more into the fray of whining people who don't realize just how fucking ridiculous they sound with their petty, and often-unprovable, accusations. Accusations they only make because they're a) encouraged to do so, and b) know they can get away with the worst exaggerations or baseless claims, and c) hope to extort something for nothing by making them.
To begin with, I have been "sent" to Diversity Training four (4) times.
The first time, it was "required" by management as part of a company-wide policy, itself the result of a series of lawsuits. One of those lawsuits was brought about by members of my own staff, who contended that working in our department subjected them to a "hostile working environment" in which minorities were denied access to higher-skilled (and thus higher-paying) jobs, subjected to racist/sexist humor, and otherwise made to feel "uncomfortable". These complaints were directed mostly at higher management, not me, personally, and were presented as a form of "institutional racism" that direct supervisors (like me) were powerless to overcome, even by direct action. Never mind that the plaintiffs were all, almost to a man, routinely late for work, unprofessional, and on the lower end of the competency scale.
The argument was that it was the COMPANY itself that was racist, not the individuals who worked for it (it's difficult to pin anything on an individual in a court of law without evidence, and only hearsay on your side, you see, so you have to attack The Institution), and that the "racist" policies and tendencies of this inanimate, unconscious, ambiguous, amorphous entity have become part of the overall "culture". So, I was sentenced -- along with the 16,000 or so other people who worked there -- to mandatory Diversity Training. It was a 16-hours-over-two-days tour-de-force of absolute bullshit, where the overriding theme was that "You White-Christian-Male-Straight-Guys are the absolute worst excuses for human beings ever documented...but you don't mean to be, really."
If you've never disliked people before, listen to that kind of crap for two days and then you most certainly will be disgusted by just about everyone.
The Second Time, was when I made the mistake of responding to a vile tirade of a female co-worker by getting just as obnoxious as she did. This particular person was infamous for her foul language and off-color humor and peculiarly-sexual comments, especially about how nice my ass looked to her, and what she'd like to do with me if she ever got me alone. She didn't even make any of that a secret; she would often yell it across several rows of cubicles to me, and everyone got a chuckle out of it (especially the gay guys). It was never a problem between us to trade in these heated-one-day/good-natured-the-next/naughty-all-the-time exchanges, but there was always a healthy respect; a recognition that there were, indeed, boundaries that should not be crossed.
Until she came at me one day like a menstrual banshee for some piece of work important to one of her projects that I was going to be, unavoidably, late with. Then the good-natured-foul-mouthed ribbing became a dressing down of my inadequacies as a human being. To which I replied:
"Take it easy, Jean...Don't get your tits in a knot."
Now the woman who openly remarked about my bodily features and sexual desirability was suddenly mortally offended by my reference to hers. In my defense, though, she did have an awesome rack. Anyways, off to an 8-hour "refresher" course in Diversity for me. I only stayed employed because Jean was known to use the foulest, coarsest language, and to comment frequently and loudly on the looks of the men in the office. That cost me a bonus that year, too.
The third experience was another "mandatory" situation; I would have to complete the Diversity Course as a requirement of employment. It didn't matter that I had two previous "Training" sessions; they didn't count so far as XYZ Corp was concerned because it wasn't their Diversity Course. I spent more time in that classroom than I did working there, because it wasn't long after that my contract was cancelled when the project I was hired to work on was no longer considered necessary. That particular session was a laugh riot, because there were several Hispanic employees in the room complaining that they couldn't get promotions because they weren't native English-speakers.
The "instructor" in that cluster-fuck, herself Hispanic, would sometimes have to switch to Spanish in order to explain a concept to someone who couldn't understand it in English. You can't make this shit up.
My final experience with Diversity Training came when I had a black male employee complain to me that he was not considered for a job (I had hired another person, a black woman, no less), and that he felt that in not giving him the job, I was a racist, showing a definite bias against black men (who made up about half of my staff, at that time. None of them got the job, nor complained about it, either). He called me a racist about 17 times during this exchange, and my temper had finally gotten the best of me, so that I blurted out:
"You didn't not get that job because you're black; I didn't give it to you because you're a fucking retard!"
Well, you can't make that kind of remark, even if it happens to be true, so off to Diversity Training for me once again. Once more into the fray of whining people who don't realize just how fucking ridiculous they sound with their petty, and often-unprovable, accusations. Accusations they only make because they're a) encouraged to do so, and b) know they can get away with the worst exaggerations or baseless claims, and c) hope to extort something for nothing by making them.
You Don't Know Gay!
*Sigh* It was bound to happen one day. As sure as Evolution created Little Green Apples and Snooki, at some point in my blogging journey I was certain to find a mailbox of angry readers all full of piss and vinegar about this viewpoint or that. That's okay; it's part of the process, and when you express your views on everything under the Sun, you have to expect that not everyone will agree with you, and that many people will take exception with something you've written.
There are four kinds of blog posts that you can write that will bring you an automatic, and often overwhelming, visceral response. The first is to defend the Jews. The Second is to make fun of Christians. The Third is to tell the truth, as you see it, about minorities.The Fourth, and perhaps the one that evokes the most visceral responses of all, is to write something about Gays.
The first accusation of all my gay responders is that I must be one of those super-secret self-hating gays myself, the sort that's deep in the closet and who just hasn't come to grips with my own sexuality. My personal confusion is expressed by the most vitriolic hyperbole upon the page. Sorry fellas, but this is patently false. I'm not Gay; I have no desire to pork another man in his ass, accept a penis in my mouth, or dress like Lady Gaga. I don't buy FDNY Beefcake calendars. I detest Enya and k.d. lang, and the Village People and Tim Gunn are not my personal heroes. My rectum is Exit-Only, thank you. I like women, and the more feminine they are, the better I like them.
And besides, it's about time you guys came up with a better retort than this one. It's worn and threadbare from overuse.
The second accusation they usually make is that I don't understand the problems of being a homosexual in modern society. To a certain extent, this is true, but then again, I don't engage in disgusting sexual acts that require you to wipe another man's shit off your appendages. Other than that, we all have the same problems; life is unfair, we will all eventually die, no one gets everything they desire.
I've heard all the complaints about the difficulties of being gay, mostly because I've been sent (banished) to Diversity Training more times than most people have had hot dinners. Modern American business makes a fetish of "Diversity", which is just a code word for "Black people get to be openly racist for a couple of days, just so we don't get sued". If there's anything that is absolutely-bet-the-farm-on-it certain to come up during a Diversity Training session, it's the eternal struggle between Gays and Blacks to compete with one another with overwrought horror stories as to who's discriminated against more. Once that fight starts, we White Guys, Jews and Asians sit back and watch the fireworks show. It's entertaining. Most of it is bullshit, too, but that's beside the point.
So no, I don't have first-hand experience of being gay. However, I've been surrounded by gay men and women most of my adult life, about two decades now. I have a highly-developed sense of "Gaydar", however, it's not foolproof, and my response to being confronted by an obviously-gay person is to...behave in the way I would expect them to behave towards me. This close and personal (but not too close and personal, if you get my drift) contact with the homosexual community in my daily life has given me some insights into the Gay Lifestyle (most of which, I would have been happy to remain ignorant of), which just reinforced something I think I always knew: it takes all kinds. It's just that some kinds are more entertaining than others.
I've known your stereotypical, flaming, Oscar Wilde gays. Your buttoned-down-deep-in-the-closet gays. Your I'm-so-fucking-gay-other-gays-say-holy-shit-you're-fucking-gay! gays. I've known the campy kind, the catty kind, the ones that never speak about it, and the ones who can't shut up about it. The ones that have been married to members of the opposite sex at some point in their lives and have families. The ones who think no one else knows they're gay and try to keep it a secret, but are betrayed by their behavior. The ones who can't stop cracking jokes that invariably have a gay element to them, and the one's who try to stick their gay attitude right under your nose 24/7. The Militant Gays, the Passive Gays, the Happy Gays, the Dramatic Gays, the Gays on the verge of suicide every goddamned day. The Attention Whores, the Out-to-Offend, the ones who use their Gayness as a weapon to extort better jobs, raises, and other benefits.
The Drama Queens, the Bomb-Throwers, the I Wish-I-Were-A-Man/Woman/Hermaphrodite kind, the I-Can-See-That-Guy-in-Gossamer-wings-and-Magic-wand-Ensemble. The Rugged Individualist, the Betty-Crocker-I've-Made-a-Pear-Tarte-Tatin-for-the-office, the Boy/Girl Next Door, The Always-on-the-Make kind,The Self-Mutilators, The Drug/Booze Addicts, The I-Have-No-Sense-of-Humor, the Can-Wake-The-Fucking-Dead-With-Their-Gay-Banter, and the limp-wristed-caricature, the Bon Vivant, and the Light-in-the-Loafers varieties.
I've made a list. I have known approximately 70 people (male, female and who-the-fuck-knows) who I either knew to be gay, or suspected of being gay, including the three-piece-Brooks-Brother's suit who was unceremoniously fired and escorted from the building for downloading Gay Porn, and who, come to think of it, hardly ever left his office or spoke a word to anyone. That one was a surprise.
I've heard the stories; freely-told, spilled in a moment of drunken camaraderie, or loudly proclaimed to the world during Diversity Class so as to ensure that a claim has been staked. This doesn't make me an "expert" on Gay, but it does make me an expert on this: you'll find as many varieties of Gay as you will Straight, and it's only individuals, not identity groups, that have ever made we want to attack someone with a ball-peen hammer. And perhaps a blunt butter knife.
So, please, spare me your drama about how "difficult" it is to be gay. It's difficult just being a human being, on a good day. Your "persecution" is my belly laugh; my "persecution" is to have to listen to your incessant whining about how "special" you are. Guess what? You aren't; at some point in all of our lives, we're all whining, whinging, hypocritical, heartless, careless, clueless douchebags with burdens to bear.
Such is life. Get over yourselves.
Update: In response to Jimmy H. in Lindenhurst, N.Y. who wants to know:
"Who was the most offensive/funniest gay dude u ever met?"
I don't know if Jimmy is looking for a date, or what,but to answer the question:
That would be the Jamaican gentlemen Iworked with on my first real job in 1985, and his phallo-centric Carribean lunch menu, which included such fine faire as Cowcock soup (yes, the description is accurate), goat balls cooked a dozen ways, and as many permutations of meat-on-a-stick as you might imagine.
After he had put on a show in eating it all, he would then settle in to read his Bible for the remainder of his lunch hour.
There are four kinds of blog posts that you can write that will bring you an automatic, and often overwhelming, visceral response. The first is to defend the Jews. The Second is to make fun of Christians. The Third is to tell the truth, as you see it, about minorities.The Fourth, and perhaps the one that evokes the most visceral responses of all, is to write something about Gays.
The first accusation of all my gay responders is that I must be one of those super-secret self-hating gays myself, the sort that's deep in the closet and who just hasn't come to grips with my own sexuality. My personal confusion is expressed by the most vitriolic hyperbole upon the page. Sorry fellas, but this is patently false. I'm not Gay; I have no desire to pork another man in his ass, accept a penis in my mouth, or dress like Lady Gaga. I don't buy FDNY Beefcake calendars. I detest Enya and k.d. lang, and the Village People and Tim Gunn are not my personal heroes. My rectum is Exit-Only, thank you. I like women, and the more feminine they are, the better I like them.
And besides, it's about time you guys came up with a better retort than this one. It's worn and threadbare from overuse.
The second accusation they usually make is that I don't understand the problems of being a homosexual in modern society. To a certain extent, this is true, but then again, I don't engage in disgusting sexual acts that require you to wipe another man's shit off your appendages. Other than that, we all have the same problems; life is unfair, we will all eventually die, no one gets everything they desire.
I've heard all the complaints about the difficulties of being gay, mostly because I've been sent (banished) to Diversity Training more times than most people have had hot dinners. Modern American business makes a fetish of "Diversity", which is just a code word for "Black people get to be openly racist for a couple of days, just so we don't get sued". If there's anything that is absolutely-bet-the-farm-on-it certain to come up during a Diversity Training session, it's the eternal struggle between Gays and Blacks to compete with one another with overwrought horror stories as to who's discriminated against more. Once that fight starts, we White Guys, Jews and Asians sit back and watch the fireworks show. It's entertaining. Most of it is bullshit, too, but that's beside the point.
So no, I don't have first-hand experience of being gay. However, I've been surrounded by gay men and women most of my adult life, about two decades now. I have a highly-developed sense of "Gaydar", however, it's not foolproof, and my response to being confronted by an obviously-gay person is to...behave in the way I would expect them to behave towards me. This close and personal (but not too close and personal, if you get my drift) contact with the homosexual community in my daily life has given me some insights into the Gay Lifestyle (most of which, I would have been happy to remain ignorant of), which just reinforced something I think I always knew: it takes all kinds. It's just that some kinds are more entertaining than others.
I've known your stereotypical, flaming, Oscar Wilde gays. Your buttoned-down-deep-in-the-closet gays. Your I'm-so-fucking-gay-other-gays-say-holy-shit-you're-fucking-gay! gays. I've known the campy kind, the catty kind, the ones that never speak about it, and the ones who can't shut up about it. The ones that have been married to members of the opposite sex at some point in their lives and have families. The ones who think no one else knows they're gay and try to keep it a secret, but are betrayed by their behavior. The ones who can't stop cracking jokes that invariably have a gay element to them, and the one's who try to stick their gay attitude right under your nose 24/7. The Militant Gays, the Passive Gays, the Happy Gays, the Dramatic Gays, the Gays on the verge of suicide every goddamned day. The Attention Whores, the Out-to-Offend, the ones who use their Gayness as a weapon to extort better jobs, raises, and other benefits.
The Drama Queens, the Bomb-Throwers, the I Wish-I-Were-A-Man/Woman/Hermaphrodite kind, the I-Can-See-That-Guy-in-Gossamer-wings-and-Magic-wand-Ensemble. The Rugged Individualist, the Betty-Crocker-I've-Made-a-Pear-Tarte-Tatin-for-the-office, the Boy/Girl Next Door, The Always-on-the-Make kind,The Self-Mutilators, The Drug/Booze Addicts, The I-Have-No-Sense-of-Humor, the Can-Wake-The-Fucking-Dead-With-Their-Gay-Banter, and the limp-wristed-caricature, the Bon Vivant, and the Light-in-the-Loafers varieties.
I've made a list. I have known approximately 70 people (male, female and who-the-fuck-knows) who I either knew to be gay, or suspected of being gay, including the three-piece-Brooks-Brother's suit who was unceremoniously fired and escorted from the building for downloading Gay Porn, and who, come to think of it, hardly ever left his office or spoke a word to anyone. That one was a surprise.
I've heard the stories; freely-told, spilled in a moment of drunken camaraderie, or loudly proclaimed to the world during Diversity Class so as to ensure that a claim has been staked. This doesn't make me an "expert" on Gay, but it does make me an expert on this: you'll find as many varieties of Gay as you will Straight, and it's only individuals, not identity groups, that have ever made we want to attack someone with a ball-peen hammer. And perhaps a blunt butter knife.
So, please, spare me your drama about how "difficult" it is to be gay. It's difficult just being a human being, on a good day. Your "persecution" is my belly laugh; my "persecution" is to have to listen to your incessant whining about how "special" you are. Guess what? You aren't; at some point in all of our lives, we're all whining, whinging, hypocritical, heartless, careless, clueless douchebags with burdens to bear.
Such is life. Get over yourselves.
Update: In response to Jimmy H. in Lindenhurst, N.Y. who wants to know:
"Who was the most offensive/funniest gay dude u ever met?"
I don't know if Jimmy is looking for a date, or what,but to answer the question:
That would be the Jamaican gentlemen Iworked with on my first real job in 1985, and his phallo-centric Carribean lunch menu, which included such fine faire as Cowcock soup (yes, the description is accurate), goat balls cooked a dozen ways, and as many permutations of meat-on-a-stick as you might imagine.
After he had put on a show in eating it all, he would then settle in to read his Bible for the remainder of his lunch hour.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The Insanity Begins Anew!
Yesterday, it was being "ready" for when the physical therapist arrived. Three hours in advance, armed with socks and shoes. The last two hours prior to the therapist's actual arrival went something like this:
"Where is this girl, already?"
"She's coming at 9:30, Mom. It's barely after 8:00. Relax, she'll be here."
"What's taking her so long?"
"She's usually on time. I have no doubt she'll be here when she said she would."
"But I'm ready NOW! I have things to do!"
"Like what?"
"Oh...shut up! Call her, and see where she is!"
(This conversation will be repeated, almost word-for-word, for the next hour, until I decide that I've had enough and go and blog some stuff).
This morning it is the anticipation of having the staples removed from her leg. The suspense is killing her; she foresees a painful and bloody nightmare of torture ahead of her. The whining has started. The whimpering soon follows, and ultimately, tears. She's frightened. As if having the surgical staples removed is something on the order of an amputation, or worse, a death sentence.
There is no amount of hand-holding, no level of cheerleading, no amount of positive reinforcement that I can offer that can overcome this level of acute anxiety. You can remind her that this is a very simple procedure, something the nurse probably does 50 times a week, a mere routine, and the words and logic go unheeded. You can dispense a Percocet to calm her nerves, and it doesn't work; my mother must the only person in the Solar System immune to Percocet.
But really, it's the anxiety that causes the Percocet to not work. It's the anxiety over something that's pretty trivial that causes this extreme emotional turmoil. Twenty years of being best friends with a psychological counsellor, and my mother somehow STILL has an anxiety problem that can blunt the effects of an opiate. Some friend. So, the conversation begins anew.
"Where is this girl, already?"
"She's coming at 10:00, Mom. It's only 9;00. Relax, she'll be here."
"What's taking her so long?"
"You're not the only patient on her list today. She'll be here on time, and then this will all be over."
"But...I have things to do!"
"Like what?"
"Oh...leave me alone! This isn't easy for me! I know this is going to hurt. I hurt already. My back! My leg! My head! I'm so cold: turn the heat up again! Oooooh, I won't be able to watch this, Dear God -- take meeeeeee!"
(This conversation will be repeated, almost word-for-word, for the next hour, until I've decided that I've had enough, and go and blog some stuff).
Welcome to my HELL. This is almost every hour of every day for the last week. If it isn't the Visiting nurse or physical therapist, it's "where's your brother? He said he was coming last week". If it isn't my brother, it's "Where's the mailman? Dammit, he never comes at the same time two days in a row!". If there's a bright spot in today's insanity -- thus far -- it's this: she at least doesn't have a To-Do List for me this morning. Yet. I fully expect, however, that once the anticipated auto-de-fay-like "ordeal" of surgical staple removal is over, and she finds that her leg is still attached, she'll act as if nothing has happened, as if she were the bravest soldier on the battlefield ever... and decide that I need to call Newark Airport to complain about the aircraft flying over the neighborhood on final approach...and "as long as you're up", do you think you might ___________?"
Stay tuned.
Update: I've just gotten a good glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I look like I have malaria. I have more bags than Kenneth Cole under my eyes. I'm tired, cranky, irritiable, and think I might be developing a menstrual cycle. Still no visiting nurse, and I have been asked to call her twice in the last half hour, because it's 9-fucking-58 and she's still not here. More to follow.
Postscript: The trials and tribulations are now over. I don't have any children of my own (well, none that I know of...wink-wink) but if ever I shall have them, I am now prepared for the excruciating crucible of the Delivery Room. When my Good Lady Wife (as if!) gives birth to quintuplets, I will have been prepared for the blood-curdling screams, the appalling language, the absolute howling of bitter agony.
The service sent a Russian nurse, which in and of itself is no big novelty, but it always makes me laugh. I keep thinking "I have been sent by Comrade Moose and Squirrel to remove staples. You vill comply!" But she's a lovely lady, nonetheless. The process of removing the staples took all of 10 minutes, at most. It was the preparation that was the killer; Mom would not hold still, behaving like a skittish toddler confronted by a pediatrician weilding a foot-long hyperdermic needle. With flames coming out of it.
Once it started, visions of Charlton Heston popped into my head. I see the angry man in snow-white beard and flowing robes, lifting his staff high into the air and calling down the wrath of God upon the wayward Isrealites, the skies darkening, the holy fire of the Almighty called from the Heavens to smite the Golden Calf. The earth shakes. The very air seems to burn. Thunder reverberates in the distance.
She called upon the ancestors;
I want my father!
I want my mother!
Dear God, why do they do these things to people?
Daddy, come and help meeeeeee!
And when it was all over -- just as I had predicted -- you would have thought that absolutely nothing had happened, but she did apologize to the nurse because she was embarrassed by all the carrying on. Big baby! Of course, I get no apology for the ten trenches she's dug into my arm with her fingernails, my Mother suddenly having developed a G.I. Joe Kung-fu grip while she was thrashing about like Linda Blair bathed in Holy Water.
And then she sent me out for a sandwich. She's suddenly ravenous, you see.
"Where is this girl, already?"
"She's coming at 9:30, Mom. It's barely after 8:00. Relax, she'll be here."
"What's taking her so long?"
"She's usually on time. I have no doubt she'll be here when she said she would."
"But I'm ready NOW! I have things to do!"
"Like what?"
"Oh...shut up! Call her, and see where she is!"
(This conversation will be repeated, almost word-for-word, for the next hour, until I decide that I've had enough and go and blog some stuff).
This morning it is the anticipation of having the staples removed from her leg. The suspense is killing her; she foresees a painful and bloody nightmare of torture ahead of her. The whining has started. The whimpering soon follows, and ultimately, tears. She's frightened. As if having the surgical staples removed is something on the order of an amputation, or worse, a death sentence.
There is no amount of hand-holding, no level of cheerleading, no amount of positive reinforcement that I can offer that can overcome this level of acute anxiety. You can remind her that this is a very simple procedure, something the nurse probably does 50 times a week, a mere routine, and the words and logic go unheeded. You can dispense a Percocet to calm her nerves, and it doesn't work; my mother must the only person in the Solar System immune to Percocet.
But really, it's the anxiety that causes the Percocet to not work. It's the anxiety over something that's pretty trivial that causes this extreme emotional turmoil. Twenty years of being best friends with a psychological counsellor, and my mother somehow STILL has an anxiety problem that can blunt the effects of an opiate. Some friend. So, the conversation begins anew.
"Where is this girl, already?"
"She's coming at 10:00, Mom. It's only 9;00. Relax, she'll be here."
"What's taking her so long?"
"You're not the only patient on her list today. She'll be here on time, and then this will all be over."
"But...I have things to do!"
"Like what?"
"Oh...leave me alone! This isn't easy for me! I know this is going to hurt. I hurt already. My back! My leg! My head! I'm so cold: turn the heat up again! Oooooh, I won't be able to watch this, Dear God -- take meeeeeee!"
(This conversation will be repeated, almost word-for-word, for the next hour, until I've decided that I've had enough, and go and blog some stuff).
Welcome to my HELL. This is almost every hour of every day for the last week. If it isn't the Visiting nurse or physical therapist, it's "where's your brother? He said he was coming last week". If it isn't my brother, it's "Where's the mailman? Dammit, he never comes at the same time two days in a row!". If there's a bright spot in today's insanity -- thus far -- it's this: she at least doesn't have a To-Do List for me this morning. Yet. I fully expect, however, that once the anticipated auto-de-fay-like "ordeal" of surgical staple removal is over, and she finds that her leg is still attached, she'll act as if nothing has happened, as if she were the bravest soldier on the battlefield ever... and decide that I need to call Newark Airport to complain about the aircraft flying over the neighborhood on final approach...and "as long as you're up", do you think you might ___________?"
Stay tuned.
Update: I've just gotten a good glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I look like I have malaria. I have more bags than Kenneth Cole under my eyes. I'm tired, cranky, irritiable, and think I might be developing a menstrual cycle. Still no visiting nurse, and I have been asked to call her twice in the last half hour, because it's 9-fucking-58 and she's still not here. More to follow.
Postscript: The trials and tribulations are now over. I don't have any children of my own (well, none that I know of...wink-wink) but if ever I shall have them, I am now prepared for the excruciating crucible of the Delivery Room. When my Good Lady Wife (as if!) gives birth to quintuplets, I will have been prepared for the blood-curdling screams, the appalling language, the absolute howling of bitter agony.
The service sent a Russian nurse, which in and of itself is no big novelty, but it always makes me laugh. I keep thinking "I have been sent by Comrade Moose and Squirrel to remove staples. You vill comply!" But she's a lovely lady, nonetheless. The process of removing the staples took all of 10 minutes, at most. It was the preparation that was the killer; Mom would not hold still, behaving like a skittish toddler confronted by a pediatrician weilding a foot-long hyperdermic needle. With flames coming out of it.
Once it started, visions of Charlton Heston popped into my head. I see the angry man in snow-white beard and flowing robes, lifting his staff high into the air and calling down the wrath of God upon the wayward Isrealites, the skies darkening, the holy fire of the Almighty called from the Heavens to smite the Golden Calf. The earth shakes. The very air seems to burn. Thunder reverberates in the distance.
She called upon the ancestors;
I want my father!
I want my mother!
Dear God, why do they do these things to people?
Daddy, come and help meeeeeee!
And when it was all over -- just as I had predicted -- you would have thought that absolutely nothing had happened, but she did apologize to the nurse because she was embarrassed by all the carrying on. Big baby! Of course, I get no apology for the ten trenches she's dug into my arm with her fingernails, my Mother suddenly having developed a G.I. Joe Kung-fu grip while she was thrashing about like Linda Blair bathed in Holy Water.
And then she sent me out for a sandwich. She's suddenly ravenous, you see.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
A Trip Through My Mailbox, Part II...
In this post, I will respond to Nyomi, Jesse, Luis and Terrence who are under the mistaken impression that I'm a homophobe and hater who wants gay people marched to the ovens. They objected to the "obviously biased against homosexuals" nature of my posts, when they weren't complaining about "gay slurs" and "harmful and hurtful negative stereotypes" about Gays.
No, I'm not a homophobe. I neither fear nor hate gay people. Had any of you searched the blog a bit further, you would have seen this -- and a whole lot more - where I have defended gays against all sorts of stupidity. You should also probably take a course on how to recognize sacrasm and satire when you see it. I've known a large number of gay people (you can't swing a dead cat on Wall Street and not hit half a dozen of them), and find that the great majority are no different than I, except for what they like to do with their privates.
I never hated them or wanted to see them harmed because they were gay, and if I did dislike someone, it was because they were an asshole. Oh, sorry...shouldn't use "gay" and "asshole" in the same sentence, should I?
If I have an "issue" with homosexuals, it would be this;
I don't care if anyone is gay (I have my own problems, thank you very much). I don't lay awake at night worried about a GayTide that threatens to destroy America and civil society. What I object to is constantly being told -- by gays, the media, Hollywood, politicians and professors -- that I should care -- nay, ordered to care -- and more so, that I should check my own feelings and opinions on the subjects swirling about homosexuality and adopt every "mainstream" gay view of everything, without examination or critical thought. Because otherwise I'm an intolerant homphobe, and probably harboring latent homosexual feelings myself which accounts for my "hostility" (it's amazing how many of my gay detractors trot out the pap psychology for me, but never look at their own mental defects as critically or as honestly). I simply dislike people for whom their sexual "identity" becomes the center of everything in their lives and the only subject of conversation, in the same way that I dislike rabid religious people who can't go three seconds without quoting The Book of Romans.
You can do whatever you want in life; that's your business, and I don't need to know about it. Why you feel it necessary to make it my business bewilders me. And as for for the Gay-Rights-is- the-New-Civil-Rights motif that was present in all of those e-mails I have received on the subject, that is pure bullshit; no one is denying your basic humanity, or suggesting that you should be treated as second-class citizens -- if not property -- it's just that society as a whole has some traditions and values that no amount of shouting in the streets or radical judges' decisions will ever change. Get used to it, and stop whining. I don't get everything I want, most people don't, and neither should you. If you ever wanted to see just how good you have it, I suggest that you take a trip to Tehran to see how they treat their homosexuals over there.
What most of you want isn't equal rights; it's extra-constitutional rights. You want to become a government-protected species, like bald eagles and welfare mothers. There are, unfortunately, some places where society as a whole demands that some lines be drawn, and this happens to be one of those places. I can sympathize with your frustrations and can see how you might feel put upon, but that's life; it's often unfair.
You'll live.
No, I'm not a homophobe. I neither fear nor hate gay people. Had any of you searched the blog a bit further, you would have seen this -- and a whole lot more - where I have defended gays against all sorts of stupidity. You should also probably take a course on how to recognize sacrasm and satire when you see it. I've known a large number of gay people (you can't swing a dead cat on Wall Street and not hit half a dozen of them), and find that the great majority are no different than I, except for what they like to do with their privates.
I never hated them or wanted to see them harmed because they were gay, and if I did dislike someone, it was because they were an asshole. Oh, sorry...shouldn't use "gay" and "asshole" in the same sentence, should I?
If I have an "issue" with homosexuals, it would be this;
I don't care if anyone is gay (I have my own problems, thank you very much). I don't lay awake at night worried about a GayTide that threatens to destroy America and civil society. What I object to is constantly being told -- by gays, the media, Hollywood, politicians and professors -- that I should care -- nay, ordered to care -- and more so, that I should check my own feelings and opinions on the subjects swirling about homosexuality and adopt every "mainstream" gay view of everything, without examination or critical thought. Because otherwise I'm an intolerant homphobe, and probably harboring latent homosexual feelings myself which accounts for my "hostility" (it's amazing how many of my gay detractors trot out the pap psychology for me, but never look at their own mental defects as critically or as honestly). I simply dislike people for whom their sexual "identity" becomes the center of everything in their lives and the only subject of conversation, in the same way that I dislike rabid religious people who can't go three seconds without quoting The Book of Romans.
You can do whatever you want in life; that's your business, and I don't need to know about it. Why you feel it necessary to make it my business bewilders me. And as for for the Gay-Rights-is- the-New-Civil-Rights motif that was present in all of those e-mails I have received on the subject, that is pure bullshit; no one is denying your basic humanity, or suggesting that you should be treated as second-class citizens -- if not property -- it's just that society as a whole has some traditions and values that no amount of shouting in the streets or radical judges' decisions will ever change. Get used to it, and stop whining. I don't get everything I want, most people don't, and neither should you. If you ever wanted to see just how good you have it, I suggest that you take a trip to Tehran to see how they treat their homosexuals over there.
What most of you want isn't equal rights; it's extra-constitutional rights. You want to become a government-protected species, like bald eagles and welfare mothers. There are, unfortunately, some places where society as a whole demands that some lines be drawn, and this happens to be one of those places. I can sympathize with your frustrations and can see how you might feel put upon, but that's life; it's often unfair.
You'll live.
A Trip Through My Mailbox...
I have garnered more attention that usual this week, and naturally, this results in a torrent of e-mails. Some are positive, most are negative (I think I've earned at least three fatwas this year!), and many more are clueless. However, most of the clueless ones are sent by well-meaning people who just don't get my sarcasm, or who are unable to read without looking for something to take out of context to grind their personal axe upon.
I usually don't respond to people's e-mail, unless they've made a very valid point, or it seems to offer an interesting argument-via-correspondence.
This week, however, there were some respondents that actually should be answered, if only because there's some serious misunderstandings that have arisen from an inability of some people to recognize humor when they see it, or because they're dumb as a fucking stump, and don't see what is so clearly before their own eyes. More likely, they refuse to see it, because in making the discovery of the obvious they may actually make painful realizations -- about themselves --that they'd rather not.
So, rather than answer each mail individually, I will respond to them, en masse, and knock off a couple of blog posts while I'm at it. I'm about nothing, if not efficiency.
In this post, I would like to respond to Annabelle, Babs, May and Thomas L, who objected to this post about having to care for my sick mother. They object mainly to the appalling lack of compassion that I seem to show, and they are shocked that I would publish such things about my own mother in a public forum. Some of them are also offended because they're in a similar situation, only their parents happen to be terminally ill, and my mother only had elective surgery, after all. How dare I belittle their experience by complaining about my own petty annoyances? As if we're into some "My Mom's sicker than your's" sort of schoolyard dustup!
There's a word that desribes that kind of post, folks. It's called "sarcasm". And while some of the experiences related within have been slightly-exaggerated for dramatic effect, they haven't been distorted all that much.
So yeah, while I don't have it as bad as some of you (she isn't dying while I stand by helplessly awaiting the inevitable), it's bad enough. I don't expect sympathy -- and never asked for any! -- that wasn't the point of the post; it was that people who care for the sick and inured for a living must be a) insane, and b) given far more respect than I previously would have afforded them.
But just in case you were under the mistaken impression that I'm just complaining for the sake of it, and that no one could be THAT bad, I will say this:
No, my mother isn't EVIL, she's just a pain in the ass. Yes, the tasks she sets me to doing are, in and of themselves, not particularly difficult, but they come sequentially and no sooner have I started immediately upon the first request, when the second, third and fourth requests come flying from her pie hole. I don't mind making her comfortable, or doing whatever I can to speed her recovery (this is my mother, after all), but please, tell me how I'm supposed to take your breakfast order, vacuum the carpets, get you an ice pack AND ask the guys doing construction across the street to stop hammering so loud, or to turn off that godawful table saw, all at once, and right this very second? Because that's what she expects. She's impatient. I hear it all day "What's taking you so long...?"
Or, try this: you've buckled and given in to her request to send for take-out food (the docs specifically told me to watch her salt and fat intake), because she wants something "with flavor for dinner". I, apparently, don't cook well enough to suit her as I am deliberately not salting anything I serve her. Her eggplant parm arrives, and I've done the unthinkable -- and plated it for her. I then get a load of crap about how she wanted it kept in the tin, the idea being that doing so would mean one less dirty dish in the house. As if we don't have a dish washer, and I'm not capable of washing a plate on my own (I don't wash anything according to her tastes and preferences, you see). The idea that there might be a dirty dish, glass or piece of cutlery somewhere in the house, or that they might be laying about in the kitchen sink, drives this woman crazy, so I was dressed down for my sin of using a perfectly-clean plate to serve her dinner on...with an attitude.
I wouldn't be surprised if my mother doesn't put plastic slipcovers over the plates, saucers and coffee cups someday just to keep them perfectly immaculate. I believe they call this "being anal".
This morning brought an entirely new low. I almost lost it, as I'm exhausted. The scene: 6:15 a.m..I'm asleep. Suddenly, I am jolted out of a bed-wetting slumber by a bellow of MAAAAATTTTYYYYY! You would think a moose was being dismembered whilst still alive in the next room. I run into my mother's room, thinking she may have fallen trying to get into the walker, or might be in pain. Nope, nothing of the sort.
She was trying to dress herself, and can't put her own shoes and socks on.
"Why are you putting shoes and socks on Mom? Where do you expect to go?"
"My physical therapist is coming."
"When?"
"About 9:30".
"You do realize that's 3 hours from now?"
"Yes, but I wanted to be ready..."
Her newest pet-peeve is the gnarly old tree out in front of the house, which has a mass of spindly branches sticking out of it which hang over the sidewalk, which must be pruned (there's a landscaper who comes every week, let him handle it). Why this should consume her waking hours is beyond me, and she refuses to explain (I rather doubt that she can!) why it looms so large in her thoughts. I'm just expected to "take care" of it.
Here's my schedule for today (not that I'm asking for any sympathy):
* Make Mom Breakfast, argue with her because I have served something, yet again, that doesn't have salt/sugar in it.
* Bathing Mom
* Help the visiting Physical Therapist (if needed)
* Bathe myself, if I can find 10 minutes.
* Give my mother her once-daily injection in the stomach, set out her daily pain meds, thyroid meds, blood-pressure meds, and what have you.
* Do the laundry (this will require at least two trips to the laundromat, four blocks away, without a car. If I'm lucky, my sister will reluctantly agree to do it for me)
* Try to find a permanent job...again.
* Work on the one (small) contract job I do have for this month
* Make and serve lunch
* Deliver my newspapers (I deliver newspapers in the afternoons to make some extra cash)
* See to Mom's needs (thrice daily cold water basins to soak her swollen feet in, rearrange the furniture because it impedes her walker...again... rub liniment on her aching back from her ass to her shoulder blades, and whatever else she decides she needs)
* Begin Dinner, listen to complaints about how her sciatica is acting up again, stuff pillows under her to relieve her pain, adjust them several times during the course of the evening.
* Clean everything in the house within an inch of it's life. Twice. Because she "knows" I didn't "do it right the first time", like she has X-ray vision.
* Serve dinner, listen to the stream of complaints because it has no salt, and whatever spices I do use don't meet with her approval, then force her to eat the fresh fruit that I (try to) serve her every night. She'll invariably take the bananas, but pass on everything else.
* Help her dress for bed.
* Babysit my four (4) nephews this evening for approximately two hours while my sister and brother-in-law do whatever the fuck it is that they do.
* Prepare for a night of Hell, which will require that the heat be turned up or down several times, pillows be rearranged and fluffed repeatedly, and standing by while Mom makes every one of her dozen or so bathroom trips during the night (the record is 13 in one night).
I have a younger sister who lives 8 blocks away and who's first response to any request is "I have a husband and four kids to take care of, you know", and who otherwise does the barest minimum she can get away with. I also have a younger brother who might as well be on the side of a milk carton; I haven't seen him for the better part of three years, and have spoken to him probably twice -- on the phone -- in all of that time, who swears he'll drop by to see how she's doing... but then never does.
No, I'm not watching my mother waste away from some dreadful disease that fills all who see her daily degeneration in all it's grisly detail with a sense of helpless dread, but that doesn't make my experience any less easy to take.
Excuse me if my preferred method of handling this stress was to blog about it all, with humor, and not, say, smothering her with a pillow.
And yes, I do feel for those of you who have to deal with the ravages of cancer, or a parentin a vegetative state. I was at my grandparent's bedsides when they were stricken with cancer, too, and did much of the same work as I'm doing now. Only they appreciated it, and didn't turn the smallest of complaints into federal cases.
I'm not a heartless prick -- just a harried and exhausted one. I never intended to make light of the experiences of those with parents in far more dire straits than mine.
I usually don't respond to people's e-mail, unless they've made a very valid point, or it seems to offer an interesting argument-via-correspondence.
This week, however, there were some respondents that actually should be answered, if only because there's some serious misunderstandings that have arisen from an inability of some people to recognize humor when they see it, or because they're dumb as a fucking stump, and don't see what is so clearly before their own eyes. More likely, they refuse to see it, because in making the discovery of the obvious they may actually make painful realizations -- about themselves --that they'd rather not.
So, rather than answer each mail individually, I will respond to them, en masse, and knock off a couple of blog posts while I'm at it. I'm about nothing, if not efficiency.
In this post, I would like to respond to Annabelle, Babs, May and Thomas L, who objected to this post about having to care for my sick mother. They object mainly to the appalling lack of compassion that I seem to show, and they are shocked that I would publish such things about my own mother in a public forum. Some of them are also offended because they're in a similar situation, only their parents happen to be terminally ill, and my mother only had elective surgery, after all. How dare I belittle their experience by complaining about my own petty annoyances? As if we're into some "My Mom's sicker than your's" sort of schoolyard dustup!
There's a word that desribes that kind of post, folks. It's called "sarcasm". And while some of the experiences related within have been slightly-exaggerated for dramatic effect, they haven't been distorted all that much.
So yeah, while I don't have it as bad as some of you (she isn't dying while I stand by helplessly awaiting the inevitable), it's bad enough. I don't expect sympathy -- and never asked for any! -- that wasn't the point of the post; it was that people who care for the sick and inured for a living must be a) insane, and b) given far more respect than I previously would have afforded them.
But just in case you were under the mistaken impression that I'm just complaining for the sake of it, and that no one could be THAT bad, I will say this:
No, my mother isn't EVIL, she's just a pain in the ass. Yes, the tasks she sets me to doing are, in and of themselves, not particularly difficult, but they come sequentially and no sooner have I started immediately upon the first request, when the second, third and fourth requests come flying from her pie hole. I don't mind making her comfortable, or doing whatever I can to speed her recovery (this is my mother, after all), but please, tell me how I'm supposed to take your breakfast order, vacuum the carpets, get you an ice pack AND ask the guys doing construction across the street to stop hammering so loud, or to turn off that godawful table saw, all at once, and right this very second? Because that's what she expects. She's impatient. I hear it all day "What's taking you so long...?"
Or, try this: you've buckled and given in to her request to send for take-out food (the docs specifically told me to watch her salt and fat intake), because she wants something "with flavor for dinner". I, apparently, don't cook well enough to suit her as I am deliberately not salting anything I serve her. Her eggplant parm arrives, and I've done the unthinkable -- and plated it for her. I then get a load of crap about how she wanted it kept in the tin, the idea being that doing so would mean one less dirty dish in the house. As if we don't have a dish washer, and I'm not capable of washing a plate on my own (I don't wash anything according to her tastes and preferences, you see). The idea that there might be a dirty dish, glass or piece of cutlery somewhere in the house, or that they might be laying about in the kitchen sink, drives this woman crazy, so I was dressed down for my sin of using a perfectly-clean plate to serve her dinner on...with an attitude.
I wouldn't be surprised if my mother doesn't put plastic slipcovers over the plates, saucers and coffee cups someday just to keep them perfectly immaculate. I believe they call this "being anal".
This morning brought an entirely new low. I almost lost it, as I'm exhausted. The scene: 6:15 a.m..I'm asleep. Suddenly, I am jolted out of a bed-wetting slumber by a bellow of MAAAAATTTTYYYYY! You would think a moose was being dismembered whilst still alive in the next room. I run into my mother's room, thinking she may have fallen trying to get into the walker, or might be in pain. Nope, nothing of the sort.
She was trying to dress herself, and can't put her own shoes and socks on.
"Why are you putting shoes and socks on Mom? Where do you expect to go?"
"My physical therapist is coming."
"When?"
"About 9:30".
"You do realize that's 3 hours from now?"
"Yes, but I wanted to be ready..."
Her newest pet-peeve is the gnarly old tree out in front of the house, which has a mass of spindly branches sticking out of it which hang over the sidewalk, which must be pruned (there's a landscaper who comes every week, let him handle it). Why this should consume her waking hours is beyond me, and she refuses to explain (I rather doubt that she can!) why it looms so large in her thoughts. I'm just expected to "take care" of it.
Here's my schedule for today (not that I'm asking for any sympathy):
* Make Mom Breakfast, argue with her because I have served something, yet again, that doesn't have salt/sugar in it.
* Bathing Mom
* Help the visiting Physical Therapist (if needed)
* Bathe myself, if I can find 10 minutes.
* Give my mother her once-daily injection in the stomach, set out her daily pain meds, thyroid meds, blood-pressure meds, and what have you.
* Do the laundry (this will require at least two trips to the laundromat, four blocks away, without a car. If I'm lucky, my sister will reluctantly agree to do it for me)
* Try to find a permanent job...again.
* Work on the one (small) contract job I do have for this month
* Make and serve lunch
* Deliver my newspapers (I deliver newspapers in the afternoons to make some extra cash)
* See to Mom's needs (thrice daily cold water basins to soak her swollen feet in, rearrange the furniture because it impedes her walker...again... rub liniment on her aching back from her ass to her shoulder blades, and whatever else she decides she needs)
* Begin Dinner, listen to complaints about how her sciatica is acting up again, stuff pillows under her to relieve her pain, adjust them several times during the course of the evening.
* Clean everything in the house within an inch of it's life. Twice. Because she "knows" I didn't "do it right the first time", like she has X-ray vision.
* Serve dinner, listen to the stream of complaints because it has no salt, and whatever spices I do use don't meet with her approval, then force her to eat the fresh fruit that I (try to) serve her every night. She'll invariably take the bananas, but pass on everything else.
* Help her dress for bed.
* Babysit my four (4) nephews this evening for approximately two hours while my sister and brother-in-law do whatever the fuck it is that they do.
* Prepare for a night of Hell, which will require that the heat be turned up or down several times, pillows be rearranged and fluffed repeatedly, and standing by while Mom makes every one of her dozen or so bathroom trips during the night (the record is 13 in one night).
I have a younger sister who lives 8 blocks away and who's first response to any request is "I have a husband and four kids to take care of, you know", and who otherwise does the barest minimum she can get away with. I also have a younger brother who might as well be on the side of a milk carton; I haven't seen him for the better part of three years, and have spoken to him probably twice -- on the phone -- in all of that time, who swears he'll drop by to see how she's doing... but then never does.
No, I'm not watching my mother waste away from some dreadful disease that fills all who see her daily degeneration in all it's grisly detail with a sense of helpless dread, but that doesn't make my experience any less easy to take.
Excuse me if my preferred method of handling this stress was to blog about it all, with humor, and not, say, smothering her with a pillow.
And yes, I do feel for those of you who have to deal with the ravages of cancer, or a parentin a vegetative state. I was at my grandparent's bedsides when they were stricken with cancer, too, and did much of the same work as I'm doing now. Only they appreciated it, and didn't turn the smallest of complaints into federal cases.
I'm not a heartless prick -- just a harried and exhausted one. I never intended to make light of the experiences of those with parents in far more dire straits than mine.
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