Has anyone looked at James Carville recently?  Is it just me, or is he slowly shedding his human form?

Remember that 70s animated version of Return of the King?  And the song (you have to sing it like a wizard with a head cold) that goes "Frodoooooo of the ninnnne fingerzzzzz, and the ring of doooooommm.  Why does he haff ninnnne fingerzzzzzz, and whhhere izzz the ring of dooooommmm?" 
James Carville knows.
He knows.


(P.S.  Best teenage girl texting insult ever documented in a TV news magazine:  "OMG she is such a Smeagol.")

Did all you beautiful people know that honeybees are disappearing at alarming rates?  Everywhere, entire hives are succumbing to environmental stresses in an event called "Colony Collapse Disorder."  This is where all the bees leave the hive and go off to die.  Sadness!  The "disorder" has been widespread for the past few years.  This is bad because we all like honey and cute fat buzzy bees, but also because bees are essential to a massive part of our food supply (1/3rd of it, actually).  Imagine a world where flowers and fruit are a rare luxury, and where vegetables are truly scarce.  Soylent Green, anyone?  Now stop imagining that world (and halt the weird stream-of-consciousness that occurs when you think on Charlton Heston) and do some fun stuff for the bees!

Plant flowers!
Some of the plants bees are especially fond of are lavender, rosemary, sunflowers, jasmine, thyme, violets, wisteria, bluebells, trumpet vines, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Everyone likes to get stuff in the mail.  Visit Burts Bees to request a free packet of wildflower seeds to increase food sources and help relieve stress for your local hives.

Or send one of those old-timey self-addressed stamped envelopes to Haagen-Dazs Save the Honey Bees Program/Domino, 50 Francisco St, Ste 400, San Francisco, CA 94133 for more of the same. 

Practice organic gardening and support local organic farmers when you can.

Go to this pretty website (sponsored by some ice cream company or other) and download pretty wallpaper and screensavers to cause a buzz at your office.  (I said "buzz," which was corny.  Do you like corn?  We need bees to grow corn.  Actually, I'm not really sure that's true.  But anyway, bees.)

If you are one of those people who actually have some money, you can give some of it to the scientists who are researching this stuff, such as some folks at My Mom's Alma Mater.

Yay, bees!

I love the way my hands smell after handling tomato vines.  Best.  smell.  ever.

Yesterday evening I took my parents to see Asheville's very own minor league baseball team playing this thing they have now called night baseball.  It's baseball.  At night!  The stadium is pretty decent for a single-A team (the seats have backs and they have Stella on tap!), and it is always an extremely corny pleasure to watch all the goings-on while the home team loses decisively. 

Last night they started the game with three people parachuting onto the field trailing a gigantic American flag and emitting colorful clouds of smoke.  The announcer explained that they were representing our country.  I said I thought that people jumping out of a plane and hoping that their parachutes would open represented our country pretty well right now.  My mom agreed that this was true, especially because they were also blowing lots of smoke.

Ryan's people were there giving away a free weekend at Cherokee.  They did a war dance in the fifth inning that was probably the best part of the game.  They kept their headdresses on for the entire game.  The drummer sat in front of some yuppies who were nonplussed at how to correctly react re: not being able to see for all the feathers.

Ryan and I sat between my mom and dad.  Bill & Babs' first attempts to communicate with each other resulted only in much shouting and many confused looks because they are both deaf.  Ryan and I had to play telephone for everything they wanted to say to each other.  So, in the spirit of telephone, I started to mess up the messages, which resulted in more shouting and confused looks.  Fun!

Bojangles bo-berry biscuits were thrown into the crowd, the staff was dressed in 50s-themed costumes, the mascot got his head knocked off, and a good time was had by all.  I recommend minor-league baseball as excellent semi-ironic, semi-earnest fun.

And it was all the more fun because the school year is over and I don't have to wrangle demon children on Monday or ever, ever again!  Yay!  Weeeeeee!!!  Today is the first day of the rest of my life!

Late on Saturday afternoon, we went hiking with the dogs.  You can pull off the Blue Ridge Parkway pretty much anywhere there's a place to park and find a trail-head.  So we stopped between "Grassy Knob" and "Sleepy Gap" (you say bucolic, I say vaguely smutty) and hit the trail.  Pepi happily blazed ahead, setting a brisk pace.  Harpo stopped every now and then and gave a manic scream, obviously overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. 

There were lots of animal tracks on the trail.  Big ones.  "Hm!" I mused.  "What interestingly enormous animal tracks!  I wonder what kind of enormous animal would make such a track?  Hm.  What beautiful wildflowers!  What a beautiful day."  We passed a rocky outcropping that looked like it housed a cave.  "Wow!  I bet a lot of woodland creatures live up there!"  As if in answer, something that sounded large rustled around above the trail, unseen among the rhododendrons.  A bit later, Ryan's special Cherokee powers kicked in and he stopped and made me sniff the air for the musky scent of animal urine that he caught.  After a while we passed a small sign that read "End Boundary U.S. Park Service."

"Hm." we said.  "I wonder what land we're on now?"

Fat Peppers started to run out of steam about half way up the climb, but we made it to the top in excellent time.  We were about 50 yards from the overlook which was our goal--1.7 miles from the car--when Ryan's phone rang.  It was one of our employees, telling us that someone had leaned against a window at the bus and pushed it halfway out of its gasket.  I took one last look of longing in the direction of our goal and turned around to make our descent.  As Ryan was telling Jay we'd be there in half an hour (totally and completely impossible), a sign on a tree caught my eye.  In bold black letters on a white diamond, it read "BEAR PRESERVE NC Game Commission."

Oh.  How lovely.  So that's what land we're on now.

All the way back to the car I noticed all those animal tracks I had seen before were even larger and more frequent than I had noticed, and they most definitely had been made quite recently by big, black bears with big, sharp claws.  I have since learned that hiking in bear territory is not advisable at dusk or with dogs.  Check...and check.  Woops.

After dropping the dogs off at home and tending to the precarious window, we decided to get some wings at Wild Wings (bad chain -restaurant atmosphere, really good wings).  Just as we sat down, a Mariachi band took the stage with flare.  Though it may be little known, I have a deep and abiding love for Mariachi bands.  I was forced to order a margarita, and thus ended a good Saturday.

Down here in Caccalakki we have a local politician named Walter Dalton, who is running campaign ads ceaselessly during the evening news.  These commercials sport various locals telling us all what Walter Dalton has done for them.  His name is said about 10 times in rapid succession, all by people with very pronounced drawls.  The effect is something like this:

(In happy yokel, a la Cletus):


Walta Dahtun!...

WahtaDahtun!...

Wadadadin!  Wadadadin!  Wadadadin!


What is he running for?  What is his platform?  Who knows!
But the man's name is Waddadaddun.  And today when I went shopping, I didn't use a shopping cart.  I used a buggy.  And my car was parked out yonder.  For realz.

This cracks my shit up!



Awww.  Poor Teddy.  I guess that mustache adds drag.

Do not miss the cameo by Crazy Crab coming in on the list at #7. 
It cannot be disputed.  Ridiculously costumed people running at top speed are hilarious.

North Carolina's primary isn't until May, and I never thought it would matter.  Then I did think it would matter.  And then I decided that, no, I was right the first time.

Sadly, I'm withdrawing my support from Clinton.  After Gore won the popular vote and lost the Presidency in 2001, I don't think the Democratic Party can stand another blow to the value of the popular vote.  It's clear now that it's impossible for Clinton to win the popular vote in this primary election, and she should concede.  There's no denying that Obama has run a better campaign.   

I really wanted to see a woman in the White House.  But I really want to see a person of color in the White House, too.

I only wish that there had been as much discussion on gender in this race as there has been on race.  Obama was pushed into talking about race, and the outcome to the ensuing dialog was positive, as dialog always is.  But no one had the balls to bring up gender.  Clinton couldn't bring it up herself, because, you know, women complain too much.  (Our vajayjays hurt from the way they've been ill used as grounds for denial of equitable citizenship).

Oh, and P.S.  I'm getting really annoyed at hearing pundits and journalists call African American liberation theologists "paranoid."  If your country systemically denied you and all your community of home mortgage loans, redistricted so your vote counted less, made a bunch of your neighbors into virtual medical guinea pigs without their consent or even their knowledge (see Tuskegee experiment), and countless other systemic wrongs and inequities all after a history of slavery, Jim Crow, and total disenfranchisement, then you, too, might question the actions of your government.  Would that make you paranoid?

Yesterday I opened up my email to find that I had a mailbox full of e-cards, e-crack, and love.  I got even more love on my fake birthday than I did on my real birthday.  And I found that fake birthdays are immensely better than real birthdays because on fake birthdays you don't actually get any older.

It was really fortunate that I had a fake birthday yesterday, because without all the love (and crack), I don't know how I would have gotten through my day.

Have I mentioned that I am directing an after-school program for the next 2 months?  Well, I am.  And boy, howdy, have I learned some stuff.  Namely, 1: After school for primary students is a time of madness wherein constructive, edifying experiences are nearly impossible; and 2: If I ever get certified and become a classroom teacher, I will most certainly forgo the primary certification in favor middle and high schoolers.  Little tiny children are very cute, but in large quantities they make my head explode.  You teachers of primary school out there, I applaud you.  I don't know how you do it.  In fact, yesterday the little demons gave me a headache which I am still nursing right now.

One of my staff was out, so I had a group of 20, which, when you're dealing with 5-7 year-olds outside of their normal classrooms, a handful of whom have special needs, is a LOT to deal with.

Plus, it was a very rainy day.  My mom, the illustrious Babs, used to teach K-1, and she told me afterward that she always found that her classes were very affected by rainy days.  Well, I had certain proof of this, as I had 6 criers and two total meltdowns in the first half-hour, followed by what I thought for a while might be a broken rib, and almost a black eye, a healthy portion of bandaids, more criers, a full-speed running collision, sobs of "I wanna go home," and a lot of pushing.  Needless to say, we didn't really get to the abstract art lesson plan. 

Near the end of the day, the resident singer-songwriter 6 year-old was singing "We Shall Overcome" as I led the downtrodden wee ones down the hall.  (It wasn't the first time this kid was hilarious on accident.  He once regaled the class with a rendition of "Fulsom Prison Blues," and I had to cut him off when he got to "But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.")

After I got home and took some Tylenol, I found that one of our employees hadn't shown up to work at the shop.  She had already used up all her good graces, so now we have to find someone to replace her.

But despite all this, I still had a good day.  Because it was my fake birthday, and that was totally fanTAStic.

Thanks, fake birthday elves!  I feel the love.

Here you go, Malorkus.  In answer to your challenge of finding what head of state Harpo most resembles, Ryan hit the mark dead-on on his second try.  Otto Von Bismarck certainly has a formidable mustache, but the clear winner is...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!


 

Mahmoud and Harpo have a lot in common.  I was trying to find words to explain their similarities and Ryan cinched it in fewer than I could:  They are both blowhards.



Oh, Ahmadinejad.  Stop Mahmouding and leave the poor mailman alone.

Peppers has acquired a new nickname:  President Taft.


 

President Taft, you have eaten too many biscuits! 

Perhaps that is why you have not had a very effective Presidency. 

Awww.  Poor President Taft.  Have a biscuit!

Oh, Elliot.  We thought we knew ye.

(Chris Matthews had just created an unnecessarily protracted uncomfortable moment with a Senator who was speaking on behalf of the Obama campaign.)  

Matthews:        That's why they call it HAHDBALL!!!

Keith Oberman:      But this isn't Hardball, Chris.  We're doing election coverage.

(silence).

Last night Ryan and I went over to Sean (Ryan's brother) & Rick (Sean's partner)'s house to BBQ and chill.  Sean and Rick live out in the woods in a holler (that's hollow in mountainese) in a cabin on an old farm.  There are all kinds of super spooky old farm buildings and old farm equipment all around and the mist rolls in over the mountain and just settles in their little hollow.  The stars are really bright out there and you can hear coyotes running through the woods.

I had a little headache, so before we left I quickly grabbed a few Tylenol out of the medicine cabinet and gulped them down.  About 5 steps out of the bathroom I stopped dead in my tracks b/c the vision of blue pills in the palm of my hand finally registered in my brain.  It was 6pm and I had just taken 2 Tylenol PM on an empty stomach.  Woops!

What I learned from this experience is that taking Tylenol PM during the daytime is kinda fun, as long as you don't have to be productive or operate heavy machinery.  In fact, it's reminiscent of Mother's Little Helper.  It truly takes the edge off.  Of course, after a certain point, I found myself so heavy-lidded that I couldn't follow conversation and caught myself slack-jawed and nearly drooling.  But overall, an excellent time was had.

My memory of the evening is hazy, but the food was excellent, and conversations that stick out in my mind include further development of the running plot of our hypothetical B-horror movie to be shot at their cabin (last night's addition includes a stabbing with a candy-cane shiv that later melts in the rain), and musings over the bungee-bouncing kid's ride at the mall where parents dump their kids and that always attracts a benchfull of pederasts.

On the way home, we were driving through a thick fog on totally deserted roads at 1am.  As we pulled onto Smokey Mountain Highway, out of the mist came a hitch-hiker in full goth regalia.  Goth was a good choice to add to the effect of leaving Spooky Hollow in a fog, but redneck would have been much better.

I don't think I'll try for a repeat of the accidental recreational Tylenol PM use, but it was fun times.  Kinda like having a temporary frontal lobotomy--which is the only kind of frontal lobotomy one wants to have, I say.

Dear Fleece-wearing, White-Pulled-up-Socks-Bedecked Yuppie at the dog park:

Shut the fuck up.

Shut.

The.

Fuck.

Up.

Man, I miss New York. It was really good to be back up there and hang out with the peeps. But I'm not going to wax on about it, lest I get all emo on yo asses.

On the way home, I stayed for a night with Nikki and the fam in Stafford. Oh my holy cupcakes, Stick, your kids are cute. And you make a good beef stew. Nikki also has a magic Ali Baba trashcan, which excites me and yes, I would be happy about getting a trash can for Chrizzazm if it was THAT trash can. But the highlight of it all was that Nikki and Jeff introduced me to Rock Band on their fancy X-box, or whatever that newfangled game system is.

I've been hearing all this buzz about the addictive nature of Guitar Hero and Rock Band for for-ev-er, but not being any sort of "gamer," as they say, I was skeptical. Surely I could not get addicted just by doing it ONCE. I was wrong, kids. Say no to Rock Band. Even if your best friends are all like, "Oh, come on! It's totally fun. You can join our band! You can play bass. We're called "Biscuits and Gravy!". Just. Say. No.

Or say yes. That's okay, too. You might find out that you missed your calling and actually take on an enjoyable hobby and buy a drum set and annoy your neighbors who probably deserve it anyway.

But what might be more fun is having a retarded jam session at the erstwhile NAK lounge, with the guitar-mandolin-funky clav-theremin-bongo band that is made up of whoever is around at the time, regardless of musical accomplishment. Which, remind me that we need to do next time I'm up in the ci-tay, m'kay guys?

Sigh.

Yesterday was a really beautiful day. It was also one of our days off, thanks to our winter hours. We decided to take advantage of the weather with a day-trip up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Linville Falls. Linville Falls is a really amazing series of cascades and rock formations in a gorge in the Pisgah National Forest. It's just over an hour away by the interstate, but we can also take the parkway there, which takes longer but goes up to Mount Mitchell (the highest peak in the eastern US) and is an amazing drive.

We decided to take the interstate there and the parkway home. We made it to the falls with some assistance from gas station attendants, and hiked all around and it was lovely. About 1/3 of the way back to Asheville on the Parkway, as we began a slow and steady climb up to about 4500 feet, we saw some signs that said that the parkway was closed ahead. We were bummed until we saw that the gates weren't actually closed. "Hm," we thought. "They must have had the signs up when we had that deep freeze a few days ago and just forgotten to take them away." (Folly!) We drove past all the numerous blinking orange signs and continued on our merry way. The drive was lovely and we congratulated ourselves about being able to make these trips during the off-season, when we had the Parkway so utterly to ourselves. And I do mean completely. to. ourselves.

A good 45 minutes later (45 minutes wherein, in retrospect, we didn't see a single other vehicle except for one snow-tired park ranger's truck) we were in sight of Mt. Mitchell. Ryan was yelling, "More altitude! More! Give me more altitude!" Ice was hanging thickly all over the rocks. Then, just as we were entering the Asheville Watershed, there it finally was. A series of roadblocks ending in a very unpassable locked barricade. Total super bummer. Only then did we realize that we really hadn't seen a single other driver other than the Park Ranger the entire time. Woops! It took us a really long time to retrace our steps back to the last exit and then make it down the mountain on a tiny, insane switchback road.

Once we were down the mountain and in the middle of nowhere, we decided to stop for a bite and a bathroom at this little Italian family restaurant with ridiculous quantities of plastic grapes hanging from every surface. We ate some fried apps and coffee (yum!) and I used their bathroom which looked like grannie's, complete with a shag-carpeted-toilet-seat-lid-cover-thingy.

Then, a wonderful thing happened that reminded me of why I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere, no matter how charming the pastoral scenery. I looked up from my plate to see a Michael Bolton-haired man in sweats, who was standing in the parking lot with some friends, pull a rifle out of the trunk of his car and point it in turn at the road, at his friends, and then at our table. This was followed by much laughter and slapping of backs on the part of the parking-lot people. Then, thankfully, the rifle was put back in the trunk. What was really kinda strange was that when these folks sat at the table next to us, they all looked like, if you cut off their mullets, they could be friends of my parents. They just seemed so nice. But I don't like it so much when people point rifles at me, so I didn't make friends. I am so not ready to buy the farm.

Adventure!