Not Right in the Head

Sometimes my anthropological background rears its ugly, demented head.

It all started with a professor, Dr. Dettwyler. She was my fave prof in the department mostly because she had a nerdy sense of humor and because she didn’t give a rat’s….tail about the misogynists in the department. Back when I was majoring in Anthropology, we had a few of the “Old Guard” who still believed women shouldn’t be in the field. Not that we weren’t smart enough, but rather they felt that the Perils of Gwendolyn would play out at any moment.

And y’all thought Anthropology was boring.

Anyway, one thing that simply fascinated her were skulls, of the human variety. It is said that some people have the map of a country on their face because that area has specific genetic traits. One day we were watching Quest for Fire (while laughing out loud) and she remarked that the one actor who fit well in the role was Ron Perlman, his skull being so perfect. Perfect?? Yep, the cheekbones, the brow ridge, everything was just perfect and she would just love to own his skull for Science. This was her segue into that particular lesson. And I became rather obsessed with mapping skulls ever since.

Now, I tell you that story so I can better explain what transpired yesterday. I’m not much of a high-brow person, and tend to like irreverent comedy (Mel Brooks is KING!!). Last night I was watching Let’s Be Cops because I could, and I had an epiphany.

ZOMG!!! Look at that skull!! Just look at it!!! Isn’t it just perfect??? How did I miss Rob Riggle’s skull before???

Me: My GAWD his skull is awesome. Just like Ron Perlman’s!!

Hubby: People are going to be concerned about you wanting to collect heads.

Me: I don’t want to collect heads. I just want to own his skull. THERE’S A DIFFERENCE!!*

Obviously I don’t actually want to own anyone’s skull. But I do enjoy mapping them to this day. It’s fun trying to extrapolate where a person originated from. And let’s face it: he is rather easy on the eyes as well. And he is definitely not the only one, either. Guy Pearce and Olivia Wilde are two others whose skulls are fascinating to me. But as with all skulls, I only admire from afar.

Because this obsession would look ridiculous on a restraining order 😉

*In case it isn’t obvious, this post is done in humor and should be taken in the manner intended. Otherwise you are a poopy head.

Monday Sithy

Crushed. Just crushed.

Well, hopefully the Dark Side upgraded to bourbon.

Have a great Monday!! 😀

Home Improvement Part…. I Have No Idea

Slowly but surely I am upgrading each room in the house. As much as I would LOVE to have the Flynn Ryder twin come in and give my house a makeover worthy of Architecture Digest™, we just don’t have the moolah for that. Still, some things are worth improving due to the certain disrepair that comes with age. The bathroom tops that list for me, narrowly edging out the kitchen by a tenth of a hair. Water damage, mildew damage, curling iron damage…. it all adds up. So this year’s home improvement lottery winner was the main hall bathroom. Yes, my sanctuary will have to wait a few years before I can bring it up to Empress standards. It’s a sacrifice I was willing to make.

This is the bathroom before.

Not bad, but you can’t see the water damage behind the sink (THANK GOODNESS!!). It was a waste of space, having all that countertop and uncomfortable to have the sink right by the door.

How I Spent My Week Away From the Internet

Yes, I had a very good reason for being away. Eldest completed her classes and was now PCS’ing from the East Coast to the West Coast.

By minivan.

Which we, her parents, drove out in to pick her up, and to bring her home, and to take her to her next duty station. I have two words for y’all:

Never. Again.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the trip. Most of the trip to the East was very scenic, and some of it was downright wonderful. I got to see the U.S.S. Alabama from the bridge (had no time to stop), Lake Charles’ Hell Bridge (as I like to call it) and the Atchafalaya Basin, and the beautiful Magnolias of Mississippi. The trip out is a favorite of mine as well. I love driving the desolate areas of I-10 in Texas. I really do. New Mexico had awesome signs about watching out for snakes among other animalia as well as plenty of hot air balloons dotting the sky. Arizona had the misfortune of putting up with us experiencing a flat tire, but all in all it was a good drive.

Until I-8. I thought I-10 in Texas was desolate. That strip of highway made I-10 look like a booming metropolis. I asked the tow truck driver how people lived in such a desolate area and he said, “Very carefully.” Not soon enough we waved buh-bye to AZ and greeted California, which went from sand dunes, to rocky mountains to more mountains, to BOOM!!! cities. Seriously, we went around a curve and suddenly there was actual population clustered everywhere. And driving everywhere. For a state that frowns on emissions, it sure had a lot of drivers expelling it. Soon enough we arrived in San Diego….. and found out we were too early to check in. No matter, because we had a good friend waiting for us, none other than XBradTC, who was kind enough to meet us and show us a bit of San Diego before he had to leave for his home. I saw the Midway and enjoyed the views of the bay even though it was 66* F, which in my terms is parka weather, and enjoyed a fabulous dinner overlooking the water and a rather cloudy sunset which didn’t detract from its beauty. Aside from finally meeting XBrad, the best part was the gift he bestowed upon me:

I’m not sure if he is saying I am a princess, or if he is referring to my parenting style. Either way I was very touched to receive it, and I fully admit to laughing out loud while reading it at the coffee shop. Yes, people looked at me funny and I didn’t care. It was a wonderful day spent in a wonderful city and far too short. I can’t wait to visit Eldest again and take some time to see more of the West Coast.

But I will fly out next time 😀

Idiosyncrasies

We all have them. Some of us have more than our share. Some of us only have a few. I am far from being classified as suffering from OCD, but there are times when my family questions the lack of diagnosis.

They never question it when it comes to housekeeping, though.

For example, I have to drink hot tea from a teacup, with a saucer. Not so with coffee, though. I can drink coffee from a mug or travel cup or straight from the carafe with no issues. But hot tea MUST be served in a teacup, with a saucer. Oddly, the saucer doesn’t have to match the cup in pattern. Sometimes it looks like I am hosting the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party around here.

Then there’s grocery shopping. I have to group all the boxed goods together, all the produce together, and all the cold stuff together. I am not Jewish nor do I observe the whole dairy-separate-from-meat thing. But I want it organized so the kid bagging my groceries does it right, as in TO MY SPECS. Not the store’s specifications, but mine. Because I absolutely loathe to have canned stuff in the same bag with a box. But I don’t care if the eggs are with the pasta.

And of course…..books. I love books. Reading is the cheapest way to have a vacation. Even though I have both a Nook™ and a Kindle™, I still fall back on the feel and the scent of paper. But one thing I will never do to a book, no matter how old, how worn, or how torn, is dogear the pages or break the spine. Ironic, seeing as I have NO PROBLEM folding pages to create book art. But while I am reading a book? I treat it with the reverence due a reliquary. I even use coasters when I put them down.

And those are but a few of my not-quite-OCD quirks. I know I am not alone. Maybe I should found a group for this and get some support from other quirky peeps. But if we serve hot tea, I’ll bring my own cup, with saucer 😀

Thursday Sithy

I may just end up in Hades for laughing so hard at Piano Man.

Trust me, it ain’t just you 😀

Have a great pre-Friday!!

Sugar is the Best Hallucinogen

I love sugar. I really do. It’s not an argument about processed versus organic versus natural. I like sweet. Always have, and always will. And I especially enjoy it in chocolate or baked goods. And chocolatey baked goods. Ok, straight from the sugar bowl.

But there is now a Dark Side when it comes to ingesting the forbidden sweet late in the evening. I thought that when I ate cake while listening to Warren Zevon that it was a fluke. Seriously, who would ever dream of drinking at Trader Vic’s and annoying werewolves? Maybe some people, but not a whole lot. Late last night I had one Tim Tam™ cookie (biscuit, bickie, whatever they call it in Australia), and of course that set off probably my most ridiculous dream sequence ever, because it was about Johnny Manziel.

You see, Johnny needed an interior decorator, which I’m not. But his problem was that he wanted someone to decorate his room so that no one could disturb his pet monkey. And he hired me because I was the only Aggie with an Anthropology degree who could possibly understand life with a monkey. And I looked around, and between the large ping pong table and the poker table, there was a monkey sitting on a huge L-shaped couch, playing Super Mario Brothers on a Nintendo thing (I assume) while Johnny was explaining how he wants to give the monkey room, so while brandishing a hockey stick (I did say this makes no sense) he opens another door and shows me a huge ballroom area with tall windows and marble floors and I tell him it is best to keep the monkey in the smaller room and for Johnny to move his stuff in the ballroom, to which he replied, “That’s awesome!! When can you do it??” And I kept telling him he needed a wrangler not an interior decorator and he asked what was the difference and before I could charge him some obscene amount of money, I woke up.

Aside the obvious weirdness of the whole scenario, I’m not even sure why Johnny would make an appearance in my subconscious. I’m more of the Jason Isaacs/ Bruce Willis/ Sean Bean school of thought, really. A dream with any or all of them would have been awesome. Can you imagine???

Maybe a dram or two before bed, and I just might 😀

Simple Observations on Southern Living

This weekend was full of surprises. I am not one who is fond of surprises, bad or good. But it’s an observation that the bad ones happen without consent, and the good ones always require planning.

In the years I have lived in Texas, the A/C unit has gone out a few times. And it is a solid observation that it always goes out during the weekend, when A/C repair is not available.

Iced tea comes with both sugar and ice. Though unsweetened is no hardship to order, it is an observation that you will be looked upon suspiciously by the server if you ask for no ice.

Country roads are narrow. Though usually two-lane roads, it’s an observation that it’s just a wide one lane road. One can drive down the middle, as long as A) you scoot back to you lane with oncoming traffic, and 2) wave as they pass you by. The latter is mandatory.

Wildflowers are abundant and pesky, in a charming way. It is an observation that a lady will always appreciate any flower picked for her over one bought randomly. It takes guts to go out and pick out flowers on the side of the highway instead of ordering them by phone. All Southern ladies know this. However, all will appreciate any and ALL flowers anyway.

Football is a big deal in the South. It is an observation that we will talk trash with each other over our teams, and in the same breath defend them to those outside of our state who know NOTHING about football etiquette. We can trash our own state teams, but it’s always State over Team*, any day.

Anyway, time for me to get going. It is an observation that my presence is required early in the kitchen on days ending in “Y”. That’s not a Southern thing. That’s a regular thing 🙂

*Except for t.u. That’s my exception and I’m sticking to it.

How Movie Grief Could Have Been Avoided

I am getting rather cantankerous in my old age. I don’t go to the movies often, not just because it is outrageously expensive but also because the movie plots tend to get me mad. It is difficult sitting there and keeping quiet when all you want to do is scream about how a monkey could have done a better job of writing this massive waste of celluloid. Or worse, how the whole plots could have been resolved in FIVE MINUTES!!!

For example, take The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy. The first time I watched it it was all “Oooooh!!!” and “WOW!!!” and “ZOMG!!!”. But the second time all I could think about was how they could have just flown the eagles over the mountain and dropped the damn ring in there. I understand the concept of “allegory” but I also understand the concept of “logic”.

And then there’s Sleeping Beauty. Walt Disney loved to bring a fairy tale to life. Few people know he was actually involved in The Little Mermaid way back in the 1940’s. Dude was all about the “happily ever after”. But every time that movie comes on, all I can think about how all the angst could have been avoided if only they had sent an invitation to Maleficent!!! That’s it. She wouldn’t have even shown up anyway had she been invited.

And I don’t even have to explain my abhorrence for Fifty Shades of Grey. Or is it “Gray”? Sometimes English confuses me. But c’mon! A good looking guy tells you to sign a contract so he will own you and you have no rights whatsoever? Leaving the domestic abuse issue aside, the horrible writing, the impossibility of a 26 year old billionaire, and all the trappings, who would sign a contract to be treated like offal?

I should stop here. I know that Lent is having an effect on me. Ok, lack of chocolate is having this effect on me. Fine….FINE!!! Lack of wine, too. I have two weeks to go and miles before I am done. But I have patience, will, and time.

And a box of Peeps with my name on it 😀

Monday After Daylight Savings Sithy

Y’all need a funneh, because it is Spring Forward and Monday and STILL winter. So here you go, courtesy of MrFixIt.

The real reason Harrison Ford crashed.

Hope y’all have a great day 😀