Get Busy Living

No news isn't always good news, is it?  Permission to speak freely, respected blog-o-sphere.

2011 has completely, totally sucked, with notably few exceptions.  What's more, the promise of lingering suckage through at least the end of the 3rd quarter is providing a kind of suspenseful dread usually reserved for slasher movies. 

But you didn't really think I'd bore you with a litany of complaints, did you?  Come on, I know it's been too long, but I'm not that kind of gal, am I?  Because if I am, I guess I should resign myself to a hell populated with similarly annoying people who stage endless monologues about their irritable bowels, mother issues, and cellulite.  Say it isn't so!

No, if I'm going to bore ANYONE under ANY circumstances, my topic of choice will be my travels to India and the incredible people, sights, shopping and food there.  In fact, in the face of a 2011 that (like the famous Dyson vacuum) "never loses suction", all I can think of is how much I want to chuck it all, pack my bags, grab my dogs and move to India.  Forever.

Ladies and Gents, this is not an easy sell to a man who loves Dr. Pepper, peanut butter, and beef.  Some days, he seems totally into the idea; other days, he acts like I'm mentioning for the first time that I want to amputate my right arm and replace it with a prosthetic carved out of cucumber.  Of course we'd have to sell the house, sell the business, figure out endless logistics (you know, like a job in India for yours truly), and generally jump backwards through flaming hoops to make this happen.  As if that weren't enough, we'd also have to adjust to a totally new lifestyle, social standards, climate, food, and procedures for doing every single damn thing that anyone does in daily life.

You know what?  That sounds a hell of a lot like learning, growing, and flat-out living.  Remember Shawshank Redemption?  My favorite quote of all time comes from Red, Morgan Freeman's character, when he tells Andy, "Guess it comes down to a simple choice really.  Get busy living, or get busy dying.".

Get Nailed

For those of you who live in Atlanta, this one's for you. If you haven't already, you've just got to go and get Nailed.

The Rusty Nail is on Buford Highway near Druid Hills, not exactly the culinary epicenter of the city, but do not be fooled by its location or humble exterior. The chow is this place is mouth-watering - literally. The menu has a good mixture of bar food like burgers and wings, but the real focus here is barbeque and the homemade side items that come with it. First of all, I SWEAR the Rusty Nail did not pay me to write this, but never in my life have tastier green beans or macaroni and cheese passed my lips.

In short, I'd eat here every day if it didn't mean that I'd be buried in a piano box and would eventually wind up on some humiliating Discovery Channel special so fat I would have to be draped in awning fabric and propped up with 2x4s. Plus I don't think the Rusty Nail delivers, so the key to keeping it coming is not getting too fat to drive. Anyway, I digress...back to business.

Having spent many years in Texas, I can tell you that the barbeque scene in and around Atlanta is decidedly weak with the exception of the Rusty Nail. Even the venerated Swallow at the Hollow doesn't compare to the incredible brisket and pulled pork, which is cooked inside a giant gun-shaped smoker in front of the restuarant.

Speaking of smokers, this restaurant does allow smoking on one side of the bar, so there is a slight odor of smoke when you first walk in, so unless you're really sensitive to the smell, it's not too noticable. Like all other establishments in the area that allow smoking, the under 18 crowd is verboten. Even though I don't like living under the laws of nanny government, I do like not having small kids around while I'm trying to relax, so it works out for me.

One last thing about the Rusty Nail, and this is one that only the ladies will be able to enjoy. In the 2nd stall of the ladies' room, there is some really amusing invective directed at, of all fictional paramilitary mariners, Cap'n Crunch. One clearly agitated potty-stall poet calls the Cap'n a rat bastard, and invites him to make love to himself in some very crude terms.

I love the Rusty Nail.

Xena's #1 Fan

It's been a while since I've posted an embarrassing story about one of my kids, and I'm prepared to remedy the situation. This story came to mind the other day as I was driving home, and I determined to relate the tale without disclosing the identity of the child involved, who will hereafter be called Mr. X.

When Mr. X was roughly four or five, a television show by the name of Xena: Warrior Princess exploded onto the airwaves with a burst of leather-clad girl power. Xena had a hottie side-kick, a signature banshee-call, a bustier, and skirt with flaps like a gas station car wash. It was as mesmerizing as it was mediocre.

Except to Mr. X.

To Mr. X, there was nothing mediocre about it. Mr. X wouldn't miss an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess if he had anything to say about it, but I didn't think this was too unusual.

I didn't realize how much Mr. X loved Xena until one evening, when I walked into the living room to find Mr. X, clad in his little footie pajamas transfixed by his favorite show. Not seeing me behind him, he suddenly rose to his feet, shuffled across the floor, wrapped his fat little arms around the television, planted a big, long, wet kiss on the screen, and whispered, "I love you, Xena."

Needless to say, he hates that story as much as I love it. Now if he ever brings a girl home who looks remotely like Lucy Lawless, I'm sure I'll pee my pants.

Meme Time!

I'm considering myself tagged by Alex of Hope and greyz, who posted this fun Meme. Consider yourself tagged if you want to participate.

1) Last movie you saw in a theatre? Iron man, I think. That movie was kick-ass!

2) What book are you reading? Branding 101 by Donald Trump

3) Favorite board game? Taboo.

4) Favorite magazine? Atomic ranch – fantastic resource & drool starter for mid-century-modern architecture loons.

5) Favorite smells? Napalm in the morning. Other things that smell like victory: peppermint, roses, fresh-ground coffee, fabric softener, babies (note: babies are not mentioned in my Favorite sounds!), clean dogs.

6) Favorite sounds? People who don’t mutter.

7) Worst feeling in the world? Not knowing where your kids are.

8 ) What is the first thing you think when you first wake up? I hope G turned on the coffee pot!

9) Favorite fast food place? Moe’s

10) Future child’s name? That’s easy…Vasectomy Miracle

11) Finish this statement—if I had a lot of money I’d hire a chef and never freaking cook again!

12) Do you drive fast? Only on the freeway.

13) Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? Not anymore, but I used to sleep with a stuffed hippo for years as an adult. I’m way too cool for that now; plus Hoover pulled all the stuffing out of the hippo’s butt.

14) Storms–cool or scary? Scary! I need one of those “storm defender” capes for dogs.

15) What was your first car? Toyota corolla

16) Favorite drink? Scotch and soda, or Firefly and water

17) Finish this statement - if I had the time I would make myself a pair of leather chaps and roller skate around downtown.

18 ) Do you eat the stems on broccoli? I don’t discriminate. I eat the whole thing!

19) If you could dye your hair any other color, what would be your choice? Copper

20) Name all the different cities/towns u have lived in? These are the ones I can remember: Albuquerque, NM, Woodbridge, NJ, Phoenix, AZ, Monterey, CA, San Angelo, TX, Ayer, MA, Killeen, TX, Huntsville, AR, Austin, TX, Atlanta, GA. I was born in Honolulu and have also lived in Korea and Japan before I was old enough to remember.

21) Favorite sports to watch? Hockey, but only in person.

22) One nice thing about the person who sent this to you? I’m considering myself tagged by Alex, and she’s a funny gal and a very talented sculptor.

23) What’s under your bed? Tons of super-freaky porn. Just kidding…I have a telescope mirror my Dad ground, polished and figured for me and Garrett. It goes into a Dobsonian mount Dad also made.

24) Would you like to be born as yourself again? I have to be me; no one else wants the job!

25) Morning person or night owl? Night owl, caffeine-crazed morning hag.

26) Over easy or sunny side up? Over medium!

27) Favorite place to relax? Bed

28 ) Favorite pie? Any fruit pie, but I just like to eat the filling and leave the crust.

29) Favorite ice cream flavor? This is easy…Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. There’s not a care in the world that a ménage a trois with Ben & Jerry can’t cure.

Photo Tag

I've been tagged by Sirius Sighthounds to post the sixth picture in my sixth photo folder and explain it, then I'm supposed to tag six other bloggers to do the same.

This picture was actually sent to me by Scott from Blue Barron's Place, and this is a picture of Hoover's haul from the track to the kennel to begin his life of retirement. As it happens, Scott hauled Hoover (in the foreground), and the dog in the background (who I think may be FKA Go Peanut Go or maybe Wiki Onetime), and he was kind enough to send me the pictures from Hoov's big break.

Now for the tagging:

• Bosslady
• Blue Barron's Place
• Plus Est En Vous
• Nuttin But Hound Dogs
• Miscellanea
• Kris-ticism

Posting Under the Influence

Right now, you may be asking yourself why Addie would want to post under the influence, and your consternation is understandable, so I’ll tell you why. Because I love you all like a fat kid loves cake, and you’re been good boys and girls all year long, and you deserve a treat.

Here are my rules of PUI:

• I get to say whatever I want about anything, which probably goes without saying since I usually do that anyway.
• Once this post is published, I will never, ever go back and edit it, no matter how much a typo or nonsensical phrase is bothering me. This one is a big deal, trust me.
• I get to use all the salty language I like, so if that sort of thing chaps your hide, you should probably go ahead and sneak on out of here.

Now that we've got that straight, I'm going to cover a few items in the order in which they occur to me. I realize that writing conventions dictate that I should tell you what I'm going to tell you, then tell you, and then tell you what I told you, but this isn't a five-paragraph essay, I didn't make an outline, and I don't think any of you are developmentally delayed in any way. This is totally extemporaneous, so work with me, will ya?

Let's start by talking about Christmas Newsletters. You know what I'm talking about, because when you get one, you ask God what you did wrong to deserve to find the literary equivalent of Taco Bell diarrhea in your mailbox. If you yourself distribute a Christmas newsletter, I'm going to ask you to please reconsider this blatant affront to your so-called loved ones. These letters suck, and they probably love you too much to tell you to your face.

I get one every year from my MIL (yes, she lives just across town, and yes, I'm aware of her every move much as NORAD is aware of the movement of every single aircraft traversing the airspace of the good ol' USA at any given moment). Here's the coverage we received this year:

Garrett and Adrienne still live in Atlanta, and Garrett's trophy shop is doing well. Jared graduates high school this year, and Tyler is two years behind him.

The rest of the letter goes something like this: I went to Michigan to see tulips, I went to a conference in New Orleans, I sprained my ankle, I pooped once and saw corn I didn't remember eating, etc. (Ok, ok, that last one wasn't really in the letter!)

Here's my idea for an entertaining (albeit not altogether true) Christmas newsletter:

Well, another year has gone by and I've still failed to achieve my full potential. I've been thinking that perhaps I have some sort of parasite that is preventing me from reaching my goal of world domination. My psychiatrist and I are seriously considering increasing the dosage on my medication (the anti-depressant, not the anti-anxiety), but the last time we did that my ass expanded to about twice it's normal size. The upside is that although I was fat, I wasn't too bummed out about it.

The kids are well and happy, although their academic achievement leads me to believe that neither of them will be setting the world ablaze with amazing scientific discoveries. As for the dogs, we've recently discovered that Bruno and Hoover love bleu cheese, imported beer, and licking each other's ding-dongs. We thought we were getting greyhounds, but I think we may have actually adopted Gay Hounds. In any case, they're just great, and I love the way they howl when I sing It's Raining Men.

See what I mean? Nobody is interested in this sort of stupid, boring minutia. I call to the stand Stephen of Plus Est En Vous, who has informed me via comment that my last post was so boring that he sustained a mild concussion upon being lulled to sleep and subsequently striking his head on his keyboard. I would launch into a grueling examination of the witness, but I have to agree with his contention. Nevermind, Stephen, you're dismissed on the grounds that I can't poke any holes in your premise.

On another note, I have to warn you all against following the procedure I described in the post entitled Dog Language Barrier. I just performed this act with Bruno, who responded this time by jumping on my back and humping me. Seriously. I removed myself from this menage a dog, and he approached me as I sat on the couch and grabbed my leg and proceeded to go to town, whereupon I called him a pervert and squirted him with water. The language barrier is hereby broken, and apparently rubbing your head on your dog's side means, "Go ahead and hump me, big boy!". Who knew?

Let's move on, shall we? I'd also like to talk about my favorite new store at Perimeter Mall, Martin & Osa. Lord, how I love this store! G and I are both totally smitten by this offshoot of American Eagle Outfitters, whose target demographic is grown ups with jobs. As Bob Barker & Drew Carey would say, The Price is Right and the clothes, as I would say, don't make me look like a garden variety idiot. If you have this store locally, please go spend some money so they don't go out of business.

Speaking of G, he and I are celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary on Monday, so I'll just take this moment to say that I love this guy more than cashmere, diamonds, and a perfectly cooked steak. Suffice it to say that without the rays of sunshine that literally shoot out of his ass, my life would be dreary indeed.

Two more items:

• I suspect that the employees at JoAnn fabrics are part of some undead army of terrible customer service zombies.
• In 2009, I intend to find out who keeps putting those community newspapers on my driveway, and I'm going to cuss them out.

Well, that's about it for now. If you made it all the way through this post, go ahead and award yourself 500 bonus points, and have a drink on me.

Grant Park Candlelight Tour of Homes

Yesterday G & I spent the evening with the MIL and FIL in Grant Park (near Oakland Cemetery). We started with dinner at Six Feet Under, a restaurant I recommend highly. The entree I ordered was called The Big Tuna, and it was a rare Ahi tuna steak crusted with sesame seeds atop a bed of steamed spinach, all of which was drizzled with a wasabi dressing. It was, in a word, delightful. My suggestion: order The Big Tuna!

After dinner we headed over to take the Grant Park Candlelight Tour of Homes (for info, you can click the title of this post). In general, the homes on the tour are lovingly restored Craftsman and Victorian jewels, and it's fun to see how tastefully and respectfully the owners have brought back their original beauty and luster.

One notable exception on the current tour is the house pictured here. This house, located on Park Street, is 108 years old and has served as a single family home, a church, and a boarding house, and is now owned by a couple who have been renovating it (in a manner of speaking).

I should preface my review of this place by saying that I'm a purist when it comes to historic preservation. I'd rather see one of the grande dames of the mid-Victorian era fall to graceful ruin than see her disrespected.

That said, this house made me very, very sad. The craftsmanship was horrible, the space planning nonsensical, the loving touch of restoration replaced by tasteless devotion to low-end finishes and furnishings. The sense of history is utterly gone from this place, except for the staircase, which is absolutely spectacular, and a hint at the potential of this structure.

Shame on the AJC for this article. Shame on the homeowners for undertaking a renovation that should have been a restoration. Shame on the Grant Park tour committee for putting this sad monument on the tour.

Vacation Update

We covered a lot of ground during my time off, and I think I can safely say that we did all we could in the short time we had available. I’ll try to summarize here, but I'll leave some of the juicy details for Mom's blog:

Monday: Mom arrived in the evening, and we took the train up to my house, and then hit the Vintage Pizzeria for calzones. After dinner we watched Dancing With the Stars, and went to bed. Overall, a quiet night by necessity. Mom had flown with Prince Valium and didn’t have much wind left in her sails, if you know what I mean.

Tuesday: Mom & I went to the DeKalb Farmer’s Market (the nice one!) to buy shrimp and sausage to create a low country boil for dinner, since Kevin was scheduled to arrive and had never had one. Kevin finally made it in after sitting on the tarmac for an eternity waiting for a gate into Hartsfield. Isn't traveling a blast? After dinner, we played Rock Band until we could take it no more.

Wednesday: We started our day at 11 in the morning at Wine Styles tasting wines for our Thanksgiving dinner, and settled on a couple of nice bottles. Then we headed over to Psycho Tat2 to get Mom's 70th birthday present, which was a dragonfly tattoo. There was a bit of a wait for the tat, so we swung by Mellow Mushroom for a BBQ chicken pizza, which was probably the best pizza I've ever had, and we dropped by the trophy shop before heading back for the tattoo appointment. Once Mom was inked like a rock star, we went to the Buford Highway Farmer's Market for some Korean dumplings for dinner. After dinner, Mom opened her birthday gifts and we played Texas Hold 'Em and drank Jack Daniels. It was a big day!

Thursday: We cooked, we ate, we played Mexican Train Dominoes.

Friday: G and the guys went and got our Christmas tree, which we then spent several hours erecting and decorating. I'm pretty sure we drank after that, but the details are fuzzy now.

Saturday: We hit the High Museum to see the terracotta soldiers of the Qin dynasty and the selected treasures of the Louvre, both of which were very cool exhibits. Once we were sufficiently cultured, we rolled over to The Vortex for ginormous hamburgers, and Mom flirted with our tall, dark and handsome waiter, showing off her tattoo and saying she just might want to take him home to Arkansas. It's amazing what a Corona Light can do!

Sunday: Kevin started our day off with a feast of homemade biscuits and gravy, home fries, and eggs. I'm pleased to say there's at least one cook in the family, and it was fabulous. After breakfast, Mom, Kevin, and I went up to Jeju, and I'll leave it to Mom to describe that on her blog, since I've pretty thoroughly covered the subject in previous posts. After Jeju, Kevin, G, and I hit the pool hall for some billiards, since Mom was too tired to go. During the billiard play, G took an embarrassing photo of me and accidentally texted it to my HR rep at work instead of the friend for whom it was actually intended. Nice work, G! Keep it up and maybe I can come work with you at the shop...wouldn't that be fun?

Monday: Mom was heading back to Hillbilly Heaven, so we packed her up and took her down to the airport. Later that night, we had dinner and martinis at One Midtown Kitchen. If you're local and love food, I highly recommend it.

Tuesday: Kevin's flight took off early in the afternoon, so we had breakfast, ran to the mall, and then I dropped him off at the train station to go to the airport. I went home and vegged out for the rest of the day, at least until Bruno started blowing oats in the living room. Yay!

Marketing Genius

Winter does take its toll on our hands, doesn't it?

I was discussing this with my brother this week, and he suggested his favorite hand cream, the unfortunately-named Hand Relief.

Congratulations to the marketing department at Aveda for devising a product name that makes dry skin care sound dirty.

Bravo!

Retarded Grandparents

Someone sent this email to me, and I thought it was too cute not to share.

After Christmas, a teacher asked her young students how they spent their holiday away from school. One child wrote the following:

We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida. Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on their bicycles and wear name tags because they don't know who they are anymore.

They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now. They do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but all they do is jump up and down in it with hats on.

At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts.

Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night --- early birds. Some of the people can't get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck instead of birds.

My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too. When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren.

Addicted to Wordles

Yes, I know I've "wordled" before, but I just can't help doing it again. Since the wordle is based on how many times certain words are used in your blog, it's an ever-changing kaleidoscope of linguistic frequency algorithms. Just kidding...it's just fun, ok?

If you want to create your own, the title of this post links to the site that does all the work for you. By the way, the name of the font shown above is "Loved by the King". Well, G, I guess that would be you!

Unflattering Word Verification

All I wanted to do is post an innocent comment on a blog, and I was unfairly confronted with what I consider to be a mildly insulting word verification.

"heneater"...is that all you've got? Is this supposed to hurt my feelings?

Here's the deal, Blogger: if I get a word verification that says "hamface" or "meatbutt", I'm out of here. Fair warning!

Find the Hound

Can you find the hound?

Still don't see him?

Brindle is good camoflage, isn't it?

A Human Confession

There have been a lot of canine apologies, partial acceptances, and confessions swirling around the blog ring this week. I thought I might mix it up a bit with a human confession, so here goes...

I am obsessed with my ClustrMap. Totally.

It's like unwrapping a Christmas present every day when I look to see where my visitors live, and it's a steady source of curiosity. For example, I don't know anyone who lives in the Pacific Northwest, but I have a big dot there. Is it the same person who's visited several times, or several people who've visited once? Come on, Mystery Dot, reveal yourself!

I also really enjoy speculating about the far-flung, international dots. I can't help but wonder what someone in South Korea, Bulgaria, or Rio de Janiero would think about the strange things I post here. Note to Self: Try not to cause an international incident.

How about you...have you checked your ClustrMap today?

Vote For First Pet

As you may be aware, President-Elect Obama has promised his daughters a dog. Please click the link in the title to vote Greyhound for First Pet. I love the idea of greyhounds getting this kind of recognition. If you've seen the Barney Cam Holiday videos, you can probably imagine how much faster a greyhound could give us a tour! Or we might only see one room if the First Hound felt like staying on the sofa.

Either way, let's all cast our ballots one more time this week. Democracy marches on!

The Kind Stranger

Many thanks to the One Minute Writer for suggesting the subject of this post. The prompt for today is "Write about something nice a stranger did for you".

Last year G & I celebrated our 17th anniversary in Denver as we were visiting relatives for Christmas, and he gave me a very unusual and lovely silver bracelet. The next day, which was a Saturday, we went to a brewery tour in the distant mountains, and I couldn't resist wearing the bracelet. We had a great time on the tour, but I realized that the bracelet was missing when we returned to Aunt Heather's and Uncle Clay's house. We searched high and low in the car and the house, and we retraced my steps, to no avail. I must have lost the bracelet on the brewery tour, but there was no time to find out; our flight was departing on Sunday.

On Monday I called the brewery and they said that a woman had left her phone number and stated that she'd found a beautiful silver bracelet. I called the number, and spoke to this woman (who had also been on vacation from Chicago) and told her the story of why the bracelet was so meaningful to me. We laughed, I cried, and we exchanged information. I received the bracelet in the mail soon thereafter, carefully wrapped in tissue with a note that said, "Happy Anniversary - Again!".

Happy Halloween!

A cabbie picks up a Nun. She gets into the cab, and notices that the VERY handsome cab driver won't stop staring at her.

She asks him why he is staring. He replies: "I have a question to ask, but I don't want to offend you."

She answers, "My son, you cannot offend me. When you're as old as I am and have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just about everything. I'm sure that there's nothing you could say or ask that I would find offensive."

"Well, I've always had a fantasy to have a nun kiss me."

She responds, "Well, let's see what we can do about that, under two conditions: #1, you have to be single and #2, you must be Catholic."

The cab driver is very excited and says, "Yes, I'm single and Catholic!"

"OK" the nun says. "Pull into the next alley."

The nun fulfills his fantasy with a kiss that would make a hooker blush.

But when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts crying.

"My dear child," said the nun, "Why are you crying?"

"Forgive me but I've sinned. I lied and I must confess; I'm married and I'm Jewish."

The nun says, "That's OK. My name is Keith and I'm going to a Halloween party."

A Slow News Week

It's been another slow news week for the blog, so I'm sharing this picture that never fails to make me laugh. If you sing that old Anita Ward disco song Ring My Bell, it makes it even better.

In other news, G did get the trash heap of a car rolling again. The clock keeps resetting to 12:00 like a Satan-possessed BetaMax VCR, but hey, I can take the kids to school - whoopee!!

On another note, Hoover has gained a little weight now after the addition of a couple of extra chicken backs and peanut butter. Now that I think of it, that bite of G probably helped, too. Bruno, on the other hand, is still a perfect gentleman - the Abbott to Hoover's Costello, if you will. Wow...cutting edge comedy reference! What am I, ninety?

Anyway, the next couple of weeks promise to be much more interesting, so don't give up hope yet. Seriously, G's family is getting together for his Dad's surprise birthday party on the 15th, which promises comedy gold. Not to mention the drama that's sure to ensue as contentious factions of the clan from across the country join in forced merriment to wish my dear FIL a very happy 60th. Over Thanksgiving my brother Kevin and my Mom are coming to visit, so you can anticipate at least a little PUI (posting under the influence) as we party our way through that week.

One last note: I don't know where this picture came from (no, it's not my doorbell!), or I'd gladly give credit here. If you happen to know, please give me a shout.

CORRECTION/EDIT/RETRACTION: The car is dead again. It WAS running for almost 20 hours, and that might just be a record!

A Lovely Centerpiece

In more recent reminiscences, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a few things about the big Halloween party we're been preparing for these many weeks. After loads of preparation and planning, the Haunting of Admiral Drive took place on Saturday.

The house was decorated inside and out with all manner of spookery. Cobwebs, fake body parts, white sheets a la haunted house on all the furniture, the whole deal. The oft-mentioned coffin was filled with beer, ice, a skeleton, and was lit from within, black streamers covered the entire ceiling, and homemade wallpaper complete with "REDRUM" scrawled in red paint covered the walls. In a word, spooktacular.

My contribution to the ambiance was a table centerpiece, which was originally meant to be a roasted pig's head. Alas, it was not to be. Upon visiting the Buford Highway Farmer's Market (the world epicenter of creepy meats), I consulted with one of the butchers who confirmed that they were "out of pig heads". Instead, I purchased the following assortment: 1 pink and black beef tongue, 2 pounds of chicken feet, and 3 bull testicles. I thought it was very funny that the testicles were all packaged in odd numbers, but maybe that's just me.

Upon arriving home with my bounty, the dogs went nuts over the smell of what was in the bag. After making my way through the gauntlet of hounds, I took my goodies upstairs and covered the chicken feet with hoisin sauce while deciding that the best way to cook all these items was in a 375 degree oven for an hour and 20 minutes. Mind you, NONE of this was meant to be eaten. It was only for show, and it looked perfectly grosstastic when it was done and artfully displayed on a glass cake pedestal atop wilted bok choy. I fully expected the whole display would be intact at the end of the party.

As I always do, though, I left before the party ended. The next day, I returned to the scene to help clean up a bit, and found out that the tongue was gone. Today, the host emailed me to confirm that someone ate it in a moment of drunken gluttony. I'm glad I wasn't able to get that pig's head, after all.

High School Memories

I know some people remember high school fondly. If this describes you, you probably had the most fashionable clothes, you didn't ride the bus senior year, and you probably weren't an Academic Decathlete and delegate to the Model United Nations.

Not that everything about high school stunk. I still remember the day Ms. Carlos returned a short story I wrote and looked me in the eye and said, "You, Miss Hall, are a writer." I gained my love of public speaking in high school, too, thanks to Mr. Shone and Ms. Gill. In other areas I wasn't so successful, most notably sports, which is not surprising, really, since I graduated at five foot nothing, and had the motor skills of a newborn calf and the upper body strength of a three year old girl.

In any case, I had some great friends, one of whom was Martin Gaxiola. I just heard from him a couple of days back, and I'm amazed by what he's done since we graduated Thunderbird High School in 1989. I'm so impressed, in fact, that I've added his website to my link-o-rama. This is some serious flamenco, folks.