I didn’t post last Sunday because I was attempting to install a shower surround. I finally got the thing up. It’ looks pretty nice as shower surrounds go. My latest challenge is keeping the bottom edge of it dry so I can caulk the sucker. With four people using the shower it will take a while. I’ve got plastic up right now. Lovely.
Anyway, looky here. We have a guest Ballooner! This entry was sent in by the ever talented California girls - Sporks and Teresa. This eagle balloon resides atop a furniture store. What have you learned today? That buying crap furniture is one of the most patriotic things you can do - second only to buying a used car. And, just so you know, all these places finance! How convenient.
I find it a bit ironic that used car places tend to also use a big, scary animal bearing its teeth (and shades, of course). You would think this might have the opposite affect in that people would not want to buy a car from such a place. Apparently, people love to give their money away to big, bad, shady characters.
Tower of Song [5:42m]:
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We have entered that wonderful stage of life wherein we worry as much about our parents driving as we do our children. From what I can tell, around the age of 70 you become a total shit driver. I also believe the size of your car grows in direct correlation to how bad of an old driver you are. This means in approximately 23 years I will be five feet tall, driving a Cadillac Esplanade stretch limo complete with an intensive care unit (a hot nurse, natch’), a casino and a pharmacy. I won’t be able to see over the steering wheel, but I’ll drivin’ a pimped out ride, man.
It’s a very odd thing to hear my father talk about how he can’t drive. At least he admits it. He can’t do any of the stuff he used to do – house repairs etc. Even five years ago he was helping me do some of the home remodeling. Not today. This, of course, means one thing. If I don’t get the house done by the time I’m 70, it ain’t happenin’.
(I’m listening to lots of Leonard Cohen lately. Today it’s Tower of Song, which seemed appropriate.)
A Thousand Kisses Deep [4:02m]:
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Marjorie Ferry (Close-up), Tamara de Lempicka, 1932
A Thousand Kisses Deep, Chris Botti
In a discussion I had today, a particularly way groovy lesbian type personage I know proclaimed that men need to embrace their hairiness (is that spelled right?). (Did I punctuate that correctly?). We were talking about our sons and their hairy nature and their non-embraceness of their hairiness (that doesn’t look right). Hairyness (no). Haireeness (no). Harryness (definitely not).
She espoused this theory after I told her that I took Thomas to get his first tattoo this past Friday. Oh yes, my baby has a tattoo. The tattoo dude had to shave T’s leg hair in order to do the tattoo thang. Afterwards, Thomas continued to admire the permanent, artistic scar to such an extent he exclaimed, “I just might start shaving my legs.” The boy has some hairy legs and he doesn’t want to obscure the tattoo.
I hate shaving my legs. But, I love shaved legs. Yes, it’s a torturous existence for me, ain’t it? Freshly shaved legs under newly cleaned sheets is a sensation everyone should know at least once. Oh right, the tattoo…
Thomas is a young man who completely embraces his Irish heritage. He’s got the last name and the lineage to back it up. Names like: Bailey, Fitzpatrick, Dunn, Kelly, Leahy, Mursett, Reedy. He’s more Irish than I am and I consider myself damn Irish. His first tattoo was a simple representation of the Irish flag. His grandmother would be very proud.
Now, getting a tattoo is an exercise in patience. That’s my experience and Friday night was no exception. You just have to wait. Tattoo artists are on their own particular brand of time. If time is a concept, tattoo artists work the concept down to every joint break.
In T’s case, there were some people ahead of us. We went do dinner. We returned. We waited. The whole ordeal took about five hours. Not bad, really. The first tattoo I got was from a guy named Ed. Yep. Ed was a stoner from the planet Spliff. Wow, man. It took him an hour and a half to do the outline. I then had to return a week later for him to fill in the color - another hour and a half. If he had been sober, the whole thing probably would have taken 45 minutes.
T’s tattoo dude was perfectly sober and very professional. We liked him and will probably return there for other tats.
Afterwards we celebrated at a very cool, local watering hole - Onion Creek - and then on Saturday we spent the evening drinking and playing pool at Nikki’s Irish pub. Thomas has declared Nikki’s ‘our bar.’ They are very cool and serve adults who are underage as long as a parent is tagging along. It’s Texas law but most bars don’t allow it. I find that appalling considering he could be shipped off to war if the draft was invoked, but he can’t get a fucking beer even if his parent is present. That’s just bullshit. The drinking age was 18 when I was 18. And look…I’m still here (I don’t want to hear it).
Ok, I’m falling behind. I need a balloon post and cruise post. Look for them at an eb blog near you.
Yesterday the tamale lady came by selling tamales cuz that’s what the tamale lady does. I figure, queenmaxine is out of town and it’ll give me something easy to eat. The rotisserie chicken I bought the other day is gone. Thank the little baby Jesus for rotisserie chicken. Anyway, I bought myself some tamales.
The tamales set me back $11 for a dozen. That’s a lot of money for some homemade tamales. But, I am all for supporting someone who is trying to make a few extra bucks and I generally don’t scoff at the cost. I’d rather give my extra money to a member of the working poor or a local business than big box places like Lowes or Barnes and Noble.
Speaking of - I was a stingy bastard the other day at Lowes. I had to rent the truck in order to get a shower surround and a commode home (yes, I’ve decided it’s a commode). The Lowe’s worker marked the gas at ¾ of a tank. I got in the truck and it was one tick below the ¾ mark. I went back in and she said she marked it correctly. But if you looked at the paper, it appeared to be at the ¾ mark. My concern was if I returned the truck and another worker checked the gas, they would think I used 1/16 (or whatever it was) of gas. I live a half a mile away. There is no way that gas gauge was going to move. The bottom line, however, is that I wasn’t going to pay for someone else’s gas - even if it was just ten bucks. I wasn’t going to do it, dammit. She was so fed up with me but that biotch needs to deal with her inability to chart a gas gauge. And, I wasn’t going to pay for gas I didn’t use. Meh! But I digress…
I bought six chicken and six pork tamales. I opened one in great anticipation of having a kick-ass, homemade tamale. I noticed as I got halfway through the first tamale, there wasn’t any meat in it. Ok, I figured it was like a peanut M&M without the peanut. I can handle that every now and again. I started eating the other one and noticed, again, no meat. Mmmkay. I didn’t finish the second one because I wasn’t interested in eating a bunch of masa.
Later in the day I decided to try another one. Before eating, I dissected another tamale. No meat. And then another one. This had some meat, not much, but some. I decided to eat the portion with meat. I then bit down on something kinda crunchy. I figured it was chicken bone. No. It was not chicken bone. I took the partially eaten tamale out of my mouth and there was a black thing in it – a house fly. Yes, I crunched down on a house fly. I found another one – big and juicy – in another part of the tamale.
I think I’ll stick with the rotisserie chicken - all meat, no flies.
That’s the sound of no TV. None. Nada. Not one. No Cartoon Network. No Sci-Fi channel. No Simpsons. It’s alllll quiet. In fact, I haven’t heard a TV sound since Sunday. That’s when Maxine and Willie left for upstate NY. Her father’s service was on Monday. She won’t be back until next Wednesday. I’d prefer it was today. But, in the meantime, I’ll enjoy the ’shhhh’ quality of it all.
Now don’t go flinging snot because you think I hate TV. I only hate it when it’s on. Mwahaha. Really, there are shows I enjoy watching but I don’t make a point of tuning in. Queenmaxine will tune them in and I’ll end up watching along with her. I enjoy the VH1 cheesy reality shows. I like me some Food Network shows. We are completely addicted to Lost. I love the Daily Show and Colbert Repor.
For me, though, the real value of having a TV is being able to watch movies. There is something intrinsically divine about lying in bed with the one you love and watching a movie. We have a stash of movies we like to watch over and over again. What we choose depends on our mood. Lately, we’ve chosen mindless entertainment. Sometimes you just don’t want to invest emotionally. I find most dude flicks fall into this category. Usually if it involves a cast of men and there are guns involved - the mind does not engage.
Men constantly rag on chick flicks as if dude movies are intellectual treatise of the highest order. Dude flicks are the most absurdly shallow pieces of crap ever perpetrated on the general public. Hi-ever, there is a time and place for shallow pieces of crap.
Of course, mindless entertainment comes in degrees. There are movies that are mindlessly engaging (Reign of Fire, The Fugitive). There are movies that are tolerably mindless (The Rock, Con-Air). Then there is stupid, insipid, inane drivel that makes you wonder how it is you’re not sipping champagne on a yacht and yet some talentless yahoo gets to make a fucking movie (anything with Steven Segal). I abhor Steven Segal. He’s the bastard love child of fat Elvis and Captain Kirk - ridiculously bad actor with equally stupid hair who makes puke-invoking movies. When I go to my special place in homo hell, I know the only movie on my level will be Under Siege - and Satan will not let me leave the theater and the only snacks will be Spam, beets and Tang. This is what I get for being a homo.
But, for now. No TV. Only stillness and we’re on our way to Juneau…
Hollywood musicals? Gay.
It just goes to show you how closeted people were back then. All of the gay boys must have been swooning over Gene Kelly’s butt and box. The man had a fabulous butt and I’m sure they were all ‘MGMLATB’ (my God Mary, look at that box).
I haven’t seen a Hollywood musical in years and years but when I was a wee lass in the late 60s and early 70s, they were the staple of the Sunday afternoon movie on channel 7 (ABC) out of New York.
Upon one particular Sunday, Silk Stockings was the featured movie and my mother exclaimed, “Cyd Charisse, I love her!” Well, if my mother loved Cyd Charisse, then I had to see what the fuss was about. At the time I thought my mother was the font of all knowledge and any opinion she had must be the right one. Usually, she was spot on.
I watched the movie. I was 10, maybe 11. Any movie older than six months might as well have been made during the Mesozoic dino age . Still, I watched and I came to the same conclusion. Cyd Charisse, I love her. Besides, she had the coolest name EVER not to mention an incredible pair of legs and great dancin’ feet.
Cyd left today, but she lives on in a ton of gay-ola Hollywood musicals. It’s Pride month. I’m all verklempt.
If you love beautiful scenery, Alaska is the Christmas morning of scenery. Everything is awesome. The scenic highlight of the cruise was the Hubbard Glacier. Everyone on board gathered in the lounge at the front of the boat (I’m really lame about my boat jargon). It was a communal viewing of an incredible natural wonder.
Over the boat’s intercom system, an Alaskan naturalist expert guy told us all about the area and the glacier. Apparently while other glaciers are receding, the Hubbard Glacier is actually expanding. Who knew? So now you know. Every now and then you will hear a thunderous boom. That means you’ve missed the ice falling into the water, also called ‘calving’. I don’t like calling it ‘calving’. It makes me think of cow birth. I prefer ‘crashing ice’.
People would watch diligently in hopes of seeing the ‘crashing ice’. Considering the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound, if you hear it the ‘crashing ice’, it’s too late. I saw a couple ice crashes. It’s like catching a glimpse of a shooting star - a very simple yet inexplicably wonderful sight. I thought I had actually gotten a picture of one ice crash. But, alas, I did not.
The photo below is from this site which has some cool shots of the Hubbard Glacier. I just wanted to illustrate where our boat was is relation to the glacier but also show just how huge this thing is. See that ice? It goes on for six miles.
This photo is a sea level view of the glacier. The mountains in the back are the same mountains in the photo above. Because the ice absorbs all the colors of the rainbow and reflects only blue, the glacier projects a beautiful, blue color. Click on the pictures below to see a larger view.
Another Celebrity cruise ship was also at the glacier that day - Celebrity Millennium.
Our trip to the Hubbard Glacier was fraught with cold rain and wind. But I assure you, gentle woodland folk of the blogisphere, I was all National Geographic on the scene. Oh yeah, I was out there freezing my dyke ass off because I wanted to get a gazillion pictures of one big hunk of ice. I was totally ‘Dan Rather during hurricane Camille’. I braved the torrential rain and wind and I LIKED it! If I was doing a report on tv, I’d have my yellow rain parka flapping about my body, I’d be desperately holding the mike as I stood at a 45 degree angle acting all cool butch like, you know, “Hey, there’s a lot of wind. Wow.” Of course, inside I’m saying, “Get me the fuck out of here. Yo.”
The mountains of Yukatat Bay loomed as we began our approach to the glacier. It was quite unfortunate that the weather was so inclement because the mountains were spectacular. I can only imagine what it’s like if the sky is a beautiful, clear blue.
Click on this picture for a larger view.
I can assure you these people were freezing their asses off. Look at the half mutant in red on the far left. She’s trying to have a normal conversation but she’s thinking, “My tits will freeze off in three micro-seconds if I don’t get my sorry, stupid ass inside.”
See this guy? He’s got a big jacket on. Do you think his big jacket is helping him? Well, you would be wrong.
The woman below is enduring strong, cold winds and rain. Does that dampen her photographic spirit? Mais non. She is a trooper, and, I might add, very fashionable with her matching parka and scarf. Schwing!
As we approached the glacier, ice began to appear in the water.
You could hear the ice popping and cracking in the water. Hunks of it would crash against the ship. About this time I’m starting to think about the magnitude of the sinking of the Titanic and what the people on that ship endured. We were effectively steaming past icebergs. They weren’t big enough to tear the hull of the ship, but the water temperature had to be similar. I can’t even imagine lasting more than a minute in water this cold.
Because the ice of the glacier absorbs all the colors of the spectrum except blue, the water as we approached the glacier became a deep teal. Off in the distance you could hear a thunderous crash - the sound of ice falling into the water. We were very close.
I didn’t post a balloon last Sunday for some reason - probably sheer, unadulterated laziness. I’m not going to make up for it by posting two balloons today. I can be real mean like that and equally lazy today as last week.
The very first balloon I posted was an ape that sat atop the Archer car dealership on the Katy Freeway (that’s I-10 West to you foreigners). The ape is gone and now there’s a big, rubber ducky. Upon taking this photo, an off-duty police officer accosted me about my intentions. This is the first time I’ve walked onto a car dealership lot and had anyone say anything because there usually isn’t anyone around. I told her I was taking a picture of the duck. And, to prove that I was telling the truth, I rattled off a list of balloons along the Katy Freeway like I was some balloon expert or something. It must have worked. She did not incarcerate me for taking a picture of the duck.
What da duck? I just realized the previous balloon entry was also a duck. If I had remembered I probably would have posted something different this week just to break up the duck monotony. Considering I’m too lazy to change it now, you’ll just have to deal with two duck balloon posts in a row. I know, ducks to be you.
We left Ketchikan and headed to the Hubbard Glacier via Yukatat Bay. Let me just say, there are a LOT of mirrors on a cruise ship. I don’t like so many mirrors. Some mirrors - ok. More than some is a bit freaky. I am not of the opinion a shitload of mirrors creates the illusion of a larger space. However, it makes it easy to take a picture of yourself. It’s always weird to see the back of my head cuz how often do I actually see the back of my head? Almost never. If you take a cruise you will see the back of your head quite often.
I like this little bear statue at the kids end of the pool. Needless to say no one was swimming.
These pictures were taken on the way to Yukatat Bay. Click on them to see a larger version.
