Virginia Arthur's Blog, page 6
November 26, 2013
Does Anybody Know What's in a Cosmopolitan?
I blog about silly things periodically and why not? I write and perform humor and sometimes on purpose.
There are times when I hate my country, America. All citizens I think have love/hate relationships with their home countries mostly because we know our country is not living up to its highest potential. America is not. I hate that in the eyes of the world we appear selfish, consumptive, lazy, stupid, mean, asshole-ish...that Americans work out their ultimate troubles on other Americans--shooting their fellow citizens at shopping mauls, in schools; in our public spaces which are precious and sacred. It is heartbreaking and tragic. I hate that we are the most violent "developed" nation in the world. That our kids rank low in math and science...we CAN do A LOT better but we don't. Imagine an America that lives up to its potential. WOW.
Then there are the times I am nothing less then completely delighted to be an American. We are, at the root of it, of a friendly ilk. We help one another. We offer (sometimes really bad) advice whether it's sought or not. We pretty much love our pets and animals. We do not condone animal cruelty and even have institutions in place to insure this does not happen. We are not pretentious.
I can cite many examples of random events I observe through the day where one citizen spontaneously helped another. I offer you an example from the grocery store...one of my favorite places to observe our behavior.
I have a friend coming for Thanksgiving and she told me to make sure I have the fixings for Cosmopolitans on hand in case she wants a drink. No problem. So I dutifully went to the grocery store to shop then sauntered to the alcohol portion of the store only to realize, aside from cranberry juice, I am not really sure what is IN a cosmopolitan (me, being a woman who relishes a fine beer). It started out in the alcohol section of the store by asking a couple:
"Excuse me sir but do you know what's in a cosmopolitan?"
"Yea. It's a woman's magazine about fashion, hair, and stuff like that."
"No. No," I laughed.
"She means the drink, Bill."
"Yea, the drink," I said.
"No. Uhm. I don't know."
Per a cashier hearing this as he walked by, this compelling question then quickly migrated west from that point along every cashier's aisle in the store as they all asked one another including one cashier, Jack, calling the guy in charge of the alcohol on the phone. While it was making its way through the employee component of the store, it was no less spreading through the customers in line as I heard the discussion proliferate through 20-30 people all around me.
"No, it's NOT bourbon for God's sake, Mary..."
"I think it's gin."
"No, it's VODKA, I tell ya."
"It's not VODKA, it's some kind of whiskey."
"Vodka is a kind of whiskey."
"No it's NOT."
On and on it went like a jazz symphony.
The entire front half of the store was going to figure this out for me damn it and by damn, they DID! Within a few minutes, a nice older couple approached me to tell me they knew FOR SURE what is in a cosmopolitan: cranberry juice, vodka, and lime (triple sec optional I guess).
I left that store with a ton of new friends (including a few that told me they would be happy to try it out for me) and a giant smile on my face. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, GOD BLESS AMERICA, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
There are times when I hate my country, America. All citizens I think have love/hate relationships with their home countries mostly because we know our country is not living up to its highest potential. America is not. I hate that in the eyes of the world we appear selfish, consumptive, lazy, stupid, mean, asshole-ish...that Americans work out their ultimate troubles on other Americans--shooting their fellow citizens at shopping mauls, in schools; in our public spaces which are precious and sacred. It is heartbreaking and tragic. I hate that we are the most violent "developed" nation in the world. That our kids rank low in math and science...we CAN do A LOT better but we don't. Imagine an America that lives up to its potential. WOW.
Then there are the times I am nothing less then completely delighted to be an American. We are, at the root of it, of a friendly ilk. We help one another. We offer (sometimes really bad) advice whether it's sought or not. We pretty much love our pets and animals. We do not condone animal cruelty and even have institutions in place to insure this does not happen. We are not pretentious.
I can cite many examples of random events I observe through the day where one citizen spontaneously helped another. I offer you an example from the grocery store...one of my favorite places to observe our behavior.
I have a friend coming for Thanksgiving and she told me to make sure I have the fixings for Cosmopolitans on hand in case she wants a drink. No problem. So I dutifully went to the grocery store to shop then sauntered to the alcohol portion of the store only to realize, aside from cranberry juice, I am not really sure what is IN a cosmopolitan (me, being a woman who relishes a fine beer). It started out in the alcohol section of the store by asking a couple:
"Excuse me sir but do you know what's in a cosmopolitan?"
"Yea. It's a woman's magazine about fashion, hair, and stuff like that."
"No. No," I laughed.
"She means the drink, Bill."
"Yea, the drink," I said.
"No. Uhm. I don't know."
Per a cashier hearing this as he walked by, this compelling question then quickly migrated west from that point along every cashier's aisle in the store as they all asked one another including one cashier, Jack, calling the guy in charge of the alcohol on the phone. While it was making its way through the employee component of the store, it was no less spreading through the customers in line as I heard the discussion proliferate through 20-30 people all around me.
"No, it's NOT bourbon for God's sake, Mary..."
"I think it's gin."
"No, it's VODKA, I tell ya."
"It's not VODKA, it's some kind of whiskey."
"Vodka is a kind of whiskey."
"No it's NOT."
On and on it went like a jazz symphony.
The entire front half of the store was going to figure this out for me damn it and by damn, they DID! Within a few minutes, a nice older couple approached me to tell me they knew FOR SURE what is in a cosmopolitan: cranberry juice, vodka, and lime (triple sec optional I guess).
I left that store with a ton of new friends (including a few that told me they would be happy to try it out for me) and a giant smile on my face. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, GOD BLESS AMERICA, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
October 31, 2013
They're Casing my Pumpkin
It's Halloween. If anyone had caught me on film last night (film? film you say? What the hell is "film"?), I would have confirmed rumors that I am nuts (but gosh, in a good way). A few days ago, after a very very long time, I selected my perfect pumpkin out of a giant cardboard bin at a grocery outlet store.
I love my pumpkin with all my heart and held it like a baby in the grocery store line. People noticed. I think I even bent down and kissed it on it's cute little pepo head. I mumbled coos into it's cucurbitous ear. Was I embarrassed, me, a woman entering middle age observed caressing and kissing a pumpkin in line at the grocery store? Maybe. A little.
My pumpkin, who I call my little pumpkin, has been in at least four different locations here at home. Then, yesterday, I noticed three teenagers walking by and despite that I never really SAW them looking at my pumpkin, say DIRECTLY, I have never seen these teenagers on my street before...They were obviously casing my little pumpkin in preparation for their no-doubt Halloween shenanigans that always include, yes, killing pumpkins and not just killing them, but torturing them. Dropping them from trees, tall buildings, throwing them out of car windows, smashing them in streets. The teenagers looked at me and I looked at them as I migrated over to my pumpkin, at the base of the mailboxes and daring them to say something, picked it up, cradled it, kissed it, mumbled, "I won't let them hurt you" into it's ear, if it had one...At this, they seemed to speed up walking down the street.
Since then my little pumpkin has been all over the front yard. Of course, it's off the street now and on the stairs but then it was on the deck. Then it was back on the stairs but higher up...then it was back by the mailboxes but I kept looking out the window checking on it. It's been quite stressful.
Botanically speaking, pumpkins love teenagers because a pumpkin is a fruit and inside the fruit are seeds and unless the tough outer rind is opened, the seeds stay locked in so intellectually and philosophically, I understand that the teenagers are in fact, perhaps, little pumpkin's best friends. If you love something let it go, if it comes back, if you find it smashed into smithereens in the street the next day, etc. etc.
The best thing I could do, botanically speaking, is leave it out by the mailboxes...but no, tonite, Halloween night, I am bringing it inside the house.
We'll have a nice dinner, a glass of wine, and maybe eat some candy. Maybe around, say Thanksgiving, I'll put it back outside where it can commence rotting in the yard.
I love my pumpkin with all my heart and held it like a baby in the grocery store line. People noticed. I think I even bent down and kissed it on it's cute little pepo head. I mumbled coos into it's cucurbitous ear. Was I embarrassed, me, a woman entering middle age observed caressing and kissing a pumpkin in line at the grocery store? Maybe. A little.
My pumpkin, who I call my little pumpkin, has been in at least four different locations here at home. Then, yesterday, I noticed three teenagers walking by and despite that I never really SAW them looking at my pumpkin, say DIRECTLY, I have never seen these teenagers on my street before...They were obviously casing my little pumpkin in preparation for their no-doubt Halloween shenanigans that always include, yes, killing pumpkins and not just killing them, but torturing them. Dropping them from trees, tall buildings, throwing them out of car windows, smashing them in streets. The teenagers looked at me and I looked at them as I migrated over to my pumpkin, at the base of the mailboxes and daring them to say something, picked it up, cradled it, kissed it, mumbled, "I won't let them hurt you" into it's ear, if it had one...At this, they seemed to speed up walking down the street.
Since then my little pumpkin has been all over the front yard. Of course, it's off the street now and on the stairs but then it was on the deck. Then it was back on the stairs but higher up...then it was back by the mailboxes but I kept looking out the window checking on it. It's been quite stressful.
Botanically speaking, pumpkins love teenagers because a pumpkin is a fruit and inside the fruit are seeds and unless the tough outer rind is opened, the seeds stay locked in so intellectually and philosophically, I understand that the teenagers are in fact, perhaps, little pumpkin's best friends. If you love something let it go, if it comes back, if you find it smashed into smithereens in the street the next day, etc. etc.
The best thing I could do, botanically speaking, is leave it out by the mailboxes...but no, tonite, Halloween night, I am bringing it inside the house.
We'll have a nice dinner, a glass of wine, and maybe eat some candy. Maybe around, say Thanksgiving, I'll put it back outside where it can commence rotting in the yard.
August 1, 2013
LAURA!!!!!!!!
So I live in a very weird subdivision or the exurbs, as they call them. It's a housing development that tried to keep its "rural flavor" by not allowing fencing, and building the roads, literally, ON, and I mean ON the contours. In fact, in some places, you can do a total Thelma and Louise but instead, you will just land in Barbara's backyard, getting a spectacular thumping, but the drop is only going to be about 60 feet, not the hundreds or so into the Grand Canyon.
Also, you would think, owing that our roads bank at curves that would put Marilyn Monroe to shame, our county would put up guard rails, but no. No guard rails. So far, no car has landed in or ON Barbara's house so why bother. They stay in the yard. And (no I am not done yet) you would think they would not cram tons and tons of houses into this mountain foothill topography, but cha' guessed it, they did. I am lucky enough to be on an acre but in the "poor" part, people are on .10 acre lots or less.
We're crammed in here and the hills make for a natural amphitheater effect so the sound stays right here in the hollers, bouncing all over the place.
I've set the scene. Now on to the play.
STELLA!!!!!!!!! STELLL A!!!!
Summer night but cool. Windows opens. You know the deal. Despite that I am bleary-eyed and holding my head up with my hands reading Black Sun by Ed Abbey (he does this to me, the bstrd), I am not sleeping. I need to be. It is refreshingly quiet. Still. I can hear the deer moving around through our now dry crackly leaves. Then all of a sudden, I hear "LAURA!!!!!" flaring into the dark night (we don't have street lights here because it is a "rural subdivision" so it is also very dark out).
"LAURA!!!!!" it sounds again. It is a man's voice. It is in despair. He is nearly howling, like a wolf.
"LAUUUUURAAAA!" goes the plaintive cry once again, into the night.
There is no sound when he stops. No voices except his. No muttering I can detect. No conversation of any kind. No comfort for him apparently.
"LAUUURRRAAAA!!" he cries out again.
"LAURRRRAAAA!!" This time, his voice cracking, breaking.
It's quiet again.
I start crying. Why? Why am I crying?
I'm tired. I'm reading Abbey. He makes me emotional. I put the book down on the bed. "What is wrong, my friend, with your Laura?" I wonder.
Is she your wife, girlfriend, lover?
Did she leave you?
Is she dying? Did she die?
Is it your sister? Did she die?
Is it your child?
Is it your dog? Is your dog's name Laura?
I have wailed like this after putting one of my dear friends to sleep.
Why are you wailing man, alone, into a peaceful, dark summer night?
I sat for about ten minutes. Nothing. I turned off the light in my bedroom and lied down. I cried. I did not hear it again. I fell asleep.
Also, you would think, owing that our roads bank at curves that would put Marilyn Monroe to shame, our county would put up guard rails, but no. No guard rails. So far, no car has landed in or ON Barbara's house so why bother. They stay in the yard. And (no I am not done yet) you would think they would not cram tons and tons of houses into this mountain foothill topography, but cha' guessed it, they did. I am lucky enough to be on an acre but in the "poor" part, people are on .10 acre lots or less.
We're crammed in here and the hills make for a natural amphitheater effect so the sound stays right here in the hollers, bouncing all over the place.
I've set the scene. Now on to the play.
STELLA!!!!!!!!! STELLL A!!!!
Summer night but cool. Windows opens. You know the deal. Despite that I am bleary-eyed and holding my head up with my hands reading Black Sun by Ed Abbey (he does this to me, the bstrd), I am not sleeping. I need to be. It is refreshingly quiet. Still. I can hear the deer moving around through our now dry crackly leaves. Then all of a sudden, I hear "LAURA!!!!!" flaring into the dark night (we don't have street lights here because it is a "rural subdivision" so it is also very dark out).
"LAURA!!!!!" it sounds again. It is a man's voice. It is in despair. He is nearly howling, like a wolf.
"LAUUUUURAAAA!" goes the plaintive cry once again, into the night.
There is no sound when he stops. No voices except his. No muttering I can detect. No conversation of any kind. No comfort for him apparently.
"LAUUURRRAAAA!!" he cries out again.
"LAURRRRAAAA!!" This time, his voice cracking, breaking.
It's quiet again.
I start crying. Why? Why am I crying?
I'm tired. I'm reading Abbey. He makes me emotional. I put the book down on the bed. "What is wrong, my friend, with your Laura?" I wonder.
Is she your wife, girlfriend, lover?
Did she leave you?
Is she dying? Did she die?
Is it your sister? Did she die?
Is it your child?
Is it your dog? Is your dog's name Laura?
I have wailed like this after putting one of my dear friends to sleep.
Why are you wailing man, alone, into a peaceful, dark summer night?
I sat for about ten minutes. Nothing. I turned off the light in my bedroom and lied down. I cried. I did not hear it again. I fell asleep.
July 19, 2013
Jumping Spider Descended
A jumping spider just lowered itself onto my keyboard. Now it's looking at me.
Time to log off.
Time to log off.
July 14, 2013
The Titmouse Outside My Brain
I have a bird feeder that hangs just a few feet outside my office window. The things I observe outside my office window are truly incredible as I am just minding my own business, working, or not, and I look up only to see two male mule-deer bucks have lain down two feet from the window. One is cleaning the other or one is sleeping while the other keeps an eye out; or a fox is working its way up the slope of my yard then the jackrabbit once again, is carefully moving through the weeds, nibbling cautiously at each stop. Or it's Peebles the titmouse at my bird feeder, methodically tossing out the cheap seed, to get to the very few sunflower seeds. I know this bird. I have been friends with him for many years. Yes, I recognize him. Don't ask me why I call him Peebles. Hell if I know. But he is used to me now as I sit sorting my piles out on the top of my desk, talking to myself, listening to the news. He jerks left and right as if doing some token search for predators, then continues to throw all my cheap bird seed on the ground. Then, of course, the ecological chain of events unfolds because the towhees and jays hit the ground to get the cheap seed and then a small vole or mouse heads out for the same then I see the red-shouldered hawk hanging around in my black oaks about the time I am (and he is too apparently) ready for lunch. I have absolutely nothing to do with any of this. All I did is put up a feeder. The giant "rural" subdivision I live in has no fencing so the wildlife move through the 3,000 acres easily. They are used to us. I am trying to decipher my phone bill while a titmouse is scolding a wren. They don't care about my phone bill, and I really don't care about their squabbles. Only that they are there every day, living their lives, doing whatever it is they do among themselves and so it is, we co-exist, in peace.
