I've Seen the Blues, the Reds and the Pinks

There are times, and this is one of those times, when I haven’t written in my blog in a while and I think about it and I feel I must write scads and scads of material, simply because I have been away from it for a while, and I don’t want to disappoint.

And yet, that prevents me from writing.

So, first thing: this entry may not be very long. I will try and get caught up in all that has happened over the past week, but it may not happen. And I hope you are okay with that.

And if not, well, hell, I don’t know what to tell you.

Don't Let the Turkeys Get You Down

Thanksgiving: surprisingly stress-less. It seems that the drama going on between some of the other members of my family somehow miraculously did not translate into people yelling at me. Viva had a blast with her cousins, her grandma, and her nana. Sweet William was a good egg (as expected) and got some inside info from my brother-in-law on what was really going down (far, far worse than I had supposed, so not good that there is no appropriate word for it, although “nightmare” seems to come close). I kept my head down, ate cranberry apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake, and went home.

Bookish Blah

Books I have read in the past week or so:

The Patron Saint of Liars, which I really liked.
Gilead, my least favorite on this list. Not that it wasn't good, or well-written, I just felt like it left me hanging a bit. And not in the way I like.
The Tortilla Curtain, which I enjoyed and the entire plot of which I ended up describing to Sweet William after I finished, at which point he said: “Sounds like a movie,” and if you look it up on IMDB, lo and behold, they are making a movie of it starring Kevin Costner and Meg Ryan. Jesus.
The Robber Bride, excellent.

Currently re-reading The Handmaid’s Tale, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library. I can’t believe I don’t own a copy of this book.

Blowin’ in the Wind

We have been having some very windy weather these days in Los Angeles, and – woe is us – it is interfering with the enjoyment of our DishTV. I know. Life’s a bitch, ain’t it? At any rate, Sweet William has been employing all sorts of ridiculous means to tie our satellite dish down, the latest being an intricate scaffolding of bungee cords and shoelaces (shoelaces, yes!) which led him to remark that he should have been an engineer rather than going to law school because his latest efforts are an engineering tour de force. Yes, because of the shoelaces.

At any rate, we were watching the Lakers game the other night, and I was snuggling with him on the couch, and the wind, she was a-whipping, and the images of the players started pixelating. Sweet William groaned and apologized for having to get up and fix The Dish.

Sweet W: I hate to interrupt this romantic game watching.

Mama B [laughs]: Romantic game watchi—you think this game watching is romantic?

Sweet W: Yeah, you’re all freshly scrubbed [from taking a bath with Viva], and in your robe, and you smell nice –

Mama B: So this is romantic? Huh. I will never for the life of me figure men out. You people!

Sweet W [laughing but exasperated]: Yes, this is romantic!

And not a glass of wine or a flickering candle in sight. Go figure.

I believe it was a bit later in the evening that a commercial for K-Swiss sneakers came on. (Note: By this point, we were back to the romantic game watching.)

Sweet W: Oooh, I like those beige ones.

Mama B: The light ones, or the darker ones?

Sweet W: The ones that are kind of a beige with slightly lighter stripes. [pause] They remind me of your ass.

Mama B: WHAT? What, because I have stretch marks?

Sweet W [laughing, indecipherable]

Mama B: YOU’RE an ass. God.

By the way, if you go to the K-Swiss website (which I always mis-type as webiste, like I'm French or something), you can feel confident that you have reached "the comprehensive source for experiencing the K-SWISS brand." If you thought you were just shopping for sneakers, for some phat new kicks, you would be wrong, my friend, just flat out wrong. It's all about the experience. At roughly $79.95 a pop.

I don't know about you, but that better be one hell of an experience. Don't you think?

Don't Let the Turkeys Get You Down, Redux

Oh my God! I forgot to tell you the most hilarious part of our Thanksgiving celebration!

I believe you know that I had been dreading the whole trip to see my family. I said to Sweet Wills at some point a few days prior, "I don't think I can make it through this thing straight."*

Sweet William was sympathetic to my plight. "What are you gonna do?"

"I think I need to be drunk or something, pretty much the whole way through."

Oh, if you had only seen the glint in his eye. Oh, the mischief! Oh, the shenanigans! Oh, the planning and the heartbreak!

The night before Thanksgiving, then, saw the Blah Blah kitchen transformed into a den of iniquity. This is because, while I was making peanut butter-carrot bread (which is actually quite tasty - don't e-mail me and tell it sounds grotesque), Sweet William was making pot brownies.

Pot! Grass! Herb! Mary Jane! Locoweed! All baked into Trader Joe's chocolate chip truffle brownie mix! This was high comedy. And a lot of effort, since you can't just bake the pot into the brownies, apparently. I won't go into the mechanics of our instructions, but let me just say this: a lot of effort with no apparent return. The brownies had a slightly bitter taste and did not mellow either of us out in any appreciable way, even though we stopped at a rest stop on the way there and each had one, surreptitiously gulping them while Viva was busy "driving" the car. What a disappointment. We ended up giving the rest to our neighbor down the hall when we got back the next day. He ate about six at one sitting, and I have the feeling that he is so naturally stoned that our brownies would not have made a damn bit of difference.

Well, at least there was no need. As I said before, Thanksgiving this year was actually pretty calm. And that was fortunate, because as we all know, I am a bitch and a GOD WARRIOR!

* Shout out to Splooey! As we all know, it's so hard to stay straight.