Eat, Drink, and Be Arrested

I wish I could say my life was a picnic.  A bright Victorian picnic where people play croquet on the lawn and wear hats that match their dresses, with blooming flowers and butterflies floating on the breeze.  I wish I could say my life was white irises on the mantle and roses blooming in the garden.  But since I can't, I'm gonna tell y'all about Husband's birthday.

I'm not particularly big on my birthday, since so many have been disappointing.  I'd rather just ignore that it's coming, and do something else.  But Husband's birthday should be a big deal, and it totally is.  Especially this year, when not a whole lot has been going well for us recently.  So I decided to throw him a party.  And I wanted it to be an awesome party.  I wanted it to be the kind of party that had talk of strippers and nights in Rodanthe and had the cops called to it.

...For the record, that last one nearly happened.  Yeah, it's that kind of story.

So being an army man and having army buddies and not particularly caring for croquet or white irises, Husband wanted to have his birthday party at a local watering hole, a wings place that had fifteen thousand kinds of wing sauce and one salad, complete with wings in it, on the menu.  But I agreed, as long as I could still bring him a birthday cake.

Look at this piece of shit cake.  This garbage destroyed my faith in humanity.  And my faith in cake.

The first fiasco was the cake.  I mean, look at this thing.  It looks like they let a legally blind marmot put that lettering on.  And the cherries used to decorate it were not dried before being put on top, so they immediately bled all over the white frosting on the cake.  I am still fighting with the company about this cake, because I'll be damned if I will accept sub-par cake at any time, let alone Husband's birthday.

As for the rest of the night, it went particularly well.  That is, until he began opening presents.  It went smoothly at first, but then we got to the final gift.  I should explain that it is not unusual at all for the two of us to buy each other toys we would have enjoyed at the age of eight as gifts nearly as frequently as we do the tube socks and jewelry thing.  Thus it was not at all odd for me to buy him the biggest Nerf gun on the market.

If he looked at me with this much joy, I'd assume it was because he'd figured out a way to kill me for the insurance money.

Of course, that is what started all the problems.  Because he could not wait until we got home to open it.  He had to open that Nerf gun right there in the bar, and put it together.  I would have scolded him more, but frankly, there was more joy on his face when putting that toy together than I ever saw on our wedding day, so I just let it slide.  Instead, I watched as he loaded it, and then began to unload it.

In the bar.

At people's heads.

This was supposed to be a picture of him firing on his buddies.  But I was laughing so hard that I dropped the camera.

This continued in our little corner until our waiter came up to me, having been patient with our rowdy asses for this long, and told me that should the firing of projectiles continue, we would be kicked out on our rude behinds, and the police would be called if we did not comply.  I took matters into my own hands, and took the gun away, putting it under my chair, but I then spent the rest of the night trying to keep him from going for it again until I just put it in the trunk of the car.

Not that it was not hilarious that he was pelting his friends in the face with Nerf darts, but you know, sometimes, I really want a party to be closer to white irises than a police escort home.  Just saying.

MovieFlux - Movies I Love That Everyone Else Hates

I am admittedly a snob when it comes to books and literature.  How can I not be, when I was nourished on things like Oscar Wilde and Charlotte Bronte?  But I have also been accused of being a movie snob as well, so I'm introducing MovieFlux posts, occasional posts about movies, whether I enjoyed them or not.  This time, we delve into the world of movies that I love that everyone else friggin' hates.

1.  Sucker Punch

We are so feminist!  Just look at our feminist midriffs!

Okay, I get it.  There IS a lot to hate about this movie.  From the confusing plot to the not-so-feminist "feminism" represented with short skirts, high heels and pigtails, I can tell why people don't like this film.  I on the other hand love the hell out of it.  I could watch this movie over and over again.  I'd like to say that it's because I love anime, and this has a very anime feel to it, or because I believe that Zack Snyder's red-headed stepchild has some kind of deeper meaning.  But mostly, I admit, it's because it's just cool looking. 

2.  Moral Kombat

Street Fighter was worse.  Admit it.

There are people out there, mostly big fucking nerds like me, who will argue that there are no good video game movies out there.  And others that will argue that you can't film a good video game movie, especially not with established canon that people know and recognize.  I have no problem with those arguments.  But I still love the Mortal Kombat movie.  It was a good old fashioned turn your brain off kind of film, with b-list actors and Christopher Lambert as the lightning god, Raiden.  What is not to like?  People are kicking each other in the face and just getting up.  I also have a little nostalgia for this one, since Mortal Kombat the game was the first game I had for my old gray brick Gameboy.  Yes I'm old.  Shut the hell up.

3.  Cats Don't Dance

The only thing missing is a talking hippo that embroid-... never mind.

When this animated film premiered, it did so to a dull roar, opening the same weekend as the rerelease of Return of the Jedi and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, both huge contenders.  Needless to say, this movie was quickly forgotten.  Hell, I forgot it until I was an adult and caught it on television once upon a time.  But by then I was hooked.  Aside from the main male protagonist being so two-dimensional that you need a stack of books and wooden plank to stand him up, the movie was brilliant.  It had an excellent message about racism hidden behind the mask of animals not being able to work in Hollywood, a memorable villain, beautiful animation, and excellent songs.  This was also the last film Cary Grant ever worked on before his death.  I will love this movie forever, no matter who forgets it.

4.  Final Fantasy VII:  Advent Children

I know it's shit, but look how pretty it is!

This movie has everything wrong with it.  It was Japanese dubbed into English so the mouth work is off.  The casting director chose big names so you see famous people instead of the characters when they speak.  You have to be really REALLY fucking familiar with the game to know what the hell is going on.  Oh, yeah, and it makes no fucking sense.  At all.  And yet, I still love this film.  Maybe because I feel like if I wish hard enough and love hard enough, they'll remake Final Fantasy VII for the PS3.  Maybe I just like it for all the pretty.  I don't know, I just know that I have watched it a ton of times in the privacy of my own home.

5.  Center Stage

Pretty people with problems.  I feel so bad for them.

Talk about fluff.  Girl who is not the perfect idea of a dancer gets into prestigious dancing academy.  Falls in love with guy who is not good for her.  Falls in love with guy who is so obviously "The One" even while she's with the jerk.  Shows the world how magically talented she is.  The End.  And I goddamn love it.  I hate chick flicks, and this one was especially panned because they used soap opera actors and actual dancers for the lead rolls.  I've only seen two of the actors go on to do anything else, one of which is Zoe Saldana.  Yet, I will sit my ass down and watch this any time it's on television.

So there you go.  A short list of movies I absolutely love, and other people just absolutely hate.  Everyone has their own list like this though, so wave your "I love this bad movie and you can't shame me out of it!" flag high.

Can't Have Manslaughter Without Laughter

Gather around, and allow me to tell you a story.  A story that would have ended in me probably going to jail.

Anyone who has read this blog, who knows me, who has spent like fifteen minutes with me, knows that I am extremely paranoid.  I'm talking some "She could really use some Lithium" paranoia.  My paranoia is the reason that Husband purchased a baseball bat for me.  Those times when he has to go out of town, when I'm alone in the house and nobody would probably check on me for a few days, I put the bat by the bed, in case of all the horrible things that could come get me.

I'm not just talking about serial killers or Jehovah's Witnesses.  I'm of course protected against the evil things of the night.  The vampires, the werewolves, the Rebecca Blacks.  Should they come after me, I was prepared with my bat, all of course taking for granted that nothing would kill me, drink my blood, sing crappy tone-deaf pop music before I could wake up.

This is just on a typical day.  Other days, we'd add in trolls or George Bush Jr.

I never thought that I would ever actually have to use the bat.  Frankly, for over a year it sat near the bed, only moved when I had to clean, and then replaced after a few practice swings that narrowly miss a curious cat who is too dumb to get out of the way.  But a morning not too long ago, I was actually called upon to use the bat.

Having taken Husband to work, I curled back up into bed to get a few more hours of sleep.  The normal ritual would have been that if Husband was coming home early, he would never remember his house key, and would ring the doorbell until I answered the door.  So when I was woken up from a deep sleep by someone walking around downstairs, it NEVER occurred to me that it was him.

For a moment I had to decide whether to call the cops, go investigate, or piss myself, knowing that someone was in my house after I had locked the doors.  So I finally crawled out of bed, grabbing the baseball bat as quietly as I could.  At this point it was all speculation as to who would be there, and what if it were some confused elderly person who knows how to pick locks?  I couldn't just call the cops.

Could have been one of these too.  Still preferable to half the shit I was thinking about.

So I began heading down the steps, and then the real terror began.  I heard the intruder heading for our brand new television.  All at once, any sympathy I had for this person vanished.  I was going to break some bones, dislocate some joints.  Because I fucking love that television.

In my pretty pink butterfly pajamas, I crept down the stairs, bat over my shoulder.  I was deciding whether I wanted to let out a war cry or not when I heard the bastard leave the living room and go into the kitchen.  Had he heard me?  Was he going to try to slaughter me with my Pampered Chef knives?  Then I heard the fridge open.

Of all the cocky bastards....he was going to make a sandwich before coming to kill me and taking my TV. 

I got to the bottom of the steps and lifted the bat over my head as I walked into the living room, listening to the serial killer thief sandwich maker putting cheese on his bread.  By this time, I was pretty sure this person did not need to kill me, because I was pretty damn close to a heart attack before even getting near the kitchen.

So I'm almost to the kitchen, and I was readying my battle cry when two steps and out pops Husband, sandwich in hand.  I was so shocked I dropped the bat on the floor and just sat down and sobbed.  When he asked why, through bites of sandwich, I explained how he had scared the living hell out of me and if I had been any braver, I would have swung first and asked questions later.

This sleeping kitten is an accurate portrayal of how threatening I was.

I tried to explain how he had not called out when he came in, which was explained away by how he did not want to wake me; how he had gotten in with the doors locked and how he had remembered his key; not to mention how he went to the television first and of course, how he had been picking up something off the entertainment system mantle.  All of it just him changing his routine.  And I'd have bashed his skull in.

At least Husband was kind enough to not laugh at me until after I stopped crying.

I Friggin' Love How Dumb I Am

All of us are guilty of doing something foolish.  Something not good for us or perhaps something not good for others.  My most recent sin in this arena comes from the fact that I have a tendency to purchase food that I hear is excellent and I then discover is disgusting in every possible way.  And then despite having taken a bite and/or drink and finding it the most repugnant thing since the Republican party, I KEEP EATING IT.

The horror that dare not speak its name is the McDonalds Shamrock Shake.  I have had one of these every year since they came out, and you would think I would learn my lesson.  This thing is not a food product.  It is like someone added water to toothpaste and poured it in a cup and threw it in the freezer for a couple of hours.  It has the texture of melted cake frosting, and looks like a leprechaun took a shit in a McDonalds and they scooped it up for the dessert menu.

It looks like Slimer jerked off into a cup...

Yet, knowing all of this, I pulled into the drive through the second I heard that they were back until St. Patrick's Day, a day known for poor decisions, and ordered a medium.  I paid my money and felt a shiver of anticipation that one can only feel when about to poison themselves willingly as I pulled forward and received that demonic paper cup and wrapped straw.

I couldn't even wait to get out of the parking lot before ripping the straw open and plunging it home.  That first drink was like the tears of an angel that had been dipped in creme de menth booze and set aflame with the fires of sex and happy bunnies.  Yeah, it was that good.  Unfortunately, there was a second drink.

The second drink of any Shamrock Shake has a steep drop off, from heavenly bunny fire to something between listening to Kanye West talk about how he's the voice of a generation and taking sandpaper impregnated with rock salt to a wound still full of broken glass.  It is at this point that I should have stopped drinking.

I'm not particularly proud to admit that I did not.

This accurately measures how friggin' dumb I am.

Instead, I just kept drinking it until I got home, and then sent it on the counter as I came inside, half finished, mocking me there as I put away my purse and coat.  I stared at it for a few minutes, then turned and went to do something else.  This is where the biggest mistake comes in. 

There is a large amount of shame in this next part.  When I returned to the kitchen a few hours later...I took another drink.  This time, it was not cold, nor trying to resemble ice cream, nor freshly turned.  It was like drinking something that had been sitting in the draft from Satan's asshole, and I gagged right into the sink. 

I spent the rest of the night swearing that I was going to die, that I was going to puke up my own intestines, and that perhaps, just perhaps, I had opened a doorway to Hell through which creatures of insanity-causing horror were going to emerge, having sacrificed myself on some unknown alter built into our married quarters kitchen.  Point is, I poured the rest of it down the sink.

Yep, Bosch painted this after drinking a Shamrock Shake.

So did I learn a lesson?  Probably not.  I admit, I will probably continue to get things like Shamrock Shakes and aloe vera juice and organic grain cereal that looks like something that I might have scooped out of the cat's litter box.  Why?  Because I'm stupid, that's why.

Obviously.

Appreciating the Appreciative

Know what I don't get?  People who seem like they hate EVERYTHING.  I'm not talking hipsters who say it because they think it's cool to dislike anything mainstream, but people who genuinely go out of their way not to enjoy anything.  Why do that?

I suspect a few people will be staring at this post going, "Mina, seriously?  The hypocritical apple doesn't fall far from the hypocritical tree, missy." Or something like that.  And I am the first to admit that yes, I am a snob.  I am an elitist.  I openly disdain much of the mainstream in arts and entertainment and fashion because I hold myself to a higher standard than fart jokes and dick humor.  But that is my personal choice. 

What I'm talking about are the people that don't enjoy anything for the sake of trying to hold onto some ideals that don't make sense anyway.  Like a "feminist" who cannot enjoy a piece of art work because she feels that it is against her feminist ideals, and so instead of just appreciating the well crafted art which is neither exploitative nor particularly sexual, the feminist has to tear it apart as if it were nothing but a page out of a Hooter's catalogue because the subject is attractive and not wearing a tent.

Why?

What the hell does that prove, other than ideals were kept in a situation when it was unnecessary?  I guess my main problem with it is that we currently live in a society that is okay with this kind of behavior.  In today's world, we are more apt to respect the people that hate everything than those who are able to appreciate things no matter what they are, so long as they are not genuinely bad.  But the people who like everything are called stupid, uncultured, or just plain ignorant.

All I'm saying folks, is give appreciation a chance.  So something isn't your thing.  It happens.  I hate zombies, Nicki Minaj, and Jersey Shore.  But these are all popular things.  I also gave them a chance before I decided that they just were not my thing.  Hell, I swallowed my tongue while trying to read Twilight, and I don't particularly walk around spouting my hatred of it.  But live and let live is a real thing and I believe in our hate-it-to-be-cool society, that is something that is forgotten all too often.

I hate this.  Mostly because it reminds me of something out of Japanese horror.

I personally am going to attempt to practice as I preach.  I am going to give up the hate, and I'm going to go see something I don't think I'll like.  No, it doesn't matter that I'm going to just stare at Chaning Tatum for two hours.  I'm still going to give it a shot.  Because it's easy to hate.  It's a hell of a lot harder to appreciate the good in things.

...Wow this blog post is kinda...preachy.  I swear, back to funny life stories next time.

The Plague

Well I went all last week without a post, and that's mostly because I was stricken down in the prime of my life by The Plague (capitalized, as all my illnesses are).  I went to bed Friday with sugarplums and shirtless firemen dancing in my head (or whatever married women are supposed to dream about) and Saturday I woke up something else.  I was no longer a woman, I was a tissue beast with a voice like an autotuner stuffed with ether soaked cotton balls.  Husband couldn't have been more pleased.

I spent the next week switching between moaning in bed, and moaning on the couch while neglecting hygene, Husband, and cat alike and swearing that I was going to die.  Because I was pretty certain that I had THE PLAGUE AND I WAS GOING TO DIE. 

100% of the time is spent telling Husband how I'm going to DIE.

Now, don't get me wrong.  Healthy and well again, I am quite aware that I am slightly...unhinged when I am sick.  Husband, if he knew I was blogging about it, would probably say that I am unlivable and unsufferable when I am sick.  And I totally, totally am.  I go from a productive woman with books to read and games to play and blogs to write to a lump of misery that can only moan in a grating, glass grinding monotone about how horrible I feel. 

I really do feel bad about how I act when I'm sick, but it comes from having a husband who takes such good care of me when I'm on the brink of death.  Especially when he does things like he did this time, mostly because I suspect he blamed himself for bringing The Plague home with him from work.  He went and got me kleenex (with Kung Fu Panda on the box even) and orange juice.  He made me chicken noodle soup and brought it to me while I was oozing yellow stuff and touched me when the cat, smart creature that it is, wouldn't come within arm's distance of me.  I'm pretty sure she knew something I didn't.

This forest is representative of how many Kleenex I use when sick.  The EPA is why I had to move to Canada.

For some reason I imagine that she thinks that I was undergoing some kind of horrific, The Fly style transformation.  That one night my pink kitty pajamas would split open like a second skin and some freakish creature would emerge to eat her and Husband before leaving on two pairs of wings to mate with men and eat their heads indiscriminately until I was stopped by a sexy scientist and her cop boyfriend who would then celebrate by having sexy movie sex.

Yeah, I'd have been okay with this if it meant my nose wasn't runny any more.

Either way, I think I would have just been happy to not have been sick.  Dead, transformed into a bug monster, I was ready to accept any kind of Kafka-esque future as long as I wasn't dripping things from my nose any more.  I'm pretty certain that Husband would have probably been okay with it too after days of fever-induced dreams and Nyquil naps that lasted ten hours in a row.

Adventures in Self-Torture

So there I was, sweating, breathless, surrounded by men.  We're all breathing hard, the physical exertion enough to keep us glistening and tired.  I only wish going to the gym was as much fun as it sounds in my dirty, dirty mind.

I am a newbie to this whole gym thing.  I have the rhythm down, I know enough to not stare at the guys who have biceps bigger than my head, and to wipe down the machines when I'm done.  I also know enough to take my own water, and that turning up my music is not a sin when the constant clatter and whir of machinery threatens to send me into a paranoid insanity where I'm absolutely certain that they're all living death machines that survive off human pain and suffering.

This is what most people imagine before ACTUALLY going to the gym.  Complete with bustle.

But since the music takes care of that, I'm far more paranoid that someone is watching me at the gym.  Not because I am particularly good looking, but because I feel like I don't belong.  The gym is full of skinny women in spandex that wouldn't even make a tube top for me and men who can bench press my considerable weight without flinching.  Husband tries to reassure me that this is not the case, and conversations generally go in the direction of:

Me:  I hate that everyone looks at me.  I'm sure they're all thinking "How dare that fat girl try to come in here and take responsibility for her physical health!"

Husband:  I doubt they're thinking that at all.

Me:  But they have to be!  I don't belong!

Husband:  Dear, if they're staring, it's because you have pink hair, tattoos, and a five carat wedding ring on your hand.

...Touche, husband.  Touche.

This is fairly acurate.  I swear.

The truth of the matter is that people there are probably more concerned with their own physical fitness and their own training than they are in one pink-haired fat girl.  Nobody probably notices me, and if they do, chances are they only see camaraderie, or someone taking responsibility for their own life.  And if they're thinking something snide and mean, well, what does that particularly have to do with me?  Why the hell do I care about what one meat head thinks?

So I go to the gym and come home wheezing like a beached manatee, making the "Please, dear merciful God, if you exist, push me back out to see" whimpering noise.  It frightens the cat.  Husband has learned to just walk past my melodramatic display of agony and sea creature noises.  He'll have none of my nonsense.  Especially since he knows that in twenty minutes and a shower later, I'll be back to normal.

Today does stick out in my mind though.  Mostly because there was this woman at the gym who literally looked like she was skin and bones.  The kind of person who would benefit from an additional twenty pounds of weight or so.  But there she was, two treadmills away from me.  That wasn't the weird part though.  The weird part was that she had the treadmill at such a level that it was nearly 90 degrees into the air, and she was clinging to the display panel for dear life as she climbed it.

I began looking around, wondering if she maybe needed help, but nobody else seemed concerned.  So I broke my own gym etiquette rules, and I kept an eye on this woman with my peripheral vision.  Mostly because I was absolutely certain that she was going to miss one of her steps and go shooting off that thing like a cat on waxed counter top. 

This was not something I wanted to miss.

This is EXACTLY what I thought would happen.  If I were lucky.

My imagination ran with the news story that would obviously occur to cover a woman flying off a treadmill at speeds that propelled her through the row of elliptical machines and into the wall (oh the humanity), where I would be the only witness, and I could tell them all how concerned I was for her, so I kept an eye on her from the very beginning.  It's entirely possible that I got a little lost in these thoughts, because next thing I knew, she was gone.

I searched all around, and realized that she indeed had not flown off the treadmill, but had obviously finished her work out.  So I finished my own, slightly disappointed, and went down to the locker room to get my things to leave.  I should have never allowed myself to believe that I was going to be left disappointed.  Because there she was in the women's locker room, right as you walk in.  Butt naked.

I love it when things come full circle.