May | 2007 | Observant Bystander

Archive for May, 2007

Traveler

Published May 31, 2007 commercials , television , things that piss me off 6 Comments

I almost cried last night when I realized that there are 8 more months until Lost is back on to make my Wednesdays bright and cheerful again. I didn’t even tear up on Monday, even though Monday is usually Heroes night, mainly because I missed one freaking episode last month and never could figure what the fuck was happening after that.

But after my little snit last night, I realized that Traveler was premiering in my usual Lost viewing period, and that pretty much perked me up. For a little while. It seems I’m not exactly in the Traveler demographic, which appeared to me to be Males, aged 18-35. I zeroed right in on that fact after the 3rd explosion and the 5th killing because everybody knows the only way to keep a young man’s interest is if you show him lots of shit blowing up and lots of running and shooting. Oh, and maybe some hot chicks, but there were’t really any of those unless you count the soft porn Hardees Bacon Thickburger commercial they showed like 5 times in 2 hours. I never knew young nubile females ate their Thickburgers on all fours while scantily clothed. Kids these days!

You may be wondering to yourselves, “Why would ABC ignore Observant’s demographic on Wednesday nights??? Why don’t they show something for the Hip-Geek Female, aged 50?” Who knows? I certainly don’t pretend to understand what goes on in a network executive’s head but I’d guess it probably involves lots of explosions and chicks orgasmically eating large meat sandwiches in their nighties.

The only person I really found myself relating to in Traveler is the quixotic Will Traveler character who seems to be somebody and nobody at the same time. Kind of like me! Plus he hates to have his picture taken. Again, like me! Not sure if I’ll keep watching, though, mostly due to that Hardees commercial. If they’d show a commercial for – let’s say a hair care product, and that hair care product is hawked by a beefcake dude lathering up in the shower and you can almost see his unmentionable, I’d probably be able to really get on board the show then. Hear that ABC???? Just a suggestion.

Tornadoes and High School reunions

Published May 29, 2007 farming , greensburg , KS , reunions , small town , tonado 6 Comments

Our weekend trip to southwestern Kansas for Ken’s 40th high school reunion turned out to be an interesting experience. After spending several hours on Friday driving through the receding floodwaters of Salina and Great Bend, we made our way down the detour highway to the outskirts of Greensburg. No one is allowed into Greensburg at this time unless you’re with a previous resident, so my first glance at this tornado ravaged town was from a distance of about a mile off. Still, it was a horrible sight when all you can see sticking up on the horizon are trees completely stripped of their leaves and branches. Even if you didn’t know a tornado had recently devastated the town you could immediately tell something horrible had happened.
We spent most of the day on Saturday helping Ken’s aunt and uncle sort through their belonging which have been stored in their son’s barn out on his farm. All of the furniture had been left on the wheat truck and since harvest is right around the corner it all had to be moved off the truck and into a government provided container that had been moved out to the farm. It’s a heartbreaking sight to see two people in their 70s trying to sort through the wind and water-damaged leftovers of their household and often we’d find Max sitting on a stool, going through a box of 50 year old school papers piece by piece, wondering what he should keep and what should be thrown away and not being able to decide at all. The shock of it all has not worn off much yet.

That afternoon we all piled into the car and drove out to Greensburg to tour the damage and it’s true what everyone says: Pictures don’t begin to give you an idea of what it’s like to see a town where almost every structure’s been either completely decimated or damaged to the point where it’s uninhabitable. Block after block of utter destruction is hard to describe except to say it must a lot like what Iraq looks like now. I never want to see that kind of thing again.

Since this was the weekend of Ken’s HS reunion, we spent Saturday night at a get-together for his class. Keep in mind that Ken is from a very small town. His graduating class had a grand total of 21 people in it, so having a class reunion party in somebody’s back yard is pretty easy to do. One of the people from his class, and still a good friend, is the owner of Greensburg’s John Deere dealership, one of its largest businesses, and many others had close connections to Greensburg residents. The tornado was the main topic of conversation and what I found was that these folks still needed to talk it out. One question could result in a complete retelling of each person’s unique experience that night.

I wonder if the town will ever be able to completely recover. The farming communities in Kansas are slowly dying as was illustrated for us by a 1937 graduate of Ken’s HS (Bucklin HS) in a speech at Sunday’s alumni banquet. The year this gentleman graduated, Bucklin KS had 3 grocery stores, 4 hardware stores, a shoe store, 2 taverns, among other businesses. The only businesses left in town today are a very small grocer, a gas station, a John Deere dealer, a bar and that’s about it. Greensburg was a somewhat larger town than Bucklin, but it’s been on the population downswing for the past several years due to the decline in farm income.

Still, I get a lump in my throat whenever I see the acres and acres of wheat surrounding these towns, knowing that harvest will start soon, no matter what. Wheat farming terms like drilling and heading out have now entered this city girl’s lexicon, and observations about whether or not the wheat has turned don’t make me laugh any more.

Farm work doesn’t stop. Not even for a tornado.

prairie overload

Published May 25, 2007 vacation Leave a Comment

We have arrived at the place I affectionately refer to as The Little House on the Prairie, which is southwestern Kansas, for Ken’s 40th HS reunion. It’s a small, small town west of Greensburg, which is where we go tomorrow with Ken’s aunt & uncle to view tornado damage. By the time we return to the Big City on Sunday, I will be in major cultural deprivation mode, and will need a day to deprogram from nothing but acres and acres of wheat, cattle feedlots, and too much small town gossip. Fortunately, I have good books and Ken has fun relatives, so all will be well.

Lost

Published May 24, 2007 Lost , television 2 Comments

For those of you who don’t watch Lost, this post may be, well, “lost” for you. I’m a big fan. No, I’m a hugefan of the sci-fi/fantasy/mystery story. I’m the kind of fan the show’s producers find such a perverse pleasure in stringing along season after season, feeding us a tidbit here and there to keep us guessing. I’m the kind of fan that spends too much time poring over my favorite Lost sites for the latest fan theories and meticulously deconstructing key screenshots from the previous night’s episode. We’re a mostly intelligent group who delights in the obscure references the show slips us, which are probably completely missed by the casual observer. We’re the ones who think we’ve got it all figured out, only to be thrown for a loop the following week, forcing us to reconsider and rework our theories over and over again.

Lost is full of anagrams and mysterious characters who we may or may not be able to see, and whose motives for their actions on the island are only shown to us in flashback. Its central themes are redemption and man’s universal connection to others. It’s a giant puzzle, which is both the beauty of the show – and its main problem. TV viewers are used to having their stories told in 22 minute segments, or, at the most, 16 or 24 episode seasons. This story will be strung out over another 3 seasons and it’s not likely we’ll get many definitive answers until 2010. Me? I can stick it out, but I’m afraid the only people left watching the show by May, 2010 will be our relatively small pack of Lost sleuths, who will only be sorry to see it end, leaving a big gaping hole in our Wednesday nights.

A host of unsavory characters

Published May 22, 2007 commercials , things that piss me off 3 Comments

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only person who finds the cartoon characters designed to hawk medications repulsive and disturbing. What’s worse about these animated spokesmen is that they’re inflicted on us during the most inopportune time of the day – dinnertime. Let’s review:

Digger the Dermatophyte: I’ve often expressed my disgust with this offensive parasite who takes great pains to let us know that he can only be eliminated by months of prescription drug treatment. Especially gruesome is when he begins energetically digging down into the healthy pink tissue under his victim’s nailbed, immediately turning it a sickly yellow. Digger has really nasty, fleshy lips and Gollum-like fingers, making him the #1 most disgusting animated commercial character ever.

The Mucinex Mucous Blob: The only thing worse than Digger is this fat, odious green ball of snot and his Family of Phlegm. After infiltrating their unsuspecting victim, Mucous family moves in all their furniture (and a karoke machine) and prepares to raise a whole family on the previously healthy bronchi of the host human. Only Mucinex, Mr. Mucous’ nemesis can save the patient, and only by coughing up these distasteful balls of green slime, where they’ll probably immediately take up residence in the next available human. This commercial always comes on just when I’m about to start my dinner. Makes you want to hock a giant one.

The Nasonex Bee: This sad-eyed bumblebee with the badly affected Maurice Chevalier accent gives new meaning to the phrase “Annoying Seasonal Allergies.” But the thing that really creeps me out about the bee is the fact that he sounds freakishly like my ex-husband when he gives his spiel: “Hello my flower. Nasonex to the rescue!” Frankly, it took a lot of work to get my bastard ex-husband out of the house and I don’t like it when my peace is invaded by this bizarro version of him.

The Lunesta flying neon bug:

Lunesta wants you to think that the pretty thing flying around the insomniac’s bedroom is a butterfly, but it’s not.

It’s a Luna moth.

Frankly, I don’t like the idea of some prehistoric looking moth flying around my bedroom while I’m sleeping; I’d be afraid of this thing landing on my face and sucking the breath right out of my body. My mother has a particular aversion to the Lunesta bug, frequently stating “I wouldn’t want a flying nightlight. That’s scary.”

I’ll be glad when this ghastly commercial trend has played out so I can once again look forward to eating my dinner in front of the TV and only be bombarded by erectile dysfunction and bladder control ads that promise its users they will most definitely experience diarrhea as one of their many side effects.

The best of the Big-O party

Published May 21, 2007 birthday , superfun 1 Comment

10 reasons why the Big-O party was the best joint birthday party ever:

Drinking and not getting embarrassingly drunk
Hugging all my relatives because I was drunk, but not embarrassingly drunk, just lovey-dovey drunk.
Looking at Saturn and the moon through Charlie’s kick-ass telescope, which was probably the biggest hit of the entire evening
Guessing who answered which questions on the Big-O questionairre.
Introducing my friends Andi & Charlie to all my crazy but beloved relatives.
Seeing the looks on my neice’s faces when they realize that Venus’ husband is a hotshot guitar player in a band they’ve seen, and now they’re kicking their own asses because they’ve ditched the last few family events where they could have actually talked to him.
Reaffirmation that there’s at least one cousin in my family I can actually relate to, even if our parents are step-sisters – which means we’re not actually related by blood but are, instead, spirit-cousins.
C & A offering to drive me all the way home, even though it would have meant a 60 mile round trip (with gasoline at $3.29/gallon no less) – just because I wasn’t ready to go home yet. (I caved and rode home with mumsy and daddy. See #10 below).
Knowing that I have the best family and friends a person could possibly want.
Me, my brother and my parents singing along to my dad’s Merle Haggard CD in the car on the way home and feeling secure in the fact that I wasn’t the only one singing off-key.

shoppin’ with the dog

Published May 17, 2007 Dogs , shopping 1 Comment

There were a couple of letters to the editor today in the Kansas City Star about a recent ban on bringing pets to the City Market. One letter was a complaint, and one was a “thank God it’s over” letter. Need I mention that the City Market is primarily an outdoor food market? After the Brookside Art Fair this year, there were letters complaining about the large numbers of people with dogs at the art fair. OK, call me Dr. Scroogelittle, but I don’t want to spend an afternoon at a crowded art fair, where in addition to maneuvering through throngs of people I also have to dodge their dogs and try to avoid having my sandled feet bathed in dripping strings of dog slobber. Ditto for the City Market.

I for one don’t think dogs really belong in places where people are shopping.

I came to this conclusion after my one and only foray to Petco with my dog Coco. It’s where the pets go, you know. I go to Petco when there’s more than cat and dog food on the pet needs list and I’ve seen lots of folks there with their dogs. Looked pretty cute and maybe just a little fun, so one Sunday morning a few weeks ago I decided to take Coco on a shopping trip, primarily to assuage my guilt for not taking him for enough walks lately. As soon as I got the leash out, Coco’s little stump of a tail started its Happy Wag and believing we’d soon be taking a long awaited walk so he could pee on a myriad of bushes, he assumed the position to have his leash put on. However, after a few minutes of driving he began to realize that I was not taking our usual route to the park. I imagined his little doggie mind sadly revising his thoughts from wiggly anticipation to ho-hum resignation that we were simply going on a boring car ride where he wouldn’t be able to pee on one single thing. We pulled into the Petco parking lot and I let him out on his leash. Immediately, his canine nose sucked in a veritable amusement park of olfactory delights. There were dogs here. Lots of dogs. Sweet glory, I must pee on something immediately.

Coco is a champion pee-er. During hot summer walks when I don’t think my mouth could muster up one more drop of saliva, Coco’s little body just keeps cranking out the pee. It’s truly remarkable to see such a small animal urinate so much. I could probably rent him out to farmers in drought affected areas as a mobile irrigation unit. So by the time we walked across the Petco parking lot and got to the front door of the store, Coco had already peed on about 10 different things -grass, bushes, car tires, and both corners of the building. Unfortunately for me, this shopping trip was going to require a cart for the litter box supplies, cat litter, and pet food I needed to buy and I very quickly discovered that trying to wrangle a cart and a dog on a leash who wanted to pee on everything and smell every square inch of the store floor wasn’t going to be a walk in the park (pun intended). Instead of a blissful retail experience with my pet, I found myself manically flinging the needed pet supplies into the cart while trying to keep Coco from peeing on the display items.

Petco has little clean-up stations all around the store so you can be a good shopper and wipe up your pet’s “accidents”. Accidents my ass. Dogs don’t just accidentally pee on stuff, they do it on purpose and so far I’d been able to yank Coco’s leash at just the right time to halt any marking activity inside the store. We made it to the checkout line with our cart of supplies a mere five minutes after walking in the door. That’s pretty much a record for me in Petco because the myriad of pet supplies tends to lull me into a full-blown shopper stupor. I can spend a long time looking at all the cutesy pet do-dads and marveling over all the different things offered for so many different kinds of animals. Not this time though. I couldn’t wait to unload the too-big cart, pay for my shit and get myself and my pee machine out of there. Of course, being Sunday morning, there was only one cashier and a line of people so we ended up waiting in line about twice as long as it took to toss cat litter and pet food into the cart. I allowed myself a moment to relax, closed my eyes and took a cleansing breath. Upon opening my eyes I noticed that in my 30-second period of Zen, Coco had peed on the inconveniently placed dog bed display right next to the check-out line.

I ignored it. And besides, there wasn’t a doggie accident station nearby and I was damned if I was going to lose my place in line to traipse around the store to find a wipey-thing to clean up a little mess in a place where they not only let you bring your dog – they encourage it.

Well, that will be the last time I take Coco shopping. I don’t know what I expected anyway – a meaningful discussion with him regarding clumping vs. non-clumping litter for the kitties? Or whether he preferred to stick with Kibble ‘n Bits or make the switch to the heart-healthy Beneful product we’ve been seeing on TV. No, it seems to me that pets belong in the park, not in the parking lot. Or in the store. And I’m now feeling an aversion to going back to a store where dogs have probably peed on every conceivable surface below knee level. The way I see it, if you invite pets into your store, there’s bound to be trouble.

Petco, it’s not where I really want to go. Anymore. At least not with my pet.

book reviews

Published May 16, 2007 books 2 Comments

I have some book recommendations from the lastest supply of reads I’ve recently completed:

The Terror by Dan Simmons

This is a fictional account of what might have happened to the Franklin Arctic expedition which was lost during the mid 1800s. Only a few remaining artifacts have been discovered including a message left in a cairn on Prince William Island which told about the abandoning of the ships Terror and Erubus in 1848 after 3 years frozen in the ice. During their 3 year freeze, the book posits that the men are stalked off and on by a creature that picks them off one by one, horribly mangling the bodies. There’s a real Stephen King feel to parts of this story, and at 767 pages, it’s a hefty read but I found that once I picked it up, I literally couldn’t wait for my regular reading time every day to dive back in. The descriptions of the isolation and the cold will make you glad it’s not winter.

Mississippi Sissy by Kevin Sessums:

This is a memior written by a guy who grew up as an effeminate gay boy in Mississippi during the Civil Rights era. After the death of his macho father in a car accident, followed a year later by the death of his beloved mother of cancer, the author and his younger siblings were sent to live with their grandparents in a small town outside of Jackson. It’s as much a love letter to his mother and grandmother as it is the story of his uncomfortable boyhood as a flamboyant chld who yearned to wear skirts and dress up as a witch on Halloween. In his teens, the author befriended a group of older theater types who encouraged him in the arts. This group included Eudora Welty, famous Jackson resident and nationally renown writer. A well-written and poignant book.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver:

The fictional story of a boy who commits an act of mass murder at his school as told through letters written by his mother to his father. I’m only about 1/3 of the way through with this one, but I’m finding the writing compelling. Her writing style reminds me of Meg Wolitzer’s, in that her descriptive style is wonderful and personal. There’s much to relate to in her descriptions of what it feels like to have your life taken over by a child, and the ambivelance every woman feels regarding marriage and family. I’ll be ready to read her next book, The Post Birthday World after this one.

Also on the nightstand – What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

From Booklist

In 1975, the abduction of the teenage Bethany sisters rattled residents of Baltimore. Now, some 30 years later, a woman who flees the scene of a hit-and-run accident claims to be Heather, the younger of the two sisters. Could this mysterious blonde really be the missing teen, or is she pulling some sort of clever, unspeakably cruel con?

I’m not expecting to like this much due to the fact that it’s a fictional crime story. I prefer my crime real and gritty, not made up, but I’ll give it a chance just because the story sounds interesting. We’ll see.

real men don’t read the instructions

Published May 15, 2007 men , work 2 Comments

It’s a well known, documented fact that most men are not good with words. We women are completely comfortable using our words to communicate, and communicate we do – about everything we’re thinking and feeling – much to the dismay of the men in our lives. One of my favorite observations about guys is this: When you ask a man what he’s thinking and he says “Nothing”, that’s absolutely true. Don’t get me wrong. I love men. I’ve spent most of my life surrounded by them – I only have brothers, I work with men every day. I admire their ability to work out their differences with little fanfare or angst. Men can conceptualize three-dimensional objects in their head and do math without counting fingers and toes. But one thing men can’t do is read instructions.

The problem goes back to words. If you’ve ever gotten a new computer, you’re familiar with the very large, poster-size instructions that feature very few words, but has large, colorful pictures showing what you’re supposed to do to get your new computer up and running. This is because the research showed that men would not read a regular instruction manual, but were receptive to colorful pictures on a large, shiny poster.

One of my jobs is handling all of the Human Resources functions of our company, including choosing and administering the insurance benefits. Over the years I’ve struggled to find a good way to get a group of men with the attention span of about 5 minutes to fill out complicated medical insurance applications . In the past I’ve tried handing out the applications with written instructions to return them by a certain date. Then I’d spend several days reminding people to complete them and turn them in. There were always the people who would lose their forms. Then there were the people who wouldn’t fill them out completely. The whole process took several frustrating days.

I then decided to gather all the guys together to fill out the forms as a group effort. This would at least insure that I’d actually get the forms back, but I discovered that leading 20 men through a complicated 4-page form, with teeny tiny writing and waaaay too many words, was like directing a roomful of 6 year olds with ADD. Slow readers and writers would inevitably give up about halfway through the process, sit there until everyone was done, then turn in a half-completed form. Most guys, I found, would fill out only some parts of the form, sign it and turn it in. If there were parts that took much thought, they were almost always left blank.

It’s time to shop insurance again at my company, so I’ve come up with what I hope is a good plan. I’m meeting with groups of 4 each morning until this whole process is done. It’s a lot easier to help 4 guys complete a task that they find about as comfortable as a prostate exam than it is to get 20 of them to do it all at once. And as long as they all remember to actually show up for the meeting, I’ve got it made.

I don’t fault the guys for hating these forms. They are too complicated, too redundant, and difficult to read. Unfortunately, health insurance companies really do want ALL the parts of their forms filled out, and for some strange reason it’s not enough to have one spot on the form for your name – you have to fill in your name about 3 times in 3 different spots. Then there are the health questions – which due to new privacy laws prohibit me from helping the guys with. And they really, really need help.

So here’s a suggestion – insurance companies need to come up with a new streamlined application process. How about a large, fold-out instruction poster with colorful pictures? Name Goes Here. I Take _______ Medicine. Sign Here. I, for one, would be happy to help them come up with a prototype. My guys would probably really dig a poster with naked women or a sports theme, although on second thought those things might be even more distracting. I wish I could give everyone a financial incentive, because men really seem to like it when you hand out money. How about $5.00 for every person who correctly completes their application?

Hmmm. I might be on to something here.

mother’s day blues

Published May 14, 2007 girlfriends , mother's day 2 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day to all! I believe that mothers everywhere have a certain expectation about how they would like to be honored on the second Sunday in May every year. And that expectation often does not jive with the way their children and husbands choose to honor them. This year I took particular care to listen to what my female friends were saying about their expectations and found a familiar ring to all of them. Mothers don’t want stuff. We don’t necessarily want flowers or cards or other store-bought gifts. Mother’s Day is not our birthday. Mother’s Day is the day we just want some of our chores done for us. Mother’s Day is a day we just want to be left alone to take a bath and read a book. Mother’s Day is the day when we’d like to be honored for all the stuff we do for our children and families the other 364 days of the year.

My friend Tracy spent part of Mother’s Day crying because she’s been sick for weeks on end. When moms are sick, we still have to do the same things we normally do – clean the toilet, do the dishes, wipe the counters, pick up the dirty socks and tennis shoes, be the family social planner. All of my friends have full time jobs and like the rest of working mothers and wives worldwide, we still do three times more of the household chores than men. Tracy just wanted her damn dishes done on Mother’s Day. Yes, the CD she’d been eyeing was nice to have, but it would have been a REAL gift to have her kids pick up the dirty dishes along with their dirty socks and shoes. Especially since she was sick. And expecially because it was Mother’s Day.

My cousin Venus was up at her usual time on Sunday morning and managed to get the kitchen and bathrooms cleaned before her three boys and husband woke up. I know she would have liked to believe they could be expected to do those tasks for her on Mother’s Day, but if they’re anything like a normal family (and especially one with all boys), the thought would never have voluntarily crossed their minds.

My son and his girlfriend showed up with flowers for me and an offer to take me out to lunch. In his card, my son generously offered to take care of me in my “old age” because I’d been such a great mom. I appreciated the offer, but told him all I really needed right now was to have my mulch spread for me. Had I asked to have my dishes done or bathrooms cleaned, I’m sure my son’s girlfriend would have gladly rolled up her sleeves and gotten to work. My son, on the other hand, wouldn’t have been so accomodating. I imagine he would have looked at me like I’d just grown horns and a tail and take back his offer to change my diapers when I grow old and senile.

At the wedding I went to on Saturday night, I noticed that when it was time to leave, a group of us women deliberately made sure we hugged each other and wished each other a Happy Mother’s Day. And that’s what’s so great about female friends. We get each other. We understand each other’s frustrations and each other’s struggles to be the glue that holds our households together. We all know that if not for our daily efforts, our homes would disentigrate into a mess of dirty laundry and half-empty pizza boxes. When life hands you children and a husband, your female friends are often your only salavation some days. When you just can’t take it anymore, a call to a female friend can save a life.

So Happy Mother’s Day everyone. I hope your dishes got done or your lawn got mowed or your toilets got cleaned for you. If not, call me. I understand.