Big Ugly Man Doll

Happy Friday, here at the arse end of November!  It’s another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down!  Read on!

Aries (The Ram):   You will be stuck in an elevator with one of those people who can’t stop talking.  After an hour, your ears will have fallen off and your mind will be ready to melt. 

Taurus (The Bull):    You’ll be faced with another Saturday night when you ain’t got nobody.  You’ll have a little money, but you won’t get laid.  You’ll wish you had someone to talk to.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Chromoblastomycosis.

Gemini (The Twins):   This is a great week for driving.  Not leaving, or arriving, just driving.  Remember that the road is the destination, and the destination is the road.  Except for the Dan Ryan Expressway – that’s just gonna suck.

Cancer (The Crab):   So there you’ll be, ready for that job interview, when your prospective employer hands you a cup of coffee to put you at your ease.  When you drop it and splash scalding hot coffee all over her white open-toed high heels, how likely do you think your chances are of being offered the job? Your high-risk disease this week:  Human Ewingii Ehrlichiosis.

Leo (The Lion):   This is a great week to have your prostate checked.  Don’t have one?  Check someone else’s prostate. 

Virgo (The Virgin):    Have you ever had the kind of week where you wind up in Las Vegas and never leave your hotel room?  That’s the kind of week you’re looking at, except you’re in Akron, Ohio. Your high-risk disease this week:  Hymenolepiasis.

Libra (The Scale):   This is a great week for giving presentations.  Do you remember that dream where you’re giving a presentation and realize you’re not wearing pants?  You’re not dreaming this time.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):   This week you will identify most drinks by the second sip; you can tell the difference between single malt and Irish whiskey by smell alone.  The problem – you’re 14 years old. Your high-risk disease this week:  Cirrhosis.

Sagittarius (The Archer):   It’s another tequila cupcake.  Give the cats a shot of whipped cream, and wonder why the cake pans always stick – just makes you sick.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  This week, the checkout boy at the grocery store is going to give you the hairy eyeball as you come through his line with a zucchini, a cucumber, a parsnip, a banana, and a carrot.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Keratitis. 

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):    You’re going to have to pick up after yourself all week, since the maid’s on vacation.  Sucks to be you, particularly since you’re a messy eater, aren’t you?

Pisces (The Fish):  You’ll wind up having to eat your words this week, after telling so many people that any 12 folks who can’t get themselves out of jury duty aren’t your peers – you’ve got jury duty. Your high-risk disease this week:  Marburg.

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Why does every Interstate way station, rest stop, and welcome center in the US always seem to be playing Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer when you stop there for a pee break and fresh coffee?

Channeling our inner Willies, we’re on the road again, of course. We’re flying down the highways, westbound, here at the ass end of November as we drive to Chicago and the Queen Mother of Pink’s 95th birthday. We’re taking the north pass through Cleveland, the Mistake on the Lake, and the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame. Hilarity is certain to ensue!

Two hours under our wheels has us on the Penna Turnpike, rolling hills dotted with cows, deer, and the odd rusted out shell of one of Detroit’s finest. We’d been driving for 90 minutes or so in silence when Number One Son, apropos of nothing, made the following observation: “Sisters. They’re so much more pleasant when they’re asleep.” No argument there, but I had to tell him to announce these observations more quietly or risk their wrath when he woke them up.

The last few trips to Chicago have been summertime excursions, with nature’s broad paintbrush of glorious color generously applied at every turn. Westward Ho through November’s arse, it seems, is an altogether
different and monochromatic story. There’s Green-with-brown, Gray-with-brown, Brown, Dingy Brown, and Dirty Snow. That seems to be the extent of color available to the landscape – even the signs and billboards offer no relief.

I’ll check the local fauna.  Horses – brown.  Ducks – nope, they’re brown.  Hey, cows! Black, black, black, black, and oh hey, brown.  Passing the “Fun Slides Carpet Skatepark;” sounds fascinating, but not a lot of color. Whoops, there’s a couple of deer – and guess what?

Even the permanent construction of traffic cone orange is faded and brown.  Maybe Cleveland will have some color.  There’s rock -n- roll there, right?

Onward to Cleveland!

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Happy Black Friday!  In the unlikely event that you are not still zonked out in a tryptophan coma, this is your weekly chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down!  Read on!

Aries (The Ram):   You will be crushed beneath hoards of Wal-Mart shoppers looking to score the last few televisions advertised at prices usually seen at 7-11 or as typographical errors.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Listeria.

Taurus (The Bull):    Having overeaten yesterday, your gut will finally rebel against its perceived enemy, your stomach, and you will regret the very day you were born, to say nothing of the day you ate all that turkey, which wasn’t really the problem, was it?  It was the “oh, don’t worry, there’s more in the kitchen” cheesy casserole, of which there wasn’t really any more in the kitchen, because you single handedly ate the entire second dish by yourself, didn’t you?  That’s what did it. 

Gemini (The Twins):   You will be gently nudged as you stand in line to shop the “sales” at Nordstroms on  Black Friday, which they call “Friday.”  Your high-risk disease this week:  Helicobacter.

Cancer (The Crab):    Good news – you will not lose more than a single limb in the scrum of bodies fighting over that stack of discount Starbucks gift cards.  You don’t even drink coffee – you just can’t resist the word “sale,” can you?

Leo (The Lion):   You will be physically overcome with cheer and good will as you listen to yet another motorcycle rigged up to play “Jingle Bells” out of the tailpipes.  Don’t worry, you’ll get over it.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Kawasaki Disease. 

Virgo (The Virgin):     Libra plays a big role in your life this week as you fall in love with a girl with beautiful brown hair all the way down her back.  None on her head, just down her back.  Hey, love doesn’t judge.

Libra (The Scale):   Virgo plays a big role in your life this week.  Time to break out the wig and glasses – lands them every time, doesn’t it?  Your high-risk disease this week:  Gonorrhea.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  Your week will involve planning and executing many things, but you’re going to have to “take that guy who keeps pissing me off” off your list.  You’re not allowed to just execute everyone who makes you mad, I’m afraid.   

Sagittarius (The Archer):   Your week will be consumed with planning and cooking for an upcoming celebration, if you can block out the all-Christmas-all-the-time montage of noise from the outside world.  Good luck.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Colorado Tick Fever.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  This week, you will get a phone call that will change your life.  Unfortunately, it’s from the clinic.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   By Thursday, you will have lost all powers of speech, but your friends and family will assume that you’ve found a cure for your Tourettes.  You will be reduced to spelling out messages with the cookie cutters and baking the dough into sentences.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Clonorchiasis.

Pisces (The Fish):  You haven’t even finished digesting that turkey and already you’re prepared to turn off the Christmas music with the .45.  You’re not going to enjoy this, are you?

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And I mean all – wherever you are, celebrating today or not, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.  Today I have a thousand people to be thankful for, from friends to family to you, Dear Reader.  I have a thousand thousand things for which I am thankful as well, not least of which was not having anyone come around the corner on the trail this morning to notice me taking a pee break by the side of the trail as I went for my walk. 

To all of you and yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

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I know, it’s been too long.  Life got ahead of me for a while, but I think I’m getting caught up, or at least maintaining my personal delusion that I’m getting caught up, which amounts to the same thing.

One of the great advantages of not paying enough attention to the rest of my life (which is a nice way of saying that I clearly have early onset memory issues) is the constant wonder and surprise I get when I wind up doing something I’d forgotten about.  Friday night I was reminded that I was taking the Human Tape Recorder to a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream at the local High School – she, of course, had not forgotten, since she is a human tape recorder.  Some of the actors are in high school, but most of those kids look like old pros on that stage – a very impressive performance from a crowd of 18 and under. 

Saturday morning also turned into “oh yeah!” when I was reminded that SOBUMD and I were taking the Reigning Queen of Pink to see a “Stringapalooza” with the President’s Own US Marine Corps Band, in this case with their string quartet.  Since she’s learning the viola, the RQoP was thrilled to see the violist was also a woman.  They were great, showing all the kids how the instruments work (two violins, a cello, and a viola) and playing everything from Mozart to Gershwin to, of course, Sousa – and then for an encore they did “America” from West Side Story, which she loves.  The final bit was “see if you can guess what this music is” and of course my kid comes unfreakinglued as they start the first three notes of Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter.  It was totally cute.

From there, since we were downtown already, we hit the Eastern Market for ingredients for the cassoulet I’m making (it has another half hour as I write this, then I need to cook some more things and toss them in the pot), plus an awesome small used bookstore (Capitol Hill Books) that SOBUMD let me rattle around in for more than half an hour – luxury beyond price.   More shopping, still more shopping, then home  – in time to get dinner ready for the kids before we went to, “oh yeah that’s tonight,” the neighbor’s wine tasting party for the Beaujolais Nouveau release.   For an even more pleasant surprise, one of the other neighbors attending remembered me from this same party last year and brought me two sci-fi books that her late husband had written – one of them a Hugo nominee in the late 1980s.  I can’t wait to read them – Edward A Byers’ “The Babylon Gate” and “The Long Forgetting.”  
 
This morning I did about the only thing that I’d actually planned for my weekend, which is my 10K hike – wonderfully restorative for those who might have had an extra Beaujolais the previous evening.   Now, I have the beginnings of a cassoulet bubbling in the pot, the beginnings of an idea for a new book, and the beginnings of maintaining my personal delusion that I’m getting caught up. 

Last year I did a Thinksgiving countdown of things for which I’m thankful.  I was going to do the same this year, but between trying to get and stay caught up with life and my obvious early onset memory issues, well – I forgot.  This year, allow me to say simply that I am thankful for you, Gentle Reader – for your reading, for your comments, and for your patience. 

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