IT'S DURAN DURAN DAY, BITCHES!!!

I actually had another post written but I'm going to shelve it for a few days because how could I NOT commemorate this? 

I'm really digging the new album so far. The new single "Anniversary" kicks ass. 

And the video? FABULOUS.

Some thoughts....

Nick still rules.

Love the bit with the young Duran Duran cover band.

It's nice to see Roger prominently featured (and smiling!).

John getting kidnapped by the Daniel Craig lookalike is hilarious.

Okay, so there's a lot of the Kardashian lookalike in it, but I don't mind too much because they're mostly just making fun of her giant fake ass. (Yeah not very feminist of me to say, but you can't inject your ass cheeks with 30 pounds of window caulk and expect to be taken seriously. The giant fake ass trend can't die soon enough for me; it doesn't look sexy, it just looks painful. The lower back strain!)

I don't know what the Billie Eilish lookalike is meant to be doing, but I LOVE that they have the Ariana Grande clone licking a tray of pastries. I feel like that's a shoutout to Gen Xers like me, because seriously the only thing I know about Ariana Grande is that she was once caught on camera licking a donut. (No, it's not a euphemism for something dirty--she licked a donut in a bakery. God, the pop star scandals of today are so boring.)

And the Queen is there! YES! (I'm a big fan of The Crown. Betty RULES!)

40 YEARS OF DURAN DURAN, BITCHES!

NOTE: This post has been a long time coming, obviously. I started to write it months ago, then had to put it aside because everything was too raw and painful. I was only recently able to come back and revisit it. I still feel like it's rough and unfinished, but such is life. Here's my long overdue tribute to the girls.

ALICE JANE 

Alice came to me in Minneapolis when she was a year old. Her first owner, a friend of mine from work, was moving out of state and couldn't take Alice with her. I was living in a small apartment and still had Shelby and Riley at the time, so I was worried that a third cat might be a bit much. My friend was 21 years old and....not the most responsible pet owner (not judging, just saying). She informed me that if I didn't adopt Alice, she planned to "put her on Craigslist." That sealed the deal for me. I said, "Fuck that. I'm taking her."

Alice was not happy that first night. She'd been plucked from the only home she'd ever known by some random lady who stuck her in a carrier and brought her to a strange new place with two resident cats who were not exactly thrilled with this new addition to the family. After cowering in the bathroom for a few hours, Alice emerged and started hissing and spitting at me, clearly terrified. I grabbed her, scooted her into the second bedroom, and closed the door. Then I tiptoed in with some water, a bowl of food, and an extra litter box and left her in there to decompress by herself.

She lived in that second bedroom for about a week. I went in to visit with her every day after I came home from work, and I was able to get her to play with some toys and snuggle next to me. I read her The Rachel Papers (Martin Amis’s first novel, which I was re-reading for the umpteenth time) and she seemed to enjoy it. We watched some movies I'd rented from my neighborhood video store (streaming services weren't a thing yet, at least not for me), including an indie flick called Half Nelson, which we both liked.

By the time Alice was released from the second bedroom and made her official debut as a permanent member of the household, she was confident, playful, and affectionate. Although Shelby initially did the typical hissy pissy "I don't like you" thing that cats do with new siblings, she calmed down soon enough and began "allowing" Alice to groom her and even occasionally cuddled with her. Riley was pretty old and infirm by the time Alice came along, so he didn't have much of an opinion one way or another about this new cat. Still, he let her sniff him and gave her a brotherly headbutt once in a while.

Chilling on top of the kitchen cabinets in Minneapolis, 2007.

Simon Reid bought me this cat condo during our two month "relationship."

And check out my old iPod! (Minneapolis, 2008.)

Alice and her favorite teddy bear in Reno, 2013. 

Alice once broke Twitter with this photo. 

My favorite comment (from Anna Maltese): 

"I feel like this cat has called me into her office 
to ask why my productivity levels have dropped."

***********************************************************************

Riley passed away in 2008, and Shelby followed in May 2009. I was heartbroken and wanted to wait a little bit before adopting another cat. Alice, however, had different ideas. She'd gotten used to having other cats around and hated being on her own when I wasn't at home. I decided to go ahead and start looking at the Humane Society for a possible feline companion for my girl.

Enter Audrey.

AUDREY JOY 

 

Audrey started life as a stray and was found living on the streets of St. Paul. She ended up being rescued by the Woodbury Humane Society in March 2009, and two months later that's where I found her. I walked into the cat room of the shelter and immediately spotted a gregarious little patchwork tiger tabby reaching through the bars of her cage, beckoning me over. It took me about five minutes of petting and talking to her to realize that I'd found my new baby. The shelter staff told me she was approximately two years old and her name was Darby. I loved everything about her, except for that name. I decided she needed a more fitting moniker, something classic and feminine, but sassy. And so Darby became Audrey, and she came home with me the next day.

The first photo of Audrey in her new home, May 2009.

Alice wasn't exactly over the moon about this interloper. As much as she hated being alone, she was not keen on having to adjust to a new cat. (I think she was somehow hoping to get the old ones back.) It took Alice about two months to relax and embrace Audrey as a sister. When she finally accepted her, I breathed a sigh of relief. The era of "The Tabby Twins," (a.k.a. "The Minnesota Twins,") had officially begun.

Audrey was an amazing cat from the very start; a ray of sunshine in feline form. I could wax poetic about her forever, but mere words can't do her justice. You just had to know her. And everyone who knew her absolutely loved her. I always said she could make a cat lover out of anyone. And one day....she did.

Witness John's conversion:

"Hey human? Stop pretending you don’t like cats. I can see right through you."

That look says, "Yeah, I got him."

“Pfft, whatever. This human was easy.

Give me a real challenge next time.”

Audrey on his shoulder makes him happy.

"Silly human, you know you can't resist me."

And so it went. Over the years we moved our little family from Minnesota to Louisiana to Nevada to Utah to (again) Nevada and then to Texas. Alice and Audrey hated traveling but always settled in fairly quickly once we reached our destinations. 

The Minnesota twins in Utah, 2016

Along the way our quartet became a quintet when we adopted Cassie, a “cow cat” John fell in love with when he spotted her at a Petco in Reno back in 2014.

Cassie "helping" with the laundry in Reno 2018

Alice had her 14^th birthday in August 2020. She’d always been a healthy eater and a rather large lady, but I noticed her appetite had started to flag and she’d lost a little weight. In September I found a lump on one of her mammary glands and took her to the vet to get it checked out. There was talk of surgery, but first I had to get her feeling better and get her weight up, so she was prescribed a cocktail of drugs, special food, and an appetite stimulant. She started to feel better but I had a hard time putting weight on her. We decided to keep her on the meds and keep her comfortable in the short term, realizing that surgery might not be an option given her age and overall health.

I spent a lot of time with Alice those last few months. She was a one-person cat, and her person was me. She also had a PhD in cuddling, so we spent a lot of time in her favorite bed (the one in the guest room with the awesome memory foam mattress) where we snuggled and had deep philosophical conversations and watched DVDs on my laptop—including Donnie Darko, one of her favorites—as I did my best to make her comfortable and help her feel safe and loved and pampered. It occurs to me now that those last months with Alice mirrored the first weeks I had with her back when I brought her home in 2007; the two of us just hanging out, having girl time, bonding and enjoying each other’s company.

We ended up losing Alice two days after Christmas. She had an appointment the following morning for an examination at the vet, where I planned to talk to her doctor about the "quality of life" decision I would be making very soon. But that evening of the 27th she took a turn for the worse, and I knew her time was near. I held her close as her breathing became increasingly shallow....and then she was gone. It was expected, but still devastating.

In the meantime, Audrey had also begun slowing down. Instead of losing weight like Alice, she started gaining weight and getting rounder, which in turn put strain on her joints, which made her move around less, which made her pack on more weight, which put more strain on her joints, which made her even more sedentary, and so on and so on. It was a vicious cycle. I took her to the vet in February, and they ran a bunch of tests but didn’t find much wrong with her aside from a mild ear infection. They gave me drops for her ears (which she hated of course—who wouldn’t?) and sent us home.

On the morning of March 3, 2020 John was working in his office upstairs. I was in the kitchen dishing out breakfast for Audrey and Cassie when John called out, “There’s something wrong with Audrey.” I dropped everything and rushed upstairs to the cats’ bedroom. John was kneeling on the floor next to Audrey, who was lying on her side in one of her beds wheezing and gasping for air. I held up her head as John and I talked to her and struggled to figure out what was happening, trying not to panic.

It happened in less than a minute. Audrey breathed in and out a few times, then sort of faded slowly away. John and I were mute with shock. I sat on the floor for a long time holding my little tiger cat, rocking her back and forth, completely shattered. I called the vet’s office, managed to get her doctor on the phone, and described what happened. The vet said it sounded like Audrey had most likely “thrown a clot,” which is is also referred to as a pulmonary embolism, something that can happen to animals and humans alike. As horrible as it was losing Audrey so suddenly, we were at least somewhat comforted that she went quickly and (hopefully?) with minimal suffering, with John and me right there next to her.

That’s the thing about pets: if all goes well, you outlive them and are there to care for them til the very end. That’s the best case scenario. It’s unbelievably heartbreaking to lose them, but it’s the way things should be, really.

Audrey and Alice were the second “generation” of cats that I’ve owned, and if anything they were even more difficult to part with than the first. Not that I loved Alice and Audrey any more than I did Shelby and Riley; you love your cats the way you love your family, and it’s not a matter of loving any one of them more or less. It’s all the same, but it’s all different, if that makes any sense.

So after a short time as a one-cat family, we decided to add two more. This past spring we went to SPCA Texas and brought home a pair of Siamese sisters we named Stevie Nicks and Sabrina. They’re three years old and still full of that goofy young cat energy, chasing each other up and down the stairs, attacking houseplants, and chattering at the birds outside. They’ve lately become lap cats who purr appreciatively when I sing to them (favorite selections include The Doors’ “Hello, I Love You” and McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs.”) I’ll write a bit more about them sometime, but not now.

This post belongs to our Minnesota twins. Forever loved, forever missed.

Shine on you crazy diamonds.

    

   

 

    TALES FROM SUBURBIA
PT. 1: GOBBLED

I appreciate these little traditions that seem to be a thing around our subdivision. Last week, for instance, I got gobbled. 

No you pre-verts, not that kind of gobbled. I'm talking about this:

Apparently "gobbling" is the Thanksgiving practice of leaving a treat bag on a neighbor's doorstep with a sign and note asking them to anonymously pay it forward and do the same to another neighbor. It was a fun little surprise, and our treats included some Nestle miniatures, a few caramels, some biscotti, and a small pack of Twizzlers. I'd enclose a photo but everything was consumed pretty quickly; John and I hadn't yet detoxed from all the leftover Halloween candy we'd been scarfing up and were badly in need of a sugar fix.

The attached instructions said I was supposed to "gobble" someone within two days. I promptly forgot. Then yesterday--two days before Thanksgiving--I remembered. I searched through the cupboards but all I came up with was a half empty bag of Community coffee, some loose tea bags, a couple sweet potatoes and a pack of Harvest Snaps. And I was NOT about to part with my Harvest Snaps. Fuck that noise. 

So then I hit the supermarket. Ever been to the supermarket during Thanksgiving week? It's a clusterfuck. I grabbed a bag of Airheads and went looking for something besides candy to include in my gobble bag, like a little festive button with "Happy Thanksgiving," on it and maybe a seasonal pencil topper to throw in there. You know, just trying to be original. But being Thanksgiving week and all, I soon found myself just needing to get the hell out of there. 

In the end, these were my offerings:

Yeah, that's orange cookie icing and a wax moustache. It was the best I could do.

I packed up the gobble bag and chose one of the smaller ranch houses a few streets over from us, one that didn't show any signs of kids living there. I thought maybe a single person or some elderly retiree might get appreciate being gobbled.

I feel like I've now fulfilled my suburban neighborly obligations for the fall season, anyway.    

 

  

 

AND TAKE YOUR WHORE* WITH YOU!

*Oh simmer down folks, I'm talking about Pence!

And speaking of bitches down on their knees for Dear Leader....

I've watched the above video approximately 75 times over the last few days, and it's still just as funny as the first time I clapped eyes on it. Here's a link in case the new Blogger format fucks with the embed. 

I have much, much more to say about the blessed events of this glorious day, but right now I'm gonna go celebrate. In the meantime, here's a cheerful little ditty I'd like to dedicate to Trump & Co.

 

SMELL YA LATER, CREAMSICLE!

"That you are here, that life exists....that the powerful play 

goes on and you may contribute a verse."

Well it seems 2020 has turned me into one of those weepy middle-aged fraus who are perpetually hand-wringing over relatives and friends who are sick, dying, or deceased, but in the words of Hard Harry, SO BE IT.  

Two days ago I got word that Mr. Duane Verkamp--my favorite teacher from my beloved alma mater Marian Heights Academy--recently passed away from pneumonia. Fuck this fucking year. 

Me with Mr. Verkamp and his wife Maureen

at MHA Alumni Weekend, summer 2000.

In truth, Mr. Verkamp was so much more than just my favorite teacher, but it's near impossible to explain what that means to anyone who didn't know him. The only way to sort of explain it--to people from my generation, anyway--is to picture Mr. Keating from Dead Poets Society, but like a mellow hippie Boomer version. And instead of a New England boys' prep school in the 1950s, the setting was an all-girls Catholic boarding school in rural Indiana in the late 1980s - early 1990s. (Also, we weren't sneaking into the woods at midnight to read poetry to each other; we were sneaking into the woods to smoke and/or make out with our townie boyfriends. But that's another story.)   

A few photos from my high school yearbook, 1990-91 (junior year)

Jeez, could they have made the faculty photos 

look any more like mug shots? 

In addition to teaching English, Mr. V was also my forensics coach.

(Forensics club was what most other high schools called debate team.)

And then there's me at 17. 

I was a naughty Catholic schoolgirl before it was cool.

There's really not much I am able to put into words at the moment; grief has made me its bitch. All I can say is that an amazing human being is gone and I'm heartbroken and I didn't picture it happening this way. In the words of that song, I always thought that I'd see him again. 

I think I've earned the right to post this:

"All hands on deck at dawn, sailing to sadder shores...."

On August 28th my brother-in-law Roger (my sister's husband) passed away from colon cancer at the age of 47. He was just diagnosed in June, so it took him pretty quickly. Despite the giant COVID tornado down here in Texas, I ended up flying to Indianapolis so I could be there for his wake and funeral. In the end I was glad I went. Sometimes you just gotta throw caution to the wind and go with your gut instinct. This was one of those times. 

I've been playing Echo and the Bunnymen's Ocean Rain (from the album of the same name) a lot over the past few months. I don't know if Ian McCulloch intended for it to be a mourning song, but it has that feel. It's melancholy without being maudlin, and it's brought me some comfort.  

I hope that better times are ahead, but I don't know. I do know that if a certain right-wing fascist and his cronies are voted out on November 3rd that it would at least give us all some hope. It wouldn't fix everything, but at this point nothing will.

RESCUED FROM OBSCURITY 

"And I don't know which end to burn..."

I won't comment on any real world shit going on, because fuck it. We all know 2020 sucks. We all know everything sucks. 

So take a break from the bullshit and escape with me to 1985, a comparatively innocent, COVID-free time when Julian Lennon's debut album Valotte was riding high on the music charts in the US and UK and the first two singles, the title track and Too Late For Goodbyes, were in heavy rotation on MTV with videos directed by.....Sam Peckinpah. (Seriously!)

But the Julian Lennon track I'm most fond of is the less remembered and woefully underrated third single, "Say You're Wrong." It's not groundbreaking or anything, but it's a fun little song and video (this one directed by Tim Pope). The thing I love about this tune is that while Julian's vocals are of course very reminiscent of his father's, the song's melody is quite McCartney-esque, an observation duly noted by someone in the YouTube comments. Incidentally, another commentator remarked on Julian's "nice figure," like he's a contestant in a Star Search spokesmodel competition (hee!), but I kinda know what they mean. Julian is adorable in this and I'm digging the '80s northern English vibe with the hat, boots, and long black coat. What can I say? It's definitely working for him.

Aw hell, let's just stay in the mid-80s. Pretend like 2020 never happened. Sound good? Cool.

Here's "Valotte," my second fave and also a damn fine song.

And also, there's this:

Smash Hits could always be counted on to stick John Taylor on the cover.

Julian was a bonus.

KEITH OLSEN 

1945 - 2020

Last May I got the chance to hang out with Keith Olsen at his home in Genoa (Nevada, not Italy). My friend Pat was close with Keith and his wife, and I tagged along when she and her boyfriend Frank stopped by to see them one beautiful sunny afternoon. 

I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to meet Keith. I got to see his home recording studio that featured a wall of artists he's worked with: Rick Springfield (Keith produced "Jessie's Girl"), Fleetwood Mac, Journey, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, Heart, Ozzy Osbourne, Whitesnake, The Grateful Dead, and countless others. Anytime you tune into one of the classic rock stations on Sirius, you're almost guaranteed to hear something Keith produced.

The four of us hung out in his living room, drank some iced tea and listened to Keith reminisce. I was full of questions, of course, and Keith had some really amazing stories about his years in the music business. 

Just before we headed back to Tahoe, Keith called us all outside so we could help him feed the deer that had shown up at his property for their daily snacks. All these deer, just hanging out in his yard. He handed us some buckets of whatever he fed them (deer chow?) and about a dozen of these little cuties gathered around us, waiting patiently for their treats. 

It was a magical afternoon. 

Keith passed away at his home last month at the age of 74. Cardiac arrest. He is survived by his wife Janice, three children, and two grandchildren. You can read his NYT obit here.

Rest in peace, dude. You are a fucking legend.

ADVENTURES IN SCAM BAITING PART VI:

HOW CAN WE BE LOVERS IF WE CAN'T BE FRIENDS?

(OR: Love in the Time of COVID-19)

Just a quick one to give us all a few laughs while we wait out the Apocalypse.

This is a guy who contacted me on Instagram yesterday. The thing about this one was that it took me a while to notice that he was claiming to be a celebrity. I guess I wasn't really paying attention, I just accepted his message request and started right in quoting some Kate Bush lyrics at him. 

Heh. I love that crazy ass song.

He's got a lot of chutzpah to call me out on a fake photo. How does he know I'm not Kate Bush?

Okay, below you can see the moment where I realized he was pretending to be Michael Bolton. The '90s balladeer, obviously. Not the character from Office Space.

An aside: I assumed that his bogus Instagram would be set to "Private" like 99% of these scam accounts are, so I was surprised when I checked and saw that the dude actually made an effort to swipe some pics from MB's official social media, like this one of homeboy wearing a scarf and enjoying a matcha. Poor Michael. I bet he had no idea that this very photo would one day be used by some random mouth-breather to try and dupe some unsuspecting soft rock aficionados.   

So once I realized who the dude was claiming to be, I decided to hop on that pony and ride it into the dirt.

Okay I should provide some backstory on my OJ Simpson comment above. Paula Barbieri (C-list model/actress and OJ Simpson's paramour during the time of the infamous murders) wrote a book called The Other Woman: My Years With OJ Simpson. I tracked down a copy around the time of that OJ miniseries--I wrote about the show here BTW--(jeez, was that really four years ago?) and it was a tawdry but enjoyable read. Some of the random stuff from the book I remember is that Paula was with OJ in the early/mid-90s and while he wasn't physically abusive, he was given to throwing tantrums and acting like a petulant asshole if he didn't get his way (big surprise there). He also either cheated on her a lot or she suspected that he did, I can't recall which. OJ was also buddies with a certain pseudo-billionaire hanger-on by the name of Donald Trump, and there was a anecdote where Paula was with OJ at a golf tournament somewhere and Dumpcake creepily put the moves on her as soon as OJ turned his back. Paula told OJ about it later and instead of actually doing something constructive with his psychotic roid rage, OJ just sort of shrugged it off like, "yeah well, that's just Donald being Donald." Ugh. Wastes of oxygen, the both of them.

An image from the book: 

Paula stands between a future murderer

and a future fascist cult leader.

Anyhoo the relevant bit here is that after a lot of on-and-offing with their relationship, Paula finally decided she'd had enough and, during the weekend of the murders, she told OJ sayonara and flew to Las Vegas for a rendezvous with Michael Bolton, as she had recently appeared in one of his music videos and had been digging his chili ever since. The song is called "Completely" by the way, and hoo boy, is this a giant gooey hunk of Velveeta right here.

Sorry, but why does he always sound so constipated? Dude, senna leaf tea. Natural and effective. Just sayin'.

So Paula's in Vegas all set to ride Michael's Bolt-on when news of the murders hits the airwaves, and in a fit of guilt she decides to return (oh gurl NO!) to stand by OJ, a misguided decision I'm sure she still regrets even though her relationship with him went down the toilet for good as soon as his trial was over.

And that brings us up to speed.     

Come on, I don't really think Paula and MB's hookup--whether attempted or successful--had anything to do with OJ killing his ex-wife. I was just being facetious.

As above: I assume "Telegram" (?) is some sort of messaging app currently popular in the scamming community, but I've never heard of it.

So below: The dude kept me hanging for a while and I was itching to just block, report, and forget about him, so this is how I ended it.

It turns out that Michael Bolton is a man of many talents; while doing a search on his name I discovered that he wrote a children's book in 1997. It's available on Amazon, and the description makes the story sound suspiciously similar to that of Siddhartha Guatama:

"An award-winning singer and songwriter pens his first children's title in this charming story of a king's son who, disgusted with the greed that power can bring, leaves his father to travel the kingdom as a commoner."

I want a framed poster of this to hang up in my guest room. 

Seriously. It's awesome.

It has mostly favorable reviews, too. Back in 2012 an Amazon user named Gail rated it five stars and wrote: "I got this for my granddaughter. Michael Bolton did a great job with this story and she loves reading it."

Really does sound like the perfect book to read to a youngster while you wait out the End of Days, doesn't it? And the good news is, you can get a used copy for under 10 bucks! Go for it.