Make it work

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-tc-ft-cat-spat-0319-0320mar20,0,2220155.story

I'm actually not all that surprised that Kenley from Project Runway would use a cat as an IED in a throwdown with her fiancee. If nothing else, she has an improvise it/can do spirit. I can see her going all Girl Scout in a fight.

What I can't believe is that she was engaged to somebody with the last name of Penley. Really. Even I didn't think she was that clueless.

Actually, that might explain the guerilla wakeup tactics. She woke up next to him and thought "Kenley Penley? What was I thinking? What can I do to get out of this? Here, kitty-kitty!"

Rainbo Brite

Do you think models sometimes put on one of these outfits and think, "For this I live on 6oo calories a day?"

The occasional cosmic wake-up call

I've watched the coverage of the death of Natasha Richardson with one of those eerie little chills. Of course I feel bad for her husband and family. She and Liam Neeson actually seemed like a normal couple for all of their un-normal circumstances, and like were in real love as opposed to show business love.

But the part that kind of sets me back a bit is that kind of feel like I know what happened, because I'm the same kind of person.

You bump your head. You don't want to make a big deal. You feel silly for all the fuss, and so, "No, no, I'm fine." You're tough. You feel bad that people are worried, and want them not to worry. You feel a little woozy. But that's to be expected. You did bump your head. But it was just a stupid accident. You don't want to waste your time and everybody else's. So, you'll just sit down for a minute and you'll feel better. Really.

You just don't want to make something out of nothing. Never knowing that this time, it is something.

I don't know how many times I've done the same thing. And of course the fact that I was fine all those times just makes me less likely to go for help the next time. Most of the time I just want to suck it up and walk it off. But there are times when you should suck it up and let somebody help.

Counter-Programming

Incongruous but true, I spent my St. Pat’s evening at a meditation class hosted by a local Buddhist group. I know it sounds kind of odd for a Guinness lover like me to be hanging out at a “dry” vegetarian restaurant, clearing my mind on the biggest Mick holiday of the year. But, frankly, if you need St. Patrick to nudge you into a pint, you’re not much of a Guinness lover. I find that any day ending in “y” is quite sufficient as a special occasion, thank you very much.

And I like to try something new on occasion. So why not a little of the meditation? Oh, yeah. Because I suck at being quiet. About 5 minutes into the first relaxation dealie, I got to a point where I had this nearly irrepressible urge to run around the room waving my hands in the air and screaming. I controlled myself only because I thought that might be distracting for the people who actually seemed to be getting it. It’s that "quite contrary" thing. Tell me to be still, and I want to start a conga line. Tell me to clear my head and I start hearing the Gilligan's Island theme. Conversely, when I’m in crisis mode, and my brain should be on overdrive, I get this Matrix like thing – everything slows down and becomes crystal clear. Ridiculous, really. Now if they had meditation classes in the ER, I might be able to make that work.

Then after some good discussion about reincarnation (in which I barely restrained myself from theorizing that in the context of a multidimensional universe, we live many existences simultaneously, but due to the linear nature of time, we only experience them sequentially – I thought it might be a conversation killer), and another round of meditation (sit right back and you’ll hear a tale), we headed downstairs for some dinner at the Cosmic Café, which as it sounds is the local hippie haven for global inflected vegetarian food with kitschy-cute names like the Dharma Bell (stuffed bell pepper) and the Socrates Plato.

And I guess you can add one more to the list of religious figures that kind of weird me out. I have no idea why, but I find myself under this weird pressure, not necessarily to be good per se, but more to not be bad. Pastors, priests, rabbis, and now monks. I spent the entire meal giving the poor monk the bug eye every time he tried to say something pleasant. I was watching my mouth so hard that I was practically going cross-eyed. I totally get they are normal human beings with, lets just say it, abnormal jobs. They dedicate their lives to something I spend most of my life avoiding - religion. I don’t actually think that they are some sort of hot house flowers that will expire if I drop the F-bomb. But still. You don’t want to be a big old heathen. Actually, I do want to be a big old heathen. I just don’t want to upset the nice religious person by acting like one in front of them. It would be impolite. I may be a heathen. But I do have manners.

All in all, it's just another rip in the wall

Well, in theory, I was going to spend the extra-long vacation weekend knee-deep in wallpaper shreds, paint and plaster. Mmmm. No such luck. Friday night, I decide to just get a tiny jump on the wallpaper removal, and peeled back a layer. Only to find that the drywall behind it started to flake off in chunks. Soggy chunks. Soggy, flakey, disintegrating chunks. Well, that can’t be good.

So, I had to wait until Monday to call my HOA. Since I live in a condo, this kind of problem lives in the shady/gray area of what’s mine, what’s theirs and what’s my neighbors. If it’s my plumbing, it’s mine. If it’s a roof leak, it’s theirs. If it’s my neighbors plumbing, I’m screwed. The neighboring place was repossessed about 6 months ago, and has been on the market just about ever since. And I’m thinking that a bank is going to be slightly unresponsive to my needs not to have a rotting bathroom wall.

Any way, they sent out the condo handyman (who, please note, showed up at 5 pm on the last day of my long weekend) and he said he’s betting it’s a plumbing issue. Of course he is. But regardless, I’m going to need to get my own person to take a look by cutting a hole in the drywall and ceiling and looking in the gap. Slightly beyond my handygal capacity. Luckily, I’ve got a referral of a reliable guy. But still, the delay in my gratification is kind of irritating. Actually, a lot irritating.

So, that’s where the big “houseworking vacation” ended up. A little sound, a little fury, and a whole lot of nothing accomplished.