Ohhhhh, good golly. Just typing her name makes me duck a little. For a two-year period of time, I could set my father off like a powderkeg by just the mere mention of her name. Tina Brown. Former editor of Vanity Fair, and at the explosive times I am referencing, editor of the New Yorker magazine. Holy Fuckin’ Toledo. You would have thought the AntiChrist himself had ridden up from the Bowels of Hell, in a black carriage drawn by devil dragons and deposited my father’s subscription in his mailbox.

“FUCKINGTINABROWN*THATROUNDHEELED BITCH” would explode through my phone, which, if you know my father, “round-heeled bitch” is one of his favorite gender-degrading remarks. I had to have him explain it to me when I was a youngster, learning the Art of Cussing at his knee.(“Because her heels are round, Jennifer, she’s always falling over backwards into bed with men. A whore.” Gotcha! Thanks, Pop!) He also taught me to deliver lines like, “You scum sucking pig” or, “You big gob of snot” with such evil seeping through my voice, he finally forbade me from saying it anymore. Why did he teach me this? I have no idea. But it sure would have given me a leg up as a merchant marine, had I chosen that field instead of advertising.

In any event, GoddamnTina Brown, every time Dad’s inner eye flared up over her, I’m sure she felt it, walking down the street in NYC, hailing a cab, a flush of heat blazing up through her upraised arm, a slight buckling of a knee. She probably thought nothing of it, not realizing half a country away, a middle-aged hippie was seething and roiling with rage at her incompetence & directing a white-hot fury in her very specific direction. (This is the same man who had no restraint in his equal, if not greater, white-hot rage for that one and only big gob of snot Newt Gingrich. Maybe Arlen Specter. I love my dad.) And, perhaps, I tell this nugget of a story to illustrate the origins of my OWN wound-uppedness, when I get so pissed, small flecks of spit form in the corners of my mouth and I blink rapidly to cool my brain.

Well, finally, GoddamnTina Brown went away, on to ruin other shit, and the shambles she left in her wake was still the New Yorker, the pinnacle of literary goodness and essay excellence. I had a sales rep in from the magazine a couple months ago, and he had just started his rep job for the pub. I gave him a half-wry smile as I looked at his business card, his name printed in that distinctive-font the masthead is typed in every week. “That’s something to be proud of, that right there,” as I pointed at it. “That’s the cache you represent.”

Sure beats being a scum-sucking pig. Or a round-heeled bitch.

I have spent the past two days mashing up meat with my hands. Yes, yes, I have. On Sunday, I decided that enough time had passed since the Great Swedish Meatball Debacle of 1988, and I would attempt, once more, to make meatballs. JWo had been pining for a meatball sub for a couple of days, and I thought, Well, WhattheHell? I surely could make a homemade one that would tantalize his palate…

Brimming with confidence, I bought burger & spicy italian sausage, mixed it up with parsley, italian breadcrumbs, minced garlic, egg, and black pepper. Made mounded balls (heh), baked them in the oven at 400 degrees until done, simmered them in some Cascone’s marinara (hey, I wasn’t up for EVERYthing from scratch), slathered them into toasted buns (heh heh), topped with provolone & back in the oven until toasty-melty-goodness was achieved.
YUMMEH!

While I was grocery shopping, I picked up ingredients for one of my favorite meals, one I haven’t made since I left home, I think. Stuffed cabbage rolls. Ohhhh, goody gumdrops, I must have some Polish blood in me somewhere, I LOVE those things. Beef + rice, plus more egg, onion, seasonings, and a couple tablespoons of tomato soup. Packed into par-cooked cabbage leaves, toothpick-secured, topped with more tomato soup & cooked to completion in a dutch oven on the stove. MORE YUMMEH!

As I was mashing and mushing and massaging and blending all of the meat & other ingredients tonight, I thought about how I’d now done this two nights in a row, and how I’m NOT making a habit of it. The payoff is great, but the manhandling of the meat is – well – kinda icky.

YOU just go ahead and read ALLLLLL the double entendres into this as you will. Because I know you will. In the meantime, I will explain the Great Swedish Meatball Debacle of 1988: our Swedish exchange student, Maria & I decided to MAKE this dish, since she was, after all, Swedish. So we made the meatballs as instructed, but these were small balls, sauteed in a frypan. Apparently we were not the experienced chefs, for we did not know we were supposed to DRAIN the pan or pat the balls & degrease them. (OK, I see you out there TITTERING.) So we made the creamy white sauce, and it became two-toned, cream and ORANGE from all the grease, and my father gave it the hairy eyeball & made himself a peanut butter sandwich, and we were mortified. After all that work, we’d done-gone & destroyed her Swedish heritage in one evening. Up until Sunday, I hadn’t made meatballs since. Hey, it only took me 17 years to get past that failure. Should have a field day with my therapist over THAT one, hm?

Happy Halloween!
I’ve always liked Halloween a lot, more so as an adult, since we really didn’t do a lot of trick-or-treating when I was little. I’ve gotten maniacal at times, carving elaborate pumpkins, and working up clever costumes. Some of my favorites include:

Wearing a wig, bathrobe, slippers, and carrying a martini glass. When people asked what I was supposed to be, I shrieked, “I’M YOUR MOTHAH! YOU DON’T RECOGNIZE YOUR OWN MOTHAH???” This costume came to be during the Great Halloween Blizzard in Minneapolis, since the weather hit with 36 inches of snow in a day & a half, and our shopping areas were rather limited.

Wearing a brown corduroy jacket, looking prim & proper, carrying a small basket with a tea towel in it. Again, the response to what I was supposed to be? “I’m Martha Stewart, and I’m better than you.”

All black, black feather boa, sign around my neck with “Nevermore” (and in tiny print, “You can quote me on that”.) That was when I first moved to Kansas City and was living in temporary housing without all my crafting supplies at hand. Hey, it was literary.

Then, the best costume I’ve done – I’ve done it twice, in fact. I won a contest in Minneapolis with the first one, and I won a $500 contest here in KC with the second one. I threw the costume out when I left the last job, since I was going IN A HURRY, and I have the knowledge that yes, I can make it again & again & it’s always a winner. Even though I am loyal to Colgate, this brand works better:

On the back, I did have the instructions, including “Squeeze from the bottom up”. Heh. I also think it’s a bit of a mixed message, to hand out candy while representing good oral hygiene. However, my dentist would be very proud.

You only floss the teeth you want to keep! Remember that after you swipe all the good chocolate tonight! :)

Twice a year, I have to get out my owner’s manual for the car to figure out how to change the clock. I’ve tried too many times while driving, to NO AVAIL, and I wind up being frustrated as hell, that two buttons outwit me every time.

I do love the fall time change, what with “getting the hour back” and waking up and it actually being early, but changing all the clocks is a pain in the butt. I am glad some things actually have figured out how to automatically change on their own, like the DVR, computer and the VCR. I felt old this morning, making that observation (“One less thing to do!”)

I’m off to spend the ‘extra’ hour cleaning out the garage – yes, I know how to rock it out on the weekends, party people. That and all my knitting! I’ve skipped middle-age & gone straight to geriatric excitement.

Shots of Metamucil with Geritol for everyone! I’m buyin’!

We went to Halloweekends last night, where they have several haunted houses/”experiences” and you can also ride all the amusement park rides & eat funnel cake.

My two favorite moments from the evening: after the first haunt (Camp GonnaGitchaWitchaHatchet), Kristin was yelling at me about how the scaring was all my fault, how I made her take this job, etc., etc., and THE ENTIRE TIME she is walking & talking & shaking her fist at me, THERE IS A TRICKED-OUT GHOUL directly over her shoulder, silently stalking her, four inches from her FACE. OH. MAH. GAWD. I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t warn her, and then GhoulBoy swooped in and much screaming ensued, and finally, to make the Ghoul leave her, I pointed ahead and said, “Hey, go get our friend Jimmi.” Which he did, even though I thought she was far enough out of the zone he wouldn’t be able to run up and scare the pants off her, which is exactly what he did.
Sorry, Jimmi.

Second favorite moment came around 9 p.m., when we were waiting in line, and I said, “Whoa. All my stress from this week is GONE.” All the laughing, screaming (I’m hoarse today, and I can only imagine how Kristin & Jimmi are doing) and walking was enough to drain all the tension & bad stuff from my body. We got home around midnight and collapsed – today is for puttering & knitting, tomorrow for cleaning, and then we get back on that horse & ride it again. Too bad Halloween’s only once a year. I could use the scream therapy a little more often….

We’re off to Halloweekends tonight. We were supposed to go last weekend, but the rain, cold and damp, and general exhaustion from the Yarn Dyeing Party prevented us from going. But tonight, we’re off to the haunted houses at the amusement park. We had a behind-the-scenes tour a couple weeks ago, and the photos from that adventure can be seen on my Flickr account – here and here.

Happy Friday, everyone! I figure after the insane week of work I’ve had, screaming my head off is probably cheaper than intense therapy, or a weekend at Two Rivers…..

Aragorn

Putting your appointed path ahead of any inner conflicts, you make your own rules for the benefit of all.

If my life or death I can protect you, I will.

Aragorn is a character in the Middle-Earth universe. There is a description of him at TheOneRing.net.

Click on the picture to take the quiz yourself!

thanks to the Knitting Cybrarian for this link!

JWo has a thing for Gwen Stefani. If she had big knockers, she’d be a serious threat to Jennifer Tilly in the JWo-Hotpants-DeathMatch.

It was a year or two ago, but I still remember it, because it was an awesome compliment…. I think I was whining a little about myself, and he just said, “But, Jennifer, you’re EXACTLY like Gwen Stefani! You’re just not blonde & skinny!” And knowing my hubby likes the bigger-boned gals anyway, that was the best compliment, ever.

Now I need to assemble my posse of Harajuku Girls. And find a drum majorette uniform.

James has Parent-Teacher Conferences today & tomorrow – long days for him, and every year, I have my flashbacks to PTCs of my own. I used to dreeeeead them. Dread, dread, dread. Sitting there with my parents (or sometimes, just my Dad), listening to everything about me, categorized, summed-up, and presented for consumption.

It’s not that I was a terrible child, or student. Quite the opposite – but I wasn’t perfect, and while perfection itself was never stated as the “goal” in our house, excellence, striving to do better, and outpacing everyone else were the desired accomplishments. To me, in those meetings, the things I was already doing well were in the “yes, fine, that’s expected” pile, and the areas of improvement were cartoon-like huge. I’ve spent a lot of years since trying to find a bit more balance.

Not surprisingly, there were always two areas that got addressed during my Tour of Duty through the public school system – but the surprising part was how much I actually didn’t care about them. Even in 4th grade. I felt terrible about being called on the carpet for them, the embarassment & fear I might be in trouble, but the actual behavior? PFFFT?! What-EVAH, bitches. That behavior being, of course, excessive socializing (talking, passing notes) and being unorganized/messy.

I laugh, remembering that particular 5th grade PTC. It was just my Dad, and Mrs. Haller, the disciplinarian from hell, who proudly displayed a paddle each year with the warning she WOULD break it over someone’s butt that year. Oh, and she did. She of the long fake fingernails that would dig into your shoulder, or grab your ear. (You youngsters today have no idea what you missed out on! LOL!) The topic came around to my desk. I can still see it. I have to laugh at the memory of that image: of course I would take a 12″ x 24″ space, meant to house just a pile of books & notebooks, and turn it into a Vortex of Chaos. Papers hanging out, everything about it said “disheveled”. So they started cooking up a threat for me, how could they make me more organized? And my father turned and looked at me and said, “We’ll have you wear a sandwich board that says, ‘I AM A SLOB’.” Of course, Mrs. Haller agreed whole-heartedly with THAT one, because I already had enough issues fitting in, surely this would be the motivation I needed to keep my desk clean.

Now, before you get too worried, I never had to wear a sandwich board. And it did worry me a little, though I think I looked at my father with eyes that said, “Are you fucking kidding me? SURELY not, dear father.” But mentally, I was already thinking about how I could possibly SIT in my desk chair while wearing a sandwich board. (Could I set it to the side at times? Hang it off the front of my desk?) And how I’d sit at the lunch table, or how I could play on the swings at recess with it. Because for me, it wasn’t a question of changing that messy-desk behavior, it was how I was going to adapt to these new challenges placed upon me.

Did I ever mention before that “stubborn” also came up a lot at these conferences?