My Mother's Day Card...to My "Mumzie"

I don't care how bad it makes me look...I'll never buy my Mumzie another Mother's Day Card...as long as I live...ever. Yes, we had a falling out of sorts...she left me. I didn't do anything wrong, and still she left. I begged, I pleaded, I prayed so hard...and still she left. You see, it was "her time", but no one bothered checking with me to see if it was MY time to let her go. If there is one thing I've learned from my stay on Earth, it is that I am indeed a selfish being. She had the choice to "go" and "be with God" or "stay with me"...and I wanted so much for her to spend more time with me. A year, a season, a month, even a single precious day. I needed her...I still need her. I miss her with all my being...luckily I know where the letters on the keyboard are located...they've been veiled in tears since about the middle of the first sentence.

I am sentimental - I have a house full of her things...things she would buy me from the antique shops because she knew I liked them. Our conversations would go a little like this: Me: "Ooooh, that desk is so beautiful." Her: "I knew you'd like it...it's yours...I only bought it for you." You see, my mother never wanted to "will me things" so she'd never see my reactions, she chose instead to give me items which would cause me satisfaction (while she was alive) so she could see the joy and happiness it brought me. She always said "I want to see your happiness...the look on your face when I give it to you...so take it, take it now...what good is it to wait when it can give you pleasure already, which also pleases me." I miss my little presents. I miss seeing just what glorious thing ('worthy' or worthless) would be bestowed upon me at my slightest "ooooh". But most of all, I miss my mother, or "Mumzie" as I had called her since I was a child...and we both knew the thing which made her happiest was making ME happy...and, my, she certainly delighted in giving me things. She will always be my Mumzie, and God-willing I will always have "her things" around to remind me of her...to remind me of the conversations we had about this and that, the talks reminiscing back to her own childhood which she loved to share with me; when I think about it, she probably loved to share those memories more than any tangible thing. Those I have stored up in a sort of box...that I keep in my head...and anytime I want I can unlock that box and unfurl a memory as if it was a precious historical document or banner. And in a way, each one is...as priceless as "The Constitution", the "Magna Carta", or "The Declaration of Independence"...to me.

And I know sometimes there's a bit of "yellowing" at the edges...the facts aren't firsthand and I might get some details wrong now and then...but within me they reside and are alive...alive as any of those memorized books in Ray Bradbury's classic, "Fahrenheit 451". In Bradbury's famous literary work, a dystopian society which burns all their books - the great masterpieces are literally forced to come alive through people in order to live on. My mother's are but a history emblazoned in my memory that I really should put down to paper...stories that are burning to get out. There is no other way to "keep them alive" in Bradbury's "world"...and, in a way, there is no other way for my mother's memories to live on either. I am, literally, the keeper of her flame.

So, it will be a sad and bittersweet Mother's Day for me, and for many others of you who have lost your own Mothers...but I know mine is still with me...and God granted her the good fortune to have her health, her wits, and definitely more energy than I've ever mustered up in a day - until the end. I can feel her presence with me each and every day - it's very hard to put into words - but I know she is here looking over me, and in a way, a part of her is in me, through DNA or some type of biological/mental transfer - I honestly think we are all connected in more ways than of just the flesh. There's a permanence which continues beyond - and perhaps the only bonds of that permanence is love. And that love doesn't stop once the being ceases to walk as mere mortals do...it merely walks with us even if we, with our foolish Earthly follies, continue to rush in where angels fear to tread.

So, from my heart to you, my dear, dear Mumzie...I wish you a very wonderful Mumzie's Day. Always.

With Love,

Your Bestest-Most Daughter Who Loves You So Much...Me

(Yes, this is the silly way I would sign my Mother's Day cards...why change now?)

New Blogger Links

Well, the people at the Montgomery Advertiser are refurbishing their website and, unfortunately, these blogs do not automatically carry over. The new link for the blogs to come is here...

...or here - if you want to just read my own blog: Blogged Down at the Moment

I believe they are in the "beta" mode - so hopefully they will look more "eye-catchy" later on.

Anyway, that's where my new posts will be going if you want to continue reading them.

Thank you -

Mariann

No news...

...is not necessarily good news. Been waiting for some word on this, but no one has said anything, and I'm not the only one who is baffled as to why.

Now that I've hopefully raised your curiosity factor...my blogumn will follow tomorrow.

Oh...and it will be about good and bad news. Stay tuned.

Reading isn't always fundamental...

"Read the book!" "But did you read the book?" "I've read the book and..."

These are just a few of the comments I'll find when perusing the comments on the Internet Movie Database's (IMDb) forum whenever I go there...which happens a lot. My routine is pretty straightforward and simple: 1) Start to play movie; 2) Open up the IMDb to read who is playing which role; 3) Rejoice because I knew who the guy who says three words of dialogue was indeed in that episode of "Frasier" (or any other minute bit part) - gotta love IMDb; 4) As credits roll...look up trivia, goofs and comments for the film. I don't deviate from the routine...that's what a routine is there for...and in this case, deviating would be...well, devastating.

There is a thing out there in filmland known as "the spoiler"...and if you are no stranger to film-talk, you know exactly what I'm talking about...if you don't have a clue, read on...and if you do, read on as well. Sure, you will see many variations: "Spoiler alert" "Here be spoilers" "Warning: Spoilers"...but they essentially all mean the same: "Don't read any further if you haven't seen the film because we are about to give away an integral part of the film. Don't say we didn't warn you."

Most people are cautionary when you delve into the forays of filmdom...some aren't, for whatever reason they prattle off some little detail, oh, say...like the ending of the film and before you know it...you know the end of the film. I don't know about you, but I like to have my ending at the end where it belongs and not told to me by some guy who doesn't realize the courtesy of the spoiler...or who just wants to ruin it for everyone on purpose. Consequently, that's why I don't read any of the comments made by people until AFTER the film has ended...which brings me to my initial thought...

WHY do so many people insist on telling people that they should have "read the book"? "Oh, you'd understand why he did that if you woulda read the book"..."They made it clear why he did that IN THE BOOK"..."Well, did you read the book...because I read the book and they did it differently in the movie...I think it was better in the book because..."

If I wanted to read the book...I wouldn't have WATCHED THE DARN FILM! (This blog is for the Montgomery Advertiser's newspaper, so I am keeping content "clean"...otherwise I would have said "damn".)

And it seems to me that the people who even read the book aren't even 'on the same page', so to speak.

Let me elucidate a little...

I recently watched "No Country For Old Men"...and true to my own "rules"...I didn't read anything on the forum/trivia/goofs part of the IMDb...because of my reasons mentioned above. But after the film, (which, I won't give anything away here if you haven't seen it) I wanted to see if anyone had similar thoughts...like mine...so I went over to the comments portion.

Now, granted, there are intelligent, middle-of-the-road, and stupid people out there on the film forum as there are anywhere in society. Being in any one of these groups doesn't necessarily curtail anyone from speaking their mind...even when they fall into the third category and there is very little of it doing the talking. Be that here nor there...I welcome reading opinions across the board...I am not certain where I fit in - in my "tri-angle" of types I mentioned...I'd like to think I would fit in the upper-middle part, but I'm not very sure when I start reading comments. Sometimes I think I'm in the fourth realm I didn't mention..."total genius". Other times I am in the fifth: "total bumpkin".

For this film I felt kinda like a moth who had been spat back out of a cat's mouth, lost its wing dust, and was just spiralling blindly toward any light...but smacking into everything else in its path instead. I think I wasn't so much "going toward THE light" on this movie, because I clearly was NOT being illuminated by anything anyone said there.

People analyzed and sub-analyzed and even tho they all professed to reading the same exact book and hearing the same comments out of the Coen brothers' mouths...they all saw things differently. I couldn't help but think of that story of the blind men and the elephant...one feels the tail and thinks it is a rope, another feels the trunk and thinks it's a tree branch, etc. Each one "sees' the movie and interprets it differently...but no one is more right that the other. Only here...no one wants to admit they possibly could be wrong...or didn't see the "whole part".

What I did get was a whole lot of conjecture about a film that no one could see eye-to-eye on, altho the majority of the ones disagreeing with the others all claimed to have read the book. No one was on that "same page". "The nuances were lost"..."no they were there"..."no, they weren't there"..."they were in the book!" "I read the book"..."I read the book, too"..."I read the book better than you"..."I saw the film more clearly." "I talked to a guy who knew Joel Coen's barber's sister's friend...whose brother's cousin dated in him in high school...so I know better than you!" "Well, yeah...and uh...I read the book...TWICE...so there!"

It was pointless.

All I could deduce from the whole thing is that I didn't think Javier Bardem's character was creepy...but then again I never thought Anthony Hopkins in "Silence of the Lambs" was "all that" either. For all out demented creepazoid I still think Dennis Hopper in "Blue Velvet" had them all beat...but then again, come to think of it, I never did read any comments about THAT film. Nor did I read the book...was there even a book? But...I have heard the song from Bobby Vinton...so let me tell you what I think David Lynch REALLY meant by that whole "ear" thing...

Hmmm....

Blogumn to Come

I plan to get another blogumn up tomorrow...I have an idea and it's getting too late to think correctly enough under Ambien influence to arrange the words in the correct order...let alone put the letters in the right order so they will indeed resemble words.

Hopefully those words which are floating around in my head tonite will manifest themselves in an entertaining order tomorrow...and I can once again feel the sense of a very slight accomplishment, as it were, in comparison to the much greater deeds many people perform in much more timely fashions than I.

Monopo...leeze!

Just shoot me now - they came out with "Electronic Banking Monopoly".

Yes...I guess the antiquated method of actually having your kids COUNT out money by 1s, 5s, 10s, etc., has gone the way of the dinosaur and home-cooked meals. Okay, okay, I know people DO cook dinner - but I did read a statistic, by the people who do statistics, which said the "average" family gets food elsewhere (rather than making it at home) three days a week. I also know that some people actually use real money once in a while...because I do.

So, I'm sitting here watching Alton Brown's "Good Eats" show on the Food Network (yes, notice the deliberate tie-in above)...and they show this commercial with this irritating little girl who rattles off some incomprehensible dialogue before I can understand her boasting that she does "everything totally fast" - even playing, and winning (the arrogant little twit)...Monopoly. Um...take my word for it sweetie, I've played Monopoly in my youth...'fast' is not an adjective I'd use to describe it. Anyway...thanks to the miracle that is TiVo (yes, I'm being overtly hypocritical in a way here) - I call my son out to witness this heinous "don't fix it if it ain't broken" abomination for himself, who then proceeds to proclaim, "Uh...wasn't that the POINT of Monopoly...counting up your money?"

Apparently the powers that used to be 'Milton Bradley' (MB)...decided to kowtow to the text messaging crowd and make an electronic banker board version of Monopoly complete with a credit/debit card swiper. I have some news for them: If your child is texting away on their cellphone chances are they AREN'T going to play a board game...no matter how many whistles and bells you throw on it. You'd figure they would have hired someone for some outrageous amount of electronic cash to do a study on this before they plunked down some more plastic-transacted money to churn out these games.

I can hear the kids at Christmas now..."Wow...an electronic Monopoly game! Who wants to be the banker?" "Whaddya mean there IS no banker?" Granted, maybe there IS a banker...but what's the point? And just how are you supposed to steal your friend's money when they go off to the bathroom or slip yourself $500 when you ARE the banker...now? What's the point of playing when you are a kid with real fake money if there IS no money?

So much for my unborn grandchildren's dream of finding a game of Monopoly in the attic of the house they just moved into with actual real money in it so I can live off of them until I die. Well, here's to 'MB' making the "pull the plug on Grandma" version of 'Life' to put me out of my misery.

"Pavlov's" Cats

Here's a totally hypothetical situation: You have a cat...everything is well and fine until you make the mistake one day of buying him a nifty little packaged container, which holds about as much as a half bottle of Coke...only what's inside is virtually "kitty cocaine"...the dubiously infamous "cat treat". Now, cat treats are in a league all their own...they come in little magically shaped containers, usually with a little lid on them of some sort and with strict instructions on the package to not feed your kitty more than five to seven of these a day. Honestly, they look like glorified cat food to me...but I'm just a lay person...what do I know of cat treats and cat treat production. Some tout on their packaging they take care of dental decay...others mention tartar control, some are organic, some are eco-friendly, some stimulate the finicky eater, and yes, some seem to nearly stop short of saying they make kitty's breath "kissible fresh". But - they all have one thing in common. A package of these things, which is typically 3-4 oz, will set you back about $2-4 on average. Well, that's a fair bunch of change to chunk down when you realize a bag of cat food on that scale would end up costing (on the average) $48 for a 3 lb bag. When you put it into those terms...it starts all making astronomical sense. Treats are big business.

I have mentioned it before that I have lots of cats...yes, we do...lots. And our cats, not unlike anyone else's cat, love those treats. Just shake that container and they come from the east, west, north and south...they literally crawl out of the woodwork to jockey for cat treat position.

They also each have their own ways of eating these things. One of our cats, Todd, will use the self-serve approach...he will stick his paw into the container and literally help himself. The others are much more demure...they wait until you shake them out to get them. A couple will take them from your hand...most would rather you put them down first so they can retrieve them themselves. One in particular, Barbie, picks them up and swallows them whole. I wonder how much dental cleaning consuming them that way can be taken care of...probably not much.

So, that got me wondering...hmmmm...what would happen if I just kept the nifty plastic treat container replete with lid after it was empty and just toss in common everyday "ho hum...THAT again" cat food in it instead. Yes, ladies and gentlemen...I have, in essence, replaced my kitties' "Folgers Crystals" with plain old ordinary "coffee"...let's see if they notice the difference. Absolutely...let me clear my throat here....a resounding absolutely NOT. My cats scamper around for plain old ordinary "turn my nose up at it otherwise" dry bits of same old, same old, boring cat food as if they have all somehow mutated and were now French pigs rooting for truffles. The only scientific conclusion to all of this: Packaging, packaging, packaging!

It doesn't matter what you put INTO the empty cat container once your cat has been acclimated to having cat treats pouring out from that "canister of happiness"...just seeing the cat canister has them salivating like Pavlov's dogs - and had Pavlov the sense to use cats instead of dogs the booming cat treat industry might never got its paws off the ground. But it has and in a big way. It's not just the isolated treat dotted around here and there, there are large sections of shelves devoted to stocking these yummies...and yes, we still go in once in a great while, when they are on sale...and plunk down a smaller fortune to buy a really good one. A really good container that is...because we will be reusing it for quite some time. Not that cats aren't smart...they know full well the same food from the cat bowl is inside of it...but they also know that you've never made such a fuss and hand-fed them bowl food before...and they are going to surely take advantage of this situation. They are probably laughing hysterically at you when you leave the room..."Can you believe she ACTUALLY pulled them out, one by one, and handed them to us??? What a moron our owner is...look, she's coming back...let's see if we can make her do it again, this is hilarious..."

Luckily the cats and I have this symbiotic relationship with the cat treat container...I would hate for any of us to look the fool...but I am absolutely sure, since I'm the one chucking out money for their food...regardless what container(s) I transfer them into...the cats do rather have the upper paw. Oh well...c'est la vie des chats!

A Would-be Writer Rejoices and then Laments...Yet Again

Call me "Lucifera Hikock". Why? I'm getting to that part...just be patient.

Shakespeare once posed the question "What's in a name?" Well, old-time Hollywood apparently thought "a lot"...and so did countless writers, from Mark Twain to George Eliot to Diablo Cody...which brings us right back to Hollywood and the Academy Awards this past Sunday night.

You might not recognize her by her given name, but Brooke Busey did something I, and countless other people, would love to do one day: She won the Oscar for "Best Original Screenplay". The name she uses is "Diablo Cody" and that film was "Juno".

Now, before I start being perceived for being all "catty" like apparently all women are...according to all women and 90% of men...I'm not being catty...I'm being tongue-in-cheek. It's not my fault this woman was once a stripper, sports more ink on her than Cher and Tommy Lee combined, probably sold her soul to the devil to get her script published and now even bears his name, and makes it perfectly clear to all that "this devil" won't wear Prada...well, Stuart Weitzman to be exact...but she CAN wear Dior. See? Sounds catty, but it's not.

I salute her.

If she can do what she did...perhaps she can open doors for others who want to, but don't want to do what she did before she did it...in order to do it. Confused yet? Actually, it's not my job to confuse you...in fact I don't even have a job...but here I sit anyway, banging away on my laptop, writing a blog only a handful of people will ever read - hoping one day to get that elusive proverbial break.

I'll admit I have no studio contacts in Los Angeles, I don't have an agent and no one in Hollywood would ever give me an opportunity to write no matter how many of my clothes I remove...actually, they might give me one just to STOP me from taking any off...but that's not the point here. The point is there are female writers out there who CAN write...for heaven's sake; three of the five nominees in the "Best Original Screenplay" category were women! That's basically my point. Hollywood, across the board, really needs to give more women opportunities...but, especially so as writers.

And Diablo Cody didn't get this award because she once was a stripper or uses a nom de plume that conjures up a wild west demon...she got it because she DESERVED it.

But...just in case I'm wrong and someone from Hollywood is indeed reading this blog...I have this nifty pen name I came up with...

A Trick of the Eye

I'm sure this has happened to everyone at some time...you catch a partial glimpse of a word with another following it, underneath it, etc., and you have to do a double-take as you think it says something completely different from what it is, most often enough, pretty risque...or totally nonsensical. This story centers around one such happenstance specifically.

I first did this a year or so ago travelling down Route 231 driving from Montgomery back to my house when out of the corner of my eye I see a little strip mall with about four or five stores in it...and one named, or what I spied it as, "PRECISION CRAP". I did that little "whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis" head thing and, of course, the word was not "CRAP", but "CPAP"...which, I know even less about than the other...but, naturally, I made a mental note to look up what "CPAP" was when I arrived home, which, even more naturally, I forgot to do on several dozen such subsequent trips.

But that didn't stop me from remarking to myself, and then, on later excursions, to my children, that had I ever really wanted a brilliant marketing ploy...naming a store "Precision Crap" would be sure to bring in a buttload of people...yes, pun intended. I'm not one to buy whoopee cushions or gag items from mall stores to give to my friends when they get married...but you can bet your as...(oh, that's just too easy)...let's just say you can bet more than a few dollars I would have sauntered into that store by now had the name actually been that. And who could blame me...and who wouldn't do the same?

Face it...the curiosity factor alone would (not to mention the overflowing parking lot from others with the same inclination as I) have gotten me to double back to take a looksie inside to see just what crap they are selling and why it is so precise. Would it actually BE bathroom items? Could it be a stool gauge? (Yes, someone out there is selling these...or at least I think they are.) Or is it more of the "difference between a 5/16 inch wrench and a metric one nearly identical in size" preciseness? How about those little metal slidey gap devises they put between that bent doodle of your spark plug and the plug itself kinda things? I mean, SOMEONE has to sell them...whatever they are called...and they ARE pretty precise. But a whole store devoted to those? Nah...I bet they'd have shelves and shelves of stuff LIKE that, or nothing like that...but precise nonetheless.

And who wouldn't want to buy at least something from the store so they could show their friends the bag with the words "Precision Crap" meticulously centered eight centimeters from each side, in exactly direct proportional pitched font to always, always maintain those measurements? They are, after all, THE precision crap specialists. They wouldn't get the big bucks for just approximate crap...anyone can do that...it takes nerves of 18/10 stainless steel to churn this stuff out consistently correct.

And speaking of being correct, I mentioned this whole incident to a friend, who knew exactly what a CPAP was...and I looked it up, and sure enough, he was right. They are masks to wear when you have sleep apnea...and when you suffer from that, you certainly don't want to take your chances at the "IMPRECISE CPAP" store...because, rest assured, their stuff IS crap.

A Play, With Words, In Three Parts

For your 'entertainment' I present...a "blogumn" in three parts (all basically read in the present tense):

Past:

Here I go to sit in yet another doctor's office - frantically showering, dressing and guzzling a glass of water before I proceed in my attempt to break the sound barrier in order to make it from my house to my destination in less time than is humanly possible without the intervention, or invention, of a time machine...unless I hit absolutely no lights, which I am sure the likes of Stephen Hawking NEVER add into their equations when formulating new theories.

Calculations aside, only being assisted by a wormhole, alien abducted or...perhaps...could it just be that nothing says "drive and determination" like driving WITH determination?

Past Present:

Suffice it to say - I made it there on time...and even managed to jump out of the elevator before my riding occupant, i.e., another lady, did. Yes, I am, in such cases, psychic...I just knew she'd go into the same office as me...and she did.

So, I filled out my form, same form as always - info never changes. Why they make you fill it out each time is anyone's guess; they just must like having something to shred at the end of the day. The shear bulk of my pre-shredded slips of paper over the years alone would undoubtedly have amounted to one "less than full-sun-given" scrub pine by now.

Enter my former elevator companion. "I'm sorry, but we ARE running late today...so it may be a while" the receptionist, outwardly begrudgingly...yet inwardly relishing, alerts her. Now those are fourteen words no patient wants to hear. Why...oh why can't they CALL you to let you know that you can indeed use the brake pedal en-route to your appointment? You know, they can put a man on the moon (or at least fake it well) but they can't call you on your cell phone to tell you they know full well it's going to be a LONG wait??? It's not like we are still in the days of Gilligan's Island...no Professor and a coconut phone. Wake up and smell the Venti Latte Decaf Two-Percent Sans Sugar...technology HAS progressed a bit, correct? Would a call kill these people? They could even write it down and shred it at the end of the day just to add to the pile of stuff from my life which gets tossed without so much as a sideways glance. Aren't I worth it? I mean, they still do take my checks and not just the number...so my paper heap must be worth at least a [parking] token...which, by the way, they don't dole out anymore so I have to park in Lower Slobovia when I park, thank you, Baptist South - Morrow Tower people.

Now, with notebook (I am presently writing in) in hand, I sauntered back up to the receptionist station..."Can I 'borrow' a pen?" I ask (all innocently). She looks up ever so slightly from her "look who is going to be inconvenienced today by sitting unnecessarily long at the doctor's office" appointment book, and proceeds to tell me that I can use either the purple or blue one. I go for the purple. (My daughter likes purple.) Ordinarily this would be a massive clue for the more astute "Agatha-Christie-types"...only someone with prior intent to abscond with a nifty "drug company freebie pen" would give a flying fig about the exterior colour it was...but no red flags were raised and I am now writing with my "newfound" pen. The tiny things in life keep me going...and this was by far one of the tiniest. Lo and behold, I am called in to see my doctor...MY doctor was on time...THIS time. Time to put away my notebook which is supposed to scream "Johnny Depp playing J.M. Barrie in 'Finding Neverland'"...yes, take note everyone sitting in this waiting room, for *I* have a notebook...I fancy myself on the writer's playing field of the guy who penned "Peter Pan". Sigh...I am such a dreamer. Wait...isn't that what that film was about??? Hmmm...ironic?

Present:

I gave my daughter a pen today. It was purple. I wouldn't say it was the cheapest present I've ever given her as it cost me $165.66 with back payments duly tendered. And, speaking of irony...I even had the audacity to write my check out with their...uh...strike that...MY daughter's pen!

Some High School Musings...Not That There's Anything Right With That

I was just thinking, reminiscing if you will, about my high school days. The impetus of this thought happened to be a blurb that was in my daughter's school's newsletter which stated something to the effect of "these are the students who haven't had any Class I infractions since the start of the school year"...and, she was, because she is so incredibly good, one of them. Which brought me, apparently, to this thought...why, I have absolutely no clue (that's just the way my mind works I guess)...

...when I was in high school, we had smoking breaks.

Okay, they weren't exactly "sanctioned" smoking breaks...but, nonetheless, we were allowed to smoke between classes.

Which called to mind some sayings which I found hilariously funny at the time (none of which I ever heard uttered...then OR now):

"There will be a five minute smoking break at the flagpole...guidance counsellors will be passing out matches in their offices beforehand for anyone who needs them."

"We 'frown upon' bumming smokes off the construction workers. The construction workers are the ones in the white hats and not wearing designated uniforms."

There was also one about "in back of the pod" and "Marlboro's" that I have since forgotten. Everything is funnier when you are saying it at three in the morning or in front of your kids at rapid fire pace...especially when you haven't eaten all day and had a Martini.

This, again, was not sanctioned at my school...but we did it anyway (we were so brazen back then): Who else my age remembers getting cigarettes from their teachers who were on duty to watch us kids during our lunch breaks outside? And why was it that shop teachers never had any problems with doling out smokes?

Ah...the good old days. No wonder I am the way the way I am. Endless thanks, Mr. Hollowell!

Oh, the things you will learn...

Things I've learned since posting my last blogumn:

When you use a 1980s "one hit wonder" group's name as the title of your last hat blog and then proceed to show your online friend their video on YouTube which you used to sing en route to nightclubs with your wacky friend when you were much, much, much younger...that song will stay with you the entire weekend. Don't believe me? I triple dog dare you to go here and defy the power of a jump-happy tune: "The Safety Dance". Don't blame me if you also do the ballerina/picture frame move with your arms whilst you pseudo-dance around singing it. Some things I refuse to be held responsible for creating.

When you make Chicken Vindaloo...you will walk around and be mesmerized by just how fun saying one word over and over can be. That one word which kept pouring out of my mouth with the resonant conviction of Citizen Kane's "rosebud", Marlon Brando's "Stella", Rocky's "Adrian", and Al Pacino's "Attica"...was my "vindaloo". Vindaloo, it seems, is pleasing to both the tongue and the ear at the same time, thereby racing to the top of my cerebral cortex to get its justly position in my brain's "word bank". I feel confident that Vindaloo, with all it's pleasantries, pushed a few of the other words out of my brain's "file folder". Vindaloo there and then became the current cuckoo bird of my wordbank memory and proceeded to toss a few less used verbiage right smack into the firing line of prions...my neurons never had a chance...there was nothing I could do. Then the coups de grâce...my friend on the phone who jestily asks "Oh, Vindaloo, huh?...like Little Cindy Vindaloo Who, who was no more than two?

It was then that I realized I could not readily smack or otherwise hurt or maim him...or at the very least stomp up and down on both their home and cellphone as they live in Texas...and I'm all the way over here. But that thought, in between "You can dance" stanzas, kept looking more and more like a good idea with each passing chorus.

Enter vindication: This same Texas friend who was responsible for me saying "Little Vindaloo Who/Little Cindy Vindaloo Who" and all permutations thereof, about 82,120 of them, proceeded to then bring to my attention that my previous blog comment "everything is on YouTube except my birth and that Joe Namath/Farrah Fawcett Noxzema commercial" was in effect, incorrect. "But, ha! What of the date?" I say in complete defiance of his accusation (because I like to be right). YouTube Date Input: 4 months ago...my blog's date: "I Just Don't Get It" - it is official, I am vindicated. Not only am I vindicated, the YouTube people undoubtedly read my blog, were incensed that clip wasn't there and that someone found out...and then promptly added it to TRY to cover their ineptitudinal tracks.

Ah...life is good once more...in fact...if we really so desired, we could, well..."We can dance if we want to..."

Men Without Hats

So, while I will remain obsessed with my new purpose in life: pinpointing the precise moment that hats fell out of favour with the motion picture industry, I have a theory which I think holds more water than a ten gallon hat.

The incidence of melanoma has increased exponentially in direct proportion with the decline of hat wearing. What?? It's true. This thought has been floating around in my head for years and to me it makes perfect sense. Without a brim blocking out ultraviolet light...the incidence of skin cancer has gone up. Oh, sure...you can argue that the ozone layer has been depleted thereby letting more harmful rays reach our collective heads to begin with. But I can then counter-argue that advances in medical science and higher self-awareness should cancel each other out and the line on the graph should remain relatively constant. But they don't.

Take in consideration these studies from the National Cancer Institute's website...I broke it down into five year increments from 1950-1994 (1950 was the earliest year I could retrieve figures) because the trend clearly is more dramatic when viewed in such short time frames...the figures literally jump right out at you. There is no denying the rate of skin cancer has risen sharply...and in such a relatively short period.

Melanoma of skin (white males - all ages) (Click the preferences to get other figures.)

I'm thinking there's more to it than just going out in the sun...it's the combination of going out in the sun without a hat. We aren't working outside as much as we used to, sunblock usage has gone up and so has our overall knowledge of the subject in general...common knowledge would dictate these figures should be declining instead of escalating. While one could argue that years ago people died of melanoma but the cause of death was attributed to something else, I would surmise that only a small portion of doctors back then would not have recognized advanced melanoma.

So, I will stick to my hat theory and hope someone in the medical community uncovers these facts...and then perhaps we'll finally get a national cover-up we can all look forward to for a change.

Hats In Film

It's no secret that I like watching old films...I've liked them since I was a little girl, I will, in all probability, continue to like them until I die.

The dialogue was usually wittier back then even though they do throw in a 'Bourne' film once in a while to show everyone they can still WRITE dialogue. Films now seem to rely on unbelievable special effects to get their point across at the obvious abandonment of any type of plotline. Sometimes there is no plot...just a series of one fight/car chase/pyrotechnics/obligatory boob shot after another. Yes...we know you have a nice CGI team...your action sequences are great, but let's not sacrifice art for the sake of a sale. Let's stop relying on this high tech compensation for your obvious lack of script prowess. You, Hollywood, are suffering from projectile dysfunction.

Now, I'm not saying that every single movie falls into this category...but a good many of them seem to try to dazzle you with cinematographic brilliance and nothing more. I just watched "Ghost Rider" the other nite...did this film even HAVE a plot? Did "Mission Impossible 3"? What they did have was a whole bunch of CGI fluff disguised as plotline if you ask me.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the 'Bourne' films...the first one more than the other two...but I loved them. What I loved about them was the fact that they weaved a plausible plotline into believable action sequences without the sacrifice whatsoever of dialogue. AND the dialogue wasn't so highbrow to make you feel like you were a complete moronic idiot...i.e., I could follow along without bringing a "Covert Subversive-English" dictionary with me to watch the movie.

Now, back to the original point I had (and I stress the word "had" as I've gotten off my original point entirely)...movies like "His Girl Friday" and "It Happened One Night" had brilliant dialogue...they also had something else movies lack today: Hats.

Hats, both men's and ladies' have gone the way of the dinosaur in a very short period of time. I have been wondering this for ages...just what happened in our history to totally wipe hats off the face of the Earth? I did some research on the matter and some blame John F. Kennedy because he didn't wear one, then other men followed suit (no pun intended)...and just like in "It Happened One Night" when men saw Clark Gable not wearing an undershirt...sales of these items plummeted. Jackie's pillbox hat, on the other hand, became an instant national necessity. So you could argue that while her husband's style evoked one mannerism, hers did quite the opposite...so I'm not too sure how that all works out in the end...and for the sake of this blogumn, I'm going to stick with movies and things of that ilk.

Watch any "I Love Lucy" episode and you will see a various cornicopia of hats if you will. There might not have been any money to get an apartment with more than three rooms, but, by golly, she must have had a closet in that place the size of Grand Central Station to house all those hats. A few episodes even centered on hats...or at least the buying, wearing, salivating over, and generally obsessing about them.

Hats in old films can also sometimes be incorporated into the script as a whole comedy piece. Take "The Awful Truth" with Cary Grant and Irene Dunn...well, you couldn't work a good 15 minutes of sight gags, dog tricks, and man-hiding-in-the-bedroom antics without them. Try that nowadays and it just wouldn't work. Drama sometimes also relies on clever "hat-in-hand" movie magic to engage their audience. Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" begs the question...what DOES one do with a wayward monogrammed hat when you've already conveniently hid the body? I'll tell you what...you get found out by an astute hat-wielding James Stewart.

The hat, be it men's or women's...was a wardrobe accessory worn by both the rich and the poor...it was ubiquitous. You didn't have to wear a three piece suit in order to don one...Art Carney proved that in "The Honeymooners"...so it was clearly an established necessity in blue and white collar workers alike.

And just think of a whole portion of Hollywood without hats...just what would the massive movie musical have been without Fred Astaire crooning about "puttin' on his top hat", without Carmen Miranda's extravagant fruit-laden ones, without Minnie Pearl's price tag-adorned one, without Buster Keaton's porkpie one, and the derby so synonymous of Charles Chaplin?

But when exactly did people stop wearing hats in film, in real life and what, in my opinion, are the long-term ramifications? Well, I will attempt to enlighten you in my next hat blogumn next time.

Tippin' My Hat...

...in my next blogumn. I'll try to get around to it tonite sometime. It's still in my head and shouldn't come out this early. But stick around.

Writer's Cramp

Kudos to David Letterman (Worldwide Pants) and Craig Ferguson for reaching an agreement with their writers. As many of you know, I think Letterman and Ferguson are tons of times better than Leno and Conan...especially since Conan's people were considering having me on their show when I won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest in 2003...only to say "oh, we don't think she could fill up six minutes". Oh, please, anyone who knows me knows I could fill up six hours...let alone six minutes. All I have to say is I wish Craig was on back then...his three year anniversary tonite by the way...as I'm sure HE would have had me on his show and I would probably NOT be on strike right now.

Oh, think about it. ;)

Anyway...glad to see you two back on the air, where you belong.

Mariann

"Right" Down Your Alley

I was walking into a building today and something I've always wondered dawned on me yet again: "Do people in England naturally gravitate to the left?" I noticed that here, in the States, we tend to enter buildings, walk thru confined areas, wait in lines, etc., the 'right way', so to speak.

Now, I am not certain, but there probably has been a two-million dollar study on this, along with which eye people generally poke when they leave the umbrella from the fancy drink in their glasses. In fact, there are probably a plethora of right/left studies which have been done and tons more waiting to be done (and why that line forms to the right) in the wings.

Were there more ambidextrous people in England when stick shifts were the norm? Has it been dwindling off at the same rate automatic transmissions gained popularity?

Right eye/left eye dominance - such as looking thru a camera, telescope or aiming a gun...anything to do with being a Brit vs an American?

And those stars on our flag...would they have been on the right side had the Americans not won that Revolution? And why are they on the left instead this time? Okay, maybe a tad bit extreme there...but then again...keep your right eye open for a study about it in the future. Unless of course...you live in England.

The Notes That Music Teaches Might Not Always Be In Scale

My daughter is midway into having final exams and one of her tasks for the English exam was to memorize 23 helping verbs. Now, I am no fan of helping verbs, dangling participles, past or present superlatives, and moderators, but I am a fan of mnemonic devices and the first thing she said to me was "I can't even think of any silly ways to memorize them like I usually do". Yes, she's also a fan of them. So, I did what any red-blooded mother raised in the 60s-70s would do...turned to YouTube.

"YouTube?" you ask..."YouTube wasn't around back then, lady." True, but 'Schoolhouse Rock' was and any self-respecting Saturday morning cartoon watcher growing up when I did can remember at least one ditty from those three minute spots. Who doesn't remember "Conjuction Junction, what's your function?" You don't even have to know the tune to, well, know the tune. And if you know anything about YouTube...if it was ever out there floating around in the airwaves of tv-space, videotape or 8, 16, or 35 mm...you can watch it on YouTube. The only thing they don't have, and I've checked, is that Farrah Fawcett/Joe Namath Noxzema commercial...and my birth. But to give them all due credit, my birth was never immortalized on film...well, that I know. I'm not too sure about the conception...but I don't want to go there.

So, we decided to wax nostalgic and play some 'Schoolhouse Rock' videos. We? Yes, we. Come to find out my daughter, who is 12, has been watching these things in school since the 1st grade. How else would she have been able to blurt out the words "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly get your adverbs here". Heck, even I forgot THAT one.

Interplanet Janet, The Preamble, Interjections, the Boston Tea Party one... we watched quite a few and the list still went on and on...so did the positive comments people posted after. C'mon, these things are thirty years old and kids on YouTube are saying "These are so cool" "I know these are stupid but I got an A on my test because of this". "Schoolhouse Rock ROCKS!"

So, why aren't more of these things being made? Or better yet...reshown on television? If they worked then and they work now...guess what? They work.

Don't even get me started on the taxation without representation segment...which I think is pretty much taken for granted nowadays and has become the norm as product endorsements are seen from movies to award shows to the backs of free copies of text in Japan. It won't be long before the world as we know it will be run by corporate giants who will gladly pay lowly out of work writers badoodles of money for catchy tunes to sell their merchandise and beliefs.

We just have to put our foot down and remember whilst education is a wondrous thing...corporate takeovers and massive conglomerations hiding behind scholarships might not necessarily be. "Injunction Junction what's our function..." well, it's just not the same exact fundamentally innocent "catchy tune", now...is it?

My Birthday

Well, my birthday has come and gone. I opted to stay home and not go out to dinner because I still was in a lot of pain from my operation. My daughter bought and wrapped me some gifts she purchased at Williams-Sonoma...pretty much anything they sell there I'd like...plus I have been known to do the "oooh I like THIS and THIS and THIS" thing a lot whenever I'm shopping with her.

She also was the one who decided getting a candle down from the cupboard, putting it on my Cheesecake Olivia from Outback Steakhouse, and lighting it would be the festive and proper thing to do. I fear no traditional "Happy Birthday" song would have been sung had she not thought of this, and I feel sad about that.

I also feel sad that my son, who is 20, didn't get me a present nor a card. He is old enough to get me something. He's claiming he didn't have enough money to get me something "really nice". I would have been happy with nearly anything.

Also, it seems the players at my interactive comedy website, don't seem to care much at all either. Must be the season to be selfish...I don't know. But free ecards ARE relatively inexpensive.

Anyway, the day is now over...I only managed to drink one Martini and it wasn't a big one at that, but I was in pain. I also do have a few gifts that will be getting here next week so that will be nice.

I also have a blog I started writing in the doctor's office the other day...so something will be posted here - probably tomorrow.

Now far be it from me to ruin a good time, so those of you who would love to send me cards, flowers, money, job offers, and incredibly gorgeous presents, please feel free to do so. There is an address you can send them to via my comedy website...and yes, it is indeed valid. I am sure it's best to err on the side of caution this time and not start holding my breath anytime soon...last year David Blaine got some wild idea in his head because of my antics. Surely no one wants to give him any more ideas. ;)

Point Well Taken

Okay, I've received a few emails from people asking me why I haven't updated in a while...so I have got the point and will try to think of something to write about tonite. Perhaps whilst I'm drinking a Martini out of my new glasses I bought myself for my birthday. Okay, it's a week early...but since I know what I gave myself, it's not like I'm peeking. :)

Anyway...thanks goes out to people who do indeed read this and notice when I'm not posting.