A Startling Announcement of Vital Importance

To put an end to the rampant media speculation, Coke Zero and I are issuing a joint statement:

"After a trial separation, up until now known only to our immediate families, Coke Zero (sometimes known as "Diet Coke") and I have agreed to part amicably. Proceeds from any forthcoming recycling income are to be split equally amongst the parties. There were no children from this relationship." (Unless you count the kidney stone I passed in 1994.)

Now, I know this is a shock to those of you who thought Zero and I were inseparable. Truth be told, I knew he was no good for me all along. But when we met, some twenty years ago, I was just a kid...and he was so shiny, so hard and smooth in the palm of my hand. And cool...real cool.

He called himself "Diet Coke" back then, and he was all promises. He would keep me alert without the caffeine jitters of my previous beau, Juan. He was just as much at ease with a PopTart as he was with a cheesesteak. And all with the taste that refreshes.

It was a match made in heaven (actually the kitchen at work where we got free soda, but whatever...) and I have to admit, I was insatiable. Six, seven times a day I would reach for Diet C, and he never let me down.

Sure, we split up in the mid 90's after I blamed him for leaching calcium out of my bones; calcium that went on to throw an oxalate crystal party in my right kidney (FYI: If your doctor ever uses the words "stent" and "ureter" in the same sentence, politely hit him/her in the head with the nearest giant rubber mallet and run away.) But I never had proof Coke's phosphoric acid was the guilty party. And I never forgot my Diet Coke.

And when word got around a few years ago that "C" was back in town, with a brand new ride called the 'fridge pack'...well...it wasn't long before he was back in my refrigerator, and my heart, again.

By now, he had reinvented himself. He was Zero - Coke Zero - and he was better than ever.

He'd greet me first thing every morning...the rush of carbonation as the chilled aluminum touched my lips. Oh yeah, baby, it was good.

But he was still all wrong for me. I found myself spending hours in my bedroom with Coke Zero (and a bag of microwave popcorn.) Truth was, Zero didn't motivate me anymore...he just made me want to eat crap and watch British folks auction off their stuff on BBC America.

And the trust was gone. I held on to the nagging suspicion that he was slowly-but-surely turning my bones into rubber, like a turkey's wishbone soaking in vinegar.

So...it's sayonara, Coke Zero. You know I'll always love you - we'll do lunch from time to time, awkwardly perhaps. But I can't let you run my life again. I need to be free.

From the "Never Thought I'd See the Day" File

My first post of the new year, on this auspicious day...

2009.

The year the dream I didn't allow myself to dream came true anyway.

The year the nation I live in would truly, and collectively, see beyond the color of a man's skin to the content of his character.

The year my hopes - long encapsulated in the frost of cynical despair - have been released.

I never thought I'd live to see this day, but Lord, I'm glad I did.


Godspeed, President Obama.

The $150 Pencil

She's usually the Girl Who Cries Wolf, but this time her shrieks seemed more than the typical over-exaggeration of a minor pain.

In between the screams, we made out "I stepped on something" and "It's bleeding a lot."

Now "bleeding a lot" to this particular 9-year-old could mean that she saw something red in the next room a couple days ago. She is prone to hyperbole and hypochondria and probably any other behavior that starts with "hyp."

But it was bleeding. A bit. Esteemed Husband took a look at her foot, while I went to the couch (where she had either stood on or jumped on whatever-it-was) searching for the guilty party. Didn't see anything - not even a pine needle.

EH thought it looked like a splinter - and I'm pretty good at removing those. Needles, tweezers, rubbing alcohol. Target-dollar-aisle reading glasses for super-sharp close vision. Soaked her foot in warm water to clean it off. Got my needle and prepared to work whatever out of her foot.

The 1/4-inch cut has a grey edge. Graphite. Esteemed Husband finds the weapon wedged in between the back couch cushion and the seat. Pointed upward, with our daughter's name on it. Literally. It's a personalized pencil, without its point.

pointless

I'm prepped to operate. I know what I'm looking for. But I can't see the actual point in her foot. Chuck the cheap glasses and remove contact lenses for better close vision. Still can't see anything except a gash that looks deeper than your typical splinter. Start to feel woozy; luckily I was already sitting on the floor.

This is above my surgical skill level. Call pediatrician's office. It's 9 PM and the office is closed. Is this an "emergency" worth tracking down a doctor on the phone or an "emergency" worth a visit to the emergency room? Foot is slightly swollen, so the answer is ER.

Esteemed Husband is the hero in the climax of our story. He carries daughter (who he later finds out weighs 94 pounds) off to the car and to the hospital while I stay at home with the elder sibling - a tween who spends most of her day attached to mp3 player and/or Nintendo DS and interacts with the family in a most disaffected way. She bursts into tears when I tell her what happened. She's so used to her sister's, um, vocalizations that she didn't even come out of her bedroom to investigate the earlier drama.

While Tween and I wait for news, I employ a diversion tactic: The Simpsons Movie DVD she got for Christmas. It works, and she's laughing and asking for popcorn. Instead, I let her eat limitless Xmas stocking candy while I collapse gift boxes and barely notice Spider Pig. Even Homer cannot distract me from my worry.

Anyway, a mere hour (a millisecond in ER time) later Husband and Daughter are on their way home. A minor surgical procedure removed what we hope is all of the pencil point. The doctor wasn't sure he got everything and sliced around a bit, but did all he could without causing "further tissue damage." Doc said she'll most likely have a residual "tattoo" from the graphite for the rest of her life. (If I can restrict my daughters to tats on the bottoms of their feet for the rest of their lives, I'm good...)

Esteemed Husband marvels at how our histrionic daughter barely whimpered during her ER treatment. Daughter shows off her gauze-adorned foot. I look over the antibiotic and gauze-changing schedule and wonder if the pain shot she was given will wear off during the night.

Anyway, so here we are. Her foot hurt a lot this morning, but hopefully Motrin will be the trick. She gets to be a princess today and be waited on hand and foot ;)

Oh yeah, the post title -- our co-pay for the ER visit was $150. Luckily, they take Visa.

Happy New Year!

Jesus Wants My Soul Back

Oy vey!

My aggravation quotient is way up there. I usually try and ignore negative blog comments (actually, I get so few comments I kinda enjoy the negative ones.) But the tone of some recent ones was getting too judgmental for me to leave unchecked.

See the comment thread at Spending Christmas with Jesus.

Anybody who would like to defend me, or even condemn me more, as long as you do it intelligently (FYI to Anonymous #2 -- it's supposed to be "too" when you use the phrase "too late") feel free to jump on the bandwagon.

I've said my piece, though, so don't expect a tete-a-tete.

Oh, credit for the blog title goes to Jackdaw4:

Jackdaw4 - Jesus Wants My Soul Back

Looking for a Savior Underneath the Mistletoe

It's Christmas again
December is here
Hasn't it been
A wonderful year

With all the plans you're making
And all the time you're taking
Greet the next one with good cheer
Won't you dear
As you ring the chime
Just because it's Christmastime

And on the tree all the ornaments go
Tinsel will cover where the branches don't grow
There's lights on all the houses
Spouses with their spouses
Children playing in the snow

One in the sleigh and one upon the horse
Keeping on track's another matter, of course
That's the great divisor
You are now the wiser
Maybe just a bit less so
Touch and go
Til you stop on a dime
All alone in Christmastime

Christmas again
December is here
What did you wish for
What did you fear
Look at your behavior
Looking for a savior
Underneath the mistletoe

You should know
It is less a crime
To be all alone in
Christmastime

So...my plans were to post something about Christmas songs, my husband's huge collection of said, and some good (imho) non-traditional ones. It was to be a happy post -- penance, if you will, for my last cranky-ish one.

Starting out with "Christmastime" -- the song written by Michael Penn & Jon Brion; recorded as a duet by Aimee Mann and Michael Penn, and by Aimee solo. (Three guesses as to which recorded version I prefer.)

Yes, Virginia, some people should be legally barred
from using Photoshop.

But -- I got so engrossed with making sure the Christmastime lyrics I was posting were correct to the word that I've run out of my allotted blogging time. Although we can only guess what horrors would await me if I chose the incorrect of "divisor" or "deviser" (upon reflection, the "great" preceding tells me it's likely "divisor," as in the 'greatest common divisor'... ) It all adds up to more time spent on trivial stuff, time that I will never ever get back. Story. Of. My. Life

Anyway, Arianna Huffinton (charmingly shilling her book about blogging on The Daily Show the other night) says blogging should be off-the-cuff and unpolished. The first unedited thoughts out of your head.

Viola! I will oblige her here.

Last Christmastime, Esteemed Husband and I decided we would work up a little rendition of "Christmastime" and bestow our singing talents upon the unenlightened masses (that would be our respective families.) Granted, we barely ran through the song twice at home beforehand - still - who would have guess the room-clearing power of our rendition? At both my family's gathering and the gathering with my in-laws.

We'll have to dust off our version again this year for when we want a little alone time at the holiday get-togethers.

Granted, it's a song nobody there knew...and a wee bit dark at that. But one of the things I love about "Christmastime" is how it turns minor with the second verse, as the lyrics start to reveal the shadows cast by the holiday sparkle...okay, maybe it's not all quite that melodramatic, and I'm most likely mixing metaphors wildly. But I enjoy the little journey the lyrics take from "a wonderful year" to "all alone."

My favorite line, or at least the one that sticks with me, is the "Look at your behavior, looking for a savior, underneath the mistletoe." It's nearly a chastisement, and maybe that's why I like it.

And now it's your turn -- feel free to comment, oh ye vast legions of readers (all two or three of you...and that's including husband) with any favorite Christmas songs, lyrics, or room-clearing hints.

Premature Embellishment

Let me make my feelings twinkle-light clear: there is no justification for decorating your house with Christmas lights nearly a week before Thanksgiving. Yet, when I drove into my development after work Sunday night I was greeted by a fully-lit, entirely Christmassed-out house flashing me in the most inappropriate (for November 23rd) manner.

And I wonder, what is the message this house is supposed to be sending me? Is it "Look! I operate independently from the Gregorian calendar!" Or is it just the bragging rights of being the first, at something...anything.

"DECEMBER - not NOVEMBER," says Miss Cranky Blogger

In a new-found effort to be kind or empathetic or mimic some other charitable emotion, I wondered what extenuating circumstances might prompt, or even require, the early Xmas decoration. I could only think of two: Someone shipping off overseas to serve their country before the holiday, or someone with only 5 days to live whose dying wish is to see their house all lit up, just one last time.

If this is not your situation, I beg of you: Please don't turn on the lights before Thanksgiving. See, I'm not saying don't put up your lights -- for all I care you can leave them attached to your eaves 365 days a year. I'm just saying please don't turn them on before turkey day.

In addition to being annoyed at the premature embellishment, I am perplexed -- it was freezing this weekend. At least 10 degrees colder than normal. I can see rushing things to take advantage of unseasonably warm weather, but to take advantage of unseasonably frigid weather?

Even more annoyed by illogicalness of it all.

I'm not a grinch. A contrarian, yes, and somebody who is old enough to remember when Christmastime meant Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day even - but - not an entire "season."

The next evening, upon his return home from work, my Esteemed Husband told me there were now three houses lit in the neighborhood. Oh yes, we suburbanites are nothing if not intensely competitive beasts.

So, to the folks who won the bragging rights to First Lights this year...you may be thinking you are being festive and jolly and all that. But I find your early lighting depressing - in that it just seems another dilution of the Christmas Spirit into something much less potent and meaningful.

On the other hand -- tomorrow's Thanksgiving! So all the rest of you can decorate to your heart's delight and my mouth will be too full of pie to complain.

Run! Here comes a former vice-presidential candidate!

Cyn's Movie Recommendation for Stoners, Stay-at-home Moms Who Don't Like Soap Operas, and the Employment Challenged

Yesterday, I was paging through the Verizon Fios On Demand menu for something free to watch while I did mending (Mending? Yikes! When did I turn into a granny?) when I saw it listed -- The Brain That Wouldn't Die!

Guess how I spent the next 80 or so minutes.

As manner of explanation (or excuse), I present one of my earliest television memories:

My sister and I were sleeping over at my grandparents' house...in my hazy memory, we were tucked in, each on our own little cot, in a small room that might have been my grandfather's home office or a spare bedroom. The room was dark, save the glow from the black-and-white television sitting on a cart between our parallel cots. The whole set-up was quite a treat, because (of course) we didn't have TVs in our bedrooms at home.

We were being allowed to watch a television program before we went to sleep. That show was: The Outer Limits.

...we control the horizontal...we control the vertical...

If you're not familiar with Classic TV (read "not anywhere near as old as I am") The Outer Limits was kind of like The Twilight Zone, but scarier - at least to a kid. And I probably wasn't any older than 7 years old at the time. But I loved that show. And it seems to have either set the stage, or have been an indication, of the viewing tastes of the rest of my childhood.

ANYWAY, a long and roundabout way of saying I watched a lot of Sci-Fi/monster flicks in my misspent and sedentary youth...and although I may have seen The Brain That Wouldn't Die half a dozen times on UHF in the 1960s-70s, I've never watched it as an adult. Naturally, I had to rectify that when I saw the listing yesterday afternoon.

Turns out I really got a kick out of it. In fact, I'd give this flick four (out of five) Dust Bunnies (what other measuring unit would a person use that's watching a B movie at 1 in the afternoon?)

It's got the requisite inadvertent humor you look to a B movie for, but also a plot that is fairly inventive. And a feminist message -- she's not going to let a little thing like a lack of torso and limbs keep her from taking control of a bad situation!

Even if you've never seen the movie, the image above is fairly iconic. And evidently, this film was used in a popular MST3K episode -- but I would suggest watching the original version and adding your own heckling.

Because the movie stands very well on its own (lack of) feet. Like most successfully cheesy Sci-Fi, The Brain That Wouldn't Die explores/exploits a scientific innovation. It was made in 1962, the year that a severed limb was first successfully reattached. View it in that light, and you see the movie works not only on the pure horror level, but also played on a prevailing fear of the time -- that medical science might venture into areas where it didn't belong...doctors playing god and conducting unethical experiments...hmm, absolutely recycles the Frankenstein plot...so, um, forget my analysis and enjoy the bad acting and pure camp of it all.

Expect something very low-budget (a couple times it's glaringly apparent they used music so they didn't have to mic a scene), enjoy the retro vibe of the trolling for loose women scenes, and laugh out loud like I did at practically everything Jan In A Pan says.

She Asked for a Smiley Face

This was the first presidential election my nine-year-old daughter was aware of. She followed the campaigning with interest (in a fourth-grade superficial kind of way.)

Even so, there was no way she could stay up last night to watch all the results come in, not with school today.

Before she went to bed, she had a request. If Barack Obama won, she wanted me to slip a drawing of a smiley face under her bedroom door...and if John McCain won, I was to make a sad face.

I've never enjoyed doodling more.


There's not much I can say here that won't be said better by those more eloquent than I...and maybe the election results are a clear sign that the time for words is over and the time to act is here. But I'm smiling inside, more than the smiliest of doodles could convey.

Because I doubted reason would prevail. Because I didn't believe that racism could be overridden in my lifetime. Because I had given up hope, but now it has been given back to me.

Thank you, fellow voters. Thank you, Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States.

Things Michael Penn and I Have in Common

#1 Both vertebrate mammals.
#2 Both wearing a vest on April 27, 2007.
#3 Both have posted in the Not Spencer series on the blog A Rubber Door.

Okay...so I'm still working on fleshing out the list -- but in the meantime, check out the new, exclusive (imagine the word "exclusive" surrounded with sparkly thingies) song/musical -blog-contribution, "The Count of Pennsylvania" by fantabulous singer-songwriter Michael Penn.

And, for my political ranting, see: "Hope vs. Fear in a Steel Cage Match for the Title" (Ah, I've been waiting years to work a professional wrestling term into my writing!)

12 Questions

Following the lead of Merujo...who was following the lead of Spencer...and so on...and so on...

1. Eclipse by Cyn McCurry, Ft. Worth
2. Learn how to make sushi.
3. Pope (St.) Pius X
4. be bold be brave be red
5. Portrait
6. Coke launches new advert for Zero
7. Nevis from space (click to enlarge)
8. 10Dark Chocolate
9. Power Aware Cord
10. The Fractured Family
11. Hybrid- different
12. vintage Tipple strings by cynicsgirl

Stock instructions: "Want to give this meme a whirl? Here's how: Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search. Using only the first page, pick an image. (You can arrange by "Most relevant," "Most recent," or "Most interesting.") * Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker -- fd's Flickr Toys.

(Now that I'm finished...I realized I was supposed to do this with Flickr - and I used Google Images. Oops. Was there a question about inability to read directions?)

The Questions were:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you?
12. Your flickr name?

Okay - redone in the proper format. Used exactly the same answers in my search, so it's interesting (at least to me) to see the variation.

The Flickr images:

1. Cardinal Cyn
2. sushi b-day
3. Saint Philomena
4. I don't wear masks
5. removing context from the lexicon
6. Coke Zero
7. In the event of a beach landing, your seat cushion will act as...
8. Pleasant moments
9. Dreaming.......
10. Each war is different, each war is the same
11. eccentric beauty
12. Cakes 4