m o o d g a r d e n

Just your average 48 year old tattooed woman

And so this is Crimble.

Having the day off of work, as I work in an office, made for a relaxing day spent with my spouse and cats.  We shared our Crimble goodies at midnight, he receiving many superhero-based items from me and me receiving a new digital macro lens for my Nikon D70s camera and a CD soundtrack from the movie Breaking Glass.  We went to sleep late last night content, happy and each to our bedrooms.

This morning we spent an hour or two in front of the happy box (the one you are reading these words on now) before showering and getting ready to go out.  We had nowhere specific to go, no family was awaiting our arrival, no halls needing to be decked with boughs of holly or any other ornamental, decorative or otherwise.  We do not celebrate christmas, kwaanza, channukah, ramadan or any other deity-based religious holiday, but that is beside the point of this story.

Today, we had a mission in mind.  Twofold:  1.  To find a restaurant that was open, and 2.  To find a person eating dinner there alone so we could pay their bill  anonymously.   Now, this requires some planning and some skill to accomplish quietly.   The first thing it required on christmas day was finding a restaurant open.  We only had to drive about eight miles or so to find one.  We sat close to the entrance and surreptitiously watched the folks coming in to see if any likely candidates would present themselves.  We didn’t have to wait long, as three minutes after our dinner arrived (a beautiful salad with walnuts, cranberries, bleu cheese and balsamic vinagrette for me, and a patty melt and onion rings for he who is not diabetic) serendipity provided the target; a lone gentleman, approximately 50 years old.

Oh, and I should mention that he was dressed as Elvis.

Two-tone brown and beige suit, custom fitted.  Cowboy boots.  Gold-rimmed aviator glasses.  And the hair, yes the hair.  We are still not sure if it was all his, but it was pure black, of a modest pompadour style and the sideburns went on forever.  Awesome.

Back in the car, we then sought out a place for a to-go coffee, while listening to Hazel O’Connor’s beautiful early 1980’s New Wave voice and discussed what circumstances might have brought Mr. Presley to the restaurant today.  We ended up down in Wyandotte by the Detroit River where we saw a lone man on a jet ski traversing the cold and choppy waters.  He drew large, slow loops in the water a hundred or so feet from the waterfront dock and I noticed that a man with a large-ish camera was standing next to his car, watching him.  On the way home we discussed what might have brought him out on a jet ski when the weather was about 36 degrees.

We pondered if he knew Mr. Presley.

All in all, we report a good day.

Nox Arcana Music Reviews.

I went looking for something appropriately sinister to shake off the last of shackles of summertime–the happy childhood screams of panicky joy, the endless eternal heat, the traffic jams, the sense of desperate fun.  It all just sucks the life right out of me.

It is now early September and with the first freshened and cool breeze at night my thoughts turn forward to my most favored season of all.

Halloween.

I found what I was looking for.  Chilly, dark music.  Something to make you forget how the hot vinyl of the seat stuck painfully to your legs every time you got into the car over the past month.  Nox Arcana.

Delicious.

I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes on Friday, August 21 2009. I cannot say it came as a complete surprise, as I had been feeling like lukewarm hell for about a year now. Who finally diagnosed it? No, not the physician’s assistant that took over after my (second in two years) primary care physician moved out of state, but the lovely lady who saw me one night at the after hours clinic. She of the diagnosis of Labyrinthitis to explain the dizzyness several weeks after a grand bout of the flu. (insert David Bowie reference here) Continue reading »

Well it has been quite the interesting month, July has.

Started out with me taking a week’s vacation from verk, melding quickly into my husband making an appointment with our family practitioner to discuss his recent (two months back) diagnosis of low testosterone.  A week after that I was on my way to the doctor to see why I was so dizzy and nauseated.  A week later, the mister was back in with the flu.  A week later, he was at the Emergency Room coughing up blood.  Ten minutes after I arrived at the ER, we were driving to the Urgent Care near our home.  My husband is unfamiliar with the lovely new rules of our bargain basement health insurance that state if you are not specifically spurting from an artery, or dying from myocardial infarction you should go to the Urgent Care center and not the ER.  Well, we have yet to receive a bill from the 15 minutes or so he spent at the ER cooling his heels in the waiting room, so I think we are good. Continue reading »

Tomorrow is a special little day for me.  My own quiet, private, flamtastic day.  It is the day for celebrating my 48th summer on the planet.  I feel so much ‘meh’ about the whole damned thing.

The only thing I seem to want for my birthday is for everyone around me to leave me the hell alone and stop needing me so damn much for every little agonizing thing.  Yeah, go and try to get THAT written in frosting on a cake. Continue reading »

A week of eventfulness, right heah!

We started off the week by having a four-day weekend.  Always nice.  When I returned to work on Tuesday, May 26, I had a bit of a headache and the remains of a sore throat.  Meh.  I shrugged it off as being some leftovers from the flu bug of two weeks ago. Continue reading »

August has been the month of emotional trainwrecks, shifting suns, vegetarianism, organic frustration, and forgotten attic treasures. And on top of that, I am in dire need of a haircut and my camera has been quietly whimpering in its fluffy skullhead bag for me to take it out and let the sun shine on it. I could happily scratch an obscenity in the new paint of an Escalade, just so I won’t feel as though I am the only one having a bad month. Continue reading »

This one was told to me by my husband.  He states that his mother told it to him when he was around the tender age of sixteen, and that it scarred him for life.  =]

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What is the difference between a blonde and a washing machine?

A washing machine doesn’t follow you around for a week after you drop a load into it.

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I would also like to state for the record, that while I find this one hilarious, I am also blonde. Under all this red hair dye, that is.  Just in case you were thinking of trotting off in a huff and a Chevy to leave me a scathing comment.

In our recent attempts to try to make our fundage last as long as possible, we have been cutting out most unnecessary expenditures. Naturally, the first to go were those of a fun and relaxing nature. This means that we must now resort to unwinding for free either at home or at one of the local parks. Thankfully, it is summer and we live in southeast Michigan, so there are plenty of things to do, park-wise. Continue reading »

This evening, after hearing that our plans for attending a previously-untested restaurant were cancelled due to impending gallbladder issues of the daughter of one of the attendees, the boy and I decided to seek out some dinner on our own after picking up Ocean, the Six-Million Dollar Cat from the vet where he was having a fructosamine and glucose test run. On our way back from our favorite standby restaurant (Logan’s Steakhouse) we decided to make a brief stop at the local all-night pharmaceutical emporium to see what we could find. Continue reading »