SILVERMAAAAAAAAAAN!
(That voice has got to be rough on Silvertooth's ears.)
Oh, and there's even more:
God, I love that man. And by "love" I mean "am disturbingly fascinated by."
Bethenny Frankel is still at the beach
7 years ago
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Flora and Fauna, Part II
In second grade, and every year after in February, my class would go to Blue Spring, a refuge for wintering manatees. (Incidentally, don't believe the park brochure when it says "warm" waters. As a former swimmer, I know 72 degrees is actually pretty fucking cold for swimming.) Manatees are not very exciting creatures. They're adorable in their own way, but they're not splashy like whales or clever showoffs like dolphins. They just sit and vegetate, and every once in a while a boat will run over them.
Don't get me wrong--I keenly felt the pain of "Scarback" and "Halftail" and all the other poor maimed animals and wished violence upon the boat owners who didn't heed the Save the Manatee speed limits. But there is a reason the manatee is also called the sea cow.
I didn't generally have to go on a field trip to see some new, exotic Floridian creature. Our old house, situated by a "charming" little "lake" (Lake Rogers, an overambitious retention pond), had a large backyard that was not in any way speaking a yard. Sure, there were some patches of grass here and there, but most of the area was covered with large oak trees (live oaks, specifically; festooned with pounds and pounds of Spanish Moss), various shrubs that defy identification, and the ubiquitous Saw Palmetto. The palmettos were the main source of my and my siblings' various abrasions during early childhood. The neighbor kids and I would get it into our heads to use them as fans or swords, and we never remembered until our hands were being ripped open by the fronds' spines that this was a terrible idea.
Before my parents enclosed our back porch, all sorts of interesting critters would walk up to the our sliding glass door. Yes, we had a large squirrel nest in one of the oaks, and the little rodents would frequently wander around the concrete porch floor. But quite possibly the coolest animal event occurred when an armadillo calmly walked up to my mother as she was sweeping. My toddler brother and I pressed our little noses to the glass and giggled with delight as my mother gave a startled "Dios mio!" and, after words failed to shoo Army (as we came to call him), began buffeting him with her broom. Army promptly rolled himself into a ball, and so he and my mother invented the sport of Dillo Ball. Unfortunately, that was the only game of Dillo Ball ever played, and my mother won in what ended up being more of a rout than a game.
From that point on, I made it a point to bring scraps of food out with me every time I went out back to search for Army's jungle home. We only saw him a few times after then, and we only discovered his lair after my father decided to "do something" about the jungle. (Army lived under the bent trunk of one of those saw-toothed plants of Satan.)
The impetus for this bushwhacking came from the events of a particularly muggy Sunday afternoon. (All afternoons in Florida are muggy, but this was an extreme level of humidity.) My parents, wanting to live vicariously through their children, had provided us with not only a swingset (complete with two swings and a pair of rings, as well as a platform whose only apparent purpose was to provide something off which to jump), but also a truly cool clubhouse.
The wooden clubhouse was raised some six feet or so off the ground and came with a ladder, yellow slide, fireman's pole, and one of those cruel knotted ropes kids always have to climb in the gym class of popular films. (I never had to climb a knotted rope in P.E., nor do I know of anyone who had to do so.) Oh, and it had a tricolored plastic sheet roof: blue, red, and yellow. Since ours was the first family on the street to have both a swingset and a clubhouse, we naturally had a lot of visitors in the form of neighborhood urchins. Most of them didn't take the trouble to ring the doorbell and ask if I could come out to play; they just waltzed into our backyard and clambered all over everything while I ran onto the porch and glared. My mother thought she could keep this "riffraff" out by planting some large shrubs around our borders, but when that didn't stop them, she forced my father to put up an intimidating fence.
This particular afternoon saw me pushing my three-year-old brother in the special baby swing. After growing bored with that particular activity, I took him out and set him on the ground, instructing him to watch as I performed an elegant leap off the platform. Of course, as soon as I had climbed up to the platform, a large group of black hornets swarmed out from under me. Speaking as someone who is terrified of being stung by a bee, wasp, or hornet despite never having been stung by one, I am not ashamed to admit I frantically executed my leap and ran into the house as fast as my little legs could carry me, probably emitting little embarrassing shrieks along the way. My assumption that Daniel would follow me was incorrect, and by the time I looked out from the sliding glass door the bugs had done their work.
He somehow managed to escape multiple stings, but when my mother saw his right eye swelling shut, she feared for the worst. After ascertaining that the same luck that saved him from the wrath of the swarm had also saved his eye (he'd only been stung on the eyelid), she rounded on my father and insisted he start child-proofing the backyard.
Even after my father and I cleared out most of the alien flora (read: any plant my mother didn't want to survive)--a task that took at least two years--we would get strange visitors. One rainy afternoon saw what we later discovered was a Red-tailed Hawk perching on our swing set. Having only seen vultures and buzzards feeding on roadkill, with maybe the occasional cardinal thrown in, I was agog at this magnificent raptor's presence. She sat there calmly despite the drizzle until, just as I was starting to get bored, she dove toward the ground, picked something up in her talons, and regained her perch. I gasped as I saw what was writhing desperately in her right foot: a Black Racer.
As previously mentioned, the Black Racer isn't venomous. Chasing one into the bushes therefore provides an adrenaline rush without the actual fear of death. And here was one of them unwillingly taking part in a retelling of the story of the Mexican coat of arms, as the hawk proceeded to messily devour the snake. But while I felt sorry for Mr. Snake, I was also giddy with delight at having seen Nature In Action. Consequently, when friends came over, I regaled them with the story and proudly showed them the blood on the swingset.
Don't get me wrong--I keenly felt the pain of "Scarback" and "Halftail" and all the other poor maimed animals and wished violence upon the boat owners who didn't heed the Save the Manatee speed limits. But there is a reason the manatee is also called the sea cow.
I didn't generally have to go on a field trip to see some new, exotic Floridian creature. Our old house, situated by a "charming" little "lake" (Lake Rogers, an overambitious retention pond), had a large backyard that was not in any way speaking a yard. Sure, there were some patches of grass here and there, but most of the area was covered with large oak trees (live oaks, specifically; festooned with pounds and pounds of Spanish Moss), various shrubs that defy identification, and the ubiquitous Saw Palmetto. The palmettos were the main source of my and my siblings' various abrasions during early childhood. The neighbor kids and I would get it into our heads to use them as fans or swords, and we never remembered until our hands were being ripped open by the fronds' spines that this was a terrible idea.
Before my parents enclosed our back porch, all sorts of interesting critters would walk up to the our sliding glass door. Yes, we had a large squirrel nest in one of the oaks, and the little rodents would frequently wander around the concrete porch floor. But quite possibly the coolest animal event occurred when an armadillo calmly walked up to my mother as she was sweeping. My toddler brother and I pressed our little noses to the glass and giggled with delight as my mother gave a startled "Dios mio!" and, after words failed to shoo Army (as we came to call him), began buffeting him with her broom. Army promptly rolled himself into a ball, and so he and my mother invented the sport of Dillo Ball. Unfortunately, that was the only game of Dillo Ball ever played, and my mother won in what ended up being more of a rout than a game.
From that point on, I made it a point to bring scraps of food out with me every time I went out back to search for Army's jungle home. We only saw him a few times after then, and we only discovered his lair after my father decided to "do something" about the jungle. (Army lived under the bent trunk of one of those saw-toothed plants of Satan.)
The impetus for this bushwhacking came from the events of a particularly muggy Sunday afternoon. (All afternoons in Florida are muggy, but this was an extreme level of humidity.) My parents, wanting to live vicariously through their children, had provided us with not only a swingset (complete with two swings and a pair of rings, as well as a platform whose only apparent purpose was to provide something off which to jump), but also a truly cool clubhouse.
The wooden clubhouse was raised some six feet or so off the ground and came with a ladder, yellow slide, fireman's pole, and one of those cruel knotted ropes kids always have to climb in the gym class of popular films. (I never had to climb a knotted rope in P.E., nor do I know of anyone who had to do so.) Oh, and it had a tricolored plastic sheet roof: blue, red, and yellow. Since ours was the first family on the street to have both a swingset and a clubhouse, we naturally had a lot of visitors in the form of neighborhood urchins. Most of them didn't take the trouble to ring the doorbell and ask if I could come out to play; they just waltzed into our backyard and clambered all over everything while I ran onto the porch and glared. My mother thought she could keep this "riffraff" out by planting some large shrubs around our borders, but when that didn't stop them, she forced my father to put up an intimidating fence.
This particular afternoon saw me pushing my three-year-old brother in the special baby swing. After growing bored with that particular activity, I took him out and set him on the ground, instructing him to watch as I performed an elegant leap off the platform. Of course, as soon as I had climbed up to the platform, a large group of black hornets swarmed out from under me. Speaking as someone who is terrified of being stung by a bee, wasp, or hornet despite never having been stung by one, I am not ashamed to admit I frantically executed my leap and ran into the house as fast as my little legs could carry me, probably emitting little embarrassing shrieks along the way. My assumption that Daniel would follow me was incorrect, and by the time I looked out from the sliding glass door the bugs had done their work.
He somehow managed to escape multiple stings, but when my mother saw his right eye swelling shut, she feared for the worst. After ascertaining that the same luck that saved him from the wrath of the swarm had also saved his eye (he'd only been stung on the eyelid), she rounded on my father and insisted he start child-proofing the backyard.
Even after my father and I cleared out most of the alien flora (read: any plant my mother didn't want to survive)--a task that took at least two years--we would get strange visitors. One rainy afternoon saw what we later discovered was a Red-tailed Hawk perching on our swing set. Having only seen vultures and buzzards feeding on roadkill, with maybe the occasional cardinal thrown in, I was agog at this magnificent raptor's presence. She sat there calmly despite the drizzle until, just as I was starting to get bored, she dove toward the ground, picked something up in her talons, and regained her perch. I gasped as I saw what was writhing desperately in her right foot: a Black Racer.
As previously mentioned, the Black Racer isn't venomous. Chasing one into the bushes therefore provides an adrenaline rush without the actual fear of death. And here was one of them unwillingly taking part in a retelling of the story of the Mexican coat of arms, as the hawk proceeded to messily devour the snake. But while I felt sorry for Mr. Snake, I was also giddy with delight at having seen Nature In Action. Consequently, when friends came over, I regaled them with the story and proudly showed them the blood on the swingset.
Friday, May 8, 2009
On Flora and Fauna
As previously mentioned, I grew up in Florida. While I do not consider myself a Floridian, and I have a passionate hatred for all things Florida (excepting only Gator football), I've recently been forced to conclude that it wasn't really that bad a place to grow up.
Sure, there's the lack of snow. And the heat is absolutely unbearable most of the time. And it's boring. But little kids seldom raise a stink over the fact that there aren't any good bars around; and even if there were, you'd have to drive to them, which would mean you couldn't get nearly as drunk as you'd like.
But where else can you find a building shaped like giant gator sitting on the side of the road in a town called (shit you not) Christmas? No, seriously. This actually exists.
Field trips in elementary school were therefore incredibly entertaining. We went to the aforementioned Jungle Adventures in first grade. The memories of that trip, actually, come mostly from visiting Fort Christmas, some old outpost erected around the time the US decided to try to make something out of this godforsaken swamp. While at first my classmates and I were chagrined to see that the fort had none of the features a decent fort should have (slides, hidden passageways, maybe a ball pit or a rickety wooden bridge), we were soon distracted by the candy in the gift shop. When my mother picked me up that afternoon, she immediately relieved me of my bounty: an eight-inch phallus of solid sugar. Of course, at that point in time, I just thought it looked like a unicorn horn.
We did see some gators on that trip; in fact, somewhere in a junk heap in my parents' closet I'm sure there's photographic evidence. It was actually the proudest moment of my young life: None of the other children would go near the baby gators we were supposed to be looking at, but when a scraggly "guide" asked me if I wanted to hold one, I voiced my affirmative with no hesitation. After plopping one into my outstretched hands (jaws rubber-banded shut, since apparently even their tiny teeth hurt when they're crushing a six-year-old's finger), I grinned and he snapped a photo. The little gator then peed on my forearm, which, if you know kids at all, only cemented my status as The Awesomest Kid Alive.
That same year, I kept my Awesomest Kid Alive title by bringing in a snake's head to Show and Tell. This was no ordinary snake head, obviously. While there are a plethora of snakes in Florida, most are harmless. My friend Eli and I would chase after Black Racers with reckless abandon. The Coral Snake, on the other hand, caused quite a stir when he appeared in our neighborhood.
There had been a few sightings before that hot February day, and all the parents and pet owners were on high alert. We kids were taught the old "Red to yellow/ Kill a fellow/ Red to black/ Venom lack" trick of distinguishing the venomous Coral from the benign King. My mother had taken it upon herself to plant some flower or another in the front yard, part of her lifelong quest to tame the Floridian spirit of "ugly." (And yet we still had St. Augustine "grass"...) The aforementioned Eli and I were catching frogs and giggling as they peed on us in fright, after which time we would dangle them by the leg for a few seconds and lob them back into the grass. (Children are cruel. And weird.)
The snake came slithering out of a nearby palmetto cluster, and after ascertaining it would, indeed, kill a fellow, I ran to my mother and told her the exciting news. I expected her to turn tail and run to my father, who would then take care of the situation with his usual aplomb, but instead she grabbed the large shovel lying in the driveway and followed my directions. Then she calmly raised the shovel over her head and, much like a medieval headsman, brought it down with a dull thunk.
"MAMI! YOU CHOPPED ITS HEAD OFF!"
My father, hearing the commotion, came outside, saw the body still wriggling, and picked it up and tossed it back into the brush. "Why don't we put the head in this little jar, eh, Munchkin? You can take it to Show and Tell." After making the usual noises associated with excitement, I watched as he carefully filled a small, clear jar with rubbing alcohol and, with even more care, picked the snake's head up (thumb and forefinger just behind the corners of its mouth) and plopped it in.
I proudly recounted the story to my classmates at school the next day, perhaps embellishing a bit and saying it was "thisclose to biting me," then taught them that useful little rhyme.
Sure, there's the lack of snow. And the heat is absolutely unbearable most of the time. And it's boring. But little kids seldom raise a stink over the fact that there aren't any good bars around; and even if there were, you'd have to drive to them, which would mean you couldn't get nearly as drunk as you'd like.
But where else can you find a building shaped like giant gator sitting on the side of the road in a town called (shit you not) Christmas? No, seriously. This actually exists.
Field trips in elementary school were therefore incredibly entertaining. We went to the aforementioned Jungle Adventures in first grade. The memories of that trip, actually, come mostly from visiting Fort Christmas, some old outpost erected around the time the US decided to try to make something out of this godforsaken swamp. While at first my classmates and I were chagrined to see that the fort had none of the features a decent fort should have (slides, hidden passageways, maybe a ball pit or a rickety wooden bridge), we were soon distracted by the candy in the gift shop. When my mother picked me up that afternoon, she immediately relieved me of my bounty: an eight-inch phallus of solid sugar. Of course, at that point in time, I just thought it looked like a unicorn horn.
We did see some gators on that trip; in fact, somewhere in a junk heap in my parents' closet I'm sure there's photographic evidence. It was actually the proudest moment of my young life: None of the other children would go near the baby gators we were supposed to be looking at, but when a scraggly "guide" asked me if I wanted to hold one, I voiced my affirmative with no hesitation. After plopping one into my outstretched hands (jaws rubber-banded shut, since apparently even their tiny teeth hurt when they're crushing a six-year-old's finger), I grinned and he snapped a photo. The little gator then peed on my forearm, which, if you know kids at all, only cemented my status as The Awesomest Kid Alive.
That same year, I kept my Awesomest Kid Alive title by bringing in a snake's head to Show and Tell. This was no ordinary snake head, obviously. While there are a plethora of snakes in Florida, most are harmless. My friend Eli and I would chase after Black Racers with reckless abandon. The Coral Snake, on the other hand, caused quite a stir when he appeared in our neighborhood.
There had been a few sightings before that hot February day, and all the parents and pet owners were on high alert. We kids were taught the old "Red to yellow/ Kill a fellow/ Red to black/ Venom lack" trick of distinguishing the venomous Coral from the benign King. My mother had taken it upon herself to plant some flower or another in the front yard, part of her lifelong quest to tame the Floridian spirit of "ugly." (And yet we still had St. Augustine "grass"...) The aforementioned Eli and I were catching frogs and giggling as they peed on us in fright, after which time we would dangle them by the leg for a few seconds and lob them back into the grass. (Children are cruel. And weird.)
The snake came slithering out of a nearby palmetto cluster, and after ascertaining it would, indeed, kill a fellow, I ran to my mother and told her the exciting news. I expected her to turn tail and run to my father, who would then take care of the situation with his usual aplomb, but instead she grabbed the large shovel lying in the driveway and followed my directions. Then she calmly raised the shovel over her head and, much like a medieval headsman, brought it down with a dull thunk.
"MAMI! YOU CHOPPED ITS HEAD OFF!"
My father, hearing the commotion, came outside, saw the body still wriggling, and picked it up and tossed it back into the brush. "Why don't we put the head in this little jar, eh, Munchkin? You can take it to Show and Tell." After making the usual noises associated with excitement, I watched as he carefully filled a small, clear jar with rubbing alcohol and, with even more care, picked the snake's head up (thumb and forefinger just behind the corners of its mouth) and plopped it in.
I proudly recounted the story to my classmates at school the next day, perhaps embellishing a bit and saying it was "thisclose to biting me," then taught them that useful little rhyme.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
On Celebrity Love
Despite my undying hatred of the celebrity-obsessed culture in which we are currently ensconced, I am not immune to celebrity crushes. These tend to be of a more cerebral nature; the guy is usually attractive, but it's mostly the characters he plays that draw me in. Or maybe I had a personal experience with him.
At any rate, apparently all bad news concerning these "crushes" just bounces off me.
Case in point.
I'm no stranger to belligerent drunks. While I'm an affectionate (very affectionate) drunk, I've run into my fair share of these people. But when I first read this story, I didn't think "My God, Kiefer. What the hell?" No. I thought, "You know, most belligerent drunks would settle for a swinging fist. But not my boy Kiefer." Because, seriously, who head-butts someone outside of a soccer match? But since this is the guy who plays Jack Bauer, I give him a free pass in the court of my heart. (This sort of gets into the idea of merging an actor and his character into the same being, but that's a post for another time.)
Another of these "You Can Do No Wrong" crushes is none other than Mr. Jeffrey Scot Tweedy. (This is definitely a more intellectual crush, because boyfriend is the very definition of "homely.") I've heard he's kind of a dick sometimes, and allegedly kicking the drummer out of your band by having the manager call him is pretty cold. But even with all those stories, I can't dislike the guy. Every time I see him onstage I want to run up and give him a hug. (Also, Tweedy doesn't have a producing credit on I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, so it really does seem like Jay Bennett is suing the wrong party.)
I know I'm not alone in this, though. If this were a PopWatch post, this is where the customary "What about you, PWers?" would come in. But it's not. So yeah.
At any rate, apparently all bad news concerning these "crushes" just bounces off me.
Case in point.
I'm no stranger to belligerent drunks. While I'm an affectionate (very affectionate) drunk, I've run into my fair share of these people. But when I first read this story, I didn't think "My God, Kiefer. What the hell?" No. I thought, "You know, most belligerent drunks would settle for a swinging fist. But not my boy Kiefer." Because, seriously, who head-butts someone outside of a soccer match? But since this is the guy who plays Jack Bauer, I give him a free pass in the court of my heart. (This sort of gets into the idea of merging an actor and his character into the same being, but that's a post for another time.)
Another of these "You Can Do No Wrong" crushes is none other than Mr. Jeffrey Scot Tweedy. (This is definitely a more intellectual crush, because boyfriend is the very definition of "homely.") I've heard he's kind of a dick sometimes, and allegedly kicking the drummer out of your band by having the manager call him is pretty cold. But even with all those stories, I can't dislike the guy. Every time I see him onstage I want to run up and give him a hug. (Also, Tweedy doesn't have a producing credit on I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, so it really does seem like Jay Bennett is suing the wrong party.)
I know I'm not alone in this, though. If this were a PopWatch post, this is where the customary "What about you, PWers?" would come in. But it's not. So yeah.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Oh My God, This Is My Life
Post Grad.
Except I don't look like Alexis Bledel, and I haven't so completely run out of options that I've moved back to Florida. But still. There but for the grace of God...
Except I don't look like Alexis Bledel, and I haven't so completely run out of options that I've moved back to Florida. But still. There but for the grace of God...
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