Jason made me use that for the title, by the way.
Man, what a weekend.
Ward and June just stopped over to get her suitcase that I had appropriated for JournalCon. Which was like two months ago.
I’m a horrible loanee, really I am. Never loan me anything. It actually makes me uncomfortable, because I know that I will be beholden to it and hyperventilate when I find some long ago loaned item floating around my house and know that the owner has been not mentioning it but undoubtedly thinking ‘That punk ass bitch Weetabix still has my mickey fickey Bodeans CD! Damn her all to hell’. Must keep straight face’ must not let her know I now hate her filthy rotten guts.’
I think it all harkens back to the great library book scandal of my childhood, when the Brown County Central Library refused to loan me a book for the entirety of 1979, insisting that I was harboring a book called ‘Little’. This was in the day of hand written notations, undoubtedly upon a stone tablet using a chisel. I was completely puzzled, because I knew, I KNEW that I had never read a book with such an insipid title of ‘Little’. It just seemed to scream Kindergarten and I was a very worldly and posh girl of fourth grade standing.
Finally, using my superior fourth grade powers of deduction, gleaned from surreptitious readings of Encyclopedia Brown seated in the Children’s Library on Saturdays, when the furnace was set to 112 and brightly colored tissue paper fishes swam languidly in the Amazonian heat, I thought about the book I had checked out months ago, found excruciatingly dull and abandoned by page 15, but dutifully returned called ‘Little Vic’. I asked the Librarian who the author was and she confirmed that the authoritative stone tablet of Children’s Library deadbeats listed D. Gates as the author, I was smugly able to present her with their copy of ‘Little Vic’, still containing my signature and stamp of return in the little card pocket. She shrugged and expunged my record without even so much as a ‘I’m sorry about that, dearie’ or ‘Here, you may check out more than the Nazi regime limit of three books per child to make up for our grievous error!’ Or maybe ‘Curses, foiled again, Holmes! Must you always disrupt our devious plots!?’
And yes, I guess you could say that I’m still a little bitter. And the sight of brightly colored art projects in January makes me a little overheated and filled with a sense of proletariat injustice.
Anyway, back to Ward and June, they stopped in and picked up the suitcase because they are spending the second half of February in Cancun. And she needs to start packing. On December 29. She gave me enormous hugs and worried looks about our own impending trip to New Orleans next week.
‘So, I suppose you’re all packed?’ She asked expectantly.
No. Not even a little. Not even slightly. It hasn’t even occurred to me to pack yet. That’s like’ seven days from now! I have all of next weekend to worry about such things.
I just looked at her and shook my head, unable to stop myself from snarking ‘No, it doesn’t take me two months to pack’ to which she chuckled because she understands her own compulsions very well. Honestly, I think it would be very entertaining to pit her with Martha Stewart in some kind of contest. Like a triathlon, or perhaps like the Iron Man. Maybe call it the Anal Woman, give them a series of events, such as organizing, problem solving, collecting and a freestyle cleaning event in which they could flip for the front and the back portions of my house while we are gone.
You think I’m joking about that, don’t you. People, when we went to Key West, she cleaned my entire house, all 1700 square feet. Including organizing my eight closets. And redecorating. And do I have to mention that we were only gone 5 days and the woman has a full time job? She didn’t like the curtains that I had hanging in the dining room (they came with the house, I didn’t like them either) so she bought new ones and then said that the old ones fell apart when she washed them. It’s funny, really. Or comical, as my mother would say. I’m not complaining, although I was a little befuddled when she banished some candles from my bedroom to the Computer Room #2 with no attempt at explanation. But I love her very much and I wouldn’t trade her for anyone in the world.
Oh, and she’d totally kick Martha Stewart’s ass.
What else? Oh yes, I have exposed another layer of friends to the wilds of the Bad Bar. Joel, Cheri, Jason, Eric, Michuru, Lori and Don along with their Utahan friends Mark and Sean learned about the evils of the Bad Bar. After Don and Lori’s Christmas event where we stuffed ourselves with crab cakes and seared tuna with wasabi, I rallied for a little Tricky action. If you remember, last Monday a contingent of us attempted to visit the Bad Bar, but found that it was closed, thus they were game for a Saturday approach. We were not to be disappointed.
I was the first to arrive at the Bar of Ill Repute and it was in full raucous party mode. I bravely found a bar stool. By the time Joel and Michuru arrived, I had made friends with the bartenders and with the man sitting next to me.
Eric rose to the challenge. Joel called him on Mich’s cellphone and said ‘Bad bar, bad bar, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when we call for you?’ and then I yelled ‘twenty five minutes’. Twenty minutes’ fifteen minutes’ hurry up!’ People, Eric was there with time to spare, arriving before even the rest of the folks, who were following us to the bar, only stopping to run to their home five minutes away and change into Bad Bar clothes.
Most of the folks were virgins to the evil that is the Bad Bar. I had explained all along that the Bar was a place that was not to be taken lightly. It wants to make you drunk and not only hootchie but also kootchie. It wants you to shake your groove thing and play that funky music, white girl. It wants to build you up, buttercup, just to let you fall down on your drunken ass, clinging madly for a brick wall or a leopard print bar stool.
I do not know how old Don is. I do know that he is a bit older than I am, but he told me many times, at various decibels, that it was the drunkest he had ever been. And then Lori called me evil. Many times. At various decibels. And then Don touched my hooters in an attempt to win one thumb wrestling match (he’s now 1 and 13, due to the TKO’ Touching Knockers Obnoxiously).
Oh, and there’s a new hot bartender. And he made me kiss him before he’d give me candy necklaces for my friends. I spent the rest of the night encouraging people to eat their necklaces so that I’d have to get them more. Then I accidentally bit Eric. Hard. I’m surprised he isn’t able to now wear a stud through his wrist. It actually made my tooth hurt, so I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt, but apparently it didn’t leave a mark, so he’s all studly and macho. Man’ my mouth was doing all sorts of unappropriate married lady things last night.
A good time was had by all. Thankfully Mich didn’t haul out the video camera until AFTER Lori’s and my windowsill dance to Tricky and Come On Eileen. Because there are some things that just don’t need to be preserved for posterity.
