All Rileyed Up

I may or may have not mentioned this before, but I collect tacky postcards. Who wants beautiful postcards of scenery? That’s what cameras and journals are for. I like tacky postcards because entertaining to look at and read, and provide a nice breath of humor in the stale air of sweaty speed-addicted truck drivers at creepy pit stop gas stations and travel centers.

Seeing as I’ve been collecting these postcards since 1995, I’ve got quite an array of them.

QUITE AN ARRAY.

I shall showcase a few at a time, ideally every Tuesday, hence the name. While my own collection is fairly formidable, if you have ones of your own that you would like me to ruminate on, please email it to me.

First up is the stereotypical Tacky Postcard, the kind intended to be tacky:

And the caption on the back? “Holy cow, is this line ever gonna move?”

These cards make me laugh, but not as much as the unintentional tacky cards, such as this one:

Buck Owens (rest in peace), what were you thinking????? No one is going to want to visit your Crystal Palace if this is what they’ll be subjected to.

The following postcard gets the tacky stamp because if you’re going to put a movie character on a postcard, then for the love of Quentin Tarantino, put a movie quote that the character actually said.

Hello, Mr. Blonde TOTALLY said that (challenge me – I dare you).

This is one of my very first tacky postcards and still among my all-time favorites:

A truck pulling a trailer on a road. Yippee!!!!!!!!! (BTW, the title of this postcard is “Natchez Trace Parkway, Parkway in Spring” and is intended to showcase the beautiful flora and fauna that graces said parkway)

This is a recent purchase that totally and in all other ways befuddles me:

Um, if the only things in your “city” are a DQ, an eponymous coffee shop and motel, and a gas station, then you do not need a postcard. You need, like, a population.

And no tacky postcard collection is complete without Elvis:

And I’ll have you know that particular postcard is an official Elvis Presley Enterprises-endorsed product. Which explains why he is thin—on which note, look! Recipes From Elvis’ kitchen!

Wow. I’m all shook up.

At Costco today, one of the sample tables is offering Bodega chocolate. They are selling chocolate covered apples. I think to myself, well, I am having friends over for dinner tonight. I can cut this into slices and everyone can have a piece. Hey, come on, what’s one little impulse buy?

Ahem, fourth circle.

I get all the way to the front of the line and there is a problem with the bar code on the white chocolate apple. There’s confusion. Scurrying. FIVE different people get involved in their attempt to figure it out. One of them actually gets on the loudspeaker and proceeds to have a CONVERSATION with the people in the office—
“The bar code on the white chocolate not working”
“We’ve been having that problem all morning”
“What should I do”
“Do the green code this scan that enter this…”
“Blah blah blah.”
“Blah.”

Meanwhile, all I hear is this–
“Why is buying this?”
“I know, what happened to that New Year’s Resolution to lose weight?”
“Seriously. Shouldn’t she take the failure to scan as a sign she shouldn’t be buying it?”

Everyone in the line is impatiently hmph-ing and tapping their toes and staring at me, so naturally, I regret opting out of a shower this morning. I also regret the choice of ragged jeans and old sweatshirt. But hello, it’s not MY fault that Costco can’t get their act together and feel the need to have an entire discourse on the fact that they can’t get their act together, making it all the more obvious that they don’t have their act together.

Obviously, I could have done away with the entire dilemma by simply saying “Nevermind,” but that just causes more irate-ness along the lines of “If it’s not that important, why did you get it in the first place” and “Fine, let’s just forget about all the trouble we’ve already gone to.”

I am home now. I am eating the apple. To hell with my dinner guests.


Check that. Third circle.

This guy is MY HERO.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs3kxzPYwHc]

I’m laughing so hard, I can’t even finish this sente…

Exactly WHAT do you think you’re doing?

Little No Limit and I are playing dress up.

And what are you supposed to be? A refugee?

Little No Limit said I looked nice with my ears back.

That bitch is in speech therapy. Her own mama don’t even understand her, and you gonna stand there and tell me she told you to put your ears back?

Quit picking on me! Just because she didn’t want to play with YOU doesn’t mean you need to pick on me.

Oh, you think I’m jealous of you trying to dress up as one of them? Next thing you know you’re going to be wearing matching sweaters.

You know, I personally think you would look nice in a matching sweater. Your mama did.

Oh hell no, you did not just go there. Them’s fightin’ words.

I could take you on. I’m 20 pounds heavier than you.

Bitch, please. Your mama is 50 pounds heavier than you and me together and that bitch couldn’t fight off the cat down the street. You know, the one with three legs and one eye?

(sniff) Don’t talk about my mama.

Don’t talk about me wearing them stupid ass sweaters.

Oh Riiiiiio, hey Riiiiiiiio, where aaaaare you?

Yip! Yip! (runs off)

(shakes head) Weak.

I just received this today. It made it through my spam filter and actually came through to my regular inbox. So it MUST be for reals, right?

FROM THE DESK OF VONARBURG CHRISTOPH
STANDARD CHARTERED BANK
PARIS-FRANCE.

Dear Sir/Madam (I LIKE TO GO FOR THOSE PERSONAL TOUCHES),

After my official enquiry from the chambers of commerce & industry
Office (THE COMPLETE YAHOO ADDRESS LIST) in
your country, I decided to email you but I did not disclose the
intention to
anyone else because of the delicate nature of the project.
(IF YOU TELL EVERYONE ELSE, THEN THEY WON’T FALL FOR IT EITHER)

I found your profile (ON MYSPACE) very interesting and decided to contact you
directly (BUT NOT OVER THE PHONE BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE TOO DIRECT)
through this private email to solicit (RIP YOU OFF) for your assistance (MONEY) and
guidelines (SIGNATURE) in
making a business investment and transfer of US$25,500,000.00 Million (CUE THE DR. EVIL LAUGH)
United
Stated Dollars to your country within the next few days being that
this
funds (I DON’T SPEAK ENGLISH SO GOOD) has been left unclaim (SEE WHAT I MEAN?) from one of our customers a long time ago (IF BY “CUSTOMERS” YOU UNDERSTAND ME TO MEAN “NO ONE” AND BY “A LONG TIME AGO” YOU UNDERSTAND ME TO MEAN “NEVER”)
and
they account has been in domant (I DON’T PRONOUNCE MY ‘R’ SO WHY SHOULD I INCLUDE IT IN THE SPELLING?) for years now. I contacted you to come
and
act as the owner of this account thereby getting it reactivated so that
we
can the fund transfered into your bank account for purpose of
investment to
our mutual benefit. (MUTUAL, AS IN “ALL ABOUT ME”) For your help ,This deal is on 50-50% basis
immediately
fund gets into your bank account. (I HAVE TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING THE ENGLISH EQUIVALENT OF 50/50 – IT MEANS I GET EVERYTHING AND YOU GET NOTHING, RIGHT?)

I presently work as a Senior Accounts Director, Offshore Mortgage &
Services (SADOMS = SMODAS = SUPER-MEGA ORATORIAL DEGENERATE AND SHYSTER)
with the above bank in France but at this moment, I am constrained to
issue
more details (BECAUSE THEN YOU MIGHT SEE THROUGH THE LIES) about this highly profitable business investment (SCAM) until I
get
your response by email.(PROOF OF GULLIBLILIY) Please take out a moment of your very busy
schedule
today (I SAW YOUR CALENDAR ON MYSPACE) to respond back to my private email (ASSOCIATED WITH NO REAL PERSON) below for more details.

Kind Regards, (PLEASE SEND MONEY ASAP)

MR .VONARBURG CHRISTOPH
Snr. Accounts Director, Offshore Mortgage & Services
Private Email: grubbybastard at yahoo dot com

I received a message from my writerly friend, Cindy AKA Distressed Jeans, asking me how my novel and other writing ideas are coming along, and I realized I never posted anything about her fabulous debut novel.

A Thousand Dollars for a Kiss.

This book is falls into the category of chick lit, and what hilarious chick lit it is. Barrett Greer is a blissfully superficial celebrity-worshipping southern Cali denizen who happens into a friendship with none other than Kat Savage, rocker chick extraordinaire on the brink of becoming a has been.

Kat is not the nicest person on the block, but is she truly mean-spirited or a product of fame that has fleeted (yes, I know that’s not a word, but it should be)? Barrett wills herself to believe the latter, and allows said rock goddess to manipulate her and use her to hysterical albeit destructive degrees (psst–I think that’s what you call dark comedy).

So, if you like Hollywood, celebrity bashing, and total girl drama, then this might be the book for you. Cindy also has two great blogs: Hello Dollface, which reviews makeup and beauty products, and Conversations with Writers, which reviews books and interviews authors. Read her! Love her! And there will be joy!

P.S. To answer Cindy’s question, I entered 2 short story writing competitions. My novel was not in good places (why am I changing the point of view? why? why am I mad at myself over this?????) and so I decided it would be a nice break to write some short fiction. I chose these two particular competitions because they are timed, meaning I wouldn’t get involved with these short stories for the next three months and completely lose my trail on the novel. The first one is a weeklong contest. Last Saturday, they set the genre and subject, and this Saturday, the story is/was due. 2500 word limit. My genre was ghost story and subject was a treehouse, neither of which are things I write about so this contest resulted in a very bizarre story that is in no way complete. Oh well, at least I didn’t get the fairy tale genre with the subject global warming (I didn’t even have to make that up). My other competition starts in one hour, and I am going to receive a subject and word count (anywhere from 500-200 word limit) and will have 24 hours to write it and send it back. Sounds fun, eh?

It’s my 75th post, and in my continuing trend of telling you 25 things about me every 25 posts, here are 25 things I’ve done today instead of working on my novel.

1. I wrote two articles for the news site that employs me. One about Forbes’ 20 Richest Women in Entertainment (who would have thought that Janet Jackson was richer than Julia Roberts?) and one about Isaiah Washington from Grey’s Anatomy calling T.R. Knight a homophobic slur(who knew someone could make the same exact mistake twice?).

2. I took Notorious F.O.X. and Her Name is Rio for a 1.5 mile walk.

3. I tried to cut my bangs. And failed.

4. I used bobby pins to conceal the bangs. I will continue this trend until I either a) leave the kids with someone while I go to a hair place or b) let it grow out. You can bet on option b happening sooner.

5. I put the rest of my hair in chopsticks.

6. I brewed and drank an entire pot of Yerba Mate. I put on another pot.

7. The Boy had a scratching fit over his eczema flare up, which resulted in the need for me to administer band-aids, medicine, and hugs.

8. The medicine knocked The Boy out, which I’m glad about because he didn’t sleep through the night on account of the eczema. I called preschool and notified them of the Boy’s forthcoming absence.

9. I called an Acupuncture place and made an appointment for them to see The Boy and discuss his eczema.

10. I drank the second pot of Yerba Mate.

11. I checked on the spider bite on my thigh. In addition to happy cows, California is home to happy spiders. Take a look at this bad boy:


This is not what bit me. I think this guy would have killed me. I don’t know when I was bitten, I just noticed a big lump o’ itchy a few days ago. The following day, there was a 1/2 inch-in-diameter red circle of skin surrounding it. The third day, the circle had grown to 1 full inch and the spot felt numb to the touch. I debated on going to see a doctor, but realized their assessment would likely be, “get back to us if you start to die.” Today, the spider bite is thankfully no longer red and looks to be on the mend.

12. Little No Limit needed a diaper change. After cleaning her up, I fixed her in a half up half down ponytail that made her look like a Dr. Seuss character. She liked it, and expressed her joy by strewing play-doh around the kitchen.

13. My friend called and asked if I wanted to meet up at 11:30 for a walk on the beach. I said sure.

14. The Boy woke up at 11:15 and had a meltdown because he wanted to see his dad. This led to a new bout of scratching.

15. I called my friend and let her know we will be going on no walk today.

16. I practically hogtie The Boy to let me cut his nails. Additional round of hugs.

17. I ate half a bag of Almond M&Ms for a late breakfast. Because I’m all about good health.

18. I said to myself “screw the tea” and brewed a pot of Peet’s Coffee. The smell alone made me salivate.

19. I sat down to work on my novel and wound up reading blogs. Commented on a few.

20. I read my third revision of a short story I started earlier this week. I lamented how many more revisions are necessary, and the thing is due tomorrow.

21. I checked the time.12:30. Husband won’t be home until 6.

22. I contemplated adding Bailey’s to my coffee.

23. I didn’t.

24. Instead, I made a salad. To eat while I drank my coffee. Mmmm.

25. I searched for a video to end this post with and decided on this one, which has since been removed for violation of use.

People who happen upon my blog from the Google keyword search engine most often come from searching for the lyrics to the song, “In My Life” by the Beatles, which I posted way back in one of my first months of blogging.

If you type in the words “there are places I remember lyrics,” then I am in the first ten links to come up. If you type in the words “there are places I remember,” then I am on page 2. Considering the millions and millions of hits for those keywords, I’d say those are pretty fine numbers. I find this endlessly amusing because my post was about how that song is the theme song to my life, and apparently, the Google search engine agrees.

So, I’d just like to reiterate that I think the Beatles rock. To answer some of those silly questions that I hear from time to time–

George is my favorite
I don’t care that Paul changed it from Lennon/McCartney to McCartney/Lennon
I don’t like Yoko Ono
I think John Lennon was not a good dad to Julian
I like the new Beatles “Love” album
I will probably go see the show too.

Now, when I wrote my previous post, I still hadn’t learned the joys of posting YouTube videos, and we all know how addicted I am to them now. I searched for a nice Beatles video, and–as always with YouTube–came across something much more interesting. Here is a video of “In My Life” composed entirely of clips from that glorious of movies, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Lawyer Girl, try not to cry. Because you know I’ll call you a wuss if you do.

Yesterday I drove over a nail and wound up with a flat tire. Husband put the donut on for me this morning and I drove to the car place to get the flat fixed because I have one of those road hazard warranties where they repair the tire for free. Today’s visit was slightly different than the usual in-and-out visit. The guy who took my car walked in after about 15 minutes and asked if I brought an extra set of keys with me.

Me: “Um, no.”
(TRANSLATION: Do I even want to know why the fuck you’re asking me that?)

Him: “See, I had the car in neutral with the doors shut and I didn’t know your doors automatically locked.”
(TRANSLATION: “I’m an asshole.”)

Me: “Hmm. Well, the only spare keys I have are at home. Is there something you can do?”
(TRANSLATION: Well, then it sucks to be you, dude. I didn’t know the doors locked either, but you can bet your sweet ass I don’t ever leave the keys in the ignition of any car with all the windows closed.)

He disappeared behind the door, and came back about 10 minutes later and said he called a tow truck to come and unlock the door for him. To this, he added,
“And this is my fault. We’re not going to charge you for it.”
(TRANSLATION: “We’re trying to make you believe we give better service than we do.”)

Me: “That’s great. Thank you.”
(TRANSLATION: Well, fuck yeah, it’s your fault. I sure as shit didn’t lock the keys in the car while I was sitting in your lobby patiently watching Tinky Winky dance around on your fuzzy television.)

An hour and a half later, I left with two hungry, irritated children, but my tire was fixed, and it was all free. Which means, I didn’t get to behave like Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOuKd0GXkvI]

Before you get all excited, this post has nothing to do with weird kinky sex. It has to do with Christmas gifts. Christmas gifts that I received in abundance this year and many other years and never know quite what to do with them. This year, we received 500 Danish butter cookies in a single tin. For reals, people, I have trouble with the tins of 25 cookies or so, but 500? What in the sam hell am I supposed to do with 500 cookies? I’ve given them to kids as bribe snacks, they came in handy on the road trip, I passed them out in little individual baggies to my son’s preschool for his birthday, and I’d say I’m still pushing 200 in quantity. Anyone else know what I can do with a butter cookie? I was thinking of putting the smackdown on them in the food processor and using the crumbs as pie crust or topping and other crumbly type things. If at all else, they can continue to be used as bribery with the children—but what the hell am I supposed to do with the body lotion?

I love bath gift packs because I am a sucker for body gels, body washes, mud mask this, salt scrub that, I love them all. Except for lotion. From time to time, my skin may require the need of a little lotion, but chemical compound #980-gazillion with the fragrance of a chardonnay fart aren’t what I have in mind. But I don’t like to throw things away that have full use and I tried to give away the lotions away on both Craigs List and Freecycle and obviously, everyone has an abundance of lotion, so no one took them. I am now putting out the calls – what do you do with excess lotion?

Here are some of the things I’ve thought of, with the help of my inner junior high schooler:

1. Bring it to the beach and squirt it in the sand to help make glorious sand castles.
2. When I am at the homes of people I don’t like or the restrooms of businesses I don’t like, replace the shampoo and or soap dispensers with the lotion.
3. Fill water balloons with it and let the kids have a crazy wild party and then hose everyone down. Clearly, this party would not be held in my own yard.
4. Go to Disneyland and line all the toilets with it.
5. Let the kids smear it all over the outside table and trace drawings in it with their fingers (does anyone else do this with shaving cream? It’s fun. You can also add a little paint to the mix.)
6. Back to the “not at my house” approach, pour it on a smooth floor and let everyone have a barefoot skating party.
7. Replace the water requirement on a slip-n-slide with lotion.
8. Use it to write on the windows of cars in the Trader Joe’s parking lot—eg. “DO YOU SEE THE YELLOW LINES, ASSWIPE? PARK IN THEM!”
9. Give them to the PTA and have them create a Lotion Bowl wherein we place bets on how long it takes a monkey to jump on a closed container of lotion until it finally bursts open and sprays everywhere. Bets on both how far the lotion sprays and how many jumps it takes. And then maybe when that’s over, the monkey will shit in its hand and throw it at the PTA president.

There is no ten. I’m sick of this even number/top ten bullshit. Why do we need to go to ten? It isn’t even a number unto itself. Fuck ten.

P.S. I had one beer tonight. It is a Belgian style wheat triple brew. It has clouded my civility in one single glass. Perhaps my true angry colors are showing. Hence this post. About lotion! Friggin lotion!