I can't sew. There, I finally got that off my chest.
I realize the inability to sew isn't
a big a deal these days, but back when I was growing up, sewing was one of
those "fallback careers" we women were supposed to have so when teaching or
nursing or stripping didn't work out, we could darn socks for money. The boys' fallback
careers usually involved football or racecar driving.
Someone did try to teach me to sew in
the fourth or fifth grade and it was an unmitigated disaster. (As an aside, why
are disasters always unmitigated? Wouldn't it be better if someone mitigated
them? Perhaps that would be a good fallback career for kids these days... "Hi,
I'm Amber, and I'm a Personal Disaster Mitigator." I'm telling you, I'd hire a
PDM faster than you can say "Oops, did I really say that out loud into the
microphone while standing here with my skirt tucked in my pantyhose?")
I've had a month from hell. My car was totaled, I got whiplash and developed a
floater in my right eye that looks like something a Siamese cat threw up after
eating a gerbil, and it's a balmy 72 degrees in my refrigerator (but I do enjoy
watching the baby birds nest in the egg compartment). I'm fairly certain
food poisoning is going to be next on my To Do list.
As a result of this series of unfortunate events, I have spent most of my time
lately listening to Rod Stewart sing old love songs while on hold with insurance
companies, doctor's offices, repair professionals, and mob hit men. And
no, Rod, I don't want your body. I'm still holding out for George Clooney.
I've spent a lot of time on the road lately. Well, not literally. I don't drink
that much. At least not since last Thursday.
But I have spent a lot of time on freeways driving hither and yon. Hither is
nice, but yon doesn't have a decent drive-thru coffee stand, so you might as
well go ahead and scratch it off your travel itinerary.
Every kid's party these days has a theme: one week it's Spongebob
Squarepants, the next it's Which Olsen Twin Am I? Themes help pull the
whole party together and make the day even more fun for the youngsters. More
importantly, a theme helps parents choose from among the thousands of paper
plates and napkins at the Spend Your Kids' College Fund on Party Accessories
store.
Although I'm not really a party animal - I'm more of a party vegetable - I have
been to my fair share of soirees and know that for the most part grown-up
parties usually don't have a theme other than the recurring "Let's Get a
Little Tipsy and Argue in Front of the Neighbors." But last week I went to
my first official adult theme party. Although it didn't say so on the invitations, it was definitely a Biker Gang/Desperate
Housewife/Ex-Girlfriend/Midlife Crisis party.
I was rear-ended this weekend. (Okay you two, get your minds out of the gutter).
I was sitting at a light waiting for traffic to pull forward when a Nissan Pathfinder slammed into my poor little Honda Accord's backside. My car prefers gentler introductions - a nice sniff of the rear bumper first, followed by a raising and lowering of automatic antennas, and then, only then, if all goes well, actual car on car action.
I should have said my car "preferred" instead of "prefers" because it is comatose as we speak and chances are good it will remain in a vegetative state for the rest of its life. The radio will only pick up right wing talk shows, that's how bad its brain function is.
George W. Bush and I both underwent medical procedures on July 20th. His was a
colonoscopy, mine was a heart test. Colon... heart? You draw your own
conclusions.
While his nether regions were being probed, Bush turned over power of the
United States to Dick Cheney. This may be why I had to have a stress
echocardiogram in the first place. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if heart
tests of all kinds tripled that day. "I can't explain it, doc. I was
sitting there at a meeting when suddenly my blood pressure skyrocketed for no
reason at all. It's like something shifted in the universe. I swear I could
hear Darth Vader's theme song from Star Wars pounding in my temples."
At the time I was undergoing my test, I turned over power to my husband. I'm not
sure which scared me more. Dick Cheney is an evil malcontent bent on destroying
the world as we know it so he can hurry the rapture along. My husband is a good
guy who spends most of his time sleeping and tends to forget simple
instructions like "Please feed the dogs" and "When the shower curtain
is on fire, can you throw a little water on it?"
Like Queen Latifah, I changed my hair color this month. Like Britney Spears, I got a new puppy, although mine was a rescue from a local animal shelter. Like Lindsay Lohan, I took my first drink in weeks last night (mine was a Fuzzy Navel wine cooler from the 90s I discovered at the back of the refrigerator behind a really skanky kiwi.) And like Nicole Richie, I'm starving.
But does anyone care? Nooooo... What's a girl like me have to do to get attention anyway? Put on an orange jumpsuit and find the lord? Not that I'm fame-obsessed, mind you. I actually enjoy being able to scratch my ass without a dozen cameras capturing the act for posterity. Ha-ha. Ass and posterity. That was so witty, I had to enjoy it twice.
But every once and awhile, I could use a little media attention just to let my estranged family know I'm alive. Because if I have to e-mail them, they'll start e-mailing me back, and it will never end.
The long hot days of summer loom ahead and here I am in all my pasty glory. As
a natural redhead (that's what it says on the box), my skin always has that
"I just bathed in Clorox" glow to it. The sheer white luminosity of
my thighs and belly makes me stand out on a beach like a lighthouse beacon. In fact,
I'm thinking lighthouse beacon might be the perfect summer job for me.
My lack of pigment doesn't usually bother me, but I spent this weekend with two
friends with fake tans. We're all women who are smart enough (read: old enough)
to understand that basking in the sun is not only dangerous, it's stupid. It
leads to premature aging of the dermal layers and cancer. Not to mention that
the type of men who are attracted to women to loll around on towels in the
midday heat are the kind of men who think you will giggle at all their jokes
and really, really want to fetch them beers while wearing a French maid's
outfit as they watch ESPN all day. Even if I lived on the sun, my brain
wouldn't be that fried.
I have a three-foot high pink plastic flamingo in my back yard. It guards my koi
pond, keeping herons at bay. I know, you've probably never read about this
solution for pond predators on the Internet. Well, now you have.
I tried using one of those plastic herons you can buy in gardening magazines,
even though it occurred to me when I was ordering it, that a fake heron might
just attract other herons like a cardboard cutout of George Clooney attracts me
from across a bar. Then I rationalized that perhaps a sober heron is more
discerning than I am drunk.
What do you do when two women you don't know invite you to play Hacky Sack in
the hallway of a hotel? Maybe this has never been an issue in your life, but
for me, these kinds of things happen all the time and I need a plan.
My current plan consists of saying YES to anyone no matter what they ask me to
do. It's not that I need everyone to love me. If I were that desperate, I wouldn't
have taken out restraining orders against my two stalkers. Sure, one was in his
eighties and may have just fallen asleep on my lawn until someone replaced his
oxygen tank, but still, I DID NOT NEED him to love me.
Quirkee Voices 
(0 vote)
I can't sew. There, I finally got that off my chest. 
I have a three-foot high pink plastic flamingo in my back yard. It guards my koi
pond, keeping herons at bay. I know, you've probably never read about this
solution for pond predators on the Internet. Well, now you have.
