Hi. You probably know me as hellohahanarf from my years of commenting around the world wide internetz, yet never having a blog. Well my friends, that has changed. Welcome to MY site.
I woke up at 1:52 in the morning. Seems I am missing the internet because I was dreaming of yinz.
Pittsburgh. Parkway East. Outbound. Before the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. Adam Avitable dressed as though he were Captain Jack Sparrow. Clownzilla dressed like Chucky. All of the decorations from this year’s alien invasion Avitaween party. One had to make it through the gauntlet of aliens to get through the tunnel, then on the other side was what would be 2010’s Avitaween theme. An elaborate Planet of the Apes set which also included a Ferris wheel. A metric shit ton of actors covered in blood. Me, with a camera.
Cinderella came over to my little house tonight. We had some chardonnay, some turkey noodle soup, some cheese and crackers, some pretzels with that awesome blackberry honey mustard dip from Robert Rothschild farm and some hoagies (that is a sandwich or grinder or I don’t know what else you nutbags who don’t live in Pittsburgh call the glory that gets delivered from the pizza shops). There was plenty of good conversation and solving all of our problems. And me giving her a bunch of crap from my place (mostly a huge painting and magnets, but she’ll get more next time…heehee).
ANYhow, of course “the internet” subject came up. At one point Cinderella mentioned a rash of sorts…a bunch of red spots that she can’t explain. I said something about lotion and she immediately shunned the possibility that it could help because she had tried it before.
“But have you tried Aquaphor? A girl on the internet says it is amazing. She’s a friend of my bloggy Godfather and wouldn’t lie. In fact, she’s having a contest right now. I’ll send you the link. All you have to do is leave a comment about what you want to use the lotion for and you might win a huge basket of the stuff.”
“Can I say I wanna masturbate with it?”
“Fuck yeah you can. In fact, I dare you.
End of conversation about a product I’ve never heard of.
Damned if I didn’t finish up the dishes and head for my lappy top after Cinderella headed home and, because I subscribe to comments on EVERY blog I comment on, find this in my email:
“My wonderful friend told me about this product to help my red spots on my arms, so I am VERY excited to try it. Oh…and I’d totally use it to masturbate too. ”
Love that girl.
Thanks for always being you, Cinderella. I’ll try to always be me. And we? Are wonderful. LOVE YEW!
One of the girls at work had been dying to start playing Christmas music. Back before Halloween she mentioned wanting to turn it on at the office and the rest of us went nuts, insisting she wait until the day after Thanksgiving. I knew it was killing her so mid November I said she could play Christmas tunes. Softly.
The day before Thanksgiving was rather slow so that afternoon I asked if she wanted to help me put up the 6′ tall pre-lit tree I had purchased a year or so ago (only 20 bucks!). While I am not a fan of multicolored lights on trees, the tree looks pretty darn decent and full and happy so I really am warming to the not all white lights look. Since the tree comes in three pieces it was up and properly fluffed in mere moments.
We stepped back to admire our work when my coworker said, “The tree looks sad” just as I was thinking how sweet and happy the tree looked. When I inquired as to what made her say that, she told me that a tree with lights and no ornaments seems sad.
My pack-rat self had an ornament in desk drawer so I quickly produced it for my coworker to hang on the tree. Then I laughed and observed that the tree was now incredibly pathetic. Back to desk drawer for a good sized metal star that some crafty person glued crap to…it was a perfect fit for the top of the tree, but didn’t do much to take away the pathetic nature of the tree that seemed to long for decorations.
Another trip to my desk and I found two camouflaged beanie baby bears, one wearing the American flag, the other with a British flag, plus a German shepherd with an American flag, and shoved them into the tree. They actually didn’t look all that bad.
I smiled and said, “OK, we can do this. Go to your desk and get all the fun crap you can find. This could be fun and the tree certainly won’t look sad anymore!”
In less than 20 minutes that tree was full. Like I don’t think we could even put more stuff on the tree if we tried. Our little gypsy tree had character and personality…a flying monkey, a magic 8 ball, mardi gras beads, a bottle of aspirin, a tiny crucifix, a small Steelers football, a slinky, a metal tin of Pirate band aids, an Optimus Prime figure, a dinosaur fighting pen, a golf bag tag, a beer bottle coozie, figures from the last two Avitaween gift bags, a handmade ornament of my friend’s kids from years ago, a Wendy’s straw, lots of key chains, a space suited monkey, memory from a computer, a shot glass, a mini plunger, fuzzy dice from Vegas, fans from Benihana, even an angel from Hawaii…still, it wasn’t quite right. Then it hit me…I had a green blanket in the vehicle. A quick run outside and I returned with our tree skirt.
Damn tree makes me so happy, even if it is nontraditional.
Years ago I was home on a December Saturday night, watching Mad TV, when the funniest spoof I had ever seen came on my screen. When it was over I stared at my TV, wondering if I had really just witnessed a Scorsese style take on Rudolph. Damned if I didn’t just find it on YouTube. God bless the internets.
“Have a merry frikken Christmas” cracks me the fuck up! So does “We’ll get even, we’ll get even, we’ll make Santa pay.” And “Does my nose amuse you? Is it funny? Like a clown? No, no. Great nose!” (All quotes I still use to this day, but had forgotten why!)
The other day Jen, of Run Jen Run (yes, she of TequilaCon fame who doesn’t even know how much the little event she planned has changed my life, but that is another story), wrote about her ebay quests to collect all things vintage Girl Scouts. She never really was a Girl Scout, but the combination of vintage and the hunt of ebay started Jen on a collection. It was truly a pleasure to read her post that day.
Then I started thinking about why I don’t have any memories of Girl Scouts other than of buying too many boxes of their damn cookies (those fuckers are like crack…what the hell do they put in them?).
Turns out if you are in the Brownies and beat up a Boy Scout you will get kicked out of the Brownies and never allowed to join the Girl Scouts.
I realized that yesterday’s post never got around to making the point that corresponded to the title that I had given the post. (Yes, I write the title before even starting the actual post.) There was something heartbreaking about my cousin Jane’s handwritten letter and I never circled back to mention it.
Jane ended her wonderful note by saying that she knows I am busy and running around so she didn’t expect me to write back. Man, that tore me to shreds. When did that happen? When did I get too busy for one of my favorite people in the world to have to say it was ok for me to ignore her? NO ONE should ever be that busy. There is NO SUCH THING as that fucking busy.
So there. I’ve explained the title to yesterday’s post and also told you how I am obviously made of vast amounts of the suck. Fortunately I am loved and will be forgiven for being a bad friend. Again!
Now I need to get to planning a late winter getaway. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
See that gorgeous woman in that photo? That would be my beloved cousin, Baby Jane. She comments here as Janie and just so happens to be one of my favorite people on this big ole ball we call earth. LOVE her. When we were younger I threatened all of my guy friends with bodily harm if they disrespected or hurt her. Although she never lived in Pittsburgh, we were always the best of friends and would visit often.
But the best part of being friends with Janie is that she would write letters. Often. Handwritten, long and funny letters would show up and my asshole self would rarely return the sentiment. While it might have bothered her, she never let on, instead just writing another letter to tell me about a boy she liked or how school was or to share a fantasy about our shared crush, Sylvester Stalone.
(What? DO NOT JUDGE. We were teenagers in the 80’s and Sly was ripped in First Blood, Rambo and the brazillion Rocky movies. Oh how we adored him. Besides, we have extremely different taste in men what with Janie loving smooth pretty boys while I was loving big hairy men and Sly was the only one we could agree on. Stalone had the power to unite, people! Sigh.)
Where was I? Oh yes, I was mentioning that Jane was a terrific pen pal. Some things never change. Recently when my mail arrived there was the unmistakable handwriting addressing the letter to me. Right there on my front stoop I did the happy girl wiggle and probably squeeeeed. Loudly.
The dogs had to pee so I quickly got into the house, got them outside and then tore into Jane’s letter. It thrilled me that she wrote again.
I need to see her again. Soon. I mean, the woman’s laugh is infectious. And I miss it. Besides, Florida isn’t that far.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending time with Donnie Van Donnie’s family. Drove about five hours on Friday up to the middle of nowhere (across the PA line into the woods of New York). It was exactly what I needed…to do a whole lot of nothing.
Well, I did love on this little pup:
And I did go for a walk with two boys…one 10 and one five. A few paces from the house we found a shovel and apparently that is quite entertaining to those of the male persuasion. Also interesting? Their fascination with, and love of, a hatchet. Due to it being the first day of deer season in NY we couldn’t walk too terribly far, just around the pond and over to a line of pine trees, but it was still fun listening to those two talk and watching them work together to dig a hole. When I went back to the house to go get my camera they hid in the tress to scare me upon my return. Fortunately the dog gave them away or I would have had nightmares and had to beat the kids. Yes, I am totally a chickenshit and yes, everything shows up in my dreams.
Maybe it was the inevitable worm find that made digging the hole all worthwhile?
One of the guys (Amish Henry who went with us to a football game) shot a deer. It was the first time I watched a deer being skinned and beheaded. It didn’t disturb me like I thought it might. Actually, the whole process was quite educational and not gross. Maybe because Henry was quick and clean, I don’t know. All I know is that at one point Donnie stepped into the view of my camera to give me the shocker. Coz we are classy like that.
Donnie also has a sheep on his property that I was intrigued by. She was incredibly shy and would run if you looked at her too long so I couldn’t get close to get a decent photo, but she sure did eat a bunch of grass. Wonder if I could just borrow her long enough for her to get my grass manageable. Hmmmm.
I needed the getaway, but my two boys get sad when they see me packing. They are so pathetic when the realize I am preparing to go away. See? Pathetic:
(Yes, the previous owners put orange carpet in my bedroom. No, I haven’t done a damn thing about it. Hush!)
