Playing for the Castrati

Ok, it is time once again for a rant.

As you know, my rants are saved for those extra special moments where I just sit back and go W.T.F.?!?!?!?!  I've been saving my WTF's up for a while and now they're all going to sit front and center to reassure women everywhere that we ladies are not the problem, we're just the ones that are left behind to clean up the mess left behind when men go on a drama-fest.

Over the last several months, since May actually, I've been faced with an incredible amount of drama.  Enough so that I have practically worn my molars down to their roots with how I've clenched my teeth in the hopes that I could keep enough of a semblance of sanity to make my words kind, gentle and tasteful.

Here's the thing though, every single last bit of drama I've encountered over the last two years or more has ALL been man-induced.  Yes, I'm talking about men.  You know, those creatures who are otherwise known as rampant, psychotic Y chromosomes on an estrogen binge from hell?  With the grand exception of KP and my father (those sainted men), every single man I know is on some sort of drama-fest.  My personal life, work, school, playing WoW, it doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'm constantly surrounded by man drama.

Here's where I get really ticked.

Men, for years, have pissed, bitched, moaned and whined to me that women are just the world's worst for having or being an unending source of drama.  Ok, well let me give the newsflash fellas, women only have drama when it's MAN INDUCED!  We only get swept up in it because we gals have to clean up the mess left behind by the Y chromosome hurricane that just passed through and it usually ticks us off to high heaven, enough to the point that the only way we can keep our sanity is by letting you know about it.

I don't get it.  I mean, I'm a stand up girl, I don't put up with much drama because I state clearly for all to hear that I am on a drama-free diet.  I have no want, need, desire or inclination to want to even come near drama, much less take part in it.  But, like demon spawn from hell, there it is, drama, and it's all man-induced, which wears my patience down to an extremely fragile thread.

I've watched with dismay recently as men in their 40's, 50's and 60's have absolutely volunteered to play for the castrati because they sure as heck have more estrogen issues than 90% of the women I know.

Women, when faced with an issue, are pretty basic.  We break out our claws, basically leave in shreds anything that has ticked us off and then we do what any sane person would do, we move on.  Yes, some women are vindictive, they'll come back and revisit bare backs with their claws as a reminder that says, "Don't do that again," or to quote Billy Crystal in  Analyze This, "You want a fresh one?"  Like I said, women are pretty simple:  we get ticked, we decimate the source of the issue, we move on.

But no.  Men are a totally different scenario altogether.  Hyperfocused rah-rah spills from every orifice, drunken tears go streaming down cheeks, impossible demands are made, vendettas are aired in public, immature screaming, paranoia, you name it, and all of this, mind you, is coming from men's mouths and I'm having to either hear it with my own ears (to the point I'd like to shove ice picks in them to make it all stop) or it's in e-mail form to which I just take the e-mail and hit "delete."  But then, oh, here it comes, then, men come and cry to me that women are worse than they are.  Really?  I mean seriously, someone has got to really explain this one to me.  I have never in my life witnessed such hypocrisy.

Oh sure, men just love to tell a woman that they're being overly dramatic or taking things far too seriously, but you tell me, what about those guys who get drunk and then involve everyone into their issues or pity parties?  How about the ones who can't quite seem to grow the pair they pride themselves on having or boast endlessly for hours about?

My favorite, bar none, has to be the tales of the men who have no interest in sex while their wives are laying next to them trying to get some, then the guys have the nerve to act hurt.  OY VEH.  It really does happen.  That right there, all man-induced drama, enough to make a woman's fists clench so tight that it could drive fingernails through palms in record time.

Then people wonder why I run from men at Mach 2 with my hair on fire and my relationship history is accurately summed up as a trail of emotional wreckage.  I've finally come to a point where I've finally realized the truth that has evaded me for so long...maybe my relationship problems weren't my fault to begin with.  When I think of it that way, it actually makes a whole lot of sense.

What gets me worst of all is how men can now sit so shocked at the fact that more women are climbing the corporate ladders with incredible speed AND gape in awe that there are more women CEO's than ever before, it's because the 21st century woman has Zero-Drama and Zero-BS tolerances, that's how.

So ladies, it's Sunday.  When your man brings drama to your doorstep today, politely look at them and say what you've been dying to say for years:

It's your drama.  Deal with it.

Then politely smile knowing that you've put yourself on a drama-free diet and grown the pair they seem to have lost so that they have all sorts of time to waste playing for the castrati.

Go ahead girls, you know you want to, shudder with me and shake off all that man-drama, we're long overdue.

The Ghost of Fraulein Schweiger

Ok, it's time for another comedy piece.  This one is brought to you by the 1965 classic, The Sound of Music with Julie Andrews and a little steakhouse in my hometown called "Schwamkrug's".

Well, let's start with The Sound of Music.  As we know, my mom is German, as in born and raised there, so as you can imagine, my childhood home was a mix of German goods along with a healthy dose of Texan from my Dad.  Ok, besides all of the good German food and culture in our house, you have to know that growing up, my father was an encyclopedia of everything western.  My father can name every single horse ridden by the Spaghetti Western cowboys of the 40's and 50's.  Ask him the name of Tom Mix's horse and what does he answer without skipping a beat?  Tony.  Who's horse was named Scout?  Tonto on The Lone Ranger.  You get the picture...if there is ever a Jeopardy category called "Famous Horses" my father could sweep it hands down.  But with all of the country western goodness of my Dad, my mom always but always had us sit down every year when the networks would play The Sound of Music.

Now, what you don't know is that my mom is a dead ringer for Julie Andrews, as in she could easily be Julie Andrew's stunt double without a problem.  To boot, and even though my mom hides it like crazy, she's also got the voice to match.  So, as you can guess, she sang along with the musical when she thought we weren't listening.

Ok, I think everyone but everyone has seen The Sound of Music at one time or another in their lives.  Well, I dug around on YouTube like mad for the clip, but unfortunately, the singing competition at the end of the movie isn't anywhere to be found so I can show you, so you'll just have to take my word for it.  In the awards scene at the end of the film, the third place winner, a woman by the name of Fraulein Schweiger, goes out to accept her award and bows not once, not twice, but 16 times.  Oy veh.  It's a total bowfest with Fraulein Schweiger and it's very funny, all 16 bows.

Here's where we add in Schwamkrug's Steakhouse (or "Schwammies" as my parents liked to call it).  Schwammies, back in the day, always had great food and usually very good service.  Well, you know what's coming, you do!  Admit it...you know what I'm about to tell you.  Well, son of a gun, wouldn't you know it, but Schwammies had their own version of Fraulein Schweiger.  I couldn't tell you the real name of that server for all the tea in China some 30 years later, but I will tell you without hesitation that we've called her "Fraulein Schweiger" since the first day she served our table.  And you guessed it, she bowed just the same.

Well, some 30 years ago, we had gone up to Schwammies for some special occasion, I can't remember for the life of me what it was, but we got seated at Schwammies and sure enough coming around the corner to take our orders was who?  Fraulein Schweiger.

I remember the meal quite vividly.  Steaks cooked to perfection, enormous baked potatoes, good corn on the cob, salads done just so with really good dressing, you know, the normal works for a steakhouse.  Like me, my mom's palate when it comes to some things, is just as picky as mine.  My mother and I are the only two people in the room that when our family of over 50 people get together for a reunion, we're the only ones that don't drink iced tea.  "Foul concoction" is all I can say about iced tea.  Everyone I know loves the darn stuff, I can't stand it and neither can my mom.  Overwhelmingly you can say that if my mother and I agree universally on ANYTHING it is our revulsion towards tea.  Hot, iced, chai, you name it, if it's tea, we don't drink it.

So, back to Schwammies and  Fraulein Schweiger.  In all of the time we went to Schwammies, my mother was really at odds with her because well, Fraulein Schweiger always seemed to screw up some part of our meal every time we went in there.  The incident I am about to relay to you goes down in the all-time great Mom moments.

My mother is a coffee drinker.  She loves it.  Mocha ice cream, flavored coffees, Bailey's and Coffee, you name it...she loves to go up to the Lodge at Mount Charleston to get one of their good Mt. Charleston Coffee's every winter.   So, way back when, as Fraulein Schweiger came around to check if any of us wanted dessert after our meal, Mom ordered her standard cup of coffee.

I don't know about you, but when I order something with a very specific flavor, my taste buds are really looking forward to that specific taste.  When you're ready like that and what you put into your mouth tastes nowhere NEAR what you were expecting, it goes south really (and I mean REALLY) fast.

Well, sure enough Fraulein Schweiger came back with a cup and saucer full of hot liquid and placed it in front of my mother.  The dark liquid inside of the cup sure did look like coffee to me, but um, well, as my Mom took a sip of the liquid in the cup, her face immediately contorted.  Her mouth pulled together in a very pursed and unhappy sort of scowl.  With her mouth still full of the contents of the cup, her hand became a pointing device with her four fingers pressed into her thumb, reminding me very much of a very early version of Kermit the Frog.  Well, that hand of hers started to point, in a very stabbing like motion at the cup, pointing twice.  Then that hand went back up to her mouth, pointing twice.  Then that same hand went over the cup making a giant imaginary "X" above the cup.  Dad, Nan and I looked at Mom like she had seriously lost it.

When Mom saw that Dad, Nan and I couldn't figure out what the coffee cup induced charade was all about, she placed the cup back up to her lips and deposited the liquid contents of her mouth back into the cup that it came from.  With a very contorted face that looked like she had just tasted the world's most foul concoction, and mouth still pursed in disgust, she said, "That's not coffee, that's TEA!"   Dad, Nan and I burst into laughter because we had never seen my mother handle something like that before, and with her arm waving like that and the face she made, it was damn near hysterical.  My mother, who I am sure was ready to rip that "ditzy broad" in half,  in a very calm voice, traumatized tastebuds and all, called for our friendly Fraulein and had the tea whisked away and replaced by coffee, with Fraulein Schweiger bowing and apologizing the whole way to the kitchen and back to the table again.  My mother, on the coffee's arrival, was very tentative with the cup, she took a strong inhale of the fragrance of the coffee to confirm that it was indeed coffee and took a sip.  As she swallowed the coffee, her face relaxed and her tastebuds calmed themselves.

After 30 years, we're still talking about that damned cup of tea that Fraulein Schweiger brought to my mother and how funny the whole scenario was.

Well, you have to know what's coming.  I was at dinner with Ace tonight when the waitress came by and asked me what I wanted to drink.  As is the norm, I ordered a Coke with lemon.  (It's good, try it.  I learned about it in Europe in 1985.  They mix a little bit of orange soda with their Coca-Cola and it's called a "Spezi".  Sometimes they do it with lemonade, so ever since 1985, I've always had my Coke with a lemon slice in it.)  Well, apparently the Ghost of Fraulein Schweiger was sitting on the shoulder of that waitress because guess what, as my very dark cup was placed on the table and at seeing the two lemon slices that had been squeezed into the glass, I took a sip.  My face contorted, one of my hands went up to my mouth while the other pushed the glass away.  By sheer guessing what on earth do you think was in that glass?  ICED TEA!

Ace looked at me as I grimaced and told him what was in my cup.  He was very sweet to offer me his beer to kill the taste of the foul liquid that had invaded my mouth.  I turned it away at first, but as he flagged down the waitress and informed her of the mistake, my hand shot out and grabbed the longneck beer in front of Ace and downed half of it.  A few minutes later, my Coke with Lemon arrived and like my mother, some 30 years ago, I was very tentative as I took a sip.  As the taste of Coca-Cola and Lemon washed over my palate, I relayed the story of Mom vs. Fraulein Schweiger.  He looked at me like I was nuts and I did agree with him that I guess it was just one of those things you had to be there to see.

After telling Ace about all that, I looked at the clock, it was 9 p.m.  I usually don't call my parents very late as they usually go to bed early, but in this case, it was one for the ages that I had to tell them about immediately.  So, after texting Nan to see if Mom and Dad were still up, I just said to heck with it and called my mother.

Lucky for me, Mom and Dad hadn't gone to sleep yet, and as I said hello to my mother, she hollered at Dad to get on the line because I was on the phone.  It only took a few words...

"Mom, you'll never believe what just happened.  I was just visited by The Ghost of Fraulein Schweiger.  She brought me iced tea."

You should have heard them laughing.

Lucky.

I've made a new friend.  He's 77, blind in one eye and has a skin condition that makes him look rather speckled. His name is Lucky and he is Ace's 11-year-old Dalmatian.

Believe it or not, even with my allergy to animal dander, Lucky and I get along famously.  I never really understood why people have pets, but after being around Lucky, I now understand why.  He's my pal.  When I'm feeling down, he comes to cheer me up and otherwise he's a serious attention sponge who needs affection as much as I like to give it.  For how tactile I am, Lucky is a great fit for me because for how much I need to touch things to give affection, he just laps it up.

On Wednesday night, Ace remarked that I've seemed happier since I've started taking an active role in taking care of that speckled old man.  I've given him a bath, brushed him, walked him, ran with him, he's snuggled with me while I read for school and just been a really good companion while Ace is busy.  

The only downside to Lucky is that well, to quote Jeff Dunham, "Saddam's mustard gas is nothing next to a Lucky fart."  Lucky reminds me very much of a large dog by the name of Cedric in James Herriot's Dog Stories. The dog can clear a room with one very inhumane foghorn-like blast.  Many a time I've fanned my nose going, "Jeezus dog!", "Eat some roughage!", "Go outside and clean out!", "Good gods, what died?", "Jeezus Lucky, light a match.", and the usual, "Ace!  Lysol!  Now!"  Oh, the pure stank that can come out of that dog will even send the olfactory-challenged running for cover like they just got smoked out of a burning building.

But, tear-bringing farts aside, I've never had a pal like Lucky.  For all of the rumors I've heard about Dalmatians being very high strung, Lucky's not like that, he's extremely sedate because of his age, the fact that he has arthritis and a severe case of hip dysplasia.  However, when he's feeling spry, that mooch pooch will play, run and goof off unlike any dog I've ever seen, and to be honest, he's the first canine friend I've ever really had outside of my sister's dearly departed Bo.  Bo was my favorite dog of all time.  He was so incredibly smart and beautiful, but as my sister tells it, he got to be one heck of a codgery old man.  Lucky's no different.  At 11, he's an old codger, but he's also what I term as a "face dog."  He's got one of those great faces that begs you to love on him.  He's very much Pongo from Disney's animated 101 Dalmatians...

But he is a real sweetheart, just like his Doggie Daddy.  The one thing that makes Lucky stand out to me away from every other dog I've seen is that he has a woobie.  Yep, he's got a security blanket.  I've never seen anything like it.  I mean, Carl takes his Doberman "Reese" and turns that miniature horse into an ottoman, and both of Nan and Carl's doberman's have their own oversized ottoman as a bed, but not even Zoe the fox terrier has a security blanket.  But, like a young child, there's Lucky with his woobie.  It's great.  There is nothing more fun than covering him up and watching him toss the blanket around until he gets it just right then flops down with a satisfied sigh and a face that says, "You may love on me now..."

Gee, I think I will.

Ace adopted Lucky as a last-chance dog.  He was on his third strike when Ace picked him out at the pound and I have to take my hat off to Ace because he not only saved Lucky's life, but he's done a brilliant job with Lucky, he's snap trained, he listens and when the pit bull mentality that was bred into the Dalmatian line long ago rears it's head, he can be a real stubborn so and so...

But I will tell you without a shadow of a doubt, I'm the luckiest of them all, I can say I've got a canine pal who pours as much love into me as I do into him.

Four-Oh.

Ok, well, it's taken me long enough, it's only been three weeks since my birthday and I still haven't posted about it.  I know, shake your head with me, but think of it this way, I'm juggling a full-time job, 12 credit hours and a boyfriend...not easy to squeeze a blog post in between all that.

So, I've hit the big 4-0.  Ok, it's not much different from 39 or, for that matter, 38.  The big difference between 38, 39 and 40 is that I got Ace for my birthday this year.  It's the first birthday I've had with a man around in two years.  It's like the rest of the adjustments you make when you have a new influence in your life, you just have to be ready to tackle it head on.

Ok girls, help me out.  How many times in your dating life have you heard a man tell you, "I'm different than any guy you've ever met"?  If you are anything like me, you know they ALL say that.  Guys should really be told "don't ever say that" because it's one of the oldest lines in the book.  Well gals, stand up and cheer because I've found one of the few guys in the universe that is actually different from any man I've ever met, and guess what, he never said he was different, he was just himself, said nothing and let his actions do all the talking.  Ok, guys like Ace need to be cultivated so there are more like him out there.

After 39 years of frustration, disappointment, mess cleaning, distractions and whathaveyou, I finally found someone I can stand toe to toe with and enjoy every minute.  But, let's talk my birthday:

Ok, I won't lie, my birthday wasn't the most banner of days.  It just didn't want to go there for me.  However, thank goodness for my chrome plated knight and his diesel-driven steed, he really fought for me hard.  The night of the 24th going into the 25th, Ace decided he wanted to have oysters.  Ok, y'all know me.  Oysters?  Really?  Well, yeah.

You first have to remember that I'm not adventurous with my palate.  I'm pretty much a picky eater from hell.  However, since Ace has shown up, I've made the conscious decision to try something new every day.  Ace was a chef at one time, so he's fantastic in the kitchen.  Yep girls, he loves to cook.  I know, "shut up...", right?  Uh huh...and oh is he a good cook.  He is so masterful with a chef's knife...I can't wait for my nephew and niece to meet him.  I told y'all already that he grows his own tomatoes (that are so floral that they could seduce whole countries), his own bell peppers (which he made a special trip to deliver some to my dad) and his own jalapenos (ok, I got lost around the jalapenos, those are just a "no" for me, but who am I to judge?  If he likes them, more power to him.)

So now that you know all that, I realized that I couldn't just stick to my boring diet around him, I needed to try new things if I'm to keep with him, so I stepped up to the Oyster Bar at Palace Station and tried my very first raw oyster on the half-shell.

Here's me before the oyster...

Here's me after the oyster...

Before I swallowed it, Ace whispered in my ear..."Don't chew."  I had been told that before about oysters, and kind of knew the drill, but that was the first time I ever swallowed one of those slippery suckers.  For those of you who are chicken and just won't do it, I'll tell you a secret:  With the way Ace doctored the oyster, all I tasted was lemon, cocktail sauce and horseradish, I didn't even taste the oyster, so all in all, it wasn't bad at all.  After digesting the fact that I had eaten an oyster, I got daring and went for another...and this is where it all went south.  Oysters have beards.  Didn't really know that, but the experienced oyster eater will tell you that they do have them...and well, on my second attempt with an oyster, I ended up with the beard doing funny things in the roof of my mouth and it was disgusting.  So, my oyster adventure ended there.

After the oysters, Ace had ordered us a creole pan roast which was filled with Andoulle sausage, shrimp and a few other things.  What makes it funny is that when the waiter took our order, he asked Ace how spicy he wanted it, and since Ace knows me pretty good, he ordered it very mild, to which the waiter replied, "Whimpy."  Ok, that didn't help, but when it came out, it was spicy!  Oy!  Yeah, I'm the world's largest wuss when it comes to spices, so to Ace it was like dishwater, to me it was burning the roof out of my mouth.  But, I ate well, I embraced the burning sensations and just went with it.

Later on, as we were walking back out to Duke, Ace's diesel-driven steed (a beautiful blue Ford F-350 diesel that's lifted about four feet higher than stock), I got a case of the giggles, BAD.  What Ace failed to mention up to that point is that the reason people eat such spicy food is because of the endorphin rush that it gives.  Ok, didn't know that!  I sat cackling my butt off over nothing!  I didn't even have anything alcoholic to drink yet, and I sat there just a-gigglin'!

I had so much fun with the oysters and spicy food that I went to sleep thinking that 40 had been my best birthday I ever had...well, until the next morning.

The next day, I couldn't get comfortable in my own skin, even if I had paid to be able to do it.  It just wasn't a good day.  My sister, mom and dad put together a beautiful birthday dinner for me including brisket, green bean casserole, potato salad and all of my favorite foods, including a beautiful strawberry cheesecake...

My family was so awesome for my birthday and I can't thank them enough for everything they did for me and for the gifts they gave me.

But then, as is tradition, we left my sister's house to head to Spago for my ritual birthday dessert...and guess what...they didn't have it.  No Créme Bruleé.  Ok, while you may think it's no big deal, to me it's a major tragedy.  12 years of Cremé Bruleé brought to a halt.  While I did have my regular glass of champagne, my dessert was replaced by "Coconut," a Coconut Pot De Crème with chocolate ganache and shortbread cookies.  How very delicious, as coconut is my favorite flavor in the world, but still, it had no zip or classicism to it, not even a "Happy Birthday" written on it, so I was extremely disappointed.

Now, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, but Ace likes to make believe he's blue collar when really he's a white collar guy who likes to dress up as a blue collar guy.  Backwards?  Maybe.  Different?  Heavens yes.  Ace is the original rich bum.  He just exudes it.  The guy can bend wrenches under the hood of a car and get filthy and two minutes later he's decked to the nines with his CEO attitude to carry with him.  Yikes, what a unique mix, right?  Well, I took him to Spago in the way he loves to dress, a gorgeous flowing silk shirt with denim cargo shorts and birkenstocks (that show off his gorgeous feet, what can I say, he's got great feet...how many men can you actually say that about???).  He sat sipping a Bushmills while I took in my dessert.

All day long and into the night I had emotional trouble, not being able to be comfortable in my own skin and Ace really went to the ends of the earth for me.  He really did make my birthday special, and what topped it off was what he got me.  Talk about a guy who knows his girl...he got me a 2 terabyte external hard drive for my computer.  AWWWW!  How sweet!  (He's so awesome.  I love it!)

So, while not the greatest day in the world emotionally, Ace and my family really came through, from oysters to champagne and coconut.

Many thanks to all that posted birthday wishes on my Facebook wall, I really do appreciate it.

So that's it for the big 4-0.  I'm over the hump, it's all fun from here.

For the song of the day, I'll send this one out to Ace with a fat wink...Newton Faulkner's "Gone in the Morning."

Study Break

I've been studying since mid-afternoon.  After my weekly work meeting, I sat down to tackle my one online course for the semester, AAS 101, Afro-American Studies.  As I watched my video lectures, I found myself thinking about my sweet, darling Uruites and our forced migrations...but after two video lectures, five loads of laundry, two chapters out of my books and a test tonight at midnight, I decided it was a good time for a study break.

After putting up piles of folded laundry, I turned on the TV. What did I find?  Sex and the City 2 playing on HBO.  Like Julie and Julia, it always reminds me that I need to write and get to the goods as to what has been happening.

I've been struggling getting to my 8:30 a.m. Electronic Media Production class.  As we all know, in the immortal words of my high school band director, Wayne Tucker, I'm a walking tardy.  Last week, the Las Vegas roadways were filled with orange traffic cones, and while they might have been a stark reminder of Uru, well, it was quite the headache as three lanes of traffic were squeezed into one.  Last Monday I left my apartment at 7:45 a.m.  I finally reached the classroom at 9 a.m.  The word "frustrated" didn't even cover what I was feeling, but lucky enough for me, Doc L. just looked at me and said, "Shit happens."  I was grateful for his latitude with me, he really does look over me with care.

This week with Scorsese was its normal fantastic stream of information that I soaked up, reveled in and made a part of my consciousness.  While I might not be crazy about getting pimped out to sell underwriting for the public radio station, he's at least making it palatable and not so terrible to deal with.

Then, there's Ace.  SJP and crew on Sex in the City 2 reminded me how grateful I need to be for him.  While I might not be thrilled with the character of Carrie (on so many levels) it still reminded me that Ace has been not only incredible, but like I said before, he's my knight in shining armor charging up on his jacked-up, diesel-driven steed.

As I've talked about with him before, he's totally in the business of taking all of my old painful memories and turning them into fresh, new, wonderful ones instead.  Yesterday was an amazing example.  Let's go over the backstory, then you can judge for yourself if I've scored one heck of a keeper or not...

As we know, the Ex moved his girlfriend not but a mile and a half from my apartment complex back in the day when he was still living here.  Well, the corner of Rainbow and Vegas Drive has not been the easiest intersection to deal with for me over the last two and a half years and it's because that was her corner.  The Ex could literally drive out of the apartment complex, take a left, drive a half mile, take a left and drive another mile and he'd be at her apartment.  Horrible, right?  Personally I think a guy that would do such a thing as moving his girlfriend not but a mile and a half from his wife should be taken out behind the barn and had the crap kicked out of him, if not worse, but alas, that is what I've been saddled with for a while.  I've allowed his poor judgement and lack of taste have power over me.  Every time I had to deal with that intersection I went around it, tried an alternate route or flat out just didn't go that way.  Well, this is where Ace stepped in last night.

Making bad memories into good ones seems to be Ace's specialty.  He's taken quite a few thus far and made a conscious effort to change my attitude or re-write my memories of specific things.  He's replacing bad things with good and I don't see where there is anything at all wrong with it, in fact, I think it's quite right what he's doing.  On top of all of the memory enhancements or mood gearshifts, he's making me be more active and I can't thank him enough for that.

Almost every day after school for the last week I've been going out to his house and helping him with what he needs to do there, whether it be going through bags of vintage clothes that his father wants to get rid of, then taking them to the various vintage stores around town (a huge shout out to the awesome folks at The Attic in the arts district, go to The Attic if you're ever in Vegas, it's awesome...), to cooking meals so Ace can essentially cool his jets for a minute and catch his breath, even down to just making sure he's had a great foot rub (he loves those and he has the world's most beautiful feet so it's a pleasure to rub them).  I kind of figure that every day I go out and help him, it's helping him create his own safe-haven and his own little bubble of solace much like my apartment is for me.

Yesterday my day was pretty packed.  I had been busy ever since he had cooked me lunch at his house (an awesome, super-healthy turkey burrito) and I had gone to the stylist to get my roots covered (the grey is getting sooooo bad...*cringe*).  What I came back with after two and a half hours with the stylist was a head full of curls that threatened to make me nuts (I stopped doing curls after my last perm back in the very early 90's).  He laughed heartily as I went into a really funny, cynical tirade about crack whores and Tammy Wynette wannabes.  But as I ranted and raved, he sat there with this huge smile on his face, complimenting the country/western, crack-induced 'do on my head.  He liked it and well, I just couldn't do it.  He laughed heartily as a stray curl decided to enrage me by landing squarely between my eyes, then he chuckled harder as I gave it a nasty glare and blew it out of my face like an angry quail.  His laughing made me laugh, and he truly made a nightmare hair day into one to laugh about.  The funnier part of all is that my tirade came one day after the hanging basket incident where a front yard stumble over a set of empty hanging baskets next to his garage saw him punt a couple of not-very-pristine baskets (minus the flowers) and go into an angry, cynical tirade of his own.  Sufficed to say, I came home and put my head under the faucet after my "hair-raising" afternoon and we now have a great example of two birds definitely flocking together.

Sufficed to say, after the week we both had, we agreed we needed to get out and have a honest to goodness date.  Well, as we were trying to figure out what to do, he asked me if I had eaten, and well, I hadn't and he had been munching all day, so he took me over to my favorite sushi place and watched me as I devoured an order of ebi (shrimp), a cucumber roll and a California roll.  After that, we couldn't decide what to do, so we ended up unintentionally at the corner of Rainbow and Vegas Drive at a bar that a friend of his manages.  As we approached it, I started getting a little anxious and since he knows the story with me and that corner, and as he realized what he unintentionally did, he offered to stop, go around it, reverse course, go somewhere else or do whatever it took to make me comfortable again.  As I looked into his panic-stricken eyes, I made an executive decision, I was going to get through it, just like he had helped me get through quite a few really bad PTSD episodes and triggers before.  I looked at him and my voice shook as I said, "Hey, we're replacing bad memories with good ones right?  So, I'm going to try my best not to let it rule me."  We pulled into the parking lot of the bar and went in.  Not so surprisingly, as the evening wore on, the drinks started to flow and the laughter just didn't seem to want to stop. I forgot all about where I was and the stupid corner that the bar was located at that had traumatized me for so long. By the time the really bad karaoke singers drove us out of the joint, I could have cared less where we were, and as we pulled out of the parking lot, I looked at the street signs on the corner, then looked into the beautiful blue eyes of Ace and effectively said goodbye to another bad memory.  I can now drive past that corner, think of Ace and realize one simple fact...

Everything is as it should be.

Is he a keeper?  You decide.

But enough of my study break, it's time to go back to the books, hurry up, finish my studying, and take my test so that I can have the whole day with Ace tomorrow without a care in the world.  Every day with Ace is a very good thing and each day is filled with tons nutritional value that has me leaping over old wreckage and replacing it with happy memories.

*sigh*

Yeah.  Isn't life supposed to be that way?

By the way all you single gals, if you get a chance, find a guy like Ace...you should see him in the kitchen...OMG, he so rocks with a chef's knife, he's teaching me things about cooking, kitchen organization and all sorts of other things that would make any woman swoon.  He's such an awesome cook.  He even grows his own tomatoes that are so floral in taste that he could seduce whole nations with them.  *swoon*  *faint*  But you can't have my Ace, so go find your own, I highly recommend it.

For Ace, I'll post a great song of the day, one I think he needs to hear just as moral support for all the times he's put up with me being moody, Sting's "All Four Seasons."

In Bloom

I have to say, I had a trying day today.  I've been putting a lot into my various projects, between school, work and relationship stress lately, it's been a handful that has worn my patience down to the nub.  I just feel like I'm putting in a lot and not getting much out of things.  But, you know what, let's not discuss that, it's a waste to dwell on it.  Instead, let's talk about good things and how patience can win out even when you think you've wasted your time, spent energy needlessly and felt undervalued.  I like to believe in the "what you put in is what you get out" theory when it comes to setting myself to task and getting things done, so I think what I've done on my balcony lately is a great reminder to myself that things take time to come to fruition.

Amongst all of my running around lately, I made an executive decision to beautify my home environment to make sure I had a built-in stress reliever.  I think when life likes to tear you in 15 million directions it's good to have a nice area that you've built for yourself that takes you away from the stresses, rigors and other mind-numbing stupidities that life never fails to offer.  What's better than coming in to a wonderful flower-filled area after sitting in bumper to bumper traffic surrounded by not-so-clever drivers after school?

I took my very bare balcony which only housed two succulents (a jade plant and my aloe vera plant named Pepé), and turned it into a floral haven that is a work in progress.  I found a wonderful little table for a very reasonable price along with another chair for my balcony just in case I have visitors.  Everything on the balcony right now seems as it is centered around the color red.  Anyone who knows me knows that the color red is not usually something I decorate or deal in, I usually work in blues.  But I like red, it's rather nice, it has the flavor of fire and passion, and also it says, "Sit and stay for a while" in a very comfortable tone.

I also picked up a couple of window boxes for the balcony as well, but as my apartment complex doesn't allow anything to hang off the balconies, I had to mount them facing inwards and I filled them with blue hyacinths that I'm trying to convince to give a quick bloom before the weather gets too cold.  I love the smell of hyacinth, they're just so calming and peaceful, so when everything is in bloom it will attain the balance I always try to seek, similar to the sun and the moon, or more appropriate to the desert, fire and ice. It's my way of balancing my inner warrior by introducing a bit of the poet.  It's also an exercise in patience, waiting for everything to balance out and create a harmonious whole.

But, I have to say, my favorite in all of this is when I look out my window and see a small pot of Fireball Gerbera Daisies.

Aren't they wonderfully cheerful?  I love Gerbera Daisies, they're always so big and they make me smile when I look at them.  They're my reminder that all the elements in the universe work together for a reason, that out of chaos, there is always beauty to be found.

So, on Wednesday, I got dirty once again, planted my hyacinth bulbs, mounted the window boxes and placed my daisies on the table.  It's just so lovely.  I've never been much of a balcony gardener, but it's nice to know that when I get home I can sit in my little area surrounded by what I like to see and smell so that I can find my zen and get a few moments to clear my mind before the usual suspects come and drag me back into my hectic life again.

So, for those of you needing to get your zen on, I highly suggest that you take a moment to find what makes you bloom.  It might be a full day of rest, it might be a few hours of just watching the world around you, or it might be just a moment sitting among flowers that you planted yourself.

Either way, you'll find yourself in bloom.

Let's enhance our zen by taking a deep breath and giving a nod to our beloved technology with Daft Punk's "Adagio for Tron."

The Fall 2011 Semester Begins...

Ok, now that we're through the summer, and Labor Day weekend has come and gone, it's time to talk about school once again.

This semester, I have some real dreamboat classes, I've got a guy to hold me through the sorrows and the triumphs and I've got a job to go along with it.  As you probably can guess, my gaming time (even a game of solitaire) has been cut down, cut off and well, simple for the facts, there's just no time.

For those of you who are curious, I have found my blue-eyed friend a moniker.  I'm just going to call him "Ace."  Basically you can look at it this way, he's my ace in the hole, he's aces at making me feel better and it just fits, so Sophmorites, meet Ace.  Yay!  New character!  But what am I talking about, we've got a whole list of characters to introduce you to for the fall semester, so let's get started.

This semester, which started on August 29, has been an outstanding rush so far...let's go over it one by one...

I have three classes this semester on campus and ALL of them are located in Greenspun Hall at UNLV, so guess what, no having to walk a mile and a half across campus for anything except maybe a trip to the library, and even that doesn't seem likely.

For Fall, I'll be talking about a new professor to the Sophomore who I'm just going to call "Scorsese."   Trust me when I say that when it comes to the ad world, the professor who I have for two classes, Journalism 332 (Media Planning and Buying) and Journalism 463 (Integrated Marketing Communications Strategic Planning), is the ad world equivalent of Martin Scorsese.  It doesn't hurt that he's of the same stature and reminds me strikingly to the real Martin Scorsese, just minus the big glasses and bushy eyebrows.  He's an uber-genius when it comes to the ad world, he's done his time at the agency level and I wouldn't be surprised if he has a OneShow Pencil stashed away somewhere.  The thing that really gets me about Scorsese is that simply, he retired from the ad world because it wasn't fun for him anymore, so he got out and he's teaching because he wants to be there for all of us who are learning the craft.  I can't speak highly enough of Scorsese, he rocks on so many levels.

At first, 332 didn't really float my boat.  I'm in Media Planning and Buying because I NEED to learn how to plan and buy media for my job.  However, right out of the gate, we got introduced to a woman from the campus radio station who informed us that we had to sell underwriting for the radio station.  Ok, remember when you sell advertising for a radio station, you can sell it, BUT when you are dealing with a non-profit radio station such as NPR or, in our case, the campus radio station, you're asking for sponsorships and inviting people to underwrite the programming.  Basically it's the same thing either way, it's just that with a non-profit, you can't actually "sell" anything.  It has to be worded super-carefully.  When she got up and asked us to provide five leads as homework, I sat there thinking to myself, "WTF?  This is a planning and BUYING class, not a selling class."  I'm not comfortable in the least going out and soliciting.  That's not me.  I got into advertising because my work gets seen over a huge audience, not me walking up and personally asking people for money.  The prospect of actually having to "cold call" people absolutely grated up and down my spine.  After class, I looked at Scorsese and said, "I'm not happy about this, because this is definitely NOT what I signed up for.  I don't have to do it, do I?"  He looked at me and said, "You have to do it, it's part of the class."  I just simply looked at him and said, "Ok, for you I'll do it, but I'm going to be gnashing my teeth the whole way."  He shrugged and said, "Sheri, my teeth are already ground down into nubs."  So we know that Scorsese isn't thrilled about it either.  But, to my sheer relief, on Thursday in 463, he told all of us 332'ers that the homework she assigned was cancelled and they're going to be doing things differently.  So, time will tell.  However, it doesn't skip the fact that I want to take the radio station lady out behind Greenspun Hall and launch her out of a cannon.   Not an auspicious start to 332, but I adore the TA (teaching assistant) that Scorsese has for it, who I'll just call JJ.  JJ is a real doll, she's a graduate student who seems to love the craft as much as I do, so I'm looking forward to what I'll be learning from her.

463 though, that's a whole different enchilada...IMC Strat class.  OY VEH.  This, my friends, is the food of the gods.  NOM!!!  I have 463 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my only class all day and oh, how I wish it WOULD last all day.  Last Thursday, Scorsese began his lecture, he talked about things that I have only dreamed of discussing, the blood and guts of analysis and creating great strategy.  I sat in my seat and swooned.  At 11:15, he looked at the clock and noted that he only had 15 minutes left in the lecture and I almost wept, thinking to myself, "No!  No!  Keep going!  Who cares about the time?!?!"  Oh I could have sat there for hours on end just hearing him talk about the craft.  It was serious swoon time.  I engaged in the subject matter and I began to wax poetic thinking to myself, "It's all about pushing it and sculpting it so that all the strat, execution and all the rest gel into a wonderful, heady perfection, where the creativity looks at strategy and instead of arguing, they become a symbiotic whole and where angels sing of a campaign's lasting impression on popular culture."  I'm obsessed with what I do.  I love advertising...it's just so...*SWOON*  It's as beautiful as Ace standing at my front door holding a handful of white daisies...it's just so awesome...  It makes me smack the vein in the crook of my arm like I'm jonsing for a shot from the ad gods...

But enough of my obsession with my ad classes, let's get to the rest:

Along with 332 and 463, I'm also taking Journalism 202 (Electronic Media Production) with Doc L.  Now, for those of you who are new, Doc L. also fills in as my undergraduate advisor.  He's the man who made this semester possible for me because he nursed me through getting accepted to my major and who signed off on me getting into 332 and 463 this semester.  He's also awesome and he's got a tremendous sense of humor.

Journalism 202 is a hoot.  The first thing that caught me off guard is that there are NO books for the class!  It's a lot of note taking and great discussions, but overall, a week in, I'm in love with it.  From my viewpoint in the cheap seats, even though my destiny is probably not going to be having a lot of time inside of a studio or the production booth, I'm enjoying it because it gives me a viewpoint into how things get done in a television studio.  Monday and Wednesday mornings find me focused on every word that comes from Doc L.  Mondays are dedicated to lecture, but my lab on Wednesdays is three hours long, beginning at 8:30 a.m. and letting us out just in time for me to run up the hall for Planning and Buying with Scorsese at 11:30 a.m.    

Last week's lab time for 202 had me learning about all sorts of different lights, from flood lights, Fresnel's, ellipsoidal's and Videssence lights (which Videssence is basically the Kleenex of lighting, it's a specific type of fluorescent light with special baffles in them so they don't change color.  Lots of people make them, but they're just known in the studio as a "videssence").  I learned about the pipe grid that hangs above the studio and holds all of the lights, and I learned why studio ceilings, far above the pipe grid, are so high.  Now in what seems like the ultimate common sense answer happened to elude a lot of people...the ceilings are high so that the heat from the lights can rise and not heat everything up to a hysterical level.  Pretty cool right?  Then we went over how the whole production area at Greenspun Hall is actually housed in neoprene so it floats and doesn't conduct any type of noise.  It literally carries no noise in that production studio, it's almost creepy how insulated it feels, but at the same token, it feels remarkably safe.

In lab I got to drive a $60,000 camera.  Holy cow, one look at the Sony cameras that are rolling around on pedestals in the studio made me afraid to even touch them.  They're almost like a car!  Trust me with how expensive they are, it's amazing that they have handlebars like a motorcycle, even complete with switches on the handles.

What came next though, I didn't expect.  After a break, Doc L. took us into the control room.  I'm not going to go on about the endless banks of buttons, dials, screens and the sheer amount of technology that would have my technology-fearing mother faint dead away, I'll just say this:  Doc L. showed us the Technical Directors seat and all of the gadgets and gizmos that go with it.  Instead of giving you details about how intimidated I was by all of the buttons, I'll just give you this, the Pixar short "Lifted."  When you see the little guy looking at all of the switches and so forth, think of me on a Wednesday morning.



I'm not even kidding, looking at that bank of controls for the first time had me feeling just like that little green guy.  As soon as I walked in the control room, I became that little green guy, knowing inevitably that I will NOT be able to handle those controls fluidly until I get a lot more time with Doc L. who seems so at home amongst all of that technology.

As you can see, I've got two interstellar professors this semester and it makes going to school every day (Monday through Thursday) a real treat. The class that rounds out my 12 credit hours for this semester is AAS 101, also known as Afro-American Survey I, which is my multicultural class required in my core curriculum to graduate.  It's an online class, so I can squeeze it in whenever I have time, which is a good thing.

So there we have it...the fall semester in a nutshell.  I'm looking forward to every day I get to spend with Scorsese, Doc L. and JJ.  I know it's just going to be incredible.

Let's dig up an oldie but goodie to theme out this semester.  PR is killing advertising, I'm being put behind video control boards, and I'm learning how to use media to my advantage... and just for fun because the last time I listened to this song I was an 8-year-old schoolgirl.  (Remarkably on September 9th, this song will be 32-years-old.)  The Buggles, "Video Killed the Radio Star."

Happy Fall 2011 everyone!