Anyone else working today?I've got some soil backfill testing today, thank you SO much, Portland Development Commission.
This little video tickles me on several levels. I love the Bollywood musical number because...well, because I love Bollywood musical numbers. I love the "Pucca in a sari/Garu in the Bollywood-hero-1980s-urban-douchebag-complete-with-gradient-lens-sunglasses" costumes. And I love Pucca because, frankly, if you have little peeps and you're not going to die on the "You watch educational TV or you go read a book" hill you're gonna watch some pretty awful KidVid. And Pucca is one of the more bearable kid vid shows.
Those of you still reading obviously share my affections, so for you, here's the entiretly of "Pucca: Hooray for Bollywood!"
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Doc Luna and the Mountains of Madness
Introductory Note: I feel like storytelling tonight; this is the third in the "Tales from the Sinai" series. If you are confused by the setting or the nature of this post, you might look here for an introduction and explanation. The second story, "Doc Nelscott and the Obscure Object of Desire", is here.
From the first day he came through the door into the battalion aid station his cramped, pointed-toe walk made Doc Luna seem like a stranger even among a whole group of strangers.
We’d been pulled in from all over Division – from all over Fort Bragg – to fill the battalion for the Sinai deployment. I’d volunteered from my first outfit over in Third Brigade; we had medics from the Army hospital over across post and medics from other units we’d never heard of over on Smoke Bomb Hill and even from distant COSCOM, a place a fabled as CloudCuckooLand, where we’d heard of the “Cosmonites”, weird, Army-like hominids that were said to inhabit dwellings they never left, like the so-called “civilians” we were said to be defending, who thought of trees as landscape instead of a combination of dwelling and fortification and dirt as walkway instead of home and building materials.
Most of us had met less than a month before, and had barely learned each other’s names.
But Doc Luna was different.
He was almost silent, for one thing, in a group of medics.
Monosyllabic, at best. Practically mute
Most grunts will tell you that medics chatter like starlings but in truth, starlings are the mimes of the medical trade. Army medics, generally speaking, have never left a person or a place unimproved by talking. Stories, jokes, lies, gossip, and imprecation: there is almost nothing that a medic won’t talk about. Boasting is considered gauche, which means that war stories and sex stories usually have to be edited for time and content, but pretty much any- and everything else is jaw fodder.
But not for Luna.
And it was more than just reticence. Within days a couple of us had encountered the touchy, prideful, almost angry side he hid behind the impassive face. Misheard words became insults; casual avoidance was taken as slight. Before he had the chance to find his place among us he became a figure of mild amusement, then distaste, then distain.
He arrived at the airstrip at Ras Nasrani a man alone in a uniformed crowd.
He idled through the transition period bored and irritable as the rest of us. His personal peculiarities were lost amid the new strangeness of place and people. We forgot to ignore him as we goggled at the distanceless desert that stretched an infinity between the mountainous highlands to the impossibly blue Gulf of Aqaba, at the black tents of the bedu with their begging and herds of scrubby goats,
at the dribble of passersby and tourists that transited the Sinai in the winter; the British officer and his wife, tanned and somehow managing to be horsey even mounted in a dirty Land Rover, the German girls reeking of friendly sex and cigarettes, the odd Eurowhatsit with his Chitrali cap and battered bicycle and ajima-load of bedrolls and bundles.
So it wasn’t until we were parceled out to out first OPs that we got reminder of the oddity that we’d wondered at a bit at first.
Every OP – “observation post” – was a tiny island of humanity in the midst of one of the world’s great rocky deserts. A ring of sharp concertina wire enclosing sandbagged bunkers used typically only by camel spiders and scorpions, a pair of aluminum trailers (one for a dwelling, the other combination kitchen and commo shack), a water tower over a shower stall, a one-hole burn-out latrine.
Each one had a distinct character. The Checkpoints; One-Alpha, Two-Alpha and Three-Alpha, were bustling, busy places full of traffic and activity along the Main Supply Route or “MSR” that ran along the eastern littoral of the peninsula. Others, like OP3-2, were along large wadis that formed the passageways through into the interior and were often visited, or even tenanted by, the Bedouin of the Sinai. Others, like OP3-11 on Tiran Island and Remote Site 3-5 were as isolated as men could be in an age of radio and aircraft; fragile specks of human business in a land of rock and heat and stillness, cold and light and dark and wind.
I hope it was just bad luck that the first OP Doc Luna was sent to was RS 3-5. I’d hate to think that there was a Plan behind that, because to believe that would be to suspect that the Calvinists were right and that we are, indeed, all sinners in the hands of an angry God. Because the remote Remote Site was not kind to Doc Luna.
I liked the Remote Site, liked it's barrenness and the echoing clatter of stones in its canyons, the fossils of oysters and squid telling of the ocean that had once bathed this desolate place. We returned with tales of all-night card games and patrols sneaking down tortured wadis to find Bedu fires years dead.
The squad that came in from RS 3-5 brought with them some disturbing stories. Stories about their medic muttering to himself, glaring at some of the other soldiers, and shouting and fighting in his sleep. Disappearing at random times and then turning up in odd places like inside the food storage bins or inside a vacant bunker. Arguing with the squad leader and refusing some of his orders.
Sergeant Ramon, the medical platoon sergeant, called Luna in and tried to talk to him. The result of the meeting was not promising; Luna accused several of the squad’s soldiers of improbable maliciousness, and spoke bitterly of a secret plot against him. SFC Ramon asked Luna if he wanted to see the commander but received only a shake of the head. Both men parted unsatisfied.
The next deployment in sector passed quietly; Luna was sent to busy Checkpoint 3-Alpha, where he got on well enough. His squad leader returned with only the observation that Luna seemed a trifle over-concerned with the chlorination of the water supply, not a real problem since the checkpoint had an external water source.
On the more distant OPs the potability of the water WAS a real hazard. In many places the water resupply truck visited no more than once or twice a month, and in the black plastic tanks the chance for bacteria to flourish between fillings was ever-present.
The medics’ two most constant tasks on those outlying OPs was to burn out the used Army chow in the half-barrel under the latrine, and to check the chlorine content of the water daily and to add the chemical whenever the level grew riskily low. It was a repetitive chore of delicate brutality, fiddling with tablets and water and the plastic gadget with its color wheel and testing cells, dumping the eye-searing pool chlorine into that hot, echoing black vault. Too much and the GIs wouldn’t drink, no matter how brutal the heat. Too little and the possibility of gut sickness and panicked flight to the reeking latrine was a fear buried in the quiet place of all of our heads.
For all the blister lancing and sunburn anointing, our management of the water was the most constant influence we exerted on the other soldiers with us on the OPs. We were the sommeliers of water; sipping, measuring, testing, judging. Which level of chlorine will go with tonight’s Chili Mac? Should we add a pinch more for a robust “L’eau d’Esther Guillaumes” to accompany the morning’s dried egg omelettes? What flavor of water “carries” well on a long patrol, as opposed to one which “sits” for a more sedentary gate guard lifestyle..?
I spent the next two weeks out on OP 3-11 on “the island” of Jazirat Tiran watching seabirds soar over the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aqaba and patrolling the uninhabited rock with my squaddies wearing nothing but hat, boots, rifle and LBE equipment harness. I heard nothing from the rest of the battalion until I returned to the mainland.
While I was clutching and encouraging the shimmying old Huey to make it out to Tiran Island, Doc Luna rode out with his squad up the wadi to OP 3-3. The troopers said that he seemed no different than ever, perhaps a little more withdrawn, perhaps a little less relaxed, but no one really cared for him, so no one really bothered to notice. He was just there, ol’ Doc Luna, the oddball medic. He scuffed around the OP the first few days with the rest of the guys, squinted into the sun, looked on as the others complained their now-familiar complaints about the heat, the dust and the wind. Ate alone, and in silence.
The third or fourth day several of the squaddies complained about the water. It was nasty, full of chlorine, like pool water, they said. One of the team leaders drew a cup from the tank and reported to his squad leader that the men were right; the water was so chlorinated as to be practically undrinkable.
The squad leader, a soft-spoken young sergeant, found Luna in the bunk-trailer and instructed him to open the tank lid and burn off the chlorine; Luna’s response was a grunt and a glare. The next day the water tasted worse, if anything. The staff sergeant brought one of his team leaders to witness the order he gave to Doc Luna: bring down the chlorine level immediately. No excuses.
What happened next was described to me as a delighted garble of reportage, inference and innuendo. Some of the soldiers claimed that Luna growled like an animal, snapping and shaking his head, muttering curses and threats to the noncommissioned officers and all the soldiers. Others said that he remained impassive but seemed to swell in the threateningly reptilian way. A third group described his face as staring, eyes fixed and jaw clenched as he moved through the OP like a badly-played marionette, ignoring the soldiers idling the hot afternoon away.
What everyone agreed on was that he had gone to the water tank and drawn a 5-gallon jerrycan full of the awful pool water. After filling this, they said that he had taken the chlorine test kit out to the edge of the open helicopter landing area and had carefully laid every cheap plastic piece out on the stones before thoroughly splintering them with one of the orange border boulders. Private Ahlers solemnly reported that the largest single fragment was no bigger than his pinky toe. I could only agree, having no wish to see Ahler’s pinky toe.
Everyone then said that Luna had then clutched his jerrycan to him and stalked back to the billet trailer, where he crawled into his bunk with the can and the K-bar knife he had carried on his LBE. Any and every attempt to address him was met with weird yowls and cries and curses and jabbings of the knife. At last the squad retreated to the TOC trailer to call the sector control and report that their medic had gone ape, gonzo, bugnuts, batshit crazy and cry for help.
Everyone there on OP 3-3 that day had a different picture of the scene when the Dutch military police arrived with the battalion surgeon, the provost marshal and some sort of psychiatric fellow from Al Gorah. I heard of wild struggles, crazed rants and long, babbling soliloquies from the tormented Luna, whispered conversations, hasty conferences until finally the MPs crashed into his bunk and extracted the thrashing, screaming madman in a flurry of arms and legs and fists. Everyone agreed that Luna was finally securely strapped into the white jeep, silent, defeated, head down but his jerrycan still beside him for the journey down to sector control, and from there to the troop medical clinic at South Camp. Rumor went wild from there; he had bitten one of the doctors in the face, he had been “put in one of them Hannibal Lector mask things” as Specialist Goines described it, he had been flown out of the Sinai that very night. Rumor also had other, even more impressive tales that most of us, while agreeing were probably bullshit, were all secretly hoping were true. The madness of one of our fellows had an eerie delight to us, novelty in the midst of boredom, a fearsome but distant danger like a firefight seen from a hilltop far away.
What was true fact is that we never saw Luna again.
I remember sitting at the park bench outside the cheap modular building that Luna and I had shared a fortnight previously and wondering what had happened, why he had come to this time and this place to disintegrate so utterly, who the man had been inside that silent face. Had he always been somehow flawed, fractured inside, just waiting for the wrong combination of people and things and surroundings to fall to pieces? Or was he just like all of us, was his fall the fall that could overcome any of us any time for no reason at all…just the relentless, hopeless erosion of self and sanity, the loss of reason; quick and hopeless, or frantically scrabbling to keep the shattering pieces of his person together?
I had no answer from the evening noise of South Camp, the generators’ humming clatter and the sound of Egyptian pop music from the mess hall kitchen down the other end of the camp. The answer was locked inside the head of the beaten man who flew away, high and northwards in the night sky over the Mediterranean, as the sun went down over the mountains to the west.
From the first day he came through the door into the battalion aid station his cramped, pointed-toe walk made Doc Luna seem like a stranger even among a whole group of strangers.
We’d been pulled in from all over Division – from all over Fort Bragg – to fill the battalion for the Sinai deployment. I’d volunteered from my first outfit over in Third Brigade; we had medics from the Army hospital over across post and medics from other units we’d never heard of over on Smoke Bomb Hill and even from distant COSCOM, a place a fabled as CloudCuckooLand, where we’d heard of the “Cosmonites”, weird, Army-like hominids that were said to inhabit dwellings they never left, like the so-called “civilians” we were said to be defending, who thought of trees as landscape instead of a combination of dwelling and fortification and dirt as walkway instead of home and building materials. Most of us had met less than a month before, and had barely learned each other’s names.
But Doc Luna was different.
He was almost silent, for one thing, in a group of medics.
Monosyllabic, at best. Practically mute
Most grunts will tell you that medics chatter like starlings but in truth, starlings are the mimes of the medical trade. Army medics, generally speaking, have never left a person or a place unimproved by talking. Stories, jokes, lies, gossip, and imprecation: there is almost nothing that a medic won’t talk about. Boasting is considered gauche, which means that war stories and sex stories usually have to be edited for time and content, but pretty much any- and everything else is jaw fodder.
But not for Luna.
And it was more than just reticence. Within days a couple of us had encountered the touchy, prideful, almost angry side he hid behind the impassive face. Misheard words became insults; casual avoidance was taken as slight. Before he had the chance to find his place among us he became a figure of mild amusement, then distaste, then distain.
He arrived at the airstrip at Ras Nasrani a man alone in a uniformed crowd.
He idled through the transition period bored and irritable as the rest of us. His personal peculiarities were lost amid the new strangeness of place and people. We forgot to ignore him as we goggled at the distanceless desert that stretched an infinity between the mountainous highlands to the impossibly blue Gulf of Aqaba, at the black tents of the bedu with their begging and herds of scrubby goats,
at the dribble of passersby and tourists that transited the Sinai in the winter; the British officer and his wife, tanned and somehow managing to be horsey even mounted in a dirty Land Rover, the German girls reeking of friendly sex and cigarettes, the odd Eurowhatsit with his Chitrali cap and battered bicycle and ajima-load of bedrolls and bundles.So it wasn’t until we were parceled out to out first OPs that we got reminder of the oddity that we’d wondered at a bit at first.
Every OP – “observation post” – was a tiny island of humanity in the midst of one of the world’s great rocky deserts. A ring of sharp concertina wire enclosing sandbagged bunkers used typically only by camel spiders and scorpions, a pair of aluminum trailers (one for a dwelling, the other combination kitchen and commo shack), a water tower over a shower stall, a one-hole burn-out latrine.
Each one had a distinct character. The Checkpoints; One-Alpha, Two-Alpha and Three-Alpha, were bustling, busy places full of traffic and activity along the Main Supply Route or “MSR” that ran along the eastern littoral of the peninsula. Others, like OP3-2, were along large wadis that formed the passageways through into the interior and were often visited, or even tenanted by, the Bedouin of the Sinai. Others, like OP3-11 on Tiran Island and Remote Site 3-5 were as isolated as men could be in an age of radio and aircraft; fragile specks of human business in a land of rock and heat and stillness, cold and light and dark and wind.I hope it was just bad luck that the first OP Doc Luna was sent to was RS 3-5. I’d hate to think that there was a Plan behind that, because to believe that would be to suspect that the Calvinists were right and that we are, indeed, all sinners in the hands of an angry God. Because the remote Remote Site was not kind to Doc Luna.
I liked the Remote Site, liked it's barrenness and the echoing clatter of stones in its canyons, the fossils of oysters and squid telling of the ocean that had once bathed this desolate place. We returned with tales of all-night card games and patrols sneaking down tortured wadis to find Bedu fires years dead.
The squad that came in from RS 3-5 brought with them some disturbing stories. Stories about their medic muttering to himself, glaring at some of the other soldiers, and shouting and fighting in his sleep. Disappearing at random times and then turning up in odd places like inside the food storage bins or inside a vacant bunker. Arguing with the squad leader and refusing some of his orders.Sergeant Ramon, the medical platoon sergeant, called Luna in and tried to talk to him. The result of the meeting was not promising; Luna accused several of the squad’s soldiers of improbable maliciousness, and spoke bitterly of a secret plot against him. SFC Ramon asked Luna if he wanted to see the commander but received only a shake of the head. Both men parted unsatisfied.
The next deployment in sector passed quietly; Luna was sent to busy Checkpoint 3-Alpha, where he got on well enough. His squad leader returned with only the observation that Luna seemed a trifle over-concerned with the chlorination of the water supply, not a real problem since the checkpoint had an external water source.
On the more distant OPs the potability of the water WAS a real hazard. In many places the water resupply truck visited no more than once or twice a month, and in the black plastic tanks the chance for bacteria to flourish between fillings was ever-present.
The medics’ two most constant tasks on those outlying OPs was to burn out the used Army chow in the half-barrel under the latrine, and to check the chlorine content of the water daily and to add the chemical whenever the level grew riskily low. It was a repetitive chore of delicate brutality, fiddling with tablets and water and the plastic gadget with its color wheel and testing cells, dumping the eye-searing pool chlorine into that hot, echoing black vault. Too much and the GIs wouldn’t drink, no matter how brutal the heat. Too little and the possibility of gut sickness and panicked flight to the reeking latrine was a fear buried in the quiet place of all of our heads.
For all the blister lancing and sunburn anointing, our management of the water was the most constant influence we exerted on the other soldiers with us on the OPs. We were the sommeliers of water; sipping, measuring, testing, judging. Which level of chlorine will go with tonight’s Chili Mac? Should we add a pinch more for a robust “L’eau d’Esther Guillaumes” to accompany the morning’s dried egg omelettes? What flavor of water “carries” well on a long patrol, as opposed to one which “sits” for a more sedentary gate guard lifestyle..?
I spent the next two weeks out on OP 3-11 on “the island” of Jazirat Tiran watching seabirds soar over the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aqaba and patrolling the uninhabited rock with my squaddies wearing nothing but hat, boots, rifle and LBE equipment harness. I heard nothing from the rest of the battalion until I returned to the mainland.While I was clutching and encouraging the shimmying old Huey to make it out to Tiran Island, Doc Luna rode out with his squad up the wadi to OP 3-3. The troopers said that he seemed no different than ever, perhaps a little more withdrawn, perhaps a little less relaxed, but no one really cared for him, so no one really bothered to notice. He was just there, ol’ Doc Luna, the oddball medic. He scuffed around the OP the first few days with the rest of the guys, squinted into the sun, looked on as the others complained their now-familiar complaints about the heat, the dust and the wind. Ate alone, and in silence.
The third or fourth day several of the squaddies complained about the water. It was nasty, full of chlorine, like pool water, they said. One of the team leaders drew a cup from the tank and reported to his squad leader that the men were right; the water was so chlorinated as to be practically undrinkable.The squad leader, a soft-spoken young sergeant, found Luna in the bunk-trailer and instructed him to open the tank lid and burn off the chlorine; Luna’s response was a grunt and a glare. The next day the water tasted worse, if anything. The staff sergeant brought one of his team leaders to witness the order he gave to Doc Luna: bring down the chlorine level immediately. No excuses.
What happened next was described to me as a delighted garble of reportage, inference and innuendo. Some of the soldiers claimed that Luna growled like an animal, snapping and shaking his head, muttering curses and threats to the noncommissioned officers and all the soldiers. Others said that he remained impassive but seemed to swell in the threateningly reptilian way. A third group described his face as staring, eyes fixed and jaw clenched as he moved through the OP like a badly-played marionette, ignoring the soldiers idling the hot afternoon away.
What everyone agreed on was that he had gone to the water tank and drawn a 5-gallon jerrycan full of the awful pool water. After filling this, they said that he had taken the chlorine test kit out to the edge of the open helicopter landing area and had carefully laid every cheap plastic piece out on the stones before thoroughly splintering them with one of the orange border boulders. Private Ahlers solemnly reported that the largest single fragment was no bigger than his pinky toe. I could only agree, having no wish to see Ahler’s pinky toe.
Everyone then said that Luna had then clutched his jerrycan to him and stalked back to the billet trailer, where he crawled into his bunk with the can and the K-bar knife he had carried on his LBE. Any and every attempt to address him was met with weird yowls and cries and curses and jabbings of the knife. At last the squad retreated to the TOC trailer to call the sector control and report that their medic had gone ape, gonzo, bugnuts, batshit crazy and cry for help.
Everyone there on OP 3-3 that day had a different picture of the scene when the Dutch military police arrived with the battalion surgeon, the provost marshal and some sort of psychiatric fellow from Al Gorah. I heard of wild struggles, crazed rants and long, babbling soliloquies from the tormented Luna, whispered conversations, hasty conferences until finally the MPs crashed into his bunk and extracted the thrashing, screaming madman in a flurry of arms and legs and fists. Everyone agreed that Luna was finally securely strapped into the white jeep, silent, defeated, head down but his jerrycan still beside him for the journey down to sector control, and from there to the troop medical clinic at South Camp. Rumor went wild from there; he had bitten one of the doctors in the face, he had been “put in one of them Hannibal Lector mask things” as Specialist Goines described it, he had been flown out of the Sinai that very night. Rumor also had other, even more impressive tales that most of us, while agreeing were probably bullshit, were all secretly hoping were true. The madness of one of our fellows had an eerie delight to us, novelty in the midst of boredom, a fearsome but distant danger like a firefight seen from a hilltop far away.What was true fact is that we never saw Luna again.
I remember sitting at the park bench outside the cheap modular building that Luna and I had shared a fortnight previously and wondering what had happened, why he had come to this time and this place to disintegrate so utterly, who the man had been inside that silent face. Had he always been somehow flawed, fractured inside, just waiting for the wrong combination of people and things and surroundings to fall to pieces? Or was he just like all of us, was his fall the fall that could overcome any of us any time for no reason at all…just the relentless, hopeless erosion of self and sanity, the loss of reason; quick and hopeless, or frantically scrabbling to keep the shattering pieces of his person together?
I had no answer from the evening noise of South Camp, the generators’ humming clatter and the sound of Egyptian pop music from the mess hall kitchen down the other end of the camp. The answer was locked inside the head of the beaten man who flew away, high and northwards in the night sky over the Mediterranean, as the sun went down over the mountains to the west.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Oh, the humanity...
Possibly one of the funniest Thanksgiving bits ever filmed:Be patient; the editing is lame, and you have to wade through the opening credits to get to the funny. But h/t anyway to someone called "Pinnacle Productions" for posting this to YouTube; if you want the credit, you should work on your product a little more, guy.
But whatever. With God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
Happy Thanksgiving from the folks at the Fire Direction Center: Chief, Mojo, The Peeper and Little Missy!
But whatever. With God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
Happy Thanksgiving from the folks at the Fire Direction Center: Chief, Mojo, The Peeper and Little Missy!
Blogrolled: Une Envie de Sel
I enjoy the hell out of the electronical Internet, that contentious legacy of Al Gore...I am informed, entertained, amused, outraged and tittilated. I can have discussions or arguments with people from around the world, follow events from birth to death and everything in betwen, connect with distant friends as they move through their days from quiet backyard painting to crossing the world to embrace their little sons for the first time.
Every once in a while, though, I find something there that's a pure indulgence. This is one: "Une Envie de Sel".
It's not political blog, or a mommyblog (though the artist has a lovely little girl who turns up in the photos occasionally) or an adoption blog...it's just...lovely.
Like a sunset or the feel of the trunk of an old madrone or the taste of good hot coffee on a chilly morning, it seems to exist just for sensual pleasure, and it pleases me greatly.
Stop by and enjoy the musings of the Wanderer's Daughter, whose images these are.
Every once in a while, though, I find something there that's a pure indulgence. This is one: "Une Envie de Sel".It's not political blog, or a mommyblog (though the artist has a lovely little girl who turns up in the photos occasionally) or an adoption blog...it's just...lovely.
Like a sunset or the feel of the trunk of an old madrone or the taste of good hot coffee on a chilly morning, it seems to exist just for sensual pleasure, and it pleases me greatly.Stop by and enjoy the musings of the Wanderer's Daughter, whose images these are.
Ciao, bella!
Caught a part of this 1958 flick the other night:
"Houseboat" isn't a very good movie - it's too long, it's not very well written, and especially in that it has all the usual lame Hollywood tropes on display: the handsome-but-aging male lead as the love- and lust-object of the young and beautiful female lead (and Cary phones it in, as if he's mildly embarrased at his pursuit of a woman likely to be his long-lost eldest daughter); the horrendous moppets whose every rotten trick is excused as the result of being "troubled"; the confusion of "loud and stupid" with "funny". But it does have one thing going for it:
Sophia Loren was beautiful in ways that I see in a very, very few of the actresses active today. Of course, she was that unusual in her day. When you stand her next to a 21st century ingenue her combination of physical grace with that heavy, languid sensuousness that we seem to have abandoned for...a complete lack of body fat?...makes her seem like a rich meal alongside a slice of Melba toast. Throw in that fierce intelligence and her earthy sensibility...there were, and are, very few actresses like Sophia.
"Houseboat" isn't a very good movie - it's too long, it's not very well written, and especially in that it has all the usual lame Hollywood tropes on display: the handsome-but-aging male lead as the love- and lust-object of the young and beautiful female lead (and Cary phones it in, as if he's mildly embarrased at his pursuit of a woman likely to be his long-lost eldest daughter); the horrendous moppets whose every rotten trick is excused as the result of being "troubled"; the confusion of "loud and stupid" with "funny". But it does have one thing going for it:
Sophia Loren was beautiful in ways that I see in a very, very few of the actresses active today. Of course, she was that unusual in her day. When you stand her next to a 21st century ingenue her combination of physical grace with that heavy, languid sensuousness that we seem to have abandoned for...a complete lack of body fat?...makes her seem like a rich meal alongside a slice of Melba toast. Throw in that fierce intelligence and her earthy sensibility...there were, and are, very few actresses like Sophia.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Fallen Leaves
The past weekend was lovely, warm and sunny, and we all got outside as much as possible. We also had a fun visit with BrentandJanelle, where all the adults ate tempura, wine and chocolate and Mojo and I spilled as much wine as we could, ensuring that we'll never be invited back again.
Oops.
Saturday Mojo and Missy had fun with Missy's new "Cheap Chinese Restaurant Lantern" style hair pretties. Missy has learned that she's ready for her close-up.
What a cutie!
Here the girls are admiring their handiwork.
I should note that this is all part of the Missy Bedtime Ritual, which MUST include tub, stories, cuddles and then bed. Tub with Little Miss must ALSO include the Attack of the Naked Baby. This consists of me drying her off and hoisting her up to flick the bathroom light switches on and off a couple of times. Then she signals her readiness, and I put her down to scamper off down the hallway as I intone in a rising roar: "Here...comes...the...Naked...BABY!!!" - which is Mojo's and Peeper's clue to shriek and act afraid, during which time the Naked Baby gets to chase them around the living room and jump on them.
Good times.
Sunday morning Missy was a cute little maniac, racing around and generally being a nut. At one point she decided that Mommy needed to be towed around the central wall of the house by her b-robe tie-tie.
Towing mommies isn't as easy as you'd think, right, little girl? And Khufu's slaves thought they had it bad...
Okay, so: wierd story about how things get done around the Fire Direction Center. Rolled the trash and recycling bins out to the curb, since Monday is trash day in our little part of North Portland. Happen I noticed in so doing that the neighbors, who pay more attention to stuff like that, have their green "yard debris" bin out, too. Well, damn, most be the bimonthly "Yard Debris Day". I look in our green bin. Nothing. Well, crap. I figure I might as well fill it. I trundle it around to the front yard where the dogwood has shat about a pickuptruckbed-load of leaves in hopes of settling accounts with what little grass remains and rake them up, filling the bin only about 2/3rds full.
Well, damn, that can't be right. I trundle the big green bin around to the side yard and start raking. Mojo and Peeper are out washing her bicycle and the Peep wanted to help. So he got a set of post-hole diggers to load leaves into the bin.
But the bin was full! So we hauled out the paper yard litter bags and started filling. Missy, who had toddled out to the sandboxes to dig and watch Fat Nitty use them for a litterbox, came over to help by lying in the piles. Slowly the piles grew and then shrank as more and more bags were filled. Everyone enjoyed working and/or playing in the sunny November afternoon.
Mojo, having put her bike up was closely involved, as always, doing something she informed me was known as "supervising".
Hmmm.
So by pure accident we managed to rake up ALL the leaves in the yard, thanks to the help of our littlest campesinos. Next year I should see if we can pick up some coin hiring them out picking cherries or something...
Enough of this domestic life! What is this, some sort of Daddy-blog? Are we all supposed to sit around looking at cute kids, smelling the flowers and singing Kumbaya? Where's the politics? Where's the soccer? Well?
Okay: so next up: Beauty, Beastliness and Pirates of All Sorts. Yaaaarrrgh!!!
Oops.
Saturday Mojo and Missy had fun with Missy's new "Cheap Chinese Restaurant Lantern" style hair pretties. Missy has learned that she's ready for her close-up.
What a cutie!
Here the girls are admiring their handiwork.
I should note that this is all part of the Missy Bedtime Ritual, which MUST include tub, stories, cuddles and then bed. Tub with Little Miss must ALSO include the Attack of the Naked Baby. This consists of me drying her off and hoisting her up to flick the bathroom light switches on and off a couple of times. Then she signals her readiness, and I put her down to scamper off down the hallway as I intone in a rising roar: "Here...comes...the...Naked...BABY!!!" - which is Mojo's and Peeper's clue to shriek and act afraid, during which time the Naked Baby gets to chase them around the living room and jump on them.Good times.
Sunday morning Missy was a cute little maniac, racing around and generally being a nut. At one point she decided that Mommy needed to be towed around the central wall of the house by her b-robe tie-tie.
Towing mommies isn't as easy as you'd think, right, little girl? And Khufu's slaves thought they had it bad...
Okay, so: wierd story about how things get done around the Fire Direction Center. Rolled the trash and recycling bins out to the curb, since Monday is trash day in our little part of North Portland. Happen I noticed in so doing that the neighbors, who pay more attention to stuff like that, have their green "yard debris" bin out, too. Well, damn, most be the bimonthly "Yard Debris Day". I look in our green bin. Nothing. Well, crap. I figure I might as well fill it. I trundle it around to the front yard where the dogwood has shat about a pickuptruckbed-load of leaves in hopes of settling accounts with what little grass remains and rake them up, filling the bin only about 2/3rds full.Well, damn, that can't be right. I trundle the big green bin around to the side yard and start raking. Mojo and Peeper are out washing her bicycle and the Peep wanted to help. So he got a set of post-hole diggers to load leaves into the bin.
But the bin was full! So we hauled out the paper yard litter bags and started filling. Missy, who had toddled out to the sandboxes to dig and watch Fat Nitty use them for a litterbox, came over to help by lying in the piles. Slowly the piles grew and then shrank as more and more bags were filled. Everyone enjoyed working and/or playing in the sunny November afternoon.
Mojo, having put her bike up was closely involved, as always, doing something she informed me was known as "supervising". Hmmm.
So by pure accident we managed to rake up ALL the leaves in the yard, thanks to the help of our littlest campesinos. Next year I should see if we can pick up some coin hiring them out picking cherries or something...
Enough of this domestic life! What is this, some sort of Daddy-blog? Are we all supposed to sit around looking at cute kids, smelling the flowers and singing Kumbaya? Where's the politics? Where's the soccer? Well?Okay: so next up: Beauty, Beastliness and Pirates of All Sorts. Yaaaarrrgh!!!
Saturday, November 22, 2008
The Road to Hell
...is paved with things like home improvement ideas, child entertainment schemes and neoconservative foreign policy schemes
Or, in our case, a full day of domestic bliss.
I'll blog a little tomorrow, though I don't have anything really burning to say. Do I detect a certain slough, a lessening of intellectual intensity in the blogosphere, since the Election? Dunno, but in my case it feels seasonal as much as anything; I hate this time of year, when you rise and sleep in darkness. Mojo gets hit worse than I, but even I feel a certain lassitude during these short, cold late autumn days.
Add to that our friends in the very last stages of the adoption process have hit a very idiotic, very nasty little bump. Nothing that will disrupt their adoption, but just a dirty, petty display of human greed, and I'm...angry is too strong a word...irked about it. Certain aspects of international adoption are really unsavory, and the money-hunger is the worst. Yes, I know that many countries involved in IA are very poor. Yes, I understand that they often have no other recourse.
But, dammit, fine. Be honest. Call your fees "fees" and be businesslike about it. The thing that chapped me more than anything about our adoption experience was the "presents". We had to "give presents" to the orphanage staff and to the officials at Civil Affairs. The huge chunk of cash we "donated" to the orphanage had to be in new, crisp $100 bills - I almost requested nonconsecutive serial numbers to fit the ransom feel of the damn thing. Look; I give presents to people I love because I love them and donations to causes I support. These were "tips" at best, bribes at worst. IA is awash with money, it is wrapped up and undergirded and carpeted and upholstered with cash. There's a man called Brian Stuy who is widely loathed in the China IA community for hammering away at this and the potential for criminal activities like baby-buying and baby-selling it provides.
I'm glad we have our daughter, and I hope my friends bring theirs home soon, and safe. I wish everyone longing for a child could get one, decently and soon. We love and are very lucky to have our little girl. But I won't pretend that there's nothing about IA that makes me uncomfortable. There are, and thinking about our friends' sudden problem just reminds me of what they are.
Or, in our case, a full day of domestic bliss.
I'll blog a little tomorrow, though I don't have anything really burning to say. Do I detect a certain slough, a lessening of intellectual intensity in the blogosphere, since the Election? Dunno, but in my case it feels seasonal as much as anything; I hate this time of year, when you rise and sleep in darkness. Mojo gets hit worse than I, but even I feel a certain lassitude during these short, cold late autumn days.
Add to that our friends in the very last stages of the adoption process have hit a very idiotic, very nasty little bump. Nothing that will disrupt their adoption, but just a dirty, petty display of human greed, and I'm...angry is too strong a word...irked about it. Certain aspects of international adoption are really unsavory, and the money-hunger is the worst. Yes, I know that many countries involved in IA are very poor. Yes, I understand that they often have no other recourse.
But, dammit, fine. Be honest. Call your fees "fees" and be businesslike about it. The thing that chapped me more than anything about our adoption experience was the "presents". We had to "give presents" to the orphanage staff and to the officials at Civil Affairs. The huge chunk of cash we "donated" to the orphanage had to be in new, crisp $100 bills - I almost requested nonconsecutive serial numbers to fit the ransom feel of the damn thing. Look; I give presents to people I love because I love them and donations to causes I support. These were "tips" at best, bribes at worst. IA is awash with money, it is wrapped up and undergirded and carpeted and upholstered with cash. There's a man called Brian Stuy who is widely loathed in the China IA community for hammering away at this and the potential for criminal activities like baby-buying and baby-selling it provides.I'm glad we have our daughter, and I hope my friends bring theirs home soon, and safe. I wish everyone longing for a child could get one, decently and soon. We love and are very lucky to have our little girl. But I won't pretend that there's nothing about IA that makes me uncomfortable. There are, and thinking about our friends' sudden problem just reminds me of what they are.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Why I'm Not an Engineer
Because this is how I felt in calculus.
Is there something you feel this way about?
What is it?
I dread the moment when a high-school-age Peeper or Missy comes to me with a textbook and asks: "Daddy, can you help me with this math problem..?" It's not that I can't do the math, it's just that I don't have a "feel" for the science and I tend to make foolish mistakes. I used to have a sharp BCS operator that I relied on to recheck my checks of firing data before I sent them on to the line of steel. I'm just not a natural math-type guy.
While we're talking about stuff we didn't do well in school, here's a couple of science test bolos who at least tried to go with imagination when actual knowledge failed them. Hey, it's worth a try, right?
Okay. Not the answer I was looking for but shows a fine degree of common sense.
Nature hates a vacuum. And a smartass.
And there's always one out there that looks for a seamy underside to everything. Jathin is unlikely to make the grade as a marine engineer, but he looks to have promise as a Fox News anchor. Except he needs to find a way to tie the whole thing to Bill Clinton's penis. Keep on after it, Jathin. The Lure of the Clenis has GOT to be involved in that problem somewhere. Everything wrong with Man and Nature is connected in some way to the Clenis.
Is there something you feel this way about?
What is it?
I dread the moment when a high-school-age Peeper or Missy comes to me with a textbook and asks: "Daddy, can you help me with this math problem..?" It's not that I can't do the math, it's just that I don't have a "feel" for the science and I tend to make foolish mistakes. I used to have a sharp BCS operator that I relied on to recheck my checks of firing data before I sent them on to the line of steel. I'm just not a natural math-type guy.
While we're talking about stuff we didn't do well in school, here's a couple of science test bolos who at least tried to go with imagination when actual knowledge failed them. Hey, it's worth a try, right?
Okay. Not the answer I was looking for but shows a fine degree of common sense.
Nature hates a vacuum. And a smartass.
And there's always one out there that looks for a seamy underside to everything. Jathin is unlikely to make the grade as a marine engineer, but he looks to have promise as a Fox News anchor. Except he needs to find a way to tie the whole thing to Bill Clinton's penis. Keep on after it, Jathin. The Lure of the Clenis has GOT to be involved in that problem somewhere. Everything wrong with Man and Nature is connected in some way to the Clenis.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Yesterday upon the stair...
The world turns and folds back upon itself in ways too strange and wonderful and frightening to anticipate.
Five days ago I wrote a post about Hello Kitty bling and what an oddity the whole mouthless-cat-Japanese-manga-iconography business is to me. It was a silly little post, distinguished only by the subsequent visit and linky luuurve I got from the Blue Gal.
Until yesterday. When I got a comment on that post from someone called "Andrew", who was flogging something he called the "chinese life" store on Shamian Dao in Guangzhou. He included a link to the online marketplace for this shop. The minute I clicked on the link I was back in time over a year.
Another adoption mom we know described her time on Shamian Dao as "hazy", but to me it's as hard-bright as yesterday. Lucy's Store; "A House of Love" (in the picture above, center left rear). Heat. Strollers, cheap toys, wierd pointillist stonecarvings of kids, kids and parents, the fraying delicacy of closening exhaustion. Boredom. An irritated but faintly removed curiousity, like the subject of a racking examining the torsion mechanism pulling him apart. A simple comment, and I'm reliving one of the most boring yet strained weeks of my life.
How inexpressibly odd.
You only think you've escaped the past. Then when you least expect it you meet yourself upon the stair.
"...I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd go away."
Five days ago I wrote a post about Hello Kitty bling and what an oddity the whole mouthless-cat-Japanese-manga-iconography business is to me. It was a silly little post, distinguished only by the subsequent visit and linky luuurve I got from the Blue Gal.
Until yesterday. When I got a comment on that post from someone called "Andrew", who was flogging something he called the "chinese life" store on Shamian Dao in Guangzhou. He included a link to the online marketplace for this shop. The minute I clicked on the link I was back in time over a year.
Another adoption mom we know described her time on Shamian Dao as "hazy", but to me it's as hard-bright as yesterday. Lucy's Store; "A House of Love" (in the picture above, center left rear). Heat. Strollers, cheap toys, wierd pointillist stonecarvings of kids, kids and parents, the fraying delicacy of closening exhaustion. Boredom. An irritated but faintly removed curiousity, like the subject of a racking examining the torsion mechanism pulling him apart. A simple comment, and I'm reliving one of the most boring yet strained weeks of my life.How inexpressibly odd.
You only think you've escaped the past. Then when you least expect it you meet yourself upon the stair.
"...I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd go away."
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
So
Did I mention we had a busy weekend?
We had a busy weekend. But first, here's just a "silly"; Missy with Mojo's rear bike reflector that she decided would make a GREAT pacifier even though she doesn't really use pacifiers. Of ANY kind.
We called it the "blinky binky".
Here she is again, the little minx. It's not that she's cute. It's that she KNOWS she's cute.
So. Saturday started with an early trip down to St. John's Poekoelan dojo "One With Heart" for the morning "Little Monkeys" class. Our little monkey was a one-Peeper Kung Fu Panda (which, of course, we had to watch the night before just to get in the mood); he scrambled like a monkey, lept like a crane...
...slithered like a snake and sprang like a tiger. He was such good little student, listening to the instructor and doing his best at all the moves. He said he liked the "monkey" best because the kids got to leap and scuttle around. We're goingback next Saturday.
After that we went to the St. John's Community Center park for climbing, swinging and running, all with his friend J from daycare (who was also in the poekoelan class). I had to run to work at that point, but Mojo said later that the Peep and Missy had a lovely time on a sunny Saturday in the park...
Next up was everyone's favorite, drywalling Missy's bedroom.
Little Miss decided that she would lend a hand, or, in this case, a hand trowel.
We applied drywall compound to the joints and filled the screw holes, slapped wood filler on the nasty horizontal roof joists, and tried to even out the areas where the closet walls once stood. Missy helped by dipping her little trowel into the small cup I gave her and dappling the drywall goop on the wall. She was very proud of her efforts.
We played a little in the afternoon and tried to clean up the place a bit, and then at five our beloved Nanny Jen came by and Mojo and I went out to dinner and a movie with our friends M & W. We tried a place down on SE 21st and Clinton called "Vindalho", which turned out to be an interesting and pricey variation on the Mughal and classic South Indian menu. I've never had pear samosas, but they are a rather nice surprise.
The film was the Coen Brother's "Burn After Reading" which was also a nice surprise (if any Coen product can be called nice - it rather characteristically featured various idiots and maniacs doing unpleasant things with and to each other, rescued by the fact that a) it was viciously funny, and b) you didn't really care about or for any of the characters which made the viciousness funny.) in that it did not contain a single character which was either animated or juvenile. I hear you other parents chuckling ruefully.
Mmmm.
Early the next morning our little Missy woe up chanting "Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!", who is her little two-year-old friend next door. So. We got all dressed up and got on out little tricycle to ride the twenty feet next door and see if our friends were home (they travel a lot, so visits are often disappointing...). But they were! Oh joy! Oh rapture! Let the playing begin!
So. We played over at their house for an hour...
...and then...
...we came back over to our house and played some more. Popcorn and juice were partaken. Pumpkins and apples and potatoes were decorated with food (much of which was ALSO eaten). The little peeps played, decorated and ate...
...and ate some more. Oh, the picture at right is Missy showing off her handlebar streamers. Every trike needs handlebar streamers, neh? One has decided that it doesn't want to stay play, though, and Missy has been badgering me to re-epoxy it. Maybe in Springtime, sweetie, OK?
Here's the poppy feed in progress. So. While the little folks and Mom created and ate...
...Daddy went back out to Missy's, fired up the orbital sander...
...and sanded the drywall compound.
And.
The.
Textured.
Drywall.
Let me tell you. There is a special place in Hell reserved for textured drywall. Especially when you're trying to UN-texture it to match the nice, smooth drywall you've just hung.
Gaaah! as Sarah Palin would say.
But as you can see: Fall is really upon us, and it's time to finish up Little Miss' bedroom so she can have her own room come the spring!
It's late, and I have a couple of chapters of "Raven's Shadow" to read, and a warm wofe to cuddle, and sleep. So. G'night.
We had a busy weekend. But first, here's just a "silly"; Missy with Mojo's rear bike reflector that she decided would make a GREAT pacifier even though she doesn't really use pacifiers. Of ANY kind. We called it the "blinky binky".
Here she is again, the little minx. It's not that she's cute. It's that she KNOWS she's cute.
So. Saturday started with an early trip down to St. John's Poekoelan dojo "One With Heart" for the morning "Little Monkeys" class. Our little monkey was a one-Peeper Kung Fu Panda (which, of course, we had to watch the night before just to get in the mood); he scrambled like a monkey, lept like a crane...
...slithered like a snake and sprang like a tiger. He was such good little student, listening to the instructor and doing his best at all the moves. He said he liked the "monkey" best because the kids got to leap and scuttle around. We're goingback next Saturday.
After that we went to the St. John's Community Center park for climbing, swinging and running, all with his friend J from daycare (who was also in the poekoelan class). I had to run to work at that point, but Mojo said later that the Peep and Missy had a lovely time on a sunny Saturday in the park...
Next up was everyone's favorite, drywalling Missy's bedroom.Little Miss decided that she would lend a hand, or, in this case, a hand trowel.
We applied drywall compound to the joints and filled the screw holes, slapped wood filler on the nasty horizontal roof joists, and tried to even out the areas where the closet walls once stood. Missy helped by dipping her little trowel into the small cup I gave her and dappling the drywall goop on the wall. She was very proud of her efforts.
We played a little in the afternoon and tried to clean up the place a bit, and then at five our beloved Nanny Jen came by and Mojo and I went out to dinner and a movie with our friends M & W. We tried a place down on SE 21st and Clinton called "Vindalho", which turned out to be an interesting and pricey variation on the Mughal and classic South Indian menu. I've never had pear samosas, but they are a rather nice surprise.The film was the Coen Brother's "Burn After Reading" which was also a nice surprise (if any Coen product can be called nice - it rather characteristically featured various idiots and maniacs doing unpleasant things with and to each other, rescued by the fact that a) it was viciously funny, and b) you didn't really care about or for any of the characters which made the viciousness funny.) in that it did not contain a single character which was either animated or juvenile. I hear you other parents chuckling ruefully.
Mmmm.
Early the next morning our little Missy woe up chanting "Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!", who is her little two-year-old friend next door. So. We got all dressed up and got on out little tricycle to ride the twenty feet next door and see if our friends were home (they travel a lot, so visits are often disappointing...). But they were! Oh joy! Oh rapture! Let the playing begin!
So. We played over at their house for an hour...
...and then...
...we came back over to our house and played some more. Popcorn and juice were partaken. Pumpkins and apples and potatoes were decorated with food (much of which was ALSO eaten). The little peeps played, decorated and ate......and ate some more. Oh, the picture at right is Missy showing off her handlebar streamers. Every trike needs handlebar streamers, neh? One has decided that it doesn't want to stay play, though, and Missy has been badgering me to re-epoxy it. Maybe in Springtime, sweetie, OK?
Here's the poppy feed in progress. So. While the little folks and Mom created and ate...
...Daddy went back out to Missy's, fired up the orbital sander...
...and sanded the drywall compound. And.
The.
Textured.
Drywall.
Let me tell you. There is a special place in Hell reserved for textured drywall. Especially when you're trying to UN-texture it to match the nice, smooth drywall you've just hung.Gaaah! as Sarah Palin would say.
But as you can see: Fall is really upon us, and it's time to finish up Little Miss' bedroom so she can have her own room come the spring!
It's late, and I have a couple of chapters of "Raven's Shadow" to read, and a warm wofe to cuddle, and sleep. So. G'night.
Monday, November 17, 2008
This is only a test...
...of the overcommitted blogging system.
Too much going on and too little time to post about it. I'll try and get something up tonight; there was WAY too much good kid stuff (and adult stuff, although not adult stuff in "that way") (...or "Back of the car… not the rear entry situation" as George Clooney would clarify) to miss.
And especially today I'm thinking about my friends in Austin who should be hearing when their appointment with parental destiny is going to occur. Good luck, Mom and Dad; the sooner the better!
Update 11/18: Well, I came home to a little boy stricken with the Kindergartener's Revenge and a little girl who was all-Daddy, all the time. So no bloggage, so sorry.
But - the Austin ALTs are going to China! Yaayyyy!!! They will meet their little boys on December 7th, a day that will Live in Kidfamy. So Happy Pearl Harbor Day, you four! I should note that, based on the picture on your blog, the little Allfather promises to be a right little devil. Are you ready for cuteness with a Side of Naughty? Hope so - too late to back out now!
Too much going on and too little time to post about it. I'll try and get something up tonight; there was WAY too much good kid stuff (and adult stuff, although not adult stuff in "that way") (...or "Back of the car… not the rear entry situation" as George Clooney would clarify) to miss.And especially today I'm thinking about my friends in Austin who should be hearing when their appointment with parental destiny is going to occur. Good luck, Mom and Dad; the sooner the better!
Update 11/18: Well, I came home to a little boy stricken with the Kindergartener's Revenge and a little girl who was all-Daddy, all the time. So no bloggage, so sorry.
But - the Austin ALTs are going to China! Yaayyyy!!! They will meet their little boys on December 7th, a day that will Live in Kidfamy. So Happy Pearl Harbor Day, you four! I should note that, based on the picture on your blog, the little Allfather promises to be a right little devil. Are you ready for cuteness with a Side of Naughty? Hope so - too late to back out now!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Learning from Others' Mistakes
I think we're beginning to see the shape of Bush's Legacy.
And it's not pretty:
And it's not pretty:"With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.Ouch. Ya think they'll engrave that over the entrance to the Bush Library?
Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”
Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like Bush?”
Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”
Ohayo Gomazu, Kitty-chan!
One regret of living out here in the Northwest version of fly-over country is that I know deep in my heart that we will never, ever get our own Sanrio Luxe store in Pioneer Square Mall.
Jezebel has the whole dish, but let's just say that Mojo has a diamond-encrusted Hello Kitty Pez Dispenser on her Christmas List and doesn't even know it yet.
"Bling!!!" as Ms. Kitty would say, or would if she had a fricking mouth, anyway.
Some things I'll just never understand.
Jezebel has the whole dish, but let's just say that Mojo has a diamond-encrusted Hello Kitty Pez Dispenser on her Christmas List and doesn't even know it yet.
"Bling!!!" as Ms. Kitty would say, or would if she had a fricking mouth, anyway.
Some things I'll just never understand.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)