Tears for Tots

There is nothing that sparks that Christmas spirit more than terrorizing your child completely by forcing them to sit on a stranger's lap and then walking away immediately, giving the child the idea that you are leaving him with this freak. Forever. These parents may as well park their little ones in front of the TV and pop in "The Shining" DVD because quite frankly it would invoke the same reaction. For example:

This little girl displays the locked elbow Heisman push off of Santa yet still retains the presence of mind to not only protect herself, but her candy too.

I give this boy an A++ because he is really trying to keep it together.

This poor dear refuses to give into the fear even though she knows she is trapped. This will be the longest two minute photo session of her entire life.

This is little Caroline. She converted to Judaism shortly thereafter...

This is totally inappropriate but there is only one thought going through this boys head. And, let's be honest, yours too.

Farley lives!

Valiant effort in escaping. I don't know what's worse, the fact that this Santa won't give in and free the kid or that the parents used it as their Christmas Card.

This is what I am calling the Santa Sibling Sumo Hold and it should be illegal.

He's right behind me, isn't he.......

She's scared, but she's sucking it up for crying out loud....MAN UP BIG BROTHER!

The classic 'Scream and Reach'. Unfortunately for these children the person they are screaming and reaching for is the same person that put them in this situation.

Even at 6 months old this baby knows it's fight or flight. And Santa, do something about that moustache, please. This is Christmas, not Magnum PI. Jerk.

It is emblazoned on our brains to never, EVER, take candy from strangers and yet Santa is luring him with a tempting treat, while Mom is in the background encouraging him to take it. This type of parenting gets a F-.

Now, what do you do when one of your children is enjoying himself immensely while the other is having a coronary? A classic Christmas time dilemma.....

I am SO doing this....

The Hypocrite Grip, aka the "Hypogrip". Santa pleadingly looks at the parents as if to say "do something, your child is terrified!", and yet, he still doesn't let go.....

AND FINALLY, THE CREEPIEST SANTA IN THE WORLD AWARD GOES TO:

drum roll drum roll drum roll.......

Cue the music from 'Halloween' here.

Something To Think About

Yes yes yes I have been delinquent. Working on that, I swear. But to get back on that blogging horse, I have this to share with you:

The other day I was talking to my co-worker who is from Nepal. She was telling me of her visit home and how wonderful it was, the weather, seeing her Mom and Dad, the food, shopping, friends, etc. etc. So I asked her about Everest, natch. She has never attempted a climb to any of the base camps let alone the summit itself, and when I asked her how tall it was, she said:

29,029 ft

And I thought, isn't that the cruising altitude of most planes??? And I pictured the summit of Evs and then I pictured a plane way up high in the sky when it's flying....you know, when it's so teeny weeny way up there?!? Well, that's how freakin' high Everest is.

Plane at cruising altitude, generally 30,000 ft

Mount Everest, summit at 29,029 ft

It's My Birthday!

I am completely shocked to find out other people share the same birthday. I truly thought I was the only one. Here are other notable people in history that share the day of my birth:

Roberto Benigni

"Life is Beautiful" is my favorite movie of all time, in which he wrote, starred and directed. It's what is known as as a 'tragicomedy' and truly a phenomenal story. At the 1998 Academy Awards he won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, as well as the coveted Best Actor award. During his acceptance speech the crowd went just as wild as he did when he announced
"I am not able to express all my gratitude...I would like to kidnap everybody and lie down making love to everybody!"

Marla Maples Trump

Now I ain't sayin' she a gold digger.......

John Cleese

English actor and comedien extraordinaire. Love him.

Kelly Osbourne

Says the "S" word and the "F" word. A lot.

Fran Lebowitz

Sardonic Author. And seperated at birth with Fred Armisen and Rick Moranis, I'm pretty sure.

Theodore Roosevelt

Loved him in "Night at the Museum"

Syliva Plath

Poet. We both like gas ovens. Except for different reasons.

Emily Post

She would be horrified if she knew she was reincarnated into.....

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.....wait for it....

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John Gotti

...who had no manners whatsoever.

My Friend's Dream Job

My friend Jane and I like to imagine things about people around us, for example, the lady standing in front of us in line for coffee, or the man eating alone in the corner of the restaraunt we are at, or the bartender who just made us our cocktails. We get very specific about their 'lives'.....what they do for a living and why, how many times they have been married and to whom, how many miscarriages they have had, and all the dark secrets they are holding deeeeep within. It's so fun.

Jane sent me this email last night about her 'dream job' and it gets very specific:

Oh I hate my job so much today. I wish I could be a personal assistant to an incredibly rich elderly woman. I would show up at her Brookline house each day, dressed in a skirt, blouse, scarf and circle pin. I would organize her day, take her to lunch, pay the bills, do errands, etc. She would pay my health insurance and pay me a nice salary with a generous Christmas bonus. The best part of my imaginary job is when I leave her each evening, frozen meal almost finished heating in the oven…(she likes to eat alone because that’s when she thinks of her dearly departed husband) she says to me, “Thanks for not being an illegal alien who steals from me Janie”. And I say…..”You are most welcome Edna”.

Instead, I will go to **** Bank again tomorrow where some drunk or just plain angry person will urinate or defecate on the three remaining chairs in our lobby. Yes…..both of those things happened this week.

So, in response to this, I would like to point a few things about 'Edna' that Jane doesn't know:

• As a very young girl she was a Holocaust Survivor and Steven Spielberg is her great nephew and she was a huge influence for him and his SHOAH Foundation.


• She plays the Flute quite well but her arthritis has kept her from it for many years.


• She has never eaten at a McDonald's.


• She keeps her wedding dress and veil in the closet near her bed and looks at it every night before sleep.


• She cannot tolerate Angela Lansbury and refers to her as "That Vulgar Woman"

And there you go.....

Deep Thoughts

*I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option

*I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?

*Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

*I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

*The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase “Regards” again.

*There is a great need for ‘sarcasm’ font.

*Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f*** was going on when I first saw it.

*I think everyone has a movie that they love so much; it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.

*How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

*I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

*The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

*Was learning cursive really necessary?

*Lol has gone from meaning “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”

*I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger

*Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, I’m imaginary smart.”

*How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?

*Mapquest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

*Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you exactly how the person died.

*I find it hard to believe that there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

*Shirts get dirty. Undies get dirty. But jeans? Jeans never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

*I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

*Bad decisions make good stories.

*Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid at Christmas morning who just got EZ Bake Oven that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!!!!

*Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like, I know my name….I know where I’m from….this shouldn’t be a problem….

*You never know when it will strike but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

*There’s no worse feeling than that split second you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far…

*“Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this. Ever.

*When I'm watching the Olympics, I find myself cheering just as much for the Chinese as I am for the Americans. I am fairly certain that if Chinese athletes don't win, they are executed.

*I like all the music in my iTunes. Except when it's on shuffle, then I like every fifteenth song in my iTunes.

*I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night every kiss actually begins with more alcohol then with Kay.

*The other night I ordered take-out for just myself, and when I looked in the bag, I saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. So someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second look at it, and then estimated that at least four people would be enjoying all this food. Horrifying.

Drunkest Guy Ever Tries To Buy MORE BEER

And fails. Miserably. I would say that this is painful to watch but after a while it's so mesmerizing that you can't help but continuing to watch. Stick with it for the whole thing.
@ minute :38 the camera fires up again after a slight pause
@ 1:11 he has successfully made it to the cooler
@ 1:22 he has slithered down like hot butterscotch on a sundae
@ 2:57, approximately one minute and 35 seconds later, he is still attempting to get up off the floor.
@ 2:58 an older gentleman browsing a selection of what I think is beef jerky notices drunkest man ever
@ 3:15 beef jerky guy asks if he's ok and drunkest man ever says "yes, I'm fine." at least he gestures that.
@ 3:22 he is escorted out by beef jerky guy
@ 3:38 he attempts his exit, but the room spins wildly and he loses it
@ 3:46 the room has tipped at a 45 degree angle down and he tries to save himself by grabbing a bowl filled with what I think is artificial sweeteners.

And then he somehow made it someplace and no doubt had no recollection of this occurence until the video ended up on youtube. HORRIFYING!!!

This Takes The Cake, Birthday Request #1!!

Since my birthday is a mere two weeks away, I think it's time I start suggesting things I really really really really would like/desparately need. Here is item #1. It is practical, functional and pleasing to the eye. Plus it comes with a matching hat and goes 7 whole miles per hour. This car is perfect for jaunts to the grocery, or the pharmacy. And since we are a one car family we need it. An additional vehicle only makes perfect sense, and I am sure Steve wouldn't be embarassed driving it.

And for only $25,000!!!

Reno 911 Funny DUI Stop

I do not condone drunk driving. But this is too funny not to share.

What a RACKET

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize today for his "extraordinary efforts" to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

After investigating the process on http://nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/process.html , the nominations MUST be received by the Nobel Foundation postmarked NO LATER than February 1 of that voting year to determine the Nominees. And, 9 Months after he was Inaugurated President, which is 8 months after the Nominations were closed, it was determined he should win for being nominated for doing things he has not accomplished.

In a nutshell, for whatever reason, this is a politically charged scam.

So, with that said, I have decided that because of my EXTRAORDINARY EFFORTS with singing in the shower and car that I deserve a Grammy. And because of my EXTRAORDINARY EFFORTS in acting like I can tolerate those who don't know the facts and refer to me as "GOP Scum" (true story, just happened on Facebook, some bitch I went to college with said "TAKE THAT GOP SCUM!") I deserve an Oscar, and for my EXTRAORDINARY EFFORTS in trying my hardest to enjoy "Phantom of the Opera" I deserve a Tony, even though my efforts failed me and I still hated it.

And finally, for my EXTRAORDINARY EFFORTS in wanting this blog entry to be an actual book, I deserve a Pulitzer Prize, even though I haven't actually finished the book. Yet. But I might. We'll see.

The Faire

I've felt uninspired lately and I just knew I had to do something that was off the beaten path, something that people like me do, like, NEVER. HUZZAH! King Richards Faire! Now, I'm not a Renaissance person (read: FREAK) but I thought how wonderful to face my fear of reinactors so wrangled my friend Jane and my Mom ("Mo") to join me on this adventure. We anticipated a day of listening to perverted men gawk at us with horrible fake English accents (apparantely everyone during the Renaissance was Cockney), watching Jousters, and eating things called "M'Lady's Fruit Cup" and "The King's Nuts". Here's how it all went down......

The entrance. I imagine that the person who designed this imagined that this is what the Globe Theater looked like, in his imagination. I find the Rubbermaid trash can with shiny black Hefty bag in front to be an especially Renaissance-y touch.

I thought these people were staff. Nope, they were paying guests like me. I questionned my wardrobe selection of jeans and white oxford at this point.

We enter the magic of the little Renaissance village. It looks quite authentic. Especially the shield shaped sign that welcomes us, pointing us to the ATM Machine.

The Jousters march through the village. I am surprised they are on real horses. I don't know why, but I was expecting something out of Monty Python where they only pretend they are on horses. Needless to say, I am delighted by the authenticity of it all.

This man was draped head to toe in fur skins. Channeling his inner Mel Gibson, I assume.

A person performing as a Gargoyle. Having gone to a prep school where every single building was riddled with Gargoyle's, I am not impressed. Heartless, I know.....

Mo, browsing the selection of colorful flower wreaths and considering one to replace her baseball cap.

This woman wore her Wedding Dress. And who says you can't wear it again?

Fries at the Renaissance faire are spelled 'FRYES' and are served out of a dog bowl. Exactly how Will Shakespeare ate his fryes.

You can't see it because according to the woman on the right it travels at a speed of 700 mph, BUT, she is slicing an itty bitty piece of paper that the woman on the left is holding between her hands with a bull whip. This is her job during the day. And by night she is known as "Mistress Gorgeous" and men hire her to dominate and torture them. Well, I made that up but I think it could be true.

This is where I was sent after giggling at Mistress Gorgeous with the bullwhip.

A musician in nice tighty tights.

Ahhh. Nothing reminds one of the Renaissance more than a Whoopie Pie.

Turkey Leg. I use the word "Turkey" loosely.

Mo threatened bodily harm to me by sending some Goodfellas to come anda breaka my akneecaps if I posted the shot of her attempting a bite at her Turkey Leg. I hope this is okay. I like my kneecaps.

I, however, am not embarassed at all by this. Here is my attempt at eating my turkey leg while Jane enjoys her ribs. I am a little uneasy with her gaze in my direction. It appears as though she would like to slather me up with bbq sauce and slap me on the grill along with her succulent ribs.
=

Oops. There go my kneecaps.....

Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Zoro and Stevie Nicks.

Just a scene of folks enjoying the Renaissance stuff.

Finally, we see the King! Mo, Jane and I liked to imagine what everyone did in real life for work.....I bet the King is an English Literature Professor.

Here come the Jousters!

The jousters get introduced. I felt bad for the horses. I think they were embarassed kinda.....

Our jouster, called "Sir Tristan", whizzes by us with his locks flowing and makes direct eye contact with me. There was an air of sexiness to him that I was ashamed to admit.

This jouster's sword was caught in his horse's tail and it really bothered me.

See? It's totally stuck!

Sir Tristan displays his ability with his jousting thing by catching a ring in the air whilst travelling full speed on a horse. Notice the not so subtle phallic imagery here? I mean really, Sir Tristan.

Oh no. Armour.

Sir Tristan gallops by, locks flowing, joust in hand ready to pummel his opponent.

An excellent shot captured just moments before impact. We can make fun of these reinactors all we want but truth be told, this was actually a real jousting match. So manly. So so so very manly......

OH NO! Sir Tristan succumbs to his injuries after being thrown off his horse during the joust.

He is vexed and stunned. I suggest he come find solace in my bosom.

Incredible image of a jouster's joust thing splintering into a thousand pieces after smashing into his opponents steel shield. I'm no Ansel Adams, but this is a good picture, no?

Oh no. He's down.

But he fights his opponent to the death on foot! The horse wanders away embarassingly, wishing he were a Polo pony, or a Clydesdale.

Finally we find the Kings Nuts.

Me asking for the Kings Nuts. The Kings Nuts smelled delicious.

Me, holding the Kings Nuts in the palm of my hand. The Kings Nuts were surprisingly heavy and smelled like cinnamon and nutmeg.

Me, dipping the Kings Nuts deep into my mouth. I found the Kings Nuts to be tasty, but a tad bit crunchy. Mo and Jane also sampled the Kings Nuts and agreed that the Kings Nuts were not the best they've ever had.

As we made our exit, we came across some revelers dancing to a mistral strumming a guitar. They gayly danced in their authentic renaissance gear of tunics, leggings and New Balance sneakers.

There you have it. I am glad I finally made it to King Richards Faire to see what it was all about. The Turkey Leg was not all that good, however, it was moist, an attribute I wish the Kings Nuts had. I really found the Kings Nuts to be dry. And I never found the vendor that sold "M'Ladies Fruit Cup" which was distressing. Next stop, Spooky World!!