Oh, for Christ's Sake
More notes from the injury blog:
If you are interested in spending a good deal of time on crutches, what you really ought to do is try to walk down Jen's back stairs carrying a gin and tonic, a water bottle, and a bowl of Cheez-Its. That way, you'll render yourself fully incapable of grasping the handrail, thereby facilitating a comical fall that involves you spinning around and pitching forward onto the sidewalk below. That way, you'll be able to spend most of the following afternoon -- when you're supposed to be readying your home for your friend's bridal shower -- hanging out in the emergency room.
I'm fairly sure at this point that I must have pissed off a gypsy in a past life. Dear Gypsy: Whatever I did, I'm terribly sorry. Now stop making me hurt myself. Love, Kate.
posted by Kate at 12:25 AM link/comments
Friday, June 23, 2006
We live in beautiful world. Yeah we do, yeah we do.
Not to get all sappy on your asses, but today, happiness is defined for me by the following:
- that the heart catheterization my mom had this morning found no blockages, and she gets to go home this afternoon;
- that I'm lucky enough to have an occupation that lets me spend the day working in a coffee shop with free wi-fi;
- that nat and amanda are getting married next weekend, which means an influx of Friends We Hardly Ever Get to See.
Cheers to all. Life is good today.
posted by Kate at 2:36 PM link/comments
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Of Cycles and Bacon
I got to ride on my dad’s Harley-Davidson yesterday. I’m fairly sure that Marc, assured of my certain demise, spent the afternoon checking our insurance policy for any death-by-motorcycle exclusion clauses. I am not sure whether he was pleased or disappointed by the answer. Meanwhile, I found that one has only one thought while one is on the motorcycle, and that thought is “wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” This is an activity I can definitely get behind. I now feel that I must own a motorcycle at some point in my life. I don’t necessarily want to learn to operate it; I just want someone to drive me around on it. I occupy the Bitch Seat with pride and have learned and mastered the subtle nod one gives to fellow riders as they pass by. “Yes,” says the nod. “We are all riding motorcycles.”
In celebration of father’s day, we’re hanging around with my parents in Pennsylvania this weekend. As is tradition in this part of the Alle-Kiski Valley, father’s day weekend also means Ethnic Days. Ethnic Days is ostensibly a celebration of the rich heritage of the Polish, Lithuanian, and Slovak immigrants who founded and populated the riverside town of East Vandergrift, where my grandmother was born and raised and still lives in the house her father built when she was three. When I was a kid, Ethnic Days was to me somewhat on par with Christmas. I spent all day running up and down the street at each booth, trying and sometimes succeeding in winning stuffed animals. One year I won a Star Wars sleeping bag *. In the evenings, old guys with accordions would show up and the street would be covered in sand so everyone could polka.
* Note to Self: Find out if that thing’s still around here somewhere.
Ethnic Days was fueled by the women of East Vandergrift, most of them daughters of immigrants and members of my grandmother’s generation, who would spend weeks toiling in the church basement’s kitchen getting ready for the weekend. The food – especially the kugel ** – was fantastic. Eventually, though, as it happens, the church ladies got older and some died and the others didn’t have the energy to shred 2,000 pounds of potatoes (and can you blame ‘em?). Ethnic Days went on, but there wasn’t a lot of “ethnic” left. Rather, it became a yearly gathering place for the myriad local white-trash slimeballs who slithered from under their respective rocks to stand on the streets of East Vandergrift resplendent in freshly-shaped mullets, spiral perms, and tiny, midriff-bearing shorts that read “princess” across the backside, except of course that most of the word – presumably ashamed to be displayed thusly – retreated betwixt ample buttocks to hide itself.
This year, though. This year. Some brave women of the community have stepped forward and volunteered to spend those countless hours in the church basement making actual honest-to-god real damn authentic Eastern European food, and I am woozy with anticipation over the prospect of proper kugel, pierogi, and haluski. My grandmother, who has for the most part abandoned most of her culinary efforts in favor of being eighty-six years old (again, can’t blame her), summoned me to her house yesterday to help prepare a kugel so that we can spend the day today sitting on her porch in the 90-degree heat eating dreadfully caloric food, drinking beer, and watching the dirtbags go by. I can’t wait.
** Ingredients for proper kugel:
- potatoes
- milk
- six eggs
- black pepper
- one pound bacon, fried in one stick butter OR one slab lard
- one box of salt
posted by Kate at 11:50 AM link/comments
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Ollie Williams sez: WHO WANTS THIS CAT?? *
Attention, Clevelandites:
Some fucknut dumped a couple of kittens in the woods here at the Nature Center. Kitten #1 is in foster care, but Kitten #2, who is approximately 3 weeks old and had not yet been weaned at the point of abandonment, is in need of a good home. Kitty is black/brown/tortoise-shell in color and very, very sweet. He'll need some hands-on care at first, as he's currently being hand-fed by one of the wonderful employees here. Said employee has called round to the local shelters only to experience the following recurring conversation.
Her: I have this kitten. Will you take it?
Shelter: Ha ha ha ha ho ho hohoho. A CAT? No.
Given my obsession with affection for all critters great and small, I would happily take the kitten into my care except for the fact that bringing another cat into our fourfold feline brood would no doubt cause a revolt of seismic proportions ultimately resulting in shredded furniture and my clothing soaked in a few quarts of Azrael piss. I'm not exaggerating. When Nimbus first moved in with us, Azrael expressed her displeasure by meandering over to TV and peeing on the Playstation 2. The Playstation survived; Azrael narrowly escaped death, but only after I hid all the kitchen knives in the house and shot Marc with a tranquilizer dart.
Anyway, anybody want a kitten? He's cute, and taking him in will make you a hero. Who doesn't want to be a hero?
* Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WC7ujCoDxU
posted by Kate at 10:05 AM link/comments