Today I Witnessed A Spectacular Sight!!!

Today I witnessed nothing short of a miracle.  While sitting at my desk playing on the computer I caught something out of the corner of my eye in the window.  I looked and it disappeared.  Then it reappeared.   Then it disappeared again.  Then it came back again.  A flock of whooping cranes riding thermals.  OMG!!!  There were at least  200 of them.  They were magnificent.  Just climbing higher and higher.  Circling and swirling like a school of fish in the open ocean.  Back and forth in circles.  Higher and higher.

There are less than 400  whooping cranes left in the wild.  They are literally extinct.  Today I was blessed to see half of the population ride a thermal over my apartment.   Higher and higher.  Without a wing flapping.  Just soaring in the wind.  I could hear them.   It was awesome...

These creatures are magnificent.  White with black wingtips.  On the ground they stand about 5 feet tall.  To see these things fly over my apartment outside of my window stunned me.  I stood in what I can only call rapture for more than half of an hour as these wonderful creatures soared overhead.  I was overwhelmed to say the least.  To see half of a wild population was amazing.  To watch them dance on the wind was divine.

400.  My god.  Only 400 of these amazing  creatures left in the wild.  And to see half of them soaring over my apartment...  Just circling and riding  a thermal.

Whooping cranes are the tallest and rarest of all North American birds.  When they set their wings to the wind they rival condors in size and aerobatics.  Today, I was witness to something I can only describe as a gift.  An incredible miracle, if you will...  I am still smiling.

I Have Become A Danger To Myself...

...and an annoyance to others.  I am proud of this honor.  It has taken me 58 years, 2 hours and 43 minutes to achieve this status.  What can I say, noble battles are never won easily...  And I have waged this one uphill in both directions.  In the snow!!!  In July.

I should have known better but I made a batch of sangria for breakfast this morning.  It's now gone.  And I'm sloshed.  Big time.  How I can still manage to type is beyond me.

I grilled out tonight.  I set my shirt on fire.   HOMO HANDS DANCE!!!  I scared the shit out of the neighbors for a short while.  Thank god they like me.  Or at least put up with me.  I can't understand why.  But at least they hosed me down.  And then went back inside just shaking their heads in dismay.  Locking me out in the process.  Probably to their benefit when I think about it...

I am the birthday boy from hell.  I am loud, clumsy and in your face.  A train wreck, if you will.  Even when it is not my birthday.  I am my own personal Amy Winehouse, who, BTW, was found dead today in London.  Thank god, because I was really getting tired of that bitch and her antics stealing all of my thunder...

I should never be allowed to be left alone without a straight jacket or a kennel.  And I should never be let loose in public without someone nearby with a dart gun at the ready.  Last night was a perfect example.  Too much fun, what can I say???

An INCREDIBLY Creepy Coincidence...

Why don't I remember this happening on my birthday back in 1991?   This was WAY big news!!!   Just how lit was I that day???

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the arrest of Jeffrey Dahmer.   Wisconsin's very own pedifile  Hannibal Lecter.  He was sentenced to life in prison after owning up to 17 grizzly murders in a confession that went on for 159 pages.  He ate people.  He had a freezer full of body parts.  He had an alter made of human bones in his living room.  He had sex with corpses (which, BTW is still not illegal in 'sconsin.  WTF???).  He wanted to turn his victims into his personal zombie minions.   Zombie minions???   Jeffrey, you were way beyond three strikes!!!

He was beaten to death with a broom handle by a fellow inmate in 1994.  Oh well, I guess what goes around comes around...

Today a detective who worked on the original investigation announced that he is interested in reopening the case.  It seems Jeffrey spent some time in Germany in the Army in the early '80's and several unsolved murder and mutilation cases  of underage males happened in the area where he was stationed at the time.

Here's the kicker.  He worked at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory in West Allis, 'sconsin.  This loon made candy.  Candy!!!  Why the hell do they always have normal jobs???

How the hell did I miss his arrest???

Five Loonies At A Single Table With WAY Too Many Cocktails At A Friday Night Fishfry...

OMg, it just doesn't get any better than this!!!   We were loud and intrusive to say the least.  Dare I say rude, crude, lewd and socially unacceptable???   Of course I will...  We not only kept the customers amused we entertained the entire staff for several hours.   Life is good.

A dear friend took Sea Squirt, two of our BFF's and myself out for an early b-day dinner for me tonight at one of our favorite haunts.  It was mayhem from the moment we pulled into the parking lot.  We drank too excess and we ate even more.  Our waitress kept referring to me as "Birthday Boy".  She even sang "Happy Birthday" to me (BTW, her name is Bev, she's 112 if she's a day and has a hairdo that resembles a blond football helmet.  I love her!!!).    As did half of the patrons.  I was in heaven.  Half of the wait staff, the bartender and the chef came over to thank us for coming in and keeping them bemused by our loud ramblings and drunkeness.  Can you imagine me or anyone I know being loud???  Let alone drunk???  OK, I retract that question...

Around about the fourth round of drinks when my vodka and cranberry juice turned into a "vodka blush" (barely pink) we decided to order..  Thank god.  An ocean and a lake of fish, a cubic mile of tartar sauce and god knows how many sink holes of clam chowder later we were all satiated.  And then I got free cake.  FREE CAKE!!!  Drowning in homemade whipped cream.  With a candle.  From Bev.  FUCK 58, I got free cake!!!

Yeah, life is good.  Tonight I smiled, giggled, laughed, talked too loudly and hugged dear, dear friends as we went our separate ways in the parking lot after an evening of incredible fun.  Nothing could be finer. Thank you for letting my weirdness into your lives....  I love you all.

Again, thank you so very, very much...

Vodka Lite??? What The Hell???

So, I'm the liquor  department at Woodman's the other day (no surprise) and I am perusing the vodka aisle (again, no surprise).  Vodka.  It's one of my favorite liquors.  But then again, I pretty much like any licker.  OK, TMI.  Back to subject...

I gotta tell ya, that aisle is getting pretty damned confusing.  It's got everything from bathtub rot gut to designer names at  $90 a bottle.  Then there are all of "flavored" vodkas.  What is up with that???   These things are not "flavors".   They are aberrations!!!   It's crap like pineapple, coconut, apple, mint, licorice (OMg, that just sounds dreadful!!!) and my favorite worst, butterscotch.  WTF???  How badly do you need to get her drunk to get laid on Prom Night???   These things make boat-drinks with a paper umbrella sound palatable!!!

And then I saw it.  Vodka Lite.  I thought I was hallucinating.  Vodka Lite???  I grabbed a bottle and began to read the label.  I was stunned to say the least.  It has less calories!!!  How fattening is vodka in the first place???  If I'm swilling vodka do you really think I care how fat I am???  Hell, if I'm drinking vodka I'm probably not eating anyway, so those calories actually count.  It has LESS alcohol!!!   WHAT???  And it cost MORE than the real stuff!!!  You water down my vodka and have the balls to charge me more for it???  FUCK YOU!!!  How stupid is America???  OK, I take that question back...  Are we so stupid that we don't know to add a little more mix or make a weaker cocktail???   OK, I take that question back as well...

As a young teenager I was constantly watering down the booze in my parents liquor cabinet.  Yes, I've always been like this, even as a child.  What can I say???  End result:  it got our Jamaican maid fired without just cause.   My bad.  I have never forgiven myself.   I loved her.  She was strange, practiced voodoo and always picked all of the chicken bones out of the trash.  I never had the courage to ask what she was doing with them...  I was afraid she might tell me.

NEVER, EVER WATER DOWN BOOZE!!!  ESPECIALLY BEFORE I HAVE EVEN HAD THE CHANCE TO BUY IT!!!   You will be deserving of having a wild-eyed, crazy, ancient Jamaican priestess wearing chicken bones chase you into a dark alley one night and turn you into her zombie slave!!!   I hope she makes you dig ditches!!!  Enough said...

Art & Gretta..

OMg, where do I start with those two?  The two of them were de-lightful, de-lovely and de-licious.  To this day, I hold both of them dear to my heart and count myself blessed by their lessons.

Growing up I spent my summers in northern 'sconsin on Upper Bass Lake at the end of the "road" adjacent to the boat landing.  It was wonderful.  Three blocks up the road and two if by sea were Art and Gretta.  They were older than the solar system and just precious.  She cooked, canned and baked.  He fished and tinkered.  There wasn't a damned thing he couldn't fix.  I loved them immediately and they welcomed me with open arms.  They were my surrogate grandparents.

From the end of our dock I could see him out there, fishing.  I would take the row boat over just to visit.  We would eat homemade cookies and I would help him put worms on his hooks.  Yeah, I know, not a pretty combination.  Eww...  But such is LIFE a half a century ago!!!  I didn't kill me so I guess all is well.  Hey, if you don't eat some dirt and guts how the hell are you going to develop an immune system???

The two of them were friends to my family from the word go.  We stored our boats in his pole building during the winter, as well as our "summer car".  Free of charge.  That was just Art's way of saying "welcome to the family".

When I was nine our wooden rowboat began to leak.  Art was not happy to say the least.  The two of us hauled her ashore, let her dry out and set to work.  We scrubbed her, brushed her, took her down to bare wood, recaulked her, repainted her and outfitted her proud.  She was red, white and blue and magnificent.  We gave her a name, Penelope.  Which of course Gretta painted on her sides.  For my birthday that year Art gave me new oars and Gretta gave me a new anchor made out of a one gallon paint can full of concrete that was painted to match the boat.  I was ten and in heaven.  These two were a gift of unimaginable wealth.  And both of them in their 80's.

They were both from Minnesota, she from Bemidji, he from Alexandria.  They were true "Scandahooovian's" and they both had hearts as big as all outdoors.  They first met at a county fair in 1903.  They were married a year later.  They had more children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren than an ant hill.  Art taught me how to bait a hook and Gretta taught me how to make avelskievers.  Google that if you must.  Think of a wonderously rich round pancake the size of a golf ball just slavered in homemade preserves and you get the idea...  Heaven on a plate!!!

When Art died early in the spring of 1969 my family flew back for the funeral.  The turnout was something akin to the Super Bowl.  Gretta was devastated.  She had lost her one and only true soul mate.  In the middle of that summer Gretta once again joined Art.  The dock was empty.  The house was empty.  No more delicious smells from the summer kitchen.  No more homemade cookies.  No more worms.  No more Art and Gretta.

I anchored "Penelope" out in the middle of the lake and swilled down a stolen six-pack of dad's Hamm's beer and screamed like a banshee.  That was the day I discovered keening decades before I knew what that actually meant.  I was 16 and hurting.   And then I puked my eyeballs out.

Art and Gretta...  I still remember you well, I hold you in my heart and still recall the smell of cookies and the feel of worms.  And a rowboat named "Penelope".  And a paint can full of cement.  You were both my anchor in more ways than you could have ever known at the time...  Thanks for the memories!!!

It's Not About Whether You Win Or Lose, It's ALL About How Cool You Look Doing It!!!

Oh, god, that is SO true!!!   If you ain't got cool, you're just a tool...

At the moment I am still giggling my ass off.  I just received my first b-day card from a fiend (no, I did not forget the "r") in Cincinnati.  He trashed me so gloriously it hurts.  Bitch, I love you!!!  The cover is a photo of a cat, in sunglasses, June Cleaver pop-beads, sitting at a poker table with a stack of chips, a down turned hand of cards and the meanest poker face I have ever seen.  She's wearing a pink feather boa.  Yes, I apparently have a pink pussy with a gambling "issue".  Lovely, just what I need, problems with my pussy...  It's not like I'm not already up to my own three nipples in problems.  Now my pussy has some things that are going horribly awry.   What next???


The inside of the card gets even better.  I have been PhotoShopped and cut and pasted (with real scissors and actual paste)  into the Broadway poster for Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert--The Musical.  I am Donn-Cilla: Queen Of The Blogs.  I am radiant!!!  I am bejeweled!!!  I am talking into a sequined French style phone.  And my voice bubble says "HELLO MOTHERFUCKERS!!!"  OMg, this guy knows me WAY too well...

It's true about being cool though.  You either have it or you don't.  Fake cool is a load of crap.  True cool, that gets you a standing ovation.  On the occasions when I have won I have been humble, that's just the way I am.  Stop laughing, I can hear you!!!   But when the shit has truly hit the fan and I have nose-dived into the ground with the afterburners on I have done it with my shoulders back and head held high.  I own and embrace my errors.  Every last one of them.  Nothing says valor more than NOT looking like a Republican.  I will NEVER use the excuse of having a "wide stance".  In my opinion, if you have never lost then you really don't know how fucking good winning really feels.  Losing is really nothing more than a learning curve.  You either get it, or you don't.

To my fiend (NO, I did not forget the "r" again) in Cincinnati, I say, thank you.  I send you hogs and kisses.  Private joke.  Bitch, I love you like I love my bowling shoes.  BTW, I don't have any of those...