Another post without a real title because it’s just some stuff with no common theme to pull it all together

Friday greetings and salutations to all!  (Except you. Yeah, you. No, don’t look behind you, you’re the one I’m pointing at.)

Here’s the first thing on my mind today: the expression, “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.” Maybe I’m just a mean, vengeful bitch, but there’s nothing so bad that I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. In fact, the badder, the better. Being thrown into a volcano? Yes, I would wish that on them. Getting ripped to shreds by a pack of rabid wolves? You betcha. Being flayed and then boiled in oil? Hellz yeah. What if they were chained down, forced to watch an endless loop of Justin Bieber concert footage and given an electric shock each time they tried to close their eyes? I’m cackling gleefully just thinking about it. How about if they had to drink a poison that would kill them slowly and painfully while a throng of teenage girls stood by and viciously mocked them? Get out the popcorn because I’m watching that show.

There’s nothing too bad for my worst enemy, believe me. Even if my worst enemy were subjected to the most nasty, evil, twisted psychological and physical torment that could possibly be dished out, it STILL wouldn’t be bad enough.

This might be too good for my worst enemy.

I mean, I’m not talking about my frenemy, my sorta enemy, or my I-don’t-quite-hate-them-enough-to-wish-them-dead enemy. I’m talking about MY WORST ENEMY. If someone has done something vile enough to become my worst enemy, why wouldn’t I wish utter horror on them? Is it just me? It’s just me, isn’t it.

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I have some seriously good ideas for retail stores. Check it out:

• In Philadelphia, I’d open a bookstore called Written House. (If you know Philly, you know why this is awesome. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the City of Brotherly Love, here.)
• In Quantico, VA, I’d open a sandwich shop across the street from the FBI headquarters and I’d call it Unsub.
• In Germany, I’d open a chain of restaurants in all the airports, and I’d call it Luftwaffle.

I can hear you all groaning from here, by the way.

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I frequently have dreams in which I’m still in school and I find out that my final exam is that morning and I haven’t been to class all semester. I know a lot of people who have similar dreams. It seems to me that this kind of anxiety dream must be a fairly modern phenomenon, because up until the 20th century a lot of people didn’t even finish high school.

So what anxiety dreams did people have in previous centuries? Maybe they weren’t school related. Did they wake up in a cold sweat thinking, “OHMYGODIFORGOTTOFEEDTHECHICKENS”? Did they dream that it was almost dark and they didn’t have any candles? Maybe they had more dire dreams, about contracting plague or smallpox? What kinds of stuff would have freaked them out? I wonder about things like this.

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Is there anyone on earth more punchable than John Mayer? Actually, never mind, I just answered my own question. Bieber. I can’t say he’s more punchable, but he’s certainly as punchable.

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Tomorrow is National Lobster Day here in the US. I’m going to celebrate the day by having a lobster for dinner. He’s a finicky eater, though, so I hope he likes what I’m serving.

The booty call

I didn’t know what would happen when he showed up.  I was nervous.  I hoped I would be able to control myself.  But he looked more fantastic than I remembered.  Dear God, why did he have to come back into my life just when I thought I was over him?  And why was I letting him come back??

So I begged him to leave.  We can’t do this, I said.  Please, just go.  You know how badly I want you, but I just can’t.  He was completely indifferent to my pleas.  He just sat there and watched me.  He knew he always made me weak in the knees and he was enjoying this.  I hated him for it.  I loved him for it.

Who was I kidding, I knew I’d submit to him.  More than once.  I always did.  And he knew it.

And ohh, it was soooooooo good.  I was shocked by my raw animal passion for him.  Before I knew what was happening my eyes were rolling back in my head and my toes were curling.  Primitive grunts escaped my throat.  Every cell in my body ached for him.  He rocked my world.  I couldn’t speak but in my mind I screamed “YES YES YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS” over and over.  He satisfied me utterly and completely.  He fulfilled primal needs I didn’t even realize I had.

I would have done anything for him.

I felt like I was in a fugue; I was intensely aware of the sensation of us coming together but it also seemed otherworldly, like an out-of-body experience.  Sublime.  And so right.

For a while I basked in the afterglow.  This is how it should always be, I thought.  What was I so afraid of?

And then, slowly, the glow faded.  I looked over at him and realized that these encounters of ours could never amount to anything more.  I loved him desperately.  But our relationship was obsessive—so intense, so all-consuming, it would destroy both of us if we stayed together.  With us it was all or nothing.  A healthy long-term relationship would be impossible for us.

With tears in my eyes I pushed him away.  I’m so sorry.  I wish I were stronger.

As I turned to leave, I looked at him one last time.  I snapped a quick photo of him so I would have a memento of this special evening.

Goodbye, my darling mashed potatoes.  My beloved spuds.  My delicious, buttery master.  You are absolutely wonderful, but I can’t be with you.  I lose control whenever you’re near me.  I’m afraid you can never be anything more than an occasional booty call.

Madame Weebles invites you to tea

One of the most important aspects of blogging etiquette is to spread the love.  My good friend Brigitte does this better than anyone.  I, however, have really sucked at this lately.  So many of you have given me bloggy awards, shoutouts in your posts, reblogs, etc, and I haven’t paid it forward in a long time now.

So it’s time to put things right.  I will have another post soon about awards and such, but today’s post is an invitation to tea—or coffee, or cocktails, or milkshakes, whatever.

Each week I’m going to choose two or three bloggers (depending on what kind of response this gets) to have over for tea, etc.  I will email them a series of wacky and/or demented questions for them to answer.  Then I’ll incorporate their answers into a post about our gathering, which will take place in a luxurious setting with only the finest beverages and the most sumptuous of treats.  And each week’s party will be different.  We’re going to have such a good time!  (And naturally I’ll link to each blogger’s site.)

If you’d care to join me, kindly RSVP below, and I promise I will get to all of you in due time.  I’m already choosing venues, selecting caterers, and interviewing waitstaff in anticipation of your arrival.

My most boring post to date

I still got nothing.  This is a recurring theme.  It vexes me.

So why don’t I just pour some coffee and tea for everyone and we’ll have a nice chat, shall we?  The cookies will be out of the oven shortly.

Since I have nothing interesting to say, I’ll tell you a bunch of uninteresting things.  So if you’re already bored, I urge you to click away from this page now.  It’s only going to go downhill from here.

For starters, I think Hurricane Isaac is a dick for hitting the New Orleans area.  Come on, dude, haven’t the people in the Gulf suffered enough??  And Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29, 2005—-nice 7th anniversary gift, asshole.

Ah, there’s the buzzer, the cookies are done.  I’ve made a few different kinds.  Chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, and maple prune.  Those last ones were an experiment but they don’t look very appealing.  I’d give those a pass if I were you.  Careful, they’re heavy.

The other day I heard “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys for the first time in a while.  I really don’t like that song.  This is the best you could do as a tribute to your hometown, dude?  Because if so, your best sucks.  As a native New Yorker, I’m offended.  I could make a recording of subway trains coming to a screeching halt, with Joe Pesci’s voice dubbed in, and it would still sound nicer than that song.  I want the ghost of Frank Sinatra to come down and kick the shit out of Jay-Z for writing that earsore.

Would you like coffee or tea?  Personally, I like my cup of coffee the way I like my men: strong, hot, and bottomless.

Now where was I?  Right.  Rambling aimlessly.

You know what I’d really love to do?  I’d really love to have my own old-fashioned ice cream parlor and soda fountain.  With tin ceilings, marble countertops, wrought-iron fixtures, and the type of soda fountain they used to have in pharmacies back in the day.  Like these:

     

Except I’d have much more comfortable tables and chairs.  And I would serve fancy ice cream sundaes, sodas, phosphates, and all kinds of other wacky concoctions.  But I’d add a bakery section too.  This way if you’d rather have cookies, pastries, or cake (hi Sandee!), or if you want ice cream and cake (and who doesn’t??), you can have your cake and eat it too, so to speak.  I think that would be nice.  A nice 19th-century-style confection emporium.  But to give it a little twist, the staff would all be dressed like saucy Victorian whores.  Including the men.

More coffee?  More tea?  No?  You suddenly don’t feel well and have to go home immediately?  Oh, what a shame.  You didn’t try those maple prune things, did you?  That’s a relief.  Why don’t you stop by tomorrow?  Oh, you’ll be busy.  Okay.  How about Saturday?  I see.  That’s so nice of your dentist to be open on the weekend.  Good luck with those root canals.  Want me to come over on Sunday to see how you’re doing after the dental work?  A silent retreat at your church after Mass, how interesting.  Isn’t that funny, I thought you were Jewish.  My mistake.

Well anyway, it was great to visit with you, we’ll have to do this again soon!

What’s your kryptonite?

Unlike many of you, I am a mere mortal.  I have many weaknesses.  You know how Superman was powerless against kryptonite?  There are many things that are kryptonite to me.  Some in a good way, some in a bad way.

For instance, certain accents are kryptonite to me.  Yesterday we were treated to The Reclining Gentleman’s English accent.  The English accent weakens my knees pretty quickly.  But the accent I’m most powerless against is the Irish brogue.  I can’t resist it.  Can’t.  Won’t.  It doesn’t even matter if the speaker is male or female.  I’d pay good money just to listen to an Irish person read aloud from the dictionary or the phone book.

There are several other things that are guaranteed to evoke a visceral reaction in me, such that I am unable to resist swooning, making an ass of myself, and/or indulging in to an unspeakable degree:

• Cute animals—anyone who doesn’t turn into a mess of goo with cute animals is probably Hitler reincarnated.
• French fries—this should require no further explanation.  They’re delicious, greasy, salty proof of God’s existence and benevolence.
• Carvel ice cream—for those of you not fortunate enough to live in an area with purveyors of Carvel, Carvel is like Dairy Queen or Mr. Softee, except much, much, much better.  See “proof of God’s existence and benevolence” above.
• This guy—at this point he should need no introduction.
• Flea markets—where you can find all kinds of crap you never knew you absolutely must have.
• Bookstores—at least, until Amazon destroys them all, anyway.
• Las Vegas—over-the-top decadence and debauchery at its best.

Then there’s the bad sort of kryptonite. Things that are so heinous and awful that I can’t stand looking at them, hearing about them, or being in the same room with them:

• Disgusting holes—we’ve discussed these.
• Roaches—Satan’s emissaries on earth.
• Any of those interminable ASPCA and Humane Society commercials—why don’t you just waterboard me, it would be less traumatic.
• Cottage cheese—to some, a healthy snack.  To me, a vile poison.
• Honey—to some, a delicious topping for toast and other things.  To me, a vile poison.
• Kevin Costner’s voice—want to send me into a homicidal frenzy?  Force me to listen to the audio from Dances With Wolves.
• Tom Cruise—my hatred of him is even more intense than my hatred of Alex Trebek.

So how about you?  What’s your kryptonite?

Another reblog: Insomnia edition

It’s 4:30am and I can’t sleep. I woke up about an hour ago and have been up ever since. I didn’t get home from work until 10pm last night so I’d really prefer being asleep right now. But I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to have some quality time with the Weeblettes, one of whom is trying to climb on my lap even though my laptop is already on my lap.

So here’s a blog entry from a few months ago. Because you never know when this travel advice will come in handy.

Packing for a trip through time

Also, there is nothing good on television at 4:30-5:00am. I guess the networks feel that if you’re awake at this time, you deserve crappy programming. Unless this is their way of trying to be helpful, airing stuff that would be more likely to put you to sleep. Either way, sucks.

Spending an afternoon in April 1936

I really need to get that time machine up and running.

Because for starters, I need to go to the Automat. I’ve been hearing about this place since I was a kid. The last Automat in NYC was open until 1991 but by then it was a heartbreaking shadow of its former self. So even though I’ve been to that one, it doesn’t count as a true Automat experience. I want an authentic Automat experience like this:

According to my parents, and everyone else I’ve ever spoken to who was lucky enough to eat there during its better days, the Automat was great. Everything was freshly prepared and all you had to do was put a nickel in the slot, open the door of the compartment containing the dish of your choice, and enjoy. It sounds like so much fun! Plus, they were reputed to have the best baked beans, the best rice pudding, the best macaroni & cheese, the best mashed potatoes, the best creamed spinach, the best chicken pot pie, the best honey buns, the best pies, the best cakes . . . the best everything, really. And most importantly, they had the best coffee, always freshly brewed. The coffee was dispensed from spouts shaped like dolphin heads—and let’s face it, anything dispensed from a spout shaped like a dolphin head is going to taste pretty fantastic.

So I need to go back in time so that I can have a delicious lunch at the Automat. I would have such a good time looking in all the little cubbyhole windows and choosing my meal. And I want to have a cup of that world-famous coffee poured from the dolphin spout, and maybe a piece of cheesecake or coconut custard pie (for which the Automat was also noted).

But it would be a shame to eat and run, so I would probably also take in a movie matinee. That’s why I’ve chosen April 1936—because that’s when Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, starring Gary Cooper, premiered. And if you haven’t seen what Gary Cooper looked like in those days, check it out:

See what I mean? Yeah, I know, he’s smoking in this photo, but Good Lord, he’s also smokin’. Talk about a hot dead guy. I’d have me a fine time watching him on the big screen, and besides, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town happens to be a fun little movie. Of course, they could have filmed him just sitting there reading aloud from the phone book and I’d pay money to see it.

On the other hand, maybe I’d skip the movie and get back in the time machine to hunt down Gary in person. That would make for a nice afternoon too.

Chinese food: Nature’s miracle medicine

Today I’m having a really shitty day. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say that my job sometimes gets really crazy. I was at work last night until midnight, and today has been extremely unpleasant so far—and it’s not even 1pm. It’s good that it’s Friday, at least, but as Fridays go, this one blows.

One of my esteemed colleagues, however, just saved me from a dreary, miserable afternoon: she asked if I wanted to order Chinese food for lunch. And suddenly I could feel all the serotonin and dopamine receptors in my brain go bananas. Chinese food!! Oh BOY!!!

I’m obviously an addict because just the idea of Chinese food is enough to make me happy. Forget the sugarplums—I usually have visions of egg rolls, wonton soup, fried rice, lo mein, chicken & broccoli, dumplings, pork buns, scallion pancakes, and cold sesame noodles dancing through my head.

Don’t get me wrong—I love ice cream, cookies, chocolate, potato chips, etc,  as much as the next person. But there’s something about Chinese food that’s just so indulgent and so comforting. And so greasy and salty and delicious!

We haven’t even placed the order yet but I feel better already.

What foods make you feel better? Please do tell!

Let us now mourn discontinued treats

Being a long-time consumer of cakes, cookies, ice cream, and candy, I have enjoyed several brands that are no longer sold. But I remember them fondly. Sigh.

So let’s take a stroll down Memory Lane, shall we? And please feel free to share your own long-lost faves.

Ben & Jerry’s Dastardly Mash Ice Cream

This is one of the earliest B&J flavors I remember, from around the mid-80s. It was a rocky road type of flavor. I loved it, but I guess I was one of the few. According to this tombstone in the Flavor Graveyard at B&J’s headquarters in Vermont, the raisins may have ruined it for people. Ordinarily I don’t love raisins but in Dastardly Mash, they really worked for me.

Burry’s Happyniks Cookies

Anyone else remember these? They were fun—chocolate and vanilla wafer cookies, and each one had a happy face. Look at the picture of the cookies on the box—they’re just so cute! How could you not love a smiley cookie? I’m not sure when these were discontinued but it was probably about 20 years ago. And the cookie aisle hasn’t been as happy a place since then.

Garbage Candy

Not to be confused with Garbage Pail Kids, which were completely different. Garbage candies were like Sweet Tarts, but they were shaped like things you’d find in a garbage pail. There was a soda bottle, a tin can, an old sneaker, a fish skeleton, and a bone. And they came in a little plastic garbage can. I used to get one of these garbage pails every day after school.

Nabisco Marshmallow Sandwich Cookies

These were awesome. Marshmallow between two cookies that were sort of like Nilla wafers except softer. So good. And so sorely missed. I had them with a glass of milk when I was a kid but I wish Nabisco still made them because I bet they would be great with a cup of coffee too.

Hershey’s Bar None Candy Bar

These were also awesome. Why oh why did Hershey discontinue such a wonderful candy bar? I’d much rather they bring this one back and dispense with some of the newfangled varieties of Hershey’s chocolates that are out now.

Viennetta Ice Cream Cake

Mr. Weebles misses Viennetta very much. They still sell it in England and other countries, but that doesn’t help us much since we don’t live in England and other countries. I first had Viennetta in London and was so happy when they started selling it here. But then they stopped. It’s like they were just teasing us.

Foods and beverages that begin with P

I have other things I’d like to post about, but in the interim, I felt inspired to make the following list:

pickles
pizza
popcorn
pudding
pumpkin
Pepsi
Perrier
pasta
persimmons
parsnips
pretzels
peanuts
potatoes
parmesan cheese
parsley
peaches
pumpernickel bread
poppy seed bagels
pecans
Prosecco
pork
pancakes
peanut butter
Pringles
prosciutto
pancetta

Please feel free to contribute your own P food or drink as well.