It's been hot and sticky and gross outside for the past few days. Personally, I try not to let the hot weather get to me. Here are some of the ways that I've been able to beat the heat:

1. For outside chores that can't be put off, like weeding the garden, I like to call up my sister and remind her that I would never have broken my kneecap if she hadn't mentioned to my husband a year ago that she'd taken her kids ice skating. She's the one that planted the idea in Jason's head, and he subsequently insisted we go skating, and I wound up on crutches for four months and am still going to physical therapy. I find that if I cry out in pain every time I breathe while on the phone with my sister, it's usually enough to make her come over and weed the garden for me out of guilt (or to shut me up). I'm not totally heartless, though. I try to be good about shooing away the Japanese beetles that land on her after she's passed out from sunstroke amid the zucchini.

2. It pays to paper your neighborhood with flyers offering free housewatching during the summer while your neighbors are on vacation. When the Joneses stop by and ask me to feed their cat while they're in Disney World, I'm always willing to take their house keys. Then I move in to their home for a week, order porn on DirectTV, crank up the AC, and use their pool as my own personal bathtub. Sometimes, I even remember to feed their cat. However, I've found that most of my neighbors are total crankypants, and they rarely ask me to watch their house a second time. 

3. When the humidity has my hair looking like I'm trying to win a Diana Ross drag queen contest, I tell my friends that I've just paid hundreds of dollars for the latest in forward-fashion: the chia-perm.

4. Who wants to cook in this heat? Not me. I like to drive around town until I smell someone cooking on the grill. Then I walk across their yard, tell them meat is murder, and throw a pail of maggots over their barbequed chicken legs. This is usually enough to make them throw the meat at me in disgust. This way, I can scoop up my ready-made dinner, spicy BBQ chicken with a side of grilled maggots, without ever having to turn on the oven!  Win-win!

5. I do try to think of others when I'm relaxing in the neighbor's pool. I like to shampoo the neighborhood dogs with Nair to help them cool off during the summer heat. YOU wouldn't wear a fur coat in 90 degree weather; why would you make Fido do it? Though I have to admit, once Fido's bald as a cue-ball, he looks more like a Yoda.

Feel free to take any of these helpful heatwave hints and use them yourself. Sure, the neighbors have taken to throwing eggs at my house as they drive by, but since it's hot enough to fry an egg out there, it gets me out of cooking breakfast!

I'm not ashamed to admit I've watched the new Dallas series. In fact, I got a sneak peek of the first six episodes and wrote a review of the show (read it here)! See, my sister made me watch the old Dallas when I was about nine years old, and she must have made me keep watching it up until I was 18 and it went off the air. Seeing my old friends Bobby, Lucy, Ray, Sue Ellen, and J.R. on the new show made me realize how much I've missed them. So many of the life lessons I abide by today came from watching Dallas. For instance... 

1.   If you're going to shoot someone, make sure they're dead when you're finished.

2.  Sure, you can use your pretty face to marry money, but deep down, you'll always be Digger Barnes's daughter.

3.  That little old lady may look sweet, but you don't know if she's  bludgeoned her husband to death with a frozen leg of lamb, then cooked it up and served it to the police investigating the crime. (Wait. That might be a life lesson from Alfred Hitchcock.)

4.  Don't sleep with the hired help. That hot ranch hand might turn out to be your uncle.

5.  It's probably not a good idea to start getting drunk at 8 AM. But since I'm not married to J.R. Ewing, who am I to judge?

6.  Sometimes, when you think your life has turned to crap, it actually all turns out to be a bad dream.

So take it from me: tune in to the latest antics of J.R., Bobby, and Sue Ellen. You just might learn something useful!

In honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd share the reasons why my own Dad is the greatest father that ever lived. If you don't believe me, I will send him over to your house to beat you up. (Don't worry. Once he shows up at your front door, he'll probably talk your ear off, charm the heck out of you, and  then trap and skin all the fishercats in your yard.)

My earliest memory of Dad is of him lifting my sister and I up to touch the ceiling. This was amazing, of course, because not only was he the world's strongest man to lift us up that high, but he also helped me verify what I had suspected for a long time: that was a tiny stain, not a very patient spider, on the ceiling. Even back then, he was teaching me things. (I hadn't really believed Kim when she told me it was a spider to begin with. Really, I didn't. I did NOT! Moooooommm!)

It was Dad who helped me find my first car. I wanted a little MG. My father was a man of few words. "Hell, no!" he said. Then he found me a Ford Granada the size of a bus. It was this car (and the pepper spray Mom made me carry) that likely saved my life when my brakes failed in the downtown Bronx when I was 21. Dad was right. It was better to mow down bystanders with my hulking metal tank than to have a little sporty car that would have crumpled like a Kleenex as soon as I tapped that first pedestrian. (As I told the courts, repeatedly, my brakes failed. It's not like I could have avoided running over those thirty-six people foolish enough to be walking on 123rd Street at noon.)

As I get older, I still find myself relying on Dad. Recently, I took my car to a mechanic to get an estimate, because it was making a funny noise. The guy quoted me $2400 to fix it. Then I brought it to Dad, who happens to be a master mechanic. (I didn't bring it to him first because he's awfully busy and I didn't want to take advantage of him for the 3000th time in my life.) Dad fixed it for a total of $88 in parts. That's right. My Dad is the coolest dad ever!

Besides being able to rebuild engines and install brakes before breakfast, Dad can also split a cord of wood, shoot coyotes, and evaluate his stock portfolio, all while sitting at the kitchen table. I have seen him help a cow give birth, reel in a tuna from the shore, and catch a snapping turtle the size of a manhole without breaking a sweat. He can whip up dinner for  four from just a moldy head of cabbage and a deer's bladder. (It won't be a particularly tasty dinner with those ingredients, but my point is, nobody will ever starve with Dad around.) Most importantly, I have seen the women on Mom's side of the family start going gray at 19, and I have Dad's coloring. This one gift alone from Dad has kept Lady Clairol away for almost 40 years now.

I love you, Dad. Thanks for teaching me how to cast a line and to understand the NYSE and NASDAQ  and for your blond hair. And for teaching me, at four years old, that even when the world looks like a scary place full of spiders, you'll be there to show me  everything is okay.

Happy Father's Day!

I was looking forward to planting the garden this year. I come from a long line of farmers, and there's something about sowing and reaping that is just soothing to the soul. Plus, as I have previously mentioned here, I have many long, meditative conversations with Mr. Spock, Lieutenant Commander of the USS Enterprise, while planting and weeding. I had to admit, I'd missed that pointed-eared hobgoblin over the winter.
Jason tilled our plot, and I was ready to go , map in hand. I had the onions near the broccoli, the gourds in back near the eggplant, and the corn, of course, in a square section as opposed to rows so they would pollenate better. "Admirable," my Gardening Spock whispered softly when he saw my plan.
It was a long day of staking tomato plants, parceling out radish seeds, and forming mounds for the cucumbers. I accidentally stepped on one of the zucchini plants, breaking its stalk. "Leave it," Spock pronounced in my mind. "A stallion must first be broken before it can reach its potential." Sounded good to me. I mentally high-fived Spock and continued digging holes.
I was sweating, slightly sunburned, and definately dehydrated when I squatted down in the dirt to plant the potatoes. It was the last thing on my list, and I was feeling giddy. Out of nowhere, a mosquito the size of a Boeing landed on my back. I whipped around, trying desperately to remove it from my skin before it sucked me dry of blood. That's when I felt my knee—my bad knee—twist sideways. Uh-oh.
"The hell that's not good," Spock said. Truer words were never spoken.
I limped back in to the house, a little worried that my kneecap was now on the side of my leg. "That's not logical," Spock admitted in a monotone, and I thought, "No kidding, genius!" He suggested I try to push my kneecap back where it belonged. "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?" I shouted. My gardening Spock went silent. Clearly, I had offended the half-human part of him.
I know Spock isn't happy with me, what with the weeds coming in with the corn and me being unable to kneel to pull them up. But in this case, Spock isn't the Star Trek character for the job.
My appointment with Bones to fix my knee is Tuesday. Sometimes, you just have to be logical.

(with apologies to Nathan Schoonover, a genuine paranormal investigator and good friend.)

We've all seen the reality shows—ghost hunters, chasing shadows in dark buildings, trying to find out what, exactly, made that strange noise. Coming from a family of hunters, I find this whole concept of ghost hunting extremely unfair. A ghost, of course, has an extreme advantage while on a hunting excursion.

First of all, ghosts hover and glide instead of walking like mere mortals. They don't have to worry about a deer or moose hearing them try to sneak up on them. Plus, they can hang out pretty much wherever they want, so there's no reason to build cumbersome deer stands that could potentially be spotted by a clever deer at any time. Honestly, I don't know why ghosts even bother hunting, because it doesn't sound like much of a challenge for them.

The only potential problem a ghost might have while on a hunting trip would be if the sheet they're wearing needs a good washing. Lord knows, many a hunt has been ruined by a moose getting a good whiff of moldy sheet when a ghost happens to be upwind of their prey. If I were a ghost, I'd probably hunt naked. But that's a whole different blog entry.

Personally, I think a ghost would have a better career using their hunting skills in a nice sniper or hitman position. They could float into the target's room, get a shot off, and disappear in a cloud of vapor before the cops arrive on the scene. Plus, even if they mess up and leave the weapon behind, they have nothing to worry about—ghosts don't have fingerprints.

To me, there's no excitement in watching ghost hunter shows. Give me an episode of Casper the Bounty Hunter any day.