That's My Bix!

The weekend is a blur, like the butt of Hayakutake and equally as gone. I doubt it will come back again for ten thousand years.

Do you remember that thing? The comet Hayakutake? It was incredible. Esteban and I drove out to this park way out in the country, near my favorite golf course, and sat on the tailgate of his pick up truck, staring up into an impossibly clear night at this fire and ice soaked cotton ball smearing the sky. Worth waiting two thousand years for.

Um, lessee’ what happened’. Friday night I left work, after an anticlimactic episode of When Diarylanders Attack with the Two Bobs and Chauffi., and fulfilled my Married To A Geek lifetime quota by sitting through Star Trek: Nemesis. Don’t get me wrong’ of all the Star Trek incarnations, I like the Next Generation stuff the most, but that’s really not saying much. The original series gives me a headache. It’s the sound of the beaming. And William Shatner’s horrific acting. I think I’m sustained with The Next Generation by their V-shaped uniforms and Jean Luc Picard who is–shall I just come right out and say it?’grooowwwwwwl! That accent’ those eyes’. that aquiline nose and bald head that I just want to rub between my’. Errm, getting hot in here, non? Just me then? Not all bald men do it for me, but Patrick Stewart makes me want to pout and say ‘Daddy, buy me a lolly?’ And the guy they got to play the villain’ he was yummy too, even with the nasty lip scar.

Even still, at one point I contemplated leaving and watching the end of The Hot Chick which was in the theatre next to us because the movie was kind of boring and also I just couldn’t stand THEENORMOUSCLOSEUPSOFTHECAST, who seem to have gone where no man has gone before’ as long as it’s early and they have a senior citizen discount. Seriously’ Data has swelled. He was puffy. I’m pretty sure that androids don’t retain water. Maybe it’s an allergic reaction to the latex in Counselor Troy’s breasts. Or maybe her nightie reverts back to the natural gravity-free state of space travel.

I think I want me some cosmic breasts.

Wait’ I already have some.

On Saturday, I hung out with Stacy while she colored my hair a vibrant ruby with chocolate lowlights. I think I look like a plump Sharon Osbourne now. But in a good way. This is the first time since the wedding that I’ve done an all-over color on my hair and I can’t believe I waited so long. I mean, it is a hassle and my hair doesn’t like the abuse, but honestly, the color does such wonderful things to my complexion. It makes any ruddiness from the rosacea dissolve into this creamy porcelain palate and my blue eyes get about five shades more intense.

New hair color: $120
Tub of Tigi Bed Head: $17
New Lipstick to match new color: $16
Boost to Self Esteem: Priceless.

Oh wait’ $153′ forgot to carry the one. Math was never my strong point.

Afterwards, I went to work and did more thankless relaying of information and decision making (cue the violins of martyrdom) and also spent an hour working on my grad school applications until fleeing out the door and running to the Post Office, to find it closed. Bastard Postal Workers. I don’t know how they can be disgruntled if they only work until noon on Saturdays. Perhaps someone should show them some salon therapy.

On Sunday, Esteban and I went to Starbucks where I got a Venti Mint Nonfat Mocha. I smugly handed him $4.06 but the Christine Baransky Barista came to the window and demanded $3.90. That was puzzling. But then I realized something was awry. The cup was so incredibly hot that I couldn’t even touch it with my fingers (and my Sbux is defunct in that they don’t give you cup condoms if you go through the drive thru’ which seems like faulty logic to me, but there it is.). The Christine Baransky Barista made my drink and honestly I don’t trust her. She perpetually puts whipped cream on my drink. What is more, early Friday morning, I had ordered a Venti Mint Nonfat Mocha and when I got to the window, I noticed that only the WHOLE milk jug was out. And it was 6:14 in the morning so I suspect that I was one of the first customers through the window. I suspect she decided she didn’t want to go through the effort of digging out the gallon of skim milk. Because that’s how it is with Baransky Barista (try saying THAT three times fast! It turns into Baranskista.) Sort of snippy, sort of upset that she’s involved in labor, and mildly put out that she can’t get by solely upon the merit of her tiny little waist and overly-tanned leathery face.

So when I got my nuclear cup, I chalked it to another reason to dislike the Baransky Barista and figured that by the time we fetched a nice thick Sunday paper, it would be the perfect temperature. I was absolutely giddy with the prospect of spending my afternoon with my legs tucked under my butt, a steaming cup of caffeine and a big hefty wad of brain dead fluff to wade through, but when I got home and ensconced myself on the sofa and took a sip of my coffee’ it wasn’t coffee. It was something else entirely. No coffee. No mocha. No minty Oreo tasting yummy. Something that was so entirely not coffee that it actually sucked the coffeeness from the world. It was the black hole of coffee. It tasted as though she had taken a cup with about an inch of old-stale-someone-else’s-coffee and then filled it up with hot water. And then she spit in it to make a froth.

Have I mentioned how much I miss Starbucks Guy?

I probably should have told Unsurly Girl about her this morning, but now I’m afraid. I mean, they’re the only Sbux in town that is open when I go to work. And it’s on my way to the freeway. I can’t piss off the Baristas. I don’t want to be labeled a whiner or a troublemaker. The Baristas are this whole strange organization with their own funny name and vernacular. It’s like the coffee mafia. I’m a bit afraid that if I piss them off, I’ll never drink coffee in this town again.

Mofo Baranskista.

Sunday started looking up. I went grocery shopping, since we were down to stale tortillas and we actually ate a package of questionably old frozen hamburger last week. Plus, I was dangerously low on Special K Red Berries. I was down to one and a quarter boxes. There must be a proper ratio maintained of the Red Berries at all times. I must have a buffer of at least one full box, preferably two. I was merely one bowl of cereal away from having only one opened box and, people, that’s just crazy talk, right there.

So I went to the upscale grocer seven blocks away from my house, which is more expensive and poorly lit but I know where everything is and can get through there at a very nice 5.7 BPH (bags of groceries per hour), versus the atrocious 3.8 BPH at the well lit less expensive store nearby or the unthinkable 2.5 BPH at the ginormous store with the scary meat section. There, I gathered many fruits (including not one, not two, but THREE varieties of pears) and vegetables (including zucchini, red and orange tomatoes, red and yellow bell peppers, Portobello mushrooms, shitakes, spinach and some lovely avocados).

And when I went through the seafood section, I realized there was a full scale battle of epic proportions happening in the lobster tank. Back and forth, the two largest crustaceans threatened each other with their banded claws, taking risks at thwapping a cocky antenna in the others face. The little spinneret’s grappling for purchase as they trod upon more docile seafood, whose tails were curled in submission. It was like West Side Story, only with seafood. I started to hum ‘When you’re a crab, you’re a crab all the way from your first tangled net til you’re Friday Buffet’

The fish monger kept looking at me and then finally he said ‘You want Lobster?’ but then I was struck by the notion’ which lobster would be the correct choice? Was this like Gladiator? Should I grab the big one out of the tank and yell ‘Am I not merciful?’ Would the aggressive ones taste bitter? Or fishy? Or did I prefer the pacifist Pacificans? What if I just bought both of them and took them home to put them in a fish tank and watch them battle it out, like Lobster Wrestling? Or name them Bumpy and Grabbers and see if they could work out their differences, like an early 80’s sitcom? But then I realized that I’d come home and find Tilly mewling with two angry shellfish attached to each paw and decided that things like that were why my husband just looks at me and shakes his head in dismay.

I’ve become aware of a new disturbing trend. The percentage of readers who actually know me in the real world is growing. At first, only my sister Mo and my friend Markus read this diary. Then Esteban told his friends about it and Joel read something like 150 entries in one sitting. And then everyone in my immediate social circle knew about it. I’m fine with that. Really. I am.

But then they started telling other people. And other people started telling other people. People in Green Bay. People who might share circles with people whose lives I discuss on this page.

Now, I try, I really do try, to respect people’s privacy. I give them pseudonyms. Sometimes not very nice pseudonyms…. like Mafia Grandma. Or Tequila.

I stand behind my opinions and I don’t want to be hypocritical and write nicey nice things about them just to keep the peace.

But at the same time, I really don’t want my drunken mama to find out that I call her my drunken mama. She might throw an empty vodka bottle at me. That would be an Absolut nightmare (heee!).

What I am doing is opening a door to some very personal opinions. I’m putting myself in a precarious position. There’s a lot of trust involved. Everytime I’ve found out about someone new who is reading it, I try to explain to them that I would like them to keep it quiet and that it’s a very sensitive matter, and despite that, more and more Green Bayites seem to know about it. And they’re not accidentally coming across the page. They’re not Googling something and ending up here. They are specifically being told, nay DIRECTED to my page. My so-called friends are outing me, for lack of a better word. Quite frankly, that pisses me off.

I’ve managed to keep a handle on things so far, but the more people who know about the diary, (specifically the more people in the GREEN BAY area who know about it) the higher the liklihood that the wrong person will find out about this diary.

The moment that happens, everything stops. I will delete everything. End of story. There will be no more updates. The door will be closed and locked.

I don’t want to do that. I enjoy this diary. That would mean that not only did something get nasty in my personal relationships, but you will also be ending something that I really enjoy. So keep that in mind. Loose lips sink ships. Or websites. I know it’s not intentional. You might tell someone who is “safe” but then they pass it along to someone who blabs to my Aunt Drusilla. And then I will be in a world of hurt.

Oh, and by the way, I will very easily be able to find out who narked me out.

So don’t be a poopy head. Keep this our little secret, ‘k?

I don’t want to write this entry. I know already that it’s going to be all HTMLy and annoying and it will likely give me a headache.

Instead, so far, I’ve finished most of my holiday cards’ I’ve got all of the addresses written and most of them stuffed. I have a butt load of holiday cards, y’all. I’m feeling a little guilty about how much I just contributed to the landfill problem. Recycle them so I don’t go to hell, ok?

Gah. Mofo pictures. Need I tell you that I had to actually go purchase some batteries for my digital camera, as it ran out on Friday night, and then my computer monitor blew up. Yes. It is dead. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. It was a $1000 monitor’ in 1990. Esteban gave me his, which is even LARGER than mine. It’s rivaling our computer television. When I walk out of the office, I have accidentally bumped the thing several times because it’s just so huge. It also broke the little foot thing on my ergonomic keyboard, so I feel like I’m typing on a’ oh, guess what? I put the foot thing in backwards. It’s stable again.

I’ll bet you were worried.

So then, once I got a monitor going, Esteban discovered that I had some kind of virus or something that was rebooting my system. So he fixed that. No more missing entries.

And THEN I had to download all my pictures, resize them, crop them, and upload them to Diaryland’ yadda yadda yadda. And need I tell you how frustrated I am that I can’t get past this level in Buffy where there are some saw blade pendulum things. Like what kind of sane person puts up saw blade pendulums in their dream world? Hmmm? The demons, I can understand the logic there. The floating bits of brick that you must jump to? I can see the aesthetic value with that. It balances the mystical see-through staircase. But saw blades? That’s just fugly. Quelle 1992!

(sigh)

So Friday.

There is so much to write about, it makes me weary. Sometimes Weetabix gets weary. Wearing that same old dress.

What? What? Stop looking at me like that. I am actually a 60-year-old black man trapped in the body of a 31-year-old fat white girl with big hoots.

Where was I? Oh’ Friday’

We had a big work thing in the morning, which involved a lot of sitting in a room with 350 people and listening to a presentation by my boss and his boss’s boss. And at one point, my project had its own PowerPoint slide. Then we had lunch, wherein we ate like ravenous wolves, because PowerPoint presentations take a lot out of a person.

Carissa, Penny and I then piled into Penny’s car and busted to the coffee place (note: Not Sbux, because they don’t have one on that side of town and let me tell you, I have become a Sbux snob. And she didn’t know what I meant by Venti! I had to say ‘Grande’ like some common peasant! The whole thing was an ordeal.) to gather caffeinated goodness and then off to Appleton, where we took the Lane Bryant by storm. The three of us walked into the lingerie section like a scene out of the Matrix. We were there to purchase a proper bra for Carissa. We were on a mission’ like the calvary, only we were the Mammary. I explained to the salesgirl (whom Carissa was immediately calling by name, because Carissa’s SuperHero power is to make fast friends with anyone in six seconds flat) that Cari needed the powerful uplifting machines that were the Dayam!Bra. Immediately, the salesgirl thrust out her chest to pitch in that she too was in awe of the sheer magnitude of their bras. Then I was thrusting my chest, smoothing my shirt to show that I too was packing heat that day. And we were all giggling. And it was a moment.

Carissa put on the first bra and her eyes almost popped out of her head. It was a beautiful thing. Hello Sailors! Then we had discussion about the proper fit. She had that extra cleavage ass thing going on, so we played around with sizing until we found the perfect fit. And all rejoiced. She got two bras (buy one get one half off! Scurry and get one today!) and was giddy with her newfound oomph.

And then all four of us made out with each other, each wearing a colorful lingerie ensemble. Because that’s what girls do. And it was hot. Oh yeah baby. HOT!!

Um’ anyway.

I then tried to show them the magic that is the Body Butter at the Body Shop, but they weren’t having it. They weren’t interested in having the skin of a six-year-old. I had a giddy moment when the punk rock sales girl looked at me and said ‘Oooh, it’s Cute Purse Girl!’. I purchased some Honey Body Butter’ which I keep in the bedroom.

Not for the reasons you’re thinking.

You see, I like the coconut stripper-scented stuff, but my husband does not. If I put it on after a shower, that’s fine, but if I’m lying in bed watching television and feel like doing some moisturizing, he does not mind the smell of the Honey scented stuff, which smells sort of like clean babies. Thus’ two WeetaButters.

We went to a big shoe store and browsed for forty-five minutes but didn’t find anything spectacular (ok, I found some cute stationery, but it wasn’t Cranes and it wasn’t THAT cute), so Carissa and I went to another plus-sized clothing store and Penny went to TJMaxx (since she was feeling left out of the clothing extravaganza, being a minus-sized girl). I forced Carissa to try on several pairs of the Hottie Jeans and was stricken to find that while they act somewhat magical on my body, smoothing inches, hiding hips and whatnot, they were Angry Jeans on Carissa, saying mean things about her when her back was turned. I was completely flummoxed, forcing her to try different sizes, different colors, different cuts, but it just kept getting worse and worse. We finally decided that they were very particular about whom they blessed with The Hottness and left empty-handed. We sat in the car, waiting for Penny. I plucked my eyebrows, then Carissa plucked her eyebrows, marveling at my Tweezerman Spa Tweezers (the less-expensive variety that I carry in my purse). I explained to her that they were bulky and troublesome compared to the $17 Tweezerman but I don’t think she believed me.

Finally Penny came out of the store’ with black leather pants. Yes’ she found some black leather pants. The Hootchie Mama pleather skirt only opened her to a world of possibilities. And they were good pants.

We scurried back home, Carissa to spend time with her husband and children, Penny to take a nap and get ready, and I to get ready and then go out to dinner with my chicas Mary, Diane and Christine. Penny and Carissa were explaining to me that my current outfit of Doc Martins, black boot cut low-riders, Torrid Tinkerbell baseball shirt and black hoodie were just not up to my normal standard of Diva, but I dismissed them. However, after a quick chat with my PA, he countered with his keen fashion sense and demanded (yes, DEMANDED!) that I wear nicer black pants and possibly a button-down shirt. ‘But it’s the Bad Bar!’ I whined. ‘I’m always casual at the Bad Bar!’ He insisted that I should keep them guessing, so I offered up a v-neck stretchy black t-shirt (the kind with lycra in it so it sort of clings), the black pants, and my Docs, with rhinestones in my hair, and the Rock Star jacket. He found it acceptable. I then had a panic trying to find the components, which involved a multi-room search but was successful on all fronts. I had a moment of indecision.. Should I wear the leather choker with the nameplate that says ‘Princess’? Or should I wear the rhinestone cat collar that matched the rhinestones in my hair. I threw on the leather choker and stuffed the cat collar in my pocket.

We had dinner at one of our acquaintance’s Pan-Asian restaurant, which was completely delish. By the time dinner was done, I was quite tipsy on a cosmopolitan and two infinitesimal Blind Russians.

Then off we went to the Bad Bar. We got there fairly early to secure proper seating (which we did, securing the entire area by the Magical Wall of Support). Carissa, Penny and her lovely sister Shelly were already there, looking excellent with the hotness. They complimented me on my change of outfit and agreeing that the rhinestone Cat Collar made the outfit and went with the Diva outfit. They did, however, agree with my PA that I should have had better shoes.

The rest is all a blur. I had three twenty ounce Blind Russians (with ice, so put those eyebrows right back down, mistah!). Joel and Eric showed up. Eric accused me of checking out the girl bartender’s ass’but I was really admiring her leather pants which were just like Buffy’s Red Pants of Ass Kicking. The bald bartender owner dude wasn’t working, so I didn’t get my drinks for free, but Penny and Eric both bought me drinks, so I think I only bought one.

I had to keep my money in my bra because I had no pockets. At some point, someone shoved a dollar between my breasts, but as God as my witness, I don’t know who it was. I just know that it wasn’t me. I suspect it was Scotty Boom Boom. I promised him that he could look down my shirt if he came out, so when he walked in the door, I immediately greeted him by pulling down my shirt for some cleave action. Maybe that’s when I got the dollar. I don’t know.

We owned the bar. Carissa wrote out a song list of the songs we wanted to hear and he consulted that throughout the night. His name was Jason. We know this because Carissa makes friends with everyone. It was all good though, because it meant that we got to hear Tricky and Sweet Caroline and all of our favorite dancing songs. Actually, Sweet Caroline isn’t a dancing song, it’s a Hug Your Neighbor and Sing Loudly At Them, Pumping Your Fist In The Air Yelling ‘Bup Bup Bah!’ song. But you know what I meant.

I was shooting sugar straight up with blue Pixy Stix. At one point, Joel was involved with dumping blue sugar on my breasts. Joel was quite drunk as well. He and Eric were drinking Red Bull and Vodka, which tastes in my opinion like battery acid mixed with Sweettarts. Perhaps a fistful of Pixy Stix would have helped the taste. My goal of having a blue tongue for the entire night was one easily met.

Never underestimate the power of Pixy Stix.

Mo, Jasmine, and some other friends showed up a little later. Then Carissa’s husband and his group of friends showed up. We don’t know why. It was very strange. They were dancing though, and appeared to have a good time.

Have you ever heard of Boone’s Farm wine? I haven’t. But we were all drinking from it like winos around a campfire. The red stuff is pretty. Pretty pretty pretty. It tastes like Kool Aid, but I then had to do three lines of Pixy Stix to make my tongue blue again. Staying focused is the key to goal setting. Seriously. I learned that from my Franklin Planner.

The Buttocks man was there again. I think I found out his name somehow but I’ve since repressed it. He frightens me, with his dancing buttocks that are multiplying and loosing control from the power I’m supplying, which is electrifying.

There was much dancing. There was a lot of drinking. At one point, I believe I demonstrated how much I can relax my throat with a straw, which of course made me gag like White House Intern at Orientation. Because sometimes, I am just so cool it hurts.

I have this notion that when you die, your guardian angel goes over your life with you. You know, for closure. And perhaps there is a highlight’s reel, like after the Superbowl. Well, at one point, I realized I was too drunk when I attempted to ascend the Windowsill to dance with Joel (who was also too drunk).

I’m am pretty certain that that moment will be on my post-mortem highlights reel. I just know my guardian angel has a sense of humor. I’ll bet he or she probably almost wet themselves watching THAT little display of grace and sobriety. That should be the DWI test’ don’t make them touch their nose or walk a straight line, make them try to get up on a three-foot high windowsill. Scotty Boom Boom then came and played spotter, stretching his arms out as we danced. I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings when I looked down at him and said ‘Yeah, as if&AO8AvwC9AO8AvwC9- because if I feel, I would squash him like a little accordion man and he would bop up and down for the rest of the night making ‘Hooo haaaa hooo haaa’ noises, just like on Bugs Bunny.

And then came the inevitable point where I had my forehead resting on a leopard print bar stool and my ass up against the Magical Wall Of Support and wanted the world to stop spinning. Coincidentally, that’s about when Mo called Esteban to come and pick us up, which was a good thing. Because I was pretty much tapped out by that point and it was only midnight.

I’m getting too old for that shit.

Esteban dropped me off first before taking Mo home. I waited around for him to come home but got bored and called Jake, waking him from a very sound sleep. I’m a rude mofo when I’ve been drinking. I then blathered incoherently at him and I have no idea what I said. I’m a bit worried. Esteban came home an hour later, having sat in Mo’s driveway and talked, assuming that I had either puked or passed out. I was a little put out. I mean, I could have Jimi Hendrixed and where would my beloved husband have been? Talking about office politics with my sister seven blocks away? Nice.

Apparently I then fell into a very deep sleep, to wake eight hours later with a hunger for country fried steak’ a slight deviation from my normal post-bender Big Mac craving. I can’t tell if that means I’ve gotten more refined or less. It’s a mystery.

It was a very good time, though, but I think I made an ass of myself at one point to someone. Which someone? I don’t know. I just have this nagging feeling of free floating embarrassment. (Edited to add that I just remember that at one point I handed my Slutty Ho lipstick to Shelly and made her put it on me like some makeup retard. Because I didn’t have a mirror and the bar was too crowded to make unneccessary trips to the bathroom. And I tried putting lipstick on Penny, but poked her in the corner of her mouth so it looked like she had been in a bar fight, so Shelly had to fix that too. I hope that’s the worst of it, but I suspect that it wasn’t.)

Maybe it’s called growing up. Or maybe it’s an overdose of Advil LiquiGels.

Ah well, that’s as philosophical as I’m feeling right now. Off to post this and find out if it looks like ass or not. Mickey fickey HTML.

I went grocery shopping on Saturday with Esteban… a thing that only happens twice a year because his primary goal once we walk inside the store is TO GET OUT OF THE STORE. He makes me crazy. He insists upon walking every square inch of the store, down weird aisles, because “You never know…”. I out rightly refuse to walk down the laundry soap aisle, as it makes me sneeze for several minutes afterwards (if you’re wondering how I get laundry soap, I make furtive reconnaissance missions and carefully planned dashes to grab the largest Tide Free container possible.)

He questions every purchase, makes judgments, discourages me from buying ANYTHING with a “You’re not going to eat that.” or “I won’t eat that.” or “You’ve still got tons of cereal in the pantry, why do you need two more boxes?” He’s a pessimistic shopper, whereas I am entranced by the possibilities. That is not just a box of muffin mix… it’s a concept, the smell of perfection, the warm contentment that comes with the knowledge that twelve neat little cakes are waiting for you, warm as beds at twilight and tempting as pure vanilla, and you made it all happen. It is a blueberry wonderland in a box all for $3.99. Esteban just doesn’t get it though. He sees groceries that must be stowed away in our jumbled pantry. He sees dirty dishes, mixing bowls, annoying muffin pan, measuring cup. He sees little bread with fruit in it.

Esteban’s primary goal for going to the grocery store is that I do not apparently shop for the things he likes. For instance, I tend to not buy very much meat, and when I do, it is cuts of specific things and not hamburger or in our case, ground sirloin. He is right. I don’t like to think about ground beef in general. I’m very particular about the stuff I do buy. In truth, I only feel really comfortable with buying it directly from either the meat store that is only open during the week and for three hours on Saturday or the little old-fashioned grocer near Ward & June’s house that is known for their meat. I trust them. Their ground beef looks normal, not that scary light pink stuff they pass as meat at certain grocery stores. Back when I slowly turned into a vegetarian, the very first thing that I stopped eating was ground beef and the very last thing that I was able to resume eating was ground beef. It squicks me out very quickly and if I suspect it of being anything less than pure unadulterated fresh lean meat, it makes me tight throated and urpy and I cannot eat it.

I just looked up at him and said “It looks ucky.”

What followed was the Great Hamburger Snit of 2002. It was ridiculous that I didn’t want to buy meat at the grocery store and wanted to instead either go to the nice meat shop that was closed right then or fifteen miles away to the little grocery store. It would have basically amounted to making a total triangle around Green Bay, since I had insisted upon trekking completely across town IN THE SNOW to go to the GINORMOUS grocery store (seriously, it is ginormous. It’s like the size of fourteen football fields or something. It’s the only place where you work off your groceries as you buy them.) He got crazy stubborn mad because my only answer is that the meat at the other grocery stores, particularly the ground beef, is gross and suspect.

Thus, he tried to reason with me.

“I can’t look at it.”

“You don’t have to look at it. I will get it.”

“I’d have to look at it when I ate it.”

“I’ll cook it.”

“No, when I eat it.”

“It will be cooked then. What’s the difference?”

“I’ll be squeamish. I can’t… I just can’t. It’s just ucky.”

“GOD! YOU ARE SO HIGH MAINTENANCE!”

And then he proceded to sulk throughout the produce section.

So then we’re in the meat department, and I nonchalantly mention “Don’t forget to get some ground sirloin or something.” as passively as I could muster because I have no opinion on the matter. I am without complaint. I am the least controlling person in the world. You could walk up to me and shove ground up feces into my mouth and I would sit there and chew it, placidly as a cow.

“No.” He utters sideways at me.

“Oh?” I ask, completely without interest. “Why not?”

“It looks ucky.”

I looked at him without saying a word, trying in vain to keep from raising my eyebrows.

“Look… just don’t…I, uh… argh!” And with that he walked quickly into the dairy section, leaving me surrounded by packages of suspiciously pale pink packages of ground meat.

A lesser woman would have walked around smugly for the rest of the day but I… Oh, who am I kidding? I was smug. I was all about The Smug.

We are still without ground beef.

So now we’re thinking about purchasing half a cow. You can do that here, purchase half an animal, either pig or cow. They will chop them up and wrap them into nicely labeled little white packages. Labeled with the cut inside, not with the animal’s name, which is always what my mind fills in. “Blossom’s Rump” “Tucker’s Chuck” I’m having a hard time committing to this though. In the first place, apparently half a cow is a substantial amount of meat. Apparently one needs a Buick-sized freezer for such enormous amounts of protein. We have the top of our refrigerator and an antique white freezer from my great-grandfather(which had been used solely in his endeavor to de-perch all of Wisconsin’s glacial lakes. My great-grandmother felt that it made her freezer jam taste like it was made with lake water.) We keep mass amounts of freezer burn in it, including a rather impressive frost ball that dates back to 1996. Everyone needs a hobby. Every once in awhile, I’ll clean it out and then start to store stuff in it, stuff which is quickly forgotten because I never go looking in the freezer when I’m planning dinner or trips to the store. But according to Esteban, the little freezer, even with the vintage frost removed, is not enough to store half a cow.

I’m having problems with the commitment to this endeavor anyway. I mean, when it’s an anonymous thing, wrapped in shrink on a foam tray with the little blood sponge, that’s one thing, but apparently this is all from one cow. What if our cow is a strange cow? What if she only ate junk food, cheetos and Twinkies? Or worse, what if she was an athletic cow, making tough muscles by jumping regularly over other cows for fun in the pasture? What if she was a cow bully? What if she was an antique cow? Are there cow years, like there are dog years? What if she was 178 in Cow Years? What if she was upset that she ended up fifth place in the Borden Elsie The Cow competition and was all bitter? Would the resulting hamburgers leave us cranky and feeling somehow empty inside, as though our lives were meaningless unless combined with garlic and ketchup?

Tonight’s dinner: wild rice pilaf, homemade bread, carrots and an English roast. It’s from a nameless random cow. It’s all for the best, really.

As Thanksgivings go, today was pretty unspectacular. When I was a kid, Thanksgiving always smacked of cold bare morning feet and needing to be quiet in the morning because my mother and her boyfriend (I always hate that term’ ‘boyfriend’ when referring to someone in their thirties or forties. As thought they were going steady. I hate ‘lover’ as well, particular when talking about my mother, thank you very much. ‘Live In Partner’ sounds so 90’s. There really isn’t a good thing to call that man, whoever he was at the time, so I usually called them by name. Ted. Bill. Andy. Paul. Vic. Larry. But in this case, depending upon which Thanksgiving you were talking about, it might have been any one of them that we were creeping around and trying not to waken) would usually be sleeping off the inevitable over indulgence from the night before. Today wasn’t any different, as Esteban went out and participated in a dart tournament with the Geek Continuum. I woke at seven thirty and went to the living room to play Buffy on the Xbox.

The Xbox keeps making me sick. We’ve actually owned the thing for a few months, but it’s been at Joel’s, enjoying the excitement of the 12x8million foot home theatre screen and Jason’s constant stroking. We had dinner at Joel’s on Halloween and that was the first time I actually laid eyes upon our Xbox. I played a tiny bit and instantly got motion sick, paling and needing to go out in the crisp night air until the world stopped tilting. I’d like to think that I’m a pretty tough girl, but for my hair trigger equilibrium. I’d kick someone’s ass in a fight, as long as it didn’t involve a ferocious game of Ring Around The Rosie. For instance, immediately after seeing The Blair Witch Project, I sent a glurpy stream of Diet Coke and popcorn into the toilet bowl of one of Milwaukee’s finest cinemas while KimVee was all concerned and motherly and I simply wanted to die. I went to the movie again once it came to Green Bay, not because it was such a great movie but rather because I refused to let it kick my ass. I am proud to report that there was no glurping the second time around’ although I specifically didn’t eat anything and sat quietly on the sofa for several hours with my mouth watering afterwards, not moving or talking to anyone.

Esteban brought the Xbox home this week, as Joel is attempting to shoot Bambi and Esteban’s theory is that our pathetically small television screen will not make me as sick. He’s right. I’ll play for half an hour’ ohhhhh. Stop, walk away. Play for another half hour’. Eeccckkkk. Stop’ go shopping. Each time, I swear that it’s a stupid game and a stupid thing for making me have vertigo, but then I get made at myself for being all flutterheaded and get right back on that horse’ or rather, in the recliner in front of the television. As though the Xbox were a mighty foe that needed to be taught a lesson. You will not kick Weetabix’s ass’ not while Buffy’s stuck in a sunken church fighting a slug vampire chick!

In case you’re wondering, Buffy apparently cannot swim. Not even a little. She sinks like a UPN sitcom on the Nielsen ratings. You would have thought there would have been a How To Do The Dog Paddle chapter of the Slayer Handbook but alas there was not.

After screwing around on the Xbox, Esteban and I changed into our nice clothes and went over to Ward and June’s house for Thanksgiving. Esteban wanted to watch football on their ginormous television. June was cooking the meal from scratch this time, after we only picked at the catered dinner she served last year. On the way over, we discussed the possibility of whether or not his grandmother Gen would be there. Gen, if you’ll recall, is evil. I bet Esteban five dollars that she would make some remark about fat people, which she considers a visible flaw in one’s character. When we walked in the door, we found that there were five places set at the immaculate table.

Gah.

I shouldn’t be so uncharitable, I suppose, it’s just that she’s evil. And of course, she brought up the genealogy book again, asking if I wanted it back. I wouldn’t take that thing again if she stuffed the pages with dollar bills, because she’ll simply be upset that I wouldn’t return it to her immediately after, since I have obviously nothing better to do than live by her priorities. But that’s Gen all around. Too self-righteous to argue with, too evil to die.

Oh, I’m going to hell. I am. At least I’ll have my mother-in-law to keep me company because she can’t stand her either. Esteban’s parents actually did not speak to Gen for fourteen years, finally breaking the estrangement at our wedding, simply because Gen is such an evil toxic woman. She told us of how she had been swimming at the University with someone anonymous ‘us’ (all of her stories are ‘we’ and ‘us’, but she never sees fit to distinguish who the ‘us’ or ‘we’ are. Either we should be well aware of her social circle, keeping notes on who still speaks to her, or she is egotistical enough to use the royal ‘we’. I strongly suspect the latter. Ok, yes, I am not being charitable and I will hate myself when I read this after she dies. Of course, I may be near death myself by then because I suspect that pure poison courses through her veins. She is Rappuchini’s Grandmother.) and someone, not someone in HER circle of ‘us’ because she would never associate with someone so stupid, dove into the shallow end of the pool and broke their neck. She added with some annoyance ‘She was completely paralyzed. Of course, where did that leave us? That pretty much ended our swimming. It was a fine thing to do. We had just started, got all in our swimsuits and everything too.’ Which pretty much sums up Genevieve’s view on life right there.

She also imperiously announced that ‘we’ weren’t buying Christmas presents for each other again this year. ‘They’ had decided that we would be doing the same trashy thing as last year, honoring Baby Jesus’s birthday by gambling. Esteban’s Aunt Teresita called while we were there and Gen took great delight in announcing this to her as well, which leads me to believe that Golden Son Uncle Rod and his mistress Tequila had decided this for the rest of the family and we were only informed as an afterthought. My only comment was ‘Oh, are we?’ with no mention of the gifts I had already purchased for the people in question. I’m just a little Gen-In-Training.

I countered by drinking Malibu and Diet Coke. Gen would pass judgment, I would pour some more Malibu into my glass. I did not take on the normal saucy bouncy hip hip giggle wiggle Malibu Weetabix persona, however. I just sat there quietly, politely looking at her when she talked, nodding. I started to envision myself the heroine of a Tennessee Williams play. My liver is still trembling.

We had dinner at my mother’s house today, with Mo, Jonathon, and Mom’s former boyfriend. I’m pretty sure although not completely positive that Mom was a little lubed.

She told us about how Tony Curtis flirted with her at the restaurant and called her by her full given name. ‘How did he find out your middle name?’ I said rather accusatorily. ‘Well, he asked my name, I told him.’ She answered, matter-of-factly. ‘How do you think he found out, Weetabix, with that special Tony Curtis extra-sensory perception?’ But leave it to my mother to tell the 78-year-old father of Jamie Lee Curtis her middle name. She wanders the world constantly surprised that she’s not the star of a soap opera. I suppose that’s where I get my overdramatic sense as well.

She then added conspiratorially that he grabbed her butt. Twice. I think I felt part of my soul die away at that moment. Because that’s all I need to know, right? That Tony Curtis grabbed my mom’s ass. She didn’t understand why I was grimacing. I replied ‘Twice?’ and she said ‘Well, what could I do? He did it so automatically. The first time I said ‘heee heee heee’ (and I swear, she giggled like a cheerleader here) and then the second time I said ‘ooooohhhhh.&AO8AvwC9AO8AvwC9- Which I suppose was supposed to have been a warning noise, but to me it sounded like a woman in the throes of a rather powerful orgasm. I fear that I may have gained a psychological trigger from that and will throw up the next time I eat cranberry sauce.

Mo suggested that she call the National Enquirer, then I added that maybe they’d want to take a picture of her ass and put a circle around it with the legend ‘Tony Curtis Was Here’. Poor Mother. She desperately wants a cheering section for her exploits of sexual harassment by the rich and famous. And addle-brained. She countered ‘Tony Curtis is very distinguished.’ So I tried to be agreeable, ‘Yeah, I’d totally go on a date with him if I were single.’ And I swear I saw her do the math in her head: Who would Tony pick? Me or her? Gah. Remind me to never mention my romantic life in front of my mother.

Right now my tummy hurts. I know’ I should play more Xbox. Maybe I’ll get sick enough to Blair Witch. Culprit: Cranberries or Curtis’ it’s a coin toss.