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I always think it's important to count one's blessings this time of year. For one thing, it's humbling to remind oneself of all the good things we have in life. For another, it really irritates all those Eeyores out there that seem to thrive on being miserable. I'm always up for aggravating the Eeyores! My Thanksgiving week started with dinner on Sunday at church with my in-laws. I was thankful that we were all able to get together before the holiday. My friend Marilyn was there, and I was thankful she got to see my platinum hair live and in person. (I would dye my hair later in the week, and while it changed from platinum to dark platinum and not the golden blonde that the box promised, I was thankful it wasn't red and my roots were gone.) There were a lot of kids running around at church, hopped up on brownies and sugar, and I was thankful that none of them were coming home with me. (See? You can find blessings everywhere you look!) I only had to work three days this week -- you'd better believe I was thankful for that! My boss took my coworker Jen and I out to lunch, which was, of course, a blessing. I ate too much, but now that I have my grandmother's saddlebags parked on my hips, I have the perfect place to store all that extra fat. Thanks, Grandma! Jason had asked for Thanksgiving off to go hunting with my father. Dad had a pretty serious health issue earlier this year, so I am eternally thankful that he's still here to go hunting with Jason. Jason wound up having to go in to work even though he'd requested the day off back in January, and reminded his boss every month since then that he absolutely, positively could NOT work Thanksgiving morning, but thankfully, they were able to work out a compromise. That compromise involved Jason staying up all night Thanksgiving Eve to go in to work at 1:30 AM, but I'm thankful that he didn't get into a car accident on the way to work and to my parent's house. And when he started to hallucinate due to sleep deprivation, I'm thankful that he didn't hurt anyone when he shot at the unicorn he swore he saw. I'm on my way to my parents' house now. I'm thankful the spinach dip I made came out pretty tasty. And I'm thankful that my mother, my sister and I all managed to get our hands on a Hartford Courant, so we won't fight over the Black Friday fliers. Jason is napping now, and I'm thankful he managed to fit a nap in. And I'm thankful that the grocery store ran out of turnips, which are now off the menu this year. All in all, it looks like were going to have a very blessed holiday. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 
Not a unicorn.
I can’t live without my iPhone. That’s right; I’m one of those people. I actually feel a little twinge of sadness in my heart when I see people pull out their cell phones and they’re not iPhones.
I’ve had some people argue with me that their Blackberry/Palm/Droid is just as good as my iPhone, and I feel sorry for them. No, it’s not. Really, it’s not, and you just won’t understand all the wonderfulness that is the iPhone until you spend a little quality time with one. For me, it took twenty seconds, and then I was in love. Yes, I know. It’s an inanimate object, not a person, or a puppy. However, the day I got my iPhone was probably the third best day of my life. (After the day I married Jason and the day I divorced my first husband, whom I will simply refer to as Dickhead. In case you were wondering.) I actually fought Jason on getting an iPhone. It was just a phone, I said. They’re too expensive, I argued. They look stupid, I insisted. But one weekend, we were participating in an MS Walk for my friend Renee, and the woman we were walking with, Jodi, let me play with her iPhone for just a few … precious … moments. She had a virtual reality aquarium on her phone, and she let me clean the green mildew off of her virtual fish tank. The screen made scrubbing noises as I swiped my finger over the display. “I have to have this. Now,” I said, turning to Jason. We walked right off the MS path and turned left into the AT& T store. We took out a second mortgage on the home to pay for the phones (Don’t judge us. It was worth it.) I immediately found a fishing app and downloaded it. And an app to grow my own zombies on a virtual reality zombie farm. And an app to track my story submissions. Eventually, I downloaded apps that make farm animal noises, sense if ghosts are present, burn computer-generated ants with a computer-generated magnifying glass, pop bubble wrap, create balloon animals, squash cockroaches, and more. And of course, I downloaded TapFish, the virtual reality fish aquarium that started this whole ball rolling. I was in love. Eventually, as with any new toy, the novelty wore off. I was horrified the first time I forgot to feed my fake fish, and I found them floating on top of my iPhone fish tank. It was a little bit cool, though, to be able to flush them down the computer simulated toilet bowl. I vowed to do better, however, with my virtual reality bird cage. (Update: I didn’t, the birds are dead, and the cage needs cleaning.) But new apps come out every day, and I can harvest zombies, play sudoku, and update my twitter status no matter where I am. Jason called me just the other day while I was in the middle of reeling in a 35 pound striped bass with my fabulous fishing app, which has yet to lose its appeal. Wait a minute. This thing’s a phone, too? Uh oh. I think I just figured out the iPhone’s only flaw. I've been feeling a little old lately. It started about a month ago, when one of the employees at work was commenting about how she was having a bad hair day. I told her not to be ridiculous - when she started showing up to work with a hairdo like Andy Warhol's, that's when she should worry. "Yeah, um, I don't know who that is," she replied, and I wanted to cry. I was now so old that my jokes about a famous artist's notoriously bad hair were obsolete.
I'd forgotten about this until Jason and I went to a comedy club last weekend. One of the comedians did a five minute routine about how 'Gen-Y'ers are not aging gracefully. Uh-oh. That's a whole generation younger than me - how can they be aging at all, gracefully or otherwise? That would imply that I am! The final nail in my coffin was when I was rocking out to this new radio station on the way to work. Every song that came on was something I loved and knew all the words to. It was fantastic! I listened eagerly to hear the call letters of the station. It turned out to be 100.5 - easy listening, light (or is it lite?) rock radio. Sigh. I was grumpily ranting to my mother and sister on the way to New York about all the fresh young whippersnappers around today and how they dress like hooligans. My mother, who has been handling getting older a lot better than I have, shook her head at me. "Come on," she said, pulling me by my ear. "You need to spend a few minutes in a very special place." She dragged me into the Disney Store at Times Square. My sister and I hugged the plush Dumbo dolls and giggled over the Mickey Mouse slippers. One of the salesmen helped me find the magic wand of my favorite princess (Belle from Beauty and the Beast, of course) and when I waved the wand in front of a magic mirror, Belle appeared with a special message just for me! We found poseable dolls and big girl size tiaras. We had the time of our lives! Okay, so maybe I AM getting older. But ten minutes surrounded by the magic of Disney will turn anyone into a kid again! PS- Be sure to order your copy of Dark Things IV today - including my fabulous short story, "People Person"! I’ve been a platinum blonde for about a week now, and I’ve started to notice some changes in how people treat me. I’d always heard that blondes have more fun, but since I had considered myself a blonde before the dye job, I’d assumed that I was just used to all of the fun I was having that my brunette counterparts were not, and that’s why I didn’t notice it. It turned out my life was a lie. Before I went Marilyn, I was having exactly the same amount of fun as a brunette.
I first realized that something was up when I went grocery shopping the day after Halloween. I had my shockingly flaxen hair up in a pony tail, and I will admit to wearing lipstick, since the hair washes out my skin. I went to the Stop & Shop deli and ordered turkey breast. “You don’t want the Boar’s Head,” the guy behind the deli whispered. “The store brand is just as good and a dollar a pound cheaper.” Umm … okay. The cranky lady that I’d ordered turkey from last week didn’t bother to tell me that. I ordered the cheaper turkey and thanked him. “No, thank you,” he winked, and I went on my way. I had to admit that was a little weird. I had trouble reaching the toilet paper that was on sale since it was on a very tall end display. As I was on tippy-toes trying to reach it, three stock boys came running over to help me. “Please don’t strain yourself, miss,” one said, while the other two stood on his shoulders to retrieve the toilet paper for me. Miss? Nobody’s called me miss since I hit twenty-five, and that was over a decade ago. Wow, I thought. They sure are helpful at this store! At the register, my Pepperidge Farms Cinnamon Raisin Bread didn’t ring up at the right price. The cashier gave me a dopey smile. “I don’t think the whole wheat variety is two-for-one,” he cooed (yes, cooed) at me. “But I’ll give it to you anyway.” Between the dollar I saved on turkey, the buck and a half and a neck injury I saved on the toilet paper, and the free loaf of bread, I was pretty sure my box of hair dye had just paid for itself. I decided to try my new superpowers somewhere else, to see if it was really the hair or if the Stop & Shop crew had just gotten a pep talk regarding customer service. I walked in to McDonalds. “A fish filet and a diet coke, please,” I said, batting my eyelashes. “That’ll be $5.12,” the grumposaurus at the register replied. Okay, so my blonde superpowers did not seem to have any effect on women. Sighing, I pulled out my wallet. “Let me get that for you, miss,” said the twenty-year-old hunk of burning love in line behind me. Miss! There was that word again! The shiny platinum of my head must be deflecting attention away from my wrinkles! “No, son, I’ll pay for that,” said his father, elbowing his kid out of the way. The dad really was a lot closer to my age, so I suppose that was more appropriate. “Really, miss, you should eat more. You’re practically skin and bones.” I’m pretty sure he was going to add “and boobs” to that last sentence, but since he'd just called me skinny, I let it slide. “Oh, you silly boys,” I giggled. Apparently, my IQ was dropping rapidly. “Thank you so much!” (Not so stupid as to pass up a free lunch!) I wiggled my way back to the car and called my sister. We love a good bargain in my family, and my sister was duly impressed by my free filet o’fish. When she heard about my free loaf of bread, she hung up on me. I waited a moment and called her back on her cell phone. “Why’d you hang up on me?” I pouted. A strange man resembling my Grandpa Duffy saw me pout and knocked on my window to hand me his fries. “I’m on my way to the pharmacy,” Kim explained. “I figure for the price of one box of ‘Maximum Blonde’, we can cut our grocery bill in half!” Always thinking, my sister. And if anyone asks, why yes, of course this is our natural color! |
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