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Shit and Shit

I like the desert.  I can scream,

"WHY THE FUCK WOULD ANYONE STAND IN LINE TO BUY SWEATERS AND SHIT?!" and it would be okay.  I don't, because I'd rather hear the coyotes howl,

"WHY THE FUCK ARE YOUR DOGS EATING OUR POOP!? WHAT ARE YOU FEEDING THEM THAT MAKES COYOTE SHIT LOOK GOOD?!"

It's all relative.  

Waxing the Short Bus

 You won't catch me agreeing with that pasty conservative weevil on much, but on child labor laws, the Newt and I are like two nits on a nog.  Our tastes are the same. 

I don't care if they do away with child labor laws completely, to be frank.  Public school janitor service is perfect for most public school children.  Infact, don't stop there - I say let the brighter kids teach the classes:  Sweeping for Beginners,  Vomit Sawdust The Right Way, Toilet Plunging for Dummies (remedial classes).... You don't have to be that bright these days to be overqualified. AND the good news is that a semi-intelligent 12 year old can smack the living shit out of a smartass 10 year old for not paying attention and no questions asked, everyone is a winner. 

The only sad thing is that kids just grow up too fast.

Heads you Lose

Carlos and I hike at night in the foothills.  Sometimes it takes awhile for one's eyes to adjust enough to not trip and be laughed at by one's much more fit and coordinated adult boy. Still, I'm a faster hiker/walker than most people, him included, so the constant tripping makes us more even.

Lately there has been a near full - full moon and enough light to barely see the trail.  Shadows.  It's beautiful and mildly eerie so that my pulse never quite goes down to it's regular hiking rate.  I'm always pretty certain that with every click into this hike, we're a few words,  dogs... one big young man away from me being disemboweled by something hungry and ruining Christmas.

"If I get eaten by a mountain lion, I want my head preserved and kept in a jar. A festive jar. I want to be a center piece for every family dinner or occasion that deserves a head in a jar from now until ... the next Mother's Head takes my place."

"Ok."

Carlos is a man of few words. He wishes he had inherited this trait from me during these long hikes.

He leaves in January for the Navy.  I won't hike alone on those trails at night.  I'm not brave enough. I've hiked with my son since he was born.  During his teenage years he was not a fan, but I'd make him go and usually he'd talk. The most words I'd ever get out of him.  We didn't start hiking at night until recently. It's not a workout for him. He's just being nice.  He knows what it means to me.

"After you leave, I'll never do this. It's sort of ...scary.  It will be another thing I'll miss about you," I tell him.

I remind him how he used to be afraid of a lot of things. Most things.

"You wouldn't let me read you those insipid 'Goosebumps' books, thank god...you kept stopping me at words like 'midnight' and 'goosebump'..."

"Yup." he answers.

"You were afraid of most of the rides at the Fair, so we never went."

"Yup."

"You were afraid of that talking Barney doll that Cindy gave you for Xmas...but then so was I..."

"Uh- huh."

"You were afraid of the DRY CREEK HIKE during DAYLIGHT HOURS!"

It's always a creepy hike. Very remote. Stretches of high granite rocks towering above the trail.  Half eaten deer or elk carcasses.  It feels farther away from the top of the food chain than I like.

"Yup."

"And now you want to be a fucking NAVY SEAL?" I say, tripping.

"Yeah. Well, it's been awhile since I was afraid of the word 'midnight', Mom," he says, helping me up. 

Yup.

Thanks Babs You Bitch

When I drink I agree to go to people's Holiday Parties. 

Last night, several glasses of wine, plus a whiskey drink into the evening,  I agreed to go to my good friend Deanah's Thanksgiving 'Feast'...

'SURE! I'll go! It will BE FUN! What can I BRING!?"

I was, as I do, channeling someone named Barbara Gushington whom everyone calls Babs; a woman with one of those stupid bi-level hair shelves, who wears lip liner badly and reads her junk mail before SHREDDING IT.  As if anyone would want to steal her bullshit SAM'S CLUB identity and end up on the business end of a Mary Kay cosmetic. Babs loves parties! 

It takes a shit ton of alcohol to get me there. And then I HOPE that I left my fly open for the rest of the evening just to retain some dignity.

I probably touched Deanah's arm, but I don't remember.  Thankfully.

Deanah asks me every year for Thanksgiving and I always polititely decline,

"I can't. I hate Thanksgiving. It seems needy to be giving thanks over a plate of cranberry sauce and something known as Candied Yams...WTF are you people thinking? We should go to a casino and apologize while plugging wads of cash into the Wheel of Fortune slot machines until there is nothing left but Friday."

I like casinos.  I like giving BACK to the natives.  Since they refuse my blankets.

I have not actually GONE to a Thanksgiving dinner since circa 2000 when Deanah had her Vegan Feast, thanks given to the phase her oldest daughter was going through, I had to rejoice gratitudinally over Tofurkey, seed balls, and a carrot cake that still had the leafy tops on. 

Deanah has 106 friends. They all cook complicated and huge, aesthetically pleasing side dishes and desserts.  They 'mingle' and have normal, civilized, politically-charged, but always correct conversations.  They use napkins.

I hate Thanksgiving for too many reasons to list here and always have.  An entire holiday revolving around A MEAL.  Normally I eat standing up or walking. I hate sitting at a table, unless it's in a restaurant because then I don't have to CARE who is doing the dishes later.  Things are all equal in the restaurant.

Deanah is jewish and I know there are Forbidden Foods and complicated rules that govern how food can be prepared...like meat and cheese cannot co-habitate on the PLATE!! I found that out once by bringing 3 huge canadian bacon cheese pizzas to the synogogue on Getting To Know Your Somali Refugee Night.  The night I also discovered that CANADIAN BACON IS STILL HAM and FORBIDDEN just like it's yummier cousins BACON AND SAUSAGE.  I thought the Canadian part meant it was probably some other animal meat. Like a Canadian pig was actually what we call a Horse.

Or Babs.