My dreams=not boring

In general, I don't like anyone telling me about their dreams (not aspirations--they're fine... night dreams, I mean). Explaining them takes a long time, and they never make sense, and the standard comment afterwards is always, "That's weird" plus the obligatory, "You probably dreamt about the because x, y, z is happening in your life." If I listen to your dreamstory, I probably really like you. Yet, in the interest of vain double standards, I do like to relay the odd facts of my dreams, because--hey, aren't my dreams more interesting than yours?? And don't you think that this could really, I mean, REALLY mean something and maybe we should head down to Barnes and Noble to pick up a book about Jungian psychology, or browse through 1001 Dreams Interpreted? My dreams are just as boring as anyone's , but last night, I had nightmare dreams with happy endings. And as a blog is a voluntarily reading experience, feel free to turn away at any time--I won't know!!!

Dream 1. At an amusement park with my siblings and my brother's girlfriend (I have actually been to an amusement park with this group before, so...). They get on a really rickety roller coaster that's shaped like a big bus and tell me "You aren't going to believe this ride...it'll blow your mind" but don't tell me a thing about what happens on it. All I know is that I heard a lot of screaming from this direction earlier. And the screaming was not happy or EXCITED. I sit in the front row, alone, and I don't want to be there. My seat buckle doesn't work. I can't get buckled in properly, so just before the ride takes off, I pull my emergency brake (?) and get off the thing. (This dream could also be an allusion to Final Destination 3, I'm realizing--if you've not seen the movie, please stop reading this and watch it immediately). Then I watch them all head up the first hill, relieved not to be on it. What happens as the ride picks up speed? They crash! Bodies fly off, smoke everywhere, innocent bystanders weeping and running under the ride scaffolding to collect the remains of their loved ones. I'm horror-stricken, relieved, devastated all at once. I was spared, but my family...they're goners.

Then, not two seconds later, the roller coaster bus with all the original passengers on it comes zooming out of some underground track. It was all a show, the audience was on the rollercoaster--a rollercoaster of emotions, that is! And everyone on board is laughing and saying "Don't cry!!" to the bystanders. And my brother says, "See don't you wish you got on?! It's an optical illusion!" So I punch him.

Dream 2. This dream is boring. Someone tells me to clean up my garden or my landlord will get mad. I fret about it--I don't have time or money to get new flowers (this is the nightmare part!). The next morning I wake up and someone has cleaned up my garden for me and planted new flowers and painted a picture of a growing palm tree--graffitti-style on my house. I peek over the fence to see my garden benefactor--he is wearing cut-offs and has a back tattoo of a dancing crab. Huh?!? I thank him, but don't have the heart to tell him I hate the graffitti--too Florida Keys for my taste. He goes off on a jog.

Saint Steve

In response to me turning off Steve Irwin's Crocodile Hunter before the show had ended, the six year old I babysit for said the following:

"I hate my life."

and later,

"Injustice!" (with tears and a power fist raised)

I have been keeping up the ruse that Steve Irwin is alive and well for many months, for this little boy's sake, mostly because he made Steve Irwin his imaginary friend. Then his mom told me that they had explained his death to him, and that he has since been praying to Steve Irwin.

I really should have let him watch to the end of the episode, I guess.

The Good, The Bad...The Queen

For posterity's sake, I'm going to discuss my mother's unnatural obsession with Queen Latifah, and then let the matter lie, so that the phrase "My mother loves Queen Latifah more than she loves me," will never again escape from my lips because I am now settled in knowing it's true, that she does love Queen Latifah more than me, and though it doesn't make sense and it doesn't seem normal, that's how life is sometimes and if Queen Latifah shows up at Thanksgiving, I'm just going to have to deal with it and pass her the turkey.

When did this begin? How did this happen? My initial guess would be that it was Chicago-era Queen that my mother first fell for, but it might even stretch before that to Living Single Queen, or maybe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Queen. But one thing's for sure: my mom loves that brassy attitude! She is fascinated by the lack of cellulite on her arms, which are big, and how does she do that? And her skin! And her smile! And that voice!

Then, as if the heavens were conspiring to make my mother the greatest Queen Latifah fan the world has even known, she makes a movie with Steve Martin. Could life get any better?! My mother posited that it could not! Though her good-for-nothing, tasteless children rolled their eyes during commercial previews and flatly refused to watch it, my mother watched it. Then Taxi, co-starring Jimmy Fallon. She's a taxi driver! The baddest!! Bad as in good and all that charisma and sauciness and still NO CELLULITE on her arms! And the Cover Girl franchise! Ease, breeze, and beauty personified! And the Pizza Hut commercials--consumerism at its best! Perhaps if you eat Pizza Hut you too will never have arm cellulite? Because Queen would not endorse an unhealthy, unwholesome, or unsaucy product.

Then, The Ultimate-- my mother recently attended a Queen Latifah concert at the Count Basie Theatre. Queen sang hits from the Dana Owens Album. For the uninitiated, Dana Owens is Queen's real name (I am sometimes quizzed on my knowledge of this fact at random moments during family functions, and thus will never forget it). My parents sat fifth row center and my mother was spellbound throughout. Our post-concert phone conversation went something like this:

Me: Did she rap?

Mom: No, just standards. I really think she's the Ella of our time.

Me: I hope she doesn't die of a cocaine overdose.

Mom: ELLA! Queen will never die of a cocaine overdose! You're thinking of Billie Holiday.

Me: Oh. Yeah.

Mom: At one point in the concert she took a break to put on lip gloss, and I yelled out "Cover Girl!" and she posed!!!!!

Me: Oh my god.

Mom: Yes, she posed! Because I yelled "Cover Girl!" And she heard me!

Me:-------

Mom: I tried to get a t-shirt, because you know, this is MY THING.

Me:--------------------------------

Mom: But they didn't have any concert t-shirts. They were all Queen Latifah as a Cover Girl.

Me: I'll get you one for Christmas.

Mom: She lives in Colts Neck. She could come for Christmas!!!!

Me:-----------


(The End)

I'm exhausted. Now you see what I deal with.

Rennie's Car Wash: A Cautionary Tale

It's a rare occasion that I care for my car. Mostly I treat it like a gypsy caravan/covered wagon of sorts and there are things like 1200 Dasani water bottles, vacuum cleaner accessories, and a lone slipper in the trunk. But I love Armor All upholstery wipes and Rain-Ex. Rain-Ex is amazing--the rain just beads off--no replacement wipers until the absolute 11th hour! Having purchased these products to revive my car's inside and windshield, I decided to make it a day and get Stealthy Mighty (named bestowed by my mother)a much-deserved bath.

So I went to Rennie's to do a "fake" car wash. Rennie's is a gas station/convenient store with attached drive-thru car wash, the kind with a machine you pay, rather than attendants, which is why it feels fake (the lack of witnesses to your vehicular responsibility). It's frightening though because you're all alone back there, because it tells you with "stop" and "go" lights what to do, and I always feel like human error will leave me stuck on the conveyor belt for all time because I put the car in Neutral instead of Park. But, I muster courage each time, knowing that within three minutes my car will look a little cleaner at least for a day, and I'll feel good about doing something I should be doing frequently. Anyway, after being pushed back and forth for a while between the octopus things and the suction things, the green light went on for me to exit. I commenced my exit. It was hot out and I was feeling claustrophobic, so before I fully exited the wash, I rolled down my windows. And... was promptly sprayed in the ear by a hose-full of water! Who designed this? NO WATER AFTER THE EXIT LIGHT GOES ON, PEOPLE. This should be an obvious design rule. I left the parking lot feeling like a wet dog, wishing there had been an attendant there to at least laugh at me or say "Gotcha!"

On my new immersion blender

Please join me in welcoming home my first immersion blender. It's a Kitchen Aid, the cadillac of immersion blenders, I think--and mine's an alarming fire-engine red. Though once assembled it looks slightly like an industrial-sized (possibly black market) model of something that's best hidden in a nightstand drawer, it is quite handy at doing what it is designed to do, as I discovered last night. That's right-- I made SOUP! My favorite food is now going to be a self-improvement challenge with the inauguration of SOUP'S ON SUNDAYS. This way, I have soup at the ready all through the week and I will become a soup-making genius in approximately six months. So I end up waiting until really late to make my soup because I'm not great at time management? So I'm wearing sunglasses while cutting onions to deter the tears? It gets done. My first attempt was White Cheddar Corn Chowder from Martha and it was swell enough. I had to put a lot of salt and pepper in it. But the recipe called for grated white cheddar on top and you could probably do that to a boiled boot and it would still taste okay. At least to me, because I love cheese! But I will not be getting a goat, sheep, cow anytime soon--Cut the Cheese Tuesday is a little more than I can handle at this juncture. Note to those new to immersion blenders: DO NOT lift the the blender to the surface of the soup in order to blend that area. This makes a mess. Not to mention the second-degree burns.

Next gadget on my wish list: Paper shredder. Though I wonder if my immersion blender might pull double-duty if placed inside a paper-filled wastebasket.

On Sailors

Today I watched a bit of Anchors Aweigh with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. In it, they're sailors on leave in "Mexico" where you can get "enchiladas with all the fixins'" (an indigenous phrase?) and there are painted backdrops of Mayan Ruins. They meet an enchanting waitress/folk singer and both fall in love with her. Tough choice for the senorita: Frank's the shy, skinny geek with a voice of gold; Gene's a "sea wolf"(after any lady at any port of call, all the confidence, all the right moves, and some serious dancing shoes). Which begged the ever-important question: given the choice, would I rather be wooed by a sailor who could dance or a sailor who could sing?

Dance, I decided. But the sailor would have to be Gene Kelly. (Though, if the sailor was the sailor-member of The Village People, I wouldn't have to choose one or the other. But that, I suppose, is an even longer pipe dream.)

I have been catching a lot of TCM. Christopher Walken did a short piece on why Gene Kelly is his favorite actor--of course, there was all the talk about the dancing, Singing in the Rain, rugged facial scar, etc...but he also mentioned some Old Hollywood adage that went along the lines of: "Start singing when you can't speak anymore; start dancing when you can't walk anymore." Which, at face value, sounds like something that might be scrawled on a watercolored, inspirational poster for women. But after I heard him say that, and later when I watched Gene Kelly dance in Anchors Aweigh--it really was true--he is better-than-walking. It's completely natural. When Frank starts singing, it's lovely, but it's "time for singing." Everything else stops for the message and the song about moonlight and clouds and her beautiful face--so I don't know if that's better-than-talking. But when Gene starts dancing--it's living, man. Birds are singing louder, the sun's shining brighter, everything moving and happy. My only hope is that I was able to endow the audiences of my early tap dancing recitals with the same sort of life-affirmation( murmurs of "That girl's just got to dance!" sweeping through the crowd, followed by "Do those girls just gotta dress like little sluts?").

***Shocking revelation***
After checking to make sure there is, in fact, a sailor-member of The Village People, I have discovered the following: The Village People change costumes! There isn't a standard line-up for their album covers or photo shoots (my previous understanding of it was as follows: sailor, cop, Native American, construction worker, biker...). In fact, sometimes there are two policemen (one with helmet, one with octagonal cap) and no sailor! Sometimes there is an army-man, no sailor. You'd think there would be a fight over the sailor costume, not that it would be cast aside. What about "In the Navy"?